Savage Webs, page 7
part #2 of Apocalypse Cultivation Series
And he was aware that, unlike the Challenge Portals back on Earth, this one would be new to him. He’d be flying blind.
There were two reasons he thought it’d be worth the risk before escaping, though. First, he couldn’t actually die in a Challenge Portal. He might end up ejected, near death. The second reason he wanted to give the challenge portal a shot was because of his trump cards.
He could call on The Morrigan three times. Of course, when he’d first introduced that bit into their contract, he’d thought he’d be a champion for three years, not thousands.
Calling upon her didn’t necessarily mean she’d actually help him or tell him anything, though. That was why he’d included the second part of what he’d asked for. He could also call on her three more times to receive knowledge, but doing so now, so soon after getting to the Murim world, could be dangerous.
And of course, he could also call The Morrigan to ask a favor. She’d added that herself, and short of dying, there was no way in hell Jake was going to use that trump card any time soon. Of course, if the Challenge portal didn’t go well, he might not have a choice.
Healing him to save his life would definitely count as a favor.
Now this close to actually seeing the challenge portal, close to escaping, he was starting to have doubts. Is it worth it? he asked himself. Not for the first time, he wondered if he was just being stubborn for no reason. Maybe he should just use up his favor, ask the goddess to free him from this prison or give him the means to do so and be done with it.
He tapped one hand, his new, non-matching prosthetic, against the pick handle. No, definitely not after all this time, he thought. Besides, now he had the beginning of a great Dao, some new skills, and a lot of knowledge of how this world worked.
His time had definitely not been wasted. Maybe one of these days, he’d even figure out what the goddess had meant about attaining an affinity with at least one aspect of her mantle. He had a hunch he might have already started on that path, though.
Jake grinned and began to take great chunks out of the rock, deepening his tunnel, infusing Phoenix Piercing Talon into the swings of his pick. He was progressing at least ten times faster than he had before. It was amazing. All of his worries about time hadn’t been necessary.
He carved the last of his tunnel so fast, he didn’t even bother moving the rubble he was creating. Normally, he’d used a basket made of tunnel roots, moving the rubble into other tunnels and camouflaging the way to this place even better than he already had. This time, he just flung it all behind him, moving like he was possessed.
The Challenge Portal’s presence grew stronger. Suddenly, Jake’s pick punched through the rock into something open beyond. He immediately stopped and listened.
All the nastiest creatures underground inhabited their own, larger cave systems. This was where most of the Web Burrows prisoners had died over the years, stumbling into them while expanding the tunnels. Whenever they found really dangerous caves, diggers would block all access and go a different direction.
Jake let a full ten minutes pass without hearing anything at all before using his pick to knock the rest of the way into the hollow space he’d found.
There was a bit of glowing lichen in the large cave, more than enough for him to see by, and Jake barely stuck his head out to get the lay of the land.
The entrance to his tunnel was about four feet off the ground, not bad. He could immediately tell where the challenge portal had to be, right in the middle of the stony shelf he found himself on.
He couldn’t see to the other side of the cave and it looked like the floor for most of it was lower than where he stood.
Should I head back? he wondered. It would suck if he left after spending so much effort to get here, but he was getting goosebumps. Even though the walls looked the same as the rest of the Web Burrows, something about the place was raising his hackles, making him nervous.
Jake had been rewarded by listening to his instincts again and again. This time, his instincts were telling him that his cave was dangerous.
If he tried the Challenge Portal and it didn’t destroy him, he should be able to leave almost immediately, though. He hesitated for a few seconds before throwing back his shoulders and moving right up to the anomaly in space in time.
It’s now or never, he thought.
Jake prepared himself for anything and entered the Challenge Portal.
Chapter 11
Jake found himself in a room full of shadows, cloth streamers descending from the ceiling so high above, he couldn’t see where they began. There was no sign of a Faceted anywhere yet.
This is weird, he thought. Jake looked around more closely but didn’t see anything moving, and there were no real clues to what was going on. The darkness extended outwards and he got the impression it was a vast space, an enormity he had not been prepared for, and left him feeling oddly unsettled..
Suddenly, the entire space lit up and Jake’s mind felt like it almost…folded in on itself. In a split second, there was a Faceted standing behind what looked like a raised lectern. The room also looked different. Now it seemed to be the size of his parents’ kitchen back in Macon and all the stuff hanging from the ceiling had disappeared.
The Faceted waved a hand. “We have a challenger, I see.” Jake heard what sounded like a warble in the creature’s mental voice.
Creepy, he thought. In his past life, he would have been absolutely confused and floored, but now he had an idea why this challenge room was so weird. If the Faceted used the challenge portals as a way to gather power for themselves or for their species, and this one was located underground where nobody seemed to have ever trod before…and in the Murim world, where people could live thousands of years…
A glimmer of a plan started to form in his mind. He began to build on it as he braced himself to interact with the Faceted. Maybe he could actually squeeze some sort of advantage out of the horrible creature.
The alien’s voice sounded in his mind again. “Do not be afraid. You have discovered an Assessment room!”
“I know,” said Jake. He immediately noticed that the Faceted didn’t seem to care about his current monstrous appearance. There were multiple implications to the lack of reaction.
“Yes, I can see that. The mark of your past visitations are upon you. Ah, but unfortunately, I also see that you are not born of this world.”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Jake.
“I am sorry to say it does. You may still participate in this Assessment Room, but you will be at a handicap–”
“Bullshit,” said Jake. “You can make any exception you want. It’s your room.”
The Faceted didn’t say anything for a while, just seemed to silently, sightlessly stare at him. “If I could, I would choose not to.”
“Whelp, if that’s the case, you’re gonna have to wait another thousand years or more for another person to show up to play, then. This place isn’t exactly in the most high-traffic place in the world.”
The Faceted was quiet for a while again. “You may not leave after entering the Assessment Room.”
“Yeah, I can’t leave right away if you won’t let me. But if I just hang out here without agreeing to participate, I’ll be kicked back out in 600 relative hours. That’s less than a month for me. I could just meditate. You can’t keep me here. And before you point out my lack of provisions, that won’t matter. I can go a while without food.” On reflex as he spoke, Jake tried to open his storage ring and was almost shocked into revealing his surprise when he found that he could use it.
What the hell!? he thought. He’d figured there was a possibility that the Web Burrows’ rules wouldn’t apply in a challenge portal, but actually confirming it blew his mind. Ten long years he’d waited to access his storage ring again. He almost shook as he withdrew his ki from his ring and focused on the Faceted instead.
The Faceted tapped its arm on the side of the lectern. “This is…most irregular. What do you want?”
Gotcha, thought Jake. He’d been pretty sure he could convince a Faceted to let him participate in a challenge, no strings attached, but this was even better. The Faceted was obviously desperate, and who knew how long it’d been waiting for someone to find this challenge room in the dark, however deep this was underground. He was intensely curious why a challenge portal would be in this location in the first place, but he couldn’t ask, not without ruining some of his momentum. Now to cinch the noose.
“I want to be able to ask you three questions about the challenge option you present to me before I agree to undertake it.”
“Three questions?”
“Yes.”
“And if I answer the questions, you will take the challenge? You swear on your power?”
This was where Jake would need to take some risk. He slowly nodded and said, “Yes, unless there is no reasonable chance for me to win, I agree.” He wondered if he was making a mistake, but no risk, no reward. Asking for more than three questions might have been possible too, or it might have been pushing it. Most supernatural or powerful entities seemed to like things in sets of threes. It had been a safe bet.
“I agree as well. We have an accord.” The Faceted waved a hand like an announcer. “This is an Assessment Room, where you will be challenged and can receive a reward based on how you are ranked. Ranking will take place in a way your species understands, from F to A, with S and even SS being possible for the mightiest or most talented. At rank S or SS, a second reward may be chosen from the highest tier rewards possible, and more rewards will be available to choose from than at lower rankings. Do you understand my words so far, warrior?”
“Yes.”
“Understood. Then you choose to be assessed with the challenge of the spirit labyrinth?”
“Maybe.”
The Faceted’s voice in his mind was louder now. It said, “You swore on your power. In this place, such oaths have weight.”
“Oh, I know. I’m not breaking my promise, I just want you to give me all of my options. There has to be more than one.”
“Is that a question?”
“No.” He didn’t say anything more. It was a good thing Jake knew down to his marrow what assholes all the Faceted were. If this one could get out of answering any of the three questions it’d promised, it would. Seemed it was already trying to.
When it was clear that Jake wasn’t going to elaborate, the Faceted grated, “You may choose between one of three labyrinths: the mind labyrinth, body labyrinth, and spirit labyrinth.”
“I see.” Jake slowly lowered himself to a comfortable sitting position and settled in to meditate.
“What are you doing?” asked the Faceted.
“I plan to take some time to think about the questions I can ask.”
Some time passed and Jake was about to sink into full meditation when the Faceted’s voice came again. “What are you? Where are you from? Your soul is human, and you should be mortal, but you have the scent of gods on you and even one such as I can sense multiple titles.”
Jake didn’t even open his eyes. “If I were to answer any of your questions, which are all probing and irrelevant to this Assessment Room, I will assume it is a favor. So we would need to trade an answer for an answer.”
The Faceted didn’t say anything more, but Jake hadn’t been expecting it to.
Two days later, Jake came out of his meditation, rising to his feet. If the Faceted had eyes, he got the feeling the alien would have been staring at him before he’d even began to rise.
“I have decided on one of my three questions,” said Jake.
“Speak.”
“My first question is as follows: If I were theoretically to successfully navigate all three labyrinths, and finish all of them with different levels of mastery, what similarities would I find about them, and what differences would I notice?” Jake was pretty proud of this question.
The way the Faceted acted next, rubbing two fingers together with a crunching sound, made it obvious that it wasn’t happy to answer. “All three labyrinths have different themes: Mind, Body, and Spirit. Mind has illusion challenges and monsters that use illusions. Body labyrinth has a theme of poison, venom, and disease. Spirit labyrinth has many challenges involving demon beasts, cultivation dangers, and magic. Each labyrinth has multiple exits, all of which correspond to different mastery levels.”
Jackpot, thought Jake. He lowered himself into a sitting position and began to meditate again. This time, the Faceted didn’t say anything about it.
He rose a second time a bit less than a day later. “I have my second question.”
“Speak.”
“What is the most important factor for each completed labyrinth in deciding the reward ranking?”
“The most important factor, in general, is which exit the challenger uses to exit the labyrinth.”
Jake nodded. “Now I have my third and final question.”
“Speak.”
“What is the danger in each labyrinth that most mortals would find most challenging?”
The Faceted rubbed its fingers together again in agitation. “In the mind labyrinth, the senses cannot be trusted and enemies will even invade your dreams. The body labyrinth has nothing safe to eat or drink and the very air can kill. In the spirit labyrinth, an incredibly powerful being roams and must be avoided, all while challengers work to survive the labyrinth’s dangers and solve its riddles.”
With one inhuman hand in the air, the Faceted announced, “The bargain has been kept. Choose!”
Jake was tempted to meditate some more to piss the thing off, but he decided he’d pushed enough. Besides, now that he knew what was waiting for him, he didn’t want to get into a fight with his own nerves.
“I choose…the body labyrinth.”
“So be it.”
With no other warning, Jake vanished and was teleported away.
Chapter 12
Jake sat on a stone in his little base of operations in the labyrinth. The space appeared to be a small cave that had been blocked off from the starting area by an ancient cave-in. He absently scratched in the dirt by his foot with the broken bone in his hand. Today was the day he was going to finally attempt to leave this place through the hardest door he’d been able to find.
His map drawn on the hard clay of the ground was the product of over a year’s worth of effort. He’d been actively trying to conquer this challenge for over a year and a half. Drawing the map in a safe place had taken him an embarrassing amount of time to think of.
That’s another year and a half that isn’t even going to count toward the time I owe The Morrigan in Murim. He grimaced. Time would be compressed here the same as it was in any challenge room. Maybe he could make that work for him, though.
As he stared at his map, he ran through the memories associated with some of the areas he’d drawn out. Just leaving the labyrinth alive, not trying to get any impressive achievements, would not have been too difficult for a competent C-rank adventurer back on Earth. Hell, even a decent, lower-powered group could do it. Of course, the Faceted hadn’t mentioned whether groups could challenge this labyrinths, so he wasn’t even sure if that would be an option.
The labyrinth was set up like a wagon wheel with a hub, sort of like Jailtown in the Web Burrows. This wheel had seven hallways, like “spokes.” Through each hallway was its own ecosystem of sorts, all populated by different monsters. In total, there were seven of them.
Jake had wiped out five of the seven so far.
Each ecosystem had different types of monsters with one theme or type of ability. It seemed the ecosystems were meant to represent differing difficulties. At the end of each de-facto dungeon, past a boss or powerful group of monsters, was an exit door. It hadn’t taken too much brain power after discovering this to better understand how rewards would work.
And of course, the entrance to this system had been a long tunnel populated by weak monsters with its own exit door. Jake wasn’t sure whether it was a legitimate exit door or a trap. He wasn’t really interested in finding out.
Past the entry area, the first ecosystem had been the easiest. This was also where he’d finally been able to confirm that he had an actual affinity to Shadow. It hadn’t been his imagination back in the mines. The more he practiced hiding and being stealthy, the more he’d discovered a knack for it. Now he could…feel the deeper part of shadows, almost like looking into water and spotting the bottom. He wasn’t sure what the purpose of this was yet, but he could feel his understanding of shadows growing every day.
Jake would have just chalked this new sense up to a new Dao or some other form of power, but after meeting Morrigan more than once, he couldn’t deny that the sensation he got from shadows now reminded him of her.
He’d take any tool he could get. To that end, he’d put the labyrinth to good use too. And that also went for Morrigan.
It was time to call in one of the tools he’d earned through signing away the next few thousand years of his life.
“Hey crow, Rishlay, messenger of Morrigan. I need to talk to you.” Nothing happened. Jake opened his menu and examined it. There was a way to call Morrigan; he’d found it long ago. However, he needed a question answered, and there wasn’t an obvious way to summon one of Morrigan’s messengers.
That was a problem because he needed to know his assumptions were correct before pulling the trigger on his plan.
He studied the menu for days before finally putting it away. Apparently, what he was trying to do wasn’t part of the deal or at least wasn’t a feature of his Champion status. But in the supernatural world, names had power. Maybe he could use that.
His time in the labyrinth had been dangerous as hell and he’d been here for over a year already, but he’d already felt grateful for the opportunity. Now the emotion surged up again. Sometimes it was nice to have all the time he needed to think through something, all while the outside world waited.
