Interlude: Attaboy

A musty smell filled his nostrils. There was an echo of a voice in his head, deep and resonant. Saying… something. He couldn’t remember.

A wave of pain washed through his body, causing involuntary spasms of movement. He gasped for breath as the pain subsided. The taste of metal filled his mouth, and he spat onto the dirty stone floor, expecting blood. What fluid emerged was thick and hung from his mouth in a single strand, clinging to his cracked lip. He attempted to wipe it off with his arm, but stopped as another wave of pain was triggered by the movement.

After some time, he realized he didn’t know where he was.

Some time after that, he realized he didn’t know who he was.

He lay on the stone floor and felt the grit beneath his cheek for a long time before he heard a sound.

Singing.

The woman’s voice approached, echoing off stone walls. The song briefly paused and he heard metal jingling. Then it resumed and he heard someone enter the room. He was turned away from whoever it was, but he heard the song falter for a moment, and a sigh. Then a voice babbling in sounds he could not resolve into language. A hand touched his shoulder, gently. More sounds, and arms came under his body and he rose up and fell into darkness as the full force of his pain was unleashed.

Chapter 3

Still seething, Lilijoy appeared back in the courtyard. It was the middle of the night, and two huge moons hung in the sky, blue and green, lighting the area almost as well as the sun did on the Outside. Lilijoy had heard a rumor that the moons were filled with the most dangerous and vicious creatures, even more dangerous than Purgatory, the zone outside of the Garden.

Millions of people stayed in the Garden, long after they had grown up and graduated from the Academy, Institute or Training Grounds. They stayed mostly for the security; Outsiders were not allowed to attack each other outside of duels in the Garden. Even if you did die, the only consequence was advancing the Death Counter, which wouldn’t even matter unless you went to Purgatory. There, the penalties for dying were much harsher.

She had heard that everything was much harsher.

The only reason people left the Garden was the lack of challenge. Since advancing in the Inside was tied to novelty, challenge, suffering, inspiration and discovery, eventually a powerful character would run out of any source of experience. The Inside only allowed experience once for a particular event or activity, and even similar activities had rapidly diminishing returns.

She had read about the early generations of ‘virtual reality games’ where players needed to kill the same animal or monster hundreds of times so they could grow stronger. She was really glad that idea didn’t survive Guardian’s takeover of the Inside.

It’s called ‘experience’ for goodness sake, she thought. It seemed like common sense that doing the exact same thing over and over didn’t lead to real growth. Though I bet they were amazing at killing bunnies.

Surveying the rocks scattered around the moonlit courtyard, her body was feeling good, so she decided to get in a round of practice before her next day’s workout. This time she started with green, on her neck and shoulders, which felt surprisingly easy. She did three greens before switching to red with outstretched arm, then white over her head. She tried to rotate the muscle groups as much as possible and spare the skin on her hands.

They're already tougher, she noted. Nandi’s boon glistened in the worn skin of her right palm. I wonder if I’ll ever know what it does.

The Inside was realistic in many ways, and Lilijoy had heard that it had become more so over time, as if Guardian, or his subsets anyway, were guiding it gradually to convergence with the Outside. She just hoped it never got all the way there. Fast healing, no need to use the bathroom, and a total lack pesky flies, biting and otherwise, were all features of the Inside that the Outside should emulate as far as she was concerned.

The first gray rock she moved was a bit easier than before, but she didn’t make the mistake of overdoing it this time. After a few swings she changed to a different color rock. She also realized that if she released the gray at the right point in the arc it would roll a foot or two, especially if she managed to get it to come down on top of another rock.

She finished the greens before she knew it. This was good and bad, because they were the only break for her aching, trembling arms. She decided to try moving a black boulder that now had a little clearing around it. If she couldn’t move it, she would be in trouble tomorrow. Or is it today? The moons had moved across the sky, apparently in opposite directions, and now her shadow was a monstrous elongated beast with two torsos.

She took a moment to enjoy waving four arms along the rock strewn ground, thinking of Nandi.

What would it be like to have four arms? she thought. I’ll have to ask Jiannu if the system could ever do something like that.

Then she remembered that she was extremely angry at Jiannu and not likely to ask her anything soon.

What am I going to do with someone I don’t trust living in my head? she wondered.

Getting back to the black boulder, she found that if she braced her back against it and used her legs, she could move it fairly easily. A tall person couldn’t do that! she thought with satisfaction. She was ready.

***

She wasn’t ready. The next morning, after logging out to catch a little sleep, she returned to the courtyard to find Rosemallow tossing the green rocks back onto the ground from the green platform.

“Looks like the mice moved the rocks last night,” the enormous Oni said. “I must have made them too light. Luckily, I have a fix for that problem.”

She moved to the center of the open space. In a low, resonant voice like boulders grinding she spoke four words. Lilijoy couldn’t hear the words properly; they were somehow slippery to her mind’s attempt to listen, sliding off her ears before they reached any place of language. But the essence of the words was as clear as the sun in the sky. Fundamental. Massive. Growing. Weight.

Lilijoy’s knees buckled, she staggered and almost lost her balance. Did I just get heavier?

“There, that should do it,” said Rosemallow, dusting off her palms. “No mouse is going to move these rocks now, I can promise that.”

“Master, what was that?” Lilijoy asked. She knew she should be worried about moving the rocks, however witnessing such a magical feat had her spellbound.

“And… that’s your first stupid question of the day,” said Rosemallow with relish. Out came the pouch with the marsh decapedes. “I think Sweetums is still a little tired from all the biting you made her do yesterday. Meet Betty.”

Betty looked no different from Sweetums to Lilijoy. Still, she wanted to be polite, so she said, “Hello, Betty. It’s nice to meet you.”

Rosemallow gave her an odd look. Before she could toss Betty among the rocks, Lilijoy asked, “Can I look at her up close? I never got to really see Sweetums yesterday; she was always moving so fast.”

The Oni gave a nod, so Lilijoy approached, dragging her feet through the heavy gravity. She could only hope it slowed Betty down as well. Lilijoy inspected the marsh decapede, feeling a little bad about her desire to crush Sweetums the day before.

Betty had ten feathery legs that swept out to the side of her foot-long body. Bands of brown and dull yellow swirled over her exoskeleton in regular patterns. What Lilijoy had taken for a stinger the day before was actually an ovipositor, three inches long and slightly curled. It twitched several times when Lilijoy got closer.

That’s more disturbing than a stinger, Lilijoy thought, realizing that Betty would surely love to implant her eggs in the nice small human. Her head featured four densely tufted antennae, a single piercing proboscis, and no apparent eyes.

Bet she hunts with those antennae, probably with scent and air currents. I bet if I fanned the air with something while I rested, I could confuse her enough to avoid a bite or two.

As Lilijoy had the thought, there was a small chime and a notification appeared in her vision.

Level Up! 901 EXP Reached: Level 9 (10 more free points available)

I love that I get experience for being curious! she thought. If only learning Outside could be this rewarding.

Excited by her new level, Lilijoy moved immediately to the closest green rock. Even moving without carrying weight was challenging, though she was getting used to it. She glanced over at Rosemallow for permission to begin. The Oni nodded and gently placed Betty on the ground, who immediately disappeared into a nearby pile. Lilijoy wondered for a moment why Rosemallow could handle the marsh decapedes without being bitten. She decided there must be some trick she could learn later. Maybe pheromones or something.

Two hours later, Lilijoy was regretting her life decisions. She wasn’t sure exactly where she had gone wrong, but she must have done something truly awful to merit the hell she was experiencing.

Her strategy had worked, to a point. Deciding she should accomplish the bare minimum of the task before her, she plotted the path for the black boulder, first to the white platform and then to its final home. She chose the other colors she would move to the platforms from the rocks in that path, though she would certainly need to clear more than one of each. The red was almost impossible in the increased gravity. She had to swing it up into place, take a step before her trembling arm gave up, and then repeat the process. Switching arms helped, as did alternating side and front positions. Ultimately, she had to give up after ten feet, do other tasks, and then come back. The gray was back to being impossible, or nearly so. Only by resting frequently was she able to bring the green, yellow, red, and finally gray to their platforms.

She achieved something resembling rest by the simple strategy of removing her tunic and waving it in the air to confuse Betty. Luckily, modesty was a distant concept at best to Lilijoy; any witnesses passing by must have been surprised to see a half-naked girl sitting on a rock, tunic in hand, fanning the air with great vigor. Even that motion was enough to make her tired arms burn, but it was better than nothing.

It was when she attempted to move the black boulder that she felt despair. Her feet couldn’t get purchase on the sandy surface of the courtyard ground to move the increased weight, scrabbling fruitlessly as her back slowly slid down the boulder that must weigh three or four times more than she did. She slumped down against the side, too tired to think.

After Betty reminded her why that wasn’t a great idea, she had a bit more energy from the shock of pain. She was running out of time though.

If only my feet weren’t slipping in the sand…

Well, that would be easy enough to solve. She used her tunic to sweep the sand and grit off the cobblestones that appeared underneath. In a fit of further inspiration, she smashed one of the cobblestones repeatedly with a red stone, until it cracked and she was able to pry up the pieces. Now she had a shallow hole to brace her feet on.

The process was achingly slow, but one broken cobblestone at a time, moving in a zig-zag pattern so she always had a place to brace from, she was able to move the black boulder to the white platform, climb on to it with a white stone, and then finally, agonizingly roll and slide it to the black platform, which thankfully wasn’t a platform at all, just a black square painted on the courtyard floor.

Victory.

Victory?

She looked over at Rosemallow, who was in the shade paging through a tome bigger than Lilijoy.

“I did it,” she whispered.

“Did I do it?” she asked with a stronger voice. Rosemallow looked up from her reading.

“You’re going to need to pay for that,” she said, gesturing to the trail of smashed cobblestones cutting across the courtyard.

***

After drinking some water and resting without fear of further bites by Betty, Lilijoy felt almost human. A human who had been pounded repeatedly against the floor by an ogre. Still she was able to carry her part of the conversation with her trainer, mostly because her part of the conversation was nodding occasionally to show she understood.

Rosemallow was in the middle of a lecture on Lilijoy’s lack of strength, sitting in her hideous white and pink chair.

“The only good thing about being so weak,” she explained, “is that your initial gains will seem pretty good to you. For example, your strength trait is now at thirteen. That’s two points in one day. Just keep in mind it’s completely meaningless. Once you hit the upper teens, you won’t ever see gains like that again. Today I raised the gravity by about thirty percent. Tomorrow we’ll try fifty. And poor Betty didn’t get nearly enough biting in. You don’t want Betty to feel sad, do you?”

Lilijoy shook her head.

“Then no more of this silly tunic waving. You’re disturbing the other students.”

Lilijoy hadn’t noticed any other students. In fact, she had been wondering where they were.

Anticipating her question, Rosemallow added “Most of them are out for Experience Term. We alternate training and lessons with experience gathering every two weeks. They’ll be back in another week. But I’m sure you disturbed them anyway.”

Lilijoy let that go. She hoped she would do more than move increasingly heavy rocks for the next week.

“I’m sure you’d like to do more than move pebbles for the next week. My plan is to get you caught up on common knowledge and explore more of your character sheet. We may even start some combat training. Don’t expect to be swinging any swords around though. You need to walk before you can run. Or in your case, you need to breathe before you can crawl. Either way, we will start drilling stances before and after the strength training, if I’m in a good mood.”

Lilijoy nodded. She wasn’t sure if she should be happy for some variety or horrified at the idea of doing more training after the rocks were moved.

“Let’s start with some more traits. Tell me about the natural traits.”

Lilijoy dutifully regurgitated what she had learned the previous day.

“Fine. Now, in addition to those, we have our ‘magical traits’. Those supplement our natural abilities in unnatural ways. For instance, Power supplements Strength, and Vitality supplements Endurance. You can raise them with Free Points, so they go up easy. Of course, you have to make hard choices. If you raise your Power, there’s something else that’s staying the same. Free Points are a valuable commodity, and you will never, I repeat never, spend your points without consulting me. Are we absolutely clear on that point?”

Nod.

“Good. Once you’ve died a few times, you can lose points in Purgatory. I’d hate to have to take you there for an object lesson.”

Lilijoy gulped. Purgatory sounded awful.

Rosemallow went into her third eye state and pulled out another piece of paper. “This is the whole list of your magical traits. You’ll be very confused. I wish I could say that’s perfectly normal, but really, it isn’t. Just try not to have an aneurysm.”

She handed the paper to Lilijoy.

POW: 11

INV: 34

VIT: 13

FLA: 35

MW: 94

MG: 10

EAF: 33

EAE: 58

EAW: 30

EAA: 28

CHS: 28

CHA: 62

CHP: 41

Lilijoy held the paper at arm’s length, hoping that the long list of meaningless letters and numbers might resolve themselves into something, anything, that remotely made sense to her. The fatigue from moving rocks all morning washed over her. She thought her lower lip might be trembling.

Her disturbed reverie was broken by Rosemallow’s braying laughter.

“Ha! If you could see your face,” she said, still chortling. “Here, try this one. I’ve broken it down a bit to make it easier to digest.

POWER: 11 (+55% STR, Effective STR = 20)

INVULNERABILITY: 34 (-34 physical damage, applied after modifiers)

VITALITY: 13 (+ 13 to END)

FLASH: 35 (+175% SPD, Effective SPD = 162 )

“The rest of that stuff is all directly magic related. Mana stuff, elements, charm, that kind of thing. I’ll leave that to your magic instructor. Here’s what you need to know: Your numbers are good. Some of them are great. You must have taken a hell of a beating in your Trial to get that Invulnerability score. I guess sometimes it pays to be weak.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment, considering how such an idea could possibly fit into her world view.

“Of course, it doesn’t hurt that you got an absolutely obscene bonus from your ‘Defender of the Young’ title. One point of INV per child saved. No one else has ever come close. Now that I’ve activated these traits for you, I could hit you across the room a dozen times the way I did before without hurting you.” She looked oddly pleased at the idea. “Of course, I was using a tiny portion of my true strength. Don’t count on thirty-four Invulnerability doing more than take the edge off in real combat.”

She continued with her lecture, and Lilijoy did her best to listen. Part of her mind was still trying to understand being knocked across the room without sustaining an injury.

“Master,” she interrupted. “Could you do it? Knock me across the...”

The wall came flying at her very fast. After the initial bounce, she met a table, and then the floor. It was jarring. It was disorienting. It barely hurt. She felt...well, invulnerable.

“Don’t interrupt!” barked Rosemallow. “Now, where was I? Right, Health stat. It’s how you know whether you’re about to die or not. Reasonably important. Just add STR and END to find the base, sixty-six for you at the moment. Vitality just adds on top of that, so seventy-nine. Combat types argue a lot about whether INV or VIT is better, and most settle for some of both. They are wrong. INV matters much more. Yes, it doesn’t help with magic and it doesn’t help with poison. I don’t care. In a fight with many enemies, you are going to get hit. A lot. INV subtracts from each and every hit. There’s no way to match that with Vitality. End of story. To make matters worse, it costs more to raise VIT. It’s a crap stat.”

She was getting a bit heated in her gestures, and Lilijoy had to duck several times as she regained her seat on the stool.

“So anyway, here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll wait. You are fine for now as is. Let’s see if we can’t raise your endurance further. A few more rock sessions and some other training I have in mind should boost it by a few ticks. Strength should come up too. You’re not likely to be a front-line combat type, so we can balance it a little. Once you unlock magic and skills, we can make some decisions. Any questions?”

“What does Flash do?” Lilijoy felt comfortable leaving off the ‘Master’ now that she couldn’t be killed by accident. She had been confused all day about what to call Rosemallow and had figured the occasional honorific wouldn’t hurt.

“Flash is your ace in the hole. You are already a speedy little thing, though your short legs will keep you from winning any races. Don’t count on running away as a good strategy in every situation. Your combat strategy will be getting in close while avoiding damage, and dishing out critical hits. Your accuracy is going to end up off the charts, so as long as you don’t get hit, you’ll be a tough opponent for those in your level range. Flash boosts your speed five percent per point, just like Power, so you are already almost three times as fast as you would be without magic. I’ll take you out now to see how that works. It’s not as simple as it seems.”

Without another word, Rosemallow rose to her full eight feet and strode from the room. Lilijoy hurried to follow, wondering as she ran where all her ‘Flash’ was. The bright corridor was paneled in a light cedar wood with a dark slate floor. As she rushed down the hall, she could see flashes of green fields through the narrow floor to ceiling glass windows that came every ten feet or so. At the end they reached doors fit for an Oni, giant wooden panels with cast iron fittings.

Rosemallow pushed them apart like parting curtains, revealing a view overlooking green grassy fields surrounding six large circular structures. The doors fed into a cobbled path that ran down the hill upon which the main Academy building rested, cutting back several times before reaching the bottom and the first of the arenas. They had to be arenas; Lilijoy could see dirt floors and seating in the nearest from her perspective above them on the hill.

“Good to feel some air!” Rosemallow bellowed. Lilijoy could see the distant structures in the echoes.

“Now, the first step to using Flash is the command word. It’s ‘Flash”, so that part should be easy, even for you. It’s a safety system to keep young idiots from breaking things, so later, you can use it however you want. I’ve activated it for you, so try it out.”

“Flash?”

Evidently, there was no difference between a question and a command, because Lilijoy’s world flipped and altered as soon as she spoke. Her mind didn’t feel that different, but even the smallest gesture was somehow amplified. She tried to speak, but her tongue and lips fluttered and chopped the words she meant to say into unintelligible fragments. She took a step, but her leg moved faster than the rest of her body and she flipped herself onto her back.

How do I turn this off! she thought in a panic. Attempts to get back on her feet were disastrously uncoordinated, arms and legs flailed wildly as her brain’s impulses failed to match the physics of the Inside.

She realized that the problem was that her brain was not moving any faster, just her body. She could hear Rosemallow laughing uncontrollably in the background.

“This never gets old! You look like a beetle trying to flip over,” the Oni commented as she caught her breath. “Aren’t you glad you can turn it on and off?”

Lilijoy was a little upset, due to the fact that she couldn’t turn it off at all.

“Othhhh!” she called, holding her mouth open so the word wouldn’t get chopped. Her trainer looked at her, shaking her head.

“It’s just too easy. Fine. Say ‘Flash off’. It’s the intent that matters, not how clearly you say it.”

Soon, Lilijoy was able to control her body again. She remained on the ground, glaring up at Rosemallow and restraining herself from speaking. There was really nothing to say that wouldn’t cause more laughter, or sudden reprisal.

Rosemallow calmed her laughter. “Wow, you really got it bad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Outie come out of the trials with so much Flash. Usually they’re half again as fast at most.” She crossed her arms. “This will require some thought...we need a way to slow down your body so you can learn how to move again.” She snapped her fingers, “I’ve got it! Follow me.”

Once again, Lilijoy hurried to catch her trainer’s rapidly retreating form. At the first switchback, she continued straight off the path, cutting through the low juniper shrubs until she reached a steep rocky slope overlooking a pond nestled into the side of the hill.

“In you go! Let yourself sink for a bit, then go into Flash.”

“But I can’t swim!”

“Perfect! You can learn that too. Try not to drown. I’m not sure if this would add to your Death Counter.”

With that, she picked up Lilijoy and tossed her fifty feet, directly into the middle of the pond.