Chapter 14 (Patreon)

“Choose wisely, human.”

Bruce shook his head, trying to clear it of outside thoughts.  It was impossible to rid himself entirely of Kassar’s presence, the alien felt like a weight pressing down in the back of his mind, but he wanted to do his best to think clearly.

His passenger’s bloodthirsty enthusiasm was a bit unsettling.  Bruce didn’t want to let the alien’s obvious enthusiasm toward the ‘path of the neutron star’ influence him too much, but at the same time, he had to admit that it sounded compelling.  Mentalism would probably be useful, but to be perfectly honest it sounded a bit… boring.  He’d chosen a hammer and a shield for a reason.  Fire, gravity, and smashing things into their component atoms sounded like it would be just Bruce’s speed.

“I swear everyone down here is trying to sell me something,” Bruce said with a shrug.  “But your pitch got me.  Let’s try this path of the neutron star.  You seem pretty excited about it, and to be honest you know a lot more about what’s going on than I do.  I’ll listen to your suggestion.  I just hope this doesn’t turn out to be one of those decisions I live to regret.  You know, like getting a tattoo of my buddy’s garage metal band in high school.”

Kassar’s response was a dangerous chuckle.  Bruce could feel the being’s presence swelling in the back of his mind as his voice came from everywhere.

“There will be much regret Bruce, but none of it will be yours.”

A sense of pressure began to rapidly build up in his head.  His body began to feel warm, as if a fever was coming on.  Almost unconsciously, Bruce began fanning himself to no avail as he tried to become comfortable.

Then, with an almost audible pop, it all faded away.  Something reached up and grabbed him.  Not physically or roughly, but it was like a tendril of energy reached up from the core of Bruce’s being and wrapped around his consciousness, dragging him deep down into his psyche to the spots usually reserved for dreams.

He blinked.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” Bruce began, taking in what looked like a small tropical island with a long sandy beach and crystal clear waters, “but this certainly wasn’t it.”

“What?” Kassar asked, stirring slightly in the hammock he had strong between two of the larger palm trees at the edge of the beach.  He was drinking something from a coconut.  Somewhere he had found a straw and a small paper umbrella.  “Did you think that my desire for vengeance meant that I would force myself to suffer?  That I would be confined to a pit of brass and flame while I wore a horse hair shirt and flagellated myself?”

“Well,” Bruce replied, shrugging as he tried to find words.  “No.  I did expect you to be imposing and well, you know.  Not a-”

“A prime example of the warrior caste relaxing on the beach?”  Kassar replied, lifting a furry white hand to bring his coconut based drink to his mouth.  “A stunning display of masculinity that makes you question your preconceived notions of beauty and sensuality?”

“You’re a gorilla,” Bruce stammered, aware of just how silly he sounded.  “A snow white gorilla wearing a Hawaiian print shirt and sunglasses.”

He stared at Bruce through mirrored shades taking a deep rattling pull off of his straw as he finished off whatever the drink was in his coconut.  Bruce shifted nervously.  Finally, after almost five eternal seconds with no sound but the sputtering of Kassar’s straw as he vacuumed up the last of his beverage, the big ape set the coconut down.

“Listen Bruce,” Kassar said sternly.  “If we’re going to be working together you’re going to have to cut it out with things like that.  We’re partners now so I’ll let you get away with it just this once, but gorilla is a slur.  You can’t just call a member of the warrior caste a gorilla.”

“What,” Bruce said dumbly.  “What’s even happening right now?”

“You used an antiquated and offensive term,” Kassar replied, leaning back into his hammock.  “I know you didn’t mean it in that way so I have refrained from ripping your arms off, but if you call me a gorilla again, I swear by the Void Mother, I’ll make it so that you remember not to do it a third time.”

“Okay, okay,” Bruce held up a hand, palm outward as he tried to placate Kassar.  “I hear you.  I won’t use the G-word again.  Now can you please tell me what the hell is happening?  So far my best bet is that your messing around in my head triggered a stroke and this is all the product of my neurons dying one by one.”

“You can say gorilla,” the ape replied from his hammock.  “Gorillas are more or less the immature forms of the warrior caste.  All of us were born as a gorilla before we were uplifted to our adult bodies through a combination of alchemy and priest caste abilities.”

“As for what’s happening?”  Kassar motioned toward the beach and the water began to recede, leaving three sandbars studded with glittering shells.  “I reorganized your subconscious a bit to make myself at home.  When I showed up it was mostly just half remembered pornography and childhood trauma.  From here I can mentor you and provide advice, you can test out abilities, and most importantly you can invest your EXP on the pather of the neutron star.”

Bruce squinted at the three peninsulas of sand.  Each one of them gave him a vaguely familiar feeling, reminiscent of the patterns he had purchased from Treekipp, but without any gentleness to them.  Instead, the sand seemed to vibrate with deadly purpose.  Like the paths leading into the water didn’t exist for any purpose other than efficient and wide reaching mayhem.

“So how does this work?”  He asked.  “Do I just walk out there and something happens or-

“It’s the shells,” Kassar cut in helpfully.  At some point the coconut had refilled itself and the alien was leaning in for a noisy sip.  “The left sandbar is gravity, the center is miscellaneous abilities such as attribute boosts and sensory enhancements, and the right is fire.  If you touch a shell, you’ll get an idea as to whether or not you can use it as well as what it does.  If you can’t activate the shell, it will let you know what you need to do.  Usually that means a certain level in an attribute or for you to learn some prerequisite abilities.”

“If you want to activate an ability,” he continued, stirring the content of his drink with its paper straw, “just bring the corresponding shell back here.  As soon as you step off the sandbar while carrying a shell it will draw the required EXP from you.  After that it should appear on your HUD and you’ll be able to use it just like any of the patterns you bought from the damnable borelite.”

Bruce nodded.  He took a deep breath and then let it out before beginning his walk toward the sand bars.  The beach itself was gorgeous.  The sand was perfectly white and so soft that it was almost pillowy.  He sank in slightly with each step, and part of his brain began to scream at the wrongness of the situation.  Whatever he was treading upon, despite all appearances, it wasn’t the grains of silica that he was used to on Earth.

As for the water, it was a tranquil turquoise.  Almost a bit too blue to be real as it reflected the sky.  Above, there were only a couple of clouds, wisps of white breaking up the azure expanse.

He was about to step onto the right sandbar, eyes jumping from one ruby shell to another when Kassar cleared his throat.

“Start in the center Bruce.  You’re going to want to grab Eyes of the Void and improve your Body and Agility attributes before you try to learn anything over the top.  When I found you, you barely had enough EXP to survive on the first layer.  I’ve infused you with a bit of my remaining power, but it’s barely trickle compared to what it would have been if you found me a hundred or so years earlier.  If you’re lucky and pick the right abilities, you might be able to survive the encounters on the third layer.  Right now?  You’re on the tenth.  Eyes of the Void will let you see what’s coming and the enhancements to your body will let you outrun whatever you spot.”

There was a long drawn out slurping sound as Kassar took another drink from his coconut.

“Probably,” the ape finished with a satisfied grunt.

“Probably?” Bruce asked incredulously, turning around to stare at his ‘mentor’ as he rocked back and forth in the hammock, white furry arms clasped behind his head.

“Probably,” Kassar agreed.

He bit his lip to stop himself from shouting something back at the alien.  Instead, casting one last longing look at the glimmering red shells that lined the rightmost path and walking toward the center lane.

Shells of all shapes and sizes dotted the snow white sand.  Some looked like they came from clams or muscles, further along the path were larger conches, and near the end of the peninsula were a handful of curling nautilus shells.  Really, the only major similarity is that all of them were blue.

Bruce walked a couple steps forward and picked up a small shell that could have been from a muscle or a large snail.  The moment his fingers touched its surface, information poured into his mind.

It belonged to an ability called Void Storage that would let the user create a space the size of a backpack where they could store things.  The ability would also let the user bring those objects into the Great Labyrinth so long as they kept them stored safely inside while they traveled.

More importantly, it let him know that the pattern would cost twenty five EXP to activate and that Bruce currently had just over a thousand EXP saved up.

“Holy shi-” He muttered, eyes widening in shock as he practically dropped the shell.

“Don’t get used to it,” Kassar called out.  “Eyes of the Void will require Void Sense, and Void sense will require you to learn Scan.  By the time you finish buying all three of those, you’ll barely have two hundred EXP left.”

“Maybe one fifty,” the ape amended.  “These rum coladas pack a punch and I haven’t had to worry about patterns that low level in centuries.”

“Wait,” Bruce replied, turning around to look at the alien.  “You’re actually getting drunk right now?  I thought that drinks and the outfit were all for show?”

“I’m retired,” Kassar responded, waving his coconut filled hand vaguely in Bruce’s general direction.  “I’m around to advise you and guide you on your path to take my revenge on the Rigellian scum, but beyond that you’ve more or less absorbed me into your psyche.  Cut me some slack.”

“Okay,” Bruce said, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath to center himself.  “If you’re here to guide me, could you at least guide me toward this Eyes of the Void seashell?  There are probably a couple hundred shells on each sandbar.  Without some assistance we could easily be here for hours.”

Kassar leaned toward his right side, plopping out of the hammock and wobbling slightly as he planted one of his arms in the sand and loped over toward Bruce.  The scene was beyond bizarre.  A giant white-furred ape, drink in one hand  wobble striding across the sand in a hawaiian shirt and sunglasses.

Part of Bruce wanted to ask Kassar about his apparel again, but at the same time, he was pretty sure that the alien enjoyed giving him the runaround.  His circumstances were frustrating enough without an entity strong enough to level all of Eagle Base getting progressively more and more drunk while needling him.

Kassar paused, staggering backward a step as he reached up with his free hand and removed his glasses to reveal blood red eyes.  He blinked at Bruce once before staring past him at the three trails of sand and shells.

“There,” Kassar said, putting his sunglasses back on before lifting the coconut up to take another drink.  “I’ve highlighted some shells that you’ll find useful.  I doubt you have enough EXP to grab all of them, but so long as you read them over carefully, you should be able to escape.  Probably.”

Bruce felt his eyelid twitch as Kassar looked at him expectantly through the mirrored shades, clearly waiting for him to complain again.  Through an exercise of will, he closed his eyes and forced out a breath.  Once he opened them again, he shot the alien a bright smile and turned his attention back to the beach where about ten to fifteen of the shells were glowing with red, blue, violet lights.

“Thanks,” he said cheerily, “I’ll get right to it.”

Kassar shuffled once in the sand behind him before replying sullenly.

“I think I got a bit too much sun to go with the rum coladas.  I’m gonna take a nap for a bit.  Wake me when you’re done and we can talk before I return you to your senses.”

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