Anti-Mage

Three weeks later, Anton looked back up the river he was floating down toward the city of Dravul. He’d been assured that there was a portal south of town and hired a boat to carry him down the river. For all his work, he’d received 10,000 XP for completing the Quest “Restore Order to Dravul”. Though, if he was being honest it was the easiest 10,000 XP he’d earned thus far. Once he freed the other Adventurers and helped the Carinus realize that they were free from the oppression of the vampires, the people and the adventurers had done all the work.

Anton had considered ruling Dravul until he learned the rules that governed controlling domains within the Labyrinth. One of the unknown conditions of taking over a city within the Labyrinth was that if the ruler left the Realm in which the domain he controlled sat, the title and benefits of being a City Leader, Lord, etc. were removed automatically. Oh, and he’d learned that Labyrinth Realms could be any size. A Realm could be a cave, city, world, solar system, galaxy, or pocket universe. It seemed that the Labyrinth required those who ruled to remain within the Realm of their Domain.

If he’d accepted the rank of City Lord, he could have had to work to expand his domain. Once he’d expanded to the edge of this Realm that would have been it. If he left the Realm, he would have automatically lost everything. Sure he could have tied himself up, and maybe gained some levels, but whatever was happening to him didn’t feel like something that would work well with him in charge of a city, or at least a city within the Labyrinth where his achievements wouldn’t leave the Realm when he did. Granted, it looked like he had forever, but right now, he was young, and being tied to one place just sounded boring. Besides, He was the only human. None of the Adventurers were human. If he wanted to find a woman to hook up with, maybe try to establish a relationship, or just make a “Friends with benefits”, well he couldn’t do that here, where there were no human women could he, well he could hook up with an elf, if he could find one which wasn’t a stuck up bitch that was trying to kill him, of course.

So, Anton freed some Adventurers and helped them organize the Carinus to get the city up and running. Once they had a leader, he’d left them to govern themselves. Of course, nearby cities that had normally stayed away because of the vampires would probably come to investigate once they learned of the change in leadership, but that sounded like a problem for the denizens of this Realm.

So, for the last three weeks, Anton had been reviewing the changes to his body and the changes he’d undergone over the previous two years while he came to grips with those changes. The mind control he’d suffered had messed with his memory a bit. Luckily it didn’t look like he’d have to worry about that anymore unless the entity was extremely powerful.

In addition to the change to his mental defense, he noticed physical changes as well. Once he’d found a mirror, the first thing Anton noticed was that his skin was a bit paler and his eye color had changed. His irises were now amber-yellow with a hint of purple around the outer edge. He also looked thinner. His skin pallor hadn’t gone completely white, so he didn’t look like an undead, but he was incredibly pale.

Thinking back on the change to his skill Mind Shield he couldn’t help but be satisfied. He was now like a Psychic solar Panel. If someone tried to use mental abilities on him with Psychic Energy, he absorbed or ignored those attacks. However, if a friend was trying to use telepathy or something like that it might cause issues. Anton opened his Status and looked to see if there was something he could do about it. As he’d explored the automatic skill he found that it did have the ability to tweak the skill a little. He could, for instance, set Mind Shield to defend against all attacks and it would do so. Or, he could set it to only defend against attacks that did physical damage. The problem with the latter was that if he let someone into his mind with a skill like Telepathy they could then use other skills that didn’t do damage to subvert or control his mind. Luckily, the skill also allowed him to create a “White List” which meant that he could designate certain people as “Approved” to use Psychic Skills and spells on him.

Unfortunately, individuals on the White List could also use skills that did damage to him. That, however, was a lot better option as at least if he was going to give a friend the ability to affect him, if they turned on him, he’d know and could change the default settings of the skill once he broke free, which would happen eventually.

Another thing he’d thought about over the last three weeks was the fact that immortality might not be as glamorous as he first thought, especially if someone could take control of his mind and keep him subjugated for any length of time. Still, he had learned a lot. His skill with short and long blades were much improved, his race had changed to something better, and he was on his way back to Earth, and the company of humans, hopefully.

The boat he was riding was driven by one of the local fishermen who was a bit of an elemental caster, which required Anton to bring his Anti-Mage Antimagic field as close to his body as he could. It seemed that Evan, the driver, and caster, summoned a water elemental to help push his boat along the river. This increased ship speed and allowed Evan to drive his boat against the current with some success. It also made the ride nice and smooth.

The trip downriver was quick and uneventful. Within a couple of hours, the boat pulled up to a dock that had been built near a road that led off toward a large cave opening that Anton could see from the river.

“Thanks for the ride, Evan,” Anton said.

“Your welcome, Mas… I mean Anton,” Evan said with a slight hesitation as he corrected himself.

“Don’t you worry about accidentally calling me something I’m not, Evan. You all are free now,” Anton said in Standard.

“You take care of yourself, Anton, if you’re ever back this way…” Evan said with a nod. Evan turned with the boat as the water elemental pulled the small boat back into the river, flipped it around, and began pushing it upstream. Anton had to admit, that was pretty cool, and quiet…he’d have to remember that.

Another thing, the language here was something called Standard. A lot like Common, even Latin but not quite the same. Next time he found a shop he was going to have to try to find a skill or piece of equipment that acted like a Universal Translator from Star Trek. The inability to understand those he ran into would be a real pain in the ass. If he had something to help with that, things would be much easier. The language, Common, had been really close to Latin, so it wasn’t that hard to pick up. Standard was to Latin, what English was to French. It might have a similar root, but it had changed so much that maybe 1 in 100 words could be immediately recognized.

Regardless, his constant use of Standard had increased his skill level to 55. His primary language, English was listed, but the level was listed as an asterisk. When he’d concentrated on the asterisk a tooltip had popped up with “Primary Language”. Common and Standard were listed below it. Common was only level 3 which made sense. He’d been speaking Standard for over 2 years while he’d only interacted with people speaking Common a couple of times. Also, he hadn’t been looking for languages in his skill list until he’d wondered about Standard.

Additionally, all of his notifications had been archived while he was out of his mind. They were just skill level and location notifications. He had leveled, one level to level 38, which he hadn’t realized as the fog was removed from his mind, but that didn’t matter. The most interesting thing to come out of these last two years was finding out that Classes now had rarities and he’d been lucky enough to acquire a Mythic one when he was “killed”. The XP requirement was horrendous though. Over 2 million XP had allowed him to reach level 37 with a rare class. Now, the same amount of XP only allowed him to reach level 22 in his Mythical Class. It was a bit crazy how much leveling was going to cost now.

Anton brought his mind back to his current surroundings and followed the path from the river’s edge to the nearby cliff face. After a short walk, Anton came to the cliff face and looked at the large cave opening. Anton knew it was a large cave because it had a large entrance that allowed light to flood the entire cave. Only 100 feet deep and about 50 feet high, there were no obvious tunnels in the walls. The only thing Anton noticed was the floating portal of darkness in the center of the cave.

The portal hovered just above the ground with one side facing the entrance to the cave and the other facing the back of the cave. Anton walked up to the portal and was about to walk around to the backside when he felt a slight tugging sensation when he was about 30 feet from the portal. Anton decided to keep his distance and walked around the edge of the cave to look at the backside of the portal. Once he could see behind the portal he noticed a pedestal with a node crystal floating above it ten feet behind the portal.

Anton approached the node crystal. He didn’t feel a pull this time. Anton placed his hand on the Node Crystal.

Labyrinth Realm Portal

Welcome Adventurer

Universe: Labyrinth Seed VX-001234a

World: Vala

Location: 3 of 16

Recommended Levels 1-100 depending on location

Mana Level: 100% Saturation

This Labyrinth Node has been added to your Labyrinth Node Registry.

This is a dual portal.

The portal before you has two functions.

The side facing the Node exits and enters this Realm at a single location with another location within a different Realm within the Labyrinth.

The opposite side of the portal is an exit from this Realm to a randomly chosen unoccupied portal within the Labyrinth.

If using the random teleportation aperture, please use caution when exiting this location. The opposite side of the portal will attempt to pull in and transfer anything that moves within 10 feet of the portal in a 180-degree arc. Conditions on the other side of the portal are NOT guaranteed to be compatible with the current environment.

Additionally, the Node you are touching may be utilized as a Fast Travel point.

Labyrinth Fast Travel Locations Available to you.

Vala <…> Node 1 of 16

Earth <…> Portal

Unavailable

Vala <…> Node 3 of 16 (Current Location)

Earth <…> Teleportation Circle.

Fast Travel is only available between Nodes. Portals and Teleportation Circles are NOT part of the available Fast Travel system within the Labyrinth.

You may utilize the Fast Travel options or pass through one of the portals to transfer between locations.

Anton withdrew his hand from the Node and considered what to do. He could travel back to a 1928-era Earth or travel to the next known location along this chain. Or, he could jump to a random location anywhere within the Labyrinth. Anton opened his Status Screen and looked at his Luck.

Luck: 324

His luck had been atrocious before the Beam had struck him back in Antarctica. But he’d come a long way since then and the boost to his class seemed to have increased his Luck a bit, well maybe more than a bit, it had only been 171 before. If the average stat for humans was 10 then he was supposedly 3,240% luckier than the average human. If he was wrong, and 1,000 was considered average by this SYSTEM…

You know what, Fuck it!

He’d been a vampire bitch’s bloodsicle for the last two years and he wanted to get as far away from this place as he could. Besides, if it didn’t work out for him, once he found another Node he should be able to teleport back to this node and he could just try another random location. Finding a Node like this had been pretty lucky. Maybe his luck was helping him out.

Anton walked around the cavern to the entrance and looked around one last time. Still, nothing in the immediate area except the normal sounds of nature; birds, insects, and the scamper of small forest creatures not too far away. With no more reasons to wait, Anton stepped forward and walked toward the portal. There was a slight tug that became steadily stronger with each step though the tug was much slower than his pace. That changed when he was 10 feet from the portal. As soon as he crossed the threshold the pull of gravity became stronger as he watched two arms of magic reach out and pass through him. When he realized what was going on, he allowed the portal to interact with him as a notification appeared in his vision.

Allow Labyrinth Portals to affect you with Magic, Yes or No?

Anton chose “Yes”

Allow this choice for all future interactions with Labyrinth Portals, Yes or No?

Anton chose “Yes” again. There was no point in preventing portals from affecting him within the Labyrinth since he would have to use them. It could be dangerous but he should be able to survive anything that might happen.

Anton watched as the magical arms grabbed and lifted him off the ground and drew him into the center of the portal. He felt the universe shift and suddenly he was weightless in a transparent cube.

“We have another one?” a feminine voice called out in Standard from a speaker Anton noticed on the wall off to his right as he looked around. “You in the cube, just hold on for a second and we’ll get someone in there to move you to the airlock.”

Anton used his flight ability to orient himself toward the airlock and floated toward it.

“Excuse me, how are you doing that?” the female voice asked.

“Telekinesis,” Anton said though it was probably something else, but telekinesis was as good a description as anything else.

“Um, okay,” The voice said hesitantly, “My name is Seska. Welcome to Catch Point.”

Anton floated up to the airlock as a light flashed green and the door opened. Anton floated into a small room with a transparent wall on his left and another airlock in front of him. He also noticed that the room he was in had gravity, though he still floated above the ground. Anton ended his flight and landed gently on the metal floor before he turned to the left and looked at a small human woman with two large individuals in full Syfy armor. The armor they were wearing looked like a cross between the armor the Paladins would have worn in that game RIFTS and a Mecha Suit, though streamlined and a lot lighter.

The woman in the middle had piercing blue eyes and short blonde-cropped hair. She also looked to be wearing body-tight armor, though she wasn’t wearing a helmet, or if the suit had one, the helmet was retracted.

“Hello again. I’m Seska and this is Basil and Jory. Before we open the airlock we have a few questions for you?” Seska said with a bright smile.

Before Anton could answer her question a SYSTEM notification filled his vision.

SYSTEM UPDATE

After further review, the XP award SYSTEM has been scrubbed and redesigned. Previous SYSTEM settings saw a significant amount of earned XP transferred back to the SYSTEM upon individual death. This hampered growth and slowed progress. Due to circumstances beyond SYSTEM Control, Leveling Acceleration is required from this point on. This change is NOT Retroactive.

Instead of a 1,000 XP award per level of defeated opponents, the SYSTEM will award ½ of the total earned XP as modified due to rarity difference, number of parties involved in the attack, etc... As an example, If a level 10 individual killed a level 10 monster of the same rarity as their class they would have been awarded 10,000 XP. 1,000 multiplied by 10. Now if the same level 10 individual kills a level 10 monster of the same level they will instead earn 27,500 XP, Half of the required 55,000 XP it would take to a Common Class to reach level 10.

The previous SYSTEM ensured that the SYSTEM would be able to award XP to every participant in a hunting party. For instance, if 100 level 10 individuals had attacked the same level 10 creature in the example above each individual would have been awarded 10,000 XP, even though the creature only had 55,000 XP. The SYSTEM would have made up the difference. After this update, if 100 level 10 individuals attack and kill a level 10 monster they would instead only be awarded 275 XP.

This change is also being made so that the SYSTEM can hold onto more XP when larger parties are involved so that larger Quest XP awards can be given.

This change is universal and has spread through all adjacent systems and dimensions.

Happy Hunting

The SYSTEM had never explained something as thoroughly as it just did. Then it hit him. Well damn it, if he freed himself from those vampires after this change he would have pulled in some serious XP. He wasn’t sure how much but he knew as a level 22 mythical class he had earned over 2 million XP which meant that if he killed a level 22 mythical creature he might earn 1 million XP just based on how much XP it took him. Wait the system said costs and such were adjusted so if he killed something the same rarity as himself he’d earn what a common person would earn for the same feat as the XP award had already been adjusted. So for him, as a mythic class, he would either make the normal award or less than the normal award depending on the difference in rarity between himself and others. So, it was going to be a grind either way, but this way he’d still be making more XP than he would have before.

Seska’s voice came over the intercom, “Are you okay in there, you kind of zoned out for a second?”

“Didn’t you just get the SYSTEM Update message?” Anton asked.

“SYSTEM Update message?” Seska asked, “What are you going on about?”

Anton looked thoughtful for a moment and then asked, “Do you know what the SYSTEM is?”

“An operating SYSTEM, sure”

Anton shook his head, “No, not an operating SYSTEM. Different question, Do you know what the Labyrinth is?”

“Labyrinth? Isn’t that a maze or something?” Seska asked.

Anton was confused, how could these people not know what either of those two things were? Better question, why didn’t they see the SYSTEM updates?

“Before we continue, could you let me know where we are?” Anton asked.

“You appeared within an artificial cube that was placed on the exact position creatures randomly appear from time to time. As for where you are. We are currently on the outer edges of our solar system about 4.2 billion miles from the nearest star, or about 3.2 billion miles from Earth, my home planet,” Seska said.

“How did you know to enclose this area in an air-tight chamber if we’re so far out from Earth…this is just a little farther out than Pluto, right?” Anton asked.

“You know of Earth?” Seska asked.

“Of course, I’m from Earth as well, though probably not this one,” Anton said.

“Not this one?” Seska asked.

“Alternate Dimension, timeline, whatever. The Earth I’m from didn’t have space travel so I’m pretty sure I’m not from here. Also, I believe I’m still in the Labyrinth so this can’t be my Earth,” Anton explained.

“What is this Labyrinth you keep mentioning?” Seska asked.

“I’m not really sure, other than it is a “Thing” that connects multiple dimensions or universes which it refers to as Realms together and allows entities to travel through it. Now, how about my question, how did you know to surround where I appeared in an airtight chamber?”

“Easy enough, years ago, we found millions of bodies of all types floating at this point in space. While our scientists were trying to figure out how they arrived another animal appeared. They don’t appear often but when they do they normally die very quickly.” Seska explained.

“And you haven’t captured anything that lets you know about the Labyrinth before now?” Anton asked.

“You are the first sentient humanoid we have ever recovered from here. Some of the dead individuals resembled races from mythology; elves, dwarves, gnomes, and the like. You are the first human. We have captured plenty of animals and even what some would classify as monsters but you’re the first sentient being that has appeared since the chamber was put in place,” Seska said.

“So what happens now?” Anton asked.

“Now we run tests and talk. While we’ve been talking various chambers have been prepositioned to ensure your safety and ours. We’re going to have you move through the airlock into the next room where our doctor will have a look at you. Once they’re done, we’ll talk again,” Seska said.

“Last question before I go then, do you all have magic here?”

“Magic, you mean as in Merlin and Wizard-type magic?” Seska asked.

“Yeah, that kind of magic,” Anton affirmed.

“No. Why? Do you think magic is real?” Seska asked.

“I’ve run across a couple of things, yes,” Anton answered.

“Well, sorry to disappoint, but there isn’t any magic here?” Seska said definitely.

The other airlock buzzed as Anton turned to it and floated through. As soon as he crossed the threshold, he felt normal gravity take hold and floated down to stand on the floor in a small chamber with three people in clean suits waiting for him. It looked like it was time for an exam, not one of the intellectual kinds.