Mask of Humanity

Over the next few days Nicolai settled into a routine, one which was only bearable because of Channel Two and Kleos’ stories.

Being cooped up in the room fed the darkness inside of him without giving him any method to vent it, but the voice on the radio and the music and the stories allowed him to convince himself that he was human and not a twisted, deranged monster.

When even Maxine’s voice began to grate he would flip through the channels and listen to the conversations and imagine the people doing the talking.

He kept himself busy at all hours either talking to Kleos, working on the soul trap, performing his routines as best he could, or reading the books, with the noise of the radio an ever-present background, but as time passed it was only barely enough and he struggled frequently, though he never lost himself to the same degree as that time just before he’d first turned the radio on.

Often his thoughts turned to the archers who had stolen his polearm and he would experience an urge to go and kill.

He always managed to fight it down, time after time with the understanding that it would not be at all as easy as he imagined, instead directing the drive into obsessive planning, trying to work out some kind of strategy to retrieve his polearm while avoiding being killed by either the archers or the sniper.

Though, more and more, as time stretched and the loss grew more distant, his rage at the memory began to fade, and his mind would turn to a more important matter. He had to complete his Seed as soon as possible.

That was when he would gain a grip on the lowest rung of the ladder he needed to climb to become capable of wielding the magics Kleos told him of, magics he hungered for, magics that would give him control over his fate.

###

Nicolai awoke on the fourth day since his trip to the library to find the ache in his arm gone. He stripped the bandages to see the scab was flaking, the flesh around no longer red and swollen. He wasn’t quite healed, but he was close. His arm was safe to use, and in fact using it would now help more than harm, by pushing blood through it. The blue water had significantly sped up the healing process.

He was pleased to resume his full morning routine, and as he went through it he listened to Maxine on the radio, going through her list of What We Know About This Place. He’d heard it the days before, but listening to the radio had already been integrated into his morning routine.

‘I hope you’ve all had a great night, and are feeling full of pep and vinegar for the morning! Welcome back to Channel Two radio, this is, as always, your host Maxine. It’s another bright sunny day out here. Never gets old, seeing actual blue sky, let me tell you.’ Those were pretty much the exact words she’d said the other morning. Nicolai found the familiarity calming as the words merged with his stretching routine.

‘The bird has taken up residence on a rooftop across from me and it’s looking hungry. I’d recommend keeping an eye on the sky if you’re planning to move around outside anywhere near my radio tower. Anywhoo, let’s get to the list.

‘So, What Do We Know About This Place? Well, it’s a big castle. It’s full of undead. You can kill them, but they’ll be alive again, or, well, walking around at least, the next morning. However, if you spread their bodies widely or take the skull someplace the body can’t get to, they’ll stay down. Uh, generally.’

She went on for some time, all information Nicolai was familiar with having learned it himself. Then she touched on a piece of information that had been new to him the first time she’d mentioned it.

‘A bit more on the matter of Seeds: turns out the amount of soul and Oma required to finish one differs from person to person. From what I’ve gathered, the more augmented you are, the more it’ll take. On top of that, so far as we know, the only way to increase the soul counter is by feeding Seeds to your own.

‘So, here’s my suggestion: Just don’t! Just leave it be! Make some friends! Explore! We need to find another way. Everyone wants to complete their Seed and get a soul, right? But do you want to live with the knowledge you killed and robbed people?

‘No. Let’s look at example number one of What Not To Do: enter stage left, Vikrum, apparently the most augmented guy here. Some corpo, no doubt, leader of the Chosen. The more things change, the more they stay the same, right?’ She let out a disgusted little snort.

‘Well from what I’ve heard, he’s fed dozens, maybe even hundreds of Seeds to his own. And guess what? Still not there. Nope! Still not finished. So, yeah. Just don’t bother! Wait until we find another way. If anyone believes they have any information on this, please stay on with me. I will be accepting call-ins shortly, so if you have any knowledge about Seeds, please, please share it.’

Nicolai puffed his cheeks and blew air, his simulation of humanity generating some guilt, but this imaginary guilt shrivelled and died in the face of his drive to survive and grow stronger. Soon, he promised the voice on the radio, but it was a half-hearted promise and he knew it.

‘Now, let’s talk about Imbued items. This is all second-hand information, mind you, I’ve never seen one. But numerous callers have reportedly found these things. They can take many forms but are often weapons, jewellery, tools, pieces of armour or clothing, or random “desk clutter” type objects such as small statues, pens, whatever.

‘These Imbued are capable of literal magic. Yes, that’s right folks, we are in a world where magic exists. Are we dreaming? It’s possible. Maybe an ASI went mad and pulled us all into a virtual world in our sleep. The Raws will inherit the earth.’ She chuckled at her own joke. Nicolai chuckled with her, to practise being human.

‘Apparently you can use these Imbued things with your Seed,’ she continued. ‘First, you have to learn to connect to it, that means holding it and trying to kind of… merge your consciousness with it, I guess. I’ll be honest, I’ve tried, and I think I managed it once. It’s not easy.

‘If you’re capable of it at will, kudos to you. So from there you can kind of push-through to the Imbued thing—this is all based on what callers have told me so, grain of salt, but I’ve heard the same thing from multiple people so I’m pretty convinced.

‘These Imbued can do all kinds of things. One guy said he found a mask that lets him breathe underwater, says that if you go down far enough, there are all these flooded tunnels beneath the castle. And, as I’ve personally witnessed, some of the Chosen are able to fly and I’ve not seen any jetpacks or hover-boards, so I imagine that would be more Imbued magic in action.’

There was a lot of information Nicolai already knew, but mixed amongst it were new discoveries. He listened attentively as he continued his routine, then the radio host finished rattling off her list and shifted into her standard routine of playing music, narrating what she saw from up wherever she was, more music, taking a call, more music, a clumsy attempt at philosophical musing which he found quite endearing, more music.

Nicolai settled down to continue his attempts at creating a Soul Trap. Now and then he flicked to other channels—mostly when she played tracks that annoyed him—and heard other voices. There were people conversing, casually or in code, and more groups who, like the Chosen, wanted people to join them.

A lot of people seemed to just want to connect, or were asking for help, or airing their fears and worries and complaints. Nicolai had yet to speak on the radio. Unless he saw a very good reason to do so, he never would.

###

Nicolai placed the book down and rubbed at his eyes. He’d been doing a great deal of reading over the day, taking breaks from the Soul Traps to rest his hands.

One of the books was a bunch of philosophical musings on Heaven, then there was another by the same author, similar in nature but about the Great Game. The last was a history of the People, one which stunk of propaganda to Nicolai. None of the three books gave what he really needed, which would be a simple, broad introduction to any of the topics, but they were better than nothing.

He picked up the book and resumed reading.

I propose the Great Game serves a deeper purpose than most believe. Mundus claimed it is simply a method to quickly raise Cultivators to the heights, as all accrue power significantly faster than is normal within the Game. This is undeniably one of its purposes, but it is clear to me that there is more.

This activity also increases the strength of Heaven itself. It is known that planets collected to compete are chosen from throughout the Material, and all tend to be weak. Then, enfolded into Heaven and the bloody process of the Game, they are soaked in spiritual energies.

Finally, they become Heavenly Planets at the closing of the Game, expanding its reach.

This too, is known. But a great deal of energy is lost within the Game, going neither to those who rise through it, nor to the infusing of the claimed planets. It simply vanishes, taken by Heaven.

For what purpose does it take this energy?

What is Heaven doing?

We do not know.

Nicolai scoffed, snapping the book closed. All of this was far beyond him, information with zero bearing on his situation. In a word: useless. Even so, after reading through enough of the author’s ramblings, he was starting to realise that his limited understanding of what was happening was not unusual.

Not understanding what Heaven was, not understanding the purpose of the Great Game, this actually seemed to be the norm. He found this oddly reassuring.

His eyes turned to a helmet, half-covered in scrawled lines. Back to work.

###

Some hours later he placed the latest completed helmet on the table, him and Kleos eyeing it. Nicolai was feeling good about this one. With his arm usable the process had been easier, and over the past days his skill at carving the unfamiliar shapes had grown. He turned the volume down on the radio and put an Oma crystal to the crown of the helmet where the siphoning rune was carved.

There was a faint sizzling noise, and all the runes lit up with pale light. He quickly removed the crystal before it could start shrinking. This didn’t complete another challenge, which slightly surprised him as he’d suspected that finishing the Soul Trap would count.

‘There you go,’ said Kleos, sounding as happy as Nicolai felt.

‘There we go,’ Nicolai echoed, pleased, satisfied. He was eager to move on. Nicolai held the helmet up, admiring the runes he’d carved on it. He turned to look at the line of blue-glowing skulls along one wall.

A short, solid blow with the baton to the crown of one of the skulls cracked it open, another blow knocked shards of bone free. The blue light drifted out, forming into a wisp.

Just as it had finished forming, Nicolai scooped it from the air with the once-more glowing Soul Trap. He was holding the helmet with both hands, one hand gripping the edge, the other keeping an Oma crystal pressed against the siphoning rune.

He twisted the Soul Trap, the helmet, and stared inside, seeing the blue wisp darting around. It tried to go out through the opening, but a field of white lines appeared, blocking it. After a few seconds, the blue wisp stopped darting around, sticking to the metal inside the helmet where it shrunk, turning from what seemed a gaseous state into a drop of thick liquid that shone blue.

He moved his face close then pushed with his tongue until his Seed rolled out of his mouth, passed through the network of lines, and landed inside the helmet. It wriggled with excitement, set its eyes on the blue drop, crawled over then wrapped around the liquid and consumed it.

‘As easy as that,’ he murmured. He moved down the line of skulls, cracking sounds coming one after another as he broke them then scooped the emerging souls with the Soul Trap. His Seed remained inside the helmet, hunting down and consuming them once they became liquid.

In a short time he’d smashed all the skulls and his Seed had consumed all the souls. It tried then to crawl out of the Soul Trap but was blocked, just as the wisps had been, by the white lines. Nicolai removed the Oma crystal from its place powering the Soul Trap. It had shrunk by about a quarter, melting away into energy to fuel the magic. The white lines disappeared and he retrieved his Seed.

He returned to the table, smiling and humming, and he set to work cutting and shaping leather to form two straps which he attached to the helmets eye holes then looped over its crown to tie them to a rivet on the other side. He slid the Oma crystal beneath and the leather stretched, pressing it tight to the siphoning rune, the whole thing lighting up again. Good enough. That would let him keep the Oma crystal in place and power the Soul Trap without needing to use both hands. He removed the crystal, then tapped the mark on the back of his right hand.

User Interface 376 | Player #53,217

- Cultivation

> Seed Progress

Soul: 16%

Oma: 12%

Warning: Seed is imbalanced.

Reason: Soul and Oma differ by significant margin.

The last time he’d checked, his Seed had been fifteen in soul and twelve in Oma, just out of the bounds of becoming unbalanced. Now that its soul had increased by one, it was once more unbalanced. A confirmation that a difference of four percent would lead to unbalance.

He was a little disappointed to see such a small increase in soul, only one percent from six undead souls, whereas feeding it another Seed would generally give at least two percent.

Nicolai consoled himself with the reminder that not only was it much harder to find other humans to kill for Seeds, but that was also something he was trying not to do. Unless they were people who deserved to be murdered. Or were a threat to him. Or for whatever other justifications he figured were reasonable.

He considered his remaining stock of fourteen Oma crystals, one of them a little shrunk after fuelling the soul trap, then fed three full ones to the Seed.

User Interface 376 | Player #53,217

- Cultivation

> Seed Progress

Soul: 16%

Oma: 18%

The torch was just shading from yellow to orange. He had about half a day before night time, and the undead weren’t going to kill themselves.

Nicolai gathered the items he considered necessary, placed Kleos back in its jar, and headed out, a smile working its way onto his face, pleased to be done at last and out of the stuffy room.

Time to hunt.