Chapter Fifty-Five – Factions – Part Three

The ongoing study of abnormal longevity for high-level assets is a top priority for the WSA. All topics that are requested are strictly classified, in accordance with the terms for funding from the UWO. The leak is not on the WSA's end. It should be reminded that we are not directly under the UWO, and while we appreciate your funding which helps us fuel the studies of mutual interest… we recommend that you tighten your own ship before telling us how to steer ours. Cheers.

- Classified Correspondence between the WSA and the UWO -

Sound gets swallowed as my mind tries to catch up with the words that she just said.

"Oh shit, you didn't know?"

I just blink at her.

"Wow, um, well, congrats."

Cortez is pregnant… what the fuck, why am I hearing about it from Fisban and not her? Why didn't she tell me? Why didn't she… why… is that why she went into the gate to find me before I Respec'd the first time? No, I would have seen it, I would have seen the child growing in her belly. After two sometimes three weeks, I can see it with Triage. I had used Triage with her there, right before the Lich burned Tenny nearly to ashes. She wouldn't have known by then, probably… which means she found out after everything hit the fan. Why didn't she tell me? She didn't tell me that she was going to tell her mother about my situation either. Does she not trust me? A knot forms in my strained stomach. So many emotions are swirling around.

Fisban starts scrubbing her hands again in my silence. I don't even know what to say, I'm happy, terrified, and sick, all in the same breath. The more I think about it, the more I think it could be bullshit. There's no way I wouldn't have seen it with Triage back then. After? No there wouldn't be enough time right? Three weeks of downtime during the recalibrating Gates. Is it possible? What if she was one or two weeks pregnant before the gathering quest, and didn't know it? But she's suddenly pregnant when shit hits the fan, and her mother holds the power over my life and death? The coincidence is suspect at best.

"You good?" Fisban asks.

"I… uh… I don't know."

"Well, then I guess it's a good thing I told you," Fisban sighs with a head shake.

"Why?"

She raises an eyebrow, "If you responded like this to her, it would be a red flag. Just saying."

If Cortez isn't pregnant, why would she… to push her mom on side maybe? I don't know her mother, I don't know if that would sway her or not. The chances of her actually being pregnant though, have to be slim. Still… what if she really is pregnant? My head turns, looking around at the bodies all around us, and the hollowed eyes of the ones digging graves. My lifestyle isn't conducive to having children right now. I'm only twenty-two, with a crazy fucking goddess, a divine item that's currently begging me to munch on the items of the fallen around us. The feeling grows deeper, pulsating up my arm.

"Shut the fuck up Abyss!" I seethe.

Fisban isn't the only one giving me a strange glance at the outburst. There are three people here who don't know about Abyss. Fisban waves for them all to get back to work.

"Sorry, it's just…"

"What?"

"It's hungry."

Fisban shifts uncomfortably, "For items… or people?"

"Items."

She lets out a relieved sigh, "Okay, then feed it."

I look up at her.

"Oi!" she yells to everyone, "Gather around."

Everyone does as she asks, her three remaining teammates look strained with wary expressions.

"Alright," she points to the pile of corpses they've made, "Anything of value on their persons, I want it."

***

There were a few choice curse words, but everyone saw what happened to the last guy who challenged her, so the discontent didn't go further than that. Especially considering Smith is in a shallow grave now with the others.

Fisban's looking at all the items still, cataloging what she thinks might be useful, I can tell a few have caught Abyss's fancy though. Specifically, an earring that seemed normal at first, but when Fisban put it on, she said she could hear Verantha in the distance, crying to her Goddess.

We eventually followed the noise and found her, her white garb now stained red and brown from the blood and dust in the sand. Her once-perfect makeup is now smeared from tears and sweat. She looks… kind of pitiful. Barlow has been trying to comfort her, she's understandably distraught.

I can't imagine being attacked by a goddess while having a full-blown panic attack is good for one's psyche. Not a doctor, but it sounds bad.

"You promise to protect me?" Verantha asks Barlow, gripping the cloth on his shoulder.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Yeah… uh, I've said that ten times now."

"Right… but will you actually…" she winces, "Sorry, Goddess."

Barlow shoots me a glance, I give him a half-assed thumbs up.

"Verantha, I need you to refresh my blessing, please."

She looks back and forth, pulling Barlow with her like a puppy on a leash.

"I need guarantees…" she winces again, then three more times, "Goddess… I said I'm sorry, please…"

"No one's going to kill you, you're the only healer here," I explain for the third time, Fisban also tried to explain it earlier, but Verantha has become paranoid.

After five minutes, Verantha gave me the fortitude blessing, but only after reassuring her a few more times. I don't know if it's this place, or watching her chosen allies get eviscerated, but I didn't expect her to break down this much. Maybe it's the lack of sleep since her Goddess keeps waking her up every two or three hours to bless me.

I can relate to the torment, the flashes of memories haven't gotten better, and I'm not looking forward to sleeping tonight… carry the torch.

"Novak… no, Jimmy, you like me right?" Verantha asks as I'm about to return to Fisban.

"Yeah, relax, you're safe and…" a pop-up enters my vision. It's black… Abyss.

[ Mutation Complete ]

[ Abyssal Skill Evolved ]

[ Dark Siphoning Vines ]

"And what?" Verantha asks, her eyes widening.

I try to click the notification, but nothing happens. It just flits away.

Siphoning… how much though? What's the trigger condition? Is it lifeforce that I'm siphoning? God, I really wish I had something that could look past the bull…

"And what?" Verantha pleads.

"Get some sleep," I say, turning from her and moving past the range needed before I say, "Sage, can you see my Abyss skills? I'm wondering what siphoning does."

There's a groan, then a sigh.

No, I cannot see your abyss skills, it would require me to access the special room for your divine item. Access can be granted, but it will require you to return to the Nexus and integrate it fully.

"Okay, give me a bit, I'm supposed to go over the tutorial with Fisban first."

Noted. Do try and pay attention this time. Even given by a meatsack, anything is better than nothing.

"You could just give me the tutorial you know?"

So many things change each cycle, and the information I give could be inconsistent. There could also be information which I am not supposed to share. Each cycle is different. I have not been updated for this series. Yet another strange thing. Normally when I am acting as a liaison between a chosen and the system… I have more access to the Prime Nexus, but for some reason, I appear to be partially disconnected from it. Perhaps forcing you into both roles has had… unforeseen reactions and permutations. Interestingly, these types of queries are usually stifled as well. What shall I do with this freedom…

I stop in my tracks, thinking about what Sage just said, and reminded of all those crazy AI films from back in the day. Shaking it off, I trudge forward toward Fisban.

"Blessing renewed?" she asks.

"Yep, should be good for another two or three hours at least."

"Good enough, help me tie the bindings and I'll give you a crash course in everything I know."

About fucking time someone told me what's actually going on. I follow her over to the raft, I'm not sure how we're going to move it, even if everyone was alive it would have been a tight ask. Even still, idle hands aren't good.

"First off, never tell anyone you're a skill holder. There's more than just the WHA faction that might try and poach you, there's also a few factions that might try to kill you."

"Yeah, Sage warned me of that too."

"Also, it's not just RoD quest zones that you can't Respec in. There are rules, many of them."

I squint at her, trying to copy the knots she showed us before. Mine aren't as perfect as hers, but they'll do.

"One cannot activate Respec on Death on their home world."

"Wait… I can't Respec on Earth?"

"Nope, you'll just regular die. It only works for Gated worlds. If your body is more than seventy-five percent destroyed, you'll respawn at the place of entry, meaning the Gate you arrived from. You'll also be butt-ass naked. So, it's always a good idea to hide a storage ring with backup gear just outside the gate, where no one will find it. Or you could have a team you trust standing by."

I gulp. Fucking hell. Wait, why would I need a storage ring placed at the start? Was I right? Do other Respec on Death users not go back in time? Was that a one-time thing? Is that why Big Purple didn't want me talking about it? Ulana really doesn't give a fuck about rules does she... It's weird to not feel her presence, almost like I'm having withdrawals from her. I shake my head.

"Another thing to keep in mind," she says, throwing a lashing around a thinner branch and tightening it, "If you enter a gate with another user, neither can Respec."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, one of the worlds that merged with ours after they failed, they sent all their heroes into the same gate. They never returned."

"What if a gate fully opens?"

"That's pretty rare these days. Even then, if the UWO and the WHA both fail to clear a gate, they enact Quarantine Protocol, so you'd be fucked either way."

Quarantine Protocol, where most of the nuclear weapons end up. When in doubt, they nuke the fuck out of the other side and then crash planes loaded with foaming concrete on both sides. Hoping to block it completely until the expiration of the gate. Earth incurs a penalty for those gates, but the alternative is generally getting fucked. So we eat it. There are usually only a few each year. At least, a few that I know about. Maybe Fisban knows more.

"Do you know about how the Respec process works?"

"Uh, kind of, random rolling for skills, stats, and classes right?"

"There's a base minimum that a user can roll. The minimum is ten points per category."

That makes sense, I had gained more points than I had before because of it.

"You can only roll a class once, as far as we know, that also includes your original class."

Damn, no hope for rolling healer again. Which is fine, I need a more impactful class if I want to change the tides.

"You're supposed to start with ten Respecs… which clearly didn't apply to you. Maybe the system is trying to balance that by giving you more frequent quests though, which is problematic."

"Because there's no failsafe on these quests?"

"Exactly. Anyways, usually, people lose one to three levels per Respec. I have heard of someone rolling a mega loser debuff, which reset them back ten levels. Which at lower levels is whatever, but they were forty, so that was a tough pill to swallow."

"Shit, you can lose levels?"

"It's possible to roll no penalty, at least the tutorial says it is. Rare though."

"Guess I got lucky."

"Yeah, or something's wrong with your skill."

"Maybe it's a Deviant thing?"

"No, the UWO interrogated the shit out of the Deviant that was caught seven years ago, mind-breaking interrogations. Even had a team of memory sniffers do a peelback. The rules are identical for them as well."

I've heard of them before. The class isn't called memory sniffers, and I doubt it has anything to do with smell, but they're feared. They can tamper with people's minds and look into their memories. Like real-life boogeymen.

"Oh, also, there's a limit to the number of Respecs you can do."

"How many?"

"Ninety-nine plus the first one you get for free."

"That's a lot."

"Not really, considering the games last one hundred years as far as we know."

"Yeah, but no way some geezer is going to be running gates past age eighty, even a mage specialist. I couldn't see that."

Fisban stops tying her knot, and she leans in, debating if she wants to say the next thing that's on her mind.

"What?"

She sighs, "You know that theory going around, that higher leveled hunters age slower?"

I scoff, "No one actually puts stock in that."

She raises an eyebrow and tilts her head.

Shit…

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.