Chapter 6: Joy & Loss

Ember dropped to the ground, laying on his back. Charity plopped down to sit next to him.

“Why did only Boss get a level!? How is that fair?”

“Haha, you’re just jealous.”

“Well then, Mr. Hero, why don’t you find us some beds.”

“I’m too tired for your banter. Besides, you won’t find any beds. Everything, even the wood, has decayed to dust. Who knows how old this place is.”

“Dad!”

Rose and the rest of the kids were pulled out of the ziggurat by Fid and Twig. Rose and Tanny rushed to their fathers, while Boulder and Skyrius slowly followed behind and Thorn was pulled aside by Fid.

“I’m sorry.” Rose was apologizing with tears to his father, who couldn’t move.

“It’s alright, boy. It was Tanny who dragged you here.”

“No, I didn’t. It was Boulder’s idea.”

The kids and adults that came to rescue them had a tearful and laughter-filled reunion. The kids oblivious to the absolute danger they were in and what their saviors had to go through. A little ways away, Fid and Thorn were having an important discussion.

“This is a Mageode, isn’t it?”

“Sure is.”

“I was hoping you would say I was seeing things.”

Fid breathed a heavy sigh. To her, these things were dangerous instigators of war. A small town like this would be trampled over it. There is no telling what idiots would do to claim what is essentially an emperor’s ransom.

“Fill it in and bury it.”

“It’s already pretty buried.”

He was right. The entire town, including the ziggurat, was buried under meters of dirt.

“You’ll need to reseal this place. If you can fix the roof, then do that. If not, bury the whole thing. Just don’t let your dad try anything funny.”

“Noted.”

“Thanks. How you handle this will determine the town’s future. Speaking of the town, can you make a stone ramp out of here.”

“No can do. Stone is a level issue, not a rank issue.”

“So [Sage] doesn’t exempt you from level requirements.”

“No, it gives me a higher effective level, but that’s it.”

“Then can you raise a dirt platform up there?”

“Can’t do that either. That’s a quantity limit. It’s too much.”

The best case scenario would be to somehow jump out of this hole and then go sleep in a hotel, but it’s looking like they’ll be stuck climbing out the long way. With how wounded and tired everyone is, it could take another few hours to get back to Tree-Hill.

[Gaian Manipulation] works on Land, Sea, and something else. Hmm. Yes, that’s it. That’s our way out. 

“Twig! What are the plants like on this hill?”

“Give me a second. Oh, so that’s where we’re at.”

“What do you mean? Do we have a tree? A large one is preferable.”

“Yeah, the [Crystal Trees] are right above us.”

“Crystal? That’s a weird name. I don’t remember anything like that when I got here.” 

“Well, that’s because they look like normal trees now. They used to change color with the crystal.”

“There was a crystal!?”

“Yeah, a big one. Boss sold it off a decade ago to finance the train station. There was almost a riot over that.”

“BOSS!”

Fid wasn’t a crystal scholar, but she easily pieced together the puzzle. That crystal was made from the Mageode and was connected to the ziggurat. It likely fed sunlight down here to keep the area uncorrupted, a common technology used in underground settlements for millennia. 

The [Death Spirit] arrived six months ago and fled here, then made this burial ground into its den and the deceased into its minions. If that crystal was still there, this place wouldn’t have any undead. 

Fid rushed to Boss and gave him an earful, letting him know exactly how unfit for office he was. She ignored every excuse he had and kept berating him until she was certain that he wouldn’t cause more problems with the Mageode.

“Hey guys, I made us an exit.”

Thorn had figured out what Fid’s idea was and pulled several roots from the walls and opened up a small hall in the region of the roof they could climb to. Thorn and Boulder had to help Ember climb out, but everyone got up to the surface and enjoyed a breath of fresh air.

Fortunately for those disgruntled about Boss’ level-up, he had a day full of work ahead of him. Work he couldn’t get out of.

— — —

It’s been a month since the “incident”, as the adults keep calling it. The Ancient lady left right away. It sucked because she looked so cool. I really wanted to chat with her. She reminded me of images that were in the other memories. I get the feeling that the “other me” really liked women like her, but I don’t understand why.

Everything else went back to normal. The Mayor and Thorn have been working on fixing the hill. Dad recovered after a few days and went back to work. The biggest change is we were banned from Tree-Hill and can’t talk to any other kids about what happened.

“Rose, come down here.”

Rose came downstairs to the common room and found his parents and little sister sitting on the couch with tea and cookies. Rose went over and sat in the space between his parents.

“You’ll have to help in the house for a few months. You won’t be able to play with Tanny and the others.”

“What? I’m sorry about going into the tunnels. I promise I won’t do it again!”

Ember and Forest laughed at Rose’s worry.

“No, sweetie. It’s nothing like that.”

“Mom won’t be able to do everything on her own. You’re going to have another little sibling.”

“We have to celebrate.”

“Don’t worry about that. We’re planning something. For now, go play with your friends and let them know you’ll be busy.

“OK!”

Rose rushed out of the house. He found her in the small hills closest to the town. The larger hills are now off-limits after the collapse of Crystal Hill. The mayor declared that all the larger hills are off-limits until an investigation is done. He had a wall erected around them and hired a patrol.

“Tanny!”

She was chasing squirrels while practicing her magic. She almost caught enough for dinner. 

“Rose! Perfect timing, I was getting bored with the squirrels.”

Tanny through a wooden sword toward Rose, who barely caught it before firing a jet of water at him. He barely knocked it aside before she shot another jet. Tanny chased him around, firing her water magic while Rose barely stayed dry.

“Tanny, stop!”

“Haha, what’s the matter, can’t keep up?”

“I can’t play with you anymore.”

“Huh?” Tanny suddenly stopped and looked like she was about to cry.

“I’m going to have another sibling. My family needs my help now that my big brother isn’t here anymore.”

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Tanny’s expression instantly changed into her usual grin and jumped onto Rose to give him a hug.

“That’s great, Rose!”

“Tanny, I can’t breath.”

“Rose, we need to go.” Tanny’s voice lost her cheerfulness, instead, she whispered with seriousness. 

“Someone weird is watching us.”

Tanny had noticed the man in all black hiding behind the trees. He wasn’t particularly well hidden, but he was at least trying to sneak closer to the kids.

“Achoo.”

“Oh, no! Rose, are you getting sick? We need to get you home.” Tanny said these words very loud and clearly. She was hiding that they knew about the strange man and were attempting to escape.

The two safely made it home, but that didn’t stop their parents from being upset.

—   —   —

“What can we do about this?

“Not much for now. We’ll have to keep an eye out.”

Father Charity and mayor Boss were having an important discussion in the town office. A danger was creeping into town.

“We can’t just allow the Shadow to do what they want here.”

“We’re a small town. If we take direct action, the retaliation could get a lot of people killed. Children should stay inside and adults should start patrolling.”

“What good is patrolling if we can’t get rid of them.”

“It’ll stop anything bad from happening. Include warnings in your sermons from now on.”

— — —

Rose was cooped up in bed with a cold. He was staying in his brother’s room when there was a knock at his door.

Ember came in and sat on the bed, then pulled Rose into a gentle hug.

“I have bad news.”

Rose’s father was rarely this somber or serious. A nasty feeling welled up in his stomach.

“Your friends were attacked.”

“Huh, who attacked them!?”

Rose had matured a little bit since his experience in the hills. He was upset that anyone would attack his friends, but his father ignored his question.

“Sky and boulder are both in the hospital. Sky will likely lose his left eye, but otherwise, he’s fine. Boulder, though, took a lot of damage and is still unconscious. We’re worried he’ll slip into a coma.”

“What about Tanny or Thorn!?

“Thorn wasn’t there.”

Ember stayed silent for a little bit. It hurt him to tell his son about this and to see those tears.

“Little Mountain is missing.”

Rose was in shock while Ember considered telling him everything. If she was just missing, there was a chance she could be found safely, but with the context…

“We think she was kidnapped by the Shadow. You probably won’t ever see her again.”

The Shadow is a group of [Cultist Mercenaries] under the command of the wizard guilds of Midgard. Everyone knew how they operated and what their masters were after. There was little a small town like theirs could do against an infamous criminal organization with such a powerful backer. The only people that could do something would be Heroes. The celebrity adventures were nearly exempt from the politicking of private organizations.

It gave Rose a new goal.

— — —

“Any luck on decrypting the scene’s original script?”

The Director initially accepted letting the “other world” do what it wanted, but now she has established an entire department dedicated to decoding the [Script]. She now needed to know exactly what was being planned next.

“Sorry, ma’am, we’re still playing catch up.”

“If we can’t get the information before the events happen, the [Script] is useless.”

“It might not be possible. Some program seems to be blocking our attempts.”

“A sort of anti-data-mining program, then? It’s incredible how much engineering went into protecting the world.

“It would appear so. Our current technology can’t crack it.”

It doesn’t make any sense. The [Script] was supposed to only be a world integration program for PCs. Why is it behaving so differently when applied to an NPC?

The only difference is the instancing. PCs aren’t allowed in the instance we’re using…

“Ma’am, I do have some good news. Based on our current data, the team has projected that his brother would have intervened in the current fiasco.”

“How is that good news?”

“We can expect the absence of the brother to be the main cause of the past two events.”

“The brother’s archetype seems to be of a man that experienced hardship and dedicated himself to protecting his siblings.”

The first event was supposed to have him save the kids from the low-level monsters. No undead was supposed to be there.

The second event was him saving kids from dangerous criminals. No one would have gotten hurt or kidnapped.

The events get progressively more dangerous in the original script. Now that we’re off-script, it’s being exaggerated. The next event will be even worse.

“Instead, he experienced a sense of powerlessness and left. As a result the two incidents became as they were.”

“Ma’am, that kind of character sounds like….”

“Yeah, He was the type that dies by the third episode. He’d save his little brother, who would then awaken his powers. Too late to save his big brother, but soon enough to save the world.”

“Do you really think that was the original script?”

“It’s just a guess, but it would mean each situation will be worse than the last. It will culminate in something bad enough to kill the brother. This is really not good.”

If the original event is designed to kill someone important, then the escalated event could destroy the town.

“Ma’am, you already added a new sibling. It may be that the roles reversed.”

“You think V will take on the big brother role? That would also be bad. The [Script] says the big brother dies.”

The Director compared the decrypted script to the new events since that night. 

We need testing. Can we inject a new scenario? If our scenario replaces the one in the original script, what would happen? Would it also get escalated or would it go as we plan it, without escalation? It might be a viable way to control this chaos.

“Where is Sir? I need him to plan an experiment.”

“About that, Mr. Sir has….”

Damn.