Asphodel – The Sixth Age – Third Year – Forty-Sixth Sun

Adam took what remaining energy he had and spat the pool of blood in his mouth to the ground. With every muscle and tendon is his neck tensed, he strained to turn and look up at Mary. Her face displayed disappointment, as her fist recoiled past her shoulder. The blow came fast and hard, hitting Adam’s temple with enough force to knock him unconscious before his head slammed into the ground. A dark, other worldly haziness surrounded him before the Bang! of Mary’s side arm ended the session by blowing open his skull.

Adam awoke to a dusky haze, as he had many times before. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust. After a moment, Adam rolled his fingers and toes, followed by mentally checking each of his limbs. It was a unnecessary ritual that he had become accustomed to upon regenerating in Tartarus after his death. He had spent the last three weeks in Asphodel, training with Mary and none of the skills she was ‘teaching’ him seemed to be sticking. Adam wondered if she just enjoyed beating the crap out of him.

Adam yawned, feeding oxygen into his brain. He sat up and rubbed his eyes to see Mary sitting with her legs crossed in the lotus position. Her eyes were closed and she was humming softly to herself. This is how it always started when Adam regenerated. He’d wake to Mary in deep meditation, and then the pain would start. Three straight weeks of him getting his ass kicked without any explanation as to how to defend himself.

Adam pulled himself to his feet and sighed. “Let’s get on with it,” he mumbled.

Mary’s eyes popped open and her gaze snapped to his face, “Is this boring you?” she asked sternly.

“What?”

Mary undid her legs, and was on her feet in a flash. She rushed Adam, stopping within an inch of his face. “Is this a game to you?”

Adam found the question incredibly condescending, “Technically it is…”

Mary rotated her upper body, slamming her elbow into Adam’s jaw. His head whipped to the left as blood flew from his mouth and splattered to the ground. Adam stumbled but regained his footing and held his ground. “What is this?” he shouted back, spitting blood from his mouth. “Some sick sense of comradery for you? Beat the new guy till he breaks?”

Mary struck him again, her fist landing just above his eye socket, knocking him in the opposite direction of the first hit. He stared at the ground, holding his forehead.

“Are you tired of the pain?” she asked in a mockingly motherly voice.

Adam’s anger grew. The beatings from the last few weeks flooded his mind. The hundreds of deaths he endured, some quick, but most slow and painful. The unstoppable, viscous, cold nature that Mary presented day in and day out. Adam’s heart began to race, his breathing grew heavy as adrenaline poured into his system. Mary took a calm step closer and Adam decided to seize the moment.

Adam rotated, driving his fist toward Mary’s stomach. She caught it at the last second, twisted her grip and rotated his arm into a painfully awkward position. Mary applied pressure and forced Adam to his knees. “Three weeks we’ve been training and you’ve given me nothing,” she said authoritatively in his ear. “I’ve haven’t seen a damn thing that indicates that you want to learn, that you want to actually survive. This is a waste of my time.”

Adam’s heart raced faster. He could feel the Wrathic inside him itching to get out. Problem was, he was weak during the transformation. Mary would kill him before he had a chance to change. Adam shifted slightly and raised his foot before forcing his heel onto Mary’s large toe. There was a sicken crunch and Mary’s grip loosened.

Adam wriggled free and dodged back a few steps, making sure to never lose sight of Mary as did. She looked down at her toe, then shifted her stance slightly to put more weight on the opposite foot. “Waste of your time?” Adam growled.

“Do you enjoy the pain?” she asked taking a step closer. Adam shifted but did not retreat.

“Of course not!”

“A masochist, is that all you are? I thought you could be a guardian, but maybe I was wrong.”

“You haven’t taught me a damn thing!”

Mary moved forward with purpose, and her hand shot to Adam’s neck. He tried to wriggle free but her fingers were like a vice. “A true warrior can learn by observing. Each fight, each defeat is a lesson in itself. Guardians have to be observant of their surroundings, they have to take subtext and turn it text.” She shoved him away.

Mary gave him a moment to dissect the words. Adam stood there, muscles tensed, ready for another attack from Mary. As the seconds ticked by, he thought back on all of their fights. He thought back to the punches, the jabs, the kicks, the way that she used his body weight against him or took advantage of the smallest opportunities to take control of each situation. It started small with punches and kicks, then moved up to grabs and breaking bones, but she never explained how to fight back. Then he realized…she didn’t have to.

Suddenly it began to click. Everything fell in to its proper place as Adam began to understand. Memories in Asphodel were part of the programing. Recalling them was much easier than the real world, it was more akin to replaying a video in your head, you could even recall the information at a fraction of the time. He had all the tools he needed to start increasing his skill levels, her fighting styles and how she responded to his feeble attacks. That’s what Mary was trying to make him understand all along.

Mary noticed Adam’s expression change. So she took a step closer, but he didn’t move. She took another step closer and slid her feet into an offensive stance, signaling that she was about to attack. Adam’s weight shifted, his eyes on the ground. Mary lunged at half speed, throwing a short punch to Adam’s stomach.

Mary’s knuckles brushed against Adam’s shirt but his stomach isn’t what stopped them; Adam’s fingers were clamped around her wrist. He finally looked up from the ground to see Mary smiling. Adam smirked and rotated Mary’s fist away from his body, using an awkward angle to force her down to a knee.

The next five minutes were a compilation of slow motion fists and feet smacking against limbs. Adam wriggled himself out of more than one hold, trying desperately to keep up with his subconscious reacting to whatever Mary threw at him. She was holding back, he could tell, but he understood why. Adam had the information, he had the moves stored in his brain to recall at will, but he didn’t have muscle memory in the game yet. Now that his brain was relaying the information to his body, she was giving it time to calibrate.

Mary and Adam separated from a particularly well timed bought just as a small bell went off in Adam’s head. At first he had thought that Mary had heard it too as she stopped advancing. They both stood there, taking a moment to catch their breath before Mary pointed it out. A blinking blue light on his right forearm.

“Is this?” Adam asked between breaths. He had seen skinterfaces in the real world once or twice, and knew that Asphodel had a user interface, but he hadn’t been able to access it yet.

“Menu beacon, yup. Give it a tap,” Mary answered.

Adam tapped the blue dot on his arm and a bright blue, holographic user interface suddenly appeared in front of him. It was square, roughly half the size of a door and floating three feet above the ground, two feet from his face.

“Asphodel’s leveling up system. With enough experience in a particular field, you get an experience point to use in that particular skill as well as points added to your overall level.”

“Like Skyrim?”

“Very much like Skyrim,” Mary said with a smile. “However, this interface doesn’t become accessible until you hit level five, and for every skill you level up, you get a point to use for that skill. You’re overall class level grants you new powers, or bolsters your existing ones, but it doesn’t happen at every level. We also don’t know what your powers will be. Powers aren’t revealed until you reach the level that unlocks them. Most everyone else in Asphodel can find out what their skills will be by reaching out to other users in their class but, you’re the only documented Wrathic so no go on that.”

Adam glanced over the user interface in front of him. On the top left it displayed his current level, which was 5. Next to the level, it had an overall experience bar that showed how many points he needed to reach the next level. He was currently at 5,000 points and needed 1,500 to progress. Below the overall experience bar, there were several tabs, including, inventory, skills, records, map, and affiliations.

“You just touch to navigate through the system,” Mary said. “There are artifacts in Asphodel that allow you to run through your interface in your head or on your arm without moving, but they’re pretty rare. Most people need to find a safe place to open it up to apply changes as need be; pull out armor, weapons, or gear.”

Adam scrolled through each tab to get a feel for the interface. The skills tab was flashing between white and blue so he tapped that first. The initial interface of the menu disappeared and was replaced by the skills screen. The skill that Adam had most recently gained experience in and therefore leveled up in was displayed first.

“Melee,” Adam said, “Makes sense.” Melee was bright white while the rest of the skills were a dull blue. The font was three times larger then the rest of the skills and it was centered on the screen. Other skills were above and below it, such as small firearms, swords, light armor, heavy armor, strength, and agility.

Mary chimed in. “If you swipe up or down you’ll be allowed to selected another skill and upgrade or look at your current progress. Any skills that have advanced in level will be displayed in white when you open the skill tab. Tap melee.”

Adam did. The screen changed again, it displayed ‘Melee’ at the top in bold letters and then below was a skill tree that offered different powers, passive and active, that Adam could acquire as he developed his melee skill.

“It’s pretty straight forward, each time you go up a level in a particular skill, you get a point. You can apply that point to any skill on the tree that’s available to you at that time. Since this is your first point being spent on your melee skill, you only have one option.”

‘Hand to hand’ was blinking white. Adam reached out and touched it. The interface grew brighter and a white flash took over the screen before ‘Hand to hand’ appeared in bold letters while what sounded like a hammer hitting metal rang out in triumphant success.

“Don’t worry, the sound is only there for theatrics. You’re the only one who can hear it and you can turn it off in the settings if you want, along with the fancy animation.” Mary said.

Adam rather enjoyed the fanfare. After weeks of getting his ass kicked, it felt like he accomplished something, and it was good to be recognized. “Level 1” slammed into place below the hand to hand title before they both reduced in size and flew up to the top of the interface. A little description about the upgrade was displayed on the screen, it said…

‘Let’s be real for a minute, you’re still spending a lot of time with your face in the dirt. But every now and then you get a hit in. You’re starting to fight back, and you’ll need that motivation to survive in Asphodel. This world wasn’t built on sunshine and rainbows, it was built on bloodied fists and broken bones. So pick up your ass and get in the fight! Oh, and since you’re starting to get the idea, he’s a little bonus for hitting level one. All melee damage received now provides a 1% increase in experience earned, and all damage dealt provides a 2% increase in experience earned. Now go kick some ass! You’re just getting started.’

Adam tapped the screen and it returned to melee skill tree.

“Standard settings also allow for everyone to see your interface, but you can change that too. A lot of people change it to display just for them,” Mary added.

“So if they’re engaged in battled or a fight, they can lay low and go through their inventory without broadcasting to anyone else that they may be vulnerable?”

“Exactly. You can also customize all of your display options. Your health isn’t displayed anywhere because Hidarian wanted Asphodel to feel as real as possible, so most people just ‘feel’ their health, but you can add a HUD, or heads up display to your view, or add health and mana bars to your skinterface near the menu beacon. Being a Shifter, mana is something you’ll want to keep an eye on, the more mana you have the longer you can stay in your creature form. Health and mana will automatically increase with each level.”

Adam backed out of the melee skill screen, then tapped the blue light on his forearm. The entire interface disappeared and the blue light on his forearm remained, unblinking.

“And don’t worry,” Mary said looking at the light. “That is only visible to you from the start. It’s not going to light up a cave if you’re hiding in the dark, but like everything else that can be changed. We can monitor your menu in Tartarus, that’s how I knew it was there.”

“Good to know,” Adam said with a nod.

Mary took a few steps closer to Adam and slapped him on the shoulder, squeezing it for a moment before letting go. “I know the last few weeks have been a little rough, and I wish I could tell you that things were going to get better…”

Mary paused to contemplate her next words. She didn’t actually need to, but it displayed a struggle to Adam. Questioning how to proceed made it seem like she was struggling between honesty and HTG’s own goals. Being honest with him would then seem more genuine and continue to build their trust.

“Truth be told, it may get better in some ways, but things are also going to get harder Adam. The benefits of Tartarus are clear, you can feel pain, you can push yourself to death, and still gain experience to level up. That will translate over to the rest of Asphodel, but you need to be careful. This place can make you jaded, and while pushing through pain can save your life, you can’t forget the consequences of death.”

The large wooden doors that led into the training portion of Tartarus appeared behind Mary. She turned and pointed to them. “Out there, if you die, your character is gone, and there’s no telling as to whether or not your new one will come back as a Wrathic. I’d bet my life that you won’t.” Mary dropped her head and stared at the ground. “The road ahead is going to be hellish for everyone involved, so you need to remember the end game. Not just for yourself, but the billions and billions of lives that DARC wants to destroy by exploiting your power.”

Adam felt the need to process everything that Mary had said. He felt the need to stand there and wrestle with his nature and what he knew of the real world versus Asphodel, but he didn’t. All Adam could think of was how the real world had tortured him. His whole life was defined by the disease that ravaged his body, making him nothing more than a lump of flesh that needed to be taken care of. He had no family, and no friends save for a computer program. The real world had never done anything to garner respect or loyalty from him, and it was now clear that regardless of how perfect it had become…he hated it. Asphodel was his home now. He had a purpose and could institute real change, for this world and the one that abandoned him. There was no struggle in his mind. This was the end game, and he’d do anything and everything to ensure that he’d succeed.

“Sounds like we have a lot of work to do,” Adam said with a smirk. “What skills do I get to learn now?”