Music! Dallion focused

It was hard enough trying to find the path in a complex zero gravity maze. It took Dallion a while before Dallion got the grip of practical perspective shift. It all looked fun and well in the movies, but whenever he tried to walk on a wall, twenty years of experience on Earth rejected the notion, causing him to fall. It didn’t help that the memories of Dallion from this world also saw it as too unusual to be of any help. In the end, it was Nox that had shown him what to do. The little crackling was quite at ease with the whole concept, not to mention more than eager to claw anything that blocked his path.

“Now!” Dallion shouted, playing a chord. The trio of creatures that were blocking the way froze, weapons motionless mid strike. Immediately, Nox took advantage. Aiming not at the creatures, but at the grip of their weapons, he clawed just enough to slice through the leather. Then, when Dallion played a second chord, he did the same to the enemies’ shoes.

Good boy, Dallion thought. One thing he had quickly found out when facing the echoes in the puzzle cube was that attacking them hurt Dallion more than it did them. Since they were echoes, one hit was enough to make them poof out of existence. However, by doing so, Dallion was hurting himself. Each attack killed inflicted the equivalent of a minor wound to him. Thus, disabling them, or pushing them off to another section of the cube, was vastly preferable, at least until he found the guardian. There, it would be a whole other ball game.

Thrashing them on the head will be fine, Nil said from the library. He wasn’t able to see what was going on, but Dallion had provided a very detailed description. In the hopes of getting some advice. So far, the only practical advice he’d received was to hit them on the head with something blunt.

“And again!”

The attackers froze up once more. After ruining their footing, the cracking proceeded to scar up as much as he could of a blade. Despite his enthusiasm it still took the creature several strikes to form a deep crack at the base of the hilt, and even that wasn’t enough to cause it to break. However, what Nox started, Dallion could finish.

Playing the next cord, Dallion charged forward, red and green markers following behind. One strike of the shield and a blade flew off from one of the attacker’s sword. Another and the echo was on the ground. Two more thumps followed, flooring the remaining, all before the effects of the music were over.

Enough music, Dallion closed his eyes for a moment. The pain wasn’t as strong as before, but constantly using the skill remained unpleasant. In the end, he still needed more practice. Hopefully, his skill would improve if he defeated the cube’s guardian… provided he ever got to it.

“Okay.” Dallion sat on the ground. “Let’s rest a bit.”

As he did, the echoes who had attacked disappeared into nothingness. That was one of the principles of “fighting oneself”—when the echoes were defeated, they disappeared on their own; there was no point in killing them. Their appearance could have saved some work. At present they had the form of distorted mirror reflections of Dallion and other people he’d met. Strangely, all of them were exclusively from this world. Apparently, Earth was beyond limit even when it came to illusions.

It was getting more and more exhausting, and Dallion had barely reached the inner area of the cube. Despite what Nil had initially said, reaching the center was more difficult than expected. It turned out that the distant walls weren’t part of the central structure, but of another cube room within the main one, and as it turned out later, there seemed to be an even smaller cube further still. Just thinking about the area he’d have to search to find the secret reward was enough to make Dallion dizzy. No wonder that Nil had suggested getting rid of the guardian first. The way things were going, Dallion was starting to think whether he should even bother with the reward. After all, he could always make up for it later, when he had gained a few levels. Then again, according to Nil, the awakening dungeon was also going to get more difficult. That was one of the prices of self-leveling: the more one did, the more difficult it became.

“Nil, you were right,” Dallion said. “They only attack when I reach a certain spot. I guess I’m pretty much safe once I’ve defeated them.” As much as Dallion wanted to believe his words, though, he couldn’t. The suspicion that something may suddenly pop up while he was resting had grabbed hold of him.

That is the common behavior of paradox cubes. And before you start making any suggestions, your cube is without a doubt a common one.

“How could you be so sure?”

You’d be singing a very different tune if it wasn’t. For one thing, nothing inside of it is moving.

That would indeed have been a considerable difficulty increase. For a world that was so log on technology, and had no idea of space travel, there sure were a lot of breaking of the laws of physics. Back on Earth, Dallion suspected that over ten space agencies would grab the opportunity to train their crews on how to perform spacewalks without exposing them to danger. He also knew a hundred game companies that would try to copy the experience and make it part of game creation.

Dallion tried to visualize as much of the cube as possible. He still remembers the path he had taken to pass certain sections, but more and more elements were becoming a blur.

“Okay, enough rest.” He stood up. “Nox, do you sense anything?”

The crackling waves its tail—an indication that everything was fine. So far there hadn’t been a single crack… which was good. However, Dallion would have preferred to have a way to determine the location of enemies before they attacked.

“Let’s keep going.”

A staircase led to a wall, which later became a floor leading to an archway that Dallion used as a bridge. Every step of the way, he held his harpsisword, ready to react. When he reached the end of the bridge. Dallion stepped sideways, shifting his perspective in such a way that the side of the bridge became a path. From what he could tell that was going to lead him to the innermost cube. The major difference was that unlike the other two cubes, this one had only “windows” leading in; or as Nil would say, “a window is a hole from a different perspective.”

On more than one occasion Dallion was tempted to have Nox attempt to slice an entrance, but decided against it. Doing so would only hurt him further.

One thing kept bothering him, though—there didn’t seem to be any particular challenge in going through this maze. After the initial shock, Dallion was able to see where he was supposed to go and simply follow the nearest path that connected the cubes. It this was such a big deal, he would have expected—

COMBAT INITIATED

Not again, Dallion grumbled.

Four echoes appeared a dozen steps away. This time all of them were armed with dartbows. Disarming them wasn’t going to be as easy as before. Dallion’s initial trough was whether not to just kill them all and take the twenty percent total health loss. The reckless side in him urged for that to happen—that was the faster way and it ensured that he wouldn’t receive even more damage from the bolts. The cautious side of Dalliob, however, won the mental fight, making him dash forward.

“Shield,” he said.

The metal segments expanded to the side of a giant umbrella, protecting his entire front. And just on time. Moments later, Dallion heard iron pieces bounce off with a cling. Four taps—four deflected shots. If the echoes recharged as quickly as Dallion did, there would be another four shots in a second.

“Nox, hide!” Dallion ordered. He couldn’t afford him getting hit.

Green markers appeared. This was one time at which the skill advice was faster than him. The enemies were going to attempt a combined double attack: two rushing at him, while two more kept him in their sights from a distance. Not a particularly bad plan, though not overly imaginative either.

Suddenly the strings of the harpsisword vibrated on their own. Dallion stopped moving the shield a fraction to the right so as to see what was going on. The moment he did he was able to see the echoes shift perspective and start running on the side of the path towards Dallion.

They can use gravity shifts too? Dallion jumped back. This was unexpected. Up till now, all enemies had fought in one surface plane. For them to have changed their behavior, Dallion must have gotten close to the center of the cube.

“Nice try!” Dallion jumped off the path, only to land on its side, precisely at the moment One of the attackers had come near. The creature was a distorted version of the Dherma village chief with a giant head and two dartbows. The moment Dallion was in his sights, the echo raised both weapons forward. Before he could fire, though, Dallion used the shield’s ability to create a wall. However, instead of surrounding himself, he used it to extend towards the echo, slamming it in the process.

That’s why you never split up, Dallion thought. The shield’s attack had proved to be strong enough not only to disarm the opponent, but completely knock him off the cube’s surface. The echo would spend a while falling through the distance between cubes until it was entirely gone. The battle, though, continued on.

Three green shield markers appeared in front of Dallion. Instinct combined with the shield’s reaction proved to be enough to block another pair of bolts from striking him. Unfortunately, the next bolt was not deflected.

MODERATE WOUND

Your health has decreased by 10%

The damage was hardly significant, but Dallion wasn’t able to see the trajectory the bolt had followed. Thinking back, the only explanation could be that it too had twisted around the path, shifting gravity as it did so.

“Nil, I’m facing a bunch that can change perspective.” Dallion said as he jumped up and flipped mid air, landing on a flight of stairs that until recently had taken the role of a ceiling. None of the enemy clones were closer, although a green shield marker suggested that another bolt was on its way toward Dallion. “Where are they coming from?!”

Don’t focus on the creatures, Nil said. You don’t get anything by defeating them. The fact that they’re using their environment means you’re close to the center. Just push on and got into the guardian chamber.

“That would be a bit difficult right now,” Dallion said through clenched teeth. He still didn’t see any way into the final cube. So far, if he had used his dartbow to kill off two of the echoes, things would have been much easier. Now, at seventy percent life, he no longer had that option.

Another bolt flew Dallion’s way. The projectile was blocked lazily as Dallion jumped up again, landing on the edge of the innermost cube. From here, the only thing he could do was run along the stone surface until he found a hole to jump into. The problem was—as Dallion soon discovered—that there were no longer any openings. The entire surface had turned into one solid wall.

“Nil, I’ve got a problem…” Dallion kept on running. “All the windows to the center just disappeared.”

That’s slightly unusual. The cubes shouldn’t change properties mid battle. Keep on looking, there must be at least one way to enter.

“Okay, but I’m not seeing any,” Dallion shouted. Maybe he was going to have to use Nox after all.