58

Hunters

Rian walked around the center of the chamber to the other side, where the waist-height pillars sprawled outward beginning in a semi-circle. For a moment he eyed the central device behind him, thinking that maybe he was meant to place a tesseract inside it. In a few minutes, a colored tesseract would appear there anyway. He had no idea what would happen if he disrupted the process.

What he’d noticed initially was that there was an empty aisle leading up to here: a column where the pillars otherwise would’ve been, which made a walkway up to the tesseract-holding mechanism. There was no such aisle on the other side, a broken symmetry that had caught his attention.

Looking a bit beyond that, he’d seen a pattern in the layout of the pillars.

All he had was a hunch. He had come into the Rift with only fourteen colorless tesseracts, and he needed to save at least two for invading other sessions. Spending one like this was risky, but his instincts told him that he had to try it at least once.

He crushed a tesseract in his hand. Temporal energy surrounded his body with faint distortions like heat haze.

Something felt different, as if he could sense that he was splitting in two before he’d even activated Mirage: Cancel. He looked down at his palms. The glow surrounding his body wasn’t any stronger than usual, but slight afterimages were trailing his movements. It was like looking through a prism and seeing his hands recursively split into fainter and fainter images trailing off into darkness.

“I’m assuming you’ve noticed,” Corvis said, “but the presence of tesseracts within any sort of Rift area can have…unexpected consequences.”

Rian thought he understood why. A tesseract was supposedly a unit of energy created by the Undoing, which in the Rifts hadn’t happened yet. He was essentially harnessing energy from the future. Even if the Overworld’s continuity remained stable from whatever actions players took, the Rifts were different—they were meant to create offshoots and alternative timelines.

Doing what he was doing likely served to unravel space-time itself. He couldn’t quite imagine the consequences of such a thing.

“But I saw Kat use Mirage skills here,” he said. “Or at least I think that’s what she was doing.” He remembered her seemingly teleporting all over the place when he wasn’t looking during their Rift session. He hadn’t even known what a Mirage skill was back then. “Nothing unusual happened to her.”

“Some areas in particular,” Corvis said, “are more susceptible to the effect. The further you go into the past, the stronger and more unpredictable it can become. Here, especially.” He gestured to the empty tesseract-holding device. “There’s a temporal channel into the future for the purpose of generating a tesseract. Time and space are already somewhat destabilized at this location.”

Rian eyed the placement of the pillars again. Where he was standing, there was an empty circle surrounding the center of the room. He counted out the number of pillars along the inner circumference, and then focused on the one he wanted to target: at a forty-five-degree angle from where he stood.

It’s a long shot, but…

Pulling the mental trigger on Mirage: Cancel, he split into two and lunged in opposite directions. Just as he lost his mental grip on what he was doing, he reached the two equidistant pillars he intended to and jabbed.

As before, they lit up when struck. Then the same effect he’d seen earlier happened in front of him—in two places at once, he saw fading afterimages of himself appear in a cascade, extending outward in a line, each of them repeating his action.

For a moment, he lost track of where he was. Instead of two, he’d split into dozens of himself, each copy hitting a pillar further down, each replica of himself pulling at his mind. Distantly, in what he thought was an out-of-body experience, he could feel his copies split yet again further down each line until there were four columns of his reflections.

When the skill ended, he was still in the center of the room but on the left side. He looked across the chamber and then saw the pattern that he’d made with the pillars.

The entire chamber rumbled. The same warp effect from the end of 1-1 began to play out around him, distorting the air.

With faint surprise, Corvis hovered a bit higher as he looked around, seeming to recognize the pattern created with the pillars. “That’s…”

It was a “Y” with two extra branches splitting off from the first two.

“The Mark of Yindra,” Rian said, nodding. “I don’t know why, but it just…came to me. I realized the aisle leading to the center could make the first part of it—the ‘stem’—and that I could try to fill in the branches with Mirage: Cancel.”

He’d thought there was more he’d have to do, but it all seemed automatic once he’d begun. He hadn’t even needed to hit any of the pillars individually. His clones had all struck the right ones without any conscious direction.

He hadn’t really expected it to work. A special “code” like the Mark being ingrained into this Pyceian chamber didn’t make sense if they had nothing to do with Yindra. But the Mark was, in a way, a sacred symbol. It might have appealed to some higher force governing the System upon which everything here existed to begin with.

There was no way to know, he figured. Just before everything went bright, all he knew from the System text entering his feed was that he’d found a shortcut.

***

TEMPORAL RIFT (GORGHEIT) 2-1

Goal: Defend the Onsolian army to progress into deeper rifts!

The Temporal Rift will close if ALL party members die. (Recommended party size: 3)

Temporal Rift World 2 time limit: 6 hours remaining.

Rian landed outside of Gorgheit in the plains surrounding the city. At a distance, the engraved copper walls blazed in the sunlight. Standing outside the city was a line of Pyceian soldiers.

To his right was an army of Onsolian mages—what must’ve been a hundred of them. But nothing was moving, not even the grasses in the wind. Rian checked the timer and it wasn’t counting down.

At his feet, surrounding him was a colorless circle, a rippling distortion along the ground. It was the only thing moving. Rian assumed that once he stepped over the line, time would resume and the stage would begin.

He took note of the party-size recommendation in his System info. “Well, I guess that’s the cue,” he said. As much as he’d prefer to solo whatever this place threw at him, he had no idea what was coming.

He prepared another tesseract. Letting the temporal energy surround his body, he felt the same effect: his body prematurely splitting before he’d consciously used a Mirage skill. He centered in his mind the thought of finding a friendly party to team up with, and then activated Mirage: Cancel.

When he split this time, it was as if one of his selves had jettisoned off from the other, dozens of parallel universes flying past him. A moment later, he found himself in the same place as before, but with three other people standing nearby: a bowman and two mages.

All of them gasping in surprise, they stepped back and aimed their weapons at him.

“Wait!” Rian said, showing his palms. “I’m not here to fight. I’m just looking for a party.”

The bowman, a tall and lithe man with bangs hanging over his eyes, slowly lowered his bow. One of the mages—in dark, violet robes—cautiously glanced to the other, a rather short and blond girl who was actually a priestess. When nothing further passed between them, their stances relaxed and they planted their staffs back on the ground.

“You recognize this guy, Bree?” the bowman said, still keeping an arrow nocked.

The mage shook her head. “Just some rando, it looks like.”

They didn’t seem to notice his guild, which was a good sign. He saw that theirs was “Xx_Hunters_xX.”

…Are the Xs really necessary?

He sighed. They were still clearly on edge from him invading their session. It wasn’t like there was a way he could convince them that he wasn’t here to gank them, unless—

“What’s your name, monk?” the bowman said. “If you’re really here to party up, we’ll have to check to make sure. Everybody’s a bit murder-happy right now.”

Rian introduced himself as Cobalt, and the others returned the favor. The bowman was Enishi; the mage, Bree; and the priestess, Chrono.

The moment Rian gave his in-game tag, the bowman brought up a visible menu. He was adding Rian to his friends list.

Even with the text reversed from his perspective, Rian could see what he was doing: checking their companionship level. When it came up as level one—“acquaintance”—Enishi closed the window and smiled, nodding.

Rian relaxed, dropping the tension from his shoulders. He felt as if he’d just passed a lie detector test. When he checked Enishi’s companionship level with him, it was negative one at first, but then quickly shifted to positive-one.

“Guess we’re in luck,” Bree said. “Our comp could use a tank.”

Chrono hopped in place once, pumping her fist. “Yes!”

Enishi breathed out a long, stressful sigh. “God, I knew we were gonna get invaded early, but I really thought that was the end there for a second.”

“Have people been ganking more often than normal?” Rian asked.

“Yeah,” Enishi said. “Sacred Tournament’s coming up, so everybody’s going a bit wild with the player-killing. Anyone serious about qualifying is gonna be in the Rifts to have more time to train and rank up, so we’re all a bit on the defensive.” With clear disdain, he glanced at Bree and Chrono. “I tried to tell them this is, like, the worst possible time to go exploring here, but they insisted. Doubt it’s gonna end well.” He turned to Rian again. “Guessing you’re looking for help?”

“I’m trying to get to the later worlds. But I’ve never been beyond the first one.”

“Ah. Well, no worries. We’re heading as deep as we can to fill out some lore entries and exploration achievements. Though we’re not exactly a combat-oriented group, if you could tell. You’re welcome to join us.”

Enishi (Lv. 36) has invited you to the party. Accept? (Y/N)

Rian nodded.

You are now partying with: Enishi (Lv. 36), Bree (Lv. 39), and Chrono (Lv. 28).

Companionship Bonuses (Lv. 1 x3): +6% EXP; +3 to all stats.

“You’re probably well suited for this stage, at least,” Bree said. “If your move-speed is up to par.”

“Hopefully it’s not too tough,” Rian said. “I only just hit level 35 today.”

“Pssh. If you struggle with this, wait until you see World 3.”

“Okay then,” Enishi said, walking toward the edge of the glowing circle. “Let’s get started.” As he passed over the line, everything around them returned to motion and the World’s timer began decrementing.

Wind drifted through the plains and across the Onsolian army. A tense silence hung in the air, broken only by a single conversation at the front of the line. Walking up, Rian followed Enishi and the others, catching a few glances from the Onsolians.

Standing ahead of the army was a single mage, his robes emblazoned with gold patterns. He was speaking to another with his hands folded behind his back. As the party approached, he turned toward them and squinted, bringing his hands to his side.

The uncertainty in his expression fell away. “Ah, time travelers,” he said. “Excellent. We could use your assistance.”

Rian almost laughed at how nonchalant he was about it. Like it was just another day when people from the future showed up. Then again, with what Decha had been like, Onsolians seemed to be completely fine with time magic and everything it entailed.

“We’re happy to help,” Enishi said.

The general, Rian presumed, smiled. “This is most fortuitous. I was just about to send one of our best into Gorgheit to open a temporal channel for assistance from the future, but it seems he’s gone missing.” He glanced down, then shrugged. “Odd that you all showed up so early. Well. I’m sure that means he succeeded, even if in a roundabout way. Causal resolution’s not my strong point.”

Rian tried not to flinch. He wasn’t sure if Decha even existed anymore with what Corvis had done to him. At the very least, his absence didn’t seem to break the timeline here.

The general pointed toward the city. “There are cannons mounted atop the walls. We’re sitting outside the range of them, but they’re also too far for our mages to strike with any accuracy. We’d rather not have to charge into their infantry with those cannons firing upon us, either, so you can see our predicament. However—”

He motioned toward a nearby group of Onsolians standing apart from the army line. Four of them lifted a hefty, metallic container and brought it over. When they set it down in front of the party, a set of interlocking pistons released on the container, and it opened with a hiss of steam.

“We recently recovered a few Pyceian devices,” the general said. “It seems they respond to temporal energy, but we haven’t been able to get them functioning for more than a few seconds. Time travelers like yourselves should be able to power them long enough, hypothetically.”

Reaching into the box, he pulled out something resembling an oversized watch: a wrist strap with a metallic dome atop it. He handed one to everyone in the party.

Rian slipped it onto his wrist. It fit like a buckler. From the dome atop the device, four spikes shot out in cardinal directions.

An energy field then rippled between the spikes, forming a circle that was almost large enough to cover his entire body. Nearly jumping as the shield had formed, Rian held his arm further away. Before it had activated, he’d nearly angled it in a way that would’ve cleaved through him.

“Perfect!” the general said, swinging his arm. “Those cheeky Kanenpo’ek bastards were right after all. The shields should be able to withstand at least a few beams from those cannons, and if you can deflect the incoming shots, it’ll give our mages time to charge up a collective spell rather than attack individually. We’ll be able to end the battle instantly.”

“What about the soldiers?” Rian said.

“Those Pyceians aren’t going to attack until we do. They aren’t as much of a threat as those cannons.”

“All right,” Enishi said. “Let’s get lined up. There’s five cannons, so I’ll take care of two.”

“Remember,” Bree said as she stepped away to get into position. “Push back when you see the charge-up flash.” She hadn’t said it to anyone in particular, but Rian had a feeling that advice was meant for him.

He didn’t quite understand, though.

Pssh. This’ll be easy. Don’t their lasers travel at like a snail’s pace?

And then he remembered—there was no level equalization effect in play, which meant no slow-down on projectiles.

Looking out at the cannons atop the city walls, Rian felt dread settling in. He brought the shield up, holding it closer.

Oh, yeah, sure. Let me just parry something at the speed of light.