Chapter Thirteen - Witherbrand - Part Three

  The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

  -Lao Tzu-

  My eyes are glued to the small blue text box. It says rerolling reward, but it’s been rerolling for two minutes straight… for fucks sake. My mood shifts when the red and gold text entities appear again in side by side black boxes.

  Nope, not wasting my time watching this repetitive exchange again. Sighing rather loudly, I open my skills menu up again. Ignoring the entities as they hammer away with cosmic checkers over whether to fuck me or not. Okay, so I’ve figured out that Brand of Withering can stack damage. Right now, if I had full Wither Charges I can do a total of seven percent damage. Which could be useful at higher levels, depending on how the charges are obtained, since they increase by one each level.

  This is frustrating. No, stop that. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. No class is useless. Focus, take what you have. Build on it. Pulling up the interface, I select the other new skill I have, I’m guessing it’s the one for me already being past level five. Good to know, skills granted on level milestones must be retroactive… not that I’d want to use Respec on Death again. That was… yeah.

  [ Skill: Whispering Decay ]

  [ Usage: Adds the passive effect Whispering Decay to Brand of Withering. ]

  [ Effect: Directly effects the targets sanity. ]

  [ Duration: Lasts until brand is consumed or removed. ]

  [ Activation: While brand is applied to target, roll for activation occurs every second. ]

  [ Cost: None. ]

  Okay… so it’s a passive debuff that needs to roll for successful activation, what are the chances that it activates though? Also, it’s only effective while the brand is still rolling for activation… so it stops after the Brand of Withering activates. Great. More fucking vague explanations. What does sanity even mean? Like does it make them go crazy or just tickle their ear with bad jokes? At least it doesn’t have a cost. That is a positive, still, it would have been nice to get something more… reliable? I need to figure out how to get Wither Charges so I can test this skill out. Also, I need to stop bitching. I’m alive. Looking over, I see the red and gold text entities are still fighting it out again. I need sleep. Hopefully it’s done in the morning.

  ***

  Rolling out of bed, I didn’t sleep very well. Not just because my system interface needs ad block software with all these damn text boxes still fighting. But because my dreams were pretty fucked. Haunting really. Shaking it off, I put on my clothes. There’s only ten hours before my extra duty technically starts again. I need to research this Wither Charge thing.

  ***

  After getting breakfast and checking the library on post, I’ve found no mention of Witherbrand or Wither Charges anywhere. The only other place I could think to go to find out is the Off-worlders area.

  It takes my liquor ration card to get past the gate guards. That’s fine though, Tran and Barlow usually use it anyways. Making my way through the newly arrived off-worlder campsite, I find myself feeling lucky that I’m not one of them. Rows of tents behind barb wire fences. It’s pretty dismal conditions in here. Lots of hollow eyes, especially from the ones who just arrived. Still confused, still mourning the loss of their world.

  It’s pretty fucked up what the Earth does with most of them. Human off-worlders, they get slipped right in and added to regular population after doing ten green gates. But the ones that aren’t human, especially the ones that look more beast than man, they get the worst end of the stick. Even when they have good or rare classes. They get the one hundred gate sentence. Takes them a minimum of two years, and they have to give up all of their gate rewards. Living in damn internment camps. Makes me sick. But I’m just a grunt, nothing I can do except land myself on extra duty for stealing scraps for them.

  Trevanius’s tent is coming into my view, some of the off-worlders know me, and give me approving nods, others not so much. Low growls and curses as I walk by. Don’t blame them. It’s hard to blame the system when it’s not a physical thing you can punch in the face. Me though, I’m sure I look pretty punchable to them.

  Stolen story; please report.

  As I come up, Trevanius stands, surprised to see me, but he extends his arm. Embracing it back in their gripping forearm custom, I give him a weak smile. Others from his group come too, giving me a semi approving nod.

  “Jimmy of the Novaks, you honor us with your visit,” he says, now giving an overly done bow before rising up again, “Would you like some tea?”

  “Uh, yeah, sure, thank you,” I say, sitting on an open seat in his tent.

  There’s drawings all over the inside of it, hung up on the walls with duct tape. Beautiful scenes of massive trees and other things. Stones that hover over rippling lakes. From what I’ve heard, mana and magic wasn’t a new concept for most off-worlders. Guess the Earth just lost the art or something. Don’t know. Not what I’m here for, yet I can’t help but ask.

  “Are these of your home world?”

  He nods, solemnly. Fuck, I shouldn’t have asked. The others hanging out at the edge of the tent give me a wary look.

  “It’s beautiful, the artwork.”

  He nods.

  “My niece made it, I have not seen her in many moons,” he says.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I say, it feels like I stepped on an emotional landmine.

  “Don’t be, she is not gone from this world,” he says, looking pensively out the open flaps at the noon sun, “She is off doing important things, I will see her again soon.”

  The way he says it, I think he believes it. That’s a lot of emotional baggage to unpack. Maybe it’s callous to not open that can of worms, but I have my own stuff I’m dealing with. Besides, looking around, he’s got a lot of people who care about him.

  “Jimmy of the Novaks, you did not say why you came,” Trevanius says pensively. Handing me a dented metal cup, steaming with… what looks like dried roots or something. I don’t know.

  “I have a couple questions,” I say, taking a sip, very bitter, “Do you know what a Witherbrand is?”

  His eyes widen, expression changing, hand shaking a little as he puts down his cup of tea.

  “Where did you hear such a thing?” he asks, the others in the tent give me a strange look now too.

  “I, uh, heard someone in another Platoon got it as a subclass.”

  “Impossible,” he says, shaking his head.

  “Why?”

  “It is a cursed class, one marked by death. Only those who have risen from beyond may claim it. Usually, it’s reserved for Lich ranked undead or something equivalent.”

  What... well damn, I guess dying with Respec on Death made me eligible? Not sure how I feel about that. Does that mean that all of my future classes will be Cursed? No, don't think like that, I'm not dying again. Besides I don't even know if it can be activated again, and I don't want to find out.

  “I have only heard tell of one mastering it. Mazacarath, The Undead King, the one that wiped out our world’s greatest heroes, damning us. He was, or perhaps still is a Witherbrand.”

  Gazes fall to the floor, sadness and grief etched across their faces. Shit. Emotional landmine yet again. Still, I need to wade through it, I need information.

  “Do you know anything about how the class works, or about Wither Charges?”

  He stares at me strangely, “The only advice I can give on it,” he looks down at his tea, “If you see one Jimmy of the Novaks… run.”

  ***

  There wasn’t much more that he could tell me, and the once semi approving nods became pretty different the more I asked after that. Still, I learned something. Walking back to the post library, I ruminate on what Trevanius said. Maybe this class has some promise to it.

  It also has a major issue. If anyone sees me using it, they’ll know something is different about me. Which means I’ll probably be interrogated, and have to spill the beans on Ulana and Respec on Death. I don’t know if talking about that has consequences. Honestly, I don’t really want to find out either. Anyone that can fuck with time, and the system, probably shouldn’t be fucked with. Snitches get stitches after all.

  I’m about to kick a rock in front of me, when I get a pop up that stops me in my tracks. What the fuck…

  [ Respec on Death Quest ]

  [ Accept? ]

  [ Yes / Cry ]

  My eyes stare at the boxes. The text is all gold except for the cry option. Red. This red text entity, is definitely a gold medalist in the asshole Olympics. Dick. What kind of quest though? What’s the reward? I’ve never seen a quest outside of a gate before. There’s a timer that shows up in blue underneath it all.

  2 minutes : 46 seconds

  It’s ticking down. What happens if I don’t click it and the timer runs out? My heart starts racing, thinking about the what ifs.

  1 minute : 23 seconds

  What could the quest even be on Earth? My eyes look over to the corner of my vision. The red and gold text entities are still duking it out over my reward reroll. Well, I guess they know how to multitask. I don’t know, the gold text has never tried to screw me yet. Maybe I should just click it.

  7 seconds

  Fuck. My finger clicks yes. A blue text box appears.

  [ Establishing Connection ]

  What? Establishing connection to where? My stomach turns. Then suddenly, everything changes. The air shifts around me and that sickly feeling of being shoved through a tiny hole at the speed of light racks my body. Its taking me somewhere… my eyes close to try and stop the disorientation of spinning light like they teach us. Why is this taking so long? Usually its faster. Then suddenly, it stops.

  Cold, really fucking cold. My arms instantly snap to my body in an attempt to keep my heat in against the frigid wind. Thick snow stings against my face, my head spins frantically around. As far as the eye can see, which isn’t far with the wind, endless snowy tundra. Where am I? I do a double take, looking for a gate… there isn’t one. Then how? How did I get here? A blue pop up text box opens in front of me.

  [ New Quest : Survive ]

  No… no… no…

  My eyes blink at it. Memories flashing in my mind as my thoughts race. A timer appears.

  23 hours : 58 minutes : 12 seconds

  I’ll die of hypothermia in these conditions before that. Think, what do they teach us? The wind is drowning out my thoughts. Think damn it. Shelter. I need to find shelter. Quickly too. Which direction though? Where do I go? I can barely see in this snow storm. There’s no gate here that I have to return to. My eyes close, taking a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Just pick a direction and go. When my eyes drag back open, my foot takes the first step toward the unknown.