Chapter 119 – The Stormy Sea

“Back already?” Magoi turned the page of the newspaper he was reading. The dinosaur masked Fateweaver was sitting at a wooden table next to the Loot Basin. Neither the table nor the chair he was sitting on had been there this morning, but with his apparently god-like control over the Illusion Barrier things popping out of nowhere had stopped being surprising. Create had fixed John’s clothes, otherwise the Fateweaver probably would have had more questions.

John had noticed him reading newspapers, but had not cared about it before. Now that he was stepping off the gas, more of his curiosity managed to get back to the surface. “Stuff happened,” he kept his side of things short, as he walked up to the Loot basin. “What are you reading?”

“I am glad you ask!” declared the Fateweaver and folded the paper with a forceful motion, before shoving the cover into John’s face. While the man continued his commentary, the Gamer read what was before him. “This is the most prominent of the great newspapers in the Abyss: the Abyss Minutely. As the name suggests it is updated every few minutes. Check it out!”

Magoi opened a page in the middle of the paper. The headline read ‘Koreans raid Japan once again!’ “They are really dedicated to that, aren’t they?” John asked before Magoi could close the page. He had heard before that the Dangun Clan was keeping Japan down. Magoi reiterated that information.

“Yeah, just the usual. Ever since World War 2 the Koreans go out of their way to keep the Abyss of Japan very, very small. I understand the initial patrols they enacted, but by now it's just a cruel display of extortion. The Heavenly Jade Empress is the only one who could stop them and she’s too young to be respected in her decisions.”

“Heavenly Jade Empress?” John asked with a puzzled expression.

Magoi kept his cheery explanation going, “The Leader of the Mandate of Heaven. I suggest you inform yourself by reading the work of Frederik of Rex Germaniae or the more comprehensive guide from Lenin, although both are riddled with ideological annoyances.” 

John scratched his neck, he wasn’t even that surprised to hear historical names pop up anymore. “And this Heavenly Emperor can stand against Romulus?”

Silence, then Magoi laughed loudly and patted John on the back, “Naïve child, nobody can stand against Romulus.” The words were delivered with absolute certainty. “Although we speak of the two Emperors of the World, as someone who has met both of them I can assure you that those who hold the title of Heavenly Emperor are gods amongst men but Romulus… Romulus is a slayer of gods. However, he hasn’t cared much about most affairs for hundreds of years. Since Pompeii, or so I hear.” Magoi finally closed the newspaper, waited a moment, and then opened the exact same page again. Physically, the same page, at the very least. The content had shifted dramatically.

“Speaking of the devil! This might be of interest to you.” The Fateweaver said and pointed at the new headline.

“Romulus to visit Germany.” John mumbled to himself and then continued to read the article in silence.

‘In preparation for the upcoming election for the throne of Germany in Cologne, Romulus has left Rome and the business of running the greater empire to his advisor Rodaclam of Oreh. This election has been pushed back several times but as Frederik the Great announced three years ago, “My time has come, let the new generation rule!”. A lengthy selection process followed, you can read more on that in our upcoming special. Since then, the two remaining candidates, Maximillian Franz IX of house Habsburg and Lydia Augusta IV of house Hohenzollern, had two draws in the election leaving…’

The article went on about the current situation of the electors and how it was likely to be a draw yet again, but John didn’t care as much. “Why should that concern me?” John finally asked. Yes, Lydia was the one paying for this important endeavour of his but he could hardly pay back by voting for her.

“Wait…. she hasn’t told you?” Magoi asked.

“Told me what?” John shot back, causing Magoi to giggle into his mask some more.

“You’ll learn from her. I see that the princess of steel remains as ironclad in her inability to converse as ever.”

John decided he would indeed wait until his sponsor decided to divulge information on the matter. He had enough on his mind without speculating what his payback would be.

Before continuing the conversation, he checked his mana bar. It was empty and had been for a bit now. This was no surprise, as he was currently giving all of his mana to Undine to revive her. Simply re-summoning her would not do the job. He needed to reconstruct her ability to hold corporeal form and the only two ways to do that were to let her be for an extended period or personally supply her the mana to fix it.

“So, this newspaper just changes what is on the pages?” John was curious about that.

“Correct. Now you might wonder: But what if I want to read the article later? The answer is easy.” Magoi folded the corner of the page. “There.”

“Will that fold disappear afterwards?” asked John, with open disdain for the violation of paper.

Magoi nodded, “Yes. You could also use any other kind of bookmark. Also, you could just think about the article really hard and hope that you get the right one.”

“That sounds like this would better work on a Kindle or some other device.”

“…Typical youngsters…” Magoi mumbled, suddenly very grumpy, “No appreciation for the classics. My daughter is the same way. Always goes on about her video games and how paper is so last millennium.”

With that, their talk came to an end. John went on to inspect the Loot. He was barely even interested in what the floors 1-4 had dropped. They were repeat items and most of them only served as Aclysia-fodder. However, the Vermintide drops warranted a look.

So, there were another 100 grand. Money progressively became less and less of a concern. Then he had both normal and minor Warpstone, their Observe description was roughly the same.

In the Rare department, he only got a single item this time around. The Eye of the Rat II was, just like the first one, a gem of pestilent green colour but worked with more detail. It had slight, and with that he meant really slight, likeness to a real eye. Maybe higher versions would become more ornate or realistic?

This was nice, he would use it for crafting training and hope that the result sold for a good amount. However, it was useless for himself as he possessed no abilities that fit the bill. The last item on the list, the epic drop, was impressive however.

Sure, the finger long, thin jewel didn’t look like much but getting 100 Mana for free? He was ready to sign the fuck up for that. Just as he was thinking about what item he couold best create with this, another window opened.

He was taking a relieved breath when he quickly got another, much more worrying, window together with Undine’s reappearance as a swirling pool that slowly changed into the little slime girl he knew her as.

‘John.’ The voice of Undine, normally clear and beautiful, was distorted and filled with a tone that made him immediately think of storms and heavy rainfall.

The falling waters quickly mounted, until John felt like his entire consciousness was dragged under water. In his own mind, he felt the presence of the water spirit loom over him with eyes that froze him to stone. It was terrifying, more terrifying than the rats by a long mile. Whether that was because he was more open to feeling things besides urgency or not he couldn’t say. He couldn’t contemplate it either, over the words flooding his mind.

‘I died for you. I died for your carelessness. Failure. A failure at controlling your emotions. Channel your hatred, don’t let it control you!’

The other elementals and even Aclysia held their ears in an effort to shut out the torrent of rushing rage. Undine’s emotions were like a serene lake suddenly falling from the sky, crushing an entire landscape under its weight. It was difficult to think under her wrath, but he managed. ‘I am sorry, Undine. I am so very sorry.’

He extended a thought to her. The memories of all that had happened since she had died. At first her rage rose even higher, witnessing his self-sacrifice to the Vermintide. Then it gradually ebbed away as she witnessed Aclysia’s speech and John’s reaction to it. In the end, Salamander delivered her own apology. Undine barely acknowledged it. Her mental landscape had returned to a deep, calm pond. No one could say what lurked in its depths.

With worry John looked at his Character Sheet. The Water Elemental Skill had turned red and when he clicked on it the permanent -1 was on display. ‘My actions have consequences.’ He reminded himself. If he had thought less about what was the quickest way to get through the boss fight and more about what would keep him and his allies safe this would not have happened.

It would have been easy, just change Undine into her incorporeal form and this disaster could have been avoided. Of course, the blame didn’t lie with him alone, Salamander with her indiscriminate destruction and Undine herself, as she did not talk about her pain until it was too late. Everyone could learn from this. He would focus on fixing what he could.

“By the way, when would you have ported me out? I was pretty close to dying today.” John asked the Fateweaver.

“The second an attack would actually kill you.” Magoi said, “and I don’t do that, the barrier does, I have set it up this way.”

“You can do that?” John wondered.

“I can, yes.” Magoi turned a page of his newspaper and clarified, “This is Fateweaver stuff but I guess I can explain the theory to you: Inside a barrier Gaia can sense exactly which attack or trap will kill you. She does that to make out what she will do with you once you exit the barrier, because, as you likely know, she will make it so that you can return back into the public eye without being too suspicious and she can stop caring when you are dead. In other words: All I do is give my energy to prevent that moment from happening and instead bend causality within this, my personal barrier to have you come back here. This is the ability that we, the leaders of the barrier organization, developed and that gave us our name: Fateweaving.”

John waited for a moment to ascertain that this little history lesson was over. “Is it hard?”

“To learn, yes, to use, not so much. If you build the barrier with that skill in mind it is actually very easy. Imagine Illusion Barriers like a circuit board. If you know what circuits to manipulate, it takes little energy to make sure the energy flows in the way you want to. Some beings may contest my control over the Illusion Barrier, however, and when they succeed they can disable this. I felt a visitor of some strength today…?” the way the sentence ended made it clear that he was intrigued.

John knew who he meant by that. “The Horned Rat.”

“WHAT?!” Magoi’s head whipped around, the raptor skull pointing at the Gamer. After a few moments of baffled silence, he continued, “Wow, you met a particularly nasty God of Knowledge there. Infamous, really. I played poker against him a few times and that was alright… did he try to sell you something?”

“No, he told me a prophecy.” John answered.

“Oh…keep its contents to yourself, please. I don’t want to get tangled up in some great chess match between him and whoever he is messing with this time around.” Magoi ended on that statement, closed his newspaper and walked to his copy of John’s house. “To be affiliated with the Horned Rat inevitably gets you dragged where he wants you to be. He’s too good at aligning your interests with his to leave you any other choice.”

‘That’s worrisome,’ John noted. With Undine returned and the last thing to keep his consciousness focused resolved, John felt his lack of HP and mental fatigue all the more and yawned. “I will go sleep for a bit,” he said to Magoi and walked away. “Aclysia, could you prepare something that I can eat when I get back up?”

Aclysia bowed with the slightest hint of a relieved smile upon that request, “Affirmative, Master. Leave it to me. I shall make sure your urges are met.”