Sleeping Player (Project Chrysalis Book 3) by John Gold (novel24 TXT) 📕

trading district. I go farther down, farther down, down into the quiet and eternal peace.

I don’t need light—the sound bouncing off the walls is enough. My hearing is sharpened, and that lets me draw the landscape of the old sewer even though it’s hidden by darkness. There are small astral spirits here, too. Soon, however, I notice that they’re getting much smaller. The rats are gone, as are the other little creatures that live in the sewers. It’s just water flowing sluggishly into the unknown of the thick darkness, and my consciousness flowing along with it.

A sepulchral cold settles in. Somewhere up ahead, probably in the wall, there’s a gap the water is running out of. Judging by the sound, it’s a small room—twenty meters by twenty meters. It’s pleasantly chilled and absolutely quiet. This is wonderful.

I don’t use any light, instead feeling my way to a rock in the center of the room. Getting into my meditation pose, I start to work on getting my brain back in order. Something went wrong. Why is it so hard to think?

At least an hour goes by, and I’m starting to get a picture in my head. My doctor called me Bak, though my name is Angie. According to her, I spent five years in a coma and just recently woke up. That’s when they sent me to Clover to go through post-trauma rehab. She asked me if I could remember why I had the stroke, though I didn’t respond—I was LJ the cat. Okay, what else? Milisandra and I ran away from the clinic. Then, she left me at the tavern, and I waited there like a trusting dog for five months.

Oh, I met an interesting god and declined his offer to be reborn. Again, it’s just a bunch of muddled memories. What’s wrong with my head?

Judging by the sensations, each outbreak of emotion cuts into my ability to control my streams of consciousness. The first four are working fine, though the other seven are all clumped into one big one. I’d better avoid using it if I don’t want to be in the med capsule in two weeks. The first stream heals me continuously, reflexively, without me even thinking about it. Part of me is still afraid of something, and my mind is constantly coping with that threat.

In other words, I have four working streams and one I’m better off avoiding. Apparently, I’m some kind of indestructible cockroach.

It feels like I’m in hormonal failure. The constant mood swings, the strong worries, and the critical reactions to emotions tell me as much. My hands shouldn’t be shaking, and I shouldn’t be going through spikes of emotion, first rage, and then dejection.

That Tullius was a lesser pagan god, the kind there are a lot of in the world. Back on Feng Island, when I was collecting books on mysticism, I found out quite a bit about the gods. They have a hundred levels, or ten levels for each of the ten altar levels. The ten strongest gods in the world are grouped into the large pantheon. All gods can have up to ten forms, with each altar level unlocking another form they can use. On the other hand, I couldn’t find any information on the nuances involved in selecting forms. Gods can also cast any spell they know—their skill level is equal to their level multiplied by ten.

Tullius was a divinity at somewhere around Level 20, though he was stupid enough to rely on his complete resistance to all types of damage. Back on Feng Island, I was thinking through how I could kill creatures with that kind of resistance, and it was then that I found a book on the world space. It talked about how space has different energy capacities. Complete resistance cannot exceed or be equal to that amount—for example, if the space quantity is ten, the maximum resistance is six. It was that difference that I exploited to injure Talamei during my trial with the League of Hunters.

The last thing I remember from my battle with Leon and Talamei was the world turning red. I launched a meteor, putting all the strength I had into it. Also, there was a resonance activated, and I received a notification about my critical health condition immediately afterward. The previous few weeks in the game, my health had been really bad. It must have been that resonance that led to the stroke and the coma. I need more information, and I know who can give it to me.

Thinking back to Leon and my parents leaves me furious. I can barely contain the madness and thirst for blood. Yep, my hormonal imbalance is making me crazy. I’m going to have to do a complete recovery soon.

I take off the cat costume. It’s time to log out of the game.

Attention!

You are in the middle of obligatory treatment at the Galileo Psychiatric Clinic in Arpa. While in the game, you are being treated at Clover.

Until the treatment is complete, you cannot leave the game. Alice Watson, your personal doctor, and Sam Watson, the clinic director, both need to sign off before that happens.

That tells me that the restriction is tied to my account, not my clothes. The blocked friend list was only around the island, however. Femida is online, though not responding. She may be at a location where chat and personal messages aren’t permitted.

Hm, that’s a dilemma. I’m not sure if I should go back to the clinic and get them to sign off on me or find Femida and figure out what’s happened over the last few years. All my things are at the clinic, and I pulled the money I got for the League of Hunters quest out of the game and into my anonymous account. The orphanage is probably closed—I didn’t send Malcolm any money that last month. I was preoccupied.

When I