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

Isaac is a patient at a psychiatric clinic, though his pathology lets him head out into society without need for isolation or monitoring. He has a fine intellect and an almost complete lack of personal will.

He won’t drown when he logs back in?

Without anyone inside the armor, he has partial immunity to electricity, he ignores all poison, and he takes additional fire and mental damage. He doesn’t need air. Instead, he has a corrosion attribute, giving him a debuff that cuts his strength and health when it gets high enough.

Got it. Just remember that you take continuous physical damage down there.

After Femida logged out, I stepped into the dome.

The clinic building is in front of me on the archipelago’s main island. It’s blue, three stories high, and more reminiscent of a health resort. In fact, there really are beaches, a sunshade over the café, and a large balcony on the second story. The doctors must like working here.

With stealth activated, I start sneaking across the well-manicured lawns, getting to the building to find that none of the doors are locked. I find the room with the portal as well as the storeroom. They won’t notice if two patient uniforms go missing, will they? Just in case they search me before letting me go, I bury them in the sand.

There’s almost nobody around. In all the time I spend wandering about the clinic, I only see ten or eleven people. But Sam Walton is my doctor, so I head up to the second floor to try and find him. In a pleasant turn of events, I step into his office to find a girl in a bikini there drinking a cocktail with a slice of orange in it. She’s young, not even twenty, and her trim body flaunts appetizing curves and lovely, soft lips.

Happily, the capsule is still managing my hormonal field.

“Hi, Doctor Alice.”

The girl leaps up with a shriek. Her cocktail goes flying.

“It’s okay, Miss Alice, I’m your patient, LJ. I’m back so I can become your former patient.”

The girl recognizes me, throws on a robe, and brings Sam Walton into the room. The director of the clinic is about forty, lightly graying and has a piercing stare. I sense how surprised he is, just as I can sense Alice’s fear.

“I see you’re back in your right mind, Mr. Bak. It’s been a while since you were here.”

“All thanks to you, my good doctor. Thank you for taking care of me when I needed it. And now, I would appreciate it if you could quickly examine me and declare me healthy. I’d like to see the real world again.”

I’m taken to a large, blindingly white room on the first floor. Even the furniture is white, without the least shadow. However, there’s somebody dark on the other side of the door, hiding in the corridor, and he announces his presence by knocking on the window in the door. It’s the first time I’ve seen his face - at least, the lack of one. He’s completely bald, with no mouth, nose, ears, or eyes. It’s like he has ashen skin pulled tightly over his skull, in fact. I notice a shirt collar on his neck, and the lapels of a black jacket on his chest. A funeral outfit? What is that, a hint?

He’s nervous, something I can sense, and that means there’s a real person in front of me rather than a hallucination. He must be keeping track of me purposefully. Maybe, a soul from the city of the dead?

Shadow, Slender, non-class, non-level

Really? Is that a present from the shapeshifter? I need to figure out what to do. It’s hiding in the shadows, it’s almost imperceivable, and it doesn’t even have a level. What if…

Sam walks into the room flanked by Alice and another couple of doctors. Slender is gone, almost as if he was never there to begin with. I’m the only one who saw him.

Alice and Sam ask me hundreds of different questions, suggesting a variety of situations. The rest of the doctors just stand off to the side. As their eyes follow the lines on an invisible interface, I see their mouths moving soundlessly. Their emotions show strong surprise; Sam is calm and collected. Alice, still afraid of me, just asks the rare trick question.

After being grilled for three hours, we chat for a couple more, meandering across a number of subjects. We go through the Lüscher color test and a variety of others invented by well-known psychologists. I remember most of them from when I was little, so I’m able to give them the answers they’re looking to hear.

Finally, I’m left alone with some food. Slender continues watching, occasionally scratching at the window. He doesn’t like being far away. Also, he hates the fact that I’m enjoying my meal.

It’s easier for me to study his abilities while he’s in material form. For instance, he’s an empath who senses emotions at least as well as I do. He’s strong enough to scratch at the glass before instantly disappearing into the form of a shadow. In that form, his speed is far beyond that of a normal human. It takes me a good half a minute to get up to fifty meters a second; it takes him less than a second. His top speed must be higher, too.

An hour later, Sam Walton returns. Judging by his satisfied face and the lack of guards, he has good news.

“Congratulations! From a psychological point of view, you’re completely healthy.”

My inventory and equipment immediately switch to what I had with and on me the day of the battle at Airis Castle.

The doctor’s face expands, eyes rounding.

“Sagie. You’re Sagie! Bloody Sagie!”

The name above my head is glowing bright red. Even somebody like Sam, living as he does at the edge