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

Merlen, yet again, spoke for the group.

“What just happened?!”

***

Things were calm in Tiamat’s cozy office. The man himself was sitting in a chair by the panoramic window, Idzumi’s kiir purring on his knees just like any Earth cat. The portal keeper himself had headed off to see Set, as the trial zone needed to be cleaned up before the next group arrived.

Death was sitting in his chair enjoying a minute of silence. With the beginning of active operations in that world, the director didn’t have much time left to relax. There, in the Sea of Madness, ten kilometers deep, eternal peace was kind.

Krash teleported into the office, just the look of him enough to tell Tiamat how tired he was. He was still dressed in his shapeshifter fighting outfit.

“How did you get so beat up?”

“You didn’t tell me anything about that Sagie. All you said was that he’d demonstrated some abilities characteristic of an illegal chosen one, but what I saw today was nothing like the videos from five years ago.”

The kiir, smelling singed fur, stared at the shapeshifter.

“What happened?”

“Sagie activated a low-level resonance. I was able to kill him before he reached the danger line, general cellular and mental instability at the cellular level. After he died, the lich fused with the tree and split his consciousness into eleven fragments—a swordsman and close-combat fighter, blood magic, chimerology, Space Magic, Fire Magic. What I saw today was so extraordinary that I can barely call him just a potential chosen one.”

“You pushed him to activate the resonance yourself. Why are you so surprised about what happened?”

“No, it isn’t the resonance. Sagie isn’t the first wanderer to have the undead curse, and the lich expresses all the person’s hidden desires. It follows their morals, principles, and convictions, acting on instinct. What I saw today was complete hatred toward people. He had no problem doing absolutely anything to save his own skin. He killed, cheated, hid, made sacrifices, struck from the back, faked weakness. He even hid his main body in the tree, not leaving it until the end of the battle.”

Tiamat listened to the shapeshifter, well aware that he was telling the truth. Still, he couldn’t divulge information about the trial subjects even if Krash was coming from a good place and was one of humankind’s strongest representatives.

The shapeshifter, for his part, also understood that Tiamat was bound by the rules, and so he made sure the answer to his next question wouldn’t break them.

“How much don’t I know about him?”

“A lot. Quite a lot. That’s your world, so why don’t you look for information there rather than here?”

Krash thought to himself for a second before nodding and logging out of the game. Over the past week, an enormous amount of information on Sagie’s life in the game had been published online.

The answer, perhaps, was there.

***

I’m sitting in the dark astral, waiting for the hour to be up so I can jump back into Project Chrysalis.

I know I broke and pushed myself too close to the edge. Another minute of the anger I had inside me, and I would have died. With my consciousness swimming, I didn’t know up from down. For some reason, pictures from the infonet are whirling around me, and I feel calm and comfortable. That must be the med capsule easing me into wanting to sleep. Yeah, right! I’m the wrong person for that—after all, I’m not physically capable of sleeping until the damaged part of my brain has been restored.

Time passes, and I start to feel like myself again. My head, even with what the med capsule is doing, feels like it’s wrapped in cotton. I would estimate that I’m no higher than thirty percent in control of my consciousness.

I’m sent back to the respawn point by the city’s eastern border. Femida sent me a message saying she was leaving Kurg and telling me to meet her twenty kilometers from here.

Moving quickly, I change into my Almark outfit and set off toward the meeting point. I have to pick my way through a snow-covered forest, though that’s still better than what I’m sure are heavily patrolled roads.

Along the way, I come across a herd of deer out foraging for a late breakfast. And that’s when I see Femida’s fire.

She’s sitting on a log, her face to a cliff as she watches the flames. Her living armor is sitting next to her, tossing wood into the fire. When I walk up, they jump. It’s almost like they think I’m a monster about to eat them.

“Did you get your quest?”

“Yep.”

Femida doesn’t want to tell me what she’s afraid of, and Isaac decides not to say anything after a glance at her, too. But they’re both experiencing the same emotion: light fear and disgust.

“Apparently, we need to talk. Let’s start with why you’re afraid of me—and I don’t want to hear any excuses. I can sense exactly what you’re feeling, so faking it won’t work.”

Femida sighs, quickly climbs into her armor, and jumps right in.

“I saw the battle, I saw you cut in half, and I saw one half of your body fall right in front of the inn. I saw something vile crawling down the wood, and then it started sacrificing people. Later, you became some kind of undead cockroach. I’ve seen a lot, and I have pretty strong nerves, mostly thanks to traveling the world with you, but you weren’t anything even close to what I’d call normal.”

“Sure, I’m abnormal. I know that. Isaac is abnormal, too, and he’s just as aware. He’s even really good at hiding it. We’re both abnormal psychologically, though you, Femida, aren’t so normal yourself. I can say with confidence that your intellectual capabilities go beyond what normal humans have. You were just fourteen when you were invited