The entire left field of my vision is encompassed by a bright flash of light that stings even through my enhanced eyes. As I throw up my hands instinctively to shield myself, a thin barrier appears in front of myself and Master Lirin, and the warlock’s eyes glow slightly as tiny pieces of shrapnel from the Honlir’s armor slam into the barrier with a speed faster than I can track. The space where the bodies used to be is covered by the explosion of mana, but just as abruptly as it occurred, the ground and pieces of wildlife are rapidly pulled back into the area as the empty pocket of space becomes a vacuum that pulls all of the matter still remaining back toward the point of impact. I can feel the pull even from behind the barrier, and I watch as the reaction finally dies off while leaving the originating site as nothing more than a small crater with a ball of flesh, bones, and dirt packed together in the center.
The previously quiet chatter of the woods is replaced by a heavy silence as if the explosion sucked the very life out of the hunting grounds.
“What did you learn from this, boy?” Master Lirin’s voice cuts through the silent veil with an almost bored tone.
An unintentional gulp actually takes over my body, and I say the first thought that comes to my head. “I don’t know anything about .”
“Wrong. You do not know anything about any of your skills. When you understand that there is always something new to learn, you will finally be in a state ready to lend an ear to ideas you never even considered.”
“Yes, master!”
…
Our ride back to the city is almost unbearable to me, as I sit giddily waiting to begin training once again with Master Lirin. This time around, there will be no complaining, whining, or questioning. My Master has my absolute trust after that decisive show of strength in the Northeast Wilds. I have even gone as far as asking him for more displays of his talent with while in the stagecoach, but he has adamantly refused.
“Those that cannot temper their own greed are no better than the gods themselves.” He replies after I ask to see another spell for the tenth time.
His words are interesting enough that my attention wavers for a moment and instead focuses on a topic that I have yet to pester him about.
“Who exactly are the gods, Master?”
The silver-haired warlock’s body stiffens for a moment like when I usually ask questions regarding any higher powers or System-related information. But to my surprise, instead of clamming up entirely like he did not hear me, the man’s azure irises turn toward me and he begins to speak.
“The gods are beings beyond this world. We know not of their origins, but their very existence is what makes our current conversation possible. King Kryle is a disciple of one such god. No one has seen the king in hundreds of years, but his relationship with a god is the very reason that he can wield the power necessary to shield our city and the surrounding lands from the creatures beyond the Veil. The history regarding the world before the Veil is unknown to most, but we know that without it, we would all surely perish. This is why the king’s attendants handle almost all other duties of the king, as he himself is too busy managing the Veil to spend time on the dealings of the city.”
Master Lirin’s words do not seem stilted like when he has referred to the gods in previous conversations. Does this mean that some of what he is saying is true, or is something else going on? Either way, I notice that his turn of phrase is questionable, as his two statements seem to contradict each other partially.
“Master, if the gods were technically responsible for allowing the survival of this world, what did you mean earlier? You related my greed to that of the gods’ nature. Are they not necessarily moral beings?”
My question seems to knock the man slightly off kilter, and the stagecoach we are in falters for a moment as his control lapses. The response is surprising, as I have never once seen Master Lirin so much as put a foot out of place much less visibly lose his composure. Shortly after, I can see the veins bulge in the man’s neck, and it looks like his jaw is struggling to open as his eyes stare out into the distance as if the life was taken from them.
“Th-the gods…are n-no-”
Master Lirin’s face contorts and his eyes fade in and out with the alien blue light I have become accustomed to. The sight sends fear through my veins, as it looks like the man is physically fighting against some sort of force or pressure. Before I can say anything or attempt to stop him, the thin warlock’s hands appear from under his robe and begin to claw at his own throat as if trying to free himself from getting strangled by an invisible grip.
“The gods… are no-not XXXXX,” he rasps between breaths. “The gods… belong to no F-”
< A change has been made. >
A screen appears in my face, and I glance at it only for a moment before looking back toward my Master. As if time itself has rewound, the warlock sits calmly in the seat opposite of me with no trace of his previous outburst evident across his features.
“Are you alright, master?” I hesitantly ask.
“What are you talking about, boy? Just because I will not show you any further displays of my skill does not mean that there is anything wrong with me. Now sit silently until we arrive back in the city. Am I understood?”
I nod in confusion while paying close attention to his behavior. It seems that nothing is different at all. Was the entire experience a hallucination? What did that notification mean? As questions run through my head, I watch as Master Lirin turns to look out the window of the stagecoach. My breath catches in my throat as I see a trickle of blood leak from multiple fingernail shaped punctures on his neck. The evidence of his outburst is still present, and yet the man who had just been choking himself is now sitting calmly as if nothing had occurred.
Whoever is overlooking The Pillar must’ve done something to him.
I don’t understand why, much less how the slip up occurred. Was it even a slip up at all? Is this some weird way of leaking information to me? It didn’t seem that way at all. From my perspective, it looked like the man was truly fighting against something to get some sort of information out. I barely caught any of it too, as some portion of his sentence was cut completely out of reality as if a physical censor covered my ears.
Just for confirmation, I pull up the Forum while mulling over my theory.
[Forum]
< Server: Death is Certain >
< Thread: Squad Five >
< Members: 11 >
< Niner > - Did everyone else also get that notification?
< Noct > - Yeah! It was so weird, Garf was showing me a blueprint for a mana battery before the notification came in and he just stopped what he was doing and left out of nowhere.
< NotLikeMe > - Nothing changed on our side, but MustBeRome and I also got the notif.
< Zero > - Something must have happened. Did anybody do or see something that was out of the ordinary?
< Niner > - Negative for me.
< Appa > - Nothing on my end as well.
< Ivory > - No.
< Noct > - Nope!
< Nemesis > - Nothing.
< BunBun > - I didn’t see anything Sandra!!!
< Zero > - Remember to use our alias while on the Forum ok BunBun?
< BunBun > - Sorry!!!
< Zero > - It’s alright, just let Nemesis know if you see anything alright?
< BunBun > - Okie!!!
< Zero > - Where is Still? Get him to report NotLikeMe.
< NotLikeMe > - I’m not his damn babysitter. Ask him yourself!
< BunBun > - Language!!!
< Niner > - Report in Still.
< Still > - Something happened on my side. I will let you guys know if I can figure it out. Not a problem just yet from what I can tell. I am heading back to the city from the Northeast Wilds. ETA: 2 hours.
< Niner > - Meet me in the barracks when you get back if possible. If something goes wrong before then, say something in the chat and Ivory will be on her way. She is the closest one to you right now.
I get off the Forum after confirming that the notification was also shown to everyone else. It takes me a moment to remember everyone’s aliases, but afterwards I have a good idea of everyone’s status. Nothing seems amiss right now, but Vince says that Sara is somewhere nearby, so if something goes down, I at least have a group member to meet up with. We had devised such a strategy before the trainers ever arrived, where we keep track of our locations in the chat on an hourly basis to make sure that we always have a plan if something bad happens to one of us while separated from the rest. I had been kind of slacking on my reporting, as our trip to the Northeast Wilds was the first time I had left the basement since our training first started, so I had forgotten to update them on my location.
Turing back to the situation at hand, I pay close attention to the landscape outside of the stagecoach as well as occasionally tossing a glance at Master Lirin to make sure there is nothing amiss. This entire situation is frightening and reminds me of where I am. Floor Two of The Pillar is some sort of simulation world created solely for the reason of completing the Floor Objective and move on to the next. I don’t know if the people here are real, fake, or what, but I do know that they are controlled by The Pillar to some extent. Based on the response of Master Lirin when I ask about System related information, I can tell that The Pillar doesn’t have perfect control of the mobs here. There are inconsistencies that show themselves every time the topic of ‘the gods’ come up. It’s different from when I ask about things like my passive skills. When I ask about skills and things like that, the man usually just ignores me completely without any of that robotic-like behavior that comes up when he speaks about the gods. It’s like whoever’s charge can’t settle on a specific method of censorship.
But that begs the question. Why is The Pillar censoring information related to the gods at all?
The lower difficulty people have all said that the goddess June talked to them in Floor 0: The Tutorial. Furthermore, they described how all of us were just ‘players’ that were climbing The Pillar to appease the gods or some sort of bullshit like that. So why is there censorship now? We have already seen some aspects of each floor’s details being hidden in the Forum, so I know that the System can block information from being spilled on there. What is so important about hiding information about the gods from DIC difficulty people? General mentions of the gods by the mobs in The Pillar always seem so stiff as well, so what is ‘June’ trying to hide from us?
Things aren’t adding up across the board. The inconsistency makes no sense at all. We are the only difficulty tier that hasn’t been addressed by June. We are allowed to know about the existence of gods, but any further information is withheld when we go asking the people created by The Pillar. Master Lirin slipped up earlier though, as he had mentioned something offhandedly about greed making me no better than the gods. It makes no sense that the comment would be allowed through this odd filter if he was immediately held back from answering a question that directly related to what he was talking about moments earlier.
The error feels almost human.
Like some sort of filter was laid over all conversation to insert some mention of ‘the gods’ when someone tries to ask too much about the history of this world. Then, when the mistake is pointed out like I did earlier, The Pillar, the System, the gods, or whoever is in charge mess with things at such a level that the mobs are even physically affected just to continue the charade. The level at which this censorship has control over the events on the floor is scary. What happens if I push it too hard? Master Lirin had been close to the level of tearing out his own throat just by mentioning something I apparently wasn’t supposed to know about the creatures behind The Pillar. If I keep pushing, will the mobs end up being wiped from the board altogether to keep whatever this secret is safe? What happens if I keep going even after that? Does whoever is behind the scenes have some level of control over me as well?
If I keep snooping around, will I be wiped off the board too?