BornAndTorn 69 When past becomes present 2

I started to notice that the Observer has fulfilled its promise, I was seeing a village in front of my very own eyes. The only thing that I had not expected was, that the Observer would take my phrasing that literally. It was indeed a remote village, where no player would appear frequently.

I would not call it secluded, because that would mean that people would still be able to reach it. This village was isolated, because how in the world, would any sane person climb up this gigantic mountain, expecting a city to be up here.

Question after question kept popping up in my mind. Where did those villagers get their food and water from? How did they get the material up here to build such a village? Why would those villagers even decide to build their village in this place?

I doubt that the Observer has thrown any realism out of the window, so there must be many things that explain those questions.

Looking out of the quite tall entrance, I saw a blue sky and clouds preventing me from seeing the ground. I might have to build a cover for this entrance as I do not know how many monsters will appear in the sky.

An odd thought suddenly appeared in my head, what if this place was a village and has been abandoned to unknown reasoning, this whole place can be a place full of monsters and I would dig my very own grave without knowing it.

But Judging by the height of the cave, the monster could not be too tall or too big for their mobility will seriously be hindered in this place. If I am lucky It would just be another nest of strange insects.

Since there do not seem to be any monsters active as of now, I will use the time efficiently and scout the area. I might find signs of monsters or any other indicators that would let me draw conclusions,

Hey, quit sulking and help me out here.

" I thought I should not interrupt your thought process, as I did not notice any apparent flaws in your reasoning."

What kind of change occurred, when I treated my eyes with the "special treatment."

" The absolutely minimal amount of information is worth 2 points if you want to know everything that would come to a total amount of 15 points. Which option is to your liking?

Even if you have learned from me. do not try to scam your partner out of points by stating such an absurd amount of points. Let me turn the question around, what do you want to know about for your 2 points?

" Tell me more about those metals"

I have no clue, why exactly those caught your interest out of all the things I have said. But it is such a broad topic, that I will only show you a memory that is worth exactly 2 points. An appetizer if you will. The memory fragment you are about to see describes the most basic properties of metal and about its general appearance.

Judging by your silence, I think that this information has sufficed?

'" It truly is an interesting material as you said. I will stay quiet for quite some time because I will try to deduce how I can create it, that would save me the trouble of spending points for it. But of course, a deal is a deal so here is the knowledge you have asked for. Indeed during this whole process, your eyes underwent 2 significant changes.

"The first change is suitable for a place like this as your eyes adapt to the missing light and produce a substance that makes it easier for you to see in this absolute darkness. You might not have noticed it, in the whole time you spent digging, because I had blocked that function at that time. I wanted to reduce every possible source of energy loss. I am not going into detail how exactly these substances work, as this information comes only with the 15 point version, but be sure that your energy consumption will increase."

"I will not tell you about the other change, because the development in that area has not yet finished and I need more samples of creatures to accomplish it. Just be sure, that the change will be massive once it comes into fruition. "

"It will take quite some time till we will talk to each other again, so you got any other last wishes?"

Tell the queen ant, she should prepare to produce a lot and I mean a lot of new ants. We will need them for several purposes.

" She will not be happy about that one."

I have never seen her happy in the first place when she came into contact with me.

" Yeah, that's true. I will let her know, but whatever she decides to do is not of my concern. It is between you and her. Have fun in this very interesting place"

I can just imagine what kind of demands she will raise, once she will learn the reason why I demanded such a huge amount of ants. Until then, I will have a look, in this dark place.

I took my first step into the darkness and I noticed that the world suddenly got a lot brighter and I could see my surroundings clearly. That fucker had deactivated the substance, to maximize the chance of me asking for his information.

The whole village became visible to me. These buildings were just plain and simple made out of the hide from animals. The resemblance to the TIpis from native Americans was shocking. I saw many Tipis left and right along the path I walked. There was no way to deviate from the path as it was the only possible one to reach further into the mountain.

Each and every tipi had the same height and colour scheme, there was no way to tell the difference between them. Caught by interest I decided to risk peeking inside of one.

It was quite relaxing to explore this place, without any monsters or players lusting after my life. But my nice change of pace ended abruptly as I saw. Inside of tipi was a mummified corpse of a human. It looked like it had been sucked dry of everything. One touch and it would most likely just turn into dust.

The person has died while it slept, judging by the positioning I found the corpse. There was no sign of any kind of struggle. Except for a thick layer of dust, the surrounding clothes were stacked in an ordinary fashion.

There was no possibility to deduce the gender of the victim as the corpse was human in name only.

I left the corpse as I had found it and began to search the other houses for evidence. Though the number of victims was different from each tipi to the next, their specific corpses were all the same. Babies, children, women or men, they all were left without an ounce of life left in them. There was never any sign of resistance in their corpses, one corpse even died while holding something in its hand.

I stopped for a second pondering whether I should disturb the rest of the dead and grab the item or just go on. But that worry was quickly discarded as I reminded myself of the fact, that this is a game world and each player would have no qualm about doing it.

Upon touching the arm of the person, something heavy dropped to the ground and the whole corpse turned into dust and disappeared. There was no trace left, that a human had once rested and lived here.

The object that fell to the ground was a coin. As I lifted it up, I noticed that despite its small size it was really heavy. The coin was in a remarkable condition and there was no trace of dust or any impurity visible on it, it was as if it was left unaffected by time.

The most fascinating part of this coin was the image used on its surface. Both sides had different objects depicted on them. There was a gigantic eyeball in the middle of the coin. Looking at it felt strange, even though it looked strikingly similar to a normal eyeball, the feeling attached to it was a lot sinister.

That eyeball was surrounded by runes. I failed to realize whether these runes were part of their written language or if it was just utilized to underline the effect of the eye. The most interest invoked the inner part of the eye, as there was a little symbol carved in it. Dead in the centre was a crescent.

That was the first sign of stars that I saw in this world. Of course, there is a high chance, that it is just symbolism and the association connected with it is something totally different. But even though they lack the technology and the interest to seek what lies beyond their horizon, the likelihood that this planet is orbited by a moon or sun is also not that small.

But if I were to expect a sun on the other side of the coin, then I would be gravely mistaken, because at the other side was a spiral.

This spiral had no end to it, as I seemingly stared straight into an infinite space. Its path was deeply embossed and was very meticulously processed.

A coin with this level of detail, made out of a material I have not seen. This just screams important. Especially considering the fact, that after checking nearly 40 tipis, there had not once been any other object on the victims.

I am quite interested if those stereotypes prove correct. I grabbed the coin and cut open my skin to drop my blood onto it. As that old rumours typically suggest, but I did not believe that any bond or connection would form.

As my drop of blood fell on the coin, something strange happened. My blood followed the path of the spiral. It took a mere second but every ounce of blood had been greedily absorbed. I started to look at the spiral in anticipation, what would happen next? Would I hear a voice speaking to me, would the coin transform into something strange, or would I have to offer more blood before something happens.

The result was none of the above. as the blood I had just sacrificed was spat back into my face by the coin. That is a new even for me, an entitled coin. Is my blood not good enough?

Well, let's see what happens if I try it again, but prevent the coin from spitting up my blood. As if I bow down to the will of such a stupid coin. The process started once again, but this time I did not watch the coin as I pressed the coin between my right hand with all the might I could muster.

This time around the coin did not spit out the blood directly but it was not because of the lack of trying. There was a constantly increasing pressure on my right hand but after all of my previous training session, this much was nothing. As I thought about how to proceed, as I could not keep my right hand closed like this forever, I noticed that the pressure suddenly stopped.

I would be a fool if I fell for such an obvious trick. That coin would not accept me out of the blue, just because I kept my blood locked inside of it by sheer force.

Not even 3 minutes passed and the pressure increased once again. This coin seemed to have missed the fact that patience is a virtue. The pressure was now at a level far beyond the strength of a normal Chosen one of this world, so how the hell would they have endured something like that?

Most likely they would not have to endure something like this at all if the coin would reject their blood, they would not try and force it.

But as of now, I was caught in this struggle for superiority with a coin. Right now it finally began to hurt, as the pressure had reached a point I had not thought to be possible. Though I was not planning on giving up the battle just because of a little bit of pain.

I kept the coin locked in my hand and the coin never once stopped pressuring my hand and then all out the sudden the blood kept inside of the coin was set free, as it penetrated my hand. Luckily I did not stand in its way, as the blood has torn a deep hole as it shot straight up into the rock.

Seems like this is not the right approach to combat this stupid coin. If it is not happy about the quality, then maybe I can satisfy it with quantity. I am not trying to risk wasting my precious blood by pushing it onto the surface. No, I will do the exact opposite. I will put that coin right into my hand. That way it can come into contact, with a constant flow of blood and there will be no pressure hindering it from getting rid of the blood as well.

The worst that could happen would be internal bleeding and something like this would not end up being too dangerous for me. As I placed the coin, into my skin I wondered if the coin would still be as picky as before.

I waited for a bit and noticed that more and more blood was moving towards the spot where I put the coin. Strangely it was not repelling my blood as it used to- Rather the exact opposite occurred as the coin was greedily absorbing my blood.

Was it a just a ploy to get me to do something risky so that it can exploit my carelessness? I was forced to intervene, the amount of blood I had to offer was limited after all. I pinched the coin and tried to pull it out. But the coin had other plans, as it had embedded itself into deeply my bloodstream.

Great, outmanoeuvred by a fucking coin, as if I had not enough firsts in this world already. If I can not pull it out then I might have to push it out by force. I used my nails to pressure the coin from the outside, but this attempt remained fruitless as well. This coin is hellbent on absorbing everything of me, is it trying to punish me?

Without any options left I did the only thing that would make sure, that the coin could not absorb any more. I used my sharp nails to amputate the right fist. I had to speed up the process, as I did not want to lose consciousness or bleed out before I get rid of the coin successfully.

As my hand finally dropped down on the floor, I was already gasping for air and felt a bit lightheaded. I had underestimated the coin, or rather the thing that is inside of it. It was hard not to lose consciousness on the spot, but I knew that I had to stop the wound on my right hand, otherwise I would be dead sooner or later. I could not rely on the self-healing ability of my body because I did not have enough nutrients to guarantee a successful heal and the arrogant being inside of me was currently busy.

At first, I. burned the wound with my burning hair and then closed the glistening wounds with the sharp hairs from my arms and rammed them, straight through the wounds. I did so over and over again until the wound was covered and shut tight by the hair. As I escaped my imminent doom by a hairs breath, I could watch as my hand began to shrivel up. It had the same texture as the same corpses.

As I picked my hand up, it turned into dust and the coin dropped onto the floor as if nothing had happened. A soft chuckle escaped my lips as I picked up the coin once more. Having learned my lesson, I did not try to do any further experiments before I was healthy again. The Observer must have chosen this spot for me specifically, but his true intentions remain a mystery to me.

Flipping the coin I noticed, that the crescent was a faint tinge of red around it. So all that my blood was only enough for such a reaction. I put that coin, into my pocket and made plans to hunt animals and humans alike to fill this coin.

This world truly surprises me over and over again.

I could not afford to lose my consciousness here, so I pushed myself up even though I was at the verge of collapsing. I had to scout the rest of the area, while there were no players and monsters active.

As I was moving ever so slowly through further down the road. I did not find any other coin in the rest of the tipis. It rather looked like, that every victim died with the same kind of posture. Each and every one of them was l with their arms crossed above their body, facing upwards.

It was certain that this skin, was involved in this matter. Though the question was whether those people were sacrificing themselves out of sheer devotion or if it was supposed to look like that. If I want to understand the purpose behind such a coin, then I have to see it through the eyes of the Observer and main system.

Every item that they have here will have some sort of effect on their real body. As of now, I know, that this coin is able to absorb blood and suck every nutrient out of it. There is something more to this coin as well because it had rejected my blood at first before it started to accept it.

I do not know enough about their anatomy to draw any conclusions. I will have to gather a lot more samples if I want to know how this coin functions.

I came to an abrupt halt as I came to the end of the tunnel. In front of me was not a temple or a sacrificial altar. There was no tipi, nor were there any other corpses. Right in front of me was a gigantic pile of coins. They were the same as the one I held in my hands.

Chapter end