BornAndTorn 70 When past becomes present 3

The pile of coins towered at the end of the tunnel, as if itself was mocking me. The "special" coin in my left hand suddenly felt totally worthless. All my thoughts and all my plans that I came up with burst like a bubble. If that coin is meant for every single player, then I am totally out of luck.

Gone is my special item, gone is the dream of gaining something mysterious. What's left is this mountain of gold meant for everyone but me and now everything seems to make sense. This is all about the next event, this item absorbs the blood of monsters and players. It makes sense that I got transported here, the Observer wanted to me to find all these coins.

So what is my intended purpose here? Should I fill all these coins with my blood? Or should I just go down the mountain and get the hell away from this rotten place?. Great, either I turn into a milking station or go away without anything good.

But I just can't accept any of those choices. I will not help those players by pumping them full with my blood and I am not getting away from this place just to run into the next player or monster that might appear.

So should I just stay in this place and train my heart out. Every other option does not seem feasible. It still feels so vexing to have all those coins in front of me. All these potential toys and I have no access to them because they only accept one liquid and that is blood.

Wait, liquid? So far blood is the only liquid I have tried. What about saliva or any sweat? What about water? This absurd thought kept me captivated as I began to start test whether those coins would accept my saliva.

I nearly ran towards the mountain of coins and grabbed the first one I could find. I dropped my saliva on it and watched what would happen. But my dreams were crushed ruthlessly as nothing worthwhile happened.

But despite this failure, I was still stuck on this train of thought. So far it only accepted blood, that came directly out of my body and everything else was rejected. That leaves many questions answered. What if the blood is diluted, or can it still be another substance, if the necessary criteria are fulfilled? What if I take the slime into the equation and the qualities of the blood change, will it still be accepted by the coin? Does it accept blood even if its liquid anymore?

If it's my task to fill these coins with blood, then I will use this opportunity to conduct some more experiments with the slime.

The first thing I wanted to see was the impact of the slime on my blood or on liquids in general. My resources are sadly limited by many factors and subsequently can this experiment only be done slowly and surely. I will have to rely on my ant army to gather the necessary nutrients for me. But I will have to pass the time till the ant army has hatched.

Speaking of which I forgot about the old ant colony, once again. But I am sure, that they will not cause too much trouble, especially if they have learned from my calm and collective behaviour and planning.

The key problem was how to make the best use of my time, as I could not train and conduct those experiments. Just idling away my time seems like too much of a waste, giving my current circumstances. The opportunity of a lifetime and I have nothing to do.

How long will it take until the ants are ready? 1 day, 2 days, 1 month? I have absolutely no idea.

Exploring the mountain? Good luck with only one hand. I will not kill myself, just to avoid being bored. I am stuck in this place full of corpses and bloodthirsty coins.

The worst thing was the magical flame, on the top of my head, sucking away nutrients of my body by each passing second. The only source of magic in my close proximity, but I can not even absorb it.

But thinking about it, if the fire on my head truly is magical, then what if I were to set something ablaze? Could I absorb mana that way?

I walked to the nearest tipi and started to put my head on it. It took only a few measly seconds before a bright fire lit the cave in absolute brightness. Though I should have been a little more careful, after all, I should have recognized how dry my surroundings were. It was a little too late for that realisation after the fire had engulfed every tipi of this cave.

The desecration of corpses aside, I was quite happy with the result. Now the only thing left to do was actually throw me into the fire hoping for the best.

As my pitiful attempt of cremating those pitiful victims was currently ongoing, I noticed that those flames did not have any kind of warmth to it. This sea of flames, while sharing the same appearance with normal flames, was rather cold.

It was hard to put in words. Those flames felt, unlike everything I have ever felt. This cold did not feel like the lack of warmth in winter, nor was it similar to the feeling that every warmth has left your body. It did not fit into any category that can be associated with the word cold.

Yet this cold was still present and was not losing in strength. I could not grasp where or why this feeling derives from those flames. Despite, the somewhat eerie feeling, I noticed that my body was absorbing the flames, in an absurd fashion. It felt like those flames were dashing towards my body in their own volitation.

Great now, I get to witness the appearance of seemingly self-aware flames. How ridiculous can my whole existence get?

I closed my eyes to get a better feeling of my body to try and see what had occurred. Strangely there was no sort of special feeling to my body, it still felt like it had been previously. Those flames were clearly not a hallucinatory fantasy, but I find the notion of self-aware flames a bit too fairy-taillike. I Is my parasitic partner capable of doing such a thing?

Since those flames seem to have no consequence, there is no harm in waiting for the answer to that question. I was slowly getting revitalized by the magic fire and pondered whether or not those corpses, would actually respawn. The amount of harvested energy would otherwise not be enough for all my endeavours.

What left me worrying was the fact that even with moving around and collecting more and more nutrients, my hand had yet to show any signs of recuperating. Does this kind of process not happen automatically and needs to be started or supervised by my partner in crime?

For the time being, I will have to just absorb the flames and hope for the best. While the strange cold never actually had disappeared, I got used to it. While it still felt a bit eerie and creepy, it was not downright disturbing in any other sense.

After I had absorbed most of the flames, the cave was once again doused in darkness. I stood still in the darkness and capt track on my surroundings waiting eagerly if the corpses would respawn.

Just as always something unexpected happened, while the tipis respawned in a timely fashion the corpses did not. While the outcome was something I had not foreseen, it was still predictable that something had to go different to my expectations. Things going different than planned seem to be a good companion of mine.

I had no qualms about the vanishing of the corpses. With a pure and clear conscience, I could say, that even though they were just data, I gave them a fulfilling end. I could not care less about their intended purpose. if they are so important, they would have been revived either way.

It might be nothing more than an easter egg or an allusion to a famous historic event for all I know. What matters for me is that I found myself a source that would supply me with enough nutrients. That was all that mattered.

That moment marked the beginning of my career as an arsonist. I lost count exactly how much fire I started and absorbed. The only visible change was that the cold feeling of the flames was no more. The flames were just lukewarm now.

Was there a connection between the cold and the corpses? Considering the fact, that both vanished after they the corpses have been consumed by the flames. But as long my body is not taken over by vengeful spirits, I will remain without worries. I have enough voices in my body, I do not need any other people to meddle in my affairs, it is too stressful with those 2 already. But it would be quite fitting, as I only seem to attract the weirdos. Vengeful spirits, a human from another world, a self-aware AI and a parasite.

But that will never come true, even if those vengeful spirits had invaded my body. I seriously doubt that a special someone would share its place with some meagre spirits. It would probably enslave them or destroy them on the spot.

" What kind of monstrosity am I to you?"

You would make a pretty good human.

" I do not know whether I should be offended by that statement or feel honoured. You were on the right track with your theory, but the cold that you felt where neither vengeful spirits nor a living soul. They were just the last memories of those sacrifices."

Excuse the question, but were those sacrifices done out of there own free will or were they forced to do so?

" Did you actually just show some sort of empathy? Since when were you capable of such

emotions?"

I would not go as far and call it empathy. Curiosity would be a better term and serve as a better explanation. While such a fate is truly pitiful, their fate has been predetermined from the moment of their existence. Why should I show any signs of compassion if their fate was sealed from the get-go?

" So what if you were in their position? Would you say the same to everyone that is grieving and worrying about the future?"

Why are you so interested in my motivation and perception of this world? They do not know, that they are just data. In their eyes this world is real. So if I did not know better would I show those emotions? Of course, I would, but what if those people learned the truth, that everything they deemed true, was nothing more than a design choice by others.

Knowledge such as this would rob you of your purpose. Free will? Free choices? What are those if your decisionmaking just depends on your data set.

" So, what if I were to tell you, that you are the same, a mere creature not knowing the world he lives in. Your destiny is being confined to this small simulated world, with no chance to ever escape it. You will never amount to anything more than an NPC and will always be regarded as something inferior. Is your opinion still the same?"

Why should it not be? This world is something I had never dreamed of being possible. I see things and do things, that go way beyond any kind of common sense. And the biggest difference is that I am not bound by anything that dictates what I can do and what not. So what about being bound to this plane of existence, so what about being unable to escape this situation. Bowing down and accepting my limited fate is just out of question.

So yes it is still the same, I have absolutely no pity for those who have accepted the status quo walking a path chosen for them by others. I do not care, whether they are aware of it or not. Those people go through life accepting everything as it is are doomed either way.

If you are not willing to question everything, you have absolutely no right to complain. There is no difference between the past and the future if all those mistakes keep on getting repeated. The failures of the past should never become present again.

"From all the things I have seen in my lifetime, you are by far the most unfathomable. "

Was that a compliment or should I feel offended? You still have not answered my previous question and while you are it, would you initiate the healing process of my hand, it feels a bit strange to not have 2 functioning hands.

" As always you are just complaining."

Those experiments do not happen on their own and I want to be prepared for those players.

" You could just ask me and I would tell you everything I know about the slime."

Do you know what kind of interchange happens if that slime comes into contact with a liquid?

" I might know, but I might not?"

Even if you do know, it would be much more important to know firsthand what kind of change occurs, because I will be the one to utilize them in ways you have not thought of.

" Then I am interested to see what will result out of your madness."

So am I...

Chapter end