Episode 54: PUSH!

“What did you say?” Arson turned back around but the doors of the elevator had already begun to shut, and the tall cloaked figure that stood next to Sprinter smiled at Arson. The man’s grin the only thing visible underneath his cowled red cloak.

Arson couldn’t help but glance at the timer in his overlay. The list of things he’d be required to solve through his next set of trials left a weight on his mind. He’d tried to ignore it since he left Endless, but apparently the stress of it all had left him slightly rattled.

He didn’t know if he’d imagined the man, but the presence’s familiarity made the back of Arson’s mind itch from his crown’s tip to the base of his cerebral realm.

“Hmm, I guess some things don’t change. What’s up, why are you stressed?” Troy’s voice pulled Arson from his thoughts. His brow scrunched as he was confused by the root of the question being asked of him until Troy pointed just above his head.

“Your crown is showing. Actually began to wonder if you still had it until just then,” said Troy. Arson looked up to see the physical manifestation of his inner power and sighed.

He’d gotten it to the point where he only felt slightly nauseous without his crown out almost six season cycles ago, and knew that his core grew even if he didn’t use it properly.

“Yeah, I wonder sometimes if I’m hurting myself by hiding it so often,” said Arson.

“Then stop hiding it, silly. It’s not like even poor people aren’t born with crowns for cores,” offered Troy in support.

“That look like mine, and drink in ambient mana, absolutely any type, without distinction?” Troy looked around momentarily, then nodded up at him.

“Better put it away for now, but please know that you should feel comfortable with the displaying of your core. I am not ashamed to be around you while it is out, orphaned by a king or not,” stated Troy with a grin. Arson pulled her into a hug she didn’t refuse and after a moment, they separated and he turned toward his friends.

“So guys, this is where we are going to be for the next three days, maybe more if we haven’t made it to the top floor by then, but the premiss is pretty simple, our group has a point total, the more points we have, the better our rooms become,” explained Arson.

“So how do we gain points?” asked Xani,.

“There are two types of events in this place, solo, and party. I have a few party events on this floor already scheduled later, but for now I’d like you all to explore and see the types of solo events you can get entangled in before we all come together as a unit.”

“Holy crap! There are potion comps down here,” stated Rob. He’d stepped away and began to scroll through a nearby terminal. The devices could be seen at the ends of every block in any direction Arson looked, alongside street vendors, stalls and a few larger shops.

The open area had an artificial sky above, filled by a sunset and stars even visible through the almost daytime effect being simulated. A sight that made Arson want to fly even though he knew there would be a roof above to eventually stop his ascent.

“Is there stuff for all of us to do?” asked Jasmin. Arson could see her hesitation to figure out how things worked, but knew that he’d picked the right place for his entire group to both grow as individuals and come together as a team.

Even before he’d left, they hadn’t truly been forced into a situation where they had to work together to complete a task. So if Arson would one day rely on his friends as he envisioned, they would have to become as reliable as Micro and the Pocket Apartment members, or more.

“What are you going to get into while we explore? Any events that you are interested in doing alone?” asked Khalif. Arson spun slowly toward a large crowd of people and gestured toward someone standing on a small stage in front the group.

“I’ll be placing bets on whatever you guys get into, the more bets I win, the faster we go up in floors, I think there are 13 in total,” answered Arson. The others nodded and he hugged Troy before he started off down the road.

He first needed to gain some points to start betting with and had a few ideas on how he could get enough to make an impact. He needed enough points to support a group, and normal events wouldn’t be sufficient.

After he stopped to check a terminal to make sure he was heading in the right direction; he quickly found himself in front of two massive doors. A line of people extended from a pair of guards, which Arson ran passed.

Murmurs started at his actions and one of the guards shook his head. The event was notorious for ending with cultivators bloodied and ruined, and since Arson was the one who approached the doors, they knew it was he who signed up for the event named, Skeletal Horde.

The two massive doors opened up and Arson ran in. The attendees behind him were also allowed to enter and quickly headed toward the arena seating all around the desert plain Arson ran into.

“Hello, Hello, Hello, and welcome! Most of you here know what is about to go down, but some of you are unaware, so let me, your brilliant host tell the minority what is about to happen,” said a loud voice that echoed through the area around Arson.

“I, the magnificent Bobby, am going to let our chosen victim below, Carter Gestalt, pick a weapon, and then he will be faced with summoning portals connected to a skeletal underworld,” yelled Bobby the announcer and the growing crowd erupted into cheers.

“Now just as a reminder for our guest, if you kill skeletons, you get points, manage to destroy smaller portals, more points, kill what comes out of larger portals, doubtful, but yeah, points…”

Arson ran through the plain passed many swords, daggers, hammers, maces, and many more exotic weaponry. Yet in the end he settled on a basic two-handed scythe that he kicked into his hand from the ground and spun around his body to test.

“And of course we all know the number one rule, no mana allowed, and don’t forget that if you fall into one of the summoning portals, we aren’t coming after you to save you, dude. At best, we’ll send in some cameras to watch you get slaughtered. Sparks… did I miss anything?”

“No, let’s hurry this up,” yelled Arson over his shoulder.

“Wow, show a crash dummy some hospitality and they spit right in your face. Well, victim, good luck, I mean, Carter Gestalt,” said Bobby with the addition of an odd accent to his surname.

Arson raised the symbol for, Ok above his head and watched the first portal come into view. A rune warped into the air, only to transform into a rip in reality. The distortion widened and spat out skeletons like poured water, and a notification popped up into Arson’s view.

Fearless title triggered, what was once minor, now has magnitude: Survive long enough to kill a horde leader: 1/3.

“Holy sparks! What is going on with the controls, Henry!” Bobbies voice cracked in a panic of alarm, as every bit of available mana to the area was pushed into the mechanisms for the summoning portals.

“You got something to do with this,” asked Arson with a tap on his wrist to wake Anastasia.

“Don’t blame this on me, you saw that notification, your title triggered. Why’d you pick that crazy sparking title anyway? Took your mom a century to get rid of it,” said Anastasia. Arson sighed heavily and stretched.

“I didn’t…,” stated Arson simply.

“Oh, that’s bad…,” responded Anastasia. Arson cracked his neck and knuckles, before he took a readied stance, and extended the scythe he held.

“I know.”

…

Rob walked into the small shop to see 100 or so tables filled with alchemy equipment. Only a few of the tables remained empty. So Rob quickly found his way toward one of those, and found it strange when people gazed at his choice.

The equipment being offered was uncommon for most to see as new alchemist, so most decided to use the potentially higher quality. Only those with ridiculous backing brought their own materials and preferred their own equipment; their backers usually a grade above the rest.

Am I one of those people now…? Naa…

Rob began to take his tools out of his spacial bag, while he also read the rules for the competition.

“What am I making here? Seems like a basic healing potion’s sparked up, little brother. Why would I even add that? Do these people want people’s blood cells to explode…” After Rob analyzed the entire list of ingredients, looked around at his competition again and laughed at how many botched potions he could see at a distance, he merely shook his head and began.

He didn’t care that he came in halfway through the timed interval. Nor that he used his own fresh ingredients, rather than the wilted plant life offered. What Rob cared about was his process.

From that point on, Rob’s inner chef was stirred from the depths and took over.

The larger cauldron he used took up most of the table, which left him with not much of an area to work with. Acceptable for some, but not for Rob.

Without a second thought Rob managed to slide another table toward his own and spread his tools out further. He was unaware that the table weighed a ton, but his consistent potion usage had had more than a few effects on his body and mind.

One being the physical changes that added to his strength and dexterity, but even less obvious were the addictive qualities of the bodily improvements. Rob still wore his rebreather, and hadn’t tasted natural air in almost half a fortnight.

This was due to a secondary effect caused by the water breathing potions he made. After the duration of the potions extended passed the half a day threshold, Rob started to notice how fast his thoughts moved after being under the potions effects for more than a day.

Additionally he had cut himself in the kitchen, and watched the cut close visibly. Where he would have once been exhilarated and proud of himself; he was now a part of a group of geniuses that made his feat feel minor, even as incredible as it truly was.

Once Rob ran of out of space, he pulled another empty table to work on, but before he could grab an additional one, a trend had begun and others around had taken up the rest of the available surfaces. Rob reevaluated his competition, and laughed at the changes.

Many had realized that their first potions were botched. The list of partial accurate ingredients had started a chained set of explosions fated to occur since the beginning. Rob snickered to himself, pulled another table from his spacial bag to the amazement of almost everyone inside the small shop, and continued to brew the health potion being requested.

…

“Next!” Xani yelled the single word on repeat. Each time she repaired an item, she immediately called for the next person. She had no idea how many points she’d acquired since she’d last checked, but had no intention of stopping until she was either told she couldn’t work anymore, or was told to stop by Arson.

It’d be a waste of time you could have used to catch up to that monster, thought Xani.

Xani had entered a repair shop full of mechanics, engineers, craftsmen of a large variety and even a few specialists.

Points were rewarded by how many repair tickets were completed. Once an item was returned, the quantity of points equated to the value of the repair given by the master inspectors hired by Raid Corp was deposited into their groups account.

Xani refused to look at the points a second time as whatever Arson was doing to make their group points never seemed to stop. Their names were stacked in an ascending order from lowest to highest points, and her bosses points rose like the numbers on a stop watch.

She’d thought that she’d be able to keep up with him easily. No crafter near to her completed as many tasks as she had since she’d arrived.

Weapons, armors, trinkets and even runic talismans, were reforged, polished, and infused with restorative manas like an assembly line behind Xani.

While she herself took in the orders, two robotic hands she’d made to mimic Arson’s own worked on the table behind her.

Though the rune work required her direct attention, everything else was worked on by her extra hands.

“Sparks BossLady, leave some for the little guy,” yelled another competitor a few tables down from Xani. Her line grew as fast as it shortened, which only drew more patrons at a faster rate. No one wanted to wait, nor had anyone complained about the repairs. In fact some noted improvements…

I’m a crafter, just because you hand me trash, doesn’t mean I can return it as such, undamaged or not.

“Next!”

Khalif watched Xani’s points start to shoot up drastically, before Rob momentarily eclipsed them all in points. The young man received a massive sum of points at once, then smaller lump sums every few moments in random intervals from that point on.

How quickly his teammates gained points made him wonder if the choice he’d made to bounty hunt was the best idea. It may take him much longer to find targets, but luckily for him there were dozens of places marked on the local terminals to start.

Khalif scoped out an apartment building, filled from top to bottom with illegal competitors. The cultivators within the building were either in debt point-wise, or had stayed in Coliseum for longer than their ticket permitted.

This bounty stuff better pay big if I’m going to be able to pay my own way like the others, thought Khalif to himself. He only was rewarded a tenth of what each cultivator owed, or double the overall ticket cost of the time the overstays would have had to pay.

To receive the points bounty, he had to successfully tag the cultivator with a tracking chip, for which he’d been given a handgun with more than 1000 available rounds. What made his task difficult, was that the chips could only be activated when placed in one of three locations on the body. The carotid artery, or neck. The back of the neck, or spinal cord. Or finally, the temples.

Khalif wasn’t a good shot, but with what he had planned, he didn’t think he would have to be.

The only other issue he’d been warned about when the bounty office gave him the ID safe gun, was that it would only fire at people the pinprick cameras identified as illegal competitors. So he should be wary of legal competitors mixed in, some would defend illegal competitors that worked for them, or even owed them points.

“”Let’s make this quick, gotta lot of stops to make.”

Khalif dropped into his own shadow; the minor teleportation able to transport him across the street, and into a bathroom he saw on the second floor. He landed in a crouch on the back of the toilet tank, in the same moment a young man rose from his seated position on the toilet.

The young man bent to pick up his trousers and before he could even pull up his zipper, Khalif touched the barrel of his handgun to the back of his neck and pulled the trigger.

The tracking chip slammed into the cultivator with a punch that took him off his feet, and sent incredible amounts of electricity through his body.

Khalif hadn’t expected the power behind the shot, so didn’t expect the body of the cultivator to slam up against the bathroom door. In the end he was fast enough to catch the body before it hit the floor, but not enough to stop the initial slam it’d made.

“You good in there, I’m gonna be pissed if you fell asleep on the toilet after I told you I gotta drop one bad, dude, come on!” Khalif moved to the door as the person outside continued to yell and banged on the door in a hurry to get inside.

The door was whipped open by Khalif, who then jammed his pistol into the startled cultivators neck before they could react and once more pulled the trigger.

The person was sent off their feet and fell against a nearby wall into a puddle of limbs and their own slowly expelled waste.

“Hmmm, that’s way more points than I thought I’d be getting. What are the higher floors like?” said Khalif as he stepped over the seizing bounty he’d just tagged and kicked in another door with the handgun raised at the ready.

“Don’t get up on my account, I’m just here to pick up the trash, no I can do better than that, let me try again… don’t mind me. I’m just… oh whatever, eat sparks!

…

“Work it, work it, work it!” Jasmine and Lane had somehow found themselves a part of a dance competition. Or it had been, then they were interviewed which led to them presenting for a streetwear fashion show.

“Hey, should we do the singing competition or the talent show next?” asked Jasmine.

“I know you want to do those, but seriously, sister, this sensual voice actors one will probably get us an outrageous amount of points. It’s labeled as the seventh highest viewed event down here under other crazy sparking spectacles like Skeletal Horde, and Rampage, who the sparks is crazy enough to join an event called sparking Rampage for maiden’s sake?”

Jasmine lifted Lane’s chin from the Terminal they were both standing at, until her eyes saw one screen with Arson rushing into a portal that seemed to vomit skeletons like an exorcism victim, and another screen where Troy destroyed as many buildings as possible using a great hammer as a timer ticked down in the corner of the screen.

“See, we gotta go big Jazz. You and me doing sexy voice dubs over kung fu movies is sure to get a few laughs. I promise, please, please, pretty please, please?”

Jasmine didn’t have to take long to consider what Lane stated as potentially a good idea. Not only because Lane had a talent for hyping up practically any crowd, but also because even Khalif had started to shoot up in points out of the blue.

One second, he had a whopping zero, the next, he, Xani and Rob all fluctuated between 3rd, 4th, and 5th place. While Arson and Troy shifted between first and second constantly.

“Spark it, rock paper scissors for who gets to play the female lead,” said Jasmine as she lifted both hands, a fist held in her opposing palm in preparation.

“You are on!”