Zenos gasped for breath. What first he saw was the eggshell-white of a tall tent ceiling, then he felt the softness of a blanket tucked over his arms. He was in a leather bedroll laid out on a floor of straw, and around him were the fixtures of a careful attendant: A basin, a stool, a table, a stick of sandalwood incense, clean towels and freshly-lit candles. A warm towel had been placed on his forehead and his face was damp with sweat.
[Welcome back, player Zenos] read a notification that lingered above him. He pulled his arm out from it snug cover and closed the message.A second notification appeared, larger than the last; long enough to have its own scroll bar. [Patch Notes for v2.0] read the header. The index had many categories: [Stats 2.0] [Inventory 2.0] [Inspection 2.0] [HUD 2.0] and the list went on. Zenos closed the announcement and rested his arm over his blanket.
I was next to Mad, he thought, walked himself through what had transpired. And I… I was taken somewhere. I met a huge lizard, and I was on a mountain. I saw Balagrim. Zenos’ eyes rounded. His recent memories weren’t obscured by flags.
Everyone—!
Zenos summoned his character menu and opened the ability tab. Under the [Innate] ability list were two items: [At-Will Ability: True Eyes of the Emperor (Awakened) (six uses per day)] and below it, [Passive Ability: Reaping Mark II.] [Those that die within 100ft (30.48m) of the Eyes of the Emperor can have their character data captured] a tool tip read as Zenos held his finger against the new ability. [Character data is recycled for some abilities and effects.]
A number popped into view. [1,000,126,321 characters currently stored.]
“So, they really are here…” Zenos uttered. Tears pricked in his eyes and he relaxed his arm. “One billion lives.”
He wiped his face and closed the character menu. His new HUD flickered into view. Gone was the narrow health bar in the top-center HUD. Instead, there were two glass baubles in the bottom left and right corners. One orb was filled with animated red liquid and represented health, while the other was filled with blue liquid and represented mana. Although they were hard to see in the corners of his vision, thinking about them made their values apparent in his thoughts.
[HP: 2,025] the system reported in the deep decline of the Demon Emperor’s voice. [MP: 100.]What should I do now? Zenos wondered, turned his hand in the air. He wore the long sleeve of an unfamiliar mint-green greatcoat. The cold air that passed between his fingers reminded him of winter. I’ll be challenged by everything, isn’t that what I heard?
He frowned and set his hand down.
The pavilion’s door flap opened and a tall man stepped inside, his head bowed on account of the low entrance. He was a brown-skinned gentleman in a long brown greatcoat that reached his ankles, and he set linen sack down on a stool before he stopped to tug off his thick leather mittens.
“Mad?” Zenos asked.
The man’s neatly combed hair was longer than Zenos remembered, where once it had been shredded, it then again was long enough to bind in a short ponytail. His beard had also thickened and it reached from the top of his jaw down to his chin. The man turned toward the noise and stared hard through Zenos.
He made a familiar smile.
“Welcome back to Adohas, Zenos.”
Zenos’ chest trembled anxiously. I can’t tell which of my visions are real, he thought. But Mad is alive. We really did stop the dungeon break.
“Try to relax,” Mad said. The snow that caked to his boots left a trail over the straw as he approached a basin. “You’ve been out a long time.”
“What happened?” Zenos asked.
“Well, we won,” Mad said as he squatted down. He touched a pair of fingers to the basin’s rim. “Raise Temperature, Level 1.”
Zenos watched steam waft from the iron-bound wood container.
Mad splashed the water over his hands, warmed himself as he wiped them down. “The dungeon ruler was defeated and we opened its treasure chest. Inside was a strange, mana-less mirror. It had no effect on me, but the moment you held it, you collapsed. I hauled you out of the dungeon, made you comfortable, and left the Adderhorn to find Lowether.
“I brought back a bigger tent, more rations, and supplies. I’ve been settled in for a month now, waiting for you to wake up.”
“We’re still outside the dungeon?”
Mad nodded. “I couldn’t tell if it was safe to move you,” he said. “Your breathing had slowed so much, and your heart made just one beat a minute. You weren’t comatose, you were virtually dead.”
“Why didn’t you leave me?”
“Ruwenkhet,” he answered.
Zenos blinked at him and Mad stood to grab a towel from a low table. “Excuse me?”
“That is what you are,” he explained. “The Ruwenkhet.”
Could that be his word for Player?
“I knew it when I saw your body regenerate in the dungeon ruler’s lair,” Mad said. “But I should have expected it, ever since you told me you were from another world. Well, everyone has a strange story, but… Ruwenkhet? I could hardly believe it.”
“I’m sorry,” Zenos said.
“The Echokhet have many stories about the Ruwenkhet,” he continued. “Although, as far as I know, a Ruwenkhet has never actually appeared, so who knows how much of them are true.”
“What does that mean?” Zenos asked. “Ruwenkhet?”
“There’s no literal translation,” Mad answered while he tidied the room. He checked the candles, the incense, and the items on the table, and adjusted whatever suited him. “It’s the name of our goddess Rukhet, with the word for severe—or end—inserted in the middle. Rukhet is the goddess of prophecy and she’s said to have made a prediction after Chotokhet’s death, about her future, our fate, and the world’s. Therefore, the Ruwenkhet is sometimes interpreted as a prophecy ender, or breaker. You could call it the Scissors of the Infinite Script.”
“So… a god killer,” Zenos said and sat up in his bedroll.
“Careful,” Mad said. “You might have incredible regenerative abilities, but you’ve been without food a long time. Try not to move too fast.”
Zenos frowned at Mad.
He made a slight smile and scratched the back of his head, deflected his eyes toward the ceiling. “Well, god killer is a big title,” he chuckled.
Challenged by everything, Zenos recalled and sighed through his nose.
“Don’t worry about it too much,” Mad said. “This is just what I think, okay? You’d have to go to the grand Khetarra in the far east to find out for certain. The elders are the ones who would decide.”
Zenos closed his eyes. I already know, he thought. It’s like that man said on the mountain: The gods received a fatal wound. They were counting the days long before I arrived.
“What makes you think I’m the Ruwenkhet?” Zenos asked, opened his eyes.
Mad frowned and picked the sack off his stool. He set it on the straw floor and took a seat. “There are a lot of little, odd things about you,” he said. “The big one—what defines the Ruwenkhet—is that you can’t die.”
Zenos nodded.
“Then I’m right,” he said. “The way you regenerated without magic was amazing on its own, but even if I could explain that, I couldn’t explain your recklessness. That dungeon raid was certain death and you wanted to follow me anyway. At first, I thought you were foolish; the truth, was that you couldn’t die.
“But you knew I could.”
Zenos folded his arms and nodded again. “That was what I was thinking, yes.”
“The second quality,” Mad continued, “is that they can prevent other people from dying as well.”
Zenos’ eyes widened and darted to Mad’s face. There was a grim hardness in his cheeks; a serious element to his glare that Zenos respected. “Explain,” he said.
“We Echokhet are known for our necromancy,” Mad said. “Maybe it has something to do with that. I can’t be sure, since a Ruwenkhet has never actually appeared.”
The Reaping, Zenos thought. That’s the only thing that comes to mind.
“Can you?” Mad asked as he caught Zenos staring into space. “Can you prevent anyone from dying?”
“I’m not sure,” Zenos said.
Mad’s lips slanted. “So, you have some idea of what that means.”
Zenos nodded.
“Then we need to get you off this island,” he said. “You need serious guidance, and there’s only one place you’ll find it.”
“The guild?” Zenos asked.
Mad nodded firmly, cupped his hands over his legs. “Loathe as I am to send you into the heart of Atilonia, you would be safest inside the guild headquarters in Atheria.”
“You wouldn’t send me to the Echokhet?”
Mad appeared to shudder and shake his head. He straightened his back and made a nervous chuckle. “Oh no,” he said. “Oh no, no. If the elders identified you as the Ruwenkhet, there’s no telling what could happen. My people are struggling, pressured by the Atilonian Empire and the Yamahei Federation. There’s little steppe left for their migrations, and the young are uneasy.
“As much as I wish the best for the Echokhet, if you were—perhaps—the Ruwenkhet, it could start a revolution. The Ruwenkhet is the bringer of the end, after all. It is the scissors that cut the gods. Your very existence would be cause enough for war.”
“To what end?”
“The end of the world?” Mad wondered aloud. “I don’t know, but you should be afraid of that. Otherwise my world could end up like yours.”
“Dead,” Zenos said.
Mad nodded and stood. “That’s right,” he said and grabbed his mittens. They slipped onto his hands.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to watch the water,” he answered and opened the tent flap. “Clear my head a bit. You’re comfortable, or do I need to change your towel?”
Zenos made a shallow smile. “I’m fine,” he said.
