Knives & Levels - Chapter 113

Colt couldn't believe what he was seeing. It was a level 40 monster that was talking and afraid of him. He didn't know what to do with this. He held it in place for a second and walked around it, considering it from a full perspective.

It was, in a way, more ‘human’ than the other monsters he had slain so far in this Academy. And more than that, the level disparity of it being at level 40 was a shock in itself. Everything else was much higher, and the difference there only heightened his curiosity.

"Why have you been harassing me?" Colt asked. If it could speak, then it could answer that question. And it better have a damn good answer, considering it’d spent the last couple of days bothering him every time he tried to rest.

In a place like that, it whittled down his fighting power, and could potentially lead him to death. Right now, he felt exhausted, and he had his current culprit dead to rights. Advancing Momentum hadn’t helped the issue. Still, every day of not being able to meditate in peace, thanks to this beast, had brought him lower and lower. That alone made him think it was working with the rest of the phantoms as some sort of annoyance creature, designed to weaken him.

"Because I'm bored," it said, "and I'm terrified. You're the first other human I've seen in a long time. For hundreds of years."

Colt stopped pacing in front of the monster. They still stood on the dark, towering stairs that led up to the top with the time crystal, which made it maybe not the most comfortable place for an interview like this. Who liked talking on the steps? But it was what it was.

It was lucky it wasn’t dead yet.

Colt crossed his arms. "You are a monster. A level 40, to be precise. A phantom."

"Phantom? I’m dead, yes. But I died before they were corrupted. Before the corruption of this whole place, it hadn’t touched me. I am—I was human!”

"You're not human," Colt said.

"I was human."

"You're not human," Colt reiterated.

His Inspect had confirmed that, even though most of this monster had its status hidden away from him, another perplexing thing considering its low level… He almost wondered if the level itself was a lie. How much could he trust when it didn't provide the usual sort of description that he was accustomed to seeing? How much did the Hide Status skill conceal at higher levels?

"I'm not," the phantom replied. "Listen, if those phantoms found me like you found me, I would be dead by now—er… More dead. You and me are in the same position. This place is going to shit. The corrupting piece of Chaos that they brought in is about to hatch. And with it, this entire pocket world is going to dive into the depths of the Labyrinth so deep that worse stuff will spill in! And then I’ll die for sure.”

"You're already dead," Colt said, reiterating the point that this was a phantom he was speaking to and not a real, living, breathing person. He still wasn’t sure if he bought it, but the sincerity and urgency in the ghost’s tone made it clear something was going on. More than anything, though, it left him with a question.

So many of them. Starting with ‘Chaos’. He'd seen hints here and there throughout this dungeon, particularly in the description of the Crystal above.

"What is Chaos?" Colt asked.

The phantom began to speak, but then nothing came out. Colt saw its mouth moving. But nothing.

A second later, a system notification appeared.

———

This information is censored. Please join the rest of the Labyrinth to have access.

———

Colt stared at those words as they faded away. The phantom was still talking away in front of him, completely unaware. He rubbed the back of his neck and then raised his hand to stop the thing from speaking any further.

"Right. So I couldn't understand any of that."

"Oh," the phantom stopped, looking at him with wide eyes.

Colt loosened the Edict more. Both because he felt that now that they were talking, this thing wasn't about to freak out and run. And the fact that by the second, as he held down both conflicting Edicts with his already worn soul, it was getting more and more difficult to do so. Loosening the severe bindings he had placed on the phantom allowed it to move. Just the barest bit. It flexed out its hands, looking down as they moved. But it moved slowly, still under his control. But not enough to cause an irrational strain on Colt’s soul.

"You aren't yet connected, are you?" the Phantom said after a moment.

"Connected to what?"

Again, it spoke, and another message from the system appeared.

———

This information is censored. Please join the rest of the Labyrinth to have access.

———

Colt let out a sigh of frustration as he rubbed at his forehead. "The system keeps stopping you from trying to talk to me. It says I need to join the ‘rest of the Labyrinth’ to have access.”

"Right. Okay," the phantom stopped, raising a hand. "I think I know what's going on. In which case, wow, we are really fucked."

"We are really fucked," Colt said, rolling his eyes. "You're dead. And you've been haunting me. And I'm kind of pissed about that. And now, you're trying to tell me that this system has stopped working full scale. I’d say maybe that’s an understatement—but I need a reason to trust you now. For all I know, you’re just really good at hiding your level.”

He held out his Yeti knife and waved it. At this point, though, he didn't think he had it in him to kill this thing. It could talk. It could reason. And it wasn't overtly hostile. Its level certainly wasn't high enough for it to matter if he killed it or not. And now, with his combined Edicts, if it tried to haunt and mess with him again, he could easily dispatch it in the future. It was a neutralized threat… But he needed to push it just a little, to see where things went, especially since the System was doing something he had never seen before.

“I-I don't know how to start—let's be reasonable here—we have to be careful, you can't understand everything I'd like to explain!” The phantom slowly backed away from him, moving like it was in molasses.

"You’re asking me to be reasonable after you've been haunting me for days," Colt deadpanned.

And the phantom shrank away. "Sorry. I was bored! There's not much to do, and I must stay away from the other phantoms. They try to eat up my soul, and I'm not looking for true death."

"You say true death, but you're dead. I take it that’s what you keep referring to when you say, ‘I’ll die’. But how did you die in the first place—and you still haven’t given me a good reason to trust anything you’re saying at all." Colt said and lowered his knife; he wanted the threat to remain, but he’d made his decision. He wasn’t about to kill this thing for harassing him. And now that he’d made it stop, he could finally look forward to an actual bit of rest.

“You can trust me because we want the same thing! We both want to get out of here!” With that, the Phantom waved its hands, and Colt sensed it was speaking the truth. He watched, folding his arms now. The phantom sighed and sat down on the steps. "I died before this place was taken. And I turned into this. That happens sometimes, a touch of Chaos in the Order… At first, I didn't know what to think. Barely able to hold myself together. But then I began to see what happened. The dean and professors were rushing their research, keen to make a break that made this place… Famous… Then, they got a rare material. A seed."

"The Celestial Seed," Colt said, clarifying, since he felt he knew where this was going. With a cooperative phantom talking to him and the system not censoring any of this information, he would take as much as he could get. Information was power; if he knew more, he could use it with their friends to take on the boss who threatened to kill them in a few days.

"Yes, the Celestial Seed," the phantom beamed up at him. "I'm surprised you know that."

"Well, it's part of our quest to leave this place. Actually, it's one of the bosses we have to defeat."

"So that thing's a boss," the phantom trailed off and then shook his head. "Well, the Celestial Seed came into the Academy, and the professors became more reluctant to teach. It had an obsessive property, and they thought they were on the verge of a breakthrough. I was already dead, but I could watch the students become more concerned."

Colt raised an eyebrow at that. The Dark Academy, in a horrible glacier, had a dark history? Go figure.

"Certain things out there," the phantom paused, as if considering its words, "can affect the stability of the place." The phantom drew out the word "place," clearly meaning to substitute it for something else. Colt had a couple of guesses. Likely this ‘pocket world.’ That had slipped out at the start. He sensed that whatever this filter was, it wasn’t perfect and not omniscient.

It’s trying to get around system filters, Colt thought. He marveled at the capacity of this ghost and then felt an immediate gratification that he hadn't just run up and killed this thing after it harassed him for so long.

It was a lesson to take into the future, he supposed. Just because one had the power to easily dispatch things, they had to be careful with it. You never really knew what you were dealing with. And a swift death sentence could end up screwing you in the future.

"That can cause ‘places’ to change," the phantom continued. "Often the more powerful this thing is, the more likely it is to cause this effect."

“And they were studying this thing… For whom?”

The Phantom stopped and shook its head. “Er… The opposite of what we’ve mentioned before—“

“Order,” Colt said.

“Yes, those people wanted us to study the effects of frost and ice, which is why we were here. At the time, it was stable. But then things devolved. It fell… Into the opposite of the people we work for.”

Chaos, Colt ad-libbed the name in his head, already feeling his brain start to hurt from how they darted around certain words.

“…If I’m seeing one of you here, things have gotten bad. And we’re fucked.” The phantom’s eyes were wide—he floated closer to Colt, then set his hands on his shoulders and tried to shake him. Only, it did nothing. The hands passed in and out with a faint breeze of cold. “You’re the only way I get free!”

"You want me to free you," Colt said, his expression ludicrous, "after you harassed me for so long, you're asking me to free you from this place?"

The phantom nodded. "Yes, if you would, I would be eternally grateful. This is not a place for a being like me. And if I get out, then I can re-enter the cycle.”

"The cycle," Colt repeated, wanting clarification.

Once more, there was an incomprehensible garble as it spoke, and he once more got that dreaded system notification. 

———

This information is censored. Please join the rest of the Labyrinth to have access.

———

The system’s censor was both annoying and lazily bad. It was like it was toying with him by letting certain things slip but not giving him a chance to fully understand the picture. “Alright, alright. That one won’t let you tell me. But I think I can piece together what you want and what it means for you to be free.”

“Right—so that’s why you can trust me. We want the same thing.” It gestured to the halls around it, “Defeat the dungeon, and we can both leave.”

Colt thought it over. He had nothing to lose in accepting its proposition, since it was what he was bound to do anyway. On the other side, it had information about what was happening around the system, and no reservations about sharing it… Unlike anything he’d seen so far, this felt human. Colt saw an eagerness and desperation in its eyes, and he let his Edict loose entirely—a test.

A second passed as the phantom still hovered there. Not vanishing away.

Fine, for now, he would go with it and hopefully milk it for as much extra information as it could sneak around this lazy system.

“…We have a deal. Help me by giving me information about the Academy, and I’ll do my best to defeat the bosses and get you out.”

The phantom extended its hand for a handshake, and Colt just stared down at it, raising an eyebrow. That kind of thing wouldn’t work out so well, given that it couldn’t even touch him. A second later, the phantom realized its mistake.

“Ah.” The phantom said, and then withdrew the hand… “I can do that. You’re smart to be in the Academy right now. The storm is coming, and with it a war.”

“A war?” Colt asked, confused.

“Wait, you don’t know?”

“…No, I’ve been in here meditating on my Edict. What happened?” There was a gasp from the Phantom, and then it yelled at him to follow, rushing down the stairs. Not fast enough to vanish away into nothing, but this time leading him.

Colt kept up through a pull of his movement, as they rushed down the entirety of the tower. Until they found themselves at a window quite high in the Academy itself. The window was an ornate black steel, and beyond it was a prime view of the walls and the slope past that. That also made it an ideal place to witness the biggest blizzard he’d seen yet—a terrifying thing, almost an avalanche of snow rushing down the slope. A rolling tempest deadset on hitting the Academy.

“There’s a monster out there. Has been forever, even before we’ve… Fallen… further. And it’s launching an attack—the killing intent is everywhere in the cold, and I hear the Dean’s whispers. All the dead can. Right now, he’s ordering them to defend. Given that things are escalating with the celestial event, it makes sense that the wildlife is getting worked up.”

"Defend," Colt said, staring at the coming storm. He had a good reason to think that the coming storm involved a certain Yeti he'd pissed off not long before, and maybe that reason the Yeti was headed down here was a certain someone holding its claw. Colt spun the knife around as he looked at the oncoming tempest and sighed. "Of course, there's a storm coming."

"Things are about to get bad," the phantom said, shaking his head. 

"Well, that much is plain to see... Wait, what's that?" Colt, his eyes narrowed as he looked at the slope. Speeding down it was... Oh, god. Was that a sled?

There could only be one group of people rushing down the hill like that, and though he barely perceived it, he saw it rushing downward, on course with the Academy itself as it weaved through the many deadly spikes on the massive slope. It was outrunning the blizzard behind it; the Yeti hadn’t been pissed at him. No, it was chasing down his allies. Bringing it all to a head at the Academy itself.

Below, Colt saw ghastly figures begin to float out of the Academy and drift toward the walls.

They were going, like the phantom had said, to defend.

Inevitably, this was going to sprawl out into a three-way fight. Colt could almost laugh, if it wasn’t so annoying, he'd wished for longer to let his soul recoup now that it looked like he could finally get rest, but that had been taken away.. All he could do was shake his head as he watched the slope close the distance toward them. They were headed right for a trap in the form of a group of Phantoms on the other side of the wall.

Colt ran a finger down the side of the Yeti knife, feeling the cool metal brush against his skin as he took a deep breath. They needed someone to save him. And they were lucky they had an insider. "You're going to want to hide somewhere, because I don't think things will go well, and I can't promise my ability to protect you. My friends are my priority." The phantom and its potential hints were intriguing, but it didn't matter as much. Because victory for him in this case meant that he and his family made it out of this horrible place alive, and to that end, Colt would do whatever was necessary, even if it meant tossing himself between the undead and a Yeti.