Magnus Thorne 06

06 – Cowboy underland

Fuck systems. Fuck who has them. Fuck all of them. They get the easy life, except since everyone has a system, their life isn’t really any easier. They all get second chances. They all get manufactured fortunate encounters. They all get to be just that much better, but again, since everyone is one step up thanks to their systems, nobody is.

Guess who’s the only person who suffers from this? Me. The only single soul on this godforsaken planet without a system. Hell, from what I know I am one of the few souls in the entire universe without one. Even planets have systems! Trees! Animals! Everything and everyone does.

Except for me.

That’s why I became the great Magnus Lazarus Thorne.

That’s also why I woke up with the worst headache in the history of mankind. No system to magically handwave it away.

“Welcome to Neverexia! Been a while since we last had a visitor from the outside! You’re lucky you managed to drag yourself all the way to our walls before collapsing. What’s your system, lad?”

Lad? I am no lad. I am a full grown—wait. Perhaps that cage did something to me? I needed a mirror. But before that, I needed to answer this man’s question, or he was going to be upset and then a whole ordeal would begin.

“My system is uh… unique.” I said, stammering. I had never lied about it before and it showed. Never had any reason to.

Besides, my eyes were drawn to the strange clothes he was wearing, made of a sort of smooth fabric and buttons and all that.

“Yeah!” The man laughed. “Everyone says that. Come on, spill it. I need to know if I am to heal you the right way.”

Come to think about it, I still felt pain.

“I gather uh… mana. Store it in my body and astral soul. Then I can use it to cast sp—skills.”

“I see. I see. Basic skillcaster. But your soul is weak, young man. What happened to you?”

“I was hurt.” True that. “I am recovering.” Also true.

“A man your age should be a hundred times stronger than that, at the very least. You are lucky most people can’t sense souls, and this city is quite peaceful now that the unruly cowboys have been reigned in. For the most part… if you ignore the gunshots in the morning, noon and at dawn. At night too!”

Gun-what? “Yeah…”

For some reason, my tone of voice must have conveyed some hidden message I did not put there.

“Ah. I understand now.” He does? “That’s why you are so weak. Surfacer with Soul damage, bad stuff.”

Oh. Let’s roll with it. “Got into a tussle, let’s call it. Barely got out. I need a place to lay low for a while.”

“Then Neverexia is the right place. Mining city. Fortified. Even if they manage to follow you all the way down here, we will just shoot at them like we do monsters! The surfacers have always been weak compared to people born and raised here, in the depths! Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend.”

“Surfacers?”

“Old folk. Well, your folk I would assume. They founded the city, left and never came back to reclaim it. Fine to us. But don’t worry. We ain’t racist around here. Just behave like one of us, become strong like one of us, and you ain’t surfacer no more. Easy.”

“Thanks, I guess?”

“No problem.” The man smiled.

At this point, I didn’t know what else to say. A thought in the back of my mind told me that the word surfacer hid more information than I wanted to process. No, scratch that. You know what, I decided I wanted to know.

“What do you mean by surfacers, exactly. Like, people from where?”

The man looked at me like I was delirious. He adjusted his shirt, smoothing out some wrinkles in the strange fabric, and when a loud bang echoed from outside, he briefly went to the window to yell some curses. The sun was already high in the sky, and quite bright. Not much of the city was visible from inside the room, but I followed the man to the window and got to see more.

Houses made of wood surrounded a dirt street of yellow and orange powdery ground. Deep markings of wheels and horses like scars were dug in the dirt, and many men wandered around in the torrid sun, protected by thin clothes and wide hats. Some of them, not all, chewed onto thin dark strips of wood.

“People from up.” The healer said after a while. “From above the sky.”

I looked up. The wide expanse of the blue sky greeted me, bleached to white at the edges by the humidity in the air. There was no sign of anything existing above the sky except for the infinite cosmos, but perhaps I was wrong.

“We are still inside the Meandering Crevasse, aren’t we?”

The healer hummed pensively. “Been a loooong time since I heard the name. To us, there’s only Neverexia, lad.”

“Why?” I asked. “The way out is blocked?”

“There’s a portal leading up, and another leading down. If you take the portal leading up, provided you even find it, then you need to find another, then another, then another…”

He paused.

“Been thirty years since someone returned from that perilous journey. Hells, been thirty years since someone had been so stupid to even think such a journey would have been worth it. He spent decades clawing his way up. Decades.” His eyes narrowed. “Do you know what he found, when he finally crossed the last portal? A sealed exit. Sealed with magic so strong, not even him with how mighty he had grown could break it.”

“Did he return?” I asked.

“Yes. And made Neverexia into the place it is today. We owe it to the surfacers if there’s civilization here now. In a weird, contorted way.”

“I… see.”

My tone of voice must have shown through. The healer, noticing that the news that going back to the surface was all but impossible, turned to face me and put his large hands on my shoulders.

“You’ll like this place. Lots of opportunity to grow strong around here. If your system’s about killing monsters, then you’re set! There’s lots of monsters around, and we sure as hell do not let an opportunity go to waste. Just grab a gun and go hunting like the others, you will be rich and powerful in nooooo time. Just be careful or we might see each other again sooner than you’d like. This healing session is free, by the way. On the house. Next one’s full price.”

The man laughed, and after he was done healing, I found myself wandering the streets of Neverexia.

I looked up. The sky was not the real sky. I was still trapped inside the dungeon that had held me hostage for countless years. I was still in the same place that had claimed a piece of my sanity, big enough that I knew it was not the same as I was before.

I needed to get out. I could not stay inside this god forsaken place one moment longer. And once I was finally out, then I was going to destroy the maze once and for all, taking out all the twisted and strange forms of life and primitive civilizations that lived inside of it with along with it.