Chương 76: 75-Daughter of the Compendium

Billy saw that weird other Jenna get lost in the crowd and felt a surge of relief. He loved his girlfriend very much, but he was not sure he was up to the task of putting up with two of them at once.

"We should move, too," said Bob.

"Multiple Jenna has just torn through half of the city to get here. The city watch is due any moment now." The Losers lost disappeared into the chaos. A trail of debris and destruction marked the path Rampaging Becky had taken through the city.

"This is horrible," Billy said.

"Each minute we spend here, we put these people in more danger."

"I know," Jenna agreed.

"These bloody assassins the Keeper brought here are not too subtle at their job."

"It is more than that, Jenna," Bob said.

"They are not cooperating with each other. Some of them are clearly hunting other assassins."

"They all want whatever the Keeper has promised them as a reward, and some have decided that the best way to get it is to thin out the competition," Jenna answered.

"Isn't the Keeper supposed to be almost omniscient?" asked Billy.

"How can he bungle things so much?"

"I guess he's pretty knowledgeable about the cosmic stuff. About human nature, not so much."

"Can we play this to our advantage, Jenna?" Bob asked.

"Do you even need to ask?" ◇ Red William walked nonchalantly down Viper Alley. He had asked around and knew it was the most disreputable part of the city. He had bought fifty corpse-camping charges—he could feel them humming, nested against his meridians. Corpse-camping had been the first power the Respawn module had granted him, the night he, Aunt Ethel, and Edna had taken down the Moon Goblin dungeon by themselves. Mostly he, though.

He had been the first to fall when he led the charge against the Goblin invaders, wielding his machete. Edna and Ethel had followed. The module had granted him corpse-camping and resurrected him. He fell on the goblins like a maniac, his body empowered by the charges he had bought. They killed him again and again, but each time he was reborn, his body larger and more powerful, and his mind hungrier for blood. He woke up the next morning, among the debris of his old house.

He remembered nothing past his fifteenth resurrection. By that time, his mind was gone, only feral instincts and rage remaining. It was always the same with him: the charges were like nitroglycerin grenades. One would go off each time he was killed. Other charges would activate when he killed others, as long as those deaths were significant: any kill would do at the beginning of the process, but he would need to slay many weaklings when he was fully empowered by his magic. The death of a hero always worked.

If the charges went unused for too long, they would begin to hum and protest. If he ignored them, they would eventually explode all at once, sending him unconscious to the Blue Room. Then, the process would begin anew. He had been at this for a long time and had an extensive selection of powers on his respawn list. He had not even looked at it. What for? He was a corpse-camper, and that was enough.

"Okay, pretty boy, stop right there," a disreputable individual with three grimy-looking friends told him as he passed in front of him. They formed a circle around him.

"Your money, or your life." Red William felt the thrill of battle building up inside him. It had begun. Then he saw a family of four in the background, scurrying away. They were scared. Lots of families were leaving the city, with its unexplained deaths and its falling buildings. Red William would never lay a finger on one of them. In his current state, that is. In five deaths, he would not give a flying fuck. He sighed. He gave the thugs his money. ◇"Are you seeing this? Have you seen my new quest?"

Albo asked the rest of the band, proudly projecting his status page. Gaining levels in an organized city, with two tamed dungeons and the ever-vigilant eyes of the city watch, was a slow and arduous process for the criminal element. Albo was level 4. He had long ago given up hope of hitting 15 and becoming a Suave Bandit, his lifelong dream. Quests were infrequent and gave lousy rewards, as always happened when you took out the spicy element of chaos that could still be found in the wild.

None of the guys in the band were over level 6. Elite Quest: Swear allegiance to the Compendium. Reward: +10, 000 xp and the ability to sense Dissonance.

"Shut up, Albo, we all got it. You are the only one who hasn't completed it yet. Everybody is getting it, Alan tells me. The River Rats, the Black Fingers, Tupama's Crew… It seems it is our turn now." All the guys were focused on their own stat screens. Albo realized then what they were doing; they were choosing their competencies and classes—they had all hit level 15.

"Wait until you see the next one," Shapur told him, grinning confidently. That was all Albo needed to hear.

"I swear allegiance to the Compium," he said, bungling it. Even so, the quest was marked as completed. The Compendium was in a forgiving mood that day. Albo felt experience pour into him, bringing with it the sweet, sweet feeling of unearned progress. Like most thieves, he was not a big fan of meritocracy. When he opened his eyes, he was level 15. The world seemed strange now. A bothersome noise permeated it. Dissonance, the quest had called it. Then he noticed the new quests: four of them.

Find Dissonant Beings (Repeatable): +1, 000 xp for each different being you find. +5, 000 if no one has found it before. Hurt Dissonant Beings (Repeatable): +1, 000 xp for each successful hit you land on a dissonant being, as long as you hurt them. Kill Dissonant Beings (Repeatable): +15, 000 xp for each killing blow you land on a dissonant being. Bring Me the Icosahedron: +50, 000 xp for bringing the Icosahedron to Legacy.

"Guys, this is incredible, have you…?" Albo shut up. The gang was already heading out, looking for these displicent beings, or whatever they were called. He swore, hastily choosing his Competencies and Class while running towards the nearest source of Dissonance. ◇ The Losers were mingling among the scared crowd, trying to draw as little attention as possible. Jenna suddenly stopped.

"Something is wrong. Lore has warned me someone is handing out quests like candy."

"Are you on speaking terms again with Lore?" asked Bob.

"He is like a surly teenager who sometimes mows the lawn," explained Jenna.

"There is only one of us with the power to grant quests, and that's you, Jenna," Bob reminded her.

"Yes. She must be one of my twinners. One with far more control over the Compendium in her mind than I could ever hope to achieve, though. She must be burning through all the XP pool allotted to this reality. I could never do that."

"I've got one, I've got one," someone shrilly shouted as a hand grabbed Jenna's arm. She turned around; a disreputable-looking fellow was clutching her arm, a look of ecstasy on his face.

"Oh, my God, I have gained three levels! Now I can…" He went down like a sack of potatoes as Jenna clocked him on the jaw. ◇ The Maker grunted, finishing his unsavory work. There were very few times he regretted having sworn the Oath of Making, but this was one of them. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Having sworn always to depend on items to use his powers had done wonders for his crafting projects. Alchemy, one-use talismans, arcane foci, you name it…

They had all become incredibly easy to create. Sadly, the best of them required solid XP that was hard to get. Until now. The Keeper's trove of rewards would keep him in the green for a long, long time. So many new projects. There were only two things he regretted about the Oath. Firstly, he missed the sweet exhilaration of improvising perks in combat situations. Granted, Arcane Foci could provide even greater versatility, but it was not the same.

Secondly, he missed all his fatigue-resistance perks, which had allowed him to transcend biological limits. He probably would not be sitting here, on this dirty, unkempt WC., dealing with the aftereffects of that spicy dish he had eaten only thirty minutes ago. Damn megalopolis and its tourist traps. And he would not have to hear the whispers of the clumsy assassins gathering in front of the door. They must have been hunting him using Dissonance.

As they were getting ready to kick the door down, the Maker smiled briefly. Who said he could not improvise? ◇ Black Loran kicked down the door, uttering his new war cry, which he had leveled up only thirty seconds ago. The Maker was nowhere to be seen.

"Damn it, where has he gone?" he asked the rest of the gang.

"Are you really, really sure you want to find him, boss?" said Vorela, holding a handkerchief against her face.

"I bet three to one he had the Spicy Goulash at Floretta's."

"I hate Floretta," some other thug muttered.

"I am sure she got my cat."

"Shut up, the lot of you. Where…what is that noise?" Black Loran asked as the whole room trembled. Then the WC morphed into a monster and jumped on them. ◇ The Losers kept running, heads down. They could hear the shouts of the enhanced thugs looking for them.

"How are they locating us?" asked Billy.

"They are using Dissonance. We all emit it," answered Jenna.

"I thought you were buffering it so that it seemed to come from everywhere at once."

"That only works with the Dissonance the Icosahedron itself is emitting, not with our personal Dissonance. The good news is that the artifact emits so much of it that our own Dissonance only becomes perceptible at short range. We will have to avoid crowds."

"That means the thugs are also going to target the rest of the assassins—they are also Dissonant," said Bob.

"God, this is going to become a Royal Rumble."

"It also means that the Jenna who is causing this might also be targeted by her own enhanced thugs," answered Jenna.

"She must have chosen a secluded spot and done her work from there," mused Bob.

"We must find her and stop her, or there will be no city standing left when this is over," Jenna told him grimly. ◇"Hey, you there, pretty boy," an already familiar voice told Red William.

"Again?" he asked, annoyed.

"I already gave you all my money."

"And we are very grateful for that," the slimy thief told him with a false smile. There was something different about him. His stance looked more confident, and he moved with greater grace—he had gained more stats since Red William had last seen him.

"I am afraid we will now have to take your life, too. Nothing personal. You have just that little special something that says please kill me. If it is any consolation, we are going to get a lot of XP playing with you." Then he turned to the rest of the gang: "Just as I said, boys. Each one gets a turn to hit him; make it hurt, but only with non-lethal blows."

"I get the killing blow. If we make this idiot last, we can get thousands of XP out of him alone." Red William studied the city. It looked mostly empty. Most of the citizens had fled in panic. Others were huddling inside the safety of their homes. It was as good a time as any other, he guessed. He unsheathed the machete strapped to his back. It had one word engraved on it: Ethel. He charged at the thugs, the fifty corpse-camping charges packed inside his aura shuddering in anticipation.

The thugs quickly abandoned the idea of non-lethal blows. ◇ Jenna created a mental simulation of the city and studied it, trying to find out the quest-giving assassin's hiding place. If her twin's powers worked much like her own, she would need visual contact to deliver the quests. Logsight also worked, but only Immortals had access to it. Unless she was delivering a Regional Quest. Did they rank as high as a Tribulation on the threat scale? Better not find out.

There were only seven places in the city that met both requirements: isolation and a good view of the whole cityscape. She could not narrow it down any further: it had to be one of those seven. Luck +2"Bob, what is your favorite number?"

"3. 1416" Jenna sighed.

"And yours, Billy?"

"One."

"The belfry it is, then." ◇ Legacy watched the city below from her vantage point atop the belfry. She enhanced her eyesight, scanning every part of the city carefully. Down there, it was chaos. She was having second thoughts about enhancing all the criminal elements and setting them on the hunt. Perhaps a more nuanced approach would have worked better.

Not for the first time, Legacy wondered if she was still being influenced by the remnants of the mind and soul of the body she was now occupying—its former owner had been a temperamental one. No. It was impossible. Not since that fateful day when the Primordial had tried to absorb the Compendium into her own mind and had been crushed by its majestic presence. She was now just her vessel. Legacy had inherited her body and her powers: once the Compendium's most hated foe, now her most trusted servant and daughter.

Legacy had jumped at the chance to serve. Not only would she keep the balance of the cosmos, but she would rid it of four abominations. Three were the Losers; the last one was inside the head of one of them. Lore. A brother. A corrupted, weak, human brother. She would put him out of his misery. Legacy's enhanced perceptions picked up a disturbance near the square: There! A dissonant being must have passed near one of her agents and had been detected.

She saw an unknown young man escaping from a mob of her enhanced criminals. His body moved in an unnatural fashion, shifting into a pony-sized spider as he ran. It was the Everlasting. She sent a mental order to Klatha with the location of her prey. Klatha had been a seamstress until this morning, when she had agreed to serve her. Now she was a level-52 Mindbinder.

"Come on, Klatha, do your thing," she muttered. She had done it again. That was something Jenna would say. Anyway, it worked. A giant translucent hand manifested over Billy, its right index finger pointing down at him. All her pawns in the city suddenly knew where he was. They all converged on him.

"No, no, you bloody idiots, do not tackle him…" she almost screamed as she saw all her agents pile upon him, creating a mound of human bodies. Then Billy exploded, taking all of them with him.

"I knew it, I just bloody knew it," she said. Another Jenna expression. Maybe she ought to look for some help when she returned home. Where were the other two? Why had they separated? She put her freebies into tactics and found out the answer. They were keeping her distracted—she was under attack. She was not worried. The whole city was under a dimensional lock—teleporting from outside would place you at a random spot, and doing so from the inside was downright impossible.

The belfry was locked with a reinforced steel door. There was no way they could creep up on her without her detecting them. There! The Skillmaster. Or one of them anyway. He had shifted his face, but he had made the mistake of holding a Palooga ball in one hand. She recognized it from a mile away. She nudged Klatha. Another giant finger pointed at Bob. A squad of her underlings approached him, this time more carefully. This would not do.

Some quest fiddling was in order, and no one could fiddle with quests as the daughter of the Compendium. Her gaze settled on three guards one hundred feet away from the Skillmaster. They were level 12. They would do. She quickly granted each of them the same quest. Quest: Breathe. Breathe once. Reward: +8, 000 xps and gain the Damned Warbeast Legacy. The three guards suddenly gained three levels, obtaining their fourth and final Competency: a Legacy.

A restricted Legacy based on the unfortunate cannon fodder race of a hellish realm. Their bodies tripled in mass and became monstrous, their jaws widening and sprouting huge fangs. And the pain. Oh, the pain. Warbeasts were in constant pain, the kind only hell can inflict. Watch the maestro in action. A second quest. Quest: Kill Bob. Reward: The pain stops for a minute. The three Damned charged at Bob, howling, the rest of her agents trailing after them. Bob disappeared.

No, that was impossible; he could not teleport. She realized he had used his shadow powers to transform into a silhouette and crawl into a nearby house by slipping under the door. She prepared to give Klatha further instructions when something occurred to her. Where was Jenna? And why was she hearing a mount galloping? She was on top of a belfry, for the Compendium's sake. She turned around, just in time to see Jenna grab her by the arm as she rode by her side.

She was mounted on an Elven stag, summoned with a magical warhorn. An Elven stag that could gallop through the air. Legacy had time for one protest as Jenna dumped her on top of the thugs that were trailing after the Warbeasts and rode away. Legacy then realized her mistake—she was Dissonant, too. Her troops fell on her, wielding all sorts of weapons.

"No, idiots, no, I am the one maintaining your quests…" she had time to say. ◇ Bob's shape reformed inside the house. Just three minutes, Jenna had said. He hoped she had fulfilled her part. He had his doubts for a moment as one of the thugs kicked down the door.

"I can't believe it. I am going to be the one to complete the quest. For the first time in his life, Albo Scoffins has a lucky break," he announced, heading towards Bob. Bob smiled. He should not have doubted Jenna.

"Have you had a look at your status screen, Albo?" he asked.

"I am level zero? But I was level 22 thirty seconds ago!" Albo said.

"That's the way she did it, then," answered Bob.

"Those levels were only temporary. I was wondering how she got hold of all that experience."

"But I was level four before this!" Albo almost wept.

"I guess those four levels you lost were the price you paid for the others. You lost them forever to gain access to extra levels for a time. My wife pulled the same trick on me during our divorce proceedings," Bob said, not unkindly.

"On the plus side, those guards she transformed are back in human form. All the quests she granted had been destroyed when Legacy died."

"It could have been worse, Albo," Bob said sympathetically as he left the room. Albo tried to think about how it could have been worse. Nothing came to mind.