Chương 92: 90: Anvar Probably Means Dirt

"Well, shit," I said, glancing around. Should I have recognized that puddle? Everyone was looking to me, which, okay, yeah, shouldn't have been a surprise. I'd led them in here and it was clearly my responsibility to lead them out. But I'd never been in a rift like this before. It wasn't my fault! I didn't know what I was doing!

The panic thoughts were beginning to spiral, when a whistle—not a wolf whistle, just the sort of tuneless whistle of a bored person entertaining themself—broke into the impending fugue state. I turned my head. Chelsea was leaning against the wall, one foot up, admiring her own fingernails, in the most stereotypical bored-streetwalker-standing-under-a-lamppost pose I'd ever seen.

"Hey!" she said indignantly, straightening. And then she smiled, did a little shimmy, and her clothes changed into streetwalker clothing, too; a black leather mini, a tight red halter top showing plenty of cleavage, artificially blonde hair piled on top of her head.

"Oh, no," I objected, closing my eyes.

"Don't do that to my image of Chelsea, please." She laughed, but Jack said, "What?" I opened my eyes and Chelsea was back in her usual clothes; an utterly generic, business-casual, neutral top and slacks. For the first time ever, it occurred to me to wonder whether the real Chelsea had worn more interesting clothes when she wasn't at work. She'd seemed a lot more colorful than her business attire suggested. I bet she did, and that when she was at home, she hung out in vibrant silk pajamas.

"Really?" System Chelsea's clothing switched again, and she looked down at her pajamas with delight.

"Oh, this is nice. I mean, maybe not appropriate for this place." She waved her hand at our surroundings.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Who are you talking to?" Jack asked. I put a hand up to ask him to give me a minute, and stayed focused on Chelsea. She clapped her hands.

"Right. Rift Keeper Tutorial moment. Labyrinth rifts are mazes, usually featuring either traps or puzzles. In a typical Tier One labyrinth rift, the traps are unlikely to be deadly, and the puzzles are most likely tests of a specific attribute, often Agility or Intelligence. But occasionally, Perception."

She widened her eyes at the last and then said, head tipped to one side, "And frankly, someone with 46 Perception, 48 with that ring you've got on, should have no problem in here, if you were just using your eyes." Rebuked by my PIC. I was almost glad no one else could hear her. Zelda gave a little woof. Mean. Here to kill rats. Lots of rat-killing. She was staring straight at Chelsea as she said it. Chelsea gave a little shrug and said, "Point still stands."

"She can see you?" I asked, surprised. I thought Chelsea was invisible to everyone except me.

"She can. No one else does. She was in the challenge scenario with you."

"Jack was, too." She shook her head.

"He's got his own pixie. Currently hiding after getting called out by your other friend. Man, she really had it out for him. Asked how to file an official complaint and everything."

"Is there a way to do that?"

"Nope." Chelsea popped the P on the word.

"You're stuck with us, sorry. Any other questions?"

"So you're not going to show me how to get out. You're just going to tell me I should be able to see it if I try?"

"You got it." Chelsea pointed at me with a pen that had magically appeared in her hand, and then whipped out a clipboard from nowhere.

"I will, however, follow you around and fill out your rift report paperwork for you." She beamed at me.

"Thanks, I guess." I turned away from her and back to the others. They were all looking at me like… well, like I'd started talking to thin air. Not in an immediate rush to call the cops and Baker Act me, fortunately, but with a little bit of the same wariness.

"Jack, the old guy in the scenario, the one who offered you and Emma the enclave, is actually your, um, System assistant." Okay, I should have said PIC or pixie, but either term would have been more confusing than just explaining what our pixies did, right?

"Sys Ass? I have a Sys Ass?" Ah, perhaps that was why they preferred not to use that name.

"A mana construct that can answer your questions, yes. It's a hidden scenario reward. They don't tell us they'll help, but they will. Just with information, though." Jack gaped at me.

"Sorry, I should have told you sooner. You and Emma share one, and when I left her, she was yelling at it."

"How do I summon it?" Jack asked, then spun to his side and started staring into space.

"I guess that answers that," I muttered. Turning back to Missy and David, I said, somewhat apologetically, "We're apparently in a labyrinth rift, which is new to me. Now that I know, though, I should be able to find our way out pretty easily. Do you want to wait here while I look or come with me?"

"I'm coming, too," Jack said, immediately interrupting his conversation with his invisible PIC.

"I can talk and walk."

"Works," I said. I'd already noticed a seam in the wall, a couple feet from where we'd been standing. I went closer to it, traced the line up, over, down again. It was a door, perhaps, but without a handle or a keyhole. I pressed my palm flat against it, and it swung inward without resistance. A rat jumped out. Of course. It was bigger, tougher, grosser than any of the ones we'd seen earlier, its teeth more like vampire fangs than rat teeth. Chelsea, clipboard in hand, murmured, "Zone One mini-boss found. Level 6.

Potential challenge increase as a result of quantity of minions previously slain." The rest of us made our own noise: barks, squeaks, squeals, and a deep grunt from David, who smashed the fireplace poker over the rat's head like he was chopping wood. That didn't quite do it, but Missy fired off a water bullet, Lola added a ripping bite to a lower leg, and that was enough. The rat shuddered and died.

The loot was clearly David's: a shining war hammer with a weight-fluctuation ability that reduced its weight between hits, doubled it during them. I was a lot more cautious when I found the next door. The vampire-fang rat hadn't injured me—probably couldn't injure me—but the squealing had been all mine. Yeah, I'd gotten more relaxed after killing a few hundred of them, but rats still freaked me out. Giant rats jumping out at me from behind secret doors was not going on my highlights reel.

I stepped to the side, shoved the door in, and of course, nothing came out.

"Ooh, classic trap," Jack said, cheerfully peering into the tiny room. It held a small table with a wooden chest sitting on top of it. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. I looked in. The trap knowledge I'd gained in the scenario was apparently still with me, because I could see that the stone before the table was pressure-sensitive.

"I think if you use your Shadow Step, you can probably grab the chest, Jack. Just avoid the pressure plate in front of the table." In a blink, Jack appeared behind the table. He picked up the whole chest, and blinked back to the sewer hallway. This loot felt like it belonged to Missy. It was a necklace with a blue crystal and +3 to Intelligence. The next secret door was just as easy to find, now that I was looking, but harder to open. I finally found a floor trigger that was half-immersed in one of the puddles.

"Ick." I didn't want to touch it, but the sewer didn't have any handy sticks lying around, so I said, "Hey, Jack, poke that," and pointed it out to him.

"Poke it?" He craned his neck to see what I was looking at. I pointed at the poker he was carrying. He'd wound up carrying it after David found the hammer.

"Poker. Good for poking, right?" The look he gave me was eloquent, but he poked the trigger. The door opened into space much like the one we'd started in, with a shimmer in the air that was the gate.

"We found the exit? Without finding a boss?" Jack sounded surprised.

"It's not our gate," I said, staring into the shimmer. We were not going through it, either. The planet on the other side might have nice places somewhere, but the rift opened to a dump. Mounds of trash; packs of rats; a yellow, smoggy sky overhead. The air was probably poisonous.

"That's an alien world," Missy said, awed.

"Another planet. Another solar system. Oh, my god, it's real."

"It's a refuse heap," I said.

"We could learn so much. Archaeologists love finding middens. They tell us so much about the cultures that create them."

"This one tells us that it has rats." I gently took her elbow and tugged her away from the gate.

"We're closing this door. Maybe we can find another rift with, you know, a nice planet on the other side. One with bakeries." I was hungry.

"You should step through that gate," Chelsea said.

"What?" I swiveled to face her. She'd been following along with her clipboard, making the occasional comment. I'd been ignoring her because no one but Zelda and I could see her, which made her awkward to talk to. I wasn't worried that the Francis family were going to try to get me institutionalized—the entire world was a little past that—but old habits die hard. Chelsea waved the clipboard at me.

"You should step through that gate. Get me the info I need to fill out this report and also… Ah, nope, can't tell you that, sorry. But your report isn't complete unless you know what's on the other side of the rift." I heaved a sigh and stared at the shimmer. It was a dump. I could literally see the rats crawling over the mounds of trash. I was sure it smelled. And that air was probably toxic.

"I'll be right back," I said to the others, a little grim. And then I turned to the dogs, Zelda especially, and said, "Wait here." Zelda fluffed the scruff of fur around her neck. No fair, no fair, she objected. Looks fun. She dropped into her hunting crouch and wiggled her butt. Want to play. Bear sniffed at the edges of the gate. No smells. Looks like good digging, she suggested. Lola was eying the rats. Vermin to kill. I come? Riley sat down politely next to David. Pack waits here. Person has said.

All three other dogs made various resigned movements. Zelda's butt stopped moving; Lola immediately joined Riley, sitting next to and a little behind him; and Bear wandered away from the gate, sniffing the edges of the small room, as if the gate had never interested her at all. Not her. She wasn't going through any gates. But I had to. I grimaced and said to Jack, "I need to see what's on the other side." He looked through the gate, looked back at me, and said, "Trash?"

"Long story. I'll be right back." Holding my breath, I stepped through the gate. Ugh, sticky, humid, and even holding my breath, the stench was palpable. A rat three feet away from the door sat up, its beady eyes on me, and twitched its nose. Food? New food?" Not food," I said, coughing out the words, then stepped right back through the shimmer. None of the rats in the rift had said anything comprehensible to me, but I guess my animal communication skill wasn't limited to pets.

"Disgusting," I croaked.

"Wow, I can smell it on you. You stink after five seconds," Jack said. His mom batted the back of his head.

"What?" he objected.

"It's true."

"It's rude," Missy said.

"Was that enough?" I asked Chelsea. She was scribbling on her clipboard, as if she were making notes.

"Check your notifications," she said, without looking up. I checked my notifications, expecting to find the planet name. Congratulations! You are the first Earth human to have visited Anvar. Award: 1000 XP. I wondered, for a fleeting second, whether Anvar meant Dirt, too. Then I continued reading. Congratulations, you are one of the first 1000 Earth humans to have visited another planet in the multiverse. Your visit was short but significant. Title: Multiverse Explorer. Award: +10% experience from all sources.

Congratulations, you are among the first 1000 humans of Earth to have taken a second step toward full citizenship in the multiversal community. The dangers are vast but the rewards are many. Well done. Achievement Progress: Citizen of the Multiverse (2). Award: +10% experience from all sources. My jaw dropped. That was probably the nicest boost I'd gotten, since… well, Universal Translator had been pretty great, too. But a 20% experience point gain brought me up to 55% overall.

"And the rich get richer," I muttered, staring at my HUD and shaking my head. Then I blinked my HUD away and smiled at Jack.

"Go get smelly. Watch out for rats." The rest of the rift was anticlimactic. Everyone, including the dogs, set foot on Anvar and hastily returned, although Zelda was ears-down moping when I made her come back without even chasing that rat at the entrance. They all got the Multiverse Explorer achievement and the points for visiting Anvar. Citizen of the Multiverse, apparently, was more particular: Earth humans only.

I handed David and Missy the [Universal Language] ability stones as soon as they returned, jumping them to Citizen of the Multiverse (2) and giving them another +10% XP to go along with the 5000 XP they got from their Citizen (1) achievement for visiting Anvar. Their Universal Translator achievement, though, was in the top 1000 instead of the top 100, granting them a +5% XP boost. I wondered if everyone in San Celeste had gotten the achievement already. The Sarathi had mentioned boxes of the stones in storage.

After that, we finished clearing the rift instance. There was one more mid-size rat and a big rat at the end, but we had no trouble. All of us got the reward for harvesting the rift and the reward for the very first harvest of the rift, for a total of 2000 XP. Or rather, 2500 XP for the others, and 3100 for me. I also got a reward for World First Third Rift Harvest, which was another +2% XP from all sources.

And then, since the Tier Progress was down to 1%, probably because of how long we'd spent walking in circles, slaughtering rats, I insisted we harvest a second instance. The second harvest didn't give us more XP, but we got the 1000 XP reward for the first clear of the rift. I didn't mention it to anyone else because, you know, the rich shouldn't brag about getting richer, but I also got the World First Second Rift Clear achievement. No title, but another +5% to my experience gains.

After the clear, Chelsea clutched her clipboard to her chest, and said, "I'll submit the rift report, shall I? Do you want to claim the rift?"

"What does claiming it get me?"

"Naming rights, responsibility for keeping it clear, and…" She widened her eyes and put her hand over her mouth, ostentatiously.

"Pixies aren't allowed to tell us about achievements, are they?" I asked. The answer was obvious, really—she'd been telling me to do things without explaining why since the day we met—but I asked the question anyway. She said, "Achievements are meant to measure your successes, not your advantages. In this case, though, I can confidently say claiming the rift won't give you an achievement." I hadn't gotten one for the first rift, either. An achievement for clearing and closing, but not claiming? That seemed wrong.

Chelsea made a noise a lot like a snort.

"Achievements follow a standard progression, but nobody should be claiming rifts during the first week of an integration. The System is aware of what you did, but there is no standard achievement pathway for it." The clipboard disappeared, and she tucked her pen behind her ear.

"The Rift Keeper title—well, it's a lot more interesting than I realized at the time. If the powers-that-be hadn't been in such a furor over your dog's request, there would have been more pushback, I bet. But the System won't take away what you have rightfully earned."

"Everything okay, Olivia?" Missy asked. I'd been talking to my invisible friend for a little too long. I shrugged and said to Chelsea, "Sure, go ahead and claim it," and then moved on with the rest of the pack. I didn't get any new notifications, so I'd have to figure out what I'd done later. We walked out of the house holding the rift entrance into the dark of an early autumn evening. I fully expected to be attacked immediately by something ridiculous. Maybe a Level 25 mana-crazed bear? Why?

Because that had been one hell of a successful power-leveling run. Lola had hit Level 8, and I was fairly sure that all of her wards would have made it to Level 2. We'd ask when we brought her back. Jack had leveled up to 10, and could make it to 11, but he was keeping it in reserve in case of fire elementals. Missy and David—well, I hadn't commented on their class evolution choices.

But Missy was now a Thorn's Spring, a unique Rare-level water mage class with water purification abilities as well as a low-level heal, and David was a Thorn's Cornerstone, another unique Rare-level class that Jack said was a "soak up the damage" class. Jack had given me a funny look when those class names came up, but hadn't otherwise commented and I wasn't sure Missy and David even remembered my last name. Our introductions had been brief.

And after the XP from those glorious bonuses, they were both at Level 9, saving 10 for a healing boost if needed. But there was no mana-crazed bear, just a quiet walk back to Lola's house where I confirmed that yes, her Wards had all hit Level 2 over the course of the afternoon, and that yes, Lola was definitely a Very Good Girl. We also got to meet George, who was very sheepish about his lousy ideas. I knew he was forgiven, though, because Lola had added him to her wards list.

We said good-bye and headed back to the Francis home. We were obviously not going to make it to Spruce Gap tonight, but we were almost back to the house before I got up the nerve to say, "Hey, I think maybe it would be a good idea not to mention your levels and achievements to Bryce."