Jakes Story 2, chapter 11

Jake found himself in a room full of shadows, cloth streamers descending from the ceiling so high above he couldn’t see where they began.  There was no sign of a Faceted anywhere yet.

This is weird, he thought.  Jake looked around more closely but didn’t see anything moving, and there were no real clues to what was going on.  The darkness extended outwards and he got the impression it was a vast space, an enormity he had not been prepared for and let him feeling oddly unsettled..

Suddenly, the entire space lit up and Jake’s mind felt like it almost…folded in on itself.  In a split second, there was a Faceted standing behind what looked like a raised lectern.  The room also looked different.  Now it seemed to be the size of his parents’ kitchen back in Macon and all the stuff hanging from the ceiling had disappeared.

The Faceted waved a hand.  “We have a challenger, I see.”  Jake heard what sounded like a warble in the creature’s mental voice.

Creepy, he thought.  In his past life he would have been absolutely confused and floored, but now he had an idea why this challenge room was so weird.  If the Faceted used the challenge portals as a way to gather power for themselves or for their species, and this one was located underground where nobody seemed to have ever trod before…and in the Murim world, where people could live thousands of years…

A glimmer of a plan started to form in his mind.  He began to build on it as he braced himself to interact with the Faceted.  Maybe he could actually squeeze some sort of advantage out of the horrible creature.

The alien’s voice sounded in his mind again.  “Do not be afraid.  You have discovered an Assessment room!”

“I know,” siad Jake.  He immediately noticed that the Faceted didn’t seem to care about his current, monstrous appearance.  There were multiple implications to the lack of reaction.

“Yes, yes,  I can see that. The mark of your past visitations are upon you.  Ah, but unfortunately, I also see that you are not born of this world.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Jake.

“I am sorry to say it does.  You may still participate in this Assessment Room, but you will be at a handicap–”

“Bullshit,” said Jake.  “You can make any exception you want.  It’s your room.”

The Faceted didn’t say anything for a while, just seemed to silently, sightlessly stare at him.  “If I could, I would choose not to.”

“Whelp, if that’s the case, you’re gonna have to wait another thousand years or more for another person to show up to play then.  This place isn’t exactly in the most high traffic place in the world.”

The Faceted was quiet for a while again.  “You may not leave after entering the

Assessment Room.”

“Yeah, I can’t leave right away if you won’t let me.  But if I just hang out here without agreeing to participate, I’ll be kicked back out in 600 relative hours.  That’s less than a month for me.  I could just meditate.  You can’t keep me here.  And before you point out my lack of provisions, that won’t matter.  I can go a while without food.”  On reflex as he spoke, Jake tried to open his storage ring and was almost shocked into revealing his surprise when he found that he could use it.

What the hell!?  He thought.  He’d figured there was a possibility that the Web Burrow rules wouldn’t apply in a challenge portal, but actually confirming it blew his mind.  Ten long years he’d waited to access his storage ring again.  He almost shook as he withdrew his ki from his ring and focused on the Faceted instead.

The Faceted tapped its arm on the side of the lectern.  “This is…most irregular.  What do you want?”

Gotcha, thought Jake.  He’d been pretty sure he could convince a Faceted to let him participate in a challenge, no strings attached, but this was even better.  The Faceted was obviously desperate, and who knew how long it’d been waiting for someone to find this challenge room in the dark, however deep this was underground.  He was intensely curious why a challenge portal would be in this location in the first place but he couldn’t ask, not without ruining some of his momentum.  Now to cinch the noose.

“I want to be able to ask you three questions about the challenge option you present to me before I agree to undertake it.”

“Three questions?”

“Yes.”

“And if I answer the questions, you will take the challenge?  You swear on your power?”

This was where Jake would need to take some risk.  He slowly nodded and said, “Yes, unless there is no reasonable chance for me to win, I agree.”  He wondered if he was making a mistake, but no risk, no reward.  Asking for more than three questions might have been possible too, or it might have been pushing it.  Most supernatural or powerful entities seemed to like things in sets of threes.  It has been a safe bet.

“I agree as well.  We have an accord.”  The Faceted waved a hand like an announcer.  “This is an Assessment Room, where you will be challenged and can receive a reward based on how you are ranked. Ranking will take place in a way your species understands, from F to A, with S and even SS being possible for the mightiest or most talented. At rank S or SS, a second reward may be chosen from the highest tier rewards possible, and more rewards will be available to choose from than at lower rankings. Do you understand my words so far, warrior?”

“Yes.”

“Understood.  Then you choose to be assessed with the challenge of the spirit labyrinth?”

“Maybe.”

The Faceted’s voice in his mind was louder now.  It said, “You swore on your power.  In this place, such oaths have weight.”

“Oh, I know.  I’m not breaking my promise, I just want you to give me all of my options.  There has to be more than one.”

“Is that a question?”

“No.”  He didn’t say anything more.  It was a good thing Jake knew down to his marrow what assholes all the Faceted were.  If this one could get out of answering any of the three questions it’d promised, it would.  Seemed it was already trying to.

When it was clear that Jake wasn’t going to elaborate, the Faceted grated, “You may choose between one of three labyrinths, the mind labyrinth, body labyrinth, and spirit labyrinth.”

“I see.”  Jake slowly lowered himself to a comfortable sitting position and settled in to meditate.

“What are you doing?” asked the Faceted.

“I plan to take some time to think about the questions I can ask.”

Some time passed and Jake was about to sink into full meditation when the Faceted’s voice came again.  “What are you?  Where  are you from?  Your soul is human, and you should be mortal, but you have the scent of gods on you and even one such as I can sense multiple titles.”

Jake didn’t even open his eyes.  “If I were to answer any of your questions, which are all probing and irrelevant to this Assessment Room, I will assume it is a favor.  So we would need to trade an answer for an answer.”

The Faceted didn’t say anything more, but Jake hadn’t been expecting it to.

***

Two days later, Jake came out of his meditation, rising to his feet.  If the Faceted had eyes, he got the feeling the alien would have been staring at him before he’d even began to rise.

“I have decided on one of my three questions,” said Jake.

“Speak.”

“My first question is as follows: If I were theoretically to successfully navigate all three laybrinths, and finish all of them with different levels of mastery, what similarities would I find about them, and what differences would I notice?”  Jake was pretty proud of this question.

The way the Faceted acted next, rubbing two fingers together with a crunching sound, made it obvious that it wasn’t happy to answer.  “All three labyrinths have different themes, Mind, Body, and Spirit.  Mind has illusion challenges and monsters that use illusions.  Body labyrinth has a theme of poison, venom, and disease.  Spirit labyrinth has many challenges involving demon beasts, cultivation dangers, and magic.  Each labyrinth has multiple exits, all of which correspond to different mastery levels.”

Jackpot, thought Jake.  He lowered himself into a sitting position and began to meditate again.  This time the Faceted didn’t say anything about it.

He rose a second time a bit less than a day later.  “I have my second question.”

“Speak.”

“What is the most important factor for each completed labyrinth in deciding the reward ranking?”

“The most important factor, in general, is which exit the challenger uses to exit the labyrinth.”

Jake nodded.  “Now I have my third and final question.”

“Speak.”

“What is the danger in each labyrinth that most mortals would find most challenging?”

The Faceted rubbed its fingers together again in agitation.  “In the mind labyrinth, the senses cannot be trusted and enemies will even invade your dreams.  The body labyrinth has nothing safe to eat or drink and the very air can kill. In the spirit labyrinth, an incredibly powerful being roams and must be avoided, all while challengers work to survive the labyrinth’s dangers and solve its riddles.”

With one inhuman hand in the air, the Faceted announced, “The bargain has been kept.  Choose!”

Jake was tempted to meditate some more to piss the thing off but he decided he’d pushed enough.  Besides, now that he knew what was waiting for him, he didn’t want to get into a fight with his own nerves.

“I choose…the body labyrinth.”

“So be it.”

With no other warning, Jake vanished and was teleported away.