Unwilling Eldritch Horror of Fortune

Jordan was all but giddy as she watched the pseudo-trail unfold, all the while stuffing pits of popcorn into her mouth. Sometimes she’d laugh so hard that bits and pieces of kernels would spill from her grasp, and a poor Central worker would have to quickly come over to clean up.

“Are you sure you don’t want some yourself?” Jordan asked, shaking the paper bag filled with buttery confectionery, “These are remarkably good given the human’s limited ability to do anything useful.”

I ignored her, to which a small shrug was all the response I got from her. Jordan continued to enjoy the display before us. I could barely do little more than wince at just how horrible the situation was.

The various Aspirants that came to the town were told to simply make it to the middle of town and touch a big pillar, at which point they would be transported out of the training and rewarded. According to Jordan, the Origin Matrix was quite generous about the rewards given to the Pandora Aspirants prior to this new stage, and she assured that the Aspirants would be well compensated if they cleared this stage as well.

The list she gave me of the various rewards included Aspirants gaining multiple levels at once, some getting access to rare and deadly new classes, and more unique equipment than I’ve ever seen in my life. However, the fact that it was so generous didn’t bold well for me. If it could afford to distribute so much, then the risk associated with earning all of that must be equally hard.

In other words, not even the Trash Matrix thought that my Aspirants would make it out of this training alive, so it didn’t care what it gave them. Or in less elegant words, they’re all fucked.

I winced as a shadow demon eviscerated another fleeing Aspirant as they desperately tried to run blindly into the streets. That was the last member of the party that I was focusing on. The camera panned out, giving Jordan and me a bird's eye view of puddles of blood and gore that outlined the last moments of the other 4 members of that party before the screen changed to a new group of Aspirants.

I watched for maybe an hour or two, cycling between various groups of Aspirants, before I understood the gist of the Director’s vision and what was going on in the training. Abigail was concerned about the survival chances of the Aspirants in Central, so she prioritized getting them ready to face overwhelming odds, and to do that, the Aspirants had to maximize the only advantages that they had over the Restus: their adaptability through the varied skills that they possessed and their potential for stealth.

With that premise in mind, the rationale behind Abigail’s training stage was obvious. The Aspirants had to reach the center of the town by ultizing stealth and their creativity. Since this is just the start of training, Abigail probably decided to give the “patients” an easier time by making them focus on stealth instead of fighting. After all, she was used to how tenacious they were in her hospital and all those escape attempts, and this stage was even modeled after that. They simply had to “escape” to the center of the city, something that she assumed they would be used to by now.

It was a pity that most of what she knew about the Aspirants were every so slightly off. If my understanding of the Hospital trail was correct, then only the Apsirants that were outside of Pandora at the time of Trial start were sent there, but only those who were brave enough to venture outside of the protective walls of the city would venture fall enough out that they couldn’t make it back to the city within the hour.

Which is all to say, the people who were unfortunate enough to be sent into Abigail’s domain represented the upper echelons of Pandora’s population. They were the people who were strong enough to brave the unknown conditions of the Main Stage. She had far overestimated the abilities of the Aspirants as a whole.

All of that led to the current situation. In order for the Aspirants to make it to the city centre, they would have to pass through predesigned chokepoints. In each of those chokepoints, huge monstrosities the size of a barn were placed to guard those entrances, which forced the Aspirants to sneak their way through. Additionally, interspersed throughout the city were a mixture of adversaries that wanted nothing more than to eviserate the humans.

The more obvious foes were the wandering bands of mutated natives. The Aspirants didn’t have too much trouble taking care of those small fry, aside from the sheer number of them and their ranged weapon, they were hardly stronger than a standard unaugmented individual. The trouble was the other creatures.

I haven’t seen the full assortment of goodies lying in ambush, but there were strange shadow creatures that pulled people into the depth of the abyss, but they only appeared in the darkest of places. Weird, long limbed creatures stalked the rooftops, waiting for an opportune time to ambush unassuming humans, while huge worm things tunneled below.

Yet all of these creatures had clear rules in which they operated (I’ve no idea what was up with the Hospital and their rules). The rooftop things wouldn’t attack unless an Aspirant was isolated from their peers, and the tunneling worms could only detect vibrations in the ground and would never strike if the Aspirants stopped moving around after the notice the worm’s presence. Sure the density of foes increased as they moved closer and closer into the center, but if the Aspirants kept a calm head and assessed what they saw, then clearing the stage should be relatively easy.

They weren’t keeping calm.

In fact, aside from a small percentage of the population, the Aspirants as a whole weren’t even assessing any of the situation at all. They were just bolting it as quick as they could to their target destination without even taking the time to formulate a plan. It was a disaster.

“I must say,” Jordan remarked with a light smile, “I have rarely seen such a stupid group of Aspirants in my career, Lord Arbiter, and I’ve been working in Central for a very, very long time. You must be seeing something special in them that I simply cannot, but you are the Lord Arbiter after all. I’m sure that there’s simply something I am missing.”

God this bitch just loves to rub it in in the most polite way possible. She was loving every moment of seeing the Aspirants getting picked off one by one, but there was nothing that I could do to stop her.

“I need to make a few modifications to this Trial, it wouldn’t be proper training if I don’t give guidance personally,” I said, ignoring her previous statement, “There must be a way for me to operate inside the training grounds directly, yes?”

“You may,” she answered and gestured for one of her goons to bring a device over. It looked like a weird helmet thing, and she plugged it into the central controls, “Put that on and you can take over the proxy bodies; mind you we do have over 1000 instances of this simulation occurring at once, but that would hardly affect a Xollon of your stature.”

Damn, I was so focused on this particular city that I had forgotten that hundreds of other training sessions were occurring simultaneously. How was I supposed to manage this?

“That is fine, my Host,” Noe added, “Unit Noe can help you in this regard. I understand my Host’s intentions, so you can leave operating the majority of the proxy bodies to me. Your mind is evolved enough to allow this, but your access to my system skills will be limited due to the strain of this operation.”

Got it, so treat it like when you were still upgrading?

“That is correct, my Host, but I will allot you 100 Luck Charges to use. I have sufficient influence over the Trash Matrix to ensure that your transfer to a new body will be as close to the original as possible.”

That’s more than enough, thanks Noe. Please do what you need.

“Acknowledged.”

I turned my attention back to Q’s temporary replacement, “Hook me up, Jordan.”

Guess getting those passives in my soul title’s helpful. I mean, I should be concerned about what it was doing to my biology, but I didn’t feel like I was turning into a Xollon. It couldn’t be so bad so far.

“I’ll generate the needed bodies now,” she said, “Will you use the same basic body structure as the guise?”

“Yeah,” I answered, “And keep the body’s specs close to the one I have as Aspirant Walter. Put each body within range of the Aspirants.”

She shrugged, “If you insist, but keep in mind that the creatures in there will be hostile to you if you go in as a human.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I answered, it was a good opportunity for me to test all of the upgrades and tools I had at my disposal anyway.

Jordan nodded, “If you say so, Lord W. I look forward to seeing you salvage this situation, but please remember that assisting them too much would hinder their growth. I know I don’t need to say this, but the Humans do need to fight the inferior Restus in a few weeks time.”

Yeah, you didn’t need to remind me of that.

I was just about to put on my helmet when I was interrupted once again. This time, it was from my doppelganger; his voice missing that usual cheerfully annoying tone.

“Give me a second,” I muttered and handed the helmet back to Jordan, “My stand-in has a message for me.”

“Of course, Lord Arbiter,” she said with a polite smile, “I’m sure you’re quite busy with your current schedule. But look on the bright side, your workload will surely decrease after your training’s complete.”

Damn Jordan and her snark, she’s already concluded that Pandora’s going to lose without actually saying it. If there’s nothing else I could say about Q’s replacement, it’s that she’s knows exactly what to say without getting into trouble.

I ignored her and walked into a corner to see what the Walter-clone had to say. I didn’t care if I was being overheard this time, I’m willing to bet anything that everything that was happening in the Regressor’s party was being heavily monitored.

“I apologize for bothering you at a time like this, Lord Arbiter, but there’s been a slight issue on my end,” my own voice said in my head; it was the first time I had communicated with the doppelganger, and hearing what sounded exactly like my own inner voice was really weird.

What do you need?

“Well…” he started, I’ve never seen the weird creature sound so unsure before, “I believe that your charges are beginning to suspect that something is wrong.”

I cursed under my breath, just what I needed, something else to go wrong while I already had a mountain of things I had to resolve. I was willing to bet that the Overseer somehow planned this when he made those adjustments to Q’s stupid creature. Too bad I didn’t have any other choice than to use it. Everything was going wrong and I could see myself being pulled too thin, but I tried not to show it.

Explain what happened.

“Well, you see, Lord Arbiter,” my clone said again, “Although I am perfectly capable of interacting with the Anomaly and his friends in social settings - having studied your behavior extensively for this occasion - I do not have the same battle capabilities that your esteemed self has.”

Shit, I should have thought of that. How was he supposed to fight like me when I was using Noe’s luck for half of the Trials, while the other times I was borrowing the powers of my Xollon form.

Fake-Walter continued, “They have started to notice discrepancies, my Lord.”

Can’t you switch places with me then? I’m about to head in there to train the other Aspirants.

Jordan came towards me, a huge smile on her face, and spoke, “Unfortunately that is not possible, my Lord W.”

Of course it wasn’t possible. I was starting to feel the reins on my emotions loosen. Why did that god damn Overseer have to make this current situation so damn complicated? It wasn’t enough for me to just work secretly on the Restus side of things, now I had to ensure that Pandora’s damned Aspirants didn’t all die during training, and to make things even worse, there’s more shit to deal with on the Regressor’s side. I was one person, I can’t put out all of these fires!

“And why is that not possible?” I asked, a tiny bit of my temper leaking through. I could see Jordan lap it up as her smirk grew ever bigger.

“You are the one who is in charge of the training, Lord Arbiter,” Jordan answered curtly, “So for one, you will need to be here to supervise the activities. Additionally, it is one thing to assist the participants, but quite another to enter it as an Aspirant yourself. It would be a gross breach in protocol for you to take part in a mini-trail of your own design; after all, you would have access to insider information that could be abused. Not that I think you would do so, of course.”

Once again I couldn’t think of any fault in her reasoning here. As long as I was here in the heart of Central, I couldn’t overstep my boundaries. Even using the Director’s little charms would be of limited use when all eyes were on me. Damn it!

“Those are valid points, Jordan,” I answered between gritted teeth, “I will have to rely on the doppelganger for now.”

“I apologize again for the inconvenience, my Lord,” my clone added, “Please allow me to make up for it once I am out!”

“That’s fine,” I said out loud this time, there was no point in communicating with it in my mind if everyone could hear me anyway, “Just… minimize fighting, and think of any excuse that you can about why you’re behaving differently. Say it’s metal contamination, fatigue, a new style of fighting, I don’t care, just make sure that you avoid any further suspicion.”

“I understand, my Lord!” he answered, “I will do my best!”

I nodded and dismissed him.

“Are you ready to assist your charges now?” Jordan asked when she saw that I had disconnected my call with my clone.

“Yes,” I muttered, “Hook me up.”

“As you command,” she said with a practiced smile, “Once again, I look forward to seeing you turn this hopeless situation around!”

 

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