I also happened upon an instance.
A dungeon hidden within the undergrowth. I only found it thanks to my increased perception. First I decided that the glimmering spot in the bushes was a sunbeam, but then I remembered that the sun had no such effect here.
The instance was home to sentient arachnids starting at level two hundred thousand. I could already imagine how fast I’d level up there. Holy Nether.
The first cave teemed with Phase Spiders, which were too strong for me. One of the beasts dragged me into a pocket dimension and left me there to ferment. The dimension turned out to be a small strip within a cliff face whose entire surface stirred and seeped acid. There was nobody to reflect the damage back to, and I died slowly. I was digested. Theoretically, I could have broken the gleaming red crystal, a glass ball in the center of the ground—a Lock that closed off the dimension and prevented it from unfolding—but I was a long way to that level. It had too much durability. As I died, I vowed to come back here with my friends in normal Dis and burn this arachnid lair to the ground.
Over the next few weeks, I leaped up past level hundred thousand, my shard total was at eight hundred thousand, I’d found more ruins of the Departed, leveled up Stealth, invented a dozen dishes from local game… All was well, and I was confidently moving toward my goal. But then Nine found me.
She appeared when I believed that I’d be knocked out of the Nether very soon. She got lucky. With my enhanced perception, I saw a tiny dot against a cloud. I paid no attention. But subconsciously, I tensed—the oddity kept scratching at my brain, and at the very height of my battle with a tribe of reptiloids, I realized that the dot was no dot. She’d seen me too, and begun to quickly descend.
With my increased speed from Path of Time, I ran as fast as I could into the cave where the tribe lived and, running by frightened females and hatchings, I jumped down into an abyss. I fell thirty yards, but never hit the bottom—Depths Teleportation finished casting.
And I was on Kharinza again.
I had to be veiy careful for the next few days. My shard farming rate slowed, but I couldn’t let her catch me. I didn’t know if my Depths Teleportation scroll would work in Nine’s castle. It was certainly possible that her castle shield suppressed not only abilities, but scrolls too.
During one of my raids to the reptiloid island, emergency exit activated and I was thrown out of Dis.
* * *
I woke up in full darkness on the floor of my capsule. The back of my head throbbed, I felt blood pulsing in my temples, causing ever sharper stabs of pain. At first I didn’t feel my body, but then I tried to get up, fell down and felt pain—real, not virtual. Millions of needles pierced all across my skin like a hellish sewing machine from head to toe.
Lying and waiting for my pulse to return to normal and the bloody circles in my eyes to disappear, I finally heard the voice from the capsule:
“Attention! Life-support cartridge reserves exhausted… Attention! Detected excessively high heart rate! Attention! Subject dehydrated! Attention…
The indicators on the control panel showed o% for each cartridge: hydrosalts, nutrient mix and medical. They’d run out after twelve hours? I’d replaced them all for new ones the day before, and they should have lasted more than a week… I could only surmise that the stress on the brain was so great in the beta world that the body needed more energy… but five hundred times more? It didn’t make sense. I’d spent a year in the Nether the first time, and this time less… Although back then I’d spent most of my time in the meditative silence of limbo, whereas this time I’d been active. Maybe that was it.
I quite literally crawled on my arms to the kitchen. My jelly legs dragged along the floor. I didn’t have the strength to bend them and move faster. Surprisingly, even in this condition the thought flashed up: It’s a good thing my parents are on the Moon and don’t have to see this.
I spent the next few minutes choking down water and orange juice. Next I tossed back a chocolate bar, three bananas and some synthetic milk. I spent another quarter of an hour healing with the Home Doctor. I was starting to feel better. I brought up the latest Dis news on the holoscreen and… froze.
The Alliance was streaming the start of the battle against Shazz’s undead army, and Mogwai, who sounded exhausted, stood alongside Criterror and Dek. They were finishing off the last sliver of durability on Tiamat’s temple!
The lich could handle himself without me. My presence would kill one of us, probably me. It would be silly to risk my Threat status a second time by appearing near him and the preventers. But the temple had to survive!
My comm was full of missed calls and messages from my friends—they were all worried about me and spoke of the coming battle with rising alarm. Only Karina calmly asked about my plans after school… School! I’d missed my lessons while I was unconscious in the capsule… Damn, damn, damn!
Ed suspected that I got stuck in the Nether again. As it turned out, the boys came straight form their final lessons and flew to see me. The last message from them wasn’t long ago at all, so I contacted them and heard as I walked: “How are you? Are you okay, Alex? What should we do?” My friends alarmed voices spoke all at once.
“I’m far from okay, but I think I found a way to get us out of this,” I answered. “Fly home, I need you all in Dis.”
“Will you make it in time? The fight’s already started!”
“I have to. See you there!”
I had
