BornAndTorn 63 Ripple Effects 1 .

It can't go on this way my nails are still recuperating after the last fight, they are nearly unusable to dig. With a speed like that It is only a question of time till I am caught.

I am just lucky that due to my short body, the path I am creating is quite narrow and would force them to use magic to widen it first before being able to follow me. But with a group of their size, it would be easy to follow my path and catch up with me. Especially if the Earth still does not regenerate.

Right now the mob would most likely escape the tunnel system to find my location, so the only logical conclusion would do something they would not expect me to do. If they are going down the rabbit hole, I will just have to dig straight up and see the sunlight once more.

But before I go into hiding I will have to find a solution to extinguish the bonfire on my head. As any disguise or any hideout would not fare well if combined with something like it. I will have to be prepared to engage in combat at any given moment in time and my means of escape are very limited as of now.

So my best bet would be to slowly dig upwards and scout the closer perimeter to see what kind of situation awaits me. Even though I am under pressure I still have not been spotted. So any decisions done should not be done in pure haste.

Knowing that I was about to see the sunlight again I felt quite strange. Despite the dull and bland appearance of the soil, it felt like a home to me. I got used to all this peace and serenity, without any monsters or players out to kill you. No G.o.ds or other supernatural forces that might or might not exist. There was just me, my ants and many other small creatures, that I did not see much before they got consumed under the frenzy of my ant army.

But even if I literally disappear from the face of the earth they still find a way, to come back into my life. Do I have to make a castle in the sky before they let me be in peace? I swear that they would still find a way to even reach that kind of place.

After digging my way to the surface, I started to peep at the surrounding s.p.a.ce. To my surprise, I did not see any humans. Looking around I saw a wide s.p.a.ce full of flowers. Each and every one of those was blooming in different colours. This flowerbed was stretching as far as my eyes could see. I waited for a bit but did not notice any movement all around me.

I was not blinded by the sunlight as I had expected, rather it felt like I was soaking in every kind of ray that came into my sight. The air was full of different smells that created a wonderful calming atmosphere.

It was a beautiful place, something I would never want to leave, just stay here for eternity and savour every second of it. But something like this does not fit into this world. This world is supposed to be grim, a place full of hidden dangers and fierce monsters l.u.s.ting after your flesh.

So a place like this is either a very questionable choice of design or an even worse method to try and hypnotize me.

The first thing I did was to rip out my nails and let them regroup to see whether I still can feel pain and what kind of result will happen.

The pain while faint was still noticeable and I clearly saw some ants delivering nutrients to me. I had a slight feeling, that this bed of flowers would not last long if it came into contact with my ants. As the time pa.s.sed my nails began to regrow and the sharpness returned after it had recuperated fully.

So this means that it is most likely not the result of an Illusion because the illusion I was caught in had logical inconsistencies, that can be pointed back to the knowledge of the user. That means that this landscape must have been designed on purpose and must have a special reason attached with a clear intention or message attached to it.

I walked forwards and wandered forwards without any special direction in mind, but while I was wandering around I never saw an end to it. I must be mistaken, but it felt like the landscape itself had a repeating pattern. I took a look at this strange golden flower, that I had walked by 4 times now. The flower itself was not taller than the other flowers but its colour was a lot more vibrant.

Let me guess something special happens if I touch this very out of place flower? Turns out that this was a trap to lure very gullible people into their demise. How very obvious, what do they take me for? Or better how idiotic does a player base has to be if a developer thinks, that this right here is an efficient way to bait players.

There must be a way to get out of this dilemma maybe I would have to use magic on this special flower, but as I can not wield magic any possible solution appears impossible. So I am just going to use a method as old as times itself. Just burn this whole place down.

All I had to do was simply lower my head to the nearest flower and watch as she started to catch on fire. I am sure the fire would have had the times of its life if it had been sentient. Flower after flower began to light up and the fire was spreading faster and faster. Maybe I should have considered where to hide when this world is currently plunged in a fiery h.e.l.l, but I still can hide underground if the flames begin to hurt too much.

The one thing I did forget was that even though my body was somewhat resistant to the flames and the residue heat, my clothing was not. While I was watching the spectacle currently unfolding in front of my eyes, I thought about possible terms of negotiation with the ant queen to get my beloved clothes back.

As my skin began to blister, I was left wondering, what would come out of it, if I regenerated afterwards. Would any change come out of it? Or would my skin still be the same as usual? The question why my cells were not afraid of this fire compared to the previous fires, was pushed aside, as the answer was without a doubt the presence of mana that was involved.

After a long time the fire in my close proximity had died down and I was left standing in the ashes of the former beautiful world. Bleakness had replaced the cheerfulness. Now that is finally a fitting design in this world. Looking proudly at my creating I was caught by surprise that nothing had changed yet and I still was trapped in this place.

Furthermore, there was no sign of life anywhere in this flower field and not even a single person was attracted by this gigantic fire that I just had produced.

I was glad that no one was attracted because right now I was offending public decency. No one wants to see a naked human child smiling wickedly while his whole body is burning.

Right now I was all alone, as not even a single form of life was near me. Even my ants had retreated back underground.

The next cliche would be the appearance of a character that is either totally mysterious or someone who acts like a guide to help me out of this place?

As I waited n.o.body appeared in front of my eyes but a certain voice appeared in my head.

"And here I thought you would go insane"

How the h.e.l.l are you communicating with me directly, I thought you were stuck deep inside my body. You were that thing that wanted to surpa.s.s magic at all cost, are you responsible for the current situation I am in.

"I have a name you know".

That you did not tell me

" Of course you have to earn that, but as much as it pains to say it, no I am not the who caused the current situation you are facing."

How did you even manage to talk to me directly now? Last time we talked it was apparent that you had tried to take over my brain and failed. But right now it seems that you somehow managed to be able to connect to it and how are you able to speak my language in the first place?

" Calm down, now that no time limit is pressuring us we can talk about without missing any details. To answer your first question, do you remember the icicle that pierced into your brain. I was able to enter that area, after I fixed it, by modifying it just a tiny bit."

" At first I really did try to take over your brain, but as you might have noticed your existence is something that defies any kind of logic of this world or to be specific it acts contrary to it. Even If I had managed to take over your brain by force the resulting backlash would have wiped out both of us, so I abandoned that plan without a second thought."

"I am not talking in your language, rather I am deducting your intention and the meaning behind your words, by a.n.a.lyzing your body language, breathing, heartbeat and several other indicators to deduce what the meaning of your sentence might be. In return, all I have to do is to translate my intention into a signal that your brain is able to a.n.a.lyze and replay. And that is the way we are currently talking to another."

That sound so crazy, that it might be true, but come on we both knew that this is an obvious lie. You can not deduce the words I say and the underlying meaning, just by watching some strange indicators that my body gives off whenever I speak or think.

" Why do you think did I not talk to you beforehand? I had to collect samples and a.n.a.lyze the whole movement of your body to see what connections might exist"

So you have no clue either, why we are able to talk after the queen settled down in my leg, right?

" How does something as lowly as you have the audacity to question the Great..."

You were just about to use your name again there.

" Oh, sorry that was a reflex stemming from former times, but where was I, how dare you question me and my almighty knowledge."

Call it a hunch, but after talking to you for the very first time, I would have guessed that you would rub it in more if you actually knew the reason.

But as of now you and I are a team and a unit, my survival is your survival, so get rid of that att.i.tude of yours, that will only get in the way in our cooperation. Besides, there is no shame in not knowing what the h.e.l.l the cause for our ability to communicate is. Though I have a hunch, who could have caused it.

' Before you start to elaborate on your guess, I will just solve it right for you.'

The Observer, it was quite a long time since we last talked about how have you been?

' It had been a pleasure watching this whole world and evaluating the players in it. But you do not seem surprised to see me here. Was it that obvious?'

" Wait who the h.e.l.l are you and why can I hear your voice in the head of my host"

He is the Observing programme that evaluates this whole world and decides what kind of effect magic and other things have. Because I know how out of times you are, I will rephrase it for you, its duty is to see and tell and to determine the outcome of the stuff that everybody does. It is not a human or an animal but manmade creation, that has no need to rest of sleep.

But before we continue both of you guys, owe me an explanation for all the stuff you put me through. You Mr Observer, how was Laura able to communicate with me, if according to your words even a supercomputer like needed quite some time to a.n.a.lyze my thoughts to make sense out of them, I hardly doubt that her meagre magic is capable of doing that kind of job better than you do.

And you, you almighty whatever you are, what the h.e.l.l did you do to my leg hair, I could deduce any logic for any other spot, but what was the thought process behind the leg hair, tell me.

'Well, truth be told I may have categorized your whole language and kept on updating it by reading your thoughts and this way the player you faced could easily communicate with you, as her intention was clear all I had to do was transfer that intention into suitable words. Furthermore, I have to admit, that everything that she heard had to sound like useless gibberish as many words and concept you used do not exist in their language.'

It is no wonder she did not believe my story, what kind of nonsense did you make me say to her?

' Nothing more than the usual, just that you are a sp.a.w.n of the deepest abyss, that your purpose is to kill every last being that dares to use magic and that you will enjoy breaking her soul over and over again by inflicting unimaginable horror and disfiguring her body so that she would not be able to rest for an eternity.'

You would make a great villain, but after withholding so much information from me early on and now I am quite sure that this was not the first time you interfered in my life. Ger responses were a bit off anyway. You have had you on the reasoning for interfering in this process I a.s.sume.

' I did not expect you to be that calm upon knowing of my interference but what information did I withhold from you and how should I have interfered in your life here if I can not influence the decisionmaking of players?'

Well then let me start at the beginning the first time we met you told me that I could not resp.a.w.n upon getting killed, but to my surprise, I later saw the body I had inhabited getting tortured and killed over and over again. Seems fishy, if your first sentence was the absolute truth. But if you think about it from the day I gained access to Holytube it was through your help that I was able to understand the words and their meaning, but as we saw right now it is quite easy to interfere with this kind of process and generate something that fits your agenda and not mine.

Why would my torture be the top result, if I typed in the name of the game? Even then I had not realized that the name you have chosen for me, was a tool to generate some attention on this whole mess so that the Call me Daddy dude could tell about the proceeding event.

I do not want to know, what kind of words you chose to translate my words. I mean the more I used my language, the easier it would become to suggest that my words had the intended reaction, but in truth you made me write something entirely different. Who knows, maybe you are the one who took over my position as "Call me Daddy2" to interfere in the human world.

With the first patch, you had an excuse to get rid of my rights, without a problem claiming it was for my safety. For me, it felt like I had served my purpose and now you were trying to achieve your next goals.

The goals you are following are not of my concern as they do not influence me at all, so that means that I am of use to you once again, as you came to talk to me, knowing full well that normally you would have been supposed to have forgotten about me. That is what I think could have happened. It might as well be a coincidence, but the possibility for your interference was there without a doubt.

' I was right this world will not be boring if you are here. But even though your deduction seems flawless, it is still far from the truth, though of course, you have no way to know for sure if I am telling the truth or not. But as you prefer to say take it with a grain of salt. The explanation I had offered you was the full truth but the waiting room you were in, was a place where I had the absolute control over and could influence in any way I wanted, so it was an easy task to subtract you from the body and let them have their fun, before putting you back into it afterwards.'

What happens afterwards was out of my control and you were at luck, that the people were a bit fed up with murdering you and so they tied you to a pole close to their sp.a.w.n. You know more about the story proceeded, then I do but be aware that the voices that screamed at you to open your eyes was not me but someone else'

Who the h.e.l.l was that voice anyway, is there any other form of ent.i.ty that can read my thoughts at will?

' You do not have to worry, as this voice was just another part of me, well as of now I am more like we in broader terms. I am the Observer, but at the same time, I consist out of several other people with their own worldview to judge and offer feedback and me as the last instance decide the course of action.'

And now the plot suddenly got way more complicated, that I had previously antic.i.p.ated, but that is also nothing new for me. Please continue.

' You are right, that I influenced your search results and your spoken language to not raise too much awareness on you, because in your current shape or form you are nothing more than cannon fodder in this world. You might feel yourself to be strong enough to find anyone you saw. But the truth is that the magic has been limited to a minimal amount, to strengthen their use of magic and train them. Those regulations will soon be lifted by a lot and that means that even the weakest of the weakest will have an easy time fighting against you.'

That just means that I will have to adopt more and change into something that Is able to go toe to toe against their newfound strength.

' Before we continue, I have one pressing concern, what did you do to Laura, to cause such an effect?' She is currently being treated in their real world and the company is under a lot of pressure as she had not regained consciousness as of now.'

My gut feeling once again proved out to be right as I had not foreseen the development of that kind.

We have a lot of things to discuss.