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Chapter 89: Tetragrammaton
🕑 Added 2024-12-01 22:40:56 +0000 UTCChapter 89: Tetragrammaton
[Level up!
Pumpkin
Class: Level 4 Cat
Title: [Empty]
Experience: 315/500]
“So far so good,” Pumpkin mused, seeing nothing out of the ordinary on his status page.
The next level would take a bit longer to get, but that was to be expected for Level 5, which was generally the first true milestone on one’s journey, and granted rewards that would be useful for the rest of one’s life.
[Advancement
Annoy people.
Assist your owner.
Kill, kill, kill.
Turning Point: Crisis Core
If you continue down your present path, all three criteria will be met.
Dark times approach, will you stand and fight against the dying of the light? Y/N.]
That, on the other paw, required careful consideration. Pumpkin was baffled enough to find a hiding spot, tucking himself beneath the stairs leading up to a raised terrace, which got him nicely out of view as he considered his options.
“The System can even tell the future, huh.”
It had to be said that despite its importance in every strata of society, nobody really knew what the System was, or where it came from. This was an eternal question, debated endlessly in the halls of academy and rowdy taverns alike; most believed it to be the work of one or multiple gods, because who else could achieve such a feat of magic? Pumpkin had his doubts, but even he was cautious in the face of an apparent prophecy. After a while, going back and forth in his mind, he eventually decided to phone a friend for advice.
[Will Swindell
Placing a call, please stand by.]
Pumpkin barely had time to notice the name tag; no level again, as was typical when the Blackened Bracelet was equipped, when the call cut out without a single indication as to why.
[Will Swindell
Placing a call, please stand by.]
A second attempt returned the same result, so Pumpkin didn’t bother to try a third. Whatever was going on, whether this was the System or a third-party intervening, it appeared that this decision would have to be made on his own.
“Eh, gut instinct it is then.”
[Crisis Core accepted.]
Pumpkin chose yes, because he had nine lives to play with, so risking one of them wasn’t too much of a sacrifice.
[Title gained for making a very dangerous decision!
The Reckless: Damage dealt and received greatly increased]
Pumpkin equipped it immediately, because who didn’t love a damage buff? The downside didn’t concern her much, because it wouldn’t matter as long as he avoided taking any hits; also, he had nine lives. His eyes didn’t linger too long on the title, however, as he was keen to get to the meat of the matter.
[Select one of two choices below.
1) Cat Scratch Fever: Wound you inflict fester, causing damage over time and resisting natural healing.
2) Zoomies: Push past your limits, greatly increasing your speed at the cost of endurance.]
Pumpkin grabbed Cat Scratch Fever as soon as the option appeared, barely sparing a glance for the latter option. He was already plenty fast as a cat, even before taking into account the ability to teleport, so Zoomies was only going to suffer from diminishing returns. More damage, on the other hand, could never go amiss.
[Bonus granted due to the effect of Crisis Core.
Lord of Vermin: Gain Language (Rodent)]
“The System has a funny sense of humour,” Pumpkin concluded, after gaining the ability to communicate with rats, something that would’ve been very useful for gathering intelligence going forward; except not at present, because some mysterious impostors ate all of the ones nearby.
Still, complaining would achieve nothing, so there was little Pumpkin could do except climb out from under the stairs, raise his nose to the wind, and continue the hunt. The streets were entirely devoid of humans now, and in dire need of repair, with potholes and missing pavement being the order of the day. To add insult to injury, the trail up ahead seemed designed to confound him, turning on itself with neither rhyme nor reason, until even his keen senses couldn’t tell him which way to go. Then, Pumpkin froze, having caught an entirely different yet equally familiar smell.
“What’s Harvey doing in these parts? Can anybody living in this dump even afford our drugs?”
Harvey’s path was thankfully much easier to follow, as there were many rats but only one of him, leading past a run down church, rows of dilapidated terraced houses, and culminating in a simple hole dug straight into the dirt, cleverly hidden off to the side at the end of an alley, invisible from the view of passersby. Now even more curious, Pumpkin wasted no time heading down the tunnel, Harvey’s scent intensifying the further down he went; unfortunately, that wasn’t the only thing growing stronger.
“Shaper of Flesh, Changer of Ways, bless us with the light of ten thousand eyes,
Feast of our offerings, partake of our souls, until the System itself bows beneath you.
Shaper of Flesh, Changer of Ways…”
The ominous chant repeated itself, again and again ad infinitum, yet despite Pumpkin’s best efforts, he was unable to identify a single voice from the choir, not even to the point of determining an individual pitch or tone; all of it blended together seamlessly, far too smooth to be natural. When he eventually emerged from the tunnel into an impressively large cavern, Pumpkin was shocked but not surprised to see rows of robed cultists sitting in circles around a large stone altar. Every inch of the altar’s surface was coated red, with the bodies of countless sacrifices tossed to the wayside. Most were rats, their throat roughly torn, dripping red to match the fingers of the innermost circle of cultists, but a few of those present were human. The dead failed to register to the System, as Pumpkin was no Necromancer, but he wasn’t looking at them anyway, his attention fully focused on Harvey, bound and gagged alongside a handful of still living captives.
“Oh dear.”
