Volume 1, Chapter 57: [The Event Achievement Points Store.] (Patreon)

“What the hell is this supposed to be?” I said more to myself than to Bri, instinctively pushing against the door. Turned out I had to pull it toward me to open it.

“We’re fucking closed for the day!” the shopkeeper shouted by way of greeting, sticking his head up from behind a row of rectangular wooden boxes where he was packing some kind of baked goods, transferring them from a small cart. “Fuck me, forgot to lock the door again,” he muttered a moment later. “Fine. What does the good man need?”

“Interesting change in tone,” I replied, looking around and taking in the sights, which suggested that my reward for all those achievements was apparently the opportunity to choose from bread, pastries, or dried fruit. The shop didn’t exactly look prosperous either. In the upper corners of the room, clusters of tiny invertebrates had gathered in patches of slime, packed together like spiders waiting for prey. “I know what I need, and I certainly wasn’t looking for it here. But then I saw a sign declaring this place the Event Achievement Points Store and came inside. Apparently for no reason.”

“Ah. So that’s what this is about...” he replied, straightening up. He was a stocky dwarf, though definitely taller than the ones I’d seen before. If not for the typical doubly thick brows, the full and long beard, and the slight ridge protruding from his skull, I might have mistaken him for a short human. “Come on, follow me,” he said, waving a hand as he turned and headed toward an arched passage in the wall hidden behind a colorful curtain.

“I’m not going anywhere until I get at least some kind of explanation,” I replied, reaching for my knife. I had no intention of walking into another ambush. “Why would we need to go anywhere else?”

“Damn, you’re stormy. I rent out my basement to that other shop—you think I wanted to? They practically forced me into it.” He spread his arms. “If you don’t want to go, then fuck off. I’m not going to wrestle with you over it when there’s nothing in it for me anyway.”

“You rent the place out? To who?” I asked, frowning.

“To the one who sells all that strange stuff downstairs. I barely talk to him. Wind be my silent witness, I don’t think I’ve even seen him since the first time he showed up.”

“Fine. Lead the way,” I replied, curiosity getting the better of me.

“Come on.” He waved a hand and pulled the curtain aside, inviting me to go first.

I walked up, grabbed the fabric myself, and gestured for him to stay in front of me anyway.

He muttered something under his breath, but led me through a short corridor whose walls were coated in fine sand until we stopped beside an open stairwell leading downward.

“It’s down there.”

“I’m not going alone. You first,” I said, jerking my chin toward the stairs.

After another string of curses disappeared somewhere into his mustache and beard, he headed down, and I followed.

At the bottom, we entered a room that looked like the inside of Molbob’s spaceship.

Soft gray-silver walls curved seamlessly into the ceiling and floor, glowing with their own light. In the middle of the room, a hunched figure sat in an egg-shaped chair, wrapped from head to toe in some kind of cloak. Combined with the hood, it concealed every single feature. The only thing I could say for certain was that the figure was humanoid, due to the two pair of sleeves for arms and analogous ones for legs.

All around it, crammed all the way to the walls, lay every kind of object imaginable—rugs, dishcloths, polish, toothbrushes, machine guns, toilet seats, something that looked like part of a car engine, a prosthetic arm, an umbrella, light bulbs, swords, axes, shields, clothes. And about a dozen translucent crystal spheres floated in circles above that wild hoarder’s dream. The light shining down from them coated every object below, making it seem as though everything in the pile was being constantly scanned.

“I’m leaving. I can’t look at this mess,” the dwarf said, turning on his heel and heading back upstairs.

I, stunned by the sight, just stared at the mountain of junk and the figure sitting on a throne among it.

“Two Chosen Ones honor our humble abode. We assume you have come regarding your accumulated points,” the figure said in a voice that made my mind stop for a moment as it tried to determine whether I was dealing with a woman or a man. The sounds were closer to birdsong imitating a person than anything resembling normal human speech. “How may we be of assistance?” it added, raising one of its front limbs and pointing it toward me.

I ducked, reacting instinctively, but fortunately, nothing was thrown, fired, or magically conjured in my direction. Instead, the limb moved aside slightly, revealing something resembling a long, curved claw with constantly moving strands hanging from it. Some of them parted, and the palm-sized sphere they had been holding fell free, hovered beneath them in the air, and exploded in a burst of bright light.

When my eyes finally adjusted again, the sphere was gone, and the sleeve had once more concealed the strange limb.

“The male Earthling possesses fourteen points. The female possesses fifteen. Neither total permits access to most available rewards. We may, however, present those currently relevant to you.”

“You have fifteen points?” I turned my face toward Bri.

“Can I, um, speak?”

“It already knows you're here. It just scanned us without permission.” I turned back toward the creature, an unfriendly expression on my face. I didn't know whether it could see me, but I hoped it could hear that I was pissed off about them constantly violating our most basic rights.

“I have fifteen, yes!” Bri replied, and I wondered where and for what she could have earned more points than me, when I had done most of the work. “Yes, of course we want to know what we can get!”

“I just hope it’s not all this shit lying around here,” I said. “What’s with the weird sign by the entrance?”

“What is around us need not concern those who can perceive the sign,” the creature replied and at the same time, the spheres floating around it stopped glowing, and every object vanished, revealing empty floors and clean walls. “Those who cannot perceive it have no reason to enter, and those who can already possess everything necessary to understand its purpose. With the points you possess—”

“Posses, posses, posses…” I cut the thing off.

I started thinking the whole situation over, because it didn’t fit with what I knew from the Oracle and Molbob. Supposedly, this world had been created by whoever was behind all of this specifically so we could be here, but if that was true, putting a shop inside another shop was a damn stupid solution.

They could have taken the path of least resistance and simply made a proper store meant only for the Chosen. Something didn’t add up. Especially considering this magical shopkeeper apparently had to hide.

“What the fuck is actually going on with the Event? We were supposed to be sent to a planet created for this whole mess, but now it turns out you’re hiding in corners from creatures that were already here long before us. So?”

“Dun’a’Dra’s history is not required for the service we provide. We were assigned to this location to serve Chosen participating in the Gauntlets. Nothing beyond that affects your use of this store.”

“Bullshit,” I replied. “Nobody knows anything. Nobody wants to share anything, and we’re supposed to be monkeys dancing whenever someone plays the tune?”

“Understanding your dissatisfaction would not alter the information available to—”

“Fuck off. I want to speak to a manager. Someone higher up. Do you have anyone like that above you? Is there anyone who can actually tell me what the hell is going on here? Or do you get more enjoyment out of watching us stumble around blind?” I struck the ground with my staff.

“No answer we could provide would grant you access to anyone beyond this location.” The creature shifted strangely inside its cloak, and my anger at this entire situation kept building.

“Hypothetically speaking—you understand what that means, right?”

“Your intention is sufficiently clear.”

“Excellent. Then tell me what’s stopping me from pulling out a knife and stabbing you? Or burning you down to the bone, or whatever the hell you have in there—is there even anything like that? Is someone going to come stop me, or punish me afterward? Is Daimon going to burn a hole in my brain?”

“Lex...” Bri muttered. “I think you’re directing your, um... anger at the wrong thing.”

“Maybe. Possibly,” I told her. “I don’t care. We know nothing, and it’s starting to piss me off. People watch us in their sleep, so the ones who built and planned all this are a million percent doing the same thing, or something even more fucked up, and enjoying it. If I’m going to be a slave led around blind on a string, I might as well end it here and now—and I’ll walk away in peace knowing you were spared the same thing.”

“Nothing you have described alters your assigned objective. The conditions governing the Gauntlets remain those already communicated to you,” the creature replied, its voice lower than before.

“So basically, the creators don’t give a shit what happens to you, me, or Bri, right?”

“Whatever their intentions may be, no provision concerning our individual preservation has been communicated to us.”

“Good.” I calmed down.

“Lex?” Bri’s flames were still behaving strangely, but she seemed worried.

“I’m better now, Bri. I just needed to let some of that anger out.”

“Better?” Her voice seemed hesitant, her flames dimmed.

“Much better,” I told her truthfully. The fact that the creators didn’t care what happened to any of us was strangely comforting, because it meant I had more freedom than I’d originally thought. “Fine. What can we buy with these pathetic points we’ve collected, and how exactly is this supposed to work? That much you can tell us, right? And don’t you dare stop at the first tier. I want to know about every one.”

“For your present totals, only the first tier requires explanation… but we shall grant you the knowledge you seek. Ten points permits the recovery of an item that was, at some point, in your possession. Should you choose one, the system will provide it here.”

“The original? Or a copy? How does that work?”

“The distinction has no bearing on the transaction. You designate what qualifies. The system provides what it recognizes,” it spoke in strange stillness.

“How do you define an item?”

“I, um, never really had anything... that’s really not fair.”

“The system recognizes as an item whatever it determines can be possessed through physical control.”

“Fuck, never mind. Second tier?”

“At twenty-five points, what you once possessed ceases to matter. You may instead choose from what this location is authorized to provide. Your Daimon will supply any details relevant to individual selections.”

“I like that one, um, a lot more. I’m getting close too!”

“And the third?”

“At one hundred points, merchandise is no longer the relevant form of reward. The available option concerns temporary access to a location on your home world.”

“That’s interesting! Mm-hm. I think Sophie or Nick would, um, like that—they miss home.”

“Temporary access meaning what? Can you bring back whatever you manage to get while you’re there?”

“The same conditions of possession that applied during your original extraction will apply again.”

“Can you show us what you have to offer for twenty-five points?”

“Your Daimons may be shown the selections available at this location. Availability elsewhere is neither identical nor information this store provides.”

“Mm-hm. Yes!”

“Just confirm one more thing for me. Do we lose the points when we spend them? Probably, but you never know.”

“Spending reduces the balance available to you. Your accumulated total is recorded separately. Whatever purpose that record serves lies outside the function of this store.”

“What are the goods specifically in your store?” I asked again, already feeling generally exhausted by what I had been dragged into and by the way the whole thing had been organized. The only thing I really wanted was to throw myself onto a bed and lie there without moving for as long as possible.

“A verbal description would be incomplete. Your Daimons are better suited to present what is currently available.”