He stops his twirl, tilts his head and asks, “Oh? What’s that?”
“Now that you’ve told me what you’re going to do, I won’t cooperate. You forgot to get me to bind to the respawn crystal.”
He bobs his head left and right, again considering my words. When he stops, he walks up to me and bends over from the waist. His mask only inches from me, he whispers. “Oh, you see that’s where you’re wrong; This is my favorite part of the whole thing. You’re going to bind to the respawn crystal voluntarily.”
“What? Why would I do that?”
Taking a step back, the man reaches into his pants pocket with his right hand and pulls out a phone. He taps the screen and starts to read, “Marie Tinoco, Age 14. Born August 13. Four foot 10 inches attends Abernathy School for the Gifted. Here are some pictures I took.” He flips the phone around and scrolls through photos of my sister at school, at lunch with her friends, and even outside our house.
A cold fear runs through me.
“I can show you the same for your mom, but I think you get the picture.” His loud and irritating laugh at his own joke tickles something in my mind like an old thought just on the verge of remembrance. “Get it? Get the picture? I showed you pictures.” All other thoughts vanish when he finishes laughing and holds up the phone with the photo again, “But seriously. If you don’t bind to the crystal, I’ll leave you here all tied up. While I’ll walk down the street and pay your mom and sister an unfriendly visit.”
A string of curses and expletives flow from my mouth in a stream of hate. How dare he threaten my family! How dare he make them a part of whatever this is.
The masked man just sighs and waits out my tirade. When I run out of creative ways to curse the man, I still sit tied to the chair, my head hanging in defeat. I know someone like this will go through with what he threatens. He’s gone to such lengths already. Why wouldn’t he go one more?
I sigh in resignation. “Fine. You win. I’ll bind to the respawn crystal.”
He nods. “Yes. I knew you would.”
Moving behind me, I feel the knife cut through the ropes binding me to chair. My limbs are numb from lack of blood flow, and I rub my arms and legs to get some feeling back in them. I hear the masked man walk back and when I turn to face him, he’s gone again.
His voice comes from the darkness, but I can’t seem to locate the direction. It seems to come from everywhere again. “Now, I’m watching you. Go bind to the crystal. If you fail to do so or try to escape, I’ll leave this dungeon and visit your family. You don’t know how to get out so you’ll never be able to stop me.”
His words dash any thoughts I had of overpowering him and escaping. He’s right. I don’t know where he is and can’t risk him escaping this dungeon and attacking my family.
Shoulders hunched in defeat, I walk to the floating blue crystal and put my hand on it. A blue screen appears.
Would you like to bind at this Respawn Crystal?
I only hesitate for a moment before saying, “Yes.” I hear the sound of compressed gas released and feel a sharp pain in my neck. I feel light headed, and my left hand reaches up to my neck and pulls something out of my neck. Even though the room is starting to spin, I’m able to look at the object in my and see a small metal cylinder with a needle at the front and a puffy red ball at the end.
My last thought before unconsciousness takes me is, “Dammit, he tranquilized me again.”
When I wake up, I’m tied to the wooden chair in the middle of the room again. The bleeding debuff has already worn off, so I must have been unconscious for a little while.
The masked figure walks from the dark into the light around the chair. “Oh, awake at last. Now we can get on with the fun.” The knife in his left hand begins to glow red, and he slashes at me. I try to lean back from the knife but am bound to the chair too tightly to move. The knife cuts me along the thigh, and a plume of red begins to spread along the gash. A red 14 floats away from me and a new bleeding debuff appear in the corner of my vision. I don’t scream from this wound, but I do when he stabs me in the gut and twists the knife around. Thankfully the pain ends when my health hits zero, and the world fades away.
The next thing I know I’m standing in front of a floating blue crystal and have notifications waiting for me.
You’ve been killed by ????.
Respawn in 3...2..1.
You’ve respawned at a dungeon respawn crystal.
You lose 7680 XP. XP needed to level 10: 7680
The notifications jog my mind, and I remember where I am. I turn around, intending to fight to the death but am immediately hit by another tranquilizer dart.
When I wake up, I’m tied to the chair again. The masked man has a long-handled straight razor, and my death takes much longer this time.
When I respawn, I ignore the notifications telling how much XP I lost when I died. Instead, I activate Roll so that I won’t be hit with another tranquilizer. As I come to my feet my eyes search the room for my capture. Unfortunately, most of the room is pitch black with only the chair in the middle of the room illuminated.
As I search, a canister comes rolling out from the darkness and stops at my feet. While I stare at the object in puzzlement; a plume of grey smoke billows out of the canister. I try to hold my breath, but I’m too late. I must have inhaled the smoke, because the next thing I know I’m on the floor, and the world once again fades away. Before I black out though, the bright blue floating crystal catches my eye and the spark of a plan forms in my mind.
When I wake up, I’m tied up. Again I’m killed, this time even more slowly. The next time I respawn, I know I’ll only have a few seconds before being knocked out again. In those few precious seconds, I use Inspect on the floating blue crystal.
Respawn Crystal
Durability: 50/50
The information brings a smile to my lips even as I feel the sharp prick of the tranquilizer dart hit me. As I collapse, I know that I’ll have to die again before I can enact my plan, but I know I have a chance to get out now.
Waking up strapped to the chair doesn’t seem as hopeless this time. It may be that the masked man can sense my hope because he takes extra care to hurt me this time. Instead of immediately stabbing me, he cuts off each of my fingers and toes. I’m screaming wildly in pain by the time the stacked bleeding debuffs mercifully kill me.
The instant my eyes open and I see the respawn notifications I know that I’ve come back, whole once again and with a chance to escape. I spin around and start to cast Fireballs randomly through the room. One of the balls of flame crashes into the chair and sets it on fire while the rest fly off into the dark. I hear a cry of pain and smile knowing that I must have hit that sadistic bastard.
The masked man growls in annoyance from the dark. “Lucky shot. You don’t really think you’ll be able to kill me that way, do you? Even if you did kill me, you’d still be stuck here, and I’d make you really suffer when I came back. Why don’t you just be a good boy and stop struggling so I can get you back to level 1 and end your miserable existence permanently?”
Instead of answering, I skirt around the podium, putting it between me and the rest of the room. I continue to fling fireballs throughout the room with my left hand while I pull up my inventory with my right hand and grab the hammer I keep there. I swing the hammer at the blue crystal and see a small five float away from it. I practically yell with joy knowing that I was right; I can break the respawn crystal. Again and again, I attack the floating blue object until I start to see cracks form. Bright beams of light shoot through the cracks blinding me momentarily.