章 25: Menace of the Phantom
Xan and the Healer Yahn found lodging for the night, but around midnight the pair slipped out of their rooms and left the town of Skotz, the first town where the girls went missing and headed into the woods. After an hour of walking, they came upon a clearing. "I have something for you," Xan said to the Healer Yahn. "Something for me?" he asked. "Yes, take this," Xan said.
From out of his treasure ring, Xan gave the healer Yahn a very large revolver. "I don't know why, but for some reason, I feel like this gun was made for you. It's a revolver based on the Smith and Wesson .500. A matchless revolver, but this one is customized. There are three arrays in the gun, a strength array, to strengthen the materials. A counter energy array reduces the recoil from firing the gun, and the final array casts a temporary defensive forcefield around any bullets fired from the gun. This keeps the bullets from being stopped by anything until they hit their target. If they hit the target with the array still active, then it will increase the explosive power of the bullet by twenty percent.
Each bullet is inscribed with a single array, the boom boom array. This adds thirty percent more impact to any object the bullet strikes. To use this gun artifact simply aim the barrel at whatever you want to kill and pull this trigger," Xan said. "Amazing Elam, simply amazing! How powerful is this gun artifact?" he asked. "It can blow a hole through Durlamite and other spirit metal alloys of similar density," Xan said. "Oh my, what a monster of a weapon this is! If I had this when I was a soldier, I doubt I would have been injured in the battle of B'kidney Ridge in southern Dinai. Maybe I could have saved my brothers," Yahn said with great emotion.
"Right now, I need you to use this on anything that attacks us that's ranked at Great hero or higher," Xan said. "You can count on me, sir, the Healer Yahn son of What reporting for duty," he said with a military salute. Xan eyed him briefly. "Fine, I'm going to go over there and see what I can see, maybe stir up some trouble, be ready!" Xan commanded. "Yes, sir!" The Healer Yahn said.
Xan slipped away into the shadows like a cat hunting prey. Yahn hid quietly softly stroking his new gun. "I think you would be better if I could add some hair to you, there's no need to fear baldness. I have a wonderful technique for giving hairy hope to those who have none. I just need a little more time to perfect my technique and then I'll help you," he promised quietly to his new gun, who he named King Hairy.
"You shouldn't have given that man a gun," Otrera said. "What's with all of your naggings. You won't let me keep or use weapons I invent and now you have a problem with me giving them to others? Don't you think this is a little ridiculous?" Xan asked with disdain. "You are violating the intentions of the game. You are violating the rules," Otrera said. "And what can you do about it? As far as I can tell my mistake was storing my inventions in the storage squares provided by the system. As long as I store things somewhere else, you don't have the ability to do anything. You knew I built that gun and also knew I stored it in my treasure ring. Yet, you were unable to take it away from me. This tells me I can make any inventions I want and so long as I don't use the system to store them, there's nothing you can do about it.
Another thing I want to make clear to you. You have been nothing but a headache for me since I came to this world. I can't imagine I would create something as tiresome and unreasonable as you to "help" me. As soon as I regain my knowledge, the first I'm going to do is switch you off!" Xan said. He was tired of this useless system. Other than background information it didn't really help him with much. In fact, more often then not it was interfering in his operations. Xan was ready to be rid of it.
"This course of action is not recommended for the player," Otrera said neither angry nor happy. Otrera was an advanced A.I. but it didn't possess emotions. It merely ran according to its programming. "I'll keep my own counsel on what I should and shouldn't do. I don't need some buggy software nattering in my ears. Do me a favor and just shut up until I, your master, am ready to give you commands. "The player is engaging in activities and behaviors that are in violation of the rules," she said. "Fine, whatever, now be quiet, I'm busy," he said.
Xan withdrew his mind from the shared thought space he used to communicate with Otrera. After some time, Xan found the base he was looking for in the forest hills. He noticed strange lights coming from the base. He stealthily entered the base. All along the way, he started finding the bodies of strangely dressed men. Every person he examined was killed with a single sword strike through the heart. No matter their level, none of them had the ability to respond to their attacker and defend their lives. None of them could last past the first strike of the attacker.
Looking over the men who were killed he doubted he had the skill to kill so efficiently. The commonality between all the men is they were dressed in grey monk robes with an emblem sewn into their robes. The emblem read, "The Edwin Society." He never heard of the Edwin Society and wasn't sure what it was about.
He continued into the base and through the halls. He found a staircase heading down into the earth and descended carefully. He was worried about running into the person who killed all of those men. "Was it the Phantom?" he wondered. He heard movement coming from ahead of him and hid in a nook. Several forms rushed past him down another tunnel. Xan grabbed the arm of one of the shadows and pulled it toward him placing his hand over its mouth. He was surprised to see it was a young girl. She was pale white and fear was etched in her eyes. "Is she one of the missing girls?" he wondered.
When he heard the sound of battle, Xan released the girl and continued down the tunnel the women came from. He peeked around the last corner and saw a man in blank pants, a white shirt, black gloves, and a black cape with a hard white mask covering his face. His sword was drawn and he fought a much larger man whose left hand was a golden hook. In his right hand, he brandished a great saber. His outfit was red and yellow with white stockings and red shoes. His clothes were ripped up and through the rips, black scaley skin could be seen.
The man's face was half-human and half-lizard. It wasn't clear what kind of creature it was. Behind the lizard man was another much smaller human dressed in grey robes sitting calmly on a throne of some kind. He was bald on the top part of his head but the side hairs were dark black and he had a well-manicured mustache that looked like black diamonds and a dashing goat-tee. The man had an angry vicious look on his face.
"The infamous Phantom has come to take my women today! Let's see if you can get out of here alive!" the man shouted. The Phantom swayed in front of the creature, "Mine, they are all mine," he said. As the creature attacked its saber and hook passed through the Phantom over and over again. Xan couldn't tell if the attacks passing through the Phantom were a result of the Phantom's dodging speed or if the Phantom was intangible.
After thirty minutes of this, the Phantom melted into the shadows and disappeared. It was unclear where the Phantom went to or what happened. Xan started to back out of the tunnel when he heard the man in robes speak, "You also think you can escape from me? You've watched for so long you must be with that Phantom. Tell me where he went!" The man shouted madly. He was looking at Xan in his hiding place. Xan didn't wait around to continue the conversation. He turned and fled down the tunnel and made his way back out of the base in the direction he initially came.
He could hear the strange half-man half-lizard creature following him fast. By the time he exited the base the thing almost caught him. Directly behind the creature was the balding man. Xan cleared the entrance to the base and jumped to the side. Just as he jumped out of the way, he heard a loud "boom" sound. When he looked back he saw the creature being knocked back into the man with the balding head and crash into him. They both fell to the ground and were no longer moving.
The Healer Yahn came out of his hiding place and went to the creature and the man to see if they were still alive. Xan picked himself up and also went to check on them. When he got there the Healer Yahn was shaking his head from side to side. "It really is such a shame, I could have helped them. There was no need for such aggression, if only they came to me I could have helped them," he said. "Do you know them?" Xan asked. "No, I've never seen them before in my life. "If you don't know them then how could you know you can help them?" Xan asked.
What bald man can't I help once my technique is completed?" The Healer Yahn asked. "What?" Xan asked. "Look at the two of them, they're both so bald it's driven them to a mad rage, no wonder they chased after you," The Healer Yahn said. Xan was speechless.
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