Mid February!

Here is a short Story from Weaver

Author

John B
February 19, 2025

One quick note! My kickstarter is almost funded, so please check that out at…

… it funded as I was writing this.

This was written for Immersive Inks Groundentines day Contest.

Prompt: I save scummed too hard. Now I’m stuck in a time loop.

Dust

The first floor is always too hard. That is to say, you’ve done it a lot. Really, who would be surprised? It’s vast and in the back of your mind. You’ve always thought it was procedurally generated, but over time, you’ve forgotten what procedurally generated means.

You’ve forgotten a lot, actually. You wouldn’t have thought about it, but after the first loop? You had to consciously stop yourself from hyperventilating after every time you came back.

It wasn’t just that you broke the system. It was that inside of this constructed reality, things just didn’t feel right. You know what right looks like. Or at least, you thought you knew.

There had once been a bravado that you knew better. Better than the tower. With all the secrets you unlocked, you should have known better.

You did not.

You were not up to that task. It takes a certain person to flail against Infinity.

It takes a special person to stab endless boars just to get a special card within a time limit. The first dozen times you attempted this, you went back to your quick save thinking that it would save you from the feeling you got of so many deaths on your hand.

It’s easy to admit that you got better.

Anyone will get better at that after that many tries. As you weave your way for the 51st time through the forest where you have slain bore after bore, perhaps you should wonder about why the boars are no longer bleeding. You finished killing your 100th boar with an average rate of one every 90 seconds, giving you the card that you’ve always wanted. But it feels hollow. It feels different when the spear you’ve been wielding for so long. Just a little off center.

You slice through the final boar as the card drifts up, giving you the lunge card that you so long desired. A line down the temporal tree that would result from this.

Cuz every time you save, it creates a new timeline from which you can branch potential paths out. But what no one told you was that your saves might not be infinite. The card that had given you this power. The card that you would treasure for so long and had kept inside of your person? That card was so wrong. It wasn’t leveling with the card. It was exhausting it.

You pulled out your card to examine it. It has 50 tick marks underneath it. The entirety of it is full. You attempt to save again and it doesn’t work. You’ve loaded many saves before, but this is the first time that you could not make a quick save.

The woman in town who tipped you off about the special board killing quest looks apologetic as you return from the forest.

“What’s this all about, then?” you ask.

She gives you a stare. It’s easy to tell that she’s hiding something. Living here on the first floor of the tower, she doesn’t see a lot. Sure, she gets to see the adventurers that come through once in a while, but she’s not on the ground floor and she’s definitely not on the 5th floor. But someone’s got to work the farms that supply the academy.

“Your pardon, adventurer,” she says. “For I do not know about what you’re speaking. You look like you’ve had a fair bit of success though, if I’m correct.”

She eyes you up and down. Normally, she shrinks away at the sight of the blood that covers you. It’s a waste of damn time. She can’t help.

Her green and brown tunic blends in with the forest behind you. Paris must be a touched life, one where the fear of death is not prominent.

“You gave me this quest,” you say. “Who told you about this quest to kill the 100 boars? Was it one of the families?”

You want to scream. You hold back for fear that any lead that she would have given you would just disappear into thin air like smoke. She looks down, kicking the ground. You will get nothing from her but you try anyway. You brandish your spirit her. With your power. You could lun straight through her. You’ve landed so many boars, what would one human girl do?

Is she even human?

“Adventurer, there is another part to the quest.”

Hope blooms eternal. Once again, you bring up your menu and try to save and where once there was a button, now it is just grayed out. Your status screen, once a source of comfort, is now only a reminder that you’ve been relying on it for too long. Or maybe it’s just a device sent to torture you.

Regardless, you know you have a problem, but you’re not sure who you could talk to about this. So you want to head back to that old academy that you trained at. The academy, where you found this card hidden in the library.

It was convenient placed where you could find it. After all, who would leave such a valuable card there?

Remember the card when it was presented? You’ve put it into your deck box with the other cards you were using. When I gave you the ability to save you exploded the quick save so many times. And for so many frivolous tasks. You tried to get your days right. All the while, you thought it would keep going on forever.

But now, the boars didn’t have blood anymore. How could you make them bleed again?

A thought strikes you when you pass by the many fields next to the forest where perhaps a bear might respond. You see one off in the corner. It’s not doing much, just looking for berries. Getting closer to it is a fool’s errand.

Wielding the spear, it’s a simple task to take a bear down. Just a few choice cuts will do it.

It’s dispatched fast to your relief. Many have taken far longer to bleed out.

But now the bear isn’t bleeding. Normally, your spear would drip. Being covered in viscera was normal here.

The spear isn’t even looking worn. For a second it phases out, then back in. It’s still tangible even though it’s phased out.

Behind it, you can see the other side of your home. It’s jarring, but what hasn’t been today?

Then your hand blinks for a second. Let’s not think about that.

World Quest: Return to the academy.

The Voice was bad news. World quests like this were difficult to take on solo.

The save line you are now was one where you had spent no time developing any friendships or relationships. Indeed, so much time had been spent just practicing when there had been clearly so much life left.

You pick up the pace. It wouldn’t do to abandon a world quest.

In a flash, you’re running as fast as you’ve ever ran. One more field away and you can just see the Spire of the academy.

There, you can be safe.

Well, maybe not you, but you want to try, anyway. The wrought-iron gates are open and inside, the normally busy grounds are vacant and barren. Only one person remains and you look at me in horror.

World Quest: Return the save card.

If there was a world where you might be saved, it was one where you followed the world quest. No World quest that ever steered someone before. In fact, they were so rare that the person might receive one during their entire lifetime if ever. The potential reward was so high.

You stroll up to me. A man with a tall stone statue wearing the head mattress uniform, but I’m like any you’ve ever seen, waits. Astral projections of a spirit inside of the statue appears to give him floating tufts of hair. I don’t open my eyes for you. I can’t.

World Quest: Place the save card at the feet of the statue in front of you.

There’s no question that you want to follow the quest. There’s no reason not to comply.

Then, the red eyes of the statue open and you’re hungry. You looking down into a place where a little boy once came to receive a strange card and you can’t help but step closer, inexorably.

Your hands find the safe card. It’s out before you even notice it and you’re putting it there into the chest of the statue.

“Thank you,” I say. My dry lips are moving for the first time in one hundred years.

And then, like nothing had ever happened, suddenly the courtyard was packed full of students preparing for an outing or doing something with their club and it’s so loud and you can’t move.

You’re stuck, looking forward as a man in an Academy uniform with red eyes looks you over.

“It won’t be that bad,” I say, as I brush off your shoulders. “You’ve gathered a bit of dust already. Shame.”

You’ll try to open your mouth to speak about what you have. No mouth, no voice. And in horror, you realize you can’t even close your eyes. You can’t blink. And you are so so hungry.

Author Website(all links to my work):
 https://storyweaver.quest/

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