His mind snapped into place and his eyes shot open as he gasped for breath and began to pant.
Kaelen: *pant*
"That went well."
So, he can kill us in a single hit, but we can consistently dodge him for the most part.
"A single mistake kills us, we can't not dodge. And even if we can dodge him forever, judging by his defense we wouldn't do much damage, so we would need to dodge perfectly hundreds of times and find small chances to hit him several hundreds time."
Seems like it.
"As I said, we need an actual plan. We can't fight monsters like that man without an actual plan."
Dodge?
"That isn't a plan Kaelen."
Then what's your idea? What do you think we should do?
"... I... Don't know."
Thought not.
"We could do what we do last time and use the Festival to get some of our stats up."
Are you an idiot?
"I know that it'd take a long time until we get stats that might be able to get us past him but-"
It's the morning of the 3rd, the Festival is long since over.
"You do remember that I'm from another world, right? I didn't know when your Festival ended."
... Ah. Right. Sorry. Yes, I did forget.
"We should still search the town for things to do that might get our stats up. We need to decrease the stat difference however we can."
You won't find anything, this place is boring. Nothing ever happens here.
"I want to search, let me."
-Abel-
The world around him shifted, his mind splintered, before reattaching to Kaelen's body. Without taking any time to pause he turns around and begins on his way to the city center, where the Festival once was.
"Seriously, you won't find anything. I've lived here my whole life, I know everything that happens in this town like the back of my hand. If you actually find something then I'll-"
Hey.
"What?"
Look at that. A thing.
"-WHAT?!"
Red and white striped fabric stood before him in the form of a large tent with peaked roofs and flags, it was a circus's big top. A sign stood at the front of the big top, words written on it in a language he couldn't read with long sweeps and curves all of the place, and a man on stilts in a clown's make-up made his way out of the big top towards him.
Clown: We~lcome~ dear guest~!
Abel: Hey, is there a show on today? Maybe some games?
"What are you doing?"
This is your religion right? The clown aesthetic? It'll be some kind of after Festival part I'm guessing, so there should be a show or some games in there pretty soon.
"No, there are never any games and shows after the Festival ends. This place shouldn't be open, it should've already shut by now. Why is this thing still up?"
How about we go in and find out?
Clown: Indeed! Come on inside and see our exhibits! Games galore! Fun galore! Welcome to the circus~!
Abel: Thanks.
See? It's still up and running.
"This is wrong... Seriously wrong."
Stop complaining, it's too distracting and we need to focus on leveling up what stats we can.
Entering the big top, Abel finds himself in a long tunnel-like structure, with bright fairy lights of hundreds of different colours criss-crossing between parts of the tunnel, almost forming something similar to a web.
This isn't a normal big top.
... Kaelen?
Kaelen!
Hello?! I know you're there!
Abel: Going to ignore me then? Okay, fine, go sulk in a corner if you want.
He spins around to look at Kaelen in his spectral body, only to find more of the tunnel with the web of colourful lights, Kaelen noticeably absent.
Abel: Oh. I see. This was a trap.
Clowns, the circus, religion. He should have put it together before he got himself trapped. The core religion of this world was Lumexian, which bore many similarities to the group of clown-masked people who had been trying to kill him in the previous Save States, the Circus Lights according to the letter.
Abel: So what? Do every decently high member of the religion wear those masks? Or is it a cult-like sub-sect?
He just didn't have enough information to make a judgement yet, so instead he'd just have to promise himself to never go near clowns ever again. He'd be lucky if he didn't develop coulrophobia by the end of all of this. The worse part wasn't that he had walked right into a trap, but it was the sudden absence of Kaelen in general. Somehow these "Circus Lights" had separated the two of them. He'd just have to dive into the depths of this place and hope he could find a way out. He walked forwards, weaving through the lines of lights, taking turn after turn as the tunnel began branching out.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Abel: A maze? Really? Why a maze?
[Health Points: 180/180 (-120) -> 60/180]
He throws up blood and collapses to the floor as he feels something sharp get thrusted into his chest, he grabs at his chest and feels something stuck in it, but doesn't see anything aside from the blood pouring from the middle of his chest.
Abel: -W! -W-what-?!
Something stabbed him! He had felt it, but couldn't see it. A Sigil? It had to be. But Invisibility?! How could he deal with that? He shot up and activated his Sigil, manifesting a giant sword, starting to swing it wildly in large arcs. Something invisible was attacking him, so he'd just have to make the area around him too dangerous to get into then-!
[Health Points: 60/180 (+4) -> 64/180]
[Notice: Death imminent]
[Health Points: 64/180 (-70) -> -6/180]
[Notice: Skills leveled up]
[Death Watcher, Level 7 (+1) -> Death Watcher, Level 8]
[Error: Soul "Kaelen Calder" not located]
[Error: Soul "Abel Cyrus" outside of {REDACTED}]
[Error: Matrix undefined]
[Error: System failure]
[Error: Fatal error]
[Error]
[Error]
[Error]
[Notice: {REDACTED} {POTOCOL} activated]
[Notice: System reboot attempted]
[Notice: Skills leveled up]
[Death Watcher, Level 8 (+1) -> Death Watcher, Level 9]
[Notice: Soul "Kaelen Calder" located]
[Error: Soul "Abel Cyrus" outside of {REDACTED}]
[Error: Matrix partially defined]
[Error: System failure]
[Error: Fatal error]
[Notice: {REDACTED} {PROTOCOL} activated]
[Notice: System reboot attempted]
[Notice: Skills leveled up]
[Death Watcher, Level 9 (+1) -> Death Watcher, Level 10]
[Error: Soul "Abel Cyrus" outside of {REDACTED}
[Error: Fatal error]
[Error: {REDACTED} unbound]
[Notice: Hard reboot attempted]
[Notice: Soul "Abel Cyrus" located, bound to body "Kaelen Calder]
[Notice: Soul "Kaelen Calder" bound to body "Kaelen Calder"]
[Notice: Skills leveled up]
[Death Watcher, Level 10 (+1) -> Death Watcher, Level 11]
[Notice: Memories wiped due to hard reboot]
[Notice: {Death Watcher} skill {RECOVERED}]
[Notice: Skill auto-activation]
[Notice: Skill activated]
[Death Watcher, Level 11]
[First Save Point - "Zenith"]
>>> [Save State #1]
>>> [Save State #2]
>>> [Save State #3]
>>> [Save State #4]
>>> [Save State #5]
>>> [Save State #6]
>>> [Save State #7-1]
[Second Save Point]
>>> [Save State #7-2]
>>> [Save State #8 - File partially corrupted]
>>> [Save State #9 - File corrupted]
>>> [Save State #10 - File corrupted]
>>> [Save State #11 - File corrupted]
>>> [Save State #12]
[Notice: All Save States queued]
[Notice: All Save States shall now replay]
[>>> {All Save States Starting} <<<]
... Who...? Who am I...? Where... Where is this?
[Error: Save States failed to play]
Hello? Who's there?
[Notice: Save States force play]
[Error: Force play failed]
[Notice: Manual installation enabled]
[Notice: Bound souls corrupted]
[Notice: Data salvage enabled]
[Notice: Event #2 paused]
[Notice: System paused]
[Notice: Location redefined]
[Notice: Manual installation forced]
[Notice: Salvageable data merge enabled]
[Notice: Salvageable data merge forced]
"I... Don't know. Who are you?"
I don't know. Where are we?
"I don't know."
A tall man with blond hair and blue eyes floated in a spectral void, colours and thoughts moving past as he stared into the eyes of a second shorter man, with brown hair and brown eyes.
I do not know you.
"I do not know you either."
The two faded, becoming one.
[Notice: Data construct fabricated]
[Notice: Save States force play]
[Notice: Save State force play success]
[Notice: Souls bound to body "Kaelen Calder"]
[Notice: Data installed]
[Notice: Memories installed]
[Notice: Stats installed]
[Notice: Skills installed]
[Notice: Sigils installed]
[Notice: Corrupted data attempted restoration]
[Notice: Restoration in progress]
[Notice: Restoration moved to background]
[Notice: Event #2 resumed]
[Notice: Soft reboot engaged]
[Notice: Death imminent]
[Notice: Skills leveled up]
[Death Watcher, Level 11 (+1) -> Death Watcher, Level 12]
His mind snapped into place and his eyes shot open as he gasped for breath and began to pant.
???: *pant* W-what... The hell... Was that?
[Notice: PLAYER died outside of the MATRIX perimeter of the skill {Death Watcher} and the Sigil {The Sigil of Resurrection}, reboot attempted and failed several times. PLAYER data corrupted, partially salvaged. Refer to {Notes} for more details.]
???: What?
