The Sleep World

2: Isolated Temple [13th March, 2013]

“s**t!” G violently yells at the top of his lungs unaware that Orchid is right in front of him. When he is made aware of it, he finds himself praying for his life. “Sorry for suddenly yelling out of nowhere, Orchid. I found the killers of my parents and got killed…”

“Remember to stay calm and to not get ahead of yourself,” she wipes her face with some wet wipes. “Judging by your genuine reaction, I can tell you that you died once so far.”

“Yes,” G covers his face in shame for his actions. “I was caught up with vengeance that I did something reckless…”

“Remember to value your life.” She glares at him. “Once you run out of vials, you are definitely dead and I won’t save you once you are down to the last vial. Also I will not refill them for you anymore.”

“Save-potion 1752,” G sighs. “I’ll get stronger and then I’ll have my revenge…”

“Let us do a briefing then,” she fires up the way-gate. “What is your mission?”

“The mission is to assist and protect two archaeologists while they unravel the hidden secrets of the Isolated Temple,” he tries to recall some things. “Dr. John James Fossil and his daughter. She is beautiful, I tell you,” G notices Orchid rolling her eyes, “her name is Dr. Shiela Findstime. What if we report it to the police?”

“If you value revenge over mission, then do it.” Orchid sighs, “When you do that, what would happen to the two archaeologists? Haven’t you noticed anything at all, genius? You can start with their names…”

“Their names,” G thinks thoroughly. “Their surnames are different. Maybe, Shiela is married but her husband is not there when I met them.”

“What about their mood and behavior when you met them?”

“They looked anxious and they were a bit dodgy…”

“How about the two murderers?” Orchid gives him another clue, “Use your head genius. Know your clients before diving into fieldwork.”

“Holy s**t,” G finally gets it. “Let me assume that those two are working for the murderers, Macay and Kroth. However, it seemed like they were forced into working with them… that means that they are hostages. Orchid, we should call the police…”

“Dimwit,” Orchid hits him in the head. “What is your mission?”

“Their lives are in danger and maybe more lives will be if we didn’t call the police!”

“What is your mission?!”

“To assist and protect them while they unravel the hidden secrets of the Isolated Temple,” G lowers his head and looks at the navy blue floor.

“If you call the police,” Orchid gives him a scenario, “the two might have families taken hostage. Do you think the police would succeed? Think about the woman and her age. Maybe, she has a child that is taken hostage somewhere.” She shows G another mission.

“Missing: Sherwin Findstime,” G collapses down on the floor. “Am I still cut for this work, Orchid?”

“First times at work does suck,” she extends her hand for him to reach. “You know it because you feel like you are the dumbest person in that office. Don’t give up too soon. I have an adventurer or two looking for the boy as we speak and now that we know that Macay and Kroth aren’t around, the boy might be saved. Do not risk the lives of the policemen. The two magicians are notorious killers and high-profile criminals in this region. I’m a goddess… no matter how much I wanted to strike them down, I just can’t. We have rules to follow as gods so be strong as a human so that you can do the missions that I would’ve wanted to take.”

“You just continue to amaze me,” G reaches for her hand and gets up. “I’m going in.”

“If you die, I probably won’t remember telling you this,” Orchid pats him in the back a bit hard. “Don’t yell in front of me when you die alright?”

“Alright,” G passes through the way-gate. “I’ll try…”

Isolated Town

After arriving, he decides to wait for a few minutes. Then, the two archaeologists finally approach to meet him. Dr. John James Fossil is in his mid-fifties. He’s got graying hair, mustache, and beard. He has an average body built and wears eye-glasses. His daughter, Dr. Shiela Findstime is a widowed archaeologist. She has short light blue hair that extends to her neck but only covering half of it. She also wears a research organization insignia where they are from as her hair clip. Both of them are non-magicians. At this point, G is starting to learn how to observe the people around him.

“You look young for an adventurer,” Dr. Fossil has a husky voice as he is surprised at G’s appearance.

“Thank you for the compliment, but I just recently graduated,” he has to go with the same type of introduction he did earlier. “I hope I won’t get in your way…”

Shiela looks at her father and then looks back at G, “So, let’s head to our destination then, shall we?”

“She sounded like she doesn’t want to associate herself with me. Maybe, I could not be trusted yet. I can find a way to crack her shell later,” he thought.

While approaching their destination, G has already expected the ambush. He realizes back then that they never recognized him and so, he played nice and let them do as they please.

“Well that was easy,” the spiky red-haired and muscular magician grins at his partner who has a smooth black hair and an armor imbued with dark magic. “Since you are not hostile and you look weak, you’ll be coming with us.”

“Let us go to that temple,” Macay glares at G and moves on, “Death awaits you if you try to escape or do something.”

First, I need to observe them carefully. I might die for now, but death won’t be much of a concern for me as of this moment. However, I should limit the number of deaths. G gives off a deep breath.

“I won’t be paying you for getting us into trouble, kiddo,” Dr. Fossil whispers to G.

“Enough with the chit-chat and move on,” Kroth kicks the doctor’s back. “I hope you had a good breakfast because this day won’t end well for you.”

G notices Dr. Shiela flinching as his father stumbles down after being kicked. She is afraid to move to help her father because she also fears for her life the same. At the entrance of the temple, Macay presses a series of tiles to open the gates up.

He grins at Dr. Fossil, “courtesy to your eldest son, am I right?”

He laughs while the doctor looks down with a grim look and clenches his fists. G seems to realize that the traps that were set in this floor could’ve caused the death of the Dr. Shiela’s elder brother or it could be that the eldest son survived this but never made it.

As they make it inside, Macay opens a second gate and then looks at the doctor with a torturing grin, “your wife sacrificed herself just for this, right doctor?”

The sound inside is like that of an electric fan and that of ticking from a clock. It was a bit noisy as well allowing G to talk privately with Dr. Shiela while the two make fun of Dr. Fossil.

G approaches her and talks softly, “I kind of get the gist of this. Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”

Shiela glances at G teary eyed, “We know them, these evil magicians. They had been using us to get what they wanted. Many of our colleagues and families fell victim to the traps while solving the puzzles to unlock the floors. We asked the help of many guilds especially that of Dream Entrance. Unfortunately, they sent someone like you…”

OUCH…

“That kinda hurt,” G scratches his head. “How many underground floors have you unlocked?”

“11 floors out of 12,” she glares at the evil magicians. “I lost my husband just recently at the eleventh. Now, father will be next. If he doesn’t unlock it, we’re doomed…”

“Then, I’ll take the bullet for your father,” G formulates his own plan. “Hey bad guys!”

“What do you want?” Macay approaches him, “Do you want a death wish, child?”

“Let me try to unlock the eleventh floor,” G gives off his signature gentle smile. “If I unlock it, please spare the lives of the doctors and set them free. I’m good at solving puzzles!”

Kroth bursts into laughter, “That is a death wish, Macay! Let me enjoy this moment and let him do it!”

“Sounds entertaining,” Macay grinned, “Very well kid, follow me.”

At the tenth underground floor, G inspects all of the tiles and asks the doctors to read the scriptures on the wall. The room was very dark but the tiles stayed luminous for some reason.

“I need light,” G stares at the magicians, “please…”

Kroth conjures fire with his fire magic. A floating ball of fire appears and brightens the room.”

“You’ve been here, right?” G asks the Dr. Fossil. “Tell me what is says…”

The tiles respond to where they are placed that even when you fly your way, you will die by very fast bursts of lava that not even those who can conjure it can withstand it. So far, that was the only code they could decipher.

“20 tiles in front of me must be the width, and then,” G tries to count the huge tiles. “Uh h-how many are the tiles over all?”

“I don’t know yet,” Dr. Fossil sighs. “But… uh I can calculate it if you want?”

“You aren’t in any form of rush, aren’t you?” G asks the two magicians.

“Take your time,” Macay sits down. “You have until sundown to figure it out.”

“What’s in your bag?” he asks the archaeologists, “Are there measuring tools and calculators there?”

“Yes,” Dr. Shiela takes the tools out, “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m gonna do some trigonometry s**t,” G asks Macay next, “Is it okay for me to check the length and width of the two floors above?”

“Kroth,” Macay nods at his partner. “I want to ensure that you won’t be running away.”

“Sure, I ain’t going anywhere,” G then approaches the scientists. “Dr. Fossil, I want you measure an estimate of the height, length and width of this room right before the trap tiles. Dr. Shiela, you do the room above and I’ll do the room two floors from here.”

“Uh… sure…” Dr. Shiela immediately goes to work with her father. “We can do that…”

After some trigonometry s**t, G calculated that there are 1000 tiles over all. The question was… which of them are safe to use? He decided to memorize the codes that the scientists cannot decipher.

“We’ve waited too long,” Kroth aims for G. “Are you ready?”

“Y-yeah,” G grins. “I know where to go!”

Dr. Shiela and Dr. Fossil know that he hasn’t found anything else besides the number of tiles.

“s**t!” he eventually screams in front of Orchid’s face… again. “W-where are your w-wet wipes?”

“When you asked me where the wet wipes are, I realized that you’ve done this countless times already.” Orchid shows him the wipes.

“Actually, this is the second time…” G tries to hide his shame. “So give me a briefing of everything.”

Blah – blah – blah – blah – blah

“So in the end, you couldn’t decipher this language.” She seems impressed, “How powerful is your memory?”

“Only powerful enough when I use it to focus on some things while taking out some of it from the equation,” G scratches his head. “It does hurt my head a bit that is why I only used it on seldom occasions.”

“Yeah, that might kill you,” Orchid pats him in the head. “The golden map has many uses aside from being a golden map. Would you care about bringing up its history?”

“Uh yeah… the golden map is a unique item that is sought by powerful organizations worldwide. Giving it to me means that you really want me to suffer though,” G clears his throat while ignoring her sharp glaring eyes at him. “So this map came from the god Index Atlas who is the god of knowledge and wisdom. His memory is more powerful than the internet and magnet (magical network) combined.”

“So ask it starting with ‘Index’ so that it would respond,” Orchid brews some coffee. “I can’t wait for you to say ‘THANK YOU WEDNESDAY-SAMA, YOU ARE THE BEST GODDESS OF ALL!’”

“You could’ve told me its uses before giving it to me aside from being just a golden map that tells me where to go.” G sighs, “I could’ve solved some things already…”

“…”

G glances for a bit, “and uh… thanks for helping. So uh, Golden Map… I mean Index… I need your help in deciphering this language.”

All of a sudden, the map suddenly becomes sentient, “Ah yes… the ancient language written by the Pharaoh God Hamen Isol. This one says ‘Processing Requires the use of Integers and one Miscalculation will lead to an imminent End.’”

“You’re going to be late,” Orchid fires up the way-gate. “Find it out along the way…”

“Hello there, my name is Gabriel Crimson Fallasleep, but you already know that, don’t you because I contacted you yesterday. You must be Dr. John James Fossil and Dr. Shiela Findstime. Now that the introductions are over, I know that you have lost a lot of your friends and families. I also know that you are being used by two evil magicians.”

“How did you find out?” Dr. Shiela gets anxious.

“Let’s go to a nearby restaurant,” G cautiously leads them. “My parents were murdered by those two…”

“Then you must be here for revenge,” Dr. Fossil nods at me. “I want to be a part of that revenge you are plotting…”

“About that, I want you to follow my rules. Do not ask questions, just answer mine.”

“Okay,” Dr. Fossil agrees. “What are the questions?”

“At the eleventh floor of the temple, I found out about the number of tiles, 20 tiles in front of us with 1 to 20 starting from right to left, just like the codes deciphered said. Over all there are 1000 tiles.”

Dr. Shiela is itching to ask why he knows that, but she remains silent, “Yeah, you are right…”

“You also cannot decipher the final codes down below,” G shows them the pictures. “5 of this ancient letters are larger than the others. I have a team behind me capable of deciphering the codes and it said that ‘Processing Requires the use of Integers and one Miscalculation will lead to an imminent End’. The magicians are coming for us, stay normal and let us surrender. I have a plan…”

“Dying is actually my plan,” he thought to himself again.

“Well-well,” Macay approaches them while Kroth scared everyone in the village, “We were thinking that you weren’t going to show up making me want to kill your child.”

“Macay, the kid e-” Kroth almost slips up. “Yeah, the kid will be killed…”

“Uh hi,” G puts his hands behind his back, “we surrender. I’m actually a tour guide, I know a lot about this village and the temple…”

“Whoever you are,” Macay uses his dark magic to shackle their hands, “we are going to take you with us.”

“We’re not killing him?” Kroth raises his eyebrow in suspicion.

“He knows a lot about the place and the temple, he says,” Macay gestures us to move along. “He’ll be useful…”

“That’s what he thought but I ended up killing myself because I haven’t figured it out… yet.”

“You look like you’ve seen death,” Orchid takes a look at the vial’s number, “What happened?”

So I told her everything that had happened so far, except for the yelling in front of her that I definitely prevented this time.

“So that’s about it,” G takes a breather. “I was like rapping through every word…”

“Hamen Isol is the god of arts and literature, I think,” Orchid seems like she figured it out, “but I’m not telling you the answer.”

“I knew you’d say that,” G groans.

“Why not think of the abstract and artistic part of the code?” she somehow gives him some clues. “Even if you use the map, it will not answer your question. Of course, it will give you some information, but it will never do your homework.”

“Processing Requires the use of Integers and one Miscalculation will lead to an imminent End,” he reads it again. “If I think of the artistic value of this code… it doesn’t look like a poem to me. Also the capitalization is totally wrong, but what if it was intentionally made wrong? P – R – I – M – E… prime.”

“Now correlate it,” she grabs herself a drink. “Next time, I won’t be giving you anymore clues.”

“Numbers, that’s all I can think of. Prime, Integers, and Miscalculation correlates to numbers. Processing could mean a lot of things like series or steps or procedures or anything actually.” G suddenly remembers the number of tiles. “s**t, I think I figured it out…”

“Oh,” Orchid grins while taking a look at his school record.

“Index, from one to one-thousand, which among these tiles of in a 20x50 table of a vertical rectangle are the prime numbers?” G asks the god through the map. When the map finishes the table, G discovers the safe tiles. “An average person can skip up to two tiles. Three tiles would be impossible. I wonder why flying will still trigger the traps. I need to go back in order to actually decipher every code.”

“If you’ll keep on asking why,” Orchid sighs, “you’ll only get more questions. Think of it like this… if I fly, I’ll die…”

“That is actually right,” Index speaks through the map, “You better not complicate things.”

“I thought you’d only answer questions,” G scratches his head. “Who knew you’d be casually talking with us?”

“I knew,” Orchid laughs at G and then fires up the way-gate. “You should go now, G.”

“Her kid escaped,” G grins at Orchid, “Kroth almost said it but was only able to bring out the letter E.”

“And then you assumed,” Orchid raises her eyebrow. “Eliminated or Exterminated might be the word but unconventional to say, escaped it is then. We’ve got a hunch about the whereabouts of their base. I’ll send some guild members there.”

Well, here we go again…

“Hello there, my name is Gabriel Crimson Fallasleep, but you already know that, don’t you because I contacted you yesterday. You must be Dr. John James Fossil and Dr. Shiela Findstime. Now that the introductions are over, I know that you have lost a lot of your friends and families. I also know that you are being used by two evil magicians.”

“How did you find out?” Dr. Shiela gets anxious.

“Let’s go to a nearby restaurant,” G cautiously leads them. “My parents were murdered by those two…”

“Then you must be here for revenge,” Dr. Fossil nods at me. “I want to be a part of that revenge you are plotting…”

“About that, I want you to follow my rules. Do not ask questions, just answer mine.”

“Okay,” Dr. Fossil agrees. “What are the questions?”

“At the eleventh floor of the temple, I found out about the number of tiles, 20 tiles in front of us with 1 to 20 starting from right to left, just like the codes deciphered said. Over all there are 1000 tiles.”

Dr. Shiela is itching to ask why he knows that, but she remains silent, “Yeah, you are right…”

“You also cannot decipher the final codes down below,” G shows them the pictures. “5 of this ancient letters are larger than the others. I have a team behind me capable of deciphering the codes and it said that ‘Processing Requires the use of Integers and one Miscalculation will lead to an imminent End’. The magicians are coming for us, stay normal and let us surrender. I have a plan…”

“Well-well,” Macay approaches them while Kroth scared everyone in the village, “We were thinking that you weren’t going to show up making me want to kill your child.”

“Macay, the kid e-” Kroth almost slips up. “Yeah, the kid will be killed…”

Judging by that expression, Kroth almost slipped up. But I can only make out the words… Escaped. It could have been executed but that expression showed anxiety, G thought. The child escaped from them.

“Uh hi,” G puts his hands behind his back, “we surrender. I’m actually a tour guide, I know a lot about this village and the temple…”

“Whoever you are,” Macay uses his dark magic to shackle their hands, “we are going to take you with us.”

“We’re not killing him?” Kroth raises his eyebrow in suspicion.

“He knows a lot about the place and the temple, he says,” Macay gestures us to move along. “He’ll be useful…”

While Macay is mocking Dr. Fossil for the death of his precious family and friends as they unlock the base floors, G makes up a believable story to Dr. Shiela.

“I’m actually versed at ancient languages,” G begins his lie as he talks with her not loud enough for them to hear. “The reason I told you to not ask questions is because I have also been studying these ruins for a while now through my parents. It could also be the reason why they were murdered.”

But seriously, why did these two bastards kill my parents? He asked himself.

“I understand,” she lightens up to me. “I was actually thinking that you couldn’t be trusted but I guess I was wrong. Is it okay to ask for forgiveness?”

“What are you talking about?” Kroth approaches them and grabs the collar of G’s shirt. “Are you trying to escape?”

“I was telling her about the history of this dungeon,” G stands his ground. “Now I would appreciate it if you could lower me down.”

“Kroth, lower him down now,” Macay glares at him. “His knowledge about this dungeon is precious.”

After lowering him down, Kroth fixes the collar of G’s shirt and grins at him, “For now you are useful. If you try to escape, I will-”

“I won’t,” G tries to hold his rage in as he remembers the manner of how his parents were immolated by this man.

Moving on…

“Gabriel,” Dr. Shiela approaches him and asks him in a whispery voice, “How did you know about this?”

“When I receive a request, I should always have an in depth knowledge of my clients and the circumstances they are in. I was able to find a lot of significant data and so here I am now. I can lead us all to the 12th underground floor.”

“I see,” it feels like she’s really regretting the way she acted before. “I really am sorry about being a snob…”

“Don’t sweat it,” G gently smiles at her. “I’m just doing my job…”

“Hey tour guide,” Kroth glares at G, “You are good with ancient languages. How about you read something that the old man can’t read?!”

G pretends to read the symbols because he already knows the proper way, “I got it.”

“You do,” Macay glares at him. “Why don’t you prove it?”

“Follow me as I mark the parts where you can jump,” G then makes a threat. “If you pushed them off, I’ll kill myself and you won’t be able to solve this puzzle.”

“Are you sure about that?” Kroth grins. “We are the boss down here, and you will follow our orders with or without them!”

“Suicide is an easy thing for me to do,” G grins. “Right now, you are all my hostages. Unless you don’t follow my orders, you won’t get anything and I also know how to bury us all underneath this temple.”

“You think you’re smart?!” Kroth threatens to kill Dr. Shiela, “I’m not afraid of you!”

“Do it,” G begins to lie. “I’m the last of my kind and my ancestors knew this ziggurat from top to bottom and it was passed down to me, Kill her and you will never get to solve this puzzle.”

“Kroth,” Macay glares at him. “He is our only way in and if he dies, we can never uncover the treasures we needed.”