Evaelona: The Trails of Advancement

Chapter 07: The Integrated HUB

Wade returned to Evaelona. But his head hurts. Including now, he has been hit in the head at least five times and went unconsciousness double that. And not to mention, he doesn't know anything in the place where he is. And the way he is getting to know everything, it is outrageous. How does anyone convey something like that?

As Wade was thinking about those, suddenly he heard Burepre, "Lad, are you all right? You took a big blow right there."

Wades' jaws dropped. "How are you speaking English? And after all this time!"

"What? Who said that I could speak English? That is the language of your world. Sorry."

"What is happening? I may need some rest. I have seen a lot in a day. More like biting off more than chewing."

Turning to Cormack, he said, "Cormack, I need to you to say the king that I will consult with him about the post of the invention tomorrow. Now please help me back to the tavern. I need some time alone."

"Sure." With that, he ordered his men to help him back to the tavern.

Night-time. And it was windy. The wind sweeping through the windows is making a whistling sound like the ones in the horror games. And the room Wade was in was not at all shabby. Warm, cozy bed with a fireplace & a meal which was turkey (it was rubbery looking & very hard to chew), some fruits, a cake (Wade couldn't eat it as it was not cooked properly) & some grape juice. Since the tavern was made with wood, it creaked when anyone walked or if the wind struck the planks hard enough.

Someone knocked on the door. It was Cormack. Wade told him to come in both of them had a little chat.

"I know it's not my place to ask. But I am curious about your prophecy. Moreover, that broke the whole room along with the kings' chair which he wasn't happy about."

Both of them laughed. "Well, I trust you. So I advise you to be patient. Very soon, you and the others will embark on a journey that will change your lives. Consider it a quest for saving Evaelona of some sort."

"Really!", his eyes glowed with excitement & determination as he said it. "Now I am more curious. Please tell me what it is?"

"Patient. When the time comes, you all will know."

Being a little but not too disappointed, he stood up & said, "I understand. Moreover, I hadn't had such suspicion, adventure & mystery all these years. And for giving me some, I would like to reward you with a little show."

"Well, blow me away."

"For that, you'll have to come by the window."

Both Wade & Cormack went to the window. Wade felt a  little anxious. Cormack opened the door. And outside, Wade saw Shelly. And she was holding a staff of some sort.

"Whenever you are ready, Shelly."

Again, Wade understood that. He isn't supposed to. But all for later.

Wade observed as Shelly elegantly swung the staff and then shouted "fireskrow." Then the ground started rumbling and shaking. Something is happening. Then from a mountain far away, a huge ball of lava shot itself into the air and burst into million pieces. Then those converted into fireworks. And boy was that the best fireworks Wade have ever seen in his life. It was magic & it was literally.

With a bold stand, Cormack asked Wade, "How is it?"

"Perfect. Fireworks, isn't it?"

"Yes. Nathan showed it to us by mixing a black sort of powdered which he called gunpowder & fire. It produced such a spark which caught Shellys' attention & she wanted to learn it so badly that she was able to create magic out of it."

"Yes. I realized that she told the part "works" in reverse. I have to say, she knows how to create spells."

Though Wade was talking & seeing the fireworks & assuming Cormack was hearing all that he had to say, it was not. Cormack's' jaws dropped wide opened when he said about the works in reverse thing. "How did you decipher that?"

"What?"

"First of all, you are new here & you don't even understand our language. After the whole prophecy thing, you started to talk and understand our language fluently. Moreover, you just deciphered a powerful magic spell. How? How are you doing it?!"

"All in time, you will know. I just got to get the hang of it.'

"What?"

"Tomorrow, all of you meet me here. Then I will say everything. For now, I am tired & need some rest. Thank you for the fireworks. It was phenomenal."

"Yes. As you say." Wade realized a fear in Cormacks' eyes. The same fear which Wade had when he was new to Evaelona and everything around him. The fear which he had when he is getting to know the truth about two persons, Jonathan Devoe & Nathan Joe. That is normal. So to comfort Cormack, Wade said, "Calm down. Everything will be clear in the morning."

Cormack left the room. And Wade was all alone. The fire from the fireplace has made the room warm even though it is a bit cold outside. And the food was rather satisfying than delicious. Wade us enjoying his time in Evaelona even though he still doesn't know what he is doing here.

Midnight. The moon rose to the highest point in the sky and it is a beautiful moonlight night outside. And Wade was preparing to get the hang of his surroundings. All he hoped was that AI Nathan was still around.

"Nathan," he called out.

No response. Wade's heart sank. He tried again, "Nathan."

Again no response. Wade thought, "One more time. Third times the charm." He called again, "Nathan."

No response. "Well, there goes my chance." And just as he was calling it a night, he heard something. It was the sound of processing.

"Who's there?" Nathan asked.

Then in a female robotic voice, it replied, "Please wait for the AI to load completely before engaging in conversation."

"In the nick of time," Wade thought.

And in a couple of minutes, the fire in the fireplace turned blue. Then again after another couple of minutes, smoke came out from the fire, blue smoke. Then after formation, AI Nathan appeared.

"Yes. You have called for me?"

"It worked."

"Of course. You had three calls left & now you used one of them to summon me."

"Oh." Wade was a bit disappointed. Three calls, now two narrowed his chances of knowing more about anything in the future. So he had to use them cautiously & carefully.

"Ok. Now I am going to need you for a long time. I want you to help me to make myself familiar with all of Evaelona."

"OK then. Let's get to it."

"Before that, can you tell me how I am speaking & understanding their language? I even deciphered a magic spell. How?"

"I installed a lot of things on your brain to function properly in the lands of Evaelona. Among that, one is the language of Evaelona. I suppose its name is Chu-ka. Weird name too. Among them, others include geography, swordsmanship, sorcery of sorts, and more. It is your job to find all of them. Now you know four of them. The rest six is for you to find."

"Damn it. Why doesn't everything remain easy? Oh Jonathan, if you were alive, I would have landed you a punch then & then."

"Oh, that is coming up in your dreams, all right. But for now, I should help you familiarize yourself with Evaelona."

And for the next two hours, Wade was trying hard to learn the topography, culture, science, surroundings, sorcery, people & more of Evaelona. But it was too much literally. I mean even a superhuman couldn't learn all that Wade was trying to do. It was a complete mess.

"Come on," Wade said frustratingly. "Can't you make all this go into my brain like you downloaded all those in my brain?"

"Yes. I could. But that could cause a problem. When Jonathan programmed the world and the AI box with all the knowledge & me in it, he made a condition that one will lose one's eyesight partially when one will want to learn everything that he had created. His life's' work."

"What!" as his jaws dropped wide open. But it was necessary & Wade understood it. If anyone ever got this, no wonder what one would do here to take control of this beautiful utopia & turn it into their own dystopia.

"Hmm let me think for a while. Is that possible?"

"Of course. You have ten minutes."

Wade would have fretted again. But he didn't care. It would have turned out to be another one of Wades' constrictions.

Wade was now in a blank. He had to risk his eyesight to earn the knowledge of Evaelona. Or he has to risk the huge knowledge to remain in the dark about what he was about to do. What should he do? On his mind, visions of Wade & Jonathans' childhood & teenage years are popping out. Again, he is regretting to sacrifice his eyes. I mean, come on, who would? And on the other side, his time is ending.

Finally, the time ended. Nathan made a processing sound before coming active. Then he asked, "So, what have you decided?"

"Oh darn it, Jonathan. I hope it's worth it. Download everything into my brain."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Come on. Don't make me wait or I may change my mind."

Then he made another processing sound. Then reverting to a robotic voice, he said, "Command accepted. Accessing file 12-12-12-JD-NJ. Waiting for completion."

Wade pondered over the code which AI Nathan said. Then he figured it out. 12th December 2012, Jonathan Devoe, Nathan Joe. "Perks of downloading," he thought.

After a couple of minutes, everything went dark. The fire from the fireplace, AI Nathan, everything became just pitch black. Then whatever happened; Wade never wanted to happen.

Just like a slender-man figure, something came out from the creaky wooden floors. And it was horrific. The face was distorted very badly & his body was as lean as a pencil. Then it vaporized into black smoke. Then that smoke started to approach Wade. Wade, of course, started to run away from it. But he couldn't move two feet, his legs froze. Wade tried to move very hardly. But he couldn't. And that thing was approaching him slowly.

"Why can't you make things less scary, Jonathan? Why?"

As he screamed "why", the smoke went inside him. Then again, pitch-black silence. Nothing happened for a couple of minutes. And then Wade started to feel a bit funny. It felt as if something was happening inside him & it was changing him. But then it became creepy. He started to float.

"AHH! Let me down. Let me down!"

And it did. With complete force equal to a 10-tonne ball falling from a meter high. That was supposed to kill Wade & everything was supposed to splatter out everywhere. But it didn't. Wade was lying unconscious on the floor.

While being unconsiousness, Wade had a vision. Not a dream. A vision. It was from AI Nathan. And it was a very important one. It was actually a recorded message from Jonathan.

"If you are seeing this, then I am 99.99 % sure that you are Wade as the box wasn't touched by anyone from when I kept it in the prophecy room. And congratulate you on reaching this far. I apologize for all the weird & creepy things that you may have sawn in Evaelona. Nathan sent Housden Mathew to corrupt the core parts of the programming & looks like he was successful to some extent. And I don't blame him. He planned it all from the beginning to lure you here & make you die in the worst way possible, dying not knowing how. So, I apologize in advance. I am going to die 10 days from now. And you are the only one who can avenge me. You will know more later. Now, I got to go. See you.

P.S. I told you I would meet you here. And I have kept my promise."

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Housden Mathew is the right-hand man of Nathan Joe. Studied at MIT & passing with honor from physics, Housden was a black belt martial arts master and was ruthless. Actually, he was the one to deliver the stabs at Jonathan's back that night. Executing half of Nathans' plan, he was then sent here to Evaelona to corrupt the system for Wade to suffer. He also became the king of Bart, a very big region in Evaelona. And he turned it into a horror of a dystopia. Nathan has complete trust in him that he will successfully kill Wade & with him, he will reign supreme in the world. Housden is also an invention, so he created weapons of mass destruction from his world. He also utilizes physics in everyday life to get the most out of everything. And till now, he has.

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It was morning. Wade woke up with a migraine. And it was a bad one too. The force with which he has been thrown to the ground; he was lucky not to be a splatter in the whole room.

Wades' eyes are closed. And he is really scared to open them. He knows what happened the previous night. And he has lost his eyesight. So there is no point in opening them. But he had to. He couldn't keep them closed for long enough.

Then Wade was in for a surprise. As soon as Wade opened his eyes he was surprised. Wades' eyesight was not lost. Instead, it changed, completely. Now, Wade, had a HUB integrated into his eyes. At the corner, there was a sort of a health bar. Then below it was a sign of a book. Wade figured it to be everything that was downloaded into his brains.

And below that was a sign of a spark. Something that had been blasted. Wade figured that to be the place where all the magic spells and other stuff was stored.

On the right, there was a box. It contained a lot of objectives. They were:

1. Earn the trust of Leonard & her daughter. You can understand that you have earned their full trust when both of them will take you to a harder at the back of the palace. And the thing is that only they can access it.

2. Earn the skills to fight Housden. For this, you must:

    # Improve swordsmanship from Cormack.

    # Improve magic from Shelly

    # Learn to fight from Neoya (Mind that I have programmed to download fighting but it got corrupted. You              know why)

    # Learn to conceal yourself from others from Romilda.

3. Create a pair of glasses. The HUB will disappear within two hours. So I suggest you get to it.

4. Find the next AI box. The destination also got corrupted.

Wade felt a bit relieved. He now has some objectives & he knows that he will find more as he goes further. "Glasses, come on," Wade thought. But Waded was surprised to see that this did more good than wore. But he still had got to get a hang of it. And he had no idea how.

Then & then, something popped up on his HUB. It was a question mark on the left side. "Really, I unlock things by saying codes? Man, Nathan succeeded a lot in corrupting this."

He had to access it. But how? He tried to hover his hand to the signs. And turns out, it worked. The book got highlighted when he hovered on it. Now hovering on to the question mark, he poked it mid-air. And it activated. Now he was seeing instructions on how to use it to his fullest. "This will take a while," he thought. And for the next two hours, he was getting familiar with everything.

"Finally, I am ready. With all the knowledge of Evaelona, & all these skills, I am finally ready to avenge you, Jonathan."

"Now, just to tell the guys everything. They might freak out, I fear. But need them. if Jonathan trusted them, then it is crucial."