Ch08. The Red Oracle
I was more surprised to know that the Shadow Guild did look like a giant tavern underground, than to know that Quintus supposedly wasn't the scum I knew from ever since I was born.
"I had to rough you up, so you could have a chance at surviving Octavius Blake." Quintus said, as we walked through the guild's hallways.
His voice was all apologetic and brotherly, in a way I only heard two or three times in my whole life.
Rodrick led the way, taking us somewhere I had no idea about, but it seemed that we were going deeper and deeper into the ground.
Even the air felt thinner.
"I'm sorry, but I knew you had something in you, and even though father told me to kill you if you didn't awaken... I knew you had it in you."
"Look," I retorted, feeling a bit sick of his talk "I don't know how I won against you, but do you have any idea of what you're telling me just now?"
He raised a brow.
Quintus knew how to act perplexed when he wanted.
We only shared two features in common, brown eyes and curly, black hair.
But it ended there.
He was a head taller than me, and was more muscular, too.
His pale skin only made him look weirder.
In evil weird.
So much for a confusing older brother.
And Rodrick just listened as we talked.
"Listen. I fucking hated you, and I don't know if there's ever anything you can do to change it."
Quintus' eyes seemed to lose a bit of light there, and it wasn't due to the dancing light of the torches.
But I kept speaking, anyway.
"I mean, do you really expect me to believe that it was all a very well played act? Me? Your brother?"
He fell silent after that, and didn't talk until we arrived at a heavy wooden door in the end of a staircase.
"Before you go in, just know that I get it, okay? I, too, don't know if there's anything I can do for you to forgive me. But at least know that I'm sorry. And I mean it."
"Go in?" I rebuked, ignoring Quintus' plea. "I'm going inside whatever that room is, alone?"
"She doesn't like visitors, sleeping beauty." Rodrick answered, when Quintus was about to say something. "Also, the secrets she's about to tell you are yours, and yours alone..."
Rodrick's face was as solemn as a funeral, and I wondered if I was missing something there.
But I knocked on the door anyway.
And as it opened, I entered to the smoky room.
I was curious about the she that Roderick had mentioned before, but I was also curious to know about the daily quest and the unique quest.
I needed some privacy to do it, but I felt like I wasn't going to get any, so I was about to call anyone, not able to see a in front of my eyes with all that strange smoke.
But then a female voice called out to me first.
"You can check it here, don't worry. We have barriers here that protects us from prying eyes and ears."
I felt goosebumps, even though the voice was soft, almost like the girls my age.
And suddenly, all the smoke started to dissipate.
No, dissipate isn't the right word to what the smoke did.
It was as if the smoke was going back somewhere. And when I was finally able to see, my jaw dropped real low.
It was a girl my age.
She had blue eyes, dark skin, a long, curly red mane, and the freckles on her face were just... Something else.
But what caught my attention the most, was that the smoke that surrounded me was going back to her hand.
As if she was the one controlling it or something like that.
"I... Uh..."
I tried to articulate anything to say, but she spoke before I could think of anything.
"You and I are not so different, you see. I'm also the only one of my kind."
Then my past life came to mind.
A woman with red hair, that belonged to the Shadow Guild.
A woman to whom other guilds, and even the government, would pay insurmountable amounts of money.
Just to hear her speak.
"The Red Oracle..." I heard myself saying, before I could even shut up.
"See?" Her eyes shone with what I could only imagine to be happiness. "You're quite like me, even though we're different. How else you would be able to know about something that only my future self would become?"
There.
She got me, and I didn't even say too much.
I twisted my fingers while looking at her, taking step after step towards her almost ethereal figure.
She had a gleam in her eyes, that made her feel like she wasn't there at all.
It was as if she was staring deep into the void of everything.
"Why am I here?"
"First things first." She retorted, looking straight at me this time. "You needed to check on something, so you better do it quick. It's not nice to leave a lady hanging..."
"Right, I'll keep that in mind."
So I called the system window right away.
NAME: KURT BLAKE
LVL: 02 STAMINA: 142/142
AGE: 16 HP: 110/110
CLASS: Rogue MP: 60/50
BASIC STATS
Strength: 12 Perception: 16
Dexterity: 23 Intelligence: 11
Agility: 23 Vigor: 26
[DAILY QUEST: THE STRONGER SELF]
[REQUIREMENTS: RUNNING WITH WEIGHTS 10/10KM
SIT-UPS 50/50
PUSH-UPS 50/50
SPARRING 11/10MIN]
[REWARD: ???]
[PENALTY: ???]
[UNIQUE QUEST: FINDERS, KEEPERS]
[REQUIREMENTS: STEAL QUINTUS BLAKE'S GUILD BADGE - Complete]
[ADDITIONAL: SURVIVE 10 MINUTES IN AN UNGEARED FIGHT AGAINST QUINTUS BLAKE; EARN HIS RESPECT - Complete]
[REWARD: UNIQUE SKILL; CLASS UPGRADE]
[ADDITIONAL REWARD: UNIQUE SKILL]
[YOU HAVE UNOPENED REWARDS]
I was taken aback by how much it changed in just one day.
My stamina, HP and MP had increased drastically, from my point of view, and I had leveled up, too.
Not only that, but my strength, dexterity and agility were a bit higher than before.
But my biggest surprise was to see that I completed all of the daily quests and the unique quest.
I couldn't wait to see what kind of reward the system had prepared me for it.
But I could see the Oracle's curious gaze upon me.
She even looked like she could see the same thing I was seeing.
But I was too curious to take it into account, and she said we were safe from prying eyes, too.
So I proceeded to check the unopened rewards.
[DAILY QUEST – REWARD: STAT POINTS X5
FULL RECOVERY X1
ARMORY KEY X1]
[ADDITIONAL REWARD: HIDDEN NEST KEY X1]
[UNIQUE QUEST – REWARD: UNIQUE SKILL – STEAL LVL 1
CLASS UPGRADE – ROGUE]
[ADDITIONAL REWARD: UNIQUE SKILL – PRYING EYES LVL 1]
I didn't know what to say or how to react.
I felt like entering a treasure room, and I didn't even know what a treasure room looked like.
I felt the Oracle's gaze, still upon me.
As I looked at her, she seemed to be looking at my status window, too.
And she was smiling.
