Metamorphosis

Ignatius stood there and stared at the text document which hung in the air between him and Ozyrus, the code which had killed his body and ensured that he'd live on forever within Path of the Immortal.

After a moment, he met Ozyrus's gaze. "What about it?" he asked.

"Do you deny that you entered this code yourself?" asked the Revenant. His deliberately ordinary face was expressionless.

Ignatius considered this carefully. The more he lied now, the harder it would be to cover up the truth in the future. This was the exact same line of consideration he'd had the last time that he and Ozyrus had talked. Now, however, Ignatius was feeling an odd sense of déjà vu. He felt like he should know something more about Ozyrus than his memories were currently allowing him to know…

Or, perhaps, something more about the Revenant organization which was made up of people like himself, undying ghosts in the machine of this VRMMO.

Ignatius closed his eyes and tried to remember exactly what he'd told Ozyrus before. His head throbbed with fatigue. It was hard to think. Had Ozyrus been watching him, waiting until Ignatius seemed exhausted, before confronting him?

His mind was wandering. He bit his lip and concentrated harder.

He'd told Ozyrus that he was doing some experiments for "a Chinese scientist." Had he only implied that he didn't know how this experiment worked, or had he specifically claimed innocence? That could make a big difference.

Moreover, Ignatius knew that moderators had a certain ability to watch recordings of whole events that took place in the recent past, centered on player characters. The game kept a log of simulations surrounding each player—or whole party of players, to save system resources—so that moderators could see exactly what an accused player had done at a certain point in time.

Ozyrus had already demonstrated moderator-like abilities, so it was possible that he'd already seen a recording of Ignatius's first moments in the game.

In that case, this was, once more, a huge test to see how honest Ignatius would be. 'I should go forward with the assumption that he saw me come to my senses,' he thought. 'I should assume that he saw my personality shift as my old mind was overwritten by my future self. That he saw me deliberately enter every letter and number in the chat box.'

With these thoughts in mind, Ignatius grew calm again. He felt completely in control, despite all the circumstances being arranged to work against him. "Of course I entered those myself," he said flatly. "I said I was doing an experiment for someone else, remember? I had to log into the game and enter that code into the chat box. After that, I was free to play the game."

Ozyrus seemed surprised by this open admission. It appeared that he'd expected Ignatius to deny it in some way. "So you had no idea what this code was supposed to do?" he asked, staring right into Ignatius's eyes. His voice carried a new edge of… anxiety?

Whatever the emotion was, it surprised Ignatius.

This made him consider his options once more. 'This Ozyrus knows even more than I thought he did. Or at least, he thinks he knows what's going on! It was enough to make him find me again very quickly, rather than waiting a few days.' After a few moments, Ignatius ignored Ozyrus's question and asked one of his own.

"Why do you care, Ozyrus? What's so important about this code? It seems like you know more about it than me. When we last spoke, you made quite a show out of acting fully in control. You even stopped time around us and prevented me from logging out."

Ignatius opened his menu and noticed that his logout button was fully functional, rather than grayed out as it had been when Ozyrus first revealed himself. "I wonder… did you simply forget to use your game manipulation abilities here? Or could it be that the Eternal Tower has many more additional anti-hack protections on it, so that not even moderators or admins can cheat to get to Floor 100 before everyone else?"

Even as he spoke these words, a sudden thought came to Ignatius. "If that's the case, though, I wonder how you could even teleport here and skip all the other floors."

Now Ozyrus smirked again. "I'm starting to think I really misjudged you during our first meeting. Yes, you're correct. I can't bend reality to my will within the Eternal Tower. The AI blocks almost every one of my attempts. However, I think you'll notice, if you look at the menu, that I'm in your party."

Ignatius took a startled step back. He hadn't seen any notification at any point that Ozyrus had joined his party. But he switched to that menu and, sure enough, there was a third character listed alongside Ignatius and Siegmund. "Interesting," said Ignatius, looking back at the Revenant. "How'd you manage that?"

"When your companion reappeared in the main world to buy items," Ozyrus replied, "I was able to use my powers on him. I simply targeted his party—which was yours, of course—and added myself to it. And as you probably know, a player can teleport into the Eternal Tower if a party member is inside it and is not currently in combat—though only companions can teleport back out."

Ah, so that was how he'd done it! Ignatius was quite impressed with the strategy. However, the timing of this meant that Ozyrus must have only come to his discovery of Ignatius's hacking within the last couple minutes, since Siegmund had returned to town quite a lot throughout their adventuring.

Therefore, Ozyrus had probably acted on impulse and hadn't given much thought to how he'd confront Ignatius. Perhaps that explained why he was so ready to admit his strategies, because he was so excited about something else that was occupying his mind.

Or he'd already decided that Ignatius was an ally and had fully decided to trust him.

Ignatius glanced back to where Siegmund had been blasted against a nearby wall. All his HP had drained, and he was fully unconscious. "Not sure why you bothered with that," he said in annoyance. "You've just made it much harder for me to beat this floor. And since you can't stop time here, every second you just stand there is a second that I waste on my Hunger Clock. Will you please get to the center of the issue and tell me what you want so I can fight this boss?"

"I don't trust companions," said Ozyrus, his voice more controlled than it had been. "I think the AI listens in specially through them. But I'll get to the heart of the matter: that scientist you're working for… his name is Wu Zuhai, correct?"