Sleeping Player (Project Chrysalis Book 3), John Gold [free e books to read online .TXT] 📗

whole day looking out over the island and waiting for the eagle to fly back down. It didn’t, however, just wheeling overhead and occasionally screaming. When it did, Milisandra got a debuff; the cat didn’t react. They had a warm rock, a sea breeze, the smell of the tropical forest, and fish and fruit in their bags.

It was evening when Milisandra was teleported home. Soon, LJ got the same treatment. The psychologist showed up to ask for something the way she usually did, and LJ could sense that she was starting to get angrier, more annoyed. The cat wasn’t sure what she expected to get without giving anything in return.

The next day, Millie and the cat headed up the mountain again, though the eagle avoided a confrontation with LJ one more time. When Millie came alone, it attacked and killed her. When LJ came, it flew away and didn’t come back.

The battle to see who was more patient lasted a week, and the eagle eventually won. Milisandra gave up.

“That nasty bird just won’t come back. If I made him my pet, I’d be able to fly away from here. It’s so boring here—not like in the outside world! When the war with the undead finished, new quests and places to hunt were unlocked, new dungeons and races. Everyone’s probably having fun over there while we’re stuck here until they tell us we’re psychologically fit. Last time, I had to sit quietly for a month before they’d let me go.”

The cat could feel how sad the girl was, and he wanted to help her. First, he thought about launching something at it, his arm even stretching out in the eagle’s direction. But that just made the bracelet get itchy. LJ himself had no idea what he wanted to throw, though he did suddenly get the idea to just swim across the ocean.

He tossed Millie on his back and ran off toward the water.

The girl was already used to wild leaps off the mountain, having stopped screaming the second day, though she felt the same terror she felt that day. The cat hurled himself as far as he could go, a distance that would’ve earned any normal person all kinds of debuffs for injuries. LJ sprinted as fast as he could, and they reached the water in just ten minutes.

The cat gestured his suggestion to swim across the ocean.

“No, that won’t work—there are bots in the water Level 1500 and higher. They attack everything that swims farther than a hundred meters out from the bank. I tried that a bunch of times, and it always got me killed. Ships and lone swimmers just sink. Portal scrolls don’t work, either. The only way off the island is the portal in the administration building, and the clinic director has to activate it personally. That’s why I was thinking about making the eagle a pet—he’s my way off this accursed island.”

The cat’s face fell as he saw how Millie was suffering from being locked up. His inner voice told him to walk out onto the water, so he obeyed. Sure, his head hurt a little, but that feeling seemed awfully familiar—it was almost as though he’d spent a lot of time in the water. The harder he thought, however, the louder the voices got, and the more his head hurt. Rage, sadness, and regret filled his consciousness until he stopped thinking. His bracelet didn’t fizz, and he stood calmly atop the surf.

The girl stared at the cat, her mouth hanging open.

“How? You have the ability to walk on water? How much is the recoil?”

The cat just shrugged, with only a vague idea of what was going on. Instead of thinking, he put the girl on his back and ran off toward freedom and happiness for Milisandra, and therefore for him, as well. That’s all he needed, just a quiet, peaceful life.

***

The clinic employees all got an alert about the two runaway patients. The alarm went off as soon as their bracelets crossed the barrier surrounding the island.

Sam Walton, the director of the clinic, paced his office. He hadn’t been worried about anyone trying to escape, as runaways were usually killed by sea monsters within the first hour.

“Father, can we track them?”

Alice was in the director’s office as the supervisor of one of the two patients, and she was expecting a showdown.

“They’re wearing negator bracelets, so we know exactly where they are in the world at any time. That’s what we use for teleportation.”

“What if they take them off or break them?”

“That’s the problem. They won’t be able to get them off, but the bracelets’ durability is 100000, a special alloy of reinforced metal that neutralizes spells and battle equipment. From what I understand, however, LJ is a close-combat fighter, so he can break them if he really tries.”

“Why didn’t they break them on the island?” Alice, as a newcomer, was experiencing her first jailbreak.

“The whole island is covered by a field that instantaneously restores durability. That’s why the patients all think the bracelets are indestructible. It’s the same with their clothes—as long as they’re wearing them, nothing can happen. Alice, I realize what you think about completely isolating patients in the game, but Lunar is against it. Patients smart and strong enough to get away will do just that. We’re a resort for the mentally ill, not a prison. Lunar left loopholes open, and that pair just exploited one of them.”

“Yeah, how did they get away?”

“They ran across the water… Bak Kvan was able to do it without breaking the rules about magic. From what I remember, he has seals tattooed on his body—he prepared specifically to run away. If all his tattoos are for running on water, they’ll fall in twenty-five hours from now. One tattoo gets you one hour. So, that won’t give them enough time to get