Other than the newly spawned players the temple appeared to be abandoned. The large stone bricks that made up the large mausoleum like structure were cracked and infected with thick creepers and bougainvillea ivies that snaked through the crevices and lent the structure an ancient aura of mystery. Julian's eyes once again met the sculpture of the full moon embossed on the giant altar and his eyes narrowed.
While the other players were still busy exploring the depths of realism of the game and the hyper real sensorial experience they were undergoing, all while comparing it to previous popular VR games, Julian quietly began to search the temple for supplies. The brief attempt was fruitless, for the temple appeared to have long been abandoned. Julian ignored the other players antics and walked out of the temple to find the sky blotted out by a dark black smog.
Beyond the perimeter of the temple walls, giant trees grew from under the ground and towered into the air. Their barks were charred black like metallic charcoal while the leaves and canopy painted a bloody red. A heavy smell of rusted iron pervaded the atmosphere as thunder and lightning occasionally pierced through the thick smog in clouding the skies to add to the eeriness. Julian's eyes were filled with both recognition of the place as well as a confusion about some matters.
In his previous life Julian had spawned in a safe beginner's town in the outskirts of a safe settlement. Yet now, things had changed. He had spawned in this dark bloody forest in the temple adorning the moon, in a forbidden region called the "Eclectium". Did the butterfly effect occur so rapidly in the new timeline? His heart which was previously filled with immense confidence with the foreknowledge of the future was now wavering when he realized how chaotic the effects of breaking a timeline was. He'd barely lived for a day in a different manner from his original timeline and it had caused such a dramatic shift in the reality. Luckily, his fundamental knowledge was still vast and encompassing enough to handle such unexpected outcomes.
Still, a new vigilance crept in Julian's heart. "I need to use my advantage as quickly as possible. My very existence in this timeline has caused ripple events that will change the future. I cannot depend on reducing my activities to a minimum and hoping to maintain my precognitive advantage." He thought to himself seriously as he considered his options.
At this moment he blinked and turned sideways to see a player creeping up to him with an inquisitive look. She had clearly tried to approach him stealthily, but Julian's reflexes were too well honed to have missed her actions. His questioning gaze at her stealthy antics caused her to slightly blush in embarrassment. However, she quickly calmed herself down and her expression turned placid.
"You didn't even check the game's mechanics as you moved about freely." The woman suspiciously observed. "Are you a beta tester?" Julian did not reply to her. He instead observed her physical features rather rudely as he focused his eyes on the top of her head. A name gradually appeared in his mind. Scarlet. He's eyes slightly glazed as he tried remembering if there was any famous player going by this name in his previous life but failed to identify any. However, he did not dare underestimate a player who got accustomed to the mechanics of the game as quickly as she seemed to have done.
"I don't think this game had a beta test." Julian replied before turning his eyes back to the forest. Unlike other games, there wasn't any clear delineation marking players and NPCs. Unless a player focused on top of an avatar like Julian had done earlier, it was almost impossible to distinguish between players and NPCs in this manner. This was fine during conversations but an absolute mess during quick paced battles where such an inordinate amount of time for identification was a luxury. When Julian inspected the player's name, Scarlet realized what he had done and copied his actions. As a result Julian's character name - Zephyr appeared within her mind like an infectious thought. Her eyes lit up with enlightenment at the discovery but also suspicion towards this Zephyr character.
Julian ignored the player and walked around the perimeter of the fallen temple, carefully scanning the bloody forest. The pervasive smell of rust and blood was nauseating, but Julian was long accustomed to realistic depictions of bloodshed. When he reached the hind side of the temple he found a large steele made of stone and a gigantic crack piercing through it haphazardly embedded into the ground. The steele was engraved with an ancient cuneiform script that was blurred and eroding away through the sheer effect of time. The female player Scarlet followed Zephyr until she too noticed the steele. However, the script flummoxed her to no end. It looked familiar as if she had seen it somewhere, yet at the same time she could not identify the script to any language she was aware of.
Julian carefully scanned the text on the stone steele and his face turned even more serious. If he hadn't been a reborn individual with precognitive knowledge and time to actually learn the meaning of this script, there was no way a player could survive this scenario. He wondered if this was a dead end scenario, but he couldn't be sure. He slowly deciphered the mysterious script from memory and sighed.
"The sun is cursed to never rise, the moon is forever set to hide within the shadows of Emil's poisonous breath. The only path beyond the Eclectic is under the Altar's pledged blessing. We follow the path against the stream to find true freedom from sacrifice." Julian mumbled as he translated the text word by word. Scarlet heard snippets of his mumbles and her eyes bulged with shock.
"You can read that?" She asked him directly. From the moment she'd come online she had seen that this mysterious player was unnaturally assured of himself and seemed to know a little too much about everything. Now he could even read this mysterious script which raised his level of mystery a notch higher. She saw the player with Zephyr calmly nod before he turned to look at the smog filled sky.