Chapter 6: The real journey begins:

The surroundings holding deep silence in it, and Guru Nath breaks the ice- "maybe you can come inside, have some tea and let Nandaka take you around and you can know more about the things you wish to commit to and some rest of the answers that you seek". They all went in but Noah was still cautious, he was still not truly convinced of the situation flowing, and now that he is finally able to take a breath, and he realized he has fucked up, in time, he completely forgot about the real world, he paused the game. Looks out of the window and its night, he really is pushing himself. Taking a break and sighing in relief that this time he didn't open his eyes to a mystery. He rolled himself a joint went downstairs to get himself a coffee, while making the coffee, his phone rings, his mom messaged that she will be late tonight because of the company merger. With the coffee being ready he started to get on the roof but then the doorbell rang, Who is it? And boom, its Amelie, but why is she here, at this time, is what strikes in Noah's head. "What are you doing here? I mean when did you get back?" Noah asked Amelie; "you would have known if you would have answered my calls, we came back just now, my parents had to meet someone on the way and I knew you live around so thought to drop by and check if you hopefully died or not" Amelie answers and chuckles at the end. "so what did you do meanwhile, what kept you so 'busy'?" Amelie asks; "nothing my mom just have been asking me to do a lot of stuff" Noah replied; "speaking of which, where is your mom?" Amelie asked; "she is stuck at work tonight" Noah replied; "oh so you are all by yourself, I am not interrupting any expected company or am I Noah?" Amelie asks mockingly; "would you even please now…. when will your parents pick their trash from here anyway?" Noah replied; "haha, very funny of you" Amelie replied. While conversating, in a while Amelie's phone rings and it was her parents waiting for her outside Noah's place. "ok see ya tomorrow, see ya tomorrow right? to continue our game?" Amelie asked Noah while leaving his house, "can't really say, you know, I have some pending stuff on my hands" Noah replied, "don't give me that bullshit, either you should be at my house my by 4 tomorrow or no worries, I'll be at yours, b... bye" Amelie commented and left with that dangerous 'you better be' smile. Noah reheated his coffee, rolled a blunt and had to take a break before entering the game again, with lo-fi hip-hop music, he starts to think about what he has been doing, what has changed, what has to change, and that the change is the only thing to keep you alive, and how one day everything will change, and how Morgan freeman said 'things are better or worst the second time around, can we really do anything more than one, more than once, more than once', and how the blunt is hitting hard and he should maybe come back a little. After some time, its time again for Noah to get back to the game. Again, eyes open in the game, he is walking with Nandaka towards the main city. First thing Noah spills out is "what was the deal with the capturing me in the cave, was it you or someone else is involved in it?, "you were not really in a good state when I found you, from what I understood you were knocked out because of using too much of your body and mental power, while getting you back to here, on the way I had to go for some work where I couldn't take you, so I got the setup ready to keep you safe while you were unconscious" Nandaka replied, "that's why it was so easy to break it from inside, now I get it, now it's all clear" Noah continues, "now that we are in the city, let me give you a glimpse about all the clans" Nandaka added, "oh yes it totally slipped my mind, I need to join one of them, right?" Noah replied, "yes, there are three clans, other than Karma clan, namely, the white lotus, the black rose and the blue cactus. Each clan when were separating, took the sides of their kind, which was pretty obvious, every clan has their own way to treat things, and own special powers. Even if we assume you get in any of the clan, you will then have to wait at least till next year to gain the trust of the rulers and care takers of the clan to be able to take part in the main competition though" nandaka explains. "Hmm... seems like much of a struggle huh? But what kind of special powers are we talking, and how can I prove that I can take down karma" Noah asks; "the first step is to be able to get a chance to join the clan, especially when you are a total outsider, but because everyone respects Guru Nath, the clans will give you a chance but they won't let lose their strictness to test you, as soon as you walk into a clan's head office, your test starts right on the spot. All the clans have some old scrolls for special powers, shared with only who don't require it, if you can understand what I mean. Other than that every clan uses martial arts and self-defence, the youth and middle age people of the clan has though invented some technological powers, like the one you saw outside the caves, the clans learnt it all from the competitions through Karma gaming and are now using their intelligence and other techniques to develop new weapons and things to win the competitions, they cant just be using the traditional ways to defeat a modern enemy, is what they understood so far, so they fused both together to at least be able to give equal competition. These clans have to go against each other too sometimes because of which they do not hold any emotions of love or hate between the clans. They don't follow any certain type of test for which one can prepare for, it's just every day, every time, every breath is enough for them to judge, analyse and decide" Nandaka answers and stopped walking. "Is it this, which clan is this one?" Noah asked; "its not a clan building, it's the centre point of all of them, you cannot meet the heads of clans just by walking in, we need to set the meeting and register yourself as an interested candidate to join the clan." nandaka answered; "so, does many people try to join clans, I mean this is some big building for this work" Noah asks; "I don't know, you are the first outsider till date otherwise people from around would try to join but none could" nandaka replied. "I see, no worries won't be an issue this time, so tell me where do you train and how do you train? And which reminds me you were the one who tried to take my scroll isn't it? I guess you have an explanation for that too" Noah asked; "oh you finally remember it, I didn't know about you but not how look until I saw your profile on player tag" nandaka replied, "and mostly I train around the house so that I am available if Guru Nath needs something and sometimes Guru Nath himself help me practice. But I know a place which might suit you. Let's go get you registered for your interest to join a clan" nandaka added. They both went inside the building, because of Nandaka. Noah didn't have to face to security trouble but it doesn't mean he have their trust. They both came after finishing the formalities and Noah was given certain guidelines or words of wisdom for the path he is committing for. After they come out, Noah stomach rumbles, Nandaka laughs and asks Noah if he wants to go get food before, both chuckles, they went back to the house to get some food before nandaka takes Noah to the training spot. After they had their meal and were heading for training, Guru Nath stops them and asked nandaka to get him some herbs from the town. Noah used the time to take a power nap so that he has more energy to practice. But the time nandaka could manage to come back it was a bit late for them to go the place nandaka was suggesting, seeing Noah is such a calm sleep, he couldn't disturb him. Whereas inside Noah mind, he can dream of cold-water droplets constantly dropping inside the middle of his head. He feels calm there until the coldness and the size of droplet increases drop by drop, and now the cold sensation is causing needle pain in the middle of the mind while his head drowning in water, water trying to break through the eyes, he chocks on the water and opened his eyes sees nandaka waking him up, and he got so unstable that he disbalanced his real body and his VR headset fell down. Noah taking some time to comprehend, but in the back of his head he knows what happened was not something serious but the speed of actions is what he couldn't comprehend. Getting himself together, he gets his phone and finds Amelie's text saying – "reminder t-minus 1 hour". Let's with 30 minutes on the clock, Noah knew he will have to go to her place at least for some days so he rolled up a quick joint to overcome his sleep, he has been playing since night and now is going to play more without any rest. Noah reaches Amelie's home and rings the bell. Amelie receives Noah at the door, and on the way to Amelie's room, Amelie's Noah happened to pass the hallway at the same time, Noah greets her mother and they both entered inside the room. "I presume you are already high, so we will smoke another one in some time, now lets just continue our game, come on, take this VR set" Amelie said. They entered the game, the game resumes, they wake up after that last shocking and dreadful fight are now up and ready to leave and take over the next mission. The next mission was updated on their gamer tags, it was a theft mission, a robbery at a researcher's house, the other details were to be given after reaching there. While walking to the place, "so what game were you playing while I was away" Amelie asks; "nothing new just some combat games from before" Noah answered, while talking they were passing a small town and noticed a crowd outside a store, "what do you think must have happened" Noah said, "only one way to know" Amelie replied. They both get close to the crowd, it was a group of small kids crying, their friend had been kidnapped by someone, one person from the crowd said- "she is the daughter of a big person here"; "don't worry, we will get your friend back, tell us which way did he run" Noah to the kid crying, the way kids pointed were not the exit sides of the town. "Someone forgot where to run in a hurry, but no problem one mistake is enough" Noah said. Amelie and Noah both takes different sides to search for him, it was a small town so should not be much a hustle, Noah told the crowd to move towards the exit of the town to have a backup if he tries to escape. the kidnapper hid in closed a food cart waiting for perfect time to evade with the kid. It was couple of hours and still Noah and Amelie were unable to find the kidnapper. Noah standing and looking around, thinking where he could have hidden, the owner of the cart finally comes in the evening to reopen his food cart and when he opens the slab, the kidnapper inside gets terrified and pushed the man and started to run with the kid, Noah hears the action and saw a person running with the kid. He runs after him, the crowd was also gone in search by now which left the gate open, it would have been tough to find him outside the town in such a vast area, but before the kidnapper could have crossed the town, Amelie blocks the way, the kidnapper tried to run away but when turned around, Noah suddenly punches him and the kidnapper fells on the spot, getting the cover off of his mouth, Noah and Amelie were finds that the kidnapper was a lady. "Sister Kamakshi you?" the kid shouts, "what, sister...??" Noah and Amelie couldn't understand what's going on. "Hey kid, is she your sister, then why would she kidnap you like that?" Noah asks in confusion, to which Kamakshi replies- "I'll tell you, yes, he is my little brother, we are two children of our father, the Nobel person of this town. The reason I had to kidnap my own brother was because my father is too soft on us, he cannot look after us much because of the responsibility of the town, and my young brother, takes it as an advantage to always flee away to have only fun and never work on himself, I know he is not quite old enough, but he needs to understand and start from this age to be able to take care after the village after father, so I decided to take him away for a while to teach him a lesson that how important is it to be able to defend yourself". "Now I get it, you just wanted what's good for your brother, but it turned out we got us all in a wrong situation" Amelie said. "I'm sorry for all the trouble you had to go because of me" Kamakshi apologies. Noah chuckles a bit and replied- "no worries, but we really need to get going now, we are already behind the time, please excuse us and take care". Amelie and Noah bids goodbye to the kids and Kamakshi and leaves for their destination. This act of theirs refilled their karma bar to the fullest, looks like they are ready for the main mission they are going for. After walking for hours, they finally reach the house where robbery took place, they ring the doorbell of the house and at the same moment, that needle of pain reoccurs from before and Noah cries in pain to which Amelie reacts in tension, she took of her VR set and then takes of Noah's VR too. Noah holds his head tight to control the pain, its feels like a nerve getting too loud in the head, "Noah are you alright, what happened" Amelie asked, "nothing just a headache from before" Noah replied, "should I get you some meds or something" Amelie asks, "no, I think I'll just go back home and take some rest, maybe that should sort it out" Noah replies. "Call me once you wake up and feel fine, and get home safely please" Amelie says while Noah leaves her house. A person so stupid, even when knows the problem, the reason behind the problem and still again and again get back to it to serve more pain to himself or a person blinded for a purpose, which get him strong enough more than any pain.