by Ryan DeBruyn
Or is it?
The ground shook again much harder than before, and Rocky was rattled around like clothes in a dryer. The massive quakes succeeded in removing the spotlight off of him but continued for much longer this time. Suddenly, the noises of casual fear and discomfort turned to screams of terror around him. He intensified his fight to gain control of his body as the earth itself shook the thoughts from his head.
He managed to brace himself on all fours and raise his head with a jerky neck to see the massive, segmented body of the worm that broke the crust of the earth in the middle of the camp.
***
His recollected nightmare was interrupted painfully as the ropes tying him into Azoth’s saddle tightened. The implementation of the ropes had clearly been good foresight by Sela, and the nearness of a deadly fall pumped adrenaline into his system.
That dream soured his mouth as he righted himself in the saddle. First, that moment was when he had broken his oath to keep everyone in the caravan alive. Second, the possibly more serious implications of the system manipulating his inner thoughts, speech patterns, and possibly more. Then finally, the fact that he was supposed to be keeping watch from up in the sky flying on Azoth’s back, but he was failing at that too.
“See monsters?” Azoth mentally mumbled to Rocky. Azoth, who normally had boundless energy, was flagging after the most recent fight.
He didn’t answer as those horrible memories of the first night looped in his mind, causing his mouth to twist. His self promise of keeping everyone alive was destroyed in a single moment. The worm hadn’t even attacked them, just surfaced and returned back into the earth a few kilometers away.
His brain wanted to highlight all his failures, and despite trying to focus on scouting, Rocky was so tired that he quickly fell prey to his traitorous neural network.
Chapter Two
The trip back to the Territory had been maddeningly glacial. At first, Rocky had thought it was because of the speed of some of the survivors, but he quickly realized that it wasn’t the under-leveled humans causing the pace to tarry. The turtle crawl was due to the frequency of monster attacks.
He looked down and spotted one of the rather large, mass-produced, Ether-powered tanks. The sum of those three hundred futuristic laser tanks and the accompanying six hundred energy weapons the military had purchased had proven nearly useless. It had taken the entire battalion firing on one target to finally bring it down, and unfortunately, the energy weapons had a recharge time of approximately three days, which meant they needed to be used sparingly. At least they still functioned as vehicles after they’d spent their load.
The upside to the more powerful monsters was that they were usually of a larger size as well. This meant that the caravan was fed, but the downside was the constant need for the strongest fighters to remain awake. That meant Sela, Zippo, Joe, and Rocky were pulling triple duty.
They all were using the Elixir of Shortened Sleep abundantly—the Alchemicy Potion Rocky had purchased at the Aretrean Bazaar let one hour of sleep substitute for eight. Of course, this was before the Toxic Blood started stacking.
Now, at a rough guess, the caravan of survivors numbered around five thousand. Of the eight thousand they started with, this number might seem fantastic, especially when compared to the quest goal of a measly eight hundred. However, Rocky had vowed to try to make it back with everyone.
In retrospect, a very small number of the deaths were stupid hunters who had been the providers for small groups of survivors back in Ottawa. The ‘experience’ of fighting those monsters in groups of fifty or more in that first week no longer lent itself to the evolved and more powerful beasts that had been a side effect of the second Ether Wave. He shook his head, remembering trying desperately to dissuade some of the more stubborn groups that were no longer with them.
His nightmarish flashback was so recent, he could vividly remember where the vast majority of the losses could be laid. They could all be laid at his feet and had happened on that first night. That monstrous worm had literally burrowed out from under the encampment, and in a single moment, an entire section, sleeping thousands of survivors, had fallen into a cavernous burrow. Since then, the group camped more spread out and with as much tree cover as they could manage because it appeared roots impeded underground creatures.
They had spent nearly half a day looking for any and all survivors of the worm ‘attack’. In the end, the worm’s death toll accounted for nearly two thousand five hundred lives.
Stop counting every casualty, and scout.
For the rest of his shift, he’d seen nothing but distant monsters. All of them seemed to be injured, and none of them seemed willing to venture in and attack the caravan in their current states. Never did he catch a glimpse of what was causing the damage. His nerves were so frayed because it seemed like the creatures doing this must be following the caravan based on all the injured monsters they were finding. Was it like a territorial T-Rex?
If this creature or creatures attacks the caravan, I don’t think we can stop it… The military isn’t strong enough, despite their numbers…
He circled over the group and saw his military commander Joe talking with a group of his militiamen. Joe was in charge of the Ottawa Militia group that had formed under particularly false pretenses. The group had been much larger, but due to the deranged Corsair’s plots, Joe now led a pruned group of near on nine hundred men and women who had chosen to try to protect all of the survivors in Ottawa after the initial wave.
For the hundredth time, Rocky considered if Corsair had someone under him capable of manipulating people into doing the horrible deeds that had been committed by a select few. He still hadn’t been able to confirm if there had been someone or not. But considering it again now made his stomach tie itself in knots. Something inside of him felt that the real mastermind behind everything might still be out there.
That was most likely because he was now in charge of everyone's safety. Taking on that role wasn’t his usual style, but foisted into it as he was, he took it very seriously. To him, that meant looking at every situation from angles others wouldn’t consider.
Those thoughts circled in his head until he landed to trade places with Sela. As Azoth touched down, he grumpily asked her again without really looking at her, “Explain to me again why we couldn’t have just bought a codpiece transport from the shop to speed this up?”
I really need to pick a word to use as a swear word. These random changes are making me sound ridiculous. Also increasing my filter time if Sela is reporting me still.
Sela coughed to hide what sounded like laughter, but when he looked at her, she just looked tired and blessedly— uncompromised. Sela cut off his train of thoughts by responding tiredly, “Rocky, people in a shop aren’t going to sell you good military transport ship technology. If anything, it would have been old, rusty sell-off from a planetary military that had been stripped of everything. Even the engines would have been replaced with obsolete tech before a sale. If you want to be flying around in a tremendous rust bucket after seeing and hiding from the massive creatures that are flying around up there, you are dumber than I thought.”
Rocky scowled, but Sela had shifted and taken to the skies before he could respond. Honestly, he knew he was only cranky from lack of sleep, and he agreed that a rust tub was not the answer to their current problems, but these damn injured monsters were making his skin crawl.
He swallowed a lump in his throat before telling Azoth to go eat and sleep lightly. He pulled an Elixir of Shortened Sleep from his pocket and swirled the murky, sandy-colored liquid around. Could he afford to sleep for one hour?
He sure hoped so because he desperately needed it. He swigged back the foul concoction and quickly climbed up and laid down on the nearest tank.
***
Sela had been up there for the last few hours, and they hadn’t seen another attack. Rocky could see the top of a line of trees in the distance that he hoped demarcated the start of
the old boundary to Algonquin Park. His Territory didn’t take up the whole area inside the old boundary, but if those trees were the park, they were getting close.
If Sela could stay aloft until they reached that tree cover, though, they could make camp, and everyone could sleep. If that was even possible.
He glanced over and saw Azoth still curled up on top of a tank that seemed to groan under his massive form. The Chimera, who appeared to be a strange combination of lion, eagle, lizard, goat, and scorpion, was curled in on itself in such a cat-like posture that Rocky felt himself smile.
He looked around and had to admit that being amongst the remaining survivors was disconcerting. It wasn’t anything overt, but he felt like he could feel their eyes on him, maybe judging him for the losses. Or maybe it was the skunk odor…
The feeling of discomfort intensified jarringly. In front of him, at the edge of the forest, he spotted the yellow eyes of a massive, silver wolf with sun glistened metal fur glaring at him from the spot where shadows met the light.
All of his hair stood on end, and his blood both sped up through his veins and sent a shiver over his limbs. He could still remember the massive fight that had broken out between Azoth’s mother and the wolf that he could see in the distance.
The fight wasn’t something he could have matched now and certainly not then. If the two sides of the conflict hadn’t fought to a near-perfect draw, he wouldn’t have gotten his Territory. He took a steadying breath and tilted his head as his heart continued to pound nervously. He was pretty sure this was a hallucination of Steel, the alpha of the wolf pack that had fought the Skandranon, Azoth’s mother, but…
He glanced around and spotted a soldier beside him. “Just to be sure, there isn’t a massive metal wolf over there, right?” he asked in a nervous voice.
The man’s eyes widened in alarm, and his head jolted in the direction that Rocky indicated. A moment later, the man’s eyes narrowed slightly, and he pursed his lips. “Sir, I don’t see any wolves, metal or otherwise, in the direction you indicate.”
The soldier whose name patch read Barnes turned his gaze back to Rocky and gave him a look that clearly questioned his sanity. This had become relatively commonplace over the last few days of hallucinations, so he just smiled sheepishly and shrugged. Then he turned his attention back to the enormous silver wolf, remembering having to stab it through its eye to put it out of its misery.
Knowing what he knew now, it was entirely possible that the alpha wolf would have made a full recovery. The advent of Ether had also brought a massive boost to healing for humans. While he hadn’t seen this same recovery rate in monsters—usually because he didn’t let them live long enough—he had witnessed its regenerative properties in his pet, Azoth.
During the fight to overthrow Corsair, Azoth had gone wing to mechanical booster against a juiced-up Mechano-Lord. While Azoth had eventually won the battle with a bit of help from Rocky, he’d been left badly burned and nearly featherless. Within half a day, the massive creature had recovered enough to fight again.
Rocky assumed that there was some sort of mathematical algorithm that could be applied to the healing effects Ether imposed and made a mental note to ask Sela during his interrogation—umm—questioning of the woman. As the group passed by the hallucination of Steel, the great wolf bent its front legs and placed its head on the ground, almost seeming to bow to Rocky.
He’s kind of cute when he isn’t attempting to tear out throats.
Unsure what to do, Rocky nodded his head once in the hallucination’s direction, and the entire thing puffed into smoke.
Sela cawed once as she landed beside him and transformed back into her human form. The bird call made Rocky look at her, and her face made him want to run away. Her mouth was pressed into a line, and her eyebrows were drawn together so closely that they nearly touched. It would appear that she didn’t have good news.
“I think there is a storm brewing, Rocky!” she began in a near shout before realizing others were around and blushingly lowering her voice. She finished much more circumspectly, “I think it is an Ether Storm.”
Rocky looked at her, waiting for more, and he could see her frustration rise at his blank look. So before she could start up again, he merely stated, “And?”
Sela’s face turned red, and she looked up to the sky for a moment as if praying for patience. Then she looked back down at him. “An Ether Storm is hard to explain, considering I have never actually seen one and only heard of them in legends.” With that simple statement, she pointed at dark blue thunderhead cloud forming far off in the distance. “Ether Storm!” she emphasized rather needlessly.
The direction she pointed made Rocky groan and remember the nuclear meltdown that they witnessed from afar on their trip to Ottawa. The massive, paranormal thunderclouds were forming above the site of what used to be Chalk River. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like the ground under the clouds was off somehow.
It was only for a second, but the trees seemed to be warped, and the grass appeared to be black in color. From this distance, that could just be shade from the clouds. Remembering his hallucinations, he slowly asked, “Is the ground–”
His slow speech wasn’t satisfactory to Sela as she cut him off, “Black, yes, the ground in that direction is festering and black. The storm, Rocky!”
Rocky tore his gaze from the area, and his mouth formed a hard line as he asked, “Okay. I can see that those clouds don’t look natural. Want to try to remember what you’ve heard about Ether Storms, then?”
Sela ground her teeth. “It was honestly a legend, and the gist of it was to not be caught out in one.” She was nearly growling, and Rocky figured it was time to start being a bit less abrasive; they were both tired. She continued, forcibly relaxing her jaw, “It was almost like a bedtime story to scare children. Or maybe it was to suggest not running away from the safety of their Territorial town before they were strong enough?”
That was quite possibly the most confusing description Rocky had ever heard. He was going to ask for more, but a flash of blue lightning made them both look in the direction of the mounting thunderclouds. A moment later, a massive boom echoed over the group, and everyone stopped in place to join the two looking at the ominous, multihued thunderclouds.
Instead of asking for more information, Rocky looked to Sela wide-eyed and asked, “What’s closest for cover?”
Sometime after her rebirth, Sela had gained a sense of the land around herself. Rocky had discovered this fact when she unerringly was able to direct the survivor group to good cover for the night. Her range was getting better too—now at a few kilometers of distance—and she could often tell if a cave or forest would be large enough to house all or most of the group.
Sela blinked once before her nostrils flared, and she closed her eyes tight in concentration. A moment later, they flashed open, and she nodded. “There is a cave at the very edge of my senses! The Territory is still half a day through forest terrain.” Then she pointed towards the storm. “The cave is in that direction.”
Captain Crunch!
Rocky fingered his button on his ear’s radio to allow him to communicate and declared in an overly loud voice, “Joe, we need to move. Now!” Then he let go of the button and spoke to Sela alone, “Is it big enough for everyone?”
Sela nodded, but then pressed her mouth into a firm line so hard her lips turned white. “But like all caves that size, there is something already inside.”
“Of course there is,” was Rocky’s response under his breath as the survivor group came slowly back out of their frozen state and turned into a disturbed ants’ nest. The only other cave they had found to house the whole group of five thousand survivors plus had housed a rather large and dangerous rock slime. They had only beat the thing by repeating tactics that Rocky and the boys had used and luring it to water. Otherwise, large caves like that weren’t exactly common natural formations.
The survivors were well on their way to becoming an
angry beehive when Joe and Zippo sprinted over.
Rocky pointed at Zippo. “You are coming with Sela and me to clear out a cave. Joe, I need you to get the entire group to move in that direction. Fast!” Rocky pointed towards the storm.
Joe, who had real military experience, didn’t even blink. “How much time do I have?”
Rocky continued, pointing directly at the ever-expanding storm wall, “Want to race?”
Chapter Three
Zippo rode on top of Azoth, and Rocky strangely rode on top of Sela in cat form. While Azoth could carry both Zippo and Rocky, he would already be slower than Sela on the ground. Since the group needed speed to get to the cave and clear it before the survivors arrived, they had chosen to distribute the load. They had also opted for Azoth to remain grounded in case the storm had typhoon-level wind fronts leading it. As expected, Azoth was already lagging behind the much more agile cat form of Sela.
Since Rocky didn’t have to do any work, he absent-mindedly checked his status page.
Rockland Barkclay Level 21
Class: Apprentice-Dark (Azrael) Revenant
Level 1 Strategist
Class Skills: Dark Blade, Dark Mend, Soul Blade, Dark Cloak, Shadow Clone
Health Points = 190/190 Points (-70) (Sleep Deprived)
Dark Ether Pool = 150/150 Points (-50) (Sleep Deprived)
You have 0 stat points and 0 skill points to distribute.
Stamina – 19 (+3) (-7) (Strength of Body +5)
Strength – 29 (Strength of Arms +5) (Strength of Arms +10)
Agility – 37 (Speed of Arms +5)
Dexterity – 30
Intelligence – 15 (+1) (-5) (Sleep Deprived)
Wisdom – 20 (-7) (Unclean)
Charisma – 10 (-19) (Unclean + Skunk Shower)
Luck – 10 (+3)
Weak Skills
Non-Class Combat Skills: Combatant – 22 (+3), Ether Channels – 13, Ether Manipulation – 11, Stealth – 26 (+2), Swordsmanship – 26 (+2)