by R K Billiau
Kai frowned and crossed his arms. “Martial arts is not about violence. It is about perfection of an art, discipline, and self control. Yes, it could be violent, but learning to avoid it is just as important as learning to master it.”
I raised my hands up placatingly, “Whoa hey, I wasn’t trying to offend you, I was just surprised.”
“Do not worry, I am not offended. If I was, I would knock you out.”
“Wait, what?” I asked.
“He’s doing it to you again, Huddy,” Madison said with a laugh.
I glanced over at Kai, who now had a big grin on his face. “It’s like Madison says, you are too easy.”
I rolled my eyes and threw my hands in the air. “Whatever. Let’s get this camp set up, it’s almost dusk and then it’s time to hunt some wolves.”
We pulled out the tents, one from each pack, and took altogether too long figuring out how to set them up. It didn’t seem right in a world where you could pull a whole tent from a small bag, you still had to fumble with poles and clips.
We finally laid our bedrolls inside just as the sun started setting. “I gotta say,” Madison said, “I am getting pretty excited about not sleeping on the ground tonight.”
“I agree,” Kai said, “though I remain more happy about finally having shoes.”
“Oh man, the shoes are great,” I said. “I never want to go shoe-less for that long again. Or maybe even ever.” I twirled my shoe-clad feet around in the air. “Well, I need to gather some rocks so I have ammo to Sucker Punch the wolves when they come. Want to join me, Madison?”
She smiled. “Sure! I know picking up rocks can be difficult, but I’m happy to help.”
Kai snorted as he entered a fighting stance, starting a Kata. “Just do not forget the rocks.”
I ignored him and pulled Madison into the tree line with me. We walked in silence for a bit, enjoying the company and enjoying not starving or hurting or being eaten alive over and over for once.
“Huddy, what did you do back on Earth?” Madison asked. “We’ve talked a lot about me, but I don’t really know a lot about you.”
I reached for a few rocks and thought back to my days on Earth, scrounging every day for a little bit of survival. “I was a scavenger, I worked for one of those groups on the coast of the Pacific, where California used to be. It wasn’t a great gig, but it almost paid the bills, and I was good at it.” I shrugged, a lot of my memories weren’t great, but when I was out there working, I felt happy.
“I can’t imagine what that job would be like. I mean, I knew those kinds of jobs existed, but it never came up in my day to day. What did being a scavenger look like?” Madison asked, offering me a good looking rock in her open palm. I pulled it from her hand and opened my inventory. I sighed at its lackluster contents. I clicked on an empty slot and dragged the rock to it. It faded into a wire-mesh form and disappeared.
“Well, I spent most of my time combing through destroyed houses to find old school electronics and precious metals. Back when California was an actual place people lived, they had a ton of phones and computers and all that stuff, and they didn’t recycle it that well. I would find that stuff and then my company would extract the neodymium and indium they contained. The gold was nice too, and way more plentiful.”
“So you just searched through ruins? Every day? Didn’t that seem... I don't know... bleak?” she asked.
“I guess you could see it that way, but I had been living on the streets before that and let me tell you, I’d take combing through tombs over scrabbling for food with the gangs any day. Besides, it wasn’t like I had much choice, I was indentured.” I paused as I said this to gauge her reaction.
“Indentured? You mean a slave?” she gasped and put her hands over her mouth. It was pretty cute and I was glad I had stopped to watch her.
“Sure,” I said, “I mean, it wasn’t like the type of slavery you read about back in the ancient times. I just-” My explanation was cut short as three red dots suddenly appeared around us on my mini-map. It was that same moment I noticed how dark it had gotten.
I heard a growl behind me and had enough time to watch Madison’s eyes go wide before I felt hot teeth digging into the back of my leg. “AAAH!” I screamed as the Pain debuff popped up at 20% and a pictogram of an ankle with an arrow through it appeared in my HUD. I would have read it but had an idea of what it meant as I tried to move and found myself hobbled, moving very slow.
“Kai! The wolves!” I screamed, though I probably didn’t have to as he could see my health bar drop in the group window. A quick glance showed his white dot moving toward us on the mini-map. Now if I could just stay alive long enough for him to get here.
Madison had reacted much faster than me, equipping her spear and popping out a combat formation. I got out my spear and tried jabbing the wolf that was latched onto my leg. The spear tip hit, and the wolf yelped, but it had been a glancing blow. My Spear Mastery skill was only level 10, so I didn’t get any bonuses. My attack had done what I wanted though, and the wolf backed off a bit, giving me time to get into one of the formation spots and for the combat bonus to kick in.
Now back to back with Madison, we had three snarling wolves to deal with. At least with the two of us, we would not leave our backs unguarded. Madison pointed at me and a system message popped up.
You have been Boosted!
Please choose what attribute you would like to Boost by 21 points
Not choosing after 5 seconds will default to Max HP
Expendable pools are Boosted by 42 points
I quickly selected Spear Mastery and smiled. I might be level 1 right now, but with Madison’s buffs I would fight stronger than that. We spun in our formation, moving as the wolves did as they tried to position themselves to find a weak spot. With sudden ferocity, the wolf at Madison’s side lunged, and she moved her spear to intercept. With my attention on Madison, my wolf didn’t waste the opportunity and attacked as well.
I moved the spear faster than I thought I could have, and the tip sliced into the wolf’s shoulder, abruptly ending its attack with a loud yelp. Madison had also been successful in driving off her attacker, but it had only been a distraction as the third wolf on her other side lunged in and took a bite out of her. I yelled out, afraid for her, but my fear was unfounded as the wolf’s teeth bit into her superior armor, taking a tiny sliver of her health.
I went on the offensive, jabbing my spear at the third wolf, and was grateful to see my strike plunge home, scoring a deep wound. With my side turned, my wolf attacked me, proving that my armor was nowhere near as protective as Madison’s. My health dropped by ten percent as the teeth ripped into my bicep, and a pictogram of a red drop appeared in my HUD. Once again, I didn’t need to read it to understand what it was as the blood freely poured down my arm.
“Damn you!” I shouted and spun back to my assailant, slashing at it and embedding my spear in its neck.
Critical Hit!
You slash a wolf for 33 damage!
Congratulations! You have slain a wolf!
You have gained 10 XP; You have gained a party bonus of 4 XP!
Nice. One wolf down. Madison spun her spear and defended against a feint from her canine foe, and I saw the other wolf trying the same trick to harry her and attack from her weaker side. I quickly yanked on my spear to free it from the corpse, reversed my grip and threw it, smiling as it plunged dead center into the wolf.
Sucker Punch! Your attack catches the opponent off guard!
Critical hit! You pierce a wolf for 79 damage!
You have slain a wolf!
You have gained 10 XP; You have gained a party bonus of 4 XP!
Graham had been right that these wolves weren’t much of a threat. If we could get a couple more packs to attack us, we would gain our levels back easily. The last wolf paused in its attack, looked at its dead comrades and turned to flee.
“No you don’t!” Madison shouted and jumped at it, spear tip singing through the wind and
plunging deep into the wolf’s flank. The wolf snarled and changed its mind from flight to fight, bloody spittle flying from its mouth. It tore into Madison’s arm where her hauberk had pushed up and ripped five percent of her health away.
I ran over and dislodged my spear from a dead wolf and quickly spun to join Madison. The last wolf, so intensely focused on her, didn’t even notice me coming in like lightning, spear tip forward. It slammed deep into the wolf’s side and it yelped in pain. I twisted the spear in deeper, fighting its muscle, but wanting this battle to end. The resistance my spear met mixed with the yelping made me cringe. I wasn’t a huge fan of dogs, never had a pet one, or any pet really. The streets were always littered with strays and they were all right. I’d toss them a scrap here and there, but never invited one to cuddle up and stick around. I just didn’t like hurting anything, so I had to keep reminding myself it was just a game.
I was thankful when Madison came in and finished it off with another thrust of her spear and we both stood there panting, and bleeding, as the heat of combat wore off.
You have slain a wolf!
You have gained 10 XP; You have gained a party bonus of 4 XP!
Kai came running up, stopping short to look at the scene. “Well, that seemed anti-climactic. You seemed to deal with those wolves quite easily,” he said.
“Kai! You should have seen it! I actually took down two of them!” I offered my fist out to him for a bump.
Kai raised his eyebrow at me. “You did? You?”
Madison smiled, “Well, I Boosted him and instead of just throwing rocks, he used an actual weapon. It didn’t hurt that these things were kinda easy to kill.”
“Easy or not,” I said, “I still actually contributed.” I laughed at this, the headiness of combat gracing me with a mild mania.
“Well,” Kai said, “the XP from these wolves is decent, we should try to farm more if possible.”
“For sure!” Madison said. “Graham said they were attracted to fire so if we just wait maybe more will come.”
We all turned and abruptly spun back around as a piercing shriek came from the forest. As our eyes searched the darkness, about dozen yards ahead of us, we saw a man in similar clothes to ours running straight at us. Behind him, a train of strange creatures- if they could even be called creatures- made of rocks, sticks, and random foliage.
“Hey!” I shouted, “that’s MY trick!”
Chapter 6
“Quick!” Madison yelled, “get in formation!” Her hand slashed out and the glowing X’s formed a new formation, one I hadn’t seen before. Not that I had seen many. This one, a straight line with all of us side by side. I hobbled into place and saw the combat buff change from a general combat bonus to a more specialized +10% to armor. Nifty.
The man running towards us looked shocked to see us, or maybe to see us standing still instead of running away, but the look on his face quickly moved into one of hope.
“Help me!” he shouted, closing in on us. There were at least half a dozen of the weird forest tornado balls rushing after him.
“Madison, toss him a group invite!” Kai shouted as he took a defensive stance, I swear I saw a grin on his face. Too much violence indeed. I’d have to remind him later. “Hudson and Madison, plant your spears into the ground, let these things run into them.” He turned his head to the man. “You there, join our group and get into formation! If we fight together, we can handle this!”
I wanted to add a maybe, but thought better of it. I didn’t want to annoy Kai too much before this fight.
The man looked at Kai, then his eyes widened and a second later his name- Carl- and health bar appeared in our group. He dove into one of the formation spots and turned to face the creatures that were nearly upon us.
“I don’t have a weapon! I lost mine back in the woods!” He heaved the words out between labored breaths.
“Here take this,” I said and quickly handed him my spear and stepped back out of the formation. “Close up ranks, I’ll use my Throwing Mastery.” The man took my spear and stepped next to Madison, but didn’t have enough time to plant his weapon. The opponents had arrived.
These strange creatures looked like bundles of rocks and sticks and dirt being held together with invisible strings, swirling around making vague impressions of limbs. As if the forest floor was spinning around the inside of a vacuum canister, occasionally looking somewhat humanoid. Where I assumed its face should be, was a black hole. Man I hoped these things didn’t eat people.
It sounded like wind blowing through a cavern as they rammed into our front line, blowing up dust and twigs and leaves. Madison had planted her spear, but when the leading creature slammed into it, the spear was flipped up out of the dirt and Madison could barely keep a hand on it as it was sucked into the forest foe.
Kai lunged forward with a palm strike. I had no idea what he was aiming for, but he hit the creature in front of him hard, sending pieces of it flying away. The stranger in our group was pummeled by the creatures attacking him; he must have pissed these things off something fierce. They were aggroed on him like a politician smelling a voteless tax increase. I watched his health bar drop suddenly as he was hit by three at once. I wanted to remind him that ducking and covering wasn’t an effective tool for defeating your enemy, but I felt like it was maybe too soon.
“Hold on!” Madison said and used Self Sacrifice to heal Carl. The whistling and whirling wind they made was so loud we could barely hear her, despite being mere feet away.
“Get em off!” he yelled, now flailing wildly with his spear, having no real effect on the creatures. I grabbed a zombie core out of my inventory and summoned a zombie, watching the core turn to dust. As fast as I could, I selected the attack function and the zombie instantly zeroed in on the weird creature swinging its… arms? with abandon while clacking its gaping mouth hole over and over. Then I grabbed a rock and threw it at the one attacking Kai.
I expected to see my Sucker Punch pop-up, but instead the rock was absorbed by the whirling dervish. “Not helping Hudson!” Kai shouted as he lashed out with a powerful kick, his leg sweeping right through one of the enemies and sending its debris flying. The creature was noticeably smaller, and quieter, after that. “Please don’t feed it.”
Right. So I wasn’t going to be able to throw rocks. That’s kinda like, my whole thing. Well, besides the train thing. At least I could summon, but I only had a few cores left, and somehow I didn’t think rabbits would be much help. The zombie I summoned had drawn off the aggro, everything hated zombies, but it wouldn’t last long under that punishment. I had to think of something.
Kai dealt another blow to his enemy, scattering the remains of its detritus around, and in a whirl of air it dissipated and went silent.
Your party has slain a minor tutelar!
You have gained 15 XP; You have gained a party bonus of 5 XP!
Tutelar, these must be the things Graham was talking about. Decent XP for that kill, now if we could just Manage to not die, it would be great. Kai broke formation and performed a shoulder slam to the creature nearest Madison. Not only did it look cool, it seemed to do a lot of damage as the thing lost a bunch of its swirling substance. But it also put Kai in the middle of its energy field- or whatever it was holding the thing together- and the swirling rocks and sticks acted like sandpaper, leaving gouges in his flesh and tearing off a 20% chunk of his health bar. “Ow! Damnit!” Kai grunted, his voice floating away in the ripping winds.
The stranger, Carl, had finally gotten his bearings and was weakly slashing with my spear. I had to give him credit, he was a trooper for getting back into the fight. Too bad his attacks were pretty much useless.
“Madison, Boost all of us!” I shouted. Her health bar had been dropping, too, from the sustained attacks but much slower since her armor was a great defense.
She weathered the storm as she Boosted all of us and threw a heal on Kai. “Out of Mana!” she shouted, “I can heal but no more Boosts!” Madison’s heali
ng skill, Self Sacrifice, allowed her to heal but it drained from all her expendable pools. If she ran out of Mana, it would use Zeal or Stamina and eventually her own health. It was a great ability, but if she used it too much, she became vulnerable.
“Healbots don’t talk!” I shouted at her for fun and watched her turn her laser gaze on me, for not fun. I think she was actually angry. Oops.
I looked at the new guy. “New guy! Use the Boost to increase your Spear Mastery so you can actually hit these things!” He took another hit as he focused on the Boost, but came out of it swinging his spear with more confidence, causing a large chunk of debris to fly off the tutelar closest to him. Madison had evidently also increased her Spear Mastery as her attacks were doing more damage as well.
Kai must have just let the Boost default to HP as his health bar filled to max in our group window. All in all, we were holding our own and these things didn’t seem that tough. Which is easy to say for the guy standing in the back doing nothing.
Then one of the tutelar let out a howl like wind scraping across a frozen tundra and it exploded out, losing its vague humanoid form and morphing into a whirling cyclone that blasted through each of us in a move so fast that it pummeled and sandblasted us all.
Critical hit! You have been pummeled for 83 damage!
Ow, that hurt. My health dropped by a good chunk. “They have special attacks?!” I shouted the obvious.
Kai and the new guy had been hit the hardest, with the new guy’s health almost bottoming out.
“New guy! Get out of here! Run and hide somewhere, but leave the spear!” I shouted at him, hoping he could hear above the torrential wind. He wasted no time following that order, and I watched to see where he threw the spear.
As I ran over to grab my weapon, my eyes fell on the corpses of the wolves we had fought and I had an idea so great I was certain a lightbulb popped over my head. With one second left on my Boost selection timer, I quickly picked Core Manipulation, overwriting the Boost to Spear Mastery.
Right as I was about to move to the first wolf corpse, the stupid tutelor popped off another special attack.