Glitch Book Two
Page 5
I jumped off the platform down to the rail tracks and headed for the tunnel. The farther into it I went, the darker it got. I walked pretty slowly waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Suddenly angry hisses and chatters came from somewhere. I noticed two red glowing eyes appeared from the darkness. I was able to make out a pretty big trunk covered with shabby fur, long V-shaped snout, and four slender limbs. It was a level 4 mutant rat the size of the German Shepherd Dog. The rat looked quite intimidating, yet it went tits-up after taking only two or three bullets to its body. It hadn’t even able to skitter over to me within reach. Killing this ugly creature got me forty experience points.
Two more mutant rats jumped me out of nowhere. I failed to notice one of them in time, which was why it managed to get close to me and snapped at my leg. Grunting in pain, I double tapped the creature to the head, killing it.
As I walked down the dimly lit tunnel, I slew overgrown rats charging at me out of the darkness. The poor lighting made it hard for me to detect ugly shabby creatures. Some of them managed to run up and gave me a painful bite. I would probably have turned around and headed back had I not gotten so far into the tunnel by that point. There was no point in returning, what with the darkness enveloping me from all directions now.
Finally, a message appeared before my eyes.
> Congrats! You have just leveled up to 5! You have got 5 unused skill points!
First of all, I spent one point to unlock the Flare spell and employed it at once. A small glowing ball appeared overhead. Yet it gave off little light. I then allocated another point into the psi-power. The ball lit a little brighter now. After giving the matter some thought, I assigned yet another point to the skill. After that, the Flare emitted enough light for me to see by. Moreover, now it could be used as a flash-bang grenade.
I went over the description of the psi-power once more.
> Name of the psi-power: Flare
> Description: The Flare psi-power allows the player to create an object generating light. The maximally upgraded Flare could be hurled at foes. Upon exploding, the Flare flashes rendering all nearby foes temporarily sightless.
> The stats of the Flare psi-power:
> Level: 3 out of 3
> The Flare lights up everything within a radius of 5 yards of the player.
> Upon exploding, the Flare renders nearby foes blind for 3 seconds.
> While the Flare is active, it consumes Mana at the rate of 1 point per 5 seconds.
> Mana consumption upon exploding: 125 points
I had two more skill points to spend. I neglected the Disarming for now, its usefulness in a battle against PKs notwithstanding. I was eager to learn the Stasis but to do that I had to unlock the fourth level of the skill tree by learning one of the skills on the previous, third, level, namely either the Telekinesis or Vortex Trap.
After pondering on that for a few moments, I learned the Vortex Trap and assigned to the psi-power the last point.
> Name of the psi-power: Vortex Trap
> Description: The psi-power creates an invisible booby trap at the given spot. Whoever triggers it is lifted a few yards off the ground up in the air. Then dark energy creates a vortex in which the victim is revolved for some time. After the time is up, the victim is slammed in a forceful manner against the ground, taking some damage and having their head spinning for some time. The psi-power can be applied to only one foe at a time.
> The stats of the Vortex Trap psi-power:
> Level: 2 out of 3
> The Vortex Trap lifts a foe to a height of 5 yards
> The duration is 10 seconds
> The force of slamming the victim against the ground is average
> The victim has their head reeling for 7 seconds
> Mana consumption is 75 points
So I’d finally leveled up to 5 and could switch weapons now. Before moving on, I stowed the level 2 pistol Conquer away in my bag and took the level 5 Screamer Crayn’d given me out of it. Then I continued with my journey. With the Flare lighting everything around me up, I was able to take out all the overgrown rats before they had a chance to get within biting range.
Despite receiving less than forty experience points for mutant rats now, the experience bar filled pretty fast. Upon death, some creatures dropped an ingredient I hadn’t come across before, bones. I gathered it up.
Soon I leveled up to 6. Allotted one point to the Vortex Trap. Foes could now be lifted seven yards up in the air. The duration increased to fifteen seconds and the head spinning the victim suffered from increased up to ten seconds. Using the Vortex Trap required 75 Mana points now.
I assigned the three remaining points to the Statis.
> Name of the psi-power: Stasis
> Description: The psi-power creates an invisible area at the given spot. Whoever finds themselves inside the area gets stuck for some time, completely immobilized.
> The stats of the Stasis psi-power:
> Level: 3 out of 3
> The circumference of the area is 2.5 yards around
> The duration is 10 seconds
> Mana consumption is 250 points
This psi-power was somewhat similar to the Blow, which lifted a foe up and rendered them immobile. Yet while hanging in the air, the foe didn’t get frozen. Despite their inability to drop to the ground, they could still discharge their guns. Unlike the Blow, the Stasis rendered foes completely immovable, which was quite awesome. I could definitely benefit from this psi-power when encountering PKs or crowd of mobs.
I had one point left over from the previous level-up. I spent it on a skill from the Survival skill tree.
> Name: Cooking mutant rat meat
> Description: Allows you to cook mutant rat meat on a fire pit.
> The skill state: 1 out of 1
> Required ingredients:
> 1. Pieces of mutant rat meat
> The stats of a cooked mutant rat meat:
> Reducing hunger: 30
> Restoring health: 50
With this done, I continued reducing the mutant rat population.
After some time passed, I heard the crack of a gunshot behind my back. The bullet bounced off the wall on my right, narrowly missing my head. I whirled around to see another flash of gunfire in the darkness, the sound of the gunshot ripping through the air. This time the bullet caught me in my chest, taking ten points from my HP.
Although I couldn’t make out whoever was firing on me, I was certain that it was another player, not a mob. The light coming from the Flare above my head couldn’t reach the player, but the flash of the last gunshot had given away their whereabouts.
I shied the Flare toward that spot. The glowing object dashed down the tunnel, illuminating it. In a second or so, it reached the level 4 player. Then the Flare exploded and everything went dark. Whipping my handgun up, I dumped the whole magazine in the general direction of where I last saw the player.
He didn’t fire back. Instead he was running away. I had no way of seeing it, but I could clearly hear his quickly receding footsteps.
I wondered what the player had counted on engaging me, a player with the higher level. On the other hand, being two levels your opponent junior, perhaps, didn’t necessarily mean you couldn’t defeat them in this game. Besides, the Flare had had me brightly lit up while the player was under the cover the darkness. The player had probably thought that the element of surprise would work in his or her favor and get them an advantage over me.
Anyway, I didn’t bother to chase him down and continued along the tunnel instead, having activated the Flare again. Being lit up by it put me at a disadvantage, for sure; yet I had no other means of providing light for me to see by. At any rate, I was sure I would take the player down if they were to attack me again.
I soon felt a slight pang of hunger. Best curb it now while I had a chance to do so. Looked at the crystal, switched to the Crafting menu, and ch
ose the Fire pit. A static translucent, green silhouette of a fire appeared. It followed my gaze whatever I looked at. I cast my gaze downward and looked at the empty spot right before me. The silhouette went still and a message appeared in my HUD.
> (Do you want to put the object here: Yes/No)
Pressed the “Yes” button. The static image was instantly replaced by an actual fire pit. Firewood crackled, tongues of flames licked at the bottom of the pot, in which water was already boiling. I cooked all the pieces of rat meat I had. After having a snack and warming up, I set out.
After I killed dozens of mutant rats, the experience bar filled up once more.
> Congrats! You have just leveled up to 7! You have got 5 unused skill points!
Looked at the crystal and opened the Warlock tab. Although I decided not to learn the Disarming skill to begin with, I thought better of it and learned the skill anyway. The psi-power might turn out to be quite effective when fighting PKs. I assigned three points to the skill.
> Name of the psi-power: Disarming
> Description: Dark energy yanks on a foe’s weapon, tearing it off their hands and sending it flying some distance away.
> The stats of the Stasis psi-power:
> Level: 3 out of 3
> The distance at which the weapon is hurled is 3 yards
> Mana consumption is 70 points
I then learned the Telekinesis skill and continued wandering around subway tunnels. Slaying another rat, I noticed me receive fewer experience points than before. Mutant rats were too weak for me now. I decided to leave this place after getting one more level.
The experience bar was slowly but surely filling. It seemed like much time passed before I finally leveled up. First of all, I upgraded the Telekinesis psi-power.
> Name of the psi-power: Telekinesis
> Description: The Telekinesis skill allows the player to pull or push any object or person without physical interaction. The heavier the object is, the slower it is moved.
> The stats of the Telekinesis psi-power:
> Level: 3 out of 3
> The force of the psi-power is high
> Mana consumption depends on the weight of the object being pulled. Minimal Mana consumption is 10 points per second
The Teleportation was still unavailable for unlocking. I had to learn and upgrade one of the two skills on the previous level of the skill tree first, the Harm or Jammer.
After some thinking, I settled on the latter.
> Name of the psi-power: Jammer
> Description: The Jammer skill allows the player to jam all the eclectic devices within a given area, including the contraptions created by other players.
> The stats of the Jammer psi-power:
> Level: 3 out of 3
> The circumference of the area is 2.5 yards around
> The duration is 30 seconds
> Mana consumption is 150 points
The Jammer might be an extremely useful skill against Engineers capable of creating battle drones. Now I could learn the Teleportation. I spent the last point to unlock the skill. Still, it allowed me to cover a distance of only three yards at a time. Guessed it wasn’t all that far, but I settled for it for now. After getting one more level, I would upgrade the skill to transfer myself farther.
It was time to split the subway. It took me some time to find the way out. Finally, I got outside. It was the dead of game playing already. In the distance, I could hear lots of various sounds. The game was rife with sounds of gunshots, the roaring of vehicles revving, and enraged screams of monsters within my hearing. The game was filled with players once again.
I decided to pay a visit to the vending machine to buy some vigors. After looking around by force of acquired habit and making sure nobody was nearby, I looked at the crystal to consult the map. After that, I set off.
I wasn’t skulking down the street, the way I had before. Now I strode in a confident manner. I no longer was a fledging novice. Rather, I was a well-experienced player who had gotten a feel for the game. Even distant sounds of random gunshots didn’t freak me out anymore. Being armed with a good weapon and having various psi-powers at my disposal, I could now handle myself.
I was dead wrong.
My phony self-assurance rendered me less sensitive to my surroundings and made me unable to think clearly. Which was why I came to a stop and directed my gaze toward the window of a nearby building at which a human silhouette appeared. He seemed to be staring in my direction. I should immediately have activated the Shield or at least run away. It wasn’t until I saw a round black object being loped out of the window that I burst into a race. But it was already too late.
I managed to run only a couple of yards away when the grenade went off. The explosion behind my back sent a shock wave that hurled me face-first onto the sidewalk. A quick glance at my UI told me I’d lost nearly one hundred HP.
Grunting in pain, I delved into my bag for the stimulators. Taking one of them out, I brought the end having a tiny needle sticking out of it to the naked skin on my left forearm and depressed the red button. The word “Empty” replaced the word “Full”. The drug added fifty points to my HP. Tossing the empty stimulator away, I pulled out another one and administered the shot to myself.
All of that had been done within three seconds. When I rose to my feet, two players burst out of the building, assault rifles with attached grenade launchers in hand. Skull-designed balaclavas concealed the gamers’ faces.
I recognized them at once. These two players had murdered me once the day before. After that, I’d been unfortunate enough to run into them again and they would surely have wasted me again had a level 15 mantis not charged at them.
The last time I’d encountered them, their levels were 5 each. Now one of them, Frozen, had reached level 9 while the other, Croc, had leveled up to 10.
“Freeze, asshole,” One of them barked. “Unless you want some more. Drop your gun, get down on your knees, and put your hands behind your head. Now!”
The last time I’d run into them back in the shopping mall, these two guys had made another player, Flynn, kneel in front of them and give them everything he had, but although he’d submissively obeyed them, they’d decided to blot him out anyway. So I knew better than to comply with their demands.
Yet I wondered why they bothered with all that stuff if they killed their victims anyway. Who knows. Maybe they consider themselves real tough guys when bitchslapping the weaker players, as it were. Maybe they got a kick out of it. Or they themselves might be bullied in the real world so the sight of a player kneeling in front of them in the game might make them feel better or something. Anyway, I didn’t have either time or desire to mull over that.
“Listen to me, meathead,” One of them spoke up. “Drop your piece, you hear me? I’m gonna count to three. When I hit three, I’ll fire.”
He waited for a second and then said, “One.”
What do I do? Should I try and engage them? But did I have a bit of a chance of defeating them?
“Two––”
Or maybe I just should chicken out of it and run away from them?
“Three!”
I made up my mind.
Chapter four
I broke into a run. Still, I didn’t turn on the Acceleration so that the PKs could catch up. But I activated the Shield, all right. The two players opened fire as they ran. Bullets hit the power dome one after another and soon destroyed it. It hadn’t lasted long. I didn’t reactivate it since I almost reached an intersection. Taking the right turn, I ran a little farther down the street and came to a stop to get my bearings.
The PKs didn’t show up yet. Looking around, I found a seemingly appropriate place for a vortex trap to be set at. After I placed the trap, a faintly shining spot appeared on the blacktop. I put another beside the first one and looked around for a good place to hide myself.
It was no good fighting the PKs in the open. There we
re two of them and their levels were higher than mine was. So I would’ve certainly been defeated had I played fair. In order to deal with them, I had to resort to dirty tricks.
On crashing into the nearby building, I found myself in a dimly lit room. All the windows were boarded-up. I walked over to one of them and took a peek through a crack between two boards. Due to the boarded-up windows, it would be quite difficult for the PKs to spot me while I had gotten myself an adequate view of the street.
Finally, the twosome turned up. Although I couldn’t see them from where I stood yet, their rising footsteps were within my hearing now. The two guys certainly were running down the street toward the building I was in. They would get stuck in my vortex traps in a couple of seconds.
Yet the footsteps ceased suddenly. What had happened? Either they’d noticed the vortex traps or somehow found out I was about to ambush them.
I still couldn’t see them so I just pricked my ears up for any sound from the outside. An almost imperceptible sound came from the street, a rustle of fabric or something. And then the PKs came into view. They were on either side of the street. The PKs forged forward toward the building I was in, their assault rifles at the ready.
Their having split thwarted my plan. I’d hoped they’d get stuck in the vortex traps and become sitting ducks. But now I had to conceive another plan real quick.
It was all quiet suddenly, which brought me back to the present. Croc, who was across the street, kept on creeping down the street, constantly looking around as if expecting someone to jump him out of nowhere. However, the other player, Frozen, must have come to a stop since I didn’t hear either his footsteps or rustle of clothes any longer. It made me feel uneasy. Why had he stopped moving?