Descend- Coming Together

by David Burke

  “I promise I will catch you and you will feel like you are landing in a pile of feathers. I won’t let you get hurt.”

  “Okay, well I guess thinking about it doesn’t make it any easier, so just do it.”

  Jay grabbed her with one hand on each of her hips and then with a burst of strength threw her up at least 150 feet up into the air. Her squeals could be heard all the way up but strangely seemed to stop when halfway down her descent dramatically slowed as the Kinetic Dampening field caught her.

  The closer she got to the ground the stronger the field’s impact was as Jay was able to focus it more, till by the time she reached his arms she was barely moving. She smiled at him and kissed his lips before he could set her down.

  “That wasn’t so bad once I got used to it. Kinda terrifying at first though.”

  “Did you see anything?” Huong asked.

  “I think so, now just give me a moment to focus.” They all watched as Amelia closed her eyes and scrunched up her nose. Jay couldn’t help but think how cute she was, even though he knew she didn’t like that word as a descriptor for herself.

  “So yeah, who would have guessed it but bonehead’s plan worked. I found where the pole is, but it is quite a distance from here. I would guess that it is five miles although I can’t be sure. There are a couple of places where we will have to weave through rocky canyons with dead ends and twisting paths near the end, but at least 80% of it is just these sand dunes.”

  “It will take hours to make it across four miles of sand dunes and that is assuming we don’t get attacked along the way,” Huong said despairingly.

  “Well, let’s see how long it takes us to get there. That will give us some idea of what we have to work on to be able to pass the quest.” With that Jay started to stride off across the sand.

  The sun overhead was hot but he would have been sweating even without it. Within fifteen minutes he had a good idea of just how impossible this would be without some further strategy. Knowing where the finish line was all fine and good but they still needed to be able to reach there.

  With each step, he sunk into the sand and disturbed the ground all around him. He was much heavier, weighing more than twice what any of the girls weighed and probably realistically getting closer to three times their weight. Even they were having trouble.

  The sand gave way for them and soon all but Jessie were saying that they were not gonna be able to keep this pace up for long. A few minutes after that, Jay had Meikiyo straddling his shoulders while he carried Amelia and Huong each in one of his arms. He could bear the weight but it only made him sink further into the ground.

  His durability and metabolism granted him what had seemed like an endless amount of endurance but he thought that even he might be tested to cross four miles carrying the three girls. Jay was just grateful that Jessie didn’t need to be carried. She seemed to be able to skitter across the top of the sand while barely disturbing the surface. Whatever animal adaptation that was, certainly came in handy.

  Despite his concerns Jay was able to make it another hour and a little less than halfway across the desert before he got another premonition of danger. In the time that it took for the girls to get down safely off of him two of the beetle creatures erupted from the sand. Almost immediately Jessie let out a low snarl and was upon one of them in a flurry of claws.

  Jay likewise had to act instantly to protect their more vulnerable companions and threw himself at the other one before he could even draw his spear or conjure a blade. He engaged with it, lifting it off the ground and hardening his skin. Even still he felt cuts in his side as its barbed front claws cut through chainmail and skin that was harder than wood alike.

  He roared in pain but used it to push himself harder. He was stronger than he had been the night before. While holding it up he pushed it away with his foot and sent it a good twenty feet. Almost instantly whips of fire lashed out at it. No, not at it but at the surrounding sand.

  The fire wasn’t hot enough to melt the sand apparently but Meikiyo improvised and entangled the creature's legs with her whips. The heat was intense enough to make the creature screech and Jay could feel it on his face as he whipped one and then another accelerated rock at the creature. The rocks traveling faster than bullets shattered the carapace and exploded out the back side leaving huge exit wounds.

  At that point Jay glanced over at Jessie. She was holding her own but not inflicting much damage. Amelia’s shadow bolts were hurting it but didn’t have enough impact to take it down. As he conjured his psionic blade to finish the creature he was fighting he yelled, “Use your Shadow Sheath on her claws.”

  Then he turned back to the grim work of taking the beetle apart. It was still fairly easy, and he realized that he was probably over leveled for this type of challenge but it was still dangerous. Whoever had thought up this dungeon had not planned it well for regular people who didn’t have his cheat with the extra stats.

  When he turned back, he was glad to see that the results were working out much better after they had implemented Jay’s suggestion. Jessie’s claws were now cloaked in the same shadowy darkness that Amelia could create around her dagger. Now instead of merely scratching the armored carapace they were shredding through it. The shadow power seemed to allow them to partially phase through and thereby do more damage.

  Jessie had gotten wise at some point though that the best strategy was for her to work her way around the creature and sever one leg at a time. Till finally she leapt up on its back and drove her six-inch-long bony claws completely into the back of the beetle’s head. She then pulled them back, and it exploded like an overripe pumpkin.

  The most startling part though was when she lifted her head up and howled into the sky. There was an almost-feral gleam in her eyes and instead of her normally cheerful smile she was baring the fangs of a predator. Then just as quickly as his hands had gone to his spear, she jumped down from the top of the beast. Her claws retracted and left petite well-manicured fingers just as the fangs disappeared and she smiled warmly.

  “That was kinda fun. It is different fighting with people who have my back,” Jessie said.

  They all looked at her and then Amelia said, “It was definitely cool combining our powers like that, but why didn’t you just take control of the monster? Isn’t that one of your powers?”

  “Yeah, I tried that at first even after it failed last night. I thought I might be strong enough to make it work now, but no such luck. The animals on the first floor, no problem. I don’t know if it is because this is like a bug and works on all instincts with no higher thinking functions for me to influence.”

  Jay looked around and said, “Look, the sun is gonna set in a couple of hours. I think we should just chalk today up as a learning experience and turn back. I don’t want us to be tired and exposed out here.”

  The girls all looked at him and while both Amelia and Jessie looked disappointed at first they all eventually agreed that he was right. Huong however complicated things when she said, “Do you think that you could carry one of those things back with us? I have some ideas for crafting with its carapace.”

  “What carry that thing and all three of you?”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Well what if we walked back?” Huong asked, still obviously fixated on getting the bug’s remains back to camp.

  Meikiyo came to his rescue, “Then it would probably take us four hours to walk back instead of two.”

  “I could cut off a big piece of its armor for you to test. Would that be good enough?” Jessie offered.

  “Oh yeah, I guess that would work. Could you get the barbed claws too?”

  “I’ll carry one piece of carapace and one of the claws along with the three of you,” Jay said.

  “Um… one will work,” Huong said before walking over to Jay and kissing him on the cheek. “Thanks.”

  Chapter 16- Why Is This So Odd?

  By the time that they exited the second floor, they were in for an unfortunate s
urprise. All five bungalows had been rented and so they were without one. The girls who had gotten the extra credits from clearing the first floor had spent theirs rather than waiting for Jay to get back.

  He was tired of carrying the bug parts and so went to stash them in the first floor of the dungeon. He figured he could pick them up in the morning before the reset to save for Huong. Hopefully they would remain after whatever happened during the reset returned everything to its base condition. The one good thing about the bugs was that they were worth 40 credits a piece to whoever delivered the killing blow.

  Of course Miguel and Tyler had also rented bungalows and allowed other girls to join them. Seemingly a number of the girls had decided that if they weren’t going to make it onto Team Jay that it was better to be with one of the other guys. That part at least was honestly a relief to him.

  Jay would have been lying if he said that he didn’t like the attention from so many beautiful women but he also knew there was a realistic cap to how thin he could spread himself so to speak. Maybe he was being old-fashioned, but he didn’t want a revolving door in his bedroom. Rather, he wanted women he could develop relationships with.

  That didn’t mean that he had reached his cap by any means. It might make him feel like a lecher but he still thought he had room for more on Team Jay. Since the girls seemed to be up for adding “reserve” members who was he to argue.

  The harder part was when the girls who had rented the other three bungalows all took turns propositioning him. Two of them even offered to let his team stay with them. Kenzie was the first to reach him when they left the dungeon. Her normal frosty edge was gone, and she was nothing but warm and inviting, all but throwing herself up against him.

  She argued that they were going to need another healer, so she was sure to get a spot on Team Jay and they might as well skip to that now. Jay took a couple of kisses from her but then the girls’ voices telling him about how they wanted more formal commitment from him came back and he disengaged from Kenzie as gently as he could.

  He tried to soften the rejection by saying that she was still very much in the running to be added next. When that seemed to only agitate her he said, “Think of it this way. If you see how faithful I am to my team now, then you will know that you will have that same faithfulness from me when you are on the team.”

  That worked a little better, but she still walked away in a huff. At least she walked away and didn’t make him have to retreat. Mia’s invitation was harder for him to resist. He felt oddly drawn to her even before she had forged the link to share their stats. Now he couldn’t stop wanting to help her out.

  When he told her the same line about faithfulness, she said, “You have no idea how hard it is for me to control myself, but I’m trying to respect you. You’ve done nothing but be kind to me so far and that was even when no one thought I had anything to offer. I appreciate that and won’t forget it, but god, I want you. It is so hard not to force myself onto you.”

  Jay got a bit concerned since he didn’t know exactly what she meant. “Well you know that I would never force myself on you, so how could we ever have any sort of trust if you tried to force yourself onto me?”

  “I know but it’s hard. Whatever these chemicals are that are rushing through me are making it hard to think straight. The only thing I can say is that I don’t want to be like Jasmine.”

  “Well at least you seemed to get more confident today,” Jay said.

  “Yes, I owe it all to you. Once I started exploring my powers, well let’s just say that you are in for a surprise. Trust me, it will be worth it to have me on your team. It won’t just be you who thinks so either.”

  Then without another word she walked away, leaving Jay more than a little confused. The rest of the team came up to him and Amelia said, “It looks like we are sleeping outside tonight. Kenzie and Mia will both let us join their bungalows but there are strings attached. Jasmine rented the other one and she and Daphne are waiting over by it for you. You might want to avoid them.”

  Jay looked over at Jessie with a raised eyebrow. Amelia simply said, “We filled Jessie in on the basics. Don’t worry, she will help protect you from big scary Jasmine too.”

  “Very funny.”

  “She’s only half-way kidding. If that manipulative bitch tries to get her hooks into our man then she will have all of us to deal with. So just make it easier on everyone by avoiding her unless one of us is with you,” Meikiyo said. Jay’s eyes got wide at the impassioned way in which she spoke. Clearly Amelia was rubbing off on her too.

  Jay said, “I guess the jungle won’t be so bad. All the predators are gone and we can set up a nice camp spot next to the stream. The sound of the water is soothing. Unless you all want to set up a platform.”

  “I think camping beside the stream sounds nice, actually. Kinda pretend we are just roughing it rather than being stuck in some sick experiment,” Huong said before adding, “But we may need to set up two campsites.”

  Jay must have had a confused expression on his face because Amelia elbowed him and said, “That’s up to Jessie, really. It’s her right to some privacy if she wants it.”

  “Don’t I get a say in this?” Jay asked only to be answered by three resounding, “No’s” and a smiling Jessie.

  “I wouldn’t mind a little alone time if that is okay with you three,” Jessie said.

  “You are one of us now. Not an inferior member. We invited you into the core and you committed to all that means. You don’t need our permission. Each of us got private time with him,” Amelia said warmly. Then she grinned and said, “Just remember, I’ve got first dibs.”

  Huong said, “You wish.”

  Jay started walking for the dungeon as they did their playful bickering thing. Jessie ran ahead of the others and caught up to him. He felt her hand slip into his and marveled at how small it felt in his grasp. He was honestly still adjusting to adding four inches of height and forty pounds of mass.

  She was petite like Amelia, not like Huong and as he looked at her, the brilliant smile that met him back made him return it in kind. Her smile was definitely her best feature, not that the rest of the package was anything to complain about. She was toned and fit like Meikiyo but more filled out with more curves. Her blue hair instead of distracting seemed to just crown her beauty.

  “Hey, I was wondering about your hair. I would have thought that your roots would be growing out by now, but it still all looks bright blue.”

  If possible, her smile only intensified. “Yeah, I found that I can color the hair anyway I like. It is like a bird’s plumage so my ability allows me to modify it. Is there a color that you’d like better than blue?”

  As she spoke her hair flickered to a lush rich green, then a vibrant neon red, followed by a natural-looking blond before returning to its blue. “See anything you like?”

  Jay looked at her, and not at her eyes, as he said, “I see lots that I like. But keep your hair whatever color you like. I don’t expect you to change your appearance for me and why would you have to, you are gorgeous.”

  She smiled and then got a serious look on her face. By this time they had reached the first-floor dungeon and entered before waiting for the others to catch up. “I think we need to talk about the other night. I’m so sorry for how I treated you. There really is no excuse and I’m just lucky that all of you were willing to accept me, even if it mostly was because my skills are a good fit.”

  “I never would have guessed that it was possible for a girl as hot as you are to be insecure but…”

  “Wait, you think I’m hot?” she asked but before Jay could even answer she pounced on him and had her legs wrapped around his middle and was kissing his face and neck with little nips.

  Just about that time, the other three girls walked in and Amelia said, “Eww, get a room, you two.”

  Jay managed to set Jessie down, but she was flush and her chest was rising and falling rapidly with her breaths. At least she managed to calm hersel
f down while they walked to the stream. Jay helped do the manual labor of setting up their tents and then starting a fire.

  As a group they sat down to eat dinner and talk about the failed attempt on floor two. Soon, though conversation drifted to simpler things. They talked about their lives back on Earth and shared bits of themselves with each other. A couple hours passed faster than Jay realized as it felt like such a normal event.

  Finally, though he could sense that Jessie was getting more and more impatient. Huong said, “I’m getting tired. I think I will call it a night. Maybe you two should move down the stream a little ways.”

  “There shouldn’t be anything hostile here, but if there is, call. We won't be that far away,” Jay said as he stood up. Jessie practically leapt from the ground and was headed down the bank of the stream so that Jay had to move right away to keep up with her.