GalaxSec: A Sci-Fi LitRPG (Skeleton in Space Book 2)

by Andries Louws

  “NO!”

  Blue light blazes bright lines in Douglas's red form. Evot sees a blur before she is sailing through the air. Landing hard on her broken arm, she feels at least three more broken bones as she tumbles to a halt. Coughing up blood and other fluids, the woman strives to force her body into an upright position. Both her arms broken and her spine at least cracked, she barely manages to force herself to her knees before Douglas is upon her.

  “No breaking of bones.”

  “What?”

  “Good for skills, but do not break bones.”

  Douglas looks down at her, stern blue flames imperiously judging her. His single remaining hand reaches out, and before she can get away and get into a fighting stance, she is blinded by a strange spell shape and she feels a stone enter her panting mouth. “No, not awnother one owf the-”

  Her protests are cut short as the surge of burning power floods her system, forcing bone to mend and elevating the muted pain from her injuries to eye-watering levels in a flash.

  [ Punching lvl 5 ]

  [ Footwork lvl 4 ]

  [ Dodging lvl 6 ]

  [ Blocking lvl 3 ]

  [ Rolling lvl 4 ]

  [ Mana overload ]

  It takes a few moments of increased agony, but she manages to spit out the marble while flipping herself to her belly. Standing up on shaky legs, using her freshly healed arms in the process, she glares up at Douglas. “You meany.”

  [ Mana overload; ended ]

  “No breaking bones,” is his reply before sending another punch her way. She avoids it with a squeak, resuming the fight as she scurries to her feet.

  The first few minutes are clumsy and stilted once again. Then Douglas hits Evot in the chin, sending her flying. She gets back up, this time her eyes once again filled with fire. Douglas grins back at her as they resume the spar. Pretty soon, it becomes clear that one person is learning quicker than the other.

  “Come on, you dumb skeleton! Not so high and mighty now, huh? Fear my grappling ski-”

  A single blue flash of engraved stone later, and Evot is nursing a bruised leg while glaring daggers at the somehow embarrassed undead. She snarls “stop cheating,” before running at her skinny opponent. The sounds of dull punches, hard stone colliding with flesh and bone, and a lot of female grunting echoes through the ruined metropolis. This continues for a long while. Douglas needs to empower his engraved limbs with mana more and more, as he keeps getting caught in surprisingly effective grapples. Evot keeps yelling at him to stop cheating, but the fight continues either way.

  Then, a large earthquake rocks the entire town. The loud rumble of collapsing buildings and crumbling infrastructure follows, halting Evot and Douglas mid-fight.

  “Take your fingers out of my nose!”

  “Then give my hand back.”

  “Alright, here.”

  A moist squelch is followed by a lot of grumbling and complaining on both sides. Douglas nurses his shattered carpal bones while Evot dabs at her bleeding face. “Maybe we should get a move on?”

  “Yes.”

  “Actually, let's climb that building real quick.”

  “Yes.”

  Evot casts a weird glance at the subdued skeleton, but decides to give it no more heed. Instead, she quickly brings up the minimized blue screens real quick.

  [ Punching lvl 10 ]

  [ Punching has reached lvl 10; Fighter 1/4 ]

  [ Footwork lvl 9 ]

  [ Dodging lvl 7 ]

  [ Blocking lvl 4 ]

  A small part of Evot is downright giddy at the way she managed to power level her skills just now. She suspects that interesting things will happen when getting her Fighter class to four out of four, but that will come later. Now, she has a ruin to climb.

  The track towards one of the few still standing buildings is fraught with more minor earthquakes. All around them, the fragile ruins shake, dust falling from high places in bright streaks of scattered powder. Here and there, cloying clouds rise to the sky, marking places where buildings failed to withstand the rigors of time, gravity, and the slowly increasing tremors. Also, Histaff taking every single carbon molecule from their 'crete load-bearing walls is sure to have done a number on the structures. The difference between expensive corporate buildings and cheaply made housing projects is more pronounced than ever. The layered and well-painted monstrosities that used to house solar system spanning monopolies are still standing. Evot peers over a nearby edge to look below, and sees a sea of cheap concrete turning to dust cover the lower levels.

  Half an hour of climbing later, she manages to catch glimpses of the horizon once again. Holding on to an empty doorway to a non-existent balcony, Evot sees the horizon move. Large waves of white mountains, thin trails of red seeping from cracks here and there, are creating horizon spanning dust clouds. Her face going even paler, the true scale of the infection dawns on the woman. Grabbing onto the synthetic doorpost even tighter with white-knuckled hands, she starts to understand. Every single living being, from smallest insect to meat animal, and from deep-sea leviathan to the office working sapients, are inside those mountains. Every single drop of water and every single carbon atom on the entire planet has been gathered by those biological horrors.

  “Alright, I’ve seen enough. Let’s get moving.” Douglas follows her silently, not commenting on her sudden change of mood. The sun sets below the horizon, but Evot and Douglas have been walking in shadow long before the sky goes dark. The blackness of night and the moonless sky is once again no obstacle for both flame-eyed humanoids, and they trod along through the fallen temple to civilized colonialism that used to be the capital of the entire planet.

  Only when the sun comes up, and the buildings start becoming lower once again do they break the silence. “Punch me.”

  Douglas immediately complies, sending a stone covered fist out, aimed at Evot’s head. She manages to duck with a small shriek.

  [ Dodging lvl 8 ]

  Staring at the newly covered arm of Douglas, she takes note that the runes and lines carved into the multicolour rock are of a more intricate nature than the scribbles on the rest of his body. Evot chides herself for wasting time with moping and morosely thinking about the death of an entire planet. Instead, she could have been trying to get new skills and level her class. Douglas sure seemed to have been using his time right, as his previously broken arm is covered in stone. “Again.”

  This time, she tries to catch the punch on crossed arms. She flies backwards, her footing immediately broken, dark spots appearing on her forearms indicating deep tissue damage. She shakes it off as she stands up and tries to walk it off. “Again.”

  [ Blocking lvl 5 ]

  “You punch me,” comes Douglas's request.

  Evot gladly does so, and is nursing a painful fist seconds later. “You suck at dodging.”

  “Again.”

  Evot tries to elbow him, but the skeleton manages to lurch away. Evot overextends and falls on her face. Muttering all kinds of words that sounds like cursing, but isn’t, she gets back up and glares at Douglas.

  The duo continues moving towards the centre of the city at a steady pace, occasionally breaking out into small scuffles as either one wants to try a new bit of information supplied by their slowly levelling skills.

  Chapter Sixteen – Bone Piercing Bones

  Douglas is pretty happy with himself. This new being he has been hanging out with has turned out to be much more fun and helpful than Katare. She was pretty useless and somewhat annoying at first, but the horned woman has really come around. The new spell shapes she made for him are all kinds of amazing in and of themselves, let alone the new skills that she has been helping him level.

  For the first time since he’s gotten them, the skills of his Fighter class have shown some form of progress. The physical fighting skills had not risen a single level in a long, long time, and the few hours tussling with the woman raised each of them at least once! His Dodging skill has even risen a full three levels
, now sitting halfway to its cap at level five.

  But the spells she makes… A very faint tingle shoots up his spinal column as he thinks of the new assortment of spells sitting at the corner of his mind. The ever-present spell shape of Death is still rather overbearing, but the growing collection of smaller spells is starting to rival that monster in combined complexity. Especially the Piercing Exploding Shot spell shape has been an eye-opener for the skeleton.

  There is one aspect where she has not been able to help him, though. The thought of creating his own spell shapes - or modifying them - has crossed his mind once, but he honestly doesn’t see himself creating the complex formations. He tried once during the long walk through the city, but his mind just doesn’t seem capable of the feat. The only reason Douglas is even capable of casting the spells is because of the blue boxes placing them inside his mind’s eye when he learns them. And even then, he casts them by going through them piece by piece, painting in the spell shape with a single mental mana brush.

  The mana hand spell, a single larger symbol surrounded by less than a dozen runes, seems to be the limit of what he can cast without some form of Skill aid. And Douglas is totally fine with that because Douglas doesn’t really see the problem. Where flesh and blood beings would worry about this seeming mental handicap and limitation, Douglas just thinks it’s rather commendable that Evot can make spells.

  Instead of thinking thoughts that will only lead to an existential crisis, Douglas has been way too busy with covering his freshly regenerated arm in stone armor. Looking at bare bone can’t be beat, of course, but the security the skeleton feels at seeing both his arms once again safely encased in a thick shell of rock is on another level. He also physically engraved Magical Animation channels into his new arm covering. Already, he feels the magic flow smoother through the hollowed out runes and formations present in the film of grey, brown, and yellow stone. The rest of his body is still covered in red rock, the mana channels made by pushing mana through solid matter.

  “Despite everything, this is a really pretty view.”

  Turning towards his fleshy companion, Douglas asks, “Why?”

  “Just look around!” Her brows furrow as she looks at Douglas. “Just look at all that, you dumb bonehead. Isn’t this very pretty and majestic, in a macabre sort of way?”

  Douglas takes in his surroundings again. The average height of the buildings had started lowering a few hours ago. They’d travelled through the wrecked maze of partially decayed concrete, roads, monorail lines, and other crumbling megastructures. The amount of semi-intact buildings had lessened the further they walked, and they seem to have reached the inner edge of the loop. Evot talked about the capital a bit now and then. Douglas had expected a hive-like warren of interconnection buildings, sprawling tunnel networks, and large superstructures everywhere. Instead, he is now looking out over yet another wasteland.

  The center of the city seems to have been turned into a rather shallow bowl, filled with sand, dust, and chunks of concrete. Douglas is standing still at the end of a highway; the dark road ending abruptly. To the sides, he sees the ruins go on in a massive circle. Opposite the vast empty field, he sees more ruins. The scale of the ring of abandoned architecture is massive, but the view is nothing impressive.

  “No.” Ignoring the sigh coming from the woman, Douglas starts making his way down towards the ground below.

  “Don’t you even want to know why it’s shaped like this?”

  “No.”

  “But this area should be the most densely built area on the planet! What caused it to be turned into this?”

  Hopping down to the ground, Douglas sends a small burst of power to the hinge actuator formations covering his knees. He lands perfectly, having calculated how much mana he needs to dampen the fall through his Mathematics skill.

  “It’s like something massive wandered around here, for years! The biggest piece of a building I can see is less than ten metres long! It’s like everything was ground down over a decennia, leaving this barren wasteland filled with building gravel and concrete dust.”

  Douglas does admit that the stone here and in the ruins behind him is something else. The red sand he had been using made his first version of bone armor has been flaky and brittle at best. The greyish brown stone he finds here has proven to make much sturdier plating, even before adding magical reinforcements. Other than that, the woman is once again starting to become more annoying than useful.

  “Those partially activated spell shapes really freak me out now. It wasn’t this bad when I didn’t realize what you were doing, but now it gives me shivers each time I look at you partially casting something. Here, I made this one for you.”

  Dropping both the rock and the partially casted Decalcinate spell, he turns to look at Evot. She is glaring at her hand, where another of the weirdly circular spell shapes is starting to form. Douglas’s previous thoughts of her being useless vanish like dust in the wind. The way her spells start with a rune circle instead of a central rune or symbol is mind-blowing to the skeleton. Having the mana continuously flow through the initial circle as a way to control the spell is one of these concepts he just can’t get his mind around. It’s as if that idea is too big to fit inside his skull, no matter how hard he tries.

  [ New spell learned; Stone Moulding ]

  “This one only partially gasifies the stone - I’m not calling it calx - you are working with. You can then use the initial area designation as a moulding tool, using the third phase of the spell. You can use the fourth stage to turn stone into air at a controlled pace. You can use that feature to carve out those lines you've been doing by hand. It will be tedious, controlling a field through those primitive mana flow input methods, but I think that isn't something that will stop you.”

  His head spinning with the implications of this new spell shape and her explanation, Douglas totally ignores the feeling that she is making fun of him somehow. He grins fiercely at the woman, and returns to his task of upgrading the bone armor on the rest of his body to version two point zero.

  The duo once again descends into silence, trotting along the now much flatter terrain as they walk towards the central point of the wasteland. A dumpy round structure sticks up at the centre of the shallow depression, far away, and Douglas happily lets Evot lead him as he works. Sometime later, his mana is depleted, and his other arm is covered in grey stone, the softly glowing blue lines and runes now much neater and straighter. Looking at the woman huffing and puffing next to him, he reaches out a hand and lays it on top of her sweaty head. He moves his bony digits side to side a bit, ruffling her streaky black hair into a further mess. She slowly cranes her neck to look up at Douglas, but the skeleton ignores her totally flabbergasted and baffled stare. Instead, he allows the blue dot to expand into its true vision blocking form.

  [ Blocking lvl 2 ]

  [ Dodging lvl 5 ]

  [ Footwork lvl 2 ]

  [ Punching lvl 5 ]

  [ Mana Control III lvl 30 ]

  [ Mana Control has reached lvl 30; Apprentice Arcanist 1/8 ]

  [ Meditation III lvl 26 ]

  [ Mana Sense III lvl 27 ]

  [ Spell Shaping III lvl 30

  [ Spell Shaping has reached lvl 30; Apprentice Arcanist 2/8 ]

  [ Engraving III lvl 23 ]

  [ Magical Animation III lvl 27 ]

  [ Mathematics III lvl 22 ]

  [ Partial Casting III lvl 15 ]

  If memory serves him right, and memory is one of the few mental skills in which Douglas feels pretty confident, his Mathematics skill is the lowest of the eight he needs to get to level thirty. “Tell me mathematics.”

  “Alright? Sure, I guess. You try punching me, then.”

  Another earthquake shakes the ring of ruined buildings around them. They see, and after a few seconds, hear, unstable properties tumble toward the ground. Dust clouds rise here and there as the aftershocks cause more buildings to fall. “Shouldn’t we be worried about that?”

 
“Why?” is Douglas’s elegant retort as he tries to punch Evot’s lights out. Instead of bashing her brains in with his newly Animated arm, Evot glides around his punch, landing a soft hit against his red ribs.

  “Because there seems to be a lot of very large and very dangerous Histaff Gargantuans after us?”

  “Okay. You can worry then.” Douglas tries kicking at her, but as he is mid-step during the attempt, even his well developed Mathematics skill can’t supply the solution needed to keep him standing.

  “I’ll either become Histaff food, or I won’t. That’s a fifty percent chance, right?”

  [ Mathematics III lvl 23 ]

  “Right.” Douglas, who is slightly overwhelmed with processing the, up to that point, completely unknown concept of chance and percentages, fails to react to another punch by Evot. Instead of it being a useless slap, Douglas notices that it is actually a useless slap with a glowing explosion at the end.

  “Wow. So that’s how I do that. Douglas, let me punch you some more!”

  “No. Mathematics.”

  “Derive me this, you big bonehead!”