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

by Andries Louws

  She is shaken from these sobering realizations when Douglas comes in, and in his Douglas way, just heads towards the problem. No questions, no complaining, just walking where he needs to go. Then she comes face to face with a new type of Histaff, the fight with the flying buggers getting her blood pumping. Seeing Douglas cast his magic just like that, like it isn’t a massive mental strain to even from the most basic spell, gets her fired up. The mass of screaming civilians and other people that had followed them doesn’t even register, as Evot is way too fascinated by Douglas and his magic.

  “Wow, the base scanners did not pick those up at all,” she tells Douglas. The sonic mapper only shows the massive Gargantuans coming their way, not even showing a hint of these small fry. Wondering where they come from, as none of these ones appeared during Douglas and her trek through across the planet, Evot starts feeling brave. “Hey, let me have this one!”

  The fireball she produces is but a pale imitation to Douglas’ perfectly cast magic. Hearing the air being chopped into pieces just around the sloping corner, she tosses it preemptively. The fact that two Histaff show up scared the shit out of the small woman, and she loses control of the fireball. To her amazement, Douglas repeats her mistake, letting his next two fireballs explode before hitting his target. Instead of busting into boiling goop and bone shards, the Reworked hit by the wave of exploded fireballs all start to burn. They curl into small balls, their white exoskeleton blackening while their red slime interiors bubble and boils.

  Walking around the corner, wavering fireball in hand, Evot sees the ruined entrance that Douglas had punched himself through. The crumpled remains of the doors are still lying off to the side, covered in rubble and red dust. Through the ragged opening, Evot sees their doom. The entire horizon is taken up by moving mountains. She’d thought that the rolling mass of slime and bone that had chased Douglas and her from the fallen space elevator was a massive creature. Now she sees the error of her ways, and true understanding dawns. Through the frayed doorway of the GalaxSec base, she sees the sum of all life on her planet, moving towards her.

  “Oh, sleepers take us all!” she whimpers. She knew that this was happening, but the actual realization hadn’t quite set in yet. Every single person she ever knew, all the grass, all the animals, all the birds and the fish and all the seas and rivers. All of that biomass and water, now moving towards her, wanting nothing more than to take her flesh and bones too. “We are boned, right?”

  Douglas makes some stupid comment about bones, but Evot doesn’t even hear it. The two Shmee’s have also caught up, having left a line of slime-covered sapients in their path.

  Then the stupidest thing happens that Evot has experienced since she returned to life. Douglas fireballs another Reworked insectoid, and the Shmee’s admit to having forgotten about magic. The two most genius mind on the planet, the two beings who are specifically bioengineered to be the smartest sapients in the universe, admit to such a stupid oversight. A fireball nearly springs into her hands unbidden, and it’s only through great strength of will that she resists smiting the two grey idiots with magical fire. Her fury melts as she looks outside again, seeing the massive threats coming their way. “Not now, please.” She chides the Shmees, turning to the metal-clad skeleton. Douglas, can you…”

  As Douglas steps outside, bright spells springing up around in a dazzling display of magical control, Evot and the Shmees step closer to the door. Evot wishes that she could just close her eyes, that by not seeing those horrors, they would stop existing.

  Using the icy hand gripping her heart into a stern expression, she turns to the two Shmee’s. “Look here, you amazing idiotic mongrels, how do we leave? We cannot fight that.”

  Ungud stares as Evot. “As I said, you don’t fight Histaff on a planet they’ve managed to dig into.”

  The curvy one jabs Ungud in the ribs, leans over, and whispers into Evot’s ear. “The plan to activate the landing engines was just a way to keep the masses calm. Standard crowd control tactics. We cannot leave, and will all die. No need to cause unneeded panic. But that was before we really worked through the implications of mana.”

  Evot looks outside, and sees Douglas stepping to the side. A white flash hits the ground where he just stood, a spray of bone fragments and red goop telling of a missing Reworked suicide attack.

  Ungud huddles closer. “Yeah, that was our bad. We really thought it was a purely theoretical path at first, but seeing you and Douglas throw fireballs really opened our eyes!”

  Mouth agape, Evot looks at the two grey beings. Before the implication of what they just admitted to can truly percolate through her mind, a bright light distracts her. Turning back to look at the door, she sees Douglas crowned in glorious destruction. The shining skeleton is surrounded by orbs of pure illumination. She counts at least a couple dozen of the miniature stars. Then, without Douglas moving a single nanometer, the shining spell shapes split. Her mouth falls open wider as she realizes what the skeleton is doing. Her jaw starts unfolding then, the alien sensation of her flesh splitting into paper freaking her out way less than she expected. A small realization strikes her, the knowledge that her flesh and blood is as much organic matter as crystalweave after the change. Storing away that small bit of knowledge for later, she gathers her own thoughts.

  Looking at the scene of Douglas acting like an aloof demi-god, a shining deity surrounded by suns, she finds that she feels all kinds of warm inside. Knowing that Douglas is using the spell she designed for him just tickled her pink. She then turns to the two grey beings, all business now. “Okay. What do you need to get us out of here?”

  Ungud tears his eyes from the spell casting skeleton long enough to answer. “If we can actually, and I mean actually, as in practically and efficiently, not just theoretically like a nice thought experiment, increase the yield of the landing thrusters, we can be out of here in an hour.”

  The curvy Shmee happily nods in agreement, not looking away from the spectacle that is Douglas.

  Evot makes a decision then. “Get him down there. I think he can remotely engrave stuff, but it’s a lot slower. I can’t do a fraction of what he’s able to, and I’ll be able to keep the Histaff from flooding the base for a while.”

  Shaking from nerves, and internally screaming at the stupidly heroic thing she is doing, she shatters Douglas’ latest spell. Evot feels like he will not go without complaining, not when there is so much bone being destroyed out here. So Evot uses the same trick he used against her, and breaks his spell shape with a wave of her mana. She ignores the two Shmee’s picking up the flailing skeleton and prepares herself for battle.

  And that’s how Evot finds herself facing a storm of Histaff flyers, while the one she initially called up here to fight with the Histaff is being carted off downstairs by the two Shmees. Wondering what the hell she is thinking, sending him away, she calls back the paper scattered around her. At the very least, she is slowly beginning to understand what her new race is all about.

  The High part is pretty obvious. She looks prettier, feels stronger, can think slightly faster, and feels better overall. The Crystalweave part is also rather obvious in hindsight. She is pretty thankful that she is used to seeing bodily gore at this point, specifically her own body. Because seeing her finger unravel into a long and translucent strip of paper would have thrown her off otherwise. Twirling around, she snatches the four sheets of paper from the air, shakes off the Histaff goo before sucking them back into her body. She then lowers herself, avoiding a dive bomb attack of a rather large fish-like Histaff, while skittering sideways to dodge one of the first walking Reworked she has come across. The fish is out of reach within a split second, but the walking beast gets turned into nice little cubes as Evot sends paper streamers shooting from her feet while kicking at the thing.

  Then she realizes what she is doing, and immediately sprints for the base opening. She receives a deep cut on her shoulder the moment she enters, and is honestly relieved to see red blood well up f
rom the wound. With a bit of concentration, she manages to make a part of her skin peel upwards, laying it flat over the wound. The skinned piece of her upper shoulder feels painfully sensitive for a few seconds, before a slight blue glow brings relief.

  Evot then swears to herself to never make impulsive life-changing decisions again. Her body feels like her own body on a surface level, but she can’t deny that something really freaky and unnatural is going on. She feels like flesh and blood at points, and the next moment she feels like she can just unroll at any moment. Turning back to the entrance, she unwraps her middle finger into a long, thin strip of translucent paper and starts slicing away at the many Histaff monsters that start crowding the door.

  “Evot,” chimes a voice from her badge as she is stuffing a large Reworked caterpillar into the empty doorframe.

  “What?”

  “You okay?”

  “Yes…” she half lies. “I’m okay.”

  “Ungud says four hours. I’ll be up in two.”

  “Good, I’ll manage until the-” Her words are cut off as she is slammed backwards. A vicious bipedal Histaff is glaring down at her, wiping its face clean from the remnants of the Reworked he bursts through to get at her. She was using that to block the door in the hope that they would hesitate to damage one of their own. Her damp hair rustles in the sudden breeze coming from its mouth as it stalks closer. She then realizes what she is doing, and that a normal human being will never be able to fight anything Histaff related, and that she already died to these horrors once.

  Evot is frozen. She is completely unable to move, images of her last memories replaying themselves. Images from back when she was just an office worker. Then flashes of memory interject themselves again. Her being on a space station, the telltale curve of the floor a giveaway that is was a simple ring construct. The beast stalks ever closer as her life flashes before her eyes. Then a sputtering fireball hits the large being in the face, and it stumbles backwards.

  Looking back, she sees a very pale and trembling Invigilator Klattio fall to the floor. His wrinkled face is set in an odd expression, which she barely manages to recognize as a combination of shock and awe. He is now sitting in front of a large crowd of panicking people, sapients of all kinds and races looking on with fear displayed on their various extremities. Evot is mortified. She was distracted for only a split second, and before she was even able to react, one of the Reworked had knocked her into a daze.

  “Evot?”

  “Please shut up. I need to concentrate.”

  “Okay,” comes from her badge.

  Evot wonders whether or not she should have chosen such a buggy and unknown race as her left hand falls apart into loose papers. Focusing her will and mana on the fluttering sheets, they fly back into her sleeve and re-form into her arm. She then punches out suddenly, pouring mana into a Piercing Shot in the meantime. The tight packet of frost shoots ahead, attached to her arm with a strip of her unravelling fist. It slams right through the roaring and burning Reworked, which slowly freezes. She pulls the rapidly spinning spike of ice back, and throws it forwards again, shattering the large Reworked into pieces. The doorway fills with chunks of bone plating and dripping goo, and she sees the next threat coming.

  Still very confused about how she is actually doing any of this, and purposefully ignoring the fact that she is not freaking out about her body turning into paper, she weaves a rough grid. She barely has her strips of living material strung up and locked behind bent bolts and wall fractures when a Reworked bursts through. It immediately bursts open, also, the immensely thin lengths of crystalline paper having cut it apart. Evot then realizes what she is actually doing, stringing her hand turned into a long strip in front of a door. Holding back the bile rising in her stomach, she pulls the limb back, forming a simple fireball with her other hand. The moment her hand is whole again, she feels better. The nausea feels the same as the one that came with mana depletion, and she quickly calls up an abbreviated status while tossing the magical spell towards the door.

  [ Name: Evot Gilihezal ]

  [ Race: Crystalwoven Soulbound High Human ]

  [ Level: 7 (5.481/6.400) ]

  [ Class: Associate Arcane Archivist 10/10 ]

  [ HP: 123/147 ] [ HP/h: 0.08 ]

  [ MP: 12/580 ] [ MP/h: 41 ]

  [ Armored Core ]

  [ Darkvision ]

  [ Universal Language ]

  [ Soul Instability ]

  She first goes pale at the lack of mana at her disposal. She then quickly asks what the Soul Instability is about. She Speed Reads about how she can't change her race for NAN days due to her body and soul mismatching and pales even further. Her fireball turns the screeching flying Histaff into a flailing inferno as she gathers her mental faculties. Its spastic death throes block the door for precious seconds. Taking a deep breath, knowing that her mana pool is empty anyway, she does what she had agreed on would be a very bad idea.

  “Apprentice Arcane Archivist, please,” she squeaks out before she can regret it. She knows that she will lose a good chunk of her stats while her skills level, but the only way she can see herself holding out for two hours in total is if she can either improve her current skills, or is to get some kind of new skill.

  [ Apprentice Arcane Archivist; Very well versed in the archiving arts of collecting, organising, and controlling records, as well as the magical skills of the scholar, the Apprentice Arcane Archivist has a mana fueled grip on their assigned collections. Whether they be documents, artefacts, images, or items, the Archivist knows them best, both their content, where they are stored, and how they should be catalogued and used. Skills; Archival Assessment, Archival Appraisement, Speed Reading, Indexing, Meditation, Mana Sense, Mana control, Spell shaping, Magical Memory, Multicasting, Mana Imbuement, Mana Animation. ++++INT ++WIS ++AGI ]

  [ New skill learned; Mana Imbuement III lvl 1 ]

  [ New skill learned; Mana Animation III lvl 1 ]

  First Evot looks up at the door. Quickly using her dwindling mana supply to roast yet another Histaff monstrosity, she asks what is going on with those skills. Using her Speed Reading skill, she quickly learns that the Mana Imbuements skills allows her to seep mana into objects, enhancing certain attributes. The Mana Animation skill allows her to move items with imbued mana, without a need for complex engravings or patterns. The implications are rather mind-boggling, and Evot is almost afraid to try it out. Shrugging that it might not matter soon anyway - she was constantly suspecting that this entire journey might end with her being Histaff food - she wills her pointy finger to unroll into a crystalline paper streamer. The transition from flesh and blood to translucent sheets is as weird and fascinating as ever.

  Then Evot uses the slight bit of information she managed to glean from the two skills, and her finger starts glowing like a plasma sword. She then starts thinking that it’d be really neat if her finger could please be sharp. Also, if it could then please start hacking at the new Reworked forcing itself through the door, that would also be nice. Her finger gets to work. Leaving bright streaks in everyone’s eyes, the glowing ribbon starts chopping bone plates like it’s cutting through paper. Feeling that she can recall the mana at any moment and that the imbuement and animation use but a fraction of the embedded power, she smiles something fierce.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven – Promises of the Nicest Life

  “Stop that noise, please. I don’t know how it is so immensely grating to me, which is vexing in and of itself.”

  Douglas stops singing his internal song. Without him noticing, he had started humming some melody again. This time, not out of happiness. No, this melody has been a good bit sadder and creepy than his previous musical musings. The mainstay of his attention is still on his job of remotely engraving things, but apparently, he has enough thinking capacity left to start singing.

  “Thank you. Now, can we continue?” asks Ungud. Before Douglas can even answer, the Shmee has turned back to the screen he and his girl are working on.


  “Yes,” he sullenly replies. Douglas still doesn’t really get why Evot had done that to him. The Mana Backlash status effect might be gone already, the skeleton still feels a lingering pain in the area of his mind reserved for spell shapes. His dead eyes take in the duo of enthusiastically chattering Shmees as he continues pushing a trickle of his mana through the steel beneath him. His bony self is unable to get enthusiastic about the complex stuff the grey duo is raving about. Barely able to look past his current petulant and sullen mood, the skeleton starts trying to listen in on the conversation the two are having anyway.

  “This main beam can handle that, though. We might need to reinforce the upper layers if exceeding twenty Gs.”

  “You do realize we need to up the efficiency and performance of the landing thrusters with a couple of thousand percent in order to get that kind of acceleration, right?”

  “That won’t be a problem. I tried it on a small scale, and casting a…” Here the female Shmee takes a deep, slimy breath before continuing to talk. “…casting one of those phlogistonate spells inside the engine compartment increases thrust by three thousand per cent. Those spells are effective even if they are built upon the worst premise ever devised. The one coming up with this phlogiston and calx nonsense needs to be vaporized.”