Downfall And Rise

by Nathan Thompson

  Now that I thought about it, I probably needed to give her more credit too.

  Especially since I didn't find empty wine bottles in the trash anymore.

  That was another reason to get better, I realized. I wasn't just improving my own future. I wasn't just ensuring I could still have goals and dreams. I was ensuring that my mother could start sleeping better at night. I was ensuring that my sister and her friends wouldn't have to keep looking out for me, even though they were all at least two years younger than me. I was ensuring that Davelon wouldn't have to give up anything because I was too weak to protect myself, and that Christina could see that her support for me mattered in the long run.

  If I won, if I beat whatever this condition was, then my friends and family would too.

  So I had to get back to Avalon and keep winning.

  Chapter 18: Three Steps Forward

  I looked up at the mist. It had worked, I realized. I couldn't describe exactly how I did it, except to say that stimulating my brain, and then exhausting it right before bed seemed to be what worked best. I didn't have it down perfectly yet, but I knew that I could at least get back to Avalon pretty reliably now. That thought made me very happy.

  “It worked,” I muttered, looking down at myself. I was wearing some long-sleeved tunic and vest with leather pants. The back of my mind pointed out that I should probably find a way to get armor, but the rest of me was still focusing on the most important fact.

  “It worked,” I repeated much more loudly, and then before I knew it I was shouting. “It worked! It worked! Ha!”

  I started laughing loudly. I may have even danced a bit. Or maybe I didn't. No one saw me so I don't have to admit whether or not I did.

  I took off running, wanting to see how I improved for real here. My body back home had improved only slightly. Well, slightly in a sense. There is a big gulf of difference between 'one' and 'zero,' in my opinion. But here, I was theoretically just below Olympic levels of performance. Well, below Olympic levels during an event with perfect drug testing.

  At any rate, I wanted to see how fast I could move, how strong I was now.

  I wasn't disappointed.

  It felt like the ground was leagues below me as I ran. I moved better than I had even during the peak of my football days. I spent an uncountable amount of time running faster than I ever had, jumping farther than I ever had, and it wasn't even leaving me winded.

  Eventually I did get a little fatigued, after doing a sprint that would have left even Chris and Davelon back home retching up. After a couple of deep breaths, I started laughing again.

  “It worked!” I screamed. “IT WORKED! HELLO, AVALON!”

  “Stell, darling,” a mature woman's voice called out. “He's back. You wanted me to let you know, remember?”

  “Yes, Guineve,” Stell's voice called back. She sounded sarcastic. “Thank you so much for bringing that to my attention. Especially since this time I would have been completely surprised.”

  “Anytime, dear one,” Guineve called back in a cheerful, motherly voice. That was a surprisingly long conversation at this distance, I wondered. Did they have that much practice yelling at each other?

  It didn't matter.

  “Hello, beautiful and wonderful women of Avalon!” I called out. “I'm back!”

  “Welcome back, darling,” Guineve called out. “Head on over. We're both this way.”

  “Hi Wes,” Stell called out. “I'll be ready for you in a few minutes.”

  I took off in that direction, realizing that this was even more amazing than when I had first arrived here and found out that I could move around.

  “No,” I whispered to myself. “Calm down. Be cool, Wes. You're about to talk to people. Quit bouncing all over the place.”

  It mostly worked. I slowed down to an easy jog. (I could jog! Awesome! And I could do it for minutes without getting tired!)

  I mostly had it together by the time I reached Guineve's clearing. The raven-haired beauty was standing next to a table similar to the one they had set up for me last time.

  “Good morning, Wes,” Guineve said to me while setting down a white pitcher. “How are you this fine day?”

  “Good morning, Guineve. I'm better than I have been in years, thank you. And might I add that you look absolutely lovely today, as usual?”

  That part just slipped right out of me. I decided to blame it on the new Charisma score.

  Fortunately, my comment seemed to have pleased Guineve.

  “Why thank you dear,” Guineve replied with a broad smile that stayed on her face. She lifted up a saucer that had a white cup on it. “I believe you asked for coffee last time?”

  “Why, thank you, Guineve,” I replied with gusto. “I actually hate coffee! And I've always been afraid to admit it! But you made it so it must taste amazing and I can't wait to try it out! I'd love a cup!”

  Once again, Guineve chuckled and gave a contented sigh.

  “I have missed our little talks. Never change, Wes,”

  Actually, I figured I had changed a great deal. But this woman kept feeding me so I had every inclination to keep her happy.

  I took the cup and calmed myself down enough to take a careful sip. That's one of my problems with coffee, actually. It's not enough that you have to fiddle with it for several minutes until it has just enough cream or sugar. You have to drink it very carefully, give it time to cool, or it will get mad at you and bite your tongue. Soda and water are civilized drinks. They don't have that problem.

  And no, I can't speak for alcohol, because religious upbringing and head injury, remember?

  To my utter surprise, it tasted amazing.

  The first cup of coffee with just a hint of bitterness, like what chocolate had. And the sugar and cream felt like it was inherent to the drink itself, not like they were added at last minute, right when someone realized that they were about to drink something terrible and needed to mask the taste as best as they could.

  “Guineve,” I said, gulping down a mouthful. “This was the best cup of coffee I have ever had, and you may have redeemed the beverage for me.”

  “You're welcome, dear,” Guineve replied, still wearing a broad smile. “But you may want to wipe the cream off of your face.”

  That's right, I realized. There was whipped cream in the coffee. How did it get there, I wondered? And why didn't I notice it before?

  I tried to calm down again. I was reminding myself of Breena, and that was bad. I wondered if Breena felt like this all the time. It would probably explain a lot about her.

  “How did it go back home?” Guineve asked kindly. “Have you recovered from your first Challenge?”

  “Back home is fantastic,” I said, finally getting myself under control, and hoping I could stay that way.

  “My body is doing better than ever, and I have you all to thank for this opportunity.”

  “That's so good to hear,” The statuesque woman said sweetly. “Stell will be ready for you in a minute. And Breena's actually out right now. Thank you for what you did on your last visit, by the way.”

  “You're all welcome,” I replied. “Really. I'm glad to have helped. And it really wasn't that hard. Those things weren't anywhere near the stages everyone has worried about. And compared to dragons and all the other things I'm expecting Stell to eventually throw at me, those things were kind of easy.”

  Guineve sighed.

  “I hope we never have to deal with another Horde dragon,” Guineve replied sadly. “Only Stell and I really remember the last one.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “We lost,” the tall woman said simply. But a shadow hung in her eyes until she shook off the memory. Since she didn't elaborate, I didn't ask.

  “I'm sorry,” was all I said. I was relieved to see the pale woman chuckle again.

  “You shouldn't be. You've probably made sure we won't have to fight one again. But since you want us all to stop congratulating you about that, I'll let it go. Would you
like an omelette?”

  After another inexplicably delicious meal, I was on my way to see the Starsown. Or at least her primary body. That was still weird and hard to understand for me.

  When I got there, Stell had another surprise for me.

  Gone was the dark skin that suggested a mix of African and Hispanic descent. The black hair remained, but now it hung straight down, shining in the misty light of Avalon. It draped around light golden skin, with slightly slanted eyes and dark pupils. Her figure had slimmed out a tiny bit, and she seemed just a little taller. She was wearing similar clothing, only this time the writing on her shirt said, 'Never trust an atom, they make up everything.'

  She had lowered her head slightly when she saw me, as if she was nervous about how I'd react to her new appearance. I had no idea how to fix that, but I tried to put my best step forward.

  “Good morning Stell,”

  “Hi Wes,” she fidgeted slightly.

  “You look nice. I like your hair and shirt.”

  Because saying 'I like your new skin' didn't sound right to me no matter how many different ways I phrased the idea in my head.

  “Thank you,” she said, smiling and finally loosening up. Phew. Right call. “Um, how are you? How did... everything go back home?”

  I spread my arms.

  “Stell, I owe you both a huge thank you and a huge apology.” I began. “I've been doubting you and everyone else here. I've been lashing out whenever you said something harmless that I chose to take personally, about problems you didn't really know that. I'm sorry. And thank you for your patience. Even more than that, thank you for this huge opportunity. You've provided a way to both prove this is all real and provide me with an amazing chance to escape what I've always feared to be a completely hopeless situation. I'm yours. You want me to kill monsters, fine. You want me to fight Horde and save people from them, absolutely. There's no way I can repay the opportunity you've given me, and since I don't believe you'd ever ask me to do something evil or wrong, I want you to know that I will do anything you ask, to the best of my ability. I owe you, and even repaying you just helps my body all the more.”

  “You mean it worked?” The now-golden-skinned woman in front of me asked. “Er, I mean, of course it worked! But you noticed the change?”

  I nodded.

  “Muscles, balance, everything is better, to a degree I can easily notice. I'm still a long way from being cured, but you’ve given me my best opportunity to get my body back. I can never repay what you’ve just given me. Thank you..”

  “Oh, you,” Stell laughed. The sound hadn't changed one bit, despite everything else. “You're adorable. You're going to forget every time you save someone's life here, aren't you?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “I haven't really saved... anyone... oh. Right.”

  Doh.

  “Yes, well,” She continued, still chuckling. “Since you're so grateful for all the 'free help' we've given you, that totally has nothing to do with you growing on your own here, why don't we discuss how we can train you and prepare you for all those upcoming catastrophes I talked about before?”

  So we did. I was still giddy from earlier, so I tried not to be too goofy. It mostly worked. At least I was able to avoid asking her how she changed to look like an extremely beautiful woman from a different part of Earth every month. She volunteered some of that info anyway, explaining that since she showed me her Star-sown ability, the one that turned her eyes and ears gray, she had initiated another change. As far as she knows, the changes are completely random. She has no real control of how she looks like next and she's never really been able to figure out the pattern.

  She had volunteered all that information even though she seemed uncomfortable sharing it. At the same time, I wondered if she also was glad to have someone to talk to. The only people she saw here were either ones she had created herself, like Breena and Guineve, or god-like figures that visited from another world on business. And she had to wear a disguise to talk to those so that they would take her more seriously. I never even heard them use her real name. Just 'Lady Starsown.'

  She left the subject quickly, though. That didn't bother me, even though I still wanted to know more about her. We'd already visited this matter several times in the past. I was sure we'd revisit it again.

  We moved on to how I'd be saving the world, or worlds, and what I needed to know to do it. Everybody was still really, really impressed with my performance last time. I still felt like the whole thing was just handed to me on a platter, except for getting stabbed and cursed at the end. Thankfully they had long confirmed I was no longer cursed.

  Nobody could explain the warning I got about Malus and Invictus earlier, and they all got so mad every time I mentioned either name that I just gave up and let it go. That was frustrating because I knew doing that would come back to bite me but I couldn't think of a better idea until everyone calmed down about those two names and actually told me something about them.

  Still. If both figures were so mythical, why did everyone get so mad every time I said either name?

  Oh well. Hopefully, I wasn't some minor character in a book or something, and all this obvious, ominous foreshadowing wouldn't get me killed.

  My training was still combat-focused, even though every single problem that I encountered wouldn't be solved with violence. “Just most of them,” Stell had explained. I'd still need to know how to look for clues, talk to people, and not step on buttons that triggered Temple-of-Doom-style traps.

  But most of the problems of Avalon's different worlds were caused by things that go bump in the night. People outside of Earth just weren't dick-ish enough to back-stab each other when there was an invading army of pig-monsters to deal with, or a giant flying lizard wanting to burn their houses and eat all their damsels.

  The one thing that worried me more than dealing with fire-breathing multi-headed slathering hordes were Challenges based on diseases. Healing magic and medical knowledge were both [1][2]weak areas for me, although Breena assured me that she would grow in power with both as I kept Rising. But I would probably spend most of my time finding alternative ways to cure plagues instead trying to cure them directly with my own skills and powers.

  All of that was good thinking, Stell assured me, but my focus for now needed to be on staying alive. Sure, I could theoretically come back from the dead, even though the idea was completely untested on me so far now that I thought about it, but I wouldn't come back right away. That meant anyone I was trying to save would be in danger until I could resurrect and return to that world.

  When I asked about 'bind-points' like they had in my video games, Stell just glared at me.

  Then she said “yes, you sort of have them, but you still won't come back right away, so don't get used to dying.”

  I assured her it wouldn't be a problem and that I promised to tell her the moment I felt that dying would be addictive behavior.

  The main problem with training me was that Breena hadn't spent enough time seeing me in action to gauge what combat skills I needed to focus on, or what spells I should focus on learning. During the last Challenge we had all sprinted to help the hostages as soon as possible, and my little fairy admitted she hadn't been able to pay as much attention to me as she needed to. But, she had said when she arrived, she had a solution. One she was really excited about. Next Challenge she was going to leave entirely up to me. One that was significantly safer than the Horde and wouldn't feature any hostages to rush in and save. She wasn't going to give me any more details though. Every other concern I voiced was met with “Trust me, I have a plan!”

  Your skill with Short Blades has improved to Initiate, rank three. Your damage and accuracy bonus with short blades have both improved to 3%. Your Vital Strike Chance bonus with all weapons has increased by 3%.

  Your skill with Unarmed Fighting has improved to Initiate, rank three. Your damage and accuracy bonus with fighting unarmed have both improved to 3%. Your Natural Armor bonus has
increased by 3%.

  Your dangerous and strenuous physical exercise has improved your Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution by one point each.

  Your vital points are currently at 75%

  Your stamina points have just dropped to below 50%

  “See?” Breena called out next to me. “Look at all those increases! The training is working!”

  “No!” I shouted, sucking in breath with each swing, and ignoring the pain from half a dozen bite marks. “It!” swing. “Is!” Slash. “Not!” Stab.

  My blow finally landed on the hairy, fanged mess trying to leap up on me. It took it right through the mouth, piercing its vital guard and shredding its throat. I pulled my short sword back quickly, barely retaining the weapon as the gibber-kin wrenched itself off my weapon and into a choking pile at my feet. I used that respite to leap onto a higher outcropping of stone, one that the other gibber-kin would have trouble climbing.