Ascend Online

by Luke Chmilenko

  Instantly everything blurred as I teleported myself to the spot I had focused on, then I immediately felt myself falling forward until I landed on my chest and skidded to a stop.

  Wheezing to get the air back into my lungs, I felt a footstep on my back.

  “Oh!” Sierra said with a bit of surprise. “Hi Lyrian, taking a dirt nap? Or did you get your spell to work?”

  “Can’t it be both?” Caius laughed as Drace helped me up. “I take you didn’t mean to land on your face?”

  “I don’t even…” I spat while shaking my head. “Mleh, dirt.”

  As I rubbed the dirt off my tongue, I caught an alert in my vision. “At least I’m making progress… Alteration level three!”

  “Nice!”

  “Hey! You did it, Lyr!” Halcyon exclaimed happily as he caught up to us. “Well… aside from appearing a foot off the ground, I think you forgot about the downhill slope here… can you see what I mean now about the variables in the spell?”

  “No…” I wheezed as I took a deep breath to help regain my wind. “No… nothing like that, unfortunately. I… just picked a spot and thought very hard that I wanted to go there.”

  “Oh.” He sounded a bit disappointed.

  “I only have one arcane tree at level 9 so far, Halcyon…” I said trying to soothe him. “You have what, three all over level seven?”

  “True…” He sighed with a shrug. “Probably once you get a few more trees leveled up it’ll kick in.”

  “Here’s to hoping…”

  After taking a moment to brush myself off from my impromptu face plant, we set off walking again, ignoring the few creatures that crossed our path, but still taking the time to grab any Hollyleaf we came across.

  ‘Never hurts to have extra,' was my motto, which probably also explained why I normally beat video games while having an inventory full of unused potions.

  “So…” I began. “Everyone care to explain what sort of new skills they got at level 10 now? Or are we still keeping secrets?”

  “Heh.” Drace laughed before he started to explain his class choices. “I think we can spill the beans now…”

  “I chose Warrior, obviously, as my base class and grabbed a racial and class trait called Roots of the Mountain, which gives me decent bonuses against being knocked down or bull rushed out of the way. Plus a small bonus against physical stunning attacks.”

  “After that, I grabbed Shield Slam skill, which judging from the spikes on this shield is going to hurt anything it hits and possibly knock it down. Then I also grabbed the second rank of Power Attack.”

  Constantine began next. “As for me, I picked up a passive trait called Acrobatics, which gives me a crazy amount of flexibility and natural agility. Along with a pretty decent boost to my jump height.”

  “After that, I grabbed the second rank of Sneak Attack, along with the second rank of Power Attack. I’m ready to go full stabby-stabby on whatever decides to get in my way.”

  “Oh?” I rose an eyebrow in slight surprise at Constantine’s choices. “No Lockpicking or Trapfinding abilities that rogues usually get?”

  “Lockpicking was an option,” Constantine nodded as he began to explain. “But with us being all the way out in the wild, I figured it wasn’t the best choice. I was thinking with how popular we are back in Aldford, we could probably just ask whomever to unlock whatever it is we need to get into.”

  “Oh, also… Lockpicking was listed general skill, meaning anyone can learn Lockpicking if they wanted to.”

  “Hmm… good to know!” I filed that bit of information away for later. “We should all definitely learn that when we get a chance.”

  As soon as I finished that statement, I was met with exaggerated groans and grumbling.

  “Lyr! This is one of the reasons why we wanted to keep our skills a secret!” Sierra exclaimed mockingly “We know that as soon as you get wind of something useful that we can all learn, you give us a well-reasoned argument that somehow forces us to!”

  “Yeah!” Caius laughed loudly. “You’re going to turn us into some sort of Renaissance Adventurers!”

  “Well, if you rather let me keep all the loot from chests or doors I unlock…” I said slyly. “I could agree to that.”

  “Fuck that!” they all said at once.

  “Ha!”

  “Fine… add it to the list.” Sierra sighed begrudgingly. “I assume you have a list, right?”

  I laughed and evaded Sierra’s question by nodding my head at Constantine. “So, no traps?”

  “Nothing available to me…” Constantine said with a shrug. “I think it might be tied into Perception, to be honest, and possibly whatever voodoo sight you magic users have for magical traps…”

  “It’s Arcane Sight.” Halcyon breathed with a bit of exasperation. “With how much variety this game has, I actually wouldn’t be surprised if there was a Voodoo Sight of some sort.”

  “Take a bet?”

  “Sucker’s bet.” Halcyon shook his head at the rogue. “No way.”

  “Anyway…” I interrupted trying to get back on track. “How about your skills, Hal?”

  “Well, as you know, Arcane Sight for one,” Halcyon said as he started to list his abilities. “Which gives me the ability to see magic as a pale blue aura around things. I also grabbed a defensive spell called Force Shield, which is a channeled spell that lets me deflect, push or block anything directly in front of me, up to a point. It saved my ass this morning with the Horror, that’s for sure.”

  “My other offensive spell if you remember, is Pyroclap. It’s an instant explosion of arcane energy that I can conjure at a specific location. Super useful and self-explanatory I think.”

  Seeing that Halcyon was finished, Sierra jumped in. “As for me, I also upgraded my Sneak Attack to the next rank and picked up a new ability called Rapid Shot, which lets me fire arrows faster at the expense of slightly reduced damage and accuracy.”

  “And I also chose a racial and class ability called Windrunner’s Stride, which when activated lets me shoot arrows while running, at no penalty, along with a pretty good speed boost too! And before you ask, no, there wasn’t a Tracking ability to take either, I’m of the same mind as Constantine and that it’s somehow rolled into the Perception skill.”

  “You know me too well, Sierra.” I laughed. “That sounds great, though! You’ll have a ton of mobility to get around and be wherever you need to be!”

  “That’s my plan! Staying still is always a good way to get killed.”

  “How about you, Caius?” I prompted the warlock. “I remember you did something… odd this morning and healed me.”

  “Yeah…” he began. “A warlock is largely defined by what he chooses for a Patron … and like I mentioned to you this morning, I formed a Pact with a Blood Demon.”

  “What happened this morning wasn’t quite healing you, but more of just… giving you my health,” Caius said slightly wincing at the memory. “It’s from a new ability I have called Transference, which lets me transfer my life energy to anything that I’m touching.”

  “So you lose hit points when you use it?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I can roughly choose how much, though.” Caius nodded. “But for a short while, after I use it, I get an awesome buff called Lifevoid, which gives me a huge bonus to my next life draining spell depending on how much life I transferred. Which is why for my second spell, I picked Lifetap.”

  “Depending on the fight, I can nearly or sometimes completely heal myself with a single ‘tap’.”

  “That’s so cool!” Sierra exclaimed, “Good thing this game isn’t brutally heavy on needing healing, but I’m happy we have some heals available!”

  “For sure,” Caius said. “It’ll take me a while to be more reliable with heals, though. I saw a few other curses that do damage over time and life-drain, but they didn’t scale that well at this level, so I didn’t get any of them just yet.”

  “Eh?” Drace asked. “What was your third skill
then?”

  “Bloodsense.”

  “Sounds… ominous?” Constantine said a bit hesitantly.

  “It…” Caius paused as he tried to find the right words. “The best way I can describe it is as if I can hear the blood in living things close to me.”

  “I can hear all of your heartbeats since you’re all so close to me.” He paused then waved to his right. “Over there, it’s faint, but I hear a gentle sort of swishing. I think there’s some sort of creature further away… it’s hard to say.”

  “So if something were you sneak up on you, you’d pretty much just hear them coming?” I asked with a frown. “That sounds powerful!”

  “Well… maybe.” Caius shrugged. “It’s like standing in the middle of a crowd. You hear everything, but everyone is saying the same thing, how can you figure out which is which? If I were somewhere where there usually isn’t any life, then sure, I’d notice right away. Otherwise, it could just get lost in the noise of everything else around it.”

  “I still think that’s pretty awesome!” I said going through mental scenarios where such a skill would be useful.

  “So, what exactly is our plan right now, Lyr?” Sierra asked. “Anything more concrete than just going on a spider killing rampage?”

  “Hey sign me up for that!” Halcyon said excitedly. “Bad enough I’m wearing spider skin…”

  “Not really to be honest.” I shook my head as I tried to come up with a mental map of how much of the Webwood we’d explored. “I sort of remember the direction I hunted in a few days ago when I first found Natasha, I figured to head in that direction and go from there.”

  “Makes sense.” Sierra nodded, then perked up as the trees started to clear. “Finally, we’re out of the trees! Let’s stop for a drink, I’m thirsty.”

  With a spring in our steps, we made our way out of the forest and to the shore of Crater Lake, when something caught my eye. “Hang on, are those webs?”

  I squinted at the nearby trees, watching silky strands billow in the wind.

  “Damn!”

  “What’s wrong, Lyr?” Drace asked, following my gaze.

  “I think the Webwood is growing.”

  Chapter 25

  Somewhere

  Nemesis

  I extended my claws as I stretched, raking deep furrows into the ground while I shook myself awake. Out of habit, I began to groom myself, licking down stray fur and cleaning dirt off my body. It was only then I realized something was different, and finally understood what I had experienced the day before.

  I am! I exist! I can think! The revelation caused my fur to stand on end as a new emotion flooded me.

  Ecstasy.

  Eyes closed in bliss, my mind thought back to the Two-Leg I had killed, the one whose death had gifted me with this newfound awareness of self. I remembered the whispers starting in my mind moments after sinking my teeth into its head, the next thing I knew I was running across the woods as if chased by a stampede, everything afterward just a blur.

  As the ecstasy of the kill began to fade, I opened my eyes, looking about the den that I found myself in. I was surrounded by dirt, with several thick tree roots growing from the earth above me. The entire burrow was riddled with claw marks, my claw marks, I realized as a brief memory of fear surfaced, one that led me to hide here.

  Sniffing fresh air, I left the burrow and pushed myself out into the forest. It was different than I remembered – the trees now covered in silky strands.

  The Many-Legs encroach, it is no longer safe here. I realized it would be time to leave this forest for another hunting ground soon.

  My eyes played across the surrounding area as I carefully searched for threats. Finding nothing, I turned to stride back towards the Ridge, where I knew things would be safer.

  A familiar compulsion suddenly struck me, freezing me in place as invisible strands coiled around my body. I felt the presence of the Two-Leg in the distance.

  How?! My mind reeled, I had tasted the creature’s blood, felt it die beneath my claws! Why did it still live?!

  The compulsion fanned my instinct, to find the Two-Leg, to attack it once more, and ensure its proper demise, whatever the cost may be. My newfound reason, however, bade me to flee, far away from what I didn’t understand, and the strange Two-Leg that would not die.

  The compulsion intensified, forcing itself deep into my mind. I felt a paw move, a halting step forward, as control was taken from me, quickly followed by another. I struggled to regain control, but there was nothing I could do.

  I was trapped.

  ***

  The Webwood

  “SKREEEEEEEeeeeeeee!”

  “Not bad!” Drace congratulated me as a splashing sound echoed from the distance. “My turn!”

  SPLORT

  “Oh dear…”

  “Ugh… oh god… WHY?!” Halcyon started to shout as Drace, Caius and I started laughing.

  In the day since we’d last hunted in the Webwood, it had drastically expanded. Fresh webbing covered trees all the way to the Aldford side of Crater Lake and after taking a moment to reflect, it had been quite a while since I remembered seeing a snake, beetle or fox cross our path.

  After pausing for a drink at the lake, we followed the shoreline towards our old hunting grounds. It didn’t take long before we started spotting spiderlings nestled high in the trees or inside bushes. Initially, our plan was to bypass all the spiders we could and make our way deeper into the woods hoping that the level difference would keep the critters off of us.

  Unfortunately, we ran into a problem.

  The second we approached the tree line, a horde of spiderlings practically leaped from the trees to attack us, in numbers that were far too great for even a group of level 10s to safely ignore.

  The forest was quite literally crawling with angry spiders.

  That horde quickly multiplied as we instinctively pulled back to the shoreline, catching the attention of dozens of other spiderlings perched on nearby neighboring trees. A somewhat hectic battle later, had us reconsidering our approach as we recovered from the surprising aggressiveness the Spiderlings had displayed.

  “Let Constantine and I sneak around quietly through the forest,” Sierra suggested. “…I can’t quite place it… but something feels off to me about the way the spiders are acting…”

  Happy to leave it in Sierra’s hands, Drace, Halcyon, Caius and I stayed behind near the shore while she and Constantine crept north into the Webwood expertly evading the spiderlings notice.

  I should really work on my stealth skill, I thought wistfully to myself as I saw them disappear into the brush, the level difference finally working in our favor.

  For a while, we stayed vigilant, prepared to rush forward in aid if a horde of spiderlings fell on them, but their practice and patience served them well, and we quickly felt them make their way deeper into the woods.

  Whatever skill they had at evading notice, though, didn’t transfer to the rest of us. Even as we stood still near the shoreline, a handful of spiderlings would occasionally catch sight of us and spring from the forest in a suicidal attack.

  After getting over the excitement of the first few Spiderling assaults, the lack of challenge and experience caused boredom to quickly set in. So to help pass the time, until Sierra and Constantine returned we invented a new sport, Spider Punting, which unfortunately Halcyon had found himself on the worse end of.

  “I… ugh…” Halcyon was knee deep into the lake, feverishly trying to wash off the ichor covering his face and armor.

  “Sorry, Hal.” Drace shrugged in slight mock apology. “I didn’t think the critter would… explode like that. I guess I must have kicked it too hard!”

  “You guess?!” Halcyon shrilled sarcastically. “By all the gods that exist in this game and in Reality, I am going to put so many fucking snakes in your bed when I can find ones big enough…”

  “I think you got a solid twenty-five feet on that one, Lyr.” Caius chuckled. “Though I th
ink Drace may have beat you if his spider hadn’t, uh… malfunctioned.”

  “Heh.” I laughed. “I was going to go with lost containment.”

  “I can hear you two!” Halcyon called as he began shuffling out of the water.

  “Uh. I think they’re on their way back now,” Drace said suddenly looking off into the woods.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, sensing Sierra and Constantine gradually approaching. “They’re getting closer…”