Future Mage
Page 13
The map listed the doors on either side of him as storage, which wouldn’t get him anywhere. Then the yellow light blinked again to his right, and Max slid slowly down the corridor leading to the elevator shaft.
The shaft was literally on the other side of the wall to his left, and he might have been able to disintegrate and blast his way through. But Sandwalkers weren’t deaf.
He headed down the corridor, reaching out to disintegrate the wall beside him so he’d be ready for the next creature he found down here.
He decided to try his power Lightwave, and found that he could let off a steady, low-level light beam that only drained his energy reserves at a couple units per second.
When the corridor ended, it was really weird to find himself stepping out into what was clearly the ship’s mess hall—filled with Sandwalkers.
The two long tables, each with long metal benches on either side, were bolted to the floor and slanted slightly downward with the rest of the ship. The Sandwalkers might have turned this into a smaller nest within the ship.
Max counted fourteen, their Health stats ranging from 23% to 89%. Maybe half of them rested against the closest bench, lounging around like they’d just had some kind of wild party and forgotten how chairs were used. The rest did the same thing against the other table’s bench.
It took the nest a minute to realize the source of the glaring bright light within the complete darkness came from a living thing.
Then all faces turned toward Max.
A few of them snarled, some shrieked or croaked out wet gasps. One of them launched itself from against the closest bench and tried to scramble up the floor’s incline toward him.
He put the first energy blast right through its head, only because it had moved a lot more quickly than he thought possible.
It tumbled back down toward the other Sandwalkers on the bench, its gray soul-energy orb floating up toward him. Then the rest of them moved at once.
Max slammed his hand against the wall behind him and disintegrated before blasting off another shot.
He hit one Sandwalker in the shoulder. It nearly went over backwards, but managed to stay upright. It came at him again just as he brought his other hand crackling up to shoot it again.
This time it fell and stayed there, missing a huge chunk of its already emaciated ribs.
Sandwalkers screeched and scrambled over the table and benches, jumping on top of the metal cabinets attached to the walls.
Max’s next energy blast knocked another mutant’s legs out from under it, though he’d been aiming for the chest. He alternated between energy blasts with one hand and disintegrating with the other, trying to hit the Sandwalkers closest to him just to keep them from reaching where he stood against the wall.
But he didn’t see the mutant who’d crawled along the row of cabinets until it was flying at him through the air. The thing’s nasty, mottled hand flapped wildly at Max’s face before its head hit his chest plate with full force.
The impact slammed Max back against the wall and knocked the air out of him, but he sent an electrical blast right into the Sandwalkers ribcage as it flailed at him. The mutant flew backward across the mess hall, leaving behind the stench of burned flesh.
Max disintegrated again, raised both hands, and fired off a lightwave. It was a lot brighter and a lot stronger than the only other time he’d used it on the Bloodletter and Chaotix raiders.
And he noticed that he was immune to its effects—that it didn’t hurt his eyes.
For things accustomed to pitch black, though, the bright light must have been excruciating. The floor of the mess hall thumped repeatedly as a dozen Sandwalkers hissed and retreated. Mutants tumbled over each other in their panicked scramble to get away from the strobing light.
Then Max spared a second for his stats.
HEALTH: 1190/1200 (99%)
STRENGTH: 109/110
STAMINA: 226/240
AGILITY: 107/114
ENHANCEMENTS: Level 3
Energy Blast
Intensity: 3000
Base Range: 40 feet
Accuracy: 36%
Rapidfire
Intensity: 5 rounds of 600
Accuracy: 28%
Lightwave
Intensity: 300
Focus: 20
Electrical Current
Intensity: 300 volts
Base Range: 2 feet
Accuracy: 52%
SOUL POINTS: 190
ARMOR: 99/100 (99%)
Chest 99/100 (99%)
Accuracy had crept up again for Energy Blast, and marginally for Electrical Current. Not to mention Max appreciated the new information about this himirini chest plate.
Disintegrating again, he refocused on the closest Sandwalker and fired a double energy blast. Only one of them missed the target, but that one had low enough Health now that he only needed one. Down it went.
His stray blast hit the mutant just a few feet away, who shrieked and moved forward again.
Max shot off another ball of energy just in time. It severed the Sandwalker’s leg from its hip, and the thing slid back down across the slanted floor of the mess hall.
He could all but ignore the gray orbs flitting toward him, knowing he was racking up Soul Points from Sandwalkers and nothing else.
It took him another nine energy blasts to bring down three more; he missed only once at close range, but the stronger ones obviously needed more hits before they were done.
Two of the mutants he’d injured had toppled backward over the first metal table. Now they clung to the second table slanted just a bit farther down.
Max noticed the stripped edges of the second table’s support plate. It was almost loose. So he sent the next energy blast down at the metal plate and the stripped bolt instead.
With an explosion and a metallic groan, the table ripped from the mess hall floor and toppled down the incline of the slanted ship, taking the two Sandwalkers with it.
When the metal table-top hit the wall, there was an unexpected consequence: the impact reverberated throughout the ship.
The slight shudder in the floor was enough to make Max lose his footing.
His skates didn’t do much to help him as he slid past the other two Sandwalkers toward the first table. They hissed and screamed, all but throwing themselves at him, but he slid past too quickly for them to grab him.
He slapped a hand down and disintegrated a thin trail of mess-hall floor before he stopped sliding—which happened when his skate caught the edge of the bolted metal bench.
He lurched forward. The chest plate took the full impact against the edge of the tilted table, and Max grunted. He twisted around to quickly fire both energy blasts at the Sandwalker on his right.
Then something hit him in the shoulder and rolled up his neck and face with a disgusting, clammy stickiness.
It might have been the worst thing he’d ever felt—the mutant’s bare flesh dragging across his own skin.
Max just wanted to get the thing off of him, but the Sandwalker thrashed so wildly, he could hardly move, both of them pinned against the table.
So he laid his hands on the thing’s chest—or maybe its back—and disintegrated that instead.
The mutant howled and thrashed even more violently, but one more energy blast placed right where Max had disintegrated it made the thing go still.
They were still pressed so close together, he couldn’t even see the gray orb transferring between them. Then he grunted and pushed the Sandwalker off of him. It slid off the table, and Max took a minute to check himself.
HEALTH: 1158/1200 (96%)
STRENGTH: 106/110
STAMINA: 230/240
AGILITY: 109/114
ENHANCEMENTS: Level 3
Energy Reserves: 0/3000
Disintegration
Efficiency: 22 units per cc
Energy Blast
Intensity: 3000
Base Range: 40 feet
Accuracy: 38%
&n
bsp; Rapidfire
Intensity: 5 rounds of 600
Accuracy: 28%
Lightwave
Intensity: 300
Focus: 20
Electrical Current
Intensity: 300 volts
Base Range: 2 feet
Accuracy: 52%
SOUL POINTS: 280
ARMOR: 85/100 (85%)
Chest 85/100 (85%)
So far, he was still doing pretty well, all things considered. The chest plate was apparently taking most of the damage for him, at least with chest hits.
A grating screech came from the far end of the mess hall, and Max turned to glance over the table.
The last two Sandwalkers had been pinned between the broken metal table and the wall. One of them wheezed and stared at nothing, barely there at 4% Health. The other one snarled and thrashed its arms against the table, brought down to 27%.
Max disintegrated the table beneath his hands and fired off two more energy blasts.
The first one missed and smashed into the table. The weakest Sandwalker gasped and slumped over the table beneath even that much impact, releasing its soul energy.
Max’s second energy blast caught the last mutant in the head, and the mess hall fell completely silent again.
Just to be prepared, Max disintegrated again, then pushed himself up off the slanting table with his yellow-glowing hands. Zryk’s map still lit up his augmented reality with a real-time image of the room, and he didn’t see any other Sandwalkers here. Behind him along the corridor leading out of the mess hall, the dim yellow light blinked at him.
Time to keep moving toward the elevator shaft.
13
Max discovered that the best way to climb up the slightly ridged metal flooring of the slanting starship was a combination of running diagonally and intermittently activating and deactivating his skates as he went. The repulsor field added just enough boost to keep his momentum going without sliding back down the into the mess hall.
He figured if worse came to worst, he could disintegrate in the same place over and over until he’d fashioned himself hand- and footholds. Or just blast a few holes to use the same way. But he didn’t really like the idea of testing that theory until he’d at least improved his accuracy a little more and had dealt with any Sandwalkers who might sneak up on him. It was something to keep in mind.
Finally he reached the elevator shaft, and the blinking light in his map flashed up the shaft’s back wall. A ladder had been conveniently built into the side of the shaft, which made Max just a little wary.
Not because he was afraid of climbing it, but just because a ladder in an elevator meant someone, at some point, had used it to get into the spaces between the starship’s decks—which may or may not be infested with more Sandwalkers.
Still, the only way up to the middle deck and the engineering room, as far as he could see, was through this elevator shaft or the second one on the other side of the mess hall. So he deactivated his skates and started to climb.
The blinking light appeared above him now, which had to be the entrance to the middle deck. Even his breath echoed in the silent darkness, but when he’d climbed about halfway, another shriek echoed through the elevator shaft. Max climbed faster, his energy-enwrapped hands crackling against each rung he grabbed.
The thin grate that shot out of the wall just to his right made him jump, and a pale, twisted hand reached out toward the ladder.
Max held on tightly to the ladder rungs and swung backwards out of the reach of the grasping hand.
The grate clanged to the floor below him, and Max cringed at the noise. It would most likely be attracting even more of them now.
He sent a blast into the Sandwalker’s face just as it snapped at him with a spray of drool. The thing slumped forward and fell through the shaft to land with a sickening thud.
Up floated the glowing gray orb of energy, right into Max, and he kept climbing.
Hollow, echoing thumps sounded from inside the wall beside him as he climbed. He pressed one hand and then the other against the wall between the rungs and disintegrated again. It would have been faster to disintegrate the rungs as he climbed, but he had to step there too. And he might need to use them again.
Two more grates popped out in quick succession just below him and just above. Max was almost at the yellow light blinking on the middle deck, and more Sandwalkers had obviously found him.
He blasted the one below him, which didn’t kill the thing but sent it tumbling from the duct to the floor.
By the time he looked up at the second open duct, the mutant there already had ahold of the rungs and was trying to climb out onto the ladder.
Max sent a second energy blast straight up, which hit the Sandwalker’s thigh and sent it swinging wildly from the rung. Still, it held on, scrabbling furiously with a charred leg and shrieking.
Its foot came close to kicking him in the head, so Max reached up and grabbed the thing around the ankle. He disintegrated, the Sandwalker screamed, and Max jerked down. The mutant lost its grasp and toppled past him. It hit the ground head-first, and another sphere of soul energy floated up the shaft.
Then Max looked down and found the other one dragging itself across the floor toward the metal rungs. Another disintegration, and Max shot off the rapidfire energy blast, thinking it might be good to up the percentage on that power.
Only the first small blast missed. The other four pelted the mutant’s back, and its head slammed down on the floor as its soul energy wafted up towards Max.
The elevator shaft filled with shrieking again—from the access duct above him.
Max nearly fell from the ladder in his attempt to lean away as a Sandwalker body tumbled from the duct.
Another followed, then another, and he realized the things were literally pushing each other out of the duct in their attempt to get to him.
It felt like luck until he realized how many of them there were.
Disintegrating the shaft wall again, Max alternated climbing to a new rung and firing energy blasts at the next emerging Sandwalker. Both shots hit the thing directly, and it fell there in the duct, stopping the flow of spilling, mutated bodies until the others behind it pushed it out.
But he used that time to at least climb a few feet above the shaft toward the yellow flashing light. Then he hooked his elbow around one of the rungs and disintegrated. Sure, he was almost at the top, but he might as well use the target practice now while he had the advantage of the high ground and his own fully human brain. These things just went with the herd.
More Sandwalkers were pushed through the opening than those he hit, but he managed to get in half a dozen good shots for an increase in his abilities’ experience and accuracy, at least.
Most of the mutants didn’t die from just one energy blast, so he began shooting down on them right there from the top of the ladder. His blasts hit about a third of their targets, but the Sandwalkers just kept trying, scrambling over each other to get to the ladder until he took them down.
Then he switched to Rapidfire, just to up his Accuracy numbers on that.
Yellow bolts of energy blasted down, and gray spheres of soul energy shot up through the shaft. By the time he’d knocked every mutant from the ladder and managed to hit them all enough to return the elevator shaft to complete silence, he’d racked up some serious gains.
HEALTH: 1195/1200 (99%)
STRENGTH: 109/110
STAMINA: 238/240
AGILITY: 112/114
ENHANCEMENTS: Level 3
Energy Reserves: 0/3000
Disintegration
Efficiency: 22 units per cc
Energy Blast
Intensity: 3000
Base Range: 40 feet
Accuracy: 44%
Rapidfire
Intensity: 5 rounds of 600
Accuracy: 34%
Lightwave
Intensity: 300
Focus: 20
Electrical Current
Int
ensity: 300 volts
Base Range: 2 feet
Accuracy: 52%
SOUL POINTS: 375
ARMOR: 85/100 (85%)
Chest 85/100 (85%)
The Accuracy increase felt like he was finally getting somewhere. But the fact that he didn’t even have half the Soul Points needed for Level 4, especially after all this, brought a little groan from his throat. He had to have killed at least thirty Sandwalkers by now, but he guessed that was the point: less Soul Points, more targets.
He waited for a second just to be sure there wasn’t anything else coming at him through the ducts, then unhooked his aching arm from the rung and kept climbing.
The yellow light in his augmented reality was just above him now, only there wasn’t any door or opening that he could see. Just a thin sliver of space between the very real, very hard surface just above his head and the wall of the shaft.
Max pushed up against the surface above him and grunted. This had to be the elevator, then, and it was currently stopped at the middle deck—right where he needed to be.
There was no way he could slip around it. So the only way was to go through it.
Max pressed his hand against the bottom of the elevator above him and disintegrated. When his reserves were full, he shot off a blast at the bottom of the shaft and the pile of Sandwalker corpses.
But his Disintegration powers were relatively slow. He could only disintegrate about a fistful of metal every few seconds, and the floor of the elevator was pretty thick.
Then he got the idea of trying to blow a hole through the elevator floor.
After the next Disintegration, he tightened his grip on the ladder rung and fired off the bolt directly above him.
The entire shaft echoed with the explosion. It was loud, yes—but it created a gap three times bigger than Disintegration alone.
He repeated the process. The fourth energy blast finally went right through the elevator floor, and he focused on Disintegrating and blasting around its edges to make it bigger. It was great to have these powers for an unexpected obstacle like this, but when he looked at his stats, he found his Accuracy completely unchanged.