Lair
Page 15
His mouth dropped open. He hadn’t known the manor had the ability to scan the island to that degree, or even that it had recorded him in such a way as to reproduce what had taken place. In watching his own movements, Gus realized that if he had not experienced the battle first hand, he would have guessed he was watching someone incredibly drunk harassing individuals walking home after a tough day at work. His stumbles and falls were brutal to watch, and he was embarrassed to see it from this vantage.
“In this conflict you were inefficient and unbalanced. We will correct that,” the instructor grunted.
I had no idea I was that bad, I’m lucky I didn’t get killed out there. Gus leaned in, trying to absorb what he had missed.
“Assume this stance,” the instructor demonstrated. Gus saw his own form move again in the area above and behind the instructor. He tried his best to adopt the same stance, but could see where his front foot was rotated too far outward and his back leg was too close, making the stance too narrow. He made the adjustments he thought he needed and once he thought he was in position he held still. He noticed a subtle tingling in those areas out of place on the display and he let the sensation guide him. When he finally got it, the tingling went away and he knew he was mimicking the correct form.
A padded robot with what looked like a pillow for a head and two cylindrical pillows for hands appeared from a panel that slid away from the wall. It merged with the hologram and mimicked the instructor’s movement.
“Now, maintain your balance without moving your feet.” The pillowbot rotated around Gus and poked at him with its padded arms. One hit let Gus know these were not pillows. More like baseball bats made of rubber, covered with a canvas-like material.
Not expecting the strength of the prodding pokes the pillowbot would give, Gus stumbled and the tingling reasserted itself. A couple times he deviated from the correct form more than usual, and he found that the slight tingle ramped up to a painful pins-and-needles sensation, prompting him to quickly return to the appropriate stance.
The robot spun and attacked from various angles and directions, challenging Gus to shift his weight in different ways to maintain his balance and not be knocked over. Two more times he was knocked down, but after thirty minutes or so, he could sense some improvement in his recognition of how to react with the different types of shoves the pillowbot attempted.
“Rest now.” The instructor-pillowbot hybrid froze in a standby pose. Gus caught his breath and noticed his stamina bar was a few points from empty. He jumped around and shook his legs to get a little circulation back and relieve the strain of standing in one spot for too long. A couple stretches of his arms and back relieved a bit more tension. When the green bar was nearing full, the instructor assumed ready position again and ordered, “Again!”
“Let’s do this, Chop Chop Master Onion!” Gus challenged back and he resumed his stance. The drill continued, this time with pillowbot speeding up and then adding attacks from both arms. Gus found it was much less fatiguing to avoid getting pushed by dodging than trying to absorb each hit and shift his weight. The hardest shoves to avoid were those that came from behind, as it was more difficult to twist and visualize the attacks, compared to frontal assaults. In a real battle, it would be so much easier with the ability to move his feet. Eventually, a chime sounded and his display showed a new notice:
You have leveled up the skill: Polearms to Level 2!
50 XP awarded
100 FP awarded
2525 XP to level 6, 1300 FP total
Gus found that a little odd, as he hadn’t even touched a spear yet, but wasn’t going to argue with the system.
“Enough!” the instructor assessed. “Procure a spear.”
Gus jogged to the tier above and grabbed three identical spears, and brought them down to the arena, leaving two along the sidelines in case one broke and to take for weapons when he inevitably had to return to battle with the Dark Nth.
“Hit the target, maintaining your stationary stance,” the instructor ordered. The pillowbot had a holographic display envelop the cylindrical padded area where the head would be. This morphed into a target with two red bullseyes instead of eye sockets.
Gus had to orient where to hold the spear with the dynamic display and locked in the right placement of his hands. It felt nice to be able to have a decent grip instead of fumbling like he did with the too-thick bamboo. He wondered what this spear was made of—*whoosh*! The pillow arm narrowly missed his face.
“Can’t get distracted like that,” Gus chided himself.
It took a couple minutes to get his balance together when his hands were locked onto the spear and he couldn’t wave them in circles to regain his balance, like a man on a tightrope. Now that he had his center back, he timed his attempt to stab at the pillowbot.
His first lunge was over-exaggerated and pulled him off balance, and he was promptly punished with a smack to his kidneys by the pillowbot’s arm. He was sure that he had seen people flipping spears propeller fashion in the movies, but was not sure if that was even a realistic way to fight. Trusting there was a method to the constraint, Gus probed with minor attacks, not too aggressive, as to not expose himself again. One thrust by the pillowbot came quickly and Gus reflexively brought the haft of the spear across that side and blocked the blow. Another was similarly deflected and pushed aside. Gus placed his attention on these blocks, trying to add a little shove at the end and began to notice that it was bearing fruit. When his stamina bar drained after five minutes, he had to take a break to let his stamina recharge. The waiting really was the hardest part.
“Nick, what stat would increase my stamina? I’m getting winded way too easily.”
“Constitution gives you an extra twenty units of stamina for each level, as well as twenty units of HP.”
Managing stats was much harder in real life than when he min-maxed characters in video and tabletop games. The only things he felt he could ignore for a while were charisma and luck. For some reason, he was exceptionally lucky lately and almost felt like adding points would jinx him somehow.
He needed strength to fight the durable zombies, but he could get past that if he actually knew how to fight. He would need speed if there were more of the fast zombies. Constitution would make him much less squishy, and he was feeling especially squishy lately.
Those super long fight scenes in martial arts movies had lied to him; he was easily winded in such a short time. Finally, his stamina bar had filled and he continued on with training.
After more sparring, he could start to see a little more of an overextension in his foe. He attempted a stab after a deflection but was too slow in aiming and the pillowbot retreated. Success came after another three five-minute cycles of training, focused attention, and trial and error. He caught the attack with the middle of the spear, rotating clockwise to his right, then snapped back like a coiled spring and scored a bullseye. A chime sounded, and the instructor-pillowbot stood at ease while Gus extricated his spear.
After resetting, Gus began to improve his timing and could feel himself being guided as the Nth gave a tiny impulse at the right time to start his attack or retaliation. Apparently once he had a successful execution of a skill, the Nth could guide him to replicate it. Another hour later, mostly taken up with stamina rests, another chime sounded. Gus noticed two prompts in his log.
You have leveled up the skill: Spear Mastery to Level 2!
50 XP awarded
100 FP awarded
You have leveled up the skill: Spear Mastery to Level 3!
50 XP awarded
100 FP awarded
Quest Complete: Shake Spears!
Rewards: 500 XP, 250 FP
New skill unlocked: Sweep the Leg! (Level 1)
Upon successfully blocking an attack, have a 25% chance of knocking an opponent off their feet, stunning them for 5 seconds.
100 XP awarded
200 FP awarded
1825 XP to Level 6, 1800 FP total
&n
bsp; “That is enough,” the instructor stated, bowing slightly while maintaining eye contact. The hologram dissolved and the pillowbot retreated behind its panel. The instructor then faded away and the lights dimmed, indicating that the training session was over.
Chapter Nineteen
Welcome to the Jungle
Day 5 6:46 PM
9:17:50 remaining
Gus thought he should feel tired after such sustained effort, but he was becoming more resilient. Wanting to try some of his new techniques, Gus went to the command center to check out the display that showed the entire island. Touching the interface and expanding the area close to the lower field of his first skirmish, he dragged the image farther into the forest, but the dense cover blocked the view of the ground.
Gus wondered if these images were from a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, and how visibility would change if it were a cloudy day. There were sensors on the ground that picked up motion and somehow analyzed threat levels, but nothing was showing up on the monitors the farther into the jungle he scrolled. Gus was also unsure how extensive those sensors were farther away from the manor. Deciding to go on a reconnaissance mission, he grabbed his three spears to take with him.
He headed back to his room to grab an energy bar and some foam to remake Razorback’s handle, reverting it back to a knife. He tore into the black packaging of the energy bar and was greeted with a dry concoction that tasted like peanut butter and sawdust. With a lot of water, he was able to choke down the bar. Whether it was its age or just how they were designed, it was not something he would look forward to eating.
Gus exited the manor and found Razorback lying in the grass. He refashioned the handle as before but received no updates or notices, and the stats and name had reverted to their initial values. The uniform did have a nice belt attachment that held Razorback nicely, although the blade wasn’t covered, so he would have to be mindful to not stab himself by being careless. Gus then headed toward the jungle.
It was nice to have normal footwear for a change. The boots of the uniform offered much more protection and cushioning than his open-toed sandals. He felt surer on his feet and his movements were smoother without things shifting around. The polished shafts of the spears fit easily in his hands, and felt more durable than the bamboo one, despite being much thinner. There was a little more strut to his step, and he walked with a bit more confidence. Things were coming together at last.
Gus passed the bodies of the defeated Dark Nth. They were much more decomposed than Gus would have expected in such a short time. He thought he might have to unlock some kind of cleanup droid like on the beach to remove the bodies so they wouldn’t become overwhelmingly rank from decomposition. The fetid odor had dissipated as well, thankfully.
Without their Dark Nth sustaining their cohesion, most appeared as skeletons lying in oily patches of black goo. The fat zombie was less decomposed, probably because of its sheer mass, the large ribcage dripping ichor. It looked less like the thick tar that was the ‘blood’ of the Dark Nth, and more like used engine oil. The skeletons also looked less robust than a typical skeleton. They were pitted and sandblasted, with crisscrossing grooves and voids.
Gus stopped and plunged a spear right at the entrance of the forest trail from which the Shamblers emanated, then turned back. He stood there and looked over the vestiges of the battle. His mind flashed back to getting beaten up by the gang members and his father’s stinging words. He stood up a little straighter, smiling at his victory. It was sloppy as hell, but he had done it.
Even after one training session, he felt much more competent with the spear, and his gear had improved in quality as well. ‘Never engage a superior force…’ the words echoed back to him. It was hard to describe, but Gus didn’t feel like the loser he had gotten used to seeing himself as. The odds were against him, but that taste of success began to fan the flames of possibility for the future. Where will I be in a year?
He never would classify himself as a determined or driven individual, but he didn’t really have anything to work toward, either. Despite his family being supers, Gus had always been given the impression that, for some reason, he didn’t have the aptitude and probably would not get powers at all. The message was repeated so often, by so many different people, that he began to accept it as undeniably true.
But he could see that it didn’t have to be that way. That possibly fate had something bigger in store for him. He smiled and looked up at the sun. He had the whole day ahead of him to explore. Gus decided that he would leave another spear farther along the path in case he needed them while retreating; he couldn’t fight with three spears at once.
He knew he was taking a slight risk if one of these zombies happened to be able to use one of the spears against him. However, there were a lot of unknowns; he would just have to do the best he could. They would be too unwieldy to carry along in case he needed to react quickly. Even though these were from the training facility, the edges looked razor sharp. Perhaps there were other training modalities for humans sparring other humans, or they had healers to help people recover. He guessed that professional supers would be at the manor, so training with real weapons would probably be more on their level.
Venturing down the path, he was comforted by the chittering of monkeys, insects and birds. They quieted significantly as Gus approached, but did not go silent en masse as they had when he had met his first Shambler. Gus wondered if his perception made him more aware of the animal sounds, and whether they had been there all along.
The shade was welcome but the humidity increased noticeably as the vegetation became denser. Gus was unsure what had been done to the ground, but vegetation appeared not to grow on a two yard wide path that meandered through the jungle. Things grew into the path’s ‘airspace’ but nothing grew from the hard packed ground that formed the path, despite teeming life everywhere else.
After penetrating two hundred feet along the path into the forest, branches thickened over the path, making it hard to move smoothly. Carefully removing Razorback from his belt clip, he hacked off the limbs that got too bold in their growth across the pathway, kicking them off the path. Razorback functioned well as a machete, and had a similar size.
If he had to make a retreat, he didn’t want to have to second guess or have anything slap him in the face or trip him on the way out. Oddly, he felt like Razorback preferred to be in its current form as opposed to its spear configuration. Probably PTSD from being stuck in a zombie gut. Gus smirked at the thought.
Pausing to refer to his internal display, he tried to get used to the minimap function he had access to, now that Nick had linked his display to the manor’s sensors. The background of the circular map showed an aerial view, which only showed the green treetops. As Gus progressed, he found he could toggle layers and see that the fog of war effect was being lifted in the areas covered by vegetation on his map, showing the path and surroundings as his Nth shared the information with the manor.
Focusing and zooming in could be done past the plant layer now, but would probably not auto-update like the satellite view could. Still, it could be helpful in planning approaches and exploring in the future.
After walking for a good hour, Gus noticed the sounds of the forest were tapering off. Not totally quiet, but less consistent and with longer pauses between the plaintive calls back and forth. Gus sheathed Razorback and readied his spear as he had trained earlier. Gus slowed down and swallowed to help moisten his suddenly dry throat. The tightness of the jungle around him offered a lot of hiding places, and he began to question the wisdom of coming out here.
He left a second spear, jamming it upright into the ground thick with roots by the trail. When he went farther, a yellow light winked at the edge of his minimap. Approaching with caution, spear extended, Gus saw a Shambler who was attempting to walk through the chest-high stump of a fallen tree. The zombie would walk forward, bounce back, then try again. Gus looked back along the zombie’s sight line and it seemed like it was
making a beeline toward the manor.
Gus approached, keeping the stump in between him and the zombie, and set his stance. One snakelike jab later the zombie fell, draped over the stump like he was hugging a teddy bear. Gus made his way back to the trail, with 200 XP more in the bank, and resumed his exploration.
###!###
The One snapped his eyes up. The loss of his minions the day before was acceptable in the sense of loss, but unacceptable in that he had a challenger. The farther away they were, the less control he had over his minions, but they were good at following orders once given. Another light winked out and the mental strand connected to it evaporated. The challenge must be met. The One did not tolerate opposition. Unfurling a different set of strands, he sent them to meet the threat. In a sense, it was good to test his mettle; he would enjoy the test. Then his army would mobilize to reclaim his prize. The One sent his orders and then curled back to await their reports of success and show him what had dared to come here.
###!###
Gus walked on without incident for half an hour. His suit was beginning to be soaked with sweat, whether from the heat and humidity or his anxiety, he couldn’t tell. He was wondering how far he should travel before returning, when the sound of running could be heard, intermixed with the swish of jungle leaves being pushed out of the way. Gus tensed and dropped back into stance. Two figures the size of tigers burst from behind a low hanging broad-leafed plant and rushed straight at him, running on all fours.
Gus’ eyes opened wide and his stomach roiled as he recognized a familiar foe. No, no, no, not more of the fast ones!