Lair

by Carl Stubblefield

  “I apologize, but you were not in the healthiest of mental states at the time, if you recall. It was a high-stress situation, and you have not had to push yourself like that before. I told you what you needed to hear and nothing more. You have made remarkable progress though, and I have every confidence that you will reach level ten before you notice any untoward effects.”

  He almost wished he was back in his old life, without all the things that were stressing him out constantly. Well, that wasn’t true. He wouldn’t go back to being good old henchman Gus, even if he had a chance to do it. Taking a deep breath, he reminded himself of the exhilaration of flying, the power he felt fighting and winning against those Mantids, and the rush of experimenting with new skills almost every day. Nick was right, too. Gus knew he had a bad tendency of shutting down and tuning out when things got too overwhelming. Nick had known him better than he knew himself, at least in that instance.

  Gus checked the time; it was early afternoon. Gus didn’t want a repeat of that hot mess when he had fought the Mantids near dusk. The darkness obviously didn’t hinder them in the slightest. If time weren’t a factor, he would have decided to start out on his expedition tomorrow. Checking his abilities, the cooldown on Wreck-ord showed he could set out on his coastline trip around 7 PM. He was going to have to do this tonight, and rely on his visual filters when things got dark. Hopefully he could make some decent distance before he had to call it a night.

  He checked the monitors for any activity and saw no changes. What would he do if the zombies came when he was exploring the coastline? He determined he would leave some more weapons outside in different areas he could access if needed. The plan would be to make it around the island in a day, assisted with Dash. Hopefully he could level to seven, maybe eight, from estimated XP gained from raising skills. After that, he would have to engage as many Dark Nth as possible to hit level ten. It would be close, but Gus saw no other real choice. Maybe he would get lucky and find Methiochos’ crash site soon and fight mobs at that location. He wouldn’t know until he tried.

  Heading to the dispensary, Gus found a suitable utility backpack. It had tons of pouches and zippers, which he loved. He perused the accessories, recalling the things he surmised he would probably need from his time in Scouts. He found some rope, a couple waterproof tarps, a space blanket, some flashlights, and some other small supplies he thought might come in useful. He took it all to his suite and began to pack. In went his trusty foam putty mattress roll, the rope and other items in the little pouches. Gus felt like a superhero with a utility backpack instead of a utility belt. Inside one of the pouches went as many energy bars as he could cram inside. Getting two vacuum-walled thermoses, he put them in the pouches on the sides, and pulled the drawstring tight, securing them.

  After arranging his playlist, Gus was ready to set out. Advising Nick to wake him fifteen minutes before his Wreck-ord timer recharged, he decided to try to get a little power-nap in before his dashing all-nighter. He went to bed and managed to fall asleep in no time.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Runaround

  Day 6 7:12 PM

  8:17:24 remaining

  Methiochos evaluated himself. He had grown to almost twice his previous size since metabolizing the energy from the magma pool. How long had he been hibernating? Estimating his current size, he was now only four to five feet tall. The condensing effect and essentially feeding off himself for decades of stasis could have totally destroyed him.

  Were it not for the sharp severing of one of his remote tendrils, he might never have stirred. There were some that had been wandering outside the barriers before they were sealed inside. Occasionally, one would meet an untimely demise, falling off a cliff or some other mishap. Unfortunately, he could not turn any of the other living creatures on the island. They had to be sufficiently intelligent or the Dark Nth could not bond.

  What set this death apart was that there hadn’t been any severed tendrils for many years now. With the other attacks that had happened, Methiochos had to protect his brood. His enemies had most likely found him and would try to take everything.

  Methiochos felt the darkness within him. It trembled and raged as his emotions swelled, and he had to relax to avoid being overcome. He was tired of the constant effort to push back the Dark, but what was the alternative? He knew of its insidious designs and had basically sacrificed himself to trap it here with him. There would be nothing left to rule if the Dark Nth destroyed everything. It had shown him its true desire. If it got loose, not only humankind would lose, but the cycle could be broken forever.

  ###!###

  Gus showered and changed outfits, dumping the old one down the laundry chute. He wondered where they went, but guessed it really didn’t matter since he could wear a new suit daily for about a year and still have something to wear.

  After initially putting his suit on, he noticed that it was tight in the legs, then the material stretched and resumed a comfortable feel. It probably was due to his level up yesterday and his constitution increase. It now made sense why supers wore so much spandex. When you leveled up and your muscles grew, who wanted to split their pants?

  He had even heard that some of the advanced super suits the really high-level supers wore were made of Kroutonium, which would actually level along with the owner. They often had multiple forms and could evolve in their own right. He left the manor and headed down to Atlantis Beach, gauging how much sunlight was left in the day. He began running.

  “Nick, what do you know about Kroutonium? Are there any suits in the manor that have it?” Gus made it to the beach and turned to his right. Since he would be running, he had only brought Razorback, leaving the spears. It made him feel exposed and he had to keep reassuring himself that he would just have to flee any encounters that arose.

  “I do not show any suits that contain Kroutonium, but there are a number of Nth-assisted suits that offer small stat bonus—”

  “How does that work, are there Nth in the clothing?” Gus interrupted. “I’ve always accepted stat increases from gear in games, but what is really happening?”

  “The simplest way of explaining it is that there are informational arrays woven out of specialized material and embedded in the fabric of the item. I won’t go into all the details of what that material is composed of because it’s a whole other lengthy discussion. But just as a computer can be upgraded by adding some internal hardware, these arrays allow the Nth to gain more processing power, which translates to an increase in stats. If a host has too low a level, the Nth are insufficiently evolved to access or utilize the array and agitate the host so no damage happens from trying to interface with the incompatible array.”

  Gus screwed up his face, comparing his game experience with his new real life situation, going through the implications.

  “So are there scalable items?”

  “Only Kroutonium-infused items have the ability to scale.”

  “Why? Is it alive? How does it evolve? Is it Nth-assisted?”

  “Let me answer each in turn. Do you recall how we talked about different types of matter?” Gus nodded and activated his Basic Flight ability, until his MP drained to zero a couple seconds later, and the first inklings of null headache began to appear. It looked less like flight and more like just a bit more air time. He would have to pay attention to not drain his MP pool. Basic Flight was an MP hog.

  “Kroutonium is basically one of the sentient forms of matter. There are no sentient metals on earth, so it is a difficult concept to understand for some.”

  “Is it like the Terminator model T-1000?”

  “Not exactly, it does not change its form at will, however it can be manipulated, and usually allows itself to adopt a form into which it is fashioned. It then will attempt to magnify its function in that capacity. It finds satisfaction in this type of growth.”

  “You said usually, can it deny a form?”

  “Certainly. If it is fashioned into a form that allows no chance of evo
lution, it can cause itself to have a critical failure. Using the material for lugnuts is not only a waste of a resource, but may be problematic if the material ‘breaks’ if used on an aerial troop transport.”

  “Yikes, how do you know what it wants? If a weapon failed in a fight, that could be game over.”

  “Nth have difficulty understanding Kroutonium, since we have a limited understanding of how it ‘thinks.’ Our conclusions are based solely on observed behavior, but unlike most sentients, Kroutonium obeys predictable laws and there is not the individual variety of responses to stimuli that we see with humans, whose opinions are vast and varied. In that sense, Kroutonium behaves uniformly. Whether this is due to some hive-mind or a strict alignment of their nature is mere conjecture. While it is sentient, it prefers to be acted upon initially, then it tries its best to improve upon this directive. Concerning the material, we have the most data when it is used in armors and weapons, so it should be safe to use in these items.”

  Gus stopped trying to focus on flight and activated Dash on a regular basis. When enough MP was regenerated, he would activate it again, to maintain his momentum.

  “As you know, the material you call Kroutonium is incredibly rare, and is one of the resources that the Nth make a special priority to scavenge completely from any planet facing an apocalyptic event. It is too valuable to be lost. You may be familiar that most of the Kroutonium was harvested from the Badlands in the United States—”

  “Yeah, didn’t a ship crash there?” Gus replied.

  “It was the cargo carrier that held the scavenged Kroutonium from prior planets. Some managed to be dispersed as the ship broke apart in the atmosphere after hitting a satellite orbiting Earth, but the majority ended at the crash site. Those supers with tech-based powers were able to be instructed by Nth accessing the quantum server on proper ways to utilize its unique properties. The rarity of Kroutonium was underestimated at first, and supplies were quickly used up, so that it has now become virtually impossible to find anywhere.”

  “I’ve heard of sentient weapons and suits, is there anything else used to make them?”

  “It has been theorized the quantum server is a computer fashioned from Kroutonium, or a material that functions similarly, but since it cannot be physically accessed, that also is conjecture. The adaptability and capacity would lend credence to this theory, however. Since it is usually utilized by the apex lifeforms of a planet, the uses you have mentioned tend to be the lion’s share of the recognized functions, with varying applications.”

  “It’s too bad that you can’t get it anymore. I bet those that have it hoard it like crazy.”

  Gus found he could better control the MP flow and avoid null headaches after shifting to only using Dash. Unlike when he was boosted, he noticed only a slight shift in speed, but the skill leveled after only thirty minutes of constant use. His additional points in constitution thankfully made the constant rests for stamina regeneration a thing of the past. Gus replayed his jump playlist again and zoned out while moving along the beach. It gave no bonuses, but he liked the music. He didn’t want to waste any songs he hadn’t used with his Wreck-ord skill and lose their potential buffs in the future, but time was of the essence. Since he wasn’t leveling as quickly as he had expected, he realized that he would need to use the songs he had hoped to keep in reserve. With a little bit of regret, he queued his running playlist.

  You have created a song chain! Success with activities related to musical themes increased by factorial multiplier based on quantity of songs in series.

  Take It on the Run by REO Speedwagon. Success rates x 1. (Chain anchor, no bonus)

  Choosing a slower song to start things off, Gus watched for any changes as he used Dash. He didn’t want anything breaking his flow, distracting him so he couldn’t maintain the continuous dash state. He put his questions for Nick on the back burner. Keeping closer to the water, he had to still zig and zag, but there was less jumping and the movements were minor. The walkway feeling returned.

  Gus sped along, even moving his hands blade-style like the Flash in an effort to eke out a little more speed from his subconscious manipulation of the ether. Faking it until he was making it. He couldn’t tell if it really made a difference, but he didn’t care. It made him feel more like a super. It was such a foreign feeling to how he had seen himself for his whole life. To be honest, he felt out of his depth, playing at being a superhero. He worried if he had what it took to make it if he ever made it back to civilization. Screw it. No one’s here, so I get to do what I want. Plus it just feels cool.

  Gus heard a tone and a quick check showed that his Dash skill had leveled up again. That seemed quicker than normal. He monitored his velocity, stamina, and MP to obtain a speed that kept them within twenty percent of max. Gus noticed after a while that he was in one of those flow states that Nick had mentioned. He could almost see the sun track as it plunged into the sea, the clouds flying by quickly as he progressed around the sandy beach.

  Gus switched his perception filters, and found he could enable a combination thermal and night-vision that gave superior resolution of the environment around him.

  He recalled the feeling he had when he was fleeing the Mantid just a couple days ago. The walkway sensation made him feel like he was moving more quickly. The jungle on his right and waves on his left appeared to blur more and more with the increasing speed.

  “Nick, how far have I travelled?” Gus asked, surprised that he wasn’t gasping or winded.

  “You have travelled twenty-four point three miles from Atlantis Beach,” Nick replied. The revelation almost brought Gus to a stop.

  What? I’ve almost run a marathon? I’m not even winded! Gus thought, alarmed. Suddenly the idea of encircling the island was much more attainable.

  “How long have I been running?”

  “Almost two hours, uninterrupted,” Nick stated.

  “Noice!” Gus said, and doubled down, pushing himself to keep moving faster and faster. MP and stamina bars dipped to about a tenth of their total, and he found another sweet spot to maintain his pace. Occasionally there would be a chime indicating a skill increase and the bars would jump up as it took less resources to maintain the current speed. Gus adjusted to bring things back to 10% and went on.

  Run Through the Jungle by CCR. Success rates x 2.

  Things picked up a bit more; Gus felt a kick of acceleration, like when a ski lift picked him up and moved him forward when he first boarded. Gus relaxed and settled into the flow. When he had been a henchman, he had hated running the most.

  Some of the drill captains would force you to run laps and there were always punishments for those who arrived last. You’d be on latrine duty, or cleaning barnacles off the outside of a sea vessel; something totally disgusting, banal, or both. The drill captains didn’t have to run themselves, and must’ve been chosen for their sadistic streaks. Gus could remember vomiting and cramps and side-stitches. Running was kind of awesome when divested from those effects. Nth-assisted life was the way to go.

  He turned a curve in the coastline and saw that this area had much more debris on the beach. Driftwood and rocks of various sizes disturbed the pristine beach that he had become accustomed to traveling along. He added leaps to clear the detritus and rocks, and veered side to side to avoid the largest patches. While probably useful for training his evasion skills, his speed slowed noticeably. Gus had been running this way for twenty minutes when he noticed a familiar sight; the place where this adventure all began. Checking out his shelter as it zipped by, he recalled that first night here.

  It really wasn’t such a long time ago, but he felt vastly different than when he first arrived. He wasn’t the same Gus. He still had a way to go before he would hit level ten, but so much had changed. Despite his massive progress in such a short time, the sight reminded him that he still was in a battle to survive, even though he had shelter at the manor. He checked the tab that showed his remaining time before his Nth failed, little mor
e than a day and a half, thanks to Nick’s new revelation. He needed to level faster.

  Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. Success rates x 6.

  Another jolt in acceleration, and Gus could see the coastline was curving, turning toward the volcano. He could see that the coastline got skinnier and appeared to vanish against a rocky wall along one of the sides of the volcano. The chimes of a skill increase sounded again. He figured he could swim if worse came to worst, but he had an idea that he hoped would work. Pushing himself to run faster, he fine-tuned his MP and stamina usage levels so he had a stable five percent remaining.

  Running with the Devil by Van Halen. Success rates x 24.

  Gus surveyed the beach ahead as he had done this entire run, and nothing so far had shown any evidence that anyone besides himself had been here. From his vantage, he couldn’t see the manor, and no boats, piers, or wreckage had been visible anywhere along miles of coastline. Scanning ahead, he stretched his visual display and looked for anything that could possibly be an obstacle. He was quickly running out of beach as the island transitioned to an area which had sheer rock against which the waves crashed… A different chime sounded.

  Skill unlock: Subskill: TimeSight Level 1. You can now access some relativistic effects that will compensate and increase reaction time while traveling at excessive speeds.

  200 XP awarded

  400 FP awarded

  Gus continued running and noticed he was making slight changes in his direction without him making a conscious decision to avoid something. He wasted less motion and his speed increased from not having to shift to avoid obstacles as much.