The Land: Monsters

by Aleron Kong

  It took one more jump to reach the wall. That meant the third jump drained his stamina by nine times as much as the first. All told, the three jumps had cost him one hundred and four stamina. He only had two hundred and sixty-seven points left when he grabbed an outcropping of stone. The ichorpedes squealed beneath him and rushed toward the wall.

  Part of him wished he’d been able to hold onto his bone club in case he needed to fight them off, but that was just another empty wish. It would have been impossible to make the jumps he needed to, carrying the extra weight and without his hands free. Not only did the damn thing weigh at least twenty pounds, but there was no way he could have grabbed the wall with his hands full. The ichorpede pincer he’d ripped free was still stuck through what remained of his pants so he wasn’t weaponless, but it was only about a foot long. He really didn’t want to get close enough to the gargantuan bugs to use it. Holding onto the stone, he looked out over the lair of deadly monsters.

  The queen released a hissing cry, like a boiler only a few degrees away from exploding. The ichorpedes must have understood because they picked up speed. Richter was given no quarter. They climbed the walls easily, sharp legs digging into the rock. Several spit gobs of acid toward him, each the size of baseballs. They all missed, sizzling against the rock. If they’d struck, it would have been him melting climbed. The chaos seed didn’t give them another chance.

  With pain, fear and anger in his heart, Richter tensed his legs and shot out into space once again. Anyone watching would think he was throwing himself into the sea of ichorpedes blanketing the cavern floor. One last act of defiance so that he could die on his own terms. It wasn’t like that was not in keeping with his personality. He had literally jumped into an abyss to kill an enemy just a few hours ago, fully thinking he would die. This time though, that wasn’t the plan.

  Reaching the apex of his jump, he pushed off the air and jumped again. This time, it carried him back to the wall. Each time he jumped off the air, it increased the stamina drain by a factor of three. By leapfrogging from the wall and back though, he was able to keep the expenditure down. It also let him climb just a bit faster than the bugs. His Stamina dropped by about thirty each time, but thankfully, his new muscle-bound form had no issue grabbing handholds when he came back to the wall. Ninety-one Stamina Points later, Richter was forty feet higher. The ichorpedes were continuing to climb, but he’d gained himself a few seconds of respite.

  Richter took a deep breath. The ammonia smell was thick in the air, and the queen’s irritating screeching still rang in his ears. It was all or nothing time. He jumped into the air once more. This time it wasn’t to gain elevation. It was to reach a long stalactite hanging several yards away.

  His luck didn’t hold this time. One of the climbing ichorpedes spat acid onto the back of his calf. The Life energy was still coursing through him, but the pain was horrific. He couldn’t hold a scream back. His own pained voice joined the clamor in the lair. A tear leaked out of his eye, but he still skated through the air. He only had a few seconds of glide time before gravity reasserted itself. So he focused on his goal, screaming the whole time.

  A damage notification appeared.

  Richter struck with Acidic Spit! 8 points of acidic damage per second for the next 7 seconds.

  In this life and death moment, it took everything he had to keep going. Richter felt the flesh of his calf literally cook and slough off to run down his foot. The dual healing and destruction taking place made him yell as he flew through the air, but the magic preserved the muscles. Without the magic, he would have fallen. Though his skill let him run through the air, he still needed to be able to run to make it work.

  Richter glided through the air for more than three seconds before gravity started to kick in. Pushing off the air with his good leg, he continued to skate toward the hanging spike of stone. The third push cost him one hundred and three points of stamina and took him down to seventy-three. Less than a quarter of his green bar remained filled. He did not have enough to jump off of the air a fourth time. His heart beat wildly in his chest as he reached out for the stalactite.

  Richter’s fingers extended and he grabbed the tip of the hanging stone. His fingers slipped off the surface, but his other hand swung up and grasped as well. He fastened iron fingers onto a rough knob of stone. As quickly as he could, the chaos seed reached up again with his first hand. With a desperate scrabble, he grabbed hold. His body dangled above the cavern as his feet swayed freely. A strained groan passed the battered man’s lips as he pulled himself up. More precious points of Stamina faded away. Richter had never really placed a huge emphasis on his Endurance attribute. He now saw the error of his ways.

  More gobs of acidic spit flew at the chaos seed from the sides and below. The ichorpedes trying to splash him from the ground did not have the range. The attacks coming from those on the walls were blocked by the stalactite. In a desperate bid for life, all Richter could do was hold on to the stone pillar to gain a brief respite. The ichorpedes continued to climb the walls, but it would take them valuable seconds to crawl onto the ceiling and then down the rocky outcropping he was clinging to.

  Hanging on to the stalactite cost stamina, but with a Constitution of sixty-two, his SPs regenerated faster than they drained. Richter’s heart thumped wildly in his chest. Each throb felt like it forced panic into his mind. He forced himself to breathe slower and wait for his moment.

  Richter cast Minor Slow Heal again, ragged breaths coming easier as the Life magic did its work. Fifteen seconds, thirty, then forty-five. Gasps became harsh breathing became a measured flow of air. The ichorpedes reached the ceiling and began crawling across it in a sinuous pattern. Without pause, but definitely slower, they flowed toward the connection between the stalactite and the cavern roof. More than one lost its grip in haste and fell to the ground below. Richter took some pleasure in seeing fights break out among the enemy, insect blood flying through the air.

  A minute passed, then another thirty seconds. Then, he was out of time. The ichorpedes had reached the base of the stalactite and had begun to crawl down it. It didn’t matter. His desperate plan had worked. He had a chance.

  There were dozens, maybe hundreds, of ichorpedes in the giant cavern. The number of them had always been daunting. What he was seeing now was worse. The entire nest was now clustered together beneath him, a disgusting, undulating sea. The only plus side was that there weren’t any more coming through the walls. Most important, the large stone doorway was clear. That meant his plan was working.

  When faced with an entire nest of monsters that wanted to eat him bite by bite, all he had been able to come up with was luring them to one spot. Admittedly, he hadn’t realized just how horrifying it would be to look down and see a living carpet of dull carapaces, hungry pincers and sharp legs. In fact, now that he was looking at it, he was fairly certain he had some bad dreams and necessary therapy in his future. He was hanging above a sea of hungry monsters, and if he fell, he might not even live long enough to scream.

  Richter couldn’t think about that though. He just had to hope he could make it. The minute and a half of time he’d bought himself had restored thirty points of his stamina and many of his wounds had closed. His back still wept blood and felt like a line of fire, but his calf had healed. It was now or never.

  With his feet braced against the stone, he shot off like a released spring. The ichorpede closest to him on the stalactite jumped forward to bite his body. It missed by inches. The jerking motion made the accursed insect lose its purchase. Its heavy body crashed down to the cavern floor. It landed hard atop its brethren. In moments, a dozen of the monsters had turned on each other, cutting, rending and creating a wonderful, bloody mess. Richter paid it no attention.

  The chaos seed did not engage his Cloud Running skill for more than two seconds, letting his body pick up speed from the fall. Only twenty feet above the ground, he triggered it. By his will and skill, he denied gravity and coasted toward the door at hig
h speed. Repeating the process once more cost him thirty-eight stamina, but he finally touched down and sprinted for all he was worth. The only thing that slowed him by a fraction was picking up the overlarge bone he’d thrown toward the doorway. It wasn’t Black Ice, but it and the ripped-off pincer were the only weapons he had. The queen hissed in anger and the ichorpedes were already rushing toward him, but the way out of the lair was finally clear!

  Richter passed through the doorway. Battery acid pumped in his veins as his stamina came ever closer to bottoming out. The chaos seed did not give up. Whether it was his Resilience Attribute or just being a stubborn sonofabitch, he did not give up!

  Instead, he cast two spells in quick succession. Green light surrounded the fingers of his left hand as he cast Grease again. A brown-gravy slick covered the ground immediately before and after the doorway. A jump and coast took him over and past the AoE. As he sped away from the lair, he threw one hand back and breathed, “Igni.” The grease caught fire and a blaze was born.

  The ichorpedes’ instinctive fear of flame stopped their pursuit for a few precious seconds. The queen began screeching orders immediately and the ichorpedes’ fear and allegiance to her forced them through the paltry fire. They boiled out of the lair, slavering for their foe’s blood. Seven seconds, that was all the time his signature move had bought him, but it was enough. His bare feet beat a quick tattoo on the ground, leaving behind a trail of bloody footprints and a horrendous cacophony as he was swallowed by the dark.

  CHAPTER 3 – Day 150 – Juren 1, 0 AoC

  Richter ran, crawled and jumped through the bowels of The Land. He quickly got sick of his newly enlarged shoulders. They weren’t exactly an asset when he was squeezing through tight tunnels. Shouts of “Fuck these big-ass shoulders” and “Did I really need all these muscles?” echoed through the deep, dark corridors of the world. His new Strength had let him escape the lair, but if he got stuck in a small tunnel, that’d also be why he was eaten ass-first by the horde of bugs chasing after him!

  Thankfully, his speed was faster than the ichorpedes’, even when Weak Haste faded away. His stamina was another matter. The chaos seed had a good head start, but his battered body could not handle a sprint for long without a break. The green bar in the corner of his vision fell faster than he liked.

  Too soon, his stamina dropped down to about 10%. At that point, even though everything in him was shouting to just keep running, he forced himself to slow. He didn’t stop, but his speed was reduced to a painful hobble. That pace let him keep moving forward as his stamina bar slowly, oh-so-slowly, started to refill. Despite the danger he was in and the panic he was fighting back, Richter forced himself to follow the pattern. He couldn’t risk his green bar bottoming out. A stamina of zero didn’t just mean weariness and exhaustion, it carried the possibility of passing out. Every time he slowed down though, he heard the monsters getting closer.

  To make matters worse, he reeked of blood. The monsters were obviously not dependent on light to get around, not living in the bowels of the planet. His scent must have been like catnip to the ichorpedes. At the very least, it felt like he’d been running for miles and they still hadn’t given up the chase.

  As soon as his mana had regenerated enough, he cast more healing spells. That closed his wounds, but his injuries had left streaks of dark red on his body and clothes. With no water to wash off the blood, his scent trail was as obvious as a well-worn path. All Richter could do was fight a running battle. When the passageways opened up, he was able to widen his lead. When they narrowed and he had to crawl, he’d almost been caught several times. No matter how far he ran though, or how many branching paths he’d chosen, the monsters still hungered for his flesh.

  His greatest fear was running into a dead end or another monster that was too strong for him to just rush past. It was an ever-present knot in the pit of his stomach as, time after time, he would turn a corner and see a blank wall of stone in front of him. Richter’s heart would drop in his chest. Each time though, he found a way to wriggle forward and stay ahead of the monsters trying to eat him. Relief would flood him, but the continuous adrenaline surges and stress were taxing even his superhuman heart. More than once the path he found was so small that skin and blood were left behind. Still, he was able to fight forward one more step. The entire time, he thought of the curse and his hatred for the lich that had cast it.

  You are CURSED! The lich Singh has cursed you with the Curse of Eternal Servitude! If you die before this is removed, you shall not be resurrected. Your soul shall not pass on. You will serve the lich until he himself suffers the final death and, even then, you will be bound to this plane. You will wander as a mindless shade, hiding in the darkest corners of The Land, never to know peace or succor. You shall be damned!

  Richter had come to accept that living to a ripe old age was not going to be in the cards for him. He had died several times since coming to The Land. Each time, he had wondered if he would come back again. Despite not knowing if he would, he had not shirked his duty, or failed to step forward when it was time for battle. Even when he had learned the truth, that chaos seeds had an unknown but finite number of lives, he hadn’t felt afraid of death. He’d felt like he’d been freed. Without consequence, life had no meaning. You had to try and strive. The Land seemed to have been built on that premise, danger and reward always being closely linked.

  The curse was different, and it did fill him with fear. It wasn’t death that Richter dreaded, though he didn’t welcome it. Singh’s magic would turn him into a mindless undead thing, however, and that was a fate worse than death. He would be robbed of his memories, his soul, everything he was. The corrupted version of him would exist only to cause harm and pain. It was the antithesis of who and what he was!

  Despite the fact that Singh was dead, hatred bloomed anew in the chaos seed’s heart. That burning fire fueled his passage through the darkness as much as his desire to not be eaten alive. Again.

  He would not let the lich win. He would survive. It was a promise he made to himself. Richter would return to his village. And just to round it out, he would kill every goddamn one of those fucking bugs that were chasing him!

  Obviously, insect vengeance would have to come later. Mostly because if he turned to fight them now, they would literally eat the asshole out of him. Rage had not robbed him of reason. That was why Richter kept running and scrabbling through passages large and small. He had no idea if he was moving up or down, he just knew he needed to keep going. He might have traveled a mile or a dozen.

  The cloying blackness of the tunnel did not impede him thanks to recurrent castings of Dark Vision, but the mountains of rock above him coupled with the thick darkness combined to create an oppressive feeling. Aside from the occasional screeching of the ichorpedes chasing him, all he heard was the harsh huff of his own breath. The spell also only let him see in the dark up to twenty-five yards. Everything past that was an impenetrable wall of black.

  Nightvision would have given a much better sight range, but it required at least some ambient light. This far down, there were passages that had never felt the touch of photons. There was also the point that casting his own light spells could bring more monsters down upon him. The brief flashes of light from his spells were bad enough. He couldn’t cast Simple Light and have a bobbing white sphere showcasing that there was fresh meat for every monster in the depths.

  His Light spells were also too weak to provide a long-term solution. Far Light only provided as much illumination as a candle. Casting it again and again would be an even worse trail than the scent of blood on his body. As deadly as the ichorpedes were, he had no doubt that worse threats hid in the pits of the world. Richter kept going, darkvision leading the way. He prayed the whole time he rushed forward that there wouldn’t be monsters waiting with open jaws just beyond the range of his sight.

  The only blessing of his prolonged flight was that his stat bars all refilled over time. His health was the easiest to restore thank
s to his Mastery in Life magic. His stamina always stayed low, but his Constitution was a massive seventy-four. The attribute let his stat recover at more than seven times the rate of a normal human. It was enough to keep him alive and going, albeit in terrible pain the entire time. His mana refilled even faster. While his stamina kept him in the race, his magic let him counterattack.

  Fireballs, grease fires, lightning bolts and even summoned creatures were thrown at his pursuers. He also had to turn and fight hand-to-hand sometimes. With his new strength, the bone club was able to crack the ichorpedes’ carapace armor. With more always coming behind him though, he was never able to make a kill. Despite everything he threw at them, no matter how far he ran, the monsters didn’t stop. All he was able to do was buy himself time. While his breath came in ragged gasps, he convinced himself that was enough. To Richter, time was life.

  The pursuit continued until he was crawling through a particularly tight tunnel, cursing his recently broadened shoulders for the umpteenth time. That was when he felt a gust of wind on his outstretched hand. Reaching forward blindly, he felt no more stone, only empty space. He’d found a hole into a larger chamber! The chaos seed wiggled forward until his head poked through into the cavern and looked around. He couldn’t see anything. The tunnel he’d been crawling through hadn’t just ended in a new chamber, it had ended in a cliff face! No matter which way he looked he couldn’t see anywhere else to go. Panic filled his heart. There was no more tunnel to crawl through and he could still hear the ichorpedes!

  Like a horrible promise, he heard an insect screech from further back in the tunnel. It reminded him that no matter what was in front of him, his choices were to move forward or fight. The latter was sure death, so he realized he needed to find a solution. He had to find it now.