Starred Tower: System Misinterpret Book One - A Post Apocalyptic Cultivation LitRPG

by Ryan DeBruyn

  The Leporid hops by, heading toward the entry corridor, and uses a wall there before instantly rushing back toward Mur. I see a second wound open on the other side of the beast. Mur is almost on top of the portal at the center of the room. He glances at the portal and then at me. The vertical disc is too close. And the Leporid is too wide, he won’t have time to cross the five feet between us.

  He hugs as close as he can to the portal, likely hoping that the beast’s head and body will just slide by him. I punch my spear forward and again feel it slide its way across the rabbit’s fur, doing no damage. The Leporid’s brown hair flies by, and I am looking at empty space. Mur is missing, and my gut tells me exactly where he went.

  The Leporid needs an extra bound to make it back to the nearest sidewall ten feet away from the center. Without Mur to target, it leaps back at me. I jump backward and strike with my spear in the space I think the Leporid will be. Unfortunately, my timing is wrong, and I only push the rabbit a bit but cause no damage. The small shove and our position near the center of the room give me another extra moment as it corrects its balance and bounds toward the wall again. I still hold quite a large amount of liquid, but I know that my broken spear isn’t going to get the job done. I hold the splintered shaft out in front of me with both hands and try to think fast. What can I do?

  It looks like the Leporid is bleeding heavily from Mur’s two slashes, but it will still be a long time before it dies. With this much qi, could I cast a spell? From my days around the campfires listening to mercs, I know that you propel your qi out of your body and envision what you want to do. I also know I’m supposed to be E-rank before I can pressurize liquid enough to cast a spell. As if I was trying to send qi to muscles outside my body, I push qi out of my hands and try to envision a fireball.

  Qi exits my palms but just seems to float away like steam from a boiling pot. I try to force it out faster, but I can’t. It’s exiting my body at about a drop of liquid per second. The rabbit is charging again, and I desperately leap back, desperately throwing out another strike. The broken spear thuds, and I sense the point of contact as if I can see it from inches away. The wood, which usually bows, bounces the rabbit away with ease, sending it stumbling off course.

  Huh? I was more off balance in this strike than in many of my other, less effective ones. I blink. What was that?

  Not all of the qi vanished like steam. The energy that enters the wood is flowing in the object as if it is a very leaky artery. I can still sense it. If I focus, I can feel every fiber of the weapon. I push a bit more qi into it. The Sun qi vibrates in the wood, and I know it can’t hold any more after four drops. Trying desperately to end this fight so I can help Mur, I picture the tip of my wooden stick as a spear point.

  I thrust the spear shaft into the front shoulder of the Leporid on its next pass and feel it break the skin with ease, digging through the muscle and sinew in a lightning-fast jab. Then I smell burning meat.

  “Seven! What is—” The monster’s momentum rips the weapon out of my hands. Dammit, I got too excited—

  The Leporid collapses to the ground and slides over the dirt. It doesn’t even twitch as I approach it. I pull on my weapon, and it sucks out of a deep wound, which is still not deep enough to have killed the creature. The first thing I notice is that my energy in the spear is gone. I bend down and look into the puncture wound to find that it’s far deeper than the length of the weapon that sank in. And the hole is burned black around the sides. I don’t have time to examine it further—Mur needs my help. It took another thirty seconds for me to kill this creature and the time dilation means he might have been in there for a few minutes.

  The Leporid enters my subspace on the first try. I rush toward the portal as I try to use the image of my new skill to bolster my flagging confidence. I can’t leave my teammate.

  My eyes feel like they are staring down the length of a looking glass at a scene that is rushing toward me. Just as my feet touch down again on soft soil, the surroundings click into place, almost like an elastic band returning to equilibrium. I’m standing on a small balcony raised maybe five feet above a large open space.

  It looks like another, larger circular cavern with a domed earthen ceiling. From the arching dome, thick roots dangle freely to the ground in straight lines. Each root glows softly in the deep cave, illuminating the space in a dim white light. I can hear small snicks and slaps that almost sound like combat, but the room isn’t big enough to mute the sound that much. Maybe one of the two mounds of rock is muting the noise and hiding Mur from view.

  One of the piles moves. It looked like a large white pile of stone, but now I see it is a brightly glowing white boss Leporid. Mur is jumping, dodging, and slashing at the huge white mass. It must measure a solid seven feet in height and double that in length but seems to struggle to keep up with Mur as he bounces around it. Is it slow to turn? It takes a few seconds for my ears to register that the ‘snick’ sounds coincide with Mur’s sword strikes.

  I thought the monster was albino, but the sound. . .

  Crap! The boss is covered in a layer of bone from head to toe. My scrutiny triggers [Identify].

  Snowball

  Rank: F-7

  Boss Leporid

  I charge forward to join Mur in harrying Snowball. I exit the balcony, and the boss’s turning brings its head, which has a single rhinoceros-like horn on it, in line with me. A beam of white light hits me in the eyes, and I blink.

  “Jeff leap left!” Mur growls in Gartuski, and I do so without hesitation. A huge crunch sounds, and I land on my side, blinking away the small moment of blindness the flash of light caused. Was that an attack? I turn to find the balcony I stood upon folded in on itself. The boss must have charged right by me, and has now bulldozed the space the balcony used to occupy. Dirt forms two large mounds to either side of the massive white form as it bucks and bobs its way free of debris.

  “Towers! That would have popped me like a bubble!” I exclaim.

  The name ‘Snowball’ seems less and less appropriate as I look over the destruction it just caused. And this close, the bone-studded Leporid seems monstrously huge.

  “No let head aim at Jeff. Then boom-rush,” Mur calls as he rushes over. “Stay close to side. Careful of smoosh.” The boss extricates itself from the soil and begins turning just outside of the destroyed balcony.

  “Smoosh?” I ask, but Mur is already trying to hug close to the boss’s side. I can see a few chips from the bone on the side he chooses, but it looks like his attacks aren’t working very well. I circle around the rear end of the boss to the other side, not wanting to impede Mur’s swings, or have him interrupt mine. I push qi into my weapon, hoping that my newly discovered strike might be enough to break through. I punch out a thrust, and the weapon slides along the bone armor, leaving a small line on the surface, but nothing more.

  The boss jumps straight up in the air as I pull my weapon back.

  “Smoosh!” Mur growls out and dives away. I do the same only a moment behind him and in the opposite direction. I’m startled. How can I see Mur? My eyes track up as I fly away. Snowball crests in a jump and begins descending. I feel the ground vibrate on landing, and for a moment, my brain doesn’t want to believe what my eyes tell it.

  A circle of earth around the boss depresses. Highlighted most by the destroyed balcony’s mounds flattening as if by an unseen force. I charge back in, remembering what happened when the head lined up with me the last time.

  I desperately change tactics. Aren’t blunt strikes with force the best way to deal with heavy-armor foes? I begin using the broken spear as a quarterstaff. I keep the four drops of qi topped up and follow Snowball’s slow circling.

  I step with the turning body and bring the weapon down on Snowball’s bone armor. Vibrations shoot down the shaft of the spear and into my hands, then through my arms right to my shoulders and chest. The qi in the wood rushes out, and my breath catches as a secondary pulse shoots through my palms and seems to grip m
y heart.

  Pulling the weapon back, I push more qi into it, preparing to strike again, but I see no apparent damage from my first blow. I continue to slam at the Leporid, each blow agonizing as I feel the same jolt and qi loss.

  “Smoosh,” I shout this time as I catch the early signs of the boss bunching its legs, before it jumps up into the air again. I leap back while simultaneously looking around the cavern. We aren’t doing anything to this boss. Nothing more than scratches. We are likely going to get tired before it as well. We need a change.

  The cavern’s ceiling is high, perhaps thirty feet at the center and tapering to twenty toward the edges. There is still that large pile of stones and dirt that look like it might give me a better vantage. I hesitate, though. A better vantage of what? Snowball’s back may be less armored, I guess? Maybe the high ground allows parties to strike at a weak point. . .

  The boss crashes back to the ground, and an airwave blasts me off my feet.

  “Bloodfire!” Mur grunts and I assume he too was knocked off his feet by the change of tactics. I crunch back to a sitting position and see the boss turning toward Mur.

  “Mur, move now!” I shout in English, again forgetting to speak Gartuski in the heat of battle. Stupid language books. Mur jumps though, and the boss crunches an imprint into the soft earthen wall. It missed Mur’s foot by millimeters, and I’m pretty sure a single hit from that charge will end either of us.

  “Get high ground!” I point, hoping for a miracle. There has to be a way to beat this thing. I immediately follow my own directions.

  This boss is going to eventually catch one of us, and we need to take a moment to regroup before that happens. I retreat, adding some qi into my muscles for speed and strength. Using that extra power, I jump from foothold to foothold until I crest the top of the eight-foot-tall rise near the middle-back of the round room.

  My mood sours as the boss removes itself from the parted earth of the wall. Snowball’s back looks like it is even more heavily armored than the sides, head, and hindquarters.

  “Idea?” I ask as Mur joins me atop the mound a split second later.

  Snowball slowly begins to turn again, and I know we only have a few moments before the beast’s head lines up with us.

  “Mur not know. Mur barely chip bone. Mur want club!” my tribesman complains. That’s not helpful at all. I need to think of something. . . With enough bitcoins and time, I can carry an entire armory in my subspace, be ready for—

  “Tribe move now!” I call an end to the short meeting by pointing to Snowball. The boss’s head is now visible and he is narrowing in on the stone beneath us. The rock under me makes me pause. If we jump off of it, the shards will blast out from it and likely kill us. By The Giver, did I trap us—

  Stop it! Think. The head lines up with the boulders under us, and a white beam attaches itself from the horn to the center of the rock. What other options do we have? Stay up here? Wait—

  “Jump on roots, Mur.” I quickly stash my weapon and leap. I hit the nearest tuberous rope, and feel it sway away from my body, but I manage to clamp down on the root with my newly freed hands. I worry for Mur, but I need not. He is already hanging from a root about six feet away from me—one-handed, with ease.

  Expecting a boom and flying shards, I’m surprised when nothing happens. I look to the white boss to find it pulsing and glowing brighter. I climb up to gain some distance from the boss and lock my feet to support myself. Looking down after that climb, the Leporid still hasn’t moved. Each heartbeat that thuds through my chest increases my anxiety. Is it charging up? It already crushes anything in front of it without that. Something tells me that the more the boss charges up, the worse this will be.

  One of the roots is pulsing in time with the boss, and I blink. Has it moved to connect to the boss? It’s at a strange angle and appears to be providing the power? It is! That same root dangled straight down before but now for some reason it’s providing some sort of power increase to the thing.

  “Mur, try cut root!” I shout and point. Mur follows my finger and then throws his sword. He threw his weapon?! I watch in horror as it flies toward the pulsing root. We are likely going to die, and Mur threw his weapon away?!

  The blade slices through the hanging root. As the root falls to the ground, the boss blurs and is gone. But the noise that accompanies the disappearance is deafening.

  It’s like a cruel god chose to release a thunderclap from right above my head. I feel the displaced air, decibels, and dirt assault me from all sides. Or in the dust storm, that’s how it seems.

  The dust in the room is so heavy that, for a time, I can’t see a thing—and all I can feel is the root I’m hanging from creaking as it swings.

  Slowly the room resolves from the dust, and I find Mur again first. He is staring back at me with wide eyes, and his body is shaking. It takes a moment for me to see the numerous cuts across his back, arms, and legs. With a sort of perverse-mirror effect, I also note the wetness and stinging pain emanating from my own back, arms, and legs. Some of the debris must have hit me as well as Mur.

  The scene below is still. Or sounds still, at least. I can’t hear the Leporid moving around, and it’s like a dense dirt fog is covering everything below us.

  Five minutes later, my arms are tiring, and I am infusing qi to hold on, but I catch my first glimpse of white below me. I gasp from shock.

  “Is that a piece of the bone armor from the boss?!” I exclaim to myself. I didn’t realize how silent it was in the room until I made the noise. Mur twitches at the sound but nods vigorously.

  “Look. Under dirt—Mur think that boss.”

  I follow Mur’s head nod, and sure enough, a brown Leporid with a cracked exoskeleton is lying on the ground. Its head and body are broken in numerous places, and a smile begins to grow on my face.

  “We . . . did it?” I ask myself, Mur, and the boss chamber in general.

  Chapter 34

  September 4th, 151 AR

  Jeff Turle

  Snowball [Corpse]

  Rank: F-7

  Boss Leporid

  Again, two ranks above the mobs outside. Is that a pattern?

  I shrug and summon the boss’s corpse into my subspace. I can’t really know without more boss tries, and I’m not one hundred percent sure we should. I definitely see why people wait until they are a rank higher than dungeons before attempting them. Boss rooms are ridiculous. That thing could have turned Mur or I into a bloody mist. Or worse—pancakes under its bulky butt! To be fair, I’m not sure which one is worse, but dying crushed by a rabbit butt doesn’t seem like a fun way to go.

  Mur goes to collect his sword first, and I slowly approach him, still a bit shell-shocked. I pull two flasks out of my subspace and pass him one. Then, my hand shaking a bit, I tilt my head back and consume mine. As soon as I feel the cold sludge slide down my throat, I begin sending some earth qi to my numerous cuts and bruises as I activate the slowly forming new qi from my stomach.

  “Look at that!” I say pointing a shaking hand at the slightly glowing root that had connected to the boss at the end of the fight. I need to find something to stop thinking about how we just almost died!

  Snowball’s Charging Cord [Green]

  Quest Item

  My [Identify] marks it as a quest item and suddenly it becomes real. We just completed a boss chamber. Just Mur and me, and both of us in the F ranks!

  “Mur, that throw!” I exclaim as my mood flips. A surge of energy replaces my shakes as I put both hands up in the air. My opinion on the stupidity of throwing away his weapon reverses as well in hindsight. Mur puts his arms into the air as well, copying my motion but seeming confused as to why I’m standing like this.

  “Want Mur to throw again at other root?” Mur asks and I laugh too loudly for what the comment should receive. Actually thinking about it, I turn to one of the nearby tubers, and it does produce a plaque thanks to [Identify].

  Ever Root [Gray]

  Rank: F-4
>
  “Yes!” I shout again and lower my fists. Maybe there’s more loot around here. I rush around the room staring at everything, including the soil. The white of broken bone is the first thing that actually produces a plaque.

  Exoskeletal Armor

  Rank: F-7

  I move around trying to find every piece of it, large or small. In my searching, I find a half of a rock shimmering in the slowly dimming lights of the dungeon. Oh right, I should be checking everything! I stare at it too.

  Mithril Ore Deposit

  Rank: F

  I find eight other large chunks just like it. Before I am lost for what to do next, I feel my brain arguing with itself on options and suddenly I realize just how fast my heart is beating. It’s practically vibrating, and the shakes have returned with a vengeance.

  I sit down and stare at the exit portal that is near the destroyed balcony. I can’t believe we’ve cleared it.

  It takes another hour or more of searching through the area inside the portal, to confirm we got everything. But finally we exit.

  “Mur, wait,” I say as I hold up a hand once we’re outside and the disorientation of the ‘trip’ fades. “Need to bury other tribe,” I add as solemnly as I can manage in the growling and barking Gartuski language.

  “Bury tribe?” Mur says with a head tilt. Instead of answering him, I move to the grass opening of the dungeon and jump down. I place each naked goblin corpse in its own space in the tunnel. Mur watches from above, his eyes widening for a time, before he jumps down and stares at the nearest one.