by Blaine Hicks
Command Water - Rank 1 (Spell Circle 1): Bodies of water become responsive to your will for a short period of time. The amount of influence over the water and the duration of the spell are dependent on the intelligence of the caster and the level of the spell. At Rank 1, this is not a combat spell (unless you plan to drown someone who's already unconscious).
Spell Cooldown: 4 minutes
Purchase Price: 2 Spell Points
Errant Wind - Rank 1 (Spell Circle 1): This spell increases movement and attack speed by 20% while decreasing the stamina cost of all actions by 5%. At Level 1, this spell may only target the caster.
Spell Cooldown: 4 minutes
Purchase Price: 2 Spell Points
Neither of the two new spells screamed, “pick me.” Radley wanted more damage in his magic arsenal considering he couldn’t hit anything with frontal physical attacks. That left him with only one choice. He spent the two spell points on stone fist and a new message scrolled across the open interface.
*You have learned the spell “Stone Fist” (Level 1)*
He suddenly knew how to cast the new spell. It seemed so simple; he was surprised it wasn’t obvious to him before.
CH 16 Danger, Danger Everywhere
Radley dismissed the remaining prompts and user interface and held out his hand. Arcane words fell from his lips as the currents of magic began to swirl around his arm. At first his green, scaled arm became grey, then began to sparkle as if coated in frost. As he finished the spell, a brilliant purple crystal erupted over his arm in a long-jagged shard. He had no nearby targets, so he calmly waited for the spell to disperse again. This took almost a full minute.
He waited for his MP bar to refill completely before choosing his next target. It was already early afternoon, so Radley was anxious to grind some XP. He spent the next hour fighting the balls of fluffy fury in the meadow. He killed two more level 2 rabbits, and one level 3, before running low on both stamina and mana. His attacks followed the same pattern as before, beginning with a surprise staff attack and followed by magic. He was able to finish off the first rabbit with Fire Palm and took no damage. It was over almost too quickly and made him overconfident. The second rabbit was more feisty and somehow avoided the damage from his staff attack. It retaliated with agile ferocity that would have been a problem if he hadn’t known magic, but he did. Now he was better prepared and able to counter the tiny beast’s physical attacks. As the rabbit charged towards him, he met it with a fist of jagged crystal that shattered during the impact and blinded the creature. It snarled and spit, trying to find him while lashing out with teeth and claws. Radley waited for his opening before finishing it off with his fire palm. His sneak skill advanced to Level 2 and his 2-handed blunt weapon skill hit Level 3.
The next rabbit was Level 3 and looked noticeably larger than the other rabbits he’d fought before. It was also a much more formidable opponent. It had 35 HP and was even faster. His opening attack with the staff did only 4 damage. Radley was grazed several times by claws as the creature counter attacked, but he kept it from grappling onto his leg with his darkwood staff. He finally hit it with his stone fist during a lucky exchange and brought the beast’s health down to 11. His next attack was fire palm but somehow the spell misfired giving the rabbit time to roll to the side and avoid the damage. The miscast was followed by a spike of pain and his HP dropped by 6 points. Luckily the rabbit was recovering from its roll-away move and couldn’t take advantage of the opening in his guard. Radley recovered quickly but was still in trouble. Both his spells were on cooldown and his staff was next to useless as an offensive weapon unless he had the element of surprise. The rabbit didn’t have the same limitation and used its small agile legs to bound in and out of range, whittling down Radley’s health with lunging claw attacks. After four painful minutes, Radley’s stone fist finally came off cooldown and he was able to finish the creature off. His arm became a shard of purple crystal that pierced the rabbit completely through as it lept to attack him.
Radley fell to the ground as the battle ended, exhausted and nearly out of mana. After some time, he sat up and crossed his legs waiting for his stamina to return. He was watching his breathing when a new icon appeared in his HUD showing he had gained a meditation status effect. This gave him a 50% buff to his stamina and mana regen. Not too bad! Radley thought.
The three victories didn’t profit enough XP to level up, and each dead rabbit gave slightly less XP than the one before it. He still progressed 42% towards Level 3, which was something he tried to appreciate.
When his mana and stamina were full, he returned his attention to the three scattered rabbit corpses still lying in the grass. He wasn’t hungry but he also didn’t want to just leave them in the field to attract predators. He wondered if he could skin them and salvage their hides or meat for later. To his relief, he only had to touch each corpse to loot them. One by one the small rabbits crumbled to dust, replaced by a piece of loot. He got two crude rabbit pelts and a juicy chunk of rabbit meat. which he took back to the house and wrapped in a tattered paper gift bag he’d found that said “CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR NEW BABY.”
He probably could have kept fighting but his confidence had grown enough that he felt ready to set out and find what happened and maybe get some help. He looked around and his gaze settled on the “ant hill”. It was his sarcastic name for the giant dirt spire that had engulfed most of his house. Getting a good view of his surroundings seemed like the proper way to find a destination. The grass from the meadow became patchy as Radley climbed upward. Eventually all plant life faded away except for a few vines hanging down from the summit. The slope itself became hard dry dirt and he started to slip as he tried to climb upward. He considered using the vines as ropes until he noticed long thorns dripping with a white sap hidden beneath their green leaves. Instead he scrambled awkwardly between handholds and made slow progress. After an hour of climbing the slope, the terrain had become nearly vertical. Radley had given up looking for handholds and instead used his sharp claws to grip into the hillside. It was slow going, but step by step he made his way to the top like he was climbing a dirt ladder. He crested the summit with a final burning effort and stood into a moderate wind.
What he found was not what he’d expected. He was on a wide rim that encircled a deep hole, much like the caldera of a small volcano. Rather than being filled with lava or a smoldering lake, he was surprised to see an epicenter of the hanging vines drawn into the blackness below him. The vines coalesced from all directions and in between each was a large white spike. Together the scene looked like a horrible blender of death.
A floating health bar hung in the air above the hole. Whatever this hole was, it boasted 6450 HP. His jaw dropped in shock as he realized he might be seconds away from another painful death. He waited without moving. When no death came, he selected a flashing magnifying glass icon at the edge of his vision and identified the creature.
Great Forest Sundew - 6450 HP
A forest sundew is a powerful plant carnivore. This ambush predator burrows into the earth and waits to catch careless creatures that disturb its long vines. It becomes extremely aggressive with a single touch. This great forest sundew is an apex predator and is the dominant power in its feeding territory.
Battle consideration: This sundew is level 246. Touching this creature is suicide and should be attempted only when seeking a slow and painful death.
Radley definitely wasn’t seeking another death and especially not a slow and painful one, but he had delivered himself onto the doorstep of this impossibly high leveled monster unaware of the danger. From his perch on the rim, the thick vines were only a step in either direction. He waited for the imminent pain, but the vines remained motionless.
Radley was overcome with the fear of imminent death until his next survival instinct shouted at him to climb back down immediately. He started to move back towards the ledge, but a calmer voice told him to stop. It reminded him of the words given to describe the sundew.
It becomes aggressive with a touch.
With his knees trembling, Radley decided to finish what he had come to do. He straightened himself and looked back to the horizon to search for a destination, somewhere he could find help and information about what had happened to the world. The view was impressive, and before him the green canopy of a dense forest stretched out in all directions. The trees below him surrounded the entire ant hill in a wide slow arc that connected to make a perfect circle around the tall dirt spire. The grassy meadow separated the forest treeline on all sides. To the west and south he could see a distant ridge of low mountains that broke through the trees and cut off his view of anything further. Besides the mountains to the west and south, he could see a long band of water far to the east that extended to the horizon. It looked like a coastline, but his house was an hour by bullet train from the coast. He shouldn't be able to see it. There were very few other points of interest. Just trees, trees, and more trees. The only other possible destination was a dark black plume of smoke rising through the forest canopy to the north but it was pretty far and he couldn’t tell what the source was but fire usually meant somebody was there.
He shook his head to banish the thoughts of doubt away then chose the smoke. It was the closest destination and the only real sign of intelligent life. Smoke wasn’t what he had hoped for when he climbed the ant hill but there didn't seem to be any better choice.
Radley tapped his chest to open his user interface. He selected the “map” tab which opened to display a large rectangle with various navigation options along the right side. The map itself was all black except for a small colored oval at the center. He zoomed in with the navigation keys until the oval filled most of the map space and found an arrow representing his own location at the center of a brown spot labeled “Ant Hill.” His house and a portion of the treeline were also visible on the map and he realized that it was filling in to include the areas where he had already been. Apparently viewing the horizon from a distance was not enough to trigger the effect. Everything else besides his little clearing was blacked out, having not yet been explored. He zoomed the map out slightly and with his best guess, placed an available marker over the spot on the map where he estimated the smoke was coming from. This action left a small icon on the map and as he looked up again, he was startled to see a corresponding beam of light emanating from the forest canopy in front of him. The golden light extended vertically until it faded into the sky like a beacon. Apparently, it marked the exact spot he had designated on his map. Unfortunately, he had missed. The beacon was only about halfway to the smoke. He moved the marker on his map further out and placed it again then looked up to find the new position of the light beam was right on top of the smoke plume. He dismissed the interface and focused on his next task: getting back down from the ant hill without dying.
Ch. 17 It's not the fall that kills you...
After looking down and evaluating the route to the bottom, Radley planned a route with his top priority being, not disturbing the sundew vines. From where he stood on the rim of the caldera, he had about a foot of clearance in each direction to the nearest vine. He turned around, knelt, and slowly lowered his feet over the edge. His clawed toes dug into the hard-packed dirt which held fast as he shifted his weight from off his arms to his lower body. He moved slowly down the steep dirt cliff face with the vines just a few feet away and he felt like he was navigating between the apocalyptic equivalent of live power lines.
Radley eventually got into a rhythm as he climbed down, but the task still seemed harder than climbing up. He’d done enough indoor rock climbing to know that his lizard arms and legs grew tired more quickly than if he were still human. After he'd climbed down from the steepest portion of the hill without running into any problems he began to relax. The ground started to level off enough to give him a false sense of confidence. Suddenly, a clod of dirt broke loose under his foot and he felt his opposite ankle twist beneath his weight. His clawed fingers slipped free of their grips under the sudden momentum of his body, and a mad scramble to catch himself failed. He tumbled backwards. His brief view of the sky was followed by an almost slow-motion view of his feet passing above him. His speed increased with each rotation and after only a few seconds he was crashing down the hillside like the boulder of Sisyphus.
With a final somersault and a short slide he came to a stop on the upper portion of the meadow where the land sloped more gently and the ground was covered in short tufts of grass. For a moment he didn’t move, then his body twitched from the pain of his injuries. With a groan his head slowly rose as he spit bits of lingering dirt from his lips and mouth. He was lucky. The final landing stopped only a few feet to the side of the deadly sundew vine. He was less lucky, because he had also rolled right into the main colony of bunnies although none of them immediately attacked him. They all just stared at him casually as if wondering what the sudden commotion was about.
Radley’s ankle hurt and he was frustrated by his carelessness. When most of the dirt had been spit out, he angrily screamed at the nearest bunny. The shout came out more like the roar of a T-rex chasing prey. Surprised by this, all the nearby creatures startled away from him. In its haste to back away, the closest rabbit stumbled over the sundew vine. When the rabbit’s paw brushed against it, the vine snapped towards it at lightning speed like a rubber band being released. The thorn covered streak coiled around the helpless animal and drew tighter. Considering the 244-level difference between predator and prey, the vine was surprisingly gentle once it latched on. The rabbit was barely injured and continued to struggle until the thorns began to excrete copious amounts of a thick white sap. All fighting faded and the vine began to haul its living lunch towards the ant hill like a fisherman pulling in a line. The other rabbits lost interest and went back to grazing but Radley watched the small bundle being pulled away, transfixed by the gruesome fate he had narrowly avoided.
When his beating heart slowed, Radley checked his own status. He had lost 12 HP from the fall but those had begun ticking back up again. Without bleeding or any broken bones, it didn’t take long before he was at full health. The cuts and bruises he had suffered also seemed to fade at the same rate until he was left again without a single blemish. A flashing exclamation point told him more notifications were waiting and with a mental command he reviewed them:
*You have learned the skill “Climb” (level 1)*
*You have failed the agility check and have lost your balance.*
*You have failed the constitution check. You are stunned for 2 seconds*
**You have learned the skill “Terrifying Shout” (level 1)**
Radley pushed himself to his feet and rolled his eyes. Obviously, he had lost his balance. He didn’t really need notifications for that. He headed back to the house making a note to turn off obvious notifications when he had a chance to customize his settings. It was almost dark, and he was tired. He wanted one last night of sleep and safety before setting off into the unknown. The smoke was a small hope, but it was hope and that was an improvement over his feelings the night before.
Inside the house Radley began to pack. His school bag was dirty but had been left untouched by whoever or whatever had ransacked the house. Apparently, his school tablet hadn’t interested them. If he was honest, without any electricity, it wasn’t much use to him either. He emptied the bag and began filling it with his limited supplies: the can of blue protein, a sports bottle his mom had been holding filled with water from the sink, his two snakeskins, two rabbit hides and a slab of rabbit meat he’d wrapped in old homework. There wasn’t much else that would be useful, not even a set of clothing. The house had been cleaned out and he was left to collect the scraps that were left behind. Back in the kitchen, he lay on the mattress beside his mother for one final night of sleep in the dead house.
* * *
Radley slept more fitfully than the previous night. His dreams were full of killer rabbits that laughed as they chased him with deadly intent. He ran as fast as
he could, but they were always faster. They nibbled pieces off of him whenever they got close. He woke up at regular intervals and morning came slowly. It was this fitful sleep that woke him to the sound of scraping from the stairs across the room. He peered into the darkness and at first thought he was still dreaming of rabbits. Then, a pair of glowing yellow eyes flashed back at him from the far side of the room. Slowly the shape moved inside the moonlight from the kitchen window. As it moved forward Radley could see a long body trailing out behind its head.
A Snake, he thought, slowly standing up and reaching for his staff. A huge snake.
sshare…
The sound entered his mind like a stray thought. It was familiar and foreign at the same time as if hearing a recording of his own voice. Radley stared at the creature who had begun to coil and undulate into a bundle of flesh, its head continued to stare at him with unblinking eyes.
Ssshare… he heard again, this time with more intensity than before. With the sound came a desire to comply like the connection was not just words but of their hearts. He felt the creature’s hunger permeate through him and the desire to feed it grew like an itch that needed to be scratched. The snake was completely inside the moonlight now and Radley could see just how big it was. He estimated it to be 20 feet long and more than a foot in diameter. He had never been scared of snakes on old earth but that was when he lived a safe and comfortable life. That was before rabbits were murdering psychos. That was when animals lived on the other side of tempered glass or in the projection of his holotube.
