Equalize

by Ryan DeBruyn

  Plasma Grenades

  Payload: 30 feet.

  Secondary damage: Mithril Shrapnel – 300 feet.

  Plasma grenades contain a miniaturized plasma reactor which has a fuse of 4 seconds once signaled to overload. The casing will adhere to anything it lands on with universal glue.

  Each one had cost him five crystals, and that was after negotiating down the price with Lingren for fifteen minutes. Let’s just say he had been adamant that they were some of the strongest technological weapons in the universe. This made them easy to use, according to the man, and Rocky held his breath as he depressed two red buttons and lobbed each at a robotic form.

  One.

  His years of basketball paid off as each grenade struck a unit, passing just under the beams as they began to putter out. The moment he had pressed the button, he had entered a full sprint. His top speed was recklessly fast, and he managed to chug an Ether Draught on the run.

  Corsair’s face seemed to change in slow motion as the fifty feet of the room was crossed. The defenders were not willing to get in front of the deadly machines, so he had a clear path.

  As he closed with Corsair, he dropped Stealth and touched his ear to take down his half mask. As the mask retracted, it revealed a maniacal grin plastered on his snarling face.

  Two.

  People fired at him from the sides as if Rocky was playing a kid’s game of gauntlet dodgeball. To combat their accuracy during his run, he engaged Stealth and Dark Cloak before quickly releasing them. This tactic caused mass confusion as he literally seemed to teleport across the intervening space.

  As Rocky came within ten feet, he pressed the button on the last plasma grenade and leaped diagonally at a point well above the safe room’s roof. A split second into his jump, he let go of the grenade which arched back down from his parabola to adhere to the front of the glass like material right in front of a now screaming Corsair.

  Three.

  Rocky took a deep breath as he crested and began to arc back to earth towards the wall behind the transparent safe room. He charged his Dark Blade ability using fifty points of Dark Ether. This left him with a little over eighty points in reserve after his recent Ether Draughts.

  Using Dark Blade mid-air, he slashed towards the exterior wall in his flight path. The wall was just concrete but had been reinforced to bolt the safe room to it. It still didn’t stand up to the barrage. In a moment, the clear night sky broke into his vision, and Rocky flew towards it.

  Four.

  Turning back around while still in the air, he almost lazed on his back as he watched the two metallic forms leap into the air to follow him. They had just enough time to get above the roof of the safe room, and Rocky swore. This wasn’t part of the plan, and he curled into a fetal position while casting both Stealth and Dark Cloak again.

  There was a brief moment of silence before suddenly two suns began to bloom into existence through the hole he had just exited. When the blasts triggered the third grenade, a wave of force struck Rocky and made his speed from a moment ago seem like an elderly hobble as it forced him into the realms of the surreal.

  As the noise of the explosions finally reached his ears, Rocky felt metal cut deeply into his arms, across his scalp, and into his legs. He just had time to mumble, "Maybe three isn't the magic number." Then he met the ground which Azoth thought was soft.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Unfortunately, Dark Cloak and Stealth combined was an advantageous skill combination against enemies, but it also worked pretty well against friends. Sela found the dark blur of Rocky just as the night sky began to lighten. Her connection to him showed her a general area and that he still lived, but finding him in that area had proven difficult.

  Upon her arrival, Sela immediately checked his pulse after fumbling through the Dark Cloak ability to find his neck. It almost seemed as if the coalescing fog prevented her from finding his body at times. She would reach back into an area where she knew he had been a moment before, and she would find only ground.

  When Sela touched his body, it did elicit groans and flinching, which she thought might mean he was lucid. She sighed with relief at finding the man alive and then spoke softly at the storm cloud, “Rocky, if you can hear me, can you deactivate your cloak?”

  In answer, she saw the smoke begin to fade while seeming to thickly adhere in other areas that outlined his form—his arms, face, chest, and legs. Unfortunately, he must have not released Stealth because she still couldn’t see his body.

  “Rocky, it would also be helpful if you removed Stealth,” Sela stated flatly, hoping that in whatever place he was, he would respond to her request again. A moment later, his body seemed to pop into existence, and she gasped at the extent of the damage.

  How exactly was he still conscious?

  Rockland Barkclay

  Level 21

  Apprentice-Dark Revenant

  Dark Mend

  Trance Meditation

  Well that certainly explained why he was slow to react but was still aware of most of what was going on around him. He was in some sort of trance-like state. Worried he was in desperate need of more healing and quite possibly at a faster rate, she exchanged her burden of the Ambient Ether Power Converter, which had been her target of the night before, into his Bag of Holding and pulled out a Health Potion.

  In fact, a few factors had saved Rocky’s life. First, he had allocated his free stat points before the battle into Stamina, figuring he may be facing multiple opponents, which meant he was going to get hit. Second, he had placed his free skill points into Dark Cloak and increased its protective ability while simultaneously lowering the Ether cost. Third, he had rolled himself into a ball, and his armor had expended all of its remaining Ether pool to reduce the damage the ground inflicted.

  After that, Rocky had entered Trance Meditation and found he was suffering a laundry list of debuffs which he had begun combatting with Dark Mend whenever his Ether pool ticked up enough for another cast. This had been complicated by his reluctance to drop his two active concealment spells, unable to know who would find him first—friend or foe. If he had known he had traveled nearly a kilometer from the hospital before his landing, he might have not worried, but unfortunately, his brain hadn’t been keeping track of something like that when he was crash landing.

  By the time Sela had arrived, Rocky had just managed to get his health, which had been at fifteen points, to stop decreasing. In his head, he knew this wasn’t enough, but he also knew it was a massive turning point in the battle against his injuries. It would have taken perhaps another few hours, but he would have managed using Dark Mend. Maybe! The sweet cherry like taste of the Health Potion was like the first sip of alcohol for an alcoholic after years on the wagon, intoxicating and full of vague promise.

  This was followed by a taste of electric ice as an Ether Draught was also forced down his parched throat. The combination of these two powerful elixirs sped his recovery time from a few hours to minutes, and soon, Rocky was able to exit his trance and look around. His attempt to sit up was met with far too much resistance and complaint from his multiple healing ribs, and so he just laid there.

  “Sela, do you think you could grab some water from my bag?” Rocky managed to force out from a healing body. The answering few drops of water onto his lips was exquisite, and after a few minutes of slowly measured drips, he had sated his immediate thirst. This continued for a few more minutes before he saw that his health bar was above the halfway point, and he chanced a glance at his debuff bar before trying another motion.

  Since the debuffs for his serious injuries were absent and with ample use of his arms as bracing, Rocky sat up. He looked at Sela, who smiled then held the water bottle to his lips, allowing him to tilt his head back and control the flow. After he lowered his head and the container was removed from his lips, he looked at the outline of the destroyed hospital building. “Did I get him?” Rocky asked in a haunted tone as his eyes lost focus, and he was suddenly elsewhere.


  In his mind, he was playing back the slaughter he had initiated, seeing his sword cut through a man, reliving the moment he had stabbed another and used his struggling body as a living shield. His bile rose, and he was forced to hold back vomit. He barely managed to contain his retch and only then because he could console himself that he had just saved thousands of people.

  Oblivious to the reason for Rocky’s haunted tone and paling skin, Sela looked at the building which no longer could really be called that. While it still had the first floor fully intact, the side Rocky had flown from was a pyramid shape as it tapered to a point on the fifth floor before it fell away from where Azoth had destroyed the other corner. She smirked and responded sardonically, “Well, I wasn’t able to check, but from the damage, I am assuming you set off all three of the plasma grenades. You know I warned you about that, right?”

  If he hadn’t lost so much blood and what remained wasn’t being used to heal all his injuries, Rocky probably would have blushed. Rocky felt sheepish, and it was heard in his voice, “Well, there were two Master class robots, and Corsair was in some sort of safe room. I didn’t want to take the chance.”

  In the distance, the military was like a swarm of ants, milling around a destroyed hive, and Rocky motioned with his thumb behind his back. “Probably time to get out of here.” With Sela’s help, he managed to get to his feet, and using her shoulder for support, they both entered Stealth and moved as quickly as his injuries allowed away from the newly destroyed headquarters.

  During the trip back, Rocky checked his blinking notifications.

  For killing 72 Sapients: Level Apprentice 12-18: You have been awarded 22,002,031 Etherience.

  For killing 2 Androids: Level Master 15: You have been awarded 4,123,200 Etherience.

  Sapient Group Etherience modifier applied.

  Army of One Etherience modifier applied.

  Organized Foe Etherience modifier applied.

  Congratulations! You have reached level 20!

  You have been awarded 5 stat point and 1 skill point.

  0 Etherience remaining until level 21

  Congratulations! You have reached level 21!

  You have been awarded 1 stat point and 1 skill point.

  19,749,969 Etherience remaining until level 22

  Rockland Barkclay Level 21

  Class: Apprentice-Dark (Azrael) Revenant,

  Level 1 Strategist

  Class Skills: Dark Blade, Dark Mend, Soul Blade, Dark Cloak

  Health Points = 165/220 Points

  Dark Ether Pool = 55/200 Points

  You have 6 stat points and 2 skill points to distribute.

  Stamina

  22 (+1) (Strength of Body)

  Strength

  29 (Strength of Arms x 2)

  Agility

  37 (Speed of Arms)

  Dexterity

  30

  Intelligence

  20 (+1)

  Wisdom

  27

  Charisma

  29

  Luck

  7

  Weak Skills

  Non-Class Combat Skills

  Stealth 24 (+3)

  Swordsmanship 24 (+3)

  Combatant 19 (+7)

  Ether Manipulation 11 (+3)

  Ether Channels 13 (+5)

  Common Skills

  Endurance 20

  Perception 21

  Camouflage 7

  Tracking 12

  Trance Meditation 15 (+5)

  Barter 5

  Profession Skills

  Herbalist 14

  Skinning 17

  Butcher 17

  Cook 2

  Miner 1

  Actor 5

  Trade 5

  Moderate Skills

  Combat Skill (Non-Class)

  Common Skills

  Sneak 5 (+4)

  Analyze 2 (+1)

  Profession Skills

  The notifications didn’t give him the information he needed. It didn’t tell him specifics like names, and when he scanned the combat log, neither did it. On the contrary, the death toll left him light-headed; it made his stomach tense and his eyes closed unbidden. Ghastly images of the night before flitted across his eyelids for a second time.

  A quick thought of Jason, Alex, and Oliver banished the images, if not the guilt. Those boys’ families were some of the countless victims that could be laid at the feet of the men he killed. While he still was unsure about the act, he felt a firm belief that they had needed to be dealt with. Thoughts of the kids brought a smile to his face, and he remembered a frustrated Jason teaching him how to cook, which was a long and arduous process.

  Next, Rocky opened his skills window and topped up Dark Cloak. The black fog rolled back, revealing five options on the next tier. Strangely, these options had no filaments leading further which made Rocky believe that this may be the final tier of the Apprentice skill tree.

  For obvious reasons, he ignored the lower tier skills.

  Class Skills

  Tier 5

  Death’s Embrace

  A powerful spell of darkness and death. This spell will cast a circle ten feet in diameter which will grasp at and hold enemies within its borders, dependant on adversary strength.

  0/5

  Spell gained at 1/5 “Death’s Embrace.”

  Darkness my Friend

  Darkness is thine friend, and you will be stronger while fighting within it. Increases speed and attack damage while battling at night or in shadow. Each skill point added increases speed and attack by 1%.

  0/5

  Passive Skill gained at 1/5 “Darkness, my Friend.”

  Shadow Clone

  Using this skill will create a duplicate of you with significantly reduced stats. Each skill point added to this skill will increase the stats of the clone by a further 2% of your own. Base stat transfer 25%.

  0/5

  Skill gained at 1/5 “Shadow Clone.”

  Shadow Bolt

  This spell will coalesce shadow into a powerful bolt which you can launch at enemy combatants. This spell cuts general spell resistance by 10% per skill point.

  0/5

  Spell gained at 1/5 “Shadow Bolt.”

  Shadow Walk

  This skill allows you to walk through solid objects and between any shadows. Coming back is another question.

  0/5

  Skill gained at 5/5 “Shadow Walk.”

  Only one skill can be chosen from the fifth tier at Apprentice Rank.

  Rocky could see the usefulness of each option and knew that he would have to pick one and probably live with that choice for a while. Instead of rushing the issue, he decided to stew on it. A quick glance at all the empty fog on the fifth tier also made him chew his lip as he considered all the skills he couldn’t see currently.

  The trip back to their cave took a good portion of the morning, and they arrived back to find all the young men up and waiting, looking worried. Dropping Stealth a reasonable distance away, Sela and a supported limping Rocky made their way to the fire. Upon arrival and a few quick questions about his health, Jason immediately asked for some meat from the bag of holding, and the boy’s incessant hunger made Rocky chuckle.

  The boys weren’t worried if he had died; they just worried that the food they had killed and butchered had gone missing. Rocky chuckled as he fondly remembered his ability to eat when he was their age, and once you combined it with the Ether change, the boys must have been ravenous. Rocky’s family used to complain about how much he ate. His line of thought removed the smile from his face as he was forced to consider if his family was safe.

  That’s when he remembered the actual safe he had stolen, and he quickly dumped it out on to the ground. Maybe there was a ledger of survivors in this hunk of alien metal. The looks of shock when he dumped the massive vault onto the soil were amusing, but after he explained his hopes, the group got to work trying to open it. Unfortunately, Rocky discovered his sword couldn’t cut the alien metal, and
the laser rifles just bounced off, nearly clipping Sela who glared daggers at Oliver after the attempt.

  Thinking the problem through, the group had nominated Alex to try, hoping his abilities as a thief might gain them purchase. However, the boy had only purchased combat skills, and while he may have one day been up for the task, now he was nothing more than a rogue despite his class name. This left it up to Rocky who was about to start trying random codes on the thing when a massive blast of wind nearly knocked the group over.

  The gales were due to Azoth waking up and performing his customary stretches. Azoth was not yet aware of how large and strong he actually was. The Ether induced growth spurt had created a nearly adult sized Chimera with a toddler's brain. Rocky smiled at how silly it looked but also at the added security he felt from the presence of the beast.

  After the massive creature couldn’t even put a dent while jumping on the object, Rocky almost gave up. That’s when a lightbulb went off in his head, and he considered if it could work. The idea was simple enough—fly up on Azoth and drop the thing on to a stone surface from as high a height as he could manage.

  This was probably the best bet for cracking the safe, but Rocky still worried it wouldn’t be enough considering how hard the metal was. Shrugging his shoulders, he mentally challenged Azoth, “Want to show me how high you can go?”

  A bunch of curses and a few moments later, Rocky was ascending quickly on Azoth’s back and the forest below was slowly becoming a dense patch of green. Scanning the area, he looked for the most significant grouping of stones, rocks, or metal and found a large mesa on top of an enormous hill that rose off in the distance. The height also awarded him with a view of the countryside they were currently residing in, and he saw many large, dangerous looking creatures prowling in every direction.