by Macronomicon
***Montero, lord of the Krusker range***
Montero was a simple Krusker. Good food, good mating, and extreme aggression towards anything that could possibly be a threat had served him well his entire life.
He didn’t even know his name. It wasn’t something he called himself, but rather the collective name the spirits of the forest, and awed natives of Pharos used to refer to the Krusker.
Glow-root, yummy. Belly full.
FILL BELLY MORE.
The satisfying crunch of the glow-root was music to the Krusker lord’s ears. He’d long since pushed any rivals out of his territory, and all sows were his to mount.
Rattle!
Montero’s head jerked up, scanning the woods.
There!
His little Krusker brain went through the order of operations it applied to everything in a matter of microseconds.
Eat? Moving, so maybe after kill.
Fuck? No. Not Sow.
Kill? KILL!
KIIIILLLL!
The bush continued shaking as Montero began charging, his burny-thingy bursting with power, sending lightning crashing across his entire body, strengthening his bristly skin and making his muscles swell.
Ever since the day he’d accidentally formed the Myst Core, he’d had an edge over the other kruskers, although he didn’t know enough to attribute it to the crackling energy inside him, nor did he really know what it was, or how to use it, exactly. He just knew that he squeezed it when he charged, just like he squeezed all his other muscles, and it made things die.
It was the embodiment of power for him. He still remembered witnessing a bolt of lightning strike a massive oak to this day, forming his ideal of power.
“EEEE!” Montero let out a ferocious squeal and charged the interloper shaking the bush, aiming to strike like lightning!
White lightning arced out a fraction of a second ahead of him and exploded the bush, followed by his magnificent horn, and then his magnificent hooves as he trampled the bush and whatever it had been hiding.
Pain? Pain!
There was a splinter of some kind in Montero’s chest, grating against his tough bones.
Montero couldn’t quite see it, so he did what he always did when something attacked him from a point he couldn’t see:
He charged some more, squeezing the burny-thingy as hard as he could.
***Jeb***
Jesus, it’s a miracle this thing hasn’t killed itself already.
Jeb didn’t voice his disbelief out loud though. The damn thing weighed as much as a tank, and the unfortunate tree beside the bush was completely demolished as it began charging everything.
The broken spear dangling from its chest was the only casualty of their opening move.
Jeb had floated his first spear over to the opposite side of the board, along with two more in other positions, before he’d made it start shaking the bush violently.
The krusker hadn’t even bothered to pause to identify the threat, it just charged right into the spear hidden in the bush, earning itself a deep stab wound in its chest.
That’s how a human hunts, dickwad.
Jeb reached out with his Myst and took control of one of the spears he’d secreted in another bush.
He started shaking it.
The Krusker squealed in surprise, its head jerking up again, locking eyes on the bush before committing to a wholehearted charge.
It got another blade in the chest for its efforts. Now there were two spearheads dangling from the boss-monster’s chest, the flow of blood roughly doubled.
It’s so much easier when I don’t have to hold the spear my own damn self, Jeb thought, thinking back on how stupid he’d been to try and stop even a small one from charging with just a spear.
If I had just known how to use Myst- Jeb shook his head. Intrusive self-recriminating thoughts about the loss of his foot were to be expected. He’d been on the wrong side of the couch long enough to know what to expect.
If I’d known about the subprime lending crisis, I’d be a millionaire instead of a retired grunt. Doesn’t matter.
He reached out and started shaking spear number three.
Shaka, shaka, shaka!
The Krusker’s head popped up again, and it snorted, pawing the ground like it was gonna charge again, but then…it didn’t.
Instead, it snorted again, then started snuffling, lifting its head higher as it sniffed the air.
Ah, crap.
It turned away from where Jeb was shaking the bush, following its nose in Jeb’s direction.
The two of them locked eyes. The krusker lord and the vet shared a special moment.
“Yeah, what are you gonna do about it? I’m a smart monkey in my goddamn tree!” Jeb said, flipping the bastard off.
“EEEEE!”
The Krusker charged him, lighting coating its body, causing its wounds to cauterize as the spearheads were flung free.
Damn.
Jeb had a choice here. Go for even more damage, or run away.
Let’s go for the biscuits.
Rather than grabbing onto his weapon and levitating himself away like a witch on a broom, he took his strongest spear, a short spear made of pure steel – possibly some fanboy’s attempt to recreate a gundam’s pile driver weapon – and braced it against the tree.
Crunch! Crash!
The entire tree bucked out from underneath him with far more force than he’d been expecting, throwing him flailing to the ground.
“EEE!”
Jeb flipped over and got to his feet – foot – with that kind of near-death adrenaline that makes you feel like Bolt-Goddamn-Usain, poky underbrush completely ignored.
There, only a few feet away, the krusker stumbled backward, iron spike embedded deep in its left eye.
The wailing creature bellowed with a force that made Jeb clap his hands over his ears and stagger backwards – hop backwards – , toppling over a nearby bush when his reflexive kick with his right foot caught nothing. damnit.
The krusker’s single remaining eye was bloodshot with rage as it focused on him. In the distance, he heard the hoofbeats of dozens more of the squat little bastards approaching, ready to trample him into a fine paste, and then eat him.
Maybe not even in that order.
Crap.
The big lug lowered its horn and charged.
With panicked speed, Jeb infused his last weapon – the trusty short sword – with a healthy dosage of Myst, yanking the weapon in his hand to the right, into the creature’s newly created blind spot.
Jeb awkwardly skated over the ground, pulled by his sword, the creature’s lightning aura singeing his hair and sending up the smell of ozone as it charged past.
Once Jeb was out of its way, he pulled up as hard as he could, dragging himself up and into the air, struggling against his own weight.
‘Standard’ speed and weight was about a hundred and sixty pounds at three feet per second. Right around walking speed.
These numbers were going up every day, but that was approximately where he stood right now. To move Jeb and his gear, a total of about a hundred and ninety five pounds, he had to drop his speed drastically.
That meant he was about four feet into the air when the krusker turned, looking for where the human had disappeared to.
Jeb cursed and drew his legs up, barely out of range of the creature’s maddened thrust, the lightning arcing from its nose to his pants.
Jeb’s pants scorched, but didn’t catch fire, admirably protecting him against the creature’s lightning.
A couple seconds later, he was out of it, dangling from a sword above it.
The boss squealed in indignation, stamping it’s feet and trying to charge him, but the poor creature couldn’t fly.
“Yeah, tough luck,” Jeb said, glaring back down at it, at an impasse.
In the distance, Jeb heard the clomping feet of more kruskers as they flooded into the clearing, their eyes mad with rage.
Behind the lead krusker, Jeb made out Je
ssica flickering past one of the thick-skinned creatures, her sword drawn, anime-style. A second later, she disappeared again, and a burst of blood erupted from the creature’s throat, similarly anime style.
She then continued to cull the herd by flickering between kruskers at a speed his eyes couldn’t even keep track of.
Well, I guess anything’s possible with magic.
“Here goes nothing,”
Nothing like a proof of concept while you’re in the shit.
Jeb siphoned a bit of Myst out, aiming for the broken spear-heads in the distance.
As soon as he did, his control over the short sword in his hand wobbled, then failed, and he began plummeting to the ground.
With desperate speed, he switched back to controlling the sword, wasting the Myst he’d spent on both the new object, and the original investment in his sword.
He felt the fledgling star in his chest flicker a little as he dipped into its reserves, like he promised he wouldn’t do.
Damnit. Probably set myself back a couple hours, there. And with only four days until the Safe Zones vanished, he didn’t really have a lot of time to spare.
Okay, two things at once feels like juggling babies. We’re not gonna be able to do that just yet.
Alright, think, what’s the safest, most boring way to kill this thing? I can’t afford to spend any more Myst, and I can’t afford to get hurt again.
Well, buddy, Jeb thought, looking down at the infuriated krusker, looks like we’re doing this the long and painful way.
He floated over to a nearby tree.
The krusker annihilated it.
He floated to the next one.
Same thing.
Gradually, he led the boss monster on a rampage through the forest, draining Its stamina over time as it brained itself over and over on tree after tree. The iron spike stick out of its eye made it squeal in pain every time it rammed a new tree, but the stupid thing didn’t know the meaning of the word quit.
Eventually, when the lightning died on the Krusker’s back, and the damn thing was fighting for breath, Jeb struck.
He simply dropped out of the air, riding the shortsword straight down. In addition to the pull of gravity, Jeb assisted with Myst, allowing him to plummet fast enough to catch the creature off-guard.
He dropped on its head and sank the short-sword into the creature’s left eye, putting all his weight and telekinesis behind it.
It was barely enough strength to push through the creature’s frightfully strong skin. up until this point he’d let the damn thing impale itself, which had worked pretty well, but that was because the krusker was outrageously strong.
His telekinesis-assisted stab barely put out its eye, stopping shortly after penetrating the orb itself, not nearly as deep as the iron spike.
But it did what it needed to do:
The krusker was blind now.
It threw its head up in outrage, bucking violently. Jeb and his sword flew off into the woods, landing in a bush.
The krusker squealed and thrashed, trying to kill every living thing within a twenty foot radius, shattering trees, and missing Jeb’s face with its dinner-plate sized hoofs by mere inches.
Jeb remained still and silent, pulling in Myst and burning it, rebuilding the corona of energy around his star.
The krusker went still, sniffing around for Jeb.
Jeb used the distraction to pull the shortsword out before he released control over his shortsword and reached out for the iron spike, yanking it forcibly out of the krusker’s skull.
The Krusker’s struggling redoubled as blood began to pour out of its face.
Whenever the creature stopped to smell for him again, Jeb directed the spike to stab it in the nose, using the noise of the resulting tantrum to hop further away, making sure to keep thick trees between himself and the monster to ward off stray hoof-kicks.
It wasn’t a fair fight. It wasn’t graceful. It was long, protracted, and ugly, but it got the job done.
Finally, after over an hour, the Krusker died of its wounds. Jeb knew because of the onslaught of levels.
You have gained a level!
You have gained a level!
You have gained a level!
You are now level 13!
Congratulations! You have Beaten the Krusker lord, Montero, in a one-on-one duel. Your Physical Might is beyond reproach!
“My physical-“ Jeb glanced up at Jessica, who was approaching from the side, inspecting her dinged and dented blade. It wasn’t going to put up with much more abuse at this rate.
“Is anyone actually watching these tutorials?”
Krusker’s Brawn Accolade Granted!
+5 Body
Jeb held his breath, waiting for the pain, but nothing came.
“Huh, maybe it’s –“
His jaw started to cramp. Jeb reached his hand up to massage it, and that started to cramp.
“Aw, shit,” he bit out the words through clenched teeth as his entire body tightened up in one massive, painful cramp.
It wouldn’t hurt so damn much if his muscles would just relax, but they were rolling up like a shade with the counterweight cut.
“Son of a bitch!”
“Yeah, first couple points made me pretty sore,” Jessica said, sitting down next to him. “It’s best to take some cooldown time between them.”
“Five,” Jeb panted through his lockjaw. “All at once.”
“Damn.” Jessica said, her eyebrows rising. “That’ll be interesting.”
Jeb laid there, in the middle of the chaos and dozens of dead Kruskers, waiting for his body to come to terms with its newfound power.
While he was waiting, he decided to assign the extra three points from his levels for killing the boss. If he was gonna be in pain, might as well get it all taken care of at once.
He put them in Myst, obviously.
Jebediah Trapper
Unclassed, Level 13
Body 10
Myst 28
Nerve 8
Once that was done, Jeb tried to distract himself by focusing on drawing in Myst to build his inner star.
Bigger and bigger, baby.
The ability to move things at about walking speed was cool…but…nowhere near exploding heads or mind-bullets.
Every confrontation always uncovered flaws in your thinking, unseen depths to your situation, and it was a wise man that stopped and took the time to stop and reflect on them at the end of the day.
1. Is it possible to control more than one object at a time?
2. Is it possible to move a floppy object, or one with joints?
So far he’d only moved stiff unyielding object, or chunks of dirt with no articulation.
Gotta work on that.
After about fifteen minutes of agony, Jeb’s muscles slowly relaxed, allowing him to get to his feet. It was surprisingly easy, like his body had been turned into a beach ball or something, and the slightest push sent him reeling several feet in every direction.
“You get used to it,” Jessica said, looking amused as he toppled to the ground, his missing foot making adjusting harder than it had to be.
Ding!
Your party has cleared the western woods dungeon! Please take your rewards.
“I thought we got our rewards.” Jeb said, glancing at Jessica. “What rewards is it talking about?”
“If I had to guess, there’s a separate reward for soloing the boss, and clearing the whole place.”
No sooner had she said that, than the Myst convulsed around them, condensing to form a massive ten foot wide sphincter beside the defeated boss which then proceeded to shit out a chest.
Jeb blinked.
“Ah, there it is,” Jessica said, approaching the Myst-turd, popping open the lid with a firm tug.
“You didn’t…see how that thing was made, did you?” Jeb asked.
“What? It just manifested out of twinkling light, like it was three-d printed or something.” Jessica said, glancing back
at him. “Oh, what’s this?”
As she spoke, another sphincter appeared next to Jeb, causing him to flinch backwards as it…deposited…a chest next to him.
“Well,” Jeb said with a shrug, “When in Rome.” He opened the chest, ignoring its origins.
Inside was a slightly curved longsword made of blue steel, with jagged lines, thorny, as if it had been violently bent out of shape and then returned to form by a drunk, angry blacksmith.
He picked it up, and information flowed into his mind.
Longsword – Razorback.
+3 Body
This sword was made by a possessed smith who summoned demons specifically to hunt down the Krusker who killed his love. The sword survived, He did not. Its reliability in battle is unquestionable, repairing itself over time with the blood of the vanquished.
The sword has a legacy of blood and violence that runs deep.
He glanced over at Jessica and spotted her looking at the sword longingly.
In her hand was something that could be described as a…ah hell, it’s a magical girl wand. It was bright pastel yellows and pinks with a star at the top. It might even be made of plastic.
Wordlessly, the two of them tossed the items in their hand to each other.
Wand of cleansing.
Inject Myst to remove filth and grime from any surface. Power is dependent on the amount of Myst.
Ever Popular with spellcasters and housewives across the globe, the wand of cleansing is a must have in any well-prepared sorceress’s arsenal. Cutting chore times in half and taming the unpleasant stains and odors of adventuring is as simple as a wave of the wand!
Barbarian refuse to take a bath because water is unlucky? Cleansing! Did the party just fall into a bog? Cleansing!
Choosy Witches Choose Cleansing! ™
Jeb finished reading the description on the item, then glanced over at Jessica.
“I feel kinda greasy, like I’ve just seen both sides of the gender advertising divide.”
“If it knew you were a guy,” Jessica said, putting the sword over her shoulder, “it would’ve been all about maintaining your ‘gear’ and keeping it in ‘peak condition’. She made air quotes as she spoke.
“Yeah, along with disinfecting wounds and preventing gangrene.” Jeb said with a chuckle, inspecting the wand. “If it had said that and looked like a black tactical flashlight I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about it.”
