Descend- First Steps

by David Burke

  All three girls came running to him and Huong put hands on him again as she began healing him although truthfully none of the wounds had been deep and while there was plenty of blood on him, his own regeneration would be sufficient for these wounds. Amelia snickered and said, “Our hero, the great gunslinger. You do realize how silly you look making finger guns right? It's like you never grew up and are still 10 years old.”

  Meikiyo said, “Shush, you can poke fun at him later, right now I want to know what he did to that first bear.” She had a great deal of intensity. It was certainly the strongest emotion he had seen from her since the second night when she had been in fear of her life.

  “I just threw a rock at it.”

  “Just threw a rock?” she asked skeptically.

  “Well what I mean to say is that I enhanced my strength to its maximum which I figure is now about 64 times as strong as I was before we were brought here. To be clear I can only maintain that for a few seconds. Then once I threw it as hard as I could I accelerated it 4 times which is my new cap since passing the threshold. By my calculations that made the rock fly as fast as a bullet and with its larger mass… well even my limited understanding of physics says it should cause quite an impact.”

  “Quite an impact? Quite an impact he says. From what I can tell you hit its hip joint on the rear leg and turned its skeleton into jelly from the force that was transferred. The bones that broke up quickly enough not to be simply turned to mush burst throughout its body like a shotgun or grenade went off inside of it. It was dead before it hit the ground and likely even had brain hemorrhaging from the way that blood ran out of its ears, eyes, and nose.” Meikiyo’s intensity grew as she spoke. She was clearly very interested in what he had done.

  “Um okay. I guess I’m glad it worked and I will be careful to make sure to use it in a way that doesn’t put the rest of you at risk. I can see how a missed throw would be a really bad thing now.”

  “That’s an understatement,” she replied. Something about her slight accent reminded him of his high school chemistry teacher, Mrs. Yang. He didn’t know if he should feel bad for stereotyping her but it was just what came to his head. Jay figured that was better than objectifying her by staring at her legs and her oh so pretty face. Oh and that hair the way it flowed down back leading to her butt. That was something amazing to behold.

  “Snap out of it,” Jay thought to himself. He had barely opened the door and his mind instantly went to the gutter. He had to remember the voice’s instructions. He needed to focus. The girls needed to be helpful, part of the team that would rescue them all. Jay couldn’t afford to develop strong feelings for them, even if those feelings were primarily driven by his small brain.

  Meikiyo must have noticed the way he was looking at her because she blushed a bit and then asked, “Is something wrong?”

  Amelia answered for him, “Jay is just being Jay. He realized he was undressing you with his eyes and immediately felt bad because he is such a boy scout, intent on saving the world, or at least the 55 of us. The stupid thing is that he doesn’t realize that a girl doesn’t mind knowing that a hot guy finds her attractive enough that he has trouble controlling his thoughts.”

  “There is a certain appeal to the feeling that we inspire loss of control in him,” Huong added absentmindedly while she was inspecting to make sure that she had healed all of his wounds.

  Meikiyo’s blush continued as she asked, “Um, is it one of the requirements of being on Team Jay that we have to sleep with him?”

  Jay sputtered at such a blunt question, “Umm oh god no…” before Amelia cut him off.

  “It's not a requirement and Jay is too much of a gentleman to ever force himself or even be overly assertive with you no matter how much aphrodisiac they put into the water. You should have seen how hard I had to push him the first night we were together. Practically had to beg him to take me before he finally got out of his own way.”

  “I don’t know I find it kind of endearing to see that passion smoldering beneath the surface but still find him worried about what is proper. He was so worried about it when I jumped his bones last night. I think he didn’t want to be unfaithful to you,” Huong said, looking at Amelia before winking at Jay.

  “That’s cause you are a skank,” the blonde retorted. Jay couldn’t be sure but it had almost seemed that for an instant a pained expression had crossed Amelia’s face before her poker face dropped back into place.

  “So it isn’t an obligation,” Meikiyo said without seeming to realize that she was practically pressing herself up against Jay’s side.

  The other girls clearly noticed it and looked at one another before Amelia said, “Not an obligation, more of a privilege.”

  Huong nodded her head a bit too vigorously as she said, “For sure.” Then she realized how eager she sounded and it was her turn to blush.

  Amelia said, “If anyone has an obligation it’s Jay. He has to be able to keep up with all the girls on the team.”

  Trying desperately to regain control of the conversation Jay asked Meikiyo, “So did you understand everything I said about the abilities I used?”

  She shook her head like she was trying to push off the same lusty fog that he was feeling and then said, “Well mostly, but I don’t know what you mean by threshold and I can only magnify my skills 3 times. Does it just take practice to be able to push them 4 times?”

  “The threshold seemed to be when I hit level 6. It was like I passed beyond one level of being. I honestly felt like my body was being reformed and turned into something human but not quite human.”

  “That isn’t freaky at all,” Amelia said.

  “It wasn’t bad or anything. Mildly painful but nothing I couldn’t handle. The main thing was that I got 2 points in each of the 5 stats whereas every other level-up has only increased a single stat by 1 point.”

  “That would be a huge jump and explains how you are able to do more things now.”

  Jay added, “Oh one more thing you should know. Magnifying skills to level 4 drains the energy either stamina or PSI more than twice as fast as level 3. So I can probably be strong enough to pretty easily pick up a car with one hand, but I can only maintain it for a few seconds.”

  “Makes sense,” Meikiyo added. She seemed to have regained control of herself and was analyzing everything logically. “So now what?”

  “The question is should we stay together or let me keep pulling stuff to you?”

  Just at that moment, Liam’s group entered the dungeon. As the only two guys in their little world, the two of them walked up to each other and fist bumped. After a brief conversation, Jay returned to the rest of his team and said, “They would like to hunt here by the entrance. They don’t feel as safe as we do. Liam is the only level 3 in their group, 2 of the other girls were in the dungeon with him yesterday and hit level 2 but the last one who is replacing Huong on his team is only level 1 and he especially wants to take care of her since she and Huong are the best healers we have left.”

  “So you want us to go further into the jungle? Why can’t we all hunt together?” Huong asked.

  “For the simple reason that we were already going to have to move. I know it baffles the mind since we are inside the ziggurat supposedly but this jungle extends out miles from here. If we are going to clear it we are going to have to go to where the predators are. Also based on the totem that Amelia and I saw yesterday the further in we get the more owlbears there will be and supposedly some kind of 3-legged ape creature comes later. Although to be fair I don’t know if that is a single creature like a boss or just another type of monster to hunt,” Jay replied.

  “Boss? What is a boss?” Meikiyo asked.

  “Don’t worry, it’s just some more of his gamer lingo. Shows us why he was probably a virgin before he got here,” Amelia said.

  “I was not…” Jay began to protest before Huong said, “Well if you don’t like gamer nerds, I can take care of him myself.”

  “Hands of
f, skank. I may have to share, but I saw him first.”

  “Enough already. We can talk about this later, but right now they are watching us. We needed to be a unified front. So kiss and make up and let’s get hunting,” Jay joked as he started to walk towards the jungle. If he hadn’t looked back to make sure they were following him he would have missed Amelia planting a big kiss on Huong, tongue and all if his eyes were telling the truth.

  The petite girl pulled back in shock but surprisingly didn’t raise any complaint. Amelia just looked at him and said, “Okay happy now? We’ve kissed and made up. Now let's go get this quest done. I don’t want to have to sleep in the dungeon if we don’t have to.”

  Jay didn’t know what to say, but he did know that the spear in his hands was not the only hard shaft after that display. He just grinned and shook his head before turning to walk again.

  Interlude 2 - New Complications

  D’varn Nitor had his tentacled hands busy, so to speak. The past two cycles of the Hooman experiment had been interesting. Cluster 512 continued to be the most promising but several other developments had formed which he had to monitor.

  The death rate was far exceeding expectations. Of the initial 100,000 test subjects taken from Earth Test Site Alpha over 72% were dead after only 4 cycles. Even the worst of the projections had not been this bad. None of them had the probable death rate at this point higher than 49%. It turned out that hoomans were capable of making some very poor decisions.

  D’varn placed some of the blame on the decision to introduce the genetic stimulator too early in the process. In his estimation their bodies were not capable of dealing with the side effects that promoted the hoomans’ drive to mate. It was certainly a necessary initial element of the process if the experiment bore any fruit. A few enhanced hoomans were nothing but a scientific curiosity, but an army of them, now that would be worth something.

  It was the entire reason that the ratio of F to M units had been set so high. Far more of the base hooman females had the potential for psionic development but the hooman males that did possess the trait usually were stronger as individuals. It was also felt that by breeding the strongest of the males with as many females as possible that the second generation of hooman warriors would be more consistently strong.

  That was ultimately why the Supreme Council had insisted that they introduce the stimulating chemicals immediately. The implants helped guide the hoomans’ development and eased them through awakenings but couldn’t provide that sort of stimulation. After decades of observing hoomans it was discovered that many of them bred randomly based upon some abstract concept that they called love rather than for optimal genetic enhancement.

  The genetic stimulator that they put into the water had the effect of pushing the changes in the hoomans to happen faster. This was of course good because as a species they were inferior both physically and mentally to most other races in the known universe. The one thing that they had beyond all other races was adaptability. It was Dvarn’s own experiments which had helped to demonstrate this and something that he had no small measure of pride in.

  Yet too much too fast and the hoomans became unstable. This was the reason for the levels and the schedule for the increase in the amount of genetic stimulator that would be introduced. Too much too soon and the hoomans would either turn into mindless breeding machines or would be forced into uncontrolled mutations beyond their ability to handle.

  The problem now was that cluster 512 had an individual who had passed the first threshold. Per the protocol the genetic stimulator was to be increased but D’varn didn’t believe that the other hoomans would be able to survive the increase. It was for that reason that he had made a minor modification into one of the initial quest lines. By requiring M1789 to stay in the dungeon until he cleared out all the predators, D’varn hoped to buy a couple of days for the others to get closer to the threshold.

  Another risk though was developing. One of the small clusters, 453, that had an almost complete wipe-out had triggered a merger with cluster 454 once both clusters’ population dropped below 25% as per the initial protocol. In typical hooman fashion then, they had attacked each other rather than working together. Something that was not the A’snkarnt way.

  This had resulted in another population drop and another merger. The result had been what the hoomans called a domino effect. Over the last cycle conflict had killed several hundred test subjects. As of now fully a third of the clusters were operating completely barren. Another third was similar to 512 and operating just above 50% of population and the final third was at around 25% population and waiting for another merger.

  The only saving grace was that most of the homicidal test subjects didn’t survive very long. Yet a couple of them had killed enough of their fellow hoomans that at the next awakening they might pass the first threshold. D’varn feared for his experiment and his career and perhaps even his people. If the hoomans continued like this then they wouldn’t make it 10 cycles, let alone 1000 as the experiment dictated.

  The war with the Forlorn was going badly. D’varn knew it. Even low-class A’snkarnt knew it. The Supreme Council might be silent on the subject but that didn’t keep a race as scientific as theirs from making observations. He could only hope that the species being tested at the Beta, Delta, and Gamma sites were more productive than these hoomans.

  Chapter 33 - Night in the Jungle

  As they went through the jungle, Jay kept sending out pulses of life sense and filled the two new girls in on what he was doing so that they would feel safer. The hours of the day flew by and before long they had killed 34 lizats and 12 owlbears. Jay felt they were making tremendous progress.

  They hadn’t stopped for lunch and while he wasn’t feeling fatigued, Jay knew that the others didn’t have his altered body or greatly enhanced regeneration. Amelia had no regeneration while the other two only had regeneration level 1 which amounted to basically double normal human regeneration.

  By the time the sun over the jungle began to set, Jay realized that they were going to need to take a break. He was able to track the progress of his quest. They were at 47% completion with 2 days left but none of that would matter if they didn’t find a place to stay safe for the night.

  After they found the stream, albeit not at the spot that Jay and Amelia had trained at before, they sat down to discuss their options. He proposed sleeping up in the branches of one of the larger trees but Amelia made fun of that option because they could fall off of the branches.

  Huong suggested that if they gathered some wood she would be able to bind them together with vines. Amelia again ridiculed the idea even if she didn’t necessarily have a good reason for critiquing it other than that it was her rival’s idea. Meikiyo offered another suggestion. She said that she could create a clearing by burning back most of the brush and then they could use a combination of the branches of the tree, wood that they could gather, and Huong’s vines to create platforms large enough for them to sleep in.

  “That’s the best idea yet. Glad you thought of it. A clearing will give whoever is standing guard some time to see anything that is coming,” Jay said.

  “Yeah and the platform will keep us from falling out of the tree while being up in the tree will keep us from having to worry as much about stuff creeping up on us,” Amelia added.

  Since it seemed they were all in agreement they set the plan in motion. Jay gathered what wood he could find and used the flames that Meikiyo created to sear the sides of the wood, killing any little critters that might be on them. Everyone else backed away until she had finished burning down an area 30-40 feet all around the tree that they had chosen for their shelter.

  Jay thought she looked gorgeous as she walked amidst the fire. The flames danced all around her but never burnt her. Her eyes reflected their light and somehow she seemed perfectly at home. He could only imagine this power as she grew stronger. Already it was a wonder to behold as streams of fire swirled like ribbons around her expanding out an
d burning everything around. She seemed to exult in the power and the stifling heat caused her no harm.

  Jay worried that she wouldn’t have air to breathe with the flames consuming all the oxygen. Yet, she breathed in orange flames and startled him by breathing out small jets of light-blue flame from her nose. Her body seemed to be subsisting on fire. As magnificent as it was, Jay could see the strain that it was causing her.

  When she finally quaffed the last of the flames she swooned and Jay put on a burst of speed to reach her in time to catch her before she hit the ground. His toughened skin enduring the still-smoldering ground. He swept her up and carried her to set her next to Huong who confirmed that she was fine but simply seemed to have pushed herself too hard.

  A couple of moments later her body began to glow and Jay jumped back. Amelia laughed and said, “Don’t worry, that is what you did when you had that awakening and everyone was worried for you.”

  “Okay, I guess that makes sense. Does she seem okay, Huong?”

  “Yes, she is just bursting with energy. It is like every cell in her body is growing and expanding at the same time. It doesn’t feel at all like anything I have ever felt before. The only other time that I felt this was when you were glowing like her.”

  While they waited for the awakening to finish Jay carried the wood up into the tree branches and held the planks in place while Huong grew vines to hold them in place. Amelia had no role in the building but she patrolled the area around them continuing to practice her skills.

  By the time that they had built a 15-foot-by-10-foot platform, Meikiyo woke up. Jay jumped down to check on her, followed a moment later by the other two girls. She assured him that she was okay and shared the notification she had received about overload. Apparently she had pushed herself too far with the fire. The result had been significant though as she had gained 2 levels and was now level 4 as well as having gained a new Formation ability: Fireform.