The enormous, bronze doors at the end of her spacious throne room opened noiselessly and Thalorian, head of her security forces, marched inside with his implacable, powerful stride. The winged warrior, which the human captives always seemed to call an angel, had served her faithfully for many years.
When he neared her throne, he dropped into a low bow, fist over his heart, before beginning his report.
"We ran into a complication."
"You failed to take a hostage?”
He had never failed her in all the years he’d served her, so she could not believe that might be the case. He couldn’t conceal the slight tightening of his mouth and eyes, clear indications that he felt affronted that she would even consider it possible.
If he didn’t want her to call him out for failure, he shouldn’t suggest he’d failed. Usually he communicated better, despite using few words.
"We have two, just not the one we originally targeted."
"Why not?"
She did not care which human they captured from the stage-1 destruction. Everyone left in that area would be assumed dead by the other humans. They would not be missed, and no one would suspect what her people were doing.
"You ordered us to notify you of any outliers. The human we first targeted appears to be one such."
Marisara leaned slightly forward, her interest immediately piqued. Their untenable position was like getting caught between the tide and the cliffs. Simply slaughtering the humans, as satisfying as that might be, would not win the prize she needed.
"Explain."
Thalorian slipped into a parade rest stance, standing tall, shoulders straight, hands clasped behind his back. "The first candidate we selected showed some promise, so we sent a death whale to collect him."
"And?"
"The death whale got teleported a mile away."
"How?"
He shrugged. "Unknown. We sent a giant eel to collect him to find out."
Marisara grimaced. "Never trust an eel."
Thalorian grunted. "It did try to eat him."
She hated hearing about wasted promising captives. "So what other captive did you get?"
It was unlike him to spin tales without a purpose, but she found herself wishing he had shared more details.
"I'll get to that in a minute. The first subject escaped the eel and mortally wounded it."
"How?" She repeated, more interested than ever.
Giant eels were devious and bloodthirsty, but very effective. She couldn't imagine how a human too weak to escape to the second stage could best one.
"Unknown. That subject fought through to the second stage after all. The little we saw of his journey was quite remarkable. No human, even those who advanced in the vanguard to stage 2, should have survived that swarm."
Marisara sat back in her throne, fingering the haft of her silver trident. An intriguing story indeed.
"We eventually captured a pair of other humans as their group was overwhelmed. That capture went uneventfully."
"Good.”
“Interrogation of the captives is just beginning, but they seem more than willing to talk. We already learned the name of the first human who escaped.”
“They knew him?” That was a lucky twist of the currents.
He nodded. “The man’s name is Lucas.”
Marisara rolled the name around her mouth a few times. An interesting name. Potentially a powerful one, and maybe even the name of the human who would open the door for her success.
“Send out scouts to locate the man Lucas. I want to know everything about him.”
* * *
Final stats. Check out the amazing growth over the past days.
Name: Lucas Altan
Race: Tier-1 Human
Level: 12
Life Points: 277 (25,583 tier-zero baby human equivalent)
Mana: 48
Base Stats:
Constitution: 16.9
Intelligence: 13
Strength: 21.9
Dexterity: 13.6
Wisdom: 12.7
Secondary Stats:
Endurance: 41
CHA: 40
Agility: 53
Perception: 31
Magical Resistances 39.8
Luck: 44
Other stats:
Mental Resistance: 30.5
Fear Resistance: 25
Poison Resistance: (immune. Ring)
PERMANENT SPELLS
1 Harvest
Mana Consumption Minor
Unique. Up to 70% chance to gain a skill or ability from a defeated enemy.
Chance increases by 2% per enemy level higher than your own.
Can have a maximum of up to 2 harvested spells. First in, First out.
UTILITY SPELLS:
1 Mystic Looter
Upgraded. Identifies energy signatures.
Identify shows more information about enchantments, and
magical constructs. Unique upgrade. Reality filter.
No one from lower tier can hide information.
2 Linguasight.
Upgrade for improved sight.
3 Navigation
Upgraded to include waypoints, notes, etc.
Ping. Once per day, trigger an invisible pulse of energy to a distance of 100
yards times Perception. Effect: Update map within the covered area with one
of the following: Monsters, dungeons, rifts in the fabric of space,
or loot boxes. Points will be marked on your map for 60 seconds.
Note: Monsters who pass a stealth check may remain hidden.
4 Soul Feed
Unique. Absorb energy from fallen enemies to refill mana and health
and supercharge all physical attributes for short periods.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
Upgrade - Active: Absorb large amount of energy upon direct contact.
(trumps most draining abilities from monsters that require touch)
Passive: Drain small amount of energy on contact.
TEMPORARY SPELLS:
1 Energy Ward
Mana Consumption: 5 to trigger, then variable
Invisible defensive aura that extends 1 yard in every direction.
Redirects some force from incoming physical attacks.
Upgraded to deflect spiritual attacks.
Uses remaining: 2
2 Knock Knock
Mana Consumption: Low
Cast your voice up to 50 yards to tell a random knock knock joke.
Volume: Loud.
Uses Remaining: 2
3 Immolation (Harvested Spell 1)
Mana Consumption: Moderate
Enjoy immunity to flames as you set yourself on fire and unleash a tornado
of fiery destruction around yourself in an area with a diameter of 5 yards,
plus 2 yards per point in perception.
Uses Remaining: 3
4 Tether Slide
Mana Consumption: Minor
Mark an object or item as your tether.
Within 10 minutes you may cast a magical hook to that tether and slide to it
across any terrain up to a distance of 200 yards. Tether must be within sight
when spell is triggered.
Uses Remaining: 2
ABILITIES
- Hand-to-hand martial arts fighting. Level 5
Fighting ability. Common.
Improves bare-handed combat.
Decrease reaction time by 5% and increase damage by 10% per level.
- Stick and bladed weapons martial arts fighting Level 5
Fighting ability. Common.
Improves stick and bladed weapons combat.
Improve blunt damage by 15% and slashing damage by 20% per level.
- Sight of the Explorer Level 2
Rare. Sight enhancement. Zoom in on distant objects and trigger Identify.
- Wolf Blood Level 2
Uncommon. Speed up health and mana regeneration by a 10% per level
by absorbing energy from the environment.
- Wolf Sight Level 2
Uncommon. Unlocks night vision and increases Perception
stat points calculated from Wisdom by 10%.
Upgrade 1. Life force absorbed from a monster using Soul Feed
will resonate with you, allowing you to more clearly sense similar monsters
and see through illusions or invisibility obscuring them from your sight.
- Knife Throwing Level 1
Common. Improve accuracy by 10% and damage by 15% per level.
TITLES:
Inquisitive Mind
Plus 10 to Intelligence
Plus 10% improvement to formulas of all stats affected by intelligence
10% faster learning of new skills and abilities.
Trailblazer
Plus 30% chance of loot box upgrades.
Plus 30% chance to discover bonus or hidden loot boxes.
David Copperfield
Upgrades Race to tier-one.
40 base stats per level (currently downgraded by 50%)
Plus 25% to affect of primary stats on secondary stats.
Unlock a fourth utility spell
Harvester perk. Unique.
Lucky Stiff
Unlock new stat LUCK
Plus 15 to Luck
Musketeer
All for One. One for All.
Plus 5 to all base stats.
Loot boxes from bosses and monsters with at least a 25 level difference
are automatically upgraded 1 tier."
Spartacus
Plus 25% more experience gained for each kill of a higher level enemy.
Plus 5 to CHA.
Plus 5 to Luck.
Doctor Strange
Increase effect of all primary stats on calculating all secondary stats by 10%.
Additional increase effect of Intelligence on calculating magical resistance by 25%.
Additional increase effect of Constitution on calculating magical resistance by 25%.
Hercules
Plus 5 to Strength.
Plus 5 to Constitution.
New aura: Indomitable.
Indomitable. Aura. Protect your mind and those of nearby party members
with plus 50% mental defense for the duration of the aura.
Mana cost: Moderate. Area: 5 feet for every point in Wisdom.
* * *
And here’s the first chapter of Nexus Runner 2 as a special bonus since today’s chapter is pretty short. Enjoy!
My bare feet padded quietly along the hard-packed dirt streets of Midmount Vale. I was looking for the residential neighborhood where Ruby had indicated she and the others had all set up their tents.
The cool of early evening felt good against my skin, and I could feel a lot more air than usual. My clothing hung in tatters from the insane running battle across the skies of stage 1 I’d barely endured. I was down to one boot, which I’d tossed into my inventory to make walking easier. My pants were wrecked, my Crash Test Dummy jacket ripped to shreds, and my shirt pretty much gone.
I was alive, but I’d paid a heavy price to escape the collapsing stage 1 after defeating Bristleback. I’d lost so much gear as well as most of my weapons, including both of my short swords. The loss of Fang and Soulrend weighed me down when I thought about them.
Those swords had saved my life so many times, helping me defeat one powerful monster after another. Without them, I wouldn’t have survived that last desperate battle.
I sighed and paused to look up at the dark night sky. Midmount Vale filled a large clearing in the southern reaches of dark woods that covered much of the central plateau of stage 2. Towering trees loomed like threatening shadows in the distance around the town. With Wolf Sight, I could see beyond them and pierce the deepening darkness all the way to the mountains rising ever-higher to the west.
The stars were just starting to come out, and they’d fill the sky with a brilliant alien patchwork of lights later. Now, the sky was dim, the air fresh. All around me, people packed the town and the constant rumbling of hundreds of conversations reminded me that I was no longer alone. Snatches of louder voices and bit of laughter punctuated the night, and I smiled. It felt good to have survived with so many.
On the other hand, we’d already lost too many others. I hated to think of the hundreds who hadn’t survived the first week of this crazy death battle game we’d gotten dumped into. We’d started with 1000 people. Now a week in and one stage higher, nearly 50% of us were gone.
My friend Patrick had died, but I was still luckier than most. I’d found my brother Tomas and his girlfriend Jane. Hopefully we’d track down our buddy Edmund too. And in my team assigned by Cyrus, the AI running the death game, both Ruby and Steve had survived. Our other 2 teammates had died on day one before we’d all teamed up.
I took a deep breath and centered my mind, pushing away the nightmare memories of that insane running battle I’d just survived. I made it. I was alive, and I chose to savor the feeling of sweet anticipation for the loot I’d gotten from fighting my way across the skies of the imploding stage 1. I should have a bunch more from the crazy death battle with Bristleback.
Thinking of the loot, I couldn’t wait to get to the tents. Instead, I opened my inventory, just to take a peek. I sucked in a happy breath when I saw the huge list.
“Whoa.”
I got so many mana crystals, I now had several tier-5 crystals, each worth 100,000 tier-0 crystals. I got tons of potions, from healing and mana, to defense against various elements, auditory attacks, or poison, and even 2 of the rare single-use scrolls of minor teleport.
I got loads of various monster parts I’d have to sort through later. The rolls of eel hide looked particularly promising, with legendary level armor potential if I could find a skilled crafter with the abilities to work it. A couple items of gear stood out.
“Drop Bear plush stockings of happy feet. Not only will these soft stockings help keep your feet dry and comfortable, they’ll ease any foot pain and make other humans 10% more inclined to like you.”
Nice, although it was weird the bonus didn’t just add to my charisma. My strange CHA stat was huge, but it wasn’t activated into full Charisma yet. Still didn’t know how to do that. I wouldn’t put it past Cyrus to give me tons of points in a meaningless category as part of the experiment he was running that used me as the guinea pig. Or just to mess with me and never actually plan to let me unlock it.
The AI had a weird sense of humor sometimes. He’d pushed me into an early evolution from our starting tier-0 baby human into a tier-1 human. That gave me a huge power boost, but increased the experience I needed to level by so much I’d nearly failed to reach level 10. I’d had to face Bristleback, the mighty boar-taur secret boss in the closing seconds before stage 1 imploded. Hadn’t actually finished him off until the world started collapsing. That had been way too close.
“Great loot,” I said, summoning the socks from inventory and holding them up. “Too bad I don’t have any boots to wear these with.”
“Do you always look at the negative? Try to be more of an optimist, Lucas,” Cyrus said, his voice sounding close, although as usual I couldn’t see any physical evidence of the AI. He was the all-seeing, all-meddling overseer of our game, the sometimes-helpful, often annoying couch quarterback of my life.
The socks did look great. They were thick and fuzzy and amazingly soft. Although I’d gotten used to wearing boots with no socks over the past week, that didn’t mean I liked it. Having just one boot at the moment made having the socks more annoying than awesome, though.
“Rare Scaled Wam of the Skies. This soft, close-fitting tunic will provide 30% improved defense against magical attacks and 10% improved defense against physical attack. Adds 20% height to jumping.”
The black shirt was kind of like a Henley shirt, but with small toggles shaped like scales instead of buttons, and a faint scale pattern that reminded me of the wyvern I’d killed.
“I’ve never heard the term wam,” I said as I willed the shredded layers over my recently-healed torso into my inventory. My Crash Test Dummy jacket would self-repair over time, but it had been so damaged, it would probably take hours. My other gear lacked that vital enhancement.
“It’s a medieval German term for a man’s shirt or doublet,” Cyrus said. “Germans are fascinating. Did you know they have over 1000 words for sausage? Now that’s dedication to a favorite food.”
“I did not know that.” It didn’t surprise me, though. “Speaking of sausages, have you heard the phrase, ‘Sausages are like laws. Best if you don’t know how they’re made’?”
“A good approximation of the quote attributed to Lord Otto von Bismark.”
“So you don’t just quote movies.”
“Movies are more fun,” Cyrus said, and I had to agree.
The new shirt adjusted to fit and I savored the feel of a clean, soft shirt. After a moment of hesitation, I re-equipped my jacket and cloak. My jacket was so wrecked, looking down at it made me cringe, but I didn’t feel right not having the leather jacket on, even if it was basically useless. Mirror Cloak was ragged and torn, and that might be even worse. Would it still work so beat up? Then I noticed another item had been upgraded.
“Common Goggles of Sharpshooting. Protection from magical attacks against the eyes. Targeting interface. Upgraded with: Add invisible barrier encircling the entire head, blocking moderate amounts of both physical and magical damage.”
I whistled softly. “Sweet. Invisible motorcycle helmet.”
I really needed all those new pieces of gear. Actually, I needed a lot more too. I’d lost so much, the new loot barely made a dent. Still, if I got that much great loot so well tailored to me just from the monster drops, I couldn’t wait to see what I’d find in the loot boxes.
First, I spotted a new weapon in my list and whistled.
“Epic Bow of Punishment. This mighty bow, wielded by a herd master, carries his authority and reinforces the wielder’s will. Improves accuracy by 25%. Grants a level-3 Moving Target ability. Grants a level-3 Elemental Touch ability.”
“Moving Target. Ability. Rare. Adjusts the flight path of your magically-imbued arrow up to 10 degrees per level of ability.”
“Elemental Touch. Ability. Uncommon. Summon magical arrows imbued with your chosen element for 25% additional elemental damage per ability level. Additional effects may unlock depending on chosen element and synergies with existing spells.”
“Wow. So did Bristleback get all his abilities from this bow, or did the bow absorb them somehow when he died?”
Cyrus said, “Another great question. Have a chocolate bar.”
A real-life king-size Snickers bar from Earth dropped out of thin air and fell into my open hand. Snickers were one of my favorites. I lifted it in salute, ripped off the wrapper, and took a huge bite.
I sighed and muttered around a mouthful of glory, “So good.”
“You’re welcome. It’s rare for a monster, especially a boss, to imbue their weapon with their powers. However, when you bit Bristleback with Death Bite and transformed him into that adorable boar-koala, one unexpected side-effect was that many of his abilities got sucked into that bow. That raised it from uncommon to epic tier.”
“It’s amazing. I’m not an archer, though.”
“Too bad. That bow could help you accomplish great things.”
He was right, and I considered it as I savored my chocolate and wandered the busy streets of Midmount Vale, the packed earth streets cool under my bare feet. Many people waved or called greetings, and I waved back, but did not slow to chat.
It hit me then. Just about every living human on the planet was likely there in the town with me. There might be a few out hunting, or some loners who had climbed to stage 2 just to go find another place to hide, but all the rest were right there all around me.
Nearly 50% of us had died in our first week. That was a sobering thought. At the same time, I couldn’t help exulting in my newfound powers. I was not the same person who had been sucked into the sky a week ago.
I needed to get stronger, but so did my team. The bow was indeed powerful, but it was not a weapon I could use. I had a better idea for it.
I spotted Ruby’s and Steve’s Base Camp tents next to Jane’s. An open spot nearby reminded me I had my own house now. Too bad I hadn’t gotten to check out Bristleback’s base camp cave before it fell off the mountain.
I took out my Gypsy Camp potion and unstoppered it in front of the empty lot. Amber mist, glowing faintly with an inner light, pulsed out of the bottle and flowed across the open ground. It formed a distinct square pattern, then rose into a giant cube. It flashed, then disappeared, replaced by the log cabin I’d taken from Abbie’s sex cult.
“Home Sweet Home,” I said and headed inside.