So, at this point, sliding down the slope, sword in hand, Eternity for a flashlight, I was surprised at myself. I hadn’t hesitated yet, though what I was doing seemed the stupidest imaginable thing I could be doing.
I was one guy going into the dark to fight who knew what. It had already wounded one iepurran that I knew of, and seemed hard at work to disembowel the rest if the blood curdling screaming was anything to go by. And I hadn’t actually chosen any skill or added points into my stats.
The screaming was, at least, something to follow as I tried not to fall again.
“The fuck am I doing?” I asked myself as I held on to a root and managed to scale down the last part of the incline.
There should have probably been some quicker way to get down there. There probably was. Mine got me to drop the last half metre into a knee-high cold stream of water. I landed in with a splash, the chill shocking me back to common sense.
“What the fuck am I doing?!” I growled as I waded through, trying to orient myself and get out of the water.
The screams bounced around the gorge, coming in waves, the same sound of someone getting unceremoniously mauled to death. My hand tightened on the sword’s hilt and I became increasingly aware of the skills tab flashing in my vision.
On impulse and fear of life and limb, I scrolled quickly back to that adrenaline skill I was reading earlier. If I was getting into a scrap, it could probably help me. It showed up as an icon of a tear-like symbol crossed with a sword, straight at the bottom of my interface. A blue bar showed up in my upper-left corner, with a number next to it. It read 15 currently, and I assumed those were my MP points. Neat.
“Can you scout ahead for me?” I asked Eternity. “Tell me what I’m heading into?”
The mote disappeared suddenly and I was left in the gathering dark, suddenly aware that something like Eternity shouldn’t actually need to move around if it was an all-seeing, all-knowing eye in the sky already. The fact that it had to leave me alone to scout had me shelving a lot of questions about what it actually was and how it functioned.
“There are three wounded iepurrans,” Eternity’s voice startled me by my ear. The light didn’t reappear. “One is in critical condition. You are headed in the right direction.”
“Towards what?” I hissed back as I finally made it ashore from the stream. “What am I walking into?”
“I cannot say.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake! How can’t you say?! You were just there!” I wanted to turn and scream at it, but it hadn’t manifested any sort of avatar.
“I am sorry for my limitation. I do not have the ability to spy as you imagine. I cannot go anywhere away from you.”
“You called the doctor.”
“She is interfaced and has checked on you when you fainted. I had her permission to contact in case of your deterioration. Only one individual here is interfaced, and they are unconscious.”
Shit! Assumption is the mother of all fuck ups, was something I really, really needed to keep in mind better. I let out a slow, angry breath.
Surprisingly, Eternity wasn’t suggesting I head back or wait for help. Like before, it was quietly supporting my decision to head into suicidal danger. I couldn’t help but wonder what its goal was.
I refocused on the issue at hand and crept towards the noise. Now that I was closer, I could make out low growls together with the sound of tearing. Gurgles followed. Then the horribly distinct sound of someone—or something—swallowing wetly. Whatever the thing was, it was large. A crack followed, then a noise like a dog shaking an overlarge stuffed animal, and a heavy thud.
“Light?” I whispered. “Not super bright.”
Eternity manifested and cast a sickly white light in front of me. It wasn’t a mote now but a directed beam. It couldn’t have been brighter than the full moon on a clear night. Here, the sky was an opaque black, the planet I’d seen earlier gone over the horizon with the coming of night. I didn’t have time just then to linger on the lack of stars in the sky.
A cave gaped ahead, its entrance like a puckered mouth against the side of the gorge. It was a sort of natural cave, just a few paces away form the rolling stream, camouflaged by boulders on the bank. Briars and thorny vines crowded around the entrance, almost obscuring even that from view.
My sword vibrated. I felt it heat up in my hand and the blade glowed a soft blue as I approached. It was reacting to the thorns the same way it had in the dungeon, close to the corruption vine. Would this be something similar, I wondered?
With heart in throat, I raised the weapon and touched the blade to the thorns, flicking them aside so I could get a better view. The vine cracked apart and shattered, almost like glass, with a noise equal to it. A rumble sounded inside. Then something heavy dropping. Eternity snapped off its light.
The creature emerged through the briars, slinking out in jerky motion and snuffling at the air. Red LED-like eyes shone in the dark, swivelling in their sockets.
I drew back and crouched behind a boulder, pressing myself into the earth there, just out of sight of the cave entrance.
The thing was easily the size of the bear, if not even larger. I could only make out a vague outline of it, and it was enough to freeze my blood.
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You never quite understand how dark the night can be until you’re alone on the side of some remote road, on a moonless night, with the sky obstructed by clouds, and you’re changing a flat tire because, again, you were stupid enough to accept to be somewhere four hundred kilometres away at first light.
This was the same kind of night, with the same kind of dark, minus the headlights. The sound coming from the monster was like a diesel engine running.
Rasping breaths sawed through the air, and I couldn’t figure if they were coming from the iepurrans inside the cave—if they were still alive—or from the creature itself. The noise filled the dark with horrid promises of violence.
“On my mark,” I whispered as low as I could, “be as bright as you can get.” I gripped the sword tighter, taking note of where the red glow of the eyes was. One leap, one strong downward chop, and maybe I could have the element of surprise for long enough that I could kill the thing in one go. Provided, of course, my box cutter sword was sharp enough to crack through a skull.
[I WILL SUPPORT]
“Now!” I shut my eyes just as Eternity turned night to day.
A howl of rage blasted out of the creature just as I leapt and inexpertly swung my sword two handed. I had aimed for the monster’s head, confident in both my leap and my aim.
The sword whistled through the air and its tip sunk into the soft earth, completely missing its intended target.
I opened my eyes just in time to scream as a paw the size of my head swung at me. I tried to turn and duck at the same time, failing both. The blow slammed into my shoulder with the shattering force of a bus. I flew off my feet and crashed into the stream, rolling twice before coming to a stop. Face-down. In the water.
I panicked, rolled again, and floundered out of the water, drawing a sputtering breath that wouldn’t come. My eyes stung from the pain… or the cold water, I didn’t know which. The cold had shocked all breath out of me. I forced myself back to my feet with what felt like glacial slowness. Air still refused to come.
I turned towards the shore just in time to see the monster charging at me. That did the trick. I inhaled loudly and screamed.
“What the fuck?!”
In the panic of the moment I slammed a mental fist into activating [ADRENALINE SURGE]. Things got weird.
The monster coming at me was some sort of half-crocodile walking on two front paws. Its head was almost entirely mechanical and it was running with its mouth open, outlined in Eternity’s surgical white glare.
I stared directly into its maw and admired needle-like fangs that lined the jaws in three neat rows, each more terrible than the other. They moved like an electric saw.
I could see all this because [ADRENALINE SURGE] had activated but did not do what I had expected it to. In my panic I had hoped to just survive the next blow.
Instead, time had slowed.
That, or my perception had jacked up into overdrive. My heart beat like the chug-chug motion of an accelerating steam engine, getting faster and faster. I was burning hot, and shivering cold, all at the same time.
The sensation only lasted for a moment. Then the creature accelerated suddenly, taking two strides at me, before slowing again.
I did not leap at the chance to strike. Instead, I scrambled out of the way, feeling the creature sail past me in a jerking, almost stop-motion charge, jaws clanging together with an prolonged noise like gears smashing together. I watched it flow by. Its back half was of a serpent, the tail long and thick, lined with razor spikes. They shone the same chrome in Eternity’s spotlight.
Breathing came hard, my lungs filling up too fast and emptying too slowly as I forced myself into facing the enemy. With those tall, muscular paws, it could chase me down easily.
My MP had dropped a large chunk and was already below mid-point.
It was blind, I realised, when it began shaking its head around, unable to see me. Eternity’s flash of light had stunned it.
“Futu-?i mor?ii m?-tii,” I growled as I readied to leap again.
I surged at the sudden chance. I was moving unnaturally fast. In one blink of the eye I was several paces away from the beast, in the next I was almost atop it, within range of its jaws and claws, heart accelerating. I brought the sword up in a double-handed arc, the blade whistling though the air ready to rip out of my grasp.
The edge slammed into the side of the creature’s elongated head, where the jaws hinged together. The shock of impact ran right up my arms to send screaming pain into my back. A horrid noise of glass scraping against metal followed. Sparks flew. Then black blood sprayed as the blade dug deep through the metal, revealing the lie of it: the head wasn’t fully metal, but more like a mask draped over the monster’s skull. My sword cut deep into the bone beneath.
[CONGRATULATIONS]
[YOU HAVE TRAINED A NEW SKILL]
[YOU HAVE UNLOCKED - HEAVY BLOW - INITIATE]
I blinked away the notification as I drew out the sword. The monster squirmed and roared, its sound like a drawn out engine roar. Suddenly, my perception slammed back into real time and I stumbled with the whiplash. The blue bar had completely drained and the surge had deactivated.
It left me winded, gasping for air, muscles howling in agony like I’d just been run over by a truck.
The beast was upon me in less than a heartbeat and it was pure luck that brought my sword up in time. I wedged it lengthwise between the monster's jaws, fangs scraping along the blue material, drawing horrid screeches and sparks.
It was so fucking strong! I had avoided the snap, but it drove me down into the water, its whole mass coming down over me. Black, hot blood spurted in my face as we tumbled down, thrashing and splashing in the mud of the stream. I felt lines of hot fire cutting across my chest and realised moments later that it had dug claws into my shoulder and chest, trying its fucking best to disembowel me, ruining my favourite—and only—t-shirt.
I screamed in both pain and panic and pushed my free palm against the back of the blade. It was still caught between the monster’s jaws, edge dug into the chrome sides of its mouth, right into the wound.
It pushed down on me, wriggling like a creature possessed. I pushed back. Felt a crack. Then hot liquid spraying on my hands as the monster chewed on the sword.
Something gave!
The blade cut through the corners of its mouth, edge digging deep through the wound. The monster wailed now, shaking its head side to side as if to get away. The sword cut deeper between the jaws, helped by my desperate push. More blood squirted, getting hotter as the monster grew more and more agitated.
It tried to drag itself off me, taking long strides back. I held on to the sword’s hilt and, through the panic, wrapped my legs around the thing’s sinuous lower half to help myself out of the water. It bucked and thrashed, dragging me with it. My grip slipped and it flung me aside. I landed on my feet, hand still gripping the sword. Before it could rally, I rushed forward, desperation driving me, and plunged the sword into the monster scaly chest. It howled in agony as I pushed deep inside.
[CONGRATULATIONS]
[YOU HAVE TRAINED A NEW SKILL]
[YOU HAVE UNLOCKED - HEARTSEEKER - INITIATE]
The monster jerked. Once. Twice. Then slumped down into the water, falling atop me, driving me down beneath the surface. At least this one wasn’t as heavy as the bear and, sputtering, I heaved it aside with a gurgle of effort.
[CONGRATULATIONS]
[YOU HAVE DEFEATED: RIVER STALKER x1]
I didn’t have time to read the message in full as I gasped for air, feeling ready to faint with the drain of adrenaline. Eternity’s light dimmed. Spots swam in my view. I forced myself up to my feet.
“Honoured guest!” a voice echoed in the ravine, coming from somewhere far above. “Another beast is coming your way!”
No fucking way!
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