We walk up the hill. It wasn’t there before, sprouting from in between damaged buildings. Green grass spilled over from jagged edges of the concrete, puzzle pieces being shoved into each other until they fit, the edges battered.
The terraforming is strange. Planets shouldn’t just be able to be fused into each other. If we assume they’re all the size of Earth, and their surfaces what really matters, then we would need a much larger sphere than what would fit all their volumes.
It’s safe to assume, then, that some things were adapted, and some discarded, maybe? I don’t feel heavier, either. Maybe space is being twisted around to make it all fit? Is Earth now full of pocket dimensions?
I suppose it doesn’t matter, for now.
Instead of worrying, I walk up the grassy hill towards the castle. It looms above us, casting an enormous shadow. From up closer I can see that the grey stone is worn and weathered, bearing marks and chips. Some of them enormous.
Parts of the wall have crumbled inwards, as if from being hit with something massive. That combined with the giant furrows makes me think of dragons, just a little.
As we walk closer, the feel to the mana in the air changes again. The pinpricks settle, just a little. Instead, it starts to feel… ominous? Foreboding?
I don’t think the others notice, but I do. The threshold smells of bricks and fear and dried blood. The castle is in ruins, but it is by no means abandoned.
[Dungeon: Dreadburg. Level: 12]
The announcement comes just as we get close enough to really see the insides of the place. Dreadburg. A dungeon. My eyes light up.
Thatch gives a bit of a whistle. “Daaang, they got dungeons, huh? Level twelve, too. Can we manage that?”
Inu smiles, happily walking up to a hole in the wall and begins clambering up the rubble. “One way to find out.”
“Hah! You know we’ll die if we fail, right?” Thatch says, looking at me this time.
There really is no hesitation in either of the two. I grin. “Yeah. That’s why we won’t fail, right?”
“Inu, shouldn’t we-” her dad starts, but she waves him off.
She looks back for just a moment. “Dad. Stop, please. This is the last time I’m asking nicely. Is this dangerous? Yes. Absolutely. We might die. I get it, okay? But just stop nagging us about it. Make suggestions on how to do something, rather than whether or not it’s safe.”
He shuts up, looking annoyed. A moment passes between the two. “Fine,” Norman eventually grumbles, and starts clambering up the rubble. Thatch looks at his mom, meaning just the same. Bay shrugs with a kind of crooked smile, and heads up towards the castle as well.
And then, we all enter the Dreadburg.
Darkness cloys around us. It’s thick, inky, but unlike the thing inside me. That is made of shadow, while this feels more like a… miasma. It’s like a fog, but instead of diffusing light, it’s absorbing it. Not that we’re left alone for too long.
Something clatters in the darkness.
I reach out with [Selection], trying to lock onto the thing. For a moment, my tether drifts aimlessly, then snaps to a thing.
It’s coming towards me. Fast.
Without hesitation, I throw myself to the side, and the rocks I had just been standing on explode as something heavy slams into them. It moves with creaking dust, and my mana brushes against it, telling me more.
[Dreadarmor lv. 8]
An empty set of armor, filled with dense miasma. It moves, shifty, and creaks upwards from where it lays. As a small test, I burst one of my mana-grains, and watch as the darkness gets pushed aside by my mana. Good. That should work.
[Suppression].
My skill slams into the armor with force, slowing it down, almost physically crushing it against the ground. “Freeze it!” I yell at Jess.
Snapping out of her stun, the woman casts her spell, and ice begins to gather at the armor’s feet. It pulls one free, but then Thatch’s hand grabs its head and slams it into the floor. His eyes glow emerald, locked onto the monster, and his muscles bulge with [Rage].
I approach the armor, pinned down by the three of us, when Bay steps up to it. She traces her fingers on the armor for a moment, then it falls to the ground, the pieces clattering apart. Huh. I raise an eyebrow at her.
“[Deactivate], one of my skills. That took almost all my mana. The other is [Pulse], which seems to send a small electrical shock. Used to work as a mechanic, so I guess…” she gives a half hearted shrug.
“Got it,” I nod. That’s helpful. I wanna see her [Deactivate] again. I feel like I could learn from it.
Not that I need to wait for very long. Another animated armor charges us as soon as we open a door, almost crashing into me before Inu puts herself in harm’s way. At the last second before impact, our debuffs land on the armor, and it crashes into the tall girl.
She takes a few steps back, grunting in pain, and I reach out to suppress it, but she waves me off. “I’m okay,” she says, breathing. “I’m… okay.”
Bay quickly deactivates the armor, and it falls apart. “Levelled,” she notes.
I look at Inu. “What level is [Resistance]?” I ask.
“Now? Three,” she says, taking a deep breath. “Two after the arrow. Three after this crash. It… hurts, but I think I can [Resist] the pain, too.”
“You sure you don’t want me to…?”
She shakes her head. “No. It’s good practice for the skill. I’m gonna need the levels if I keep taking hits like that. My arms are all numb. Thanks for the barrier, dad.”
He just nods, sweating. He’s scared, I can tell. Jess, comparatively, seems almost unfazed, her eyes looking into the darkness for more danger. Or maybe she is always scared? I decide it doesn’t matter.
Instead, I move up to the armor, crumpled on the ground. “Norman, Thatch.” I call out to them as I start taking it apart. Their heads turn to me. “You’re our scouts. Stealth skill and vision skill. See if you can find monsters, Thatch. If he does, you need to kite them here without alerting anything else, Norman.”
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Inu’s dad moves to protest, immediately, but I disregard him. My focus is already on the monster corpse.
And it is a corpse. The miasma, the mana around us, is pulling at the plates, little by little. I put my hand on one of them. I can feel the way the world pulls on it, wanting it back. Like a tax on our kill. I push a little bit of my mana up against it, and the feeling pulls back. As if it’s been acknowledged as my property.
“Hmmm,” I hum to myself. The armors don’t wear any weapons. “Inu?” I ask.
“Hm?”
“Think you could use some armor?”
Her eyes light up. “Oh. Oh my god. Can I?”
Who doesn’t love a shiny set of armor.
- - -
Dark knight Inu steps forward fearlessly. Her father comes sprinting around the corner, most certainly fearfully. There is a single armor behind him, charging after him in mostly straight lines.
As the armor starts another charge, Inu steps forward, the plates we’d fastened to her clattering. She pulls her dad and throws him behind her. The armor comes crashing in, instantly suppressed, frozen, and pierced by Thatch’s gaze. It slows, measurably, but still slams into Inu with a horrible crashing sound.
I can see the metal getting dented a little. But against all odds, the girl remains standing. We push the armor to the ground again, and Bay moves up. “Don’t fully deactivate it,” I warn her. “We wanna spread out levels.”
“Right,” she hums. Then, the light in the armor winks out entirely. “Shit.”
Thatch pats her back. “It’s alright,” he says. “Controlling skills like that is hard.”
I restrain myself from asking again, instead I return my split [Selection] onto just the thing in my side. It’s hard to keep active on two targets at once, but it makes doing the same for [Suppression] easier. Some distance ahead, my mana grains orbit like landmines. I’m just waiting for an armor to crash into one.
We regroup for a little while. Letting Inu recover from the shock. Wish we had a healer. I really should get on figuring that out.
On that note, actually…
I look at my left hand. The axe I’ve been using is easy to swing with just one. And my mana grains and skills are all just mental. Can I focus as well as I always do when in pain?
Maybe I’ll focus better.
I slice my palm open with one of the goblin knives. Blood splatters across the bricks, and Jess gasps. Norman looks at me like I’m insane. Bay, too, seems a little disgusted.
But Inu already gets it. Thatch looks at me. “Are you… okay? What’s that for?”
“We need a healer,” I say. “I’m going to try mana flow variations to help me heal my wound.”
His eyes light up. “Oh, that’s clever!”
“That’s fucking stupid!” Norman says. I look at him, blandly.
Inu starts talking to him, so I move on. Instead of moving to a pointless debate, I just focus on my wound, swirling my mana around. I know the pattern for [Suppression]. It’s my only skill that feels like it “activates” properly, so I copy that mana flow, first.
It slows the bleeding a little, takes the edge off the pain, but it’s not enough. I [Select] the wound, dealing with the strain on my mind again. I need to know more, need to observe it more closely, and [Select] can make information gathering easier.
Also, it should tell me more on what the pseudo-skills I’m using on my hand do to it. I twist the mana pattern of [Suppression] a bit, trying to wrap my head around it, and it flows through selection.
The wound worsens. More of my skin cracks open, spilling blood. It hurts. I look at my wound, then try a different twist. Pain reduction. Another twist, more blood, no pain. Another twist…
- - -
Norman brings in another armor. This is the fifth one, and it finally crashes into one of my grains in its charge. As the tiny splinter of glowing mana makes contact with the armor’s leg, it detonates, making my mana flood the area in the same way that ambient mana does.
It’s not solid, but also not quite a gas. It’s just… mana. Invisible, ethereal, but all around. It clashes with the miasma, pushing it out of the armor’s leg, and the thing clatters to the ground.
Satisfied, I focus a bit of [Suppression] on it almost automatically. I maintain focus on the thing in my chest too. I don’t cast [Selection] on the armors anymore cause it takes too much focus away from my bleeding hand.
My mana has damaged it more, but that’s okay. It drips blood, but I don’t mind that either. It’ll be worthwhile, so long as I get a healing skill. Even if I need to ruin it once, it’ll heal, probably.
I definitely should get more points, though. My mana is running dry after so many twists. But I’ve gotten better at casting tiny skill alterations, using so little power for it, and learning more with [Selection].
[Selection 2 > 3]
A small smile plays on my lips. My skills are coming along nicely, compared to my overall level. Character level? It should have a name, surely. Well, not like it matters. The armor is on the floor, crippled. The miasma doesn’t return to its leg.
Bay walks up, but this time, she doesn’t get to finish it. I step forward. “This one’s mine,” I say. No one protests, for once, and I hover one of my mana grains into its helmet visor, then detonate it inside.
It crumbles, no longer solid, expands, and pushes the miasma out. The thing falls limp.
[You have killed a lv. 9 Dreadarmor]
[Level Up! 3 > 5]
Two levels. I smile. Six points. I feel like I should probably allocate at least one to heart, so I spent it.
There is an immediate effect. My wound closes up a little around the edges. My eyes widen. In the same way that taking vessel refills my mana a little, body seems to immediately heal some wounds.
On one hand, it means we don’t need a healer as badly. On the other… I redouble my focus on the wound, staring at it, trying to make my eyes go through it. “Thatch? Help me with this. Inu, you too, focus your [Empathy] on me.”
No questions. My friends just kneel down around me, staring at the wound. I place another point in heart.
My skin closes up a little. It’s smooth, almost elegant, the way new flesh sprouts where old one was before. I felt an inkling, a hint of mana in there, but it was blazing fast.
“Shit,” Thatch says. “That was… terrifying.”
Inu swallows dryly. “Yeah.”
It was. The mana moved so swiftly I could barely even catch a glimpse of it. Almost invisible. But it was there, I know it was. So I focus even harder. “Can you replay the sensation, Inu?”
She looks at me for a moment. “I’ll try,” she says.
[Empathy] lets her feel a bit of what I’m feeling. I don’t know if the skill should let her replicate emotions of the past, but it might. Maybe. Patterns like this one? It seems unlikely, but worth a try.
And she does try. A tiny pinprick, a jolt of sensation goes through my hand. It’s not even remotely the same as before. It is like a copy of a copy of a copy. A 4k picture compressed down to messy pixelart. I can barely, ever so slightly, make out the main features.
But it’s also simpler. Less extravagant, less perfect, and horribly inefficient, but I can almost see it, almost. “Again.”
Once more, the pulse comes, and I fail to puzzle it out. Over, and over, and over, and over.
Until Inu’s mana runs dry, and she cannot repeat it anymore. “Let’s wait,” I ask. “One more.”
This time, I don’t [Select] my hand. I [Select] Inu’s [Empathy].
My skill sends out a tendril of sensation, and for a few moments, it hovers in the air, confused at my intent. A greyish wisp of smoke in my mind, not knowing where to go. But the skill is there, I know it is. Inu flinches back.
“What the hell?” she asks. “It feels like I’m being… poked.”
I blink. “It might be me,” I say. “Trying to use [Selection] on your skill.”
She looks at me for a long moment. Then nods. The tendril snaps forward, latching onto her, no, onto a specific part of her. Inu guided it there herself.
The skill is horribly complex. A mess of mechanics and networks I cannot even begin to wrap my head around. It’s enough to give me a headache as I even try to glimpse it. “Your nose is bleeding,” Thatch notes.
I just nod. “Repeat the pulse again, Inu. Three, two, one… go!”
Not a second passes after my words, and I close my eyes, focussing fully on my senses. And it’s there, at the edge of them. Lines of mana, spirals and twists, geometric patterns that web and twist inside of each other. Some pieces repeated and reinforced, some so fragile and thin that a butterfly may snap them by landing on them.
It’s beautiful.
[Selection 3 > 4]
[Selection 4 > 5]
Then the moment passes, and a horrible, raging pain rings inside my skull. I don’t scream. I [Suppress] my own voice.
I curl up into a ball on the floor. It hurts. It hurts worse than anything ever before. I forget to maintain [Suppression] on the thing in my side, and it writhes, but it’s barely a flickering candleflame to the roaring bonfire of pain in my head.
And yet. And yet!
It’s so beautiful.
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