[You have acquired a new skill, Volt-Gen.
Volt-Gen: Electrifies your essence to heal your wounds.]
It was the first message that awaited him upon his return. Before reading anything else, he activated it and pushed whatever essence he had recovered into the skill. His large gaping wounds quickly stopped bleeding and scabbed over before he ran dry on essence again. He could tell that although he was still far from fully healed he was no longer half in the grave. Taking a deep breath he climbed to his good foot and half hopped, half dragged himself into the safest corner he could find.
Achak sat in a large crevice he had squeezed into. He quietly waited till his essence had built up enough and set two orbs in front of the entrance as guards. He was exhausted and desperately needed healing, but there would be no point in healing if a monster snuck up on him while he wasn’t paying attention.
He laid back and closed his eyes to rest unworried about being attacked. His orbs were strong enough to obliterate anything other than the Drakes, and even then, they would hold them off long enough for him to awaken and mount a defense.
Hours later he awoke to a full essence bar and quickly used his new skill to the fullest. All of his wounds scabbed over, the scabs turned to dust and fell away leaving pinkish scarred skin behind. The scars quickly grew a faint white as new skin grew over them until they faded. The only scar left was where his foot once was. Once again depleted of essence, Achak laid back on the wall and fell asleep again.
Again, he awoke hours later feeling much more rested and full of essence. He looked down at the stump where his foot should be and hoping against all odds he once again activated his Volt-Gen skill on full blast. A terrible pain assailed him as the skin of his stump was cut open once again and new bone grew. The bone grew out and formed a foot, then muscle, tendons and new flesh grew in to cover the bones. Exhausted once more but happy with his new foot, he fell asleep again.
Once more, Achak awoke rested and full of essence. He looked down at the new foot and couldn’t help but smile. He had been afraid that he might not be able to regrow it since it was known that only the most powerful of healers could regrow limbs, and he was no healer.
He had his foot back but couldn’t regrow a boot so he removed the other to preserve his equilibrium. At first, his foot felt weird as if it were a new prosthetic but after some walking around and stretching it finally felt like a normal part of his body.
Achak took stock of his supplies, which weren’t much. He had his knives, but both were badly damaged due to all the monsters he had been fighting. He no longer had a shirt or boots, his pants were ruined, basically shredded up to the knees, and the trident he had acquired was destroyed with his last attack.
Moving forward was not an option for now, at least not until he had acquired a new weapon. Not to mention that although he was rested, he hadn’t eaten anything for some days now and was both thirsty and starving. He backtracked to the bodies of the Drakes and cut several slivers of meat with the least damaged knife he had.
Afterward, he backtracked to the first cave and found the underground lake where the Coqui monsters had come from. There was no wood he could use to light a fire and no containers he could use to boil the water. ‘I wonder if blasting the meat and water with Bolt will help?’ He thought.
He placed the meat on a flat stone and blasted it a few times with Bolt. The meat was charred on the outside and still pink on the inside but was edible. The water was a bit harder to deal with as he first had to find or make a container, and the only materials he had to work with were monster body parts and stone. He ended up drinking straight from the lake, unable to find a suitable container. It didn’t taste great, but he found it pottable enough.
On the way back to the first cave he’d picked up two more tridents and cut off several strips of the sturdy Frongream hides. He cleaned the hides thoroughly with what remained of his knives and left them out to dry while he ate and rested. The leathery skin was still pretty moist after he was done, but it was still good enough for what he had planned.
He had brought back the head of one of the Drakes with him to make a weapon out of. He gutted the skull and cut off the lower jaw creating a shield out of the top half of the head. He used the strips of Frongream leather to make handles for his new shield. He spent some time practicing with his new shield and trident combo before making his way back to the second cave.
Achak was now level eight having gained one level per Drake. He split his free points between dexterity and constitution. His dexterity would make it easier to maneuver his new weapons and the constitution would help him take more punishment before needing to heal himself.
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The tunnel beyond the smaller cave had more dead monsters; only they had larger chunks missing from them. Not long after entering, he could see a light in the distance coming from yet another cave. As he got closer he could hear the ripping and crunching of something large eating.
He’d already suspected what he would find in the cave but was still put off by what he saw. There was a larger Drake in the cave munching on the remains of some type of lizardman. The name above its head read Armored Drake (mature). The creature was the size of a large horse with rippling muscles underneath its sturdy scales and two horns on its head instead of one on its snout.
Achak quietly stared the creature down as he waited for it to notice him. He’d been in a mood since the last fight, brooding on the fucked up memories that had invaded his mind since then. He had made up his mind to put aside any form of compassion and move forward with ruthless efficiency until such a time as he could stand with the most powerful of galvanized.
***
Jimmy’s crew and Etu had been working together for several days now and today was the last day of their contract. They were supposed to run the miscellany together to farm nourishment.
At first, Etu had been weary of the crew, something about them simply fostered mistrust within him. For this reason, he’d made it a point to let them see him inform friends of where he would be and who he would be with. As the days went by he had come to trust them more, convincing himself he had just been paranoid.
When they had reached the miscellany earlier that day it was locked. It wasn’t unusual for more than one team to be attempting to run a miscellany at the same time. What was unusual was what the guards had said. The miscellany had been locked all week long. Not just that, but none of the guard shifts had seen who’d even entered the place.
Karen looked at Jimmy with horror and surprise in her eyes, “You don’t think?” She mouthed at him.
“No, no way. He was level one,” he whispered back at her as much to himself. It was barely loud enough to make out the words, but Etu noticed the unease they suddenly displayed.
“Hey, is everything alright?” He asked them.
“Oh. Yeah, just wondering who could be in there that long and still be alive,” said Karen. While Jimmy was the team’s leader, she had always been its brain and tactician.
They decided to wait around for a while, and on several occasions, Jimmy and Karen had taken walks together. The weirdness of that hadn’t been lost on Etu and on one such stroll he’d asked what that was all about.
Both James and Katherine had given dodgy answers making it sound, unconvincingly, like the two were in a relationship. Etu had begun getting paranoid again and prepared for a fight just in case by sitting apart from the others while they waited.
Not long after, they had spoken with the guards again. The guards had given some lame excuses about needing to go report on the situation and get reinforcements in case something weird happened. But Etu had caught some subtle hand signs between Karen and the guards during the exchange that made him very uneasy.
***
The fight between Achak and the Drake had lasted only a few minutes, both he and the monster tearing at each other relentlessly. A point in the fight had come where both opponents lay beaten and broken on the ground mere feet from each other.
A cold feeling of relentless murderous intent overtook Achak as he lay there staring at the monster, willing it to die. He was not angry at it, but he was mad at the world and simply needed it to die to nourish his soul and grow his power. A message appeared before him as black chains of lightning burst from the ground and wrapped around the Drake.
[You have acquired a new skill, Chains of Oblivion.
Chains of Oblivion: Electric chains of darkness tie down your enemy draining its lifeforce.]
Though the Drake was badly injured, it still had a ridiculously high amount of health. The chains drained its life as they tied it down, but the monster simply would not die. The longer it took for the Drake to die the angrier Achak became.
“Just fucking die already!” He yelled at it as his anger bubbled over and another message appeared as red chains burst from the floor adding to the chains from before.
[You have acquired a new skill, Chains of Wrath.
Chains of Wrath: Electric chains of crimson tie down your enemy causing it damage.
Chains of Oblivion and Chains of Wrath resonate with each other. These skills have merged and a new skill has been created: Chains.
Chains: Electric chains of crimson and darkness tie down your enemy draining its lifeforce and causing it damage.]
Achak dismissed the messages as quickly as they appeared not even bothering to read them, intent on one thing alone: the death of his opponent. His Regen skill activated on its own, healing him and making his boy whole again.
A torrent of emotions bombarded him: anger, despair, love, loneliness, depression, calmness, elation, and so many more. His body was covered in an aura of tricolored lightning as he slowly began hovering in place.
All of his weapons had been destroyed by now, but he wouldn’t let that stop him. He extended his hands and simply willed new weapons into existence. A crimson dagger of lightning appeared in his right hand and a black dagger in his left.
He stepped forward, appearing before the dying Drake in a flash as yet again another message came and went.
[You have acquired a new skill, Flash.
Flash: Move with the speed of lightning, traveling untold distances in one step.]
Slashing down he removed the Drake’s head from its body and was bombarded with more messages that disappeared as quickly as they came. The gate to exit the miscellany appeared before him, and he witnessed a scene that caused his anger to overshadow all other feelings.