That Ladder Called Chaos

Advancing deeper into the burning ruins, I realised I'm still very much against running into burning buildings. My greed wars with my caution for a moment as I look around for opportunities, the battle coming to a halt as my glittering eyes land on something both sides can agree on: a man laying half buried under some mildly burning rubble.

Low risk, decent reward. Confirming he was still alive with a quick Observe, I glare at the rubble contemplatively before deciding it probably wasn’t going to explode any time soon. Scrubbing my scent reflexively and scrutinizing every dark corner, I dash across the short distance between my current cover and the helpless man as quickly as I can, even teleporting a few times to shorten the distance.

Almost before I knew it I was standing over the man, watching blood bubble out of his mouth with every breath. My instinct was to Blight him, but over reliance on what I've now learned is a rather unsubtle and uncontrollable super weapon seems like a poor idea.

I could've just gnawed his throat open, but I quite frankly didn't want to get blood in my fur. I did have a potential option to avoid that, however.

My tail snaked forth, its bladed end barely reaching beyond my jaw by a scant two inches. I wriggled it about, getting a feel for manipulating it with the kind of force and precision I'd need. Turning around with the surety of a man still able to perceive what was behind him, I trailed my tail along the unconscious man's neck until I could feel the blood rushing through his carotid pulsing beneath the tip; I spent a scant moment contemplating what this course meant for me…

Then I drove it home in one quick thrust, feeling it vibrate in the wound as I activated Death Roll. Blood squirted out like a hose under pressure, a thin spray nearly coating me in my entirety despite my efforts to prevent such.

I repressed a shudder of revulsion as the warm fluid soaked deep into my fur; it would take hours of scrubbing to get that out and that's if I managed to get to it before it dried. I could never understand those looneys that liked to cover themselves in blood; such a nasty, unpleasant, and unhygienic hobby.

A surge of such potent rage and fear that even my limited ability to sense such picked up on it coming from behind had me rapidly leaping away from the suddenly moving arm of my victim. Even quick as I am, that dying man nearly managed to grab me before I could scamper out of reach.

I whirled around, meeting feverish brown eyes as they glared hell and damnation at me. The man's dirty, ash coated hands scrabbled at the cobblestone beneath him with such force as to leave blood-streaked gouges in the stone as his nails cracked and broke. With every pulse of his heart blood jets out from his opened neck, each second leaving him weaker and weaker as he thrashes and struggles.

The hate and anger in those jaundiced eyes was almost tangible, a silent scream of murderous intent so loud I could swear I almost felt it. Fueled by this unending hate, the man managed to drag himself forward even despite the mass of rubble on and in his back; his sheer burning rage granting him the unthinking strength to shift what must have been several tons of stone and wood, if only a little.

Even so, he did not last long; the hatred pulsing through his veins did not prevent his blood from leaving him. He managed to drag himself nearly a full foot forward before his pounding heart betrayed him, every furious beat just pushing his blood out all the faster.

Even as consciousness left him, his burning eyes never left mine. I watched, transfixed, as the life slowly drained from those unseeing but still smoldering eyes.

Pirate Raidmaster Slain +2126 Exp

You Have Leveled Up! +50 Stat Points (x42)

My eyes widened, glee tempered harshly by shock and suspicion; when I observed him, it had only told me he was a “Human Fisherman” without so much as a hint of this. My mind raced for conclusions, considering and dismissing a number of increasingly absurd ideas before settling on one clear fact; Observe is not infallible and thus the only reasonable explanation is that Observe can be lied to as well. Whether this also means it can just be outright wrong or not is unclear, but for now I need to operate under the assumption that anything I Observe might not be what it says.

I waited a moment, but the distinct lack of a level in Paranoia only firmed my new found conviction to double and triple check everything.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

I was so busy nervously running my claws through my fur I almost forgot about the frankly absurd amount of points I now have; I suppose the system assumed I would be doing as rats do, scavenging and preying on the weak. Preying on lesser creatures and carrion is far less efficient than ambushing those vastly stronger than you when they can’t bring that might to bear.

Also less risky, but that’s immaterial.

The system not being designed for those who rush headlong into power is a beneficial, if concerning, thing to learn; the potential implications for why it was as such did not bear thinking about at present. At some point this non-stop adrenaline rush is going to come crashing down and then I’m gonna have to actually deal with all this suppressed terror and deep seated paranoia, but that time is not now.

Similarly, much as that stack of shimmering points called to me, whispering a sweet song of pleasures man has never known… I knew that I couldn’t afford to dump over two thousand points into me right now. A few hundred had made me feel as if my mind were melting under white flames of pure pleasure, the very thought of what so many would do to me sent a shudder through me.

Even I couldn’t tell if it was from fear or anticipation.

Regardless, a burning city filled with maniacal monstrosities and panicking peasants is not the best place to render one’s self insensate. Something or someone could easily stumble upon me and help me along the tiny gap between insensate and dead in the time it takes me to regain my senses.

Even knowing that, even knowing it would likely be my death, I still wanted to use those points so very, very badly. The siren song thrummed in my veins and pounded in my ears, so loud it nearly drowned out my every complaint, broke apart my will, shattered my resolve, trampled my rational thought…

But a single glance into a burning building, seeing a man stab another over some trinket even as the walls collapsed in flames around them, had me firmly deciding that surviving was the better part of caution. There would be time for such sweet sensation to warp my being later, for now I needed to ring what blood I could from this burning stone before it ran dry.

I turned away from the flames, ash choked winds stinging as my eyes scanned the ruins-to-be around me for a relatively safe path. A deep scowl spread across my muzzle as I found myself almost completely surrounded by collapsed and burning buildings on all sides.

It says a lot about how I’ve been living that, rather than panic and fear, my first response was annoyance and searching for a building that was only mostly on fire rather than entirely engulfed. The things one can get used to, I suppose.

My darting eyes spotted a window that was on fire but not filled with fire; I glanced about for a better option and sighed when I didn’t see one. Loath as I am to enter even a marginally on fire building, I knew sitting here would only lead to dying slower. I took a deep breath, ignoring the taste of ash and smoke as I did, and I darted forth; I didn’t have time to sit and hope for a better choice. Hesitation is death in a crisis.

Fire licked at my fur as I sprinted across the rough cobblestone, trying not to slip on blood, rapidly browning moss, and the general detritus a city of any size seems to spontaneously generate. I grit my teeth as I felt my fur catch fire, closing my eyes as I deemed myself close enough and jumped.

Hp -3

Fire Resistance +1

Glass shattered in my face, shards cutting lines across my skin and slashing my health as I flew through the window. I twisted in midair, hitting the ground already rolling and patting myself down as best I could to try and put myself out. Let me tell you, if you have never experienced fire in an open wound, you have never known true pain. Even so, I managed to snuff the flame before they ate into my muscles and with only mildly boiled eyeballs. I’m becoming far too used to the feeling of my blood literally boiling in my veins.

Hp -7

Fire Resistance +1

Pain Resistance +1

I lay on the uncomfortably warm but surprisingly well polished hardwood floor of what a quick glance confirmed was probably a house at some point in the recent past, panting for breath and contemplating whether frying my brain was worth escaping this pain. A question I never thought I’d have to ask, quite frankly.

The sound of stone creaking pulled me from my malaise of misery, drawing my gaze to a section of the ceiling above me with light pouring through and cracks spreading across it. For a moment I simply stared, the kind of apathy only those who have seen a spreading issue they knew they should fix but just couldn’t muster the energy to get up coating my mind like a film of dead algae. For a moment I seriously considered just laying there and letting whatever was about to happen just happen, only for a section of the ceiling to collapse and knock the grey film from my eyes as I lazily stared at oncoming death. A wooden beam engulfed in flames crashed through the weakened secretion, shattering a dresser and sending burning rubble carrening across the room.

Including one particular piece that slammed directly into my side hard enough to roll me over and probably bruise my ribs. On the plus side, it also knocked me on to my feet and made my flight just that much quicker and swept away my dull carelessness beneath a sea of pain and panic.

Hp -2

Pain Resistance +1

If I find who started this fucking fire, I’m going to murder them. Slowly. As great an opportunity as this whole shit show is, the smell of my own burnt flesh has become far too familiar over the past few-

My thoughts ground to a halt even as my body kept moving, flashing back to exactly why I had gotten a closer relationship with molten stone than any sane man should ever have. A black bird mask and rotten feathers flashed behind my eyes as the building collapsed around me.

Burning boards crashed down around me, allowing flames to gush in from above like water from a broken dam. My claws dug furrows in the boards beneath me as I pushed myself to keep ahead of the ceiling tearing itself apart behind me like a descending ramp. I could feel fire gnawing at my heels as I desperately searched for an exit.

My darting eyes locked onto a door someone had apparently left open in their rush to flee, sprinting through at full tilt as I heard a crack like an elephant breaking its neck behind me. I lept the final few feet, rolling to a stop and panting in a mixture of pain and relief while the building came crashing down behind me. I found myself in an alley that was notably less on fire than the street I came from, but even my thoughts of wanting to sleep for a week were drowned out by the echoing of one that burned with enough hatred I almost activated Hate Engine by accident:

That motherfucker!