Jeff stared at the three new skill screens feeling a little overwhelmed. He kept getting new abilities and skills and was feeling like he had an arsenal of new magic at his disposal. He was drinking from a firehose and he kept missing or forgetting things. He realized he hadn’t even used his rogue Split ability once during a fight. He had practiced it a little bit when he first got it, but just felt too overwhelmed to keep it in mind. Now the screens were telling him that the Myst Trance he fell into the first night was a Skill he already had access to. He knew he should excuse himself due to circumstances, but he felt too overwhelmed to think rationally.
He began falling back into the same self deprecating thoughts that were held at bay with all the ‘Mystical’ distractions lately. He remembered that everyone back home was watching him, learning from him. How many of them were screaming at the Pillar that he should have used the Split ability during the fight? It was literally named ‘Split’ like splitting wood. How could he have missed that?
He began second guessing the safety he was beginning to feel after clearing out a larger circle. He probably could have made it back to the Pillar by now and been safe. Now Emily was likely watching her husband deliberately stay in a forest churning with dangerous monsters. He had accomplished a lot up to this point, but it was all due to dumb luck. He wasn’t truly a Chosen, just someone too stupid to think before he jumped. How much better would it be if an olympian or military person had been here instead of him? Him…a deadbeat.
“Jeff, snap out of it!” Kazi shouted, reverberating in his head.
He was suddenly yanked off his feet. A vine had wrapped around his right leg and pulled, dragging him away for the center of the circle.
Jeff felt despair for a moment before he felt his more calculating self take over. He set his jaw and shifted himself on his side in almost a baseball sliding position. Then he swung with his halberd in the silhouetted form. He activated the Split ability and saw a blade of air continue from the swinging axe. The ability struck the monster center mass and he felt the vines go slack.
He was just starting to stand up when the vines pulled taught again with renewed vigor. He fell face first into the forest floor. He had just enough wherewithal to turn on his back and summon an energy shield between him and his assailant. The floating glowing disc moved with him for a moment until it slammed into the hulking monster. He instinctively manipulated the shield as the force of the vines continued to pull him along the ground.
The counter forces made the oddest thing happen. The large sapling tilted up on the shield that went fully horizontal above Jeff. The monster stayed suspended in the air while Jeff felt the force of the weight push him into the ground. Luckily the monster wasn’t nearly as heavy as the beatles. It was more like a large log…with a disturbing face.
The glow of the transparent shield showed a nasty, spiky mouth on a head that looked like an oversized acorn. He stayed there for a moment with the monster floating above him on the shield. He felt prickly from his senses and could tell he had drawn the attention of another nearby sapling. He readied his axe in both hands and swung in the empty space between him and the monster. He activated another Split and hoped his shield wouldn’t reflect it back. To his surprise the wind blade went right through the shield and sliced the ugly wooden face right in half.
You have defeated:
Alianthose Sapling - Level 6
He glanced at the small screen that popped up while he repositioned the shield between him and the next closest baddy. A large spiked vine slammed into the shield and Jeff, who had just started pushing himself up, was launched back in a tumble across the forest floor and into a tree. He didn’t hit hard, but it left him in an awkward position to recover. The attack had brought him within range of two more monsters he could see in the purple glow of the moons with his 360 Vision.
He scrambled as quickly as he could back toward the center of his safety circle. Anticipate allowed him to zig zag the two attacks that came from behind him. The monsters were too slow to continue their assault and seemed to lose track of him. Once he was back to the center he turned to face them and realized they had already started attacking each other again. He readied a disc and killed the monsters with a quick curving air bounce throw.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
He barely registered the two tallys next to Level 4 monster kills that showed up on small screens that popped. He threw out the disc twice more to kill monsters that had come within his football field sized safety circle. He let himself breathe again.
He wanted to berate himself again for letting himself…berate himself, but he realized the stupidity of that thought. He couldn’t keep worrying about the past when the then and now was already so worrying. He did however commit to spending time dealing with his emotions sometime soon. He didn’t want another episode like that happening in the middle of a battle.
He lessened the amount of throws he sent into the dark woods for the next hour or so. He needed to let his spirit recover. Letting the massive log-like sapling rest on his shield put a new type of strain on his spirit. He didn’t feel the same pain he felt when trying to stand on a throwing disc. The Energy Shield was designed to resist incoming force. It was more like wearing out a muscle that he never knew he had.
The small white moon rose above the mountain to the…east. He decided to call the direction the sun and moons came up the ‘east’ and the way they went down to the west. That put the ocean to the south of the System Pillar and the valley of trees that spanned between the two massive mountains to the north. The glow of the third moon allowed him to see well enough that he felt comfortable staying in the forest for a while longer. The safety he had on the Pillar outcropping wasn’t much better than this. He wasn’t sure if the tree monsters would be coming from the forest below as well, so he decided to stand his ground for now.
Now that he had a moment to breathe Kazi brought a screen to his vision.
Energy Shield - Middle Mastery
Create a flat circle shield before you that cannot be broken. The shield moves with you and you move with it. You can send projectiles through the shield.
He must have hit Middle Mastery when he shot the Split ability through the shield. He wasn’t sure if that was always the ability gained at Middle Mastery for the Energy Shield ability or if it just altered for him because of the situation. He wanted to ask Kazi, but now wasn’t the time. He kept his attention on the trees and the minions they created.
Once his spirit recovered he began throwing discs out again. Before long he cleared out all the monsters within 100 meters of him. His new points in sense didn’t extend his sense field out beyond that point, but rather gave him a clearer picture of what was within that zone.
You have leveled up to Level 9!
He began walking in a large circle through the still dormant trees sending out disc to kill the monster saplings. The monsters he killed now were all higher leveled and gave a good chunk of experience…or Myst…he decided to call it Experience Myst for now. About half way through his looping circle he felt something new come within his senses. He closed his eyes and sent out his spiritual vision to see what it was.
Remote Viewing felt different than the other Myst abilities. There was no need to yearn for the power. It just was a part of him, like gaining a new limb or discovering a new muscle. It was a muscle that he barely knew how to use. Like trying to flex only one glut at a time. It was possible, but…and there’s always a big but when it comes to the glutes…it took some time before the movements became natural.
His remote sense moved toward the new flying monster immediately, but Jeff couldn’t see anything. Then he realized he had moved his “viewing” right inside the monster. Within a split second he had readjusted and got his first view of the terrifying newcomer. It was a trampoline sized moth or butterfly creature that was fluttering above his safety circle. With his eyes still closed he brought Remote Viewing up above the creature to look down with a new vantage point.
Definitely a butterfly. If it still counted as a butterfly when its wings looked like glittering steel in the moonlight. Butterflies were supposed to be dainty and beautiful. This thing only had the beautiful thing down. It had a large assortment of colors that gleamed in the purplish glow of the moons. He could see something hanging off one glittering wing and tried to reposition his spiritual viewing as the massive monster continued its flight. It took some doing, but Jeff finally recognized the sapling vines flapping in the wind like a wrapper out a car window.
The creature spread its wings in a very un-butterfly manner and began a diving descent toward its unsuspecting prey. It must have been tearing through the monsters all night and having a heyday in this chaos. At least he was safe floating up here above-
Then Jeff remembered his body was actually down on the ground in a little clearing and the steel winged monster was zooming right towards him. He finally opened his eyes to see the massive flying bug heading straight for him.
“Aw shit.”