Two distinct and deafening roars echoed through the forest, shaking the leaves from the trees, and sending birds scattering in all directions. The frightening bellows were followed by an almighty smash as two huge bodies slammed into each other. Dirt and sticks were sent flying from the collision and the clashing beasts were sent reeling backwards, skidding along the ground until they came to a halt over ten metres apart. A brief stalemate ensued, with the creatures eying each other. One a brown scaled beast, part hippopotamus, part triceratops, part lizard. It stood on four powerful hooved legs which supported its particularly rotund body that was three metres from hoof to shoulder and four metres from head to rump. It had a broad hourglass shaped head surrounded by a wide, rigid frill. A single two-foot long, thick horn protruded from its snouted nose and its large mouth was filled with powerful rectangular teeth. Its spiny tail swished from side to side and its feet stamped the ground and scraped backwards, preparing another charge. Its opponent, a three and a half metre tall muscular ape stood upright on its hind legs whilst beating its defined, orange chest. A distinctive white furred swirl adorned its stomach. The ape had a wide mouth that contained pointed teeth and its blue eyes shone with a steely, determined look. The large ape snarled a low, menacing growl as it clenched its thick fists.
The pause in battle was ended when the quadruped creature took off, charging directly towards the ape. A moment later another booming crash resounded as the great ape blocked the horn of the charging beast with its broad hands, the force causing it to skid backwards over twenty metres, splintering the small trees in its path. As the creatures again came to a stop the ape reacted first, gripping down tightly on the horn, rolling its shoulders, and slamming the frilled head of its opponent into the dirt. The horned beast groaned as its face met the ground and rising dust entered its lungs. In response it began to glow before the light began to congregate within its frill, causing it to shine bright pink. A second later a burst of energy pulsed out from the frill and horn, spreading out in all directions. The strange burst unleashed a force that caused the ape to lose its grip and sent it tumbling backwards, slamming into a large tree trunk. The ape let out a whimper, winded from the blow, and it slowly slid down the branch before resting on the ground. The ape shook its head and attempted to gather its senses when the other creature began another charge. This time the ape was unable to react quickly enough as the horn of its opponent pierced into its stomach right in the centre of its swirl. The momentum of the charging creature pushed the ape straight through the tree and carried it many metres back before it shook its head, dislodging the ape from its horn and sending it hurtling off into the dirt as blood flew into the air.
The ape hit the ground heavily and was momentarily stunned. Its stomach was bleeding profusely, its breath heavy and its face paling. It lifted its spinning head as it struggled to gather its senses. The horned beast was part way through another charge when a desperate voice cut through the sounds of stomping hooves.
“Swirly! Get up! You have to get up!” Tuti screamed as she scrambled out from the forest into the clearing between the two beasts.
Swirly’s floppy ears perked up at the sound and his eyes refocused before opening wide in fear, for Tuti was standing between him and the charging creature. Swirly roared again, forcing himself to his feet before taking off, running in the direction of Tuti. Swirly gathered speed as he drove his feet forward and reached his arms towards an exasperated Tuti. He stretched his arms out and plucked the small vixant up, grasping her tightly before rolling to the side and narrowly avoiding another blow.
Swirly quickly sprung back to his feet and placed Tuti down gently beside him. Tuti looked up at the massive ape and placed a hand on his leg, giving him a reassuring pat.
“You can do it Swirly, I know you can beat that thing,” Tuti said reassuringly.
With that she activated her last available ability, beast buff, as her hand briefly glowed before the light started to spread forward into Swirly’s body. Swirly twitched and writhed as Tuti’s magic and energy entered his circulation, causing him to experience a temporary surge of confidence and power. His fists bulged and pulsed and Swirly slammed them together in front of his forcefully in a determined action.
An exhausted Tuti smiled at Swirly as she whispered, “Go now, finish this!”
With that Swirly roared and charged forward, now galloping on all four limbs with renewed vigour. The frilled beast had turned and was about to commence another run towards the pair, but it was too slow. Swirly slammed into the creature with both fists, lifting the front half of the creature off the ground and flipping it onto its back. The stunned creature was again slow to react as Swirly smashed it with a volley of punches into its side as the sound of ribs cracking echoed outward.
The beast wriggled and kicked its legs helplessly in the air as it remained stuck on its back, like a flipped turtle lying on its shell. It grunted and groaned in pain as Swirly continued to rain down powerful strikes onto its exposed stomach. A moment later the creatures frill began to glow pink once more, followed by another pulse of energy being released in all directions. Swirly was sent tumbling back but managed to steady himself by planting his fists deeply into the ground. The beast had managed to use the pulse to flip itself upright and it now furiously stared at Swirly, blood trickling from its sides. Immediately afterwards, the two massive beasts charged forwards again, both determined to end their opponent.
The frilled creature lowered its head as it ran, pointing its thick, sharp horn at Swirly, with intention to impale the ape. Swirly galloped on clenched fists readying himself to strike his opponent. Just as the creatures were about to collide Swirly felt Tuti’s instructions enter his mind.
“Jump Swirly. Jump onto its back. Don’t get hit by the horn.”
Swirly’s rage filled mind momentarily cleared from the words and he jumped upwards, allowing the horn of the charging creature to pass harmlessly below. As Swirly descended from the air he managed to land on the beasts back near its rump, and he instantly began pummelling its back and sides. The tough scales of the creature were unable to protect it from Swirly’s furious fists as it whimpered and moaned. The crazed beast began to run frantically forward, kicking its hind legs back in an attempt to buck the ape off. Swirly squeezed his thighs together and pressed the fingers of one hand through the creatures damaged scales, deep into the beast’s flesh. He clenched down firmly, clasping on to its writhing muscles to resist being thrown off, while continuing his barrage with his free hand. The desperate beast below became more frantic as it charged through trees, brush, and undergrowth. In its anguish it lost sight of its surroundings, exiting the edge of the forest and appearing in a clearing. The clearing was steep and rocky, it was a sharp decline from the tree line and both the frilled beast and Swirly were quickly sent tumbling downwards.
Swirly was thrown off his makeshift steed from the tumble, his shoulder slamming into the turf before bouncing up and crashing down again. This cycle of falling, crashing, and bouncing continued for many moments as the great ape felt his connection with Tuti faltering. Swirly’s body began to blink with a gradually fading glow as his muscular limbs and massive body started to wither and shrink. In front of him he caught a glimpse of the other beasts twisted form rocketing down in front of him before landing upside down into a raging stream of rapids, sending a wave of water over ten metres high outward in all directions. A moment later, the now tiny, fluffy Swirly landed with a plop into the same body of water. Swirly was instantly taken by the powerful force of the water, floating forward past protruding rocks. He tried to grasp a hold of them but was unable to due to the exhaustion from his battle, and it seemed that Tuti was unable to empower him anymore. The helpless little ape just watched in fear as the lifeless body of the beast he had just defeated disappeared under the water. He then looked back towards the forest and saw the dismayed figure of Tuti watching on. Swirly was sad to see Tuti upset, but he was pleased that he had saved his friend from that scary creature. Swirly closed his eyes as the last of his energy faded. Just as he began to sink below the water he suddenly felt himself falling, and shortly afterwards, he slammed into something hard. Startled, he opened his eyes and looked up in confusion, meeting the gaze of an equally bewildered human standing front of him.
Barry stepped through the wooden door and found himself at the very same spot that he had been when he first discovered the dungeon. In front of him was a gradually narrowing tunnel, and he could both hear and see the flowing waterfall in the distance. It looked like the sun was either rising or setting as a yellow-orange hue shone through the waterfall from the sky beyond. He breathed out a sigh of relief at the sight, thankful that there wasn’t more to this dungeon. He’d had enough of the constantly dripping cavern and was looking forward to being in the sun again. He began walking forward, eventually having to crouch and then crawl to reach the opening before he was able to stand up on the very same platform that had saved him not too long ago.
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Before he could take another step, Barry’s attention was drawn to a large shadow that had appeared either within or just above the top of the waterfall. Without any time to process what was happening, Barry saw the corpse of some massive dinosaur beast come into view, it crashed into the platform with an almighty bang, before ricocheting off and continuing to plummet further down.
“What the—” Barry exclaimed, but his words were cut short as another, much smaller shadow appeared from above and landed on the platform right in front of him. “Is that a monkey?” he thought as he stared down, perplexed by the events taking place in front of his eyes.
The little fluffy creature was undeniably adorable. It briefly lifted its heavy head, it’s long ears flopping side to side, and it’s giant, tired eyes stared straight into Barry’s soul, melting his heart. A second later and the creature had passed out, it was only at this moment that Barry saw the large wound in its abdomen and he realised it was severely injured.
Impulsively, Barry reached into his waist bag and grabbed out the scraps of gown that he had saved earlier and placed them over the open wound in the monkey’s stomach firmly to stem the bleeding. The pain caused the little creature to wake up momentarily and Barry used this opportunity to shove a combination of vitality mushrooms and stamina grass into its mouth, forcing it to consume them. The creature tried to resist, but it was too small and too weak to do so, reluctantly swallowing the resources before passing out again. Barry cradled the monkey in his lap and kept the pressure on the critters stomach. He didn’t know why he cared so much about the little critter, but it had kind eyes, and it needed his help. Maybe it had something to do with all the death he had seen within the dungeon, but one way or another he was going to do whatever he could to help this creature survive.
It was touch and go for a while as the creature had lost a lot of blood. Its fur was soaked through, stained red from all the blood loss. Its body was cold, it’s breathing weak, and the only sounds it made were the occasional low whimper of pain. After some time, Barry realised it was morning as the orange light behind the waterfall began to change to the blue of the day. After another indeterminable period of time, Barry saw some colour return to the monkey’s face, and he lifted his hand off its stomach to assess the wound. To his surprise the wound had completely closed, and although it was still erythematous and sore looking, it was no longer bleeding. Barry had not moved in quite a while by now as whenever he tried to stand up, the little creature groaned and gripped at his leg reflexively, its actions telling Barry that now was not the time to be moving just yet. Barry just smiled as the ridiculously cute monkey in his lap continued to sleep and recover. Thankfully, he was gifted with something to do to help pass the time as he received a series of notifications in his mind.
Delta galaxy training ground, ranking ladder:
Individual - Barry Wines, human
Power level: Rank 10
Item level: Rank 5
Magic level: Unranked
Total stat points: Rank 2
Wealth: Rank 53
Vitality: Rank 1
Strength: Unranked
Stamina: Unranked
Dexterity: Unranked
Mana: Unranked
Perception: Unranked
Manipulation: Unranked
Willpower: Unranked
Rewards:
Title: Early specialist (vitality).
Bronze loot box (5): for achieving 5 ranked stats. 3 X loot boxes upgraded to silver for achieving top 10 ranking. 1 X loot box upgraded to gold for achieving number 1 ranking.
Barry was nearly bowled over from the series of messages and rewards, but he managed to maintain his composure so as to not startle his monkey friend. He was even more shocked when a glow appeared behind him, and he turned his head to see a collection of loot boxes scattered about the platform. The bombardment of information represented welcome recognition for the hard work he had put in so far and it gave him a rush of motivation. Out of the likely billions of initiates he had managed to rank for five key stats. Annoyingly, he wasn’t sure exactly how high on this ladder thing you had to be to be considered as ranking. But it didn’t matter, the results spoke for themselves, and it felt nice to know that all his hard work and struggles were paying off.
After his initial excitement, Barry decided to analyse the messages more closely. By focussing his attention on the title on he had just received, he found he was able to expand the information and read a more detailed description of it.
Title (temporary): Early specialist (vitality): Achieve rank 1 for the vitality stat during the first stage of the training ground. Provides a temporary +5 to the rank 1 stat whilst the initiate maintains the rank 1 position. Only true stat points count towards rank 1 position, does not include boosts provided by item, abilities or other temporary titles. At the conclusion of stage 1 of the training ground this temporary title will disappear, and a permanent boost will be received.
“This is amazing,” Barry thought as he giggled quietly.
He welcomed any boost to his skills and stat points, but he had come to understand just how big of a difference five stat points could make. Plus, this had the potential to become a permanent boost if he maintained his lead in the skill, which he had every intention of doing. But this reward was only the beginning. He now had loot boxes to open! Given his wealth was rank fifty-three he assumed the two pieces of clothing he had received so far in his previous loot boxes must have been quite valuable, and now he had five more potential money-making rewards in front of him. He leant back and reached a hand for the closest box, the bronze one, and dragged it towards himself as quietly as he could. Once it was resting besides him, he gave it a quick look over. The box was made of bronze metal, as the name suggested, and it lacked the glow or brilliance of the gold or even silver boxes. It had a few strange symbols on its lid, but they were fairly unremarkable. Regardless, he was still excited to see what it would contain. Popping the latches, he reached his hand inside and pulled out, a rock? Barry looked down at the rock in his hand, it was spherical and only about three centimetres in diameter. It was a strange, bright yellow colour and surprisingly heavy for its size.
Inspection:
Light stone: Emits a strong light when activated that lasts for five minutes. One time use.
Strangely, Barry instinctively knew how to activate the stone after he had inspected and held it. He just had to push a small amount of his mana into the stone and it would react. Although it wasn’t an overly exciting item, Barry felt that it could be useful in particular situations so he placed it into his waist bag and moved his attention towards the silver boxes. Barry was first forced to move the injured monkey from his lap to reach the boxes. He gently slid his hand under the apes delicate head and hips before placing the creature safely onto the stone floor. The little monkey groaned in discomfort at first, scrunching its nose, before rolling onto its side and falling back to sleep with its thumb in its mouth. Barry though he might die from the cuteness overload, but he distracted himself by focussing on the loot boxes once more.
Barry went along and unlocked the three silver loot boxes, leaving the gold one for last. Within the first box he received a pair of brown, mid-shin high hiking boots. They didn’t provide any stat boosts or other benefits, but they felt sturdy, had good grip, and it was a relief to not have to walk around barefoot anymore. In the second box he obtained another strange rock, similar to the light stone in size and shape, but coloured black with grey swirls throughout it.
Inspection:
Smoke stone: Releases a wide ranged smokescreen that blocks the vision of all within its zone of effect except for the user. One time use.
“Another useful stone,” thought Barry as he crammed it into the last of the free space in his waist bag before moving on to the final silver box.
He peered down into it optimistically, but quickly frowned with disappointment. He reached in and plucked the familiar red and white spotted mushroom from the box. Just to be sure he inspected the item and sure enough it was identical to the mushrooms within the cavern he had just exited, the same type of mushroom that he already had a waist bag full of currently. It did make Barry think that maybe these infused items he had collected within the cavern were more valuable than he first realised. Perhaps it was his large stash of mushrooms, moss and grass that had rocketed him up the wealth ladder, and not his clothing, if just one of these was considered a silver level reward? For now, it didn’t matter and Barry had a glowing golden distraction sitting on the floor in front of him that he was far more interested in.
Stepping forward, Barry clicked open the latches and slowly opened the lid, his head buzzing with anticipation. As the glow faded and his eyes focussed Barry once again frowned. Within the centre of the box was a small, unassuming brown sack just large enough to fit a hand into. Barry reached down and picked it up as it hung loosely from his fingers. The material was smooth and silky, easily the nicest feeling fabric Barry had come across so far. There were some subtle, faded symbols along the rim of the sack but other than that it, looked overwhelmingly basic. Barry inspected the item, hoping it might provide him with some answers.
Inspection:
Spatial storage sack (small): A small spatial storage sack. Triples the shelf life of deteriorating consumables.
Immediately Barry’s frown transformed into a wide, toothy grin as his brain processed exactly what this was. Barry had played enough video games in his time to understand that what he held in his hand was a personal storage pocket dimension, essentially a cupboard in a sack. Testing it out Barry picked up the mushroom he had just received and placed it into the open end of the spatial storage sack. The mushroom instantly disappeared without the sack bulging or changing shape at all, as if it had vanished. Barry then reached his hand into the sack, and he instinctively sensed the space within. Within Barry’s mind he could see the available space in the spatial sack, and he could also see the mushroom floating within it. He found that if he concentrated, he could move the mushroom around to different parts of the space, which he knew would be helpful for sorting. With that he pictured withdrawing the mushroom and he found it suddenly appear in his hand. Barry smiled and began emptying the contents of his waist bag into the sack followed by a few minutes of sorting. He moved the mushrooms, grass, and moss to one area of the space, the two stones to one side, the empty vial and tattered gown rags to one spot, and finally the waist bag itself to another section. Barry then looped his belt through the small handle of the spatial sack, locking it in place on the side of his hip. He looked down proudly at his upgraded storage capabilities, just as the little monkey began to stir. A moment later it opened its wide eyes and sat up, fear and confusion evident on its face.