John's eyes shot open and he jumped to his feet as the world shook. Messages flew across his vision but were instantly dismissed as dust poured down from the ceiling, scooping up his rifle and belt from beside him and he sprinted out of the door, down the stairs, passing a few dozen scared and panicing people and out onto the street. The ground seemed to vibrate and the appartment buildings around him began tilting dangerously. Decidedly not wanting to be crushed to death by falling debris, John bolted over to a manhole cover, somehow in his adrenaline fueled state causing his fingers to elongate as they found their way into holes in the cover and yanked with all his might. It flew open and he quickly climbed down the ladder, replacing the cover quickly. Several seconds later he heard a series of loud crashes above him as he stood in total darkness, the world still shaking aroud him.
5 minutes. That's how long the quake lasted, he didn't even know what caused it as they were nowhere near any kind of fault line. He climbed up and tried to push open the cover to find it was being weighed down by something extremely heavy on the other side, He could only assume that rubble had burried him in here. He waited another 5 minutes and listened, trying to hear if there was any sound indicating he was in any immediate danger and to his relief he was not. Pulling one of the smaller police flashlights out of his inventory he clicked it on and checked out his immediate surroundings. He was in a small concrete room, verticle tunnel, about halfway down a ladder. Below him was a shallow flow that he really did not want to think about right now. At the very least the sludge below him seemed to be thinning out, presumably due to a blockage further upstream. Trying to figure out how he was gonna get out of this he decided to look through some of his messages.
Notice Due to recent events, your luck has increased by 1 point
Notice
You have gained proficiency in your skill [Shift]
Due to a special action, a new effect has been unlocked
Racial Skill Gained NAME: Shift As a doppelgänger you are able to change your physical appearance to that of any humanoid you have studied for more than 1 minute or from which you have eaten Effects- change physical appearance to that of another humanoid creature. You can change the appearence of this form to a limited degree. Additional effects may develop at higher levels. MP cost- 10 Activation Time- 5s Level 2
Notice
24 hours since system arrival have passed, in order to promote co-operation in newly Integrated worlds, portions of each world, including their residents will be exchanged.
WARNING Displacement may cause some turbulence
Notice
You have been transported to Utoria
'Well fuck. Not only have I just had a building dropped on me, turns out the reason was turbulence as I was transported to ANOTHER FUCKING WORLD' A mixture of panic, rage and concern filled his mind. He was convinced whatever had done this was doing it to fuck with him in particular. Either way, he had to get out of this shitty situation somehow, it just wasn't sure how yet. Returning to the cover he placed both hands on it and pushed with all his strength. Like last time there was no movement. Figuring that the stat points would be no use to him if he was dead he put all the points from his level up into strength. Once more Returning to pushing he felt a slight give as it moved up ever so slightly. Whatever it was that was on top of the cover was not an entire apartment building at least.
After about an hour of pushing the air had started to get rather thin, however, he had managed to push the manhole cover to the side and crawl out of the hole. He was still under rubble but was in a small pocket between a couple of larger bits of rubble. He could see without the use of his flashlight now from the sunlight that streamed in from small cracks, it didn't seem to be too far from the surface so he desperately started pushing aside smaller rocks and pieces of debris. He was still going at it when his head swam and his vision went dark.
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Tilly Sparklecraft was a member of one of the large Gnomish clans on Utoria, she was a notoriously skilled geomancer and her ability had drastically increased when the system arrived. Gnomes were extremely adaptable by nature and they had developed their magic a great deal in all areas. So when the system arrived, whilst still being in a time of upheaval they had people on hand who could deal with most of the threats that they faced from the arrival of monsters. Within the first 6 hours of the arrival of the system almost every clan had put together teams of their more talented mages to combat monsters as and when they were reported. By the time 12 hours had gone by most of the cities and a good deal of the surrounding villages had been successfully pushing back any and all threats. By the time 24 hours had elapsed they were starting to feel like they had started getting things under control, at least in the area she was in.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
That was of course until cities started vanishing and in their place, strange alien cities had appeared in their place. Most of them had been badly damaged and the streets were filled with rubble and as a geomancer, he had decided to search through the one that had appeared where the city closest to her once was. Merely 2 hours after it appeared she had been picking through the ruins.W talking down a street she could feel the presence of dozens of bodies under the rubble but there was nothing that indicated they were alive. After unearthing several of them and finding that the strange creatures that looked like gnomes but with weird, short rounded ears, long gangly limbs and large bodies, tiny beady eyes and short stubby noses. They really seemed freakish but if the messages were to be believed these were people just like her in the same boat so she kept going. Eventually, she came across a body that seemed to be breathing shallowly. Excited she moved the rubble around the creature and brought it up to the surface, she examined it, not seeing any injuries, it appeared to have just passed out from asphyxiation under that rubble. Laying it off to one side so it could recover she spent the next few hours looking over the rubble. Eventually dedicated rescue teams arrived on the scene and took over, tired, hungry and magically drained she had found no other survivers, though many others had been found elsewhere it seemed this area had been hit hard and whoever this was was extremely lucky to have survived.
Returning to find it's rescuee still unconscious, Tilly decided that she would be able to be a much better host than whatever the clans had decided to do with the survivers. Especially since she had rescued this... man? Definitely a man. Creating a floating makeshift stretcher out of rock, placed the unconscious Doppelgänger onto it and took off for her home.
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Status Window Name: Johnathan Simmons Alignment: NE Level: 2 (40%) Class: NA Race: Doppelgänger Gender: Male Acheivements First Blood, Matricide Fame: 0 Infamy: 0 - Health: 23/ 100 Health Regen: 1.0 / Min Mana: 150 / 150 Mana Regen: 3 / Min Stamina: 100 / 100 Stamina Regen: 1.0/ Sec - Strength: 20 Agility: 13 Vitality: 10 Endurance: 10 Dexterity: 11 Intelligence: 10 Wisdom: 10 Luck: 11 Undistributed stat points: 0 Physical Resistances Slashing: 5% Piercing: 5% Crushing: 5% Elemental Resistances Fire: 0% Water: 0% Wind: 0% Earth: 0% Lightning: -20% Darkness: 0% Light: 0%
Skill Name: Skill Rank: Skill Level: Skill Experience: Assimilate Unique 1 75% Shift Common 2 30% Speed Reading Common 5 0% Small Arms Common 3 30% Inspect Common 2 35%