“Hey, uh, hi. Hi.” The smile was awkward but full and genuine. “I wanted to help out a bit. It’s not much, but my squad pooled our reserves.”
Kelly reloaded her sidearm, shifted uncomfortably, and gave the soldier a strained smile. “Oh, thanks! It’s all so much more than I expected. You guys have been so kind.” He seemed to expect more, but what? She cocked her head, smiled, and tittered. She was sure she couldn’t have tittered before she had magic powers. The tittering didn't even stop as she ground her teeth.
“We hope you’re– I mean, I think you’ll do great!” The man stared into her eyes, and his face went mushy and stupid like in a rom-com. Pretty sure they called that struck with love. It’s like being struck in the head with a hammer, but with eighty percent more brain damage.
“Thanks, hon.” She gave him her best smile, secured her headphones, and unloaded her clip down range. That seemed to throw him off, he wasn’t wearing the mandated ear protection.
The young man smiled and gave a half bow. Maybe he tried to say something else but she couldn’t hear, and he definitely couldn’t hear. She gave him a wink and waved him off. He turned and bounced off the divider. He turned around, his face a deep red, and fled. It was probably the most ‘aw shucks’ thing she’d ever seen. Vom. All the vom.
Well, not actually. This kind of thing used to make her want to vomit but now it was more depressing. She wanted to feel sorry for them, but really it’s not like she chose this. For now, she was mourning her own life. Later she’d find some time to give a shit.
On the other hand, one more made it an even fifteen mana crystals. Taking charity was embarrassing, but they needed the mana. Reports said that the clan leaders were nearing level fifty. That meant a third aspect and a whole new category of powers while she only had one aspect. At least now she’d have her second power.
Kelly seized the crystal and absorbed the mana, filling her reserves to capacity.
Level 10!
And her mana was empty again. Three thousand mana capacity now. There wasn’t enough ambient mana this far from the city to start filling it. The climb to level 11 suddenly looked daunting.
She’d avoided investing into her stats. They were costly, and she hoped high enough levels would discourage anyone from thinking she was easy prey. But the real prize of levels was…
Second ability unlocked.
Passive: Delicate Grace
Kelly closed her eyes and tried not to scream. She could sort of sense what the ability did. She blocked out the description. She didn’t want to know.
She unloaded her pistol into the target. Thirteen rounds shot perfectly, decades of daddy teaching her all about guns, and soon it would all be meaningless. Once again war was undergoing a fundamental shift. So daddy had sent her here to master the new ways of war or die trying.
Delicate Grace though. Ugh. The surge of the new magic took over. Nothing to do but let it happen.
She ejected the clip and tossed the gun into the air. Then she felt a flood of energy and her body needed to move. Without hesitation she let the magic take over, she threw herself into a backflip while she drew the backup pistol she kept strapped to her leg, then rotated and added a roll midair. That should not have been possible. She tossed her spare into the air, snagged a spare clip off the counter, and reloaded in time to catch the gun.
Her weapons lined up to the targets. It’d taken her years of practice to make drawing and firing as natural as using a pen or a hairbrush. The skill surpassed that immediately. She fired at her target, then spread her aim to the two adjacent targets. Four bullets, four headshots.
Okay, maybe that was cool.
The magic faded, and she shivered, feeling briefly violated. It wasn’t like you lost control per se. The magic didn’t take you over, but it did activate your ability, often at full power. The soldier’s called them Demos, a quick demonstration of what the power could do. Not every power got a demo.
You could resist it, of course. Though, if you didn’t know the ability did, then it was hard to resist doing it. That could become a serious problem if she couldn’t get rid of this insanely stupid aspect.
Passive: Delicate Grace removed.
Passive: Mesmerizing Grace unlocked.
Mesmerizing? How the hell was that better? And how had she upgrade the skill immediately? Will and action. She’d wanted to do something, and she’d done it. But you couldn’t level skills on paper targets, much less trigger an upgrade.
She looked up. Everyone on the range was staring at her. Two of them had phones out recording her. That was against regs. Or they had been recording, until their jaws slackened–along with their arms. The phones had clattered to the floor. The now familiar glimmer of puppy love shining in their eyes as they stared with unashamed admiration.
She ground her teeth and turned back to the targets, starting at the far right and targeting each cutout once. She couldn’t match the surge of dexterity she’d had when the flood of mana had supercharged the new skill, so she alternated her shots until her spare ran out. Stupid eight round magazine. Her primary ran out of ammo before she ran out of targets.
Someone tapped her shoulder, and she shifted one side of her headphones to listen.
“Uh, ma’am, you’re meant to aim at the center of mass. Some of the monsters out there don’t have known weak points, but if you cause enough damage to anything, it’ll stop moving at some point.”
She let out a giggle and a cute smile. It probably wasn’t that cute. She wasn’t really trying to hide her contempt. She didn’t practice smiling in a mirror like some barbie girl, but he looked like she’d punched him in the gut. “Just letting out some aggression, sweetie. Don’t mind me.”
Kelly didn’t pay the marine much attention. It was his job to train the actual soldiers guarding the line, but where she was going their guns would stop working in minutes.
She reloaded and emptied another thirteen rounds. Pointless. Outdated. But damn if it didn’t relieve stress.
Another tap on her shoulder and her smile did nothing to cover her annoyance. This time the trainer sputtered and struggled through his words like a teenage virgin. “Uh–ma’am? Could you–uh stop hitting the target’s crotch, you’re–uh making the other soldiers a bit–uncomfortable.”
Owen ran. He was kicking himself. It was a fundamental law of irony, cemented in stories since the dawn of time that the monster was never dead, or trapped, or unconscious or whatever. He should have known better. Flee first and ask questions later. Any distance he created now would be devoured in short order, but seconds counted, and the elevator was on the other side of the building.
His salvation lay again in the narrow confines of the building. The creature had a hard time turning around in the narrow hallway. That wouldn’t last for long, due in large part to its repeated efforts to turn around, which was rapidly expanding the hallway.
When the creature finally whirled on him and shook off the drywall dust and shattered two by fours it found itself staring at an empty hallway. It sniffed the air and scrambled down the hallway. It could move swiftly in short bursts, but a prolonged chase was not the domain of either animal contributing to its physiology.
Still it had a speed stat, and when it moved it seemed Owen stopped moving. Owen wasn’t too firm on the details. He wasn’t sure of anyone who was. He hoped with every fiber of his being that he only stopped in comparison, because physics may have gotten its butt kicked by magic, but it wasn’t dead. Yeah, that was probably it. Still, he would have sworn he’d stopped moving, like a dream where you run faster and faster but never move.
“What is going on here!” The voice came from the ground floor. “You stop right there!”
The ammit stopped midway down the hall and cocked its head again. Owen’s forward momentum resumed.
Owen didn’t wait to answer or to find out why the screaming had stopped the monster’s chase. Whatever voice commanded the Egyptian devourer of dark souls, Owen would face it, but not here.
By any normal metric, a new player would throw the odds wildly out of his favor. But Owen didn’t worry about losing. Losing was guaranteed. The goal was to take someone out along with him. That meant he’d just doubled his potential targets.
When he arrived at the elevator doors, he stopped. Unlike the penthouse or the first floor, the elevators here were in an offshoot of the main hallway. It wasn’t ideal, but he didn’t imagine there was any time to climb four flights of stairs.
He waited. The ammit didn’t approach. Neither did the mysterious voice that commanded the beast. His mind raced. Someone was taking their sweet time. Were they sneaking around? Coordinating the attack? Or fighting over the kill?
It didn’t really matter, but he couldn’t stop his brain from speculating. He tried to focus on his one shot. He’d come straight for his best trap.
Owen glanced to the sides. Three paths led to the elevator. Danger could be approaching from any direction. Except he could still hear sounds coming down the central corridor.
A head poked around the corner. It looked human. Not that you could trust that these days. Owen’s eyes caught the ping as it rebounded. The man stepped out into the hall. “Hello, friend. Sorry my sister scared you.”
Noah - Species: Human Aspirant- Lvl 26
Aspects: [Trepanation], [Magic]
The aspects seemed impossible. Trepanation? That was an ancient practice of drilling holes in people’s heads. The procedure was most probably for rudimentary surgery for brain swelling, though armchair historians with more of a memory for quiz show trivia than brains often saw it as a path to enlightenment or a desperate last try to release demons.
But how exactly did you earn an aspect like that? What was the opposite of drilling a hole in your head for enlightenment? Not drilling a hole in your head?
The answer came in a flash of insight. The man had shifted his nature. Whatever an Aspirant was, he wasn’t fully human anymore, no matter what it looked like. No matter what his public information proclaimed.
Owen shifted the knife out of view. Killing a human with the dagger was all but guaranteed–if he could land a strike. He wasn’t actually sure how much damage “moderate fire damage” was, but he didn’t think the human body was meant to take it. But this thing only looked human.
As ‘Noah’ stepped closer, Owen noticed his left eye was covered with a black patch, and a looming sense of doom chilled the air.
The ammit entered into view at a light trot, oddly smiling again in that impossible way. It made him wish he could still google things, like ‘can alligators smile?’ Except Ammit was an Egyptian myth. Did the Nile have crocodiles or alligators? Nile and crocodile rhymed. It was irrational, but he’d go with that for now.
This ammit eyed him, grinning. Noah knelt down to rub it behind the ears. The crocodile head didn’t have ears, but its eyes rolled back and it–she melted and sank to the floor. “She’s just like a puppy, really.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The smile he received was open and friendly, but the man’s body posture didn’t relax. It was a facade. Noah started inching forward. Owen almost took a step back, but his foot struck the open air of the elevator shaft. “She was my sister. Still is, I guess. You don’t have to worry about her, she’s just a corpse eater. She wouldn’t have hurt you. She looks tough and dangerous, but she’s just an oversized ghoul. Actually, she really thinks she’s a puppy.”
“A puppy built like a tank?”
The man shrugged. “Still a puppy. Want to pet her?”
What an invitation! Just come pet your sister, the crocodile faced abomination?
“No.” That hung in the air, until Owen belatedly added, “Thanks.”
The man nodded and gave half a smile, but he eyed Owen up and down. “A mundane fighting against an ammit. That’s pretty brave.” The voice seemed casual, but he took another step forward.
“I didn’t go looking for her. She came looking for me. Doesn’t take any bravery to be hunted.”
The man grinned. “Almost true. My name’s Noah. This is my sister, Ellie. She had Down Syndrome before the transformation. Never quite developed right, you know?” Owen ignored the story. It was a distraction while the man inched closer. “Then she gets a new body, and I swear she understands me a thousand times better. Say hi Ellie.” The crocodile roared, a bellowing roar that echoed through the halls. But she didn’t get up. She just settled in to watch the two of them, her single crocodile eyes bouncing back and forth. “Come on. Let’s eat something and talk. I’ve got an offer that I think you’ll like.”
The man was getting too close. Owen brought out the dagger and the man froze, but he didn’t step back.
“No need for that.” The man’s eyes lit up at the dagger, and greed filled his eyes. Owen’s final hopes of diplomacy vanished. Had he pinged it? Or had he been trailing them since the marketplace? Either way, he wanted the dagger now. An enchanted blade was worth a thousand mundanes. “How about that deal, huh? You’re mundane. I’ll give you enough mana to ascend. That’s cheap at my level, right? You give me the dagger, and your first ability.”
Owen blinked at that. “How do I give you my first ability?” Power already accumulated unfairly. If abilities could be surrendered–or stolen, then soon enough one tyrant would rise above them all.
As far as he knew only Wizards could exceed the standard number of abilities, and it was the only ability of their aspect, required a substantial amount of time and research, and often yielded a sub-optimal spell.
“I guess it’s not a secret. Different species level differently. It’s not all a bloodbath. My path is through making deals.” The man pulled back his eyepatch. Owen tried to see what hid behind the eyepatch, but just a brief glimpse made him dizzy and weak. The man’s words flowed past him, but he couldn’t hear. He felt a profound sense of depth and the limitless bounds of magic, and the primal fear of disappearing into that boundless, unfathomable darkness.
Owen closed his eyes, trying desperately to remember where he was, what he was doing, why there was an alligator staring at them.
The sensation slowly faded. He began to feel some hurried movement, something grabbed his arm, and in panic he lashed out. When his vision cleared, the eyepatch had once again covered the abyss that lurked behind the man’s missing eye. And his knife was in the other man’s hands. The man raised his hands in a non-threatening gesture. “See? I’m not looking to rob you. I just want my deal.” The knife disappeared. Where? Into a pocket?
Owen thought about making a fuss but little else had changed–and he had attacked the man, hadn’t he? He remembered attacking blindly. Disarming him was probably the least the not-human could have done. Right? It all felt wrong, but he couldn’t place why.
Owen still reeled from the vision. Whatever mind swirling powers this Ascendant possessed, they’d completely thrown him off. He closed his eyes and clutched the wall. .
“Say it again.” Noah took a few deep breaths, surprised at his own calm. “Say it again. Use different words and leave the eyepatch on.”
The man chuckled, and his arms went up in that disarming gesture again, as if to say, ‘You caught me! But can you blame me.’ Yes, Noah told himself. Repeating it over and over in his mind. Yes, I can blame you.
“Look, I’ll sweeten the deal. I’m looking to evolve down a particular path. That requires a certain set of Aspects and powers, one of which I believe you may have.”
“Why?”
The man leaned back against the wall, apparently settling in for a long chat. “Well, my final evolution requires hanging for nine days. You hung for nine months. If I can buy that aspect off you, it’ll save me a lot of finagling.”
Final evolution? Owen’s blood chilled. A few evolutionary paths had been discovered. Usually obvious ones. At level 25 a goblin could become a hobgoblin, if it had fulfilled some mysterious set of requirements. The hobgoblin was one of the weakest examples, but even a hobgoblin’s evolution more than quadrupled its power. This man had let slip he had multiple evolutions coming.
Worse, he had a quest. Or he wouldn’t know the specific requirements to evolve.
An evolution was the path to a powerhouse. Two evolutions might produce a Titan. Two evolutions and a quest? What was this man’s luck stat?
Regardless, the man in front of him was shaping up to be a major power, and Owen had the chance to get on his good side.
Owen closed his eyes again. Was that his own feeling? Or was he still overawed by the eyepatch trick? Exactly what abilities did a magic aspect give you?
“So you’re looking to fulfill certain qualities to make the evolution possible.”
“Possible and cheaper.” The man grinned. “Glad to see you understand.”
Cheaper? That made sense. It was like the adlet and eating human flesh. Converting a human to an adlet cost 90 mana, nearly as much as ascending. But if you ate human flesh, sort of pre-attuning your nature to the transition, the cost dropped to just under one mana.
If you were already a monster, it was cheaper to take that final step.
It was understood that powerful forms often required more complex and unique conditions. What exactly was this man looking to become?
“What sorts of aspects are you looking for?”
“Thought, Memory, the Hanged Man, Secrets, Transformation.” Noah grinned, apparently happy to keep the coversation focused on the deal. But he inched forward again. Why? “There’s quite a list probably of related aspects. I’ll know it when I see it.”
Thought, memory, and one missing eye. That spelled things out rather clearly, actually.
Owen didn’t need to think too long. His gut was screaming at him to run, and not simply because he was facing down a predator–two predators if you included the butt-wriggling ammit puppy.
The man probably didn’t even know how good a deal it seemed. He’d finally ascend. He could meet with the ambassador and complete the quest. He’d have magic. Probably. Unless he somehow got an aspect this man was looking for–except maybe anything he got would turn out to be something he was looking for.
He distrusted the man. He distrusted mutually beneficial deals. And if Hanged Man was somehow an aspect, he probably had it. He’d hung for two years after all. No. He’d have the opposite.
Besides, aspects were limited. If he lost his first he’d have to wait until level 25, and until then, he’d have no powers. He’d forever be a full aspect behind everyone else. There was no conceivable way that was worth 100 mana. Even if it was that nigh impossible first step.
Owen shook his head. “No, I don’t think I’m inclined to barter away my powers.”
Noah nodded and thrust the dagger into Owen’s thigh. Where it had come from, he wasn’t sure, but the dagger cut a long neat line into his calf, shallow but it stung. Noah settled back against the wall, but his attitude had changed. Negotiations were over.
His fingers played over the blade and he frowned, probably realizing he’d further dislodged the enchantment. “I’m asking that you reconsider”
Owen’s body flooded with pain, but he sighed in relief. He could feel fire mana from the dagger. It had leaked mana directly into the wound. He tried to absorb it, but how? It always just sank into the skin, absorbed like it had always been a part of you. Now the mana raged at its container, burning as it moved up his leg, to his heart, to his brain, then everywhere.
He screamed. For what felt like forever he screamed.
The world and everything disappeared as his own blood tried to burn him to ash, leaving just enough mana in its wake to heal as it went. The pain spread everywhere, consumed him, and burned. Burned everywhere and everything forever–until it didn’t. Whatever held the magic to its purpose finally failed and a sprinking of mana remained.
Mana Saturation: 88.3%
Everything still hurt. His body somehow couldn’t believe the pain had stopped, so while the pain had stopped, the echo of it remained, fading reluctantly.
Noah was looking down at him. He’d collapsed into a ball. It was lucky he hadn’t fallen back into the open shaft. “Well. That was more punishing than I expected. Sorry.”
Owen grinned. He’d do that another ten times if it meant getting that last little bit of mana again. Now he was sure his plan would work. He was on the edge of ascension. So he grinned like an idiot.
He really didn’t like gambling, but more and more he found himself needing to make split second decisions out of what felt like pure ignorance. Two minutes ago, he wouldn’t have thought magic powers could be bought and sold. Now he’d gone with his gut, and the man’s overreaction confirmed it had been right to refuse. Now he was so close.
Noah twirled the blade between his fingers and tried to loom over the mundane grinning at him like an idiot. Something had gone wrong. His target wasn’t afraid anymore. So he loomed.
Likely the man thought he looked threatening, but Owen stood up to real monsters. Real monsters over level 50. So Owen’s first thought was ‘amatuer.’ Besides, he was still immortal. Sticks and stones could break his bones, but nothing could actually end him.
Owen took half a step back, ready to fall into the elevator shaft. “No, I don’t think I will.”
Noah rolled his eyes and grabbed Owen by the neck, yanking him back from the edge. “You think you can run?”
Owen reacted. Reacting was essential. If he tried to surprise a player, his missing stats would fail him, and the player would always be faster. No, in order to surprise someone, you had to be at least two steps ahead. Threatening to jump was the first step. Getting grabbed was the second step. He wrapped himself around Noah in a giant hug, locking his hands together behind the man’s back. Then his foot stretched out and kicked–nothing.
Noah had lifted him off the ground and away from the opening. Owen kicked again and again, trying to locate the wooden board that served as the trigger to his little trap. Noah froze and tried to shove him away. A light Wiggling bear hugs being an unexpected reaction to extortion, this made sense. The shove wasn’t forceful, just insistent. Owen’s arms cracked, but his fingers had intertwined, and even as he lost feeling in his fingers, they stuck together.
Owen found the trigger on his fifth kick and the rope tightened around his leg.
“I’ve been practicing falling.” Owen whispered in Noah’s ear. “Wanna see?”
It lacked a certain intimidation factor, but luckily a refrigerator fell past the elevator’s opening and cut off Owen’s embarrassment at his lackluster banter. The rope on his leg immediately tightened and his bearhug carried the startled man with him into the elevator shaft.
Now, the first floor was level with the ground. The elevator had crashed into the basement, and he’d only been on the second floor. So they landed on the elevators roof after only falling a single story, but Noah had time to spin Owen to the bottom. Player reaction mechanics. Owen knew what was happening, but he only had enough time to realize he was falling before his own back impacted against the fridge. Not the smooth front, but the mangled mechanics on the rear side.
Owen coughed up blood and groaned, while Noah pulled himself up and seized Owen’s neck. He looked at the bits of metal coil sticking through Owen’s body and laughed. “Not exactly what you were hoping for, huh?”
Noah crawled off the fridge and stared up. The first floor’s elevator door hadn’t been pried open. He would need to climb all the way back up to the second floor, almost sixteen feet to get out.
Owen, on the other hand, looked down. The tarp had clearly been disturbed by the impact. His original plan hadn’t included the tarp, but he’d added it to be safe. Probably it had been punctured, losing who knows how much bleach already. And a lot of the liquid had splashed around on impact.
Then the liquid soaked into Noah’s shoes, and Noah looked down too.
“What is this?”
Owen took a long deep breath. Another liquid began pouring from the sky and began to hiss as it mixed with the bleach. The air began to smell like horseradish and his lungs began to burn. His eyes burned. He couldn’t see. He could feel tears coming out of his eyes, but his own tears burned. But not nearly as bad as the fire enchantment that had just flowed through him. So he sat and waited. He felt someone flip the fridge, dislodging him from the current top but usually back side of the fridge. He heard as Noah crawled inside, coughing, and slammed the fridge door shut.
Well, shit. The fridge was air tight.
Nausea came next, and Owen emptied his guts again and again, soon dry heaving, and sucking in more of the toxic air. His wounds burned worse than his eyes as the bleach and mustard gas soaked into his every wound.
No problem. He just had to wait until Noah suffocated in there.
Everything burned and life once again became pain.
He rolled in the bleach as the ammonia poured down, and mustard gas formed where the chemicals mixed. Properly shared, enough to kill a few hundred people. A good amount of liquid got into his mouth and eyes, and he threw it up as he wretched and rolled in the poison.
He felt the burning and itching sink into his skin. He hadn’t known it could do that. God, he missed Google. There were probably a dozen chemical mixtures that he could have used if he’d had access to the length and breadth of human knowledge in his phone, instead he’d relied on a half remembered comment his mom had made.
Maybe he was crying but it felt like his eyes had burned from his sockets. He clawed at his own skin as the itching grew unbearable. He should have been long dead. Except for magic.
Magic would keep him together. His body burned, even more than the mana had burned his veins, everything burned, but it was a chemical burn this time.
The stages of unbearable pain were familiar to him now, from years hanging above the city and from mana in his blood. From losing his sister to– losing his sister? What sister? He remembered the pain. All the mana in his body was keeping him alive, keeping the ridiculously high quantities of mustard gas from killing him. And at the edge of his mind was an image. Blonde and thin, the older cooler sister with the geek brother. He tried to hold the image, but it vanished in the next wave of pain, that was also somehow, for some reason filled with grief.
It would all heal eventually.
Slowly, eventually, the pain didn’t matter. It became background noise, just as present and persistent as ever, but it retreated to the back of his mind. Unending pain drowned in triumph and glory.
And he’d finally won.