Crack, crunch, crack. The sounds of human’s invasion into this untouched land continue off into the distance as they march back to camp.
“So if you don’t mind me asking how are you planning on providing enough food for everyone back at camp? I mean you said you were hunters right?” I ask to the group of men.
“What do you mean planning? I think we’re doing a fine job, no one’s gone hungry yet although it’s only the third day.” Replies one of the nameless men.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s really answering his question.” Says answer another man, with a sigh he continues. ”Ok listen up kid because I’m only going to explain this once, on the first day we arrived there was a whole bunch of shouting and general panic. Then not even 10 minutes after we arrived that freak with the fire shot a ball of fire into the air and demanded silence. So everyone shut up right quick and paid attention all right, especially after one idiot told her to fuck off and got his eyebrows burned off in response. Alright so the freak has everyone attention and then just walks away and a short Asian man steps forward, you’ll be meeting him soon in fact. Well to keep a long story short he went around and got everyone to give a quick description of themselves and using this information he put everyone useful in specialised groups. We’re one of the four hunting groups each group consists of 10 people except for the last group which has 12 members. Then there are the mages, anyone who can do magic is free to join that group and they’re just meant to be learning how magic works and if possible work out a way to teach others. Last of all we have the leader’s, there’s five of them including the Asian man”
“Gan, his name is Gan stop calling him the Asian man!” Interrupts one of the others.
“Yeah whatever sorry. There are five leaders including Gan! And they’re all responsible for managing what resources the hunters bring back and distributing food around equally. Namely they choose what we spend our points on, two of them aren’t really leaders but they used to be butchers on earth so it’s their job to take care of the wild game we catch.”
“Ok, wow so you guys are pretty organised then?” I ask
“Yeah I guess.” The man mumbles.
“Quick question though how do they decide how you spend your points?”
“Oh that’s easy we just give them all the points we earn at the end of the day and they decide what to spend them on. There’s nothing stopping us from keeping some of it for ourselves but what’s the point. I mean I earned 38 points on the day we arrived, 42 yesterday and 27 today although there’s still plenty of time left in the day to kill some critters. So if I’m lucky I earn 40 points a day and I’m one of the better hunters! Have you looked at the store? There’s nothing of worth less than 100 points, although Mayson killed a few of those giant rabbits a while back and scored enough to buy himself a bow and arrow.”
Interesting it’s possible to give your Points to other people. “Oh ok thanks for letting me know, that was really helpful.”
“Don’t mention it.”
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“Ok you, you’re the mage right how many points did you earn?” Asks a short Chinese man in a business suit who looks to be in his 50s, Gan I’m guessing.
“I didn’t kill anything I just sat at the back and provided light when I was asked.” I reply.
“Pfft, go on then. You! How many points did you earn?” The man continues to question everyone from the group, while I head back to the group of mages to get my crate of rations.
I find the group of mages gathered around Corey and a poor defenceless floating crate. My crate! Taking a quick peak with my mana I can see the air is laden with everyone’s mana. They must be studying Corey’s telekinesis spell, I guess I should join in too although I don’t really like how they’re using my crate. Taking a seat I begin to pour my mana into the air and try to follow along as closely as possible.
A few hours later I’m standing in line waiting for my meal. The food is severed on plates of wood, which are simply pieces of logs that have been cut up to form flat round pieces of semi clean wood. The food comes out of plastic packages containing what looks like the stuff you would find in those cheap cans of soup back on earth except instead of liquid there’s a greyish powder. Once they mix it with some water it just looks like some sort of gruel, along with the gruel we get bits of cooked rabbit meat.
It hardly looks appetising but I’ve already eaten two meals from my magical crate today and I don’t want to waste them when there’s free food being provided here. Taking my meal back to the others I employ my new ability on one of the beans in my meal and float it up to my mouth. Pop. The beans fall back onto the plate as my mana runs dry. That was almost a whole second that time.
Telekinesis wasn’t as hard to learn as creating fire or my little beams of light. All I had to do was push my mana up a few layers until it was almost physical, wrap it around the object I want to move and bam! One levitating bean. The only problem I’m having at the moment is that moving even the smallest of objects drains my mana dry almost instantly. Giving up on that for the moment I eat my meal in silence while the others chat about Earths last reality TV show. Gahh what garbage, can’t believe people actually watched reality TV that’s one thing I won’t miss.
After dinner I go for a quick jog around the camp, it’s time to get serious about training. Whenever my mana fills up I’m going to practice telekinesis with a focus on efficiency. Most of my mana burns up traveling between layers so I need to work out a more efficient method for pushing my mana through multiple layers. For my physical training I’ll alternate between jogging and strength building exercises every day.
Ignoring that for now I decide to explore the shop using what the others told me. Turns out that while you can’t buy books you can buy information which is placed directly into your mind, the logic being you can’t share what’s in your mind without a great deal of effort. At least according to Mason, the body enhancing mage. Doesn’t really make sense to me, I mean what’s to stop you from just turning around and writing it down in a book.
Anyways what would be useful information, I suppose some more information about magic would be great.
Store page
[Information – General Magic]
Item name
Cost
Multidimensional Magic and You (Vol 1)
10,000
Energy to Matter conversions for Beginners
10,000
Electromagnetic Radiation Manipulation Intermediates
10,000
Liquid Manipulation for Beginners
10,000
Thermal Manipulation for Beginners
10,000
Fireballs for Beginners
10,000
Runes for Beginners
10,000
…
Ok looks like every option there cost 10,000 points, not a totally unreasonable amount for knowledge on something as abstract as magic but its still out of my price range of a measly 84 points. Let’s try something more reasonable, what about an explanation on why giant spider-scorpion hybrids aren’t considered monsters but a giant rabbit is.
Store page
[Information – Monsters]
Item name
Cost
Monsters and You
100
Monsters and their uses (Vol 1)
2,000
Monster encyclopedia (Vol 1)
2,000
Monsters and their weaknesses (Vol 1)
2,000
Finally a list that doesn’t go on forever! Why do these options even have volume numbers if they aren’t books? Seems a bit inconsistent to me. The Monsters and You option looks good but I’m still short 16 points and I don’t know of any way to earn points besides killing things. I suppose I could try to find some more of those Fluffed Rabbits tomorrow. For now though I’m going to go to bed it’s been a long day and the blisters on my feet are killing me after that jog around the camp. I don’t know what I was thinking there, I should cancel my plans for jogging until my blisters heal.
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Morning, the devils favourite time of day where he gets to torture billions of innocent people until they wake up; his favourite tool, this so called Sun. I wonder what this stars called, actually thinking about astronomy why haven’t I been checking the night time sky. I don’t even know how many moons there are on this planet if it even has a moon. Oh well another task to add to the mental task lists. First order of the day use up all of my mana, well not all of my mana I have to leave enough so I don’t hurt myself.
Another serving of gruel and rabbit meat out of the way and I’m left with some spare time. It only takes me a moment to drain my mana whenever it fills up and I’ve only just come to the realisation that I have no idea how to do strength training without any actual weights. I did a few pushups managing an amazing 12 and then tried to do crunches but my form was terrible so I’ve given up on that for now.
Slipping my feet out of my new boots and carefully peeling back my socks I take a peek at what my poor feet are going through. They don’t look as bad as they did two days ago despite the punishment I’ve put them through recently but they’re still got a bit of healing to do before I’m willing to go trekking through the forest. Leaving my shoes off for now I lay down in the soft forest floor at the edge of the camp and prepare for my first laid back day in this new world. Slowly I drift off to sleep.
Waking up to the sun blaring directly down onto my face I slowly stretch out all my muscles and start getting up after my little nap. I pull out my water bottles to take a drink but find them empty, damn I forgot to refill them. I could use a bath anyways time for a little walk to the creek. After putting my socks and shoes back on I head off in the direction of the creek.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Along the way I spot another group heading in that direction and start walking at the back of their group, I don’t bother introducing myself to any of them. To be frank I don’t really care about making friends at the moment, while I’m sure it would be helpful to have someone fight by your side I just don’t feel like talking to people. I make sure I’m far enough behind the group that no one gets the smart idea to talk to me. I just want to enjoy what’s left of my relaxing day without having to deal with anyone or anything.
Once we arrive I move far enough up stream that I can’t hear the others and starts filling up my drink bottles. Dropping to the ground into a cross legged position I take the chance to test out an idea of mine. My mana is almost full so it’s a good, reaching out I pull a thin thread of mana and push it ‘up’ layer after layer until I can almost fill it in the air then I try scooping up a tiny drop of water. It works and for a moment I’m able to move it around, until my mana runs dry.
So Corey’s telekinesis tricks works on water too, so why was there an option in the store to purchase knowledge on liquid manipulation. What the difference between moving water around and manipulating it? It’s not like you can change the state of it, I mean it wouldn’t really be liquid manipulation if you turned it into a gas. So there has to be more to it, maybe it’s the way you move it around. Why am I even thinking about this it’s my day off no complex thoughts allowed. Actually when did this become my day off, I was just taking a break from physical training until my blisters healed. Whatever it’s my day off now.
“Hey you there by the water.” God damn it. Turning around I give my best please go away look. It’s a short kid with brown hair no older than 12.
“Sorry to interrupt you, but I was wondering where you got those water bottles from”. Continues the voice of Satan himself, without the slightest sign my glare had any effect.
“I bought them from the store.” I say to the annoying kid before turning around to continue staring at the water.
“Wow so that must mean you killed something right? I’ve only ever heard of people earning points to spend in the store from killing stuff. Are you a hunter” The kid let’s out in a rush of air.
“Look no I’m not a hunter; I only joined your camp yesterday after the people I started with got themselves killed. Now can you leave me alone?”
“Oh… alright sorry for bothering you.” His footsteps quickly retreat through the muddy ground, making sucking noises as he leaves. Strange I never heard him approach.
Suddenly getting an idea I turn around and yell out to the boy. “Hey kid, wait up for a second.” I quickly jump to my feet and run after the young boy. He stops and turns around, looking at me without understanding.
Catching up to him I continue. “Did you just use magic back there?”
“Yeah I guess, it’s nothing compared to what that lady with the fire can do though”. Seems everyone here is comparing themselves to that crazy woman, myself included.
“Don’t be so quick to discount what you can do! Can you cancel out the sounds of your footsteps or something?”
“Nahhh it’s nothing like that. I just worked out a way to make a platform with my magic that I can walk on. It works on water even but I have to make the platform pretty big otherwise I’ll just get wet and that means they won’t last very long.”
“Really wow you realise that means you can create physical barriers. Like force fields and stuff, could you ahh maybe show me?” I ask.
Suddenly the kid seems a bit too happy. “I don’t know mister, it takes a while for my magic to come back and my mum was pretty interested in those waters bottles of yours.”
“Yeah, yeah I get the idea.” Chucking him one of my recently filled water bottles I motion for him to continue.
I watch as he starts manipulating his mana, quickly getting out my notebook with the drawings of the strange runes. Turning to a new page I start writing down what the kid does, trying my best to replicate the 3d structure of his spell onto a 2d piece of paper. It seems he’s doing what I discovered earlier where a spells result can be modified by adding something to the end of the structure. Although I suspect that only works for certain types of spells.
Thanking him I continue walking back to camp with dreams of walking through a field of fire protected by a shimmering force field.
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The rest of the day was just as eventful as the morning and I’m quickly waking up to my mortal enemy presence again, the sun. My fifth day in a new world. Taking a quick look at my feet I find my blisters all but gone, there’s no excuse for being a lazy lay about today. With a sigh I head off for an early jog around the camp while breakfast is prepared.
At the food line any hope for developing a pattern is quickly dashed, Mayson is there. The moment he spots me, he’s moving. “Hey Tom, I’ll make this quick we’re heading off to another cave today and I was hoping you would come with us.”
“Same cave or different one and if it’s different what can we expect?” I fire back.
“Different cave, different enemy. Can’t say much more than that because the only thing we’ve been able to work out is they like to do a lot of roaring. “Says Mayson with an almost bored voice.
“Really you don’t even know what you’re fighting and you want me to help you?”
“We have to do it, what makes you any different. Do you really expect us to just provide food for you forever? I don’t know if you haven’t noticed but everyone that’s not hunting or doing something else of important is being given jobs. We’re trying to make something here it’s too early to see it but we need everyone to work or we’re not going to get anywhere.” Corey says with more conviction then I would have expected.
“Fine I’ll help. Come get me before you leave, I’ll be in the same place you found me last time.” I say before returning to my slow shuffle forward in the food line.
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Just as the sun reached its highest point Mayson showed up. I’d already left my crate of rations with the group of magic wielders earlier so I had nothing to do besides follow him. Finding myself surrounded by the same men earlier I’m handed the same sharpened sticks I got last time.
“Here keep it this time.” Says the man who told me about the camps story as he hands me the spear.
“Thanks, sorry if you told me before but I don’t think I ever caught your name.” I ask.
“David, now come on let’s go.”
With a quick burst of speed he catches up to the rest of the group as they start moving. Mimicking him as best I can, I follow along behind the group. They seem to be in as much of a rush as they were last time. This time around though the cave is a lot further away and we have to slow to a walk twice so I can catch my breath. The rest of the group didn’t seem too thrilled about this, claiming they were wasting daylight.
Arriving at the entrance to a dark cave, after traveling almost 8 kilometres I drop onto a nearby rock to catch my breath. This cave is a lot different to the last one, it blends smoothly with the nearby forest and if it hadn’t been pointed out to me I could have easily missed it. The entrance is hidden almost directly below one of the trees and it looks like a steep climb down.
“Hey light globe dude, here do your little fire trick with light” Says one of the men as he hands me a torch. As he does I notice the weapon strapped to his side, a god damn sword. It’s probably only the length of a ruler and looks comically small on the giant of a man.
“Hey is that a sword and how did you get it!” I exclaim before I can stop myself.
“This baby? I just got it today, managed to kill a pair of those giant rabbits and combined with the points I had saved up I was able to purchase it. Cost me a whopping 1000 points but I’m thinking with this new weapon killing those overgrown rabbits will be easy.” The giant gloats.
“Yeah right, the thing is too small by the time you’re close enough the thing will knock your teeth out.” “The first time you try that thing on one of those rabbits I can guarantee you’ll be the next Geoffrey.” The men respond to the giants gloating.
Ignoring the general bicker in the background for now I focus on my task at hand and light the torch. I’m considerably quicker this time and it doesn’t drain nearly as much mana but it’s still a noticeable amount. “Here guys I’m done, if you’re all done bickering over the length of your pencils.”
“Ha, buddy if anyone’s packing a pencil it’s you little man.” Responds the giant who handed me the torch in the first place as he takes it from my offered hand.
“Alright guys I’m sure you’re all packing heating now can we get on with this rodeo or do you want to rest again tom?” Interrupts Mayson.
“Just for a few minutes, I’m a bit better at controlling my mana now so I don’t need as long to recover.” I reply.
“Good well come on guys, you know the drill, setup a perimeter around the opening and get ready to go in”
----------------------------------------
Taking my place at the back of the group I follow the others down into the cave. Past the opening it opens up into a wide dark tunnel that’s big enough for almost five men to fit side by side. As we make our way down we reach our first branching tunnel, the main path continues on but this new side path offers a few problems. It’s not as wide as the main tunnel and it would be a struggle to fit more than one person at a time.
“Alright we don’t want some wild animals to surprise us from behind so we’re going to explore this offshoot before continuing on. Josh you have the lead, peter you get behind everyone else wait here.” With that the two men including the giant with the sword head down the path along with Mayson following up behind them.
This is exactly what you’re not meant to do in a horror movie. Whenever people start splitting up the monster comes out and kills everyone one by one. Do these people not watch horror movies!
While nervously waiting for the others to return I summon a ball of light every now and then just to take a quick look around the area. I don’t let them last long enough to drain much of my mana and I leave enough time between each cast to restore the little bit of mana I spend. During one of these periods the light reflects off something that wasn’t there before.
Cat eyes. Big cat eyes. Narrowed to a slit and glaring with the same viciousness as your typical alley cat. They’re staying just out of range of the torch light but the moment I spot those eyes I pump more mana into my light and it glows brighter revealing the owner of those eyes. Mountain Lions or this world’s version of the creatures at least.
The moment my light brightens the others take notice of our new visitors too and yells echo around the cave for a moment before calm returns. “Company, everyone eyes front.” Yells one of the men at the front. Our motion and noise isn’t ignored by the denizens of this land and they make their move.
Without so much as a snarl or growl the animals attack hitting the people in the front line who barely had time to prepare. The quiet is soon broken by cries of pain from both sides as spear and claw meets flesh. The first wave of attackers is defeated in their opening attacks as the overgrown cats throw themselves onto the front lines prepared spears. The next wave is not taken care of as easily reaching past their fallen brethren to cut at the now weapon less hunters. Without hesitation the second line of hunters move forward and stab at the attacking creatures but there aren’t enough hunters. There are only 2 people men left in the back line after the party split up so seeing that my assistance is required I move forward or jab my spear into the nearest creature. My spear tip barely grazes the things face, drawing a faint line of blood across its cheek. The shock is enough to push it back though and the men in front take the opportunity to release their holds of the now useless spears stuck in the dying creatures flesh.
The moment they’re up all but one pull out knifes from their pockets that look just like mine and prepare for the next attack. Two of the men have taken cuts to the forehead and eyes and are unable to see past the blood and injuries to take further part in the battle. So I’m pushed up to front as one of only three men with still intact spears.
At least 6 more of the cats are still out there walking at the edge of my light so I slow the flow of mana to try and encourage them to move closer to our group. Thinking they have the advantage in the low torch light the creatures oblige my desire and make a running attack. “Be mindful of the light it’s going to get very bright in here soon.” I say to the others. The moment I think they’re too close I pump my mana into back into my ball of light as fast as I can, creating a blinding flash of light.
The creatures are stunned temporarily and stop their charge just shy of spear range. “NOW!” Quickly moving forward with a burst of speed, I shove my spear down the maw of one creature that was just letting out a cry at its newfound blindness. I soon give it something more important to worry about. Releasing my hold on the spear I let the creature thrash about on the ground worsening the injury in its own vain efforts to remove the spear.
The men quickly rush past me and finish off the other 5 now defenceless and panicking animals. Taking a moment to calm my beating heart I move back to check on the two men who were injured. The cuts look pretty deep but it doesn’t look like anyone is going to lose an eye, ripping off shreds of my slowly deteriorating shirt I bind one of the men’s injuries while someone else takes care of the other injured.
For killing one Dark Leeuw 15 points awarded.
Seriously what the hell is a Leeuw? The name doesn’t mean anything to me; at least the other creature’s had names similar to earth creatures. Stupid alien world, even the names make no sense.
Roughly 20 minutes after the hunters had recovered as many of the spears as possible the group that had gone to explore the side path came back dragging corpses. Leeuw corpses. Each man was carrying one each, covered head to toe in blood and guts.
“I see we weren’t the only one to meet our friendly hosts.” Says Mayson with a shit eating crin on his face.
“Oh fuck off would you! One of those cat bastards cut me bad, if this gets infected I don’t know how we’re going to treat it.” Replies one of the injured men.
Mayson quickly get serious. “Of course sorry you’re right we need to get anyone with an injury out of here now so it can be cleaned up properly. Are any of you too injured to walk?”
“No”, “I can manage”, “Nah” sounds off a trio of voices.
“Ok good you three head back to camp and get yourself cleaned up and tell them to bring 20 strong men up to us to carry these bodies back to camp. As for the rest of you we need to get these bodies out of here, we’ve got another four corpses down the tunnel we came from. We’re going to stay together from now on; half of you guys are going to stay on watch while the other half carries the corpses. One more thing, these things hunt humans. We found the remains of one of the missing people from camp. Now move!”
I’m stuck with lookout duty because I can barely drag the Leeuws corpses. Not that I’m complaining, staring into the dark beats hauling dead bodies. It takes 5 trips to get all the corpses out of the cave, by then some people from camp have gathered at the entrance. Most of the corpses are covered in dirt from being dragged along the cave floor but a bit of a wash and they’ll probably provide a few days’ worth of meat. Could last longer if we had some way of storing them I guess it’s going to be meat everything for the next few days.
“Ok you lot.” Mayson says pointing at the group of people waiting outside. “We need you to haul these corpses back to camp, just try not to ruin the pelts”
“As for everyone else we’re heading back into the cave, we got to make sure there are no more of those things down there. These creatures are too dangerous to let them live so close to our camp. Now let’s go this shouldn’t take long we must have killed most of them already.” With that he turned around and marched back into the cave.
This guy is trying to jinx us.
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It’s slow going exploring the rest of the cave system. At each branching path we stop and the same group as before goes down the branching tunnel while the rest of us wait in the main tunnel. There are only 5 of this time to guard the main tunnel but we’re all carrying a spear with a pile of 10 backup spears lying behind us. So far we haven’t found any more of those cat creatures and our torches are running low so hopefully we’re near the end.
“Another empty passage!” Yells Mayson as he regroups with us. Everyone just nods and starts moving further down the main tunnel while I gather the pile of spears. With a brief jog to catch up to the rest I follow along trying to keep a lookout for any dangers. I’ve developed a habit of creating a light briefly to illuminate the area just ahead of us I don’t know if it’s actually helping us that much, it’s probably just destroying out night vision but I can’t help it anymore.
Surprisingly the tunnel appears to be getting brighter, then like someone just opened the curtains we’re surrounded by lush forest. The cave had another exit.
“Shit! If any of those Leeuws got away, they’ll cause us nothing but trouble. Sigh nothing for it, let’s go home boys.”