18 Astra 10,391
She repeated herself. “Please… Kill us.” Every word was a struggle for her.
“Fucking… No?” Six was dumbfounded.
The woman sighed. “We are dying. If you do not take our experience, the poisoner will.” She coughed up blood. “You could wait until we die by poison but who knows when that bitch will catch up with us. She could be watching right now.”
“Poison?” mumbled Six.
She nodded weakly, a smile of acceptance on her tired face.
“I don't want your experience.” Six questioned her sanity. This wasn’t a fucking game.
“I don't want my life feeding her. Please, give us mercy and tell our people it’s over. They are to leave in about two and a half weeks, you have to stop them. Take our equipment and I will give you a waypoint.”
You have been offered a quest: Giving Mercy I
Lady De’Tair has asked you for the sweet release of death and for you to tell her people that she will not bring them to the settlement site. Go find her apprentice Alison Lamora in the Prancing Stallion Inn located in the city of Olisrosa and tell her of their passing. They will leave in eighteen days thus this quest has a time limit of eighteen days.
Rewards for Accepting:
Voluntary Spiritual Energy
SoulBonded Equipment
Waypoint to the City of Olisrosa
Rewards for Completion: None
Time Limit: Failure upon the date of 36, Astra, 10,391
Penalty for Failure: None
Do you Accept? Yes/No
He began to question if these windows were harmless? Six shook himself in disbelief. He had heard of this before, people suffering catastrophic injury and then living in their head. But why was this part of it? He wouldn’t do it. Kill a person? He had never killed anyone. But, was this killing? How could you kill a figment of imagination? This was a dream… Probably… But… It felt so real. So very real. How couldn’t this be real? He pinched himself again just to be sure and the pain felt as real as the radiating throbs coming from his feet. Yes. He was in pain.
What if this was real? ... Safer to assume it was real than treat it like a videogame. He eyed the orc and dwarf, they seemed real enough. He should dismiss this prompt, he wasn’t going to kill these people.
The woman rasped in frustration at his hesitance. “Let me die on my own terms!” she exclaimed, anger in her voice.
Six stopped and looked directly at her. “Are you larping?”
“What is larping?”
Six shook his head, this was confusing and extremely stressful. “It's like… acting,” he explained lamely.
“By Kynairos, this is no act,” she hissed through teeth gritted in obvious pain. “Minutes remain. If you are a good person you will grant us this last request.”
Six felt cornered. “Is there any other way I can help?”
“Do you think her a fool, boy?” grunted the dwarf.
“There is no other way. Not now, not here. Please. Help us.” Her words rang with deep sincerity.
Six was beyond overwhelmed, but he nodded. He’d always believed that people should have autonomy over their life. He would assist. “I will help you, but how?” The prompt updated.
Quest accepted!
“Listen to me," she groaned, “give me your hand.”
He crouched down and she grabbed his hand, turning it palm up. She held her other hand up and looked at the air there. An object appeared suddenly and Six lurched backwards in surprise. The woman laughed despite her laboured breathing. “This is a ley core. The poisoner mustn't have it. The only reason I am not dissolving it is because you are here. This is the first soulbound item, it will be linked to you.” She pressed the orb into Six’s palm and he was presented with a prompt.
Lady Carralevine De’Tair “Razor Breaker” of “Deathspire Mountain” has offered to cede control of the Deathspire Mountain Ley Core to you. This object will be soulbound to you until death.
Do you Accept? Yes or No
The dwarf grumbled and grunted out a protest. “Don’t give it to him. The Ley Core should go to Alison or be dissolved.”
“Even if Alison could accept it, which she can’t, I doubt she would. This is the best outcome in the circumstances. Now be quiet Orifec. Accept the prompt stranger.” Carralevine spoke gently but her voice left no room for argument.
He willed his assent and the orb melted and melded into his palm. Six freaked out and tried shaking it off, but quickly calmed down when he realized it elicited no pain. Glowing lines of light flowed through his veins and up his arm. It felt warm as it passed, and then the warmth settled into his belly and dissipated.
Prompts appeared but Carralevine interrupted before he could read them. “There will be time for that later, pay attention.” She pulled off her gauntlet and removed a dull steel ring from her hand. She placed it in his palm and again he was greeted with a prompt.
Carralevine De’Tair “Razor Breaker” has offered ownership of her Unusual, Mundane, Immortal Steel Spatial Ring to you. This object will be soulbound to you until death.
Do you Accept? Yes or No
He accepted and put the ring on.
“Do you know how to use it?” She asked.
He shook his head, no.
“Just wish to see the contents and it will present itself in your mind.”
He nodded, held his breath, and willed the ring to show its secrets. He gasped as his mind was overtaken with a visualization of a space the size of a small room, full of supplies. Food, waterskins, and survival gear. He was even more surprised to see hand tools and construction supplies.
“Hey, we're not done yet, dismiss and focus on me.” She held her hand out and gestured for his again.
Six took a deep breath to calm himself and placed his hand back in hers, facing up. The woman weakly pulled a dagger from her belt and slapped it in his open palm. “You cant fuck it up this way,” she said. “Even an initiate is capable of working a dagger.”
“I am not stabbing you.” Six made dismissive motions with his hands.
“By Kynairos. Shut up!” She almost yelled.
He shook his head, no. “I’m a notorious fuck up.”
“Listen! You need to bleed me out before the poison takes me. Do it across my neck. Quick and deep,” Carralevine seethed through her pain.
Six could see it clearly,he needed to shut up and do it, but this wasn’t one of the usual tropes. He had no idea why his mind was presenting this macabre scenario. “I don’t know if I can do thi-”
“Shut up and do it.” She shouted, hacking out a gob of congealed blood. “I only have a few hundred health left. Time is running out.”
The dwarf growled at Six, “Do it boy and then hurry onto me! I ain’t giving that coward none of me experience!”
Six turned to look at the dwarf, hoping to gain some sort of assurance.
The dwarf nodded. “We follow Carra’s lead. Do it.”
Tyson took a few quick breaths and went behind Carralevine to perform the cut.
She sighed in relief. “Before I die, what is your name? I am Carralevine.”
He almost spoke his old name, but a new world meant a new him. “Six.”
She looked up at him and nodded. “Thank you, Six. Find Alison and tell her what happened. Tell her that we failed and that it's over. If the poisoner finds you, dissolve the ley lore.” She nodded curtly and shouted to her team, “I love you guys, these past few months were the happiest times in my life. See you on the other side.”
The human man raised his hand in salute.
The orc roared in agreement.
The dwarf grunted out some words. “I feel the same way. Ain’t no regrets. See you there.”
Six whimpered as he pulled the blade across her throat. This was fucked. Dark red blood spilled out of Carralevine’s throat and he could feel her tense up briefly before he laid her down gently. She made no noise.
Six stumbled backward; he had just killed someone. There was no doubt, this was no dream. That was too real. Guilt washed over him and he trembled.
“Now me,” came the husky voice of the dwarf. Six saw anticipation in his eyes.
Orifec Merrymace “Arm Strong” has offered ownership of his Unusual, Mundane, Immortal Steel Spatial Ring to you. This object will be soulbound to you until death.
Do you Accept? Yes/No
He kneeled by the dwarf and the squat bearded man nodded.
“It's ok.”
Six accepted the spatial ring and put it on.
He took a breath to steady himself and was assaulted by prompts.
Carralevine “Razor Breaker” has sacrificed themself to you! 8000 Experience gained.
You have reached level 1, advancement options available.
You have reached level 2, advancement options available.
You have reached level 3, advancement options available.
You have reached level 4, advancement options available.
He pushed that away. Time was running out and he needed to deal with this before the dark nature of what was happening settled on him.
“I want to follow her, the way she went.” The dwarf grumbled.
Six nodded and quickly opened the dwarf’s neck too. The little shit smiled and nodded at Six.
Orifec Merrymace “Arm Strong” has sacrificed themselves to you! 4250 Experience gained.
You have reached level 5, advancement options available.
The next two were much the same. Just quieter. The human man was so weak he barely made a noise when it happened.
Roshgar Bargo has sacrificed themselves to you! 1800 Experience gained.
Matt Reddmahn has sacrificed themselves to you! 1800 Experience gained.
You have reached level 6, advancement options available.
He had reached level six. They had made him his moniker.
He had completed his task, yet he was not done with the experience. He sat there, stunned, looking at the corpses of the people he had just killed… Euthanized? Assisted in suicide? Whatever. He had granted their last wishes, as messed up as it was. He wanted to be done with this place, but he wasn't going to leave them there like that. He felt he owed them more somehow.
Six stripped the bodies of their gear and covered himself in the human man's clothes. They were a bit soiled and bloody but it was chilly and Six was done wearing a rope toga. He willed his desire to see the contents of the rings and a stab of pain went through his head as his mind went awash in colours. “AH!” he yelped as he was basically blinded by the intense mental overstimulation. Too much information. He caught himself and rubbed at his temples, waiting until the pain lessened before focusing on one ring at a time.
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Searching the rings he found an assortment of multiple items. Multiple shovels, hammers, pickaxes, saws, chisels and many others. There were some personal items, a map, and food. Nuts, fruits, breads, and some sort of jerky. He wanted it badly, but nothing happened. He tried making a conscious decision to withdraw the tasty looking dried meat, and it appeared in his hand. He tried a bite and found it perfect. Wow. Cool. He pulled out some bread. It was soft, fluffy. Delicious.
How did he put it back? He pushed his will to “store” the jerky, and it vanished, just like the stories, it worked easily enough.
He took a moment to appreciate the moment and that he was enjoying bread, despite the fact… He died. Right? Did he dream the accident? If it was a dream, how did he get here? How was any of this working? It felt too real to be a dream. But…
He pulled out a shovel, then willed it away.
Magic.
He pulled it out again and tossed it a meter away. He tried to store it. Nothing happened. He poked it with his finger tip and willed it away again. He willed it out and tossed it in the air,trying to store the shovel at the apex of the toss. Nothing happened. He caught it and put it back in the ring. He had to be touching it, it seemed. The magic had rules. Is there a maximum size to the item stored? Could he put living things in there?
Six surrendered. He gave up on trying to understand. He would act in the now. Learn as he went and live as if this was real. Crippling existentialism was never useful. He scarfed the last bit of bread and drank a sip from a waterskin.
The stomach symbol disappeared. He was no longer starved. He breathed deep and teared up a bit. Looking at the bodies he gathered, he thanked them for their generosity. The man, Matt, had extra clothes, so he changed into them instead of the bloody outfit he had taken from the dead body. His armor looked like it would fit but he could tell it would impede him slightly. He was planning on burying these people so he put it away in the rings. The man’s boots were the best part, as they made it actually bearable to stand. When Six put them on, he half expected to see prompts about their stats, but no prompts appeared. Appraisal and identification skills were always important in these kinds of games or stories. Knowledge being power and all that. He stared at the boots harder, squinting his eyes in focus. Nothing happened. Intention was clearly important in his other interactions, so he made it his intention to know more about the boots. He tensed his entire body, concentrating on the boots. Still nothing. Alright time to try active observation He began to examine the form of the boots and actually observed the construction and craftsmanship of the physical object. The wear and cut of the leather, and thread, and the nailed treads. Two prompts appeared and Six relaxed his examination.
- Leather Travel Boots -
Rank: Mundane
Rarity: Common
Defense: 3
Weight: 2.7 KG
Durability: 46/75
Traits: Protects the wearers feet from damage. Adds ankle support to the wearers movements thus improving base of exertion. Improves kicking damage.
Skill gained: Inspect - Initiate - 1
Allows users to identify objects and their properties. Each level will provide more information and insight into rarer and more esoteric objects.
There it is! This was a skill he would have to train constantly and with that thought Six came to accept his being here. He could navigate this.
Finally Six felt secure. He wanted to check the character advancement prompts but felt he needed to bury these people first. He tried to dig a grave but the forest floor was riddled with roots. Instead he began to ferry river rocks from the safer sections of the river water to the camp. Six built cairns out of river rock, the least he could do. It took a few hours, plus he took a break to gather wood and start a fire. Now, with the flint and dagger Carralevine had, his meager bushcraft skills were able to create a place for the sparks to start. He avoided his prompts and focused on the work to help process what just happened passively. There was a part of himself that understood starting a fire while a potential enemy was slinking about was foolish but night was fast approaching and he already found himself shivering against the cold despite his labour.
It took a minute to find dry tinder, a swampy area next to the river had some dead cattails. Perfect. Bark from a standing dead birch… was this a birch tree? It was… Birch, but with a slightly different branching pattern. A weird tree indeed. He pushed the small tree over and tore off strips of the dry bark. He snapped smaller branches off for starter kindling. He created a spark of flame and let it dance a bit then carefully leaned in and gave it a gentle exhalation. The flame grew but danced dangerously. Six needed to feed it air but gently enough to keep it alive. He blew softly a few more times and the flame grew to the point it didn’t need him.
Six had fire; relief washed through him. He worked into the dark, eventually managing to cover all four bodies with river stones. He hoped that it was enough. His body was real. Their bodies were real. The only reason he wasn’t slipping into hypothermia alongside starvation was because of them.
Yet, he wanted to leave, needed to leave. Six didn’t want to linger about their place of rest but wasn’t about to go waltzing about in the forest at night. He would stay up as long as he could to tend the fire and then leave in the morning. So he sat and looked into the flames, a wool blanket around his shoulders.
His entire body was tense. He knew this feeling, he had felt it before. Frustration born from rage. He had existed in this state before, a state of constant anger. He had not forgiven the universe for taking his sisters. After their deaths he had raged at the unfair nature of reality. Again those thoughts came unbidden.
I had people relying on me. I need to be there. My family is less one more. There was no reason for me to die instead of someone else. It could have been anyone. There was no justification to my death, or my appearance here. I should have died and stayed dead. I didn’t ask for this.
No one asked for anything. Prayers were never answered. You could only rely on yourself to struggle to swim in the rivers of life. Life took you where it willed. Choice was an illusion presented to limited beings such as himself.
He only could choose what a simple man could choose.
He could not send himself back to his previous life. He lacked that power.
Accept it. It is what it is. Sorry everyone, I love you.
Now he could calm down. He had engineered his acceptance. He felt shame and disgust as he forced himself to cut attachment to the life he lost. Moving on. His body was too tense, so he closed his eyes and began to systematically flex and release different muscle groups while taking slow deep breaths. He relaxed over the course of fifteen minutes. Opening his eyes he gazed impassively at the fire. Empty.
He could not regain his old life.Fixating would not change it.
What could he change? How could he move forward? What choice was best for him? He needed more information. He had not had time to ask Carralevine questions. He had no idea where Olisrosa even was. He needed to at least try though. He should check the rings for a map. He stopped himself.
Slow down, first things first. Go through everything starting with prompts.
Six fixed the wool blanket and then pulled up the first prompt he had minimized.
You have soulbound the level 1 Ley Core of the “Deathspire Mountain” Ley Node. This names you as a Ley Master. The Deathspire Mountain Node sits upon a nexus of Dark, Earth, Water, and Fire Ley lines. Currently 0/4 lines of the nexus have been aligned. This level 1 Ley Core is capable of aligning (1) line of the nexus. Each Ley Line offers a unique benefit from proper alignment.
Aligning the Dark energies will unlock Shadowed Mind
Shadowed Mind: Mental Resistance += (0.075*N)
Aligning The Earth energies will unlock Earthen Endurance
Earthen Endurance: Health Regen/S += MaxHealth*(0.5*N)
Aligning the Water energies will unlock Flowing Resistance
Flowing Execution: Performance Reduction % += (0.05*N)
Aligning the Fire energies will unlock Flame Touched.
Flame Touched: All Damage += All Damage*(0.5*N)Fire Damage
Being bonded to the Ley Gem has increased your Dark, Earth, Water, and Fire Etheric manipulation affinities. This is cumulative with your innate Earth affinity. Aligning a Ley Line will increase the etheric density of the “Deathspire Mountain” Ley Node by 14.14%
Would you like to align a Ley Line?
Error note: Ley Node energies are being redirected and/or blocked. The Ley affinities, and the Deathspire Mountain mana pool and mana regen are restricted until this issue has been resolved.
You have been offered a quest: Reset The Node
There is a problem with the Deathspire mountain Ley node. Investigate the ley nexus and solve the issue.
Rewards for Completion: Proper functioning of the Ley Core relationship.
Penalty for Failure: Impeded functioning of the Ley Core relationship.
Do you Accept? This quest cannot be refused.
There was already an error? Six groaned internally, but hey, complications made life interesting. He automatically received this quest and was already kinda in the failure category. Still, there was no time limit, unlike the Giving Mercy quest. This quest could wait.
This was the first choice of a predetermined four. He could affect things a bit. Upgrading the Dark Ley line would increase his mental resistance? He could guess but didn’t actually know what mental resistance was. Health Regen was simple enough and a fundamental resource for interaction in these kinds of systems. He didn’t have access to a hospital anymore and based on the state of technology on these… adventurers? Medical technology may be lacking.
His mind ran over the tropes of bringing technology to these static medieval worlds. Did the Prime Directive apply here? Personally, he didn’t know how guns or their pieces really worked. Make electricity? Not happening.
Aligning the water line would increase his performance reduction percentage? Again he didn’t understand. Aligning the fire seemed very enticing, extra damage. The best way to win games was to defeat your opponent. Overwhelming them with force and damage seemed to be the best way to do that, he tried to play games with a hyper aggressive korean style. Winning through defence alone was impossible, and he would pick fire if he had a reliable way to do “damage” or if he knew how to scale whatever N . The dwarf had a staff of some kind and Carralevine and Matt had both spears and swords. Should be easy enough to beat something with a real weapon, but the damage increase would be very minor scaling at this point.
All of these buffs scaled and were not too useful now, but maybe when his N increased they would be significant. He assumed N was his level, not the core’s. That considered, how did he increase the level of the core?
Quest Received: Orison Density I
Increase permanent sentient density to 10000 residents who call Deathspire mountain their home.
Sentient residents 1686/10000
Reward: Level up of the Deathspire Mountain Ley Core
Sixteen hundred and eighty six out of ten thousand? There must be a few small villages on the mountains. Maybe a few hamlets and hermits.
The error locked him out of the affinities and extra mana resources but the alignment would still provide the named benefit. Still, he should wait to see what kind of things he had access to before he made this decision. He willed the Spire Mountain prompt aside.
Next was his character advancement. Six felt excited, as he had honestly day dreamed about this before. He would make the coolest spellsword build ever. He willed his desire to see character advancement and saw a new window.
You have 36 Attribute points to distribute to any attribute.
You have 6 Skill increases to distribute to any established skill.
Note: Significant previous Skill Experience detected. Skill levels adjusted.
Name: Six Level: 6 (Mortal) Experience:15850
Race: Human (Fateling) Fame: 0 (Unknown) Clout: 0 (Insignificant)
Class: — Anchor: — Path: —
Heath: 120/120 Endurance: 100/100 Mana: 120/120
Strength:13 Dexterity:9 Constitution:12
Intelligence:12 Wisdom:11 Charisma:10
Endurance:10 Luck:22
Skills:
Inspect - Initiate - Level 1
Knowledge: imperial Zleenish (Mortal)
Gifts
Unbound Comprehension (Predominant)
You receive an increased rate of retention of all intended knowledge regardless of personal ability and mentor ability or material quality. You can understand any language once heard or seen. Knowledge is not expertise.
You can observe skill usage and can potentially intuit knowledge of skill usage. The effectiveness of this aspect is determined by the respective gap in personal skill level and the skill level of the demonstrated usage, the respective gap in level and tier of existence, skill affinity, and luck.
Higher tiers of existence can elevate their use of this gift.
Attunements
Dexterity nine? Well, he was kinda clumsy sometimes. But twenty-two luck? He didn’t feel particularly lucky, having never won anything significant. Not that he gambled past the occasional lottery ticket anyway.
And what were these gifts? The word “gift” held some subtextual weight. It could imply that someone gave it to him. That someone tampered with his “reincarnation”. But it could also imply an innate inborn talent, like a gifted child. Did anyone else have the same gifts?
Unbound Comprehension helped him learn. Was this how he learned the Inspect skill? Or could anyone have done that? It sounded like he could retain knowledge when he set out to learn something. It even sounded like he could potentially learn things just by seeing them used. This gave him a chill. Not exactly like a full siphoning pilfering ability but still insanely strong. He could learn quickly and retain everything .People in his past life would have killed for this. Too bad it didn’t affect his focus or it would be the most OP learning enhancement ever.
He didn't know what Zleenish was either. The lack of context was becoming infuriating but it couldn’t be helped. Moving on.
Now. How best to pursue a hybrid spellsword build. Those builds always seemed overpowered and they were also super cool. Maybe he could even dual wield. Yes, Six would apply an even sprinkling to all his attributes and hopefully pick up some melee and spellwork along the way.
He spat in disgust. Spellwork. Maybe he would have access to a revivify spell in this life. Whatever. He hated that he couldn't have helped those people pass beyond a fucking dagger.
He focused on strength and a tooltip presented itself
Strength - Affects your Baseline Capacity, Exertion Capacity, Natural Defense, Speed of Movement, Melee and Thrown damage, Critical Chance and Damage, Maneuver Damage.
Ok. He liked being strong and wanted to try this out. He put one point in strength. His muscles tensed and he felt stronger? Or was that a placebo effect? He put another in strength. He definitely felt that. Ok. He was going to spend more but something caught his attention
“Why hello there,” came a soft, feminine voice.
Six willed his character advancement away and looked about. “Who's there?” He winced. That question never went well. Six stood up and continued to search the darkness, but the fire made it impossible to see out there, his night vision was completely non-functional.
“What’s your name cutie?”
Six felt a chill run up his spine. “Uhhh… My name is Six. Who’re you?”
“Hey Six. Where did you get those rings?” Her voice was rising and getting louder.
Six looked down at the two rings dotting his right hand. “Someone gave them to me.”
“Oh, perhaps a group of two humans, an orc, and a dwarf?” her voice was getting higher, as if each question caused her more stress.
“...No…” Six spoke in a shaky tone. This nightmare just kept getting worse, but what could he expect? Caralevine even warned him of this. He should have left the bodies alone. He should have left immediately. He tried to breathe, but failed to calm himself.
She seemed to sense how helpless he was. “Are they the cairns then? That would be very nice of you. Foolish, but nice. Where is the ley core?”
Six lied as best he could. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was alright at lying.
“Listen. To. Me. The only reason I used poison and didn’t stab them personally was that I don’t like fighting 4-on-one. You are nothing. Carralevine was a level twelve and I could have taken her myself. You are a measly level six. All I want is the ley core.”
“I don’t even know how to give it over.” He offered lamely.
“That's ok, I can help.” The sickly sweet voice sounded overjoyed at his ignorance.
A beautiful, dark haired woman walked into the light. She was human, and wore a cloak over some sort of dark leather armor that left her toned arms and rippled abdomen exposed. Six could see her well muscled form holding a glinting dagger. “Guess how I’m gonna help!” She lifted her dagger up and twirled the blade suggestively.
The poisoner is a yandere assassin!? Fuck this!
Six turned and ran. He ran into the dark unknown of the rainforest. He was swallowed by an opaque black as he trudged forward. He held his forearm in front of his eyes and lifted his legs high. He could hear her cackling as he struggled away, moving too slowly.
“Come back here puppy!” She shrieked. “Bad puppy! Hehahahah!”
Running was the right decision. Six chanced a look back at the small dot of fire and hoped to see her silhouette. He did not. Instead, he tripped and sprawled onto his face. Getting his hands underneath him as quickly as he could, Six crawled forward and struggled back up to his feet. He was making too much noise, breaking every branch and twig, disturbing too much earth. She must be playing with him. Hopefully the rumble of the river would cover up his escape. It sounded closer than before - he needed to be careful, and figure out where he was going before he- Oh shit. He was falling.
“Puppy! No!” A visceral scream echoed close behind him.
Six hit something solid, slipped and felt his ankle go wrong. His body twisted in the air. Water. Six fell into water. Oh no. He had fallen into the river. Time to die… again. He was fully submerged and felt himself being carried off by the current. He tried to swim, thrashing his arms and kicking his feet, and his head crested the surface. It was ice cold and Six had to fight the shock to gasp in a breath before he opened his eyes for a second to see needles of starlight amongst a canvas of night. He fell beneath the surface of the water again and was immersed in the blackness. His ankle throbbed with each kick but the feeling was overshadowed by Six’s panic.
He did not want to die again. He didn’t know if he would come back. He wasn’t sure if he would have this chance again. Panic set it. He fought to keep his head above water and was rewarded with a quick gasping breath each time. It was so fucking cold. He was tiring quickly though. His arms, abdominals, and legs were beginning to burn under the exertion. A green rectangular bar appeared underneath the red bar and it began to drain into transparency. Green meant endurance. Oh no. That was a clear indicator of impending failure. He couldn’t rest to regain. This situation was fatal. He would have drowned in reality and he was going to drown here. He could only prolong his struggle.
He couldn’t see anything, and when he tried to swim perpendicular to the current he collided painfully with large protrusions of river rock, keeping him away from the shore. A red rectangular bar appeared in the upper right peripheral of his vision, the dark outlines indicated some red was missing. Was this his health?
Six opened his character advancement sheet. It felt like a gamble but he had to do something.
Strength wouldn't help him right now. It might eat into his stamina even more. He would just hit the rocks harder in the darkness.
Six put all 34 remaining attribute points into constitution and instantly regretted it when he saw that endurance was also a stat. It was a strange feeling, the change that came over him. He felt awake, more capable. The slight burning in his limbs and lungs receded. The demand was still there but it was eroding less of him. The water's cold seeped into him far less making it significantly easier to breathe. There was also more of him. He felt different, sturdier. He might have more time to flail about in the darkness of water. Would he make it to dawn? He examined his endurance bar.
The endurance bar had not increased in capacity but it had slowed considerably. The bar was moving towards empty but so minutely it was nearly imperceptible. It seemed increasing his constitution did nothing for his stamina pool, but his stamina regen went up, which was luck. Six checked his health bar and, yes, the sliver of missing health was smaller in relation to his new larger health pool.
If he could just stay conscious and keep snatching gasps when he could. He had no idea if he would be able to get back to shore, but he fought against the water and followed his instincts. He repeated his mantra in his head to stay calm as the water carried him away.
You got that grit.
He kept kicking and lost track of time. Floating on his back was asking for a head injury - well a worse one anyways. All he could focus on was the burning of his entire body. Every muscle ached and felt like it was on fire. Yet, he could still push them to do what he wanted, so he did.
Anger rose in his throat. Anger at this new universe. He was struggling here too. This universe could have been different. It could have placed him differently, somewhere easy. It could have been nice. Well… technically he did get a bunch of free stuff and six levels for overcoming his hesitancy at murdering people who were asking to die. So maybe he should just focus on the task and quit moaning about it.
Six breached into the air again and let out a cry of frustration. Twisting and flailing above the rapids. A faraway spot of light appeared in his narrowed vision. Dawn had come; his endurance bar was at fifteen percent. Six laughed. He could do this! he just needed to hold on a bit longer.
He bided his time until he felt himself catch a slipstream and swam harder. Success. His head breached the water with great speed and force.
Right into the hull of a boat.
Six cried out and spasmed, his spine shot with pain. He lost his rhythm and dropped below the water, flailing and colliding with the side of the boat again. He gasped and breathed in a bit of water before coughing out the little air he had, he couldn’t stop the reflex to breathe.
Something broke the surface of the water and grabbed him, hauling him upwards.
Six came above the surface and alternated between a shuddering series of inhales and coughs. More hands latched onto him and he was hauled onto the boat.
A gruff voice spoke to him. “What do you tink you’re doing ramming my boat like dat? Ya crazy boy?”
Six convulsed through his breathing fit and opened his eyes to reveal he was laying on the deck on a small sailboat. A black skinned human man stood directly above him, with two dark figures behind. It was hard to see features in the minor light of dawn. A prompt appeared.
Skill gained Athletics - Initiate - 1
Skill increase: Athletics - Initiate - Level 1 increased to Level 3
Each level provides a reduction of 0.5% reduction in endurance costs.
Current endurance reduction 1.5%
Three whole skill levels? Neat!
Six cleared his throat. “Sorry sir. Didn’t mean to.” He rubbed the spot where his head collided with the boat, it was already swelling.
“What you doing swimming in the river at dawn? The man growled.
“I fell in.” Six could feel the judgment emanating from the three.
“Sorry? You what now?” The man asked.