Suddenly, Ander heard the sound of a door being smashed down at the end of the hallway, and a deep roar blasted Ander back a step. A mariner, far larger than any of the others he had seen, started charging down the hallway. Ander fired off an identify as he readied himself for combat.
Captain Zosch
Mutated Mariner
Level 35
Ok, a bit high, but he had fought creatures with this much of a level advantage before and hadn’t had any problems. Ander retreated a few steps to bring Captain Zosch into the larger room where he would have the advantage. Ander set himself to meet the charge, but without warning a nearly paralyzing sense of dread fell upon him. He lurched to the side, barely making it out of the way as the captain sped past him like a freight train. Ander tried to set himself again as he fought with his emotions but the captain spun around and backhanded him before he could even register what had happened. He went flying. Fortunately for Ander, the wind cushioned his fall, helping him get his feet under him. Ander winced and felt at his chest, the armor had protected him from any real damage but damn that hurt.
One good thing was that this far away from the captain the fear effect was nowhere to be seen. Of course, with that charge attack, Ander would be hard pressed to keep his distance. Working quickly, Ander sheathed his sword and pulled his bow out of the quiver on his back. He quickly strung it, barely leaping out of the way of the captain’s next charge before the fear effect could kick in. In a smooth motion, Ander pulled and loosed an arrow, sinking it into the creature’s shoulder. While it seemed to penetrate quite well, the captain did not seem much phased by the projectile.
This worried Ander, but as he was still faster than the Captain, except for when he did his charge attack, he continued to shoot holes in him. It took Ander several minutes, but he had soon exhausted every arrow. The captain looked more like a porcupine than whatever it had been before, but had not seemed to flag one bit. Seriously frustrated, Ander threw his bow to the side and pulled his longsword back out. He would have to take this thing on from within his fear effect if he wanted to win. Ander set his feet again, waiting for the charge to come. This time he had set his feet in such a way so as to dodge the most effectively he could.
It turned out that the fear effect made a complete mockery of his preparations, and like before, he was barely able to get out of the way of the dread in time. This time however, instead of waiting for the captain to backhand him again, he made a clumsy attack. The backhand still came, and like before it crashed straight into him pressing his longsword against his armored chest. Ander went flying like before, but was pleased to find he had left a deep gash in the captain's arm that was bleeding profusely.
The captain bellowed in a way that it had not any of the times Ander had hit it with the arrows. Fear hit Ander in a wave, receding quickly before hitting him again. Ander stumbled, and the charging captain smashed him into a wall. Ander’s eyes bulged as waves of pain and supernatural fear made it impossible to breathe. The captain picked him up, and threw him across the room. The wind still aided Ander, and while the landing was rough, it was not damaging, and he struggled to his feet. Right next to him was the door that led out of the building and onto one of the balconies. Without hesitation, Ander wrenched it open and staggered out. The Captain roared again, and came charging at Ander, the same waves of fear threatening to pull Ander’s legs out from underneath him. At that moment, Ander did the only thing he could at that moment. He jumped, letting the wind save him from the three story drop below. Behind him The Captain blasted through the handrail that protected the edge of the balcony, and fell heavily to the deck below. Not to his death as it turned out. While the creature was certainly damaged from the fall, it simply got back up and fixed it’s eyes on Ander as he floated to the ground. Ander stumbled, but managed to keep his feet as he lurched into a run toward the nearest mast. Predictably, The Captain roared, giving off more waves of fear as it charged at Ander. Ander jumped at the last moment, grabbing onto a set of ropes wrapped around the mast and hauling himself upward.
Unfazed, The captain buried its fingers into the wood of the mast and started to climb toward Ander, who scurried ahead. Ander cursed at The Captain, who turned out to be a more than capable climber. Ander had to use his wind powered jump at regular intervals to stay ahead, and each movement sent agony rushing through his body like waves.
They quickly approached the top of the mast, and Ander knew he was at the end of the line. He wasn’t anywhere near the hole in the roof on the mast he was on, and the next mast was too far away to try to jump to. All there was was him, the captain quickly approaching from below. Ander swallowed down his fear, most of it genuine now, and decided. One more risk.
Ander stood atop the highest point of the mast staring down at The Captain. For the first time he noticed an amulet of glittering gold set with an iridescent black stone in the middle. It bounced as The Captain climbed hand over hand. As it released one hand to reach for its next hold, Ander dived. He ripped his shortsword out of its scabbard, having lost his longsword after being body slammed, and dived point first toward the captain. As he reached the captain he moved faster than he ever had before. His sword darted out, removing the hand still affixed to the mast before returning to its position aimed directly at The Captain’s heart. Ander slammed into The Captain with all the force the wind and gravity together could impart. As they fell together, ander reached out and snatched the pendant, pulling it off over the captain’s head. The chain cut through several extra protuberances as it came off, but it came off anyway.
Would you like to claim the Amulet of Three Paths?
Warning: Amulet of Three Paths is a soulbound item, and can only be unbound by true death.
Yes/No
The notification blasted into Ander’s senses, leaving him bewildered for a moment as he and The Captain accelerated toward the deck of the ship. Simply wishing the notification to go away, Ander mentally selected yes.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The ship disappeared.
Congratulations, You have bound the Amulet of Three Paths!
Ander barely even noticed the new notification past the fact that there was now a hundred feet more of a fall before they would hit the ground. He quickly kicked off of The Captain, leaving his shortsword embedded in its chest, and doing everything he could to slow his fall.
The giant boulder that had been resting on top of the ship was the first to hit the ground. Ander saw the whole world heave moments before he hit the ground, and the ground rose to meet him.
Ander awoke in a deserted hangar, piles of rubble all around him. A large section of the roof had collapsed, mostly on the section where the mariners had previously been standing, though rubble had been strewn all across the hangar. Ander had not been left unscathed. He found several wounds that seemed to be from both him falling, as well as the rubble that hit him. Still, he was mostly intact. He was able to breathe, think, walk, all of the basic things. It was all painful, and if Ander thought for a moment that it was a good idea, he would flop back down and wait for his relatively quick healing to fix him up. But he was under one of the sections of intact roof which couldn’t be very stable. He at least needed to get into the main building to be safe.
With a groan, Ander set off to the one set of double doors unblocked by rubble. As he passed through he was not thrilled to see major cracks running through the walls. Still, the support pillars looked to be intact. Ander sat down with his back to the pillar. He looked at the amulet still in his hand. It was fancy, being made of what seemed to be gold woven in very fine strands around a black opal larger than a quarter. But nothing about it indicated that it was magical in any way shape or form. Ander used Identify.
Amulet of Three Paths
Legendary
Spatial Tool
Part of the [Regalia of Creation] set.
Ander felt that there was more to learn, but his Identify skill stubbornly refused to level up, and so the information he got was still limited. He got the distinct feeling that he only got this much because he was bonded to the thing.
It was a legendary item, which could only be a good thing. Legendary was good. What Ander didn’t understand was the Spatial Tool part. Did it open portals or something? Ander tried to feel for the amulet in a manner similar to how he felt at his skills. To his surprise, it worked. There was a tether of sorts leading from his soul in the direction of the amulet. When he tried to feel at it, a system window popped up. A grid of squares, most of them empty, made up the entire window. A few squares were filled, containing various building supplies of all things. Still, from the size of the scroll bar, the storage space was beyond massive, and the building materials took up only a fraction of the space. Ander’s eyes suddenly narrowed in suspicion. He experimented with the amulet for a minute, but couldn’t get it to do anything else, and so he tabled his idea for another day.
Instead, ander put the amulet over his neck, remembering only at the last second about how the chain had cut through The Captain’s flesh. Still, when he checked he found the chain clean. So he left it around his neck. Ander then opened his notifications.
Congratulations! You have killed Mutated Mariner x30!
XP Earned
Congratulations! You have killed Captain Zosch!
XP Earned
You have leveled up! You are now level 23.
+6 Conductivity
+6 Wisdom
+6 Regeneration
+3 Beauty
+6 Presence
+60 free stats.
Congratulations! You have bonded the Amulet of Three Paths.
[Regalia of Creation]
Ander Immediately dumped the 60 free points into constitution, hoping it would allow him to heal faster. It seemed to help immediately, allowing him to shrug off a sizable part of the pain.
Ander sat back to think. He had an inventory now. That would solve a lot of his problems, but not his most pressing ones. He had to scrap the idea of getting out through the hole in the roof of the hangar. The ship was gone, and the boulder had fallen, removing both options to climb to the top. He had his suspicions as to where the ship had gone, but would have to investigate further to confirm. He had to find a new way out. But this time would be different. His mouth stretched into a wide grin. This time he would take anything not bolted to the ground. After a few minutes, Ander felt quite a bit better. Well enough at least to try looting some of the intact sections of the base.
With that, Ander was a whirlwind. Anything that wasn’t nailed down he took, from furniture, to cleaning supplies, to tools and lab equipment. He raided the various taverns and food places, to find that quite a number of places had left food within those preservation circles. He couldn’t take the circles, but he could take the food. And the alcohol. He definitely took all of that. Even if he had to find another way out of the place, he wouldn’t go hungry or thirsty. That said, he did wonder if the food would keep inside the amulet.
Ander cleared out floor after floor, dispatching the occasional Mutated Mariner that had escaped the destruction below. Eventually he made it back into the chasm, and laid down on his bear fur, fully satisfied with his haul. He pulled out a bottle of pills from his amulet, simply focusing on the bottle in the interface and willing it into his hand. He popped one into his mouth and felt soothing waves of warmth radiating from his stomach through the rest of his body. He contentedly scrolled through the items he had looted. Apparently the amulet had a Identify function baked into it that was better than his, allowing him to see quite a few details about every item stored inside. He stored the bottle of pills and summoned a flagon of beer, taking a deep and satisfying pull.
That was, until the floor fell out from underneath him.
Ander fell two feet before landing back on the bear fur, smashing his teeth into the rim of the flagon, and getting a face full of beer. Sputtering, Ander stored the mug and jumped up to see a large crack running straight through the room he was in.
Ander swore, and quickly stored the bear fur as well as the other odd trinkets he had found. He dashed out of the room, to find a giant hole at the bottom of the ravine. Half of the base had collapsed, and the rumbling wasn’t going away. Ander jumped to a ledge on the side of the ravine, and started to climb as best he could. He was quickly reminded why he had not done this sooner, as vines tore away in his hand, and loose scree collapsed underneath him. When the next rumble came, the entire wall of the ravine came down, bringing Ander along with it.
At first, Ander tried to float down with the wind, but several tons of rock and dirt fell atop Ander, driving him to the rubble 13 floors below.