Chapter Four - A Shade
I started timing how long it took the gun to pop out, mentally at least. It seemed, likely due to poor craftsmanship, to vary between half a second to two which was bound to cause one of my deaths in the future. For the rest of the walk towards the Shade, I kept it out and ready, just to where I wouldn’t be caught with my pants down when the gun would inevitably draw too slow.
I did practice shooting it a bit more, but stopped after I started to feel a tightness around my chest. But my testing left me with a few conclusions. The demands for my mana to move—invocations, for lack of a better word—were only necessary because steel is a lackluster conductor for mana. I was able to flow the stuff all the way down my left arm, and when I tried to push it out, the air kinda wiggled before every hair on my body raised. I cut it off, getting the distinct feeling if I kept it going even a second longer I would be down a finger.
Which… isn’t as big of a deal as it used to be. There were clearly some magic spells and things to be had, and the gun was clearly making some things easier for me, but that very clearly wasn’t my path. Someone else would be able to cast spells raw from their hands, or empower their body with the substance. My way forward was going to be different.
This, oddly enough, got me thinking a bit more theoretically. What other kinds of paths would I see whenever I got out of the trial? Theoretically, everyone could have gotten the same path as me. That seemed wrong, but I continued to wonder if the paths would follow archetypes of fiction. I was kind of the stereotypical magic-caster with machinery, but from the few ideas I had for future enhancements it seemed to lean more in line with actual science fiction.
My ideas would guide the path, and my ideas were more ‘this replaces the adrenal gland with a substance that is eighteen times more effective’ rather than ‘this is a cool gun I made that makes fireballs.’ The H-TIG would probably be one of the few things closer to the latter that I would make. Though, very obviously, I both did not want to, and did not have the resources needed to make a better adrenal gland. It was probably safer to stick to cutting off limbs for flat increases until later.
Mana was very interesting, however. It would be doing a lot of the heavy lifting, especially once I had material that could conduct it well. False nervous systems, bigger guns, and purely speculatory cooling. I would figure out, or find someone who knows, how to make mana cold, and I would never have to worry about my parts overheating. Actually, that might not have even been an issue considering the fact the barrel had yet to get hot.
The main thing I was considering after this life was upgrading the H-TIG. Remove the rest of the limb–probably the shoulder blade too, and turn the design more modular. Maybe have a revolver-like cylinder around the forearm that could store mana to where I wasn’t actively draining my… manacore, everytime I wanted to take a shot. More guns were always the answer.
That did leave me a bit conflicted, actually. Why did I have to call it mana? I was getting turned into a robot, and mana was not very sci-fi at all. I could call it juice, or soul-stuff, and no one was around to judge me for the name I gave the weird energy in my chest. But, all things considered, if I had to predict what everyone else in their trial called it, it would probably be mana.
Hell, that gave me a thought. What kind of trial was The President going through? That got me a bit of a satisfied grin. All the billionaires, politicians, and grifters who have been taking advantage of people for years were going through a trial just the same as everyone else. Dying, just the same as everyone else. It wasn’t the answer to the problem, obviously, but it would be satisfying for a lot of the immediate issues to be gone. Replaced with bigger, more consuming, and depressing one's mind you, but still.
That brought another problem, however. Would my path allow me to rebuild after the trial? A fraction of the population would be left, and there would be power-grabs after power-grabs. Would the interface let me start working on buildings? Would it let me build modular houses? Building bridges and roads?
A familiar pressure interrupted my mental rambling. I started building up mana behind the physical wall between my flesh and steel. I looked at the Shade, but out of the corner of my eyes, there were two things either side of it. I didn’t notice it before, so it had to be new, but the lumps in the grass weren’t moving with it. The Shade left them behind in a pile, and as I got closer, I realized what the shapes were.
Corpses. My own, one with a hole through his head, gaping in a scream, the other missing half his back, the rot having taken most of his torso. I paled, almost letting the mana in my arm dissipate before getting back control over my actions. That just felt cruel. There was no point, no reason, for the interface to leave them here. And why was the Shade putting them in a pile?
It approached, and spoke once more.
“It has given you your path, and I see you’ve taken to it enthusiastically.” It spoke, in that same whispery tone that contradicted what its snout had to actually be capable of. “That’s good. I’ll make sure you have the skills to keep progressing as you have been.” My brain almost didn’t pick up the threat quick enough, but I managed to get a bit of a plan going before it could launch itself at me.
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“Wait!” And it did. “Can we… talk, before you kill me again?” I said, collapsing the barrel but continuing to charge up the mana behind my elbow. It cocked its head to the side, a bit too far, like a dog with a snapped neck. It was far too large to be cute, and had killed me two too many times to be anything but terrifying.
“You wish to speak?” I swore it glanced at my arm again–the flesh part of it–like it could see the mana pooling above the steel, but its milky eyes remained motionless. It stared for a moment, before righting its head. “Speak of what?”
“Each other, I suppose.” The fear in my chest spiked a little at the Shade’s indignant tone, in spite of its voice retaining the exact same cadence and pitch. “You’re clearly more than just a mindless beast, right? Do you have a name?” The fact it was actually engaging in conversation, threats and everything else be damned, made me feel bad that I was using this time to prepare to fight.
“I had one. It… it escapes me now.” It tilts its head down, almost thinking, closing its eyes for what had to have been the first time since the trial had started. “I was many things. A mother. A fighter. A poet. Now, the interface has tasked me to teach you.” It sounded threatening, the ‘teaching’ it would expound to me, but I think it–she–genuinely believed it. It reasoned still, that I wouldn’t let it just kill me, sob story be damned, but I would keep this information for later.
It could just be simulated by the interface. A puppet with invisible strings guiding it from the sky. My gut twisted. The interface had given me nothing to trust it yet.
“Do you think yourself clever?” I blinked and the Shade was gone. There was a giant hand on my shoulder, and I managed to fight through the weight and turn, keeping my arm down.
I pressed the button, not raising it in case it caused the Shade to escalate. If I could get it to pull me in again, I could get off a shot before I died. Sure enough, as the gun finally popped free, it brought me against its chest; I was able to fight hard and long enough to position my arm above its knee. I gritted my teeth, inhaling sharply as I felt the uncomfortable rot start to go through my back, before screaming, fighting against the weight of her soul.
“Fire!”
The blue-green light came unburdened from the barrel, a soft hum filling the air. She looked down at me, and her maw spread into another imitation of a smile. Somehow, the Shade kept eye-contact the entire time despite its knee being caved in by my shot, the stench of both of our burgeoning wounds filling our nostrils. It bucked, dropping me as it took a step back.
I wanted to run away, but my fate was already sealed. Even without contact, decay was spreading through my body. It felt like I was burning, slowly, and my chest felt like it would collapse from how much mana I expended firing off that blast. I was charging it what had to have been two, three minutes? It didn’t matter, either the Shade would kill me, the rot would, or I would die from using too much mana. No matter what, I was going to die again.
I started pooling it again, but the Shade didn’t run at me, instead inspecting it’s now mauled leg. It didn’t bleed, and the inside of its flesh looked instead like a dried beehive, brittle and dark brown. The blast didn’t eviscerate her leg, instead hitting with more than enough cutting force to sever it. I was silently upset I wasn’t able to see how large the ball of mana got, but then I rewound that statement. The previous shots were all balls but the blast cut through her leg. How did-
The Shade started to laugh. “Good!” It said, overjoyed that I was fighting back. It moved again, and this time I got to watch it run full speed at me with my eyes open.
I tried to bring my arm up, but it grabbed my metal wrist. She held it, for a moment, and I threw a torpid punch with my left at her arm, feeling like I was underwater from her aura. When it connected with her bracers, I felt a soft jolt of pain shoot through my right arm, and suddenly saw that the decay was skipping my arm. It attacked my elbow, and the Shade pulled.
When I made my H-TIG, I had to be very careful with nerves. Steel wasn’t mana-conductive after all, and I couldn’t make artificial ones to properly move around the arm. I didn’t even have the materials to make proper neural interfaces yet, or electronic ones. I can’t control it well, and there’s too little flesh left to channel through it, but by forcing enough mana at the barrier I could press the button. I couldn't fire it without speaking. Actually using the arm was still beyond me. What I was saying is that everything inside of the H-TIG was extraordinarily tender.
I felt every single nerve scream as they decayed, and had to watch as she ripped off my hand, losing it for the second time today. The small amount of rot gave her enough purchase to pull it off, more blood oozing from the slowly disintegrating nub. I found myself screaming again, a blood-curdling yell that was something deeply primal.
She didn’t wait much longer before she took my arm and ran it through my head. She was, at least, consistent.
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I woke up again, and I didn’t bother to sit up before investigating to see whether or not I got to keep my arm. Sure enough, the H-TIG in all its ugly glory, was still there, cold against my bicep. I think I would have actually sobbed if it was gone, or if I had my fleshy right arm back, and it would have gone to the list of another of the ‘little cruelties’ the interface was so excited to throw at me.
The blue-green devil decided to peek its head in again.
[Congratulations!
You died, once again, to a {Hero’s Shade}!
For you third death, you have received the following rewards:
* Workshop upgrade
* Bedroom upgrade
* Materials expansion
* Neophyte’s Scrap - Mana Conduction, and its Uses
Time Remaining: 104:29:01]
That took nearly ten hours. The bedroom upgrade felt like a backhanded compliment. If one life nearly took ten hours when I crafted something new, I didn’t have time to sleep.