“This one?”
Jace stood on an empty plane of white sand. The sky was pitch-black, and he didn’t recognize any of the stars.
This wasn’t where he’d fallen asleep the night before. Before, it had been cold. He’d been shivering, lost in a storm, and dying.
A humanoid form of pure golden light loomed over Jace. It was twice the height of a normal human, but it crouched to stay level with him. White circles of runes and script writhed along its flesh like snakes.
Jace tried to turn and run. You rarely saw giant golden men standing before you, somehow judging you without even making a facial expression.
But Jace couldn’t move.
Oh, shit…
If his heart could’ve pounded, it would have. If he could’ve hyperventilated, he would’ve. But the terror stayed trapped in his body, unable to go anywhere.
The man pulled his arm back, then struck Jace in the gut with an open palm. The void bent around him, and a boom tore open his eardrums. His skin peeled away. His skeleton blasted out of his flesh, skidding along the desert plane, but it stayed upright.
Jace’s empty skin and skeleton formed ranks in front of him, bound together only by a faint golden line. He was staring right at them.
He tried to raise his arm up, and this time, his muscles obeyed. His arm moved. He expected it to hurt, but it didn’t.
Instead of bare muscles and gore, his arm was a faint blue silhouette. Pinpricks of light and glowing veins ran down it, pulsing with light. A cloud of golden energy swirled around in his gut—right where the palm had struck him.
It was a dream. A hallucination. It had to be.
He couldn’t be dead. There was still so much he had to do…
But there was a faint pain in his mind. He couldn’t pinpoint it, but it gnawed at him. It was a sense of loss, and of ending.
“The road to Heaven is littered with corpses…” the glowing man shrieked, his voice screeching like a teakettle—while also being ten octaves deeper, if such a thing was possible. “Add yours, or keep climbing.”
Jace tried to open his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He should have been trembling, but this form couldn’t even shiver.
“You are nothing. You have done nothing, and you will do nothing. You will see nothing, experience no true sorrow or joy. Are you tired of working yourself to the bone for a mundane existence?”
Jace tried to inhale slowly and look the golden man directly in the eyes. A pressure settled on him, like he had tried swimming to the bottom of a pool with a stuffed head. Whatever was happening—vision or not—it felt real.
Again, Jace tried to speak, but he couldn’t. He resorted to thoughts: Of course I want something more.
The golden man only stared. “...Good.”
Jace’s body snapped back together, and everything turned black.
image [https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f3a882_796dc4ba52ca470e87e727995bf487fb~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_400,h_332,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/hyperh%20logo.png]
[System initializing…]
[Analyzing attributes…]
[Unconventional worldjump summon target. Cannot form Aes core cloud. Requesting immediate destruction of summon target.]
[Request denied. Proceeding without core cloud.]
[Worldjump beginning…]
image [https://static.wixstatic.com/media/f3a882_796dc4ba52ca470e87e727995bf487fb~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_400,h_332,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/hyperh%20logo.png]
When Jace woke up in a dark cave, he wasn’t surprised. That was where he’d fallen asleep the night before. But it was a different cave.
It was taller, and he was a little further away from the opening. And all the trees outside were purple.
Not good.
He rubbed his eyes, but nothing changed. The trees still had purple leaves. Not seeing things. Noted.
He patted himself down. It might have been hours since he had the vision of the golden, rune-covered man, or it might have only been seconds. He couldn’t tell. His gut still stung from where the man had struck him, but his skin was intact. Jacket, touque, pants and gaiters, too.
He picked up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder, then pulled his touque tighter onto his head. He crept towards the light at the end of the cave.
When he reached the cave’s entrance, he leaned out, looking side-to-side for anything about to pounce on him. But the only sign of life was a distant, shrill screech of a bird.
He stepped out of the cave and into the lilac undergrowth. Two binary suns glared down through the forest canopy. It was midday. Great. Slept in.
Wait. Two suns? His stomach dropped, and his hands quivered.
He wracked his brain, trying to remember how he got here…and he drew a blank. He’d gone off the farm and into the wilderness, tracking some horses that had escaped. It had taken longer than he had expected, and the weather changed. He’d settled down in a cave to shelter, and he’d woken up here. This certainly wasn’t the foothills of western Canada.
And there had been the vision in there, somewhere. Some big glowy guy punched him. Or…struck him with an open palm, kung-fu style. The sting in his gut faded after a few minutes.
Jace needed to know where he was. Everything he knew might be gone, but none of that would matter if he got lost in some alien woods, or starved, or died some gruesome death.
He set off, pushing through the undergrowth and shoving his hands in his pockets to stop them from shaking. What if there was nothing around…?
But whispers sifted through the trees. He blinked a few more times and slapped the side of his head, and suddenly, the whispers condensed into proper voices.
People were talking hurriedly, and they were nearby.
If anything could tell him where he was, it would be toward those voices.
He lowered his head, tightened his fists, then set off. It was all he could do to stop his heart from pounding faster and faster. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll live.
He swerved between the gnarled black trunks of the trees and pushed through the undergrowth. He was more thankful for his thick coat and gaiters than ever before, because these plants had inch-long thorns.
A musty tang—smoke—filled the air long before he found the source of the voices. The forest gave way to a small clearing, where the shapes of four men huddled.
Jace almost ran right into the clearing to ask where he was, but he stopped himself. Flaming debris littered the clearing floor. Red-hot shards of metal stuck out of the ground. The undergrowth at the edge of the clearing smouldered, and something had smashed a trail through the trees on the other side of the clearing, leaving a scar in the earth.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Whatever it had been was now a tangled wreck in the center of the clearing—a mass of melted, twisted metal.
That was where the smell was coming from.
Jace opened his mouth to call out to the four men, but he clamped his lips shut before he could say anything. He didn’t have to be a genius to know that calling out to four people in a strange land might end badly.
He ducked down behind a shrub and rubbed his forehead. He, a nineteen-year-old farmhand, was supposed to be finding a lost horse—not exploring alien worlds. Or whatever this was.
But he also needed to know where he was. He inched forward so he could see past the leaves of the shrub.
The moment he focusse d on one of the men—the tall, bulky one in a dark vest—a shimmer of light washed in front of his eyes. Jace gasped and clamped his eyelids shut, then fell flat on his stomach, hoping no one noticed the flash.
When his vision cleared, a simple tag floated above the man’s head. [Level 4 Scavenger].
The man was pacing around the wreck with his hands behind his back, as if there hadn’t just been a bright flash of gold light above his head. None of the other men seemed to notice, either. The moment Jace shifted his sight away from the scavenger, the tag faded away.
Then Jace was the only one who could see it.
“The hypercore is intact, but the rest of it’s a mess,” the scavenger said. He approached a smooth panel on the side of the wreck. He pulled on a handle, and with a hiss of steam, a glass cylinder ejected from the side of the panel. An orb of swirling blue light floated in the center.
Hypercore…
Jace swallowed nervously. Sure, he didn’t know how it worked, but he knew when something sounded like a spaceship, and this sounded a lot like a spaceship. He’d read more old science fiction novels than he liked to admit—especially when he was supposed to be tending to the animals.
“How about the candlefolk tails?” asked a man in a tattered cloak, interrupting Jace’s thoughts. Jace’s gaze flitted over to the man. There was no flash this time; the tag just appeared. [Level 3 Scavenger]. No one seemed to notice that one, either.
“We had to put up with a lot of screaming and writhing to get those, and I’m not leaving them behind just ‘cause a wizard thought he could stop us,” the cloaked scavenger continued. “I want my payday, and some creep’ll pay us a lotta Solars just to turn it into an ointment or somethin’.”
Without warning, a puff of golden dust spilled out of Jace’s chest. It manifested in the air in front of him, forming a thin sheet, much like the tags that appeared above the scavengers’ heads.
Only this time, it gave off actual light. A yellow glow shone on the ground in front of him. That had to be visible to everyone.
Jace jumped to his feet and pressed his back against the thickest tree nearby, trying to shield himself from sight. These didn’t seem like people he wanted to get caught spying on.
The sheet of glowing dust followed him. It still hovered a few feet away from his chest.
[Beginning system analysis…] it read. It flashed and flickered, and the letters rearranged. [Checking worldjump success…]
“Go away!” Jace hissed as softly as he could, swinging his hand through the sheet. The dust dodged his hand, then reformed a second later.
The dust shifted and changed, until finally, it displayed a new string of messages: [Title obtained: Worldjumper #5 (this title cannot be removed). Warning: No core seed detected. Warning: worldjump incomplete. Warning: begin Aes Condensation immediately.]
“Just…go away!” Jace whispered again.
For a second, the sheet disappeared, and he almost relaxed. But it returned seconds later, and even larger. [Select Class] it demanded, followed by an exhaustive list of options. [All worldjumpers must select a Class before leaving spawn location. Please note: many classes start at the same point, but evolve as the user advances.]
He swiped his hand through it, but the list only scrolled further. This couldn’t go on any longer…
[Sorting Classes by soul-inclination…]
[Berserker: close-ranged fighter with high Vitality.]
“Just close!”
[Curse Mage: offensive support with high Potency.]
Jace swished his hand through the sheet again. It reformed.
[Core Hunter: versatile unit with the ability to absorb energy from other beings when defeating them.]
“Not now!”
[Spirit Striker: ranged attacker that attacks enemy spiritual systems directly.]
“Please!” Jace begged. He ducked down and darted behind a different, thicker tree.
The words [Recommended Class: Core Hunter. High soul-inclination detected.] flashed across the sheet. [Nearby core detected. Absorption possible with Core Hunter Class.]
“Go away! Disappear! Close!” He uttered the last word with an extra push of breath and intent, as if begging the sheet on a spiritual level. It was going to get him spotted, if it hadn’t already.
This time, the sheet listened. It broke apart and dispersed into sparks, then disappeared entirely. He waited three seconds, holding his breath. It didn’t come back.
Keeping low and peering through the bushes, he turned back towards the clearing again. The scavengers were looking around, their gazes frantic. One of them drew a machete from his hip, and the other hoisted up a gun. Or at least, it had the general shape of a gun. A hunting rifle, maybe, with a bolt-action and a bayonet fixed just beneath its muzzle. The magazine had a few neon lines along its side.
“Where was it?” the scavenger with the rifle asked. “What did you see?”
“Light! A few flashes out in the bushes!”
“The wizard?”
“They’re called Wielders.”
“I don’t care what they’re called!” the scavenger flipped a switch on the side of the rifle, and the bayonet vibrated so quickly that it became a blur. “If he’s back to kill us, then we’re dead.”
There wasn’t any sense in waiting around and getting caught. Jace broke cover and sprinted away. Weaving through the trees, he charged back towards the cave he came from. If he could just hide and—
Before he could finish the thought, an ear-splitting staccato whine sliced through the forest. A trail of green plasma streaked past in the corner of his vision. There was a flash to his left, then the tree trunk right beside him exploded in a splatter of plasma. Shards of wood blasted past his face and white-hot sparks doused him.
He shielded his face with one hand, but the force of the blast still launched him off his feet. He flew a meter to the side and tumbled along the ground—until he finally came to a rest in a bush.
At first, his skin felt like wet paper peeling off. Seconds later, the pain came. When he lifted his hand, all he could see was charred and blackened flesh. The burn ran up to his shoulder, and most of his coat sleeve had been shredded.
But worse, his hand was disintegrating. Not falling apart into a gory mess—disintegrating. There were holes. Complete holes.
“He’s not a Wielder!” one scavenger sneered. “He’s a worldjumper!”
Jace moaned, then rolled onto his back. Two of the scavengers approached. One held a long machete, and the other carried the plasma rifle. Level three and four, respectively. Jace pushed against the ground with his feet, shifting himself backwards along the undergrowth and peaty ground.
“And not even a fully materialized one,” the scavenger with the machete whispered to his friend. “If the plasma’s disintegrating him like that, he doesn’t have a proper core! Come on! His stuff will sell even better than the candlefolk bits!”
Jace scrambled back faster. The screen of golden dust and light flashed back to life in front of him. [Decay accelerated. Dispersion imminent. Condense core cloud immediately.]
Jace didn’t have a clue what any of it meant, aside from the stuff about Class—he could guess that. But the scavengers had called the thing they pulled out of their wreck a hypercore. Maybe he could take that instead. The sheet had said there was a core nearby to absorb.
He kept pushing himself back along the ground, inching away from the scavengers. The two men were faster, though, and they were closing the distance.
“Blessings of the Split can’t save you now, jumper,” the scavenger with the machete snapped.
Jace stopped and took a deep breath. It was now or never. If he didn’t get that hypercore, he was gone. Dead? Maybe. He didn’t want to know what would happen to him, and he didn’t want to be dead.
The scavenger flipped his machete over in his hand, then stabbed it down at Jace. Just before it struck, Jace rolled to the side. The other scavenger fired his plasma rifle again, but Jace had already leapt to his feet and jumped back a step. The bolt of plasma seared the ground in front of him, spewing more sparks into the air. It didn’t hit as close, and none of the sparks touched him.
Jace sprinted between them, diving under the rifle-carrying scavenger’s bayonet and leaning away from the other man’s machete. The other two scavengers moved to intercept him. One held a thick wrench, and the other was empty-handed.
At the last moment, Jace swerved to the side, plowing through the bushes. He twisted between the last two trees and tumbled out into the clearing.
From here, it was a straight shot to the exposed hypercore. He sprinted across the clearing, jumping over flaming debris and dodging searing-hot panels of starship hull.
When he reached the glass tube with the hypercore, he picked up a stone and smashed the glass. He reached inside the tube and tried to grab the core, but as soon as his fingers brushed past it, it released a burst of invisible force that knocked him flat on his back—and just in time. Another bolt of plasma seared overhead, striking the starship wreck exactly where he had been standing.
The sheet of golden dust reappeared. It read: [Warning: cannot absorb core without Class.]
Core Hunter. Right. High soul-inclination, all that.
And he had to admit, absorbing energy from other beings sounded pretty useful.
[Recommended: Core Hunter.]
“Yes! Do that!” Jace exclaimed, putting the same push of air and intent into his words as he had when he forced the sheet to close earlier. “Let me take the Core!”
[Class Selected: Core Hunter. High soul-inclination grants unique attribute: can absorb one (1) foreign core. Absorbs a fraction of pure-aspect Aes from defeated opponents once core seed embedded.]
Jace jumped to his feet and wrapped his fingers around the hypercore. This time, instead of flinging him away, his fingers sank in.
The orb of blue light surged into his body.