"So, what kind of place is this anyways?" I asked Celeste as I walked down the stairs to the top floor of the building.
"From what I can see on the camera feeds here, it looks like an entertainment complex. It has a lot of different activities, mostly games, and a large casino."
"Isn't this place like fifteen stories tall? Great, I'm in the largest arcade in the universe and the only game I get to play is the one where I try not to get my head cut off."
"Actually, the largest arcade in the universe is over a mile tall." Celeste said, and I had to process that for a moment.
"Man, I gotta learn how to use that portal magic they've been shunting me around with." I opened the door at the bottom of the staircase, and saw it led to some kind of maintenance tunnels. As I walked around, I started getting nervous that something was about to jump out at me.
"Hey, if you see anything on those cameras warn me in advance."
"Already planning on it. Our first goal here should be to get you used to killing entities. Once you're all warmed up, we'll go check the three shelters here and inform them of our presence. Then we'll communicate with local military and other nearby guardians to get them a transport to a more permanent shelter."
"Okay, that doesn't sound awful. I somehow doubt it'll be that easy though."
"It's best to assume things will go wrong somehow in most scenarios. Alright, head through that door in front of you and be ready, there's two Watchers on the other side. That's the snake you killed earlier. They move rather quickly but tend to stay on straight paths, so just get ready to swing when it's in front of you." I nervously peeked through the door and saw two snakes sitting in front of some kind of slot machine. I guessed that this was the casino area of the building and thought of something. Instead of walking out, I threw the door open and jumped back, and I heard a loud thud as the door slammed into the wall. As this happened, I realized it was much louder than normal, and I could slightly hear one of the Watchers sliding up to the door. I waited a few seconds till I saw its head peek through the door and stabbed out with my glaive. It saw me, but only had enough time to screech before the blade pierced it, killing it on the spot.
I could barely lift my weapon back up before the other one slid around the corner, all its eyes locked on me. It sailed through the air at me, and if I had more experience using weapons, I could have easily cut it in half. Instead, I dropped the glaive and ducked, grabbing onto its tail as it passed overhead, but the thing was somehow stronger than me and slid right out.
"Let me use that density power!" I thought, and clearly Celeste heard me as I felt some kind of odd sensation that seemed like it had been locked away before now. The watcher whipped around, and as it did it tried to slam its tail into my head. Instinctively, I urged my body to get heavier, and as I did I held my hand up and let the tail hit it. I felt the impact, yet I didn't feel any pain and quickly closed my hand around it. The thing screeched like the other one did, and its head rushed towards me, but I just whipped its tail to the left and the head followed, slamming into a wall as it cracked the concrete. It limped over, clearly dazed, and I stepped forward and stepped on its head. I was expecting to have to stomp multiple times, but its exploded on the first hit, and the ground nearly caved in beneath me. I rushed backwards, each step thudding before I realized I needed to make myself lighter.
2 Entities Killed, New Point Total: 28
"Jesus, I didn't think it would make me that much stronger! Why didn't that make it harder for me to walk?"
"Well, since the ability increases your density using magic, it also magically enhances your muscle density up to a point. How do you feel after your first real kills as a guardian?"
"Honestly? A mix of scared and excited. I like fighting, but I'm used to humans, not monsters. But I can't lie and say it's not kinda fun feeling that strong." I said as I picked my glaive back up and headed into the casino, watching out for any more entities.
"I wanted to ask you about that, you seem oddly competent at fighting for having just started out. Why is that?" She asked as we walked through.
"You're in my head aren't you? Can't you just look through my memories?"
"I could, but that would be extremely immoral." As she said this, I sighed, hoping I wouldn't have to explain too deeply.
"It was my dad. When I was a kid, he got me involved in a ton of self-defense stuff. He taught me how to shoot a gun, enrolled me in taekwondo, and a lot of other stuff. I usually just tell people he was trying to make me a super soldier." I said, chuckling a bit to myself.
"But why did he actually do it?" Celeste asked, and I simply stopped talking for a moment, checking my surroundings. I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but I didn't see anything that seemed like it would be a shelter. The casino looked normal with gaudy red carpets and gold accents on everything, except all of the slots had branding for things I had never seen before, which I assumed was popular media on this planet. After a minute of silence, Celeste spoke up again.
"I'm sorry, is that not something you want to talk about?"
"Not particularly, no."
"Alright, I won't bring it up again. Did you enjoy these activities? Oh, also the first shelter for this building is on this floor, a decent bit ahead and to the right."
"Thanks for the heads up. And sure, I had fun with them. You don't get up to the fourth black belt in a martial art if you don't enjoy it. Well, technically I'm at the third right now, the test for the fourth is in a few months. Although they might have to modify it now that I'm a guardian." I said, heading through a more open area of the casino. As I walked through, I heard a noise ahead of me, and saw some kind of dog run out from underneath a table. It was green, which I was starting to realize would be a trend for these entities, but other than that it mostly just looked like a normal wolf. I felt a little bad about killing a dog, but as it started running at me, I figured I didn't have much of a choice and raised my glaive. Suddenly, the dogs body seemed to dissolve partially as part of it quickly began to move to the side and started reforming next to it, and after about a second there were two dogs running at me, each slightly smaller than the first one was.
"They can clone themselves?!" I exclaimed, but there wasn't enough time for a response before one of them lunged at me. I reflexively pulled the glaive up, and the dog wasn't able to move out of the way in the air to avoid it, as the razor-sharp blade sliced it cleanly into two pieces. The other dog followed behind it almost immediately, and I tried to spin the blunt end of the glaive to knock it away, but I missed, and the thing latched onto my leg. Pain shot up it instantly, which oddly didn't make me distracted or scared, just absurdly aggravated. I raised both my hands up and formed them into one large fist, increasing my weight as I slammed my hands into its head. Its entire body exploded into the same liquid it formed from, and I decreased my weight as I kneeled down to look at my leg.
Two Entities Killed, New Point Total: 48
"Celeste, tell me how I can heal this, cause it hurts like hell!" The wound was bleeding through my outfit, but thankfully I could stand on it.
"Stop yelling, you'll just bring more over! We can either get a catalogue with medical items, or we can get a tome with a healing spell available, which do you want?"
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"I don't know, the spell I guess, just hurry it up!"
Starter Spell Tome Unlocked for 30 Points, New Total: 18
"Alright, now hurry and purchase...what the hell is that?" Confused, I looked up and saw something standing across the room about a hundred feet from me. It had scythes for hands like a mantis, but its body structure was more humanoid with armor plating all over its body. Its head was covered in black hair, obscuring what looked like a reptilian face. The entity didn't move as I reached for my glaive and backed away.
"Celeste, you're the one who's supposed to know about these things, so why are you asking me what that is?!"
"I don't know, I've never seen an entity like that before and I can't access my usual database during an invasion without a computer! I didn't see it anywhere on the cameras before this."
"Well, at least it doesn't seem too dangerous. It's not even trying to move towards me." I said, watching the creature as I began walking backwards towards the area the shelter was in. As I did, the entity opened its mouth, and a voice came out.
"Can you help me? I need someone to help me!" It said, its voice sounding like multiple people were speaking at once. I stopped moving for a moment, staring at the creature.
"Nope, fuck this, I'm out of here." I said as I turned around and began moving at a faster pace. As I did, I heard some kind of whooshing noise behind me, and I jumped to the left and turned my head, seeing some type of pointed vine fly past me. I looked back and saw it was emerging from the chest of the entity, and it retracted back as the creature silently began sprinting after me. I immediately bolted the other direction while putting away my glaive, ignoring the pain in my leg completely. I turned a corner and saw a room that opened up in the center to show the floors below, and on the other side was a large steel door with glowing red emergency lights next to it. I kept moving towards the shelter, but as I looked back, I saw the entity was gaining on me quickly. I opened up the purchasing menu to try and find a spell to help me survive, and clicked on the one that seemed like it would do the most damage.
Minor Explosion Purchased for 15 Points, New Total: 3
As I bought it, I felt the same shock of knowledge I had felt before when I first used my ability, and whipped around to face the entity that was chasing me. I wasn't sure if this would damage myself or not, but I somehow knew the spell had limited range, and I would be a lot more damaged if that thing actually did cut my head off. I put both my hands side by side facing out in a cone shape, feeling the mana in my body running through my bloodstream, and I quickly directed it to my hands while picturing the spell. An orange glow formed around them, and as the creature leapt at me, I let go of the energy.
"Die!" My arms flew back as the mana formed into heat, and I was shoved backwards ten feet as an explosion blasted the entity in the face. My ears rang as I looked at the area, and I smiled to myself as I couldn't see the entity through the smoke.
"You know, I could get used to killing these- oh fuck me." Horrifyingly, as the smoke cleared I saw the creature was virtually unharmed, although it had been knocked back a fair distance. It quickly recovered, standing up and bounding towards me again as I ran for the shelter. The path looked clear, but as I started running around the ring showing the lower floors, two of the dogs from before leapt out from behind a bar in front of me, cutting off my exit. If I stopped to deal with them, the entity behind me would just catch up and kill me, and I had already moved too far around the ring to go the other way.
"Shit, how do these things know where the camera blind spots are?! You only have enough mana left for one blast, try and hit them both!"
"That'll push me back into that thing!" I screamed, recognizing how screwed I really was. I was ready to try jumping over the rail and seeing if I could make myself light enough that I wouldn't get hurt, but as I thought of that I had another idea. I looked up, seeing the ceiling was thankfully quite high up from where I was standing, as the ring had a large domed skylight above it. I ran right for the dogs, deciding I may as well try this despite how stupid it seemed in my head. I could vaguely hear Celeste protesting, but I ignored her as the dogs got close enough to leap at me. As they did, I made myself lighter before jumping in the air, getting above the two dogs who turned around as I put my hands together again. I shoved the mana into my hands as fast as I could, trying to angle myself so my back was facing the shelter, and I released the spell before they could get out of the way.
As the explosion went off, I saw the dogs get eviscerated by the spell as it propelled my now much lighter body, and I immediately began flying backwards at a dangerously high speed. I spun a few times in the air before I eventually righted myself enough to see where I was flying and saw that while I was headed for the shelter, I was going to slam into the wall before I slowed down. I tried my best not to scream as I quickly changed to the minimum density I could, and as I did I crashed into the wall about twenty feet above the shelter. I heard a horrible snapping sound as pain shot up my right arm, and I slowly fell down to the ground. I got up and looked at the shelter to figure out how to get in.
Two Entities Killed, New Point Total: 23
"Put your hand on that pad!" Celeste yelled, and as I looked around, I saw the pad she was talking about and slammed my palm into it. The pad began to glow as it scanned my hand, and after a second I heard a beep come from it as a voice emanated from a speaker on the door.
"Guardian recognized, you will have five seconds to enter once this message ends. Ensure no plague breach the shelter as you do so." As the voice stopped the doors began making a ton of noise before they slid open like an elevator, and I slipped inside. I turned around, seeing the entity not that far behind me running for the shelter. I took my glaive out from my inventory and counted the seconds as it charged closer and closer. It made a final leap as the doors began sliding closed, and thankfully they slammed shut before it could get inside. I heard what sounded like a crowd screaming as the thing banged on the door, but it held firm. I took a deep breath and leaned against the wall next to the door, sliding down it as I exhaled.
"Um, hello."
I whipped my head around and saw a woman in what looked like a security guard uniform. She looked human aside from some black streaks on her cheeks and around her eyes. She had dark skin and short brown hair, and even while I was leaning I had to look down at her, so either I was taller than I thought or she was very short.
"Hey." I said, sounding completely exhausted.
"You okay? You look hurt." She said, and I stared at her dumbfounded for a few seconds.
"Yeah, I'm a little hurt. How could you tell?" I sarcastically pointed at my broken arm, and she winced as she looked at my injuries.
"Well, we don't have any medical supplies left, but we'll see what we can do. Follow me." She began walking down the short hallway to the rest of the shelter, and after a moment I sighed and began walking after her, muttering as I followed.
"Celeste, next time I try and make myself a human cannonball, talk me out of it."
"I make no promises."