It wasn’t long after receiving the new Body Warp ability and Reality Bender II achievement that Lilijoy was given her respawn options. They had all reset their default respawn points when they emerged from the Labyrinth, and then been careful to update them along their journey, so she knew she would have at least one decent option, back near the top of the waterfall.
The other option was to respawn in the nearest available neutral territory, hopefully close to the others by the riverbank. She debated internally for a moment, as neutral did not necessarily imply safe, but in the end she decided the benefits far outweighed any potential difficulties. She also noted that there was no mandate or timer for respawning; if she wanted, she could hang out in the white nothing indefinitely. She couldn’t imagine that being a particularly popular option, but it was nice to know she might have some control of the timing in the future.
Before returning, she added the free points she had received for reaching level twenty-six into Invulnerability, bringing it to fifty-one, and her Earth Affinity, bringing it to sixty-seven, and then raised her Scan and Earthen Sense abilities. If they were going to be trekking across the Boiling Plains, both would come in handy. Her new Body Manipulation skill had jumped all the way to Illustrious Journeyman, making it her highest skill overall. She had long since decided to embrace her… special... status on the Inside, but it still felt a bit like cheating. That did little to dampen her excitement about exploring her new powers though.
She sent herself back.
She was immediately assaulted by harsh fumes and heat as she got her bearings. She was standing on a large slab of solid stone that thrust forth from an area of lazily roiling black mud. To her relief, she could see the river stretching into the distance in front of her, and behind her, the escarpment and falls were just visible in the distance. At its closest, she estimated the river might be a kilometer away to her right.
Maybe I should have figured out a way to fly instead of becoming a magic contortionist.
It occurred to her that she might be able to manipulate her body into a configuration suitable for gliding, or at least non-rapid falling, but that wasn’t going to do her any good at the moment. Instead, she sent her Earthen Sense through the immediate area, checking any patches of crusty earth beyond the mud that looked like they might bear her weight, and found one about twenty feet away in the wrong direction.
Never easy, is it?
If she had room to gain enough momentum from Flash, the leap wouldn’t be bad at all, though the stopping might be an issue. It was a moot point, as her slab would give her at most ten feet to run. Faced with this impasse, she decided her best course of action would be to explore her new abilities, to see what might be possible.
First she decided to replicate what she had already done in the white space and began to extend her arm. Now that she could see, it was a mildly appalling sight, and sound too, for that matter. There were terrible rending and cracking noises as she stretched out past her natural reach and her joints and ligaments dislocated, stretched and popped. Pain signals began to flood her system, and she received a damage notification for thirteen health.
On top of that, the muscles of her arm didn’t know how to support the outstretched weight, or perhaps weren’t able to apply sufficient leverage with her joints dislocated, and within a second the newly lengthened arm had flopped to her side, falling to rest just next to her foot. Evidently gravity had its own opinion about her new skill, now that it had been invited to the party.
Suddenly, she didn’t feel like a cheater any more.
“Well, that sucks,” she announced to the lethargic mud. I might need to shelve those visions of whipping around like a teleporting Elastigirl for the time being.
She recovered her mood quickly, when she realized she hadn’t expended any mana in her attempt. With most skills, the Magi portion was what filled in the impossibles, and now she was sure that Body Manipulation wasn’t any different. It would, she was sure, allow her to support the weight of her arm without any plausible structural or muscular support, and possibly protect her from injury as well.
She looked down at her limp noodle of an arm. Hopefully it also helps me get back to normal, she thought.
Not sure how to engage the Magi portion of her new skill after the fact, she decided to see if she could simply heal her way back to a functioning arm before engaging in more experiments. It turned out she could, though it took a little help from her other arm to reposition everything properly.
Good thing I didn’t extend my neck, was all she could think.
Her internet memory was of some help as she set about consolidating her foundation in the Natural portion of the skill, and she played around with various postures and poses for almost an hour. It was during this portion of her training that Skria found her.
“Umm,” she heard. “Are you trying to lick your butt? I didn’t think humans did that.”
Embarrassment was not one of Lilijoy’s primary emotions.
“Oh! I could almost do that, couldn’t I?” she replied with a somewhat muffled voice.
She unfurled her body, to see Skria hovering in the air about thirty feet away. She had been aware of the girl’s approach for a little while, but saw no need to stop her practice. It was very nice to see her though.
“Has Jess respawned yet?” Lilijoy asked.
Skria dipped in the air a little. “She made it to shore, but she would have rather respawned I think. Please hurry.”
“Do you think you can blow me to that patch over there? I’m kind of stuck. I was thinking about trying to run across the mud in Flash, or maybe pulling out another tree trunk.”
She winced. “I’m surprised you would ask me. I’m so, so sorry I got you killed. I never thought the boat would do that.”
“Don’t forget,” Lilijoy said. “I already killed you once, back in Averdale. I don’t blame you at all, but even if I did, we’d be even.”
Skria brightened, bobbing in the air as if buoyed by Lilijoy's words. “I hadn’t thought of that! Okay. I just hope this goes better than last time.”
It did, for definitions of better that included not dying. Lilijoy ran and leapt as high as she could, and Skria’s gust caught her nicely. As she had feared, she did overrun the target a bit, and was rewarded with parboiled feet when she broke through the thin crust of minerals just beyond her target and plunged calf deep into acidic, boiling water. Fortunately, she was able to fall back onto solid ground, and the healing didn’t take long at all.
From there, she was able to use her Earthen Sense again to find another solid patch she could hop to, and then another. With only one small problem.
“Do you know you’re going the wrong direction?” Skria asked.
“Yeah,” Lilijoy replied. “There aren’t many options, and the ground is just so messy; it’s wet and it vibrates differently in different places, never mind the way the steam vents mess me up. I’m just hoping I can loop back eventually.”
“Do you still have a glider in there?” Skria asked. “Maybe...” she stopped when she saw Lilijoy shaking her head. “Okay then. I’m going to go check on Jess,” she said. “I’ll be back soon.”
“You know where to find me,” Lilijoy replied. As Skria turned to leave, she remembered something. “I still have a healing potion,” she called up.
“Oh good!” Skria yelled back, already swooping in closer. “We used all of ours to keep up with the ongoing effects of the acid. Hold it up and I’ll grab it.”
Soon, Skria had vanished over the rise that marked the edge of the river, vial in hand, and Lilijoy turned to her Earthen Sense again. It really was quite tricky to find the little islands of safety, though she was beginning to get the hang of reading the subterranean landscape. She was grateful she had upgraded the ability, and only wished she could do it again.
I’m sure I’ll level again soon, she thought. That’s the first thing I’ll do.
Her suspicion was that the higher grades of Earthen Sense made it easier to see in mixed environments, favoring quality over expanding her range.
Soon she had settled into a routine of alternate sensing and hopping, with the odd step or leap thrown in for good measure. Once, a large shadow passed over her, and she was able to get a good look at one of the flying creatures they had noticed circling high above before the rowboat overturned, an enormous vulture-looking thing with ridiculously long talons. She was too busy crouching down and activating Stealth to Scan, but she was certain it could eat her in one bite, maybe two. After that she kept her Stealth up, and hoped that Skria wouldn’t risk coming back.
Her path led her relentlessly away from where she wanted to go and by the time a half hour had passed, she was several hundred meters farther away from her friends. Even so, the aesthetic qualities of her surroundings began to grow on her. Steam and yellow gasses mingled and flowed in varying concentrations over the crusted earth. Bursts of muted orange and yellow marked patches of bacterial life, or the Inside equivalent, along with pale greens from tenacious lichens that had found places to thrive in the harsh environment.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
There were even areas with low-slung plants and creeping vines, more dead than alive. She had noticed early on that the plants were a possible indicator of solid ground. It was on one such patch that she found a broadly spreading flower, a red star with five yellow-tipped petals. Scan and Herbalism revealed nothing of its name or nature, and it felt like an unreasonable risk to bond with the plant, so with regret, she let it be, though she was able to find a seed pod hiding in the withered remains of a previous bloom a bit later, which she was quick to pocket.
On the Outside, their journey to Guayaquil was nearly complete. The city began as an indistinct glowing blob on the horizon, but as they grew closer it began to resolve, first taking on a distinctly elevated characteristic, a series of glowing curves that almost hovered above the sparse lights of the homes and villages scattered across the intervening plains. Before long, the city positively loomed, or perhaps soared, arch stacked upon glowing arch, a towering crown upon the landscape. Lilijoy tried, and failed, to get a sense of the true size of the edifice.
She turned to Anda. “”What… how?” and finished her elocution with, “Big?”
He chuckled. “That’s why I didn’t want to explain before. There’s just no way to capture it. Welcome to Guayaquil, City of Arches, Crown of the Western Hemisphere, and one of the greatest displays of power and hubris since the Rise. There are comparable cities in Asia of course, but none with its unique approach to architecture.”
“How big is it? Is that all one building?”
“I suppose you could call it an Arcology? Anyway, however big you’re guessing right now, it’s bigger than that. Four levels with four arches each; that lowest tier is over four hundred meters tall. The whole thing is just around a kilometer in height. About two hundred thousand people live within its walls, and several times that below. That’s more than a tenth of the continent’s population right there.”
“How did they build it? When? Why?” The last word was tinged with exasperation. Despite the awe she felt at the sheer scope of the achievement in front of them, she couldn’t help but feel it was excessive, a grand monument to the small minority who held all the power.
“When we get closer, you’ll be able to see construction is still in progress,” Anda replied, so I guess ‘when’ is now, though they started decades ago. The how is, as you might expect by now, heavy reliance on the Inside. This project, I would guess, is one of the reasons metal is in such short supply in the Garden these days. As far as raw materials Outside, it probably accounts for the output of a good number of factory-mines too, those on this continent at least.”
Lilijoy’s mind boggled a bit. “Do people do anything for themselves any more?”
Anda sat back. “You know, I’m sure there are many alchemists, architects and construction managers who would take great offense at that question.” He shook his head, “As far as the Corp goes, you’re right though. Just don’t forget that the vast majority of living humans still toil in obscurity.” He gestured to the ramshackle buildings they were passing by. “These folks put all this together, or reclaimed it anyway, with their own sweat, probably while paying off debts for their systems by harvesting biomass, or some such.”
Lilijoy nodded. “That’s what I’m trying to wrap my head around. There’s no population problem any more, no starvation, hardly any disease. Shouldn’t things be… better?”
“Some would say that humans naturally self-assemble into a pyramid, given a stable enough environment,” he replied. “Individual molecules may move within the structure, and sufficient energy may disrupt the structure for a time. Once things begin to cool though, the same crystal shape condenses out of the chaos.”
Lilijoy took a moment to measure the idea against her internet memory. Theories of human society and government were an ugly morass from which it was impossible to take any conclusions, as far as she could tell. The concept of extrapolating the larger structure of society from the bonding tendencies of the individual in the same way the shape of a crystal was determined by the chemical bonds it would form with its neighbors sounded reasonable, but modeling it was beyond the scope of her current capabilities.
“So simple?” was all she said in reply.
Anda shrugged. “It’s not my idea, but it fits. Renaissance bases many of their activities on it.”
“So… they want to modify the bonding properties at an individual level to change the globally emergent structure,” she stated.
Anda looked startled. “I’m still amazed when you say things like that,” he said. “It seems only yesterday you were speaking like some kind of caricatured cave-dweller. But yes, that’s part of it.”
It always made Lilijoy feel good to impress Anda.
“Not to change the subject,” he continued, “but are you doing something Inside while we’re talking right now?”
She nodded. “Trying not to boil my feet in acid again, mainly.”
“What’s that like? Not the foot boiling. Being in two places at once. I can’t stop wondering if I’ll be able to do that, if I even want to be able to do that.”
Lilijoy shrugged. “I got here in steps, so it seems pretty natural. It’s kind of like playing the piano; two hands doing different things. I still have to focus on one or the other if something tricky is going on.”
“And when both hands are challenged?”
“I can split into two separate consciousnesses if I need to. That’s how I started, before I figured out that most of the time it was more... efficient?… more satisfying anyway, to keep both Inside and Outside present in one awareness. The fact is, I can think very, very fast, so it’s usually not any problem at all.”
“There have been times, lately,” Anda said, “that I can feel the world around me moving slower. It’s weird, because I can’t make my body move faster, but I do have more time to observe what’s going on around me.”
“What’s your Flash like on the Inside?”
“Twenty. There’s no point… oh.”
“Yeah.”
She let him reevaluate some previous assumptions, and turned her focus to the Inside, where one of the huge vulture-things had plunged out of the sky, landing just out of sight behind a raised ridge of stone she had been aiming for. Evidently, the ground fell away beyond, because she could just make out the top of its head, bobbing and lunging at something too short for her to see.
It only took a couple more leaps for her feet to find where the solid area began, and then she moved as quickly as Stealth would allow, motivated more by curiosity than any sense of real urgency. She wanted to learn what the giant birds ate, especially since it seemed like she would be sharing the environment with both predator and prey for some time to come.
It took her several minutes to get to a point where she could see over the ridge into the cratered area beyond. All the while, she heard the sounds of combat, the wheezing croaks of the vulture mixed with inarticulate cries and yelps that sounded almost human. She wasn’t surprised when the prey turned out to be a young orc boy, his body covered with burns and streaming blood.
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Immature Orc (Urkaen): Level 6
H.P. 7/63
Primary Attack: Bite 1-38
Damage Abatement: 15-19
Disposition: Resolute
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The Scan happened almost without conscious intent, and at a farther range than she was expecting. I guess raising it to the fourth tier was a good idea, she thought, turning her attention to the predator. It perched on its long talons, extending them into the steaming earth like sharpened stilts, only using its fierce beak to lunge and attack.
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Giant Condor, Boiling Plains Variant: Level 29
H.P. 130/201
Primary Attack: Bite 1-94
Damage Abatement: 10-15
Resists: Acid, Fire
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Not that tough, but a nasty bite. That orc kid must be one hell of a fighter to have done so much damage.
Even as she thought that, the boy dodged a lunging attack and hoisted himself onto the creature’s head, grabbing the copious folds of loose skin that hung off the condor’s face. She saw him open his jaws far wider than any human could, thanks to his broad, protruding muzzle, and latch on to the bony ridge around the condor’s eye socket. Even from where she stood, she could hear the crack of bone fragmenting underneath his powerful jaws.
I guess his bite’s not too shabby either. They grow them tough out here, that’s for sure.
The bird went berserk, shaking its head, whipping the boy back and forth until he flew off in a spray of blood, a large hunk of condor still between his jaws. Lilijoy winced, waiting for him to break through the mineral crust and most likely perish, even as she pulled out her sling to assist.
Fortunately, the boy hit the ground and rolled without breaking into the boiling liquid, before arresting himself, spread-eagled. She could see his lungs heaving for breath as he lay. His health was now at four.
“Hey, ugly bird!” Lilijoy called out as she let a stone fly. Without a critical hit, she knew she wouldn’t do much damage, but she was mostly aiming to distract anyway. The stone hit the bird’s beak with a sharp clack and it turned its head to assess this new wrinkle in its meal plans.
“That’s right! I’m talking to you!” she called, whipping another stone at its damaged eye. The stone hit where she was aiming, but bounced off the bird’s eyeball with another sharp crack.
Does this thing have crystal eyes or something?
Even so, her distraction had worked. Somehow, the boy had gathered himself, and suddenly the bird reared back, a young orc firmly attached to its long throat. It whipped its head again, but he clung fiercely with jaws and clawed fingers, and the bird was not able to apply the same force to dislodge him from its throat. In desperation it spread its wings and leapt into the air, carrying the boy with it.
Lilijoy could only watch as they spiraled up, higher and higher, the giant condor’s wings thunderously beating. Within seconds the two creatures were far overhead, the boy’s small figure lost within the condor’s silhouette against the piercingly blue sky.
For a moment, all was still, and Lilijoy felt a wave of sorrow that she had been unable to rescue him. Then the distant form of bird and boy stopped receding and began an ugly, uncontrolled return. With mighty wings thrashing in spasms, the giant condor plunged to earth, landing not far from where it had taken off, breaking past the thin crust and sending a spray of steam and boiling liquid in every direction.
Lilijoy ducked, but just before the final impact, she had caught a glimpse of the orc boy, his eyes closed, his face peaceful, his jaws still firmly clamped on the giant bird’s windpipe.
When the spray had passed, she observed the giant body, somehow even larger with feathers and wings splayed over the steaming pool it had opened. She knew there was absolutely no chance the boy had lived, falling from that height into boiling acid with almost no health in the first place.
Oh well. That might have been a nice in with the local tribe, she thought. The boy had been a Tier Seven, of that she was quite sure, untempered and thus forever gone. No name had been displayed to her Scan, only his species, and that lack of identity within the system was a sure indicator. She felt regret that she might never know the name he was called in his tribe, might never be able to relay the tale of his valiant passing to his family. Even though the Tier Sevens didn’t have complete self-awareness, Lilijoy was quite convinced that the more sophisticated of them had emotions and consciousness of a rudimentary nature. It was also entirely possible that his parents or some other relatives were Tier Six subsets, and would feel his loss acutely.
Or maybe I’m projecting, she thought. But he took down a level twenty-nine condor by himself. I’m sure that would mean something.
She was making her way to the giant pool of bubbling flesh and feathers, whether out of curiosity or some need for further resolution she wasn’t entirely sure, when she heard a cry of unbridled exaltation, a ululating cackle of a call that sent shivers down her spine. She froze for an instant, tracking its location, making herself ready for whatever new threat had manifested, some other predator drawn by the fracas, no doubt.
It’s close. Too close, she thought as she turned to face the threat, only to gape in amazement.
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Naduk the Vanquisher, Orc (Urkaen)
Level 7
Tempered
Vanquisher
H.P. 64
Primary Attack: Bite 1-39
Damage Abatement: 17-21
Disposition: Jubilant
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There he stood, the orc boy, restored in body, his arms raised skyward. His expression was twisted, caught between what she thought might be joy and shock as he took in her presence.
“I found my soul,” he proclaimed.