Tomas was quivering with eagerness to reunite with Jane, but as we rounded one corner, I had to stop.
“Hold the phone. I need to get one.”
A food cart parked on the side of the road was selling piles of french fries in tall woven baskets. The fries Paul had shared around during the meeting had been some of the best I’d ever eaten. It was a simple taste of home, and seeing more fries, I couldn’t resist the nostalgic urge to buy more.
“French fries?” Tomas asked as I paid a couple mana crystals for about a gallon of crisp, fresh french fries.
“So good,” I mumbled around a mouthful of hot fries. Tomas dug in and we resumed our trek across town.
I let Tomas go first when we reached Jane’s tent. He rushed inside, shouting her name, and she squealed with glee. Even though I waited a full 5 minutes, they were still standing in the middle of the room, kissing passionately as he held her and she wrapped arms and legs around him.
“Hey, Jane,” I said, waving a fry. “Got any steak to go with these? Saving Tomas so much gets exhausting.”
She laughed and finally released Tomas to rush over and give me a bone-crushing hug. I barely tossed the basket of fries into my inventory in time. “Thank you, Lucas!”
“I definitely did it for you.”
“Hey!” Tomas exclaimed in mock outrage.
We caught up over perhaps the best fillet mignon I’d ever eaten. With all the organic material Jane had pumped into the oven, it produced truly gourmet meals. My steak was covered in a hollandaise sauce that had to qualify as divine-level loot. Still no ketchup, but hollandaise sauce worked pretty good too, and we polished off the last of the fries.
“I’m going to need to buy a few more buckets of those before I head out of town again.”
“No worries we’ll run out,” Jane said, tearing her eyes off of Tomas for a second. “There’s a guy who permanented a spell to make potatoes. He’s pumping them out by the bushel full.”
“Why would he do that?” Tomas asked.
“I heard he used to be a chef. Used up all his temporary spells just surviving, so when he got to level 10, the potato spell was the only one he had left.”
“Poor guy. What a waste.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t hear you complaining about the fries.”
She had a point, but how would he progress with only potato magic? Pushing thoughts of the potato wizard aside, we caught up on each other’s adventures. Tomas still had an entire team. They’d found each other quicker than we had. I couldn’t wait to meet them.
I enjoyed every second of our chat. I could almost forget we were sitting in a magical tent in a death battle world where hundreds of people had already died. Sitting in comfortable chairs, eating good food, and chatting together, felt like so many times I’d visited them in Denver, or that time they came to Flagstaff to visit me. Isabella had managed to come up from Glendale, and we’d had an incredible time hanging out.
I almost wished Isabella was there sitting next to me, but that would mean she’d gotten sucked into this deadly game too. I would not wish that on anyone. If anything, I wished I could get Tomas and Jane back out. I would much prefer facing the nightmares to come knowing they were safe.
As we discussed our spells and stats, Jane asked, “Hey, have either of you guys gotten a weird stat that hasn’t unlocked yet?”
“What do you mean?” Tomas asked.
I was too shocked to respond for a second. I’d thought my CHA stat was a weirdly unique stat that didn’t seem to do anything. Figured maybe Cyrus was just messing with me. His sense of humor got weird sometimes.
Jane sighed. “I got a weird scroll in a loot box that unlocked a new stat called WIL. I’ve gotten a few points in it, but can’t seem to figure out how to make it work.”
“Like WIL for Willpower?” Tomas asked.
“That’s what I figure.”
“Huh. I haven’t heard of anyone with unique stats. Everyone I’ve talked to has all the same base and secondary stats. Have you?”
That finally shook me out of my inner dialogue. “Actually, I got a unique extra stat too. CHA. Can’t figure it out. Thought it was a glitch or something.”
“CHA, as in Charisma?” Tomas asked with a frown. “I’ve heard of people unlocking a Charisma stat.”
“It’s like the stat is a placeholder until I get a spell or ability or something that officially uses Charisma.”
“Just like me! It sucks that your Charisma stat is locked like my WIL stat, but at least now I know I’m not the only one.”
“It’s still weird,” Tomas said.
I totally agreed, but some of my worry about CHA subsided. I’d find a way to unlock it eventually. We resumed chatting, but then Tomas heard about Switchblade.
“We have to go ride!”
“Later,” Jane said. I hadn’t expected that. She loved Switchblade maybe even more than I did, but she hadn’t let go of Tomas’s hand since she’d finished her steak.
I could take a hint, but it still required a force of will to stand. I’d found Tomas! The three of us should be hanging out all afternoon. The moments we ate our meal had been the happiest I’d felt since even before getting ripped away from Earth. I’d beat down whatever I needed to in order to win and keep them safe, but that didn’t mean I wanted to get right back to it so soon.
But I forced a smile. “I’ve got to go anyway. We can ride when I get back.”
“Go?” Tomas asked with a frown. “It’s already afternoon.”
“I know. I’ve got 3 levels to climb and I can’t waste half a day lounging around town.”
“Okay, we’ll come,” Tomas said reluctantly. “Just let me find my team.”
Jane gave him a look like she’d knock him out herself before letting him out of her tent so soon.
“No, you two catch up. You can’t keep up with me anyway.”
“You can’t go hunting alone,” Tomas protested. “Lucas, you’re only level 7.”
“Low level, but increased stats, remember? I can take care of myself.”
He argued more, but I shut him down every time. Finally Jane placed a hand on his arm and said, “Tomas, trust him.”
“At least keep me updated on your location,” Tomas urged.
“Do you have Navigation? Jane doesn’t.”
“I do. I got a big upgrade to it too.”
“Team Fast and Furious. Makes sense. I got upgrades too.”
Now that Paul had opened up more chat features for me, I found I could add more people to my contacts list. Once Tomas accepted my invite, I found I could indeed share waypoints and locations between our maps since we both had upgrades. That helped ease some of his worries.
“Check in every hour or we’ll come looking for you,” he warned.
“Yes, mom.” I appreciated their concern, but doubted they had to worry. It was a good reminder to keep Ruby and Steve updated too. I sent them a text before I forgot.
Besides, as strong as I might be compared to most of the other people, I was still a weakling compared to most of the monsters on stage 2. Even down here in the first stage I could die easily if I got cocky.
They insisted on walking to the edge of town with me, and Jane had to hold Tomas back when he saw Switchblade.
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“If you hadn’t wasted so much time feeding the local wildlife, you would’ve gotten a turn already.”
“Very funny.”
I waved and hit the throttle. The sun was hanging low over the western mountains as I accelerated, my hover bike tearing easily through the tall grasses as I banked northeast. Hopefully a lot of stronger monsters would come out at night. I planned to hunt them all.
That didn’t mean I would ignore the journey, though. I grinned as I swooped in lazy arcs through the tall grasses of the plain, mastering the feel of my new bike. It responded with incredible precision. Just having it boosted my confidence. I could cover miles at speed, with built-in weapons and defenses.
Wind rushed past my face, easily bearable despite my speed due to the decent windscreen. I never got tired of how clean the air smelled, laced with hints of pine from the mountains. As I flashed across the wide grassland toward the first row of foothills, I experimented with my mini map.
I found I could link it to my bike’s display screen, which gave me a wider area, like a GPS map. I activated route recording and found an option to ping my location out to selected people in regular intervals. I chose every hour, sending it to Ruby, Tomas, and the explorer leaders chat.
In minutes, I reached the eastern mountains and turned north, skirting the boundary of the plain. I spotted no large monsters and ignored the tiny blips of red my screen picked out. I was looking for larger prey.
To the north, the sheer cliff blocking the entire stage rose several thousand feet in smooth stone. From my current angle, it looked even more breathtaking than when I’d seen it from up on stage 2. The breathtaking waterfall cascading down its entire length plunged into a pristine lake, and the spray concealed the lower parts of the cliff in billowing mists. I bet I could find water monsters in there, but I lacked the abilities to fight well underwater.
Instead, I chose a gap between two of the first foothills and headed for higher ground. A stream ran down the center of the gap, flanked by forested lowlands before the ground rose on either side up the hills. More of the towering monster trees I’d seen in other mountain areas marched up the slope, with only sparse undergrowth between.
That made riding through it easy, but I still slowed so I didn’t blindly barrel into a pack of monsters. Over the next hour, I wound higher into the hills, spotting no sign of human life as twilight faded to night and brilliant stars splashed across the night sky.
I caught glimpses of monsters slinking back into the increasing shadows, but didn’t stop to engage. They were all below level 25. I did send a running commentary to the explorer leaders chat, which I renamed to Explorers, marking each monster sighting with any information I could glean from Identify at a distance.
I eventually topped out in a high mountain meadow, dotted with trees and bushes, the grassy land mostly flat. Three different gullies and one wider canyon pushed deeper into the mountains from there. I made a couple quick circuits of the meadow and picked the smallest gully. I figured if anything interesting might be hiding nearby, it was probably in the deepest, darkest area. With Wolf Sight, the darkness did not bother me and gave me a huge advantage.
I slowed as I wound up the tight confines of the gully, walls of stone rising steeply on either side barely 20 yards from each other. I’d worried the vegetation might prove too thick to ride through, but at my maximum elevation of 6 feet, I was able to fly over the worst parts and dodge the higher branches. That made for fun riding as I banked and turned around the obstacles.
Five minutes later, I found another hidden mountain valley. This one was smaller, an open expanse of lush grasses with a little stream burbling down the right-hand side. Steep hillsides rose all around with no obvious exit point.
That meant the cluster of monsters on the opposite side of the meadow were either camping there or had to be part mountain goat.
I slowed even more and ghosted forward, my hover bike barely humming as I studied what I first took to be a herd of grazing animals. Two burly men stood on either end, their muscled bare torsos visible above the grasses. Either they were really tall, or standing on something as they oversaw a herd of animals mostly concealed in the tall grasses. I caught glimpses of heavy black fur while the sound of grunting and snorting carried easily in the still air.
One of the men spotted me in the distance, despite the low light. The stars and moons cast the area in dim, silvery light, but most humans would struggle to see that far. The man hefted a long ax polearm, bellowed a surprisingly animal roar of challenge, and started galloping toward me.
It took me a second to realize what I was seeing and Identify kicked in at the same time. "Hog-taur. Level 24. Rare. Of the many varieties of monster melded with humanoid forms, the hog-taur is one of the rarest. That may be one of the reasons they’re also one of the most aggressive. These powerful monsters have a decent level of intelligence and use weapons. They rarely use spells but overwhelm enemies with sheer force and numbers."
Hog-taur? Really?
As soon as the first man-hog started galloping in my direction, his enormous, muscular pig body lunged into view with every stride. The entire herd bellowed and joined the charge. It was a herd of enormous, black-haired boars with bodies the size of ponies and long tusks like scimitars extending out either side of their heavy muzzles.
Perfect. Just the kind of opponents I needed.
Since the lead hog-taur was rushing straight at me, I triggered my Shattercore Ballista. The bright blue beam leaped from my bike and flashed across the meadow to the charging monster in an instant. It tried deflecting with its ax, but the energy bolt blasted right through the steel and detonated against the hog-taur's chest, splattering blood and gore all over the meadow.
I waved away the notification of kill and accelerated, banking at an angle to the onrushing herd of maybe 20 boars and one hog-taur. I needed to thin their ranks a bit. Even with my Dome Shield and Energy Ward, those huge tusks would tear through my defenses all too quickly.
As the tide of angry boars shifted to follow my path and continued closing at impressive speed, I pulled a couple steaks out of my inventory, slapped smiling emoji stickers with lightning bolt icons cutting across the little smiley faces onto the meat, and hurled them at the giant pigs. I needed to get some blocks of wood or something to use next time.
The boars did not even slow to eat the meat, but charged right over the steaks. Bad idea. Lightning blasted out of the ground in sheets of blue-white destruction.
"Item. Emoji trap, times 2. Lightning trap. Unleashes a barrage of lightning bolts across anyone within 5 yards when triggered. Each trap strikes up to 5 targets with up to 3 lightning bolts."
The front ranks of the herd collapsed in a writhing, bellowing pile of half-roasted pork. Those were the only two electric lightning bombs in the pack, unfortunately. The brilliant traps did even more damage than I'd hoped. The fresh mountain air suddenly smelled like a barbecue. If only I had some spicy barbecue sauce.
The rest of the herd swerved around the fallen boars, but the hog-taur on the far side of the herd bellowed and waved a club in the air over its head. At first I thought it was just shouting a challenge, but the rest of the herd slowed and bunched close together. That would've been the spot to hit them with a lightning bomb.
Darkness gathered around the clustered herd of boars, punctuated by flashes of red light. The hairs of my arms rose as the air became charged with power.
"This can't be good," I muttered as I swerved Switchblade straight at the last remaining hog-taur.
Maybe they rarely used magic, but clearly this monster was one of the exceptions. I needed to disrupt the spell before they could finish casting. I accelerated hard and shot toward the creature, who remained motionless, both hands raised above its head, club surrounded by roiling darkness. If only I hadn't already used my ballista, the setup would've been perfect.
As I closed in, Identify triggered. "Hog-taur. Level 25. Elite. Herd overseer.”
It was only 1 level higher than the other hog-taur, but even from that distance I could feel a much more powerful aura. I drew Soulrend as I closed on the monster at 80 miles an hour. Three seconds and I could sever its head.
The air directly in front of the monster shimmered like a heatwave, and a giant boar snout, glowing with golden light erupted out of thin air, shooting straight at me. I was way too close to dodge, so triggered Switchblade's Shield Dome and ducked low behind the windscreen.
The ghostly boar snout slammed into my shield and shattered it. An eyeblink later, I plunged into the middle of the glowing shape as it opened its huge maw to swallow me and Switchblade whole.
Intense pressure slammed down on all sides as if I really was in the middle of a giant boar’s snapping jaws. My forward momentum stopped like I’d hit a wall and Switchblade sputtered in the grasp of the herd’s power. At the same time, a torrent of energy flowed into me, supercharging my pools and my physical stats.
"You have been caught in Tusk Bite, the strongest herd attack of the Peakstone boars. Affect: Crushing force and life drain to fuel the herd. Soul Feed has negated the life drain effect and reversed the flow of energy."
The the intense pressure did not stop. I couldn’t move as bone-grinding force crushed inward. I couldn’t breathe as my chest compressed so much ribs started cracking. Intense pain speared through me as the spell ground down, trying to pulp my flesh and bones. Even my enhanced strength failed to match it.
At the same time, new life energy roared into me as my upgraded Soul Feed reversed their drain and sucked at their life forces. I hung in place, being ground to paste while at the same time being healed so fast the spell could keep crushing me. It really sucked.
I couldn’t even scream as pain tore at my mind, as intense as the transformation to werewolf. That triggered the memory of my time as a wolf and I howled in rage, the sound ringing through the depths of my mind.
Pain still ripped and tore at me as my body broke and healed over and over again for what felt like an eternity, but I no longer feared it. It would pass, and I would recover and rip the throats out of my prey.
The dark cloud surrounding the boars started roiling faster, the flashes of crimson light speeding up. Streamers of golden light floated off of every one of the creatures, weaving into a single thick band that flowed into me.
After what seemed an eternity, the hog-taur grunted and dropped its club. The Tusk Bite spell winked out, snapping off the energy drain.
I gasped a sweet breath of pig-stinking air, my rib cage audibly creaking as it expanded back to normal size and my ribs snapped back into place. Organs that had been squeezed to jelly swelled with new life and the agony faded under a rush of new vitality as my body consumed all that stolen life force to heal almost instantly.
Switchblade was still sputtering so I banished it back to my inventory. Dropping to the ground, I leaped into the middle of the herd of disoriented boars with a wolflike howl of animal fury. The spell had only been in place for a few precious seconds, but it drained a noticeable amount of their vitality. None of them had died, but they snorted, shook their heads, and looked like they were waking up after an all-night bender.
They would recover in seconds, but they didn’t have that much time. I rushed through the herd, Soulrend flashing, every stroke severing a boar’s spirit head from the rest of its body.
Some of them recovered enough to try to fight, but the powerful swings of their massive heads seemed slow and ponderous to my supercharged senses. I drew deeply from my Agility and Strength which had both been boosted by 50% and easily dodged, jumped, and even ran right across the backs of the angry boars. In seconds, the entire pack lay dead and twitching on the ground.
I triggered loot as I jumped out of the pile of dead giant pigs, turning to face the remaining hot-taur. Only then did I notice it galloping away at full speed. It had to be doing 50 already, and still accelerating.