Bounding across the arid, barren landscape, Fracta followed the glowing arrow towards the mountain in the distance. Her eight limbs, more suited for traversing the cavernous interiors of hollowed out asteroids, struggled with the weight of the higher gravity; on this world her mass was twice as much as she was used to.
Fracta’s people, the Tesek, had long ago let slip the surly bonds of their geologically unstable home-world, preferring instead the micro-gee environment of the asteroids.
Nevertheless she was making good progress, with over one hundred and thirty two chronos remaining on the countdown to reach Tantalus. Once more she attempted to connect to the Hive, pouring all of her energies into establishing a link. Once more she was met with failure.
A numbing sense of emptiness enveloped her, not just due to her ravenous hunger. Never had she felt so alone in all her life. It was well understood among her people that to be out of contact with the Hive_Gestalt for this length of time could cause serious, sometimes irreversible psychological damage. For that reason, the Tesek’s most recent exploratory forays into the outer planetary system and the Oort Cloud had required the strategic placement of hive relays along the way, allowing the collective empathic flow to reach the intrepid colonists.
When the Vogels warship had plowed into their star-system and announced that she had been selected as champion of her people, the elders had quickly created a Hive Seed. This precious resource was a repository of racial energy, a reservoir of their collective will to fortify her on her journey, bolstering her psyche and giving her the strength to carry on.
Reaching into her marsupial pouch with a pedipalp, she brushed against the warm, glowing Seed. Touching the Hive Seed boosted her courage briefly—comforting images of her familial sub-clutch and gland-mother’s nest streamed into her mind; Fracta managed to shrug off the disconnection fugue, and set her sights on the mountain and the Tantalus entrance at the top, now coming into view. Her shifty AI had promised her a decent meal awaited her in Tantalus.
The mountain was steep sided, almost perfectly conical in shape, crowned with a flat plateau at the top upon which the portal sat. Now that she had halved the distance to the base of the mountain, Fracta could see a set of stairs cut into the the sheer rock slopes, spiraling around the flanks of the mountain and ending at the pinnacle. Fracta judged that the staircase began halfway round the right side of the mountain, so she adjusted her trajectory accordingly.
Opting for The Scout Class had seemed the obvious choice. Any Skills which boosted stealth and speed were a natural fit for her; her people were already well attuned to their environment, masters of perception and guile. Now, after the Class evolution, she felt incredibly aware of her surroundings, her senses fine-tuned to an almost supernatural degree.
Swiveling her eye stalks to take a look on either side, Fracta noticed that she was not alone; to her immediate left she spied an upright figure, also walking in the general direction of the mountain. On her right she saw another shape, also flanking her and heading directly towards the bottom of the stone staircase. In the farther distance to her left and right she saw yet more figures, all of them heading towards the same point, the mountain directly ahead of her. Fracta predicted that all their paths would converge shortly before reaching the base of the mountain.
Her peripheral vision suddenly alerted her to a potential danger. The figure walking parallel to her on her right had simultaneously sped up and altered course slightly, meaning their paths would intersect long before reaching the base of the mountain.
The cilia covering her thorax and abdomen involuntarily stood upright, pigmented chromatophores in the surface of her skin activating, causing her to change color rapidly - an involuntary process from an evolutionary past designed to scare off predators.
When the approaching figure was only a couple of hundred meters from her, her worst fears were realized. It uttered a bestial roar and charged quickly across the remaining space separating them. Fracta scrutinized the creature as it hove into view. Something about it, a certain feeling of realness, confirmed that this was a fellow Contestant and not a System generated fabrication.
The yellow display window hovering above it’s head confirmed this.
NAME: Ztiral
RACE: Tawg, Grade J
HIT POINTS (HP): 90/90 +10
MANA POINTS (MP): 30/30
REWARD: 230 Coins
Total Attribute Points (TAP): 89
Bearing down on her rapidly was a creature that would be at home in the worst nightmares of her people; a red hued insectoid fully 3 meters in length, its carapace clad in overlapping shielded segments. The beast ran on four legs, with a peculiar skittering gait that kicked up clouds of dust as it powered across the desert towards her.
The alien, designated a ‘Tawg’ by the System, was equipped with two further manipulators at the front, one holding a long metallic spear of some kind. At the other end of its long abdomen, a large stinger extended out, curving back to hover menacingly over its head. From ridges inset in the front of its carapace, two beady black eyes stared menacingly at her; below them a grim mouthlike orifice was guarded on either side by a couple of ever moving mandibles.
Belying its animalistic first impression, the creature had some sort of crude electronic component bolted to its head, no doubt some sort of mental augmentation.
An overpowering aura of killing intent emanated from the thing, extending several meters all around. Waves of almost palpable hatred swept over Fracta, causing her to shudder and lose concentration briefly.
“Glory to the Tawg Empire! And Clan Maboa!” it shouted. Fracta had no time to wonder how the creature was able to speak perfect, unaccented Tesek, before it was upon her.
Fracta immediately made use of one of her new Skills, [Shadow Walker], and to the insectoid, it was as if she simply vanished into thin air. Moving quickly, Fracta ran in a circle around it, excreting a double thread of silk from the spinnerets at the end of her abdomen. After a couple of circuits, the Tawg became completely wrapped up in the sticky threads, which despite their fragile appearance were stronger than steel.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Fracta’s race had long ago fled their home-world, a tectonically unstable planet prone to violent earthquakes and volcanoes. Shrugging off the surly bonds of gravity, they chose instead to move into space, and populated their star system’s asteroid belt. Evolving in low gravity for centuries had tweaked and improved some of their natural abilities, such as web spinning.
Unable to maintain its balance, the Tawg stumbled, tripping over its own legs, and sat down heavily on the ground, temporarily incapacitated.
Deciding to beat a hasty retreat, Fracta immediately powered forward across the desert plain, heading towards the staircase at the base of the mountain. Her [Shadow Walker] Skill had already started to fade as she moved rapidly away.
Abruptly, she came to a hard stop, in excruciating agony. Looking back along the length of her body, she saw the heel of Ztiral’s spear protruding, the rest of its length embedded between her sternum and abdomen, pinning her to the dusty desert floor.
A Grade J Contestant has critically injured you. You are bleeding internally. Ongoing damage received.
Warning! Your HP is low at 50%
Bearing down on her fast was the red insectoid, roaring in fury, still partially wrapped in tattered lengths of her spun silk.
Bracing herself against the pain, Fracta pushed her abdomen upwards and to the side with all of her limbs, freeing her from impalement and leaving the spear still stuck in the ground. Groaning in pain, she hastily pulled a health potion from the black ring on her right pedipalp and sucked it up with her chelicera. Warmth spread through her abdomen, the magical liquid coursing down into her core, knitting together the damaged tissue and soothing the pain of the wound.
Spinning around to face the Tawg bearing down on her, she cried angrily “Why are you doing this?” whilst simultaneously guessing the answer. It dawned on her that The Tawg would both gain coins from killing her, and at the same time eliminate a potential rival in the upcoming tournament. A child of the Tesek race would never have thought along such lines. Harmony, cooperation and empathy were enshrined in their society from birth.
“We don’t need to fight. We can help each other!” She cried out in one last, desperate attempt to derail the Tawg from the course it was intent on.
“Pathetic!” The creature snarled, “Tawg does not parlay with aliens. Tawg over all!” Hissed the insectoid coldly, before activating another Skill, causing the air to quiver around Fracta.
Fracta tried to move away from Ztiral, attempting to gain some more space to defend herself, only to discover that the Skill the insectoid had deployed was some kind of ranged debuff attack, designed to slow down an opponent; as a result of the status effect, Fracta felt as though she was wading through a thick gel, every movement felt about three times slower than normal.
Thinking quickly, she utilized the other Class Skill in her arsenal, [Paper Weight], which compensated, speeding up her movements and decreasing the pull of gravity.
Running sideways, she went on the attack and sped towards the insectoid, who was taken by surprise with the failure of his Skill and her sudden change of tactics.
You have evaded a Skill Based Offensive AttackYour Speed Attribute has risen by 1
Scuttling rapidly up its flank, Fracta latched herself onto the insectoid’s back and, using a long-bladed knife she had looted from an NPC during a training phase, stabbed down through one of the gaps in the creature’s armor.
Bright pink blood welled up from the wound she had created. In response, the Tawg, roaring in pain, attempted to hit her with its fearsome stinger, stabbing down at her repeatedly. Still boosted by the [Paper Weight] Skill, she evaded its strikes, jinking from side to side nimbly while retaining her commanding position astride the monster.
Stabbing down through another gap in the Tawg’s armor, Fracta managed to once again draw blood. Despite this, she noticed that the creature had lost very little HP as a result of her attacks, whereas she had only half her Hit Points remaining, despite the healing effects of the store bought potion.
Abruptly, the Tawg activated all four of its legs, propelling itself high into the air and then crashing back down, causing Fracta to lose her footing. Tumbling off the insect’s back, she slammed onto the ground in front of it, momentarily stunned. The Tawg quickly seized advantage and grabbed her third limb with one of its manipulators, which Fracta now saw were equipped with shear like claws at the end.
Snip… and her leg was gone. Clear hemolymph began to ooze from the stump, and Fracta wailed in agony. She knew instinctively that the leg would eventually regrow, but the sight of the empty space where her third limb should be sent a visceral shiver of fear through her.
A Grade J Contestant has injured you
The insectoid chuckled harshly, sensing her fear and seeming to relish her pain. It moved forward, reaching out for another of her limbs to snip off.
Suddenly it froze in mid-lunge, its senses alerted to a movement nearby.
Fracta looked round also, grateful for any cessation in the fighting, however temporary. Striding towards them from their left was a strange, upright creature, tottering along on two limbs, with another pair of limbs hanging uselessly at its side.
NAME: Jeff Nostro
RACE: Human, Grade J
HIT POINTS (HP): 80/80 +10
MANA POINTS (MP): 70/70
REWARD: 230 Coins
Total Attribute Points (TAP): 125
Fracta took the opportunity to scuttle back whilst the Tawg was distracted by the biped, but did not attempt to escape the scene immediately. Instead, she took another look at the strange figure facing them. In shape it reminded her somewhat of a medicinal plant root the elders grew in the caverns of Aureli, used to treat constipation.
A stubby, hair topped node sat at the top of a columnar-like trunk, equipped with fleshy protuberances on either side, no doubt some form of sensory apparatus, plus a beak like structure in the middle above which two startlingly blue eyes resided. The being was covered in a fleshy, delicate looking outer skin, over which it wore garments of some kind.
It proceeded to open its pink rimmed, slit like mouth, and spoke.
“Hey buddy, I think we are all here for the same reason—the survival of our species. Let’s take a minute and talk this through.”
The biped paused, waiting for a response. Once again Fracta noted that the creature, or ‘Jeff’ as she noted from system dialog box hovering above it, spoke clear unaccented Tesek. No doubt the system was applying the same translate function to all of the entrants.
Fracta’s first impressions of the ‘Human’ were nuanced: an immense aura of calm laced with irrepressible good humor. Beneath Jeff’s cheerful exterior, Fracta detected a steely, uncompromising resolve.
Fracta immediately spoke up. “Jeff, I agree. I too wish only for peace. Ztiral, I beg you, reconsider your tactics.”
Ztiral growled and reached down to pick up his spear, lying in the dust at his feet. “Weak, decadent, degenerate. I will gain great honor from destroying you both, and thus eradicating your species from the universe.”
“Wrong answer, pal.” Jeff sighed, a short sword appearing in his hand.
The fight that followed was brutal, but short. Fracta harried the Tawg, sniping occasionally with her knife and entangling its limbs with her silk, whilst Jeff darted around it, hacking off appendages with his sword, empowered with a Skill that enabled him to slice through the monster’s armor-like integument.
Fracta observed Jeff’s fighting technique and was impressed with both his Skills and physical strength. He seamlessly switched between magic-based attacks and sheer physical lethality, making the best use of his MP reserves.
The turning point in the battle came when Fracta successfully managed to distract Ztiral, temporarily entangling its legs once again in sticky silk, which allowed Jeff the opportunity to jump up onto its carapace and deal the fatal blow, his Skill-empowered blade slicing effortlessly through the red shell between the head and the thorax, effectively decapitating the creature.
Finally, Fracta and Jeff stood side by side over the Tawg’s smashed and dissected corpse.
For a moment they stood in silence, their mood strangely jubilant but at the same time somber, as they both knew that the demise of Ztiral condemned its entire species to death or enslavement by the Vogels.
Jeff directed his piercing blue eyes towards Fracta, and she noted the corners of his mouth quirk upwards slightly; reading his aura, she detected a note of amusement as he spoke.
“Hi Fracta, I’m Jeff. Good to meet you…” He held out one of his upper limbs, the five digits at the end pointing towards her.
Fracta hesitated for a moment, still disturbed by the human’s bizarre anatomy. However, realizing this was a symbolic moment, she also extended one of her pedipalps towards the man, cilia along its length lighting up and strobing a rainbow patter of friendship. All of a sudden, Fracta didn't feel quite so alone anymore.