Frederick was staring down a real-life shadow monster ripped straight from either a child's nightmare, or some obscure pop-culture horror indie-game art project.
Whichever option was the most scary.
The situation was less than ideal, there was however one upside, namely that the monster's inability to enter the light remained true even 15 minutes later. With the “Torch”, as he had decided to call his burning-at-the-end-stick, in hand, he covered his most glaring weakness in this situation:
His shadow.
The monster had initially tried to get him by moving through that, as with there otherwise only being a singular central light-source Fredrick had no option but to cast it somewhere.
A quick move with his torch made the monster retreat its 3 hands with a screech of pain.
He would have loved to only interpret it as that, but as far as he could tell the screech was more so annoyance and disappointment than something coming from real hurt.
His torch sputtered and roared more intensely, burning fast and bright. Random sparks of lightning came from the fire. It was a welcome discovery of what infusing a burning object with his mana would do.
'Great, I can fancy up fire, and of course, I, as the utter genius that I am, can figure out how to kill Mr. Nightmare here……..nope.. nothing'
He simply didn’t have knowledge on whatever the difference in light level could provide any sort of deciding difference should he run swinging at the monster or not. Nor did he have it in him to move one inch further away from his campfire.
Too bad he had put all of his remaining 7 mana into the torch. An action Fredrick had a hard time deciphering if it was an intentional action on his part or not. On one hand he had instinctually wanted to imbue the torch with as much power as possible, which happened to be 7 mana, but on the other hand his rational mind argued that there could be better options, such as imbuing a throwing rock instead. It was an option still very much on the table as he had 15 unspent resource points he could use.
He would of course only get half of that for immediate use, which coincidentally also was 7 mana.
A chunk of the wood fell off the torch and landed as ash beneath it. The Darkness crept an inch closer. It was a stark reminder that with his wood burning away, so was his time, and it would be long gone before dawn. He had to take the fight one way or another.
There was always one way to prepare himself a little:
You’ve increased your Agility:
Agility 9 → 10
Empowerment Points: 1 → 0
'There, now I'm twice as fast. good thing stumbling as you’re running away is not a trope in any horror movie i have ever seen'
He supposed dark humor not only had its name for its contents, but also for the situations it could be utilized in.
Your Agility has reached level 10, its first threshold!
What are skills but muscle memory? but to have muscle memory you need muscles. With your Agility reaching level 10, your spirit now has enough “muscle” to hold a skill.
'oh'
Maybe that changed things? A new option was now available to Fredrick on his “menu”
Agility: 0/1 skills
+ Add Skill
'Please for the love of whatever god there is now, let there the be a good option'
He mentally pressed the “Add skill” button, A bunch of options were presented to him:
Available Agility Skill choices:
Running:
Minorly improves all aspects of running, including the effect of Agility when doing so.
You gain a scaling velocity resistance when running.
You've run far and wide in your short time here, having both a great need, and a great joy, doing so. Agility naturally lends itself for this.
Jumping:
Minorly improves all aspects of jumping, including the effect of Agility when doing so.
You gain an increased resistance to "fall damage" when coming back down from a jump.
You've shown both effort, great need, and desire in jumping high, Agility naturally lends itself for this.
Tree-Climbing:
Minorly improves all aspects of climbing, including the effect of Agility when doing so. Especially in trees.
At a heavy cost, a small amount of your Agilities velocity-increasing powers is converted to strength when in need, when climbing.
You've crawled and jumped in trees, finding great desire and need to do so. Oftentimes, however, one would find greater need for strenght than speed when climbing.
Throwing:
Minorly improves all aspects of throwing, including the effect of Agility when doing so.
When throwing you may imbue the thrown object with your Stamina. Imbued objects have a resistance to velocity-change scaling with Agilities ability to multiply yours.
To throw effectively is one of humanities greatest strengths, you've shown effort in mastering this strenght. Agility naturally lends itself for this.
Spearmanship:
Minorly improve all aspects of Spearmanship, including the effect of Agility when doing so.
You may imbue your spear with your spirit, letting it become a part of you. granting it all the benefits that you have.
You've shown no mastery, yet in a time of great need, and mortal danger, you've put all your trust and effort behind the spear.
Looking at his options he began by disregarding Tree-climbing.
The ability to convert “Fast” into” Strong” sounded interesting enough, had it not been for the extremely limited situation it could be applied in. Besides, even if he could somehow apply it to the current somewhat pressing situation, the other options looked better to him.
In the same vein he discarded Jumping. Like Tree-climbing, it was made obsolete by that fact that getting into the trees wasn't a problem. He could already jump high enough to get into canopy, especially with Adrenalin boosting him. Even if the canopy would provide safety, something he doubted, none of the two skills gave him something he needed in that regard. Assuming it could climb, a dead-sprint might be better.
That was why Running looked like an all-round better escape option for him, should he choose to, well, run away. For all he knew, he could already outrun this thing.
“It worked surprisingly well against wolves, once I got my Agility high enough”
He looked into the pure darkness outside his camp. By now it was abundantly clear how unnatural it was.
“On the other hand, running would mean leaving this safe-zone, and I have no idea how deadly this guy is when it's not blocked by light.
Then again, assuming it could NOT climb, perhaps climbing or jumping would be better, as there was a possibility of it making him faster by the fraction of a second that counted for escaping its grip. Either way: he would have to leave his safe-zone.
…
‘Yeah let's look at the other options first…’
His heart almost skipped a beat when looking at Spearmanship. The quintessential basic weapon-skill! Those always were the basis for so much in fiction. “You may imbue your spear with your spirit” sounded immensely powerful too, until he understood what that actually would do for him in that situation: almost nothing.
The letters that stood on his “screen” were in fact merely a representation of the true choices presented to him. They were a crouch for him to lean on when trying to comprehend what was actually being told.
Imbuing his spirit into an object meant that it spiritually would become an extension of him.
Except Self-determination didn’t do anything inside a spear; the decision making was not made inside an inanimate object.
Agility did just as much, a pointy stick contained no method of propelling itself, therefore there was nothing for Agility to act on.
Perhaps if he had something like an “Toughness” stat, it could be useful, but for now it was useless. He would have to get near the monster anyway with the spear, this left him with one last option: Throwing.
“hang on, I don’t even need to take the skill to test it”
He had a rock on hand.
Looking at where the eyes and fingers where, he threw it right at where he judged the torso to be. It flew into the darkness, then the muffled sound of rock hitting bark was heard in the distance.
“huh? it does not have a body there?”
He took another rock, almost burning himself from the heat it had absorbed from the fire, and threw it right at the eyes looming over him.
The silhouette of a hand briefly breached the barrier between light and dark as if to catch it. The stone flew right through it, and also right through the eyes behind it.
Nothing happened.
“Shit that complicates thing”
Was it immune to damage? Was it an illusion with its real body somewhere else, what was going on?
Another piece of his torch fell off, the time he had was slowly dwindling.
The fluttering of wings stopped his strange paralysis by analysis. A Raven had entered his circle of light. He would have ignored it, seeing it as non-relevant to his situation, but the bird was dragging a shadow behind it, with tendrils of hands trailing it. It positioned itself right above his head. Combined with the already upwards pointing shadow, its upper body inevitably casted, it provided enough shade for the monster to breach.
'!!!'
An upwards swing of his torch repelled both the hands and the raven, but left his actual shadow exposed again. Frantic movement to the other side of the fire gave him a second of safety until both the Shadow monster and Raven caught up to him again.
“Kraaa!” it said, almost as if telling the shadow to keep chasing the prey that was Fredrick.
'That damn bird is working with the Shadow! thanks for “marking" me asshole!'
The Raven wishes to go unnoticed, yet you notice it anyway
+1 Self-determination +100 exp
Self-determination: 5 → 6
The necessity of constantly having to chase away the Raven, while staying away from the shadows that they casted, resulted in him, almost comedically, dancing around the bonfire.
It was a dance that had to end eventually, and so it did:
His Torch had nearly burnt away at that point, the remaining flames licked uncomfortably hot and close to his hands, what remained could barely keep the shadow at bay.
When the Raven, once again, positioned itself above him and told the monster to hunt him, the heat became too much. Frederick instinctually dropped it right as he was about to swing it up.
The hands of the shadow monster proceeded unimpeded forth. Frederick did his usual spiel with dodging and running, although now he did not know where to proceed from there.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
To his surprise it didn’t reach for him, instead the limbs moved past him and towards the raven. It was something that, quite evidently, surprised the raven too, as it only managed to make a single flap with its wings away before it was dragged onto the ground.
The sound of flapping wings, kraa’ing of the raven, and the dark…moaning.. of the shadow monster, filled the air. Apparently the bird could offer some resistance. Its beak, claws, and wings hurt the shadow-creature in some way. Darkness-like-smoke oozed from the wounds of the shadow monster, only to reform into the same hand it came from.
The Raven desperately struggled and fought for survival
It would lose that fight eventually, that was clear to see.
Frederick felt perfectly fine with that. He threw another rock, just to make sure, but like the last two times it just went right through it.
'Right, time to book it.'
He was ready to run for it, he was even ready to pick the “Running” skill.
Except the Kraa’ing from the raven sounded uncannily like a kraa cry for help.
'you got me in this to begin with, why would I help you?'
He thought to himself, although the question was largely rhetorical.
'Actually...'
Why WOULD he help it? he pulled up a stat:
Status conditions:
Marked (decaying): 56 → 43
Your spirit is marked. broadcasting to the world around you: Here is prey.
it was a strong argument against running away. Chances were that he would encounter something ..else.. hunting him should he run away, maybe even this monster, once it was done with the bird.
'That's not an argument! it's the damn bird who marked me to begin with!'
Something flared up in his consciousness, not by a lot, but enough. The sensation of an outline and location. Frederick knew what it was. The shadow monster had been marked, and the mark communicated the concept of “monster” in its purest form. It was an assessment Fredrick had to agree with, and it made him view the situation from another angle.
There was another argument: This was a new world, and he had the opportunity to be a new kind of person. Hopefully one better than he had been before. Did he want to be the sort of person that would leave a helpless creature behind as he fled? and if he did, would he ever stop doing that? or did he want to be the sort of person who took a stance and fought?
He could possibly die in the process, but he had won against the wolf which indicated that fighting was an option with reasonable expected success-rate. The fact that the bird was kind of evil, and the fact that gaining stats from killing motivated him, threw off his internal cost-benefit analysis. Now he had to factor in the potential slippery slope of murder-hoboing for stats and the possibility of him having a hero-complex and whatever or not that was a good or bad thing, not to mention...
Another kraa for help brought him back to reality: There was no time for thinking it through, and he had to make a choice fast, and from his gut.
“Fine” He said out loud
He jumped up to his makeshift shelter, and quickly picked out his most Spear-like stick he could find. It wasn’t nearly as good as the first one he had, but it was kind of the right length, maybe-kinda-sorta sturdy, and if he was being generous he could sort of describe one of the blunt ends as “pointy”. It was the best he had.
He jumped down, picking his skill on the way.
You’ve learned the skill Spearmanship!
Spearmanship lvl N/A → 0
The immediately noticeable difference was his sense of kinesthesia: The sensation of the relative placement and movement of your body-parts. It was a little known, but very real, sense. Now Fredrick’s sense of Kinesthesia included the vague sensation of his “spear”. He tryingly moved it to have a better grip. Satisfied he turned around to face the blob of darkness that stood in contrast to the natural light of a starlit night. It was time to fight.
The reason he had picked the Spearman skill? He believed “spirit” could hurt the monster, as it otherwise appeared intangible to physical objects, but could somehow be hurt by the raven.
Unlike the mark left on him, the monster's mark was fading rapidly. It was likely only a single point of mana had been spent on it, but it was enough to give him an idea where to strike.
His legs got into position, ready to sprint the monster. Adrenalin, both “Real” and Mystical, coursed through his veins at the idea of what he was about to do.
‘My name is Fredrick Anderson, and this is jackass...I'm actually doing this. GO!!’
With a single motion he catapulted himself towards it, into the darkness. He felt his spear hitting something. Then his body hit the same as he crashed through the monster. Still, he had been right: his spirit did some damage to it. An infernal screech confirmed that he had hurt, but not killed, the monster.
Carrying too much momentum for him to handle he stumbled on a rock and slammed shoulder first into the tree in front of him.
His head and shoulder felt numb with pain, groggily he saw through the concussion he had, and at the shadow monster in front of him. It was dark, barely any visibility, but he could make out the even darker smoke, that made up the monster, reshaping itself. It had changed focus from the raven to him now.
The sensation of where his spear was helped him immensely as he used it to swipe away an hand reaching for him, then another.
‘Hang on, that movement felt right’
Spearmanship lvl 0 → 1!
Repeating the same motion to once again swipe away the hands felt strangely easier, more assisted by his speed and agility.
Then a hand reached him: by the time he had stuck a spear into it, causing it to go away, two others had graped his leg and arm. He struggled more: barely tearing away from one of them and flailing away with his spear. He hit some things, enough to hurt it, judging by the sounds it made anyway, but not enough to kill or scare it. His limbs felt weak. With horror he realized that two of his finger on his left hand, that the monster had clawed at, now were numb and unresponsive.
He couldn’t run, too many of its hands were on him on any given time for him to do so.
He was beginning to think he had made a mistake, because he sure wished he could.
Its eyes and mouth came close to his face.
He stapped towards them, with a screech it whisked away only to reform to the side. More hands came for him,he could barely move, yet he kept trying.
A final hand came from the darkness, reaching directly for his chest. immense pain came over him as it started to dig into him. His physical body was intact, but his spirit was not.
Another kraa was heard, the tell-tale sign of a single mana Mark could be sensed from the monster. Kill Target it said.
The “outline” that the mark showed of the creature was weak and illusive, and showed partly how hurt the Monster was, and where most of it was.
Frederick gave up on fighting the hand that dug through his chest, closing in on his heart, it was not something he could stop anyway.
Not without killing the shadow monster.
The Monster reshaped itself upon injury, yes, but it still got hurt. Something intangible got lost. It did not reshape itself infinitely thin, it needed space to escape, given the right tools he could theoretically trap it.
A movement of his spear chased some of the hands away from his left arm. He grabbed the spear with said arm, which now had more freedom of movement. Another stap towards the heart of the creature, hitting it, moved it to the side.
Spearmanship lvl 1 → 2!
Alas, his spear was but a not-so-pointy stick, even with his fast movements the damage he could do was limited, all it did was effectively push the core of the creature around.
Pushing it was the intention though. He executed another swipe with his Spear, the movement similar to the first good swipe he had made. A part of him noticed how strangely effortless the motion was, as if it had already been encoded in him. Something he supposed it actually was.
‘Thats supernatural “spearmanship” for you’
Another part of him was screaming in pain, the hand had reached deep and was now grasping his heart, tearing at it.
He could do the same now. With lightning speed he dropped his spear and took hold of the monster's heart, grasping it tight between both of his hands. He had moved it within his reach. It could not slip through the small gap between his fingers. He started squeezing it as hard as he could.
The sound of the monster increased. It screamed in protest digging at his heart, hands going for his face and eyes, some other hands tried to pry his hands open. It tried to escape his grasp, but he held it shut. His entire body crouched into a fetal position intended to not let it escape.
Black smoke rose from his hands as true damage was dealt to the monster.
The poetry was not entirely lost on him: The monster was ripping his heart out, as he attempted to destroy its. It was a deadlock, it was a race. Both had no other way out than to kill the other first.
Through the pain, he could barely sense anything else, he noticed how it became weaker and weaker. Then suddenly it stopped resisting, yet it was not dead yet. A moment of confusion came over Fredrick, but he clamped down harder on it, causing it to resist once again. It was too late for it, with a final scream it went into smoke. A notification told a bewildered, but relieved, Fredrick he had killed it.
‘Why did it stop fighting?
As soon as he had asked the question the answer came to him. The darkness lifted, revealing a rapidly disappearing hand holding something invisible, the size of a heart.
He turned his attention to his chest: It was still there, intact. Of course it was, it had never been his body, but his spirit that had been hurt. A ring of pain surrounded the region around his heart within which he could feel nothing but numbness.
As darkness overtook Fredricks consciousness, he couldn’t help but note how strange it was to not have a heartbeat.
You have killed a Shadow-Stalker lvl 12, its strengths fuse into your spirit…