ARC1/C17 – Necessities

Sam looked through his choice of new abilities:

[Tier-F abilities available:

[Pyro Beam – send a concentrated elemental beam forward at your enemies]

[Pyro Wave – send Psionic elemental charge forward in an undulating wave, directly in front of the user]

[Pyro Blast – generate a powerful wave of Psionic elemental charge in all directions]

[Cryo Beam – send a concentrated elemental beam forward at your enemies]

[Cryo Wave – send Psionic elemental charge forward in an undulating wave, directly in front of the user]

[Cryo Blast – generate a powerful wave of Psionic elemental charge in all directions]

Sam was not impressed by the choice, apart from the fact that some would allow him to hit more mobs at a time, effectively making them AOE attacks. But he presumed the cost would be that they were weaker than the other options.

Finally got to see the synergy ability:

[Aerokinesis - Users can create, shape and manipulate air, the common name given to the layer of atmospheric gases surrounding the planet that is retained by Earth's gravity, and possibly wind, movement of air relative to the surface of the planet. Since air cannot be seen by conventional methods, neither can the attacks and derivatives formed by/from it, making it an invisible and versatile weapon that is very difficult to block and dodge.]

What? How was [Aerokinesis] a higher tier than [Pyrokinesis] or [Cryokinesis] that made no sense to Sam? An element was an element. And if anything, the wind element seemed far more mundane than either of the others.

Thinking about it, it kind of made sense. Add fire and ice, and you get wind and water. So how come he hadn’t got Hydrokinesis?

He didn’t like this at all. [Aerokinesis] seemed to suck so much, though from a progression point of view, having a new element gave possible growth for the future. Not for anyone else but for Sam, with seemingly infinite Psi energy, it made sense.

The choice then was which to pick, the heavily offensive Pyro or the multi-purpose Cryo, which he knew also slowed down attacking mobs dramatically.

Remembering how devastating [Pyrokinesis] was already, he went for the Cryo version. And he might as well go for the AOE version. Though if he was in a party freezing, his comrades would not go down too well. The choice seemed to be made for him as he mentally affirmed his choices.

Name: Sam Slait Level 16

Health Points: 259/259 Skill Points: 316/316 Stamina: 184/184

Vitality: 22 Strength: 11 Endurance: 6 Agility: 10 Intellect: 100 Perception: 20

Free stat points: 42

Acquired Path: PSI Tier-F Strand: null

Abilities:

Tier-G

[Telekinesis Level 118] [Psionic Drain Level 112] [Telepathic Illusions Level 112] [Tough Level 8]

[Pyrokinesis Level 100] [Cryokinesis Level 100][PSI FLOW Level 27]

Tier-F

[Kinetic Flight Level 64][Opinokinesis Level 56][Energy Drain Level 26]

[Aerokinesis Level 1] [Cryo Wave Level 1]

Ok, now to see if he could leave and head back in straight away or not.

Sam exited, the security patrol giving him appraising looks. Wondering no doubt whether he was extremely lucky, stupid, or both. He paid them no heed but thought it better to keep things on the low down; he was supposed to be working for ‘The group’ after all. And blowing his cover on his first day in the City probably would not go down too well.

He had decided he would absorb enough to level one time, to find out what was in these cores, and to increase his chances of meeting higher-level mobs next time around. Then use the rest to trade in the Iktophos trading district.

Hitting the street and flashing his license badge brought the attention of a sleek taxi cab, and after giving the cabby directions, he was on his way. The cabby was a chatty guy who seemed happy to furnish him with information. Apparently, he was first awakened by who had actually deemed to join him in conversation; this was something Sam filed away for future reference. The cabby told him that if he really wanted good cores or some special order, he would need to go to an auction. This rather disappointed Sam, but I figured he’d check out the trading center anyway.

Getting to the trading center, he found his remaining orbs, which would fetch an average of 200 credits each. Sam had no reference point to judge how much this was. His taxi fare had been 20 credits. Maybe he should look for a cheaper taxi in the future, as Awakened clearly valued prestige above saving money. He cashed in the 20 orbs he had, giving him 4520 credits in his account. Then looked through the available cores.

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There was little interest, except for some basic skills that he could have done with before. The guy said it should allow him to understand any dialect and communicate with others almost seamlessly.

This really piqued Sam’s interest; it just looked like any other core. Well, that said, all cores did look a lot different when you looked up close. This one had swirling grey and green energies. But what that meant, he had no idea. He broke the core against his chest after begrudgingly paying 1000 credits for it.

[Omni-Communication - The user can communicate with anything and everything, including people, plants, animals, insects, microbes, the dead, non-living/inorganic matter, inanimate objects, machines, nature, abstract/conceptual forces.]

He was tempted to buy another skill, but really, this one had cut into his resources quite a bit. And anyway, there seemed to be no identity skill, which was what he had really hoped for. It seemed that was why they had been required to write down all their information the first time he was awakened, as there was no such skill. But Sam reasoned there must be some way of perceiving your opponent’s level; otherwise, how could the mirror realm detect such things?

Feeling it was a bit of a wasted trip, he looked around and noticed something.

Soon after he had deposited his cores, the guy who had taken them from him started sorting through them. Seeming to have found something of interest, he nodded to a number of guys who immediately started haggling over prices before leaving the premises hurriedly. Had he been duped?

Determined to find out what he could, Sam went over and asked the employee a straight question. “How do you know which are the good cores?” The guy just told him he could not tell Sam anything as it was a company secret. He looked way too shifty, and Sam wondered if he had been straight-up lying as soon after he left.

Sam presumed it must be yet another secret ability, so he left too. But this time, using [Telepathic Illusions] to hide himself. Despite it being nighttime around this area, it was still busy. Deciding he would just kill the guy and get his ability, Sam then stopped evaluating his decision. Not because he was bothered about killing the guy; the only way he was going to get stronger was through a whole heap of indiscriminate killing. He just didn’t want to get caught.

So he discarded his illusion and headed back to the mirror realm. Deciding he would pick up the ability later, Sam headed back out, getting another expensive taxi before reaching another mirror.

This time he decided to try another tact, using [Kinetic Flight] to fly slowly above the line, listening out for any snippets of information that might clue him into the team levels. He was looking for a higher-level team, which meant basically anybody on his team was such a noob. But he wanted to play it safe and find a team just a bit higher level. Following a team that he had heard mention a clash with some level 27 mobs the previous day.

He waited in line, and the headed after this team, into the mirror realm; he found himself in yet another City Scape. The team, a standard group of five from some faction he knew not which, must have had a plan as they all immediately split up, all heading to different parts of the City.

Sam made a quick decision and followed the two to the right. He idly wondered what their powers were. He would find out soon enough, he presumed. It wasn’t [Kinetic Flight], that was for sure, but he suspected some kind of [Modders] as both ran at faster than human speed. Unless, of course, they were naturally much faster than humans. But they looked much like humans. He couldn’t discern that much as the whole team wore some kind of body armor and helmets.

Entering a building, they made their way through the large double-door entrance. He noted that they threw small objects that stuck to the door as it shut behind them. Interesting.

He could sense some Psi energy coming off the devices in waves, maybe explosives? Or alarms? It was lucky he could move so quickly and effortlessly. After practicing with [Kinetic Flight] for the equivalent of days now, he felt pretty comfortable manoeuvring even in tight spaces like these.

They headed up the main stairs of the building and eventually made their way via a stairwell to the roof, six floors up, where they could look out across the City. Along the route, they had

Dropping to the ground, both started pulling out some kind of weapon from their backpacks. The team was far more professional than he had expected. He could tell just by the way that they deported themselves that they were well-drilled.

They waited unmoving. The mirror realm had provided a picturesque scene complete with a wide open azure blue sky over a city of tall tower blocks. Some looking a little different, but despite it being a different civilization, it could have been any modern Cityscape, apart from Earth’s current one, that is.

A small grey wispy clouds started to disturb the firmament, fragmenting the pristine sky. Sam heard the two combatants mutter something but evidently they had radio headsets of some form, not allowing him to listen in.

Their perception also must have been quite a bit higher than his as they opened up fire, on what were flying mobs. He could now make out their bodies falling from the sky as they got increasingly near, travelling at high speed. There were hundreds, dotted about the sky.

They were indeed fast and despite the rapidity of the factions firing, multiplied as it was by the other members firing from an adjacent building – he saw little chance of them managing to wipe the lot out before they reached their location.

The nearing mobs, yellow and grey beetle like creatures that were firing something, now that they were in range. Had mostly been able to dodge the attacks as the distance had slowed the shots aimed at them.

It was at this point that he found out the purpose of the devices. A shimmering barrier appeared surrounding most of the building, as the mobs got in range. They hit it like a giant bug zapper, falling lifeless or at least stunned to the ground. That was some useful trick. About half the swarm were wiped out. Clearly these mobs were of low intelligence as this could not have been the first time this strategy had been employed. Surely?

The remained of the mobs, hovered around and were picked off by the snipers on the roof.

While this was going on, Sam was pondering what effect the barrier would have on him and could he bypass it? He would find out. It would be a rather wasted journey otherwise, now wouldn’t it.

***

Traksis had stuck to the life form like glue, even though this meant leaving her brethren behind as she followed through one landscape after another. She had thought when the entity had laid down that they were going to rest and that she could finally feed quietly. But they were as hyperactive as one of her young offspring, never staying still.

They were also very hazardous, firing out attacks all over the place. Fire, ice, wind, and other strange attacks that she thought she’d maybe heard of but had never seen the like of before. He was a weird one, taking on such low level beasts with such high destructive power. Very strange. However, life forms within the multiverse were strange and multitudinous. She had heard of some species who liked to kill low level beasts for what they called ‘sport’.

She kept up her pursuit following the creature from one place to the next. Thankfully there were no more explosions, and she got a few minutes to just rest draining a nice amount of Psi while he actually stopped for a moment.

Then she heard it, off in the distance the drone of her kin. But then she was relieved to see they were not her kind but beetles. All the same it made her feel cold to see them wiped from the sky, like bugs on a windscreen wiper.

What place had she come to?