CHAPTER 38: Friends and Enemies
The elves were now hunting him in groups. Arrows would fly at him, their archers staying close enough to the next tree further down to blend in if he charged them. There would be three in each group, with one that he suspected was a support caster, making the arrows fly faster and more accurately. While those archers harassed him, two assassins, usually with the class Wind Stepper, would close on him from around the tree trunk that he was at.
Adam ran from tree to tree, keeping ahead of the hunters, and staying at the outer most trees of the forest. If he tried moving around the trunk, he would just open himself up to distant archers in the trees. All the while, whether fighting or fleeing, he held his heavy shield above his head to keep the arrows from arriving.
The longer this went on, the more groups gathered. Sometimes he would just have to take the arrows to get those attacking to show themselves so he could wipe them out. That would lead to wasted time as he would have to cut out the barbs and drink more of the yucky wood elf blood.
He would never be able to escape since the Rift's control crystal could always watch him. If he continued on the outer path, he would eventually hit an ambush that was too much for him. He had even tried to leave the dimension through the entrance, but as expected it had a barrier on it, with no time to try forcing it open. He needed the control crystal.
Dodging a few more arrows, Adam wondered how his danger sense worked. It shouldn’t be a time knowledge thing, or precognition, but it always gave him warning of where he would get hurt and in enough time for him to act.
“Maybe it is related to the skill sets that I have,” Adam thought to himself. He considered what he could do. Most of it fell within two areas. There was physical stuff, straight power gained from anger, empowering his body using heat and what he viewed as a river. There was also the coolness in his head. The two different temperatures were really just an image he developed to allow him to quantify them. Also, they seemed to work against each other.
Maybe the conflict they caused inside of him was why the [System] thought his soul was corrupt? Maybe the [System] couldn’t see or interact with them since they cancelled each other out? When the heat coming from his heart space burned through his body, the coolness became small and hid in his mind. When he drew on the coolness, the heat was calm and stopped pulsing from his heart.
Mind and body? The heat controlled his body, and the coolness controlled his mind? Somehow that didn’t feel right either. While he called the connections he made mind control, he didn’t think it really was. He was able to see memories, and project or feel emotions. Straight up brainwashing or mind control didn’t feel like what his abilities were doing.
The spaces he found for the connections also weren’t located in their minds, like where his coolness waited. They took up a space shaped like the whole of the person.
“If it isn’t their bodies or minds, then I guess it could be their souls,” he pondered, stabbing a new Wind Stepper through the eye. He had released his hammer further back, instead using the squiggly knives that the elves carried since they were the sharpest, even if small.
“Lots of maybes here, but maybe my danger sense comes from their soul’s intent. That would mean I can only sense the danger if a person intends to do something that will put me in danger. A falling beam in a construction site won’t register if no one knows it’s falling. Hmm, somehow that feels closer.”
If he could sense intend from the archers, who could be quite a distance away, then that would mean he should have a way to locate people around him, if only by their intent. Thinking of the energy spaces as souls, he reached out his senses. Instead of looking for a specific person, he tried to just feel every soul around him.
A slight dizziness affected him as he was both dodging arrows physically and trying to see a reality that couldn’t be viewed with eyes. Putting it to an image, he could feel small flares of warmth in a cold void, or like a bunch of kids peeing in a cold pool. They weren’t connected but blended together at the same time. The more he focused on a single area, the more he could identify the patches of energy representing people. The closer they were he could also feel pieces of energy flowing from them to himself and to each other. Even if they weren’t connections like he could form, there was a constant exchange of energy. The flows of energy either felt warm and comforting or hot and dangerous. The hot ones seemed malicious, and all flowed towards him, while the comforting one all flowed between them.
“Hmm, so I have 57 nearby, and then spreading out I can feel hundreds. That seems possible, but only covers a bit of the dimensional space. I’ll need to practice this to make it more accurate. Now that I feel them, what can I do about them?”
He continued to dodge and fight back when he could, while trying different things. The most successful thing was based on what he did when fighting the goblins. At that time, he had created a spiked connection that stunned the goblins for a moment, like his roar but delivered directly into the soul. Back with the goblins he had used three at once, but with enemies located close to him. Even with further attempts he could only use one at a time from a distance, and it took time to form and then retract the soul spike, making it unusable in this situation, though maybe very useful against one or a few opponents in the future.
Masking his soul was what he tried next, however in that space he couldn’t completely hide the energy. He was able to make it small and more condensed, but that ended up making it brighter and easier to find. Trying to spread his presence out wasn’t possible beyond the set space that he encountered in the physical world. There was an odd relationship between the soul energy and the physical that he couldn’t figure out.
Twenty arrows were flying at him at a time now, while at least five would come from above at just the right moment so that he couldn’t use his shield without paying the price. He squatted and tilted the shield to block the front and most of his head, but was taken by one arrow from each side right into his obliques. Wincing at the pain of it, he pushed through to stand and then ran to the next tree at a full-on sprint.
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He was running out of time. There were too many to back track, and he could feel the hundreds of vague souls around him multiplying and becoming more distinct somewhere in front of him. Adam needed a solution quickly.
Looking back to what he mentally considered his soul map, he checked the feel of the energy connecting all the souls. Since he couldn’t block it or hide himself, he looked at the malicious connections between himself and all the elf souls. The connections were already there, just like the supportive connections between all the elves. He thought about what his own group’s connections must look like. Even now he could feel all the positive feelings between himself and the girls. What if he felt that way towards the elves? Well, not exactly the same, but enough to mimic what the elves had between each other.
Thinking of the elves as his friends, feeling like they were all on the same team, he pulsed out the goodwill all around himself and into the soul void, the area between all the souls he sensed. It quickly dissipated where there were no connections, but the poorly formed malicious connections changed their feel near him. In that moment when the end of the connections changed, all the elves stopped approaching him.
“Bingo!” he said. “Now I just need to make it stronger and more focused.”
Without waiting to get better results, Adam turned and sprinted towards the elves that were hunting him. Through his work over the last hour, he could feel the souls around him easier, and knew where they were around and in the trees. The closer they were physically the brighter their soul energy looked to him.
Adam focused his good will and friendly vibes towards those energy spaces. The fewer he had to hit at once the easier it was. Right now, it would still be a struggle with the numbers they had, but his confidence was stronger and leading him forward. As he ran, he dropped his shield and held a squiggly dagger in each hand, both in reverse grip.
When he got close enough that he could see the confusion from his previous attempt wearing off, he got ready for battle. An internal heat pulse increased the strength in his body and bows were aimed at him as he sped quickly towards the elves. He reached into his soul and pulsed out the good will.
It failed. There was no goodwill, as all his intent was to kill and maim them. Adam threw himself to the right side, still taking a few arrows to his left stomach, upper arm, and thigh. He rolled, some of the arrows breaking while leaving the barbs in.
Desperately he reached for the coolness in his mind to suppress the heat. His speed and strength dropped noticeable. Even the pain he felt increased, making him aware that his vitality was affected by the heat related abilities. With that coolness he remembered his time spent with Abbey when she snuck into his bed, and how happy it made him feel. He focused on the happiness and a desire to hug Abbey, then he replaced the image of her with all the elves, pointing bows at him. There was nothing stronger than his desire to hug the lovely elves.
Pleased that he wasn’t shot again, and watching the elves change their body posture, Adam slowly stood and casually walked towards them. Instead of rushing he smiled, feeling how wonderful it was to be victorious over enemies, and how all these allies in front of him deserved to feel it too.
Elves were now dropping from the tree that the others clustered near. They were all looking around and doing gestures that Adam equated to high fives and back slaps. Noises he hadn’t heard before sounded out as he assumed they were laughing and congratulating each other.
As Adam reached them, the elves turned to him and did the gestures too. He tried to return them and heard what he thought was laughter at how awkward their friend looked. Then Adam projected his desire to make sure each of his best friends were safe and healthy. They allowed him to inspect the back of their legs and arms, with his daggers, since that would make him happiest, which was what all the friends wanted for each other.
Bile rose in Adam’s throat as he saw 72 elves piled around him, each unable to move their limbs from the cuts he had inflicted. Hate glared towards him. Unable to take more of the accusing looks, Adam turned and focused his vision on the soul map.
The energy coming from the souls closest to him had a density of malice he hadn’t seen before and was completely justified. As an experiment he tried getting past his self-loathing at this tactic and tried projecting friendship vibes again. There was no change this time. It seemed that once the malice reached a certain point then the manipulation was done.
Adam dropped the toxic green stained bloody knives in his hands and picked up two new ones from among the thirteen bodies he had killed. They all had classes that might use heals, and Adam hadn’t wanted to chance it. Their classes were “Rejuvenator,” “Prime Grower,” and “Life Nurturer.” Adam shook his head, wondering what each of the classes did, and definitely not listening to the ferocious cries from the wounded behind him.
Walking slowly in the opposite direction he had come from, Adam checked his soul map for how far off the next group was, and whether there were snipers in the trees. He moved casually, releasing any aggression he might have. All that Adam thought about was the next happy song he would sing to himself in his head, and how happy he was when with his family and friends.
***
Lucas swung one final time with all of his might. The sledgehammer struck but instead of making the sound you would expect, it just kind of settled and stopped in the air, neutralized by the barrier. They had tried all kinds of attacks, hoping to be able to penetrate it. However, considering these were supposed to block attacks from much higher-level people than them, he didn’t expect to do enough damage for it to break open.
It had been two hours since Adam went in. They had tried some explosives and Mr. Clemens even tried crashing his car into it. However just like it stopped the force of his hammer, it also stopped the force of the explosion directed at it as well as the car. The car wasn’t even dented, it had just stopped.
“Any change with him?” asked Lucas.
“Plenty,” said Andrea. “I’m starting to think he is bipolar and an extreme nut case.” Alissa giggled and nodded in agreement.
“First, he was angry and rage-y, like when he usually gets into a fight. Then he was happy to be with friends, followed by self-hate, which became calm. In between it all he keeps thinking of us and his family, feeling happy and proud.”
“Must be nice that he keeps thinking of you,” grumbled Tom.
“That is him thinking about our whole group, even you, Tom,” said Abbey. “He’s very proud of you and all of us, and he wishes we were with him.”
“Oh, nice,” Tom broke into a smile.
“Adam keeps cycling through all those emotions. I don’t know what’s happening to cause it but it’s very different than he normally is. I hope he’s alright,” said Abbey.
“That is weird for him,” Emily agreed. “I didn’t have a connection like you, but he never showed much emotion before.” Her dad nodded in agreement.
“One constant in his emotions is the concern he always holds towards you and us,” said Abbey.
“We better get food ready for him when he's done,” said Brandon, as Mr. Clemens went to check on the address before ordering his son some pizzas.
“That would be a second constant,” corrected Abbey.