“Hey Tom, we’ve been walking a while now, how far out is it?”
“Lonni I swear to Peruni-…we’re almost there man.” I answered Lonni’s second time asking the eta in some way or another. He’d already injured the shit out of me cutting down over half my health, I didn’t feel the need to continue finding reasons to kill him for a guaranteed strength boost of 10%.
Chill, Tom. He’s got potential.
Korbin’s voice echoed through my head rather than my own, making its correctness all the more annoying as we continued our trek through the woods. I knew we were closer to the settlement now, but the fact he asked a mile ago was so fucking audacious I damn near ditched him right after he asked. Why the hell would Pylons be close to each other logically? Just so everyone got one? No, that’s silly, this was about power now, not just numbers and inclusivity. The guy who looks like he could eat me off the eye test following every order out of fear paid homage to that well enough.
Nearing Korbins beach Pylon, the crunch of a branch snapping behind us drew my attention. Turning around, my vision was entirely blocked by the body of a giant spider descending from above me. Holding my terror back deep, I split my twin blades, thrusting both up into its face as it dropped from above. The lightning from the chains shot up into the spider, causing it to explode into a mess of scattering blood and organs across the forest foliage.
Looking back up after wiping my eyes, countless spiders across the forest slowly descended from the surrounding trees, headed for the ground below.
“Alright big fella, let’s see what y-“
Turning to face my companion, I was met with his back foot as he darted east where we’d been headed now.
“…Damnit.” I said aloud before chasing after him, the sound of heavy slaps onto the leaf-littered grass, hundreds of chittering spider legs pattered across the foliage behind me. It’s not that I wanted to kill all of these things, I just wanted to see what Lonni could do without worrying about him trying to kill me.
Unfortunately, right now I guess he was still a bit shell shocked from seeing me explode his buddies heads. Funny, I sort of did the same to the sp-
Oooooohh.
Now realizing the incredibly fresh memory that troubled Lonni I’d just reminded him of, I pointed towards an influx of light in the distance and pushed his back as we ran. The spiders were unsurprisingly gaining on Lonni’s meager pace, whereas I had to slow down to keep next to him. Realizing he wouldn’t make it, I stopped entirely and faced the pursuing wave spiders. Lonni turned around noticing my halt, though I quickly dismissed him.
“GO, you won’t make it unless I buy you time now.”
He didn’t argue, instead beelining it for the clearing. The spiders were fast upon me, making my practice with my twin blades finally justifiable after over an hour of longing for it. I skewered the first leaping spider through its body before splitting my blades, lightning blasting its body apart as it discharged from the chains.
Another dove, which I Water Stepped out of the way of slashing across its body. My second blade crackled with electricity as Lightning Strike stabbed through the spiders rear, charring its skin around the wound.
Feeling a bit drained after that strike, I checked my mana pool quickly, revealing I was already whittled down to 30 now. Clearly, I’d been fucking around too much testing my twin blades abilities. Retreating while killing as many spider as I could, ding after ding ringing through my head, I peered over to see Lonni break through the tree line onto the beach.
Spinning on my rear leg, I shot forward into a full sprint away from the spiders. It was the first time I got to run my fastest since my stat boosts, and my eyes profusely leaked tears from the wind slapping against my face running at an unfamiliar speed. The spiders had no chance to catch me as I bursted through the treeline, right past Lonni for about 10 yards through the sand.
“Fuck, how did you get out of there?” He asked me, my hands resting on my head trying to catch my breath a moment. Luckily, it only took a second to recover.
“How about why did you run away? Your a fucking giant in human skin, yet you fled like a child in the dark?!” I responded angrily.
“I-I’m not sure. The spider just…exploded when you stabbed it, and I just uh…”, Lonni rubbed the back of his neck, staring into the dirt. “I-it won’t happen again, I’m sorry Tom.”
Sighing, I knew it was too soon to give up on this prospect of an ally, especially since I hadn’t exactly been helpful in his recovery mentally. Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself before responding.
“Look, I didn’t really need to kill your friends, man. Not until they insisted on trying to kill me first. Right now, you’re my muscle. My muscles always listen to my commands, can you do that?” I asked him as kindly as I possibly could muster.
“Yeah, yeah I can do that.” He responded.
“Great, now let’s go find my people, they should be somewh-“
My words trailed off as I turned back towards the water, finding a massive wall made of metal and orange flames lined with cannons of some kind, windows with glass covers along the higher levels. The sides appeared to have fire traps constantly blasting to the sides as wind moved sand in its vicinity. Looking above the wall, even taller towers and buildings covered in windows loomed high in the sky as if trying to chase the Sun itself.
Trying to locate our actual pylons location and not whoever dropped a small economy onto the beach, all landmarks and lack of other pylons across the sands suggested this was in fact where Korbin and his family were last. Yet that couldn’t be, because there was straight up nothing there when I left. Now, it was like a city was built in the middle of nowehere, its grandeur only grew as we approached the front gate.
“Uhhh…Korbin?! It’s Tom, I brought a new friend and some good ne-“
The massive metal door rose upward slowly, revealing Korbin standing on the other side.
“ Well, well, well, looks like the cat dragged itself back in this time.” He said with a grin.
“Korbin, thank fuck it’s you. How did you get all this? I know you can upgrade pylons bu-“
“Oh you do?” Korbin interrupted.
“I take it then you got one after all, good job buddy. I knew you could do it.” He added in a fake supportive tone, slapping my shoulder.
“Nice armor by the wa-holy SHIT who are you?!” Korbin continued, his eyes wide having panned to Lonni behind me.
“Oh, this is Lonni, he’s crazy strong. He whipped around with his shield and sent me halfway across the forest before I started umm…”
Korbin looked at me expectantly as I tried to word this right.
“Well uhh…his group sort of tried to kill me so, I wiped out most of his group. I figured you’d want to see the guy, and the pylon I upgraded set up the remaining survivors for any attacks. If you needed a place with more people to defend your and your family, I think this pl-“
Korbin put his hand up, urging me to stop talking.
“Look, this guys massive, and you’re decked out. Right now, I just want a run down on what happened, and why you have that badass fucking twin blade?” Korbin said, with a comforting smile.
“I know I just, I don’t want there to be bad blood betw-“ my words slowed as movement behind Korbin took my attention. What approached Korbin’s leg, sitting right next to him casually, was a smaller version of those foul undead rats I’d fought, only it moved with more intent than the others. Korbin didn’t appear to notice it at all.
“Hey, uh, there’s a dead rat by your leg.” I said, looking at its rotten flesh and bile dripping from its jaw. Korbin looked down a moment before smiling ear to ear as he spoke.
“Huh? Oh yeah! Tom, this is Randy!” Korbin said, kneeling down and petting the disgusting creature.
“Who’s my favorite non-human companion?” The rat hissed a gurgling sputter as black liquid splattered from out its rotten maw. Korbin laughed as if it’d told a world class fucking joke, before sighing blissfully.
“You’re the fucking best Randy, you know that.” Korbin said as he stood back up.
“That’s yours?” I asked, genuinely disgusted and questioning his mindstate actively.
“Yeah?! Got ‘em when I leveled up for the first time!”
“Okay, but like…what the fuck is he?”
Korbin looked at me disapprovingly, his tone turned serious before he spoke.
“Tell you what, Tom. I found a nasty hookup to learning a thing or two about contracts, so how about this.”
A prompt flashed in front of Tom’s face.
“You accept this contract, stating I will completely forgive you for having essentially murdered every other survivor we started with, putting my family at risk in the process. In exchange, you will NEVER ask me what Randy is ever again.”
What…the actual fuck is happening?
Korbin knew I was no moron about contracts, he taught me how easy someone could totally fuck you over for life with them long before all this shit. Yet, he knew all I needed right now was, basically, to stop feeling so terrible for endangering my longest friends family. Especially with such odd stipulations.
“Offer’s up, I’m not going to sit here waiting forever though.” Korbin added. He knew what he was doing, he was avoiding a question he clearly didn’t want answered. At least not to me. Figuring it a respect factor now, I accepted the contract.
“Are you fucking stupid?” Korbin laughed after I accepted it.
“I could have taken your soul and you’d be none the wiser, you idiot.” He poured on as he laughed more.
“But, I really doubted you would fuck me over of all people.” I retorted.
“Why not? Why are you being so trusting at a time like this, Tom?! Trust no one. This is like, devil and demons kind of shit, what if I didn’t even know I did that?!”
He once again added points I’d yet to consider, and I had no logical choice but to be grateful, even if I knew he just liked knowing what I didn’t. The guy has always been kind of odd, but so have I. It meshed well, even if there were these moments of mental pain and logical disarray. Sighing, I conceded.
“You’re right. I should’ve read it.”
“I know.” he responded, smugly.
“Ok dude, so catch me up to speed, why the fuck is our Pylon a metropolis now?” I asked, genuinely curious.
Korbin would lead us to the Pylon room, only calling it a room was a hilarious understatement. It sat in a large mansion/castle hybrid, with 4 big towers at each end, yet a modern lawn with expertly cut grass and designed bushes. The Pylon rock sat in a massive throne room now in the hand of a devilish metal sculpture, with comfy furniture and decorations littering each room of the massive structure. The guy even had a dining room in here.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
A dining room?!
…”Anyways, so that’s why I figured ‘why choose between flamethrowers and mana cannons when you can afford both?’ So, I did.” Korbin finished his final story of his wild purchases.
“This is ALL…crazy impressive, Korbin. I only had like 10,000 TP though, and over 8k went into my gear. How could you afford this?” I asked, noticing the ‘3,000’ here and ‘6,000’ there every story didn’t add up to a reasonable number.
“Basically, Tom. I got good connections. With them, I have access to a lot of currency. Like, a lot, through many ventures and options. So, I’ve spent my time preparing our home base, at least so it can defend itself in case you died out there.”
Thinking hard for a moment, only one lightbulb clicked on in my mind throughout that convoluted explanation. He mentioned connections, yet no one else is here. I had connections when I was alone too, but only one.
“It’s your God, isn’t it?” I asked, smiling now.
“Meh muhr Mod, isn’t it?” Korbin parroted in his annoying voice.
“Sounds like a cool ass God bro, good shit?!” I continued, taking his mocking as a victory.
“Yeah fuck you. So why was all this so expensive?” He asked, pointing up and down my gear.
I explained the cheapness of each armor piece, leaving him proud and frankly confused at my spending totals.
“That all seemed incredibly economical for how strong of boosts your stacking, how the fuck did you spend so damn much?”
Grinning, I pulled my twin blades apart, using the last of my mana as my body felt spent deep in my stomach, somewhere I’d never got to feel strain my entire life until then. After explaining the boosts and its perfect complementary requirements to my title, he appeared to be wrestling whether it was a good purchase.
“…but for 7,500 TP?!”
“This this is fucking awesome, dude. You can’t deny that.” I said, half answering.
He shook his head in thought before dismissing the conversation entirely.
“Well, my super secret sources have informed me of other Pylon holders around us.”
Randy the Rat wandered onto the table next to Korbin, where he began petting Randy after he noticed, his mood visibly brighter after.
“I want you to see Kaitlyn if you’re hurt, either of you.” He looked at Lonni for a moment.
“She’s a healer, and can use the practice. She tried on the folks you, uh, ‘couldn’t help’ and, she got stronger but couldn’t save any of them. It would do her spirit wonders.” Korbin instructed.
“After, choose a home and set up. We’re going to spar a little, see what Lonni’s got, then we’re going to rest, as I’m sure you spent a lot of resources out there.”
“Sounds good to me, except I’m almost entirely out of mana now.” I said, looking at my mana pool as I spoke; 15/74. Not great for a fight.
“Well why the hell did yo-…” Korbin sighed, rubbing his eyes.
“…alright, heal up, pick your home, and meditate. There’s an option for passive mana regeneration while in the Pylon range, it’s just a bit expensive.”
Korbin’s eyes trailed off as he spoke, staring into the air.
“Korbin, you’re telling me we have skyscrapers before we have mana regeneration?”
As the words left my mouth, a subtle remedy to the aching empty aching in my gut caught my attention, causing me to check my status. Slowly, my mana look was regenerating by one point, about one every three seconds.
“How did I not have what?” Korbin asked, looking at me again.
“You just got th-“
“You can’t prove that. Go heal shit birds, I’ll see you later.” Korbin interrupted, turning and walking towards one of the rooms closest to the throne, ‘Randy’ following right behind. Part of me felt concerned about the strange undead vermin he kept with him. The urge to pester him about its nature began prodding, only to be sharply dismissed by a spike of pain in my head that subsided just as quickly as it arose.
What the f-…oh dammit. The contract.
Opening the contract description in my head-HUD revealed a copious amount of words printed in handwritten cursive. It genuinely took up top to bottom of the page, and only after getting down to the bottom would you find there was a full other page on the back. About a quarter the way down I found the reason for my pain.
“Contractee will avoid even considering discussing the nature of the contractor's companion titled ‘Randy’, and will suffer psychic pain with each breaking of this stipulation. Get fucked.”
The guy actually put ‘get fucked’ in his contract. I’m upset, very upset, but you got to give credit where it’s due sometimes. Removing the fact it’s happening to me actively, it’s pretty fucking hilarious. Regardless if it’s at my physical well beings expense in a microcosm, funny is funny. Besides, Kaitlyn was outside of the building with a scarlet plus sign on it, alluding to be the medical center.
“Hey Tom! Glad to see you didn’t die out there!”
Kaitlyn said as me and Lonni got within earshot of casual speech volumes. Her expression appeared unchanged seeing Lonni’s stature. Unsurprising, I couldn’t recall seeing much fear in her eyes. The exception had been not a few hours ago but, clearly that hadn’t bothered her any longer. Not outwardly anyway.
“Thanks Kaitlyn, and look sorry again for not listening earlier with you know…the rats and all.”
She put her palm up facing me urging me to stop talking.
“It’s fine, Tom. We ended up quite alright, and Anna is more than safe now. That’s all that mattered.” She responded, firmly but without malice. Still, guilt persisted to haunt the recesses of my mind.
“Right…”
“So, who’s your friend here? I take it you both got a bit banged up since Korbin told me you’d be coming here.” Kaitlyn spoke up after a pause while my thoughts had drifted in on themselves, snapping me out of my stupor.
“Hello, my name’s Lonni.” He stepped forward, introducing himself this time. With Korbin, he’d been dead silent, fearing to draw any attention. With Kaitlyn he seemed more relaxed, hopefully beginning a snowball of him not being a massive coward for long.
“Nice to meet you, Lonni. Let’s get you two patched up real quick.” She answered, waving as she walked inside the modern shaped metallic building.
As we entered, she ushered us to one of the hundreds of rooms with beds and curtains. Sitting down first, Kaitlyn walked by me to a chair. She kicked a bit, revealing it to be a rolling chair, the practicality of such a minor detail escaping my mind after being chastised for a sword.
“Okay, where’s it hurt?” She asked plainly, her staff in hand. It had its typical stone at the end that glowed a baby blue tint as she held it casually in the pit of her arms. Lifting my armor and undershirt uncovered the massive yellow and purple bruising along my side, stretching from right below my armpit to my hip bone.
“Holy shit how are you walking?!” Kaitlyn gasped, wheeling back suddenly at the sight of my injury.
“Blame the mutant muscle man over there.” I retorted, tilting my head towards Lonni. He looked as if he was about to fire back something smart, a smirk having formed in the corner of his mouth, before his eyes met mine. Instead, his posture slumped, and he sat silent.
“Damn, well it’s a good thing you got him on our side then.” Kaitlyn exclaimed, once again breaking the awkward silence.
“This might hurt, it might not. I don’t know, I’ve only tried on people who didn’t make it to be honest.” She warned, her eyebrows curving upward as a flash of remorse overtook her face.
The staff’s crystalline stone at the end began flowing a bright white energy that rippled in jagged quart-like shapes as she clutched it with both hands now, placing it a few feet from my ribs. Her eyes shut, and a soothing icy sensation spread throughout the right side of my body.
Looking down, a concentrated collection of countless tiny white snowflakes danced in a storm compacted into a panning tiny cloud pocket. Swirling in a mass of cold energy, the flakes began contacting my skin individually. It felt like a tornado of rain was landing on my body, only the soothing comfort in my bones that followed was entirely new.
Pulling my status up, I watched as my health jumped by multiples of 15 rapidly, her eyes never wincing from their closed position. Just as my health maxed, I tapped her staff along its polearm. Her eyes popped open, dropping arms as she relaxed. She didn’t look very tired, nothing like the mage I fought with who only had a few casts in her before looking utterly exhausted.
“I take it you’re fully healed? Thanks for the heads up, wasn’t sure if I’d know or not.” Kaitlyn stated, before motioning to Lonni.
“Ok, now it’s your turn, big fella.”
Lonni took my place at the bed, as I did his in the padded chair in the corner. As he hopped on the bed, the metal support at the bottom bent down harshly with an ear piercing metallic pop followed by a few creaks in the mechanisms below. He pointed only at his knee, the one I kicked out, making his complaints about the hike a smidge more understandable.
Didn’t mean I very much cared, just understood his incessant bitching better. After getting some cold therapy to the knee, he bent it back and forth to test it before smiling and leaping from the bed. The frame lurched up as he sprung from it, returning violently to its previous height.
Not wanting to address Lonni’s lack of awareness for his size, I thanked Kaitlyn, and headed to where Korbin showed the sparring area. The whole thing was just a massive yard, with practice dummies and weapon racks along the outside. Paint separated dozens of sparring circles, even having tables with numbered wood for keeping score.
Korbin was waiting there, stretching his legs in the grass. His filthy rat, R-AHHH…
.. ‘its’ hind legs down pushing its front half up with its lead legs. Apparently, it needed to loosen up too.
“What’s up fellas, you ready to get your ass beat?” Korbin said after giggling at me clutching my head in pain, before looking over to Lonni.
“Depends for you though, I don’t know what you can do.”
“Honestly, so am I? Lonni, you go first.” I said, pointing him over to Korbin. He looked rather worried at the idea, until Korbin spoke up.
“Relax, we won’t use weapons. This is just a feel for what you know. Him however-“ he exclaimed, looking over to me having finally recovered from the infernal contract-induced headache.
“-he knows better. If you’re competent, there’s no ‘taking it easy’. Only improvement.”
This was the first time in a long time I’d heard Korbin speak like this. It hadn’t been since he was still teaching me how to fight that he sounded this concise. To me, it meant he wasn’t worried right now, though I didn’t see reasonably why considering the utterly outrageous world we’d found ourselves thrusted into. Sure, we’d accidentally prepared for the overall order of things pretty decently, but that didn’t mean much with God’s at play.
Korbin and Lonni got right to it, dropping their weapons and assuming their stances. Lonni took on a boxer's stance, which made me turn my head and chuckle. Not because boxers are anything to laugh at, normally, however they never trained to defend attacks from below the waist, aka kicks. Both of them gradually went from a slow 2% speed, where Korbin already had been mixing him up a bit, to Lonni’s full speed.
Korbin was going about 50% speed, but in fairness both him and I more than likely had much higher agility stats than Lonni. For most of the duration, Lonni was chasing Korbin’s pace. However, as their session came to a close, Korbin spoke between blows as they fought.
“You’re definitely a tall stack, but you fight scared.”
Korbin dodged a jab, grabbing his wrist and sent Lonni stumbling forward 3 feet.
“Let me guess, you a support guy? Runnin supply to and fro feeling real needed?” Korbin teased, dodging another punch, with two of his own landing first to the ribs, then jaw. Lonni was steering to show signs of frustration, his reservation for attacking beginning to dwindle.
“I’m right aren’t I? Aw that’s adorable, Tom. You brought me a giant who’s afraid of mice.”
Korbin laughed aloud as he dodged around a barrage of wild punches Lonni unleashed, having peaked into the realm of royally pissed the fuck off. Even R-…’it’ appeared to snicker in his gurgled squeaks, bile sputtering from his maw as he did.
Korbin proceeded to land a plethora of jabs across Lonni’s body in rapid succession. As he stepped around his side, however, he kicked down on Lonni’s knee before shuffling to his back. They were both facing me by the end of the stomp. As the kick landed however, a look of recognition flashed across Lonni’s face as he spun the opposite direction, his elbow swinging out.
Korbin didn’t see his shoulders twist until it was way too late, and the smack from an elbow blasting into his chest reverberated around the sparring area. Korbin’s body ejected out of my sight so fast, I had to turn my head to find him again as he rifled aloft to the other side of the large grassy area surrounding the sparring arena. His body smashed into a weapons rack, sending broken spears and shields dispersing through the air.
Squinting to be sure I saw some movement, my head flipped to Lonni as soon as Korbin’s leg flopped up from the mess of wood and sharp metals.
“Lonni, brother, you gotta go. We’ll talk later but you’re not sa-“
“Hey Lonni.” Korbin’s voice cut my warnings off as he appeared strolling up to us not 10 feet away somehow. My jaw sought the burrow underground to avoid processing his anomalous damage resistance.
“That wasn’t very nice, Lonni. I paid good TP for those weapons. Isn’t that right, Randy?” Randy squiled rapidly in agreement, its snout waving in the air.
“Yeah, yeah it was way more than 50% power, I agree Randy.” Korbin continued, seemingly responding to the putrid little abomination.
“L-look Korbin, I didn’t mean t-“ Lonni began, stumbling over his words.
“No no Lonni, Lonni, relax buddy?! We were sparring, it happens man.” Korbin interrupted in a cheery manner. Loni never physically calmed his posture, but his breathing slowed as his eyebrows curled in curiosity. As did mine.
“You know, that weapon rack had to be, what, 35 yards away? 40?” Korbin stretched his back a bit, his joints and bones cracking in a chorus of snaps. His brow furrowed as he spoke again.
“You’re uhh…you’re pretty strong, aren’t you?”
Lonni nodded slowly in agreement.
“I’ll tell you what guys. Tom, you should have your mana fully charged by now, yeah?” I nodded, still wearing a puzzled face.
“Good, then you two will take this contract back to that little settlement. Try to beat Sun down, and go ahead and stay the night there as well. The defenses here are more than capable for the time being, and Randy will keep us safe if all else fails.” Korbin instructed, ending with yet another adoring stare at his rat.
A contract flashed in front of my face once more, only with the option of keeping it in my notifications, and a share option as well.
“You can’t share the contract without being in front of them, Infernal shit, don’t worry about it. You two need to bond anyway, for future's sake.” Korbin concluded, wearing his sly grin as he raised his hands to the both of us.
“So, you want us to go all the way back there again? We had to escape like, hundreds of giant spiders to get here.” My voice firm as I’d finally found the words to question at least some of the weird shit Korbin was implying.
“Yeah? Me and you could kill them all in a day, couldn’t we?” Korbin replied, looking at me.
“You two shouldn’t have any issues just traveling then. After all, Lonni Log Arms over here turned me into a superhero with flight for 7 seconds. I think he should know by now he can handle himself.” Korbin added, turning toward Lonni as he finished.
See, I knew I’d never get to pay back my debt accrued from fucking up earlier today so monumentally, regardless of a contract. At least, not anytime soon, as we’d clearly gotten a HUGE jump start on this Tutorial thing. If I’m being honest, it was pay to win at this point, but so was life before if were all not kidding ourselves.
Even still, I knew regardless if this hike was going to suck in the dark, the levels I could accrue along the way would probably be worth it. After all the killing I’ve done since hitting class level 2, I knew another level up was dancing around the corner right now.
Korbin did have a good point about Lonni and I. Maybe not bonding but, I could see Lonni being a Tank style party member I could keep around, in case I need someone to sponge some damage or something. Day one video game logic to me, but Korbin usually referred to some old General in a war that died before our grandparents were born.
All of this compounding with the fact Korbin’s clearly loaded for some reason, top 2 be damned. His god must be a very wealthy one, no surprise knowing the guy for so long either. Might as well go along with it, truthfully I’ve hardly regretted doing so in the past with most his ideas anyway.
“Lonni…”
“Yeah, Tom?”
“…swing the fucking flail this time.”