Joseph was slowly limping in the cold light of streetlamps away from the house he decided to take shelter in. He was enjoying a weak sleep, when he suddenly got disturbed by an intruder. They got into a scuffle over one stolen knife and the rotten floor collapsed under them. Thankfully, Joseph managed to get out relatively unscathed, unlike the intruder who was still lying unconscious. He didn’t examine him very closely, as no doubt the collapse could be heard pretty far. Nevertheless, Joseph hoped that nothing too bad happened to him.
Joseph heard something suspicious not even a dozen meters away from the house. Going on high alert, he skulked out of the bright light into the familiar darkness. That turned out to be a waste as even after waiting for a minute nothing happened.
Joseph sighed and prepared to continue his search for shelter when suddenly all hell broke loose. A deafening boom. The sky lit up with thousands of golden lights. He stared, mesmerized, at the sky that now glittered like amber. The lights started streaking around and after a few moments, they struck. Lightning bolts struck all around Joseph and into him. Suddenly, the night returned and a buzzing sounded in Joseph’s head.
[You have been Awakened. Welcome to the Multiverse.]
Shocked, he fell down on the ground. Joseph couldn’t even process what happened when the ground started shaking.
“What now?” Joseph thought while despairing.
The ground started opening up before him and he jumped up onto his feet. He looked back at the house where he got into a fight with the intruder. A crack was slowly but unstoppably opening up near it. It was small now but it would quickly grow wider. Cursing, he started running back to the abandoned house. He couldn’t leave the man alone there. It was partially his fault that the man was stuck in that house.
Ramming into the closed door, Joseph ran to the living room. He walked over to the place where the intruder last lay, leaning on the wall. There was nothing there, except a pool of blood. Confused, he stood there for a moment longer than he should have. A crack started opening up behind him, in the middle of the room, blocking him from the only exit out of the room. Before he could realize what was happening, the crack grew so wide he couldn’t reliably jump over it.
He looked down into the crevice. It was so unbelievably deep he couldn’t even see the bottom. Joseph didn’t even know the Earth was that deep. Hyperventilating, he shuffled away from the crack and started to clutch his chest. What could he do?
First a golden lighting storm, then an earthquake of unprecedented proportions. He didn’t want to die yet. He didn’t even start living properly. After half a minute of falling into a pit of despair, he steeled his resolve. It wouldn’t end like this. Joseph stood with his back to the wall farthest from the crack and took a deep breath.
He ran as fast as he could with his feeble body. When he neared the edge, he closed his eyes and jumped with power he didn’t even know he had. His knees gave out on the landing and he stumbled down on the ground. None of that mattered in the moment though, he made it.
[Common Skill gained – Acrobatics]
The art of movement. With grace and speed, nothing will contain you. Scales with Agility.
“What the hell is that?” Joseph yelled out as a painful buzzing filled his head.
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Victor sat huddled in the town hall along with most of the other residents of Nazarod, a small town located in the dark forests of deep Siberia. It used to be a peaceful small town. Sure, nothing ever happened and the food was pretty bland, but they were content. Everything changed though, when the sky lit up and a voice from Heaven talked to them, three days ago.
That would be horrifying if that was the only thing to happen. But no, a day after, they came. With the people already panicking from the whole sky turning gold, things were already hectic. A third of the town died or went missing that day. Sure, they knew that something lived in the forest. With mysterious disappearances happening every few years, sometimes even bigger groups disappearing. That usually got pinned on bears or bad weather.
The townspeople knew better though. They knew that it was people who did that. Some remote ancient tribe. Many search parties were sent to look for them throughout the centuries, but they rarely returned alive. That meant people had to be careful. Sometimes someone slipped up and got taken but that was expected.
The dynamic changed when those things started coming out of the forest. Some residents think they are the people who disappeared. Victor didn’t much care about the theories. The only thing he cared about was that he was now holed up in a room with a bunch of people and abominations were beating down the shabby blockade made out of cars and trucks. The day after the attacks started some people looted the nearby military base, and the residents were now taking turns guarding the blockade.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Food was no issue yet but the cold Siberian winter was quickly coming. Some of the people hoped for the military to come and save them, but Victor wasn’t so sure. There was no guarantee that what was happening here was a solitary case. They had to adapt to survive. There was talk of some Levels from the guards who killed a few of the abominations. He guessed that that was the way to go, so he made up his mind to volunteer for the guard soon.
That turned out to happen sooner than expected, as not even half an hour later when Victor was standing in the entrance hallway, two men carrying a screaming and bleeding guard came rushing in through the main entrance.
“Victor, get Denis. NOW!” one of them yelled and Victor hurried into the hall to get the town’s doctor Denis. A minute later when they returned to the hallway, they found the injured man on the ground with one of the men who carried kneeling over him. He beckoned the doctor closer to the injured man.
“What happened?” Denis asked as he rushed to kneel beside the uninjured ground.
“A wave of the abominations came, bigger than any of them before. Boris here got knocked down on the side with the abominations, but we managed to pull him out before it was too late. We are still fighting back so the other guard went back to assist with the defense,” The guard answered as he stood back up,” Do you have it handled here doctor?”
Denis nodded while rolling up his sleeves and doing something to the injured guard , “Get someone to assist me and you can return back to fighting. I assume you need reinforcements so you will be heading to the hall either way.”
Victor took a deep breath and stepped forward,” In that case, I volunteer. There is already someone curious coming to see what the fuss is about. Have them assist you. We have no time to lose.”
“Very well. Good luck and don’t get yourselves killed” said Denis completely focused on his patient, when suddenly a spray shot from the injured guard, making Victor focus on him. It was horrible. He was pretty sure some of the guard’s guts were showing, making him have second thoughts.
Before he could chicken out the other uninjured guard clapped him on the shoulder and pulled him outside. It was like an active battlefield. They heard gunshots from inside but they never realized how many. There must have been at least a dozen guards standing on the trucks and shooting under them. The gunshots were being answered by horrible unnatural-sounding screams.
The guard led him into a nearby truck, that Victor recognized as the one they used to transport the weapons from the military base. The guard handed him an assault rifle and a belt with few magazines and a combat knife.
“Pray you don’t have to use the knife,” the guard said and playfully shoved him closer to the ladder leading up to the trucks,” switch out in about 10 minutes or when they stop attacking. Good luck.”
Taking a deep breath Victor prepared himself for the sight of the abominations. They were way worse than he thought. Looking like a person who lost all their skin, revealing the powerful-looking muscles below. They had awfully long arms ending in vicious claws and their head lacked any distinct features. Victor wanted to vomit at the sight of them but he managed to swallow it and started shooting.
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Emeryn, a novice scholar belonging to the Order of the Emerald Sea, was currently perusing the ancient archives. That was not as fun as it sounded, as the notion that ancient libraries were filled with magical tomes and forbidden grimoires was sadly a lie. The thing ancient libraries contained though was old musty books filled with useless information such as thousands of years old trade deals and cooking recipes made with lost ingredients. She was lucky to find even that, as most of the older stuff was written in a language lost after the kingdoms split into three.
Emeryn sighed and continued her duty. If it was her choice she wouldn’t be stuck in this dusty old library, especially after the lightning descended upon everyone in all three kingdoms. But nevertheless, she couldn’t continue to piss of the headmaster. Especially after her experiment with a new spell went wrong. But this was the worst punishment she could dispense upon Emeryn. All the other novices were exploring all kinds of new things, while she was stuck here. It wasn’t as if people died due to her accident. At least she didn' think they did.
Sighing she continued to toil away like a slave, searching book by book not even really knowing what she was searching for. That became apparent not long after as she stumbled upon a peculiar book. It sat in its shelf, but it stuck out with a its black binding and blood red letters. It stuck out like a sore thumb. Emeryn wondered how was it that no one noticed the book, if it was dangerous, it would be inevitably moved into the deep archives.
She reached for the book to pull it out but realized she couldn’t. Trying harder and harder to pull it out it eventually gave out and she came falling down on to the floor with the book in her hands. Clutching her head, she heard a sound. That was strange in and of itself considering the library was deathly quiet. It sounded like wooden boards colliding. As she raised her gaze back from the ground, she realized what was happening.
The bookcase that housed the strange book was dismantling itself. Its pieces forming into an ornate gateway, revealing a hole in the wall behind. The gateway resembled snakes winding around a tree. The divine tree she realized. The highest divine authority of the Kingdom of Arder and the Order of the Emerald Tree within it. Emeryn tucked the book into her satchel and continued into the dark hole. When her foot touched the cold stone floor numerous blue lights lit up on the stone walls, revealing a long staircase down into the earth.
Emeryn more closely examined the lights. She recognized them as mana crystals. But they were long thought to be depleted and she only knew of them from books. That was peculiar. She continued deeper into the earth.
A few minutes of walking later, she came to a stop when she entered a large semi-circular room. A large mural made up of three parts adorned the wall opposite of the entrance. The first part depicted a mass of people standing under a golden sky, dozens of lightning bolts falling on them. This one seemed familiar. The second part depicted numerous sea beasts rising out from the Emerald Sea. Ominous. The third however was incomplete or weathered by age. It showed a man standing on a cliff facing the sea with his back turned.
“Fascinating,” said Emeryn while adjusting her glasses.