Jack woke up with a start. He sat up and reached for his sheathed sword that was propped against the wall next to his bed. Holding the weapon in his hand, he swept his legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. It took only a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the darkness in the room. As expected, he was alone in the Great Tree Cottage. Except for the patter of the relentless downpour against his treehouse, no more sounds could be heard. Yet something had awoken him in the middle of the night, and he wasn’t going to go back to sleep before he found out what it was.
He walked over to the door leading out onto the balcony. He cracked it open and took a look into the wet darkness. The wooden floor of the balcony was sleek from the rain, the heavy droplets pelting it relentlessly. He couldn’t see farther than a few paces ahead of him, and all he could hear was the sound of the heavy rain. He peered into the darkness for a few more seconds but didn’t spot anything suspicious.
He was wondering if the great tree was still encircled by a swarm of blind mutants. From experience, he knew they vanished into thin air only when the sun began to rise, so there was no reason to believe they weren’t standing or shuffling around the base of the tree at this moment, downpour or not. He couldn’t see them from where he was, though. To see them, he needed to step out onto the balcony and walk over to the railing, but he wasn’t eager to do that. The downpour would drench him in mere seconds if he dared to step out into the open. So he closed the door instead and walked to one of the windows.
The downpour pelted the window pane, rivulets flowing down the glass making it hard for him to see anything through the window. Then there was a flash of lightning followed by the roar of thunder. That must have been what had awakened him. He was finally able to relax. Turning around, he began to walk back to his bed. When he was about halfway to it, a scream reached his ears. He immediately stopped, pricking up his ears. Even though the scream had been muffled by the distance and the relentless downpour, he’d heard it without much trouble thanks to his high-level Perception attribute.
He strode back to the door but this time didn’t hesitate to open it and step out onto the balcony. His fabric tunic and pants got soaked through almost immediately. He walked over to the railing and looked down. It was hard to see anything, but he managed to discern the dark forms of blind mutants down below. Only there were much fewer of them than he’d expected. Spotting that some of them were moving away from the great tree, he turned his head to see where they were headed. He peered into the darkness and managed to see there was some sort of commotion about thirty yards out.
Just as he was looking in that direction, he saw a flash of orange light as someone cast a fireball. The magical projectile hit one of the blind mutants, the force of the resultant explosion killing the monster instantly. The spellslinger cast another offensive spell, and Jack saw it was a young woman dressed in a short mage tunic. He also noticed that she was surrounded by a swarm of blind mutants. There were so many monsters around her that she seemingly couldn’t get out of her predicament by herself. They were getting closer to the girl and were about to pounce at her from every direction.
Jack hesitated for a second. All his previous encounters with people in this world hadn’t been pleasant, to say the least. That’s why he was unsure if he should help the stranger. What if she was a bad person? However, when he heard the mage yelp in pain as one of the mutants attacked her, Jack burst into action. Whether or not she was a bad person, he couldn’t just watch the mutants kill her in cold blood. He had to give the stranger the benefit of the doubt. Besides, those creatures were actually after him. They just attacked any other person who was unfortunate enough to find themselves near Jack. He couldn’t stop thinking that if that girl got killed by the blind mutants, it would be in a way his fault, especially if he didn’t even try to help her out.
He ran toward the gravity tunnel and stepped into it. He did it so fast that he didn’t have time to activate the rune and actually dropped a few feet down. His heart shrunk with panic, but then he gave a mental command to turn on the rune, and the gravity magic immediately checked his fall, lowering him to the ground at a much slower and safer speed.
As soon as his feet touched the ground, he burst into a run toward where the mage was still fighting the mutants. Some of the nearby monsters tried to grab at him, but without even slowing down, he drew his weapon and swung the blade at them, severing their arms in half. It didn’t take him long to make it to the swarm of mutants surrounding the young woman. He used his free hand to cast a fireball at the nearest monsters, and some of them burst into flames. Some of the others turned around to face him.
Brandishing his sword, Jack lurched at them, cutting a path through several layers of mutants until he finally reached the young woman. She stood before a great tree, her drenched short tunic sticking to her body so tightly she seemed to be naked. Her completely soaked long hair clung to her pretty face, which displayed a mix of determination and concern. It was clear that while she stubbornly continued to fight for her life, she didn’t believe she would be able to live through this fight. Her left upper arm was injured slightly, but the wound seemed to be almost healed already. The young woman must have used healing magic on herself.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Her arms were outstretched in his direction, and by the look on her face, she was about to fire a fireball at him.
“Wait,” he yelled a half of a second too late.
The girl launched a fireball, but fortunately for him, Jack was able to get out of the way in time, and the magical projectile hit one of the mutants instead.
“I’m on your side,” Jack shouted.
“Sorry,” the girl said, a look of bewilderment on her face. She clearly hadn’t expected that somebody would be in the nearby vicinity to come to her aid.
He now could see that the girl wasn’t actually alone. Leaning against the tree trunk was seated a guy staring at him with a mix of hope and suspicion.
“Please we need help,” the girl said. “His legs… he can’t walk.”
There was no time for questions, so Jack sheathed his sword before stepping to the guy and crouching down next to him. Jack draped his arm over his shoulder, and the girl mirrored his action, sliding the guy’s other arm over her slender shoulder.
With his arms draped over their shoulders, they hoisted him up while the blind mutants kept converging on them from every direction. The young woman looked at them and said, “We killed so many of those creatures, but there are still a lot of them around us. Where do they all come from?”
“Let’s go,” Jack said, not wanting to waste time on explanations.
They began to move forward, half dragging, half carrying the wounded guy. He didn’t seem to be able to bend his legs at the knees, but he was doing his best to move his legs nevertheless, easing the burden on Jack and the young woman.
The mutants kept shuffling toward them. With his free hand, Jack launched a fireball at the nearest enemy. Nina did the same, firing in another direction and killing several monsters with a single magical projectile at the same time. Jack couldn’t help but notice that her fireballs were way more powerful than his. Unlike him, she must have been a pure mage, having been putting all her free points into improving her magic attribute and upgrading her spells.
They continued to move forward, their progress slow but persistent.
“Where are we going?” the wounded guy asked, the suspicion evident in his voice.
“There,” Jack replied nodding toward the great tree in which his house was built.
“There’s nothing over there,” the guys said, getting even more suspicious.
Jack didn’t waste time on explanations. The blind mutants were coming at them from every direction, and he and the girl were doing their best to keep them at bay.
Finally, they reached the great tree.
“Why’d we stop?” the girl asked.
“We’re going up,” Jack replied as he mentally activated the invisible magical rune they stood on.
The gravity magic kicked in, pulling the three of them upward.
“Whoa,” the guy exclaimed. “Where are we going? You need to tell us where you are taking us right now!”
“I think we should trust him,” the girl said, trying to moderate her friend’s mistrust.
“I live up there,” Jack replied. “In a treehouse.”
The girl and the guy exchanged a surprised glance before looking up.
“There’s no house up there,” the guy said.
“It’s hidden by an illusion spell,” Jack said. “You’ll be able to see it when we get a little closer to it.”
“Are you serious? I don’t—”
The guy didn’t finish his sentence, because at that moment Jack’s house became visible to them.
“Wow,” the girl exclaimed. “That’s amazing!”
The gravity magic stopped pulling them up when they were at the same level as the balcony. The three of them stepped onto it from the gravity tunnel and then entered the house. Jack led them into a room with spare beds and with the girl’s help laid the wounded guy on one of them.
“What about those monsters?” the young woman asked. “What if they get up here?”
“Don’t worry about that. They won’t be able to do that.”
Jack wanted to add that to use the gravity tunnel, you had not only to step on the invisible rune but also activate it with a mental command. However, he decided to omit that detail for now. After all, while these two people didn’t seem like bad guys, they still were complete strangers to him, so he shouldn’t reveal all his secrets to them just yet.
For a minute or so, the three of them were silent, catching their breath after having survived the life-threatening situation. The rain still drummed on the house, but other than that, all was quiet.
Then the girl looked at him and said, “Thank you so much for helping us.”
“Don’t mention it,” Jack said automatically.
The girl took a step toward him. “No, I’m serious. We’re in your debt. If it wasn’t for you, we would’ve been dead by now. You saved our lives.”
“No problem,” Jack said, looking at her.
From this close, he could see that she was even prettier than he’d initially thought. Then he realized that while it was warm inside his treehouse, her light tunic hadn’t dried up yet, her drenched attire sticking to her feminine figure like a second skin. He averted his eyes in embarrassment, for her soaked tunic clung to the curves of her body so tightly that she appeared to be almost naked.
“I’m Nina, by the way,” the girl said, as if not noticing his reaction. “And this is Kirk.”
“I’m Jack. So what happened to you guys?”