---James---
James dodged and weaved about the slow monster.
Just his base speed was enough to dodge all of the shark’s weak snaps or thrashes – not that they were actually weak according to any understanding of the word. The massive creature’s attacks looked like they hit like a truck and based on the smear that had been Richard before he died, James wouldn’t survive a single one of them.
They were just so slow – it was hard to see them as a threat.
Every once in a while, the shark would hop in these truly massive lunges – those James could only dodge if he was far enough away or able to flick a [haste] on. Thankfully the creature only seemed to hop once every minute or two – more than enough time for short bursts of haste to come off cooldown once more. The hops were fun because with each slide a wave of sea stuff would fly in arcs behind and to the side of the shark. The skid marks were also great because they tended to be safer than free areas – alot of the sharper or stickier bits scraped off or flattened.
This was well and truly a grind. It was also an incredibly unstable stalemate. The monster couldn’t hurt James and none of James’s ‘attacks’ seemed to hurt the monster. The shark was damaged and James was nearly positive Richard had poisoned the creature before he failed but…the sky was still raining a sticky nightmare onto everything.
Slowly but surely the rain was making it harder to move.
Would James be trapped before the boss died to poison?
Would the boss eject all the poison from its system if they continued this dance too much longer?
Would he fail one of the lunge checks – not flicking haste on in time or getting trapped by the environment?
Because yes, the environment was the real problem.
The shark would never be able to hit him like this but if he got completely stuck to the ground it might just manage it.
James’s feet felt raw from the barnacles. The rain and sea stuff made an awful combination of slippery and sticky.
Every once in a while he went to dodge and realized there was a porcupine-looking sea urchins waiting to explode and quill him to death with their…sharp spikes. Split second "I'm going to dodge this way – wait! Backpedal and pick the other side" style decisions were costly in the time department.
...and still the fight continued.
James watched as the boss leaned backwards and launched itself back into the sky.
It would do this every few minutes – jumping out in a new spot a few moments later.
Could James direct it to hit the environment as well? It couldn’t just be awful for him, surely he could make the boss suffer just as much – right?
A formless darkening on the sea above was the only sign the boss was there.
Turning James activated haste and bolted towards the nearest sea urchin.
Based on past experiences the boss would jump out in a few more seconds – three to five or six maybe.
The boss would also attempt to intercept James – jumping towards where he would be vs where he was…
A massive surge of liquid exploded out of the sky just behind James as soon as he got worryingly close to the urchin.
Now.
Spinning sideways and running at a right angle to his first dash, James thanked hastes weird ability to ignore momentum.
A shadow flew past where James had just been, the massive creatures landing on a group of spiky mines.
All according to plan.
James saw a few spikes fly off into the distance, the piercing shots blurring away even as the shark roared. The shark sounded like a lion had swallowed a frog – its deep guttural scream merged with a ribbit in a strange way…
The whole thing was strange if James actually tried to think about it. Sharks couldn’t scream – they were silent killers, weren’t they? You couldn’t scream under water?
The creature rolled sideways, and James saw an absolute mess covering its front. Dozens of puncture wounds and red gore – some seemed to be part of Richard.
The shark spun completely around – rolling on its back before righting itself once more.
It was definitely injured now – wary.
Would it run away?
The shark made a halfhearted hop towards James – crossing half the distance towards him then skidding the last half, its sharp jaws gnawing the air.
James ran to the side – not even needing to use haste this time. Nope.
His enhanced eyes darted about trying to find another sea urchin or two to place between them. Spying a discarded spike he bent and picked it up like a spear hefting it tightly.
You’ll do.
Twisting, he held the spike back and waited till the shark was in range once more. There
Doing a single hop and baseball style run up James threw – tossing the small amount of kinetic potential he’d gathered into it for good luck.
A streak as the shot passed over and hit the shark’s eye, embedding itself deep into it.
James turned and ran once again.
He baited the shark into a second sea urchin and then a third. He dodged lunge after lunge after lunge.
His feet were raw – he wouldn’t have been able to walk on them before the system but as it was they were just an inconvenience making it harder for him to move.
Finally, after ages and ages of constant fighting, the shark shuddered and didn’t continue.
🥇 Rank 2 dungeon cleared. (Rare) 🥇
Among the first to clear a rank 2 dungeon and among the first to clear this specific dungeon, you have done so in record time.
Clear stats:
18 monsters killed.
Time taken 71 hours.
Party size 2. (new record)
State entering dungeon. Rank 2, Tier 1.
Free points gained 40.
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Main Reward:
Active skill: Averaged force.
Average the movement and momentum between two touched objects with respect to their mass. Reality of your body being the collision site is lessened – force naturally lost in collisions is low and evenly spread across your body. Time for skill to function dependent upon mass with abnormal sizes taking much longer to process.
James felt the knowledge and memories of how to apply his new skill flood his mind even as the screen confirmed the death of the shark. It was incredibly simple in context, but held a large amount of potential.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
The description of the skill seemed more complicated than it needed to be…and somehow equally way too simplified. Inaccurate ‘somehow’ from how his memories showed the skill working.
James thought back to high school, the blurry memory of physics taking a while to resurface. As a simple refresher, for a purely elastic collision, if two objects had identical mass and one hit another, the two would swap velocities. A ball rolling quickly and hitting a ball sitting still would stop in place and the ball it hit would shoot away at the same speed. Its why newtons cradles were so fun. The momentum was transferred back and forth as efficiently as it could be.
For a purely inelastic collision if a moving object hit another it would stop completely – all the kinetic energy being transferred to light and heat and transferred through deformation…
This skill was neither of those because it wasn’t really a collision even if it felt like it – even if the skill description mentioned collisions.
What it was instead was a simple mix and redistribution of kinetic energy across a distance with the bigger item taking more.
The kinetic energy of the system added together and then divided by each of the masses to redistribute it – along with a note to keep the vector direction the same.
Something twice as big would take twice as much of the kinetic energy. A ball hitting a stopped ball would cause both balls to roll away at the same lowered speed.
It was strange having a memory of experimenting with the skill, but James remembered taping a large rock to his back and having his friend shoot him in the front with a bullet.
At the size of a metal bullet, the skill could activate nearly instantly – and a huge chunk of the kinetic energy was transferred to the rock sending it flying away from his back.
The bullet still had a chunk of energy left when it hit James – he could remember feeling the bruise from the microsecond before it activated and the sting of its remaining impact – but it had lost the power to pierce his enhanced skin at that point.
I hate how easily the system seems to reach into my mind. Those memories never happened. I remember a friend being there but don’t remember the friend's name or face.
Does the skill seem more rooted in physics because I gained it close to the aether side? In an aether dungeon? Is it even useful? I remember that experiment, but I don’t remember actually using it to fight with…if I could transfer all the energy from one thing to another instead of part of it, it would be much more immediately helpful. If it didn’t take forever to select the earth below me as the sink for an attack it would be have more utility – I could stop nearly any attack in its tracks in that case. If it wasn’t directional, I could carry sacrificial rocks easier and defend against small but fast attacks…
Either way James was happy he actually gained a skill even if it seemed worse than his previous. Richard had mentioned a maximum number of skills at each tier that was lower for unbroken skills. It seems like his long fight against the shark had been considered difficult enough to count.
Looking up at the sky James was incredibly glad the boss dying didn’t deactivate the room somehow. What would happen if that ceiling fell on him? Nothing good…
James had a final point to meet.
He had to try eating a bit of the boss – so far, his body modification hadn’t felt like it had mattered. Without breaking his skills, it hadn’t done anything yet – it had been nerfed into uselessness with none of the monsters he'd tried giving him anything.
James walked towards the corpse bending down near it to grab a sharp spike.
Carefully reaching out to touch the monster’s skin – he trusted the blue box saying they had won but only so much – James stabbed repeatedly in a circle. Digging the spike in and leveraging James popped out a chunk of flesh, the majority of the insides being something that looked halfway between fat and muscles. White blubber filled with fibrous strands.
Making a fire would be too hard right now. James licked the edge of his raw shark slightly then spun his small backpack around and fished about for a specific spice. A spicy spice – one that would probably match the taste and mask the worst of it.
Generously coating the flesh in flavor James took a bite.
…it wasn’t that bad. Texture was vile but he’d eaten much worse in the previous days.
Much much worse.
James ate the entire chunk then cut out a second piece and repeated the process.
He felt…he felt different – the food was doing something.
This was his power – not that of the system – so he wasn’t gaining a notification. No blue box was popping up to say anything was happening as James ate – If one had popped up James was almost positive, he would have received several –
Stat: +1 leg power
Stat: +1 body power
– Style notifications. Each trickle of stat energy was shifted slightly – James nudged bits here and there directing the last settlements into his muscles.
Actually…now that James had felt it the stats felt different.
Stat: +1 leg muscle shark jumping power
Maybe?
The monster stat felt subtly different than the power stats he gained from the system. Wilder somehow – rawer.
After five large chunks of flesh James was both full and the stats he had gained had stopped increasing. Maybe with an unnerfed ability – with aether and mana – he’d be able to get much more from a kill.
Time to leave I guess?
Turning James stared about the planes. The sticky rain had stopped – and he could now see the edge of the room in all directions.
That…that looks like the side we came in on. So over there is the exit? James considered.
As he started to head towards the far wall he paused.
What…what’s that?
Far to the side what looked like a massive unnaturally shaped and marbled rock sat. It looked kind of like a shell. – was that a secret monster? An extra shiny reward?
James crept towards it pausing as he looked about.
There was blood on the ground – a smear of blood in all directions. Red Richard blood vs the thin yellow shade a lot of monsters in this dungeon shared.
Had the shell eaten Richard?
James searched about for a big rock. He was going to crack that bad boy open and kill whatever monster had feasted on his friend.
Rocks were inconveniently hard to find when you wanted them – what happened to stone biomes being nearby and easy access!
Finally James found something that might work – a boulder covered in barnacles.
Bending down and lifting with his back not his knees James hoisted the large stone up onto his shoulder.
Turning with purpose, he headed towards the evil shell and got ready to toss it.
Crack.
The shell began to break apart.
Seconds before James tossed his weapon he saw a tuft of familiar looking – if short and wet looking – hair.
Richard stood slowly naked as the day he was born. Bits of his body bent slightly – his arms and legs looking more like pool noodles or long party balloons full of water than real limbs.
They bent at curved angles instead of right angles – an uncanny valley sort of effect almost had James toss the rock anyways.
Instead, he chucked it to the side nonchalantly – flickering haste to throw it farther and ignoring the break offering.
“Hey, I thought you died!” James called out causing the disoriented man to look at him in confusion for a second.
“I need a drink. Something harder than those weak mixers” Richard rasped – a spurt of thick blood spilling out of his mouth before being wiped away.
“You look like you need more than a drink…want to head out?” James gestured towards the exit.
“Please” Richard rasped – his voice already sounding better.
The two walked slowly and then began picking up their pace as they moved.
Richards legs cracked and popped a bit at the start but steadily grew better.
“So how did you survive?” James asked, curiosity burning through him as they left the plains behind.
“System says its something called void defense…” Richard began.
…
Right before they exited the dungeon the two found a room with a single pedestal and two bags of tiny gems. They looked almost like the pips that had been used for money in the previous zone.
“They look even enough – this one’s mine” James spoke hefting the nearest bag and pocketing it.
He still didn’t want to buy anything he’d be devastated about losing – or rely on a weapon that could be lost or broken.
A few more spices and maybe a lighter might be worth it though?
The two exited the dungeon and then headed towards a shop to exchange their crystals.
A small snag appeared as they finished up.
[503 credits for you…and 502 credits for you] the loot casher spoke.
No, the snag wasn’t the difference of credits. It wasn’t risking their life and three days of their time for only around 170 dollars.
[What about the rest of your loot?] the cashier asked.
Stepping forward Richard began to explain that this was all they had received from the dungeon.
[Sure that’s the exit bonus but most delvers know to harvest monster parts…which dungeon did you just complete? Did you beat the boss? Most of the final bosses have parts that sell for hundreds of credits minimum and even the regular mobs have some credits in harvested parts.]
…no one told them dungeon monsters could be sold. They could have gained so much more!
Bemoaning their lost loot, the two left and begin to wander silently.
James felt awkward – why was it so hard to say he wanted to leave? Did he still want to leave?
…yeah. This had been fun – the people in this city seemed nice even if they had been attacked once on the street…
But he had felt so much freer away from civilization.
“So…I’m planning on leaving soon, heading back to the magic side – I told you about that” James spoke.
Why were words hard.
“Alright then. See you around mate,” Richard responded.
That had been easier than he was imagining.
Now what is the best way to get to the magic side? Start walking around the edge of the barrier? If it was a dome like last time, he just had to make his way around using it like a wall – right?
…he had a way to check – kind of a waste but you know…its not like he had a different use for it currently.
…
“Quest: Way to magic,” James spoke. If the board resets with each zone he should be able to –yep!
Quest board: ‘Way to magic’.
A sea voyage! Aether is prevalent and all persuasive – but you know of the ‘other’: Sail across the ocean surviving the journey to catch a glimpse of the mystical. Reward: 81 free stats.
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Survive the badlands! Aether is prevalent and all persuasive – but you know of the ‘other’: The edge of the world is often called the badlands – a wall of nests so dangerous few make it out alive. Cross this deadly wall of monsters – survive and see the secret that hides on the other side. Reward: 81 free stats.
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Can’t go through it – can’t go under it. Gotta go above it! : Fly over top of the ‘containment barrier – fly high above its peak and reach the other side. Make sure to pack a space suit – the top of the barrier is known to pass above the atmosphere near the middle. Reward: 81 free stats.
“Shit – has it already been three weeks?” Richard spun sideways at James’s use of the achievement finder.
“Quest board reset at each zone I think…or the transfer between zones takes more than three weeks I don’t know. Either way looks like I’m crossing the badlands again. Going' find a map after I get a lighter.”
Richard stared to the side as if thinking.
“Quest: Kill my boredom,” he spoke eyes lighting up at the response. “Fucking A okay. I have something to do when you leave – after I go break my new skill of course.”
The two continued on to buy James’s supplies then headed to the edge of the city to say goodbye.
Awkwardly standing for a moment near the edge – the guard staring at them suspiciously for loitering near the gate – the two bumped fists for lack of anything else to do then parted ways.
It was nice having a friend.