Adam looked behind him, Matilda was obviously struggling to keep up with their walking pace. Her short stature and larger build meant they would have to keep a slower pace. He couldn’t judge too much as he was quite unfit and on the chubby side before any of this had happened, he just luckily had a a few months to whip himself into a decent level.
“So, big tree because we have no other clues on what we are being tested on?” Brian added to the empty air, Adam glanced at him and nodded.
“Seems like the best course of action” He scanned the area as much as he could but nothing else stood out on the skyline like the colossal colourful tree, besides, obviously they should head towards what appears to be a sign of civilisation with those city walls.
“I don’t feel any different, are we the video game characters yet?” Adam winced at Brian not seeming to take it very seriously, this felt very real and serious in his view. Adam figured Brian probably didn’t even believe they had really been transported to another universe still.
Matilda hurried alongside them “I have no clue, I feel like the same old me as well” she said.
Adam noticed out of the corner of his eye that Brian was looking all over himself, this was probably the third time already he had been just poking over his whole body looking for something new.
“I don’t think you are going to find a new body part Brian” he said with an air of smugness.
Brian rotated his wrist with a flick as he mimicked random actions alongside his prodding when something appeared out of it with a beam of light. Projecting out of his wrist was a floating screen which appeared to be a menu. Adam pushed next to Brian to look at it as Matilda pulled up on his other side, they all read the screen.
- Skills
- Essences
- Inventory
- Titles
- Quests
- Status
“How do I control it? Looks cool.” Brian said.
Adam didn’t respond as he replicated the wrist flick motion as Brian had done. He had to see this for himself. He stared at the same menu. “Skills. I need to see my skills, how do I select it?” he thought to himself with intent focus.
The screen changed to a new display, lots of little square icons dotted down the screen in a linked, branching tree. The bottom read.
Points Available: 1
He could see colourful little icons but couldn’t make out what they were supposed to mean or what they were symbolic of. He tried focusing on the first icon in the top left of the screen with his mind. Descriptive text popped up.
Psyblade- Level 1 Skill. Create a blade made from pure psychic energy. As sharp as the finest of crafted swords. Can be conjured and dissipated at will.
While most of the icons were greyed out there were a few at the top of the skill tree that seemed available to select. He continued by focusing his mental effort on focusing on each particular icon.
Psybolt - Level 1 Skill. Casts a bolt of psychic energy at your enemy. Deals psychic damage and degrades your enemies grasp on reality.
Psychokinesis- Level 1 Skill. Moves objects or beings with psychic energy. Weight limitations based on power level and intellect.
He considered his options, all of them sounded useful in different ways. They had no weapons and definitely might need one, but at the same time, he knew that he had no idea how to actually fight with one, how to wield it and so much more, it was too uncertain, if he would be blessed with knowledge in using the blade or end up close to useless with it. The psybolt ability mainly just scared him, what might happen if something went wrong, what if he hurt a friend with it?
He focused his thoughts on choosing his ability and the point was assigned into Psychokinesis, becoming surrounded by a border on the menu. At least he could safely test his limits and usage of this one.
“Well everyone, I now have teleki- I mean psychokinesis, figure it all out?” Adam asked his team.
“That’s a lot cooler than what I got, this system seems to be pushing me towards being a murderous lunatic” Brian sounded like he was disappointed with what he saw. “Anyway, I got a really cool attack that uses both of my weapons, it’s called Primal Slash.”
“Brian, do you have even one weapon, let alone making use of an attack that uses ‘both’ of your weapons. I don’t think you can slash with your fists.” Matilda chimed in.
“Yeah, whatever I’m sure they will come. Did you do any better Miss Cleric?” Brian retorted.
“Radiant Burst, it basically shoots out holy light magic bolts or something. It’s looking pretty powerful for fighting, unlike you, with your fists.”
This was the first time that Adam had seen Matilda seem annoyed at something, and she had pulled an odd face when Brian told them about his ability.
“I still haven’t seen either of you guys use these magic abili-" Brian was cut off as Adam picked up a pebble from Brian's feet and lifted it right in front of his eyes, Adam had not felt a thrill like this ever before in his life, his mind raced with possibilities for this new world and his new potential. They all had a good laugh together while Adam played around with his new skill, with his tension easing he saw the same on his teams faces, he figured they were settling in slightly and feeling together in this, everything felt good for his grand plans so far, he was already climbing new heights in his imagination.
Adam checked his Quests menu in his menu with a flick of his wrist to see if they had any clear instructions of what to do.
Kingdom of Oak - No current quests
He was hoping this menu system would help guide them and let them know what they actually were supposed to be doing but it seemed like it had no interest in helping them at the moment.
“I say we head towards that huge tree and see what happens” Adam said with a stride away from the others.
“Okay, I agree but we should still be really careful, we have absolutely no idea if even the most seemingly irrelevant thing could just kill us with a disease or something” Matilda huffed as she tried to keep up with Adams’ longer paces.
They followed in the direction of the great tree through an obviously cleared path of the forest, while making small talk about their past and family they suddenly heard another living soul. Screams of pain and what sounded like cries for help off in the distance, to their right, deeper into the forest and down some steep hills.
Adam scrambled down the hill as fast as he could while keeping his footing with Matilda and Brian behind him. The hilly area eventually evened out into a clearing where Adam laid eyes on the most horrifying thing he had seen in his life.
Adam looked on at a bear-like creature, immediately noticing that it was definitely not from Earth. It had raw pink skin that was translucent to the point where one can see the actual bones that make up its rib cage quite clearly. It also had blotches of a mustard colour randomly placed on its skin and left a thick, green tinted drool wherever it went.
The hound turned it’s head towards Adam as soon as the team came into the clearing. It made a horrifying screeching noise as it stood up on its hind legs and spread its front legs in a flexing manner.
Adam scanned the surrounding area before any rapid movements were made, this is when he noticed the young woman hidden under a thick log right under the hound, green moss covering it, a few shades darker than the bright hound drool. She was curled up in terror, her cloth hood on, attached to her white dress with sewn patterns on it. Simultaneously, his wrist holograph activated without any prompting or movement with a beeping sound. It read
BONUS OBJECTIVE - Hound (Level 5) -
Hounds Slain 0/1
Cynthia saved 0/1
“I’m not sure what kind of difference there is between level one and level five everyone but it doesn’t sound good for us” Adam said taking in the landscape, looking for ways to utilise his psychokinesis.
Nothing in this clearing looks like it can do much to a beast like this, even the log. If I could pick that log up in the first place that is, he knew from his earlier testing that it would be too heavy to pick it up from the ground. At best he could budge it slightly but right now he couldn’t even take the time to focus his efforts on that.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“You lot have any ideas that won’t get us killed by this thing?” Brian asked.
Adam started sprinting off through the clearing, down the side further from the hound, with the clearing on his left side, deeper forest straight ahead of him and some forested area to his right.
“I’m finding a more tactical spot. We need to get this thing over the other side of this clearing and deeper into the forest. I’m trusting you with my life to slow this thing down before it kills me Matilda.” He shouted, full of adrenaline as he ran past the line of sight of the girl his menu called Cynthia.
“I’ve got you.” Matilda ran forward seeming to focus on her spell and the hound. Nothing happened as far as Adam could see at a glance. Sweat was running down her forehead now.
Adam looked over his shoulder and saw two very stressful situations. The first was the hound chasing him, the other was Matilda standing there red in the face, without any spell casting happening. He had to buy some time, he diverged from his original plan deeper into the woods and took a sharp turn to his right where there was some denser forestation much closer, he was hoping Matilda could slow the hound so that he would have the time to make it across the full clearing but at this point he had to improvise.
The hound was definitely gaining ground on him quite quickly. Once it hit the dense area that Adam was navigating it slowed down as it had to squeeze it’s huge body through the tight gaps. It was surprisingly flexible, the way it squeezed under some loose, large branches was reminiscent of a domestic house cat. He still seemed to be losing ground even in this area as he slowed down as well to keep his footing in this area. Adam had dragged it pretty far into the right side of the clearing so he started to return to the direction of the clearing, this time on a different path hoping to get the hound stuck somewhere along the way.
Adam could hear the guttural growls close behind him as he sprinted more and more desperately up little bumps and hills, he was glad he stayed at least somewhat active back on Earth since that day of the message, but he was definitely losing his breath and struggling now. He could hear that green hued drool dripping from the hound onto the ground. He stumbled out of the woods and before he could make it back to the clearing come to the base of a cliff face. Trying to keep his balance over the next few strides, he fell onto his side, rolling onto his back, the hound was only a few strides away and jumped up onto its hind legs again as it went to attack Adam.
“PRIMAL SLASH!” Brian shouted as he slashed with two short daggers at the hounds chest while it was still standing on two legs. A large cross shaped cut formed on the hounds chest as it screeched louder than ever before. Brians’ daggers had a small golden handle and were now covered in a strange coloured blood, looking like it had splotches of both red and green over the blade.
“Sorry I barely made it. Daggers are from Cynthia.” Brian blurted out before continuing to try and stab the hound.
“Well I’m glad you had the time to get acquainted.” He tried to move into a position of safety, rolling back up to his feet.
“Shut up and help” Brian yelled loudly at him.
The hound swiped its paw at Brian, landing back on all fours, it had a black hardened leather filling out the raw pink skin on its front paw with gnarled, sharp claws that had black spots and more of that same green hue in it, gashing Brian across his stomach. He screamed in pain as blood poured out of him, Adam could see green ooze seeping into the wound and could smell and hear a burning, sizzling noise from the wound.
Brian knelt down in agony holding his burning wounds, paralysed despite the life or death situation in front of him. The hound went to go in again with its glowing florescent green teeth into the side of Brians’ torso.
A golden explosion burst from the face of the hound as its screeching sound became whinier and higher pitched. From twenty paces away, Matilda stood with a golden glow on her fingertips. The hound was blinded and wildly thrashed around as Adam and Brian crawled away from its reach. Brian could barely move but dragged himself just far enough away to avoid its claws.
Matilda was charging another blast, holding out both of her hands, each one gathering a golden light that grew in size.
“I saw your attack Brian, nice job finding some weapons” Matilda said as she put both of her hands together, merging the balls of energy as it sent out another blast, hitting the hound in the face a second time. The hound hit another level of rage and noise as it started dashing around in circles while swiping and biting at random spots while blinded, much faster than Adam could react to if it happened to go at him.
“Hell yeah, but this thing still seems fine outside of being blind” Brian yelled out. The hound heard his yell from ten paces away and dashed straight at him, using the sound as an aid to locate its victim. Brian was now with his back against the cliff face and trying to drag himself enough to the side to avoid the hounds next attack, he knew he couldn’t move fast enough and started screaming in fear.
As the hound charged, Adam started gasping for air and hyperventilating, his face bright red with sweat drenching his entire face. A loud crunch and snapping echoed throughout the forest as the hounds skull and brains spread across the ground next to the cliff face, spattering the face of the cliff with green and pink liquid. The hounds body lay there, with a large boulder now sitting where its head should be, the finality of the hounds life being some twitching nerves to shake the body around, some whistling noise and a modest layer of steam coming out of the corpse. Adam sighed a breath of relief, he really thought for a moment he didn’t have the strength to even slightly budge the boulder that was right on the edge at the top of the cliff face.
The menus attached to the wrists of the trio simultaneously popped up with a beep.
You have reached level two! (400/2000 xp)
For Adam, his read “You have unlocked level two passive. The Brain Is A Muscle. Improve strength related to psionic abilities at a rapid rate. Gain half of any physical strength as mental strength.”
Matilda ran over upon reading her passive to attend to Brian who lay there, some foam at his mouth and drifting in and out of consciousness. She started gathering golden energy for her Radiant Burst when she hesitated for a moment, unsure if she should just blast him the same way she had blasted the hound. She looked at his large gashes in his torso from the hounds claws and tried to focus her intention on a calmer spreading coat of light rather than her direct forceful blast. The wound was closing very slowly and Matilda felt herself tiring quickly.
Adam pushed “You can really heal with that same ability?”
“My level two passive. Careful Control. Damaging holy abilities now instead heal when cast at allies. I don’t know I’m trying, I think it’s kind of working. Shut up.”
She looked incredibly tired, barely able to maintain herself. Some green oozing liquid was being drawn out by her healing spell from the wound.
Adam tried to help “Can you at least get the poison out? We can’t lose him, this whole thing needs all three of us. Matilda we can’t lose him”
This got a rise out of Matilda who looked genuinely angry for the first time Adam had seen, she stood over the body of Brian, with new found vigor. “I said. I’m trying.” Adam watched as her entire body was shaking as she held her hands over the wound, poison being pulled slowly but surely out of the wound.
She collapsed and fell to her knees. “It’s done, he’s still probably going to die soon just from the wounds but there’s no poison or whatever that stuff is anymore”. Adam nodded “You did amazing, you have saved his life and we are gonna fix this up still, I’m sure of it.”
Adam heard some rustling from the bushes behind them, as they both turned around in fear.