Building a metal shelter on top of sand dune in the middle of a desert that is far hotter than Death Valley has many drawbacks, but as Mike took his first step into his shelter, he concluded that chief among those drawbacks was the blisters. After years of hardening his hands to the point where they no longer got blisters even after hours of chopping trees, he found the small bubbles where the heated metal had touched his fingers more painful than the blunted arrows the hobgoblins had peppered him with in the Pit. How he missed those seemingly carefree weeks of simply growing stronger in his valley, before the Arena had come into existence and Bart had attacked his home.
It had only been a little over an hour since the sun had risen, but already his small shelter was nearly steaming. Owing to the fact that the wurm was currently burrowed somewhere beneath him, he didn’t feel safe creating his usual shelter, which required digging into the earth. Instead, he had built a small hut, completely out of metal. That material extended even to the construction of the floor, which was the only thing between himself and being eaten alive.
Since it would be impossible to completely cover the shelter with sand, he had to compromise a bit. The sides he had managed to pile sand around, while the top he had covered with the dilapidated raw hide that usually served to protect him from sled-burns. The entire shelter was rather small, but he had made a small compartment for the working model of his fan. It was smaller than normal, too small to be powered with his legs, so his plan for the day was to spin the fan to keep air circulating with one hand, while using his other hand to try to find a way to escape his current predicament. It was a sad, yet foregone conclusion that he would have to use most of his remaining water to survive the day. Still, he had hopes that he would find another water source before the night was out.
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Once again, Mike found himself leaving his shelter before the world had fully cooled off. Rather than leaving the peak, however, his burly form set about collecting his Quicksilver and methodically wrapping his core up in the sun-hardened leather that had served to cover his roof that day. That completed, he fashioned a sled out of Quicksilver, before taking out a large satchel from his storage bag.
His initial ploy for surviving had been to simply flee the premises before the wurm could come out and hunt him–a plan that had lasted about as long as it took for him to remember how quickly the wurm had caught up to him the night before. With that plan effectively ruined, he wracked his brain to find a suitable solution, but for all of his efforts, only two came to mind. The first was to somehow reach the end of the kata and maybe gain the skill Avis, which could possibly grant flight. The second was the tried and true method of SEALs–explosives. Blasting Powder had killed the wurmlet, and he was confident that if he used enough, it could kill the fully grown wurm as well. The only problem with this solution was that he was unsure how much was necessary to kill the wurm, and he only had around 3 pounds left. Deciding that this was an instance where it was better to be safe than sorry, he deposited all but a small handful of Blasting Powder into one of his precious clay vessels, which was sitting at the ready as he finished preparing himself for the inevitable confrontation.
The final piece of the puzzle had been figuring out a way to trick the sand wurm from not simply emerging directly beneath him and eating him in one bite, which would give him no time to use the Blasting Powder effectively. To that end, he now stood with a thick beam of Quicksilver in his hand, which extended to the ground in front of him. He held the beam under his left arm, while activating Sonic Sounding with his right hand, sending the vibrations through the metal and into the sand nearly 10 feet from his position. For the next 10 minutes, as the sun waned, he continued to use the ability. Then, just before the sun fully set, he ceased Sonic Sounding, manipulated the Quicksilver back into his storage bag, and waited with the ceramic vessel held above his head, ready to be thrown.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
He didn’t have to wait long. Less than two minutes later, he felt a shaking coming from deep beneath him, which was followed almost immediately after by the sand disappearing from the exact place where the end of his beam had been touching the ground. Knowing he only had one shot, Mike tossed his package towards the hole. It had just crossed the hole’s edge when the wurm’s enormous jaws emerged, shooting upwards and devouring the package, with the same amount of effort it takes for a grown man to swallow a fly. The wurm continued to pour out from the depths of the dune, until its body extended a 10 feet from the hole. For a moment, Mike worried that his attack had been unsuccessful but then a deep rumble began and the wurm jolted to a stop with an ear-splitting screech.
Evidently, the amount of Blasting Powder had been sufficient, as the pieces of the wurm’s body were launched in every direction, even as the peak of the dune exploded outward, creating a cresting wave of sand. Mike only had time to jump forward and activate Stomach Surfing and Unflinching Meteor before the 30 foot wave caught him and began carrying him down the hill in a terrifying conglomeration of an avalanche and a tidal wave. He was unable to enjoy the ride, however, as once again his body was wracked with the same horrific pain that had accompanied the death of the wurmlet–although somehow to an even greater degree. It was as if the energy of an atomic bomb churned inside of him, and he was only dimly aware of his body as it coasted downhill at the front of the torrential wave of sand.
As the seconds wore on, he noticed that there seemed to be a pattern to the energy’s movement within him. Due to the sharpness of the pain, he was able to trace its course precisely as it spread from somewhere around his navel to every point in his body. Once the energy reached his extremities, he watched as it seemed to loop back towards its source, before shooting out again in pulses, an unceasing chain of agony. He began to notice that not all of the energy was circulating. Some of it seemed to be absorbed by a rune-like pattern that existed within the energy pathways inside of him. That pattern seemed to get slightly brighter with every painful throb of energy.
Then, all at once, the energy, and with it, the pain, suddenly disappeared from his body and he was once again cognizant of what lay around him. To his surprise, he was still coasting down the sand dune with unfettered speed. Rather than fear, Mike’s face was grinning and he whooped loudly into the night air as he gracefully maneuvered down the slope. The manic gleam in his eye seemed to visibly increase as he read the System notification that had just appeared:
[Congratulations! For surfing the big one, Stomach Surfing has reached Level 2
+1 Toughness and Dexterity
Friction and air resistance reduced by 15% while Skill Ability is active.]
Not only was he on the most exhilarating ride of his life, but he could now travel faster and further with the skill increase. His enthusiasm waned somewhat as he read the requirements for the Skill Ability to reach Level 3, Teach a gremmie what you know. It was illogically unspecific, as was swiftly becoming the norm for his more complex skills. He knew what a gremmie was from his time stationed in Hawaii, but the actual information he knew about stomach surfing was limited. Furthermore, where could he find a gremmie in the middle of a desert?
His thoughts were interrupted by a particularly large divot that launched him heavenword for a brief instant, before he crashed back down hard enough to make his teeth rattle.
I probably shouldn’t let my mind wander too much while riding at the head of a giant landslide
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System Administrator’s frustration mounted as they watched the anomaly sled down the sand down with all of the joy of a young hatchling, completely oblivious to the enormity of the task he had just accomplished–that he had managed to kill a greater sand wurm many times his own Level seemed to not even phase the aging Terran. Even more surprising was that the anomaly had remained conscious during the influx of cosmic energy from the wurm’s demise. The pain must have been excruciating, and not for the first time, System Administrator wondered at what sort of function the anomaly must have fulfilled before the integration.