:08/14/2251:
1:00 PM
The boys had been working yesterday and today, and I had taken the opportunity to buy some fencing lessons in Undercity and research where I could learn other auras. The ability to channel passive effects was unexpected and, more than anything, I figured the ability to dance between Auras would increase my support capabilities exponentially. That said, finding new trainers was more easily said than done, as while there was no formal level restriction that would prevent me from learning new abilities, the documented trainers tended to be both spread out and, in many cases, unreachable without an experienced party.
Late last night Matti and I had stumbled across exactly when I needed, however. In the far north, not far from the human city of Galdenheim, (one of the few that wouldn't execute me on sight as an Elfin), there was a trainer who could teach an Aura boosting combat effectiveness. From what I had seen of Lilith's Crew, their main tactic was simply to attack with the element of surprise and hope their initial ambush was enough to settle things without a prolonged fight. It seemed like a solid strategy for a team lacking any kind of support to provide the guys with some sustain, but now that I was in the party I was hoping that it wouldn't be as critical that our battles be resolved within the first few seconds. That said if I could somehow boost the power of that initial ambush, I had a feeling it would increase their combat effectiveness more than simple sustain. At least until their strategies adapted to our new team composition.
The fencing lessons had been fun even though they had so far done little more than demonstrated how bad at it I actually was. It would take years, I realized, before I would even stand a chance against someone like Blink with a sword. And from what I knew about warrior class abilities, it went without saying that I would never actually be able to beat him with a sword. Still, time was a currency that I had to spend, and so I knew that the sooner I started training the sooner I could be done with it.
It had been a risk, I knew, to travel without any of the crew there to protect me. Even for just the handful of miles between Galdenheim and my trainer, there were endless opportunities for NPCs, PKs, or even just random players to harass the isolated newb. But I didn't have any gold in game to speak of, nor was I carrying anything that would drop upon my death, so it seemed like it was worth the risk to try all on my own. Worst case scenario, I would die a few times and have to wait out the lockout before I had a chance to try again. Well, no. The worst case scenario was that somewhat horrifying things would happen between the point where I was found and the point where my Avatar died and I found myself in the lobby, but that had been a risk from the moment that I had logged into the game, and if I allowed myself to fear painful and humiliating deaths I would find myself a perma-basketweaver hiding in some town for the next five long years.
The risk was also somewhat negated by my ability to fly. Serpent-form I had already decided would be too flashy, attracting too much attention, but it was far from my only option. On the dark, black wings of a crow, I alighted the second the portal had delivered me to the city, putting as much space as possible between me and any archers or gunmen below. It wouldn't save me from a determined wizard or sorceress who guessed at my true form, and there were Predator in the air too for which I needed to keep a careful eye, but it did save me from the dangers that would make the area impassable if I were alone.
Alighting over the steep hills and tundra that surrounded the lonely city, I flew through the icy winds that threatened to batter me from my course, over the steel cliffs of mountains waiting just north of the city. It would have been possible to get here on foot, I knew, if I had had a full party and the proper gear, but there was little in the way of treasure or equipment to be found in these tall northern peaks. No, the trainer had, seemingly, positioned himself so that only a supplicant druid, flying in avian form, would be able to realistically reach him.
In the cleft of the peaks, at the end of my journey, I found the little crevasse and hide covered hut after a good half an hour of searching. The hides were white as the settled snow and even the smoldering wood of the firepit gave off little in the way of light or smoke. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how this trainer had been found in the first place, save perhaps some initial quest in town triggered by some hapless Druid player. Still, with aching limbs from the long flight, I quickly sailed down into the snow next to his hut and planted my feet before the wind could sweep me away and keep me from the end of my journey.
The act of flying itself seemed to exhaust me and drain my endurance as though I were myself flapping my wings against the freezing winds. And though there were no recorded points for endurance or stamina in this game, still I felt the sweat drenching my skin and the way my body wheezed for breath with every flap of the crow's wings. I rested for some few minutes then, insubstantial arms clinging to the feathers and sprawling out across the perched form of my shapeshift. But the moments of rest had come with its own cost, as the cold northern air started to burn through my limbs and chill me down to the core.
Shifting back into my Nymph form, I was immediately grateful for the innate cold resistance of my race. Because while my teeth still chattered and my limbs still burned with the cold, I knew that the snow covering my bare feet and the wind against my legs and shoulders would have otherwise resulted in frostbite within a matter of minutes.
It was no sooner than I had shifted form than I was suddenly aware of the Druid's presence. It wasn't his smell that I noticed, though it probably should have been, nor was it the silhouette of his head peeking out the furs enshrouding his hut. What I noticed first was simply the feeling of his eyes on my body, the sense of being watched, and a strange hunger that made me suddenly, irrationally afraid.
He didn't say much as he approached me, but his eyes never left my legs as he left the warmth of his dwelling. I couldn't tell if it was a desire to touch them or a desire to eat them that I felt from his eyes, but I was somehow increasingly incensed as he took one careful step after another.
And, without a word, he began to dance before me, watching me with those hungry eyes. His tall back and broad shoulders bent and spun within the layers and layers of fur that formed his clothing. The flaps of his kilt flew up as he jumped... wow, ok... showing that he had apparently gotten his fashion sense from the ancient race of Scotsmen. The motions were violent, tribal, as he threw up his arms and hopped, crouching his legs and twirling, like something you would see in a documentary vid of ancient cavemen. But somehow, still, I found myself enraptured, draw in by the brutal, primal movements of his dance.
Finally, after some few minutes of freezing cold, I realized two things. First, I decided that this man wasn't going to say a word. He would simply dance along until I fell into step with him, or he would tire and return to whatever it was that he did with his days. Secondly, I felt the cold wind start to freeze the sweat that covered my skin, and I knew that resistant or not, had I stood there motionless for another few minutes the cold of that mountain would not have thought to spare me.
And so, awkwardly and wordlessly, I began to follow along. Wordlessly I fell into step with the strange jerks and jumps of the dance. And, strangely, as exhausted as I was I found a new strength and vitality flowing through my limbs the better I got at the primal dance. Still, even as my limbs and body started to once again warm, life flowing and burning through my veins with every exhausting step, still, it seemed to go on and on. Hours passed, the sun sinking low across the horizon, yet still we danced together. The funny man, his eyes never leaving the bare skin of my legs, and myself, squeezing my eyes together and forcing myself to keep going... on and on and on.
The first thing I noticed wasn't the status update or the little bell of completion. The first thing I noticed wasn't the change in scenery or the way the wind suddenly picked up and howled at me, freezing me further in ways that even the high air of the mountain had not. No, the first thing that I became aware of, before and above all of that, was that the feeling of the tall man's eyes was suddenly gone.
Arch-Druid Ability Unlocked!
Predator's Aura (Legendary)
1 Second Activation: Upon activation Predator's Aura removes all exhaustion effects from affected players.
While Active: Applies the following bonuses to allies in a thirty-foot radius:
Bloodlust: 15% Damage Increase
Tiger's Swiftness: 15% Movement Speed Increase
Eagle Eye: 50% Increase to Critical Strike Damage
Legendary:
Passive effect: For 10 Minutes after Active Channeling ends, the following bonuses will be applied to allies in a thirty-foot radius:
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Bloodlust: 5% Damage Increase
Restriction:
Only one active and one passive Aura may be maintained by the Arch Druid at any time.
I had scarcely finished reading the unlock when a thin twang sound of a guitar reverberated through the clearing. The sound was deep and melodic, echoing deeply inside my chest and teeth. A few more notes played, shaking my freezing bones with a deep minor key, and I finally waved the notification aside and looked around.
I was in a snowy forest clearing, the barren trees towered over me and the sun etched the horizon. But my eyes weren't drawn to the pristine snow or the beautiful line of the sunset. Rather, it was the towering form of five, slobbering Dire Wolves that waited on every side of me that captured my eyes. Their breaths puffed out in little clouds of mist, trailing into the frozen atmosphere as their hungry red eyes silently watched me. Eyes that reminded me, unquestionably, of the eyes of the Druid who had taught me the dance.
"Um... nice doggies...." I said hesitantly, holding out my palms and bearing my throat, just as the event notification echoed through the instance:
Trial of Courage
And as if on cue, as the event officially started, the wolves leaped up upon me and began to tear at the flesh of my body with their teeth. The pain was unbearable, though quick. My life bleeding out and disappearing into the frozen ground before I had even fully realized what had happened.
And I died. But, rather than finding myself in the warm, familiar bounds of the Lobby, instead, I was instantly, impossibly once again in the center of the clearing. The snow was white and virgin underneath my feet, but the long slavering muzzles of the wolves once again around me still had the bright red hues of the blood and viscera that they had just torn from my body.
I pulled out my rapier and I tried to fight. I turned into a crow and I tried to run. I became the serpent and I attempted to bite. But each time I failed and the world quickly faded around me to the searing agony of teeth that ripped me apart. Again and again and again I died, and no matter what I did, what I tried or didn't try to do, each time the wolves found my tender flesh and took their fill from my body. I can't count how many times my fingers hovered over the 'Logout' button from my menu, desperately wanting to escape to the safe walls of my Axis Room. And yet I knew that this was a Class Trial, an instanced zone that was only accessible when first you learn the affiliated aura. And I knew that, if I logged back in and found myself outside of this instance, there would likely be no possible way for me to ever find my way back.
And in my stubbornness, in my desperation to prove myself to Blink and his crew, in my sheer willfulness to not have to read the comments that would follow my stream if I were to admit defeat... all these things together combined into a potent elixir in my veins that kept me going, kept me fighting, kept me coming back to die and die again. The moon rose and set, the sun peeked over the horizon and climbed overhead until I lost count of how many times I had died. I tore into the impossibly thick hide of the wolves with my teeth, the nails of my fingers and the daggered wings on my back then, not even bothering to shapeshift or pretend that I even had a chance, but seeking only to injure or maim as many of them as I could before I died and had to start again.
I began to rate the pain that their bites caused, becoming a connoisseur of the raw agony. That one felt like nothing, 1/10. That one tore a wing, filling my body with the purest and most brutal agony, 9/10 because I'm still alive, fuckers. This bite tore into my heel and left me unable to walk, 3/10. The searing agony all melded together in my mind and, in those late hours of the morning, I found that I disturbingly, pervertedly, had started to enjoy it. Baring my tiny, Nyphin teeth at them as we started, howling and diving into their midst. I grinned even as they hobbled my legs, darting out with wings and claws and little teeth of my own, laughing in madness and agony. It seemed then, in the end, that the wolves and I were one. The teeth and claws of the pack no different than my own, their howling and my howling echoing together into the endless, snow-covered lands that marked our battlefield.
When the sun was directly overhead, when I was no longer sure if I was wolf or woman, only then did their attacks stop. I stood in the middle of the growling pack, barring my own teeth and hissing in anticipation for the pack's eventual, inevitable attack. But as the moments passed, as the wolves started to lay down on their bellies, one by one, I found myself standing there, alive. Confused, I hissed and screamed in their direction, crouching and turning with my razored wings hovering overhead, looking at each of them individually.
Rather than attacking, however, the wolves, as one, began to crawl forward, sliding on their bellies and keeping the sharp teeth of their impossibly wide jaws firmly shut. One by one, I found a wet, warm nose pressing against the bare skin of my legs and feet, not biting, but nuzzling and licking me.
Confused, I stood there for some minutes, torn between attacking them and remain still, ready for their inevitable, brutal ambush. Yet the cold started to settle in, to bring back my deranged mind and senses from the very brink of insanity, and, in spite of myself, in spite of the pain and rage and fever inside of me, I found my hand reaching out as if on its own. I was... impossibly... patting the tops of their heads and nuzzling the warm fur of their pelts.
Class Feature Unlocked!
Druid of the Dire Wolf
"Your indomitable heart beats with the fury of the pack. You have discovered the Arch-Druid's Courage and claimed the tenacity of the wolf for your own."
Feature Unlocked:
Dire Wolf's Mastery: All pain effects are reduced by 50%. Pain will no longer break concentration.
Winter Howl: Your howl now carries with it the fury of Winter. Enemies within a 10ft radius of your howl must save against fear and chill effects. Usable in Nymph and Wulfin forms.
As the status text faded and the instance was cleared, the living forms of the wolves faded out around me. And in their place where the broken and bloody forms of every wolf that I had managed to kill during the course of the night. There were more bodies here than I remembered, more than I imagined, sprawled out before me like the remnant of some ancient battlefield. The blood of each body seeped into the snow until I was standing in a deep red field of frozen, canine excretions.
Standing, hesitantly, I pulled my knife from my inventory and walked over to the monstrous form of the nearest defeated Dire Wolf, cutting deeply into the still-warm flesh of its body.
Hearts of Magic:
Dire Wulf Acquired
:08/15/2251:
11:23 AM
I found myself back upon the mountaintop, the freezing winds beating gently across my bare skin. And yet it was very much not the mountain that I had recognized, the mountain that I had stood on the previous day. My intent was to log out instantly, as I had a little less than half an hour left to start Calisthenics before Matti would forcibly log me out and I would be fined by the Syndicate, but instead of reaching for my menu I paused, stunned, as my senses took in the world around me.
It was not snow that covered my feet now, but rather frozen flakes of ash that piled up a good foot in height, blanketing the world with soot and grey-white silt. The little hut that had been, before, covered with the thick white fur too had changed. Stretched over the wooden frame was what clearly could only have been stretched, dried bits of human skin. Barely daring to look away, but numb as the world fed into my senses, I hesitantly turned and looked out from the edges of the mountain Craig, down upon the world so far below.
The trees of the winter forest no longer stood proudly in hues of Evergreen growths and snow-white drifts. Rather, the barren, broken branches of dead trees covered the ground below, long barren arms reaching out and grasping nothing but the freezing wind. The ground between the devastated vegetation was no longer white, but the sickening yellow-gray of ash and toxic residue that was so, painfully familiar.
Far in the distance, where the city was supposed to have been, I thought I could make out strange ruins. Instead of the small, wooden buildings and little wooden walls, there stood tall metal frames, tilting unsteadily to the side and yet reaching high into the air. The roads between the skeletons of broken, scattered buildings, with large gaping holes that seemed to disappear deep into the earth and huge, dead bushes ripping them apart. Still, I couldn't make sense of it, couldn't tie the pieces together, until my eyes hesitantly traveled... up.
Above me was no longer the pristine, impossibly blue sky of a fantasy world. No, the sun shined down through yellow, poisonous clouds, casting its bitter, pristinely white glare on this world below. This world that I was seeing, the ground below my feet and the air I was breathing, I finally realized, was the same poisoned devastation as would greet me in meatspace if I were to open a door and walk outside.
How many hours, how many days and months and years, had I sat in front of my window, watching those same, yellowed clouds fly past as I avoided logging back in? How many times had I seen the drones fly by, scrubbing away the same ash as buried my feet off of my thick, lead-lined windows? Fear gripped me at the realization, lungs freezing up, refusing to take another poisoned breath. I could almost feel it as the radiation of this world, this... real... world baked into my body and liquefied my organs, one by one by one.
Madly, I tested for my interface, eyes wide and feeling the terror that coursed through my body, hands shaking and eyes darting back and forth like a cornered dog. It took some moments of staring at the calming, familiar menus, the sleek, intuitive panels of the UI, before my senses started to return. And, as I discovered the little debuff marker at the bottom right of the screen, only then did I take another, gasping breath.
Insanity
4 hours remaining
Repeated trips to the afterlife removed the blinders from your eyes, allowing you to see the world as it really is.
You can't tell anyone, they do not see and will not understand. You're the only person in the world to have opened their eyes.
The only person in the world who is awake.
I simply smiled, looking around at the barren terrain through the translucent screens of the menu. It was disconcerting, for someone who had spent their entire life hiding from a world like this one. Even know, knowing it was some random sanity debuff resulting from my impossibly long string of deaths, I couldn't shake the horror of feeling the ash between my feet, seeing the naked sun shining down upon my unprotected flesh.
I reached for the logout button, finally, with both trepidation and relief. As if fearing it would be just as useless as a logout button in meatspace. I knew, from the bottom of my heart, that I would wait out those for remaining hours before attempting to log back in. Probably with a generous cushion for error just to be absolutely sure it was safe.