A shrill shriek of a dying animal grated against Red’s eardrums as he stepped through the portal. Steel clashed against steel and mixed with the desperate, heroic, or pained shouts of the living. It was a cacophony of chaos. One underpinned by the inexorable grinding of deep stone.
Red gasped as a titanic pressure squeezed him from all directions. He doubled over, clutching his chest and throat as his vision turned red. The green beacon of perseverance pulsed, turning his vision into a collage of green and red. Blearily, he realized that the blood vessels in his eyes had burst.
He was crying red tears.
[New Skill → Ambient Mana Resistance 1]
He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision, but it was no good. All of his senses were messed up in some way. His hearing was distorted, and the only thing he could smell was the coppery tang of blood. The best he could tell was that stepping through that portal in Aewyn’s house had dropped him right in the center of a battl—
Something crashed into him.
[Crush Resistance 7 → Crush Resistance 8]
A shrill shriek of a dying animal shocked Red to his senses, where he immediately slumped to the ground.
“Ahh, balls,” Red groaned.
[Ambient Mana Resistance 1 → Ambient Mana Resistance 2]
A shrill shriek of a dying animal shocked Red to his senses.
“Ow...”
[Ambient Mana Resistance 2 → Ambient Mana Resistance 3]
A shrill shriek of a dying animal shocked Red to his senses.
[Ambient Mana Resistance 3 → Ambient Mana Resistance 4]
A shrill shriek of a dying animal shocked Red to his senses. The ambient mana pressed in. Hard, but somehow Red managed to keep his feet. He squinted, teetering on the edge of faceplanting as a steady stream of red erupted from his nose.
He was on a battlefield. But not just any battlefield. A veritable fantasy warzone of dwarves battling hulking stone golems inside of a glowy magic cave. Honestly, it didn’t take Red that long to come to terms with that. Given the whole wyvern-filled elven adventure he’d embarked upon recently.
The dwarves — for lack of a better word for the short, stocky, gray-skinned humanoids — were covered in silvery armor. It gleamed in the reflected glow emitted by veins of illuminated ore along the walls. The dwarves fought in small coordinated groups, though the remains of a shield wall and more organized defenses were apparent even to Red’s untrained eye,
[Ambient Mana Resistance 4 → Ambient Mana Resistance 5]
He’d obviously been teleported to some other strange location. Hell, it might not even be on the same world as Aewyn and company. Hopefully, it was, but he could do nothing about that. For now, he had to assume that this situation was similar to the elven forest and that there would be a runic archway leading to the ne—
Something smashed into him.
[Crush Resistance 8 → Crush Resistance 9]
A shrill shriek of a dying animal shocked Red to his senses. It was a testament to his growing familiarity with these loops that he instantly resumed where he left off.
He zeroed in on the sound of the dying animal. It was coming from the other side of the battlefield from an oversized basilisk-type creature serving as a mount for a gold-encrusted dwarf. Even as Red watched, a hulking golem pulverized the lizard’s skull into the ground, grabbed the kingly appointed dwarf by the helmet and squeezed.
Red winced as red juices squirted out of the gaps in the armor all over the group of dwarves desperately trying to stop the golem. Before he could feel too much sympathy, however, a blur of notifications grabbed his attention.
[Admin Approval Received → Athleticism Unlocked]
[Athleticism II → Swift Feet]
[Admin Approval Received → Brawling Unlocked]
[Brawling II → Titan Wrestler]
[New Skill → Knockback Resistance 1]
Red’s brows rose as the system bombarded him with more skills without descriptions. He blinked the notifications away and suddenly remembered the threat that kept killing him.
He turned around, and his body moved.
Red yelped as his leg flew out from under him and he toppled over. The stone golem ready to pulverize him clipped him in the shoulder, instead of in the head. The force that hit him didn’t match the weight of the attack he felt however, and he further lost balance as knockback resistance utterly messed with ability to coordinate.
Red slammed into a protruding rock that dug into his spleen hard enough to make perseverance flare.
He wheezed as death in the form of two tonnes of granite accelerated toward his skull.
[Crush Resistance 9 → Crush Resistance 10]
[Ambient Mana Resistance 5 → Ambient Mana Resistance 6]
A shrill shriek of a dying animal shocked Red to his senses. He cracked his neck and started backing away.
So what did he know?
Battlefield? Check. Chaos? Check. Dwarves winning? Unclear. Probably not, actually. Likely why he was here, though there was no doorway in sight.
What about his status? Two skills had finished evolving. Swift feet literally meant faster feet, and...yeah. Faster everything. And it was linked to athleticism, so theoretically gaining more levels in that skill would make him even faster. Titan wrestler probably gave some advantage to fighting...titans. And, hopefully, it also worked on smaller titans like the golems, but he’d test that momentarily. Knockback resistance came out of nowhere, so presumably, it resulted from one of the skill evolutions. Red’s guess. Brawling.
The question that remained was whether to try and brute force trying to find the door, or raise his stats long enough that he could survive for more than a few minutes in this place, then search for the door.
Red coughed, blinking as he noticed specks of blood coming out.
[Ambient Mana Resistance 6 → Ambient Mana Resistance 7]
Well that answered that question.
Red rolled his shoulders as he scanned the battlefield. Weakness filled him from what he could only assume was mana poisoning. The air rippled and distorted as the invisible stuff saturated it to the brim. It felt like walking into a walk-in-freezer, a blacksmith’s forge, and a pressure chamber all at once. Red’s extremities tingled, growing numb as he focused hard on the different enemies in the area.
[New Skill → Identify 1]
[Animated Granite]
[Animated Quartz]
[Animated Marble]
With only a short time left to live, Red ran toward the nearest animated quartz golem. His reasoning was simple: His only two skills that had properly evolved to the second tier where brawling and stab resistance. The latter of which almost definitely would work on the sharp, crystal-encrusted body of the animated quartz. Crush resistance on the other hand was limited at the first tier, and even if he found something that could evolve it, it could be months before the ‘admins’ unlocked it.
Red dodged around a animated granite golem and charged headfirst into a small animated quartz on the edge of the battlefield. He ignored the various armor and weapons littering the ground. Using armor had merit — if he wasn’t already on a timer due to the ambient mana poisoning — but using a weapon meant that he would have to learn an entirely new combat strategy.
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Instead, Red brawled the quartz golem with predictable results.
[Stab Resistance II 1 → Stab Resistance II 2]
A shrill shriek of a dying animal shocked Red to his senses, and he immediately sprinted toward his quartz target. The ambient mana poisoning was slightly better this time around, though he still felt like he wouldn’t survive more than a few minutes in this hellish area.
[Ambient Mana Resistance 7 → Ambient Mana Resistance 8]
The quartz golem gladly met him in battle. It was fast compared to its lumbering brethren, but even at only level 1 athleticism, Red was faster. He dodged around the creature, unleashing lightning fast jabs empowered by power strike. Each hit cracked a spine on the creature’s bulbous body, and repeated strikes on the same area lead to fractures that crumbled off the creature.
His movement was faster than ever before, his strikes harder than ever before, and his skin tougher against the stab damage the creature dealt. However, two minutes into the fight, Red slipped as his leg simply refused to rise. Tingles shivered up and down his body as the mana poisoning overwhelmed his resistance.
[Ambient Mana Resistance 8 → Ambient Mana Resistance 9]
[Stab Resistance II 2 → Stab Resistance II 3]
A shrill shriek of a dying animal shocked Red to his senses. He narrowed his eyes at his status. He would need to find a way to evolve ambient mana resistance once it hit level ten. Throwing himself at the quartz golem was good training, but it didn’t serve his long term goal.
For that he needed to talk to the dwarves.
“??? ??? ??? ???” The bulky dwarf roared in his ear as he grabbed him by the arm and yanked him into the center of the formation.
“Sorry! I don’t understand uh,
The stocky dwarf nodded, then dragged Red away from the battle. Red tried to protest, but he was significantly weaker than the four foot nothing dwarf. Not that he could have fought properly anyway. Minutes passed and he started to stumble as he lost feeling in his toes.
[Ambient Mana Resistance 9 → Ambient Mana Resistance 10]
His interface pinged, and even with a maxed out tier 1 skill, the mana poisoning was slowly killing him. His escort shot him stoic glances every so often, and after fifteen minutes, simply pulled Red onto his back. Red lost track of time and space as even perseverance couldn’t keep him lucid.
----------------------------------------
Red woke in a bed with a large mechanical face-mask glued to his face. He blinked at a smooth stone ceiling having mostly expected to wake up back on the battlefield. His body ached and dark blue veins covered every single bit of exposed skin. He was still mana poisoned, but the dwarves had managed to move him out of the mana dense area.
Groans, snores, and hushed whispers filled the large space he found himself in. It was a field hospital of some sort. Which was cool. Though, damn, he really needed to learn dwarvish.
“??? ??? ???”
“Sorry, elvish,” Red turned to a dwarf who’d made his way over upon seeing Red awake. The dwarf squinted, mouthing something silently to himself, then he nodded and patted Red’s arm before walking away.
Red simply breathed for a few minutes through the mask. The ambient mana was drastically reduced and the contraption seemed to be filtering the air even further. It did muffle his voice though.
The dwarf medic returned, this time with an even smaller person in tow. The second person was slightly shorter than a dwarf, but lacked all the bulk and hair of dwarves. The result was a childlike look with an adult face with several visible ridges in the skull where hair normally would grow.
“Good afternoon, traveler,” the gnome said in crisp elvish. “What may we call you during your time here? I am told that you speak some sort of elvish?”
“Oh, uh hi,” Red smiled in relief. He’d forgotten how frustrating not knowing the language was. “I’m Red, and yes, I speak elvish.”
“Lufthynsth. I...see,” the gnome frowned, his accent subtly changing. It brought the ridges of his skull down all in one rippling motion. Freaky. “My name is Professor Miriflit. If I may ask, what is your primary language? Your Lufthynsth is...”
“Childish?” Red smirked, letting his head flop back down onto the stiff pillow.
“...I would not phrase it so crudely.”
“Yeah, I learned from a child.”
The dwarf medic was glancing between them, clearly not understanding what was going on. He asked the gnome something, to which the gnome simply waved him down. A gesture that probably meant to be patient. The dwarf shrugged, then said something and walked away. Given the gnomes dismissive nod, the dwarf likely said something similar to “call me when you’re done”
[New Skill → Grinone Language Proficiency 1]
[New Skill → Multilingual 1]
“What is your native tongue, traveler?”
Red flicked away the notifications and focused back on the gnome. He was smiling kindly and patiently. It was eerily similar to the doctors back on earth, though this one was three foot eight and had a weird head.
“Don’t worry about it, we can use elvish. I doubt you know my native language.”
“I would be very much surprised if that was the case. I am quite proficient at languages and it would be preferable if we speak in the language you are most proficient in. It significantly reduces the risk of misunderstandings, and is no trouble at all for me.”
“Alright,” Red shrugged, then switched to english. “
The gnome paused, then his...head flaps...rose slowly. Presumably surprise.
“I...am surprised. I have not yet earned the proficiency to understand this language,” the gnome said matter of factly. “Could you please speak a little more so that I may identify what tongue you speak?”
Red shrugged and started rambling. Barely a minute in, the gnomes brows somehow rose even further up his skull.
“You speak a lost language. How?” All decorum and polite distance appeared to have vanished from the gnomes demeanor. His brows descended and he stared at Red like he was a puzzle that simply required solving.
“Guess I was just born this way,” Red shrugged. “Say, slight change of topic, but I’m sort of dying here. Is there any chance you guys have a skill evolution draught somewhere around here? My ambient mana resistance is capped at ten, and this is starting to get really uncomfortable.”
The gnome said nothing for several long seconds. Its surprisingly expressive head flaps gittered up and down in a way that Red wished there was a skill for understanding. The system to grant him one, and after nearly an entire minute the gnome broke the silence.
“I shall sponsor your skill evolution of any five skills you choose up to the second tier and shall personally ensure your safe passage to New Greeps. It is the gnomish capital not to far from Mordra Dur. There you shall receive a full sponsorship and a modest stipend at my university to learn anything and everything your heart desires. A-and I can guarantee your safety. New Greeps is one of the safest cities on the planet.”
The gnome took a deep breath, with his eyes slightly too wide and his hands unable to stay still. He seemed a little frazzled
“In exchange. You must teach me and my colleagues this...Angleesh.”
Red frowned at the gnomes outburst. It wasn’t that he was against helping out this professor, but he felt vaguely uncomfortable sharing any Earth thing with the people here. Not for any particular reason other than the deluge of media back on earth that warned of the far reaching consequences of introducing foreign concepts to new worlds.
That being said, he had given Aewyn his briefcase with his entire garbage disposal logistics proposal. Any serious linguist probably could decipher the language from that alone, so the cat was already out of the bag.
“I might even be able to sponsor up to eight skills to the second tier,” Miriflit said, shuffling his feet nervously.
No, the real reason he was feeling hesitant was that agreeing to this directly pulled him away from his spawn point. A spawn point that he couldn’t help but feel was right next to the task he needed to accomplish on this level of the loop.
While some part of him ached for civilization where things made sense, and he didn’t need to punch his problems away. A bigger part of him accepted that as a necessary evil. While some might view the loop as a hell to be endured, Red couldn’t help but start to fall in love with it.
Whichever sick god had placed him here knew exactly what Red wanted from life.
“O-okay, I can maybe, yes.” Miriflit wringed his hands together, going so far as to take a step closer to Red. “Perhaps it might be possible for my department to sponsor a single tier three skill evolution, but that truly is the limit. We are a small dep—”
Red raised a hand, halting the poor professor in his tracks.
“Thank you for the offer, and I accept. Though I must complete something here first. If you could grant me a single evolution for ambient mana resistance to the second tier, then I promise I shall do everything in my power to go to this New Greeps and teach your department my language.”
“But should you die?” Miriflit hedged.
“I won’t, don’t worry. My task here isn’t dangerous in the slightest,” Red smirked slightly at his own joke. “To ease your mind, there is a little elvish girl out there by the name of Aewyn who has my bag with dozens of pages written all in english. Valandil is her father, Miriel is her mother, and her matriarch is a grouchy old crone who goes by Elionor.”
“I suppose I could find this Aewyn’s lineage...where?”
“They live in a small village on the eastern part of the Emerald Sea.”
Miriflit thought for a moment, then nodded and his head flaps jittered happily. “Yes, this is acceptable, I shall immediately go and bring...”
His voice trailed off as he ran away. His tiny little feet clicked loudly on the stone floor as Red suddenly noticed the little gnome was wearing heels. He chuckled, letting his gaze drift across the field hospital. Things were still slightly blurry, and despite perseverance trying its best, mana poisoning had an insidious effect that drained the vitality from his limbs.
He spotted the archway.
Red froze, then rolled out of bed. He staggered across the chamber like an invalid. He gazed into the slowly swirling runes on the side of the cave wall.
Locked, End a War to progress
“Ah, balls.” Red muttered as a pair of frantic dwarven nurses helped him back into bed. This loop really wasn’t pulling any punches.
[A/N: Trying out sorting skills by level instead of alphabetically]
Skills: Stab Resistance 13, Brawling 11, Athleticism 11, Power Strike 11, Navigation 11, Lufthynsth Language Proficiency 11, Crush Resistance 10, Ambient Mana Resistance 10, Foraging 6, Alchemy 5, Stealth 3, Gardening 3, Explosion Resistance 2, Slash Resistance 1, Knockback Resistance 1, Identify 1, Grinone Language Proficiency 1, Multilingual 1