Ryan checked his Energy level, it sat more or less comfortably at 1625/2057 so he was a bit more than three quarters full. Some cultivation would help him refill more quickly, but Ryan wasn’t willing to risk the loss of awareness in a possible hostile environment so this would just have to do. Focusing on the Mark he had left on the lioness he noticed that it was definitely fading in intensity but simultaneously moving closer to his position once again. Either the pride had decided to return to their territory or they were scouting out whether he was still around and whether they could ambush him. Either way, Ryan was more than happy that his targets had decided to come to him. Quickly scanning around he found a thick thicket of swarthaak that would provide a suitable ambush location. It was outside of comfortable arrow range from the previous location but Ryan was confident that he would be able to make a shot at the range. The thickly tangled and vicious thorns would also be a formidable barrier to any charge by the pride, stealthed or not. After crawling into the thicket and cutting a slight window to allow for unimpeded shooting he settled down. Focusing on the Mark approaching
Ryan eventually determined that the pride was definitely stealthed, he should have seen them this close. He tried to rekindle that peculiar sense of awareness of the prides’ position in the space time continuum that he had previously obtained through the Bifröst but no matter what he did, he couldn’t. He knew that at least one lioness was close to the camelthorn tree and that they were quartering the area and then actually following his tracks to the little hillock where he had recovered his Energy from the prior fight. They were definitely tracking his scent and would eventually circle around to his new position. No matter what he tried he couldn’t get a handle on their position with the Bifröst. He could sense a lot, variations in gravity, the unsettling feeling of hurtling through space at terminal velocity, strange fluctuations of branes intercepting his current reality but the distinct awareness of small concentrations of mass vectoring through the space time continuum that had been present earlier eluded him. Focusing on the general vicinity of his Mark didn’t give him any different information than his immediate area. Either the lions had managed to find a way to fool his senses, or more likely it had a limited range for such a specific interpretation of the surrounding sphere. It was also possible that he needed to tag an opponent with any other sense before he could actually focus on the variation their repositioning caused. Ryan decided it would be worth waiting for the marked lioness to approach closer to verify his suppositions. If he sensed her when she was closer but failed to detect any other lionesses it was most likely the latter and if he sensed more members of the pride an issue of range. If he failed to sense any of the pride he would portal out of there and find another way to determine how the sense worked, it was pointless engaging the pride when he couldn’t pinpoint their position and the risk of death was substantial.
The Mark was moving closer and suddenly two vague forms appeared in his senses, to the side and the front of where he felt the Mark before a few seconds later the marked lioness appeared as well. Ryan considered this new sense in more depth, if he had to describe it, and he would have to later, it felt like a misty sphere of perception filled with roiling mists where he could feel the targets of his attention loom as dark figures of concentrated mist. Trying to get rid of the halloweenesque feelings that mental description engendered Ryan again focused on the pride, who, excepting the injured lioness, had all materialised within his awareness. Focussing on his strange new sense for so hard and long was giving him a massive headache so he aimed at the closest shape, suddenly instinctually understanding that he could adjust his aim for any of the gravitic fluctuations he sensed although that would shift his aim only by microscopic fractions of a picometer, far less than any impact the wind or even the Coriolis effect would have on the arrow.
Suddenly he once again felt overwhelmed by the deluge of perceptions the Bifröst was stuffing his limited processing capacity with. Desperately he released his death grip on the string, hoping that he could escape the threatening vortex of absolute information overload. The physical action snapped him out of the never-ending moment of sensory infinity and his awareness snapped back to the present. Through it all he had retained his new spherical awareness, refined it. So as soon as the arrow was in flight he knew it would miss, not by a wide margin but definitely not close to where he had aimed it earlier either.
With near mechanical precision he renocked his bow and released the next arrow, compensating for the forward momentum of the running animal and knowing that the speeding shaft of death would be on target unless the lioness dodged. She didn’t and the broadhead took her in the side, piercing both lungs and the heart. The lioness collapsed with the next step and another arrow was already on an intercept course towards the next target.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
The pride had swivelled in his direction and was charging at the thicket but Ryan read their stance. They would abandon the charge before they reached the formidable thorns, likely swerving to the side and making a get-away. Calmly he released another arrow, like a heat-seeking missile finding the exhaust port of a turbine it disappeared down the gullet of the panting cat. A scant second later the next arrow hit the lion on the shoulder, the animal going down but not mortally wounded. The sole remaining hale member of the pride were now below his arc of possible fire, an oversight in cutting his window that Ryan now deeply regretted.
However, as expected, the young lioness smoothly swivelled away from the thicket and to his surprise continued running full pelt, quickly disappearing from his senses. Before she did he tried to use Hunter’s Mark but failed. Even though he was clearly aware of her exact position it seemed that the Class Skill had some sort of perceptional requirement that his newly developed sense did not fulfil, which was a shame and Ryan would most assuredly try to remedy that situation as soon as possible. Dragging all the corpses to one place Ryan informed Michelle, his new assigned contact, that he had another collection ready. He also asked her to send as many people as were available to collect the four corpses, hoping to minimise the time he had to maintain the portal as from what he determined the energy requirements where independent of the volume of traffic and only related to the time the portal was kept open.
“We’re ready on our end, go ahead.” the startlingly clear voice of Michelle resounded from his inner ear. As soon as the Portal was up the group rushed through, eight people heading to the lions and only Michelle approaching him with a quick step. “Let me quickly tag you with my new Skill, I’ll explain the functions to you later.”
“Ok, I’ll trust you. But please don’t wait to explain too long. I don’t like surprises.”
“You’ll just have to relax for a moment and consciously accept the notification. It’ll feel weird, sorta like something worming into your head. But don’t be alarmed, you could liken it to a neural communications module if the thought gives you trouble.”
Ding…Warning
Player Michelle Antares has initiated a limited neural modification protocol. Player consent to implement forced growth of quantum communication module is required. Accept modification?
Yes
No
Ryan accepted the modification and immediately wished he hadn’t. The feeling of something minute growing in his skull was not painful but deeply unpleasant and extremely disturbing. Michelle’s earlier analogy to a worm burrowing through his mind came reasonably close but couldn’t quite encompass the sublime strangeness of the sensation. He nearly dropped the Portal as a result. To his great relief he managed to keep the tether of energy feeding the Portal alive and in short order everyone filed out.
“If you’ve ever used Discord you’ll find out that the module kinda works like a Discord Server where I’m the sole admin, with no other users having any admin rights. It’ll take a couple of hours to grow and you’ll need a bit of time to set it up after. Don’t worry, no falling unconscious required.” Was Michelle’s parting shot before she stepped through the Portal which Ryan immediately dropped in relief. Once again, Ryan was nearly out of Energy, a situation he was seriously uncomfortable with as it negated his biggest advantage, his ability to escape near instantly by using Dimensional Shift.
“Maybe I should ask Miguel to come hunt with me? Mike? Maybe Jonas want’s a try at taming a lioness.” Debating with himself whether it would be safer and more efficient to continue hunting solo or with a small party Ryan headed back to the little hillock to rest and recover his energy. He would return to the fortress via an anchored Dimensional Shift as soon as it was dark, but for now he would try to find some more prey to take down. Ryan checked his Character Sheet and quickly shelved the idea of inviting anybody else to his current hunt, he had gained 810 Experience and nearly hit Level 13. Ryan decided to defer assigning the 10 stat points received for Level 12 until he had a safe place to consider the choice more deeply. Something bothered him about the experience he had received so he decided to investigate his logs.
“WHAT THE EVERLIVING FUCK? WHY?” Ryan screamed as he figured out that he had received significantly less experience for the Level 15 lionesses as he had for killing the Level 9 lion. “What the actual fuck? John needs to know this he mumbled more quietly.” before, speaking of the devil, his thought got interrupted by a persistent noise ringing in his mind, the text John flashing in the corner of his vision.
“An alarm? Why did I set an alarm for John? Shit, Council meeting to discuss the Liberator Achievement. Looks like I’ll drop that bombshell on the council as well then.” Ryan sighed and quickly stuffed himself with a packet of corn syrup, beside cultivation the quickest way to restore energy he had found so far.