Woo, first time writing my own original story, let's go!
I have to immediately give credit for the idea to Alexender on Wuxiaworld for their story Tower Defense Survival: I Defend The Entire Country Alone, a decent portion of at least the beginning of this story will be drawing upon their own ideas, though I will of course be taking my own major spin on things, especially as the story seemed to quite quickly veer into just aimlessly going in random directions. Though, any of you who have come over from my Fanfiction stories already know that I do that exact thing way too often so I have no leg to stand on ^.^
This story will have a vaguely designed gamer interface by the way, so if you don't like the sound of that then this story won't be for you, sorry! By vaguely designed I mean I won't be going very in-depth with how the stats actually work, nor will I constantly list changes, it will mainly just be a background device used to explain why the MC is getting stronger and tougher and faster, that kinda thing. It will however give her interfaces and things that make her life easier, as well as the direct influence it has on her.
Yeah, it's lazy, but anyone who knows me knows I'm lazy AF.
Chapter 1
----------------------------------------
Jolting awake with a snap, Skye's immediate first reaction was utter confusion at the twin moons floating in the sky above her head.
However, she was forced to push that aside as a text-box was floating around in front of her eyes, forcing her attention to it by taking up her direct line of sight. "Hello contestant! You and your companions have been selected out of the many millions in your home country to take part in the decennial Base Defense Event! Succeed and you will be rewarded. Fail and you will suffer greatly, as will your country. The first wave begins tonight at 7pm. Best of luck!"
Blinking, she quickly memorized what the text-box said, then focused on the small box at the bottom of the box, which caused said box to disappear and be replaced by an identical one, though the size was greatly reduced and the written contents were different. "Detecting quantity of Participants: 1. Deploying balancing measures." Once she had read and dismissed that box, Skye felt a funny feeling well up within her abdomen, leading her to hesitantly touch her stomach through her shirt.
A sudden dinging sound caught her by surprise, making her snap her gaze up and look around worriedly. "Alert: Hidden Treasure discovered, would you like to track it?" Skye yelped in surprise at the sudden voice, glancing around quickly to make sure nobody had snuck up on her, quickly settling on the fact that she was alone and thus the voice was quite literally in her head. She responded affirmatively, prompting a blue arrow and a number to appear in her peripheral vision, and with a little focus she was able to see in what direction it was pointed.
Skye pinched herself, then when she felt the sharp pain she began waggling her fingers in front of her face and looking down at herself. She felt perfectly coherent and there was no...haze was the best way to think of it, that sort of muddleheadedness that she expected from a dream. With the pain from her pinch and the fact her body was fully formed and normal, she sincerely doubted that she was in a dream. There was a chance that it was all a hallucination but it felt truly like she was there, so even if it was, there was no reason not to indulge.
Looking around again, Skye took a careful note of her surroundings, which consisted of a flat and barren circular space, a flagpole on a stone foundation, and then a wooden palisade in a circle around the flag. There was a single stone pathway leading from the flag to the solitary gateway which was conspicuously missing an actual gate leading out of the palisade with what looked a little like a well beside it if the rope-tied bucket was any indication, and beyond that was grass leading up to a dense treeline. The palisade itself had a wooden walkway all the way around it with ladders at regular intervals.
With nothing better to do, Skye followed the arrow which led her to the palisade, and so she then went to the gateway and around upon realising that the 'hidden treasure' was outside of the walls, and that the number had decreased, likely a distance indicator. She spent the time trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. One moment she'd been sat on the train texting her friends, and the next she had woken up looking at the sky and at two moons, which instantly told her she was either not on earth, or was on an alternate version either was as likely as the other.
What was far more worrying was what that text-box had said, "Base Defense Event.", followed up by telling her that at 7pm a wave was going to begin, presumably meaning a group of enemies would attack her 'base' at that time. It had also mentioned companions, and when it detected that she was alone, it deployed 'balancing measures', which she assumed was the sudden alert and subsequent tracking assist thing that had piped up.
"Alert: Feral wildlife nearby, would you like a recommended evasion route?" Surprised, Skye quickly agreed, though only did so in her mind and didn't vocalise it, confirming for herself that the alert thing was able to read her mind since a glowing path was revealed to her which she followed religiously, not daring to take a single step off of it, even if sometimes it seemed to wiggle and waver for no good reason despite her having not even gotten near the treeline yet. Maybe it was making her move like that so she would always stay just out of line of sight of the wildlife, or maybe it was carefully controlling where her scent travelled as to not bait the wildlife towards her.
As she walked, she kept a little of her focus on the arrow, noting that the evasion route was still unerringly leading her towards the specified location. It took five minutes of following the path, occasionally stopping or speeding up at the prompting of the voice in her head, before the route came to a stop, a small marked circle visible to her on the ground. "Alert: Hidden Treasure located, would you like to unearth it?"
Seeing no reason not to do so, Skye accepted, watching as the grass and dirt began to churn, rolling away and opening a hole a meter deep. At the bottom was an innocuous wooden chest, immediately killing her hopes that she would uncover some kind of amazing platinum-plated treasure chest overflowing with guns or grenades or something. Sitting down on the side of the hole, Skye slid herself down into it, her feet placed just in front of the chest.
Once down, she lifted the chest and shook it, surprised both at how light it was and how empty it felt. There was something, possibly several somethings, rattling around inside and bouncing off the wood, but it sounded really quite small and insignificant compared to the size of the chest. With a frown, she lifted the chest out of the hole and pushed it away, then climbed out herself. Staring at the chest for a moment, Skye reminded herself that she was on a timelimit, so knelt down without any fanfare and examined the chest for anything dangerous. "Hint: Chest is benign."
Snorting, Skye still moved behind the chest before opening it, mainly just out of habit than any kind of disbelief that the hint was wrong. Inside was a small pouch, and when she lifted it, she could feel through the fabric that there was a big seed of some kind inside. Staring at the pouch, Skye closed her hand around it, tempted to throw it back in the box and punt it back into the hole. She had a 'wave' to fight at 7pm, and yet she'd already wasted a good 10 minutes of time for a single seed? Sure, she would need food to survive, but she had to survive to be able to plant, grow and then harvest that seed, plus only one seed was almost certainly not going to make enough food for her to survive on.
Skye shook her head, tying the pouch to a belt-loop to take back with her. She idly wondered what the fuck was the best course of action, and so she settled on making a weapon first and foremost. She could see everything inside of her base and knew outright that she had no established stockpile available to her, no weapons or armour or anything to make them with, so she would have to craft everything herself.
A wooden spear would be best, which meant she'd need to find a good, sturdy branch, as well as rocks to strike in order to make crude stone knives. If she could find some sticky weeds she'd be able to make a very temporary wrap around her spear to give it more grip and make it less likely to slide in her hands. She walked t othe treeline, eyes searching high and low for the best branches to use, though she also kept firewood in mind so she would have some light if it got really dark. 7PM could mean sunset hadn't even occurred, or it could mean the sun would have long-since disappeared beneath the horizon, she had no way to know, and she was abysmal at telling just by air temperature. "Alert: Bloodied Ironwood Spear discovered, would you like to track it?"
Stopping in place, Skye processed what she just heard. She had been thinking about spears a whole bunch, and suddenly she got an alert that a spear had been discovered? Accepting the track, she quickly realised that the discovered spear had a number over a hundred times larger than the Hidden Treasure had been noted with. Orienting herself towards the direction the arrow indicated, she took two steps, and saw the number dropped by two.
Taking two steps back, it similarly raised by two, confirming her theory that the number meant distance. It was over four thousand, so that meant that the spear was over four thousand steps away. That fit with the 400ish steps from where she had been when accepting the track to when she found the treasure, though that took a while because she had to follow the evasion route she had been given. With her own walking distance average, that meant the spear was a little under two miles away, and would take maybe an hour or so to reach it, so long as the route didn't get complicated and she didn't run into anything dangerous, highly unlikely.
Skye then looked down at the ground, more accurately at the small stones that littered the floor. She thought about protection, about fighting and about the oncoming wave, trying to test and see if her burgeoning theory held any water. After half a minute, just as she was starting to feel silly for wasting so much time, she heard the androgynous voice pipe up again. "Alert: Wind Arrow Sentinel Kit discovered, would you like to track it? Alert: Lavaroot Spitter Seedlings discovered, would you like to track it? Alert: Basic Combat Skill Book discovered, would you like to track it?" Listening to each alert in turn, Skye grinned, accepting the tracking for all three and spying another three arrows and distance markers appear in her vision.
She focused on the one that was at the top, the one for the spear, and quickly found that she could move them by focusing on them and desiring to move them. As such, she tried a few more things, all the while walking through the forest towards the closest arrow, which was the one in the middle, the 'Lavaroot Spitter Seedlings', whatever those were. Even if they wouldn't be immediately useful, the distances between herself and the three tracked items was only a few hundred steps, so she should be able to get all three so long as there wasn't anything dangerous guarding them.
Skye just hoped she hadn't fucking jinxed herself.
----------------------------------------
As it turned out, she hadn't actually jinxed herself, there was a pouch of seedlings just buried in a little nook between some treeroots.
She promptly tied them to another belt loop then headed to the next nearest arrow, the skill book. While she walked, she tried to figure out the limitations of her vision, and after an embarrassingly long trial-and-error process, managed to open a menu that displayed, well, everything. It showed her, what she looked like, what she had equipped, what her 'level' and 'stats' were, alongside a mana bar, and then several other blank bars though conspicuously any kind of health bar was entirely missing, a list of her proficiencies, before finally ending off with an inventory which she dropped the two pouches into.
Amusingly enough, it had evidently gone with the 'just throw in everything' idea, since cooking, fishing, campcraft, hiking, running, carpentry, programming, writing, throwing, ballistics, engineering, mathematics and all manner of other proficiencies were listed in various stages and levels. Her stats were segmented out into ten numbers, which were Strength, Vitality, Fortitude, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Perception, Willpower and Luck, and as she focused on each, they indicated what they were responsible for.
Strength was easily the most obvious one, it was her physical power. Vitality was how much 'life-force' she had, while Fortitude was her innate defence against damage. Dexterity was her speed and ability to control her own body, Intelligence was how smart she was. Wisdom was her ability to make connections between things, Perception was another obvious one, it was how sharp-eyed she was. Then Willpower was her ability to persevere and Luck was another no-brainer, it was how luck she was.
Her stats seemed fairly low and basic, geared towards Dexterity, Intelligence and surprisingly enough Luck, but she put that out of her mind as she reached the location of the skill book. After some wandering and slight confusion she found the book hidden in a little metal tin underneath a rock. As soon as she opened it, the book flashed golden and disappeared, prompting a splitting headache to begin pounding at her head, making her wince and lay a hand on her head as she endured it, dabbing her nose when she realised that she had a nosebleed, a very worrying prospect.
It only lasted a few moments before receding, but she made a mental note to be ready for that million-migraines level of pain the next time she was informed about a skill book, especially since it had caused a nosebleed which could imply any number of things. What was worrying was that she honestly didn't feel any stronger. Balling her fists up, she took up a crude fighting stance and threw a few punches before dropping her arms and frowning.
Well, it was already done now, there was nothing she could do to change it. Maybe it required a weapon or something, but whatever the case was, she was still on a time limit, and still didn't have an actual weapon, so she made haste through the forest, coming up to the final tracked item in short order. Unlike the other two, this one wasn't hidden. Also unlike the others, this one was really big.
As soon as she had laid eyes on it, she knew it was what she was looking for, because it was a meter-cubed wooden crate with metal studs sealing it shut. That presented an issue for her, because she had no way to pry it open and see what was inside, nor could she move it, a quick shove had showed quite neatly that it was way too heavy for that, so she was kind of fucked unless she could find something to use.
A few moments later, she grinned as the ever-present and newly-dubbed 'assistant' she seemed to have acquired piped up. "Hint: Drop blood on the ink seal atop the kit." Caught a little off-guard by what she had to do, Skye didn't hesitate to quickly search for something sharp, eventually being given another hint by the voice and finding a nice sharp and thin rock to use, which she did, climbing up and then slicing a small cut on the side of a finger, pinching it and dripping several crimson droplets onto the paper seal on top of the box.
She continued to do so until suddenly the seal flashed with blue light, making her hurry to move off of the box in case it exploded or something. Watching closely, she saw the seal burn itself away in blue fire, and a moment later the wood itself began to burn away, revealing a blue sphere that was only a little smaller than the box. After a second or two, the big orb started to defy the laws of physics right in front of her, hovering without any obvious means of propulsion. "Wind Arrow Sentinel B-072 fully operational. Awaiting orders."
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
A very...bassy and deep voice intoned methodically from the orb, presumably speaking to her. Skye took a few steps, walking around the sphere whilst examining it, then humming. "Tell me what you can do." She said casually, not entirely sure as to what the sphere really could do. Obviously it was able to float, which meant it likely also had some kind of armament if the name 'Wind Arrow Sentinel' was any indication.
The sphere did not disappoint. "This unit is capable of unburdened transit at twenty meters per second. This unit can fire one Wind Arrow every two seconds. This unit can self-sustain indefinitely. This unit can take impacts from monsters with strength index ratings of below 30 points without damage." The deep voice spoke slowly but clearly, listing exactly what it was capable of, and it sounded pretty impressive.
She commanded it to follow her, then she started to make her way back to base, amused that her assistant hadn't piped up with a hint or any assistance because it was one of the few things she was able to do on her own, finding her way back through the forest quickly and easily. Once she arrived, she took in the small wooden fort with keen eyes, trying to figure out what exactly she was going to do. Sure, B-072 sounded helpful, but she doubted heavily that a single unit could stop a wave of enemies.
So, if she had to defend that flag in the middle or else she would suffer greatly, that meant she needed to find an acceptable means of actually protecting it from anyone just walking up and touching it. Wooden stakes could be an option, placing several concentric rings of them around the flag to impale anything that tried to charge the flag, but that was still a very crude way to protect it.
It was then that she turned her attention to the two pouches in her inventory. One of them was a 'Hidden Treasure' and the other came up when she'd been thinking about protection and fighting the coming wave. Surely if it was as she assumed, that meant the seeds would be able to help her somehow? Skye took the second pouch out of her inventory and opened it, looking at the blood-red seeds that lay within. "Hint: Plant Lavaroot Spitter Seedlings at least an inch beneath the ground and feed them blood."
Skye frowned, looking at the dozen or so seeds in the pouch. It seemed a lot of things required blood, and that was bad because she didn't have a source of food yet, so every time she had to cut herself to do something, she was using up blood each time. However, that was an issue to worry about after she made it through the night, since if she couldn't even survive the first night, there was no point worrying about something like that.
Taking one of the seeds, Skye dug out a small hole a few meters from the edge of the stone boundary around the flag which she placed the seed in, then took the sharp rock that she had kept ahold of and lightly cut another small gash on her finger. She squeezed either side of the cut and dripped blood onto the seed, then covered it back up when the assistant told her that the seed was fully satiated and would grow soon.
Emboldened, she repeated the process with each seed as she didn't want to have to cut herself multiple times when she could just do it all at once with the same cut. After she was finished kicking dirt over the final seed, she then took out her other pouch, just in case that one needed blood as well. "Hint: Lifetree Seed requires darkness and copious quantities of water to grow."
With a hum, Skye walked nearer to the well, finding as good a spot as anywhere else to burrow a little hole, within which she placed the Lifetree Seed, then collected some water from the well which she poured slowly over the seed. What caught her by surprise was that as the water poured in, it vanished. After some testing, she saw that the seed itself was greedily absorbing every drop of water that came close to it.
Confident in this new development, she slowly at first and then more rapidly emptied the entire bucket into the hole, going back to refill it multiple times as the seed just kept on drinking. Finally, after the fifth bucket was emptied, she was given an alert, not a hint, that the Lifetree Seed was sated and could now be covered, so she did so. However, as she was doing this, she realised that these things still weren't helpful. She'd been caught up in having a direct task to accomplish, but these were plants. Sure, weird and presumably magical plants of some kind if their names were any indication, but unless they were able to grow in just a few hours, they would be useless for helping her survive the night. "Advice: Have faith in the Assistant!"
Well, she couldn't argue with that logic, now could she?
----------------------------------------
The rest of the day Skye spent outside of her walls gathering sturdy branches which she intended to make into spears.
It wasn't that she doubted the Assistant's words, but she would feel way better to have a bundle of spears available to use. She didn't settle on just one, these were literally just shitty foraged branches that had been whittled to a point, they'd likely snap on contact half the time, and if they were hit with any kind of sharp weapon they'd be snapped to pieces easily, so all she could do to counter that would be to make way more than necessary. Plus, with how light and manoeuvrable they were, she'd be able to make use of her throwing proficiency, which amusingly enough was her highest combat-based proficiency, to throw the spears at her enemies.
That led her to her current position stood on the walkway above the gateway, looking out at the treeline keenly. The sun was still visible but dipping below the trees, casting long shadows. The only positive side of the sun setting was that it was setting behind her, so she wouldn't be blinded by it, but anyone moving towards her would have the light right in their eyes.
Casting a glance down at the disturbed dirt near the well and the flag, Skye couldn't help but feel anxious. B-072, or Bee as she had started calling it, was currently hovering directly in front of the gateway. Since it supposedly had damage resistance against anything with a strength level a dozen points above her own, if something was able to damage it, she would stand no chance fighting. As such, she planned to make great use of the twenty meters per second flight speed that Bee had proclaimed to turn the sphere into effectively a free-floating wrecking ball.
In her hands, she grasped the only spear that was any different. She had felt somewhat vindicated when she went to investigate the Bloodied Ironwood Spear and found a stone temple with a sealed entrance, right up until it was hinted that Bee weighed a lot and could accelerate to high speeds, fast enough to smash straight through the entrance with only some dust to show for it, revealing a pedestal that held the spear.
It wasn't really very impressive upon first inspection, just a redwood spear with leather wrappings running from the base right up to the end, upon which was a spearhead of metal she couldn't recognise. But as she focused on it, her assistant piped up to inform her that the Bloodied Ironwood Spear would absorb the power of the blood in any enemy struck by it, and would transfer it to the wielder. So she essentially had a vampire spear in her hands, though she really couldn't be happier.
If it worked how she hoped it did, that meant that during the night, she would be able to stab enemies with it and take their attributes for her own, increasing her personal power level. She wasn't stupid though, her intention was to get Bee to wound whatever enemies came, hopefully breaking their arms and legs if they even had limbs, then she could go down and jam her spear into them, taking their attributes. It would be exceptionally good if she could stab something that had really good stats but got beaten down somehow and gave her an opportunity to steal them.
Because of the fact she had to protect the flag, she was in her base, but if she didn't have to be there, she would have been getting her assistant to tell her of any kind of creature or being that she could defeat and stab with her spear to steal their stats. Wounded things that were trying to recover would be perfect for her, and sure, it was vulture-like, but did it really matter when it was a matter of life or death?
"Hello contestant! Wave will begin in one minute. It will consist of fifty level 1 rotten undead, ten level 1 festering dogs, one level 2 crippled necromancer. Do your best!" Caught by surprise, Skye quickly read the information the text-box presented, frowning and worrying her lip as she did so. Fifty undead, presumably that meant zombies. That itself was worrying as they could easily swamp her or get around her and Bee and to the flag. The ten dogs were even more-so worrying, their speed would mean that they could easily evade Bee and go for her or for the flag.
And the necromancer. Crippled, sure, but necromancer implied magic and spells, something she had zero knowledge about, and knowledge was power, so not knowing was going to make them a very dangerous unknown. However, it was likely that the necromancer would stay hidden in the treeline looking for opportunities, since the composition of the wave implied that the necromancer had risen the wave to attack her with, based on the fact that all 60 regular mobs were presumably resurrected humans and dogs.
She quickly ordered Bee to head out and begin sweeping in circles at top speed, with orders to prioritize the necromancer if detected, then the dogs, and finally the regular undead. As for herself, she headed down off the walkway and took up a position at the sole entrance. None of the wave were enemies she expected to be able to get over the meters-high palisade, no flyers or climbers, so she felt confident that the only place they could enter was the gateway.
Defending would have been so much easier had the gateway had an actual, well, gate on it, but no, it was just a glorified hole in the palisade. Making a barricade would have been too much work for one person in one day, so all she could do was accept that it was the biggest vulnerability and focus all her attention on it. If flyers were in play then she would have been forced to use Bee as anti-air first and foremost, which would leave her as the only defender on the ground, not a position she would have liked in the slightest, but then again, she didn't like her position as it stood anyway, she just had to deal with it.
Tasting copper, she quickly stopped biting at her lip, and instead she began twisting her spear around over and over again in her hands as she waited for the longest minute she had ever experienced to pass. Sixty-one enemies, all but one of them being level 1, the same level as she was. Having been resurrected, logically their stats would be worse than hers, but she couldn't afford to make dangerous assumptions, it would risk way too much to assume that a 'rotten undead' was slower and weaker than her, since there was nothing that said resurrection into an undead wouldn't just make them even more powerful, not having to worry about biology any longer.
Finally, after such a long time, she spied movement in the forest, a group of shambling horrors emerged. Each was a horror show in their own rights, some had maggots writhing within their empty eye sockets, whilst others had limbs or flabs of skin dangling by sinews and threads of flesh. Half of them carried crude weapons, pieces of wood that vaguely resembled clubs, whilst the others either held rocks in both hands or just wielded nothing. From where she stood she could hear their teeth clicking as they repeatedly opened and snapped their jaws shut, drawing an unconscious shudder from her.
Bee had no hesitation, immediately firing off Wind Arrows that looked like ballista bolts made of condensed air at the horde. After only a few shots, more undead began shambling forwards, unveiling the entire horde, whilst at the same time Skye spied the festering dogs who were slinking through the grass. "Bee, ascend and locate the dogs then engage." She quickly ordered, watching as Bee ascended and quickly acquired the priority targets, firing Wind Arrows based on proximity to the gate.
As soon as Bee began ascending though the dogs bolted into action, apparently either recognising the threat, being ordered to advance or simply thinking that without Bee she was vulnerable. "Go into melee mode!" She yelled out, watching as Bee then dropped down at top speed straight into one of the closest dogs, crushing it entirely and covering the sphere in gruesome black blood.
Skye could see two more already approaching though, and so she planted herself firmly, one foot back and the other forwards, spear held low and level, ready and waiting for the opportune moment. Bee crushed one and the other leapt at her, making her grin unconsciously as she took a slight step backwards, planting the end of her spear in the ground and aiming the tip directly at the oncoming dog.
In the air, it had no way to avoid the spike it flew towards, smacking into it full-force face-first, impaling it and almost knocking the spear from her hands as the weapon suddenly gained a significant amount of weight. She felt a sharp pain in her hand but had no time to look as she lifted the spear and angled it, sliding the carcass off of her weapon, just in time to raise it with both hands split apart, catching the bite of another dog and locking the spear in its jaws.
She wrenched the weapon sideways, spinning the dog as it tried to force itself forwards towards her, following it up with a spin to slam the end of the spear against its head which dazed it, then finishing it off with a strike sending the pointy end through the side of the dogs head. Skye took a few deep breaths to recover from the sudden and violent exertion, screaming in pain when she felt something smash into her face, sending her flopping to the floor bonelessly.
Looking up at the wooden walkway above her, Skye felt weightless for a few seconds before feeling came back to her full-force, prompting her to scream hoarsely at the pain that practically burned her face. Both her hands came up to cover her face, trying to blunt the agony she felt. She tried to focus through the pain, but her vision was filled with blurriness from the tears and her eyes stung whilst her mouth tasted full of copper.
Opening her mouth, she tipped her head to the side and spat out blood then dropped a hand to her shirt, trying to rub away whatever was in her eyes, realising with sheer horror that one of her eyes felt like it was made of liquid. When she finally managed to regain some vision in the eye that still felt firm, she saw that her shirt was covered quite liberally in blood. Shaking and bleary-eyed, she forced herself to focus on the battle, and felt a hint of vindication as she saw Bee absolutely flatten a robed figure into paste, which she assumed was the necromancer.
Briefly, she tried to figure out what had actually happened, but the pain that radiated across her face put an end to that thought entirely. Instead, she dragged herself to the edge of the palisade, clearing her eye again as more tears and what she assumed was blood blocked her vision. Bee was still flying around crushing anything that moved, though there were a few of the grotesque zombies coming close to the gate. Evidently, Bee wasn't perfect, it was crushing the zombies that were nearest, not the ones that were nearest to the gatehouse as she had stipulated to it.
Spying her spear with her one good eye, she reached out a foot and dragged it to her, lifting it up with a shaking hand that she now saw had puncture holes ringing around where she grabbed her spear, though where they came from she didn't remember, nor had the mental capacity to consider for more than the briefest moment. She sat still, watching the few zombies approach at a walking speed, then lashed out just as one got into range, jabbing the end of her spear into its chest.
The impact knocked it back and punctured a hole where the heart would be, but the horror still stood, and after a moment to recover it started to shamble towards her again. Terrified to a reasonable degree and racked with pain, Skye screamed as it continued to approach, rolling to her side and crawling away. If she had been in a more sane and unburdened state of mind she would have realised that there was nothing wrong with her legs and she could have just gotten up and ran, but when faced with a monster that had maggots crawling from its eyes and rotten flesh literally sloughing off its body with a stench that invaded her nostrils and made her want to puke her guts up, she could be forgiven for being fucking terrified and out of her wits.
Having no plan in mind, she simply crawled in the direction that was away from the monster coming from her, leading her towards the centre of the fortress and the flag there. She only made it halfway before a weight landed on her ankle, trapping her in place. She screamed and bawled, rolling over as she raised her arms to ward away the monster that was leering down at her.
Then, a wave of heat and brightness burned across her front, forcing her to close her eye out of sheer pain. She felt another searing pain scour her ankles almost instantly afterwards, followed by more small pulses of heat and pain that were weaker but still hurt her. She curled herself up in a ball as her legs radiated with just as much pain as her face, bringing more tears to her eyes as she just wished it would stop hurting so much.
A textbox appeared behind her eyelids but she just ignored it and pushed it to the side of her vision instinctively, in too much pain to even think about trying to read. "Hint: Lifetree will respond to the pain of bonded users and provide relief." She almost ignored the voice of the Assistant, but when she processed what was said, she forced herself to open her eye and blearily try to see what the fuck it was on about.
But, whatever her delirious and pain-racked mind thought it'd see, it definitely wasn't to see a mini-sized tree sat where she had planted the seed only a half-day before, with a small golden fruit dangling from it, which her eye tried to convince her was also slightly glowing. Moving one of her legs, a low keening whine came from her throat as her ankles burned, forcing her to look down and realise that the bottoms of her jeans looked like they'd been scorched, and the skin underneath was horrifically burned.
Hiccuping, Skye used her arms to turn herself around, then began the slow and agonizing journey of dragging herself towards the small little sapling. It took her what felt like a very long time filled with breaks to scream and curl up into a ball of pure agony before she was finally able to reach an arm out and grasp the fruit. It came free from the little tree easily, and she watched with a brief moment of surprising clarity as the little tree then receded, turning into an absolutely tiny little bushel about the size of a pinecone. However, the pain came back with more intensity than before, and in the hopes of alleviating her agony even slightly, Skye took a bite of the fruit.
Then, as the pain across her body intensified into a crescendo, she blacked out with a final scream of spine-twisting pain.
----------------------------------------
Well, that was a doozy!
I was originally going to split this so the fight happened throughout chapter 2, but I figured a 6k pilot would be better than 2 3k chapters, so here you go ^.^ And I hope I got across her normalcy. Most people assume that they can fight and do stuff and be their own cool action hero, and Skye was no exception. She did still show caution but was really a bit too lax, and when she started to get fucked up she reasonably lost her shit and stopped thinking rationally, which I feel was totally understandable given the situation.
So, please send me some reviews, I'd love to hear people's thoughts on my first original work =D