Madrick
Galactic Teleportation Waiting Room,Transit Place 2D44,Thomas’ Planet
I’m going to come back and destroy this planet once I’ve reclaimed my godhood. Madrick’s glare might have immolated the entire room and its occupants, had he the power. Currently, he did not have the power. It was locked away under several layers of insights which were tantalizingly out of reach until his soul nexus’ foundations were fully stable and ready for more to be built.
Dull chrome walls partially reflected each neon ad flashing across what seemed to be thousands of unnecessary screens within the room. Madrick was currently standing against one such wall, glaring at everything within his view. The unnecessarily industrial seats, the piles of old magazines strewn about is if they had ever been relevant, and the steel poles connecting floor and ceiling with screens mounted in their middle, his furious eyes demanded they all melt to slag. The twenty or so other patrons waiting for their transit ticket number to be called did not escape the vengeance-promising gaze. They all did their best to ignore the palpably furious man. It wasn’t the first time they’d had an uncomfortable wait for a teleportation slot and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.
Madrick, on the other hand, rarely had to wait for such mundane trivialities. Generally, he’d simply make his way to the nearest teleportation platform and activate it himself. If necessary, he’d threaten or kill anyone who stood in his way. On this planet, he couldn’t. He wasn’t the strongest being on the planet, or even in the area. As if to taunt him with the fact, he could feel the gaze of a legend upon him. He disliked the sensation. Especially given he was fairly certain he knew which legend it was.
If he was right, it was a fool who Madrick had surpassed so long ago that he hardly even remembered his face. Had he the inclination to revisit old friends, he still wouldn’t seek this one out. He was worthless. A fact made clear given the fool was still only a legend. After, how many thousand years? At least two, if not more. I wonder… Could I still defeat the weakling as I am now? Fifty or so ranks below him? Hm…
Before Madrick could act on the intriguing question to divert himself from boredom, his UICI flashed an alert to him. It was his turn. Pushing off the wall and ignoring the deep dent he left in the chrome, Madrick walked toward the only other door besides the entrance to this waiting area. The reinforced interlocking doors slid silently apart, an incredible display of magi-tech as a hundred tons of enchanted metal smoothly slipped to either side. Once he’d entered the portal chamber, Madrick stated his destination to the empty room, “Savriâ”.
The rings comprising the flooring of the room slowly began to spin. The display was impressive. Impressive and utterly ridiculous. Some god had certainly been involved in the process of setting up this whole thing, given he was on Thomas’ planet. Which meant all this motion and waiting was entirely an intentional and insufferably insulting act of grandstanding. Madrick knew for certain whoever designed this array could have created the locale index interaction on the formation so that it was replaced instantly, powered instantly, and activated instantly. In fact, most planetary teleportation arrays worked this way. Only on planets like this shit hole could Madrick hope to find such an unnecessarily obnoxious design for something so simple. Had he the inclination and mana aspects, he could have made a much better formation in mere hours.
The rings stopped spinning, clinked ominously, and near-blinding light exploded all around. Another unnecessary and wasteful touch. Finally, he felt the legend’s gaze was gone. As was the horrible magi-tech planet. Instead, Madrick was falling through the air toward the ground of the doomed planet of Savriâ. Unconcerned by the hundred meter fall, Madrick simply righted himself and landed calmly on his feet. The ground yielding to his strength, causing a minor impact explosion which threw cracked earth, stones, branches, and other debris away from him.
Suddenly, Madrick realized something potentially important. “These are the same trees I saw on those recordings of that girl. Is this…” He pulled up his disciple’s location marker and brought his palm forcefully to his forehead upon seeing the entry.
DISCIPLE STATUS
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Name: Willow Gagné
Status: Badly Injured
Disposition: Exhausted
Rank: 1st
Location: Savriâ, ‘feather-branch’ forest [Cordinates]
AVAILABLE ASSISTED ACTIONS
* Contact Apprentice (Voice/Virtual Space/Video)
* Manage UICI Store Subscription [Current: Prime Disciple]
* Emergency Transfer
* See More…
He could have used the emergency transfer option to instantly teleport to Willow’s current location and saved himself hours of boredom and annoyance. Now that he was here, he compared coordinates and found he was on the other side of the planet. No need to ruin her adventure. Last he’d checked on her, she’d been enjoying harrying a hoard of pests.
Yes… It was better that he’d chosen to use the teleportation service. No need to disrupt his disciple’s training.
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Willow
Running, Feather-branch Forest, Savriâ
Branches snapped, the ever-present mist in the sky swirled, and dirt flew behind pounding feet. Pheonix’s grin was contrasted by the worried expression on System’s face, and the emotionless mask on Prism’s. They ran together, fleeing the group of dozens of amalgam pop-hoppers. If she was being honest, Pheonix had just about forgotten the things could even combine. Which was why she’d been completely caught off guard when they tried to spring their fourth ambush.
Instead of rushing toward her, as their distraction tactic dictated the pop-hoppers should, one of them had begun a high-pitched screeching which tickled her memory. She’d put on more speed as she tried to remember exactly why that sound was familiar. Then eleven of the other stupid things started rushing toward the one screeching and they began joining and clicking together into a familiar spindly form. It had leapt directly at Pheonix, but this time she wasn’t shocked by the speed and power of its leap. Instead, she simply activated her moment of focus fully. The mob-turned-individual froze and Pheonix proceeded to destroy it. She hadn’t felt like participating in a proper battle, given how annoying the last one of these had been. So to avoid a drawn out and annoying fight, she just dismantled it while it was frozen in time.
Then System’s voice had popped into her head through the party chat, “Pheonix, we’ve been counter ambushed. There are… Twenty of those things coming from all directions. There are only two of them to the east, it’s the best direction for us to break out. Meet Prism and I at the marker.”
“Got it!”
She’d met up with the other two, briefly discussed their new steps, then got running. Pheonix destroyed both of the weird creatures made up of pop-hoppers in their path. The plan had been pretty straight-forward, they’d break out of the surprise encirclement and hide for a bit, then resume their attacks but more carefully. This was the fourth of their ambushes, and the first one to not go perfectly.
They’d been killing groups of pop-hoppers for the last four days, one group a day. It had been extremely worthwhile, with all of them being able to allocate xp now. Naomi’s was weird, since she said allocating the xp into her ‘nothingness’ didn’t seem to do anything that she could tell. She was able to direct the energy to her body though, which she said was represented in the center of her internal dark void. That’s what she had decided to do for now, at least until they could figure out why sending it into what they assumed was her soul nexus appeared ineffective.
Jonah had split his xp out between his “stats”. Apparently, his gaming systems mana didn’t give him as much control as she and Naomi had. According to him, it was probably more efficient as a trade off. He was able to increase three stats per level, upgrade or choose one new skill, and every two levels he got a new spell. He said he’d get a new ability at level ten, too. He already had one ability, which seemed to have been automatically created with his insight. It was the structure his gaming systems mana powered.
Due to how well everything had been going, how easily the grind had been going, the entire group had gotten a bit complacent. They’d stopped scouting out a large area around their ambush site yesterday. When that hadn’t caused any problems, they decided that today they would actually go for two ambushes instead of just one with the time saved. Their logic was that increasing their grinding efficiency would get them into a position where they could tackle the main base faster.
That was their current “main objective”. Kent… Jonaaah, Willow. Geez why’s this so hard for you, Jonah even said he got a quest for it. He’d get a spell for completing it. At level four, he currently had two spells. Predator Vision and Trick. Another would be good, both of them were useful. Unfortunately, the original plan of drawing out pop-hoppers and slowly whittling them down wasn’t going to work. Somehow, more seemed to be spawned than they could kill each day. There was always at least a thousand of the freaks at their weird little village thing.
The village itself was still mostly comprised of nonsensical looking structures, though for some reason they seemed to have become more frantic in its construction recently. When they checked back on the village the previous day, they’d seen that it had at least tripled in size. They also saw that, unlike the first time they had scouted it, the activity seemed somewhat directed. Instead of looking like a disorganized swarm of pop-hoppers mostly doing whatever they felt like, it seemed like they had been assigned groups and given specific jobs. There were even several amalgams helping with heavier loads and tasks that required a longer reach. Even so, the ‘buildings’ they made were just as weirdly shaped and seemed to serve no function. It was almost like some pop-hoppers had gained enough intelligence to organize their fellows, but not enough to actually have any reason for doing so.
They hadn’t managed to catch a glimpse of the supposed leader, or leaders, either. So it was mostly just speculation. They knew there was at least a ‘chief’ based on the information they’d gotten out of that one messenger. With additional wild speculation, they’d come to the conclusion that killing the chief was likely necessary to stop the seemingly endless spawning of pop-hoppers. At least, that’s what Jonah said. It was at least a goal, so the others didn’t argue much. Willow didn’t quite agree with his logic, but she was happy enough to take the punches as they came.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Everything had pretty much settled into a status quo where P.P.S. We still need to come up with a better team name would spend half the day grinding pop-hopper groups and the rest either scouting the main village or hanging out at their own camp. Now that they had operations in the area, they left the camp in the same spot and just returned to it rather than packing up every day.
Pheonix stumbled over a root that clearly had it out for her, I definitely didn’t fail to notice it because I was distracted rethinking my life choices for the last few days. She rolled gracefully and came back to her feet, glancing at the other two to see if they bought that the maneuver was intentional. Neither seemed to have noticed. They were both gasping and running with unfocused eyes, *Oh, that’s probably not good.
They’d been running for… Pheonix glanced at her UICI and winced, almost twenty minutes. She knew the current pace was also above what System and Prism found comfortable. Unfortunately, they couldn’t really stop. She looked over her shoulder, tripped again, but recovered without a fancy roll this time. She could still see three amalgams, which meant there were more not far behind. If they could break line of sight, Pheonix knew they could hide fairly easily.
The amalgams, for being larger and somewhat smarter than the average pop-hopper, were still idiots. Pheonix still remembered how the first one had decided it should just hop around without fully retreating when it realized it couldn’t land a hit on her. She still didn’t understand why it had done that.
Several times, she had thought about just turning around and facing them. Unfortunately, there were just too many and they were too large. She’d have to keep her moment of focus up to protect her friends, and she could only keep it fully up for ten or maybe fifteen minutes at most. She might be able to kill all tenish of them within ten minutes, but she wasn’t sure she could do so while also staying close enough to Prism and System to keep them protected within her ability’s area of effect. She also hadn’t actually fought anything while maintaining her full ability for that long. The issue was just how many pop-hoppers had to die before the whole thing would.
Speaking of strained abilities, System had dropped the party chat a while ago. They needed a new plan, but the others were in no condition to help her brainstorm. Things were looking rough. If only she could break line of sight, or if she had more mana to fuel her ability, she could- Oh… Oh no… I’ve done the thing where I don’t immediately use my ability in a super obvious way to solve my problem.
Immediately rectifying the faux pas, Pheonix activated her moment of focus in a line between herself and the pursuing proverbial monsters-in-a-trench-coat. She froze the limbs currently acting as legs and listened to the pained screeches with a grim smile. She didn’t look back, grabbing System and Prism by their wrists and pulling them sharply to their left. She maintained her ability, using her instruction mana to keep the area of effect stationary rather than allowing it to follow her as usual. It was a strain and she felt her mana draining at an alarming pace, but she kept it up.
Once they were a good two dozen meters away from their pursuers, Pheonix pulled Prism close to her, lifting her upward by her waist and hissed, “Climb!”
The exhausted and worn woman did as she was told without question or complaint, God bless that saintess! Having ensured Prism was far enough up, Phoenix took a couple steps to the next feather-branch tree and squatted, proffering her hooked together hands to System. “You’re up, System. Step in!” She wiggled her joined hands to indicate what she wanted him to step into.
“What? Why are we…” And for every saintess, there’s a fool. “Now, System! Questions later!” she hissed. She heard crashing sounds which indicated their lead was nearly gone.
Eyes widening at her unusually harsh tone, System rushed forward to do as Pheonix demanded. She basically threw him into the tree. She heard a soft “yaep!” sound from above but ignored it and instead stood and readied herself. The sounds were too close. She knew there was no time for her to try and hide in a tree herself.
The very next instant, her assessment proved correct. The amalgams which had apparently gone around those she had frozen, burst into her line of sight. She released her hold on her ability as she realized it was just a waste of mana. She felt a snapping sensation like a rubber-band pulled too taught as she released it. Ouch, note to self: When freezing time at a distance release the ability slowly. Her head began to pound in pain.
Phoenix had half hoped the simple creatures would just continue on forward, not smart enough to follow the extremely clear trail of broken branches and such they left in their hurried wake. They were dumb, but apparently not that dumb. The first one jumped at her and she dodged easily. Even without her focus or moment active, avoiding their telegraphed leaps was child’s play.
The first time she’d fought one of these things, she’d been hard pressed to dodge and had been shocked that there didn’t seem to be any “top” or “bottom” to the creatures. They could operate from any position as easily as any other. She’d improved her body and mind with xp since then, though. Not to mention she knew exactly what to expect. Now that her friends were out of sight and hopefully safe, Phoenix felt pretty confident she’d be able to defeat however many of these things wanted to challenge her.
She easily side-stepped the swiping claws of the first creature as it landed and struck out with two lightning fast jabs, crushing two exposed hopper heads. Aw crawdaddy guts. I should have brought a stave today.
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Willow gasped for breath as she leaned against one of the trees. She felt the sap slowly seeping from the numerous claw-marks begin sticking to the back of her jumper and pushed herself off before it managed to get into her hair. She groaned as she saw yet another pop-hopper amalgam enter the clearing, “Thirty two.” She muttered softly as she wiped sweat and grime from her forehead, trying to ignore the rancid stench of pop-hopper gore and her own sweat.
System’s party invite popped up and Willow accepted it almost before it formed in front of her. “There are five left that I can see, Phoenix. They’ve been pouring in for the last… Ten minutes or so without an end in sight. These appear to be the last wave, though. Out of mana again, sorry.” System’s voice faded from her mind.
Willow took a deep breath and steadied herself. She was exhausted in a way she hadn’t been since her ‘fight’ with Madrick. The world seemed to almost be spinning. Oh, no. I’m just swaying a bit.
The amalgam leapt at her, she used the exact motion required to dodge, no more. Then she struck out six times without a delay between hits. Half of the pop-hoppers which comprised the creature died, but that didn’t slow it. She ducked under the expected swipe mechanically. Kicked out to break one of the limbs currently acting as a leg. Slid forward and struck with her elbows, breaking two pop-hopper limbs protecting the few heads in the middle of the thing. Punch. Punch. Punch. Step right to avoid the incoming kick. Punch, kick. The amalgam fell dead.
The grey world around her was twisting and dancing oddly. Willow fell to a knee, groaning. Exhaustion tried to claim her. She pushed it away and stood. The next one appeared, followed by another two. Good. Don’t… Have… To… Wait…
Flaring her focus, Willow fed her exhaustion into it. Her mana ticked up slightly, but she’d never been able to un-tired herself before. Was worth a shot. She was too drained to feel any emotions, so she couldn’t recharge. She didn’t feel desperate, just ready to drop.
Step right and back. Knee up, crack the incoming limb. Forward, redirect limb from second enemy to hit first one. Spin to the left, causing third enemy to hit first one. Step- Crack. Willow went flying. She didn’t feel herself move, just the impact of a limb against her belly, then she was laying slouched against the base of one of the beat up trees. She’d used many of them for cover, dancing around and forcing her attackers to swipe them. Many of the amalgams had broken their own limbs on the trees. She reached out a hand and patted the one behind her gently, I forgive you. Know you didn’t mean it.
She leaned to the right, a clawed appendage slamming into the tree where her head had just been. Reaching up, Willow grasped the arm and let it pull her up as it yanked back. She stumbled forward into the creature and started striking it. One hit after another. She missed heads more often than she hit them, so she just hit more. She found herself suddenly on the other side of the battlefield again. This time she hadn’t even felt anything. Probably not good. Her left shoulder hurt and she couldn’t move that arm at all.
Standing, she staggered forward again. There were still two left. Or was that three? Didn’t matter. Two or more to go.
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Naomi
In a Tree, Feather-branch Forest, Savriâ
The battle had been fierce. Prism wanted to help Phoenix, but she knew she’d just get in the way. The whole reason Phoenix had made herself and System climb the trees was to get them safely out of the way. It wasn’t an insult and Prism didn’t take it as one. It was just reality. Phoenix was much stronger than herself or System.
At least System had been able to buff Willow, though. At the beginning of the battle he’d maintained predator vision on her. He’d even thrown in a trick to confuse one of the weird scarecrow-like jimble-grimb golem things. Prism couldn’t do anything, or maybe she could but didn’t know how.
If she hadn’t dropped her stave when they had been running for a while and it started to feel too heavy, she might have been able to at least provide her friend a weapon. Unfortunately she and System had both left their weapons behind when they seemed to be more trouble than they were worth. Regretting that decision, Prism determined not to lose her weapon again.
Even as she watched as one of the creatures finally managed to hit Phoenix, sending her flying into a tree, she felt nothing. Her flashes of emotion had been less and less frequent. Each day left her as less. I am empty… After a moment, the little voice in the back of her mind, the one that had been quieter and quieter, reminded her of the rest. She finished it with a soft sigh, “…but I don’t want to be.”
She had already tried to take the pop-hopper golem’s emotions. Stealing emotions was something she’d figured out how to do consistently and had been practicing in controlled environments with her party. They’d take a few jimble-grimbs alive after each battle explicitly for that purpose. If it had worked, she’d have been able to give Phoenix some much needed relief. The jimble-grimbs only seemed to attack out of a sense of anger and fury, once their emotions were drained off they just stood there and let themselves be murdered.
When she tried to take the emotions from the golem, she got nothing. It was like the things didn’t have any emotions to steal. Or maybe they were too strong to steal? She wasn’t sure. It hadn’t worked. I don’t want to be empty… Is emotion the only thing I’m empty of? My insight isn’t: ‘I’m empty of emotion’, though that’s what I was thinking at the time… What am I missing that the monster has…
She watched Willow get back up after being thrown a dozen feet before getting up and slouching back toward the remaining three enemies. Strength. Will to fight. She opened her mouth and stepped out of the tree. As she fell, the tongue of darkness expanded into a blanket which wrapped around the remaining monsters. She wrapped it around them, then pulled it back hard. What returned looked like a tapestry of stars in deep space.
The change was immediate. She felt her body swell and harden. Her skin became like bark, muscles like steel. She landed and felt no pain, the eight foot drop not phasing her in the least. She rushed her enemies. Unlike the rage she had sampled, there was no heat, no loss of control. She simply needed to kill her target.
Reaching the enemy furthest from Phoenix, she struck out with a fist. It broke directly through its limbs, bodies, and heads. She rammed through the construct of creatures at full speed, then stopped and turned to finish it off. Clumsy punches and kicks, trying to emulate Phoenix’s precision and failing. It didn’t matter, she would still break these things. That was her purpose. To fight. To kill.
The enemies were weak now, she had all their strength. She wouldn’t have it forever, she knew, but she didn’t need to. Her first target finally fell, all component jimble-grimbs dead. Spinning around, she saw Phoenix stepping wearily around a jimble-grimb as it struck out with slow, weak, swipes. Phoenix dodged and snapped punches out so effortlessly and lazily that Prism would have assumed they would be ineffective. She would have been wrong, considering each one those ‘light’ punches squashed a jimble-grimb head. She refocused on her own battle.
The last scarecrow jimble-grimb was staggering toward Phoenix, but Prism stepped in front of it. When the thing swung an arm at her sluggishly, she caught it and pulled. The arm snapped and broke off. Two jimble-grimbs beginning to screech and thrash in pain as the larger body staggered backward. Tossing the still joined together creatures to the already blood slick ground, Prism made sure to step directly on each head as she advanced toward her enemy. She didn’t have Phoenix’s experience, grace, or precision, but she could still help. She could still be useful. She could still be more than nothing. More than empty.
As she crushed the last jimble-grimb head, Prism felt something shift inside herself. Looking within, she saw a distant star. So distant it was like a speck of dust on the horizon. A shock of color flooded her inner world for a moment, as she smiled.
Hearing a thump, Prism focused back on the waking world and looked around. She saw System scrambling down his tree and Phoenix laying face-first on the gore slicked ground. She went over to make sure her friend didn’t drown in an inch of blood soaked mud.