~~~Stanley~~~
Walter's soul-proof room was fantastic. Not only did it silence everyone outside, but it didn't block Stanley from feeling Caffeine when the pug went exploring.
Stanley only knew a handful of the people living in this tower, but he also knew that Walter was likely the most powerful person inside. That knowledge helped when he felt Caffeine wandering further down through the structure. Not that anyone here could threaten the beast lord...
He suspected Walter of having a domain similar to his own, if on a much larger scale. The guy could teleport at will inside the building, and could likely see everything happening inside as well.
The biggest clue to that theory was when a tray of food appeared in the room with no sign of Walter entering, then vanished after he'd eaten. Plus, he could feel Walter's soul in the room with him. Not when the food arrived, but constantly.
It was extremely faint and not really enough to notice with Soul Awareness. Stanley only spotted it when meditating. Even then, only from his domain.
There was a slight pressure pushing back against his own, most noticeable when he got near the walls and his domain could compare inside and outside at the same time.
Walter was keeping out the miasma, something else Stanley learned to sense during the day he spent locked in the room. Well, not locked. Confined. Blissfully confined away from all the people.
He got small doses whenever Caffeine left or came back, and the door would swing open to allow him passage. Walter was looking out. Or he didn't want Caffeine to demolish the door like he had when Stanley woke up here the first time.
His second night in the luxury suite went much smoother. There was no waking up on the ceiling, and it didn't look like he'd smashed anything in his sleep. There had been some bad dreams, but nothing he remembered beyond vague unpleasantness.
Caffeine came back a couple of hours after breakfast. It was good timing, since Stanley's soul was getting extra achy again... Which meant it was time for a break. Maybe some more core hunting. Or he could check in with Nate. Who might be wondering where he'd gone...
Fuck it. Nate could see the future. He could use his bullshit intuition if he was worried. Though... would he even be worried? Maybe only worried that his strongest weapon was missing? Yeah, probably that.
Stanley was halfway to the balcony when he remembered the plan to use Princess to talk with Caffeine... Adrian wasn't in his room anymore. It felt like the duo was down on the ground floor. With all the other people...
Next time, then. It was easier to postpone for now. Plus, he was feeling a strange dread at the thought of the... chat. Later.
Debuff Resisted: [Miasma]
Instead, he flew away. Caffeine would enjoy some more chicken. Something they didn't have at the tower. He could also try bringing one back later. Again.
He headed that way, but stopped off at the skyscraper lairs in his path, repeating his tactic from a couple of days ago, where he would kill a handful and move on.
One such lair had the opposite reaction to his assault. Rather than attacking en masse, the monsters all ran away after he killed the first one.
They were about the same size as Caffeine, and all looked like beetles covered with white porcelain... Sounded like it too, as they clinked up the stairs. Cowards.
So he followed them up to the next floor, and...
The queen has surrendered. Lair defeated.
Stanley frowned as the stairwell door slammed in his face, and he watched every monster on the second floor continue draining upward to the third. Even with the closed door, they still ran.
Had he been here before?
He drifted back down and found the core just inside the main entrance.
Shattering Touch (Rare)
Bad vibrations.
User creates a powerful vibration in a chosen limb. User may pass the vibration on with a touch.
Intensity of vibration is dependent on skill level and durability of the user's limb to withstand the initial activation.
...
It was an interesting skill. Though more so in how it might change if he adapted it. Not that he would. It wasn't worth wasting a percentage point of adaptability.
Taking the skill back to Nate's, though... or maybe the tower. He could probably trade it for more attributes than he'd get from destroying the skill. Sure, Nate would probably give him cores regardless, but if Stanley wanted any of these weaklings to actually amount to anything...
Before doing either option, Stanley flew up the outside of the skyscraper-turned-lair until he reached the top. There, he sent his mental touch through the walls while he listened to the queen's soul.
She didn't feel that smart, but she also knew he was there and was already scrambling toward the far side of the building when he touched her. Had she felt his soul? That was the most likely explanation.
Stanley didn't kill her. He definitely had a grudge against lair queens that got too smart, but this was different. Unlike the queens that tried to get fancy and do their best to kill him, this one was simply smart enough to give up at the get go. He liked that.
It reminded him of the bat queen.
Sure, this weird beetle thing wasn't hunting the undead, but it also didn't even try to fight him. It feared him. As it should.
"Good job, bug. Though I'd have preferred if you gave me at least a few floors' worth of cores before bailing..." He continued killing his way toward the green zone in the distance.
His route didn't take him past many more skyscrapers; it was all warehouses and suburbia. Then that gave way to the countryside, and the lairs thinned out more, with most going underground.
Stanley dropped low at the edge of the green zone, and from up close, he could see that the line was not as stark as it looked from the sky. In fact, it looked like the green was expanding into and pushing back the corruption. Or it was going the other way... It was hard to tell.
Zeke was supposed to be getting stronger, so it should theoretically be expanding...
They weren't quite at the base yet when Caffeine suddenly perked up. Stanley followed his gaze and saw the wolf pack lounging in a field. Well, he saw the souls. But they looked familiar. "Go ahead, Caff. You wanna play?"
Caffeine wagged his tail, licked Stanley's nose, then kicked him sideways across the sky when he launched toward the wolves.
Stanley waited until the chasing started before continuing toward the base.
He flew into a rather disappointing scene when he arrived.
They were mock fighting again, and Stanley really hoped they were just afraid to kill each other. That was the only excuse for the pathetic sight before him. No one was even getting hurt as wooden spears and swords clacked uselessly against each other.
It wasn't like any injury would last. Not with Zeke's aura bathing the entire battleground.
Most everyone in attendance turned on Stanley's approach, probably feeling his soul. Including Nate.
His soul felt... relieved? Was it because he'd spent a day away? Didn't Nate have his intuition to tell him everything was fine? "Good to see you... where's the little guy?"
Stanley could feel Caffeine in the back of his mind. The pug was having a blast... It felt good. "He's playing with the wolves. I'm sure he'll remember the chicken soon enough and come rampaging back."
"Rampaging..." Nate chuckled. "That's a good description."
Zeke was making his way over, and Stanley could feel the soothing aura increase with each of his steps. Was it too soothing? Is that why everyone fought so lazily? The sensation also gave him an idea he wanted to test.
Cut
Nate felt it coming. Stanley heard his soul flinch at the same instant... but the man didn't move until after a line split open in the flesh of his arm. Then he only looked at the wound and frowned. "That was... different. Any particular reason for it?"
"It's healing," Stanley said while watching the flesh knit back together in real time. "Healing fast."
"Zeke is pretty great like that. I assumed you were aware."
"Exactly. So why the fuck don't you just send all these people into a lair with Zeke's..." He had another thought and frowned. "Wait... does his aura heal the monsters?"
Nate opened his mouth, but Stanley shook his head, cutting him off. "It doesn't even matter if he does. The fighting would be way better training than... whatever you're doing here. This is just sad. They aren't even hurting each other!"
"I can do it!" Zeke exclaimed. "I can heal people in the lairs!"
He wasn't the only one who'd overheard the exchange, and muttering broke out among the wannabe combatants.
"That might be a bit overkill for beginners," Nate whined. "These people are just getting started. They don't have the skills..."
Stanley wasn't sure he believed it. How could anyone not have fought until now? How were they even still alive? Or had they cowered behind someone strong all this time? It was pathetic! If they were so fucking lazy, then they didn't even deserve a...
Nate was staring at him with almost the same pathetic emotions as Zeke, though he did have a much healthier amount of fear than the purifier kid. Nate knew what was out there. He had saved Zeke... by sacrificing Stanley.
Stanley closed his eyes. It wasn't like that. Nate was on his side... Besides, without Zeke, what would this place look like? Would they all be turning into zombies? Would there be chickens? Would the wolves still play with Caffeine? Or would they be just more rotten monsters that wanted to eat him?
"Fine," Stanley said, exasperated and only a little angry. "I'll help you out." He pulled out the skill shard he'd just collected. "Whoever fights the hardest will get first dibs on this skill."
He pulled some small rocks from the ground and set them hovering above his hand. After a thought, he focused on the pebbles.
Light
They started glowing with white light. "There, that'll make them easier to see coming." He had another thought. "You can heal yourself, right, Zeke?"
"I... yes."
"Good." Stanley threw a pebble, grazing Zeke's arm with what looked like a streak of light.
Zeke clapped a hand over the bloody gash. "Ouch!"
"Either avoid the rocks or heal yourself after..."
"Hey, Stanley," Nate cut in. "How about we show people what a real fight looks like first? Give 'em a glimpse of what they can look forward to if they put in the effort."
"That's what I'm doing." Stanley said.
Nate frowned. "I was thinking of a little match between me and you? A friendly, nonlethal one."
Stanley stared at the man. "Seriously? You and what army?"
"Hey, I get that I've lagged behind, but I'm not powerless."
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
"Fine." Stanley shrugged. "Show me." Maybe it would motivate the others to fight harder if they knew how pathetic they were?
He waited for Nate to start glowing as the man activated numerous skills in a row. Then Nate launched toward him with an explosion of dirt beneath his feet.
Stop
Nate slowed down considerably but didn't actually stop.
Stanley glared at him. This man had manipulated him. Used him. Not that he was holding a grudge... but he wanted to add a touch more anger to increase his power.
STOP
He looked away from the man, who was now frozen in midair. "Anyone else want to try?"
Most of them looked confused as they glanced back and forth between him and Nate. So he drifted aside from Nate's previous trajectory and let go of the man.
Nate shot past him, his eyes locking on and tracking Stanley's new position. He jumped again, and Stanley slapped him into the ground. Nate bounced violently up from the crater his body had left in the dirt, his gaze already tracking as he kicked off awkwardly...
Stanley slapped him back into the ground, and this time Nate caught himself by punching the ground. Which also launched him in Stanley's direction.
Another slap sent him right back down, and this time, Nate got a leg beneath himself. He used it to kick himself off to the side, then kicked again, reversing direction to charge toward Stanley.
He had some skill, and it was almost impressive how he kept coming on... but it was all pointless when he was too weak to win.
Stanley smacked Nate headfirst back into the dirt, and this time, he didn't let him punch the ground.
Cut
Nate landed on his face when his arm went flying, and Stanley didn't let up, swatting the fighter repeatedly into the dirt until it turned into a muddy red puddle.
Stop
Nate hung in the air, frozen, his body coated in dirt and blood, and one of his arms ending near the shoulder. Even the blood stopped dripping. "Anyone else?"
James actually took his shot. Pointlessly.
Debuff Resisted: [Sapping Drain]
Stanley didn't attack him. He didn't want to accidentally kill the guy... or his friends. He bent away the lasers from Olivia, deflected Silas' crystal spears, and refused to budge when Serenity's fire whip latched onto his arm.
Instead, he attacked the only other person who wasn't a total coward.
A glowing rock clipped Zeke in the ankle as he sprinted toward Nate, and the healer went down with a yelp of pain.
Stanley gave Zeke a moment to scramble up while he yelled at all the frozen fighters. "Your strongest fighter is in trouble! Are you going to save him or let the healer face the threat alone!? If he dies, then all of you will go down with him! Fucking fight or die!"
Two out of a dozen people ran to support Zeke...
No wonder Nate didn't want to let Zeke go out there. These fucking cowards would leave him to die at the first sign of trouble! Stanley threw rocks at all of them but aimed for the shields of the two who weren't totally useless.
They staggered under the impact but kept running toward Zeke. The others just screamed and cried uselessly as he pelted their flesh. "Fucking fight, or I'll fucking kill you!"
None of them even tried to move.
Zeke had reached Nate now, and his hands glowed like the sun as they stretched up to touch the bloodied, frozen man.
Stanley's next rock came in slow enough for the weaklings to see, and one of them lifted a shield to protect Zeke's head. That let the second rock strike the healer's knee with a crunching impact.
Zeke went down with a shriek of pain as the leg that had been holding him up bent the wrong way... It folded beneath him, and Zeke pulled off a neat trick by kicking himself in the stomach while landing facedown in the mud.
It looked bad. Bad enough that it probably would have triggered some nausea in Stanley. At least, it would have before he saw and felt so many worse things in the new nightmare that was their reality. It was barely a flesh wound, and Zeke had already regrown half of Nate's arm in a few seconds. This was nothing.
Stanley gave him a couple of seconds, throwing more rocks at low enough speed to let the two men guarding him have a chance to defend. Which they did. Mostly.
Zeke wasted the opportunity.
He just laid there and cried... and after he'd been so eager to go into the lairs... pathetic. He was no better than the cowards letting him die.
"Heal yourself, Zeke!" Stanley shouted as he smashed aside a crystalline dome that appeared over the huddled group. Then he punted Serenity back when she tried to sprint into reach of the downed healer. "Stop fucking crying and heal yourself, or you're going to die!"
Another rock smashed into his hand, which was only clutching uselessly at the mud. "Get the fuck up! I thought you were ready! I thought you wanted to fight!"
Nate was vibrating in his psionic prison, trying to break free. Stanley fed more rage into his mind and forced the vibration to a grinding halt.
Eve chose that moment to appear from inside the base, glowing silver beams leading the charge as she launched from atop the makeshift wall and threw herself bodily at him. "Get the fuck away from him, you fucking psycho!"
Stanley took the hits with a grin. A surprising number of which burned holes into his face, while the rest only bruised him beneath the suit. She, at least, wasn't a coward. If only she wasn't so pathetically weak!
Even with a cannon firing from each shoulder and more beams zipping out from gauntlets around her wrists, it was all too weak. He slapped her out of the air and down into the mud with her precious brother.
"Eve is down, Zeke! Are you going to let her die because it hurts!?"
Zeke only sobbed uselessly while his sister scrambled closer through the mud, her shoulder cannons firing non-stop. She didn't let the terror stop her as she screamed and lifted a gauntlet...
Cut
Stanley cut it off along with her lower arm, and she lifted the other gauntlet without hesitation, silver beams lancing out for his face. He liked it. She had the fire and drive to survive. She might even have had what it takes to stand up to him if she hadn't wasted all her time coddling her brother... coddling to the point of complete uselessness.
He snapped her other arm at the elbow to point the gauntlet down at Zeke, and it stopped firing instantly.
Zeke was looking her way. He had to see what was happening to his sister. "She's dying, Zeke! The monsters are ripping her apart and eating her alive because you let a little pain stop you!"
Stanley reached for Zeke's leg. Maybe he needed a fresh jolt to snap out of...
Nate blazed with power and abruptly broke free of Stanley's hold. He kicked off the ground, shooting closer as he screamed useless words. It was always more useless words instead of action. Maybe if he had no limbs, he would finally understand how...
Caffeine appeared before Stanley with a boom of roaring wind.
Their noses touched, and his big brown eyes filled Stanley's vision while a deafening whine drowned out all other sounds.
Silence fell as the whine trailed off, and Stanley stared in frozen shock at what he was feeling from the pug. Caffeine was afraid...
No... I...
Stanley's comfortable rage drained away into horror as he drifted back from that gaze and as souls bombarded him from every direction. So much fear...
But... they were right to be afraid... right? They needed the fear!
Nate was already rolling Zeke over and straightening his broken leg with gentle hands. Eve was beside him, her soul full of terror and hatred as she alternated between looking on helplessly and glaring at Stanley. All while one of her arms was missing at the elbow and the other was dangling uselessly.
Hundreds of souls echoed similar sentiments... but Stanley couldn't see them past the pug. He couldn't see anything past Caffeine. Past the fear and worry in those big brown eyes... those judgmental eyes... those stabbing, burning eyes.
They needed the fear... didn't they?
Zeke cried with great sobs from behind Caffeine, and Stanley realized he wasn't a brave warrior. He wasn't even a man. He was just a boy... scared and alone. A child who was terrified of the monster in the dark.
Terrified of me...
Stanley's whole body shook as he opened his mouth to say... something. Anything.
Nothing.
He fled from those eyes and from the monster he saw reflected in them.
Stanley didn't try to block the wind as it tore at his flesh. He wanted it to hurt him. He wanted the pain. Anything would feel better than the crushing feeling in his chest...
It wasn't enough.
He crashed down onto a shambling zombie, and his fist punched through its head with a wonderful sting of breaking bones—the zombie's and his own. The surrounding zombies turned as one, and Stanley threw himself at them as they charged.
Fists flew. Claws clawed. And teeth bit. Stanley caved in skull after skull, ignoring the notifications and only relishing the pain in his hands.
Until the last zombie reached him... a small zombie. Barely corrupted, with far too much of its former innocent life showing through to the surface. Showing through the blank, mindless, and hungry face.
Stanley stood frozen as it clawed its way up his body, the tiny mouth full of human teeth gnawing and failing to bite through his suit... The small zombie clawed and hauled itself up his unmoving form until it reached unprotected flesh. There, it took a bite out of his throat, ripping away a mouthful in a spray of blood.
Debuff Resisted: [Corruption]
Debuff Gained: [Bleeding]
It swallowed with horrible little sounds of satisfaction... and Stanley's vision blurred with tears as he put it out of his misery.
Cut
He flew away from the horror. Again. Not caring where he went so long as it was away.
But fleeing wasn't enough. He needed to fight something. Needed to hurt something. Something that deserved it.
Like a tree that looked very familiar.
The flashes of soul he'd barely glimpsed from the sky bloomed into full luminescence when Stanley landed beneath the branches, which immediately reached for him.
Cut
He took the tree turned worm apart where the trunk met the earth... and instead of bursting forth to attack him with relentless fury, the worm retreated.
"No!" Stanley shouted at it, his power reaching into the ground. "Don't run!"
He latched onto the undulating mass and hauled it bodily from the earth's embrace.
It fought him, as it had before, pulling and digging as it tried to burrow deeper with tenacious strength.
Stanley wasn't the same person he'd been the last time they met, and he refused to let it go. He ripped into the ground around the worm and dug it out in massive scoops of flying dirt. He kept digging until he'd dragged the entire train-sized behemoth, flopping and squirming, from the ground.
"Remember me!" he screamed at it. "You do, don't you? Aren't you going to eat me!? Aren't you going to eat my dog!?"
Cut Cut Cut
The reminder of that event enraged him further, and Stanley cut pieces from the worm even as it repeatedly tried to burrow back into the ground.
It didn't help. All he could see were those big brown eyes staring at him full of fear... Then it got worse.
Caffeine sprinted to a stop behind him, coming in with his trademark explosion of dirt and the remains of trees he hadn't quite dodged. He whined then, the sound sorrowful and heartbreaking.
CUT
You have defeated a Subterranean King. Title upgraded...
Stanley didn't look toward Caffeine as chunks of meat settled into wet piles around him. "Go away, Caffeine. Go find a better human."
He fled from the whining cry, and it chased him across the sky. Caffeine had put up with him through so much. He didn't have to keep suffering. He could find a new Dearest Human... Zeke was a good one. Zeke would keep him happy. Or he could go back to the tower and live with Princess. Caffeine liked her. He'd be happy there.
A giant rat scuttled across the street below, and Stanley dove on it, his fist punching through its back in an explosion of gore. More rats fled when he stood up from the mess and looked at them.
Stanley didn't let them go. He chased after and pounced on each of them, one after the other, his fists feeling a pleasant sting after each impact.
He chased the last one into a building.
You have entered a Lair: [Corrupted Warren]
Perfect! Stanley stared back at all the beady eyes glaring his way and grinned maliciously. "Come at me!"
They did, and he threw himself right back at them.
...
Sometime later, Stanley punched repeatedly until his fist broke through a rat's skull and into the soft flesh beneath. Then he pried the jaws open, dragging the teeth from his leg before hoisting the body up to block a ball of acid coming for his face.
Burning drops speckled his hands and face, but most of them landed on the dead rat, dissolving through the corpse fast enough that he threw both halves toward the only remaining enemy.
The elephant-sized rat ignored the projectiles and spun in place, its tail coming around like a snapping ship's tether.
Stanley caught the tail against his chest as the breath left his lungs and his ribs broke with a loud crunch. It drove him against the cavern wall, and Stanley still refused to let go as more things inside him broke. Instead, he swung down with a knife-edged hand and chopped off the tail.
He spun with it as the rat squealed and whipped it across the face with its own tail, leaving a bloody furrow and destroying one of its eyes.
The rat came on anyway, giant incisors plunging toward Stanley's flesh like twin hammers coming to flatten him between them.
Stanley kicked the rat in the nose, turning its head aside to crash into the wall behind him.
Its clawed foot still landed, sinking foot-long talons into and through his thigh in a vice grip that threatened to remove the entire limb.
Another knife-edged hand wrapped in his power removed the rat's claw at the leg, and Stanley leapt aside from the crushing bulk as the creature finished crashing into the wall.
He pulled the claw from his flesh as he hobbled away, and the rat opened its mouth at him.
Stanley threw himself sideways and felt the acid ball tug at his shoulder. Burning pain erupted, but he didn't let it stop his charging sprint. He dove under the snapping jaws and drove the rat's own claws deep into its throat... before dragging them sideways and out in a deluge of hot blood.
The rat fell but kept dragging itself toward him as Stanley staggered backwards.
It never quite caught up as he limped away, only giving one last squeak. A weak, fading sound as it bled out.
Then it went still.
The queen is dead. Lair Destroyed.
Stanley collapsed onto the floor, ignoring the rest of his notifications. He'd won. Again. He'd survived. Again. He wasn't sure if he was happy or sad about that...
He was bleeding from his shredded leg. Badly. The acid had taken off his left arm and eaten into his chest. One of his eyes was just a pit where drops of acid had splashed it...
None of it mattered. He would heal. He always healed. The hunger clawed at his insides even now, and it wouldn't be long until his body stopped obeying him and went for the meat scattered across this cavern.
Or would it? The miasma had corrupted the rats. What if he couldn't eat them? What if they couldn't sustain him? Would he die here?
Did he care?
Then a new sound echoed through the darkness. A sound that filled him with more dread than any specter of death ever could.