(Trigger warning)
There is nothing explicit, but rape is implied
~~~Lee~~~
Jake yelled in Lee's ear and shook him violently. "I know it's done, Lee! Now get up. They took Saira, and maybe Mar, too."
It took Lee a few confused moments to comprehend what Jake was saying to him. "Who took what?"
Jake didn't wait for him to understand, instead hauling him off the floor and dragging him out the door. Sandra was on the couch, and a terrible-looking figure was on the floor next to where he'd been lying. It wasn't Lee's couch... or his apartment.
"They got attacked after you guys abandoned them," Jake said on the way out.
"We didn't abandon..." Alejandro was there too.
"Shut the fuck up! You left them behind and accomplished jack shit here!"
Alejandro didn't follow them out the door.
"I couldn't find the trail, but they took your weapon with them. Your 'rune' weapon." Jake put extra emphasis on the word rune, and Lee thought he understood.
A moment of concentration later, and he knew where his machete was. "West... ish." He pointed. "That way." There were faintly glowing lines on his arm... like veins...
"You're coming with me," Jake said. "I know you're F-grade now; shit timing on doing that when you did, by the way, but now you can keep up." Jake finally let go of him in the stairwell, and then started bounding from landing to landing, completely ignoring the stairs in between.
Lee was still coming to terms with all the changes wrought by his grade up, and his channels still burned... though nowhere near the intensity of before. Which might also explain the glowing veins... they were on both of his arms, though brighter on the right...
Jake might complain, but Lee didn't think he'd have been able to help earlier, much less move. Now he wanted to check his status... Jake seemed to read his mind and yelled from the next floor down. "You wasted enough time! Unless you gained a skill that makes you faster, then just ignore everything until we find the girls!"
Lee reluctantly did as suggested, partly because he didn't want to trip on the stairs, but also because he was afraid of what he would find when he checked. The debuff might be less severe, but it definitely wasn't gone.
"Stop hesitating and move! You're already stronger than the greatest athletes of all time!"
Lee still hesitated, but copied Jake and jumped to the landing below... It was easy. He rounded the turn... and jumped to the next. It went like that until he chased Jake outside. That was when he realized that he had no weapons. "I need..."
Jake was waiting and handed him an enchanted knife. "I don't know where they are. You are in the lead." He shoved Lee in the back, pushing him forward. "Just run. Alejandro told me how you left him behind before, so do that now. If anything attacks, you just keep going. I'll handle them. If you can't do that, then I'll carry you. Go!"
So Lee took off running as fast as he could into the twilight. Which turned out to be fast as fuck.
It occurred to him that this might be a ruse, a trick to get him alone and kill him... but it didn't really make sense for that to be the case. Jake could kill him anywhere... unless he saw the mana blast and wanted to catch him off guard? Though that still didn't feel right. Lee hadn't seen Jake this emotional since... well, ever, and the 'Sandy' he referred to must be Sandra. The fact he called her that implied he knew her from more than just their trip to the store. Seeing her all beat up on the couch...
"What happened?" Lee called back. He really should have asked before.
"There was a fight. Larry's dead, Sandy almost died, Saira and Mar are missing. I couldn't find the trail."
"Mar should've been able to kill anyone with her knife..." Not everyone was as observant as Jake, and Mar would be a terrifying assassin if she wanted to be. Unless they ran into F-grades...
Lee sprinted onto a side street fast enough that he could almost touch the ground with his fingers as he leaned into the turn.
"Girl's been a wreck since she stabbed that freak at the store, and stop weaving! You should be able to jump at least a single-story house, nevermind a fence!"
Lee veered back onto a beeline for his rune, hoping Jake wasn't wrong, as the fence loomed ahead. He jumped... and almost ate shit when he landed, if only because he hadn't expected how high he'd go. He jumped again and landed on the roof of someone's house. At the far edge, he jumped to the next roof and kept running.
It was insane... and awesome!
He ran and jumped over homes and streets, and it was amazing! It felt wrong to enjoy it, but Lee couldn't help himself.
Something rushed him at one point, but he was going too fast to get a good look. As advised, he didn't deviate. There was the sound of a bowstring behind him and nothing else.
At their speed, it took only a few minutes before Lee landed on another roof and slid to a stop. He pointed at a house across the street where he could feel his fancy machete. "That..."
Jake jumped hard enough that something in the roof cracked under his feet, and he landed at the door of the target house.
An instant later, he'd kicked down the door and vanished inside.
Lee didn't follow Jake. Instead, he turned back and followed his other rune that was still back up the street. It was Mar's knife.
Shouts and screams filled the air from the direction of the house Jake had disappeared into, and Lee stopped next to a conspicuous dent in some grass. Not that he probably would have noticed if not for his knife hovering above it. "Mar?"
She didn't reply. At least, nothing he could hear over the screams inside... Then he felt his machete coming closer.
Lee looked up in time to see a figure dashing from the now doorless front entry of the house and down the street. The man sprinted fast away from the house, hesitating only when he finally noticed Lee standing there. "Who the fuck are you!?"
He was dirty... though, who wasn't nowadays, and speckled with blood. Lee wasn't exactly in his way, but the man still ran at him, machete swinging.
Lee threw himself back, and nearly flew away, sending the machete wide of his face, and by enough of a margin that the extended sharpness rune didn't connect, either.
Then he landed on the street... and toppled over backwards. It didn't hurt. Not even a little, which was surprising. But the impact left Lee scrambling and trying to get his feet under him... when the blade came right back around and stabbed out at him.
Lee froze up at the sight... and hesitated to pull the runes off...
If he couldn't enchant anything for a while... then this might be one of his few weapons until however long it took to recover. He didn't want to lose it if he didn't have to... So Lee allowed himself to get stabbed in the stomach, and by a magic sword, no less.
His own magic sword...
Debuff: [Heavy Bleeding]
It was a shit idea, and the shocking pain of it almost cost him his life. Luckily, he instinctively tried to stop the blow and ended up grabbing onto the man's hand around the hilt.
That was when he finally realized the guy was F-grade, something that should have been obvious from his speed, but mostly because the man's strength almost perfectly matched his own.
Lee couldn't let go either, because any more motion from the machete would probably split him in half, and in a really bad area.
The man punched him in the face with his free hand, and it hurt, but nowhere near the signals his stomach was sending. One less hand on the blade gave Lee the leverage to keep it still while also trying not to cry from the excruciating pain.
It only got worse. Their struggles were going to kill him...
It was oh so hard not to pull his runes off. But he'd already gotten stabbed... it would be a complete waste to give up now.
It'll heal, it'll heal, it'll heal! Lee told himself repeatedly. Then Jake appeared and solved the issue by cutting the man's arm off at the elbow.
Lee's vision was blurry as he tried ever so carefully to pull the machete out without causing more damage, then dropped both blade and forearm in the street.
Jake was already gone by then, and the attacker was in pieces. Where the archer had been worried and rushed before, he was an emotionless and expressionless automaton when he'd appeared to kill the man. Lee was fine with that.
Debuff Downgraded: [Bleeding]
Debuff: [Famished]
That his hunger started at the second level was odd, and Lee welcomed the distraction as an excuse to stop looking at the decapitated head staring back at him... Not that he minded the death on a moral level or anything; the man had stabbed him. He was fine with him getting killed. It was just... a lot to actually see.
That sent his gaze back to the grass where Mar's knife still hovered invisibly.
Lee held a hand to his still bleeding stomach but didn't want the pain that would come from twisting around to put another hand against his back. What he needed was a bandage... maybe his shirt? There was no way he'd get it off.
"Mar, I know you're there. Can you... cut my shirt off and tie it around my stomach?"
She didn't respond, and Lee thought he could feel the knife rocking slightly.
He wanted to sit down... or lie down, but the thought of the physical exertions necessary for that kept him from trying. So he just stood where he was and tried not to move. How many organs did he just get stabbed through? Did it hit his intestines? Wasn't that super bad? He knew it caused... something bad. But the world was magic now... right? It'd be fine.
Thinking about it was making it hurt worse, so Lee started thinking about trying to find a small tree to uproot for Saira like Jake had done. He was F-grade now... it should be doable. Though maybe after his stomach healed.
That was assuming Saira was alive in there... Lee cursed and started taking small steps down the street.
It was bad inside. The smell alone... Lee refused to gag, but it was mostly a survival instinct, since the pain of doing so would be far worse than the stink.
The good news was that he saw Saira, and she was alive. The bad news was that Jake was helping her wrap a clean sheet around herself, and what he saw underneath the sheet wasn't good.
Saira jerked as he stepped inside, and her gaze jumped to him with a wild look on her face.
Lee didn't know what she'd been through and didn't think he wanted to... He looked away and hobbled wide around them toward the back of the house and the large windows looking out into the sunset.
The house was on the edge of the neighborhood, atop a hill, and Lee could see directly down to the store he'd been killing ticks in just this morning. It wasn't clear in the fading twilight, but the people here might have been able to see them when they left. Had they hunted the group intentionally? Maybe they were part of the group that attacked outside the store?
If Lee hadn't run away... or Alejandro.
It was hard to say. Lee wasn't much of a fighter, by his own admission, but he could have helped. Against an F-grade, or more than one, it was questionable how much he'd have actually helped... he might have just died. But Alejandro would have made a big difference... especially with his own skill plus the enchanted sword and shield...
No wonder Jake was pissed.
Lee swayed as what ifs filled his mind, and it felt like his wound was taking too long to heal...
Debuff Upgraded: [Starving]
He'd taken more injuries than this that all healed faster... and with less hunger debuffs, too. Was it part of being F-grade? His body was stronger but needed more resources to fuel and heal it?
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"Let's go," Jake said, and Lee turned.
Saira didn't reply, but headed outside. Lee followed, and caught up to her just outside the door, where she was gently touching a small bush. Lee waited... but it wasn't dying. He had no idea how to help her, or what to do in this kind of situation, so he did nothing. Well, nothing besides holding his stomach and watching for monsters in the deepening darkness.
Saira eventually killed the bush. Then the lawn, and finally the large tree in the front yard. At the end of all that, she looked much better, or at least her face looked better. Though she just stood next to the dead tree until Jake emerged from the house. Smoke and the flickering light of a fire followed him out.
"Do you want me to carry you back?" Jake asked her.
Saira flinched and shook her head.
"Then get moving... I'll be right behind you." Saira started walking robotically down the street.
"Jake..." Lee nodded toward the lawn when they passed it and mouthed the word, 'Mar'.
Jake frowned as his gaze locked onto the area. Then he walked over, felt around until his hand caught something, and then slapped the girl.
The slap was loud, and Lee gaped at the sight as Mar flickered into view with her hand to her cheek and eyes glistening. It was her only hand... the other arm ended near the shoulder.
"Mar!" Saira stood frozen when she saw her, then sprinted to the girl and nearly tackled her back down. "Oh, thank god! Oh, Mar, I was so worried!" Then they both burst into loud sobbing and mostly nonsense babbling as the lawn died around them.
Mar wailed and apologized for not saving her mom, while Saira told her over and over that it wasn't her fault and she'd done the right thing.
Jake frowned at both of them and dragged them to their feet. "Walk. We have more wounded at home!" He was back to his worried face... which was better. Lee didn't feel very safe with emotionless Jake. Sure, the guy had literally saved him, but it felt like he'd wanted the man dead more than any desire to help Lee. A lot like with the frogs…
The women moved under Jake's prodding, still hugging and babbling. Lee wanted to tell him to lay off, but Jake was right about people needing her healing... himself, for instance...
Lee followed, and didn't ask for healing. He was regenerating; it was just slow, and he remembered how it had drained Saira the last time she healed him. She could save her strength for the people who needed it more.
He was pleasantly surprised to find a few of the candy bars still in his pockets. They were a smashed and melted mess, though the less chocolatey ones were okay. He ate them all anyway, pocket lint, dust, and melty plastic too. It wasn't enough, and Lee was thinking about trying some grass by the time they'd reached the end of the block. Anything to stop the ache in his stomach.
He was licking the melted chocolate from one hand and actually pulled up a handful of grass when Saira touched him.
Debuff Downgraded: [Hungry]
Debuff Removed: [Bleeding]
The entire lawn died, including the grass in his hand. "Oh, thanks."
Saira glanced at the dead grass as he dropped it, and a flicker of a smile may have touched her lips... "Were you... going to eat that?"
"Yes..." She looked away. "What?" Lee said. "I get hungry..." She didn't respond as they continued walking.
"One more step and you die." Jake's voice was murderous, and Lee froze mid-step. Was this it? Did Jake blame him for...
"Don't shoot!" The strange man's voice had Lee spinning around in surprise. He really had to pay more attention... There were two figures visible in the twilight. One a tall beanpole of a man and the other a woman even shorter than Lee.
"You killed them. The ones in that house?" the woman said.
"What did you know about that?" Jake was cold again, and his drawn arrow started glowing slightly.
"They were bad, monsters. They deserved to die."
"Yet you hid and did nothing?"
"They were powerful. I would have only put myself into the same same situation and accomplished nothing as a result."
Jake stared at them expressionlessly for long moments before the glow winked out and he lowered the bow. "Then go. Go hide again."
"I want to join you."
"I'm a monster too, Lady."
"No, you are not like them. You are a monster hunter, and I need hunters like you to help me."
"Fuck off." Jake turned to Saira. "Let's go. We're wasting time with these cowards."
Mar flinched at his words and vanished.
"I am no hunter," the woman said. "I am a maker, a smith. Hunters need weapons and armor. I can make it for you, and in return, you protect me. Is that not the way of things now?"
Jake hesitated, and she added one more thing. "I can make you arrows... or arrowheads."
"Fine. Let's go."
"W... wait!"
Jake kept walking. "Keep up or get left behind."
Lee waited, mostly because his stomach still felt... off. He could catch up easily enough.
The woman and man both sprinted back into the house they'd come from. The garage door opened a few moments later, manually, and they emerged loaded down with stuff. The woman was even carrying an anvil... one nearly half her diminutive size.
She was still carrying it, but she wasn't moving quickly either. Not nearly fast enough to keep up with Jake's hurried pace.
Lee set his machete carefully on the ground; he didn't want to drain the runes any more than necessary, and stopped her with his hands out. "Let me."
"I don't think..." she said, and Lee lifted it out of her arms. It was heavy, but not what it should be. F-grade was looking better and better.
Unfortunately, it was still a bit much to carry one handed. Lee nodded at his machete. "Carry that. It's enchanted and extremely sharp. If you try to hit me with it, I will block with this." He hefted the anvil. "And it will cut this... steel... nearly in half, if not completely." He was assuming she didn't want it damaged...
They both looked dubious, but the woman grabbed the blade as asked. Lee sent them to walk ahead of him. He was excited about the potential for more weapons and even armor, but he wasn't putting that machete in a stranger's hand and letting them walk behind him. He'd already gotten stabbed with it once...
All this time, Lee hadn't checked his status. He was still afraid to see how bad the damage was, but with a blacksmith joining them... maybe he could still fight without runes when his gear inevitably failed. Though, how long did it take to make swords and armor?
Lee finally checked his status.
Status
Name: Lee Cascade
Race: [Mana Conduit](F-Grade Human)
Traits: [Adaptable] [Energetic Resilience] [Conduit]
Class: Runic (Legendary) - Level 5 (Novice)
Class Skills: Rune Scribe (Uncommon) - Level 8 (Novice)
Attributes:
Strength: 10(1%)10
Vitality: 10(2%)10
Dexterity 10(0%)10
Wisdom 10(+30%)13
Intelligence 10(+27%)12
Willpower 10(+26%)12
Twin-Soul ???
Non-Class Skills(0/3): Liquid Mana Blast (Rare) - Level 1 (Novice)
Buffs:
Debuffs: [Mana Burn]
It was still there, and he'd known it would be. Lee focused on the debuff.
[Mana Burn](71:22:05)
He breathed out a sigh of relief loud enough to get looks from the people ahead. Only three days! That was doable. He wasn't screwed!
Jake pushed the ungraded and traumatized women as fast as he could, but it still took much longer to go back.
It was full dark when the building loomed into the night sky ahead. Only one window was lit, though faintly, and it was on the third floor. Jake ripped up a small tree from the grounds and jumped up the outside of the building to reach that window while yelling for Saira to get upstairs.
Lee left dealing with all that to Jake and steered the newcomers through a door that would take them into the courtyard from the stairwell. It was dark, but apparently his F-grade eyes worked better because the other two were feeling out the walls while he could still see, if barely.
It was probably better that way.
What Lee could see of the building probably would have given them second thoughts about moving in. Then he saw the stars through the semi-circle cutout in the other end of the building... and felt a chill down his spine. What the hell did I do?
The flames blazing merrily in the courtyard eventually drew his gaze back down.
Lee's eyes slid over the wall of a snake that filled most of the open space and settled on a man he didn't know tending the fire. The smell of cooking meat drew all of them forward, and Lee finally set down the anvil to approach. The woman went to place his machete atop it, hesitated, and then handed it to Lee.
Maybe she believed his claim about how sharp it was after all? Had she tested the edge while they were walking? She was holding one hand out of sight...
Jamaal, as he introduced himself, greeted them all enthusiastically, and then urged everyone to join him on the side of the fire under the balcony while casting nervous looks at the open sky above. There, he freely handed out skewers of roasted rattlesnake meat.
It was delicious, and Lee relaxed for the first time in what felt like... forever. He was F-grade, finally. He had good food to eat. He still had a weapon, for now, and his debuff wasn't too bad. He was also still alive. That was a kind of important detail as well.
Their new resident blacksmith introduced herself as May, and her husband as Dennis. The thin man talked little, but he still smiled and laughed along with the others. When they did smile or laugh... Many of the topics weren't pleasant.
Jamaal came through on that front by regaling them with a never-ending litany of ridiculous stories told in broken English.
It was nice.
Jake loomed out of the darkness sometime later, scaring the others, though Lee had felt his runed weapon approach. He took a handful of food and vanished back into the night. Lee felt him go back upstairs, where he only stayed briefly.
When he came back down, Jake held out a core to Lee. "The snake, which technically was mine until you stole my kill."
"It was going to eat me!" Lee protested. He felt like that was a very legitimate excuse.
"That's the only reason I'm letting it slide." Jake was smiling, and Lee guessed Sandra must be doing better to have improved his mood so much. Despite that, Lee got the distinct feeling that he wasn't joking about kill stealing... crazy bastard. Though, that would likely be a real problem in the future. Or core stealing. That was what it would be.
In that vein... "I used some of the cores from... those guys you killed. The skills were shit, but I'll repay the attributes."
"We're even," Jake said. "I'll let that go, since you helped find Saira."
Lee took the core. He'd earned it... and his hand froze.
Of course, Jake noticed his reaction. "What?" The man even quickly scanned the sky.
"Nothing," Lee said, closing his hand around the core and focusing on the notification.
Skill Shard(F-Grade)
Mana Sense (Rare)
Allows the user to sense all types of mana in a small area around them. Raising the skill level will increase both range and sensitivity.
Requirements: Any Mana Type(Requirement Met)
Learn Non-Class Skill(0/3): Y/N?
Consume and Destroy Skill Shard to gain +3 All Base Attributes: Y/N?
The snake dropped it... and Lee could only assume that meant it had been one of its skills. It just made sense. Which meant... had he lured the snake here? Or rather, had the Well?
"I know you've got your own secrets," Jake said, still standing over him. "Like what you did to the snake..."
Lee opened his mouth and Jake held up a hand. "I'm not demanding you tell me anything. It's smart to keep things close to your chest, but if it's something that's going to come back to bite me... or my friends..." He let the statement hang there.
"I... I'll think about it," Lee finally said. The Mana Well was Liquid Mana, but he didn't know if that meant only he could use it, or if anyone could. If it was restricted, then the threat was minimal. If not...
Jake nodded and then smiled at Jamaal. "That snake's delicious! Mind if I take some more?"
"Of course! Of course! Eat!"
Lee sat quietly and mulled over his choices while the others ate and chatted about food and forging. No one mentioned his glowing veins... or Jake's glowing eyes. Was this the new normal?
Jake, of course, sat out under the open sky in the courtyard. He laughed when Jamaal expressed concern. "Isn't that the best way? If the monsters come to me, then I don't have to go looking for them!"
Lee took some amusement from the expressions he could see around the fire. Welcome to the jungle, guys.
"Just imagine what that giant hawk would taste like..." Jake said wistfully while chewing on giant rattlesnake meat.
"What... what giant hawk?"
"Don't worry," Lee said. "It was smaller than the snake." He pointed and smiled when he saw the horrified realization as they finally understood what the massive shape in the dark really was. Lee left them there while Jake further terrified everyone with tales of a big bird. He was tired, and while his status said nothing about that, he still wanted to sleep. It had been... a day. A day of... just too much. To his relief, he found his keys as soon as he started looking. They were in plain sight and not buried under the massive snake's body, so that was nice.
He collapsed onto his couch and then looked warily at the now unenchanted sliding glass door of his porch. Three days. It would be three days before he could safely enchant his home again. Technically, he might be able to do it now, but why risk it? Of course, that meant he needed somewhere safer to sleep... which left the bathroom as the only room sans a window. For whatever good that would do.
Lee sighed, but before he got up and started dragging blankets into the bathroom, he absorbed the new skill.
New Non-Class Skill(1/3): Mana Sense (Rare)
Unlike his class, this skill didn't seem to come with much new knowledge. Only a feeling of how to activate the skill, and doing so simply felt like opening his eyes... or an eye he hadn't realized he had before... and Lee saw... or rather, felt the mana.
It was everywhere. In everything. Most of it moving in a gentle flow here and there. But not all...
Only a couple of feet in front of Lee was something completely different. There the mana was really moving. Not just flowing, either. It was a twisting, spiraling vortex leading down-up into-out of an infinitesimal singularity that his new senses couldn't help but ride along with. Down. Down. Deeper and deeper into the Screaming, Raging, Storm... of MANA!
Skill Level Up: [Mana Sense]
Skill Level Up: [Mana Sense]
Skill Level Up: [Mana Sense]
Skill Level Up: [Mana Sense]
By then, it was far too late to back out. Lee tried to scream as his mind burned with the weight of what he was sensing, but he didn't even know if he was still alive. He couldn't be. He was nothing but a speck of Mana in a web that stretched across the universe...
Skill Level Up: [Mana Sense]
Skill Level Up: [Mana Sense]
Skill Level Up: [Mana Sense]
Skill Level Up: [Mana Sense]
It was too much... he couldn't...
Skill Level Up: [Mana Sense]
Skill Level Up: [Mana Sense]
Skill [Mana Sense] has reached level 10. Evolution Option Available. Rank Up to Basic Available. Evolution: Y/N? Rank Up: Y/N?
Lee didn't comprehend any of the notifications. His only saving grace was that the skill seemed to have shut down, his new eye was closed, and it left him adrift in the darkness.
A peaceful darkness.
A darkness that felt far too empty... and so terribly... quiet...
He passed out.