~~~Caffeine~~~
Caffeine ran around in excited circles while the Not Dearest Humans fought with the Not Friendly Not Dogs in the big house.
They got nervous when he tried to help, so he waited outside. That way, he could watch Dearest Human too!
Dearest Human was thinking very hard over there and making lots of stupid Not Humans die. None of them wanted to play... they only wanted to eat him. That was not nice! So it was okay when Dearest Human made them into food.
He saw a new, very big Not Dog come running down the street. It ran very fast with very many legs! Caffeine ran over to say hello. "You want to play chase!?" he barked. "I don't have so many legs... but I am very good at chase!"
It chased him!
Caffeine sprinted away happily. "Chase!"
They ran in big circles, and the Not Dog was so long that it almost made a whole circle with its body! Caffeine wasn't sure who was chasing who anymore... which was the best kind of chase!
The Not Dog had so many pumping legs! Caffeine wondered how fast he could run with so many legs...
Then the Not Dearest Humans came out of the house, and the Not Dog decided to chase them instead. They screamed when they saw it coming...
"No!" Caffeine barked at it. "You are too big. You need to be smaller if you want to play chase with Not Dearest Humans!"
The Not Dog didn't listen... and Caffeine woofed sadly as it opened a very big mouth to eat the Not Dearest Humans. "Oh, I see. You are a Not Friend..."
He did what Dearest Human was doing. And made the Not Friend into food.
It tasted spicy...
~~~Stanley~~~
Stanley felt Caffeine's alarm and hauled ass across the sky.
The feeling was gone an instant later, well before he arrived and looked down at his new... team.
They were outside the lair he'd left them at, and there was a giant centipede the size of a city bus in the street before them. It was in pieces. A lot of pieces.
Caffeine bounded into his lap with a wagging tail and lolling tongue as he panted happily. "Good boy."
Edward was the one on the ground... again. Serenity crouched over him while the others encircled the duo. None of them looked happy. Except Edward. He was laughing.
"I take it all back, Stanley! You can totally keep half my cores if that awesome fucking dog keeps following us around!"
Stanley dropped closer. "How bad is it?" He wasn't looking forward to another healing trip...
"Not bad. I didn't know Caffeine could do that..." Serenity looked away from her patient long enough to glance at the pug in his lap.
"Didn't Nate tell you?"
"He said to watch out for him but that he was strong enough to come with us... Not that he could kill a monster... like that." Olivia was staring openly.
"Remember this when you're eating," Stanley said. "He makes friends far too easily..."
"You're going to love me, Caff!" Edward exclaimed, bounding to his feet the moment Serenity moved back. "Want to play chase?" He crouched like a sprinter at the starting line, and Caffeine tensed.
Edward took off running, and Caffeine launched Stanley backward as he shot past the other man in a trail of dust.
Stanley sighed at the ridiculous antics. Again. But he couldn't help the small smile when Caffeine slid to a stop ahead of Edward, his head down and tail wagging, before shooting away from the charging man in another trail of dust.
"Does he ever get tired?" Stanley asked as he picked up the others. At least Caffeine was leading the guy in the right direction...
"I... don't think so," Olivia said, along with a few of the others shaking their heads.
He left them outside the next lair and went on to his own after dragging one monster outside. Just to check. Everything was getting stronger out here. Most of the cores were shards now... and he suspected it was only a matter of time until E-grades started appearing everywhere.
Caffeine sat panting in his lap, though Stanley doubted he was truly tired after that little sprint. He still welcomed the chance to pet the pug while he slaughtered monsters.
The new team was... competent. At least against F-grades. They would clear out one of the small lairs and then regenerate mana while gathering cores in the next. Apparently mana regeneration was better inside the lairs...
Stanley still had the E-grade cores in his pocket, and he was waiting for when he got closer to the next grade. They'd be more valuable once the diminishing returns kicked in. Plus, with the shards dropping everywhere, he was making good progress.
Of course, he could always give them to Nate... but that moment of weakness had passed. Better to just get himself to E-grade faster.
Status
Name: Stanley Cascade
Race: [Psychomancer](F-grade Human)
Titles: [Titan Slayer] [F-grade Source]
Traits: [Adaptable](66%) [Source Nexus] [Psycho] [Source Burned]
Class: Psionic (Rare) - Level 49 (Intermediate)
Class Skills: Mind Over Matter (Legendary) - Level 50 (Advanced) | Premonition (Epic) - Level 32 (Intermediate) | Accelerated Thought (Rare) - Level 27 (Basic)
Attributes:
Strength: 41(+30%)53
Vitality: 43(+31%)56
Dexterity 42(+30%)54
Wisdom 44(+657%)333
Intelligence 47(+656%)355
Willpower 61(+1562%)1013
Twin-Soul ???(+28%)???
Non-Class Skills 1/3: Soul Sight (Rare) - Level 14 (Novice)
Buff:
Debuff: [Feeble] [Frail] [Hungry]
His stupid class wasn't leveling. Neither was Mind Over Matter.
Technically, his willpower already had diminishing returns. But none of the E-grade cores were for willpower alone...
Otherwise, everything else was doing good. Premonition was the slowest, simply from him not being willing to risk injury while he was weakened. Though that prospect was becoming less and less of an issue.
Soul Sight's text didn't change when it hit basic rank. Other than to increase the soul bonus. But it gained a leap in how well he could see through the lair walls... which was nice.
He was still trying to get Mind Over Matter to do something new. Something special. Any fucking thing! It was supposed to be a legendary skill... so why didn't it do shit!?
Sure, he had the domain now. That was real enough. But having to let the monsters get in his face just felt... stupid. The fact that it hadn't leveled after hundreds of dead monsters only reaffirmed his belief that he was missing something.
Die. Burn. Break a leg! None of his attempts yielded anything. Fart! Trip! Explode!
Zilch.
His new... friends... allies? Minions? His new minions got to keep half the cores. From the ones they hunted. Not Stanley's. It was the price for his overwatch, or Caffeine's overwatch most of the time. Along with him flying them around.
The flying had mattered little in the beginning, when they hunted closer to the base. Now they were on the fringes of downtown again. Where the lairs were everywhere and the monsters were stronger.
It was more dangerous, but no risk, no reward. Even with half the cores, they were all climbing fast in power. How could they not be? Each core gave them plus one to every attribute. The only reason they hadn't capped out yet was the diminishing returns, and they still might hit the cap today.
Stanley was already feeding cores to Caffeine again. He did so until the pug tired of eating them and ran off to find his new friends. Stanley didn't like that. A small, selfish, and ugly part of him hated to see Caffeine run away for someone else.
He quashed that part of himself ruthlessly.
Caffeine loved everyone. If someone fed him, or even just gave him some pets, he would love them forever. Stanley saw more than one time where Caffeine was clearly trying to play with some terrifying monster... right until it attacked him or someone else. Then a switch flipped, and he destroyed whatever threatened him or one of his friends.
Watching him run around Nate's base... seeing him speed up slightly when he smelled someone... his tail wagging when he found the source of the smell... Stanley couldn't be mad about that. Caffeine did the same thing to him every time they were apart for more than a few seconds.
Then he felt… something from Caffeine.
He found the pug standing outside and staring into the distance at a… cloud spilling from a skyscraper. A dark cloud that flowed like a swirling… flock of birds. You've got to be kidding me.
Stanley watched the cloud while Caffeine growled softly beside him, and wouldn't you know, it was flying his way… Of course. He eyed the surrounding buildings while trying to gauge the flock's speed. The idea of fighting them in the sky was… unappealing. Better to bunker down with numbers like that.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Only, it wasn't birds. It was bugs. A swarm of them... Not even a swarm. It was a tidal wave of people-sized wasps that was surging down the street.
The birds were on the fringes, and they were eating the wasps…
Stanley grabbed Caffeine and took him into the lair with the minions. He wasn't confident about dragging them all out before the tide washed over them... and besides, why run when there was a giant pile of cores coming his way?
The sound of what had to be thousands of wings grew into a deafening roar as they spilled over and around the building while he dragged all the minions into the room with the least openings.
Surprisingly, nothing came in after him… like they weren't out to get him… Very strange. So he sent his spear outside to play.
He barely had to try. The bugs were so thick, they just ran into the spear over and over in a spray of gore that rained across their fellows.
Unfortunately, each core that appeared got immediately snatched up by the ensuing swarm.
So he started dragging the monsters inside and bashing their brains out against the walls or with his spear. Wasps had brains, right?
That was when he noticed that all the gore wasn't just bug guts. Every time one of them died, it would spray a torrent of... something from its stinger. Stanley assumed it was poison or venom—something terrible for sure. He really didn't expect the bugs to swarm inside en masse after the first one died.
He kept killing them. Spinning the spear was enough to turn the front room into a wasp blender, and they just kept coming.
At first, they only swarmed in the front, nearest to the mess. But as the pile grew and more of their poison sprayed everywhere, the bugs swarmed from every direction.
They were all F-grades, and not very strong ones. They'd flown in from the direction of downtown... Was it because they were weak? Did the birds push them out of a lair? Regardless, they were easy enough to handle. He simply blocked the door and window of the room they were in and kept slaughtering.
Stanley moved the spear to a different room when the first became a literal blender. Then the next. And the next. Until the roar subsided and silence reigned.
He hadn't killed all of them. Not even a fraction had flown into the building. The rest just flew on by... "What?" he asked the terrified faces in the room with him.
"Is... is that normal?" Olivia asked softly. She was crouched against the wall in between the window and door. The others were with her.
"Never seen them before," Stanley said. "But there are a lot of cores to collect. Get moving and watch out for the... venom."
Stanley flew out ahead of them and stuck a finger in the first pool of the... stuff.
Debuff: [Touch of Agony](00:59)
Experience extreme pain in any area touched by Agony Wasp Venom.
"Ow..." Stanley grunted. "That sucks..."
It was also weird. Why didn't he resist the debuff? Was it not magical? The pain sure felt magically enhanced... or was that it? He didn't resist physical damage or elemental effects like superheated steam... so was the venom a physical attack? Maybe magic made it more powerful, but wasn't directly inflicting the pain...
"What is it?" Edward said and touched the venom himself... He immediately howled in pain and then screamed, "Cut it off! Cut it..."
Stanley cut off his finger; he was a giver like that, and Edward sagged in apparent relief.
"I can't heal that!" Serenity exclaimed.
"He asked for it... and maybe don't gather these cores," Stanley said as his own debuff finally expired. Sure it hurt. A lot. But it was just pain...
Debuff: [Hungry]
He shoved a chunk of meat into his mouth and tossed one to Caffeine. "I'll get them."
Serenity kept making small sounds of protest until Edward said, "It's fine. Zeke can heal it!"
Once again, Soul Sight made the entire process easier, if not less messy. Stanley didn't absorb the cores. Or even touch them. His finger still throbbed... So he stuck them in the empty food pack.
It was only when he carried them all into the sky, after carefully extracting them through the window, that he noticed the direction of the swarm. "Shit."
Stanley flew after it. Fast. The one trick he had improved on with his new skill was blocking the wind. Not that he couldn't have done it before... he just hadn't needed to. It took more effort and made him tired faster, but it let him fly... really... Fast.
He slowed when the swarm came into view. First as a glowing mass of shifting yellow souls, then a not glowing mass of swarming yellow jackets. Technically, they were Agony Wasps... but they looked like yellow jackets.
"Fire at will?"
Olivia was the first to act, and her laser reached easily down into the swarm. She didn't even need to aim.
The other casters responded in kind, except James. "I can't do anything against that... Stanley, get us ahead of them! And higher! Olivia, save your mana. We need a beam they can't miss from the base! Edward, send the signal! Hopefully that will get them looking in the right direction."
Stanley obliged. Sure, they could fly all the way ahead and warn the base, but it was probably better to thin the swarm while they could. Before it got any closer. That way, he could take all the cores.
He let Olivia drain her mana completely in three blinding beams, one after the other, then dropped lower to get his spear in range... the real shame was all the cores he was going to lose... Wait... Fuck this.
Instead of fighting them with a little stick, Stanley flew well off to the side and hauled up another road while thinking unhappy thoughts. Caffeine will be so sad if all his new friends die... how heartbroken he was when Samantha died... all that pain with the undead would be for nothing...
His Rage came easily with those thoughts. Maybe too easily, but he didn't care right now. Stanley just wanted to kill something. A lot of things!
He threw the road at the wasps. The dirt, rocks, asphalt, and even a few old cars. All of it rained down over the swarm in a beautiful, crushing tide of death and destruction. It was a scattershot rain, throwing from so high up, but it didn't matter with the numbers below. Stanley didn't even wait for everything to go crashing down before he pulled up another road and did it again. Then again. And again!
It was... good. Pleasant even. To watch those yellow souls wink out one by one. Then dozens at a time. Hundreds. To watch the monsters die even as they fled from him. Exactly the way it should be. Die! All of you fucks, die!
The light dimmed as he threw more and more debris into the sky in an artillery barrage of ruin. Enough to blot out the sun. Enough to carpet bomb a city. More roads and rocks. More cars. Even buildings. Beautiful, raging destruction! Again! Again...
"Stop!" Orange light covered Stanley...
Debuff Resisted: [Sapping Drain]
He whirled on the monster, and... Caffeine's face filled his vision. Then the giant pug toppled out of his lap and, with scrambling paws, fell toward the ground far below. "Caff!"
Stanley caught the shrinking pug and pulled him back to his lap while someone cried nearby. Down on the ground, he could see more souls. Not the yellow ones, though a few of those remained, but a bunch of different colors...
James was talking behind him in a very patronizing tone. "...got them, Stanley. We're okay. Nate can handle the rest. It's okay. We're all okay. Everyone's fine."
"Just shut up." Stanley hugged Caffeine and let his rage drain away along with the last pile of asphalt and dirt. Which he dropped well away from the people below instead of lobbing it at the few remaining wasps...
The crying stopped, and Stanley took them all toward their home. That was enough hunting for today. They could visit Zeke; in fact, Stanley wanted to visit Zeke. His memory of that soothing light was a distant and fading thing, and he could see the golden soul not so far away...
First, though, cores... You know what? Fuck that!
Stanley put his spear through the final wasp as he descended on Nate, a twinge of pain in his head accompanying the attack and signaling that he'd overdone it again. Damn it.
"I want the cores. Get them for me." Sure, he could dig them out, but his head already hurt from pushing too hard and earning another debuff. On that note, he dropped off his passengers. It was not that far of a walk... and it made his head feel much better.
Nate looked away, out over the new plain of dirt and crumbled asphalt.
"They would have rolled over..."
"Sure, Stanley," Nate interrupted a bit tersely. "I've got some non-combats who can dig this up."
Stanley frowned, then saw Nate's clenched fists covered in gore and twitching. He saw the sweat beading on his forehead. "So... I guess you know to watch out for the venom, then?"
Nate let out a short bark of laughter. "I do." Then his face cracked into a grimace of a smile. "Thanks, Stanley. This could have been very... horrible."
He was the only one who'd gotten up close and personal with the bugs. All the others who'd come out were casters... Had he known to do that? Or just gotten lucky?
Stanley's head throbbed, and Caffeine really wanted to jump down... He wouldn't let the pug touch the venom. No way. "Not happening, Caff. Stay." But while on the subject of mind-scrambling pain... "You can have one percent. For collecting them."
There had to be at least a thousand cores buried out there, and Stanley wanted nothing more than to snatch them all up this instant... Well, he wanted one thing more than that.
Class: Psionic has reached the Threshold of Level 50
No Class Evolutions Available. Ranking Psionic up to Level 50 (Advanced)
For reaching (Advanced) rank in your class, you may choose a new Class Skill.
Stanley stopped at the first skill on the list. An older one... though slightly different this time.
Harmonic Meditation (Rare) - Level 1 (Novice)
In the symphony of the mind and body, balance reigns supreme.
Users of this skill gain the ability to refresh and calm their body and mind through meditation, while also minimizing their body's physical needs, including sleep and nourishment.
Allows the user to enter profound states of concentration, attuning their mind and body to the flow of psionic energy within, balancing the flows of each for a greater control of both.
Active meditation increases all regeneration at the cost of severe sensory restrictions.
Higher skill level will increase the positive effects and reduce the sensory restrictions.
Skill Level Effects - (Novice)
+20% to all regeneration while active
-1% to sensory restrictions
It had a new name, but a similar text if he was remembering correctly—though maybe slightly better?
Stanley wanted this skill. He needed something—anything that could help his mind. The anger made him strong... and he desperately needed that strength, but... it was wearing on him. Wearing him down.
Anger alone wasn't the problem. He could deal with a short temper. It was everything else that followed behind... like the regret. So many of his choices weighed on him. Ate away at him. Punished him.
More torments followed behind those. Despair. Fear. Paranoia. While some of that was only healthy... Stanley knew he was too far from the norm, but he couldn't help it. He couldn't risk taking a chance and being wrong. Too much was at stake...
He couldn't fail Lee again... couldn't fail Caffeine again... only, he felt like he was doing exactly that every day.
Stanley forced himself to keep checking the list of skills. Just in case. There might be something that insta-kills the undead, no matter how strong they are. Yea right.
There was only one new skill... the rest were all upgraded versions of what he'd seen before. Same as meditation. Shield was now Bulwark. Healing was now Infusion and let him boost all regeneration in the target instead of just health... Too little, too late.
Elemental Tempest (Epic)
Even the elements must yield to the mind.
Allows the user to touch upon and manipulate the elemental forces of the world around them using only their psionic energy.
Specific elemental affinities may be higher or lower dependent on the user. Some elemental affinities may increase with repeated use and higher skill levels.
Skill Level Effects (Novice)
+1% Effective Mind Attributes
+0.1 All Elemental Affinities
It wasn't bad... per se... but it felt like a waste. His stupid legendary skill should let him do the same thing, shouldn't it? Manipulating reality had to be better than playing with fire...
Besides, he really only wanted meditation. It didn't boost his attributes, and was only rare instead of epic. But he wanted it. Needed it. He was unraveling at the seams... and he needed anything that might help.
Stanley didn't select it just yet, though. His mind's eye settling on the only other skill that he craved.
Mental Intrusion (Epic)
Your mind is mine to infringe.
Users of this skill gain the ability to touch upon the surface layer of another's mind. There, you may attempt to glean the surface thoughts of the target or to implant new thoughts in the target's mind.
Users may also dig deeper into another's mind at the risk of being detected. Allows searching through memories and rooting out hidden thoughts protected behind mental barriers, provided the user wields the stronger will.
Can be used as communication between willing parties.
Higher skill levels will increase the range and strength, eventually allowing the user to implant thoughts that the target will take as their own if the intrusion goes undetected.
Skill Level Effects (Novice)
+1% Effective Mind Attributes
+1% Additional Willpower
That one might help too...