Elsie Stormrider looked at the weapon cabinet. She knew from last time that hiding underneath it would be enough to get her all the way to Legendary before the wolves could break through to her. But the class selection had been so limited, having mostly artisan and craftsman classes. She needed to do some monster slaying this time.
The Legendary rank would probably be worth it though, as long as she could figure out some way to get there while also getting some experience with a few weapons. The low growl started from down the hallway to her right. She could see the shadowy form stalking slowly towards her.
Without wasting any more time, Elsie grabbed the weapons from the large wooden cabinet and carefully laid them on the floor. Her arms had a shorter reach than when she had done this as Aeric, or even compared to when she had been Eric Smith back on Earth. The wolf was getting closer though, and she needed a way to get this cabinet down.
She eyed the three wands: dark red, forest green, and light pink. This time she gingerly moved them to the ground, making sure not to drop them. All that was left now was to pull this cabinet down to use as a bunker. She tried to grip the edges and pull, but it was too well set in the recess of the wall. Her hands couldn’t get a good enough grip. She looked around and grabbed the spear.
Jamming the blade of the spear into the small space between the weapon cabinet and the wall, she pushed sideways to try to use leverage to get the cabinet out. It was shifting ever so slightly, but not fast enough. The shadow wolf arrived, and Elsie got a good look at it for the first time.
The beast was smaller than she had expected, though no less intimidating. Wisps of dark gray smoke trailed out of its fur, and its eyes had a red gleam to them. It bared its teeth and then lunged at her.
Elsie pulled the spear out of the cabinet just in time and spun around, holding it clumsily in both hands. The wolf couldn’t stop its motion through the air, and impaled itself directly on the spear. It still managed to snap its jaws around Elsie’s right wrist, biting deep and drawing blood. She screamed and threw the wolf to the floor. It did not move.
[Monsters Slain: 1]
Why doesn’t this leather armor cover all the way down to my wrists? She thought. Overall the armor was roughly the same design as what Aeric had been equipped with. It covered her upper body entirely though it stopped at her shoulders, leaving her arms bare. Leather chaps covered her lower body down to the boots she was now also wearing.
More growling came from the hallway. A quick glance let her see two wolves approaching from the end of it. Still around one hundred yards away. Blood was streaming from Elsie’s wrist, but overall it wasn’t as painful as the dagger in Aeric’s thigh had been. She went back to work on pulling down the cabinet.
Enough of the wood was out of the recessed wall now that she could get a better grip, though with her injured wrist it still made things difficult. The growling grew louder as the wolves approached, but Elsie managed to tip the cabinet forward before they arrived. It crashed onto the floor, covering the weapons other than the spear that was still sticking out of the dead wolf.
Great… now I just need to get under that.
The wolves arrived before she could figure out how to get underneath her makeshift fortifications. She grabbed the spear and turned to face her adversaries. They instinctively split up, moving in a semicircle to either of Elsie’s sides. They attacked at the same time, leaping towards her.
Elsie ducked and propped the spear up toward the wolf on her left. I met the same fate as the first wolf, though it did not manage to snap at her wrist this time. The other wolf landed on her back and dug its claws into the back of her white outfit while closing its jaws around her neck, going straight for the kill. Her voluminous hair interfered with the wolf’s bite, preventing it from doing as much damage to the back of her neck as it otherwise would have.
She kicked her legs back as hard as she could and bodyslammed the wolf against the ground. It lost its grip around her neck, though she could feel blood pouring out of the marks where the wolf’s teeth had punctured her skin. She sat up as quickly as she could, but the wolf snapped at her again, getting another mouthful of curly red hair for its efforts.
It pulled her back like a dog playing tug of war with a chew toy.
Elsie grabbed the spear just before she was dragged too far away to reach it. She blindly flailed it back towards where the wolf was behind her head.
“Not” - smack!
“The” - smack!
“HAIR!” - smack!
The spear finally landed a solid hit, and Elsie found herself freed from its maw once again. The shoulders and front of her leather armor were now covered in her own blood, but she didn’t have time to care about something like that. She rolled over to her hands and knees, repositioned the spear, and shoved it directly into the open mouth of the wolf with all her force. It choked out a small groan and then fell still.
[Monsters Slain: 3]
Elsie remained kneeling on the floor for a minute, catching her breath. It wasn’t long before she heard the sound of more approaching wolves.
They just never end, do they?
Elsie crawled forward on her hands and knees, and got to the edge of the weapons cabinet. She used the tip of the spear as leverage once again, this time to raise the cabinet off the ground enough to get her fingers underneath. She barely had the strength to lift it high enough to start scooting her legs underneath.
A bark came from the entrance to the hallway, and she saw three wolves entering her room. She knew it would be more than she could take if it pounced on her while only her torso was out from under the cabinet. She hurriedly scooted further in, but discovered that her legs had needed less clearance space to get under the cabinet than her torso did.
Why didn’t I just go back and set this as something more reasonable! Stupid maxed out settings…
With a bit of effort, she forced herself all the way into the space beneath the weapons cabinet and let it slam onto the floor. A series of thuds sounded as the three shadow wolves jumped on top of the cabinet. They immediately began scratching at the wood, but were unable to do any meaningful damage to it yet, just like had happened with Aeric.
Elsie had nicked her left leg against some bladed weapon in the pile underneath next to her while she had scooted in. It had pierced through the leather chaps just enough to draw a steady stream of blood. She was now bleeding from her leg, her wrist, and her neck. Even worse, the cabinet felt more cramped than before. She could barely breathe, as the cabinet was pressing down on her.
I’m sure I had at least an inch of space when I was in here as Aeric. Stupid maxed out settings!
Being alarmed by how much blood was pooling beneath her neck, she groped around for the wands. She found them and carefully pulled them closer to her face. In the dim light coming from the crack between the wood and the stone floor, she could barely tell the difference between them.
One of these has got to have some sort of healing power. I just need to figure out how to use them.
Elsie gripped the wand that she was pretty sure was the light pink wand, then set the other two aside. She thought back to the description about the Arcanist class: the one that had been able to create rune stones. It had said something about magic being usable by channeling something called astra. She didn’t know exactly what that was, but if she couldn’t figure it out she’d likely die from blood loss within the next few minutes.
Did she need to say the words for some magic spell? Meditate and establish a deep connection with whatever the astra was? Move the wand in just the right motion? She tried rubbing the wand, waving the wand, pressing the wand against her bleeding neck, but nothing worked.
Maybe it’s because I have so little room to move under here. Not enough space for a proper swish-and-flick motion.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Her head felt light and she remembered the sensation she had felt as Aeric as his blood loss had progressed. An idea came to her muddled mind: the thought of how the dark red wand had exploded when she tossed it to the ground. She took the pink wand in one hand, moved it up against the cabinet wood, then slammed it into the stone floor as hard as she could.
Her hand exploded along with the wand, but her world became one of sublime ecstasy. Within a second, her mangled hand was repaired. The wounds closed on her leg, wrist, and neck. Her lightheadedness went away, and Elsie felt alive in a way she had never felt before. Her whole body wracked with pure delight as it overdosed on the healing magic that filled the small space beneath the weapon cabinet.
Elsie felt a rush hit her brain. Her eyes rolled back into her head, her mouth fell open, and she entered a coma of pure bliss.
---
[Time Survived: 7 hours, 56 minutes, 13 seconds]
[Monsters Slain: 3]
[Class Ranks Available: Common, Uncommon]
Elsie woke up from her blissful coma, feeling a strange combination of being healthier than ever while also feeling like absolute horse dung.
I am never doing that again, she thought. She rubbed her head and pushed her hands into her eyes, trying to clear the awful throbbing in her head. At least I’m not dead.
She looked at the class ranks available and realized she still had a long way to go. She had unlocked the Legendary class rank after surviving for 16 hours. She was almost halfway there. It was definitely not a good experience to lay here with a large piece of furniture pressing down on her, making it difficult to breathe.
Not to mention she wanted to kill something. She didn’t want another list of craftsman or artisan classes again. And having two Nullifiers just seemed like a waste of the Twinborn class. Thinking about it further, she figured she probably wouldn’t qualify for Nullifier anyway. She was pretty sure Aeric had received it due to that screen that stated his attack style was “Null”.
Her best bet was probably these two remaining magic wands. She had no intention of slamming them down again like she had with the pink wand. She also didn’t want to try setting anything on fire while in this cramped space. Better to figure out what the green wand did and see if she could use it to her advantage in any way.
Making random motions hadn’t worked with the previous wand. She held the wand with both hands above her stomach, closed her eyes, and tried to meditate. She knew magic had something to do with something called astra or maybe astral connections. She just didn’t know what that was. How could she access it?
Elsie tried to feel out in some way other than her basic five senses. She once again quieted her breathing, calmed her heart, and relaxed. This time not through a forced blissful coma, but instead just trying to reach out to the universe around her.
Eric Smith had never believed in any particular religion during his life. He didn’t know if there was a god, many gods, or no gods at all out there in the vastness of space. He had never tried to feel a connection with anything greater in the universe before. As such, Elsie Stormrider similarly struggled to know how to approach making any such connection.
But Elsie had all the time she needed.
---
[Time Survived: 13 hours, 39 minutes, 55 seconds]
[Monsters Slain: 3]
[Class Ranks Available: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic]
A light filled the space beneath the weapons cabinet. Elsie was tired, hungry, and thirsty after so many hours of meditation. But most of all she was surprised. She had felt something. It had taken hours to feel out, but just the knowledge that there was something there to discover had been enough to keep her going.
It hadn’t just been blind faith in something she couldn’t see. She had known that there was such a thing as astra and that she needed to channel it to make this wand work. That knowledge had carried her to push harder than she ever would have. And at last she was rewarded for her effort.
She felt a connection to something, which she assumed was astra. At first it was just a light touch, barely noticeable. But as she tried to move her spirit or consciousness or whatever this power may be to grasp even tighter to that feeling, the connection strengthened. A few seconds after that, the wand in her hand began glowing with a soft, green pulsing light.
She held it up closer to her face, and instinctively knew what she could do with this wand. It held a power to manipulate life essence itself. She could use it to stimulate growth, create pure water, or provide sunlight. None of this was immediately helpful, although she was rather thirsty.
She took hold of the astral connection she had established and willed it into the wand. It was clear to her how to do it now that she could feel the connection directly. She wanted water.
A stream of water with the force of a garden hose splashed Elsie right in the face, some of it going into her mouth or up her nose. She gasped, which only made her choke on the water, then forced her astral connection to close. The water cut off, and she lay there coughing and struggling to breathe. The intensity of the scratches from the other side of the wood picked up as the wolves went into a frenzy trying to reach her.
When she had caught her breath, Elsie decided to try again. She used a much weaker flow of astra through her astral connection into the wand. She willed it to produce water, and this time it was more like a water fountain. She drank from it greedily as she took the first drink she’d ever technically had in this body.
Feeling her thirst sated, she moved on to figure out how to start slaying more of these wolves. She set down the green wand, its glow fading, and picked up the dark red wand. It only took her a few minutes to re-establish an astral connection, and then connect it through to the wand.
Fire. Something that felt like… blood? And… gravity? Elsie considered the odd combination of influences this wand could exert. How did this fit together? The green wand made sense: it was everything that plantlife could need, aside from the soil itself. That combination of influences fit together well. What could she do with fire, blood, and gravity though?
Except gravity didn’t seem to be the right word for it. It was more than that. A bonding of two things. The pull between one thing and another. Always equal and opposite. That which makes two things become one.
Blood was the wrong word as well. It wasn’t just blood, it was complex life itself. It was the representation of the collaborative, communicative system by which complex multicellular organisms were able to work together as one whole being. A system of supply and resupply. Communication.
Thinking about it more, she realized that fire was also not the right word. It wasn’t just fire, but energy. Heat. Electricity. Power. Information itself, even.
There’s more to these wands than they first appear.
This wand provided the energy, systemic communication, and bonds needed to create life itself. Manifested as raw energy it could certainly be used as fire. Or as gravity itself. But it could be more than that. It could create rather than just destroy. What could she make though?
Animal life, Elsie thought. The green wand was for plant life and the red wand was for animal life. Did the pink wand represent some other form of life?
Then she realized one more thing. All three of these wands were for creation, not destruction. But then why are they included along with these other weapons in a quest where I need to kill or be killed?
Regardless, she felt ready to face the shadow wolves. She took the green wand in one hand while holding the dark red one in the other. Focusing on her astral connection, she carefully fed astra into the red wand. Gravity. That which brings one thing to another.
The weapons cabinet slowly lifted an inch off the floor towards the ceiling. Elsie felt relief as the pressure on her chest was removed and she could breathe properly again. She felt the wolves scrambling on top of the cabinet, and with a thought she increased the flow of astra dramatically.
The cabinet shot towards the ceiling, crushing the wolves against it. Even though the light in the room was not particularly bright, it was still nearly blinding to Elsie after having spent over thirteen hours in the dark. She could feel the wolves still struggling, so she poured even more astra into the gravity spell.
How much astra can I send into a spell? She pushed as much as she could possibly push with her limited grasp on her astral connection. Fatigue washed over her and she quickly let go of the spell. The cabinet came crashing towards the ground, and Elsie rolled out of its way just in time.
A pile of seven wolves, one of which was much larger than the others, sprawled across the cabinet. They were all broken and whimpering. Elsie stood up and looked at them with pity. She saw the spear on the floor and knew what she needed to do.
She still felt lightheaded from a combination of her earlier bliss coma and also having pulled on the astral connection so hard. Using her wands at the moment did not sound appealing. She tried to put them in her pockets only to realize she didn’t have any. So she shrugged and stuck them in the front of her leather armor. They were held firmly in place.
Elsie grabbed the spear from the ground and went about the grizzly work of ending each wolf’s life. The larger shadow wolf was the only one that made a feeble attempt to snap at her, but it was too far gone to do anything but bite at the air.
At last, Elsie sat back on the recessed shelf where the large weapons cabinet had once rested. It was the closest thing she had to a chair. She examined her quest progress.
[Time Survived: 13 hours, 45 minutes, 17 seconds]
[Monsters Slain: 10]
[Class Ranks Available: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic]
She still had a few hours to go until Legendary would unlock, and then she wanted to see how much further she could go after that. First though, she eyed the wolves in the hopes of figuring out how to sate her growing appetite. She wouldn’t mind figuring out a way to rinse her blood off of her armor and neck as well.