~LoneJones POV~

Well both of my brother got their classes now. I'm still missing a skill for mine though. 

Class: - Name: LoneJones

Title: The Fast One

HP: 179/179 Lvl: 24

        Effects:

Race Sperid: +30 AGI, +10 PER

The Fast One: +50 AGI

MP: 51/51

  SP: 230/235   STR: 10 CHR: 10 END: 40  AGI: 130 INT: 10  PER:70 WIS: 10   LUK: 10  Stat Points: 10

Sensitive Hairs (Race Skill) (Passive) - Advanced 1 (6%)

Hyperfocus - Advanced 1 (4%)

Unarmed Combat - Advanced 1 (1%)

Evasion - Advanced 3 (2%)

Dagger Mastery - Intermediate 10 (17%)

Though I didn't doubt Cobb in the first place, he was right, Sensitive Hairs didn't count since it was a racial skill. As of now we were heading towards the Great Tree as we began to call it. With my increased perception I was able to locate many stealthed Geckans attached to the trunks of the trees as we moved through the greenery. Their dead lifeless bodies didn't detract from the scenery as we continued onward. The jungle was beautiful. I found that increasing all of my senses was a blessing, I could immerse myself in the noise and I was able to detect new additions to the music as the sun rose. A bird never heard. Or a deer without fear. They all added to the symphony in a practiced ease, a routine everyday. Beautiful for everyone but a normal occurence to them.

While Cobb likes to analyze and derive statistical data from evident observations, I tend to see things in color. That isn't to say that either of us are completely void of the other perception but we definitely lean towards one. With that said, I have no idea what happens in JST's head.

I noted the way my intital skills were headed. It seemed like I was heading for some generic assassin build and I dreaded it. I needed something, something to spice things up or change how I deal with threats. Of course I didn't expect to do anything but kill people silently and swiftly, I just wanted to do it differently. Sooner or later I was bound to get Dagger Mastery and of course it just increased my efficency with daggers. Still when a skill increased based on percentages when I was already at a masterful level, well, I become very dangerous. At the moment I got an increase of 66% efficency.

Dagger Mastery - Intermediate 10 (17%)

When one wields the dagger, it shouldn't be out in the open. If you see someone with a dagger walking around, his friend is probably behind you.

Effects:

+66% efficiency when wielding daggers

Although I don't what efficency directly effects, it probably encompasses many things such as speed, damage, penetration, all of the things that a dagger has or the wielder does is most likely just improved. Obviously the skill was very generic, anyone could get it if they waved a small blade around.

I was leading by a few meters while Cobb was in the back. JST had no way to percieve the Geckans unless he was within 1 meter or so he said. It was left to Cobb's sense for the earth and my perception. After a few Geckans were exposed and JST had to deal with some that slipped by I questioned Cobb.

"Did you miss some what happened?"

"I can't feel them in the trees, only the vibrations of the earth. If they've just been in waiting then they would never have to move until they needed to attack. Up until that point i'm blind to them." He responded. We were not shy to admit our weaknesses not in game nor in real life. We were brothers after all.

"My new skill is amazing, I would have taken an nasty scratch if i didn't sense them. I'm up to three meters now!" JST said excitingly.

"Ok cool, you two stay close. Even my senses might miss one or two. Stay sharp." My voice carried over the light jungle noise. Soft light shined through the rustling canopy. There wasn't any wind.

"Fuck I need to pee." I added. Their change in demeanor might've gone unnoticed if I wasn't their brother. My change in talking might've gone unnoticed as well if they weren't my brothers too. I hated cussing.

We moved forward and I crossed my hands behind my back. I probably seemed like a carefree child admiring the forest. Of course these new Geckans couldn't know that I was responsible for the deaths of their whole chain of patrol. The two bigger people behind me seemed the more likely candidates. As of right now I was just a kid. I didn't form any signs behind my back, a sign in itself, there were more than my fingers could count. Cobb moved to make small talk beside JST, well within three meters. I couldn't rely on my hearing, they were dead silent in the trees, my eyes darting across the canopy would give us away, touch, smell and taste were useless here as well. I still had my hairs though, or septules as Cobb called them, whatever. My intital glance counted more than 10 and it was completely on accident. Anything more and they might suspect something, they were intelligent after all. My increased perception helped a lot when using Sensitive Hairs, they creeped through the canopy above us, three or so moving at a time. 

"I don't think they can understand us." Cobb said in a tone that was carefree and happy, he laughed. "We're probably fine to talk and plan as long as we seem unaware." He added with a smile.

"So what the fuck are we gonna do bro?" My brother said shrugging his shoulders and smiling a little too wide.

"Just talk normally it's not like we're strangers to danger. You're just nervous cuz you suck at acting." I told JST.

"Hey what the fuck dude." He said getting peeved. He blinked. "Oh I see what you mean. It's just a normal life or death situation now. No pressure of acting. No audience that I can't kill if I get too embarrassed." He said smiling, it wasn't too wide this time.

"Ugh I get that you guys need to act natural but please, please keep in mind there are Geckans right above us." Cobb said.

Apparently they knew their racial name in English or whatever we're speaking because right after he said that it was raining pink, muscular toungues. I guess their name was enough to suspect that we knew. It was probably that smile that blew our cover, dang it bro. I danced deftly as their toungues squished violently against the jungle floor. I cut chunks off of two in the instant that they began to retract. Loud hissing could be heard from the canopy as their toungues came back to them with renewed speed. I stuck two of my daggers into two seperate pink masses as they began to fly upward. Being as light as I am I was pulled upwards, my hair whipped backwards and I squinted against the wind, I noticed the toungues were retracting to two seperate places, they were at opposite angles. I pulled my daggers out with a wet squelch and slingshotted into the canopy.

"WEEEEEEEEEEEEE" I screamed. I might've just indirectly announced my arrival.

The green leaves barely slowed me but there were a lot of leaves. In the midst of the canopy pink toungues flew all around. I activated Hyperfocus and everything slowed down drastically. I twisted as two flew past, one under the elbow and another over my shoulder. At the same time a Geckan got behind me, it jumped to match my rising altitude, I finished my twist and realized these Geckans had claws. It swiped with its left and I had to dive backwards by pushing downward off the bottom of a tree branch, I passed in between the two moving masses I just evaded. I caught a branch and swung myself over, avoiding more pink. I landed on my feet, crouched low near a Geckan whose toungue was shot downward. It flicked its head up and began to suck its toungue back up as it noticed me. I managed to fight around its toungue before realizing the toungue was him too so I slashed at that as well, my sand daggers twirling across the mass rather than stabbing. I'd get pulled into its mouth if I stuck my dagger in there. My hairs told me I was surrounded as my opponent bled from the mouth. There was a pause as I straightened out, barely visible geckos were surrounding me as best they could. Sounds of battle could be heard from below and I caught my older brother pulling on toungues, dragging them to the forest floor. Noticing my attention shift the Geckans spit their flesh at me. Suprisingly, their angles were off and I was able to duck and weave through them. I killed a Geckan as I approached the perimeter of my supposed trap, opening the circle. The other Geckans were distracted with my brothers when I stole a backwards glance. I must've been moving pretty fast because my trappers were still retracting their toungues. It was then I figured out why their angles were off, they were trying to cut off my escape, while not hitting each other. Only by moving so fast and reacting inhumanly was I able to weave through the openings that appeared, realizing that if I missed my escape at any one of those times the toungues around me would've contracted and I would've been constricted or suffocated.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

I spent the next few minutes clearing the trees and dodging toungues. Their tactics changed often, a testament to their intelligence, but never enough that pure reaction couldn't compensate. They were leading to me to traps where camoflauged Geckans awaited or playing dead, toungues hanging out and everything. They tried coming at me from above and below. They tried to capture me with their toungues and sent addition Geckans to weave through them and stop my movement, fully intending to get captured themselves. They tried ambushing me with their toungues, though my hairs always detected that type of air pressure. In the end jumping through the green leaves, and twisting branches and twigs left me exhausted. I almost mistook a stray toungue for a branch and stepped on it. My stamina was down to almost 20%, reaching the 50% mark I stopped Hyperfocus and spent some time adjusting to the time change. It was hard. I had no idea if I spent more stamina in those frantic movements or using Hyperfocus, but I made my choice and stuck with it. My health amusingly only lowered when I dropped Hyperfocus and my random scurrying led me into sharp branches or twigs. Even then my health was very small, I was at 60% just from running into trees like an idiot.

I peeked out of my hidey hole nestled in between two thick branches and a blanket of leaves. It's only been maybe four minutes but their numbers seemed large, my brothers were still fighting from the sound of things. A glance through the leaves showed a dirt structure that im guessing Cobb took shelter in. JST was still fighting and didn't even seem tired, but my heightened senses could see his nostrils flaring and chest breathing deep, though slight it was there. For now I felt my brothers were fine.

I spent the next two minutes searching for stragglers. My heightened senses couldn't place them most of the time, the only sense I could rely on was sight and even then their forms were obscured by the leaves. I relied on change in air pressure using my septules and Sensitive Hairs since luckily it wasn't a windy day in the Uncharted. After going through a variety of patrol techniques, including pretending to leave, doubling back, or suddenly turning around I was confident they were all dead. The last Geckan was camoflauged under the majority of the canopy and after killing it I felt exhausted. My stamina was still at 20%, it didn't lower while I hunted but it didn't rise either.

"Wait I need to get down somehow." My legs were dangling off the lowest branches in clear view of my brothers. Though they probably couldn't hear me.

"Are you good?" My older and greener brother called upwards with a cupped hand to his mouth.

"Are you an idiot look at him, he's only scratched." I could still hear JST even though he didn't talk especially loud. "Our little brother is fucking scary."

"I realize that you can probably hear us." Cobb said to a confused JST. "Tie a toungue to the branch and throw it down, you could probably get down that way. You're way too high and out of my range." He said in a normal voice, he started piling the bodies, or his magic did, they all just seemed to drag themselves to the middle of where the battle took place. They had been fighting between multiple tree trunks, we weren't on any clear cut trail after all. JST still looked confused until he got it.

"Oh yeah forgot about that." JST picked up two of the 10 meter Geckans. Of course they're probably really light. "Also i'm not scared of you. I just meant to like other people. To other people you're probably scary, maybe." He added.

I ignored JST and moved to do what Cobb suggested. I had completely forgot about how long their toungues were, they reached all the way down to the floor. It would probably work too since thats how I got up here in the first place. I reached a dead Geckan that I had previously already made sure was for sure dead. I reached into its mouth and dumped its toungue down to my brothers. It reached the forest floor and I wedged the body in between the crook of a tree and its branch. I really didn't want to touch the slimy toungue so I jumped off the branch and stuck my dagger into it as I fell. Unfortunately they were really muscular so my dagger didn't really slice well just using my weight. 

"Uggghh. Ewwwww." I said as I gingerly hugged the thing.

I think I cried as I slipped down the toungue. As I slid down I realized that it was one of the very first toungues I cut, it was missing a chunk of flesh that I vividly remember removing. It was a metaphorical middle finger, a last curse and payback in its death. I sighed and approached my brothers. Hopefully they wouldn't notice the tears hidden among the slick saliva.

"There's too many bodies in the canopy for me to just hide. They're gonna know we're here." Cobb stated.

"FUUUCK GECKANS BROOOO!!!!!!" JST screamed at the top of his lungs. He ran fullspeed and dropkicked the thick trunk of tree that we were fighting under. Nine to twelve meter bodies fell from the jungle above as the tree shook violently, even the most thick of the branches were visibly vibrating. As I recall however I didn't leave any bodies on the thicker branches, they were too open to fight on. That means that all the bodies of Geckans were left lightly resting on leaves or against thinner branches which were shaking furiously. What that culminated into was raining bodies of Geckans that came loose. When all was said and done a total of 22 bodies fell from the heavens.

"Jesus bro how many did you kill up there?" JST said, as he flew feet forward against the tree again. It shook again and nothing came down.

"Twenty-two I guess." I shrugged. "You could've probably done it too with that strength."

Cobb shook his head. "Not in the canopy he couldn't. Not unless they just came up to him or lined up single file ready for him to dropkick through all twenty-two of them." He laughed thinking of the image.

"I guess you're right." Inwardly I was smiling. I was trying to picture my brothers trading roles with me and the thought was reassuring, they couldn't have pulled it off, not as they are.

"-monster." I couldn't really catch what JST whispered to Cobb. My green brother nodded sagely though.

We added the 22 dead bodies to the large pile on the floor and counted 47 bodies. I counted them all before realizing we forgot the Geckan I tied to the branch and lodged into a crook of a branch. Cobb was about to start whatever he was magicking up.

"Wait we need to get the last Geckan!" I called over to him before approaching the hanging toungue. I felt a change in air behind me but recognized the shape of the displacement.

"Looks like laffy taffy." He whipped the tounged and sent a rolling force upward. He did it again and a body flipped out of the canopy and slammed down onto the forest floor. "Hey, hey, Cobb!" He yelled over. "Check this out." He added to me.

"What's up?" He looked over and the dirt structure he was dissolving stopped dissolving.

JST was flicking the toungue of the Geckan and it started doing the worm, its six feet limbs were flopping around aimlessly. It was the most funny thing i've ever seen, I fell to the floor, my lungs hurt. I started rolling on the floor laughing. I was actually rofling. I turned over as my laughter was joined by my other brother, I already knew JST wouldn't stop, laughing was just positive reninforcement. Rolls of force traveled through the toungue and kept flowing to the Geckan.

Oh my god i'm going to die. We're both gonna die here. Somebody..help.

My laughter passed into the range where silent laughs and constant expelling of air made me look like a vibrating idiot. Tears of laughter and pain were rolling down my face, my cheeks hurt from smiling so much. I remembered the prompt for Hyperfocus "going from a state of joy to seriousness" or something along those lines. I activated it and it didn't help. The Geckan was flopping around in slow motion and it made it even funnier. I was hit with the invisible force of comedy and a shudder of silent laughter rolled across my body. Worse, it was slowly doing the worm to Cobb's location, I was full on crying now, "slowly doing the worm" meant extremely slowly in Hyperfocus. I stopped Hyperfocus actually fearing I might die of laughter.

"Oh my god please stop..how...how are you even doing that." I cried through short, hilarious breaths. He was flicking the toungue and it was somehow moving AWAY from him and to Cobb.

"Oh my gorsh what should I wear today Brittany?" He punctuated the flailing of limbs with a white girls accent. "Chad is gonna ravage me tonight baby!" The Geckan was flailing uncontrollably limbs flying everywhere and its mouth was open in that stupid way since its toungue was being used to puppet it. Somehow JST was sending ripples of force down its toungue that only moved its head, he made its mouth flop open with every word.

Im actually gonna die.

"FUCKING STOP OH MY FUCKING GOD IT HURTS!" Cobb bellowed in loud laughter.

"WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T HYPERFOCUS!" I yelled to him.

I think he did because he went into a fit of silent laughter, I could clearly see shining tears across his face. Weakly, I put my hand across my neck in a "cut it out" gesture in an attempt to save him. I was out of energy and realized my stamina was actually being finished off. Whenever JST finds something that makes us laugh he won't stop until were dead.

"I'm so exciiiiiiiiiiiited for tonight." The fucking Geckan, who apparently had a hot date named Chad started doing the worm again, the word "excited" was dragged along and matched the movement of the worm he managed to make it do the worm very slowly, how, I have no idea. I can only imagine what Cobb was going through in Hyperfocus.

If I didn't have enchanced hearing I might not have caught what Cobb whispered through tear filled eyes. "I'm going to die because of this fucking flopping dead body." He rumbled with silent, painful laughter. His body was jerking violently as shudders of comedy passed through him.

"Hmm I wonder what to wear Brittany? Brittany? Wake up! Oh my god Brittany you always do this!" I have no idea what the heck was going on anymore. Somehow JST learned how the limbs were flopping around and got the arms to position themselves under its head before whacking Cobb to get his attention. He was shaking in what was either laughter or tears. I feel your pain brother. My smile had been forcing my eyes shut but still I could see and hear. For some reason even the way the air was displaced made me crack up. 

It was too much I was gonna pass out since my stamina was being exhausted. Before I did I saw the Geckan flop over to me. The amount of control and precision applied to such a stupid task was weakening.

"Chad! Oh my god baby! What's wrong?!" The white girls accent was too much, it was the final nail in the coffin. I passed out.

And so somewhere deep in the Uncharted a large pile of dead Geckans could be found with the most probable killers being three humans surrounding them. Only one of them seemed to be concious though and from the looks of it he was desecrating the body of a Geckan. The others were lying in a puddle of tears.