Chapter 4
That Was Reckless
Klint charged in at the goblin to the left, it was the closest of the two. He was using a downed but not killed goblin as a meat shield to block the archer's arrows. It quickly sprouted two arrows then two more as its body started to turn into black essence smoke. Klint was already on the first archer and cut him down quickly. As he turned to face the other archer he was struck by an arrow in the shoulder.
That arrow didn't slow him down however and he dodged two more arrows as he closed in on the other archer. with two archers now down that only left the hob goblin and he looked mad. The hob goblin rose up off his throne and growled with a long howl, Klint started to approach with his sword in a ready position when his vision started to fade.
"What's going on?" Then he remembered what had stabbed his leg earlier, the scorpions stinger. "I guess that's what it's poison does is cause blindness." It couldn't have come at a worse time, the hob goblin was already approaching him getting ready to strike. Klint stumbled backwards rubbing his eyes, and the hob started grunting what sounded like it's version of a laugh.
Slice, the hob cut his left arm, Klint jumped back but fell as he landed. Slice the hob cut his left leg. both wounds weren't very deep just meant to make Klint afraid. The hob was clearly enjoying this thinking his victory was assured. Then something Klint's spirit sense lit the room up and he could "see" everything. Why had he forgot about that? The hob got closer as Klint got to his feet, now faking his blindness to keep the hob feeling overconfident.
The hob raised his sword for another strike and quickly Klint's stumbling turned to one fast motion, a solid swing severing the hobs weapon hand from its arm. The hob growled in pain rage returning to it. It kicked Klint halfway across the cavern and rushed immediately after him. Klint coughed up blood and tried to ignore the pain, but the hob was on him. Punching him in the face Klint hit the ground again.
Was this it? Was this where he would die? "No! Not here! Not Ever! You won't kill me!" He grabbed the hobs next punch and pulled down on the arm at the same time he kicked the hobs leg buckling its knee. The two of them exchanged punches while rolling on the ground the hob was clearly stronger, but Klint still had both of his hands. Utilizing this Klint was able to work his way on top of the hob and started beating its face into a pulp. The hob was tough though and wouldn't go down so easily, it hit Klint with its stumpy arm pausing the paunches long enough to get its other arm free.
the hob the drove it's fingernails into Klint's chest all the way to the first knuckles of its fingers then he squeezed the leaving five deep tear marks in Klint's chest. He was lucky the hob couldn't put any more leverage behind that or his fingers might have gone all the way to his heart or further. Klint now screamed in pain as the hob started working its way free. This time the hob stabbed his leg the blow was much deeper than the last one due to more movement available to the hob. Klint abandoned anything resembling defense and focused once more on killing the hob before the hob could kill him, hopefully he could out last it. Klint punched down for the hob as hard as he could and dazed the creature.
Then he did something he knew would turn his stomach, with the hob momentarily dazed he punched his thumb's into it's eye's, the hob threw Klint off of it and started rolling around clutching and its face. Klint located his sword with his spirit sense and hobbled over to it. The hob was still on the ground as Klint hobbled back over and cut its head off.
As he swung his sword down the hob grabbed his other leg just below the knee and dug it's claw like nails deep into it. Klint growling in pain finished his swing and the hob knew no more. After the hob's death Klint felt a rush of essence like no other before it, it swelled and filled his spirit completely. but more than that the hob's remaining essence swirled and spun condensing to form a new sword, it was a cross between a long sword and a great sword and Klint picked it up. it just felt.... right, like this was the sword he had been waiting for without even knowing it.
before he could take more time to admire it, he coughed up blood, he needed to heal hi wounds. but he didn't have any more regeneration left in his pool. he thought of channeling his essence but was unsure if that would refill anything. Then he remembered the spring and hoped that the spring would cure him of the poison from the scorpion stinger trap, returning his sight back to him. In Klint's mind that was his only chance.
Klint quickly pulled on the new long sword and it stored itself in his spirit vault, "So if it's made of or filled with essence, I can store it." Klint started his way back up the cave path being careful to avoid any more traps he may have missed on his way down. He was losing a lot of blood from his chest and his newest leg wound and he had a long way to go to get to the spring. Klint could only hope that he had killed all of the goblins and wouldn't encounter any that had been away during his slaughter of their entire den.
His body felt distant and his limbs weak. "I'm halfway to the split, I can make it! Just a little farther." As he got to the split, he felt his body growing colder. "I'm losing too much blood. Come on! I didn't beat all those damn goblins to die here!" Klint frantically felt for his regeneration pool, it had a small puddle in it and Klint searched his wounds to look for what was bleeding the most. it was his new leg wound and Klint channeled what regeneration he had left to stop the bleeding.
To his dismay it only slowed the bleeding it didn't stop it completely, but it did slow it significantly. By the time Klint reached the spring he was dragging himself along by his arms leaving a bloody trail the whole way. He plunged his head deep into the spring. as he drank the poison started to fade and he gasped out with a deep breath. Then he started to laugh maniacally. "I had my water bottles full of this spring water! I almost died for nothing, and just barely made it here."
Klint felt the spring water start revitalizing his regeneration his body's natural healing sped up slightly and his regeneration pool was now filling at a noticeable rate. He channeled his regeneration every time it got to a quarter full, but it was mentally draining. after the third round of healing Klint passed out.
***
Emily made it to her bike or at least where her bike would have been, but it wasn't there in this weird shadow realm, and Neither was Nathan. Emily knew deep down that he had followed her into this place, and she feared the worst. "I'll stay here for one hour and then I'll head to where Nathans pickup is, if it's still there that is." Emily was scared, more scared than she had ever been in her life, but she knew that to let the fear sink in would be the death of her and she needed to stay alert.
One hour had passed and Nathan never came, while she waited, she started to inspect the essence that rushed into her, he felt she could do something with it but wasn't sure what. after most of the hour was gone, she finally figured it out. she could take the essence and move it to parts of her body, aspects really. When he did, she felt intense pain, not pain of the body though that hurt too, but pain of the spirit which was much more painful.
She decided to take more than the first hour and channel all of the essence into her spirit. By her reconning it took another two and a half hours to channel all the essence. During that time, she felt she could add more into some areas than others but decided to do her best to keep it as even as possible. she was always a fan of being well rounded when he would go to the gym never building one part of her body over another.
She felt strong now much stronger than she did before she gave up keeping herself in shape for Justin. Justin, how could she be so stupid? She had totally thrown herself away to make him happy. Just thinking about it again made her twitch in shame and she did her best to push the memories away. "I don't have time for that now, I need to find Nathan and figure out how to get out of here."
Getting up Emily started making her way back to the truck. "Maybe I should check out the tower first, it is on the way." Not knowing what waited around the corner Emily decided to move as silently as possible, but she didn't want to give up any more time she had to find Nathan, she had to make sure he was okay. Moving as fast as she could she started to play with speed vs silence trying to find the right balance.
It was odd being able to move at a jogs speed but being able to step softly enough that her foot falls were near silent. Before the shadow realm she wouldn't have been able to do this, not only that but it felt like her new jogg was as fast as her old sprint was. Whatever this place was it was clear to her that she could become stronger. she only wished she had more than ten more shots in her gun left.
Halfway to the tower she came across a group of goblins. five goblins in total and two of them were dragging a body. "Nathan!" They were dragging Nathan, and she felt Horror overcome her, but also relief in finding him then hope that he might still be alive. Emily slowed her speed and started to get closer to the goblins. she readied her gun. Following the goblins she needed to be careful, she needed a plan to take them out.
She followed behind and the goblins started heading down a canyon path, seeing that the path narrowed she thought this would be a good chance to engage with them. The path grouped them together and it would be hard for the goblins to flank her. Emily took aim and fired two shots into one of the goblins back. She felt the essence hit her and new that one was dead, the two dragging Nathan sped up trying to get away and the remaining two turned around and came after her.
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Emilly took aim, Pop Pop two more shots and another goblin died. "Six shots left, two for each goblin." The two dragging Nathan were almost out of sight now going around a bend in the canyon. She took aim and Pop Pop two more shots and another goblin dead. she took off sprinting after the last two goblins. when she rounded the bend, the goblins were nowhere to be found, and she could see Nathan up just a little farther laying on the ground not moving. Out of nowhere a goblin attacked her swinging a club at her and hitting her in the arm. she fell down but rolled out of it quickly.
She got to her feet and fired again but missed. The goblin was too close now and she moved to create some space where she could aim and fire. As she turned, she found the next goblin blocking her path and swinging another club. she got in close making the power of the swing mean nothing and she grabbed the goblin throwing it into the other one. They collided and Emily fired three more times killing both goblins. the rush of essence hit her, and she felt a lot of it wash over her, her spirit unable to take any more in.
Her gun was now empty, and she didn't have any more bullets left. Emily turned and went to move to Nathan, but another goblin came into view, what was she going to do, she had no more bullets, and her arm was aching from the blow she had taken. It was only one goblin she could take it. she was faster and stronger than she had ever been, and these goblins were small, well only slightly smaller than her, but their muscles were bigger.
Emily started running at the goblin, when they came in close to each other Emily threw her gun at the goblin hitting it in the face, she ran at it and grabbed the goblins club. She ripped it from its hands and started beating the goblin over and over letting out all of her anger and fear on the creature she beat it in the head over and over until she felt the essence try to enter her spirit and fail.
She got off the goblin and rushed over to Nathan. When she got to him, she froze, she could see him clearly now, his eyes were open, and his head was caved in. The same way she has caved the goblins head in. she slowly approached him and just as she started to get near ten more goblins came running around the bend. she turned to face them but all of the sudden the club she was holding turned into black smoke and vanished from her hands.
Emily new she couldn't take them without any kind of weapon, so she turned away and ran. she was faster than the goblins were but not by much, some of the goblins were archers too and were firing at her. She didn't keep to a straight line and finally she got out of their range. She still had six goblins chasing her when she looked back, and she could see two of them were taking Nathans body and dragging it away.
Emily kept running, tears filling her eye's. "I'm sorry Nathan, I'm sorry I couldn't save you. If only I didn't insist on riding farther down the mountain path. We would have never been taken to this awful place." Emily ran and ran, eventually she got away from her pursuers and was able to slow down. She was breathing hard now and crying. her grief was too much to bear. and she fell to her hands and knees sobbing like she had never sobbed before.
"What am I going to do? This is a strange and twisted land, and I have no weapon to defend myself. Nathan is gone, I have no idea how to leave and get home."
After some time had passed Emily finally stopped her crying. "Crying won't bring Nathan back, crying won't get me home. For right now I don't have any time or the luxury of crying. I need to keep moving forward anyway I can." Emily new that there was only one way to move forward and that was to channel the essence she absorbed and get stronger, maybe she could find another weapon and use it to kill more goblins. Just as she sat down to start channeling the essence Emily heard something.
Emily got to her feet Sneaking through the trees he saw it. a giant scorpion. Emily froze, how was she supposed to survive with things like that running around here. She slowly backed away careful not to draw its attention. Once she was far enough away, she started to jog. Emily knew she needed to channel but she needed a safe place to do it at. The tower she thought, and so she started to head that way.
It only took Emily an hour to get back to the tower, but she had to sneak around giant snakes, scorpions and horny toads. all of them had grown to monstrous proportions. Emily wasn't sure how to get more essence with those monsters lurking about, but she thought if she could get stronger maybe they wouldn't be that big of a threat. The horny toad though was firmly out of her reach for now, it was fast and stronger than the others.
When she first saw the Horny toad it had crept up on a scorpion and killed it with a single bite. Chomping through its hard exoskeleton. She made her way up to the top of the tower and what she saw up there didn't make sense to her. She could still see Reno, but it was far far away, much farther than it was when her and Nathan were there earlier. Like five hundred miles had sprung up between Reno and where she was.
Keeping her panic at bay Emily started to channel her essence. This time she added a little more to her speed and strength. it would be important to be faster than anything she came across just in case she had to run. after she got done channeling she felt for her regeneration pool. It had only filled up halfway from when she had to use it to heal the arm that was struck by the arrow earlier, the same arm that was now hurt again.
Channeling her regeneration she completely healed her arm and had a little left over after words. Emily was Exhausted from everything that had happened. She felt somewhat safe on top of the tower and decided to take a nap. "Just for a little while."
***
Klint woke up and his body had healed only a little more, but checking his RP (regeneration pool) it was completely full. He took a drink from the spring and then put his mind to start healing himself. It took hours and several times fully recharging and draining his RP to fully heal himself. One bonus however was when Klint woke up his sight had returned. That was a relief but, in his Blindness, he saw a new path. Klint's shirt was already torn so he decided to tear another strip off and blindfold himself.
"I have this new sense, and I need to make it as much a part of my body as my own hands. This blindfold will stay on until then. Between one of his rounds of healing Klint felt for the essence in his spirit and found that a quarter of it was gone, it wasn't anywhere, it didn't auto channel it just wasn't there. Feeling his spirit a bit more he could feel a small amount of it was just leaking out.
"That won't due, I wonder if I can create an added layer like my mana pool but just to better contain the essence in my spirit." Focusing on how another pool inside his spirit would feel Klint started to move the essence into it. Like a vacuum the pool sucked up half of the essence in his spirit and his spirit started to stretch and tear. Klint thought he had messed up, like this would tear his soul apart. the pain was so immense he couldn't keep conscious.
Klint struggled to keep awake but darkness took him and Klint's last thought was how stupid he was.
Klint woke up, his RP was almost full again. "Thirty minutes for my RP to fill up with the aid of the spring and I can still feel it in effect, so I was only out for maybe twenty-five minutes." Checking his spirit Klint could feel he added two new channels, one was for essence pool and the other was for essence regeneration. He could feel the essence connected to all his other physical channels and he tried to push his pull into them.
"Did i find a way to increase my strength without killing monsters?" Klint pushed his essence into his other physical channels, and he felt his body swell with strength and speed. it was like he just doubled his strength instantly. his EP (essence pool) was draining quickly so he cut it off. and his strength faded. "So it's a boost, that could be useful. Two more RP after this for a full heal I think." Klint drained his RP his legs were almost healed but his chest was still very torn up.
As his RP was regenerating, he wondered if he could boost it with his EP and so he imagined a connection to his RP and MP (mana pool) because why not empower that too and he felt the connection form. That too was painful but only slightly. Then like a switch he turned on his EP to boost his RP. It surged forth filling in less than a minute and only costing a quarter of his EP when it filled up the essence stopped flowing but didn't turn off. as Klint started to heal his body his RP didn't drain being filled up faster than he could use it to heal.
A combination of the EP and the spring water keeping his regeneration of his RP faster than he could use it. Klint Healed in less than a minute, and his EP wasn't drained yet. He turned than mental switch turning off his EP from his RP. "This seems supremely useful I wonder why I didn't have this to start. It seems like whatever stage I'm in my spirit and soul are malleable and want to follow my input. As far as I know, no other human has done this so I need to figure out as much as I can at each level."
With that in mind he dropped down and started to do pushups. He pushed his body to do as many as he could, and he got to three hundred and forty-one, but he struggled to make it three fifty because three forty-one was just too weird of a number three fifty sounded much better. After the pushups he did sit ups then squats. He had always wanted to get in shape and now he had the energy to do so.
Klint drew on all the pop culture lore and fantasy novels he knew, in those the MC always ended up with a teacher of some kind to push them farther and harder, to bring out every scrap of potential that a person had. Klint didn't have that, as far as he knew he was the only person ever to gain this strength so he had to push himself, to bring out every possible scrape of power he could.
Klint headed to the cave entrance and when he got there, he saw the sun was getting ready to set. Seeing as how the sun wasn't too far from setting when he first entered the cave Klint figured he had spent at a minimum One full day inside. Not wanting to venture the wilderness at night he decided to go back into the cave to do some more practice.
"Ah crap! I was just telling myself about not leaving anything on the table, but I need to go back to the hob's layer and see if there is anything I can use there." Klint headed all the way back down, disabling two traps on the way that he had somehow missed and managed to avoid the first time. When he arrived, he saw through his spirit sense (He was still blindfolded) several piles of silver coins. Each where he had killed a goblin. Where the hob laid was a small pile of larger silver coins.
He scooped them all up and the hob gave ten bigger silver coins in total. Looking around there wasn't anything else in the layer. Klint decided to let his peed, he wanted to know how long it took him to run from the layer to the spring. it was close to a thirty-minute walk when he was sneaking around and almost an hour when he was on deaths door. but how fat could he sprint there if he went full tilt.
Twelve minutes later Klint was at the spring. "Ah crap again! I'm doubly stupid, I still need to channel the rest of my essence." He still had a third of un channeled essence in his spirit after he formed his EP and ER plus what was still seeping out slowly. He sat down to meditate and started to channel his essence.