Attack from Snow Lion successful.

You take 3 damage

HP: 11/ 60

I was a bloody tattered mess. The snow lions just kept coming. Try as I might, I couldn’t see the damned things approach through the blizzard. Things took on a distressing pattern after the first lion. One of the big cats would appear out of the gray blur that was the landscape, take a pound of flesh, and try to kill me. The odd thing was that out of the eleven that I had killed so far almost none of them were able to land a hit after the first. I was not some master of the martial arts before this, far from it. I was one of those big guys that never actually could hurt a fly. So, this violently beating cats to death was starting to wear on my soul.

The lion leapt at me again. I wasn’t fast enough to get out of the way, but I was able to get my arms up in between us. I sort of caught the beast which swiped at my face. I instinctively took a step back which did nothing since the lion was in my arms. It tried to eat my face. Again, I tried to flee. That said, this time I slipped. The lion and I crashed to the frozen ground. My shoulder slammed into the cat and my weight flattened the beast.

Attack critically successful! Snow Lion Takes 56 points of damage.

Snow lion slain 8 points of experience Earned!

4 experience to next level

The adrenaline spikes and crashes were getting worse. The damage I had taken was nightmarish. Blood ran down my face, neck, torso, arms and legs. The snow around me rapidly turned red as I left a trail of gore. I would have panicked but another notification kept popping up.

Bleed Condition.

Titan Spawn are immune to most negative effects of blood loss.

This effect cannot harm or kill you. You will continue to bleed until the wound heals or bleeding is staunched. 8 points of healing needed to stop the bleeding.

So as far as I could tell, I had been bleeding for the better part of several hours. Now, I have heard friends in the medical field talk about people being able to bleed truly terrible amounts of blood and not die. That said, there is no way I shouldn’t be dead. I had multiple injuries that were spurting blood. Streams of red flowed from me, ebbing and surging with each beat of my heart.

I just couldn’t accept this bleeding as a normal state of being. Untold generations of evolution had programmed the lizard parts of my brain to not be okay with my blood being outside of my body. My stomach churned at the sight of so much blood. I had to stop looking at my arms, stomach and legs. Seeing the shredded flesh and torn organs, well, it was the sort of thing that upset me.

The only thing keeping me from losing my shit all together was hope that leveling would restore me to full health. Video games did that all the time. Tabletop role-playing games were more variable with the effects of leveling up. It was also possible that a level could just expand my max health without improving my current health. Technically, it was possible that leveling wouldn’t change my health at all, but I was ignoring that option because that would likely mean I was going to die.

I tried to keep my head on a swivel, but all I really could see was more swirling snow. Things seemed to be getting darker. I think night might have been setting in. That terrifying thought was pushed out of my skull by a piss-myself terrifying prompt:

Boss monster spawned.

You have killed enough snow lions to spawn a Snow Lion Alpha

You are sealed in an arena with the monster. Fight well.

Attack from Snow Lion Alpha successful.

You take 4 points of damage

HP 4/60

This lion was tremendous. It tackled me to the ground with its massive teeth wrapped around my neck. As I fell, I punched it in the ribs.

Attack successful Snow Lion Alpha takes 27 points of damage.

Normally one good hit killed the monster. This time not so much. The Lion bit down on my neck. Its fangs pressed hard and ground against my spine. One of the teeth poked through my windpipe and I felt blood pour down into my lungs.

You have the Drowning Condition.

You are immune to all effects of this condition.

Attack from Snow Lion Alpha successful

You take 1 point of damage.

HP 3/60

I punched and kicked with everything I had. For some reason, despite the pain, I never thought I was going to die. Nadia made it sound like I was some sort of unstoppable force. The killing everything in one hit had reinforced that idea heavily. That time I had randomly recovered 8 hit points had also given me even further confidence. Now, I was scared.

Attack successful

Snow Lion Alpha takes 42 points of damage.

Ribs splintered and I knew I had literally ripped the front leg off of the cat, but it held on. With its back legs, it raked across my belly. I felt part of my intestines pull free of my torso... even now I cannot fully describe that feeling to you. Part of me has probably blocked the real sensation and dulled the memories. The best I can do to put words to paper is describe it as a tugging that left me feeling empty.

Attack from Snow Lion Alpha successful

You take 2 points of damage.

HP 1/60.

I honestly do not know what happened after that. My mind must have turned off after reading that message. I was absolutely certain in that moment I was going to die. Spoilers, I didn’t. However, those last moments of the fight with that Snow Lion Alpha are just a blank space in my memory. Everything leading up to it is painfully clear, but I can’t tell you exactly what happened.

When I finally came to my senses, I saw a new flashing notice.

Level Up!

Name:

*Please Enter Name*

Race:

Titan Spawn

Class

*Please Select Class*

Level:

2

HP:

120

Power:

10

Mobility:

10

Body:

10

Mind:

10

Face:

10

Magic:

10

Please Select Trait

* Titanic Regeneration

* Titanic Speed

I examined Titanic Regeneration first.

Titanic Regeneration

Titan Spawn are often beyond mortal concerns. With this perk, your power allows your physical body to heal [Body-2] hit points per second. This will allow you to regenerate missing body parts and overcome damage based conditions.

I selected that power immediately. Not dying was the highest priority. Also, being able to heal 8 hit points a second. Holy shit! That was just broken. Why would they give that to a player? Considering the highest damage I ever received from a snow lion was 4, and I suspect attacks were limited to one per second based on the sort of back-and-forth nature of the fights I was in until now.

“Holy shit, I’ve become an unstoppable badass,” I said aloud.

“Not yet, bro,” a friendly voice responded. Another shadow walked into view from the storm. This one looked to be a large man. I may have had a few inches on him, but he had broad shoulders and his muscles had that polished physique of a bodybuilder. Again, fine details are hard to gauge, but he looked to be dressed in a tight shirt and pants as well as some sort of cape. Even as a shadow he certainly looks like a superhero.

“Are you Batman?” I asked incredulously.

He chuckled good-naturedly, “More like Frat-man, bro! Would that make you The Flash?”

Considering that, except for the blood, I was bare-assed naked… a wave of self-consciousness hit me. I put my hands over my crotch. It was whole and healthy again. In case you were wondering, Thank you, regeneration.

Seeing my response, the shadow paused and shook his head. “Nadia didn’t teach you shit, did they?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “One moment.” A pile of mangled snow lion bodies fell on the ground around him. “I had these in my inventory. Titan Spawn have an inventory that holds our Body stat in cubic yards worth of materials. You try, brother: look at a body and think about adding it to your inventory.”

I stepped toward the nearest body, the Alpha, and stared at it. Before I could feel weird about it, a new prompt appeared in my view.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Snow Lion Alpha body

Loot? Yes/No

Add to inventory? Yes/No

Destroy? Yes/No

I mentally selected ‘Add to inventory’ and ‘Yes’. The lion’s body disappeared. I immediately became aware of its presence in some sort of internal space. Describing the feeling is difficult. It was kind of like having a spreadsheet… in my head. A huge amount of information was at my beck and call, but it faded into the background unless I thought about it.

“Good. Grab the rest of them,” the shadow prompted me.

I did as I was instructed and the list of information expanded to include eleven snow lion corpses and one Snow Lion Alpha corpse. Looking a bit deeper I saw another option.

Loot all corpses? Yes/No

“Yeah, now hit the loot all option,” my instructor continued. His attention was clearly split.

I hit the button and wasn’t so much bombarded with information as the spreadsheet updated. The sensation was surprisingly mundane. I was aware, but no mental strain or thought was required.

I suddenly had 11 snow lion pelts (Uncommon), 1 snow lion alpha pelt (rare), 480 snow lion teeth (Uncommon), 120 snow lion claws (Uncommon), twelve snow lion hearts (Uncommon), 2690 pounds of snow lion meat (Uncommon), 576 pounds snow lion organs (Uncommon). That’s a lot of stuff.

“Give me the pelts,” the shadow said, holding out a hand. He also gestured for me to hurry up.

Trade Invite

Give snow lion pelts and Snow Lion Alpha pelt? Yes/No

I hit ‘Yes’ again. Easy come easy go, I guess.

“Cool, one minute. My Craft skill is still only at Trained, but my attributes will carry us through. This stuff will be Rare at least. If we get lucky, I might be able to make something Epic.” He looked at me again. “You still haven’t picked a name?”

“I figured I would just go with…” The words froze in my mouth.

Warning!

You are about to speak the true name of the Titan of Darkness.

This action could have extreme consequences. You should select “No”.

Proceed? Yes/No

I selected “No”. When handed clear signs in life, might as well follow the directions.

“You can’t select the progenitor's name, bro. I tried the same thing. It helps to take this as a moment to shape who you want to be. There is power in a name, dude.” His words held a surprising weight. I never gave the dudebro type any credit back before… whatever this was. There was still something familiar about the way he spoke and approached things. It was like he was 70% who I was. He placed his surprising heavy shadow hand on my shoulder. “Pick something that you are cool with being. Not called, being. You feel me, bro?”

I really thought about the name I wanted.

Select “Jim” as your name? Yes/No

No, that was someone else’s story. I could feel that, noobish tendencies aside.

Hmmm this was way harder than it should be.

Select “Doug” as your name? Yes/No

Gun to my head I couldn’t tell you why, but that felt right. I hit yes.

The shadow looked at me and nodded, “Can I call you Dougie, bro? Now before you answer, factor in that I am the second titan spawn of darkness. I am taking the time to teach you how this world works, and I crafted these sweet threads for you."

He held up his hand again.

Trade Invite

Accept:

Snow Lion Boots (Rare)

Snow Lion Pants (Rare)

Snow Lion Shirt (Rare)

Snow Lion Gloves (Rare)

Snow Lion Coat (Rare)

Snow Lion Alpha Cloak (Epic)

Snow Lion Boxers (Epic)

Yes/No

I hit Yes. Pants, I wanted pants.

“Factoring in all those things and that you will probably just call me bro, sure, go nuts.” I said.

“Cool, Dougie,” he said, and I could all but see him grinning. “Now put some pants on, man.”

I looked at the items in my inventory. Everything except the cloak had the following rough description.

Clothes made of snow lion skin. Crafted by Zach, Titan Spawn of Storms. This item grants 3 points of soft armor, and grants two levels of Scale for all stealth rolls in snowy environments. Grants one level of Scale for all stealth rolls in other environments.

Armor: 3

The cloak had a bit cooler description.

Cloak of the Alpha Snow Lion*

A cloak made of the skin of a Snow Lion Alpha. This cloak grants the user 5 points of soft armor. It also grants a level of Scale versus damage from all snow lions, and creatures less than rare rank. You also gain two levels of Scale for detecting creatures in snowy environments and three levels of Scale for stealth roles in snowy environments. Grants one level of Scale for all stealth roles in other environments.

Armor: 5

That sounded… good. I think. I have no idea what is going on.

“What is Scale?” I asked.

“Goddammit, Nadia,” Zach said, shaking his head. “Okay, this world is an abstraction, bro. Now there are a lot of little details that you will not need to worry about. There are a bunch of levels of Scale,like weight classes. Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Heroic, Demigod, Divine, and Titanic. The short answer is that the higher up the tier list of Scale you get, the better life is. We are on the absolute top of the pile, except for Narrators. Everything else is lower than us. So, whenever we make a skill check or opposed rolls we are rolling bigger dice, and keeping more, and they are rolling lower dice and tend to be keeping the lower roll. You know how the lions couldn’t hit you after the first ambush? Scale is why. The difference between your and their Scale was so big they couldn’t roll high enough to hit you. They were stuck with a piddly d4, while you were throwing 3d12 back at them. The only real downside is that we gain experience slower.”

“That is just… broken,” I said. I settled on broken, because stupid sounded confrontational.

“The important thing to remember is that the world is not fair. Never was, and it isn’t now. We are in a position of power. I mean, Hell, I am running myself ragged keeping the Gulf Kingdom from being destroyed by the Technacoast, dragons, and some of the more fire-and-brimstone angels. That reminds me, bro. I do not have a lot of time left; I have to get back there. Let’s get you leveled. I mean this power-leveling thing could be quicker, but you nearly died when the boss spawned. Take things slow, man. No one is going to come into this storm after you.”

“What?” I asked. Dragons and Angels? Didn’t Nadia say something about Demons?

“Just focus on your class, you are probably going to have two choices,” Zach said.

I did what he said. He was wrong, I only had the one option.

Class option:

Left Hand of the Titan

The first five spawn of the titan of darkness have become corrupt and apathetic.

They have become a threat to the world.

You will serve as a check upon them.

Effects:

Gain Trait: Universal Communication. Everyone in the presence of the Left Hand of the Titan can communicate as though speaking their native language. Note: Beings must be able to communicate for this effect to work.

Gain Trait: Protection of Darkness. The Titan of Darkness wants you to deal on even terms, with all, free of the threat of force. Gain two levels of Scale versus damage from all sources. Beings of lesser Scale cannot scry your location. Beings of lesser Scale perceive you as being rare Scale unless you reveal your true nature. Other titan spawn cannot affect your mind or senses.

Gain Trait: Voice of the Titan: You will soon be able to speak on behalf of the Titan of Darkness. While this power is active all beings will know immediately that you are its Voice. They will be aware of the truth in any statement you make.

Gain Trait: Titanic Pact: As the spawn of a titan, our goal is to uplift the people around you. Grant magic attribute beings attribute/5 to all attributes. Note: This requires a pact to be formed between the titan spawn and another being. The titan spawn receives no direct benefit from this trait beyond making the pact. Should the being of lesser Scale break the pact they will be afflicted by the effects of a smite.

Gain Titanic Quest: Try

Note: Be wary of Zach. He is likely trying to ingratiate himself to you to gain influence over you.

Select class? Yes/No

My blood ran cold. Now one of the things I was aware of before, came rushing to the forefront of my existence. Zach was way stronger than me. I’m not sure how I was so certain, but I knew if he wanted, he could have killed me with one hit. That whole 70% like-me thing I mentioned earlier, I still believe it to be true. He was doing everything I would to appear friendly. I had at first assumed that was because he was just trying to be friendly. Then I remembered who we used to be. That put things in a different light.

“I only have one option,” I said.

“I was afraid of that,” Zach shrugged looking out into the storm. “That said, Cosmic Assassin is probably going to be awesome, bro.”

“That isn’t the class I have,” I replied.

“What?!” Zach roared. He spun on his heels faster than my eyes could see. The force of the movement blasted the storm away from us. For one haunting moment we were in a circle of perfect calm. He stared at me as the blizzard pressed back in. “What class did you get, Dougie?”

“Are you really yelling at me about this?” I asked. It wasn’t so much that I was surprised at the quick turn, but I still needed to stall for a moment to decide on the next step.

“Answer me!” Zach thundered. The force of his voice pushed the storm back again. He slowly walked up to me. I could tell he was glaring.

“You skipped several levels there.” I selected ‘Yes’ before answering: damage resistance might be important in a second. “Left Hand of the Titan. From the description it sounds like the rest of you have been screwing up royally. Between this and Nadia literally throwing me to the lions, I am beginning to think you are all doing bad shit. I also think you need to stop and reevaluate what you're doing.”

“Who are you to tell me anything? I am Storm King of the Gulf. I am Demon Killer. I am Dragon Slayer! You are a tiny thing that I can and will destroy! Bow before your king, bro!” The force of his shouting was pushing me back.

Voice of the Titan Activated

“Go home, Zachary!” A voice that rang with the vastness of the cosmos erupted from my mouth. “This one has much work to do. You are needed on the Coast. Your people starve as you rut about! Do you even realize the revolution growing under your feet? Go home! When you return to this one, come in peace or not at all. So says the Titan!”

Zach stood there for a long moment. Then he was just gone, and I was alone in the swirling snow. The hell was that? Something had used me to talk. Having someone, something, manipulate your body… It is unsettling on an existential level.

I sighed, not sure what to do. Where I should go, or what the hell had just spoken through my mouth. Was that me or was that the guy I used to be? Whatever.

As I stood there not knowing what to do, I saw another prompt.

Class perk requires selection.

Level 1

A) Titanic Armor

B) Titanic Weapon

Level 2

a) Dark Magic

b) Titanic Manipulation

I looked at the first two options

Titanic Armor

Titan Spawn are impossibly tough. All armor worn by you has its effectiveness increased by [Body attribute] points. Note: Requires a physical item that is classified as armor which you can equip to function. Effects last [Magic attribute] days after each item is unequipped.

Titanic Weapon

Titan Spawn are capable of incredible wrath. All weapons wielded by you have their effectiveness increased by [Power attribute] points. Note: Requires a physical item that is classified as a weapon which you can equip to function. Effects last [Magic attribute] days after each item is unequipped.

Flashes of recent memory, my blood flowing from dozens of wounds, made that a nondecision. I picked Titanic Armor. I have yet to have an issue with dealing damage, and again: pain hurts. So I decided to go with every possible option to mitigate harm.

The next one was between Dark Magic and Titanic Manipulation.

Dark Magic

Titan Spawn of darkness are inherently connected to all things related to the dark. Dark magic is a hungry force with a tendency toward dealing damage and obfuscation. This will open up skills that allow you to wield the forces of darkness.

Titanic Manipulation

+20 to face skill. Increase the duration of all effects of face-based skills by [Face attribute] days for creatures of lower Scale.

This one was less obvious. On the one hand, magic sounded awesome. On the other hand, increasing what I was pretty sure was my social skill would probably help immensely based on what my class seemed to be.

In the end though I wanted to cast magic. Because magic is cool, and I seemed to have attributes that were generalist in nature.

Dark Magic skill acquired. You are untrained

You learned the spell: Claws of Darkness. Increase this skill to learn more spells.

Claws of Darkness

Take [Magic attribute] -2 damage per second. You make one unarmed attack per second. Increase unarmed damage by [Magic attribute] damage per hit.

I had instant buyer’s remorse. That stupid spell would remove my health regen completely, and likely hurt like a mother the whole time. Also, I didn’t need more damage, at least not yet. New rule, take the stuff that is just free attribute increasing powers and just rely on being awesome to carry the day.

Upon having this epiphany, I was immediately attacked by three snow lions.