Menagerie R196
Don't go to the crater outside of town; strange and terrifying things are...
Don't go to the crater outside of town; strange and terrifying things are...
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Death World: Menagerie Nightmare
- Thread starter Ultimatedaywriter
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Statistics (6 threadmarks, 9.2k words)
User Total Ultimatedaywriter 6
Prologue
Ultimatedaywriter
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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Menagerie R196
Don't go to the crater outside of town; strange and terrifying things are within. He believed the rumors and spent a few lives exploring its depths. That made the crater a considerably worse threat.
He was from Earth, or maybe Earth if multiverse theory was true, and this wasn't a delusion from a dying mind.
A light in a distant home suddenly winked out. He held his breath and listened, but there was no one close. That's how things should be; he was alone in the last place they would think to look. Or maybe they were checking their bases. He should have known they were up to something when they hadn't bothered him for months.
He had to calm down; jumpy minds were prone to making mistakes. In this game, he couldn't afford many more crack-ups. There was so much he didn't know in the beginning.
The house in the distance caught fire. For a moment, Vincent saw over 50 shadows in the distance. He ducked under the windowsill; even across the town, they might see him.
Vincent meditated for the next two hours.
No skill prompt appeared; he kept those turned off to avoid distractions. More light filled the town from fires. They had grown impatient, and that was to his advantage.
Vincent saw the seam on the floor and knew the time was right; the fires before him faded as time ticked into the witching hour. The hidden dungeon of Fence was waking up.
Don't go to the crater outside of town; strange and terrifying things are within. He believed the rumors and spent a few lives exploring its depths. That made the crater a considerably worse threat.
He was from Earth, or maybe Earth if multiverse theory was true, and this wasn't a delusion from a dying mind.
A light in a distant home suddenly winked out. He held his breath and listened, but there was no one close. That's how things should be; he was alone in the last place they would think to look. Or maybe they were checking their bases. He should have known they were up to something when they hadn't bothered him for months.
He had to calm down; jumpy minds were prone to making mistakes. In this game, he couldn't afford many more crack-ups. There was so much he didn't know in the beginning.
The house in the distance caught fire. For a moment, Vincent saw over 50 shadows in the distance. He ducked under the windowsill; even across the town, they might see him.
Vincent meditated for the next two hours.
No skill prompt appeared; he kept those turned off to avoid distractions. More light filled the town from fires. They had grown impatient, and that was to his advantage.
Vincent saw the seam on the floor and knew the time was right; the fires before him faded as time ticked into the witching hour. The hidden dungeon of Fence was waking up.
CH1: Death World
Ultimatedaywriter
I trust you know where the happy button is?
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2021
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Earth Year 20XX R0
Why won't things go the way they should? His troubles started in a coffee shop discussing a new app that appeared on everyone's phones. It was called the challenge system, and weird things happened when it was used.
Theo waved the phone in his hand. "It's like an urban legend or a creepypasta. An app appears on your phone and asks you to do things." Theo said.
Vincent held a gold pill in his hand; he failed the running, pushups, and squats. So the app asked him a question and gave him a pill.
"Does this look like a legend or a story to you?" Vincent waved the pill in front of his friend before hiding it in his palm. His friends Phillip Task and Theodore Brown eyed his pill. "Hey, get your own."
"Why don't you take it? Trust me, you won't regret it? How did you get one in the first place? You aren't exactly a gym, bro?" Phillip said.
"Red increases strength, blue speed, and green regeneration like wolverine. What does gold do?" Theo asked.
"Guys, I need to cut this short my girl wants me," Phillip said.
Vincent tapped at the old oak table and looked out to see Phillip's girl pulling up in her grey Mustang. Tapping helped his nerves.
"I saw a photo of her on Instagram with three German shepherds," Theo said.
"Yea, Rex, Tyrone, and Brad, what about them. They're good dogs, very obedient." Phil said.
Vincent winced and knew where Theo was going. Phil didn't want to know. Then again, Phil was a furry, so maybe he was into it.
He stared at the pill for another minute and took it with coffee.
Ping!
An altered reality screen appeared in his face claiming his mana capacity had increased, whatever that meant. Vincent felt a warm feeling spread through his chest when he heard Christy.
"Refills," He pushed his cup out but couldn't look the girl in the eyes.
"What planet did you guys get?" Christy said.
He looked up to see her warm blue eyes staring at his phone. Vincent swiped on his screen and found the tab.
Menagerie
Rating: Nightmare X
Description: Welcome to a world conquered by madness where beasts walk as men and monsters roam the world. The air is filled with poisonous spores, raid bosses lie under every rock, and crevasses and dungeons can spring up in the least likely places. Few first-timers dare to go to such a planet, but you don't have a choice. This is the world selected for a man who answered the question of magic.
"It's called Menagerie. I doubt you've heard of it."
"So it's full of cute animals," Christy said.
"I bet Emily would love that place; you should send us an invite to it when this creepypasta really kicks off," Theo said.
"Why are you taking the words out of my mouth, friend, buddy?" Phil asked.
Vincent felt a cold sweat travel down his spine. How was he going to survive? Was any of it real or some augmented reality crap hooked up to his net interface? That was dangerous.
An alarm went off on his phone, worse than any amber alert.
"Monster attack incoming. What does that mean?" Christy asked.
"And so, the shoe drops."
The parking lot exploded, the window shattered, and the newly refilled coffee tipped into the floor. Vincent covered his eyes and felt glass cut his arms. He heard a second explosion, and his ears rang.
He recalled a past notice.
Do you want to wield primal magic, the force that creates wonders and curses in equal measure, the power of the gods themselves?
Vincent answered no, and a gold pill appeared.
Primal magic cannot the wielded by a novice with no understanding of magic to try would have brought ever greater ruin to your world. For your wisdom, take a gold pill.
"My girl, what happened," Phil said.
"I know it might be too soon, but she was fucking her dog, man." Christy gasped, and Vincent sighed. Theo was such a fucking idiot.
They began clearing, revealing a massive shape. Like the limbs of a tree, many hands stretched out from the creature. The ground shook repeatedly as more invaders landed throughout the city, maybe the world.
All inhabitants with a designated planet are advised to select the option for transport. Complete three challenges in the selected world and return with new power.
"Did anyone else get a notice to bale," Theo said.
"The internet's down. I can't see what's happening with the rest of the world."
A blonde college-age teen ran out of the smoke. Theo smacked his hand.
"Come on, you can do it; your almost safe," Theo said.
Phil took off his cub's hat and tossed it on the ground. He was shaking all over.
"Do you think Emily might have made it?" Phil asked.
"Let's ask her; she's almost here." A grey tentacle shot out of the dust cloud and caught the girl moments before she reached safety. "Never mind, you might want to cover your ears."
Phil calmly drew his 9mm and aimed down at the girl.
"What are you doing?" Christy screamed and pushed Phil. Stacked as he was, Phil didn't budge an inch and fired off two shots. "She could have been saved. Why would you even have a gun?"
Theo gripped Christy's shoulders and tossed her across the room. The waitress hit the wall and bumped her head.
"It was a mercy what Phil did," Vincent said.
"Damn gun laws, now I only have," Theo and Vincent both looked at Phil.
"Yea, I have 38 rounds left; my magazine is printed," Phil said.
"That is illegal," Vincent said.
"Yea, Theo, you're going to prison, man," Theo said.
Vincent was glad Phil and Theo were in the service; they didn't fall apart like he was. The world was over, and it hadn't really hit him yet.
"Menagerie, it does sound like a fun world. Mine is called Ragnarok; it's supposed to be the Norse realms post the gods." Phil said.
"Sky Realms, " for me, it's a world with tons of continents floating in the air because the land below is too dangerous to live on. It's going to be a blast. Let's complete those challenges and come back to kick these guys' asses." Theo said.
"My world has poison instead of air, and all the animals are monsters. I think I'm going to an honest-to-goodness death world." Vincent said.
"Don't fuck any of the locals, no matter how long it's been," Theo said.
"How am I going to survive?" Vincent asked.
Phil punched Theo, and the tall man of German descent looked to have barely turned his head. He breathed heavily and glared at Phil. Then the crazy bastard smiled.
"Do you feel better now, or do you need another?" Theo asked.
"You're an asshole; ever since you said that about the dogs, it changed our every interaction. I'm looking over memories looking for any hints." Phil said.
He still had no answer, and there was a shift in the shadows.
"Guys, it's moving." They ducked under the wall cover, and Vincent was too slow to react. He met the creature's unforgiving black eyes and felt something reach into his soul. Tens of thousands of fractals forms from the darkness reached out, screaming like the envious souls of the damned to latch onto him.
Vincent saw the monster step out of the dust.
Hell Chained Primal Immortality: The embodiment of man's dream to live forever twisted and made imperfect by contradicting wills. This creature stands at the pinnacle of undead might, a testament to what primal magic can create. Don't look into its eyes without the purpose and meaning to resist, or its curse will latch onto your soul.
Now it told him. Vincent felt the monster latch onto him, and he couldn't stay; he had to escape it, but he couldn't break eye contact. If he remained, then he would become like the monster for sure. He mentally activated the transfer prompt.
Phil knocked him down, breaking contact. It was too late; something had gotten through.
Traveling to Menagerie.
Initializing…
"I started the transfer. Menagerie is a death world with poisonous air." Vincent said.
Phil raised his gun. "Do you want the easy way out? I can only promise to make it painless."
"I will take my chances with the death world filled with cute and cuddly animals," Vincent said.
The waitress stood back up and looked into the monster's eyes before screaming. Her body started turning grey like the monster, and bony tentacles ripped free from her flesh. Phill opened fire. The monster stumbled until Theodore tackled it from behind. Then he took one of the nice heavy wooden chairs and beat the monster.
Why hadn't he turned? He could feel the monster's spell worming through him; there was so much of it that he had nearly hit his limit.
"Your nose," Theo said.
Vincent put a finger to it and drew back blood. That wasn't a good thing.
"Your skin is so pale." Vincent looked at his hand, and it was normal. Theo chuckled. "Never mind, I think that's your normal color," Theo said.
"I think your eyes have to meet for a certain time for it to take over," Vincent said.
Initialization complete.
White light surrounded him. "Bye, let's meet up here again," Vincent said.
Why won't things go the way they should? His troubles started in a coffee shop discussing a new app that appeared on everyone's phones. It was called the challenge system, and weird things happened when it was used.
Theo waved the phone in his hand. "It's like an urban legend or a creepypasta. An app appears on your phone and asks you to do things." Theo said.
Vincent held a gold pill in his hand; he failed the running, pushups, and squats. So the app asked him a question and gave him a pill.
"Does this look like a legend or a story to you?" Vincent waved the pill in front of his friend before hiding it in his palm. His friends Phillip Task and Theodore Brown eyed his pill. "Hey, get your own."
"Why don't you take it? Trust me, you won't regret it? How did you get one in the first place? You aren't exactly a gym, bro?" Phillip said.
"Red increases strength, blue speed, and green regeneration like wolverine. What does gold do?" Theo asked.
"Guys, I need to cut this short my girl wants me," Phillip said.
Vincent tapped at the old oak table and looked out to see Phillip's girl pulling up in her grey Mustang. Tapping helped his nerves.
"I saw a photo of her on Instagram with three German shepherds," Theo said.
"Yea, Rex, Tyrone, and Brad, what about them. They're good dogs, very obedient." Phil said.
Vincent winced and knew where Theo was going. Phil didn't want to know. Then again, Phil was a furry, so maybe he was into it.
He stared at the pill for another minute and took it with coffee.
Ping!
An altered reality screen appeared in his face claiming his mana capacity had increased, whatever that meant. Vincent felt a warm feeling spread through his chest when he heard Christy.
"Refills," He pushed his cup out but couldn't look the girl in the eyes.
"What planet did you guys get?" Christy said.
He looked up to see her warm blue eyes staring at his phone. Vincent swiped on his screen and found the tab.
Menagerie
Rating: Nightmare X
Description: Welcome to a world conquered by madness where beasts walk as men and monsters roam the world. The air is filled with poisonous spores, raid bosses lie under every rock, and crevasses and dungeons can spring up in the least likely places. Few first-timers dare to go to such a planet, but you don't have a choice. This is the world selected for a man who answered the question of magic.
"It's called Menagerie. I doubt you've heard of it."
"So it's full of cute animals," Christy said.
"I bet Emily would love that place; you should send us an invite to it when this creepypasta really kicks off," Theo said.
"Why are you taking the words out of my mouth, friend, buddy?" Phil asked.
Vincent felt a cold sweat travel down his spine. How was he going to survive? Was any of it real or some augmented reality crap hooked up to his net interface? That was dangerous.
An alarm went off on his phone, worse than any amber alert.
"Monster attack incoming. What does that mean?" Christy asked.
"And so, the shoe drops."
The parking lot exploded, the window shattered, and the newly refilled coffee tipped into the floor. Vincent covered his eyes and felt glass cut his arms. He heard a second explosion, and his ears rang.
He recalled a past notice.
Do you want to wield primal magic, the force that creates wonders and curses in equal measure, the power of the gods themselves?
Vincent answered no, and a gold pill appeared.
Primal magic cannot the wielded by a novice with no understanding of magic to try would have brought ever greater ruin to your world. For your wisdom, take a gold pill.
"My girl, what happened," Phil said.
"I know it might be too soon, but she was fucking her dog, man." Christy gasped, and Vincent sighed. Theo was such a fucking idiot.
They began clearing, revealing a massive shape. Like the limbs of a tree, many hands stretched out from the creature. The ground shook repeatedly as more invaders landed throughout the city, maybe the world.
All inhabitants with a designated planet are advised to select the option for transport. Complete three challenges in the selected world and return with new power.
"Did anyone else get a notice to bale," Theo said.
"The internet's down. I can't see what's happening with the rest of the world."
A blonde college-age teen ran out of the smoke. Theo smacked his hand.
"Come on, you can do it; your almost safe," Theo said.
Phil took off his cub's hat and tossed it on the ground. He was shaking all over.
"Do you think Emily might have made it?" Phil asked.
"Let's ask her; she's almost here." A grey tentacle shot out of the dust cloud and caught the girl moments before she reached safety. "Never mind, you might want to cover your ears."
Phil calmly drew his 9mm and aimed down at the girl.
"What are you doing?" Christy screamed and pushed Phil. Stacked as he was, Phil didn't budge an inch and fired off two shots. "She could have been saved. Why would you even have a gun?"
Theo gripped Christy's shoulders and tossed her across the room. The waitress hit the wall and bumped her head.
"It was a mercy what Phil did," Vincent said.
"Damn gun laws, now I only have," Theo and Vincent both looked at Phil.
"Yea, I have 38 rounds left; my magazine is printed," Phil said.
"That is illegal," Vincent said.
"Yea, Theo, you're going to prison, man," Theo said.
Vincent was glad Phil and Theo were in the service; they didn't fall apart like he was. The world was over, and it hadn't really hit him yet.
"Menagerie, it does sound like a fun world. Mine is called Ragnarok; it's supposed to be the Norse realms post the gods." Phil said.
"Sky Realms, " for me, it's a world with tons of continents floating in the air because the land below is too dangerous to live on. It's going to be a blast. Let's complete those challenges and come back to kick these guys' asses." Theo said.
"My world has poison instead of air, and all the animals are monsters. I think I'm going to an honest-to-goodness death world." Vincent said.
"Don't fuck any of the locals, no matter how long it's been," Theo said.
"How am I going to survive?" Vincent asked.
Phil punched Theo, and the tall man of German descent looked to have barely turned his head. He breathed heavily and glared at Phil. Then the crazy bastard smiled.
"Do you feel better now, or do you need another?" Theo asked.
"You're an asshole; ever since you said that about the dogs, it changed our every interaction. I'm looking over memories looking for any hints." Phil said.
He still had no answer, and there was a shift in the shadows.
"Guys, it's moving." They ducked under the wall cover, and Vincent was too slow to react. He met the creature's unforgiving black eyes and felt something reach into his soul. Tens of thousands of fractals forms from the darkness reached out, screaming like the envious souls of the damned to latch onto him.
Vincent saw the monster step out of the dust.
Hell Chained Primal Immortality: The embodiment of man's dream to live forever twisted and made imperfect by contradicting wills. This creature stands at the pinnacle of undead might, a testament to what primal magic can create. Don't look into its eyes without the purpose and meaning to resist, or its curse will latch onto your soul.
Now it told him. Vincent felt the monster latch onto him, and he couldn't stay; he had to escape it, but he couldn't break eye contact. If he remained, then he would become like the monster for sure. He mentally activated the transfer prompt.
Phil knocked him down, breaking contact. It was too late; something had gotten through.
Traveling to Menagerie.
Initializing…
"I started the transfer. Menagerie is a death world with poisonous air." Vincent said.
Phil raised his gun. "Do you want the easy way out? I can only promise to make it painless."
"I will take my chances with the death world filled with cute and cuddly animals," Vincent said.
The waitress stood back up and looked into the monster's eyes before screaming. Her body started turning grey like the monster, and bony tentacles ripped free from her flesh. Phill opened fire. The monster stumbled until Theodore tackled it from behind. Then he took one of the nice heavy wooden chairs and beat the monster.
Why hadn't he turned? He could feel the monster's spell worming through him; there was so much of it that he had nearly hit his limit.
"Your nose," Theo said.
Vincent put a finger to it and drew back blood. That wasn't a good thing.
"Your skin is so pale." Vincent looked at his hand, and it was normal. Theo chuckled. "Never mind, I think that's your normal color," Theo said.
"I think your eyes have to meet for a certain time for it to take over," Vincent said.
Initialization complete.
White light surrounded him. "Bye, let's meet up here again," Vincent said.
CH2: First Death
Ultimatedaywriter
I trust you know where the happy button is?
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2021
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Travel was instant. Light surrounded Vincent, and he felt like he went to sleep only to wake up refreshed in a new place.
Error
Error
Error
Nightmare Grade World System Infrastructure Detected.
Local File Sharing: Initiated...
Adding User Vincent to Nightmare Grade World Database
Error
Curse Detected
Soul Corruption Inbound
Searching for Solutions
Error
World System Integration: Complete
Restarting…
Error
Copying Files to the user's interface: Error
Incorporating Curse Fragments into System Function: Initializing…
Copying Files to User's Interface: Initializing…
Incorporating Curse Fragments into System Function: Complete
Curse Fragments repurposed into Respawn System
Copying Files to User's Interface: Complete
Initializing…
Gains from prior system integration incorporated.
Welcome to Nightmare Menagerie, where dreams twist but never end.
Vincent Vow lvl1
Race
Human: A species of upright naked apes that are pretty good at nearly everything or terribly unspecialized. +100% to learning.
Perks
Timeline Respawn: You have looked into the eyes of death itself and spat in its face. Upon death, the system will revive you in the time and place of your arrival. Some side effects may apply.
Disassociation: While you can remember each of your deaths, they will feel muted no matter how painful.
Newborn: You have begun your existence at lvl1; all skills are learned 4x faster until lvl10.
HP 5/5
SP 5/5
MP 5/5
Stats
STR 5
DEX 5
CON 5
END 5
CHA 5
INT 5
WIS 5
PER 5
LUK 5
Skill Trees
Golden Fiber I – Some dream of greatness and striking it rich, you decided to haphazardly inject a compound of celestial gold, giant's hair, and phoenix beak shavings into your soul, hoping it improved your magic capacity. It worked...
Upgrade: 0/100 Skill Points
+5 MP/ skill point added until max.
Skills:
N/A
Vincent sucked in a breath and felt his lungs burn. It was the poison in the air. The system description wasn't wrong; there was something in the air. He tried ripping off his shirt to breathe through it, but nothing helped. The gamer sucked in a breath, but the fire in his lungs only grew worse.
New Skills
Spore Resistance lvl1: The deadly spores of the White Grass are known to the body. Countermeasures have been engaged.
Spore Resistance = 1 x CON x skill lvl
Survival lvl1: Even the smallest ameba wishes to survive and propagate. Will you let an Ameba beat you?
CON Increase = 1% x Base CON x skill lvl
Struggle lvl1: When it all seems hopeless, and the chips are down, you still fight for your pathetic life.
CON Increase = 1% x Base CON x skill lvl
First, his stamina went to 0, and his body collapsed, then his health ticked away one slow point at a time. On the bright side, he gained 3 skill points from each skill; on the less-than-bright side, he would have to do this again.
+1 CON
CON 6.12
That was hopeful maybe he could out-level the problem. Vincent let that final thought slip away as his health hit 0, and he died.
…
Error
Error
Error
Nightmare Grade World System Infrastructure Detected.
Local File Sharing: Initiated...
Adding User Vincent to Nightmare Grade World Database
Error
Curse Detected
Soul Corruption Inbound
Searching for Solutions
Error
World System Integration: Complete
Restarting…
Error
Copying Files to the user's interface: Error
Incorporating Curse Fragments into System Function: Initializing…
Copying Files to User's Interface: Initializing…
Incorporating Curse Fragments into System Function: Complete
Curse Fragments repurposed into Respawn System
Copying Files to User's Interface: Complete
Initializing…
Gains from prior system integration incorporated.
Welcome to Nightmare Menagerie, where dreams twist but never end.
Vincent Vow lvl1
Race
Human: A species of upright naked apes that are pretty good at nearly everything or terribly unspecialized. +100% to learning.
Perks
Timeline Respawn: You have looked into the eyes of death itself and spat in its face. Upon death, the system will revive you in the time and place of your arrival. Some side effects may apply.
Disassociation: While you can remember each of your deaths, they will feel muted no matter how painful.
Newborn: You have begun your existence at lvl1; all skills are learned 4x faster until lvl10.
HP 5/5
SP 5/5
MP 5/5
Stats
STR 5
DEX 5
CON 5
END 5
CHA 5
INT 5
WIS 5
PER 5
LUK 5
Skill Trees
Golden Fiber I – Some dream of greatness and striking it rich, you decided to haphazardly inject a compound of celestial gold, giant's hair, and phoenix beak shavings into your soul, hoping it improved your magic capacity. It worked...
Upgrade: 0/100 Skill Points
+5 MP/ skill point added until max.
Skills:
N/A
Vincent sucked in a breath and felt his lungs burn. It was the poison in the air. The system description wasn't wrong; there was something in the air. He tried ripping off his shirt to breathe through it, but nothing helped. The gamer sucked in a breath, but the fire in his lungs only grew worse.
New Skills
Spore Resistance lvl1: The deadly spores of the White Grass are known to the body. Countermeasures have been engaged.
Spore Resistance = 1 x CON x skill lvl
Survival lvl1: Even the smallest ameba wishes to survive and propagate. Will you let an Ameba beat you?
CON Increase = 1% x Base CON x skill lvl
Struggle lvl1: When it all seems hopeless, and the chips are down, you still fight for your pathetic life.
CON Increase = 1% x Base CON x skill lvl
First, his stamina went to 0, and his body collapsed, then his health ticked away one slow point at a time. On the bright side, he gained 3 skill points from each skill; on the less-than-bright side, he would have to do this again.
+1 CON
CON 6.12
That was hopeful maybe he could out-level the problem. Vincent let that final thought slip away as his health hit 0, and he died.
…
Ultimatedaywriter
I trust you know where the happy button is?
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2021
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He's about over the hump.
Quests
Ultimatedaywriter
I trust you know where the happy button is?
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2021
- Messages
- 848
- Likes received
- 28,489
Menagerie R1
He hit the ground, sucked in a breath, gasped at the poisonous air, and saw his own body. Vincent saw his eyes bulging from his skull, purple bruising around his throat, and tears. The burning was barely better the second time, and his point in CON was gone. His skills, on the other hand, were not.
Vincent stepped forward, desperate to find a way out of his suffering. Walking under the dreaded heat only gave him two skills.
New Skills
Running lvl1: Some stumble and others crawl; you run away from your problems.
Dex Increase = 1% x Base DEX x skill lvl
Heat Resistance lvl1: Why fry when you can bake under the hot sun.
Heat Reduction = 1 x CON x skill lvl
Holding Breath lvl1: For those who want to journey into the watery depths or contest others.
Breath Holding = +5sec x CON x skill level
He tripped over a branch and fell in the dirt; something bit into his leg, and he screamed. Vincent turned blurry eyes on a snake longer than him; its head was around the same size as his own, and two massive fangs were busy injecting venom into his leg.
It clearly wasn't his day. Prompts flipped over his vision as his leg dissolved on the spot. The snake shook its head as Vincent started melting from the leg up. He tried screaming and filled his lungs with the spores. Despite that, it took a long time to die.
…
Menagerie R2
The forest looked unchanged, but he could clearly see a snake working his corpse down its gullet when his vision focused. Somehow he wasn't pants-shitting terrified. He immediately held his breath, not that it would do him much good.
From what he could tell, his stats reset every time he died. Thinking back on what happened and the state of the world, the snake's venom must have been built for much stronger creatures. It's possible the creatures it naturally hunted had venom resistance.
New Skills
Acid Resistance lvl4: Somehow, you dissolved without actually coming into contact with acid. This skill will likely be changed into something more specialized; until then, enjoy.
Acid Resistance = 1 x CON x Skill lvl
Poison Resistance lvl5: You were hit by a type of snake venom, so beyond your ability to deal with your body, hit the panic button. The resulting battle dissolved your body. It also gave you an all-around skill to protect from poison. Sucks for you.
Poison Resistance = 1 x CON x skill lvl
Pain Resistance lvl3: Most warriors don't get pain resistance until their fifth battle, even if they're tanks. You found a cheat.
Psyche Resistance = 1 x CON x skill lvl
Skill Log
Acid Resistance lvl4
Heat Resistance lvl2
Holding Breath lvl3
Pain Resistance lvl3
Poison Resistance lvl5
Running lvl1
Spore Resistance lvl4
Struggle lvl6
Survival lvl2
Skill Points: 30
Vincent didn't know what to do. What could he do in a world where the air was trying to kill him or the grass? Dying from the grass was embarrassing; he never thought he would empathize with the cows that ate cyanide grass. It hurt to die, and the monsters or wildlife apparently had access to most of the same system he used. That meant there were possibly some very smart cookies roaming around. Where did the mass of the bodies even come from?
He held his breath and stumbled in the opposite direction of the snake. One time getting bit was enough for him. When he died, would the body still be there or gone after the snake devoured it? He didn't know the rules for his perk, and the fact it messed with his mind bothered him. The suns were high overhead. Both were yellow and were most likely circling each other.
It was getting difficult to hold his breath. He needed a plan for the next life. He couldn't keep dying and most likely wouldn't if his breath-holding and spore resistance kept ticking up. For all he knew, dying from something really bumped up the xp. How was resisting something a skill? It seemed more like a biological adaptation.
He tried to hold his breath while he walked further away from his starting point but had to suck in a breath. Immediately his lungs started hurting. He stepped off the deer trail he followed and felt something sticky cling to his shoe. Vincent heard clicking, and the largest spider he had ever seen hovered above him. It hung in the air for a moment with strings from a much wider we in its legs.
Vincent shifted, and it struck. He tried to move, but the spider's sticky webs fell on him quickly. When his arms no longer moved, it yanked him off his feet, and he felt its fangs stab into his gut. His HP vanished from the stab alone, and his body started dissolving.
…
Menagerie R3
Under the oppressive heat, he jumped up and down without skill. What was he doing wrong? Everything seemed so intuitive, and he had a perk and race that increased his learning speed. Breath-holding increased under his exercise, but he wasn't getting what he wanted. He was soon losing his breath, so he walked a little out of the tree line into a meadow.
Vincent found a little blackberry bush in the grass and reached out to take one. A growl made him turn to see the big brown bear with suspicious blue eyes with far too much intelligence for his liking.
He waved at the bear and knew his goose was cooked. How bad would a bear be if the snakes and spiders were all super aggressive?
It took a slow step closer, and he gasped, losing his breath. He sucked in a breath of spores and gasped. He didn't know how much damage they were reduced, but it couldn't be much.
Why weren't there any skill trees for healing or more health? That's what he needed instead of mana. Why wasn't he using his mana?
The bear edged closer and fell on his butt, hyperventilating and sucking more spores. The grass really was horrible. Instead of dying from the spores immediately, they lingered, keeping him on the edge of suffocation.
He heard a groan from the bear as it sniffed him. This time he saw his health tick down slowly. The upside, he was on his way to being resistant enough to survive longer than a few minutes. Downside, there was a massive snake to his east, a bear to the North, and a spider to the south.
The bear walked around him and started munching on the berries.
CHA +1
CHA 6
New Skill
Calm Mind lvl1: You stayed relatively calm in the face of certain death.
CHA Increase = 1% x Base CHA x skill lvl
Endure lvl1: When others would give up and start crying, you kept your sanity, and that's great.
CON Increase = 1% x Base CON x skill lvl
Foraging lvl1: Searching in the bushes and the trees to please my friends for dinner.
LUK Increase = 1% x base LUK x skill lvl
Menagerie R4
Vincent needed to change things if he wanted a shot. A single skill tree was available; if he wanted a shot, it was his only hope.
As his life ticked away, he slid 30 skill points into Golden Fiber.
Instantly 255 mana infused his body, and he screamed.
Mana overload inbound.
New Skills
Mana Resistance lvl1: So much mana courses through your pitiful mortal shell it's poisoning you.
Mana Reduction = 1 x WIS x skill lvl
Mana Control lvl1: The first lesson in bike riding is that falling down is okay. Your lesson in mana control is that you start without it.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x skill lvl
Mana Acceleration lvl1: The passage of time can appear malleable to those who infuse their bodies heavily with mana.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x skill lvl
Mana Burst lvl1: Erupt violently with mana to empower attacks and trample enemies.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x skill lvl
Explosion lvl1: The F is for friends who do stuff together, and U is for uranium bomb. I think you get it. When mana is dense enough, it becomes irritated and explodes. There is a lot in your system, and it's feeling claustrophobic.
DPS = 1 x INT x skill lvl
Range = ½ x mana invested x 1 cubic meter
Everything went black, and he exploded.
…
Menagerie R22
For a while, he kept dying and leaving bodies a few feet in different directions. It seems that there are hidden and very dangerous consequences to increasing stats. On the bright side, he gained a few more skills that helped him be the best bomb he could be.
New skills
Avatar lvl10: With each death, you reincarnate with a greater spirit than the life before. You have stepped upon the road to nirvana.
WIS Increase = 1% x Base WIS x skill lvl
Precise Bomber lvl4: You choose when and where to explode, limiting the damage to the desired targets as much as an explosion can.
WIS Increase = 1% x Base WIS x skill lvl
Container lvl8: Dangerous materials lay within this seemingly weak shell of flesh and bone.
STR Increase = 1% x Base STR x skill lvl
Even the slightly added strength was extremely helpful. Unfortunately, dying sucked, and Vincent didn't know how many more restarts he could handle. While his perk said it disassociated him from his death, he was standing on a pile of corpses made from himself. That messed with a guy, no matter how disassociated.
He had 20 skills and barely did anything; his perks were busted, but that didn't matter when he could barely take a step away from his starting location. Vincent missed talking with people. It had been hours since he texted someone or checked Twitter.
Vincent stared at his pale hand. Small golden lines spread through him with no rhyme or reason. That probably meant he was fucking up somewhere. Skills didn't tell him what they did, and they didn't improve themselves with time, or maybe they did, and he didn't notice.
There wasn't a feeling of do this, and you'll explode less. Vincent felt the raging energy inside him and the pain in his lungs as both forces tried their best to rip him apart. It was demoralizing. He knew enough about mana to keep himself from exploding.
He slapped the big-nosed face of one of his many clones. None of them had golden lines on their bodies. All they had was Nightmare inducing cold, clammy skin and dead weight.
A singing bird distracted him from the macabre sight beneath him. Vincent looked up to see a bird on fire. It flew and trilled with a tune that made his heart melt. He grabbed a rock and threw it.
New Skill
Throwing lvl1: I choose rock.
DEX Increase = 1% x Base DEX x skill lvl
It seemed obvious to him that more skills were needed if he wanted to really get far. Skills weren't the end game; they were fuel for the real prize, the skill trees.
He tried something new with his mana. A small push sent a spindly mass of something out of his fingertips and not into the rock. Suddenly it appeared that using mana was much more difficult than he anticipated.
New Skill
Mana Manipulation lvl1: Manipulate mana that is outside the body. Baby steps or, better yet, crawl.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x skill lvl
He laughed at a prompt for the first time. After 22 deaths, he wasn't exploding or suffocating. He barely felt the spores tickle his lungs after hitting lvl15 in the skill. His mana was mostly under control in his body, but not enough to try something crazy like a mana burst. Any drop in focus and boom.
Vincent wanted to last at least a day; if he could keep from exploding, he would be in business. He turned west, which was difficult with two suns. He knew he had only been in his newest body for an hour by their position in the sky. His mana roiled in his body, ready to explode without his constant care.
West was a wise decision. He managed to walk down a deer path for 10 minutes without dying. Vincent found a fork in the path and gripped his face. He would try both eventually. Any boss could be beaten with repetition. The human went left.
…
There are bad decisions, and then there are the decisions Vincent makes. Why wasn't there boss music to warn him? A fog wall would have been nice.
Seeing a deer walk upright on two legs was a valley of an affair. It was naked except for the bone and leather armor it wore with the long knife on its hip. The thing smiled at Vincent before scratching its velvety antlers. It spoke something that Vincent didn't get.
New Skill
Menagerie lvl1: See the sights, learn the local language, and meet the cannibals in the woods.
CHA Increase = 1% x Base CHA x skill lvl
Vincent turned his attention to the hanging deer skinned on a tree and then back to the deer. It smiled, showing flat teeth.
Niko lvl350
HP: 999,999
Rank: 3
Class: Huntsman
Description: Don't mess with a man who knows how to use a knife, run a trotline, and slow roast his fellow man. A country buck can survive off its kin.
Had he run into a raid boss? More importantly, was there an HP cap, and did this deer hit it. Vincent didn't have nearly the HP the buck had and wouldn't for a long time.
He tried to step back, then the deer tapped a seat beside him. Something came over him, and Vincent was sitting beside the deer creature before he knew it.
The deer spoke in its strange language. Vincent managed to catch nothing of it. It tapped Vincent's shoulder and took a pipe from a sack on its side. Niko tossed some herbs in and lit up. The deer puffed before passing the pipe over.
Odds were good that whatever was in the pipe would kill him. With his skills, his HP was 6.5, which wasn't enough to survive a light breeze. Resetting just to smoke a pipe with an anthro buck wasn't worth it.
He puffed and felt the buck's language appear like opening a door.
You have shared a pipe with a high-level speaker of Menagerie x10 language gains for the next hour.
Menagerie lvl10: The language made popular in Abya city and spoken with an accent by the locals.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x S
S = Skill lvl
"Repeat after me lesser leather never weathered wetter weather better," Nikko said.
"I think I understand," Vincent said.
"Sit down and stay a while; you look like you could rest." Nikko cut a line of wood out of a figurine. The buck saw his eyes on it. "The rut will be here before I know it, and my competitors deserve participation trophies. I will clean sweep this region and take all the does for myself." Nikko said.
"That isn't exactly something you tell a stranger," Vincent said.
"Oh, do you work for one of my competitors? None would have someone as weak as you. They would rather use a rank 2 chittering squirrel than a rank 1 monkey out of its nest. There are spiders, snakes, and bears in these woods that would gladly enslave a little lvl1 like you. Where are your parents?" Vincent shook his head. "That is rough. Old Adonis was the buck of the season last year after he trapped me in a dungeon. I will have the last years, second and third ranks, and geld the competition. You need the xp, and I have his figurine ready. Deliver it to him at the hamlet North of here, and I will consider it complete." Nikko said.
Quest: Consolation Prize
Description: Your ballsy stud of a buck friend has offered you a quest to travel to Fence to deliver a wooden figurine.
Rewards:
1000 credits
+20 to all stats
Accept
Y/N
Well, he didn't die yet, which was a great sign. Traveling and seeing more of the world sounded like fun. Except there was a fly in the ointment.
"How far North is the village?" Vincent asked
The buck slapped his knee. "I was hoping you would ask. It takes about two weeks, but the monsters should grow progressively weaker as you go. Stick to the road and look for enemies in every shadow, and you should make it. Staying here will only get you killed; there is nothing but rank 2 monsters around, and you're lvl1. You haven't beaten your first threshold; do you have any skills worth mentioning." Nikko said.
He had an explosion, but it wasn't very controllable.
"I have enough," Vincent said.
"Tons of skills are only useful when you need to fund skill trees for your build. I doubt you have access to one. Have you accepted my quest yet?" Vincent shook his head. "Good, I'll add an addendum to help a kid. Fuck some of the monkey girls for me. It must be great being from a species that can mate year round." Nikko said.
Quest: Consolation Prize
Description: Your ballsy stud of a buck friend has offered you a quest to travel to Fence to deliver a wooden figurine.
Rewards:
1000 credits
+20 to all stats
Skill Tree: Buck Wild
Accept
Y/N
"That one is my favorite; it will help you along." The buck said.
Vincent felt enticed far more than he felt he should be. Unlike the credits and stats, the skill tree would stay with him.
"Why do I have a choice at all? Your charisma must be far beyond mine." Vincent said.
"There are two answers to that question the first is the world's balance wouldn't allow it, and the second is down to my preferences. I prefer conversing with mortals instead of beating them with my presence and beauty. Exposing my presence like a savage rank 2 would pull more enemies and mates than I would know what to do with at present." Nikko said.
He selected yes, and Nikko tossed him a figurine.
"Until we meet again," Vincent said.
…
Darkness pervaded his view, and a praying mantis with a human-ish face appeared in every shadow. At the same time, the foliage blocked out more sunlight. The path he enjoyed for a few miles left animal trails and hungry vines. He spied a flower, slowly stretching around a rank 2 fly monster while the bug tried to escape. Green tongue-like vines slurped at the poor creature while dragging it down. Rank 2 monsters, as it turned out, an animal that surpassed lvl100 and ranked up. Ranking up changed a monster in unpredictable ways. Some became more human-like, while others became more monstrous.
There wasn't anything below lvl100, but on the bright side, the further North he traveled, the weaker monsters became. It made some sense there might have been a culling at some point.
His thoughts were cut short when the praying mantis woman stood on the path before him. Vincent froze as she stared at him with massive red insectoid eyes and a face with a human nose and ears. Her lips were thin, red, and bulging in places. Walking around her didn't seem possible.
Her arms were massive scythes pressed in front of her in a resting position reminiscent of prayer. It felt like Vincent was going to die.
"Do not fear, little one. I mean, you know harm? I notice your hands." The Mantis said.
He looked at his hands and then at her. "Are you hungry for hands?" Vincent asked.
The Mantis giggled and then shook her long black hair. "I have a comb but no hands to use it. Help me use it, and I will reward you. I can make it a quest; what would you like as a reward."
"Can you teach me a rare skill or a skill tree?"
WIS +1
WIS 6.84
Of course, it was wise; nothing he gained but skills and skill trees stayed with him. It was demoralizing knowing that no matter what, he couldn't get ahead. He wouldn't get really powerful until his skills reached a number or level to boost his stats by a noticeable amount. He needed hundreds of levels worth of stats and training gains. Wait, why couldn't he get a skill to train his stats faster or a skill tree?
"I do have a skill I can teach you."
Quest: A service
Description: Use a found comb to get the knots and tangles out of this love bug's hair.
Rewards:
50 Credits
+1 CHA
Skill: Stalk
Accept
Y/N
Vincent accepted.
"Follow me; my nest isn't far." The Mantis said.
Vincent froze as a giant wasp nest came into view. Wasp monsters with whole trees in their mouths slowly worked on the massive paper nest. Strangely not a single tree near the nest was touched.
He didn't like his odds when a massive moth girl flew out and landed on a branch. She wore a T-shirt that said a bug's life. The 3rd rank moth flew overhead and didn't drop poisonous dust on him.
"Silky has refused to comb my hair. We are of the same gang, but you would think I was made of poison ivy. Lost one keep close some bugs don't like mammals in our nest. If they catch you along, it won't end well for you."
"That is comforting; thanks for bringing me here instead of having me wait somewhere," Vincent said.
"I thought it was better than letting that hungry falcon with its eyes on you swoop. Some of my friends were crushed into pellets. Their deaths aren't quick, and the screams hurt my heart." The Mantis said.
How was she close enough to hear them?
"I'm sorry to hear that. Running into you was lucky." Vincent said.
The Mantis led him forward for a moment, then turned to him. "Stick close to me. I don't want to look back and see you've strayed. If a guard finds you alone, they will rip you apart and feed your remains to the larva." Mantis said.
"This is a lot of trouble; why not have the moth do it? She has hands?" Vincent asked.
"Quests are all I have to persuade another to trust me without resulting in less than genuine means. Charisma is truly a dangerous tool. You are suspicious of me; we both know it, and that is fine. When you meet someone who you feel no suspicious towards, that should worry you. It would mean you were ensnared without ever knowing it." Mantis said.
"I don't see the difference; if I said no, you could have killed me," Vincent said.
"The difference is you get something out of our arrangement. We breed goodwill together and open the way for cooperation. Mutual benefit is the basis of any healthy relationship. It is a core tenant of existentialism. Are you of the religion, or have you been lost in the valley of the nihilists? They always want to bring down the moon so dreary."
Mantis continued to talk about her religion and how much she disapproved of the nihilists as they traveled through the hive. It was nicer than he thought. What he assumed were lower-ranked workers moved swiftly through the place carrying supplies or cleaning rooms. Her own room was a small single-insect apartment in the hive.
He saw an approximation of a bed of small chips written in the language he knew but couldn't read. A painting of a large pink mantis hung on the wall next to one of a wolf with a guitar. The Mantis opened a small wooden box on her dresser and retrieved an ornate cone carved from bone.
Vincent took the offered comb and felt her hair. It was pristine instead of the oily feeling he expected from someone who never took care of it. He didn't have to brush her for long before a skill popped up.
Grooming lvl1: Serve your furry friends by combing, trimming, and plucking hair.
DEX Increase = 1% x Base DEX x S
S= skill lvl
He shut off the prompt on common skills. While he expected to get many of them, they wouldn't matter until he had enough or one level to the max. Until then, he planned to focus on skill trees. The Mantis had a head of knotted hair, and he spent the next couple of hours fixing them.
Grooming lvl4
Did using his skill on subjects stronger than him level it faster, or was it her knotted hair? He needed time, subjects, and more skills to test that.
Vincent decided he was finished when the Mantis's hair no longer stopped his comb. He took a few steps back and marveled at her glossy hair. She swayed her head back and forth and didn't look nearly as uncanny. He expected her to slice him up with her scythes or begin eating him.
Ping!
Quest Complete
A Service
Rewards
50 Credits
+1 CHA
Skill: Stalk lvl1: Lay in ambush, follow comfortably, and exhaust your enemy.
DEX Increase = 1% x Base DEX x S
S= skill lvl
"My hair has never felt better. Your hands started out clumsy, but you could be quite useful to the hive with some training." The Mantis said.
"Will you let me go?" Vincent asked.
"Stay the night and keep me company. You may leave in the morning when the last of the nocturnal predators have gone dormant."
That was vague. Did she mean he may try to leave or that she would walk him out?
"That sounded ominous. Alright, I don't think you understand what this looks like." Vincent said.
She turned her head to the side and stared with insectoid eyes.
"I don't understand." The Mantis said.
"Are you teasing me?" Vincent asked.
New Skill
Speech lvl1: Direct conversations into new territories formerly untraveled.
CHA Increase = 1% x Base CHA x S
S = skill lvl
Calm Mind lvl2
+1 CHA
CHA 7.21
The way things were going, charisma was looking to become his highest stat. It reminded him of playing Skyrim and leveling up crafting skills only to be killed by a dragon because he had no offense. He needed to work on magic. Next, life would be his priority.
"Yes, and you are adorable. I've never had a pet before. They always ended up becoming food when I tried. But you're so weak that you're unappetizing." The Mantis said.
"That is both relieving and a blow to my pride I might not recover from," Vincent said.
"I would advise you to find a nice rural town to level up in. Otherwise, you will be picked off when you grow strong enough to be worth the effort for your xp."
"There is something else I don't understand. Why are you so nice to me." Vincent asked.
"You aren't a threat, I gain nothing by eating you, and you helped me for very little in return. I expected you to bargain for a skill tree instead of settling for stalk, but I bent you over a stump." Mantis said.
He would find her again and get every skill and skill tree she had. They would meet again for that one, and he would gain bargaining, haggling, and merchant skills. Wait, could he do the same with Nikko? That opened so many options for skill trees and more skills.
"What kind of skill trees do you have?" She stretched out one of her scythe arms, and he cringed. Poison dripped from the blade and bubbled on the ground. "You don't have to tell me if you don't feel like it," Vincent said.
The room spun, and blood spurted out of his body. At his zenith, his body glowed a deep blue and exploded.
He hit the ground, sucked in a breath, gasped at the poisonous air, and saw his own body. Vincent saw his eyes bulging from his skull, purple bruising around his throat, and tears. The burning was barely better the second time, and his point in CON was gone. His skills, on the other hand, were not.
Vincent stepped forward, desperate to find a way out of his suffering. Walking under the dreaded heat only gave him two skills.
New Skills
Running lvl1: Some stumble and others crawl; you run away from your problems.
Dex Increase = 1% x Base DEX x skill lvl
Heat Resistance lvl1: Why fry when you can bake under the hot sun.
Heat Reduction = 1 x CON x skill lvl
Holding Breath lvl1: For those who want to journey into the watery depths or contest others.
Breath Holding = +5sec x CON x skill level
He tripped over a branch and fell in the dirt; something bit into his leg, and he screamed. Vincent turned blurry eyes on a snake longer than him; its head was around the same size as his own, and two massive fangs were busy injecting venom into his leg.
It clearly wasn't his day. Prompts flipped over his vision as his leg dissolved on the spot. The snake shook its head as Vincent started melting from the leg up. He tried screaming and filled his lungs with the spores. Despite that, it took a long time to die.
…
Menagerie R2
The forest looked unchanged, but he could clearly see a snake working his corpse down its gullet when his vision focused. Somehow he wasn't pants-shitting terrified. He immediately held his breath, not that it would do him much good.
From what he could tell, his stats reset every time he died. Thinking back on what happened and the state of the world, the snake's venom must have been built for much stronger creatures. It's possible the creatures it naturally hunted had venom resistance.
New Skills
Acid Resistance lvl4: Somehow, you dissolved without actually coming into contact with acid. This skill will likely be changed into something more specialized; until then, enjoy.
Acid Resistance = 1 x CON x Skill lvl
Poison Resistance lvl5: You were hit by a type of snake venom, so beyond your ability to deal with your body, hit the panic button. The resulting battle dissolved your body. It also gave you an all-around skill to protect from poison. Sucks for you.
Poison Resistance = 1 x CON x skill lvl
Pain Resistance lvl3: Most warriors don't get pain resistance until their fifth battle, even if they're tanks. You found a cheat.
Psyche Resistance = 1 x CON x skill lvl
Skill Log
Acid Resistance lvl4
Heat Resistance lvl2
Holding Breath lvl3
Pain Resistance lvl3
Poison Resistance lvl5
Running lvl1
Spore Resistance lvl4
Struggle lvl6
Survival lvl2
Skill Points: 30
Vincent didn't know what to do. What could he do in a world where the air was trying to kill him or the grass? Dying from the grass was embarrassing; he never thought he would empathize with the cows that ate cyanide grass. It hurt to die, and the monsters or wildlife apparently had access to most of the same system he used. That meant there were possibly some very smart cookies roaming around. Where did the mass of the bodies even come from?
He held his breath and stumbled in the opposite direction of the snake. One time getting bit was enough for him. When he died, would the body still be there or gone after the snake devoured it? He didn't know the rules for his perk, and the fact it messed with his mind bothered him. The suns were high overhead. Both were yellow and were most likely circling each other.
It was getting difficult to hold his breath. He needed a plan for the next life. He couldn't keep dying and most likely wouldn't if his breath-holding and spore resistance kept ticking up. For all he knew, dying from something really bumped up the xp. How was resisting something a skill? It seemed more like a biological adaptation.
He tried to hold his breath while he walked further away from his starting point but had to suck in a breath. Immediately his lungs started hurting. He stepped off the deer trail he followed and felt something sticky cling to his shoe. Vincent heard clicking, and the largest spider he had ever seen hovered above him. It hung in the air for a moment with strings from a much wider we in its legs.
Vincent shifted, and it struck. He tried to move, but the spider's sticky webs fell on him quickly. When his arms no longer moved, it yanked him off his feet, and he felt its fangs stab into his gut. His HP vanished from the stab alone, and his body started dissolving.
…
Menagerie R3
Under the oppressive heat, he jumped up and down without skill. What was he doing wrong? Everything seemed so intuitive, and he had a perk and race that increased his learning speed. Breath-holding increased under his exercise, but he wasn't getting what he wanted. He was soon losing his breath, so he walked a little out of the tree line into a meadow.
Vincent found a little blackberry bush in the grass and reached out to take one. A growl made him turn to see the big brown bear with suspicious blue eyes with far too much intelligence for his liking.
He waved at the bear and knew his goose was cooked. How bad would a bear be if the snakes and spiders were all super aggressive?
It took a slow step closer, and he gasped, losing his breath. He sucked in a breath of spores and gasped. He didn't know how much damage they were reduced, but it couldn't be much.
Why weren't there any skill trees for healing or more health? That's what he needed instead of mana. Why wasn't he using his mana?
The bear edged closer and fell on his butt, hyperventilating and sucking more spores. The grass really was horrible. Instead of dying from the spores immediately, they lingered, keeping him on the edge of suffocation.
He heard a groan from the bear as it sniffed him. This time he saw his health tick down slowly. The upside, he was on his way to being resistant enough to survive longer than a few minutes. Downside, there was a massive snake to his east, a bear to the North, and a spider to the south.
The bear walked around him and started munching on the berries.
CHA +1
CHA 6
New Skill
Calm Mind lvl1: You stayed relatively calm in the face of certain death.
CHA Increase = 1% x Base CHA x skill lvl
Endure lvl1: When others would give up and start crying, you kept your sanity, and that's great.
CON Increase = 1% x Base CON x skill lvl
Foraging lvl1: Searching in the bushes and the trees to please my friends for dinner.
LUK Increase = 1% x base LUK x skill lvl
Menagerie R4
Vincent needed to change things if he wanted a shot. A single skill tree was available; if he wanted a shot, it was his only hope.
As his life ticked away, he slid 30 skill points into Golden Fiber.
Instantly 255 mana infused his body, and he screamed.
Mana overload inbound.
New Skills
Mana Resistance lvl1: So much mana courses through your pitiful mortal shell it's poisoning you.
Mana Reduction = 1 x WIS x skill lvl
Mana Control lvl1: The first lesson in bike riding is that falling down is okay. Your lesson in mana control is that you start without it.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x skill lvl
Mana Acceleration lvl1: The passage of time can appear malleable to those who infuse their bodies heavily with mana.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x skill lvl
Mana Burst lvl1: Erupt violently with mana to empower attacks and trample enemies.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x skill lvl
Explosion lvl1: The F is for friends who do stuff together, and U is for uranium bomb. I think you get it. When mana is dense enough, it becomes irritated and explodes. There is a lot in your system, and it's feeling claustrophobic.
DPS = 1 x INT x skill lvl
Range = ½ x mana invested x 1 cubic meter
Everything went black, and he exploded.
…
Menagerie R22
For a while, he kept dying and leaving bodies a few feet in different directions. It seems that there are hidden and very dangerous consequences to increasing stats. On the bright side, he gained a few more skills that helped him be the best bomb he could be.
New skills
Avatar lvl10: With each death, you reincarnate with a greater spirit than the life before. You have stepped upon the road to nirvana.
WIS Increase = 1% x Base WIS x skill lvl
Precise Bomber lvl4: You choose when and where to explode, limiting the damage to the desired targets as much as an explosion can.
WIS Increase = 1% x Base WIS x skill lvl
Container lvl8: Dangerous materials lay within this seemingly weak shell of flesh and bone.
STR Increase = 1% x Base STR x skill lvl
Even the slightly added strength was extremely helpful. Unfortunately, dying sucked, and Vincent didn't know how many more restarts he could handle. While his perk said it disassociated him from his death, he was standing on a pile of corpses made from himself. That messed with a guy, no matter how disassociated.
He had 20 skills and barely did anything; his perks were busted, but that didn't matter when he could barely take a step away from his starting location. Vincent missed talking with people. It had been hours since he texted someone or checked Twitter.
Vincent stared at his pale hand. Small golden lines spread through him with no rhyme or reason. That probably meant he was fucking up somewhere. Skills didn't tell him what they did, and they didn't improve themselves with time, or maybe they did, and he didn't notice.
There wasn't a feeling of do this, and you'll explode less. Vincent felt the raging energy inside him and the pain in his lungs as both forces tried their best to rip him apart. It was demoralizing. He knew enough about mana to keep himself from exploding.
He slapped the big-nosed face of one of his many clones. None of them had golden lines on their bodies. All they had was Nightmare inducing cold, clammy skin and dead weight.
A singing bird distracted him from the macabre sight beneath him. Vincent looked up to see a bird on fire. It flew and trilled with a tune that made his heart melt. He grabbed a rock and threw it.
New Skill
Throwing lvl1: I choose rock.
DEX Increase = 1% x Base DEX x skill lvl
It seemed obvious to him that more skills were needed if he wanted to really get far. Skills weren't the end game; they were fuel for the real prize, the skill trees.
He tried something new with his mana. A small push sent a spindly mass of something out of his fingertips and not into the rock. Suddenly it appeared that using mana was much more difficult than he anticipated.
New Skill
Mana Manipulation lvl1: Manipulate mana that is outside the body. Baby steps or, better yet, crawl.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x skill lvl
He laughed at a prompt for the first time. After 22 deaths, he wasn't exploding or suffocating. He barely felt the spores tickle his lungs after hitting lvl15 in the skill. His mana was mostly under control in his body, but not enough to try something crazy like a mana burst. Any drop in focus and boom.
Vincent wanted to last at least a day; if he could keep from exploding, he would be in business. He turned west, which was difficult with two suns. He knew he had only been in his newest body for an hour by their position in the sky. His mana roiled in his body, ready to explode without his constant care.
West was a wise decision. He managed to walk down a deer path for 10 minutes without dying. Vincent found a fork in the path and gripped his face. He would try both eventually. Any boss could be beaten with repetition. The human went left.
…
There are bad decisions, and then there are the decisions Vincent makes. Why wasn't there boss music to warn him? A fog wall would have been nice.
Seeing a deer walk upright on two legs was a valley of an affair. It was naked except for the bone and leather armor it wore with the long knife on its hip. The thing smiled at Vincent before scratching its velvety antlers. It spoke something that Vincent didn't get.
New Skill
Menagerie lvl1: See the sights, learn the local language, and meet the cannibals in the woods.
CHA Increase = 1% x Base CHA x skill lvl
Vincent turned his attention to the hanging deer skinned on a tree and then back to the deer. It smiled, showing flat teeth.
Niko lvl350
HP: 999,999
Rank: 3
Class: Huntsman
Description: Don't mess with a man who knows how to use a knife, run a trotline, and slow roast his fellow man. A country buck can survive off its kin.
Had he run into a raid boss? More importantly, was there an HP cap, and did this deer hit it. Vincent didn't have nearly the HP the buck had and wouldn't for a long time.
He tried to step back, then the deer tapped a seat beside him. Something came over him, and Vincent was sitting beside the deer creature before he knew it.
The deer spoke in its strange language. Vincent managed to catch nothing of it. It tapped Vincent's shoulder and took a pipe from a sack on its side. Niko tossed some herbs in and lit up. The deer puffed before passing the pipe over.
Odds were good that whatever was in the pipe would kill him. With his skills, his HP was 6.5, which wasn't enough to survive a light breeze. Resetting just to smoke a pipe with an anthro buck wasn't worth it.
He puffed and felt the buck's language appear like opening a door.
You have shared a pipe with a high-level speaker of Menagerie x10 language gains for the next hour.
Menagerie lvl10: The language made popular in Abya city and spoken with an accent by the locals.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x S
S = Skill lvl
"Repeat after me lesser leather never weathered wetter weather better," Nikko said.
"I think I understand," Vincent said.
"Sit down and stay a while; you look like you could rest." Nikko cut a line of wood out of a figurine. The buck saw his eyes on it. "The rut will be here before I know it, and my competitors deserve participation trophies. I will clean sweep this region and take all the does for myself." Nikko said.
"That isn't exactly something you tell a stranger," Vincent said.
"Oh, do you work for one of my competitors? None would have someone as weak as you. They would rather use a rank 2 chittering squirrel than a rank 1 monkey out of its nest. There are spiders, snakes, and bears in these woods that would gladly enslave a little lvl1 like you. Where are your parents?" Vincent shook his head. "That is rough. Old Adonis was the buck of the season last year after he trapped me in a dungeon. I will have the last years, second and third ranks, and geld the competition. You need the xp, and I have his figurine ready. Deliver it to him at the hamlet North of here, and I will consider it complete." Nikko said.
Quest: Consolation Prize
Description: Your ballsy stud of a buck friend has offered you a quest to travel to Fence to deliver a wooden figurine.
Rewards:
1000 credits
+20 to all stats
Accept
Y/N
Well, he didn't die yet, which was a great sign. Traveling and seeing more of the world sounded like fun. Except there was a fly in the ointment.
"How far North is the village?" Vincent asked
The buck slapped his knee. "I was hoping you would ask. It takes about two weeks, but the monsters should grow progressively weaker as you go. Stick to the road and look for enemies in every shadow, and you should make it. Staying here will only get you killed; there is nothing but rank 2 monsters around, and you're lvl1. You haven't beaten your first threshold; do you have any skills worth mentioning." Nikko said.
He had an explosion, but it wasn't very controllable.
"I have enough," Vincent said.
"Tons of skills are only useful when you need to fund skill trees for your build. I doubt you have access to one. Have you accepted my quest yet?" Vincent shook his head. "Good, I'll add an addendum to help a kid. Fuck some of the monkey girls for me. It must be great being from a species that can mate year round." Nikko said.
Quest: Consolation Prize
Description: Your ballsy stud of a buck friend has offered you a quest to travel to Fence to deliver a wooden figurine.
Rewards:
1000 credits
+20 to all stats
Skill Tree: Buck Wild
Accept
Y/N
"That one is my favorite; it will help you along." The buck said.
Vincent felt enticed far more than he felt he should be. Unlike the credits and stats, the skill tree would stay with him.
"Why do I have a choice at all? Your charisma must be far beyond mine." Vincent said.
"There are two answers to that question the first is the world's balance wouldn't allow it, and the second is down to my preferences. I prefer conversing with mortals instead of beating them with my presence and beauty. Exposing my presence like a savage rank 2 would pull more enemies and mates than I would know what to do with at present." Nikko said.
He selected yes, and Nikko tossed him a figurine.
"Until we meet again," Vincent said.
…
Darkness pervaded his view, and a praying mantis with a human-ish face appeared in every shadow. At the same time, the foliage blocked out more sunlight. The path he enjoyed for a few miles left animal trails and hungry vines. He spied a flower, slowly stretching around a rank 2 fly monster while the bug tried to escape. Green tongue-like vines slurped at the poor creature while dragging it down. Rank 2 monsters, as it turned out, an animal that surpassed lvl100 and ranked up. Ranking up changed a monster in unpredictable ways. Some became more human-like, while others became more monstrous.
There wasn't anything below lvl100, but on the bright side, the further North he traveled, the weaker monsters became. It made some sense there might have been a culling at some point.
His thoughts were cut short when the praying mantis woman stood on the path before him. Vincent froze as she stared at him with massive red insectoid eyes and a face with a human nose and ears. Her lips were thin, red, and bulging in places. Walking around her didn't seem possible.
Her arms were massive scythes pressed in front of her in a resting position reminiscent of prayer. It felt like Vincent was going to die.
"Do not fear, little one. I mean, you know harm? I notice your hands." The Mantis said.
He looked at his hands and then at her. "Are you hungry for hands?" Vincent asked.
The Mantis giggled and then shook her long black hair. "I have a comb but no hands to use it. Help me use it, and I will reward you. I can make it a quest; what would you like as a reward."
"Can you teach me a rare skill or a skill tree?"
WIS +1
WIS 6.84
Of course, it was wise; nothing he gained but skills and skill trees stayed with him. It was demoralizing knowing that no matter what, he couldn't get ahead. He wouldn't get really powerful until his skills reached a number or level to boost his stats by a noticeable amount. He needed hundreds of levels worth of stats and training gains. Wait, why couldn't he get a skill to train his stats faster or a skill tree?
"I do have a skill I can teach you."
Quest: A service
Description: Use a found comb to get the knots and tangles out of this love bug's hair.
Rewards:
50 Credits
+1 CHA
Skill: Stalk
Accept
Y/N
Vincent accepted.
"Follow me; my nest isn't far." The Mantis said.
Vincent froze as a giant wasp nest came into view. Wasp monsters with whole trees in their mouths slowly worked on the massive paper nest. Strangely not a single tree near the nest was touched.
He didn't like his odds when a massive moth girl flew out and landed on a branch. She wore a T-shirt that said a bug's life. The 3rd rank moth flew overhead and didn't drop poisonous dust on him.
"Silky has refused to comb my hair. We are of the same gang, but you would think I was made of poison ivy. Lost one keep close some bugs don't like mammals in our nest. If they catch you along, it won't end well for you."
"That is comforting; thanks for bringing me here instead of having me wait somewhere," Vincent said.
"I thought it was better than letting that hungry falcon with its eyes on you swoop. Some of my friends were crushed into pellets. Their deaths aren't quick, and the screams hurt my heart." The Mantis said.
How was she close enough to hear them?
"I'm sorry to hear that. Running into you was lucky." Vincent said.
The Mantis led him forward for a moment, then turned to him. "Stick close to me. I don't want to look back and see you've strayed. If a guard finds you alone, they will rip you apart and feed your remains to the larva." Mantis said.
"This is a lot of trouble; why not have the moth do it? She has hands?" Vincent asked.
"Quests are all I have to persuade another to trust me without resulting in less than genuine means. Charisma is truly a dangerous tool. You are suspicious of me; we both know it, and that is fine. When you meet someone who you feel no suspicious towards, that should worry you. It would mean you were ensnared without ever knowing it." Mantis said.
"I don't see the difference; if I said no, you could have killed me," Vincent said.
"The difference is you get something out of our arrangement. We breed goodwill together and open the way for cooperation. Mutual benefit is the basis of any healthy relationship. It is a core tenant of existentialism. Are you of the religion, or have you been lost in the valley of the nihilists? They always want to bring down the moon so dreary."
Mantis continued to talk about her religion and how much she disapproved of the nihilists as they traveled through the hive. It was nicer than he thought. What he assumed were lower-ranked workers moved swiftly through the place carrying supplies or cleaning rooms. Her own room was a small single-insect apartment in the hive.
He saw an approximation of a bed of small chips written in the language he knew but couldn't read. A painting of a large pink mantis hung on the wall next to one of a wolf with a guitar. The Mantis opened a small wooden box on her dresser and retrieved an ornate cone carved from bone.
Vincent took the offered comb and felt her hair. It was pristine instead of the oily feeling he expected from someone who never took care of it. He didn't have to brush her for long before a skill popped up.
Grooming lvl1: Serve your furry friends by combing, trimming, and plucking hair.
DEX Increase = 1% x Base DEX x S
S= skill lvl
He shut off the prompt on common skills. While he expected to get many of them, they wouldn't matter until he had enough or one level to the max. Until then, he planned to focus on skill trees. The Mantis had a head of knotted hair, and he spent the next couple of hours fixing them.
Grooming lvl4
Did using his skill on subjects stronger than him level it faster, or was it her knotted hair? He needed time, subjects, and more skills to test that.
Vincent decided he was finished when the Mantis's hair no longer stopped his comb. He took a few steps back and marveled at her glossy hair. She swayed her head back and forth and didn't look nearly as uncanny. He expected her to slice him up with her scythes or begin eating him.
Ping!
Quest Complete
A Service
Rewards
50 Credits
+1 CHA
Skill: Stalk lvl1: Lay in ambush, follow comfortably, and exhaust your enemy.
DEX Increase = 1% x Base DEX x S
S= skill lvl
"My hair has never felt better. Your hands started out clumsy, but you could be quite useful to the hive with some training." The Mantis said.
"Will you let me go?" Vincent asked.
"Stay the night and keep me company. You may leave in the morning when the last of the nocturnal predators have gone dormant."
That was vague. Did she mean he may try to leave or that she would walk him out?
"That sounded ominous. Alright, I don't think you understand what this looks like." Vincent said.
She turned her head to the side and stared with insectoid eyes.
"I don't understand." The Mantis said.
"Are you teasing me?" Vincent asked.
New Skill
Speech lvl1: Direct conversations into new territories formerly untraveled.
CHA Increase = 1% x Base CHA x S
S = skill lvl
Calm Mind lvl2
+1 CHA
CHA 7.21
The way things were going, charisma was looking to become his highest stat. It reminded him of playing Skyrim and leveling up crafting skills only to be killed by a dragon because he had no offense. He needed to work on magic. Next, life would be his priority.
"Yes, and you are adorable. I've never had a pet before. They always ended up becoming food when I tried. But you're so weak that you're unappetizing." The Mantis said.
"That is both relieving and a blow to my pride I might not recover from," Vincent said.
"I would advise you to find a nice rural town to level up in. Otherwise, you will be picked off when you grow strong enough to be worth the effort for your xp."
"There is something else I don't understand. Why are you so nice to me." Vincent asked.
"You aren't a threat, I gain nothing by eating you, and you helped me for very little in return. I expected you to bargain for a skill tree instead of settling for stalk, but I bent you over a stump." Mantis said.
He would find her again and get every skill and skill tree she had. They would meet again for that one, and he would gain bargaining, haggling, and merchant skills. Wait, could he do the same with Nikko? That opened so many options for skill trees and more skills.
"What kind of skill trees do you have?" She stretched out one of her scythe arms, and he cringed. Poison dripped from the blade and bubbled on the ground. "You don't have to tell me if you don't feel like it," Vincent said.
The room spun, and blood spurted out of his body. At his zenith, his body glowed a deep blue and exploded.
Ultimatedaywriter
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Menagerie R23
He hadn't seen her move. She had cut off his head quickly and cleanly, and one of his bodies was in her room. Leaving behind bodies was becoming a problem. Monsters were everywhere, and there wasn't much he could do about that. So magic, that was what he promised to do in his next life.
Vincent was pretty sure he was on life #23, an odd number to be sure and perfect. He had 250MP and 6MP regen every minute. It seemed he could store a truckload of mana but couldn't regenerate it.
He thought about what he needed to survive and make it to town. Being squishy was no fun, and he needed levels to change anything. So how could he gain levels? The only thing he kept between lives were his skills and skill tree. The quest rewards didn't make it.
Maybe he should start with what he was good at. That's blowing up and keeping himself from exploding. What if he could make things explode at a distance? It was so ingenious it might work.
He found a rock and pointed at it. Mana had become something he was intimately familiar with. There was so much of it flowing through his body a loss of concentration could cause an explosion. He needed to focus on maintaining control and giving enough mental energy to blasting things.
Vincent let a little mana out to play and held it in place. It wasn't anything violent, just a gaseous cloud of mana slowly diffusing into the environment. In other words, he failed at some point.
Mana manipulation was a skill, but what did it mean to manipulate something. To use force or coercion to make it do something. He saw what happened when he tried to force the mana in his body to stay in. He exploded. Vincent gave the cloud a long look. He fell into meditation to square the circle.
Speech, bargaining, haggling, and taming might be more important than he thought. While the mana was his, it might be more like a symbiote or micro-organism living in his gut. That or it was like a new limb that needed tons of physical therapy. Did he want to disassociate the mana from his identity to create an automatic defense or have control?
The mana was his, the system said, so that's what the MP bar in the corner of his eye told him. If it was getting used to a new limb, then the only way forward was to exercise the hell out of it. Then wait about 2 hours and try again.
Vincent pushed out his mana until it formed a ball before him and tried to move it. Internally it was easy to move the stuff around, but it was a problem once outside. He had 5MP out between his hands which was his entire MP bar without his skill tree. Was that the problem? Did he lack the stats to move it? If that was the case, his mana manipulation needed to be powerful to compensate. He tried pulling the mana back, and it sucked on inside.
New Skill
Mana Absorption lvl1: Take back what is yours and everything that isn't.
WIS Increase = 1% x Base WIS x S
S = skill lvl
Like with everything but attack and resistance skills, the Mana Absorption didn't tell him how much he could absorb or how best to level the skill. On the bright side, he wouldn't waste tons of mana and time while practicing.
By the third hour of training, he gained the skill Focused, and by the sixth, he gained Magical Trainer. Those skills helped him give his all to
By the third hour of training, he gained the skill Focused, and by the sixth, he gained Magical Trainer. Those skills helped him give his all to getting a spell up and running. That's what it was all about getting a tool he could actually use.
Vincent picked up a rock and slowly compacted 1 point of mana into 5 points and formed a pyramid. It was basic, but he could compact mana into shapes. He had a skill for it.
New Skill
Mana Compression lvl1: Like packing snow pull mana together to increase stability.
WIS Increase = 1% x Base WIS x S
S = skill lvl
Vincent had exploded enough times to understand what a mana explosion needed. That made him think how much explosion damage a rank 2 monster could take. He didn't have all the tools he needed yet, but he was getting closer. Skills didn't outright tell him what they did or how they worked; it was so intuitive he couldn't really feel it. While that was pants-shitting terrifying, he could use that.
He put up sides between points.
New Skill
Mana Shield lvl1: Use mana to make yourself less squishy, the first lesson any battle mage needs to learn.
Defense = M x WIS x S
M = mana invested
S = skill lvl
Vincent took out 1% of his MP, and his maximum MP went down to 99%. He dispelled his shield, and the mana bar returned empty. That was an important lesson to learn. He didn't have a recovery and upkeep type barrier. The mana he invested wouldn't recover until the barrier was broken or he dispelled it.
Mana Shield lvl4
The best way to lvl up skills seemed to be to use them.
He had 112 skill points and an easy way to get rid of double his mana. First, he made a shield around himself with 100% of his MP. A splitting headache assaulted him immediately, and he felt as dry as dryer lint. But then he invested 50 points in Golden Fibers.
250MP slotted into his body, doubling his maximum MP. That left him with a powerful shield and all the MP he was used to using.
+5 WIS
WIS 13
Golen Fiber Skill Tree
T1 Golden Fiber 1/5: +5MP per skill point added. 100/100 Complete
T1 Golden Fiber 2/5: +10MP Per Skill Point added. 0/200 Locked
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
T2 Golden Nodes T2 0/13: Condensed nodes within the body capable of storing a spell for quick activation
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
T2 Golden Channeles 0/10: 5% of skill points added into the skill tree becomes INT and WIS
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
T2 Golden Marrow 0/3: 5% boost to mana skills
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
As raw mana fought through his body to burn him inside out, he packed everything he learned about his skill tree for later.
His mana shield ate 50% of his total mana and had 13000 defense. It sounded amazing; unfortunately, it also needed at least 3 points of stable mana to sit in space, and it couldn't be transported yet. Making a mana shield that moved with him was beyond his power; he was surprised it didn't move with Menagerie and slice him apart. Anchored points in space moved with the planet, or maybe they clung to some mana field or moved, but his mind convinced him they were stationary.
+2 LUK
+3 WIS
He was getting some big numbers which greatly boosted what he could pull off with a shield. Vincent pointed at one of the stable points of mana he created and decided it should be a little closer to the other point. The moment that thought left his head, the point in space moved.
Vincent was ready to start playing with high explosives. Look out, spiders and insects; he was coming.
…
Managing points in space was getting easier, but not because his mana manipulation was better. That was weird and felt counterintuitive. Vincent was better at what he did through practice, but his skill didn't reflect that. Mana manipulation stopped at 9 and hadn't increased in hours. The suns were setting after 40hrs.
It was no wonder the forest was so lush and green that the sunlight was on for nearly two days. He had another problem nighttime had stronger monsters if what Mantis told him was to be believed.
A few paces short of the spider nest and not quite close enough to the berry patch to be bear chow, there was a small divot. It wasn't much, but if he could dig it out further, then he could make a barrier over the hole. Barriers were stationary investments that took on shapes well if there were three points to guide them.
He made a barrier between three points and guided it to the ground. From that point, he had to be very careful. An idea had been bugging him. The barrier sank into the ground beautifully. It wasn't quite like sliding a glass shovel through. There probably wouldn't be any slicing monsters with barriers yet.
On the bright side, he found a way out of digging his ditch. He could go out and forage for food if he survived the night.
That would be incredible. Vincent dug into the ground and had an idea. He made a series of points and inlayed it with another layer, then one further down the tunnel. Once everything was in place, he put up the barriers, and bam, he made a support structure from mana. It only cost him 3% of his maximum mana, but it was beautiful. He might be able to sleep in the tunnel without it collapsing.
New Skill
Mana Construction lvl1: Some mages create barriers with their mana to defend themselves from unfriendly attacks. You built a mine prop with mana. This has taught your mana to disassociate with you when it no longer needs a direct flow of mana or input.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x S
S = skill lvl
That was the moment a whole new world opened up for him, and he had the means to attract the best worst attention of his life. Vincent's survival plan became possible when he no longer had to fund constructs once they were no longer directly powered by him. He had the option to recharge them or not.
He watched a construct slowly tick down after he disconnected. It had 1000s of defense and every second, it lost 1 defense point. That wasn't a problem.
Vincent created a point in space with tiny gaps taken out of it just the right size to slip a plane of mana shielding into. When he moved the mana point, the plane moved with it.
Mana Manipulation lvl10
Mana Construction lvl4
New Skill
Mana Rotation lvl1: A construction of mana can be moved by spinning an attached point in space.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x S
S = skill lvl
Vincent took a stick and started drawing designs in the dirt while cackling like a madman. He could rotate mana with his mind. His mana manipulation was good enough to alter the existing forms of compact nodes of mana. Constructs were stationary until they were moved by a node on a track.
He started off his fun by making a handle with a lip to keep things from flying into his face. Then he used tiny nodes like rivets and made a few mana constructs with teeth investing lots of mana. Small nodes connected links until the edged chain was fully connected; he added more nodes to stabilize his creation and wiped the sweat from his brow. It was happening; he was making something that could be considered a weapon and tool.
Vincent rubbed his hands together as the machine was nearing completion. He tried picking it up, and some of the nodes fell off. The temporal immortal added more frame to link the nodes and found that he could feed power to the weapon through the handle. He lifted the weapon and felt its heft mentally. It weighed less than 20 lbs, but its mental weight was staggering. That didn't stop him from rotating the nodes in the middle of the weapon. Slowly at first, the chain moved until he picked up speed.
Then one of the nods came loose, and the chain flew into the cave wall. He didn't make the nodes equally.
WHAM!
Vincent's stomach dropped. He left his workroom and approached the barrier. There was no one in front of the cave opening, and he wasn't foolish enough to leave his cave. Some of the dirt looked to be dug away from the barrier's sides. He imagined the bear digging, but it would already be in with him. Something around his height seemed to have dug around the barrier. For all he knew, it could be digging above as well.
Mana Shield lvl9
He had around 22.56 a minute at his maximum mana regen with a total mana supply of 505. If he didn't count mana absorption, it should take him roughly 23 minutes to regen all his mana.
Mana Shield lvl11
New Skills
Night Vision lvl1: See in even the darkest locations eventually.
DEX Increase = 1% x Base DEX x S
S= skill lvl
Mana Fortress lvl1: You've taught your mana the basics of construction.
The lynchpin of his defense sat at a comfortable 10. So each shield would have DEF = 225.6 x mana invested. That meant if no one messed with his barrier, they would last 3 to 4 hours with 1MP. Time would eventually wear away anything he built. Vincent started off by making support for his entire cave, then added a ceiling, floor, and walls. He had to be creative, but in only around 4 hours, he managed to remake a door with air holes.
Minutes after his paranoid reinforcement of his home, he heard something scratching on the ceiling. Red eyes were shown in the dark as screens filled his vision.
Mana Shield lvl11
Mana Manipulation lvl12
Mana Compression lvl10
Mana Absorption lvl10
…
New Skills
Night Vision lvl1: See in even the darkest locations eventually.
PER Increase = 1% x Base PER x S
S= skill lvl
Mana Fortress lvl1: You've taught your mana the basics of construction. Be careful not to teach it anything weird.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x S
S = skill lvl
Mana didn't give off Light by itself; it was great at refracting Light during the day and appeared to glow, but he could only see screens and values in the dark cave.
The red eyes monsters clawed at the ceiling but failed to dig through it. As quickly as the monster appeared, it vanished. Vincent needed a weapon. Even if he didn't think it would do him much good, a weapon in hand would make him feel better.
When he worked on Chainsword 2.0, he tightened his work on the chains. There were more links, each with the same amount of defense points. It took him less time to finish his latest construction.
New Skills
Mana Manufacturer lvl1: You've found a way to use your mana to make specialized materials. You're starting to become scary.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x S
S = skill lvl
Mana Weapon lvl1: The offense that every battle mage wants, but few manage. Don't do too many war crimes.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x S
S = skill lvl
Blood flowed down his lip, but he didn't care; he made a chain sword.
Brrr!
He raised his weapon and felt the mana chain move, relying on DEF to hold strong. Vincent pushed a small amount of mana into the weapon to handle its upkeep.
Vincent had no idea how to make something like a light with his mana. He nearly failed chemistry in high school and didn't do much better in college. Mana didn't like to behave in the first place.
Under the oppression of scratching claws in the dark cave, he started the long process of making bombs. Then he remembered his phone. Had it come with him, or was it left behind? He checked a pocket, and it was there. He saw the screen flash and was instantly blinded.
Challenge 1
Reach lvl100 and Rank up from a single attack.
Rewards
1 Red Pill
1 Green Pill
1 Blue Pill
Challenge 2
Swallow the Light of the three towers and unlock the 10th tier of the Black Wing Skill Tree
Rewards
1 Black Pill
1 White Pill
Challenge 3
Defeat Ubel A. Morfran in the Purgatory of Cold.
Rewards
Return Home
Map
Timeline access
1 Violet Pill
Companion Cards.
His three challenges were plain as day. All he had to do was go from lvl1 to lvl101 in a single attack. Vincent didn't know what ranking up would do to him or what benefits it would give him. He wanted the pills. Those were solid increases that couldn't be taken away by his death.
With that in mind, he made bombs until the sun rose.
Light filled his cave, and all his structures glowed with their own lights. He took some time, made a wheelbarrow, and loaded his decaying bombs. If he wasn't careful, they would blow up in his face. He wasn't sure if they counted as one attack, but he timed their decay so they should all explode together.
After the sun was good and up, he strode out of the cave, pushed his wheelbarrow into the spider's nest, and ran back.
+5 INT
INT
When he was safely back in his burrow, he waited. He felt a little worried when the time elapsed and there wasn't an explosion. Then the Light reflected from the mana shields blinded him before the ground shook.
Boom!
Level up
Vincent lvl59
HP 6.7/6.7
SP 5/5
MP 519.6/519.6
Stats Skill % MOD TOTAL
STR 5 10% 5.50
DEX 5 11% 5.55
CON 5 34% 6.7
END 5 0% 5
CHA 5 10% 5.5
INT 10 96% 19.6
WIS 16 45% 23.2
PER 7 5% 7.35
LUK 8 1% 8.08
Stat Modifiers: 59
Skill Tree
Golden Fiber
T1 Golden Fiber 1/5: +5MP per skill point added. 100/100 Complete
T1 Golden Fiber 2/5: +10MP Per Skill Point added. 0/200 Locked
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
T2 Golden Nodes T2 0/13: Condensed nodes within the body capable of storing a spell for quick activation
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
T2 Golden Channeles 0/10: 5% of skill points added into the skill tree becomes INT and WIS
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
T2 Golden Marrow 0/3: 5% boost to mana skills
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
He hadn't made 1 bomb; he had made a few dozen, but they barely did more than clear out some of the foliage. There must have been some prey on the verge of death or maybe spider eggs. Some of the grass was clearly singed. He doubted the spiders took any damage. As a first test, it went better than expected. 196 explosion damage was no joke to someone like him.
Vincent edged out of his cave and stared at a spider curled up on its back, unmoving. It was the same spider that killed him, and Vincent might have killed it with fright.
New Skill
Terror lvl1: Frighten enemies to the point they take their own lives.
CHA Increase = 1% x Base CHA x S
Through the forest, lines of anthropomorphic soldiers rode for his location.
He hadn't seen her move. She had cut off his head quickly and cleanly, and one of his bodies was in her room. Leaving behind bodies was becoming a problem. Monsters were everywhere, and there wasn't much he could do about that. So magic, that was what he promised to do in his next life.
Vincent was pretty sure he was on life #23, an odd number to be sure and perfect. He had 250MP and 6MP regen every minute. It seemed he could store a truckload of mana but couldn't regenerate it.
He thought about what he needed to survive and make it to town. Being squishy was no fun, and he needed levels to change anything. So how could he gain levels? The only thing he kept between lives were his skills and skill tree. The quest rewards didn't make it.
Maybe he should start with what he was good at. That's blowing up and keeping himself from exploding. What if he could make things explode at a distance? It was so ingenious it might work.
He found a rock and pointed at it. Mana had become something he was intimately familiar with. There was so much of it flowing through his body a loss of concentration could cause an explosion. He needed to focus on maintaining control and giving enough mental energy to blasting things.
Vincent let a little mana out to play and held it in place. It wasn't anything violent, just a gaseous cloud of mana slowly diffusing into the environment. In other words, he failed at some point.
Mana manipulation was a skill, but what did it mean to manipulate something. To use force or coercion to make it do something. He saw what happened when he tried to force the mana in his body to stay in. He exploded. Vincent gave the cloud a long look. He fell into meditation to square the circle.
Speech, bargaining, haggling, and taming might be more important than he thought. While the mana was his, it might be more like a symbiote or micro-organism living in his gut. That or it was like a new limb that needed tons of physical therapy. Did he want to disassociate the mana from his identity to create an automatic defense or have control?
The mana was his, the system said, so that's what the MP bar in the corner of his eye told him. If it was getting used to a new limb, then the only way forward was to exercise the hell out of it. Then wait about 2 hours and try again.
Vincent pushed out his mana until it formed a ball before him and tried to move it. Internally it was easy to move the stuff around, but it was a problem once outside. He had 5MP out between his hands which was his entire MP bar without his skill tree. Was that the problem? Did he lack the stats to move it? If that was the case, his mana manipulation needed to be powerful to compensate. He tried pulling the mana back, and it sucked on inside.
New Skill
Mana Absorption lvl1: Take back what is yours and everything that isn't.
WIS Increase = 1% x Base WIS x S
S = skill lvl
Like with everything but attack and resistance skills, the Mana Absorption didn't tell him how much he could absorb or how best to level the skill. On the bright side, he wouldn't waste tons of mana and time while practicing.
By the third hour of training, he gained the skill Focused, and by the sixth, he gained Magical Trainer. Those skills helped him give his all to
By the third hour of training, he gained the skill Focused, and by the sixth, he gained Magical Trainer. Those skills helped him give his all to getting a spell up and running. That's what it was all about getting a tool he could actually use.
Vincent picked up a rock and slowly compacted 1 point of mana into 5 points and formed a pyramid. It was basic, but he could compact mana into shapes. He had a skill for it.
New Skill
Mana Compression lvl1: Like packing snow pull mana together to increase stability.
WIS Increase = 1% x Base WIS x S
S = skill lvl
Vincent had exploded enough times to understand what a mana explosion needed. That made him think how much explosion damage a rank 2 monster could take. He didn't have all the tools he needed yet, but he was getting closer. Skills didn't outright tell him what they did or how they worked; it was so intuitive he couldn't really feel it. While that was pants-shitting terrifying, he could use that.
He put up sides between points.
New Skill
Mana Shield lvl1: Use mana to make yourself less squishy, the first lesson any battle mage needs to learn.
Defense = M x WIS x S
M = mana invested
S = skill lvl
Vincent took out 1% of his MP, and his maximum MP went down to 99%. He dispelled his shield, and the mana bar returned empty. That was an important lesson to learn. He didn't have a recovery and upkeep type barrier. The mana he invested wouldn't recover until the barrier was broken or he dispelled it.
Mana Shield lvl4
The best way to lvl up skills seemed to be to use them.
He had 112 skill points and an easy way to get rid of double his mana. First, he made a shield around himself with 100% of his MP. A splitting headache assaulted him immediately, and he felt as dry as dryer lint. But then he invested 50 points in Golden Fibers.
250MP slotted into his body, doubling his maximum MP. That left him with a powerful shield and all the MP he was used to using.
+5 WIS
WIS 13
Golen Fiber Skill Tree
T1 Golden Fiber 1/5: +5MP per skill point added. 100/100 Complete
T1 Golden Fiber 2/5: +10MP Per Skill Point added. 0/200 Locked
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
T2 Golden Nodes T2 0/13: Condensed nodes within the body capable of storing a spell for quick activation
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
T2 Golden Channeles 0/10: 5% of skill points added into the skill tree becomes INT and WIS
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
T2 Golden Marrow 0/3: 5% boost to mana skills
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
As raw mana fought through his body to burn him inside out, he packed everything he learned about his skill tree for later.
His mana shield ate 50% of his total mana and had 13000 defense. It sounded amazing; unfortunately, it also needed at least 3 points of stable mana to sit in space, and it couldn't be transported yet. Making a mana shield that moved with him was beyond his power; he was surprised it didn't move with Menagerie and slice him apart. Anchored points in space moved with the planet, or maybe they clung to some mana field or moved, but his mind convinced him they were stationary.
+2 LUK
+3 WIS
He was getting some big numbers which greatly boosted what he could pull off with a shield. Vincent pointed at one of the stable points of mana he created and decided it should be a little closer to the other point. The moment that thought left his head, the point in space moved.
Vincent was ready to start playing with high explosives. Look out, spiders and insects; he was coming.
…
Managing points in space was getting easier, but not because his mana manipulation was better. That was weird and felt counterintuitive. Vincent was better at what he did through practice, but his skill didn't reflect that. Mana manipulation stopped at 9 and hadn't increased in hours. The suns were setting after 40hrs.
It was no wonder the forest was so lush and green that the sunlight was on for nearly two days. He had another problem nighttime had stronger monsters if what Mantis told him was to be believed.
A few paces short of the spider nest and not quite close enough to the berry patch to be bear chow, there was a small divot. It wasn't much, but if he could dig it out further, then he could make a barrier over the hole. Barriers were stationary investments that took on shapes well if there were three points to guide them.
He made a barrier between three points and guided it to the ground. From that point, he had to be very careful. An idea had been bugging him. The barrier sank into the ground beautifully. It wasn't quite like sliding a glass shovel through. There probably wouldn't be any slicing monsters with barriers yet.
On the bright side, he found a way out of digging his ditch. He could go out and forage for food if he survived the night.
That would be incredible. Vincent dug into the ground and had an idea. He made a series of points and inlayed it with another layer, then one further down the tunnel. Once everything was in place, he put up the barriers, and bam, he made a support structure from mana. It only cost him 3% of his maximum mana, but it was beautiful. He might be able to sleep in the tunnel without it collapsing.
New Skill
Mana Construction lvl1: Some mages create barriers with their mana to defend themselves from unfriendly attacks. You built a mine prop with mana. This has taught your mana to disassociate with you when it no longer needs a direct flow of mana or input.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x S
S = skill lvl
That was the moment a whole new world opened up for him, and he had the means to attract the best worst attention of his life. Vincent's survival plan became possible when he no longer had to fund constructs once they were no longer directly powered by him. He had the option to recharge them or not.
He watched a construct slowly tick down after he disconnected. It had 1000s of defense and every second, it lost 1 defense point. That wasn't a problem.
Vincent created a point in space with tiny gaps taken out of it just the right size to slip a plane of mana shielding into. When he moved the mana point, the plane moved with it.
Mana Manipulation lvl10
Mana Construction lvl4
New Skill
Mana Rotation lvl1: A construction of mana can be moved by spinning an attached point in space.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x S
S = skill lvl
Vincent took a stick and started drawing designs in the dirt while cackling like a madman. He could rotate mana with his mind. His mana manipulation was good enough to alter the existing forms of compact nodes of mana. Constructs were stationary until they were moved by a node on a track.
He started off his fun by making a handle with a lip to keep things from flying into his face. Then he used tiny nodes like rivets and made a few mana constructs with teeth investing lots of mana. Small nodes connected links until the edged chain was fully connected; he added more nodes to stabilize his creation and wiped the sweat from his brow. It was happening; he was making something that could be considered a weapon and tool.
Vincent rubbed his hands together as the machine was nearing completion. He tried picking it up, and some of the nodes fell off. The temporal immortal added more frame to link the nodes and found that he could feed power to the weapon through the handle. He lifted the weapon and felt its heft mentally. It weighed less than 20 lbs, but its mental weight was staggering. That didn't stop him from rotating the nodes in the middle of the weapon. Slowly at first, the chain moved until he picked up speed.
Then one of the nods came loose, and the chain flew into the cave wall. He didn't make the nodes equally.
WHAM!
Vincent's stomach dropped. He left his workroom and approached the barrier. There was no one in front of the cave opening, and he wasn't foolish enough to leave his cave. Some of the dirt looked to be dug away from the barrier's sides. He imagined the bear digging, but it would already be in with him. Something around his height seemed to have dug around the barrier. For all he knew, it could be digging above as well.
Mana Shield lvl9
He had around 22.56 a minute at his maximum mana regen with a total mana supply of 505. If he didn't count mana absorption, it should take him roughly 23 minutes to regen all his mana.
Mana Shield lvl11
New Skills
Night Vision lvl1: See in even the darkest locations eventually.
DEX Increase = 1% x Base DEX x S
S= skill lvl
Mana Fortress lvl1: You've taught your mana the basics of construction.
The lynchpin of his defense sat at a comfortable 10. So each shield would have DEF = 225.6 x mana invested. That meant if no one messed with his barrier, they would last 3 to 4 hours with 1MP. Time would eventually wear away anything he built. Vincent started off by making support for his entire cave, then added a ceiling, floor, and walls. He had to be creative, but in only around 4 hours, he managed to remake a door with air holes.
Minutes after his paranoid reinforcement of his home, he heard something scratching on the ceiling. Red eyes were shown in the dark as screens filled his vision.
Mana Shield lvl11
Mana Manipulation lvl12
Mana Compression lvl10
Mana Absorption lvl10
…
New Skills
Night Vision lvl1: See in even the darkest locations eventually.
PER Increase = 1% x Base PER x S
S= skill lvl
Mana Fortress lvl1: You've taught your mana the basics of construction. Be careful not to teach it anything weird.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x S
S = skill lvl
Mana didn't give off Light by itself; it was great at refracting Light during the day and appeared to glow, but he could only see screens and values in the dark cave.
The red eyes monsters clawed at the ceiling but failed to dig through it. As quickly as the monster appeared, it vanished. Vincent needed a weapon. Even if he didn't think it would do him much good, a weapon in hand would make him feel better.
When he worked on Chainsword 2.0, he tightened his work on the chains. There were more links, each with the same amount of defense points. It took him less time to finish his latest construction.
New Skills
Mana Manufacturer lvl1: You've found a way to use your mana to make specialized materials. You're starting to become scary.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x S
S = skill lvl
Mana Weapon lvl1: The offense that every battle mage wants, but few manage. Don't do too many war crimes.
INT Increase = 1% x Base INT x S
S = skill lvl
Blood flowed down his lip, but he didn't care; he made a chain sword.
Brrr!
He raised his weapon and felt the mana chain move, relying on DEF to hold strong. Vincent pushed a small amount of mana into the weapon to handle its upkeep.
Vincent had no idea how to make something like a light with his mana. He nearly failed chemistry in high school and didn't do much better in college. Mana didn't like to behave in the first place.
Under the oppression of scratching claws in the dark cave, he started the long process of making bombs. Then he remembered his phone. Had it come with him, or was it left behind? He checked a pocket, and it was there. He saw the screen flash and was instantly blinded.
Challenge 1
Reach lvl100 and Rank up from a single attack.
Rewards
1 Red Pill
1 Green Pill
1 Blue Pill
Challenge 2
Swallow the Light of the three towers and unlock the 10th tier of the Black Wing Skill Tree
Rewards
1 Black Pill
1 White Pill
Challenge 3
Defeat Ubel A. Morfran in the Purgatory of Cold.
Rewards
Return Home
Map
Timeline access
1 Violet Pill
Companion Cards.
His three challenges were plain as day. All he had to do was go from lvl1 to lvl101 in a single attack. Vincent didn't know what ranking up would do to him or what benefits it would give him. He wanted the pills. Those were solid increases that couldn't be taken away by his death.
With that in mind, he made bombs until the sun rose.
Light filled his cave, and all his structures glowed with their own lights. He took some time, made a wheelbarrow, and loaded his decaying bombs. If he wasn't careful, they would blow up in his face. He wasn't sure if they counted as one attack, but he timed their decay so they should all explode together.
After the sun was good and up, he strode out of the cave, pushed his wheelbarrow into the spider's nest, and ran back.
+5 INT
INT
When he was safely back in his burrow, he waited. He felt a little worried when the time elapsed and there wasn't an explosion. Then the Light reflected from the mana shields blinded him before the ground shook.
Boom!
Level up
Vincent lvl59
HP 6.7/6.7
SP 5/5
MP 519.6/519.6
Stats Skill % MOD TOTAL
STR 5 10% 5.50
DEX 5 11% 5.55
CON 5 34% 6.7
END 5 0% 5
CHA 5 10% 5.5
INT 10 96% 19.6
WIS 16 45% 23.2
PER 7 5% 7.35
LUK 8 1% 8.08
Stat Modifiers: 59
Skill Tree
Golden Fiber
T1 Golden Fiber 1/5: +5MP per skill point added. 100/100 Complete
T1 Golden Fiber 2/5: +10MP Per Skill Point added. 0/200 Locked
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
T2 Golden Nodes T2 0/13: Condensed nodes within the body capable of storing a spell for quick activation
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
T2 Golden Channeles 0/10: 5% of skill points added into the skill tree becomes INT and WIS
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
T2 Golden Marrow 0/3: 5% boost to mana skills
Upgrade Cost: 1 Pristiege Point
He hadn't made 1 bomb; he had made a few dozen, but they barely did more than clear out some of the foliage. There must have been some prey on the verge of death or maybe spider eggs. Some of the grass was clearly singed. He doubted the spiders took any damage. As a first test, it went better than expected. 196 explosion damage was no joke to someone like him.
Vincent edged out of his cave and stared at a spider curled up on its back, unmoving. It was the same spider that killed him, and Vincent might have killed it with fright.
New Skill
Terror lvl1: Frighten enemies to the point they take their own lives.
CHA Increase = 1% x Base CHA x S
Through the forest, lines of anthropomorphic soldiers rode for his location.
Rewrite probably.
Ultimatedaywriter
I trust you know where the happy button is?
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2021
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- 848
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- 28,489
Author's Note: I'm not dropping this story but it needed some serious overhaul and an identity. What was actually going on wasn't really explained and this is my attempt to start with a clearer idea of the stakes. The constant skills while fun have been dropped in favor of a predictable predetermines skill tree. Take a look and tell me what you think. I know its short but this is going to be the key stone to the rest.
We used to think the big cover-up was that the moon landing was fake, aliens were in Area 51, and the government was hiding who shot Kennedy. That was a pleasant time; when I think back, ignorance was bliss. As chunks of the moon heat up as they fly across the sky, I wanted to break and go back the under that comfortable blanket of ignorance when we didn't know.
"My fellow Americans," Grandpa left the news loud enough inside to hear it at the door. I was supposed to come with my girlfriend, but her college training exempted her from my boat. So, she stayed with her family since none of them were selected. She said it would be better for both of them to break it off; the ring in his pocket felt heavy. I couldn't wait for my brother and uncle to say they told me so. "We live in unprecedented times, so we have made unprecedented decisions."
"Abe Lincoln is probably spinning in his grave fast enough in his grave to power the country," Ben said.
I rolled my eyes at my little brother's words. That old tyrant would have sold us out without batting an eye.
The door was unlocked, so I let myself in. My brother's voice was louder than the TV. I tried to drown him in my truck with the radio, but it didn't work. A smile spread across my face as Ben hugged me. I patted his back. It had been a few months since we saw each other, and Ben had put on some muscle.
"Vin, I'm glad you made it; where's Cheryl?" Ben asked.
I held up my lock screen, absent the picture of my girlfriend and me. "Is that Vincent? Tell him to get his ass outside and tell me how he wants his steak," Grandpa said.
Some things never changed. "Come on, Uncle Regi flew from Maryland, and Emma should be here soon with her husband," Ben said.
That statement would have been so interesting before the moon exploded. I remembered dating a black girl in jr high and how my mother freaked out.
"Does mom know?" Ben smiled and shook his head in the negative.
"Hey boy," My mother hugged me, and for a second, it was like any other family gathering.
Then a bright light filled the sky as another hunk of moon blasted off the shield the aliens installed over our planet. It was good their world was getting something from our lives.
I hugged my mother back and took out my phone. Six hours from midnight and counting down. It wasn't fair, but the governments of the world seemed to be getting away with it.
"Did you take one of the pills?" Ben asked.
"I took the gold one; what about you. Was it blue that's your favorite color?"
"I don't think it matters much. I had the green one because I like green." His mother looked 10 years younger and returned to her youth at an appreciable rate. Ben walked a little straighter and moved with a flowing gate like he barely needed to touch the ground. His once curly red beard had straightened. "You don't seem changed at all. Did you really take it, or is this like when I tried to put you on Adderall?"
"I'm not twelve anymore. I can take pills without plucking my eyelashes out." I said.
The conversation ended there, so I ducked under the doorframe and tossed my keys on the standing bar. I was confident they would be there when I returned. My truck was a piece of junk; no one would bother stealing it.
"My skill tree needs mana to function. That's something we don't have on Earth." I said.
Skill trees affect the body. Getting a skill tree that needed mana to function might mean he couldn't return to Earth. He glanced at the little diamond in the corner of his eye, filled in red for his health.
"Status open skill tree menu. Make the screen visible to other users until closed." I said.
Vincent Hawk
Skill Tree
Gold Fiber
Integration T1 0/5:
All stats +0.1 to modifier per Integration lvl.
Spells cooldown time +5% more and have +5% more spell effect with each integration level.
At Integration 1/5 +2 Spell Slots
At Integration 2/5 +2 Ability Slots
At Integration 3/5 +3 Spell Slots
At Integration 4/5 +3 Ability Slots
At Integration 5/5 +5 Spell Slots
Cost:
I showed them the first skill in my tree.
"You have modifiers instead of percentages. That's different." Ben said.
"Don't be jealous; no two trees are alike. Be lucky you're a gamer. I had to learn all of this from Viewtube videos." Mom said.
To gain power, I needed to kill and get good at it. While the rewards looked great, my growth depended on the next world. Some people already had a spell and could use it on Earth. In the week since this started, a few people in the same situation as us attempted to overthrow the US government if they weren't secretly feds. No one really knew if anyone was successful. If someone took over, could they force someone to take their place?
We used to think the big cover-up was that the moon landing was fake, aliens were in Area 51, and the government was hiding who shot Kennedy. That was a pleasant time; when I think back, ignorance was bliss. As chunks of the moon heat up as they fly across the sky, I wanted to break and go back the under that comfortable blanket of ignorance when we didn't know.
"My fellow Americans," Grandpa left the news loud enough inside to hear it at the door. I was supposed to come with my girlfriend, but her college training exempted her from my boat. So, she stayed with her family since none of them were selected. She said it would be better for both of them to break it off; the ring in his pocket felt heavy. I couldn't wait for my brother and uncle to say they told me so. "We live in unprecedented times, so we have made unprecedented decisions."
"Abe Lincoln is probably spinning in his grave fast enough in his grave to power the country," Ben said.
I rolled my eyes at my little brother's words. That old tyrant would have sold us out without batting an eye.
The door was unlocked, so I let myself in. My brother's voice was louder than the TV. I tried to drown him in my truck with the radio, but it didn't work. A smile spread across my face as Ben hugged me. I patted his back. It had been a few months since we saw each other, and Ben had put on some muscle.
"Vin, I'm glad you made it; where's Cheryl?" Ben asked.
I held up my lock screen, absent the picture of my girlfriend and me. "Is that Vincent? Tell him to get his ass outside and tell me how he wants his steak," Grandpa said.
Some things never changed. "Come on, Uncle Regi flew from Maryland, and Emma should be here soon with her husband," Ben said.
That statement would have been so interesting before the moon exploded. I remembered dating a black girl in jr high and how my mother freaked out.
"Does mom know?" Ben smiled and shook his head in the negative.
"Hey boy," My mother hugged me, and for a second, it was like any other family gathering.
Then a bright light filled the sky as another hunk of moon blasted off the shield the aliens installed over our planet. It was good their world was getting something from our lives.
I hugged my mother back and took out my phone. Six hours from midnight and counting down. It wasn't fair, but the governments of the world seemed to be getting away with it.
"Did you take one of the pills?" Ben asked.
"I took the gold one; what about you. Was it blue that's your favorite color?"
"I don't think it matters much. I had the green one because I like green." His mother looked 10 years younger and returned to her youth at an appreciable rate. Ben walked a little straighter and moved with a flowing gate like he barely needed to touch the ground. His once curly red beard had straightened. "You don't seem changed at all. Did you really take it, or is this like when I tried to put you on Adderall?"
"I'm not twelve anymore. I can take pills without plucking my eyelashes out." I said.
The conversation ended there, so I ducked under the doorframe and tossed my keys on the standing bar. I was confident they would be there when I returned. My truck was a piece of junk; no one would bother stealing it.
"My skill tree needs mana to function. That's something we don't have on Earth." I said.
Skill trees affect the body. Getting a skill tree that needed mana to function might mean he couldn't return to Earth. He glanced at the little diamond in the corner of his eye, filled in red for his health.
"Status open skill tree menu. Make the screen visible to other users until closed." I said.
Vincent Hawk
Skill Tree
Gold Fiber
Integration T1 0/5:
All stats +0.1 to modifier per Integration lvl.
Spells cooldown time +5% more and have +5% more spell effect with each integration level.
At Integration 1/5 +2 Spell Slots
At Integration 2/5 +2 Ability Slots
At Integration 3/5 +3 Spell Slots
At Integration 4/5 +3 Ability Slots
At Integration 5/5 +5 Spell Slots
Cost:
- Defeat 1 mana-rich enemy.
- Defeat 10 mana-rich enemies.
- Defeat 100 mana-rich enemies.
- Defeat 1000 mana-rich enemies
- Defeat 10,000 mana-rich enemies.
I showed them the first skill in my tree.
"You have modifiers instead of percentages. That's different." Ben said.
"Don't be jealous; no two trees are alike. Be lucky you're a gamer. I had to learn all of this from Viewtube videos." Mom said.
To gain power, I needed to kill and get good at it. While the rewards looked great, my growth depended on the next world. Some people already had a spell and could use it on Earth. In the week since this started, a few people in the same situation as us attempted to overthrow the US government if they weren't secretly feds. No one really knew if anyone was successful. If someone took over, could they force someone to take their place?
Rewrite CH2: I don't Trust Him
Ultimatedaywriter
I trust you know where the happy button is?
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2021
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- 848
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- 28,489
As time ticked away, I sent a text, the 9th one in an hour. While my family told stories about their lives against the backdrop of fallen moon fragments, I hoped. As midnight closed in, my desperation grew. I knew it was over, but I wanted closer. All I needed was for her to say goodbye the illusion that she still loved me would have been good enough.
My phone rang, and it was her.
"Is that the girl? Well, I hope it works out, son." Grampa said.
I rushed to the dark cover of the woods and answered it out of hearing range of my family. Heavy male breathing and slapping noises filled the woods. Then a video appeared.
"Dear, I hope you like your going away video; editing took a while." The message read.
I knew what it was, and I felt the betrayal. Orange light lit the world as a large shard of moon rock burned over the barrier. A hollow feeling filled my chest, and I felt relieved. It was over, and my family was gathered. If I let her get me down, then I would regret it.
My grandfather gave an account of his experience in Korea, one of the few stories I hadn't heard a thousand times. After a joke, my sister pulled in.
After the pill, Emma and my mother could almost be twins. The blonde hair and blue eyes were identical. My sister took a red pill and looked a little older than our mother. Isaac Clark, a 6' 4" black man with a friendly smile, strode forward confidently.
I was glad Grandpa didn't pull his .357. Mom looked away from throwing a fit, and Uncle Reginald shook Issac's hand.
"Everyone, this is my husband, Isaac Clark; we've been married a week," Emma said.
"How do you like your steak?" Grandpa asked, easing some of the tension.
Mom dragged Emma into the house.
"How could to drop this on us today?" Mom asked in a hushed yelling tone.
"Medium rare, please. This is quite the pickle."
Isaac clicked with his Qs; I thought that came from the pronunciation of an African language. Isaac Clark was the most American-sounding name I had ever heard.
"They'll get over it," Reginold said.
I stared up as one of the alien ships passed overhead. The windowless gun-shaped vehicle only produced a shadow when it passed over them. If not for the orange light from the moon fragments, the ship would go undetected. My teeth hurt when they passed over.
"It's going to bomb the old rocket plant upriver," Reginold said.
"Selling us off barely paid for the interest for the debt imposed on the world from hiring mercenaries," Isaac said.
My uncle was in military intelligence back in the day. He knew what he was talking about. It was rare to know something more about the debt than they were being sold off. None of the whistle-blower personalities I listened to found anything. If they couldn't, then odds were good Isaac had connections, or he was a fed honeypot.
I snorted at that; what would a honeypot do here. There wasn't much time before we would be expatriated into indentured servitude. What was the point of making sure they wouldn't corrupt anyone else?
"What pill did you choose?" Vincent asked when the conversation lulled.
"I guess we're changing the subject. Mine was white. I was curious if it would turn me white since green pills made old people young again. I think it worked, and I only still see myself as black."
I immediately sensed Emma's Red pill, but I couldn't feel anything from Isaac. There were some people that I couldn't sense, but they were few. White pills stood out like tiny white dwarf stars. Only black pills were, at times, undetectable. I figured either Isaac was lying about his pill or about taking one in the first place.
"Alright, someone needs to walk through that warzone and get some plates; we're ready to eat." Grandfather said.
I eyed the humongous pile of steaks on the old ceramic plate.
"We might as well eat on the fancy plates tonight; not like we can take them with us," Ben said.
"I forgot the dessert in the car; we brought a key lime pie. Emma said you used to claim to have one every Christmas but never did." Isaac said.
Emma burst out of the house, makeup in disarray and crying. "Isaac, I think we should go."
"Way to bring down the moon? What did Mom say? If the two of you don't break up, she'll never speak to you again?" I said.
"No, she probably said something like you're no daughter of mine, or if you really loved this family, you would leave him," Ben said.
"Shut up, both of you," Emma said.
"Emma understand it from our perspective; we've always wanted a brother with a chance to join the NBA," Ben said.
Isaac lost his jovial expression and got into my personal space. The guy towered over my meager 5'10" by a head easily.
"Did you really waste your moon pun?" Isaac said.
"So none of you care that he's black," Emma asked.
"Emma, he's been white the entire time, right Ben?" I asked.
Yes, I was gaslighting, but it was the end of the world, and I deserved some fun.
"I've never seen eyes so blue or hair so arian. Do you use divine shampoo because you are clearly the ubermensch Nietzsche spoke of in the legends?" Ben asked.
"Mom's expectations have blinded her; she expected to see a black man instead of this obvious work of German engineering," I said.
"Knock it off. I already gave Sis a talking-to. Come on in and get some wine. I'm sure we all want to be drunk before midnight.
My phone rang, and it was her.
"Is that the girl? Well, I hope it works out, son." Grampa said.
I rushed to the dark cover of the woods and answered it out of hearing range of my family. Heavy male breathing and slapping noises filled the woods. Then a video appeared.
"Dear, I hope you like your going away video; editing took a while." The message read.
I knew what it was, and I felt the betrayal. Orange light lit the world as a large shard of moon rock burned over the barrier. A hollow feeling filled my chest, and I felt relieved. It was over, and my family was gathered. If I let her get me down, then I would regret it.
My grandfather gave an account of his experience in Korea, one of the few stories I hadn't heard a thousand times. After a joke, my sister pulled in.
After the pill, Emma and my mother could almost be twins. The blonde hair and blue eyes were identical. My sister took a red pill and looked a little older than our mother. Isaac Clark, a 6' 4" black man with a friendly smile, strode forward confidently.
I was glad Grandpa didn't pull his .357. Mom looked away from throwing a fit, and Uncle Reginald shook Issac's hand.
"Everyone, this is my husband, Isaac Clark; we've been married a week," Emma said.
"How do you like your steak?" Grandpa asked, easing some of the tension.
Mom dragged Emma into the house.
"How could to drop this on us today?" Mom asked in a hushed yelling tone.
"Medium rare, please. This is quite the pickle."
Isaac clicked with his Qs; I thought that came from the pronunciation of an African language. Isaac Clark was the most American-sounding name I had ever heard.
"They'll get over it," Reginold said.
I stared up as one of the alien ships passed overhead. The windowless gun-shaped vehicle only produced a shadow when it passed over them. If not for the orange light from the moon fragments, the ship would go undetected. My teeth hurt when they passed over.
"It's going to bomb the old rocket plant upriver," Reginold said.
"Selling us off barely paid for the interest for the debt imposed on the world from hiring mercenaries," Isaac said.
My uncle was in military intelligence back in the day. He knew what he was talking about. It was rare to know something more about the debt than they were being sold off. None of the whistle-blower personalities I listened to found anything. If they couldn't, then odds were good Isaac had connections, or he was a fed honeypot.
I snorted at that; what would a honeypot do here. There wasn't much time before we would be expatriated into indentured servitude. What was the point of making sure they wouldn't corrupt anyone else?
"What pill did you choose?" Vincent asked when the conversation lulled.
"I guess we're changing the subject. Mine was white. I was curious if it would turn me white since green pills made old people young again. I think it worked, and I only still see myself as black."
I immediately sensed Emma's Red pill, but I couldn't feel anything from Isaac. There were some people that I couldn't sense, but they were few. White pills stood out like tiny white dwarf stars. Only black pills were, at times, undetectable. I figured either Isaac was lying about his pill or about taking one in the first place.
"Alright, someone needs to walk through that warzone and get some plates; we're ready to eat." Grandfather said.
I eyed the humongous pile of steaks on the old ceramic plate.
"We might as well eat on the fancy plates tonight; not like we can take them with us," Ben said.
"I forgot the dessert in the car; we brought a key lime pie. Emma said you used to claim to have one every Christmas but never did." Isaac said.
Emma burst out of the house, makeup in disarray and crying. "Isaac, I think we should go."
"Way to bring down the moon? What did Mom say? If the two of you don't break up, she'll never speak to you again?" I said.
"No, she probably said something like you're no daughter of mine, or if you really loved this family, you would leave him," Ben said.
"Shut up, both of you," Emma said.
"Emma understand it from our perspective; we've always wanted a brother with a chance to join the NBA," Ben said.
Isaac lost his jovial expression and got into my personal space. The guy towered over my meager 5'10" by a head easily.
"Did you really waste your moon pun?" Isaac said.
"So none of you care that he's black," Emma asked.
"Emma, he's been white the entire time, right Ben?" I asked.
Yes, I was gaslighting, but it was the end of the world, and I deserved some fun.
"I've never seen eyes so blue or hair so arian. Do you use divine shampoo because you are clearly the ubermensch Nietzsche spoke of in the legends?" Ben asked.
"Mom's expectations have blinded her; she expected to see a black man instead of this obvious work of German engineering," I said.
"Knock it off. I already gave Sis a talking-to. Come on in and get some wine. I'm sure we all want to be drunk before midnight.
Ultimatedaywriter
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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yea I probably need to