GSA 11&12

 I'm attending a wake for that aunt in law today, so here's some of the stuff I've been working on a couple days in advance. Sorry about the lack of WotR.

Chapter 11: Generic Villains

There was pandemonium in the camp as people snatched up weapons, leaping to their feet and preparing to defend themselves, but Jeb only had eyes for his bag and the douche with his hands in it.

Jeb cleared his throat.

“What did you do!?” Eddie shouted, dropping Jeb’s bag and pointing at him, deliberately raising his voice so everyone could hear. “This guy brought the monsters to the safe zone! How could you do that!?”

Nice red herring.

Jeb raised a brow, grabbed his pegleg and blew the dirt out of it before putting it back on his stump and climbing to his feet – foot –. A slowly growing knot of people were growing around him, following Eddy’s lead.

“What the hell?”

“Do you have any idea –“

“Ladies and gentlemen.” Jeb said, picking up his duffel and pulling The Penetrator out of it, along with its tattered spearhead cousin. “Let’s put a pin in this conversation until the buffet of free levels is gone, whaddya say?”

He imbued the two blades with Myst and sent them streaking up into the dense cloud of baddies swarming around the invisible dome. Jeb pulled up a seat next to a fire and grabbed someone’s uncooked monster-meat on a stick, warming his foot next to the rack lining the firepit while he watched the skies.

If it weren’t for the harsh screams of dying monsters and the shouting of the locals, it would have been a nice relaxing camp-slash-BBQ.

Eddie and others watched in awe as Jeb’s blades plunged through creature after creature around the top of the dome, creating a hail of dead bodies falling to the earth. Thankfully no one remaining was weak enough to be seriously injured by something big falling on them.

Except maybe him and Ron.

It didn’t take more than a couple seconds for the quicker-witted members of the community to see the obvious benefit of having a semi-permeable forcefield in their favor, as anybody with a bow, spear or particularly long sword began killing the monsters from the safety of the Safe Zone.

You have gained a level!

You are now level 33!

In about half an hour, the swarm of monsters was substantially reduced and limped back to the World Tortoise, their fury spent.

Littering the ground in and around the safe zone were thousands of bodies of monsters of every description. Ron was busily sorting through them, resurrecting the most powerful ones he could find that were in good condition.

A few of them could still fly, even.

“What the hell were you thinking!” Eddie said, grabbing Jeb’s shirt and hauling him out of his seat. “What if they had trapped us in here? What if they could’ve attacked through the wall!?”

“I was thinking,” Jeb said, prying the man’s fingers off his shirt. “That if you couldn’t beat those monsters with a Safe Zone protecting you, you definitely couldn’t beat them out in the open. It would be better to know that now than to rush into death.”

“Those were the monsters that defend the World Tortoise!” Jeb shouted, raising his voice and gathering even more attention. “It wasn’t all of them, either! I wanted you all to get a taste of what you’re up against!”

“Who here got a level from this?” Jeb asked. Hands started going up, and they didn’t stop.

“You put us in danger –“

“Everyone here is going to be in danger tomorrow. I single handedly gave every person here the opportunity to level and grow more powerful, while simultaneously weakening the turtle’s defenses, and got us a thousand meat-shields in the process,” Jeb said, motioning to Ron.

“What did you do in that time except dig through my bag looking for something to steal?”

The problem with soundly defeating stupid with words was that they had a tendency to take it poorly. Case in point.

Eddie punched him in the face.

The fist came faster than Jeb could react, smashing into his nose with the force of a goddamn truck.

The femtosecond the bones in Jeb’s nose began to crack, the ‘armor’ Mystic Trigger on his head activated, seizing everything in the vicinity of his head and flinging it away. In this case, Eddie’s fist, and by extension, Eddie.

Eddie flew backwards like an arrow, dragged through the air by his right arm, flopping like a fish on a hook until he violently impacted a large tree on the edge of the Safe Zone.

Jeb staggered backward, blinking tears out of his eyes. Getting punched in the nose makes your eyes water whether you’re tough or not. Ask a boxer.

“Don’t do that again.” Jeb said, wiping the blood off of his nose and re-upping the ‘armor’ trigger on his head. If he didn’t have it, Eddie would have punched him into death or unconsciousness, and won the argument by lack of opposition.

I can see why Ron didn’t want to stick around for the politics.

“Here,” Amanda said, jostling her way through the crowd and touching the bridge of his nose.

It felt icy cold for an instant, like he’d snorted a crushed up altoid, then it faded, along with the pain.

“That was pretty fucking cool.” Brett said, “Eddie likes to play king of the castle whenever Freeman isn’t watching, and he tries his damndest to make life miserable for anyone who stands up to him. A few have disappeared, and we don’t know if they just left, or…” The Soldier shrugged. “Most people are too afraid to do anything.”

“Everyone saw him going through your stuff, but he said you died and nobody was brave enough to argue…Sorry.” The healer said, her eyes down.

“Died!? I was gone for an hour.” Jeb rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

Jeb caught some six or seven guys giving him the stink eye as they sauntered away.

“Those Eddie’s constituents?”

“Yeah, they’re the ‘might makes right’ mentality fuckwads that crawl out of the goddamn woodwork whenever something terrible happens.” Brett said.

“And the only way to prove them wrong is by being stronger than them.” Jeb said with a sigh.

“Yeah, it’s a real catch-twenty-two.”

“You’re not really a Beggar, are you?” came a voice from Jeb’s left. David was approaching, hand resting on the pommel of his sword.

“Apologies, but the first people I met tried to rob me. Didn’t know if you meant to do the same.”

“No harm no foul,” David said, holding up a placating hand.

“As for my class…Telekinetic Combatant. I can move shit with my mind.” Jeb felt a little guilty for lying to the same guy twice, but he wanted to keep his cards close to the vest. If people knew he could design traps, they would figure out a way to circumvent them.

Besides, no one would be able to tell the difference between the two on casual examination. Not without bringing in another Telekinetic Combatant to compare with.

“Yeah, I saw that.” David said, shaking his head. “I guess I should’ve assumed anyone who was still alive was dangerous.”

“Probably a good call.”

“Hey, we’re putting some of the tastier monsters over a spit at our fireplace, we’d love to have you over,” David said, thumbing over his shoulder where his fifteen men and women were carving off hunks of meat and getting them ready to grill. “Your friend, ah, Jessica is welcome too, of course.”

“Gimme a minute to sort my stuff out and I’ll be right there.” Jeb said with a nod.

“Cool,” David patted him on the shoulder and left.

“What’s David’s group like?”

“They’re more moderate, and that appeals to more people, but their individual levels lag behind Eddie’s group. They’re only able to keep from getting absorbed because they have more numbers.” Amanda said.

“What about you two?” Jeb asked. “Which group do you put yourself in?”

“Independent contractors,” Bret said, crossing his arms. “Eddies goon’s tried to extort Amanda for sex, so she broke the guy’s arm.”

Jeb’s eyebrows rose.

“I’ve drank stat potions equivalent to someone who’s cleared sixteen areas.” The healer said with a shrug. “I don’t even have a class yet, but these boys know to think twice before they try anything.”

16x3 = 48 Stat points. Even split up and assigned randomly, that put her lowest stat likely in the twenties.

Jeb knew exactly how she’d gotten that many potions, but he couldn’t fault them for it: it was a damn good survival strategy.

Also, the information that she was a Myst user and her ability to heal wasn’t class-related was good to know.

“Damn,” Jeb said, shaking his head. “Well, if you two find yourselves looking for a group to join, I could use a hand.”

“No offence, but you just got here.” Amanda said apologetically.

That makes sense.

“None taken,” Jeb said. “Just wanted to put that out there.”

“Politics aside, hopefully by tomorrow this whole tutorial business will be behind us.” Brett said.

“Are you both taking part in the raid tomorrow?” Jeb asked.

The two of them nodded. “Almost everyone is.”

“Almost?”

“Casey is pregnant,” Amanda said, pointing to a woman with short black hair sitting by the fire with a bulging belly. “She says she chose the impossible difficulty tossing in her sleep, but who knows,” She shrugged.

Jeb could make out a faint scar on the young woman’s wrist.

Assisted suicide, perhaps? Some people might not have the guts to kill themselves, but enough to choose a course of action that would lead to their death. Jeb was familiar with self-destructive behavior.

“Anyone else?”

“A few. Mostly people with injuries I can’t heal.” Amanda looked at his foot apologetically. “I can’t grow back limbs.”

“Yet.” Jeb said. “You’ve only been able to use Myst for what, a week? And you don’t even have a class yet. I would not be surprised if you find a way to do just that.”

Amanda seemed to brighten a bit at that.

I gotta hold on to this person, Jeb thought to himself. Aside from the immediate benefit of having a healer, it would be nice to hold out hope for his foot.

Jeb said farewell to the two of them and headed for the fire where David’s group was, meeting many of the same people he’d seen standing behind the Quickblade the first time, rubbing elbows and chatting them up about their survival strategies, how they came to be here and so on.

He glanced up and spotted Eddie giving him a sour look every once in a while, but the black-haired man didn’t give him any further trouble.

After the meal was over, David pitched the idea of Jeb joining his group, and Jeb politely declined, leaving things on – hopefully – good terms with them before heading back to the outskirts of the camp, where his little firepit sat, empty and full of ash.

Jeb sat down and set his duffle bag next to him, body still warm from the meal and company.

Time to make those safety belts. He thought, mulling over his options. He wanted to make some kind of ejector seat for people he wanted to keep, but the logistics of that was mind-boggling. He considered trying to make a self-contained bauble with some kind of fluid and bobber inside so it could always tell which direction was up, but after it shot people into the sky, he couldn’t think of a way to get it to bring people back to the safe zone.

If the ejection seat primary has triggered and the myst packet is closer than any of the others to the safe zone, then it triggers, drawing them in that direction…

I Might be able to work with this, assuming it can tell the distance to the safe zone…or perhaps me? Yeah, this could work.

Jeb had zero experience with programming, but he imagined it might be a bit like this. At least for the simpler things.

He spent the rest of the night perfecting his ejector seats, only managing to make four before he had to lay down and sleep. Before bed he dropped his three new Stat points into Myst.

He barely felt the headache.

Jebediah Trapper

Mystic Trapsmith, Level 33

Body 16

Myst 61 +2

Nerve 21 +3

Abilities: Mystic Trigger

*** 14 hours remaining until Safe Zones expire ***

Jeb woke up refreshed, the smell of camp smoke bringing back boyhood memories.

I honestly thought someone was gonna try and kill me in my sleep.

Jeb grabbed his cane and pushed himself up, blinking the sand out of his eyes as he took in the bustle of activity. He hadn’t noticed last night, but those last three points that brought him up to sixty Myst had changed something. Everyone seemed to be radiating an…aura of some kind. It varied from person to person, but most of them looked nervous.

Men and women were strapping armor on, making sure their weapons were sharp, checking and re-checking their sheaths were fixed on straight.

It was the jitters before a battle.

Everyone’s getting ready for the big date. I just wanna survive it.

Jeb pulled out his list of ‘traps’, made sure they were all topped off, then went around affixing ‘ejector seats’ to his four MVPs.

Amanda, Brett, Ron, and Jessica.

Once that was done, it wasn’t long before they were underway, forming a loose line of people marching through the wilderness toward the meandering turtle. They were broken up into small knots of people, Freeman and his people at the front, followed by David and his people, with Eddie’s group trailing behind.

In the middle, ones and twos like Jeb and Jessica, Brett and Amanda, walked along by themselves. Flanking everyone on either side of the group were huge zombified beasts of every description, acting as a buffer. They would definitely help with finishing the plan safely.

The plan was this: Sneak onto the creature’s tail, the only thing that wasn’t stomping up and down like crazy, sneak into the shell, find the thing’s weak spot and murder it.

Simple, right?

Except, not at all, Jeb thought, squinting as he gazed up at the mountainous creature moving across the horizon. The forest on top of its shell showed no sign of the fire he’d inflicted on it the day before.

Jeb frowned, squinting as he scanned the very top center of the shell. There’s gotta be a little scorch mark at the middle where the lens fell, at least.

“Incomin!” Freeman shouted, and Jeb noticed the stream of monsters beginning to pour out of the shell.

They weren’t even close to the tortoise.

Damn, he thought, bringing up his blades up and sending them into the sky. All the zombies tightened up their lines to protect the humans as effectively as possible.

Then the fight was on.

The swarm of monsters crashed over the group like a storm, relentless and unceasing. They left a wake of bodies behind them as they pushed forward, fighting for every inch of ground.

It was a much different thing, fighting these creatures on a level playing field rather than shooting through the safe-zone’s walls. The zombies helped, sure, but it wasn’t nearly the same.

The biggest advantage that humans had was their power-to-size ratio. These monsters couldn’t quite jam themselves in close enough to truly swarm the defenders, instead attacking twelve or so at a time while the humans took turns fighting off the creatures.

Jeb, for his part, put his back to a lumbering zombie the size of an elephant, and whipped his knives through the air, picking off the monsters here and there that seemed to hold an advantage.

It was a chaotic mess, but everyone eventually fell into a rhythm, hacking away at baddies with mechanical efficiency. Even Amanda took out a few of the ones that got too close to her as she ran back and forth from the middle of the pack like a midfielder, reattaching freshly severed limbs and closing flesh ripped open by claws before sprinting back to the middle, as close as possible to the unknown Next Injury, and as far from danger as possible.

Jessica was…

The assassin was leaping from monster to monster in midair, using them as footing in between gouts of blood as she did some anime-level shit.

“Jeb!” Ron shouted over the roar of combat, dragging his attention away from Jessica’s aerial gymnastics.

“What!?”

“Something fucky’s going on!” Ron shouted.

“You’ll have to be more specific!”

It had been a long two weeks.

Ron motioned to some of his nearby zombies, dragging corpses toward them. The corpses were two white tigers with clouds around their feet that somehow allowed them to run on the air. In death, the clouds had dispersed.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?” Jeb asked.

“The face!”

It only took a moment for Jeb to spot it: the human brain is good with faces.

Both the tigers had identical scars across their left eye. Matter of fact, the tiger’s faces looked fairly identical, too.

“Twins…with identical scars?” Jeb asked, hoping that was the answer. Ron shook his head and pointed to one of his zombies. It was a giant white tiger with a scar over it’s left eye.

“Ah, damnit.”

Two was a coincidence, three was a pattern. These weren’t identical twins with matching scars. These were created monsters, stamped off of an assembly line.

The implications were frightening.

The most important of which was that the swarm wasn’t going to end anytime soon…if ever.

“I gotta tell Freeman!”

Ron nodded, kneeling down to touch the two corpses. A highly concentrated spark of purple energy leapt between his fingertip and the corpses, and they opened their eyes, the clouds forming around their feat as they jumped off the ground and began fighting the creatures above them.

Jeb swam through the thick haze of the battlefield, aiming for the front of the line, where Freeman was leading the march toward the tortoise.

Freeman’s fighting style was…effective.

The old Cajun wore some kind of cestus –spiky gloves – on his hands and phased through creature’s attacks to deliver bone-splintering strikes on their noses. It seemed no matter what the man was fighting, he’d punch it right in the snoot. Matter of fact, he didn’t see the old man attack anything anywhere but the face.

More often than not, it worked, too.

So he’s got phasing as a Class skill, and Luck as a Myst ability. I can see how that would be hard to compete with.

As Jeb thought that, one of the charging monster’s tripped over its allies, toppling to the  ground in front of Freeman, the ten-foot tall creature’s snoot in ideal booping distance.

Freeman punched the creature’s nose so hard it crumpled like a fruit-roll up. Or perhaps like the way a car wraps around an oak tree after hitting it at a hundred and twenty.

Another one tried to use the old man’s distraction to claw him from behind, and the claws simply slid through the cajun’s back to no effect.

Jeb approached, clomping past Freeman’s allies as the Cajun took out the offending creature, its eyeball popping out of its skull.

“Freeman!” Jeb shouted, getting the old man’s attention.

“Jeb? Wha’ye doin ‘ere?”

“The monsters are copies!” Jeb said. “They’re coming off an assembly line! They’re not gonna slow down or end!”

Freeman frowned, then glanced back at the people fighting behind him, panting, sweat dripping from their faces as they staved off the onslaught of monsters.

He looked back to the tortoise that was looming ever larger over them.

“Don’t matter,” Freeman said, shaking his head. “Don’t change wha’ we gotta do.”

“You really think everyone’s gonna last that long!?” Jeb demanded.

“Nose tells me, we don’ finish dis today, we don’ finish at’al.” He said, tapping his nose.

Where does he get that? Jeb thought to himself. Looking more closely he spotted Myst rolling off of the man’s body like heat from a furnace.

Is he burning through his reserves to get this done?

Jeb looked at their situation with a critical eye. Attrition was a bitch, but the zombies were doing their part, giving people a chance to rest or heal, keeping the enemies from attacking more than a few at a time.

We just might have enough to get there, but we won’t have enough for the trip back. If they won, Jeb expected to be teleported out of the Tutorial, but otherwise they would be slaughtered. Was it worth a shot? Probably. Jeb was tempted to believe it.

As long as Ron can keep up with demand, we might actually be able to make it. Sucker must be leveling like crazy.

Some god with a twisted sense of humor must have been listening to Jeb’s thoughts, because it was at that exact moment that the horde of zombies surrounding them went feral and started attacking humans indiscriminately.

Jeb felt a pinch on his back as something broke the skin, and he turned to see the zombie bear he’d trusted his back to being flung away by its paw. In its place were dozens more undead of every shape and size, charging mindlessly.

What the hell. WHAT THE HELL!?

“Yer gonna wanna check on tha’!” Freeman shouted, crushing a charging monster’s skull before punching a zombie trying to bite him in its face, exploding the head like a watermelon.

Jeb dropped his knives and picked himself up, deftly weaving through the chaos, with the intention of posing a sternly worded WTF. Possibly including murder.

Jeb gained a little too much altitude trying to navigate the battle and a flying creature swooped down on top of him from behind, claws clamping down on his body, catching both his leg armor and skull armor triggers, sending it flying violently away, but leaving a gouge on his torso.

It wasn’t serious enough to trigger the traps he’d left on the cane, but it burned like fire across his ribs.

Damn, Jeb thought, lowering his altitude as he approached Ron’s Last Known Location, dropping to the ground and catching himself on his cane.

There was nothing there but a splotch of blood on the ground. Then again, there was blood everywhere, so Jeb didn’t have any solid evidence, but something inside him told him something bad had happened to Ron.

The humans were being pushed hard now, forced to close ranks into a tight knot of survivors to fend off both the undead and the tortoise’s guardians.

If Ron was still alive, he was probably being flung by Jeb’s Ejector Seat back towards the Safe Zone.

Do they attack when he’s out of range of them? Or is it because he’s dead? Or something else?

He didn’t have much more time to think about it, as a flicker of motion to his left caught his attention.

He turned to see one of Eddie’s archers stumbling backwards, an arrow embedded in his shoulder. He’d tried to shoot Jeb, and Jeb’s projectile traps had caught the arrow and sent it back.

In a fraction of a second, it became clear what had happened.

Eddie’s crew had attacked Ron when Jeb was no longer close enough to protect him. They’d either knocked the ginger kid out or wounded him grievously, triggering Jeb’s Ejector Seat. That was why Ron was nowhere to be seen, and it was why his zombies were acting up.

“Son of a bitch,” Jeb muttered glancing at the knot of men breaking away from the back of the group, fighting their way toward the Safe Zone and abandoning the rest of them in the process. They had obviously preemptively killed the undead around them, and were making steady progress away from the main force.

I gotta get Freeman to sound a retreat, this is going tits-up faster than a coked up hooker. << Better ‘Faster than’ comparison welcome.

Jeb turned to get the old man’s attention, but was brought to a halt when he felt white hot pain sear through his chest, paralyzing his back and lungs, allowing him nothing more than a soft gasp of pain as his assailant savagely twisted the blade through his liver before yanking it out.

Jeb staggered forward, but he couldn’t keep his balance with one foot, and he toppled to the ground, his blood mixing into the mud underneath him.

Jeb heard someone spit, and felt a little wet hit the back of his skull before Eddie stepped over him.

You son of a bitch, Jeb thought, trying and failing to get his noodly arms under him, trying to stop the bleeding.

Jeb blacked out.

Chapter 12: Indestructible*

***12 minutes, 47 seconds remaining until Safe Zone expires.***

***Jessica Stile***

Jessica woke up with a start and winced in pain. Her left eye was swollen shut, and her entire body ached to hell. Fresh gashes covered every inch of her body where razor sharp claws had shredded her armor, treating it more like a gentle suggestion than enchanted steel.

To say nothing about the bruising from all the wounds the chainmail did stop.

The last thing she remembered…she and the remaining people had formed into a tight knot, gradually retreating from the World Tortoise while under constant assault.

People were dropping like flies, and she had a better view of it than others, fighting in the sky. She didn’t see where Jeb had gone though, the telekinetic Myst user had disappeared somewhere in the middle of the fight, just after everything went to hell.

I’ll kill Ron myself If I see him again.

Despite having a Body above thirty, gradually fatigue had set in, and she’d gotten winged by an attack.

That slowed her down, allowing another attack to hit, and another, and another.

It’s not called a death spiral for nothing, Jessica thought.

The very last thing she recalled, she was being tossed around like a hacky-sack between the monsters, her vision shrinking into a narrow tunnel as she lost consciousness. Then…a sudden jerking sensation in her stomach, like she was on a roller-coaster going up and then sideways at terrific speeds.

Which brought her to here.

Jessica scanned the environment with her good eye.

Even without the people, she recognized it easily: This was the Safe Zone, where they’d started the ill-fated attempt on the World Tortoise.

There was a fire going, and sitting around it were Eddie and his seven bootlicks. None of them seemed particularly wounded.

Jesssica scanned the Safe Zone, but she didn’t see anyone else.

The pregnant girl should be here, shouldn’t she? Jess thought, frowning. The ready-to-pop teenager was nowhere to be seen. Jess tried to lean forward, when pressure on her wrists and neck brought her up short.

What the?

Jessica glanced up at her wrists, which were bound with thick rope to the large tree at the center of the clearing.

Around her neck, she could feel the chill of steel.

Her good eye narrowed.

Someone’s about to die.

“Oh, you’re up?” Called a voice from the fire, and all conversation stopped. The eight men stood up and sauntered over to her, not even bothering to hide their leering.

“Good morning princess,” Eddie said, bowing to her with a flourish. “You seemed like you were in a bad spot there when we arrived, so we did you a favor and patched you up.”

Jessica didn’t say anything.

“I saved you, but I couldn’t help but notice you spent a lot of time hanging around that cripple, so we put the Slave Collar Ryan found on you, just so you didn’t cause a ruckus.”

Eddie chuckled, putting his thumbs in his belt loops.

“Don’t try anything, That fashion accessory there makes it impossible to use any abilities whatsoever, unless your owner says otherwise, and whoever supplies it Myst is your owner. Kinda makes me wish I’d put a few points into it myself. I’ll have to put that on my to-do list. It’s irritating letting Ryan hold your leash.”

Jessica didn’t say anything.

“Anyway, just cuz you’re pretty doesn’t mean we’re gonna take it easy on you.” Eddie said, squatting down in front of her.

“You’ve got the Body for some real wet work, if you get my drift,” he said, setting a hand on her leg, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand straight up.

Jessica didn’t say anything.

Like a petulant bully who wasn’t getting the reaction he wanted, Eddie pouted.

“Hey, say something.”

Jessica didn’t say anything.

“Say something!” Eddie roared inches away from her, striking her across the face, filling her mouth with the taste of blood.

Jessica didn’t say anything, simply meeting his gaze.

“Goddamnit,” Eddie said, walking over to one of the men, a guy whose armor and weapons were lower quality and more patchwork than the rest of them.

He grabbed the guy roughly by the collar, dragged him over and practically shoved him at Jessica like a tool.

“Make her say something.”

So that’s Ryan.

“Say something.” The man said, and Jessica felt the absolute need in that moment, to say something, like an itch that would only grow in strength until it washed away all of her reason.

Well, If I have to say something… Jessica angled her finger.

“Pip seven.”

Ryan’s brows furrowed an instant before a hole opened up in between them.

***Jebediah Trapper***

Ding!

You have gained a level!

You are now level 34!

Jeb snorted awake, and immediately regretted it. His head pounded like a marching band, and his body felt like a used condom, stretched out, used up and deflated.

He patted his chest and came away with something sticky on his hand.

Also covered in mysterious fluids.

“Ugh, Jeb groaned, blinking his eyes open. Everything was dark and something was weighing down on him. I didn’t go blind, did I? That would really fucking seal the deal right there.

After a moment of looking around with his eyes, he spotted a glimmer of light to his left.

But first, I gotta get…whatever this is, off of me. Jeb levered the object off of himself, the glimmering light redoubling as he did so.

Finally he spilled out into open, gratefully gasping in fresh air as his eyes adjusted to starlight.

It was a massacre.

For every human dead, there were dozens of monster corpses, but there were thousands of monster corpses, stretching out in every direction. Dotted here and there was a familiar face, frozen in the expression of their death.

Behind him, he spotted the corpse of the massive bear-like creature that must have collapsed on him while he was unconscious. He’d been buried under its paw.

Jeb tried to stand, toppling to the ground when his splintered peg leg collapsed out from under him.

“Mother –“ Jeb choked off the rest of the curse. He had no idea if there were more monsters nearby. He crawled back to the giant behemoth he had been partially buried under and began fishing around underneath it.

Score! Jeb thought, snagging the Vivicant Cane and yanking it out, leaning on it as a spare leg as he pushed himself up.

Vivicant Cane, Consumable item.

Carried as a supplementary item by the vaunted healers of Mestikos, These Canes allow the master healers to handle emergencies when circumstances would otherwise prevent them from being able to help, maintaining their vaunted success rate even in the most adverse conditions, along with their priceless prestige.

 Channel Myst through this valuable cane to heal wounds and remove fatigue in an area of effect.

Effect is proportional Myst spent.

1/4 Uses remaining.

Three uses!? Jeb thought, inspecting the cane. He’d put Mystic Triggers on it to go off if he sustained major organ damage –I.E. getting stabbed in the liver – extreme blood loss, heart failure, and brain damage.

I know major organ damage triggered, and probably the blood loss trigger as well, so what was number three?

Curiously, Jeb reached his hand up to his scalp and found it absolutely caked with drying blood.

Did something crush my skull while I was unconscious? Jeb thought, a shiver going down his spine. The thought that his brain had been scrambled and rearranged was…eerie.

Maybe the magic cured my PTSD while it was in there.

Jeb was an optimist, he always liked to view his skull as half-full.

Is there anyone alive? He thought to himself, scanning the massacre. Some of the tougher people like Freeman might have escaped to the…

Safe Zone! Jeb thought, turning toward the distant camp. All his Ejector seats were designed to drop their payloads off at the Safe Zone, and that was exactly where Eddie and his goons were going last he saw them.

I need to get there before they kill Ron!

If he had a read on Eddie – and It wasn’t hard –  the man wouldn’t allow anyone in his little kingdom that might challenge him for top dog.

That included Jeb, Ron, Brett, Jessica…

Almost all of them, except maybe Amanda. She might have higher stats than her level, but she’s not a fighter. She probably ranked somewhere just underneath Eddie.

Jeb wrapped himself in telekinetic force, and shot into the sky, angling toward the Safe Zone, forest sliding by underneath him.

It only took him a minute to get there, but he was almost too late.

From the sky, he could make out several figures locked in combat, dimly lit by the single campfire. One of the figures was smaller than the others, more slender, and grievously wounded, clutching a snapped off spearhead embedded in their stomach.

Jess.

He tore through the air and landed on the ground with a whomp, drawing the attention of the combatants to himself.

Jessica took their distraction as an opportunity to tear the spearhead out of her stomach, flickered closer and stab the closest guy in the neck, sending him flailing to the ground.

She looked a bit like she’d been through a garbage disposal, covered with minor cuts and bruises, her armor nowhere to be seen.

Jeb scanned the scene. Including the last one, she’d taken out three of Eddie’s group, leaving five angry men facing her down.

“Goddamnit,” Eddie shouted. “Chris, get a hand on that collar, or I’ll tear your damn arms off.” he said, standing between Jeb and his teammate.

Chris, he assumed, lunged for Jess with a longsword. He rushed forward and delivered a vicious strike against her improvised weapon, knocking it out of her hand.

Chriss took a hand off his blade and lunged for a metal collar around Jess’s neck. She caught his hand with her own, stepping in close to his chest to prevent him for swinging his sword at her.

“Pip nine.” She said, her finger pointed at his center of mass.

Chris tried to dodge, but the telekinetic bullet tore a hole through his side.

In his shock, Jessica wrenched the sword out of the man’s hand and executed him with it.

Now it was just Eddie and three others left.

Maybe I wasn’t needed, Jeb thought. Jess was winded though, and one hand was occupied staunching a trickling puncture wound on her stomach.

She wasn’t looking great.

“I thought you were dead.” Eddie said, glaring at him. “Amanda was nowhere near you. You should’ve died in seconds.”

“Yeah, well, shit happens,” Jeb said with a shrug.

“This time, I’m gonna cut your fucking head off,” Eddie said, unslinging Razorback from his waist. “See if that sticks.”

“You sure you wanna try that?” Jeb asked, pointing. “You’re running out of backup.”

The three remaining lackeys were hesitating to approach Jessica, glancing between her and the four corpses she’d made.

Eddie glanced over his shoulder and snarled. “Forget about the collar, just kill her!”

“I’m four and oh,” Jessica said, levelling her stolen sword at them. “You’re welcome to try.” She was probably bluffing, but there were four corpses scattered around the clearing.

So these nameless lackeys had to decide whether they were more afraid of Eddie or dying.

“Fuck this,” one of them said, turning and breaking into a sprint. The other two glanced at Jeb and followed a breath later.

“You bitches, I’ll – “ Eddie was cut off as Jessica jumped him, gliding across the ground despite her wound and bringing her stolen sword down at his face.

Eddie blocked it with his forearm. The sword didn’t even sink into his skin, halting harmlessly right at the boundary of causing damage.

He heaved Razorback forward, the sword glowing with power as he aimed to cut Jessica in half. Jessica hopped over the strike, her body weightless. The swing sent a shockwave of power sailing out into the distance, causing the grass of the Safe Zone to ripple.

Hovering in front of him, Jessica took the opportunity to angle her sword off his wrist and aim a thrust at his face.

The sword came to a dead stop against the man’s forehead, and Eddie grinned. Using the free hand her sword was sliding against, he slapped the blade. There was a little burst of light and force, and Jessica’s sword was snapped in half, sending shrapnel off to the side of the combatants.

The hell is his Class skill? Jeb thought, sending his Myst out and sliding a dagger out of one of the corpses sheaths, along with a nearby sword.

Some kind of impenetrable skin, maybe? How am I supposed to beat that…

Jeb sent his controlled blades to interfere with Eddie’s follow-up killshot, aiming for his eyes to make him flinch and getting in the way of his sword-arm.

Eddie flinched, but the dagger against his eye did nothing, and the sword aiming to cut deep into his arm merely restrained it.

What the hell?

Jessica took the opportunity to kick off of Eddie, sailing through the air toward Jeb.

Normally, when you’ve got a guy with impenetrable skin, you go for the eyes, but that logic doesn’t seem to follow, here. Maybe I can goad him into revealing something stupid.

“You think you’ve got a chance?” Jeb asked, raising a brow as he spun his blade through the air, making an ominous whirring sound. “I’m a Telekinetic Combatant, my Class Skill lets me manipulate tons of weapons with my mind at once. I can kill you where you stand.”

Eddie gave him a pitying look and snorted. “Hah! I’m a Reckoner, my class skill lets me absorb any attack’s force and add it to my own. It doesn’t matter what you’re holding the weapon with, and it don’t matter how many there are! You. Can’t. Hurt. Me. You get it now? As far as you two are concerned, I’m indestructible.”

Jeb met Jessica’s gaze, and they shared a look.

Wow, this guy is dumb.

Jeb dropped the two blades and created two new strands of Myst. One wrapped around Eddie’s torso and lifted him off the ground.

Eddie, divorced from the ground, was unable to find purchase on anything, flailing wildly like an angry toddler being hoisted by their parents.

“Hey, what the fu-“

The other strand of Myst hardened a golf-ball sized chunk of air and shoved it into Eddie’s trachea, bringing blessed silence as the bruiser immediately began to suffocate.

“So,” Jeb asked, glancing at Jessica. “Whaddya wanna do after this?”

“I was thinking,” Jessica said, reaching down and tugging a man’s belt off before cinching it around her oozing stomach wound. “I’d go hunt down Ron and get some payback.”

“Naw, I’m pretty sure that all happened because these guys blindsided Ron and that caused his zombies to go feral.”

“Oh?” Jessica asked.

“Well, it fit the scenario. I suppose Ron could have backstabbed as well as these guys, but I think it’s unlikely. He was nowhere to be seen and the ejector seats trigger when knocked out or gravely wounded, so my money is on Eddie’s boys knocking out or killing Ron.

“I can see how that might have happened,” Jessica said with a nod. “We’ll have to make sure though.”

Turning red, Eddie threw Razorback at Jeb in a desperate bid to be released from the chokehold.

Jessica plucked her sword out of the air like a magician, causing Eddie’s eyes to bulge. She winced as the movement strained her wound again.

“Is that stab wound life-threatening?” Jeb asked, wiggling his cane to catch her attention.

“Nah, save it for an emergency. It’s my turn to grin and bear it.”

They watched the man slowly suffocate for a couple minutes, his struggles growing more and more intense, tearing at his own skin to try and free himself from the telekinetic lift.

“This feels awkward,” Jeb said into the silence.

“I think they left some booze behind.” Jessica said with a shrug. “We could play a drinking game. He’s got enough Body that it’ll take half an hour to actually suffocate to death.”

Jeb pursed his lips, meeting Eddie’s bloodshot gaze.

“Yeah, I’m down for that.” he said, hopping over to the fire and joining Jessica where they could both keep an eye on their enemy, and keep their feet toasty warm.

“Every time he scratches his throat, we drink.” Jessica said, handing him some of the booze. He had no idea where Eddie’s goons had gotten it, but it was a welcome distraction from what was essentially slow, calculated murder. It didn’t even have the in-the-moment desperation to it. Just a gut-wrenching sense of wrong.

Eddie had long since passed out when they heard a woman’s voice from the edge of the clearing.

“What are you doing!?” Amanda called, rushing out from the woods. The healer’s armor was torn to shreds, but she herself looked fine. Likely healed herself. From the looks of it, she’d taken quite the beating.

“…Suffocating Eddie to death so he doesn’t try to kill us anymore?” Jeb said with a shrug. Jessica nodded, expression icy.

“Well, stop!” Amanda said, her hands on her full hips. “You can’t just kill people. All life is sacred, and everyone deserves a second chance!”

“Where were you when I was thirty,” Jeb muttered. To be fair she was just starting college when he was discharged.

“You’re not seriously considering it, are you?” Jessica said. “He tried to kill us. We leave him alive, he’ll try again.”

“If you don’t let him go right now,” Amanda said, putting up her dukes. “I’ll fight you.”

“Alright, alright,” Jeb said, putting his hands up. “I’ll let him go…If you and Brett join my group.”

The healer gave him a squinty look. “We’ll talk about it.”

“That’s all I can really ask for,” Jeb said, hopping to his foot and hobbling over to Eddie, checking his pulse. It thudded away under his fingertips.

Still strong as a horse, huh? Body must be outstanding. That’s like, dolphin levels of breath-holding.

Mystic Trigger.

“He’s still alive,” Jeb said, backing away before freeing Eddie from his hold.

The Reckoner folded to the ground and gave a sharp inhale, but otherwise didn’t move.

“We should get out of here before he wakes up. Dude could punch a hole through my sternum.”

Ignoring him, Amanda went up and checked Eddie’s pulse herself. All the while, Jeb was biting holes in his pants, waiting for Eddie to come alive and use her as a hostage.

Thankfully that didn’t happen.

“Alright, let’s get moving,” Amanda said, rising to face them. “Ron and Brett are further North East.”

“They survived too?” Jeb asked, picking up his duffle bag and allowing Amanda to lead the way.

“Could I get a heal?” Jessica asked with a wince.

“Oh, Of course,” Jessica said, tapping Jessica on the shoulder, a bolt of concentrated Myst arcing out and penetrating her body.

Jessica gave a shiver and unbelted her stomach, tossing aside the blood-crusted belt. She gave Eddie a long look, before glancing back at Jeb.

“It’ll be fine,” Jeb said, drawing his fingers across his neck while Amanda’s back was turned. “He won’t bother us again.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Jess said.

“Yeah, Ron, Brett and I met up here. I got sideswiped by something, and woke up to Ron splashing water on my face, a lump on the side of his head big as an egg!”

“Called it,” Jeb said.

“Then Brett fell out of the sky, covered in blood. I thought my heart was gonna stop.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “That was your good luck charm, wasn’t it?”

Jeb shrugged.

“Anyway, we didn’t think this safe zone would be safe for long, so we put as much distance as we could between ourselves and the Boss.”

>>>ALERT<<<

Safe Zones Have Expired!

Easy Zone automatically closed.

0/84,000 Normal zones active. Normal closed.

113/10000 Hard Zones active.

5000/5000 Impossible Zones active

The Hard Turial enters its second phase…

The Impossible Tutorial Enters its second phase…

“Well, that’s fucking ominous,” Jeb muttered, glancing over his shoulder at the Tortoise that dominated the horizon, blocking the fading glow of the sun.

The stars above it flickered as tens of thousands of monsters streamed out of the creature’s shell, drifting up and settling down into the forest beneath it. Their numbers were endless.

“I think we should haul ass,” Jeb said, picking himself up. Amanda and Jess nodded and started running like the wind, Jeb flying along behind them.

***Eddie***

“Boss?”

Eddie’s eyes flew open and he sucked in a sweet lungful of air, groaning as he sat up and held his hand to his throbbing head.

Throb, throb. It felt like someone was beating on the inside of his skull with a hammer

“Motherfucker,” Eddie muttered, glancing up. The three traitors were standing there, looking at him nervously. They’d returned in a tremendous act of bravery, considering what he was going to do to them for abandoning him.

No, wait. They’re the only ones left. Eddie reigned in his impulse to immediately punish them. They had the advantage of being some of the last convenient toys left, and their value was increased by scarcity.

“You okay, boss?” Kyle asked, offering him a hand.

“I’m fine,” Eddie said, ignoring the hand as he pushed himself to his feet.

That fucking bitch. The little tease had killed four of his men. And the other one…

Eddie felt an unfamiliar thrill of fear.

I almost died.

That fucking cripple almost killed me!

Apparently Jeb was too stupid to know you have to choke someone out for several minutes after they pass out if you want to kill them.

He’s not gonna get a chance to regret it, Eddie thought, gritting his teeth. That Telekinetic Combatant wasn’t going to catch him with his pants down again. Very much the opposite.

He’s gotta sleep sometime.

I’m going to find them, I’m going to figure out when he sleeps, then I’m going to crush his skull into paste.

Eddie’s mood turned marginally brighter. Then I’ll be able to relax again. Once Jeb was dead, he’d be back on top, and everything would be right with the world.

“The safe zones expired, boss,” Carl said.

“So that’s why you came crawling back to me, huh?” Eddie said, sneering.

“…Safety in numbers,” Kyle said, nodding, flinching away from Eddie in a way that was deeply satisfying.

“Alright then, grab some weapons,” Eddie said, motioning to the corpses strewn around the safe zone. “’Cuz we’re going hunting.”

“I swear I’m gonna kill that bastard,” Eddie said, imagining that sweet moment.

***Kyle Breshears, level 21 Pitcher ***

“I swear I’m gonna kill that bastard,” Eddie said, a malicious smile spreading across his face.

Then Eddie’s head exploded, covering the three onlookers in bits of gore.

The headless corpse fountained blood into the air for a surreal moment, still standing in front of them like nothing was wrong. A couple seconds later, it slumped to the ground.

Stunned silence reigned.

“I’m not with him,” Kyle said, looking up at the sky and pleading to whatever wrathful deity just smote Eddie.

***Jebediah Trapper***

You have Gained a level!

You are now level 35!

...And boom goes the dynamite, Jeb thought as he got a level notification mid-flight, dropping his points into Myst.

Jebediah Trapper

Mystic Trapsmith, Level 35

Body 16

Myst 63 +2

Nerve 21 +3

Abilities: Mystic Trigger