Lake Placid

“Annie, do you hear me?” Ben asked in a worried tone. After a few seconds, Ben decided to shake her shoulders. “Annie!”

“What?” Annie responded, slightly confused by the urgency in Ben’s voice. “What did you say? I am sorry, I… I kind of spaced out.”

“Annie, listen to me. I know that you are worried about Daniel, but we’ve searched everywhere. Not a single trace of him.”

“I know, but how is that possible?”

Ben looked at Annie with compassion in his eyes.

“Well, I hate to say it, but is it possible that the ‘system’ teleported him away?”

“I don’t know, I mean… why would it do that?” Annie asked pleadingly. “After all, the ‘system’ already brought him over when it left behind all those old people and children… this doesn’t make any sense!”

After a moment, she added hesitantly, “I think it was the bikers. Just two days ago, they taunted him in the coffee house. And now… there is no police to keep them in check any longer.”

“I am sorry, Annie, you might be right. But short of questioning them one by one, or forcing our way into their compound, there is no way to find out.” Ben said. “I wish I could help you. I just don’t think that we can afford to spend more time searching for Daniel right now. We have to think of everyone else as well, and right now people need some leadership.”

“And you are the leader that is needed, then?” Annie said in a slightly bitter tone.

“If not me, then who? Do you see Austin stepping up to the plate? Or Jimmy? Who else is there that’s willing to make decisions? But I can’t do it by myself. I need you as well. People really like you, and you’re the closest thing to a doctor we have in our little group right now.”

Annie did not respond for a moment, trying to regain her composure. After a few seconds, she focused her usually warm, brown eyes on Ben’s face with renewed determination and focus.

“You’re right, Ben. It was perhaps selfish to ignore everything else in my search for Daniel. I feel responsible for him, but many of the others need help as well. I guess you said something about those strangers that came into Lake Placid during the day…? I’ll be honest, their talk about being indebted to them doesn’t sit well with me. Personal baggage and all, I guess… it reminds me of my parents, who kept on telling me that I owed them for raising me as if I had a choice in the matter.”

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Sweetwater, Tx

“Let me go! You can’t do that to me!” De’Andre shouted at the white insect man that held him in an iron grip, overpowering the 6’5” linebacker with three of his four hands, despite his desperate attempts to free himself.

The next thing he knew, De’Andre was shoved into an already overcrowded and sweltering trailer that the insect men had somehow moved to the center of the town.

“All of you are now farmers and will start to till the land tomorrow morning at sunrise. Be ready to move by then,” the insect man said in its oddly clipped voice that did not sound like English but nonetheless was understood by everyone in Sweetwater. With that, the creature slammed the door shut and moved away, completely ignoring the desperate pleas for help, water, food, or even a working bathroom.

“This is our chance,” a balding man with a huge mustache and said quietly. “The creature left. We have to try and escape now!”

“And go where?” A woman in her twenties, with too much make-up on her face, highlighted by the runny eyeliner, responded quizzically. “Are you going to hide in the woods? Or the fields? And then what?”

“At least they won’t whip or kill me then,” the balding man shot back. “Did you see what they did to all those other people?”

“I did, but they decided to fight the Albarnese. As long as we cooperate, we should be fine.”

“So you are just going to do whatever they tell you to do?” the man asked disbelievingly. “What about the rest of you? No one? Really?”

Hesitantly, Alison stepped forward. “I am going with you. They killed my cousin. I am not going to stick around until they kill me as well.”

Quietly, another woman and De’Andre joined the small group, without looking at the rest of the people.

“Shit, two wenches, and a fucking college kid,” the balding man grumbled. Grabbing a kitchen knife, he made his way to one of the windows of the trailer, checking the outside to see if the area was clear of insect men. “Let’s go then… good luck to the rest of you.”

A short time later, four shadows scooted stealthily toward the closest residential houses, while the rest of the people in the trailer followed them with their eyes, with a mix of pity, envy, and desperation displayed on their faces.

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Mertesdorf, Germany

A heavy blanket of silence was hanging in the air above the once lively town. It was not the solemn silence of a graveyard or the peaceful quiet of a lake far from the bustling of modern societies. No, this was the silence of death, with the metallic scent of blood permeating the air, and the silent echoes of screams faintly reverberating through the narrow streets only felt by those attuned to the mysteries of the spiritual world.

And then a dripping sound sundered the quiet.

With hungry eyes, the motionless creature stared at the cauldron, watching with eager anticipation as it slowly filled with the red, precious liquid dripping from the headless bodies hanging from the ceiling.

Soon. Soon it was time to feast yet again.

----------------------------------------------------

Unknown area

The leaves of the giant fern-like vegetation rustled in the wind, and the humid air was laden with the smell of decay and rot from the myriad of plants and dead creatures decomposing in the fetid water. Usually, the chirps of insects, the mating calls of the local species of giant toad-like creatures, or the noise of one of the ubiquitous life-and-death struggles would disturb the quiet, but in the fading evening light there was none of that - not a single living creature, big or small, could be seen or heard.

----------------------------------------------------

A couple of hours after I had collapsed, utterly exhausted, on top of the singed and bloody carcass of the giant cat, the pain of the myriad of wounds covering every inch of my body forced me to change position.

With a groan, I got to my knees and tried to find a way to alleviate the pain. I just fucking wanted this to end. This was too much.

I needed a safe place. Somewhere I could actually sleep and recover amber mana to heal myself.

And the kitchen was not it - where there was one giant cat, there might be more. And even if not, there might be other creatures roaming the dark, creatures that did not have a weakness I could exploit.

I had to chuckle a bit at the twists and turns that fate created. It was ironic that the action that had allowed the tentacled cat to get through the door and attack me also had been the key to its downfall.

Which just showed that one should never give up.

Speaking of the cat… that beast had to have given me a ton of mana, strong as it had been. Suddenly curious, I decided to check out the changes to my character sheet while I waited for my leg muscles to stop cramping up.

Name

Daniel Hollander

Rank

Initiate 1

Title:

Mental Bastion; First Initiate; Army of One; Against the Mighty

Strength:

8.4 [+4.4]

Intuitive Reasoning:

14

Mana

Free

Current

Potential

Agility:

6 [+1]

Complex Reasoning:

17

Silver

0

6

10

Speed:

5 [+2]

Emotional Intelligence:

9

Black

30[+30]

15 [+4]

15 [+4]

Dexterity:

5 [+1]

Perception:

13

Amber

0

3

10

Endurance:

7 [+2]

Spatial Awareness:

21

Green

8 [+8]

0

0

Vitality:

8.4 [+1.4]

Willpower:

21

Red

38 [+38]

0

0

Available characteristic points: 4 [-1]

Spells

Mana Vision

Level 9 [+1]

Twilight Vision

Level 1

Minor Healing

Level 3 [+2]

Shadow Skin

Level 2 [+2]

Shadow Sense

Level 1 [+1]

Available spell points: 0

Skills

Mental Ward

Level 5 [+4]

Mental Fortitude

Level 7 [+4]

Multitasking

Level 2

Internal Mana Manipulation

Level 2 [+1]

Meditation

Level 1

External Mana Manipulation

Level 1 [+1]

Sword Fighting

Level 10 [+10]

Available skill points: 0

Not bad. A solid change in the physical stats, continuing at the un-humanly rapid pace I had been experiencing during the last day. Interestingly, I suddenly had decimal numbers appear as well, which was new.

Either that was a normal part of the progression, or… my eyes were drawn to the line of titles, and I noticed that I had two new entries. Excited, I focused on ‘Army of One’ and immediately a blue box popped open in front of my eyes.

Title: Army of One

Was it trickery or might of arms? Either way, you have managed to single-handedly fight and defeat more than forty opponents within one level of your own in one fight. You are the first individual in this pocket dimension to have achieved this feat and the 113th in Miranda’s history. As a reward for this astounding accomplishment, your vitality is increased by twenty percent.

Hell yeah. Now we were talking!

Those titles were seriously awesome. Not that the gain was huge at the moment, with only an additional 1.4 for vitality, but, assuming that this would apply to future changes as well, this was going to make an enormous difference in the future.

So what about ‘Against the Mighty’?

The moment I focused on the last title, the previous blue box was replaced with a new one.

Title: Against the Mighty

Defeating a higher leveled foe is possible. But overcoming one that is more than thirty levels higher is a feat worthy of being remembered. Fortune favors the bold, the heroes, the underdogs that succeed against all the odds. As a reward, your strength is increased by twenty percent.

This was seriously game-breaking… only that this was not a game. Somehow, I was collecting titles like squirrels might collect nuts. If this were to continue, I would be ridiculously powerful in no time.

Not that it would benefit me in any way if I couldn’t find my way out of the dungeon…

Quickly glancing through the rest of my notifications, I noticed the substantial boost to my mana. The thirty black mana had to have come from that high leveled panther. I’d been seriously lucky in defeating that creature. Just thinking of the number of blows it had taken to hack through the spine, made me shudder to think of fighting the beast in a straight-up scuffle.

The quantity of red and green mana, on the other hand, was slightly disappointing, as I had figured that it had to be at least one mana per goblin, and I had killed more than fifty goblins in total.

This meant that there was some type of modifier in place that implied an ever-reduced experience if one killed just the same kind of monster all the time. Or perhaps bats were more dangerous than goblins, but I had a hard time believing that.

With spells and skills, I had also made nice progress, with the most notable changes happening for skills. My training of Mental Fortitude and Mental Ward had really paid dividends, with each skill improving by a massive four points. And then there was the sword skill… which already was at ten, the highest leveled skill I possessed.

But that made sense since I had been reasonably good with swords before I got injured those few years back. Which also allowed me to put things into perspective. Back in the day at the HEMA meetings, I had been a middling sword fighter. Neither the best nor the worst. I could hold my own against most people but wasn’t brilliant in any way… just a solid fighter, making excellent use of my naturally high spatial awareness. If ten represented that, then I had still ways to go with all my other skills and the spells.

But of course, most of these I had had only for a day, so no wonder that the levels were still quite low. In fact, for the little time I have had them, I had made tremendous progress.

I briefly wondered why I did not have other skills listed, such as writing, reading, running, swimming, and so forth, but figured that the system decided on the essential components, the abilities that were actually used, and had implications for what was happening. Pure conjecture, but it fit with what had happened with the sword skill – it had not been listed, but the moment it had become relevant, the system had rated my ability and assigned the according value.

Strangely enough, I still was at Initiate Level 1. What the fuck was I supposed to do to level up? I had just defeated like fifty goblins and a freaking monster, and still, there was no change in my level… that felt seriously wrong. Not that I knew whether leveling even was a thing, or what it would do, but it seemed a reasonable conjecture, based on my experience so far.

The only noticeable effect of defeating monsters had been the increase in mana, which had led me to believe that leveling happened based on mana in lieu of experience or some other random measure of progress. But I had just gained more than sixty mana and still had not advanced even by one level.

Did I need a gazillion mana to level?

Gaah, I really needed some Wiki for this crap. Or a fucking fairy companion, like in many of those fantasy stories I had read.

Alas, this was not a fairy tale or a fantasy story… this was real.

Annoyed by my lack of focus, I slapped myself in the face to get my brain back on track. I needed a plan.

First, I needed to get some real rest. Laying down for a minute here or there was not going to cut it.

Second, I needed to incorporate the free-floating mana into my mana cycle. Especially the red mana, as I was seriously looking forward to some fire magic. I mean… fucking fireballs? Anyone? It should not take too long, but I first needed to see to point one.

Third, I had to figure out more things about what to do with mana. I was kind of winging it most of the time and had managed to get by, but too often, my survival had been on a razor’s edge, and I felt that improved understanding of what was going on would be tremendously helpful.

Fourth, there h-

I stopped myself short because I had noticed a sudden uptick in my energy level, seemingly out of nowhere. I scanned my surroundings, trying to figure out what might have caused this, but could not determine a likely source. My first suspicion was the glowing crystals, but they were as bright as before, and any energy transfer would have likely dimmed them.

Belatedly, I figured that I should check my character sheet to gain some additional information. It only took me a second to determine that I had, in fact, not gained more red mana, but amber mana!

So… what the fuck was going on? I was stumped.

Was it just a random occurrence? A gift from heaven? Or hell?

Unless… unless it was from that mushroom, I had cut. Getting excited again and immediately forgetting about the list of priorities I had just established, I dragged myself with renewed energy toward the mushroom field to check if anything had changed.

And things were different indeed. The goblin corpses looked deflated as if something had sucked out their flesh and blood, and the length of the corridor was covered in a veritable forest of mushrooms.

In my Mana Vision, the mushrooms had an amber glow to them, most with a tinge of red, but some came instead with a green sheen to their aura.

Was this random?

I suspected that it was connected to what the mushrooms had been fed before. It was just too much of a coincidence that all the goblins had had either green or red mana, most of them red, and now the mushrooms were sporting the same colors of mana in roughly the same proportion.

Even more interesting was that the mushroom that I had cut down was shriveled up and clearly dead. It had lost all of its vibrancy and mana, which, as I remembered now, had not been the case when I cut it first. Which meant that my idea of farming mushrooms might actually have merit!

Cackling, I covered every inch of my skin with shreds of stinking goblin cloth and began to hack down the forest of mushrooms, temporarily forgetting my numerous ailments.

I was assaulted by visions and memories, causing a maelstrom of emotions, ranging from grief to happiness, fear to comfort, and cold to warmth, to batter my sanity.

Stoically, I ignored all the mental intrusions, and went forward, step by step, swinging my sword like a scythe.

Mushrooms fell to the floor left and right, releasing massive clouds of spores that settled on my clothes, trying to put roots into the warm body underneath. But the only part of my body that was uncovered was my eyes, and whenever the spores became too thick, I covered even those. I did not need to see to cut down the mushrooms. They were all around. All I had to do was to swing my sword in a wide arc and dream of the riches of amber mana I was going to harvest.

A couple of minutes into the wholesale slaughter of shrooms, I suddenly heard guttural shouts in the large room on the other side. Immediately, I stopped moving and waited for the spores around me to settle down a bit. Soon enough, I was able to make out a group of goblins making its way toward my location.

Stepping back, I grinned in anticipation and mentally rubbed my hands.

That was going to be another solid harvest of goblin corpses!

But, in contrast to the previous time, these goblins did not headlong rush into danger. Much more cautiously, they peeked around the door into the hallway, shields, and weapons at the ready.

Immediately, I retreated a bit further, partially hiding behind one of the bigger mushrooms, unwilling to give away that I was standing there. I was still hoping that they would get caught in the spore-cloud, but it seemed less likely by the second. These goblins were cautious, and they probably knew about the mushrooms since they were basically indigenous to the area.

And indeed, instead of rushing into the mushrooms, like fools, one of the goblins stepped into clear view and started… well, I was not sure what it was doing. But I could see the result of it.

Slowly, a roiling sphere of red-glowing mist appeared between the goblin’s hands and, after growing to the size of a large watermelon, slowly moved toward the cloud of spores.

I could not believe my eyes. A fucking fireball. It had to be. That was real, fucking magic. Not those parlor tricks I had been able to do or the people in Lake Placid were capable of pulling off. No, this was real, unbridled power.

And I was staring at it like an idiot.

Suddenly realizing the danger, I was in, I turned around and tried to put distance between myself and the churning mass of fiery mana.

But too late.

I had barely taken a few steps, when the fireball went off, creating an inferno of flames that filled the hallway at least ten yards in each direction with blistering heat. The deflated corpses of the goblins and their filthy clothes provided ample food for the fire to catch, and soon the corridor was a fiery hell of flames, suffocating smoke, and heat.

At least there had been no real blast, just an expanding sphere of flames that washed over me and set my rags ablaze instantly. I tossed myself on the ground, trying to extinguish the flames, and when that failed, ripped off the burning rags from my blistering skin.

The pain was excruciating, and I had to use all my willpower from screaming out loud in pain. Clenching my jaw, I dragged myself further away from the heat, tears streaming down my face from the agony.

The biggest issue was not the heat though, I was going to survive that, but the smoke.

A thick, soot-filled, black billowing cloud was rapidly filling the hallway, making breathing a real challenge.

Finally, I arrived in the kitchen, and, hacking violently, closed the door against the smoke. By then, the air in the kitchen was heavy with ash and smoke particles, and visibility, despite my mana vision, was down to a few feet.

The vent from the kitchen helped some, but not enough for me to be able to stick around. For that matter, the goblins might have seen me scoot away, and would give chase once the smoke had dissipated, so I could not stay here anyway.

Groaning in pain, I grabbed a few things and tossed them into a burlap sack, before making my way out the other side of the kitchen, into the dark, but thankfully smoke-free hallway.