Defensive Impetus

Chapter 14

I came to still wrapped around my core, my skull on the verge of exploding. The pain was a strange pulsing pressure that blurred my vision and made me nauseous when I tried to move. Instinctively I checked my core for damage, groping with my hands.

The logical part of me knew I wouldn't have woken up if anything had happened to it. A primal part of me still needed to check. I didn't find so much as a hairline fracture, but that knowledge did nothing to ease the pain.

I clutched at my head as a sharp jab lanced through my temples. My body spasmed in a way things with bones couldn't. The pain wasn't rooted in physical sensation like humans. No tendons or muscles tightened. It more than made up for the difference with overwhelming intensity.

I tried to focus through the pain, ignoring my blurry vision. The only thing I could see clearly was the countdown to the end of the year ticking away. Dread crept up as I watched. As the timer ticked down, another nameless anxiety took hold. Something was wrong.

My species description hadn't mentioned anything like this. My first thought was to try opening the manual and looking for an answer. As the pain continued, I thought there was something strange about the way it throbbed. It was nothing like the pulse of a heart but something about the pattern was familiar.

Red alert. The warning siren for a dungeon raid had wailed to the same beat.

"Unmute alarm," I said, and my immediate area was filled with flashing light and a siren.

"Mute alarm," I said quickly. Though my pain didn't disappear, the sound and light show did. I'd muted it during the tutorial, and the settings didn't reset it. Panic urged me to stay coiled around my core and guard it, but I fought the urge off.

Opening my dungeon map, I was treated to an odd sight. There were two groups of symbols denoting raiders in different shades of red. Two distinct groups appeared to be fighting with each other from what I could make out.

I couldn't exactly make out what was happening, thanks to my fuzzy eyes. Even so, I could tell that health bars kept flickering above them. In the tutorial, that only happened when party members took damage.

My orbs flickered as I took in that bit of weirdness. Hopefully, they wiped each other out entirely. Either group would be enough to end me if they finished the fight and decided to go exploring.

That thought reminded me of something from the tutorial. When the core in the test was threatened, I'd felt uncomfortable because of a weakness in its defense. Hadn't Agony said I'd have a panic attack if I was linked?

What I was feeling didn't exactly fit that description, but it was close enough. I'd placed my core deep in the mine, but its only defense was distance and a few inconvenient terrain elements. It was basically unguarded. The instinctive part of me sensed that and was rightfully terrified.

Fun stuff.

The best I could do for myself under the circumstances was to put some obstacles and monsters in place. If I did that and the pain lessened or stopped, then I could let the intruders kill each other in peace. I wasn't going to look gift points in the mouth.

I zeroed in on my interface. The wobbly numbers eventually revealed that I had 100 mana to work with. Assuming that was the whole day’s worth, my core was a first-level E grade. The countdown put me at nine hours from a refresh. A tricky situation since the raid status multiplied costs.

I could remember roughly where a patch of stalagmites was in the mine. If I copied and bought those, I'd have an extra terrain impediment between the hostiles and my core. Trap and monster-wise, I decided to use what I already had in my inventory.

The tutorial had been pretty generous. I'd be fine using what it gave me until refresh rolled around. Hopefully.

"Fuuuck," I hissed. Everything in my vision squirmed and swam; it took me three tries to buy a tile. The cherry on top of that shit sundae was I accidentally bought two. The red selection outline betrayed me as my finger slid drunkenly when I went to pick the one I wanted. It was a method I'd resorted to when it kept jittering wildly all over the map as I tried to do it mentally.

A prompt appeared, but I couldn't read it. I even tried a couple of ways to zoom in hopes it would become legible at a larger size, to no avail. I couldn't change the size, and its content remained squirmy squiggles.

"Read aloud?" I said, hoping I'd trigger some kind of text-to-speech function. Nothing happened. I wasn't sure if it was because my thoughts were a mess or if that wasn't a feature. A moment later, a prompt.

For no apparent reason, this one was legible and in an unfamiliar font. The regular one was sans-serif, and I could clearly see little feet on the bottom of this one. That was irritating on a spiritual level. UI's should only use one font for plain text.

[Would you like to upgrade your User Interface (UI)?]

[Cost: 1 point]

[You have 0 points]

[You cannot upgrade your UI at this time.]

I stared at the prompt up for a few moments, so pissed off I forgot I was in pain. Not only was the system freemium, it apparently enjoyed reminding me I was broke. Bastard.

There was only so much time I could and was willing to spend glaring at an inanimate object. I closed or at least threw the prompt and the prior one to the left. I wasn't sure if it was effective, but I didn't have to look at them.

For a moment, I recalled how I'd blocked a path in the tutorial. I had tiles that could do so in my starter set. It would be easy to make the dungeon impassable and boot these jackasses out of it.

I only considered the idea for a brief moment. Agony had warned me not to during a raid. Despite the temptation it presented, I resisted. I couldn't imagine Agony had gone against the system like that for no reason.

Back to the current matter at hand, I gave up on trying to buy existing tiles. Instead, I opened my store and looked for something convenient to obstruct the path with. After two tries resulting in irritating error tones, I gave up on that as well.

Until I could read the prompts telling me what was wrong, I was better off placing things from my inventory. I put a light repeating crossbow with a tripwire trap and immediately felt my pain lessen.

It was only a slight decrease, but enough to be noticeable. Feeling hopeful, I kept placing items and monsters. Despite that, the experience didn't repeat.

"OH COME ON!" I shouted to no one in particular. I checked up on the groups still fighting near the entrance of the dungeon. Half an hour had passed as I muddled through placing things despite being half-blind.

The closer group had moved deeper into the tunnel while the other was still at the entrance. Seeing the new arrangement gave me pause. One of the closer group's members had broken off from the rest and was exploring the entrance tunnel.

That in and of itself wasn't a huge issue. My main concern was he'd thwarted one of the traps I'd placed to get as far as he had. It was a weak pitfall, little more than a hole with a spike in the bottom and a rotted board over it camouflaged with dirt. Even so, he'd gotten past it without injury.

Why I was still in pain finally clicked in my head. I hadn't been able to use monsters and traps with complex placement requirements. The ones I'd been able to use weren't enough to stand up to the potential threat. My core was better protected but still vulnerable. Fuck.

Looking through my inventory, I spotted something I'd missed before. My prize for getting a good score in the tutorial, Elemental Fire Hounds. Lava Dogs, as I called them. I needed to stop renaming things. I wasn't good at it.

They were mid-tier monsters with few restrictions, so I took them out immediately. They appeared at my side, stepping out of a slight red shimmer in the air. Like Agony, they shared a similar dog-like form, but that was all.

Their bodies were composed of black stone with veins of lava revealing a molten core beneath. I hadn't thought about it during the tutorial, but the heat coming from them was intense. They threw off enough to leave scorch marks on stone and make the air shimmer around them.

It was a comforting sight under the circumstances, and my pain lessened considerably this time. I'd almost call it tolerable, which was a good sign.

"Follow me. We have some uninvited guests to deal with," I said flatly, heading for the entrance. This wasn't the tutorial anymore. I could act in my own defense.