Fire In The Dark

When the blinding pleasure of the change finally faded, I found myself laying on my back with a massive grin upon my muzzle. I ran my hands through my fur, marveling at the simple joy of having hands after so long without them. With an easy grace I rose to my feet, reveling in being bipedal once more as I looked myself over. I was roughly two feet tall, perhaps slightly less, and appeared very much to be a humanoid rat. My fur was still just as inky black as before and my tail still ended in a blade, but now I stood on two legs and had actual hands with fingers and phalanges and the whole lot!

Of course, my elation quickly fell through when I noted something that sent a block of ice straight into my stomach; under my fur, barely visible through the darkness and stars, there were tiny holes in my skin. The moment I saw them, I knew what they were; tunnels, for the flies that nested within me. I was still a host to those parasites, though now it didn’t feel quite so unpleasant and unnatural; it seemed that while my evolution had not actually removed the invaders, it had adapted me to them. Not exactly what I was looking for, but I suppose it was better than nothing. Well, while I was actively repressing the unrelenting horror having literal insects crawling around inside me brought, I could somewhat appreciate that it was better than nothing; if I ignored the nonstop scream of abject terror and disgust echoing in the back of my mind anyway.

With a deep sigh and a hand running through the fur atop my head, I decided to actually check my new stats.

Name: Whitetail

Race: Lesser Rattan Woebringer

Level: 1/100

Cultivation: Restless Darkness

EXP: 3/100

HP: 488/530

SP: 20/20

MP: 32/32

Strength: 100

Agility: 100

Endurance: 2401

Wisdom: 52

Intelligence: 50

Charisma: 2

Will: 31

Perception: 50

Fortune: 50

Points: 5

Perks:

Blighted: Your very essence is infused with pestilence. While this soul deep corruption influences your mind towards darker pursuits and actions, it can also be brought to the surface to add the Blight to your magical and physical attacks. It corrupts your flesh and blood, making your every cell deadly to consume. Godsblood runs through your veins, and now it has noticed you. He is watching.

Sociopathic Tendencies: You have muted emotions. Resistant to emotional attacks.

Unnatural Empath: You have been bathed in the projected feeling of others and have picked up the ability to detect the emotions of others to an extent. Increased vulnerability to emotional attacks.

Paranoid: You are suspicious of everything, even yourself. Total awareness of your own condition and access to the passive skill: Paranoia. Stealth bonus to enemies nullified; you cannot be taken by surprise.

Cast Iron Stomach: You can digest almost anything with no repercussions.

Shadowy: Fur appears as if made of shadow and even in direct light your outline appears blurred as if you were hidden in shadow. Improves darkness affinity.

Black Eyed: Your eyes are pitch black and capable of piercing even supernatural darkness as if it were bathed in the light of dawn.

Ninja: Cannot be seen when concealed in darkness. Grants the skill: NInja Vanish.

Star Lit: Bathed in the power of a star, you forever carry the essence of starlight writhing you. When gazed upon for long, the viewer will begin to see bewitching stars within your visage.

Like Sand: Your every cell acts as a grain of sand in some great desert, absorbing and redirecting blunt force trauma. You take thirty percent less damage from blunt attacks but feel the pain over more of your body.

Bones Of Mist: Your bones are like mist and you may bend as such with an effort of will.

Heavy Weight: For the purposes of melee attacks, you weigh tenfold as much as normal.

Shimmer Skin: Your skin produces a thick film of oil that deflects energy and resists blows, reducing the effectiveness of all physical or energy based attacks by fifteen percent. This oil also absorbs light, making your flesh appear to be made of thick black fluid.

Infested: Your body is host to a hive of symbiotic insects. You provide them with a home and food, and they protect you from other parasites and diseases. With some effort, you may be able to use this hive for other ends.

Woebringer: You constantly secrete pheromones that induce depression and hopelessness in those around you; the longer someone remains in your presence, the more hope and happiness will slip away from them.

Skills:

Death Roll: Lvl 1: Can shake bladed attacks to inflict wider wounds and cause bleeding. Increase wound size and damage by 5% and adds a 10% chance to inflict bleed. Blade must be embedded in target flesh for 1 second to activate. Costs 5 SP

Night Vision: Lvl 10: You can see perfectly in near no light conditions.

Dark Vision: Lvl 10: You can see perfectly in absolute darkness.

Piercing Dark Vision: Lvl 10: You can pierce even the strongest mystical darkness effortlessly.

Stealth: Lvl 5: Increases your ability to move quietly and conceal your presence. 200% damage bonus to unaware enemies.

Bend Shadow: Lvl 1: You can exert slight control over existing darkness, primarily to further hide yourself or distract others. Cost 2 MP per second of use doubled by every foot of Shadow manipulated.

Scent Scrubber: Lvl 10: You can mask your scent for one hundred minutes.

Scent Killer: Lvl 1: By scrubbing yourself down thoroughly you can remove your scent completely. Lasts ten minutes.

Observe: Lvl 6: You can see some information about a subject simply by staring at and observing it.

Throat Ripper: Lvl 1: Attacks aimed for the throat and neck deal 10% more damage and have a 25% additional flat chance to cause bleeding.

Gnaw: Lvl 1: Rapid bites that gradually tear away at just about anything. Allows you to bite twice for every actual bite at a cost of 1mp per bite.

Sprint: Lvl 1: Increases running speed by 25% at the cost of 2 SP per second.

Range Finder: Lvl 1: Allows you to get a rough estimate of distance by eyeballing it for a while.

Tunnel Sense: Lvl 2: Allows you to somewhat orient yourself whilst in tunnels and kinda remember where you've been.

Paranoia: Lvl 18: Passively gives total awareness of space eighteen feet around you.

Pain Resistance: Lvl 9: Your sense of pain is lessened noticeably and you are able to operate as normal even when under notable duress. Does not affect other physical senses such as touch.

Poison Resistance: Lvl 2: You have a two percent resistance to all poisons.

Fire Resistance: Lvl 11: You have an eleven percent resistance to burns and high temperatures in general.

Danger Sense: Lvl 3: Allows you to sense threats in the area and get some impression of how dangerous they are.

Ninja Vanish: Lvl 1: Allows you to teleport one foot in a poof of smoke. Smoke does not appear when concealed in darkness.

Hate Engine: Lvl 2: Allows you to empower your body with the flames of rage and hatred, driving you forth even through debilitating injury or exhaustion. Energy boost lasts two minute and leaves you cripplingly exhausted for nine minutes after.

Despair Aura: Lvl 1: You passively radiate pheromones that cause depression and despair. When used actively, production is ramped up and the resulting despair is inflicted slightly faster. Costs 10 Sp per second for active use.

Titles:

Cannibal: You have consumed the flesh of your own kind. Others of your race will feel uncomfortable around you but you now gain a permanent 10% bonus damage against your race.

Giant Slayer: You killed something at least thrice your size and at least two evolutions above yours. 33% damage boost against those higher level than you and those larger than you.

Self-Named: You chose your own name. 10% damage resistance from all sources and immunity to mind binding magic.

Saboteur: You killed something by strategically destroying the environment. 20% increased damage to secondary effects and shrapnel.

Deathwalker: You have died before, and came out the other side colder. Your soul is forever chilled by the void and your hold on your body is much tighter yet much more distant than ever before. You can survive being below 0 Health for some time before the void reclaims you and you actually die. Your body is forever colder than natural. Grants an affinity for the Void.

Plague Bringer: You have deliberately infected another with a disease. 20% increased potency of biological weapons and 10% increased potency of chemical weapons.

Child Killer: You have deliberately killed a sapient child. +20% damage to immature entities, massive charisma penalty to mothers, fathers, siblings, and honourable entities.

Baby Killer: You have deliberately killed a sapient's baby. +30% damage to immature entities, immense charisma penalty to mothers, fathers, siblings, and honourable entities.

Well, I can kinda see where I got that mutation from; I did spend most of my time preying on the weak and vulnerable, crushing hope and spreading misery. I don’t know that the fire was started because of me, but a massive conflagration sweeping the city minutes after I released a virulent bioweapon into it is a little too obviously linked for me to write it off as a coincidence and it certainly caused a lot of misery.

My new traits were… less than desirable; one simply telling me I’m stuck with these fucking bugs forever and another that makes any attempts to integrate a group far more difficult. Great, just great. My new titles weren’t any better either, giving me a massive Charisma debuff to almost fucking everyone and gaining almost nothing in exchange; rather like killing that damn baby, now that I think about it. None of it is completely useless, but I rather doubted I’d be fighting any “immature entities” strong enough for me to really need a fifty percent damage boost.

I sighed, running one of my hands through my fur and trying to ignore the flies buzzing around and within me. At least Plague Bringer shows some promise; if I ever get my hands on some less apocalyptic bioweapons or some chemicals, I’ll be glad for those boosts.

Of course, the majority of my mind was far too busy gibbering and screaming at the feeling of tiny legs crawling through tunnels carved into my body to truly care about my new stats. The mere idea made every single terror alarm in my body start pounding out of my fucking skull, and suppressing the desire to start tearing myself apart to dig them out took every ounce of my denial and fear suppression skills. I never liked insects, even when I was young, merely the suggestion of them crawling on top of my skin was enough to make me start scratching at myself; the reality of them crawling about inside my very body, laying eggs in my bones and sucking the blood from my veins made me want to set myself on fire and run screaming through the streets until I finally collapsed into the loving arms of a thousand demons.

But I suppressed this deep longing, pushing back my new found lust for death with the wall of icy dread the thought of actually dying brought with it. After rocking back and forth in the fetal position for a while, I took a deep breath and collected myself; I stood up, forced my eyes to stop twitching, and shelved my complete psychological breakdown and panic attack to revisit never.

Accept, ignore, move on; an anthem I’m becoming uncomfortably familiar with.

I sighed for what felt like the thousandth time since I arrived in this shithole world, killing my scent on instinct as I trudged to the small cot I had ignored in my scrabbling to survive a living nightmare, laying down on something approaching comfortable for the first time in my new life. I’m taking a damn nap, the world can finish burning when I wake up.

Scent Killer +1

Fuck off, I’m sleeping.

Zildan wished he could just take a nap as he trudged through the pitch black tunnels Kurzebald threw his monstrosities into. His nerves were constantly on edge, his muscle taut like an overstrung harp, and every damn noise made him jump; he was vulnerable, more so than he had been in a very long time, and he knew it. An echoing roar in the distance made his fingers clench, missing the comforting feeling of having his blade in hand.

He hated close quarters like this, even with the advantage they granted him; he had seen too many of his fellow acolytes lose their lives to an ambush in tight confines like this to ever feel comfortable in a place where he didn’t have a clear line of sight in every direction. He had had to take a deep breath and unclench his jaw before he could psych himself up to actually progress in this shithole at a reasonable pace.

He could sense the source of the Blight even deeper underground, though the legion of monsters he was sure where between him and there was less than ideal. He could hear his footsteps echoing, and that undoubtedly meant whatever wretched abominations lurking in this lightless nightmarescape could as well.

The first abomination he came across was one he knew well; a victim of the crawling decay, if a strangely mutated one. He would recognise one of those skinless freaks anywhere, even sprinting around a corner on six insectoid legs jutting out of its back and with a distended maw full of crooked fangs. His burnt lips curled in disdain as he sent a jet of flame to meet the charging wretch, ignoring its incoherent pleading for his skin. He didn’t let up the flames until nothing but ash remained, not wanting to risk letting such a terrible disease loose regardless of its lesser status to the Blight.

His Order sought the eradication of all disease, not just the biggest and baddest one after all.

Of course, now that he knew for sure infectious monstrosities like that were on the loose, he would have to be very thorough in purging this labyrinth of horrors. He knew Kurzebald was a mad man to be playing around with the Blight, but to be so insane as to actually produce worse versions of existing diseases… utter madness, the likes not seen since the last open Kuthurgul cult fled to their dread master's swamp to evade their righteous slaughter.

He was glad he had been the one to put that monster of a mage down; the mere thought of what he could have created with more time and better resources sent a faint shudder down his spine.

He had just turned down a long, straight corridor when a howl like a woman being flayed met his ears, and he grit his teeth as it was answered by dozens of inhuman roars echoing in the distance. Moments later, the unwelcome sound of what had to be hundreds of monstrosities of all sorts rushing at full tilt met his ears. His training kicked in before he was even consciously aware he was moving, throwing himself backwards and turning the tunnel in front of him molten until the floor sank several feet. He melted the ceiling until a thick mound of semi-melted stone formed to waist height in front of him so he could have some cover from ranged attacks. Just like his master had drilled into him for facing large numbers in confined spaces.

The surface of his barricade had barely cooled before the first creature came sprinting down the hall, its malformed paws breaking through the thin layer of stone over the pit of magma he formed and carrying it through to a fiery death with a distorted yelp of pain and rage. Even engulfed in flames and sinking into lava, the maddened creature still attempted to drag itself towards him. He barely had time to identify it as some sort of mutated therianthrope before the full horde was upon him, crushing the creature into the molten stone below without so much as a glance.

Hundreds of abominations, each more wretched and malformed than the last, came streaming forth like a living tidal wave of flesh and claws. Those that still had recognizable or human faces showed only pain and madness, the rest told the tale with their actions. They swarmed over each other, many being crushed to death beneath the weight of their unthinking brethren even as they threw themselves into the burning pit with no regard for their own lives. It wasn’t long before their sheer numbers clogged the lava pit so much that they could sprint straight over it without a care.

Not that he was about to let them close on him unmolested, magma spears and explosive balls of demonic fire lancing out from his good arm dozens at a time. His jaw clenched so hard he swore he could hear his teeth cracking over the hammering of his heart and the disturbingly human screeches of the defilements of nature before him, but he never let up. He knew if he paused for even a moment he would lose more than his life in this Lordless place.

By the time they closed to a mere ten meters he had abandoned all semblance of technique and merely filled the tunnel before him with a wave of laughing crimson flame, praying to Lord Drelkingor for the strength to out last the horde. He could feel them sprinting headlong into his flames as if they were pressing directly on his arm, the strain of keeping up the attack and not letting the inhuman wails and insane laughter creep into his thoughts like the memetic pathogen it most likely was was so great he could feel some of his stitches coming loose as sweat poured down his face.

That was when he heard the wall to his left begin to crack, dust and rubble scattering across his blood and sweat soaked uniform.