Without any guarantee of getting enough power to fight back against the rat horde’s new technique, Tormacc turned to mobility for his escape. After his experiences before he realized he needed to be able to spend the Essence in his Fate Wheel at any moment. Essence was a resource, and while it hurt to have to spend it on emergency abilities, perhaps it was a way for fate to tell him those were the abilities that he should unlock.

After a short moment of preparation he dove into his mind space before unlocking abilities in his Fate Wheel in rapid succession. First was the tier three Dodge, followed quickly by the two abilities revealed by Power Jump, Firm Footing and Fleet Footwork, both tier four abilities costing 100 Essence each. Following that he quickly glanced over the four abilities revealed in the Power Jump tree before unlocking two of them for 200 Essence each.

Lighten was the first one he unlocked, as it allowed him to reduce his weight, something which seemed greatly beneficial for his escape plan. The other he unlocked was Speed Burst, which did was its name suggested and gave him a burst of speed. He had been banking on the abilities revealed by Firm Footing and Fleet Footwork to be useful for his current situation, and thankfully his gamble paid off. While none of the abilities individually would save him, if he combined them all together he just might escape.

It was hard to both fight off the rats and study the newly-unlocked abilities in his Fate Wheel, but he attempted to do just that for as long as possible, trying desperately to increase his odds of success by that little bit extra. But as the rats closed in he knew he had to move. Activating all his movement skills, he leaped up, kicking off the bodies of the stone rats as if he was surfing a wave, heading for the edge of the plateau and safety.

His plan wouldn’t have worked before, and it was actually thanks to the rats themselves that it worked now. Because of their ability to create a shield to share the damage they received he was able to receive a stable surface to push off of for his jumps, and that combined with his newly unlocked Firm Footing, which allowed him to find purchase easier on unstable ground, and Fleet Footwork, which allowed him to move his feet faster, gave him the needed ability to kick off the bodies of the rats and move his way over the horde toward the edge of the plateau.

He took full advantage of both Lighten and Dodge as he rode atop the rat horde. Lighten was particularly powerful, offsetting his weight and allowing him to skim the surface of the horde, each step he took barely brushing the rats. But Dodge was the real MVP, despite it being the weakest ability he had unlocked. It was easy to imagine the rats weren’t happy about his plan, doing everything in their power to claw and bite at the enemy brazen enough to walk on top of their heads. But thanks to Dodge he had an almost instinctual understanding of where to place his feet, each step carefully placed just so to avoid the most attacks possible.

Despite all that he was taking hits, his feet and lower legs starting to accumulate scratches at a frightening rate. The edge of the plateau hadn’t seemed that far away when he was able to easily bat the rats out of the way to open up a path, but now that he had to literally walk over them it felt like it was kilometers away, each step taking ages as he searched for the best way forward.

Just as he began to wonder if his legs would give out he reached some invisible line, his body instinctively knowing he was close enough to the edge. He activated Speed Burst, his legs suddenly speeding up, taking two steps in the time where before he had only taken one. Just a few more steps and he used Power Jump, pushing off the rats with all his strength, reaching for the next plateau.

He almost didn’t make it, but Dash saved him, crossing the final short gap. He came down hard, the muscles in his calves ripped to shreds, barely working enough to support his landing. Thankfully Lighten was still in effect, and it helped as he continued further, jumping to other plateaus and putting more distance between himself and the screeching horde.

After a while he stopped, judging he had created enough distance between himself and the rat’s territory. He collapsed to the ground, trying not to think about his bloody feet and legs. That last part of the trip had been hell, each new jump straining muscles already taxed beyond their limits. Laying there, he couldn’t help but think this was becoming a pattern. It felt like he kept getting in over his head before running away, only escaping by the skin of his teeth. He should really do something about that, but for the moment he was only glad the pattern was repeating fully, not ending with him becoming food for the monsters in The Tower.

It took him three days to recover, during which he finally succeeded in Meditating. The passive Essence gain was a boon to be sure, but it didn’t solve his current problem. His plan had been to farm Essence off the rats, but in light of his most recent experiences with the horde that goal seemed to be unattainable, the horde vastly more dangerous now that he wasn’t able to push them around with his superior strength and reach.

He was having trouble coming up with any new ideas so he decided to make another trip back to the rat’s area, making sure to stay far away from them should they start to swarm up the plateaus. Perhaps if he was confronting the problem head-on he could better visualize a solution.

The rats were still swarming in the crevices below, and as he looked down as them scurrying back and forth he couldn’t help anger from washing over him at the humiliation he suffered at their claws. They had made him run away not once, but twice, and he was powerless to stop them, the might of their numbers too much to fight back against. He could taste bile in the back of his throat, his stomach churning at his powerlessness.

His whole journey had been like that, each new struggle testing him and pushing him past his limits. It was gratifying when he thought about all he had accomplished, but that feeling was washed away when he compared it to where it had brought him. It didn’t matter that he survived the starting zone, that he had brought back a fortunes worth of Blood Crystal. His training outside The Tower paled before the skills offered by his Fate Wheel, the powerful abilities by far his biggest asset in fighting monsters. It made him wonder: why was he even struggling if he could never get ahead?

He knew why of course, knew that his people back home were depending on him to do well so that they could have access to better resources. But he couldn’t even remember them, couldn’t remember his parent’s faces. Did he even have parents? Did he have siblings? He didn’t know, and that void in his memory haunted him, made him question why he was struggling so hard for a people he barely knew existed.

He had pushed himself in The Tower, pushed to get ahead of the curve. He didn’t want to just be mediocre, just getting by day to day until the drain of his Essence overpowered what he could earn. He could feel that unspoken pressure. The drain of his Essence only went up, never down. What happened when he had to pay 100 Essence a day? What about 1,000? The day the drain on his Essence reached those numbers was far away, but it was coming, inevitably inching closer like the slow advance of a glacier during an ice age.

A fire continued to burn in him as he pondered questions he didn’t have answers to. The future loomed large in his sight, the weight of its presence suffocating his every action. It had seemed so simple when he first entered The Tower. Fight and get stronger. Accumulate more Essence. Simple directives, sure, but those basic goals had carried him, gave him a clear purpose. Now that purpose was waning, starting to be overshadowed by the weight of responsibility, the tendrils of doubt seeping in through the cracks.

Thoughts swirled in a chaotic whirlpool as Tormacc stood for hours, just watching the rats scurry about below him. He envied them, in a way. They knew what they were about, easily falling in line with the collective, joining forces to form a cohesive whole. They were a family, surrounded by likeminded companions, all working together towards the same goal. It was something he lacked, and after meeting other people in the First City he could feel the emptiness inside him. The loneliness stabbed him, twisting and cutting away at his resolve and eating away at him from the inside.

In the end, he came back to one thing: Tormacc, his name. He who conquers. He knew there was meaning there; his name wasn’t random, and even if he couldn’t remember why, he knew he had been bestowed his name after a great trial, his name forged into him with blood, sweat, and tears. He clung to that, using the idea as a lifeline to pull himself out of his depressive spiral. He had purpose, and that purpose was written into his soul via his name. Maybe he was alone in his struggles, but even under the weight of an entire dimension he still had his name giving him guidance, shining the way like a lighthouse in an ocean storm.

His people had given him his name, his purpose. They were always with him, always supporting him as he fought to advance and strive for more. He might be adrift now, cut off from everyone he had ever known, but they were still there; he had to remember that. And he couldn’t afford to let them, and himself, down.

Moving on, Tormacc focused on his current problem. He needed Essence, and the rats were making it very difficult to get that Essence, their new defensive ability too powerful for him to break, at least not without some new abilities from his Fate Wheel. But to unlock new abilities he needed Essence, which brought him back to his original problem. It all came back to power and Essence, and his lack of both. He was locked in a vicious cycle of powerlessness and he needed to break out.

He started from the beginning, going over everything he had seen and experienced since coming to the Shard. He only had seen a small slice of what the Shard had to offer, but there must have been something he was missing, some way to overcome his seemingly unsolvable dilemma.

The Stone Giants weren’t it. If he couldn’t even defeat some rats they were obviously out of his league. Maybe if he had Crush, but he was now farther than ever away from unlocking a tier seven ability after having spent all his Essence on emergency unlocks. He either had to figure out a way to fight the stone rats or find something else to kill.

The stone rats had to be the key. They were weak, as evidenced by him slaughtering hundreds of them. They now had more defensive power, but their offensive power was still limited. Unless they manifested other new abilities they still weren’t much of a threat, and if they ever tried to surround him he could just run away.

Tormacc’s eyes widened. That was it. It hurt his pride as a warrior, but once he set that aside the solution was obvious. It had just been sitting there waiting for him to grab it. He didn’t need to personally kill the stone rats, all he needed to do was bat them off the plateau. And once too many reached the top of the plateau he could just switch to a different one.

Looking below him at the vermin scurrying about the crevices he smiled, their small stone bodies already appearing as Essence in his Fate Wheel to his predatory gaze. Perhaps it was a bit undignified to let gravity do all the work for him, but he wasn’t in a situation to be picky. Essence was Essence, even if he had to play Whack-a-Rat to get it.