~~~~~~

Walter

~~~~~~

Lair Warfare has Begun!

The Leader of the Bordering Lair has Declared War to Claim your Lair and Add it to his Own. Fight or Flee! The Choice is Yours.

"The fishing Lair?" That was the only Lair he knew of that could be called 'Bordering', and now it apparently had a Leader. "Why now? Was it waiting for Stanley to go down?" At that same moment, Walter felt and saw the water in the fishing room surge upwards. Then the whole room was ripped out of his Domain. "Blast!"

Walter appeared in the stairwell doorway, at the new edge of his Domain, bricks flew from his hands like bullets from a gun and impacted against the creatures that had emerged. Creatures, unlike any that had been hunted here before, were already reaching for the young men who manned the room.

"Get out!" Walter shouted at them even as their attackers were blasted across the room, but all three of the men were in shock at the sudden assault and remained in place, frozen as more of the monsters surged from the water and towards the Humans. Walter had prepared for such eventualities, not the Lair war per say, but people or monsters being just out of his reach.

The building shook violently as Walter felt something huge crash against one side. A small, mostly gray pug stood up from the Human's legs he had been cuddling with. "We are under Attack!" Walter launched more projectiles as his voice boomed throughout the tower. The small grappling hooks flew forward, speared each of the men in the room and Walter pulled them out into his Domain. He was careful to avoid spearing them anywhere critical.

"Retreat to the Mess Hall!" His voice carried throughout the Tower again as he dropped the now wounded men in the Mess and appeared in the ground floor lobby. More of the tentacle creatures were charging in past the few ants that were farmed for Cores. Along with them came giant crabs, lobsters, shrimp, slugs and all manner of unknown monsters. Each of them carried with them a power, or Domain, one stronger than his own, and even the act of them walking inside was carving holes into his own Domain.

Walter threw more projectiles, mostly bricks and chunks of concrete, something readily available but not enough to seriously damage the monsters, only enough that he could pull everyone out. He did not want to risk touching or being touched by any of the creatures. He had a worry that it would end badly for him. The fact that they were tearing holes in his Domain was a big part of that feeling. If he lost his Domain on himself, even a tiny bit…

The building shook again as something punched through a wall high up on the building, followed an instant later by another penetrating impact even higher. Each blow seen only by the hole it left in his vision and the rain of debris it sent cascading through the building. "It is climbing towards…" Walter had been moving the whole time, grabbing people and dropping them into the old ballroom turned mess hall. One side of the building was shadowed beneath something clinging to the outside and he realized what was happening a moment too late. "I failed…"

The gray pug ballooned up to almost fill the room he was in, standing over the bed where Stanley lay, and then half of the top floor was gone from Walter's Domain as the building shook again. A distant howl reached his ears, sounding throughout the Tower, even over the screams of the terrified and rapidly increasing number of wounded. "It was indeed waiting for him… it understood the threat and attempted to eliminate it at the best possible moment."

You have Heard the [Angry Howl of the Beast Lord](29:59)

+25% Effectiveness of All Base Attributes to Friends

-25% Effectiveness of All Base Attributes to Not Friends

The building shook even more violently and then the shadow fell away from the building as something huge crashed to the ground next to the tower. Walter took a half second to look out a window and saw what was assaulting them. The closest thing he could think of to describe it was a lobster. A two hundred foot tall lobster, its back and tail covered in thousands of octopus like tentacles that it used to flip itself smoothly back up onto its feet, right before a two hundred foot tall pug crashed down atop it. Tentacles wrapped around the dog even as he bit down on one and ripped it off.

Walter grabbed more people from their rooms as monsters ripped through windows and walls to get inside. He moved to rescue one of the weaker fighters who had tripped and was now on his back beneath a crab that was latched onto his foot with a suckered tentacle.

Kira came to his rescue, her spear blasting straight through the crab, face first. Walter diverted and deposited two more people in the room, vanishing an instant later. Kira shoved the fallen man back with a foot and then ripped her own leg free from another tentacle as she caught her bloody spear on its return flight. More people appeared in the room and a woman was torn apart screaming in another room.

Caffeine was tirelessly attempting to get at the body of the massive monster outside, but it was on the defensive and protecting its vulnerable areas. Every time the equally massive pug closed in, claws would snap out at him with lightning fast grabs that left ears ringing when they closed on empty air and sent a Shockwave through the surroundings. When he approached the sides, the tentacles would tangle him up, even as he ripped one after the other from the creature. Eventually Caffeine would get immobilized and appear to vanish as he shrank down and escaped, then the dance of death would start over.

The timing of the attack meant that most of the fighters, at least the ones serious about getting stronger, were in the mess getting ready for another day of grinding. Which meant that most of the isolated and most threatened people were the idiots who stayed in their rooms despite his call for retreat. They probably thought it didn't concern them, thought that it was a call for the others, the fighters. Walter left a man and woman to die in their room and instead knocked back two shrimp-like creatures. He pulled the still living but badly wounded woman from the floor and dropped her next to Dr Stinson as he went for more.

The Doctor Stinson, the best healer they had in the tower, was already tirelessly at work and some of the more observant folks who hadn't wanted to fight before but had picked up on just how bad this was, were dragging the wounded from the front lines and over to the doctor.

Ms Lennon was at his side, she couldn't heal, at least not bodies as far as he knew, but she was doing something. Walter couldn't tell what exactly but could detect her power radiating out to the wounded around her.

The cook had dragged the entire industrial stove top into the main room, just outside the kitchen, and blocking the only entrance into the kitchen. She stood with her back to the door and all of the children huddled inside. She was cooking something on every burner and Walter kept the flames going as he grabbed two more idiots and dropped them next to her. "You!" She pointed her cleaver at one of the idiots and thrust a plate into his hands. "Take that to the doctor!"

"I am not going out there!" The man refused to take it and tried to move past her into the kitchen.

"Do it or I'll throw you out the bloody window!" She roared and threw her cleaver past his head. It slammed deep into a crab's face and when she pulled her hand back, the cleaver dragged the still squirming monster towards her. "Now!" The man grabbed the plate and fled towards the Doctor. She shattered the crab's shell and started ripping pieces of meat out and throwing them into a pot.

Walter dropped four more people into the increasingly crowded room. It wasn't enough, people were dying as monsters swarmed in through the windows on every floor.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Sven. Don't shield me, I need blood!" Kira shouted as she touched her spear point to her leg and pulled it back. Blood flowed from the wound and coalesced into an identical red spear floating beside her. Sven sprinted past her and slapped a hand to Arnold's back. "Heal!"

"See Sven." Amanda called, her hands up as ice grew over one of the large windows. "It's when you say things like that, that we think you're a healer!"

"Why the Hell didn't you tell me that his dog could do that!" Arnold cried while pointing his crude bone sword out a window at the two titans clashing. He smashed a crab claw aside with his equally crude shield.

"Who would even believe that if you told them!" Kira killed three tentacle shrimp at the same time, throwing her spear in a curving blast of red light that went through two, while her new blood spear ripped its way through another on its own. Four more crawled through the windows.

Walter finally ran out of people to bring into the mess hall. Except one. He watched Kira and her group, even as he threw everything he could find at the monsters. Including cement chunks, rebar, fish bones that had been made into weapons, anything that could hurt or slow them down. His Domain was shrinking steadily, all the floors below him now were gone and he could feel the new holes appearing around and above as the monsters scaled the outside of the tower.

They were a promising group that Kira had gathered and they had been scheduled for a Lair run soon with Adrian or Daryl. They were unfortunately the best ones here. "Miss Kira!" Walter appeared near her. "I need you and your team to retrieve Stanley and bring him down here!"

"Why isn't he helping!" Kira stabbed deep into a slug-like creature and then stepped forward with a two-handed grip. Heaving upwards and lifting the monster still impaled on her spear, she threw it back out a window.

"He was Ranking Up and unconscious last I saw." Walter blinked away in between words, moving one of the freshly healed to the front lines and replacing a wounded man to the doctor, who was eating small balls of rice and shrimp in a hurry.

"He chose to Rank up now!" Sven slid to a seated stop next to Walter. "I am resting, I am resting." He chanted and tried his best to look relaxed. He smiled. "Hah! I told you it would work! Oh damn, I lost it."

"I believe that monster out there waited for him to begin before launching the attack." Walter threw his weapons at any creature that climbed through the windows with less than a perfect grip, knocking them loose and sending them plummeting. "Even now they hunt for him, to kill him while they have a chance." Walter could feel them crawling higher and higher.

"And you want us to bring him down here!" Arnold yelled, his sword glowed for a moment and cut a crab's claw off as his shield blocked the other.

Outside Caffeine vanished from next to the giant monster and the building shook as something boomed high above them. The now solitary titan charged immediately towards the building. It loomed impossibly fast and the light coming in the windows dimmed rapidly as its bulk blocked out the light. Multiple massive tentacles crashed through the windows and walls just as a deep rumbling vibration shivered through everyone and everything. The monstrous tentacles froze, hanging above the Humans and smaller frozen monsters alike.

A heartbeat later, the titan was yanked backwards by an equally massive pug, tugging and dragging it back with angry snarls that rattled their bones.

"We should allow the dog to fight without worrying about Stanley." Walter said into the lull, many of the smaller monsters having been crushed by their leader.

"We'll do it." Kira said at the same time as a pale and trembling Arnold yelped. "Yea… yea, let's do that!"

The others agreed and Walter took them as high as he could still go. Three stories from the top he left them in the stairwell. "You are on your own from here. I will not be able to save you."

Kira was already sprinting up the stairs. "We can do it!" The others followed after her and Walter could no longer see them. He went back down. Someone would have to fill the gap left by the strongest team and it would have to be him. Even if it killed him.

The next wave came hard and fast. The huge gaps in the walls left by the leader's attack allowed the monsters to flood into the room and even throwing everything he could find, Walter could not stop the advance. Bigger monsters were appearing now, looking similar to the titan outside but thankfully on a much smaller scale than it was.

He took a bone sword from an unconscious man and stepped in close for the first time. He lashed out and removed half the legs from a shrimp, on the back swing he cut off a claw from a crab to his left. Walter chopped his way through the monsters, relying only on his eyes as each of them left holes in his other perceptions.

As he fought Walter discovered that getting splashed by their blood did not restrict him. His sword broke and he found another, losing precious moments and ground as the monsters advanced and took his Domain with them. At one point he assisted the cook in placing her creations directly into people's mouths. He ate one himself.

[Shrimp Bite] (59:59)

+28% to All Regeneration.

Poison Chills the Body, slowly Reducing Health Regeneration to a total of -28% in One Hour.

"If we last that long." Walter could no longer see the stairwell where he had left Kira and her group, meaning monsters had gone up after them and they would have to fight through them to make it back. He kept fighting. The bigger creatures were taking a terrible toll on the defenders and Walter was the only thing keeping the lines of defense from falling apart.

Walter blinked to a fallen man and pulled him out from under a descending claw. He didn't see the monster behind him until a needle-like pincer stabbed into his back and all the way through to stick out of his stomach. Walter staggered forward, freeing himself and dragging the wounded man with him. He appeared next to Dr Stinson and fell to one knee. "I am still alive!" He hadn't lost his Domain as he had feared would happen. "We can still win this!"

The doctor touched his back and a jolt of pain shot through Walter. "I stopped the bleeding. That's all I can do for now!" Walter only nodded his thanks and stepped back into the fray with a renewed frenzy. He took more wounds but killed many more of the things. Along the way he figured out that as long as any small part of him remained within his Domain, he would not lose it. Walter used the knowledge to fight harder. Weapons broke over and over, but Walter found more and kept fighting, dual wielding whatever he could use as a weapon to kill the invading creatures.

The growls from outside grew louder and were interspersed with occasional whimpers and yelps, but the titanic monster did not reach the building again.

The smaller monsters were climbing over piles of their dead fellows but it did not slow them down enough to provide any respite.

The cook had abandoned her stove and now fought at the kitchen door, cut off from the rest of the Humans. Her cleaver split monsters bigger than her in half with each blow, but each blow was a bit weaker than the previous one and each of the monsters killed was replaced by two more.

The circle of Human defenders was shrinking little by little. The doctor lay on his back with eyes closed and hands outstretched, desperately trying to regenerate his Mana only to spend it an instant later on the most necessary and barest of treatments.

Walter almost lost an arm to a crab and switched his weapon to his off hand. Most of the Humans were fighting now, only the weakest and most useless cowered at the center of the group. Everyone else had found something, anything to use as a weapon and were trying to hold back the tide.

Then Kira entered into his Domain, a Domain that now only reached halfway across the large room. She came through in a screaming storm of bloody spears and ripped apart the wave of monsters in her way. Walter could see tears running down her deathly pale face as she soared through the air above him. She landed in the swarm of monsters and the dozens of bloody spears weaved a dance of death through the horde as she charged into them. "Did she…"

"They did it!" Walter saw Arnold leave the stairwell, a limp Stanley over one shoulder, behind him followed Sven with someone else over his shoulder. No more came through the door. "Oh no…" Arnold and Sven dropped their burdens with the doctor and Walter saw Amanda laid on the ground, pale and bloodied from a huge gash through her chest. They both ran after Kira, faces grim and tracks running down from their eyes through the blood on their faces. They had brought Stanley down but at the cost of the lives of their friends.

Walter could feel traces of energy flickering around Stanley and a moment later it stopped. "He's finished!" Stanley didn't stir. "Wake up!" Walter killed another crab and watched Kira rampage through the monsters. One of her spears was shattered by a claw and he saw blood run from her leg to form a new one as her already pale form went even whiter and she disappeared behind the neverending flood of enemies.

"I am sorry, Sir." Walter appeared at Stanley's side and stabbed his broken sword into the man's hand. "Wake up Now!"

Stanley's eyes shot open. Power rampaged away from him in a tidal wave of fear and rage, power that could completely crush Walter's Domain, but the power didn't touch it, instead overwhelming everything else. Everything stopped. The fear and anger stopped. Every human, every monster, every piece of rubble, every drop of blood. It all stopped.

Stanley was very suddenly in the air, his eyes searching as they swept across the room and down to his hand, and then to Walter. "It is over…" Walter slumped in relief, then Stanley’s head snapped towards the outside and Rage bloomed. Hot, deadly Rage. Stanley vanished and every monster in the room imploded into crushed and oozing balls of meat.

Lair Warfare has Ended. You are Victorious! As the Victor you Gain the Defeated Enemy's Lair as your Own.

Walter, very abruptly, could see everything in the tower again as his Domain was restored and then it expanded. He could also see everything in the Lair beneath the Tower, deep down reaching below the river, a massive series of tunnels and caves that stretched all the way across to the other side of the river. "Gather the wounded!" He yelled throughout the tower, mustering what little energy he had left. "Get them to the healers!" They were safe for now but the work wasn't finished yet.

~~~~~~~

Stanley

~~~~~~~

It was not peaceful in the dark. The pain had finally receded and Stanley should have felt good. But something was wrong…

Then pain shot through his hand and Stanley opened his eyes as he violently awoke.

STOP

Power blasted out, an instantaneous and invisible shockwave that left him only moderately drained as he tried to take in his surroundings.

[Still Mind of the Psionic Beast] Activated.

Stanley's mental vision expanded rapidly, following the wave of his power and 'seeing' everything around him as he Moved himself into the air. He took in his frozen surroundings calmly, the acceleration of his mind giving him plenty of time. While he did that, his gaze moved down and he saw Walter crouched down, frozen and still staring at the floor where Stanley had been lying, a bloody, jagged, broken bone in his hand. Stanley also saw the notification that his Lair was under assault. Likely because Walter had granted him residence…

"Walter attacked me.” He observed. “A non threatening attack, meant to wake me." His eyes tracked to the dying woman laying on the floor next to Walter. "She was in Kira's group."

He had already noticed Kira nearby, her spear carrying a distinctive glow of Soul Energy that was obvious to his [Soul Awareness]. It was a strange mix of her Soul and the faint sense of a Soul that he had noticed inside the spear before. The girl was frozen in mid leap, spear in hand and poised above a lobster-octopus amalgamation. She was surrounded by blood spears that were hovering around her and all carried an echo of the same Soul Energy as the spear she held. Stanley saw Arnold, frozen in a desperate sprint towards Kira. Sven was at his side, looking worn and beaten but still keeping pace in a bid to save the girl from herself.

There were monsters everywhere. Dead and living. "We were attacked." Humans surrounded him, living, wounded, and dead. "I was in my room… Did Walter bring me down?" His conscious mind was still spreading out, catching up to his pulse of power, reaching further and further. He saw the stairwell leading up, saw the dead monsters clogging it, saw the human body on the stairs. “Kira was there.” The Soul Energy of her spear as well as small traces of her blood and with it, her Soul, was scattered through the stairwell.

His mind traveled farther up along the trail of death and blood. It reached his room, saw the destruction, the dead monsters, the dead human. “Kira brought me down. She lost friends and comrades.” It explained the grief and despair in her Soul. It also explained the fact that she was killing herself. “She is distraught, burning up her Blood and Soul to kill the creatures. It is likely that she saved my life…" The number of dead monsters in his room along with the total destruction of the space gave credence to the theory. "I Will repay the favor.”

But something was missing… “Where is…”

His Still Mind trembled and Stanley forced it to hold as his mind touched the monsters all around. He reached through the entire tower, finding every last one, including the ones climbing up the outside. “You should never have started this…” He gathered them all up in his power, wrapped them all in his mind, even as he felt his previous burst of power begin to wane. Everything would start moving again soon. But as he did that, Something was still missing. Something inside him was screaming and clawing against the fortress of his Still Mind. “Where is… CAFF!”

[Still Mind of the Psionic Beast] Deactivated.

Panic rose up in a storm as he finally noticed the pain and distress coming from the Soul Bonded pug in the distance. Rage bloomed even hotter and drowned out the fear. “They Dare!”

CRUSH

Every monster in his mind’s eye was instantly smashed and crushed down into much smaller orbs of meat. Stanley paid no more attention to them, his mind reaching, racing towards the place where his Soul could feel Caffeine. “Where is he!” His head was turning slowly towards that sense, towards the pain. His body was too slow, his straining mind was far too slow.

[Still Mind of the Psionic Beast] Activated.

He found Caffeine before his next heartbeat and was at his side an instant later, he also noted the monster’s Soul that was right next to his dog. The pug was tangled up with a much larger version of the monster Kira had been attacking. Much, much larger… The dog was only a quarter of the monster’s size and had taken a beating from the towering behemoth. Stanley’s mind was already peeling tentacles away from Caffeine, shattering and breaking the flesh as he forced it to move in between seconds, even as he struggled to maintain the Still Mind. One of the pug’s big brown eyes rolled up to look at him in that frozen second, the one eye that wasn’t hidden behind the bloody wound across his face, and Stanley almost lost his Skill again when the big curly tail waved back and forth. "I... Caff..."

The destruction all around the duo told a tale of the battle that had taken place out here. Multiple buildings were nothing but flattened rubble now and shards of chiton and torn tentacles were strewn across the area. The monster itself had a large number of wounds, bloody stumps on its back where tentacles had been ripped free, more than half of its huge legs were nothing but stumps, even one of its large claws was lying in a shattered crater. Now that he was outside, Stanley could see the trail of destruction up the side of the tower. He could see where something had blasted a massive hole in the side of the building, right where his room was… “Caffeine protected me.” He looked over the dog, only mostly impassively, observing the many wounds and patches of missing fur that hadn’t regrown yet over mostly healed scars. “How long did Caff have to fight this thing?”

The screaming in the back of his mind was growing louder and more insistent. Stanley could feel his Still Mind Skill fraying and starting to fail. “Why? What is causing this strain?” He took a whole second to analyze what was happening. “I see. My partial Mind and Soul merge is allowing feedback from my Soul to get past the Skill.” Stanley couldn’t see a way to stop the problem and so focused back on freeing his dog from the monster. More shell and flesh was torn away and the pug was free. Caffeine shrank down from his enlarged size and with a small whine, jumped into the air towards Stanley. He failed to cross the distance and went limp in mid air.

Stanley's Still Mind almost broke again at the sight and he was at the pug’s side in the instant that the dog started to fall, wrapping him up in his arms and cradling him to his chest. “You are a good dog Caffeine. Rest now, I will handle it from here.” He looked at the monster that loomed over him, it wanted to run away now. “You came after me. You tried to kill me. That was a mistake.” Stanley could see the intelligence in its Soul, this thing knew what it was doing when it attacked, it knew he was out of commission and tried to end him before he woke up.

And now it knew that it had fucked up. “You should have stayed in your hole and kept quiet, I would likely have never found you or bothered to dig you out. But you came out here, you tried to kill me, you… HURT CAFFEINE!”

[Still Mind of the Psionic Beast] Deactivated.

Stanley stopped struggling to maintain the Skill, rage was an appropriate response in this situation. This thing had come to kill him, had destroyed his home, wounded his most loyal and faithful protector, Rage was the right reaction!

He didn’t do anything fancy to the creature, didn’t cut or crush, didn’t try to will it dead, there was no need for anything special. It was at D Rank for sure and he felt some resistance from the thing's body and whatever power it held around itself, but it wasn’t enough, either because Caffeine had already beaten it down, or because Stanley had grown in power.

He could feel his power digging in, passing through the monster’s defenses and tearing its flesh apart. The addition of his Soul Attribute to his Willpower was much more noticeable after the rank up, maybe because of the new Evolution, maybe just because he was stronger but regardless, now he could feel it. It was a sharp edge of rage coming in behind his attack, layering atop it, deadly claws of Soul Energy jutting from Psionic hands and adding a layer of damage that the creature could not hope to resist.

It died in that same second as Stanley simply ripped it apart with an almost but not quite, blind Rage!

He looked at the pug in his arms as the monster rained across the ground in gory chunks of meat and chiton. "Oh Caff…" He knew Caffeine had the same or better regeneration than he did but getting him to a healer couldn’t hurt. “Zeke.” He had never asked about the tower’s ‘doctor’ mentioned by Sven and expected that the man would be busy regardless. “My Still Mind self will probably want to help the people that fought and protected us.” It was a minor risk. Stanley felt that his emotionless self was growing and learning that other people could be useful beyond the Cores inside them. He needed to be fast… he wanted to be faster.

[Still Mind of the Psionic Beast] Activated.

The pain that usually accompanied the accelerated mind effect was much less overbearing now and Stanley Moved. He found Zeke’s golden Soul in the distance and flew towards him at a supersonic pace that obliterated the distance between them. He followed the glow to a cave entrance that led down into the ground.

A glance at his Psi Energy reserves showed him at over half still. “No problem.” Stanley entered the Lair at a truly dangerous speed but thanks to the acceleration of his mind, it felt like only a quick flight. His mind ran ahead, finding the path and he Moved himself through the tunnels with ease, taking corners at speeds that would have at the very least, knocked him out, if not caused damage were it not for his power.

Stanley was not overly surprised when he felt Nate lurking near the boy and his team. “He still worries about protecting him. Not an unreasonable worry given current events.” But he was still keeping some distance, likely to ensure the boy didn't notice.

Nate had somehow felt Stanley coming and he was turning to face him as he came around a corner, the glows on his hands and feet lighting up the otherwise pitch dark tunnel. Stanley blew past him and saw Nate’s eyes tracking him even as the man’s head struggled to turn fast enough. “He saw me. There will be no issue with me taking the boy away.” Eve was with Zeke and Stanley saw her small shoulder cannon spring up as he stopped behind them. It spun in slow motion to face him as Stanley killed everything nearby in the Lair. Small metal spiders clung to the walls around them and glowed with light, illuminating the tunnels and the group within.

"Zeke." Some of the people in his group screamed as Zeke staggered and turned in the sudden blast of wind. "Heal Caffeine." Stanley Stopped the swirling wind and Eve's shoulder gun glowed but didn't fire even as a few of the metal spiders fell from their perches. "Maybe she is learning."

"Stanley!" Golden light burst from the boy as Nate approached very rapidly through the tunnels behind Stanley. "What happened?" Zeke fearlessly laid his hands on the pug and Caffeine sighed in his sleep.

"There was an attack." Stanley said as the pain in his dog's Soul diminished and then went away completely. "I need you to come heal the survivors."

"Of course!"

"Don't you dare take him…" Eve started yelling.

Stanley didn't mind, the boy had agreed and Eve could come as well. He took both of them right as Nate sprinted around the corner, running on the wall to handle the turn.

"Stan… l… e… y…'' Nate's voice slowed to an almost imperceptible drawl as Stanley ramped up his mental acceleration again. Stanley mouthed one word at Nate as he Moved himself, Zeke and Eve back through the tunnels and outside towards their destination. "Tower." Nate should be able to understand.