Zed led them through a series of corridors. His glowing tentacles illuminated their way, but the tunnels were also dimly lit by hanging baskets overflowing with glowing mushrooms. The stone passageways were smooth and rounded and veered off at random directions. When they turned one particularly sharp corner, they got their first look at the maur. Zed pointed them out of the darkness as she almost affectionately referred to them as her ‘little workers’. They were the biggest ants Alex had ever seen; each one was only a little larger than a house cat.

Seeing his would-be opponents calmed Alex a little. They ambled along in a neat column, each one carrying a small piece of rubble. Even with them being as large as they were, the maur were just overgrown insects. Their giant mandibles were a little intimidating, but one at a time Alex was confident that he could handle them. It would be a lot easier if I could just use bug spray instead of this little dagger. Maybe I should have picked a weapon with a bit more reach. If I was any good at archery, I would have picked up the bow.

“A scout’s fighting style focuses on weakening opponents at range, only closing in for the finishing blow. The authors in my memory banks generally have a rather low opinion of scouts. Scout is widely considered the class of cowards and criminals.” Zelda helpfully added. Alex wasn’t sure if the judgement in her tone was real or imagined.

“Authors? You mean you have more than just Zed’s memories?” Alex replied, curious despite the bruising to his pride.

“Of course. Mentalists such as I have the capacity to store memories from many different people. Zed didn’t invent memory transference; it is quite common for people with high mental scores to earn a living as skill trainers. They buy memories from people who worked hard for many years to master a profession or an art, refine those memories down into just the useful parts, then they sell them to the rich and lazy at a premium.“ Zelda explained.

Alex was pulled out of this mental conversation as their group rounded another bend, and they began to hear scraping noises. It was like hundreds of little nails scratching a chalkboard. The long tunnel they had turned into was angled down and ended in a large pair of stone doors. As they walked down the tunnel the noise grew, gradually building to a crescendo as they stopped in front of the doors. The hairs all over Alex’s body stood on end when the noise abruptly came to a halt, as they stopped in front of the door. He clenched his teeth as Zed telekinetically threw the doors open.

It was a circular room much like the one they had come from, but significantly larger. It was the size of a large house, one with honeycombed walls stuffed full of white gelatinous eggs. Stepping inside Alex felt like an uninvited and unwanted guest. Climbing all over the honeycombed walls, as well as spread out on the floor, were giant maur with their powerful mandibles quivering. The maur were illuminated by a bright ball of white light floating near the ceiling. The glowing sphere seemed similar in nature to the light in the birthing room, though it was further from the ground due to the height of the room. Closer to the ground were more hanging mushroom baskets that cast an eerie blue light on the maur. These maur were three times the size of the ‘little workers’ they had passed on their way here. Zed floated into the centre of the room, and the insects cleared a large space for her in the middle.

“Welcome to the nest. This is where the maur queen used to reside. Every now and again I let a new one mature to replenish their numbers. I have rounded up as many of the level four maur as I could find for you to practice your skills on.” Zed announced.

“If they are level four, does that mean we are weaker than them?” Mel asked.

“Certainly not, they are still much weaker than you are. Levels multiply what attributes a creature naturally possesses, even with their levels they are primitive and small. Any lower level and their essence would be too feeble to combine with yours. When you hit level two, I imagine even these maur won’t provide you with essence strong enough to combine with your own.”

“Do you happen to have any higher-level ones lying around?” Ben asked hopefully.

“I do not. It is wasteful for me to produce high level maur. When a batch hatches they immediately start killing each other for essence until their queen sends a signal to stop. This way the queens can control how many workers, and how many warriors are produced.” Zed paused to pulse a sad blue. “Sometimes I am too busy with other matters to attend a hatching, and they will fight until they are too injured or exhausted to continue. Depending on how many hundred eggs were in the batch the survivors will be level three or four.”

Alex eyed the swarm of dog sized ants with even more apprehension. His raised Acuity let him notice the dented and scarred carapaces with greater ease. Their giant mandibles glistened with saliva, and their multifaceted insect eyes made it seem like each and every one of them was staring straight at him. Each of these things has killed hundreds of its own kind… I’ve never killed anything bigger than a fly in my entire life. His heart pounded in his chest as he gripped his dagger tightly. As he stared at one particularly mean looking one a new screen appeared for him.

Maur (Level 4 Beast)

?? / ?? Health

“Zelda, thanks for the effort, but I’m not sure how that is going to help at all.” He thought, trying to be polite to his parasite. If she was going to be living in his soul for a while he didn’t want to offend her; in his final year of university he had a major falling out with his roommate, and didn’t want to repeat that experience.

“I’m just getting you used to overlays. Many of the skills available from the observation skill tree increase the amount of data you receive from your senses. I have almost twice your intellect, so I’m much better at processing information than you. Overlaying my interpretation of that data into your field of vision is a relatively efficient way of communicating it to you.” She explained calmly.

“Oh, wow that sounds pretty awesome, thanks. It is a bit distracting at the moment, but I can see how that would be really helpful. Can we practise together later, somewhere less dangerous please?” Alex asked.

“As you wish. Let me know when you want to do so. Until then I will only show what you request. I wouldn’t want a maur to maul you while you were distracted” Zelda replied, before going silent. Alex had a feeling that she was quite indifferent to the possibility of him being mauled.

Alex stole a glance at his teammates. Mel and Ben stood together, side to side, hand in hand. The party had their back to the open door, and they could flee through it if things looked dicey. Mel gave Ben an almost imperceptible nod. Ben turned to face Zed, who was now pulsing a bright red colour. Then he looked sideways, first at Mike, and then his gaze came to rest on Alex.

“We are ready if you guys are.” He said.

“I was born ready.” Mike replied.

“You were born an hour ago.” Alex pointed out with a nervous laugh, having some serious second thoughts.

“Alright then let's do this!” Ben yelled, fist pumping the air.

Zed took this as a sign to begin, and the first few maur began to crawl forwards, cautiously approaching the invaders of their nest. I didn’t say that I was ready! Alex thought as he hid behind the others. Ben wasted no time, and opened up the fight with a fire spell, but it was a little different from what Alex was expecting. Rather than throwing a fireball that exploded on impact it took the form of a condensed ball of mana the size of Ben’s head, steadily burning like it was doused in gasoline. The flaming sphere flew from Ben’s outstretched hand and splashed over the maur. Rather than hit the maur directly Ben had aimed for the ground in front of them, and their momentum carried them forwards into the flames.

The mana burnt bright and fast when it made contact, igniting for only a couple of seconds. In those blazing moments, the maur fell to the ground dead, curled up into crispy balls. The smell of burning hair filled Alex’s nostrils as smoke curled off their bodies. Luckily, the insect bodies weren’t too flammable, and though their bodies smouldered they did not burn. What the hell was that? Alex was still hiding behind Mel’s giant form, and so took a moment to call up the party screen.

Saemon Silverleaf (Mage)

90 / 90

90 / 90

225 / 300

140 / 140

Whatever ability Ben had used had burnt through 75 of his mana. Alex felt a flash of jealousy at the slender mage. With Alex’s paltry mana pool such a spell would have been impossible for him to cast even if he had chosen the mage class. It seemed to be a pretty potent spell; the flames had taken out the entire wave of maur in a single attack. Unfortunately, there were a lot more maur to kill, and the smell of their kin burning seemed to incense them.

The chittering horde surged forwards as one, and Alex saw his doom approaching in the jaws of giant ants. Then, as quickly as the maur had surged forward, the swarm came to an abrupt halt. Their bodies frozen in place, straining against invisible bonds with their mandibles gnawing thin air. Alex sent a quick prayer to Zed, or whatever gods in this strange land might be listening. The bugs might be individually weak, but if they all attacked at once they would wash over the party like the rising tide.

“Interesting. I haven't seen such a reaction in them before, though it does make sense for fire to provoke a strong response. I would suggest not relying too heavily on fire magic though, we are underground with truly little in the way of ventilation.” Zed said, pulsing orange.

This time the maur didn’t approach cautiously, instead they surged forwards as soon as they unfroze. Alex wasn’t sure if Zed was letting more attack at once, or if her control over them wasn’t as absolute as it had at first seemed. Alex wasn’t sure which option was scarier as a dozen maur faced off against their group. His worries seemed misplaced when Mel entered the fray. Her giant battle-axe didn’t quite bisect the ants, but it did cut deeply into their carapace before crushing them against the ground.

Not to be outdone when more waves of maur piled in, Mike began laying into the bugs with his warhammer. He mumbled a low chant, and his warhammer took on a red glow. It wasn’t entirely obvious what had changed at first. Mike gripped the hammer in one hand, with a shield in the other as the first maur leapt at him. He swung the hammer to meet it slowly, straining with effort despite the relatively small size of the weapon. A loud crack rang out as the blow shattered the maur carapace. It flew through the air and only came to a stop when it hit the wall.

Between the two of them the front-line fighters stopped the maur advance cold, though not without taking a few hits. The bugs seemed to have decided that Mel was the greatest threat, and every time Zed released a wave most went straight for her. From the way she swung around her giant battle-axe Alex couldn’t blame them, but Mike was also making pretty short work of those who went his way. His warhammer was crushing bugs like a sledgehammer.

Ben had used his flaming mana spell a couple more times to take out big groups clumped closely together, but after that Ben had switched to a simple force-based attack. It might be less flashy, but his attacks crashed into the maur like miniature cannon balls. After a minute of fighting his teammates had found their rhythm, covering each other’s weak spots, and tearing through the swarm, whilst Alex could have been back on Earth for all the difference he was making.

Feeling like he had to at least try to contribute he had first tried to fight alongside Mel. Unfortunately, her style of fighting required plenty of space. She had almost killed him with a wild battle-axe swing, and so he had decided to give her space to do her thing. When he tried to work with Mike, he had better luck initially, darting out from behind Mike’s shield to poke the maur with his dagger.

In the end he had felt he was just getting in the way; the maur had thick chitinous armour covering their body, and Alex’s attacks just didn’t seem to do much to dent it. After one attack that glanced off his opponent, he asked Zelda if it had even done any damage.

Your dagger attack hit for 1 damage; 2 damage was deflected by the chitin armour.

Maur (Level 4 Beast)

18 / 19 Health

“Wait, how do you know its health now?” Alex asked Zelda as he hid back behind Mike’s shield. The overlay hovered over the maur’s head for a moment before Mike smashed it to the ground.

“I am communing with the other constructs. Based on our battle analysis we have compiled a relatively accurate attribute profile of the maur. This is an estimate from that profile. Their health varies from 17-21, and this one looked to have an average body.” She replied as Mike moved on to crushing a new wave of maur.

“Ok, that’s pretty badass. It does confirm how worthless I am worthless though. Everyone else is killing these things in one or two hits. I barely scratched that one.” Alex complained. That’s totally fair and balanced. Alex thought sarcastically.

“I believe even in your world it is well known that life isn’t fair. You chose a weaker race than your allies, together with a class not suited to open battle.” Zelda explained without mercy. Feeling dejected Alex called up the party screen.

Test Group 7

Party Member

Health

Energy

Mana

Will

Lex Lionheart (Level 1 Scout)

50 / 50

48 / 60

40 / 40

115 / 115

Natalya Khana (Level 1 Champion : Level up available)

154 / 200

45 / 125

10 / 10

75 / 75

Saemon Silverleaf (Level 1 Mage : Level up available)

90 / 90

90 / 90

38 / 300

140 / 140

Saint Mike (Level 1 Priest : Level up available)

82 / 100

24 / 100

24/ 100

115 / 115

Quickly skimming over the numbers Alex took stock of the situation. By this stage, their resources had started to dwindle, but the maur swarm was on its last legs. He noted with disappointment that he was the only one not to have gained a level. He had hoped that he would pick up enough essence from his proximity to the battle to level up to two. Sadly, it looked like he would need some killing blows to reach it, and he didn’t see that happening.

Then Alex noticed that not all of the bugs strewn across the floor were dead. They were clearly dying, but there were a fair few maur who were still twitching. His party clearly didn’t need him, but he needed to get some kills. Alex started forwards towards the closest carcass that was still moving, treading beyond the safety of their party formation for the first time. The poor creature’s back two legs had been sliced cleanly off, but despite a pool of sickly green blood beneath it, the maur hadn’t bled out yet.

Alex felt a moment of sympathy for the creature as it feebly tried to move its remaining legs to stand up. That sympathy was short lived when the creature tried to use its last moments to bite his hand off. Alex quickly withdrew his outstretched hand, and with the other drove his dagger into the maur’s left eye. As it slumped dead on the ground a lone notification sounded in his mind.

You Executed a Defenceless Opponent, killing the Level 4 Maur, and absorbing 43 Essence.

“Could you please tone back the judgement there a little Zelda.” Alex thought to his construct.

“I’m only using the terms the system uses Alex. An execution is a special kind of critical only possible against defenceless opponents. I was created with the compulsion to assist you. I am a creature of hard logic, any judgement you feel likely originates from yourself.” Zelda replied. Ouch. Logical or not, her words have a sting to them. She was projecting herself as her jellyfish form and was floating off his left shoulder. Though she gave no indication, Alex was sure she was mocking him. He still couldn’t quite get a feel for his construct companion. She was helping him, but He had called her a parasite when they first met, but he had thought that naming her had appeased her. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Gazing down at his murdered foe, Alex took a moment to wish the little creature peace, before looking around for more of its kin to slaughter. He sifted through the maur bodies, finding several that were still struggling despite grievous wounds. He silently dispatched them, his efforts going unnoticed as the rest of his party decimated the last few waves that Zed sent at them.

Alex executed ten more maur before he ran out of easy targets. Unfortunately, he was still under the essence threshold to reach the next level. The rest of his party had finished the last of the maur and were catching their breaths. As Alex returned to them, they were starting to recount the battle from their own perspectives; they were engrossed in explaining how their abilities had worked and considering how to improve. When Alex approached Ben pointed a long slender finger at him.

“Oi, don’t think I didn't notice you going around stealing all my kills!” Ben accused.

“Oh my god, I’m sorry, I didn’t even think about it like that, I just thought… that… you know.” Alex replied, tongue tied with guilt.

“Relax Alex, he is messing with you.” Mel rumbled with a smile. “You gotta stay safe, what with bein’ so squishy. I oughta be the sorry one. I almost splatted you with my axe. I just kinda… I forgot you was there. Thinking straight is hard, ‘specially when I’m fighting.” She said, looking sheepish.

“Don’t worry about it, I shouldn't have got in your way. Now that I think about it, it was a pretty douchey move to steal your kills; it’s just that I saw you had levelled, and I hadn’t.” Alex said.

“You can see levels?” Mel asked excitedly. Then she turned to look at her construct, nodding as it spoke telepathically to her. “Thanks, Jellyzed. The party screen is cool, distracting though. I took… fifty… minus four is… umm… six. Forty-six damage. That seems like a lot, but I don’t feel hurt.” Mel spoke slowly, struggling with the maths. “I hit level two halfway through. Don’t worry about taking my kills, I didn’t need them.” She said with a laugh. “Wait… you don’t have a level up next to your name.” She said, squinting at her party screen.

“I’m actually still about a hundred essence short of level two.” Alex admitted sourly. Maybe Zed had a few more level four maur lying around. He could hope.