Chapter 2 – The First Trial

Name: Taen Movorio

Level 1

Class: None

Name: Chris Ederson

Level 1

Class: None

Name: Michael Noren

Level 1

Class: None

“You’re finally awake. It’s about time...” Taen mumbled at Chris with a downtrodden look.

Michael had his back against the rock wall of the enclosure they’d set up residence in while throwing pebbles across the room - trying to hit one of the beatles there out of boredom.

As Chris collected himself, Taen began to recite what had been told to them about some sort of trial they had to pass later that night - before the little girl in the white dress had vanished into thin air.

Chris took in what Taen was saying with a grimace and rose and looked about him. They were in one of the ruined stone houses that littered the city. The wall in between rooms had a gaping hole in it, which allowed him to make out what he assumed to be the remnants of a fireplace at the opposite end of the adjacent room. The window to his left held a view of the rest of the ruined city upon some sort of hill or elevated position, and it was easy to tell that they were near the center of the walled-in perimeter. Light peeked over the outer stone walls and streamed through the occasional holes or windows in the stone.

The sun was going to set soon.

“Are you listening Chris?”

“Oh… yeah, sorry.”

Taen loudly sighed and shook his head.

“Here take this. Not sure if you’ll need it or not but I found a few of these lying around along with some other crap, and if we need to ‘survive’ tonight then it’s quite possible this will come in handy.” Taen shoved a metal object over in Chris’ direction with his foot.

As the object slid over, it became apparent that this was a sword about a yard in length - though it looked very old and worn just like everything else they’d seen. Chris picked it up, and then started chuckling in disbelief.

Taen locked his vision on to his red, blue, green and white bars in the top left of his vision - not really sure what to make of them. Then he focused on the sword he’d kicked earlier - and just as what had happened previously while Chris laid unconscious, an item screen appeared.

Old Rusty Sword

Item Tier: (1) Garbage

Damage: 4

On Hit Effect: none

Bonuses: none

Requirements: none

Durability: 7/80

Special: none

“Can this situation become any stranger?” stated Chris.

Michael crossed his arms and snorted. “Check the message that pops up when you activate your ‘Status Page’ in the bottom right of your vision, it definitely gets weirder. I’m still trying to wrap my head around all of this. Do you think our families and friends know we’re gone? How long have we been gone? It seems like from what Taen has told me that we all just woke up here... things don’t fit. And another planet? A demented little girl who claims to be a goddess wannabe? What was it she called herself… a Numen? People exploding into flames and instantaneous ability to heal? The message from whatever the fuck the ‘All Spirit’ is about this all being a beta for a death game? And then what seems to be some sort of ruined city fortress with swords and no trace of whoever used to live here?”

Chris’ eyebrows furrowed. His eyes were scrolling over his own pop up from the All Spirit. He repeated the words hesitantly: “Death game?”

“Read the prompts that appear after your status page activates.” Michael loudly sighed. “Something about permanence cycles and all that bullshit. I haven’t seen any All Spirit runestones either and the message talks about that too… This is all so weird. Take a look at mine, here I’ll show you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Name: Michael Noren

HP 100/100

MP 100/100

SP 100/100

DP 1/1

Race: Human

Guild: None

Class: None

Level 1

Status Alerts:

Remaining Skill Points: 0 Remaining Stat Points: 0 Current Permanence cycle: OFF Current Bound Point: Maltetious’ Realm

Buffs:

Night Vision (Modified Vampiric Bloodlines) Improved Smell (Modified Vampiric Bloodlines) Improved Reflexes (Modified Vampiric Bloodlines) +200% modifier to original base level Strength and Speed (Supersoldier)

Debuffs:

None

Stat Amplifications:

0 Strength

0 Vitality

0 Endurance

0 Dexterity

0 Speed

0 Intelligence

0 Wisdom

0 Faith

0 Luck

0 Willpower

Magics

None

Miracles

None

Physical Combat

None

Miscellaneous

None

Traits:

Earthborn - You are earthborn and experience ‘ON’ and ‘OFF’ permanence cycles. You also gain a 20% increase to any type of XP acquired when compared to your fellow NPCs, and your mana regeneration rate is increased by 30%.

Modified Vampiric Bloodlines - Your body has been modified with key aspects of an ancient vampiric bloodline. You now have night vision, an improved sense of smell, and improved reflexes.

Supersoldier - Your DNA has been altered to express the best traits of your human heritage. You now have a +200% modifier applied to your original base level Strength and Speed. This modifier does not apply to Stat increases.

Physical Attributes:

Modified Vampiric Bloodlines: Eyes - Your eyes turn light blue and glow in the dark when using night vision.

Magical Attributes:

None

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Earthborn? Modified Vampiric Bloodlines? Supersoldier? Chris scooted over to get a better look at the information, growing more curious by the second. He checked over his own, as well as Taen’s, to see that they all had the exact same information on their own pages.

“Well this is weird.” Chris clarified with a nod and head scratch.

Taen shuddered. “You also forget the part where Michael was already dead.”

“Oh yeah. Apparently I was DEAD too. Can’t forget that, now, can we…” Michael rubbed his forehead vigorously in irritation. “None of this makes sense. It isn’t logical. But it feels incredibly real to me.”

They sat there in silence for a while not knowing what to say. As the sun began to sink further down, the glowing green beetles began to come out again. Little flashes of light could be seen across the ruins and the numbers kept on gradually growing.

Michael grunted and kicked a rock, sending it bouncing across the rest of the rubble and into the next room. “You know I was supposed to go on a date with Chelsea tonight.”

“Chelsea as in that imaginary girl you keep talking to us about?” Chris asked mockingly just as Taen tried to hide a smirk.

“She’s very real thank you very much. And smokin’.”

“Sure.”

“Bro, when have I ever lied to you?”

“Chris, has he lied to us about girls being into him before?”

“I believe it’s been somewhere around 4 or 5 times now Taen. It’s nice to have dreams though. Or in this case: dream girls. I used to have an imaginary friend once, too. When I was about 5 years old.” Chuckling turned into laughter again at the sight of Michael’s very evident scowl. “Her name was Somona. She was a babe too.”

“Y’all are full of crap.” Brandishing his own rusted sword, Michael grinned. “Don’t make me come after you two fools.”

“Maybe if you get on… what was her name? Maltetious? Maybe if you get on her good side you can take her on a date. I hear you’re into dating the youngin’s nowadays anyways ya sick perv!” Chris exclaimed while laughing as he dodged a stone.

Michael angrily flipped him off. “That’s disgusting. On top of it being disgusting, I wouldn’t go near that vile little she-devil with a ten foot pole to even say hi if I’m having a say in anything. She blew out my kneecaps and set me on fire dude. For no good reason. And it hurt, a LOT.”

“Calm yourselves, children. We have company,” Taen noted as he pointed towards the doorway of the adjacent room where Maltetious stood, smiling innocently.

“I’m actually quite old, much older than you youngin’s. I can change my appearance as I see fit as long as I’m within this realm, you know.” Maltetious skipped into the room and sat down next to Taen smiling. “Are you ready to hear what this specific trial entails?”

Hesitantly, Taen responded. “Do we have a choice in the matter?”

“Not really.”

“Then be on with it before you start lighting us on fire again.”

“You learn fast!” The little girl smirked. “I like that. Well now, I told you earlier that you have to survive…. but I refrained from telling you what it was you were surviving - as well as a few other details.”

She pointed out the window towards the wall.

“I have prepared a number of terriths for this trial. You are to either kill all of the terriths that enter the city, or you are to reach their brood mother and kill her instead. She is located out beyond the wall near a riverbed. It is up to you as to which you choose. The instant the brood mother dies or you kill all of the ones that enter the city, you will be rewarded and will have completed the trial. But remember you can only move on to the next trial when all of you prevail. This entails that you do not die.”

Turning away from the window to look at them again, she scowled. “When I took you from Earth, I modified your bodies with simple additions to help you survive. It is up to you as to whether or not you will expand upon these gifts. It has increased your physical… capabilities. Again, do not disappoint me. I have high hopes for all three of you, and have invested much for you all to be here. Making deals with the All Spirit always comes at a high price. You have arrived years earlier than many, but not all, of your fellow Earthborn. So try to take advantage of it.”

Her deathly serious tone took the three friends by surprise, and none of them knew how to respond. In a flash she was gone, leaving them once more to themselves with even more questions than they had before.

***

It took no less than an hour before they saw their first territh, and it was a monster by all accounts.

It hurled itself through the dimly fading light towards them with a high pitched alien screech. The territh probably weighed about four or five hundred pounds, balls of muscle flexing and releasing while almost gliding towards them; kicking up dust and gravel as it came.

It looked like a cross between a horse and a wolf with no tail, but had shiny dark green and hairless skin covering most of its body. A small horn protruded from its snout, but the most noticeable feature was the two massive claws on either front foot alot like a velociraptor. Each claw was about 8 inches long and curved about in a very menacing fashion.

They don’t know how it knew they were there, but it made straight for them in a rush and roared. Large sharp teeth were bared, and saliva dripped off its maw in droves.

Looking out from the window: the three men started swearing and jumped back in terror as the territh lunged into the room; knocking over part of the wall as it came barreling through the window with incredible force. As it scrambled to get up and re-adjust itself, the party began to flee out into the ruins.

“THAT’S A TERRITH? SOME SORT OF ALIEN DEMON DOG SPAWN FROM HELL?!”

“SHUT UP AND RUN!”

They sprinted for their lives into a small crevice created from the rubble of a torn down building, and upon reaching it they sat there quietly panicking as the territh passed them by. The beast was obviously disoriented from its collision with the wall, because it staggered a couple times while walking.

Taen placed his head into shaking hands, trying to calm himself and failing miserably. “Dude, where’s my sword man?! Oh my god, I left the damn sword. Shit. That was close. We definitely aren’t in Kansas anymore.”

“I still have mine… not that it’ll do us much good.” Chris glanced sideways at Michael who was examining his legs in disbelief. “What’s wrong?”

“...I have… no. WE have definitely not ever ran that fast before. Ever.”

“Excuse me? And how would you know how fast I have ever run?”

“You were obviously so caught up in fear that you had no idea how fast it was that we just ran, man.” Michael paused, then pointed. “I’m gonna guess you didn’t know you pissed your pants while you were at it either.”

“I’m not even mad though. You pissed your pants, too, Michael.”

Taen whispered his acknowledgement. “Michael is right, Chris. We just cleared this entire area in a matter of seconds. Look where we were...”

Taen motioned towards the wreckage of the house they had been in just two minutes ago. The house was nearly 100 yards away.

“We cleared that distance in seconds…” Taen repeated. They sat there silently contemplating this for a while before Taen spoke up again. “I suppose this is what she meant when she said she had improved our physical capabilities…?”

“I guess so, yeah. That status page said we had increased strength and speed too.”

Chris couldn’t help smiling. “Badass. At least we have something going for us.”

Michael grimaced and leaned against the stone wall of their makeshift enclosure. “This is so messed up… why are we even here? This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Complaining isn’t going to help our situation, so just grow a pair and suck it up man. We can do this. I don’t know about y’all, but I don’t want to be dog food anytime soon.”

They quickly glanced outside again to see if the territh was nearby. Only broken buildings, rubble and the stone walls soaring high above them in the distance were to be seen.

Taen clenched his fists in determination, thinking it safe to make a break for it. “Alright. If we are going by what Maltetious said earlier, then we have to kill these things... right? I’m going back for the sword I left. I need to get the weapon before it goes dark.”

Michael began to protest, but Taen shut him up with a glare.

Without so much as a sound, Taen slipped slowly out from their hiding spot and quietly towards his destination - head checking the area around him every few yards. Michael and Chris watched from cover, and to their relief Taen slipped into the house without incident after only a minute or two.

Michael chuckled and nervously clenched his fists. “Like a damn ninja!”

However, unbeknownst to Michael and Chris, Taen’s attempt to retrieve his sword was going a little less smoothly than they’d have liked.

“Oh boy...” Taen muttered to himself as he came face to face with a territh walking through the door. The territh had one of its front feet planted directly on top of the rusty old sword Taen had left behind. It merely stared at Taen for a good while, with an intelligent gleam in its eyes, and it even let out a short, hacking laugh as if to mock him. But when it actually gave him a sick, twisted grin out of the lizard-like mouth with a cock of its head - THAT’s when Taen REALLY knew this Territh was being an asshole.

Taen’s jaw dropped, partially in fear but more out of bewilderment, and he pointed at the creature with raised eyebrows. “You’re a jerk!”

It then let out a screech and lunged with claws outstretched - with the balls of rippling muscle and hard scale hide barreling towards him.

Panicking, Taen managed to sidestep most of the attack with only one of the claws tearing a chunk of flesh from his left arm. He saw the red bar in his top left vision take a swift dive.

A feminine mechanical voice echoed into his head: “You are bleeding, this is a damage over time effect.”

Shit. Taen didn’t know who that was, but this certainly wasn’t good.

Scrambling, he dove for his sword and turned to meet the beast as it charged him again with another high-pitched screech. With all of his strength he swung the sword in a downward arc, wondering if it was even worth the effort for such a large animal.

“You have learned the ‘Blades’ skill. You have gained XP. You have gained 1 overall level.”

***

Chris and Michael heard the screeches of the territh and froze in panic for a moment, not sure what to do.

But after their shock disappeared, they then simultaneously bolted towards the house so that they might help their friend. Rock and ruble flew by them as their new bodies powered ahead, and within seconds they were back to where they’d started.

When they entered the house, it was as if someone had decorated the room with dark red paint.

Blood covered most of the area, and a giant mass of territh corpse lay to one side of the room. Underneath the giant corpse of the territh also lay Taen, still grasping his sword. His body’s lower half was spastic and violently flinging about as much as it could under the weight of the animal - but his upper half still seemed to be under his control. Both large sets of talons were embedded in Taen’s abdomen, and his left arm was torn to shreds from the earlier attack. A couple feet away lay the head of the territh, where it had been flung after the sword met its mark.

Chris rushed forward only to hear a grating sound of something sharp on rock, and it was coming from behind them.

Taen’s eyes went wide. “Run!”

The others turned, only to have Michael’s neck immediately meet the jaws of another screeching territh. Amid Chris’ feminine, high pitched screams, it began to ruthlessly devour Michael. Not long after that, a third territh came for Chris through a window in a swift silent descent unto death.

***

“Very disappointing.” were the words that the three of them woke up to. “I’m not just disappointed, but I am INCREDIBLY disappointed in your performances. Do you know how much time and energy it takes to completely rebuild a body? And to reattach the soul of that person to the body? It is quite a pain you know, even if this is MY own plane of existence. I’d prefer it if at least ONE of you didn’t die this next go around. You, Taen, also lost the only level you managed to acquire due to your death. It was a pathetic performance at best.”

As they began to sit up and observe their surroundings, they saw that yet again they were in one of the houses of the ruins. Looking down on them from the remnants of a roof was that little blonde girl Maltetious, with a very disapproving look on her face accompanied by a frown.

She scowled further with a loud humph and folded her arms. “You know, I thought people from Earth were supposed to be quite good at this sort of thing. Not even one of you used any magic and you all died quite fast. Very very disappointing indeed. This is not good, I invested too much for you all to die so fast.”

With that, she hopped down into the midst of the three bewildered and angry men, exclaiming: “BUT I can FIX this! Yes, I will teach you before your next go around, it is a little early to do such things but drastic measures must be taken for such… poor… performance. I don’t have all of eternity to spend on you three you know. Or maybe I do.. time does work differently here. Very well, what shall we learn first hmmm? Swordplay? Maybe an axe instead? Hmmm, or maybe a bow? WAIT. How about elemental magics instead hmmm? I have spell books, tomes, scholar’s journals, or other texts all of which you could learn from! Or I could even teach you my personal two attributes: the Celestial and Alteration magics! Those would be useful in any situation and I don’t believe any of you know what you’re doing whatsoever. So what will it be?! OH THIS WILL BE FUN TO PLAY WITH YOU AND TEACH YOU! I’ve ALWAYS wanted to be a teacher!”

Maltetious squealed with delight at the thought and repeatedly jumped up and down.

Michael furiously pointed a quivering finger at her in accusation, and his voice began to rise while he stood. “You… YOU LITTLE SHE DEVIL WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! YOU BROUGHT US BACK TO DO IT AGAIN? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE EATEN? SEND US BACK HOME IMMEDIATELY! THIS HAS GONE TOO FAR!”

“But my dear Michael, you are already home. You never EVER even left, darling!” Replied Maltetious with a big smile and a giggle.

Michael was still seething, but he managed to at least lower his voice. “Do not play games with me! Do you gain amusement from watching us suffer?!”

“Sometimes it can amuse me, yes… though that is not why you are here. You are not here to suffer, but to become what I need you all to be.” she said dismissively while brushing out her white sunday dress. “And I am not playing games with you, you truly never did leave. So watch your tone with me or I shall light you on fire again, mortal.”

Chris raised an eyebrow curiously, kicked out his feet and leaned back against the rock wall of the ruin. “How can you say we never left?”

“That is too complicated to explain at the moment. Ask me later, I might tell you then!” Giggling and running around she came to a standstill and sat down next to Chris in the dirt. “So, shall we go over what you did wrong? Do you want me to teach you now?! Here, take these!”

With a swift motion of her hands, three sets of weapons appeared: including swords, maces, bows and arrows, axes, pikes, spears, spear-swords, flails and a set of new leather clothes for each of them as their last set had been eaten. None of them had even realized they were naked until just now.

Taen folded his arms and uncomfortably scanned the area to make sure there were no further terriths coming his way. “So... Maltetious... you said you recreated our bodies?”

“Yes, and reconnected your souls to your new bodies. I think the All Spirit is going to grant your kind intermittent immortality in the next year or two, but I don’t want to wait that long to get started. The bodies you now possess should be for the most-part replicas of your old ones, though if there is anything amiss let me know and I will fix it! Within this realm, my realm, I can do many things such as this! Are you not impressed?!”

Taen shrugged. “...Well yeah it is sort of impressive I suppose. This is all kind of a mind fuck.”

This made Maltetious smile even wider, and she started giggling again. “I do believe you just complimented me! So thoughtful. So daring! But onwards now with your training. Over the centuries I have learned many things, things sometimes one would question if I truly need to know... but nevertheless I do love to learn these new things! And because of it I am now able to share my knowledge with you. Pick up your choice of weapon and let us begin, I will instruct all of you as to what you are doing wrong when needed - and what you need to fix. Instead of my pets, you will fight me this time.”

With a crack of sound and light, the little girl vanished and in her placed appeared a beautiful woman somewhere between 5 and 6 feet tall, with long blonde hair, who appeared to be in her mid twenties. She was holding a long, white claymore with glistening ebony runes and designs that she held easily with one hand. It looked very much like a two handed greatsword Taen had seen in the books on medieval knights he’d read as a kid, but was much more decorative.

“Well, what are you all waiting for?! GET UP MORTALS! I don’t have all of eternity as I said earlier! Defend yourselves!” The older version of Maltetious scattered the three of them a few yards out in various directions with a violent gust of glowing wind, which also easily knocked over the walls of the house they’d been in.

How they came out unscathed and next to all of their own individual sets of items, they could not even begin to guess. Though some of them didn’t care, and just wanted the opportunity to hurt this vile Numen.

Michael reached for the axe beside him, and as he got up he began to charge the woman. He swung it as hard as he could, but she effortlessly sidestepped him and sliced a deep gash in his cheek. He veered backwards and fell down in momentary shock, bleeding profusely. The other two charged her simultaneously with swords, eager to inflict harm on the one who’d brought them to this nightmare of an existence - though the same result occurred here as well. Immediately after the next two gashes appeared, they sealed up again.

“Get up. Let’s try again! Do not worry, if you fail here - you can still make up for it when I begin to teach you the various magics! Magic is, after all, the area where most people from Earth excel! I’m quite excited to see how you all fare.”

“Damn witch…” Muttered Chris while picking himself up. “This is quite literally torture.”

Maltetious stared in something akin to shock after Chris made the comment, apparently affronted. “I’m only doing this for your own good. You don’t want to get to where you are going and then die a violent death without being able to accomplish anything, do you?! What about when the spree come for you? What about the vetteresies? I’ll be surprised if you’re complaining then, you’ll be happy I trained you like this!”

Grinning maliciously, she then began her assault upon the three hapless men in what would become a harsh lesson in humility for Michael in particular.