Iaido skillcheck made! You have critically struck your Training Pel in the blink of an eye!

Eric couldn’t help smirking, deliberately allowing his interface combat notes to take up space in his peripheral awareness as a mental narrator’s voice in the back of his mind. He found a certain comfort in the snarky voice keeping him company, as the only other sound was the panting of his breath as he trained as hard and diligently as he ever had before with all his weapons, presently doing his best to unsheathe and strike with his blade in a single smooth motion.

Even when he failed miserably, his blade smacking more than cutting the rawhide-covered pel, he still absolutely reveled in the speed, grace, and exquisite coordination that was now his.

It was unlike anything he could have dreamed of, just days ago.

And when he managed to his target just as he had visualized, cutting through even toughened rawhide in the blink of an eye? It was a rush, a visceral thrill, like no other.

And this was an exercise in discipline, coordination, and lightning-fast resources he could do all day. Because his endurance was now through the roof. He felt like he could go on for hours. And he did. Doing his utmost to master the art of drawing and striking with his saber, feeling a fierce sense of satisfaction when the hilt would jerk and tug in his hand as he ripped through the rat rawhide with ever greater proficiency, and savagery, twisting his hips just so with the blow, assuring that the deadly weapon sawed as it cut, allowing it to bite far deeper and better into flesh than a novice just smacking against the pel like a bat, the blade twisting out of the beginners grip more often than not, with less than perfect edge alignment.

A humbling lesson he had had to learn for himself, yet every hour of practice made his fumbles far less frequent, and his cuts far deeper than he could have imagined, even back when he had been at the prime of his life, just a month or so ago.

But to be fair to himself, this was hardly the same pel as it had been before, now nothing but toughened resistance, Eric having placed not one but half a dozen oven-baked layers of rawhide on his pel before he even began practice that day.

He grinned over at the gas stove that was his lifeline, with plenty of fuel, fire hazards be damned, that allowed him to broil his rat casseroles while his pseudo rawhide baked, even practicing shaping them as best he could, as per the sparse notes on surviving in this brave new world that Mr. Smith had left behind that he had dug up just the other day had explained.

And how curious it was that Eric had felt his brain tingling, looking at those indecipherable notes that finally snapped into focus as he made use of his Neuro-Linguistic Implant, or NLI for the first time, that a certain pod had placed in just such a way as to cause him palsy that, combined with his horrific weakness, should have, but somehow didn't, result in his near-immediate death, upon getting shafted with the most basic of all classes, and shoved out the pod.

He shook away a lingering flash of anger, focusing on what mattered.

He was healthy and alive, the proud owner of not one but two journeyman skills that had crested level 10 and blessed him with 6 free stat points, or the equivalent of two free Conscript levels, and equally importantly, showcased his growing competence and ability to survive in a world gone mad.

And just feet above his head was a city absolutely overrun by 8 foot tall, pig-faced monstrosities he would absolutely revel in killing without end. Assuming he ever got strong enough to pull off that mad feat.

The air rang with his sudden bitter chuckle, though his tight but now partially regenerated lips did quirk with a trace of humor as he dared look in the gymnasium mirror.

The absurdly handsome young starlet was forever gone.

Yet he had come so far from the bitter hand he had been dealt. What he gazed upon was a man who stood strong and proud, sleek and muscular, if one looked past the bright red scars crisscrossing his body that were slowly starting to look more like deliberate scar tattoos of endless flame, as opposed to the results of a killing inferno no one should have been able to survive.

And his face?

He shuddered and choked back a sob, forcing himself to look objectively at his own features.

Seeing a young man who had truly been through hell, and looked it. His face was definitely ruined… But his jaw was firm, his gaze sure, and there was just a trace of the handsome youth he once had been. If nothing else, he thought, hoped, that maybe people would be moved to pity, or perhaps even respect if he proved himself to them, as opposed to absolute disgust that in this savage era might not be cloaked with the etiquette of forced politeness that had been the norm, back when life actually made sense.

He furrowed his brow, wiping away the unexpected tear in the corner of an eye showing just a tiny flicker of brilliant fiery orange in the hazel irises his mother had so adored. At least he had hair now, he thought with a smile, showing perfect ivory white teeth. Even if silky blond locks had been replaced by wild curls the color of flame.

He gazed down at the cavalry saber in his hand, almost a backsword, with a smile. The blade had served him well, or as well as his skills would allow, with his limited physique of before, and now it was time for him to be worthy of it as well.

In less than two heartbeats he had summoned his heater shield, practicing basic forms and moulinets just as his trainer had hammered into him over the past two years. For all that the three-bar hilt and balance allowed the 1821 to perform quite well as a fencing blade, sword arm leading, quick enough in the risk to both strike and parry in a single beat, it worked quite well when used more like an arming sword, shield leading as Eric directed sweeping slashes and deadly thrusts at all angles around his shield. Of course he had practiced far more with it as a classic fencer, but with his progression slowing as he grew ever closer to evolving his skill, the best way he could think of to boost it to journeyman in the very short period of time he dared take a break from rat hunting, was to practice using it in all the ways it could be used, as if mastery over as many elements of the blade as possible was key to earning that rank.

Even if, in his heart of hearts, he knew the flood of insights he’d need to advance himself would most likely come from use in live combat, and to that end… best make damn sure he could slice through rat hides, and rat throats, like no one’s business.

The real reason why he was spending so many hours struggling to master the art of the cut.

Besides, he couldn't wait to see what perk options might be available to him once he hit Rank 10 with his saber.

Nonetheless, there was a cost to his obsessive focus.

It had been three days since he had hit level 3, and the sweet joy he got of being able to squeeze three 4 hour training sessions with weights, crossbow, sword and spear every day, was starting to pale before the growing anxiety he was beginning to feel again.

But first things first. Time to quit fearing memory's twisted onslaught and dare those perks he had fought so hard to acquire. Still, it took a few days before he finally girded himself into using Piercing Strike Perk, yet there were no unwanted memories at all. Only a fierce jolt of focused power unleashed in an explosion of motion, striking with such speed and force that his bayonet had torn right up to the shaft.

At first, his heart had lurched in panic, terrified that he had done nothing more than destroy his precious spear… before chuckling with wonder when he found, after carefully prying it out, that it had taken no damage at all.

The crossbow had, if anything, been even less climactic, again no awful alien memories. And not only did he hit his target, the swaying tennis ball on a string down the bunker hallway, but he hit the very piece of fuzz he had been aiming at, time itself seeming to stretch and slow as he slowly, carefully, with exquisite precision, finally squeezed the trigger.

Countless seconds, it had felt like, compressed into the blink of an eye.

And what a rush it had been, when his bolt struck it so surely, without any lingering trace of awful memory tainting his wondrous feeling of accomplishment.

Only a very slight mental fuzziness and, now that he was paying careful attention to it, the sense that all three of his potency pools, Arcane Potential, Spiritual Energy, and even Soul Reserves, were all being tapped just the tiniest bit. Hardly anything at all.

But his sudden fuzzy-headedness made it clear that there was a cost with both, and he dare not use either too often… if he even could.

But still, even those wondrous revelations and improvements didn't completely abate his growing sense of anxiety and restlessness.

He knew he needed to get out there hunting, but he was determined not to leave until his Strength, growing at almost exactly 9% per day, finally hit 13. Just one point away from the maximum he had ever achieved in the life he had lived before. And he had a gut feeling that were he to increase that stat via leveling, and then try to round out the percentile portion, it might take weeks to finish raising up that point of Strength. But if he were patient, and focused on maximum burn and gains right now, he hoped to have complete in just a handful of days.

So he hit those weights, warming up slow and sure, then pumping out sets of 3 at the heaviest weight he could manage without jerking. Doing multiple sets of squats, deadlifts, bench press, military press, curls, and every single exercise his trainer would throw at him, all combined into one hyperintense power session that left Eric both utterly wrung out and quite pleased with himself, before taking a hot shower and devouring a heaping portion of fried, broiled, or mashed rat. A meat that would never be the equal of steak, but mixed with any of the hundreds of boxes of instant mashed potatoes, was actually starting to taste… not good, but edible.

Then he’d crash into an exhausted stupor, wake up in a cold sweat, heart pounding, terrified that the rats were already getting ready to swarm him, before doing it all over again. And again. Taking out all his fear and frustration on training pell and target range, even if the only thing increasing at a measurable rate was his saber and his Strength.

He felt a shiver through his soul, visualizing two sickly green pale eyes glaring from massive ratlike features in the distance.

He knew it was absurd, but he could feel fresh scouts sniffing the air with fanatic nostrils, chittering and snapping their teeth as they began to reclaim the tunnels Eric had so diligently cleared.

Slowly, they would close in on him.

Eventually, they would triangulate his location, and he’d wake up to the rat queen pounding against his door.

He jolted up with a hitched breath, heart pounding at a frantic rate, knowing it had all just been a terrible dream.

Yet as absurd as it sounded, he couldn’t shake it. Not even when he pulled out the dog-eared book on meditation and practiced the breathing exercises that, once upon a time, had brought him a certain measure of serenity before he was forced to face dozens of stares and glaring lights roasting him alive as he grimly endured retake after retake, just knowing the other actors were mocking with their twinkling eyes until he finally performed well enough to earn a disparaging shrug from the director, and finally he could go for the day.

And even if acting was one chore he was thankfully free of forever, the rats, unlike stage fright, were an all too real threat.

Crawling in his thoughts, even now.

And all his novice attempts at meditation did nothing to quell the desperate itch in his muscles to race free of this trap before it was too late, heading deep, deep into the tunnels, along twisting paths he just knew would lead to the massive queen eager to accept his challenge, and finally put an end to this torment, once and for all.

He whimpered allowed, trembling with a desperate need to leave that very moment, hands frantically clawing at the vault lock.

Eager to finally be free.

Then he froze stock still, struggling not to flee like a fool from his own sanctuary. But he was so utterly consumed by the pressure like a vice around his heart and mind it was like he was falling to his own foreordained doom, as inevitable as the tides, or the mad twisted impulse to leap from a great height, before shrieking with regret every moment one fell to one's death. And his desperate scrabbling fingers and inescapable need to face and be destroyed by his nemesis RIGHT NOW! near overwhelmed him as he prepared to take that awful plunge... before pouring all his focus into visualizing a perfect flickering flame.

The essence of his soul. A single candle’s worth.

A flame he fed with all his doubts and uncertainties, and most especially, the awful anxiety clawing at his mind.

Slowly, bit by bit, he felt the dreadful anxiety lifting. But he refused to let up, instead visualizing that single flickering candle brazing brightly like the sun, the true essence of flame, burning bit by bit, strand by strand, the tendrils of fear and dread filling his soul, compelling him so insistently to race for the terrible relief of oblivion.

Only then was he jerked free of his meditation, chilled to hear a frustrated far-off squeal, at least in his mind.

Willpower check successful!

Congratulations! Heat Surge is now Rank 3!

You have successfully resisted multiple compulsions.

Your soul has been strengthened in the crucible of your resolve.

Willpower is now 16

Soul Reserves is now 22!

His heart lurched in his chest.

Had he really been about to race down unknown corridors, deep into unexplored territory, to ‘confront’ the thing that was haunting his mind?

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

He shook his head, trembling with fear far beyond the compulsion that had almost gripped his mind.

"There really is a rat queen. It knows I'm hunting its brood. And it was… fuck, was it getting inside my head?"

Eric felt both dizzy and sick to his stomach, now burning with hot determination to kill as many of those damned rats as he could.

But he would do so on his terms, and his terms alone.

Which meant hunting down scouts and stragglers in terrain that suited him, not racing half-cocked and unprepared to fall before the whiskers of the bitch trying to fuck with his head, so shaken by how close he had come to walking right into his enemy’s clutches that the +1 to Soul Reserves and Willpower almost didn’t seem worth the awful vulnerability he now felt, sensing how close that vile monster had come to burrowing right into his mind.

One thing was for sure. No matter how bad the anxiety or lucid the visions, he wasn’t leaving this sanctuary until his Strength hit 13. It was a final proof of sorts, a promise he would keep to himself no matter his night terrors, assuring that he was leaving because he felt he was ready. Not because a rat bitch hoped to catch him unprepared.

When he got the message he had been looking for, after a handful of days doing nothing but weights, saber, and spear work, and of course, visualizing any dark shadows in his psyche disintegrating as he meditated on the essence of flame, he couldn’t help hooting for joy after his last workout session, now gazing at muscles that popped every bit as much as they had when he had been at his absolute peak.

“And these guns are 100% natural, baby,” he said with a smirk at the poor scarred reflection that still shared his triumphant smile, before kitting up in his version of armor, fondly patting the sheathed 1821 at his hip. His saber skill was now just a hair under Rank 9. But to ascend and hit Rank 10 Journeyman status, he somehow knew it would only happen when he was hip deep in his enemy’s blood.

Blood he was eager to spill.

Yet even now, he refused to play the fool.

Making sure he was well-fed, well-rested, and fully kitted up. But only after taking care of an increasingly infrequent call of nature, because he refused to be caught vulnerable taking a shit where any twisted monstrosity could snap at his remarkably unscarred butt cheeks.

Only when he felt fresh as a spring breeze and fully hydrated to boot, packing plenty of food and water and checking all his cocked and ready crossbows and everything else in his ES Space, did he declare himself ready.

Even if his heart was racing as he swallowed, put his hand on the wheel lock, and opened the steel vault door. Yet he refused to leave his shelter until infravision made it damn clear that nothing nearby was stalking him, his boosted Perception allowing him to quickly process and discard any irregularity catching his eye, noting the cracks and details of the brick and stonework like never before, instantly catching sight of his own alarm trap, taught wire, bones and several pots just where he had put them and promptly forgotten, easily stepping over it all with what was now preternatural grace before spinning around the main corridor and immediately sighting his prey.

A trio of 4-footers making their way down the corridor.

Bigger than the 3-footers he was used to, but at least they weren’t 5-foot sentinels.

Eric flashed a predatory smile, lining up his prey for two effortless crippling wounds before going in for the kill... before a warning tingle in the back of his mind.

He stayed absolutely still,. Becoming one with the inky gloom around him, as his cool blue surroundings spike with twin flares of bright orange just around the bend.

And Eric instantly understood. His alarm transformed into a predatory smile as he carefully eased forward down the curving hall, feet now soled in muffling rat fur not making a sound as he darted past the trio of rats only now sniffing the passing air with greater urgency as Eric put crossbow to sights and released, the quarrel streaking through the air to blast behind the ear of one surprised, sentinel rat as the second squealed in alarm, racing around the corridor for a threat it could not see, the trio of squealing smaller rats still a distance from Eric as the second sentinel raced for them, before crashing to the ground as Eric shot it through the heart, the hallway ringing with the sound of a razor-headed bolt sent flying as it tore through its prey and windmilled away.

And before the three remaining four-footers could respond, Eric knowing damn well they had been the bait to a deliberately executed ambush, he had exchanged crossbow for spear and sprinted forward, his bayonet effortlessly sliding through ribs and tearing through his foe’s lungs as he leaped back from the two squealing survivors now sensing his presence close enough to attack.

Yet their teeth found no purchase on the high carbon steel-faced heater shield slammed into their snouts, just a second before his quickly drawn saber tore through first one, then the second rat’s throat, washing him and the hallway in hot arterial blood.

For long moments, a wild-eyed Eric just stood there, heart pounding from the flood of adrenaline leaving him in a state of hyper-alertness, hand tightly squeezing the pommel of his saber as a new and very welcome interface message blinked in the corner of his vision, his most recent set of kills putting him very close to level 4.

Yet all he felt was a growing sense of vulnerability.

Did these rats actually know where he lived? Was the queen aware of him geographically as well as spiritually?

He had hoped, perhaps foolishly, that the answer was no.

But the bodies spoke for themselves.

Three almost normal-sized rats, as commonly patrolled the tunnels, and two 5-foot sentinels that had been waiting just around the bend.

A fucking ambush.

There was no other explanation.

It was why he had held back on using Piercing Strike. It was a trump card he was saving for when the chips were truly down… for all that he knew it would be a good idea to practice it in live combat, regardless.

The only thing he didn’t know was if this ambush had been deliberately set up outside his own den, or if rat squads just like this one were now patrolling all over the corridors, with the weaker rats being used as bait to lure out predators?

There was no way to know. But before he did anything else, including return to his bunker for any more extensive training, he intended to find out.