Chapter 15: Level 17 Instance

Trint entered his first i10 instance. This was the highest leveled encounter he’d seen; at 14, going into an instance a few levels above him, he was confident but cautious. The transitions into the instances now were no issue for Trint. His balance and focus were so improved that he always hit the ground ready to fight. His work with spiritual perception was already helping. He automatically scanned the surroundings and immediately picked up everything within a sphere of 10 feet around him.

There were no enemies in the sphere, so he took a moment to push the sphere out further. For the first time, he got close to 20 feet away. Nothing caught his attention, but the perception it offered was an incredible advantage. In this instance, the first thing visible was a mist that rose from the ground and thinned out about 7 feet in the air. If someone without a perception skill entered a fight here, they would be at a significant disadvantage.

Trint proceeded slowly. With sword drawn, he walked toward the pull of the boss and the exit for the instance. Perception stretched out; he could keep his footing over the uneven terrain. The ground was primarily hard rock with smaller stones and rock scattered about. He could see above the mist, and on each side to his left and right were canyon walls rising 100 to maybe some as high as 200 feet in the air. They might be scalable, but Trint felt that this instance wanted him to proceed in the cool mist toward the exit.

After an uneventful 100 yards of proceeding through the mist, Trint’s slightly downhill walk led him to some water. He wasn’t proficient enough with his spiritual perception to sense anything in the water, and the mist obscured his view.

‘Pneuma, how deep is the water, and can you tell me if anything is in there?’ Trint asked.

‘Yes, I can tell you what is in there, but I don’t think I will,’ Pneuma replied, withholding the information. ‘Just proceed. And if you could, try to go a little faster.’

‘Seriously, you are no help.’ Trint vented his frustration by imagining himself choking Pneuma.

‘Focus, don’t waste your attention imagining hurting me.’ Pneuma rebuked. ‘There is no point in fighting me. Eventually, we will spar, but you won’t be able to beat me for a long time. You are still a child in the grand scheme of things. But right now, try to act like an adult. I figure you will eventually make a fine warrior even if, for now, you are just pretending.’

‘Pneuma, good one,’ Trint began jokingly, ‘I think you are beginning to loosen up. That seemed like what I’d call a ‘burn.’ I’d rather it not be at my expense, but your humor is coming along.’

‘What do you mean?’ Pneuma questioned, ‘I am hilarious. You just aren’t intelligent enough yet to understand good humor. Maybe after another 50 points into Mind, you will understand. Now pay attention to your surroundings.’

Trint refocused his attention back to the instance and stepped into the cool water; he sunk mid-calf. The following step kept him at the same depth as he slowly waded through the water. At a dozen steps through the chilly water, Trint hit a submerged rock, smashed his shin, and fell face-first into the water. Again, he nearly dropped his sword.

‘At least he hadn’t cut himself,’ Trint and Pneuma thought.

Sputtering, Trint got back to his feet. Now wholly soaked, shin bleeding into the water, Trint readied himself again. His anticipation of an enemy grew, as did his stress for the unknown. Trint thought he hit another rock. His shin exploded in pain where his cut was. But unlike before, he didn’t fall. He reached with his left hand toward the pain and felt a squishy tube stuck to his leg. Part fear and part disgust, Trint squeezed the thing attached to his leg and gave a sharp pull. The pain ratcheted as he pulled what looked like a worm out of the water. It was about a foot long and four inches wide. The problem for Trint was what he thought was the face was a combination of sucker and teeth that had been latched onto his leg and contained chunks of his skin still in its mouth.

‘You should not have removed it like that.’ Pneuma chastised. ‘And now you should run. There are many more in the water. Cut them if they bite you. Don’t pull them out like that again. You shouldn’t need to use health potions in this instance. But here you are ripping off chunks of your body. Foolish boy.’

Taking a few quick steps, Trint began to high-step through the water. He started to feel things brushing up against his legs. He was passing more of these huge leaches. He took another bite to the open wound on his right shin. Trint was tempted to pull it off but stopped himself and hopped high on his left foot, enough to see and slice across the middle of the attached leech. With his next few high steps, the suckers and teeth of the remaining half released, and it fell to the water. Another 10 yards and the water grew shallower, and then Trint was on dry ground.

The canyon he was in had been about 50 yards wide, and the water section had narrowed to half that. Now on land, the mist was thinner, and he saw the canyon opened to a wide area. He also saw significant movement in the thinned mist. About 50 yards ahead, the fog was stirred up about 3 feet above the ground; something moved toward him. Then there were more somethings moving toward him. Coming from the middle of the canyon and then to the right and left of the first mystery creature. When they had closed the distance to 25 yards, Trint could make out that they were giant lizards on all fours, about 3 feet tall and 8 feet long, their head peeking through the thinner mist. With tongues flickering and tails swinging, they were moving quickly. Trint could make out four as they entered his sphere of perception at 15 feet. He was ready. He had just enough time to sidestep to the right of the first lizard and slice at its passing body. It had been moving quickly, and he sliced into its body behind the front leg and was able to drag his blade down its side and even hit bone on the hind leg. Its body crumpled under the blow. It wasn’t out of the fight, but it would be much slower, he hoped. He didn’t have time to follow up on the damage he had just inflicted.

The second lizard was a little to his right, and Trint sidestepped further right, barely avoiding the shoulder of the lizard. Trint had tried to repeat his first attack but was too close to get his sword up with much leverage. He hit the back leg as it passed, but as its tail passed him, it swung and caught Trint in his left side ribs like being hit with a baseball bat. The hit sent him into a fall to his right, and he reached down with his fist wrapping the handle of his sword, his knuckles pushing off the rocky ground but keeping his feet under him and turning to face the lizards. He noticed no exp had been granted, so all four he knew of were still alive. He had hoped his first strike had cut something vital in the torso of the beast.

Sword raised between himself and the closest lizard; Trint’s perception told him one lizard was facing him and coming fast. Instead of his previous unskilled sidestep attack, Trint used his [Dodge] skill and jumped over the charging lizard. At the same time, he used the sword skill [Strike] at the neck of the beast. With nearly a complete decapitation, the lizard slid to a halt, neck hanging by little meat and skin. With this kill, the first i10 exp flooded him, and it felt great. He felt, in a tangible way, like gaining back his Spirit had felt.

The last undamaged lizard had tried to stay low in the mist and nearly slid across the ground, but Trint saw it coming, moving slower. Trint tried to play along and turned his left side to the monster, anticipating it would make a lunge. His prediction proved accurate, and he timed his twist and swing well as his sword whistled from his shoulder down and across to his left hip. The swing caught the lizard across the face, severing the head above the eye and exiting the middle of the jaw. Again he was flooded with more exp. That lizard hit the ground and started to dissipate slowly.

Two damaged lizards to go. Trint decided to go for the first one with the back left leg sliced. He circled back around the way he came, and the lizard was dragging itself toward him with three good legs; the back left leg was dragging on the ground. He was surprised he had done that much damage.

Trint’s plan didn’t go as planned as he tried to circle to the left of the lizard’s head. This time, another lizard attacked him while he swung for the head of the limping one. He decided just to keep swinging and see if he could push the swing all the way through and get them both in a wide arc.

The lizard’s head lunged from the side, closing the distance just a bit more than anticipated at the same time as Trint’s blade inserted halfway up the length of the blade and struck deep into the targeted lizard’s skull. That’s when another unseen and uninjured lizard bit into Trint’s left hip. There was another flood of exp, but Trint couldn’t focus on that. He involuntarily let go of his stuck sword.

With jaws clamped on Trint’s hip, the lizard dropped to its belly, pulling Trint down and to the side, right off his feet. The beast began to begin a roll that would tear and damage Trint quickly. The beasts probably weighed 300-400 pounds of pure muscle and scales.

Trint hands were free and falling to the ground, his hip in pain with a clamped jaw around it, and his left palm landed on the top skull of the lizard. With what felt like a life or death moment, Trint pushed what he could gather from his Mana into his hand and out through the skull of the Lizard as a [Mana Bolt].

The mana, traveling from his skin to the contact of the skull, was so fast that before Trint hit the ground, the lizard had a fist-sized hole through the top of its head and what looked like a shotgun blast out the neck. An immediate rush of exp hit Trint as the final beast of this attack died. Trint didn’t even notice the exp as his hand ended up getting damaged in the discharge of Mana. Not having enough room to form and separate from Trint entirely, the beast’s thick skull caused a rebounding Mana blow-back that left him with a mangled hand.

Hitting the ground hard in the now relaxed jaw of the dissipating lizard, Trint rolled to his right hip. He barely registered the sound of his sword falling to the rocks as it slid from the head of the other dissolving lizard.

‘That went bad,’ Pneuma chastised. ‘You should have done a few things very differently. You were quick but reckless. Now grab a health potion from your ring.’

Trint obeyed the wise advice. He hadn’t thought of that yet, in his pain and shock. Summoning a vial from his ring on his good right hand, he drank it and lay there as the flood of health washed over him. Checking his pool, he now had over 80% health left, but his hip and hand would take some time to heal fully.

‘Pneuma, is there anything else nearby that will attack me soon?’ Trint hoped not.

‘No, the first lizard you sliced is a few heartbeats from expiring. In the next fight, you will have to move further to start. Another group of two lizards is sleeping on rocks about 200 yards further in the area. They are in a spot to ambush any prey that walks by. I suggest you rerun this one. But you will take a while to recover. Let me activate our Spirit form. It will heal you faster as the from envelopes your body. Plus, I was hoping you could run this from the start with a new and healthy body. I know you will get a preview of the instance, but I also want to hunt some of these beasts.’

‘First, tell me why you didn’t give me a heads up. The last one was going to bite me. I was distracted and didn’t notice it.’ Trint wondered.

‘Well, I hoped you would react better or slice through the first one. You are fine, though. Had you truly been about to die, I would have forced the transformation. That would quickly protect and heal you, protect you and quickly destroy such a weak beast.’

‘Didn’t feel so weak when it locked its jaws on me.’ Trint sent frustration along with his words across their bond. 'Yeah, please change forms and get me healed. The health potion got me partway, but the rest will take longer.’

Before Trint finished his mental sentence, Pneuma began the change. Trint had been lying on his back. His left hand, partially mangled after the health potion, started knitting flesh together. As the transformation began, he lifted two feet off the ground, encased in muscle, bone-like armor, and Pneuma’s unique sort of mist. This time the fog was white, matching the color of the steam in the canyon. Their form sat up and then stood to an 8-foot height. This form was different, just as tall, but it felt ‘more’ to Trint. More substantial, denser, and he felt more connected to it.

‘Pneuma, thank you, my hand and hip are feeling better, tingling like crazy but better,’ Trint said with appreciation, ‘Can I try to do the fighting in this form?’

‘Yes, if you need help, I will take over.’ Pneuma offered. ‘Try walking around to get used to the balance with a tail. If it is too much trouble, we will change the form. This one is bulkier than the last to help with balance and added power, but I kept the tail as it is something I can control while you fight similarly to your human form. Would you like a blade on your forearms instead of one of your hands?’

‘Um, heck yes, I do. How about a sharp edge along the top of my right forearm and a longer blade extending out of the top of my left hand.’ Trint was excited.

Pneuma initiated the changes as Trint watched and felt the difference as the top of his left hand seemed to liquefy and expand. Growing into a sharp blade. His right forearm extended into a sharp blade edge on the top of his forearm. If he held his palm towards his chest, using it as a shield, the bladed side would face outward. A forearm hit would easily slice into a lizard.

‘Can you also make the legs hard and reinforced to avoid getting those leeches on us?’ Trint was still creeped out by those things.

Trint felt his form become a little shorter as the body redistributed some of the bulk to account for the changes. Trint felt with his right arm how the mist-obscured legs had changed to a bonelike exterior.

‘Try walking around and go from there,’ Pneuma said.