Or were those the Greeks that loved the toga?
Regardless, I now had an empty stomach, no inclination to rest, and still a lot of frustration with the interface and its hidden, mysterious ways. While I’d decided that I would pursue levels, the insight restriction chafed to a degree that made me angry.
“Eternity, how do I level up?” I asked as I walked away from the bathhouse, sword in hand, trying to affix the scabbard to my waist. Easier said than done when one doesn’t have belt loops.
“Gaining sufficient experience with your main skills should increase your level,” the dragon answered. It did a little beat of its wings, though I knew it didn’t really need to.
Well, top points for enthusiasm.
“System skills don’t have levels, from what I’m seeing.” I checked the [ADRENALINE SURGE] and [DETECT ENERGY FLOW] skills and, sure enough, they only had the toggle that showed I had gained them. “Do you mean the others?”
“Yes. Train, and you shall advance in level.”
“Train… as in swing my sword and watch my skills improve?”
“Yes. Skills can be accidentally gained by correctly, if unintentionally, performing an action. But to improve skills you must have clear intent in their use.”
Vague, of course, but this sounded logical enough. Question was, what to train on?
Eklil was probably dealing with his village responsibilities and I wasn’t about to intrude on more of his time, so I set a route towards the gate. If nothing else, I would have a look around the outskirts and maybe fight a fox or something. I had several sword skills unlocked from my fight earlier, so I was decided to go and see how they actually functioned.
Outside the village this time. Where I wasn’t likely to lop off anyone’s ears or something of the sort.
The day was a beauty. The sky was the same azure of the previous day, the sun hung high above, and there wasn’t a cloud marring the vista. In spite of the night’s events, most iepurrans were out and about, handling their chores and seeing to the needs of life. I envied their carefree attitude, though I had to admit that I could be just like that if I chose to.
I didn’t have work to go to. Didn’t have a schedule. I was free as can be, but that was too weird to dwell on.
So I pulled up the map and fiddled with it. I could stretch it, compress it, move it about, and even set it overlaying my view. Yes, I had poked all night at the interface, so commands came easier now.
What struck me as odd was how precise the topography looked on the map, almost like a satellite image off Google maps.
“Is there a satellite up there?” I asked, staring up. “Am I a cyborg?”
“Oresstria has many satellites,” Eternity answered. “And in the universe there are many planets with natural satellites attached. Care to be more specific?”
“Smart arse,” I said.
Eternity let out a puff of smoke from its tiny mouth.
The map, zoomed out as far as it could go, centred on the dungeon and showed the village’s surrounding area. It was… maybe ten kilometres? When I zoomed in, it aligned to my location.
“Neat,” I commented, spinning the thing around to see what other functionality I could squeeze out of it.
A short time later, as I walked down the road, the map populated with red dots. Several showed up in clusters in the hillsides surrounding the village, moving about.
Red meant bad, right?
Do I have a skill that does this? I wondered as I poked at the dots. Or did I just need to have it on for a while? I didn’t see any dot on the map last night.
Regardless, several hundred meters away, a solitary dot stood atop a hill. I couldn’t see the creature from where I was, but the map showed it moving about.
“Let’s go check that one out,” I said.
Another neat thing about the map was that I could set it in the corner of my sight, reduce its opacity, and just use it to navigate. It provided a nice little breadcrumb trail to follow.
The trek wasn’t long and I was impressed with myself for how easily I climbed the hill. Going down had just been a matter of not losing my footing. Going up was harder, but it took me almost the entire climb before I felt the first twinge of tiredness. And it was barely there, gone in a couple of deep breaths. My side hadn’t even started hurting.
Up there, in the shadow of a solitary tree perched atop the hill, was another bird like the one I’d fought in the night. It had its head up, turned away from me, and was surveying the far horizon as if waiting for something.
Did I try and sneak up to it?
I sure did.
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Did I step on the first fucking twig?
I sure did.
Did it snap with a sound like a gunshot?
It sure fucking did!
The bird spun around and flew at me like an arrow loosed from a bow. One moment it had been staring into the distance, the next it was leaping madly down the hill, talons splayed out, beak shouting that annoying battle squawk.
When you face a very angry ostrich-sized bird that’s armed with metal talons and a beak like a sheet metal cutter, and certain bits of yours are dangling in the wind beneath a sheet masquerading as clothes, you end up questioning a lot of your life decisions that may have led to that particular moment.
I did question my suddenly suicidal courage. Right in the short instant between seeing the chrome headed for my face, and the frantic duck I executed to not get my scalp lopped off. It passed overhead, squawking in outrage, to land heavily several paces away. Its feet crushed the random rock it had landed upon, the sound ricocheting off the surrounding hills.
I was up in a heartbeat, sword out and pointed at the creature. I knew it wasn’t hard to kill. All I needed to do was hit [ADRENALINE SURGE], but that wouldn’t really practice my other skills. I decided to save that skill for later, in case I got into trouble.
“Here, birdy, birdy, birdy,” I cooed, gently swinging my sword side to side.
The squawker imitated the motion, swinging that razor beak in the opposite direction, as it crept back up towards me. It squawked low, almost like a growl, and I could swear I heard its metal legs whining as it neared.
It leapt at me again and I brought up the sword, meeting the talon on the edge of the blade and deflecting it to the side. It somehow felt right, as if I’d accomplished something, so I baited another blow. This time the bird didn’t leap. It straight up kicked at me and I caught the blow again, sending the bird aside, but stumbling with the effort on my own.
I felt something from doing this, a shot of the feel goods that was hard to define. I had gained a parry skill and a heavy blow earlier, but I couldn’t activate them. What I could do, however, was feel how to grip and wield the weapon to achieve what I wanted. Not perfectly, as the third beak strike nearly took my fingers off, but better than I could’ve ever done before. It was knowing something without really knowing how I knew it. My head spun, but in a good way.
The squawker stopped trying to attack after I deflected its attacks two more times. It regarded me with black eyes, head cocked to one side, as if weighing me up to see if I were actually a threat. So far it had only managed to scratch me and it seemed like that was not optimal in its view.
I tried to keep a distance of a couple metres between us, just so I could see if it winded up for another attack. Surprisingly, it did not. Instead, it turned and bolted down the hill.
“Futu-?i,” I groaned.
I wanted to kill it, not let it escape. It was headed straight for the village, but I figured the guards could see to it. After all, it was only one bird. They could probably handle things on their own.
“Infection can be reestablished if a glitch artefact reaches the main influence area,” Eternity said, offhanded.
“What does that mean?” I asked, staring at the quickly diminishing figure of the silver bird. I wasn’t upset it was running. If need be, I could simply find it later on the map.
“If it gets to the village, it can reinfect the well,” Eternity said.
“How bad would that be if it happened?”
“Bad.”
The image of strewn-about gore flashed across my mind’s eye with the powerful intensity of a kick in the groin. I took off after the bird, cursing all the while.
“You couldn’t have said so earlier?” I asked as I lengthened my strides, toga flapping in the wind.
Running down the fucking hill was an exercise in keeping balance, avoiding rocks, and not cracking my head on the first spill.
“You did not ask,” Eternity said as it glided easily by my side.
“You and I are going to have some words about this did not ask, did not tell bullshit.” I leapt fully over a boulder barring my way, surprised myself by not tripping up on landing, and kept running. “The insight upgrade said you’d give information on dungeons. Assume I need to know stuff before it bites me in the ass.”
“Would you like me to give you all available information now?” the dragon asked, voice completely unperturbed.
“Not right fucking now! After I get that thing.”
The squawker was running at full tilt down the incline like a ballistic missile on a mission. It tumbled once, fell, rolled, and was back running before I could close the distance. I cursed and redoubled my effort, pushing myself harder. A few messages popped up in my vision but I blinked them away faster than I could read them.
Running with a sword is a fun exercise in not lopping off a hand by mistake. I almost did several times before reversing my grip on the thing. The bird was closing on the village. On my map, through the shakes and bumps of the run, I caught a glimpse of more red dots coming closer. Next to them were a few white dots as well, keeping a distance. Lovely, more stuff happening that I wasn’t prepared for.
The bird hit the dirt road, skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust, then made a beeline for the gates. It was maybe fifty metres away, and I was still not catching up.
I activated [ADRENALINE SURGE], already feeling my heart ready to rip out of me with the effort.
The world slowed. I could see the bird in frightening detail, sharp against the green backdrop, piston legs pumping in slow motion. The guards were statues, frozen in place at the gates, their spears frozen in the act of lowering.
My MP bar was coming down hard as I kept running. But, with the extra breathing room I bought myself, I saw clearly how to cut off the creature’s path.
I leapt at a boulder in my path, kicked off it, barely managed land without breaking my ankles, then launched myself as hard as I could down the steep incline. For a frightening moment I had my knees up to my chest, balls in the wind, and my stomach stuck to my spine as the ground raced up to meet me.
Another message popped up in my vision just before impact. Whatever it was, it could get fucked.
It wasn’t a soft landing, especially as I kneed myself in the chin. Through blooming stars, I still managed, somehow, to launch forward in a stumble, maintaining my improbable momentum. My MP was nearly gone as my feet hit the dirt road, twenty paces ahead of the squawker. I slipped on the dust, barely managed arrest my run, then turned to meet the bird.
It was already reacting, crouching to leap. At me, or over me, I had no idea but was determined not to let it do as it wanted.
I tried to stop the [ADRENALINE SURGE] to save some of my last remaining MP, confident now that I could cut the squawker down without aid if I needed to.
The skill wouldn’t turn off!
There was no command to turn it off, I realised. It would keep going until my MP depleted entirely.
What sort of stupid design—
That loss of focus almost cost me the hunt. The squawker leapt. In the strange half-speed of the prolonged moment, it took me some time to coordinate eyes and arm, to bring up the sword and meet the monster’s leap. I almost missed.
The sword clipped the squawker’s wing and sent it into a spin as my MP finally ran out. It crashed down behind me, squawking angrily, legs kicking and thrashing.
I seized the moment just as the guards came running. I hacked at the bird. My blade cut through feather, meat, bone, and chrome, hitting the rocks beneath the body. For a short time, the squawker thrashed and gurgled black, oily blood before it finally stilled.
“I got it,” I called to the guards running my way.
They didn’t stop. Instead, they ran right past me, eyes focused on the distance.
I turned just in time to take in the view, a fraction of a moment before my map filled with a dozen red dots, all converging on us.
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