Jake's story, ch 4

Jake mechanically cupped his hand under the drip of water in the cave and patiently waited for at least a small pool to form before taking a drink.  Then he repeated the process.  He’d made this place his regular lair because of the water.  Most of the other water in this world was visibly filthy or tainted.  Drinking in this cave didn’t agree with his stomach and didn’t taste good, but hadn’t killed him yet either.

His clothes were rags now, and he’d discarded his armor a while ago when it’d gotten damaged and he’d realized he was making too much noise while wearing it.  He wasn’t sure how long he’d been in hell now.  He wasn’t sure if this place was capital “h” Hell, but it was at least a hell world.

There was no day or night, only twilight, and that was above ground.  Jake had been surviving by living in the tunnels and caves that honeycombed the poison land, only moving to the surface to try getting his bearings.  At one point, he’d seen a demon plodding along that had to have been at least one hundred feet tall.

The patch of Ohio that had been transported to this world when the locations swapped was still out there somewhere, but Jake had left it behind a long time ago.  He’d taken a brief peek a while back and wished he hadn’t.  There was some sort of temple being built there now by demons, and a few humans were somehow still alive.  A couple had been nude, ravaged, nailed to crosses.  Passing demons had been biting their feet, eating their dead comrades in front of them.

Some of the other soldiers and adventurers who were still alive were being passed around as playthings.  The sight had been horrible, even for someone who’d survived the Purple Rain on earth and worked as an adventurer for years.  That had been a while back.  Jake hoped for their sakes that they were dead now.

This place was awful.  Everything was ungly, frightening, and evil--even the plants.

After taking another drink, Jake felt his stress beginning to rise again, so he sat in a lotus position and tried to meditate.  As his mind calmed, he thought back to his first day or two in this world again.  Back then, as much from habit as anything else, he’d tried to cultivate after his first day in hell and had gotten a shock.

There was no natural energy in hell.

He could feel power everywhere, in fact the place was thick with it.  What he considered “natural” energy--the essence he’d taken from nature and from the earth before that he could purify and internalize--either didn’t exist here, or he couldn’t feel it.

After many, many cultivation attempts, long meditation, and experiment, he’d learned something amazing, though.  He’d figured out how to channel and cultivate the power of this hell world.

Sometimes when he thought about how much time he’d spent meditating, he wondered how long he’d actually lived here, and whether he was even sane anymore.  All he knew was that he’d actually even somehow advanced in power.  When he’d first come to this world, he was at the Copper Four level of the Body Refinement Stage.  Now he was at the sixth level.

Cultivators had historically been called immortals, and sometimes wizards or even gods.  Refining natural energy, or other energies of nature was considered a way of defying the heavens by some.  Others felt they were honoring the heavens.  Jake knew he was doing neither now.  Instead of his skin getting clearer, but also forming red and black streaks.  Bony growths were growing on his knuckles.  As best he could tell, he was turning into something like a demonic cultivator.  He wasn’t sure, since he’d only ever heard of them, and they still were described differently than he looked now.

All he knew was now he could see in the dark a whole lot better, and move nearly soundlessly through the tunnels.  Plus, if he circulated the demonic energy he’d made part of his dantian, he could even evade mystical detection by patrolling demons.

He settled into his meditation position on the stony ground, reaching out around him, gathering the violent energy.  If he had tried to pull it directly into his meridians, he probably would have killed himself.  The power was too wild, too savage.  Instead, he began kneading it, shaping it, softening it.  This process always reminded him of videos he’d seen of people making taffy candy.

When the energy was pliable enough, he allowed it into his body--only a trickle at a time.  Even with the small amounts he let in, the process of assimilating it was painful.  All of this took many more times longer than cultivating back on earth, and it hurt so badly that after each session, he had sweat rolling down his body and every muscle hurt.  This was one reason he’d begun drinking water before cultivating as a sort of habit.

The sensation of refining the evil energy felt something like running barbed wire through his soul.  At first, it had almost torn him apart, and he’d had to grip tightly onto who he was and knew himself to be.  The process had scoured him raw, forcing him to face himself, and he had not come out of it unscathed.

Now he’d had to face all of his shotcomings, every way he’d failed his family, his team, himself, and even the world.  Every dark place in his soul had been laid bare.  It was much easier to process the energy now and it didn’t quite push him to insanity or feeling like he was going to lose his soul.

Strength was everything.  His good intentions to help the world, to go willingly and shut down a budding s-tear had been foolish.  While his heart had been in the right place, convictions with no power were useless.  Jake had been forced to face a truth he’d been tap dancing around ever since the Purple Rain event.

If he wanted to be more than a passive observer, he needed to be strong.  

There was no such thing as, “strong enough.”  He’d been proud of his advancement before, his achievements on earth, but there had still been those better than him, many in fact.  If he’d been one of the most powerful fighters on the planet, he probably could have at least saved his team, avoided being sucked into this evil place.

Jake slowly came out of his trance and as usual, he was breathing heavily, teeth clenched, sweat running down his face.  He was nearing a breakthrough into the seventh level of Copper Body Refinement.  Before he could move any further, he needed food, though.

His teacher had told him that if he ever made it to the Foundation Pillars stage of cultivation and kept cultivating, he wouldn’t need food anymore.  That would be great if it were true, but right now he was famished.

He reluctantly got up and began preparing for an outing.  His saber had seen better days, but the steel was still mostly whole and sharp, mainly because Jake had been injecting his ki into it whenever he used it.  He’d lost his pocket knife and many of his supplies during his many flights from demons tracking him through the caves.  If it wasn’t for the natural chaos of this realm, and the random bursts of gas, fire, and sulfur, he was sure he would have been captured or killed long ago.

His cooking fires, small as they were, would have given him away for sure.

Finally, when he was almost ready to go, fresh rags wrapped around his knees and elbow, his meager tools in a satchel that held the makeshift canteen he’d made from a root, Jake prayed.

He’d been an agnostic before Purple Rain, and even after the world had changed and he’d seen proof of paladins and priests doing miracles, Jake still wasn’t sure what he believed.  Part of him still didn’t really want to believe in big “G” god, and had a hard time doing so knowing that so many other gods were out there.  But what he did believe in was goodness and decency, and he believed in the power of holy scriptures from around the world.

Jake had been raised in the church, so he’d been forced to memorize Christian text as a child.  He never would have imagined he’d be grateful for it.

After kneeling on the ground, Jake put his hands on the hilt of his saber and put his forehead to the pommel.  Then out loud he said,

“You, Lord, keep my lamp burning;

   my God turns my darkness into light.

With your help I can advance against a troop;

   with my God I can scale a wall.”

As usual, pain immediately shot up his back, then down each of his limbs, making his fingers numb.  It felt like white-hot blades were cutting him from the inside, proving that whatever he was cultivating did not mix with the scripture he was quoting from Psalm 18.  Or maybe something, or somebody, did not approve of the new power in his body.

Jake grinned.  After the Purple Rain event when real life paladins had appeared, a lot of people with religious backgrounds had tried doing miracles.  Jake had too, and nothing had happened.  He knew he was not a righteous man with a pure heart, so none of this had exactly been surprising.

But in this place, living in hell, any reminder of the outside, or a different, better higher power was welcome, even if it hurt like a sonofabitch.  He also liked being contrary.  There wasn’t a better way to flip off this shithole than quoting Bible verses that seemed to make the air itself recoil.

It really did hurt, though.  Too much would probably kill him.  The only reason he could handle it was because his body and spirit had been strengthened through cultivation.  Ironically, without any of the tainted energy he’d been assimilating, he wouldn’t feel any pain, but he also wouldn’t feel any evidence that there was more to the universe beyond this hell.  The agony made him feel less alone.  If he were sane, and he wasn’t entirely sure if he was, it was because of his regular, painful prayer.

He lightly jumped down the hole in the floor of his little cave.  Navigating the labyrinthine tunnels had been a lot harder before he’d figured out how to cultivate hellish energy.  Now he could see just fine, and even circulate the dark power through his meridians to see even better and to blend in with his surroundings.

Jake moved through the complicated, contorted series of passages and cracks in the stone that made his little hideout somewhat secure before coming out into a large tunnel.  He briefly bent to grab a handful of dirt and dust, then spit on it, and used the improvised mud to cover his saber’s blade.  Light sources weren’t common in the tunnels, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

Being careful had kept him alive so far.  He didn’t have a real clear plan, just a vague, but powerful urge to get stronger.   Maybe if he grew strong enough, he could topple the temple and destroy the world! 

Jake mentally chuckled.  Other than quoting scripture or hissing when it hurt him, he hadn’t made any noise in a very long time.  He frowned at the thought, wishing he could track the time, but his watch had broken and his phone had stopped working after he’d first been transported.

He stalked forward slowly, carefully.  There were demons in these tunnels, and they never seemed to tire of searching for him.  He walked past sharp outcroppings and little holes in the wall that belched jets of flame.  Leering faces carved in the wall, or that looked like they’d been grown in the wall appeared semi-regularly.  Whenever a tentacle creature or gaping mouth darted out of cracks in the floor or walls, Jake dodged and cut.  He left nothing alive whenever he could help it, but sometimes he had to be stealthy.

It was common to come across bodies in this place.  Sometimes the demons fought each other, and some even ate each other.  If Jake came across any living demons in the tunnels, he usually tried to hide or slip by.  Killing one or two always had the attached risk of bringing a hoard down on him.  He’d been chased several times, and so far he’d gotten lucky.

Jake knew his luck would eventually run out unless he was careful, so he moved slowly, deliberately, gliding soundlessly past purple vines and vegetation that pulsed like it had its own heartbeat.

The area he was moving toward was actually relatively close to where he’d first been transported.  He planned to stay deep below the surface, though.  The tunnels were dangerous, but traveling on the surface would mean instant death.

Finally, Jake neared the area he’d been heading toward.  Some time ago, while exploring and looking for anything edible, he’d encountered rooms of disgusting creatures that looked part monkey, part iguana, and part spider, ranging in size from a guinea pig to a small dog.

Since everything else in the tunnels were demons trying to eat his face, these cat-sized critters might have been gross, but Jake had been hungry.  Ever since he’d killed his second monkey-thing, they had begun moving from hidden cave to hidden cave, migrating.  Luckily, Jake’s enhanced senses made them possible to find through smell.

As soon as he darted into the chamber, one of them saw him and started squawking.  Jake grinned and lunged forward, hitting the thing with the guard of his saber, then cracking its neck with his bare hand.  He immediately left the cave since the things made so much noise, but as soon as he moved into the larger tunnel outside, prize in one hand, he immediately froze.

Something was wrong.

He could just barely hear the surviving creatures making sounds of distress back in the cave, and tuned his senses to exclude them.  His mind was clear, almost in a meditative state as he remained absolutely motionless.

The second he heard a scuff on the stone in one direction of the tunnel, he darted the other way, using a flash step to immediately create distance.  Behind him, an explosion rang off of the stone as baleful red magic erupted.  Demons had found him.

In front of him, a group of muscular demons in spiked armor crept forward, but they hadn’t quite advanced enough to block him all the way.  Jake dropped his would-be dinner, springing sideways to dodge magical attacks, then flash stepped forward to evade claws and a snapping set of teeth.

His saber spun in his hand, delivering cuts with energy-channeled fury.  Jake leveled his other hand and pumped energy through all of his magic rings in sequence, delivering energy blasts and freezing energies into twisted bodies.

He flash stepped again, trying to escape, and heard a hiss as he felt a flower of pain in his back.  “Arghh!” he growled in agony.  Then he rounded a bend and ran for his life, gingerly reaching behind his back with his free hand, and hissed as his fingers burned.  One of the demonic fuckers had gotten him with acid or something.  This was bad.

The tunnels practically vibrated with screams and bellows as demons came out of cracks and through tunnels--horrible, nightmarish things that ran or slithered, or even flew forward, all focused on Jake.

He turned and shot fire down the tunnel behind him from a ring before turning on the speed again.  The situation was probably hopeless, but he still wasn’t ready to die yet.  His stubborn streak, present since birth, had really bloomed in this place.  A nasty grin stitched across his face and he wondered what was wrong with him. He should be scared, right?  It would be difficult to explain what he was feeling, but it wasn’t fear.

If he ever survived living in hell, he doubted he’d ever be afraid again.