New Story -- Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Waking up from a strangely dreamless sleep, Thaden stretched his arms above his head as he yawned, eventually sitting up as he opened his eyes. His back was a little sore for some reason, making him remember that he’d be turning 30 in a few months.

Back pain already? Isn’t that something for when I’m 50 or something?

It wasn’t until his eyes focused on the world around him that he realized he wasn’t in his own bed, nor was he luckily in someone else’s. Instead, the memories of the last day crashed back into him, from breaking his leg back on Earth, to being split in half and dumped into a volcano, to everything that happened inside the Vogmite Tunnels Dungeon. A pang of extreme hunger assaulted his stomach along with a parched throat, which was just barely enough of a distraction to take his attention away from the dead Vogmite Queen next to him, its brain matter spilling out the side of its head where he remembered punching it in his rage.

An inkling of the anger he had felt after experiencing all that pain made him shiver at how insanely reckless he had been, seemingly uncaring if he lived or died and only concerned on killing as many of the Vogmites as he could. Given that he was still alive, and his Weak Repulsion Field wasn’t active anymore – which he could only assume that he couldn’t maintain it while he slept – the Assistant Healer could only conclude that there were no more of the horrid monsters left alive in the dungeon, or else they probably would’ve appeared after he killed their Queen.

Getting to his feet was a chore, as the gnawing hunger in his stomach and what was likely the first stages of dehydration had set in, giving him a slight headache as well. A quick cast of his Weak Regeneration helped to alleviate the pain from his head and stomach a little, but as it was more a symptom of his natural state, it wasn’t exactly an injury that he could easily heal.

Leaving behind the corpse of the Queen, he walked up to the stone throne in which the royal Vogmite had been sitting, before sitting down on it in order to save his energy while he thought about what he was going to do now. As his memories of the day before flowed back into his mind, he remembered the robotic voice that had announced something about Contenders and something called Assimilation, but what he mainly took from that was the statement that there was no returning home. Even though he didn’t know a lot about this world he had found himself in, he was still forced to believe that the voice was telling the truth; if it had the power to rip millions (if he was accurate about the count in that massive glass-walled room) of people from Earth simultaneously, then it was likely that it could prevent anyone from finding a way home.

More than that, though, his memories of his life back home at the time stuck with him, and he realized that he wasn’t exactly missing anything if he didn’t make it back to Earth. Yes, the world he found himself in was a nightmare on a level he never expected to live through, but it was also a world that held magic and most likely feats of wonder that he couldn’t even imagine.

At least he hoped so, because from what he’d experienced so far in the world, he wasn’t that much of a fan. If the entire world of Tarth was full of pain and endless monsters, then he wasn’t sure he wanted to live much longer within it. His hope of escaping the tunnels filled with traps and Vogmites had been the only thing keeping him going, but if everything outside of the dungeon was the same, he might just go and find another volcano to jump into.

Thankfully, based on what little he saw when he was outside of the dungeon, the world appeared to be a lot larger and wide open compared to the stone tunnels where the Vogmites lived, and while he hadn’t been able to see any, he could only imagine that there were people of some sort out there. If there weren’t people native to this world present someplace, then perhaps some people from Earth? He could only guess that the Training he had missed out on would end eventually, and they would soon join him in the world of Tarth.

Of course, that was assuming he was in the same world mentioned by the voice, and that the Training didn’t take years or decades to complete.

Nevertheless, it didn’t really matter what was going on outside the dungeon and the world right now, because all that concerned him was finding a way out. Now that the threat of being attacked by Vogmites had dissipated, he could take more time to look around instead of fleeing for his life, and he figured he would eventually find his way out. Still, considering that could take a while, he got up from the throne with a grown as his physical energy levels were so low that he didn’t want to move, and looked around the room for some sort of clue as to where to go to leave.

As he slowly walked around, he accidentally kicked the scepter that had belonged to the Queen, and it clattered along the stone floor. He bent to pick it up, but it was so heavy that he dropped it almost immediately.

Royal Vogmite Scepter of Consuming Flames (Epic) not compatible with current Class!

The message that popped up explained the reason it felt so heavy, though he was surprised to see that the item was considered “Epic” as far as quality went. Everything else he’d interacted with had been “Common”, so he could only assume from the games he’d played in the past that something that was Epic was much better. Unfortunately, he couldn’t use it, let alone pick it up, so he left it where he was. As he closed the window containing the message, he noticed that there were other messages above it that he had completely ignored and he thought he had actively shut off at some point so they wouldn’t bother him. He was tempted to look at them to see what he had missed, but he was so tired at the moment that he decided to look at them later to see what they were all about.

His priority was to get out of the dungeon before anything else.

To his good fortune, looking around after having kicked the scepter revealed that there was an opening in the stone wall of the room behind the throne, and without any better place to go, he walked as quickly as he could toward it. His speed was little more than a shuffle at times, but he quickly made steady progress toward the opening and passed through it. As soon as he stepped over the threshold, he was startled when magical torches along the wall of the spacious tunnel suddenly ignited, revealing a very short passageway that ended in what seemed to be a blank stone wall.

He was about to turn around in disappointment when he saw a small green glowing section on the stone wall ahead of him, which strangely reminded him of a handprint, though it was at least four times as large as his own hand. Cautiously approaching after casting his Weak Healing spell in case it was some sort of magical attack, but ready to deactivate the spell and cast his Field, he reached the end of the tunnel and stood in front of the glowing section, trying to make sense of it. With a shrug, he reached out and touched it with a single finger—

—and nothing happened. Confused, he touched it again, but this time he placed his whole palm against it—

—and still nothing. It wasn’t until he pushed against it that something happened, which was to move a small portion of the wall like it was some sort of hidden doorway that was essentially imperceptible to the human eye, and it rotated on hinges that were apparently well-oiled, because it moved silently and smoothly, with a minimum of effort on his part.

When he pushed it open fully, he found himself looking at a very familiar cave, filled with a weapon rack, a chest, a pile of old clothing, and a stack of rotting heads right in the middle.

What the—? This really was the treasure room?

In games he’d played in the past, either the enemies he’d killed dropped loot from their bodies, or there was a treasure room after the boss was defeated; he could only assume that the latter was what occurred here.

Shaking his head at the strangeness of it all, he walked through the stone doorway, and as soon as he was a few feet into the treasure room, he saw the door pivot closed behind him.  He supposed that he probably could’ve prevented it from closing, but he had no reason to return to the room with the Vogmite Queen or anything before that; he’d rather not remember what happened when he was attacked by hundreds of Vogmites or the traps that had hurt or tried to hurt him before that.

Looking around at where his body had been resurrected after his head was thrown on top of the pile, he again despaired that he couldn’t take anything. At least, he couldn’t take any weapons or other equipment; a glimpse at the chest showed the pouch of coins that he had abandoned when he was attacked by the Vogmites that entered through the wooden doorway, which he just now realized was wide open and looking out toward the tunnel he had walked down before in his effort to escape.

Coins should mean there are places in which to spend it, right? That means there are likely people out there… somewhere.

Grabbing the pouch as he walked by, he left everything else behind since he couldn’t carry it, before heading down the tunnel once again. Making sure his Weak Repulsion Field was active again, he traveled down the passageway, unworried that there were any other Vogmites that would attack him – which was a huge difference from his previous experience. When he came to the fork in the tunnel, he debated where to go for only a few seconds before he took the opposite direction of where he’d gone before.

This choice proved to be the correct one, as he soon felt and smelled fresh air streaming past him, and he immediately knew that the way out was somewhere in this direction. In what felt like hours, but was more like 10 minutes, his measured pace – designed to carry him forth without exhausting what little energy he possessed – finally had him arriving around a turning that was much more brightly lit. With a burst of energy that came from being near his goal, he pushed himself a little and even jogged the rest of the way, and he finally emerged from the dreary stone tunnels into a brightly lit world that temporarily blinded him until he accustomed himself to the sunlight.

Taking a deep breath, he coughed almost immediately as he inhaled the scent of rotting flesh and dried blood that was still covering his clothing, but it was also mixed with the scents of the outdoors where he found himself. Taking in the scene and grinning from ear to ear at having escaped the depths of the Vogmite Tunnels Dungeon, he looked around to make sense of where he was at.

Behind him was the extremely tall, snow-capped mountain that he had crashed into the day before, and he was surprised to see that from the base to the top it was almost vertical, with a slope that only extended perhaps 1,000 feet. He could only assume that it was this fact that allowed him to fall for so long as his body cartwheeled lifelessly through an avalanche of snow, the pinballed down the tree line he saw above, and finally landing with bone-pulverizing force a short distance away from his current position.

The cave opening leading to the dungeon he had just escaped from was located at the base of the enormous mountain, and a range of smaller mountain peaks extended to the left and right. Looking up at the sun, which was directly overhead, he couldn’t tell if the range was from east to west, north to south, or some other direction – or if the slightly orange-colored sun even acted the same as the one back on Earth. Regardless, that didn’t really matter at the moment, because his attention was on the rest of the environment.

To his left, away from the base of the mountains, was a thick forest of tall trees that were impossible to see through for more than a hundred feet, so he was unsure how far the forest extended. In front of him and to his right was a rocky set of foothills that eventually leveled out in a yellow-and-green, short-grassed plain that extended as far as his eyes could see, with another few stands of trees dotted sporadically around, and a set of rolling hills that dotted the far expanse to his right.

What made him most excited was the fact that he could see a cluster of buildings and orderly looking farms a few miles in the distance from his vantage point, and a barely perceptible track led out from the rocky foothills and directly toward this fortunate sign of civilization. Without any hesitation, Thaden gripped the pouch of coins tighter in his fist as he took the dirt road toward that wound its way down the foothills.

Walking downhill in the fresh air was invigorating, especially compared to trekking through stone-lined tunnels, and the sun on his body helped to warm him from the chill with which he had grown accustomed. Unfortunately, the heat also made his clothes stink even worse than they did before.

He actually stopped about a third of the way down the foothills and took off his extra shirt and one pair of his pants, throwing them to the side of the path, leaving him wearing only one set of clothes – though they were torn or cut in multiple places, leaving him even more exposed than before. The stench was better, though.

When he reached a switchback about halfway down the pathway to the plains below, a brief growl was all he heard before a shape suddenly jumped at him from his left-hand side. He instinctively brought his hands up to protect his face, but he needn’t have bothered since he hadn’t deactivated his Weak Repulsion Field. The shape revealed itself to be some sort of large grey cat that blended in with the rocky environment of the foothills, its deadly claws extended to rip him apart and jaws open wide enough to bite his head off; unfortunately for the cat, it hit his Field which such force from its ambush that he heard something in one of its extended arms crack as it hit him first, before its entire form was flung back toward where it had been hiding. The repulsion effect didn’t do much actual damage by itself, but with the cat’s momentum being arrested and reversed all of a sudden, its body obviously couldn’t handle the result.

As it landed, he was finally able to get a good look at it.

Hill Cougar – Minimal

Level 5

The Hill Cougar was injured, but that didn’t seem to stop it as it limped back into a charge and leap that had it heading straight toward him again on a collision course. Despite knowing that he was relatively safe, he stumbled backwards at what had to be at least 400 pounds of feline fury jumping at him. He fell on his butt just as the Cougar would’ve hit him in the stomach, which caused the massive cat to impact the side of his head, where it ricocheted off from the repulsion effect and was boosted up and forward. Unfortunately for the ambushing kitty, it shot straight toward the edge of the path, where it dropped off sharply in a wall of jaggedly sharp stones.

He got to his feet as he heard the first growl in pain, and cautiously looking over the edge, he winced as he watched the beast painfully bounced off the rocks on its way down to the pathway that resumed below. When it finally landed, it didn’t get up, so he could only assume that it wasn’t going to.

Unlike the Vogmites, who were nightmarish monsters who had literally eaten his body, Thaden felt slightly bad about what happened to the Cougar. Granted, it had ambushed him and would’ve likely killed him if he hadn’t had his Weak Repulsion Field spell active constantly, but it was also a wild animal and he had likely invaded its territory. He didn’t feel badly enough about it that he would’ve done anything differently, as he didn’t really want to die after somehow surviving the Vogmite Tunnels Dungeon, but he could still wish that it didn’t happen.

When he was attacked six more times on his journey down the foothills, he began to rethink his stance on not harming the wildlife.

Two more of them managed to follow the same unfortunate path down the rocky slopes as the first, while the others injured themselves with their ambushing pounces. Three of them left him alone after he kept walking and with at least one of their front legs broken from the impact with his Field, they seemed to give up on trying to kill him. The last one went jaws-first into his Field on the initial ambush and cracked its neck so badly that it collapsed to the dirt pathway, unable to move but was still alive. That was the only time he actually stopped for more than a few seconds after being attacked, because he debated on whether or not to kill it, as it was suffering and would eventually die from being obviously paralyzed.

He couldn’t do it. Sure, he could probably pick up a sharp rock and slit its throat, which he even confirmed was possible after he experimented and picked up a rock a weapon and it wasn’t made to be super heavy, but slaughtering the helpless cat was too much for him. Instead, he made sure he was relatively safe and there were no more ambushing Cougars around him, before canceling his Field and casting Weak Healing on the injured beast.

A nearly invisible yellow tether formed between his hands and the Cougar, pumping healing energy into it. Being the first time he’d used a spell to heal someone other than himself, he was fascinated at the process, which was somehow even more magical because it was so obviously visible. What was odd was that it took nearly 20 seconds before he saw its neck finally snap back into position; he could only assume that it had a much higher Health than he did, which meant that it took more healing to return it to a more “normal” condition.

Unfortunately, his kindness was repaid by it trying to jump on him again with absolutely no thought to him actually healing it, and he sighed as he snapped his fingers to bring his Weak Repulsion Field back to protect him. The moronic Cougar apparently didn’t learn from the first attack and ran head-first into him again, but since it wasn’t completely healed before it pounced at Thaden again, this time it stayed dead when it snapped its neck completely.

After that, he decided that if they attacked him and ended up dead, it was their own damn fault.

The sun was dropping lower in the sky when he finally emerged at the bottom of the foothills, his feet as tired as the rest of his body, but he pushed on knowing that his destination was only a few miles away. The dirt road widened considerably and was better maintained where it merged into the vast plains, which made the walk much smoother than the rock-filled pathway he had been navigating down. It was also mostly flat with a few undulations of gradual hills, but even so, Thaden was able to see his destination in the far distance. It was a blur from so far away, but that wasn’t important.

All he could think of by that point was finding civilization where he could get something to eat and drink – because he was slowly wasting away from his lack of both. With one foot in front of the other, he trudged toward salvation lying at the end of the road.