Sanguine Prince | Chapter 06: To Be Human (Second Draft)

He had to be smart, and on top of that, he was losing blood, which meant that eventually the fatigue would catch up to him—slowing him down at a vital moment, and making him an easy target for the Dire Wolf.

You suffer 1 Damage from [Light Wound]!

Health at 91 / 100. You are [Bleeding]!

“Thanks for the reminder,” Arcturus muttered angrily, wracking his brain for ideas. Perhaps he could will his aether into doing something, but if words didn’t work, what would? Instinct told him he wasn’t going to be casting any major spells, not if the world worked the way he suspected it worked.

He had a feeling his particular rebirth had been very far outside the norm, which in turn meant he was most likely missing some essentials—essentials that most people would start with. In the context of a game, if that’s how he was going to perceive things, he was something of a wildcard—a glitch in the natural order.

Yeah, because that isn’t crazy at all.

A snarl from the wolf pulled his attention back to the present, and Arcturus tensed as the beast charged at him once more. Confronted by the massive spectre of death racing for him, Arcturus emptied his mind of everything but a single overwhelming desire: Stop the Dire Wolf. A sense of clarity rippled through his awareness, and he felt a tug at his consciousness that seemed almost instructive.

It was strangely familiar, like a presence he’d known all his life.

Unbidden, Arcturus’ hands extended before him in instinctive motion, palms to the creature, and he followed an unspoken guidance to use every iota of his desire against the charging Dire Wolf: willing it to freeze in place and hoping the gamble didn’t get him murdered.

[Willpower Check] successful!

[Arcana Check] successful!

Congratulations! [Psionicist] (Passive, Infinite Scaling) Unlocked!

Through a mix of your high Willpower and above-average Arcana, you have unlocked the ability to manifest your will through the strength of your mind and aether. Your Psionicist level will scale with your highest Psionicist ability!

Congratulations! [Telekinesis] (Active, Level 1) Unlocked!

Your application of Psionics has unlocked [Telekinesis], allowing you to influence the physical world through manipulated force!

[Telekinetic Push] unlocked!

[Telekinetic Pull] unlocked!

[Telekinetic Grip] unlocked!

[Telekinetic Shield] unlocked!

[Telekinetic Crush] unlocked!

You have cast [Telekinetic Grip] against the Dire Wolf!

Mana at 90 / 100! Mana regeneration disabled due to combat!

Arcturus stared at the struggling form of the Dire Wolf, its golden eyes wide with panic, as its movement was abruptly arrested and it was wrenched into the air, floating immobile, barely two feet from his body. He could see the energy entrapping it, like a faint bubble of energy, shimmering to his eyes and outlined in black-and-white intermingling veins of power—almost like flames or lightning. In tandem, he could feel something draining out of him steadily somewhere behind his navel.

[Perception Check] successful!

[Insight Gained]: [Aetheric Channelling]! Certain spells have effects that continue after they are initially cast, thereby requiring a constant stream of Mana from the caster to maintain. Be careful not to drain yourself of Aether by accidentally maintaining too many channelled spells!

At your current level, [Telekinetic Grip] drains 3 Mana per 5 seconds while it is channelled!

[Telekinetic Grip] drains 3 Mana!

Mana at 87 / 100! Mana regeneration disabled due to combat!

You suffer 1 Damage from [Light Wound]!

Health at 90 / 100. You are [Bleeding]!

Arcturus frowned at the wolf, glancing first to the water, then to the area around him, before looking back at it. A quick mental rewind, and he recalled what he had unlocked. He was at that moment sustaining Telekinetic Grip, but Telekinetic Crush would be more useful. Careful not to dispel the grip on the frozen beast, Arcturus focused his mind, narrowing his eyes and using his magic to attempt to crush the Dire Wolf.

[Telekinetic Crush] drains 15 Mana!

[Telekinetic Grip] drains 3 Mana!

Mana at 69/100! Mana regeneration is disabled due to combat!

Even though the wolf was visibly pressured by bands of force, letting out a yowl as it was, Arcturus released the spell almost immediately—huffing a ragged breath at the sudden drop in his mana levels. He mentally kicked himself as he realized his error a moment later: his enemy was level 3, and his [Telekinesis] was level 1. The gamer logic kicked in, and the deduction was self-evident. 

Any kind of ability outside of simply holding it in place was bound to drain his mana reserves rapidly. He had to think tactically, apply strategy, and avoid brute-forcing the situation like the ignorant gamers he’d once mocked. Real-life situation or not, the logic remained the same when dealing with a System that ostensibly operated on numerical imperatives. With that thought in mind, he instead focused on the creature’s throat and narrowed his eyes, focusing his Willpower and shaping his Aether against the monster’s windpipe.

[Telekinetic Crush] drains 5 Mana!

Arcturus smiled savagely, arms still raised to hold the creature in place with [Telekinetic Grip] as it began to struggle against its bindings, and he realized he’d hit the proverbial jackpot. His eyes never left the spot they were locked onto as the wolf began to spasm and yowl, thrashing in its attempt to free the throttling hold on its throat. Arcturus ignored the pang of empathetic guilt he felt at seeing the animal—somehow suddenly looking like a big fluffy dog to his mind—struggling in panic, and tamped down on his own softhearted worries.

It was kill or be killed. He didn’t have to like it, but it was life.

His intent, with that understanding, tenuously solidified despite the echoes of guilt.

[Willpower Check] successful! Dire Wolf fails to break [Telekinetic Grip]!

[Telekinetic Grip] drains 8 Mana!

[Telekinetic Crush] drains 5 Mana!

Mana at 56 / 100! Mana regeneration is disabled due to combat!

Arcturus ignored the voice in his head and maintained his [Telekinetic Crush]. The beast’s eyes bulged in rage and terror as its windpipe was slowly compressed and crushed with an audible and bone-chilling crunch of cartilage. Arcurus flinched at the sound on reflex, and a moment later, it spasmed within his telekinetic hold—gurgling in pain enough to override his already-half-hearted Willpower.

A moment later, the [Telekinetic Grip] shattered as his focus slipped, and the spell unravelled violently. The backlash hit him like a hammer blow, and Arcturus dropped to his knees, panting heavily at the psychic force that hammered his brain in retaliation for his failure of Willpower.

[Willpower Check] unsuccessful!

[Telekinetic Grip] shattered!

[Telekinetic Crush] shattered!

You suffer 14 Damage from [Psychic Backlash]!

You suffer 1 Damage from [Light Wound]!

Health at 85 / 100. You are [Bleeding]!

Dire Wolf suffers 78 Damage from [Crushed Trachea]!

Dire Wolf is [Suffocating] for 7 Damage every 3 seconds!

Arcturus looked up at the beast lying spasming on the ground, its yellow eyes rolled back into its head as its body fought for life against the lack of oxygen in its lungs. He could see it dying, thanks to the enigmatic panels that surrounded the creature. He could see its Health—its life force—ticking down with inevitable surety, and he felt sick to his stomach. 

Strangely, he also knew with a measure of certainty that he was only perceiving the universe that way, watching as the System collated the Dire Wolf’s agony and slow, assured death into numerical absolutes. Something had changed in his essence when he’d returned from True Oblivion, something that allowed him to view the fabric of reality as if he were reading the source code of the cosmos. Had the situation been less nonplussing, he might have made a joke about an old movie with leather trench coats and squid-robots.

His poor mood wasn’t helped by the realization that there was something disturbingly detached about the way the System mercilessly quantified the Dire Wolf’s fading life force, as if it were a construct rather than a living creature, and had neither will nor ambition of its own. It felt wrong, in a way he couldn’t quite define to himself, as if it should have been more respectful to the lives it seemed to oversee.

The beast had tried to kill him, certainly, but it was still an animal. It was still alive.

Would the System treat his death in the same callous, utterly uncaring manner?

He thought it likely would, and that did nothing to improve his mood.

Dire Wolf suffers 7 Damage from Suffocation!

The thought that it was not the wolf’s fault that he had landed in its hunting ground percolated in Arcturus’ mind, and he grimaced in distaste. While he was certainly not sorry for living through the confrontation, he wished he had managed to find some way of resolving the altercation without ending the creature’s life. He’d never killed before—other than small bugs and the like, at least.

As his eyes searched the creature’s heaving sides, something urged him to move.

Hesitantly, Arcturus moved closer and reached out with his right hand, placing it upon the creature’s massive flank. His eyes closed, and he focused on the creature’s breathing as he watched its numbers falling in his mind. It felt right to offer that final comfort, regardless of the fact that he had been the one to inflict the fatal blow. He doubted the wolf cared or even noticed, but for Arcturus, there was something vital about that moment—in keeping some part of the Yale Student from Connecticut alive within him.

Dire Wolf suffers 7 Damage from Suffocation!

You suffer 1 Damage from Open Wound!

Health at 84/100. You are Bleeding!

The Wolf’s spasms grew far less common, and the heartbeat thudding in its massive body started to fade. Arcturus moved forward, resting his head against its torso and listening. He forced himself to listen, forced himself to witness the last breaths of life in a creature that—if not for him—likely would have returned to its pack, or gone on to live a full life. The guilt would have seemed strange to most people, he reasoned, but it was not to him. It was fundamentally human. That was important. That guilt was what made humans what they were.

Whether or not he had been attacked, whether or not the creature had sought his death, he had been taught and raised to understand that the advantage of humanity was the ability to think beyond the capacity of other creatures. Some part of him believed he should have found an alternative to the lethal result, no matter how readily he’d thrown himself into the battle once it proved inevitable. Perhaps he should have run, or tried to swim away, or done any other number of things.

Now I think about it, when it’s already too late? Great work, idiot.

“I’m sorry...” Arcturus murmured, while closing his eyes against the ragged twitches of the dying animal. He thought of his Malamutes, his beloved fur missiles, and his heart ached. The wolf was not them—it smelled like the forest, like the wild, like grass, and trees, and depths of things he could never imagine. The wolf was not them, and yet, he thought of them, and his heart ached still.

Dire Wolf suffers 7 Damage from Suffocation!

Dire Wolf dies!

Arcturus found himself surprised by the need to hold back tears, throat tight with emotion as the animal shuddered one last time and fell still. He squeezed his eyes shut more tightly and fought the surge of nervous panic that arose in him as his mind processed the idea that he, too, could die like the Dire Wolf; he, too, could meet a predator he was outmatched against and be snuffed out like an errant candle. The sudden gravity of his current existence settled on him, and he shuddered.

Anxiety and panic started to rise as his mind became introspective.

He thought about his circumstances more intently, understood with dawning realization the absolute nightmare story that was his life. He had been enamored with it before the fight, but now the weight of his new reality was setting in—he could feel it.

Waking up naked and alone in a strange place, after suffering through the horror, agony, and crushing helplessness of knowing he was being unmade on a metaphysical level in True Oblivion had been bad enough. Meeting Order and being horribly disappointed at how callous and uncaring the closest being to God had truly acted had been worse, and having to claw his way back into existence by the sheer immutable power of his own will to see his friends again had been the capstone of a cocktail of absolute madness that he was baffled he’d managed to experience without going insane.

Combat concluded! Regeneration enabled!

Mana at 58 / 100. You are regenerating 1.8 Mana per minute!

Health at 83 / 100. You are [Bleeding]!

Dire Wolf’s [Essence] captured! You have gained experience!

Arcturus’ eyes snapped open at the last revelation.

Congratulations, you have reached [Level 2]!

“I what?”

Arcturus spasmed a second later as the universe answered, and then released a piercing, throat-rending scream when black and white energy coruscated across his body in torturous bolts of lightning, plunging him into unconsciousness to escape the magically engineered agony ripping through his mortal coil.

For the second time in what felt like a day, reality faded away into darkness.