Countdown a litrpg apoca.., p.4
Countdown: A Litrpg Apocalypse, page 4
-Find the Delmin leader and forge an alliance (700 world points)
-Tyrant in the making: seize control of the Delmin tribes (2000 world points)
3) Random world: surprises are fun, right?
-Explore the multiverse (variable world points)
Then there was a second category called mandatory events. There was only one item listed under it, but that one was ominous all on its own.
207 Days: The Wild Hunt: all Forerunners from all worlds are required to participate in the Wild Hunt. Hunter or hunted, which will you be? Great danger and equally great prizes await! All restrictions on fighting other Forerunners will be lifted for this event. World points and Forerunner points will be doubled. Duration: 168 hours without time dilation. Minimum recommended class grade: rare. Sponsors are highly encouraged.
My mind raced. Could I make it to rare grade within 207 days? Suddenly, there was even more pressure. I thought about the mythology I knew about the wild hunt and then decided that I’d save that for later. The reality was that I had no idea how closely this would be linked to the Earth mythology. Why should it be, after all, Earth was only one of five worlds in this competition?
I forced myself to take a couple of deep breaths. Stressing about this new development wasn’t going to help anyone. Then I saw the final category. It was listed as sponsor options.
Transhek Corporation: despite the previous tensions, Transhek corporation wishes to offer you a full sponsorship. Your actions on Galen demonstrate that you are capable of bravery. Your actions in Proxima demonstrate that you are capable of brutality. Your actions during the race demonstrate that you are capable of working as part of a team, even when you aren’t the leader.
Offer: complete financial support for you, including purchase of level appropriate gear each time that you increase your class grade. We will also provide an apartment on a full membership world for you and up to 5 guests. This apartment will be yours for 50 years after which time terms will have to be renegotiated. As part of this apartment, we will provide passage off world for you and your five guests after the induction of your world begins.
I quickly scanned down the list. There were six more corporations, which all made similar offers. Some included a boon or an offer of a single piece of high-level gear. There were offers that had an ability or spell book and others with an evolution stone. My initial impression was that the offers were all fairly even. The aid was just divided in different ways.
Something else quickly became apparent, well actually two things. Each of the corporations saw this merely as a transaction and they were trying to appeal to what they had seen of my actions. It seemed that they were able to view at least parts of my actions on other worlds. That indicated that some type of recording was happening and placed another level of pressure.
The second thing that stood out to me was that none of them mentioned Earth by name. I took that to mean that they had no way of identifying which world I was from, only that it was a world that was undergoing the pre-induction competition. Some offered technology and others focused on magic. It was clear they didn’t know which might appeal to me more.
There was one other offer that wasn’t from a corporation. I had to admit that I didn’t have anything against working for a big company, but I also found this last offer more appealing.
House Rayden- we are looking for allies and liegemen to extend the reach of House Rayden. Do not expect interacting with one of the seven clans to be the same as working for a corporation. We do not have employees and will neither seek to control nor coddle you.
Offer: Mentorship from an inner clan member. The opportunity to build a relationship built upon mutual trust and accomplishment. No specific rewards are guaranteed beyond an initial mission. If you wish to find out just how high you can rise, then accept our mission when your portal opens tonight. As an incentive, additional rewards will be provided by the clan for completing the system generated mission.
I’d have been lying if I didn’t think about that old fighting game my dad showed me. Mortal Combat, I think it was called. It had that character who was based on a Japanese god of lightning or something like that. Thor was more common, but with that clan name, I had visions of me hurling lightning bolts.
I quickly calmed myself down and then sat on the floor. I still had almost four more hours until the portal opened and so I could think through the choices for a bit. House Rayden’s offer was vague, without any set incentives. But still, it resonated with me. I supposed that if I went on the mission and didn’t like what they had to say, then I could refuse their sponsorship offer.
Meditating quickly became boring. I stood up and cleared some more space around my portal. Then I pulled out my staff and began practicing swings with it. The staff boon I had inherited enabled me to understand the basics of staff wielding. However the scale worked—twenty in a skill was definitely not peak human like it was with a stat. If I had to guess, I was something of a novice, but not completely raw.
I could definitely feel the difference from before the boon. My motions with the staff didn’t feel so clumsy. Still, swinging it at the air wasn’t achieving anything. So, I went back upstairs and pulled out my phone. Then I searched for some videos about how to fight with a staff.
For the next hour, I sifted through a collection of complete frauds, trying to pick out the ones which actually had merit. Thanks to my new body, I was capable of imitating any of their movements, but spinning around in the air didn’t seem very practical when facing a monster.
There was far too much posturing in the videos I watched. Wasted motion and pointless stances were everywhere. I certainly wasn’t a martial arts expert, but the self-defense my dad had drilled into me was more pragmatic, focusing on smaller and simpler motions. Even the few bits I found online which seemed more practical were intended for fighting regular humans.
If I was using my staff in battle, then I’d be using it against monsters or beings who might not be anything like humans. At the very least, the inducted beings would be stronger, faster, and more durable than humans. Many of the practical guides focused on quick strikes against vulnerable spots. Monsters certainly still had vulnerable spots, but they were never susceptible to slight slaps, like a human hand might be.
I still had a couple more hours to burn, but I put away the staff and instead tried to focus on some of my magic. I really wanted to raise my physical skills as I felt that was a weakness of mine, but perhaps a mentor would have some ideas about how to do that.
Instead, I walked outside of the shed. It was about 10 pm now, so the sun was down. Mom and Cece wouldn’t be able to see me from the house, and I’d hear them long before they could sneak up on me. So, magic practice it was.
The mana concentration outside the shed felt thin and wispy compared to being near the portal. I cast Levitation on myself and immediately noticed the difference. It wasn’t that it cost any more mana, but rather that I didn’t feel a rush of mana seeking to refill my stores.
I glanced at my mana regen rate and saw that it was down from its normal 143 points per minute to just 18 points per minute. As a test, I walked further away from the shed, past the patches of purple grass that were still growing in various spots. After getting about one hundred feet away, the regen rate dropped to 12. By three hundred feet it was down to 1 point per minute and after a few more feet it dropped to zero.
I walked back to the shed and then focused on feeling the mana around me. It didn’t feel like what I remembered from Galen or any of the other worlds. This was definitely something I was going to need to do at each world. I realized it was something I’d been overlooking before. Of course, I’d only had the ability to sense mana for a few days so maybe that wasn’t surprising.
The best word I could use to describe the mana here would be to call it chaotic. Hmm… I wondered if I could do something about that.
I began to draw in the mana, focusing on my regen. I’d learned that with enough concentration, I could boost my base regen rate. It wasn’t that significant, but with practice maybe it would become more.
Then I looked around at the ground and trees. I could feel the way that mana had infected the flora and fauna here. There might not be any monstrous squirrels trying to kill me at the moment, but more were going to come if I didn’t do something about this. Maybe I was making assumptions, but it felt right. I snorted at myself. I was a numbers guy. I liked statistics and facts over feelings. Yet, the way my mana worked, there was definitely an organic fluid way to how it worked. Despite, or perhaps, in spite of the system.
As I pulled the mana in, I could feel how it started to shift to match my own. I lost some since my life attunement was only 60%, but I was able to suck in the mana and then push it out through my hands into the ground and from there to the roots of everything from the large oaks to the simple grass.
After about an hour, I’d managed to push my regen rate up to 25 points per minute. It was still pretty slow, but that represented a real gain as far as I was concerned. If I could maintain that percent on a more mana rich world, it would dramatically improve my recovery. I also began to feel the way that my life mana was impacting the world around me. Everything started to feel just a bit more healthy.
The range of that increased health wasn’t very far, but it was still something. I also felt the chaotic mana swirling around inside of me. It wasn’t anything like an attunement, but it seemed like with enough time, I might be able to add another affinity.
Then the timer on my phone went off, and it was time for me to hit the portal. I sucked in a deep breath. Hopefully, I wasn’t making a mistake.
Chapter 5- And the Fun Begins
Back inside, there was indeed a new mission option on the noticeboard.
Slaughter Mission: Cleanse the Darje Graveyard before outbreak can occur. This mission is recommended for a full party of split between common and uncommon grades. (1500 world points)
The number of points alone told me this was going to be difficult. I accepted the mission and then sent the requests to my team. There was no way to be sure if they’d be available for every mission, so I’d have no choice but to back out if they couldn’t come. The mission was already going to be hard enough with only four of us. I was just counting on my Forerunner advantages.
The portal erupted into a maelstrom of chaotic energy, engulfing me in its voracious whirlwind. I felt my very essence being stretched and twisted as if I were a strand of light, threading through the eye of a cosmic needle. Brilliant hues of unworldly colors; tones beyond the spectrum of the natural world, danced like frenzied spirits before my eyes. The low, rich hum of the portal resonated through my being, vibrating at a frequency that seemed to realign my molecular structure.
Abruptly, the sensory maelstrom ceased. I landed, disoriented yet intact, on the other side. The after-effects of the portal traversal, though intense, evaporated like morning mist under the sun. I was in a realm distinctly different from where I had begun—a landscape that whispered of dark monsters and even darker secrets. This certainly was more grimdark than any of the worlds I had been to before, although the fact that the mission was to clear a graveyard should probably have been a clue.
Mere seconds ticked by before the others followed, their arrivals marked by a subtle pop as the air around them was displaced. First came Dori, her form solidifying from a swirling vortex of blue and silver particles. She stumbled slightly before catching herself with her characteristic grace. Her fierce eyes quickly scanned the new environment while her hand instinctively reached for the handle of her long dagger.
Then Crag materialized. I’d almost forgotten how wide he was, but rather than being intimidating, it was reassuring. His eyes were lit with the smile that often marked his face. Our grim surroundings seemed to make him laugh rather than fret.
Finally, Nevin appeared. He stood, serene and composed, his mage’s robes almost seemed to flutter slightly in a non-existent breeze. I could imagine all of the questions which were already forming in his mind.
As I surveyed our new environment, the stark grimness of the setting struck me. We stood at the edge of what seemed like a graveyard, its melancholy aura stretching out before us. In front of me and beyond a twisted metal gate lay a field of tombstones. Crooked and weather-beaten, they jutted out from the earth like jagged teeth. Behind us was a small town, its architecture alien and disquieting.
The houses, if one could call them that, were an oddity in themselves. Shaped like incomplete domes, they resembled three-walled shelters rather than proper buildings. Constructed from a dreary gray stone, they stood in stark contrast to any familiar homestead I’d seen in any world I’d encountered so far. Each structure bore the scars of battle; their walls etched with deep gouges, silent testimonials of violent clashes. The marks looked fresh, inflicted by sharp, unforgiving weapons.
The town's roads carved through the buildings in an unusual manner. They were as wide as a four-lane highway from my own world, yet they were composed not of asphalt, but of tightly packed earth. Upon a closer look, it became clear that the roads were actually pockmarked, and eroded stone. It was as if the harshness of countless storms and the relentless tread of time had worn them down, leaving a legacy of decades, perhaps even centuries, of decay.
The air hung heavy with a sense of desolation. After my recent experience outside the shed, I thought to feel the mana in this place. It was dark and had a cold bite to it, yet it wasn’t any type of ice mana. This didn’t feel elemental at all, but more… primal—like it triggered something in my lizard brain. I couldn’t put a word to it other than death. Despite that, it didn’t feel like the opposite of my life attunement. It felt more like a twisting of it, perhaps undeath then.
“You always invite us to the most interesting places,” Crag said with a laugh.
I shrugged. “What can I say, you keep coming when I call. And you did say that Forerunners were always interesting to be around.”
Dori groaned, “Not that again.”
Nevin bent over and picked up a gray mottled object. At first, I thought it was a jagged stick, but then realized it was much grimmer than that. “It looks like we aren’t the first ones to be here. This seems similar to a radius, but it's much thicker than a Galenian’s bones.”
Dori said, “Not to mention that it’s been split… by an axe, maybe?”
Nevin only mumbled as he looked intently at the bone. After a few seconds, he said, “Not an axe or not any axe that I’ve ever seen. There appear to be claw marks, like something pierced the bone and then ripped it in half.”
My eyes got larger at that, but rather than get bogged down I explained what this mission was. When I got done explaining not only the little bit that I knew about our task but also about the offer from Rayden Clan, I asked, “Do you know anything about the clans? Like how they’re different from the corporations or if they even are different?”
Nevin said, “There are no clans active on Galen that I’m aware of. I’ve read a couple of reports, but they come from different corporate sources, so you have to take that into consideration. They described the clans as inbred assemblies of families who couldn’t cut it in a mercantile system and created some honor-based society. I got the definite idea that the corporations didn’t think much of them.”
“Well, that isn’t promising. I was hoping for a sponsor who wasn’t like those asshats from Transhek.
“I like that expression. I don’t know what the words mean in your language, but it translates as a person who has a butt atop their head.”
We all spun to our left as—without a sound beyond his words—a figure emerged from the shadow of the odd, dome-shaped buildings. I’d thought that my Perception was impressive, but I hadn’t noticed anything about him.
Even from thirty feet away, I could tell that he towered over even my 6’3”. His broad shoulders and muscular build were encased in an artful blend of plate mail and leather armor. The armor bore the patina of countless battles, the metal plates dulled, and leather worn, as if each scar whispered a tale of survival.
His skin was a dusky canvas, a deep hue showing many years enduring under the sun. Etched into the skin of his chest was an intricate pattern of lines. I wouldn’t call them runes or anything similar but, they clearly had some significance as they didn’t appear to be natural.
A thick beard framed his square jaw, merging with a mane of rusty brown, reddish hair. It was not like any human hair; it was wild, untamed—a lion's mane that cascaded with a warrior's pride and matched his fierce eyes. They displayed the brooding mindset of a predator used to waiting and I couldn’t help but feel like I was his newest prey.
His arms were crossed, but a spear casually rested against one of his arms. It looked to be finely made and the shaft bore spiral marks all the way down to where the butt sat on the ground. His hands had the same reddish-brown hair sticking out in great tufts, and one was covered in what seemed to be a glove of sorts with clawed fingertips. All in all, he presented a rather beastly visage.
My staff was in my hands, and Mage Missile was ready to be launched. The rest of my team was no slower in their reactions, but the man only laughed. He held his hands up with his palms facing out.
“I mean you no harm. What sort of mentor would I be if I were here to attack you, Forerunner?”
Once again, I was struck by how deep and gravely his voice was. Almost like this Irish author, I’d heard speaking about his novel with quests and academies. It was an odd thought to have at this exact moment, but sometimes the brain just works that way.
“You’re the one who sent the offer?” I shook my head as quickly as I asked the question. “Never mind that, of course you are. So, why do you want to sponsor me?”
He laughed. “We can talk about that soon enough, but I think your hands are going to be busy in a second.” Then he turned his body sideways, and we saw a trio of creatures charging through the ruins of the town. They were headed straight for us.
