Chapter 2: Up a Creek, No Paddle (2/2)
Wait, she had forgotten to inspect the thing.
[Faded skinsuit (enchanted)]
Good. It would have been stupid to don it and realize too late it was some slumbering parasitic lifeform.
Now, there was the issue of shoes. Thankfully, the skin suit fit nicely up to and including her feet. That would help her but she would need some actual boots at some point. Only her head was uncovered. It was also blatantly obvious that she was not wearing a bra, but since the fabric was thicker on the chest, it worked out, somehow.
That thing was surprisingly comfy.
You are no longer suffering from Hypothermia.
Nice.
Viv inspected the room and considered bringing two things. The first was a rusty piece of weapon which was better than nothing, but she decided that if anything was going to jump at her, thirty centimeters of rusty metal were not going to do shit. The second was the crown on the king’s head.
[Crown of the Old Empire]
It was dull and broken. Spires of metal were meant to rise up and back. Most were stumps now.
It looked massive.
In the end, Viv’s decision was not motivated by the apparent weight, nor by the obvious lack of nearby markets to change this into coin. There was something sad and majestic about the seating figure of that ancient monarch, forever holding court where only gales and darkness could attend. It was, she realized, the only thing in the room that still had a smidgen of human dignity. And that mattered to her.
On a whim, she placed all guards side by side with their weapons on their chest and whispered a quick prayer.
“So, there are gods here. Whoever is listening, please grant peace to these long dead souls and allow them to reach the afterlife of their faith. Thank you.”
Nothing happened but she felt better.
She left the throne without looking back
The wind outside was still howling and cold. It slapped against her naked head and she felt sorry for all those bald guys who forgot their hats at home. The descent went quickly and she realized that she had maintained the shape she was in when she had, well, left. Or died.
Deep in her heart, she had the nagging feeling that if one were to bring her body over, there were no reasons to leave the hair and stomach content. She also remembered her scream back when she woke up. It had been powerful stuff that had come from… somewhere deep.
Perhaps this body was brand new.
And would that not be weird.
In any case, it functioned well, and she was not feeling hungry or thirsty yet. Her path led her down, and down, and down, at a stable pace.
After ten minutes, she was only halfway to the ground. She turned again and again to see the apocalyptic hole that had devastated the ancient structure. It did not take a genius to guess that whatever event had caused that was also responsible for the general state of, well, utter shit, that the rest of this place was in.
Viv shook her head. Shelter then water then food. A place this big was bound to have wells and perhaps some still held potable water. Maybe. She had to move forward now and panic later.
Another twenty minutes and she was down. She had used the elevation to get an idea of where to go. The entire city was arranged as a grid of regular massive squares with only a few structures extending further than one bloc. She was now on the main highway, one that would lead to gates and the city exit. There were no large walls that she had seen that separated the desert from the remnants of civilization.
She could spot the tall pillars marking the end of the town from here. They were kilometers away, but the city was impossibly flat.
She needed a shelter of sorts, one that preferably had water. That was her first priority. Her best hope for food and supplies and boots would be barracks. Soldier food was designed to last through two extinction events in a row and still be edible, for a certain definition of edible anyway. If there was anything left here, it would be in a place like that.
Right now, the buildings to her left and right were imposing edifices of columns and tall walls with slanted roofs, slightly elevated for maximal impact on the populace. Images of what looked like dragons and other fantastic creatures were engraved everywhere and present in massive statues, but they were now all darkened and defaced. Even then, she could recognize the heavy-handed paw of a public office when she saw one. Those were government buildings designed to inspire solemnity.
Viv thought quickly. Barracks would most likely be squat things with tiny openings so as to be defensible. She was not quite sure about the level of technology yet, but the presence of cold weapons probably meant that it was around the middle ages or something. She had no idea how much magic would impact the world, but squat defensible buildings seemed like a safe bet.
Viv moved faster now. It was getting a bit darker, she thought. A place like this without a speck of vegetation would be ass-freezing, eskimo-licking cold at night. She had to find a small space that she could close. And covers. She made sure to stay by the walls and made plenty of use of the [Inspection] skill.
[A large building.]
[A wall.]
[Sand.]
Did the skill think she was a toddler?
She turned left at the first intersection and went on. There were small structures in the distance and she felt more hopeful.
Come to think of it, there should be barracks by the city gates. That made sense, right?
Acuity +1
You have reached a milestone! You have gained an increase to your processing speed. You can now perceive the world at a faster pace for a limited time at the cost of increased fatigue.
Nifty.
Adjustments are still in progress.
Fair enough, she thought, dismissing the windows. She was still moving alongside the stupidly long public office. The gates were a good idea, but she was at least an hour away at a solid pace and the sky was definitely darkening now. Its gloominess was getting even more depressing. She could find somewhere for the night and—
A snort.
Viv smacked herself against the wall and stopped. She had definitely heard something.
She heard it again. It was definitely someone, or something, sniffing the air. She sneaked forward to a large side gate and took a quick glance.
The gate led to stairs up towards the main building. There was another column entrance maybe fifty meters away from her. It hosted the origin of the noise.
It was a massive, white horror born from the fiery depths of some obscure circle of hell. Its pallid skin clung to stringy muscles and bony ridges with some horrible elongated humanoid head on top, with no nose and a jaw that could swallow a child in one gulp without chewing. It had a flat face with two slits, tiny red eyes, and enough teeth to shame a great white shark. As she watched, massive talons gouged the heavy stone as if they were made of biscuits. It was as if the Xenomorph had shagged Gollum and their spawn had grown to the size of a fucking elephant.
‘Ohgodohshitohnofucketyfuckfuckfuck’ Viv thought to herself. With feeling.
[Necrarch ravager]
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Your [Inspection] General Skill has improved to rank 2/5!
[Necrarch ravager: an extremely dangerous undead creature]
No shit, Sherlock.
The abomination sniffed the air one last time and placed a limb outside. It then blinked and hissed in displeasure, before heading back in.
Ok.
Ok, that was bad.
That was really bad.
Because she was pretty sure that the only reason the thing had gone back in was because it preferred the shadows.
Night was coming pretty quickly and she had absolutely no way of getting out of here before it happened.
Ok, ok, focus. That thing was big. Maybe there were other things that were also big. Maybe she could find a small place where she could hole up from all the stupid big things. Ok.
She trotted, staying low and quiet under the dusky grey heaven. She walked past what seemed to be private residences and work places, all showing signs of that weird brutalist architecture with decorations on top. They all shared the same large entrances. Sometimes the gates were opened and she caught glimpses of inner courts with dried out fountains and blackened soil, none of which looked even remotely defensible.
It was not barracks that stopped her, but a light. It was now well on its way to nightfall and the sky was reddening a bit, though she had no idea where the sun may be through the thick cover of clouds. She spotted the blue radiance from the corner of her eyes, to her right, in some empty plaza. She turned there and ran.
Memories of abyssal fishes luring their prey invaded her panic-stricken mind. She discarded them. Despair moved her legs.
The plaza was empty. It was circled on all sides by a covered promenade leading to low buildings. She spotted many large windows, now broken, and many entrances.
Restaurants?
Acuity +1
Adjustments are still in progress.
Yeah yeah. The only point of interest was at the center of the square. There was, ironically, a circle. It shimmered vaguely in white, in tune with a stone like a sharp pyramid covered with inscriptions.
It was magic! Pretty sure it was magic. And it was not the horrible kind of magic from a horror movie. It was shining in the dark like a lighthouse.
Viv shook her head. She realized that there was something wrong with her thought pattern. The difficulty would be to attribute it to a cause. Was it her soul trauma? Or the bizarre nature of her overall experience?
No, focus. Shelter. This did not look like shelter. Or did it?
She crossed the circle. There was a pop. She fell to her knees.
A curious thing, long-time discomfort. Sometimes you forgot it was there until it stopped. She felt like she had suddenly stepped out of a sauna and that a fever that had assailed her so far had now gone into remission. It was liberating. And worrying.
The notion of ‘fallout’ came to her mind, unbidden. There had been a big explosion at some point, and now nothing lived here. Maybe she was already irradiated beyond salvation and would start leaking blood from every orifice soon enough.
A distant part of Viv realized that she was staring at the remains of a camp, but the good kind of remains. Whoever had been there had left calmly, after piling unneeded supplies in a corner. There was indeed a pile of stuff that did not look as old and dried up as the rest of the entire town. There was even a small circle burnt into the dead earth in a corner.
[An expended teleportation circle]
Wow, so those people did indeed make it out. And they gated like characters from Stargate. How cool was that?
“Any chance that the circle could be reactivated?” she asked the notification.
Alas, it did not answer.
“Figures.”
And it was in the middle of this fascinating examination that a many-limbed creature crested the line of shops.
[Necrarch chimaera: an extremely dangerous undead creature]
Like its Ravager counterpart, the Chimaera had very pale skin stuck to lean muscle and far too many bone ridges, spines, and other pointy extremities. Its head was roughly similar: humanoid with an extended skull, flat face, nose slits, a dentist’s wet dream of a maw and two carmine, beady eyes shining in the dark.
Time slowed for Viv as her ‘oh shit’ mode activated with both increased acuity and adrenaline. She completely froze.
No moving.
No moving at all.
Willpower +1
Keep quiet.
You have reached a milestone! You have gained increased resistance to mental effects, including magical influence.
Not one noise.
Adjustments are still in progress.
The thing moved parallel to her in a lazy gait that sometimes turned into a lightning-fast rush for no reason she could discern.
She breathed extremely slowly, not moving a finger.
Willpower +1
Adjustments are still in progress.
Her reasoning was that whoever had made that camp had managed to leave peacefully, and the presence of tarps indicated tents, and tents indicated that they had slept there. Those things came out at night, or apparently close to it, so there was a chance that the circle was protecting her.
Acuity +1
Adjustments are still in progress.
There was also a chance that it was merely hiding her, or that the magic had weakened over time so she would not take one fucking chance.
The thing came and went, wiggling its many-legged butt and nightmarish claws over the roof.
Viv did not relax. For all she knew, they could smell a fart from three blocks away. She moved to the pile of supplies and inspected it while keeping an eye out.
The tarp was easy enough to remove. Those who had left it had weighted the sides with steel spikes.
[Quality steel spikes: used to stabilize structures such as tents]
The heavy weight of the metal comforted her. It was still solid. It was proof that someone was still alive out there, after escaping from this hellhole. She would do the same. She would get out of here alive. She just had to be smart about it. Smart, and careful.
She placed the spikes to the sides and removed the tarp. It was a treasure trove.
There were pots, including a small one she thought she could indeed carry, a trench shovel, covers, sleeping bags, some sort of log thing that was slightly darkened on top, and a pair of rolled up water flasks that were a bit cracked but still serviceable. They were completely dry though.
The real prize came under that. They looked like brown bricks wrapped in leaf-like material.
[Dry travel rations, good quality]
Jack fucking pot.
That was lucky.
Actually, she was really lucky in some ways and really unlucky in others. It was unlucky to end up in the ass end of some dead empire, in a city populated by creatures that could clearly trounce her in an instant. On the other hand, it was lucky to have found possibly the only place within ten square kilometers where she would not die.
She remembered something.
‘Magic? Magic status?’ she thought to herself.
Focus +1
Adjustments are still in progress.
The interface obliged.
Current status:
Mana distribution:
Current attunement: 0.22%
That thing. Divine spark: luck. She was not sure what it meant, but it had saved her bacon. Otherwise, she would only have moved here to end up as people skewers.
Something bumped into the distance and Viv squinted to see it. It was almost night now, and she could barely spot her own hands. There were no sources of light at all. No stars, no electricity. It was the first time in her life that she had been in such a dark place without being shut in an enclosed space. She could still feel the air move, carrying with it only the dry scent of windborne dust.
[Necrach tentacular horror: an extremely dangerous undead creature]
Your [Inspection] General Skill has improved to rank 3/5!
Come to think of it, she did not absolutely have to see the thing. It was enough to know that it existed and was walking away. Yep.
It was too dark to do anything anyway. Viv grabbed a sleeping bag and nestled her skinsuit-clad form into it, then she crawled under the tarp like a caterpillar and balled some of it to act like an improvised pillow.
The night was silent outside.
She thought that sleep would elude her. She was out in seconds.