Chương 4

Kirk hadn't realized how much the noise and crowds had bothered him until the silence of the other world wiped away those worlds. Instincts took over. He fell naturally down into a crouch, sniffing the air. The surroundings were dusty, dry, and silent. Kirk's eyes flashed. He was on a gentle slope, leading down toward the mist. A glance behind him revealed a continuing slope, stopping at the implacable cobalt mist.

"The Rift…" A few strange, teal tendrils bridged the gap between ground and sky, almost forming the shape of a tree. But mostly it was just shadows between roiling mist layers. Kirk's skin prickled. He felt a smile crossing his face, alone at last. Almost as though the other humans had hemmed him in before, he could feel his Heightened Senses expanding. They combed through the mist, tasting the surrounding wind currents. Almost belatedly, he recalled the breathing mask, discovered in his supplies.

Settling into a crouch, Kirk removed the layered silk and burlap construction and tied it around his face. Almost immediately, he felt a spike of annoyance. Not only did it hem in his vision, but it was uncomfortable.

"Is this really necessary?" Kirk grumbled. He lifted the mask slightly and sucked in a tentative breath. The air was cool and had a smoky undertone. His Beast Archetype loosed an authoritative growl. There was nothing wrong with the air. Kirk frowned and took another sniff. He waited for almost ten seconds, trying to detect any adverse effects on his body. But still, his Archetype decreed, at least here, the talk of pollution was nonsense.

"I'll have to let the Administrator know they were wrong," Kirk observed. Then he stored away the mask and glanced around. When he was sure there was nothing in the surrounding environment, he crept forward. The slope was constant. The rock beneath his feet was riddled with cracks, pried apart by thirst and the strange rigid plant life. With narrowed eyes, Kirk avoided the vein trees. He didn't like their stillness. As he descended down, the cobalt mist stayed above, giving him more space to look around.

In the distance, he could see it. As warned of in the documentation he had been given, if you proceeded far enough down the slope, one would encounter the beginnings of the next mist barrier, forest green. Kirk flashed his teeth. For now, he would stay on this slope, searching for shelter. He picked his way across the stony slant for about ten minutes when he found a likely looking crack in the ground. But as he peeked his head into the opening, something within stirred.

Even then, most of what Kirk felt was excitement; at long last, he had found his quarry. Kirk jerked back just as an open maw leapt upward and snapped shut on the space he had vacated. Although he had never seen it before, even his clouded memories knew this beast. His adrenaline spiked. He flailed out with his left arm, buttressed by a bracer shield, and slammed it into the geo's side. Kirk grunted in surprise; after hitting against the enemy, it was his shoulder that ached.

The geo-3 flopped back onto the ground and scrabbled to its feet. It opened its mouth and growled at him. The beast was larger than Kirk had expected, probably weighed about eighty pounds, a monstrous dog made of muscular purple flesh. Except it had six legs, which were placed almost randomly across its bulging torso and ended in sharp, chitinous claws. Its bulging skull stretched it's the skin, even over its blank eye sockets. The geo opened its mouth and snarled, revealing uneven yellow teeth. Kirk blinked.

"How do you see?" It bounded forward without answering. Following the instincts of his body, Kirk crouched down and raised his short spear. When the geo leapt forward, he side stepped and stabbed the weapon toward its neck. But the angle wasn't right, so the point ripped through the flesh of its side, but didn't inflict a deep wound. The geo landed, gnashing its teeth, and came again. Inwardly, Kirk felt exasperated. How much did I do? Why didn't I do more? I feel weak.

When the geo came again, Kirk's pupils dilated. The growls of the monster echoed throughout the mist; he worried what would happen if a second geo appeared. So he poured all his weight and dissatisfaction into this next thrust. It felt like his awareness billowed out, while also swirling around and concentrating on his hand and arm. The geo charged. Kirk adjusted the angle of his spear. He thrust, stabbing it into the monster's body. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval.

Report sightings. The spear impaled the geo. Kirk felt a thrill of satisfaction as blood gurgled out of the wound, but then the geo kept charging. It worked the spear deeper into its chest cavity, but it had closed the distance enough that it leapt at his face. Kirk barely got his shield arm up in time. The attack clanged off the metal and knocked him back on his ass. His eyes widened and he felt almost out of breath.

The geo charged again and Kirk barely had the wherewithal to raise his foot and kick the butt of his short spear, still sticking out of the geo's chest. The kick drove the weapon deeper. The geo took a few staggering steps and Kirk desperately brought his shield around, but then the geo collapsed forward at his feet. Kirk's muscles tightened as he held himself still. He listened. He could almost hear the absence of the geo's existence, as though it had buzzed against his senses until now.

For a moment, he allowed himself to collapse back in relief. But then two things happened: he felt the trickle of geo blood leaking out onto his leg and his copper band gave a small tremor. The visible rune in his eye pulsed. With a groan, he shifted to his feet and began to plumb the depths of the cave he had found. Luckily, it had only housed a single geo. So he moved in himself and dragged in the corpse with him.

From the documentation, geo-3s usually contained a core of concentrated energy, which condensed their existence. After drinking some water and checking his equipment, Kirk pulled a long knife from his pack and began to awkwardly hack into its body. It was messy; clearly old-Kirk had no experience with this. But after a grueling twenty minutes, he sawed through muscle and tendon to find the glittering gem. He pried out the strange crystal from the geo's chest and instantly the flesh turned to ash.

The muscles curled and dissipated away, stirred by an invisible wind. Kirk frowned down at his pants.

"The flesh goes, but the stains stay?" Then he turned his attention to the small crystal. From what he understood from the documentation, he would need to bring the crystal back to a specialist to have it appraised. But if he listened- Kirk tilted his head to the side. He could hear it buzzing, a softer note than the geo. It was almost like the pressure of wind against your face. But in the end, he couldn't decide if that instinct was real or if he just imagined it.

So he put it away and focused on the rune in the corner of his vision. The top information was the same, but new info was added to the bottom. Feat Gained! Solo Kill ✷ Kirk nodded; he wouldn't really know the Feats for Ascension until he had accomplished them. He supposed that would work fine. But he was also interested in the other change to his information.

Name: Kirkland Albion Archetype: Spark Mage (0) -Runes: Summon Ember -Manifestations: [None] -Ascension: Cultivation (Fire 0/1) Archetype: Beast (0) -Runes: [None] -Manifestations: Heighten Senses -Ascension: Death Eating (1/30) Death Eating improved. Kirk nodded. I see. I need to kill for the Beast Archetype to grow. He took a few more minutes to recover his stamina, then he explored the cave more. Although his information was interesting, more important was establishing a foothold here.

Luckily, there were no side passages that allowed entrance into his small crack.

He even found a trickle of liquid from the rock face, leading to a small pool. Kirk crouched in front of it, squinting. He sniffed. It smelled… like water. He leaned forward, his nose almost brushing the surface, and took a deeper sniff. Still no sense of rejection. His Beast Archetype growled. Shrugging, Kirk scooped a hand and sipped the liquid. It tasted somewhat stale, but still like water- His band hummed; the rune in his eye pulsed. Kirk squinted at it. Feat Gained!

Alien Taste ✷"You can gain a feat from drinking water?" Kirk shook his head, almost disgusted.

"Life really isn't fair." He remained in that cave for another half hour. Partially to rest, partially to see if there were any negative responses from his sip. But in the end, nothing changed. His Heightened Senses didn't detect any difference in his bodily function. Checking his gear once more, Kirk nodded. He stashed his pack in the corner of the cave and crawled out of the crack. Instantly, his eyes narrowed.

He couldn't believe he hadn't heard it, but when he peeked out, another geo-3, this one about half the size of the previous one, had snuck up and was huffing at the bloodstains on stone where he had fought the first. Gritting his teeth, he exploded out of the crack. The geo-3 whipped around in alarm, but that just gave Kirk a better angle for an attack. His weapon lashed forward and inflicted a deep wound in its chest.

It flailed and knocked the spear away, but Kirk just gripped his shield with both arms, twisted, and then whipped around, smashing the flat piece of metal into the side of the geos head. It flopped backward, partially stunned. Eyes intent, Kirk advanced. Fighting is all about momentum, He reassured his aching limbs as he plucked his short spear back up. So long as you keep the initiative, you will eventually win. Which was true. Kirk soon triumphed over his second foe.

However- Kirk grimaced down at the long gash on his right arm. It had required five more thrusts before the pest had died. During that time, momentum hadn't mattered. Yes, the geo's wounds had been worse, but desperation made it heedless. In its struggles it managed to strike him.

"Alright, I have more to learn." Kirk shrugged.

"But I was only born yesterday. This much… is already pretty good.

"Right?"