《phaseCore》
Chapter 1: The Weeping Shore
The ocean wave crushing above my head sent me awake.
Grunting and rolling on the side, I noted that the place I found myself in was decidedly not my own bed or even my home. Dreamlike haze had yet to find its way out of my head, and thoughts rolled around slowly and unwillingly, like marbles through the wet dirt, colliding into each other and bringing one another to the forefront of my awareness.
"How did I even end up here?"
"Did Alf drive me on the beach as a prank?"
"No, his car''s busted."
"Also, what kind of prank would that even be?"
"God, my back hurts."
I forced myself to stand up. The beach seemed to be pretty ordinary, a gravel-and-shells kind, not a sand kind. The lighting had a red tint, like a byproduct of the sunset or dawn. Turning to the sea, in the direction where the source of the light would presumably be, I lost any remnants of sleep and became vividly aware of the following three facts.
- I don''t live anywhere near the sea. In fact, to get to the nearest beach, one would have to travel for a thousand or so kilometers, and no way in hell I wouldn''t wake up during such an endeavor.
- I went to sleep at 5AM. To wake up in the middle of either dawn or sunset, I would have to sleep either for 2 or 16 hours, neither of which sound likely.
- The sun of my fucking planet certainly doesn''t look that big, and I don''t remember any news about eclipse, partial or otherwise.
"What the fuck," I muttered under my breath.
The sun sat perfectly halfway through the horizon. About one fourth of it was hidden behind what I could only assume was the moon. The sea appeared crimson with how the light was reflecting off its surface.
"Let''s go over the possible scenarios," I thought, "in order of decreasing probability. First one: someone drove me for like 10 hours just to leave me on the beach and I have somehow missed the notice about the eclipse. You know it''s good when that''s the most likely option. Second one: I''m having an extremely lucid dream unlike any other I''ve ever had in my entire life and... fucking hell, you''re stalling, Vell. Obviously, you''re in another world. Then again, I don''t really remember falling under any kind of trucks or making contracts with gods and/or demons."
I was so busy processing the situation I found myself in, that it took a gust of cold wind and thegoosebumps that came with itto make me realize that I''m completely naked.
"Nothing to do about it right now, I suppose, but if it''s sunset, objective number one is to find something to cover myself with. Right now it feels fine, but in the night it will probably get colder. I fell asleep in my clothes, though. No physical items can be carried between worlds? What counts as one? Actually, let''s see."
I prodded my back teeth with my tongue in the place where the dental filling was supposed to be. It was still there.
"I''m just going to assume that everything not "easily detachable" is still in place and I don''t need to worry about stomach acid disappearing forever or something like that. Not that I would''ve been able to fix it somehow in any case."
Thinking about all of that ultimately pointless bullshit, I made a beeline to the left over the shore, seeking for a way to get on the firm land, looking forward to stop torturing my bare feet with gravel. As I approached the edge of a shore, I''ve noticed a man looking around.
I waved at him, trying to get his attention, disregarding the embarrassment that nudity caused me to feel. The chance at getting the confirmation on my situation, some clothes, direction to the nearest gathering of people and maybe some general advice took priority.
"Ah! There."
He started to shorten the distance between him and me, as I realized 1) he was looking for me and 2) he actually speaks English for some bizarre reason.
"Welcome to Yav," he smiled widely.
That confirmed that either I was transported to another world or I''m really shit and geography - I don''t remember any place with that name in my world. Or that he''s in on the prank and he''s bullshitting me - that would certainly explain him speaking English. That being said, it was harder and harder to entertain any notion except for the other world scenario. I couldn''t even begin to imagine what it would take to fake something like a cooky sun of this world.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
I took in his appearance. The baggy jacket with rolled up sleeves hid something similar to a chestplate. The similarly baggy pants implied some protection down there as well. A middle-sided bag hanged on his shoulder. The dark, greasy hair of his was tugged in a ponytail. There was one small scar on the chin and one on a left brow.
Before I could make any inferences from that, he interrupted my stream of thought.
"I''m sure you have a lot of questions," he said.
"Uh. First of all, do you have any spare clothes? Second, how did you know I would be here? You were obviously looking for me, so you had to know somehow. Is it a common occurrence for people to just appear in this world? Or, god forbid, is there some prophesy about..."
"What world are you from? Does the sky there look like that?" he pointed at the weird sun of this world. I noted the scar around his finger that I''ve missed before.
"No," I turned towards the sun, "I''m from Earth, and there..."
I couldn''t finish the sentence before I felt a sharp pain in my head and then nothing.
~~Co~~
The screen shined in the dark, taking away all the detail from my room. I was slouching on the coach with my sis, watching a trashy isekai show.
"Assume that one day Truck-kun comes for your soul," she said, "what would you do, when you end up in another world?"
"Probably perish, either instantly or within a year," I shrugged, "There is any number of possible danger vectors glossed over in shows like this. Let''s imagine an actually different world. Even if the same fundamental principles of physics and such apply, there''s no reason to think the atmosphere would be breathable for an otherworldly creature, or the pressure would..."
"Wait," she interrupted, "you''re approaching this as if you would get transported to a completely random world. Usually, if you''re summoned, you''re somewhat tailored to the purpose of the summon, aren''t you? It''s reasonable to suppose the world you''re summoned to would be very similar to yours."
"Fair enough. Even then, even in a very similar world, developing independently from my own, all sorts of important things would go differently, like the evolution of bacteria or viruses. Generally, most of the edible food might not sit well with me in a new world. Like lactose intolerance, but for everything due to me not being a product of evolution in the same ecosystem."
I cleared the throat.
"Barring the biological problems, there are cultural ones. The problem of language usually gets handwaved away - there is rarely a good reason for the inhabitants of another world to speak English, and even if they do, knowing absolutely nothing of their culture would lead to the endless faux pas galore, and depending on how violent the culture is, I would either be ridiculed, jailed or executed. Even if all of those problems go away, people aren''t summoned around to do accounting. Do I look like someone who would survive the first encounter?"
"That''s all so lame. Don''t you want to just imagine yourself conquering the whole new world, using only your wit, trusty companions, numbers going up and a conveniently rare and overpowered ability?"
"Sure," I sighed, "but there''s always a tiny voice in the back of my head saying ''it wouldn''t work like that and you know it''".
~~Co~~
I woke up for the second time today, this time with my hands tied and my face pressed to the gravel hard with the boot.
"I said stand up," the man said irritably.
"What is even the point of all of this? Do I look like I would run?"
"Shut up. Get on your feet and let''s get moving."
The red ambience the sun gave to the surroundings was still there, but it became significantly darker. Making one step after another trying not to trip over a rock I didn''t notice, with an occasional shove and a profanity from my captor, my only thought was that I wouldn''t really mind an overpowered ability manifesting itself right about now.
We left the shore and made our way through the fairly shoddy road that evidently haven''t seen much use. You''d see something like that at the outskirts of a bumfuck village in the middle of nowhere, not near any big town - the car wouldn''t be able to drive through here. Or a horse, or whatever they used instead of horse - I still had no idea about neither the technological level of this world''s civilization nor the local fauna.
"Where are you taking me?"
"Shut up."
"If you didn''t want me to talk, why didn''t you put a gag in my mouth, you fucking idiot?"
Nothing but silence.
After what felt like eternity of mindless waddling, the scenery changed a bit. Road took a turn to the right and widened a bit, and the rare exhibits of bushes and trees turned into the forest to the left of the road.
A faint whistle emerged from somewhere in the forest.
"The fuck? There isn''t supposed to be any..." the man behind me grunted, stopping mid sentence.
The next things I heard were the hiss of an arrow and a thud. I bolted to the ground, covering the head with my hands, as if it would change anything if the archer chose to shoot me as well. Turning my head around, I saw a body on the ground with an arrow going straight through its eyesocket. The blood flowing out of the wound slowly, but surely made a puddle.
"Hey! You''re the new phaser, right?" someone exclaimed from the woods, "You can stand up now, I''m not going to shoot you."
The girl with a short hair and a bow approached. She gave me a look, her eyes lingering for about half a second longer than necessary below my waist.
The corner of her mouth twitched, as if suppressing a smile.
"Hi."
I felt my face turn red, and I could only hope the ambient lighting would make it less noticeable.
Chapter 2: Lyn
"Here," she took out the dagger and cut the rope tying my arms.
"Are you alright?", after getting my affirmative nod, she pointed at the body behind me, "I don''t suppose he''ll be in need of his pants anytime soon."
Looting the corpse turned out to be surprisingly easy. I''ve expected myself to be much more queasy at the notion of wearing someone else''s clothes, especially if the person they belonged to now lies in a puddle of his own blood, but the perspective of spending the night out in the field naked forced me to swallow any arising complaints.
I took his jacket, pants and boots. The chestplate would''ve been a good addition as well, but to my shame I couldn''t figure out how to strip him down off it.
Is it too much to ask a girl you''ve just met to help you undress a man?
While I was busy contemplating that and dressing up, the girl took interest in captor''s bag.
"Not much here," she said, rummaging through the contents, "light travel supplies. A wood-to-fire and wood-to-meat exchange scrolls, a smeller, a map. Didn''t anticipate more than a day out in the wilds, then."
She threw me the bag.
"I''m Lyn, by the way. You?"
"Vell. The hell is a smeller?"
"Most monsters hunt at night. It''s easier to ambush the prey when it can barely see, and the, let''s say, ambient magic is weaker at night. A smeller is a pack of herbs you burn so that they stay away," she explained.
"But how does it repel the monsters? Is it toxic? Won''t we be affected too, if that''s the case?"
"Oh, don''t worry, it''s completely safe. Although, the smell is pungent enough you''d want to run away too," she smiled ruefully, "It won''t work out in the open like that, the wind will undo it. We need to get in the woods for a night."
I took a moment to look at the sun. It was still exactly halfway through the horizon, which didn''t make any sense, since the sky clearly went darker already.
As good of a potential small talk topic as any, I suppose.
Barely being able to see your own feet and getting through the woods proved to be fairly challenging. The trees formed a canopy almost impossible for light to penetrate. Taking a closer look at a particularly low-hanging branch, I noticed all of the leaves were turned in the direction of the sun. The other side of every leaf was completely white.
"I just want you to know that you''ll be hearing a lot of dumb questions tonight," I said, maneuvering between the trees.
"That''s fine," Lyn chuckled, "You probably are dying to know why you were ambushed like that, but to explain it, I need to take the biggest elephant out of the room first - people from another worlds are somewhat common here, common enough so that people have a special word for them - phasers. They take about a month to fully appear, first as a ghostly silhouette that gets more and more... real, for a lack of a better word."
I let her expository voice wash over me, taking only the important bits to heart: me = phaser, phasers = common.
"The thing with phasers is," she took a pause to find the correct words, "well, they have no ties to anyone, no knowledge of anything and no abilities or tools to defend themselves, at least not until the process of screening and getting them into the system is complete, so there''s a lot of potential for slave trafficking as they''re hard to identify and easy to collect. Prejudice against phasers is commonplace, and it assures no one is going to look for a missing phaser too hard. Believe me, I''ve got a lot of experience with all of that."
She went silent, which I took as a clue that she expected me to ask something. I had no idea what she wanted from me, though. Was she implying she faced some of that prejudice herself?
"So... I take it you are a phaser too, Lyn?", I asked, not to let the awkward silence settle.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
"Yeah. I''m from Aethernia. It''s a world with a sun so bright no one could come out during the day, they''d be fried alive. Most people lived under the ground, and..."
I completely tuned her out.
We walked through the forest as she babbled about her homeworld, with me nodding and mhming where it was appropriate.
"... so the segregation was insane. Only the higher casts had magic and... Oh! That reminds me."
Narrowly avoiding collision with a branch, she continued, "That''s a biggie for some of the phasers - the magic is real here. The short of it is there is ambient magic flow that gets weaker at night. It''s useful for all sorts of things, like the scrolls there," she pointed at the bag I was carrying, "or soldier-grade equipment. The magic can be manipulated more directly as well, and most animals or plants have innate magic as a defense or attack mechanism."
I perked up from exposition-induced coma at the mention of night, remembering what I wanted to ask.
"Say, how does the day cycle here work? I haven''t noticed the sun moving at all."
She gave me a glance that almost cost her tripping over a root, "The sun in your world moves? Interesting. The day here is defined by the phases of the moon. Evening starts as the moon touches the sun. Eclipse is midnight. When the moon reveals the sun fully, it''s morning."
"How do people measure the time during the day, though?" I asked, "How do you tell apart a bit after the morning and a bit before the evening, for example? Clearly there''s no way to do it by the moon."
"Without a clock, you don''t," she shrugged, "or, I guess, you could measure the magic flow and eyeball a bit. It''s the strongest at noon."
We found ourselves at the small clearing.
"This will do," Lyn said, "give me the bag, please, and gather some firewood. If you don''t find enough on the ground, the branches opposite to the sun are easy enough to break."
While I went around, she took out one of the scrolls, unrolled it and fixed it to the ground with four nails that came with it. It was getting dark enough I couldn''t see the writings reliably, but it looked like two circles within one another, the larger one incomplete, with something written in-between. Following Lyn''s instructions, I arranged the firewood around the scroll and placed one of the larger pieces inside the smaller circle.
I''ve expected the wood to burst in flames, but nothing happened until she''s completed the circle with some kind of brown piece of chalk. The better description for what happened then is that rather than the piece catching fire it turned into fire itself, and then spread to the rest of the firewood.
The light bonfire provided gave me a first good chance to really look at Lyn.
She had short brown hair with a forelock tucked in to the side. A sleeveless jacket she wore had an insignia - a half circle, a vertical line crossing it, and another circular arc on top. A dagger she cut the rope with hanged from her belt, and her bow was set aside to the nearby tree for a time. A slight frown settled on her face as she reached into the bag for another scroll.
"This one doesn''t have nails. Press it to the ground like that," she gestured.
The activation of the scroll went pretty much the same as the last time, but the piece of wood turned into an unidentifiable piece of meat.
"Handy," I noted.
"Yeah. It comes at a cost, though. Not literal, those scrolls are dirt cheap, but... I guess you''ll see anyway."
She punctured the meat with a stick and fixed it over the bonfire.
"While we wait... did you figure out your Gimmick yet?" she stressed the word in a way, "Every phaser has a good one."
I quizzically raised a brow, mentally bracing for another round of exposition.
"Gimmick is an ability everyone has. You kinda need to focus on who you are, and it will become apparent to you. They can be pretty much anything, and they''re stronger for the people with stronger identities. No one really knows why it works like that, some theorize it arose naturally as a way for sentient beings to protect themselves over the thousands of years, but that doesn''t fit too well," she turned the meat on a stick around, "Humans have it. Fels have it. Dwarfs have it. Elves probably had it, before they went extinct, and other races, demons, heaters, whoever else too. Why did it arise naturally in the same way in all of them, no one can answer."
"What''s your gimmick, Lyn?"
"It works so-so at night, but here," she raised an index finger. A small sliver of flame appeared at its top. "At noon I could''ve lit this bonfire myself. Right now it''s not enough to even light a cigarette."
She vanished the flame and took the meat off the bonfire.
"Try it," she handled me the stick.
I took a bite.
"It... has no taste whatsoever," I said with my mouth full.
"Yep. A food for poor and for those who travel light. It''s enough to get you through the day, but you''ll probably go mad eating it every day."
With my stomach full and the warmth of the bonfire cuddling me, I closed my eyes, trying to find the essence of myself.
I am Vell Brown. I''m 24 years old. I used to live in a small town of the most generic country of them all. If you''d meet me on the street, you wouldn''t be able to tell me apart from any other passerby. In my whole life I''ve done nothing I''d call notable. The school and college years went by, and the only thing I really took out of it was a bunch of shitty friends. I wasn''t doing anything with my life, and all the time I didn''t spend on a nine-to-five accountant job, drinking with those so-called friends or lying in bed having vaguely sexual fantasies I wasted consuming media.
In the darkness behind the eyelids the rusty red words appeared.
Gimmick unlocked: The Consumer
If a person is unconscious, touching them will reveal their Gimmick and make a weaker version of it available to use. You can only maintain 3 weaker gimmicks at once. Touching another person will replace the oldest one in a first-in-first-out fashion.
Chapter 3: The Gimmick
I stared at the words in silence.
Doesn''t seem to be immediately useful, but boy oh boy. What counts as unconscious, though? If I touch a corpse, would I get its Gimmick? I''m tempted to go back and check, but the monsters and all... wait, have we ever burned the herb thing?
The thought snapped me back into the reality, and instantly the stench hit me, an unholy combination of ammonia, rot and socks worn for a month straight that made my nostrils tingle. I nearly lost my dinner fighting a gag reflex.
Yeah, I can''t imagine eating with this going off. If this is a normal precaution against monsters, how the hell doesn''t smell settle in everyone''s clothes? I certainly didn''t notice anything of the sort with either Lyn or that guy. I guess it has to decay quickly or something.
I opened my eyes to see that the bonfire almost burned itself through and Lyn sprawled on the ground.
"Hey, Lyn," I called out to check if she''s asleep.
No answer.
Well, easy enough to check how my Gimmick works.
I touched her shoulder, and a bizarre hum filled my head. I backed off and closed my eyes. Another message in red was waiting for me.
Gimmick conceived: Smoke and Mirrors
Create illusionary objects. No more than 3 can exist at the same time, and you''re limited to 3 per day. They behave like normal objects, but all interactions with them within a day unroll when you or someone else undo them, or when you die.
I sat still, taking the message in.
Wait, what? That''s not... Why did she lie about it?
Deciding to contemplate it after I figure out my own stuff, I concentrated on my identity again.
Gimmick: The Consumer
- Parlor Trick: Create an illusionary object. It behaves like a normal object, but it disappears after a day. If it''s undone by you or someone else, you die or it disappears naturally, all consequences are unrolled. Limitations on size and complexity apply based on ambient magic flow.
- n/a
- n/a
As an immediate question, what counts as an object? Is piece of wood an object? Is something made of wood and something else, like a dagger, an object? I''d have to experiment with the boundaries later. And how do those "limitations on size and complexity" actually work? I really wish they were put in a clearer form. Another thing to try and test.
With that being done, I turned to quietly snoring Lyn again.
So, why did she lie? Granted, I wouldn''t babble about something so potentially powerful either, but I wouldn''t make a point of telling a wrong version of it to a companion.
My gaze wandered over the clearing. A girl napping, her face turned away from a bonfire which burned through completely at this point, her bow under the nearby tree, the thick miasma in the air. Something was nagging at the back of my mind, and I couldn''t figure it out.
Do I wake her up and just ask? No, that would reveal my own thing. The note for my Gimmick specifically said "reveal theirs", so it''s probably not something everyone just gets for free.
The sinking feeling of unease was getting stronger. I still couldn''t tell what''s wrong, and it only riled me up harder.
Okay, let''s think through the events of today. I woke up at the beach, met the guy, he knocked me out, we walked for a bit, Lyn shot him in the eye... wait, she said I''m a phaser, how did she know... nah, it''s not difficult to infer the origins of a naked guy being escorted with his hands tied.
I questioned myself if I was just engaging in baseless paranoia. Feeling the need to stretch my legs, I stood up and started walking back and forth.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
She shot the guy, and then...
Not really looking where I''m going, I almost tripped over a bow. I stared blankly at it, the cogs in my head making a whirl.
She shot him. She carries a bow to shoot things with. If that''s the case, where are the fucking arrows?
There were none. I saw the bow, but no ammunition.
Which means she shot that guy with a fake arrow. It can''t kill, as the changes made with illusionary objects unravel when desummoned. So she wasn''t going to kill him. Did she want to only disable him temporally so she could turn him over to the authorities?
"Dammit, it''s always the details, isn''t it?" an unfamiliar voice said.
The lights swirled around me, and before I could react to anything, I was knocked senseless.
~~Co~~
As it happened for the most of my days off, I was sitting in front of the monitor alone, procrastinating over my passion projects by the means of watching seasonal shows with a friend.
"This is so boring," he complained over the voice call, "it''s been like 4 episodes of nothing but training to punch harder."
"There is some guttural enjoyment to it, though. It''s nice to indulge in a fantasy, where every problem is solved by the means of punching harder, something you just get better at as you put the work in. In a world like that, you would need no luck, no creativity, who or what you are wouldn''t matter... hold on, we had this conversation already."
"?"
"I... can''t discern what you''ve said. You asked something, right?"
"Afhjios isj ierej."
"Oh."
I tried to squeeze my hands together. They moved, but I felt nothing. I tried to concentrate on who I''m talking to. Nothing came to me.
I''m sleeping.
With that realization the memories flooded in.
I''m not sleeping, I''m unconscious again. I need to come to my senses as quickly as possible. I can illusion together one object, and I need to get through a fight with two... actually, three armed men, since the arrow was likely an illusion.
I channeled all my attention to the single point on the back of my head to feel out the pain in a hope that it''ll break me awake.
~~Co~~
Consciousness returned to me for the third time this day, and I was once again naked and tied up, this time tossed over the former cadaver''s shoulder. Trying not to make any noise or movements that would alarm the captors, I looked around. We weren''t in the clearing, but we were getting through the forest in the same direction, and fast this time.
A person I assumed was the one to KO me was running ahead. Lyn was nowhere to be seen.
"I can''t believe I forgot to envision a quiver," the same voice I''ve heard right before my second nap exclaimed, "and he bought like everything else! People really don''t question pretty girls."
She was fake wholecloth? And he undid her so that his companion comes back to life, probably.
"Always the fucking details. Confused the details of the bio, the bitch caught on. Polished backstory tight, but brought a guy to my camp - too convenient, he said. Made sure nothing distracts this moron from eyeing up a cutie - forgot the quiver. Fucking hell. Took his sweet time to grow suspicious too."
Somewhere behind us, there was a low growl. The captors upped the pace even more.
We approached a familiar clearing. Previously dead thug carefully released me on the ground, and both of the captors got to work.
Observing them gathering firewood, making a bonfire and tossing a smeller into it in a span of a minute without exchanging a single word was frightening.
"Will have to bring him the old way, then, and pray to Yar that he doesn''t wake up with a Gimmick to wipe my ass out."
His ass? What about his companion? Now that I think of it, he didn''t ever address him in any way. Is he also an illusion? Then why did he unmade Lyn just to bring him back alive?
Illusionist took out a small kettle and a bottle of water out of his bag, along with a plant root. The log in a bonfire cracked.
He needed someone to carry me around. Lyn probably wouldn''t have been able to lift me, and he couldn''t just make up another guy or like a cart or something - he already wasted his three daily illusions:
- Lyn
- A thug guy
- The fire Lyn produced
So he had to undo Lyn, with everything she''s interacted with unrolling to the previous state. With that, I was back on the road with the very much alive thug, because I only went to forest because of Lyn. That''s what a swirl of light likely was, me being transported back. All the stuff on the clearing was undone as well, and illusionist himself was probably unrolled to the state before he had to intervene, otherwise he''d prepare the clearing before we arrived. Information seems to be the only thing that doesn''t roll back.
The long and short of it is that I only need to incapacitate one guy, if I''m not too far off the base. God, I hope I''m right.
For one guy, I had a plan.
It wasn''t a very good plan. It depended on a few unknown factors, but I had to try, as it was my only shot with me being unable to move.
All my will had been channeled to a single concept of a rock hanging in the air a hundred meters above my captors head. After the slowest minute in my entire life the wave of exhaustion rolled over me, and I heard a faint swish getting louder and louder. Illusionist perked up at the sound, but it was too late - a stone the size of my fist crushed his skull.
I saw the familiar swirl of light, and I was at the beach again, naked, but untied.
The good part was that I was alive and free. The bad part was that I was a fucking idiot on his way to become some monster''s dinner.
Chapter 4: A Random Encounter
Chapter 4: A Random Encounter
The roads have to eventually lead to something, right?
Trembling under the wind, I ran and ran and ran and ran. In my hand was a rock I found on the beach - it probably wouldn''t help too much against whatever came after me, but I wasn''t going to just die in someone''s maw without shoving it in their face.
The slight red tint was still present even during the eclipse. I had no clue whether the morning was close or not, and I couldn''t count on it.
If there was any advantage to being out in the open, it''s that I could more or less anticipate anything willing to attack me from a fair distance, as my eyes adjusted. The forest wasn''t any close when I noticed something moving in the darkness to my left.
I leaped to the side with all the force I could muster, barely avoiding what looked like a cat the size of a chair. Its yellow eyes glowed in the dark, and it emitted a deep purr.
The rock in my hand felt slippery with all the sweat. Running was not an option, the beast was likely faster than me.
Frankly, I didn''t have many options. I had to play the leaping game with the cat, waiting for the opening.
The staring contest came to an end with the monster springing at me, aiming for my right side this time. Its paw scratched at my ribcage, leaving three deep cuts. I hissed.
The perspective of either dying by cat or by bleeding out freed me of cautiousness paralysis in a sense. I launched towards the cat myself and plunged the stone in its eye. Paying no attention to the screech the cat made or the mad swinging of its paws and seeing nothing but the shine of its one remaining eye, I plummeted the cats head over and over and over and over and over again until it finally stopped moving and then some more.
Breathing heavily, I stood up. A familiar hum filled my head.
Do monsters have Gimmicks too?If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
I let myself close my eyes for a second, fully aware I need to keep moving.
The red was brighter this time, and it filled all the space there was behind my eyelids:
Level UP!
I didn''t feel any more powerful, to be sure. There were no attributes to distribute or skills to upgrade in sight, but I''ve noticed I don''t feel as lightheaded as one might have expected after losing so much blood.
Opening my eyes and expecting my right side, I saw the wounds quickly sewing themselves together. Tracing the place where the wounds have been with a finger, I could barely feel any scars left.
I smelled a familiar scent of ammonia.
"What the fuck happened here," I heard a woman''s voice behind my back.
I jumped and turned around, with a stone in hand, fully committed to blow the brains out of anyone daring to get too close.
"Holy shit. Did you really need to beat her head to a pulp?"
I wasn''t going to fall for the same trick the third time and lower my guard, or what I pretended to be a guard. The armored silhouette I was able to make out in the dark had a sword tucked on her belt, the stone wasn''t going to do shit.
"You don''t seem to be hurt, but still, is everything alright?" she asked.
"Do I look alright? And who the fuck are you?"
"Captain Elle, Sreda City-State Protection Core. Earlier this night we got an intruder alert for the Weeping Shore and I was sent to investigate. In truth, you were supposed to be picked up by the evening equisol, but," she shrugged, "too many problems and not enough procs. Sorry for that. Intruder alert report was late, though, and someone''s head is going off for that, we''ve been trying to come down on phaser hijacking for years."
"Any proof of any of that? And how the hell helping a clueless person not to become a monster''s snack is not a priority?"
"The shore is safe even at night," she shrugged again, "something about water storing the leyflow, so the magic stays relatively strong without the sun. For proof, I guess I have a Sreda insignia on my armor, but that''s easy to fake, and you wouldn''t know it anyway. You''ll have to believe me on that one."
To be fair, she was more forthcoming than either a thug or Lyn, and I wasn''t really in position to argue on it too hard, especially since my choice was between believing her or wandering back to the shore hoping I don''t meet yet another murdercat or worse.
Also, I kind of needed her help. The rock I crushed the head of the illusionist with was going to disappear in a day, and with it I will unroll too, once again in a capture.
"If it makes you feel better, I could''ve apprehended you if I wanted to in any case, so me being nice should give you a clue," she said, "and also, I brought some clothes."
"Better wait with that," I said.
"I''m sorry?"
"You said you were here to investigate the intruders. I can help you with that, in fact, I think only I can help you with that at the moment. Fancy a forest hike?"
Interlude: Neel
Interlude: Neel
Neel flinched. If he had to describe the feeling, he''d say it was like falling asleep only to wake up a moment later. The warmth of the fire made him groggy, he gathered.
The whole thing was a disaster. It was supposed to be a clean and easy job. Bribe a paper worm at the Sreda Detection Core so that he delays an intrusion report, capture a phaser to maybe lure out his Gimmick early, play out the whole spectacle with a friendly Neel-spelled-backwards girl to make him walk to the Azure Dome all by himself, sell him there and don''t think too much about what they''re going to do with him. Instead, everything went to shit all because he forgot that archers generally need fucking arrows to shoot things.
Now he antagonized a currently unconscious phaser with an unknown Gimmick on his hands. The only way to bring him to azures now is the old way, which entailed carrying a body manually while avoiding any public roads, all of that hoping the blackout herbs won''t damage phasers brain enough for him to become a vegetable useless for whatever purposes AD is going to find for him.
The only silver lining he could find is that no matter that even a bribe could only delay the report, no matter if someone was stubborn enough to look for him in the forest during the night - it''s enormous and there was no way they were going to just stumble upon him. He made sure not to leave any obvious traces and the local fauna will do a good job at distracting whatever pursuers.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
He decided to let himself rest once the blackout root is done boiling, which was supposed to be right about now.
He carefully took off a lid only to see that the liquid had vaporized completely.
He stared at it with utter disbelief. Now that he was paying attention, it was slightly less dark than five minutes ago, and the bonfire itself burned out pretty thoroughly, even though it was better wood than the puny twigs the idiot phaser brought last time.
Neel was tired, sure, but definitely not tired enough to just randomly fall asleep. Was it phaser''s Gimmick at work? If so, it made for a pretty shit one, the only consequence being a do-over on a blackout brew.
Something in the nearby bushes moved. Neel got on his feet and tossed a mace to Neel-2, one Neel-backwards shot in the eye. Then everything erupted in chaos.
"Kill a guy with the mace, he''s fake!" the supposedly unconscious phaser shouted.
A girl in procs armor took the mace hit with her left hand without flinching, then swiped with a sword twice, cutting a hand holding the mace and then the head.
Armor with kinestatic glyphs wasn''t standard procs gear, had to be at least a captain then.
"Fuck," muttered Neel, "okay. Plan B!"
"Wai-" the proc started.
Neel unmade Neel-2, and the world distorted around him. He found himself back in Azure Dome, in a hotel room he booked for a week, right where he made a decision to only go on a venture after the person he illusioned together nods to him this noon. He couldn''t count the times this trick took his life out of mortal peril.
"Well, you win some - you lose some," he told himself and went out for a drink.
Interlude: Elle
"What do you mean it bugged out?!" she asked a dec incredulously.
A sweaty guy adjusted his glasses and gave her a sheepish shrug. The system behind the Detection Core was arcane, complicated, and no one really knew how it worked on a wide scope. It had delays and "bugs" frequently, and Elle was fairly sure more than a half of it was operator''s error, unintentional or otherwise.
Elle was just getting ready to go home and get her daily 5-hour sleep before going back to the endless treadmill of incidents Sreda was, when her boss, chief Aspen came in fuming with fury, dragging a deckie along with him.
The monsters between the city and the shore were nowhere near dangerous enough to warrant a captain, but Elle was perfectly aware of what investigation implied. Saying goodbye to her dreams of having a sleep tonight, dreamless or otherwise, she set out towards the shore.
She did take clothes assigned for a new phaser with her in a faint hope he was still somehow to be found before it''s too late, but still, seeing him in a somewhat feral state beating a poor kosh to death and beyond with a stone was a surprise. Learning that he was briefly kidnapped by an infamous slave trafficker they were trying to apprehend for almost two years, managed to escape while incapacitating him and could show the place was a pleasant surprise.
"Why did he need to do the whole show?" a phaser asked.
"Gimmicks can be extremely dangerous, ones of phasers, that is. He wanted you to have him on a good side, or, better, not have himself anywhere near you at all."
"Is slavery a common occurrence here? You said you were trying to put an end to it."Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
"Most places condemn it. The Vakhanalia Domain and Azure Dome are the only two large places openly supporting it, and in some others it''s a grey area. The insignia you saw on a girl is the one of Azure Dome."
The phaser, Vell as she found out, led her to the clearing. By the time they reached it, it was full of monsters attracted by the smell of death.
"Don''t approach them now, they will disappear anyway when I do the thing," Vell said.
"What thing?"
"This," he snapped his fingers, and in the same second he vanished, a pretty much dead bonfire in the clearing lit up again, the smeller stench filled the air and all the fauna was gone.
Instead, Vell was there laying on the ground with his hands bound by a rope, a man with the scars he''d described was guarding the perimeter, and the accursed illusionist towered over the fire with a frown on his face.
Elle tried to sneak up on him, but the armor wasn''t the best equipment to attempt something like that with, and she was heard. The rest of it went as usual, with the fake persona dying and illusionist getting away by some unknown method that didn''t leave even a slightest trace.
She sighed, cutting the rope and getting clothes out of the sack at her back.
"I don''t suppose you''ll tell me how you did that?" she asked Vell.
"Nope," he grinned, "one thing I will say though is that you''ll never catch him by being reactive, and with his abilities it''d be easier to just kill him on sight, the way I see it."
"Mm."
They walked in silence for a while. Out of the forest, they took the road towards the Sreda city-state two hours away from the Weeping Shore, one of many shores people from another worlds phase into existence on.
"Say, what will happen to me now?" Vell asked.
"I''m not a part of Phase Core, but as far as I know, you''ll be screened, tested for various known otherworldly diseases, given a set of mixtures to build basic immunities to diseases of Yav, and then given a basic education that''ll more or less bring you up to speed on this world."
"Will I have to repay for any of it?"
"Oh, don''t worry, no one will ask money from you."
Vell let out a heavy sigh, no doubt noticing Elle avoided the question.
Prologue: A Naked Man
END