《Binary Blood》 Ark 1 : Kabaneri - Chapter 1 ¡° He looked us up and down, ¡°You boys hurt? Anything serious?¡± Blondie blinked then smiled, ¡°Name''s Reginald.¡± I chuckled as he mentioned his name, he frowned and stared at me with a raised eyebrow, ¡°What?¡± he asked inquisitively. ¡°Nothing, I was just thinking that is a real rich boy name, are you sure it''s not Reginald the third?¡± Reginald managed a tired chuckle. ¡°Actually it''s Reginald the twenty-first.¡± I blanched as I stared at him. ¡°No shit?¡± ¡° ¡°Yup, family is from old england, noble ancestry blabla. Well I never really did fit in back home, I was to connected with the lower ranks of society, as my father put it.¡± he told me with a sigh, ¡°Truth is I spent a lot of my time and money being an adrenaline junky, found other people who enjoyed the extreme and we hung out too much. It freaked my mother out.¡±Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! ¡° ¡°I never really did parkour, mostly snowboarding, parachute diving, free climbing and shit like that.¡± ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡°Steam train.¡± I told him, mentioning to the walls around us, ¡°This is one of the cabins.¡± Reg frowned, ¡°How are you so sure?¡± ¡° The doctor finished treating the last of the injured and headed towards us. Before he could utter a word there was a clanging on the metal wall above us. Everyone froze and stared at the roof, another clang, and then a screech unlike any I heard before. A young woman to my left was making the Christian cross gesture, I had to agree with her. Although I''m not achristianmyself I couldn''t deny hoping that God would deal with whatever unholy evil was banging on our roof. The smashing on the roof continued, and to our combined horror the steel was caving in. Fist-sized dents appeared, another smash and the dents grew. Reginald stood up and gazed frantically across the room. ¡°Everyone find whatever you can that could be a weapon!¡± The others froze for a moment as they stared at him. ¡°NOW!¡± he roared, shocking the people around him into action. I jumped to my feet myself, looking around for anything. My eyes were drawn towards a sharp twisted metal pipe, I picked it up, it wasn''t as long as I would have liked but it was a huge step up from nothing. ¡° ¡°SHIT!¡± The young man said as he ran over to me, ¡°You''ve been bit!¡± ¡°Yea,¡± I remarked, wondering why he stated the obvious, ¡°It''s not that bad though.¡± ¡° ¡° The doctor blanched at the words but seemed to be convinced by the seriousness in the young man''s voice. He got to work on the leg, I flinched as he made a tourniquet and used pieces of metal to put pressure on my veins to stop the blood flow. I watched as thedark coloredflesh started spreading outwards from the bite, I felt the colour drain from my face as I realized I''d be as good as dead if that spread. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡°Can the infection be stopped?¡± I asked, my voice betraying me as it cracked. The young man suddenly stiffened a bit, the determined gleam in his eyes returning. ¡°Yes!¡± He said, putting a hand on my shoulder in an effort to reassure me. ¡°The main character in the anime was bit, he stopped the infection from reaching his brain by hanging himself. They didn''t exactly explain how it works but I think it spreads through the bloodstream. If we can stop your flow long enough for the infection to settle you should be able to survive!¡± For now, that would have to do. Ark 1 : Kabaneri - Chapter 2 I took a deep breath as I stood up, gingerly putting weight on my injured leg. It felt fine, in fact it felt better than fine. I wasn''t sure if it was the infection or some kind of energy that was coursing through my leg. I tried to take a step and found that I was more than capable of using it like normal. The others nervously watched as I put pressure on my leg, and jumped up and down a bit. I looked at them and shrugged, ¡°Feels fine!¡± The rest let out a breath in relief, then they nervously looked around, pointedly avoiding looking at the decapitated monster. The young man who knew what the monster had been, he called it a Kabane, stepped forward and addressed the group. ¡°If I''m right, and I think that I am, we cant stay here for long, the scent of blood will attract others. I don''t want to be trapped inside a steel box when more of those things show up.¡± He reached forward to climb out of the cabin, showing them his determination. That did not stop me from noticing that the boy was trembling, he couldn''t have been much older than fourteen-fifteen. He had reacted admirably, however, with a small smile I made my way after him. My eyes widened as I looked at the surrounding landscape, we had been thrown down a minor hill, not a cliff as I had expected, I saw the rails and the crumpled cabins of the majority of the train a bit further away. We had been lucky being the last cabin it seemed, the other parts of the train were swarming with the Kabane, I hissed in panic and motioned for the others to hurry up. Me and the boy helped pull the others up, carefull for those with injuries and they all watched the scene with shock, whispering amongst themselves. The doctor helped the latina lady up, and he was last to leave the cabin. We gathered around, keeping an eye on the swarm as we decided what to do. I had expected a discussion of sorts, there was no need to discuss anything, we all agreed to go in the opposite direction of the swarm, as far as we could, as fast as we could. We got off the cabin , helping those down who were not steady on foot and made our way across the small plain to the forest. The military man had taken lead and was walking with his metal spike in hand, eyes flickering from tree to tree, trying to find anything that was hostile. He muttered about the trees not only hiding them but hiding monsters aswell. I had to agree with him, the closer we got to the forest the less we could see. We made our way steadily forward, hoping to reach the forest unseen. The unholy screech of the Kabane froze our hearts, we twisted around to see one of the monsters spotting us, the swarm turned, their howls and screeches fusing into a cacophony of heart-numbing sounds. Terror set in as they rushed towards us. Unlike in the movies, no one yelled at us to run, we all broke out into a sprint as soon as we could. The latina woman with the injured leg couldn''t keep up, the military man cursed, turned around, swung the woman on his shoulders in a fireman hold and sprinted towards the forest. Entering the forest everything turned darker, the thick foilage blocked the sunlight, the howls of our pursuers echoing strangely throughout the trees. We cursed as the sounds started echoing, making it seem like they were coming from every direction, I sprinted to the left side of the group, right behind Reginald. We slowed down a little to keep pace with the group, the young christian girl surprisingly being able to keep up with our spring but was also waiting for the group. We ran next to a small hill, the military man in the middle of the group, with the doctor and the kid to his right and the christian girl to the front. We made our way, our breaths heaving in exhaustion, a few near trips over roots made us cautious. That''s when Reginald slipt and nearly fell off the cliff. I dove after him and managed to grab his hand, only to be pulled down the hill myself, we were sent rolling through the underbrush. We smacked into the bottom of the hill. I glanced up to see the rest of the group staring at us with wide eyes. I waved my hand frantically. ¡°Just GO!¡± I shouted, ¡°We will go another way!¡± The group hesitated for the briefest of moments before the howl of their pursuers forced them into action. They shouted a quick take care and started running their own way. I turned to Reginald and nodded, heading away from them. We started running, Reginald was in great shape and could keep up with my intense pace. I knew from experience that very few people could keep up with me when I started running seriously. Reginald was close to my level on sheer stamina, although I was sure I could quickly outpace him when bridging obstacles. The problem was his cracked ribs and broken arm, they were taking a tol on his stamina, the fall earlier did not help. I was surprised he hadn''t yelled out in pain. We ran as long as we could, the howling died down as we made our way deeper into the forest. It had been two hours since we escaped from the cabin. I looked around, stretching my lungs to increase the amount of oxygen I inhaled. I looked over to Reg, ¡°What now?¡± Reg tapped his foot, he raised a hand to his chin and scratched his short beard. His other hand clutching at his ribcage, his face distorted in pain, with heaving breaths he spoke up.¡°Honestly we are better off without the others, I would have stuck with them despite what might happen, but the two of us are better on our own.¡± I nodded, I agreed, although I was loath to admit it I did feel a small amount of relief to no longer be burdened by the presence of others. Which made me angry with myself because the very people who I was relieved to lose had saved my life. I sighed as I did my best to hide my inner turmoil. Reg put a hand on my shoulder, ¡°I know how you feel, I''d like to think that we would have helped them to the end. We can''t stay caught up in the past, we have to focus on what to do.¡± This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it I nodded as I looked around the forest, ¡°We need shelter, something well hidden, also need to do something to cover the smell of blood.. The boy said they hunted on the smell of blood.¡± Reginald''s eyes widened as he looked at a flower. ¡°Those things are like zombies right?¡± I shrugged, ¡°The kid said they were like overpowered zombies, why?¡± ¡°Well, zombies hunt the living right? That plant over there, it''s called the Arum Lily. I remember it because... that doesn''t matter.¡± He said waving away whatever he had planned to say. ¡°The point is it smells like dead creatures, if we smell like the dead, we will smell like those Kabane, That might leave us under their radar.¡± ¡°Or it could attract them to us...¡± I muttered as I eyed the plant, I got closer and gave it a sniff and indeed it smelled like rotten corpses. Reginald made a small nervous smile, ¡°Or that, I still think it''s worth the risk.¡± I nodded, I had to agree, the chance to go unnoticed amongst these kabane was worth the risk. If they did not cover up their scent they would most likely be dead, going undiscovered would be a real blessing in disguise. I took a breath and rubbed the plant, then rubbed my hands on any part of my body that I could reach, I grimaced in pain when I rubbed the flesh near my wound. I made sure to rub it in extra, more than enough to cover the scent of my blood. ¡°Next up a place to crash.¡± I said as I finished rubbing myself in. Reginald straightened, his nose twitching from the strong smell, ¡°Where to go, these trees are big, way larger than those back home. We could find ourselves a solid branch or two, we still have an hour or two before dark, I could show you how to make a hammock out of grass. One of my friends taught me that.¡± ¡°Your friends taught you to make a hammock... Out of grass?¡± I asked incredulously, Reginald grinned. ¡°Long story!¡± Reg found grass and showed me how to weave it, he then used sticks at both ends like any normal hammock. Then used long strands of grass to create a rope of sorts, they were done just before night fell and they clambered up the stoutest tree with the studiest branches they could find. They climbed as high as they could and hung their hammocks between the branches. They got into their hammocks and stared at the sky, not that they could see much of it with the branches above them. "I''m just surprised you still managed to do all this with your arm like that." I said mentioning towards his broken arm. He shrugged, then grinned, "I have a pretty good pain tolerance." It was silent for a while before Reginald spoke up again. ¡°Good thing you don''t have a fear of heights, I don''t think many people would be okay hanging this high up in grass created hammocks.¡± Reginald swung a bit, a leg hanging out of the hammock as he lay there leisurely. ¡°Spent most of my life running cross rooftops, I''m confident enough that if I fall off I will be able to recover enough to grab a branch. This isn''t nearly as high as a skyscraper after all.¡± The words causing me to reminisce about the time where me and my friends ran across the cranes of new york, free climbing at heights that made others sick. I smiled at the memories, I never did grow tired of running along those heights, the danger of death near at hand. Heart pounding as I raced among thing metal beams. The thought of my adrenaline addiction gave me a realization. ¡°Hey did you notice how relatively calm everyone was about the situation?¡± Reginald sturred as he turned in his hammock to look at me, his blue eyes reflecting some of the moonlight. ¡°Now that you mention it, none of us completely panicked, then there is the fact that everyone helped kill the Kabane when it entered, no one froze.¡± He tapped his chin in thought. I nodded as I relaxed into my hammock. ¡°That''s weird, right? I''m pretty sure most people would panic, maybe we were kidnapped, or whatever it is that got us here, for a reason?¡± Reginald sagged back into his hammock as he stared at the branches above him, he sighed deeply. ¡°Doesn''t do us much good to realize it now, the only one around that I can ask about is you.¡± he pointed out. I shrugged conceding to his point, ¡°Well if you have questions ask away.¡± Reginald turned his head a bit, ¡°You don''t mind?¡± I shrugged, ¡°Not like I got anything better to do.¡± He grinned at that and rolled back into his hammock. ¡°Well, then I won''t hold back, be prepared because I have no sense of shame!¡± I smiled slightly at that, ¡°I can see that, the way you walk around with that hair.¡± He gasped overdramatically and stared at me, ¡°How dare you mock my fabulous mane, it has been the pride of the Maxwellian family for generations!¡± We chuckled at that, the levity of the atmosphere getting rid of some unseen tension. ¡°You said you had no family? Wassat about?¡± I frowned for a bit, ¡°Well my parents died or kicked me out when I was young, honestly I''m not sure. Raised myself sort of, lots of beggers and homeless people helped me out. Eventually, i met some other kids along the way, we became a family of our own. We stole food, and clothes and whatnot. Eventually, we moved on to bigger game, we became a somewhat infamous band of thieves in back in New-York. I heard they even had a special police unit looking for us.¡± I grinned as I remembered hearing about that. ¡°Wouldn''t they eventually catch you, or one of you would be tempted by the reward and cave?¡± Reg asked carefully. I laughed a little at that, ¡°Perhaps they could catch us, but have you seen cops? So slooooow, run over a rooftop or two and they can''t keep up, as for turning each other in for the reward. We didn''t give two copper shits about the money. We had enough of it that we could live, and most if it was spent fooling around. We did it for the rush, now that I think about it maybe that is what connects all of us.¡± I rolled the thought around in my head for a bit, wondering if that was the connection. ¡°You think that''s what it is, we are all fearless adrenaline junkies? People who live on the edge because it is the only way they feel alive? I have to say this being stalked by a horde of OP zombies is a good way to get the blood pumping.¡± Reginald stared at me for a moment with wide eyes. ¡°It does make a sick sort of sense, but that still leaves the how or why?¡± He sagged back into his hammock, ¡°I don''t think we will live long enough to find out what it is that brought us here.¡± I laughed and grinned at him, ¡°My dear richboy, didn''t you know that death is merely the next great adventure. The only truly unknown place, after death there could be anything, and we wouldn''t know. I do not fear death, I am merely curious.¡± He shook his head, chuckling at my words. ¡°Well curiosity kills the cat they say, perhaps curiosity will kill a Zoa as well.¡± I snickered as swung a bit in my hammock. ¡°Probably, I never expected to live past thirty anyways, at least this is exciting, a whole new high!¡± ¡°You''re crazy.¡± Reginald stated. ¡°You mean WE are crazy¡± I said emphasizing the word we, ¡°Don''t pretend this whole ordeal didn''t get your blood pumping blondie.¡± ¡°Fine, fine. Whatever, let''s just get some sleep yea?¡± I chuckled at his response and closed my eyes, falling asleep with less tension in my body than I would expect. Ark 1 : Kabaneri - Chapter 3 I woke up with the rise of the sun, the rays of light penetrating my eyelids, forcing me awake. I looked around, checking my surrounding to my relief our tree was not surrounded by zombers looking to have a bite of tasty lil ol'' me. I heard the groans as Reg got up, putting a hand on his ribs with a grimace. He gently stretched, wincing as he stressed his cracked ribs. He looked at his arm frowning, then with a sigh sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with his good arm. ¡°Mornin''¡± I said lookin over at Reg, he looked back at me and sighed, ¡°Here I was hopin you had been a figmant of my imagination.¡± I laughed as I looked at my brand new, currently sulking, friend. ¡°Nah, you''d miss me!¡± He chuckled softly and glanced over, ¡°Who knows, perhaps I would.¡± ¡°Course you would, don''t often find a friend as handsome as me!¡± We shared another chuckled, I climbed down the tree. Smoothly hopping from branch to branch, I moved smoothly for a while before I stumbled when realization hit me. I rolled up my pants and checked my calf. The bite that had been plaguing me was gone. My leg had darkened, not as much as it had been when the infection spread, but up to the knee where we had stopped the infection, my skin was a dark grey. Orange glowing veins were barely visible beneath my skin. I marveled at the sight and gently tested my leg. It felt fine, in fact it felt better than fine. I glanced up to see Reg climbing down, moving smoothly despite not being able to use an arm. When he dropped down from the lowest branch, grunting in pain as the move put pressure on his ribs, I motioned him over. ¡°Reg, check out my leg!¡± He walked over and glanced suspiciously at my leg, swiveling his gaze back to me then to the leg. His brows furrowed, he stared at me with worry. ¡°Is it spreading?¡± He asked with a frown. I shook my head, ¡°Pretty sure it''s not.¡± On a random surge of idiocy I walked up to a tree, I swept my leg back and unleashed a kick on the tree. To my great surprise, my shin actually managed to smash the bark, it did not put a dent in the tree but it was definitely more powerful than should be possible. I was decent in a fight, even if I said so myself. I had been practicing Sikaran from a local master who decided I had the aptitude. My kicks had a great deal of force behind them, and my shins had hardened from my training. A human should not be able to smash bark apart like this, not in one kick. Yet here I stood, having done exactly that. I screech broke my focus, me and Reg twisted towards the sound seeing one of those kabane running towards us. Then the hill behind it revealed more of the creatures. With a curse I watched them come. ¡°Run or climb?¡± I asked Reg. He broke into a run, heading towards the opposite direction. ¡°Run!¡± He added, I broke into a near sprint, keeping up with him. ¡°We are so fucked!¡± I yelled at him while running, ¡°We haven''t had anything to eat in a while, we won''t be able to keep this up!¡± ¡°I know!¡± He roared, frustrated, ¡°If we climb we will be surrounded, who knows if those shits can climb!¡± I nodded to myself, agreeing with his assessment. Then sighed, no fucking way would we outrun those things, I glanced back and saw the Kabane, at the same distance as when we had started running. We were not gaining any ground, and neither were they. I was pretty sure however that those things could run forever, whereas we could not. We kept running, our breath turning ragged, the Kabane where still only about a kilometer behind us, I was screaming a string of curses in my head, I glanced towards Reg, huffing I spoke up. ¡°We can''t outrun them.¡± I said, stopping. He stopped, hands on his hips, breathing hard, he walked over to me frustration etched into his face. ¡°Then what do you propose we do, I have no other fucking ideas.¡± I nodded, then sighed. ¡°You keep running, I distract them.¡± I told him, my face stony. I was trying to keep the emotion off my face, I was nervous, perhaps even scared. Honestly, the thought of me being scared shook me more than I would like to admit. I had always been fearless, I had done things without hesitation, ran across cranes hundreds of feet above the ground, feeling nothing but excitement. Yet here I was, nervous, a pit in my stomach I had never felt before. Then I noticed Reg was glaring at me, oooowh shit did he look pissed off. ¡°You think imma keep runnin and leave you behind, fuck that!¡± He said, growling. ¡°You stay, I stay!¡± I nodded, turning to face the ever closing horde, there had to be at least fifty of the things. More than we could take on for sure. Reg stepped next to me as we stood to face the horde. I felt like I was in the scene of an epic movie. Standing to bravely face the horde, under the assumption of certain death. Only to be saved at the last minute by some random event, although I was pretty sure there would be no fancy random event to save my life. ¡°Well if I''m gonna go out, I want to take at least one of those fuckers with me.¡± Reg muttered, I glanced over at him and grinned. ¡°If you''re killing one, then I''m killing two.¡± Reg glared at me, and issued his challenge.¡°Then I kill four!¡± I chuckled, ¡°You''re on!¡± The screech of the monsters took my focus, I roared at them, fueling it with my nervousness, my frustration, and my overall determination to fuck up their day. I saw Reg tense, as the creature neared the two hundred meter mark. I decided to one-up him, in a moment of sheer madness I started running towards the Kabane. I saw Reg stare at me for the briefest of moments in confusion, then I heard him curse and saw him sprinting to keep up with me from the corner of my eyes. I neared the first kabane, I kept up my momentum, and at the last moment kicked off with my infected foot, with a twist of my body the heel of my foot whistled through the air, crashing into the monsters screeching face. The hardened heel of my foot caved in its face. The monster crashing towards the ground, with a glance I noticed that it was down for the count. Unexpected, but very welcome. I had no time to linger in my moment of glory, another kabane sprinted towards me, it reached towards me, with a snap of my foot I kicked it back, knocking it into another Kabane, sending the two of them tumbling to the ground. I spun into another roundhouse, my foot smashing into another head, crushing its skull. Killing another of the foul creatures, I turned into a whirlwind of motion, sending roundhouse kicks out like Santa throwing presents on Christmas. Then a scream of pain disrupted my motions, I saw Reg go down from the corner of my eye, one of the creatures came up behind him and was biting into his neck. To my surprise, there were two unmoving kabane next to him. With crushed skulls, my split-second of hesitation at hearing the scream of my friend cost me. As I was tackled to the ground by another kabane. I screamed in pain as it bit my shoulder, other kabane swarmed me, their viscious teeth piercing my skin, pulling flesh, tearing muscles, crushing bone. I screamed as I never had before, countless snapping jaws tearing into my body.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. The light dimmed as I felt the streams of blood, the piercing presence of pain trying to keep me conscious. To my regret, I remained conscious for a lot longer than I would have liked. The pain of being eaten alive etched into my body before blackness settled over my eyes. I woke with a jerk, surprised that I woke up at all I stared around. I was in what looked like a rather large furnished room, in fact the room was eerily familiar. Wasn''t this Mcleesh''s pub? I sat up staring around the pub in surprise, I knew this place. I knew it very well, I lived here, together with my two sisters and brother. We had built this place, pouring our money into it, to give old man McLeish a place. He had taken care of us for years, so we had decided to buy the old man the pub he always wanted, from the money we had snatched. I sat up and stared around at the meticulously clean, yet glaringly empty pub. The fact that it was empty made it feel otherworldly. The pub was never empty, there were always people here. Either it was us and the old man, who also lived in the area upstairs. Or there were customers, which roamed the pub nearly eighteen hours of every day. Sitting up I started exploring the empty pub, running my hand amongst the beautiful mahogany counter, its gleaming dark wood striking my hearts chords. I walked behind the counter, my eyes running among the shelves filled with booze, most if it an Irish whiskey that McLeish fancied. My eyes roamed from the cozy interior to the stairs, I headed over to the stairs, opening the door that connected to it. I walked up to the open area above the bar, unlike normal houses there was only one separate room. We had built a room for McLeish on the second floor, it was nicely furnished with a stout wooden bed. The rest of the floor, however, was dominated by what we called the playroom. It had fat boys, worn couches, gaming stations, shelves of books. Hammocks that hang from the ceiling, which we slept in. My eyes ran over the room with a feeling I had never had before, nostalgia. I sank into one of the fat boys, holding back as I felt tears pressing behind my eyes. I buried my head in my hands. ¡°What the hell is going on.¡± I muttered to myself. I suddenly heard a knock on the door, To my shock the booming sound was audible as someone knocked on the front door to the pub. I frowned as I headed downstairs. Despite the front door having a window, to my somewhat growing concern I could see nothing in front of it. I don''t mean like there was no one in front of the door, I meant nothing. It was simply black, the windows into the street, however, showed the familiar streets of his neighborhood. With a frown I opened the door, my jaw dropping as I saw who it was. ¡°Reg?¡± I muttered as I stared at the blond-haired, short bearded, goofily grinning man that just appeared in front of me. ¡°Figures you live in a pub, looks like a cool place though, I bet you have a shitton of alcohol.¡± I stuttered as I tried to find words. ¡°W-well, yeah, we got tons of drinks. Wouldn''t be much of a pub if we didn''t.¡± Reg nodded, as his gaze wandered the pub, frustration started bubbling below the surface as I glared at him. ¡°Reg what the fuck is going on! You died! I saw you die! I died! I got torn apart like a fucking chew toy by those zombie sons of-¡± I continued to unleash a string of curses as I though of the way I had been torn apart by zombies. Reg let me finish my tirade with an amused smile on his face. Once I calmed down he motioned for me to follow him. I walked through the door and saw to my amazement that we ended up into a hallway, it was similar to a hallway in a hotel, I looked back at my door to see a regular wooden hotel door, that looked nothing like the front door of the pub. I furrowed my brow in confusion as I saw the plate that adorned my door. {Zoa''s Room} I cursed under my breath as I stared around the hallway, at the end of the hall was a room with some kind of glowing contraption. I stared as I recognized the faces that surrounded it, all of them looking over at me and Reg. Reg walked over to them and motioned me to follow, once we stood around the glowing contraption, I stared around in confusion. The doctor spoke up, ¡°This thing said it would not start its explanation without everyone present, so Reginald walked over to get you. Most of us rushed outside our houses in surprise as when we appeared in them. Imagine our disappointment when it was not our street we ran out into.¡± ¡°How did you guys end up here?¡± I asked, staring around the room, I noticed three somewhat unfamiliar faces that I had not seen before. Then realization hit me, these were probably the people that had died upon impact when the train cabin had crashed. ¡°Wait nevermind, ¡° I quickly added. ¡°You all died like I did?¡± I saw nods around the group, ¡°We could actually see you and Reginald in this contraption. The three that had died in the cabin, where already sitting here watching. The rest of us died shortly after you fell down the hill. We didn''t even make it to nightfall. Then we saw you and Reginald in this thing.¡± He said motioning at the fluid that was suspended in, he couldn''t even tell what it was suspended in. It was a construction of metal arms, and bars and it somehow held the floating fluid. It reminded him of ferrofluid. The doctor continued his explanation, ¡°The fluid turned into a TV of sorts, we saw you and Reginald make the hammocks, climb the trees, and sleep. It all went fast, as if it was being fast-forwarded. Then when you were set upon by these... Kabane. Time suddenly passed normally, and we could watch you run, then turn around and fight the creatures.¡± I frowned as I looked at the fluid, ¡°This thing showed you what we did, but it changed the time? How long have you guys been here?¡± This time it was the doctor''s turn to frown. ¡°We have been waiting for you perhaps half an hour? The other three about fourty-five minutes.¡± I blanched as I stared at him, he nodded. ¡°I know, it means time was warped, that plus the fact that we are all pretty sure we died, leaves a great many questions. Once you two died, this thing told us that it would start its explanation once all ''Scriptors'' had arrived. Scriptors refers to us apparently.¡± I had so many more questions to ask but I could tell the others were impatient to hear what the fluid had to say for itself. The very sentence sounding weird in my mind, regardless I sat down and awaited answers to my questions. The fluid burst into motion once I sat down, creating a somewhat humanoid figure. The ferrofluid remaining colorless, the lack of colour or any strict forms, it was hard to judge if the figure was male or female. Its strange voice made it no easier to discover this thing''s gender, should it even have one. The fluid figure spread its arm around, ¡°Welcome to your Minor HUB.¡± It looked at them one at a time as if ascertaining they were truly there. I was skeptical if the creature actually saw we were there, or if it just reacted, it was not like I could see its eyes. So that question would remain unanswered, at least for now. ¡°You are part of the group of humans that have been chosen to represent your race, Your group has ten Scriptors. After six months of HUB time has passed, you will be integrated into a larger group containing a hundred human Scriptors in total. After another two and a half years time. This group will be integrated into another larger HUB. This will contain a thousand human Scriptors. The entirety of Scriptors the human race will have representing itself.¡± ¡°What do you mean hub! What are scriptors!¡± The young man asked the fluid, frustrated. ¡°Where ARE we?!¡± The fluid turned to him, ¡°Please keep your questions to yourself until the end of the explanation. Further interruptions will be ignored.¡± The young man huffed but sat back down, glaring at the fluid. The fluid continued, ¡°After a total of six years HUB time has passed. Humanity will be integrated into the Central Hub, and will make first official contact with other races.¡± I frowned at that, other alien races. Something else I nodded created a new question. It said official contact. Did that mean there has already been unofficial contact, or that it was possible to contact other hubs before they were integrated? ¡°The Hubs have been created as preparation for all races that are soon to see the Nihil. The Nihil are an intergalactic enemy that focus purely on absorbing or destroying everything and anything. The hub prepares a group of warriors from a certain race that must help in the intergalactic war. The hub will protect the race during its incubation time, but requests their help in fighting off The Nihil as soon as they are capable.¡± I groaned at the implication of an intergalactic super-enemy. This was really not what I had been expecting to do with my life. Stealing some minor jewelry, or some fancy painting was one thing. Fighting a never endless war against an all-consuming enemy was quite another. The fluid, oblivious to my inner turmoil continued its explanation. ¡°Missions have been set up bi-weekly. Based on time survived, enemies killed, or other tasks performed you will be rewarded for with currency. This currency can be used at the center shop, which is run by me. You will be able to buy inventions, creations or biological enhancements that have been invented by other races, or your own at the shop. The system is very similar to the games humanity has created. There are classes you can choose from, from the regular warrior to the bioengineered, Genetic Imperialist. Classes can be bought at lower levels, they will grow and evolve upon higher levels. Each class branches into multiple possibilities. Stats can be bought that will genetically improve your bodies capabilities. Many individuals choose to either Biotically or Technologically enhance themselves. With a few of them choosing to do both.¡± My head swam with the information, I could enhance myself? I had to admit that sounded awesome, I had always dreamed of becoming a superhero, or a partly cyborg enhanced super soldier. I mean who hadn''t? ¡°Missions can be chosen to gain points, missions can be run as a group, or as an individual. There are Three available choices when it comes to missions. You can choose from either the Mission list, picking something you feel would fit you. This would gain you the regular amount of points upon completion, or per day of survival. Or you can choose to be assigned a random mission, giving you an increase of fifty percent in currency gained. The last type of mission is called a Special, this mission cannot be avoided and will be assigned to you or your team, at random times.¡± Missions huh, I sighed to myself. My life just became a lot more interesting than I had expected. Ark 1 : The Hub : Chapter 4 ¡°Can we ask questions now?¡± The young man who knew about the Kabane asked. ¡°You are free to ask any questions that are bothering you, I can however not promise that I have the answer.¡± The fluid said as it spun to face the boy. ¡°Uhhh right, Hi... I''m Jim. I was wondering how you picked us for this fight against The Nihil.¡± The fluid hesitated or gave the question a moments thought. It truly was hard to tell. ¡°Humans have been chosen in various groups based upon personality, or character traits. The trait that your group has in common is what your people call ''Adrenaline Junkies''. Other races refer to your kind as the Fearless, the Excited, the Battleborn, as a few examples.¡± Jim blinked at the answer, ¡°Well at least the names are bad-ass!¡± A smile grew on his face as he thought about it. I had to agree with him, their names sounded far more complementary than ''Adrenaline Junky''. ¡°Does that mean that other groups have completely different traits or a combination of traits?¡± Jim continued. ¡°That is correct.¡± The fluid answered. Jim wanted to ask something else but I interrupted him. ¡°Sorry Jim but I need to ask this, Did we get points last mission? And if so how do we spend them.¡± Jim blinked at the interruption but then his attention was focused solely on the answer, excitement glimmering in his eyes. ¡°You have indeed been awarded points for your previous mission. You have been awarded 75 points for your first mission. You will gain 25 extra points per night survived, and 5 points for every Kabane you killed or helped kill. You can access the shop by simply placing your hands on the panel. There is a panel available for each Scriptor so you do not have to worry about lines.¡± Hearing his words I looked down at the panels surrounding the fluid and placed my hand on it. {Scriptor : Zoa {Age : 23 {Physical Statistics { Muscular Strength : 13.2 { Muscular Elasticity : 12.9 { Muscular Toughness : 12.8 { Muscular Velocity : 14.2 { Skeletal Durability: 10.9 { Skin Thickness and Durability : 10.7 { {Mental Statistics {Recollection : 10.3 {Cerebral Capacity : 10.1 {Thought Velocity : 11.2 {Psychic Capabilities: 0 { {Current enhancements, {Right Kabaneri Leg Mutation. { {Scriptor available Currency : 130 {View Mission Reports} I read the statistics, somewhat understanding what they did. I was intrigued by the mission report and clicked on it, it opened another option that listed only the Kabaneri mission. Clicking on the mission I read the report. {Mission : 1 ¨C Kabaneri} {Mission completed, awarded points : 75 {One night survived, awarded points : 25 {Five Kabane slain, One Kabane assist, awarded points : 30} I read the report and grinned, I was pretty sure I had the most points out of everyone here. I clicked on the shop and my eyes widened at the vast amount of options available to me. The list went on and on, the first thing that interested me as an avid gamer were the classes. Unfortunately even the cheapest tier one classes cost two hundred credits and were unavailable to me. All enhancements where above my current budget as well, there were items available but something interested me more than those items. Stat points, I could upgrade my stat points by 1 per 20 points. I smiled as I glanced once more at my stat screen. I ended up Putting 1 point in Muscular Strength Elasticity and Toughness and two in Velocity. I put another point in Thought Velocity. I watched in horror as the fluid rushed over my arm, I tried to retract it but found it stuck to the panel. The other Scriptors watched in morbid curiosity as the fluid rushed up my arm, and entered through the nostrils and mouth. I wanted to struggle but to my surprise, I didn''t find myself gasping for breath. I blinked when I noticed I didn''t feel anything. Then I felt a warm glow spread throughout my body, I watched with awe as my muscles reformed. I had been relatively muscular before but just these few points in stats turned muscular into chiseled. I guess a few points made a big difference if you increased your strength by about ten percent. I stretched my limbs and threw a few kicks, I felt great. The others watched me perform, the doctor gazed at me. ¡°How do you feel, and what did you change.¡± I glanced over at him, ¡°I put a few points in my muscular statistics, I feel better than great, to be honest. I feel... Strong.¡± It was lame, but it was the best explanation I could give. I simply felt stronger than I ever had before, I felt like taking on the Rock in a wrestling match. I took off my shirt and examined my body, yup I was chiseled as all hell. My body looked like something from a fashion magazine. I saw the Christian girl staring at me and I winked at her. Her cheeks reddened slightly but she didn''t look away. I could appreciate a girl who stood her ground like that, focusing back on the matters ahead I spoke up. ¡°Well I would advise you guys to put most points in stats, for now, there is very little else we can afford at the moment. Perhaps a weapon would usefull as well, so I would save a few points for that.¡± I saw a few nods around the room. I returned to the shop myself to have a look at the items, the items really were relatively cheap compared to the rest. I asked the fluid if there was a reason behind it, the logic was simple. Most weapons were a lot simpler and cheaper to create, as well as the chance that they could be lost in a mission, making them cheaper than permanent enhancements which were difficult to implement. I decided on a gun called the KRISS VECTOR GEN II SMG KV45-MBL2. It was quite the mouthfull, most people simply referred to it as the vector. I like it, it was light, compact, had a high rate of fire. It weighed in at three kilograms, used 45. ammo, which was a large caliber so it had good stopping power. It had three modes of fire, semi-automatic, automatic, and my personal favourite two round burst. It was my favourite simply because it was an automatic double tap, if you aimed properly it should be enough to put down most hostiles.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Then the cherry that took the pie, it had unlimited ammo. The whole thing only cost me 8 points, which struck me as remarkably cheap. Then I realized, the reason items where so cheap compared to enhancements was that when you died, which had an extremely high chance going by our previous mission, you lost your weapon. Making items a one-time investment, still, having a gun with unlimited ammo made me feel a lot more at ease. I read through the explanation of the unlimited ammo function, it told us that we still had to reload the weapon, but the magazine would never empty, you had an extra mag that you could put in a pouch or in your gear, and you could switch magazines and they would automatically fill. Basically, you still had to reload your weapon, but you had an infinite amount of filled magazines. In my eyes it was still more than worth the points, I was already imagining the sheer amount of kabane I could have killed if I had possessed a weapon of this caliber. I looked around to see what the others had chosen. Reg who was standing next to me was holding a massive machine gun he called his darling MK 48. The christian girl was to my surprise holding a sniper rifle, I glanced at her and couldn''t resist asking. ¡°Why did you pick a rifle like that?¡± She glanced over and shrugged, ¡°My father taught me to hunt, he was ex-military and current police officer. A sniper in swat, even at his age. He taught me how to use this rifle, I have shot more rounds with this rifle than I care to remember. It''s simply the weapon I am most comfortable with. To this day I still think the rifle was overkill for hunting. But for what we will be doing it will see proper use.¡± I nodded to myself, ¡°How much did it cost you?¡± ¡°6 points, i spent 60 on thought velocity, it should help speed up my aiming. I plan to spend the last of my points 14 in total, on camoflage gear.¡± She focused her attention back on the panel. ¡°I am unsure of the kind of gear that would fit me best.¡± I thought for a few moments before remembering a movie I saw recently, that had fantastic optical camouflage. ¡°How about the suit that they used in Ghost in the Shell, is that available? That would be close to the skin and might fit you bet, if you want something more combat uniform oriented than maybe the Ghost Recon outfit?¡± She tapped her chin thoughtfully, ¡°I think Major''s outfit would fit me best, It''s a good thing regular clothing and provisions cost us nothing. I could wear the skin outfit underneath a proper set of sturdy clothes, and simply strip of a layer when necessary.¡± I really had to hold myself back to not remark upon the stripping of layers. I nodded at her thoughts and made my way around the room to check what the others were doing. An Arabian seeming woman was wearing combat gear, I noticed the Israeli patch on her shoulder. She was wielding a standard military issue assault rifle. She was already tearing it apart and examining and cleaning the various parts. She reeked of a professional, her movements smooth as she cleaned the rifle. Next to her sat a Japanese fellow in a suit. His posture and looks screamed Yakuza, to really bring that to life he was wielding a katana and small submachine gun. I did not know its model, I think it''s called an mp something. The doctor had picked a slim, beautifully accentuated pistol. The Latina lady had a pump action shotgun, the kid had picked dual pistols, The military man had chosen an assault rifle similar to the Israelian lady and a combat knife. Next to him sat one of the largest men I had ever seen before, he had a shoulder-mounted minigun of all things. I stared at the thing with wide eyes, ¡°You had enough points left for that?!¡± The big man grinned, a thick russian accent covering his rich heavy voice. ¡°Yes, I spend less of points on these statistics. I a lot of points, on big powerfull gun.¡± I nodded as I gawked at the thing, I was pretty sure the russian could wreak havoc with the thing. I would have loved one of those myself but I didn''t think my body could handle the kind of abuse the recoil of such a thing would have on my body. ¡°That might indeed be a smarter choice this early on in the missions.¡± The russian man nodded, ¡°I think so, many enemies will be mowed down before they take Ivan''s life.¡± I smiled at the gigantic man. ¡°I will be sure to stand behind you when shit hits the fan!¡± The russian laughed, his heavy voice reverberating through the walls. ¡°Ivan big, easy to hide behind. If you hide behind Ivan, Ivan ask you for favor, you good talker, you teach Ivan how to speak to women yes?¡± My face nearly split in two at the grin I returned to the man. ¡°I would do my best to teach you about talking to women, you won''t even have to let me hide behind you for that.¡± Another rumbling laugh, he slapped my back, nearly knocking me facedown onto the pavement. Suddenly a voice brought silence to the room. ¡°I propose we discuss the mission set-up. I think it would be a good idea to choose a mission instead of trying for a random one. We can prepare ourselves much better for the fight ahead, even if it may cost us in our total of points.¡± The doctor''s smooth voice forced everyone''s attention on him. ¡°All of us have chosen weapons we are familiar with, or at the very least know how to use. None of us have chosen any of the fantastical weapons that we have never seen before, we chose familiarity. I propose we do the same with our choice of mission.¡± His words were convincing, yet I did not agree. We needed the points, and we needed them badly. A 50% increase in received points was too much of a bonus to overlook. I opened my mouth to tell him that but good ol'' Reg beat me to it. ¡°I disagree, points are valuable, a fifty percent increase in points is too much to ignore. The weapons we would be able to buy with those extra points for the next mission alone is worth the choice. We cannot afford to play it safe, we need to take the risk.¡± A few people nodded at his retort, the good doctor, however, shook his head. I liked the man, he saved my life after all. As far as I could tell he was a determined man who did his best to save his charges. He had immediately checked upon the wounded and treated them in the last mission. He was a good man to have on your side, but I agreed with Reg. Not only because I really liked the dude, most importantly it was true. We could not afford to play it safe, we really had to take a risk. The doctor straightened, sweeping his gaze over those present.¡°Should we then hold a vote to decide what the group will do? We have a few days to decide but holding a vote seems to be the best way to go in my opinion.¡± Reg frowned slightly then scratched his head. ¡°Votes are dangerous, before holding things to a vote, perhaps we should find out what all our options are. We don''t know everything about these missions and how they are chosen or what they can entail. According to Jim the last mission had Kabane, a monster he was familiar with from a fictional story from our very own world.¡± He then started pacing. ¡°What if the missions we go on are all like that, fictional stories from our world. We could end up in Lord of the Rings or a horror movie! We should find out if missions are categorized like that.¡± The doctor watched him pace, a frown appearing on his face. ¡°Wouldn''t that be the argument FOR choosing a movie instead of picking a random one. Much better to face the devil you know is it not?¡± Reg paused for a second then proceeded to shake his head, ¡°We need more information first, Fluid! How do these missions work?¡± The fluid swarmed together to form another humanoid figure. ¡°Missions are created from fictional creations of your own people or those of other races. Some have been created by my own race to test the limits of the mind and/or the body. The type of mission must be chosen in the first week of rest time. You will be told what mission you have received at the end of the first week, giving you a week to prepare for the mission. Teams can be formed within groups, it is not necessary to perform missions as a whole, you could even undertake missions yourself. Although this is not advisable this early in your training.¡± The doctor frowned as he processed all the implications. ¡°Random movies are still dangerous, you might get one with an extremely low chance of survival like the one we just had. It would be better to take one where there is a greater opportunity for earning or receiving points.¡± ¡°Now that I know that I will know what mission it''s going to be a week in advance I am dead set on choosing random. I propose we split up into two groups and we try both options, then we can compare results and decide on a further plan of action¡± The doctor reluctantly nodded, ¡°This would probably be the best course of action, yes.¡± Thus it was decided there would be two teams for the next mission. I was already dead set on going with Reg, but I wondered what the others would decide. Ark 1 : Hub - Chapter 5 We split up, a few discussions went around while people decided what they would rather do. In the end only Ivan and Eva decided to join us. Eva was apparently the christian girl''s name, We shrugged, I was fine with the team split up this way. I preferred working in a smaller group anyhow, my own thieving team was set up with four people as well so it fits. Thinking about my brother and two little sisters I felt a little homesick. I really missed having them around, I wonder if they got drafted, I''m pretty sure they would do pretty well. I shook the rampant thoughts from my mind and focused on the present. Reg had just finished some last minute discussion with the doctor. He walked over and sighed, ¡°Well this is the way we are going to be split, Ivan and Eva with us and the rest with the Doc.¡± I nodded, then shrugged. ¡°Works for me, so whats up next?¡± Reg glanced at me, scratching his beard. ¡°Well we need to get some practice in. First of all, I just want a full nights sleep. I really don''t wanna sleep in an empty mansion, home feels lonely without the people in it.¡± Eva walked up to them after the others finished their conversations, Ivan walking beside her with a huge goofy grin. Eva swept her eyes over the both of them and spoke up, ¡°My ''home'' is a church and rather inhospitable, I too would prefer to find another place to spend the night.¡± ¡°I too, barracks empty, it does not feel good. No longer home.¡± The huge russian said. I shrugged, ¡°You could all stay at my place, the pub has the room. You would need to set-up your own place to sleep. Unless you are fine with the hammocks.¡± The rest glanced at me and grinned. To my surprise, the Israelian soldier walked up to us. ¡°Would it still be possible for me to join your group, it would seem the others have a method for working that I don''t quite agree with.¡± I glanced at Reg who gave me a small nod, ¡°Fine with us, we were just talking about all gathering in one place to spend the night. Most people felt their houses did not feel like home without the people in it. I would agree with the fact that it would bother me sleeping in an empty pub.¡± The soldier raised an eyebrow as she glanced at me, ¡°You sleep in a pub? Do you have an alcoholic issue?¡± I laughed at the not-so-subtle question. ¡° Nope, we built the bar to help out the man that raised us, the pub is the bottom floor, the living room is upstairs. The pub is our home however, you''ll see. Before we head to the pub, however, I didn''t catch your name? I''m Zoa by the way.¡± She gave me a polite shallow bow, ¡°I am Aviva, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.¡± The others introduced themselves to the new addition and we headed towards my door. I walked up to the strange hotel-door and found myself staring at the plate holding my name and room number. With a shrug, I opened the door and waved the others inside. They walked into the pub and glanced around the lounge. While they were admiring the view I grabbed a drink (milk, to the surprise of many I did not drink alcohol.) and sat down in my regular corner that had a view over the rest of the lounge. I told the others to grab whatever drink they fancied and join me. Reg came with a beer, the huge Russian had a vodka, how very stereotypical of him. Eva had a glass of water and Aviva also had a beer to my surprise. Reg took a sip of his beer and looked around the table. ¡°So everyone here decided to do the random mission. I have asked Fluid a few questions about it but I have no further information that you have not already heard.¡± Reg started giving a speech, to be honest, I was not paying much attention as I was eyeing the people who I would be having a life and death scenario with. Reg had taken a seat to my left, He was somewhat taller to me at about six, three. Or one meter and ninety centimeters in non-retard units. As memes have informed me. He has a close-cropped blond beard, short hair of the same golden colour and blue eyes. A true ubermensch I''m pretty sure he''d be pissed off if I started calling him the ubermensch, making me want to do it even more. I hid my grin by sipping from my milk. I swiveled my gaze over to person on my right, the Israelian soldier, Aviva. Now that I actually looked at her properly I could tell she was a beautiful woman. Despite her not very flattering desert-camo military outfit I was sure she had a nice body. I had to resist letting my eyes gravitate to where the normal luscious curves would be visible. The thing that stood out most to me, however, were her amber eyes. They glinted a near golden in the atmospheric lighting of the club, her hair was shaved on both sides, the hair on top and on the back of her hair was pulled into a ponytail. She had a somewhat angular face. Maybe I was being somewhat racist but she really reminded me of a character from the show NCIS that I watch. She looks similar to Ziva, they could have been sisters or cousins at the least. She wasn''t that tall either at around five foot, five or one meter and sixty-seven centimeters.. Then my gaze moved over to my man Ivan the not so terrible. I grinned at the monicker I had given him in my head, The man truly was huge at least seven feet, my guess he was even another three or four inches taller than that. That would be, I did some quick calculations in my head, about two meters and twenty-five centimeters. Which was insane, most people that size are thin. Ivan was anything but thin, he was built like a closet, arms the size of tree trunks. I was surprised the wooden chair was capable of holding him. Ivan had hazel brown eyes, and hair of a similar colour. Though his size was intimidating his general attitude was disarming. The man had this permanent goofy mischevious grin plastered on his face. It was hard not to like the giant. The last person in our merry little band of misfits was the christian girl Eva. She would not have stood out anywhere in a western country, she was cute, in a humble country-girl like manner. Her hair was a dark brown, she had a few freckles sprinkled around her nose, and her emerald eyes accentuated a cute button nose. Her small frame betrayed her well-toned body however, I had seen her run in her torn dress. She was physically fit, far fitter than her small frame might suggest. She was easily the smallest of the group at about five, two or one meter and fifty-eight centimeters. Then I gazed into the large mirror behind the bar, staring at my own reflection. Our clothes had been fixed when we arrived in the HUB, I was still wearing the track pants with sturdy cargo boots. Both black, and a black tank-top to match. My eyes were a steely grey, and my hair was black. Or so very very dark brown that it might as well be called black. It was an ongoing discussion back home, I was pretty sure it was black to be honest. I wasn''t very tall at five foot, nine. Or one meter and seventy-four centimeters. Although I was somewhat short I was broad, I had met few people my height that were broader than I was. Most importantly and I don''t mean to brag but I was seriously chiseled. I had always been lean, but the stat upgrade had changed my body to look like one of those probably photoshopped male underwear models. I turned my attention back to Reg, he had been talking about group effort and trust and blabla-not-very-important. You can talk about trust but that doesn''t mean it will magically appear, what he was talking about now, however, was much more interesting. Training, yup, he had found out from Fluid that they had simulator training rooms that we could use for the coming two weeks to practice our teamwork and get used to our weapons. Something we would start doing tomorrow apparently as he proposed we headed to bed for the day. It had been an exhausting day after all, with many firsts. I voiced my agreement to that plan with a nod from the rest. I stood up and showed the others the way to the sleeping/living room.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Their eyes widened and I heard a few express their awe. I grinned as I swept my eyes across the place, this was home, a teenage playground. We had arcades set up in one corner, four of them, including the good-old pinball machine. We had a lounge couch set up facing a wall, a wall that had a big ass tv and all the consoles and games that we could find. We had a corner filled with a massive amount of books. In all honesty, the living room was much larger than the pub downstairs. The pub was just a simple part of the complex, with a few other stores connected to it. The second floor, however, was completely ours. It must have been a hundred by fifty meters or something close. Fat boys, couches, hammocks, laptops, pc''s. We had it all. Reg walked up to me and put a hand on my shoulder, ¡°This is a lot different than the pub downstairs, the pub was cozy an felt like a nice place. But this, this is your own little slice of paradise isn''t it.¡± His eyes wandered across the room trying to take everything in. I grinned and thrust out my chest a bit in pride. ¡°I did say we weren''t wanting for money, thieving pays well! We built this place ourselves, everything you see we either made, bought, or stole somewhere.¡± Eva stared at me for a bit, keeping her face carefully blank of any and all emotions. ¡°You were a thief? You threatened and harmed people and took off with their things?¡± I blinked at the accusation, ¡°Threatened and harmed people? Pffff, that''s for amateurs. We snuck into the places of rich people, bypassed their security and then legged it. Most of the time we didn''t even have to leg it. We had escape routes set-up just in case, of course, Elli was adamant about that. Then there''s all the money we put into the street. We had our own little weekly feeding of the homeless.¡± She stared at me for a moment longer, ¡°The police, they never found you?¡± I chuckled for a bit, ¡°I honestly don''t think they tried that hard, the people we stole from were true assholes. Some of them criminals themselves, we actually tried to target people that we knew the police secretly despised. People that looked down on the good officers of the law. We even helped out our freindly neighborhood donut eaters. Yea Lily hacked this pedophile website and crashed their net, sending their address''s to the police. Then there was that one time we helped them track down a killer, all anonymously of course. But it built us up some goodwill, all in all, I think we were harmless and the police knew that.¡± I shrugged at the end of the explanation, to see the others staring at me. ¡°What? Do I have milk in my mustache, or in my oh so fabulous beard?¡± Ivan blinked and spoke with that deep rumbling voice of his. ¡°You have lived an interesting life, have you not Zoatra of the thieves.¡± I scratched my neck, a bit put-out by the use of my full name and the fact that the of the thieves part sounded like a fancy titel. ¡°I''m pretty sure the rest of you have lived an interesting life of your own, I doubt you would have been brought here otherwise.¡± Ivan shrugged, ¡°Ivan is mercenary, Ivan get paid to kill so Ivan kill. It is not that complicated.¡± ¡°Perhaps not complicated but it sounds interesting enough to me!¡± Ivan returned another shrug not seeing his own life as anything special, neither did I see my own as anything special so I guess I understood what he was feeling. The rest of the day was over surprisingly quickly, everyone picked a spot, I climbed up to swing into my hammock and closed my eyes. It only took me a few seconds to completely pass out. The next day I was slow to wake up, Reg and Aviva were already awake and were making breakfast in the pub kitchen downstairs, I could hear and smell the sizzling of bacon. I inhaled through my nose, savoring the smell of bacon. After a hearty breakfast, complete with conversations and a dreary-eyed shambling Ivan we headed to the simulation room. It was not like what I had expected, I had expected a sort of VR environment with different types of enemies and the like. Instead, it was a larger room with holographic targets, both moving and static. Fluid informed us that the Simulator would evolve along with the points we earned. He said it was too much of an investment to give all groups fully powered simulators if they weren''t sure we would be worth the trouble. I got the sentiment but it was still odd to practice against the holographic targets. I quickly got used to my Vector, it did take me some time to get a handle on it while moving around. Doing parkour and other athletic movements while shooting a two-handed weapon was a lot harder than the movies made it look. Aviva and Ivan helped us set up the way we moved in a squad, We had pooled the remnants of our points to buy Eva a pistol. A sniper was useful to have but without a close range sidearm, she would be far to vulnerable. In the end, we got her a simple Beretta, the same one her father had taught her with. To my surprise, i was easily the worst shot in the group. Everyone other than me had experience in firearms. Aviva being a true crack shot and Ivan. Well, Ivan had a Gatling gun with infinite ammo, who needs to aim when you have something like that. I was the most mobile of the group though, the thievery had taught me to be nimble and light on my feet. As thus I was designated as the group scout. Aviva had taught us how to set up as a proper crack military unit. We were all given a designated job, and a sector to watch while walking in close formation. For instance, Reg would watch the 9 to 12 o''clock, or west to north. Depending on the way you looked at things, Aviva would 12 to 3, Ivan 3 to 6 and Eva 6 to 9. i Ivan was unsurprisingly designated as the Heavy, Reg she designated as the Assualt, Eva the sniper and Aviva as CO. We had all generally agreed that Reg was the overall leader, but he would leave combat command to Aviva, especially in small group combat. She was a sergeant and was experienced with squad-based combat tactics. The next week we spent our time training and moving in formation, she taught us hand signals, abbreviations, taught me and Reg how to better handle our weapons, telling us Ivan and Eva did not need any further tutelage. My aim got increasingly better, then when the week ended we anxiously awaited word of the mission that awaited us. I breathed in deeply as I stared at the text that appeared on our panel. [Mission: Survive the Deep Roads] [Mission Parameters : Survive as long as you can while in the Deep Roads, No weapon limit, No power limit, No team Limit. [Mission world: Dragon Age] ¡°Owh shit.¡± I said, the others looked up at me questioningly. ¡°I''m familiar with this, it''s one of my favorite games. The deep roads suck though. Like they really really REALLY suck as a place to be. It might even be worse than the last one!¡± ¡°Worse than those Kabane?¡± Reg asked doubtfully, Eva raised a doubting eyebrow as well. Ivan and Aviva just shrugged. They had not truly witnessed those fearsome creatures. ¡°Well let me put it this way, Darkspawn infest these deep roads. They are born from these disgusting creatures called Brood Mothers. Darkspawn have tainted blood, somewhat similar to a zombie virus I guess but not exactly like it. Brood mothers area created by capturing females. If they catch a female from a different race the Brood mother they turn into will ''birth'' different types of darkspawn.¡± The others just looked at me, it sounded pretty bad. It was nowhere close to those kabane however. I scratched my chin and sighed. ¡°Let me put it this way. Women are captured, they are force-fed the meat of their own people, effectively turning them into cannibals against their will. Forcefed the tainted blood of darkspawn, which hurts like a mother fucker by the way, and then raped and beaten and tortured by darkspawn. They slowly but surely lose their sanity, their sense of being. Then they start turning into something else, something not quite like anything else. Its like this super obese, tentacly humanoid flesh sack. Seriously it''s disgusting, even in the first game which is somewhat old the graphics and story are somewhat disturbing.¡± Aviva frowned, folding her arms and pacing across the room. ¡°And we are going to be stuck in these ''Deep Roads'' with these creatures? What are these deep roads?¡± ¡°The Deep Roads are a tunnel network built by the dwarves, the darkspawn have infested and live underground in these tunnels. The dwarves fight an everlasting war against these darkspawn, holding them back with all their might. Our best chance at survival would be reaching one of these dwarven cities. Or in my opinion finding the Legion of the Dead. I am almost positive that meeting them would be awesome.¡± I said enthusiastically, I couldn''t help it. Dragon age was easily one of my favorite games. I had played them time and time again. Eva paled a bit. ¡°Legion of the Dead? That doesn''t sound that great, I really don''t think running into an undead horde will be that pleasant.¡± I blinked as I processed what she said, then I started shaking my head, waving my arms in front of me. ¡°No no no! The Legion of the Dead is not an undead legion. They are this group of dwarves that have forsaken their lives and declared themselves dead. Setting aside their money, family and life to fight the Darkspawn in their own homes. They have this badass black armor, and they are strong! Like they smash darkspawn, they fear no death, they fear only that the dwarven people fall.¡± I kept regaling the tales of my experience in the game to the others, enthusiastically informing them of the lore. We walked back to the pub. I spent time on the computer looking up maps and any lore I could find about the deep roads that might help. Any sliver of information would help us, then I remembered there were so many other nasty creatures that made their homes underground. I made my way to the others to tell them everything I found. The last week was spent planning, gathering information and training some more. Then our time ran out, we watched the time run out on the panel in front of us. Everyone had gathered in the hub, we wished the Doc and his group luck as we waited for the timer to run out. Five Four Three Two One. I took a deep breath and readied my weapon. The second mission had begun. Ark 1 : Dragon Age - Chapter 6 I was looking through the holographic sight I had added to my Vector. Staring down the dark corridor of whatever part of the Deep Roads we were in, to my relief we appeared to be in relative safety for the moment. I was wearing a black combat outfit, with a military issue backpack. Knee protectors, elbow protectors, and padded gloves. I had a black military helmet with a night vision mount, the night vision goggle covered my right eye, painting everything in shades of green. The caves had been near pitch black, luckily ''standard gear'' like what I was using was free. I was also wearing a light kevlar vest, after some investigating, I was sure it would stop an arrow or a blade. Another attachment I had added to my vector was a laser pointer, it was only visible through the night vision but it would help co?rdinate shots with the rest of my team. We were all wearing similar gear, everything tinted black. We had even used black with dark grey to paint our faces, hoping that the camouflage would help. We moved closer to each other, I glanced at Aviva and she gave me the signal to start scouting further down the tunnel. I nodded and with a deep breath started making my way further down. I put down each foot with extreme care, moving slowly to avoid giving away sudden movement. The night-vision helped slightly, but it was hard to make it some smaller objects. Having the other eye uncovered helped me see better. I kept my Vector at the ready, peeking around corners. It was not just the darkspawn I had to worry about but deep-stalkers, giant-spiders and who knows what other monstrosities hid in the deep dark areas of this world. I stared down my gun looking at the suppressor I had bought with my last remaining point. Only me and Aviva had a suppressor, I was in front while Aviva covered the rear. The sounds of the other guns would echo miles throughout the tunnels, something we hoped to avoid as long as possible. When I first fired the Vector without the suppressor I was surprised at the amount of noise it made. It hurt my eardrums to fire the gun, Reg''s gun was even worse. Then when I put on the suppressor the sound was still loud, not like the soft pfft in the movies. It sounded more like dropping a book on the floor. A somewhat loud poof, still way softer than it would make otherwise, making it a near necessity in underground warfare. I felt my insides bunch up as I once more realized the implications. I would have to take down the targets in front of me, by myself. Unless I could find a way around whatever it was, the mission was to survive. It was similar in parameters to our last mission, so I assumed we would earn points per day we managed to survive. Meaning avoiding attention was our number one priority. All of this kept circling through my mind as I meticulously made my way further down the tunnel. I froze as I heard footsteps, the clack of metal on stone. I raised a fist, telling the others to hold. They stopped behind me and I carefully made my way forward, there was a curve ahead and I could tell the footsteps were getting closer. I remembered what Aviva had said, avoid using the guns if at all possible. Even with suppressors, the sound would echo a lot further than we would like. I drew my knife, feeling in my gut that this was a terrible idea. But we had agreed, each of us had to get used to combat, even if it meant failing a mission earlier than planned. I would have to kill whatever was headed our way myself, the blood started thrumming in my ears as my heart worked over time. I drew my knife in a reverse grip, settling into a sprinters stance just around the corner. My enhanced leg tensing, ready to make the spurt to whatever came around the corner. Step.. Step.. The creature drew closer, the scent of blood and rot pierced my nostrils. I tensed, now I was sure it was a darkspawn. Step... Step... Only a few more steps, my breath turned ragged as I did my best to keep it quiet. Then it appeared around the corner, the hideous face of a hurlock. It looked like a human with its flesh ripped off, teeth filed to sharp points, cruel bead eyes, warpaint on its twisted flesh. Like a coil, I burst forward in a flash of movement. The hurlocks eyes widened slightly, I rammed my knife under its chin, colliding with the monster with more force than I had expected. Instinct took over as twisted in the air, trying to avoid letting the metal armored Hurlock crash into the floor giving away our position. I smashed into the ground, somewhat muting the sound. The hurlock collapsed on top of me, unmoving. I froze as I focused on my hearing, trying to detect if anything had heard the short but brutal fight. To my relief I heard nothing except the rest of my squad, Ivan pulled the hurlock off me and put him against a wall. It took a while to ease my heart and calm my breathing. Ivan gave me a hand and helped me up. I forced a grin at the others, ¡°Well that is what I call a bloody rush¡± I whispered. The others chuckled softly. After a few seconds, I felt good to go. Aviva asked me how I felt. I told her I felt fine and resumed walking down the tunnels. Then I started noticing bones, small animal bones, then larger more humanoid seeming bones. I picked up one of the bones to investigate it, rows upon rows of teeth marks were evident on the bone. I knew what that meant, deep-stalkers. I whispered a soft curse. ¡°What''s wrong?¡± Eva softly whispered. I clenched then unclenched my fists, ¡°Deep-stalkers.¡± I answered just as softly. ¡°Imagine velociraptors with the mouth of a lamprey eel. That can dig and camouflage itself to look exactly like a rock.¡± I heard a few more muttered curses behind me, I didn''t blame them. They had been easy opponents in the game, but if you looked up what they looked like and what they could do. Yea, definitely did not want tofight a whole pack of the things. That right there was the problem, the things only attacked if they had a major numerical advantage. Then they had poison, acid, and paralytic spit that they could shoot. I let the others know of their other abilities and they cursed once more, I heard Aviva murmer that she wished she had chosen heat vision goggles instead. Then Reg spoke up, ¡°I brought heat vision, though it could be useful I have it in my backpack.¡± Aviva nodded at him with appreciation and told him to put them on. I warned him not to rely on the goggles, the deepstalkers might be cold-blooded creatures after all. They did come from the reptilian family. I continued forward, eying every single rock with distrust. The danger was nearly palpable, the air got thicker, it even seemed darker despite my night-vision. My breathing became labored, the tension spread throughout my body. My muscles felt tight, I raised my weapon, peering through the scope. That''s when it happened, movement. I froze, the others noticed and took up their formation. A sudden roar caused my hairs to stand up. I twisted and looked at another entrance to the cave. Then another roar was sounded behind us. Aviva cursed and spun around, roars resounded through the tunnel system, heavy thudding footsteps crashed through the tunnels. I knew that sound, I was pretty sure. I swiveled my gaze around the cave, desperately looking for an exit. There was none. There were three entrances to this cave, and the fuckers were coming from all of them. ¡°Back to back in the middle!¡± Aviva roared. We listened to her command and rushed into the middle of the cave, I let out a series of curses under my breath. This was worse than deep-stalkers, much worse. The howls and screeches of a horde of dark-spawn was turning into a cacophony of terror. The harmonious sound of impending doom, ¡°Fire-at-will!¡± Aviva roared.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. I couldn''t help it, I had to ask. ¡°Who the fuck is will!¡± I heard the forced chuckles around me. I turned to Eva, ¡°Eva! If we''re fucked you run! Use that invisibility and survive as long as you can! We need those points!¡± She grimaced, but nodded. She holstered her pistol and shouldered her rifle, aiming down the scope at an entrance. Then we saw it, the first of them. I muttered a curse, the horns, the armour, the sheer size. A mother-flipping Ogre, not a normal one of course. That would have been too easy, no this fucker right here was an alpha! Eva did not hesitate she aimed down her scope, took a breath and fired. With an explosion of sound, the bullet left the rifle. The ogre jerked, blood splattered the wall, then it roared in anger. Other darkspawn flowing around it while it paused. Aviva roared another command, ¡°Eva, Reg take that tunnel! Zoa on me! We take the one to their right, Ivan you take the left!¡± We shouted our agreement and took our position, they were still out of range for our guns, he tunnels stretched over a kilometer long. Our guns could reach but our effectiveness would fade. Eva kept firing as fast as she could, pulling back the bolt after every shot, the sound of bullets hitting the floor echoing through-out the cave. Nine-hundred meters, eight, seven, six. I held my breath as they came closer Reginald Aviva and Ivan began firing at the six hundred meters. I felt the urge to open fire but knew that my sub-machine gun would be ineffective at this range. I tensed as I waited for the darkspawn to get closer. My finger started twitching close to the trigger, I had checked if I had the safety off six times. I felt the urge to check again, I controlled myself. Three-hundred, Two-hundred! They were within range, I aimed down my holo-scope and fired. The smash of recoil into my shoulder and hands familiar after the training. I kept my gun under control and fired in two round bursts, picking my targets. Aim for the chest, aim for the chest! I kept repeating the mantra as I fired at the oncoming horde. The splashes of blood, turning into a red haze as the bullets tore into the enemy, Aviva had switched her rifle to automatic fire and was tearing into the enemy. I paced myself to her reload, waiting for a brief lapse in her fire to switch to automatic. Once she started firing again I took the opportunity to reload. I repeated the pattern, I briefly thought about how lucky Ivan was to not have to reload, he had a belt-fed Gatling gun, meaning an endless stream of bullets appeared from a pouch in his backpack. It looked odd, and I had no idea how that worked. I mentally shook my head as I focused on the task at hand. The snarling viscous darkspawn kept pushing forward, regardless of our efforts and wave of bullets. Darkspawn corpses littering the floor, being stampeded upon by their savage brethren. They rushed forth like an endless tidal wave. Then there was a shift in ranks, genlocks came forward. Carrying insanely heavy and most importantly thick steel shields. They pushed forward, covering the rest of the darkspawn. My bullets could not penetrate the shields, with a clang they ricocheted off the shields and walls. I cursed, I remembered these genlocks from the third game in the series. I thought they wouldn''t appear here. I loosed another series of curses. I racked my brain trying to figure out what to do, I didn''t know. I stared around at the rest of the group, frustration apparent on their faces. ¡°Eva!¡± I yelled, ¡°It''s time!¡± She shook her head, ¡°Not yet, we can still fight more!¡± ¡°Eva!¡± Aviva''s voice rang throughout the cave, ¡°Now!¡± Anything else she might have wanted to say was overwhelmed by the screeches of the darkspawn, only to have those drowned out by the sudden resounding war-drums. The booming sound of the drums reverberated throughout the cave, I could feel the sound vibrating through my body, my hairs on end from the booms. I saw Eva shed her military clothing, activate the suit and disappear. I released a breath I didn''t even know I was holding. I focused on the ever closing darkspawn, marching upon us, they almost managed to break through the entrance. Despite our short conversation we had not stopped firing, we now only managed to occasionally kill one of the spawn. A hail of bullets met an endless tide of tainted bodies, eventually, the tide broke out of the entrance. That is where things truly went side-ways. They spread out through the cave, no longer in an easy to fire at kill-zone. We cursed and we kept on firing, I felt a tap on my shoulder that told me Eva was leaving. I grinned, the spawn would never notice. I roared my defiance at the oncoming horde, hearing the others do the same. In front of me, an Ogre came pounding towards me, not the alpha I had seen before but a regular one. I aimed at its head and pulled the trigger, a rain of lead exploded into the ogre''s face, tearing it to shreds. A crash from the side caused me to flinch, an ogre had broken through and had grabbed Reg. I cursed and turned to aim at the ogre. The ogre grabbed Reg''s head in one of its massive hands, I heard muffled screaming as Reg desperately slammed his knife into its hand. With a howl of anger, the ogre squeezed., crushing Reg''s skull. My insides were in turmoil, my blood froze in my veins as I watched the ruined corpse of my friend fall onto the floor. With a roar of anger I released a burst towards the monsters head, the bullets exploding into its skull spreading blood, flesh and bone across the horde behind it. Ivan, Aviva and myself were pressed back, we slowly retreated until our backs were against the wall. The slobbering mouths of the dark-spawn mere meters away. Just when I thought it couldn''t get any worse, lady luck proved me wrong. Deepstalkers exploded from their hiding spots. They burst up from the ground, rushed through small holes in the wall and tore into the ranks of darkspawn. My brain was in shambles, I had no idea what the hell was going on. It made no sense for the deepstalkers to suddenly emerge, they were overall cowardly creatures. There were far too many of the spawn for it to make sense for them to attack. I had no time to further consider what happened as the Alpha ogre angrily charged towards our position. It threw or smashed anything that got in its way as it stampeded through the ranks. Ivan saw it coming and fired at it with his gatling gun, its inches thick armor plating strong enough to stop the bullets. Doing nothing but enraging the creature further. It kept pushing forward, one of its massive armored arms in front of its face to protect its eyes. Aviva switched fire to the creature, it lowered its head and charged at us like a bull. I dove to the right, just in time to narrowly dodge one of its horns as it nearly gouged me. Ivan had not been so lucky. To my surprise, the russian had a manic smile on his face. I saw him pull the pin from a grenade and shove it in the ogre''s mouth together with his hand. The ogre in a reflex bit down, the resulting blast of the explosion tore the creature into bits. The parts of its gore showering the hungry spawn with blood. Ivan to my great surprise was still alive, he was on his knees, growling at the enemy as he kept firing at them. Eventually, the spawn overwhelmed him and I saw him go down surrounded by a mass of the monsters. Only me and Aviva were left, I was surprised that I was still standing to be honest. Perhaps the spawn had focused the ones with the heavier weapons. It made sense in a way I guess, an unusually ugly spawn charged at me, close enough that he could decapitate me with ease. To my surprise, a screeching deepstalker tackled him instead. Saved by monsters from monsters, now that is something else. I noticed that my thinking had gone from calm and focused to somewhat insane rambling. I always did that when I was on edge, don''t know why. I shot a genlock trying to smash my leg with a mace. I think it''s my defense mechanism, everyone does something right? I kick a hurlock who swung his greatsword at me, my enhanced leg crushing its ribs, smashing it into the ones behind him. Knocking them over like bowling pins. Aviva was firing away, creepily calm under certain death. I admired that, she looked pretty hot covered in blood. Her dark hair and amber eyes sparkling as she murdered the shit out of evil. What a hero, a sexy one at that. What the fuck is wrong with me, I''m about to die and here I am getting a mother ffing hard-on? Her gun was ripped from her hands by a hurlock alpha, she snarled at the creature and rewarded his effort by jamming her knife into its eye. Another hurlock tackled her to the ground, she tore its throat out with her teeth. Damn this woman made killing look sensual, I mentally slapped myself. Get your shit together Zoa! Aviva eventually stopped moving, spears rammed through her body. The spawn were converging on my location, my vector was torn from my hands and a sword was headed for my face. Then I was suddenly slammed into the floor. Something had pulled my legs out from under me, unintentionally prolonging my life. I felt rows of teeth piercing my enhanced leg, I glanced back and a stalker, an unusually large one was dragging me into a hole. I let the creature drag me, whatever was in the hole had to be a far-sight better than all the creatures up here. I winced in pain as the teeth tore through my skin, then I felt my stomach heave as I fell through the hole, slamming into the floor. I blinked as I tried to regain my senses. The large deepstalker lunged for my head and I rolled away in the nick of time. I drew my knife and faced the creature snarling. It charged at me, I swung at it nicking the tip of its maw. It screeched in pain and backed off a bit, giving me the stink eye. I glared back at the creature and grinned in grim determination. I would delay my death by a minute or even a second if I could. The deepstalker charged me once more, this time I let it come closer. It went for my throat, I leaned back letting myself fall as the creature tried to tear a chunk of my flesh. Then I rammed my knife into its eye. The stalker collapsed onto my body, its heavy body connecting with my face, my head smashed into the floor and my vision went dark. Ark 1 : Dragon Age - Chapter 7 I groaned as I regained consciousness, my head hurt as if someone had decided to use it as baseball practice. The heavyweight pressing down on my body didn''t help, I wiggled out from underneath the large deepstalker. I put my hands on its cold scaly body, checking for a heartbeat. Nope it was dead as a dead... something. I gave my body a quick once over to check for wounds, I was fine. In tippy top shaped despite what had happened actually. The wounds on my leg had already recovered, man that kabane enhancement sure was good stuff, would be nice to have my whole body like that, Jim had told me that a true Kabaneri lived on blood. Which was a no-go for me, I loved food. Wasn''t giving that up for any amount of power. I sighed as I noticed my mind wandering off again, I brought my thoughts back to the present and took stock of the cave. It was smaller than I had first expected, this didn''t seem like a communal area for deepstalkers. Perhaps it was a private room of sorts for the deepstalker I had killed. I glanced at the body and the sheer size of the thing. It had been as tall as me when it stood on its legs, I was pretty sure it was a deepstalker leader. The colour pattern just didn''t fit that of a matriarch, although it was larger in size than I had expected even of the highest rung of hierarchy in the deepstalker community. It struck me as odd, I looked around the small cavern once more my eyes widened as I noticed something. An egg, my heart twitched as I saw it. I knew Deepstalkers could be tamed and trained and I was against killing an innocent creature. I loved animals and I really really missed my dog. On impusle, I for grabbed the egg and gently placed my hand on the outer layer. I could feel the gentle warmth of life through the thin shell. I took the helm of my head, it had cracked a bit when I crashed into the floor and lost my consciousness. But it would make for a great secondary purpose. An egg holder! The egg was smaller than my head and fit comfortably inside my helmet, I took off my jacket and folded it around the egg. Then attached the helmet to my belt by its straps and left it hanging there. I smiled in pride at my own ingenuity. Then my eyes swept the cavern for the last time, seeing nothing else of note I headed to the relatively small entrance the Deepstalker had dragged me through, I carefully crawled through the hole, keeping the helmet in front of me so I wouldn''t accidentally squash the egg. Once I reached I the end of the longer than I remembered tunnel, I realized the top of the tunnel had been blocked off. A giant corpse was in the way, I carefully listened for any sounds. Worried there might be darkspawn left in the cave beyond. I heard nothing, I carefully pushed against the corpse of the ogre blocking my way. The thing was heavy, it was like pushing a small car, I maneuvered myself until I could put my back into the corpse while my legs pressed against the wall so I could utilize the maximum amount of power. Inch by Inch I managed to push it further away, freeing the entrance. I almost gagged as the stench of death penetrated my nostrils, I expected to hear the manic buzzing of flies as they feasted on the corpses. Instead, an eery quiet had fallen over the area. I wondered if no insects lived in this cave system, that made no sense, how would an underground ecosystem survive something like that. I frowned, a lot of things did not make sense in a fantasy world such as this. How was a broodmother able to birth thousands of the spawn, where did she get the energy from. How did they feed such a huge amount of their kind underground, I knew they ate people of all races. Surely they were not able to kill enough to feed their sheer number. So many questions, so few answers. I felt the influence of my sister in my thoughts, she always wanted to know how everything worked. I managed a sad smile as the sense of nostalgy hit me. Once again I shook the thought from my head as I surveyed the destruction around me. The sheer amount of corpses was mindboggling, We must have killed hundreds of the things, then there was the spawn who fought and killed deepstalkers, heavy losses on both sides. I wondered why the stalkers had rushed out to attack, then I saw the reason. The matriarch had been killed, she was surrounded by a few darkspawn, the teeth and claw marks indicated she had sold her life at a high price. Then I realized the spawn was most likely not here for us, they had come to clear this nest of deepstalkers. But why did they not take the corpses for food, I was sure they would even eat their own kind. Yet there was an untouched mountain of potential food here. It puzzled me, I had no idea what was going on and nothing made sense to me. My eyes widened a bit as I realized something, this felt like a simulation. Not a true world in itself, it IS a game. Games did not have fully self-functional eco-systems, they always had small lapses in logic. The realization struck me causing my jaw dropped. Did that mean this was a simulation, it made sense. Creating entire real words with the intent of training a handful of individuals made no sense, rather it shouldn''t be possible. But what did it mean, were we even till really us? Had the information of what and who we are somehow been captured and copied. Were we still alive or was I a simulation of myself. I pinched myself, it hurt like normal, but how much of that could be emulated. How much was real, was I... Real? My mind was thrown in a frenzy, the implications such a simple thing made, threw me off. I cursed, I could die but I wouldn''t die. I could gain powers that were theoretically impossible. I could travel worlds, had I become a game character? Had I become a series of zero''s and ones? Then what was the use of this simulation? This enemy, The Nihil that we are supposed to fight. What if they were a virus, an extremely complicated intergalactic virus. Then what did that make the people who fought against it, the various races that had been turned into information? A fire-wall? An anti-virus? This was something I was not prepared to handle, I could be a copy of myself. An advanced form of brain-scan that copied my essence and turned it into bits. Binary body, binary soul, Binary blood? I froze... Did that mean that if I did not perform up to expectations I would be deleted? The thought scared me, scared me more than I would like to admit. If I truly was some kind of copy of myself, then ok... I could live with that knowledge, I was still me. Yet if I died, if I got deleted. No afterlife... No re?ncarnation... No nothing... I would be gone and that thought scared me a lot more than death ever did.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. I cursed and kept on cursing. I started kicking the corpses around me voicing out my inner turmoil, screaming my anguish. Should I ask the fluid? But what if that meant it saw me as a malfunction, it could delete me. Who would stop it, I sure as hell couldn''t, the power I could wield here was power granted to me. It would change nothing in the larger scheme of things, then what about hacking... Could I hack into the software of whatever it was that ran this and alter my very being? But I had no talent for hacking, I knew this. I did not have the mind for the small detailed work that was necessary for the art of hacking. Which meant I had a new priority, find another human who was a hacker. The best one I could find, then we could find out. Then I would know if my theory spoke true. I released a breath as a sharpened my mind, this meant I had to make sure to survive, to keep my new friends from being deleted. It was time I got serious. I walked towards one of the cave entrances, my back straight and my head held high. I would do what I ne-- PFWAH. I tripped over a corpse and smashed face first into the floor, blood rushed to my cheeks as I hastily straightened myself. I quickly checked the egg to see if it was okay, to my relief it was unscratched. I coughed and pretended nothing had happened and continued my cool hero walk towards the entrance. First thing first, gathering points. Fluid did not let us know beforehand what would get us points, we had to act and we would be awarded based on what Fluid thought it was worth. I was pretty sure I would gain points per day I survived, probably a few points for kills. Most importantly I needed allies, I needed something or someone to watch my back. Eve was most likely still alive but she would have run off. Somewhere safe to gather as many points as she could on her own. There were few allies to be found in the deep roads. The dwarves were one, but they stayed close to their few remaining cities. Grey wardens were another, although they mostly only ventured into the Roads to find death. It would be good to find them however. The one that I had the most chance of running into and would make for superb allies were the Legion of the Dead. Dwarven warriors who dedicated themselves solely to fighting the spawn in their own territory. But to find them I would need to know where I was and most importantly where they were. I had no map of the roads, very few of such things even existed. Which meant I would have to wander around and hope that I would run into a more favourable situation. Experience over the last two missions had taught me luck was not on my side. Which meant I had to be extra careful. I also knew next to nothing about the egg, I had no idea if I had to keep it warm. Or what circumstances it needed to hatch, then it came with the problem of taming it and keeping it fed. First of all I had to keep myself alive long enough that the egg had a chance to hatch. I sighed, patted the egg and walked further down the dark gloomy hallway. Keeping me ears open for any stray sounds, seeing was more difficult now that I had no night-vision. But the glass had been thoroughly smashed and my goggles were useless. I made my way by keeping a hand on one wall and slowly making my way forward. Taking extra care to be as silent as possible. My hand ran over the rough surface of the stone, I trailed it further as I used its presence to keep me balanced. Then my hand ran over something fleshy and I froze, I braced myself for movement, for pain. One breath, another breath... Nothing happened, I relaxed a bit and carefully felt the flesh-like texture. Then I remembered the flesh like coverings of the walls in darkspawn areas and relaxed. I really really REALLY didn''t want to know how those things existed and what they were made of. I had more than enough fuel for nightmares for years to come. I also did not want to keep running my hand over the flesh wall, I could see just enough to make out shapes. I suppose it would have to do for now. I continued walking through the tunnels, choosing random intersections each time, I wasn''t even sure that I was not walking in circles. I would just have to hope that I wasn''t. To my surprise I was starting to get tired again, my feet hurt as I had been walking nearly the entire day. Nothing had happened, no monsters had tried to kill me today and somehow I had avoided walking into anything hostile. The night would be even more dangerous if it even was night. It could be day for all I knew, finding somewhere relatively safe to spend the night was my number one priority. Was there anywhere in this tunnel system that would be relatively safe for me to sleep? I didn''t know, for now, I decided to keep walking a while longer hoping to find one of the main roads that were lit. I could probably find a small enclave to spend the night if I found one. I walked for what I felt was another hour or three, eventua, ly I spotted light at the end of my current tunnel. I wanted to run towards it, it would be nice to see properly again, but I refrained myself. If could see properly that means other things that lurked down here might be able to as well. I edged towards the entrance to the main road, and peeked down both sides. The road was massive, it was more than thirty meters in bredth. On the sides every twenty meters orso massive pillars reached upwards to support the weight of the cieling. Magnificant dwarven engravings decorated the pillar and I stared at it in awe. They were HUGE, they stretched upwards twenty meters. The massive structures must have taken ages to build. It had never seemed that impressive in the game but seeing it in front of me it made quiet the expression. It made me wonder what Orzammar the capital city of the dwarves actually looked like. I bet it would blow my mind. I snapped my mind back under my control, I had no time to be awed, I needed to check for danger. The everlasting magical flames lit up the road, making it easier to look around. Then I saw a good place to rest. Up one of the pillars there was a giant crack, it had been hollowed out somewhat over time and was large enough for me to rest in. I climbed up the pillar using the foothold that the carvings provided to make my way up. I reached the crack and crawled inside, it was even slightly more roomy than I expected. More than enough for me to rest in. I closed my eyes and fell asleep, my need for rest taking my consciousness despite the relative uncomfortableness of the crack. I started awake, I heard something. Boots, marching boots. Hundreds of them and they were coming closer! Ark 1 : Dragon Age - Chapter 8 I froze in my crack, wondering what anyone would in my position. Friend or Foe? Even if they were one of the few groups who ventured down here that were not immediately hostile did not mean they would not try to kill me. That being said, they would pass by the pillar I was staying in so I could stay hidden and see who it was. I tensed, I carefully moved the helmet with the egg deeper into the crack. Making sure it had a solid spot, I slowly pulled my knife just in case. I really missed my gun but there was nothing to be done about that at the moment. I waited with baited breath as the marching troop drew closer. My heart was pounding like no tomorrow, the thrumming sound of blood rushing through my veins making me even tenser than I already was. Stomp, stomp, stomp. The many boots came every closer, whoever they were they made no sound other than the marching. This actually relaxed me somewhat, I was positive that the spawn did not march with such disciplined silence. Stomp, stomp, stomp. The harmonious sounds of marching was drawing closer, just behind my pillar, next to my pillar but just out of sight. Then I released my breath as I saw who it was, a grin decorating my face. The Legion of the Dead, finally some luck. I watched them walk past with their black armour and helmets that covered their face, their armour always had been one of my favourites in the game. It was badass, seeing an army of them coming at you would make anyone nervous. Probably even the spawn. Their eyes glinting behind their visors, I watched as rank upon rank of dwarven warriors passed my position. Marching forward towards their eternal foe, fearless, determined. I would be lying if I said I wasn''t fanboying a little. I cleared my throat and the entire procession froze, weapons were drawn. In a sudden flurry of activity, the dwarves got in position, an outer ring of heavily armoured and armed warriors. Surrounding an inner ring of just as heavily armoured arbalists, their heavy crossbows pointing in all directions. I peeked out from my pillar. ¡°Sorry about that! I thought that would be better than suddenly dropping down!¡± The dwarven helmets turned to face me as one. One dwarf took off his helmet, I almost squealed as I recognized his face. Kardol the Legionnaire, a true badass that in the game held a bridge against a horde of darkspawn with just four other legionnaires. ¡°It is strange to see one of your kind in the Deeproads human. Who are you and why are you here.¡± I swung out of the crack and smoothly climbed my way down, the dwarf raised an eyebrow at my bloodstained outfit. Obviously covered in tainted blood from the spawn. A few splashes of regular coloured blood mixed with the rest it told quite a story of battle to those who took the effort to look. Kardol took the effort, he stroked his thick bronze beard. ¡°You seem to have had a run in with the spawn stranger. A fighter of the darkspawn is marked, those of us who fight them daily have learned to recognize that mark. We cannot offer you safety, nor can we bring you back to Orzammar. We have a mission and we cannot delay it.¡± I grinned and shrugged, ¡°That''s fine, I''ll just come with you!¡± The dwarf blinked, ¡°You wish to come deeper with us into the Deeproads? There is a high chance that we will not return from our mission alive. In fact we are almost certain that we will die in the attempt.¡± I shrugged again, ¡°Matters not to me, me and mine came down here to die. Three of us have found death, one of my group is missing and might be wandering around. There are worse fates than dying alongside those of the Legion as they fight the spawn. I have killed many, but I think I have a few more in me¡± I grinned at the dwarven warrior as he scratched his beard. ¡°Have it your way human, grab your gear. We can always use more bodies to throw at the spawn.¡± I nodded and climbed back up the pillar to grab my helmet. When I climbed back down he raised an eyebrow. ¡°Is that all the equipment you have brought?¡± ¡°All that has not been destroyed during the fights with the darkspawn.¡± I joined Kardol at the end of the procession as the dwarves continued marching forward. I easily kept pace with them, dwarves had an immense amount of stamina. They were still short however so keeping pace became easier. ¡°Your armour was broken? Or damaged so badly you couldn''t keep wearing it?¡± Kardol asked. Another dwarf turned around and asked, the voice slightly higher pitched marking her as female. ¡°That and you only got a knife, I have heard about humans. Are they all as crazy as you?¡± The dwarf next to her smacked her head. ¡°Excuse my sister human, she never did have any manners.¡± I laughed, ¡°It''s quite alright, I can assure you that I am considered insane even among my own kind and my armour wasn''t broken or damaged. What you see me wearing IS my armour.¡± ¡°Those thin pieces of cloth?¡± The female dwarf gestured at my outfit, ¡°How are they any good as armour?¡± I tapped my kevlar. ¡°This chest piece here is able to stop a bolt from your crossbow. It''ll give me a big ass bruise but I''ll survive.¡± She took off her helmet, short cropped dark brown hair accentuated by her hazel eyes. She took a closer look at my armour and poked and pulled at the material. ¡°It does look sturdier than I thought it was, it seems quite thick. I doubt it could stop an arrow though.¡± I grinned at her cynicism, ¡°This baby right here weighs ten kilos. I said tapping the thing.¡± Her eyes widened as she looked over my best. I could tell how curious she was, I patted her on the back. ¡°Once we make camp I''ll let you have a closer look.¡± She grinned at me, ¡°I would like that, it is interesting. I have never seen craftsmanship quite like it. I wonder what materials it uses.¡± ¡°It''s made from a material called kevlar, to be honest I am not quite sure how it''s made. I use it but I didn''t make it.¡± She nodded then glanced back at me, ¡°I''m Korma by the way, completely forgot to introduce my self, what with your sudden appearance strange outfit and the fact that you are the first human I have ever met.¡± I smiled at the late introduction. ¡°I''m Zoa, a pleasure to meet you.¡± She grabbed the dwarf who had smacked her by the collar and dragged him close, removing his helmet. ¡°This stoic piece of dwarven meat over here is my brother Kormik!¡± The dwarf had short black hair and a magnificent beard to accompany it. Korma tapped another dwarf and motioned to his helmet, he removed it.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. ¡°And this lovely dwarf over here who keeps muttering about ancestors knows what is my other brother Thorik.¡± This had to be one of the strangest looking dwarves I had ever seen. The dwarf had the sides of his head shaven, with a bar at the top of the sides of his head with dwarven runes in them. Below the bar of runes, there were a bunch of other tattoos that I couldn''t make out. His hair was bunched back in a mass of honest to god dreadlocks, tied in a semi-ponytail. He had a course thick beard just as black as his hair, bronze carved tubes holding his beard together in strands. He had big bushy eyebrows to match the rest of his hair. ¡°What are you looking at, never seen a dwarf before??¡± Thorik asked. ¡°Actually you ARE the first dwarves I''ve met.¡± I answered honestly. ¡°Well that bloody explains why you look like you want to get me out of my armour!¡± The dwarf answered with a grin. A viking looking dwarf. I might be in love. I grinned from ear to ear, ¡°Well I have to admit, you are by far the sexiest dwarf I''ve seen so far, the things I''d do to that beard!¡± ¡°Owh I''m your type am I? ¡°Normally no, but for you sir dwarf I would be willing to make an exception¡± I followed up my statement with an exaggerated wink. Korma was making fake retching sounds and Kormik''s face was blank from any and all emotions. Thorik grinned at their reactions and threw me a wink. We both knew we were messing around, I for one was one-hundred percent straight. I was confident enough in my sexuality to act overly gay for shits and giggles. Whenever my friends would be like what''s got into you!? I would answer with its Tuesday! They would stare at me incredulously and I would wink and walk off, good times good times. Once in a while you would meet someone who had the same idiotic tendencies, that was always fun. Here I was, in another perhaps fake world, talking to another race, doing gay flirtation tom-foolery. What a time to be alive. I got to know more about the siblings, Thorik had a tendency for trouble and had managed to blow up part of one of the upper cast''s houses. He was sentenced to an extremely long amount of time in jail, instead, he opted to serve in the Legion of the Dead. His siblings being the close-knit group that they were had decided to enroll alongside him. They had lived as castless, the dregs of society for most of their life, their mother had died young, they didn''t even know who their father was supposed to be. They even speculated that they each had a different father, things like that happened when your mom rolled in the blankets for a living. Yet the three siblings got along famously, they got into a fight with the local carta. Yet managed to stand their ground, they had learned how to fight and survived doing it. Their youth reminded me of mine. Korma was a crack-shot with her crossbow, Kormik wielded a shield and an ax while Thorik wielded an axe and a hammer but mostly played around with explosives. Explosives that he had experimented long enough with that the legion started using them as weapons. Kardol even through in a word edge-wise telling us how much he loved the sight of a darkspawn being blown to pieces. The face of all of us lit up and we agreed, watching one of those monstrous things explode into bits was a great deal of fun. I got along well with the siblings, Korma had a playfull personality and was a big fan of teasing. Kormik was the oldest of the three and stoicly watched over his younger siblings. He spent a lot of his time shaking his head at his younger siblings antics. He watched over them like a father would. Thorik was the icing on the cake he was insane in all the best ways, he had a habit of working with explosions that more often than not blew up in his face. He had made a few inventions that had helped the legion bring the fight to the darkspawn. Which brought me to our current mission they were on a mission to reclaim Bownammar, the original fortress of the Legion. It was deep in darkspawn territory, the dwarves, however, had decided that reclaiming their home of old was worth the sacrifice and effort. The group I was in was merely the first, we were sent to clear the way. The warband I was in was the best the Legion had to offer, behind us about five kilometers were mostly fresh recruits. Then came the supplies and the civilians who had volunteered for the mission. Then came more fresh recruits and the last group was the Commanders unit. With units that had been in the legion the longest. The best of the best. Having civilian volunteers was something of a new development for the Legion. They told me the story proudly, the Grey Warden, who had stopped the blight that had plagued the lands above a mere two years ago, had ventured into the deeproads. A Grey Warden traveling into the deeproads was nothing new, but this warden had been special. He had a place in the heart of the Legion, he had given them a House. The Warden had found records that confirmed that the Legion had been given a house of their own. This had made a huge difference, no longer was the Legion castless. No longer did they not have anything other than a glorious death waiting for them. They were a noble house, a strong one. The Legion had opted to keep doing their duty, they fought darkspawn and they fought them well. There was one thing they truly wanted, a place to call home. The ancient ancestral fortress that awaited for them deep in the down the spawn infested tunnels. They would reclaim their glory of old, Bhelen Auducan King of the dwarves had agreed with them. No longer would he let the dwarves live in fear of the spawn. No longer would he let the twisted beings inhabit the proud dwarven thaigs. The blight had just finished, meaning the deeproads were as calm and quiet as they were ever going to be. This was the time for the dwarves to make their moves, and move they did. They had mobilized in an effort unseen before. The entire Legion was on the march, hundreds of soldiers from Orzammar had joined their effort. I was getting excited, I had first chosen Harrowmont as the successor to the throne. Behlen had killed his older brother and framed his remaining brother for the murder. So he could inherit the throne. Ambitious, greedy, cold and cruel. These words described Behlen, yet there was one reason I chose him in all playthroughs after the first one. He was a better king, he united the dwarves. Opened them up to outsiders, improved trading. He made the dwarven kingdom strong, despite his methods to reach the thrown he was a breath of fresh air. He was not stuck in the old ways, he did not see those of lower born casts as useless. Proven by the very fact that he had sent his own soldiers to help the Legion in their efforts of reclaiming their home. Kindness would not save the world, sometimes calculated cruelty was needed. It still rubbed me the wrong way, I knew that I was an optimistic idealist. I put great effort into being a ''good'' person. I had decided to be one so I did whatever I could to stay one. Help people at the cost of yourself, make choices that align with the moral compass I set for myself. This was a case of the good of the many over the good of the few. I had chosen the many, I wondered if my own tastes had affected the game in some way. I had played as the Warden, I had made Behlen king. I had given the Legion the path to a greater future. I wondered what the warden in this world had been like. I wondered if that meant his companions were still wandering around somewhere. An interesting thought. We marched onwards through the darkspawn tunnels, to my surprise we did not run into anything hostile. It was possible that they had heard us approach and had retreated to get reinforcements to attack is in larger numbers later on. The roads were supposed to be quiet, a time of stillness after a blight. The blight was a time where an Archdemon was born, a Soul of an old god that inhabited one of the twisted bodies of the spawn. This Archdemon would lead the darkspawn towards the surface in huge numbers to attack, destroy and defile anything in their path. The Grey Wardens were a group that had been created to fight off these blights, an Archdemon could only be permanently killed by one of them. They would absorb the soul of the old god and die, keeping the soul from inhabiting another body. In the game I most often went with the romantic option of Morrigan, a witch from the wilds. I would impregnate her and she would absorb the soul of the old god into the child, I still did not know what the results of that choice would be. We were approaching the Thaig which was our campsite, the scouts that had been sent ahead told us there was a small group of perhaps two hundred darkspawn who had made their own camp in the thaig. I wasn''t worried in the least, our warband consisted of nearly five-hundred of the Legion''s best. If we had more than double the amount of darkspawn they would be destroyed, I would be surprised if we lost anyone. I honestly thought I should be a scout myself, Kardol had decided against it. His scouts were much more familiar with the deeproads than I was there was a good chance I would get lost. I had to give him that one, I had gotten lost down here already after all. We marched towards the taig, a row of shield-bearing warriors three ranks thick in the front. The arbalists behind them, and the rest of the warriors covering the flanks and rear. We made our way towards the spawn camp, their look-outs noticed us and howled. The spawn gathered together in a flurry, their ranks snarling at us. With a howl from an alpha the foolish spawn charged our ranks. The front ranks of warriors kneeled, giving the arbalists room to fire. The first row of arbalists pulled the triggers and released their bolts, the heavy metal projectiles whistling through the air until they impacted the darkspawn. Violently tearing through the ranks, as soon as the first volley had been fired the arbalists kneeled to reload their weapons. The row behind them fired as soon as they kneeled, another hail of bolts destroying the darkspawn ranks. The process continued, within a minute the darkspawn had been utterly annihilated. I whistled in appreciation. Now that was effective, the Legion lived up to their legend. I walked over to Korma, I recognized the splash of white on her pauldron. I could pick her out of the crowd even with her helmet on. ¡°Those crossbows of yours are effective.¡± Korma took off her helmet and grinned, ¡°We altered them from the ones you humans used, ours are heavier but have a great deal more punching power. This baby right here will punch through the metal armour of an ogre.¡± She tapped her crossbow, showing off the massive thing with pride. ¡°I didn''t see you using any explosions this time around, do you use them often?¡± Korma shook her head, swung her crossbow over her back and folded her arms. ¡°We rarely use explosions, there are few targets down here that are worthy of the expense. Alpha Ogre''s , ancient emissaries. That''s what we save them for, or if we have to blow our way through a thick wall or something of the sort.¡± Thorik ran over, ¡°I heard someone talking about explosives! Do I get to blow anythin up?¡± I laughed and shook my head. ¡°Not today I''m afraid!¡± Ark 1 : Dragon Age - Chapter 8.5 ¡° You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. ¡° ¡° ¡° Ark 1 : Dragon Age - Chapter 9 ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° Ark 1 : Dragon Age - Chapter 9.5 After the burial, we headed back towards the camp, took another nights rest and headed out in the morning. Try as I might we had not found my vector, which I found frustrating. I had even climbed down the hole the deepstalker had dragged me in, in the hope it slid down there but no cigar. None of the guns were fully functional, we had tried. Nevertheless, we brought the weapons tot he dwarven engineers and I told them all I knew about gunpowder, the firing mechanism and guns themselves. The engineers eye''s opened in wonder as they got to work on the guns. Thorik being the explosive maniac that he was couldn''t stay away from the weapons. He had reg''s completely mangled gun and his drum magazine of bullets. He was particularly interested in the bullets themselves and the gunpowder that was used to fire the rounds. Being one of the scout teams however meant that he did not have a lot of time to spend analysing either of them. We headed out towards the roads again, I had been given another knife. Having only a single weapon was dangerous, especially if you use one as small as a knife. We used the same formation as we used the previous day. We headed down the roads, mind occupied with random thoughts I followed only partly paying attention. Kardol froze after a couple hours of walking, he made a sign with his hand. I recognized it, darkspawn ahead. A dozen of them, few enough that we would risk taking them on to push deeper into the roads. The melee fighters moved up front, meaning everyone except me and Korma formed a line. Korma was behind them, I would cover the rear and keep Korma out of trouble. The four dwarven warriors grabbed their shields, Kormik putting away his two handed weapon in favor for a shield and sword. They formed a shieldwall and stepped towards the spawn, i glanced down the corridor. One alpha hurlock, the rest a mixture of hurlocks and genlocks. No other threats visible. Should be an easy enough fight, the dwarven warriors stepped forward, Korma initated the battle with a wellplaced bolt whisteling through the air, smashing through the Alpha''s metal helmet. The metal crumpled beneath the force, shattering the spawns skull. The other darkspawn scrambled to get themselves ready, Kardol and Thorik each threw an axe, one burrying itself in the chest of a genlock the other glanced off a hurlock shield. The dozen darkspawn had been reduced to ten. They snarled as the charged at us. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The dwarves calmly lowered their shields and readied their weapons, Korma had enough time to release another bolt, downing another darkspawn before they reached the dwarven shield wall. The spawn crashed into the shields, the dwarves refused to budge. With a quick strike from each of them three spawn fell to the ground motionless. Half a dozen left. The dwarves shoved with their shields, sending a few of them tumbling backwards. With some of them off balance theys truck quickly, another two darkspawn fell. Korma managed to release another bolt, ripping through the chest of the furthermost darkspawn, killing it instantly. The remaining three darkspawn were quickly outnumbered and outmatched and taken care off. The whole fight lasted perhaps thirty seconds, the dwarven warriors smoothly taking care of an enemy group that outnumbered their own force two to one. Truly an elite force. They wiped their weapons clean, performed a quick check over the darkspawn. Making sure they were truly dead, we moved on. It took us another half hour to come across something interesting, another group of darkspawn. Larger than the last one perhaps twenty of the creatures. More importantly they seemed ready to charge an area themselves. The darkspawn were occupied, growling in their own strange language. They were preparing to assualt whatever it was that was down that corridor. Kardol made a series of signs with his hands, we would wait for them to charge whatever it was they were attacking. Then follow them in and take care of both the spawn and whatever else it was that lurked in the cavern behind it. We nodded and prepared ourselves to follow their charge. After a few more minutes of what I assumed was planning the darkspawn readied themselves for the attack. A charge with who knew what ahead. Ark 1 : Dragon Age - Chapter 10 Kardol hesitated for the briefest of moments before signalling us to follow them. I rolled my neck and unsheathed my knife, I followed my dwarven friends down into the darkness. I froze in my tracks as bloodcurdling screams of terror resonated from the tunnel they had charged into. Unintelligible shouting, screams of fear and pain. Neither of those things one normally hears from the mouth of a dark-spawn. Tension ramped up as we held our weapons in a white-knuckled grip. Curiosity killed the cat and soon enough we would follow. The dwarves continued their quiet march deeper into the darkness, their eyes vigilant as they scanned ahead. They kept an eye on the walls, the ceiling and the floor. For in the deep roads one¡¯s enemy could appear from any direction. Heart clenching seconds turned into minutes as we meticulously made our way. My breath started becoming more shallow, my hands trembling slightly. Anticipation like this was way worse than any battle ever could be. Fear of the unknown, an expression that finally made sense to me. I forced a proper exhale, needed to focus, needed to be ready. Maybe I should whisper a joke to lighten the atmosphere, would if I could. It''s taking every single part of my mind to focus on the task at hand. I forced another deep exhale. Noticing something shimmering white in the corner of my eye, I glanced at it and curse beneath my breath. The dwarves glance at me with questioning gazes, I motioned towards the shimmering silver-white and got another round of curses as answer. Spider webs, which meant giant fucking spiders. An enemy one could find in just about any fantasy game, nothing that important, scary or dangerous. Until you had to face them in real-life. Many people feared the smaller spiders. What if those were the size of a pony, what if instead of imagined, the danger they posed on your life was very real. I could already picture their glimmering beady little eyes, their snapping mandibles. Drool dripping from the darkest of voids I could imagine. I muttered another curse, I shook my limbs to get rid of some of the tension as we continued forward. I was now sincerely doubting the decision to follow these darkspawn, whatever lay ahead would no doubt be a horrible place to set up camp. Then an explosion of sound filled my eardroms, the sound resonating off of the caverns walls. My eyes widened, I knew that sound, a gunshot! FUCK, EVE! I sprinted past the row of dwarves, my previous fear forgotten, the rest was safe after death. The fate that could await Eve at either the hands of the darkspawn or the glimmering claws of spiders made my heart grow cold. The dwarves called for me to come back, they cursed as I ran past them. I heard them hesitate then follow behind me, yet they did not rush at a break-neck speed like I did. They kept their sanity, their eyes shooting towards any dark crevice in the search for danger. The mouth of the cavern opened up into an area covered in the silver silk, I glanced around and saw the group of darkspawn struggling to get free. Wrapped in thick strands of a spider¡¯s web, almost dead-center of the room stood a familiar sight that glimmered between visible and invisible. I grinned as I saw her, even more so when I noticed how relaxed she looked. ¡°Eve!¡± I called out. She turned around and start screaming to something, ¡°Friendly! He''s a friend!¡± I froze when I heard her words and glanced around, then the largest spider I would ever see in my life appeared from behind a small mountain of silver cocoons. Seven beady black eyes, one of them a milky white as it seemed to be recovering from an injury. Eight hairy, massive legs, each the length of an average schoolbus. I swallowed as I forced my body to remain still. From the corner of my eye I saw Eve running towards me. She quickly stood up next to me and faced the spider, I glanced at her. ¡°Should we run? I think we should run, yup definitely run!¡± ¡°Calm down and let her look at you!¡± Eve whispered at me as she glared. I blanched at her stare, how in the name of anything glorious was I supposed to be calm when faced with a creature of this magnitude. Of this sheer amount of mortifying pressure. ¡°Kardol!¡± I shouted instead, ¡°Stay where you are, for the love of the ancestors don''t come here!¡± ¡°Who''s Kardol?¡± Eve asked as she stood there calmly. ¡°A dwarf I met, he''s a lieutenant in the Legion of the Dead.¡± I answered as I kept my gaze locked on the spider. ¡°Legion Of Dead¡± The words echoed through my skull, a voice with a hint of femininity dominated the space inside my mind. Drowning out any other thoughts, ¡°They kill the twisted, fight... the... taint.¡± Each word was strangely enunciated, the voice spoke slowly, carefully. She had an accent that reminded me of something. It spoke in the same strange way as the Spirit of Carn¨¢n from the game Shadow of war. It was similar yet, so very different. This voice was deeper, darker. It had the smoothness of silk. It held the wisdom of countless ages. I blinked as realisation hit me, it was the arachnid before me. I stared at the spider, ¡°Are you the voice speaking in my mind?¡± I asked as my fingers clenched around the handle of my knife, sweat dropping from my brow as my body was loaded to the brim with tension. ¡°I am spider, Queen of Arachnids is what i am cal-led.¡± The near alien way of her speaking was entrancing. The words flowed, the subtle sound of the S lingered. It was beautiful, in a mortally implicit kind of way. The beauty of finality. It sang to my soul, her speech soothened the tension in my body. While her presence stacked upon the feeling of imminent annihilation. I released a breath I did not know I had been holding. ¡°Woaw¡± I whispered as I stared at her. ¡°I know right?¡± Eve whispered as she looked at the spider. ¡°This human be kin of yours?¡± The arachnid asked as her gaze snapped towards Eve. Eve nodded, ¡°We came here together, the rest of our brethren died in the fight against the tainted ones. I thought all had perished in the battle, it seems I was mistaken.¡± ¡°The stench of taint-ed death lingers around this one.¡± The arachnid spoke, her gaze swiveling between me and Eve. ¡°Many of the taint this one has murder-ed¡±Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Then the queen lowered her massive body and got close to me, her eyes analysing my body. Her inquisitive gaze caused my heart to pound blood like never before. I could hardly hear her next words over the rushing sound of blood. ¡°It this one and the allies of which it speaks of no threat to me?¡± The queen asked as she kept her eyes on me. ¡°I don''t know about his allies but his only enemy should be those that try to kill him. Darkspawn are at the top of the list, same as me.¡± Eve said in an attempt to reassure her. ¡°Sstrange one, call upon those allies of yours to show themselves. We will determine if there is a threat to us or not.¡± The arachnid backed away from me and ''sat'' down. It sat as much as any spider could, I supposed it was to make it seem less threatening. Not that it worked with a spider the size of a small building. I coughed a few times in an attempt to get my voice back enough to call out. ¡°Uuuuuhhhh.... Kardol! You can come in but... Don''t freak out! She''s friendly.¡± I heard the shuffling of feet as the dwarves came into the cavern. ¡°I think....¡± I added in a whisper to myself. The dwarves froze as they saw the spider, the spider gazed at them but did not move. The dwarves clenched their hands around their weapons and stayed near the entrance. I couldn''t blame them, they were far enough from the spider that they had a chance to run away should it prove to be hostile. Kardol continued staring at the creature then glanced quickly at me before staring back at the Arachnid. ¡°Human, what in the blazes have you gotten us into.¡± I coughed, ¡°Good question, to which I have no answer.¡± ¡°Right....¡± Kardol muttered. He shrugged his shoulder, keeping his shield between him and the spider. For all the good a shield would do. ¡°So these be the small ones that fight the taint¡± She spoke again, the effect of her voice visible on the dwarves. They froze, their eyes widened and their jaws dropped, even with their helmets on I could almost see their surprise. I smiled, perhaps a little bit smug. ¡°Yup.¡± ¡°By all my holy ancestors....¡± I heard Kormik mutter. Quiet fell over the cavern as everyone just stood there in silence. I glanced at Eva and she just shrugged. I cleared my throat, everyone¡¯s eyes swiveled to me and I blanched for a brief second. ¡°So what do we do now?¡± ¡°The tainted ones came to erase me from the world. They send many, they send strong. I watch them come. Then out of air you and the one that is hard to see appear with your comrades. You kill the tainted ones that were sent to kill me.¡± The spider moved, the dwarves blanched but I just watched in interest. So those horde of darkspawn we came across were not headed for us, they were headed for the Spider. ¡°How did you appear, how did you, small and small in number fight so well against the tainted ones. We wondered, then the remainder of their forces came. They try to burn my webs, they kill my children. Then the one that is hard to see comes. She kills the tainted ones, she saves my children from the fire.¡± The spider looked at Eva, who just shrugged. ¡°I always liked spiders, figured the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I was in need of allies and as always God provides.¡± I stared at her with wide eyes. I was a bit confused how god would appear in the form of a monstrous spider that murdered darkspawn. But hey, who was I to question religion. ¡°God works in mysterious ways,¡± I muttered more to myself than anyone else. I saw Eva nod in agreement. I sighed. ¡°The dwarves and I are looking for a place for their force to set up camp. They are striving to push back the tainted ones, take back their home of old. They have brought many for this purpose. If the death of the Darkspawn is what you seek, then those you see here are your allies.¡± The spider eyed the dwarves, the dwarves in turn twitched at the attention but held their ground. The spider seemed to nod, her massive body moving up and down at the attempt. ¡°Then perhaps I can work with the small ones.¡± Her voice spread to all of us, ¡°I know of a place where those you bring can reside. I will tell the one that is hard to see of the path to take. You can follow her, I will guide your people around my brood. I do not want my children to come to harm.¡± I nodded and sighed in relief. The dwarves seemed skeptical. They talked between themselves for a moment, then Kardol nodded and said he would take a look. We left the Spider¡¯s presence, releasing a breath we didn''t know we had been holding. Now that had been an experience I had not expected. I glanced at Eva, ¡°How are you going to show us the way though?¡± The dwarves glanced at us, wondering the same thing. A spider appeared on her shoulder, it was big, the size of a cat perhaps. I blanched at the sight and saw from the corner of my eyes how the dwarves flinched. Eva however did not seem to be even slightly bothered by the spider¡¯s presence. ¡°When I saved some of her brood me and Venatoria kind of bonded?¡± I blinked as she said that, standing at her. ¡°Well we connected, I can feel her from here and we can still talk and such. Honestly I don¡¯t get how we bonded this soon but she says she feels the need for connection. I just assumed it meant God was at work.¡± I stared at her for a while longer, she seemed to take the whole bonding with a gigantic spider thing in stride. ¡°Well, forgive me for delaying introductions but I should introduce you.¡± I pointed to Kardol, ¡°This is Kardol, leader of this expedition and a lieutenant in the Legion.¡± Then I pointed to Dromgar, ¡°That is Dromgar, he doesn''t really speak.¡± I pointed at the siblings. ¡°Then these siblings are Kormik, Thorik and Korma!¡± Kormik greeted her, Thorik said hi and gave her a idiotic grin. Korma waved at her excitedly but Eva just stared at her then back at me with an raised eyebrow. ¡°They are siblings?...¡± She asked. ¡°Yea Korma is the youngest of the siblings. She is a crack shot with her crossbow, I want one of those myself. Thorik is a demolition guy and Kormik is the strong silent type!¡± The others shuffled a bit, Korma blushed at the compliment and the others frowned as if they were uncomfortable. Eva stared at me strangely, then she put on a smile and we headed back to the camp. ---Kardol POV--- As they re-entered the camp, Zoa went to set up their camp. Kardol headed towards Eva, ¡°It is a pleasure to meet you she-human, but I have a few questions I must ask.¡± ¡°I have a few of those myself...¡± She muttered as she glanced at Zoa. ¡°Has your friend always been like this?¡± Kardol asked carefully, watching her face for any reaction. Eva shook her head, ¡°This is the first I have seen of it.¡± Kardol rolled his shoulders. ¡°To be honest he makes the men uncomfortable, he is a great shot with that crossbow and he is friendly enough. I get along with him fine, but we worry the taint may be the reason for this. It is dangerous for us to bring him on the mission. He performs well, yet his... problems... affect the morale.¡± Eva looked at the dwarf, ¡°To be honest I''m not sure why you brought such a high risk with you on a scouting mission.¡± Kardol grunted, ¡°It was the commander¡¯s orders, we dwarves strive to improve our relationship with humans. It has been... rocky... In the past. Then we find a human who has survived down here on his own. We think he may have been a Grey Warden who has lost some of his mind to the taint. Because of the Warden¡¯s actions in uniting the dwarven lands and the fact that he gave our lives back to us, we owe humans and we owe wardens. Even if most of us shall never admit it. Yet even if he is not a warden, he fights well. He has killed more spawn than most of my soldiers.¡± He sat down and pointed to a chair, Eva took a seat. ¡°The commander ordered me to keep an eye on the human, we have sent a messenger to the Wardens and are waiting for a response. They come down here when they are ready to die. The taint affects their mind eventually. Such is the warden way.¡± Eva glanced over at Zoa, she watched him talk animatedly with the air around him, then she watched as he turned his head towards empty space and continued talking excitedly. She flinched as she saw it. ¡°Who are these dwarves he speaks of?¡± Eva asked carefully. ¡°We do not know, there is no Korma in our army. Nor a Kormik and Thorik, there are siblings with similar names but even then but two of them. We have seen many cases of the Blight Sickness, but this case is odd even then.¡± Kardol sighed and stroked his beard, ¡°We are troubled she-human. We do not know what to do with him, we cannot send him to his death. Yet he might prove to be a danger to us.¡± Eva stared back at Zoa, watching him talk with a figment of his imagination. She gathered took a breath. ¡°I will talk to him...¡± She stood up, heading towards what was probably the scariest conversation she expected to ever have. Ark 1 : Dragon Age - Chapter 11 ---- Eva POV---- Eva walked towards Zoa, she watched as he sat there animatedly talking with the figments of his imagination. She worked the scenario over in her head multiple times yet she still had no clue as to what the best move would be. She thought about straight up telling him that he was hallucinating, she wasn''t a shrink but she was pretty sure that would be a bad idea. She thought of casually sitting where one of the figments were supposed to be. She sighed, she needed something more subtle, something that would hopefully not make him flip his shit. Yet she drew a blank, she had no idea what to do to make him aware. She walked up to him, she blinked as he turned towards her. He grinned, the same idiotic grin she had gotten used to. It foretold of a mischievous side. ¡°Eva! Come sit, they got some interesting tales to tell. You should hear them out.¡± He continued his conversation with the siblings. Eva took a breath, she called out to him softly. ¡°Zoa..¡± He either did not hear her or ignored her. She shifted in her seat, inhaled and tried again. ¡°Zoa.¡± A blink, he turned to her and cocked his head. He raised a questioning eyebrow, she took another deep breath. ¡°The siblings that you see, they are a hallucination.¡± She cursed at herself in her mind, this was not the way to do this. She couldn''t help it, she had panicked. She watched Zoa freeze for a moment, her heart pounded her hands clenched into fists as she watched his face. He raised an eyebrow, ¡°I think you might be sick Eva, the dwarves are real. I mean they gave me supplies, we fought together. I remember killing darkspawn with them. Hallucinations can''t do that now can they.¡± She blanched at his retort, did they kill darkspawn. Her mind was blank as she stared at him unsure of how to continue. Kardol walked up next to her, ¡°How many Darkspawn did we face?¡± He calmly asked. She saw Zoa tilt his head, ¡°About a dozen?¡± He shrugged. Kardol shook his head, ¡°We fought five of them human, you used your crossbow to kill two, while Grom and I handled the other three.¡± Zoa raised an eyebrow, ¡°I used a crossbow? I don''t even have a crossbow.¡± Kardol took a breath then exhaled, he scratched his beard. Zoa stood up and stretched his arms, ¡°Look, I have a few mental issues, I won''t deny that, but I have never had hallucinations of this magnitude, not even close. I mean, there is no way I could imagine three whole people and a Spider of that size.¡± Eva blinked, ¡°The spider was real, the siblings are not!¡± ¡°You''re telling me the spider the size of a building is real, while three dwarves out of an entire army are not...?¡± Zoa asked. Eva cursed, it did not make any sense when he put it like that. How did you defeat the logic of insanity. She didn''t know, she could only remember her other bad idea. ---- Zoa POV ---- I flicked my gaze from Eva back to the siblings. I was trying to wrap my mind around the fact that they could be hallucinations. It made no sense to me, I felt them, talked to them. I fought with them! Hell, I could even smell them sitting next to me. The spider as a hallucination, possible... I wasn''t completely unfamiliar with hallucinations, I did have Schizophrenia. However, my symptoms were nowhere near this severe. Some moving shadows, figures from the corner of my eyes. I had a mild case, if I put it in perspective. I tapped Thorik on the shoulder and felt cold, hard iron beneath my fingers. I frowned, the siblings were staring at Eva. They were going on about how blind she was, waving their hands saying hello. Why would Eva lie to me? She wouldn''t, I was fairly sure of that. She didn''t seem the manipulative type, so was what she said true? I could feel, hear and even smell these so called hallucinations. Was that possible? I don''t know. I blinked. What if I wasn''t the one hallucinating, what if she was the one? I looked at her, she was frowning and clearly looked uncomfortable. She took a few steps towards the siblings, I opened my mouth. ¡°What if you are the one hallucinating?¡± She froze, she stared at me, her jaw wide open. She looked idiotic, I sniggered. ¡°It''s possible isn''t it? I can feel, touch, even smell these so-called hallucinations. How do you know you''re not the one hallucinating.¡±If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. She kept staring at me before she frowned and then walked towards the bench with stomping feet. She stood in front of Korma, turned to face me and sat down. My mind went blank, I saw her sit down, Korma should have been there, she wasn''t. A gaping hole opened in my stomach, I grabbed at it, my mind ITCHED. Something was wrong, no... no... NO! Something is wrong. It''s dark why is it so dark! Thorik! I turned around to where he should be. Nothing... I saw nothing. My skin itched, it burned. I start panting, I try to calm down, I take a deep breath. Can''t Breathe! I desperately dig deeper for a breath, I manage to inhale a little. But now my skin Itches, It burns, why does it burn! I scratch at it. It''s making it worse, I try to scratch some more but I can''t move my arms. Something is holding them down. I desperately struggle to break free. Noise, cascading noise is filling my mind, I can''t think. Where was I, can''t remember. Try to focus. Where, don''t know, can''t remember. I scream in an panicked release of tension. Suddenly I see some light, a heavy weight is pulled of my chest, little by little I gain the room to breathe. I stare around, my sight blurry. I see a figure. It''s struggling to do something, I try to talk but instead gargle as something bubbles up inside my mouth. I panic, I struggle, I try to breathe but I can''t. The figure rushes over to me, it lifts my head, I cough out more of the bubbling warm liquid. I spit it out. Something wet is forced into my mouth, I cough as it fills me up. I try to spit it out but I can¡¯t. The figure helps, it pushes me upright, I can spit out some of the liquid now. The figure forces some new liquid into my mouth, it''s the same as before. I can¡¯t swallow, she forces it into my mouth. She pushes against my throat, I cough as I spit out all the liquid. I try to talk, my tongue is too thick It''s all garbled, the figure pushes away the weight on my chest. It drags me to the corner, it holds me, soothing sounds are whispered in my ear. I calm down a little, I hurt, I itch, I don''t understand. But for now it''s okay, the figure will take care of me. It''s okay to let the dark seep in... It''s okay now, I feel safe, at ease. So safe... The blackness takes over my vision and I pass out. I groan, pain dominating all sense. I blink, trying to clear away the blur before my eyes. I see the figure next to me, I breathe a sigh of relief. Still safe, the figure tries to speak with the smooth voice. I don''t understand, I can''t think straight. The sound of the voice relaxes me, the pain sends another wave of shock through my body. I twitch at the feeling, my chest burns. I start coughing, feeling as if I am coughing my lungs out. I cough something semi-solid out, I winch at the feeling. Perhaps I actually AM coughing my lungs out. I try to focus my mind on what is going on around me. My body burns and erases away all the focus I try to gather. A flash of pain is felt in my neck, I see something smaller scuttling away from me. I twitch and try to do something, to no avail. The figure whispers soft words of comfort, hands stroke my hair as I do my best to calm down. A new surge of pain flares up from my neck, my body trembles, my muscles contract. I start flopping on the floor like a fish, I try to scream, instead I am assaulted by a new wave of coughing. Pure agony fills my body, the pain has somehow gotten worse. My cells are tortured, everything hurts. Time expands as I lay there jerking in pain, the figure does its best to calm me down and hold me still. It does not work very well, a flash of white blinds me and I lose consciousness once more. I wake up for a second time, or is this the third. I cannot remember, my body is no longer under the torment of flaming agony. Everything remains sore from the experience however. I open my eyes and to my surprise I could actually see something beyond simple blurs. To my left I see the figure, I smile as I realise who it is. Eva, a spider the size of a small dog perched on her shoulder, is staring at me curiously. I try to move but she hushes me, She tells me repeatedly not to move and helps me sit up. I look around, I frown while I take in the surroundings. I am no longer in the dwarven camp, I am in the burrow made by the large deep-stalker. How did I get here? I ask as much. ¡°Well, after the battle ended, you got dragged in her by the deep-stalker over there.¡± She holds my hand as she tells me this story, pointing to the dead deepstalker with her other. She looks into my eyes, I admire the colour of her emerald eyes. ¡°I met a ¡­.. friend. Who told me you were here.¡± I opened my mouth, coughed a few times then asked.¡°Venatoria found me?¡± Eva raises an eyebrow, ¡°You know Venatoria?¡± ¡°Kinda hard to forget a spider the size of a building. If my memory ever gets that terrible then may god rest my soul.¡± I joked. She frowns, she squeezes my hand and continues my story. ¡°Well when I found you down here...¡± I interrupted her¡°You found me down here?¡± She nodded, putting her other hand over mine.¡°Yes, you were passed out. You had swallowed some darkspawn blood and the taint spread throughout your body. A deepstalkers paralytic poison had seeped into the bite wound of your leg, it somehow cause the Kabane blood to expand again.¡± ¡°But last we talked we were in the camp? How did I end up here with all the poison and taints and stuff.¡± I stared at her and saw her moment of hesitation. I squeezed her hand to urge her on and she sighed. She looked me in the eyes and continued. ¡°You haven''t left this burrow since the attack. I don''t what was happening but you were having fever dreams, you were muttering about things. If you remember anything else then that was... imagined.¡± She bit her lip as she waited for my reaction. ¡°Well shit, my imagination really runs out of hand huh.¡± I mumbled forcing a grin. She blinked at my reaction, she stared at me for a few moments, worry plastered on her face. ¡°How can you joke about something like this.¡± She whispered I frown for a bit, then get a violent coughing fit. I sit back up and stare back at her. ¡°Honestly, I have to. If I don''t keep a smile on my face... Let''s just say this works for me. Keeps me sane, keeps me happy.¡± She smiled a bit, ¡°Sane is up for discussion.¡± I grinned, ¡°I guess it is at that. But uuuhhh, poision, fever, yet I''m not dead?¡± She nodded, ¡°Venatoria sent one of her brood, this little one.¡± She gently tapped the spider on her shoulder, ¡°One of her daughters, to bite you. Her venom counteracted yours somehow. Honestly I had fully accepted the fact that you would die. Adding another poison to the mix seemed... unhealthy. Yet God looks out for you and you still live.¡± ¡°Yea well my body hurts so much I''m regretting the living part a bit.¡± I grinned at her, ¡°Thanks for coming for me.¡± ¡°Anytime, insanity is best shared together after all.¡± She winked at me, the shy christian character I had thought she was melting before her mischievous grin. I laughed, the laugh turning into a cough halfway through, ¡°I do not suffer from insanity..¡± I put on my best movie narrator voice. ¡°I enjoy every minute of it.¡± She chuckled, ¡°I like that phrase.¡± I grinned, ¡°Me too.¡± ¡°Where''d you get it from?¡± I laughed, ¡°It was from one of this inspirational board thingies, we had it hung up on our bathroom wall.¡± She grinned, ¡°Well I guess the bathroom really is the place for unconventional wisdom!¡± I chuckled. For a moment, life wasn''t so bad. Ark 1 : Dragon Age - Chapter 12 ¡° ¡° Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡° ¡° ¡° ¡° Ark 1 : Hub : Chapter 13 To our surprise Eva managed to survive on her own for an amazingly long time. She used the spider companion she had gotten to create traps and new spider colonies all over the deep roads. It got to the point where the spider queen would send one of her daughters with Eva every once in a while to start a new colony. Her stealth suit and her rifle made her the ideal scout. She would walk ahead take out a few ¡®spawn, then lead them back on a wild chase right into the spider webs. Eventually larger, stronger and more dangerous darkspawn were called upon to deal with the sniper of faith. We cheered her on as she started a fight with a huge hurlock. It must have been a general of sorts because even various Ogre Alphas followed it. They brought an entire army to deal with her. She kept using guerilla tactics until the ¡®spawn had actually grown scared of moving away from the main army. Eventually she was cornered by a random cave-in. She fought off as many as she could, told her companion spider to escape without her, which the spider refused. Then she was shot by an arrow in the shoulder. Before the ¡®spawn could grab her, she put the muzzle of her rifle in her own mouth. I nodded at her decision, it seemed she remembered my warning about what the spawn did with captives. The screen darkened and a few seconds later I heard a door open. I applauded her when she came back and the rest joined me. I patted her on the back as she rejoined the group. ¡°Well let''s take a look at the points we got for this round.¡± I walked over and stood in front of a console, watching the rest of the people do the same. I looked at my screen and grinned, 211 points. I already knew what I would do if our points stayed above the two hundred. I glanced at the rest. ¡°How''d we do?¡± Regi tapped the console. ¡°Take another look at the console, I think this should make things easier.¡± I did as he suggested and was greeted by a prompt asking me to join the party Binary Blood. I smirked and glanced at him. ¡°Binary Blood?¡± Reginald grinned, ¡°While you were having them fever dreams you muttered something about having a binary body, soul and blood. I kinda like the term so figured with our current situation it would make a good team name.¡± I shook my head and ran my hand through my hair. Another glance at the screen showed me I was a member of the team, as were the others. I smiled at the names of my new friends, even though new might be the wrong word. With what we''ve been through, they felt closer than they had any right to. Then I got another prompt asking me to equalize point distribution. I accepted and saw that everyone''s points jumped to 297. I blinked at the points. I glanced towards Eva, ¡°How many points did you actually earn?!¡± She smiled, ¡°Just shy of 800.¡± Mutters of appreciation followed her statement. Aviva bowed towards her briefly. ¡°Thank you for sharing.¡± Eva shrugged and blushed slightly, ¡°Well we are a team, the stronger all of us are the better right?¡± I smiled at her and then glanced towards my points. Nearly three hundred. What were we to do with them. ¡°I think all of us should get a class, then we can save the rest of the points for items and what not once we know where the next mission will take us. ¡° A brief discussion followed of what classes did and what each of us should pick. After a little questioning towards the liquid we figured out that classes would improve our stats and give us skills, abilities or mutations that would fit our choice. To my surprise we did not have to buy the other tiers that were available. It was an example of what our classes could evolve into. They would evolve based upon our actions and the amount of kills we made and missions we survived. I grinned at that, our class would evolve when we gained experience. Truly, a novel concept.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. I glanced at the list of classes again, I had already decided which one I would pick. I would become a Runner, Aviva would choose Soldier, Ivan picked Warrior, Reginald decided on the Leader class and Eva, to no one''s surprise, chose Cleric. I clicked on the Class and felt the liquid as it entered my body. I shuddered as I underwent the process, I doubted I would ever get used to this. When it ended I took a look at my character sheet. {Scriptor : Zoa {Age : 23 {Physical Statistics { Muscular Strength : 15.7 { Muscular Elasticity : 14 { Muscular Toughness : 14.2 { Muscular Velocity : 17.2 { Skeletal Durability: 12 { Skin Thickness and Durability : 12.3 { {Mental Statistics {Recollection : 10.3 {Cerebral Capacity : 10.1 {Thought Velocity : 12.5 {Psychic Capabilities: 0 { {Current enhancements, {Kabaneri lower body mutation, Host of various poisons, Lesser insanity. Improved Running { {Scriptor available Currency : 101 {View Mission Reports} I looked at my stats and grinned as I tested my body, I was definitely a lot stronger than I had been before. I frowned as I looked at the enhancements, the kabaneri mutation had spread from just my right leg to my entire lower body. I wondered if that was an after effect from the other poisons that had been on a rampage through my system. I checked my legs and sure enough they had the darker skin with amber glowing veins. I suddenly blanched and put my hand down my trousers. I sighed in relief. ¡°What in the devil¡¯s name are you doing?¡± Eva stared at me with a growing blush on her face. I coughed, ¡°I was uuuuh, checking something. Just forget you saw that.¡± She looked at me oddly but shrugged and turned back to her console. I tapped on the enhancement and a screen opened giving me more detailed information. Kabaneri Lower Body Enhancement : This enhancement increases skin thickness and durability. Muscle strength and performance, as well near impenetrable vein structure. Improved sexual stamina. I broke into a coughing fit when I read the last part. Eva gave me another perplexed look. I waved her off and went back to my status screen. I tapped the next ability. Host of various poisons : Your body has been permanently infected with a multitude of poisons, diseases, viruses or similar blood related issues. Your blood has turned into a deadly toxic mixture. The effects of this are increased healing and near certain death to anyone who might decide to turn you into a snack. I stared at the information for a while, letting it sink in. So that meant my blood had become a toxin? Well it had no adverse side effects. Improved healing was always a good thing and killing the thing that ate me was a good final fuck you to the enemy. I grinned and decided I was totally fine with this ability. I returned to my character sheet, my finger hovered over the next option before I skipped it and tapped the next one. Improved running : Your movement speed has improved by 33%, you can now use the ability Final Sprint, improving your speed by 100% for one minute. This ability has a four hour cooldown and has no further effects on your body. I grinned, I had already become faster after the muscle enhancements, but now I could go even faster still. Overall I figured I was about 50% faster than I had been when I was still a normal human. A 50% increase in speed was enormous. Add to that the ability to double my movement speed, that was a whole new level of speed. It was probably physically impossible for a normal human to run that fast. I wondered if there was a science of sorts behind all this. I took a deep breath as I let my hype settle. I hesitated as my finger once again hovered over the final new enhancement. This could not be good. I released my breath as I tapped on the ability. Lesser Insanity : Through circumstances and your own predisposition towards mental illnesses your minor issues have evolved into Lesser Insanity. You are prone to hallucinations and can show erratic behaviour, in return you gain resistance to mind controlling and some mind affecting magics and abilities. Telepaths would do well to avoid you, the mind of a madman is always a dangerous place to dwell. I stared at the information, my hands clasped into fists. The system... told me I was officially insane.. Fuck.... Ark 1 : Hub : Chapter 14 I tried to keep my cool as I took another look at the console. I let out a deep breath, this was not how I wanted things to be, how I expected them to be. I was aware that I had my mental issues, I''ve had soft hallucinations and mood swings. We all had our mental issues, it¡¯s part of growing up on the street. Even with the old man taking us in we had already developed our fair share of illnesses. I had a light version of bipolarism with some schizophrenic sprinkles. One of my sisters had multiple personality disorder, while the other had a complete lack of emotions. Then there was my brother, who seemed to be the only normal one in the group. I let my thoughts drift away to the past, reminiscing in old glory. Aviva walked over, tapping me on the shoulder. I looked into her amber eyes, losing myself in the shimmering depths. Until I realised she asked me a question. ¡°I''m sorry you were asking me something?¡± She nodded and repeated her question, ¡°What did you get for your class?¡± I smirked, ¡°Well a few things happened, the kabaneri mutation spread to my lower body. I also got the ¡®enhancement¡¯¡± I made air quotations, ¡°Host of various poisons, which means that should a beasty decide to eat me they will fall over dead because my blood is officially poisonous. Which means no blood transfusions from me to anybody.¡± ¡°Too bad, was thinking of taking the vampire alteration, I thought your blood would be good for sucking.¡± She gave me a soft smile, which I returned with a smirk. ¡°Well, now I can use the ¡®I''m the poisonous one in the relationship¡¯ excuse!¡± She chuckled, staring up at me through her thick eyelashes. ¡°But the ability my class gave me was Improved Running, my normal running speed has increased by 33% and I can increase it by 100% for one minute, with a four hour cooldown. What¡¯d you get?¡± The rest of our team was now standing with us. We walked to the pub and sat at one of the tables. I explained to them about my abilities, leaving my Lesser insanity a secret for now. I did not want to share my inner turmoil with them, not yet at least. I walked to the bar and handed everyone a beer except Eva and myself, who had a juice and milk respectively. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°So what did you guys get?¡± I looked over to Aviva, letting her follow up. ¡°Well I got the Soldier Class, which gave me the passive Improved Reflexes. Which does as it implies. I also got the active ability Unerring Aim, which as I understand it improves my aim to the point were I will hit everything I aim at. It lasts 30 seconds, with a six hour cooldown.¡± She tapped Ivan on the shoulder signalling him it was his turn. ¡°I have gotten the Warrior class, as a true warrior should.¡± He unleashed one of his boisterous laughs before continuing. ¡°It¡¯s abilities is Lesser Muscle enhancement. Ivan has gotten even stronger because of this. I think I throw even larger boulders now!¡± Another boyish grin accompanied the statement. ¡°I have also gotten another passive, Increased Regeneration. Which does as implied.¡± He then slapped Reginald on the shoulder, almost leveling the poor dude. ¡°Well as you all know I have chosen the Leader class. One of its abilities is a passive called Inspiring Presence, which should numb the fear felt by anyone near me. Not as useful in current company, but might be better later on.¡± I grinned at that, we did all have somewhat suicidal tendencies. Whether it was bravery or our own specific brand of insanity was yet to be seen. I glanced back towards Reginald, folding my arms and leaning back in my chair as he continued. ¡°I also had the opportunity to choose between two abilities. Blitz or Turtle. Blitz improves the offensive capabilities and muscle strength and speed of my allies, while turtle increases skin thickness, muscle density, skeletal strength and regeneration. I chose Blitz, believing that more offensive strength would be in our best interest.¡± He glanced at Eva, passing her the ball. ¡°I have chosen cleric. Its abilities are Minor Miracle, which once a mission will let God perform a small Miracle for the benefit of the team.¡± Ivan leaned forward, placing his heavy arms on the desk. Aviva blinked at her and a small frown adorned her face. Reginald didn¡¯t react, keeping his face blank. I just smiled at her, waiting for her to continue. ¡°I also gained a magic spell! Lesser healing, which I can use¡­ Sometimes? It doesn¡¯t really specify how often so we will have to experiment a bit with that.¡± I could tell the minor miracle was on everyone¡¯s minds, did this confirm the existence of God, or at least Eva¡¯s God? Did this mean that other gods existed as well and that the abilities of the cleric would be different depending on who they worshiped? It gave us a lot to think about. We were about to enter a discussion about it when there was a knock on the door. I stood up and headed towards the door, opening it, only to be greeted by Doc and his group. I wonder what they want. Sorry guys but nope So it may be obvious by the title but i am completely stuck on binary blood, i am not happy with recent chapters and i had been forcing it since halfway the dragon age ark. It was driving my motivation into the ground by attempting to force it and i just felt that anything i was writing was insufficient. Thus i am discontinueing this fiction, at the very least for the foreseeable future. I know you guys will think i suck elephant nuts, but forcing it is just not working for me. I wish i could stick to a story and pump out high quality chapters like PirateAba does but i do not have that in me.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. To my readers I apologize. On another note I''m attempting a new fic, if you are still interested in my writing the link is down below.