Chapter 262-3: From Bad to Worse (Patreon)

After inventorying his injuries, Nick reached for his flask and quaffed the elixir. He groaned in relief as the cut on his hand sealed shut over the next minute, the magical brew taking the edge off his myriad bruises as well. Energy flowed back into his body as the elixir restored some of his missing stamina, allowing him to breathe easy once more.

With a weary sigh, he put all the feathers into his pack and dragged himself back onto his feet. He couldn’t afford to rest until he was sure that the blackmist wasn’t coming back and that nothing nasty was lurking nearby.

There were still a few hours remaining before sunset, but he decided to camp here for the night. The mill was the safest place he had seen all day, and Nick didn’t have another fight in him just yet. Instead, he decided to go hunting and foraging to top off his stores, so that he could travel for the next two days without having to stop to gather food, regaining the time that he had lost by calling it early today. Thanks to his new and improved foraging skill, his efforts were soon rewarded.

He gathered up a dozen more of the potato-like plants, picked a few of the pumpkin-colored flowers growing on the other side of the hill, and caught another rabbit before heading back to the mill. He reached into his pack and pulled out some dry wood he’d found earlier in the day, then set it ablaze with his flint and steel. When the fire was burning bright, Nick started cooking up all the food he had found.

He had never been much of a cook in his old life, the microwave and delivery aps being his primary source of sustenance. Anything that let him fill his belly without getting in the way of his games. But since the System had arrived, Nick found that he enjoyed the process far more than he would have guessed. Maybe when this is all over, I’ll take up baking as a hobby.

Once he was done, he enjoyed a hot meal and put the extra rations into his backpack. After one final scouting run, he decided that the coast was clear. He set his alarm traps at various points around the hilltop, then allowed himself to relax at last.

Nick watched the sun set over the bog while revising his tactics for the next time he encountered the hunters in the mist, focusing on avoidance over direct confrontation. Then he moved on to pondering ways that he might use his new visualization ability both on and off the battlefield, even though he could sense that it would take time and practice before he could call on it reliably.

After settling in for the night, he pulled up his profile to check out his gains, where he found a pleasant surprise waiting for him. Not only had he managed to increase an important skill, enduring the latest crisis had improved his attributes as well.

Through rigorous training, you have honed your psyche and improved the following baseline attributes:

Mind has increased from [8] to [9].

Creativity has increased from [7] to [8].

Through use, you have improved the following skills:

Wand has increased from [6] to [7].

It was only the second time that Nick had improved his baseline mental attributes. As he contemplated the matter, he realized that the circumstances were remarkably similar to the first time, when he had been visualizing the battle between the lemurs and komos back during the tutorial.

His baseline mind and creativity were reaching the range where they were hard to increase naturally. Apparently, visualizing while his life was on the line was a valid path to improving both attributes at once, although he would prefer to find a safer method.

He noticed that his wand had regained one of its missing charges sometime throughout the day. It was the first time that a gem had lit up without Nick killing something. He wasn’t sure what the reason was just yet, but it was still a most welcome occurrence.

He was worried about what dangers the morning would bring, especially when the next global event was triggered. An outcome that now felt like a certainty rather than a possibility. Despite his fears for the future, he was filled with the warm glow of satisfaction that came after witnessing his own growth. Nick fell asleep accompanied by a sense of fulfillment that was only partially tempered by fear.

He resumed his journey as soon as the light of dawn was bright enough to reveal the world around him. After taking out his spyglass and surveying the ground ahead, Nick made one final inspection of the horizon, looking for blackmist and dangerous beasts alike, before resuming his journey. His pack was stocked with fresh provisions. He wouldn’t need to stop and hunt again today. He could devote all his time and energy into reaching the tower as quickly as possible.

Nick wanted to arrive at the base of Darkstone Tower today if he could. He had to stop more people from entering the tower early, or the casualties that team Earth suffered were certain to skyrocket. The situation would only grow worse if another global event was triggered while so many of his people were still crossing the marshlands.

As he left the mill behind him and started hiking down the hill, he checked in with his injuries. His ribs were still bruised from the battering he had taken the day before, but they were healed enough that Nick decided to save his flask once it finished refilling later in the day. The cut on his hand was now just a thin red line, tender to the touch but nothing that would interfere with his movements.

All things considered, Nick was in good shape and ready to devote the entire day to traveling. It was a chilly morning on the marshlands, and he was glad to have his temperature-regulating cloak to shield him from the brisk breeze flowing across the waterways.

By the time that the sun was shining directly overhead, he knew that reaching the Tower of Rizzen wasn’t going to happen today. Likely not tomorrow or the day after either. The black pillar hadn’t grown much closer, despite him putting the miles beneath his boots as quickly as he could. The sheer scale of the edifice made it hard to judge its distance, although he had no choice other than to press on and hope he got there sooner rather than later.

The terrain that Nick crossed was a bit trickier than the day before, as the paths between the rivers and lakes were covered in dense brush and short trees. But the real problem was the blackmist. Thanks to the last two global events, the wretched stuff was everywhere, inky patches floating across the surface of the marshlands like a vial of oil poured over a pool of water.

Most of the mist banks were small enough that they passed him by within a few minutes at most. The little patches had proven to be unpopulated by the deadly redfang hunters, or he would have been forced to slow his pace to a crawl.

But the big ones were another matter entirely. They could take up to an hour to fly over his position, and in their depths, the redfangs prowled. By now, Nick had heard the mocking calls of dozens of the deadly flying creatures that had nearly killed him the day before.

Adding to his frustration, he hadn’t been able to learn anything more about the hunters in the mist. Without being able to see them, he couldn’t size them up or analyze their behavior. Couldn’t tell how dangerous they were, how they fought, or even discern if they were animals, beasts, or something else entirely. But he didn’t need his skill to know that running into the redfangs was a recipe for disaster. Not after his first encounter and narrow escape.

Thanks to the growing prevalence of the blackmist, instead of traveling in a straight line, Nick was forced to journey from potential shelter to potential shelter, adding both time and distance to his trek across the bog. It was a good thing that he had possessed the foresight to adjust his strategy, since he wound up being caught within two enormous tides of blackmist throughout the day.

After sighting the inky fog, he sprinted for safety, ducking below cover only seconds before the mist engulfed him on both occasions. The mad dash left him with no choice other than to huddle and hide, setting his already frayed nerves on edge.

The only bright spot in all of this was that the redfangs appeared to track their prey by some manner of echolocation, rather than by tracing scent or sensing body heat, or Nick’s day would have been so much worse. So far, they hadn’t been able to find him when he wasn’t standing out in the open.

Even a layer of dense brush was enough to conceal his presence. It was a lesson he had learned only a few hours prior, after diving into a thicket only seconds before the pitch-black tide washed over him. He had also realized that he had yet to see any blackmist at night, making the unpleasant situation just a little more manageable.

Learning more about these fearsome foes had been incredibly stressful. He hadn’t been sure that they wouldn’t be able to find him until they mist blew past. Sitting in the darkness, trying not to make a sound while waiting for an unseen attacker to fall upon him unaware, was one of the most frightening experiences of his life. It got a little better over time, once he grew confident that he’d figured out the redfangs’ abilities, but the tension had taken its toll.

But Nick couldn’t afford to dwell on it. He would just have to relax as best he could whenever he got the chance and pray that it was enough to keep him sane. He supposed that this was a form of training as well, leaning to deal with the fear of death without letting it drive him mad. A lesson that he could take with him going forward, into a life that was certain to be filled with danger, at least for the foreseeable future.

To his relief, his luck was better during the second half of the day. He didn’t run into any more blackmist, and the handful of beasts he spotted from a distance was easy to avoid.

That all changed a few hours later, as afternoon transitioned into evening. Nick was in the middle of crossing a grassy plain running between two shallow streams, when a System message popped into existence in front of his eyes. He prayed that it was another proximity triggered event instead of a global trial, before letting out a muffled curse.

Apparently, the changes to the moon he’d witnessed the night before were only a warm-up to the main event. The ominous feeling he’d been having ever since had been no figment of his imagination, because what Nick read was even worse than he’d imagined.

System message: Global event.

A hidden condition has been met, triggering a global event.

Event: Blood moon rising, has begun.

They slumber beneath the soil for decades at a time, waiting for the blood moon to rise over planet Drezen and begin the next cycle of consumption, terror, and rebirth.

Tonight, the blood moon will fill the sky, and with it, the chittering swarm will arise, heralding a night of blood and death for all who dwell within the bog.

The swarm will disperse with the light of dawn, hibernating within the bowels of the planet once more. Hide while you can, they are coming.

Note: for global events triggered by tower entry, survival is its own reward.