Dream Drive Ch. 02

His spear shot forward. He was still moving his hands, still doing the pushing, but a higher power was guiding him, as if the point of the weapon was riding on invisible rails. It stabbed into the rattok's stomach.

As fast as Jackson thought he was capable, the force made his pull his spear out, and he stabbed the exact same spot, this time puncturing all the way through the leather armor and driving into the creature's abdomen. He drew back again.

The club was coming down diagonally, aiming to crush Jackson's neck. The third thrust seemed to know about that even before Jackson did. His spear leapt up to the rattok's exposed upper arm and jammed itself into the bicep. The club stroke fell short as the rattok growled and retreated from the pain.

Jackson stabbed again, going for its face. It smacked his attack aside, but kept retreating. It clutched at its stomach wound with its free hand.

Jackson noticed that blood from the slice on its arm was running down over its club hand. He swept the spear like a bat, aiming for that spot. The side of the iron point smashed into its wrist.

You have created a new skill: Polearm Swing

The rattok dropped the club, hissing. It growled and snapped at Jackson with its jaws. That was an empty gesture trying to get him to hesitate - Jackson had the momentum.

Jackson held the shaft of his spear steady and charged down the ramp. His mouth was open. He was roaring something. His heart pounded in his ears. The only thing running through his mind was that he had to kill this thing, and kill it dead.

You have created a new skill: Charge

Jackson gashed it across the snout, but it managed to twist its head out of the way of a straight-on blow. It grabbed the spear below the tip and pulled it from Jackson's hands.

Jackson saw it coming. He let go of his spear as the creature tugged, and it took a step back, off-balance. He tossed himself at the creature again - and he drew his second dagger, the one he'd picked up from the first rattok he'd killed. It was made of bone, sharpened to a wicked point.

He jabbed right for the rattok's eyes. He struck home, and the bone sank in to the hilt. Jackson's momentum carried him onward, and he rolled down part of the ramp, slapping hard into the wood before coming to a stop.

The rattok stumbled about, trying to collect itself. Open wounds in its back, a hole in its stomach, a ripped up arm, and being half-blinded were too much. It tumbled into open air and planted face-first into the rocky shore of the pool. The ugly sound of bones snapping hit Jackson's ears.

He heard a sharp plinking sound, like a bell dropping onto the floor. A white orb, bigger than the others he'd seen so far, drifted out of the monster and into his chest.

The gathered rattok looked down at the corpse of their fallen leader. They looked up at Jackson. Jackson looked back, and then he let out a War Cry.

His shout had been effective - but this was different. There was a scream inside of his scream, a primal, projected fear that echoed along with the sound. It blasted at the ears of the rattok. They shrieked and ran off into the caverns.

Jackson stood there for a moment, arms raised over his head, his hands shaped into fists, and basked in his triumph. He went to gather his gear together - spear, shield, and two daggers. He tried the club, but it was incredibly heavy. Not strong enough yet.

The giant rattok had shriveled up. A sort of black ooze surrounded the corpse, seeping steadily into the water. Nestled in the rocks near the pool was a sparkling crystal. Jackson stooped and picked it up.

The crystal looked like a shard of black obsidian. A tiny white fire burned in its center. He turned it in his fingers. The edges of the gemstone glimmered in the moonlight, but the white flame stayed the same. He gripped the stone tightly, then went up the ramp and climbed out the roof of the cavern.

The cave opening was surrounded by a thick, leafy forest. The full moon lit everything with a pale light. The night air was warm. A breeze washed over his skin. The fresh air felt good.

A small wooden watchtower was at the top of the ramp. He climbed the ladder to get a better view. The forest was more of a large stand of trees, rather than a true wood. He could see a section of wall sticking out from the ground - part of the ruins that wasn't buried. He was standing on some sort of sunken city.

A stream emerged from one end of the woods. He could see a lake in the distance. The woman and the girl were either upstream, or downstream. Deciding that down was the easiest path for an old crone with a torn-up ankle, he started in the direction of the water's flow, toward the lake.

He stopped for a brief drink, then kept on through the trees. He stayed alert. Where there were rat people, there were sure to be plenty of other fun things.

The exhaustion was starting to hit him. He'd been through a lot in the past...hour? 2 hours? It might be a game, but his aching muscles were telling him it was real. He leaned against a tree and took a quick break from walking. He had 34 essence, now. Pretty good. "Game menu."

Polearm Swing: Whip the tip of a polearm in an extended swing. This maximizes reach and strength, but the force of this attack can break weaker shafts.

- Essence Cost: 15

- Level: 1

- Progress: 12.3%

Charge: A full-body rush. Risky, but can overwhelm an unprepared enemy or turn the tide of battle.

- Essence Cost: 20

- Level: 2

- Progress: 26.7%

War Cry: Push essence into a mighty battle cry. Rally your allies, strike fear into your enemies.

- Essence Cost: 25

- Level: 1

- Progress: 20.4%

Jackson winced when he saw how expensive War Cry was. He could have a whopping 59 essence. But, coming off of the fight, he hadn't been paying that much attention - and getting the rattok to flee was definitely a good thing. It was worth the cost, this time.

His abilities weren't all just hard numbers. The rattok had seen him brutally maim their leader; that had a definite affect by itself. The War Cry was just the trigger to get them to run. Maybe he just needed to get used to the system, but the programming of the monsters was so good he couldn't discern any patterns.

That was the thing about video game enemies. Because they were programmed, they all had patterns. Some were very complex or obscure, but it could all be reduced to variables, to hard math. Given situation X, the computer-controlled baddies would react with Y.

That fight had shown him that any such patterns in Isis would take him a long time to unravel, if he could figure them out at all. In most role-playing games, enemies would swarm and mindlessly attack as soon as they spotted the player. In that fight, the rattok had thrown cannon fodder at him first, and, realizing that a crowd would be at a disadvantage on the thin ramp, had taken him on one-on-one.

More than that, there was endless variation to the attacks. It didn't use the same motions again and again. It was thinking, actively looking for weak points. It kicked his shield away so he couldn't use it. It tried to scare him into backing off when it was injured.

It might as well have been totally real. And those NPCs...goddamn. Now that the moment had passed, he didn't feel as...well. He didn't have a word for it. But it was like saving real people. They responded to what he said, to what he did. The girl had actually helped him when he came up with a strategy for the cage! That meant a programmer had predicted that a player would use that kind of strategy, and had programmed the ability of the girl to help. Hell, it meant the programmer had allowed for that strategy to work in the first place.

It was a freakish level of clairvoyance. Emil Mohammed was a fucking genius. Isis was going to change the way video games were made forever.

He glanced at his passive skills. He was building quite a list. He had Sprinting, Daggers, Shields, Spears, and now Grappling, Kicking, and Sneaking. They all had their own modifiers. He still wasn't sure how his passives affected him, or how his statistics actually modified his passives.

Jackson rolled the black crystal in his hands. Another mystery.

He opened up his statistics panel. 15 Strength, 16 Vitality. 0 Agility, Compulsion, Persuasion, and Spirit. He considered for a moment, then threw another 5 points into Strength and 4 into Vitality, bringing them both to 20. That left him with 25 essence - enough for a War Cry, if he needed it.

Jackson's OCD was well satisfied by the move. His health was at 75 - a nice milestone from 50. And his carry weight had topped out at 40. Apparently his spear, shield, daggers, and leggings amounted to '15.4' of weight. It wasn't marked by any units.

Finished taking stock, Jackson closed the menu. He looked down at the scar on his left hand. The twisted black star was merged with his skin. The only thing he knew was that the mark was supposedly bad, making him a threat to humans and angels. As a result, he'd been banished to the bottom of the mighty tower called Babel.

Jackson recognized that name. It was from a biblical tale. Mankind, in arrogance, tried to build a tower to the heavens - the tower of Babel. God struck down their attempt, and smote the tongues of the offenders so that they all spoke different languages and couldn't continue to work together. This was the divine explanation for lingual differences.

He felt at his scar with his other hand. The warped black pentagram looked ugly, but the texture was just like normal skin, as if it was a badly-drawn tattoo. According to the men that banished him, he'd carved it into his own flesh while sleeping. It was more than a little creepy.

When he lifted his fingers from the pentagram, a transparent prompt appeared in front of him.

Do you wish to travel to the 9th Circle?

"No," Jackson said, "I do not want to travel to the 9th Circle. I do not want to do that. Definitely no."

The prompt vanished. His scar pulsed white. Jackson flinched.

The light died.

The forest was quiet. Nothing happened. He steadily exhaled.

Alright, what the fuck was going on? Humans alone were supposed to have built the tower of Babel - angels had nothing to do with it. The base of the tower was apparently an old fucking ruin in the middle of nowhere infested with rat people. He didn't see a tower anywhere, and he didn't know where the fuck the giant tree was supposed to fit into all this. And now, his scar was a direct connection to the lowest tier of Hell. No fucking wonder they banished him. He was marked by the devil.

"Fuck!" Jackson grunted. He pushed himself up off the tree. Too many questions whizzing around in his head, and not nearly enough answers. He felt like he was treading water, barely keeping his head above the waves. He'd killed some rats, but he still had no idea what he was supposed to do.

What had Emil told him? Be himself. Do what he wanted to do.

As much as Jackson worshipped the ground that Emil walked on, he hated the phrase 'be yourself'. Ok, sure, he hadn't changed his appearance. But what the hell good was that advice when you were still trying to figure out what you were? Did adults all suffer from some sort of chronic memory loss that patched out what high school had been like?

Do what he wanted to do - those were less offensive words, but still uncomfortably vague. He could start walking, but he had no points of reference, no sense of the land. Usually, in video games, there was a very clearly defined goal. In a racing game, you raced. In a first-person shooter, you shot other people. Even in a role-playing game, you played a role. You were generally the hero. You saved the damsel in distress and kicked ass. Story points were relatively obvious. Go to the beleaguered king, accept his quest to find the sacred doohickey of power and save the world. That sort of thing.

Even in totally open sandbox style games, they usually directed you toward a story-related mission, or pointed out a few spots of interest. And those would naturally lead to other spots, other missions, and you'd start planning your game around them. Sure, you could do whatever you wanted, but after being told that a pot of gold was just over that hill to the north, most people started climbing the hill. Pointless dicking around in virtual space could only entertain for so long. Eventually, everyone ended up playing the game that the developers had made.

This was different. It was an entire world, ticking along with or without him, and the developers could care less about what he did or when he did it. Jackson held the mighty power of self-determination, and as a result, he felt like a dog that had finally caught its own tail. His only quest hook was transporting himself to the 9th Circle, which sounded suspiciously like a one-way trip to the lake of fire.

So, what the hell was he supposed to do, exactly?

He looked down at his pants. Getting a change of clothes would probably be a good start.

There were still those NPCs. The old woman, the girl, the little boy. Maybe the old woman could lend him a hand. She seemed to know what was up, or something. Probably.

Jackson sighed and kept on downriver.

###

Chaki stepped out of the water. Her back felt swollen and hot after leaving the coolness of the lake. Her long brown hair was plastered to the back of her neck. She shivered.

"On your stomach, girl."

"Shaka...we need something to cover ourselves with."

"The forest will tend to our clothing, shortly," the woman said. She coughed. "Now lay down."

Chaki picked a grassy spot and obediently lay on her stomach. Her little bother, Palla, danced out of the water behind her. "Chaki, it's just me and Shaka. Who cares? We got away from the rattok, that's more important."

"...for the moment."

"For keeps," her brother said. "The warrior will fight them off!" Her brother planted his hands on his hips and stared into the forest, as if the warrior would emerge from the trees at any moment. Chaki did not feel so certain.

The pale-skinned young man had stayed and struggled to free them even when Shaka had urged him to flee. Even when he might have made a clean escape. And then they had abandoned him. They had done to him what he refused to do to them.

She felt like a slug. The slime under a slug.

"We have no honor." Chaki spoke quietly, so that Palla could not hear. "If I spent all my father's honor on this, I would still be in debt."

"It can wait. Now hush." Shaka's leathery hands settled on Chaki's back. Chaki winced, even at the slight pressure. The uncomfortable warmth of inflammation was starting to rise as her adrenaline faded.

Shaka drew lines with her fingers across Chaki's back. She used her essence - her spirit - as she did so. Where her fingers touched, a soft white light trailed behind, as if she were painting upon the skin. When the runes were completed, the symbols flashed once, and then sank into Chaki's flesh.

The heat of the whip marks was whisked away. Welts were soothed and sank down. Long tears in Chaki's skin swam together, leaving behind only pink marks and a few scabs.

Shaka sat back and exhaled. Her face had paled. "Haa. You should not strain yourself too much, but you will be fine."

"Your ankle?"

"...I have already treated it. I will need a longer rest, but the healing has begun."

"I am sorry, Shaka," Chaki said.

"For speaking back to me in the cave."

"Yes."

"I understand. You did not want to abandon the warrior."

As usual, Shaka had read her mind as if it were sitting in the dirt in front of them. Chaki sat up and nodded.

"Your heart was in the right place, even if your pride was fat," Shaka said. "But when a man - no. When a person declares their fate, you respect that choice. Now, help me up. We must keep moving, and my leg cannot bear all my weight yet."

Chaki pulled Shaka from the ground, letting her teacher drape an arm about her neck. "Palla, we're going. Come!"

"What about the man? We can't go without him."

"Palla," Shaka said, "he is a powerful warrior. He'll catch up soon. For now, we must ensure we do not make ourselves a burden once more and gain distance from the rattok nest."

Shaka had a way of weaving words that made Chaki envious. The thought of further indebting himself to the warrior made Palla leap ahead of them along the lakeshore. Chaki began to walk with Shaka, at a faster pace, now, almost a full stride.

Shaka was sweating and panting with the effort. Chaki looked at her, concerned. "Just an old heart," Shaka said. "Let us continue."

After a half-hour, they were on the opposite side of the lake. Shaka informed them that she could no longer feel the presence of rattok souls. They sat down to rest.

Shaka was pale, and still sweating. "Do you need water?" Chaki asked.

Shaka waved at her again. "Haa. Yes. A little water will set me straight. I taught you the runes to weave wood, yes?"

"I remember them."

"Get us some modesty. And a bowl. Keep an eye out for swell-reed."

"Are you sure that your ankle -"

"I will not repeat myself. We can't afford to waste time."

Chaki bit her tongue and waded into the brush of the forest. The leaves and branches scraped at her skin, but it was not a dense wood.

Chaki huffed a bit to herself. Shaka said that her pride was fat? The way Shaka had sat hid her ankle under her back. She had not used too little essence on herself and too much on Chaki. It was worrying.

She found the swell-reed and picked a small bushel of stalks. Near sources of water, the reed often outgrew the plains grasses. They were mashed with an equal part of water, and could be spread on the skin to relieve the heat and pain of swelling. Shaka had taught her to look for it by the white fuzz that lingered in the rivulets of the leaves.

Chaki went up to a tree. She had little essence for lack of sleep and food, but it was enough for her task. She drew white lines in the trunk with her finger. Tree-talking was a difficult process, and she rarely had chance to practice out on the plains. Plants tended to grasp ideas quickly, but they latched onto them too hard and were very stubborn if you tried to convince them into something else.

The bark parted as a bowl grew from the tree. The wood of the plant flowed like thick clay, changing as she had asked. Chaki tried to make it round, but it came out oblong and rather misshapen. The tree had its own aesthetics. Shaka would scold her for being soft, but who was Chaki to demand a perfect bowl?

The tree proved more amenable to the idea of clothing. Big leaves poofed out in green chains that could be tied around the neck and waist. Chaki looped them over one of her wrists as she grew them.

Her thoughts turned back to the warrior. His skin was frightfully white, as if he were some sort of ghost. She had never seen skin like that, not even amongst the iron men. Perhaps he had been a spirit, the vengeful wrath of those taken by the rattok.

"Jeeze, I didn't think you'd get so far."

Chaki whirled, clutching at her bundle of wood, reed, and leaf. The pale ghost was before her, his spear in hand, his shield on his back. "You - you're alive!"

"Yeah. I guess." He looked her up and down. "Um..." He cleared his throat and averted his gaze.

Chaki remembered that she was naked. She felt her face grow hotter than her wounds had been. She ducked behind the tree. "Forgive my immodesty!"

"Uh, it's fine. Given the situation, I think you have an excuse."

Chaki slipped her legs through one wrapping of leaves, then draped another around her neck. With her body somewhat covered, she leaned back around the tree. "Ah...I am decent."

He looked up. His eyes trailed over her. Her blush did not subside. "Where's the other two?"