Vivid Stars Online

We spent the next day in recovery. While the medicine we had available was miraculous, there were still limits. Linnea has lost a lot of blood and taken deep wounds that would take time to heal even with her Toughness stat.

I spent most of the time keeping watch while she slept. The rampaging Tentacle Beast had scared most of the beasts in this area away, but a few of the stronger ones still came sniffing around.

Thankfully, there was nothing anywhere near the scale of the previous fight, and I could take them out alone. I even ducked out of the game just long enough to enter full-dive mode so I wouldn’t have to wake Linnea to take watch.

By the end of the next day, she had recovered enough to move around, though she was far from full fighting capacity. It was good enough to move back toward the surface, however, and I felt that some fresh air would be good for both of us.

While the area down here was far from empty of beasts, I was confident that the biggest threat had been taken care of. All that was left was a lot of cleanup, perhaps more than we could handle on our own.

Despite having an intellectual understanding of my new position, I was still treating myself as a sole or small group operator most of the time. That was great when it played to my strengths, such as exploring new areas, but it fell short when dealing with large-scale challenges.

When it came to challenges like clearing a massive area of caves out, it was past time I started leveraging the resources that I had access to. With the mayor already organizing a small group of soldiers back in town, I could get more than enough manpower up here.

In fact, now was the ideal time to do so, before they would be required to secure my lands. With less than a month to get things ready, this could hopefully prove to be something of a training exercise.

That could work really well, I mused, getting excited about the idea. We can have the new soldiers patrol in squads to deal with any beasts they come across.

The sheer number of foes should start dying down with the rift now reduced in power, so they shouldn’t run into too much trouble. If Linnea and I are on standby to combat any significant threats, it should be an excellent training opportunity without too much risk.

I felt like it could be a workable plan as long as we had medical support on hand, but was also aware that I was far from an expert. Hopefully, Mayor Kosfeld had found someone to fill the leadership position. That would allow me to talk it over with them before putting anyone at risk.

With Linnea up and about, we began moving back toward the massive corpse of the beast. As much as I’d have loved to leave it behind without a second thought, it was bound to have a highly valuable core inside it.

I had been shocked when the battle report listed it as a Dire Tentacle Beast after the fight. I hadn’t even known that level of power existed, though it made sense that something came after Grand. It was a stark reminder of just how much more powerful it had been than anything else we’d fought.

If it had been out in the open and free to move, we’d have been toast, I thought with a shudder as I subconsciously reached out for Linnea. And without our new armor, that power it used would have torn us to shreds.

There were a dozen or more ways that the fight could have ended horribly, and as much as I tried to avoid thinking about them, the images kept forcing themselves into my mind. While we would come back to life if we died now, I couldn’t be sure that would always be the case.

If we manage to come here full-time like Linnea seems to want, will that make us mortal here like everyone else? Even discounting that, everyone who lives here will stay dead if I take them into trouble, I have to keep that in mind.

It was a sharp contrast to my earlier eagerness to get soldiers down here to clear the area, and I was sure that it was something I would have to work on. I could barely stand the idea of someone dying on my watch, and yet, logically, I knew it to be inevitable, eventually.

“Are you alright, Jared?” Linnea’s asked from beside me, pulling me back to the present moment. “You’ve been standing there for a while.”

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “I’m still just getting used to all this being real.”

She nodded and slid in for a comforting hug before pulling back. “It must be hard given your new position,” she continued her tone understanding. “All I need to do is keep you safe, and that’s enough of a responsibility as it is. I can barely fathom the weight you must be carrying.”

It was nice to have my feelings voiced by someone else, even if there wasn’t a lot she could do to actually help. It was still enough to improve my mood, and I thanked her before turning my attention to the corpse in front of us.

It was truly massive now that we were up close. Even scrunched up to fit into the cave, it was taller than a single-story building and wider still. Its largest tentacles stretched several times that distance, though some were hard to spot having drilled themselves into the wall.

Horrific black blood had sprayed everywhere in the explosion that blew away its outer armor, and I could see where it had eaten away at the stone like acid. While it was dried now, I would have to be very careful cutting my way into it.

It was almost incomprehensible that we had killed this beast. If didn’t have the combat report and resulting XP to prove it, I would almost believe that something else had done so.

Even just getting the shared XP I had gained enough to push me through to level eleven and halfway to level twelve. Linnea had actually gained two levels from the kill shot, pushing her all the way to level thirteen.

I’d been holding off on using the level-up so as not to get distracted in my vigil. After looking at the monumental task in front of me, I decided to tackle it after cutting out the beast’s core. That would at least give me something to look forward to.

“Can you keep watch?” I asked Linnea, glancing over to make sure she was holding up all right. “I’ll take care of any monsters, but I won’t be able to pay attention while digging my way through that.”

“I’m not made of glass, Jared,” she responded with a snort. “You’ve fought with worse injuries than this before, so I’ll be fine. I am supposed to be your bodyguard, after all,” she finished with a frown.

Realizing that I might have been making light of her skills, I responded with a wince. “Sorry, I’m sure you can manage it. I just worry.”

“And that means you care,” she said, her frown morphing into a smile. “And I appreciate that. Just don’t go thinking that I’ll shirk my duties because of a little pain,” she finished, before walking off to lean against a section of wall past the blood spatters.”

“Understood,” I said, before turning my attention back to the corpse. I’d been kind of joking when I talked about digging into the creature but looking at it now, I realized that it wasn't far from the truth.

Most beast cores were pretty centralized in the creature’s body, meaning that I had literally yards of flesh to carve my way through before I would find it. That wasn’t to mention the river of blood that was probably still inside it.

I think blood settles down when something dies, right? I wondered as I began clambering up the side of the corpse. If I’m lucky, that will mean I won’t encounter too much of it.

I reached out with my senses as I climbed, trying to get a fix on the location of the core. As the wyvern corpse had, the entire body stood out to my senses. I had no doubt that even the flesh of this beast would be valuable if I could somehow get it back, though that was likely impossible.

Perhaps if it was still here when we returned with more hands, something could be done. But for now, I would have to make do with the core and any organs that felt potent.

After a few seconds of focus, I got the fix I needed and identified a few extra targets of opportunity. Bracing myself, I called my Psi Sword to my hand and began carving into the beast.

I had been ready to duck aside if blood began pouring out, but it turned out I didn’t need to worry. While it was still a disgusting job, there wasn’t enough blood left in its upper body to cause me harm.

It still took hours for me to finish the task, and I was more than ready to leave by the time it was done. There were still a couple of potential targets deeper into the lower body but they just weren’t worth forcing myself to go further.

Not when I had the core and six other large organs that were filled with power. Most of them were unrecognizable from the limited knowledge of biology I had, but I was sure I could find a use for them.

Despite the filtering in her helmet, Linnea still shuddered as I walked back over and quickly insisted that I find somewhere to wash off. I had no arguments there, and we began backtracking toward an underground stream.

It took another hour after reaching it until my armor was finally clean, but it was worth it. With gore washed off, we moved a little further off stream and took turns pulling off our armor to clean ourselves as well.

Both feeling a lot better after our first bath in days, cold as it was, we took a last stop to level up before heading to the surface. Linnea went first, taking some time to do both of her level-ups.

“Those skill upgrade points are very nice,” she said upon finishing. “They really add up once you're a few levels past ten.”

“Nice,” I said with a nod. “I should get my first class ones now.”

“The scaling bonuses aren’t bad,” she said as we swapped positions. “Though they don’t do too much while our skills are still pretty low level. It’s better if you can get an upgrade that changes part of how the skill works, though those are a bit more expensive.”

“That sounds good,” I responded with a nod. “We can always get the scaling bonuses later once we have more skill levels. Thanks for the advice.”

Settling against the wall, I pulled up my status screen and began leveling. First came my stats, and I placed the two free points into Will to bring it in line with Toughness. That left my Mind lagging quite a bit, I would have to decide if it needed some attention next level.

Putting that aside for later, I moved on to the skills, happily noticing that both Technokinesis and Ethereal Roots had leveled up. As expected, I received five Class Skill upgrade points to spend.

Taking Linnea’s advice, I began looking through my skills for any significant changes I could make. I found plenty, though only a few of them felt immediately relevant.

For Psi Sense, perhaps my most used skill, there was an upgrade that would provide more details on what I sensed. The description was a little sparse, but I was pretty sure it would help me work out what powers an item or enemy might have.

That would be damn useful, I thought with a grin. I might have been able to tell in advance that the Tentacle Beast had that weird summoning attack.

Both Technokinesis and Ethereal Roots had available upgrades that added an additional target to them. As they were both currently single target abilities, that would be quite an improvement.

Last, Skin Hardening had an upgrade that would activate it at full strength if I fell unconscious. That would allow it to continue to protect me until I ran out of energy.

Each of these cost four skill upgrade points to apply, compared to the scaling bonuses, which usually cost two points.

It was a hard choice to make, but in the end, Psi Sense won out. It was hard to go past having more information in a fight, and beyond that, it would work outside one as well. The extra information it provided might even be the key to unraveling what was going on back home.

Making my decision, I selected the skill button and completed the leveling. With my new stat total, I could also take my last elixir, boosting my stats even further. With a grin, I drank it down and pulled up my status sheet.

Jared Hope

Class: Psion

Level: 11

XP: 3500/6600

Statistics:

Brawn: 12

Toughness: 42

Agility: 12

Perception: 12

Mind: 29

Will: 42

Free points: 0

Skills:

Archeology level 2

Translation level 2

Pistols level 3

Psi Sense Level 4

- Extra Information upgrade (4)

Light Blades Level 1

Technokinesis Level 4

Packmaster Level 2

Skin Hardening Level 3

Scouting level 2

Ethereal Roots level 3

General upgrade points: 5/5

Class upgrade points: 1/5

Traits:

General:

Database of Alien Languages

Psionic Abilities:

Skin Hardening (Novice)

Ethereal Roots (Journeyman)

Great Psionic Abilities

Technokinesis (Master)

Status:

Uninjured

Full Energy Well

Looking good, I thought with a grin as I pulled myself up. Now, time to get out of here. It will be nice to see the sun again.