Vivid Stars Online

We opened fire as the colossal figure descended from the sky. It was almost impossible to miss given its size, however, our shots only singed its feathers. Like many of the larger Beasts we had fought, it appeared to be highly resistant to plasma fire.

Still, all we could do was to keep laying down fire and hope that it would eventually do enough damage to take the Beast down. That had worked for the Grand Cave Worm and the Lake Beast, it would have to be enough here as well.

As it grew closer, I Attuned to my pistol and empowered the largest shot I could. The purple blast flew forward and exploded against the Beast’s chest, blowing a small crater in the dense feathers.

Linnea shouted a second later. “Aim for the hole in its chest, it goes all the way through the feathers.”

With the information that Linnea’s powerful scope displayed, she was rarely wrong. So I followed her advice and continued focusing my fire on the bird’s chest wound. I avoided empowering any more shots, for now, wanting to save the rest of my energy for further into the fight.

Adam followed suit and soon we were dealing significant damage to the Beast’s chest as the wound grew deeper and wider. Then the Beast’s claws swept through our group, and everything changed.

I activated Skin Hardening as I dove to the side, groaning as the Beast’s momentum still drew a deep cut across my shoulder. Ignoring the pain, I forced myself into a roll and came to my feet.

With the Beast now through our formation and past us, we no longer had our perfect firing arc on its injuries. I turned to face the creature and noticed that it had landed not far past us. Now on the ground, it was already turning toward us and lunging at Adam on my right.

“Wow,” he yelped as he dived into a backward roll, his higher Agility serving him far better than mine did. The Beast was terrifyingly fast with its beak, like one of its smaller kin snapping up worms.

I could hear the heavy cracking sound of Linnea firing from my left, however, her shots simply splashed across its chest now that she had lost her firing angle. Seeing an opening, I empowered another shot and opened a fresh wound for her to aim at.

This drew a shrill shriek from the bird as it turned to glare at me with one massive eye. Despite myself, I took a step back at the rage I could see there. Gulping, I tried to dodge away, however, I lacked the Agility to outpace its lunge.

Less than a second later, I found myself dragged from the ground like a worm in its beak. Only a quick application of Skin Hardening stopped me from being cut in half. “Arrgh,” I groaned as it bit into my skin despite my defenses.

Twisting my primary arm up despite the pain, I empowered a shot and aimed at the edge of its massive eye. Pulling the trigger sent the massive blast shooting forward where it exploded, popping the eye as it did so.

The creature’s beak gaped open as it shrieked louder than ever, releasing me to fall to the ground. I hit the ground hard, however, Skin Hardening took some of the impact, reducing the bone-crushing force to the point that I was merely winded.

Gasping, I pulled myself up to see the Beast flailing in pain, its wings blowing massive gusts of air around. It flinched as another shot from Linnea on my left hit its remaining eye, followed by another and another. By the third one, that too popped leaving the bird blind.

After that, the danger had mostly passed. While the creature's flailing was still a threat, with it unable to aim its attacks, Linnea and Adam began systematically taking it apart. Seeing that they had the fight in hand, I slumped to the ground with a whimper.

The quantity of blood pouring from the wound on my waist was becoming excessive even for me, so I began scrabbling through my pack for the medical kit. Soon finding it, I pulled out the wound sealant and began spraying down my injury.

I had a deep cut that extended almost the entire way around my waist from being gripped in the bird’s beak. If it wasn’t for my high level of Toughness I might have already bled out, as it was I was feeling woozy by the time I had managed to seal the entire wound.

Looking up, I was in time to see Adam deal a final shotgun blast to the bird’s face as it lay slumped on the ground. A moment later, a combat report appeared, showing that we had killed a Grand Mountain Bird level 6. Even the shared XP from three people was six hundred, pushing me a significant portion of the way to level eight.

Seconds later, Linnea rushed to my side and began fussing over my wounds. While it might normally be a little embarrassing, as it was, I was thankful for the help. I wasn’t even sure if I could stand by myself right now.

“I glad you're OK,” she whispered as Adam began striding over. He had a few obvious scratches and bruises, however, he looked to have come through mostly unscathed.

“You OK Boss?” He asked, a hint of worry in his voice. At my shaky nod, he sighed, before continuing. “That’s a relief. Are you sure I can’t convince you to stay back a bit? The Guild would have my hide if I let a client die on the job.”

I laughed a little before wincing as it twinged at my wounds. “We’ll talk about it later,” I groaned before accepting a small handful of pills from Linnea.

“You got it, boss,” he responded with a laugh before turning around. “You rest up a bit and I’ll go grab the core for you.”

I thanked him before slumping back, glancing at Linnea as I did so. She looked even less injured than Adam did, likely from a combination of her high Agility and Perception stats. Maybe a little more agility wouldn’t go astray, I mused as I lay back.

It would be hard to drag myself away from the psionic stats, but it might be worth it. I’d seen a small but significant improvement just from the enhancement elixir’s boost, more points would undoubtedly show a larger gain.

It wasn’t the most urgent decision given I’d only just entered level seven, however, it helped to keep my mind off the pain as the painkillers I’d swallowed began kicking in. Eventually, I decided to wait and see if I could get another elixir from the duchess. If I could get those improvements from somewhere other than my free stat points, then it would be ideal.

By the time Adam came back gripping a bloody core nearly the size of my head, I was feeling better. While I was far from healed, my wounds were sealed up and the pain was dulled. While it might be best to camp right here, I was worried about the chance of another bird attack.

Given that it would be better to push on to the facility, even if it slowed my healing down. “We need to move,” I groaned as I struggled to my feet with Linnea’s help. “I’m not sure we would survive another attack right now.”

Linnea and even Adam looked concerned, but after glancing at each other, they eventually nodded.

“OK, take it easy though,” Linnea said with a sigh as she lifted her gun from the ground.

“Agreed,” Adam said with a nod. “If you can keep watch, I’ll support the boss as we go.” Without even waiting for my input, he jogged over and slung one of my arms over his shoulder.

While it was again embarrassing to need help, I wasn’t in a position to argue. Instead, I just thanked him with a smile and began a stumbling walk forward. It hurt, however, with Adam’s support it was possible and we began making a slow but steady pace.

I tried to monitor my watch, however, I wasn’t sure how useful it would be since the mountain bird hadn’t shown up on it. I wasn’t entirely sure why but had a hunch that the scanner didn’t pick up things that were in the sky.

Why that would be, I didn't know, but it would explain why the bird had gotten so close. I relayed that information to Linnea, who nodded and focused on scanning the sky for dangers. My watch should at least be able to still pick up anything coming from the ground, so if she focused on the sky, we would have complete coverage.

Luckily, no more Beasts attacked before we came into sight of the facility. It made me wonder if the bird might have driven anything else out of its territory. That would be ideal since it would leave us a route to get back down the mountain after exploring the base.

I tried checking the explorer database to confirm this, however, it had very little information on the mountain birds. Pretty much all it said was to avoid them, as they were extremely dangerous.

Instead, I turned my attention to the view in front of us. Where the last facility had been out in the open, though mostly hidden in a valley, this one was entirely built into the mountain itself. It was only now we were close that a massive door was visible on the cliff in front of us.

It was well camouflaged by being colored the same as the surrounding stone, only the distinctive smoothness giving it away. I expected it would be far harder to notice from the air, particularly if you were moving at any kind of speed.

Adam whistled next to me as we began moving again. “I hope you know how to get that open Boss, I don’t think there is any chance of us forcing our way through.”

I could only nod, also hoping that I would be able to. Once again I wished Elana was here, as it was I would have to rely on my Psionics to get us through. All too soon, we had reached the base of the door and it was time to try.

At my direction, Adam helped me to walk to the left, where Linnea pointed out a panel she had spotted with her superior perception. Once we were in front of it, I slumped to the ground despite the cold snow and began focusing my senses on it.

Like in the last facility, the panel was connected to the door, though this time it had both power flowing through it and, I hoped, the required software to open it. That should make my job a lot easier, as long as I could figure out the trick to it.

Attuning to the entire panel was hard, however, from a certain point of view, it was still a single item. As such, I was able to manage it after which I turned my attention to trying to open the door. Oddly, this turned out to be exceptionally easy as just thinking about it caused the door to rise with a deep grinding noise.

“Nice,” Linnea said from next to me, rising her gun to face the door as she did so. “Better prep for danger, though. Remember those bots from the last facility?”

“Yeah,” Adam said from my other side, also bringing up his shotgun, “While I’ve never been in one of these, I’ve heard horror stories about the ones that still have power. Be prepared for anything.”

Nodding at their reasonable advice, I used the panel to pull myself up and called my pistol into my hand. Slowly, the door rose in front of us, revealing a cavernous space beyond.