Vivid Stars Online

Those look nasty, I thought with a shudder as I took in the trenches that were scoured into the earth. Whatever left them has to be big, bigger than a bear, at the very least.

I briefly considered marking the area and returning with backup, however, I decided against it. We were only a few days out from the town and I didn’t feel great about leaving a dangerous Beast around.

While it was unlikely to venture that far, I still felt a responsibility to clear it out as the lord of these lands. I’ll scout it out at least, work out how dangerous it is, and try to find the rift, I decided. Worst case, I should be able to trap it with Etherial Roots and run.

I also couldn’t put aside thoughts of the rift and what it might provide me. The one I'd gained Ethereal Roots at still hadn’t recharged to full, leaving me without a way to advance it or Skin Hardening.

While I wasn’t sure if another wild rift could upgrade them, I had a feeling that it might be possible with their mutable nature. I had become a lot better between my first and second uses, having been able to guide the second one to get the kind of ability I wanted.

With a third use, I hoped I would become skilled enough to focus its energies on upgrading one of my existing abilities. I doubted this would ever become enough to upgrade a skill from a ritual chamber, they were just too rigidly designed, but I felt another wild rift skill was possible.

Well, no use standing around, I mused with a shake of my head as I began following the tracks up toward the cliff face.

It loomed high as I approached, soaring hundreds of feet above me. As I’d thought from further away, caves pockmarked the face, both at ground level and higher up.

What could have caused this? I wondered as I stared at the sight before me. Did the water fill up the whole gorge at one time? I could just imagine it flowing through and gradually wearing out the weaker parts of the rock as it drilled deeper into the cave system.

It was pure speculation, of course, I had no idea what really caused caves like this, but it entertained me nonetheless. The trip passed quickly as I moved, with no sign of Beasts other than that single line of tracks.

Another sign that there’s something powerful here, I thought as I carefully approached the large cave mouth the tracks led to. They always seem to have an empty territory around them. Probably because they scare off or eat anything nearby.

I was so caught up in my thoughts that only a loud shriek from above saved my eyes. I ducked instinctively, barely making it under the claws that scythed through the spot my head had just vacated.

“Holy shit!” I shouted as I stumbled backward. My wild dodge had left me off-balance, and it was all I could do to activate Skin Hardening and bring my arms up to stave off the next attack.

I winced as the claws raked my forearms, cutting into the skin despite my reinforcement. Whatever this Beast was, it had proven to be dangerous and agile.

Barely thinking, I targeted it with Ethereal Roots only to curse as it dodged out of the way and flapped to gain height. The moment’s breathing room this gave me was enough to regain my balance and get a look at the Beast.

It was some kind of flying lizard, roughly the size of a large bat, with two long clawed legs at the back and a pair of stunted forearms. Its wings extended over a foot to each side and flapped wildly to keep it upright.

It hovered for a moment as I summoned my Psi Pistol and took a shot, only for it to duck aside as the plasma bolt flew past and exploded against the cliff. It turned to glare at me for a moment before letting out a piercing shriek.

Seconds later answering shrieks echoed from nearby, causing me to curse again. This can’t be good, I thought as I followed up with a barrage of shots. One finally hit, clipping the creature’s wing and sending it spiraling down into the dirt.

It screeched painfully as it fell, drawing more shrieks of rage from nearby. Then another almost identical Beast erupted from a cave mouth halfway up the cliff, followed by a second and then a third.

Fuck, I thought as I turned on them and fired shot after shot. Given how often I was missing, I didn’t bother empowering any shots, instead focusing on quantity over quality.

While the Beasts were incredibly agile in the air, they were still trying to dodge high-speed psionic blasts. Eventually, I managed another hit, obliterating one’s head just before they arrived.

Then the remaining two struck, and I had no time to aim my pistol anymore. They seemed to have a preference for trying to take my eyes out, and it was all I could do to stop that from happening.

After merely blocking several charges, and gaining fresh cuts each time, I summoned my Psi blade. The next one that came in on a predictable path found itself skewered on an empowered blade before being flung aside with a wet squelch.

That left a single opponent who began attacking more carefully. Instead of going straight for the eyes, it would flit around me before diving to strike at my back. While this lacked the immediate danger of having my eyes clawed out, it still racked the damage up over time.

It took several minutes of fruitless flailing and attempts to hit it with Ethereal Roots before I finally got lucky. The Beast’s stats were clearly heavily weighted toward Agility and it tired long before I was at any risk of bleeding out.

Between one moment and the next, it was all over. In its exhaustion it missed its dodge by a mere inch, allowing me to cleave into its head with my blade.

I collapsed, panting as it fell. While I was far from exhausted, it had still been a tiring fight and the blood pouring from my many cuts was making me lightheaded. While they were all shallow, they were numerous and would lead to a death-by-a-thousand-cuts situation if I didn’t intervene.

“Damn lizards,” I muttered with a groan as I pulled my supplies out. Would have been nice to have had Enhance Cognition already, I bet I could have plotted its movements a lot better with that. Still, it was great experience for Skin Hardening.

This was confirmed a moment later as the combat report appeared. It listed four Wyvern kills and a level up of my Skin Hardening skill from level two to level three.

Nice, I thought with a grin. Though aren't Wyverns supposed to be a lot bigger than that? Then again, it’s not like this place was actually created as part of a game. It may be just translating the native word to something that makes sense.

It was another reminder of something that I tried to forget the last few days. The scale of what was going on was mind-boggling to think about. Before this I would have sworn everyone was speaking English, even the mouth movements had been correct.

Yet when I considered it in detail, that just didn’t make sense for another universe, or whatever this place was. Somehow, their words were being translated so perfectly that even my perception of their faces was being altered.

And that’s not even going into the game system here that gives us powers. I never even questioned things like the level-ups or the combat reports before, when I believed it was a game. Now that I know it’s real, I have no idea what’s going on with that.

The only thing I could figure out was that it might be some kind of training system to get us used to our new powers. It had certainly helped quantify what was going on in VSO for me, so I could see some rationale for that.

Still, it was a waste of time considering it now and would be until I had a chat with Linnea’s people. They’d had a lot longer to think about this than I had, and from what she’d said, had even talked to at least one beta tester before the game came out.

“Just put it aside till then,” I mused out loud as I finished patching myself back up. Taking that to heart, I turned my attention back to my current circumstances.

The battle with the wyverns had used up a significant portion of my Psi reserves and also dealt a considerable amount of damage to me. Given that it was already mid-afternoon, I decided it was best to camp outside and go in fresh the next morning.

Better get away from the big tracks, though, I mused as I pulled myself up and slipped my pack back on. Don’t want that startling me in the middle of the night. Nodding in fervent agreement with my thoughts, I spent an hour trekking back down the river despite my injuries.

This allowed me to find a sheltered spot not too far from the river to set up camp and I settled in for the night.

As usual, since leaving full-dive, I logged out as I slept, leaving a fire going to keep the Beasts away. This gave me a little time in the real world that I split between doing a workout in the in-house gym and doing a little more research online.

After hearing about just how dangerous the company behind VSO was, I had put aside my attempts to investigate the situation for now. I actually felt a little foolish about diving head-deep there, and I could only hope that I’d been careful enough that I hadn’t tipped anyone off.

Instead, I focused my attention on researching subjects that would be useful in developing my lands. For the most part, I focused on farming at the moment, as that was my most pressing issue.

Luckily for me, Humans had been doing agriculture for a long time now, and in a multitude of different climates, so there was a wealth of information available. While there wasn’t anything that dealt with the potential Psionic part of the situation, there was a lot dealing with poor climates.

I also learned a lot about irrigation since we had the lake available as an almost infinite water source, as well as something called aquaponics. It was apparently the science of combining fish farming and agriculture for quite impressive results.

That sounds almost perfect for us, I mused with a grin. A way to help avoid overfishing the lake and a way to get fertilizer for our farms. Hopefully, I’ll be able to talk that over with whoever Professor Henceforthe finds for me.

I still hadn’t heard from the Professor, but I wasn’t too worried about that. I trusted he would be able to find someone eventually, even if it took a few more days. From what I’d seen of the planet so far, I suspected that any experts in food production were likely extremely busy these days.

The next morning, I woke up early and logged into the game to begin my trip into the caves. Between the medicines I had available and my almost absurd Toughness, my wounds had mostly healed by this point.

My Psi Reserves were full again as well, leaving me as ready as I could be for the trip ahead. My encounter with the little wyverns the day before had shown me I hadn’t been entirely correct about the area being empty.

That brought to mind the last time I’d seen a group around a powerful Beast, or in that case, two powerful Beasts. The woods surrounding my second wild rift had been filled with wolves that all answered to the two Great wolves in the middle.

It had seemed at the time that it was because they were all of the same species, with the greater versions taking charge. I couldn't help but wonder if the same thing was going on here.

Perhaps there will be a big wyvern after all, I mused, halfway between worried and excited. That would certainly explain the claw marks on the ground, though it does leave the question of why it didn’t fly.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” I said with a laugh as I strode into the cave entrance.