Ch 33

“Oh shit, oh shit!” Ben said, breathing hard as he ran. His lungs should be burning, and his body should have given out by now, yet all he felt was hot, very hot. It was a good kind of heat, like his bones were made of metal that had been left out in the sun, a warmth that radiated out and made him involuntarily aware of every inch of his body.

Moving like a ghost on rails, moved along the two dimensional surface of the cliffs, faster than a shadow and occasionally popping out and firing another bolt of crackling red energy. These whizzed through the sparse forest, impacting trees and knocking them over.

Everything was a blur as they ran, and soon the assault stopped all-together, and still they ran, Ben blindly following the renegade, and the renegade following blind instincts. They were headed neither to the peak, nor the base of the mountain, rather their trail cut a horizontal line across the center, and soon Ben's mind kicked into gear and he yanked himself free from his companions grip, standing still and catching his breath. The naked man ran on for a little longer, then looked back and saw Ben was still, and came back. He tugged on Ben's shirt sleeve, a terrified expression on his face.

“We can't run anymore,” Ben said, brushing the hand aside “I dropped my gun back there, and I think we're going to need it.” There was some protest in the form of ooking and pleading gestures, but in the end, the Aim Hero Renegade followed Ben as slowly made his way back.

The terrain began to look more and more unfamiliar, and Ben knew it wasn't because they were headed the wrong way. The further back they headed, the less trees and brush there was, instead little one to two foot tall square pillars of tan stone, spaced fairly far apart, littered the landscape. An arm like iron shot out in-front of Ben, halting him completely, the renegade giving a low growl and pointing at the pillars. Ben took a moment to look around further and saw that a heavy, cool mist had covered the sky like absurdly low cloud cover, dimming the bright desert light, and in the distance, large walls had erected themselves, pinning them in.

“What is it boy?” Ben said, some lunatic urge causing him to mimic the tone people often used with a trusty dog. He looked closely at the thick, small square pillars and the renegade picked up a rock, did some disturbingly sophisticated movements with it, getting it's weight and measure, then threw it in a perfect fastball motion. The sound it made was unique, and stuck with Ben in such a way that he knew he would remember it for years to come, a thump and a whoosh as it was thrown, a slight whistle as it flew, and a resounding crack as it hit something previously invisible sitting atop the nearest pillar.

It was an ugly, squat mass of purple, green and red flesh, like half of a soccer ball sized tumor, with eight little claw like legs attached to the edge of it's flat base. Above it was written for a brief moment, before it shattered into light that raced through the air and entered the Aim Hero Renegade, illuminating him for a short moment.

“What. . .?” Ben said, letting his question trail off, watching as the eyes and hair of his companion lit up like incandescent bulbs, flashing with a soft pop, and a rotating icon with depicting an eye with a shining pupil fell gently to the ground, bouncing as though governed by moon gravity, then finally coming to a rest about a foot away. A sense of desperate, naked need filled Ben and he rushed forward, grabbing at the icon and watching it vanish, and a new mental process appeared in his mind.

Analyze Casimer's voice said, filling the area with omnidirectional sound, like the voice of a commentator or announcer. Ben looked around, and suddenly the world looked very different. It was as though someone had painted over his vision with semi-transparent brushes of color, little red blotches on top of each and every pillar that seemed to resolve themselves into more monsters when he squinted. Ben hissed as he exhaled, realizing how close to death he had been, and put a hand on the Aim Hero Renegade's shoulder.

“Thank you,” he said, and the renegade grunted in response, still scanning the area. Ben picked up a rock, took aim, and threw it as hard as he could. It missed entirely, and Ben moved forward to the cleared pillar, picked up another rock, took aim again, and threw. This time, Ben was successful, and the heavy stone hit the with a thud and bounced off, a red bar appeared above it for about five seconds, depleting itself.

All at once, as Ben stared in baffled confusion, he understood.

“Am I in a fucking video game!” Ben shouted, suddenly filled with irrational anger, fear, outrage, while still being unable to stop smiling. His smile turned to laughter that grew in intensity, he threw rock after rock at the each impacting and chipping off another portion of health, the laughter turning to sheer lunacy, a madman's cackle by the time he finally killed the monster.

“Those are experience points, aren't they?” He nearly screamed as the light rushed into him, innervating his body with energy, causing the vague spots caused by Analyze to brighten, shaping themselves more closely to the camouflaged monsters. Ben's emotions suddenly snuffed out, replaced by a hot, mechanical knowledge that had nothing to do with Casimer's influence.

“You think you're going to kill me here? I've been beating games like you since I was four years old.”

The Aim Hero Renegade picked up another rock and prepared to throw it, but Ben held up a hand.

“No,” he said, then picked up another rock “That's not how these things work. If I want to survive, I need to do it.”

A little bit behind them, as if in approval, a large pile of stones appeared as if poured out of an invisible sack onto the ground. The renegade, almost as if he understood exactly what was happening, began acting as a gopher, carrying rocks to Ben as he threw them, whittling away the HP of the next nearest monster.

–

Casimer watched Ben as he methodically stood a safe distance away from the camouflaged monsters, very slowly killing them one at a time. He felt like laughing, a sort of diabolic laughter that only comes when a key piece of the master plan is finally revealed.

“So, that's how it works,” Casimer said, sitting atop a distant cliff with a body of dirt, core embedded where a nose should be on the face, petting what looked to be a gigantic, horned white snake with large, irregular, round black patches across it's lounging body. Above the square bent horns was written in glowing green letters .

“Did you know,” he said, turning his eyeless face and speaking to the eyeless worm “that you are made out of my leftovers?” The worm moved slowly, shaking it's head. “No, you wouldn't know that, would you? After I've put the mana through whatever mysterious process I use to keep myself alive, there's something leftover, something which builds up inside of me, a sort of heavy, exhausted energy that's useless to me. Like it's all burned up, and the char and ash is all that's left. It's a bit like you biological types, breathing in clean air and exhaling waste. So, I expel it and create creatures like you.”

Some distance away, Ben finally killed another poison spike trap, and it broke apart into light that rushed into Ben, who seemed to be getting a sort of berserker high from it.

“That, right there,” Casimer said, pointing with force “He broke it apart, and that relatively useless energy rushed into him. And you know what? He's metabolizing it right back to mana, and leaking that out back into the environment. That's a cycle, that's something I should take note of if I'm going to be any better than a disgusting bug.” Casimer watched Ben for a little while longer, petting the worm, then sighed.

“What a shame for you little buddy,” he said, fondly giving the enormous worm a vigorous scratch behind the horns, which it seemed to greatly enjoy “Looks like you can't eat them all like I originally planned. It was a good plan too, I would have creeped up on their cities and unleashed armies of monsters like you. Can you imagine it? The sky blotted out by winged worms, and wolves and things I haven't even thought up yet! Just thinking about it makes me hungry. Looks like that isn't happening though. Sorry.” The worm didn't seem to mind very much at all.

Casimer watched Ben as he killed another of his monsters, just standing there, extremely safe, throwing rocks.

“You know, I don't think that's really fair. Look at him, he's just staying out of range and killing them from a distance. Poor little cuties can't even fight back. You all might just be what boils down to poop, but each and every one of you is my favorite turd. How do you feel about getting a little exercise? If you're lucky, you might die, and the next time I make you, you'll be even bigger.”

The head of the worm split open in four directions, revealing a mostly hollow body lined with rapidly circling teeth, each dripping with bright green acid.

“There's a smile. Go get 'em!”

–

The sun was setting, finally, and Ben was lobster red and desperately in need of some Aloe Vera, or any other kind of sunburn treatment. He had been out in the sun all day, and was coated in sweat. The Aim Hero Renegade sat under a tree, with a piece of straw in it's mouth, crossing his eyes and watching it as he waved it from side to side with his lips.

As far as loot went, Ben had acquired a pile; several gallon sized bags full of cigarette butts; exactly one useless rifle with an obsidian-like rock embedded in it; a pile of tiny rocks of the same kind as in the gun; a pair of jeans which Ben had immediately assisted the Aim Hero Renegade in putting on; a water cooler from which Ben and the renegade had already drunk; and a bag of unidentified raw meat that the renegade kept trying to get into. At some point a very large plastic bag, at least as large as a backpack and with straps on it, had dropped and Ben had immediately started storing things in it.

Ben felt very strange, like his entire nervous system was itchy. He had gained and lost both the Analyze and Aim skill several times throughout the day, and his best guess was that he only had a certain number of uses, or a time duration before he lost them. His brain felt plastic from exercises and exertions it had never even considered performing, let alone actually succeeding at. The constant bombardment of what Ben was calling experience points had given him something akin to a high, but rather than euphoria, it was an entirely mental high, like all the joints and mechanisms of his brain had been lubricated for the first time. It struck him that this is what a genius must feel like all the time, and then realized, without much emotion, that he would never be able to be happy as his old self again. Fucking flowers for Algernon.

It hadn't been hard to learn how to turn off the skills he had obtained, it was sort of like shutting an eye, except the eyes were inside his brain; extremely simple and easy to understand, he thought with some sarcasm. Ben had both skills currently, and they sat in his mind like little points of bright light; Analyze was dimmer than Aim, indicating that it was closer to being exhausted. Every minute or so, he would use the skill and scan the area, checking for threats.

Ben did so, scanning the area, then felt himself, not for the first time, laugh as his eyes took in the scene before him. The squat, tan pillars that littered the landscape were mostly devoid of monsters, some of them had chunks missing from thrown rocks, and each was casting a steadily lengthening shadow in the light of the setting sun. Several bags of cigarette butts lay where they dropped, Ben having stopped collecting them.

“Speaking of,” he said to himself, then walked over to the clear plastic backpack and unzipped the top. He took out a bag of butts, dumped them out on the ground, then picked through them, occasionally setting one aside if it was longer than the others, which were mostly filters. Pulling out a thick, once clear glass pipe, now near black with use, Ben carefully emptied the remaining tobacco from the butts and packed the pipe. Running is hand along his pants pockets, he realized he didn't have a lighter, swore, then put the pipe back in his pocket. Ben considered trying to use the plastic as a sort of makeshift lens to concentrate sunlight and get an ember going that way, then more strongly considered quitting smoking all-together if he was that desperate. Immediately after thinking that, he tried to use one of the obsidian monster cores to light the pipe, and failed.

The sound of moving dirt in the distance grabbed his attention, he turned and saw something large, white and thick like a tentacle with horns rising from the ground, extending about three feet up and writhing. Ben's lips turned down as he looked at it, an uncomfortable feeling in his gut making him use Analyze, which lit the creature up in red. Above it's head was written something, but Ben couldn't see it, so he used Aim for a brief moment, and suddenly it was clear.

“Giant Bull Wurm?” he said, grabbing a nearby rock and using Aim for only the duration of this throw, causing it to fly true and strike it at the base. The rock bounced off of the apparently thick flesh of the creature, and above it's head, only the smallest fraction of HP was removed, giving Ben pause. The giant bull worm whipped it's head back, then threw it forward, a sphereical glob of burning green fluid racing directly towards him. Ben yelled out in surprise and dove to the side, and the caustic substance struck the ground, burning with a foul smell and glowing with heat.

The creature threw it's head back again, and Ben started running, near miss after near miss filling him with panic.

“Help! Help!” he shouted at the renegade, who looked startled and jumped up, then threw a rock with awesome force, taking well over a quarter of the creature's remaining health and leaving a black bruise on it's body. He was able to strike it two more times before it retreated, burrowing into the ground. The renegade, apparently having had enough leisure time, began mechanically clearing out the remaining poison spike traps, one shot killing one monster, and clearing the path forward.

“Took me twenty throws to take one of those out,” Ben grumbled, then grabbed his pack. The way was now clear, and Ben was practically itching to use the Aim skill with his rifle.