Chapter 2: Death
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Chapter 2

 

♦ Captain!  She is starting to wake up, what are your orders?

♦ Put the scanners to maximum, we have no Idea what could be out there. Be prepared for anything.

♦ Captain, feelers all over the body are reporting that it is cold and that the ground is hard rock.

♦ Have the eyes opened yet?

♦ No sir. She appears to be getting up and holding her head. The feelers up there are reporting a headache.

♦ Very well. Make her open her eyes.

♦ Aye-aye Captain.

 

Uuuuuughh… My head huuuuurrts. Have you guys ever felt like there are little people in your head? Well, for me, it feels like those guys decided to jump around and bang giant drums.

♦ How did she figure it out Captain?

♦ No idea Cadet.

I am just going to pretend I didn’t hear that.

I open my eyes before looking around.

I am in a small cave that is lit up by a torch high on the wall, unfortunately, I can’t see much outside because there seems to be a small snowstorm blocking my view. I stand up slowly and look around at the bare walls of the cave seeing nothing other than the torch.

I walk over to the torch and pick it up.

I stand there for a second considering my options before holding the torch out in front of me and heading out into the snowstorm.

The winds blow at me, almost blowing my torch out, luckily I managed to get in front of it, creating a windbreak.

The torch lets me see a meter in each direction, but I can hear sounds all around me that are really starting to freak me out.

Crunch.

I swirl around, finding nothing but falling snowflakes behind me.

Creeeeeak

I turn around again, this time seeing a silhouette in front of me before it disappears. I let out a sigh of relief, realizing that I am not going crazy.

Yeah. Right.

Another breath of wind catches me by surprise, blowing my torch out.

The next thing I know, I am flying through the air with a hole in my chest.

I try to get up, before falling down again.

I feel blood dribble down onto my stomach as I sit up again.

I see glowing at the corner of my eyes, so I slowly turn my head to see my gloves and wound glowing at the same time. My wound starts closing, but before it can finish, a hand punches through my chest coming out the other side.

I look down at the hand now sticking out of my chest. It was a large white hand with a line of gray fur traveling down each finger.

The creature then pulls its hand out of my back, only for me to fall forward into the snow.

Then, with little fanfare, I bleed out into the snow and die.



Congratulations! You have suffered your first death!

Luckily for you, you are still in The Tutorial, so you get extra lives and get to keep your equipment!

You have 1 life left before you can no longer win a special prize, so tread carefully!



I wake up in the cave still wearing my gloves, which I promptly thank god for.

I look around to find the torch on the wall where I took it from.

I sigh. What is the first rule of war? Know your enemy and know yourself.

Thank you Sun Tsu.

I went out there without any information like an idiot. Hell, I barely know what I am supposed to do right now.

Take a deep breath. Follow the first rule. What do I know about my enemy?

They have human shaped hands. Can they use tools? Most likely.

Let’s see… What else?

Wait, they didn’t attack me until the torch went out and they haven’t attacked me in this cave. Possible fear of fire? Most likely.

Also, the creature punched me in the chest, which means that it is at least human height, possibly bigger, considering it had enough strength to punch me through the chest.

Anything else?

I am afraid that that is it.

What do I know about myself?

Rather, what do I not know about myself?

I guess I should start there.

“Status.



∙ General Info: Elena S. Trudeau  Age:16 ∙ Lvl: 1   
∙ Class: N/A  Mana: 80  Health: 200
∙ Sponsor: N/A

∙ Titles: Beta Tester, Crazy In A Good Way(Is that even possible?), Watched By The Gods

∙ Special conditions: Most Definitely Not-Normal

∙ Physical Condition: Healthy
∙ Physicality: Athletic 84%
∙ Brilliance: Graduate 95%

∙ Equipment: Gloves(unique)



I look over my status, quickly deciding on what information I want first.

Titles as good as anywhere else. “Describe Title Beta Tester.”



≡ Title: Beta Tester (Special)

Description: You are one of the two-million people who have been given access to system and world events including exclusive events like The Tutorial, a year early. This title gives a bonus to all skill and stat growth.



“Describe ‘Title Crazy In A Good Way.’”



Error 404 Title Not Found



“Are you serious? Fine, ‘Describe Title Crazy In A Good Way is that even possible?’”



≡ Title: Crazy In A Good Way (Is that even possible?) (Unique)

Description: Pretty self explanatory. You gain a 90% resistance to all mental or psychic abilities, affects and spells. You also gain a 100% increase to learning and progression of all mental/psychic abilities and spells.



“Wow. That, is an over powered title. Thank you whoever is out there that gave me this title. Now I just need to figure out how to learn psychic abilities….” I mumble to myself as I read through the notification.

“So, based on the last notification, things like magic should exist. So, how do I use it? Well, how do people learn to use magic in books? Meditation.” I pause for a second before putting my legs into a lotus position.

Before I begin, I mentally thank my mother for being such a hippy and teaching me how to meditate.

My mind and breath are one.

I empty my thoughts to the void.

My nose itches causing me to lose concentration. I rearrange my position slightly before continuing my impromptu mantra.

My mind and breath are one.

I empty my thoughts to the void

My mind and breath are one.

I empty my thoughts to the void

...

My mind and breath are one.

I empty my thoughts to the void

Then I felt it, this energy flowing all around me. Then I lost it.

I am brought out of my meditation and curse at myself for losing concentration.

I start chanting my mantra yet again

….

I sense it again, a boundless energy all around me. What now?

I try to grab the energy. As soon as I do, I get zapped.

“Ouch!” Crud, I got kicked out of that state again.

Time to repeat the mantra.

And so I do, over and over and over and over etc. again.

Until a realization hits me. I keep trying to grab this energy, maybe that isn’t how it is supposed to work, maybe I should try something else.

So when I reached the point where I sense the energy, instead of trying to control it, I submit to it.

This time instead of pain, I feel pleasure as the energy all around me flowed through me, after a few minutes the pleasure turned into this warmth throughout my body before I pass out.

 

I pick myself off the floor of the cave slowly.

I seem to be blacking out a lot lately. I note as I look at the plethora of blue windows right in front of me.



Nice job! You have successfully gained the approval of mana. You are free to use your mana now. Good luck!


Due to your sudden gaining of mana, you have been temporarily knocked out. This was for your own safety.


Thanks to one of your titles you now have access to the force known as Psy.


You have one hour left until the torch goes out.



Crud. It looks like I only have one hour left until whatever is out there will be coming in.

“‘Identify item: Gloves’”



~ Item: Gloves Of The Ancients  Owner: Elena S Trudeau

~ Abilities: Volatile Looks,   Indestructible, Heal,  ???



Heal must have become unlocked when that creature tried to kill me.

As soon as I realized that I only had one hour left before the torch dies, I started coming up with a plan.

I can’t go out into that storm again. That thing will kill me just as it did last time.

No, I will have to fight it on my own terms, on my own ground.

So, I decide to do something crazy. First, I close my eyes and wait a few seconds, so that they can get used to the dark. Then I pull the gloves tight and pray that they don’t conduct heat and are truly indestructible. Finally, I place my hand over the torch and put it out. The room goes dark and I open my eyes.

Then I wait at the entrance to the cave.

I watch as a creature shuffles into the cave.

It is a bipedal creature that slouches at six feet tall. The creature has long muscular arms that almost reach it’s ankles and a rather muscular upper body. It is fairly obviously a male (it wasn’t wearing any clothes) and seems to be sniffing around the cave.

Sniffing?

I get right behind it, quickly steadying my breath; “Boo!” As soon as the shout leaves my lips I crouch, the creature swinging its body around, those incredibly strong arms swinging right over my head and missing me by a hair. As soon as his arms pass I jump up and strongly punch the creature in the spot where its trachea should be.

The bones in its neck fracture under my fist. As it dies it pulls its arm back, giving me just enough time to prepare before its fist shoots towards my chest.

Pushing the breath out of my lungs I twist to the side and grab its wrist, using the surprising momentum from a dying creature to flip it over my shoulder, slamming it onto the ground back-first. A quick back-pedal takes me out of the reach of its death-throws, from where I watch it slowly die in the cold half-darkness.

Some tears come to my eyes as it looks at me in its last moments.

In the stories and books that you read, they scroll over the act of taking a life as if it is nothing, normal even.

But as I saw the life leave this creature’s eyes, I couldn’t help but apologize to it.

So I did something that I have never done before. I got on my knees, put my hands together and asked that whatever being that is in charge out there take this soul and give it some peace

A ding sound occurred that I chose to ignore.

The sound of shuffling makes me stand up and prepare for the next creature that decides to come in to my small cave.

This time I get a good look at the creature’s face. Covered in fur except for a bit around its eyes, where the showing skin glows in unnatural white.

The creature turned its head towards me.

Wait a second… That is a reaction that only something that could see should have. Can it see me without its eyes?

What are you doing Elena? That thing is preparing to kill you! React!

I save my thoughts for later as the creature draws its arm back. So I prepare to block, but instinct has me duck, I listen to it.

The arm I wasn’t paying attention to flew over my head.

Shit! Did that creature just use a feint?

I jump out of the way as it punches the spot where I was just standing with its other arm.

We each take a second to study each other before it sends another punch towards me. This time I am prepared and use the same move I used on the other creature. As its punch comes hurtling towards me I grab it and use its momentum to spin around the outside of the creature’s arm. Then, with all the power I can muster, I punch its trachea and jump out of the way.

The creature stumbles for a second before falling to the ground like its predecessor. It clutches its neck and struggles as it dies a slow death.

I did the same thing that I did with the first one I killed.

I got on my knees and prayed for it as it passed away.

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