Old Chapter 31/ interlude

I decided to change this chapter as well. I wrote myself into a bit of a corner and brought plot elements into the story sooner than I really wanted for the cool factor. I decided to rewrite 31 and am much happier with this new version.

NON OF THIS IS CANON. JUST A FUN SIDE READ OF WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN.

Chapter 31

Matt and Liz were in their tent. It was late, but with two weeks left of the training world’s six month period, he wanted to do something different.

The last few months had been good. Calm almost.

So, he was looking up Tier 5 rifts that seemed doable. There weren’t many, but their options consisted of  either rifts with the perfect counter to their fighting styles, or rifts that would be a cakewalk for them.

He looked over at Liz. She had her eyes closed, but her mouth was moving, so he asked, “Hey, I think we can do this Tier 5 rift. It’s some blood drinker’s rift. And no one saw the boss. With only weaker monsters, it seems like it would be pretty easy. Want to try it?”

The mage’s mouth stopped moving, and after a pause, she responded without opening her eyes. “Send me the info. I’ll look it over. It’d be interesting to see a blood rift. I might be able to learn something.”

Sending the information over, he watched her in anticipation. He wanted to push his boundaries. The practice with his Concept’s image was slow going, but he was now able to keep the image of the spring going. It seemed to give him a boost in strength and energy.

It was only a slight boost, as the image was wrong for him. He felt as if he would be able to create his Concept now. But with this image, it would be a sloppily made thing. Like clay that wasn’t the correct composition or that wasn’t fired right. It might hold water, but it would shatter under duress.

Matt refused to settle on something this half-assed. He and Liz still had time before they needed to hit Tier 5. They were only 17 and 16. She had even said that she was willing to fall off The Path if he needed the extra time. It was more important to her that he created the best foundation.

That wasn’t how he wanted it to play out, but he was having trouble thinking of what exactly was endless. The best example he could come up with was a star, even though they weren’t really endless. They just operated on a much longer timescale.

A star would expand until it swallowed the system it was in, and then it would turn into either a black hole or a white dwarf.

Then the white dwarf would burn itself out, until it was a heatless black dwarf. The black hole would last longer, but it would still eventually expend its energy and disappear.

The black hole felt like an antithesis to his Concept. Even trying to create that image had knocked him out for an hour.

The sun felt better, but not perfect. Also, it was proving to be nearly impossible to create an image that complex.

Liz said that he was reaching too far with ‘Sun’ as a starting point for a Concept. A sun was typically the ending phase for most fire Concept trees. The sun itself was never a Concept. It was mostly an Aspect. The end of a path, not the beginning.

Matt knew it would be easier to expand on his Concept if he started with something like the spring. He just felt it was wrong. He’d rather try and reach further, and get stuck at Tier 24, than not striving for the best version of himself.

Still, trying to encapsulate the sun as an image proved to be a brick wall that he could not overcome.

Endless was a misnomer, and it was creating a contradiction that was tearing him apart. On a long enough scale, nothing was endless. Trying to get an image that represented endless while not having an end was hard.

The problem was that Matt felt like there was something there. Something that would fit the hole in his cores. It was out there, and no matter what, he would find it.

His current line of thought was that Tier 15 was endless, but he felt even less with that image than the spring.

***

The next day, they took the teleporter to the Tier 5 rift. The guild information said that it was a pretty standard rift. The only oddity was that the boss had yet to be seen. The rift was a solo rift in the middle of nowhere,exemplifying the bleak landscape of the training world. The only other thing within sight was a Tier 3 rift shimmering on the horizon.

Stepping into the rift, day immediately shifted to night when they crossed over.  A large moon took up half the sky, and provided enough light that it felt like a muted version of daytime.

They were in a graveyard with a strange collection of tombstones. Some large crypts were scattered around the more standard square nameplates. Peering at one as they passed revealed an unknown language carved into the headstones. Matt assumed that it was just gibberish created by the rift to complete the false world. Standard procedure for rifts.

Oddly enough, they didn't run into the first zombie until they left the graveyard.  It was a different variant, and seemed slightly crazy. When it saw them, it let out a piercing screech, and sprinted directly at the trio. Liz had handfuls of blood already floating around her, but was slower to the punch than Matt.

His blade licked out, and the running monster was sliced in half. The essence rush he expected never came.

The monster, with its lower half missing, was still ‘alive’, and crawling at Liz. She finished it off with a stab through the head.

The rush of essence felt amazing. It was thick and heavy. A marked difference from the Tier 4 rifts. Matt didn’t know if he could ever go back to a Tier 4 rift. He was nearly a peak Tier 4 with all the rifts they’d been delving for the last five months.

The growth had been incredible. It was only possible with the abundance of rifts, and the fact that they were meant to be destroyed. Without the limiters for conservation, their progress was much faster than it was at Tier 3.

Looking around for a second zombie, they found none. Searching out with his spirit sense, Matt found the exit distortion far off in the distance. Standing up on his toes, he was able to peek over the small village near the cemetery. There, he saw a castle at the top of a jagged cliff, backlit by the massive moon.

Stepping into the village, they found it in a state of complete destruction. A number of monsters were feasting on human corpses strewn about as if they were decorations.  The group of monsters saw the trio approaching and attacked. Their speed was impressive. If these were the normal monsters, they would be hard pressed to beat anything stronger.

Matt rushed forward to confront the  five charging monsters. With the moon shining down directly, he was able to see the white, dead, decaying flesh of the monsters. Their teeth were pointed like those of beasts, and there were only empty, sunken in sockets where their eyes should have been.

Sidestepping, he slashed out and lopped off an arm, cutting deeply into the chest of an adjacent zombie. The third monster lashed out, and Matt felt [Cracked Phantom Armor]’s structure tremble. Avoiding the danger, he fell into his familiar combat dance, with the zombies’ attacks setting the tempo of his latest performance.

Slipping into the rhythm, he lunged forward and stomped out the knee of a zombie that lunged past him. Sure, they were undead, but they still needed an intact skeleton to stand. With the loss of mobility, Matt was able to decapitate the crippled monster. His AI quickly assessed that these things didn’t care about their lives. Not a strange behavior for most rift monsters, but these took it to a whole new level.

As he was moving to finish the last standing monster, it was impaled through the chest with an icicle. Aster padded over and growled at the crawling monster, before another shard of ice materialized and pierced its head.

Feeling the essence in his spirit, Matt took a deep breath. Even with the stench of corpses polluting the air, it still smelled like progress to him.

Out of a building, two more of the monsters burst out, covered in gore. This fight was much quicker with their numbers advantage.

Matt looked over at Liz and Aster. “Seems like these things need their heads removed or their hearts destroyed to put them down.”

“Seems like it. Kinda simplifies it. They don’t really have self-preservation skills.”

Matt looked around and asked, “Clear the village, or push?”

Liz looked around and decided. “Let’s do a full clear. Tier 5 monsters like this are good essence, if nothing else.”

And so they did. It took them close to half an hour to go from building to building, but each minute was worth its weight in essence.

They found gruesome sights in each building. Half eaten bodies  were in every conceivable position, with excess limbs and splattered bodily fluids filling every empty space. It was a morbid sight.

“What kind of rift does this?”

“I don’t know, but it feels wrong. The rifts don’t usually make humans. Or at least alive ones.”

They exited the final building to see a pale man walking into the village. This one was ethereally attractive, and under the pale glow of the massive moon he looked like a phantom. He paused and said something that Matt only understood as gibberish.

Matt raised his sword to prepare for an attack, but was shocked at the man’s burst of speed. It was so fast that it was only a blur to him.

Only mere luck and the monster’s lack of self preservation instincts that allowed him to take off the attacking monster’s arm.

Matt saw a flash of pale skin, but what really stood out as the monster closed on him was the glimpse of beast-like canines.

Each was at least two inches long, and they led the charge, with  sharp and pointed fingernails following close behind.

Liz lashed out with a whip of blood, but the monster bit down on it and started drinking it down.

Lunging, Matt tried to skewer the monster, but it threw out a fist that shattered [Cracked Phantom Armor]. Most of the blow’s momentum was stopped, but Matt was still shoved back. He could already feel the bruise forming on his chest.

“It won’t stop drinking my blood!” Liz moved her hands and tried to rip the blood away. It worked for a moment. But the monster’s missing arm was already half regrown.

“We need to end this now!” Matt felt stupid for shouting it back at her. It’s not like they were purposely letting the strong enemies live, but this was a dangerous situation. That they seemed to counter Liz’s main attacking skill only made matters worse.

Matt slashed at the monster’s legs and took both off. The shard of ice Aster followed up with missed as the zombie crumbled to the dirt.

Horrifyingly, the monster’s missing limbs started regenerating at a visible speed. Liz ended it with her spear through its chest.

Once the heart was pierced, the monster dissolved into chunks of flesh.

Trying to control his breathing, Matt huffed, and spat out, “What the fuck was that? That thing was healing like  it had [Regeneration]”

Liz shook her head. “I don’t think so. It was only healing after it started drinking my blood whip. I don’t know if I can use it in this rift. I have an idea, though. This blood feels different.”

With that, all the blood she had collected before was moved to her left side. As she drained the regenerating monster, she kept its blood to her right.

Looking at the long path up the hill to the castle, Matt asked, “ Do we continue?” At her nod, he finished, “Let’s spend this Tier 5 essence. It’s filling my spirit fast.”

Watching Liz and Asters’ backs, he kept a lookout while they allocated their essence.

Nothing happened, but he was able to survey what remained of the rift.

The castle didn’t look right. Matt didn’t know what it was about the building that bothered him, but after observing it, his AI noticed there weren’t any emplacements for runic shields.

Mentioning it to Liz when she finished, he settled down and dove into his spirit, observing his core. He had been direct cultivating the last thirty percent of the Tier 4 essence into proprioception, mind, and regeneration.

He needed the endurance from regeneration to keep up with [Mage’s Retreat]. Even though he was planning to get the skill [Endurance], having a bit more cultivated would only make the skill better. Mind and proprioception were advanced for the same reasons. [Mage’s Retreat] pushed him farther than his Tier 4 body could really  handle.

With the essence enchanting his body as he approached the peak of Tier 4, Matt felt better. Each improvement was a step in the right direction. It made him stronger, and every cultivation session allowed  him to push the slightest bit forward.

They made their way up the winding path, and after stepping on the trail, two of the stronger monsters made their presence known to them.

The first one went for Matt, and he was again taken aback by the monster’s speed. The second went for Liz and Aster. He had to hope that her idea had worked, and that the monsters couldn’t regenerate with their own blood.

With the monster’s speed and superhuman reactions, Matt’s AI was having trouble predicting their movements.

Despite Matt’s full swing, the monster blocked his empowered Tier 5 weapon with its claws. Each long fingernail was incredibly hard, and seemed to be empowered with something. Matt didn’t see a skill, but that didn’t mean they weren’t using something.

The fight was dicey, until the monster went for a perceived opening.

The monster grabbed Matt’s arm and tried to bite down. [Cracked Phantom Armor] struggled with the monster on his wrist. However, with the shifty, pale monster, now in close quarters, Matt slammed his blade through the creature’s neck.

The head kept up the bite pressure for a moment, but his arm was released as he felt more essence rush into him.

With a turn, he found Liz wrapping up with the monster she had been fighting, and draining it alive.

“This is interesting. I can easily overpower its spirit and drain its blood while it’s alive. Well, not easily, but it’s easier than it should be. Normally it’s impossible.”

“Have you ever tried with normal undead?”

“Yeah, once, but that was at Tier 2.”

Hefting his sword, he said, “Something to test when we get out of here.”

The next encounter was odd. This particular monster tried to talk to them, and then turned into a large bat and tried to fly away.

Thankfully, Aster was fast enough to hit it with a bunch of ice shards,  shredding its wings. The bat fell, and turned back into human form, but was now bleeding from its arms.

The monster once again tried to run, but Liz snagged a leg and dragged it back. The creature’s claws dug furrows in the ground as it wailed while being pulled in, and Matt shoved his sword through its back.

“Ok, so transformation abilities. These things seem to have a whole lot of skills for a Tier 5 rift.”

“Yeah, something about this feels odd. Why did the guild reports say nothing of this?”

As they were halfway up the cliff path, they encountered a grotesque hunchback that jumped out at them from behind a crypt. It took Matt’s sword blow and, despite the deep gash in its arm and chest, lunged at them a second time.

Aster hit it with a blast of cold that caused it to falter mid leap, giving Matt the time to bury his blade into the large monster’s body.

Fighting up the hill, they encountered several groups of these leaping hunchbacks, more of the first zombies, and even another group of the swift, regenerating creatures that tried to drink blood.

After some gory work, they arrived at the front of the castle, and found the gate lowered over a moat. There were half a dozen of the lesser monsters, with a duo of the regenerating variant at the entrance.

The second they arrived, the group of monsters ran at them en masse. Matt saw that all of them were wearing some type of leather armor. The two stronger monsters each had three monsters following them.

Matt sliced through one of the lesser ones before the stronger one was on him. It lashed out at him with claws that strained his skill with even a glancing blow.

The two remaining lesser monsters were hampering his movements, but he was able to remove a leg from the fast variant. In response, it lunged at the closest remaining monster and latched onto its neck.

Realizing what it wanted, Matt sprinted towards it, and skewered both monsters. He was tackled by the last weak monster as he impaled the duo.

The monster tried to eat him as well, but Matt got a good grip under its jaw and, with a surge of [Mage’s Retreat], ripped its head clean off.

Looking and seeing that Liz was finishing off the remaining lesser monsters, he stood and retrieved his sword from the mess of bodies he had left it in.

“The fuck is this? Monsters eating each other?”

Liz agreed, “This isn’t right. Let’s head back.”

They went to get off the drawbridge and found it rising, sliding them to the castle’s inner courtyard.

“Ok, what the fuck is going on?”

Matt couldn’t answer the question, but saw stairs on the outer wall, and started towards them. Liz saw the same thing, but as they got within a few feet, the stairs returned to the wall where they were attached.

“Yup I’m freaked out. Use the blood to get us up there?”

Liz did so, and they smacked into an invisible barrier that kept him from getting over the lip of the wall.

The front doors opened.

Matt could feel the fear from Liz and Aster. This wasn’t normal, and neither knew how to react. “Well, let’s just hope we get out of this alive.”

They found themselves in a banquet room, and the disembodied music stopped when they stepped over the threshold.

They were greeted by a host of bared fangs rushing at them, as everything in the room decided that the intruders needed to die.

The fight ensued in the doorway, with Matt taking a defensive stance in front of Liz, and letting her slice most of the monsters apart as they rushed them. Aster was finishing off the crawling monsters that tried to slither around Matt, who was busy keeping the waves of monsters at bay.

Matt took and let the monsters break upon his blade and skills.

After the carnage, Matt and Liz tried to leave again. The castle defenses were still active. When they went outside, they found that the ambience of the rift had shifted. The sky itself had a distinct red tinge.

“This is so fucking ominous it’s crazy.”

As they entered the hall proper, they were stopped by a pair of gargoyles.

The first sprung off its perch at them with a flurry of claws and stone teeth. Matt was praying the blow wouldn’t harm his sword, as he lashed out at the stone monster. To his surprise, he found that the gargoyle had flesh underneath its stone exterior, and felt the familiar sensation of blade biting through.. The stone acted like a thin sheet of armor,, and fountains of blood sprung forth as their stone skin was broken..

The internal structure of the beasts proved to be mostly liquid, and when cut, they exploded like water balloons.

Standing in the pile of gore, Matt kicked the hollowed-out husk of a monster. “None of this makes any sense.”

“I know. I know. Let’s just get out of here.” Liz temporized.

They reached a second level, where they found a ballroom with people wearing masks.

The flashes of fangs told them everything they needed to know, and they repeated the same funneling tactic they used on the front entrance.

This time, five of the beasts in human flesh turned into large wolves. They pounced at Matt, who was again standing at the entrance of the door. Not willing to take any of their attacks, he retreated while trying to keep the monsters from flanking him. He was determined to keep them from getting to Liz and Aster, who were sending attacks around him.

Things got hectic when  they were pushed back to the stairs they had previously ascended to reach this floor. They had only killed three of the large canines, and were running out of room to operate.

“We can’t let them push us down the stairs. They’ll have the high ground.” Liz called out, and he agreed.

Checking his AI for the distance they had, he found that Liz and Aster behind him were already at the edge.

Stepping into the next attack, Matt body checked one of the wolves. The unexpected shift to the offensive sent it sprawling to the floor. After seeing the opening, Aster launched a barrage of ice shards at her canine cousin.

Liz sent a wave of blood surging around Matt and encased the monsters. The blood disrupted their movements for just long enough that he was able to finish them with quick cuts.

Matt looked at his AI, and found that Aster and Liz were at a third and quarter of their mana pool, respectively.

They hardly ever had to ration their mana for a single rift, and could just rest and recuperate in between delves. It was far more dangerous to do so inside a rift.

Seeing a smaller, less ornate door, he tried the nob, and opened the door to find a linen closet.

“Let me check this out.”

Without the room for his sword, Matt concentrated on [Cracked Phantom Armor] ’s skill structure in his spirit, and formed small spikes on his knuckles.

They were small, but would add some penetrating power to his punches at grappling distance. Although, it would lessen the skill’s defensive power a slight bit.

Checking for mimics or ambushes in the linen closet, he moved anything and everything he saw.  Satisfied, he declared it empty of enemies.

“Come on in.”

The two girls slipped in around him, and Matt refilled their mana stones.

Liz had given the fox one of her fast converting mana stones. It allowed  Matt to keep both of them fighting for longer than they would normally be able to.

Aster mana stone was socketed in her collar, keeping it available for the handless fox to use in emergencies.

With Liz’s mana stone in his hand, he kept a finger touching Aster’s collar, charging both with the mana he was no longer putting into this sword and [Mage’s Retreat]. The only skill he kept up was his armor.

He was still on alert, ready for something to burst through the door, and was far more durable than his teammates.

It took him almost seven minutes of charging the stones to fill the 2000 mana requirement for the fast converting mana stones’ charge of 200 mana.

They repeated the process four more times to get the mages back to full capacity. Then, once more to ensure they had a reserve of mana ready to be drawn upon.

After he finished the charging, Aster softy yipped at him in thanks, breaking the long silence they had been sitting in. Liz added her own soft voice to the mix. “Yeah, thanks Matt. This rift is a shitshow. Ascenders know how long we’d be stuck here if you couldn’t recharge us this fast.”

The compliment made him feel uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure why. “I uhh... You’re welcome, I guess.” Changing the topic, he asked, “Do you think this might be a rift challenge? It’s the only thing I can think of for the rift to be acting so strangely. It’s blocking our retreat, and all the monster varieties seem a bit much for a low Tier 5 rift.”

“No, I don’t think so. None of the monsters are using skills, which is weird enough. But something’s definitely wrong. There was more than one team that came through here, and the guilds reports didn’t mention anything like this.”

“Yeah, which is why I can only guess it’s a rift challenge.” Matt reasserted himself.

“The monsters would be way stronger than low Tier 5 if this was a rift challenge.”

That, Matt couldn’t refute.

They left the closet shortly after, but not before Liz grabbed a few of the towels and bed linens, saying, “These are really well made.”

“You sleep in a sleeping bag.” Matt quipped back, but didn’t protest more. She had grabbed one for each of them after all.

As they made their way up the castle’s various floors, they encountered heavily shielded and armored knights. They weren’t hard for Matt to duel, as they relied on their armor and shields more than their axes.

The fight was mostly just Matt holding their attention, while Aster froze the joints of their armor, and Liz pulled them apart with [Blood Manipulation].

The only real challenge against the knights came when they attacked as a group of five. Matt was only able to entangle three of them.

The panic was starting to rise when he heard Liz say, “Just hold for a moment. We can handle this.”

These rift monsters were close combatants, so Matt had no problems avoiding their attacks. But if he didn’t engage them, they immediately tried to flank him.

Using his long reaching longsword, Matt felt like a child fighting practice dummies as he slapped the flat of his blade on their armored forms, essentially herding them together.

A tendril of blood came out and wrapped around one of Matt’s opponents, giving him enough leeway to go on the offensive.

When the five knights were dispatched, an out of breath Liz said, “Shit, sorry. It took me nine hits with my whip to kill the first one. I should’ve just ripped them apart.”

Seeing nothing else around, Matt kicked at the armored head of one of the corpses until the helmet came off. Underneath, he found a rotting face.

“You know, I have never heard of a zombie in heavy plate armor before. Real pain in my ass.”

Pushing through the castle, they fought group after group, taking another two rests to distribute essence and recharge the mages’ mana. This time, they stopped in a well-adorned suite that had a bed so luxurious, Matt wanted to shove it in his spatial bag.

“Want to try to head back down and out of here? Maybe whatever was blocking us has stopped?”

Matt thought over Liz’s suggestion and agreed to try it. They retreated past all the corpses of the monsters they had slain. When they had gone down one flight of stairs and across the castle to the next flight down, they found another invisible wall blocking them.

“Well, up is our only way out, I guess.”

Mat looked at the armored woman next to him and the white fox on his other side. He didn’t have answers, but wanted to at least get them out.

This rift is said to not have a boss, so maybe this will just be easy from here on out?

Matt scoffed at that thought. This rift was such a colossal pain that he was sure they’d find a boss. Their best hope was to forsake the reward and go straight for the exit.

The castle ended, and across a small gap, they saw what looked like a throne room across the small ravine.

Large eagles dropped more of the hunchbacks, and dove at them with large talons. Matt stood over Aster and in front of Liz, trying to keep the monsters away from them. The eagles were large enough that he was afraid of them snatching his bond into the air, where she would be at a great disadvantage.

In the moments between sword swings, shards of ice, whips of blood, Matt had a moment of clarity.

I feel… happy?. We can’t retreat, and we’re going into the most ominous place in this shit show of a rift, but I feel alive. I’m with two best friends, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

The revelation wasn’t an insight on his image, or anything else groundbreaking, but it felt more important. This was what delving meant; getting into dangerous situations and fighting your way out.

A few minutes of chaos later, the last of the leaping hunchbacks were slain, and Liz and Aster finished off the massive birds trying to claw at them. Matt’s blade was enough of a deterrent to keep them at a distance, and it was up to the girls to finish them off. His crossbow was a lot less valuable than his blade here, so he didn’t bother pulling it out.

With the birds taken care of, they stepped on the bridge that crossed the canyon. The blood red moon loomed large in the sky, painting everything an unsettling shade of blood.