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CH 30: Knife to a Gunfight
🕑 Added 2024-11-21 17:42:26 +0000 UTCReid reveled in the feeling of the cool air, and spoke the words aloud.
"I'm Free."
He swept his eyes over his surroundings. The tent was large, and boasted a sleeping area, some stands where clothing and a bent sword lay, odd supplies, and even a few boxes of firearms. Two chairs were set around a bloodstained table, and he pulled one out and sat down. The first thing he needed to do was take care of his leg.
Reid willed the bone to grow, shrink, and shift itself into the form of a knife, and grew it directly out the side of his leg. He snapped it free and watched his skin close up.
Calcification Weapon, Tibia Dirk created!
Reid eyed the tent's door flaps. No one had come in yet, but there was no guarantee that he'd be alone in here long enough to explore what had happened with his control stat increase - or the perception increase. Reid could feel both. He could tell the chair he sat in was warm enough that someone must've been in the same position recently - though he had no idea how long ago it could've been. He could hear indistinct voices, but he couldn't tell what they were saying or how far away they were. He felt like a detective from some TV series, picking out the small details in the environment around him.
And speaking of detective work, his work in mapping out the inner functions of his body made Reid feel like he had a better active understanding of what was happening inside himself. He could tell his pulse was elevated, and that his calf muscle had already finished healing. He stopped his introspection - he needed to think, and prioritize.
He wasn't certain how long he'd been out - which meant he had no idea what was happening with Louis, or with Sanctuary, or with Sara and the convoy.
He ordered his priorities. First, he needed to remain undiscovered until he figured out the current situation. Second, he had to investigate to see if Louis was close by, and what state Bertrand's camp was in. Third was getting back to Sanctuary, and confirming Susan was safe. Reid's capture could have been an isolated thing, or it could've been part of a larger attack on their settlement. If an attack had happened, he needed to take Susan and try to link up with Sara and the convoy. If Sanctuary was safe, Reid needed to force Bertrand's group out, or eliminate the threat.
Voices started to near the tent, and Reid backed away into the small bedroom area. He watched the entrance through a small gap in the sheets, and saw four men enter. One, balding and fat, moved to the table and scooped up some sort of paper. Another with a crossbow slung to his back walked over towards the cage. The final two went out of Reid's vision - in the direction of the guns.
Reid tensed, and looked down at his knife.
The last time he'd tried to be stealthy, it ended poorly for him. This time would be different - this time, he could be a silent killer.
Crossbow man was only a few steps from the cage now - and Reid decided to strike. He slunk forth from the bedroom area, grabbed the man by the arm, and thrust his knife, with every intention to bury it to the hilt in the man's skull.
Instead, a loud crack accompanied a burst of sharded bone and bits of brain as the crossbowman's head popped like a balloon. The pair near the guns turned to face Reid, then started fumbling to grab themselves weapons. The balding man, showered in bits of pink gore, turned toward the entrance to the tent, and shouted "BREAKOUT! We've go-"
His mouth was caught, open, as he choked on the vowel. Reid had needed three steps to close the distance, and only a single punch to make a hole where the man's heart should be. He flung the body to the side, and took another step towards the final two men. One was fumbling, failing to put a magazine into a long gun. The other held a pistol, leveled at Reid's chest.
The pistol holder pulled the trigger, and the sound of gunfire rang out in Reid's ears as he felt the bullet hit him in the chest.
He looked down - at where the bullet had deformed itself against his skin. Reid picked it up with two fingers, and stared at the tiny red welt it left behind. The pain - and the damage - were like Reid had been stung by a yellowjacket. He flicked the bullet to the floor, and looked up at the two men. Both had mouths agape, and the man holding the long gun kept staring at Reid for another moment before he furiously returned to his attempts at loading the gun.
The man with the pistol pulled the trigger again, and again, and again. Bullets bit at Reid's skin, but none sunk deep enough to be considered a real wound. They were just... a bit painful. Reid stepped forward towards the man. He still pulled the trigger on the now-empty handgun. His arm shook, and his eyes were wide.
Reid stepped in close, pulled the man towards him by the arm - and with some restraint, drew his knife through the man's throat, right over his adams apple. This time, he'd managed to kill someone without painting the surrounding area in gore. The man's dead body fell limp to the ground, and Reid put his attention on the final man.
He was decked out in camo tactical gear, full-sleeve tattoos full of skulls ran down each arm. The man was down on one knee, still trying to load his weapon. More specifically, he was furiously trying to shove an M14's magazine into an M16 rifle. Reid closed the distance, and hauled him up and into the air by his collar. The rifle and magazine clattered to the floor as the man's hands flew up over his head.
Reid's let his anger into his voice. "Where. Is. Louis?"
The man's eyes dilated, and shifted towards the entrance. "Look, they don't tell me that stuff, but if-"
Reid's knife plunged into the man's ear before he could finish the useless sentence. Then, a notification popped into view.
Level 9 -> 10
Reid let his mouth hang open. Last he'd checked, Reid was still a long way away from leveling. He quickly brought up his other most recent notifications, then checked the changes to his status.
You have defeated Human - lvl 11. Experience awarded.
You have defeated Human - lvl 9. Experience awarded.
You have defeated Human - lvl 10. Experience awarded.
You have defeated Human - lvl 8. Experience awarded.
You have defeated Human - lvl 8. Experience awarded.
Control 49 -> 54
Experience 8,219 / 12,800 -> 12,819 / 25,600
Reid let the man's body fall to the ground. Not a single person in Sanctuary was even close to reaching level 8, Reid knew. But the five men he'd killed were all close to his level - some above. Even with their levels, they'd still gone down like wet sacks of flour. He did a bit of math - and realized the five men had given him a total of 4,600 xp. He looked at the corpses. Salamanders were much, much tougher to kill than these men had been - and yet, they'd only netted Reid a fraction of the experience. He looked over at the boxes full of guns, and a realization dawned on Reid.
The reason why these men had such high levels was the same reason Reid had just jumped all the way to level 10.
Killing other people rewarded you with at least ten times the experience you'd get from killing a similarly leveled beast. In sanctuary, the average person was still below level 3. If Reid's math was right... then even the lowest leveled man he'd just killed would have needed to murder 10 of Sanctuary's residents to reach level eight. He shuddered with a growing rage and sense of fear. He needed to act, quickly. Bertrand's men were all murderers, and Sanctuary was their next target.
Reid grabbed the boxes of guns, and threw them into the broken cage. Even if he was bulletproof - wait, holy shit, he was actually bulletproof, ok, calm down and think - even if he was bulletproof, Reid didn't know whether anyone else in Sanctuary would be, and he didn't want to find out. He threw the bodies in atop the guns, hoping they'd slow down any other forces from recovering the weapons.
He heard more voices coming towards the tent. Of course there would be more people coming to investigate - there had been gunshots and shouting, despite Reid's initial attempt at stealth. Reid groaned. Maybe being subtle just wasn't his lot in life, despite what hundreds of hours playing games as a near-invisible archer would have him believe.
Reid dropped into a ready stance as the tent flapped open. Bertrand stepped inside, shadowed by the hulking fridge of a man from the negotiating table. The fridge man was sporting a pink, freshly-healed nose. He steamed as he noticed Reid. Bertrand was also worse for wear - he had a patch over the side of his face, and his armor was covered in dirt.
Both men looked over at the cage - or, looked at the bodies piled on top of it. Bertrand snarled. "You killed my men."
Reid kicked off the ground and launched himself forward. He'd taken two steps towards the pair by the time Bertrand raised his arm. Magic flared in his hand and Reid felt his muscles go unnaturally taut. The fridge stepped between Reid and Bertrand, looking ready to strike - but Bertrand stopped him with a word. Then the man looked at Reid and he snarled a grin.
"It's time I asked you some questions. You can answer them, or we can do something I'd enjoy a whole hell of a lot more. I've already had a rough night, so I hope you don't cooperate."
Reid didn't hear a word Bertrand said.
He was busy, already focused inside himself, trying to figure out why the hell his muscles weren't listening to him. He dove through his body, watching as different muscle groups spasmed and relaxed. Reid pushed out with his own will - and felt the influence fade as his control ebbed back into the muscle he was touching. He moved away from that area, then frowned internally when he saw it revert to its previous state.
That wasn't right.
Reid's body was his own. He'd just spent time figuring out how to burn out foreign influences. So how the hell was this happening? He looked deeper - inspecting himself, looking for clues again like a detective.
Until he saw it. Energy was pulsing down into his body like a signal. Wherever it stopped, Reid's muscles spasmed. That was it - why he didn't stay in control of himself. If this outside influence was constantly sending out new waves of energy, Reid needed to cut it off at its source. He followed the pulses, winding through himself, spinning and rising until he found himself looking at the base of his own mind. He could see all the threads of the system there - tangled and sprawling in what felt like an endless expanse.
He recognized the ones to call his status and his skills - the ones that now felt like second nature to use. There were so many threads here he didn't recognize, though. Reid looked over everything, and waited. He wasn't aware of what was going on outside of himself. Reid had no concept of real time. But he stared at the tangle for what felt like minutes, hoping and willing himself to see a pulse - so he could find where it originated.
The pulse bloomed, and Reid shot out to meet it. The strand it emanated from was just like any other, but the ends felt... frayed. Like they were coming apart and leaving it weak and susceptible. Reid pushed himself to follow it from one end to the other, and the frayed feeling became more real in his mind. He pushed out with ethereal fingers, and slowly - ever so slowly - wound the fraying string back together. He threw himself to the string's other end and repeated the process - but it didn't feel like enough.
A loose string always frayed and came unwound. The only way to stop that from happening was with an aglet, or a knot... or both.
Reid looked quizzically at the thread. This was his mind. He couldn't grow bone and muscle here, but he still had power - the power to wind his way through the threads of his mind. Power to manipulate and pull on those same threads, and the ability to do so with a growing ease as he got more used to them.
Reid knew he could tie the ends of the string he'd just repaired. He knew he could make them into knots - but those could still come apart. He wanted more stability, and more certainty.
He tried to touch the string, and fuse it together with his ethereal fingers, then tried to hold it between two palms. He imagined his fingers burning it, pinching it, but nothing seemed to work. Reid needed a different approach.
He pulled his hands back, and thought about what it actually was that he wanted.
The string wasn't physical - as much as it resembled the physical version. So... didn't that mean he needed an aglet that wasn't physical either?
Reid held his ethereal hand out, palm up, and imagined forming an aglet inside of it - not a physical thing, but a shoelace cap made of sheer energy.
His will flared.
His pulse quickened and his mind started to vibrate.
Deep within Reid, he felt a pull.
With a spark of light and a sound like sucking air, the energy-aglet appeared in his ethereal hand. He picked it up between two fingers, and carefully carried it over to the string. It expanded as he slipped it on, then contracted - as if willing itself to conform to the shape it needed to be.
Reid was ecstatic. He quickly conjured another energy aglet, and capped the other side of the string. Then he tied the ends in knots, just to be safe.
It felt right. The string no longer seemed exposed, or capable of wear. Notification chimed and popped into his view. He glanced at them, then stared. Then he brought up his status screen.
Control 54 -> 55
Intelligence 1 -> 6
Prerequisite Conditions Met - Possess Two Resistances!
Status - Resistances - Unlocked!
Again, he'd explored himself in new ways, taken new actions - and he'd been rewarded with stat point increases. He now had two stats to dive into later. He wanted to pick apart how Perception and Intelligence had actually been impacted. Being able to raise those stats along with Power and Constitution would put him on an entirely different level.
But he shelved the thought - there were still too many things to take care of in the moment. For now, he decided he'd only look at his status.
-
STATUS
Name: Reid Oliver Calderwall
Affiliation: "Earth"
Race: Human
Grade: G
Level: 9 -> 10
Health: 192 / 200
Experience: 8,219 -> 12,819 / 25,600
STATS:
Constitution: 20
Dexterity: 2
Intelligence: 1 -> 6
Perception: 6
Power: 24
Control: 49 -> 55
Stat Upgrade Points: ERROR
SKILLS:
Strengthening [Basic]
Hardening [Common]
Calcification [Uncommon]
Petrification [Rare] (CORRUPTED)
Skill Upgrade Points: ERROR
RESISTANCES:
Substances - Sedatives
Active Skill Effects- All
RESTRICTED:
???: UNAVAILABLE
???: UNAVAILABLE
???: UNAVAILABLE
-
In the outside world, less than twenty seconds had passed. From Bertrand's point of view, he'd taken control of Reid, and spoken while the man refused to look at him.
Then - out of nowhere - Reid opened his eyes, cracked his neck, and pulled his knife into a fighting stance.
Bertrand looked down at his hand, then at Reid. Power flared in his palm, and Reid felt a pinprick in his ethereal space. Just enough of a feeling to know that something had tried to touch him, but failed. Reid grinned.
Bertrand's eyes went wide. Then he turned and fled.
