“Reya, have you started yet?” a voice buzzing out of an ear-mounted communication device is asking curiously.
The 18-year old girl wearing the earpiece is about 155cm tall with an athletic and curvy build. Her voluminous blonde hair reaches down close to her hips, currently tied together at several points that makes her hairstyle look like a string of 5 big beads. She has two strands of hair on each side with slightly different length embracing her face. Her big eyes are a lively green with a hint of blue, burning with intense desire to experience whatever is out there in the universe. She wears an outfit that looks like a mixture of explorer clothing and tactical combat gear, including a good number of pouches that seems to contain various useful items. A hairpin of a red flower adds a nice female touch to hear appearance.
Reya answers the communication: “No, I am still observing. I see about 2000 slitherers in the area, that’s only about half of what the drone measurements in the intel mentioned”. A zoomed view through an electronic telescope shows a huge variety of species of snake-like animals. Some have a body with an energized, glowing field around them, while others are about 25 meters long, have 6 eyes and huge fangs. Slitherers are a warm-blooded lifeform that live in groups, are extremely territorial and attack anything that dares to enter their grounds. Most have electrified fangs and when biting their prey, the strong electric injection can cause muscles to cramp so severely that the contraction might break the bones they are attached to.
The earpiece flashes up: “Many slitherers prefer to live underground, make sure to be prepared for attacks from below. Also, my readings indicate that some gigantic organism is buried below the target.”
“Oh! That sounds like fun, thanks Ayrora! Can’t wait anymore, I will jump in now!” an excited Reya replies before turning of the communicator.
Reya stands at the border of a forest of palm-like trees that have several levels of leaves sprouted from their trunks. In front of her an oval shaped desert with a horde of slitherers and a slate-colored pyramid with a hexagonal base in the center of it.
Reya checks several small leather pouches at her belt and puts a big rectangular weapon onto her back, that she carries with a strap over her shoulder.
With a big leap she jumps into the sandy grounds and starts sliding down a steep hill towards the ancient pyramid. The unexpected appearance of the 17 year old girl alerted all the vicious animals, turning their eyes towards her. After a short delay of observation, hundreds of slitherers started to dash towards the intruder.
The gap between the two sides shrinks rapidly. A few meters before they would clash:
[SKILL ACTIVATED: Evasion Level 5]
Reya squats down and moves into a powerful jump, creating a huge splash of sand while flying over the first row of the amphibian opposition. Sand is being repelled from getting into her eyes by an energy eye shield.
“I really have to thank granny Brin later for lending these to me.” Reya thinks to herself before touching ground and dashing towards her target again without delay.
Slitherers left and right try to get a hold of her. Several of a green-yellow colored species with a pointy head coil their bodies up and release the built-up tension like a spring, bolting themselves like darts to impale Reya. With swift movements she dodges every attack, while covering a good amount of distance.
The ground below her starts to rumble, something is closing in from behind. Suddenly a huge Slitherer breaks out from below, it’s broad jaws so huge it is going for swallowing Reya whole. Reya looks back, the determination in her eyes cause them to sparkle. While being about 2 meters above ground, she grabs two of the slitherers darting towards her, using them as spears that she throws into the eyes of the one that is threating to make Reya vanish in its stomach. It bows back writhing in pain, the nervous wiggling of the two slitherers in its eyes making the feeling even more excruciating.
With a backflip she lands back on her feet and darts further towards the dark pyramid. Without any indications, heads of other monstrosities shot out of the ground close to where Reya sets her feet down. The underground creatures have 3 mouths arranged symmetrically around their heads. The mouths are opened sideways, what lets this species easily attack any potential pray from any direction without losing any time to turn its head.
“Wait, wait, wait! Too close and too many! Gimme a break!” Reya is barely able to dodge the attacks that are coming in like the rapid fire of a minigun.
[LEVEL UP: Evasion Lvl 5 > Lvl 6]
“Ah perfect timing!” Using her skill to the fullest, she evades another several dozen attacks and lets that living mine field behind her.
Two giant slitherers with red skin that pulsates rhythmically are waiting for her arrival. Between them an enormous breed comes out of the sand, towering about 10 Reyas high, with a cobra-like head and a massive jaw that makes it look similar to a dragon.
“That must be the giant organism that Ayrora mentioned earlier.”
The two red snakes take a big leap and fly towards Reya. Several meters in front of her, they clash their heads together. A pulse wave starts emitting from the point of impact.
[ABILITY ACTIVATED: S-Rank Boost]
Holding her head low she avoids getting hit by the force field, while the slitherers hit the ground behind her.
She is now in range of the dragon like snake. The ferocious beast erects its scales all over its body, what makes it look like a very aggressive pine cone. The scales start to fly out in all directions, creating a barrage of projectiles. Sand dust gets whirled up into the air and blocks the view. The scales fly for another 10 seconds and then the firing stops.
Quietness, and a cobra-dragon trying to find its prey in the enshrouded area. Suddenly Reya runs out of the sand cloud and reaches the base of the pyramid. A big roar from the enemy she left behind her thunders throughout the desert and all slitherers start dashing towards Reya. She starts running up the walls of the ancient structure, followed by dozens of different variations of gliding beasts, who approach the pyramid from all sides to encircle the invader. Everything is culminating towards the highest spot.
[ABILITY ACTIVATED: A-Rank Jump]
She reaches the flat top of the building, bends her knees, jumps as hard as she can and catapults herself upwards into the sky. Slitherers follow her, entangling with each other to create a living structure to reach as high as they can and await the fall of their prey. The human meanwhile flips over and faces down, seeing all the open mouths and thousands of fangs that have electric sparks discharging in between them in different shades of purple, blue and yellow.
She gets the gun off her shoulder and points it towards the crowd below her. Her fall is accelerating, the animals below her reaching upwards ferociously. Her finger slowly tightens around the trigger, waiting for the right moment. A shield forms around Reya’s head and she shoots the gun. A big cone of what appears like bright, vibrating light is engulfing all the slitherers below her. After a few seconds, the light vanishes with a heavy sound of “zap”. The beasts are frozen with no movement, their eyes rolled back into their head. The tower of entangled bodies starts tilting and falls off sideways down the pyramid.
Like an athlete Reya is landing back on her feet on top of the pyramid.
“Yay! I knew I could modify and scale a small Bug Buster to be effective against slitherers.”
[Bug Buster: A small handheld gun that shoots wavelengths that only affect and kill insects. Used by many people regularly in their homes for pest control.]
Smoke starts to leak out of the used gun. “Oh oh…” Reya takes the weapon and throws it behind a pile of slitherers. Bang! An explosion disperses some of the lying around bodies through the air.
“Well seems like a few tweaks are still necessary.” The communication earpiece is flashing up, transferring the voice of a pleased Ayrora.
“Rora! Did you see that!? It worked even better than I expected! The whole horde just passed out in an instant!” a proud small girl’s boasting to her friend.
“Yes, very well done! Now before those guys wake up again, don’t we wanna finish what we came for?”.
“Oh hell yeah!” Reya answers really excited.
[ABILITY ACTIVATED: C-Rank Strength]
She walks towards the middle of the pyramid and starts pushing away big heaps of monsters over the edge of the pyramid to clean up the surface. She finds a small hexagon-shaped lid in the center of the pyramid, takes a closer look and starts tracing around its outer edge with two of her fingers. The lid starts glowing, a golden light starts flowing outwards from in all directions, making a pattern appear that expands across the whole pyramid. Reya takes a few steps back and delightfully admires the unfolding special effects. A sound like something unlocking can be heard and the lid starts rising, lifting itself and surrounding stones up higher and higher. A structure starts to form that resembles an ancient altar, with steps leading upwards to a platform that is covered with a flat roof that rests on six pillars. “Wow this show is so wonderful! I wish I could be down there!” a slightly jealous Ayrora imparts through the open channel.
“I am recording a hologram, wanna watch it together when we are back home?”.
“You bet I want!” the sad tone was completely vanquished from Ayrora’s voice.
Reya places her foot on the first step, what triggers beams to shine out of the ground that move like northern lights and engulf the altar. She takes a few more steps and tiny particles of light appear and float upwards. A shrine starts coming out of the ground when Reya reaches the platform.
Emerging from within the shrine a jewel of royal appearance, about the size of a fist. A transparent, golden gem permeated with a few red strokes and an intricate symbol in its center. The lower half of the stone is decorated diagonally with metallic slate-colored scales, which might relate to the pyramid and its ferocious protectors.
Her hand reaches out to the stone, slowly enclosing it with her fingers and pulling it towards her. The light inside of the shrine fades away. She activates her Appreciation skill and retrieves the information that lies within it:
- Ability Crystal: Slice and Twice
- Description: On destroying an ability crystal, creates two crystals that that are an exact copy of the original. Does not work on crystals that already have been copied.
- …
“OH MY CAUSE!!! It is actually real! The intel was spot on! I can’t believe it! I wanted to have this so badly!” Reya shouts in overwhelming joy jumping up and down like a young adult that has just mastered her first spaceship license. After a short while of celebration, she takes another look at the crystal to retrieve more information:
- …
- Origination: From the back of the head of an ancient slitherer monstrosity. …
- Rank: Negative SSS
- Extreme Caution: Possession or use or might put the holder in severe danger!
“NEGATIVE!?!? But why the system does it have to be cursed!?” the sobbing statement leaves her mouth with a bad aftertaste.
Ayrora’s voice is entering her ear: “Sorry to hear that, we can have a closer look afterwards. Something is going on below your feet. That giant organism is starting to get lively. Better get out of there now!”
“Giant organism? Wasn’t that the pinecone slitherer from before?” Reya replied with question marks in her voice.
The earth starts rumbling and after a few seconds turns into a full earthquake. The whole ground around the pyramid is rising fast, forming a round, ever growing hill. The tremors cause the defeated slitherers and sand to glide down and outwards away from the pyramid. As longer the sand flows away, the more of a dark ground is revealed. Starting from the edges of the building Reya is standing on, a golden glowing pattern is starting to pulsate in the rhythm of a slow and strong heartbeat, forming organic shapes on the freshly revealed floor. The pyramid has gained several hundred meters in altitude, then the uprise comes to a halt. The pyramid is now surrounded by about 200 meters of ground, suddenly cutting off with an edge.
“Ehm… you won’t believe what you are standing on right now. You probably want to have a look at the camera of your carrier drone.” a stunned Ayrora can be heard through the communicator.
Reya reaches to the device on her ear, making a video feed appear in front of her. “Unbelievable!”
The screen displays the pyramid and its new environment, what can be seen is extraordinary. Arisen from the ground has a slitherer so humongous, its hood arches over most of the desert. The monster has a head that impresses with a strong wide jaw, its serrated mouth looking like it could squash and shredder any prey in an instant.
Reya feels her footing moving again. The slitherer she’s standing on raises and turns its head. Three golden glimmering eyes on the side of the snakes face are looking at her.
“… He … hey …” the girl being gazed upon expresses in an intimidated tone, while raising her hand to convey a greeting in an attempt to be friendly. The gaze of the giant animal lands on the Negative SSS rank stone in her hand. Its eyes turn wide open into a vicious stare, followed by a deep roar that makes bones tremble to the core. Reya must cover her ears to not get them damaged by the ferocious cry that will be heard for dozens of miles more.
The slitherer bows its head, tilting the platform of the pyramid forward. The uppermost part of the building starts contracting inwards mechanically, seemingly being tensioned like a spring.
“What is going on!?” a surprised tiny human on the back of a giant snake is wondering.
The mechanism discharges suddenly and catapults Reya forward like the bolt of a crossbow. She flies over the head of her adversary, who starts raising its body to get her into her view. Spreading it’s jaw open to about 150 meters wide, revealing huge teeth like you would expect to see in an ancient carnivorous dinosaur. Each corner of the mouth is equipped with 3 enormous fangs that are as tall as a tree. The deep hollow is closing in on the human body, threatening to swallow it whole, like that little tic tac that one must get rid of before giving a speech.
The human does not falter to initiate countermeasures. She operates some buttons on a device on her wrist. Already in between the jaws that are as big as mountains, a slight moment before their outer edges are fully sealed, a drone is rushing in through the gap. The vehicle’s path leads over the girl, who is grabbing hold of a bar to the side of the small aircraft. She gets pulled along with high velocity, reaching the outside of the mouth, just barely before the slitherer fully snapped its fangs together.
“Phew, that was a close call. Blowing a whole into that to get out of it would have been a real pain.” Reya talks to herself while droning away.
“Hey! Be careful, that beast is not done yet!” Ayrora advices her friend.
Out of the monster’s physical reach, it begun to charge up its fangs with electricity. Lightning as thick as a human is tall is flowing up and down the ivory poles, increasing rapidly in strength and radiance.
“Good that I haven’t used this yet.” Reya takes out a small glass ball that seems to contain some kind of energy. The slitherer brings together its fangs, causing the bolts to assimilate into a huge ball of lightning that is blasted towards the entity it wants to annihilate. Reya shatters the glass ball. A sphere of standing magnetic waves surrounds her and the drone as a protective shield.
The electric ball is hitting the shield, jolting Reya inside of it so hard that she nearly loses her grip on the bar. She is getting pushed away with great speed while the shield seems to absorb all the ball lightning. She takes another object out of the many pouches. A metallic tube, she holds it out sideways and presses a button, what causes the shield with all the absorbed energy to be sucked into the container.
“Can’t waste an opportunity to bring a gift for Ayrora.” the girl says smiling and slings herself up onto the flat top of the carrier drone, the slitherer not being able to reach her anymore.
A few minutes later she arrives at the spacecraft, where Ayrora is awaiting her. A woman about 165cm tall and 24 years old. Her well-defined body shows that she visits the gym regularly, with slightly visible muscles that shape her body perfectly, while not reducing any of her feminine charm. She has black hair with long waves reaching down to the middle of her back. Her brown skin looks like the product of someone bathing herself in the sun every day for 1 month to reach the perfect, slightly darker suntan. Her lovely eyes are a shiny tropical ocean blue that reminds of the waters of a shallow beach. Each eye has three spots in it, and when you take a closer look, they look like small paradise islands full of palm trees and nice sandy beaches. She currently wears a black sports bra and black sport shorts. There are a lot of scars on the left side of the body and face. It doesn’t make her look bad at all, it rather adds to her overall coolness.
Reya jumps off the platform right into a hug of her friend: “Roooraaa!” Reya calls out to her by one of the many nicknames she gave her. “Did you see all of that!? That was such an adventure!”
“My eyes were glued to the screen. I really loved those threatening huge fangs of that absurdly huge slitherer!” Ayrora’s eyes beaming with excitement.
Reya replies: “Right!? It was so much fun! I never dreamed of encountering such an organism! I loved that it looked similar to a dragon! I wonder what it had to eat to get so humongous!“.
“Did I hear that correctly over the channel, you said the crystal’s rank is Negative SSS?” Rora inquires from the adventurer in front of her.
“Yeah… I can keep it though, right?” Reya asks with big round eyes that shows a slightly begging attitude.
“Hahaha!!!” Ayrora laughs out loud, “I think there is nobody in the whole system that would be able to convince you to get rid of it. Even if it contains the worst curse of the universe, you will do everything to find out what it is.”
Reya’s attitude turned from devote to playfully cheeky: “Woohoo! I am so excited about testing it! Let’s head back home and go to the organization!”
Both the young ladies turn towards the open hatch of the rectangular spaceship. The ship appears more like a flat medium sized building that someone has dropped onto a carped of flourishing grasses and flowers, rather than something that could actually take off into the sky. The abrasion on the surface of its hull indicate that it was around for quite a while and might have gone through several owners by now. It actually looks so bad that one would have second thoughts about boarding this ship.
The hatch closes behind Reya and Ayrora, who walk towards the bridge. They pass through a short corridor and open a door. The room they enter looks like a medium sized bar where some old timers would hang out and talk about their adventures. Ornate chairs made out of dark red wood and intricate yellow-golden upholstery are paired up with matching tables. The centers of the tabletops have an embedded marble disk that has small glowing particles. The flat top of the bar is made with the same material. Carved pillars are decorating the walls and some parts of the bar.
Reya moves a few steps ahead of Ayrora. Out of a glass she takes what looks like a small stick made of a laser beam. She turns her body in a pirouette and throws the glowing stick at a board with various sized triangular targets and hits one of the smaller ones.
[ DING! DING! DING! >>> 333 <<<]
“Yattaaa!!!” she shouts in excitement about her score, “Your turn!”.
Ayrora walks up to the glass, where the just thrown stick has reappeared among the others. Without giving any attention to what color she get she grabs one, jumps up and twists her body mid-air in a martial arts movement and flicks the orange glowing laser with her fingers towards the board.
[NEE-NAW!!! NEE-NAW!!! NEE-NAW!!! >>> 456 <<<]
A slight smile invades her cheeks.
“Ayay! Come on let me win at least once!” Reya pleading her friend using one of her many nicknames.
They pass on and arrive on the bridge of the ship. Many consoles and dashboards and other instruments plaster the walls of the room. In the center of the room a hologram of the ship and the entire area, a small meadow enclosed by a forest. Reya stretches her fingers into the projected grass and makes a zooming movement, which brings up a beautiful blooming bush. She pulls back her head in a bewildered way, then reaches forward with her nose, sniffing the odorless hologram, and pretend a second later she smelled a scent as heavenly as it could be.
“Stop putting your nose into the hologram, let’s get this heap of junk out of here.” a woman in sportswear is commanding while placing herself down in the captains seat.
“Rora… it’s not a heap of junk, It’s an old timer. A REAL OLD TIMER! And a one of a kind too, it still uses mechanical parts!” a minimally steam punk fanatic girl comments on the incoming communication.
Reya shifts around the hologram, some screens pop up and vanish, buttons get pressed and a big screen appears in front of the two pilots. The spacecraft in the hologram lifts off, and the grass vanishes at the bottom of the screen and gets gradually replaced by the sky. The ship accelerates through the atmosphere, looking like an oversized pizza carton flying into space.
Back at the desert during night time, the giant slitherer has recognized that its ability crystal has left the orbit of the planet. It raises its head towards three moons that are currently right above it. With all it’s might it presses out a tremendous roar that blows away a layer of fog several hundred meters above its mouth. The golden pattern on its body flares up viciously while doing so. The utterance reverberates and echoes through the night for a while, then an eerie calmness takes its place.