Mistrunner 4 - Chapter 6 - The Emerald Forest (Patreon)

Rifts are dangerous things. No one disputes this. However, there are a multitude of ways to mitigate the danger. From thorough scouting to Mist diffusion, the universe has farming them down to a science. But on an unintegrated world, for a native species, none of this is available. They just have to go inside and hope they’re strong enough to overcome the challenges. Most aren’t.

Alistaris Kargat

Once I had Patrick settled in a deserted cave, I checked my equipment, then embraced Stealth before heading into the emerald forest. He didn’t like being left behind, but he knew his limits well enough to recognize that it was the best course of action. In truth, I think he imagined himself stepping into the Rift and dominating anything that dared stand in his way. And with the power of that armor, he probably could have – in most situations.

But this Rift was different. If it wasn’t the most dangerous Rift on Earth, I would have been surprised. Alistaris had certainly thought of it that way, and I had no reason to dispute his assertion. Still, it was telling that he hadn’t skipped a beat before sending me into such a deadly Rift. Clearly, he thought I was capable of conquering it, which meant that he considered me one of the strongest people on the planet.

That wasn’t surprising. Not really. I knew precisely how much death it had taken for me to reach my level, and while I was aware that there were other, less genocidal methods of gaining levels, none of them were very fast. As such, that path was one that required years – perhaps even decades – of patience as they steadily whittled their way to a high level.

And then there was my Nexus Implant to consider. While I wasn’t reaping the benefits of it at the moment – I still had four skills to acquire – I knew that it had accelerated my attribute growth. After all, the higher one’s potential, the easier the lower rungs of the ladder were to climb. I’d used that to my advantage with my training so far, and I was looking forward to continuing that route after I bought my new skills.

In addition, my training set me apart. I didn’t think there were many people who’d gone through the intense training regimen my uncle had subjected me to. Even if there were a multitude of people who tried, most of those would fall by the wayside as the difficulty overcame their endurance.

And I had been at it for years, never really letting up. Few could boast the same, I was certain.

Finally, there was my class. Even before I’d evolved it to {Mist Warden}, I’d been a {Mistrunner}, which was an exceedingly rare class that gave me a host of advantages. Now, those assets had been further optimized, turning me into something akin to a perfect weapon. I could hit hard and fast, or I could take my time and whittle an enemy down. I could attack in a wide variety of ways, and I could do it with a specialist’s power. In short, I was a perfect foil for the coming invasion.

And yet, I wasn’t invincible. Even if it was difficult to permanently put me down, I could still be killed. So, before I went down too deep of a rabbit hole, I focused on my surroundings. As I did, I was once again taken aback by the alien nature of the environment.

Up close, the trees were shaped the same as any I’d ever seen. They were just crystalline in structure, though the density of the crystals varied depending on which piece I was looking at. For instance, the trunks were so solid that I couldn’t see more than a quarter inch into the brown-gray crystal, even if I flared Observation. By comparison, the leaves were almost entirely transparent, which cast the entire area beneath the canopy in a subtle green light.

Still, it was familiar enough – at least in shape – that I didn’t have any trouble navigating through the forest. At least until I stumbled upon a pack of wolves.

Or that was my initial impression of the creatures. Like everything else, they were composed of crystalline chunks that, when I looked closely, only seemed to be connected by a thin thread of Mist. In addition, their bodies were rough, like sketches half finished. And finally, they were clearly deadly, because they were standing over a much larger creature, which they were in the process of eating.

Even as I listened to the steady crunch of crystal, I tried to skirt around them. However, there were enough of the creatures around to make that all but impossible. Either I killed them, or I wasn’t getting any further – a notion that was supported by both the ubiquity of the creatures and their obviously sharp senses. The moment I drew within a few feet of them, they looked up, obviously recognizing that an interloper was in their midst. But they were incapable of finding me.

So, I backed away until I was well out of their range, then crouched as I thought things through. The creatures were a problem, there was no doubting that. I considered climbing the trees and bypassing them from above, but I had quickly discovered that that strategy just wasn’t possible. The moment I tried, I’d been beset by a pain so intense that I couldn’t even maintain a grip on one of the branches.

I had no idea what caused it. There was no swirl of Mist or any other indication of where the pain had originated. But it was there, all the same, meaning that I had little choice but to travel along on the ground. So, I needed to find a way past the wildlife.

So, I took off on a parallel course, but after a couple of miles, I found that the forest simply ended in a giant cliff into nothingness. Looking over the edge, I couldn’t see the bottom – if there even was one. And the line of crystal wolves extended almost to the edge, creating an obstacle that I couldn’t simply bypass.

No – if we were going to progress, we’d have to kill the wolves.

And that presented a significant problem, if for no other reason than that there were so many of them. I’d counted hundreds of them along the way, and I suspected that there just as many in the opposite direction. On top of that, even if I could sneak past, there was no way Patrick could do the same. If we wanted to progress, a fight was unavoidable.

So, I retreated to the cave where I’d left Patrick. When I arrived, I found that he’d left his armor and had it open as he tinkered with its inner workings.

“What’re you up to?” I asked, startling him.

He flinched, then let out a deep breath when he saw that it was me and not some monster having invaded his little safehouse.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” he muttered, wiping his cybernetic hands on a rag at his waist.

I gave him a crooked smile, saying, “I’ll stop doing it when you stop reacting.”

He mumbled something under his breath, and even though I could’ve listened in with a little application of Observation, I chose not to. Instead, I decided to just dive into the explanation of our situation, ending it by asking, “So, what do you think?”

“Traps.”

“Huh?”

“We set a huge trap,” he said. “And if that’s not possible, we find somewhere defensible where they can only come at us from one direction.” He looked around. “Like this cave. Maybe one with a slightly narrower opening, though.”

It was an obvious answer, and one I’d already considered. I hadn’t discarded it either, so it definitely had merit. However, the question remained of what sort of trap we wanted to build. I knew he had the ability to create some high-tech versions, but all of those would require Rift shards to operate. So, it was probably better if we stuck with low-tech options. After all, a simple pit was often just as effective as something far more elaborate.

“The problem is that we don’t know their capabilities,” I said.

“That’s true.”

“And if we make too much noise, those huge golems are probably going to respond,” I pointed out. Even if they weren’t visible, what with the forest’s canopy blocking sightlines, I hadn’t forgotten about those enormous, crystalline monsters. “So no explosions or gunfire unless we’re backed into a corner.”

“Can you use your Ghosts like you did with those spiders back in the first Rift we ran together?”

I shook my head. “No systems,” I stated. It had been one of the first things I’d tried. “I think those were a special case. Like, they weren’t supposed to fully be monsters. I don’t know – it’s not like we had the ability to really check it all out back then.”

“True. So, did you want to do the trap idea? Or the defensible position plan?”

“Neither of them seems much like a real plan,” I said. Indeed, setting a trap felt akin to leading the monsters off a cliff. Effective, maybe, but it certainly didn’t feel like some grand plan. It was the same with finding a narrow corridor of engagement; sure, it made all kinds of sense, and I’d used the strategy before, but it seemed somehow inadequate for the situation.

Patrick shrugged. “So long as it works, who cares?” he said.

That was true, too. Sometimes, I got so caught up in trying to create a perfect, elaborate plan that I forgot the simple truth of any battle. Simple was often better than complex. It had been true throughout history, and nothing I had seen would change that. Battle tactics usually boiled down to picking appropriate ground and outflanking the enemy, neither of which were incredibly complicated.

So, over the next half hour, Patrick and I discussed our options. In the end, we decided to use both plans. With that in mind, I went back outside and started scouting for a proper location. Once I found a cave that would work, we got down to the business of digging. The ground was a little crunchier than it was back on Earth, but due to my attributes and Patrick’s armored suit, we made quick work of it. When we’d finished, we had dug a pair of holes forty feet deep and half again as wide.

Then, we dug another that ran parallel to the first, creating a narrow corridor of approach to our defensible position. I’d have preferred a proper trap, but we just didn’t have the materials to make that work.

Once that was finished, Patrick set himself up at the end of the corridor. He’d said that he had plenty of Mist to power the suit, so his job was to anchor the whole thing. Meanwhile, I was supposed to be the edge of our sword.

I knew it wouldn’t work out exactly like we planned, but that was part of fighting any battle. When things went wrong – and they would, I was sure – we’d have to adjust accordingly. The ability to adapt was the measure of a warrior, as far as I was concerned.

Whatever the case, once we’d prepared our ground, I headed toward the line of crystalline wolves. My characterization of the creatures probably wasn’t particularly accurate. They didn’t exactly look like canines, except on the most basic level. But I needed to think of them as something, so I chose something vaguely familiar.

But for now, I needed to focus on the task at hand rather than what I wanted to call the monsters. To that end, I took a deep steadying breath, then picked up a rock and tossed it at one of the monsters. Without waiting for it to hit, I turned on my heel and sprinted away. I didn’t need to look back to know they were following; indeed, the sound of those crystalline creatures tearing through the forest was loud enough that I questioned my decision not to use firearms or explosives. If that crunching, grinding sound that came from their pursuit wasn’t enough to alert the entire Rift, I would have been surprised.

Still, I stuck to the plan and raced across the forest, dodging between the curious trees before, finally, I reached our chosen and prepared battleground. I didn’t stop there, though. Instead, I kept going, passing Patrick, who’d planted himself at the end of the corridor between our pits, and dipped into the nearby cave.

The first of the crystalline wolves crashed into Patrick’s shield only a moment later, and I wanted nothing more than to whip out my weapon and join him. And yet, I needed to trust him to play his part while I set about my own task. So, I laboriously ignored the clash between the two forces as I let myself slip into Stealth. Once I was sure I wouldn’t be detected, I slipped back out into the open and used a pair of Double Jumps to cross the right-most pit.

Even as I did, I couldn’t help but notice that Patrick was holding his own. With the massive shield stretching in front of him, he was largely unassailable for the mass of crystalline wolves that had descended upon him. The corridor was working as intended, keeping them from attacking him more than a couple at a time, too. So, everything was going precisely as we’d planned.

Now, I just needed to do my part.

So, without further hesitation, I circled around and waited. As I’d expected, the wolves were incredibly observant, and the moment they’d heard the result of my baiting the first set of monsters, the rest had responded with their own pursuit. A horde of the creatures at least two-hundred strong – and probably more – descended upon the location, funneling into the corridor we had created.

A few fell into the pits, and though I knew that wouldn’t take them out of the fight, it did serve to keep the creatures hemmed in.

I watched as the flow slowed to a trickle, and all the monsters in the area – at least I hoped that was the case – had arrived. That was my cue to act, and I didn’t hesitate to drag my blade out and go to work.

At first, they had no idea I was even there. I hit hard and fast, retreating before they could react. One attack after another, over and over, I sliced into the mass of monsters. At the same time, Patrick held the line, periodically using his shield as a battering ram to get room, then deactivating it just long enough to bring his sword-arm to bear. The crystalline creatures were sturdy, but under such an assault, they were incapable of defense.

And slowly, we whittled them down.

It wasn’t easy, though. More than once, one of my opponents whipped around and nearly took my head off. But through a combination of my high attributes, the prepared ground that kept them from overwhelming either of us, and my modifiers, they eventually fell.

So, it was probably always inevitable that there would be a lot more to it.

I’d just decapitated the last one when I saw – or maybe felt would be a better word – the crystalline corpses begin to vibrate.

“Uh…Mira…”

“I know,” I growled, my mind whirling. I had no idea what was happening, so potential responses were limited. Still, I reacted on instinct, and started kicking the corpses away from one another.

It was a good thing, too, because only a few moments into my kicking spree, the piled bodies began to merge into a single mass.

“Oh…God…”

Seeing what those bodies were turning into, I attacked. But it was too late, and the thing – which already looked like a smaller version of the golems – lashed out with one of its boulder-like arms, hitting me with bone-crunching power. I went flying across the trenches we’d dug and collided with a tree before falling to the ground.

Seeing stars, I shook my head as I tried to clear the cobwebs, and by the time I came back to my senses, I saw precisely what I’d been trying to avoid. All of the slain wolves had seemingly merged into one entity, taking the shape of one of the golems. Fortunately, it wasn’t nearly as large as the ones I’d seen in the distance.

Not that that was as much of a comfort as it might’ve been, given that it was at least forty feet tall and almost as broad. Patrick faced it down, hefting his arm – and the attached Mist shield – in an effort to block a rapidly descending blow.

I watched impotently from afar as it fell, crushing him beneath its massive weight.

For a brief second, it didn’t feel real. I couldn’t think. My brain simply refused to work. But then, that emptiness was replaced with absolute rage. And in that state, I didn’t care about making too much noise. I didn’t even think about my own life as I pulled my assault rifle from my arsenal implant and took aim.

I pulled the trigger, and mayhem followed.