Dancing on the Wind

Note: For those reading the Jessica's story, the author's laptop charger quit on them. They'll be unable to work on the story more until December 23rd at the earliest.

Mark dove to the floor, a mosquito roughly the size of a toddler flying through where he'd been. 'Megasquitos' wasn't an understatement. It was a miracle these things could fly at all, let alone at speed. He pulled himself back to his feet, sweat starting to bead on his forehead. His first fight and he hadn't died so far; that was a start.

With the spike of stone Imara had given him as a weapon, one similar to the spike she had threatened to lobotomize him with, he wasn't defenseless but he wasn't exactly trained. He eyed the giant bug that seemed ready to gore him if he wasn't quick on his feet. Imara had gotten the attention of a few, trying to get just one for him to try and stab. It wasn't the worst idea, the only issue was that she'd chain pulled two more. When she hit the two others that followed with rocks as big as they were, there suddenly wasn't a problem. The Megasquito dove for him again and Mark was ready, sidestepping.

-8 HP

He wasn't fast enough and the needle point of the monster went into his arm. With the rock spike, he stabbed the thing a few times, turning it's body section into a swiss cheese husk. When the wings stopped beating, the weight of the beast stopped being supported and gravity pulled on it until the proboscis was pulled from his arm for another fresh wave if pain. After a few seconds, however, the only remnant of the puncture was the blood that had leaked down his arm.

"Son of a bitch, that hurt!" Mark felt the need to vent his pain, even after it had been healed.

The Megasquito fuzzed slightly, then shattered into a few dozen shards ranging from light blue to a green turquoise. In spite of the pain, Mark smiled.⁠

"Do they always shatter like that?" He directed the question towards Imara, who shrugged.

"Never seen monsters in a Zone before, I try to stay away from that stuff. Not about to risk my neck like that. You OK? Looked like you got stabbed in the arm."

"Oh, yea, I'm fine. Part of my abilities is self healing. Are the monsters dangerous," he asked, taking a moment to check the count on the optional objective. Three down, seems the two Imara took out counted too.

"Extremely. Whole teams get taken out but the stuff people bring back is pricey as hell. Some people say it's worth it, I guess. These things don't seem too strong at least."

Something clicked for Mark and he groaned. "Dammit, I forgot to Observe them. Need to get in the habit of that."

"What, you wanna look at them closer," she asked, seemingly setting up some kind of teasing remark based on her tone.

"No, it's one of my skills. It gives me some info, like level or a title. I need to start using it when I see new things so it levels up."

Hearing that made Imara pause, then sigh with apparent exasperation. "Your powers are absolutely unfair bullshit."

"You said that before... how this time?"

"Because you have scrycraft. Same kind reporters use. In nerd terms, think divination."

"You have reporters?"

Imara blinked at him, stunned as if he'd just genuinely asked if the sky was blue. "I swear the most normal stuff is what keeps getting your attention. Why wouldn't there be? People are still people. But yea, the more stable areas have reporters. Around here is more an exception, the sane Fish just kinda decided to leave. Too hostile."

Mark nodded along as he listened, at least until she'd said the word "Fish" like it was a proper noun. With a very confused tone to his voice, Mark asked, "I must have misheard you or something, did you say Fish?"

A look of relief came over Imara's face. "Thank Gaia you think it's weird too. That's what people in the Ocean are called and I cringe every time I say it."

Everything he learned lead to more questions. He decided to save them for later, he was sure he could drown her in more questions than she could answer before dawn. He would, however, take a moment to vent. "I'm assuming nothing at this point. God is both real and a woman, magic exists, I'm fighting giant mosquitoes, I'm in a jungle when not ten minutes ago, I was on the beach, and people are being called Fish unironically. Everything's gone crazy so a bit of normalcy is a big surprise."

"I guess I can't blame you for all that. I was born into the Dead Ocean, none of this ever even blipped my radar as weird... Anyways, let's keep looking. You need twelve more of these things, right?"

He nodded to her, rubbing at where the he'd gotten stabbed. "Not looking forward to it, but I'll never get stronger if I don't. Any idea why it hurts more on the way out than in? Or why it's cold?"

"If one of them manages to get me, I'll let you know." She turned and started walking, simply picking a direction and going. A few steps in, she spoke up. "Your powers are really weird. You should try to keep them hidden until you're less of an easy target. Might wanna think about getting a knife too, even if it's just from a gas station or something." She wasn't looking at him as she spoke and Mark couldn't help but take a peak at her butt. It was nice, shapely. No sooner had he taking the glance, when she said, "eyes up for danger and not on my butt."

"I wasn't looking at your butt," he said, trying to sound convincing.

"Yes you were, don't deny it."

"...OK, maybe I was."

"That's what I thought, mister." Her foot landed with more **** in the next step and a pole rose from the ground, cleanly parting into a four foot long staff. She didn't even break stride to make it and was now using it as some kind of walking stick. He quickly noticed why: a group of five of the Megasquitos buzzing around or attached to trees not far ahead. "Try and take out one if you can, should make this easier." The serious tone she took on wasn't something Mark expected but it certainly made him nod along.

'Imara is kinda scary when she's serious... Maybe that's just me.' He tightened his grip on the spike as he readied himself for another round with the mosquitoes of unusual size. He followed behind when she began to rush them, aiming to take one out in the opening. It didn't quite work, but he did manage to hit the creature with his shoulder which seemed to stun it momentarily. A slashing motion put a jagged gash into one of it's wings, more tearing than cutting, and it started a spiral towards the floor.

Imara was busy making space with her rock staff, keeping four of the five at bay while Mark had his chance with the fifth. The length of stone spun in her hands fluidly, a never-ending flurry of motion that kept the staff passing through the space in front of her constantly. When one of the giant bugs ventured close, she brought the staff down on it with enough **** to send the thing to the floor, tufts of grass flying up from the impact, followed by the shards of it shattering.

With Mark's singular Megasquito on the ground, he put a knee on the thing to keep it still and plunged the spike downward into it. These creatures apparently didn't have a lot of HP, considering one good strike was enough to shatter them for the most part. Remembering his earlier annoyance at himself, Mark made sure to Observe one of the monsters.

Megasquito
It's like a regular mosquito, just on steroids
Level 3
HP: 10/10
MP: 3/3

'Not much help but skills get better as they level, right?' He didn't really need justification to level the skill up, the completionist part of his brain was already demanding it.

He turned to look at Imara who was bringing her staff down on one of the three remaining enemies before rounding on another. She was quick, taking out three in the time he managed one. She was clearly used to the weapon but something about how she was fighting felt off. Stiff, maybe.

Motion caught Mark's eye, off to the right. Another Megasquito, barreling towards Imara at speed and aiming for her open back. He didn't have time to move himself between them, he'd be too slow. Instead, he decided to throw the spike at the thing point first. He put some lead on it, he knew enough about projectiles to do that, but what he didn't think about was stabilization. The spike tumbled end over end through the air, going in the right direction at least.

As the thing cartwheeled towards his target, Mark realized it would probably just smack the thing at a weird angle. That was bad, it probably wasn't enough to make a difference. His desire to stop its tumbling brought out that feeling yet again, stabs of ice and rushes of fire, mixing and blending but never canceling out. It was like a storm raged through him, violent and full of potential. Focusing on the careening spike, green wisps danced around the point and the base, counteracting the rotation while also inducing a spin. Within the span of a second, it was aligned point forward and flying like a professionally thrown football.

The impact was rather painful sounding, as it should when a spike a third the size of the body it's impaling is driven home. It only went half way in, if that, but Mark was smiling like an idiot. He'd just saved someone, even if only in a minor way. The smile Imara flashed him after dealing with the last of the bugs definitely helped.

"Not bad, sharpshooter. Thing might have managed to get me but you ended up almost putting a rock through it."

Mark, still grinning like a fool, decided to make a joke of his own. "Isn't this where you make some joke about penetration?"

"I have standards, that'd be way too easy. Besides, I doubt you wanna be called a bug fucker."

"I've been called worse things. Someone once said the best thing I could bring to a cookout was plates and utensils."

Imara tried to fight back the laugh the joke had brought out of her. It started as puffed cheeks and a snorting sound, then the floodgates opened. The jungle seemed brighter to Mark for the laughter. When she'd calmed at least slightly, she managed to get out, "they roasted you to charcoal, damn. Bullshit powers or not, you're at least good for a laugh."

"On that note, I think I just got a new skill," he said as he opened the awaiting notifications. There were more than he expected. 'Kind of them to stay out of the way like that.'

Mark fetched the knife out of his inventory, making note that not only could items be the reward from achievements, but that they got delivered directly to his inventory. The design of the weapon was simple but sturdy, wooden scales and no embellishments on a clip point, fixed blade combat knife. It even came with a sheathe.

Imara looked at the newly formed knife with a curious expression. "Thought you said you didn't have a weapon."

"I didn't, I just got this from an achievement. I think Gaia was throwing me a bone."

Imara had a contemplative look on her face but didn't say anything, so Mark went on to the next notification.

"Yep, new skill. Uses the wind to fix my bad aim if I throw something. I think it even put spin on the spike when I threw it."

"I don't think it even needs to be said at this point. Can you tone down the whole 'breaking all the rules' thing? It's hurting my brain." Her tone was good natured if he was reading her right, so he didn't feel too bad about it.

Mark removed the blade from it's sheathe and made a few slashes with the knife into the air, just to see how it felt in his hand. He didn't have much experience knife fighting but he spent enough time in the kitchen to have an idea how to hold it.

"Alright, killer, that's enough fighting with your imaginary friend. Your very real one is ready to go finish this up."

He stopped in the middle of another slash. He was frozen for a second before looking towards Imara. "So... Earlier wasn't some weird joke out of pity?"

"Wow, that's sad. No, it wasn't out of pity, you just seemed like you could use one. Besides, you made me laugh. I figure that oughta count for somethin'. Thought you'd jump at the idea, checking me out every chance you get." She hit him with that tone again and he felt the blood rush in opposite directions.

'This girl is dangerous with a capital angerous,' he thought as the notification windows closed. "Well, I have a knife now. Might make killing that boss easier." As Mark looked at her, he noticed a change in her over head display.

Imara Ingram
Level 15 Geo-kinetic
Pillar of Obsidian

"Hey, you leveled up! You're level fifteen now!" He had to fight the urge to jump and do a fist pump at the revelation.

Imara, meanwhile, just looked mildly pleased. "Oh, cool. Don't feel much different but it's cool to know it's a thing. What's your XP looking like, mister gamer man?"

"One fifty-seven out of eight hundred... Got a long way to go, quests will probably be the big draw for XP. If I finish both optional objectives, I'll be over the XP threshold. Enemies seem to give a little XP too, so that's pretty nice. I'll probably level up after everything's done and over with, and enemies giving XP is a really good thing to note..." Mark had begun rambling to himself about halfway through speaking, his voice getting quieter as he went on.

"Ground control to Major Tom, don't go spacing out on me. Still in the middle of a forest, bud." She clapped him on the arm to shake him out of his introspection.

"Gah. Sorry, distracted by the numbers. Easy to get wrapped up in them." He closed the sheet before he could get sucked back in. "You ready to go find the last few we need?"

"Ready when you are. Let's see if you can actually use that knife or not, shall we?"

With that, the pair set off for the remaining six Megasquitos, then whatever boss the jungle hid from them.

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