Running away, followed by not running away

...before immediately flying backwards. John glanced at Faith, who had reflexively flung her hand upwards to redirect gravity, then at his Observe menu.

These things aren’t great at a glance, but the problem is the sheer amount of them right now.

Once the rats had been flung far enough away, Faith lowered her hand before taking John’s in hers and taking off running in the opposite direction.

John stumbled a bit, quickly matching her speed. Running for what seemed to be a few minutes until the sound of the rats’ pursuit fell far behind them. Finally, they stopped at a crossroads marked with similar engravings as the starting location.

Letting go of John’s hand, Faith quietly whispered, “What the fuck do you plan on doing?” in a near inaudible tone.

“I’m getting to that, but what’s the extent of your powers? You know… the gravity bullshit?”

Faith compared the extent of her powers to around 8 G’s at most, but thought this really wasn’t the time for this, John then presented his plan.

“That might work. I’ll go along with it. It has just as much of a shot of working as anything I could come up with. Even if it does require some set up.”

Getting the attention of the rats was the easy part. Surviving long enough was the hard part.

All John could hear was the sound of his pounding heartbeat with every step. Oh, and the horde of rats currently dead set on hunting him down.

Sprinting as fast as he could, John noticed yet another pack of rats joining the chase. The more, the merrier, he thought. Upon reaching the corner that both Faith and he had confirmed linked their main passages, he entered it and was greeted by Faith running towards him in an equally **** fashion with a swarm of rats just as large or larger following her.

John and Faith continued to sprint as fast as they could, both of their hearts threatening to burst inside them. They both frantically recited the plan that they had developed just minutes prior.

Attract as many rats as you can, but make sure you can get back to the central point without getting hurt. Save your mana as much as you can for what’ll follow.

At the middle of the tee intersection sat a blanket. It was draped over something that faintly gave off a pale blue light.

-10 HP

John felt a burst of pain in his calf, where one of the rats had caught up to him and sunk its razor sharp teeth into him. Stumbling for a moment, John managed to shake it off, where it flew back into the swarm of rats behind him.

One thing John had figured out was that these rats were best suited to short combat engagements with only a few targets. Thankfully his analysis of their abilities was correct and it seemed as if the frantic pace of the rats was beginning to slow down.

After what seemed like an eternity, both John and Faith neared the intersection.

“You ready?” John breathlessly yelled towards Faith.

“Yeah! On your mark!” Faith said, seemingly in much better condition than John at the moment.

John took out the Mana Pistol he had gotten earlier, in preparation for what he was about to do; thankfully it had come pre-charged.

After mentally preparing himself as he and Faith came within an arm’s length of each other, John simply said “Do it!” to the gravity mage, who was seemingly in the process of weaving a spell together.

The swarm of about fifty rats began to rapidly encircle the duo in the moments before the spell was complete. As several of them leaped at both John and Faith, she released the spell she had charged a good portion of her mana into before grabbing onto his wrist.

Time passed in slow motion as Faith began falling towards the middle passageway, dragging John along in her iron grip.

Despite John feeling every ache and pain in his body, he **** his arm to raise once the swarm of rats had mostly converged around the semi hidden battery. His finger curled around the trigger and fired the pistol with every ounce of his willpower.

The brief moments it took to charge a shot almost seemed to take an eternity and a half to John’s adrenaline fueled state. The burst of blue hot plasma lit up the dark passageway like lightning, rapidly rocketed towards the collection of rats.

Through either sheer luck or divine intervention, the shot hit home. The glass container of the battery exploded, releasing all of the magical pressure that had been placed upon it.

Fortunately, the rats absorbed most of the glass, both solid and liquid. Although there was still a few fragments of glass that found their home inside the maze’s carefully crafted masonry.

The shockwave echoed out throughout the maze, instantly liquifying the organs of many of the rats that were unfortunate enough to be directly next to the explosion. John himself felt as if he was repeatedly punched in the gut.

The blast of mana projected out from the battery seemed to disrupt Faith’s gravity spell, causing both her and John to crash to the ground in a pile of limbs.

The first thing that John saw after his ears stopped ringing and his eyes stopped seeing spots was the blacked crater where the battery had once rested.

57 Enemies defeated: +617 XP

Gamer’s Luck is now Level 2!

Swiping aside a few achievements, he looked around the blast crater and was met only with the smoldering corpses of many, many rats. Thankfully they began to fade into darkness, leaving only the loot they held behind.

John heard a groan of pain beside him, which revealed itself to simply be Faith slowly raising herself back onto her feet.

“I have to say, that was a pretty painful plan. Even if it somehow worked.”

“I mean, it was totally worth it, I even got a level out of it. All of this loot too!” said John, trying to hide his excitement at the sight of some very shiny things in there.

Immediately reeling his intense greed back in, John glanced back towards Faith, “But more importantly, are you alright?”

“I’m slightly more liquid than usual aside from a few minor things, but in pretty good shape all things consider- did you just say ‘loot’?”

“Sure did, it even persists after I leave the barrier.” Upon seeing the confused look on Faith’s face, he added, “But let me guess, that’s a violation of conservation of mass? And this stuff shouldn’t exist?”

After a few moments of thought, she just shrugged, “Yeah. Things just don’t randomly form out of thin air. Would you mind if I took a sample of some of the less important stuff for study?”

“Might as well, you helped kill those things too. Speaking of which, I need to grab this stuff before more of those assholes get here.”

John jogged over to the crater, which smelled faintly of ozone and iron. He simply threw anything that wasn’t immediately interesting into his inventory. Before long, he came to a set of glasses that he immediately cast Observe on.

“Sweet, some rare loot,” was all John said before putting them on.

The difference in clarity was immediate. The shadowy corridors of the maze became comfortably visible. Although with a tad bit of color desaturation, but John could easily live with that tradeoff.

Looking around a little bit more, John had seemingly gotten incredibly lucky on the loot rolls, as he found a crystalline disk with “Psychic Telemetry” helpfully written on a taped on label. He gave it the good ol’ Observe as soon as he read the label.

Slightly disappointed about it not having an actual function at the moment despite the rarity, John carefully slipped it into his inventory.

I should probably spend those ability points before I forget about them.

John took a single look at his character sheet before putting 2 into Endurance and the remaining 3 into Wisdom.