Origin ARS 5 (14 page)

Scott focused on his breath control for a
moment then touched his mana. He concentrated on the spell that he
intended to cast. Energies both celestial and elemental began to
surge within him. He raised his hand above his head and called out.
"Starlight Flare!"

Lightning, mana, and celestial energy swirled
or skittered upward along his frame and combined together and a
single point displayed by an eight-rayed star. Those energies
converged and became a sphere of bright pulsating pure-white
light.

"Hey! What that?" asked a boisterous voice. A
hellion had heard Scott's cry.

Scott burst out of the double doors and
lunged for the closest of the two monsters. The hellion barely had
time to reach into the odd rain coat to grab its weapon before he
screamed in pain. The light pulsed and the monster cried out again.
His flesh began to blister slightly and whirls of smoke skirled off
his body and rose up from within his rain coat.

The monster staggered back and hissed loudly.
Scott did not get the chance to do more than launch a simple front
kick before the second monster slammed into his back. He was sent
flying forward, but caught himself in mid-air and performed a quick
and dirty somersault.

"The light! It burns!" screamed the demonic
ogre. They backed away from Scott for a moment while eyeing the
hideous light that floated above him. The light itself easily
carried throughout the area, but the damaging effects only worked
within a fairly short range. What the beasts did not know was that
the light could be moved by the will of the one who conjured
it.

Scott nodded his head and the light rotated
forward slowly and moved away from him. The hellions backed away
while they hissed at the light.

"Light burns! Light meat make me angry!"
snarled one of the hellions before he revealed that he was an axe
hellion. His battle axe had a blade that was easily as wide as
Scott's chest.

The hellion on the left hissed something to
the axe hellion then ducked around the corner. The little hairs on
the back of Scott's neck rose. Was he a gun-fighter? That made no
sense. If he had a gun he could have attacked Scott at range.

Scott could see his corpse up ahead. It was
at the end of the corridor where the hellion had turned the corner.
If he played his cards right be could back them away long enough to
snatch up his body and make a run for it. As long as he could get
it closer to the safe room, he would have a better chance of
returning to it in the future.

The axe hellion snarled at him then grinned
and then performed a quick spin to make it around the corner. A
little spherical object went flying out from the connecting
corridor and bounced off the wall. Scott instinctively jumped back,
but to his surprise nothing happened. He heard angry voices from
the corner.

"What you mean, it dud!" exclaimed one of the
hellions.

"It not go boom. It dud." explained the other
one reasonably.

Scott quickly ran forward upon hearing that
explanation, but the moment he got within five feet of the little
sphere it shook violently. A smiley face appeared on its smooth
surface and it began to click.

He immediately picked up speed and kept
running past it. He barely managed to hurl himself around the
corner before the smiley face's smile grew three sizes and the
little sphere exploded with great force.

"It not dud!" exclaimed one of the hellions
briefly just before the other hellion shrieked. "The light! It
burns!"

Scott's ears rang from the power of the
explosion. While the hellions screamed and flailed in their attempt
to escape the horrible, horrible, light Scott tried to stop the
ringing in his ears. By the time he collected himself the spell was
close to running its course.

He picked up his corpse in a fireman's carry
and ran back toward the safe room. If he was lucky he might even
make it.

"Get the light meat! It running away!"
screamed the axe hellion before running after Scott. The grenadier
hellion pulled out another smiley-faced explosive and joined the
chase.

They could not get too close, however, as the
light gave Scott minor protection from them for the moment. They
had absolutely no defense against it even if it did not do much
damage to them.

"Meat! I wanna eat light meat!" screamed axe
hellion as he chased Scott.

"Stop light meat! I wanna eat you!" screeched
the grenadier.

The spell ran out just as Scott cleared the
large room and he whirled around the corner to enter the next
corridor. Just before he reached the corridor that led to his safe
room, he dropped his corpse and made a mad dash for safety. Scott
whipped open the door just as another grenade went flying his
way.

He staggered forward and sighed. "Damn that
was close. When the fuck did these things get grenades?"

Scott sat down on the table then smiled. At
least he knew the spell did something good. It was weak, but it
worked. Hopefully the grenade had not blown his corpse apart,
either. If everything went well he wouldn't be naked much longer.
Things were starting to look up a little.

Chapter 4

The sound of booted feet slapping down rapidly
against the stone floor echoed through the corridor behind Scott.
He skidded around the corner on his way back to his safe room,
chest pounding and breath coming hard and fast. He had lost count
of the number of times that he had fought and died in the three
story building that the hellions had laid claim to in the tutorial
dungeon.

Sometimes he won, many times he lost.
However, as time passed he spent the effort to train both his
skills and his will to survive. Against the hellions it only showed
to a small degree, but even a small degree of improvement was
better than none and the effectiveness of his training was easy to
notice.

The rapid-fire staccato of sound echoed
through the area. Scott turned the second corner just in time to
avoid being cut down by magical machine gun fire. He reached his
safe room at the same moment that the machine gun hellion turned
the final corner. This time he had made it back safely. He had
managed that feat more frequently of late.

Blood dripped steadily to the floor as it
poured from his many wounds. The number of hellions had decreased
recently, but there were still over two dozen of them in the
building. He did his best to kill a gun-fighter every time he saw
one, even if it meant he would die as a result. Close fighters were
dangerous, but the gun wielding monsters could kill him without
even getting close to him. They did not all have terrible aim like
the first one that he had met. In fact, most were good at taking
him down.

The old wisdom that a man should rush a gun
and flee from a knife was in full-effect due to his situation. Most
of his deaths had come from gun-wielding hellions who had managed
to kill him while he ran or because they had been part of a small
group. When he rushed them he also died, but it happened with less
frequency.

He glanced at the salvation mirror briefly to
save his status then went to sleep. It was a consistent practice
for him. How long had he been in this place? It was impossible to
know, but it felt like weeks if not a few months.

After he awoke, he spent some time analyzing
all of the items that he had gathered recently. Most of his loot
sat in a large pile in the corner of the room. Once he had
discovered that they would remain there safely, he had cleaned out
his bag. The only thing he made certain to keep inside was the
coins that he had looted. There were hundreds of the little copper
things inside his bag. They took up quite a bit of space. Scott
checked his status to see if anything had changed.

[Status]

Scott Jacobs

Race:
Lunarii |
Class:
Twilight
Master

Age:
18 |
Max Lifespan:
Ageless

Level:
5 |
Title:
The
Reborn

Attack:
140[183-190] |
Defense:
140[201-209]

Strength:
100 |
Agility:
100 |
Vitality:
100

Intellect:
100 |
Charisma:
100
|
Attunement:
100

[—]

[Class Skills]

Unarmed Combat:
31

Twilight Sorcery:
28

Primordial Magic:
1

Sense Life:
20

Arcane Lore:
1

Arcane Mastery:
26

Light Armor:
21

Analyze:
18

[—]

[Miscellaneous Skills]

Survival Lore:
15

Boomerang Mastery:
1

[—]

"Things have definitely changed." said Scott.
He cataloged a list of his current chosen specializations to remind
himself of what he had chosen.

[Notations]

Unarmed Combat Specializations [2]

[Improved Health Regeneration I]

[Improved Defense I]

[
Twilight Sorcery Specializations
[2]

[Celestial Mastery II]

Sense Life Specializations [1]

[Sense Nature I]

Arcane Mastery Specializations [2]

[Increased Attunement Efficiency II]

Light Armor Specializations [1]

[Reduce Armor Burden: Light Leather]

Analyze Specializations [1]

[Compare Similar Items I]

Survival Lore Specializations [1]

[Improved Environmental Observation I]

[—]

He nodded his head slowly. Things had begun
to make a little more sense once a few of his skills had reached
level twenty-five. The specializations seemingly followed the same
progression as the class levels from the casual sever. He would
know for certain once he had a skill level reach forty, or if he
left here before then and asked Rhea.

His unarmed combat skill had not increased in
several days, or what felt like several days, since it had reached
thirty-one. He had fought the hellions over a hundred times since
his arrival. He had danced with as many as two of them at once
while avoiding their attacks over a lengthy period of time. During
that time he had come to the conclusion that increasing his
skill-level past thirty for most of his skills would be an
extremely difficult thing to accomplish in this place.

The leveling system was the issue. He has
currently sitting at a fairly severe bottle neck. He could already
feel a slight headache beginning to form and suspected that he was
close to reaching his combat level cap. He could not increase his
social level in this place, otherwise it would be a perfect hunting
ground for a long time to come. Once both his combat and skill
experience pool level caps were reached he would have to wrap
things up quickly. The ensuing headache would make it too difficult
to concentrate if he tried to farm the place too much longer after
that.

Scott moved over to his mountain of looted
crap and began to analyze and then compare each item. He could not
see actual stats for an item, though he could see which among then
was probably better than others. None of the stuff he had collected
was better that what he actually wore, if his analysis was
correct.

A great deal of time passed while he analyzed
his items. It was important to do this both before and after going
out to stalk the hellions. Doing so had steadily increased his
skill at analyzing things.

Once the mountain of weapons and various
armor items had been analyzed Scott stood up and stretched. It was
time to go out and try to kill off a few more of the hellions that
wielded firearms or grenades. He only needed a few of them to be
left alive for farming purposes, and honestly the fewer that
remained in the end, the easier it would be to finish the quest
when he had to deal with the coming headache.

~*~

Wide and curious eyes took in the sight
around them. Nothing but beautiful wildflowers as far as the eye
could see, the man known by most people simply as Captain Johnson
gazed upon the Field of New Beginnings. He had logged in, as Aria
Ardent had called the process, and now attempted to make sense of
what he saw. He needed to figure out his place in the strange new
world.

"So, newcomer. You think that you have what
it takes to be a priest, do you?" asked a rasping voice.

Captain Johnson, Adam to his friends, turned
to see a tiny old woman with a walking staff. "Uh yes, excuse me
ma'am are you the one called Mid?"

"Yes, that I am. You are Adam Johnson,
would-be priest of Blizrum, god of war. Am I correct?" asked
Mid.

"Ah, that is... What I chose. This place... I
don't know." Adam looked around a little more. One moment he had
been alone in his bedroom and in the next moment he was standing in
a field of flowers. Aria had said that it would happen in that way,
but to actually see it had been quite disconcerting.

Mid chuckled lightly. "It can be a confusing
time, especially for one such as you. Do you have any
questions?"

"Ma'am, I have many questions." admitted
Adam. He had
so
many questions.

~*~

The sounds of a goddess hard at work echoed
through Origin's room as she tried to finish as much of her backlog
as possible. Most reincarnations and destined love pairings took
place through the system or through her constantly working goddess
avatars. A lesser expression, a tiny portion of her true essence,
operated most of the reincarnation systems on any given server.