The weather hadn't let up - if anything, it had gotten even worse as time passed.
Thunder rumbled across the ruined skyline, as Deacon sprinted across rooftop to rooftop, occasionally causing him to glance upwards and mentally praying that lightning wouldn't strike him.
His once clean and shined boots were now caked in blood, bird shit, and thin strands of moss. The shoulder he'd just popped back in throbbed relentlessly, but he pushed the pain aside and kept moving.
Another rooftop. Another jump.
He landed in a crouch, less graceful this time, and came up just in time to meet the squelching grunt of something that definitely wasn't human nor did it sound natural.
Looking around, he saw three bloated, flightless bird-like creatures with slick black feathers, pig-like snouts, and long, twitchy rat tails waddling across the roof. Their beady, uneven eyes locked onto him.
"Seriously?" Deacon muttered, already drawing his short blades out of their sheaths. "Who the fuck let a ratpig fuck a crow?"
The first lunged.
He met it mid-charge, his blades shimmering for a moment from a flash of lightning that arced within the storm clouds overhead.
Flame Armament sparked to life with a hiss, fire wreathing the two steel blades just before his right, short blade buried itself in the thing's skull. Steam rose as the creature shrieked and spasmed before it became limp.
The second one let out a garbled honk and charged, to which he easily sidestepped it and slashed low, severing its tendons before finishing it with a thrust through the back of its thick, fleshy neck with his left short sword.
The third let out a squeal just before Deacon hurled his still-flaming right short sword into its snout. It staggered, twitching violently, before collapsing face-first onto the ground – its grotesque pig-rat-bird features smoldering atop the wet and grime covered stone rooftop.
*[Mutated Beakswine Lv 1] has been slain – XP has been given.*
***
*[Mutated Beakswine Lv 1] has been slain – XP has been given.*
Glancing at the System Notifications that flickered beside his vision, he gave a tired shrug. I guess the name of their race is pretty fitting.
The flames still dancing along the length of his left short sword flickered low as with a subtle pulse of mana, Flame Armament faded on it, the heated steel quickly darkening as rain hissed against it.
He crossed the rooftop to retrieve the other blade still buried in the mutated beakswine's skull. With a firm yank, he pulled it free, shaking off still sizzling blood, flesh, and bits of lightly charred bone before canceling the spell on it as well.
With a fluid motion, Deacon slid both short swords back into the sheaths across his back and let out a breath as he stood to his full height while twisting his upper torso in order to straighten out the kinks in his back that came from his jumping roll from earlier.
"Alright then," he muttered to himself while scanning the tops of the nearby rooftops and the surrounding skyline. "What's some place that I can use for shelter?"
Thunder rumbled once more off in the distance in response to the sudden increase in the downpour of rain. His breaths came steady now, the heat of the previous battle and escape slowly leaving his limbs entirely.
His eyes narrowed as he spotted a building a few rooftops over, a massive one.
The building was easily 180 meters tall, rose above the surrounding buildings, with the center of it looking as if some colossal beast had taken a bite out of it long ago.
Even from here, he could tell it was taller than most of the buildings in the city itself, meaning that it was tall enough to allow him to get a decent vantage over the city. Maybe even spot the Floor Boss if he was lucky.
Deacon took a couple of steps forward to get a better view, and as he reached the edge of the rooftop he was on, thunder rolled across the clouds above him, it illuminated the massive tower for a few seconds, which allowed him to see a massive cord dangling from where the massive bite-like hole was on the side of the building.
A thick, insulated cord that looked like a telephone line that he'd seen in a history book back during a History Lecture stretched from the top of the broken building to the rooftop next to him.
He watched tentatively as it flailed slightly in the stormy wind, but its weight, along with a fallen water tower pinning it down and ultimately kept it from fluttering in the air. The line sagged in a long, steady arc, anchored to something just out of sight atop the distant building. It must've gotten caught there when one of the communications spires collapsed, leaving the cord tangled and stretched across the road.
Deacon narrowed his eyes at the distance between him and it.
The building it connected to loomed five – maybe six – floors above where he stood. It was hard to tell with moss and fungi blanketing the walls, blending everything into a murky green mass.
He licked the rain from his cracked lips, then stepped back from the edge and rolled his shoulder again, testing the joint. Still sore from the last jump, but it was manageable.
"This better be worth it," he muttered.
Without wasting another breath, he turned and moved, weaving between debris and rusted ventilation units until he reached the edge of the rooftop again – closer to the cord.
Just above him, a shattered window offered the next step.
Deacon eyed the surface of the wall, the exposed rebars, and the cracked and potentially unreliable handholds formed by cracks and crevices in the old concrete. With a relatively short jump, Deacon dug his fingers into one of the hand-sized handholds on the damp stone, and began to climb up the building with relative ease. The only issue occurring during his climb was the time when his boots slipped once, but he adjusted quickly, muscles burning with each movement.
By the time he hoisted himself up to the floor just beneath the cord, rain was dripping from his chin and his breath came in shallow bursts. He crept along the window ledge, hugging the wall, until the arc of the telephone line stretched just ahead of him – his ride up the massive building.
He looked down at the drop below.
Then up at the building.
Deacon exhaled through his nose, slow and steady, heart thumping in his chest.
Deacon reached out and gripped the thick telephone line.
It sagged slightly under his weight but held firm, the tension keeping it taut between the buildings. He tightened his grip and steadied himself. Wind whipped at his face, rattling the cord. Overhead, thunder rolled – deep and low – like the growl of some unseen titan.
He hooked one leg up over his head, and then the other, so he hung suspended under the line, arms locked, legs crossed over a twenty-meter drop. Glancing down at his angle, he saw the hundreds of mutation-obsessed animals and humans shuffling down the streets.
He carefully pulled himself upwards along the line, entirely too aware of what would happen if he got lost in his mind about what to do if he slipped and landed in the middle of the horde below him. Instead, he focused on the present - his body swaying with the storm, the rain soaking through his armor and the light clothes he wore underneath it, chilling him to the bone. The wind howled against his ears, and still he crawled forward.
I'm halfway there, he repeated to himself.
Snatching glimpses of color out of the corner of his eye, forty meters in the air, Deacon turned towards the buildings to his right. Off in the distance, probably thirty to forty kilometers away from where he was at the moment, bursts of flame, lightning, and unattuned spells lit up the streets as beasts roared and fought below, the flashes briefly lighting the buildings, and making anyone with a brain aware to stay away from there.
A few more meters, and the rotten face of the massive building loomed directly in front of him. He uncrossed his legs and stood on them firmly against the moss-patterned concrete. Leaning back on the cord like a rappel line, he rigged into position – feet on the wall, the phone cord now his suspender from above.
One boot at a time, he began to ascend.
The wind whipped at him from all angles, and rain stung his eyes as it caused the tips of his hair to occasionally poke his eyes as he climbed. His muscles and aching shoulder screamed in protest as he scaled the massive building.
I'm getting closer.
Another floor passed, then another, and another, until finally, with trembling arms, Deacon reached the gaping hole in the building's midsection.
Fucking finally, Deacon panted.
Stretching out an arm to grab hold of a jutting rebar rod, he tested its strength for a bit before he decided to let go of the telephone cord and grab another rebar rod and pulled himself upwards, boots squeaking as they pressed against the glass windows.
Upon fully pulling himself into the massive opening, he rolled across the rain-slick floor, chest heaving.
He was soaked, breathless, but alive.
"I really hate climbing," he muttered, staring at the ruined ceiling overhead. "I can't believe people did this for fun back on Earth."
Thunder rumbled above, echoing through the building he was now in. Rain pattered in through shattered beams and warped metal, forming slow-dripping pools around him.
Then something hit the ceiling.
A wet thunk followed by a high-pitched squawk.
Deacon snapped his head toward the sound, eyes narrowing as he caught sight of a massive, mutated bird convulsing midair. Its wings were far too small for its grotesquely bloated body – how it had managed to get that high was anyone's guess.
With an echoing thud, it slammed its head into Floor One's dome ceiling before plummeting to its death.
With that, a tired chuckle escaped his throat.
"Yeah," he said, voice low and bitterly amused. "We were space travelers… my ass we were. No one's flying past that ceiling… I knew that that part of the textbooks was full of shit."
Pushing himself into a kneeling crouch, he wiped away most of the moisture that ran down his face before he began to look at the destroyed office floor that he was in, taking notice of the twisted metal, broken beams, and destroyed furniture. But there were shadows further inside the floor – dry, still, untouched by the ongoing storm.
With an audible groan, Deacon got out of his crouch and stood back on his two feet, properly upright, and began to make his way across the ruined office floor. He only stopped searching and wandering around when he found a half-collapsed hallway deeper inside the building, framed by tilted support beams and walls that at least offered cover from the storm.
"Ah… that's good enough for me," he muttered, ducking behind an overturned massive desk. "So long as I got four walls around me, a roof over my head, and no one around me - I'm practically living like a king."
With practiced hands, he collected the driest pieces, mostly scraps of veneer and broken table legs, then moved deeper inside, where the rain hadn't yet soaked through the concrete. He found a small alcove tucked behind a broken partition wall.
Out of sight, rain, and wind.
Finally.
Moving a bit deeper into the dry room, Deacon carefully arranged the wood he'd collected into a teepee-style campfire. Holding his hand just above it, a faint spark of mana danced across his fingertips as he snapped his fingers and cast Ignis.
A ball of flame bloomed into existence, then shot forward, striking the bundle of wood and setting it alight.
The fire crackled to life with a loud roar before Deacon quickly dimmed the size of the fire and had it settle into the normal height that was acceptable for the amount of fuel he had available to him. "That was way too much mana on my part," he grumbled to himself, mentally thanking the System that the noise of the flame hadn't echoed around.
He lowered himself beside the campfire with yet another tired groan and stretched out his legs and arms as his aching muscles were finally allowed to relax for the first time since he'd stepped onto Floor One.
After fully stretching, for a hot minute, Deacon simply listened to the muffled booms of the thunderstorm outside and the soothing sound of the wood in his campfire crackling.
Letting his eyes drift from the campfire and toward the crumbling ceiling, water dripping in steady rivulets down the walls around him, but none reaching the little alcove he'd found. A rare pocket of peace in a city that wanted him dead.
Slipping off his leather gloves, he slapped them down out beside the fire, then tossed them down to dry. The skin beneath was red and wrinkled, dirt and blood stubborn in the lines of his knuckles. He winced slightly as he rolled his left shoulder – still sore from the earlier fall, but at least it wasn't dislocated anymore.
"Alright…" he muttered, voice barely audible over the crackle of flame. "Let's see where my stats and skills are at right now."
Reaching into one of the pouches on his hip, he carefully took out a piece of blank parchment from its bundle and infused his mana into it. After it turned a pale orange, he flung the parchment onto the campfire. It shot out immediately and landed back in his outstretched palm.
Skill Gained: [Academy of Beginnings Sword Style (Initiate)]
Skill Upgraded: [Academy of Beginnings Sword Style (Initiate → Uncommon)]
Skill Upgraded: [Basic One-Handed Weapon Mastery (Initiate → Common)]
Deacon Surtr Hayes
Race: Jötunn Lv 2
Class: Warrior Lv 2
Health: 87/90
Mana: 13/50
Stamina: 21/70
Stats:
Vitality: 17
Strength: 16
Endurance: 11
Agility: 8
Intelligence: 5
Wisdom: 5
Willpower: 10
Perception: 5
Free Points: 4
Racial Traits:
General Skills: Identify (Initiate), Meditation (Initiate)
Class Skills: Basic One-Handed Weapon Mastery (Common), Light Shield Mastery (Initiate), Academy of Beginnings Sword Style (Uncommon)
Spell Masteries: Fire [Spark (Initiate), Ignis (Common), Flame Armament (Common)], Water [Water Ball (Initiate)], Earth [Gouge Ground (Initiate)]
Affinity: Fire (High) – Innate skill: Undying Flame
Achievements:
Nice, Deacon nodded to himself before getting a sheepish look on his face. Now, what did Ms. Everglade say about what we needed to do in order to check out skill descriptions?