I saw him while practicing Expedite.
We were waiting in the dead forest for the Dragon to attack the wasteland like it’d done before, so while Erani and the Dryad rested, I went ahead and worked on getting used to my new Spell. After I took it, Erani warned me that most people needed time to get used to such a massive modification of physical Stats happening in a single instant like Expedite provided, so I’d have to gradually increase my tolerance before pulling anything too drastic.
Even with the Spell’s base 20 Dexterity boost, a single cast of it would more than double my value in the Stat for 30 seconds. That would absolutely be disorienting. However, it was still Rank 0, and my Soft Cap was up at Rank 8. So it was about to get a lot higher.
I went ahead and cast the Spell on myself once to test it out.
Threshold reached. Expedite XP has reached 10.
Expedite Rank has increased to 1.
Due to Expedite Rank reaching 1, it has undergone the following changes:
Mana Cost: From 55 to 56.4
Dexterity Buff: From 20 to 21
Buff Duration: From 30 to 31.5In an instant, my Dexterity skyrocketed from 15 to 35. My muscles felt more limber and flexible than they’d ever been, my reflexes were supernaturally sharpened, and, most importantly, my body could move faster than seemed physically possible.
I tried to raise my hand in front of my face, but massively overshot, and suddenly my arm was pointed straight up, hand way above where I wanted it to be. The Dexterity ‘aiding’ my movement ended up forcing my arm way further along than I’d intended it to be. Could I even walk like this?
Tentatively, I lifted my leg to try and take a step forward. With some difficulty, I managed to place it in the right spot on the ground, which felt like an accomplishment. For a Spell that labeled its effect as a ‘buff’ it sure did feel crippling.
After a couple more steps, the Spell’s effect wore off, and I had to re-cast Expedite to refresh it. Slowly, bit by bit, I got more used to the effects of the heightened Dexterity. It was hard, since, as I continued to practice the Spell, its buff also grew stronger from Ranking up. But by the time about ten minutes had passed, I’d gotten to the point of being able to walk without looking like I was an adventurer who’d just hit it rich after a job and had spent way too much of my new fortune at the bars.
And, of course, by that time, the Spell had reached the Soft Cap, too. The Rank 8 notification said this:
Threshold reached. Expedite XP has reached 94.
Expedite Rank has increased to 8.
Due to Expedite Rank reaching 8, it has undergone the following changes:
Mana Cost: From 65.4 to 67
Dexterity Buff: From 28.2 to 29.6
Buff Duration: From 42.2 to 44.3
About 50% Dexterity more than it’d started out at, which was exciting to see. One of the other things that stood out to me was that Ranking the Spell didn’t just increase its Dexterity Buff, it also increased the duration. It went from lasting only 30 seconds to lasting close to 45.
So, in that sense, it was actually getting cheaper to keep Expedite active over the course of an entire fight as the Spell Ranked up, despite its increasing cost. While the Cost went up by the typical 2.5% each Rank, the duration went up by 5%, meaning that keeping the Spell active for an extended period of time was becoming easier and easier as I ranked it. Sure, a single activation of Expedite was still technically getting more expensive, but it was exciting to see that I may be able to have it active for entire combat encounters in the future.
The prospect was also a bit worrying. I’d only just gotten used to walking while operating under a single cast of the Spell, much less running or fighting, and much less doing all that while under multiple stacks of the Dexterity buff. I could easily get my Dexterity to over 100, but what did that matter if I couldn’t even stand while it was up that high?
When Erani had first told me about needing to get used to increasing my Stats so high, I’d felt like it’d just be a bit of training, feeling awkward, and then boom – I’ve got my super speed. I didn’t think even she knew how difficult it would be to acclimate. But it seemed like it’d be a lot harder than that.
First, I just needed to get used to a single cast of Expedite. I could walk, now I needed to try running. With Exponential Recovery boosting my Mana/Minute, it was up to 45, meaning I could normally cast the Spell about every minute and a half. However, I had Light Plate on, meaning that cost was cut down by 40%. So, in reality, I could cast the Spell a bit more than once every minute. With a 45 second duration, it was almost always on, with only the occasional ten-second break forcing me to rest. So the practice wasn’t too slow-going.
Of course, I’d have to delay myself every now and then to kill Ghouls that wandered near us, but it wasn’t anything my insanely high Mana/Minute couldn’t handle. When I’d used Time Loop, I’d gone back to the early morning, but by this point the sun was rising, so I could still see the Ghouls from relatively far away. I just had to deal with the sun shining in my eyes whenever I looked in the wrong direction.
Eventually, I worked up to being able to comfortably jog, and then run, and then full-on sprint. The sensation was incredible once I got used to it – my body responded perfectly to every command I sent it, moving exactly where I wanted it to in a fraction of a second, no matter how impossible it would normally be.
When I timed myself running from one tree to the next, with 15 Dexterity it’d take me about ten seconds. After Expedite, with 45 in the Stat, it only took me about seven. Going by those numbers, if I cast the Spell on myself twice, that time could probably move down to about four or five seconds – double my normal speed! Of course, I’d have to train myself up to being able to use two stacks at once, but that time investment was nothing compared to such a massive boost.
After I was comfortable running, I wanted to try one more test before moving to two stacked casts of Expedite. I glanced around, looking for another Ghoul. There was one a bit further off, away from our camp, so I ran over to it. I got across the long distance to the monster more quickly than expected, thanks to my new Spell – I was already loving the benefits of having boosted Dexterity – and approached the comparably slow monster.
It was technically a bit risky to approach a hostile monster like this, but a single Ghoul was weak enough to not be much of a threat – they were mainly difficult to deal with when in large numbers or when they snuck up on you. So I stood in front of it and let it attack.
I started basic, leaning backward and falling back on my feet as it took a swipe at me with its clawed hand. Then it swung again, and I stepped back again. Ghouls were pretty stupid, so I wouldn’t have to worry about it memorizing my dodging patterns and trying to fake me out, or anything. If I kept dodging the same way, it’d keep attacking the same way.
Once I mastered the basic stepping back, I tried raising my arm to deflect. Obviously, I had to avoid letting the Ghoul’s claws scratch the arm I parried with, but with my extra speed and reflexes, that task was borderline trivial. And the more I practiced against the Ghoul, the easier it got to not only memorize its methods of attack, but also to move around in general.
Eventually, once I was comfortable dodging with just one stack of Expedite, I killed off the Ghoul I was practicing with, and prepared to start using two. I’d begin with just walking first, of course, and then move on from there in the same way I’d just done. Hopefully, once I got used to three or four stacks, adding on one more every now and then wouldn’t feel like as much of a shift, and I wouldn’t have to practice as much before doing it.
But, just as I prepared myself to cast two stacks of Expedite on myself, I saw a glimmer of movement to my left, away from our camp. I glanced over, but didn’t see anything. There weren’t any animals out here, so close to the wasteland – it was all Ghouls and ash. So, if something was moving, it was probably a Ghoul. Wouldn’t be a good idea to let one of those sneak up on me. But where had it gone?
I walked over, brows furrowed, while I examined the nearby area to try and find the stray monster. The shallow layer of ash was kicked up as I walked, my glowing white armor reflecting light off the tiny particles of dirt floating through the air.
I thought I’d seen that movement around here, behind this fallen tree, but when I looked behind it, nothing was there. Sure, Ghouls knew how to set up a basic sneak attack, but they weren’t that good at hiding. There was no way one could have gotten from here to some other place completely undetected.
But…
I looked at the ground. There were footprints in the ash. And these weren’t the shambling footprints of dragging feet – characteristic of the Ghouls. No, they were obviously Humanoid. And when I glanced around nearby, I saw a dead Ghoul lying on the ground. It had an arrow in its back.
Someone was here with me.
I followed the footprints with my eyes, trying to see where this person went while also keeping a sharp eye out for any sudden movement nearby. The footprints came from one direction, stopped and shuffled around behind that log, turned and moved away, and then… stopped. Right in the middle of the ashy barren, they just stopped.
I slowly made my way toward that stopping point, hands out and ready to fire magic. Had they teleported away? Used a flight Spell? Hells, they could’ve just climbed a tree, or something. Where had they–
And then the person appeared in front of me.
Invisibility! They’d been using invisibility to stay hidden while standing in those exact footprints, and now they’d reappeared. The man wore basic leather armor and had a bow strapped to his back, alongside a quiver of arrows on his side. His face looked terrified.
Instantly, he stood and ran while I cast Crippling Chill on him.
You have cursed Level 9 Ranger with Crippling Chill. For the next 15 seconds, he loses 7.76 Health and 6.21 Stamina each second, and his Dexterity score is lowered by 15.5.
33.5 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 952.
Level 9 Ranger, huh. Rangers got Dexterity as their focus Stat, so unfortunately he wouldn’t be as easy to paralyze as the other Humans I’d fought had been. But the Crippling Chill still slowed him, and I could also hit him with a Ray of Frost. I raised my hand as he took off running, and I chased after him, using my newly-acquired Expedite to keep up with his Stat advantage. I kept it to just one boost from Expedite, though.
I shot off my Ray of Frost directly at his head, but just as the beam should’ve collided into his head, he flashed and moved a pace over to the side. A short-range teleport? Even he seemed a bit caught off guard when it happened, stumbling and trying to catch his footing as the ground beneath him changed into what was on his side. But even then, it didn’t seem like he was completely surprised by the short-range teleportation, since he quickly recovered and continued sprinting away from me.
Even with my boosted Dexterity, he seemed to still slightly have the upper hand in speed – I didn’t know if that came from him having a higher Dexterity score, or him being more used to having a high value in the Stat, or from him just being more physically athletic than me, but whatever the reason, he was putting more and more distance between us as we ran.
I shot off more Rays of Frost, but each time I did, he seemed to vanish from the Spell’s path and reappear just a hair to the side, making the Spell miss. And now, he didn’t seem to stumble at all when it happened, fully expecting the small teleports. Must’ve been a Talent, or something. I didn’t know a whole lot about Rangers, unfortunately.
Nevertheless, it didn’t seem like those Rays of Frost were doing much. And the Ranger was outside the ten-pace range needed to activate Gravity Well.
But I still had another option.
I cast Expedite once more, increasing my Dexterity up to 74. Instantly, I shot forward, my legs carrying me much further than I’d expected. With each step, I pushed myself off the ground and through the air, twice as far as I’d normally go. My senses were even sharper. I could see the individual creases and folds of the man’s brown leather armor, and the pores in his pale skin. I could hear the soft crunch of footsteps on the ashy dirt. I could–
Oh, fuck.
I fell face-first into the gray ground, tumbling at high speeds as I flailed my body in an uncoordinated mess. Yeah, I obviously couldn’t sprint at top speed with two casts of Expedite yet. But still, just as I hit the ground, that last boost of speed got me barely within ten paces of my enemy, and I cast Gravity Well on him.
He’d clearly gotten complacent with whatever that short-range teleportation ability was, and was completely caught off-guard by his weight suddenly increasing by over 50%. That, on top of his already drained Dexterity, caused him to collapse to the ground right beside me.
I hurriedly got to my feet, making sure to keep Gravity Well active on my enemy, and leapt on top of the prone man. Really, he wasn’t much older than I was, I saw as he looked into my eyes with complete terror. Just what did the kingdom tell this guy I’d done?
I flipped him around and forced his hands behind his back while he struggled to get out from under my body. Thankfully, not only did his Strength score seem to be below mine, but his arms were obviously less developed, too, his muscles not matching those of a trained Swordsman.
“Listen, kid,” I knelt on his arms which were now tucked behind his back. “I need you to tell me what you know. I don’t want to hurt you. Or anyone. But you need to tell me why you’re out here, how you found me, and if there are others. Unfortunately, you wouldn’t be the first person I’ve killed in the last twenty-four hours.”
He whimpered below me, but didn’t speak. I had no experience interrogating people. Should I have been more aggressive and intimidating? Less? I really didn’t–
Fuck! He disappeared again. Was it another teleport? I glanced around and–
Wait, no. I could feel him – he was still underneath my knee. He’d just gone invisible again. I activated Noxious Grasp, and he gasped in pain as the Spell quickly drained his likely-low Health away. His invisibility turned off, and I shut off Noxious Grasp, too.
“Yeah, don’t pull shit like that,” I said. I was still on-edge. Was I led into a trap? Were there more enemies around? Maybe I just should’ve run off. If I could get to Erani and the Dryad, I’d be a lot safer, but that’d mean just letting this guy go.
I glanced down at the man’s hands, which were still shifting while he tried to slip out from under my body’s weight. On both hands, all five of his fingers were wearing silver rings. Ten total. I reached down and slipped them all off, putting them into my pocket. Probably magical, and I definitely didn’t want him pulling any Enchanted gear shenanigans here.
“What’s your Health at?” I asked.
No response.
“I’m asking you that because I’m about to hit you for some damage, and don’t want to kill you. If you don’t tell me, I’ll just attack at full force.”
“E-eighteen,” he finally said. His voice was high and hollow, shaking alongside his body.
“Hm.” He was probably lying to try and get me to go easy on him, but I really didn’t want to kill him in the case that he wasn’t. He seemed innocent enough, and definitely held valuable information I could use. I lifted my knee and stood, and instantly, the man attempted to scramble to his feet and flee.
But then I raised my foot and stomped his head back into the dirt, his nose cracking from being shoved into the ground. I got a notification that I’d dealt 12 damage. Maybe his Health really was that low – the hit wouldn’t have broken his nose if it was much higher, at least. Crippling Chill had worn off by now, so as long as I didn’t hit him any more, he’d survive.
I reached down, tore a strip of fabric from his shirt, and used it to tie his flailing arms back down behind his back.
“Okay, buddy, no more escape attempts,” I said to him. “Now you’re going to answer some questions.”