Never enough rope

It smelled almost like an electrical fire back at the pool. Mason snuck along the wall in confusion, looking up to see the robed creature was gone from the platform. Then he turned and saw a blue light beyond the pool. It flew in a blink, straight across the water, directly at Mason.

He threw himself back as it struck.

[Apex Predator activated. Affinity changed to elemental.]

The air sizzled and rang with a high pitched whine. Mason screamed but hardly heard himself over the deafening roar of thunder that echoed down the hall. He felt wetness leak from his ears and sound became only an endless ring, his eyes blurry and trying desperately to close against some kind of pressure. He scrambled away on hands and knees until he'd regained some semblance of control.

"What." He heard his voice in a dull muffle. "The hell. Was that."

[Tutorial query: Arcane invocation. Lightning Bolt.]

Yeah. That sounded about right. Other than his senses being half fried, it seemed the bolt hadn't really harmed him. He expected this might have been due to Apex Predator's effect, and though he wasn't sure whether it had completely saved him, or just reduced his damage, he was pretty damn happy it worked.

This time he scanned everywhere across the pool when he stepped into the cavern, and not just the platforms. Seeing nothing, he raced down the wall to his right, bow ready to shoot. The huge, pregnant gnoll hadn't so much as moved, and perhaps couldn't. She lay asleep or unconscious, her breathing ragged, body shuddering. Mason expected the robed gnoll wouldn't entirely abandon her, and therefore wouldn't have gone far. But either way he decided now was the best chance to end the miserable creature.

It felt slightly…off-putting, killing a helpless, pregnant creature. But Mason was a hunter, and no stranger to the brutality of nature. Predators almost always targeted the weak. And it was this 'helpless' creature that was likely empowering an endless stream of gnolls killing anything near its lair. It had to be destroyed.

Mason drew his sword, aimed for the throat, and slashed.

[Gnoll Broodmother killed. Experience earned.]

Roars and barks emerged from beyond the pool. Then the scraping of claws on wood and stone…

Mason leapt off the platform, and ran.

* * *

He stopped at the entrance to the first corridor and watched across the pool. The noises increased in volume and number, and soon gnolls came scratching and roaring from several directions. Mason didn't need to think about a plan, he just started shooting.

The first Power Shot dropped his target.

[Killed Gnoll scout. Experience awarded.]

Apparently these weren't elites or giants, and if Mason hadn't been so busy shooting more targets he might have sagged in relief. Instead he picked the closest gnolls and shot for hearts and throats. He usually missed, but it didn't matter. His arrows almost always hit something. Then on top of the shouts and howls, the smell of blood and rot and sweat, he picked up the faintest hint of an electrical fire. He turned and ran.

Light flared somewhere behind him, and the roar of thunder followed as it echoed and drown out the other noise. This time, though, Mason was far enough away to be almost entirely unbothered. He turned again and loosed arrow after arrow at anything that tried to come through the narrow corridor.

[Killed Gnoll scouts x6 Experience awarded!]

When a mass of three or four of the creatures came through he again turned and fled, leading them on a merry chase all the way back to the vine room. He crossed, and waited, standing on the corpse of the gnoll giant with bow at the ready. "Come on, you bastards," he wiped sweat from his brow. "Come and get me."

The smaller creatures soon poured through, and like their larger cousins, were too stupid and aggressive to realize their danger. The remaining vines lashed at everything they could in a wild frenzy.

Mason killed at will. He shot until his fingers bled and his arm muscles numbed from the strain. A knife sailed across the room and sliced through Mason's cheek, and he loosed an arrow straight back at the creature that threw it. Another tossed a crude, wooden spear, but it struck the dead giant gnoll's corpse at Mason's feet. He ducked down, and kept shooting.

The creatures bit, clawed, and pulled their way through the vines, then tried desperately to climb over the corpses of their dead. His aim went to shit, but it hardly mattered. He just loosed his arrows in the general direction of the enemy, and nearly always hit something. With a pack of huddled dead, and only two creatures left moving, he ran out of strength to draw. Mason slumped down and summoned Ranger's Claw in his off hand, then walked forward to finish the beasts with precision thrusts just out of their reach.

[Killed Gnoll scout x10. Experience awarded (moderate). Congratulations, you've leveled to 8.]

Mason looked over the mayhem and breathed. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, sweat dripped down his whole body, including painfully through the wound in his face. But he closed his eyes, and smiled. Never in his whole life had he felt so in the moment, so desperately afraid but in control of his fear. So alive.

He sat, and pulled up his profile. Nothing much had changed, but he got to pick a new power.

If things got any tougher in here, he needed more firepower desperately. His shit ancient bow just didn't have the piercing power to deal with this many targets, or targets as large as giant, man-eating gnolls. He couldn't just run the whole dungeon into the vines, not least because it looked like they were nearly all cut and destroyed. He looked through the new ranger powers, hoping for some help.

The list was almost identical to before, with the many powers he'd overlooked. Speed was still very tempting, but when he glanced again at Trap Making, he realized it might be more effective than he'd originally thought. Maybe, for example, he could make his own vines…

But he was still in the tutorial, right? He realized he might be an idiot, and figured it didn't hurt to ask…

"How does Trapmaking work?"

[Tutorial query: rangers have considerable control over trap type, trap target, and trap removal, but only in natural settings. Traps improve with level and power, but initially are limited, and only usable two at a time.]

Mason snorted, expecting he could ask about every other power the same way. Ultimately, he decided Trap Making was worth the risk and still the right choice. He selected the power and stepped back to inspect the many corpses he'd made for anything useful. The flint knife that had cut his cheek had broken on the wall, and the wooden spear looked ready to snap. Other than that, they had nothing but claws.

Finally he activated his new power, then blinked as the room lit with possibility. The power seemed to indicate to him if and how he might apply his traps to the terrain all around him, and he grinned at the incredible wealth of information. It was as if ghostly traps formed all over the floor and roof, with little indicators that seemed to suggest the basic function of snare, spikes, and several others. It seemed Mason didn't have to build anything himself—he just chose the location and the trap, and the magic did the rest. Yeah, his hands sweat with excitement, that would do. That would do just fine.

When he'd recovered some strength he at last crossed the pond at the only bridge and crept towards the unexplored territory. With some surprise, he soon found the robed gnoll lying on the ground, his staff laying beside him. His fur was blackened, his face shrunk and burned, and Mason decided somehow he'd killed himself with his own spell. The staff looked fine, though, and he picked it up.

[Tutorial information: you have found a Four-Claw Shaman Staff. You lack the ability to identify it outside the tutorial. In the hands of a caster with natural affinity, this staff can be used to channel mana into elemental power.]

Elemental power, huh. Like, say, an ear shattering, god damn lightning bolt, as one random example? Mason realized by the description he should theoretically be able to use it, that is if his class ever gave him mana. Whatever the hell mana was.

[Tutorial query: mana is a primary means of powering spell casting. It regenerates slowly over time, but can be recovered by various other means.]

Right. Well, Mason was pretty sure he didn't do that. At least not yet. But the staff seemed valuable and he couldn't bring himself to just leave it. He also had to consider Blake. His brother wasn't exactly a bare-knuckle brawling athlete, so it seemed likely he'd chosen some kind of spellcasting or otherwise mental-oriented class. In this new world of magic it seemed almost certain he'd chosen to be something like Merlin, or whatever wizard was played by that Ian McKellan guy. So yeah, a magic staff was likely right up his alley. Now how to carry the damn thing…

Mason ended up lashing it to his back with cut vines. While he was at it, he rolled as much of the stuff as he could into a clump and lashed that to himself, too. One thing you could never have enough of in the apocalypse was rope.

Then he was back across the pond, crappy bow and goblin dagger in hand. He still didn't know if the gnolls could easily smell him or see in the dark, but he re-applied a layer of mud and muck from the edge of the pool. It stunk, and God only knew what was in it, but Mason would take any advantage he could get.

This dungeon seemed to be getting progressively more dangerous. The weaker creatures had been outside, slightly harder at the front, the elites and giants and shaman beyond the rooms. What did that mean for the end? Mason took a deep breath and looked down the different pathways leading further, finding mostly empty rooms that seemed like living quarters. Most of their occupants were likely dead in the vine room.

He was reminded that as he'd entered the thing recommended two to four people, and fought the nagging thought that the final challenges may be impossible alone. But since he literally had seen no one save for the almost immediately dead players at the tutorial entrance, he really didn't see what he was supposed to do about that. And as with much of Mason's early life, it didn't help to complain at the unfairness. He just carried on.

Besides—his luck had changed when he met Blake. From a broken home with nothing to a person who'd never leave him, no matter what. He knew he should be thinking only of survival and saving his brother, and he was. But he had to admit, he was also kind of…excited, to go further, to see what happened next.

For the first time in Mason's life he felt he was exactly suited to the world. And he wanted to know how far he could go.