Dream Drive Ch. 05

Author's Note:

I'm not really sure how to react to the massive wave of support for my writing. Thank you very, very much.

A few people have asked me if I could give more regular updates on the progress of Dream Drive; many of the same have wanted to know if I've written anything else. The answer to both of these questions is yes. Please see my note at the end of the chapter for details.

Let it be known to all that my editor, Expoh, suffered through my typos so that you might be spared.

All aspects of the story are fictional. All characters that participate in sexual activity are over the age of 18.

****
Strength - 100 +10 (+10%)
Vitality - 185 +19 (+10%)
Agility - 43 +2 (+5%)
Compulsion - 0
Persuasion - 0
Spirit - 40 +10 (+25%)

Health - 69.45/248.00
Essence – 15
Carry Weight - 25.1/59.0

****

The air in the static-filled cavern was warm, but Jackson felt cold.

He stood on the winding walkway above the shadowy pit that filled the floor of the cavern. The purple-hued metallic surfaces of the walls felt like teeth that were closing around him.

Rachel had left.

After all that, after they'd fought through the ruins together, after he'd saved her from the rattok - twice - she'd taken the box and run. She must have been after it from the start.

He felt betrayed. Maybe he shouldn't. Maybe he should have seen this coming.

Was it something about him? Why did people keep doing this? What was he doing wrong? Why couldn't he -

"Storage protocol violated. Activating passive defense drone."

Jackson flinched at the sound of the robotic voice. He whipped around, gripping his spear in both hands.

Suddenly, red light. It bathed him like a spotlight, washing out the ambient violet glow that coated the rest of the strange metallic cavern. He glanced at his arms and legs, then looked up.

The slit of daylight coming from the exit at the end of the walkway wasn't nearly enough to illuminate the crevice above. A shining red orb stared down at him from the darkness. It looked like an eyeball, watching him.

The thing moved. It looked like part of the ceiling had detached. A pile of metal collapsed to the walkway in front of him, throwing up a little curl of dust. Jackson shielded his face.

The thing made out of the violet steel flashed with red lights. Metallic limbs began to unfold from the center.

And then it slowed. A groan echoed from the center of the machine. It sounded like rust scraping against rust. The red lights flickered erratically, then shut off altogether.

The construct, off-balance, began to tilt. Jackson stood there and watched it topple into the black abyss below the walkway. It slipped into the darkness with a soft rush of wind, and was gone. He inched as close as he dared to the edge of the path. He didn't hear it hit the bottom.

"Activating secondary defense droids."

Another beam of red light flashed on the walkway. It zipped back and forward, a maroon flashlight seeking prey. He heard something moving on the ceiling.

Jackon turned on the spot and ran as fast as he could. The walkway wound back and forth at sharp diagonal angles. He took a short stair two at a time, wobbled on the landing, kept going. The formless abyss stretched on either side of him, eagerly urging him to stumble.

A whirring patter beat the air behind him. It sounded like an engine, a motor. He could hear something crackle. He didn't look back.

Almost there. The thing behind him was catching up, but he was going to make the exit.

The light started to fade.

Jackson's eyes widened. The metal door was shutting, top to bottom. It was going to seal him in.

He abandoned caution and ran flat-out across the walkway, jumping over a bend in the path. His foot caught the edge of the gap on the way down. He churned his feet to keep his weight centered; his speartip dipped and scraped the steel path. He fixed his grip on it and threw his head down, sprinting as fast as he could.

The red light of his pursuer flashed behind him, following his progress. A maroon shadow wavered and jumped as the light danced across his moving limbs. Jackson's moccasins slapped on the walkway, thudding hard in his ears.

There were a paltry two feet between the bottom of the closing door and the floor. Jackson leapt forward and landed in a slide. His leather clothes let him coast across the polished steel path as if he was on ice.

I can't make it!

Jackson broke his momentum at the last minute. He crumpled against the doorway feet-first. It fell shut, and the only light left was the purple haze of the steel cavern and the red glow of his hunter.

Jackson scrambled up and put his back to the door. The walkway ended in a small hall that led to the exit; his gamble had backed him into a tight corner.

The red light was growing fast.

Jackson held his spear tight. The drone was an orb of rusted iron. It almost looked like a TOM, but bigger, about half again the size of a basketball. Red lines fractured its surface like pulsing arteries. Its power source whined and putted; it sounded like it was struggling to stay afloat.

A single mechanical arm dangled beneath it. It blazed with a flickering red light. The machine slowly drew in, extending its taser threateningly.

Jackson raised his spear up and back, as far as he could in the small space. The tip of his weapon shone white. He held it there, waiting. He only had enough essence for one shot.

The robot came in range. Jackson used Polearm Swing. His speartip sliced a white trail through the air, smashing through the rusted steel casing with a wrenching crunch. The drone slammed into the wall and dropped to the floor.

The power source complained as it tried to fight gravity. The robot twitched a few times, red lights flickering, then died.

Jackson watched his essence counter tick up to 4. Great. I spent 15 essence trashing an old robot. I probably didn't even need to -

"Warning: Danger Level Increased. Activating all Passive Defense Drones."

A hundred red lights blazed to life on the ceiling of the cavern.

Some of the drones fell like rocks, flickering and making ugly put-put-put sounds as they plummeted into the abyss. The vast majority floated down, leveled off, and came toward Jackson in a wall of crackling red lightning and steel.

"Fuck!" Jackson shouted. He turned and started smacking his fist on the wall. The door didn't budge. A few inches of steel were pinning him down against a tidal wave of the robots.

He turned back around, trying to think. Maybe he could try to take the hits. Put his arms up, break through, and find another exit.

No, that wouldn't work. He didn't know how much damage those tasers did. Even if the hits didn't kill him, they could float as fast as he could sprint. They'd catch up and cook him. Or worse, he'd be trapped between them and the rattok he'd left behind in the ruins.

There were only a few seconds until the first of the drones reached him. Jackson put a hand on the wall to steady himself, trying to get a sense of the space around him. He had to use his spear, keep them at bay –

The wall under his hands shifted. Jackson almost leapt out of his skin.

A pentagram blazed in white light on the wall. It was etched on a drawing - another image of the giant tree, like the one in the first room. He hadn't noticed it in the dark. The wall began to slide open, revealing another room.

Jackson wedged himself into the opening and slipped through. The robot just behind him rebounded; it was too fat to fit through after him. That wouldn't last long – the door kept sliding wider.

Inside the room was another pedestals, identical to the one holding the black box in the larger cavern. Atop it rested a solid gold cylinder, about the length of his forearm, and twice as thick around. It was as smooth as the steel it sat on.

Jackson's eyes flicked past the cylinder. There was a black rack set against one wall. Most of the slots were empty, but one had an occupant - a metallic tube that tapered to a fine point. The back end thickened into a claw-like appendage. With the short handle jutting from the center, it looked somewhat like an oversized pistol.

Jackson licked his lips and glanced around for other security measures. He didn't want to screw around with more sacred artifacts, but the growing din of the attack drones was reverberating off the walls. If he stood there, he was toast.

He went for the mundane-looking rack. He lifted the metal tube by the handle and held it with the thin section pointing out, thinking the claw was some sort of scope. He peered into it, but there was no lens.

"Uh..." Jackson shifted his head around the object. No trigger. He shook it. No rattling. "Fire! Shoot! Activate! Do something!" He smacked the gun on the pedestal. Nothing happened.

The first drone was grinding through the gap, scraping its sides on the door's edges. It popped into the room. The business end of the flashing arm rotated to face Jackson.

Jackson backed against the far wall. It wasn't very far. He only had seconds. He gripped the gun in both hands, propping it against his shoulder.

The claw on the butt of the gun sunk into his skin. "Shit!" Jackson let the tube go. It was held in place by the stinging grip on his flesh. He grabbed it and tried to peel it off, but it was twisted in tight, almost embedded inside his body. Trying to wrench it free made it feel like someone was holding a lit match on his skin.

A prompt with blue cursive letters on a tan background appeared in front of him. An Isis game message. There were two options.

Essence
Life Force

Jackson looked at the drone that was only two feet away. He looked at his 4 essence. He looked at his 69 health. He looked back at the prompt.

"Life force!"

The claw snapped and clicked in tighter. The air whooshed out of his lungs, as if someone had kicked him in the gut.

His health dropped from 69.45 to 5.

A thin beam of dull grey energy lanced out of Jackson and pierced through the robot as if it were made out of paper. It exploded, shattering into a blizzard of rusty shrapnel and crackling red magic. The force slammed Jackson into the wall, and he collapsed. The gun clattered across the floor.

The beam continued on through the door, slicing through the drones crowding the hallway all trying to get at Jackson. One after another, they detonated like landmines, some dropping after being battered by shards of their fellows, others eviscerated by the grey light.

Jackson saw the beam bend - it curved around the door. Explosions rocked the room. Jackson covered his head with his hands.

The sporadic detonations turned into a solid roar. With nowhere to go, it all echoed off the cavern's burnished walls, reverberating louder and louder until the floor was shaking and his teeth rattled in his jaw. It sounded like the world was ending.

And then, it stopped. His essence began to jump as the scraps of magic from each robot was absorbed by the cursed mark on his hand. It skipped up by fours and threes, until it rested at 123. He had more Spirit, now, so it didn't leak away – his capacity was increased.

The intercom-voice was back. It stuttered like a broken record. "Pa-pass-pa-passive def-def-def-disabled."

Jackson groped for his spear. He propped the butt of it against his abdomen and pointed the tip toward the door. It was a feeble defense against anything that floated into the room, but he felt too nauseous to stand up straight. The buzzing alarm of low health seemed to amplify his headache.

No drones made an appearance. He didn't hear the putter of magic engines. No more explosions. He let the spear slip out of his grip.

That had been a little too close.

He felt exhausted. His body wanted to lie there and forget about everything. Too much input, not enough neurons.

He thought back to the blast of energy. The machines had exploded, but it almost seemed like the beam caused them to explode, rather than the damage incurred, as if it destabilized them when it touched their surface.

It struck him that the beam was the same color as the runes he could draw in the air. It must have something to do with his life force.

He saw light. Not red light, not purple light, not more magic - daylight. It slowly filled the hallway outside the storage room. The door was opening.

Jackson sat back and breathed. His health was going back up at a steady rate. He just had to rest for a minute.

"Heh." Jackson let his head fall back to the iron wall. He wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

He tried to look on the positive side of the experience. Sure, he'd almost died, several times. That was just a healthy reminder of his mortality.

He was stronger. While catching up with Rachel, he'd dumped a lot of essence into his stats from killing all those rattok - but there was still so much about this world he didn't know. He had to be careful. He had to assume everything intended to kill him, and that it could, given the opportunity.

Then again, that was most video games.

She'd run away. He went back for her, and she thanked him by skipping out on him. He should have seen it coming. She was erratic – crazy, even.

He wiped his hand across his face. He took the feeling of frustration and did the same thing he'd been doing for the past handful of days; he ignored it.

It still hurt.

Jackson waited the few long minutes until his health ticked back up to 100 points, and then he hauled himself off the floor. The nausea was gone, and the weakness that followed having very low health had vanished.

Jackson stretched his arms a bit, then collected the gun from the floor. He turned it over in his hands, careful to keep the claw-end from touching his skin. Definitely useful - but it had almost sucked him dry. It didn't appear to have any feature that could dial down the effects. He tucked the barrel inside the waistline of his pants and approached the other pedestal.

The golden cylinder sat before him. He squinted suspiciously. Now that he had all the time in the world, it looked several times more threatening than the gun. The surface was completely flawless and polished to a near-reflective shine.

That, more than anything, set off alarm bells. Everything else here was rusty and old and about to fall apart. This thing was like the box – it was different. It didn't belong.

Jackson decided to perform the only experiment that seemed appropriate: he poked it with a finger.

No reaction. He poked it a few more times, then, satisfied that it wouldn't suck the life out of him, he hefted it, grunting. Heavier than it looks.

He held it at either end, rotating it in his fingers. Nothing stood out about it.

Wait. Inventory system.

Back when he'd first entered the game, he'd examined the objects he was using to find out more about them. He'd learned that rattok were called rattok from the item descriptions. He hadn't had much need for it lately, but the time of exploitation was nigh.

"Game menu." Jackson glanced up as the tan panel shot into view in front of him. His rotating image was coated in dried blood from his earlier fights, just as he was. Always with the blood.

The gun was shown at his waist, as well as the cylinder in his hand. He tapped the gun first.

Energy Conversion Cannon
An ancient device discovered by Jackson in long-abandoned ruins. It can convert life force or essence into a powerful blast of energy that ricochets between foes; weaker enemies may be destroyed outright. The more energy it can access, the more powerful the effect, but the backlash leaves the user severely weakened. Repeated use is not recommended.
- Rune Slots – None
- Durability - Extreme

Jackson raised an eyebrow at the last line. There was a sort of wry sense of humor inserted there. Was this an item description, or an infomercial?

In any case, he had a sort of one-shot last-ditch weapon. The description also explained his nausea; he'd felt even worse than he had when he was first low on health, barely able to hold his spear up. The cannon didn't have any rune slots; it came as-is, no upgrades. It would be useful as hell in a pinch, for sure.

He closed it and tapped on the gold cylinder.

I9*#tem(@20.13(*
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
- Rune Slots – 50
- Durability – Invincible

Jackson stared at the screen, and then he gave the cylinder a long, calculating look. The name was totally garbled; the description was a bunch of percent signs. It was classified as invincible, and it had 50 rune slots – way more than anything else he'd encountered so far. It was exactly the kind of thing that made any intelligent gamer shut down the console and reload the last save so the save file wasn't corrupted.

Jackson grinned and tucked it under his arm.

****
Rachel rode her horse like a woman that would experience extremely painful consequences unless she traveled at as fast a speed as possible - which was exactly what would happen to her so she ran that horse like she'd been doing it all her life.

But not really, because the saddle was bumping and jostling her thighs so much it felt like her skin was getting rubbed off. She really didn't know what she was doing. She gripped the reigns tighter and dug her heels into the sides of the animal. She pressed close to the horse's neck.

What was the animal's name? The groom had told her. She'd forgotten.

"Come on, horsey!" Rachel said. "Keep going!"

The sun was almost over the horizon. A thin golden line marked where it would soon vanish. The sky was orange.

The plains went on for miles without a single landmark – just flat, open fields, all with the same shoe-high grass. But Rachel knew the direction she had to ride. The collar told her. It was a sharp blade pressed to the back of her neck, the needle of a sadistic compass.

The wind whipped her hair behind her, now crusted and dry with the old oil from the rattok's pool. Her black leather armor was splattered with blood. She would have cut off an arm for a hot bath. A long, hot, steaming shower. At the very least, she could have jumped in that lake back in the woods.

But the collar tugged her forward, and she forced the bile in her throat down and ignored the filth that was covering her like a second skin as best she could. Her best was not that great.

The horse was panting, sweating. She was sweating almost as much. She tried to pat its rump and speed it back up. If it noticed, it didn't give any sign; it kept on at a hasty half-gallop.

Rachel liked animals, unless they were slimy or icky or disgusting. A horse, though - that was a beautiful animal. Sometimes she drew horses. She'd always wanted to see one.

The poor thing was struggling to obey her commands, straining to answer the press of her feet on its sides. It was very well trained. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't slow it. The spell on the wooden collar would fry her insides with pure, unfiltered pain. So much damn pain.

Lord Hale's words shot through her brain over and over. As quickly as possible. As quickly as possible. As quickly as possible.

"Fuck that fucking fucker and his fucking fuck command!" Rachel growled. "Faster, horsey! Come on, you can do it!"

The horse was slowing from its half-gallop to a hasty sort of trot. Rachel slapped the reigns a bit, trying to incur a sense of urgency. The steady loss of speed continued.

"Fucking shithead had to be specific. Had to say the words just like that. Goddammit. Goddammit!" Rachel's fists tightened on the leather rope. It was the only thing she had to hold onto.