The Mimic in Monsterland

A month has gone by since my first level up. Len took to his note-taking with more fervor than ever before. Honestly, you would have thought he wrote four or five books in the past month. But it was always the same leather-bound journal. Just another mystery to add to the pile named Leonard. The only problem I had was that he was under the impression that I had the same fervor for training as the people in this world had.

In most games I’ve played and novels I’ve read, the protagonists always talk about how much they train and workout. They give these arbitrary times like “I trained on the mountain top every day for 10 hours, for 3 months straight.” And us, the enjoyers, are like “that’s pretty dope” or don’t even really give much thought to it. It’s just a vehicle to explain a character’s growth. But living it is a completely different experience.

It sucks. A lot.

The constant day in and day out of fighting monsters and working out (Len added that in shortly after my level up.) wears on a guy’s psyche. It loses its charm after about the second week. Fighting monsters was fun but Len made sure I only ever fought the same low tier monsters. Just a mixture of gremlins and jackanapes. That got old real quick. I asked why.

“The Forest would chew you up and spit you out.” He said with a blank expression on his face. So small monsters it is.

It was the workout drills that really taxed me. In my old life, I was never much for hardcore workouts. When I was an undergrad, I made sure to work out a couple times a week. But that was just to stay attractive to the opposite sex. I didn’t want huge bulging biceps or tree trunk thighs, so that level of training was just dumb to me. But now I was living it, on full blast. With the wonderful addition of a middle-aged writing addict cracking me with a stick anytime my form wavered.

After the mornings of monster decimation, we moved on to the training portion of the day. Each day focused on a single creature form.

Ursa was the most simple, pure brute strength training. He said that's where the bear type splicers truly excelled. Sometimes all you need to take some monsters down is hitting them really, really hard. That and more nuanced fighting styles apparently never worked well for them. Suffice to say, I picked up heavy shit. Logs, boulders, and, well that was about it. Not much to choose from in a forest. Len would spice it up with some, what he called, reflex training here and there (He hit me with that stupid stick when I was in the middle of lifting). At first I thought he was just being an ass, yet for the most part, I could endure it. I only ursa-raged like three or four times (26 times). Which always ended with me getting a smack on the back of the head.

After a week of the reflex training, something odd happened. While lifting a boulder for the ninth time, my hand slipped, causing me to drop the boulder. I knew a blow from the stick was coming but this time my body preemptively flexed precisely where it was going to land. Len noticed and commented, “Hmm, not the technique I was going for but definitely useful.” I asked him what technique he was training me for.

“Eh it wasn’t a technique per se, I wanted you to focus on controlling your rage. One of the biggest pitfalls to rage or emotion based fighters is the lack of control. You need to make rational decisions in the middle of a fight. Flying off the handle will only get you and those around you killed. But on that point you have been doing well enough. You're getting better at keeping the rage in control. Check your Ursa page.”

Following his advice I opened it up.

URSA - Proficiency Level: 4

Type: Beast

Timer: 1 hour

Stat Changes:

STR + 10

DEX - 6

AGI + 2

CON + 11

INT - 8

WIS + 5

CHR + 0

Abilities:

Ursa-rage:

Put yourself into a fit of Rage. While raging, you gain a +10 boost in STR and CON, at the cost of - 9 to the mental stats. You also gain a 14% unarmed damage increase and a 14% damage reduction. These bonuses increase with proficiency.

Learned Behavior:

Preflex:

Predict the exact trajectory of an attack. Chances of activation increase with proficiency level and wisdom.

Boosted when in Ursa form. Caps at 100%

Activation % = Proficiency + (Wisdom / 10) + 5[if in form]

Current Activation = 4%

Ursa Form Activation = 10%

“Your proficiency level went up on Ursa form.” Tutor remarked. I rolled my eyes at her comment before mumbling a sarcastic “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

It looked like Len was right. I had a new ability, Preflex. God, how am I gonna keep up with all these names? Nice ability but the activation chance is kinda low. The stat boosts changed too. Noticeable increases STR and CON, not bad. Always welcome. But the negative modifiers went down too. Maybe it's to balance out with the level gains. I turned over to Len and told him about the Preflex and the stat changes.

“Sounds right, instinctual fighters usually have some form of a defensive ability. Preflex is strong but a little unreliable at lower levels. Most tend to unlock constitution boosting abilities. These help lessen damage, but not taking damage at all is the better move.”

“Yeah, 4 percent is pretty low.” I comment while shrugging.

“Enough talk, back to it.”

Gremlin training was more involved. It focused on weapons. Gremlin was the only form I had that had any aptitude for weapons. Ursa’s hands were too awkward with its pads to hold weapons and though Apis had the dexterity, unarmed combat felt the most natural.

Len said those instincts were best listened to. This meant learning how to use the weapons effectively while in Gremlin form. Which meant sparring with Len. It was infuriating. I was using my awesome silver longsword but every attack was parried by that damn stick. The stick that my Ursa form craved to demolish.

One night after a particularly nasty beating from said stick, Len left it near his bedroll while he went off the bathe. The temptation was too great. I was going to destroy the cursed thing. I went to pick it up. Just as I gripped it, a searing heat flooded my palm. Pulling my hand away, I looked down at the stick expecting it to be on fire. But nothing of the sort, not even a glow. Just a brown stick. It did have a small fire shaped mark on the side of it. Len booby trapped a freaking stick. Who does that?! He only laughed when he saw the stick had moved.

The longsword wasn’t the only weapon we trained with. I took some of the spears and daggers the wild gremlins wielded. Had quite the stockpile now. Their quality was terrible though. Normally two or three broke every time I sparred with Len. How a metal dagger broke against a stick was a mystery, but I avoided thinking about it. Truth be told, training with them was more fruitful than the longsword. The mithril blade was too bulky for the fighting style gremlins utilized. Len said it was the reason I stood a chance against the gremlin leader all those nights ago. Its hubris and stupidity was its downfall.

I actually enjoyed Apis training. It was split between hand to hand sparring and running through the treetops. I tried to reenact what I could remember of that cheesy kung fu movie after finding a very bo-staff-shaped stick. But much to my disappointment, the staff felt awkward and unruly to use.

The freedom I felt while I jumped through the branches was almost indescribable. It was by far my favorite form. Not only was it incredibly fun, it had the nostalgic factor. It reminded me of my siblings. Tim would have loved running around the forest like this. And Gabby would complain but end up joining us and having a blast. Man, I miss them.

With the wind flowing through my furry head, I felt like nothing could ever stop me. That is until Len did. By throwing fireballs at me. Constantly. My beautiful midday run through the trees turned into a death defying climb through hellfire. Flames would burst among the branches while I was jumping through them. While mid-jump, Len would cause the branch I was aiming for to light up, forcing me to make clumsy midair evasions. These normally ended with me having a singed tail. Funnily enough, not a single tree burnt down the whole time. Leonard’s control of fire was terrifying.

The best part of my day was the evenings where I went hunting for food either in rock form by the river, ambushing poor little fish, or in log form waiting for unsuspecting squirrels to climb across. Squirrel hunting felt wrong at first but Len didn’t like fish very much. He said it was something about them being creatures of water and that bothered his fire nature. I think he is just picky. He certainly was about my training. It didn't bother me though, he saved my life and was giving me all this training. Least I could do was find some squirrels.

And was a nice change from the fish. I couldn't tell you how many pounds of fish I've had since ending up here. I miss tacos. And hamburgers. Fried chicken. Damn near any meat other than fish and squirrel. Even vegetables. I'd kill for some roasted Brussel sprouts.

We kept up this routine for another two months passed by, when I finally got my next level. Fall had come to the forest. A truly enigmatic sight. Each leaf painted with a different shade of red, yellow or orange. Aside from the patches of evergreens growing about.

But it also meant the nights were getting chilly. We moved our camp into one of the gremlin caves I cleared out earlier in the year. I quickly missed seeing the stars before falling asleep. They were different from the ones back on Earth. I spent many a summer under them so I knew the night sky pretty well. It was weird looking up and not seeing a single constellation. Gramps taught me nearly all of them. My favorite was Orion and his belt. Orion, the pinnacle of human hunters and slayer of beasts. Wonder if he trained by massacring groups of goblin like fiends.

The level up was nearly identical; three’s across the board, same as last time. And 20 to health, stamina, and mana. Pretty much the same level. Len wasn’t stupefied this time around, but he said something that excited me.

“Looks like we might make it to the city by the start of next year.” Relief and a small bit of anxiety coursed through me. My goal was finally in sight, but I was worried.

I hadn’t spoken to anyone other than Tutor or Len for months now. Am I going to be weird? Will I remember how to talk to girls? Man, I hope so. I enjoyed talking with them and teasing them. Feeling how soft they were. How their hair smelled. Mmm. A dopey grin grew on my face.

“What’s with that stupid look?” A harsh voice rang in my head. I jumped and shook my head. Yeah those thoughts are probably best left alone for now. I mumbled “Nothing.” But I continued to think about it.

Allie’s face flashed into my mind. A sudden rush of melancholy accompanying the vision. Before those thoughts rooted themselves any deeper, I walked over to the river and dumped my face in. The much colder autumn water shocked my entire system, immediately purging all the distracting thoughts.

Drenched, I returned to where Len was. He wore a confused look on his face but said nothing. He just pulled out his journal and wrote more notes with the same intensity as he had after the last level up. Probably a new training regiment to follow. I sighed.

Yay me.