NOVEL FROG Chapter 332 - Racing Across The Plains
Fortunately, no one argued when Eric shouted, “Hold your breath and run to your right!” so with only a minimum of coughing, tearing eyes and disorientation, they sprinted past the inferno near the entrance that didn’t really bother Eric but had his teary-eyed friends weazing, coughing and crying, Eric not hesitating to scoop up Emily when she took an accidental breath and nearly collapsed. Fortunately, a couple second’s hard sprint and they were out of the kill zone. Soon, his five companions were taking gasps of fresh air only slightly tainted by black smoke, rapidly looking around with wide, frightened eyes as they got their bearings.
Jack whistled. “Jeez, you weren’t holding back at all!”
Eric shrugged. “I just did what needed doing, and no, I didn’t put out the fire or even try to. This makes sure that any asshole goblins that try to skunk us when we pop back out of the rift will be the ones smoked out. Because our lives are worth more than pretty trees that are part of an Orange territory filled with abominations hungry for our flesh, and I’m including gnolls and goblins in that definition.”
Emily, despite having been hit the hardest by the thick, black, acidic smoke, looked the farthest thing from reassured. “We have to go back.”
Richard gave her a concerned look. “Emily...”
“Ron, we have to see if we can find him! If there’s any chance he made it...”
Her words died off when Rich wrapped her in a reassuring hug. “You don’t have to worry about that, Emily. He’s not trapped in the dungeon.”
Emily’s eyes widened in sudden comprehension. “I’m an idiot. You’re the party leader, so of course you know! I just assumed that since we’re so far apart… we’ve never been forcefully split up like this before.”
Richard solemnly nodded. “Turns out you don’t even need to be in my sight for the gift to work. Which is convenient, and something we should have tested months ago.”
“Know what, exactly?” Eric asked.
“Whether Ron’s still with us or not,” Steven said, giving his friend a thumb’s up. “It’s one of the reasons why he’s our party leader. Not only is he a tank with what we think must be a full set of meridian nodes he can fill, he also has party buffs and interface enhancements as a part of his class that cost him nothing at all.”
“So what’s the status of Ron? Is he hurt somewhere and needs our help? Fleeing some beasty? Past tense?” Jack asked, ignoring Yuki’s scowl and the way Emily wilted, fearing the worst.
Much to their collective relief, Richard’s smile didn’t waver. Indeed, he pointed in the direction that Eric was sure was east… yes, according to his interface, it was east. “He cut across the territory successfully, and he’s heading North at a walking pace. Fortunately, he’s sent me no distress messages. Or any messages, for that matter. Anyway, his pace and direction probably means that he’s safe in white-tier territory and is heading back to New York City.”
Yuki gave Emily her best smile. “He’s probably heading back to your family compound, Emily, to let your father know that we made it. Remember, we can all communicate through Richard just like Contenders can communicate with each other and all the bigwigs, thanks to your boyfriend’s super sweet class and perks.”
Emily seemed to melt with relief. “Thank god. I was so worried! After all he’s done for me and my family, the thought of him lying in some unmarked grave…”
“You know Ron, Emily. I’m betting he’s perfectly fine,” Richard assured.
“But he’s heading back to the city,” Steve calmly noted. “If that goblin wasn’t lying to us… and it probably was lying about a lot of things but I doubt it was lying about all sorts of bad dudes wanting to punch our collective ticket.”
Emily groaned. “Fuck, you’re right. Why’s he going back? We should warn him.”
Jack scowled, before flashing Eric an apologetic look. “I’m not sure if that will do any good, Emily.”
“But Jack, it’s dangerous!”
Jack sighed. “Let’s not kid ourselves. We all know how Ron feels about Eric. And I’m going to be honest, I don’t envy having those two shooting barbs and threats at each other for the next 200 miles while we’re just trying to get to friendly territory without getting obliterated by swarms of Orange tier seventieth level beasts and abomination.”
Emily’s expression tightened. “It’s just a misunderstanding.”
“Ron hate’s Eric’s guts, Emily. Sorry, there’s no getting around it.”
Before Emily could say anything else, Richard gently squeezed her shoulder. “I sent him an interface message. Told him to be careful, that the rest of us got out okay, and to send me a message when he can.”
Emily sighed, before finally dipping her head. “Thank you, babe. Please let me know the minute he responds. And since New York is most definitely off the table for the rest of us… maybe we should get going?”
Yuki frowned, taking a careful look all around. “I don’t see any signs of goblins, and the hairs on the nape of my neck aren’t prickling in alarm.” her tension eased as she dared a thin-lipped smile. “Good. Now if only we could get someplace safe where we could actually rest and celebrate just surviving that madness without having to worry about ambushes or getting eaten by high level monsters on the way...”
“I know just the place. Best of all, you can all relax and take it easy. Just leave the driving to me!” Eric declared with a flourish as he summoned forth his latest creation.
“Debilito gravitas unus dies!” The nearby trees rustled with the reverberating echoes of his runic chant. He ignored the whistles and soft curses of his friends as the massive amalgamation of flesh and bone that he had carefully sculpted inside his ES Space to resemble a velimobile as closely as possible with the addition of fins that were almost wings and a half-dome of interwoven bones that would hopefully protect against rolling and random monster attacks. The whole thing was reinforced considerably by both his class, his essences, and runes for strength and resilience saturated with his own blood that he had carved into the frame.
He couldn’t help beaming with pride at his creation.
“So, what do you guys think?”
Much to his dismay, the reaction seemed to be mixed.
“Looks fucking wicked, Necromancer King!” Steve quickly assured with an eager thumbs up.
Jack smirked, cracking his neck. “Yeah… this isn’t exactly flying below the radar, Eric. You do know that, right?”
Emily rosebud lips eased into a concerned frown. “Um… Eric?”
“What’s up, Ems?”
She frowned at that, but let it pass, even if Rich raised an eyebrow at Eric’s new nickname for his girlfriend.
“When you said you could get us to Freetown in style… that we wouldn’t have to spend the next few days at a forced march through multiple Orange-tier territories while making our way to Freetown on zero sleep...”
“I mean, I could always make us a reinforced necro castle,” Eric said, “especially with all the stone blocks I saved from our original fort. But considering all the assholes gunning for us, I’d like to get you all to a safe zone as soon as possible. I’m sort of recommending that we avoid sleep in the meantime so no more goblin shits can ambush us, and I’m hoping that with almost all of us now at Level 49 we won’t have any problems staying awake for a day or two?”
Emily flashed a reassuring smile, her golden locks flashing in the reflected light of the afternoon sun. “No, Eric, we’re grateful for any safe zone you can bring us to that’s truly safe. Even your idea of using a veli is perfect. But this, well...”
“Sure as fuck isn’t a veli,” Yuki declared with a smirk, her enchanted naginata resting casually in her grip.
Eric’s expression fell. “What do you mean it’s not a veli? It’s perfectly a veli! If has the fins, the sleek design, the optional bone grill and racing fins! See, look! It’s even levitating!.. Oh shit, hold on.”
Rich crossed his arms and sighed while Eric wrestled his veli back down when the breeze started blowing it towards the still crackling rift entrance. Eric couldn’t help wondering if there was some sort of arcane draw. At least the pull was slight, since the veli was still massive, even if nearly weightless, and the flashes of ebony midnight darkness and pearlescent sheen of color coming from the rift through the smoky haze definitely looked a lot more stable to Eric’s eyes than it had before.
“So, I’m guessing the diplomacy option is totally off the table?” Richard asked.
“There,” Eric said, deciding to ignore the question because diplomacy was most definitely off the fucking table, and he didn’t even know what Rich was referring to, nor did he care. Because as far as he was concerned… all orcs, goblins, gnolls and every other invading psychotic shit had to die. He just had to be smart enough to hold off on things until his mother, who was also a bitch but at least she was his mother… finished claiming her 400,000 or so troops.
He was careful to say none of these thoughts aloud as he finished wrapping his rope of essence-infused minotaur rawhide to the bone frame he had fastened upon the back of his armor that didn’t hinder him at all but secured the rope attached to both him and this bone veli. Best of all, if trouble came, a single twist and he was free to do whatever he had to do.
“We’re all ready to go!” His smile fell. “Guys, seriously. Hop on, we’re running late.”
Richard gave him a pointed look. “Eric...”
“What?”
“Aren’t you forgetting about the decree against necromancy?”
Eric paused to give his friends a look. “Seriously? After all that those fuckwads did to screw you over and kill us all, you’re still going to jump to their tune?”
“That’s not fair and you know it,” Yuki snapped. “It’s one thing to be okay with you trying to claim New York after our play. Those fuckers broke their oaths, good and proper, and my foundation feels strong as fuck, even with that declaration. So hell, I might even join you! But a little bit of territory conquest is a hell of a lot different than getting a dozen aligned powers that now make up the former USA to come down on our asses all at once!”
Eric nodded. “Sure, I get it. But you’re all forgetting something.”
“And what the fuck is that, Eric Orcbane?”
“The stricture, at least in gnollish, was specifically against revenants. This isn’t a revenant. It’s a construct. If we’re going to outlaw using corpses as construction materials, a million people including the gnolls are going to be fresh out of leather boots, jackets, quivers, arrows, bow strings, and pretty much everything else.”
Eric’s smile grew at the looks his friends were giving him. And how awesome was it that he could honestly consider them friends, now?
He gave his veli an affectionate pat. “When you get right down to it, this is me just using my harvested kills the same as any quality craftsman would. And when you consider the leather interiors on all the best cars and velis, there’s hardly any difference at all!”
Rich’s gaze narrowed. “Eric, that thing looks like a necromancer’s levitating chariot. Not a high-end velimobile.”
Eric shrugged. “Form versus function. So I have a bit more style than the gnolls do. So what? The point is that it’s not a revenant...because believe me, I could make us some wicked steeds if that was on the table… and it will get us from point A to point B, just fine.”
Steve’s eyes lit up like that. “Wait, you mean you could make us some badass midnight black undead stallions like all the best soul-reavers in Skydragon ride?”
Eric smirked. “What do you take me for, an amateur? Of course I can! And mine would be massive tuskers that are ten feet high at the hocks with lots of comfy padding over their bones so your ass won’t be sore in five minutes like it would with a skeletal mount. But apparently those guys are off the table,” he said with a mock glare for Richard who had crossed his arms and was adamantly shaking his head.
“No, Eric. We are not riding on those tuskers you used to slaughter all the orcs in Queensland.”
“That was an awesome fight!” Steven said with an awed smile Eric’s way. “You took out what, like 10,000 orcs that day? Oh, I can’t tell you how much me and Jack were silently cheering you on, even if Emily and Richard’s parents were screaming and shouting with all the other blue bloods of New York, terrified that you were going to come after us, once you took out Freetown.”
Jack nodded. “Yup, that was their fear. But it was more like 20,000 orcs, right? And you never did take over Freetown, let alone head to New York.” He then winced under Emily and Richard’s looks. “Before um… now, that is.”
Eric shrugged. “Well of course I wasn’t going to hit Freetown. That’s Blue Corp’s home base in this area.”
Emily’s eyes widened with alarm. “Wait, Eric, if Blue Corp is aligned with the goblins...”
“Then we’re truly fucked,” Jack said with a groan.
Eric smirked, shaking his head. “Believe me, if they had known what absolute backstabbing fucks the Bloodtear syndicate would prove to be, I seriously doubt they would have had anything to do with them. But… yeah. I’m only allowed in the Blue Quarter, and I promised Caliban I’d play nice with those little assholes, but only in Freetown. Everywhere else? It’s game on!”
Richard blinked at Eric’s casual declaration. “You mean Lord Caliban, one of the most powerful Bronze-tier representatives here on the North American Continent, only allowed here at all because of Blue Faction’s revered neutrality in regards to all planetary ascensions?”
Eric grinned. “I knew Cali was holding back! I mean, if he could summon Bronze troopers to help me cart my gold and they’re allowed on Earth, it only makes sense that he is too.”
Emily turned to her boyfriend. “He called Lord Caliban… Cali. And after my father was sweating bullets just getting ready to meet with him about a trade deal...”
Rich gave her a sympathetic nod, holding her close.
Yuki smirked. “You two look disgustingly adorable. You should get married already. And I told you this cat was absurd.”
Eric patted the side of his veli, ignoring the increasingly strained looks his friends were giving him. “Come on, let’s get going! I want to see how fast I can go while dragging you all behind me.”
Jack snorted. “You really think you can drag us along like Santa’s reindeer? Sure, Eric, give it a shot.”
Emily’s brow furrowed, but Richard’s gentle squeeze of her hand eased her hesitations. She stepped in, looking more surprised than she wanted to admit that the seats were just as soft and plush as Eric had promised they would be.
Steve followed, his lips curving into a grin. “Fuck, you can do this? Awesome! I swear if it wasn’t outlawed, I’d so want to be your disciple.”
Eric smirked. “Trust me, that edict won’t be lasting too much longer. You guys all comfy?”
“No! This thing is tilting!” An alarmed Yuki hollered before yelping adorably when she was jerked down onto her seat as Eric began racing across the plains, ignoring his friend’s startled shouts.
“It’s okay! It won’t tilt once we pick up some speed!” He shouted, no determined to see just how far he could push himself, eager to feel a burn in his thighs for what would be the first time in ages as his jog soon turned to an easy run, keeping an eye on his interface map even as he allowed himself to slip into the zone, feeling just as exhilarated as he used to while jogging along nature trails in upstate New York, what now felt like a lifetime ago.
Of course, not everyone was content with a relaxing jog.
“Those fucking mutant bears are chasing us, Eric!” Jack screeched, earning a laugh from their driver.
“I know. I’m hardly even running, and they can barely keep up!”
“This isn’t a game, Eric!” Yuki snapped. “I don’t want to be trapped in here if you fucking crash and the bears swarm you!”
“Good thing I have no intention of crashing then, isn’t it?” Eric snarked, and whatever Yuki was going to say became a breathless curse when Eric leaped over a gully, earning a couple panicked shouts even as he effortlessly cleared the jump, as did their veli, with the advantage of mass and fins.
“What the fuck, Eric?”
Eric smirked, his normally enthusiastic friend Steve, who otherwise liked the edgy dark lord lifestyle, was clearly not a fan of leaping over deep gorges and feeling his stomach lurch.
“Just giving our friends something else to contend with!” Eric cheerfully declared, and indeed they left the now massive swarm of enraged bears far behind… until new ones picked up their scent and began to chase them with savage fervor. “Oh look, new jogging buddies.”
“Eric!”
“I’m kidding, Yuki. Relax.”
But Yuki did not relax, not even when his interface pointed him to other cleverly placed ridges and ravines dotting the area, Eric soon making a game of how many bears he could leave bunched up at any given canyon face before leaving them all in the dust, only stopping when his friends made it exquisitely clear that no one else was enjoying his game.
“Alright, we’re leaving mutant bear territory,” he declared a short while later, smirking at the swarm of roaring howling abominations still trailing the velimobile as they left the outskirts of the pine forest far behind, rapidly approaching a fresh region comprised of endless sprawling grasslands and absolutely massive conifers with a sharp spike of humidity.
“I knew they couldn’t run for shit with all those extra arms!” A pleased Eric declared. “And look, they won’t even cross the boundary between regions! They’re ire immediately shuts down and they just go ambling back to whatever the fuck they were doing before, as long as we’re at least half a mile beyond the outskirts of the region. No wonder some clever cats were able to hit level forty and such just by sniping from a neighboring territory. How cheesy! I totally approve!”
Eric happily noted that his friends seemed okay, for the most part, having long since forgiven his earlier escapades when a bone ice chest filled with ice-cold drinks and sandwiches had revealed itself for their culinary pleasure. And his vehicle hadn’t broken to bits, so maybe it was finally time to pick up some serious speed.
“Alright, put away your snacks, guys! Bone drink holders should have formed right beside you. Eric Silver airways is about to take off!”
Eric steadily began increasing his pace, grateful to sense the fins keeping his custom veli that Yuki so wrongly called a bone death trap perfectly level, without any roll. And even if he was using his Flesh Sculptor and general Necromantic Abilities to will their vehicle steady, without allowing it to start whipping about chaotically for more than a couple seconds as he blitzed across the endless plains filled with fearsome aggressive wildlife like a child flying a kite, he counted it mostly a success. He wasn’t using that much energy, and his friend’s screams had finally stopped.
Finesse check made! You manage to stay on your feet!
Though he did frown when he almost lost his footing, the supernaturally levitating Veli that was still quite massive and weighed down by his friends and a smidgen of his will was definitely proving harder to handle as air resistance increased sharply. Which might have made the ride a wee bit more bumpy, but at least he was finally beginning to feel a good burn in his quads and glutes for the first time in ages.
“Eric, what the fuck!” Yuki screamed from the vehicle. “We almost went airborne! You were floating in the fucking air!”
“Awesome!” Steve could be heard cackling. “We’re going over a hundred, easy! And fuck, what are those giant… Eric! T-Rex’s are coming our way!”
Eric smirked, gazing in the direction he sensed his friends pointing, having no doubt someone was exaggerating just a bit. There were any number of bipedal theropods besides the tyrannosaurus, after all... He then blinked, catching sight of the towering monstrosity, the creature’s nostrils flaring as glaring red eyes looked Eric’s way.
He felt a sudden icy knot in his stomach, his heart skipping a beat as the massive creature roared and began lumbering their way, nowhere near as colorful as some modern interpretations declared them being. Rather, the monstrous beast with jaws gaping as wide as Eric was tall was was a mottled green and brown hue which actually blended in quite well with the plains they were traversing… or would have, if it wasn’t so massive.
“Fuck, you’re right, Steve-O. That is a T-Rex!” Eric ignored his friend’s surprised shouts. “Guess we shouldn’t be surprised. This is North America and the dinosaurs ruled this continent for over a hundred and fifty million years, long before we were ever here, so it makes sense that the Ascension remembers their footprints, ha ha. And where better to pour out some of Earth’s overambundance of sweet, sweet potency than by bringing those beasties back to life and infusing them with delicious high-level goodness?”
“Go back, we have to go back!” Emily screamed.
“Relax, historians pin it’s speed at around ten miles an hour!” Eric assured. Before frowning, because the T-Rex in question was no longer just lumbering their way. It was blitzing across the plains like an out-of-control locomotive, a shower of grass and soil flying in its wake.
“That’s a Pre-system T-Rex. Pre-system! We don’t know how fast those fuckers are now. And what happens if you trip or we take a tumble?” Jack screamed.
“Good point!” Eric shouted back. “Roboro ventus attentio!” Eric chanted over long seconds of his friends alternately screaming or demanding he stop so they could prepare themselves for a fight. Then he felt a powerful breeze at his back and suddenly it was so much easier to race forward, wind resistance cut down to just a fraction of what it would otherwise be, even if he had to concentrate on this chant while racing faster than ever to keep his veli from pitching in the air, earning fresh screams and angry shouts before he successfully leveled it out once more as his speed hit 150 mph according to his interface, which was when he summoned a second breeze at an angle that both pushed him down and forward, giving his quads even more of a delicious burn and keeping him firmly on the ground.
“Fuck, it’s working!” Emily breathlessly declared. “The T-Rex is breaking off his chase!”
“That sucker’s in the dust!” Jack hooted. “Even if it was going a hell of a lot faster than ten miles an hour...”
“Told you it would work!” Eric said as he gazed about with sheer delight at the odd fusion of modern day plains and ancient Cretacious wonders; waist-high grass was interspersed with massive conifers and giant-sized ferns dotting the humid plains, the endless fields dotted with flowering plants that he was sure were far larger than their actual historical counterparts, with bright yellow and white Marigolds and Eucidots making up the large majority. Of course Eric was no expert. There could be a hundred different varieties and breeds of flowers that to him just looked like a beautiful windswept grasslands filled with massive brontosauri reaching with their long necks for the tops of enormous ferns soaring at least ten stories in height while tyrannosauruses and similar streamlined killing machines raced across the endless fields in search of easier prey.
Like Eric’s veli, though it was now racing many times what even magically enhanced dinosaurs could hope to match, probably due at least in part to wind resistance that had a hell of a lot more impact on their massive frames than his own, and Eric was cheating with multiple wind enchantments and a gravity one as well.
“This is fucking insane! My interface is pinging us as now going over one hundred and fifty miles an hour!” Steven hooted. “I love it!”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Emily sobbed.
“Me too,” Richard said with a groan.
Eric snorted and rolled his eyes, savoring the warm golden afternoon light from the clear blue sky, a delicious contrast to the fierce wind whipping back the hair that slipped free of his helmet. “We just survived multiple ambushes and death traps! Don’t tell me you’re going to let a little belly ache get in the way of the ride of your lives?”
Of course they couldn’t actually hear him over the howling wind. Fortunately their group-chat made that a moot point.
“Eric! T-Rex just ahead!” Jack cried out before the air flashed with crimson lightning.
“Sanguis Fulmen! Sanguis Fulmen!” Eric shouted, and the T-Rex just ahead of them on an intercept course for their veli abruptly lurched aside when lightning seared its eyes and tore at its face.
“Fragor!” Eric roared a heartbeat later, taking fierce satisfaction when the giant-sized head exploded, showering his friends in dinosaur gore.
“Fucking hell, Eric!”
“Sorry, Yuki!” Eric’s cheeky grin as he raced through the plains became a wince. “Fuck, I’m sorry, did I catch you guys in the blast again?”
There was a painful silence and the sound of retching.
“Not that bad,” Yuki finally allowed. “Even if there’s some blood trickling out of my ears, fucker. And that was all it took to get Emily puking… and fuck, I’m covered in dinosaur brains. I am so getting you for this, Eric Orcbane!” She declared, before the air filled with the sound of her wretches and Jack’s laughter.
Eric grinned over the sound of his friends good-natured and not so good-natured grumbles and curses as he picked up his pace and continued to race for all he was worth, savoring the sheer rush of the miles absolutely flying by, the waist-high grasses thankfully pressed flat before him thanks to what were probably hurricane force winds he was concentrating so hard to keep at just the right angle.
“How are you guys doing back there?”
“Terrible! When the hell are we stopping? Now I’m going to be sick” Jack groused.
Eric smirked, finally well and truly feeling the burn… yet knowing better than to stop, surrounded by massive sauropods and hyper-aggressive theropods, and knowing as well that him racing through the grasslands at an absolutely insane 150 mph was probably their greatest measure of safety. By the time any creature sensed their presence, they were already roaring away before said creature could fight or flee.
“We’ll stop when we get to the edge of the territory!” Eric said between breaths.
“And when the hell will that be?”
Eric inhaled to belt out a witty answer before nearly freezing in shock when a quick look at the interface map he had in the upper left hand corner of his mind’s eye revealed something that chilled him to the quick. “This is fucking insane.”
“What?” Steve breathlessly asked. “is something wrong?”
“There better not be anything wrong, Eric!” Yuki snapped.
Eric swallowed, forcing himself to say it. “You all know we’ve been racing along at crazy speeds, right? You guys are hearing me as much through the party interface as over the shrieking sound of the wind blowing past you, and that’s with my own constant breeze minimizing wind resistance for me and pushing down the grass. Otherwise I wouldn’t be going nearly this fast!
“Yes, we know, what’s your point?”
“My point is that we’ve already got eighty miles under our belt!”
Dead silence from his friends.
“Wait, Eric!?”
“Yeah, Steve?” Eric said between breaths.
“I thought… wait… aren’t White-tier territories like twenty by twenty miles… or roughly 400 square miles or something… but Orange tier can be up to 40 by 40 miles normally… right?”
“That’s my understanding.”
“Is this territory like some stretched out noodle?”
Eric shook his head, instinctively adjusting himself against the tension of the leather rope tying him to the veli flying his friends like a low-hanging kite. “Nope. I’m pretty sure that it’s square shaped, like many if not most of the New York territories except for the white-tier ones on the coast.”
“Then what the fuck is going on?” Jack shouted over Steve’s continuing questions.
Eric shook his head. “I don’t know. But we’ve already traveled twice the length of a standard Orange… and according to my interface, we’re no more than halfway across.”
Steve groaned. “Oh no, that means the Earth’s surface area is expanding with the planet’s ascension, just like in all the cultivation novels I used to read.”
“Are you sure that’s what it means?” Eric asked.
“No he’s not,” Richard interjected. “None of us know what it means. All we know is that the sooner we leave this oversized territory filled with way too many T-Rexes and other bipedal predators glaring at us like upright-walking crocodiles...”
“You mean the Spinosauruses beside that swamp over there?” Eric helpfully clarified, steeling a look at a pair of predatory eyes glaring at them from the swamp’s edge… though making no attempt to chase prey moving as fast as they were.
“Yes, exactly!” Richard snapped. “So let’s get the fuck out of here now and worry about the metaphysical later!”
Eric eyes abruptly widened, feeling, for the first time, a jolt of fear as he caught a glimpse of something he wish he hadn’t seen. “Okay guys, enough horsing around. Now we’re going FAST!”
“Oh no, please, Eric, I’m already going to...” Emily’s words were cut off when a low reverberating rumble they could feel in their bones, vibrating through their teeth edged into audible decibel levels that had the entire regions erupting in the shrieks, caws, and howls of countless herbivores and predators alike.
“What the fuck was that!” A panicked Jack asked.
Eric didn’t both answering after he caught just a glimpse of the massive theropod that had made the roar. An unspeakably vast Tyrannosaurus that absolutely towered over even the giant ferns, that Eric glimpsed from countless miles away.
Despite the distance, the creature towered over them all like a mountain, filling Eric with a sort of reverential wonder that left him breathless.
And despite the distance, the massive red eyes, pools of hellish fury, fastened in him, sending shivers through his soul as he immediately broke off his gaze.
“Fuck! Fuck! There’s a giant dinosaur, and it’s chasing us!” Steve screeched.
“Oh god, we’re going to die. We’re going to die!” Emily sobbed.
“Eric, go faster!” Richard roared, his voice filled with desperate panic, to which Eric responded in the only way he could.
Intensifying the wind on his back and pressing him down as he increased his pace yet again, air coming into his lungs like bellows as he made full use of his Speed Racer perk, and absolutely tore through the grasslands, no matter that the ground began to shake with the crashing footsteps of a true behemoth, belting out a second roar that made the ground shake and Eric’s ears bleed.
Yet not once did Eric slow, no matter how his friends screamed or cried out, no matter how intent the crashing pounding footsteps of his would be executioner or how fiercely his own quadriceps burned with exertion unlike anything he had suffered in months or years.
Wheezing for breath, making full of his Unified Restoration node to clear lactic acid buildup and repair skeletal-muscular stress and injury beyond what even his insane Vitality would normally allow, Eric demanded his body move faster than he ever had before.
Strength modified Finesse Check made! Quickness check made! You have successfully pushed yourself beyond all previous limits! You have achieved 200 MPH while five of your newest friends are at the absolute mercy of a contraption never built to survive the abuse you’re giving it!
Eric didn’t even have the energy to smirk at his interface’s cheek. All he could do was force his desperate gasps into disciplined breathing, making full use of his diaphragm as he pushed himself like never before. Slipping ever further into the zone until there was only the endless moment of him racing across the plains, one with the agony in his legs, one with the bone and leather veli he did his best to keep steady and smooth… one with the majestic panorama of endless fields, filled with countless flowers and Cretaceous abominations and the most spectacular sunset Eric could imagine as one mile bled into another before, miracle of miracles, Eric raced across the barrier between territories, the hot humid air quickly cooling off with a sudden breeze, and they were surrounded by far hillier terrain with pine forests all about, the air suddenly alive with the wild howling call of canine predators that had always lived concurrently with man.
“We did it. We’re out of there!” Jack hooted.
“Jeez, it’s suddenly cold! I swear the terrain changed faster than traveling up and down hills and mountains in Skydragon!” Steve exclaimed.
“Can we stop now?” a wan Emily pleaded.
Eric had slowed down long enough to catch his breath and for the agony of legs burning with exertion to fade as he took on an easy loping stride of a ‘mere’ hundred miles an hour. Even he had felt a sharp spike of fear at the thought of encountering the massive behemoth that would have certainly doomed his friends.
“I wouldn’t recommend stopping right now, Emily. Considering that there are two mega-wolf packs converging on us right now.”
“You’re fucking kidding!” Yuki hissed, to which Eric could only shake his head.
“Infravision and interfaces don’t lie. If we’re lucky, this territory won’t be an absolutely insane 160 miles in diameter like the last one was.”
Eric smirked at the growing howls, even as his friends began cursing profusely.
“I think it’s time we stopped, Eric. Give us time to hunker down and prepare for these shits,” Richard said.
Eric grinned. “Sorry boss man. I can’t hear a thing over the wind.”
“Eric...”
“Do you really want to risk getting swarmed in the dark by countless packs? I know you could handle the dark just fine in the delve with the minotaurs, but these are wolves that specialize in hamstringing and ambush tactics.”
“He’s right, Rich,” Yuki said. “If this crazy cat can actually sprint us all the way to Freetown… let him. We’ve done enough killing. When’s the last time we actually got a good night’s sleep?”
The air grew silent, save for the mournful howl of the wolves.
“If you’re sure you can keep it up, Eric,” Richard said at last.
“Only thing I’m sure of, is if territory bosses are all the size of that hundred foot tall fucking dinosaur, I want no part of it! Not yet, anyway.”
Richard snorted. “Fair enough.”
Emily groaned. “Please, Richard. I can’t go another hour like this, sick to my stomach, smelling like my own vomit!”
Eric sighed. “Look back in our little bone ice box that didn’t jostle a bit during our journey! You’ll find a dozen fresh, ice-cold elven meads. Just, um… ignore the bone bottles. It’s the good stuff, I promise.”
“Eric?”
“Yes, Yuki?”
“I meant to ask you this awhile back… but did you somehow stretch your ES Space to the point that you could summon a chest full of ice-cold Elven ales in this bone veli while you’re racing about at a hundred miles an hour?”
“And restock it on the fly?” Emily said. “Because this elven mead wasn’t here before!”
“How’s your stomach, girls?”
“Doing flipflops, like it’s been for the last fucking hour!” Yuki snapped.
“Then how about you stop asking stupid questions and have an ale on me?”
“Asshole.”
Eric grinned. “I know. Hope you feel better, Yuki. You too, Emily. Drink up, everyone! You’ll love it, I promise.”