Dark Matter Ascension

Oliver manifested next to him with a pop. "Well, crap. This is a bad starting position." He was still a river otter, floating in space; but he appeared to be made of shimmering starlight. Translucent. And he emitted light.

"Where are we?" Jace asked as he stood up.

Oliver closed his eyes and a moment later a map appeared floating in front of the two. It zoomed out until they could see an orbital view, represented in a phantasmal, blue color. There was a blinking, purple dot. "The purple dot is us." Oliver spun his paws, and the planetary map swirled in place until they were looking at the opposite side of the world. There was a bright, blue dot. "And that’s the portal to The Cosmic Corridor."

"How far is it?"

"About 1,250 miles. At an average travel rate of 20 miles per day, you will make it there in 75 days."

Jace gripped the bars of protein - ground-up bugs with a little bit of flavoring - and felt a rush of fear through his spine. With one bite every few hours I could maybe have enough calories to last me six days at the most. If I have to run from something then I’ll need to eat them faster. He took a deep breath and did just as his mentor taught him. In through the nose, out through the mouth. You’ve found food and water in worse places than this.

He looked up at the skies above. They were a light, soft purple. He could not see the sun from his current vantage point in the canyon. "Which way would be the fastest to get to this Portal?"

Oliver floated in front of him and pointed, "That way."

Jace cinched his messenger bag tight to his body and began trudging forward. Despite the prosthetic feet he could feel the coarse, crusty gravel below that his soles gently sank into before finding firm ground.

The walls around him closed in tighter and tighter, and he had to turn sideways and hold his bag over his head to squeeze through at the narrowest point. The black stone was coarse like pumice and scratched at his arms. He could feel parts of his clothing catch and slightly rip. "What’s the temperature going to be like?" he asked as cool wind blew through the crag and made him shiver.

Oliver’s eyes went black for a moment before they returned to normal and he replied, "It will be around fifty degrees Farenheit. It is the end of summer. Winter is coming. It will last for seventy days."

Great. Just my luck. Wrong side of the freakin’ world, it’s going to get cold, and I have no gear for surviving outdoors. He felt a long tear open along the back of his clothes as the rough rock scraped against his skin. "Just terrific!" he shouted in frustration as the situation he found himself in truly sank in.

A noise responded. A deep, sonorous, grinding growl that echoed down the canyon. "What did you do that for?" Oliver asked harshly.

Jace lowered his voice to a whisper, "It was a reaction, okay?" He heard roaring once more, and even though the canyon caused the noise to echo, he knew it was behind him somewhere. Crap crap crap! He kept wiggling his way through the crevice until he emerged from it.

A vast landscape spread out before him. A field of bright purple, yellow, and blue flowers interspersed throughout dark, grey grasses that swished in the breeze. The horizon off in the distance just caressed a setting trio of suns - one green, one white, and one deep orange. The light, purple skies above began to darken as the suns continued to set, and a set of roiling, black storm clouds began to move directly overhead. It was gorgeous. Unlike anything Jace had ever seen.

There was more plant life than he could imagine. Something out of the stories that the older street crowd used to muse about before the open spaces were all paved over for factories and housing.

He took in a deep breath of the air and could smell something he had only experienced once before. Clean, outdoor, fresh air. No smog cloying his lungs, no toxic smoke from the factories that bellowed out the nasty clouds that would hug the ground. It was refreshing and for a moment he forgot about his dire situation.

He was quickly reminded of that, however. The growl behind him brought him out of his reverie and he turned. "What is it?" he whispered.

"How am I supposed to know?" Oliver replied with a huff.

"You’re the Wayfinder. Interface with the System or something!"

"I am not clairvoyant. Once I see it, I can look up information about it."

It kept getting closer. Jace turned to the field and did one thing he excelled at. He ran. He ran as fast as his servo-assisted feet could carry him. The rocks he was treading on gave way to soft sod and soil as he sprinted through the flowers. If he were not running from some creature that was hunting him, he would revel in the feeling of actual dirt under his feet.

"Oh crap," Oliver muttered as he floated alongside Jace. "This dirt is going to make you slower."

"What?!" Jace shouted as he kept putting one foot in front of the other. "How?"

"It is a type of infused soil. Exceptionally fine, sand-like granules. It will gum up the servos and compressors. It holds moisture easily and will crust onto surfaces."

Crap! That’ll make me way slower. He spared a glance back and felt terror grip his heart as his blood ran cold. Jace knew in that instant what it felt like to be prey as the multiple, black eyes stared him down.

The creature fully emerged from the crevice. A sinuous, lanky, six-legged wolf-like creature. Its face and snout split down the middle, and he could see the two eyes on either side of the skull. The roar it let out as the snout ripped open to reveal a gaping tunnel of a mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth reminded Jace of a roll of razor wire. Its surface was covered with chitinous, black plates that refracted the fading bit of light. Jace turned away. Focus on outrunning it. Finding someplace it can’t get. Can it climb? Damnit! I don’t know!

"Oh, that’s what it is," Oliver muttered as he floated backward while Jace continued to run. "It is a Vyrknadine. A very vicious predator. This one is at the very top of Rank 1." He looked over at Jace with a grimace on his fate, "I’m not expecting you to survive. Guess it is back to storage for me."

"That’s not helping!" Jace shouted as he kept sprinting. His steps became heavier as the servos seized up, and he had to exert more force with each footstep. Sparing a glance back, he could not see the creature. The only indication of any motion was the softly swaying grassland as the chill wind kept blowing. "Where did it go?"

"They are ambush predators. It is stalking you in the grass." Oliver floated in front of Jace, on his stomach with his head held up by his little paws. "You are in some trouble here. Wish I could help."

Jace felt himself slow even more as his feet stopped their automated function. Now, they were just clunky, metal appendages that weighed him down. "Tell me how to beat it!"

Oliver sighed, "I mean, I doubt you can. But the ones that were killed were defeated by stabbing about six inches into the underside of it. Into the heart."

"How does it track?"

"Scent and sight."

Scent and sight. Okay. I can counter those. Jace skidded to a stop and threw his bag to the side. He quickly stripped down to his naked body and rolled back and forth in the sod and dirt. The soil was still damp and mixed with the sweat pouring from him he was able to efficiently cover himself with plenty of dirt.

Plus, because of the inert grey-goo infusing the soil, it crusted onto his body like a second layer of skin. My knife isn’t long enough to reach six inches, he thought. I’ll have to improvise on the fly once I see it up close. He knew that the dirt would mask his scent, the clothes would distract the monster, and he could stay low to keep out of sight. Use the environment to your advantage.

Growing up on the streets, Jace knew how to blend into his surroundings. Getting dirty was not a problem for him. Looking filthy and disgusting was a skill every street kid honed; great for avoiding the attention of gangs and cops trying to meet their quota. And he knew how to hide. The second-best skill a street kid could develop.

One more thing. He scrabbled over to his pants and pulled out one of the protein bars. He unwrapped it and threw it a short distance away before ducking down and hugging the dirt, knife in hand. He focused on steadying his breathing and closed his eyes - zeroing in wholly on his sense of hearing.

Something unique that he picked up from his mentor. The man taught him how to focus on one sense in a specific moment. Sight for keeping an eye out for good marks. Touch to be able to find traps and gaps in buildings. Taste to determine if something was safe to eat. Smell to identify toxins in the air. Hearing to keep alert while sleeping.

A skill that he had to learn. Years of practical use were continuing to pay off at this critical moment.

Jace could make out the soft, swoosh of the swaying grasses. The slight crackle of distant thunder. And the faint growling breath of this Vyrknadine. An apex predator. He had never heard anything like it; the closest he could compare it to was the roar of a souped-up street car’s engine. But it carried an anger. A lethal intent that sent shivers down his body.

"It’s right behind you," Oliver said as he floated above. "Do not move. It cannot hear or see me, so I’ll update you on its position."

Wasn’t planning on moving, Jace thought as he unfocused his senses and saw the grasses next to him parting and bending. The creature had no scent, and now that he was up close, he could see that the chitinous plates had plenty of gaps that he could sink a blade into. It went over to his clothes and began pawing at the garments before moving on to the protein bar. After sniffing it, it gobbled the substance up.

I could wait, Jace thought. I could just hide and wait for it to move on. That was the smart thing to do. Wait for it to move on. Not risk his neck fighting something he was in no way prepared to fight.

"Oh, would you look at that," Oliver muttered in surprise. "The Cosmic System already has a Quest for you. Normally those are restricted until a day has passed. Ah, Shhiv-zal put in a bypass request for you. You should thank her when you get to The Eternal City. Here, I will show you the quest."

The System message box appeared, but thankfully it filled only the bottom-right corner of Jace’s vision instead of flooding his whole vision.

<<<<<>>>>>

[Quest: Defeat the Vyrknadine.]

[Time Limit: 10 minutes.]

[Reward: Epic (Hidden Location) Boon.]

<<<<<>>>>>

Oliver chuckled, "Wow. That is neat. You must have made a great impression on her. Maybe because of your motive for choosing Aspirant? Low-level System operators like her do not normally put in these types of bypass requests. You should definitely visit her when we get to Khrox. Her personnel file says her favorite snack food is ghantos-pepper wings."

Jace wanted to ask how the hell he made an impression by asking questions, receiving answers, and just being polite. But he knew that being quiet was essential to living at that moment. I can figure out later why she’s taken an interest. Jace felt the fear slowly melting away, replaced by an excitement that he might survive this whole encounter. Hidden Location? A place to hole up? Supplies and maybe even weapons? He had not seen a source of water when he first walked out here, and he had no clue about what would be safe to eat or not.

Hell, it was a completely different world. The risk is worth the reward. He flexed and unflexed his muscles, slowly warming them up as the creature continued to pad around and nose through the clothing before it arrived at his satchel.

It stood there, pawing at the bag. This is it! Jace slowly pushed himself up off the ground and into a crouch, following the trail of trodden dirt the creature had made in its travel through the grass. He got right behind the predator that was easily twice his length - and it had not noticed him.

Palming the knife, he took a fast, quiet breath as he jumped onto its back.