Opening Moves (The Gam3 Book 1) (43 page)

As soon as the sword attempted to strike the two purple nuclei attached to the slime absorbing Alan’s energy, a small electrical shield formed around each purple ball, repulsing the lightning strike. The slime suddenly detached itself from Alan, splitting it itself in two, one nucleus in each of the halves. They each began rapidly absorbing the bodies of all the slain slimes around them as Void tried to fry them with lightning, splattering bits of slime everywhere.

Each strike was similarly repulsed. With a sweeping strike Kitana managed to nick one of the purple nuclei, but it simply split into two blue nuclei instead of being destroyed. Meanwhile, the other slime’s nucleus turned white after it absorbed most of its dead brethren. The moment the next lightning bolt struck at it, it absorbed the energy, turning black!

“Oops,” Void murmured, dismissing the lightning blade as the slime leapt at it in an attempt to absorb the energy.

As soon as the blade disappeared, the slime landed on the floor then leapt backwards at its spawn! The slime body was now the size of a large truck and moved just as quickly. It absorbed the smaller slime’s bodies. Then, the black nucleus shot forth as fast as lightning and devoured the two blue nuclei. It quickly turned on the rest of the small slimes with red nuclei that Void hadn’t finished off.

By the time it had finished devouring the rest of the slimes it was the size of a small apartment, taking up almost the entirety of the twenty foot wide stone walkway. At this point, the black nucleus had divided itself in three, and the slime had gained the title Unstable Experimental Warden.

The gigantic amorphous slime turned its attention to the players. It lurched backwards, preparing for a leap forwards. Alan fired a couple of shots at the slime, but the laser bolts barely penetrated a couple of feet into the slime's body before dissolving.

“Well, that was my only offensive skill, so, um, I’ll leave the rest to you guys,” Void said nervously, backing up behind the group.

Alan glanced towards the others, who were resolutely staring at the slime, showing no sign of backing down.

Kitana held her katana before her as a visible blue flame condensed itself in an aura about her sword. The waves of energy surrounding the sword were so powerful they began to create pulsing waves of force that blew her hair and loose fitting robes backwards.

Meanwhile, Aurora pulled out the knife and wooden stake that Alan had seen her carrying when he first met her. She cut herself, and as her blood began to drip onto the stake it too began to gather power, a red aura glowing about it.

Meanwhile, the pulsing green veins of energy that swirled about Sidestep’s armor like miniature veins began glowing more brightly, condensing at Sidestep’s feet and hands.

Activate hypercognition,
Eve commanded. Alan immediately did so.

Good, this is a great opportunity to give you an overview of the basic categories of psionic attacks and abilities. The abilities you see before you are an example of each category, almost as if someone wanted to conveniently explain things to you.

Um, right. Shouldn’t I be doing something to, like, help them?

There isn’t much you can do. Anyway, moving on. You see before you spiritual, blood and technological psionic abilities. These are the three main categories psionic abilities can be divided into.

Alan watched as the slime leapt forward in slow motion, continuing to listen to Eve’s explanation.

First you have the blue so called “spiritual” power that you see surrounding Kitana’s blade. Spiritual as in the power of one’s fighting spirit, not ‘ooooh there’s a scary ghost’ spirit. This is what most people think of when they think of psionic ability, a sort of magic that bends forces to the user's will. In the case of spiritual power, psionic energy is essentially the same thing as mana. All of Aurora’s attacks you’ve seen so far have been spiritually based. It is the most common form of psionic power, with about 75% of all psionic users using this type of ability.

Alan watched as Kitana took a step forward, and with a downward slash unleashed a magnificent arc of blue energy that cut through the slime’s membrane like butter. The energy continued travelling straight through the slime gelatin until it crashed into one of the three black nuclei. Alan saw a momentary shield arise in front of the nucleus, then break under the attack’s pressure. The nucleus flashed, from black to white to purple to blue before it finally exploded.

Eve continued the lecture, ignoring the awesome display of power.

I believe Void’s earlier attack was a subset of spiritual power, dependent upon a god’s energy, but I’ll give the lesson on the so-called gods another time. Just think of it as an energy banking system where acolytes and priests give up energy to a god, but then at a later time can call upon the gods to provide energy to them. How these gods actually work within the Game is a rather complicated issue that hasn’t been quite worked out.

The slime started to reform the tear that the blade had caused, but before it finished Aurora pointed her stake tip forward at another nucleus. A red beam of light shot out like a death laser. It completely incinerated all the slime it passed through, obliterating it from existence, unlike Kitana’s attack which had simply cut through the substance. It hit a nucleus as well and immediately vaporized it, continuing to pass through the slime like nothing. It continued all the way out the other side of the slime, and Alan watched the beam fade away into the distance.

Anyways, moving on to psionic abilities tied to blood, which I will depict as red within the game. While most of all spiritual psionic abilities can be learned by anyone with sufficient talent, blood abilities are generally hereditary, only usable by the race that trains in them, and only if they have the correct bloodline. It varies from species to species, but generally the blood forms a sort of catalyst and/or energy source to power their psionic abilities.

While generally these abilities are more powerful and more easily used than spiritual psionic abilities, there are weaknesses associated with this method, such as the need to be able to easily draw blood. Blood is also a limited resource, and it takes longer to regenerate than energy, even in-game. It can also be hard to use when fighting in space. Futuristic solutions that replace blood is not sufficient for such abilities. Instead, it has to be blood created by the user’s body, so there is a long “cooldown” associated with such abilities. Blood based abilities account for perhaps 15-20% of user’s powers. Most of the Predecessors’ psionic abilities are blood-based.

Sidestep, crouching beside Alan, launched his attack immediately after Aurora’s. He began sprinting forward, then started to move faster and faster until his movements were blurred even from Alan’s perspective. His feet, legs and hands all glowed a bright green as he charged straight into the slime. This was not teleportation, but speed. His hands began to claw through and scoop away the slime’s insides, flinging it to the side as Sidestep made his way through the membrane.

In an instant, he reached the final nucleus. All of the green energy condensed onto his hands, forming a claw-like shape. Sidestep began striking at the nucleus rapidly, thousands of blows raining down on it each second. It wasn’t long before the shield around it failed, and the last nucleus was destroyed.

The final category of psionic powers, technological, which accounts for the final 5-10% of user’s powers. Started by experiments trying to augment people’s psionic abilities by energizing them, a new branch of psionic energy was created. This technologic/psionic hybrid type ability usually involves a risky operation that allows for a person’s psionic energy to better merge and interact with technology, or at least that’s the general idea.

If unsuccessful, a person’s ability to use psionic powers may be permanently damaged. As Sidestep demonstrates, it allows for powerful technologically based powers to arise. As the psionic energy is in fact energized through technology, it requires a charging source of some kind instead of naturally recharging, and is thus costly in terms of energy.

Now, of course there may be general outliers, or even those who use a variety of abilities from different branches of the psionic powers, but those aren’t too important. The ability that Elissandra displayed was of this type I believe, and if I am correct, she uses a combination of all three branches of psionic abilities, which would explain how she was able to become one of the most powerful psionic ability users in the game. Her daughter Aurora has demonstrated both spiritual and blood-based abilities, but I don’t believe she can use technological psionic abilities, at least not yet.

The gigantic mess of slime and gelatin crashed to the floor, much of it spilling off the sides of the stone walkway, and a message popped up before Alan.

Eve continued the lesson as Kitana, Aurora and Sidestep, all dripping with sweat and exhaustion began to recover themselves from the attacks they had unleashed.

Now, the rank of a psionic attack can generally be determined by how it looks. The lowest form of attack is a small colored ball-type energy attack, at rank F. The next rank is generally being able to manifest an element, like actual fire or ice, or lifting a small, singular object up with telekinesis. At rank D, you began to have AOE attacks, manifestations of walls of flame or ice. Rank C psionic attacks are generally the same, just larger in scale and more powerful, almost as though you could control the elements at will.

At rank B energy begins to manifest itself in the form of a gas, glowing like you just saw. These types of attacks are generally overwhelmingly powerful. Energy liquefies at rank A and these types of attacks are able to be used in ship vs. ship combat, though they often require the concerted work of multiple psionics. That is also an issue with some of the more special psionic abilities; it is difficult to find people whose powers mesh well with yours. Finally, energy is rumored to become solid matter at rank S, capable of forming nuclear-like explosions and attacks. And that concludes the basic overview of psionic attacks. Any questions?

Um, not really, other than how am I supposed to get that sort of attack?

Extremely advanced and powerful technology, or some sort of miracle weapon.

Alright, cool. Thanks for letting me know that.

No problem.

Rolling his eyes, Alan deactivated hypercognition and then looked up to find Sidestep and Aurora staring at him.

“Um, sorry I wasn’t much help that fight, you guys can have first choice of the loot that the boss dropped, I don’t really need anything as I didn’t contribute much,” Alan said, eyes downcast, looking abashed.

“No, it’s not that, though I think I’ll take you up on your offer,” Sidestep said, “It’s just I think that as you’ve seen our ultimate moves, you should share what yours is.”

“My ultimate move?” Alan repeated.

“Yeah, we’re all friends here that will be working together in the future, right? The more information we know about each other’s capabilities the better. What’s your special ability?” Sidestep asked.

“Um, well, I don’t exactly have an ultimate move, I was ready to accept my fate and die.” Sidestep snorted, but Alan continued, “And... and even if I did have such a move, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’d share it with you. My master or, well, my knight, Phantom told me not to divulge information to anyone, and that includes you.”

“Oh, so that’s the way it’s gonna be then, is it?” Sidestep said, taking a step towards Alan.

“Drop it,” Aurora said in a commanding tone. “It isn’t important, and Phantom is secretive. Not even I am sure what he does.”

“Yes milady,” Sidestep replied in a somewhat exasperated tone. He turned around and went up to the nucleus he destroyed, examining what it dropped.

Aurora turned to stare at Alan. “I do trust that you will not share what you saw with anybody.”

“Of course,” Alan said.

“Very good then,” Aurora responded, smiling brightly at Alan, who blushed slightly, looking away.

He found Void standing right next to him, somehow making his way within an inch of Alan undetected. Void whispered, “Remember you can always tell me and the bunny gods your secrets.”

“No thanks,” Alan said, backing away. He quickly walked over to Kitana.

“So, um, nice job! Where did you learn that attack, by the way?”

Kitana shrugged. “You’ve seen me use it before in the tutorial, right? This was an improved version. The psionic energy and martial arts I learned fused to form some sort of sword arts.”

“Oh, cool. By the way, um, what did the slime drop?” Alan asked curiously.

Kitana lifted up her hands, showing a circular black crystal about the size of a small coin and a bottle of slime with a small red nucleus, looking subdued.

“Ooh! Now that might be worth a pretty penny,” Void said, appearing once more right behind Alan, looking over his shoulder at the items Kitana was holding up. “The black crystal probably holds a platinum mark’s worth of energy, while that bit of slime or whatever it is might be worth something as either a pet or resource gatherer, depending on its ability to gather energy.”