Predator - Chapter 28

The stairwell barely tingled as Bruce ascended to the first floor.  It was like receiving a static shock.  For a second, the hair on his arms stood on end, and then he was back in the maddening familiar tunnels of the maze.

A quick scan with Eyes of the Void revealed the area around him, and unsurprisingly, Bruce was in a completely unknown section of the Labyrinth.  He didn’t even know where the canyon was that he’d fallen down to start this entire mess.  Frankly, it could be anywhere.  Distance was compressed at the lower levels.  His time blindly fleeing monsters on the lower levels could have easily resulted in him traveling hours if not days away from where he’d started.

“No Maddox,” he observed, breaking into a jog.  “No shades or little green squirrels either.”

“That might save us a hard decision,” Kassar said darkly.  “Ideally, we would find him up here, slay his borelite parasite and dissuade him from reporting on what he had seen, but if he has died on his own without our support, that means we do not have to face the upsetting prospect of you needing to kill your companion.”

“I’m not going to kill Maddox,” Bruce snapped before pausing a second to calm himself down.  “Look, we’ll be able to figure things out by talking.  Even if I have to detain him for a bit, I’m sure I can resolve this with words.  Also, stop wishing him dead.  That’s just morbid and gross.”

“Fine,” Kassar responded.  “You know my position.  I will only bring it up if we need to make a decision.  Hopefully that will not be necessary.”

Bruce bit his tongue.  Over the last couple days of massacring chameleon slimes, the prospect of what they would do if he ran into Maddox had come up several times, all of them leading to short but sharp arguments.

When.  When he ran into Maddox.  Bruce shook his head, trying to clear out the negative thoughts.  He knew exactly how dangerous the Great Predator was, but Bruce couldn’t let himself dwell on that.  Maddox would be fine because he had to be.  Bruce’s disintegrating grip on sanity required it.

“New subject,” he said, scanning the labyrinth and once again coming up empty.  “Why in the hell is the first floor so deserted?  The last time I was up here, it felt like every corner and side passage might be my last.  Now, it’s basically a ghost town.  It’s underwhelming really.”

“After spending time in the depths, returning to the upper levels will feel empty.” Kassar replied.  “There are roughly the same amount of monsters, but they are spread out over a much larger area.  If you thought the second floor was boring now that you’ve gained some strength, I have bad news for you about the first.”

“Great,” Bruce grumbled.  “After two days of scrounging up enough EXP to go on a buying spree, now I’m stuck wandering around lost for God knows how long.”

“You should still make sure to pay attention,” Kassar chided.  “Even if the monsters on this level aren’t much of a threat, the borelites are certainly dangerous, and they’ve been active in this area.  It would be just like them to try and hide behind an illusion and strike you while you are occupied with shades.  Of course, with Eyes of the Void, that shouldn’t be a problem unless you aren’t paying attention, so the answer is simple.  Pay attention.”

“Then I guess we’ll have to find a way to make things interesting,” Bruce responded.  “Maybe I should try to find some shades and try out my new abilities?  I haven’t had a chance to use any of the new patterns I bought after grinding out EXP on the second floor.”

Bruce felt a sly smile slip onto his face.

“Of course, we could always try something else.  Maybe a rousing game of ‘I spy’ or ‘twenty questions?’  They may not be particularly interesting, but they sure help you kill time when nothing is going on.”

The alien snorted a reply.

“Just use your new patterns Bruce.  It’s clearly what you want, and it will certainly be more interesting to see how you incorporate low level combat patterns into your fighting style alongside your newly increased strength and agility.”

He walked for another two minutes with no changes in his surroundings other than finding a sanctuary room at the far end of his perception.  Nothing but unending hallways winding in spirals and turning back on themselves.

“Nevermind,” Bruce said lightly.  “I’m still bored.  Kassar, I spy with my little eye something gray.”

The alien hesitated for a moment before responding.

“How exactly does this game work?  It doesn’t seem like it is any better than shuffleboard, but I want to make sure that I’m not missing anything.”

“It’s a fairly deep game with a rich history and complex rules,” Bruce replied, trying to keep his voice from breaking.  “Although you can learn the basics in a day or so, mastering them can take a lifetime.”

“First,” he continued, “I spot something.  Then, I tell you what color it is and you have to guess what I saw.”

Kassar waited for Bruce to explain further.  When he didn’t say anything, the alien cleared his nonexistent throat.

“Go on,” the alien prompted, “what happens if I guess what you are thinking about?  Are there rules about the hints you can give me?  Maybe a time limit?  A physical challenge?”

“No,” Bruce replied, unable to stop himself from cracking a smile.  “Once you guess what I’m looking at, then you get to look for something and make me guess what your object is.  We just go back and forth like that until one of us goes crazy and storms off.”

“That’s… it?”  Kassar asked, incredulous.  “That sounds miserable.  I would rather recount stories of the Rigellian War, stories that I’ve gone over in my head hundreds if not thousands of times since my death, than suffer through that.”

“That does sound like more fun actually,” Bruce said with a disinterested shrug.  “I spy was never really supposed to be fun.  It was more of a placeholder to keep us busy while our cellphones recharged than anything.”

“Then I shall tell you the story of the battle of the Spakkan Gap.”  Kassar took a deep breath, entirely a theatrical choice as the ghost didn’t actually need oxygen.  “Nesshur Three was a mountainous world filled with deep valleys where the air was too thick to breathe and tall peaks where there wasn’t any real air at all.  Only warriors could fight in those extremes with colonies carved from the world’s massive cliff faces.  It is about fifteen days travel at the twentieth level of the Labyrinth from here.  At the time of the Rigellian counter offensive, well before the borelite betrayal, it was a colony world, but a well developed regional hub.  The Spakkan Gap marked one of the deep rift valleys that separated one of the Labyrinth exits on the world from Karakum, the capitol city-”

“Wait,” Bruce interrupted, raising a hand.  At the edges of his vision, three shades were walking at a slow pace down an empty hallway.  “I’ve spotted some monsters.”

“That doesn’t mean that I need to stop my story,” Kassar said with a sniff.  “They’re at least five minutes away.  There’s no reason why you can’t hear about the glorious moment where I single-handedly held back a Rigellian mechanized battalion long enough for reinforcements to burst through the Labyrinth entrance and attack them from behind.”

“I’m sure it’s about as interesting as my stories about camping in a jungle for three days after insertion in order to shoot some guys that were retreating after a cruise missile volley forced them to flee their fortifications,” Bruce said, voice distant as he tracked the shades.  “I was so hopped up on adrenaline that I had trouble sleeping the night before it went down, but the actual fight was so well planned out that the story is just boring to anyone who wasn’t there.”

“My battle tales are not boring,” Kassar sulked.  “They are filled with intrigue, scintillating conflict, and glory.”

“Right,” Bruce replied, summoning his armor, hammer and shield.  “I’m sure that they are.  I’ll be happy to listen to them in just a minute, but for now I want to see this battle through without any distractions.  If I’m listening to you, I might get too wrapped up in what you’re saying and lose focus.”

“Fine,” the alien said unhappily.  “I know that you’re just saying that to make me feel better, but I’ll hold you to it.  As soon as you dispose of the shades, I will regale you with my exploits until you find more monsters or the exit from the predator’s depths.”

Bruce nodded, doing his best to keep a sour expression from his face.  Listening to Kassar ramble about his exploits was better than the unending walls of the Labyrinth, but not by a lot.  With any luck, he’d be able to find his way out of the Great Labyrinth in the next couple of hours.  If not, it would be time to listen to the Battle of the Spakkan Gap for the- Bruce cocked his head to the side, trying to count the past incidents- sixth time?

Luckily, it didn’t take him all that long to find the three shades.  They weren’t hunting so there were none of the auditory hallucinations designed to help warn new travelers.  Rather, the glowing purple shapes were flowing across the ground when Bruce snuck up on them.

He took a deep breath, preparing himself for the new pattern.  Psychic potential bubbled to the surface, and Bruce forced it into the brand new ability.  Flames erupted around him, and an unseen hand planted itself in the middle of his back, sending him hurtling, arms and legs pinwheeling wildly toward the three monsters.

They spotted him immediately.  It was hard not to when his screaming and flaming body was flying toward them like it had been shot from a catapult.  The three monsters readied an attack only for Bruce to smash into two of them with the force of a meteor.

The pattern hardened the Armor of the Stellar Knight, doubling the strength of Bruce’s armor for a second and letting him safely use his body as a projectile.  The excess energy exploded outward in a wave of fire and plasma, burning the two shades into wisps of fading smoke in the blink of an eye.

Bruce plowed through their dissipating bodies, crashing into the wall with bruising force and a groan.  He rolled over onto his back.  There wasn’t any serious injury to his face and chest, but a webwork of thin cracks in his chestplate and a steady ache were insistent reminders that using the tunnel walls to stop the sudden acceleration from Solar Flare was a poorly thought out idea.

A flash of purple looming over him brought Bruce back to his senses, and he snapped his shield into position in the flash of an eye, barely in time to stop the remaining shade from slashing him with a glowing claw.

His shield pulsed with light, and Bruce felt a trickle of energy leave his body as his newest ability, Burden, activated.  The monster sagged, its movements slowing to a crawl as the gravity around it spiked from the power of the pattern.

According to Kassar, one stack of Burden wouldn’t do much to higher level monsters, but every time an opponent hit Bruce’s shield, the gravity around them would increase for the next ten minutes.  For low level monsters, that meant immobilizing them after only a couple of attacks, but even for higher level enemies, as a fight dragged on Bruce would find himself moving and reacting quicker and faster than his opponent.

He slammed his hammer into the ground, activating Shockwave.  The shade stumbled backward, falling to all fours as Burden compounded its sudden loss of balance.

Bruce hopped to his feet, crossing the distance between himself and the monster in a single step before slamming his hammer down on its head.  The attack would have killed a creature three or four levels lower in the Labyrinth with ease.  For the shade, it was beyond overkill.

“Acceptable.”  Kassar’s voice echoed from nowhere.  “You’ll have a couple more chances to smooth out your control over your new abilities before we manage to find the exit, and I’d advise you to focus on becoming comfortable with them, especially Solar Flare.  As amusing as it was to watch you accidentally throw yourself into a wall, against a stronger opponent, it could be a problem.”

“Yeah,” Bruce replied with a nod, willing his hammer and shield to disappear.  He kept the armor.  As weak as the shades were and as unlikely as he was to be caught off guard by a surprise attack, the glowing suit of protective gear served as a welcome safety net.  Something comforting in the absurdly dangerous world hidden inside the Great Predator.

Plus, it didn’t really use that much mental energy.  There really wasn’t much of a reason for Bruce to turn the ability off outside of the annoying glow it produced.

“Now, where were we?” Kassar asked.  Despite not being able to see the alien, Bruce just knew the ghost’s face was plastered with a smug smile.  “Spakkan Gap.  One of my most heroic moments.  Of course, there were many other battles where I had a chance to show off my valor.  I didn’t just become a legend overnight after all.  Luckily, it seems like you have nothing but time as you search for the labyrinth’s exit.  It seems like I will be able to regale you with most of them.”

Bruce bit back a groan.

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