TAKE ON ME [Survival LITRPG Apocalypse]

Hana struggled to keep herself together after Blake's outburst. She wanted to stay and comfort Tess—who was clearly in pain—and she needed to calm Bo before he had a meltdown. But all she managed was a quick kiss on the cheek for each of them before dashing back to their home.

Overwhelmed by uncontrollable visions, Hana saw herself with no natural limbs: only monstrous bones attached to her diseased, pustule-covered body. The vivid images were all she could concentrate on. She nearly fell to her knees as she imagined her loved ones recoiling from her in disgust. Her heart tightened, and she stifled a scream with her undead Pygmy arm prosthetic. Horrified, she spat out the taste of bone as fresh visions tormented her. Whimpering, Hana raced toward the house.

Blake's right. We have to get out of here before I become a monster.

She burst into the Robinsons' [Crappy Shack], and slammed the rickety door behind her. She crashed to the wooden floor.

In the corner lay her hideous collection of fossilized bones. The dim early morning light filtered through the gaps in the stick walls, casting eerie, elongated shadows over them.

Hana gritted her teeth, wiped away her tears, and did her best to catch her breath.

What is happening to me?

She was grateful for the rare moment of solitude.

So—of course—one moment later there was a knock at the door.

"Hana? Hana, are you here? Are you all right? It's Chloe."

"Yeah, uh, now isn't really the best time."

Hana looked up; Chloe was already opening the door and letting herself inside.

"Yeah, I can tell. I'm sorry for just barging in, but I think I can help. Can I just sit with you for a minute?"

Chloe approached slowly, almost like Hana was a nervous deer she was afraid of startling.

Hana blinked away another revolting vision. She pushed herself up into a kneel across from Chloe, who was settling into a cross-legged sitting position.

Chloe reached out and took both of Hana's hands. She didn't flinch at the touch of the bone hand; that alone was enough to help Hana stop trembling.

Chloe closed her eyes. A soft grayish illumination began to brighten behind her closed eyelids. Her eyebrows scrunched together as she grunted.

"The sickness abilities and bone prosthetics are really getting to you huh?" Chloe said through gritted teeth.

"How do you know that?"

After a few moments, Chloe said, "I've figured out that when I'm using my [Mental Bastion] spell, I can temporarily destroy the fears that cling to people. I first learned I could do it in the Spider Dungeon."

Hana sat in silence with Chloe for several minutes, until Chloe spoke again. This time, her voice was pained. "I totally get it, with the bones and the dark class stuff. It really gets me down sometimes too, but these fears are different, though. They are stronger. I felt them dang near across the town. Did something happen? These are not like the others."

Hana was slowly beginning to feel the ease in her chest, and she was able to take a few deep breaths. "Thank you, Chloe. That is so much . . . Chloe! You're bleeding!"

Chloe blinked a few times, and wiped her sleeve across her nose. "Yeah, I take damage when I destroy the fear monsters. Yours are especially hard to kill. Where were you when this happened?"

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Tess, Bo, and I were down by the memorial area, and then Blake . . . "

Now that Chloe had removed her 'fear monsters'—whatever that meant—Hana was thinking with a clearer head. "I . . . think Blake cast a spell on us. I was fine, then Blake began to yell at us. At first, I was pissed off beyond belief, and then one second later I was on the verge of a panic attack. I need to check on Tess and Bo. I think he hit them with the same spell."

"You really think he would do that? I know he's a giant jerk and hates everyone, but to actually attack someone with his spells? These 'fears' are much more potent than the self-inflicted ones, but how do we know for sure?"

Hana bit back a spike of irritation. She was on the verge of saying she was pretty damn sure, when another surge of images overwhelmed her. In this sequence, half of her face was gone, revealing a piebald skull underneath. Pieces of shriveled flesh still clung to its empty eye socket.

Hana drew a sharp breath through her teeth, and shut her eyes against the image.

"Crap, I'll get it Hana! Just a second."

Hana took a series of quick, deep breaths, her fists clenched, as she waited for Chloe to perform her magic. Hana didn't fully understand what Chloe was doing, but she could definitely sense when it was successful. One moment, the half-skull image loomed over her: the next, it vanished.

Hana opened her eyes.

Chloe was covertly checking herself for a nosebleed, which thankfully she didn't have.

Chloe smiled at her. "Any better? If it was a spell, there might be residual waves like this. I think it might be better if you stay here, and I'll go look for Tess and Bo to make sure they're okay."

Hana nodded. She wanted to rush out and check on her family, but if Chloe was right and there were more waves, then she didn't want to collapse in the middle of town.

"What should I do?" Hana asked.

Chloe shrugged. "Do something to engage your mind, and keep your thoughts off Blake."

Hana's new Level 5 spell—[Osteology] —was a passive skill under her [Hag] specialization. It had imbued her mind with an overwhelming amount of knowledge pertaining to bones and how they embodied the essence of their creature of origin. The sheer volume of bone information was staggering. Not that she really felt like thinking about bones at the moment, but she supposed she could sit and try to mentally organize the information.

"Okay, yeah," said Hana. "I have some spell stuff I could go over."

"Oh yeah, speaking of that, I've been thinking . . . about your abilities, I mean. The way you used the Headless arms to modify your [Sickness] spell into [Malnutrition]?"

Hana glanced sidelong at her Chloe, one eyebrow arched in question. "Yeah?"

Chloe hesitated, seeming to gather her thoughts. "Is this rude? I hope not. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to backseat drive your class, but I wonder if we're not taking full advantage of your spells. The way your [Debone] spell is described, it sounds like you can merge the bone's properties with any of your [Witch] spells, not just [Sickness]."

Hana nodded slowly. "Yeah. So far I've kinda just merged the bones with [Sickness], to be able to quickly use the spell. I suppose I've just gotten comfortable with the synergy between [Sickness] and the bones I've encountered so far. Boar bones give me [Swine Flu], Headless bones grant [Malnutrition], and Goblin arms give [Goblin Shiverpox]."

"Exactly!" Chloe said, her eyes lighting up with excitement. "But think about your other spells: [Radon Light]; [Infection]; [Contagion]. Who knows what sort of combinations you could create by merging different bones with each of those?"

Hana felt a trickle of unease. She hated working with the bones. It felt so . . . macabre? Not evil, necessarily: just dark. If the suggestion had come from anyone other than Chloe then she would have been offended: but Chloe understood Hana's issues with her class better than anyone.

"I found out a lot about my class by just sitting alone and working through prompts and testing ideas," Chloe said. "I know you're busy, but if you get time to experiment with other combinations of bones and spells, I bet it would be worth it." Chloe's words tumbled over each other in an excited rush. "And who says, during a fight, that you can only use one arm at a time? Could you cast [Malnutrition], drop the Headless arm, connect to a Boar arm, and apply [Swine Flu] to have both variations active?"

Hana was silent for a few moments.

"Sorry, maybe not my place. I was just thinking out loud, I guess. I better go check on Tess and Bo. You okay to be alone for now?"

Hana thought about what Chloe had said. Her ideas were good: as much as she hated to admit it. Maybe her new [Osteology] spell could provide insight into the creatures' traits.

"Yeah. Thanks, Chloe. I'll be fine. I'll stay here, and maybe practice my spells. Please go check on my family for me."

Chloe nodded, gave her a quick hug, then headed out of the Shack.

Hana stood and moved over to the corner of the room. She grimaced as she carefully ran her fingers over the scaled surface of the massive amputated arm of the Troll they had fought the previous night, its elongated fingers curled into a permanent rictus. Hana had asked Tom and Bo to drag it into the Shack when no one was looking.

Hana took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, doing her best to dispel her unease.

Chloe was right.

Hana would dedicate some time to methodically test different bone-and-spell combinations. With five [Witch] spells that could be modified, and all the different monster species . . . the possibilities were endless.

Hana mentally flipped through her new [Osteology] bone knowledge and cross-referenced that with her [Hag] spells. To start the bone-spell process, she would use [Debone], which would cause the flesh to slough away, leaving only stark ossein in its wake. But this was merely the first stage of what she now realized was a ritual for forging a bond with the creature's essence.

Once [Debone] was finished, she would get the prompt for enhancing her [Witch]-based spells, but now she was aware she didn't have to choose at this point. She would ignore the prompt.

With the bones stripped clean, she would then turn to [Bone Graft], which reached out with tendrils of her own mana to lace the bone pieces together with magical strings of tendon and sinew, which fused her mana to the bone. It was during this step that she would connect with the creature's essence.

The [Fossilize] spell was cast next, acting as a durability enhancement on the skeletal remains. The spell caused the bones to harden, halting any decay, securing her magical sinew and muscle, and entrapping the creature's essence.

Finally, she would attach the assembled skeleton to her own body, magically grafting it in place as a [Bone Prosthesis]. The foreign essence would flood through her, intermingling with her own magic. Only at this point would she access the prompt and select which spell to merge the bone's essence with.

Looking around at her ever-expanding collection, there were a lot of different possibilities.

It was time to get to work.