The Games We Play

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryugii. This has been pulled from his Spacebattle publishment. Anyway on with the show...errr read.

Success

I threw myself towards the Goliath, rushing straight through the attack to reach him. Having moved a second earlier thanks to the warnings of my senses, I covered most of the distance before it even unleashed the blast and flew through the rest after but a few moments of exposure. My body heated from my adamant skin to far deeper and for a moment I felt like I was being boiled from the inside, but the sensation passed as I escaped the attack and smashed into the beast's forehead. I struck it with all my might and I drove it back, its mighty legs carving trenches as they were forced across the ground.

Immediately, the Goliath's trunk curled up to reach me, black fluid flying from the tip before it was even in place. Levant formed a body behind me and erected a barrier of wind to shield me from the attack as my soul shifted, tiger like limbs forming and raking the Goliath with tooth and nail. The dark liquid splattered around me and on the ground far below, immediately frothing wherever it connected with the latter. In moments, Grimm began to pull themselves from it, many of them flying species probably meant to reach the Goliath and heal its wounds—but this time, I was ready for that trick.

Vulturnus and Suryasta coalesced in the air above the newborn Grimm and fell upon them. Suryasta grabbed one by the throat and dragged it as dark mist began to boil forth from its mouth and nose, squeezing down to shear through its neck and strike another monster. My fire Elemental waded fearlessly into the fray with his bare hands, assured by the fact that his very body was made of searing flames. Whatever he touched burned. Whatever touched him burnt even more. He'd reach out to stick fingers into the flesh of the Grimm, planting points of light like seeds and moving on without paying them any more heed, leaving them to try and claw futilely at their chests and limbs. In the end, it made no difference; flames erupted forth from their flesh, eyes, and throats as the seeds grew larger inside them, growing into orbs that melted flesh around them like wax.

Though he had seemed to enjoy showing off against Pyrrha, he was taking a slightly more minimalist approach now, probably thanks to my request not to be wasteful. As it was, most of the deaths he caused were probably still needlessly extreme, but he was dispatching the Grimm quickly with a relatively small drain on my HP. As long as I could maintain the White Tiger of the West, I could burn my easily restored HP instead of my far more precious MP, so I let him do his thing and destroy the Grimm on the ground.

Vulturnus handled the air. The Lightning Elemental's expression changed between instants, but though his presence in my fluctuated too quickly to make out anything intelligible, I thought he was laughing. His right arm shifted until it was a seething mass of electrical energy that was only vaguely human—it was too large for his body, with oversized, sharp looking fingers. His left arm dissolved entirely, becoming nothing more than a constantly forking stream of lightning that struck the Nevermore from the sky, seemingly at random. Though I gave him no more than a glance, I could see 'paths' in the air, hundreds of invisible lines that weaved through the air like a net and then resolved into a single strike whenever a line was touched.

Though they formed right beside the Goliath, none of the Grimm even came close to reaching it, much less heal its wounds. I nodded to myself, content that they'd be able to handle any created minions, and so focused on my own task—trying to dig through the Goliath's defense.

It was going…slowly. I had to curl my claws around the edges of armor plates instead of into flesh, because the Grimm's hide was no longer so easily penetrated. If before I'd been like a cat clawing at a person's skin—dealing a small but potentially dangerous amount of damage, especially when attacking as much as I did—now it was like I was clawing at steel, unable to leave anything meaningful upon it. I pounded it instead, relying on blunt force impacts as my Elementals protected me from distractions, but…

It wasn't enough. I felt the Mountain's Strength in action, boosting my might even high above the lofty heights I'd managed to reach until each blow rang against the armor like thunder and drove the beast further and further back—but it wasn't enough.

What I needed, I thought as I broke off to climb swiftly up the Goliath's face, were better claws.

I hadn't had a chance to test it yet, but…it was worth a shot.

Getting into a better position upon the Goliath's back and holding firm with phantasmal limbs as it tried to shake me off, I reached into my Inventory and withdrew one of my precious Dust crystals. I'd chosen yellow after a moment of brief deliberation; red, its nearest competitor for what I had in mind, seemed unlikely to work on the Goliath, while green and blue would need for care to make work. No, of the Elements I had experience with, Lightning would probably be the most effective to start with.

I took a breath and slammed it to my chest, right over my heart. I felt my pattern adjust to take it in, responding as I'd learned from my grandmother's gift, and the crystal slipped through my fingers to vanish beneath my skin. I had a moment's pause to brace myself before the agony took hold, like I…well, like I was being electrocuted. My nerves went haywire, muscles jerked and twitched at the shock—and then it eased, my body taking it in.

Dust Eater—one of the two archaic forms of Dust manipulation my grandmother had provided me with. It was the process of infusing Dust into one's own body, much like Dust Weaver was the act of sowing it into clothing; arts that had been mostly left behind by the more convenient and controllable methods of powder and rounds. Bodies would be strained, clothing would fray, and in both cases the process of replacing Dust as it was used was tedious or painful. But for me…

My heart glowed, light shining through my skin with each beat, pace quickening by the moment. In seconds, one flash all but faded into the next and trails of yellow light spread down my limbs in glowing patterns. My heart pounded in my chest faster then I'd ever felt before, beating so hard it seemed to hammer the inside of my ribs, but I felt power, too, running through my blood like a circuit on full blast.

And then it reached my Aura.

In an instant, it changed—white light giving way to yellow and then became lightning. As the power of the Dust crystal writhed over my skin, the shape my soul had taken shifted once more. It went wild, my second tail unraveling into a wicked lightning bolt while the rest became a storm, a vague shape with features written in blinding light and racing arcs. I leapt down from my resting place and back down to face the Goliath, ghostly limbs extending as I landed on a tusk, tails wrapping around it securely. And then, like a lightning bolt, I struck; energy of my tail flowed down into the bone of its tusk while clawed fingered extended towards a single glowing eye. It was as hard as it looked, more like the polished rock it resembled than anything vulnerable—but it was softer, at least compared to its armor, and I poured every watt of electricity I had straight into it even as I clawed at it fiercely. The power flowed from the core of my body in a stream that made my body sizzle and I had to bite down a scream, but I guided it into the creature's flesh all the same.

With a clap of thunder, its eye burst, exploding into pus, steam, and a dark fluid that flowed down its mask even as the tusk I'd stood atop cracked from within. The Goliath screamed, for the first time sounding truly pained, and shook its head madly to try and throw me loose.

I go of let it, flying away at the peak of a shake, curving in the air with a moment's aid from Levant as I withdrew a green crystal. Encouraged by the amount of damage Lightning had caused, I took more of the Dust into myself and my Aura, only just returned to normal, unraveled into wind to a brief feeling of coming undone. In that moment, it was like I was standing in the center of a tornado or a hurricane—the touch of it against my skin was almost peaceful, but I could see the storm of it all, especially through the eyes of Levant. I stood on the air with my own power and then strode through the skies on all fours within a tiger of wind.

The Goliath reacted as I came down upon it. Its trunk swept at me but I slipped over it, flowing the path of displaced air as if it were an actual road. The Goliath planted its feet as I struck, as if bowing against a storm, and then unleashed a cry as it swung its trunk up, blasting at me with radiation. I slide into its blind spot easily, sliding past the side of its head and leapt onto its flank. Whereas before I held on to it with my tiger claws and struck with my human hands, here we switched tasks; I hovered with my wind-shrouded human hands and feet mere centimeters above its skin and ran under its belly and then back up the other side. My tiger's limbs trailed claws as my tails fanned, doing little damage.

That was fine. They weren't supposed to.

Halting for an instant, I unleashed the storm with a roar and it struck hard, following the course I'd set. I hit the Goliath's side as it did, pushing against it with all the force I could muster as the winds gathered beneath and against it. Levant added her power to the process with a beautiful laugh and perhaps that was the breaking point, for at last, the Goliath fell, crashing to the ground like an avalanche.

I came down on its side like a meteor, flickering between its body and platforms in the sky to strike it again and again. It tried to struggle to its feet, but its large body made the process awkward and I did absolutely nothing to help. In fact, I did my absolute best to try and make things as hard for it as possible.

Speaking of which…

I paused for just a moment, landing upside-down on one of Levant's platforms and then crawling to stand on the other side. With a gesture, I fetched my grandmother's gift from my Inventory and gazed at it ponderingly. I'd already used four Dust crystals—two to restore myself fully and now two for this—but…no, this tactic was working; it'd probably take less Dust in the long run to end things this way. And beyond which…it was really cool. I'd done it with Lighting and Air to awesome effect, though Fire probably wouldn't work quite as well in this case. I wasn't sure how Water would manifest, but it probably wasn't the best choice for this situation, either. I still had a fair number of yellow and green crystals, but…perhaps I could try something new?

I glanced over the colors, several standing out to me. A part of me had wanted to see what status effects they'd grant me, but…I could just buy more or ask my mother or grandmother to. If it was just a single sample, the cost wasn't that big of an issue. So, then, perhaps…

Sliding my thumb over the smooth crystals, I decided.

"Purple," I said with an eager smile, crawling back under the platform as quickly as I'd gone over and holding onto it with my claws as I brought a hand to my heart.

My white aura flashed pitch black and then everything nearby fell into the sky.

Everything that wasn't planted in the ground rose into the air and began to revolve around me. Stray leaves, dirt, the cooling lava in the nearby pit, large boulders, and even the massive Goliath—it didn't matter how heavy they were, because I wasn't fighting against the pull of gravity—I was redirecting it. Around the black form of my tiger self, a wide sphere began to form, keeping everything at a short distance but floating helplessly around me otherwise.

I Lunged down to earth as quickly as I could, power shifting to allow it, and as I touched the ground everything on that side of my sphere slammed into it at the same speed. I rose back to my platform in a blink and came down again just as fast, over and over and over again. The Goliath, my enemy and target, bore the brunt of my attack, crashing into the ground with each leap. A fall from such a height meant little enough to me, but for something like an elephant, even a normal fall could tear away skin, such were the size of their bodies.

The Goliath was bigger than an elephant. A lot bigger and a lot heavier. Take the square/cube law into account and…well, long story short, it had a lot of mass. For something that size, slamming into the ground at the speeds I was capable moving at was an enormous threat—doing it dozens of times, far more so. The ground broke as it fell with me, the cliff side breaking as I leapt again, and then I set up a pattern, trapping it between rocks and hard places. It carved massive furrows in the ground with its body as I ran through the forest, set fissures racing through the ground as I brought it down on mighty trees again and again, and was generally battered as I pulled him along for a wild ride.

The Goliath tried to fight back, to struggle against my hold, but it was as futile as…well, as trying to fight gravity. It had nothing to hold onto, nothing to stop its rise or descent but the cruel, cruel ground below, no way to even adjust itself in its orbit. Without any way to fly or restrain itself, it was powerless against my pull and I used that to its full effect, wielding it like a blade against its body. I dragged out the effect of the crystal instead of expending it in one use as I'd done with Lighting and Air before it, prolonging the change to try and get the most out of it and hurt him as much as possible.

And I succeeded. As I slammed him down into mighty trees, as I pulled him into cliffs, as I made him fall again and again—I hurt him. I broke rocks upon him and broke him on the rocks, until spider webs of cracks raced across his armored form, deep impacts on its body shattering it in places and cutting it deeply. I did more damage to it this way then I'd done in the entire fight prior, tearing away chunks of its HP with every fall, whittling it away as I ruined the cliffs and shattered the earth. Against the altered force of gravity, it was a toy in the teeth of a dog.

As I felt the crystal's power running its course despite my best efforts, I rose high into the air, first to the platform Levant had maintained and then higher and higher still. I passed my grandmother's ship in altitude, glancing at it from where it watched so far away, and went higher still. In the seconds I had left, I jumped from platform to platform until the air thinned and my normal eyes would have seen nothing but carpets of green and brown on the ground below—

And with a snap, the effect gave out and my Aura turn from black back to white. The Goliath and everything else I'd caught within my hold found themselves abruptly forced back into Mother Nature's merciless grasp and began to fall.

I gave them a few second's head start and then followed them down. I pulled my grandmother's gift from my Inventory with a hand, thumb tracing across the pattern I'd already memorized, and found the crystal I was looking for with the searching touch of my power.

In a crushing instant, my Aura turned to stone around me, shifting from bright light to solid matter in a flash. It continued to move as if there'd been no change, stone limbs as flexible as any of the elements before them, and it was from within a stone tiger man that I landed upon the Goliath's belly. I slammed into it like a falling star, Suryasta and Levant appearing at my side to gather and ignite the air and hasten our descent. I pushed the Goliath down as fast as I could, flames trailing behind me as I tried to keep track off our position relative to the ground.

My senses cried out at the last second and I released the beast, leaping aside as it crashed into the ground hard enough to make it feel like there was an earthquake. The ground shattered around my feet as well, but it was nothing compared to the cloud of soil and debris that shot into the air as the Goliath's body drove a crater into the ground. It was enough to hide him completely from sight, but I showed no mercy and refused to let up on him, dashing into the cloud on the legs of a mighty stone beast.

It took only moments to find him, the blinding cloud doing nothing to hinder my sight. It laid on its side, every breath sounding pained as its limbs struggled and twitched weakly. Its armor was broken, its body nearing its end, and so I went in for the kill without hesitation. I leapt upon it with crushing force and lethal grace, striking with stone claws and teeth as I moved towards its head, and jumped down to land on the cracked tusk before its ruined eye. Its mask and face were as much a ruin as the rest of its body, cracked and torn in the wake of my onslaught. At some point, the damage I'd caused to its trunk had been worsened and it had been all but torn away by the many falls. I glanced from its cracked mask to its one remaining eye—

There was something in there that made me pause against my will. It wasn't pain, for there seemed little of that in its gaze. It wasn't even anger, surprisingly, no sign of hatred. It was…I wasn't sure, but it made alarms ring in my head.

Triumph, perhaps? Whatever it was, it was frightening to see it in the eyes of a fallen enemy.

Its shredded trunk twitched once, mouth opening, and it was enough to snap me from my stupor. Wrapping my stone tail around the base of the tusk reflexively, I heaved with all my might against the fracture I'd caused with my lightning, leveraging against it with my stone body—and with a crack, the scorched tusk broke free. I lifted it high with one hand, angling its wicked point, and drove it into the beats ruined eye with all of my strength before Lunging forward to force it deeper still.

The Goliath twitched once, the light in its remaining eye unchanged, and then went still, head dropping with a crash.

I was panting hard as I jumped to the ground, stone body going still around me. No longer strengthened by my Aura, tearing out of it was easy enough, but then I leaned against it and slide to the earth, light fading from around me. I felt truly exhausted for a moment before strength flowed back into me as windows appeared.

Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one!

I laughed happily and rose to my feet as if nothing happened. Ten levels. I'd gone up ten levels—fourteen total if you count the Giant Nevermore, which brought me up to forty-six. That was…that was amazing. As I was now, without a doubt, I was…

Smiling brightly, I came around the edge of the statue I'd left, gazing at the Goliath's corpse. Already, dark clouds of smoke were rising from the body, but I searched it slowly until I found what I was looking for arranged neatly beside it and went over to see what I'd gotten.

There was money, of course—and plenty enough of it, at that. It'd be useful, when I needed to buy more supplies; I was really hard on Dust and what I had now wasn't going to last much longer if things kept happening to me. There was a mask as well, which I'd also expected, but which was just as useful. It was shaped like the Goliath's mask, of course, and it would cover my entire face as I'd expected. Those two things were pretty much a given.

But beneath the money and the mask were two more items. Neither was unexpected, per se, but I hadn't known what else would appear this time—sometimes I got items, sometimes I got books, and this time, as with the Giant Nevermore, I got both. A white book with a dark sphere in the center and some type of decorated white cloth I didn't recognize, held together in several places with what looked like Grimm bone armor. Pondering it all quietly, I picked the bundle up and watched the windows appear.

You have obtained 450000 Lien!

You have obtained the item 'Ganesha.'

You have obtained the item 'Airavata.'

You obtained the skill book 'Naraka.' Would you like to learn this skill?

I shook my head in irritation. I'd hoped the names would reveal something about the items, but none of it meant anything to me—not unusual for the drops I got, but still a little annoying. More than that…I was still a bit nervous because of how the Goliath had been acting before its defeat. Whatever it was up to, I got the feeling that it had thought it had accomplished something, but what? I didn't see anything it could have done and no trap was springing, so what did that leave? Just these things and though I knew logically that there shouldn't have been any real way for it to even know about my power, much less effect it, but…well, it was best to be cautious with Grimm drops anyway, I suppose.

At first blush, though, none of these things seemed too bad. I mean, I'd sure the Goliath's mask would do some untold number of horrible things to anyone else who put it on, but for me, it'd probably be okay. There was the white cloth Airavata, but that'd probably be the same—I was immune to mental status effects and all it would take was a night's sleep to get rid of anything on my body. Root of all evil or not, I couldn't see what giving me a lot of money would do, either. The only thing that left was the book, but I couldn't really see how giving me more skills would hurt me. I mean, I didn't think there were negative skills, and none of the ones I'd gotten from other Grimm had been anything less than superb. It didn't make much sense for my rewards to be bad for me, either.

But just to be safe, I Observed it and found my eyebrows rising in shock.

Skill Book: Naraka—Rank: Mythic

A skill to form dimensional barriers around oneself, removing one from the normal world. The Dungeons created give rise to Grimm that attack all humans within the barrier, including the user; stronger dungeons may be created at higher levels to create mightier Grimm and cause additional effects. Barrier dissolves if the user leaves.

I just had to stare at it for a minute, somewhat dumbfounded. I mean…it would let me do what? The possibilities of such a thing filled my mind in an instant, to many to focus on just one—but if I could create barriers with Grimm inside them, if I could 'remove myself from the normal world'…I could train anywhere. It might even be a solution to Raven, though the accompanying Grimm would probably make it difficult, but it was just…I just…

I pressed the yes button repeatedly.

You cannot learn this skill. Required: WIS 100.

I snorted at that and brought up my status screen. I had the points now and I'd intended to do it anyway, so I just went ahead and raised my Wisdom over a hundred and waited in anticipation to see what skills I would get.

By raising WIS above 100, you have gained a random ability related to your deep understanding.

The skill 'Familiar' was created.

By raising WIS above 100, you have gained the passive skill 'Harmony.'

By raising WIS above 100, you have gained the passive skill 'Pathfinder.'

"Oh," I drew the word out as the profiles appeared before me.