Universe's End

When Rory awoke, it was to the sound of lightning and thunder, except within a moment of opening his eyes, something about the storm that awoke him felt off.

Wait… That’s no storm.

Dragging himself out of his hovel quickly, Rory took in the early morning rays, feat unsteady beneath him.

“There is no rain, lightning, or even a cloud in the sky,” Rory uttered, frowning. His legs were still surprisingly shaky under him.

No, it’s not my legs.

“The ground… An earthquake?” With his mind finally fully awake, Rory steadied himself with a hand on his shelter, looking around at the shaking trees, the ground swaying beneath his feet. He’d never experienced an earthquake himself; the closest he’d ever experienced was the feeling of the Amtrak racing by on overhead rails as he went about his business downtown.

Still holding himself steady, the ground gave one final heave, a titanic sound of cracking stone and splintering bark as several unlucky trees tumbled down before everything went still.

“Earthquakes… noted.” Rory sighed. A part of him wanted to investigate, but the morning sun had barely graced the horizon, and Rory was still tired from the events of the day prior. Fighting back a yawn, he crawled back into his shelter, mumbling.

“Later. I’ll explore later.”

----------------------------------------

Yawning, Rory stretched as much as his cramped shelter would allow, rubbing at his eyes a moment after.

“Morning to me.” He sighed as he slowly detangled his limbs; he’d always been a bit of a chaotic sleeper. While he hadn’t tested his increased flexibility, the fact that his body had curled up and bent the way it had in his sleep, with him feeling no worse for wear, was sign enough that it had quite the effect. Rory took stock of his surroundings outside his shelter, paying particular attention to the many felled trees.

“That’s right. It wasn’t a dream.” Rory watched his breath roll away in a slight cloud of vapor, shaking a jolt of warmth through his body as he did. “Should probably check the area out.”

A part of Rory felt iffy about leaving his campsite after the showdown with the wave the other day. A run-in with a powerful monster could be quite dangerous, but he mustered his courage with only brief consideration.

The wave attracts the nearest monsters, so there are unlikely any monsters nearby for quite some distance.

While his campsite didn’t look like it, Rory had earned a decent chunk of land after the completion of three waves. He just hadn’t felt it necessary to expand the space his camp took up; in fact, spreading everything out for the time being would only make future waves more difficult as he was forced to cover more ground. Knowing that monsters tended to avoid his ‘territory’ unless specifically chased into it, his fears from earlier waves of leaving the remains of his kills in the camp and attracting monsters seemed unlikely.

Well, it's probably still wise to avoid it, but the day after a wave is still likely within the all-clear time frame where few monsters are nearby enough to catch the scent in the first place.

Curious but not foolish, Rory snagged his weapons before setting off into the forest. Picking a direction where the fallen trees seemed thickest, almost as if they’d been felled along some irregular trail, Rory trudged through the underbrush. Occasionally forced to hop or duck under fallen trees and other dense foliage, little else of interest occurred. The only thing that piqued his interest was as time went on, the ground beneath him seemed to buckle more and more, almost like a tremendous earthen zipper had appeared.

Plate tectonics probably heaved the ground unevenly, heading in this direction.

Curious but not worried, one hour turned into two until two faded into three before, at last, Rory stopped, hands on his hips as he let out a low whistle, well past the bounds of his monster-repelling territory.

“That’s something.”

He’d come across a clearing where nearly every single tree had been ripped apart as the ground had shredded itself in what must have been a damn near apocalyptic sight. Tree trunks were ground between obsidian and soil, and at the very center of the clearing, what looked like a massive gaping jaw had been ripped asunder by the violent quakes of the earth. Still curious, Rory cautiously snuck closer before poking his head over the rim of the gaping tear in the world, another low whistle escaping him.

Not just a small buckle in the ground, I guess.

The opening in the earth continued below, a sloping tunnel leading back in the direction he’d come from. On and on it went, illuminated by the gentle purple glow of purple and silver mushrooms and a soft blue moss that popped up in patches.

“An underground ecosystem beneath my feet.” Rory looked around, a faint frown upon his face. “Was this your intentional doing?” Rory questioned, waiting for the world spirit to pop out.

When she didn’t, Rory could only shrug.

Nothing risked, nothing gained.

Emboldened by his recent ascension and sure that he would flee at the first sign of trouble, Rory hopped over the short ledge, landing on the tunnel floor four feet below. Drawing his weapons, he began descending into the earth with nothing more than the strange mushrooms and sparse patches of blue moss to illuminate the path forward. Much like his exploration into the forest, it went without event for some time. Unlike his journey through the forest, when something finally did change, it was only a matter of minutes rather than hours. Ten minutes into his downward-sloping trek through the tunnel, it began to level off until he saw what must have been some cavern ahead.

Curious.

Slowing down to a crawl on the chance something wanted to take him by surprise, Rory approached with the utmost caution. Only a few feet from the cavern entrance, he was met with a better view of the cavern. It was perhaps a hundred feet across and nearly thirty feet tall. More importantly, it was filled with rocks that shone with a metallic gleam.

“Ore.” Rory exhaled slowly. “It’s a damn ore vein.”

Still wary of potential dangers, Rory approached the nearest rock containing the metallic gleam and analyzed it.

???-

Quality: Common

A metal found most often near the surface. It is minorly infused with Pneuma.

“An unknown metal. The only reason it even confirmed that much is probably because I correctly assumed it was ore.” Rory drummed his fingers against the metallic vein within the stone. “Clearly, it’s not some super rare type, based on the common quality. Too bad, I was hoping to stumble upon some mithril.”

Rory briefly smiled as he remembered bingeing Lord of the Rings with his grandparents. For as old as the films were, nearly forty years, they’d held up damn well.

Sadly, I’ll never be able to watch them again.

It was a bitter thought but one he banished instantly to more pressing matters.

“So, metal. The lack of a name means I’m the first to discover this type.” Rory stood in silent contemplation, dredging through what originality he had.

I feel like calling it iron would be too basic. But, if it’s a common ore, iron seems fitting… but what if it’s nothing like Iron?

Rory looked the ore veins over, noting the dusky red gleam.

Was iron a red color? Bah, I don’t know. I didn’t go to school to study geology.

“Pneuma-Touched Iron,” Rory stated, finally giving up on a clever name. Instantly, his interface shifted, and a spinning wheel appeared for a split second until his analysis reappeared.

Pneuma-Touched Iron

Quality: Common:

A metal found most often near the surface. It is minorly infused with Pneuma.

Now, if only I had a way to mine it. Rory thought to himself before shaking his head. Scratch that; I don’t even have a good way to lug much of the stuff back with me, even if I did have a way to mine it.

At the very least, a relatively large number of ore clumps were lying free on the ground. The earlier quake had caused several stones to shatter, freeing some of the precious metal from their earthen grasp.

Well, not ‘precious metal’ but more like the metal is precious... Semantics.

Part of him wanted to grab what he could and leave, but further into the cavern, there appeared to be another off-shooting tunnel leading further into the earth.

Beginning to understand the dwarves of Moria, Rory ignored his better judgment and left the cavern of Pneuma-touched iron ore behind, heading deeper within. The tunnel wound about for several minutes, still lit by the helpful lichen and fungi. But unlike the tunnel he’d first entered the underground through, this one never seemed to delve deeper into the earth; it just went further into his current ‘layer’ of earthen depths.

He went on and on for nearly ten minutes until, once more, he found himself nearing yet another cavern. This one was only around sixty feet across, with a pond dominating the center and stalactites looming ominously overhead.

The pond itself wasn’t much better in that department; the soft lighting didn’t pierce its depths; whether it was aisormba or something else altogether, Rory couldn’t tell, the pool an ominous unknown.

Lost in thought about the nature of the pond, Rory only survived as his recently heightened cognition kicked in, reacting as something massive crashed toward him.

React was perhaps being a tad generous. Not even enough time for his eyes to widen, Rory barely managed to raise his arms in front of himself before a solid mass of something thick as a tree trunk slammed into him, tossing him backward like a stone from a slingshot as he slammed hard onto his back, tossed back into the tunnel from whence he came.

Pain erupted through his body. His arms felt as if a firecracker had exploded within them, his ribs burning with liquid lava, and his head simultaneously numb and searing with an almost venomous pain.

What… the fuck!?

Whatever had attacked him, thankfully, didn’t instantly pounce upon his downed form. Kicking his body away from the entrance into the pond cavern, the stars dancing about his eyes finally cleared as he got a good look at his assailant.

It was… well, he wasn’t sure what it was. Tentacles had appeared from the pond and were slamming about, thick as his torso.

Too much Lord of the Rings referencing.

Had he not felt like a semi had run over him, Rory would have almost laughed at the fact that seeing the tentacles lashing out from the pond reminded him keenly of the fellowship and their encounter with the Watcher in the Deep right before they entered Moria.

Several minutes passed before the tentacles, no longer finding anything to smash into a meaty paste, withdrew into the inky depths.

“I think… think I’ve had my fill of exploring.” Rory croaked. His ribs still felt like he’d been beaten by a football team armed with sledgehammers, and the bones in his arms were definitely broken.

Thank you, cognition.

The reality was that as much as he hurt, he wouldn’t even have the luxury of hurting had he not reacted when he had, just barely softening the blow from the tentacle and taking the brunt of the force to his arms instead of his chest. He could imagine in another reality that tentacle crushing his chest like a tin can, unable to muster even a breath as they proceeded to drag him into the depths.

That’s enough imagining for the day.

Counting his lucky stars that he was even alive to tell the tale, Rory shimmied himself against the closest wall of the tunnel before leveraging his weight against it as he nearly crawled up it like a pathetic excuse for a caterpillar. Doing the only sensible thing once he’d managed to rise to his feet, Rory immediately turned tail and fled with as much speed as his aching body could muster. Stopping only once to painfully snatch up a few pieces of ore when he’d returned to the first cavern, the rest of his day was spent staggering out from the underground depths and through the blissfully silent forest.

I’m sure a regular earth bunny could tear me apart, as I feel right now.

Not even wanting to confirm how close to death he’d come, Rory made it a point of not looking up his Physique status. Mind awash with aching pain and near-death experiences, the journey which had only taken him slightly under three hours there took more than twice that to return, the sunlight hovering just above the horizon.

I survived. That’s what matters.

Letting his consolation prizes plunk out from his pockets and weakly clenched hands, Rory never even bothered to organize them, instead dragging himself into his shelter and dropping onto his back.

“System, cancel the next wave.”

Nursing his physical wounds and wounded pride, Rory’s fifth week ended.

——————————————

“Son of a-” Rory shot upright with a jolt, pain awakening him like a wronged girlfriend. “-oh.” Panting, he looked around his cramped shelter, ignoring the pain momentarily.

Right. I made it back.

The events of the day prior had melded together, a mishmash of sights, sounds, and sensations clogging his mind, dulled and yet simultaneously overly vibrant.

I messed up.

Rory didn’t want to admit it, but he’d gotten ahead of himself. Aside from the waves, his new world hadn’t been all that dangerous. The bloodthirsty rabbits and similar monsters tended to keep away from his campsite. It had lulled him into a false sense of security when he’d entered the territory of something else.

What even was that?

A monster right out of Lovecraft or perhaps an old pirate's tale, all he’d been able to make out of the beast were tree-trunk-like tentacles that each individually moved faster than he could sensibly react to.

I was lucky it knocked me away rather than drag me into that pond with it.

Rory shuddered, thinking of how close he’d come to death. Not just death, but a grisly, preventable death.

And that was the worst part of all of that, and it had been entirely within his control.

“I messed up.” Rory sighed, repeating his earlier thoughts out loud. “Badly.”

A quick look at his interface confirmed his thoughts. His arms were displayed with a simple “Broken” tag.

Wonderful.

Even with broken arms, Rory was surprised to find he still had some range of movement, which was no doubt a benefit of his increased durability.

Good, because I don’t have anyone here to take care of me.

Typically, broken arms could take upwards to three months to heal, but Rory hoped that would be cut down due to the supernatural benefits he’d gained from ascension.

Still, probably at the earliest, that's three weeks, I can kiss goodbye.

With a groan, Rory considered flopping backward and returning to sleep, but his aching body made it known that further sleep was out of the question.

So, time to be productive…. Somehow.

The issue was that the list of things he could be productive about when he had broken arms was relatively short.

Can’t do anything that involves steady arms or hand movements.

Which was a fun way of saying he couldn’t take care of making any gear.

What can I do then?

Slowly crawling out of his shelter, Rory took stock of his campsite. It still had the signs of battle from the wave several days prior; he hadn’t organized most of his spoils of war yet.

“Spoils of war… More like corpses.” Rory snorted. His bow was still destroyed, and a quick scan made him wince.

Antler Horn Bow

Grade: Ruined

A now ruined bow crafted from the Antlers of a slightly magical creature. Destroyed, all traces of Akashic Records have been rendered non-existent.

“Well, shit.”

Rory still wasn’t sure of the details of what Akashic Records were, but at the very least, the Akashic Record contained within the bow had lent him skill with the bow that would have taken years to hone.

Going to have to make a new one. At least I’ve got enough antlers from the last wave to make several.

He just hoped they would be capable of the same magical effect as his now ruined bow.

“Can’t take care of that until my arms are good enough to hold my knife for long periods.”

Nudging the bow with his foot, Rory turned to the rest of what was scattered about, mostly bloodied bodies of the caerbannogs and the jackalope. The corpse of the Triumph Fox was exactly where he’d left it on his makeshift ‘table.’ Thankfully, flies weren’t a thing on the new planet, or they would have ruined his kills long ago.

I haven’t seen much decay in general. I think I once heard that things decayed because of specific bacteria. Does that mean they don’t exist here?

More questions that weren't likely to be answered any time in the near future, not without a qualified biologist on hand -not counting his own middling experience with that specific subset of the field.

“Not important,” Rory mumbled as he sat with an exaggerated sigh on his log.

Did I mention that I messed up? Because I messed up.

Several of his consolation prizes were littered about, the reddish-colored ore.

I don’t even know what I want to do with them yet.

He had zero practical experience in forging or blacksmithing, whatever the proper technical term was. At best, he’d watched random YouTube videos on his phone of blacksmithing sometimes as he lay in bed.

Another thing I can’t handle for now.

In truth, all he could do was sit there and contemplate how badly he’d messed up.

Well, that’s not entirely true.

There was one thing he could do, one thing he’d been meaning to take some time to figure out sometime soon.

“Guess ‘soon’ is now.” Rory huffed with defiance, unwilling to let a bad situation go to waste.

Pulling up his attribute distribution, still sorely lacking in specific numerics, Rory examined where his averages fell. Nothing had changed since last time, meaning no one had ascended to A3 since he’d last checked.

Or I was the last one to reach A3.

With a quick shake of his head, Rory cast away the negative thoughts, instead looking for the object of his search: his Pneuma attribute. The bell curve showed that he was a tad behind the average allocation of attribute density regarding Pneuma, and given the description of the Triumph Fox, which mentioned them being nearly immune to magic, it all reinforced Rory’s conclusion that someone had already begun working with magic.

“But the attribute itself isn’t necessary for using magic.” Rory reminded himself.

So how do I, then?

Feeling glad no one was around to watch him, Rory raised his arm, wincing, as he imagined shooting a fireball from his palm.

Unsurprisingly, nothing happened.

Yeah, I figured as much.

Were there special chants or magic words he needed to uncover?

No, that doesn’t make sense; those were merely an act of imaginative fiction from Earth.

Chances were magic wasn’t about using fancy words but utilizing an energy that existed naturally or perhaps supernaturally.

Stop splitting hairs, Rory.

Lowering his arm, Rory folded his legs one over the other, easier now that his flexibility had increased through his most recent ascension.

I should probably still work on stretching out more.

Rory was beginning to suspect that while ascensions could increase one's attributes, they only increased one's baseline and overall capacity. They didn’t prevent a person from further strengthening themselves or becoming more flexible. Suppose two people invested equal amounts into flexibility. In that case, Rory was guessing that the person who still took the time to work on their flexibility directly would outperform the person who relied solely on their attribute growth gained through ascension.

“Focus, Rowan,” Rory growled to himself.

Closing his eyes, Rory took several stabilizing breaths, trying to put himself in a serene state of mind, or at least an empty state of mind. It came quickly, a skill he’d polished within his first few days on the planet when it had been the only way to gain the essence needed to go from A0 to A1.

Magic, energy… There’s got to be something to it.

It was a practice in futility. No matter how Rory attempted to draw magic from somewhere inside himself, he found no success. Hours passed, and still nothing; all Rory gained was waning patience.

“I’m missing something,” Rory said flatly, opening his eyes. “Obviously.”

Hours of sitting had amounted to nothing—just a vague feeling of annoyance budding within him as if he were wasting his time. Standing up, Rory stretched his legs out, his arms hanging painfully at his sides.

What am I missing?

The nearby sun had clawed halfway across the sky, a reminder of the wasted hours.

Is it a feeling or something else?

Rory had gotten quite good at inner reflection over the last few weeks, a skill picked up from having no one else to interrupt his work or interact with. Yet, no matter how inward Rory tried to look, he couldn’t find that spark, that piece of-

Wait a second.

Rory froze, eyes suddenly widened.

“Idiot. I’m an idiot.” He began to mutter, beginning to pace with a renewed energy. “Idiot.”

Rory had spent so much time expecting to find the answer inward, some internal energy or spark.

But what if the answer was never inward to begin with?

Too many shows and movies. I let that color my thinking.

With a new idea in mind, Rory plunked himself on his log, closing his eyes and ensuring his breathing was coming evenly. Then, rather than looking inward in some quasi-spiritual experience, he threw his senses outward, trying to feel and hear everything simultaneously. It was a strange experience, one he had little to compare to. On earth, people would often talk about looking inward or finding peace within themselves or other mumbo jumbo crap that Rory never really believed. Yet, there was hardly ever emphasis on trying to extend yourself outward, and for good reason: normal humans were limited by their comparatively weak senses.

But that was a normal human. As Rory was now, he was reasonably sure he was bordering on, if not outright, superhuman.

Outward.

For several seconds, there was nothing, until nearly a minute later, a feeling he’d felt before began to itch at his skin, a sort of static clinging to him.

Oh?

It was the same sensation he'd felt when he’d first arrived on the planet, the feeling of energy pressing down on his body made of foreign, exotic substances compared to the rest of the universe around him.

And yet, it’s like I can feel that static again.

Curious Rory attempted to ‘withdraw’ his senses, and the further he focused them to what would be considered a ‘normal’ human degree, the more the feeling of static clinging to him faded.

So, something exists outside the normal human range for feeling, which probably explains why it doesn’t come naturally.

Pushing his senses outward and letting the static reach its maximum, or at least the maximum of what he could feel, Rory opened his eyes. The feeling remained, unfettered by whether he was in some deep meditative state or not.

“Good.” Rory tried talking, but the feeling remained even still. “Because it would be useless if I had to sit like a Buddha statue anytime I want to use magic.”

Assuming that the static was indeed connected to magic and Pneuma.

Reserve doubts until they’re warranted.

Clinging to the feeling of static, Rory slowly raised a hand outward, biting back a wince as his broken bones made their opinion on being used abundantly clear. Imagining himself drawing on the static, Rory willed the static forward, imagining it blooming into a ball of fire.

Unfortunately, nothing happened, even if Rory could feel something about the static shift.

“Nope, still missing something,” Rory muttered through grit teeth. While Rory had felt the static shift, like it wanted to move, something else was still blocking it, like some missed starter or fuse.

Rory racked his brain, looking for any hint of an idea. The static had been his first breakthrough, but it wasn’t enough.

There must clues elsewhere.

Someone else had already figured magic out, and he was confident more would as well. Which meant he knew it was well within his ability to figure it out.

Maybe I’m making it too complicated?

The thought gave him pause. Reaching outward, not inward, had clued him in on the static feeling. Perhaps there had been some other decidedly ‘magical’ experience he’d already gone over that he was overlooking at this point?

Magical experiences. Aside from surviving your universe collapsing inward and winding up on a not-quite-but-nearly-straight-from-fiction planet inhabited by a world spirit, what counts as magic? Or what about the fact that everything in this new universe can ‘level up’ through ascending? Does that count as magic? Or that I’ve ascended several times myself, and- wait a moment, that’s not a bad thought.

While he was still a long way from his next ascension, it would probably be a few months based on the ten times essence requirement plus the extra investment he’d continued toward growth; the ascension itself wasn’t what mattered. What did was how every single ascension had been started by piercing a sort of ‘barrier’ in his mind between physical reality and some strange halfway point between his mind and the System.

With a shrug and nothing to lose, Rory grasped that boundary, still feeling the static clinging to himself. What surprised him wasn’t the fact that while he found it, it was the fact that it only took a heartbeat to locate it, as if the intent was all that mattered.

For all I know, maybe the intention to break that barrier of whatever-ness is all that matters.

Without a second thought, Rory snapped the ‘barrier’ with only the barest of mental efforts-

-only to collapse instantly, spasming in pain like he’d stuck his finger into an outlet. The spasms continued for nearly a five count before he found himself breathing hard on the ground, his head pounding like the world’s angriest hangover.

“Ow.” Rory huffed once he finally caught his breath.

His interface opened in front of his face, directly to his Physique. Never raising a finger and controlling it with mental effort alone, Rory directed it toward the pounding headache, a status flashing next to his head.

“Pneuma-Wracked?”

A small blurb appeared next to the status as if answering his question.

Pneuma-Wracked:

Status condition gained from either releasing unfocused Pneuma or a forcibly applied debuff. Effects: Disorientation, lowered Pneuma sensitivity.

“Ah, thanks,” Rory grunted. What the system deemed information to share openly and what needed to be discovered firsthand always seemed somewhat arbitrary, but at the very least, it had decided what had happened as a reasonable situation to step in and explain directly.

Or, and maybe I’m reaching, the same thing probably happened to whoever first figured out how to use magic, and it’s merely relaying something that’s already been discovered and, therefore, no longer unique.

At the very least, Rory had something to work with. The static appeared to be what Pneuma felt to the human mind, or what it currently felt; perhaps as time passed, he’d gain a better sensitivity and understanding of the energy. For the time being, though, his mind processed the feeling as something akin to his body falling asleep. The ‘boundary,’ as he’d opted to call it, was more like a mental construct of intent. Whether pushing his ascension or utilizing magic, they both appeared to require purposeful intent and active thought and thus couldn’t be done accidentally. When he’d ‘pushed’ that boundary, without any direction for his intent and Pneuma, it had simply rebounded through his body.

It’s not that different from electricity when you think about it. It’s currents, not amps, that kill. Or something like that. The point is, next time, I should ensure I have some ‘outlet’ for the build-up.

And there would be a next time. His arms and body, banged up as they were, prevented him from doing much else until they healed. For Rory, that meant he had at least a few weeks of downtime, which he planned to use as efficiently as possible.

If only because next time I encounter some monster squid in a dark underground cave, I won't be the one running with my tail between my legs.