Soul Caller 1 - Chapter 16 (Patreon)

Crouching in the dark on the cold side of the mountain, Merrick felt his adrenaline beginning to climb as they waited for the wolves to arrive. A dozen feet behind him, the three strangers spoke quietly, their words carried to him in the chilly night air.

"I hate wolves," Dugan said, grimacing.

"Don't worry, wolves are cautious," Evan said. "As soon as they get a taste of the damage we can do, they'll hightail it out of here."

"I hope so," Vale muttered, "I was having a good dream."

Chuckling at his boss's witticism, Dugan looked over at Merrick and Barak.

"What about them?"

"Let them be," Vale said. "They'll have to protect themselves."

He held something in his hands that Merrick had never seen before. It appeared to be a shorter, slightly curved version of the long sticks that the others were holding. It, too, had a manastone set where Vale's thumb fell, and he held it down by his side casually. Time trickled past as they waited, and just when Vale and Dugan were starting to exchange glances, wondering if they had been woken for nothing, a faint howl was heard in the distance. Everyone's eyes snapped up as they looked toward the sound. It was at that moment that a massive, furred body lunged out of the darkness on the other side of the camp, silent save for the thud of its feet on the hard earth.

Instantly, Barak turned, his spear rising, ready to do battle. His reaction time was incredible and he was about to throw himself into battle when there was a vicious hum in the air, followed by a crack that sounded like thunder. The air felt charged, as if lightning had just struck, and Merrick watched in shock as a thin beam of light pierced through the giant wolf's chest, tearing its body open and leaving a scorched wound behind. The creature fell instantly, not even able to let out a choked cry as its life was stolen from it. Vale, who stood in the center of the camp, was pointing his weapon whose tip was still glowing at the dead creature, his face white.

"Looks like they weren't wrong, boys," he said, lifting his stick to point skyward as a faint wisp of heat escaped.

Merrick and Barak, who had no idea what had just happened, quickly retreated to join the others. The stick that Vale held seemed to be trembling slightly, and Merrick could sense that power was flooding back into the metal rail on the top of it from the manastone. Beside Vale, Dugan and Evan both crouched, lifting their own, longer sticks to their shoulders, each one covering a different direction. The wolves, unsure what had happened to their leader, had halted their charge and now paced on the edge of the camp in the darkness, their bodies melding with the landscape.

Catching sight of one of them, Evan pressed his thumb down on the manastone on his rifle, and with another hum, a destructive beam of pure energy, shot from its tip. This time, Merrick was able to see the entire thing clearly, and in awe, he watched as the destructive energy ripped through the air, piercing through the wolf's hind legs, crippling it instantly. With a pained howl, the creature fell to the ground, and the wolves around it scattered, confusion reigning in their ranks.

Muttering under his breath, Evan waited for nearly thirty seconds as his weapon recharged, the entire time his eyes scanning the darkness. Behind him, Dugan clicked his tongue and shook his head.

"Wait for clean shots," he said.

As if to prove his point, he let out his own breath and fired immediately after, killing another wolf with a shot straight through its skull. In the middle of the group, Vale stood, his weapon recharged, scanning the edge of the camp as he watched carefully for any wolves that the other two prospectors might have missed. Merrick glanced at Barak from the corner of his eyes, and saw confusion written plainly on the veteran spirit warrior’s face. Barak's spears were powerful, and with a single throw, he could have effectively done the same thing as one of the beams of light, killing one of the wolves in a single attack. But once thrown, he would no longer have his spears and would have to retrieve them before attacking again. These weapons were different. They shot out a concentrated energy pulled from the manastones, carving a destructive path through anything the beam touched. As soon as the energy was spent, the stone would begin to recharge the weapon, allowing the strangers to fire over and over again.

It didn’t take the wisdom of a warrior to know that the weapons the strangers held were terrifying, and anyone watching could sense that the fight had gone right out of the large wolf pack. Evan and Dugan continued to fire their shots when they caught sight of the wolves and it didn't take long before the demoralized wolves scattered, rushing away from the camp and leaving their dead comrades behind. There were seven dead wolves, including the massive alpha wolf who had led the attack and who Vale had killed at the very beginning. Soon, the deep silence had resumed and after listening for a while, Merrick and Barak stood up.

“The wolves have gone,” Merrick said to Evan, who passed the information on to the other two.

Looking around, Vale nodded and said, "I'm going back to bed. Clean up," before crawling back into his tent.

Dugan and Evan both grumbled under their breath, but they complied, lifting the bodies of the wolves and tossing them down the mountain so they wouldn't attract other predators. Though he would have loved to have harvested materials from the dead wolves, Merrick could see the discomfort in Barak's eyes when they got close to the corpses and decided to avoid it, helping to drag the bodies over to the edge of the knoll and toss them down the side of the mountain where they bounced into the gorge below. As they cleaned up after the battle, Merrick paid careful attention to the wound that the strange sticks had caused. Each wound was the same, a simple hole with a scorched edge that had removed everything that the energy had touched.

Clearly shaken by what they had seen, Barak didn't speak while they finished cleaning up the camp and once they were done he left the camp to find a place nearby to meditate. Merrick, on the other hand, was strangely calm after the fight and had no trouble laying down to sleep. His mind was filled with the sound of the powerful weapons as he replayed the scene of Vale shooting the alpha wolf and at some point he fell into a deep slumber.

Almost immediately he began to dream, and in his dream, Merrick found himself once again viewing the life of the warrior. This time, however, rather than viewing as an observer, he himself was the warrior. He had no control over his body's actions but watched through the warrior's eyes as the scenes flashed by. Suddenly, the rapidly moving scenes slowed down and he saw that the warrior held something similar to the long sticks, which he realized were called rifles. It looked different from the simple design that Evan and Dugan used, appearing both more intricate and more powerful. In his dream, the warrior was standing in an outdoor field. Targets were set up on the far end of the field, resembling those used by the tribe for archery practice.

Standing next to the warrior was a short man who only came up to the warrior's waist, with hair that stuck out in every direction from the top of his head, eyes larger than any Merrick had seen before, and strange manatech artifacts hanging from his body. A pair of what looked like additional eyes rested on the top of his head as he spoke to the warrior about the weapon he was holding.

Merrick couldn't understand the words that were being spoken, as if a layer of fog had drifted over them, but he watched as the warrior's hands, his hands, carefully checked over the weapon. After checking the weapon over, he lifted it to his shoulder, resting the end of the rifle against his shoulder and stabilizing it with his other hand further down the barrel. Carefully pressing his finger against the manastone set on the side of it, there was a sharp hiss and crack as energy raced down the barrel, sending out a concentrated beam of light that pierced through the target down at the end of the range.

Saying something, the warrior made an adjustment and fired again, this time accurately hitting the target he had been aiming for. The dream continued as the warrior put down the rifle and held a different weapon in his hand, which Merrick instantly recognized as a pistol, the shorter weapon that Vale had used. Before the warrior could fire it, however, the dream shifted and Merrick found himself on a battlefield, hunkered down in a trench filled with thick mud. Stretching to the right and left, the trench looked like it had been hastily dug and the shovels used to dig it lay scattered around him.

The warrior raised his head, peeking above the edge of the trench, withdrawing it quickly as a skittering sound filled the air. There were others in the trench as well, most looking like the strangers, the humans, though a few of them appeared to be of the people, like the warrior. Yelling out a command Merrick could not distinguish, the warrior suddenly stood, spinning as he rose to his feet, his weapon rising to his shoulder. Once, twice, three times, he pressed the manastone on his weapon at precise intervals, sending out blast after blast from his rifle. The pace at which he shot was much faster than the pace at which Evan and Dugan had been able to fire, and his rifle did not shake as he threw searing beams at the enemy.

For the first time, Merrick saw them and deep revulsion and hatred appeared in his heart. A swarm of creatures had crested a ridge some 200 feet away and were rapidly approaching the warrior's position. Long, blade-like legs carried bulbous bodies covered in scales across the battlefield, moving with the uncanny skittering of an insect. There were many different kinds of these monsters approaching rapidly, some smaller ones running out ahead, while large, towering, spider-legged behemoths stomped across the field behind them.

The warrior fired and fired again as the other soldiers around him rose up to join in the attack. Caught off guard by the attack from their side, the swarm faltered and then turned, intending to rush in their direction. At that moment, massive blasts fell from the sky, detonating among the swarm as the warrior gave a command, and he and his soldiers turned to run. Stopped in place by the ambush, the swarm was now getting hammered by massive blasts that shook the land, throwing up chunks of their bodies along with giant clods of dirt.

A faint, acrid smell drifted through the breeze, and horrified, Merrick realized that it was the same smell as the strange corrosion he had found on the tree after his first hunt. As the warrior ran, something popped up in front of him. Merrick saw him tapping on his wrist, and a screen appeared. Experience points seemed to be flowing towards the warrior, accumulating in a constant stream of dings as the swarm behind him was completely obliterated. Sensing the success of his attack the warrior grinned, savage excitement rising in him.

As he watched the warrior deftly navigate the system screen, knowledge flooded into Merrick's head, bringing with it a sharp pain, and with a gasp, Merrick awoke. The sun was just starting to come over the horizon, and a moment later, Barak stirred from his meditative trance. Wiping the sweat that beaded his forehead, Merrick found his head full of a tremendous amount of new knowledge which explained the throbbing headache he had. After following the meditative breathing for a few minutes, the headache began to subside, and Merrick was finally able to make sense of the information he had gotten.

Opening up the status window, he looked at it with fresh eyes, now understanding what he was seeing. The experience points were gained from killing creatures. As he thought about when he had seen the notifications popping up, he understood the first creature of a type he killed would grant him one or more experience, while every creature of the same type he hunted would only give him a tenth the amount of experience. As he gained experience, he would be able to level up, and leveling up would grant him the ability to grow stronger through acquiring new gifts and blessings. What his tribe referred to as gifts, the system called skills, and by spending skill points he could strengthen the skills he already had.

What excited him even more was the realization that he could also gain new skills, and even the blessings of the great spirits. He hadn't understood this previously, and so, as he looked at his status, he saw that he had a skill point and a minor blessing to spend. This meant that he could not only increase his existing skill, Warrior’s Observation, but could also gain a new skill. Almost in a trance, he focused on the skill he already had, pulling it up.

Warrior's Observation

The greatest tool a warrior possesses is not his mind or his body, but his eyes. To observe the world as it truly is allows the warrior to make the best possible choice in the shortest amount of time.

You have gained the ability of a seasoned warrior to both observe and anticipate your environment.

*NEW* Increase your powers of observation, allowing you to better predict threats.

Level: 1 > 2

Below the skill description was a skill tree, which showed him what skills he had access to. To his utter astonishment, he found that there were six completely different branching trees. One of them was lit up fully and he could expand it further if he wished, two of them were partially lit up but could not be selected, while the last three skill trees were still grayed out. The six skill trees mirrored the five great spirits and the unknown spirit, each represented by symbols of the great spirits. As he focused on the snake symbol, it expanded slightly, showing him the three paths that were still grayed out. There was a Movement path, a Stealth path, and a Trap path, each of which appeared to have skills under it, though he couldn’t quite make them out. Shaking his head, he backed out of that tree and went to examine the other two. Under Jaguar, he found Weapons, Martial Arts, and Courage, all grayed out like the different trees under Snake had been.