Benjamin – Beta Zone #76 Level 21 – 50

  I finish exiting my [Minor Dimensional Portal] that cant seemed to be weaponized because apparently it doesn’t like bisecting solid state matter or some bullshit, and continue my minds inward mewling as it cancels the pacifist skill.

  And as another mind scours the area for any potential threats, the mind revisits our time on the moon as it further fixates on why the portal skill is such a let down.

  Firstly, it’s cold.

  Secondly, it’s very dusty.

  Thirdly, it’s fucking boring...

  Also, turns out that the skill that got me there wont let me go further than earth or its nearby planetoid satellites as after a me used my enhanced sight to...sight...on distinctly martian planetary body and cast the skill again with it as the target. All it got for its ocularly enhanced troubles was the same feeling of indomitable resistance that blocked its use in the Siphon’s.

  Lacking the prerequisite manipulation of matter at it’s base level or blue skin to be a temporally inclined nihilistic godling of an edgelord. And equally uncertain when my oxygen reserves would run out as well as not wanting to go comatose on the cold and boring barren rock.

  Many me’s settled for sticking some moon dust in our [Lesser Dimensional Pocket] and grunting like we’re on our collective way to Nootkah at the non lethal, barely orbital disappointment of a skill before jumping back to earth and forcefully deconstruction some monsters in misanthropic stress relief instead.

  Reminiscence at an end, the mind checks in with the me on danger watch.

  Gone are my days of thinking the danger and threats are in my past or in my head and given the amount of clearly accessible examples in my now enhanced memory, it hardly comes as a surprise to either mind.

  On a more positive note, the Gamma Zone has definitely been a boon for my skills and class levels. It took a bit of doing, but I managed to max every skill bar the [Lesser Dimensional Instability], as no matter how much either of me’s dislike this planet or the people, no one deserves to have formless horrors unleashed upon them…not even many me’s...

  Thinking of irreversible damage, one of my minds pulls up my ‘status’ page to reaffirm that whatever the heinous appendage did to me, is indeed still in effect:

  But regardless of the effective loss of non-core attributes, I’m still insanely strong, can move really fast and think whilst...thinking. So I try to ignore the nagging sense of loss and dread and turn some of my minds thoughts to more productive things.

  Given that I’m basically mini godzilla now and my experience gain has been slowing down, I’m feeling a lot safer about potential ambushes and such. The me’s are also of minds to try and make friendzies with people again, on the off chance they don’t try to rob or murder me and the like.

  On the topic of Godzilla, despite being able to breathe fire thanks to the subterranean salamander’s trait I picked up a little while ago, my mouth always feels like an overstuffed ashtray for a good day afterward. So all things considered I’m probably going to give up my miniature kaiju ways whenever I get the chance.

  On a less magical mutation note, I would also like to point out that I have done a bit of personal growth in the past month and a bit. Having reviewed my previous interactions with people, whilst in the midst of my cathartic slaughter of semi sentient beasts. I’ve developed an as yet untested, loose set of guidelines for my own existence in this new world:

  1) Be Friendly.

  2) Do not bully.

  3) Do not lie or deceive.

  4) Do not cheat or steal.

  5) Give people a chance.

  6) Do not kill others unless they are or will be a threat to my life or liberty in the present or future.

  Some of them seem kind of biblical and blatantly obvious, but after having reviewed my track record with the aid of my spare magical brain, I felt I needed to at least try to live honorably despite the homicidal monsters and people, it’s what Max and Bruce would have wanted.

  Well probably just Bruce…

  So as I open my [Lesser Dimensional Pocket]’s access portal just wide enough so that the rapidly flowing tributary that runs through the mountainous Beta Zone, flows into it to replenish my water supply. I also take the time to marvel at the rapidly expanding globule of water that fills but a minuscule fraction of the pockets total, with my extra sensory perception.

  Having sorted my water needs for weeks to come and possessing enough Large Salamander meat to feed a small army, a me sighs in dejection at having to give up our simplified existence to enact operation ‘Just wanted to stop by’.

  I know it will only be a temporary absence but even the hell scape of the Gamma Zone feels more welcoming then heading back into the Outpost, to acquire some less sophisticated attire that counter balances my [Crude Giant Mountain Bear Overcoat]’s sheer level of awesomeness.

  Giving up putting off human interaction more than I already have, one of me begins a leisurely jaunt down the mountain while another me notes that I’m being blatantly avoided by all of the once so intimidating monstrous residence of Beta Zone #76.

  While the latest pack of troll’s flee in abject fear, I can’t even be bother to chase them down as I drink in the scenery with a mind while the other keeps a lazy eye out before its thoughts drift to what ridiculously delicious meal I should order from the Habitation Unit’s magically invisible chef.

  After a time one of me notices I’m being inexpertly tailed by a group of what appear to be armor clad people, as they make far too much noise for me not to notice their blundering presence.

  Endeavoring to uphold my new principles to the letter, I give them the benefit of the doubt as they continue to maintain a safe distance while we descend the uneven and pine tree’d terrain together.

  They apparently come to a decision about me and collectively put on a spurt of speed when I’m at the lowest point of a gully and move to redundantly encircle me.

  As one of me takes in their medieval weapons and attire, another me raises my hands up in an attempt to show I’m not hostile.

  The South American looking one who looks vaguely familiar, opens his mouth to speak. It’s at this point that both of me feel a surge of energy like an electric current running unseen through the gully we're in.

  Whatever the probably leader was trying to say gets swallowed in a flash of blue-ish white light as I feel like I’m moving through an extremely long tunnel of some sort. The tunnel in question resembles the kind of thing that would make a hippie on an acid trip swear off drugs for the rest of their life and take up accountancy owing largely to the fact that even with my enhanced intellect and cognitive functions, I’m starting to get a big fuck off headache.

  Uncertain how long I was in the tunnel of woooaaah, the world pops back into existence and I get the sense that the place I’m in a similar to my [Minor Dimensional Pocket] skill, yet also somehow distinctly different.

  Wanting to explore the sense more, my minds are drawn to matters more pressing as there is some new bloody blue boxes insistently competing for my attentions and obscuring my vision:

  As one of my minds attempts to assimilate the blue boxes information, my other one paid attention to the quiet and angry whispering coming from around the stony tunnels corner where I find my-selves.

  A familiar Australian woman’s voice demands.

  “What the fuck is a bloody Siphon? And where the hell did that guy go Rodrigo?!?!”

  A South American laden accent shot back.

  “And how the fuck am I supposed to know that puta? We should ave just stuck to the plan and relieved chour compadres of their thingz like I sa-!”

  An distinctly American male voice, cut them both off.

  “Now is not the time for blame games! Let’s just find Kamal and get the hell out of here! This place gives me the heeby jeebies.”

  In complete agreement with the unidentified man, I looked around the tunnel to find that there was a rippling in the dead end behind me. Whilst my other mind was pointing out the fact that 70% of Earths population has now been culled I tried not to let that shit nugget overwhelm me’s and move closer to inspect it.

  Worryingly, the closer I got to the ripple, the more I get the sense that it’s the weakest point in the whole fabric of this place. Not wanting to stick around and confront the ‘maybe robbers’, I swiftly closed in on the upright puddle of not water and put the tip of my index finger, gingerly toward it.

  However, when I was just about to touch the weakness in this realities fabric, I receive a new notification:

  Letting out an exasperated sigh, inspiration strikes and a minds tries to cast [Lesser Dimensional Portal] only to be rewarded with the feeling that the skill is pushing against an impermeable wall before it peters out.

  Hearing footsteps from further down the tunnel get closer to me, both of me grudgingly acknowledge that like so many days before, today is most definitely not one of my own.

  Turning to face the people rounding the bend in the rocky tunnel I was un-surprised to see my not waifu among the four people that had followed me in the Beta Zone. And at the point the South American begins to speak, I unanimously, if somewhat dejectedly, upgrade their classification to ‘definitely fucking robbers’.

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  “So here es how it es going to go amigo. Chu are going to hand over chour manamotes and other thingz, so nobody as to get hurt.”

  Feeling more disappointed than scared I look to Judy and ask.

  “Can we just not?”

  This seems to piss her right off as her facial features work into the cutest scowl in the whole dimensional siphon before she snaps back.

  “Just shut the fuck up and give us your shit, weirdo!”

  The rest of them start to laugh and look at me with a mixture of emotions mostly containing pity, before I make another attempt at a peaceful resolution.

  “Ok ok, I’ll give you my manamotes but my coat stays with me.”

  More laughter breaks out while Rodrigo clutches an ornate looking staff with his free hand as the other hand takes on a purple glow,and a ball of something begins to form whilst he smugly states.

  “I’m sorry my friend but the coat es ours now, this es chour last warning.”

  I massage my temples as my minds go into overdrive while they desperately try to think of a way to resolve this peacefully.

  Obviously being stuck in here with them, and realizing they will just try and come after me if I incapacitate them I try to negotiate one last time.

  “Please can’t w-“

  As the purple ball of something shoots from Rodrigo’s hand, I focus on it and cast a maximum [Lesser Repulse], causing it to return from whence it came. The South American screams in pain as he drops his staff to clutch the smoldering stump of his arm.

  I’m about to give him some sage advice on increasing his vitality when his friends break out of their shocked stupor and go on the offensive.

  Amidst Rodrigo’s incoherent screams, Judy disappears from my field of vision as one of the guys wielding a fancy spear lunges at me, whilst the other donning a metal inlaid wooden shield and a spikey mace just straight up charges me.

  Near simultaneously, from directly behind me, I hear Judy’s condescending voice.

  “Nothing personal guy.”

  While something runs across the side of my neck and fails to break my skin.

  Having run out of patience and fulfilled rule sixes caveats, a mind casts a max increase [Lesser Field of Gravity Manipulation] and I involuntarily wince as everyone drops to the floor, with sickeningly wet crunching sounds and I’m subsequently bombarded with more notifications:

  Shaking my head in disgust, one of my mind’s go into psychological damage control as it runs through what just happened and how I could or should have done things differently.

  Am I a murdering psychopath now?

  Obviously not, because murdering psychopaths don’t worry about being murdering psychopaths.

  Could I have hidden my coat and just given them manamotes?

  Definitely not, because they had seen it and me hiding it with my dimensional skill would have only raised more questions and pissed them off even faster.

  Seeing as they were so weak, couldn’t I have just broken a few of their limbs and left them to their own devices?

  Given Judy’s previous machinations with me and what she had escalated to just now, it’s more likely someone else would have suffered by their hand in the future.

  Couldn’t I have just captured them and turned them over to the authorities?

  What fucking authorities?

  Besides, even if I did find someone to turn them over to, it would be 4 peoples versions of events versus ones. Compounding the likely hood of an unsuccessful outcome, my own lived experience points out that I have failed to convince people of the truth when it’s my own recollections versus one other person.

  While my other mind back and fourths of the what’s, the if’s, the and, and the or’s of the incident, my more present mind makes busy with getting their weapons into a pile then waiting until [Lesser Field of Gravity Manipulation] is off cooldown before casting it and retrieving their measly collection of manamotes. Following which It casts [Lesser Dimensional Pocket], allowing it to nudge their weapons and their bodies into the black aperture of the skill.

  A queasy feeling comes over me when they enter my dimensional pocket as I become acutely aware of just how pancaked their bodies have become.

  Resting my mind from the budding horror of my actions, I fixate on getting the fuck out of this ‘Dimensional Siphon’, which is basically a dungeon from a fantasy novel perspective, to dump their remains and my side of the story on the first semi reasonable people I can find.

  Cautiously traveling through the rocky tunnel for a few minutes, I come out into what I can only describe as a glowing underground cavern filled with mushrooms.

  There’s twinkly blue hues of hanging moss, fleshy red and black spotted mushroom tops sat on white and tree trunk sized stalks, there’s even a light misty fog toward the cavern roof where stalactites pierce through, and to top it all off, there’s the humid smell of a peaty bog thrown in.

  Yet despite all of its realistic sights and smells, I can feel that it’s all an artifical construct, like a decorative cake made of icing that resembles Snow White, however as soon as you try to remove her bodice, your left with vanilla sponge cake and toothpicks.

  *arrroooOOOOOOOOOOoooooo*

  Filing away my pubescent confectionary based disappointment’s and relabeling the whole thing as a dungeon because dimensional siphon just sounds way too dorky.

  Both of me look to the top of a cascading waterfall where a red armored figure stands, flanked by 5 of what appear to be the result of a product of an unholy union between an animated Japanese tentacle monster and a giant fucking pit-bull.

  As the four legged, black hided, tentacle things tower over the being and call out once again, the armored figure makes a gesture with a short rod of some kind.

  The hulking monstrosities’ reaction is instant. The things nimbly bound down the short and rocky drop, utilizing their long black claws to great effect before reaching the bottom and breaking into a menacing sprint toward me.

  Taking a wild guess that the red armored dude is the boss, I ignore the cthulu puppers completely as a mind crouches and casts a half strength [Reduce Gravity] on myself just before It propels me at him with my almost 550 strength enhanced legs.

  The ground where I once stood fractures as I pass the surprised tentacle dogo’s while I break the sound barrier and meet the shocked eyes of the boss guy through the slit of his gothic red helm, with my out stretched fist:

  ...

  ….

  ….

  Feeling like another part of me has split off but wants to form a triumvirate of un-rustle-ability. One mind elects to let my other mind worry about the many me’s and the burgeoning consciousness, as well as the rejection of potentially becoming one of the hive with the offered trait, all whilst a rising surge of otherworldly energy and elation wash over us.

  The mind not in disjointed couples counseling cancels [Reduce Gravity] then casts a max [Increased Gravity] on myself before kneeling into the ground where I impact with a *CRACK* while my momentum is killed.

  While bits of red metal and ex Initiate Beastmaster’s head splatter the top of the once picturesque rocky outcrop I can’t help but smile, as I’m fairly certain that I just stepped into the world of superhero-dom with my most recent kill.

  *arrroooOOOOOOOOOOoooooo*

  Another call goes up as I feel the fabricated rock at the cliffs lip, where I just happen to be crouching, release another *CRACK* before it takes many me’s with it toward the about faced pets of the over leveled deceased dude, utterly killing my moment of greatness.

  Canceling [Increase Gravity] skill, I feel like I’m surrounded by goose down pillows, despite my eyes telling me I’m chest deep in a rock fall.

  The red eyed and monstrous quadrupeds endeavor to capitalize on my rock dropping, and pelt headlong toward the bottom of the cliff, where I’m coincidently about to land.

  Still unable to use my portal skill and not wanting to use any other skills till they get close, I decide to test my new durability which my other mind reports is now frankly absurd.

  Deciding to trust in me, the mind go’s with the flow, or in this case, couple of tons of rocks, as a second or two passes before I impact the ground and my knees barely notice the landing, despite the sounds of cracking and still colliding rocks around me. Putting off playing with the rocks for a litmus test of strength, my mind turns it’s attention to the mutant horrors that are now about forty or so meters from me.

  When the lead monster leaps into the air to avoid a rock in its way, I cast a max increase [Lesser Gravidic Focal Point] at it and watch in inappropriate glee as the things try to bound around their hovering pack mate while its pelted with rocks and soil, before they too are dragged toward it in short order.

  The things yelp and lethargically claw as they try to get free, yet try as they might, it looks like they are well and truly contained in the conglomerate of rock, soil, mushrooms and even some liquid from the nearby water feature.

  Not letting the opportunity of a new passive go to waste, I easily push aside the shoulder height boulders, which foolishly tried to intern me, whilst they scrape and crack in protest at my egress.

  The mind experiences the air itself part and the scenery blur as I effortlessly close to the writhing mass.

  Grabbing the exposed and weakly struggling forepaw of one of monstrosities firmly until I hear the bone break, I focus on what I perceive to be the focal point of the gravity field and cast [Lesser Dimensional Absence].

  In response there’s a half sucking, half popping sound as the limb in my vice like grip tries to follow to where the rest of the writhing whimpering mass just went to, whilst I get bombarded with more kill notifications:

  ...

  ....

  .....

  ......

  One of my minds breaks down the notification spam and alerts, whilst also cancelling [Lesser Gravidic Focal Point], causing things to suck just a little bit less. Another of my minds to gets to work on deciding on what the fuck to do about the potential trait, based solely off its name.

  The newest of my minds inspects the [Necklace of Empowerment] that just materialized in my hand, right before it takes to mewling about my now thoroughly trashed, not so pimp mountain bear coat and tattered strips of leather that were formerly known as [Elevant’s Essential Gear].

  It decides to hold off on changing the tatters out however, for one of my [Crude Salamander Coat]’s incase it gets lost or damaged when the dungeon’s timer runs out and switches to keeping an eye out for immediate threats instead.

  Being on the clock for the dungeon shut down and the trait selection, I get to weighing pros and cons with what little information I have.

  Lesser Primordial Blood, while sounding ominous and advantageous, just tells me it’s basically old blood of some sort, but given the trait isn’t named ‘tentacles of fondling’ or ‘ravagers appendage’, I think I can safely assume that if I pick it I won’t turn into a tentacle rape monster…well probably not immediately anyway.

  On the subject of turning into something else, I wonder if I’m truly human anymore and will this choice end up taking me past the point of no return?

  My other mind reviewing the status screen and my upgrades tells me that we basically stopped being a baseline human when magic was used to enhance and reshape us, on account of how it basically just touched everything inappropriately that we once knew and loved at a sub atomic level.

  Wondering if my thoughts seem strange yet weirdly relatable to my other minds, they both report ‘YES!’ in unison before going back to what they were up to and leave this me to the choosening.

  Not sure how it will all turn out but desperately wanting to get rid of ashtray mouth, given that I’ve already quit smoking a bunch of times already, I select ‘Yes’ to the notification box which makes a red mist travel from the limp arm that remains on the ground from where it dropped after I cancelled my gravity skill.

  A searing, hot sensation, completely unlike the other times I’ve absorbed traits, burns in my chest as another notification begs for some attention:

  Already having made my decision I make my selection swiftly:

  And then my world becomes pain.

  This pain isn’t like that which I have encountered in my educative time as a vanilla human bean.

  Nor is it similar to being compacted in a deceased wyvern’s stomach while also being marinated in its gastric juices.

  No.

  This is what imagine drinking bleach, whilst also injecting battery acid into my veins as I jump into a human sized active microwave on full power would feel like.

  As the triumvirate demands whatever the hell it is to ‘FUCKING STOP!’ before breaking into discordant screaming, my muscles spasm and contort while I feel my eyes rupture and leak fluid through my scrunched eyelids.

  After my teeth shatter from my over clenched jaw, my hearing is the last of my sensorium to fail as I’m taken to the complete and echoless dark.