He mentally selected Summoned Swivel Gun in its buckshot configuration, and a ghostly red outline of the gun on its tripod appeared before him. He moved it around until the colour changed to green. He rotated it toward the shrieks and summoned it.
With a clunk, it materialised before him. At the bottom of his vision, there was a row of icons that displayed his skills. Darren winced at the grueling 15 minute cooldown timer that appeared over Summoned Swivel Cannon. It lasted for five minutes, but that cooldown ensured it was a once-per-combat skill.
Darren stashed his axe in his inventory and scrambled out of the shelter, rain soaking through his thin clothes in moments.
Fumbling around, he found a palm tree and awkwardly shimmied up it. The wind tore at him, whipping the tree back and forth, leaving him slightly nauseous, but he swallowed the bile and climbed as high as he thought he could before the tree would snap under his weight and the wind.
Safe as he was going to get, he focused again on his swivel gun, feeling the link to it. With a thought, he fired.
The boom drowned out the storm, and the flash lit the beach for a millisecond—long enough for Darren to see the rough shapes of multiple monsters charging down the beach along the treeline. A few health bars popped up. Though at 10 metres away, the buckshot only caused minimal damage.
The monsters looked like the deformed love-child of a penguin and a spider. It wasn’t pretty, and Darren was glad he couldn’t see them properly.
He fired again, chipping the health off a couple more of the abominations and focused on one while it was visible.
<<<<>>>>
Juvenile Spider Penguin
The Spider Penguin is every bit as hideous as you imagine. Just be grateful it’s a juvenile. Mature Spider Penguins are venomous.
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Level: 3
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HP: 33/35
<<<<>>>>
“Yeah, that tracks…” At least he’d taken a couple of HP off. With his focus still on the creature, he prepared to cast Twist of Fate. Instantly, the Spider Penguin gained a soft blue outline.
An outline that revealed its exact location and movement as it skittered down the beach. Darren grinned. Gotcha.
He fired the gun again, the thunderous boom ripping through the night. The outlined Spider Penguin leapt to the side, screaming in fury. Its health bar dipped as it failed to avoid all the buckshot.
Darren hoped the shots were blinding the night-dwelling creatures more than they were him as he set it to automatically fire. One shot a second, slowly whittling away at their health. Though a good direct hit would be devastating.
The monsters converged on the gun and its tripod, and a couple of shots later, he was able to pick out the main path of the swivel gun’s fire by where the monsters mostly avoided.
He stopped the gun firing and set it charging. He had three seconds for this to work…
“Wait for it…” he muttered, still focused on the blue outlined monster running around.
The creature entered the gun’s line of fire.
He cast Twist of Fate.
The monster froze.
He fired the gun. The creature erupted as its health bar disappeared from the full impact of a Charged Shot.
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“Yes!” he hollered as he set the gun back to autofire.
And realised his mistake as, in the strobing light of the roaring gunfire, he saw the monsters turn and race towards his tree. “Oh, come on! How can you even hear me after all that noise?”
The icon at the bottom of his HUD for Twist of Fate flashed as it came off cooldown, and he focused on the closest Spider monster. It glowed blue as it reached the tree and began to climb.
With one arm wrapped around the tree, he recalled his axe from his inventory; it appeared in his right hand.
<<<<>>>>
Flint Axe (Crude)
A piece of rock, a stick, and sheer bloody-mindedness gets you a Flint Axe. Great for trees. Medicore for self-defence. Horrible for offence.
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Damage: 11 (base 5 + 6 from STR)
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Damage Type: Slashing
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Critical Modifier: 3x
<<<<>>>>
The monster reached Darren’s foot, and he swung his axe, burying it in its skull. The force of the hit knocked it off the tree. Its health bar strobed red as it crashed into the ground, still alive. Barely.
By the light of the gunfire, he focused on the next Spider Penguin, tracing its outline as it scurried up the tree. Another swipe of his axe. But this time, a claw wrapped around his foot, slicing it open as the creature was shunted off the tree.
Darren hissed in pain but couldn’t afford to let that distract him.
Boom!
Focus on monster. Blue outline. Swing.
Boom!
Focus on monster. Blue outline. Swing.
The creatures had zero survival instincts and repeated the pattern. Mindlessly charging up the tree to get their foe.
Darren suffered hit after hit, his feet and legs slowly reduced to gory ribbons. Now, more than ever, he appreciated the game’s dulling of pain in combat. In the real world, he’d be a screaming, writhing mess on the floor with the level of damage his body was taking.
But even with the pain reduction, it was still agony to hang onto the swaying palm tree. Only pure determination kept him there. He was not going to be taken down by a bunch of fugly spider penguins…
Boom!
Focus on monster. Blue outline. Swing.
With a wet crack, the last monster hit the ground. Dead at last.
Darren stopped the gun firing and strained to hear anything over the ringing in his ears. Only the drumming of rain on leaves and sand could be heard. No monsters screaming. Nothing.
After a full minute, he slowly inched down the tree, whimpering with each movement. His health was down to half after that gruelling slog. The only saving grace was that the monsters didn’t deal bleeding damage, and now that he was out of combat, his health was slowly ticking back up. It’d still be a while before he was full health again, though.
Limping, he made his way through the darkness in the direction of his shelter. Afterimages of the gun flash stained his vision purple and white, making the pitch-black feel somehow darker than it was.
After a few minutes of stumbling around, he found his shelter and crawled into it. The adrenaline of the fight was fading, and the chill rain soaking his clothes and skin was rapidly moving from annoying to miserable.
There’d be no hope of lighting a fire until the rain eased up, though…
“Wilson,” he said through chattering teeth, “if I don’t survive the night, tell my pet rock I love him, and I’m sorry the landlord will probably throw him in the bin when he clears my apartment out.”
The exhaustion of the day gripped him, but fear and cold kept him awake. Several notifications were flashing, so he opened them.
<<<<>>>>
Exhausted: Level 1
-1 to all stats.
<<<<>>>>
Twist of Fate Proficiency increased to 2%
You now have a greater chance of bypassing resistances when casting Twist of Fate.
<<<<>>>>
Summoned Swivel Gun Proficiency increased to 2%
Shots are marginally more accurate. Buckshot pattern slightly more uniform.
<<<<>>>>
That was some good news at least. But didn’t do much to help him right now.
Minutes crawled into hours. Still, the rain kept on. Blessedly, he heard no more monsters, probably all sheltering from the storm too.
<<<<>>>>
Exhausted: Level 2
-2 to all stats
<<<<>>>>
Shortly after midnight, the storm finally blew itself out, and the moon peeked through the clouds, its ghostly light washing the beach in soft shades of monochrome.
Stiff, sore, and frigid, Darren staggered out of his shelter. He pulled the dried kindling and sticks out of his inventory and, with shaking hands, stacked them near the entrance.
He could barely hold the flint to create a spark, but after what felt like an hour, he coaxed a flame to life. It licked greedily at the dry wood as he built the fire up. The warmth washed over him, and he stripped out of his clothes, sitting naked on the beach.
He unwrapped his bandaged torso and gently felt his back. The gashes were healed, scar-free. Beautiful, wonderful game mechanics.
Darren jabbed a couple of sticks into the ground near the fire and draped his clothes over them.
Looking around, he spotted Wilson lying face down in the sand nearby. He righted the coconut and settled back, leaning against the tree supporting one side of his shelter.
“It looks like the AI might have been right,” he finally acknowledged, patting Wilson on the head. “Shelter first would have been the right call.”