Adam yawned as he made it to the bakery. It was about 9 AM on a chilly autumn Saturday. While he’d normally still be huddled up in his bed and fast asleep, he was on a mission this morning. Sharon had brought a box of croissants to the office on Wednesday and ever since then he’d been unable to get the taste out of his mind.
Although he’d tried to forget about them on Thursday, he’d eventually caved in and asked her where he could buy them. She’d talked about the bakery, which he was now standing in front of, for twenty minutes, clearly eager to share the knowledge about its delicious baked goods. However, she’d warned him that the fight for the croissants was fierce and that, no matter how many were made every morning, they were always gone by 10 AM.
Adam had tried to buy them yesterday before his commute to work, but, at 7 in the morning, the line had been out the door and down the street.
Who even has time to stand in line for croissants? he’d thought to himself at the time. And yet, he understood them. After all, here he was, back with a vengeance and a hunger for those magical pastries.
There was a quaint little golden bell attached to the door, which chimed as he pulled it open and entered. Although there was a great view of the various baked goods from outside through the large window, the interior was so much better, as the smell of bakery flooded his nose and made his mouth water with longing.
The counter was arranged in an L shape and there was a large display case with muffins, cookies, donuts, cakes, and a few of those croissants he’d been thinking about nonstop. Ahead of him were three people standing in line and he quickly went to join it, just as someone else came through the door.
I hope no one buys those last few croissants before it’s my turn...
Adam had a strange relationship with sweets and treats. After moving out at eighteen, he’d wound up in a cycle of junk food and snacks, ending up weighing three-hundred pounds by the age of twenty-two. Then, when he reached twenty-five, he’d gotten his shit together and gone on a health kick. He’d managed to drop down to about two-hundred pounds, with almost all the excess weight being muscle. But still, he sometimes got these intense cravings for treats, and Sharon was a damn enabler.
The front of the line moved as someone finished their transaction. The number of croissants had gone down to six and there were still two more people in front of him.
If we each buy two, then we won’t have to fight outside in the parking lot.
Adam’s eyes were glued to the display case, while the customer droned on about what she wanted. He felt a spike of dread as the woman mentioned the croissants, but there were still five left by the time she was done buying her breakfast.
As he took a step forward, one person away from getting his hands on those delectable pastries, he felt a quake travel through his body and down his legs. He thought it was perhaps his stomach growling in longing, but then he noticed how the guy in front of him and the female clerk were glancing around weirdly.
“Did you all feel that?” asked the guy who stood behind him in the line.
Another quake followed, but this time it was from the floor. They were all tilted sideways, but none of the baskets of bread, cakes, cookies, or magical croissants seemed to move even an inch.
“An earthquake? Here??” exclaimed the clerk loudly in surprise.
A strange floating metallic box appeared in front of Adam, with identical copies popping up near the other three people in the bakery. It was spinning lazily and changing shapes, as though some fourth-dimensional entity.
A tesseract?
It had a glossy black surface and was about the size of his fist. Black smoke fell from its bottom and onto the floor, coiling up around his legs. At the same time, his surroundings seemed to narrow into shadows, with the walls disappearing, followed by the display counter of pastries and sweets, and then the other people.
Just like that, Adam was somewhere else, alone, with no croissants in sight.
“What the fuck just happened?” he wondered out loud.
Is this the moment I realise I never woke up when my alarm went off?
Am I still dreaming?
He reached out and poked the tesseract. Another quake moved through his body.
Then an eye opened in the middle of the spinning entity and its voice filled the darkness. It was an androgynous voice with a neutral tone.
[Salutations Player ‘Adam Fischer’. You have been selected to take part in the Trials of Defiance to represent your planet.]
“Selected?”
[You have been deemed eligible due to your maturity and physique.]
“I’m flattered, but I actually have an appointment in 40 minutes.”
[It is not possible to decline your invitation to the Trials. As an incentive for your participation, we have located your ineligible relatives and placed them in temporary holding. Their fates are now tied to yours. Should you refuse to participate, they will perish and you will die alongside them. Should you end up dying in the Trials of Defiance, they will perish as well.]
At the tesseract’s words, transparent holograms of Adam’s father, grandmother, and niece appeared around him. They couldn’t see him, but they were looking around in fear and confusion. His sister, brother-in-law, aunt, and uncles were not present however, perhaps because they’d also been selected.
“What the fuck…”
[Do your best for the sake of your family and all of humanity. Should you or any other Player complete the Trials, humanity will be spared from extinction.]
“Why are you doing this!?”
The tesseract ignored him and released a pulse that flowed through his surroundings, brushing away the dark shadows and transporting him somewhere new. Text appeared in front of his face as the surroundings changed.
< < Now Entering > >
< Stage 1 >
< The Magical Forest >
< 5 Waves >
Adam looked around. He was standing in the clearing of a vibrant and green forest, with a seemingly-impenetrable wall of trees ringed around him, and a single large tree in the middle. Moss covered the understory, the sky was a nice shade of blue with fluffy clouds, and peaceful birdsong filled the air.
The tesseract floated out in front of him, before unfolding in a strange way that seemed to drag additional mass out of a fourth dimension, constructing a metallic stand upon which hovered five objects. Unlike the holograms of his family, these things were real, as far as he could tell.
His options were: a pair of metallic gloves; a bow; a sword and a shield; a staff with a stone at the end; and a large sword. Three of the weapons had a faint white glow, while two let off green light.
[Before we proceed, you must select a Weapon Type.]
“But I don’t know what is happening! You’ve got to give me more than that to go off of, if you want me to risk my life!”
[Failure to select a Weapon Type within 60 seconds will default you to the Weapon Type ‘Fool’.]
“Can you at least tell me what they do?”
< < Weapon Types Available > >
< Brawler (Uncommon) >
< Archer (Common) >
< Defender (Common) >
< Spellcaster (Uncommon) >
< Warrior (Common) >
“And what do they do??”
[Would you like me to repeat the Weapon Types?]
“No, you dumb box!”
He let out a frustrated yell, before trying to think through the choices.
I guess Brawler would make the most sense, since I take boxing lessons once a week. But, if I’m going to be fighting, then a shield would probably be the safest choice. A bow or spell-staff may both be okay, but I’ve got no idea how they work. The two-handed sword is probably too heavy for me to use effectively…
He started going through the list, figuring out what would suit him best. It seemed like a pretty important choice and he didn’t want to screw it up.
[10 seconds remaining.]
“Fuck you! Don’t rush me!”
[9… 8…]
Adam ran over and immediately grabbed the floating sword and shield. The blade was made from simple iron and had a leather grip that felt comfortable, with a simple rectangular bit of iron as the crossguard. The shield was bowl-shaped wood, with two horizontal iron braces on the front and another all around its edge. It could strap to his forearm using two clasps, and looked like it was a repurposed beer barrel.
As soon as he touched them, they automatically appeared in his hand and on his arm. A scabbard also materialised on his left hip, attached to his belt. Strangely, an innate understanding of how to wield the weapons flowed into his mind as soon as he held them.
Perhaps I should’ve selected the bow instead, he considered.
Right on the heels of that newfound understanding came two text pop-ups.
< < Weapon Type Selected > >
< Sword & Shield >
< Common >
< < Player Status > >
< Adam Fischer >
< Defender >
< Level 0 >
< Stats >
< Health — 200 >
< Stamina — 100 >
< Mana — 0 >
< Damage — 75% >
< Defence — 150% >
< Speed — 100% >
< Upgrades >
< — — — >
“What the hell does all that mean?”
Instead of an answer, the tesseract folded itself back into a floating box, taking away the other options, before a new announcement appeared.
< < Wave One > >
< 60-Second Timer >
From the nearby wall of trees, a single transparent-blue blob squeezed itself through the tightly-packed trunks, before bouncing its way towards him. It was about the height of a normal housecat, but as it hopped across the clearing, he noticed that the moss it touched was dissolved as though by acid, with the remaining bits charred black. Within its jelly-like body was a single spherical stone.
“Wait, am I in a fucking videogame?”
[This is not a simulation. Death is permanent and this enemy is trying its hardest to kill you. If it succeeds, it will dissolve your flesh and feast on your corpse.]
[Failure to slay the enemy within 60 seconds will lead to Wave Two triggering.]
Adam gritted his teeth. He hated tight deadlines like this, but he predicted that the following Wave would involve more than a single slime. Stacking Waves together would no doubt lead to him being overrun. With no other choice, he lifted the shield in front of himself and charged forward.
He swung the iron sword in a downward chop, but, despite his newfound understanding of how his chosen weapon worked, he lacked the fundamental skill and muscle memory to utilise it flawlessly. Instead of cutting through the centre of the blue slime, his blade veered off half-way through and ended up just cutting off about two-thirds of its mass. Where the clump fell to the ground, it began to dissolve into a puddle, while decomposing the grass and soil beneath.
The slime bounded forward and he raised his shield to defend himself. On impact, his whole body was pushed back a full step and a numbness flowed through his arm briefly. A chemical burning smell filled his nose and as he disengaged from the creature, he saw that the front of his shield was turned black where it’d struck.
“Guess I can’t rely on this shield to protect me forever,” he muttered. Fortunately, the slime’s acid seemed incapable of affecting metal.
The slime jumped forward again, but this time he sidestepped its attack, while swinging his blade horizontally through its body. Although his aim wasn’t perfect, the edge of his sword still managed to slice through the core in its centre.
With a pop, the slime exploded and he quickly covered his face and torso with the shield, as its dissolving body rained down around him. A glob of its jelly flesh hit his right thigh, immediately eating through the fabric of his grey jeans and burning his skin before evaporating.
“Ow! Fuck, that hurts!”
Although I kind of thought acid would hurt worse than that, somehow.
< < Wave One Complete > >
< Choose your Upgrade >
The tesseract floated out in front of Adam and unfolded itself into a podium with three holograms appearing in the air above. Each was a white symbol, but they depicted different things: the first looked like a sword swinging; the second was like a shield growing; and the third was a fist with a spiked aura. Text overlayed each of the three symbols:
< < Upgrades Available > >
< Sword Speed (Common) — Increases sword attack speed by 10% >
< Shield Growth (Common) — Increases shield diameter by 15% >
< Damage (Common) — Increases all damage by 5% >
[You have 30 seconds to pick an Upgrade. Failure to decide will forfeit your choice and none will be selected.]
[You currently have 0 Rerolls.]
“It’s really hard to make informed decisions when you hurry me along like this! And what’s a ‘Reroll’?”
[Rerolls allow you to scramble the options available to you, potentially unlocking different Upgrades that you might prefer. You currently have 0 Rerolls.]
“How do I get Rerolls?”
[The easiest way to acquire Rerolls is by purchasing them at the Interim Island.]
[15 seconds remaining before Wave Two begins.]
He groaned in annoyance at the constant rush. “Fine!”
Sword speed boost, shield growth, or a damage increase… I guess the shield makes the most sense?
He reached out and touched the middle option.
< < Upgrade Selected > >
< Shield Growth (Common) >
Adam’s wooden shield grew outward, increasing its diameter from 1 metre to 1.15 metres.
Was that actually a good choice? he wondered.
< < Wave Two > >
< 60-Second Timer >
It was impossible for him to think a lot about his options when the Trial didn’t wait for him. He was someone who preferred sleeping on big decisions, since impulsive choices had always betrayed him in the past.
Two transparent-blue slimes squeezed out of the forest wall of the clearing on the opposite side from where the first had appeared. Adam didn’t waste a moment and charged straight for them, with his sword lifted in the air and the shield in front of his torso.
The slimes were identical, so he just went for the right one first, side-stepping its simple attack and swinging his blade through its core and jelly flesh.
As it exploded, he back-pedalled several steps and managed to catch all the droplets on his shield rather than his body.
Maybe cutting through the core in that way is why the explosion is so violent, he considered.
With one remaining slime and most of his time yet remaining, he decided to experiment, since the death throes of the creatures were arguably more dangerous than their normal attacks.
The slime jumped towards him, but, instead of side-stepping, he moved into the attack, using his shield to push it back. Though the slimes had no eyes or heads, it still seemed they had a ‘top’, as the slime tumbled back and landed upside-down, momentarily unable to move.
Adam stepped forward and carefully aimed a stab directly through the thinnest part of its body and into the core. He felt a weak resistance as the tip of his sword dug into the stone, but after hurriedly retracting his blade and backing up, he saw that his guess was correct. The explosion from the precise stab shot out in a single stream through the wound, rather than a large area. Although, the pressure was higher, so the stream of corrosive fluid flew further.
At least it’s easier to avoid this way. If I can stick to bashing and stabbing tactics, this should be fine.
He looked at the front of his shield. There was a bigger burn-mark on it now, though it was still structurally sound.
Yeah, this might just be a winning strategy.
< < Wave Two Complete > >
< Choose your Upgrade >
The tesseract flew over and created the podium again, although this time one of the choices had a green symbol. The green symbol depicted a sword getting longer; the middle symbol was a shield with spikes on it; and the last was a shoe with wings.
< < Upgrades Available > >
< Sword Growth (Uncommon) — Increases sword length by 30% >
< Thorny Shield (Common) — Reflects 5% of blocked damage >
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
< Movement (Common) — Increases movement speed by 5% >
All of them are good this time.
After a few seconds of deliberation, he made his choice, but before he picked it, he asked the reality-defying box a question.
“Tesseract, what are you? How do you have these powers?”
[This vessel is but one of the All-Seeing System’s many eyes. Through its benediction, I wield a fraction of its Authority.]
“There’s one for each person like me?”
[Yes.]
[You have 15 seconds left to pick an upgrade.]
“What should I call you?”
[You may call me whatever you like.]
“‘Shitbox’ it is, then.”
[10 seconds remaining.]
Adam walked over and touched the green symbol for the uncommon upgrade.
< < Upgrade Selected > >
< Sword Growth (Uncommon) >
Adam’s sword grew to be about the length of his arm, but its point of balance shifted towards the simple crossguard and the weight also increased. It seemed that each upgrade had unspoken demerits, as increased weight meant that his swings would be slower. The size increase to his shield hadn’t noticeably altered the weight though, but that was perhaps due to it being made of wood.
“When I’m done with these slimes, do I get to go home?”
[No. If you complete this Stage, you will be transported to the Interim Island.]
“What’s that?”
Shitbox did not reply, as the next Wave began.
< < Wave Three > >
< 90-Second Timer >
[During Waves you may take damage. Although you can purchase consumable health regeneration after this Stage, there are also ways to acquire them from within the Stages themselves. Look towards the tree, where a Healing Apple is awaiting you.]
Adam followed its directions and saw that a branch, which hadn’t been there before, was reaching down towards the ground from the large central tree in the clearing. At the tip of the branch was a single red apple.
“That’s not a trap, right?”
[Healing Items take shapes according to the Stage you are in and are often difficult to acquire or hard to find, but will always return you to full health. Collected Healing Items will not be transported with you, when you complete a Stage.]
As it finished its speech, the tree wall directly opposite where he stood began to shift as a larger purple slime squeezed through. Unlike the blue ones, it had two cores inside the top of its upside-down cone-shaped body, giving off the appearance of eyes, which was unsettling. A second after it appeared, two smaller blue slimes squeezed out of the treeline as well.
“Three-on-one? Really?”
The smaller slimes hopped forward, while the purple upside-down cone squeezed itself in order to gain more height. The tip of its ‘head’ became almost like a spear, which it bent down, aiming for his head. It too began hopping forward, though it moved slower than the blue ones.
Definitely have to get rid of that purple prick first.
Adam charged towards the blue slimes, but just as they were close enough to jump at him, he kicked off the mossy ground and went to the right of them, lifting his shield in front of his head, while closing the distance to the tall slime.
Schiiing!
The spear-like head of the purple slime produced a terrifying sound as it jabbed towards him. When it struck his shield, it didn’t feel like a slime’s jelly-like body, but rather like a metallic weapon, and it had a lot of power behind it. He was pushed back a step, while blindly swinging his elongated sword out in front of the shield blocking his vision. Adam felt the tactile feedback of his blade hitting the creature, but its body was a lot harder than the blue slimes.
Schiiing!
A new attack punched into his defences, this time going all the way through, with the tip of the purple spear-head emerging just above the arm the shield was strapped to. With a frantic swing, he managed to sever the top of the slime’s head and it slid out of his shield, leaving a circular hole behind.
As soon as the pointy top hit the moss below, one of the blue slimes began moving towards it. Adam noticed this peculiarity, but instead of stopping, he shifted his shield slightly and swung his sword into the side of the purple slime again, aiming for the cores.
The strike took a bite out of its strangely-dense body, but he needed more power to cleave through, as it was consolidating its mass and thickening up its body, in order to defend itself. Adam let out a loud grunt of effort as he shifted his shield hand to the bottom of his sword handle and swung through the slime with a diagonal slash, which leveraged all his strength.
The blade travelled through the dense purple jelly, cleaving one of the cores and continuing to carve down and out its side. The top half fell into two separate pieces, with the part he’d cut off containing the remaining core.
With an overhead swing, he split the piece in half, with the core cut down the middle. After both cores were destroyed, he felt an immense sense of satisfaction. The feeling was immediately replaced with horror, as the carved-up remains began to bloat.
Bang!
The entire purple slime exploded, shooting out darts as long as his hand.
“Ow! Fuck!”
Adam was hit in the right thigh, abdomen, shoulder and upper arm, while his shield protected his left side. His white shirt was immediately damaged beyond repair. Each purple dart dug in about three centimetres, before beginning to slowly release some kind of chemical that heightened the pain.
While quickly yanking out the darts and tossing them aside, Adam cursed up a storm.
[Warning! Health below 50%. It is recommended that you make use of the Healing Apple.]
Schiiing!
Suddenly a sharp pain filled his left calf, and he instinctively swung his sword down in self-defence, seeing that a smaller version of the purple slime was there.
“Argh!”
[Warning! Health below 25%. You are close to dying.]
His strike cut it in half, and with a quick stab he pierced its single core, before limping back a couple steps and raising his shield to protect against its explosion. A smaller bang came and two impacts thumped against his shield, while he hid behind it.
Where did that second one come from!?
No sooner had the question entered his mind than he saw that one of the blue slimes was slurping up parts of the purple’s severed flesh, before it turned into the same colour and manifested a spike out of its body.
“They can do that!?”
[Warning! You are close to dying.]
“It’s not that bad,” he argued, although he could tell that his entire body was inflamed with pain, even though the adrenaline in his system was working overtime to suppress it.
He glanced away from the slime to the tree, then began limping his way towards the awaiting apple.
[30 seconds remaining of Wave Three.]
“You just never shut up, do you Shitbox!?”
As he was limping to the apple branch, blood was freely leaking from his entire right side and the wound in his left calf, leaving behind a red trail that the blue-turned-purple slime was hopping along, while its top was shaped like the blade of a rapier. The weight of his shield and sword was starting to feel like it was too much, but he knew that discarding either was going to get him killed.
He somehow made it to the apple, but it was just high enough that he could not reach it without jumping. Jumping was unlikely to be a good idea though, so he instead swung his sword into the air clumsily, slapping the apple free from the branch with the flat of his blade and losing his balance at the same time.
With a belly-flop on the soft ground, he landed in such a way that his head was right next to the apple. He immediately bit into it.
[Healing Apple consumed! Recovering Health back to 100%.]
In an instant, Adam’s wounds were sealed shut and he felt all his strength return to him.
[15 seconds remaining of Wave Three.]
Schiiing!
Adam instinctively rolled aside, just as the small purple slime jabbed its rapier blade at him. It struck the mossy ground instead of his groin, and, while it was struggling to pull it free, he got to his feet by using the shield. Then he swung his blade down into its body.
The small slime had become dense like the original whose essence it’d devoured, but it was not as big, so his strike was still powerful enough to cleave it nearly perfectly down the middle. He followed up with a stab to its core, before hiding behind his shield.
Bang!
Unlike with the blue slimes, the purple ones seemed to still explode like grenades, no matter how he cut up their cores.
< < Wave Three Complete > >
< Choose your Upgrade >
Adam slid down onto his knees, breathing quickly.
“Fuck this shit,” he muttered.
Once I’m done with this Stage, I’m finding a way out of this place.
He couldn’t help but recall the image of his dad and niece. They’d both looked so confused and scared. After his dad had lost his memories following a risky brain operation, he’d become almost infantile in some ways. If not for his caretaker, he wouldn’t have been able to survive. And now he was all alone in whatever place Shitbox had sent him to.
[You have 15 seconds left to pick an upgrade.]
Adam got back to his feet and ran over to where Shitbox had unfolded to present his three options.
I need something that lets me cut through those slimes more easily or something to protect me from their explosions.
He looked at the options, his eyes immediately catching on the green symbol that represented an uncommon upgrade, and saw that it was the same upgrade as the middle one from Wave Two. The first option also had a familiar image, but the third choice was new. It had a white icon of a person with a second outline that was moving weirdly.
< < Upgrades Available > >
< Sword Speed (Common) — Increases sword attack speed by 10% >
< Thorny Shield (Uncommon) — Reflects 10% of blocked damage >
< Dodge (Common) — Grants a 5% chance to dodge a direct attack >
Reflect Damage might help me kill them.
He thought the small speed increase on his sword swing was unlikely to help him much. Same with the low chance to dodge, which also only triggered on direct attacks, which probably didn’t include the explosions as those were not aimed at him specifically. However, if he could reflect some of the damage he blocked, like the slimes’ explosions, it was sure to be a boon.
[Warning! You only have 5 seconds left to pick an upgrade.]
“I’m picking it!” he shouted in annoyance, as he touched his hand to the green symbol.
< < Upgrade Selected > >
< Thorny Shield (Uncommon) >
The front of his shield grew tiny spikes as the new upgrade kicked in.
“What shit are you gonna throw at me this time?”
He still felt rather winded, so he hoped it would be an easier round, although that seemed unlikely given the trend until now.
< < Wave Four > >
< 90-Second Timer >
Two separate groups of slimes broke from the treeline on the opposite side of the clearing from him. There were one blue and one green in each group, with the green ones being like chubbier versions of the blues and having two cores like the purples.
He had to be careful about the small ones eating the remains of the special slimes, since they could copy their powers, but he still felt confident that taking out the special variants first was the safest choice here.
Adam ran towards the nearest group to his left, while the blue slimes hopped in his direction. The two green ones remained where they were and seemed to be getting bigger, similar to how the blues would bloat when they died.
Then they simultaneously ejected globs of their own jelly bodies at him, each firing three baseball-sized projectiles. It sounded like they were blowing bubbles when they fired, like plop-plop-plop.
“Woah!” he exclaimed, raising his shield while frantically hopping to the side to avoid them as they rained down on his position.
None of the six projectiles managed to hit his shield, but they instantly dissolved the moss and scalded the exposed dirt black where they landed.
I wonder if my sword will be okay if it touches that?
With a thud, Adam was pushed back, as one of the blue slimes had caught up to him and slammed into his shield. One of the spikes on the front shot back at the attacker, while he regained his balance, shoving his shield forward to flip the slime on its top, before chopping it in half down the middle where its core was. Then he hid behind his shield as it popped.
The sound of blowing bubbles caught his ears and Adam immediately ran forward, while keeping his shield raised in front of himself. Two of the six projectiles hit his shield weakly, but then the smell of a chemical burn flooded his nose and he saw how two dark patches bled through to the backside.
At the same time, a small piece of each of the projectiles split off and bounced back to the sender: the green slime right in front of him. It was struck right as it was starting to bloat and preparing to fire off more. The damage was high enough to interrupt its charge-up attack.
Adam closed the distance and swung his sword through its body, aiming to strike both cores simultaneously. Unlike the purple slime, the green one wasn’t dense at all. In fact, it was easier to cut through than the blues and he split both cores with ease.
Then, as it started to bloat, he hurried away from it, keeping his shield between them.
Pop!
The green slime exploded much like how the blue ones did, but with it came a barrage of the baseball-sized projectiles, which quickly rained down around the area, destroying the mossy understory of the clearing. Its range seemed to be about fifteen metres.
Plop-plop-plop!
Three globs of acid were shot at him by the remaining green slime, while the blue one was skipping towards the steaming remains of the one he’d just killed.
“Oh no you don’t,” he muttered, as he raised his shield and caught two of the projectiles, before reaching the blue slime. He chopped it in half and then stabbed its core.
Adam surged towards the remaining enemy, while a pop came from behind him. The green bastard was trying to charge up for another attack, but he slashed his blade through its body, getting both cores.
Then he retreated and watched it explode in a shower of acid.
[Well done! You cleared the Wave with more than half the time remaining.]
“That one did feel better,” he remarked. “Do I get a reward for going fast?”
[Yes.]
< < Wave Four Complete > >
< Choose your Upgrade >
Shitbox unfolded in front of him, with the large tree just behind it. Adam noticed that there was a new branch with a Healing Apple growing from it, but this one was four metres off the ground, so it would be difficult to reach.
“What kind of reward?” he asked, while looking at the three new symbols. There were two unfamiliar ones and both were uncommon. The first symbol was a sword with a spiked aura, the middle was a shield with the same effect, and the last was the fist he’d seen after the first wave. The aura clearly meant ‘damage’.
[You will find out after the next Wave.]
< < Upgrades Available > >
< Sword Damage (Uncommon) — Increases sword damage by 10% >
< Bash Damage (Uncommon) — Increases shield bash damage by 10% >
< Damage (Common) — Increases all damage by 5% >
It’s all damage this time. I wonder if that’s a bad sign…
Regardless, the best choice was obvious.
< < Upgrade Selected > >
< Sword Damage (Uncommon) >
There was no obvious transformation from his choice, but he got the sense that the edge was a bit sharper than before.
< < Wave Five > >
< 180-Second Timer >
“180 seconds this time. So it’s definitely a Boss,” he speculated.
He then narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Wait, what happens if the time runs out?”
[The Boss will become enraged, tripling its damage and speed.]
“Aha! So it is a Boss Wave!”
[It may be useful to check on your Player Status during a Stage. You can bring it up by uttering the word ‘Status’.]
“Seriously, Shitbox, how is this not a videogame??”
A distant thump came from beyond the dense forest wall of the clearing, in the direction directly opposite him, which was how every Wave started. It was a weird consideration that the ones in charge of the ‘Trials of Defiance’ had decided that dropping a new Wave on top of the Player was a bad move. It seemed at odds with the forceful participation and cruel design of the whole thing.
Another thump made Adam do a small hop.
“Status,” he said, while gripping his sword firmly.
< < Player Status > >
< Adam Fischer >
< Defender >
< Level 4 >
< Stats >
< Health — 200 >
< Stamina — 100 >
< Mana — 0 >
< Damage — 75% >
< Defence — 150% >
< Speed — 100% >
< Upgrades >
< — — — >
[You may also bring up your Weapon Status by uttering the word ‘Armament’.]
Another thump came and Adam nearly fell over, while the trees around the clearing, as well as the one in the middle, started shaking and rustling their leaves.
“Armament.”
< < Weapon Status > >
< Sword & Shield >
< Common Quality >
< Level 4 >
< Stat Upgrades >
< Shield Growth 15% >
< Sword Growth 30% >
< Thorny Shield 10% >
< Sword Damage 10% >
“Does something happen if I keep levelling up my weapon?”
[Yes.]
“And you’re not going to tell me, right?”
Shitbox did not reply and he instinctively knew that it was because the Boss had arrived. A large shadow appeared on the other side of the great tree and, a second later, a giant deep-blue slime arrived with a thunderous boom. The quake that rolled through the clearing was powerful enough to knock Adam down onto his ass.
As soon as he got back to his feet, the five-metre-tall slime began to hop towards him, clearing two metres at a time and producing a loud thump each time, which made the ground shake.
“There’s no way…” he muttered, but then he remembered the images of his family and what was at stake if he died.
Within the Boss’ body were three large cores the size of oranges and they freely moved around, providing a tricky target for him. Strangely, atop of its dark-blue mound of jelly flesh was a rusted crown.
The ‘Slime King’ hopped again and Adam seized the opportunity to rush forward with an upward slash, holding both hands on his sword handle and hoping to use its downward momentum to aid in the cutting powers of his sword. Sure enough, as it landed, his sword was dragged up through its body and he managed to cut off about a fifth of its mass.
As the piece fell to the ground, he backed off several metres to see how it’d react, but nothing much seemed to change about it. One thing of note was that its body didn’t have a very powerful corrosive effect, since the moss and dirt beneath it wasn’t dissolving immediately or charring black.
Realising that this foe was just a big target that was trying to crush him, he charged for it as it jumped again, repeating the same trick from before and managing to nick one of the cores as he cut a slice off of its body.
Slashing attacks don’t seem like they’ll work, he concluded, since the cores kept shifting out of the way of his blade.
Adam decided to try stabbing instead, so he took his left hand off his blade handle and ran forward with the shield in front of him, right when the Boss landed from another hop. He slammed his shield into its side, while pulling his right hand back and holding the blade horizontally. Then, just before it was about to jump again, one of the cores shifted close to the ‘surface’ of its body and he hammered his sword directly into it, breaking it in half.
The Slime King instantly ballooned in size as though it would explode and Adam was close enough to be sent flying.
He was sent skipping across the ground once and slammed his back into the tree wall of the clearing. All the air was forced out of his lungs and he immediately started coughing while trying to breathe in.
“What’s my health?” he managed to ask Shitbox between coughs.
[You have 160 Health or 80% remaining.]
Adam pushed himself off the ground and ran towards the big slime, but it was doing something strange. The two remaining cores stopped moving inside its large body, equidistant from each other. Then it split down the middle and changed colours, with the cores within them likewise splitting into two smaller ones.
The left side turned green and the right became purple.
“Ah, shit,” he muttered, before immediately switching to the green one, while the purple twin was forming itself into a flexible spike. They were both larger than their previous counterparts, no doubt owing to the enormous size of the Slime King.
Adam swung his blade through the green twin, managing to immediately sever a core, before disengaging and positioning himself such that it was between him and the purple one.
Schiiing!
To his surprise, the purple slime’s spike pierced through its twin to try and hit him. He was just far enough away that the tip only poked the front of his shield, which didn’t seem to trigger his damage reflect.
When it retracted its spike, Adam moved forward and started slashing into the green one, tearing away its jelly flesh to reach the core, before immediately hurrying back several steps.
Schiiing!
Once again the purple slime lanced through its twin, but this time it struck the remaining core and destroyed it. The green slime began to sizzle, before the fragments of its two cores collected themselves into four tiny pebbles, which positioned themselves in a way that divided its body into quarters. Then, unsurprisingly, it split and became four small blue slimes.
Adam charged forward with his shield, bashing them aside and jabbing his sword into the purple slime’s body, exploiting the pause between its attacks. He managed to pierce deep enough to break one of the cores, despite the fact that its body was denser than the other versions. It helped that it was stretching itself thinner.
Schiiing!
As the purple twin retaliated, he narrowly dodged to the side of its stabbing top, which instead pierced one of the blue slimes, killing it. This one popped like normal, meaning it was done dividing once it reached that tiny stage.
Adam gasped for air, having overexerted himself to keep up with the monster thus far. Not being allowed proper breaks between Waves also wasn’t helping, as the exhaustion was piling up.
A sizzling pain suddenly blossomed on the side of his left leg, as one of the blue slimes jumped into him. The fabric of his grey jeans immediately dissolved and his skin felt like it was set on fire. He chopped it in half with his sword, before moving around the purple slime’s body to avoid the splash of its explosion.
“Shitbox, how much health did I lose!?”
[The attack dealt 45 points of damage, which was reduced to 30 thanks to your Defence rating. That means you now have 130 Health or 65% remaining.]
Good to know that a Defender’s Defence rating is actually worth something.
The purple slime was preparing to strike him again, not needing to turn around to hit him, instead just bending its spiked top around.
Adam baited out its strike, but he was a bit too slow and it pierced through his shield and into his left upper arm. The Thorny upgrade triggered and fired off several of its spikes back at the Boss, breaking apart some of its body.
[Warning! Health below 50%.]
With a roar, he chopped his blade down through its spiked ‘head’ and severed it, then shifted his grip upside-down and hammered his blade tip into its body repeatedly, until striking the core.
Like the green twin, the purple slime began to sizzle and the cores turned into four. Adam let it do its thing, while running around its body to get the remaining blue ones, before four more joined in. With a chopping strike and a piercing stab, he killed them in quick succession, then backed away as they exploded.
The purple slime divided into four blue slimes, just like the green one had, and though his lungs were on fire and his body screamed in pain, he charged forward without giving them a chance to move. Adam chopped two of the slimes in half, before backing away as they exploded, only to charge forward and bashing his shield into a third, following up with a jab to kill it.
[60 seconds remaining before the Boss enrages.]
With an exhausted but wrathful attack, he killed the last slime with two quick slashes. As it bloated and prepared to explode, he stumbled back a couple steps, before slipping and landing on his ass.
Pop!
< < Wave Five Complete > >
< < Stage Complete > >
< Tallying Score >
“Fuck this,” he groaned, laying down on his back in the moss and staring up at the azure sky above the forest. His body slowly healed itself back to full, now that the Stage was completed, and he even felt how his energy returned, as his Stamina was replenished.
< < Score > >
< 300 Seconds Completion Time >
< 220 Damage Received >
< 315 Points Awarded >
“How do you calculate the score?” he asked.
Shitbox floated over to where he lay, hovering above his head and directing its creepy eye down at him.
[A Player’s score is based on several elements: enemies defeated; the speed at which a Wave is completed; how much damage was received; and other bonus elements that will be revealed once attained.]
“So, what now?”
[You will receive another Upgrade choice, as well as a Relic Chest that will allow you to pick between three Relics. Once you have selected both, you will be transported to the Interim Island.]
“Relics?”
[Relics are items that can benefit a Player in a myriad of ways: offensively, defensively, supportively, and so forth. Conquering the Trials of Defiance is impossible without making good use of them.]
“Well, then, let’s get on with it.”
Shitbox floated over to where the tree stood and Adam got up from the ground to follow. He noticed how the moss was returned to its original pristine nature and that all the remnants of the slimes were erased, as though he hadn’t just had the most insane fight of his life in this idyllic place.
As usual, the tesseract unfolded in that bizarre way to create a podium with three options hovering above. Unlike the other times, however, there was a wooden chest next to it. The image of the Slime King was engraved into its top half and it looked like it belonged in a retro videogame.
Despite it all, the sight actually made him excited. As soon as he realised it, however, he shoved the feeling down.
Don’t get side-tracked! he scolded himself. The only thing that matters is getting out of this place and freeing my family.
On the podium were two familiar symbols and one new, which looked like a blade with a serrated edge. All of them were uncommon.
< < Upgrades Available > >
< Sword Growth (Uncommon) — Increases sword length by 30% >
< Shield Growth (Uncommon) — Increases shield diameter by 30% >
< Bleed (Uncommon) — Attacks inflict bleed dealing 10% weapon damage over the course of 10 seconds >
Adam thought about picking the bleed option, but he couldn’t tell if it’d actually work against enemies like slimes, given that they had no veins in their body and thus no blood to spill.
“Shitbox, does bleed affect all enemies?”
[No.]
Figures.
He picked Sword Growth since it seemed to have a lot more utility over bonus damage that didn’t work against everything he’d encounter.
< < Upgrade Selected > >
< Sword Growth (Uncommon) >
“Alright, let me see the Relics so I can go to that island you were talking about,” Adam told the tesseract, while his sword increased in both length and weight.
Any more growth and this thing can’t really be called a one-handed sword…
Shitbox folded back into its tesseract shape and flew over to the treasure chest. Then golden light began to spill out from the seam of its lid, before popping open and casting that light into the air. Three items floated out from within and hovered above it, not too unlike how the upgrade podium displayed things.
There was an apple identical to the one still hanging from a branch on the tree, a glass jar with blue slime inside it, and a white glove with red stars woven into its fabric. The first two options glowed white, but the third had a blue glow, which was new.
< < Relics Available > >
< Healing Apple (Common) — If the Player’s health falls below 25%, this apple is consumed, healing them back to full. Once consumed, the Relic disappears >
< Slime Coating (Common) — The Player's weapons are coated with the essence of a Blue Slime, imbuing them with 10% additional Corrosive Damage. The Relic lasts for 3 Stages >
< Duellist’s Glove (Rare) — Charge an attack for 2 seconds to enable it to pierce armour. 60-second cooldown >
“Well that’s a no-brainer,” he said, picking the glove.
Just like when he’d picked the sword and shield initially, the Relic equipped itself to his right hand.
< < Relic Selected > >
< Duellist’s Glove (Rare) >
Before he could even test out its power, the tesseract, which was hovering nearby, let out a pulse of its strange magic and the surroundings fell away into inky darkness. Another pulse pushed away that darkness, revealing a cobblestone road under his feet. As the pulse continued to expand outward, buildings and trees were revealed.
< < Now Entering > >
< Interim Island >
I haven't launched a new book since March of 2024 and I'm honestly so excited to see if people like this story or not.
This first chapter is quite a chunker, sitting at 8k words.
While future chapters won't be quite as long, they are all currently between 3 and 4k words.
This means that the releases will be less frequent as a result.
However!
If the story gets to Rising Stars main, then I will drop a bonus chapter.
I will also drop another if it gets to top 7, and one more if the unthinkable happens and the story hits #1.
Anyway, if you'd like to help me hit those milestones, please the story.
