Disorientation twisted Cole’s guts around again. If anything, it was worse than coming back from Kevlesh. And when they finally emerged into a forest with the same sickly-green sky as the portal, it didn’t help.
He, Ken, and Besson all turned and spit their breakfast over the side of the vehicle while Morganstern whistled and cheered them on. Howie looked a bit green around the gills as well, but that might have just been the off-putting green sky packed with dark rain clouds. By the time Cole got his poncho out and over himself, the rain from a passing shower started to fall on the ridge. Thunder rolled overhead, echoing off mountains to the south and east.
“Someone forget to check the forecast?” Roxy shouted over the thunder.
“No point,” said Morganstern, evil grin plastered to her face. “Curahee is always like this. Didn’t anyone tell you? It’ll get better under the canopy.”
“You know, where I’m from,” said Bart, “Green sky means a twister is about to hit.”
“I feel like I just went through one,” said Cole.
Morganstern turned onto a trail, driving them along a ridgeline, seemingly completely unbothered by the rain. After about five minutes, they hit a wide spot where a rope was coiled next to a thick stake. The proctor turned back and pointed a finger at Besson. “You’re up. Out and LF analyzer.”
Besson tossed his pack over the side of the vehicle before hopping down next to it. He pulled a small tablet slightly larger than a cell phone out of his rig and looked at it before showing it to Morganstern. She glanced at it, nodded, and then went over and kicked the coil of rope off the side of the ridge before raising her voice.
“So I don’t have to repeat myself five more times, in case it wasn’t obvious, that’s your destination,” she said, pointing to a squat peak rising out of the forest below the ridge. Cole could see the remnants of what looked like structures on the terraces around the upper levels of the mountain—though he was surprised he could make out any details at that distance through the rain and mist. “Do not attempt the summit without a class. If you think the forest is bad, wait ‘til you see the castle.”
Cole was somewhat relieved to see Besson out first, which gave him a decent chance of not being next to one of the guys Roxy had told him might be a closet psycho. He certainly had the cold eyes of someone who would gut you and sleep like a baby after. Besson hauled up on the harness of his working dog and clipped it to his harness. Then, he wrapped the rope around himself and through his rappel device. Morganstern checked his rig and gave him the go-ahead. He walked himself back over the edge of the ridge and disappeared from sight.
Morganstern got back in the driver’s seat and drove to the next rappel point, repeating the process with Howie, Han, Roxy, Ken, Nona, and Bart until the only one left in the open-top vehicle was Cole. He estimated there was about a mile between each of the stakes. They finally got to Cole’s, and Morganstern threw the vehicle in park.
“Alright, Airborne, show me what you got.”
Cole hopped over the side and used the height difference to get his pack on easier. Luckily, the day bag seemed to be waterproof, so at least everything inside should still be dry—and for some reason, it felt much lighter than when he’d hauled it out of Jefferson’s armory. He reached under his poncho, pulling the little LF analyzer out of his chest pouch. It powered on as soon as a metal plate on the back touched the skin of his palm, and he felt it tingle.
Level: 1, 84%
No class detected. No subclass detected.
Assessed Enhancement Metrics:
Strength: .2
Dexterity .25
Acuity: .4
Resilience: .15
Speed: .3
Intelligence: .25>
Cole stared at the screen for a minute. He hadn’t played a lot of RPGs, but those stats seemed really shitty, and it must have shown on his face.
Morganstern stalked over and yanked the analyzer out of his hand, looking at the numbers for herself. She looked back at Cole. “Anyone explain to you what this shit means, yet?”
“Not as such, ma’am, no,” he admitted.
She turned the screen back around. “Well, you’re level 1 instead of level 0. Almost level 2, actually, so that story about you fragging a Kevlesh demon must not have been a crock. You could get a class pretty quick.” She pointed to the enhancement metrics. “These are multipliers. Every time you level up, this is the percentage of your baseline you improve by. Watch.”
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She flipped a slider, and the numbers changed to amalgamated scores.
Strength: 1.2
Dexterity 1.25
Acuity: 1.4
Resilience: 1.15
Speed: 1.3
Intelligence: 1.25>
Not amazing, but better than his first impression.
"Your eyes been sensitive since we got here?” Morganstern asked.
“A bit, yeah” said Cole.
“That’s ‘cause every level, your eyesight and hearing are getting better by a whopping forty percent of your baseline. Easy math, right? Enhancement metric times level equals how… mmm, not useful, but at least how much less dead weight a Lewis Field makes your ass.” She tapped the LPVO scope on his rifle. “.4 is pretty good for a top metric. By the time you get out of here, you might not even need that. Or hell, maybe even those NODs. On the other hand, your strength and resilience are shit. So you may be a weak pussy who will probably die as soon as you run out of ammo, but your speed might be fast enough to at least not get eaten for a while.”
Morganstern walked over and kicked the coil of rope off the ridge. “Wouldn’t be the first time cowardice saved a hopeful. Let’s go, Airborne.”
Cole stowed his analyzer and started securing the rope to his rappelling device. He looked up at Morganstern. “Any more words of encouragement?” he asked.
“Fuck, hopeful, you should see me when I’m in a bad mood,” said Morganstern. She walked to the squad vehicle and pulled her own bag and weapon—not even a firearm, just a sledgehammer with a striking surface that looked like a metal dragon’s head with glowing, red eyes. “Just keep that flare gun close. I’ll be watching for it.” She gave him a sarcastic salute, then blurred as she took a running leap off the ridge at a speed that carried her at least 50 feet out over the forest. Cole watched, wide-eyed, waiting for a parachute. But apparently the high-level Kicker didn’t need one.
Grumbling at the show-off, Cole started lowering himself down the side of the ravine, feeling the rope slide by in his hand. Better senses and speed. Made sense. He’d always had keen eyes and ears and smoked most everyone on rucks and runs. Low strength and resilience meant he’d never be charging into battle with a war hammer or a machine gun with three hundred pounds of ammo like Morganstern or Deadlight, but that had never been his style anyway.
Even if his strength and resilience were shit, he could already feel the enhancements working. His kit didn’t feel as heavy as it should have, and he was no longer jetlagged. He had an end-state and his 50, 100, and 500 meter targets. Survive, hunt, level up to get a class, and pull loot from monsters. Then head for the top of the mountain. As far as he knew, LF monsters could drop pretty much anything he might need, and he was expected to scavenge ammunition. But no one had said anything about what kinds of things to expect in the dense forest below. Or what form those monsters would take.
Cole started to draw even with the tops of the trees, and the rain stopped. An unnatural stillness fell over the forest, and he halted his rappel, looking out across the canopy for any sign of movement. His target, the mountain castle in the distance, would take him several days to reach. For now, he needed to get his bearings, explore a bit, and cover as much ground as he could before nightfall—if day and night even worked the same here. He couldn’t take any of his Earth knowledge for granted.
Not seeing movement or hearing strange creatures’ roars, he finished rappelling and reached the bottom of the ridge unmolested. He unclipped his line and then charged his rifle. It felt lighter in his hands here. Closer to his M4 in weight, which made sense if he was 20% stronger in a Lewis Field. At level 5 he’d be twice as strong as normal. He tried to imagine his skinny self with a 320 pound bench press. The thought was almost laughable.
He made his way through the dense woods, slowly and carefully. It felt more like trail-blazing through the forests in his home state, Georgia, than the scouting he’d done for the Army. But he supposed if the US and Russia had decided to have their off-the-books war in a European country instead of Syria, this is probably what he’d be doing anyway. He stopped to shake off his poncho and stow it before continuing.
One stark difference from Georgia was the orange fungus that seemed to grow on anything head height or below. It seemed to be on every fourth or fifth tree, eating away at the bark like a parasite with blue veins in the infected trees and carving strange hollows in the wood. His survival and evasion training had covered some edible mushrooms and wild plants, but he wasn’t about to assume any of that info would be useful for determining what Curahee plant life was or wasn’t toxic. He’d stick with the rations.
After an hour of walking, he checked the position of the sun and saw that it was past its zenith and now headed for the horizon. His compass at least still worked, so he was able to keep his bearing even when the canopy was too thick to see the mountain in the distance. Other than startling a few small brush-critters, he hadn’t seen any signs of life—or of the other recruits. After another hour, he stopped near a small brook for a break, hoping the sound of the water would cover the noise of the wrapper on his meal bar. He chewed at the hard brick of carbs and protein as he leaned down to dip a cloth in the brook. It must have been summer here, too, because it was hot as hell and humid. He wanted a towel to help cool his neck.
He froze as his cloth touched the water. Beside the brook, there were footprints in the mud. Fresh ones, as it had only stopped raining a little over two hours prior. One foot seemed to drag, and they were boots—but not treaded like his or the other recruits. Cole straightened back up, twisting the cloth around the back of his neck as he looked around and listened. He continued chewing on his lunch as he pulled his pack back on. The tracks looked like they went northwest towards Bart’s drop zone. Slightly off course from his goal, but he didn’t like the thought of whatever this thing was sneaking up on the medic. Plus, if he could link up, the two of them would have a better chance of surviving together.
Cole stalked in the direction of the fresh tracks. The obvious footprints disappeared as soon as the ground transitioned back from fresh mud to the mossy undergrowth. Normally, tracking humans through brush was tricky business, but this one didn’t seem to care what kind of signs it left of its passage, even where brambles and thorns took off patches of clothing or, in one case, a patch of skin. Cole knelt down by the thorn bush and looked at the piece of sallow flesh hanging from a barb. Aside from the blood, it was brown and sickly—not the alabaster flesh of the demons from the crossover, thank God. It was criss-crossed by blue veins that reminded him of…
He looked at the trees. The trees with strange fungal growths had similar blue veins in the tainted, decaying areas.
He straightened up. Okay. Weird. But he hadn’t come to Curahee for normal.