Chapter 127: The Book of Runner Grove
🕑 Added 2024-11-25 22:18:41 +0000 UTCAuthor's note: A shorter chapter here. If anyone has ideas for Page 11, I'm all ears.
The Book of Runner Grove
Page 10
Faster…
Faster….
Faster…..
How do people not run as fast as they can? I saw these dumbshit people the other day. A gods damned mini-manticore was chasing them, and I do mean mini. But these guys were barely even booking it.
Like, I don’t get it. How do you not full-on run as fast as you can? Stupid kids with their clipped strides. Who taught them how to run?
Anyways, I killed it. Little Johnny and Suzie got away. I don’t mean little, little, but they’re young. Then again, so am I.
Hey, fuck you for judging.
Page 11
(A drawing is depicted showing the middle finger, along with little doodles of creatures Runner has met on her travels)
Page 12
Skills are weird.
I visited Balian the other day, you know, the smith guy Heph was so into. Big love right there. Anyways, I needed a new spear, and he’s, like, the guy, to talk to about it.
So as we’re talking, the fucker starts to lie to me! To me! Do you know many times already that I’ve saved his god damned city? I know it’s only been a few days, but seriously, he needs to upgrade his security.
I probably wouldn’t have known, except my weird skill gave me a heads-up. Every time someone tries to lie to me, my eyes go a little nuts. The bigger the lie, the more of a shadow I see covering their face. It doesn’t work so well in the dark, but if I’m looking right at them, I can always see it.
I called him out on the lie and he got pissed about it. But why lie about what kind of spears you have for sale? He should be giving them to me for free after what I’ve done for his territory.
That pissed me off enough to leave him and his dumbshit city in the dust.
Next time they get attacked, they better be ready.
I have other places to be.
Page 13
The Unending Summit had a…meeting today.
Walker was there, which is unusual enough I suppose. Back on Sonata during the displacement, he always seemed so busy- running around and giving fast orders before disappearing again.
Not that I don’t like the guy. I respect him a lot for what he’s been able to do with everything. I mean, he’s my Creator, titled and literal, even if he did beat mine and Lucy’s ass before our trip to the Conservatory.
Blah, I don’t even like to think of that place.
Like, I get it. I get what he was trying to do. But it really didn’t work out that way. Yes, we worked together and everyone advanced their skills, but the moment my trial came, I was beyond useless. I didn’t even complete the damn thing until we’d already left Crescendo and arrived at Melody.
Not that I’m complaining about the results. The instant my trial completed everything I knew about my body changed. My muscles felt deeper, like there was some hidden reserve within. My body moved faster, pushing speeds I hadn’t thought I’d ever reach. It was certainly worth the increase in strength. But the loss of my friends was terrible. And not only on Crescendo.
Fuck dolphins man.
The new city seems pretty nice though. Maybe I’ll base my new operations out of here.
Pages 14-15
I’m getting a lot of questions from other people about how I’m using lightning, and I always answer the same way.
Get your skills to level one hundred.
After saying that, they all have the same reaction. Big googly eyes and stammering about how that was even possible.
So, I’m going to write it here in the hope that people will read this book when it’s done and I can move on with my life.
When you first get your Mastery, Profession, whatever, you get some skills that come along with it. For me, I have three that are super unrelated to each other. I chose an experimental Mastery, something the weirdo named Ulysses came up with. And you know what? It’s worked out. Each of my skills didn’t seem like they would work with one another, but I’ve found uses for them multiple times since first claiming my Mastery.
But I didn’t get running as a skill. No, that came later. See, I made a deal with Ulysses that I would test out some weird Mastery he’d come up with, and in return, we’d meet up every so often so he could see what worked and what didn’t. In exchange, I get to pick a few skills that aren’t necessarily in the Milestone store.
Naturally, the first skill I picked up was Running.
Now, how do you level a skill?
The first twenty or twenty-five skill levels come quickly. You level up, get your glowy moment, and the skill adapts to you. Initially, it will feel like the opposite. Like the skill is trying to tell you what to do, rather than the other way around. But that’s normal for how these things work. Each skill I’ve gained has kinda thrown my brain for a loop as I learn to adapt to it, and it learns to adapt to me. They’re all individual. Unique. One-of-a-kind.
To level running to twenty-five, I just did what came naturally.
I ran.
And I ran, and I ran, and I…ran. Non-stop. But more than that, I thought about what I was doing wrong with my running. How could I be faster? Should I be standing up all the way? Should I shorten or lengthen my stride? What do I do with my arms?
And the skill? Well, it kind of adapts to what you’re doing. At level twenty-five, the name of the skill changed from [Running] to [Speed Running]. I took that to mean that it knew I wasn’t interested in running for long periods of time, but rather, going for the fastest speed possible. At fifty, it changed again to [Speed Movement] because I’d started to use the techniques I’d learned in running across everything combat-related. Stretching my muscles just right, breath control, and running became the single skill of which all my other skills revolved around.
At a hundred, I became a [Velocity Virtuoso]. I don’t really understand what it means, but Ulysses told me on my last check-up that it was a good thing.
Nowadays, I’m sitting at about Level Ninety-Seven overall. I’m told that when I hit a hundred, a bunch of crazy shit will happen, but I don’t know about any of that. I just really really like to run.
So there you have it. If you want magic, you need to focus on your skill to almost the exclusion of all else. Even if that means your other skills aren’t as prepared. I can tell you from experience that your life will not be the same once you pick out which magic type best suits you.
For those of you who want to know how to use magic?
Fuck you. Figure it out for yourself. I already told you how to level up your skills.
Pages 16-17
Walker called in not too long ago. Looks like the next battle of the Creator Wars is only a few hours away. Because of that, he added me to several different chat rooms so I could talk to everyone.
I hate it.
There I was, enjoying a light run through a swamp to meet this cool Guardian Chipper told me about when WHAM! Four new chatrooms popped into my overlay. And not only that, but they don't stop fucking talking.
Like, I already have the Unending Summit chatroom on mute because of just how much they chatter, but with these chatrooms, Walker did something that made every ping a new notification in my overlay. It’s incredibly annoying. Even when I complained to him about it, he just sent me a bunch of laugh-out-louds in reply.
“What kind of battle is it going to be?”
“Are you sure we can’t die?”
“How are we going to eat? Is there good food?”
Fucking fatty. How do you think about food when you know you’re going to be fighting creatures from across the Multiverse?
I told Ulysses a long time ago that I was preparing for these battles. These, and the ones that will follow.
I just know that the moment we win our way through the Creator Wars, shit’s going to go crazy. With Walker, it’s really the only expected possibility. Giant creatures, like the ones we fought on Fortis, even for how short that trip really was. Sneaky bitches, like the Dolphins on Melody. We don’t know what we’re going to be facing, and what’s even worse, neither does our Creator. Ulysses isn’t any help either, though he did present some unsettling possibilities. Parasites and slimes and other horrors I’d rather not think of.
But the craziest part is the last message Walker sent out to everyone.
Don’t expand your soul to the Physical stage.
Like, what?
Apparently if you do, and you die, the Evolvers may not be able to bring you back. There’s a good chance a lot of us are going to die one way or another, but with how it was explained to us, that was only a brief pause in our lives. A blip that will go away with our memories.
But to be held back because of the POSSIBILITY of dying? That burns me a little bit, I have to admit.
What’s the purpose of living if you’re afraid of death? To run…is to be free.
Page 18
I found a weird tunnel near the edge of the Eternal Base territory. The grooves cut into it look like something chewed its way through. What kind of creature has that kind of ability, I don’t know. Haven’t seen em yet. But I’m excited for the day that I do.
Through the tunnel, I found an odd collection of large frogs that make the cutest sounds. I had to whack a few of them around before they decided I was, in fact, not a meal. But after that, we all got along pretty well.
I think I’m going to hang out here in this little oasis until the third battle hits. There are a few Guardians here who seem friendly enough, and I’m certain there are worse places to be.
As I understand it, if we lose the battle, we’ll stop existing…or something. I don’t know, Walker didn’t explain it very well.
I figure if that’s going to happen soon, this is a calm place for me to rest for a few minutes.
I know I should be scared, but I’m not. Since my first creation, my life has been an odd twist of scenarios, from Lucy’s arm to the trial, to training the next cohorts in speed running. This battle should be just another twist- another scenario.
Doot Doot.
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Jeremy Young
TFTC
