Silence danced to the whims of his calling, moved by steps taken in quiet silence towards the building he'd been directed to venture into. A quick look over his shoulder revealed that Halt was by the car, back relaxed against it and hands deftly cleaning his weapon with a small handkerchief. The man didn't bother meeting his gaze, but he knew he'd been aware of it.
Fun.
Carter stepped into the gas station, stepping over a fallen barril and looking around as my feet touched concrete instead of dirt and grass. The stacked barrels by the door and near some of the gas pumps would serve as good protection, he mused, had he any sort of long range weaponry — but as he didn't, they wouldn't be that useful. Too easily circumvented.
He turned his gaze back to the wide open metal doors that led into the building proper. The lights inside were off, but he noticed a dim light coming from the back wall, red in colour; likely indicating a fire exit or the entrance to the aforementioned basement. Either or, really.
— He contemplated just walking in for a second. But then he thought, no way, that would be way too stupid. Walking into a dark, crowded space where God only knows what awaits? Sign Carter the hell out.
He looked around. The barrels looked back. He tentatively walked to one of the piles of barrels, blinked slowly, and then kicked them all down by hitting the one at the bottom centre in the 3x3 pile.
The resulting collapse was quite, quite loud. Clangorous metal barrels hitting one another with force some four to five times in a row as each barrel collapsed and rolled made sure of that.
— His ears were ringing, but he heard it clearly: something shuffling within the darkness of the building itself. The characteristic sound of an aluminium can being knocked to the ground echoed from within.
He drew the knife he'd just received from its sheath, holding it tightly with his right hand, edge pointed outwards. No sense trying an icepick grip if he didn't even know how to use it.
— An unholy screech. The kind that could only be produced by a human throat. It was a loud, almost wail-like cry, raspy and pained. And from within the darkness of the convenience store rushed two humanoid figures.
Carter gulped.
Dreamers — human-like creatures exclusive to Morpheus. They had clearly been human at some point, but such a point was long, long gone; with eyes that started to shine as soon as they walked into indirect sunlight and skin of a dark gray that was almost black, the Dreamers looked more like zombies than the people they used to be. Colorful bright veins of Mana decorated their bizarre skin, in bright reds and greens and deep purples and the like. These, like usual, wore worm rags.
No one really knew how they came to be. The Government had certainly never said anything. But there were theories — scientific experiments and the likes.
It didn't matter. What mattered was that they fed on Mana through touch, and were more than capable of killing you by draining you of all your Mana. And blood. And what's more —
A flash of red. Carter's eyes widened and he haphazardly threw himself to the right, rolling back to his feet just as the first Dreamer, who had clearly been a man in his 20s before whatever happened to him, tackled the spot he had been standing in whilst engulfed in flames.
The concrete he hit shattered into pieces, and a small cloud of dust was spread by the thin debris.
The Dreamers still possessed an echo of the [System] they had carried in life. Most were low-level users who didn't pose much of a threat, but some… some weren't. The only good thing was that they were slow and had pathetically low Mana reservoirs.
Carter directed his gaze to the second Dreamer, a man in his 30s who had clearly been emaciated. He could count the man's ribs, and though the different skin tone made it hard to note, there were some scars to be seen that Carter recognized.
Whip marks.
He suddenly felt a little guilty… but quickly shook himself out of such stupor. The man was already gone; rather, it would do him a disservice to leave what was left of him in such a state.
Rather — the only way to do the man justice was to kill the Dreamer he had become. For ease of reference, Carter decided to call this one Dreamer 1, and the one who had used fire — who, by the way, had just gotten up — Dreamer F.
Taking in a deep breath, Carter bent his knees and dashed towards Dreamer 1. It took a step back in surprise — odd — and then snarled, its arm taking on a dim blue glow. It punched that arm forward, and Carter instinctively sidestepped.
Boom!
The sound of something that had been hit by lightning and shattered. He could vaguely see a pillar of concrete had had half of its diameter in Carter's half exploded out by what had looked like electricity.
Fun.
If he hadn't dodged that, he would most likely be dead. If he'd tripped, he'd be dead. Hesitated, he'd be dead. Dead, dead, dead — panic sparked in his chest, but loud buzzing from his mind quickly smothered it.
No time. He dashed into arm's reach of the Dreamer, lifting his arm to stab down with his dagger at the creature's chest, hopefully straight to its heart. Inexperience, however, proved a disadvantage — he misaligned the cut, and instead of cutting into flesh and bone, the blade dragged sideways towards the ribs and left a dark gash in its path.
[Dreamer 1: 70/100]
Interesting, he dimly noted. The System messages used his nicknames for the creatures.
Two emaciated hands lurched towards him, and he stepped back in surprise — too late. A hand grabbed his wrists.
[MP Drained! 5 points lost per second.]
[MP: 45/65]
A kick to the Dreamer's chest knocked it down and away from him, ceasing the Mana drain. He averted his eyes towards the other Dreamed — and found it stumbling its way towards him, smelling very unfortunately like charred flesh.
Dreamer F attacked with a swipe of its nails, aimed very clearly at Carter's neck — and it would have hit, so fast it was, has he not ducked the instant he saw the creature, intent clear to attack from below.
Nails cut empty air — and Carter struck from within the Dreamer's guard, stabbing the knife through the center of the chest with a wet thump. It howled, therefore zemonstrating an impressive ability to feel pain.
[Dreamer F: 50/100]
It was a strange feeling, having these system noticed pop up in his sight — and stranger yet how easily he found himself getting used to them. More than that, it was scary to note how easily he got used to the fighting itself — when Dreamer 1 tried to score a hit from behind him, he'd ducked to sweep his leg almost immediately, and then jumped out of the way when Dreamer F became engulfed in flames again..
He backtracked a bit, letting the flames that surrounded Dreamer F die out. They seemed to erupt from the pores in the creatures skin, a strange halo of burning warmth that illuminated his oddly-coloured skin in far warmer tones than it was suited for.
[Dreamer F: 40/100]
Interesting — so his theory had been correct. The creature was, in fact, damaged by flames. Wonderful.
He kicked one of the empty barrels at the two of them — it was sent rolling their way, but all the impact did was knock down Dreamer 1, who had been halfway through getting up to begin with.
He moved the dagger in his hand deftly, holding tightly to his palm and eyeing the Dreamer warily. Striking at the heard — or, rather, trying to — hadn't been all that effective. Instead,
He should aim at its head.
Carter quickly twisted the dagger to hold it in a reverse grip, bent his knees, and dashed. The flames had died down — and clearly, the creature had something of a cool down period. He took advantage of that fact, diving under its attempt at a swipe and then stepping around the creature's body to rise behind him.
The dagger was lifted —
Shlick!
[Critical Hit!]
[Dreamer F: 0/100]
And sunk into the creature's head. It crumpled down to the floor immediately, a puddle of black blood forming as the clotted liquid oozed from the wound in its skull. As he eyed Dreamer 1, who slowly got up again, Carter bent down to clean his dagger's blade on the rags Dreamer F had been wearing.
The urgency faded, somewhat. Dreamer 1 seemed to be having a hard time getting up — clearly, it's leg had been broken by something, either the fall or the barril he'd be kicked into it. Thus, the once dangerous creature now looked only pathetic — struggling endlessly to follow aimless instincts.
He walked to it slowly, to take a few seconds to gaze at it. It gazed right back, snarling with a decayed tongue, eyes burning bright blue.
— The dagger was sunk into its brain. Its eyes dimmed and it fell back down.
[Critical Hit!]
[Dreamer 1: 0/100]
[Congratulations! You win!]
[Challenge Rating: ¼. EXP Awarded: 30.]
[Level Up!]
Fun.
Except — it hadn't really felt like he'd won.