Leaves crunched under her feet as Diane continued to sprint through the forest. Diane wasn’t really sure what the next part of her plan was, but the almost thunderous barks of the dogs pursuing her was a pretty good motivator to keep running. She had still managed to outrun the dogs, but she wasn’t confident in running all night. She needed a plan.
Diane looked around her as trees sped past, looking for anything that would solve her current problem. Diane had managed to not run face first into a tree yet, but she wasn’t confident in her luck to continue running for much longer. The barking following her was starting to get slightly quieter as Diane slowly increased the distance between them. Then, she saw it.
I bit ahead was a large tree with a tall tangle of roots, providing a decent hiding spot under them. Diane dived and crashed under the tree. The sound of barking dogs is only just able to overcome her loud breathing. She manages to calm down her breath as the dogs get closer.
Diane quickly looks around from her crouched position under the tree for anything to help her as the dogs get ever closer. Her gaze lands on a particularly large and jagged branch near her feet. Quickly, she grabs the end of her makeshift club and holds it close. She isn’t that busy worrying about her life to not appreciate how similar it is to her first time being chased by these dogs. She hopes the dogs will just run past her and she can return to her friends house, but luck is not quite on her side.
The barking stops as the dogs slow their chase and arrive in the area where Diane is hiding. They sniff the air as they look around for Diane. They seem to have found something as their gazes quickly snap to the tree where Diane is hiding. They growl as they slowly approach the tree, spreading out to circle the girls' overgrown hiding place.
Diane watched through the roots as the three dogs began their approach, holding the branch with resolute determination. Was she so scared that she didn’t feel it anymore? Diane was unsure, but she was sure as anything that she would not go down without a fight.
Steading herself once more, Diane looks to the side and waits. One of the dogs is approaching faster than the others, slowly gaining ground around the side of the tree. Diane quickly stood up, swinging the branch up in fast ark against the center of the dog. The dog let out a pained yelp in surprise as it is both wacked with the branch and sent flying backwards a few feet back, slamming into a tree with a sickening crunch as it slumps down at the foot of the tree. Breathing labored as it lets out pained whines.
The other two dogs stop growling and advancing as they stare at Diane and their injured comrade. The larger one that Diane managed to hit with her soda can was the first to recover from the shock. It growled at Diane as the girl held her branch in front of her for defense against the two dogs, and then it leaped at Diane with a menacing bark. Diane took a step back as she prepared herself to defend against the dog's attack, but she didn’t get the chance.
As the dog began to jump at Diane, thick black smoke began to curl off of the girl and pool around her feet. A large wall of smoke surged from Diane and slammed into the large dog and sent it to the ground. Diane stood there in shock as this happened, wondering what happened. The smoke spread away and revealed most of the form of someone who Diane had only seen in her dreams.
Standing above the large dog and holding it down was the figure in the smoke. Most of his body was still obscured in the smoke that swirled around him, but Diane could see his shiny obsidian hand pressing down against the dog's head, holding it down to the ground. He presses harder into the ground, and the dog whines out in pain. The last uninjured dog stands frozen in surprise. It has just enough time to look up and see Diane charge at it and bring down the heavy branch right on its head, the makeshift club shattering into a rain of splinters and blood. The dog drops down and falls to the floor, lifeless. Diane breathes heavily, looking down at the dead dog as some blood pools around its caved in head.
Then, something strange happens. The dog's body shimmers for a second, then it begins to melt into a semi transparent black liquid. The liquid seeps into the floor and disappears, fading into the ground. A vibration comes from Diane’s pocket, but she doesn’t have much time to be surprised or investigate as another pained yelp sounds out from behind her. She turns around to see what happened and sees the dog that the now standing figure in the smoke was holding down. The dog also has a caved in head, blood pooling before the blood and body turn into liquid and fade into the ground. Another vibration comes from her pocket, but Diane didn’t really notice. She went to say something to the figure with smoke curling around his shiny obsidian body, but before she could open her mouth, the figure lifted his hand and pointed behind Diane.
Diane turns around and sees the dog she hit into a tree, which was currently laying at the base of the tree, breathing with obvious difficulty. Diane cringed at its pain and looked back to the figure with a confused look on her face.
“What… What do you want me to do?” Diane didn’t like how it was suffering, despite the fact that it had attacked her, but she didn’t want to-
“Kill it.” The figure completed her thoughts and said casually, looking at the dying dog.
“What? Why?” Diane was still very conflicted about it. She didn’t want to kill an animal even more than she had, but it was obviously going to die, even if she didn’t do anything.
“It isn’t an animal.” That statement confused Diane. Of course it is, it’s obviously a dog? But dogs don’t usually melt into black goop and disappear…
“It is a Shade Beast, a monster created to cause destruction and end all creation. Look at where you killed them.” Diane was first very confused at what he said, but then again he was a giant man with shiny black glass skin and a skull for a face, who was constantly covered in smoke and first showed up in her dreams. Anything could be possible apparently, or maybe she was just going crazy and she had lost her mind. Now that she thought about it, she was awfully calm about the amount of violence that had just happened. And while some of that could be blamed on the adrenaline that still caused her heart to almost hammer in her chest, she was beginning to calm down and didn't feel any different. Oh well, something to discover later.
She looked down at the ground to where she had broken her club against the apparent Shade Beast and it then melted away, and she caught her breath in a silent gasp. Laying there were two familiar items. A bleached white tooth, and a small roll of money. Diane picks it up and suddenly she understands what happened.
“It was you. You took care of that dog that was chasing me.” The figure nods at this, leaning down and picking something up. He walks over to Diane and hands her another set of a tooth and roll of money, as well as another item. He also hands Diane the collar that the large Shade Beast was wearing.
“I did. It could sense that you were Chosen before we talked, and those things were created to kill those like you. I am tasked to guard you, so I destroyed the Beast.” Diane didn’t really understand everything that was happening, it was a lot to take in, but Diane took what was left of her club and reluctantly stabbed down and into the Shade Beasts head. A bit of blood splattered up and landed on Diane’s face, but it quickly melted away into the black liquid and faded into the floor, not leaving anything on the newly Chosen. She appreciated this. And again, while she was still uncomfortable with her actions, it felt a bit too calm about what she did. Where the Shade melted into the floor, another tooth and money roll was resting and quickly retrieved by Diane. This time, Diane noticed the buzz in her pocket.
Thinking it was Hannah, Diane pulled the phone out and looked at it. It was not Hannah. The screen was still that dark purple, but there were currently several notifications.
What? Exp? Level?? What is this!? Some kind of game? Diane was quite confused after reading this, so she dismissed the notifications and it opened another interface. The screen was still purple, and everything was written in the same fancy white font. The screen had several options, but the most noticeable was the option that said [Diane.] She clicked it and a status screen showed up on the screen.
This just got even weirder. Before she really processed everything, one bit of information stuck out to her.
“S-Savu? Is that your name?” Diane looked up from her phone and towards her Guardian. He seemed surprised at this and stood up a bit straighter. He didn’t speak for a few seconds and seemed to be thinking, but he eventually spoke up.
“Yes. I do believe that to be my name. Savu…” The Guardian now known as Savu began to look off into the distance, signaling the end of the conversation. Diane returned her attention back to the screen and noticed something else. Right below the list of stats was her pool of attribute points. There were arrows next to each individual stat, and Diane understood games and how stats worked. Letting herself humor the device and whatever was going on, she pressed an arrow at random and increased her [Constitution] by one point.
Suddenly, Diane felt herself surge with energy and her body felt sturdier. Looking back up to her stats, she could see that her health had increased by five points. Diane looked back towards how many attribute points she had and her head swam. This was crazy, no way could this actually make her stronger! Could it? A lot of weirder stuff had happened to her recently, so she supposed that having actual stats might as well be added to the list.
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Diane had seven stats, and she had enough points to level everything up three times, if she included the point already spent in [Constitution]. Leveling up something specific would probably mean having way better stats and being stronger, but she didn’t really have any idea how she wanted to specialize, so she just leveled everything up to 13. Diane felt another wave of energy surge through her, but it was spread out though more areas. She looked down at herself and appraised her body. Feeling her arms, she definitely felt more muscle definition than the almost no muscle she had previously. And it wasn’t just limited to her body, but her mind also felt clearer. It was a nice feeling.
Diane then looked towards the [Abilities] list. So these should be similar to skills in games, right? Diane had two skills so far, [Observe] and [Smash]. One was an active skill that Diane had no idea how to use, and a passive skill that was always active and improved how Diane did things, apparently hitting things with a blunt object. Did she get skills from doing things? That would make sense, as the skills she had were related to actions that she had taken recently. So, using the skill should level it up then, right? It was a common enough leveling system in games, so it was probably the case.
Diane backed out of the stats menu that opened from the option with her name and back into the main menu. There were still a few options left, so Diane pressed the next option that had peeked her interests. [Information].
After she pressed it, a big notification popped up.
Diane supposed that having an appendix was useful, and glancing at the entries that showed up after she dismissed the notification only proved her right. There were quite a few options that showed up, so Diane read through everything.
That was interesting. Diane looked over at the contemplative Guardian Savu, who was still looking off into the sky through the cover of trees. She decided it would be best not to disturb him, he seemed to be a bit lost in thought after learning just his name. He probably would need some more time before Diane dropped another bomb onto him. She decided to continue reading,
After Diane read through everything in the appendix, she felt it answered a few of her questions. She also figured that the [Rune Device] was probably her phone, although why it was called that escaped her at the moment. And the next question she had she knew how to answer. Diane backed out of the appendix and went back to the main menu, where the second to last of the options was waiting for her. [Interface].
Upon entering the menu, Diane was greeted with an option. [WOULD YOU LIKE TO ACTIVATE THE INTERNAL INTERFACE?] Followed by a [yes] and a [no]. Diane pressed [yes] and the notification went away, replaced by a new screen.
Diane figured she might as well open the last part of the interface using the [Internal Interface], whatever that would mean. With a thought, Diane opened her [Inventory].
“AAGH!” Diane stumbled back as a large screen of that same dark purple appeared in front of her. She definitely wasn’t expecting that.
“Diane? Are you alright, what happened?” Savu had appeared at her side, apparently having been shaking from his deep contemplation.
“Yeah, I’m alri- Wait. Can’t you see that?” Diane pointed to the screen, and looked towards Savu, but he only stared at her in confusion.
“See what?” Savu looked to where Diane was pointing, but he only looked towards the Chosen with a look of confusion and a touch of worry. Diane sighed and looked back towards the [Inventory] she had yet to study.
“It’s nothing, just the Interface stuff.” As Diane said this, Savu seemed to understand, and even nodded his head before stopping and looking confused again, like he didn’t understand why he understood what Diane had said. The Chosen didn’t notice this, however, as she was staring at the screen that had appeared before her.
The dark purple box that made up the screen consisted of several small white boxes that covered the whole screen, except for a portion against the left side of the screen. The outline of a humanoid figure could be seen, along with several lines next to it. There was also a small ‘$0’ above the humanoid figure. It was slightly transparent, and after a little bit of testing, Diane found that while the screen would stay in place if she looked away, it would follow her if she moved away. She also found that she could easily move it around, rotating it around her as she wills it.
Diane wasn’t really sure what to do with it, but inventories were used to hold stuff, so hold stuff it would. Diane first took the three rolls of money she had picked up from the Shades and touched them towards the screen, and they miraculously disappeared from her hand and the ‘$0’ rose to ‘$150.’ Diane then puts her hand into the screen and she tries to pull out some money, and returns with a ten dollar bill and the number counter dropped to reflect this.
Interesting enough, she supposes, and returns the money to inventory, along with the rest of the money in her pocket, bringing the total up to '234$.' She then pulls out the teeth she has collected from the Shade Beasts and attempts to press them into the inventory as well, happy as they disappear and one of the boxes in the inventory shows up with a picture of the tooth and a small number three on the bottom right corner. Diane looks towards the picture and is slightly surprised when the box and picture enlarge, as well as a small text box appearing next to the box.
Diane focuses and the window closes, returning her vision to the previous screen. It looks like she can get some information about stuff if she puts them into the inventory. Diane holds up the collar that Savu had handed her and puts that into the inventory and opens its stats.
Diane’s eyes widened at the collar's information. It makes sense that she could equip items to raise her stats, but seeing it in real life and it would actually improve her physical abilities was really cool. The downside was the negative to her [Intelligence]. What did that even mean? Would she get dumber? Even after raising the stat, she didn't feel smarter unlike the noticeable physical changes. And besides that, she didn’t think the collar would fit. And even if it did, would she want it to? It was pretty extreme, and didn’t really fit her aesthetic.
She shrugs and decides to put it on anyway. She took it from her [Inventory] and put it around her neck. As she thought, it was too big. As she went to take it off, it suddenly shrank until it fit perfectly. She raised her hand up towards her neck and carefully ran a finger along one of the spikes. It was a pretty intense fashion statement.
Looking back towards the [Inventory], Diane noticed that something had changed. Near the humanoid figure, the name of the Bleached Collar was written along one of the lines. The line also extended and pointed towards the neck of the humanoid figure. She guessed that it would show her equipment in the inventory, and that was interesting.
Diane then noticed something else new, a small button near the bottom of the figure. The words [Hide Equipment] were written next to the button. Diane pressed the button with a thought and she felt the pressure that was around her neck vanish. Reaching a hand up, she had noticed that the collar had completely vanished, but its name and stat bonuses were still listed in the Interface. Pressing the button with her mind again, the pressure returned and sure enough she could feel the collar. She pressed the button one more time and the collar disappeared.
Turning towards Savu, she decided to test her last ability. Savu had been silently looking around the area, moving in a strange combination of walking and smokily floating around, thinking to himself as he stood watch over Diane. He looked up and at attention as Diane had finished messing with the Interface and turned back towards him.
Diane looked at her Guardian and [Observed] him.
The list of abilities that Diane couldn’t see just went on and on. He must have had hundreds of abilities, so she didn’t feel like going through the whole list of repeating question marks. And his level and abilities must have been insanely high if she couldn’t see any of his information.
“We should probably head back, Although I’m not really sure what we should do with you. Not to be rude, but I don’t really know how stealthy you can be.” Diane said to the tall, definitely noticeable Guardian. Savu chuckled a bit at the statement.
“Worry not Diane, for I will always be there with you.” As he finished his sentence, his body fell away as he turned into smoke. Diane stepped back in surprise at this, and her surprise only grew as the smoke rushed forwards and surrounded Diane. The smoke seemed to seep into the shadow and folds of her clothes, as the smoke faded and disappeared into her. The Chosen regained her composure and looked around. She didn’t remember where she came from, that would be a problem.
Taking out her phone, she pressed her home button and the dark purple screen that had shown her interface disappeared and she was greeted with her home screen. A new app was in the center of the screen, a dark purple box outlined in white. Diane opened her GPS and found the way back to Hannah's house. She then began with her journey back.
