Sparks - A Teaser

The boy flew as fast as he could. Summoning up enough wind to tear the leaves off the trees as they flew by. He glanced behind him and frowned. He didn’t see anyone pursuing him anymore. He turned back forward and cried out just as he ran into a spider’s web.

Most spider webs wouldn’t have caused Blake a problem. He was much smaller than the humans which seemed to take most of the world, but he was still big enough that usually he didn’t worry about something like a spider web. Unfortunately, this one apparently wanted to prove him wrong.

He flew right into its strands, and nearly punched through. But then the spider web snapped back, and Blake started thrashing. That was of course the exact opposite of what he should have done. Soon his arms and legs were so tangled that he could only barely move at all.

“No!” Blake cried out. He stopped himself and focused his mind. He summoned up the wind again, this time making it sharper, like a blade. He used his air blade to start hacking at the web. Then he heard a sound that made him freeze.

A stick broke.

Blake looked around with just his eyes trying to not move and draw attention to himself.

“Looks like you got yourself in quite the pickle.”

A human stepped into Blake’s sight. Blake instinctively scanned him, and saw that he was man between the ages of twenty five and thirty five. He was also a player, which made a chill run down Blake’s spine. The system didn’t give him any more information than that.

“Yup,” The man continued. “Quite the pickle indeed.”

“Please don’t eat me.” Blake said.

The man rolled his eyes, “I’m not gonna eat ya.”

Blake blinked. “You’re not?”

“Nah.” The man said. “The sidhe taste all earthy and bitter, and I already had my coffee today.”

“Oh…” Blake was pretty sure the guy was going to eat him.

“Whelp, better get you out of there, before that really does want to eat you comes along.” The man pulled a carving knife out. Blake started struggling when he did. “Simmer down kid.” The man ordered. Blake felt his body freeze up against his will.

“That’s better.” The man then swiftly cut the strands that were holding Blake up. Blake soon fell into the man’s awaiting hand. Blake was about ten inches tall, which was fairly normal for a sidhe of his age. The man wrapped his hand all the around Blake’s waist. Suddenly, Blake knew he could move again. He started thrashing around, trying to squirm out of the man’s grip.

The man sighed, but didn’t give Blake any commands this time. He just started walking through the forest. Blake was starting to panic now. He should have been able to slip out of the man’s grip, even though he was bound by the spider web still. The sidhe have the natural ability “Slippery” which makes it hard to keep a hold of them physically. This guy didn’t even seem to be trying hard though.

After maybe a half hour, Blake gave up, completely exhausted.

“Don’t worry kid.” The man said. “You’ll be fine. I’m just bringing you home so that I can get that web off ya.”

Blade didn’t respond. He had failed. It was first day, and he was already going to die. He had been the only hope for his family. He had the highest talent scores, and had studied everything about the game. He had known that noob killers would be at the starting spawn point. That’s why he had chosen to be a Sidhe, because he had figured that he would be able to get away from anyone thanks to their natural abilities. When he had realized that he had been given an Air Spark of all things, he had been overjoyed. It was the one he would have picked if he had been able to. It all but guaranteed that he would survive long enough to establish himself.

But this man had ruined it all. All right, Blake not watching and running into the spider web didn’t help, but he would have been able to escape from that. But this man had him now, and apparently, there was absolutely nothing that he could do about it.

The man didn’t speak to Blake anymore, and Blake didn’t try to start up a conversation. He had resigned himself to his fate at this point. They arrived at the house after not too much longer. It was a simple cottage in a clearing. There was a stack of wood next to the house, and a trail of smoke rising out of a chimney. It was quite quaint.

The man opened the door and walked in, closing it behind him. It was a one room cottage. The man’s bed was up against the wall on one side, and the fire place and a rocking chair were on the other side. There was a pot hanging over the fireplace with something simmering in it. The man set the sidhe boy on the table in the middle of the room.

“Flux,” the man said. “Where did I put that old freezing poison, I could never get rid of?”
“Why in the world would I care about where you put a freezing poison?”

Blake blinked in surprise as the voice that responded came from the fireplace. Blake looked closer at the fire that was burning away in there. There was fire there, and there was wood. But there was also long sinewy lizard that appeared to be the source of the flames. The lizard didn’t seem overly concerned about that fact.

“Because you’re a paranoid salamander who’s afraid of winter.”

“It’s in the trunk under your bed.” The salamander answered sulkily.

“Ah!” The man said. “That’s right.” The man walked over and pulled said trunk out. After only a moment of ruffling around in there, he pulled out a small blue vial. He walked back over to the table and leaned over Blake.

“All right kid,” He said. “This is going to be a mite bit cold.” Blake closed his eyes as he dripped a couple of drops on the webs that were entangling him. Blake immediately felt the webbing, which had been keeping him a bit too warm, start to freeze. “That should do it. Try and break the webs now.”

Blake opened his eyes and frowned up at the man. He looked down and saw that the webbing was now brittle. Blake flexed his arms and the strands broke easily. Blake immediately stood up and threw an Air Slash at the man.

“There we go!” The man said with a smile, completely ignoring the blade of air that hit in him in the face.

Blake blinked in amazement. He was so, so, dead.

“Anyone home!” A voice shouted from outside the cabin.

Blake froze. He recognized that voice. It was one of the guys who had tried to snag him at the spawn point. The man noticed and looked toward the door.

“Hmm,” The man said. “I think I’m beginning to see what’s going on here. First day?”

Blake nodded. Honestly it hardly mattered what he did at this point. Inside the cabin was a man who was apparently invulnerable, and an expert sidhe catcher, while outside was at least one noob killer. More likely the entire band was out there.

“Hmm,” The man hummed again. “Whelp, I suppose I didn’t have anything better to do today. Time to educate the youngins.”

He then got up and walked out of the building, leaving it open. Blake stared at the open door in amazement. The boy glanced at the salamander in the fireplace. He could hear faint snoring coming from it, and the fire looked much smaller.

Blake stood up an shook the rest of the frozen webbing off of him. He then summoned up the wind, gently, and floated himself out of the building. He rocketed up into the air as soon as he was clear of the building. He would just have kept on going if he hadn’t glanced back, but what he saw made his heart jump into his throat.

Ten people were spread out around the man in a semi-circle. Blake stopped and hovered in the air. The wind quieted and he could hear what they were saying.

“Now see what you did.” The noob killers’ leader said. “You let our snack get away.”

“Oh did I?” The man asked. “How silly of me.”

“I guess we’ll just have to take your spark instead.” The leader said.

The man rolled his eyes. “Honestly boy, have you even scanned me yet?”

“Uhh boss.” One of the other gankers said.

“What?” He said.

“I’m getting nothing on him.”

The leader looked at his minion for a moment and then turned and stared intently at the man himself. “What? How’s that possible?” The leader asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” The man responded.

“Yeah I would.” The noob killer said. “And if you don’t tell me how you’re hiding your stats from us, we’ll just kill you and find out when we loot your damn body.”

The man rolled his eyes again. “You’re kind of horrible at this whole bad guy thing you know. I mean you already told me that you were planning to kill me to get my spark. Why in the world would you threatening me to kill me have any impact on me, when I already know that you’re planning to kill me?”

The leader frowned in consternation. “I … uh …”

“All right boys, time for some lessons, and all its going to cost you is a spark per person.” The man started sauntering forward slowly. “Now that being said, I understand that not everyone seeks knowledge like I do. So this is all your all’s only chance. Leave now, and I’ll let you go. Stay, and I’ll be happy to educate you.”

A few of the guys and girls looked at their leader questioningly. The man was just staring in utter amazement at the guy meandering toward him. Six of the ten left.

“Now you see.” The man said. “That right there shows you that some people still have common sense.”

The leader frowned, and waved a hand. A long straight sword appeared in his hand, and the leader shifted to a fighting stance. The other three drew their own weapons and did the same.

“Now, lesson number one.” The man said. Blake blinked and suddenly the man was behind the goon on the farthest right. “Never let your target know you’re targeting them.” The man did something that Blake couldn’t see, and the goon fell to the ground to disappear in a flash of light. Only a pale silvery orb remained.

“Lesson number two.” The man said. The ganker closest to him jumped in surprise and turned to strike at the man. “Always anticipate, never react without thinking.” The man took one step back and avoided the downward strike of the ganker’s ax. The man then spun around and threw his foot up at the ganker’s face. The man connected with the ganker’s temple. Another flash of light, and another orb was floating in the air.

“Lesson number three.” The man said. The only two noob killers left were a woman and the leader. They were both pale faced and clearly terrified.

The woman started backing up, “Hey man, I got no problem with you. I’m happy to leave.”

“Live with your choices.” The man said. This time, since Blake was expecting it, he could just barely see a blur in the air as the man moved. Another flash, and the woman’s spark was floating in the air.

“Lesson number four.” The man looked at the leader of the gankers. “Pick on someone your own size.” The man didn’t move quickly this time. He took one deliberate slow step after another. Blake couldn’t fathom why the leader wasn’t running yet.

Unless he was being held still by the same skill that the man had used on Blake earlier. Blake also realized something. The man had said that the price for these lessons was a spark a piece. Blake highly doubted that the man was unaware of his presence. Blake flew toward the nearest spark on the ground. He grabbed it and shoved it into his chest. Light exploded in an aura around Blake.

The leader exploded into motion. He swung his sword right at the man’s neck from close range. The man caught the bare blade in his hand. There wasn’t any blood. The man squeezed, and the leader’s blade shattered sending shrapnel that bounced off the man’s skin, but embedded in the leader’s face. The man took one last step, and the backhanded the ganker in the face. The man died before he hit the ground, and his spark floated there serenely. As if nothing violent had happened at all.

The man then turned to face Blake. The light that surrounded Blake faded out at the same time. The man smiled. “Lesson number five.” He started walking toward Blake. “Always pay your debts.” Blake hovered up into the air so that he was head level with the man. The man held out a hand. Blake reached out with his two hands and accessed the system menu. He hit his statue page and accessed the sparks menu. He pushed the button that allowed one to transfer a spark to another person.

The spark he had just acquired appeared in his hands. He gently floated closer and handed the spark over to the man. Blake then meekly floated back, not bothering to even try to run away. The man could without a doubt catch him again if he wanted too. He just had to hope the man wouldn’t be okay with Blake’s little charade.

The man smiled and closed his fist. The light aura surrounded the man for a moment before fading away.

“So,” he said. “You want some stew? Flux has been cooking it all day, it should be delicious. Of course you could also just take those sparks and leave. Your choice.” The man turned and walked back into the cottage. Blake looked after the man for a moment. Then he looked at the three remaining sparks floating in the clearing.

Blake turned and shot into the cottage.