Enlightenment Through BDSM

“It’s not working!” I said, continuing to hit the rabbit with regular punches. 

“It’s fine,” Kalia said, moving over to cover me as the monster closest to her started turning away from Dreck. “Keep doing your best. Dreck, this one’s loose, and low!” 

“On it,” Dreck said, raising his axe up high, holding it still for a moment as the the other two creatures still bit and clawed at him. For a while, he hadn’t seemed to take any visible damage, but scratches were starting to appear on his skin now, blood flowing from his wounds as his axe started to glow blue. He let out another barbaric yawp as his weapon accelerated to the ground, striking the rabbit that was heading towards me with a thump, and then the monster stopped moving. 

I did my best to turn away from that. I’d been hunting before, but I never enjoyed that part, or any of it really. I turned my focus back to the two that were still up, winding back for another attack. 

I could feel it again, Soul Strike, in the center of my chest. Might as well use it while I can, I figured, pushing the energy out and into my fist, into the rabbit.

The pressure was back too, the explosive force as I connected, blowing both myself and the rabbit to the side. It didn’t like that, apparently, because despite seemingly being unharmed it turned back towards me, baring fangs, fangs no rabbit should have had.

“Shit,” I said, backing away. Soul Strike was gone again, I could tell. But I felt something else too, a lingering ember of the ability I’d used, a small flame that was growing again. No, Soul Strike wasn’t gone, just recharging, resting after a long day at work Soul Striking and getting ready to get back to it the next morning. All I had to do was wait, be patient.

Which is a lot easier said than done when a dog-sized monster-rabbit is leaping through the air at you. I moved my arms up instinctually, holding them up in an X-shape as fang and claw hit me.

I stumbled back, almost keeping my balance, but ultimately buckling under the weight of the thing. I had braced myself for pain, a common reflex from falling in gymnastics, but I didn’t feel any as I hit the ground. In fact, I didn’t feel any at all as the rabbit gnawed at my arm, scratched at my chest. Part of it may have been that it’s jaws were partially digging into my wrist brace, but that couldn’t by all of it, right?

Something else was depleting though, another new sense like Soul Strike, HP. So that’s what that means, I thought, still a little mentally stunned by everything that had just happened. I knew it wouldn’t last forever though, that Dreck had seemed unharmed at first but was now bleeding, that as this waning resource disappeared I’d suffer the same.

While I was focused on those new new senses, I felt Soul Strike returning as well, filled up completely as the beast kept me down. “Fight back!” I could hear Kalia saying as she ran over to catch up with me, and so I had to. My arms were still pinned, locked down, but I had my feet, and I could feel Soul Strike would work with them too. I’d never really kicked anything before, other than repeatedly getting yelled at for hitting a soccer ball wrong as a kid, but anything was better than nothing, so I sent the energy down my leg, made a pathetically short kick with barely any force behind it cause of the angle I was at, hearing my youth soccer coach scream that I shouldn’t be kicking with my toes right as I was making impact. 

This time it was different though. I felt the exchange of force, the energy leaving my body, but there was no outward pressure. It was like I was actually connecting with the hit for the first time, not being blown away by my own attack. The rabbit wasn’t exactly blown away either, but it did let out a yelp as it released my arm, jumping off of its own accord and growling at me as Kalia’s rapier slid into its body. It collapsed as Dreck put down the third only a few feet away. 

“Worked that time,” Kalia said with a soft smile, sheathing her weapon and offering me a hand.

“I don’t know what I did differently,” I said, offering my hand.

My heart skipped a beat as she pulled me up, lifting me me from the ground in one smooth motion as I flew back to my feet. If she noticed anything, she didn’t offer any sign. “Are you okay?”

“Yea— yeah,” I said, feeling a weirdness in my chest. Not the weirdness from Soul Strike either. 

“Good,” she said, her face relaxing a bit, looking sideways at the creature she’d felled. “I’m sorry, you weren’t ready for that… I meant to explain more to you, but they were on us too fast.”

“We lived, and none of use are worse for wear,” Dreck said, walking back over with his axe on his back. He said none of us were worse for wear, but he didn’t look like it, covered with even more wounds than he had when I went down, some looking pretty nasty too. “And no one could’ve guessed they’d be this close to town.”

“You don’t, uhm, look that great, Dreck,” I said.

He looked down at himself with an exaggerated from and shrugged. “Tank’s job, ain’t it? These scratches’ll close up before night time, and they’ll be gone by morning. Couple day’s rest after that and my HP’ll be good too.” That didn’t sound right, but I didn’t know know enough about orc physiology to dispute it, so I held my tongue. “Anyway, by the sounds of things you figured out that Soul Strike of yours at the end of things?”

I frowned as I looked at my hands. “Not really. It worked once, but I don’t really know why. Maybe cause it was a kick instead of a punch?”

“Let’s test it out,” Dreck said, patting his chest with a grin. 

“I don’t think that’s a great idea,” Kalia said, face filled with concern. “Something’s weird about that skill, and we don’t know what.”

“It’s fine,” Dreck said, standing with his arms outstretched. “She’s only level one; I can take it. ‘Sides, I nearly took a swing at her last night, so’s only fair.”

I couldn’t tell if he was serious about it being fair, if wanted to test it, or if he just wanted to get hit. I looked to Kalia, and she just sighed, throwing her hands up. “Up to you two.”

“Well, okay I guess,” I said, planting my feet. Punches were out with this skill for whatever reason, so I readied myself to kick at him, a real kick this time, like you see on tv. I leaned back and struck my foot at him, sideways, hitting him with my full force directly in his lower stomach.

The explosion was massive. I flew off balance from the pushback, catching myself in a one-handed cartwheel and rolling onto each foot, one at a time. That was new, I thought. I’d always been athletic, acrobatic, could do a one-handed cartwheel, but with no warning, on instinct, an that clean?

Dreck wasn’t so dexterous, apparently, stumbling backwards before tripping over the rabbit Kalia and I had taken down. “Bwahahah!” he let out from the ground. “That was nothing!”

“Sure looked like something,” Kalia said, squinting at him. “But you’re right, practically no damage.”

“What did I do wrong?” I asked, looking down at my foot this time. It was the same foot that had done it before, a better kick even. So what gives? 

“You’ll figure it out, probably,” Dreck said as he climbed back to his feet. “One of them complicated skills, I reckon. Glad Heavy Strike is easy to use.”

“Yeah, just stand still for five minutes,” Kalia said. “Real easy to use.”

“Bah, it’s only a few seconds. Now come on, help me tie these up so I can drag ‘em into town.”

Rope started appearing in both of their hands as they went about the task, reaching into their “inventories” as I had learned. Kalia was going to teach me about that later, she said. So many things to learn.

“We’ll figure out your skill before we do another mission,” Kalia said once they were finished, dropping a hand onto my shoulder. “Should be someone in town with a monk class that can point you in the right direction.”

I nodded. I had a lot to learn, but I was no stranger to training, hard work. I’ll be useful; I swear it!