HOTREDD
Member

About 80 years ago, aliens have already entered earth and started influencing the planet through its lifeforms and technology. Some hid among people, others among animals. Eventually all lifeforms on earth had earth and alien variants, and as time passed they began revealing their differences. About 50 years ago people and animals were found to have alien DNA mixed in, animals with a higher percentage were more monstrous. Still unaware that the new DNA was from aliens in space, outposts and labs were set up in the wilderness to study the altered animals further. About 30 years ago all of these outposts were overrun, and the existence of aliens was made known to the public. Humanity has been working with the aliens and they have become the norm in this world. Within the last 10 years, the aliens revealed that there were other species coming to earth and we needed to speed up our progress to take part in interplanetary matters.

As part of advancing the earth’s progress, we needed to recover the overrun labs. The labs were in very different environments across the world, so we flew by plane and travelled by ship for some. I was in a team of five, three being human, one alien, and one alien that appeared human. The alien was knowledgeable of the alien wildlife and the one that appeared human was a former scientist at one of the labs. On the human side there was one who came from the military, one who had all the technology needed to find these labs, and me with being a more physical fighter. While the military man had several guns, I had a large sword with a gun along its shaft. Usually he could take care of whatever animals were in our way, but I took care of the ones with skin too thick for bullets. We ran into dinosaurs, which came as a result of the DNA experiments but were 100% from earth. The alien creatures took less earthlike forms, some moving like insects while being the size of bears, some having gills while living in snow, and others imitating the long gone scientists.

While in the labs I had to fight off some monsters and we would take turns showing each other how we did our part for the team in case any of us became incapacitated. I was able to use the binoculars that showed the lab past all the jungle and one of the aliens showed us a small tab that once stuck into a creature allowed us to intuitively understand its genetic makeup. While most of the outposts were there for the surrounding alien creatures, some studied alien phenomena that were observable from those locations. One was an observatory, and being earth, all the nearby planets were those we have in real life. It was possible to observe some planets from nearby stars, the nearby star systems being called something like Fulga, Kiros, and AAV. These stars each only had one alien species, so we named the stars after their main planet.

Another location was a lab that still had material we needed to retrieve. We were able to pull information out of its computers, and the material turned out to be what appeared to be a sharp stone with an eye on it. It was contained in a glass tank, and once we retrieved it my team was sent back to the city. Since I was the one that handled the artifact, I carried it to a meeting with our overseers and a famous actor. They said the artifact was perfect for the celebrity, so they had me open the case with the artifact in front of him. The eye looked at each of us and jumped at my face, tearing away my eye so it could take its place. The overseers then admit that the artifact granted abilities, and the actor’s ability to comprehend so many roles made him a perfect match for the mentally controlled artifact. Since I was chosen in his place, I was placed on a spaceship sent to the planet Fulga with a new team. The celebrity was brought anyway, so I got to know him on the trip.

This time I was crawling through cramped mechanical rooms with pipes and cobwebs, so I transformed the area to be similar but in the pr. The space turned into a tight cave and the pipes turned into roots. Once I got above ground, I was in a massive hollow tree with strands and vines hanging down. As I walked within the tree a spider with a body the size of a car jumped onto me and bit down through my armor. It began spinning webs and I could feel the armor imploding down into me. My book fell out and it opened to the page with the fire spell, so I molded the fire that came out to attack the spider and surround it in flames.

The flames spread to its webs which used to be hidden in the darkness. As one entire orb web was lit, it exploded and released acid that melted huge chunks of the tree and my armor. I gave myself invulnerability to survive the wave of acid and tore through one of the arms of my armor to crush one of the spider’s arms. Jumping back it spoke in scratchy noises but I used mind reading to understand and speak with it. It believed I was one of the Alliance due to my armor but it understood who I was from seeing my skeletal arm rip out.

The poison from its jaws missed my body in the armor but the acid from the web was extremely destructive so I asked it about its webs. It explained that there was nothing stored in the webs, but they were made in the shape of magic circles. It taught me the circles it knew including one it used to crush my armor. I found out the spiders in the area did not identify themselves as part of the Horde but they completely aligned with it against the Alliance. As we spoke I ended up meeting insect-like monsters who gave all kinds of information on the land, war, fighting styles, magic, and weapons. As we were talking, a party from the Alliance came walking through.

Seeing that we had to fight, the first spider I met then carved a glyph onto my arm so I could produce its silk which was useful for instantly creating spells. I wanted to fight alone to test my new knowledge and they agreed to it. As I jumped down I spun magic circles on myself to lighten my fall and silk to patch up the holes in my armor. I tried talking but the party instantly aimed all their weapons at me and the fight began.

They all came at me at once and I fought back with the ice sword in one hand and the broken sword swinging on a thread in the other. One in the back got slashed by the broken sword as the closest enemy got stabbed and instantly frozen. I was then able to use spells by having them written on myself and my armor instead of opening the grimoire to a specific page. I used that magic to teleport around the party attacking each one before they could react. I combined that with extreme speed to completely disorientate them. When only one was left, they used a spell to throw my weapons out of my hands and a magical circle appeared in the air in front of them. I recognised it as the acid spell and my hand through the circle and into their chest, both disrupting the spell and ending the fight.

After the fight I looked through all that they had including their spells, better armor, maps, and extra weapons. I was able to understand the enchantments on the broken swords thanks to the knowledge the spiders and monsters gave, so I left it there. All that I could not carry such as extra armor and weapons was analyzed for their enchantments but left behind. Using their map, I decided to move on towards more allies of the Horde.

As the dream began, I was a fighter pilot over the ocean already in battle. I knew I’d have less sleep this night so I went straight into the challenge instead of letting this regular dream play out first. My plane exploded away and I teleported away. It was unclear if the plane was destroyed from the teleportation or from being hit in battle. Rather than instantly appearing, my body traveled through dimensions at extreme speeds causing my entire body to light on fire from the friction. Landing in what would become the challenge’s PR, the flames turned black and blue and covered a crowd of bodies surrounding me.

I was in a large room of a stone fortress, and even though messy flesh was covering the floor I could tell there were summoning magic circles etched into the entire floor. Some of the summoned people were running out a wide opening on one of the sides of the room, and I ran along with them. There were constantly more people appearing from the mass of magic circles even as I ran out. Once outside the flames went out and only my bones were left. I saw others appeared either as skeletons or zombie-like based on how much of their bodies they had left.

Outside the sky was red and there was a massive army of undead on my side and extremely armored humans on the other side. The humans were clearing out our army easily but the constant generation of undead balanced it out. I charged straight for the nearest people, which was a group of two. Most of the undead were slow and getting killed to simple swings, so my first hit was easily able to get through with its speed. They were still alive thanks to their armor, so I had to get in an unfair fight between my punches and their swordplay. Whenever their sword came close I could feel its magical energy, likely an enchantment that made each hit against the undead army a one hit kill.

I began controlling the other undead around me to surround the enemy with a now very skilled army. Increasing the power of each undead’s hits, the armor of the humans started to bend and snap at its weak points. Slowly gaining control over more of the army, I had some go back to analyze the spell that summoned us in. Others climbed for higher ground to get a better idea of the area and some humans were starting to fall back. Not wanting their armor to get too damaged, I got some of the army to grapple the enemy so their armor could be taken off. Pulling the armor from my first opponent, I started putting it on myself as they were still held down.

Some zombies came up with a scroll that had a partial copy of the summoning circles. Placing it on the person, they were burnt and turned into one of the undead. The spell only kept the parts of the original circle that turned people into undead and controlled the undead to be part of the army. With the spell now fully understood, the rest of the army began copying the spell using empty scrolls and torn pages from grimoires taken from defeated opponents.

The part of the army that was scouting the land found a stable and shelter that the alliance used to head into the battle. Having collected a grimoire for myself, I used the part of the spell that teleported us into this world to teleport to the stable. Taking a horse from the battlefield, I head into the stable. There were humans and elves there, but they could not identify me due to the armor completely covering my body. They greeted me, and I went into the shelter by the stable. There was a space to eat and rooms to sleep in the back, with a few other people in the eating area.

I first sat there to listen in on information but one of the people came up to talk with me as we ate. The conversation went well and I was able to get the exact information I wanted much quicker through my own conversation. The average soldier in the alliance saw the undead as mindless and that was reasonable from their perspective but I knew they were still in a way living people from other dimensions. They saw all monsters of the horde that way, either a mindless creation or with the mind of an animal. The war has been going on for thousands of years but it has picked up in the last couple years with humans trying to expand their kingdoms into the horde’s land.

As we talked he was then told to come outside, and as he went out I realized everyone else had left. First going to the back to see if there were people there, I then went to the front where I saw the outside was completely covered in snow and ice. All the people were far away except for the one casting the freezing spell, and I saw all the horses still at the stable were frozen to death. Instead of stepping outside I waited for the person to approach me. They identified me as an intelligent undead. With my identity known, I pulled my helmet off not worrying for a disguise anymore. Using a fire spell from my grimoire, I heated up my sword to cut easily through the door which was frozen shut.

They pulled out a sword with an ice enchantment and we fought in the snow. My sword lost heat quickly each time our blades hit, and the temperature difference made it snap. Despite seeming like a disadvantage, the sword snapping also made the tip of it unexpectedly fly into my opponent’s helmet. The tip was still heated, so it went straight through the front and welded itself in place. I took the opportunity to take their sword and freeze them in place. I then put their sword into my sheathe and kept the broken sword to study its enchantment later. I rejoined with the undead and the dream ended.

Coming back in the middle of the fight, Pilot was still cutting into the head. I took several teeth and attached them to a stone sword now at a more effective size. Pilot gave some strategy, telling me to create walls to slow down the hydra and limit what it can see. I pulled walls out of the ground to give some shelter to Pilot as they stayed on the head. I stood on the sword as I used telekinesis to fly it to where Pilot said the body of the hydra was.

Now at the hydra, I was able to sense it and could dodge even in the darkness. As each head tried to strike at me, I would dodge some and create walls of stone to deflect others. Although it was capable of crashing through the walls, it preferred curling its necks around them to reach me. We both sped up during the fight, and I started deflecting with my fists as it got closer to my speed and reached me. I was able to slip past one of the heads and called over the sword to catch it and sliced the head clean off.

With two heads cut off, the hydra still had about five heads. Luckily it was not the type to regrow heads, so the end of the fight was in sight. The hydra got even faster with the head removed, as if the weight from that head somehow affected its control over the other heads. Now that it was too fast to block or dodge normally, I started essentially teleporting through the walls through a mix of extreme speed and enough control to seamlessly move through the stone. Now untrackable even to its eyes, I was able to cut off two or three more heads before it could react. The hydra was left with two heads and was finally able to catch up with me.

It then did what I never expected, and it was able to split its body in two. Turning into two winged serpents, it was even faster and able to fly around in separate directions. At one point where I was only able to block one with my back exposed, Pilot appeared at my back and blocked the other. That other serpent screeched and flew off after being blocked, and Pilot showed me their new weapon. It had multiple teeth lined up not to slice but to pierce, and they told me they slathered it with the hydra’s own poison. In the middle of the fight Pilot told me how deadly the hydra’s poison was along with explaining their appearance being made possible through attaching telekinesis devices to each of us.

They passed me their weapon and I was able to pierce the inside of the hydra’s mouth the next time it tried to bite me. Now that the two serpents made up of the last heads were pierced with poison, they would die with time. We decided to leave the fight with that, and they once again grabbed on telling me to go back up out the cave through the stone again. I ran up one of the pillars and did so, but we nearly instantly traveled through this time.

Pilot complained a little since they wanted to experience going through ground like before, and I promised to do it again later. We got back in the truck and headed towards the city since I wanted to end off the last day back at the city. I called Passenger so he would be in the city when we got there and I pushed time forwards to get there quickly. We were able to meet up just outside one of the buildings we visited last time we were in the city. Getting out, Passenger commented on our truck made from the plane we used to leave the swamp, and we showed him around it before walking around the city. We were able to celebrate with Pilot even preparing a slice from the hydra for us to eat. I’ll probably visit back again at least one or two more times after the event, but it was fun fighting through both rough environments.

The truck was reworked since last night and was already heading in the direction of the next fight. Before this night I thought there were more nights left, but knowing that there were just two more nights including this one, I went straight for the fight. I once again began in the back and when I went to the front to check on Pilot I saw no one despite it driving. I went straight for the wheel, and Pilot came from the back laughing. They explained how they built a way for it to steer itself, and after calming down we had breakfast in the back.

They told me they had another idea for my control, so they wanted me to show what I did to attach earth to my limbs in the fight against King Gator. I was able to form the earth perfectly around myself, and Pilot wanted to know if I could merge with the earth similar to my transformations. Attaching earth to myself did not function as a transformation at all, but I took the time to try out forming it into more armor and weapons-like shapes. I was also able to similarly form earth around Pilot when they asked for it. The truck stopped, and Pilot went to the front to see where exactly the creature was.

The radar showed that the energy came from below us, and we were right next to a frozen lake. Walking onto it, I looked into the frozen lake to see if any creature was there. Pilot told me exactly where it was, and it was underground near the lake but not under it. They jumped on me and told me to head straight down through forming the ground around us. I could see they were geared up and excited for the fight, so I didn’t fight back. First touching the ground with my hand, we sunk into the ground like it was quicksand. We were enveloped in rock for a short while before I felt my feet and lowered hand were free to move. Letting ourselves completely out, I fell into a cave in complete darkness.

I made the ground below us crumble to soften our fall, and Pilot threw out several lamps that floated around with telekinesis. The ceiling of the cave was extremely high up, with the top being hidden in darkness despite the torches and huge pillars of stone spread throughout. With the lamps’ light, I was able to see a snake slithering around us in the distance. At its size, its head was as large as a whale’s. I quietly warned Pilot since they did not seem to notice and I put my hand into the ground to pull a massive stone sword out. I then went back into my larger size, and was able to armor myself with scales due to the cave keeping the freezing temperatures out. Pilot was moving around their gear and told me to not worry about them.

Instinctually feeling the snake coming to strike, I was able to catch it by the top and bottom jaws of its open mouth but was stuck on as it rushed around the cave. It dragged me along the walls and crashed us through some of the massive pillars, but I stayed holding on. Now on it, I could tell that even the sword I made earlier was too small to cut through it. The next time it dragged me against the walls of the cave I controlled the stone to smoothly go around me and stab into the snake. The snake then stayed away from walls and flailed around to try throwing me off.

As it was closer to the center, I saw it rush by Pilot and they stabbed into the snake with the sword I left on the ground. Although the wound was not deep enough to harm it, I could see there were multiple glowing things wrapped around the sword. They all blew up, throwing chunks of the snake and causing it to slam into walls once again. I took this chance to grow sharp pillars off the wall that cut the neck from the most damaged point. I fell to the ground along with a good portion of the neck, and Pilot came running towards us. They went straight to carving its face and told me to stay alert as they handed me its largest tooth. As I was being flung around on its head, Pilot saw that it was a hydra and we only cut off one of its heads. I went a little further into the fight but will leave that for the last journal where the fight against the hydra continued.