Gestation by John Gold (love books to read .txt) 📗

body, or somebody has lassoed me and tossed me against a rock. I definitely won’t be able to do any work here. Once again, I hit a stone, and I look around to see that there’s a ring of fortresses in front of me. Each is surrounded by an actual tornado. How am I going to get through between two of those? I remember the gargoyles. The sky is clear, though there are naked and half-naked women roaming around below it. They move slowly and gracefully. The strongest is at Level 202.

The wind whips around me; the clouds move slowly. Roads lead toward the fortresses, which patrols are protecting from the gale using force fields. Of course, I could get by them in stealth mode, but there’s no guarantee that they don’t have some kind of Harol who can sense all kinds of magic. I found out how I’d been located when I was torturing the gargoyles: Harol was a guard, and he could sense any changes in magic across a long distance.

The idea looks silly, but I want to try it. I start sewing myself wings. First, I break down all the cloth and leather items I have, and then I sew the resulting materials together. I got bone wings from the gargoyles, so I use them as a framework. Finally, I finish with a construction that weighs 75 kilograms.

Trimmed gargoyle wings

A despairing sinner decided to taste the joy of flight and die, broken on the cliffs. The heavier they are, the harder it is to fly. Using them damages them.

Effect: Let you fly

Requirement: 200 strength, 200 stamina, 200 agility

Durability: 801/1000

It’s two weeks of Hell just for me. Up I fly, down I crash, so many times that I lose count, but I finally learn how to fly. The hardest part is controlling my body in flight, as my center of gravity drops from my stomach to my hips. I can take off just by relaxing the lower half of my body and strengthening my arms and torso. To make sure that happens, I put on all the artifacts I have that boost stamina and agility.

The enormous wings work, each two meters long. I wave my arms rhythmically and take off, though I’m all the way at the edge of the circle next to the shroud to get as far away from the wind as I can. It’s calm out here.

After taking off, I fly toward the center. Yes, a flying pet wouldn’t be a bad idea. Really, I have to imagine that any bird seeing me right now would die of laughter. Even chicks falling out of the nest don’t look this bad.

I move fairly slowly. It’s a long way down, but I can see that the hurricane doesn’t go any higher than 100 meters. If I fall from up here, I’m dead. And so I just breathe easily and keep flying. The hurricanes and the fortresses are behind me, and I’m thinking about flying down to what looks like the placid ground when I notice something strange. There isn’t a single mountain in the area, just smooth ground covered in sand and rocks. There isn’t even the scrawniest plant. Peering closer, I notice that it isn’t the ground; it’s a wall of wind carrying dust and earth along with it. My improved perception saved the day. If it hadn’t been for this, I’d have flown down and died. At least, I may have survived, but I wouldn’t have been able to take off again.

About a hundred meters away from the next hole, the wind dies down. The flight takes me thirty-five hours.

I land and laugh for a long time. It was fun, scary, and…exciting.

∞ ∞ ∞

I can’t just stick my wings in my inventory, so I tie them to my back and start down.

Again, the exact same thing happens, only now I wait until the torches disappear, jump down, and immediately turn on stealth. I toss the wings away and head thirty meters in.

Nothing happens to start with, and then an enormous, three-headed dog runs up. It’s several meters tall at the withers, and even longer than that. I see powerful muscles writhing under its skin. One head turns toward the spot where I fell, and the dog starts sniffing. My stealth is still working, but I’m not going to be able to get away. I don’t have the ability to walk quietly, and the dog is very experienced; it picks up my scent right away.

Demons, Cerberus, Level 350

He’s an attacker, half his points in stamina, with about 100000 health absent skills. That thought flits through my mind one second, and I’ve taken on my demon appearance the next. I leap right onto its neck and grip the fur, using my magic to attack.

It takes me ten minutes to kill it. The only thing it can do is roll around on the ground, and I attack with everything I have. He turns out to have complete immunity to fire and stun. Dark arrows take off a little health, and I hang on tight as I cast them. Suddenly, however, he throws me off. My next blow, however, is equal to the strength of the eleven boulders I pick up and hurl at him. I was right: the dog has huge resistance to physical damage. On the other hand, my attack does about 50000 damage. The barrage of rocks crash against his chest and shatter; he falls backward and doesn’t move.

Phew, that was a huge risk. If the attack hadn’t worked, he would’ve killed me, although, he definitely doesn’t have the kind of resistance I have.

I get a leather mantle and a bunch of other junk from him. After taking it all, I keep moving.

The mini map shows me that I’m in the third circle of Hell. It’s raining, though - a torrential downpour. Sometimes, I hear thunder, other times there’s hail. No aura - just damage from the hail. The farther I go, the stronger