Lair by Carl Stubblefield (recommended reading TXT) 📕

some energy, and the thought of sitting in the control room looking at menus drove him to distraction.

“Nick, I feel weird. Like I have ADD or something, or like I’ve had five energy drinks. It’s making me feel squirrely; I don’t feel like myself.”

“You are still becoming accustomed to the effects of the Nth on your system. You will most likely experience multiple episodes of too much energy, as well as malaise and fatigue, as your body is stimulated to grow.”

In addition to feeling hyperactive, a familiar restlessness began to build up again. The deadline to hit level ten was getting closer and he was making decent progress. He also knew it was harder to level the higher you progressed in games, and assumed the same was true about his own leveling. He would prefer a cushion rather than leaving it to the last minute. Plus then he could worry about other pressing things. He wondered what level he would be at if worrying were a skill. His mind had an annoying habit of snowballing to the worst possible conclusions if he didn’t rein it in.

Turning back to what options the Foundry would provide, he evaluated his needs. He wanted to fight some zombies with his new skills but also felt like he needed to expand and gain other abilities as well, especially something that allowed him to attack at range and stay safe. If the Foundry could make him some armor to help with the close combat situations, hopefully they’d be easier to down if ranged attacks softened them up.

“Nick, are there any non-combat skills to develop? Like mental skills?”

“There are many skills, but often they have to be found by trial and error. Until we determine the nature of how your powers manifest, it is more difficult to predict what affinities you have.”

“Well, I know I have used that speedster skill a little, what about that?” Gus asked.

“Yes. That is a good starting point, but you do not want to limit yourself. Those powers are all in the translocation family, which includes speedster, flying, and teleportation.”

“Teleportation! Yes! That would save me so much time from jogging down the trail and back to the manor. Plus I’ve had some close scrapes, and I don’t really have a good way to retreat if I get in over my head.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. Teleportation is a very advanced skill, so don’t set your expectations too high. Most supers need years to obtain the necessary stats and combination of skills. You have to learn dashing, flying, and dimensional folding, to name a few things.”

“Buzzkill,” Gus muttered.

“Do you have any experience with meditation?”

“Um, no.”

“What about with your music, are you familiar with a ‘flow’ experience?”

“It sounds familiar, what exactly do you mean?”

“It is commonly experienced when you become so engrossed with an activity, that your perception of time is skewed. You may be doing something for hours but it feels like no time has really passed, unlike how one feels throughout a typical day.”

“Oh yeah, tons of times.”

“That is what we are attempting to train. Your mind needs to enter a pliable state where you shift more into a right-brain type of control. The types of controls implemented by the left brain are too rigid. You need intuition to guide you, as the process is subtle and must be adapted at a speed faster than conscious thought.”

“So what drills should I start doing?”

“You jump.”

“Ok… explain.”

“I want you to find one of the long hallways in the manor, the ones that are tall and open in the center of the complex by the atrium. That will give you five stories of height to practice. You can eventually do this outside, but for now I want the floor to be as regular and smooth as possible. You’ll want a carpeted surface with low risk of slipping. I want you to walk and, at measured intervals, jump. At the apex of your jump, imagine pulling yourself a little higher and a little forward. Trying to get more hang time, and more distance from the jump. Try to make the effort expended per jump the same. This isn’t an Olympic long jump. You need to get the feel of how to anchor yourself in the ether. Depending on your affinities, you may do well or you may just get a good leg workout. There are mental drills we can do later, but start with this; it will help you burn off some tension.”

Nick hadn’t led him wrong in the past, so Gus began to jump. He felt a little ridiculous, but kept at it. After a while he had to take a quick break for stamina to refill.

I probably look like an idiot, but that’s never stopped me before!

He recalled some of the bone-headed things he had done in his life. Some were dares from his friends, others were trying to impress others, especially his father. Heading to the initial entry hall, Gus lined himself up and began jumping with his eyes closed trying to visualize the ‘pulling’ that Nick had suggested. After crashing into a decorative planter in the big atrium and a fumble to keep it from falling off of its plinth, he decided he had better keep his eyes open. Eventually, he’d have to keep his eyes open if he wanted to fly or move like a speedster. It was hard to know what he was looking for, so he tried different things.

He imagined energy coming from his core like he had used when fighting the Mantid and used Indi-Wreckt, but that didn’t seem to do anything. He decided to limit his focus on just making his jumps higher. Since he was unable to see himself, he could not get any feedback if he was doing it correctly or not. After a half an hour of different mental focuses and traversing the atrium five times, Gus took a break. “How long am I just going to jump around—" Gus started, then he mentally