Chapter 16: Mission Complete
Deadly vortexes swirl across the inky skies. Their dim light cast the black lands into dark greys and deep shadows. A train track made of black metal splits the area in half, running from one end of the black lands to the other end, falling into an endlessly deep pit.
Mysterious beings wander throughout the land. Their minds are full of despair and melancholy, their twisted bodies tormented by hunger. The law of the jungle fills the dark lands, with these beings swallowing each other up through all sorts of profane and mysterious ways.
Deformed entities tower over the far distant heavens. Anything that peeks at them fall into madness, whispers drilling into their souls before corrupting them into abominations in moments.
A luxurious steam locomotive is accelerating across these lands, sparks flaring from its tracks. The front of the train has a moisture ring around it while a trailing sonic boom growls across the area in its wake. The black snow guard on the front is flaring red from the fiery air resistance as the train pushes into supersonic speeds.
The sixth car down from the locomotive is the passenger car that Jackie Lewin escaped. Countless abominations cover it. The ghastly monsters are pouring over the immense body of one of their frightening cohort, chasing after the fleeing old man.
Jackie Lewin torques his broken body, punching the head of his black assault shovel into the hard metal carriage wall. Grey sparks continuously shower along the tracks that are rushing past. He groans, his fading vision making every movement a herculean effort of his will.
The black access door has an ornate lever handle.
Jackie bites down on his shovel, his white teeth denting the hard anodized black steel. He uses his firm jaw muscles to hold himself in place against the hurricane force winds blowing between the two train cars while extending his muscular arm towards the door's handle.
The old man clenches the handle with his fan-sized hand and jerks it down with a push. The door slams open, revealing eight benches, seven of them filled with vague silhouettes. Air whips and roars through the doorway, threatening to slam the door shut in moments.
Jackie's veins pound while his pouring blood is whisked out into the darkness beyond the cars. Light pours out and shows Jackie's damaged body in its battered glory. Busted bones are poking out from his leg and arm stumps, bright red blood is swirling out into the devouring wind. His suit tattered and torn into shreds, leaving on a few cloth strips on his muscular body.
Several of the ghoulish abominations poke their jerky heads over the gap between the cars, their abyssal eyes and mouth spinning like little black holes. Their gazes land on the struggling Jackie, while the light floods out of the train car's open door. The rays hit their faces, causing sizzling and black smoke to fill the air. Groans and painful wails drown out the clanking of the train, freezing Jackie the moment before he was about to sling himself into the train car.
Jackie's vision has blackened until he can see only a small sliver of light. His heavy eyelids are dropping down and almost touching. He shakes himself, willing himself to move as his vision narrows even further.
Jackie twists his body the moment the wind changes, the gust blowing the old man into the train and slamming the door shut an instant later. He holds his shovel in his mouth and turns his nearly closed eyes towards the light, raising his arm and then dropping it down, dragging himself closer.
He does it again, raising his arm then dropping it, sweeping it towards himself like he's swimming in a dream. His vision has a few millimeters left before he loses consciousness, yet his fear grows and towers, expanding his sight a little bit more.
The old man trembles and drags his bloody body forward bit by bit, closer to the light. His blood is leaving a gruesome trail in his wake. Jackie manages to arrive next to the eighth bench of the train, the light growing blinding to his old, nearly shut eyes.
He flips over to his back, facing up to gaze at the light, resting his shovel across his stomach with his good arm. He struggles to open his eyes, the light growing brighter and brighter as his field of view widens alongside his opening eyelids.
Jackie sees the shadowy interior of the train fade as the light scorches it. The light source floats in the air, expanding outwards to envelop everything. The old man's eyes tremble, and a few tears streak down his face from the stress of the light.
His old eyes focus and clarity grows within his brain. He sees the light warping the surroundings, washing away the terrible darkness with warm earthly light.
He sees a few little yang earth energies peacefully drifting through the cave above his body. His body! Jackie's old eyes snap away from the blindingly bright System message and down to his whole body.
His body is slightly dessicated from lack of nourishment from his long stay in the cave. He flexes his legs and then his arms, discovering that everything is just fine. Jackie turns his attention to the mission complete message.
[Spade Mission Complete!
Reward: Buried Alive Five Shovels Spiritualism Spell, +3 Shovel Integrity, +10,000 Shovel Points.
Bonus: User has peered into the Abyss, +3 Shovel Integrity, +5,000 shovel points, First Void maneuver: Abyssal Gaze]
---------------------
[The Shovel System Level 0- Integrity 7/50]
[User Jackie Lewin]
[Shovel Points: 20,122]
[Age 78]
[Exotic Contamination: 23]
[Body: Reforged, Shovel Vessel]
[>User Statistics]
[>Store]
[>Lottery - Locked]
[>Skill Tree]
[>Missions]
[Special Abilities 3 /12]
-Dimensional Dig - [Locked]
-Basic Environmental Protection - Active, Consuming SP
-Shovel Senses
[Skills]
-Shovel Mastery - Novice
-Shovel Self Defense - Incompetent
-Cultivation Comprehension - Novice
-Array Comprehension - Incompentant
-Alchemy Comprehension - Incompentant
-Constellation Comprehension - Incompetant
[Cultivation Arts]
The Shovel Dao - F.E. Lvl 1 of 8
-Eternal Shovel Vessel Dao - F.E. Lvl 1 Peak
-Hundred Shovel Stomps - F.E. Lvl 1 Peak
-Shimmering Chromed Shovel Soul Dao - F.E. Lvl 1 Peak
-Hardworking Tyrant Excavator Body Forging - F.E. Lvl 1 Peak
-Five Shovels Spiritualism - F.E. Lvl 1 Peak
-Eighteen Void Maneuvers - F.E. Lvl 1 Novice
-Shovel Alchemy Dao - F.E. Lvl 1 Novice
-Entrenching Array Dao - F.E. Lvl 1 Peak
F.E. = Foundation Establishment
Occult Arts
Buried Alive, Level 1 - Five Shovels Spiritualism
Abyssal Gaze, Level 1 - Eighteen Void Maneuvers
----------------------
He looks at the new Occult Arts section, then at the spell and maneuver he gained.
[Buried Alive, Level 1: Single Target, range ten meters, targets the enemy's fleshly body. Success will translocate the target one meter beneath the nearest surface. Stronger Targets may resist via the might of their bodies. Creatures with weak constitutions may asphyxiate.
Level 1, consumes moderate shovel energy from your five shovels spiritualism cultivation. Target will remain buried for one minute, and you may channel additional shovel energy to extend this time. The target's translocation ends at the end of the duration, returning it to its previous position.]
[Abyssal Gaze, Level 1: Gaze Attack, range ten meters, targets the opponents' spirituality and mental power. Success will absorb some of the opponent's spirit to replenish your shovel energy. Stronger opponents may resist with the might of their minds and spiritual power. Creatures with weak minds may have their minds crumble.
Level 1, consumes moderate shovel energy from your mythic tapestry within your 18 void maneuvers cultivation. Activation lasts for one minute with a three-minute cooldown. ]
Jackie's excitement flairs, "Dadgum that's awesome! Haha."
He calms down and looks around. The old man is laying inside the chamber at the bottom of the escape tunnel he dug several months before.
He gasps, jolting up into a crouch.
"Dear lord!"
The walls and floor of the pit are filled with reliefs resembling the abominations he saw minutes before, and one side has an enormous relief of that huge abomination's head, deep cavities for its eyes and mouth that extend far into the earth, looking like black holes. The space between the scultures is filled with ridges that resemble their long fingers.
He looks at his dirty hands and bloody, chipped fingernails, "Did I carve those? What happened to me? I feel like I lost my mind after the first day down here. The mission is complete, meaning I've been here for at least three hundred and thirty-six hours, which is fourteen days of sensory deprivation."
Jackie starts getting unsettled the longer he stays, witnessing black motes of darkness clustering along the floor and the gaping mouths and eyes of the abomination carvings all around. "Yin earth energy. So much of it."
He dusts off his tattered and torn clothes then unsteadily totters out, fear driving him out of the ground. A few hours later finds him poking out of the collapsed entrance and into the starry night.
The old man grips his shovel and departs for the lake.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone