“No way is he DPS. I don’t care what the forums say.” Vlad said, as he and Ren stood outside the arena entrance.
Ren shook his head. The white horn on his nose flashing bright in the artificial lights outside the arena. “I’m just repeating what I saw on the forums, and they all say Ophidians appear to be a DPS-type ranged archetype meant to attack from afar with their snake-like companions.”
Shaggy was standing nearby, monitoring Slink as the young alien was in the trance-like state that went along with controlling his snakes. Ren and Vlad were also nearby having their discussion on the role Slink was supposed to take in their group. As it stood right now, they had a Tank, someone who was there to take a lot of hits and three DPS or Damage Per Second types. They were the basic damage dealers of the group. While the Tank held the focus, the DPS would slam the enemy with as much damage as possible while a Healer would keep the Tank from dying.
“I get that, but he has to be different somehow. Don’t you remember him saying that he could choose his snake load-out? He chose two little snakes and the big one. The little ones scout and the big one attacks things for him. He doesn’t have enough hitters to put enough damage on someone. At most, he is a Burst Damage Glass Cannon, and that’s only if his big snake can do a shit load of damage.”
Shaggy nodded as he agreed. “His snake took out that tentacle gangster pretty quickly. Maybe he could do an assassin build? He won’t have to change what he has been doing since we started.”
Ren nodded as he sighed. “Fine. But ultimately it’s going to be up to him, anyway. So will just ask him once he finishes scouting.”
“About that.” Shaggy said. “Why are we doing this? Terry already gave us a pretty good rundown on the local gangs.”
“Sure,” Vlad agreed. “but that was more of a general idea of the various syndicates and a few minor gangs. We don’t know what’s going on right now with the bigger gangs. Plus, there could be dozens of minor gangs besides the ones Terry told us about.”
Shaggy just shrugged as he looked back at the young alien sitting cross-legged in the dirt. He could see Slink’s eyes move under his eyelids as he mentally commanded his snakes. He sighed as he glanced around at the nearby villains and NPCs going in and out of the arena.
“Ok. How about you two keep an on eye on the kid while I dig into my Evolution Trees?”
“Did you get some points?” Vlad asked.
Shaggy shook his head. “I don’t know. I turned off the notifications because they kept dinging when I was in a fight.”
Vlad looked like he was about to say something, but Shaggy brought up his Mutation Evolution Tree.
Lycanthropy Mutation Tree
* * Attack Lvl 5
* Claws Lvl 15
* Sharpness Lvl 3
* Bone Claws -
* Defense Lvl 2
* Utility Lvl 5
* Regeneration Lvl 25
* Limb Regen Lvl 2
* Pain Suppression Lvl 0
* Partial Transformation Lvl 1
Points: 0
Shaggy didn’t find any new points to spend after a quick glance through his Mutation Tree. He noticed the Bone Claws’ evolution was still red, though. He was starting to think that it was now blocked off from him, now that he had evolved the sharpness of his claws instead. Shaggy thought about asking Vlad, but he wanted to check his General Evolution Tree first.
General Tree
* * Toughness Lvl 15
* Thick Skin Lvl 5
* Skin Resistances Lvl 1
* Reflexes Lvl 15
* Quick Hands Lvl 5
* Manual Dexterity Lvl 2
* Mind Lvl 13
Points: 0
Nothing there either. Shaggy sighed as he closed out both windows. Vlad, who was standing nearby, obviously saw his slumped shoulders and laughed. Shaggy just shot him a look as Ren looked at them.
“You should know it’s harder to get points for things that you’ve already leveled. They higher leveled they are, they tougher it is to get points.” Vlad said, still smiling.
Shaggy just nodded as he grimaced. Ren spoke up as Shaggy turned to watch the crowd again.
“How does that work? I know for an Alien all I have to do is train or workout and I just naturally get tougher or stronger. There’s no real metric to track for us. I mean, I have a character sheet and I can see my various bonuses for strength and defense. But for leveling up, all I get is a bar that gets filled up the longer I fight or train. I hear what fills the bar is different for each Alien though.”
“Different how?” Vlad asked.
“Well, take our friend over there, for example.” Ren said, waving at Slink. “He is obviously a mental-type Alien. So his leveling bar is going to go up when he trains or uses his mental link with his snakes. It’s a pretty simple system. Want to get better? Just use your power until the bar fills up. Of course, diminishing returns is a thing, so you got to mix it up, but overall it’s pretty sweet.”
Shaggy stroked his chin as he thought about the Alien leveling system. It wasn’t too different from the Mutation Evolution Trees.
“We’re not that different in that case. We have two trees. A general one and a mutation one. The mutation one is an evolution tree designed just for your power or ability.”
“While the General one is one all mutants get.” Vlad continued as Shaggy stopped talking to give the evil eye to a group of thugs eyeing Slink. “It’s just a basic tree that makes us faster and tougher than normal NPC, both mentally and physically. The General Tree starts out with Toughness, Reflexes, and Mind all at level ten, making us all around tougher and faster to start with.”
Shaggy finished warning off the group of thugs and continued explaining. “While the Mutation tree starts with three squares, called Cells, each listed as Attack, Defense, and Utility that all start at zero. Once you use your mutation, you start gaining points. You can then put those points into one of the Cells on the tree. When you level a square five times, it mutates and then you have to level it ten times and then twenty, thirty, forty and so on. Each time a Cell Mutates, we get a new ability related to that square. So my claws are an off-shoot of my Attack cell in my evolution tree. Normally they’d just be longer fingers and sharp nails, but with my Partial Transformation Cell, I get full-on werewolf hands.”
Ren nodded in understanding before he asked Vlad. “Wait. Don’t you get points just for draining people? How is that not broken as hell?”
Vlad smiled. “Because not all points are created equal. To raise a square from level zero to level, one might take one point or it could take a hundred. Discussion on the forums speculates that the way you get the point makes it worth more or less, but no one really knows.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Yeah, to get my Utility square to level five took over thirty Evolution Points. It all seems like a giant crap shoot, but at the end of the day, more points equals a better chance to mutate a Cell. A mutated square means a new ability. Although…” Shaggy turned to Vlad and asked. “Have you had a square go red on you?”
Vlad’s eyes got wide, and he laughed. “Ha! Wow! You got a Branching Evolution already?”
Shaggy just stared questioningly at his vampire friend until he explained. “A Branching Evolution is one where you can choose between two or more options. But once you make the choice, that’s it. The other options are then cut off from you. So I hope you picked the right one.”
Shaggy focused on his breathing and centered himself again as he transformed his right hand from the wrist up into the enlarged werewolf version. Smiling at Vlad, he said. “Yeah, went for the sharpness upgrade over a modification, one that would have made my claws become bone.”
“What would’ve been the point of that?” Vlad asked.
Shaggy shrugged. “No idea. Bludgeoning over slashing damage?”
“So the Mutation Tree starts with three Cells while the General Tree starts with nine?” Ren asked as he gave them both a thoughtful look.
Vlad looked confused. “What? No.”
Shaggy saw the problem, though. “No, we don’t get cells for the free levels they give us. So they may start at ten, but the Cell in the General Tree won’t Mutate until we dump five levels worth of points into it. So the Cell would be level fifteen.”
“Yeah, so our ‘Mutation Steps’ as the mutant community is calling them are fifteen, twenty-five, forty-five, and so on for the first three cells in the General Tree, but for everything else the steps would be five, fifteen, and thirty-five. You get it?” Vlad finished explaining.
Ren looked between the two before he snorted and shook his massive, rhino-like head. “Fuck Math.”
Shaggy and Vlad just laughed as Slink rose from his sitting position and walked over. Shaggy was surprised at the notable difference just in the way the kid walked now. It looked like he had shed a weight off his shoulders. He hoped that the kid would curtail the smart-assery now, but he doubted it. Slink looked between them all before he glanced over both his shoulders suspiciously.
“Okay, so here’s the rundown. Larry and Curly both took a different section of the city and crawled around. We got a few bits and bobs from the locals, but nothing too noteworthy. But once we found were some of the local gangs hang out, that’s where we got the juicy bits.”
Shaggy sighed. “Just get to the juicy bits. We can worry about the small time stuff later. We need to know what the big dogs are doing.”
“Now wait a minute.” Vlad interrupted. “There’s just the three of us and the noob. We are nowhere near ready to take a run at even a medium-sized dog, let alone a big one.”
Ren nodded his head in agreement as Slink gave a startled “Hey!” at being called a noob again.
Shaggy ignored Slink and put his hand up placatingly. “I know, but I would still like to know what’s going on? According to our lizard friend, there were already some big upheavals in the Under-Town syndicates, anyway. Not to mention when he and I stomped that giant silver bastard from the Quinica.”
Slink broke into the conversation. “Yeah, them Space-vamps are out in packs looking for information on their missing leader. A mister Bran-Schweiger or something. Browns-Liner? Blatz-Cooler? I don’t remember, but Curly followed them for a bit, but no one knows what happened.”
Ren wiped a large hand across his forehead. “Whew. That’s good. You should probably keep your part in that on the down low, Wolfy.”
Shaggy just nodded as Slink continued. “Then Larry followed a few of those mutant looking guys from the Phreaks around for a bit. They were mostly selling little vials of something or other. Larry couldn’t get too close cause there was this guy with, like, bat ears or something. He kept hearing Larry slithering around.”
Vlad grew tense and started looking around. Shaggy was about to do the same when Slink waved them both off.
“Oh please, Larry and I know what we’re doing. Besides, those Phreak guys were more concerned about complaining about those new Brute Clan guys.”
“The ones the Professor was talking about?” Shaggy asked, but Slink just shrugged.
“I guess? They are supposedly a bunch of large muscular lizards that moved into the Faceless’s old headquarters and set up shop. The Phreaks aren’t exactly happy about that, I tell you, but they’ve got their own problems right now.”
“Like what?”
“Well, since their leader was up and killed, there seem to be some arguments about who should take over.”
Ren snorted a laugh. “Nature abhors a vacuum.”
Slink just stared curiously at the larger Alien before he continued. “Uh, yeah, that. But that’s not all. With the Faceless now gone and those lizard guys not really being a gang, the Big Five Syndicates are now the Big Four.”
“But two of those four are now reeling from what our two friends did.” Vlad whispered in his role-playing vampire voice. He shot a conspiratorial look at Shaggy.
Shaggy just nodded and thought about what they had learned. If anything, it was great news for them. Under-Town was a powder keg looking for a match. Two of the major gangs were weakened, Villain Players were discovering Under-Town by the day, and various new gangs were coming out of the woodwork. Shaggy almost rubbed his hands together. It was perfect… if they could just figure out how to make their mark.
Vlad seemed to be thinking along the sames lines. Shaggy glanced at the Vampire to see him grinning. Ren was more contemplative, though. The big Perinadon was scratching his gray chin and looking around without really seeing anything. Slink was trying to watch all of their faces at the same time as he shuffled from foot to foot. Shaggy thought the kid had more to say, so he gestured for him to continue.
Slink gave a relieved sigh as he stopped shifting. “That’s not all. Today, the Phreaks are going against the Raks in the Arena for the right to own it.”
“What?” Shaggy asked, confused.
As he did, though, he realized the crowd around the arena was getting thicker. There were even a few scalpers selling tickets to an event that hadn’t even been announced yet. He saw what he thought were a few players, buying from the odd scalper here and there. At least he thought they were players. Who else would buy from a scalper?
“Yeah, yeah,” Slink said. “apparently the Arena is like neutral ground around here. At least it’s supposed to be. Whoever can take it, holds it, free of conflict, for half a year. Then they can be challenged by one of the other big gangs.”
“Why the hell would the Phreaks go through with it if they are so fractured already?” Ren asked, clearly confused.
“Because their big boss man declared the formal challenge before he marched on the Faceless’s territory. I guess he assumed he was gonna win and wanted the revenue from the arena to help build up the new area.” Slink shrugged as he answered.
“So why not just call it off?” Ren asked.
“And look weak?” Shaggy laughed as Vlad nodded his head in agreement.
“They ARE weak.” Ren argued.
The surrounding tumult grew as more and more people crowded around the arena. Vlad picked up the conversation as they started walking as one toward the arena entrance. Apparently, they all had an unspoken agreement that what was going to happen shouldn’t be missed.
“Sure, but they don’t want others to know that. Better to send some low-level grunts into the fight. Sure, they’ll get their asses handed to them, but they won’t lose any street-cred for chickening out.”
Ren just shook his massive head as they made it to the entrance. “If you say so.”
The entrance to the arena was a massive entryway with no turn-styles, no ticket booth, and no guards. It was a just a great big oblong hole leading deeper into the arena. Except now there were several people, in different gang colors, collecting tickets from random people. If they didn’t have tickets, the taker would offer to sell them a few ‘on the sly.’ Shaggy even saw a couple just pocket the money they were given and walk off. He shared a look with Vlad before the pair of them entered the arena.
“Shouldn’t we buy tickets?” Asked Slink from behind them. Louder than Shaggy would have liked.
Ren, who was still standing next to Slink, slapped himself in the face as several ticket-takers turned toward them. Shaggy shot his best murderous look at several ticket-takers, but a few just ignored him as they marched on over to their group. Shaggy didn’t see any see any identifying gang colors on the Alien ticket-taker as he approached. Which was probably a good thing, as Vlad didn’t wait for the guy to say anything.
The vampire mutant just flitted forward again. Moving at speeds, Shaggy still had a hard time following. Next thing Shaggy knew, the purple-skinned Alien ticket-taker was flung bodily away from them and toward the outer edge of the arena. Shaggy glanced around and saw a few of the more gutless of the obvious scalpers turn away, but still a few more looked even more determined to accost their group.
Shaggy sighed and tried to focus. Partial Transformation was a thing he had lucked into after the fight with the Quinica leader. Apparently, it was something that was supposed to be locked in his Mutation Tree until he got a trainer, but he had somehow unlocked it himself. He was extremely proud of himself until he logged off and found that a few other mutants had accomplished similar feats. Apparently, the game had plenty of secrets for players to uncover.
Shaggy tried to get his mind back to the calm place where he could feel the change he wanted his body to undergo. It was becoming easier for his hands, but now he wanted to go for something different. He felt normal the twinge of pain in his wrists as his hands elongated. But he also felt a new pain in his jaw. He felt the skin on his face pull taut and he had to stop his instinct to fight the change.
It was like relaxing a muscle that kept trying to spasm. With another deep breath, Shaggy opened the eyes. He didn’t realize he had closed and stared at a few of the ticket-takers who now stood stock-still as they stared at him. He thought he could see trails of multi-colored vapor flying off of them, but he ignored it and tried to smile with his unfamiliar face.
“You lot are going to want to leave us alone.” Shaggy growled in his new voice. It sounded a lot deeper and way more guttural than he was used to.
The rest of the scalpers all either nodded or turned and went about their day. Still trying to fleece a few dollars from people who hadn’t bought tickets. Shaggy tried to flex the muscles in his face as he felt the change wash over him again. He sighed as his face pulsed with pain for a few seconds before it let up and he turned to his friends.
Ren and Vlad were staring at him as Slink was grinning like a maniac.
“That was so cool.” Slink said.
“It was fucked up, is what it was.” Ren said as Vlad agreed.
“What?” Shaggy said as he looked at each of them.
“Shags,” Vlad started. “What do you think a short man with the head and claws of a wolf looks like to all the rest of us watching?”
“Awesome.” Slink said, still grinning.
Vlad just waved him off as he continued. “It was the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen. Big ole wolf's head and claws on the body of a human. You looked like something out of a Horror Vid, man.”
Shaggy just shrugged his shoulders. “Well then, I guess it worked. Now let’s go inside.”
Vlad just shook his head as Ren shivered and Slink continued to laugh. The four of them made their way into the arena and followed the growing sounds of the arena patrons, all conversing and shouting. Shaggy sighed as they entered the first ring walkway of the arena. The walkway went around the arena in a circle, housing many merchant stalls. He could smell food and beer on the wind and on the people as they went by.
They had to physically stop Slink from trying to buy something again. The young man only agreed to follow them until they had seats, but then he and someone else would come and get snacks. Vlad and Shaggy just sighed as Ren agreed to come with Slink for food after they found a place to sit. They continued inward to where the arena opened up and they could see narrow metal seating surrounding an oblong dirt pit.
Vlad lead them to a few open seats and they all sat down. Slink and Ren immediately left as Shaggy just shook his head at the spectacle of it all. A human and an alien were having a fistfight in the center of the arena, but no one seemed to be interested. A few of the patrons even threw their empty cups and trash into the ring, booing and demanding the main event. Vlad tapped his shoulder and whispered into his ear over the roar and jeers of the crowd.
“Are we sure this is a good idea?”
Shaggy shrugged as he hollered back. “Who knows! But beer, food, and fights?! Sounds like fun times to me. What could go wrong?”
For some reason, Shaggy saw the vampire slap his own forehead and stare at him incredulously. Shaggy didn’t have time to ask Vlad what he was worried about because Slink and Ren had returned with beer, popcorn, and hot dogs.