Shango’s POV: Day 8
[Appraisal]
* Class: Revolutionary
* Level: 2
* Condition: Worn
* Modifiers: None
* Statistics: Strength 6(5), Speed 6, Dexterity 8(7), Stamina 5(3), Toughness 6, Alertness 8, Charisma 3(2), Intelligence 10
* Inventory: Jeans, T-shirt, flick knife, rocks(x5), lumphammer
* Class abilities: Detect Element I
Solitaire’s stat spread was a familiar sight by now, I’d started using him as my go-to for comparison almost on instinct. What caught my eye this time, though, was the latest addition near the top of the screen in my mind’s eye. A single line, small enough that I nearly missed it. And vital enough that it changed everything.
Level 2.
My heart raced, and I started scrutinising the screen more, looking for any other differences. I found one quickly.
* Current Experience Points: 83/110
* Unspent Skillpoints: 1
I steadied myself before the excitement could grow too much, turning to Solitaire and barking the information out at him so quickly that I wasn’t sure anyone but he could have followed. He nodded, eyes hard, grinning in anticipation.
“So we can level.” He said, giving voice to the fact left him laughing almost as hard as I was, and soon Cádo was joining in.
I was a bit more focused than either of them. Looking inwards now, I brought up my own stats.
[Appraisal]
* Class: Emperor
* Level: 2
* Condition: Worn
* Modifiers: None
* Statistics: Strength 5(4), Speed 5, Dexterity 6(5), Stamina 5(4), Toughness 5, Alertness 8, Charisma 9(8), Intelligence 9
* Inventory: Jeans, shirt, jacket, dagger.
* Class abilities: Appraisal I
I squinted, looking longer, and sure enough;
* Current Experience Points: 83/110
* Unspent Skillpoints: 1
The same unspent XP as Solitaire. Interesting, I was fairly sure I hadn’t contributed as much as he did to our bandit killing, so did that mean we were levelling through some other means? Well, yeah, we must’ve been, I checked right after that and we got no XP at all. But what?
Getting the sap and having Cádo healed was the only other thing that struck me as a possible source. I decided to check Cádo to verify.
[Appraisal]
* Class: Dragonknight
* Level: 1
* Condition: Fine
* Modifiers: None
* Statistics: Strength 8, Speed 8, Dexterity 8, Stamina 9, Toughness 7, Alertness 8, Charisma 6, Intelligence 5
* Inventory: Jeans, flannel shirt, spear
* Class abilities: Beloved I
That more or less confirmed it, we received XP by completing…Fuck, I suppose they’d be called “Quests”. Cádo had been too busy bleeding to death to help with the last, so he hadn’t gotten any experience from it.
It was annoying, he was by far the deadliest among us, seeing him level up and become even more so would’ve been a lot of reassurance. But we still had something to show for it.
“Unspent Skillpoints.” I called out. “Any idea what that might be?”
We didn’t take long to draw the obvious conclusion, but what could I spend them on? More particularly, how exactly could they be spent?
I decided to try mine first, my Appraisal would just make it easier to see the effects. It took a lot of fucking around before I finally stumbled onto the solution.
There was something in me, a weight of experience and knowledge, a big bundle of…Change. The result of our trek for the sap.
Every decision alters a person, every event leaves them a tiny bit different from before, and I meditated on that difference right now, comparing who I was to how I’d been before venturing out to save Cádo. It was like doing cocaine, if the cocaine was on cocaine
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There’s no way to put what I felt next into words. I’m sorry, there just isn’t. You’d need to feel it. To try, at least, it was like…Like being aware of the tissues in your bones, the fibres in your muscles. Can you imagine that? Feeling all of them at once, on the cellular level. And being able to control them, choosing which ones to…To multiply, to grow.
My own body was mine to command, more or less. Flooded with an ethereal power I couldn’t even name, all I had to do was decide where I wanted to put it.
Admittedly, the process might have been just a shade less intuitive, were it not for the fact that the words [Skillpoint Expenditure in progress, select Stat to increase] kept flashing in front of my mind’s eye. Still, I’m sure my humongous, nine Intelligence brain would’ve figured it all out regardless.
The only question now was what to actually spend it on. That question lasted about half a second before I chose Intelligence.
…And found no result. Weird, I tried again, nothing. So I experimented, thought of what my next choice would be.
Toughness. I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want to end up like Cádo had, and I didn’t want to find myself crippled for life. So Toughness, for survivability. For fortune.
The thought was only idle in my head for an instant before I felt the energy coalescing, infusing me…Changing me. Then it was gone. No, not gone, used up. Spent.
I moved a bit, testing my body, and finding no difference. Pulling up my character sheet again, I examined it.
[Appraisal]
* Class: Emperor
* Level: 2
* Condition: Worn
* Modifiers: +1 Toughness
* Statistics: Strength 5(4), Speed 5, Dexterity 6(5), Stamina 5(4), Toughness 6, Alertness 8, Charisma 9(8), Intelligence 9
* Inventory: Jeans, shirt, jacket, dagger.
* Class abilities: Appraisal I
So, my Toughness had increased. Just to be sure I checked the secondary section, and sure enough my unspent Skillpoints were at zero.
But I didn’t feel any different. I winced, this demanded experimentation.
“Solitaire, can you punch me-”
He did, instantly, flooring me and making me see stars as blood ran down my almost-flattened nose. I got up swearing, seeing his stupid face grinning through the curtain of tears.
“I didn’t break it.” He informed me, as if the fact would disarm all my criticism. I spat the blood out, and stood.
Then the humour died. Solitaire had always done stuff like this, always been…An asshole. And all of that felt different, now that I’d seen what he did in saving Cádo. Impishness came across differently, in a man from hell.
Nose still bleeding, I felt it for damage. It wasn’t broken, at least, Solitaire had been right about that much, but I still glared up at him.
“Put a point into Toughness?” He asked.
Fuck him for punching me, and fuck him for being this quick even dealing with concepts only I could see.
“I did, but I didn’t really notice much difference there, did you?”
Solitaire shrugged.
“Your nose didn’t feel particularly hard, but I didn’t hit it that hard either, so.”
Stupid fucking idea, he should’ve hit me just for thinking of it. I considered the change. If I’d wasted a Skillpoint I’d be very annoyed, and quite possibly dead, but I didn’t know for sure it had been wasted. What was my Strength stat? Five, normally. What was Cádo’s?
Eight. A three point difference, and Cádo couldn’t exactly toss people around, however strong he was. So individual Skillpoints probably wouldn’t be pushing us up entire rungs on the combative ladder.
I cursed. Shame I couldn’t have spent it on some decent armour, instead.
The three of us discussed matters a while longer, bouncing around ideas before we finally found ourselves satisfied that we probably weren’t wrong about what we thought we knew. Probably. That meant it was Solitaire’s turn to spend his Skillpoint.
Oddly enough, he chose Toughness as well, despite what he saw from me doing so. I suppose it was understandable, if two more meant the difference between my Strength and Cádo’s, it’d leave us a lot hardier. Eventually at least.
And then we were done. No more errands, no more delays. No more excuses. There wasn’t a thing holding us back except our own cowardice, and none of us could find justification to indulge that any longer. Reluctantly, just about shitting ourselves all the while, we started our march out into the great beyond.
We must’ve been adjusting, because the frost barely even registered anymore. Might be that having Cádo back was spoiling us, with all the extra timber and torches. Our target- Ghrizun Wood- was just a few miles from town, not even an hour’s walk. That still left a lengthy journey for us, though. We were modern, used to luxuries like cars and planes, and we didn’t cross countries often enough to be content just tolerating a stretch of boredom like that. So of course we chatted.
Truth be told, there was surprisingly little to actually chat about. None of us were very well caught up with any of the shows we’d been watching, nor did we have any funny highlights from some gaming sessions. Really, the wifi in Redacle would’ve made such hobbies untenable, let alone the giant hairy monsters trying to chew our heads off.
One thing did demand conversation, though. Cádo’s name. He’d been unconscious when Solitaire and I picked our new ones- thinking about it, we were lucky he hadn’t called either of us by them and given the game away before he knew, it was bad enough we’d gone this long without bringing it up to him, uncharacteristically sloppy really. We were sure to catch him up quickly once the topic occurred to us, but he took his time in finally choosing one.
“Beam”, he decided. It was perfect- Solitaire and I both had stupid ones as well.
Something was changing about us, now. We’d picked new names, set a goal, we had a direction and an aim, and we’d actually gotten our feet beneath us. An idiot could’ve told how weak we still were, and yet for the first time in a long time I felt like we had some sort of chance.
I eyed Solitaire as I thought about it. New names, new goals. And things I’d never seen in my friends rearing their ugly heads. Maybe we would survive what was awaiting for us further on in the woods, but something told me this world would leave its mark one way or another.
I could only hope it wasn’t as deep a brand as I feared.