I was shocked, and then I was furious.
That bastard of a god had thrown a temper tantrum and cursed me with a minus ten to all stats. I looked at my stat sheet in horror, as now most of my stats were well below their starting values. While my health and other pools still only showed percentage values, I could instinctively tell that they had been greatly reduced.
I was going to have to spend a hundred points to deal with this. Sure, I’d learned his special skill, but I’d done it legitimately and his priest had told me about them. If he hadn’t wanted that to happen, he should have talked to me himself. He didn’t have any right to complain!
I silently bared my teeth and vowed to learn his other skill as well, just to spite him. In the meantime, I needed to figure out how to deal with this. The message had mentioned a way to use the petition system to get this fixed, and I wanted to know more.
I remembered seeing "petition" as a menu option earlier, but I hadn't thought much about it since then. I'd had a vague idea that it might be for contacting a game master but that was from before I knew this wasn't a game. Now I wasn't sure what it was for.
I opened my menu and navigated over to the petition option. The screen that presented itself next was simple and to the point. It listed each of the primary gods and my current reputation with them. Valera was listed as "Favored", while The Adversary was listed as "Friendly" and all the others except Limitless were at "Neutral". Limitless of course was showing "Despised" in a threatening red color.
The feeling is mutual, buddy. I thought to myself, annoyed that I probably would have picked this jerk as a patron if not for The Adversary's subtle manipulation of the deity selection process on my arrival. The devilish god had really bailed me out there in more ways than one.
A few of the gods also had icons under their names, and after a moment of concentration I identified them as different types of blessings. I had two blessings from The Adversary and one from Odin, and a single greater blessing from Valera. I mentally selected Valera from the list and got a new prompt.
> System Message
>
> Create Petition
>
> You may petition any god you have at least a friendly relationship with, or if you possess a blessing from that deity. Petitioning a deity may reduce your relationship level with the selected deity by one stage unless you expend a blessing.
>
> Your odds of receiving a favorable result from a deity go up the higher your reputation with them is, and blessings can be spent to increase your effective reputation by one stage per level of the blessing–least being one stage, minor two stages, etc. If you spend a blessing of any level your reputation with the deity will not be reduced no matter the result of your petition.
>
> Would you like to spend your Greater Blessing now?
>
> Yes / No
I backed out of the petition system altogether. This had to wait, I had a way to contact Valera already and now had two reasons to use it. If I needed to use the petition system to deal with this I would, but I didn’t want to waste blessings or favor with the gods when I didn’t have to.
It was time to engage in the next part of my plan. I could hear soft rhythmic breathing behind me, and quiet snoring beneath me, so I pulled out one of my Scarab Tokens and activated it. I hesitated for a moment, then selected “The Fair Deal” from the stylized menu.
I needed some time to myself and didn’t want to ask for favors at Sam’s if I could avoid it–I was betting on the apathy of the cashier to let me hang out for a bit without too much trouble.
***
As it turned out, the cashier looked like she hadn’t moved the entire time I’d been gone. She was still leaning over the counter reading what looked an awful lot like a manga. She didn’t even look up as I appeared.
After a moment of awkward silence while I stood there trying to decide if I should say something, she sighed and still without looking up said, “Can I help you find something today?” In a voice that was so devoid of any desire to help me that I was nearly physically repelled by it.
“Uh, no. Just browsing… Oh, hey, do you have a bathroom I can use?” I asked. This place was a store, it seemed like a possibility.
“In the back,” she said, turning the page in whatever she was reading.
I scurried away grinning to myself. I was about to call a god from a public bathroom in hell. Somehow this wasn’t even the weirdest thing I’d done today.
Like everything else in this building the bathroom weirdly resembled a modern structure from Earth. Seeing it, I realized that so long as I had scarab tokens, I never needed to be without the convenience of a modern bathroom ever again. I hadn’t even considered that aspect before, and I immediately vowed never to spend my last token. It even had toilet paper! I’d never been so happy to be in a public restroom in my life.
I forced myself back on track, pulling out the statuette of Valera. I set it on the floor and put a hand on it, attempting to mentally activate it the same way I’d activated the scarab token to get here. A moment passed with no visible effect, then I felt the statuette move under my hand. I quickly drew my hand back and saw the face of Valera blink and look around, as animated as when I’d last spoken with her in the forge of souls.
“Inf… I mean Tavi, good to see you, why are we in Jira?” the small golden woman asked, looking around. “And why are we in a bathroom?”
“It’s a long story, but this is the only place I can use this item right now. I’m in jail on Astra, ironically for stealing this relic, and I had a few questions I needed to ask you,” I told her.
She nodded. “I am aware of your general situation, though I cannot intervene on your behalf unless you create a petition and expend my blessing. This method of speaking to me is limited, and will not last long, so tell me your questions and I will do what I can.”
“Two things. First, I’ve discovered a class called Shadow Thief–should I dedicate it to your service? If I don’t, I’ll select the Master & Apprentice benefit and just keep it to myself for now. Second, I’ve been cursed by Limitless. Should I petition you to remove it or is there a better solution?”
Her gilded eyebrows rose as she responded. “To the point I see. You may dedicate it to me if you wish. If you do, I will remove the thievery component of the class and replace it with an emphasis on travel to match one of my domains. Shadow seems to complement that aspect best, and the original class already has some aspects of that which I could build on.”
She paused for a moment, thinking. “This may not be what you want to hear but I wouldn’t blame you if you took the other path. If you keep the thief aspect the class will be considered an evolution of the base thief class, which will keep any of your thief skills from becoming cross-path for you.”
I nodded thoughtfully, considering. “Got it, thanks. What about my other question?”
“The petition system is very formal, System keeps a tight rein on it as it’s one of the only ways we are allowed to influence matters directly, so be very specific when making requests as we cannot negotiate through it. You are my champion. If you ask it, I will do it, and if you use your blessing I will return it to you until I decide you are unworthy of it.
“That said, I would prefer that you do not ask for me or one of Limitless’ rivals to cure this curse completely. Our influence on the world is a zero-sum game, and Limitless had to sacrifice influence to curse you. If you ask us to cure the curse, he will regain most of what he has lost and shift the cost from himself to us.”
She reached out and took my hands with her small golden ones, looking up at me as she spoke. “As you know I am very restricted in what I can do, but this action by Limitless represents a chance for me to gain a sliver of influence from his mistake. In his anger he spent his influence, thinking that I would not cure you due to my own precarious position. He assumed that if any of his rivals did then it would only aid his position.
“I am nominally neutral, much like System, as nearly all my power and influence is invested into him. However, some among the assembly have taken your existence as a violation of that neutrality. If I can gain some of Limitless’ influence from this it will be a major victory for me and will help defend both of us against future attacks.”
I squeezed her hand with mine before giving her my best shark impression of a grin. “If you’re telling me this is a chance to fuck him over, I’m all for it. Just tell me what to do.”
“I want you to petition me using your blessing and ask me to relieve you of the burden of only two ranks of this curse. I will do so and return a lesser blessing to you should you need to petition me again. By doing this we will have canceled out two ranks of the curse at essentially no cost to me.
“If you want you can also ask The Adversary for two more ranks using one of his minor blessings, I suspect he will grant the petition. This will leave you with only one rank to pay off yourself, but Limitless will have lost considerable influence and I’ll have gained most of it in turn.”
She released my hands and stepped back. “Time is short, is there anything else I can help with?”
I wracked my brain trying to think if there was anything else she could help me with. “Um, I seem to have a reality seed stuck in my soul-space? Anything I can do about that?”
Valera laughed, “Oh, you have no idea what a stir that caused. That’s not supposed to be possible. Did you know you technically qualify as a dungeon now? System claims it has to do with your nature and the fact that all souls are technically infinite. You count as an infinity, and so do reality seeds.
“Soul-spaces are a conceptual form of storage, as both souls and reality seeds are themselves conceptual entities. You were able to take that reality seed into your soul-space because you are Infinity, and it is a fraction of infinity which is itself infinite. It’s all a bit beyond me, but The Adversary gave a very convincing presentation on it.”
The goddess rubbed her forehead as if she had a headache. “I don’t think any of us understood it. Most of the others don’t even know what a PowerPoint is, but he made it clear he understands it even if nobody else does and that settled things down a bit.”
I barely knew what to think about this, but I latched onto the one thing she’d said that I could grasp. “Wait, I count as a dungeon? What does that mean?”
“Dungeons are created by reality seeds. They form when a reality seed is left alone too long in a location. It will imprint on the location and create a skewed version of reality based on that place. Reality seeds all have some concept they strongly resonate with, and that influences the dungeon they turn into.
“Sometimes someone will intentionally create a dungeon with a seed, as it's possible to influence them conceptually. That’s what’s happened in your case, but instead of attaching it to a location it’s literally inside your soul. From what I can tell it’s still unformed, but eventually you’ll have something like a full dungeon in there, and nobody is quite sure what that will look like.”
“Can I get it out? Is this a problem?” I asked. This was more than a little concerning. The dungeon I was familiar with was not a nice place.
“We don’t know. It’s never happened before. Theoretically a god could do the same thing, but none of us are eager to try. We use reality seeds in our work occasionally, but usually we let the daemon’s have them. It keeps them happy, if they can be said to have emotions.
“You might be able to convince one of them to tear it out of you, but personally I wouldn’t trust a daemon to have that level of precision. They don’t see much of a difference between souls and reality seeds other than their size and how they taste. I wouldn’t trust one that close to my soul if I were you.”
Valera winced and resumed the stance she had when she first animated. “Time’s up, remember what I said about the petition, and good luck!”
Then she froze in place and suddenly I was looking at a lifeless statuette again. I slowly reached over and began drawing the statuette into my soul-space again. The goddess had given me a lot to think about, but this had been an excellent use of the item’s once a month ability.
I'd gathered all the information I could, so now it was time for action. First, I was going to finalize my class selection. Valera had convinced me that becoming a Master Shadow Thief was the way to go.
Her version of the class seemed like it might have some long-distance teleportation abilities and stuff like that, but I didn't currently have much of a use for that, and getting to roll my old class into the new one sounded very beneficial. Not to mention the other benefits of that option.
I opened the prompt I'd minimized earlier, and I selected Master & Apprentice from the list of founder benefits. There was a moment of hesitation that I was coming to associate with the System having to process something big happening.
> New Achievement
>
> Now, I am the Master
>
> You have become the Master of a class following the path of Master & Apprentice. In all the world only two people may pursue this path at once, and now you get to decide who is worthy to follow in your footsteps.
>
> Rewards:
> Title Unlocked (“Master Shadow Thief”)
> +10pp (Shadow Thief)
> New Achievement
>
> Legend in the Making
>
> You are the world’s first Master Shadow Thief. On your shoulders alone rests the legacy of this new class. Will your legend inspire those who come after, or will you be forgotten to time as your successors write their own names in the fabric of history? Will your story be one to inspire, or one to cause dread? A new player has entered the field, and the whole world awaits your first move.
>
> Rewards:
> Title Unlocked (“Legendary”)
Congratulations, you have received enough XP to become a Level 5 Trailblazer!
Next up I needed to file a bug report. I wanted to make sure I reported the weird behavior of my class unlock before it got noticed on its own. The Adversary had never taken away my “ill-gotten gains” from exploiting bugs I’d reported, so now that I was locked into the class it was time to report it and hopefully get some more scarab tokens.
I filed my report, describing the sequence of events leading up to unlocking my class, and my confusion over having a free rank in Embrace of Shadows despite not qualifying for its prerequisites. I detailed how I’d gained the skills in question, and how the other skills did not exhibit the same behavior. While I was at it, I also mentioned the double achievements I’d gotten from unlocking Devil in the Details, just to cover my ass.
I wrapped up the report and submitted it, once again getting a notice that my report had been elevated for review. Now I just needed to wait.
Finally, it was time to implement Valera’s plan to take Limitless down a notch. I opened the petition menu again, this time following the prompts and expending my greater blessing to petition Valera. The petition system was straightforward, requiring me to type out a request to the god I wanted to ask a favor from.
I very carefully filled out the petition form with the exact request I wanted fulfilled, being careful to avoid ambiguity since Valera had mentioned that the petition system was very strict. I suspected on her end it was just “grant” or “do not grant” choices with no room for making changes.
The instant I submitted the petition I got a new prompt.
> System Message
>
> Petition Granted!
>
> Rejoice, mortal! Your petition to Valera, goddess of Journeys, Trial, and Change has been granted. The boon you requested has been granted and has taken effect immediately. In her benevolent wisdom, Valera has also chosen to return to you a Lesser Blessing in return for your offering of a Greater Blessing.
I scoffed at the rather pompous message, some of the gods I’d spoken to had been rather full of themselves, but neither Valera nor The Adversary came off that way at all. On the other hand, when I’d met most of them I’d thought they were glorified NPCs, and looking back on it I now regretted having treated them quite so casually.
I followed the same process again for my petition to The Adversary, selecting a Minor Blessing as an offering. This time the response was not instant, and I went to look at my penalties while I waited.
Sure enough, I had two ranks paid off on my curse now, and when I opened up the details of the penalty it warned me that all my progression points were considered cross path except my universal ones. That was annoying, but I had enough universal points to pay for it.
I narrowed my eyes, considering. I could spend my universal points on this, or I could spend an affinity. My understanding was that penalties normally became skills when they were paid off. This was how I’d unlocked my species evolution and how Tavi had unlocked Darkvision.
I knew that affinities assigned to penalties could help you pay them off. However, they could also unlock special evolutions of the penalty when they were paid off, or mastered as the system called it. That was how I’d gotten my current subspecies.
This penalty was a curse, but it was still a penalty. Would it evolve into a skill when I paid it off? Would Limitless really give me access to a skill like that? If he did, it must be a pretty crummy skill, else surely he wouldn’t have done it.
If I put an affinity into it, might I get a special evolution that could turn this in my favor? I knew affinities were supposed to be a very limited resource, but my dual class setup with Trailblazer had given me access to more affinities than most people would ever have. I could afford to experiment with them, that’s what Trailblazer was for after all.
It might be a gamble, but I decided to give it a shot. The moment I assigned the affinity to the skill I got the notification that my petition to The Adversary had been granted, as if the god had been waiting for me to do that. I just shook my head, used to his antics by now. Still, it was probably a sign that I’d made the right call here.
The only thing left to do was pay off the penalty. I did a quick assessment of my available progression points to figure out what I wanted to spend. I had a bunch of bonus points in my new Shadow Thief class, but I also had a bunch of new skills there that I’d probably want to put points into.
I did have enough points split between my goblin species and thief class however, and since Shadow Thief apparently was just a better version of the Thief class, I decided to spend all my remaining points from Thief and the rest from Goblin. I didn’t want to spend my Trailblazer points because I could use those to assign skills to the class.
> New Achievement
>
> Theomachist
>
> You have defied the curse of a god. Not only did you overcome it, but you embraced it, turning its power against the god who cursed you.
>
> Rewards:
> Faction Relationship Change (Church of Limitless: Hated)
> Title Unlocked (“Iconoclast”)
> Unlocked Skill: Heroic Might
I cackled evilly, my gamble had paid off and had obviously annoyed Limitless. The next several minutes were spent looking over my new skills while using the facilities for their intended purpose. I’d been doing my best to ignore the cramps and other uncomfortable sensations for a while now, but I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to use a modern bathroom while I had a chance. I had plenty of reading material to keep my mind off things anyway.
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> Shadow Step
>
> Active Skill (Tier 1)
>
> Source: Shadow Thief
>
> Rank: 1 / 5
>
> PP: 0 / 2
>
> Activation Cost: Mana (Low)
>
> Activation Type: Instant
>
> Cooldown: 1 Minute
>
> Step into your own shadow and reappear up to 4 meters away. The place you target must be in an area of shadow or this skill will fail to activate. You can teleport an additional meter per rank in this skill, and the cooldown decreases by 5 seconds.
> Blades of Twilight
>
> Active Skill (Tier 3)
>
> Source: Shadow Thief
>
> Rank: 1 / 3
>
> PP: 0 / 6
>
> Activation Cost: Mana (Low), Stamina (Low)
>
> Activation Type: Instant
>
> Cooldown: N/A
>
> You can cause shadows to become momentarily solid, and sharp. You can conjure one blade of shadow per rank in this skill and hurl them at nearby enemies. These blades get 50% of their damage from Willpower and 50% from the greater of Dexterity or Strength. Damage from this skill is reduced by 50% in areas of bright light.
> Hands of Night
>
> Passive Skill (Tier 5)
>
> Source: Shadow Thief
>
> Rank: 1 / 5
>
> PP: 0 / 10
>
> Shadows you cast can act as an extension of your body. You can treat any area of shadow connected to you as an extension of yourself. Skills can originate from any point in such a shadow, and you can cause your shadows to become semi-solid and able to exert physical force. All effects generated by your shadows when used in this way treat each of your statistics as being 10% of their normal value per rank in this skill.
I also had the option to make any of these a signature skill, though I was still unsure what that meant. I also looked at the skill I’d unlocked from paying off the curse. I hadn’t gotten a free rank in that one, so it wasn’t a new discovery, but it was pretty wild.
> Heroic Might
>
> Passive Skill (Tier 8)
>
> Prerequisites: Curse of Impotence (Mastered, Affinity)
>
> Rank: 0 / 3
>
> PP: 0 / 16
>
> You gain +8 bonus to your Strength and Willpower for every rank in this skill. Additionally at each rank you will automatically learn a special active skill from the Feats of Heroic Might skill list.
I hadn’t seen a single other skill that worked anything like this one. It was both a cheap way to rank up two stats, and a way to get new skills. I also didn’t miss that it said I’d learn the skills, not unlock them, which made me think I’d get a free rank as well. Neither of the stats this affected were good ones for me, with Strength being tied for my lowest. Adding eight more points to it would catapult it up to one of my highest.
According to the help docs both stats were generally responsible for damage done, either physical or magical respectively. I also had several skills that directly referenced both stats. There was no chance I wasn’t taking this skill after having sunk an affinity into getting it, so the only question was what class to assign it to.
Considering that Shadow Thief didn’t really strike me as a thematic fit, I went ahead and dropped some Trailblazer and universal points on it to purchase the skill. I used my normal method of holding back a few class points in case I wanted to assign more skills to Trailblazer later.
For the first time, I felt a skill take effect as I learned it. My body didn’t change as far as I could tell, but strength surged through my muscles. I was momentarily intimately aware of my body in a way I’d never experienced before as pure power rushed through my limbs. For a moment I felt like I could bench press a car.
The urge to lift something heavy was irresistible, so I ended up getting the statuette of Valera back out of my soul-space and just lifting it up and down a bit. I wasn’t sure how much it weighed, but before boosting my strength I’d been able to lug it around in a bag with some difficulty. Now I was able to pick it up with one hand and easily move it around.
I realized I was sitting on a toilet juggling a statuette of goddess while giggling stupidly… Time to pull myself together.
At some point I was going to need to sit down and do some experiments to figure out exactly how much of an increase a single point of strength was worth. I also wasn’t sure if the stats were an objective measurement or if they were some kind of rating that was still based on my body's capabilities.
Lucus had been able to run over rooftops carrying both me and the statuette. Did that mean he had a massive strength score, or was he just naturally stronger without needing to invest points into it? Some combination of both?
I looked at my active skills and sure enough there was a new skill listed there as well, just as weird as the original.
> Heroic Feat of Strength
>
> Active Skill (Tier 6)
>
> Prerequisites: Heroic Might (Rank 1)
>
> Source: Trailblazer
>
> Rank: 1 / 1
>
> PP: 0 / 12
>
> Activation Cost: Health (Medium), Stamina (Medium), Mana (Medium)
>
> Activation Type: Instant
>
> Cooldown: 3 days
>
> You have unlocked a power which all mortals have, but few can control. When activated, and for one minute thereafter, you can wield the full strength of your body without regard for your physical well-being. During this time, your strength is tripled, and you may spend health instead of stamina to pay for skill activations.
>
> When Heroic Feat of Strength ends, you will suffer from Exhaustion (Bane, Tier 4) for 1 hour.
So basically, I could hulk out for a full minute. It seemed like a great “oh shit” skill, kind of like Lucus’ Might of Mountains, but an offensive version compared to his defensive one. I suspected a lot of the real power of this skill was allowing health to be spent as stamina, stuff like that could produce weird interactions and would make it so that healing effects on me would potentially fuel offensive skills.
Since my Nilbog species gave me a once-a-day chance to avoid death, I could use this skill a bit more recklessly than most people probably could. It would be better if I could pair it with a more reliable self-healing ability, but at least most of the time I wouldn’t need to worry about accidentally killing myself.
I still needed to review my new titles and maybe buy a few more skill ranks, but I’d let myself get distracted from one of the main things I’d come here to do. I hadn’t wanted to open my loot box while in my cell just in case it was obvious what was happening. Now that I was alone in this stall I could find out what loot I’d gotten.
The loot box dropped into my hands as I pulled it from its place in my soul-space. I looked the gaudy thing over, mildly impressed at System for shamelessly ripping off one of the most hated features of modern gaming. As far as I could tell there wasn’t a pay-to-win component to this at least, it was just a glorified random reward.
As soon as it was in my hands I was once again prompted via system message asking if I wanted to open it. This time I selected yes, and immediately had my caution rewarded as it began to glow and shake in my hands before veritably exploding in a flash of light.
When my eyes cleared, I found myself in a completely different place, pants still around my ankles. Fortunately, nobody else seemed to be here so I took a moment to correct things and compose myself. Then I had a look at my surroundings.
I was standing on a small stone platform in the middle of a grass covered island set in a placid sea that stretched to the horizon. It was similar to the Forge of Souls, but where the forge had swirling air and fire, this place was all water and growing things. There was a feeling of vastness to it that I recognized from both the forge and the assembly that let me know it wasn’t a natural place.
My platform was surrounded by three other similar platforms, each wrapped with flowering vines. Above my head trees formed a light canopy that failed to do more than break up the view of the cloudless sky above. Curious, I checked my map and discovered that this place was labeled “The Garden of Possibilities” and was small enough that the entire landmass fit comfortably into my minimap display.
More importantly, the three other platforms around me each had something floating above them. I hopped off my plinth and approached the largest of the floating items. The prompt had told me I had to choose one of these things, but there was one problem. I had no idea what I was looking at.
I activated Identify, trying to examine the item. It looked like a weird combination of a rock and an egg. It was larger than I was and looked like it must weigh a few hundred kilos if it was solid rock.
Unfortunately, the skill failed to work as the item was a higher tier than my ranks in Identify. I’d have to touch it to bypass the rank requirement. However, when I went to do so I got a prompt the moment my fingers touched the marble-like surface.
> Pet Rock
>
> Companion Egg (Tier 3)
>
> Quality: Eggcellent
>
> Now you too can have your very own pet rock! A simple pet even an idiot could care for, the pet rock will happily exist in your general area with or without your love and attention. It doesn’t need food or water–except on the geological timescale–so care is simple. Just don’t let it fall off a high place and your new best–possibly only–friend will still be here when the stars burn out and the cosmos is a cold and lifeless void.
>
> Do you wish to select Pet Rock as your reward for this Loot Box?
>
> Yes / No
I read the description twice and still couldn’t tell if it was a joke. Using Identify just gave me the same information without the prompt to choose it as my reward, so there was no help there. I left it alone for now and made my way to the next option, which looked like a sword worthy of an anime character.
> Gratuitous Violence
>
> Greatsword (Tier 3, 2-Handed, Reach, Oversized)
>
> Damage: 20 (Slashing), 10 (Piercing)
>
> Quality: Excellent
>
> This massive sword is so large that it can be used as a polearm. It is of devilish design; the blade having been forged in the fires of Jira to resist both heat and physical damage. The hilt is made from the leg bone of a Magma Fiend and is always cool to the touch because of its ability to channel heat. In the hands of a fire attuned creature this blade will glow red-hot as the hilt channels their inner fire into the blade.
That seemed nice, but also pretty useless to me. This sword was something like four times my height on just the blade alone. Even with my increased strength I didn’t think I’d be able to wield it just because of how awkwardly sized it was. Hell, it wouldn’t even fit inside the tunnels of the dungeon, so it was doubly useless for me right now.
The next item was a lot smaller. It looked like a simple length of red cloth with woven designs in it. As I got close enough to touch it, I saw that the designs were a combination of geometric patterns and what looked like writing in a script I couldn’t read.
> Warband
>
> Accessory (Tier 3, Oversized)
>
> Armor: 3
>
> Quality: Excellent
>
> This enchanted armband is sized for a giant. It was created as part of a set, each of which espouses the virtues of war, a set of sayings held sacred by the followers of Tas’Gamoth, the ogre god of war and combat. This half of the set records the virtues of defense, while its pair records the virtues of offense.
>
> While wearing this armband you gain a +3 bonus to both resistance and dodge. If it is equipped with its twin these bonuses double.
What was with all the oversized stuff in this loot box? Did they have a theme or something? I didn’t recall it mentioning anything like that.
I might be able to wrap this around my arm a few times, but it’d be awkward. I wondered if I could get the benefits without equipping it in the right spot. It was decently sized for a scarf or headband. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a way to check. I really needed a “Try before you buy” option.
Annoyed, I walked around looking at the three items. The pet rock was the most interesting, but I was pretty sure it was literally just a pet, not something that would help me in a fight. Also, it was about the most useless thing I could think of for my current situation. Presumably I wouldn’t even be able to keep it in my soul-space since it was a creature.
I hesitated at that thought. Come to think of it, I wasn’t sure if that was true. I stopped pacing in front of the pet rock and looked up at it. I wouldn’t mind having this if I could put it in my soul-space, at best it might actually be useful, but even at worst it’d be a funny gift to give Lucus with all his rock-based magic.
I put my hand on the pet rock again and ignored the prompt. Instead, I just tried putting the egg into my soul-space to see what would happen. If this counted as taking the item that was fine with me, but if it didn’t work then it would eliminate this as a possible choice.
To my surprise, the egg faded out of existence, though the prompt remained. I selected no, curious as to what would happen. I was surprised again when the answer was absolutely nothing. The egg remained in my soul-space, and the other items remained on their pedestals. I took the egg back out and it appeared on the ground in front of me, no longer hovering above its pedestal.
There was no way it would let me take all these things out in my soul-space, right? There was one way to find out…
A few moments later I had a sword and an armband stored in my soul-space. I had to make room for them, but the Sam’s coupon was easy enough to stick into an actual pocket for now. I’d picked the egg to try this with because it was the one I was most interested in, so if I did only get to keep one I wanted it to be that one.
I placed my hand on the egg once more, but this time when the prompt appeared I selected yes. When I did, the world around me lit up much like it had when I’d opened the box in the first place. I shielded my eyes from the glare, and a moment later my feet were back on hard tile instead of soft earth.
However, the first thing I noticed was the screaming. “Oh god! Oh shit! Ahhhg… why?!” Someone yelled directly into my ears.
I blinked away the lights in my eyes and tried to figure out what was going on. I was still in the same bathroom stall I’d been in before opening the box, sitting fully clothed on the edge of a toilet. In front of me was a devilkin man writhing on the ground in obvious pain, his lower half currently being crushed by the massive rock egg I’d selected as loot.
The egg was wedged between the stall walls so it couldn’t move, and he was pinned underneath it. Apparently, he had been caught walking into what must have looked like an empty stall. This was an American style public restroom, as was appropriate in hell. The stall lock was misaligned and wouldn’t latch, because of course it was.
The poor guy was now weeping openly and still struggling to get the egg off him. I managed to shake off my shock and looked inward, checking my soul-space. To my surprise and delight I had a sword and an armband still in storage.
I took out the armband as quickly as I could, causing it to appear around my neck like a scarf and freeing up a slot for the egg. The twenty seconds it took waiting for the armband to appear and the egg to vanish must have been hell for the poor guy being crushed by it. When I finally got it off him his eyes had rolled back in his head, and he had passed out.
I really wished I knew some healing spells about now, but no such luck. I hit the unconscious man with an Identify, putting my hand on his throat to check his pulse at the same time. I hadn’t ever used Identify on a person before, so I wasn’t sure what I’d learn, but I was hoping to verify he wasn’t about to die on me.
> Richard “Dick” Johnson
>
> Level 12 Demonologist (Devilkin, Traveler)
>
> Active Effects: Fainted (Physical Bane, Tier 3), Shock (Physical Bane, Tier 2), Cracked Pelvis (Physical Bane, Tier 3), Injured Pride (Mental Bane, Tier 5)
>
> Once a humble package delivery driver and professional body builder, Richard Johnson, better known as “Big Dick” to his friends, was sucked off into another world to defeat the demon king with his huge, two-handed, Johnson family sword. A tool passed down from father to son over the generations, and the only weapon capable of defeating the demon king. However, the demon king heard he was coming and sent legions of scantily clad demon girls to subdue him, but Dick was made of harder stuff than that and so he decided to wrestle control over the demons from the demon king and become the new king with his own army of hot demon girls to command.
Naturally the first person from Earth I encountered had made his entire character an elaborate dick joke.
I wondered how he’d gotten all that descriptive text to show up. There was no way it was automatically generated so there must be a biography or description field somewhere that I hadn’t found yet. I wondered if he knew all that was visible to an inspection skill.
I hopped up onto the sink counter to sit and wait for him to wake up. While I waited, I messed around with the armband, retying it as a headband in place of my simple cloth one. Thankfully I found that it did give its bonuses even when equipped in a different location, so that ended up being a nice find.
I also took a moment to file yet another bug report regarding my ability to exploit the loot box system. That one was almost painful to report considering what I might be able to do with it, but I wanted to stay on The Adversary’s good side, especially since I’d accidentally crushed one of his followers.
I also needed to buy two more soul-space slots so I could fit the coupon and headband back into my inventory. I had the points for it, but after ranking it up the skill was maxed out, so my inventory wasn’t getting any bigger without using Limit Breaker. That felt like a real first-world problem, but it was still annoying.
After I finished it occurred to me to look and see if Big Dick over there had a gemstone like mine. However, a quick inspection turned up nothing between his horns or hidden by his thick black hair. I wasn’t about to strip search him, but I assumed he didn’t have one.
I was under the impression that non-Valerians got to customize their appearance much like a videogame, and that whatever body was used to create theirs was completely destroyed in the process, presumably along with their original Valerian soul gem.
The thought of searching him got me thinking though. When this guy woke up he might be mad, maybe I should disarm him in case he tried anything stupid. Also, given where we were there was a good chance he had one or more scarab tokens on him.
I might be a thief by trade, but I wasn’t going to steal from this guy if he was even half-way decent. Not from the first fellow Traveler I’d encountered at least. That said, if he ended up being a jerk then having his stuff in my possession would give me leverage at a minimum.
So that’s how I talked myself into rifling through an unconscious dude’s pockets. He was wearing a black and red robe that I Identified as basic low-tier demonologist robes–showy starter gear basically. He had a few pouches tied onto his belt along with a wicked looking ritual dagger.
I took the dagger, but the pouches just had some stuff that I assumed were needed for his spell casting or daemon summoning, or whatever Demonologists did. I hit paydirt under his robe. In a pocket reachable only from the interior of the robe itself I found a single scarab token which I immediately added to my own soul-space.
I took the next few minutes just reviewing my new titles.
> Heretic
>
> Title (Tier 3)
>
> You have committed an act of heresy against one of the gods, but there is power in such an act for it bends the will of a god against their own strength. While this title is equipped you have a 50% bonus to Resistance against spells and effects created by that god and their followers.
> Founder
>
> Title (Tier 4)
>
> You are the founding member of your class and receive a 20% bonus to XP for this class so long as this title is equipped.
> Sage
>
> Title (Tier 3)
>
> You are renowned for your knowledge and insight. While this title is equipped you gain a +3 bonus to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Perception.
> Iconoclast
>
> Title (Tier 4)
>
> You have cast defiance in the face of one of the gods, declaring yourself their enemy. While this title is equipped your attacks and skills do 50% more damage against the followers and creations of any god who you have at least a Hated relationship with.
> Master Shadow Thief
>
> Title (Tier 5, Unbreakable, Restricted)
>
> You are the one and only Master Shadow Thief. This title can only be equipped in one of your primary title slots. When you first equip this title, you will be prompted to choose a name, which will replace your real name for all effects and logs while this title is active. Likewise, divination effects will fail to identify you and your alternate persona as the same creature.
>
> Note: Should you ever lose your position as Master of the Shadow Thief class you will lose access to this title.
> Legendary
>
> Title (Tier 9)
>
> You have created a legacy that will outlive you and could change the face of Astra forever. For good or ill your name, or at least your legacy, will be remembered. This title conveys no benefits but may be merged with any other title with a guaranteed chance of success. Merging this title with another will upgrade the original title by two tiers, increasing its effects commensurately.
I needed more title slots, so I went ahead and broke both my Lucky and Killjoy titles, opening up a new slot. One of my titles basically gave me the ability to have a secret identity, and I was considering activating it right now before “Dick” woke up. I hadn’t dealt with any other players yet, and having Tavi be a secret identity could end up being very useful if I wanted to live a fairly normal life in addition to being a dashing thief and adventurer.
Aware that I was getting into nested levels of roleplaying at this point, I started thinking about what I wanted my identity as the master shadow thief to be. As myself I was analytical and subdued, with a manipulative streak I wasn’t proud of but couldn’t deny. As Tavi I was a sex-positive adrenaline junkie who liked to take risks and didn’t have time for plans.
Who would this third version of me be? This was a chance to combine both aspects of my personality into something cohesive and whole. If I could bring myself to do it at least.
I had a lot to work out here, and I knew I wasn’t going to solve my ongoing identity crisis overnight. For now, I just needed to put on an act. Fortunately, I was good at that. I just needed to figure out how I wanted to present myself. It was time to get into costume and see what I had to work with.
I activated Embrace of Shadows for the first time, looking into the mirror above the sinks as I did so. The bathroom was well lit with what looked like actual fluorescent lighting, but despite that the area around me darkened and shadows bent towards me from every direction, defying the light. The effect on my appearance was intimidating to say the least.
My entire body had been drained of color and darkness filled the air around me. Shadows pooled in my eye sockets and clung to my skin like liquid tar. My long black hair, which I’d tied back to keep out of my eyes, now looked animated and had the appearance of merging with the darkness clinging to my body.
Altogether the effect was pretty intense. The shadows wreathing me accentuated what little curves I had and added contrast and definition to my features. I looked like a sexier, more dangerous version of Tavi. I also looked like I belonged in a horror movie.
Curvy or not, I was still a goblin. My arms were too long for my body, and their movement through the shadows around me had a disturbingly spider-like feel to them. My mouth looked like a void of darkness ringed with jagged teeth, and when I stuck my tongue out to experiment, the shadows clung to it and made it look even longer than it normally was.
I grinned at myself in the mirror, happy with how this was turning out. I just needed to name this new persona and I’d be good to go. I needed something that would fit my status as master shadow thief, maybe something related to darkness?
An idea struck me, and I quickly opened the petition menu and scanned through the various gods and goddesses of the assembly, both major and minor. A moment later my grin got even wider as I confirmed my suspicions. With all the borrowing of deities from the pantheons of Earth this world had, I had needed to confirm that a particular goddess wasn’t present.
In Roman mythology the goddess of night had been called Nox but that reminded me too much of “noxious” for my liking. However, in the original Greek mythology she’d been called Nyx. Since I was going to be a thief of shadows, I might as well start by stealing the name of a goddess of night.
By this point my unconscious guest was starting to stir, so I quickly arranged my titles to my liking. Moments later Master Shadow Thief Nyx, the Skinwalker was born. Before Dick could wake up fully, I positioned myself on the edge of the counter, one leg crossed over the other. I then began casually trimming my claws with the dagger I’d taken off his belt.
It was showtime.