Kahli smiled and time froze as the tightness in her lower back released and she was greeted by the familiar system message.
[Level up]
Excellent.
[Level up]
Two for one? Well, Kahli couldn't argue with that. It had been quite a while since she'd leveled up.
[Congratulations, you've reached level 23]
[Would you like to spend your 5 attribute points?]
Five attribute points? Of course Kahli wanted to spend them. She always wanted to improve her [attributes], and felt that she never seemed to get the oppportunity previously. Then again, her system had recently processed an update that included [attribute] prompts. That was nice.
[Attributes]
[INT: 11]
[STM: 12]
[CHAR: 12]
[DEX: 12]
[STR: 11]
Kahli had to mull this one over for a moment. She could, of course, adopt an even spread... However, she could also try to improve any specific [attributes] she felt were now lacking. Then again, they were all so close in number... It was hard for Kahli to decide anything other than to add a point to each [attribute].
Only... What if she focused on improving her [STM]? Her [Barrage of Blows] [skill] needed Kahli to have a lot of [STM]. And of course [Tale Teller] needed [CHAR]. Kahli figured she'd bump both of those [attributes] up two points, which left one point to spend. She figured she'd put that one in [INT], because she didn't want to feel dumb or anything, now did she?
[Attributes]
[INT: 12]
[STM: 14]
[CHAR: 14]
[DEX: 12]
[STR: 11]
Kahli felt good about these added [attributes].
[You have 2 skill slot available, would you like to select a skill now?]
Kahli would've jumped with glee if time hadn't been frozen. Of course she wanted to spend her [skill] slots!
[Excellent. The following skills are available for selection:]
[Rock Summon (increase)]
[Seismic Sense (increase)]
[Tale Teller (increase)]
[Nomachiatoquaker]
[Combine Forms]
So Kahli had a lot of options here. She could increase any of her preexisitng [skills], or she could get a new one. Of course the new [skills] were always so enticing, but then again, Kahli was terribly eager to level up some of her current [skills]. It was a good thing she had 2 [skill] slots to burn. Time to find out what was up!
The [Rock Summon] option was the same as last time, the ability to summon up multiple rocks. That was cool, but she wanted to see what else she could do.
[Seismic Sense (increase)]
[Increasing this skill will add a lot to your new sense. You'll be able to sense all kind of new things presently and perpetually, which will have many benefits for you in and out of combat. Additionally, your ability to visit time checkpoints will expand in functionality and versatility by adding the option to twist out one of your available timeline selections. Once you twist a timeline, you will not be able to un-twist it, and you can only twist one timeline per checkpoint. Please select this skill in order to learn more regarding functionality and implementation.]
Twisting a timeline? Kahli had no idea what that meant, but it sounded powerful. Plus, what exactly did it mean in regards to her sensing new things presently and perpetually? This really made Kahli want to use a [skill] slot on [Seismic Sense], but she decided to look at everything else first before making any choices. Sure, technically she'd always be able to level it up, but this sounded like something that actually came with a tangible opportunity cost of not leveling it up. It was, at the very least, food for thought.
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[Tale Teller (increase)]
[Increasing Tale Teller will expand not only the believability of the tales you tell, but will also allow you to extend your abilities by creating a conical range within which all amiable parties may also tell tales that may or may not be truthful. This will allow for collective lying and collective deception, which could potentially hold within it the potential for causing minor collective hallucinations on part of those deceived.]
Wow. So, if Kahli was understanding this correctly, if she leveled up [Tale Teller], she'd be able to not only extend her power to other people nearby, but indeed she'd also get the option to make people she was lying to hallucinate things? Well, it sounded like a minor option, but a minor hallucination was still a hallucination. If Kahli understood that [skill] correctly, then didn't that mean that she could tell someone that there was a flying tree in front of them, and they would see the tree?
[Clarification: Yes, although due to the skill's nature as one that defines the ability to cause people to hallucinate as minor, it would have to be a very small tree, such as a sapling. Larger hallucinations would most likely only become possible under further skill leveling of Tale Teller.]
That was fair. Still, it was an enormous advantage. She'd already been able to convince countless F.I.N.G.E.R. agents that Agent 42 had been alive, despite his head detaching from his body. And that was with an unleveled [Tale Teller]. Leveling it up would probably make her able to deny such things without even having to come up with a convoluted explanation - that is to say, had Kahli had a leveled up version of [Tale Teller] when she'd been at the F.I.N.G.E.R. facility, she would've probably been able to make everyone hallucinate that Agent 42 was walking around and that his head hadn't fallen off.
[Clarification: Yes, although due to the fact that it would've needed to be a minor hallucination, what most likely would've happened is that they still would've thought his head had come off unless you had someone hold his head right up next to his neck. Remember, the skill allows for minor hallucinations.]
That made enough sense to Kahli. And, once again, she found a complelling case for leveling up this [skill]. Of course, that would've been two for two as far as her [skill] slots were considered, and Kahli of course had other options to consider. This was shaping up to be a bit of a tough choice for sure!
[Nomachiatoquaker]
[Increase your stone elementality and use your energy and focus to cause a localized Nomachniatoquake that will shake the ground underneath you and deal damage to all enemies within a ten pace radius.]
That was... Less than exciting. Okay, well, it sounded like a cool [skill], for sure - Nomachiatoquakes were foreboding and powerful, and the ability to create one of those at will was of course very exciting. However, Kahli just didn't necessarily feel like it was really her. Yes, it was powerful, but a lot of her [skills] were very versatile and had a lot of soft as well as hard power, and this felt a little too blunt for her to really go for. Kahli did think it would be great for fighting skeletal beasts, which of course were coming out of perforations around Nomachiato at an alarming rate, but it just didn't excite her like some of the other [skills] had.
[Combine Forms]
[As you've already seen, working together with your paired system having creature allows for combat benefits that can make you both more effective and powerful than the sum of your parts. This is of course already something you can do, however, with this skill, it will be extended to the point that you'll have control over one another's skills, as well as the option of using a number of joint-skills based on your collective abilities at will. This will also strengthen your bond with your paired creature.]
Kahli was already sold on this [skill]. Not only would it strengthen her bond with Froufrou, but it would also allow her to use [joint-skills] with her? And they could share [skills]? It just seemed too good to be true, and Kahli had already seen how powerful she'd become when Froufrou had helped her. This would probably be even better. Froufrou had saved her life already, and Kahli wanted to facilitate more of that whenever possible.
So, if she was to choose that [skill], what other [skill] would she choose? Kahli had already decided that [Nomachiatoquaker] was just not compelling enough to select, but what she was having trouble settling on was whether she wanted to level up [Seismic Sense] or [Tale Teller]. Both seemed exceptionally beneficial, and indeed if [Combine Forms] hadn't itself been so useful, she would've chosen to level up both of them. That being said, Kahli was really learning towards leveling up [Seismic Sense]. Both [skills] were beneficial, but [Seismic Sense] had such wide-reaching impact that it seemed silly to ignore the opportunity to improve it.
With that, Kahli's mind was made up.
[Skills Selected]
[Combine Forms]
[Seismic Sense (increase)]
But, time did not speed up just yet.
[Froufrou is ready to level up]
[Would you like to level up Froufrou?]
Of course Kahli did, she felt guilty for not leveling up Froufrou earlier.
[Froufrou]
[Level 5]
[Froufrou does not have any skill slots available at this time]
Level 5? Wow, Froufrou had leveled up a few times unbeknownst to Kahli. She felt even more guilty. It was just as well that there wasn't a [skill] slot available for Kahli to choose, she'd obviously missed her chance earlier. Only, she did want to see what [skills] Froufrou did have.
[Skills: Putrify (increased since last read), Wretched Reflex]
So [Putrify] had been increased? That was cool. And then [Wretched Reflex] must've been Froufrou's entirely new [skill].
[Putrify]
[This skill can now also be sent out towards enemies in a directed globule that will, on impact, explode in an up to fifteen foot radius and damage all enemies, as well as impart the trademark side effects of Putrify. All other abilities of Putrify remain the same.]
Ah, so that had been what Froufrou had done when she spat out that glowing green orb that had covered Princess and Taubitha in goo. Good to know.
[Wretched Reflex]
[Froufrou may not be great at landing hits, but with this skill, it is exceptionally difficult to land one on her as well. These reflexes are faster than a feline's and use Froufrou's system to actually dilate Froufrou's experience of time in order to ensure she has more time to react than her attacker to respond to most attacks.]
Wow. So this had allowed Froufrou to parry away all those attacks from Taubitha. Very cool.
Now that Kahli was through looking at Froufrou's character sheet, time unfroze and everything sped back to normal. And Kahli was immediately aware of how absolutely exhausted she was.
"Kahli, you don't look so good," said Sahdi with a faint amount of concern in her voice, which was a bit of a surprise considering how atonal her voice normally was. "You ought to lay down."
Kahli was about to argue with Sahdi, but she almost felt she couldn't, and before she could even take any further action, she felt herself stumble to the ground her vision go dark.