Kahli hovered there in the air by use of her big rock while Unit 5a23, who hovered beside her, took a moment to oil his elbow joints.
"Sorry. I get stiff sometimes."
Kahli laughed. "You always look stiff."
And then, she heard a familiar voice.
"Hey! Kahli! What on Nomachiato do you think you're doing?!"
Kahli's face lit up. "Omar?"
A thunderous bout of air passed through Omar's posterior and set alight with a burning green flame which propelled him into the air, up to see her.
"Kahli, Kahli, Kahli, how badly you've fucked up just now."
"What do you mean? You were the one that activated the doomsday scroll!"
"Doomsday scroll?" interjected Unit 5a23 with intrigue.
"...Forget you heard that, Unit 5a23."
And then Kahli noticed a system message she hadn't seen before.
[Unit 5a23 is processing your request]
Processing her request?
"Look, Kahli, I know you may have certain prejudices and assumptions about me due to the fact that I am an automaton, but I am not going to just automatically delete one of my memories because you-"
[Unit 5a23 has finished processing your request]
"Because - um - uh - What were we just talking about?" Unit 5a23 shook his head, baffled.
Kahli sighed. It was no longer a mystery why Unit 5a23 had so many missing memories. However, that did leave her with the tantalizing question of who wiped his memories, and why.
"This guy is fucking weird, I like him," said Omar. "Now, what in the fuck do you think you're doing, Kahli, floating around with a system?"
"Being awesome," said Kahli matter of factly.
"Yea, well, I think you're fucking everything up. Do you know what's been happening back at the restaurant while you've been playing with your robot friend and that weird little alien?"
"You mean Lloyd? The guy who wanted to kill us and is going to respawn in-" Kahli checked her system "-fourty-five minutes?"
"Fourty-five minutes? Why, that's practically an hour," said Omar.
"Yea. Originally I thought he was going to respawn a lot sooner, in like five minutes or something, and that we only had a minute or so left, but it turns out I was misinterpreting the timer on my system messages."
"A true sign of a novice," said Omar, shaking his head. "Well, Kahli, while I'm proud of you and also quite happy for you, but I'm still going to have to fuck you up big time."
"What?!" Kahli did a double take.
"You better get ready," said Omar as he fanned the flames of his right arm with power. "Because I am going to fucking destroy you, Kahli."
"Why?!"
"Why, Kahli? You really have to fucking ask me why, while you've got that awful thing making all these terrible smells at me?"
Kahli squinted in anger as she noticed Omar was looking at Froufrou. "You leave Froufrou alone, Omar."
"Fuck no I won't! You and that weird little creature have brought doom upon us! DOOM!"
"Doom?"
"DOOOOOOOM!"
Kahli turned to Unit 5a23 with a frown. "What is his problem?"
"I think he's stressed out."
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"Who the fuck do you think you are, you fucking robot? Do you think you're my fucking therapist or something, you cold, metal asshole?" Omar got all up in Unit 5a23's face and stared him down, or at least did his best to while he hovered around with his flatulent flame, despite the fact that Unit 5a23 was much taller than Omar. "What? What is it? Are you gonna fucking do some math at me? I can fucking do math too, you robo-cuck! Yea, you fucking heard me, you're a fucking mechanical cuckhold is what you are. Fucking robo-cuck."
"This man is making me very uncomfortable," said Unit 5a23.
"That's what he does best," said Kahli with a sigh. "Look, Omar, be straight with me - what are you looking to do here?"
"Fight!" He swiveled himself around to face her, and then Omar got a chance to loom. "Fight! I'm here to fight you, Kahli, so let's fucking fight already!"
Kahli swallowed air. And then, she noticed a familiar tightness in her lower spine. She'd been ready to level up, all this time?
And so, Kahli focused her energy, not on sizing Omar up or on preparing to fight, but instead on leveling up.
[Level up]
Kahli felt a strong wave of energy pulse through her entire body!
[Level up]
Again? It was always so exhausting...
[Level up]
Three times? Wow! Kahli felt for a second like she might pass out!
[Congratulations, you've reached level 20]
Level twenty? Now that was pretty sweet. Kahli felt great about it. Of course she was still a lower level than Taubitha, but at least she'd done a hell of a lot more than just punch a stupid wall. Hell, she'd fought an evil alien hellbent on world destruction!
[You have 1 skill slot available. Would you like to select a skill now?]
Kahli knew the answer to that question.
[Excellent. The following skills are available for selection:]
[Rock Summon]
[Rock Slide]
[Tale Teller]
So there was [Rock Summon], still waiting for a possible upgrade. Kahli could imagine upgrading it and having the use of three rocks instead of one in order to hover with one rock and attack with the other two in the air. If Omar was determined to fight her at this altitude, upgrading this [skill] was probably the ideal path to take.
Yet, Kahli felt a pause. She wanted to be absolutely certain that she decided the best [skill] to take, not just for the immediate moment but for the future as well. She decided to learn more about each of these other [skill] options instead of just going with a choice that she already knew was pretty good. After all, she was frozen here in time while she made her leveling decisions, there was no reason not to look.
[Rock Slide]
[A large mass of rocks tumbles diagonally from above you, rolling in an arc and then wrapping around a target like a vice.]
That was... interesting. Kahli wondered what the implications of such a [skill] would be. She already knew from past experience that the description was not the end all be all with these [skills], after all, [Seismic Sense] ended up being as much a weird, funny feeling in her left foot that didn't feel like anything someone would normally expect as it did a powerful pathing tool for viewing timelines. Even her initial [skill] [Rock Summon] was a lot more versatile than it would've necessarily seemed to at face value. There was a lot she could do with the ability to summon up a rock, and any other [skill] would most likely similarly afford such unexpected benefits. Kahli made a mental note to consider that heavily with all [skills] going forward.
[Tale Teller]
[You have got the gift of the gab, and that flows through to your skillset now too! You are able to use words, instead of actions, to deceive and also to win people over more easily. The more you talk, the easier it gets.]
That also seemed like a pretty cool skill. In fact, it seemed almost invaluable. Kahli had talked her way out of some bad situations in the past, but having it as an actual [skill]? What would choosing that afford for her going forward?
Kahli had to really think about this. She was definitely leaning towards picking a new [skill]. The reason for this was that she would always be able to level up her [Rock Summon] [skill], wouldn't she? It seemed to be an option every time since she'd leveled up and gotten [skill] slots, to level up her current [skill].
But as for [Rock Slide] and [Tale Teller], it seemed that most likely one or the other [skill] would not be available next time. So, if she wanted one of them, it was better to pick it now and be assured that she'd keep it in her system.
Kahli thought about it. She loved how offense-based the [Rock Slide] [skill] was, she could even imagine using it for grappling capabilities. But she truly felt that [Tale Telling] was a [skill] she would use so much more than probably any other [skill] offering, and that she indeed felt obligated to consider it as the ideal [skill] due to this fact. If only there was some way for Kahli to know more about how the [skills] were populated in her level up dialogue, maybe it would help her make a good decision.
[Clarification: Your system offers skills for you to add to your system based on your behavior and ability usage throughout the leveling process, as a function of the quality of XP points you have amassed based on a percentage sliding scale. Potentially, if you continue to balance out your skill and ability usage between your next skill slot availability, you would indeed be able to see the same available skills as in this leveling up prompt. Additionally, you can opt to not yet spend your skill slots, if you need more time to make a decision.]
Kahli didn't need more time to make a decision. She knew what she needed to, now - if she kept using her [abilities] in a method that was similarly balance to how she'd been using them before leveling up, she should get options for the same [skills] - or, at least, same [skill]. After all, Kahli was definitely picking one of these [skills], and it was the [skill] she knew she'd have the most fun with.
[Skill Selected]
[Tale Teller]
Kahli would've smiled if she wasn't frozen. But then she remembered that she had ability points she could spend! She'd have to put those to use before finalizing her leveling and moving on to fight with Omar.