Invent You may take pieces, components, or other items and use them to create something new. Rate of success of possible inventions rises with increased skill level.

Your Repair, Dismantle, and Invent skill have merged! You have gained the “Engineering” skill! Due to your INT, the skill has been downgraded to the “Tinker” skill. All skill levels will be retained, as well as all previous skill uses.

Tinker

You may dismantle, repair, or create new objects from other components and parts. Effectiveness of repairs, sabotage, or creations will rise with skill level.

Robin’s elation quickly soured. Due to his INT!? What was that supposed to mean!? And the Tinker skill didn’t even have a defined bonus; he hated the vague ones! Further, Robin was plenty intelligent, thank you! And why was it gray!? Opal stared at him. He turned his back, annoyed. He unlooped the belt from the toilet seat, slipping the seat into his satchel. He put the belt back on his pants. Robin sighed.

“We’ll call that one a partial success. One last thing to do in here…” Robin turned to the fire extinguisher can. He took off his satchel, set it on the floor, and then lowered the red metal can down. When he let go, he expected to hear it “thunk” into the bottom, but it didn’t make any sound at all that he could hear. He put the satchel back on. “Opal, are you ready to go?” He held out his arm to Opal, walking over to below where she sat. She stared at him for a moment, and then ran to the wall and down, quickly reaching him and clambering up his back. He winced at the pain, but didn’t react. As she settled onto his shoulder, he got a new notification.

Resist Pain You can negate pain inflicted upon your person. The amount of pain you can negate is equal to 1% per skill level. This skill may be activated or deactivated at will.

Robin smiled. Here was some good news. This was the kind of thing that heroes had in their arsenal. Does it actually negate damage, or just pain…?

He checked his person, making sure his belt was on tight, his satchel was secure, his broom was ready… Robin took a deep breath and walked over to the door. He immediately walked back over to the basin, took a deep drink, and then walked to the door again. He spun around, walked back two steps, and then turned again, his arms straight, his hands balled into fists.

Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god

Maybe if I use Delay Reaction on my fear this will be easier… but then if all that fear hits me in the hallway or when I’m running or fighting, I’ll be doomed… I just have to do this.

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Robin put his hand on the door latch and yanked it open. Immediately, the weird odor of the facility, reminiscent of a fairly clean zoo on a spring day, wafted in. Robin didn’t see any movement, and he cautiously stuck his head out. He saw something crawling on the wall and immediately pulled his head back in, only realizing it was a grapefly after he shut the door behind him. Sheepishly, he walked out of the rest room, peering around himself. The door shut behind him, latching shut with a hissing “click.” Robin casually glanced at it, and almost fell down as he spun in place to look at the blank wall where the door had been.

“What! That isn’t fair!” Robin shouted, his words echoing down the hallway.

Robin froze. His words had brought a silence deeper than was there before. He hadn’t realized how many small, ambient noises there had been… and now they were silent, in response to his shouting. Robin felt his adrenaline spiking. The bugs were almost certainly coming.

Robin felt a sudden jerking on his shoulder and let out a small scream, which echoed down the hall again. It was Opal, attacking something on the wall. She munched on her grapefly, unconcerned with the screams of the human she was riding.

He started to walk down the hallway, anxiously craning his head around himself in an attempt to see everything at once. There were a few grapeflies here and there on the wall, but he didn’t see anything else, luckily. Was this hallway always this long? It seems much longer… Robin frowned as he reached a small series of doors on the right hand wall, four doors with a single water fountain set in between them. The fountain appeared to be the same kind of stone as that of the toilets. I probably shouldn’t drink from this until I know what it does… After taking a quick look around, Robin crouched to look at it. It had a little panel on the side, but it was made of a dark wood. Robin took out his anytool, set it down, and changed it into a crowbar.

When the heat dispersed, Robin took the crowbar and tried to delicately pry the small wooden door out. To his surprise, he couldn’t even budge it without using his full weight, and even then it took him almost 10 entire minutes to pry it out.

After a brief break to allow his PHYSTAM to recharge, Robin looked inside the fountain. It had a little silver pipe running up to the top, where the nozzle was. The pipe was connected to a glass sphere about the size of a bowling ball. Inside it contained what looked like swirling, clear water. It didn’t seem to have an inlet. In between the pipe and the nozzle was what looked like a tiny flask, made from a dark metal. It had a picture of a snowflake on the side. It looked just like a flask that you could buy at a mall kiosk, just much rougher. There was even a little cap dangling from a chain made from the same dark metal. The flask was attached to the pipe by ice frozen around the rim of the flask.

Robin took another look around the room, and then reached out and tried to snap the flask off, using his full strength. To his surprise, it snapped off easily, leaking a glowing blueish-white mist. Alright, Identify, do your stuff! Robin focused his concentration on the flask.

Flask of the Red Rune Witch Once the property of the Red Rune Witch, her exile by the Mad Scientist led to the flask being lost to time. The flask contains the bound spirits of a multitude of frost spirits. The spirits are vengeful, though not particularly intelligent, and will attack anyone who opens the flask. The Flask may be used as a focus to bind and/or imprison spirits, provided the user possesses the requisite Rune skill levels.

I keep seeing references to the “Mad Scientist”. I wonder if that is the owner of the facility…?

He stood up and screwed on the lid of the flask, then stuck it over his shoulder into his satchel. Might as well hold onto it.

Robin took another look around the hallway, and seeing no threats, stepped away from the water fountain to look at the doors. They looked like normal doors, or at least like the other doors here. There was only one problem, as far as Robin figured.

There had only been one door here before. Were there three fakes? Did the System add rooms and doors entirely when it expanded? Or worse…

Could this be a trap?