By the time she reached the glass doors of Glyde and Glyde, Lorelei was somewhat getting into her groove.

She'd picked off a couple of individual Wolves - both level 4 - mooching around the streets through the judicious usage of . She'd managed to skin the first, but not the second, as a larger group of red dots had suddenly appeared on her Map, and discretion had very much been the better part of valour.

After catching her breath, she'd decided to focus in on a few groups of Kobolds where the 35% increased damage through her Kobold's Worse Nightmare title was truly the MVP.

As she bounced from fight to fight, Lorelei felt herself become used to the necessary routine her skills forced on these attacks. Oddly, bringing some order to the chaos of it all was rather comforting.

First of all, she checked and then rechecked the Map. She'd become slightly overconfident when approaching the second Wolf and had not properly scoped out the area. Lesson learned. Once satisfied the coast was clear, she found herself a decent bit of cover to hunker down behind. Then, there was another check of the Map. Just in case. At that stage, all being well, she might feel confident enough to undertake what she was calling Operation You Can't Hit What You Can't See.

Basically, she would hide and trigger until she either flipped a Happy Face or ran out of mana.

With one victim down - if she was lucky - she would repeat the protocol or, if the subject of her attacks figured out what was going on, she relied on making coin throws into something worthwhile. Failing that, it all became a bit of a brawl when things got too close for comfort.

Was it the most daring attack plan ever conceived?

Not at all.

Was she remotely interested in trying something more risky?

Also, not at all.

What she needed, she reflected, pulling a Kobold's tooth out of her knuckles, was some sort of projectile weapon. Throwing the coin was all well and good, but unless did something special, the damage tended to suck, and - even more than that - she worried about losing it. However, she was not sure she actually needed to be all that concerned. The System did seem to have a rather different interpretation of the word 'randomised' when triggering the Status Effect: The Coin's Revenge. Her Double-Headed Coin of Fate had bounced back and smacked her on the nose every single time she'd thrown it.

Either someone didn't want her to lose the coin or - and Lorelei figured this was probably more the case - it enjoyed pissing her off. Still, despite the nose boops, Lorelei was feeling - and she recognised this had more than a little to do with all the emotional dampening going on - pretty pleased with herself.

Through careful trial and error, she'd found a way to almost mitigate the utter randomness of her skills from straight-up killing her. And, as a Brucie Bonus, all that wholesale murder and looting had resulted in the completion of Money, Money, Money.

*** Quest Completed ***

Objective: It's not a glamorous life, but you've discovered you can earn cold, hard cash by slaughtering creatures. Earn enough to buy something useful. 50/50 collected

Rewards: One entry token to the Mystical Market

However, as well as gaining a Mystical Market ticket - wherever the fuck that was. All she knew right now was that the ticket was small, gold and very shiny indeed. It was like she'd won entry to Willie Wonka's factory - Lorelei'd also crossed the threshold into Level 3.

She was sure that in the context of what was going on out in the world, it was a piddly little achievement, but she was still pretty proud when she saw the notification ping up.

Congratulations, Level Up

Lorelei Norton: Fortuna's Herald

Level 3

Experience 24/400

Health 275/275

Mana 240/240

Primary Stats

Strength 9 (+1)

Agility 16 (+1)

Stamina 14 (+1 level-up, +2 Cloak of the Wanderer)

Intellect 19 (+1)

Spirit 16 (+1)

Secondary Stats

Critical Strike 6% (+0.5%)

Haste 8% (+0.5%)

Mastery 5% (+0.5%)

Versatility 4% (+0.5%)

Skills

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Lucky Strike (Passive)- Sometimes you hit, sometimes you miss, sometimes you accidentally help the enemy. It's a surprise!

Coin Toss Conundrum (Active)- Flip a coin to decide your next move. Heads, you unleash a devastating attack; tails, you heal your enemy. Bonus points for dramatic mid-air coin flipping. Mana Cost: 50. Cooldown: 2 mins.

Random Resilience (Active)- You might shrug off a dragon's breath or trip over a pebble. Life's a lottery! Mana Cost: 100% of available pool. Cooldown: 24 hours.

Charmed Life (Active): You do seem to spend a lot of time getting hurt. Have a heal skill. But, to make it interesting, let's randomise how much healing it does. Oh, and just for shits and giggles, it will give you a random status effect for 2 mins. 30 MP cost. No cooldown.

Equipment

Double-Headed Coin of Fate (Nerfed)

Cloak of the Wanderer (+ 2 Stamina)

Skinning Knife

Professions

Jack of All Trades

* Skinning (I still think this is cheating, by the way) Lvl 7

Talents

Spoilsport: Increases the chance of a positive by 5%.

Titles

Kobolds Worst Nightmare: 35% damage against Kobolds

Her satisfied grin faded somewhat as she read through the now familiar status screen.

It seemed like a silly thing to say in the grand scheme of things, but she was a bit disappointed by the lack of change caused by that level-up. A flat increase of +1 across her primary stats and 0.5% on her secondary ones was better than a slap in the face with a wet fish, but it hardly felt like earth-shattering progress. Likewise, the slight increase in total health and mana was welcome, but it was somewhat dwarfed by the growth in the amount of XP she now needed to reach Level 4.

Basically, it did not really feel like going up a level had been a game-changer, and - more than that - it looked like it was going to become a ball ache to keep moving up the levels.

"Guide, why is levelling up underwhelming?"

***Help Message ***

First of all, fuck you. As if - with your literal minutes of experience of such things - you have even the most basic idea of what it takes to construct a finely balanced progression-based system. Secondly, and please take this personally, you may want to reflect on your own choices and behaviour before questioning the way the entire fucking world is designed to work. Fuck you, fuck you very much.

"I don't understand. What do you mean by 'my own choices and behaviour'. Am I not doing this right?"

*** Help Message ***

Imagine I'm tapping the 'I'm not your personal hand-holder and arse-wiper' sign. Even better, here's a radical idea, why don't you fuck off and find out.

FOFO.

One of the Prick's favourite slogans.

Lorelei had become used to the deluge of abuse coming her way from the System and was perfectly able to let it all slide off her. You didn't spend decades in HR without developing skin like a rhino. However, that it had chosen to do so on this occasion using a phrase from her - painful - past felt . . . mean and oddly personal.

"Fine, be like that," Lorelei said, distracting herself by peering through the doors to her old workplace.

The lights were off, and - as far as she could see - no one appeared to be in the lobby. She didn't expect Janice to be sitting there welcoming all and sundry to the apocalypse, but it felt a bit foreboding that no one was there at all. On the other hand, the glass was still intact - unlike many of the windows of the shops she had murdered her way past - so that had to suggest there was a chance people were still alive in there.

She was preparing herself to push open the door, when she paused.

What was she doing? Did she really care if there was anyone in there? It wasn't like she had hosts of friends up on the third floor she needed to rescue. Mind you, running with that thought, who was she to think she could even rescue them, even if they were in need? The way her skills worked, there was every chance she would be putting them in more danger being around her than they would be all nice and safe up there.

Lorelei was just about to turn around and go back the way she came when the words of the System suddenly echoed in her head.

Was there something about how she was going about all this that was not quite right?

She thought back on her status screen and homed in on the one truly useful thing she had earned since the integration. Her Kobold killing title.

"Guide, how many titles are there to be gathered?"

***Help Message***

Reaches up to tap the sign, then pauses, reflecting that this is not such a fucking stupid query. Fantastic question, sweetcheeks! There are an unlimited number of titles that individual players can earn. They are distributed in an entirely fair, consistent and in no way random manner by yours truly for actions that I consider noteworthy. A player seeking to become a powerhouse across the multiverse must collect countless titles to raise themselves above the common herd.

"That kind of feels like information it would have been useful to be a little more explicit about a touch earlier. . . So, the accumulation of titles greatly affects how powerful you can become. And the only way to gain titles is to amuse you sufficiently?"

***Help Message***

Sweetheart, I've just awarded a guy in Sydney the Can you Guess What it is Yet? title for ripping, with his bare hands, a baby out of its still-screaming mother's chest. Nothing about this fucking planet or any of you fucking people remotely amuses me. But I'll absolutely award +2% Agility to the first person to achieve that feat.

Lorelei felt the emotional dampening press down hard on any reaction to that scenario. "Okay, so 'amuse' was a touch harsh. What I mean is that is there no menu or crib sheet of titles for me to look at and decide which ones to aim for?" If there was one thing Lorelei loved, it was a crib sheet.

***Help Message***

Hand begins edging toward the sign, but just manages to summon up the last dregs of will to answer one more stupid, final question. Titles are awarded - and upgraded - based solely on my discretion. All you can do is be your best - or worst - self and meet every challenge head-on. If you need a particular, personal example to make you go away, wading in to take on a group of Kobolds armed with nothing more than a can-do attitude, I'm likely to think there's some version of a title in it for you. On the other hand, sniping at a fucking Level 3 Wolf whilst cowering behind thick cover, not so much.

Lorelei went to clarify, but the ticker tape kept running.

Everyone can thrive in the System. You can slowly and carefully grind your way through the levels, pick up the basic stat bumps here and there, and your progression curve should be nice and gentle - until the moment it very much isn't, and instant death comes a calling. Or you can go balls to the wall and shoot for the moon - I recognise this is a rather mixed metaphor - in which case you are likely to be the one that knocks. Your call, Fortuna's Herald.

Lorelei nodded thoughtfully. That explained why the movement from level 2 to level 3 was quite such a letdown. It was supposed to be. The way she made sense of what the Guide told her, she could keep pootling around in the shadows, killing an easy mark here and there, and edging her level up, picking up skills and stats as she went, or she needed to take some more risks.

"Does this just work with titles, or should I be looking to gather gear and skills in the same way? Like, not just accepting the quest rewards but actively looking for dangerous ways to earn stuff?"

***Taps the Sign ***

Okay. Fine

Lorelei took a deep breath, clutched her coin in her hand, and pushed open the doors to Glyde and Glyde.

FOFO time.