Theo yawned and stepped through into the back room. He wasn’t even that tired… maybe just bored? The counting had been pretty engaging to a point - but after a while he was a bit antsy about Sally and how she was doing. Couldn’t stop counting, though.
“It’s all done,” he announced to the two men, who hadn’t heard him approach.
“Oh.” Dent swung around in his chair to face the vampire. “How many were there?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Theo shrugged. Didn’t seem fair to give out that information since he did all the work for it.
The swordsman narrowed his eyes. “Then how do I know you even counted it?”
With a sigh, the vampire rolled his neck out. “36,495. I assume you either lost or hid five more.”
His face unmoving, Dent reached out and slowly moved his coffee mug to the side to reveal five grains of rice. “How did you know?”
“You think this is my first rodeo? Several things in the System are uniform to save on resources. A kilo bag of rice always has exactly 36,500 individual grains within it.”
“He’s correct,” Chuck added, his face still looking at his screens.
The swordsman shook his head. “You’re telling me you’ve counted a spilt bag of rice previously? And that you didn't need to count this one since you knew already?”
“Three times, if memory serves. One of them was in a Dungeon raid - pretty clever of the adventuring Party.”
The Architect exhaled through his nose. “Yet, you still won.”
Theo grinned, exposing his fangs. “I’m ready for my Quest now.”
“There’s still time to wait,” Chuck finally turned his gaze over to the waiting vampire. “Once we’ve connected Chat with Sally, then you’re good to go.”
He deflated.
Dent leaned forward. “What about… coffee beans?”
“2,200 in a small bag, 3,500 in the larger version. 500 for the jars.”
“Sugar?”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.” Theo shook his head.
Dent grinned. “Just don’t see where you’d find the time.”
“Ah.” The vampire’s eyes went over to the two cylinders on the other side of the room, one of them covered by a sheen of reflective energy. “Without the need to grind, I’ve had idle hands.”
----------------------------------------
Sally raised her eyes at the group’s healer. “So… a new skill every even level, and the max level is only twenty?”
He nodded. “There’s also a second ability tied to your class every five levels, and an Ultimate at max.”
“Stats are automatically assigned, but you get two Skill Points every level. I’d advise putting them into the combat skills rather than the trade or downtime activities.” Virgil grinned. “You’ll already have points in a couple things based on your Class.”
New starts were always the worst. All the exposition and unskippable dialogue as you were slow-walked through all the obvious stuff. Sally opened up her STAR menus. She just wanted to rush in and mash stuff to death. Didn’t need to know which button was to jump or how to craft.
[Skill Assigned: Protective Aura]
[Protective Aura: Allies within twenty feet receive 10% Additional Defense and Resistances]
[6 Skill Points to spend]
Couldn’t beat a good aura. This must be how… oh! She crouched down beside Archie, who was pretending to rub himself up against Poppy’s leg while the knight struggled to resist acknowledging him.
“Arch, I’m a death knight, like pops!”
“Yes. There are some similarities, I suppose. This System clearly saw your performance in the sword tournament to be worthy enough to daub this existence with such a martial alignment.”
She nodded. “Sucks that Chuck had to keep us busy with that. I could have been a Galactic Baseballer, or…” Her eyes narrowed as she tried to remember what she had gotten up to before that.
“You’ve always had a differing Class through our adventures.”
That was true. After first becoming a zombie, she had been more of a rogue-type character. Sneaking in the shadows with dagger and crossbow. After gaining more abilities she had been like a battle-mage in the Wasteland. A healthy mix of stabbing and casting spells. In the Jungle… she had gone full necromancer almost. If it wasn’t for [Meat Hook] she would have been more true to type.
Being a knight wasn’t exactly her forte, but if she received more aura skills then it’d make her pals a lot more hardy. Standing back up, she went back into the menus to look at her the Skill Point screen.
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A large list of at least thirty different things clouded her vision. Everything from weapon proficiencies to shoe cobbling. There was even one for Jump, although she wasn’t even sure which button that was yet. Her tongue ran across her sharp teeth as she filtered the list down to things that she already had a point in.
[Swordmastery +1]
[Heavy Armor +1]
[Determination +1]
She pulled a face. Those seemed… perfect, really. While part of her mania wanted to diversify into some of the more ecclectic options... given how drab and dangerous this world looked to be, she’d stick with some of the more sensible things. Gross.
With a short sigh, she assigned two more points into each of the three. It’d tie her down to using swords - each point apparently giving more damage and more control over the weapon.
“Alright!” She activated her aura, a shimmering circle of white runes appearing beneath her feet. “I’m all up to date with my abilities and stuff. Is there a good reason the System doesn’t give me the necessary things to go along with my Skills? Like actual armor?”
Claude stretched his back out and looked back toward Bastion Keep. “There used to be Quest-giving System-created. You’d get the lore back there, some of the world was explained, and somewhere out this way you’d be giving the necessities depending on your Class.”
Fair enough. Another broken System with evil demi-god to overthrow. Thankfully smaller than Sanctuary, however. She didn’t want to spend months… she sighed, remembering she would be away from home for a while.
[Poppy: Let’s go finish this dungeon!]
[Poppy: Do you know what type it is, Claude?]
“No.” The man shook his head. “The Guardian had prevented me getting close enough.” In seeing the raised eyebrow of the zombie, he clarified further. “There are runic symbols on most dungeons, I’m the last left who can read them - and they usually give a strong hint as to what we will find within.”
Sally nodded. “That’s fine. One last question before we proceed. You said the souls of the slain Players were freed when the Dungeon is complete. That’s not… they don’t come back to life, right?”
Claude gave her a brief nod of acknowledgement.
It was a long shot, but worth asking. Chuck had explained that worlds without respawning held their Player data in a constantly refreshing state. Set only for a cycle. Once he had taken control, he had made a permanent backup of the data - so it could be read at any time. It was one of the reasons Dent couldn’t get his arm back, as their System no longer had record of him having two arms after about two weeks of him sustaining that injury.
Once these Dungeons were destroyed, whoever had once lived here would soon be forgotten by the System. It was… sad, but the peace of a proper death seemed better than being used as a fuel source for these places of evil.
Of course, she was taking everything at face value currently. The hapless group of downtrodden survivors seemed reasonably eager to follow behind a random zombie that showed up and promised them hope. She had read enough comics and seen the right movies to know that there could be a twist in the works. Either the knife of Kenny in her back, or Chuck had the whole world backwards, and the one creating the Dungeons was trying to keep the Keep residents at bay to save the System…
“Let’s head out,” she eventually said, if only to get out of her own head.
The group of five trudged along the path, not taking too long to pass the short distance and arrive at the mouth of the dungeon. It was a bulbous thing. The amber and dark brown hues she had seen looked even more like a bee’s nest now that they were before it. A darkened passageway led down into the ground, steps of the strange wood-like material willing them to enter.
Claude paused and glared at the flat panels of deep brown above the doorway. Engravings of odd shapes that Sally didn’t recognize.
“Hmm. It is a battle.”
“Against giant bee things, I don’t doubt.” She rolled out her sword arm. Her shoulder armor was rather uncomfortable since she wasn’t used to wearing it.
“Correct. Level Nine.”
That was decently within their realm of ability. Sure, she was only Three - but since Theo wasn’t here, she was super sure that she was the main character now. Unless she was just doing a side-quest while he did something important…
Virgil placed a hand on her shoulder. “It might be better to let Poppy lead, and avoid danger as much as you can. Not to doubt your skill, but damage is adjusted if you are more than four levels from the target.”
Sally rolled her eyes. “So I’ll get beaten up more, and do less beating on Monsters?”
He nodded.
“After you then, Poppy. And everyone else more powerful than me.” Which was technically all of them, but Kenny hung back, intending to stay far away from any danger.
She waited for the other three to step ahead and start working their way down the steps, before she turned her head back to the younger man.
“Caution is not a bad trait to have in such circumstance.” Her crimson eyes glowed. “But betrayal is the quickest way of signing your own death warrant. Think about it.”
The zombie didn’t wait for a response, and turned to enter the darkness of the Dungeon.
----------------------------------------
Humphrey put his hands on his hips as he reached the bottom of the stairs into the archive room. “Hmm. Nostalgia.”
At the top of the flight, Edward sighed and sat down in the doorway. He put his chin in his hands and watched the Death Knight look around. “Couldn’t find a hair out of place. Nothing invisible, either.”
“Residual teleportation energy?”
The demon shrugged. “I don’t recall anything obvious.”
With a grunt, Humphrey stepped over to the empty table. There couldn’t have been much time between Edward noticing that the room had been opened, and him getting down here. The Archives had something to stop people teleporting in, but not out. Then again, if they were dealing with a Unique with a certain range of powers, it could be done.
Edward shuffled. “It usually takes this long to get information?”
“Hmm? No. Some processes are taking a back seat today, due to the off-worlding.”
“Is it possible someone could come here without making it on the logs?”
Humphrey took a moment to consider this. The visitor log wasn’t something that people literally signed as they entered the building - although there was one of those as well. The data saved was the exact System entities that the world registered them as. The area it was accurate to was usually reasonably broad unless it was certain individuals or locations. There would be record of anything and anyone that had appeared or entered the Administrative District as a whole.
But could anyone avoid such tracking…?
“It is… unlikely.” He tilted his head toward the demon. “I will not discount the thought, but it is not something we should pursue until we have the data before us.”
Edward rolled his eyes and slouched back. “Even if it were some ghost who could avoid the very System itself, why come here? There’s much worse things in the other Archive rooms.”
“Oh?”
With a grin, the demon righted himself. “Certainly. Allow me to take you to Archive Room Zero, my own personal storage place that even Chuck does not know about.”