Grabbing some chicken and sticky rice out of the fridge, Lance placed a cast iron skillet on the stove and lit the burner. He had a moderate supply of fuel for the truck and the generator, and had just refilled the propane tanks, but he wouldn’t be able to run the refrigerator for long on his reserves, so he figured he’d go ahead and consume the perishables he had stored in the camper. A couple of tablespoons of oil and a few minutes later, he had some diced chicken searing in the skillet. Once that was done, he tossed in the sticky rice and hit it all with a couple of shots of soy-sauce. Two minutes later he had a plateful of poor-man’s stir-fry ready to go. Things had been relatively quiet, and Lance had a reasonably high tolerance for alcohol, so he grabbed a cold beer from the fridge and sat to enjoy a simple yet tasteful meal.
As he ate, he thought about his class skill. The name was relatively straight-forward. Applying that mindset, it had to allow him to make copies of something. He just didn’t know what, how much, or how often. Finished with his supper and nursing the last of his beer, he decided to try something else with his status page. Opening back up to his mindscape, he focused on his class skill with the intent of learning more about it. He started feeling the beginnings of a headache, but persisted through it. He could almost feel the answer. Suddenly the pressure abated and there was the information he was looking for.
Class Skill: Duplicate - allows the duplication of 5lbs of non-living/non-magical, single or compound objects. Usable once every 4 hours. (Increased levels lessens cooldown and/or increases weight limit)
Backing out of his mindspace, Lance was once again hit with notifications. “DING”
Skill ‘ANALYZE’ has been obtained at Level 1.
Willpower Attribute increased by 1.
Lance took a deep breath to calm his adrenaline fueled excitement. He had gained a new skill, increased one of his attributes by exerting it, and learned more about his class skill!
Now that he understood what his class skill could do, it was time to figure out how to make it work. Grabbing a can of cola out of the fridge, he sat down and focused all of his attention on it. His mind was immediately filled with information.
Container; Metal; Aluminum;
Liquid; Water,Sugar, Caramel Color, Phosphoric Acid, Caffeine,
Natural Flavor
Skill ‘ANALYZE’ has increased by 1 Level
Laughing to himself, he relaxed his concentration slightly so that he wasn’t ‘Analyzing’ the drink but was still mostly focused on it. Then he tried splitting that focus so that, with intent, he was also focused on using his duplicate skill. He felt the pressure building in his head working its way up to a headache, and then once again the pressure disappeared as another can of cola appeared right next to the original. Lance was ecstatic! He had just performed magic in another world! As the reality of his skill settled in and he thought about how overpowered it could be, he mentally kicked himself for eating that last bag of jerky earlier in the day. “DING”
Class Skill ‘DUPLICATE’ has increased by 1 Level
Thinking about the 4 hour cooldown on his skill, and how it would prevent him from quickly cheat-leveling himself, he calmed down some and decided he needed to plan out his logistics for duplication, and schedule his usage in order to maximize his level gains. It was time to do one of the things he had become very skilled at since his assignment as a unit operations non-commissioned officer (NCO), managing and scheduling training and logistics.
Lance had never considered himself particularly lucky. Two divorces, other failed relationships, 28 years to only reach the rank of Sergeant First Class (he had ruffled a few feathers in his career, and maybe not stroked the right ego when he could have), and even his Luck attribute in his status was only showing slightly above what he thought was baseline, but he had really lucked out with his random class/skill. Even with a five pound weight limit on his duplicate skill, there was so much of what he had that could be constantly restocked as long as he planned ahead. He and his camper had been fully kitted out. After the training this weekend, he had planned to take his friend and unit medic staff-sergeant Lydia Morales on a camping/hunting/fishing trip for the week. He had long ago added a battery bank and solar panels to the rig (hopefully this indigo sun still affected the photovoltaic receptors in the panels), along with a nice smooth-running quiet inverter generator. With the jerry cans of gasoline and diesel mounted on the back of the camper. He should be set to keep his electricity topped off, and his pickup running. Knowing his duplicate skill solved most of his logistics problems (fuel, food, and water) as long as he planned accordingly, Lance knew he was one step closer to completing another one of his self-assigned quests. He was quickly becoming a greedy little experience (or in this system’s case Energy) sponge. Deciding fuel should be his priority at the moment, he set a timer for four hours, stripped down and gave himself a quick field bath with baby wipes, and crawled up into the over-cab bed for some needed rest.
Lance was snapped awake by bang and screeching whistle accompanied by light shining in through all the camper’s windows. Quickly throwing on his jacket and some shoes along with his headlamp, he scanned out all of the windows. Out the back, toward the west, lance saw a half dozen approximately 3 foot tall humanoid figures stumbling about in disarray. Grabbing his rifle/shotgun combo, he opened the back door and stepped down to the ground. The noise and light from his trip alarms hadn’t scared these “people?” away, so he flipped his headlamp on high and yelled at the figures, hoping this additional stimuli would scare them off. Lit from above and from Lance’s direction, he was able to tell that they were a greyish yellow, big-headed, bi-pedal, person. They initially shied away from the extra light but upon hearing his yell, he became the focal point of all six of them as they started screaming and snarling running in his direction. Even though military doctrine stated that you didn’t officially fire warning shots, his deployments to many war ravaged countries where not everyone was an enemy combatant had taught him that a well placed round out in front of an angry mob could often turn imminent violence into retreat. Whatever these creatures were, they were headed in his direction and would close the 50 meter gap in just a handful of seconds. So, he unleashed a round from his big-bore .450 about 5 meters in front of their charge. The noise from the rifle’s discharge, and the spray of dirt from the ground only managed to cause a momentary delay in their aggressive approach, and Lance was forced to open fire. The heavy 250 grain bullet from the Bushmaster made short work of the two lead figures, but the other 4 didn’t slow one iota. Shifting his grip down forward to the trigger group on the Masterkey shotgun attachment, he pulled the trigger, pumped the slide and pulled the trigger again. The spray of 18 .36 caliber double-ought pellet put the remaining 4 threats down and out of play in an instant. Scanning to the left and right, he saw no additional threats. Spinning to his 6 o’clock, he stepped around to the front of the truck and checked the clearing and tree line in that direction. Satisfied that he was in the clear for the time being, Lance headed back to get a better look at whatever these creatures were. “DING”
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Feral Mara x 6 slain. Energy Gained 180.
Level increased by 1. 3 Free Attribute Points Gained.
New Profession Skill Gained – ‘Steady Under Pressure’.
“So”, he thought, “those are apparently Mara”. If he remembered his Norse mythology correctly mara or mare were vile creatures, basically the typical fantasy goblin, with the additional trait of being bringers of horrible night visions (nightmares). Focusing on one of the mara, his analyze skill kicked in and he was rewarded with information.
Corpse; Feral Mara; An almost mindless killing and eating machine, these creatures will even devolve into cannibalism when food resources are in short supply. Some mara evolve into semi-sapient beings and develop clans, although even in clans or tribes they remain a blight on the countryside. Breeding prolifically and devouring all food sources before moving on, or occasionally turning against each other and decimating their own population.
Since so much of what he had already experienced appeared to be ripped right out of his game world, Lance decided to try something. “It can’t hurt to try, and no-one’s around to laugh at me” he muttered to himself. Bending down beside the nearest body, he placed his hand on it (it was very clammy feeling and smelled almost like a fish market) and whispered “Loot”. The body was enveloped in that strange gaseous light show and pixelated away leaving behind what looked like an eyeball. He analyzed the eyeball.
Mara eyeball; Alchemy Ingredient
Lance’s internal hoarder was dancing for joy. There was no telling how many video games he ran around in with his inventory full of crafting materials, weapons, and armor. Since looting worked, it was time for the crown jewel. He softly whispered “Inventory”. Nothing happened. Speaking a little louder, he tried again. Still no luck. “Storage, Supply, Cache”, he almost shouted while focusing on some type of dimensional space. Every one was a failure. Sighing, he moved on to the other five bodies. Only 3 more gave him an eyeball, while the other 2 gave him a chunk of meat. “NO THANKYOU” he thought! Accepting the positive gain of being able to loot defeated monsters (something he never actually expected to be thinking outside of a game)and not having to figure out what to do with 6 monster corpses lying outside his back door, he consigned himself to carrying his spoils on his person. Encumbrance was going to be a real factor in this scenario. Having finished with the defeated mara and taking another look around with his head lamp (the aerial flare having long burned out), and not uncovering any new threats, Lance headed back to the camper.
As Lance climbed back up inside his camper, his timer started beeping. HIs four hour cool-down was up. It was time to grind this skill and do some experimenting. Earlier, he had planned to pour all but about 3 quarts of his diesel into the truck’s tank, and duplicate that. However, with the arrival of honest to Betsy monsters in the clearing, he decided he should reinforce his ammunition stockpile a bit more. But before that, he decided to take another look at his status. He had three free attribute points that he needed to assign. Deciding he couldn’t go wrong with another point in Vitality, he raised it from 10 to 11. All it took was just a little focused intent to make the change. Dexterity got bumped up the same. It never hurts to be able to aim and fire just a little bit better. Finally, since he’d come to the conclusion that Imagination should play a large role in magic, he bumped it up one more to 11 also. Those changes complete, he noticed an increase in his Health to 142 (he was going to have to rethink his calculations for the attribute). His Class Skill was demanding his attention. There wasn’t any other change to it than the earlier level increase, but some pulling sensation had him focusing his intent on it.
Class Skill: Duplicate - allows the duplication of 8 lbs of non-living/non-magical, single or compound objects. Usable once every 3 hours. (Increased levels lessens cooldown and/or increases weight limit)
The weight limit had gone up from 5 pounds to 8 pounds, and his cool-down had decreased from 4 hours to 3. He concluded that both the gain in skill level plus the personal level gain were the reason for changes to both the weight and time limit. With this change, he would be able to duplicate a fair sized package of food, a gallon of water, or a gallon of fuel. Most importantly right now, if things worked like he hope, he could get a 100 round box of .450 Bushmaster Ballistic Tip Hollow Points. Since the skill managed to duplicate the can of cola earlier (which to his thinking was a compound object), he was fairly confident that it would work on a box containing 100 cartridges, containing 4 components each. Grabbing the only full 100 round box he had in his ammo locker, he focused on it and, for lack of a better term, invoked his Duplicate skill. There, stacked right on top of the box he was holding, appeared another brand new box, almost causing him to drop them with the approximately seven pound increase. Opening up the new box, he pulled out one of the cartridges. Everything looked correct, and when he compared its feel to one of the original ones, it seemed to weigh the same. Tomorrow (or more likely it was already tomorrow) he would have to load up one of these new rounds and make certain that they functioned correctly. Running back out, he went over and reset a new tripwire and trap setup where the mara had tripped it earlier. Then he returned to the camper, reset his three hour timer, and climbed back into bed to try and knock out some more downtime. The light of day would bring a new set of tasks to tackle. Just before he drifted off to sleep, he remembered he had another update message he hadn’t addressed. He had gotten a profession skill. Focusing on the skill, he analyzed it.
Profession Skill: Steady Under Pressure - When the fight or
flight instinct kicks in, and the adrenaline starts to flow, this
Passive Skill allows the holder to control their physiology,
slowing heart rates and calming breathing while increasing
resistance to fear, terror, and panic effects. Aim will become
steadier and strikes surer.
This was big! A passive effect that helped keep him in the fight and made him more effective was significant. Feeling pretty content in the moment, Lance relaxed back into bed and dozed right off.