“Never thought I’d say this, but it’s good to see Kurtis being bossy,” Davi said. “Quiet Kurt is just… wrong. Almost as freaky as the monsters.”

“He’s still upset,” I said. “But you’re right. I’d rather have him grumpy than freaking out. Much as I give him shit, he’s not a dumb guy. He was a good engineer before he moved to management track.”

“Ugh.” Davi wrinkled her nose. “He’s in meetings all day. I couldn’t stand that!”

I nodded solemnly. “He likes it. He is a sick, sick man.”

Davi held up her hands. “You said it, not me! You’ve got the seniority to get away with it. Anyway, what ability do you want to take?”

“I don’t know…I just picked off the list the first time, but it seems like there’s a lot more out there. Probably want something to make me stronger or faster, if I can manage that.”

“Makes sense. You were killing them pretty well even as, uh, basic Vince.”

“And you?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. I was thinking something fighty, but it doesn’t seem like anyone’s going to heal this ankle of mine if I don’t do it myself.”

I frowned. “I don’t like that idea. If you go healer, that just leaves me and Byron set up for damage, and only me ready to melee. You were doing really well on the frontlines today! I was thinking I could train you in some basic strikes…”

“Can you do that while I’m laying down like this?” Davi asked.

“No,” I admitted.

She covered her face with her hands. When she spoke, her voice was muffled. “Thought as much. God, I don’t know what to do. All our choices are bad. I guess... I guess we should just start looking? Maybe we’ll find an ability that solves all our problems.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know! Maybe we can just turn all this crap off or something. Sign out. Flag ourselves as friendly to monsters.”

I couldn’t keep myself from snorting.

Davi took her hands away from her face to glare at me. “You don’t have to be mean.”

“Sorry,” I said. “You’re right: we don’t know what we’ll find until we look.”

She glared at me for another second, then closed her eyes. I followed suit, trying to call up my Interface.

I hadn’t really slowed down to look at it before, but now that I did, it seemed… weird.

Vincenzo Moretti

Novelty: 46

Abilities: Powerful Blow (100%)

Points: 178 (Threshold reached. Ability selection available.)

Money: 15

Blueprints:

Intrusion Alarm (30 money)

Reinforced Wall (10 money)

Small Heater (20 money)

I poked at it for a while, trying to see if there were sections I was missing. Everything else seemed so videogame-like: the monsters appearing out of nowhere and disappearing into nothing when killed, the fantasy abilities, the points. There ought to be some kind of D&D character sheet around that showed me how much strength and dexterity I had… but there didn’t seem to be. Just Novelty - whatever that was - Money, Points, a list of abilities, and Blueprints.

I considered investigating the Blueprints, but the only one I could afford - Reinforced Wall - would take two-thirds of the Money I’d earned so far and probably wouldn’t be very useful. Not here, anyway. I’d wait until someone else could give me more info or we actually needed a wall.

“What kinds of abilities can I take, anyway?”

There was no response to my open-ended query.

“Uh… can I increase my strength? My speed? My toughness?”

Suddenly, a wealth of information flooded into my vision. I shut my eyes for a moment, but the wall of text didn’t disappear. After some trial and error, I learned how to navigate it, a matter of focusing on different parts of the screen.

The list was extensive.

Biological Augment: Armored Skin

Biological Augment: Resilient Skin

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

Biological Augment: Tough Skin

Biological Augment: Sturdy Skeleton

Biological Augment: Crushing Grip

Biological Augment: Distributed Processing

Biological Augment: Sprinter

…

I scrolled down, and down, not finding an end. Most of the abilities had the prefix “Biological Augment,” but not all. Accelerated Dodge and Ambush, two of the abilities on the starting list, didn’t seem to be listed as Augments, and to my surprise Camouflage was listed twice, once as a Biological Augment and once… not. There were also several “Aura” abilities listed, like “Aura: Toughness” and “Aura: Strength.” When my focus narrowed, the entries on the list expanded and gave me more details but only left me more confused. Both abilities had different wording, but appeared to do pretty much the same thing - change your skin tone to match your surroundings.

Weird, but not something I had to figure out right now; I wouldn’t be taking either ability.

The Distributed Processing augment made me curious. The description explained that it would add extra brains to my body, letting my limbs act semi-autonomously in response to sensory feedback. Kind of like octopus arms, I guess?

Interesting? Yes.

Beneficial? Questionable.

It definitely wasn’t what I wanted right now.

A lot of the ability descriptions seemed slightly at odds with the names. For example, Biological Augment: Crushing Grip sounded like it might just reinforce my hand muscles, and only in ways related to squeezing things, but the description read “Greatly enhances musculature throughout shoulders, upper arms, and hands.”

The phrasing “upper arms” was also weird, like the ability description might have been written to apply to something other than humans. I checked to see if there were Biological Augments that granted extra limbs. There were… but would that really be the reason for the strange ability wording? Seemed kinda sus.

I pointed it out to Davi, who shuddered. “Damn. They made it sound like it would be just humans competing, but maybe it’s not? If there are alien contestants, I hope they’re cute little guys. I’d rather compete against Ewoks than Wookiees, you know?”

“The Ewoks did a pretty spectacular job taking down those stormtroopers, if I’m remembering right.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Soooo…. You’d rather fight Wookiees?”

It was my turn to flinch. “No. Those guys are like eight feet tall. Their reach would be insane. Hopefully it’s just lazy programming or something. They did say ‘this round’ of the… muffle-whatever-it-was.”

“Maffiyir, I think. Lazy programming… I could buy that. Phenomenal cosmic power might not get you away from dealing with legacy code,” Davi said. “Hope you’re right.”

I nodded. “Do you know what ability you want to take?”

“I didn’t find anything great. No ‘turn off the monsters’ abilities. No ‘charm the monsters’ either, as far as I could tell. I can make them look at me, or even look away from me… but they’ll know I’m doing either, so what’s the point? The ability will end and they’ll turn me into monster kibble.” She sighed. “There doesn’t seem to be a big variety of healing abilities, either. It’s pretty limited. There’s that Healing Touch and a few more speciality abilities, like Cleanse and Cure Disease. The only other thing I found is something called Biological Augment: Rapid Regeneration. I’m guessing it will help me get better from my injury pretty quick, and I’m hoping it wouldn’t put me to sleep like Healing Touch seems to do to people, but…”

She trailed off, and I finished for her. “But it’s really only a good choice if you think you might get hurt a lot.”

“Yeah.”

“I can see why you don’t want to plan on that, but… if you’re planning to fight monsters, it’s probably going to happen. Heck, I might consider taking that one myself, eventually. Hopefully I’ll be able to dodge better once I’m not in a big mass of people, but I still got scratched today, and it would have been a lot worse without your shields.”

“What are you thinking of?”

“I’m torn,” I said. “I like the sound of this ‘Biological Augment: Sprinter.’ The name made it sound like it was just for running, but the description makes it sound like it applies to my whole body. If it does, that’d be excellent for dodging.”

“You don’t want to just take Accelerated Dodge?”

“It seems so narrow. I regret taking Powerful Blow. If the Sprinter thing works out like I hope, it’ll help me with strikes as well as with dodging.”

“But you think it might just be your legs?”

“Well, that’s what sprinting is, right?” It was my turn to sigh. “I might take it anyway. The other things I’m really thinking about - reinforcing my skin or muscles or skeleton - I’m worried they might impact my flexibility. At least the Sprinter thing will help with my footwork for sure. Good footwork is the most important thing you can have in a fight.”

Davi squinted at me. “You’re just doing the Vince-hyperbole thing there, right? Footwork is important, but not as important as strikes.”

I laughed. “If everything else is equal, the person with perfect footwork will beat the person with perfect strikes ten times out of ten. If you have good footwork, you’ll never be there when they try to strike you. You’ll never have a stumble for the opponent to take advantage of. You’ll be able to get into position quickly if you see an opening.”

Davi looked thoughtful, if skeptical. I could tell I hadn’t totally convinced her, but I’d convinced myself.

“I’m locking in. Biological Augment: Sprinter!”

You have selected: Biological Augment: Sprinter: Reformulates and reinforces user’s musculature to optimize for short bursts of speed. Confirm choice?

As soon as I confirmed, I yelped and started twisting and twitching.

“Vince? Are you okay?” Davi’s voice was worried.

“Feels like someone dumped an anthill into my skin! …but… I think it’s fading… Yeah, definitely fading. Shit, that was unpleasant,” I muttered.

“How do you feel now?”

Davi’s question distracted me from an attempt to scratch a lingering tickle at the small of my back. How did I feel now?

I fell into a balanced stance and went through a basic footwork drill. In only a few steps, I could feel the difference. My body felt lighter. I could see how much faster my feet were moving.

I’d gone to a seminar once, when an aikido master from Japan had visited the states. The man was easily thirty years my senior, but if he wasn’t consciously slowing his movements to teach, he was hard to watch. Every action flowed like water, fast and certain.

This hadn’t made me that guy’s equal in technique, but I could easily keep up with him in speed.

I grinned at Davi. “Honestly? I feel amazing.”