Lightforge sat alone inside his base, sitting heavily on the end of his bed. Outside it was the small hours of the morning, but he hadn’t slept. In fact, he had barely moved since returning from the shop the night before. His gaze was fixed on the most striking sight in what was, admittedly, a fairly dingy apartment.
The Revival Pod. The single most important piece of equipment that he or anyone else in this world could own. Since coming to this world he had died twice, and had come close on many other occasions. The only reason that he was still around was because of that device. There was no reasonable excuse to mess with it or even touch it unnecessarily. What could possibly be worth the risk?
That was the problem: he didn’t know. If his suspicions about System energy were right, then disassembling the pod was likely his best chance to get a clue into how to tap into that power. But what if he was wrong? Or what if he was right and didn’t live long enough to take advantage?
No, it wasn’t worth the risk. He would have to find another way to research the enigmatic type of energy. The system ran the entire world around him, so there had to be plenty of other things that were tapping into it. All he had to do was find them and start his research there. He had time, so there was no reason to jump into anything too risky.
Maybe it would be necessary one day, but not today. For now he would play it safe and look for other ways to make use of the energy that he’d found. After all, he had a captive source to study from, so there was plenty that he could do before reaching that point.
And there were the other projects that he was already working on. While the system stuff might reap huge rewards one day, defensive systems for the civilians around him would pay off often and immediately. Right. He needed to stay focused on that and get it done before working on his more personal projects. It was the penance that he was still performing for the destruction that had been wrought because of him.
It was still something that he thought about often. At first he’d expected his repair efforts to be enough to ease his conscience. The protective measures were only meant to be a kindness, something to work on to hopefully provide a little extra peace during difficult times.
Then the first funeral had been held. For all of the destruction, the number of casualties had been low. Low, but not zero. And given the location of the attack, Lightforge had a front row seat to each of the funeral processions as the dead were taken away to their final resting places. He had no idea what would happen to them. When it had been a game, civilians could be knocked unconscious by villains but never actually killed.
That had obviously changed. His best guess was that the dead civilians were gone for good. After all, none of them were likely to own a Revival Pod. That was a privilege afforded only to those who had been brought to this world from the outside. For everyone else, mortality was the same as it had ever been.
During that first funeral, he had made the mistake of trying to offer his condolences. His welcome had not been warm, but it hadn’t been too bad at first. It lasted until someone shrieked and had a breakdown, screaming at him every step of the way. More joined in, blaming him for the disaster and the empty space where their loved one should have been.
He’d left in a hurry after that. He’d also stayed far away from any grieving after that. His words wouldn’t be of any help to the people here. The only thing that he could truly do for them was to build up the defenses that might keep them safe in the future. And in order to do that, he had to keep himself alive to work on it.
It was just one more reason why tinkering with his own pod was a truly terrible idea. Maybe that would change one day if he ever managed to claw his way to the top end of the power spectrum. He doubted that Mister Spitfire or Bloodwing spent much time nearly dying. Until then, he was going to take every advantage that he could get his hands on.
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It was late morning and Lightforge was working underground on his defense projects when he got an alert from his drone. Someone was approaching the shop. Most of the time he would stay hidden away, allowing his holographic duplicate to handle any customers. But he always double checked to make sure that it wasn’t someone he needed to see in person. A quick connection to the flying machine showed that it was Gray Guardian, who definitely counted as one such person.
He made his way back up to the main shop and turned off the illusion just as his friend turned the last corner and came into the shop. He waved to them in greeting, taking note of the extra bounce in the healer’s steps. Despite the all-concealing outfit, he had slowly but surely gotten used to reading the healer’s body language to get an idea of their emotional state. He didn’t think he’d ever seen them this excited.
“Hey Gray,” he said, “You’re in quite the good mood. Did something happen?”
“You could say that. I have an acquaintance who came through for me in a really big way. Look at this.”
They held out a gleaming silver syringe filled with a bright blue liquid. It was, in fact, so bright that he could see the liquid’s glow even in the middle of the day. It looked radioactive, though that might be a good thing considering that he lived in a world with comic book rules. Curious, he took the item and inspected it.
Name: Deluxe Cleansing Medicine
Type: Healing, Consumable
Quality: Epic Rare
Effect:
* Remove all negative status effects from a target, regardless of strength or source
* Cleansing from this item cannot be prevented
* Target becomes immune to all effects cleansed by this medicine for 10 minutes
* Target becomes immune to this item’s effects for 72 hours
Lightforge’s eyes bulged at the description. This was an extremely powerful item, one that he’d never even heard of. It was the kind of item that you would find to take down an endgame level boss that soaked parties in an endless barrage of plagues. You could probably buy the entire strip mall that included his shop for less than the price of the single use item.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Someone at his level shouldn’t even catch a glimpse of an item so powerful, let alone hold it in his hand. His hands trembled slightly before regaining control of himself. He stared at Gray Guardian in wide-eyed disbelief.
“Where the hell did you get this?”
“I know people. One of them has a knack for finding rare items.”
“The same one that gave you the XP potion?”
“That’s right. But that vial of medicine took them more than a week to track down. I suspect that I’m going to be paying them back for a long, long time.”
“I can’t just take this. I could never make it up to you.”
Gray Guardian shrugged and took a step back, refusing the vial.
“We’re friends. It’s not about making it up to each other, it’s just about being there.”
Reluctantly, Lightforge nodded and put the rare item away. He was tempted to inject himself right that moment, but he didn’t. That didn’t go unnoticed by the healer, who tilted their head in an unspoken question.
Lightforge gestured around generally and said, “One of the effects of this thing lets Bloodwing track me. If I just drop off his senses then he might come looking for me. I’ll hold onto it for now and taken it back in my base.”
“Fair enough. Do you need any help around here?”
“I think you’ve done more than enough. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. In that case, I think I’ll track down Cannoneer and Sunbird. They’re up to something, but I can’t get a straight answer out of them.”
“Alright, sounds good. Let me know if you need me.”
“With Sunbird around? There’s only so long the woman can go without making some kind of mess. It’ll be a race to see whether the next big thing comes from her or you.”
“That’s a little hurtful, but not entirely unwarranted. Thanks again.”
They said their farewells and Gray Guardian made their way back onto the streets on their own business.
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After Gray Guardian’s departure, Lightforge decided to spend some time working in the main shop area. It held nothing particularly impressive, but the stock did need to be replenished from time to time. It seemed like as good a time as any to do so.
Gone were the bespoke and eclectic creations that had once dotted the shelves. Instead they were filled with meager consumable items. They provided an extra bit of power, temporary shields, or maybe a speed boost. There were some very basic healing items as well, though only a handful. As it turned out, healing was incredibly complicated and he struggled to get ahold of the necessary components.
It was essentially just busy work, but it was a good task for when he was struggling to focus. Despite the fact that the syringe was in his inventory, he could still feel it, its very existence pushing against his senses in a way that simply refused to be ignored. He needed something to distract himself with so that he could follow his perfectly reasonable plan of being somewhere more secure before using it.
His drone sent him an urgent notification just moments before three figures came sprinting around a corner and straight for the shop. They didn’t look like attackers; they looked hunted. All the same his robotic assistants were preparing for battle, as neither one was capable of reading facial expressions. All they saw were three people moving faster than customers usually would.
He made a snap decision and commanded both of his robots to stand down. Idly he considered, and not for the first time, that he really needed to give them names. But it wasn’t the time for that. The three people, two men and one woman, came charging through the front doors at top speed. They looked about ready to collapse from exhaustion right there on his floor, but they managed to stay on their feet for the moment.
The man in the front locked eyes with Lightforge, and both men froze in an instant of recognition. He was a thin man with silvery energy crackling around him. His companions were a stout man with a bat and a swordswoman. The three had tried to kill him before, back in his earliest days in this world. As a matter of fact, they’d tried it twice.
There were no illusions or failed memories in the gaze between the two men. They recognized each other, and both knew that this time Lightforge held all of the cards. The gadgeteer snatched up his goggles and slapped them on his head.
Player Info
Name: Silverflame
Level: 10
Current Alignment: Villain
Alliance: Side Hustle (Leader)
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Player Info
Name: Slugger
Level: 7
Current Alignment: Villain
Alliance: Side Hustle
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Player Info
Name: Silksteel
Level: 8
Current Alignment: Villain
Alliance: Side Hustle
It was almost impressive that they’d managed to keep up with his own prodigious growth. Then again, he didn’t really know what level they’d been the last time they’d fought. More interesting was the Alliance designator included in their profiles. It made sense that they would be there; the real surprise was that they had them at all.
The leader, Silver Burn, was level 10, meaning that he could open his own Alliance. But in order for the other two to be members, there would have to be at least one other in the double digit range alongside them. Alliances always had to have at least half of its members at level 10 or higher. Apparently it was a holdover from a time when dozens of low-level Alliances would be formed only to be abandoned within days.
Silverflame regained his poise after a moment and gained a determined expression. He took a deep breath and said, “We don’t deserve it, but please help us. We have nowhere else to go.”
He was about to tear them a new one and laugh at their circumstances, but he just couldn’t. They had the same haunted, fearful expressions that he’d seen on the civilians so recently. These people were enemies without a doubt, but they had only ever attacked him. They had never gone after civilians or tried to use them as shields. In an odd way, he could almost respect that.
His doubts must have been clear on his face, because Silverflame grabbed his arm and said, “Please. Slugger doesn’t have any more revives.”
Lightforge’s thoughts flashed to the funerals, and to his own reticence to risk his own Revival Pod. The fear and the worry that he’d been feeling, and he made his choice. Against his better judgment he ushered them inside and towards the back. They had barely closed the door to the back room when another alert came from his drone just before another group rounded the corner. Naturally, Razorhawk was in the lead.