I hung with the elves for the next few days after Ruka's visit. Every morning like clockwork, Sigrid appeared in the teleportation circle and woke me up for a run. She’d gotten into the habit of doing so by climbing into bed with me, which all things considered wasn’t a bad way to start the morning. There wasn’t any funny business, of course, just a minute or two of snuggling before a jog through the forest.
When I finally ventured back into the city I remembered why I’d been avoiding it. The very worst thing that came out of the elf celebration was my complete loss of anonymity. Ruka was right, I was a celebrity. Recognized immediately. Gawked at constantly. And I didn’t like it one bit.
Before I solved the Nature Dungeon I had blended in with the crowd. I’ve always been a blender, you could call it my superpower. Well, before I actually got real superpowers. Apart from Kiki and her crew, before I got paraded in front of the entire city nobody knew who I was and nobody cared. I was never given a second look. But after I became the Nature boy everybody knew who I was. I couldn’t go anywhere without being acutely aware of critical stares and harsh whispers. I couldn’t hear what they were saying exactly, but I could easily imagine the conversation.
“There’s that guy.”
“What guy?”
“Him, over there. He’s the guy with two dungeons.”
“Him? No way.”
“Yeah, he’s Team Player. The whole team. Just him.”
“He’s the guy?”
“He’s the guy.”
“I hate him.”
“I know, me too.”
Or something along those lines.
I was just waiting for some ego-driven Player to challenge me to a duel. I considered casting an illusion around myself at all times to hide my appearance, but that would've been a constant drain on my mana and a pain in the butt. I also thought about disguising myself as a generic NPC, but that's also be a major pain and probably wouldn’t have fooled anybody anway.
When I went to the labyrinth for Alice's progress update that’s when it struck me: Doppelgangers can become someone else using their Double Your Trouble power, which meant so could I.
In order to transform into a made-up person and keep my own abilities, like how the Doppels were now, I needed to have Expert mastery of Double Your Trouble, and that was never going to happen. That meant I was limited to copying a real person. The problem with that was my abilities were temporarily replaced with Novice versions of whatever the copied person had, and that wasn't exactly ideal. Still, it was my best option.
As long as I kept my nose out of trouble, and I didn’t happen to come across the person I was duplicating, it should be enough to lend me the anonymity I sought. Double Your Trouble changed my voice to match the duplicated person, and I had picked up the Acting skill while watching a street performance during the elf festival, so I was pretty confident I could pass myself off as pretty much anybody. As long as nobody looked too closely.
I practiced using the Doppelganger ability a lot before I tested it out in the field. The first few times I changed into a woman were...interesting; it definitely took some getting used to. It wasn’t an uncomfortable or even an unpleasant feeling, not at all, but it was...different. In the end I decided to stick with becoming other men. It would have been one thing if I was creating a new persona, like the Doppels had, but copying a real woman just felt like a violation.
After a lot of clothes shopping to stock my inventory with outfits of various sizes and styles for all occasions, my ability to disguise myself was complete. I chose a random, generic NPC to duplicate and hit the town.
Nobody even gave me a second glance.
I’d fallen out of the habit of using All Shall Be Revealed on everyone I saw, but it was a good time to start checking people out again. Turning into someone else didn’t just keep people from recognizing me, it let me wander freely collecting powers to copy and checking out how far people had progressed. I’d expected to see a lot of powers and skills at Expert levels since that’s where most of Team Maple Leaf and the Round Table were, but I didn’t expect to find how so few had advanced anything past Adept. There was also a shocking number of Players out there who had nothing above Competent.
I realized a few things.
Somehow, I had gotten extremely lucky. I admit I’d been wrong at the start. I was foolish not to see the advantages that my starting abilities had given me. But I’d gone beyond that into territory I don’t think any Player was ever meant to go. Out of blind luck I had managed to acquire powers in completely unexpected ways that had an unexpected synchronicity with each other. This cascade of fortune resulted in my potential to use any power, which combined with my ability to effortlessly learn any skill and work with every affinity, made me the ultimate generalist.
I’d found my Class: Crafty Ability Monkey. A support Class.
I’d also accepted that this game was absolutely not fair, and as a result I was no longer angry about being excluded from quests. It was what it was. The thing that irked me now about that was missing out on the perfect chance to see Players use their powers during quests. That versatility I was capable of was the only thing that could possibly help me from becoming useless and disposable as other Players continued to improve well beyond my Adept limit, so every new power was another potential way I could support the real Players. I saw lots of powers in people’s Statuses I’d like to be able to copy, but until I saw them used all I could do was dream about how I’d use them.
Another thing that struck me as I spammed All Shall Be Revealed was the clear difference between Players who were on teams and those who weren’t. The progress of unaffiliated Players lagged far behind, and only got worse each day that passed. It made sense, Players on teams were being fed bigger quests all the time which translated into lots of experience, but from what the Round Table folks had told me there were plenty of individual quests being handed out too.
If someone wanted to make progress, the opportunity was there. They just had to take it. To someone like me, who wanted to see everyone do well, and who was so limited in the progress he could make himself no matter how hard he tried, and who never got any quests assigned, it was an unforgivable waste of potential.
What had these people been doing with their time? They couldn't all be working at restaurants. These so-called Players were in need of some serious help if they hoped to be competitive.
I really needed to talk to Chow Li.
Stolen novel; please report.
Once I’d made a list of powers I wanted to have access to, the next step was following people around until I got to see them used. Simply being disguised as someone else wasn’t usually good enough, people didn’t tend to use their powers in public places and it was kind of weird to follow them out on quests. Fortunately, between the elves and Kenji, I’d picked up some abilities that made tailing them in secret not only possible but also kind of fun, too.
One day I was discreetly tailing an unaffiliated Player, hoping to see him use a debuff power that I wanted.
Powers:
You Look Like You Could Use Some Rest - Adept: Lower a target’s physical attributes
Debuffs like that were rare. It was a shame that the rest of his abilities were underwhelming or he’d definitely have been scooped up during the initial team recruitment frenzy.
He was a young guy, out with a group of four other young and unaffiliated Players. I’d seen them all together a few times in town and figured out they’d formed their own unofficial team. Their stats weren’t bad, either, so they’d obviously been doing a lot of adventuring together. Good for them.
Hidden by my stealth abilities, I followed them through the Western gate and down the road leading to the sea. Listening to them chatter as they sauntered along I was reminded of the teenagers I hung around with. Would Chika and Kenji like to make more friends their own age? They’d probably get along well with this group.
About a half hour outside the city, I saw a dust cloud on the road way up ahead. The last time I’d seen something like that on this road was when I ran across the Silver Sword mercenaries. Sure enough, when they got close enough for my telescopic vision power to see them clearly I recognized the A-Rank NPC group who merchants often hired to escort them safely between the city and the sea.
Same as before, three of them rode tauntaun-like mounts in front: their damage dealing leader, a tanky-looking woman, and an archer. Behind them, a brontosaurus-like brute hauled barges along the river. I couldn’t see behind it, but based on last time there’d probably be a carriage — no doubt containing the merchant who’d hired them — and two more mercs bringing up the rear, another fighter-type and a mage-type.
When the two groups got close enough, the leader of the Silver Sword, the bruiser Flint Vivier, growled “Step aside and keep quiet.”
Flint Vivier
Silver Sword Leader
Powers:
I Can Still Hit You Way Over There - Expert: Ranged sword attack
I Swing, You Fall - Master: An extra-powerful sword attack; Requires Expert mastery in Sword
Respect My Authoritay - Expert: A commanding aura that demands obedience
That All You Got? - Expert: Ignore an attack
Skills:
Knife - Expert
Leadership - Expert
Sword - Master
Tracking - Expert
The Players stepped off the road just like I had the time I’d met Flint along this same road, compelled to do so by one of his powers. All but one Player, that is, who remained on the road, and who happened to be one with the power I was after. A quick evaluation told me why he didn’t step aside like the others: he had a gift that made him impervious to being charmed.
Peter Jameson
Unaffiliated
Affinity:
Water - Novice
Gifts:
Clear Your Mind - immune to charm effects
Powers:
Squirt - Competent: Shoot a jet of water
You Look Like You Could Use Some Rest - Adept: Lower a target’s physical attributes
Skills:
Stone Masonry - Novice
Sword - Adept
“Hey,” Peter called up to the mercenaries on their mounts. “Ever heard of sharing the road?”
The caravan came to an abrupt halt.
“What’d you say, pipsqueak?” Flint said.
“I said share the road,” Peter said. I had to wonder if he would’ve been so quick to stand up to the NPCs if he’d been able to see their Statuses. Gotta give the kid credit for being ballsy. He'd get along well with Chika for sure.
“I was hoping I’d heard you right,” Flint said. “I’ve been aching for a bit of excitement.”
This didn’t look good.
With practiced ease, Flint swung his leg over his mount and leapt off of it.
Definitely not good.
Surprisingly, Peter held his ground. I didn’t know if he was brave or foolish. His colleagues couldn’t do anything but watch from where they stood in the weeds beside the road, frozen by the mercenary’s commanding aura.
“Tell you what,” Flint said. “I’ll forget all about it if you all just hand over your valuables.”
The Silver Sword tank, a woman named Mavis Carmello, called down from her mount. “Come on, Flint. Not this again. Like they’re gonna have anything valuable.”
“It’s not so much about the money as it is the principle,” Flint said. “Pipsqueaks like this gotta learn their place.”
No way this would end well.
Then Flint’s expression suddenly switched from amusement to annoyance when he got hit with Peter's debuff. “What the hell did you just do to me?” he growled.
Well, at least I got to see Peter use the power I wanted, even if it was probably a terrible idea using it on Flint, though.
I had to do something. What I needed was a distraction.
Those barges would do nicely.
I used Jane’s power to teleport into some tall reeds along the riverbank. Good, nobody noticed. Then I sent a wind cutter at the ropes tethering the lead barge to the brontosaurus, missing by an inch. The thin disk of air hit the water with a soft splash.
One of the Silver Swords riding in the back heard and peered over at the river. I didn’t move a muscle until they looked away again. Then I sent another wind cutter and this time it hit the rope dead on, slicing through it before splashing into the water.
The same mercenary heard the second splash and looked over again.
“Hey!” he yelled. “The boats are floating away.”
The mercenary group sprang into action, bounding off their mounts and rushing to the river’s edge. Once they realized the rope had been cut, they splashed into the water in an effort to get the rope before the current carried the barges back the way they’d come.
Flint looked at his prey and clicked his tongue. “Don’t move a muscle,” he said, then ran toward the river with his party to help.
Distraction successful.
While they were busy, I blinked back over to the landward side of the road near the Players. Using Byron’s portal power, I created one end of the portal next to me and opened the other end as far as I could see on the opposite side of the river. Then I stopped using my stealth and tossed back the hood of the elven robe I was wearing.
The Players couldn’t help but notice me suddenly materialize out of nowhere. I put my finger to my lips, but then realized there was no point. They were still under Flint’s order and couldn’t have spoken if they’d wanted to.
I ignored the ones by the side of the road and blinked over beside Peter. Then I held out my hand and whispered to him.
“Come with me if you want to live.”