Bob felt wretched. He groaned. He tried turning to the left, he tried turning to the right, he tried turning on his stomach. It didn’t help. Nothing helped. Bob felt wretched. It was like his whole body was conspiring against him, firing every nerve ending again and again, in a concerted attempt to make him feel as wretched as possible.
And then his head. His head was the mastermind and chief antagonist. He had the worst headache of his life. A splitting, shuddering, echoing pain. What on earth was going on in there? Was he dying? He must be dying. Thank god he was dying and it would end soon.
How on earth had he managed to sleep through his agony? And how on earth could he go back to that sweet sleep and stay asleep for as long as it took for everything to stop hurting? And Bob hadn’t even been injured. Yes, Bob limped around his memories; he hadn’t even been injured; he should be right as rain, cheerful as sunshine. With great power comes great pain. The old axiom. No, the one who had been in danger was... George.
Bob opened his eyes. He didn’t think he’d ever managed something more difficult. That dog would be the death of him. The things we do for the people we love. The place was dark and he couldn’t make anything out; he felt cloth on his face and fur under it.
“George,” he croaked out and his soft pillow started to wriggle away from him; Bob tried to keep the pillow in place with the weight of his head, but the pillow got out from under him and his head knocked down the foot and a half to the ground. Every little helps, the conspiracy of the body gratefully acknowledges your contribution of suffering.
The cloth too was pulled aside and happy, bright sunshine shone tactlessly down on the misery of the mud magician. Bob closed his eyes and groaned. Stupid dog. That’s what I get for worrying about him. George had managed to successfully rotate his body (knocking Bob's head to the ground in the process) and had now come nosing over.
The dog curled up beside Bob and started to lick Bob’s unresisting face. Bob slowly, painfully, awkwardly, shuddered his good arm forward, in jolting, broken motions, until he got it onto the dog’s head.
“Thanks George.”
He felt the memories swelling up and his voice cracked, “I’m glad you’re okay, mighty glad.”
The hand just sat on the dog’s head. Bob couldn’t talk and stroke at the same time.
“You did good. Real good boy. I saw you from the hill. You were fighting alone. I couldn’t get there. You’re a clever dog aren’t you? How’d you figure out to use your bag like that…” Bob was mumbling. “Wanted to help, but too weak George, I’m too weak, not like you George. Look at me now.”
George barked and Bob managed a half-grimace, half-smile for half a second until the pain broke through and it turned full grimace.
Bob moved his hand from George’s head. It fell down and landed on the puddled cloth of his cloak. He dragged the cloak up to his face and smothered his head in it.
“Thank you,” Bob choked out, starting to sob, “thank you.”
The good cloak. Bob had been using it like a tool. A prosthetic arm. A raincoat. A weapon. And it was more than that; it deserved better; the cloak was a living thing; it was written right there in the object’s description and it deserved better.
“I won’t forget this.” He didn’t know how well the cloak understood, but he had to say it anyway. “You saved him and I’ll owe you all the rest of my days. You were my companion before, but I didn’t know it. Now I do. You need a name.”
Bob eyed the material as though hoping for suggestions, but the cloak lay motionless in his hand like dumb cloth and Bob almost started to doubt yesterday's memories. It looked so inanimate, an object, a tool. Maybe the cloak had only been following Bob's magical instructions? He'd certainly imagined the cloak swimming through the mud and pulling George to the surface. But he'd had no mana at all. He shouldn't have been able to cast a spell.
Bob grew puzzled, adding mental discomfort to his physical ones. Remember the three laws of magic, young puddler: the conceivability paradigm, the locality principle and the arcane ledger.
Yes but the problem lay in exactly those three laws. He'd apparently cast a spell via the cloak without paying for it. A blatant violation of the arcane ledger. And that wasn't even the end of it. The conceivability paradigm mandated that he shouldn't be able to achieve any effect he didn't understand. Bob had no idea what process was required to convert the mud cloth into liquid mud and back again, and yet somehow that didn't stop him from performing the action at will.
His headache worsened, though that shouldn't have been physically possible since it was already pushing on the limits of mortal pain. Best to leave deep contemplation on the arcane mysteries to his future self. Setting aside the how, the what of the matter was very clear. The cloak had saved George and that made the cloak family and family needed a name. Ergo, the cloak would have a name. Bob considered for a short while, grew discouraged and then decided he might as well swing: “What about Harry?”
“Wait, are you a girl or a boy? Oh does that concept make sense to mud? Probably not. Whatever, I like Harry. I used to have a good friend called Harry. Harry the mud cloak. Harry Mud.”
Bob almost thought Harry rustled in his hand, but maybe it was the wind or his imagination or just a stray tremor through his fingers. Bob arbitrarily decided he'd take that as a shiver of delight at Bob's wonderful name.
"You're most welcome, Harry."
Hell, what did it matter really? Bob was basically just talking to himself here. He seemed to be doing a lot of that. He had two companions and neither of them could talk. The whole time he’d just been blathering on and they’d probably couldn’t understand a word he said. He had a nagging suspicion he might have gone crazy.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone in the party who could actually talk back? But he was being rude to Harry.
“Welcome to the party Harry. Now if you could somehow help me sit up, it’d be much appreciated, I don’t like the feeling of wet mud smooshing into my cheek, but I can’t stand for the life of me.”
Harry did no such thing unfortunately. But then even George was less than skilled at taking instruction. If you want to get something done right, you've got to do it yourself. And so, with great trepidation and many reservations, Bob rephrased the request as a spell. And the spell actually worked and worked without inducing a fit of excruciating pain. That was a load off Bob's mind. Bob could still use magic. Bob wouldn't just be a helpless earthworm, writhing on the ground, until some monster came over and squashed him. All praise to the system.
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But just because Bob had been able to cast a spell, did not mean sitting up was easy. Harry followed Bob's instructions to the letter, but it still was a slow and painful process and Bob regretted many times that he didn’t know how to pass out cold on command. There was a skill worth having. When Bob was finally sitting up, he blinked around, still getting used to the happy sunlight shimmering down from a blue sky. No respect for the wounded.
After his eyes adjusted, he gave his surroundings a proper look. The battleground was less than uplifting. Bob’s antics of last night had ravaged the area; the grass was torn up, stirred about and thrown around; the pleasant, rolling slope was shorn and its black innards spilled out.
“I really did on the number of the place didn’t I?” Bob shook his head. “I’m not sure I like these new changes,” surveying the field of mud and mud puddles, “it doesn’t feel... what's the word, ah that's it, homely.”
He groaned; his body seemed to be able to sense that he was complaining and had duly upped the punishment. He saw white things piled up around his waist. They must be the leftover health patches. Maybe they have a numbing property. Bob tore one open between his good arm and his canines and slapped it against his neck.
The intoxicating warmth spread out and diffused around his body. The body reluctantly accepted this peace offering and dialed back the pain. It hadn’t vanished, but it had turned into a full-body ache, down from your-own-personal-torturer. Wow I wish I had thought of that earlier... Bob followed up with two more. You can't have too much of a good thing, can you?
At the end of it all, Bob was starting to feel something like human. His head had cleared a little and he got a better look at the dog. He started to laugh.
“George, I think you might need a bath.”
There wasn’t much gold left on the golden retriever. Bob wondered if the dog had earned his own Mud Monster achievement. Because George was caked in the stuff. The wet mud of the mud slide had now dried in the warm, morning sunshine and had solidified along every strand of George's fur. The dog looked like he'd been partially entombed.
“Was that what I looked like during the tutorial? George, on second thought, you know, I think it suits you. Fitting, for the companion of the mud magician. Harry, what are your thoughts?”
The cloak deadpanned. Bob interpreted that as agreement.
“George, I think we have consensus here.”
The dog barked nervously and his mud-encrusted whiskers bobbed up and down. He whined a little and started to shake his mud-encrusted tail. Bob patted the dog’s head.
“Don’t worry, I’ll clean you up later.”
Bob had noticed the little red icon over his notifications after taking the health patch, but he’d put off opening them. Bob had mixed feelings. Sure it might be something good. A new spell, achievement or just general congratulations on a masterful execution of an inspired plan. Or it might be something bad.
Bob didn’t want to spend any time imagining exactly what kind of bad things the system might cook up. He had strong evidence that the system could read a man’s thoughts and he didn’t want to give the system any ideas. Still he’d have to find out eventually, so what was the point in delaying? Proof by futility. That's the strongest argument I know. He clicked open the first message:
> Congratulations: Level up 1 - > 2
>
>
> Major bonus to luck assigned
>
>
> Rolling for random stats...
>
> Random stats determined.
>
>
> Major bonus to intelligence assigned
>
> Minor bonus to intelligence assigned
>
> Token bonus to intelligence assigned
>
> Minor decrease to constitution assigned
"Finally. Does a man have to destroy half the landscape to get his first drop of experience? I can't help but think you're setting a bad precedent here, system. Surely you don't want to encourage this behavior?"
Bob must have leveled up during the fight. There hadn’t been any glowing acknowledgement or insta-heals. You know, something that might have helped him. That was a little disappointing, but progress was progress.
> Congratulations: Level up 2 - > 3
>
>
> Major bonus to luck assigned
>
>
> Rolling for random stats...
>
> Random stats determined.
>
>
> Major bonus to intelligence assigned
>
> Minor bonus to intelligence assigned
>
> Token bonus to intelligence assigned
>
> Minor decrease to constitution assigned
> Congratulations: Level up 3 - > 4
>
>
> Major bonus to luck assigned
>
>
> Rolling for random stats...
>
> Random stats determined.
>
>
> Major bonus to intelligence assigned
>
> Minor bonus to intelligence assigned
>
> Token bonus to intelligence assigned
>
> Minor decrease to constitution assigned
> Congratulations: Level up 4 - > 5
>
>
> Major bonus to luck assigned
>
>
> Rolling for random stats...
>
> Random stats determined.
>
>
> Major bonus to intelligence assigned
>
> Minor bonus to intelligence assigned
>
> Token bonus to intelligence assigned
>
> Minor decrease to constitution assigned
Bob was on a roll. Bob was on fire. Four levels in a single evening. He was level five now. “Thank you, thank you very much. I’d like to thank my parents, my teachers and of course, my good friend and continual companion, George Brown. Where are you, George?”
The dog perked up and gave a low yelp. Bob was no beginner mud mage anyone. No level 1 scrub. He was a level 5 magician. A wielder of the mystic arts. And any doubters should take a peep at what was left of the hillside.
And of course, the famous system randomness. Every positive boost had gone to intelligence and every decrease gone to constitution. That sure looks random to me. Was the system trying to tell him he was stupid? Don't jump to conclusions Bob. I'm sure the system is trying to help (who are you and how did you get inside my head?).
Intelligence was usually related to spell casting. In that case, wasn’t it exactly the stat he would have chosen to increase himself? No, Bob would have gone for wisdom. If stats were broader than pure spell-power, but actually affected the base attribute, Bob needed all the wisdom, read common-sense, he could get his hands on. And his intelligence had come at what cost? Four hits to his constitution. As though he didn't face near-death experiences every day already. It really felt like the system wanted Bob dead.
> Achievement: Indiscriminate
>
>
> The more the merrier.
>
> Launch a single attack that damages yourself, your allies and your enemies, and kills over 95% of targets.
>
>
> Effect:
>
> * 15% damage increase to area of effect spells that include allies
> * A minor decrease to wisdom
"Not the achievement I would have asked. What about 'hero of final resort'? Or 'angel of self-sacrifice'?" The system had probably penalized him for including George in his attack. Like his intentions hadn't been crystal clear...
The effect was questionable. He'd have to intentionally target his allies to trigger the damage boost. And then a minor decrease to wisdom... What? Oh no, the system had finally done it. Why had Bob doubted his instincts? The system was out to get him. He had to remember that. All of those level-ups had lulled him into a false sense of security. Feeling the weight of cruel destiny, he opened up his stat sheet.