Evening had started to drip down over the grasslands. The sky was shading deeper and deeper, pale blue, into sea blue, into navy, while the sun shimmered tantalizingly, hovering over the line of the horizon. The air was fresh and clean, but with that unexplainable feeling of coming rain. The grasses, sloping and rising with the ground, swayed green, as winds wandered about on their evening business.
You sit back and soak in the gentle lines of a gentle landscape. Except, hm... what might that be? There's a silhouette in the distance. A great shadow speeding across the ground, climbing up hills and then plunging down them. You blink and rub your eyes. You must be seeing things. But when you look again, it's still there. An enormous, beetle-shaped silhouette. An enormous, horned beetle-shaped silhouette. And what's that on its back? A rider. A giant beetle and its rider. Did someone put something in your tea?
Bob was riding the beetle. An injured, blinded, crippled beetle the size of a mini-van. He was riding the beetle into the unknown. The master-beetle along with the whole city of beetles had decided they ought to chase mindlessly after the first inviting fragrance that rolled along. Animals, am I right? George, I'm talking about you. Bob himself was certainly not immune to the heady scent. The scent called to your primal self. It was like a drug. Your body craved to be nearer, but Bob had enough fear and good sense to know that the most beautiful women tended to be rotten at heart. Personality over proportions.
Bob didn't have time to worry about that anyway. The most important question still needed answering. There was an elephant in the room. We're all wondering it, aren't we? Who had won the duel? Neither side had died and that left things unpleasantly ambiguous. Let's examine our contestants.
On the one hand was Bob Brown. He was in tip-top form, still feeling the warm buzz of a recent health-patch application. On the other hand was the sword master. The beetle, well, poor thing, most of its face had been melted off. Bob did his absolute best to avoid looking at the "wound;" bouncing around on the beetle's back was nausea inducing enough already. He had a newfound awe for the flying caterpillars. Level 3 Raupenflieger pus was no joke.
A full-health Bob or a permanently crippled beetle? Was that even a question? The outcome was crystal clear. I present to you our winner: Bob-- cough, was the use of the items allowed in a sanctioned duel?
That's a prickly, loaded, speciesist question. Humans are weak, squishy creatures. We fight with our wits and our tools. They're an essential part of our combat strength. Why was the beetle allowed to bring a three-foot blade into the fight just because the thing was stuck to its forehead?
Objective overruled. I give you our champion: Bob Brown.
Thank you, thank you very much, thank you, thank you. And none of you folks believed I had a shot in hell did you? Don't clap now, I know that's what you were all thinking. He's toast. Well Bob show'd ya. He show'd y'all didn't he?
Bob had won the duel without killing the beetle. That meant he was on track for fulfilling his secret ambition. All he had to do now was get the beetle to admit he'd won the duel and he'd have earned himself a lifelong companion. What should he call the beetle? A nice name. Something high-sounding and knightly. He had it. Arthur. Arthur and his legendary horn, Excaliborn.
Now to address the defeated adversary. Bob did his best to stand up, well, half stand, clutching at the solitary handhold while tied into place by ropes of mud.
"My noble adversary, you have fought bravely on the field of battle. All have witnessed your martial prowess. I acknowledge your strength and majesty. May our duel live on in the songs of bards for all the coming ages. I christen you, Arthur, after the flower of English chivalry. I would not strip the world of such a knight as you have shown yourself to be. Let us sheath our blades. Become my companion, Arthur. Together we shall accomplish deeds to rival the heroes of old."
Bob waited. No response.
"What do you say, Arthur? There is no shame in honorable defeat, valiantly contested. Hold your head high." Bob gagged a little as he caught sight of the beetle's liquified features. "Only acknowledge yourself defeated and I will pour healing balm upon your wounds." The beetle continued to rush blindly after the smell.
Was the beetle ignoring him or had the acid stolen not only the animal's sight but its hearing? Where are a beetle's ears? There were no mammalian ear structures on its face. Was it possible the ears weren't on the creature's head? Bob looked over the beetle's back and then the legs. No ear-like growths. Maybe they were on its belly. No, that didn't make sense. Didn't it? Where are a beetle's ears? Interclass relations among the animal kingdom are most challenging. None of your typical assumptions carry over.
Maybe the beetle wasn't satisfied. Bob tried to put himself in the beetle's shoes. He was a proud beetle, a sage of the sword-path, ruler of the emerald city. And then some two-legged hobbit had sauntered up to his gates, burned down his city, and bested him shamelessly in a trumped-up duel. And now that hateful hobbit had offered him a position as its companion (read steed).
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Bob nodded. It was a bad offer from the beetle's perspective. How could he sweeten the deal? If only he still had a knight position open in his retinue... Why'd he have to go give his only slot to George? An offer of legitimate knighthood would demonstrate that he meant to treat the beetle as an equal and not as a conquered slave.
That reminded Bob. "George, how are you doing down there?"
The dog was running alongside the tank-beetle. He looked up at Bob and barked happily. The whole area was swarming with smaller beetles, all heading in the same direction. None of the beetles bothered the dog and the dog didn't seem particularly bothered by his proximity to the beetles. What was wrong with that dog?
"George, you want to come up here?"
Bob could probably work something out with Harry. George barked once, looked down and kept running. I'll take that as a no. Well it was good for the dog to get some exercise. Bob wouldn't stay it to the dog's face, but recently George might have been overeating a tad.
Bob put aside the Arthur problem for now. He'd reopen negotiations whenever they arrived at wherever they were going. By which he meant, whenever they plunged into whatever trap was waiting for them. Because it was definitely a trap. Thankfully, they had a good hundred beetles to spring the trap. If things went well, maybe Bob and George could swoop in at the end and steal everyone's experience.
Bob had time to waste so he figured he might as well catch up on his notifications. Harry had done a great job of lashing Bob to the horn peg and Bob didn't feel particularly uncomfortable. He might get a little carsick from the rocking motion. But it was worth the cost if he could finally find out what gains he'd made. First his two level up notifications:
> Congratulations: Level up 7 - > 8
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> Major bonus to luck assigned
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> Rolling for random stats...
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> Random stats determined.
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> Major bonus to dexterity assigned
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> Minor bonus to strength assigned
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> Token bonus to intelligence assigned
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> Minor decrease to vitality assigned
> Congratulations: Level up 8 - > 9
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> Major bonus to luck assigned
>
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> Rolling for random stats...
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> Random stats determined.
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> Major bonus to dexterity assigned
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> Minor bonus to intelligence assigned
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> Token bonus to strength assigned
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> Minor decrease to vitality assigned
Those translated into final stats:
> Name: Robert Brown
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> Race: Human (lesser)
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> Class: Heaven's Fool
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> Level: 9 (99%)
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> Rank: E
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> Wealth: 4,876,100 credits
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> Stats:
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> * Strength - above average
> * Dexterity - lean
> * Vitality - flacid
> * Constitution - pitiful
> * Wisdom - worm
> * Intelligence - prodigious
> * Will - strong
> * Luck - cheat
Interesting. He'd had enough level gains that he could begin to see the pattern behind the assignments. The system seemed like it was "randomly" trying to min-max Bob's build. It was dumping everything into intelligence, dexterity and luck, while sprinkling in a little bit of strength, and now and again throwing tantalizing, token morsels to his wisdom.
Bob reasoned through the build. If intelligence roughly corresponded to mana pool and wisdom was mana regeneration, that meant Bob could deal massive burst damage from the beginning of a fight, but would suck at extended combat. That sounded awfully like an ambush predator. Attack from cover with overwhelming force and battles would be over before they'd even begun. If you killed an enemy without depleting your mana pool, what did you need regeneration for?
At the same time, if things went sour, Bob had the dexterity to dodge effectively, a bit of strength to brute-force where needed, and a generous dollop of luck to grease the wheels of fortune. Those weren't fighting stats. They were running away stats. He was turning into a real guerrilla warrior. Brutal ambushes that melted away into cover and then reappeared further down the road. Was the system telling him how best to use his powers? Or maybe it was assigning stats based on his observed trajectory?
It really annoyed Bob that every gain had to come with a hit to something else. Bob envied the story-book protagonists whose every level-up made them unilaterally stronger. But in the real world, everything has a tradeoff. By docking his constitution and vitality over and over, the system was basically telling him not to get hit. Not to get cocky or big headed. Not to think he could just power through bad situations. Murdering the wisdom stat conveyed a similar message. If his mana hadn't regenerated, then he couldn't go on fighting and he'd have to run away. And what had Bob done? Taken on one-vs-one duels against giant weapon-masters. Smart Bob, smart.
If Bob was honest, it really wasn't a bad build strategy. Annoyingly, it was probably a better build than Bob himself would have come up with. It's pretty depressing to think that randomness made superior decisions to Bob, but any self-aware human should be able to recognize we don't always decide things rationally, especially when it comes to deciding for ourselves.
And then there was that level percentage: "Level: 9 (99%)". It wasn't a coincidence. Bob had killed scores and scores of beetles in the experience factory. Privately he'd guessed himself to be closer to level 12 and yet his experience gains had ceilinged at level 9. What did he need to take himself over the edge? He remembered an unpleasant quest that involved killing sentients. He swallowed. He really hoped he wouldn't have to do that. Maybe he'd gotten some kind of level up quest? Yeah that sounded plausible. That had to be it. Two notifications left:
> Achievement Upgraded: Indiscriminate Monster
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> Achievement: Monster
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> Man is the cruelest animal.
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> Effect:
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> * minor percentage increase to will
> * major percentage decrease to wisdom
> * 10% increase to all damage
> * ability - Aura of Fear