After the ‘mysterious’ rain let up, I decided to look at my available Perk’s. It wasn’t too difficult to look at the screen while walking, just like checking a phone.
The list was less extensive but still had a variety of interesting choices.
Meathead - You adore muscles, after many trips to the gym, you have developed a body that can better build and hold onto strength. Requirements: Strength 7+
Brickhouse - You are built like a brick shithouse. Be it infection or injection, your body resists damage and disease better than others. Requirements: Constitution 7+
Whippersnapper - Your quick wit snaps back with comebacks often enough that you are known to have a silver tongue. For better or worse depending on the person. Requirements: Wit 7+
Thick Skin – You will gain a slight damage reduction. Your skin makes it harder to feel sensations. Requirements: Constitution 7+
Reactionary – Your will gain an extra half point each time you earn a skill point. Your stat point(s) will be assigned automatically when you receive it based on the circumstances in which you earned it. Requirements: Don’t spend a stat point for an extended period of time.
Do You Lift Bro? – You do lift, you got some beefy arms there. But you know what they say, if you lift you can’t bend, losing some agility. Requirement: Strength 7+
Survivalist – Your outdoorsmanship comes to you naturally, but your social skills are a little lacking. Requirement: At least 3 outdoorsman skills
Pro Gamer – Skills level up faster, but your toxic attitude will lower your charisma. Requirement: No Life
Generalist – Your skills can be combined into a more generic version, but you will lose the ability to specialize. Requirement: At least 5 skills of the same classification.
Snitch – You will get rewards for every secret revealed, but you will have massive social backlash if your habits are revealed. Requirement: The desire to get stitches.
Tower Adoptee – You are a resident of the tower now. All other residents will treat you as if you were equal to an average resident. They no longer revere or fear you as Chosen. Requirement: Achievements for helping tower residents.
Spending some of my saved stat points I put one into Strength which put it at nine, giving me three more options.
Much Scary – Your chance to intimidate is more effective. You have a worse chance of convincing someone to do something. Requirements: A intimidation perk or skill. Strength 9+
Bloody Mess – When dealing damage, you tend to deal critical damage. This leads to less salvageable loot due to the damage you inflict. Requirement: Strength 9+, Power Strike Skill
Follower – You thrive when you have someone to tell you what to do but hesitate when the decisions are in your court. Requirement: Strength 9+, Wits 7-
All the new perks had a deleterious effect alongside the positive. Though putting that extra point in strength put me into reach of more perks I wasn’t really interested in boosting those capabilities. I had one more point to spend and checked my stats for anything else I could get into a sweet spot for another perk choice or two.
Strength 9
Agility 5
Constitution 7
Wits 7
Recollection 5
Charisma 5
Luck 9
Nothing I saw could reach a new milestone towards a new perk, as far as I have seen, seven and nine were important numbers in this situation. On a whim I decided to put my last point into luck, turning it to ten.
Checking over the perk list again, nothing new had unlocked. How would I pick? Nothing was really jumping out as a game-changing level up, just incremental increases to power. Some choices were flat out bad, and I couldn’t think of a situation where I would ever pick them.
The strength perks would hinder stats that I was already pretty deficit in. Same for the outdoorsman and social skills. Generalist just seemed to be a good way to fail. I had read lots of stories that had the main character generalize to awesome victory. But the funny thing was, they were never actually a generalist, more they were synergy hybrids or miraculously good at everything. In reality a generalist would never be able to beat out a specialist. Even if that specialist had a glaring weakness the generalist would be too generalized to capitalize on that weakness. They simply wouldn’t have the tools to get the job done.
Pro Gamer was a hard pass, having met ‘pros’ before, I didn’t desire to bring that toxin into my personality. I really didn’t need to be screaming ‘Go kill yourself’ or ‘Git Gud’ when people made simple mistakes or didn’t know the mechanics.
As I agonized over my choices and debated them with Halloway, I tripped. Not figuratively, literally. Not sure what I tripped over, the path had been relatively easy going. None-the-less I staggered while cursing and gesticulating wildly to keep my balance.
[Perk Selected]
“What in the flying fuck?” I shouted.
“What, realized your agility is so bad you can’t walk?” Dark snarked at me.
“No, you insufferable twat,” I snapped at him. “I accidently selected a perk when I tripped.”
“How did you do that?” Halloway asked as Dark laughed at me.
“Hells if I know,” I frowned and looked at the flat road I had stumbled over. “Just lucky I guess.”
“What did you pick?”
“Uhm…” I summoned up the perk status screen.
[Perks]
[Loki’s Boon (Furry Lover)]
[Reactionary]
“Reactionary.” I muttered.
“Well, that isn’t bad, an extra stat point for every two you earn.” Halloway said positively.
“Randomly god damn assigned.” I said.
“If it’s god assigned, maybe you will get lucky and Loki will pick a good one for you, Priest.” Halloway said with a chuckle.
I glared at him for a while before an idea struck me. The idea of being a ‘Priest’ to any deity did bother me, no matter how much power it came with. I’d need to think of a new branding.
“You wanna bet, I might be able to make my own luck? Play along with me here.” I said before picking up a good-looking rock. “I wager you a copper I can hit a tree with this rock.”
“Sure.” Halloway agreed with some minor hesitation. I tossed the rock easily hitting a random tree alongside the road. “Okay…”
“Pay up,” I said holding out a hand. He reached into the neck of his armor and fished a copper out before handing it to me. A notification flashed for me, but I was distracted from it.
“Where the hell did you pull this from? Do you have a bra purse or something?” I asked.
“That would be helpful,” Mave chimed in.
“It was magic,” Halloway said with a grin.
“Word of bra coin?” I guessed.
“Something like that.”
[Congratulations. You have unlocked the Gambling/Yellow-Bellied Cheat skill!]
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
[Congratulations! You have gained one and a half stat points to allocate!]
[Stat point has been automatically allocated to Luck!]
“Cha-ching!” I announced. “If I track my skills and can earn a level or skill at the right time, I bet I can manipulate the allocation. It may be automatically allocated, but I said it does that situationally. I’m thinking it is something simple, like based one whatever skill was just earned. Maybe an average of the last handful of skills at most.”
“I see,” Hallway said. “But that’s iffy, you’ll need to reserve some known easy to get skills to earn for when the time is right.”
“Yea, a lot of effort for a simple thing, but might be clutch when needed.” I agreed. “Might not be worth it, but it gives me some small chance at a choice.”
“Can I get my copper back?” Halloway asked.
“Nope.” I grinned at him and pocketed it.
“What skill did you earn?” Mave asked. She was quiet as we hiked but seemed happy to pet Pest as he slept on her chest like a toddler. Well, as happy as she could be right now. She definitely wasn’t singing to herself like she used to.
“Yellow-Bellied Cheat, but it’s supposed to be Gambling.”
“Why do you say, Yellow-Bellied Cheat?” She asked.
“Loki is angry with me, so he messed with my skill names.” I explained.
“You said that when you were hurt, I thought it was nonsense.” Mave said.
“No, not nonsense. Loki is lord above, creator of all that you see around you,” I explained piously. “And I annoyed him.”
“Big surprise,” Dark said. He was being very bold trying to impress his new friend Carmilla. I assumed Ryan enjoyed Dark insulting me because he didn’t say a word as he led the group. Carmilla herself barely said a word to anyone besides Dark.
“Only Dios is above us,” Mave said sternly.
“Well either way, he made my skill names more ‘interesting.’” I said.
“What else you got?” Halloway asked.
“Name something.” I said and we went back and forth with some skills.
“Archery?”
“Pointy Stick Go Far.”
“Hiking?”
“Hobo Shuffle.”
“Frontiersman?”
“Tree hugger.”
“Repair?”
“Bubblegum and Bailing Twine.”
“Cooking?”
“That one is good,” I said laughing as I told him. “Two girls, one cup.”
“I don’t get it, what’s that?” Mave asked after Halloway snorted in amusement.
“Nothing you ever want to know about.” I said with a grin.
***
That night we camped at a fork in the road. This travelling and camping along the road was pretty easy. Most of our campsites were previously used and well worn. There was almost always a fire pit and some dry wood waiting. When we left, I always tried to find some more wood to replace it.
I had tried to cut a small tree once, finding no easily accessible wood the next morning, but Ryan refused to wait for me to finish and forced the group to move on. He was a very discourteous man. I used my instant cast skills of Logger, now called Tree Assassin, to fall the tree and Wood Working, now Janky Geppetto, to make a quick batch of firewood anyway. The energy expenditure of the instant cast had me dragging ass by the end of the hike that day, but the System approved of my courtesy and had given me a skill level increase.
[Congratulations! Tree Assassin has increased to Level 3!]
***
I was relieved to get some rest, this campsite found us on the border of the forest and the grasslands. Though it seemed to be a separate area from the previous grasslands, the biome was the same sort.
Shouting and yelling startled me out of my sleep. With adrenaline flooding I was on my feet so fast Pest didn’t even have time to get off of the place he had slopped atop me. He fell to the ground with a thump. Where Halloway had been sleeping a large shape outlined by the fire rent and tore at the ground.
Ryan was already up and swinging at the creature, his giant sword glanced off of it with a misplaced strike.
A bright light erupted as Mave powered her light ball, blinding us all and creating a brief pause in the fracas.
The shape resolved into a furred beast the size of a black bear. Its lips were pulled back revealing large teeth, prominent canines sharp and intimidating. Dark brown fur covered most of its body with a lighter brown accenting its face. A bloody strip of flesh hung at its side like a macabre scarf. For a moment I wondered if that was the remains of my friend before it twisted slightly, showing fur on its other side. Ryan’s glancing blow had done more damage than I had originally thought.
It recovered from the burst of light and continued tearing at the ground with its claws. I Inspected the beast.
Name: Jim
Race: Giant Badger
Type: Creature
Allegiance: None
FLAGS: COGNITION_0, ENRAGED
Health: Healthy
Energy: Average
“Badger!” I shouted after closing the Inspect window.
“How the hell do you know that?” Ryan demanded. “It’s as big as a damn bear!”
“Badger lore!” I shouted back, which made the huge badger pause its attack on Halloway and stare at me. I swear it smirked before resuming its attack.
“Die!” Ryan shouted and struck out again. The badger sprung to the side, the sword scoring no hit.
I scrambled for my hunting bow, it lay propped up against my bag but wasn’t strung.
Pest had no such delays, he did a running leap and slammed into the badgers back. A stiletto gripped in each of his little paw hands. He stuck there, hanging from his weapons that were sunk hilt deep into the animal.
The badger roared out and began spinning and twisting to snap at Pest. Whether luck or skill Pest had picked a spot on its back that the badger couldn’t reach. It was like watching a dog chasing its own tail. Pest whipped away through the air each time the badger snapped around trying to get at him.
I had my bow half strung when I saw Ryan’s muscles flex and bulge as he set himself up for another swing of his heavy weapon.
“Don’t! You’ll hit Pest!” I shouted out, but he ignored me and swung at the badger anyway.
The badger’s wild spinning pulled him out of Ryan’s range, but his swing nearly collided with Pest as he swung past.
Halloway, looking quite ragged, still had some life in him and slashed with his knife as the badger spun by him. The spin caused the knife attack to cut a large slash down his abdomen. The badger shrieked as its stomach burst, intestine spilling out and flinging around as it thrashed. It swiped a large paw out and gave Halloway an epic badger bitch-slap.
I had my bow strung, an arrow notched, and was ready to loose.
The party interface labelled Halloway as alive, but unconscious.
A spear came out of the darkness to stab into the flank of the badger, narrowly missing Pest. Dark had a fierce grimace like he had found a spider in his sandwich. These two fuckwads were more dangerous to Pest than the badger was.
I released an arrow, and it skipped off the head of the badger like a stone across a lake. I was semi-satisfied that it zipped past Dark’s ear as it flew off into the woods. Dark staggered back and fumbled his spear.
Pest decided he had enough of the bucking badger and released the grip he held on his weapons, somersaulting away with an acrobatic spin that landed him on his feet. Well fuck me, give him some boots and a rapier and he could be my favorite swashbuckling gato.
I notched and drew up another arrow.
Ryan swung his sword.
Pest raced back in with his knife.
We all struck at the same moment.
The badger teetered for a moment. Arrow in an eye, sword slash across his throat, and a mean looking cut to his nethers. Pest played dirty.
[Congratulations. You have unlocked the Combo/Circle Jerk skill!]
The notification flashed and slid away as the badger fell down heavily. Right on top of Halloway. If I wasn’t so worried about it suffocating him, I might have taken some time to laugh.
Dark stood there staring at what had happened and Ryan was doing some sort of self-congratulatory flexing or something. Mave had made her way closer and on seeing me rushing over, joined me in wrenching the smelly ass badger off of him. Pest had a bit of a musk, not quite unpleasant, but not something you’d want to smell like after a bath. This thing reeked of a rotten maggot filled asshole.
We managed to shove it off to find an unconscious Halloway smeared in gore. Badger innards and blood had coated him. He was pretty torn up beneath it. His face savaged by cuts from the mighty slap he had received. His armor torn and ripped where the badger had tried to chomp into him like a thanksgiving’s turkey.
The party interface had him now labeled as critical and unconscious.
“Ryan?” Mave asked. “Potion?”
“Nah, it’s almost reset time. He will be fine, either way.” He said and went back to his bedroll, plopping down on it.
I looked Halloway over, he was actively bleeding. I wasn’t sure if he would make it until reset and our spawn points were back at the fort. But I could give him better odds. I hurriedly retrieved one of my clay vials from my rucksack and poured the snake oil into his mouth. He sputtered and coughed violently like I was trying to waterboard him.
“Will that work?” Mave asked me.
“Can’t hurt,” I said with a shrug.
After a little while of staring at the party interface and Halloway’s ugly mug, the label changed from critical to heavily injured. I hoped that was a good thing, sometimes it was hard to track which term of the health indicator was worse. A little bit longer and I saw the unconscious flag tick away as well. As if on cue Pest walked up and nudged Halloway with his foot.
“We eat him now?” Pest asked.
“Yea, sure. Waste not, want not.” I said.
“Fuckers…” Halloway said faintly.
***
A bit of time later everyone else was asleep. I decided to keep a watch, something that we should have been doing from the beginning. When I asked about setting up a sleeping rotation, everyone but Mave and Pest ignored me. Mave offered to do a stint in the morning, and Pest offered to do the entire thing himself. I was about to take him up on his offer until I noticed he had curled up next to Halloway and went to sleep.
We had cleaned up Halloway a little bit and stripped him so I could repair his gear. I used the auto-pilot version of my skill while I kept watch. I had to borrow Dark’s sewing kit and with it I managed to close the holes and tears, if not beautifully, then functionally. The repair skill and sewing skill seemed to synergize well and it didn’t take me very long.
By chance I happened to be looking at Halloway when the reset happened. His slowly healing wounds instantly healed and scarred over. He now sported a bad ass set of claw scars across his face. Even the missing lines through his beard looked badass. Lucky bastard. I’d be surprised if it didn’t give him a charisma bonus.
The badger had been too heavy for Mave and me to move alone, so we left it where it was and had moved Halloway instead. I decided to use my Skinning, or Ed Gein Emulator, skill to remove the impressively thick and resistant skin away. I tried the Butchering, or Meat Is Murder, skill, but the meat was tough and smelled gamey and musky. Maybe I would feed it to Ryan and Dark.
Monster Harvesting, or Offal-ly Gross Scavenger Hunt, didn’t seem to pick up anything useful on the corpse, so that left me wondering if the skill was too low for a giant badger, or if the badger wasn’t considered a monster. Such needless thoughts and ideas went through my mind as I worked. Before I knew it the sun was greeting me with a new day. I had been too engrossed in the gross to wake Mave for a shift, so I just waited for everyone to wake up.
Morning came, we broke camp and moved on. Halloway was a little bit sullen about being badger bait. Which was a nickname I tried to give him, but nobody else was of like mind. Not much was discussed about the night before, even though I sorely wished to lay into Dark and Ryan for nearly killing Pest.
Instead, I took Pest aside.
“Little buddy?” I said in a way of getting his attention.
“Be careful of the others when you fight. They nearly hit you with their weapons when they were attacking that badger.” I explained to him.
“They are…” He trailed off for a moment, his quasi-ferret brain searching for the word. “Unreliable Associates?”
“Yes.” I said in imitation of his short, clipped answers.
“Okay.” He snapped back before marching over to Mave and harassing her to pick him up.
***
I was pretty much dead on my feet when we had to go hoofing it through the grasslands off the trail towards the dungeon. I couldn’t focus on anything else and simply followed the footsteps of the person in front of me. Didn’t even know who it was. I narrowly avoided them as they stopped at the dungeon entrance.
The sun was low, so Ryan called an order to make camp and we’d dungeon dive in the morning when we were rested.
“Viktor,” he called. “Since you are so worried about things, you can take watch again.”
“Eat a dick.” I said and fell onto my bedroll. He could kill me for all I cared. I was beat.
A small scuffle ensued, which I ignored.
[A charisma effect has been used near you.]
“Thanks Hal!” I called and rolled over to sleep.