Chapter 03-01

Alex and Obsidian left the docks with the massive blue fireball behind them. The heavy case pulled down on Alex’s arm. He was relatively positive that the thing was packed full of needles, but he also figured that if they used the money it would be considered a villainous act. There was far more work he wanted to do on his Heroic meter before he started to meddle with the dark side.

“Do you have a base of operations?” Obsidian asked. They were both moving slowly mostly because Alex was still healing from all of the damage that he had taken. His stride was a limp as they traveled.

“Kind of.” He said clearing his throat and rubbed the back of his head with his free hand, “I’ve got a room at the hero bureau.”

“Isn’t that place abandoned?” Obsidian asked shaking her head.

“You would think, looking at it from the outside.” Alex said with a cough.

“Well lead on hero boy.” She said ushering him towards the hero bureau.

The sun was quickly vanishing. It wouldn’t be long before they received their experience for the day. Alex was ready for the rewards for the work that he had done all and he was fairly certain that he was going to level up. He would have a point that he could spend to make one of his abilities more powerful as well as a few points that he could use to make his stats stronger as well.

After turning about three corners Alex realized that he was lost in the downtown streets. With all the time that he spent as an admin he was vaguely familiar with most of the world map at large, but he had never had to find his way around on a small scale. Most of the time he could teleport or fly right to the spot that he wanted to go and used a coordinate tool to target the position.

“You have no idea where you are going, do you?” Obsidian asked. Alex felt like she could see straight into his thoughts.

“I, um… was making sure that no one was following us…” He said with a loud clearing of his throat.

“Come on dinkous. I know this town like the back of my hand.” Obsidian said with a scoff. She led them off the street and towards an alley. The end of the narrow passage was blocked off by a chain link fence. This didn’t stop Obsidian, however, she climbed right over the top.

Alex hovered up over the top of the fence and drifted down to the street. His energy was so low. In his current state Alex was an easy target. He needed both a good meal and a good sleep before he would feel one hundred percent again.

Obsidian led the way straight to the Hero Bureau. The took a few side streets, but she never looked for a second like she was going to get them lost. As hard as it was for Alex to trust people, especially after recent events, he was starting find himself trusting her. He thought that it might be a good idea to give her a chance to prove herself.

“Home sweet home.” She said holding out her hands towards the poor excuse for a building. The Hero Bureau was a building that Alex was going to invest in, but it was not where he was going to establish his Headquarters. That would be a place the would require far more thought.

The streetlight right outside the building was flickering and the light that it was giving off was dimly pointless. The two of them climbed the stairs and went into the building. They climbed up to the second floor in silence and Alex showed her to the apartment that he had chosen earlier in the day.

Attempting to turn on the lights there was a loud pop when Alex flipped the switch just inside the door. The lights did not work.

“That’s lovely.” Obsidian said with a chuckle.

“Well it is what it is.” Alex said shrugging half-heartedly.

“I’ll take the couch.” Obsidian said walking over to the dust covered couch shaped object. She dropped down causing a cloud that filled the entire room and may have even included poisons.

“Nice.” Alex said while coughing and waving the dust away from his face, “I’ll take the bedroom. There are two, by the way.”

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“I’m guessing given the state of this place, there is no food.” Obsidian inquired ignoring his suggestion.

“Yeah, no.” He said shaking his head and walking towards the bedroom, “Even if there was, I wouldn’t eat it. And there is a good chance that it would try and eat you.”

“Fair enough. I’m ordering take out.” She said pulling her phone from her pocket.

Alex walked into the room and stared down at the bed. He did not want to lay on it, but there weren’t any other options. Sleep and food were the two things that he needed, and the floor was no better than the bed. He laid down as softly as he could so that he could avoid the large cloud of dust that would rise from sudden movements.

When he pulled his phone out of his pocket, he noticed that it was only moments before the midnight notification would take place. He hoped that he had enough experience points to level. If he had bothered to keep up with the total he would know, but he didn’t and that was on him.

He counted down from three in his head when the notification popped up on his phone. His heart was racing a lot faster than he figured that it would. It truly was like he was playing the game for the first time all over again. A new player crossing his fingers hoping to get that first level and more importantly that first spendable skill point.

-Its MIDNIGHT!

-Your Power is Growing

-You defeated 19 Villains

-You Earned a Total of 2500 Experience points

-Congrats You’ve leveled up! You are now level 2!

-You now have 3 Power Points to spend! (GNAODHGnaweig0vn@?@!#$<@#%)

-You Earned 21 Hero Tier Points

-You Earned 19 Heroic Points (Congratulations YOU ARE A HERO!)

Alex glanced over the message a few times. Everything seemed exactly right except for the Power Point message. He should have only earned one not three, that on top of the glitched tag message gave him a bad feeling. It took a moment for him to shake it off, but he moved past it as three points would go a long way. It was like he was already level four.

Altogether through the day Alex had gathered over ninety-three hundred thread that he could spend. That was certainly a great start. The first thing that Alex wanted to get his hands on was a super suit. That money should get him something respectable. There was no way that he was going to get very far wearing normal clothes. It did make him chuckle thinking about jumping out and yelling, ‘I’m normal man!”

The Power Points that he had earned from his level could be spent on the powers that he had chosen to make them more powerful. They could also be saved up and used to buy additional powers, but it cost ten. He wanted to have strong powers right away. Cyphon was still in the back of his mind. Alex was sure that he had to be level fifty plus, but without a scan ability he couldn’t know for sure.

He didn’t even hesitate to spend a point in flight. His flight ability was currently his weakest link and it had the potential to be extremely powerful. Regeneration was another no brainer. The first point would increase his constitution score thus increasing the rate he would heal.

Flight +1(2)

Regeneration +1(2)

A few minutes passed as he stared at the three powers trying to decide where to put the last point. He ultimately decided to hold onto it for the time being. He could use it in a pinch if he needed to make any of his powers stronger and with his base strength stat being high it would be alright if he held off on spending points there.

There were four points that he could spend to make his stats stronger as a whole. These could be applied to whichever stat that he chose verses his powers locking the additional points into a specific stat score. He decided to apply one point to strength, and one to dexterity to make himself stronger and faster. Then he added one to his intelligence and one to his charisma, so he could be sharper and maybe a little easier on the eyes for the ladies.

He looked over his stats to see where he was at.

-Strength: Passive: 24 Active: 30

-Dexterity: Passive: 23 Active: 27

-Intelligence: Passive: 19 Active: 19

-Wisdom: Passive: 15 Active: 15

-Charisma: Passive: 18 Active: 18

-Constitution: Passive: 21 Active: 28

-Fate: Passive: 18 Active: 18

-Perception: Passive: 16 Active: 16

-Will: Passive: 20 Active: 20

Alex closed his character stat window and leaned back against the wall. The bed was very uncomfortable and lumpy, and he could tell that he was not going to get a moment’s sleep that night, but he had to try. Rest energy regain was much faster than food regain.

“Dinner is served!” Obsidian called from the kitchen. Alex’s stomach growled on que as if it itself had heard her and he got up to see what she had ordered.

“That smells amazing!” Alex said raising his nose to get a good whiff of the Chinese takeout that was arranged on the kitchen table.

“Mr. Chippy Chop’s Chopstick Delights Chinese Food and Dry Cleaning.” Obsidian said in a single breath but sounded like she was winded.

“That’s a mouthful.” Alex said with a chuckle. He walked over to the bags that were on the kitchen table.

“Yeah, I gave the delivery guy a big tip to bring some stuff to clean off the table. It’s not like new, but I think I got of at least a few years of filth.” She said motioning like she was showing off a new car on a game show.

“Excellent! Let’s eat! I’m starving!” Alex said clapping his hands together in anticipation. They both sat down at the table and devolved in to chewing sounds as the devoured the takeout family style, right out of the cartons.