“So tell me again, why are you stuck on dishwashing duty?” Cain asked with a grin.
After we’d arrived late at work, I tried explaining my situation to Manon, but she was having none of it. Hence, I was confined to the kitchen for the day. For some reason, that greatly amused Cain, as he’d been smiling to himself while he played with my phone for the past half hour. I was starting to worry about the kid, as that joyful expression seemed heavily misplaced on his face. But perhaps it was for the best; if he was having fun playing Candy Crush or whatever it was he was doing.
“Have you ever been to a dungeon?” he asked.
“Can’t say I have. Can’t say I want to.” I replied as I carried on with the extremely repetitive task of manually washing glasses.
“I’d like to go to one.” Cain stated. “We didn’t have them back – back in Canada.”
I got the feeling that he’d wanted to say ‘back home’ but had corrected himself last minute. It didn’t surprise me though, as dungeons typically only appeared in high-density areas. There were exceptions, of course, but most of the time they acted like gas, that if compressed to a certain point would become solid; with Wild Lands being the ones compressed in this case. The novel might have gone into more detail on the subject, but I had never paid much attention to that, after all, that wasn’t the reason why I enjoyed that series.
“They are dangerous. People die in them. More often than in the outside world, I mean.” I began explaining. “There are rumours about how some dungeons are in fact entities of their own that take pleasure or feed on the souls of those that wander in. Plus you can easily get lost and never find your way out, that is if you don’t get eaten by monsters first.”
Cain turned towards me and gave me an annoyed glare. I smiled, first because his expression amused me, then, because I realised that everything I had just mentioned wasn’t really an issue for me anymore. I was functionally immortal, had a skill that prevented me from getting lost, and was not the worst with a sword. Perhaps I could even envision a change of career…
“Well this advert says the exact opposite.”
Cain turned the screen of my phone towards me. An advert occupied almost the entirety of it. It showed a curvy woman with long brown hair, and very revealing lingerie holding a wand in one hand, and excitingly pointing to the text of the advert with the other.
Explore the Raspail Catacombs tooday!
This dungeon has been cleared by our team of experts (no traps or high-level monsters), and clearly markde for you’re convenience! For a more thrilling experience, consider exploring it in the dark!
One trap and/or puzzle guaranteed. High chances (>80%) of finding loot!
Explore tooday! Only 50€ per person. erms and conditions apply.
“Doesn’t knowing where to go, and what to expect take away the fun on it?” I asked, with an amused smile. This was a scammy ad, if I’d ever seen one.
“I guess…” Cain replied as he turned away.
It looked like he was pouting, and I left him to it. On one hand, I didn’t really want to go to one of these dungeons, but on the other, Cain also deserved to have some fun. Perhaps I could make it more fun for me if Etienne came along.
----------------------------------------
Midday came and went, and all I got from it was more dishes, brought down by JJ on his way out. But that time around it only took me 10 minutes or so to pack everything in the dishwasher and prep tomorrow’s pastries. Once I was done, I hung my apron on its designated hook and took a seat on a foldable chair next to Cain.
“You should go upstairs and actually work.” He told me, with his eyes still glued to my phone.
I had gotten it fixed back when I was out shopping, but even with a ‘as good as new’ battery, it had to be plugged into the wall to survive Cain’s gaming streak.
“Give me that.” I took the device out of his hands.
“Hey!” he protested. “I was on level 147! I almost beat the game!”
With a coy smile, I turned the device towards him, and scrolled up, revealing the thousands of levels that the game had. His expression turned to confusion, then awe, then back to anger.
“I knew that!” he said, snatching my phone back and plugging the charger in again. “Go do your work or whatever.”
“Can you at least tell me if I’ve got any texts?” I asked, still somewhat amused by him discovering the extent of mobile gaming.
“You’ve got nothing.” He said without checking.
I pressed my lips together, moving a corner of my mouth upwards in an exaggerated expression.
“Really?”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Yes. There would have been a notification otherwise.” He said as he carried on playing.
While keeping an eye on him, I decided to use this downtime to check on something that had been bugging me since this morning.
Laura Emilie Geneviève Dubois de la Sablonnière
S
Courier
Social stealth adept
Luck
301/100
MP
10/100
Strength
13 = 11+ 2 (item effect – blade of Namura)
Dexterity
17 = 11 + 6 (class benefit)
Constitution
10 = 8 + 2 (item effect – blade of Namura)
Intelligence
14
Wisdom
10 = 13 – 3(unexpected side-effect)
Charisma
10 = 11 – 1 (dishevelled appearance)
A Mind Stop [Pa]
S+ Planar Shift [Ac] (upon death)
S Short voyage [Pa] (0 MP)
S- Long voyage [Ac] (upon death; min radius 5 km)
A Backtrack [Pa]
A Dark Vision [Pa]
A Environmental Awareness [Pa]
A- Black Trail [Pa]
B Dragon eye [Pa]
B+ Mirror [Pa]
B+ Starlight [Ac]
B+ Walk [Pa]
B Faintness [Pa]
B Fitness [Pa]
B Speech Comprehension[Pa]
B- Memoire [Ac]
B- Run [Pa]
C+ Second breath [Pa]
C Mocking bird [Ac]
C Restoration [Pa]
MAX Traitor’s Lament [Pa]
D+ Black Square White Square [Ac]
D+ Data Analysis [Pa]
D+ Holding Void [Ac]
D+ [Microsoft Office Suite] [Pa]
D Outsider [Ac]
D+ R [Pa]
D Straight Blades [Pa]
D Metamorph [Ac]
E+ Warm Heart [Pa]
E Bones of Ice [Pa]
E Marksmith [Pa]
E Platinum Skin [Pa]
E- Blackout [Ac]
E- Runes of Jericho [Ac]
++ more skills to display ++
I had been correct in my assumption, the luck and MP did in fact transfer to my System Window. Which would mean that I was now able to take that much more damage. But these stats, unlike my skills, were somewhat meaningless. If the ‘100’ did not represent the maximum luck I could have, then what did it stand for? The novel used luck instead of HP, with it never being more than the probability of someone getting hit. And when I tried to look it up online, that was when my laptop had shut down.
For some reason, it had never struck me as strange up until now. But, in combination with what I’d learned from Theodgar, there were just too many things that the government wanted to keep secret. A part of me interjected into this line of thought, questioning if I really needed to know.
I glanced back at Cain, remembering the words he said to me the morning after his return. Perhaps ‘luck’ wasn’t simply a substitute for HP – and while I was on that topic, it didn’t make sense for MP to be called that either, since the word ‘skill’ was more widely used than ‘magic’. It should have been ‘SP’ for ‘Skill power’, unless it meant something else as well.
I rubbed my temple. This information couldn’t have been that hard to access, and perhaps it was worth a try looking into it again at home this evening.
“What are you thinking so hard about?” Cain asked.
I looked up at him, wondering how he saw me thinking with his eyes glued to his game.
“Luck and MP.” I replied. “And the mechanics behind taking and dealing damage.”
“Oh, that’s easy. Luck means how much hits you can take before you start bleeding, or how much you can afford to put yourself in dangerous situations before things start going wrong. I usually spend luck to avoid blows, or to run faster, stuff like that. And MP controls how many times you can use your skills. When not in combat, I use MP to restore luck so I can heal. Otherwise, I use it to use skills and stuff. And it all regenerates when you sleep.”
“I’ve never heard of luck being used for actions like that.” I said, as I frowned.
Even Huang whose class was basically ‘metagamer’ only used luck as an HP pool.
Cain looked at me with a pride-filled grin.
“That bastard of a man told me. That’s how I knew how to kill him.”
“Uhh…” was all I could manage to say.
I knew I should thank and maybe even praise Cain for this valuable information, but I suddenly got flashbacks to his character in ‘immoral immortality’. In that book, he was a cold-blooded, bloodthirsty, killer. Of course, he hadn’t been in that lab for nearly as long as in the book, but I couldn’t help but wonder how much of that violence was innate to him when I heard him mention murder in an offhand manner like now.
He must have picked up that he said something wrong, and quickly returned his attention back to his game.
“Thank you for info.” I finally managed to say. “In the future … never mind.”
I had wanted to ask him to refrain from killing people in the future, but although murder was excessive, it had also been justified in that particular situation in Geneva, considering what Solomon had done to the kid.
The sound of footsteps suddenly came from the staircase. I promptly jumped up, and rushed to the racks with defreezing cakes on them, as I pretended to work.
“Dubois?” my manager called out as she gracefully descended to the kitchen.
Once again I could not help but think that this woman was wasting her model or fashion designer potential doing the job she did.
“I need you upstairs.” She said. “I’ll be going out for a while. If I’m not back on time, you can lock up.”
She nodded in Cain’s direction, acknowledging his presence, before heading back upstairs.
“You know where to find me.” I told him, before following her.
[https://i.imgur.com/OHMyQo0.png]