“You can be so damned… reckless sometimes, Sera!” Chloe shouts.
I expected the reprimand from the moment we left Officer Whitney behind back downtown. The fact that she had the restraint to wait until we were out of the downtown area and strolling along the eastern banks of the riverbed is the best I could have hoped for given the circumstances.
“Attacking a police officer, resisting arrest, obstruction of justice, disturbing the peace on multiple occasions. Seraphina Mortensen, may all the goddesses help me, but you have got to stop being so reckless!”
I nod. Nothing I can say or do is going to get me out of this accosting. All I can do is be as penitent as possible until she’s finally vented all of her frustrations.
“Like, what the hell? What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that I wasn’t going to end up in prison, no matter what. You heard the reports on the news the day after initialization. We are in martial law. There are no civil rights. If we had been thrown in there, we would have been trapped with little food, little protection, no decency or privacy, and I’m sure there would have been no shortage of disgusting men who would have salivated at the prospect of taking us. I am absolutely not going to submit to the law.
“I managed to stay underneath the radar before the System came. I did what I was supposed to do. Stayed out of gangs, went to school, studied as much as I could, didn’t do drugs. Didn’t even try cigarettes like the neighbors did. But it was hard. Really hard. Like, crying yourself to sleep at night because the neighbor’s mom is going to prison for drug charges and your friend is being thrown into a home somewhere. Maybe it was better for them in the long run. Maybe the mother was able to get treatment and reunify with her kid. I don’t know. But when you’re thirteen and those are regular occurrences, it gets to you. Makes you wonder if you’re going to be next.”
Chloe pulls me toward a nearby bench. “We can’t just fight everyone. I get it, you’re angry and upset and have a lot of pent-up aggression against authority, but–”
I sigh. “Perhaps even more importantly, I don’t want this getting into the military’s hands.” I pull out my sketchbook, now with thirty different glyphs and speculated functionality outlined on the various pages. “I don’t know what they’ve been able to figure out about Ethertech and its capabilities, but that’s information I don’t want them to have. Not until we have a chance to discover what they all do.”
Chloe shakes her head as we sit down. “Why are you so opposed to just letting the authorities handle things? I understand your frustrations with the police, but I don’t know why you’re so openly antagonistic toward every piece of authority now. You weren’t like this before. You were never hostile toward our teachers or even the principal. So why this, why now?”
“Because everyone in the government, all of these ‘authorities’, they’re all fixated on returning things to the way things were. To the old normal, before the System. And if they are the only ones allowed to use the powers bestowed on each of us by the System, that’s going to be rife with so much abuse. How would you feel if you were stuck at level 1 forever, constantly having to worry about gremlins and Hellspawn on your way home, unable to defend yourself without worrying about breaking the law?”
“That would never happen, Sera.”
“Would it? People with power and money and influence over the first two always try to accumulate more of all three. Isn’t that the whole reason why we’re supposed to have democracy? To spread power out among the people, so that no one person or small group could rule as a tyrant?”
“I’m worried about you,” Chloe says. “I don’t want you to start chasing power, and become exactly the same sort of tyrant that you claim to hate.”
“I know, Chloe. And– I’m sorry. Sorry for dragging you into all my problems. Sorry for not doing as much as I could to keep you safe and more importantly, to listen to how you were feeling and consult with you much sooner. I– I’ve been selfish, and I’m sorry.”
“What else are you sorry for?” She grins at me.
“For getting you into a sticky mess with the law, for being brazen and not seeking more peaceful, orderly ways of going about my goals, and for being in such a rush to learn more about who I am and who I once was that I put us in unnecessary danger.”
“Unnecessary danger?”
“I wasn’t lying when I said that we should continue to apply ourselves in actual combat and try to gain more levels. I know you and a lot of other people don’t like it, but I think it’s in our best interests to do so.”
“Just like it was in our best interests to head to that tower today?”
“I still think it will prove as such.” At Chloe’s glare, I’m forced to lower my head in shame. “But, I admit that there were better ways I could have gone about doing so.” I can’t immediately think of any better ways of sneaking in that didn’t involve multiple flagrant violations of the law, but I’m not trying to ruin my attempts to be contrite, either.
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“So what do you want to do now?” Chloe asks. “I’d really rather not sleep under this bench tonight.”
“We can probably make it back to your place by midnight.”
“That’s like fifteen miles away!”
“And you’re at level… seven, eight?”
“Nine, as it turns out. Actually got a way more powerful healing spell after I healed the officer back then. As in, can pretty much heal one of us back to full [Health] in a single cast.”
“Well, that sounds pretty awesome.”
Chloe finally relents. The two of us get up and start heading south along the river banks at a light jog.
“It’s nice, yeah. And that’s what scares me. Getting stronger feels good, but when does it end? Are people going to start killing each other in the streets for Experience?”
“It’s probably already happening.”
“I know, but… I thought people would come together and be better.”
“A lot of people will. But, for all the good the System might be doing in some respects, it’s given us all an incentive to start killing one another, and that cat’s not going back in its bag. Besides, you saw how worthless a trained officer with a handgun is. If we can’t rely on the so-called ‘authorities’ to keep us safe, then it’s up to us to keep ourselves safe. And I’m not going to unilaterally disarm myself.”
“Are you going back to the dungeon tomorrow, then?”
“No. Too many glyphs to study. And it sounds like you want some time away from fighting for a few days.”
“Yeah, I could definitely go for that. And a hot shower too.”
“We might be waiting awhile for that hot shower.”
“Damn. And here I was just thinking about how nice it might be to go for a [Fire Mage] class.” Chloe laughs. “I don’t regret becoming a [White Mage] in the slightest, but right now, the class is sounding really tempting.”
“Who knows, Chloe. The System did say that we’d be selecting our ‘first’ class. Maybe once our level gets high enough, we’ll be able to pick a second.”
“When we get there, I’m totally getting the first hot bath!”
“Who knows? Maybe my [Planetouched Mechanist] class will let me build a hot water heater? Then it’ll be me who takes the first hot bath!”
“Maybe you can work the toaster or the microwave or even the oven. You couldn’t before, but maybe with all those levels we gained, you can use our appliances so we can have a hot bath that way!”
“Yes, all one of those levels that I gained today.”
“Wait, I gained two levels today. How did you only gain one?”
“I barely hit level 9 in the dungeon. I’m close to but not quite at level 11 now.”
“I just barely haven’t reached level 10 myself. No new awesomeness awaiting at level 10?”
“I mean, it sounds like you just got a sparkly new healing spell at level 9, Chloe. That seems like a bunch of awesomeness to me.”
Chloe grins as we pick up the pace a bit. “I guess I do get your point, at least a little. It’s fun being able to go out running like this and not have to worry that someone is going to jump us. And it was super cool the way you stood up to those creeps back in the dungeon. I– I don’t think I could have done that.”
“I don’t think I could have before the System– No, I definitely could not have,” I quickly correct. “Not without a lot of prior preparation and a lot of good luck.”
“So, you definitely could not have under any circumstances. We both know you have no good luck.”
“I’m alive, I got a second chance at life, I’m here with my best friend, and we survived fights against monsters and the law. I’d say I have at least a little good luck. Just not enough to win against Lady Luck and her mother.”
We cross the river along the highway bridge. The moon is high in the sky, and coupled with the glow of the Milky Way, we have more than enough light to see what lies before us. If anything, I can see nearly as well as I can in the daytime; perhaps this, too, is some heretofore undocumented impact of having a high [Mind] stat.
Fatigue starts to set in as we walk the final handful of miles leading back to where Chloe’s family lives. High [Vitality] allows us to power through this fatigue with minimal detriment, and delay the need for sleep, but not remove the need entirely. Especially not at such low levels.
Just how high do levels get? Is there a maximum? Surely there would have to be, right? Level 255 maybe? 999? 9999? I guess we just have to keep on experimenting and exploring the mysteries that lie ahead.
We make our way down the final stretch of road leading back to Chloe’s house. We did leave a note informing her that we’d be out most of the day, but thinking about that sends waves of anxiety pounding into my chest and up into my throat. What if she’s there, worried sick that we didn’t come back like we’d planned? Or worse, what if she’s not? She never came home the night before. And worse still, there’s always the potential that those damned cops might try to ambush us upon our arrival. Totally didn’t even plan for that possibility. Of course those bastards would know exactly where to go, since we told them, with documentation!
I curse my shortsighted foolishness. Bad, bad, very very very bad indeed. Why does it have to be so damned difficult to try to explore this new world that lies in front of us? Isn’t that what they want? We turn eighteen, and they say ‘go out on your own and make something of yourself’. But not like that. That’s too dangerous. And we’ll look down upon you if you do that. And those things are completely off-limits whatsoever. Feels like living in a straitjacket, and just when we think we’ve [Unlocked] one door, another lies to keep us trapped.
I hate it! Hate hate hate! I grit my teeth in frustration.
But… not as much as I hate what lies directly in front of me.