All my rewards look a lot less impressive when they can fit in one palm. Three stat coins that can only be used on a stat that’s five or less, two without any restrictions, and a single coin that’s supposed to give me an inventory slot. I don’t know what the ‘faultless’ part of that inventory coin means, but it’s got to be… something. Or else it’s just worth less than the one Gil sold me.
I bring the inventory coin up between my fingers as I flip Worth with the other hand. The thing’s a solid mass of steel, with a pattern on both sides that looks like a stylized cube made out of bars. It’s open on one side and closed on the other, but the differences are so minimal that I wouldn’t blame someone for taking a glance at it and assuming it was the same on both.
My Worth ticks up to four-hundred and ninety nine. I nod to myself and stop there, waiting for Pearl and Illumisia to fix up the teleporter before I open up another shop. The one I’m connected to is still right here, after all–and I don’t know what’d happen if two spawned at the same time. Maybe I’d get two clearance tickets both valued for the higher clearance and two store selections to choose from. Or maybe it’d glitch out and they’d both try to spawn directly on top of each other, creating some freakish disaster.
Some day in the future, I might find myself with that exact problem. Potentially even tomorrow, depending on what the clearance five threshold ends up being. If I’m going to have to wait for a bunch of two hour cooldowns to double my stat and inventory coins, I might as well start now.
I set all the stat coins on the ground and press the inventory one against my thumbnail. With one swift flick it soars into the air, spins a few times at the apex of its arc, and plummets down onto my waiting palm. I close my fingers before I can even glimpse it, but the sensation of an open cage is so obvious on my palm that I don’t even have a moment of thought.
“Heads.”
My body twitches violently as my skill seeps into the coin. I shudder and brush away a cooldown notification, then swipe over to my inventory screen and press the coin into it.
Consumed: Faultless Inventory upgrade coin(x2).
Two Faultless inventory spaces added.
Term ‘Faultless Inventory’ added to system encyclopedia.
My two black-bordered inventory slots shudder slightly. All the other gold-bordered ones shunt one position to the right, making space after the black-bordered ones for two more black-bordered slots to appear out of thin air. They cement themselves into my inventory in a burst of colourful sparks, but don’t instantly fill themselves with items. My first two black-bordered slots are filled with Pearl and the coin holster, and something tells me I should swap the knife and matrix into the two brand-new ones.
But I can do better than a feeling. I have a concrete definition. …That I really hope the system didn’t screw with. Can it actually screw with definitions? Because that feels like it would mess up my chances of survival if it could.
“Illumisia, can the system make fake definitions for me?”
She looks up from her work and shakes her head. “No. The system encyclopedia is already written, and it can only provide definitions to you from it. If it is lying to you through the encyclopedia, it is lying to every system-born in existence.”
“So that’s a ‘maybe’, then?”
“I suppose it is.”
I nod and go right back to my system. It might be a ‘maybe’, but it’s a maybe I can’t plan for or act around. The system obviously wants everyone without a Worth class to succeed–there’s no other reason it’d give people like Razi and Diane such easy tutorials to go through. Global definitions like this should be safe–it’s the really specific ones I’ll have to worry about.
Faultless Inventory Spaces
A Faultless Inventory space is a normal inventory space which has been altered by the system to be directly linked to the Class-bearer themselves, rather than the Class Card.
When shifting between worlds, all items in inventory spaces are kept but cannot be taken out inside of any world not directly influenced by the system.
Faultless inventory spaces defy this rule; items kept inside of them can be accessed no matter where the Class-bearer goes.
All items are locked to their respective inventory spaces upon world shift.
…Huh. I guess it never occurred to me that I could take things from this place back to Earth. Two things, specifically, if I hadn’t gotten my hands on this coin. One of which is obviously Pearl, since she’s a quest item and I’m not letting her get stuck in system purgatory, but the other… I don’t know. Three ‘I don’t know’ now, thanks to the quest reward. Almost like the system’s telling me to get my rewards and never come back.
Which does beg the question; how much is anything I’ve found here actually worth back on Earth? People pay absurd money for Class Coins, sure, but would they care about everdriftwood? Or a big chunk of shellraiser-grade glass? Maybe to some collector of rare bullshit, but definitely not to someone trying to go to another world.
I lean back again with my hands behind my head. Even if all this shit ends up being worthless on Earth, it’ll always be here for me when I come back.
----------------------------------------
Eight hours and fifteen minutes go by. I flip all but one of my stat coins while I fiddle with my inventory space, but even that can only take up so much time. I spend the rest of it trying to make myself look a little less like a woman that just spent almost two weeks underground, but it really doesn’t make a difference. Only a shower and some new clothes can do that.
“Aaand we’re done!” Pearl calls out to me excitedly. “The sensors are aligned, all the tests passed with acceptable margins of error, and I made sure all the map chips are still working. All that’s left is to put in a destination, put the power core back in your inventory, and get going!”
I push myself to my feet with a grin. Pearl brightens at my smile–unlike everyone in the store–and I swear I see Illumisia crack a grin of her own.
“Perfect. Let me assign these skill points, then we can head to Palastia.”
Illumisia’s grin morphs into a frown of confusion. “Palastia? Why would you want to go to those slums?”
Slums? Razi and Diane didn’t make them sound like slums. I narrow my eyes and motion for Illumisia to explain herself.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
“Palastia was… one of ours.” She says slowly. “But it was lost very early on, and taken as a forward post for our enemy. It was never a large village, but it quickly turned into somewhere where the least valuable members of the army were… unceremoniously stationed. Over time, the landscape shifted accordingly, with my last awareness of the place being that of nothing more than a soldiers’ slum.”
Shit. Did Razi and Diane trick me? “How long ago was this?”
“I will cede that it was quite a long time ago, so it could have changed over the years, but the bones of a place do not break so easily. If you have information that links it to some sort of system-based starting ground, then I do not wish to deter you–just be wary of the place’s history. It may not be all contained to the past.”
I nod in understanding. “Good to know, but I still think I need to go there. The other humans made it out to look like the tutorial place, and if the tutorial’s the same for all humans, that’s where I’ll find the end to my quest. But I’ll watch out for cutthroats and cutpurses.”
Illumisia snorts and steps onto the teleporter platform. “I will do the watching for you. A pup such as yourself should not be worrying about such things.”
I take the four coins I’ve doubled, add the three five or less ones to my Soul, then add one of the restriction-less ones too. My Soul jumps from one to nine in the blink of an eye, and I can feel my awareness tremble at the change. But it’s still too damaged to show whatever changes it’s undergone.
Soul of 9 achieved. The following effects have been added:
4 Soul: Spell access for Shellbound Knife
5 Soul: one additional shellraiser device connection.
7 Soul: Spell access for Personal Empowerment Matrix.
That’s almost exactly what I was expecting. Having another connection for a shellraiser device is a really nice surprise, though. I take the knife out of my inventory and strap it to my left arm, then connect it to my Class Card. It connects with a weight on my mind, like the smallest pressure I’ve ever felt, making itself known while also warning me that it will be a burden on me. No matter how small that burden is.
“It really is too bad we had to destroy the other teleporter.” I sigh and bend down to deposit the power core. “I’ve got enough Soul to repurpose it now, but it’s kind of more important to actually get out of here.”
“You have enough Soul? Just like that? How impressive…” Illumisia trails off, then nods to herself. “I may have a solution to this particular problem. When I fought other system-born, some of them who had the ability to repurpose or destroy things used it as a way to prevent us from commandeering their technology. Even after they had used it to teleport away.”
Pearl nods in agreement. “I remember that. It was really annoying; we couldn't access the logs to see where they went if they used the system to completely obliterate the teleporter. We’re not taking the teleporter with us, and I don’t think we plan to come back here any time soon, so you might as well get something out of it, Shelby.”
Well, I’m not going to turn an offer like that down. “How do I do it?”
Illumisia and Pearl shrug in unison.
So it’s going to be like that, then. I need to test this out on something, and that something can’t be the teleporter. Since accidentally destroying that would lead to us getting completely stuck in here. Not any of the shellraiser devices, either; those are mine. Maybe I can do it with a ghost quarter?
I press my thumb and forefinger together, and a ghost quarter appears there. A few flicks through my screen confirm that I don’t have a definition for repurposing anything, but hopefully that’ll change in a second.
“Here goes, I guess.” I say and press my fingers together. Hard. “Destroy this thing in… fifteen seconds.”
Destruction activated.
Checking to see if the item is owned by you… confirmed.
Fifteen seconds until destruction.
I flick the coin away as the timer continues to count down. Pearl and Illumisia join me in watching the thing clatter to the ground, doing absolutely nothing as it skids to a stop. Which it continues to do. Until a sizzling noise creeps up in my ears, and the coin disappears with a muffled pop.
“So it works. Perfect.” Illumisia says and taps her paw against the teleporter. “Repurpose this on a large delay just in case it does not work on the first attempt.”
“Good call. How’s an hour sound?”
Pearl hums in thought, then shakes her head. “Give it two hours. That’s more than enough to work through any difficulties that come up.”
I nod and press my fingers against the teleporter. “Repurpose this teleporter in two hours.”
Repurposing initiated.
Checking ownership of shellraiser teleporter… confirmed.
Two hours until repurposing begins.
The popup reads a little different for repurposing compared to destruction, but it’s close enough. I give Pearl a thumbs up and start to rise as deep black magic bleeds out of her body, coating the teleporter in a sheen that’s all too familiar. It quickly coats the shell spikes, and before I can even stand up straight, pure black overtakes everything.
For a split second everything goes weightless. Pearl scurries up my arm as Illumisia presses my backpack against my side, which I accept with a nod of thanks. I throw it over my shoulder while Pearl ducks back into her shell to hide herself from whatever’s there on the other side. Illumisia does much the same, slightly shifting her fur to be a mottled combination of stark white and ocean blue.
“What’s with the coat change?”
She gives me a blank stare that feels a little judgmental. “I can’t be a monster with an absurd identification cost in a highly populated area. So I will be a great white dane that is assisting you as a part of one of your quests.”
“Right. Almost forgot how freakishly powerful you are.” I chuckle and stick my hands in my pockets. While I watch the unmoving blackness… uh, not move, I guess. “Not to be a downer or anything, but are we actually moving? Because it doesn’t feel like we’re moving.”
“Teleportation is more of an exchange than a movement.” Pearl explains directly into my mind. “We take the space ringed by the shell spikes and trade it for the space somewhere else. Oh, and we’ll probably appear a few feet in the air if the target location is highly populated. Our teleporters are designed not to kill, hurt, or accidentally teleport anything that isn’t thin air. Um, be ready for that, I guess.”
A few feet I can be ready for. But the image of us appearing a hundred feet in the air flashes through my mind, and a few coins find themselves lodged between my fingers for that possibility.
“If it’s an exchange, then how long do we have to wait?”
Pearl shrugs. “I dunno. Depends on how far away we are from Palastia. It was pretty close to the center of the continent, so… maybe five minutes? It would be a whole lot less if we had a more powerful power core, but we’re working with a lot less output in this portable form.”
Five minutes to teleport from the edge of a continent to the center of it. Airlines and car makers back on Earth would lobby so hard to make this kind of technology illegal, even with the apocalypse nearly gutting their businesses. It’s not long enough to do any real thinking or check my Class Card, so I just lean back a little and watch the absolute blackness, waiting for the moment change rips through the darkness.
Requirement fulfilled: reach a specific destination.
Requirement still in progress: 499/1000 Worth.
What? How… I mean… that’s it? I’m here? But it’s still completely black. There’s not even a hint of colour to this weird in-between, not to mention the fact that it’s an in-between. I don’t even know what to say.
Illumisia looks up at me, reads my screen, and laughs when she sees my expression. “How anticlimactic. It seems that you will have a few days to rest and recover before whatever happens at the end of your time.”
“Yeah.” I say as the blackness flutters away in chunks, revealing a rolling autumnal hillside upon which sits a massive castle of blurry stone. A castle as big as a city. “That’s gotta be Palasita.”
“It is far more grand than I remember, that is certain.” Illumisia agrees and starts towards the castle. “Make haste. You could use a cleaning, and I am very eager to see how this land has changed since I last walked it.”