Check-in goes about as smoothly as it can. Noland goes off somewhere after a few minutes while Ursula leads me around the ground floor of the skyscraper, making sure each and every part of the resort has my name and face on record. Except she doesn’t register me as Shelby; she registers me as ‘The Gambler’. And from how everyone refers to her as ‘The Mercenary’, I can see where she got the idea from.
By the time we finally get through with everything my cheeks are starting to hurt from forcing so many closed-mouth smiles. After the first guy behind a counter almost shit himself from seeing my toothy smile, I figured that making an alright first impression was the smarter way to go. And once everything’s all set up and done with, Noland makes his triumphant return with a brand new golden card pinched between his fingers.
“Here you go; hot off the presses.” He says as he takes my hand, uncurls my fingers, and places the card in my palm. “That’ll buy you pretty much anything you could ever want here, and it’ll work anywhere in the outside world that accepts credit cards. Oh, and just swipe it in the electronic lock of whatever room you want. If it’s not occupied already, you can claim it by swiping the card again on the inside of the room.”
“Thanks.” I say and hold the card up to my eyes, then stuff it into my pocket.
Ursula nods for Noland and gestures towards the elevator. “If you want a room in the skyscraper, go up that elevator. If you want a beach house, go for a long walk until you find one that isn’t occupied. And if you need anything else, there are intercoms and internet ready computers in every room. I shouldn’t have to say this, but don’t go bragging about your new place on any forums.”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. I’m not a social media kind of person.” I say as I start moving towards the elevator. “What time does ‘everything else’ start tomorrow?”
The two of them share a look. “Noon?” Noland half-asks, half states. It gets a nod from Ursula. “Noon it is.” He repeats confidently. “We’ll start with a meeting with the Architect and go from there.”
“And call yourself the Gambler while you’re here.” Ursula adds as I push on the ‘up’ button. “It’s kind of ceremonial, but mostly just tradition. It’ll buy you a lot of brownie points with the locals, too.”
“Sure, whatever.” I say with a wave. The elevator dings as it reaches our floor, and the doors hiss open to reveal an empty reflective interior. I step inside and press the button for the highest floor, then watch Nolan and Ursula watch me watch them. “Is there anything else?”
Ursula shakes her head. “Nope. Welcome to the resort, sister.”
The door slides shut, sealing me off in a small metal box. I set my bags down and lean into the corner as the floor numbers tick up at an alarming rate, never once stopping for anyone else to get on. Makes me wonder how many of the rooms in this place are actually occupied, since it looked like there could easily be a thousand units in the building. A thousand big units.
“They seemed… nice enough.” Pear says cautiously without leaving her shell. “Almost too nice. Be careful, Shelby.”
“You don’t have to worry about that.” I chuckle as I look at myself in the mirror. “They couldn’t have made it more obvious that they want me for my class. Any niceness revolves around that one thing, and if I’m not useful to them, they’ll just kill me and wait for my coin to reappear somewhere else.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. Sure, they know a little about what your class can do, but they’ve been using it as a workaround assassination weapon for who knows how many years. Why would they risk the one person who was good enough to come back?”
“Yeah. Hence the whole ‘being weirdly nice to me’ thing. They’re just like Illumisia; they want something from me, and while they can get that thing, they’ll keep me around. But the second I’m not useful, or I stop being able to give them what they want, they don’t have a reason for me to exist.”
Pearl purses her lips and looks down at her feet. “Shelby… Illumisia doesn’t think of you like that.”
I snort out a quick laugh. “That’s news to me.”
“No, really. She might not… show that she likes you, but I know that she does. She wouldn’t be doing everything that she is if she didn’t.” Pearl insists. “I’ve known her for a really, really long time. I’ve seen what she does with people she doesn’t like.”
“But she can’t do that to me. Not while I’m helping her most precious person.” I gently tap Pearl’s shell twice. “She saw that me dying didn’t free you from being a quest item. It’s the only reason she brought me back. Otherwise she would’ve just let me die.”
“Shelby… no… Illumisia wouldn’t do that.”
Wouldn’t she? A frown etches itself onto my lips as I shake my head and try to put all thoughts of Illumisia out of my head. She’s helping me for selfish reasons, and I’m accepting that help for selfish reasons. It all cancels out in the end, and as long as I have Pearl, our arrangement continues. Whenever Pearl gets free, though, I know Illumisia won’t want anything to do with me.
“Enough about that.” I say before Pearl can say anything else. “Noland and Ursula. They’re both Worth classes, but they didn’t feel like the superhumans I thought they’d be. I guess that proves how screwed over we get by the system.”
Pearl looks like she’s going to hold onto the Illumisia conversation for a few short seconds, but with a sigh, she moves on to the topic I forced onto her.
“Not getting immediate benefits from your stats is an impossible gap to bridge. When I saw your biology, I saw how long it takes you to naturally gain muscle. It’s… a long time. Long enough that you wouldn’t be able to gain the effects of one Body point before you get another.” She flexes her arm, then pumps a little goo into it to resemble a bicep. “Then there’s the biggest issue of all; your bodies aren’t made to get as strong as the system can magically make the other classes.”
She raises her other arm and pumps at least ten times more goo into it. The result is a tumorous mass of faux-muscle that neither looks comfortable nor usable. It gets her point across loud and clear. But it highlights one particularly strange thing about my two new acquaintances.
“Does that mean Noland and Ursula aren’t even trying to use their Body points?” I wonder aloud as I squeeze my bicep with one hand. “I think my arms are already bigger than Noland’s, and even though Ursula’s ripped as hell, she still doesn't look superhuman. Either they’ve found some way to cheat the Body requirements, or they abandoned the stat once they realized how much work they’d have to put in.”
“Hopefully it’s the first option.” Pearl giggles. “And even if it isn’t, then you don’t have to worry about putting any points into Body anymore! That’s an okay consolation prize. …Well, it’s a really bad consolation prize. …Okay, it isn’t even a prize considering how buying stat points works. So, um, now I really hope it’s the first option.”
The elevator dings as it reaches our floor. I bend down to grab my bags as the door hisses open, revealing a single hallway that ends in a door on both ends.
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“I hope it’s option number one, too.” I whisper under my breath. “Or else there’s no point in trying to keep up with the non-Worths.”
Pearl hums in agreement as I walk up to the door, let the bags dangle off my shoulders, and press my card against the electronic lock. It lets out a buzzer noise like I just said a wrong answer on a game show, and a giant set of holographic red letters spell out the word ‘occupied’ right in front of my face.
“Wow, I can’t imagine anything more subtle than that.” I shake my head with a little laugh and turn to try out the other lock. “What do you think the chances are that this one’s occupied, too?”
“A hundred percent.” Pearl informs me matter-of-factly. “If this is a penthouse, then everyone would want to stay here. It’s only logical for whoever came first to claim the best place to stay if that’s the only way we’re judging who gets what.”
“Hey, maybe you’re wrong.” I say and hold my card up to the new lock. “There’s always a chance someone–”
OCCUPIED.
Alright, maybe there isn’t a chance. I figured maybe everyone wanted to live on the beach, so there was a chance the penthouse would be vacant, but there’s also the simple fact that people don’t live in tall buildings any more. So if beach houses are choice number one, then all the apartments on higher floors would be choice number two. And the penthouse was probably choice number zero. Occupied by someone else with a Worth class if I had to guess.
I sigh and pocket the card, then make my way back to the elevator. A shadow passes by the door as I turn away, mostly obscured by frosted glass and a sheen of magic. It stares at me through the door for a few seconds, then disappears before I can round the corner to the elevator.
“Who was that?” Pearl wonders as I press the ‘down’ button. “I couldn’t feel any magic through the door at all.”
“Probably someone powerful hiding themselves.” I step into the elevator and press the floor one below the penthouse. “Or the Architect made this place so people actually have privacy in their rooms. That’s what I’d do if I was in charge of making this place.”
Pearl doesn’t seem convinced. She narrows her eyes in the direction of the penthouse as the door slips closed, then lets out a frustrated little hum.
“No, I can feel magic from a bunch of the other rooms. So unless the penthouse is the only one with privacy, that’s not it. Do you think there’s someone here who’s as powerful as the Horizonguard? Or… Illumisia?”
Pearl basically whispers Illumisia’s name, as if insinuating someone could be as powerful as her is some kind of taboo. I want to dissuade her worries, but after seeing that massive mech and the two freakishly powerful people with it… if the Preservation has people that powerful, I wouldn’t put it past the resort to have similar living weapons.
“I hope not.” I chuckle worriedly as the elevator quickly reaches its destination. “Actually… do I hope there is? The Preservation is definitely my enemy now, so shouldn’t I want an ally that’s strong enough to take them on?”
“Yes. You should.” Pearl says without hesitation. “Having strong allies is the difference between fighting a losing war and a winning one. But I guess I shouldn’t be talking, since I had a bunch of strong allies and ended up trapped as a quest item for reasons I can’t remember.”
She shakes her head with a melancholic sigh of remembrance. “Nevermind. Let’s just find a room and hunker down. I’m not ready to fight a war again any time soon.”
“And I’m not a warrior.” I agree and walk up to the first door in a long hallway of doors. “If we’re lucky, we won’t get sucked into all of this. We’ll just… live normally, I guess.”
“Normally. Yeah.” Pearl says reluctantly. “I hope normal isn’t as boring as this place looks.”
----------------------------------------
The next morning comes way too easily. I roll out of a bed made up with colourful pink and orange sheets, throw them off of me, and zip open a duffel bag to rummage around for some clean-ish clothes. After a few minutes of sorting clothes into wearable and needing to be washed, I set aside a simple pair of faded jeans, a t-shirt from some local band that was promoting their stuff a while back, and a pair of black flip-flops that came with the room. Then I hop into a quick shower to clean off all yesterday’s exertion, towel off, and dry my hair with a hairdryer that must be nuclear powered for how intense and efficient it is.
After I throw on my pre-chosen outfit, all the other clothes go into a bright orange clothes bin with my room number on it which is apparently taken every Friday night to be cleaned. I don’t have anything expensive or delicate enough to need specific instructions, so I just heft the pile into the bun and forget about it for now. Pearl’s soft sleeping breaths serenade me as I grab some fruit and some kind of granola bar wrapped in plain brown packaging with the words ‘protein bar’ written on it in pink marker. A few lighting bolts and stars surround it in yellow, making the hand-made nature of it all the more obvious.
I rip open the waxy paper and take a big bite out of the bar as I bend down to take a water bottle out of the fridge. A flavourless mass fills my mouth, but it gives off enough magic to make me think twice about spitting it out. I tuck the water bottle under my arm and flip the bar’s packaging around, only to come face to face with a simple warning.
“For quelling hunger, delivering nutrients, and magical restoration. Not for pleasure.” I read out loud, then take another bite. “Huh. Just like my meal replacement potion.”
By the time I finish the bar, the elevator door is sliding open to reveal the lobby for the first time today. I lick my fingers as I walk out and glance up at the clock, nod to myself, and offer a two-fingered wave at the person working the front desk. They wave back at me with a wide smile, but… there’s something weird about them. A chunk of white stone covers their left eye up to their forehead, painted to look like a closed eye. That’s when it hits me; they’re wearing a mask. One that the person yesterday definitely wasn’t wearing.
“Gambler! You’re a little early.” Ursula calls from across the lobby. “Banker’s already waiting in the meeting room. Follow me and we’ll get started.”
She gestures at the glass door right next to her, and opens it for me when I get close enough. A cool draft flows through the open door, gently prodding at my skin with tendrils of unknown magic as I step through. Ursula pulls the door shut behind her, then nods at me to start walking.
“So you’ve probably got a lot of questions. That’s definitely expected, and you already know why we can’t answer all of them. There’s also the issue of how much of our skills we can explain to you. You’ve got clearance five now, right?”
“Yeah.” I confirm. “Got it a few minutes before I got pulled back to Earth.”
“Cutting it really close, huh? Man, I remember struggling with my own requirements; two weeks, a thousand Worth, and I somehow had to find my way to a spot far away from where the system spawned me.” She chuckles and shakes her head. “Looking back I still don’t really know how I managed to survive.”
I raise an eyebrow and glance over at the side of her face. “You had the exact same requirements as I did?”
“Everyone except the first batch did.” She confirms. “And the Merchant’s the only Worth class we know from the first batch. He got a real tutorial, but the system decided to try and get rid of him in some pretty heinous ways. Ways we now know how to avoid thanks to him struggling through them.”
“Huh. I’ll have to ask him about that next time I meet him.” I muse as the magic in the hallway intensifies, and the floor seems to slope sharply downward. “Are we going underground?”
Ursula frowns at me and crosses her arms. “Yeah. You already met the Merchant? How?”
“His shop showed up when I cleared my first threshold.” I say with a shrug. “Nothing impressive or important. Just… lucky, I guess.”
I keep the part about him promising to show up at every multiple of ten thresholds to myself. They’ve talked about Gil like he’s their friend so far, but I haven’t seen anything to prove that. Don’t want to put myself in any more danger than I’m already in.
“The system probably thought he’d screw you over. Looks like that didn’t happen.” Ursula chuckles brightly and lets her arms fall to her sides. “Merchant doesn’t have a lot of love for non-Worth classes, but he treats his own really well. It makes it hard to work with him since we’re not all Worth classes here, but if one of us Worth classes specifically needs something, he’s the guy to go to. We’re here.”
She holds out a hand for me to stop. I skid to a halt just before she can touch me, then look around at the walls. I’ve seen too many false walls to be surprised by her statement, and from the slightly disappointed look on her face, it looks like she was waiting for that surprise.
“Don’t stop on my watch. Go ahead.” I gesture at the wall with a small smirk creeping up my lips. “Aren’t you going to open the wall?”