After the battle Gmol rolled or slimed or shimmied or whatever you want to call a sentient slime mold creature’s non-bipedal movement over all of the Slenders. A tiny sprout of plant-like matter sprung from each of them, wavering in the mild breeze. After each Gmol let out a small noise best classified as “relief.”
The group was nearly finished packing when Boyd asked, “How come I got 160 experience? I didn’t even do anything. Also what is Experience?”
“Experience is shared party-wide. While you would’ve received hundreds of experience for killing any of those Slender Nomads yourself, you would certainly have died. Because Gmol is Rank 1,436 none of us will get more than 1 experience point for anything we do or kill for a very long time if the entire party is present, as experience points are calculated off the highest ranking member of the party.”
“Wait, so if I can kill one by myself I’d get a bunch more experience? Can if I go off and do something on my own to try and catch up then?”
All four party members spoke simultaneously.
“Dead.”
“You’ll die.”
Gmol’s rune on his stomach transformed into a skull and crossbones.
“I will finally feast on your corpse when I hunt it down.”
Boyd looked sheepishly at the group. Jellybean Jenkins was using his extremely thin bone that he had pulled from a Slender Nomad as a toothpick. He still looked hungry.
Sensing the tension, the VMR’s head unit lit up and Salia asked, “What’d you get? It’s been so long since I was able to level up I forget what it’s like.”
SYSTEM: You have reached Rank 2.
You can allocate 1 new attribute point!
You can allocate 1 new Qi ability
You have no Qi abilities to allocate as no Deity has accepted your worship.
Your unarmed strikes are now empowered by (Unassigned) and may grant special abilities.
You have no Deity, this ability is not active.
You have reached Rank 3.
You can allocate 1 new attribute point!
Your connection with your Deity (Unassigned) has given you a supernatural instinct about danger. You will sense dangerous enemies much further away now.
You have no Deity, this ability is not active.
You have gained access to Lifetap. You may sacrifice your Life for Mana on a 1:1 basis.
You have gained access to Manatap. You may sacrifice your Mana for Life on a 1:1 basis.
“It says a bunch of stuff about all these things I got, but it always says I don’t have a Deity? That’s wrong cause I still got Jesus. The lady in my head who made me be a Monk told me Jesus couldn’t help here though cause we was in Space and he’s from Earth. I did get the two attribute points though.”
Salia tossed her pack to Boyd, “Stick those attribute points in Strength and get to carrying then. We need to get moving.”
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Fleon held a hand up, “Wait a second, who is this lady in your head you mention.”
“Ah, you know, when I got transported here from Oklahoma by whatever you guys fucked up with your magic gizmos, I met this lady and she said I was supposed to help her, but I had to be a Monk because I couldn’t do explosives if I wanted to chase pussy still and I couldn’t be an Unholy Demon thing because it would make Fleon mad. I didn’t understand at the time, but I get it now. He’d a been real pissed I bet.”
The other four Combatants looked at each other.
Salia started to say, “You met...” but was halted by Gmol who began flashing symbols in his stomach rapidly. Salia stopped talking.
Boyd watched the images and somehow intuitively knew what they meant. “Yea, so she looked like a World War 2 nurse, I don’t know if ya’ll got that here or not, but yea, she was dressed like that. Her name was Zina and she did my Assignment, but she said I failed at it, and then I met ya’ll. She was helpful and said she gave me some real good stuff called Inherent Abilities but I think I fucked up on the Assignment itself ‘cause she was pretty angry at me by the end of things.”
The other four Combatants again looked at each other. Fleon said, “These abilities you were granted. Can you explain them to us? We have access to your stats, but your Inherent Abilities are hidden from us. Is that what she called them? Inherent Abilities?”
“Yea, that’s right! Inherent Abilities. I got this one says ‘Agent of Chaos’ and it means I am unpredictable. That’s true. Hell even I don’t know what I am gonna do next usually. This other one says Uncultured Swine, which is sort of shitty I thought, and it says I don’t have any friends and whenever I critically fail I do a critical success instead whatever that means, and the last one says Unexposed and it means I got real good Mana here on Zenith and when I cast Zenith spells its easier and costs less Mana, but also I am apparently too dumb to know spells so it’s kinda pointless. Anyway…”
Gmol flashed golden almost immediately and turned towards Boyd. A pillar of light erupted from him and headed straight for Boyd. Unsure of what was happening, he stood still. The next thing he knew he was on the ground and Fleon was on top of him. Boyd was suddenly surrounded by a golden bubble that he couldn’t leave, nor could he hear anything going on outside. The golden pillar of light from Gmol was now travelling into the distance. Everything it had touched was burnt to a crisp.
Jellybean Jenkins sprung towards their location and grabbed Fleon by the back of his armor then threw him about thirty feet away where he went tumbling through the grass. Jellybean Jenkins lifted a clawed hand and slashed with intention at Boyd’s throat, but his hand bounced harmlessly off the bubble. The next thing Boyd knew he was flying high into the air. Salia’s VMR had grabbed him in her talons and was on a trajectory that Boyd could only classify as “up”, which promptly changed into “down.” As he hurtled toward Zenith, he realized he was very unsure of why his fellow Combatants were clearly trying to kill him, but realizing he was definitely going to die, he also realized the first question didn’t matter.
Instead of going kersplat, he tried to do a tuck and roll and bounced harmlessly off the ground [Uncultured Swine activated], which he realized made no sense, but attributed to his magical bubble. Jellybean and Fleon were grappling one another while Salia was now futilely stabbing at Boyd’s bubble with a sleek metal sword she had produced from a cavity in her back. Gmol was firing pillars of golden fire at Fleon while Jellybean Jenkins slashed at him from what seemed like an infinite number of angles at the same time. Jellybean Jenkins made a critical misstep at one point trying to dodge one of Gmol’s fiery death beams, and Fleon promptly lopped his right leg off at the knee with his sword. Jellybean Jenkins howled in pain as Fleon charged at Salia. Gmol had disappeared into the ground, but had almost instantly reappeared next to Jellybean Jenkins. He sprayed a green fluid onto Jellybean Jenkin’s leg and it began to grow back rapidly while Jellybean Jenkins snarled and gnashed his teeth.
Salia’s VMR dodged a series of blows from Fleon before firing what appeared to be a cannonball from her right hand into his chest. Fleon doubled over and sent him flying backwards before Salia’s feet turned bright red as she accelerated at max speed towards him with the intention of burying her sword in the top of his head. Before she could get there a lightning bolt struck between them knocking everyone to their knees.
Gmolgmol Gmolgmolgmol expanded himself to ten times his normal volume. The rune on his chest shifted to a form that meant “Stop.” As he slowly deflated everyone stood up, except for Jellybean Jenkins whose leg was still healing.
Boyd, very confused, was still inside the bubble. It was quite suffocating, and he could barely hear what was being said. After a solid ten minutes of arguing that he thought was going to come back to blows, Fleon made a motion like he was flicking a pest and the bubble fell from around Boyd. Boyd slipped as it happened and fell to the ground.
Fleon walked over and extended a hand to pick Boyd up. “The good news is that we’ve come to an agreement about you. The bad news is that you still might not like it.”