Ch 3 Bus Stop

I blinked back into awareness. Slumped over the computer desk the keyboard shoved to the side. What had I been doing? I stare at my hand. Thinking hard. My brain is a fog, slow to clear. I rub my face. Is my skin so soft? It comes to me. Because scrubbing yourself leaves your skin without a layer of dead cells. The pristine had taken a layer of skin off I hadn't been aware of. I rub my forearm. My skin didn’t feel raw like scrubbing would have done so that's something. Had the grime evaporated here too? I take my shirt off, yup nothing there. I glance around, only light coming from the screen. What time is it? I check it. Nearly 1am. It was close to 4pm so nine hours of sleep? I don’t feel exhausted. In fact, I feel like I just got the best sleep of my life, hell. There’s no fatigue, no weight dragging me down. I suppose one of my skills is working appropriately.

I get up to flip on a light. Checking my phone there's no messages. Of course, no one wants to talk to me when the world has changed. My parents aren’t that old, being late 60’s, but they’re pretty set in their ways, all these new-fangled dungeons are going to be ignored unless they have to deal with it. I rummage around the kitchen looking for something to eat, bread still seems good only a couple days past expiration. Jar of peanut butter is always good. Even have some jelly. After making myself a couple of sandwiches I go back to my desk.

Pulling up local news site again, I begin to skim through any articles that pop out at me. As I munch away, I'm thinking. Do I even need to fight, or can I just make a living by selling to the store? Or do I need to fight to level up? How does experience work? How many credits does it take to buy a skill? My eyes rove through the articles.

“Dungeons appear throughout the continents, cataloguing where they appear seems to be in more populated locations confirmed locations are New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Pheonix and Dallas”

“People entering dungeons to fight monsters withing state that they are given rewards to use in the System store, credits seem the most common. Various number of monsters depending on amount of people entering at once.”

“Government officials attempting to ban entering a dungeon overruled stating that military power will need to be increased due to the populace increase of power.”

“Military setting up stations surrounding dungeons to regulate those entering to be of age and semi-prepared to enter dungeon. Information being gathered on each monster within given freely.”

Well, that’s something at least. There's a few here in the states. People are likely to flock to Dallas now. I probably won't even get a chance to go into a dungeon now. It's not like I have a giant sword somewhere to kill things with. I have a k-bar for self-defense, living in a crappy neighborhood does that. I keep it near my bed, so I'm always prepared if someone was to break in. Hasn’t happened yet in the three years I've been in this apartment though. Maybe I should get a bat? A nice heavy wooden one? They can take some punishment, and goblin skulls likely are softer than a baseball. I’ll have to think about it more later.

Leaving that train of thought I go back to my sheets of paper, wondering how to get a stencil of pristine onto the ring still on my pinky. Or my shirt. Or literally anything in my apartment. I look down and realize I'm still wearing my interview clothes and go change into some lounge wear. Pausing, I start digging through my closet. If I remember right, I have that cheap off the rack suit that doesn’t fit well, but if I auto size it? Pulling it out the jacket is a little rumpled and the pants are very rumpled. Laying them on the coffee table next to my desk I sit and scribble an auto size. I get the jacket and pants on as best I can, jacket strains a little and my chest and the pants are more than a bit tight. Laying the auto size on the jacket I wait a moment. The jacket starts to shift and settles around me much better. I glanced down, the pants weren’t sized yet. Maybe it needs another minute? I wait a few moments more. Nothing happens. Shit, that means one enchant per piece. I scribble out another auto size to lay on the pants. After waiting they seemed to stretch to fit my longer legs and wider stomach. I got to the mirror in my bedroom too. The suit looks almost tailored. Having a thought, I grabbed another sheet of paper and put down a pristine and laid that on the jacket. It doesn’t seem that anything comes off it, but the jacket looks less rumpled and closer to brand new. No wait. Not when I bought it but newly made. Huh, who would have thought. It really is in pristine condition. Changing into loungewear and hanging the suit up properly, I go back to my computer. Searching through chat boards gives me a good deal more info than news did

“We went into the dungeon and found hellhounds! My friends were almost overwhelmed we had staffs made from dowels, so we took care of them! We made it into the fifth room, there was a boss! A greater hellhound! We left before the fight started and didn’t get anything but the credits, but we added it up and got almost 100 credits each!”

“Went into a dungeon alone, kill the spider in the first room, I noticed that I could feel mana! So, I practiced my skills for hours! I don’t know how long it took.”

“We found a System terminal! It was a freaking bus stop! We were kitted out going to the dungeon, but it was too far to walk with all the gear we bought, so goofing off we were swiping the air and calling shit at each other! You just have to face the back of the bay calling for the interface! We didn’t have any credits to spend but looking through shit we found you can buy skill points with credits! It costs 500,000 per skill point! Some of the store items cost trillions of credits! There was even a chat board, but it was blank!”

I stop and blink, a bus stop? Really? Glancing at the door. Sure, it was 1am, there were people outside, but the bust stop was half a block from me. Could I scribble out one of each and go sell them? Or wait until morning? People are probably going to be causing a ruckus since they don’t know how the world is changing. But I wanted to sell the enchantments as soon as I could. There's no telling if someone else picked it up as well. I scribble the two I have out on sperate sheets of paper.

Steeling myself I get some jeans on, after a moment I grab the kbar and a jacket, it might be a little warm out but hiding the knife means I won't be immediately targeted, but having it means I'll at least give the wandering locals a pause. This are usually covered by Mexican gangs with a silent war with the skinheads a few blocks down. As long as I don’t draw much attention to myself, I should be fine, hopefully. With luck. I'm likely screwed.

Stepping out of my apartment into the warm air locking my door seeing the mark still there, I give a brief thought to cleaning it. I brush it off too important right now. The kbar under my jacket isn't settling well but thankfully it has straps to sit across my back, it's awkward as hell but I could draw it if needed, I've never been out this late. Usually, I come home around midnight and straight into the apartment, its early 3am now. I picked up speed went to the bus stop. It barely takes a few minutes, but my hair is raised, and it seems too quiet. The streetlights make deep shadows in the alleys. Going to the back of the bay just as stated I mutter “interface” and oh look a screen comes into existence in my face.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Interface

Store

Message Board

Help Guide

There's a goddam help guide?! And no one said anything? Shit ok, I don’t have anything to do today for the next twelve hours, I should have brought a notebook. I shifted to the message board where there were a few posts.

I’m first to Post!

User:0089658143

Time:16.36 GMT

I can’t believe this is real!

User:0654565284

Time:16.37 GMT

I can't believe that’s what you started with!

User:0094682725

Time:16.38 GMT

Ok that was probably the group that first found the terminal. Looking at the user is I think is that out of people on the planet? I count the digits, yeah that’s enough to be a billion. Need to focus. I go back to the interface and select store page,

Buy

Sell

Well, that’s simple. I select buy. Need to see if anyone else has anything up yet.

Category

Items

Attributes

Skills

Skill Points

Credits

Currency

Can you buy and sell local currency? And credits? Does that mean you can exchange real money for System money? We might get into an economic crash after all, shit. Dammit. And attributes? Is that why we don’t start with any because we have to buy them? I select items

Item

Armor

Weapons

Potions

Enchantments

Tools

Transport

Clothes

Furniture

Technology

Food

Well, that’s a nice, neat list, can you buy food and clothes? That might solve world hunger after all, so an economic crash is bound to happen if someone can live off dungeons. And India's caste System seems done for. I select enchantments. Seeing if anyone else has put anything up.

Enchantment

Description

Cost

Big Dong!

Endow yourself for her pleasure! Or his!

13

Better snoz!

Enhance your smell to that of a dog!

7

Better eyes!

Enhance your sight to that of a hawk!

7

I shouldn’t be surprised that’s one of the first things someone put up. I'm really not. The better sight I can understand but a better nose? Maybe if they want to be a drug dog. What's with the prices? Are these permanent or temp? I couldn’t imagine having to adjust myself daily.

I backtrack to the sell page, selecting enchantments. get an input prompt from a window.

Enchantment

Description

Suggested Price

Your Price

5

Okay, so starting price for enchantments are 5 credits, but we can have mark up, that makes way more sense with the odd prices now when everything has been neatly fives

Enchantment

Description

Suggested Price

Your Price

Pristine

One-time use, to clean and freshen an object or person.

10

15

A little bit of mark up, need to make money somehow. I'm fairly certain I only get the markup and the System takes the suggested price as their cut. It would make sense as I only have to sell one to the System and not find my own buyers, still like that so much. Going back to the sell enchantment page.

Enchantment

Description

Suggested Price

Your Price

Auto Size

One time use, to auto fit any wearable object, must be able to fit at least partially.

10

15

Again, a little mark up. But if everyone is getting 100 credits in a dungeon, they should have some spare for convivence. Can credits be shared? The enchantments can be given to anyone if they want. Pristine can be used for armor to clean up after a dungeon, walking around the city covered in gore doesn’t seem like a good idea. Maybe I should set up a stall near the dungeon anyway. I scrolled back to the help guide. Hoping to see if I can find anything truly useful. Maybe I should look at tools first? Or armor? What would a ring count as? I can buy cheap plain rings but how can I enchant them? Can I make a permanent pristine and attach it to a ring and never have to shower again? It would certainly save water.

Looking through tools I find a tab for crafting.

Alchemy

Armor Smith

Blacksmith

Carpentry

Cobbler

Jewler

Leatherworker

Painter

enchanter

Sculptor

Mason

Weaponsmith

Weaver

Tailor

chef

brewer

baker

Carver

trainer

...

Selecting enchanter, I look at the window that pops up

Enchant Tools

Chisel

Gouge

Skiver knife

Pen

Veiner

Swivel knife

Welt knife

Paring knife

Channel knife

Okay I don't know what half of these are, chisel and pen I can understand. What the hell is a veiner? Selecting it seeing what pops up

Item

Description

Cost

Veiner

Similar to gouge but longer

2

Helpful that is not. At least it's cheap. Maybe I should look into running the dungeon after all. I get an eerie feeling. a few guys are hanging around the alley near the end of the block, its time I head back to the apartment, the help guide will have to wait. At least I sold the two I brought with me. Leaving the bus stop I hurry back to my apartment making sure I don’t look like I'm running that always makes you a target. Getting back, I shrug off the jacket a sweating in the 80 degrees its hot inside and out, I turn the ac down. Grabbing some water, I check my status. “status”

Name

Level

Experience Gain

Credits

Arthur Turner

0

1.2%

5

I have experience already? Can I get experience from crafting? Ok I add it up. One-tenth experience for every enchant and then one half creating one? Does that sound right? Maybe. Shit I can't do math. Why do I have credits? Someone already bought something? Shit wish I had stayed to look through more. I'll have to go back in the morning. I don’t feel at all tired so I might as well stay up and try to decide for more enchantments.