The group had made excellent time getting back to camp. It helped that they knew some sort of fire mage might be right on their heels. Nothing like a little roasty toasty action to get the motivation flowing.
They were confident they could handle any small scouting party Knox sent out, but they weren’t quite ready to engage in that just yet. The risk was too great.
They did, however, want to get this intel plopped into the base and start assessing the situation at Knox’s camp. Hopefully, Scout had a productive little adventure.
Seth immediately began uploading the data once they arrived back in the encampment, the others started quickly tending to their tasks. For a few of them, that meant skill upgrades.
Calvin perused the options available to him and this was going to be a tough decision. There were so many useful options, including a few movement skill options.
“Andy, are you able to help me choose a skill?” Calvin asked.
“Unfortunately, no. The choice is yours to make and I am not permitted to influence you in that decision. I can answer questions you may have about how a skill works.”
“Fair enough. How important is it to make the right choice? For example, if I choose something that benefits me best right now, but isn’t something that will be great in the long term, would that be unwise?”
“There are many answers to that question. Until your first class evolution, you will receive a skill choice every 5 levels. Once your class evolves, that changes to every 10 levels, however, the choices become more meaningful. In the early stages of your growth, immediate gains are the most important. After all, if you fail to survive, then future growth becomes a moot point. Be aware that many of the skills you employ now will be replaced completely by others in the future, as was the case with your Nanite Barrier. You will also obtain skills that simply fall out of usefulness. There will eventually be means to make use of those skills through other enhancement systems, so they won’t be entirely wasted.”
Andy pulled up Calvin’s skill screen and appeared to scan the options.
“The other part of that answer lies in skills such as those that evolve naturally. Those may have a reduced usefulness to you now, but they quickly grow in power and utility alongside you. This is one of the many trials of the system. You will need to weigh the risks and the rewards. Do you need immediate power at the cost of reduced growth or do you choose to invest in power, seeing exponential gains over time? Another factor is skills with synergy. It may be wise to look at how skills interact with each other, it’s possible that those synergies could become an important factor as more systems are revealed to you within the tutorial.”
Did Andy just give me a hint?
Calvin wanted to dive deeper into that little nugget, but he wasn’t sure exactly how the system enforced prohibitions on information sharing and didn’t want to get Andy in trouble with the big boss. For now, he would keep that in the back of his mind as he filtered through the options.
Calvin knew he was short on movement, which at an individual level was a weakness. He needed to be able to reposition and close the gap in encounters. Being able to dodge strikes would be great too, although he did have a rather handy defensive skill that let him tank those to a degree. If he looked at it from a group perspective though, everyone’s skills were there to shore up those weaknesses. While he knew that individual power would be important, he needed to make sure he synergized well with the group.
The list of skills at level 15 was quite extensive, many of the previous options from level 10 remained. He was about halfway through the list when something in particular caught his eye.
Riftwalk: The techlancer infuses a thrown spear with spatial attunement. The attuned weapon leaves a short-lived tear in the fabric of space as it travels. For a brief moment, the techlancer may traverse this rift, arriving at the weapon’s location. This skill is limited to weapons of the spear class and is not reliant upon a spear’s corporeal nature. This skill has a low MP cost and moderate recharge rate.
Calvin was almost sure now that the system was reading his mind. He looked at this skill through the lens of his conversation with Andy. This was immediate power now. It was a movement skill he so desperately needed and it sounded pretty damn good. It came with a pretty significant downside though; he would have to throw his weapon. His entire source of power was his utilization of that weapon. That’s where a hundred percent of his damage and defensive capabilities came from. His movement would come at a cost that could be extreme. Reading it over again, the last line was strange to him. What does it mean by ‘a spear’s corporeal nature’?
“Hey Andy. Could you help me understand what this means?” Calvin flashed up the skill prompt.
“Of course. The weapon you hold now is corporeal. It is a physical construct. It is also classified within the system as a ‘spear’. Many skills are only functional with the appropriate class of object, such as a shield skill, requiring an item classed as ‘shield’. A nanite construct would be incorporeal, such as your partner’s thrown dagger skill. That creates a nanite construct, classified as a ‘dagger’.”
“Ok, I get it. So I could eventually obtain a skill that creates incorporeal spears?”
“It’s possible if that’s the path you find yourself upon.”
Ahh, the wise monk routine.
“So, is this skill offensive in nature? Does the tear in space have any damaging components?”
“Seeing your skills as offensive or defensive is a reductive and limiting way to view your abilities. Skills can be used in many different ways. It is how you use them that defines their nature.”
Hearing Andy say it made it sound so obvious. He’d tried to view all of their skills as either offensive, defensive, or utility. But they weren’t labeled as such. Just like his spear, it could be offensive in its strikes, defensive through its blocks, and utilitarian through a number of means. He could skewer meat on it and cook it over the fire. Yum.
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Calvin was deep in thought, working over myriad possibilities with his current capabilities.
“Hey Cal, intel’s ready.” Seth informed him.
Calvin’s thought bubble popped and without hesitation, he selected Riftwalk and headed over to Seth.
“Alright, let’s see what Scout brought back for us.” Calvin said.
The group stood around as a large map of the area materialized in front of them. The section around their camp was very detailed. They could zoom in and enhance anything within the detailed region. Many groups of monsters had been identified and marked on the map, although this data was very out of date, so clearly they would have moved on by now. Having a network of these running at all times though would really beef up their knowledge of their surroundings. Calvin would ask Seth to work on that.
Further out, past a large blank rift in the map that denoted unmapped terrain, the details started up again. From the launch point, a straight line extended out for nearly 4 miles that revealing parts of the pond and the forest. The width of the trail was approximately 200 feet for most of the length, although in some areas that width shrunk considerably. Calvin guessed the drone’s altitude played into this.
At roughly 75% of Scout’s mapped region, walls sprang into view. They were crude walls, clearly constructed by hand. This was Knox’s base. The mapped area did not include the entire base, and zooming in revealed only a portion of a base rune off to one side. The rune was clearly much smaller than theirs.
So they haven’t upgraded their base yet. Calvin mused.
Enhancing their view, they could see numerous humans marked on the map, there were 9 within the camp and another 4 out further toward the end of Scout’s line. There were another 4 right at the edge of the pond as well. This were the group trying to take the drone down. There were also 2 marks on their side of the pond, right near the drone’s mapped region. They were hiding in a rocky outcrop, likely keeping tabs on Calvin’s group.
“Look at those assholes, trying to be sneaky. Someone forgot to tell them we have a robot wizard on our side” Marshall said, giving Seth a nudge, “This is good shit man. I knew you’d come in handy eventually.”
“How quickly can you make more of these?” Calvin asked.
“If I had the materials, one every 6 hours. I can probably cook up two more right now.” Seth said after a moment of thought.
“Ok, let’s get together in a bit and look through your fancy drone box. We might want to get some more of these. Any thoughts on increasing their range?”
“Nothing workable yet. We picked up something called primal essence a while back. That isn’t useful in this, but it did give me some ideas. If there are other forms of essence, with a more… energetic nature. I might be able to squeeze that into a rune like the one that keeps the drones here at base. We could set them up like recharge points. I tried recruiting Andy on that, but his system daddy said no. Actually… now that I think about it, you might be able to help, Cal.”
“Oh?” Calvin said, curious.
“You have your charge-up skill. Maybe we can turn that into a battery of sorts. It wouldn’t be long term, we’d have to recharge frequently, and I’d still have to find a way to store that energy reliably, but that’s something to explore.”
Calvin’s head was starting to hurt. For all of the hell the system brought down on them, the one thing it was supposed to let him escape was project management. Here he was though, managing multiple work streams under a tight deadline with impossible requirements and a lack of resources.
Ahh, this feels just like home. he thought with just a touch of resentment.
Amy and Calvin sat together over by the fire while the others went about their tasks. There were skills to acquire, things to build, and food to eat, there was still a busy day ahead of them. But taking a moment like this to just sit with Amy in silence and companionship… was just as important as all of those things. They sat together for nearly 15 minutes, listening to the crackle of the fire and the gentle lapping of the waves from the nearby lake. This place did have a quality about it that felt peaceful and calming… well… once you look past the violent monsters, jackass humans, maniacal system trials, and whatever other bullshit waited around the corner.
Their peace was soon interrupted.
Thwunk
Thwunk
The rhythmic thwunking sound was interlaced with the ringing sound of metal on wood. Calvin and Amy curiously looked at each other and moved to inspect the sound.
Sasha and Liam had been hard at work it seems.
They’d constructed a few log target dummies in an unoccupied area of the camp. As Calvin and Amy approached, they noticed the two methodically attacking the dummies, working on the coordination and timing of their attacks.
“Hey guys.” Calvin called out. “This is good thinking!”
Sasha was dripping with sweat as she put away her swords and headed over to Calvin.
“We figured we could use a training area to test out new skills and work on our tactics. It’s not much, and if we let one of you guys in here, it’ll probably need rebuilding in short order.”
“Ha, yeah don’t tell Ian about this place. I hadn’t thought of this. Maybe I’ll see if everyone can chip in later and we can get some upgrades in here. You’re right, this could be really useful. Speaking of skills, what did you get Liam?”
Liam gave Calvin a wide grin before drawing his bow and taking aim at the dummies. He drew the string and they could see energy flowing down his arm and into the arrow. Liam released the shot, which promptly split into three arrows, each hitting a different target.
“Well, isn’t that something!” Calvin said with genuine excitement.
“Yeah, I had a few really great choices. This is one of those evolving skills though, I can only imagine how it’s going to get better.”
15 minutes later everyone gathered around the fire for a well-deserved meal. Marshall was tending to the roasting meats while Calvin walked everyone through the plans.
“We’ve got a lot of stuff to get done in a short amount of time. Marshall, we’ll need you to re-up our supply of bandages, Seth, you’re on drone duty. After this, we can figure out which ones would be best for the next few days. Can you send Scout out around the camp tonight to refresh the map?”
Seth gave him a nod.
“Great. Amy, you and I can take Liam and Sasha out tomorrow, based on what the drone tells us, we’ll do some hunting in the area to gather supplies and extra materials. We need to try and come up with a shield for Sasha. Ian, can you stick around here while we’re gone and help guard the place?”
“Sounds good to me. I’d like to kick my feet up for a bit.” Ian said with a smirk.
“Alright, we’ve got our work cut out for us. We need to be ready to make a move on Knox fast. We need to get Lexie out of that situation as quickly as we can, and we don’t want to let Knox keep getting power and terrorizing people. Seth, get us a list of anything to keep an eye out for while we’re out. For now, I’m starving. Let’s stop distracting Marshall so he can focus on his work over there. At this rate, we’ll never get anything to eat.”
The food was out of this world. Their harvesting expedition had paid off in spades. Marshall had whipped up several different varieties of meat skewers, all seasoned with a wide variety of experimental herbs from around the camp. They were slowly building some go-to recipes. There were roasted roots somewhat resembling a parsnip but with a sweet flavor reminiscent of maple syrup. There was also a hodgepodge of roasted mushrooms which were far more delicious than any mushrooms they’d remembered eating on earth. Andy assured them they would be safe to eat, so they dug in with a hungry fervor.
During the meal, Marshall and Ian showed off their new skills. Marshall was over the moon with his new skill Bio-Mark. He would be able to mark an enemy and an ally. The marked enemy would take a moderate amount of damage over time, with a percentage of that damage healing the marked ally. He’d really wanted to get another damage-dealing skill and having one that healed his friends was a pretty sick bonus.
Ian, not to be outdone showed off his new Nanoweaver skill. This was an evolving skill, and seemed extremely powerful, although he hadn’t been able to test it out yet. It would allow him to weave two skills together, doubling their mana cost and recharge time while merging the effects of both. Andy had helped explain a few examples of weaved skills and Ian knew this was going to remain in his toolkit for a long, long time.