JESSIE : LEVEL 6
DAY 26 : B-DAY, FOURTHWEEK, AGNI, YEAR 1
NEW GAMESBERG 1 : MAINSTREET 1 : GRIEFER
Over half a week since Ross, Mich, and I left what I’ve taken to calling ‘ Pickledebt Farms’, we walk into another town. Although this one is less of a ‘town’, and more of a massive sprawling open-air mall. I even see those same franchises, including a few that I spotted in Pickledebt that weren’t in The Town of All Beginnings. And now that I think about it, vice-versa.
[ WELCOME TO NEW GAMESBERG ]
[ LEVEL UP! — LEVEL: +1=6 — SKILL POINTS: 2 — S.T.A.T. POINTS: STRENGTH=1 - TENACITY=1 - APTITUDE=1 - TILT=1 — NEXT LEVEL: 4,096 XP ]
The moment I see it, I stop in my tracks. “Hey, guys?”
Mich stops too.
Ross practically jumps out of his skin, glances around in a panic, and throws me an alarmed look. “What is it?”
I blink at the overreaction. “I… Just leveled up. So I was gonna stop and get some Skills real quick.”
Mich turns to face me. “Can this wait? I’m sure I speak for Ross and myself when I say we don’t want to stand here for an hour while you figure out all your allocations.”
Ross looks embarrassed at the misunderstanding we’re pointedly moving past, but nods along with Mich.
I can’t help it. I instantly sulk. “I’ve done nothing but think this over for like a week. And I’m making a build. Everything’s planned out, so just give me a sec and I’ll get it done as soon as I can move through the menus.”
Ross looks confusedly at Mich. “‘Build’? Do you know what she means?”
Mich’s reactively scrunched eyebrows are a match for my own. “You don’t? Haven’t you played any RPGs? Or heard people talk about them?”
“What? Like rocket launchers? Wait, you can get rocket launchers?”
Mich looks at me looking at him before we both look back at Ross, both in utter horror.
I’m the first to say something. “Oh my god…”
Mich somehow manages to eventually speak through his own shock. “We had no idea…”
I gulp. “Yeah… Okay… Yeah, okay, just gimme a minute here, and then we can go eat while me and Mich explain some essential stuff you should definitely know. Stuff like…” I gulp again. “Builds…”
Mich looks back and forth between us, nodding vigorously. Eventually, his focus settles on Ross. “Seriously man.”
Ross cocks his head, clearly not grasping how much he needs to know this. “Is it really that important? Why so suddenly? And also, why now?”
Mich and Ross both look at me.
Unfocusing my eyes from the menu, I train them on Mich. “You wanna cover the super-basics real quick? I’m kinda doing a thing here.” Focusing my eyes again, I blink away the resulting twinge of dizziness before finalizing my STATs.
[ S.T.A.T.S — STRENGTH: MAGICAL=16 - PHYSICAL=25 — TENACITY: DEFENSE=16 - SPEED=25 — APTITUDE: MANA=18 - STAMINA=23 — TILT: CONTROL=25 - LUCK=16 ]
[ MP: 384/432 ]
Now let’s see, where’s that Skill I’ve been eyeing… There.
[ COMMON C.L.A.S.S. PASSIVE GAINED: ANIME / ELEMENTAL BREATHING — EFFECT: YOUR BREATHING PATTERN IS ALTERED ACCORDING TO YOUR ATTUNEMENT. YOUR SWORD STRIKES GAIN ADDITIONAL DAMAGE AND EFFECTS ACCORDING TO THAT ELEMENT — STRENGTH SCALING: MAGICAL — WARNING: WITHOUT ATTUNEMENT, ELEMENT DEFAULTS TO JUICY ]
Something changes. That much is clear. But it isn’t immediately obvious what’s different. At least until I gulp a few times. Did it just get really humid? Isn’t humidity covered by Central Air? It should be, right?
I gulp again. But it doesn’t help. Why is my throat so wet? Oh fuck… The Juicy Kingdom… Juicy breathing… ‘Juicy’ is just mislabeled water, isn’t it? Well, double-fuck. So my throat is just wet now?
My heart drops as I realize the implications of what I just did. “Woah…” This is so fucking weird. I mean I guess it makes sense now that I think about it. But that does nothing to lessen my regret for confirming the choice I made last week. All in all, this has to be my quickest turnaround ever on buyer’s remorse.
Mich stops in the middle of explaining the concept of HP, seeming to take my ‘woah’ and uneven breathing as some kind of sign. “You done, then? Good timing, I could actually use some help with this one.”
Ross looks at me pleadingly. “So… Our entire stability here is based on these ‘health points’? That has so many spiritual and physiological implications that I think I really just need to talk through right now or I’m gonna have a panic attack.”
I raise a finger. Then I open my mouth. Then I think. Then my finger curls down. Then I unfocus my eyes again. “Nope. Sorry for interrupting.”
Mich then takes out a ripe tomato from his inventory, crushes it in his hand, and splatters the juice on me like a shotgun blast.
I have to focus so hard on not reacting in any way, that I don’t immediately snatch up the Uncommon Skill I’ve been eyeing. Instead, I catch onto something I didn’t notice. My total number of available Skills has more digits than before. But I’m not seeing any new ones in the list… So where’s that number coming from?
It takes a good bit of ignoring the two boys to realize the problem is the filters I put to only show CLASS Skills after the CRAFT ones kept getting in the way. Disabling that, I get a nice surprise. My Core Uncommons are back! That hasn’t happened since The Rosenhold Inn…
Wow, was that really only two Levels ago? And since then, I bought two CLASS Commons, an Uncommon, and a Rare… Not a Core Skill to be found. So why did it open those up for Uncommons? Actually… Huh. I feel like another puzzle piece just snapped into place for me with all this. But I need more data. Not getting any CRAFT skills though. If I’m right, that’ll be the whole point.
Although, I could maybe use something to widen the lip of a katana’s sheath and make it easier to slide in and out… But do I really need that? After all, I’m already getting pretty good at sheathing and unsheathing as it is. And if I get used to that sort of modification, I’ll be hopeless at using katanas without that crutch. Gotta keep the big picture in mind… So what’s a good Uncommon Core Skill?
[ UNCOMMON PASSIVE: XP SHARE — CONFIRM PURCHASE? ]
In a panic, I decline the prompt, admonishing myself for the slip-up. The near heart attack from the almost-accidental-purchase makes me realize the truth my subconscious already knew. Someday, I’m gonna be max-level. And XP is useless at max level, right? So this is the same problem as the sheath thing. Would it help me at the moment? Sure. But it’ll be useless later on. If I pick this now, I know I’ll hate myself then… With that, I keep reading through all my Uncommon Core options, looking for something with a bit more staying power.
But before I can read through them all, Mich gets close enough to where I can see his hand waving in front of my eyes through the menus.
I focus them once more on reality, where the others are just staring at me. “…Yes?”
Mich folds his arms. “Oh, don’t ‘…Yes?’ me. We’re nearly a half an hour into your ‘just a minute’. You done or what?”
That’s when I notice the clock. “Holy fuck. I really lost track of time there, didn’t I?”
“You don’t say…”
“Yeah… Sorry about that. I have more stuff available than I thought, so I wasn’t sure what to get. I’m still not. But I guess I’m done.”
Then, we move to literally any restaurant without ‘pickle’ in the name. By the time we sit down, our conversation encroaches on a topic both Ross and I are ignorant about.
I close my slackened jaw. “Hold on… You can wear clothes… And armor? Like, at the same time?”
Mich starts buttering some bread at me. “What? Of course you can.” Then, he drops the knife, seeming to notice for the first time that I’m not wearing anything under my incomplete armor.
I look down, relieved that my armor never broke. Which it apparently can. Mid-existential-nightmare, I glance back up at a loss. “Seriously? Did I really take off all my clothes… For nothing?”
Grumbling to himself, Ross clicks his tongue. “Shit…”
Mich squeezes the roll he didn’t finish buttering, and glares at Ross. “What’s that?”
“Nothing. I mean it’s just…” Ross seems to think better on elaborating. “Nothing.”
But I’m too deep in thought to pay much mind to hidden meanings behind anything so subtle as an avoidance of a topic. Instead, I remember back to three weeks ago. I was running through the woods… All my clothes got torn to shit. But how? Equipment doesn’t work like that, does it? The time my legs were crushed, I came back with no pants… Or shoes. I definitely had those before. But all my armor regenerated every time I died. And… I can’t believe I didn’t clock this, but I’m pretty sure it’s been slowly regrowing at full HP. I guess with so many new things, I just didn’t put it together.
Thinking back, the way my Total Defense changed after my arm got cut off that one time… If you just subtract the values from my gauntlet and cloak, that accounts for everything. So if they’re treated that differently by The System, then… “Are clothes… Environmental?” I don’t actually have to run around naked except for armor? People’s reactions to seeing me the last few weeks suddenly make a lot more sense. “Oh god…” I cup my mouth in my hands and muffle out a question. “Why didn’t either of you say anything?”
Mich holds his own hands up in surrender. “Don't look at me. The system auto-censors everything individually, based on cultural upbringing and comfort level. No matter how you dress, no one can see anything they don’t specifically want to be seeing. And I don’t… Want to…” Starting to sweat a bit now, Mich unconvincingly shrugs. “I thought you were just, you know… ‘Expressing yourself’. And it’s your right to. Far be it from me to police that. Especially where a teenage girl is concerned.”
Ross’s laugh sounds even more nervous than Mich looks. “Yeah… Expressing yourself. What he said. Far be it from me, er, us, to, um…” He gulps. “Police you on that…”
I narrow my eyes at them both. Kinda skeevy… But I guess I am the one dressed like this. I know what kind of body I gave myself. Can I really blame them for being gross? Yes… Yes, I can. But is it up to them to do something about it? On that note, I wolf down the rest of my food, groan to my feet, and transfer $2 to Mich. “For the grub.” At that, I promptly turn and march out of the building.
Mich calls after me. “Where are you off to all of a sudden?”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I neither turn my head nor break stride. “Shopping.”
Ross mopes in his seat, despite the free meal.
Mich turns to him. “Really man, why don’t you just go get laid?”
Ross brightens hopefully. “You think she’s willing?”
The last thing I hear before exiting the bistro is Mich smacking Ross upside the head.
Once back out in the main mall, I immediately realize my mistake. Where’s all the clothes stores? Wasn’t that over half of what they used to have in malls? Wait, does it even have a clothes store? I assumed it did, but that’s all it was. An assumption. Who would know the answer? Should I ask Mich? Now? After that? No, I’d rather just wander around until I find one. And so that’s exactly what I do.
A few mall-streets into my search, I spot a woman apparently looking for someone. Unlike mine, her hair is just the right shade to be accurately called a ‘ginger’.
Of course, that doesn’t mean we know each other. Nor does it mean that I have either a method, or any particular desire to help.
So I just watch as another, long-haired blonde woman freezes mid stride when their eyes meet.
Taking the blonde woman in, the panic practically emanating from the redhead is replaced with something far more hopeful. A tiny, hesitant relief that makes itself known more and more by the second. “It’s… It’s me, Rachel. Are you..?”
A torrent of emotion passes over the blonde woman’s face before settling into an unmistakable wash of pure relief. Almost robotically, she unfreezes, no longer walking the way she was, but instead tentatively reaching out to Rachel, arms wide for a hug.
Tears well up in Rachel’s eyes. Then she lurches, almost zombie-like, towards the blonde. By the time they crash together in an embrace, Rachel is openly sobbing into the blonde woman’s shoulder. “Oh thank god… Phoebe…”
She trembles in Rachel’s arms. But before long, the trembling transitions to shaking. And from shaking, to laughter. Through that laughter, she loudly proclaims her first word into the other woman’s ear. “Nope.”
Rachel stiffens. Her grip slackens. “W-What?”
The blonde reluctantly lets go. “Try to target me.”
“How do you target-oh…”
I do as well, a little embarrassed at having gotten so caught up with the drama between random strangers that I forgot that was a thing.
[ HERO TARGETED: URSULA ]
Rachel’s face reddens as she backs off from the woman who’d given her hope. “Then why would you..?”
Ursula smiles beatifically. “I just love hugs. Yours was wonderful by the way.”
“But why..? Why would you do this?”
“Because… I wanted a hug?”
Rachel pushes the other woman away. “Well, I retract it!”
Ursula barks out a different kind of laugh. “What?”
“That hug wasn’t meant for you. It’s not yours. I’m taking it back!”
“I see… Yeah… No, your hug had more feeling than your subsequent denial of it. Sorry.”
Rachel snarls. “I miss my wife, you bitch!”
Ursula sighs. “Excuses… Thank you for the hug, pretty lady. For what it's worth, I hope you find your wife. You really do love her. I can tell.” She turns and starts to walk away. “That was a good-ass hug.”
Oh fuck! This is my chance, isn’t it? Seeing where this is going, I line up my sheathed sword like a pool cue. This is the third time this week someone’s pulled this shit in front of me. The first time, it just pissed me off. After the second one, I came up with a way to reply. Just need a few seconds to aim…
Eyes practically boiling with hate, Rachel’s open palm alights before she throws the first honest-to-god fireball I’ve ever seen. Impressive as it looks, it also flies wide, looking to hit nothing but a mall directory.
But Ursula seems to see that too, deliberately stepping into the fireball with a very different smile than before. A red ‘45’ rises out of her as the explosion of flames quickly fizzles into nothing but a few stray burning 1’s rising up from the top of her head. Like the fireball itself, the hug-thief ignores it, grinning ear-to-ear before she closes the distance. With what I instantly recognize as a Dash, Ursula shoves her arm forward to impale Rachel on the three-pronged metal claw she definitely didn't have a moment ago.
[ COMMON ACTION: IAI QUICKDRAW ]
[ UNCOMMON ACTION: COUNTER SHEATHE ]
[ RARE TOGGLE ON: EXTEND-O-SWORD ]
[ POWER BLESSING: DASH ]
Between Ursula’s claws and Rachel’s throat appears an extremely long, mostly unsheathed, oddly wet katana. It nearly whips away its housing when the blade clangs against a gap between Ursula’s middle and rightmost claws. As soon as it does, the sword disappears.
At the same moment that water from the disappeared sword splashes her face, all of Ursula’s momentum vanishes. She looks confused. She clearly knows her attack landed. But Rachel just as clearly isn't dead. Ursula looks on in wonderment, surprised by the loud, wet clang behind her. But it’s already too late.
As soon as I resheathe my now permanently drenched sword, a red number rises from Ursula equal to six times the maximum damage of that claw attack she also clearly expected to kill Rachel. Ursula dies that same instant.
[ UNCOMMON DEFENDER REPARATION GAINED: MOD STONE ]
I just stare wide-eyed at the unmoving body now riddled with almost comically large puncture marks. ‘Almost’ only because of the partially disassembled human involved in the joke. I look from the mutilated corpse, to my sword. Then back to the body. My mouth drops open.
Rachel just stares horror-struck at me. “You… Killed her?”
I wince in an odd mix of triumphant embarrassment. “I… I guess..? I honestly didn’t expect it to do that much damage. Or kill her. Hell, I didn’t even expect it to work. That was my first try…”
Rachel seems lost in a daze at the sudden flipping of the status-quo. “Oh… Thank you?”
For my part, I’m lost for words on how to deal with this whole situation. I’m sure Rachel thinks I’m just as crazy as Ursula. But aren’t I? That asshole was just pissing me off so much I didn’t think beyond how to set up the shot. Still, I try to center myself and adopt a somewhat responsible tone. “Sorry, but… It’s Rachel, right? Do you know what just happened?”
Rachel glares bitterly down at Ursula’s body. “That horrible woman pretended to be my dead wife. But no… It’s the other way around, isn’t it? I’m the one who’s dead. And she’s… I saved her, didn’t I?” Rachel starts crying again. “Oh god… Phoebe’s really gone, isn’t she? No… I’m the one who’s gone… Aren't I..?”
I don’t know quite what to do with that. “So, yeah… Um… The thing is, a lot of people will want you to attack them so they can take your stuff. But if you can trick them into throwing the first punch, you can kill them instead and take their items. That’s pretty hard though. I only did it just now thanks to three separate Skills all working together in combination. But for you? Seems like what would’ve fucked with that Ursula bitch the most is…” I snap my fingers as I get an idea. “What if, the next time, you just thanked them for the public display of affection? And tell the asshole it truly meant a lot to you.”
Rachel just gapes uncomprehendingly at me. “Who the hell..? What are you saying..? Killing people..? The next time..? Why would I want to..? And… I mean, how would that even work? What if they reciprocate?”
“Then you did a good deed, I guess? But I've seen a lot of these fuckers running around pulling that shit. What pisses them off more than anything, seems to be the thought that their victim profited from an exchange that didn’t profit them.”
“So I should thank them for using the memory of the love of my life to screw with me? Isn't that just a lie?”
“Of course it is. What, do you owe these fuckwads the truth? Seems like whatever would make their day worse is exactly what you should do.”
Rachel blinks at that. “Oh. Yeah, I mean… I guess? Wait, let’s circle back for a sec. Who even are you?”
“I’m Jessie.”
“Hi, Jessie, I’m Rachel.”
“Sooo…” I start to scan the street, at the crowd of people all staring at the two living women standing over a dead one. “Yeah…” I look past them, to the various little shops lining either side of this mall’s street-equivalent. None of which are what I’m looking for. “Whelp…” I head in the direction I was walking when this all started. “Bye, Rachel. Good luck with… Stuff.”
Seeming to finally notice the crowd as well, Rachel calls after me in a badly disguised minor panic. “Hey wait, where are you going?”
I look back at her. “Shopping.”
“For what?”
Raising an eyebrow, I run my hands along my frame covered only by sporadic bits of mismatched armor. “Clothes..?”
Rachel seems disappointed for some reason. But apparently not disappointed enough. “Can I come with?”
I shrug in bewilderment that fails to overshadow my overwhelming desire to get away from the crowd. “I guess?”
A few hours and several sets of clothes later, Rachel and I meet up with Ross and Mich.
Mich contemplatively looks from one redhead to the other. “I see you’ve multiplied since you left us.”
Ross nods along. “I’m still rather new to this. Is there a Skill you can get for mitosis?”
I ignore the lame redhead jokes and gesture to the other woman whose hair is as different from mine as anything can be while still being derived from the same one of three primary colors. “This is Rachel. She’s coming with us, I guess.”
Rachel’s head snaps from the two strangers, back to me. “I am?”
I feel my stance stiffen. “Aren’t you? I mean you don’t have to. I just assumed…”
Rachel waves her arms in negation. “No, no! I’ll go too. Not like I have anything pleasant keeping me here. In fact, I’ll take literally the first excuse to leave. So where are we headed then?”
Mich chuckles. “Not like I have much ground to stand on saying ‘no’. Nor do I have a reason to. Nor will I. Nice to meet you, Rachel. Welcome to the team. To answer your question, we’re taking the roundabout path to Central.”
“Oooh, what’s Central? And, just to make sure I’m not signing up for something I shouldn’t, why are you going there?”
Mich points off past a far roof in this massive open-air mall of a town. “See that massive city sprawling just a bit above that store? That’s Central”
Rachel’s eyes boggle at it. “Oh, that? Of course, I’ve noticed it, but… It’s a city? How? It’s so huge! And what’re the rings for?”
I cock my head at that. “What rings?”
Rachel points to Central. “You don’t see the three concentric rings floating above that place?”
I examine our destination for the first time in at least half a week, to the bronze, silver, and gold rings respectively hovering at different elevations above and around the far-off metropolis. “Oh yeah, I forgot about those. Hey Mich, what's with the rings over Central?”
Mich squints over at them too. “Huh… Sorry, I’ve got nothing. How about you, Ross?”
Ross flinches back at the sudden attention from the three of us. “What? Don’t look at me. I’m supposed to be the clueless one here, remember?” He looks to Mich. Then me. And then Rachel. “Oh, um… Hi, by the way.”
Rachel smiles back. “Hi yourself.”
Mich claps his hands. “Great! Let’s get going, then.”
Ross breaks eye contact with Rachel to look in hesitantly alarmed anger at Mich. “Woah, woah, woah. Hold on, now. I thought we were gonna stay the night here.”
Mich deflates a bit. “Oh… Somehow, that entirely slipped my mind. I guess between the beds and the Central Air, I’m not really feeling the road-weariness. Alright. Meet back up in the morning, then?”
Rachel hedges. “I dunno, man… I kinda wanted to get out of here. Won’t we get in trouble?”
“Trouble? Trouble for what?”
“I mean… Murder? Last time I checked, that was a pretty serious crime.”
Ross grins wryly at her. “Have you checked since you got to Heaven?”
“N-no?”
“Well, you’ll be surprised to learn that a lot of things have changed since you died. That being one of them.”
“Wait, really? So we can just run around killing people with no consequences at all?”
“Seems that way, yeah.”
Mich jumps in to pump the breaks on the speeding train of insanity this conversation just turned into. “Now hold on just a goddamned second.” He glances over at me.
I nod in agreement. “Yyyeah… Let’s go through this whole thing one more time.”
And then we do.
But Ross seems confused about something. “It’s just… What did you say earlier? What’s ‘Central Air’?”
Rachel cocks her head. “Oh wait, Does that mean you have air conditioning?”
Ross gapes at Rachel in newfound understanding.
Mich and I look at each other.
Then, I beat him in looking back at the new converts while practically vibrating. “Holy fuck it’s the best Skill ever, get it now now NOW.”
Several minutes of ranting later, we all break off and go to sleep at an inn for a price that frankly, astonishes Rachel to the point of needing the night’s sleep just to come to terms with the economic disparity between her current life and the one she’s used to.
Meeting up the next morning, we exit the inn and make our way out of the mall-town alongside one more party member than we came in with. But on our way to the gates, Rachel and I spot someone we were hoping to avoid and see respectively.
Having spent the whole night hoping this would happen, I walk straight up to Ursula to give her a little warning. “Now then… You’re gonna stop pulling that shit. Right the fuck now. And forever. This is non-negotiable.”
Ursula’s expression goes through more variations than I can keep track of before she folds her arms with a scowl. “And what if I don’t want to?”
I don’t suppress a snarl. “Then I’ll come back here and make you.”
Ursula scoffs. “Oh? And how, pray tell, do you plan on doing that?”
I shrug. “Dunno. Haven’t really thought it through yet. Unless I get a better idea, I’ll probably just follow you around, countering you at every turn.”
“And what would that accomplish?”
“Same thing as yesterday, basically. Thanks for the Mod Stone by the way. It’s the first one I’ve gotten that wasn’t a Random.”
Ursula pales as her eyes unfocus, seeming to check her inventory. After several seconds of them darting up and down and back up again, she growls. “You bitch…”
I grin with no small amount of catharsis. “Oh good, so you do know how it feels… Now stop pulling that shit, or I’ll find out, come back, and kick your ass from here to bankruptcy.”
Then, ignoring a shotgunned myriad of racial, sexual, and even a few benign slurs, we leave.