JESSIE : LEVEL 8
DAY 52 : D-DAY, THIRDWEEK, BOREAS, YEAR 1
OUTSET 9 : CAMP 2 : ADAPT
[ NEW COMMON CORE PASSIVE: GAS BREATHING — EFFECT 1: BREATHE COMFORTABLY IN ANY GAS AS THOUGH IT WERE NORMAL AIR — EFFECT 2: BREATH CAN NOW BE HELD IN ALL GAS WITH THE EASE OF NORMAL AIR — EFFECT 3: INCREASES PULMONARY FUNCTION BASED ON CONTROL S.T.A.T. RESTRICTION: ALL OTHER GAS OVER-TIME EFFECTS STILL APPLY — TILT SCALING: CONTROL ]
There was a pillar in the center of the square room. Directly above and to the left of it were pillar-shaped indents in the floor. A third diagonally-placed groove completed the square.
Jessica the Racist Human Stone Kicker tried moving the pillar into the left groove. But as soon as she did, it just slid right back to where it started.
The crowd jeered. “You don’t think we tried that?”
She then did the same thing, only in the other cardinal direction.
The crowd booed. “That too, you fat idiot!”
What a mean thing to say. The racist felt like she was gonna cry. In a bout of inspiration, she tried moving it diagonally from its origin point.
Sliding into place, the pillar sounded like the epicenter of a distinctly bitcrushed, extremely localized earthquake. The ground around the pillar trembled as it moved. A less intrusive rumble accompanied the pillar sinking into its new groove to reveal the treasure chest on top.
The crowd gasped.
Jessica opened the treasure chest.
The voice yelled in her ear again. “YOU GOT… 1 ATOMIC STONE!!!”
Appearing in her hand, the entire crowd ran screaming as soon as her skin made contact.
The Stone Kicker waved it around in placation, taking a step forward to assure them she’d never be anything but careful with such a volatile stone. But that’s as far as she got before she tripped over a pipe.
Immediately noticing the signature color of a clear moonlit sky, I let out a deep, well-rested groan as I roll over and check my system clock. I could’ve done that without rolling over. But I’m not exactly in bed to be efficient. Quite the opposite, in fact. And yet, it’s only been three hours since I went under. And now… Fuck, I’m not getting back to sleep, am I?
I couldn’t sleep last night either. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem one way or another. Not like I’ve got somewhere to be. No school, no job, no nothing. So who cares about sleep? Not me, normally. A lifetime of late-night-early-morning anime and gaming sessions on school nights can attest to that.
But maintaining a weird sleep schedule doesn’t quite work with the rest of a group that wants to move within an hour of whenever they all happen to wake up. ‘The Morning’, they call it.
When I complained about it yesterday, Ross met my bewildered indignation by accusing my diamond shoes of being too tight. Just because I bitched about not being able to sleep thanks to my new ‘respawn-skipping power’.
And now, here I am. No trace of any alleged ‘morning’ in sight. Yet, I’m fully awake. God damn it, I feel great. “Fuck my life…”
Mich lets out a groggy groan of his own. “Wha-” Then he catches sight of how clearly frustrated I am as I sit cross-legged in bed, cursing the time, fate, admins, Oneshot, and whatever else I can think to blame this on. After watching today’s episode of Jessie Kicks Herself For a While, Mich resolves to just get my attention and at least address what’s keeping him awake. “You really confronted all that trauma right away?” Or not.
I blink at that. Then I hold my breath to think it through for several minutes. Nope…No idea what the fuck he’s talking about. “Heh?”
Mich apparently can’t help hedging a bit at first even though he’s the one who brought it up. “Well…” But he soon gets past it. “When I arrived in Purgatory, I went through the whole character creation process. Afterwards, I got that Mod Stone I mentioned. And then people tried to rob me. And then they failed. And then I took a walk. And then, two days later, I got tired. And then I searched for civilization. And then I found it. And then I sat on a bench. And then I talked to Sennefer. And then, and only then, did everything hit me like a truck.”
He shivers despite both his comforter and air conditioning. “That was hard… Still is, in fact. Even if it does get easier with time. But you said you did it all up front as soon as you got to Purgatory?” Mich sighs at my lack of correction. “Look, I’m sorry for dumping a diatribe on you in the middle of the night. I guess if I boiled down all my confusion into a single question, it’d have to be this…”
Resting his chin on folded hands, Mich leans towards me across the giant-clover-filled gap between our beds. “How, precisely, did you manage to deal with it all so fast?” But he immediately waves his hands in negation. “No, no, that’s not right either… How to phrase this..? What was going through your head during all that?”
Shrugging, I explain the whole thing. Not like I was trying to hide any of this. So for what is nonetheless the first time, I begin to give voice to all my thoughts on the subject. Or at least the main points. What I can remember of them, anyway. Except it almost immediately devolves into stream-of-consciousness rambling. “But really, I just kind of collapsed on the ground as soon as I realized I didn’t have a timer. Well, I mean I did… And I was very conscious of the button that would kill me for good if I pressed it. But knowing what you said about intent and willpower and all that… Would it have even let me go?”
I look directly into Mich’s eyes for another objective second. “Actually, I think it would. For you? No. You would’ve been safe in my position. Same as most people, I bet.” I look down at my own open palms. “But for me? I think it would’ve kicked me out.” I grimace. “This… This game-” I wince.
I kinda felt like I’d be struck down by a divine retribution just for saying that. But no. Even the Admin called it that, didn’t she? And if even that was okay… Well, whatever. I continue speaking the same moment I stopped. “The Gamesphere has never worked for me the way it does for you guys. It doesn’t do what I want and I feel like I’m fighting it every step of the way. Especially now. I…”
I swallow nervously. “I wanna fix that though. I can take a Skill that lets me-” No. “Makes me assign callouts to every Skill I use. Well, not the Passives of course. Really just the Actions. And the Toggles. Blessings too…” I’m starting to get more than a little flustered, even with what might as well be infinite time between breaths to calm down. “I’m not asking for your permission or anything. But if you…”
I eye the other two party members asleep in their own separate beds. “If any of you guys would be really bothered by me yelling all my attacks by name as I do them… I think I can at least wait until we get to Central so you don’t have to deal with me doing that all the time.”
Mich just stares at me. “Well that got wildly off-topic very slowly. But this is clearly bothering you. If it’s truly what you want, the last thing I’d wish is for my own annoyance to stand in the way of your personal development. The same goes for Ross and Rachel.”
A half-groan-half-grunt can be heard from somewhere nearby. But there’s no movement.
Except from Mich, who shrugs uncomfortably before continuing. “I can’t guarantee everyone will be thrilled at the prospect of you screaming constantly in the middle of all our fights. But that’s what they are. fights. It’s inherently not something you do to make other people comfortable. And besides… This has something to do with your new Respawn-Skip Breathing, I take it?”
“Yeah. You saw me in that last fight, right? I just kept throwing out Skill after Skill after Skill nonstop until my MP was gone. The way it is now, if I even think of a Skill, The System seems to automatically interpret that as me wanting to use it. Like, I’m pretty sure the fact that I didn’t Dash just now is that Blessings don’t work in bed. The rest of it, I feel like I’m getting used to. I don’t know about you, but I just can’t purposely not think about stuff. I should know. I’ve tried. And not just for the last few days either. My entire life, overthinking has been kind of my thing.”
Mich perks up. “You’re getting better at this whole ‘speaking normally’ thing by the way.”
It’s hard not to do the same. “Seriously?”
He nods. “You barely even sounded like a chipmunk on cocaine at all just then.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
I mumble-grumble out a sarcastic acknowledgement. “Great, thanks.”
Mich chuckles at my clear discomfort over being complimented, no matter how backhandedly. “Look, kid. This whole time, I’ve never stopped telling you to do what you want. Good, bad or ugly, your path is your own. Even when we’re both steered wrong like with that whole Mod Stone thing.”
He shakes his head. “But misled or not, I’ve never been all that slow on the uptake. I’ve learned that any opinion I have will sway your choice one way or another. Usually towards whatever I don’t say. So this time, I don’t wanna say anything. Even more than I don’t wanna have to carry your ass all the way to Central if you’re too in your own head to ever fight again.”
I catch myself sulking by the end of his refusal. “I’ve basically spent the last two days just figuring this whole thing out to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“And how’s that working for you?”
“When you get down to it, it's all just math. T objective seconds is computed by two minus the number of seconds since I started inhaling or exhaling. R breaths per second is my current subjective breathing rate. And L breaths is my lung capacity, minus or plus depending on inhalation or exhalation, the air currently in my lungs. Then it’s just T times R over L to get X seconds per second.
Mich is cross-eyed at this point. “I… May or may not have followed all or any of that. But… ‘Seconds per second’?”
I nod. “Objective seconds per subjective second in this case.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to go for subjective seconds per objective second?”
I shrug. “If you like. I guess from your perspective, that makes more sense. Just do one over X if you want that value. But I think my way is better for me getting a handle on my new way of passing through time.”
“And how’s, um… THAT… Working for you?”
“Really well, actually. The slower I breathe, the slower time moves for me. Overall, it’s pretty great. Other than time speeding up on me when I breathe too fast, the only real downside is when I try to inhale in the middle of an exhale. At that point, I get this weird pulling feeling from my stomach and I just kind of lurch forward in time by however much of my breath was left when I reversed it.”
Mich nods along with the explanation. “Makes sense…”
“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
“Nope.”
After a few seconds more subjectively measured in minutes, I resolve to stop dancing around the issue and just address the elephant in the room already. “Did I ever mention what this whole Skill thing feels like for me?”
Mich shakes his head. “Doesn’t ring any particular bell. So what does ‘this whole Skill thing’ feel like for you?”
I take a deep breath. Then I remember how redundant that is and I try to breathe as real-time as possible. “It’s almost like every Skill I get is like a new limb… The non-Passive ones, anyway. Once I get an Action or Toggle, it’s just kind of there. All the time, right in the corner of my awareness, just waiting to be used. And then I get another. And another. And I just keep getting more limbs. Once I hit Level Four, I already felt like a spider.”
I grit my teeth. “Now, though? More like a centipede. I’ve been waiting on getting more Skills until I’m used to the ones I have. But I’m starting to get the feeling that won’t happen. Especially now. You know, surprising as it may be, I’m not very good at being a centipede. Or a spider, for that matter. It’s like all my new limbs keep tangling up in each other, and I’m always getting flustered and confused about which limb I’m using to do what at any given time.”
I hold my breath to center myself and revel a bit in the fact that I can do that now, before continuing right away. “But you know what? As bad as that is? I was handling it. Slowly but surely, I was getting better at coordinating and figuring out what to do and when. It also helps that the Speed STAT seems to affect speed of thought rather than just physical movement.”
What I fail to hold in is a sigh of resignation. “But now though? Now that I can slow or even pause time for myself? I have all the runway I’ll ever need to change my mind about anything before I do it. And I know what you’re thinking… Awesome, right? But here’s the thing. This dumbass System seems to be on a strictly first-thought-best-thought setting. The moment I think of what Skill to use, it locks me in and I can’t back out. Not even if I change my mind that very same instant.”
I kick up my black satiny covers. “If I revise my plan five times over several subjective minutes, five different Skills execute. Assuming their cooldowns are ready, anyway. And assuming I still have any MP or SP left from the fact that it just, keeps, fucking, happening. It’s really fucking with me, you know? No matter what I try… And yeah, I’ve only been trying for a few days now. But I can already tell… It’s pointless. So, I'll either have to learn to deal with this goddamned Skill lag thing, or get rid of it altogether. And I’ve only found one way to do that.”
Mich just sits there, absorbing my impassioned rant. “Sounds to me like this hard decision of yours might already be made.”
I chuckle derisively to myself, ignoring the sudden disjointed reality that comes from doing so. “You know..? The funny thing is, I know you’re playing me. But you’re right.” Which is why, right here, right now, before I can overthink myself out of it…
[ COMMON C.L.A.S.S. PASSIVE: ANIME / NAMED ATTACKS — EFFECT 1: ASSIGN A CALLOUT TO EACH NON-PASSIVE SKILL EFFECT 2: SPEAK THE CALLOUT TO USE THE SKILL — EFFECT 3: BONUS DAMAGE APPLIED BASED ON INTENSITY OF CALLOUT OVER 100% — STRENGTH SCALING: MATCHES THAT OF THE NAMED ATTACK — TILT SCALING: CONTROL — WARNING 1: ACTIONS OR TOGGLES MAY NO LONGER BE ACTIVATED IN ANY WAY OTHER THAN VERBAL — WARNING 2: EACH CALLOUT DEFAULTS TO ASSOCIATED SKILL NAME IF NOT OVERRIDDEN ]
And while I’m at it…
[ USE UNCOMMON MOD STONE ON COMMON CORE PASSIVE: GAS BREATHING? ]
[ COMMON CORE PASSIVE: GAS BREATHING — UNCOMMON MOD SET: PRECISION ]
In a wave of time-frozen nausea, I feel something inside me adjust. Despite it being my literal body and distinctly not a mechanical clock, I feel as though my gears are upgraded mid-tick. But almost as soon as it starts, the tick ends.
I’m distracted enough by the sensation that it takes me several subjective seconds to belatedly remember I was holding my breath. I ‘promptly’ let it go. I’m so distracted in fact, that I even forget that holding my breath is exactly what I need to be doing if I want to test whether my gamble paid off. But by the time I inhale fully again, I no longer need proof of any kind. It’s so easy now…
I feel like I’ve been breathing thin mountain air my whole life, and only just now went down to sea level. Granted, I’ve never experienced anything like that. But I’ve also never experienced anything like this. The closest was probably the Universal Constant Mod activation. But not even that made the sheer act of breathing feel so categorically different. I mean… Mission accomplished, right?
Not one to fully believe my own hunch after recent events, I hold my breath anyway. The difference is immediately obvious. During my conversation with that Admin, I got a pretty good handle on my limits. How it felt to hold my breath as long as I could. But I don’t even need a full subjective minute to declare overwhelming victory in my wager.
Despite the Mod being called ‘precision’, it’s as though my lungs are actually stronger now. And thanks to Gas Breathing’s default effects, the air itself is stronger too. It doesn’t just feel that way. The Skill makes it so. By the time I have to breathe again, I’m not the least bit surprised by easily shattering my personal record. Even without doing the math, I already know my payout is well and truly beyond what I wagered on the risk. Between the Skill and its Mod, did that shit just double my lung capacity or what?
Mich looks to the left. Then to the right. Then back over to me. “So didja do it?”
I look up at the night sky. Laying back on my equally black, equally satiny pillow, I relax into it for the first time in days. “Yeah… Yeah, I did.”
“You know, you’re really taking this all in stride.”
My face screws up at that. I more thought of myself as having fucked up just about every step of the way since I got here. “How so?”
“I mean you’re adapting so fast to all of this. I’m having my mind blown day in and day out by all aspects of this new reality. But you’re over here, experiencing all the same things. And while I’m left flabbergasted and barely functional until I understand it all, you just shrug at each new revelation. You either don’t blink, or just change your entire way of life and move on like it’s nothing.”
He pauses long enough to lay back down as well. “If I wasn’t there to see it for myself, I wouldn’t believe you were such a different person less than two months ago. I mean look at what just happened. Sure, you spent yesterday complaining incessantly about how your entire life was upended the day before. But since yesterday, you found a way to fix it all on your own. A weird way to be sure. But that just makes it all the more impressive.”
I just shrug. “I dunno… Like, you’ve played RPGs before, right? If your build has holes, you fill them. It’s just what you do. All the same logic applies here.”
“Is this really all a game to you?”
More and more every day. “Isn’t it though?”
“Not really. I mean it has all these mechanics, sure. But we can’t take our helmets off and exit the game. Or put down the controller. Hell, we can’t even log out. Because this isn’t a game. Not really. Not at all. This is our life now.”
“I know…”
“I know you know, that’s not the…” He sighs. “I dunno… Maybe it’s just a ‘youth’ thing?” From the vague sounds coming from his general direction, Mich seems to answer his own question by rolling over. And having gotten his answer, he asks another. “So, what now?”
“Now?” That’s actually a good question. But I don’t even need a subjective minute to remember why I brought up any of this in the first place, smoothly answering my own question like that was the plan all along. “Now, I guess, I assign words to all my Skills.”
“I see… You, uh, need help with that or..?”
I have to laugh at that. It does… Something. I put a stop to that as fast as I can before pretending not to have noticed anything wrong. “What? No, of course not.” Like I’d ever let him or anyone even near my attack name customization.
Mich sighs in relief. “Oh good.” He promptly falls back asleep.
After an extended silence, a familiar grumble can be heard coming from Rachel’s bed. “Oh my god, finally…”
That, followed by an ascenting yawn from Ross. “Right?”
In the silence of the night, I do two things. First, I start assigning names to Skills. Second, I try as hard as I can not to think about how just that tiny bit of laughter affected me.