JESSIE : LEVEL 9
DAY 96 : H-DAY, FOURTHWEEK, CALYPSO, YEAR 1
INTERIOR 5 : SAND DUNGEON 1 : FOOTPRINTS
Today’s the day. Finally, after far longer a delay than I’d like to admit, I’m entering my first solo dungeon since that skeletal cyclops dickhead well and truly fucked me up. So much so that I went from flush and just about to expand my build, to well and truly in Skill Point debt. All to cover for the weakness that thing exposed and make sure it never happens again. The entire Skill allocation I planned all the way to Level 20, is totally fucked now. And I’ve gone from pursuing this whole Time Breathing thing, to well and truly committed. Forever.
You can’t, and I mean absolutely can not, respec Core Skills. Which means that in literally any other path but the one I’m on now, I can no longer minmax. I will be forever restricted by all those wasted points. Achievements and levels are the only way to get them, after all. And sure, these early ones come fast and easy. But I know better than that.
I’ve gotten to max level on games and stuff. It always comes down to the tiniest of things in the end. Figuring out where to allocate that last limited resource to complete the build. So much potential at the start, all to be either realized or squandered with the turning of a single number. From the sounds of it, at Level 64 and Achievement Milestone 8, I’ll only ever have a maximum of 129 Skill Points to throw around.
And sure, that feels like a lot right now. But I know in the very core of my being the degree to which it won’t feel that way once I’ve spent 128. I’ll lament every last wasted Skill in the end. And even if I don’t go outside Core Passives, what I spent on breathing stability could’ve been used for any kind of Debuff Immunity I wanted. That alone is practically a fortune in regards to build potential, even without going into the Anime Skills I could’ve bought. Awareness at Common, Resistance at Uncommon, and Immunity at Rare. The pattern is constant across everything from ‘Stunned’ to ‘Paralyzed’ to ‘Frozen’ to any number of absurdly great things not to ever have to worry about. But now, not just one, but two of those are off the table.
I could’ve even gotten immunity to the bullshit vacuum debuff that stopped my breathing in the first place. Not that it wasn’t tempting. But that particular Debuff wasn’t the problem. I needed to address the illness, not the symptom. So I did. I even did it in the most efficient way I could think of. And now I breathe the same no matter what. Which is a nice convenience to be sure. And yes, my already ridiculous breath control got a massive upgrade. But that just leads back to the question. The one that’s haunted me all these weeks since I pulled the trigger. The one it all comes back to… Was it worth it?
I’d have Projected Slash right now if not for devoting that Rare Skill Slot to Debuff Breathing. Shit, I was even going to. But is what I can do now with my un-fucked-up-yet-still-profoundly-fucked-up breathing any better? Is it even close? Ignore the five other Skills I poured into this. Was it worth giving up just that single Rare one? And if it wasn’t? Well, I can think of a few resorts I could crash at for the next hundred years or so. Because I really might’ve fucked my chances with this. But did I?
I needed to know. I still need to know. And I need to know before I can bear to take another step down this path. Carrying the game metaphor forward, this is the point where I might just throw out my current character and start over. But I can’t. Not in terms of Core Skills, anyway.
So I practiced. And delayed the answer. And I practiced. And delayed the inevitable. And I practiced. And just can’t stand not knowing anymore. I’m as ready as I’m gonna be without the years and years of experience I wouldn’t have had with Projected Slash either.
And in order for it not to feel like a total waste, what I have now better blow that shit out of the water. That was the goal, anyway. But if I still can’t solo a single dungeon in the newbie zone… Then fuck it. Maybe I won’t check into a resort. Maybe I’ll just take the Admin’s deal if she’ll throw in a refund on all the Core Breathing Skills I bought just to make the apparently egregious Universal Constant Mod halfway usable.
I’m pretty confident she’ll acquiesce with how badly she wanted me not to keep this shitty time breathing power. Then I can just fucking take Santoryu already and wash my hands of it. No, it’s not shitty… I love it. But is it really worth the sacrifice? The instant respawning is amazing, sure. But it doesn’t exactly help in a competition where death means disqualification no matter how fast you come back.
And to be honest, I’d really rather not dive right off the deep end all alone. I’d really rather take a nice long detour through the Teamwork Kiddy Pool. But everyone else’s best combat Skills are basically AoE Projectiles at this point. Rachel has even bigger fireballs now… Mich has his Rapidfire Explosive Arrow thing… And Ross has that big projection of a T-Rex head that he likes to spam from just far enough away to still land without getting hit by the other two spamming their own projectiles.
But I don’t have a projectile to spam. Of course, I realize this is a major weakness. And I was going to address it with Projected Slash. I’m minmaxing Speed over here, so my Defense STAT isn’t high enough to be immune to friendly fire. And it never will be. Which is fine in the long run since all you need is 24 in either Strength STAT for that type of damage not to inflict Friendly Fire. None of my stuff could hit a teammate since Level Five. Which was months ago.
In that time, I’ve gained four more Levels and a full 16 times the XP it took to get that far in the first place. Surely at least one of the others must have either Physical or Magical Strength at 24, right? At least Rachel with her Magic focus? That’s to be expected, right? It’s what any sane person would do. I mean you only need to think about your future for like a second and that kind of early STAT distribution becomes obvious.
But no. As it turns out, not a single fucking one of my travel companions are focusing their power in any way. They’re just putting all their points into everything to keep all the numbers as close to each other as possible. Apparently, they’ll decide what to specialize in once everything is at 32 and they don’t have to worry about the opposite STAT being stuck at 15. So until then, they’re… Balanced. Despite the stopped time and therefore the impossibility of my stomach doing anything at all, I nonetheless taste quesadilla at that thought.
But their total lack of build planning isn’t just disgusting. It’s also frustrating. Especially when we’re in a team together and I can slice through their necks like I’m cutting their fucking heads off, without it even doing anything. Not that I like to go around swinging swords through people. Even in the rare cases when I get to troll another troll, I can think of a million more cathartic ideas than ‘just hit them’.
But that’s unfair. I know it is. They aren’t malicious when they accidentally hit me. That’s even what makes it an accident. It’s just that with my range limitations, it honestly makes them more a liability than a help right now. So here I am. All alone. If anyone’s getting in my way, it’ll be me.
I won’t though. I’ve made sure of it. I, am, ready. And willing. And not even putting this off at all. Not even a little bit. Zero bits. None. It’s with that in mind that I take several more objective minutes than necessary to dash through the singular narrow rhinestone-covered-to-the-point-of-looking-bedazzled dungeon corridor. All the way to the light at the end of the unnecessarily and unsatisfyingly shiny tunnel.
Vaulting out the exit, I manage a solid arc before I land, giving myself plenty of time to scope out… A beach. Only there’s no water. So it’s basically a desert. But it feels like a beach. The cool, salty breeze from the nonexistent sea caresses my skin. Between that and my Central Air, the result is… Just fantastic. Like what I might expect at one of those resorts I might not be skipping out on before too long.
But I’m saved from yet another mental spiral as I become aware that I’m not alone.
Except I am, most definitely, alone.
I walk around a while to confirm. And yep. I’m completely alone. But I’m not though. I know it. Deep down, I know there’s someone always with me. But none of my senses, including Radial Awareness, is picking up anything. I don’t get it. Itching to get on with this already, I yell into the fake blue sky. “WHAT DO YOU EVEN FUCKING DO HERE???”
No answer readily available, I walk around for a while more, albeit more grumblingly than before. I use that while to enjoy the unique combination of desert heat, sea breeze, and my Central Air skill. After that while, I get bored. So I start running. Faster. Soon, I’m just seeing how fast I can sprint through the gently rolling dunes. Unfortunately, there’s only so much you can do with such poor traction from the sand. Is there a Skill for that?
Looking through the Skill List I’d practically memorized by now, I eventually stop running and look back where I came from. I can just barely see the tunnel in a rocky outcropping a few miles away. Even at that distance, it’s unmistakable as the only thing in this whole place that isn’t more sand. There’s just one problem. It’s too close.
As little attention as I was paying to where I was going or how long I was going there, I definitely ran far enough with my minmaxed Speed STAT that the cave should be much, much further away. In fact, by now it should be completely invisible over the windswept desert encompassing all the space between here and there. That and the footprints. I can’t see the whole trail, but I can definitely make out the line of indents in the otherwise undisturbed sand, winding a receipt of my path back to the entrance.
There’s no two ways about it. There are too few footprints. I specifically remember cresting more dunes than what the receipt for my path is stretched across. Exacerbating my unease is the fact that this entire time, I’ve felt like I was being watched. No, it’s more than that. It’s like someone’s been breathing down my neck since I vaulted out of that tunnel. Taking in a deep breath, I tilt my head up and yell into the open sky once more. “SHOW YOURSELF, YOU CREEPY FUCKING SLEEZEBALL!!!”
Just after that, I can distinctly make out a raspy snickering coming from right behind my head.
Chills running up my spine, I freeze. Time. I freeze time. Then I take a few minutes to replace my stuttered cloying fear with pure, unadulterated anger. Just enough air seethes through my teeth to bend my thankfully sturdy spine just enough to look fully backwards. And then I see it. I see… Him.
The simple threadbare robe… The worn sandals… The long, disheveled hair. I know exactly what this is. I’ve seen plenty of them growing up. Even after The Collapse, they’re absolutely everywhere. Not quite as much as before, of course. The problem is getting better, not worse, as society recovers. By the time I died, I rarely saw them at all anymore. But I still did. I stole a coat from one what feels like five minutes ago.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
At the sight of the homeless man, only three words come to mind. “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!!” But by the time I finish my exclamation, he’s already zipped behind my back.
Holding my breath once more, I take half of another subjective minute to mentally recover from the jumpscare. Afterwards, I let out as little air as I can while turning my head hard enough to break my neck if it was the one I had on Earth. As it is, I still feel an alarming, albeit relatively harmless snap as I just barely catch a fleeting glimpse of the guy doing an admirable job of staying directly behind my head. Not that I want him to be doing that. But even I can admit when someone is proficient at something that pisses me off.
Which is why, admiration aside, I immediately move to kill the fucking creep by spinning in a circle with my sword outstretched. “DRAW!!!”
[ COMMON ACTION: IAI QUICKDRAW — INTENSITY: 102% ]
[ UNCOMMON ACTION: COUNTER SHEATHE — INTENSITY: 102% ]
[ RARE TOGGLE ON: EXTEND-O-SWORD — INTENSITY: 102% ]
[ COUNTER SHEATHE: CANCELED ]
But even with my sword fully extended, all I manage is a particularly angry twirl. I almost reach him a few times. But that’s effectively the same as not hitting him at all. It’s a timing problem, really.
The moment he repositions behind me, there’s a small window of opportunity where he can’t seem to move. But the window is so short that I’m pretty sure my perception of time is the only reason I notice it at all. Even with all my speed and power only reinforced by time passing as slow as I can manage, the window still elapses faster than I can spin. But then I get an idea. I have to pause time to do it, which resets my swing’s momentum. But that’s just fine.
Because when I unpause, my katana moves in the exact opposite direction as though my sword was suddenly stopped dead midway through the swing. Which it technically wasn’t. But close enough. That doesn’t hit him, of course. I went from chasing the edge of his shadow, to going more away from him than towards. But I’m just waiting for him to move again. When he does, I hold my breath.
Then I take all the time I can pulminarily manage to push and shove and force the katana with all my might continuously in the opposite direction. I start to feel lightheaded as I gradually, and then in a burst, swing my sword literally as hard as I ever have. Finally catching him stuck in his stupid short-ass window, I slice the hobo for the first time since I got here.
But that, apparently, is what he was waiting for. As soon as I do my first bit of damage, the homeless man changes. He’s still behind me. Only now with a knife. And, I have to imagine, without the beatific expression. But I don’t have time to actually look at him as Radial Awareness kindly informs me that it’s lunging straight for the small of my back.
Oh fuck it. This is too perfect. With that in mind, I slow time to a crawl, letting the knife’s edge get close. Closer. As close as I can afford before… “BAM!!!”
[ COMMON ACTION: AURA BURST — INTENSITY: 136% ]
Having gotten my Skill off just before the knife hit, I smile as the shockwave leaves my body just before it disappears with a grunt as I’m stabbed in the back anyway.
[ HP: 418/512 ]
[ IAI QUICKDRAW: CANCELED ]
What? Is it immune to Force Damage?
The instant I get stabbed, I try to jump away. But I can’t. I can make the jumping motion. It even feels like it works until… I just don’t go anywhere. In the time it takes me to realize that’s what’s happening, I get shanked again in the same spot before giving time a nice long pause to think this through.
[ HP: 324/512 ]
Taking inspiration from my anti-troll trolling method, I resheathe and angle my katana behind my back. With Near-frozen time and Radial Awareness as my guide, I line it up with the spot just in front of where I’ve been stabbed twice now. Then I sense the knife coming for a third hit. “DRAW!!!”
[ COMMON ACTION: IAI QUICKDRAW — INTENSITY: 127% ]
[ UNCOMMON ACTION: COUNTER SHEATHE — INTENSITY: 127% ]
[ RARE TOGGLE ON: EXTEND-O-SWORD — INTENSITY: 127% ]
With a metal clang, the edge of his knife hits the flat of my growing blade just as it’s about to throw off the sheathe. And then I’m standing exactly where I just was, holding the once again normal-sized sword halfway drawn. Between the identical landscape in all directions and the fact that my target is always behind me anyway, the feeling is disorienting to say the least. My bewilderment only lasts until Radial Awareness picks up a familiar knife lunging once more towards the small of my back. Getting my shit together, I slam the blade home.
[ COUNTER SHEATHE REFLECTED DAMAGE: 385 ]
[ IAI QUICKDRAW BONUS DAMAGE: 771 ]
My eyes widen at the damage numbers. I do the math in an objective instant. 94 damage from the knife, times 3 for the two Skills, times 2 for extend-o-sword, and then times 2.05 from the three 1.27 bonuses from Named Attacks. Yeah… That shit is fucking broken. My stomach unclenches as I realize just how handily this beats out Projected Slash.
As good as my damage was just then, it didn’t kill the spectral hobo. I know because of how I immediately sense the knife coming again. I still can’t move, so I surgically whip my sheathed katana back into that same position. “DRAW!!!”
And I do it again. And again. The smack of metal on metal sounds more than anything like angry clapping with trash can lids. Clapping interspersed with me seeing just how loudly I can yell ‘draw’ to get the best intensity bonus. Thanks to the enemy’s complete lack of variety in its angle of attack, the clap-yelling repeats over and over and over until something finally changes.
That being, I run low on fuel. My SP is almost full thanks to Counter Sheathe refilling it by half each time. But I just barely don’t have enough MP left for another one. So I set up again after unsheathing my sword. “DRAW!!!”
[ COMMON ACTION: IAI QUICKDRAW — INTENSITY: 139% ]
Then I angle its edge to point just behind where I held it the last several times. Then I wait. Then I sense the knife. Then I smile. “GROW!!!”
[ RARE TOGGLE ON: EXTEND-O-SWORD — INTENSITY: 147% ]
Spinning around to grip my extended sword hilt with both hands, I look the hobo in his dumb, enraged, scruffy face that I just stabbed through as I spend several subjective minutes forcing my blade instantly downwards. I move to resheathe the moment I cut through him in halves only joined by the top of his skull. “Shrink.”
[ RARE TOGGLE OFF: EXTEND-O-SWORD — INTENSITY: 32% ]
The moment my sword slices down through his groin, he circles around behind me again and goes for another attack.
But my resheathe is faster.
[ IAI QUICKDRAW BONUS DAMAGE: 1201 ]
The knife stops, disappears, and apparently gets added to my inventory.
[ RARE DAGGER GAINED: KNIFE OF LONGINUS - 69 PHY - 3 MAG — WEAPON ART: TARGETING AN ENEMY WHILE EQUIPPED WILL HIGHLIGHT A RANDOM PORTION OF THEIR BODY. IF THAT SPOT IS STRUCK OR DISMEMBERED WITH THIS DAGGER, TARGET IS AFFLICTED WITH IRREDUCIBLE HELD STATUS FOR 3 SECONDS ]
Huh… I guess that was a drop? But my thoughts about the knife are stopped in their tracks at the sight of a different kind of loot.
[ RARE BED GAINED: BED OF SAND ]
I’ve been sleeping in my own equipped bed on a near-daily basis for the past three months. And it’s hard to complain about a bed I can freely summon anywhere, anytime I’m tired. Especially after the upgrade nearly two months ago. But that’s not to say I wasn’t jealous once I saw the crazy conceptual beds some people have. Since you’re invincible in one, many are less than shy about just getting it out and climbing in whenever or wherever the fuck they feel tired. Not to say I blame them for that. I’m just jealous of their beds. Or at least I was. Until exactly, right, now.
[ RARE BED EQUIPPED: BED OF SAND ]
I don’t hesitate to summon it in the middle of the dungeon I just cleared.
[ RARE BED DEPLOYED: BED OF SAND ]
I similarly don’t hesitate to get into the strange bed in the middle of said dungeon. It’s more like a fish tank than anything I’d normally think of as a ‘bed’. Once I get in, I sink through the top layer, coming to a rest exactly in the middle and leaving all but my head completely encased in warm, clean sand. Only by comparing it to the contents of my new bed do I realize just how unclean the dungeon’s own sand is.
It’s hard to tell whether it’s my Solid Breathing skill or just the default properties of the bed itself. But laying here like this really feels more like a cloud than anything describable in ‘grains’. Almost in a fugue state, a thought overtakes me. Am I really invincible like this? Even to myself? I never actually checked. And why not? My sword is too long not to make it awkward though…
[ INSUFFICIENT EP ]
Oh son of a…
[ WEAPON UNEQUIPPED ]
[ RARE DAGGER EQUIPPED: KNIFE OF LONGINUS ]
Still frustrated I couldn’t just equip it as a secondary weapon without removing any armor, I flinch when I notice that my left ring finger is glowing red. With a shrug, I promptly slice it off.
[ HP: 292/512 ]
[ DEBUFF GAINED: HELD ]
Fuck… Not my smartest move of all time. But I guess that answers that. You aren’t actually invincible in bed after all. And I guess I can’t move for five seconds now? Not that I was going to… I just watch as the sand reddens, even as my Cleanliness Skill cleans the wound itself and my passive Regen regrows the severed finger at a snail’s pace.
[ DEBUFF LOST: HELD ]
I could use a potion and get my finger back right now. But it’ll grow back on its own in an hour or so. Just gotta not take damage for that time…
Coming down from my first fight in days, my first boss in weeks, my first solo dungeon clear in months, I see the thin excuse for what it is. And, at the prospect of saving a whole $1 on not replacing a basic potion I have hundreds of, I settle on taking an hour-or-so-long nap in the middle of the empty dungeon. The sea breeze feels so nice from beneath the sand… I’ve gone to the beach before. I even buried myself in sand while I was there. So I know the fact that I can feel the wind on my buried bits, makes no theoretical sense whatsoever. But just now, I can’t quite bring myself to care.