JESSIE : LEVEL 13

DAY 241 : A-DAY, THIRDWEEK, HORUS, YEAR 1

CENTRAL 26 : VILLA 5 : COPING

As soon as I felt even remotely functional, I walked a few miles to the neighborhood Station and took a train to one of the District Hubs where I could change my name back to Jessie.

And after that, I did… Not much of anything.

I went home. As little as I wanted to call it that. As though inextricably pulled back to the very prison I’ve been gaslighting myself into thinking wasn’t one for all these months.

So in the prison we stayed. All of us. More so even than before as we all kept to our respective rooms. We’d somehow retained our customization options from when Brown was here. So it’s not like we were bored. Or even uncomfortable.

But for the first time in a long time, none of us wanted to be together with any of the rest. Not even Green and Yellow. Not even Blue and I.

We did occasionally wander around the house. Less occasionally, we even went outside. But never for long. And we never talked.

Now it’s a week later and we’re all still here. We’re secure in the fact that Feces isn’t coming back. But we don’t have anywhere else to go. Literally all we had was him. Only after he was gone did any of us realize that was by design. Now all we have is each other. And time. All the time in the world.

Civetta hugs me as I cry. When did she start doing that?

By the time I stop trembling, the Admin has somehow become a bunch of pillows.

She’s just been showing up randomly every day like that. And it helps. It doesn’t fix anything. But… It makes it just a little less painful.

Getting up, I have the sudden urge to go to the living room.

For the first time in close to a subjective decade, I splay out on the couch.

And then I lay there. I don’t know how long.

Eventually, Blue comes in and curls up on her normal end of the same couch.

Almost as one, Green and Yellow come from their respective bedrooms and sit at the same time on their own side.

Blue is the first to break the silence. “I…”

Everyone looks at her.

She shrinks into herself more. “I have a Skill. It’s called ‘Contentment’. It was just supposed to put everyone in a good mood. That’s what it always did. I always kept it on. My MP recharges faster than the drain, and it made everybody nicer and friendlier, so… Even before I met Darreck. He was so happy when he found out… All he ever asked me to do was keep it on. And I wanted to anyway, so…”

I gulp. “Blu-”

I take an extended instant to calm down. “-Yuki? What does ‘Contentment’ do?”

“It’s when you feel like you’re just kind of fine with how things are going.”

“Yuki, don’t fuck with me on this. What, for the love of God, is the description, of your Skill, called ‘CONTENTMENT’?”

Her eyes do something.

A System screen appears in midair. Wait, you can do that? Did I know you can do that? I feel like I saw it before, but… OH.

[ RARE C.L.A.S.S. TOGGLE: ANIME / CONTENTMENT — EFFECT 1: AUTOMATICALLY INFLICT AND REFRESH UP TO 1 STACK OF CONTENTMENT DEBUFF IN A 37-METER RADIUS AROUND YOU — EFFECT 2: MINOR REVERSE AGGRO — TILT SCALING: CONTROL — COST: MODERATE MP DRAIN ]

Green starts to laugh.

So does Yellow. “Reverse aggro… all that sniping back and forth was just redirected from her…”

Green starts to cry.

So does Yellow. “Oh my god, I hate you both so much!”

It seems really hard for her. “But…”

She points to Yuki. “You’re just a coward I already had nothing but disdain for…”

She points to me. “And you saved us all. I hate you both…”

I don’t say anything back. I just hold my breath.

It happened again… No. It happened twice. At the same time. Not again.

He held me prisoner in my own mind. He did it to us all. Even Yuki. Even if he tricked her into adding another lock…

We were all… We were… Victims…

You know what?

I open the skill menu.

[ SKILL POINTS: 7 ]

Fuck my build. Fuck efficiency. Fuck every goddamned thing.

Never.

[ COMMON CORE PASSIVE GAINED: MENTAL AWARENESS — EFFECT 1: PRESENTS A DESCRIPTIVE NOTIFICATION EACH TIME A MENTAL DEBUFF STARTS OR STOPS AFFECTING YOU — EFFECT 2: DEBUFF TIMER UNLOCKED — EFFECT 3: EXPANDED DEBUFF NOTIFICATION OPTIONS UNLOCKED ]

The FUCK.

[ UNCOMMON CORE PASSIVE GAINED: MENTAL RESISTANCE — EFFECT 1: ACTIVE MENTAL DEBUFFS REMAIN PRESENT IN SURFACE THOUGHTS — EFFECT 2: ALL MENTAL DEBUFF TIMES HALVED — EFFECT 3: ADVANCED DEBUFF NOTIFICATION OPTIONS UNLOCKED — PREREQUISITE: MENTAL AWARENESS ]

[ COMMON CORE PASSIVE GAINED: UNSEGMENTED SPINE — EFFECT 1: YOUR VERTIBRE ARE FLEXIBLE, MALIABLE, AND FORM A SMOOTH PROGRESSION ALONG THE RIDGELESS SURFACE OF YOUR SPINE — EFFECT 2: SPINAL FLEXION IMMUNITY ]

[ COMMON CORE ACTION GAINED: DEPLOY TETHER — EFFECT 1: SELECT TWO POINTS ON DIFFERENT NON-TARGETABLE SURFACES — EFFECT 2: TARGET TETHER TO PULL BOTH SURFACES AGAINST EACH OTHER BY THEIR CONNECTED POINTS — EFFECT 3: TETHER DISAPPEARS WHEN FULLY RETRACTED OR SUFFICIENTLY RESISTED — RESTRICTION: NO TENSION IS EXERTED UNTIL TETHER IS TARGETED — COST: TINY MANA ]

[ UNCOMMON CORE PASSIVE GAINED: EXTENDED TARGETING — EFFECT: DOUBLES MAXIMUM TARGETING DISTANCE ]

AGAIN!!!

[ RARE CORE PASSIVE GAINED: MENTAL IMMUNITY — EFFECT 1: YOU ARE NATIVELY IMMUNE TO MENTAL DEBUFFS — EFFECT 2: ALL MENTAL DEBUFFS ADDED TO IMMUNITY MENU — EFFECT 3: FULL DEBUFF NOTIFICATION OPTIONS UNLOCKED — PREREQUISITE: MENTAL RESISTANCE ]

So yeah. That sets me back. A lot. But it was necessary. I was afraid. And now I’m not. That’s worth any number of Skill Points. Even the tethers and targeting extension. Not the highest priority Skills, but I needed another Core Common and Uncommon to unlock another Rare. So it was necessary. IS necessary…

Or at least that’s what I tell myself as I look through all the mind control options I can now opt out of invulnerability to.

Closing it without ever intending to open it again, I’m left with big a problem. I need a ranged option. That’s even what those Skill Points were meant for. The whooole fucking point was so I didn’t have to fight the harder, more range-focused shit without Projected Slash.

And I can’t level up fast enough without a good way to hit anything at a distance. Not with the radial bullshit it sounds like every other Monster has in the harder dungeons.

So I’m stuck. For what? Ten, twenty years? How long will it take me to get those Skill Points back? And with the XP Debt I have now…

I start breathing again, only easier than I have all week. Despite everything to do with fucking my build, I do feel better now. It’s like recovering from elevation sickness. I think. I haven’t actually done that, but I heard… Anyway, I feel AMAZING. In comparison, at least. But it’s easier to breathe. And that’s me saying that.

With a deep sigh, I relax muscles I forgot I had. “Worth it.”

I’m still grinning, rocking back and forth, but slowing down now. “Worth It…”

Suddenly tired, I curl up into a ball. “Worth it, worth it, worthit, worthit, wrtht…”

I would keep going, but I can’t seem to both say those two words in a row, and sob into Yuki’s curled up knees at the same time.

I can’t seem to stop. For a while. A long while. Like a whole day? Less? I don’t exactly keep track of the time.

However long it is later, Yuki is the next to say anything. “I just… Wanted everybody to be happy… I’m so sorry.”

Green and Yellow shoot her the same glare.

Still laying as I am, I throw my arms around her waist and hug her as tight as I can in this awkward position. Like Civetta did to me. Like Charlie… Well okay, like neither of those things. But I can’t seem to bring myself to move anything but my arms, so…

Yuki just sits there in her own little world. Her only reaction to any of us is to unstiffen ever-so-slightly at my hug. I don’t think even she realizes she’s doing it.

Other than that, she just mumbles. Maybe to us. Or maybe just to herself. “I thought he was good… Smelled like her… Not even her own children… At first, I hoped it was her somehow… Maybe she made it? Despite all the signs… Like the different gender… And demeanor… And completely opposite personality… Even I figured it out eventually… But by then… I pressed that button so many times while it was just the two of us…”

Yuki re-stiffens, despite me not letting up on the hug. “I never knew about the trap… About Devotion… I thought he wanted everyone to be comfortable together… He smelled so much like her… I don’t… I’m so sorry… Sorry… Sorry…”

She keeps repeating that one word.

As she does, I feel cold. Then colder.

Soon, I’m shivering. “Hey Yuki… What does the button actually do? Or do you know? I get that it inflicts Devotion. But then why did I still have it when the Admins threw that fuck into the sun or whatever?”

Yuki shrinks back.

Surprising even Yellow, Green leans forward. “I do now. It was the first thing I asked the Admin when she showed up. Whenever you press the button, you get eight stacks of Devotion. That’s the most per hour that the System will allow. Voluntarily inflicting yourself with that is what gives the XP. If you don’t press it for eight hours, the stack decreases by one. Then, you have to get up past your personal highest stack before it can start earning you XP again. The XP is from the button itself.”

Yellow facepalms.

I groan.

Green glares at Yuki. “Anything to add?”

Yuki shrinks back even more somehow. “I’m so sorry… That’s more than I knew.”

Green is the first to speak, apparently having some sort of idea. “How about this? Jessie and Yuki, I think you can support each other well enough without us. Meanwhile, myself and… Oh my god.”

She turns to Yellow. “What is your name?”

“What?”

“Your NAME!!!”

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Yellow just stares blankly into thin air. “Oh my god… Re-I mean Jessie! Where did you change your name?”

Even with the benefit of frozen time, it takes me a few objective seconds to remember who she’s talking to. “Oh! Ooohhh n-nooo… Yeah, let’s go get those changed.”

So we do.

As we walk, Lemon and Lime support each other.

I support Yuki.

Yuki, as usual, isn’t quite capable of supporting anyone.

I look over at the other two for an extended moment, trying to figure something out. Is Green crying for Yellow? Or for herself? Wait, more importantly…

I clear my throat, transitioning smoothly into a cough from just how dry my mouth is. “Bleh! What the…”

I blink as I realize why. I hadn’t died in months. And then I died all those thousands of times in a row… After a while, I stopped bothering to turn my Core Toggle back on. No wonder I feel like such a grimed over pile of shit.

That realization actually makes me feel better, not worse. It feels so incongruous that the cheeriness in my voice surprises even me when I reactivate it and finally get around to repeating the unanswered question.

[ UNCOMMON TOGGLE ON: CLEANLINESS ]

“Hey, what’s your guys’ names?”

They don’t say anything. They just walk the whole way in mutual silence.

Then they each go up to one of several terminals, look at it for a few seconds, and step away.

First Yellow…

[ HERO TARGETED: REBECCA ]

Then Green.

[ HERO TARGETED: DENNISE ]

Why am I not surprised?

On our way back, we basically decide to recover to where we’re sure we can be alone, and then just go our separate ways.

I’m fine with that. Yuki is cool. Yeah, she’s a cowardly idiot. But I knew that. She got used more than the rest of us.

Still… I think I might just need to be alone right now…

I don’t want…

Oh god…

Quesadilla…

But the urge to puke again fades back once more as I get an idea. I’ve got my new gauntlet equipped, of course. It has higher defense than any Armor set I’ve ever worn. Even if it does take up the EP of seven Common armor pieces.

[ UNIQUE MEDIUM GAUNTLET: RIGHT X-GLOVE — DEFENSE: 2,048 — EFFECT 1: CONDUCTIVITY +800% — EFFECT 2: SHRAPNEL RADIUS +800% — EFFECT 3: AMPERAGE +800% — EFFECT 4: EVENT HORIZON +800% — EFFECT 5: CONE WIDTH +800% — EFFECT 6: SPLASH DISTANCE +800% — SPECIAL EFFECT 1: FIRE FLAMES FROM OPEN PALM WITH THE INTENSITY OF YOUR FIRE ATTUNEMENT LEVEL + 1 — SPECIAL EFFECT 2: EQUIP LEFT X-GLOVE TO UNLOCK FLIGHT — MOD: PHYSICAL STRENGTH +12.5% ]

Impressive bonuses… And I’m pretty sure that Mod breaks every rule the Mods put in place for… God, that’s an annoying incongruity. Anyway, it’s a good-ass glove. Which it damn well better be for what it cost me.

Like more subjective time than I can, or want to remember.

And all my money. Let’s not forget all my fucking money.

But what’s with those random-ass bonuses? As soon as I felt up for it, I went downstairs and tested all my stuff. But besides the noticeable 4-point boost to my Physical STAT, none of the rest seems to do anything for me.

But I just remembered something I’d missed.

Walking down the training room stairs for the first time in a week, I equip something for the first time in… Well, since the fight.

[ INSUFFICIENT EP ]

Fucking…

[ SECONDARY WEAPON UNEQUIPPED ]

[ LEGENDARY WEAPON EQUIPPED: MAGATANA - 191 PHY - 149 MAG ]

Drawing the lava lamp of a katana, it’s… Actually, now it looks more like a lava chainsaw.

I fight the urge to prematurely grin as I swing the sword at the dummy from far too far away to hit with the blade itself.

The blade itself proves unnecessary for the foreseeable future as the entire wall is splattered with lava.

Holy goddamned fucking… Wait a second… “Grow.”

It does. Not to eight times its usual length like I hoped when I first tested this a week ago. The chainsaw effect isn’t quite ‘stronger’… Just somehow ‘longer’. Like the rest of the sword, the lava’s violent waves seem to double in length as they roil across its extended apparent lack of an actual surface.

I swing it at the previously-melted, now-recovered dummy.

It and the wall behind get completely covered in lava again. Is that more than the last time?

I can’t tell…

Awesome.

So I do it again.

And again.

Some time later, long after any reasonable definition of ‘testing’ was done hours ago, I realize I’m just trying to distract myself. From thinking about… Him…

I’m still wearing his clothes… The Equipment he gifted me. Like he did all of us. It feels dirty just to have, equipped or no. But I can’t sell it without leaving. And I still can’t bring myself to do that. Getting my name back was one thing… But this? Errands? I just… No… I can’t. Nor can I disassemble most of it because it’s too high-rarity.

It wouldn’t be if I did… What I was about to do before Mich dropped that bomb. After that, I just lost all interest. I didn’t really even think about it After… That…

I’m over it now. Well, not totally… But more or less.

Especially compared to Shitstain, who I met right after that last meal with Mich…

It suddenly gets harder to breathe. My lungs are so heavy.

The outside world speeds up.

Darreck… He’s why I stopped crafting, isn’t he? He’s why I stopped… Everything.

Eventually, the world slows back down. I kinda zoned out there, huh?

I check the clock. Holy shit… For an HOUR???

Growling to myself, I open my menus. I still don’t really feel like it… To follow the path that my brother’s killer started me on?

But that’s just it. How did I not realize? I never wanted to stop because of Mich. And he wasn’t why I started. I just happened to run into him at nearly the same time. And then I went and made all that progress… With him by my side. Egging me on. Giving me all those tips and tricks and… Advice. That’s all it really was.

It was me who started it. All on my own.

But then, why did I stop? It’s so obvious. Why didn’t I see it before?

The answer to both ‘why’s is the same. The answer to every ‘why’ is the same. It all comes back to Darreck.

And FUCK that guy! Well… Fuck Mich, too. But I can at least accept him as a reason not to continue on the path he started me on.

Darreck though? No. Fuck No. The sheer level of ‘Fuck’ I feel towards ‘No’ propels me through the decision.

I was going to go with an Uncommon at Level 11. But here I am now, Level 13. And Achievement Milestone 3. With just the one Skill Point, and no way to get more for god-knows-how-long.

But I need this. For the long term, I need it to round out my build. In the short term… I need to get rid of some shit.

After I saw Oneshot hot-swap weapons to try and kill me better… Or maybe the opposite… Anyway, I looked up what could possibly let him do that. And you know what? I found it. Not only that, but I can get it right now.

I hesitate before pressing the button.

I think of Mich.

I think of Darreck.

My eye twitches.

[ NEW EPIC C.R.A.F.T. AUGMENT: ANIME / RE-EQUIP — EFFECT 1: RE-EQUIP CAN BE LOCKED INTO AN ARMOR EFFECT SLOT UPON CREATION. IF ASSOCIATED ARMOR SLOT IS FREE OR EQUIPPED ARMOR HAS THIS SAME EFFECT, YOU MAY UNEQUIP OR SWITCH ARMOR MID-COMBAT — RESTRICTION 1: RE-EQUIP DOES NOT RECOVER DESTROYED ARMOR, IN WHICH CASE, THE SWITCH IS MADE, BUT THE NEW ARMOR IS STILL BROKEN ]

Getting a CRAFT Skill of Epic rarity also happens to unlock the ability to dismantle any armor up to Legendary for its component parts. Which is what I was after. What I need…

I haven’t done much but collect Equipment over the past few months. Mainly Armor. I don’t want to use any of it anymore. Not now that the one who bought it for me… But should I really destroy them?

I wouldn’t have been surprised to be killed for anything that valuable in my old life. The one that still feels like yesterday. The one that still feels like a minute ago…

Anyway, shiny things! And I have such a cool collection!

That’s what I kept convincing myself.

But I know. I’ve played games. I’ll never use any of it. And not just because the drops I get later will all be better than anything I have now. Even if I didn’t have 2 EP to spare for any armor at all. Really, it’s thanks to where it all came from.

I’ve been bottling it up. And then I buried the bottle. But that’s the thing. From underneath the bottle, the bottle is kind of just right in your face all the time. Taunting me with its insignificance.

Out of an apathetic excuse to think of anything other than what I’m already thinking about, I open up the bottle of comparatively wonderful thoughts.

I immediately realize what it means. What I have to do. Deep down, I’ve always known. I guess that’s what makes it a bottle.

I have to destroy it all. Not what I’ve earned. Not my swords. Not my gauntlet. Not what I have despite everyone’s protests. But everything else.

Sighing like a woman with terminal cancer paying a parking ticket, I disassemble the boots Darreck bought me last week.

Holy shit… That felt amazing!

I look at my inventory.

Yep… It’s gone.

Somehow, I can’t seem to care. Because now I have materials. I traded two boots… For fewer materials than I need to make a boot.

Demonstrably not worth it… But it just feels right. I even stopped thinking about… Oh… Yep, there it is again…

Let’s do a helmet next!

Soon, I’m dismantling literally all the Equipment I was ever gifted. All of it. I don’t care. I’m starting over from scratch.

I keep all my other Items. The ones I don’t wear, anyway. But all the armor I didn’t make myself. All my jewelry. All my clothes but what I’m wearing now. And that’ll go too once I find something to replace it. Something that doesn’t come from this… Place.

The place I can’t seem to leave. It’s not that I don’t want to. There’s something keeping me here. I don’t know what.

So I destroy it all. And after I’m done, I feel… Clean.

So I get up.

I walk downstairs.

I open the door.

I step outside as though what I just passed through was any old threshold. Which it is…

Realizing that with a smirk, I take a triumphant look back at my old world. The one I just conquered. The one where my… Not ‘friends’… Well, Yuki for sure. But those other two..? No. We’re not friends.

But that doesn’t mean I’m about to leave them behind in the same prison. Still, I don’t want to go back in there. Not until I’m ready to walk right back out with the rest of them.

[ UNCOMMON BED DEPLOYED: SLIZARDIC BED ]

So instead, I hop into bed, right in the middle of the street. The moment I do, my bed and self both turn intangible.

With a start, I realize I’m also effectively transparent as people pass right through where I perceive myself to be, my opacity automatically dialing itself down in a few-foot radius around each passerby. I can tell by how loudly they complain about it.

Not that I can be bothered, alternating my glare between them and Shit’s rich-guy apartment until they leave in some mix of frustration, shame, and confusion depending on what they know of him.

I don’t see them passing through my bed and body either, so this alone-in-a-crowd thing is actually a win-win. Because I refuse to live in the building I’m sitting in front of for a moment longer. I can hop in to steal some food or whatever, but… Yeah.

The only reason I’m not buried in Sand right now is because of how awkward that makes the smithing process. Sure, it’s purely menu-based, but all the loose grains just make the whole thing feel so messy.

And I can make sets from Epic blueprints now. Even if I can’t exactly use them… I’ve only got 20 EP to work with, after all. Between the 7 from my new Unique glove, 6 from my Mythic katana, and 5 from my legendary one, I can only even equip two Commons. Or one Uncommon… But that’s out since I need another glove just for the sake of my equilibrium. One Heavy and one Medium doesn’t exactly balance the scales. But it’s certainly better than one Medium and nothing.

Also the slick black cape. I can’t just not have my cape. Not if I can help it. Which I can.

So here I am, red glove on my right hand, gold bracelet on my left, black shoulder pauldrons and cape… And that’s it. I’m not naked. But I will be as soon as I respawn… Hm… I think I might just go ahead and stockpile a few hundred backup outfits that I can throw on in a spawnpoint.

Searching through my menus with a curiosity I haven’t felt in something like a subjective decade, I notice a toggle.

With a similar level of ‘fuck’ towards ‘it’, I flip that switch too.

[ NORMAL LANGUAGE PRESENTATION : OFF ]

Aaand now I can’t hear anything. No, that’s wrong. I can hear stuff. Just not people. Perfect…

So, now in complete peace, a mental and System-based wall between me and all the offended idiots walking past and through, I keep working.

I keep distracting myself.

I hyper-focus on the task at hand.

That leaves me with nowhere to go but here. And nothing to do but think. So I do. Not about Thomas. Or James.

Just about me. About everything I’ve done.

The people that Brock killed. That I killed… That I heroically, with my dying breath, indiscriminately slaughtered.

Those were real people. With real lives. And families. And stories over twice the length of my own… All wiped out in a flash because I wanted my death to mean something.

The gunshot was to save James. But the deaths? How could they have been anything but gratuitous?

Laying here in bed, in the middle of the street, in Heaven, I start to hate myself for that.

Or at least I think I should. But I don’t. Not really.

And that worries me too.

I thought of Rebecca and Dennise as enemies too. Until we got to know each other. Now I just think they suck.

Would I blow them up? Maybe. But not if they couldn’t respawn.

Like those FBI agents… They were probably just as complex as the cheerleader and her sycophant librarian. They all had their own passions, goals, loves, hates… Lives.

Of course they had all those things. Past tense. It isn’t really even a question. As much as I wish it was. That they didn’t make it here. Unlike their killer… Unlike mine.

At the end of my private pity party, I land on something. And that something is, characteristically, fuck it. Imma get James back. Just me.

Even if I have to solo this whole fucking place.