Nick awoke to a very strange feeling. He felt both completely wrecked but also completely fine. His brain was telling him that he was badly hurt but his body was telling him that he was fine. He took a deep breath and looked around. He saw that he was in a tacky hotel room, cream carpets and golden daddorail severely dating the styling.

He also saw someone sitting against the wall, asleep. Her brown hair sent a jolt through him. Suddenly he was remembering everything that had happened the last few days, everything that had happened to lead him to his current situation.

“Well, it might not be a dream.” he said out loud.

His words made Maddy stir and she cracked open her eyes.

“You okay Nick?”

“Never better.” He said with a smile.

He had to duck out of the way as Maddy threw her bag at him.

“Don’t lie to me Nick. What happened back there?” Concern was thick in her voice.

Nick thought about it for a second, deciding how he wanted to handle this situation. Seeing how tired she looked Nick felt she deserved some sincerity.

“It all kinda hit me at once. I’m here, in this whack place. Everyone seems to be using me as a tool, no one bothering to tell me what’s really going on. I just hadn’t processed it and seeing everyone gathered around like mediaeval lords was the final straw. This whole situation just doesn’t feel real, you know?”

“I do know Nick, I’ve been here a whole year now and it hasn’t gotten much better. I still have not much clue about anything really outside these few floors. I came here with my sister and a friend, I lost that friend not long after and it’s just been downhill since. My sister barely leaves the room and I’m not sure if I’d let her if she wanted. Trust me Nick, I know how crazy this all feels.”

Maddy got up and walked over to Nick, offering him a hand. She helped him up to his feet and pulled him into a hug. Nick sagged. He felt so tired, not physically but mentally. His brain had been overworking itself and needed a break. He took a few deep breaths and cleared all the thoughts out of his head.

“Well, all we can do is focus on the here and now right?” He whispered.

“That’s right.” Maddy whispered back.

The two separated and Nick walked over to the wall, plopping himself down against it.

“So uh, where the hell are we?” He asked.

“You tell me. You just ran here like a man on a mission.” Maddy said, sitting down next to him.

Nick recalled his last memories before passing out as he looked at the strange slate wall in front of him. He must have activated his Treasure Sense skill while he was running and it revealed this door in front of him. The only other doors his sense had shown him so far were the challenge rooms he’d been to, so through reasoning, this door in front of him was likely a challenge room. Thankfully he had someone to ask.

“Are there rooms other than challenge rooms around here?”

“I’ll assume you mean special rooms? No, it’s just challenge rooms and event rooms as far as I know. Why?”

Nick pointed at the door in front of him.

“That’s a challenge room then.”

“That’s a door?” Maddy sounded surprised. “Doesn’t look like a door.”

She wasn’t wrong. It just looked like a very out of place change in decor. The black slate panel stretched from floor to ceiling, no indications that it was anything door-like.

“Yeah, according to my skill, it feels like the doors to the challenge rooms.”

Nick pushed himself up and walked over to the door.

“Well if it is a challenge room, you’re certainly in no state to enter it.” Maddy called out.

She was right. He assumed she’d healed him and that’s why he wasn’t as mangled as he should have been, but he was far too mentally drained to take on a fight. His senses were still telling him that it was a good idea, he wasn’t quite sure but he had the feeling that he should go through the door.

Nick was starting to think through his options when he stopped, took a deep breath and cleared his head. Screw it. He put his hand on the door and pushed. The slate offered no resistance and swung open. He took a step and crossed into the room. He heard a yell then he was tackled from behind.

“Nick! This really isn’t a good idea!” Maddy cried out.

“Then why did you come with me!?”

“I can’t let you just run into a challenge room alone! Not in your state!”

That’s when the message came up. Stopping both Nick and Maddy in their tracks.

Challenge Room - Aura Escape!

Escape the aura!

Maddy had a look of panic on her face and Nick felt a chill run through his body. Before either of them could say anything the air grew heavy. It was different to what either of them had experienced before. Whatever they had experienced from Reggie was barbaric and wild in comparison. The pressure was evenly spread throughout the room like fine film that began to slowly exert pressure down on the duo. It was faint but it’s effects were certainly felt, pressuring them towards the floor.

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“What is this?” Maddy stammered out, struggling to stay on her feet.

Nick was far too deep into his own head to respond to her. He was reliving the experience that Reggie had put him through. The events were on repeat in his mind, though it wasn’t the crippling pain that he was focused on, it was the strange revelation that had struck him during the ordeal. His desperate mind had pieced something together.

He tried again to feel the air, as strange as the thought was to him. It took a moment but it was like he was cracking open a sense he’d just forgotten about. Suddenly he could feel the vapour thin film that was filling the room, he could feel the energy that was cotorting the air to its will. It was like he was repeating a well practised action he’d just forgotten to use his entire life. That’s when he felt a familiar feeling from inside his own body. It was the tiny hero that had saved him, it was floating around inside him. It fidgetted under his scrutiny, moving around aimlessly.

Now that he felt it inside him he couldn’t unfeel it, he was aware of this energy, his energy. He tried to direct it to move and found that it followed whatever he asked of it, he watched it begin to dance around inside him. Nick was mesmerised by his discovery until the pressure in the room suddenly increased, causing him to stumble.

“Nick? What’s going on? This isn’t like any aura I’ve felt before.” Maddy asked.

“I’m not sure, it’s certainly a lot more pleasant than Reggie’s though.”

Nick then tried to replicate what he’d done under Reggie’s aura, he directed his energy outwards, towards the film in the air. Nothing happened, the energy reached the edge of his insides then just stopped there. Why was it different now? He’d seen the energy leave him before, why wasn’t it now?

He tried in different areas, his hands, feet, head, nothing. The little mote of energy just wouldn’t leave him. Nick was then distracted by the pressure in the room increasing again and toppled over.

“Nick?!”

He suddenly had an idea. He remembered the situation under which the energy had left him before, he had been desperately trying to move, to resist the situation. So Nick focused on the feeling, he focused on wanting to resist the pressure in the room. To his delight he watched as his energy darted out of him and poked out into the film, breaking it apart for a moment.

Congratulations!

The pressure suddenly disappeared and Maddy let out a sigh before spinning on her heels.

“What did you just do? I know you did something because I certainly didn’t.”

“I uh.” Nick wasn’t sure how to explain it.

He then fumbled over his words as he tried to explain what he had felt during the situation with Reggie. He then tried to explain the new sense he’d seemingly gained and how he could feel the air around him a bit. While explaining it he realised that the air around Maddy herself felt different.

“That’s because of one of my skills.” She explained. “Antibiotic Presence, it stops the taint from spreading in an area around me.”

She said she wasn’t sure what Nick was experiencing but it sounded like he’d managed to create some sort of aura for himself, which she found shocking.

“From my understanding, auras come from class evolutions. You get it at level three and it gets stronger with each evolution. Though I’ve never heard of someone controlling it like you explained. It was described like a blanket you could throw or something you just let flow out of you.”

Nick and Maddy were then distracted by the forming of a chest in the centre of the room. Opening it they found a goofy sticker depicting a worm with glasses sitting on a book.

“Okay Maddy, any chance you could explain this sticker business to me?”

Maddy laughed. “Yeah I certainly found it goofy when it first came up.”

She then sat herself down against a wall and patted down next to her.

“I’m far too tired to stand around and explain it to you, come and sit down.” She said with a sigh.

“Don’t we like, have to leave? So the room can reset? And how come you’re so tired?” He asked.

“No, the room won’t lock down until we actually leave. And I’m tired because of your shenanigans Nick. I had to use my heal a whole bunch of times on you. You were running on a sprained ankle you know.”

It seemed that repeatedly using skills did have some sort of a price then, something he wanted to ask more about but held his tongue. He was about to get an answer to one of his questions after all.

“Well, I guess starting with the attributes is a good place. There’s like five or six that I know about, there might be some rarer ones. Strength, Endurance, Agility, Perception, Intelligence and another one that people don’t really talk about. All I know about the last one is that people really don’t like people that use it, I think it’s got something to do with sociability or something. Anyways, the attributes all do what they say on the tin. Sadly, intelligence doesn’t actually make you smarter, it makes you think faster and with more clarity, from what I’ve heard.”

“A lot of skills scale with these attributes, like my passive Scout skill that increases the boost I get from Agility and Perception stickers. These attributes come from the stickers, each one giving you an increase in the attribute the sticker represents. It’s goofy but each picture usually does a decent job describing what attribute it is.”

“So they’re not all the same looking?” Nick asked.

“Not always, a lot of them are but there is some variety. People prefer some stickers over others, like an Endurance sticker that’s a pair of lungs is much more popular than the one you got from the event room.” She explained.

Nick pulled out the sticker from his pocket and looked at the two he now had. One question was burning away at him.

“So how do I use them?” He asked with a grin

“Just slap them onto an empty patch of skin.”

Maddy then started taking off the leather chestpiece she was wearing. She then lifted up the shirt she was wearing, showing four goofy cartoon stickers on her side. Nick noticed that they looked more like tattoos than anything else.

“Are they permanent?” He quired. What a toss up, superhuman powers at the cost of childish tattoos.

Maddy then used a hand to start peeling a sticker off, showing it to just looked like a normal sticker until she pressed it back down.

“Nope, you can take them off any time. Move them around, swap them out. Though only you can do it, if someone else touches them they don’t budge.”

That was handy to know, at least he wouldn’t have to be worried about someone robbing him while he was sleeping. They were his precious, goofy stickers!

With not much else to do he stripped off his own armour piece and shirt. He then took the stickers and pressed them into his skin. He wasn’t sure what he expected, a rush? A sudden burst of power? Maybe an energy beam and his hair turning golden? None of that happened. Maybe he was thinking a little faster? Did he feel fitter at all?

“Is that it?” He asked.

Maddy burst out laughing.

“It’s nothing special, you don’t notice it too much. Especially not with just one.”

Nick couldn’t lie, he definitely felt a little disappointed.

“Oh and you can only have four of these stickers.” Maddy added on.

Wow. Now he felt even more disappointed.