Several minutes passed with Ambrose focusing on moving quickly and quietly, he knew he had been rewarded for his efforts, but was worried that an increase in Skill only meant that there were more creatures nearby, that, for now, he was successfully hiding from.
When he felt that his notification glass had stopped updating, and he could no longer make out any sounds with his strained Hear Ability, Ambrose popped into one of the many identical, empty rooms and collapsed to the ground in a corner.
Now sitting, his exhaustion was truly catching up to him, but he didn’t have the luxury of sleeping, not until he had found out what the punishment looming over him was. It was time to ask for help, right after clearing out the updates.
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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE NURTURED YOUR SKILLS
* Your Stealth Skill has increased in level: 1 -> 3
* Your Perception Skill has increased in level: 1 -> 2
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He wasn’t surprised by the results, having noticed how his steps became more sure when his stealth levelled the first time. The improvement was slight, but with little else to distract him, and his life on the line, the detail stuck out more. The second increase to stealth had come thanks to the perception increase, the improved Hear allowed him to notice with more detail how his movements were affecting the light swishing of his sweat drenched pyjamas, and begin to reduce it.
The Perception increase did have the side effect of Ambrose being able to smell himself better. He stunk. Hopefully it's something I adjust to, or just learn to control better.
With a weary breath Ambrose prepared himself mentally.
“I call to James, the God of Losers?”
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YOU HAVE COMPLETED A DIVINE QUEST
Goal: Call to your Sponsor
Reward: A chat with your Sponsor where you can gain an understanding of your duties and your divine path!
Prepare to meet your God, Loser.
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A single quiet and high pitched note rang out, reverberating in Ambrose’s bones, despite it being as loud as a whisper. The smell of brand store body spray quickly filled the room, briefly overwhelming his heightened and hyper focused senses, as an average height, completely plain looking man, stepped through nothing, and into the centre of the hideaway Ambrose had found himself cowering in.
The man stood over Ambrose in a tailored suit, and stared down at him with a look of disgust. “I. Am. The. God. Of. Mundane.” The words were said with force, vitriol, and spittle, with the presence of the god bearing down upon Ambrose, shoving him further into the corner.
“Do you understand?”
“Ye..Yes” Ambrose pushed out through laboured breaths.
“Do you swear to always refer to me by that, the correct title, rather than the system’s little joke then?”
The pressure lifted slightly as something ephemeral reached out towards him. Ambrose had read enough to have a very strong hunch as to what it meant. Reaching back mentally Ambrose grabbed on.
“I swear.”
James’ smile at these words didn’t reach his eyes.
“Then let's get this over with. Your job is simply to follow in my path, gather Skills. How you go about it means nothing to me. And so that you can perform this duty the system makes me give you a boost. So here. Enjoy”
The god smiled cruelly, flicking a finger along what Ambrose assumed was his own glass pane. Ambrose then received the message that would ruin any of the excitement and hope, that had been buried beneath the fear and exhaustion.
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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER YOUR FEAT HAS BEEN EVOLVED!
As the Sponsored of 'The God of Losers' you are to follow in their footsteps. To walk this path 'James' has gifted you a feat evolution.
Your Mundane feat has been evolved! Mundane is now Path of the Divine Loser
Path of the Divine Loser: Your Mundane origins have become bound to your very essence! Gaining the basics is easy but you can never go beyond.
* Attributes have been balanced out and will remain this way.
* Affinities have been balanced out and will remain this way.
* Skill gain rate greatly increased!
* Reach max level with Skills in order to continue your path!
* Cannot use or gain Magic or Divine tier Skills or Abilities.
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Ambrose froze upon reading the final line. The only reason he had ever wanted to come to a different world was to gain magic and feel needed. Tears began to pour from his eyes as he came to the conclusion that he would die here, trapped in this dungeon, one way or another.
Looking up to his forced patron Ambrose managed to form only a single word.
“Why?”
The cruel smile returned larger than before.
“Your job is to gain and raise Mundane Skills, Higher tiers wouldn’t give me anything so I wanted to give you as big of a boost towards what was really important here, it's hardly my fault that the cost for that made you incapable of using Magic tiers. If it's any consolation you probably wouldn’t have been able to get a Divine tier Skill anyway”
The god’s voice was laced with false sympathy and sarcasm, only breaking Ambrose further.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“What’s wrong brat? You just received a Divine gift! You should be thankful.”
The god tilted his head expectantly, rolling his hand over in a ‘get on with it already’ motion. Ambrose was far too confused at the gods dismissive attitude to respond. His thoughts screaming louder and louder in his head. Why would he bring me here knowing I wanted magic. Why would he put me here instead of a nice town? Why wouldn’t he at least pretend to be nice to me? Why? Why? WHY?
“Tsk, worthless as expected, oh well if you aren’t going to be useful I’ll have to get my money’s worth some other way. HE’S OVER HERE”
The god's booming voice was enough to draw Ambrose’s attention, meeting gazes one more time as the god smiled and stepped backwards, disappearing into nothing once more. His laugh echoed through the halls long after.
Ambrose’s mourning and submission quickly turned to a burning hot rage.
“You Fu*BEEP*ing Cu*Beep”
Ambrose burst to his feet, looping his hand around his orb to pull it behind him, and dashed out of the room at a run, choosing to head deeper into the dungeon building rather than face the group of the, whatever it was, that he knew lay out the front of the entrance to the building.
Flicking through the messages he knew were coming, Ambrose focused his hearing, but couldn’t hear anything over the sound of his bare feet slapping rhythmically against the stone floor.
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WARNING OUTWORLDER
You have broken a rule of the dungeon. Punishment Dispatched.
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WARNING OUTWORLDER
You have broken a rule of the dungeon. Punishment Dispatched.
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YOU HAVE RECEIVED A DIVINE QUEST
As a Sponsored you have received your divine path and are now challenged with growing it!
Goal: Reach the maximum Level with any Skill to reach the next stage in your path.
Reward: Path increase, Path points unlock, Sponsor request.
This is a system assigned quest and has been automatically accepted.
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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE MANIFESTED A SKILL
You have gained the Skill Running at Level 2 (Common, Mundane): When your problems are too much to bear, run.
* Improved movement while using Running Abilities .
By gaining Running you have gained the following Abilities.
* Run: Move faster, but will it be fast enough?
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Ambrose brushed the remainder of the tears from his eyes, determination filling him. He may not have been overly eager to live, experiencing the inevitable world of horrors that awaited him upon reading his cursed path, but being treated as disposable trash has a way to really pull someone out of depression, and throw them directly into a vat of spite. I’ll be damned into whatever hell this world has before I let that asshole get his jimmies off to me whimpering in some corner as I’m eaten alive.
Outside of the initial corridor things opened up into a large circular room showing signs of a recent battle, corpses littered the floor, gnawed on and torn apart. There were seven other paths breaking off of the room but seeing no signs of any creatures coming immediately, Ambrose went back to the centre in hopes of loot.
Ambrose approached slowly, keeping an eye out for what had done this, in case it was still hiding somewhere amongst the bodies. Nothing but the bodies, and the remnants of a small camp of ruined furs revealed themselves. Getting close enough to roll one of the corpses over, Ambrose got his first solid look at the unknown creatures. They looked like small humanoids, and before turning them over, he thought that it may be a goblin. Looking at the front of the creature just confused him however. The creatures stood at around three feet tall, with dark blue or green skin, they had no visible ‘bits’ on them. No navel, nipples, or genitalia. A large hole for a mouth that was leaking blood profusely, its tongue having been ripped out, and the two eyes, one on either side of its face were its only real defining features. Eyes on the side denotes them being some kind of prey animal, at least if the normal rules hold up.
Ambrose quickly searched the camp, each of the creatures wore no clothes, so had nothing to loot, but their little camp did return a small crude knife, some small bones, and what appeared to be some food contained in pouches made of the skin of an animal.
Ambrose tipped a pouch out, placing the orb inside. Speed over quality he proceeded to cut up parts of one of the ruined and bloody furs along the ground, quickly creating a long strip of fabric to tie around his orb pouch. Taking the other end of this strip he fashioned it into a belt, tying the pouch to himself. Testing his creation, he was confident that it would hold up well enough, and he began to move again, now hearing signs of a heavy creature, plodding along one of the hallways, slowly approaching his location. The pouch now hovered in the air and would be pulled behind Ambrose as he ran, freeing his hands and lowering the risk of losing his light source if he needed to quickly move in a different direction. The strip of fabric left a little under two feet of slack and felt brittle, with flakes of untreated skin falling away into dust with every sharp movement, though there was no time for creating something stronger.
The room had given Ambrose some confidence, a weapon and some new Skills did him good. Though he knew he would be in trouble if he had to face whatever had wiped out the small creatures. He decided to go back and read fully through the glass that had appeared during his minute long, looting and craft session as he ran. He decided on taking the path directly opposite the one he had entered from, and away from the creature approaching from one of the paths on the left.
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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE MANIFESTED A SKILL
You have gained the Skill Searching at Level 1 (Common, Mundane): Trying to find something specific? Or just whatever you can get your hands on?
* Improved chances to find something of value or hidden when using Searching Skills.
By gaining Searching you have gained the following Abilities.
* Search: Seek and ye shall find a shitty dagger.
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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE MANIFESTED A SKILL
You have gained the Skill Improvised Crafting at Level 1 (Uncommon, Mundane): One man’s trash is another man’s cobbled together backpack.
* Items created with subpar materials will be more durable when crafted using Improvised Crafting Skills.
* Items fixed with temporary materials will last longer when crafted using Improvised Crafting Skills.
By gaining Improvised Crafting you have gained the following Abilities.
* Create Improvised Item: Turn trash into slightly more useful trash.
* Create Improvised Fix: When you don’t have what you need to fix something, slap random trash on it and hope it works.
For gaining your first Uncommon ranked Skill you have gained exp!
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CONGRATULATIONS OUTWORLDER, YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 2
3 Attribute points have been gained.
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Knowing that he was going to have to fight something sooner or later Ambrose dumped the three points straight into his Speed of Body Attribute, hoping that he would be fast enough to outrun whatever was behind him, and kill anything he came across before it could kill him.
A groan escaped his lips, of both pain at his body changing mid stride and at the message that met him.
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BE AWARE OUTWORLDER
Your Attributes have become unbalanced.
YOUR ATTRIBUTES HAVE BEEN REALLOCATED
* Strength of Body: 11
* Speed of Body: 11
* Strength of Mind: 11
* Speed of Mind: 10
* Strength of Soul: 10
* Speed of Soul: 10
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Well at least it didn’t put everything into the Soul stats, I am going to need to take things slower next time to work out what ‘unbalanced’ actually means.