Consciousness didn’t return all at once. It crept in, like a thief in the night, replacing the pleasant nothing cocooning Nate’s mind with the dry, dusty pains of reality. He cracked open one eye, then the other. Even that small motion of his eyelids caused pain. His head felt like it was smothered in white hot cotton, making it impossible to focus on his surroundings. He couldn’t remember what had happened, other than some vague details. He had fallen. Again. He had been knocked out. Again. It was becoming a bad habit.
There was something at the edge of his senses. An annoyance. Blinking incessantly. He thought it might be an alarm clock. He tried to swipe at it, but his arm refused to obey. Reluctantly, he turned his attention to it. A textbox appeared instantly.
{STATUS CRITICAL HP: 2/15
You are suffering from the status condition severe concussion
You are suffering from the status affliction broken nose
You are suffering from the status condition broken wrist
You are suffering from the status affliction bruised collar bone
You are suffering from the status affliction sprained ankle}
Nate stared at the screen, not comprehending. Then it blinked. Nate blinked, too. Something was different. It took him a moment to identify it. His HP had dropped. It now read 1/15.
He was dying. He wasn’t sure what happened when the counter got to zero. The knowledge was there, somewhere, but his foggy brain couldn’t latch onto it. All he could think of was death. No more running. No more games. No more Nate. The end.
He wanted to struggle. But there was nothing in him to struggle with. Nothing to struggle against, either. The emptiness that was descending, ready to consume him, wasn’t something he could resist. The futility of it all settled on his chest, threatening to crush his last feeble point of health. There was nothing he could do.
Even as he thought that, another blinking light tapped out its staccato rhythm, demanding his attention. There didn’t seem to be much point. But he focused on it anyway, just to make it stop.
{Congratulations, Traveler! You have achieved level 2. Proceed with level up?
Yes/No}
Nate considered selecting “no.” But he was afraid that would just make the message turn back into a blinking icon. So he selected “yes.”
Nate’s body jerked as a rush of warm energy poured through his limbs. His mind filled with the distant sound of stringed harmonies playing a victorious melody.
It was over in seconds. Nate gasped for air.
“Holy shit!” he choked out. Then his eyes widened further as he felt…fine. Better than fine. He felt good. The fog that had clouded his thoughts was gone. The pain from his many injuries had vanished. The sudden absence made his skin tingle with pleasure. Quickly, he checked his expanded character sheet, giving a low whistle as he viewed the results.
{Rogue Level 2 HP: 20/20 MP: 5/5
Stats
Strength: 5
Constitution: 5 Free Points: 2
Dexterity: 15 Available Skill Points: 3
Willpower: 5
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Intelligence: 6
Charisma: 8
Attribute: System Blessed
Improved Running: Amateur
Sleight of Hand: Novice
Improved Aim-Thrown Objects: Novice
Enhanced Concealment: Cost- Novice
Dagger Proficiency: Cost- Novice
Light Armor Proficiency: Novice}
There was a bit to process there. But one fact overshadowed all the others. Leveling up had healed him. Completely. His health pool was full. All his status conditions were gone. He carefully rotated his wrist and his ankle. Both felt perfectly fine. A warm sense of relief flooded Nate’s chest. He was not going to die. He was going to live.
Even as he thought this, there was another flicker at the corner of his vision. Light. But not the annoying blinks of a System message. True light. Something was flaring to life.
The promise of living to see another day suddenly restored, Nate shut his system message and turned his attention, for the first time, to his surroundings.
The darkness, even more absolute than in the ravine, was gradually subsiding into a murky gloom as more and more faint lights came to life. He was in a stone corridor, narrow with a low ceiling, that disappeared in the distance as it stretched out in a straight line in front of him. Behind him was the staircase, surprisingly long and steep. The building he had entered on the ravine floor wasn’t even visible above. Nate couldn’t believe he had tumbled down those stairs and not broken his neck. His was…lucky. The thought came, unbidden. He thought about his Attribute, chosen for him by the System. It made him uncomfortable. Like he was an animal being led by the nose. That rarely turned out well for the animal.
There were only two options. He could go back up the stairs, or proceed down the dark hallway. The light was coming from glow crystals set into the wall, though they were dim and flickered as though they were on their last dregs of power. It wasn’t a hard call. Going back up would only take him back to the ravine and those odd phantoms that had attacked his mind. The thought wasn’t appealing.
The memory of those phantoms did, however, raise another thought. Nate pulled his character sheet back up and, without hesitation, dumped his two free stat points into willpower, raising his score to 7. It was a modest increase. But the feeling of having something inside his mind, toying with his memories, made his feel sick. Anything he could do to increase his resistance to that kind of invasion was worth it.
He also pulled up his skill list and, with another thought, opened the expansive menu of available skills. He had three points to spend. He first looked at his existing skills. He could increase any of them by spending his skill points. But each new rank cost twice as much as the one before it. Improved Running, for example, had cost a single point at Novice, and would have cost two points to move to Amateur. He had advanced to that by himself through use, so the next available upgrade was to move from Amateur to Adept, at a cost of 4 points. More than Nate had.
Spending his three available points on an upgrade wasn’t appealing. He didn’t think moving any of his existing skills up a single level would to much of increasing his odds of survival, and, now that he had seen how it was done, he was confident he could progress those skills through successfully using them. Adding new skills to his repertoire seemed like a much better use of his points.
The list of available skills was so massive that it made Nate’s eyes water. Many of them were still grayed out, unavailable either to his class or current level. Fortunately, Nate had spent some time over the previous weeks perusing this list, and he had some ideas about what he wanted. Given the current situation, though, one of the skills that he had previously scanned by hadn’t really considered became more interesting. He went to that one.
{Darkvision
Improves ability to see in the dark
Cost- 2 skill point}
As usual, the description wasn’t particularly informative. Nate wasn’t sure just how effective the skill would be at Novice level, and it would take two of his three available points. Despite all that, he took the skill.
There was a faint rush of warmth, and Nate’s vision blurred for a moment. When it cleared, he looked around. The walls of the passage before him were suddenly much cleared, the stonework clearly visible. He could also see farther down the passage, though it still faded into obscurity in the distance. It was as though all the lights had been turned up several notches. Nate doubted his new skill would do much good in complete darkness. Not as its current level, anyway. But, in the low light, it was a marked improvement, and he was satisfied with the result.
That left only a single skill point left to spend, eliminating many of the options Nate had considered. Instead, he went to one of the options he had intended to save until later.
{Improved Sense of Direction
Tired of getting lost? This skill gives you an innate sense of the direction you are heading
Cost- 1 skill point}
It might be useless. After all, at the moment there was only one way to go. But Nate didn’t care for the idea of getting lost underground in some kind of Daedalean labyrinth. He took the skill.
Again, there was the rush of warmth. This time it was followed by a faint sense of vertigo that quickly passed. At first, Nate didn’t feel any different. Was it possible for a skill to be a dud?
Then he concentrated. And there was…something. A feeling that, if he turned around and walked straight, he would arrive back at the point in the ravine where he had emerged from the stone chute. Of course, he already knew that. But he could feel it now, with a certainty that he couldn’t explain. It was subtle. But it was definitely there. Odd.
With no more points to spend, Nate drew his dagger, tensed, and proceeded forward into the unknown.