Even those people who were skeptical about the information that Robert was sharing. Even those who were lost in the haze of their fears. They all moved with him as a group to the dorm chapel. What spurred the exodus from the lawn by the flag was Robert using the word "safety."
People weren't feeling safe, and it showed.
Robert went forward like some sort of strange personification of an anglerfish; the people he'd know for years and people he'd barely known at all, we're all following behind the light spell bobbing over his head, as the strange procession wove through the building, into the cafeteria, and up the stairs into the chapel.
These were good people, Robert realized. Some of the girls had gathered around Samantha and were helping her move, prodding inside towards safety forward. The same thing was happening with their other catatonic classmates. It sort of helped that a lot of the women in this dorm were studying social work, that fact alone gave a large base of people with an instinct to help out the mentally traumatized.
When people crossed over the threshold and into the chapel Robert kept hearing an audible sound that, while just a gasp, seemed to carry with it a feeling of relaxation, of letting go of a burden of fear and stress that people and even a bit of clarity and joy as the aura of the chapel hit them.
The people who were worst off were led to seats in the pews. Everyone else got crammed down the isles and around the sides. There were still dozens of people standing out in the hall. People kept away from the glowing red stone like it was radioactive, though. Despite the clearly benevolent feelings coming from it, a four-foot radius around it was empty.
Robert looked around. He saw some of the people he knew a bit better than others and tried to catch them by the eye. With those he could, with the people who weren't too stressed out, Robert held each of their gazes for a second, acknowledging them, before nodding and moving on.
There was a common theme among the terrified people in the room. Most of the people only had eyes for large glowing rock. And the people who were left over? About half of these were looking straight at Robert as if he were about to lead a class or present some mystical knowledge from on high. The rest of them, well they were studiously trying to look everywhere except at Robert or the large rock.
Robert and Leslie managed to push through the crowd and into the empty space around the stone. Ahmed, Susan, and Akiko stayed in the hallway. Neil, of course, was probably still drooling in some dehydrated alcohol sleep.
Leslie walked with him, though she was obviously every bit as reluctant to go near the damned thing as everybody else was. Robert wasn't sure if she just trusted him, or she saw some deep reservoir of leadership and courage emerge. Either way, he was glad for it.
Turning to the group, Robert felt the mood of the crowd and said. "I am going to put my hand on this thing. Don't worry, I've done this before. Before anybody else touches it, I want to read out the list of skills and Magic so that everyone knows exactly what the stone offers. Nobody has to make any decisions right now. I don't expect anyone too. Mostly I just want to give you guys a bit of a better understanding of what this thing does."
He reached out and touched the stone. Everyone in the room was staring at him now.
"See. I'm fine," he said.
With a hand on the Stone, Robert turned to the group, "Reverend Bob kept a notebook in that cabinet. Huang and his group took one. But I'm hoping that maybe there is another? Would you guys mind looking around over there to see if there is something you can write with."
There wasn't another notebook. There were some surplus hymn books, some clerical robes and a box of pens.
"We could write in the margin's of one of the hymn books." A girl he barely recognized said.
"Naw give me a second," called out Claudia who was standing out in the hallway.
A loud crack sounded from outside the room. A minute or two later Camilla pushed her way back to the front of the crowd carrying her crowbar and a stack of paper.
"Hope nobody minds, but I broke into one of the offices," Claudia said.
"Thanks, Claudia. Can you pass some of those pages around? The more people writing this stuff down, the better we'll manage, I think."
After a bit of finagling, about fifteen people were armed with pen and typing paper. A handful of other people had their smartphones out and recording.
"Ready? Okay. Right now if I concentrate, I can see my Character Sheet. If you don't know what a character sheet, find someone who has played a Role-Playing Game later. For now, just accept that it is a basic summary of who you are, your strengths, weaknesses, talents, and skills. If you don't know what role-playing, or if you think role-playing has something to do with Theater, stop by and talk to Ahmed afterward. If you think role-playing is all about sex games, please stop by and talk to me afterward."
Looking over his Character Sheet, Robert saw that nothing had changed.
"Okay, I'm going to list off the list of attributes, basic skills, and Magic, now. Just write this down. We can go over it later."
It looks a little bit more than forty-five minutes to go through the entire list with everyone. Periodically Robert was stopped and asked questions. More often than not, Robert had to answer, "I don't know."
"Here's what I want everyone to do. The first thing I want you to think about what you would want to do if you had kept studying at the University of Waterloo. I mean, what is it that you wanted to do with your life. Then I want you to think about picking up skills related to that. Only with possibly mystical powers. Or if you're going to do something different, I want you to think about how you want to help the group as a whole. "
Robert continued, "Once you connect to the system, there are a lot of skills that give you options that you've never had before. I seriously doubt anybody here ever thought about becoming a wizard or a druid before today. And I, for one, would completely understand someone wanting to switch from being an accountant to being a wizard."
"On that note, I want you to think about what you would want to do if you were playing a Fantasy Role-playing game. Or if you aren't into D&D, think about who you would want to be in Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings. Wizards, warriors, healers, rogues, all of that is within the realm of possibility now."
"What if I want to be a death eater,?" Anita called out.
"I think Huang and his friends already have that covered. Before they left, Brent mentioned that he was seriously considering becoming a Necromancer. Who knows, if Neil were around I'm sure he would be just begging to choose Charm, Seduction, and Lovemaking. Umm…on that note, don't be a Neil."
"Lastly, I want you to think about back up skills. Skills that help our little group as a whole. Think of it this way. We've become a small town in the middle of nowhere. We need to be self-sufficient. The kitchen staff isn't here, so we'll need someone to cook and other people to grow crops. Do any of you want to be and farmers, cooks, butchers, tailors, armor smiths, weaponsmiths, blacksmiths and that kind of thing. Well… maybe not butchers yet since we don't have any animals. We can assist with those functions with Magic, but just think about what it is you want to do. There are a lot of us. We will ultimately need to share the workload. "
Alan, who was a first-year who'd been upfront holding a hockey stick when Knaxis had killed his friends. He looked scared and out of place. "What if we don't want to connect to this system? I just wanna go home. If we can't die anymore, when will Ryan and Liam come back? You all saw how they started to glow and then disappeared. When will my friends come back?"
There was a chorus of agreement. Robert wasn't sure, even with everything that had happened, that people hadn't realized the finality of their situation.
Robert said, "I'm not sure we can go home. I'm not even sure we ever will get home. I haven't seen any indication that whatever kidnapped and brought us here has any plans on sending us back. I mean this could all be some bizarre dream I'm having. But I'm getting closer and closer to the opinion that this isn't"
Another girl — Tiziana was her name, Robert thought — said, "I think I get what you are trying to say Rob, but Alan has a point, what happens if we just don't touch the stone. What if we don't get this character sheet thing that you are talking about. I'm pretty sure that like a lot of other people here, I enjoyed Game of Thrones, but that doesn't make me a total fantasy geeks. I just want to go home. "
Robert looked at the girl. No, he remembered now, her name was Sophia. That's right, it was Tiziana. Sophia was her twin sister. "Honestly, Tiziana. I don't know. From the minimal knowledge I got, we die if we leave the dungeon. But that could be a lie. But does it really matter? I mean, we don't even know where the way out of this cave is."
"It's Sophia. Tiziana is my sister." Sophia said, pointing towards another girl who was sitting in the front among the catatonic people.
"That's the thing. We just don't know enough. I put some points into dungeon knowledge, but the information I got was incredibly basic and who even knows if what I learned is even the truth." Robert said.
He continued. "Maybe we die if we leave these caves. Maybe we don't. The stuff I picked up says we die. But maybe people who haven't touched the stone and become part of this system can live outside of this place just fine. I just don't know. I don't even know what is out there. The knowledge tells me that 'Adventurers' will eventually be coming through this place. They're becoming for fun and experience and treasure. Are these adventurers humans, are they elves, or are they tree headed, hippopotamus people? I don't know."
People began to talk to each other, so Robert had to raise his voice. "Look, I do know that there is a skill called Knowledge: Local and another called Knowledge: World and another called Knowledge: Adventurers guild. You heard me say these things when I was reading the list, there are also a bunch of language and history skills. Maybe someone, or a couple of people who are planning to stick around with me, would be willing to take those skills to let the rest of us know what is going on outside this cave."
"Look, I don't expect anyone to make any decisions right now. Maybe get together with your R.A. and talk things over. Maybe come talk to me. Think about who you are and who you want to be. Decide if you want to stick around or try leaving. Go beyond, support, and fighting. Or beyond the crafting and adventuring paradigm. This is a strange new world that we've been forced into. Hopefully, it doesn't have to suck ass."
Seeing as people were still unsure of themselves, Robert said, "Look. Why don't we all go down into the cafeteria? I'll set the light up high so that everyone can see. Get with your floors. Talk to your R.A.s, look over the list. And if you have any questions, come over to me and chat. I don't have all the answers. I might not have any answers. At some point, we have to stop bumping around in the dark and start walking, taking a direction forward."
With a whole lot of effort, Robert was able to split the ball of light in two. Before he barely noticed the amount of mana he was using going down. Now with two balls of light, the mana at his disposal was shrinking. Slowly but visibly shrinking.
Leaving one of the lights in the chapel, so that the catatonic people could see and so that it wouldn't shock or scare them, Robert led the rest of the group to the cafeteria. He did notice that a small group of people was staying inside the chapel. He recognized Daren among them and realized that these were the super hardcore gaming kids. The people who played Magic the gathering during lunch breaks and who obsessed about cosplay. He even suspected that Daren was a furry, but he didn't hold that against him.
Down in the cafeteria Robert, Sarah, Ahmed, and Leslie grabbed a table. Other groups, pushed tables together to make a bigger one, or just sat together in small groups. There were some loners here and there who chose to sit by themselves. Robert resolved to go and chat with them at some point.
"So, you guys know what you want to do."
"Not sure I like to begin called a guy," Sarah said, "since I'm clearly a woman. But I will let your terrible diction go since these are strange times."
Robert rolled his eyes but rephrased anyway. "Do you people know what you want to do? Become dungeon creatures like me or try to leave? I don't mind getting stuck here all alone if everyone decides to bail."
"There is too much we don't know," Ahmed said. "Just thinking about gaming, I have to say, adventurers, in general, are assholes or worse murder hobos. Thought that could be complete bunk since this is the real thing — not a book or a game or one of your wacky web fictions — this is reality and gaming is well… just gaming."
"We just don't have enough information," Robert said.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but tell me everything you know about Role-Playing Games." Said Susan.
Robert and Ahmed turned to Susan with shocked looks on their faces. "What the hell?"
"I know. I know. And I'm not turning into one of you nerds all of a sudden. But systems engineer here. I've been trained to figure out how things work together, and I think that is exactly what we need to start doing right now."
"Look, Susan…" Robert began.
Just then someone called out "Leslie, Robert would one of you mind opening up the kitchen. We need to have some breakfast."
There was a small group of people standing around the door to the kitchen. Leslie got up, and Robert put a hand on her arm. "Hold on. I was afraid of this. Let's go together."
The two Senior Residential Advisors got up and walked over to the group that was standing by the entrance to the kitchens.
"Umm… Dudes, I can't let you in there." Robert said.
"What the hell, Rob. Nobody's here to open up for breakfast, and I'm hungry." Sophia said, "Don't be a dick. Open the door. I promise I won't tell you."
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
"Fuck you, Sophia. The food on the other side of that door is all we've got. There are no delivery trucks from the restaurant supply company coming to fill the fridge back up. No grocery stores we can go to to get snacks."
"But we're hungry, now," April said with her boyfriend, standing beside her was nodding. John didn't live in the dorm, he had an apartment in Village II. The main campus dorm that housed thousands of students. The only reason that Robert knew him was that John spent so much time over here.
"Well, you're all going to have to wait until lunch. And even then we're going to have to figure out a way to only hand out food that will rot if it gets warm. Fuck, we don't even have electricity or gas, so there's no way to cook."
"What the hell are you talking about Rob. I want food now."
Leslie spoke. "What's the harm, Robert. Let them have some breakfast."
Robert turned to the rest of the room. The discussion they'd been having was being listened to by the rest of the people in the room now. So Robert addressed the crowd.
"Look, I know that all of this is coming as a bit of a shock to some of you. I was trying to be nice before. It is time for some hard truths. Call me a dick all you want, but it won't change things."
Robert pointed to the kitchen and held up a hand. He raised one finger. "One: I don't know how much food is in there. But I would be surprised if we have enough to get through the week if we don't ration it. Once the food runs out, we starve."
He raised up a second finger. "Two: Outside of our cave are things that actively want to kill us. And if they don't want to kill us, it is only because they want to eat us first."
A third finger went up, "Nobody is coming to rescue us. We won't wake up tomorrow and find out that this was all just a bad dream. Ryan and Liam are dead. I expect that in a few weeks more of us will be dead."
"So call me a spaz. Talk behind my back and call me an asshole. But the way I see it, unless we plan ahead, and figure out a way to protect ourselves, we are right and completely fucked. We need to be figuring out how to get more food, not just pigging out on the stuff we have right now."
Robert glared at everyone as if challenging them to say something. Then he turned to Leslie and in a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone, "Leslie, let's go back to our table."
They sat down again, and Robert said, "Look, I'm just going to say it. Ahmed, I think you should focus on taking Magic that supplements your architectural engineering major. Stuff like Earth Magic, Enchanting, Runes, and maybe Ritual Magic. We need to build up some defenses. Walls, traps, that kind of stuff. With enough earth magic, you'll be able to move dirt around, harden walls, dig pits. And with enchanting and runes you should be able to create pitfall traps and that kind of thing."
Robert turned to Leslie. "Leslie, I know you said you want to read up on D&D and I'm sure Ahmed will lend you his players handbook and D.M.'s guide. But don't do that just yet. I thought that you might want to go with your Kinesiology training and focus on healing. Be one of our group's healers. Consider taking Life, Body, Purification, and maybe even Death Magic.
"Akiko…"
The door to the cafeteria opened, and beams of light from flashlights cast shadows on the walls before switching off. Robert turned and saw Huang, Oscar, Brent, and four other people.
"What up bitches," Huang said.
Robert said, "Huang, I thought you were going to give the list to the group and help out."
"Shit that reminds me," Huang pulled out the list of talents that Brent had written down and handed it to a girl sitting at the table nearest to the front door. "Look that over."
Then Huang turned to Robert and shrugged before said, "Better late than never."
Robert frowned, and said, "So you guys are going to make your choices?"
Huang nodded, "Yup."
"Mind saying what? I'm trying to emphasize synergy and community building. "
Huang thought about it for a couple of seconds, "I don't mind. Tank, D.P.S., D.P.S., D.P.S., Healer, off-Tank, Off-Healer. Who said the classics didn't have a purpose. The way I figure it, we're in a dungeon, right. I figure why not go out and fight Dungeon monsters. Especially if we respawn."
Robert nodded. He'd been planning something similar for himself, though he still thought getting their home defended and producing came first. He just wanted to get everything organized and make sure his home was safe before he gathered a group to start exploring. "Want to let me have a clue what magic you guys are taking?"
"I'm gonna be a Necromancer," Brent said.
"Shut up Brent. Yup, I mind." Huang said, "It's none of your business. If that's everything?"
The group started to walk forward to the chapel. Then Huang stopped, "Oh, when will the kitchen be open for breakfast?"
"Any of you planning to get enough fire magic to cook? Or enough nature magic to help us grow some fruit and veggies?" Robert replied, "If the answer is yes and you want to help out, then soon. If not, then probably for a small lunch in a couple hours."
Huang shrugged. "My dad owns a restaurant, and I don't mind cooking. I was planning on getting fire magic. So sure I don't mind helping out a little. As long as nobody starts to expect it from me. Let me into the kitchen, and I'll whip us up a big batch of eggs. Might as well use them up or they will go bad."
"Thanks, but I was kind of hoping to try to figure out a way to turn our eggs into chickens. I wanted to see if Nature, Life or Summoning and Congruity Magic would be able to get us some real live birds. But some breakfast would be nice too." Robert said.
Huang shrugged, and then he and his group continued walking towards the chapel. Just before they went upstairs, Huang turned back to Robert and his table again. "Had to kick Neil out of the Moose room, while we had our meeting of minds." Huang gestured to his friends. "I think he stumbled back to his own bedroom. He doesn't have a clue what's going on. I tried to tell him, but he almost bit my head off."
With that, the seven people went up the stairs and into the chapel.
"So what was I talking about?" Robert said.
"You were telling Ahmed and Leslie what to do," said Susan.
"Making suggestions," Rob said.
Ahmed interrupted. "I don't know Rob. I get what you are trying to do. But I halfway agree with Huang. I don't want to be stuck here building traps and fortifications. I want to be out there exploring and adventuring. What kind of a Muslim would I be if I didn't want to kill goblins?"
"As far as I know, Islam doesn't involve slaying any goblins," Susan said.
"Ifrit and Christians then. You say Potato I say Potato. The point is, I usually play the Tank in our group when we game online. I was kind of hoping to continue that now," replied Ahmed.
Robert said, "And you somehow think I don't want to go out there and explore? If it were up to me, I would already be looking for the way out of this cave and looking to kill some monsters. But we got to look at the bigger picture. This is our home."
Robert gestured to the rest of the cafeteria. Many of the people in the room were listening to their discussing even when they were pretending not to. The room was strangely silent, and his words carried.
"Before we go out there and explore, we need to make sure that the people right here who don't want to go out there and explore can defend themselves. We need to make sure we have a home base that we can come back to. A place where we can re-equip and resupply. A place where we can respawn and rest."
"And really, there is nothing that says you can't do both. In a lot of stories, earth affinities can make you stronger. Maybe don't go with Enchanting and Runes, and instead pick up body magic and foresight. Body magic lets you toughen up your body and make it stronger. While foresight lets you see a bit into the future."
Ahmed looked confused. "Why would I want to see into the future?"
"To see where attacks are coming from and to get out of the way before they hit," Robert said. "Though I don't really know if you can use it like that. I'm just hoping."
Leslie spoke, "If a healer is kind of like a doctor I could go for that. You said Life, Body, Purification, and Death Magic?"
"Life Magic lets you keep people alive. Body magic affects the body, for Ahmed, it would help him become stronger and faster. For you, you could try to affect tissues, circulate blood, regrow cells, that kind of thing. Purification cleans stuff, whether that is dirty clothes, polluted water, or sicknesses and disease. If you have a lot of it, I think it counteracts death magic like the undead."
Leslie thought about it and nodded. Then she said, "You said maybe death magic. Why would I want to take Death Magic?"
"Death magic kills things. It also steals life. And finally, it helps brings things that shouldn't be alive back to life, like Zombies and Skeletons. It is just a guess, but with both death magic and life magic, you might be able to steal life from an enemy and use it to heal a friend. And it might also let you be able to resurrect someone who has died. At the very least, having death magic would let you defend against and heal death magic spells."
"That sounds really unpleasant," Leslie said.
"Resurrect someone who has died," yelled Allen. "Could we bring back Ryan and Liam?"
Robert turned and faced Allen. "I don't know. Maybe if you added Summoning into the mix and your Magic was high enough. Or you might just be messing with things that shouldn't be messed with."
"Shouldn't be messed with?" Allan said.
"For all, I know there are demons, monsters, and shit. Summoning scares me. It's all about dragging a being from another place to here. This dungeon used summoning to bring us here. Basically, with summoning, you are casting your mind out into the universe and hoping to bring something back.
"If you combine it with Congruity well… congruity is like calling to like. I was hoping to try and convince someone to use that Magic to summon some chickens and if we have any hamburger maybe a cow or two. But if someone's skill was high enough, they might be able to use Congruity on something Ryan and Liam owned to use while summoning your friends back. I don't know. All this shit's deep. "
Allan got up, propped his hockey stick up against the table and said, "Okay then." And turned and walked up the stairs to the chapel.
"What's gotten into him?" Ahmed asked.
"According to gossip, Liam was his boyfriend. Neither of them was out of the closet, though." Sarah replied.
"Ah," Ahmed said.
A girl who was sitting two tables over asked "My favorite class in World of Warcraft was the Druid. Can I become a Druid?'
Robert thought about it for a bit. "If you are talking about shape-changing into lions and bears and seals, well… you might be able to do that eventually with Body magic. If you want to grow plants. That is pure nature magic. If you want to interact with animals, I think that is Charm magic or Empathy. So I would choose those. I would also consider picking up farming for the rest of us."
"I already know how to farm. I grew up on a Tobacco farm near Elgin. We had chickens and an apple orchard. "
Robert nodded at this.
"You said something about Space Magic." A hushed voice from Akiko said.
"Yeah, Akiko. You're probably the smartest person out of all of us. We need your help if we are ever going to figure out how to get home. Maybe consider Time and Space magic? From the way I understand it, those skills are mostly pure math."
"But what do they do?" Akiko said.
"Umm… Time magic, I think, can do things like speed up or slow down how time itself affects people. Space magic is all about understanding dimensions and moving through space. Teleportation, that kind of thing.
"I'm hoping that if you get strong enough, you might be able to create a portal back to Ontario. But even if you can't, just being able to move us long distances quickly would be incredibly helpful."
Akiko nodded.
"As for you, Sarah. I don't know. You have mad martial arts skills. I was kind of hoping you would be willing to start teaching some of us kendo and ju-jitsu. I can't imagine that using experience is the only way to learn skills. But as for ideas about what Magic you should take. I don't know."
Sarah was looking at the list of skills, and she said, "What does Ritual magic do?"
"If one person has ritual magic, they can form groups with other people with magic, to share skills and mana and cast more powerful spells."
"Hmmm…" she said. "And force magic and anti-magic?"
"Force magic lets you create an invisible means of blocking things and moving things around. Think force shields and telekinesis. Anti-Magic creates an aura that blocks out all Magic. The more Anti-Magic you have, the larger the aura you can generate."
"What about Arcane magic?"
"That is pure Magic. It lets you interact with Magic itself. Let's you take apart other people's spells, lets you see Magic, and lets you let outbursts of pure Magic as a weapon."
"Anima?"
"Like robotics or Computer Programming, I think. Basically, you can give basic commands to something, and that something will try to follow the commands. In terms of the dungeon, it is about creating golems. As far as I know, it isn't A.I. or machine learning, though I would imagine that if you got your Magic high enough you could manage it."
"And Analyze."
"It also lets you see Magic, but it also lets you pick up more information from things. If you look at an arm, you can see the cells, the way the blood moves, if there is corruption. If you look at a brick, you can see what kind of clay it was made out of, what impurities are in the dirt. That kind of thing."
Leslie said, "So it would be useful for me, right? Would it be better than death magic?"
"A lot better," Rob said. "I should have pointed it out to you. I forgot. I'm sorry."
Leslie waved Rob's apology away and said, "No worries."
"What about luck and Empathy," continued Sarah
"Luck is about affecting how lucky someone is. Or unlucky someone else is. Empathy is about understanding and projecting feelings. Not only people but animals and even some plants."
Claudia had sat down two tables over, but she came over and sat at their table and said, "I'm totally not into all of this nerd shit. But I'm a can geek out over anthropology like the best of them. There are a bunch of languages and histories and knowledge on the list. What gives?"
Robert looked over at Claudia and immediately felt uncomfortable. "Oh, hey, Claudia. What's up?"
"Rob, I said I wanted to know about communicating. What languages would be most effective."
"Umm…. The only language I know for sure is Quatrill." Robert said.
With exaggerated patience, Claudia said, "So who uses Quatrill?"
"Well, there are a lot of monsters out there, but there are other groups just like us. Well, not just like us. But groups with societies and cultures. Quatrill is a kind of the common language they use for trade. Sort of like English in the real world. A lot of countries speak their own language, but because the U.S. dollar is so important economically, in most places a lot of people also speak English for business."
Claudia thought about this for a second. "So what you're saying that somewhere in this place is a superpower, that uses Quatrill as their main language?"
"I didn't say that," Robert replied.
"But you kind of implied it. What about the other languages?"
"I don't have a clue. Well… now that I think about it the little bit I took in Magic theory tells me that Urbanth has something to do with an extinct civilization of mages. Though why that is considered a common skill is a question that I can't answer."
"So if I wanted to try talking to the people and things that are attacking us, I would take Quatrill?"
"Ummm. Well… this is complete guesswork, I could be completely wrong. But Claudia, if I had to guess… Well, since Quatrill has to do with dungeon communication, and Urbanth has something to do with Magic, a good bet might be that Temmorian has to do with the adventurers coming into the dungeon."
Claudia thought about it a bit longer. "How could I find out for sure."
Robert said, "well… Claudia, I was kinda hoping someone would take either the skill "Geography: Local" or the skill "Knowledge: Local" which if I had to guess, would be the geography or an understanding of what is going on in the general area outside of the dungeon. If we knew either of those things, not only could we have a better idea of what will attack us, but we might be able to help those of us who want to leave the caves."
Claudia nodded and then got up and walked towards the chapel. Robert watched her walk. Watched the way her butt moved under the nighty she was wearing. He'd seen her nude on the internet over the summer, even chatted with her a couple of times online, but somehow she was even more fascinating in person. And underneath it all, he questioned his own motives. Did he actually like her, or did she just make him horny? And just how creepy would this whole thing be from her perspective…
"Robert and Claudia, sitting in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G…" Ahmed said.
"Shut up, Ahmed."
"Little Robby pooh has a crush on Claudia." Sarah mocked.
"Shut up Sarah. I thought we discussed this last night at the Bombshelter. Besides, it is complicated."
Leslie just smiled and patted him condescendingly on the back. "Poor Robert."
Robert looked around. Everyone in the cafeteria had been listening in. Now the entire dorm knew something was up. He was so embarrassed. Fucking, Ahmed and Sarah. Maybe he should have put some points into seduction?
Then Darnell spoke up "So Robert if you can stop drooling over the Claudster, would you mind giving me some advice too. Let's say I wanted to make a ring. Call it The One Ring. Let's say, I wanted this ring to rule them all. What skills would I take?"
After that, there was a bit of a barrage of people asking advice about skills and Magic. Robert was glad to help. After a while he said,
"Look at it this way. In a lot of computer games, people group up in something called a party. They have a Tank or someone who can get people to focus on them. This person is usually willing to get right into the thick of things, and they do this because a lot of people who focus on Magic are pretty weak and don't have a lot of physical skills. The technical term is a glass cannon. A lot of firepowers, but they break quickly if someone smashes them. Then there is someone who is a healer, their job is to make sure that everyone stays healthy."
"It might make sense to group people up like this. Even if you aren't planning on doing anything other than help cook or you are a chemical engineering or chemistry major out to perform diabolical chemistry experiments with alchemy." Robert glanced over at a small group of five students who were chatting and gesturing wildly at another table. They'd asked about alchemy earlier.
He went on, "Even if fighting is not your focus, I would like it if everyone could fight. Even if you completely suck at it. Just in case. Have an emergency group with at least one person who can maybe do a bit of healing, that you can fall in with. I want Sarah to give Kendo and Ju-Jitsu lessons, and if we can pick up some fighting skills that way. It might help."
"I don't mind teaching. I help out with the teaching in my dojo anyway. Hopefully, I'll be able to whip some of you into shape." Sarah said.
Just then, the door at to the cafeteria opened, and Neil and Fio walked in. "The power seems to be out. Hey, why are all of you in your pajamas? Cool karate outfit Sarah." Niel said.