The Overlord stood beside Maviel and watched his crew of skeletons lower the young frost dragon caught in his dragon net toward the ground. Each skeleton spun a large wooden wheel with a small dial that weighted the different lengths of rope making up the dragon net, incrementally pulling the beast out of the air. The dragon breathed bursts of ice, but the skeletons resisted the attacks, and fired flaming arrows up at the dragon’s neck and mouth to silence and slow its opposition.
“Soon, I will have slain myself a true dragon!” said the Overlord. “And, if luck would have it, maybe I’ll slay this elusive new player, too. What is she up to, Maviel?”
“Oh, nothing of consequence, darling. Just spinning her wheels with her party members. The kobold keeps asking her for bread. She hasn’t headed a shred of my warning messages. I told her to keep away,” said Maviel.
“Keep away?” said the Overlord. “Maviel, if I have a chance at killing the player now, I want to take it!”
“Overlord, dear. Don’t you know anything about reverse psychology?” Maviel asked. “I only did it to make sure she’d come here.”
“That’s absurd,” said the Overlord. “Still, so be it. Honestly, I had hoped she’d already be dead by now. But I guess the old adage is true. If you want a player slaughtered, you’ve got to do it yourself.”
Maviel chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” asked the Overlord, a hint of rage tinging the tone of his speech.
“Oh, I was just spying on the player again,” said Maviel, lowering her hands from her temples. “She’s getting ready to level up.”
“Level up?” asked the Overlord. “Oh boy. What level is she?” Maviel smirked. “Twenty two. Going on twenty three, it seems.”
The Overlord burst into the cackles of laughter. When he finally finished, he had to reach under his hood to wipe a tear from his eye. “This is going to be fun.”
----------------------------------------
[Notice: You’re ready to level up]
Isabelle was excited to level up. What had once been a bizarre experience that almost felt like a chore had quickly become one of her favorite experiences. Isabelle shrugged.
[Notice: You’ve reached level 23!]
[Notice: You have attribute and skill points to spend]
[Would you like to spend your points now?]
[Y/N]
Isabelle thought yes.
Attribute Points to Spend: 15
Hp:
70
H-Regen:
3/30sec
Mana:
59
M-Regen:
2/40sec
Stm:
54
S-Regen:
0.5/sec
Fifteen points! Wasn’t that nice. Isabelle decided to add five to all three of her attributes.
Skill Points to Spend: 15
Str:
50
Int:
40
Dx:
41
Wis:
31
Const:
32
Char:
27
Isabelle wanted more wis, so she’d put five points in there. Three to const also felt fair. Isabelle then decided her str should get five, just in case what with all this fighting the Overlord she was planning to do. That left two points. Isabelle put those points into her dx.
[Congratulations, you’ve finished leveling up!]
Character Status
Name:
Isabelle
Gender:
Female
Level:
23
Class:
Undefined
Race:
Human
Alignment:
Neutral-Neutral
Attributes
Hp:
75
H-Regen:
3/30sec
Mana:
64
M-Regen:
2/40sec
Stm:
59
S-Regen:
0.5/sec
Skill Points
Str:
55
Int:
40
Dx:
43
Wis:
36
Const:
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
35
Char:
27
Magic Ability Levels
Enchant:
3
Summon:
2
Heal:
0
Destroy:
8
Transmute:
2
Confuse:
1
Normal Ability Levels
Crafting:
7
Sneak:
6
Archery:
8
Lockpick:
3
Armed Combat:
11
Melee Combat:
4
Speechcraft:
9
Sleight Of Hand:
6
The only empty piece in Isabelle’s character sheet was her healing ability level. And surely during the coming battle she would get a good opportunity to make use of her new quick heal spell. Things really were looking up.
“Um, Isabelle, are you about ready yet?” asked Tahsi. He looked at the blue dragon egg held tight under his arm. “I’m getting really nervous about Frimri. It’s just, I’ve already lost my home and business, I think if I lost the mother of my unhatched child I’d just about lose it.”
“I think so,” said Isabelle. “Also, Tahsi, why don’t you put that egg in your inventory or something? If that really is your kid in there, wouldn’t you want them to be a little safer and less... well... out in the elements? Especially if we’re rushing into battle?”
“Yea, yea, you’re right,” said Tahsi. “It’s just... I feel bad. Won’t it feel dehumanizing for little Tahsi Junior to be stashed away in his dad’s inventory, like some sort of random item instead of the great big ball fo love and joy that he will surely be?”
“First of all, Tahsi, I’m not sure you should be concerned about something feeling ‘dehumanized’ if it’s not even human!” said Isabelle.
“Oh, you humans and all your damned monopoly on language!” said Stelas’ severed head, which was now back in its rightful place stuffed inside a burlap sack and dangling off the side of Isabelle’s horse Lugano. “Why don’t you ask me about dehumanized, Isabelle? Ask the sentient severed head in the sack about dehumanization!”
Isabelle grimaced and turned back to address Tahsi. “Secondly, how do you even know it’s going to be a he? Or even that the egg will hatch at all?” Isabelle said.
“Isabelle! Are you calling me sterile or something? Because if I really am sterile, I sure did waste my time not sleeping around with anybody,” said Tahsi.
Isabelle rolled her eyes. Then, she noticed the time she and her party had left to take action before Frimri the dragon was captured by the Overlord.
[Frimri Capture Duration: 07:21]
Shit, they needed to get moving. Isabelle regarded her horse, Lugano. What a beautiful, muscular horse, with his black and white speckles and luxurious mane that would leave even a shag carpet seething with jealousy. Isabelle wished she could do something nice for Lugano, seeing as he was so beautiful and so shockingly still alive after the dreadful palace ambush and attack. Didn’t she have something horse related in her inventory? Isabelle opened it to check.
Inventory: Isabelle
Carrying capacity: 217.4/232
Item
Traits
Horseshoes of Lickedy Speed
+3 horse speed, +5 carry weight
Abbreviated list based on prior use. Focus to see more items…
Hey, look at that. Pretty cool. Isabelle focused on the horseshoes of lickedy speed, and then focused on Lugano.
[Give ‘Horseshoes of Lickedy Speed’ to ‘Lugano’?]
Isabelle thought yes.
[Horseshoes of Lickedy Speed removed from inventory]
Lugano let loose a high-pitched, appreciative whinny and stomped his hooves into the ground with excitement.
“Hey, did you have something for our horses?” asked Sir Jingles. “Uh, no?” said Isabelle.
“Well, that’s kind of rude, just bringing something for your horse and excluding ours,” said Jingles.
Isabelle blinked in frustration, unsure how to even respond to the sheer ridiculousness of what Sir Jingles was saying to her.
“Isabelle?” said Tahsi. “Are you doing okay? Do you need some bread or something? Are you ready to go fight the Overlord?”
Isabelle looked at the crumbs of bread spilling from Tahsi’s lizard lips. She looked at Sir Jingles’ scowl. She looked at Lugano smiling in a horselike fashion, and Stefano and Doug almost scowling in jealousy at him. She looked at the timer from the system printing over her vision.
[Frimri Capture Duration: 06:51]
Isabelle almost felt like she couldn’t take it! How in the hell was she supposed to handle this situation? How could she process this? For possibly the first time since being reincarnated, Isabelle was feeling the pressure of what she had to do weighing down on her shoulders. It felt heavy, like a monkey on her back. Or maybe a gorilla. Isabelle just didn’t feel like she had the mental energy to process everything that was happening.
[Clarification: To resolve undue mental load and stress, you may consider entering a meditation session]
Meditation? Wasn’t that the thing where you essentially just sat and did nothing for an extended period of time? Isabelle had already used the system to wait and to sleep, what was the difference for meditation?
[Clarification: Entering a meditative state with the system operates a little differently than a non-system led meditative state. Essentially, you can consider a system-led meditation as an on-rails psychic experience where you are guided by a meditation master. The master, in this case, being the system. Meditative states are known for, among other things, sometimes stimulating a psychological effect known as time dilation. Time dilation essentially takes your current experience of time, which is itself a maleable and intagible thing, and stretches it to an infinite degree. Through time dilation, one second can seem like a year, and a minute can seem like an eternity. Guided meditative states with time dilation through the system can give your mind the time it needs to unfold and process what has happened in the past, what is happening now, and what will happen in the future.]
That was... interesting. Isabelle didn’t really consider herself someone interested in meditation, but she also found the idea that she could essentially take a break without taking any time at all rather enticing.
[Clarification: To enter a meditative state, think ‘Activate Meditation.’ Do note that you cannot activate meditation from combat mode.]
What did she have to lose? Not time, apparently. Isabelle thought, ‘Activate Meditation.’
[Achievement unlocked: activate mediation for the first time]
Isabelle involuntarily sat on the ground with her legs crossed. Quickly, the outside world went out of focus, almost like there was a camera taking it all in that just turned its lens until everything was fuzzy. Isabelle’s body was the only thing she could see clearly. Almost like she was the only one there, and the only entity there.
[Close your eyes to begin]
That was funny. Activating meditation had made Isabelle involuntarily sit down cross-legged, but she had to close her eyes manually to start the meditation session? The system worked in mysterious ways.
[Error: Thought detected]
[Close your eyes to begin]
Isabelle felt strange. Why was having a thought an error?
[Error: Thought detected]
[Close your eyes to begin]
Isabelle was getting aggravated. What the hell was this? Was this shit supposed to be relaxing? Was Isabelle not supposed to be thinking when she meditated or something?
[Error: Thought detected]
[Error: Emotion detected]
[Close your eyes to begin]
Isabelle was getting mad. She was getting furious! Why was the system hounding her in such a way? How was this supposed to help her deal with anything when she couldn’t even think without having the system bitch at her? How was that fair? What a waste of her time!
Then again, Isabelle thought, it wasn’t like she really had time to waste, was it? Hadn’t the system told her that time dilation could make a second feel like a year? With that considered, Isabelle figured she might as well try and comply.
[Close your eyes to begin]
Isabelle closed her eyes.
[Meditation initializing]
[...]
Isabelle noticed that she couldn’t open her eyes now. She couldn’t even move. It reminded her of descriptions she;d heard of sleep paralysis, where her whole body became locked and immovable. It was like she had become petrified stone.
[Meditation initialized]
Isabelle could see nothing, seeing as her eyes were closed. But then, it was like she could see everything.
Out of the darkness emerged shadows, and out of the shadows emerged shapes. Geometric figures, twisting and twirling over one another in what looked to be, impossibly enough, four dimensions. As Isabelle focused on the figures and shapes they grew larger and more focused, and they developed shades of color. First it was just purples and greens, and very dark. Soon after it was lighter, with a hint of pinks, maybe a flash of yellow. Isabelle felt pin pricks of feeling rush over her skin, almost like she was in an accupuncture session.
Before she knew it, all of the colors of the rainbow were dancing, yes, dancing around Isabelle’s sight. It was mesmerising, entrancing, hypnotizing. She felt as if her mind was a large soup bowl, a large soup bowl full of split pea soup. Something took a small, sharp needle up to the perfect bottom of that bowl of split pea soup and stabbed a tiny little hole into it. Out of the bowl trickled the soup, out and around in the air in a small, swirling mess, billowing together into a tantalizing eternity.
Now that Isabelle’s soup bowl was empty, she swum around in its contents. She could see the image in her head of the Overlord—not so much a person as a terrible caricature. It struck Isabelle that she had always pictured the Overlord as some sort of terrible alligator on steriods in a cape, though she hadn’t necessarily had a reason for picturing him as such. She also saw images from her old life. For some reason, she realized that she’d equated Stelas with a Beaubintian version of Sal from her past life back on Earth.
Earth. Thinking of Earth made Isabelle think of Earth day, and of guilt for not being more vehemetly opposed to littering and pollution. It also made her think of anthropology. Was Isabele failing her past life? She’d practically begun living a real anthropologist’s dream. She’d woken up in a world with entirely new culture.
But, was Isabelle truly in an anthropologist’s dream? A true anthropologist would bring their discoveries home. Isabelle couldn’t go home. Hell, Beaubinte felt like her home now. The system felt like home now. She couldn’t even imagine going back to a place where there were only humans, and not a shred of dragons. No annoying kobold pestering her to eat his terrible bread. No goofy cat tying to steal everything she posessed. Maybe Isabelle wasn’t living an anthropologist’s dream, and maybe she wasn’t a true anthropologist. But maybe she was living her own dream. Maybe where she was was where she really wanted to be, after all.
What had Isabelle really enjoyed about anthropology, anyway? Was it all the bullshit analysis, or was it the idea that society and culture itself could be put under a microscope? And what better way to enjoy such a thing, then go somewhere wildly different? Isabelle did find herself thinking that, as terribly different as Beaubinte was from Earth, she also thought that it had a lot of similarities. There was a cultural, emotional feel that while shocking, also felt universal. Maybe Isabelle was the best anthropologist there was. Maybe she was the one true anthropologist, and maybe—
[Error: Ego swell detected]
[Error: Meditation session derailed]
[...]
[Ending session]
[...]
Isabelle’s eyelids shot open. She watched as the world around her zoomed back in to focus. She was sitting on the ground, surrounded by her party. The sun was rising. Frimri the frost dragon was inching ever closer to the ground in the distance.
[Meditation deactivated]
[Achievement unlocked: end meditation due to ego swell]
[‘Fresh From The Meditation’ buff activated]
Isabelle did feel fresh. She uncrossed her legs and slowly stood to her feet. The air around her felt crisp and cool, and she felt focused and powerful.
“Um, Isabelle, what the fuck?” said Tahsi. He took a bite of bread. “I mean, shit, I’m glad that you finally got your shit together and stopped sitting there in silence before we ran out of time to save Frimri, but you really freaked me out for a second there.”
“Freaked you out? But I didn’t take any time at all!” said Isabelle. “I was just meditating with the system. And when you meditate, time can dilate to where a second feels like a year, and a minute can be an eternity!”
[Clarification: Time *can* dilate to where a second feels like a year and a minute can be an eternity when you’re meditating, but usually that only happens with regular practice, even when you’re meditating with help from the system. In general, time will dilate when you meditate, but you’ll need to be more experienced meditating to dilate time in such an extreme manner. Upping your wis and int scores can also help.]
Isabell rolled her eyes. Yet another aspect of life in Beaubinte that hinged on her wis and int. Why even have the rest of her stats? Why not just have her character sheet be two columns that detailed her int score and her wis score? Who needed any of her other great stats? Not the system, apparently, because seemingly anything that mattered had to do with her wis and int! What a crock of bullshit.
[Frimri Capture Duration: 02:14]
Isabelle had an inkling of an idea that the system had finally showed her how much time she had until Frimri got captured to distract her from her frustration at the results of her meditation session. However, with barely two minutes until they were out of time, Isabelle figured she ought to stop agonizing over mechanics and get her party ready to take action.
“Alright, everyone—” said Isabelle, “—let’s do this shit.”
“About damn time,” said Sir Jingles. He stopped licking his anus and hopped on top of Sefano. “I spent, like, ten whole seconds learning that confusion spell. I’d be pissed if we didn’t get to use it.”
Tahsi smiled and hopped on top of Doug. “Yea, I’m glad we’re finally doing this too,” he said.
“Uh, Tahsi?” said Isabelle with an eyebrow raise. “Why are you still holding that egg under your arm? Wouldn’t it be more safe in your inventory? I mean, if you’re not comfortable putting it in yours, I could always add it to mine, or put it in Stelas’ inventory if—”
“Gods damn it! Fine!” said Tahsi. He looked at the egg under his arm. It quickly disappeared. “There, I did it. The egg’s in my inventory. Happy now, Isabelle?”
“Yes,” said Isabelle. “Thank you.”
Isabelle mounted Lugano. It was time to go. She and her party members charged forward, towards the shape of Frimri the young frost dragon lowering out of the air.
As they wove through the streets of Cloud Reach, Isabelle noticed two things. The first was that Lugano was noticeably faster than the other horses, doubtlessly due to those great horseshoes of lickedy speed she’d given him earlier. The second thing the noticed, however, were all over the animated skeletons coming up in the distance as the horses approached Cloud Reach’s main courtyard.
[Combat mode activated]
Lugano stopped in his tracks. Soon afterwards approached Stefano and Doug, who also stopped at the same spot.
One skeleton turned its head three hundred and sixty degrees. Then, it turned its head ninety more degrees and looked right at Isabelle. More and more skeletons did the same thing.
“Shit,” said Isabelle. “I thought we were going to fight the Overlord.”
The skeletons stepped forward. Many drew swords, many others drew axes, and others in the distance drew bows and arrows. There had to be at least twenty.
This was going to be messy.