Ros’s wrist watch alarm woke her in time for breakfast. She asked her butterflies if she should meet with Franklin, and there was a surprisingly dire feeling to not going to see him. That made her a little disconcerted, she definitely didn’t want to get close to any particular leadership team, despite practically ordering them around.
She dressed in the armor she bought to match Doug, and Blinked straight from her new dome home to the platform around the edge of the observation deck. There were a few people in the couch areas, but nobody remarked her entrance.
She went down the lift into the casino room. She passed several conversations about the announcements, and she paused outside the VIP lounge long enough to read the posted flyer, which was also being passed around as a newsletter.
The murders had been solved. The murderers were executed, having been magically tracked and magically observed in the act of murder. No names were given. No hint of the exact location of the justified execution.
There was no bouncer at the door to the lounge. She went in anyway. Franklin and Brandon were both inside.
Franklin reached up and dialed her up a big breakfast platter. Not that she needed him to buy her food.
“How did you sleep? I saw the Hell Hound post. Should keep people busy.” Brandon teased.
Ros grunted, nodded and dialed herself up a strong and sweet coffee flavored mostly milk drink. Chilled, no ice. She drank more than half of it before she was ready to make true eye contact.
“So.” Ros finally said. “Hunting this morning? I have a karate class at three thirty I like to attend. I have the prism quest active. And honestly I’m good hunting by myself if you have more important stuff to do.”
Franklin huffed skeptically at that. “Next thing on my list is the conference in the city, train leaves in over a week and I want you to come with me, so I want to facilitate your advance through the first levels of the quests.”
“I can do everything except the Wurms at the city.” She shrugged. “And a week on a train will give me no excuse not to do the write ups.”
“I think you got more beautiful since yesterday. Really makes me wish my dick worked, I’d give some of these younger swains a run for their money.” Franklin cackled.
“Why doesn’t it work?” She asked with alarm and concern. “Healing items can heal nearly anything.”
“First, I was 92 when I left home. The transition did a lot to heal up my aging, but the dick thing was a physical injury and old organ damage is different from new fighting damage. Trust me, I have tried.”
She frowned and went back into the menu. It wasn’t in the VIP room menu. She accessed the database of replicator patterns through her wireless system and found it in a search.
Organ Damage Elixir- 7,000,000 for the comprehensive replacement or repair of damaged or missing bodily organs, including facial, abdominal, genital and glandular organs.
“Do you do your own shots?” She held it up.
Franklin caught her arm and Identified the shot.
“That’s…” he swallowed. “I can’t let you buy that for me.”
“Too late. Drop your pants, it’s a buttock shot.” She pulled the needle cap off with her teeth.
He swallowed and revealed one completely unwrinkled butt cheek. “Looking mighty good for an old guy, Franklin, I am definitely taking a ticket to ride.” She teased as she slapped his ass, rubbed on the numbing disinfectant and smoothly injected the dose into the bared ass.
The needle dusted out as soon as she had it out of his ass.
“Oh. Man. I think it’s working already. Brandon, carry me back to my room and put me in the tub.” Franklin groaned.
Ros walked with them. She wasn’t at all surprised that they walked through the back of the VIP lounge and into the ‘owner’s suite.’ It was one of the better suites in the green halls, excluding the balcony suites.
They got Franklin in the tub, with the water circulating through the replicator based filters. He’d quite likely lose a lot of gunk rebuilding all his major organs at once. Ros got a good look at the ruin of his genitalia, and she was more determined than ever not to be paid back in any way except orgasms.
Franklin insisted they leave him in the circulating, always filtering, perfectly temperature controlled, water.
“Are you anywhere near the end of your cash on hand?” Brandon asked, as they got to the lift. “I’ve looked at that shot for him before.”
She eyed him. She sighed. “I just keep getting more.” She shrugged. The first time through she’d scrimped and saved every day. There was always something new to save for. Moon Wurms were truly ridiculous for wealth building.
“So. Just you and me?” Brandon looked a little embarrassed. “The Air Quality Room?”
“Yup. Let’s go.” They strolled back towards the central lift.
“They’re immune to energy weapons.” He reminded her.
“I know. They need a melee strike, steel preferred, directly to the core at the center of the ground facing facet, and don’t get any on you.”
“Right. Yes. The first group the greens, are-“
“Cubes.” Ros said. As they hit the call button on the lift and waited.
“You can have all the theoretical knowledge possible, and still fail the first encounter.” He said sternly. He looked, for all the world, like a young uncle trying to temper the enthusiasm of his teenage niece. She tried not to laugh. Really she did.
“Trust me. Green cubes of acidic jello have nothing on my knife skills.” And she was itching to try telekinesis in combat. She had a few dozen leaf daggers spelled to return right into her ring to be used again. The spatial ring would neutralize the acid immediately, and being replicator purchased knives they were upgraded to resist damage anyway.
The life support areas were subterranean, under the residential buildings. They weren’t on the lift menu until the quest was active. Rather, the buttons were there and blank.
Ros pushed the button for the Red Gym floor.
“Are we doing the red gym first? I can’t help you there.” He said uneasily.
“I know. I’ve done it already. We’re going there for something else.” She had her rifle out as they left the lift, but the lift lobby was still clear. She bought a fuse and plugged it into the training field control. He looked surprised.
“I heard someone turned on the training field upstairs. What? You want to fight me?”
“Yes. I want you to stop treating me like a helpless chick. I’ve been fighting these battles in my dreams since the first wave.” She brought out her new spear and half a dozen leaf blades.
She stood in the center of the active training field and waited for him to arm himself. He went with a sword. They faced each other. He started a charging attack.
She stabbed him with all six knives, telekinetically guided, and stood over him with the spear at his neck as his body expelled the knives and refused the damage. Whatever magic went into the training field was substantial and useful.
“That hurt.” He complained.
“Want to go again? Unarmed and unarmored?” She grinned. “No abilities, just fists and feet?”
“Yeah.” He got to his feet and banished his armor into his spatial ring. She did the same a moment later, putting hers in her necklace, which had a ‘same as it came off’ reequip feature she had never had in a spatial object before. She could set whole outfits to change instantly, just like elvish nobility.
She was dressed in a soft loose shirt and pants under her armor. He was in running shorts and a racer back. They both went barefoot.
He took a typical boxer stance. She relaxed and shook her shoulders, waiting for him.
He got impatient and attacked. His form was decent, had the feeling of a brawler, not a trained fighter.
Ros went easy on him. She ducked and parried and danced around him. She got him breathing hard. Then she threw him onto his back so hard he wheezed for a moment while the training field caught up to erasing the damage. Ros followed up with a pin to the floor he couldn’t break. He tapped out.
“Ok. So you can fight. I knew that already, I guess.”
“Then what’s the problem? Why are you treating me like…”
“Like a teenager? Aren’t you one?”
She was genuinely surprised. “23.”
“Oh.” He blushed. “I’m only 26. Six years in the marines. I was just barely starting my GI Bill college two years ago when…”
“Waitress in Manhattan. Mixed martial arts studio in the basement of my building.” She lied. “A girl in the city needs to be able to take care of herself.” She paused. “I’m very used to fighting men taller and stronger than me.
“Yeah. I… yeah.”
“Hey. Is this part of what’s bothering you?” She kissed his lips lightly.
He groaned. “Well… yeah. Christine disappeared too quickly. Then you…”
“Sex tortured that guy?”
He shrugged. “And I probably could have had any girl, but I’ve been looking for Christine. For you.”
“Want to get a room before we start? I’m not a one man type of girl. I don’t like to focus too tight on anyone. I just get hurt when they die.”
“When they die?”
She shrugged and shook her head. “Or cheat. If I’m not expecting fidelity I don’t get burned by the cheating.”
“Sounds like you have met a lot of assholes.”
She shrugged. “Assholes is what you find in a pub in the financial district. Assholes who tip the slutty girls more. Most of the cheating was high school.”
She had spent time running butterfly questions on what would happen if she gave someone the absolute total truth, and she didn’t like the outcomes.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Let’s go fight the slimes. I promised Franklin I’d keep you on track to make his train.”
She nodded and they got back on the lift. Sub basement one was a poured concrete room with large, indecipherable mechanical air quality machines. Even HVAC guys who had done the quest had doubts about the machines.
Almost immediately they got separated into solo instances.
“You really shouldn’t be down here. This area is out of bounds.”
“The maintenance machine upstairs said you were having problems. Could I be of help?”
The machine didn’t sniff skeptically, but it felt like it had. “If you think you’re up to it. These gelatinous cubes have been causing problems almost faster than I can make repairs. If you can kill ten of them, and bring me the pierced cores as proof, I would be willing to make them into a potion that will add ten points to your recovery stat. Oh, and don’t let them touch you.”
The new robot pointed imperiously and trundled around the machine it was working on, disappearing.
Ros was amused and disconcerted that she couldn’t get a question in about repeatability.
“The first quest isn’t repeatable, just like the Evrets aren’t repeatable.” Brandon said, immediately.
“Figures. Was the quest giver rude to you?”
He shook his head. “No. First time I met it, it went on and on about how strong I looked.”
“Yeah. That’s how I…” remember it. “Must be because I still haven’t taken the strength potions.”
“What? Any of them? You’re strong.”
She grinned. “I’ve taken a couple, but not all of the first round. Most of my strength is Qui Cultivation. My plan was to get to maximize my strength naturally before using the doubling ones.”
Her new butterfly passive suddenly fluttered, a single little blue butterfly which led her to a spot where a dozen of them were fluttering close to the ground. She got the message, stand here.
She would be in sight of whatever was in the next, open, doorway deeper into the Air Quality Room or rooms. She got to the spot and her Automatic Targeting popped up, well, automatically.
She saw a pictorial list of weapons across the bottom of her HUD, color coded with red for ineffective against this monster, orange for partly effective and green for preferred. She selected the pile of 50 leaf knives and selected her telekinetic skill.
Knives shot, straight line, from her hands to the four cubes she could see from the doorway. The butterflies led her into the room, once again showing her where to stand to get the rest of the ones in the large room.
The targeting left her hud, but her mini map continued to show the little x spots of the lootable corpses, which were currently orange to denote a slight remaining danger.
“Well. That was fun to watch.” Brandon crossed his arms. “Do you know the trick of picking up the cores?”
“Wait until the smoking stops. That’s the acid neutralizing with the liquid from inside the core.” Some particularly gruesome reports had eventually leaked out where some asshole scientist had trapped one and stripped the gel away so he could examine and torture the living core, which created the acid.
He grunted agreement.
She put her cleaning gloves on anyway. Couldn’t be too careful. “That was seven.” She said, moving towards her first kill.
There were only three rooms in the area and only two where the green cubes appeared. She picked up the cores, interested to note the knives were already gone, returned to her inventory. She should probably invest in some actual throwing knives. Without her mind trait, leaf knives were particularly bad for throwing, except out of the end of a pipe.
The butterflies showed her where to stand again as she got close to the doorless entry into the last room of the air quality department. If she ever wanted to face green slimes again she had to do it in another section of the station, or any station.
Her targeting triggered the moment she was on the spot her butterflies chose for her. She targeted six through the doorway and there were another nine along the high, open decking walkway that served the top of the machine. She ought to have had to climb up there, except her butterflies showed her where to stand to be in range to all of them. Well, in range if she didn’t mind a few unnaturally arching, telekinesis assisted, trick shots.
“Now I’m sure you’re not throwing those normally.” Brandon complained.
Ros grinned and bit her bottom lip. “I’m telekinetic. Isn’t that cool?” She emphasized the flirty exuberance, ramped up the cute.
He half choked on a breath that wasn’t quite sure if it was a laugh or not. “Everything you can do and telekinesis is your cool?”
She made a face at him and tried to pick up a core with her mental power. It zipped right to her hand and into her ring. She eyed her mental stamina meter, but the bar didn’t dip for something so small. She summoned the cores one by one, standing in the center of the room.
The quest instance interrupted her as soon as she had the tenth core in her ring.
“That was unnaturally fast. I have spoken with the Hall Monitor, Seer, and I apologize, you are not merely God Touched, you have Active Patronage. Your attempt to wring points out of the quest matrix is misguided. Perhaps this will help.”
The Life Support Monitor held out a rolled sheet of paper. She took it and unrolled it. A chart of the entire quest matrix with repeatable quests spelled out clearly and secrets like the fishery explained, at least one secret per monster family. Including the best hunting spots for Wurms.
“Do you understand what you’re doing by giving this to me? I’m actively posting the secrets of the quest matrix for anyone to read.”
“We understand. The details of your circumstance have been shared with the system. There is some embarrassment that in your original instance we clung too tightly to our secrets and failed so spectacularly in our divinely appointed task. Your intentions regarding this document are known and approved.
“Understand, Seer, that these are not all the secrets of the first Realm, merely the secrets of building the human physique to the level where the gate to the second realm is opened to the individual. That particular detail is changed for this instance, the gates didn’t have a minimum requirement in your previous instance.
“Luckily at the start of the Fourth Year of the Instance, the gate to the second realm has only been opened twice and both travelers qualified under the updated guidelines.”
Ros looked back at the chart. It was laid out as a path to the exit. Even the exit location was revealed. However, it also made it abundantly clear that there was a great deal more to the level than the minimum quests. She transcribed the chart using her Chronicler’s transcription skill and posted it to the message boards. As she did, she realized that there was a very clear path through the repeats of the quests, and they started over from the beginning, running through the whole cycle over and over, rather than focusing on one stat at a time.
“A warning. If you persist in delaying your potions, take them with a delay of approximately how long the potions took to brew. Some things are not random or meaningless. Here.” It traded her the first recovery potion.
She took it. She raised her eyebrows. “I thought you had to brew it.”
“I thought you were going to delay taking it.”
She eyed him. She activated her butterflies. Taking the first potions together, no negative effects. Taking the first recovery potion immediately after the last Hell Hound potion- fever, pain, boils, not recommended.
She laughed. She spent nearly ten minutes using her predictive ability to check the outcomes of taking or not taking the potions before she caught up to her Qui Cultivation level.
Satisfied that Qui Cultivation would continue to produce stat points, she went ahead and took the last Knock Dog potion she had and the green cube potion she’d just been given.
“Excellent decision. When the first Orange Pentagonal Prism potion is ready feel free to drink the first Fenrir potion.” The robot moved, repositioning all its limbs into a pose that was theatrically subservient and somehow imploring.
“Brave, strong huntress, if you have time, could I beg you to help me again? There are a mass of Orange Pentagonal Prisms in the water filtration system!” The droid was overacting this.
“I am unable to so much as access the auxiliary filters to change them. If you will bring me the cores of 25 Orange Pentagonal Prisms I can make you a permanent stat potion for recovery that will exceed your expectations.”
Ros peeked at the chart, as expected, the number was supposed to be 8 for a 25 point increase.
The maintenance droid lifted a cleaning arm as if it was a finger in the universal shh motion. “But don’t tell anyone you got an extra potent potion. They’ll all want one and I can’t do that. Understand?”
“Yes, thank you.”
The instance faded, Brandon appeared and the droid disappeared without even the illusion of rolling away. She smiled sheepishly at Brandon and handed him the chart.
“This… Huh. There’s stuff on here even I didn’t know. Did you know there was a fourth Wurm?”
“The Great Wurm. Only in rumors. Rumors and conspiracy theories.” She winced. The proper time to seek the Great Wurm was after the 1,111 Moon Wurms of the quest chain, it was for the elite hunter only and she mildly regretted posting the information.
On the other hand one secret would lead to a mass of difficult to remember lies.
“Help me compose everything someone needs to know about green slimes then we’ll go for the orange ones.” She requested. They talked it over, she read it back, and they posted it before they went down into the dank, cloying, moisture filled Water Filtration Tunnels.
“You realize they probably actually use replicator and recycle technology in the actual drains, right?” Ros said in a conversational tone as they entered the first tunnel.
“The orange ones burn like hot peppers, pepper spray.” Brandon countered without acknowledging her comment.
It was fifty feet and two turns before Ros saw her butterfly marked foot position. She held her hand up for caution and they stopped making extraneous comments.
She got to her position and to her immense surprise, the top recommendation for killing the orange slimes was something called a Casein Paintball Gun. It was an F grade weapon she’d picked off the table at random during the big loot dispersal.
“You know guns-“ Brandon hissed.
She was already taking three shots down the side passage. She looked at him with an insufferably smug delight. He peeked around the corner at the orange slimes disintegrating in a foamy white mess.
“What?” He Identified the gun in her hands.
She bit the smile on her lower lip. “Casein, milk protein, milk kills the burn of peppers.”
“A paintball gun filled with milk?” He asked incredulously.
She giggled and her attention was drawn to the butterflies warning her that another slime was coming down the hall from the next side passage, dangerously close.
She shot it before it could shoot a glob of pepper slime at her eyes. “Don’t distract me.” She grabbed his collar and kissed him. “I’ve got slimes to kill.”
She had started with 140 rounds in the ammunition pod, and she was surprised that she actually used them all. Brandon followed, gathering up the cores for her.
“I’m out.”
“Here. Your quest didn’t stop because you didn’t gain any cores.” He traded with her and put all 140 cores in the window. She accepted to make the slimes stop coming.
“How many do you still need? 42?” Implying he would have run the quest once without knowing it was repeatable.
“33. The aggravation didn’t seem worth the decreased reward.”
She raised her eyebrows, but gave him back 33 orange cores. A moment later the quest giver appeared again.
“I find you unpleasantly over ambitious. I’ll take what you have for me. 100 orange cores. You need 1 red core and 5 violet. Bring me those, and I will have your potions. After that come back once you have taken the first Moon Wurm potion and not before.”
“As you wish.” She handed over the hundred cores, double the number of all the regular repeats put together, in about an hour of work.
“I’m sure you already know where to find the mine logistic officer. You are cleared for the greenhouse level and cleared to enter the mine.”
“Thank you.”
The instance ended. Brandon looked at her. “The quest giver thinks you’re a bad influence.”
She giggled. “It says I’m unpleasantly over ambitious.”
“What is your ambition?” He asked, amused.
“ArchDeity ranking.”
He half choked.
“For ten percent of all humankind.”
“You do not think small. Only ten percent?”
“I figure about half will reach DemiScion, so if twenty percent reach Scion, ten percent in the highest tier isn’t so outlandish. Anyone who reaches Scion has drive and ambition.” She breathed deeply. “Of course it may take us a few centuries to achieve, but the physique upgrades come with youth extending features, so we have time.”
He snorted. “I think you are going to need guards before you’re through. You really are going to end up being the evil Queen.”
She laughed and led the way down to the greenhouse where hexagonal and heptagonal prisms waited to try to dissolve them with lye and burn them with lit napalm.
The targeting ability chose telekinesis powered leaf daggers as the best weapon on hand for both, so the fight was over quite quickly. There were only the five and one monsters she needed in the entire room, and the quest giver returned immediately, as soon as she had all six cores floating through the air in her general direction.
“I am informed that you are actually on a mission from the Divine Council. I apologize for my abrupt behavior. I have concocted a timer mechanism for your potions so you don’t take them too soon. Complete the final repeats of my greater potions in whatever timeframe you choose. I’m sure you have a lot to do.”
“Kind of you. Here are the cores.”
The trade opened. Her five orange potions were in the window, but so was a magenta potion to double her recovery stat.
“In recompense, I would never tell you that if you have the willpower for it you can reverse the order you take these last ones and get more out of them. You should never tell anyone else that it could be possible. It is a gross abuse of the system.”
She froze. She had assumed that the potions were the same and only had less effect.
“The mid level potions are identical and simply work less effectively per dose. The others are each different.”
“Thank you. I will keep that to myself if you think I should.”
“Revealing it would cause destruction of the instance. It’s bad enough one person knows, but you’re God Touched and on the mission, and it has been deemed appropriate. Return any time you would like to repeat the quest and I will give you the combination to the botany lab.”
“3.141592 with a star instead of a point.” She shrugged. “Probably the best known string of numbers in the world. Especially with the circle equations on the door.”
“Oh, might be why it was chosen. This realm is supposed to be difficult, not impossible.”
“And it would be if people were more likely to work together than to keep secrets to give their in group an advantage against out groups.”
“Insightful. Well, I’m sure I will see you again.”
The instance faded.
“So. The mine or the botany lab?” Brandon asked with a wry grin. “It’s not even 8 am yet. That was unnaturally fast. Ever wonder how the clock is the same here?”
“No. This is obviously a created world, meant for us. Makes sense they’d use our clock and our calendar.”
“Their calendar is a day longer. The next wave comes after 366 days.”
She paused.
“A year and a day. It used to be a significant length of time in Celtic cultures or something. The mine. The botany lab is later in the chart.”
“The mine it is. Do you know anything about using a space suit?”
“Environment suit.” She cleared her throat. “I’m guessing you do? And yes. I know the equipment.”
“Ok, well, the computer will make you take the test before you can check out a suit, so we’ll know in a few minutes."