They killed three more Wurms and on the walk back Ros made a decision.

“I’m going to post the secret today. Just so you know. I want you to wait until I post it to mention it to anyone. Maybe even wait a realistic amount of time before you brag, as if you read it. Also I want one or more of you to read over my shoulder, for typos and readability. I’m going to make some drawings to scan in.”

They made agreement sounds. They went to a room with enough comfortable places for everyone to sit and meditate. Ros took the first hour to write up her explanation of the Moon Wurms, including all the places she knew of to wait for them, there were other, more daring places to wait.

She drew a variety of maps and anatomy diagrams to explain her words:

When she was done she sat to meditate. First she quietly blinked to the next room over, closed herself in the shower and worked her way to Late Mortal stage. It was even easier than the last transition. Once again the advancement gave her a nearly meaningless number of stat points.

When she blinked back into the room, was done only Doug was waiting for her. He was browsing the message boards.

“You ok?” He asked. “You were in the bathroom a long time.”

“Yeah. Never better.” She guiltily hoped nobody had needed to use it when she was supposed to be inside. “Where is everyone? We still need to open and divide up the loot.”

“They went to turn in the Wurm spike quest.”

“Ah. Of course. Oh, read this for me please.” She pulled up her anonymous account and showed him the message that she hadn’t finished posting.

“How did you include the pictures?”

“The…” she touched the bottom of the terminal screen. “There’s a scanner right here. It works for barcodes and for scanning in a document.”

“Barcodes?”

“Yeah. Eventually there’s going to be this scavenger hunt quest. Barcodes. Oh could you close your eyes a moment, I want to keep some secrets.”

He turned away and closed his eyes. Ros got the belt full of monster poop out of the hidden room and put the room back away. She put the belt around her waist. It didn’t look especially like any kind of storage space.

“Done.”

“Ok. I’m reading this. The pictures are good.”

“Thanks.” She’d always been good at drawing, but she’d had a whole lot of practice in later realms.

After about six minutes he looked up. “Looks good to me. If there’s anything wrong with it I don’t see it. You’ve included everything you told us.”

“Good.” She reached over and finished it. She winced as she paid for the second sticky. It seemed too important to allow it to get lost in the comments of the first sticky.

“Posted. I feel good about that. As soon as they get back we can open up the gut casings somewhere we don’t need to clean up after ourselves. I have a closed room I usually use, but anywhere is fine.”

She hadn’t left the butchering table in the room where she’d used it anyway. She only kept it closed to have a place to blink into safely. She didn’t leave things she’d paid for laying around, she stored them in her ring.

They switched places and Ros spent some time working on the hell hound portion of the guide.

The team knocked quietly before they let themselves in.

“What’s the plan?” Shirl asked.

“I thought you were going to wait to post.” Del said. “People were talking about the Moon Wurm post all the way here.”

“I had Doug read it and then I posted it. Let’s open up the Wurm loot. Hopefully we find a few spatial objects, maybe even enough for all of you. Actually if we only find three I can get one from storage. Let’s find a room where we can open the casings.”

“Spatial objects?” Shirl said. “You can’t put one spatial object inside another.”

“Unless it’s already inside a recently dead monster.” Ros clarified. “Or inside a different sort of hidden space. You can also put them into a pocket hoard or a pocket room and then into a spatial object. Pocket rooms and dimensional storage spaces are different Magic, they resonate differently.”

“Oh.” They all looked appeased.

“And pocket objects are insanely expensive, I wouldn’t have one if I didn’t find it inside a Wurm. There are two kinds of object drops in monster guts. First…”

Ros pulled out her list book and jotted down a note about what she was saying to remind her to put it in a guide.

“The monster might have eaten a human adventurer and it might still have items from that kill in its side stomach. Second it might have spawned with objects from a builder in its guts. Possibly it’s old enough to have eaten an actual builder, except that I don’t think this planet was really inhabited by builders or a builder race. The buildings are too identical, despite the occasional random loot. That’s neither here nor there. We still need to find a place to butcher.”

They left the room, went two floors down to yellow walls and picked an empty balcony room. Ros was sure they would need the space. She was absolutely correct.

“You said there’s loot in the rooms?” Del said suddenly.

“If nobody has been in them.” Ros clarified. “It’s always like someone accidentally left something in a drawer or a change of clothes or whatever. I’ll show you where to look. Always in the couch and chair cushions if applicable.”

She combed the hiding places she knew about in these sorts of yellow hall rooms. Wall panels, mirror in the lav, tops of things, vent covers, explaining as she moved.

The group looked uneasily at the pile of coins, the three ration bars, a pair of socks, a magical bandage and a folding knife with a gut hook.

“All of that would have been amazing to have in the first week we were here.” Axel said. “I mean we all have better stuff now.” He pulled out his own folding knife. It was bigger and had a second blade.

“I’ve found healing pills, a gun, armor, all kinds of things.”

“Roll for choice?” Axel asked. “I really want that bandage.”

“However you want. Keep the dice handy. We will want to roll on the Wurm loot. Wurms always have crazy loot. They’re the ultimate boss of the realm. Or at least of the remote stations. They don’t appear where the planet cannot be seen in the sky. There aren’t any near the city.”

“Good lord.” Shirl said. “We should transcribe every word you say for your message board post. If I didn’t know you were Fourth Wave I would guess you were First Wave.”

“I’d probably be correcting the misconceptions of a First Waver. Franklin thinks the Moon Wurms can’t be killed.”

Ros pulled out the cutting table and set the first appendix on the surface. She actually manifested them in reverse order. She put on her gloves and brought out her butchering knives in their chef roll.

“How much was that?” Axel asked, tapping the worn leather roll.

“I had it on Earth, $250 in a second hand store, except for the Alaskan rocking knife. That was a family heirloom.”

She sliced the gut open. “I thought I would use it as a main weapon, but I forgot how much I like the leaf spears. So versatile.”

Nobody mentioned that obvious slip. Ros plucked out all the interesting objects from the gut, one spatial ring, eight lumps of diamond, one rapier(A) with a damaged hilt binding.

Ros put the gut back in her ring and handed two uncut diamonds to each of her crew. She left the sword and the ring on the table and brought out the next one. Four rings(S), one heavy gold chain(SS), all spatial. Ros put the casing back in her ring. She lined up the four identical rings and left her hand on the necklace.

“This looks suspiciously like a spawn. I think I want to preempt rolling on this set. Either we all choose one, contents unseen and I go first, or we open them all and divide up whatever is inside equally and I still keep the necklace. That’s large enough for as many whole Wurm bodies as I can hunt in a day and I just got a request for intact Wurms with a promise to return most of the treasure and all intact unique items.”

“No contest.” Del said immediately. “Either way she gets the necklace. I don’t care if we draw blind or split.”

“Split contents.” Shirl said immediately.

“Sure, but if it’s a spawn intended for us five, I bet the rings hold identical or equivalent contents. I vote draw blind.” Doug rambled a bit more.

The rest looked at Axel. He frowned, he didn’t like being a tie breaker. He shook his d20. “Even we split, odd draw blind.”

“Wait. I want to be clear that either way we are splitting the contents of the more random spatial objects like the other ring we found. There can be a huge difference between dropped spatial objects. Having someone draw a Fourth Wave idiot newbie verses the next person drawing a builder object is in no way fair.”

They all nodded.

“But I agree with Doug. These rings look like they might have identical or equivalent contents.”

Axel rolled his die. 11. “Draw blind it is. That’s my pick roll.” He handed the die around and they each picked a ring in order. Ros put the necklace around her neck and peeked inside.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many health restore items in one place before. All kinds of them too.” Shirl said. “Do any of you have something other than hundreds of potions, pills, shots and elixirs?”

“That’s what I got.” Del said.

“Yeah.” The others echoed.

“I also got a suit of armor I won’t wear for a few realms and this.” Ros pulled out a spear the length of her favorite leaf spear. It came with a set of 12 removable return enchanted heads. It was elegant, beautiful and it fit her hand just like a leaf spear.

“I think that eliminates all question of who the necklace was meant for.” Shirl said. “You’re the one who uses a spear. I’m really liking this concept of spawns meant for one person to kill. Makes it feel like god is watching and answering prayers.”

Ros cleared her throat. “Part of being a seer. I really am being watched by the gods who gave me my prophetic gifts.”

She pulled out the next appendix and slit it open. It was a lot more chaotic than the previous two. Ros plucked out and assembled two incomplete sets of B grade armor, two spatial objects, a belt and a bracelet, an energy shield like the ones she already had(which reminded her to slip in three more to protect these people she liked), an A grade bow and quiver of changeable arrows and a powerful C grade pulse rifle.

“This is a wiped party.” Ros said. “This is why we’re investigating all other spatial objects before they’re claimed.” She stowed the gut casing and pulled out the last one. She hissed in surprise. It was highly degraded. “Good thing we didn’t wait any longer. This is the first kill of the day, the one that gave so much extra coin. Spatial objects degrade the flesh they’re enclosed in. Obviously there’s something powerful in this. If it burned all the way through I may or may not get a warning before the resonant explosion. Never mind. We were quick enough.”

She split it open. Thirty assorted spatial objects. Ten weapons graded C thru S, an assortment of high grade artifacts of different kinds.

“Raid Boss level loot jackpot.” Axel said reverently.

“And each of these spatial objects has loot too. Anyone know a defining characteristic of any of the wiped Second Wave? Seems like a Wurm that’s eaten a lot of people.”

“No.” Del said. “But this belonged to Luke Issac, a Third Wave asshat who disappeared at about the moment a train showed up. He must have gone on a Wurm hunt instead.”

“Cassie Reynolds.” Shirl said, touching a pretty winged circlet helm. “Disappeared the same time. She had some good attacks.”

“There’s a non zero chance one or more of their abilities, traits or whatever will show up in their spatial objects. Hold on.” She stored the casing and started organizing the non spatial loot, identifying everything as she went. She graded, she categorized and she made a mental note of things she wanted in some of the categories.

As a party leader, raid leader, mercenary company leader and established loot divider for more than thirty years, Ros had a lot of experience dividing loot fairly.

She sorted everything that was loose, making five additional piles for everything divisible by five like gems found in the guts, then she grabbed a low quality spatial ring and brought out everything inside. It seriously looked like a newbie had wandered into the caverns looking for Wurm poop, maybe not even knowing that it was poop, and died in there. Some basic clothing, some coin, about seven poop logs, eight if you counted the broken one as two, and one F rated rare vestibule ability:

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Psionic Burst- Project harmful psionic attacks.(99,000 points)

“I’m going to make one executive decision.” Ros said. “All Wurm poop is going to the quest giver robot to process. It wants 20% to do the grunt work and will return anything indivisible, rare or whatever. I trust the world mechanics that it will be fair. When the processing is done we meet and I hand around the bulk stuff and we can roll for the rare stuff, agreed?”

“Agreed.” Shirl said immediately and the guys affirmed in a staggered mass of yeahs and agreeds.

Ros picked up the poo logs and put them in her belt. She put the slip of paper containing the ability face down in its own pile. She was emptying the next F grade ring (which meant purchased from the replicator store, the vestibule didn’t carry an F grade ring) and sorting the loot before anyone else thought to ask about the slip of thick paper. She added one or more slips out of each previously owned ring, and put all the coins from each ring into her belt to divide once.

The loot piles grew and grew, reminding Ros why she was putting off doing the same thing for the thirty Wurms worth of loot she had in storage. Sorting loot was intense but boring work. The rest of them got quieter and quieter as she worked.

“Ok. Everyone take one of these piles, the contents are identical or at least equivalent.”

She’d dropped a brown cloth bag of coins on each pile just before she was done with them.

“This is how it works. First, anyone who wants one of these two complete armor sets can roll on each one. We roll three times for choice of this pile of unique items. Then we roll for choice order for each category. Weapons, each armor type, artifacts and so forth. The piles are arranged by grade. If we get to the point where nobody actively wants what’s left we split the rest into roughly equal value and store in these five low quality rings. Eventually, in a month or two, the station wide bazaar will open in section C and we’ll… oh. I might have changed things enough that it won’t open in C.”

She had prevented the massacre, ans far as she could tell, and was on site to prevent a similar incident originating in H. “Well, we can always set it up ourselves, there should be a station wide bazaar. If our station is too lawless we might hold our sale inventory until we get to the city. There’s a bazaar in each petal of the outer city and a sixth one in the city center. So. Who wants to roll for this full set of White Orchid Archer Gear? I’m passing.”

Shirl, Axel and Del all rolled. Shirl got it. They kept going. Doug got the second set with its energy reflection feature. Ros picked a really large amethyst point, a vial of a poison which shouldn’t be available on the First, Second or even third Realm, and an electronic tablet with a keyboard which she could use to create and store files for her player guide.

“Ok, examine any of the weapons you’re curious about. They’re arranged S, A, B down to F with a black sock between each section. Most of them were in the spatial objects.” Ros stood back and let everyone browse. She had her eye on several things.

All the S grade weapons were swords and knives with just one wicked looking mace. A grade had a wide cross section of blades, bows, guns and unconventional weapons. B grade was nearly all guns. C was a mix of everything. D grade was surprisingly plentiful of bows and cross bows. The lower grades E and F were well represented in all kinds of blades and guns, all taken out of spatial objects.

“Let’s roll.” Axel said, “aww. 4.”

They all rolled and Ros had them stand in order so they could go around the circle. “Put everything away in your spatial ring as soon as you choose it.” Ros said. “Shirl. Pick.”

Shirl took a Frost Sword(S). Del grabbed the mace. Ros hesitated just a moment and picked a D rated Elemental Earth dagger she knew she could use in synergy to kill someone with the Elemental Air Transformation Trait.

Not that she could think of anyone in particular who would need slaying who had that trait.

The group made a collection of minor surprised grunts and sniffs. Doug made his pick and then Axel, both picking S grade swords. They continued to pick and Ros continued to make picks of lower grade weapons to counter specific powers wielded by specific people she might have to eliminate in the future.

“I don’t want anything else.” Ros said after the sixth pick.

“Pick for sale goods then.” Shirl said, “I’m already picking for sale goods.”

The boys agreed in nods and quiet murmurs. Ros picked something unique looking. She put it in her belt to keep it separate. They kept choosing quickly until the last F grade knife was gone.

“Helmets.” Ros led the way. “Time to roll again.”

They switched order and Ros got first. She picked up a delicate looking, behind the head, headset(A), which could be synchronized to a group comm. She had a nearly identical set on under her helmet in the final battle. Now she just needed a group comm and a group with comparable headsets. Those would get common in the city. They were a mine boss monster drop.

From there she picked up lower grade items until they were gone. The other armor types went the same way. Then the defensive, offensive and crafting artifacts, with a roll before each category. The category Ros would usually be most interested in, the recovery consumables, had somehow been divisible by five and she had put all the potions and whatnot in the five piles of identical loot.

The rest of the stuff was more mundane, clothes, packaged food, camping items, useful random stuff a person might carry around.

Finally Ros grabbed the stack of paper slips from the table. “Let’s sit around the table for this. They’re not sorted yet.”

“You’ve sorted loot before.” Del said. “I’ve never seen sorting come out so even handedly before. We didn’t argue once.”

“I was a raid leader for a gaming guild.” Ros looked at him levelly, daring him to continue his line of questioning.

“Which is how you have that command presence thing down?” Axel teased.

“Yes.” She stared him down too.

“Let’s just all forget she’s Fourth Wave and act like she’s First Wave.” Shirl said. “And remember this jackpot is hers to begin with.”

Ros pursed her lips. “I already have a similar mess in my possession. Really I didn’t have to pick most of my picks. I’ve mostly been picking for trade goods or a future clan armory.”

“Good point.” Doug said. “You probably will end up a guild leader.”

“So. Are you all aware of the way personal traits and abilities are limited?” She launched into an explanation without waiting.

“You can have a total of twelve traits, four in body, four in mind and four in soul. Then abilities are limited by alpha grade. You can have up to five F grade; four E grade; three each in D,C,B grades; only one A grade; it rises to two S grade; finally both SS and SSS are unlimited.

“I think the theory is that by the time you can afford SS and SSS abilities you should be mature enough to handle extraordinarily powerful abilities. Now, in contrast Skills have to be learned, and they are unlimited from the beginning.

“Physique is separate from traits and named physiques often have additional traits or trait slots. Humans start out as Human(base) and traits, abilities, Qui Cultivation level and personal power level allow some kind of grading system whose equations are hidden. When a human gets to Human- S rank they are likely to spontaneously evolve their physique to a named physique or a starred physique.

“A physique determines the potential for growth a person has. I consider a zero star basic Human to have a potential of 40 Points per stat. Im probably oversimplifying. That’s why I’m planning to train my current physique until I have 40 or more points in each stat before I begin taking the quest potions for that stat. The obvious exceptions are the hidden stats Luck and Resilience where I will take the first potions I find so I can see where I already stand. Now, with that long winded guidebook speech out of the way, I’m going to sort these slips which contain traits, abilities and skills. Remember, just because you can apply something, doesn’t mean you should.”

She laid the slips out in long rows, each fully faced up unless it was a perfect copy of the one under.

“We are going to do this Need before Greed.” Ros said and Axel was the first to nod like he’d heard the term before “Before we start. Let’s all be honest with each other. I don’t need you to write exactly what’s in each spot, just if it’s filled or empty. If you go into your status page there’s a third tab at the bottom. You have to scroll down. That tab is where your traits and abilities are listed with the empty slots.”

She handed around blank sheets of paper from an empty notebook and colored pencils with erasers. Magic colored pencils, each a different color(no barely visible colors), which wouldn’t smear and magic erasers that erased magic pencil marks completely and cleanly.

“Also think through your goals, do you want to do as much damage as possible, sacrificing your defense rating? Do you want defense so high that you will never die? Do you want to be supporting, healing, casting buffs? Do you want to cast spells like a badass? Your trait and ability choices need to take your goals into consideration.”

Ros took her own paper and pencil, opened her third status tab and neatly reported her exact filled and opened slots. Two traits and one ability. Qui Cultivator(soul), Slight Build(body), and Blink(F ability). She had held off on the telekinetic(S) mental trait, but she was fairly sure she would use it. There were fewer purely mental skills if you weren’t counting coercion skills.

Ros had the fewest current slots filled. A year in, most third wave people had saved up to fill their F and E abilities at 10,000 to 150,000 coins each on average.

“Shit. You really are Fourth Wave.” Del said, eyeing her chart and her empty slots.

“Yup. Newbie. So. If we’re all done?” Ros said cheerfully. They nodded and smiled.

“Then write current in your color key and pass your color on. Next we want to write in anything that we know we want or plan to get, even if it’s just an idea not a specific named trait or ability. I have a body trait that imparts a lot of health points.

“So I don’t need a trait like Heavy Bones which is mostly a HP adding trait. Keep in mind that if you take a low grade trait you cannot remove it and you can only upgrade it with another copy of the same named trait in a higher grade. So if you got slight build like I have in F grade you can’t replace it with anything but slight build E or slight Build SS. This is why your goals and party role should take a part in your choice of traits.”

“Seer isn’t on your list.” Shirl said suddenly.

“It’s not an equipped trait or ability. It’s inborn, a gift from the gods, however you want to put it.”

Shirl seemed to accept that, grudgingly.

They discussed it for a while. Shirl eventually realized that her best role was actually Tank, which she hadn’t even thought through before. Shirl had never been the sort to play video games. She didn’t know the terms tank, DPS, melee, ranged, healer and support, buff and debuff; party, raid and so forth.

Axel was the one most knowledgeable about traditional games, party makeup and strategy. He’s the one who reminded Shirl to put a taunt on her desired abilities list. And shield abilities like bash and impact resistance.

Axel was trying to build a mage, his words. He wanted a debuff cleanse and was resistant to gaining healing magic.

“If I learn to heal I won’t do anything except heal.” He complained more than once.

Del had the second lowest number of filled slots. He emphatically didn’t want to do anything but hit shit. Ros advised him very strongly to leave his traits blank and focus on F abilities, which would not limit him in the future, since a lot of F abilities could be merged, evolved or destroyed freeing a slot.

Doug, on reflection, decided to continue as a balanced damage dealer, maybe switching to Tank, and definitely experimenting with some of the guns he’d just picked up. He liked the booms.

“Ok. Now that we have a good feeling for what we’re doing, should we roll?” Shirl asked.

“Kind of.” Ros said. “Need before greed though. Shirl. This is a classic tank trait. At A grade it provides a +20 to your taunt effectiveness roll, absorbs the first 1000 damage of a blow taken on your shield and multiplies your health points by 3. I think, of anyone at the table, you have the most need for this Body Trait. Do you want it?”

“Yes.”

“Show of hands, approve? Any opposed? Shirl, this Body Trait is yours.” Ros looked at Axel. “We all know I’ve done this Wurm hunt before. I have a copy of the Arcane Adept Ability, S grade. Do you want it?”

“Yesssss.” Axel hissed.

“I am willing to trade it to the group for two A grade or one A two B grade traits or abilities. Or equivalent in lower grade slips. Does anyone object to this rate of trade?”

They all looked around and shrugged. No objections.

“Then this is what our agreed upon equivalence looks like.”

On a clean sheet of paper she wrote:

F

E=2F

D=2E=4F

C= 2D=4E=8F

B=2C=4D=8E=16F

A=2B=4C=8D=16E=32F

S=2A=4B=8C=16D=32E=64F

SS=2S=4A=8B=16C=32D=64E=128F

SSS=2SS=4S=8A=16B=32C=64D=128E=256F

“Look about right to everyone?”

They nodded.

“To be clear, on this scale we have almost exactly 64 F grade worth of items per person.” It was actually a few points less. “That means currently this trade is the only item Axel is getting from the whole mess of slips. Because all added up we don’t have enough value to give everyone more than two A grade slips. Axel? Are you sure you want Arcane Adept as one of your two S grade slot abilities?”

“Yeah. You bet. Arcane Adept is one of my dream picks. I’m good with that being my only pick.”

“Any opposed?” Ros looked around. They all shook their heads. Ros took a piece of notebook paper and wrote a big “IOU one S” on it. She put it in front of her on the table. She manifested the Arcane Adept(S) slip and handed it to Axel. He chortled a little as he looked at it. Then he used it.

“It was legit.” He grinned. “I have the Arcane Adept ability. Wow. This is a lot to process. I’m… I’m going to lay down on the bed and… yeah.”

Ros smiled at his retreating back.

“Next. Del. You want to hit shit and get stronger. I have a set of four F ranked strike skill abilities that when they are fully mastered fuse into one versatile E grade strike ability. It’s something of a classic among melee damage dealers. It’s very minor compared to the rest of our first picks, but I would want to trade the group for this.” She pointed to a D grade passive ability called Uncanny Accuracy(D). “Which is something that logically most of us would want. You are more than welcome to choose something else, or even to let Doug pick before you.”

“I… can I see the slips?”

Ros pulled them out and showed him. Like all the slips they had the brief descriptions which were all the shop ever provided.

“Why not make that your pick?” Doug asked.

“Because…” Ros shrugged. “The loot leader picks last in the first round.” She glanced at the pile of ungraded skill slips that were in the unlimited category. ungraded skills were neither an ability nor a trait. “And because I have things you will want.”

“Let me think while Doug picks.” Del said.

“Doug, do you want to tote huge guns and cause damage like a one man AOE machine? Because I have this B grade ability called Heavy Gunner, and I have some really big guns too. Separate trade for later.”

Doug glanced at his sheet. “I can get three B grade abilities?”

“Yup. Each worth roughly twenty million coins, give or take.”

“You’re playing this like a colossal poker game.” Shirl complained.

Ros just murmured a quiet agreement.

“I’ll take the trade.” Del said suddenly. “I pick the D slip and trade it to her for these four.”

“Agreed.” Shirl said.

“Yeah, sure. Ok. I’ll take the Heavy Gunner thing.”

Ros wrote another IOU for a B slip and put it in front of her. She handed the Gunner slip to Doug. “My turn to pick. I want this B grade soul trait called Butterfly Awareness- Grants awareness of the long term consequences of simple actions. The flap of the butterfly’s wing causes a hurricane.”

“That’s what I was going to suggest that you take.” Shirl said dryly. “Remember it didn’t help whoever had it last.”

“I remember.” Ros said. She moved the slip in front of her. “Shirl, your turn. You have 32 points of value left. I have… a B grade taunt ability.” She manifested it and showed it to the tank.

“Pull 100% of all aggression for 30 seconds, cool down 15 seconds. Huh. That’s exactly…” she looked at her other slip. “Yeah. I’ll make that trade. That leaves me one B grade something?”

They all nodded.

“Del, you have 60 points of value left. I have this body trait called Heavy Bones that I don’t need. It’s S ranked, but I’m willing to trade it for your 60 points of this mess if you want it.”

“Son of a Bitch.” Shirl growled. “Why didn’t you mention that before?”

Ros fidgeted with her pencil for a moment, drawing it through her fingers, once, twice, three times. “Because what you have so far is the best combination for main tank that I can manage from all the slips on hand. This is the last trade for your build. An A grade Immovable Object Ability. It’s a bit more than the value left in your bank, but I’m sure I’d be willing to part with it for one B grade worth of whatever is left.”

“I’ll take the trade.” Del said. “That’s a lot of added HP and a 50% reduced bone breakage.”

“Excellent. Doug, you have 48 points left. I want you to consider taking this A grade body trait, called Elastyne Crystal Body Trait.”

“I don’t understand what it means. Is it some kind of Reed Richards elastic stretchy man?”

“In part, but it has a strong synergy with the Gunner trait. Imagine the recoil of any gun spreads through the entire matrix of your body like you’re rubber. And then there’s this. The Heads-up Display Ability(E) and the ever popular Automatic Targeting Ability(F) which fuses to the HUD as a single C grade ability once you also have Applied Physics and Automatic Long Distance Targeting, both F Grade. The best part is you can actually Dual Class, as we say, in a melee specialty, since the whole thing is really just two abilities and a trait.

“Oh. And unless they’re powered blows like what Del just got, melee attacks tend to… bounce off your skin.” She shrugged. “Bullets have a bit more impact, pun intended. Traits tend to work like that. Melee damage negated, ranged and magic damage the same or made worse. If it’s a bad trait one type of damage is negated and others become a real weakness. However, you also have an energy shield now.” She had slipped four of them in the pile and made sure they were spread around.

“Yeah.” Doug said. “I’ll take it. Does that mean everything else on the table is yours?”

Ros nodded and touched them one by one, putting them in her spatial ring where they immediately sorted themselves into the mass of other equippable upgrade slips.