I was more than a little shocked at his introduction, so I didn’t answer right away. I felt like it would be a bad thing if we started this conversation on even more unequal grounds so I tamped down on any attraction I might have been feeling and focused.
“You’re Santiago Fuentes? Number three on the overall and top of the Bardic leaderboard? That guy?” He looked startled for a second before responding.
“How high is your wisdom?” He asked me and I almost blurted out the answer. This was my first time interacting with someone else that had charisma so much higher than mine that it was difficult to even see when it was affecting me.
“How high is your charisma?” I shot back and he laughed which made me have butterflies. I bit the tip of my tongue hard to keep focused. Then checked my stat screen hoping I’d leveled up at least once after killing the Umber Bear and I was shocked at what I was seeing.
Nathan Schute: Bardic Archer
LEVEL 33
STRENGTH: 15
CONSTITUTION:12
AGILITY:15
DEXTERITY:88
INTELLIGENCE:15
WISDOM:16
CHARISMA:77
PERCEPTION:11
10 Free Stat Points
I quickly threw five more points into wisdom, and I immediately felt some relief from his charismatic pull. I could still feel it, but it was much easier to recognize what my real feelings were and what weren't.
“Let's see looks like my charisma is at 99.” His honesty felt so refreshing and I felt myself falling back into his pull. I quickly threw the last five stat points I had into wisdom, gaining control of myself again. I hated having to put so many points into one statistic, but I had a feeling it would be much more dangerous to be around this man without it. “You are definitely strong-willed huh? If it helps, I’m not using any active skills on you I just want to ask you a couple of questions.” I couldn’t resist anymore, and I felt a giggle build up in me.
“Ok I’m Nathan Schute, it’s nice to meet you.” I could hear my voice go up a little bit and put on a come-hither tone. The part of my mind that knew why I was feeling like this retched, but the rest of me just felt like I should answer his questions. That didn’t mean I wasn’t struggling in some way. I never introduced myself as “Nathan” so I knew I could do some light obfuscation at least.
“Why did you and your friends come out this way Nathan?” Boom there was Nathan again I latched onto it.
“We were traveling trying to fill our maps.” Technically true. He smiled again and asked his next question.
“Why did you think you could fight an area boss at your level?” My stomach fell remembering the sight of Josh unconscious on the ground and Susan about to be crushed.
“We were only trying to scout it out.” I felt tears trying to sting my eyes and tried to pull them back. “I got too close, my friends tried to protect me when I was attacked.” I felt his gaze soften slightly only now noticing that he’d been staring intensely into my eyes.
“You’re doing very well Nathan. I just have one more question for you. Are you ready?” I nodded my head, but I could feel that without his intense eye contact, I could feel myself more steadily again. “Are you dangerous to humanity?” I paused thinking about the conversation I’d heard outside of the tent.
“No, I don’t think I am,” I answered after a heartbeat. He nodded his head and with extreme deftness untied my bindings with one hand. He threw up the hood of his jacket and hid his face. The moment he did that I jerked to the side and threw up.
“I’m really sorry man, that charisma stat is a real bitch huh?” His speaking cadence and accent had changed. I wiped my mouth and sat up to look at him.
“That. Was fucked dude.” He shrugged and laughed a little.
“Yeah, I get it, you were a hard one though you added more to your wisdom stat during our chat, didn’t you?” I could see his smirk from under his hood but that was it. He didn’t wait for my response before turning to leave. “Come on I’ll take you to your friends.” I followed him as he walked out of the tent. Turns out the tent we were just in was one of many and there looked to be several hundred people walking around. There was a decently sized wooden palisade surrounding the camp, and several cooking fires going.
“What is this place?” I asked. We continued walking but Santiago didn’t ignore me.
“Shortly after the system came Seattle was overrun with monsters. Me and two of my friends had been hanging out that day playing a tabletop RPG so when the system happened, we immediately chose classes. In the first few weeks, it was nonstop violence, I’m sure you already know this as a bard, but I don’t get so much experience from killing monsters. But I was already getting a degree in public relations so public speaking, and getting folks to follow our lead was easy. Next thing I knew I was leading these fine people out of the city to this fine hellhole.” He finished his explanation, and I couldn’t help but think that he talked a lot.
“So, you’re like the leader here?” I asked.
“Nah that’d be Damien, I’m more the guy behind the guy If you know what I mean.” I gave him a look.
“So, you’re gay?” He laughed at my bad joke.
“Not what I meant at all. But yeah, I am. So hit me up if you ever get that wisdom up.” He said the last part in a singsong voice, and I blushed deeply as he turned my joke back on me. I’d never really thought too much about that kind of stuff. I never had a girlfriend or a boyfriend, my acne always got in the way of it sure, but also, I was just more into my music and stuff. I shook my head to clear up my internal monologue as we stopped by a smaller tent on the outskirts of the small tent village. Santiago opened the tent flap, and I went inside.
Sitting on some cushions enjoying a bowl of something or other were my friends. Some of them had some bandages That I could see but other than that they looked fine. Susan sprang up and ran toward me throwing her arms around me.
“You’re awake! Oh my gosh, I could just kiss you right now!” She then proceeded to peck me all over my cheeks and forehead.
“Ayy don’t go round stealing my lady!” Tina joked with me.
“Dude glad you’re up Mr. Psycho,” Tony said and my face fell.
“Were you the one I attacked?” He shook his head and pointed over to Josh who just patiently smiled at me. “I’m so sorry man I was so cracked at that point I had no idea I’m so sorry.” Josh just continued to smile then reached out and crushed me in a bear hug.
“You are never allowed to get eaten ever again do you understand me?” He said after setting me down. Santiago started chuckling in the background and the merriment stopped everyone except me started glaring at him. He raised his hands in surrender and just backed out of the tent.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“Well for one there’s the creepy charisma thing. Poor Susan asked the guy to marry her when she first saw him, and the rest of us don’t fair much better if I’m being honest. Plus, there’s the fact that he’s friends with the guy that basically put you in a coma with one punch.” Tony explained.
“To be fair he’s also friends with the girl that healed all of us, so maybe just the creepy roofie thing he does.” I looked at all of them in disbelief.
“Are you kidding me? The guy knocked me out cause I was going crazy! And have you not noticed we did the same damn things to low-wisdom people back home?” It was the other's turn to look at me crazy.
“What do you mean we never did that to people.” I rolled my eyes at their obliviousness.
“You guys weren’t approached constantly about sex or relationships?” Then a look of realization went over their faces, then one of shame. I turned around and ran out of the tent hoping to catch Santiago before he got too far away, but he was gone already. I chastised them a little more for being rude but for the most part, the rest of the evening was good. Turns out the healer girl that I’d met when I first woke up was good. Susan had partially lost her hand and she had reattached it. Tina and Josh had only suffered some broken bones and concussions, but Tony’s heart actually stopped for a while. They’d had to perform CPR on him for a long time before the healer was able to heal him. Apparently, necromancy was not in her skillset, so she needed a beating heart.
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“So, what you’re saying is that if they hadn’t found us when they did, we’d probably all be dead or close to right now?” I said after they’d finished explaining the situation. “Kinda makes you think luck should be a stat,” I said jokingly trying to break the tension, the others agreed, but no one laughed. We finished eating our meals in silence. The sun would be setting soon so we laid down our tarps on the ground. Someone stopped by later to drop off a blanket for me, and shortly after that we were asleep.
The following morning another stranger stopped by the tent and told me that the camp leader wanted to meet with me. I packed up my tarp and blanket quickly and followed them. The place we were going was a larger tent in the middle of the camp, the stranger announced that I’d arrived and then left. Someone said to come in, so I did.
“Nathan Schute. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” A man around my age stood in front of a large black cube he had classically handsome features, but they seemed far more pre-system human than the bards I’d met a lot like Susan in that way. To either side of him stood another person to his right was Santiago with his hood pulled up, and to his left was the healer woman. I turned to her first.
“Hey, thanks a lot I heard about everything you did for us. If not for you we’d probably be…” I trailed off but she just smiled at me.
“So, you’ve already met my lieutenants Santi and Autumn.” I narrowed my eyes at the woman again.
“Autumn as in?” She tapped the side of her nose as if to say, “Right on the nose.” I wanted to ask her about her cultivation right then and there, but Damien held his hands up and interrupted.
“I’m sure you’ve got loads of questions, but first off how are you settling in here?” He asked and I told him that the first night had been fine and he continued. “So, listen you do know that your entire group has shot up to some of the highest spots on the leaderboards, and you’re in second place on the bardic and cultivation leaderboards now.” I flew to the leaderboards to confirm what he’d said and sure enough, there was my name. Susan had reached rank ten on the combat board and I was a few spots below her at spot 13.
“As you can probably see from the people we have living here, we don’t have that many combatants. Looking at the leaderboard confirms most people are stuck at level 5 or below. That number continues to drop by the day though.” I looked up at him and fixed him with a sharp look.
“And why are you telling me this?” I asked shooting a quick look at Santiago to make sure that his hood was still on, and he was quiet. Sure, enough he stood there not saying a word. Damien continued.
“We would like you and your group to work with us. You are second on the cultivation leaderboard. I’m guessing you’ve already used your disciple slots on your friends. But they can take on disciples of their own and we can spread the information for the betterment of humanity!” “Oh boy one of these.” I thought.
“Listen man if you want my friends to do that for you, you’re going to have to talk to them. What is it that you want from me?” I asked and studied Damien’s face for a moment. I saw a flicker of annoyance cross his face, but it was gone in an instant. The next person to speak wasn’t him though it was Autumn.
“You totally have an aura at this point?” She said it as kind of a statement and a question to me and then broke down coughing. I realized she must have slipped through the rules of the system by asking me that in front of them. “Can I see it?” She asked when she finished her coughing fit.
I was very hesitant to agree with that request, but she giggled and then whisper yelled at me. “Don’t worry these two idiots can’t even see essence yet they just started cultivating recently!” Then she giggled again. Judging by the blush across Damien’s face I figured she was telling the truth. I turned mine on and immediately noticed something strange. The effective range of my aura had expanded to about 5 meters.
“Ooh very impressive! Check this out!” Then the area turned pink in my essence sight. My aura was completely suppressed back into my body, and I lost any use of it. I felt sick and I fell to my knees and glared at her, but less than a second later I felt extremely good. Like getting to play in front of thousands of people good. I couldn’t see the end of her aura because the tent was in the way but judging by the sounds I heard from outside and the looks on the other men’s faces it reached pretty far. Then it was gone in a flash.
“That’s what we have to offer,” Damien said straightening himself out as I rose back to my feet. I knew very well that unless she’d already hit her next racial upgrade, she couldn’t teach me how to do that, but I was interested now.
“What exactly is the offer?” I asked, and Damien gave me a smirk that I’m sure meant “got him,” but I waited for his response anyway.
“We pooled our resources together once before to get whatever it was that she used to get that powerful ability. We can do the same thing for you.” I looked back over to her, and she cupped her mouth and silently mimed the words “Auric Training Guide,” My heart thumped in my chest but then Santiago spoke up.
“Let’s not forget the money from selling that Umber Bear corpse. Gotta offer him a bit more than that.” Damien shot a glare at his friend.
“Money?” I asked and Santiago went to speak again but I held up my hand. “Not you sorry, her,” I said pointing to Autumn. I felt bad for cutting him off, and I knew that he just stuck his neck out for me, but I couldn’t trust myself with my decisions when he spoke. Autumn looked at Damien and he gave a slight nod.
“We picked up the nasty Umber Bear corpse back here for you guys and looked up how much it would go for in the System Store. If you sell it, you’ll make up to 3 million. We also picked up your quest reward.” She handed me the small box, but I was still gaping at the amount then looked sharply at Damien.
“So, if it weren’t for the honesty of your lieutenants, I’d be out 3 million credits huh?” The man shrugged.
“We all gotta do what we’ve gotta do for humanity's survival in this time.” I rolled my eyes at him.
“I’ll talk to my friends about this, if they want to help, we’ll help. If they say go then we’ll go. But Damien, I’m not worried about humanity. I’m worried about my friends. So, if you ever lie to me again trying to rob them of an opportunity, I will shove my foot so far up your ass you’ll think you were a boot.” I said the last part calmly but moved toward him. The other two moved to intercept me but he raised a hand to stop them. I walked out of the tent right after and turned to move toward the tent my friends were staying in, but before I did, I decided to take the chance to activate my aura one more time.
“We should have put him down Santi, he’s dangerous and callous towards our goals!”
“Well if you’d just been honest with him from the start! I’d already reported what we found at the scene of that battle. He just about destroyed himself for his friends. You just didn’t see his motivations as lofty enough! So don’t look at me like that for saving what little relationship we have with him and his crew!”
“Guys stop fighting especially so loudly! And Damien, Santi is right. You’re playing this all-wrong cause you’re hurting. We all are though and we’re not letting it cloud our judgment.”
“I know guys, I’m sorry we’ve just lost so much, and every day we lose more. He could have just helped us, the money from that bear could’ve gone to the entire camp’s defense and wellness. Instead, he’s gonna spend the lot of it on whatever cultivation stuff you used that cost us every cent.”
“I know the money was tempting it’s more than we have even now. But you’re wrong about him. You heard him say he’d talk to his friends so what do you think the next step should be?”
“Do good by the friends, get them on our side, and we’ll have him.”
I smiled as the conversation between the friends ended and continued walking away before any of them could come out. Slipping into our tent I quickly gave the others the rundown of what happened and what I’d overheard.
“So, they’re just asking for our help? I don’t see what’s wrong with that.” Susan said.
“Yeah, but they asked for it by trying to fuck us over,” Tony responded, Susan rolled her eyes at him and continued her argument.
“They’re just scared and want to help the world rebuild.” It was Tina’s turn to scoff, getting a shocked look from Susan.
“This Damien guy said that he wants to kill Nate, they have several levels on us, so they don’t need us. If we create our ‘disciples’ out of these people, we’ll have none left for our families and people we actually trust.” This silenced the room for a moment.
“I’m going to help them,” Josh stated, but before anyone had a chance to argue he looked at me and leveled me with a stern stare. “You promised. This is how you can keep your promise.” My gut wrenched; he was right. These people were manipulative, untrustworthy, and dangerous. Josh kept my gaze as I thought even though I wanted to look away.
“Fine. But they’ll do everything they can to get as many of us as possible in the top ten. I’ll keep my promise, but I’m getting us an opportunity for it.” The others acquiesced to my decision.
“And what about the money from the boss? As far as I’m concerned, it’s all Nates, he’s the one that got himself eaten to kill it.” Tony chimed in. I tried to refuse it, but the others agreed with him and fought me on it until I agreed.
“You know I’m just gonna use it on us anyway,” I said rolling my eyes and crossing my arms. They smiled at me and I harumphed comedically before cracking my own smile. A few minutes later I was walking back into the big tent. The top three were still but this time they had a table set out and were having lunch Santiago’s hood was off, so I immediately turned around to not look at him.
“Oh god, would you please raise your wisdom so we can at least be in the same room together?” He said and I heard him pulling his hood back over his head. I turned back around and rubbed the back of my head nervously.
“Sorry, but I guess that brings me to why I’m here.” I took a deep breath and then explained our decisions and our requirements.
“You want us to take you to the top ten? The only one of you that even has that possibility before the time limit is up might be you.” Damien said, making me scowl at him. I crossed my arms in defiance and he sighed. “Fine no promises but we’ll do our best.” I nodded trying to come off as grateful. Then I turned to face Autumn.
“Who’s your sponsor?” I asked her. Her eyes went wide, and she spat out the food she’d been eating.
“I… how… really you?” I nodded and the other two just looked on confused. “I didn’t expect them to be fine talking about them, but I guess it’s not a restriction. Oshun yeah, she immediately gave me my core and told me what to cultivate for my… you know.” She said looking at the others. “So that’s what would have happened if I’d accepted one of the other boons.” I thought then I turned back to the other two.
“Do as I say and let's see if we can’t get you caught up.” I spent the next couple of days drilling them on the meditation technique it took to at least see the essence. When I wasn’t doing that the top three were taking our group out to level up. We were working on a time limit with only a week and a half until the first month of the leaderboard ended so we were working nonstop to get to the top of each of our respective leaderboards.
I finally got a chance to open my reward for finishing the quest and it was called a sound fruit. I sat down in my tent and ate it then started meditating. The amount of sound essence I could pull in from eating the fruit tripled and I stayed in a meditative state for a full day, gaining me the ire of Damien who complained to me that I should have waited until after the time limit. I still thought it was worth it though. We sold the corpse of the Umber Bear, and I gained 3 million credits.
The aura training guide that I wanted cost a full 1,500,000 credits and I almost didn’t buy it, but my friends urged me to get it. If Apollo was right, then the stronger my cultivation got the less the system would be able to restrict me, so it was a good investment in the long run. I bought one specifically about sound auras, but I didn’t have the time to sit down and practice it. The top three kept taking us to the city to fight the monsters there.
They were a truly impressive team with very similar weapons. Each of them had a book as a weapon, Damien had a black book that he summoned powerful shadow creatures from. Autumn had a green book that she used to cast powerful barriers and healing spells. Then Santiago held a silver book, he would pull different types of bows and crossbows from it to use in different situations. While he was fighting, he would speak, describing the battle while a quill floated above the book writing it down.
They didn’t step in often though. The goal was to level us up after all. We waded into an ocean of monsters killing thousands in a matter of days. There was a team that followed us to collect any sellable materials. With the number of people, we had to listen to us during battles we began leveling much faster, and by the end of the time limit I’d reached level 40. I was looking at my stat sheet waiting for the time limit countdown to end.
Nathan Schute: Bardic Archer
LEVEL 40
STRENGTH: 15
CONSTITUTION:12
AGILITY:15
DEXTERITY:102
INTELLIGENCE:15
WISDOM:33
CHARISMA:91
PERCEPTION:11
0 Free Stat Points
I’d placed all of my free points into wisdom which allowed me to use my skills far more often, but really it was just so I could be around Santiago without being affected by him. It helped that my charisma had also raised a lot so now almost our entire team had to walk around masks that I bought that had charisma-dampening effects. Someone trying to assault me once and walking away with a dagger in his neck was enough. I also applied my skill points.
BARDIC ARCHER SKILL TREE
0 SKILL POINT
PERFORMANCE ARCHERY CONVERSATION
AMPLIFY STEADY GIFT OF GAB
RITARDANDO SCOPE
UP THE OCTAVE CONCUSSIVE SHOT
TONAL TORTURE HUMMING STRING
Up the Octave: Raises targets confidence and aggression.
Humming String: Bow Upgrade. A low vibration emanates from the bow string causing higher speed and damage on normal arrows.
Tonal Torture: Choose a specific note to bind this skill too. Target experiences extreme pain when exposed to the active skill. NOTE: Must play the note and activate the skill. Will not take any performance options from you.
Gift of Gab: Makes it easier to learn languages from across the multiverse.
Opening the combat leaderboard, I looked at my name I’d barely scraped in at number 8, Susan had hit number 6, and Josh had managed number 10. The first few weeks the twins had spent without performance skills really showed how far they’d fallen behind. They swore they would catch up though and I believed they would. The countdown hit 10 seconds and I held my breath waiting for the end. Hoping someone wouldn’t kill a boss and knock us out of the top ten in the next few seconds.