Today’s Earth date: September 17, 1991

The scholars in Teagaisg suggested we be at least level 10 before making the journey to Cuan, so we’ve spent the last three days in the forests around the city, killing everything that moved.

But nothing cute like squirrels or rabbits. Just monsters. (Didn’t mean to scare you, mom)

Horcus has gone from thinking of this world as a video game to insisting that it actually is. Talking to him feels like talking to a tabletop player about their character sheet, looking for any way possible to get more from his build. That’s made it harder to be friends with him, but he’s not mean or anything. It just feels like we’re living in two different realities now.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

***

Physically and mentally recharged, Wayne bought a new set of armor from a leathersmith and visited the guard house to ask for leads on common monster spawns. He was directed to a corner of the forest with a small river where the terrain transitioned starkly from hill to mountain. Goblins, kobolds, rattlins, ratmen, and orcs had been observed there, frequently feeding on the fish swimming upriver to spawn.

Fergus was relatively fit for his age and was fine following Wayne at a leisurely pace. As the terrain steepened, however, Fergus struggled. He complained a fair amount in the process, but he never stopped putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how many times he had to wipe the sweat from his bald head.

When Wayne saw the watering hole at the edge of his HUD map, he told Fergus they were getting close and that they had to be quiet.

A few more steps forward and Wayne used Probe.

Three red dots appeared near the edge of the water. He was too far to see what they represented, but he had potential prey for certain.

Wayne had three new combat skills and one weapon to test:

* Fire a Broadside from Pirates!

* Blitz from Cyberball

* Skycat F-14XX from After Burner II

* Tammi’s rogue daggers

With his Chosen Fighter sword in his hand, he came out of the trees to take on three ratmen. These were slightly smaller than the ones he fought a few nights ago on the road, but they looked just as mean. They also had the sense to pick their moment to strike, giving Wayne’s blade a wide berth as they prepared to make their move.

With a dumb smile on his face, Wayne tested his first ability.

Fire a Broadside.

The pauldron on his new leather armor hinged open like the lid of a chest, revealing the mouth of a cannon where his shoulder should be. With a loud bang and a heavy puff of gray smoke, the cannon fired a metal orb the size of a tennis ball.

A tree directly to Wayne’s right, some fifteen yards away, burst into pieces from the impact. The pauldron closed.

“What the fuck.”

The cannon had fired perfectly sideways, parallel to the line of ratmen ahead of him. If he wanted to hit someone with Fire a Broadside, it looked like they would have to be standing next to him. Like a ship in a naval battle, he supposed.

But Wayne was less concerned about the tactical considerations of the skill in that moment. He was more concerned for the state of his shoulder, but it moved like it always did and he felt man meat when he squeezed it. He found no sign of a cyborg cannon implant.

The ratmen, however, were very concerned about the tactical considerations of their enemy firing a ball of lead from his arm. They froze, eyes wide.

“Wake up, Wayne!” Fergus yelled from his hiding place.

Right. This was a fight. It was time for him to rain destruction on monsters.

Skycat F-14XX.

The buzz of a bee closed in on Wayne from behind at breakneck speed. A model fighterplane the size of an urban crow paused next to him, floating just above his right shoulder.

“Really?”

A model fighterplane? He wanted tomahawk missiles.

“Uhh… Attack?”

The plane didn’t move. The ratmen had regained their nerve and ran forward. When Wayne shifted his focus to the ratmen, the plane rushed forward at them. In the same moment Wayne’s brain registered his surprise at that development, the airplane promptly nose dived into the dirt and blew up. The explosion was as unimpressive as the plane’s performance, like a burning log kicking up embers from falling a few inches.

A block of ice stunned the nearest ratman, and that brief stumble was all the opening Wayne needed to run it through. Red outlines appeared around all of his foes as he pulled his sword free.

One of Wayne’s Missiles tore a chunk out of a rat leg. With that monster mostly immobilized, he turned to the last ratman standing and really wished this universe had boil-fit mouthguards.

Blitz.

The world turned to paint and smeared long lines of blurry color to his left and his right. He felt his stomach drop like he had just crested the peak of a roller coaster.

When that singular blink finished, he was five yards farther forward. The ratman he was after was several yards farther away now, trying to get to its feet while cradling a broken arm. Its nose looked crooked too.

Wayne ran at the ratman with the rogue daggers to finish it off. Unlike the longsword, he neither felt nor saw anything new or different from using the daggers. Perhaps he wasn’t able to activate them? If that was the case, why could he use the longsword?

Not for the first time, Wayne wished he had a manual to read.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

He wanted to try Fire a Broadside again, but the skill seemed to have a cooldown. Not knowing how long it would be, he finished off the last ratman the artisan way. By hand.

Fergus cheered and jumped out of the bushes. “Wow, that got my heart racing.”

“Was that flying object your fighter fairy?”

“Plane. Fighter plane.”

“Right.”

Wayne said that it was, and he hoped he had used the skill incorrectly. If that was the extent of its usefulness, Skycat F-14XX might be the lamest skill ever.

***

Since Blitz and Skycat F-14XX could be used outside of combat, Wayne and Fergus hiked back toward town, stopping at a field along the way for more practice.

From where he hid, Fergus had gotten to see Blitz from the outside. He said that Wayne seemed to flicker. At the end of that microsecond, Wayne was crouched, shoulder braced. Then he blasted forward with the sound of a thunderclap. He practically went through the ratman, launching it backward.

Wayne didn’t remember crouching and aiming his shoulder nor had he heard the thunderclap.

For the next four hours, Wayne cycled through using Blitz, Skycat F-14XX, and Nee.

He wanted to figure out Fire a Broadside, but that skill was not usable outside of combat. Fergus needed to check Wayne’s shoulder for himself to believe it was still a human.

Where did the cannon come from?

Where did the cannon go?

Wayne didn’t know.

He did know he would prefer to have a cannon that shot forward, but a sideways barrage could still be valuable. Unfortunately, grinding Fire a Broadside would have to wait for now.

For Blitz to be the most useful, Wayne needed to be more aware of what was happening during the forward dash. Losing track of where he was like that could have gotten him into trouble in a more dangerous battle. He also didn’t particularly like something taking over for piloting his body when he used the skill.

As for Skycat 14-XX, he had no idea what would make a model fighter jet useful, but whatever it was, figuring out how to control it was his first step.

Nee was a necessary evil for the moment. He hoped the next spell from that stupid ass game was more useful than growing shrubbery, but he’d never know if he didn’t level-up the spell with use.

Fergus reclined on a nearby hillside, put his hands behind his head, and enjoyed the warm sun.

***

Wayne’s parents took him to see a rodeo once when he was thirteen. Children were invited to come early to enjoy games and entertainment before the proper event started. One of those activities was riding a small steer, bucking bull style. For reasons Wayne still couldn’t explain, his mother let him sign up.

Sitting on the back of an irritated animal as it bounced nervously against the walls of a narrow chute was a unique feeling. At first, Wayne was scared, but then he set his grip–one handed, just like the pros–and that fear turned into a sense of exhilaration. He was about to dominate a beast, to endure everything it had. He felt powerful. He felt ready.

His goal was to stay on the steer for eight seconds.

He lasted zero seconds. The moment the chute opened, the very first buck launched him into the sand, face-first. That animal was far stronger than he thought possible. He was completely unprepared for the power between his legs.

That’s kind of how practicing Blitz felt.

In his early attempts, he tried thinking of the skill as a sort of superspeed that he could have control over, like a superhero seeing time slow all around them as they blazed through a battlefield at the speed of sound. His control and confidence in the skill didn’t change with that approach, however. Instead, the reps where he felt the most in control were when he simply tried to ride out the burst of energy. Not control it. Just point it and hang on for the ride.

Skycat F-14XX had a long cooldown, roughly twenty minutes by Wayne’s estimation, so he got far less reps with that skill than he did with Blitz and Nee.

He figured out that “aiming” the fighter jet was the wrong approach. Like a true model airplane, Skycat could be remote controlled, but that was done through an odd form of telepathy, like he had to be actively engaged with flying it for the plane to stay on course. The nosedive he saw in his battle with the ratmen was because he took his attention off of directing the plane.

On a whim, he thought about pushing the attack button on a flight joystick. The little fighter jet shot beebees, a rapid pew pew pew of tiny metal balls rapidly spraying as if they were bullets from a machine gun. They lacked any of the effects of bullets due to the scale of the plane.

Useless. Completely useless.

In spite of the disappointment, he got better at flying with every re-activation of the skill, and he felt a significant improvement in his mana pool from wearing the Mana Well necklace. Blackwell hadn’t deceived him, so Wayne was very happy with that item in particular. More mana meant more everything. He could grind more and had more flexibility in battles.

And as for practicing Nee, he spammed shrubbery all through the forest but got a sick feeling in his stomach because that seemed like ecoterrorism. Was that shrubbery an invasive species? He had no clue. He chopped down every shrubbery he grew to be safe.

And polite. Other people used this forest too.

He didn’t unlock anything new that day, but he did learn a lot. They’d be in a Teagaisg for a while yet, and he intended to spend much of that time grinding.

***

Wayne spent the next three days grinding without gaining a level or unlocking a new ability.

He did, however, get the hang of Fire a Broadside. The tactic was risky, but he intentionally positioned himself to give one of his enemies the opportunity to flank. When they took the bait, which they always did, he activated the skill and blew a hole in them. He could do that to either side, the system seeming to automatically choose which side was appropriate. He never fired from both shoulders simultaneously. It was always one or the other.

In a real battle–one where he wasn’t bullying random goblins and ratmen in the forest–he’d keep Fire a Broadside in his back pocket for emergencies. Getting surrounded was a frightening prospect, and this skill was the best last-ditch option he had. No need to waste it when he had other ranged attacks to use first.

Fergus happily listened to all of Wayne’s musings, making notes for his own records. He could likely publish a substantial article on the Pages of Power already. There was still much to learn, of course, but even introducing their existence with early observations of how they worked with Wayne’s broken system would require several written pages.

After some discussion, the pair agreed to hold their findings until their leads on new Pages of Power ran dry. If they announced it now, prospectors would jack up prices for certain.

“I’ve left a message with the other collector in Teagaisg,” Fergus said. “I would expect to hear back within the week.”

“What do we know about this one?”

“She operates a private ‘museum’ for displaying her treasures, and from what I’ve gathered, she often sells pieces right from the display case if the price is right. Suppose that puts her somewhere between a collector and a dealer.”

That sounded optimistic to Wayne. A willingness to sell would make acquisition much easier.

“I’ve also found a lovely cafe we should try,” Fergus added. “I hear that their pastries are divine and that a fairly talented bard is playing there for the week.”

“You don’t have to do all this work for me, Fergus.”

“For us, you mean.” Fergus had the urge to read the label on his wine bottle, but he continued talking as he did. “I’m quite liking my role in all of this. Since I control the itinerary, I can schedule us to visit a vineyard to the east for a day or two, and you don’t have a choice but to join me.”

Wayne laughed. “As long as you’re okay with it. Let me know if it gets to be too much.”

“Sure, sure. Might we check Goods Storage sometime soon? I’d like to procure a few cases of wine and want to make sure we have room.”

“We’ve got space, and you’re doing a good job of making sure there’s more space tomorrow.”