I tried to sleep. That’s the truth. I couldn’t get comfortable though. The bed was much too small. This observation had some implications that I was not quite sure how to feel about. You see the average mattress is just over six and a half feet long. I had assumed I was somewhere near that height and all the cots I had dealt with were for children or something. Nope. My legs hung over the edge by a considerable distance. This combined with the need to duck to enter the door, that Brand seemed to be shorter than Angelica by almost half a head, and that she was a whole head and shoulders shorter than me had implications.

Holy crap I was gigantic. I had originally assumed Angelica was short, maybe as small as five-foot-nothing. That would mean Brand was maybe four-foot-eight. That seemed unlikely. Let’s go the other way. If Brand was of average height, that would put Angelica at about six-foot. Then I would have to be around seven feet tall. Huh, well then

This made sleeping geometrically difficult. I tried laying on my side. Bad idea, that caused the springs to sag deeply groaning from the strain of my bulk. This was so uncomfortable that the prompt to sleep vanished. I sat up causing the springs to scream.

“Will you be quiet,” Brand snapped.

I stood looking at the bed frames. I was as wide as any two of them. Trouble would come from having a metal rod along my spine. Maybe, if I put three more mattresses width-wise across the two, I may be able to sleep. Given there were well over thirty beds this seemed like the best course of action. I certainly wouldn’t be depriving the others if they wanted to make their own mattress fort. I grabbed three mattresses and tossed them into a pile by the frame I was trying to use.

I then glanced over to Brand and watched him the whole time I slid the second frame along the ground next to the first. The metal-on-concrete shriek was so loud and piercing that I had to make a willpower check to not flinch.

Brand lifted his head to glare at me partway through this and seemed to fail his check. He eventually put his hand over his ears. I saw something dangerous flash in his eyes.

Willpower Check… Successful!

You have resisted an intimidation check from Nameth Brand.

I just kept staring at him coolly as I kept sliding the frame along the floor. When it contacted the other frame, I surveyed my work. Yep, that is two frames touching each other. Job well done.

Angelica stepped out of the shower. She was rubbing a towel against her short hair and was wearing long shorts and a massive T-shirt. She surveyed the tension between me and Brand, “What’s going on now, boys?” she asked walking barefoot over to survey the situation.

“Absolute-Unit here is too big for one bed,” Brand answered.

Angelica nodded. She examined my handy work when she got closer to my double bed. Then, she looked at me. Then she looked up to the ceiling. “You would be more comfortable under the A/C vent,” she said. Angelica immediately pushed on both frames raising a din that actually caused me a point of damage.

I placed the three mattresses on top of the two frames. Then draped the blankets overtop.

Craft check… Successful!

Functional bed completed.

This bed grants Well Rested condition should anyone sleep on this bed for 8 hours uninterrupted. It will remove all exhaustion conditions.

Note this item is the result of a group effort between you and Angelica. Both shall have maker marks applied. Skill progression will be divided equally.

“Huh”, Angelica said, getting a similar prompt. “I can’t believe that worked. Brand, we somehow managed to craft a functional bed.”

He stood and walked over to examine this. “One moment,” he pulled earplugs out of his pocket. After stuffing them in his ears, he sighed, “We may as well try again.”

Twenty tooth rattling minutes later we were able to produce two more functional beds. It turns out they must be located under an A/C vent and have all five blankets to function.

Somehow this did not warrant me gaining Trained Level in crafting. I still wasn’t sure how skills worked. It seemed to rely heavily on succeeding a skill check. Willpower and Unarmed were climbing quickly probably because I was literally always using them, but there had to be more factors.

I lay in bed long after Angelica and Brand went to sleep. I was hoping for some sort of response from the Progenitor as Cole called him.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” Celeste asked. Somehow despite shining brightly and not sneaking in any way, she surprised me.

I did not jump out of bed and faceplant. I fell on my back. I sat up, “that obvious huh?”

Celeste sat down next to me. I felt a slight uncanny valley vibe seeing Angelica’s body moving differently and hearing Celeste’s tone in her voice.

“If you want to talk, I am here,” She put a hand on my shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” Celeste said.

“What’s the deal with you and Angelica?” I asked.

“Oh,” Celeste seemed to expect something else. She thought for a moment. “It is actually kind of embarrassing. I am an angel. I am a divine Scale player. I was on the same level as Adora or Malphea. Then I died. Not just having my avatar shattered either. My essence was extinguished. That said I had a trait, Reincarnate. So, rather than go to whatever afterlife I should have, I was embedded into Angelica at her birth. If we can reach the point that she reaches level fifty I will be fully restored.”

“What happens to her when that happens?” I asked.

“No idea.” She admitted. “We have been together for thirty years. I have never been closer to anyone… ever in 320 years of existence. I am terrified I am going to be the thing that kills her.”

That was a lot. “Shit, does Angelica know this?”

“She doesn’t like talking about it,” Celeste sighed.

We were quiet for a moment. “Avoidance is a common response to both anxiety and grief. When people lose a major attachment figure or are about to, the acute pain can trigger that sort of behavior.”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Celeste eyed me, “Where did you hear that.”

“Grief counseling, after Marnie…”

Willpower Check… Successful

Emotional state maintained.

I could still see her. Sitting in the doctor’s office, staring at the wall. The doctor had just told her that the cancer was back. She kept telling us about the options. Marnie took my hand and stared down at the floor, “We both know I’m not going to live through this.” Marnie told me.

I took a deep breath, “I spent a lot of time not dealing with things. It took a lot of time away from me. Scratch that, I still haven’t dealt with it completely.”

Celeste squeezed my shoulder again.

“Aren’t you burning through your time?” I asked.

“It is going to reset for the day. I figured I would take the chance to speak with you.” She explained.

“Is Angelica listening?”

“No, she told me not to share any of your secrets with her without your consent,” Celeste answered.

I nodded. We just sat there for a few minutes. I don’t want to overstate things. That said I could tell we had some common ground. Maybe it was just remembering the world as it was before this Narrative System. Technically, I hadn’t lost anyone, but at the same time, I had lost everyone. Celeste had clearly lost people too. I also got the feeling Celeste wanted someone she could talk to as herself without the baggage of Scale. Maybe it is codependency, maybe it was grief, or maybe we were just there for each other. Like I said I don’t want to overstate this, but her taking the time to be there… meant something.

Eventually, time ran out and we both went to bed.

The next day was … okay hell is going to sound over dramatic, but it was hell. If I have to wear the crown of the drama queen to make the claim, then so be it. Two things were making it that way. First was dealing with Brand. That bastard seemed to have the taunt skill at master level and he needle me with it, constantly. It would seem the actions of yesterday’s petty revenge will be met with petulant escalation. I was being forced to roll willpower checks constantly to keep my cool. The spin-up and wind-down were complicated to experience.

The second one was this.

Experience cap for snow lion type enemies reached.

No more experience gains for defeating these enemies.

Skill progression is still possible.

3000 experience to next level

I screamed in pain and outrage as one of the fucking cats hooked its claws in my face. I mashed its skull against the cave wall with my hand pulping it. I then stomped on two more cats and just sort of body-slammed another. This caused the rest to swarm me. At that point, Brand unloaded on them. To his credit. He killed five of them before they could hurt me, and the six immediately after its attack. I blocked and countered a seventh, and then Angelica cut through another eight with her thunder charge.

I stood up and waited for the cuts to heal. “How far are we?”

Brand checked a piece of paper and thought a moment, “I would say two chambers from the challenge room. Have you had time to get your second wind?”

Willpower check… Successful

Again, I went from almost enraged to calm but annoyed. Not sure why he felt the need to snipe at me, but every other sentence out of his mouth kept triggering the damned roll. I haven’t done it yet, but I was going to fail or crit-fail at some point.

The next two rooms were similar to the previous eighteen. Completely full of pissed-off lions that could come at us from various directions. I kept doing my job the best I could. I would insert myself in the crowds of snow lions, and work to block their mauling attacks the best I could. Brand would gun down an impressive amount, putting out at least two shots a second. He was a good shot too. He never hit me once. Honestly, I never felt like he came close despite shooting in my direction often, and Angelica would bust up the rest with that charge attack of hers.

That said the overwhelming amount of big cats would still get to Angelica and Brand. Brand had a nasty bite on his right arm between the wrist and elbow, and four gashes along his stomach. He had bandaged his injuries. Angelica had a series of cuts along her arms and leg. She wasn’t bleeding like I tended to do, nor did she seem to mind the damage. That said I could see that their health was beginning to dip. The bar next to their names over their head had both dipped below the three-quarter mark.

We went into the next room and… things well they didn’t quite go to shit, but they took a turn. After stepping forward to stall the wave of lions a massive chunk of rock dropped behind me. This cut me off from Brand and Angelica. I would have tried to get to them, but the cats were on me.

Attack from Snow Lion A Blocked!

Counterattack Successful! Snow Lion takes 39 points of damage

Snow Lion A is slain

Attack from Snow Lion B Blocked!

Counterattack Successful! Snow Lion takes 47 points of damage

Snow Lion B is slain

Attack from Snow Lion C Blocked!

Counterattack Successful! Snow Lion takes 43 points of damage

Snow Lion C is slain

Attack from Snow Lion D Blocked!

Counterattack Successful! Snow Lion takes 44 points of damage

Snow Lion D is slain

Attack from Snow Lion E Successful!

You take 3 points of damage

Attack from Snow Lion F Blocked!

Counterattack Successful! Snow Lion F takes 34 points of damage

Attack from Snow Lion G Blocked!

Counterattack Successful! Snow Lion G takes 46 points of damage

Snow Lion G is slain

Attack from Snow Lion H Successful!

You Take 2 points of damage

Attack from Snow Lion I Blocked!

Counterattack Successful! Snow Lion I takes 40 points of damage

Snow Lion I is slain

Attack from Snow Lion J Blocked!

Counterattack Successful! Snow Lion J takes 28 points of damage

HP: 235/240

Titanic Regeneration heals 12 hit points

HP: 240/240

This was a turning point of sorts for me. Only ten of the feral cats could reach me at a time. It took everything I had but I was able to block the vast majority of their attacks. This let me trigger a counterattack against all of them in reach. So, while I was surrounded by a wave of razor blades desperately trying to tear me apart, I was stalling it and slowly making headway. I have trouble putting it into words. In order to keep up with the impossible pace I had to turn off my brain, and just acted in the moment. I was strangely detached as I physically put my all into the fight.

This really misses out on just how violent this endeavor was. I was killing roughly 6 to 10 of the lions a second every second for minutes. A normal human could not have sustained the extreme level of activity. After the first minute, I was sloshing through the ankle-deep blood. After the second both I and the next wave of snow lions were standing on the new floor of corpses. After the third, I found myself on a heap assaulted from all sides. From the fourth minute on the height of the pile just kept climbing. I couldn’t comprehend how the lions just kept coming. I had killed hundreds of them and they charged me in a frenzy. No mammals, not even starving or trained ones, would keep fighting with this level of aggression. Nobody would continue after this level of casualties. Only insects would fight like this. Or enemies in a videogame. Something with no sense of self… these things weren’t real creatures. They had to be some sort of manufactured cannon fodder.

Eventually Angelica and Brand punched through the rocks.

“Doug!” Angelica shouted.

It took me a second to realize they couldn’t actually spot me in the mess. Between my fur armor, the ocean of gore, and the fact I was just sitting there, I was more or less invisible.

“I’m here,” I managed. Despite the regen taking me back to full health, I was exhausted, literally. I had the stupid condition. It couldn’t reduce my stats, affect my rolls, or mechanically slow me down, but it still sucked. I felt heavy and every muscle burned, I had this weird impulse to catch my breath despite not needing to. It was a lot of inputs that caused a sort of white noise in my thinking.

Brand shown a light in my eyes. He checked the pulse in my neck. His hands were all over me, doing medical stuff hopefully. It took me a moment to realize he was looking for injuries. “Where are you hurt?”

“Hard as it is to believe, I am not,” I said, realizing the same thing. This was a nightmare made real. I’d been mauled and eaten for minutes. To make it stop, I had to kill en mass. The physical pain was extreme. The mental strain should have been similar.

Somehow, I was fine. I am sure the ringing in my ears and the tingling in my limbs would go away any minute now.