by Arthur Stone
Ability Name: Smile of Fortune.
This ability is activated when you clearly think or speak the code phrase “Smile of Fortune.” Whether you think or speak the phrase, you must firmly will that the ability be activated. You can always change the working name of your ability. This will also change the activation phrase.
Note: Your command will not work if your ability is not included in your list of active abilities! You can view your active abilities in the Abilities tab.
Ability Description: for 8 seconds, your current Luck stat is multiplied by 20. Ability cooldown: 24 hours.
Note: These are the base stats of this ability. Real-world results may vary.
Cost: 20 Spirit of Styx. Every 10 levels of Willpower you have add +20 Luck, +1 second to duration, and -10 minutes cooldown.
Additional properties:
1. When this ability is activated, the character receives immunity to all types of damage and harmful effects for 1.5 seconds.
2. Talent Rank 30 bonus: When this ability is activated, all of the character’s meters receive a random boost equal to 25% to 75% of their maximum value.
Resulting stats (90 Willpower)—cost: 29 Spirit of Styx, duration: 17 seconds; cooldown: 22 hours, 30 minutes.
Smile of Fortune now smiled far wider than it had before…it had gained two whole additional properties! The first was part of his reward for killing the Unnamed One, the second for reaching Talent Rank 30. Both were quite useful: 1.5 seconds of invincibility was practically like having one’s own mini-Shard of Invulnerability. While the prize he had gained from the Unnamed One could protect him for a whole 30 seconds, it had a 100-hour cooldown and was probably worth enough to buy a small country. This cost him not a single spore and could be used a little more than once a day.
Ability Name: Tranquility.
This ability is activated when you clearly think or speak the phrase “Tranquility.” Whether you think or speak the phrase, you must firmly will that the ability be activated. You can always change the working name of your ability. This will also change the activation phrase.
Note: Your command will not work if your ability is not included in your list of active abilities! You can view your active abilities in the Abilities tab.
Ability description: for 6 seconds, all movement stops at the point of your choice. The point you choose is the center of a sphere one-half meter in diameter. Within this sphere, all movement ceases. Note: Tranquility does not affect the Brownian motion of molecules. Ability cooldown: 24 hours. Ability range: 15 meters. Note: These are the base stats of this ability. Real-world results may vary.
Cost: 50 Spirit of Styx. Every 10 levels of Willpower you have add +4 to Spirit of Styx cost, increase the radius of the sphere by +5 centimeters, increase the duration by +0.5 seconds, increase the range by +3 meters, and reduce the cooldown by -15 minutes.
Additional properties:
1. +50% chance that this ability will cool down immediately after use.
2. Talent Rank 30 bonus: When you activate this skill, the Speed of your character increases by +125% for 5 seconds.
Resulting stats (90 Willpower)—cost: 86 Spirit of Styx, radius of sphere of influence: 95 centimeters, duration: 10.5 seconds, range: 42 meters, cooldown: 21 hours 45 minutes.
Note: The skill has exceeded a critical threshold! Living organisms in the affected area may perform limited movements if such movements are necessary to maintain critical vital functions. You cannot kill an enemy by stopping their heartbeat, flood of blow, or other functions for an extended period. However, you can inflict fatal deceleration damage by successfully stopping targets in the midst of fast motion.
Tranquility had not received as attractive a boost, but the bonus properties weren’t too shabby. In some lucky moments, he might be able to use the ability twice in a row without waiting for it to cool down, perhaps even thrice! Perhaps it made sense, then, to use Smile of Fortune and Tranquility together? He’d have to give it a little more thought. The best use he could think of for the second property was to immobilize a creature far too powerful for him so that he might swiftly escape. A Speed boost would come in handy in those circumstances. Perhaps he could brainstorm a number of additional ways to take advantage of the increase.
Ability Name: Chameleon.
This ability is activated when you clearly think or speak the code phrase “Chameleon.” Whether you think or speak the phrase, you must firmly will that the ability be activated. You can always change the working name of your ability. This will also change the activation phrase.
Note: Your command will not work if your ability is not included in your list of active abilities! You can view your active abilities in the Abilities tab.
Skill Description: Your character melts into the environment. Your appearance becomes like the elements around you. In sand, you look like sand. In vegetation, you appear to have foliage and branches, and under water, you become like algae (but remember that, in this case, you will become obvious if you break the surface). Rain, snow, smoke, and other phenomena that can emphasize your outline, in whole or in part, can compromise your camouflage. Note: The ability is most effective when your character remains completely motionless. When you move, an observer can notice changes in the scenery and deduce your character’s location.
Ability cooldown: 10 hours. Cost: 20 Spirit of Styx. Sustain cost: Upon activating this skill, your character uses 3 Spirit of Styx every minute.
Duration: Limited by your remaining Spirit of Styx. Every 10 Willpower levels you have reduce the cooldown of Chameleon by 30 minutes. Every 30 levels of Willpower you have add 10 Spirit of Styx to this ability’s activation cost but reduce the per-minute cost to sustain Chameleon by 1 (down to a minimum of 1). Note: These are the base stats of this ability. Real-world results may vary.
Additional properties:
1. The disguise effect also works in ranges of the light spectrum normally inaccessible to human vision. This allows you to hide from creatures with other types of vision and from technological devices which use infrared and other wavelengths besides visible light. Note: At these wavelengths, you can be easily discovered when moving.
2. Talent Rank 30 bonus: When you are in a camouflaged state, you evoke a strong desire in intelligent creatures and animals to look in the opposite direction, away from you. However, this desire can be resisted.
Resulting stats (90 Willpower)—cost: 50 Spirit of Styx, sustain cost: 1/minute, cooldown: 5 hours 30 minutes.
Here, Cheater had no complaints against the System. Despite his physical and emotional burdens, he smiled—before, of course, hissing at the pain of ripping his lip-scabs wide open. As blood slopped down his ruined face, he cringed. Let’s not do that again. The joy he felt was almost worth it, to be honest: having his opponents look away from him would not just help him sneak by, but also give him a pass if he missed with a shot. Only enemies with eyes on the backs of their heads could see the flash. He could also execute short dashes with impunity. This was all encouraging news. Cheater could also become invisible to advanced surveillance systems to some extent, hoodwinking even the thermal imagers so popular in this world. The nocturnal vision abilities of advanced creatures would barely faze him. This reminded him of a victory gift from the System that Cheater had neglected to remember: the passive ability Darkvision. Darkvision allowed him to see perfectly, even in the midst of a moonless night. He was amazed at the unusual brightness of the desert night and his ability to pick out outlines in the pitch black cave. The world hadn’t changed: he had changed.
Passive abilities were not as valuable as active ones, but they could be helpful and consumed no Mana—known to the System as “Spirit of Styx.” Besides Darkvision, Cheater has four other passive abilities: Treasure Hunter, Ascetic, Minesweeper, and Modifier, all earned at once in a simple campaign. One hell of a campaign, though. They had cleared two borders within hours of each other and battled a creature so fierce, players declined to give it a name. In the end, the w
hole group had perished—but it had been worth it. His current state notwithstanding, Cheater would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
With his skills, abilities and stats addressed, Cheater moved on to the System logs, where he found an invitation to select two new skills from a list. Glancing at the list, he immediately stowed it—they were all too tempting, so limiting him to two was cruel. He would deal with this personal set of mini-traumas once he reached a better mental state. He was being hit with waves of dizzy spells, partially from his burns and regeneration but also from his pumping of numerous character stats at once. Experienced players warned against this, as increasing your stats forced the System to make unpleasant physical changes to your body. Acquiring new skills was taxing on the flesh in any circumstance, and Cheater was officially tapped out.
He would also decline to select bonuses for his Level 2 Hero status now. More changes might harm his condition, even kill him. In fact, he feared he’d already gone too far: he could barely think straight, and he’d spent all of his strength on fussing over which stats to boost. It was time for his brain to rest and his legs to work. Unless Cheater found food, water and new shelter soon, he could kiss his current life—and much of the treasure—goodbye. He’d stashed the most valuable items in his personal inventory cells, of course, including the coveted golden pearls. The Unnamed One had contained five, at least two of which were Cheater’s. All had to be kept in inventory cells to keep them safe. He could consume his own, but the others were there to stay…until he reunited with the man they belonged to.
Chapter 4
Life Nine. The Sights
He heard no hiss when the snake attacked; no rattle, no slither, no warning. Cheater was simply hobbling along, minding his own business, when – bam! – the cursed thing slammed into his leg. He felt no pain, to be honest—just weary, half-hearted surprise. As the snake tried to slink away, Cheater’s reflexes were quicker: he tore a hatchet from his belt and sent it hurtling at the creature’s head. The strike was fatal, but the corpse still wriggled spasmodically, whipping its tail wildly at Cheater’s feet. His Darkvision allowed him to see the snake’s every detail, highlighting the unusual shape of its tail. As he pondered this oddity…
…A memory popped into his head, striking him randomly like a bolt from the blue. It was one of those memories people dreamed of, perhaps even feared. It was a shard of his former life, a flicker of his former self. It sourced from a time long before he arrived here, foggily remembered save for these bursts of lucidity. He saw boulders at the foot of a cliff. He heard a girl scream. He heard the telltale rattle of a snake. Where was this place? Who was this girl? Cheater didn’t know, nor could he see the snake itself. In his memory, he leapt away and risked a painful fall, a tough maneuver to land on a pile of boulders. He was battered and bruised but alive.
Cheater shook his head, wiping the memory from his consciousness. It was no time to mull over whats, wheres, hows and whys—now was a time for action, as poison waited for no man.
Note: Snakecharmer ability triggered. Verifying ability relevance.
Verified. This snake is not a marine snake. Its poison cannot harm you. However, the bite wound may cause tissue damage and blood loss. Timely and proper treatment of the wound will significantly reduce this damage and the required recovery time.
What was that—a wound? Pssh! Cheater bore a mere pair of teeny-tiny fang marks. His new ability had certainly come through. Cheater nearly cackled, then stifled himself; his laugh would sting worse than any bite. Cheater was lucky: without his passive ability, the poison could have stopped his heart without prompt medical intervention. The only environment in which poison might present any danger would be in the water. Judging by the description, the Continent did feature marine snakes. What are the odds, though? He obtained a seemingly-worthless ability…which promptly saved his neck mere days later. Was the System toying with him? The sinuous snake’s realistic movements seemed more fluid than that of some uncanny planted robot. It also looked heartily meaty. Cheater’s mouth watered involuntarily. Squatting to retrieve his hatchet from the creature’s skull, he anchored the tip of its tail and set about skinning it.
Moments later, Cheater had tangible proof of his newly feral nature. Fueled by all-consuming hunger, he sucked sloppily at the slimy shreds of snake meat, barbarously scraping the inside of its shucked skin for any remaining scraps. His meal needed a beverage to go with it, so perilously-thirsty Cheater scrambled across the ground to the nearest cactus. Chewing a nub of snake meat, he racked his brain for factoids on desert plants. Nothing. The reptile’s mauled carcass exhausted, Cheater moved on to the cactus. He lopped off a piece of it with his hatchet and dug in. It was bitter and dry and likely poisonous, so he spat it to the dust. Rising to his feet, he looked up towards his guiding constellation, then tossed his leftovers into his backpack for later snacking. Carefully and steadily, he continued on his way.
* * *
As the sky turned gray in the east, Cheater stopped short, spying something unusual up ahead. Falling silent, he crouched behind the nearest rock and drew his rifle. He had created a pillow for his gun so as to cushion between the weapon and his back, but it didn’t quite work; it was therefore a relief to remove it, as it had crushed his muscles severely on his trek. Assuming the position and steeling himself, he attempted to get a better look at the threat. Squinting hard, he saw…nothing? There were rocks and scattered cacti, but no lurking figures. The terrain was still unsettling, however, with its melted cactuses and stones worn smooth. Where was he? Had another Unnamed One passed through with an airstrike that smoothed over instead of slicing up?
He sniffed: it’s a dead cluster. The objects in such clusters gradually turned to black sand, giving them a perpetually strange appearance. His first thought was to orbit the place, but this was ill-advised for two reasons. Firstly, infecteds avoided the dark clusters, circling instead of passing through. One would likely walk right into a ghoulish ambush if one were to travel the perimeter. This impulse was dangerous with or without Cheater’s rank odor shield, and his “perfume” had likely faded by now. Secondly, every extra step caused Cheater to suffer, and detouring would mean thousands of steps. It made the most sense to cut across, saving him two kinds of major pain. Food and water was likely scarce, but so it was with deserts. The choice was clear.
Cheater tossed the next round of loot items into his mouth, washing them down with a light sip of lifejuice. Struggling not to return for a second swig, he returned the bottle to his backpack and cringed as he swung the rifle back over his shoulder. He had to move swiftly and with purpose, as the desert had a terrible climate. The sun would soon come out, bringing with it an oppressive heat that might knock out even the most healthy and hydrated. Cheater would drop in minutes. His only option was to hide beforehand, but there was no shelter to speak of. It was time for him to cease his pitiful snail-like crawling and bravely take to his feet. After all, snails didn’t fare very well in the desert.
* * *
With shelter nowhere to be found, Cheater felt himself beginning to bake. Shade could be found by the piles of large stones, but the black cluster stretched on interminably. Cheater beat on, but his morale was fading with no sign of the other side in sight. Even a full-strength immune would be asking for trouble if he rested in a dead cluster. The black was a sponge, a void that sucked the life out of everything within. An hour in this place would wreck his meters, so he couldn’t bear to imagine what might happen if he stayed any longer. Hallucination? Fainting? Running in delirious circles and screaming? Finally, collapsing to respawn?
As his flesh crumbled to dust, the items he held would be consumed by the blackness. Loot items from monsters managed to last the longest, but even they would give way within days. It would be like drop-kicking his precious items into a black hole. In the end, all objects would turn to black glass. If Cheater died, he’d go down in history as the most wasteful moron ever to crawl pathetically across the Continent. As
the System timer sounded, he leaned against a black rock to toss another clutch of loot into his mouth, followed by a splash of lifejuice. At least those couldn’t disappear.
He glared at the sun. It was getting hotter, and there was nothing he could do about it. While he desperately didn’t want to have to rake his weapon across his back, he had to access his rifle scope—after all, he had no other optical devices on hand, and he had to suffer temporary pain to avoid it long-term. Once withdrawn, Cheater set up the biped on the rock and looked through the sight. Everything hurt, and he was in no condition to use heavy weapons; the first shot was guaranteed to knock him out. The black cluster stretched ahead as far as he could see, and the horizon was dull, dark and dead. The sight’s powerful zoom confirmed the obvious: he could walk ten miles and still be stranded, and ten miles was out of the question in his state. His strength was draining. He would never make it.
For a moment, Cheater considered turning back to search for a way around. Since the dawn, he had barely traveled two miles, his legs revolting against his resolve. To his left, the coal-dark wasteland continued to the horizon, but to the right…
…The black ended. Stopping just short of the horizon, it was interrupted by two yellowish-gray spots a couple miles out. This combination seemed like a patchwork of biomes hodge-podged together. Cheater had seen similar patterns in the gray clusters, but the black here was violently dark, striving to devour the desert. It merely strived, however, as some of the original land could be seen here and there. He had heard of areas like this, but the descriptions were vague and unhelpful. He would have to rely on guesswork.
