by Arthur Stone
The second item of interest was a strange structure planted on one of the larger gray spots. At first, Cheater believed it to be a bizarrely-shaped cliff face, beaten by the wind and temperature into a fascinating work of modern art. Upon closer inspection, however, he gleaned it wasn’t natural. It wasn’t man-made, either, as no sane architect might design such a baffling juggernaut. The architect behind it seemed like…a giant mutant bee. Yes! It had to be some sort of bee architect crafting honeycombs inspired by coral reefs and alien lands. Right? This bee fantasy reminded Cheater to check his pain-induced psychosis, but this delusion was a testament to the structure’s absolute lunacy.
Walls mashed together with ceilings, baroque bulges wrinkled and perforated, and there were no true right angles to speak of. It held the dimensions of a five-story apartment building, yet none of the architectural rigor. The thing was an absolute mess, but Cheater somehow found it benign. He could tell it had fallen into disrepair: its walls were cracked and collapsing, revealing gutted insides. It seemed like a sort of vaguely semi-circular amphitheater…for giant Andromedan insects, of course. “Semi-circular” was even pushing it, as its bounds were rippled and wonky.
Could the gray beasts have built this? They were sometimes known to be intelligent and humanoid, and players sometimes begrudgingly referenced their creations. Stranger still, could the structure have been crafted by the ancients—the Former? That race was mentioned even less frequently than the grays. They were the source of all elite melee weapons found on the Continent, weapons like Kitty’s blade. The thing was enviable, able to cut through virtually anything. Players would risk death for a chance at such a treasure, fighting their way through the grays’ realm to seek the mysterious ruins of the Former. That had to be it.
Cheater didn’t need magical melee weapons, though—he needed water. Would the gray clusters have any? It was worth a shot. The alternatives were to die in the dark clusters or to return to the start. Neither direction held water, unless he could figure out how to chew it from the cacti. The dead black glass was bone-dry, leaving only the candidate cacti behind him. Near these strange ruins, however, he could spot the yellowish-gray of typical desert clusters. Could there be vegetation there? He had no choice but to find out.
* * *
As Cheater approached, the ruins appeared progressively less alien than they had from afar. Perhaps his initial impression was shaded by his intense exhaustion? The sun was frying him more cruelly than before, so the ruins were the only possible shelter, their dubious aesthetics be damned. At long last, he reached the structure, collapsing in a heap against a wall. For an hour he lay there, clinging desperately to the cool ground beneath the shade. Not a dewdrop was to be found, however, leaving a dehydrated Cheater to moan his way about the ruins.
Staggering and stubbing his toe, Cheater cursed the heavens…then paused. Before him was a level of the structure half-buried in sand and collapsed archways. This area was blissfully inoculated from the sun and the heat. Unfortunately, there were no wells to speak of, but surely the former inhabitants must have obtained water from somewhere. Kicking a small stone in frustration, Cheater yowled as he re-stubbed his toe. Its home disturbed, a small scorpion skittered away in search of new refuge. The scorpion reminded Cheater that he was not immune to insect venom, an issue he hoped wouldn’t prove problematic any time soon.
Examining the center of the structure, Cheater truly found it comparable to an open arena. Despite the sun stabbing his flesh anew, he continued to probe for a source of water. One similar structure gave him a flicker of hope, but he knew that any water inside would be buried under feet of sand and stone. His thirst would find no respite here—he’d just have to chew the last snake scraps and then die. So it goes. Wearily sitting on his backpack, Cheater struggled to remember any facts about the desert. He knew the game’s incomprehensible encyclopedia would be a dead end—it always was. Suddenly, his memory nudged him to reach towards his backpack; somehow, he sensed something within it might save his life. This spontaneous hunch drove him to search every last pocket and fold of the small, battered sack. Upending it in frustration, he shook it out…then paused.
Wrappers. Packaging. Bottles. The detritus of foodstuffs he had consumed. He hardly remembered packing his sack with this trash…but might he have had the compulsion to hoard for a reason? It couldn’t have been to cover his trail, nor from any impulse to save the environment. It was odd, however, that everything he took with him was made of plastic—paper scraps and other objects had been left behind. Perhaps I’m a tree-hugger, after all? Cheater figured he’d been a hippie in a past life…unless there was some method to the madness eluding him.
As Cheater twisted a small, grimy plastic bag back and forth, he pondered its purpose. The gears of his mind gradually began to turn, pushing against the rust of the desert and the hunger and the pain and the black.
Chapter 5
Life Nine. King of the Desert
The cactus had pickled in the scorching sun for half an hour, which hardly made it any tastier. Cheater discovered this after dissecting it on his makeshift stone table. His options were thin on the ground, with no desert vegetation around that might not make him vomit instantly. Cheater had spied only four species of cactus through the small windows of his new “fortress”, one of which was perfect; it was studded along its fleshy edges with sour and sweet fruits. Unfortunately, it was the rarest kind and didn’t last him long. The other three species were unpalatable, one completely inedible.
Cheater grimaced upon rising. Any movements of his joints were agonizing, a cocktail of pain from burns, malnutrition and his character’s hyper-fast progression. He felt like an old man co-morbid with arthritis, sciatica, gout, hemorrhoids and debilitating old age. Emerging from his shelter, he kept an eye out for scorpions. He had killed a few poisonous ones already, but had no doubt craftier ones were hiding, ready to strike. It seemed prudent to strip the area of every last stone under which the stinging bastards could wiggle.
The sky was cloudless as usual, and the sun was reaching its zenith. This kept Cheater in the shadows…until now. In fact, he was glad to feel the heat, the stronger the better. No, he hadn’t lost his marbles: his life now depended on the sun, and it was finally working for him. With a backpack full of plastic garbage and no way to reach the water source by his own charred hands, he formulated a plan to excavate the well. His plastic detritus now covered a pit he had dug at the well site. Cheater’s somewhat restricted intellect had at least determined this to be an optimal spot, as all other points featured man-made or natural blockades. These collapsed walls and boulders were far too heavy for him to lift.
After the pit was dug, Cheater sorted the plastic by its usefulness and super-glued the suitable ones into a large, round sheet. His superglue was normally kept on his person to staunch small wounds’ bleeding; here, it sealed his trash instantly into a durable pallet. Cheater placed a bottle in the center of the pit that he had chopped in half with his hatchet. Next, he tossed crushed cactus inside and covered the whole affair with his plastic sheet. Finally, he anchored the sheet with sand and pebbles and placed a small stone in the middle that caused it to bulge downward over the bottle.
Time and physics proceeded to work their magic. The unrelenting sun evaporated the moisture from the soil and cactus flesh, which condensed on the plastic, collected into droplets and dribbled into the decapitated bottle. While it might not immediately occur to a layman, it was a pretty straightforward contraption, much like holding a mirror over the spout of a boiling kettle. The mirror fogs, the droplets run and gravity drags them down. This was, of course, a speedier contraption than Cheater’s, which yielded a few water-gulps per hour and shut down entirely at night. It was, however, the only tactic he’d tried that worked. His Thirst had yet to be quenched, so he compensated between water splashes by chewing out meager drops of bitter juice from some cactus chunks. It didn’t really help, but it was something, and it kept death from Thirst at
bay.
With his Thirst partially accounted for, Cheater set about finding food. He had none, there were no apparent sources, and his last meal—snake bits, what a feast!—was days ago. He tried his hand at lizard hunting, but they were few and far between and far too tiny to yield any real sustenance. While he could accurately hit them with rocks from dozens of yards away, he rounded up less than twenty. It occurred to him, however, that scorpions were considered delicacies in many countries. Perhaps they were onto something? He knew those treats were likely fried, spiced and otherwise dressed-up, however, and Cheater had no spices. Furthermore, if he were to start a fire to work some culinary magic, he’d go from feaster to feasted-on, stat. He might as well stand on the top floor and yell, “One delicious and helpless player—get ‘im while he’s hot!”
Despite two days of resting up, Cheater’s strength had yet to recover. His wounds were relatively minor and close to healing, yet he hadn’t yet regenerated and his insides still perpetually ached. His joints were tight and rigid, unable to handle even light stress, and his head was swoony and fuzzy every waking minute. His dizziness had even caused him to faint several times, one instance causing him to clip his cheek down to the bone on a jutting rock. In short, he was no Hercules. You could practically fell him with a feather.
Cheater poured the moisture he’d collected into his last free bottle. He’d cursed his hands for their junk-hoarding before, but now he thanked them for strategizing when his brain couldn’t. One’s subconscious survival instincts are powerful and mysterious, a fact Cheater was coming to witness firsthand. Cheater took a moment to settle in the shade and enjoy half of the bottle, these simple desert luxuries making his chest oddly tight with emotion. He knew there were few joys in his immediate future, but at least he could savor the here and now. It took all of his discipline not to drain the bottle, but he stopped himself in the name of rationing and occupied himself with a chat window instead.
He pinged March…and heard nothing, as was expected. The man’s icon in his squad registered as inactive, just like Kitty’s. He knew his friend was alive, but nothing more. Perhaps March—that hulking beer-dumpster!—was closer to this section of the world than he knew. Cheater had spent a day under the rock and two in the ruins, but how much longer could he wait? March might not have respawned immediately, but he should have made good progress back towards the area by now. With any luck, March would be close enough to chat soon. That morning, Cheater had clambered to the top of the fortress to cautiously survey the surroundings; the coast seemed clear of obstacles to communication, he realized, with only a smattering of black clusters among the gray. Simple machinery should operate in such regions. Cheater made peace with waiting for a few more days.
The scars bubbling over Cheater’s forearms began to itch intolerably. As he scratched furiously at the wounds, he realized some unmarked patches of his body itched as well, like his completely unmarked back. The Unnamed One’s mucus was taking its toll, as no player immunity could prevent taking damage from the substance. His attempts at a dry bath only made things worse, as wiping down his body with mashed cactus leaves merely chafed. Ice water, a hearty dinner, a hot soak in a tub—he’d murder someone with his bare hands for these things so taken for granted. After his last unsuccessful attempt to write March, Cheater closed his chat window and slugged the last of his water. Frustrated and desperate for even the smallest dopamine spike, he opened his stats window for a pick-me-up. It was, of course, a happy sight indeed.
Base Stats
1.41x Physical Strength: 37
1.39x Dexterity: 32
1.24x Speed: 37
1.44x Endurance: 33
1.5x Willpower: 92
Level 231/5 = 46, distributable experience points: 5880
Bonus Stats
1.19x Perception: 34
1.27x Stealth: 33
1.40x Reaction: 44
2.95x Accuracy: 42 (+30 bonus levels which do not count towards overall Bonus Level)
2.24x Luck: 69
1.17x Ward of Styx: 63
1.15x Talent Rank: 34
Bonus Level 319/7 = 45, distributable points: 6633
While Cheater had only killed one snake, several scorpions and less than two dozen tiny lizards, he’d still increased his level from 41 to 46 with some bonus stats and a level boost to boot. This was completely abnormal. To go from level 1 to 7 in a day was feasible—you might have had help, or perhaps gotten lucky. Raising a stat from 0 to 1 only cost 10 experience, after all. Take Physical Strength, for example: take a heavy hammer to five or six young infecteds’ skulls, and you were set. They were stupid, weak and conveniently risk-free targets to help noobs level up as they got started. To move from level 1 to 2 cost 20 experience points, 2 to 3 cost 30 points, and so on up the ladder. This implied a Strength of 45 required 460 experience points to bump up to 46. Unless you were to put down thousands of infecteds—a completely unlikely scenario—you’d have to spend distributable points, which were worth more than their weight in gold. If you were to try to bump up by killing a couple of runners in a high-level area, you risked attracting the attention of far deadlier enemies, ones that might require heavy machine guns or grenade launchers to slay. In this case, you would accrue experience in stats other than Strength. Unless you were to physically swing a tank at an elite, Strength would receive but a token amount.
There were other problem stats besides Strength, and leveling up beyond 30 was a serious challenge. Some referred to that level as a “dead end” and warned about the mind-numbing, tedious slog of progressing beyond it. Yet here he was at level 46, clearing 20 and beyond in a matter of days! He’d been unfathomably lucky throughout the voyage, but knew such episodes of radical success could happen now and in the future. A player could hunt and complete NPC missions over fifty border crossings, collecting random bonuses from the System all the while. With this in mind, level 40 no longer felt unattainable, nor did the “dead end” seem immutable. Veterans above a certain level—or some beginners, for that matter—weren’t keen on sharing details on stats and skills, staying utterly tight-lipped on strategy.
Cheater could reasonably assume that March’s level was around 50, but had no objective proof; under their recent campaign, Cheater couldn’t even be sure his friend had reached 40. His friend never asked him to open view access to the party’s full stats, nor was this a possibility given Kitty’s choice to lock them as blind. Even if its leader changed, many settings couldn’t be modified after a party’s creation. That being said, they should have been able to see his level; after all, Tat’s extended info box could be seen at a glance, even when Cheater wasn’t in her party. No such number was shown for March, nor Janitor, nor anyone whose level was more than 10 above Cheater’s own. He did hear rumors that if a character’s Perception was less than 1.5x their target’s Stealth, they’d be clueless even at point-blank range.
If March’s Stealth was 50, Cheater would have to have a Perception of 75 to access his details—assuming their multipliers were the same. There was no way Cheater would reach that any time soon, as his Perception was only at 34. Only his Willpower was reaching levels over 75. It was no surprise, therefore, that he’d heard nary a whisper about high-level characters. How could anyone surge so far past veteran players who’d been here for ages? At least Cheater wasn’t a novice anymore. Progress! As he rested on his laurels, he caught himself. Enough admiring my numbers! Back to work! Cheater pulled up another section of the menu. It was time for him to make a difficult choice.
26 abilities were listed before him, of which he could only choose 2. He’d avoided this decision for days now, struggling to summon the courage to face it. He did his best to cull the group, rejecting 19 inferior options outright. His remaining 7 froze him in his tracks—he wanted every last one. In a dream world, he’d acquire the whole set and become unstoppable. The System, however, didn’t care about his little fantasies: he would have to get his pair and be satisfied. Winter’s Breath was a prime exa
mple of an enviable skill, allowing him to aim a gust of sub-zero Arctic wind in a targeted direction. While not fatal, it wouldn’t be pleasant to be caught in his icy gale; however, stronger Willpower boosted the strength of the ability. Cheater’s sat at 92 in his window, which indicated he could freeze several millimeters of subcutaneous tissue, even potentially inflicting long-term blindness. Becoming a blind block of ice didn’t sound like a party.
Winter’s Breath would be useful in combat, yes; however, its range was small, it cost immense mana and was significantly less effective in heat, headwinds and heavy rain. Additionally, layers of thick clothing could thwart it. Cheater therefore chose to move on. Evaluating each of the abilities with similar rigor, Cheater traveled down the list comparing pros and cons, eventually settling on his final pair. While these selections weren’t his initial picks, their strategic advantages were clear.
Ability Name: Explosive Shot.
This ability is activated when you clearly think or speak the code phrase “Explosive Shot.” 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.
Restriction: This ability can used only together with long-range weapons (including all types of firearms, bows, crossbows, combat slingshots, harpoon guns, railguns, and catapults—but not throwing knives, darts, or other projectiles that are hurled without the use of any device). Note: Spear throwers and similar devices cannot take advantage of Explosive Shot.
