Stars Awoken: A LitRPG Apocalypse (The System Apocalypse Book 7)

by Tao Wong

  “Eh, you’re recording everything, right? Boy-o here’s not a big fan of that,” Ali says, cutting in as he stretches. “Also, you just ain’t his type.”

  “I admit, I’m not as muscular or handsome as Lord Roxley, but… wait. Why am I arguing with you about this? I’m not even attracted to men,” Harry says huffily.

  “Not even a little bit?” Ali teases.

  “Not even a little bit. Journalistic Integrity allows me to ignore mental and Charisma-based influences. I stacked that with Calm Mind,” Harry says. “But out of curiosity, what is John’s type?”

  “I’m right here, you know?” I glare at the two of them. Not that me speaking will make them stop, but a man can hope.

  “Taller. Also, you need to give him a little rush, you know? John’s a bit of an adrenaline junkie. Likes the bad boys—”

  “And I’m out,” I snarl and walk out of the room.

  Yes, I could dismiss Ali. But knowing the damn Spirit, he’d spill something even more private when I eventually dragged him back. And really, I sort of trust Harry to keep his correspondence to the relevant parts. The man has made a name for himself by reporting on actual wars and combat, real investigative journalism. Not the gossip pages.

  The idiot pair catch up to me by the time I exit the private bubble car that took me to the outskirts. Thankfully, the System mixes nicely with the tech advances in Irvina, allowing something as convenient as sending the address to the car over the System. Once inside, the trip itself was uneventful.

  Outside the bubble car, once I move away from the main drop-off location for this particular high rise, the environment changes entirely, a stark contrast to the second and third rings. The first thing that strikes me are the Levels. In another world, another time, going to the bad part of town meant the first thing I’d notice would be the strewn garbage and omnipresent graffiti, the smell of urine and feces, of rotting food and unwashed bodies. Here, all but the most depressed have access to the Clean spell. The System absorbs and clears out any building that is willing to tithe a small portion of its regular Mana upkeep. Since there’s little that most buildings can do with that Mana, that means all buildings are clean and tidy. Even discarded refuse gets absorbed by the System.

  In this System world, it’s the people who tell the story. Levels are the first indicator—everyone I see is a Basic Class. A large number of those are non-combatants. And since combat, risking your life in dungeons and in the wilds, is the fastest and easiest way to Level, a society weighed heavily toward non-Combatants is going to be low-Leveled. Never mind the fact that you need a healthy proportion of combatants in any society, since they’re the main resource generators of a System world.

  Need food? Send a Combat Classer to kill a monster. Monster meat is both tastier and more nutritious than domesticated meat. Need materials for your craft? Send a Combat Classer to kill a monster. You could work with metal, but the returns from that end pretty soon. Need money? Send a Combat Classer to kill a monster.

  Levels and Classes are a good indicator of the state of a group of individuals, but there are other signs too. In the third ring, every damn Adventurer is wearing high-class combat equipment. With the right Skills, you could even pull up their individual equipment stats and see that each piece is System-registered. Heck, many of the more successful Adventurers run around with handmade equipment, fully enchanted. Their clothing, their equipment is as much a public statement of their success as they are utility items.

  Out here though, most of the clothing is mass-produced work made by machines that are barely registered with the System, if at all. None of the equipment has any stats or offers anything but a fig leaf of protection. In fact, considering how some fig trees have evolved, the equipment here offers less in some cases. No, the people in the seventh ring have no time or desire to buy “good” equipment.

  “What a shithole,” Ali says as he floats up to me. His loud and rude proclamation gets a few looks, but no one makes a move to deal with the floating Spirit.

  In fact, a very excited gnome—which is the hallmark of tiny cuteness, by the way—is bouncing up and down and pointing at the floating Spirit. “Mama. Mama. Look! A Spirit. Just like the screens!”

  “Oh, great gears above. Don’t point. He’s probably a bounty hunter. We don’t want them to come after us.”

  I frown slightly, overhearing the conversation but dismissing it. Nothing I can do but move on, leaving the poor family to themselves.

  As I walk, Harry rushes up, muttering softly, “They’re afraid of you.”

  “Of us,” I say and incline my head.

  As expected, a bunch of toughs stand at the side, watching us carefully. They’re not moving to obstruct us though—probably because the highest-Level tough is only in his high 30s.

  “How the hell are their Levels so low?” I say softly to Ali and Harry. Jesus. I knew layabouts on Earth who had Levels like theirs. And we’d only been in the System for five years.

  “Lack of motivation and opportunity,” Ali says. “The first is self-explanatory. The second has to do with why we’re here. As you know, if you’re a Combat Classer, you can’t get into dungeons without joining a guild, and most guilds receive more base-Level applicants than they need. So unless you’ve got a good Class or great base attributes, you’re stuck running down vermin.”

  “Vermin?” Harry says.

  “Mutated cockroaches, rats, and the like—alien version, that is,” Ali says. “To keep the city expanding and the area controlled by the city orb in line, Irvina has increased the minimum threshold for Mana fluctuations. It allows the city to expand their borders faster but means that low-Level spawning still occurs in public areas. Every century or so, the city decides to create some robots to deal with the problem, but those robots get badly mangled.”

  “By the residents, right?” Harry nods as if that makes perfect sense to him.

  “So everyone fights for the right to get into the guilds. And, what? The middle class buys their children better Skills?” I say, trying to piece together the logic.

  “Definitely. You saw that with the Hakarta and Yerrick a little. Though they’re a little more community-driven,” Ali says. “There are exceptions to the dungeon rules to give the lower strata access though. Some of the lowest-tier dungeons host school days and dungeon runs for the kids to level. Then there are private dungeon runners. They’re not as extensive or as good, but…”

  “But they’re available and will get people combat experience,” I say, realizing the difference a little Credit can make. “What are these private dungeons like?”

  “Depends. Everything from a single padded room with a monster they let you fight and kill for a fee to ones like the guild’s training rooms, which actually run you through scenarios. No experience, but you get trainers and coaches’ tips. The largest are multi-floor edifices that host a bunch of captured monsters. There are even monster breeders who work for them,” Ali says.

  “Weird. So, what? Don’t people just kill the monsters and get better experience? Isn’t that a way to buy Levels?” Harry says.

  I get a moment of déjà vu, wondering if I’ve ever had this conversation, before Ali answers. “Sort of? Real monsters collect more unfiltered Mana, which gives more experience when you kill them. Also, don’t forget that the System disincentivizes safe fighting. Private dungeons are literally the pinnacle of safe for a dungeon. There’s a point where the experience penalties and experience requirements make it ridiculous to keep growing.

  “And as boy-o will tell you, there’s nothing like actually risking your life to hone your skills. Fighting and Leveling in a safe, happy environment won’t do much for your skills. There’s an edge you lack, and that edge matters at the highest Levels.”

  Harry nods and mutters to himself, making notes.

  Meanwhile, we take the next left, heading down the long corridors as we tread through the building. Lining the corridor on both sides are retail shops, their windows doing the
ir best to attract attention. It reminds me so much of walking in an eclectic shopping mall on Earth. The shops are varied and familiar—clothing, weapons, toys, more clothing, a blacksmith, a potionologist, a massage parlor, battle jackets, and a martial arts training center. Of course, there are stores that are a little more exotic—the full-body hair solution with award-winning scale buffing, the pet store with exotic pets including slimes, bred mini-manticores, and mini two-tailed cat-monsters. So many shops with people flowing in and out, getting on with their lives.

  “So where are the Combat Classers?” Harry says, eyeing the area.

  “Out. Grinding mostly. Or training,” Ali says softly. “Even if the competition is high, you’ve got to be out there to find anything.”

  “And if you don’t?” I say, cocking my head. Back on Earth, starvation took a while to set in thanks to our Constitution buffs. I assume it’s the same here. Credits do make the world go around, and if you’re a Combat Classer, killing things is how you make money. If you don’t hunt, you don’t eat. Add in the high cost of rent and I’m wondering how they’re making ends meet.

  “The Council has no place for the useless. Those who can’t pay for themselves are made into Serfs and geaes placed on them to ensure they don’t commit suicide. Then they’re re-educated to become productive servants,” Ali says, his voice growing entirely too serious.

  “That’s a messed-up System,” Harry says.

  “Oh? Is leaving them to fend for themselves on the streets better? At least we wipe out their Status ailments first, give them a mental or chemical rebalancing to ensure they’re more stable,” Ali says. “It’s not permanent, but so long as it happens regularly enough, they can be productive.”

  “You keep using that word,” Harry says. “Brainwashing people isn’t right.”

  “Maybe not, but the boy-o can tell you it’s for the best,” Ali says.

  “What? Don’t drag me into this,” I say, breaking off my window shopping. I really don’t need a hoverboard. No matter how cool it looks. Or hoverboots. Well, okay, maybe those hover-cum-air-skating boots could come in handy. One danger of using Blink Step into the air is not being able to change direction. I’ve got my Flight spell, but it comes with the negative of using Mana and needing to be channeled. In the middle of a fight, it’s more difficult to complete.

  “John!”

  “I’m curious why enforced slavery is for the best,” Harry says, foot tapping as I continue to stare at the boots.

  “Eh? Oh, it’s a System thing. The more people there are, the more Mana gets processed out through the environment. The better the processing, the less strain on the ecosystem and the System itself. Sentients are filters, Mana banks, and engines. The Mana gets taken in by us, processed, and filtered back to the System constantly. It’s why you’ve got a passive regeneration, because anything that overflows goes right into the System itself.”

  Harry stands there, mouth gaping.

  “What?” I ask.

  “How do you know this? And why am I getting so many experience points?”

  “System quest,” Ali and I say at the same time, then I chuckle at Harry’s expression. “And it’s because I read. A lot. It’s also not particularly hard to realize if you keep track of things. Atmospheric Mana needs to be processed. Sentients are the best processors by far. The more sentients there are equals better processing. Less atmospheric Mana, less random mutations and weird temporal and dimensional hijinks.”

  “Temporal and dimensional hijinks?”

  “Random monster teleportation, spawning, and lair creation,” Ali replies for me.

  I make up my mind, glancing at the clock in my status screen to verify there’s enough time, and walk into the shop.

  Harry hurries to follow, all the while talking to Ali. “Why does that sound like a Dungeon World?”

  “What do you think Dungeon Worlds are? The Council picks a planet and floods it with Mana that should have gone to other locations, forcing those changes. That stabilizes Mana flow in other locations, creating an exit valve when the Mana flow surges. Unfortunately, if the Galactic Council doesn’t expand the borders or the population fast enough, well, all the worlds become Dungeon Worlds,” Ali says. “That’s pretty much what the Forbidden Zone is. Worlds where the ambient Mana levels have reached a point that they’re basically considered a Dungeon World. Except worse.”

  “Worse?” Harry says, frowning. “And why not just expand the borders of the System?”

  “Because we don’t necessarily control the flow of Mana. We control the System boundaries, but not Mana boundaries. There needs to be a sufficient amount of Mana density before we can expand the System there. At times, there just aren’t enough worlds. On top of that, while sentients are better, a Dungeon World is technically the best option. But if you leave a Dungeon World unchecked, it becomes a rupture in the System. So it’s necessary to have both sentients and a Dungeon World. Well, not necessary, but well advised.”

  Harry nods, eyes focused on Ali in the way I’m fast coming to realize indicates he’s recording.

  I ignore the conversation, instead making my desires known to the proprietor of the shop. In a short time, I’m testing out a variety of hoverboots for style and fit. In the end, I end up with something black and boring and looking a bit like a motorbike racer’s leathers crossed with cowboy boots. On the other hand, they’re slim, can alter color on command, and most importantly, are the best boots the store offers.

  Simalax Hover Boots (Tier II)

  A combination of hand-crafted materials and mass-produced components, the Simalax Hover Boots are the journeyman work of Magi-Technician Lok of Irvina. Enchantments and technology mesh together in the Simalax Hover Boots, offering its wearer the ability to tread on air briefly and defy gravity and sense.

  Effects: User reduces gravitational effects by 0.218 SIG. User may, on activation, hover and skate during normal and mildly turbulent atmospheric conditions. User may also use the Simalax Hover Boots to triple jump in the air, engaging the anti-gravity and hover aspects at the same time.

  Duration: 1.98 SI Hours.

  “Thank you,” I say, slipping on the boots and dumping my old boots in my Inventory. I wave away their thanks, only showing my displeasure when I’m out of the store. “Ali, why were they so effusive in their thanks? They didn’t look to be doing that badly.”

  “That’s because you bought his best work,” Ali says. When Harry and I continue to give Ali blank looks, the Spirit sighs dramatically. “He’s a crafter in the seventh ring. You bought his best work. He’s probably been sitting on that stock for months now and had to scrape and save to get the money to buy the materials in the first place. Now, with the boots sold, he can buy the material for another set, or for something new, and gain experience again for making it. Also, you bought them without bargaining.”

  “I was supposed to bargain?” I say with a frown, looking backward. “But it was so cheap.”

  “Nope. You overpaid by, like, twelve percent,” Ali says. “We’re in the seventh ring, not Earth. No long-range transportation cost, no teleportation fees. No extra hazard insurance. It’s all cheaper here.”

  “Huh,” I say then shrug. Ten thousand plus Credits was expensive, but just about what I got from running quests in the dungeon with Mikito. That doesn’t include the thousands of Credits I received for the various loot pieces and corpses. In that sense, getting cheated wasn’t a major problem. And if it makes their lives better, so be it. “Come on. We’re going to be late.”

  “And whose fault is that?” Ali says.

  I ignore the grumbling Spirit, picking up speed. Best make sure to arrive on time. Or early.

  The first surprise is that the location is within a small corridor off the main thoroughfare. The second, that the address is for a meeting room rented out of someone’s co-working space. I’m a bit amused to see that this co-working space mostly caters to crafters, with multiple desks and work areas cordoned off from one anothe
r via enchantments rather than a slew of random computers. Still…

  “Redeemer of the Dead, John Lee? Yes. Meeting room three. Take the first right, second door on the left,” the floating fish-creature that fishes the desk says through the electronic translator.

  I’m a little surprised but follow its instructions. Ali’s chuckling while Harry’s peering around at the co-space, curiosity warring with his dedication to my story. Or Earth’s story. Hell, I don’t even know what he’s working on now.

  Opening the door to the meeting room, I’m a little surprised by how small it is. It’s no bigger than a grade school classroom, maybe twenty feet across and fifteen wide. Numerous chairs are laid out, and a simple podium has been set up for my speech, but most importantly, the room is lacking a little in its most important characteristic.

  “Where is everyone?” I say, eyeing the clock. We’ve got a good five minutes before the speech is meant to start, but seven people present isn’t a particularly impressive attendance record. “Are Galactics prone to being late?”

  Certainly in Whitehorse, I’d have to give everyone another fifteen minutes. They might joke about Yukon time, but not a single damn meeting or event ever started on time.

  “Not really. Maybe by five or so? Galactics are pretty punctual. Comes from the HUD clock,” Ali says.

  I sigh and slump into a chair, letting my eyes drift downward. Fine. I can wait. Five minutes isn’t that long, especially since the Galactic-standard five minutes is just a touch shorter than ours—3.8 seconds to be exact. For the most part, it makes no real difference, since Ali helpfully translates everything for me and rounds it up. Not as if I’m an engineer or anything.

  I might have my eyes half closed, but in truth, I’m evaluating the few attendees. Quickly, I come to a conclusion that there are three groups. Those who are, quite obviously, here for fun and food. Initially there was only one of them, but soon enough, he’s joined by a couple of others who hang around the free snacks at the side. The second group are those who look uncertain, individuals who have quite a few strong threads leading from them. Family, friends, obligations, contracts. I’m guessing they’re here to look and learn but are hesitant because their lives are entwined with others.