by Ryan Rimmel
“Sounds handy,” I said.
“It was, when it didn’t have an unkillable monster living in it,” stated Shart. “We don’t even monitor it anymore. Anyone stupid enough to enter it dies horribly.”
Turning back to Beakatrix, I said, “I know a place you could go, but I don’t know how you’d get there with your eggs. I fear you’d have to leave some of them.”
“There are a lot of eggs,” she said, looking around. “I was kind of hoping you were going to tell me that they weren’t all mine.”
“They appear to be. Is this not normal?” I asked.
“We usually lay one egg at a time, about a year apart. If the eggs are unfertilized, we just bury them. These all look fertilized, though, judging by the color of the shells,” Beakatrix said, groaning. “I never really fancied being a mother.”
There were fifty-two intact eggs that were deemed non-necrotic. We were basing that number on Badgelor’s smell test. If an egg smelled worse than EstherSasha’s cooked eggs, he assumed it was necrotic. Beakatrix did not look overjoyed at the news of her massive brood.
“I assume you would want us to save them,” I said.
“Oh, yes, of course,” replied Beakatrix hastily, in an odd tone of voice. “It would be a real shame if they were all left here to rot, I guess.”
“Any ideas regarding what we can do with them?” I asked Shart.
“Just dump them into your dimensional storage. We can figure it out later,” stated Shart.
“I thought dimensional storage would kill organic things pretty quickly,” I said, remembering a very detailed rant about just that.
“Normally, yes,” replied the demon, “But I’m in Limbo now. While there is no Life Mana here, time is also kind of dodgy. They won’t die for at least a few weeks, probably a few months. That should give you time to come up with a better option.”
I glanced over the field of eggs. Sighing, I began dumping all of them into my dimensional storage.
“That’s terrific! You have dimensional storage,” Beakatrix smiled, relaxing as I dumped in the last egg. “That’s just perfect. Out of curiosity, is that still fatal to living organisms?”
“No, it will be fine for at least a week. We will get your eggs out by then,” I said confidently. Beakatrix’s smile faded.
“What a relief. You guys have much improved dimensional storage. In my day, it would have killed them all painlessly. Don’t be worried, though. If something were to happen to them, understand that I would forgive you. Those are unusual eggs. If they were to all just die unexpectedly, no one would blame you.” Beakatrix gave me a look that I couldn’t read on her alien body.
“Not usually. I’m just special like that,” I said, checking my inventory. All fifty-two eggs seemed intact. “Anyone else’s dimensional storage would kill them, but not mine.”
“How fortuitous.” Beakatrix blinked at me several times, before her wing hand went up to her forehead, covering her eyes. It was an odd gesture. I started to walk out of the room, and she hopped off the platform. Her unused legs caused her to stagger for a few moments before she regained her footing.
At her full height, she was close to nine feet tall, but there was a lot of leg in that height. Also, there were a lot of feathers, and those masked her proper proportions. She looked like she had an owl’s body with a raven’s head slapped on. Her beak, thankfully, worked like a typical beak, not at all like the triangle horror of the Ghoulsters.
“I fear that all my equipment is missing, including my dimensional storage belt,” she said, as she grew more confident on her legs.
“Where did you find a dimensional storage belt?” I asked.
“I built it,” she replied haughtily. “I am an Engineer.”
“An Engineer? What skill level?” I asked. I had the Engineering skill as well, but I was only up to Journeyman rank with it.
She turned toward me, the feathers on her neck fluffing out. “Skill level? You jest, surely. I’m a level 31 Engineer.”
“Wait, you are an Engineer with levels? I thought Engineer was a Profession,” I said.
“No, Engineers are the newest members of the Anointed,” she smiled. “We are now part of the Class Registrar, and they are training new Engineers at the Academy,” she said, cocking her head left and right. Then, she faltered, “Or at least we were, before the breaking.”
“Engineer isn’t a class anymore,” I said, and she sighed. It sounded like a loud, lonely coo.
“That is unfortunate. It's not like it would be the first class that perished over the centuries, though,” she said, looking at me keenly. “You are a Cleric of Logan?” She said “Logan” with a clip, like she was tasting the word for the first time. I didn’t entirely recoil at that. An Engineer would probably have good Perception and Lore skills. She’d gotten my class off my character sheet. While my skills and amulet stopped casual scans from revealing my entire character sheet, your class was the first thing shown after your name.
“I assume you haven’t heard of Logan,” I said, and she ruffled her feathers.
“The world seems to have greatly changed since I was last in it,” she responded, before looking down at Badgelor, “But not everything. At least there is still some good in the world.”
I looked at Badgelor and blinked several times. He just grinned back at me.
“Let's go,” I said, walking through the tunnel. Beakatrix followed, shimmying her way down the too tight shaft. Her body seemed to fit well enough, but her wings continuously got caught on things. She scraped them badly before coming out the other side.
I cast Heal Damage on her, and we headed toward the exit.
“Your god Logan seems quite handy,” she said, as we continued on our way.
“You got that right, Bub,” I replied, realizing that I’d said “Bub” unconsciously. I hoped that Bub wasn’t going to be a thing.
Beakatrix spent some time searching around in the next chamber. Without the UnHoly aura, the few remaining Ghoulsters were easy pickings. Badgelor followed her, while I examined the exit the critters had been taking out of the chamber.
“It looks like a stairwell that goes up at least a dozen stories,” said Shart. “Of course, something is blocking the stairs.”
While I still didn’t fully understand the mentality of building cities on top of older ruins full of monsters, it at least kept things interesting. I tried using Hammerspace on several of the rocks, but the stones were part of the wall. The spell wouldn’t work on them.
Then, I watched Beakatrix for a few moments. She was a gigantic bird. That was still kind of jarring. She didn’t seem to mind me, though, which said some good things about her ability to handle strange, new situations.
Her wings were massive, at least twenty-five feet across, but they ended in large feathers making her reach appear much longer than it was. Her hands were part of her wing but looked strange to me because she had more wing past where the hand was attached. She folded that part of her wing back while she was working. It didn’t look like she could hold something with her hands while she was flying either as her hands flattened against her wings when she unfolded them which she did frequently.
She also never really stood at her full height. I had initially assumed she was around nine feet tall. Now that I was paying closer attention, I realized she was stooping. When she needed to reach something, her legs and neck extended, putting her well over twelve feet tall. Stranger still, if she needed to move something heavy, she would talon down with one foot to secure herself. Then, she would use her other leg to manipulate the heavy object.
Every so often, she’d pick something up with a foot, transfer it to a hand, and then fiddle with it. As I watched her, I began to recognize what she was working to cobble together. It looked very much like a crossbow.
“Are you making a weapon?” I asked, walking over to her. She looked down at me. She was going for innocence, I suspected.
“Is there a problem with that? We seem to be so
meplace dangerous,” she replied.
“Not at all. Actually, I was impressed that you could do it with the current supplies,” I said, looking around. Beakatrix was making the bow’s frame out of discarded bones, scraps of leather, and other sundry bits.
“I am an Expert at the Rare skill, Improvised Tools,” she said, cocking her head. “It allows me to assemble objects out of unusual materials.”
“A Rare skill?” I asked, looking up at her. She returned to her task.
“Yes, you have to have levels in the Engineering class to learn the skill. I suspect it no longer exists,” she said.
“It does sound unusual. What are your plans when we get topside?” I asked.
“I do not know,” she replied. “I was hoping the vibe in the city above would be good. If not, I do not know.”
“Could you teach your class to others?” I asked.
“Yes, if I had a place to do so,” she said, studying me with only one eye.
“Well, then, I’ve got a place for you,” I grinned.
She paused and then shrugged. “I accept.”
● Beakatrix has accepted citizenship to Windfall.
I paused. I guessed that had been on the nose. I was the mayor, so I could offer citizenship to the town. I went to the build menu and searched around, finding a new option.
● Macaw Rookery: This building is the standard housing structure for a macaw. A rookery is considered basic housing.
I selected it, found an empty lot in the southeastern part of town, and ordered it built. I assumed Mar would be wondering what I was doing, but that was for future Jim to explain. I’d also have to figure out what to do with the eggs, but that was another job for future Jim, the poor bastard. I may dislike Mar, but I must despise future Jim. Maybe I can just dump the eggs in the rookery.
While I fiddled with my menus, Beakatrix finished her crossbow. She held it up rather enthusiastically for my inspection. It was of decent quality, especially considering she had made it out of spare parts in under fifteen minutes.
I reached into my dimensional storage, pulled out my old goblin crossbow, and handed it to her. She ruffled her feathers.
“You had this the whole time,” she said flatly.
“I wanted to see you use your Rare skill,” I replied. Beakatrix started fiddling with the goblin weapon, holding it like it was a dead rat. Of course, rat was one of the components. I’d checked it before. Finally, she disassembled part of the base and attached some pieces from her improvised crossbow.
“Ready,” she said. “What’s the plan?”
“Well, I found a stairway up. We are going to use it, fighting our way through a host of monsters until we get to the top. We just have to continue fighting, until we reach the surface,” I said, before explaining how many levels there were.
If a bird could become ashen-faced, Beakatrix managed it. Once I’d finished, she said, “I’m amazed you managed to get down here, going through all that.”
“I didn’t, not really. I fell in a hole,” I said.
“Could we go up that way?” she asked.
“No, it caved in. The sides were unstable,” I stated, before pausing. I had made a pocket and then dug through the bottom. I didn’t know how much material had covered me. I thought at Shart, “There was a fair bit of debris on top of me when I fell, right?”
“Yes,” stated the demon, “At least ten feet of debris.”
“Badgelor, how far up did you dig when we were finding our way out of that pit?” I asked.
“We are about fifteen feet over the top of that stupid lean-to you were huddling under,” said the badger. I looked at the nearby wall.
“So, if we dug through here, we’d find a mostly hollow tunnel going straight to the surface?” I asked Shart.
“I believe so, but you’d have to fly to go up that way,” Shart replied.
“Badgelor, dig through the wall,” I ordered, before remembering my manners. “Please.”
Chapter 37 – A Lesson in Physics
There was no way I could have possibly climbed up the shaft. The walls cut through dozens of layers of previous cities that had all, at one time or another, existed on the spot. Some were fancy, some were poor, and none of them looked stable.
This section of shaft revealed thousands of years of history, all in one go. From an archaeological perspective, it was fascinating. From my perspective, virtually every floor had monsters on it. None of them liked the sun very much.
Not that Union was slow. It took some time for Beakatrix to get her wings straightened out. After all, she hadn’t flown in ages. By the time she’d managed to fly Badgelor and me toward the surface, Union’s citizens were already patching the hole.
Before I’d died on Earth, we had a creek wash out a section of a major road. Despite the urgency of making repairs, it took them weeks to fix a fifty-foot section of road. For over a month, everyday commuters had to find an alternative route to jobs and shopping. If this temple-sized hole was still there tomorrow, I’d be surprised. I supposed the difference was the possibility of monsters climbing out from the damage.
As we came to the surface, Beakatrix built up speed, exploding from the hole. A few dozen arrows flew toward us, but her burst of speed allowed her to avoid the projectiles. The sensation of flight was incredible. I could get used to this.
I looked up, enchanted by my new companion and her flying ability. The only thing I saw was a macaw on the verge of total collapse. Her Stamina was just about gone. She spotted a nearby rooftop and desperately flapped toward it. I released her legs, just before her wings gave out. I fell nearly ten feet, landing in a roll. She immediately crashed into a rooftop garden but didn’t stop. Instead, Beakatrix tumbled toward the side of the building.
Using Flash Steps, I managed to close with her. I grabbed her in the nick of time, before she disappeared over the side. Lifting her back onto the roof, I was surprised by how light she was. She weighed less than I did, despite the wings and being much taller than me.
“Too heavy,” she croaked and wheezed. “Hate flying.” She was in a full Stamina Crash. I sat down next to her and waited for her to recover. I saw the last remaining Stamina potion in my inventory and considered it for a moment. I quickly rejected the notion. Beakatrix would recover soon enough, and I only had the one.
“Flying is awesome. Why don’t you love it?” I asked.
“You can run. Do you like running? You like walking. Do you like hiking?” she spat, still gasping. “If I want to fly somewhere, I’ll do it on a sky ship, like a civilized person.”
If I were being honest, I MIGHT have chosen to drive a time or two, even if I could have walked. I’d had a perfectly good car on earth, pre-semi. I glanced at my character sheet and realized that I’d leveled up my Cleric class again. I looked over my Warrior class and saw that it was getting close, as well.
The problem with being so spread out, level-wise, was that Ordinal assigned experience based on each class's level. The crypt below was considered crazy hard for my Clerical class, but it was a walk in the park for my Warrior class. I’d earned a ton of Clerical XP, enough to level me. My Warrior class had only gained a small amount, and my Explorer class had gained virtually none.
● Level up, Cleric 9
● Your Hit Point total is increased by 10. Your Mana is increase by 10.
● Your Hit Points have increased, your maximum Hit Points are now 480
● You Mana has increased, your Maximum Mana is now 140.
● You have learned the spell, Holy Blast
● You have gained a perk
I glanced through my perk options. I had spent many perks improving my healing. I needed to branch out into a second category that would still help me. Then, I remembered I had all that Charisma but no real perks that exclusively used it.
It didn’t take long to find something useful.
● Charismatic Caster: Your Mana pool increases by 10 times your Charisma rank (4)- 1. Your Willpower will be
considered rank (4) - 1 points higher when casting Holy spells.
That seemed like overkill, but it made sense, I supposed. Not everyone had as many stat bumps as I did. Most Clerics of my level would have, at most, 4 bumps to apply between Charisma and Willpower. If a Cleric had focused on Charisma, this perk would be enormously helpful. Furthermore, a Cleric might reexamine this perk at higher levels, if they had enough Charisma to make it worthwhile.
The issue was that I had many more stat bumps than could reasonably be expected for an average, level 9 Cleric. That meant that I could take the perk and gain benefits from it, like an adventurer with much higher stats. I selected it and felt my Mana pool surge.
● Jim, Cleric 9
● Explorer 15
● Duelist 14
● HP 480/480
● Mana 170/170
My stats were much higher now than the handful of Hit Points I had started with. I wouldn’t even get to full power until I got Cleric up to level 15. That led me to another problem, my Max Level. While it had increased to 62, I needed to use strategy to avoid leveling the wrong ones too quickly. If I rapidly leveled up Explorer and Duelist, I might not be able to get to the correct levels I needed in Cleric and Mage Knight.
“Shart, any idea on how to stop me from leveling up in a class?” I asked.
“You're still on about that?” sighed Shart. I had to stop advancing in at least one of my classes, or I would have to get very exact in how I earned experience points. My biggest concern was getting my various classes maxed out, before I picked up Mage Knight again. If I didn’t have 14 free levels, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to activate it at all. If I didn’t have 15 free levels when I reacquired Mage Knight, I wasn’t going to be able to move into its Path. That would be just as bad. I really needed to get the Mage Knight Path activated. Then, I wouldn’t run into this whole ‘unable to use the class until I met the requirements’ thing.
“Yes,” I growled. “Have you found anything?”
