by Dakota Krout
The four of them worked to get the metal ball rolling. The good news was that they were able to move it; the bad news was that each time they made progress, a bit of viscera would *splat* to the floor. The already-rotting meat fell through the skeleton and left a trail of gore all the way back to where the creature had died.
“This is such an efficient way to clean these off!” Jaxon happily burbled. “Look! Nothing is attached to the bones; it must simply be a frame that it builds for itself! Ingenious! If only we had a similar system in place! No wonder it needs an exoskeleton as well. Like a whale on land, over time, it would die from crushing itself.”
By the time they reached the entrance to the mine, the bones were clean except for a crusted-on layer of dried blood and dirt. A chiming sounded, and Joe watched with wide eyes as a Core fell onto the ground. Joe swooped down and scooped it up. After finding that it was still only a low-grade Core, he promised to pay the others fair market value if they let him keep it. No one seemed to mind, so he put it in his storage ring with a smile.
They exited the mine and took a break, each of them sweating and gasping. Though Jaxon’s new toy rolled fairly easily, the ball of bones weighed several hundred pounds and tended to flatten out on the bottom as it rolled. All of this added up to needing a constant amount of force devoted to pushing. Joe was a bit embarrassed that he was only able to push on it for ten seconds per two minutes before needing to rest and recover his stamina.
His need to rest was what allowed him to see the answer to their quest. As he sat with the others to catch his breath, he looked back to the mine and saw something astounding. As he stared, the entrance vanished behind a wall of stone then reappeared. Like the eyelid of an unbelievably massive creature… blinking.
~ Chapter Fourteen ~
“Joe, are you sure you weren’t just seeing things?” Alexis had frustration evident in her voice. “I know you really want to finish the quest, but we were underground for a long time with poison fumes…”
“I know what I saw!” Joe barked in a voice thick with frustration, checking himself too late to stop himself from being rude. Seeing her look away and start trembling a bit made him feel like a terrible person. Ever since they had left the concealing darkness behind, she had reverted to her shy personality, and as much as he wanted to complete everything in the game, that was no reason to be hurtful to people trying to help him. “I’m so sorry, Alexis. I wasn’t trying to be mean, I promise. I just really want this all to work out.”
Alexis simply nodded, choosing not to respond verbally. Joe massaged his temples, mad at himself for his ill-treatment of her. “Alright, well, we have some preparations to make; I think we can kill this thing.” Silence was his only answer, and the others seemed to be thinking he was having a mental breakdown. “I’ll need a little help though, and my methods might be a bit… unconventional. Is everyone willing to at least try? Give me the benefit of the doubt?”
“How would ye feel about tae three of us finishing up little quests for tae town while ye work on this… giant mine monster?” Bard enunciated his words carefully, his accent barely showing through.
Joe was a bit crestfallen that the others didn’t want to work with him directly in his schemes, but he nodded anyway. “That would work, but I will need your help for a little while this evening. I need to charge up a spell to kill the… mine… and I can’t do it alone.”
“I have no mana.” Jaxon wiggled his fingers in his normal creepy and disturbing manner. “Only astounding physical prowess.”
Alexis raised her hand. “I can help. I got mana when I specialized. It’s not a lot, but I can do it.”
“Ah have mana, too,” Bard offered hurriedly while grinning at Alexis. “Ahm in.”
“Thanks, guys!” Joe’s smile had returned. “It’ll be worth it in the end… I hope.”
The party slowly started on their route back to town, rolling the ball of metal bones ahead of them. It was a slow, exhausting process, and Bard was none too happy about it. “This… *pant*... had better be worth somethin’!”
“For certain! It already has great sentimental value to me,” Jaxon purred as he caressed the bones.
“Ah meant monetary value, ye creepy bone-lover!” Bard rumbled deep in his chest, making Alexis titter with nervous laughter.
When they were back on the main path to the town, Joe remembered that they were close to the shrine. He perked up; he had forgotten to tell them about the option to fast-travel! Trying to be nonchalant, he cleared his throat. “I think this would be put to better use back in Ardania. Don’t you agree?”
Jaxon shrugged. “That doesn’t really matter though, does it? We can’t get it back easily.”
“What if we could?” Joe rubbed his hands evil-genius style and fibbed a little. “Would you all like to learn a secret of the cleric class?” At his insistence, they left the path and rolled the ball into the shrine.
Would you like to donate this object to Tatum? Yes / No.
“No!” Joe yelped in shock. His team would have killed him if they lost this… curiosity.
No need to be so rude.
Did the system just get huffy with him? Joe opened his fast-travel tab and added his party to the whitelist of people that could use this travel point. There were exclamations and curses as a bright pillar of light became visible to everyone. “Everyone ready?” Joe hit the ‘travel’ option and waited until everyone accepted the invitation. The travel forced them all to blink; when their eyes came back into focus, they were standing in Ardania.
Bard was the first to react. “So… how does one become ah cleric?”
Joe simply laughed, and they started rolling the ball to the guild’s building. They attracted far too much attention for Joe’s liking, and a crowd of bored or shady people followed them discussing the bones. Soon, questions, guild invites, and offers to buy were being shouted at them as the bones clattered against the cobblestone road. They tried to be polite in their refusal, but this only made the people more rowdy. When the guild building came into sight, Alexis ran ahead to get some help. Seeing a large group of guild members marching toward them a minute later, all but the most insistent of the crowd dispersed.
Joe waved at a few of the guild members that he recognized. “Hey, all! Storing this with the guild until we can get it appraised. Anyone know where we can put it?”
With fifteen people rolling the metal, it moved much faster. An entire–albeit small–room was devoted to it. Now at a loss for what to do, the guild members went back to work. Returning to Ardania with the ball of bones had taken an unexpectedly large amount of time, so instead of asking his team to come over and help tonight as originally planned, Joe instead complimented his party on a hard day’s work, told them where to meet the next day, and had them take the night off.
Sighing in relief, Joe spent a small chunk of time walking back to his rented warehouse. He quickly looked over the ritual he planned to empower in the morning and found that the chalk markings were still perfect. Excellent. He could make modifications around the current ritual, adding on a third circle. While it would give the ritual an effect that he needed, it would also make this a student ranked ritual and increase the necessary resources quite a bit. It took almost two hours of chalk work to get the next circle completed without errors, but he was proud of the result.
When he was finished, Joe cleaned up a bit since his team would be here in the morning. He took out the trash, changed the sheets on his bed, hid some knick knacks in an empty crate, all followed by devoting an hour to his puzzle cube.
Characteristic point training completed! +1 to intelligence, wisdom, perception, and dexterity! These stats cannot be increased further by any means other than system rewards, study, or practice for twenty-four hours game time.
Name: Joe ‘The Chosen of Tatum’ Class: Mage (Actual: Ritualist)
Profession: Scholar (Actual: Occultist)
Level: 9 Exp: 38,665 Exp to next level: 6,335
Hi
t Points: 80/80 (50+(30)*)
Mana: 867/867 (12.5 per point of intelligence, +100% from deity, -11% from mana manipulation)
Mana regen: 10.63/sec (.25 per point of wisdom, + 9% from Coalescence)
Stamina: 75/75 (50+(10)**+(15)***)
Characteristic: Raw score (Modifier)
Strength: 12 (1.12)
Dexterity: 14 (1.14)
Constitution: 13 (1.13)
Intelligence: 39 (1.39)
Wisdom: 39 (1.39)
Charisma: 16 (1.16)
Perception: 29 (1.29)
Luck: 16 (1.16)
Karmic Luck: +5
Looking over his character sheet, Joe was pleased by the changes. He was lagging far behind others of the same level, but in… ten days or so, he should be able to get both his intelligence and wisdom above fifty points. From there onward, he would simply need to devote quite a bit of time to raising his other stats. If he wanted to get his strength to fifty, he would need to spend three months doing daily strength training. Blegh. He was really not looking forward to training his constitution either, especially not with a high perception.
Then he saw something that was… wrong. His experience was too low for his actual level. He did the math on the floor with a chunk of chalk. Right now, he had just over thirty-eight thousand experience, which should put him at level… eight. Why was he level nine? Joe did all of the math again, but no matter how it came up, he should only be level eight right now. He looked over his equipment, he checked active effects… nothing. He needed answers!
In that case… Joe looked at the time and sighed. It was almost too late for him to be comfortable going out, but… Tatum should know what was going on. He stood up, exited the warehouse, locked it behind him, and then strolled to the temple district. Once again, not noticing the eyes upon him as he walked through the massive temple, Joe looked carefully for Tatum’s statue. When he found it, he was highly impressed. Whereas before it had been a plaque on the ground that was easily missed, now there was a stone book filled with indecipherable, shifting writing which was level with his knee.
Joe touched the book and once again found himself in a massive temple on a mountaintop. Tatum glanced over, startled at the sudden intrusion, but then a stunning smile appeared on his face that literally caused flowers to bloom. Joe looked at the flowers and saw that their petals were tiny pages. He plucked one, putting it in his ring to study later as Tatum chuckled.
“I’d expect nothing less. Your inquisitive mind is what makes you an ideal patron, after all. Feel free to take a few of them; they are basically weeds to me.” When he had chuckled, the flowers had grown higher, taking on a bit of a golden glow.
“Does this happen to every deity?” Joe questioned as he looked over the strange flower. His herbalism score jumped five points as he did so; apparently, these were fairly high-leveled plants.
“Ugh, yes. The more power we have, the more often it happens, too. Did you know that Chan… er… Gaia, the earth deity, is not actually an overgrown tree covered in flowers? She just has so many followers and passive power that plants are constantly growing on and around her.” Tatum snorted and looked at the flower Joe was placing in his ring. “Still, it is nice to be visibly gaining power again. Those are good for low-level magical documents, by the way. They expand to hold what you need to write. You can only put up to Student rank information on them, at best; don’t try to go too wild. You can also plant the seeds to raise your own paper flowers, but they will only grow in a secret or hidden garden.”
“Naturally.” Joe chuckled at this reminder of the deity’s power. “Listen, I found something strange today… would you look at my stats and tell me why I am a level higher than I should be?”
“Oh… you, uh… saw that, huh?” Tatum chuckled and seemed to sweat. Could deities sweat? “So… pretty please don’t say that out loud again or mention it to anyone. I might have been doing something I shouldn’t…”
Joe waited as Tatum trailed off. “What did you do?” Tatum replied but it was such a soft mutter that it was unintelligible. Joe waited, and Tatum became exasperated.
He shrunk to the size of a thumb, vanishing and appearing on Joe’s ear. “I’ve been artificially boosting your level. You needed the increased stats and access to more characteristic points in order to survive, and I needed you to specialize faster than you would have otherwise. Listen carefully, Joe. If you catch the wrong attention with this fact, you might suffer severe penalties. When you get to level ten, the experience difference will need to be repaid and there will no longer be an issue. Going from ten to eleven will simply cost you twenty-one thousand points instead of eleven thousand. Please, no more questions about this. I’d like you to continue existing.”
Beginning to sweat, Joe glared at the tiny deity that was now on his shoulder. He couldn’t decide if Tatum was supposed to represent an angel or a demon. “Not cool, man. Not. Cool.”
“So, anyway,” Tatum returned to his throne and regular size, “how are things going?”
“…Not great, Tatum,” Joe growled darkly, relenting with a sigh after a long moment. “We are trying to get our guild into a town, and they aren’t playing nice.”
“Hmm. Well, I’d suggest you use your natural blessings and find a way to manage.” Tatum winked conspiratorially, but Joe didn’t understand the reference. “I’m glad that you are getting set up in a town though; your specialization will require it. Did you ever go to that place and do the thing?”
“The thing? What place…?” Joe suddenly remembered the tiny mark that had appeared on his map the last time he had been in this temple. “Oh, right. I have, uh, found where I need to go, but I haven’t been able to go there yet.”
“Well, since you found where you need to go, I’ll give you a quest for your specialization at level ten!” Tatum clapped, and Joe got a message.
Tatum has given you a quest: Building a specialization. Achieve level ten and go to the area that ‘you’ found to learn how to specialize! Reward: The next steps for specialization. Failure: You will need to find a new way or a different class to specialize in.
“Thanks, Tatum. This talk has been… um. Fun? Yeah, fun,” Joe reluctantly allowed.
“I’m so glad!” Tatum clapped his hands once more, and Joe found himself back in Ardania. He began sweating heavily and started towards his warehouse as fast as he could. Chills raced down his spine, and Joe could have sworn that people were staring at him angrily, but he hoped it was just his imagination. It was only… his imagination. He was sure of it.
~ Chapter Fifteen ~
*Knock knock* “Bleaugh!” Joe woke up to the sound of someone knocking and puking on his door. Really not a super fun alarm clock. He probably should have warned his people that there was an… anti-intruder effect in place.
“Coming! I’m so sorry, I can fix this for you!” Joe yelled as he rolled out of his sleeping mat, tripping once as he rubbed at his bleary eyes. He stumbled to the door, throwing it open which caused him to yelp and flinch as the unwelcome bright morning light flooded his eyes. “Why is it always so painful to open that door!”
Alexis was on all fours on the ground dry heaving while Bard was wisely staying a few feet away with a look of concern on his face. Joe ran indoors, grabbed his chalice, and returned to the waiting people. “Here, I need a bit of blood from both of you, and I’ll get you added to the guest list.”
Both of them allowed themselves to be cut, giving blood without a second thought. If they had been able to see some of Joe’s potential uses for their donation, they likely would have been far more hesitant. After quickly adding the two of them to the ‘Quarantine Area’, Joe dashed back and invited them in. He looked at Alexis, who was blushing and furious. “Do you have an extra sensitive stomach?”
“Low… constitution,” she ground out through gnashing teeth. Joe understood her anger when he saw the looks of panic she kept sending in Bard’s direction. Ah, yes. Puking in front of a love interest wasn’t
a great way to get the kind of attention you want.
“Entirely my fault,” Joe tried to placate her. She had very deadly poisons with her, he was certain. “I have a long-term effect in the building that makes people really sick, and it gets way worse if they make it further in.”
“Wha’ kinda limitations does it have?” Bard eagerly inquired.
Seeing someone else interested in his passion made Joe a bit overexcited. “Well, it… uhm, it is expensive to set up initially, but there is no cost to maintain it for a long period of time. Let’s see… oh! They are called rituals, by the way. Anyone can use them, but if you can’t do research on how to optimize them and reduce their cost, you will likely turn to other endeavors. They-”
“Ah meant more…” Bard interrupted the babbling Ritualist, “Ah wasn’t hardly impacted, whereas poor lil’ ‘Lexis here looked like she got hit by ah bus.”
“I don’t…” Joe’s eyes widened as he realized what Bard was getting at. “Your constitution! Higher constitution mitigates the effect of illness and poisons! So this would be almost useless against thugs trying to break in…”
Alexis’s glare had waned a bit; staring at anyone that intensely made her squirm uncomfortably. “Can we please get going?”
Joe looked over at her in a daze. “Hmm? Oh! Yes, we are after this ritual over here. It’s called ‘Gravedigger’s requiem’. Well, the basic version was called that, at least. I guess I don’t have a name for this one yet?”
“What does it do? It’s very pretty artwork.” Alexis reached out to touch the chalk lines, but Joe’s strangled cry of inarticulate indignation stopped her.
“Er-hem,” Joe cleared his throat and tried to talk in a deeper voice to make up for his squeal. He held out a taglock–a fancy name for something that will connect a spell or charm to a person, in this case, an extra sharp needle–for them to see. “The ritual should dig a hole, straight down. When the digging is stopped by finding flesh, it launches this down the hole, hopefully into the body. Then the main part of the ritual takes over, and the targeted thing gets dropped about a kilometer into the ground.”
