by Macronomicon
“Sounds reasonable.” Jeb said.
“Except…” Ron said, raising a finger. “That behavior stagnates the healer’s growth. They wind up puny and underleveled. My favorite thing to do is give my healer all the extra growth items, spring for the extra powerful weapons and armor, and put them right in the thick of things, until they’re basically untouchable. And if the healer is untouchable, that pretty much guarantees a win.”
“So what are you suggesting?”
“We should power-level Amanda until she can fight better than Brett,” He said. “She’s under level twenty with no class ability. Making her tougher and better at fighting would be a huge benefit to our party.”
“You think you could do that, Amanda?” Jeb asked.
“I’m against violence,” She said, wincing.
“Real world’s a bit different from a video game,” Jeb said, glancing at Ron.
“But if it helps save my husband’s life,” She said, glancing at Brett. “I’ll kill whatever I have to.”
“Boom.” Ron pantomimed a mic-drop.
“Casey needs leveling too,” Jeb said, glancing at the sleeping teen with the mussed up hair. “I’m fairly sure she couldn’t have got past level twenty that hugely pregnant.”
“Stands to reason. If she’s at least strong enough to run away, that’ll be a huge benefit,” Brett said.
“And you,” Jeb said, singling Brett out. “You have any Myst?”
Brett shook his head.
“We’re gonna get you some. We can’t have you being blind and deaf to half the stuff going on around you. And Myst abilities are powerful. Your Soldier ability is absolutely no good in a fight, so we’re gonna want to supplement that.”
“That isn’t so much ‘cheese the healer’ as it is…powerlevel everyone.” Ron said with a shrug.
“They need it.”
“True, but do we have the time to –“
Jeb showed him his scarab lens. “Food.” he pulled out the water lens he’d traded for. “Water. All we need is shelter. That’s what we’re looking for on the mountain.” He glanced over to the mountain in the distance, smoke gently rising off of it.
“Once we have those three things we can take as long as we have to. We’ll start with Amanda, then once she’s in her late twenties, we’ll switch gears and focus on getting Casey up to snuff. If Casey winds up as baggage, nobody wins.”
He glanced at Ron. “Sound good?”
Ron nodded.
Amanda nodded.
“Sounds good,” Jessica said.
“Yeah. I’m not exactly comfortable putting Amanda in danger, but making her damn near impossible to kill sounds like a good decision.” Brett said, adding his agreement to theirs.
They kept working on the particulars as they fled the gradually expanding swarm of monsters.
***Later***
Nearly eight tense hours later, the forest began to thin out, and Jess frowned.
“You guys see that?” she asked, pointing at the fiery mountain.
“See what?” Jeb said, peeling one eye open. He’d been catching some sleep since the monotonous rocking of the palanquin had started making him nod off.
“There’s something different on the mountain.” Jess said, staring.
Jeb sat up and peered at the mountain, but neither he nor any of the others on the team could make out what she described to them, until about fifteen minutes had gone by, bringing them closer to the bald mountain.
There was a large opening in the side of the mountain, with a flat top and sides.
A gate? Jeb thought, frowning as it slowly grew larger. It disappeared behind individual hills, but every time they crested one, it got bigger. It went from a pinprick, to a thumbnail, to a fist.
Finally they stood in front of it.
An enormous gate seemingly carved into the stone, leading deep into the mountain itself. It had gouts of flame rising off the sides, seemingly manifesting from nothing.
“That’s definitely new,” Jeb said, staring up at it.
He glanced back over to the forest below them.
The swarm of flying monsters had completely taken over the forest, only moving when the World tortoise took another earth-flattening step, sending up a cloud of creatures like flies on a disturbed carcass.
Right now, The tortoise was eating enormous old oak trees like heads of broccoli, chewing with a glazed look.
They didn’t seem interested in going up the mountain, thank god. The creatures filling the sky seemed to fly around the flaming mountain, giving the smokestack and everything below it a wide berth.
This might just work.
Jeb squared his shoulders and took a step toward the enormous hole in the side of the mountain.
Or we all die a horrible death. But that was always on the table.
He stepped into the darkness that seemed to fold around him.
You have entered a Dungeon!
Grave of the Titan.
“It’s a dungeon,” Jeb said, stepping back out. “Last one I went into was a deathtrap. Let’s find a different place to sleep.”
No matter how convenient its appearance, Jeb knew that it was no place for an infant and mother. Matter of fact, Jeb was suspicious of it because its convenience.
He’d flown all over these mountains just a day before the Safe zones dropped. He or Jessica should’ve seen something.
That night they slept in a tiny cave, the five of them crushed together by necessity while Ron’s zombies formed an unliving wall at the narrow entrance.
Jeb couldn’t help but be a tiny bit envious of the baby, the only one who wasn’t pressed up against a rock one way or another.
The morning came, and they had water and roasted scarabs for breakfast.
Before they got started with their plan to ‘cheese the healer’, there were some experiments Jeb wanted to run first.
He wanted to see how difficult it was to pick up or move someone’s body against their will, using his Myst.
When he used the ability on Brett, it was like a bird in the hand, similar to the lamprey-dragon.
When he used it on Jessica, she felt more like a struggling cat. Squirmy, but not particularly hard.
With Amanda, her resistance felt like wrestling a full-grown woman. Difficult, but not impossible. The amount of time spent forcing his Myst through hers would easily open him up to counterattack though, so it wasn’t an efficient way to go about it.
When Jeb tried to pick Ron off the ground against his will….
It felt like he’d called Schwarzenegger a sissy.
“I think it’s fair to say that the difficulty of using your Myst ability on another person is related to the strength of their Myst Core,” Jeb said, sweat beading on his brow.
Ron didn’t look much better off, having fought tooth and nail to stay on the ground.
Note to self: Myst users are going to require indirect methods to deal with from now on.
Once Jeb got that little experiment out of the way, they arranged their jobs.
Amanda, Brett and Jeb were the powerleveling team, Ron and Jessica stayed and kept the cave safe. Jeb was fairly sure that she still found Ron suspicious, eyeing the ginger out of the corner of her eye while the Necromancer wasn’t looking.
Either that or she had a crush on the kid.
They are about the same age, Jeb thought, glancing at his own weather-worn hands.
Que sera. She’s only the prettiest girl I’ve seen in ages.
Casey was also on cave detail, though her hands were mostly full taking care of baby Casey.
That’s gonna cause some confusion. But Casey wanted her daughter to be called Casey Thompson the Third, so Jeb didn’t argue with it.
The exercise program for their healer was to stack up as many unique fights with monsters as possible, coming at them from every angle Amanda could manage.
The logic was such: Each person who currently had a class was offered three classes based on their performa
nce within the Tutorial, or failing that, their personal history, the result of some outstanding achievement or their favored manner of fighting.
So it stood to reason if they decked her out in the fantastical full plate the zombies had been carrying and had her kill some monsters, she might get an armor-oriented class.
Or if she killed some creatures without armor, with her bare hands, she might get the opportunity to take a class that made armor unnecessary.
It took a few days of Jeb literally plucking monsters out of the sky or the woods below and tossing them on the ground for her to fight, but eventually, Amanda got the hang of it.
They had her fight in armor, without armor, even a nude brawl against a low-level monster, bludgeoning it to death with her bare hands in the hopes that she'd get a rare class for it.
That fight was awkward. Jeb had to watch carefully so he could intervene if it looked like she was about to lose. Brett and Amanda seemed less worried about it, but still…
They also tried archery and trap-laying at Jeb’s suggestion.
If Amanda got the Mystic Trapsmith Class, I would be absolutely thrilled. The ability to set aside packets of healing to be used at a moment’s notice would be invaluable.
He even knew how to unlock it, but creating a trap using healing magic was a bit of a stretch… he couldn’t think of any reasonable way to pull it off. Some gimmick with skin tension?
Who knows, Jeb thought with a shrug.
Jeb asked around if anyone knew how Eddie had gotten his class, but the consensus was that while Eddie had been stupid, he hadn’t been stupid enough to tell other people how he’d gotten his class.
Three days of battle later, and Amanda had her class selection.
Due to them carefully varying her fighting style, Amanda wound up with six different selections. Apparently three class selections was the minimum and most people didn’t have the luxury to experiment with things that might not work.
1. Celebrant of Sabrin (A)
2. Mystic Archer. (B)
3. Ironskin Brawler (B)
4. Healer (C)
5. Courtesan (D)
6. Companion (D)
The first three were earned recently through Amanda’s powerleveling, while the bottom three related to what she’d been doing in and around the camp during the first three weeks.
The Celebrant class was the rarest, and it offered a substantial bonus to Body, along with a smaller boost to Myst and Nerve. It also came with an attack ability and a passive boost to armor.
Amanda balked at reading the description of the class aloud, saying it was on the table, but waving off any further questions.
The Mystic archer was similar to the Mystic trapsmith, allowing her to infuse her arrows with her magic.
Jeb thought that was an amusing image, shooting people to heal them, but when Ron mentioned they might be able to bypass the restrictions by using a blowgun and needles, he took the class more seriously. It offered a decent boost to Myst and Nerve, with a smaller bonus to Body.
Ironskin Brawler was exactly what it sounded like, giving the healer the ability to strengthen her own skin at will. It offered a large bonus to Body and a small bonus to Nerve.
Healer’s ability added more utility to her Myst powers, giving her a passive bonus to heal others, as well as the ability to recognize and treat ailments above and beyond simple injuries, including diseases and poisons. It came with a decent boost to Myst.
Courtesan was discarded, along with Companion. The two classes were pure support, and did very little to help her defend herself.
They suffered an hour or so of decision paralysis, but Amanda eventually chose the Celebrant of Sabrin. The only class with a well-defined bonus to her ability to attack, as well as good stat increases.
She apologized to Jeb for not taking Healer, as that would have likely been the shortest path to him getting his leg back.
“You act like you cut it off yourself,” he said, waving her off. “I can fly. I’ll be fine.”
They weren’t done after she got the class though. They swaddled Amanda up in armor again, noting how much easier she moved in it than before. And the attack ability…
Amanda’s entire body would glow with soft light moments before she charged forward and split some unlucky creature in half, where before she struggled to pierce their hide.
Not bad.
They were returning for the day when Jeb heard fluttering off to the side and spotted Smartass, with a hobo bindle full of acorns over his shoulder –five or six, maybe? – and an empty Snickers wrapper being used as a tunic.
He landed on Jeb’s palm, his expression hollow.
“How’d it go?” Jeb asked.
“I was on top of the world, human. Naturally, I was distraught about the loss of my clan, but I decided to forge ahead. I joined a new clan. The things you taught me made me a god among the Free Folk. I had the world in my hand,” He said, shaking a tired fist.
“There I was, snorting lines of pollen off the back of a Rhapsody beetle. I could have anyone or anything I wanted. I was powerful. My company was expanding rapidly, turning over clan after clan to my control. I had supply lines that stretched from one end of the forest to the other.”
He heaved a heavy sigh. “We even had plans underway to establish contact with faeries from the next country over, corner the market. Consolidate. Umm…Leverage our assets?”
“So what happened?” Jeb asked.
“One minute I was snorting pollen, the next minute, the ungrateful bastards were throwing me in prison for embezzlement. I rotted there in that hollow log with the scum of the forest. I got hard. I got mean, just to survive.”
Smartass gave the mountain a thousand yard stare.
“After what felt like years, they finally let me out, but my company was already in someone else’s hands, and believe me, I wasn’t keen on hanging around watching someone else in my seat snorting my pollen, so I got the hell out of there. I spent the next three days after that looking for you.”
The next three days? We’ve only been here three days.
“You created and subsequently cheated a company that spanned the entire forest, then did hard time…in one day?” Jeb asked.
“You humans lack the focus to get anything done quickly,” Smartass said, rolling his eyes. “Ooh, what’s that!?”
Chapter 16: Optics
“Check this out,” Jessica said, tugging Jeb off to the side.
“What is it?” he asked, stumbling a bit as his new pegleg slipped.
Jess handed him Razorback. “Take a swing at me,” she said.
Jeb glanced down at the brutal black jagged longblade in his hand and shrugged. “’kay.”
He took a sideways swipe at the stubble-headed assassin. He briefly considered protesting, but that was just a waste of time at this point.
In the blink of an eye, blackened steel gauntlets snapped into place on her hands, allowing her to catch the sword with her palms and wrench it out of his hands, nearly toppling him over.
“Nice,” Jeb said, blowing on his stinging hands.
“I can do it for my head and feet as well, but anything bigger than that is going to take more Myst.”
“Did you try making a weapon or enchanted gear yet?”
Jessica flicked her hand, and a throwing star whizzed into the distance and sank into a rock before it began to gradually fade away.
It’s not permanent. I wonder why creatures are permanent then.
“Does that answer your question?”
“Color me impressed.” Jeb said.
“I can’t do enchanted gear yet,” Jessica said with a shrug, “But I feel like it’s possible, just too expensive to do with my current Myst reserves.”
Jeb nodded.
Brett and Casey Sr. were sitting outside the cave entrance, which had been cleared into a cozy little campsite.
Both the aging fitness model and the teen mom were sitting cross-legged, focusing on starting their Mys
t core.
The last of Casey’s goth makeup had been washed away, and now she just looked like the girl next door. Her hair was still black as night, though, and her attitude hadn’t improved much, glaring at every man in the camp like they represented the patriarchy.
The only time he saw her crack a smile was when she was cooing to Casey Jr.
One thing they don’t tell you about babies:
Newborns are ugly.
Right now, she was soul-searching in an attempt to unlock her Myst abilities, which should help her kill monsters.
The teen girl was even less prepared to powerlevel than Amanda had been. Amanda had the benefit of experience and a few Body enhancing potions.
Casey’s stats were as such:
Casey Thompson
Body 13
Myst 4
Nerve 8
The girl hadn’t gotten a single level, her inhuman stats were from the bonus fifteen points at the beginning, which probably saved her life.
She’d started putting them in Myst one at a time, then stopped when she started getting horrible headaches and seeing scary things, putting most of the rest into Body and a little into Nerve.
Once Casey figured out her Myst ability, they would be able to guide her toward a class that synergized with it.
In theory.
Jeb spent the morning working on altering Amanda’s armor to fit her better, as well as working on a few of his own devices, watching the Myst boot camp members hard at work.
The armor they got for Amanda was a rare animal: It was a full suit of armor that looked as though it’d been taken straight out of a video game.
This lead to several problems with its functionality,
The shoulderpads were huge, obnoxious things that would never work in reality. They had to remove them just for her to be able to lift her arms above her head. The main reason they’d been sold.
The armor was also heavier than a normal human had any right to be able to move in. That problem was largely solved by Amanda’s superhuman strength, but being heavier than it needed to be served nearly no purpose.
