Chapter 14: Power

James stopped walking.

The gremlins kept ashing upon him, the chitterers working themselves up into a frenzy, but he ignored them and focused on the words.

Your choice of Benediction is your first step

in determining your class.

James tried to slow his thoughts, to focus, to get a grip. The Monitor had sent him into some bad headspace, but he needed focus, clarity.

This felt… yeah.

Important.

Shield of Faith | Smite | Bless

So whichever he chose would be a step in determining his class?

Probably not like upper class, the 1%, that kind of economic shit, but rather… James tried to recall his high school gaming days. Fighter? Wizard? That kind of stuff?

Seven years on the streets hadn’t done his memory any favors.

Shield of Faith. Did it matter that he had little faith in anything but human stupidity and the impermanence of everything important? Still, that was a defensive power, right?

Smite. That sounded Old Testament. To lay the smack down. Aggression. An attacking power.

And then Bless. Like priests did? What would that look like? Empowering other people?

A defensive power, an aggressive power, and then a… what was the right word? Enhancing power?

Each of which would set him in a different direction, pointing him toward a different class.

First steps.

So thinking, he began walking again.

What did he want?

In the old days the choice would have been easy. He’d cared about helping others. Still did, truth be told. He’d been surprised these past few days to find his old sense of civic duty had proven harder to kill than he’d thought. But did he want to go around blessing others?

The thought made James’s lip curl into a sneer. Who was he to bless anyone? That felt… ridiculous. He imagined that office in NYCEM full of captains and directors, tried to imagine their expressions if he’d offered to bless them.

Saw the CIA guy’s expression, so familiar, old as time, disgust hidden behind a veneer of false sincerity.

No. Blessing others was no longer his shtick.

Shield of Faith?

What if its strength was determined by one’s actual devoutness?

James stopped in his tracks. Is that what the Monitor had meant? That her kind were compelled by God?

That felt awful and right and yet… what kind of God would have set a countdown timer sixty thousand years ago? Would have unleashed Nemeses on the innocent?

Then again, He’d been pretty thorough with the Flood, hadn’t He? Maybe this was another attempt at sweeping the table clean.

No matter. His faith wasn’t up to snuff.

Which left the one that felt right.

Which felt good.

The very sound of it gave him a dark thrill.

Smite.

He was no longer a healer. A keeper of men. He was… what? A Nexus, apparently. But more than that.

He was broken.

What had happened to him seven years ago… that could never be undone.

It had filled him up with such a deep tank of fury and loathing that he’d never be anything but a broken soul.

Smiting though. Smiting lay right in line with his pain.

James inhaled deeply, focused on the option, and selected it.

The other two faded away, and knowledge filled his mind.

It was like an old memory resurfacing, information that he felt he’d always known, but only now recalled.

The power was simple. By activating the Benediction, he would enhance a weapon or his fists with divine might, whose strength was determined by his Power stat, and which was fueled by his Arete.

The higher his Power, the stronger the blow.

The higher his Arete, the more often he could use the Benediction.

James frowned, focused on the ‘divine might’ part, tried to tease out nuances. It didn’t feel overtly Catholic. No symbols or rituals came with it, no tenets and catechisms. It was more of a feeling.

A sense of strength of purpose married with spiritual devotion and clarity. A calling, a yearning, a need for something more, something greater. A capacity for wonder, for love, for altruistic purpose. A feeling of the sublime, how one was at once insignificant before the vast grandeur of space and creation, yet ennobled by that realization at the same time, made all the more special for being alive, improbable as that was.

James took a shuddering breath.

How the fuck did that apply to him? Maybe once he’d felt that kind of stuff, but now? It was all layered under years’ worth of scar tissue and calluses, numbed and deadened by booze and tragedy, heart ache and loneliness.

James wrested his mind away from the memory and its implications. No matter. He’d use this ‘divine might’ if he had to.

If it let him Smite.

Gremlins shrieked in rage and ashed upon his aura.

“Kelly, this is Mancini. Can you give a status update? Over.”

James lifted his radio. “Mancini, this is Kelly. Making my way to the kill zone on foot. All’s fine. Out.”

He clipped the radio back to his belt, expecting Mancini to radio back demanding an explanation, but the Sergeant stayed quiet.

Allowing James to return to this next decision.

You may now purchase Aeviternum points

What the fuck did those do? He already had one, for all the good it had done him. Would purchasing a second cause a new memory to resurface? They sounded important, but his aura clearly ran without it. Or did his aura run off his first point, and getting a second would double its power?

James walked another block, ruminating.

He could just dump the points into Arete, get a stronger aura, more juice for his Smite. Or into Power, so that his Smites would have some punch behind them.

But embracing the unknown had served him well thus far.

James walked on.

By focusing on the Aeviternum option, he learned that a single point would cost him all five unspent points.

Expensive.

Expensive meant valuable.

Fuck it.

James selected the Aeviternum option and purchased a point, raising his total to two.

A new memory emerged, flowering in his mind and filling him with the rudiments of knowledge.

If Arete represented his own inner grace, then Aeviternum was his connection to the divine, the world spirit, to the cosmic energy that flowed through all of creation. Each point was a minor miracle and could be spent to either empower a Benediction far beyond what it was normally capable of or heal himself completely.

James felt an aching awareness as to how there was much more to Aeviternum than he could currently understand, but that those deeper uses were contingent on future developments and powers.

Still. The immensity of Aeviternum’s power staggered him. He could heal himself twice back from the brink of death or could empower a Smite far beyond what his normal Power rating would allow.

But only twice per day. They would be restored to him every dawn.

James kicked a rock. What if he got on a plane and flew with the dawn around the globe? Would he get infinite Aeviternum regeneration?

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He got the sense whatever being or system was delivering these powers wouldn’t be amused.

James lifted his gaze and stared back at the burning symbol that hung high in the sky. What would have happened if he tried to hit Meladrix with an Aeviternum-empowered Smite?

But he already knew. He was just Level 5.

He’d probably not even leave a mark.

He thought of Jessica’s face, her refined beauty, her cool, calculated expression. The sadism and amusement in her hazel eyes. He knew they’d meet again, and when they did, he’d do his level best to knock the Monitor on her ass.

Ten blocks later he hit Level 6.

Your rank is now Mendicant 6

You have 5 unspent points.

Nothing else.

James bit back his frustration. He’d hoped for a new Benediction, or perhaps a Class option, something.

Instead, it was back to his 5 unspent points.

Still, who knew going for an evening walk could be so damn rewarding?

Again, he puzzled over the choice. Power or Aeviternum?

His Power rating was 5. He knew from plenty of experience that his punches weren’t negligible, but he’d never knocked a guy out, and rarely won fights against younger, more determined opponents.

But Power 10 could change that.

And what was the sense of raising Aeviternum if he couldn’t defend himself consistently and maximize the use of his Smite?

Power 10 it was.

James assigned the points, and immediately felt his body surge with energy, loosen up, a hot flood swelling his muscles.

But he didn’t grow stronger. Instead, he felt an enhanced ability to call on his strength suddenly. An explosive power.

Which made sense. Power was the ability to transform physical energy into force at a fast rate, with emphasis on the speed of the action. But the physical energy came from his strength, which was 6.

Which meant that he could now harness that 6 with explosive speed but was still hamstrung by its low value.

Connections between the stats started to suggest themselves. Strength by itself would allow prodigious ability to shift weight and exert slow force, but would manifest in slow, clumsy swings. Married to high Power it became more like a football player’s ability to launch themselves forward into a tackle, going from nothing to everything in the blink of an eye.

Speed? Connected to Power, but probably simply the ability to move fast, divorced of Strength. Which in turn informed Agility, the ability to coordinate hand to eye and navigate the environment adroitly.

The only one that was isolated was Stamina.

Did that mean that Strength and Speed had knock-on effects on Agility and Power? Should he have instead raised Strength for the influence it would have had on Power? James grimaced. He’d not bothered asking anybody about how their stat increases had affected them or interacted with each other.

Too late now.

James took his skillet in both hands, lifted it like a baseball bat over one shoulder, and stepped into a swing.

The skillet whooshed around far quicker than it ever had, a burst of energy powering it through the air. But yeah, there wasn’t more strength behind the swing; he’d simply enhanced his ability to bring it to bear.

Guess he needed some Strength.

No wonder few folks had dumped points into Arete. If you got started on boosting your physical stats, the interconnected need to raise them all across the board would become too tempting.

James walked on. The gremlins were inexhaustible, but now more and more of them were hanging back, watching, calculating, following. Looking back, he saw a crowd scrambling after him, their eyes forming a creepy cloud of crimson fireflies in the gloom, their scaly bodies gleaming in the streetlights.

“That’s right,” he whispered. “I’m the Pied Piper of Queens. Come on, rats.”

Not all of them followed him, however; plenty still came bounding out of hidden corners to fling themselves at him in their bloodlust, ashing instantly.

But it took another twenty blocks before he leveled again. Hundreds upon hundreds killed themselves upon his aura, many more than it had taken to reach Level 6. James had started to think he’d not hit the next level till at last, after a particularly savage surge, the welcome letters lit up his vision:

Your rank is now Mendicant 7

You have 5 unspent points.

Strength? His Arete was strong at 27, and Aeviternum was tempting as always, but his expenditure on Power would be crippled if he didn’t have the Strength to back it up.

Sure then. Strength.

He assigned the points.

The effect was immediate. If Power had loosened him up, eased kinks and old aches, Strength caused his frame to feel at once more compact and larger. His muscles got that pumped feeling that he remembered from his old days at the gym, and he felt his posture straighten slightly, his shoulders square from their more customary slouch.

A new posture, improving the one he’d allowed himself to fall into over the years. He felt rejuvenated, heavier, more dangerous. He raised his hand and clenched it, felt his bicep swell, his knuckles pop.

Hot damn.

He took hold of the skillet and swung it. It had halved in weight, felt now like it did when he was under the influence of way too much adrenaline.

James let out a shaky laugh. The Strength fueled the Power. The synergy was beautiful. Now he could swing the skillet with both explosive speed and wicked might. Almost he thought of dropping his aura or trying to find a way to do so in order to try out his Smite.

But he wasn’t a kid any longer. Wisdom accrued over the years urged him to hoard his good luck.

He’d save his Smite for Nemesis 2.

Breathing deeply, exhilarated, he studied his entire sheet:

Name: James Kelly

Class: None

Rank: Mendicant 7

Title: Vanguard

Virtues: None

Benedictions: Smite

First Miracle: None

Second Miracle: None

Third Miracle: None

Aura: Lead

Aura Strength: 4

Aeviternum Points: 2

Strength: 11

Stamina: 5

Speed: 6

Agility: 4

Power: 10

Arete: 27

Despite himself, despite everything, he felt a thrill at seeing the increased stats. He could heal back twice now from mortal wounds, could imbue his skillet with cosmic power, and was now as strong and explosive as a college athlete.

That last one was more of an educated guess.

But for the first time James felt a tweak of hope.

The Nemeses might have caught humanity by surprise, kept his species on the ropes for the first forty-eight hours.

But he knew, deep down, that a comeback was in the making.

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