Chapter 84: Chapter 84 – Hugh: Choices and Logistics

I was nearly in a panic after reading the new quest. Though I’d been feeling pressure for quite a while now, an actual timer dialed that up quite a few notches. Less than thirty six hours and ticking. That seemed like an incredibly short period, especially considering that we hadn’t even actually assigned the combat subclasses yet.

I motioned for Nat and Julia to come inside, and, by the time they’d made it in, Amy had dressed and returned from the back room. Her face was still flushed.

“Bad news,” I said.

I read the new quest to them.

“At approximately 11:45 Saturday morning, there’s going to be a dungeon overflow, and it’s up to us to stop it.” I met the eyes of each of the three girls. “Are each of you in? I need a definitive confirmation. Otherwise, I’ll need to quickly find new party members.”

Actually, that was a good question. I had spots for two more girls. Could I fill them and increase the party size? Six was better than four, right?

I looked at my girlfriend. “Nat?”

“I’m in.”

“Julia?”

“Sure.”

“Amy.”

“Yes.”

“Good…”

As I was about to continue, Julia raised her hand like we were back in grade school or something. I gestured for her to ask her question.

“What’s a dungeon? I’m assuming we’re not talking about something sex related, though given everything else is that a good assumption? And what does an overflow mean?”

“Uh…”

Honestly, my mind was racing as I tried to come to terms with everything we had to do, and her question kind of threw me. This system administrator stuff was a lot easier when it was all sexy times.

Seeing me floundering, Amy picked up the slack.

“In litrpgs, a dungeon is a place that uses a mystical energy source, usually mana, to spawn monsters,” she said. “Adventurers, system users like us, risk their lives to go into the dungeon and fight the monsters. In return, the adventurers receive experience and loot. An overflow is when the monsters leave the dungeon, threatening surrounding villages. It’s usually a bad, bad thing.”

“Oh. Thanks. I think I’d prefer the sex kind.” Julia grinned. “And I know Nat definitely would.”

Nat slugged her in the arm.

“Okay,” I said. “Plans. Lists. Steps to take. Uh… First we need to get our subclasses. Yeah. That’s a good idea. Then, tomorrow right after class, we leave to go up there. Yeah. What would happen if we tried to go up Saturday morning and broke down or something? We have to get there before the overflow happens. So tomorrow afternoon.”

“No,” Amy said.

“What? Are you not available? Do you have to work?”

Man, I got that life interfered, but this was kind of important.

“I’ll get out of work, no problem,” she said. “I was objecting to your plan. It absolutely cannot be to charge into a dungeon as a new party of adventurers with literally no practice at all, right?”

“Uh. No. You’re right. That’s a really bad plan. So, first subclasses and then training. But when, where, how? And should we try to get you and Julia to Level 10 for your primary class first?”

“I’ll handle training,” Amy said. “Larry can set something up for us, though he’ll have to be dialed in on what’s actually happening?”

I shrugged. “That’s fine.”

I was having a really hard time figuring out what to do. There was just so much! Why were they all looking at me? I couldn’t do this.

“What time will we be at his place so I can let him know?” she asked.

“Noon?” I said.

“Make it one,” Nat said. “Sorry. I’ve got a meeting with my advisor after my last class. I know it seems kind of stupid in comparison to world ending dungeon overflows but…”

“No,” I said. “One is fine. If both of the others can make it?”

They both nodded.

“Why do you want to get us up to Level 10?” Amy asked.

She didn’t look thrilled with the prospect.

“For the bonus,” I said.

She gave me a blank look, and it occurred to me that she didn’t know about the bonus of plus one to each attribute that Nat got when reaching that milestone. I told her about it.

Amy let out a low whistle. “That sounds like a really good bonus, but I’m sorry. I just don’t think that I… Level 10 is really far away.”

“Yeah. No. I get it,” I said. “Julia’s closer. She and I can talk separately later, but she’d still have a lot of points to get.”

She looked thoughtful. “Yeah. Talk later.”

“Okay,” I said. “One decision made. I still want to head up there tomorrow night. How much time are we talking for training?”

“At least several hours,” Amy said. “Minimum.”

I blew out a breath. “If we’re talking four hours plus two drive time plus dinner and anything else, we wouldn’t be getting up there until late. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to wonder around in the dark looking for a dungeon.”

“We should spend the night up there and hit it at daybreak,” Amy said. “That makes a lot more sense. We could buy some camping gear? Maybe it would fit in our inventory, even. We’ll have to test that, but that might come in handy in a dungeon. Who says we’ll be in and out in less than a day, right?”

“Good call. Yeah.”

“I’ll take the task of getting the gear,” Julia said. “It’ll give me something to do while you and Nat are in class in the morning. We can brainstorm a list for me later.”

I gave her a grateful look. “Good. Now we’re moving. Next…”

My mind went blank. Literally blank.

“Subclasses,” Nat said.

“Yeah. Works. Thanks.” I paused, trying to get my thoughts together. “Obviously, it makes sense for Amy to be the archer, right?”

She nodded, and neither Nat nor Julia commented. One down, three to go.

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“Nat’s been putting a lot of points into mental,” I said, “and my assumption is that, if this system is anything like other litrpgs, that attribute will be the most important one for the mage. Any objections to her taking that one?”

No one had any. This was going better than I expected. Two to go.

“That leaves two subclasses, rogue and tank, and two of us, me and Julia,” I said. “Typically, one of a tank’s most crucial stats is constitution, and Julia is loaded on that one.”

“You’re making it sound like I should be the tank but that you don’t want me to be,” Julia said.

“It’s just that you’d be taking so many hits. The tank’s job is to get right in the middle of the monsters and keep them hitting you so that the rest of the party can kill them off,” I said. “It’s not only incredibly important, but, since we’re outside of a video game where we will actually feel pain, I think it’s going to suck beyond the telling of it.”

“So you would rather do it?” she asked.

“Want isn’t the right word. I’m willing to? I can’t, in good conscience, just assign it to you knowing how bad it’s likely to be.”

“Hugh, first of all, thank you. Again. I really appreciate that you’re willing to do that for me, but, when I told you that I was willing to fight, I meant it. If the team needs me to wade into the middle of a bunch of monsters and let them hit me, then that’s what I’ll do. Period.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Am I the best person for the job?”

That was a difficult question. Honestly, I didn’t think of myself of some macho guy who laughed at pain. Far from it. There was a reason I wanted the rogue class. Sneaking up on people and stabbing them in the back sounded way better than letting them hit me. But I didn’t know if she would be a good fit, either, and, in my experience, having a bad tank meant that the party was likely to wipe at the first sign of real opposition. And, in this case, wiping meant actual death.

Still, she did have the stats, and Nat had assured me that Julia was one of the most competent people around.

“As much as I don’t want you to have to do this,” I said, “I truly think that you are the best person for the job.”

“Then it’s settled. I’m the tank.”

I kind of felt relieved in that I’d dodged a bullet and really crappy that she was going to have to be taking the hits for me.

“Okay,” I said. “I was thinking we could assign the classes one at a time and talk through any specific choices we each have to make as a group?”

Again, there were no objections. Good. The team was very cohesive so far.

Since everything about the system worked on intent, I focused on my desire to assign the rogue subclass to myself. A notification appeared.

I dismissed the notification and, given the content, kind of expected a bunch of equipment to suddenly appear. None did. I checked my character status.

I told the girls what I was doing. “First thing I noticed is a trait, Dungeon Body. It’s underlined. I’m seeing if concentrating on it gives more information.”

A notification popped up, superimposed over my character status. That was the first time something like that had happened.

“That’s interesting,” I said, after reading the description to the girls. “That implies bullets and knifes won’t work as well on me, right?”

“Maybe,” Nat said, “but I’m not sure we should test that.”

We definitely should test that, but saying that wouldn’t help anything. I let the matter drop and went back to looking at my status.

“I’m noticing that the leveling XP seems to be the same for the combat subclasses as for our primaries,” I said. “The 50 XP reward brought me to Level 2 and left me at zero out of one hundred to Level 3.

“Getting the subclass also added four other new rows – Health, Health Regen, Stamina, and Stamina Regen.”

I wondered if there wasn’t a mana pool or if I just didn’t have one because I hadn’t allocated any points to mental. Well, that question would be answered when we did Nat’s allocations.

“Let’s see,” I said. “Attributes. Oh. It added one to agility and one to endurance and one additional free point. I don’t know if that’s every level or just for the first or what, but that’s pretty significant compared to the previous one per level.”

I moved my eyes down the the skill portion. “I also have three available skill points to use on combat subclass skills.”

Nice. By focusing my intent, I pulled up the list of those skill and read them out to the rest of the party.

All were clickable, and I took a second to review them all. Basically, though, the titles were pretty indicative of what they did.

“It totally sucks that I only have three points available,” I said. “I want all of them. Thoughts?”

“Stealth and Backstab are pretty much a rogue’s bread and butter,” Amy said.

“You need a weapon skill, right?” Nat said. “Unless you have some ninja training that I don’t know about.”

“Stealth and Short Blades seem like must haves,” I said. “I’m wondering about Backstab, though. That only helps situationally. Would Dual Wielding effectively double my DPS all the time?”

“DPS?” Julia asked.

“Sorry. Damage Per Second. It’s the measure of how effective damage dealers like Amy and I are.”

Amy looked thoughtful. “I get your point. That would also increase your defensive capabilities.”

I sighed. “Analyze would be a huge benefit, too. And I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who noticed the implication that we would be running into traps. I’d hate to make the wrong decision now and have it bite us later.”

“What’s the choice?” Julia asked. “Wait until you get into a situation when you need it and then try to pick it up? How would that even work? You fall into a trap and decide you don’t want to do that again?”

“You’re probably right. Better to pick a direction and go with it.” I paused. “I’m going with Stealth, Dual Wield, and Short Blades.”

The three appeared on my status sheet all at Level 1, mixed in with my other skills. Curious, I pulled up my options for my free skill point.

“Yes! I can use my skill point to increase the level of my new combat skills.”

“What are you going to pick?” Amy asked.

I explained our theory about losing out on choices if we didn’t check each time we increased an attribute, so we all decided that I should increase my stats first.

“Agility and endurance of the two attributes it gave me automatically, so that’s a good indication that the system considers those the most important. Since I’m going to be a damage dealer, I can’t help but think that strength is a good call as well.”

Amy grimaced.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re a rogue, and your agility, presumably the key stat for the class based on every litrpg I ever read, is only two. I know what I’d choose.”

She was absolutely right. There was no sense splitting the points or anything. After getting everyone’s agreement, I put a point into agility and checked my skill choices. No change. Then I put my final free point also into agility, leading to the same result regarding the choices.

“Maybe I should have done that before I assigned the subclass? Or maybe the system thinks I’d be better off assigning the point to one of my existing skills?” I shrugged. “Oh well.”

We quickly decided as a group that adding a level to a combat skill was my best bet, considering I was on my way to fight in a dungeon. We all also agreed that Dual Wielding definitely was suboptimal compared to the other two options. Stealth was an obvious possibility because it was the core skill of a rogue. I ended up taking Short Blades, though, mainly because I wanted to be able to pull my weight in a fight.

It seemed like we’d been focused on me for simply forever, and I was ready to move on. “Nat, your turn.”

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