08 – Dodge Rolling

There was a small glowing orb on the ground, half hidden by a rock. It was some sort of ball of light, slightly translucent that despite its apparent glow didn’t seem to provide light to its surroundings. Julian spotted it easily in the twilight, and although it would have been harder to see it during the full day, it was still pretty visible.

“What is that?” he said out loud.

Cal’Eer’s eyes lit up. “An item!”

Touching it, the orb dissolved and a considerably large strip of dried meat emerged from it. It was bigger than the orb, making Julian wonder how it managed to even fit inside. System shenanigans.

“Oh, it’s garbage.” Cal said, disappointed.

Julian wondered. “Why? I need to eat. I haven’t eaten in days.”

He could almost see the question marks above Cal’s head. “Days?” the tharlaxian asked. “But why? Just… buy some food from the system store. It might taste bland, granted, but it’s cheap.”

Julian rolled his eyes. “Great.”

“What?” Cal asked.

Julian shook his head. “Nothing, I’m just thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have never tampered with the system.”

Cal didn’t follow. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t have a shop.” He said, matter of factly.

“That’s…” Cal began, but trailed off.

“Don’t comment on it please.” Julian said.

“…Want me to buy it for you?”

“No need,” he said, biting into the dried meat. “Wow this really tastes awful. Anyway,” he added between chews. “How does the rune duping thing work? Does the system know we are a team or is it distance based?”

Cal thought about it. “I have no idea. It should never have happened in the first place, actually. I have never heard of runes being duplicated like this. Even among teams, in fact what happens is that they get split proportionally between all the people who participated in the kill.” He explained.

“Oh. Maybe my hacking the system wasn’t so bad after all.”

***

They walked for a while, only stopping for a moment when Julian asked Cal to purchase some water from the system shop. He transferred a whopping 100 runes to his friend’s status, and a bottle of water materialized soon after, made of some sort of faux-plastic that disappeared as soon as the bottle was empty. They explored around some more, going in the direction of the large mesa formation they saw earlier in the distance. They reached it after a few hours of walking, early in the afternoon. The sun was stiff high in the sky but soon it would go behind the vertical cliffs of red rock of the mesa, plunging the small valley in shadows. Hidden deep in the gashes of the valley was a door.

“What is this?” Julian examined the steel door encased in a large slab of concrete.

“An adventure, that’s what it is.” Cal said excitedly. “Might be fun, you know? We gain power and runes without need to kill other people, just silly monsters. F-rank area, should be easy peasy. Perfect, I say.”

Justin sighed at his over excited friend. “We are not going to get anywhere with just farming weak monsters.” He said.

“We are on floor two already! What do you mean weak monsters! Not everybody can respawn, I am one of the, and I quote you, normals… you know?”

“Whatever, let’s go in.”

The door had a round handle similar to that of a submarine. After a few turns, struggling due to his neglect of the STR stat, Justin managed to get it to open and the two stepped inside a small tunnel dug in the red rock. Cal had to crouch, once again making Justin wonder why the system had generated such an inconvenient structure when it knew tharlaxians were going to be in the tower as well as humans. Perhaps it simply didn’t care. At least the other alien species, the red horned humanoid he saw at New Hope, had normal body proportions.

As the duo ventured deeper into the mountain, the light grew dimmer and dimmer. The tunnel was straight, slightly slanted downwards, but it wasn’t long before there was barely any light to see. Cal didn’t seem to have any problem seeing in the dark, but Justin was struggling.

“There must be a light switch,” he said, looking around.

The tunnel had wires and cables running alongside its length. Right at the top, the bare rock was reinforced by concrete and a thick sets of cables, two for each side, ran alongside it before occasionally extending down and disappearing into the walls. One such cable ended in a small box. Prying it open was quite easy, and inside Julian found three switches.

He looked at Cal, then at the switches.

“I am unfamiliar with the architecture.” Cal said, shaking his head.

“It’s human technology.” Julian said. “Do I flip all three?”

Cal said nothing and shrugged, leaving the choice to him.

He did. The first and second seemed to do nothing, while the third did and as soon as Julian flipped it the lights flickered on. They were some old neon tubes, most of them broken and defective. They plunged the tunnel in a strange white light, punctuated by long stretches of darkness and flickering light, surrounded by the dulled color of red rock.

After a while they came across a side room. Its door was slightly ajar, and it creaked loudly when Julian pushed it open, revealing an messy room full of document folders. It was a dead end, but he motioned for Cal to come in and approached the broken desk on the far wall. It was furniture fitting of a sixties bunker, with green hues and the signature cheap compressed wood. On the walls the folders were loosely stacked on rusty metal scaffolding, and a quick check revealed that they were all empty.

“I need to level up before we go in further.” Justin said, then kicked the desk with a grunt. “Help me find some firewood.”

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Cal didn’t move. “What? Why?”

Justin wondered if he was dumb. “I need a fire to level up? Is that so weird?”

“Yeah…” Cal said, but didn’t elaborate.

Justin ignored him, gathering the thick cardboard of the folders and stacking it below the wood. Then, using his sword he chipped at the wood to make shavings.

“How do you level up?” he asked Cal. He took the shavings and put them at the bottom of the stack of flammables.

“I just click the button when I have enough runes.” Cal said.

A spray of sparks flew from Justin’s sword as it hit the metal. “So easy? What? Why? What stat did you put the points in?”

Cal weathered the barrage of questions. “One in vigor and one in mind.” He said.

“And the rest?”

“The rest? I’m only level 12.”

Cal’s voice suggested that he was serious. Justin’s eyes narrowed as he stared at his alien friend.

“Yeah? Which means another 10 points?” he asked.

“No, the system only gives you a free point every 5 levels.” Cal said, confused.

Julian tapped his chin. “That’s odd. What happens for the rest of the levels?”

“The system automatically assigns the points. It’s different for every class. I have +0.3 VIG +0.3 MIND +0.5 INT per level as an air mage.”

“Huh.” Julian hummed. 1.1 points plus another one for free every five levels. That’s broken overpowered. “But you don’t get a new skill every level, do you?”

Cal laughed. “Man I wish. There’s a few I got from the class, and I will get more when the class evolves but in general I gotta do quests to get them and to evolve them.”

“And to level them up?” he asked.

“Just use them. Or quests.”

“I see. Thank you.”

After the third attempt, the sparks managed to set some of the wood shavings on fire, and before long the fire was big enough that the system recognized it as such. Basking in the invulnerability bonus, Julian thought about how he should assign the points and level up.

Arcane sucked ass so far. Unless… what if the luck coming from it also affected the skills I get to choose? What if there’s good stuff to be found in this dungeon?

On the other hand… when I killed those people yesterday I almost ran out of SP right as I was killing a guy. Maybe I need some more stamina? Thinking about it, I do feel a bit tired.

In the end he chose two points of Endurance, bringing the total to 12. Now it was the time to choose new skills. He noticed, on the back of his mind, that Cal was watching him paint with his finger in the air as he interacted with the system menus. He decided it was not a problem, after all he had already revealed most of his hand to the alien.

Parry lv.1: Parry an incoming physical attack, dealing huge Poise damage to the attacker. Can only be done with a shield. Parry window is of 0.1 seconds, in the middle of the action

Energy of potential lv.1: When this skill is active you consume SP instead of MP. Only works for skills. 10:1 conversion rate

Magic muscles lv.1: Activate to consume MP instead of SP when performing actions. Toggleable.

The skills were all potentially useful, however both consuming MP instead of SP and the reverse only made sense if he had a great reservoir of at least one of the two, which he didn’t have. Plus, the conversion rates were not good: a one for one to use MP looked nice in paper, but his abysmally short blue bar told him otherwise. Conversely a 10 to 1 for using SP… garbage. He chose Parry.

Starbridge lv.1: Connect two points in space with a solid bridge made of light that disappears after one use

Eye of the Beholder lv1: Focus to be able to see farther and in greater detail. Consumes SP

Dodge Rolls lv.1: Roll on the ground to gain a small temporary immunity window

“Holy shit!” Justin yelled as he got up, slamming his finger against the holographic text that said Dodge Rolls.

Cal shot to his feet as well, immediately alert, and looking around in alarm.

“What is it?” he asked.

“We need to test this shit.” Justin said in a hurry. “Quick, smack me with your stick.”

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