by Arthur Stone
* * *
The crowbar smashed into the already-weakened concrete and struck metal. Cheater plunging its tip into the hole and used it like a lever to widen the gap. After a few minutes of effort, at last he revealed an iron box covered in dust.
He grabbed the handle welded to one end of the box and pulled. It barely budged.
Tat moved to the opposite side and grabbed it. “I’ll help.”
Even the two of them together had great difficulty getting to the loot. But as soon as the crowbar sent the cover flying away, a message appeared to Cheater.
Alert: One member of your party has discovered a high-level cache containing with valuable contents. Your Perception has increased by 50 points, and your Luck by 5. Always keep an eye out. Paying close attention to your environment will be rewarded with valuable finds and stat progress points.
“I’ll be damned!” Tat squeaked. “I’ve found so many caches, but never one this cool. 100 points to Perception and 100 to Willpower.”
“I just got 50 to Perception and 5 to Luck.”
“Since I was the one who found it. You just swung a crowbar.”
“So you’ve found a lot of caches before?”
“I lost count long ago.”
“Pretty lucky.”
“It’s easy with an ability like mine. You’ll find some one day, though.”
“I’ve found a couple before.”
“Oh really? I guess you really are lucky. Or do you have a skill that helps you? Nah, forget it.”
“No, I just got lucky. Though ‘lucky’ is generous.”
“What do you mean?”
“Only one useful item in the first one, and nothing helpful in the second.” Cheater decided not to mention the indecent contents of the latter.
“So why are we standing around like idiots? Come on, let’s take a look. This is a high-level cache, so it’s definitely worth it.”
There was a rifle of modest caliber, something that could maim if not kill anything under manmincer level, plus a light machine gun, two automatic rifles, three one-shot RPGs, several kinds of mines, some explosives and remote triggers for them, four pistols, hand grenades, magazines and ammunition, radios, and two armored vests.
Titty Tat tried out the rifle’s bipod. Her voice was pleased.
“Upgraded bot weapon. Easy to put on a couple of mods, and even a third with just a little luck. Even empty, this’ll fetch four hundred, and the machine gun will go for almost two. The rifles, probably one hundred fifty each. I don’t know about the pistols. Fifty, maybe, or even a hundred. And there’s a lot of ammo here. All in all, a good one and a half thousand.”
“Not bad.”
“You said it. It’s a pity to sell them. Good weapons.”
“We could keep them.”
“But we still need to split up the value. Remember? Half each. Easier to divide spores in half than metal.”
“Oh come on, we can count the cost of the guns and divvy it all up. That won’t be a problem. I’d take a rifle like that.”
“I thought you liked bigger rifles.”
“Sure. But a good automatic isn’t bad always helps when you’re under pressure. I’m not very good with snipers in melee situations. What a strange coincidence...”
“Huh?”
“This cache. We were just looking for a photo album, and happened to find a decent arsenal. Some kind of extra quest bonus? Something was different about that elite, too.”
“Maybe. Everyone loves quests, like I said. They’re almost always profitable.”
“No kidding. As long as you’re looking for the album, keep your ammo detector turned on. Maybe there are other arsenals in here.”
Tat rolled her eyes. “Oh God no!”
“What?”
“The album could take us until evening, but looking for ammo too will take us through the night!”
“We’re not in any hurry.”
“Time isn’t the issue here. There’s no way I’ll survive that stink until sunrise.”
“Come on, I believe in you.”
Chapter 19
Life Seven: Return to Pyramid
The merchant opened the album and flipped from one page to the next without emotion.
“You need to wash your clothes. And yourself. You smell like death.”
“The album doesn’t quite smell like petunias either, I’m afraid.”
“What happened?”
“The building you sent me to check out wasn’t exactly a rose garden. It did have a resident elite, though, and lots of rotting flesh. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah. I understand. But you pulled it off.”
A System message flashed before my eyes.
Custom quest (built on the generic Search and Assist categories) completed. The merchant Pole has received the photo album. You have received 800 distributable base stat progress points. You have received 400 distributable bonus stat progress points. You have received 5 distributable points for your meters. +100 Humanity points. Help players and other characters. Be generous and do not ignore their pleas for help, and you will be rewarded.
Why wasn’t the discount mentioned at all?
Cheater rushed to ask. “What about the bow?
We had an agreement.”
The trader nodded. “Of course.
Here’s the weapon I spoke of.”
It looked like a simple bow. No frills, no ornaments. It was made of a dark gray material that looked like gouged plastic. Its string was radically black and preposterously thick. Replacing the bowstring was not a problem. Those sorts of things were consumables, unrelated to the properties of the weapon itself. The whole bow looked like it was a tight pull, and there seemed to be no mechanism for adjusting the tension, like the one that had been boasted by the old bow he had lost at the hospital. All in all, this bow looked cheaper than his old companion, but the price tag certainly didn’t.
Even with the discount.
Bow of Depletion, from the Black Castle, from the black territories. Rare weapon of the Former. Visible properties: Guileful Speed (up to 50% of experience points earned for bonus stats in battle are transferred to Speed progress points). Lesser Guileful Endurance (up to 10% of experience points earned for bonus stats in battle are transferred to Endurance progress points), Guileful Despair (5 to 15 experience points earned for bonus stats in battle are transferred to base stat progress points, but never to Willpower), Weak Fatal Shot (arrows from this bow have a 25% chance of piercing obstacles 2x stronger than can be pierced by a normal shot). Unstrengthened. This weapon has no owner. You can become its owner and change its name.”
Cheater remembered well the description the merchant had given him on the first day and noted that its title differed ever so slightly. But it was essentially the same. This was indeed a worthy substitute for the bow he had lost. Three of the four mods were perfect and the fourth was also decent.
“Will you give me a discount on some arrows?”
“How many do you need?”
“I’ll buy half a hundred. And make ten of them the very best arrows you have. You know, with the most armor penetrating power.”
“With a buyer like you, I don’t have a choice. But you’ll ruin me, you know.”
Cheater had hardly any loot items left on his consumption schedule. He was taking things to boost his stats and meters. He still had a decent number of spores and yellow peas, but he had to remember that his bow still needed to be bound to him. In Pyramid, that service cost at least five hundred and fifty spores.
Cheater wouldn’t need to sell the shirt off his back, but he would need to start on some income soon.
* * *
March banged his empty beer glass on the table and smirked, without looking at Cheater, “Well, well, well!
Our Robin Hood has a bow again. Where is it?”
“I stashed it. You know how they deal with weapons here.”
“They take away bows too?”
“Yeah. So the merc
hant calls them up right away to tell them about your purchase. You take it to the checkpoint, and you hand it in at the same window where you left your guns.”
“Freaks. Before long they’ll be banning toothpicks. This place doesn’t deserve to be called a stable. Alright, let’s drink to your bow. Agreed?”
“Alright, one glass.”
“One glass? Come on, lad, the only way to live on the Continent is to pump your Alcoholism more than anything else! It’s a very valuable stat, take it from me!”
Titty Tat sat nearby.
March squinted to inspect her before announcing, “Now this young lady knows how to pump it properly!
Hey, hairy, have you mistaken us for someone else? This isn’t the monkey section.”
“She’s with me,” Cheater replied.
March finally condescended to looking at the archer. His eyes were filled with surprise. “You’re kidding.
If your Kitty is half as frightening as this—Teethy Twat, is it?—I’m glad you’ve forgotten about her.”
“No one has forgotten anything. It’s not like that between us. Tat is a business partner who has helped me out a couple of times.”
“Ah, no need to explain to me what ‘partners’ means, I’m a grown-up.”
“Find some other target for your dumbass jokes, March.”
“Sorry, sorry, it’s not like I graduated comedy college or anything. So you have no intentions for this girl?”
“You already know what my intentions are.”
March glanced at the girl again and shook his head in mock terror. “Brr!
I’m going to have to take a hard pass, Cheat. March isn’t very picky, but everyone has their boundaries. Sorry, young lady, but no love is coming from me. My back isn’t in the best shape, to go around lifting a five-ton broad like you.”
“Does this chauvinist clown ever shut up? Or should I just stab my fork in his knee and deal with the consequences?” Tat asked with a blank expression.
“I would be quiet if I were you, March. Tat, tell him about those people.”
“What about them? They came up to me as soon as we came to town. Asked about Cheater. Who he is, where he’s from, that kind of thing. I covered for him, but I doubt that’ll keep them off his tail forever. Now other people are asking about him. I talked my way out of answering them. Said I wasn’t a walking information desk. So they backed off too, for now. As far as I understand, someone has put a serious price on his head. The people asking about him are the kind where when you talk to them you feel the urge to grip your wallet tight, with both hands.”
“They haven’t asked me a thing, for some reason,” March responded in semi-sober thought.
“You haven’t been seen with him. But that won’t last long. Yes, I heard the waitresses talking about you, saying they’re scared you’ve grown roots under the table. This tavern isn’t the cheapest, and this is a non-smoking hall. So you’ll probably see a pink unicorn here before you see any of these guys, but sooner or later they’ll find out.”
“Do you know how abysmal the chances were that you would meet a monster like this? She’s one of a kind! But I like the way you talk, lady. If you grew some hair, and maybe dressed like a human, perhaps put on a little make-up... Then maybe we could get something going. For one night, at least. How about I give you some money for a wig and some face plaster?”
“Buy yourself some first.”
“They won’t sell it to me. I’m pretty enough already. So you tell this squeaker all your secrets, eh, Cheat?”
“She knows as much as you do. It’s hard to hide from someone you spend several days with. She has a quick wit, she needs money, and she hasn’t once let me down or turned on me. All I have to do while I’m still in Pyramid is bind my bow. I’ll go weigh it, then get it bound. Ah, and one matter for you. Tat is a reliable person. And she’s sort of a sensor. She can’t see very far yet, but she can find things very well. The only way she can pump her Willpower is by locating ghouls for you. You kill them, she gets experience. Willpower is everything for a sensor. So, she’s your hunting partner. Tat’s a good traveling companion, too. Never an annoyance.”
“‘Sensor,’ ‘sort of a sensor’... What does that even mean?”
“She can see any object she can picture, no matter where it is. If she needs to see infecteds, she sees infecteds. It’s just that her range of sight isn’t so good yet. You’re a strong player. You could take her into a city, where ghouls are often found around corners. She knows how to find caches, so you’ll get a decent profit from it. I’ve found out that the more dangerous a place is, the higher the chances of rich caches being located there. But she can’t go to these places alone. So you get the caches, and she gets to get experience for killing decently advanced ghouls since she finds them with her ability. After all, nobody needs a sensor with a short range of sight, but if she can make it larger...”
“All sensors are valuable, Cheater, even if their ability is absolute shit in comparison. Now tell me, really, why are you bringing this chimp to meet me? Could she just find some other party?”
“You yourself said that hunting alone is boring. And you hinted that if I leveled up you might take me along with you.”
“I made no such hint! And I said clearly that there’s no point in having a party where the level difference between players is fifteen or higher. By that point, the penalties become overwhelming. The System did that specifically to prevent high-level players from pumping whelps in exchange for money. Not that whelps ever have money... So what’s your level now? 12? Mine is 37. That’s 25 levels of difference between us.”
“24.”
“I know how to count!”
“My base stats are at sixty-one, and I have 1,207 distributable points. I’m going to dump some into my Willpower, which is currently at 13. 520 points will bring it up to 17. Then my base stats will be at a total of 65 and I’ll hit level 13. So, 24.”
“Then why the hell haven’t you assigned those points yet? Just looking to pull that exact wisecrack on me?”
“What’s the rush in assigning them? I only have one ability, and it only gets a bonus when my Willpower hits 10, 20, 30, and so on. That’s how it works. So why rush? I need to hit a Willpower of 20 next, and I don’t have enough distributable points for that yet. I mean, I have enough now, but I didn’t an hour ago. I got the rest from completing a quest and haven’t had time to assign them yet. I just like to do that when I’m alone and in peace and quiet, you know?”
March and Tat looked at each other with sad, knowing glances and shook their heads.
Cheater wrinkled his forehead. “What did I get wrong?”
“Pretty much everything. You still haven’t figured out how stats work, apparently.”
“No, I think I have. It’s pretty obvious.”
“Oh, obvious, is it? I forgot that morons think everything is so obvious, they forget to read the instructions printed on pamphlets at literally every stable. Tell me, friend, why the heck are you going to go weigh your bow?”
“Because of my Strength. Mine is 13. That’s more than 9, which means I can create personal caches that survive respawns. The first 10 levels of Strength give me one cell in my cache, and then I get one more for every 5 levels after that. So I currently have one, and I want to use it for my bow. The allowed weight of items in my cache is one kilogram, plus one hundred grams multiplied by my Strength. That gives me of 2,300 grams. Plus the System’s bonus of 260 more. For a total of 2,560 grams. The bow looks heavy, so I’m not sure it’ll fit that. If it doesn’t, there’s no point in binding it—it’ll disappear anyway. So I want to go weight it. What about that doesn’t make sense?”
“I can see your girlfriend here knows what’s up. You have deep intellectual difficulties which level 10 failed to clear up for you. Do you know about inspect mode yet?”
“You’re mocking me.”
“Not at all. Well, OK, a little. Here, inspect this knife.”
Cheater s
quinted at the blade. “Well?”
“Now, look at the information panel. Squint at it. See that? You can see more info. What material it’s made out of, its dimensions, notes on how to maintain it, and its weight. This knife has no trouble fitting in your personal cache. You just have to give your bow the same attention. Now you know how funny it sounded that you were going to weigh it. Thanks for the laugh. And you, thank the gods that we didn’t let you go do it. Scales are worthless here, and the stupidity of anyone looking for them will not be soon forgotten. Might as well look for lamps in the daytime or water in a storm.”
“Damn. I didn’t know about that.”
“You know nothing, Cheater. Nothing at all. I can tell that without me, you’ll end up lost. I would have given up on you a long time ago, but you do have some useful traits. Ill-refined, but useful. For me, anyway. Alright, so you didn’t know how to view that additional info. That was too complicated for you. So I’m sure you haven’t done it to your own stats screen. But you have to do that in order to get an answer to your most important questions. First, tell me, Cheater: what the hell are our levels good for, anyway?”
“Unlocking our intelligence and our memories.”
“Not everyone gets their memories back, and no one gets them back completely. It’s different from person to person. Some call it a flash of light, some a wave, but everyone knows it’s a feeling unlike any other. It doesn’t happen at level 20, 30, or so on. Or if it does, it’s not noticeable. So why chance a worthless number?”
“It’s not so much about the level. We have to strengthen our stats to perform better, and our level goes up with them, on its own.”
“Then tell me, why would the System have a pointless number added in there? A redundant metric? You must have thought about this. Why do I keep drinking beer, do you think?”
“Because you’re an alcoholic.”
“I won’t argue with that. In fact, I’m proud of it. But I’m not just screwing around. I’m leveling up. If you drink great quantities at great speeds, eventually the System will figure out it’s your drive and activate a hidden Alcoholism stat. Quit smiling like a dumb cartoon character. You try it. Prove your competence at anything, and some new path will open up. Of course, it’s not easy to unlock a hidden stat, and pumping it isn’t easy, either. But if you add levels to your revealed hidden stats, your base and bonus stats will get a percentage boost. Judging by the dumbfounded look on your face, it seems you understand me. So let’s say you unlock Alcoholism, and it’s pumped to 5. And let’s also say you have 10 Strength, and didn’t do any sports or other physical activity. Finally, let’s assume that at level 0, you could lift 20 kilograms. About 45 pounds. Well, at level 10, you could lift 25. But some still-hidden stats give you five percent more. Five percent of the base value of 20 kilograms is 1 more kilogram. For a total of... That’s right, 26. I’m hardly simplifying here. That’s how it works. Now let’s say you’ve unlocked, and pumped to level 5, a few stats besides Alcoholism. Hamburger Eating Speed, Laziness, High Jumping, and Long-Distance Urination. That would give you another 4 kilograms. No, quit looking at me like that, those would never happen. The System won’t turn just anything into a stat. But you get the point. And let’s not stop there. Let’s say you have only pumped Strength. Nothing else. So you’re at a Strength of 10, but only a character level of 2. Each player level adds a flat 10% bonus to your base stats. Your base is still 20, so now you can lift 2 more kilograms. So 32 in all. If we didn’t have character levels, you’d be stuck at 25. This boost is significant, even at lower levels. Get the gist? So every ten levels gives you a 100% bonus to your base stats. That’s why newcomers going up against level thirty-somethings are kittens fighting wolves. Their true stats are massively different. Disparate.”