Irrelevant Jack 2

by Prax Venter

  “Kinda, yeah,” Jack said. “Childbirth is messy.” He stopped to consider how to proceed and what else to mention, but without really knowing how it happened in his new universe, he was a bit lost. “Why don’t you tell me how it works here, and I’ll try and tell you what’s different in my world.”

  Lex nodded and started strolling again across the endless cobblestone ground.

  “If we both select that we would like to spawn a child, the next morning, a boy or a girl will be sleeping between us.”

  “So, not a baby? How old are they?”

  “Every child starts at seven years old.” She said it so casually as if it made perfect sense, but Jack could tell she was thinking deeper than she ever had about the process.

  He shook his head in disbelief. “So, they can talk and walk and dress themselves? Everything, right from day-one? Babies in my world start at zero and grow into children.”

  Lex looked over at him. “I’ve seen monsters I know are called babies within the Tower, but I always thought they were only… twisted, shriveled… monsters. That they are a stage of growth before children from your world is fascinating, if a little disturbing. Our worlds must be closely linked somehow. I suppose that must be true or Alt wouldn’t have been able to bring you here. I wonder if there are metal flying babies where he comes from, too.”

  Jack kept his mouth shut. They were starting to get into dangerous territory. Lex had always just dismissed these questions as nonsense or irrelevant… But, apparently, she was growing more curious about such things. He realized that eventually, he’d have to tell her everything. He loved her and was a terrible liar. She was bright and could read him like a book. The truth would come out that her whole world was explicitly created to trap the Corruption, and countless generations had fought, struggled, and perished, all so it wouldn’t invade his.

  If he thought about it that way, the whole situation could be viewed as noble… sort of. There was probably a different word if the people fighting and dying never had a choice. Jack decided he would try and put that conversation off for as long as he possibly could.

  He moved closer to the shorter Bastion and put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her tight.

  “There are many differences in our worlds, and there are pluses and minuses to either, but the one thing I am sure of is that I love you more than both of them combined.”

  Lex sighed. “You do have the best words sometimes. Come on,” she added as she broke away. “Let’s find that soft, sunny Floor we talked about at breakfast.”

  Jack smiled and chased after her. They moved from Floor to Floor quickly, wiping out everything as fast as possible. Floor 2 was an ice layout with half-mammoth men hurling spears at them. Floor 3 was a vast scorching desert of blue sand with giant origami worms made from red paper. Floor 7 was another intricate layout. Fishermen with anteaters pulled giant horned beetles out of a muddy river that instantly went on violent rampages. Part of him wanted to take every layout nice and slow because Haylee would be tagging along with them tomorrow, and if everything went like he hoped, she’d be tagging along for a lot longer.

  Floor 17 or so was when Jack started to feel the difficulty growing to the point where they needed to slow down and take things strategically or get caught with their pants down.

  A hall of broken mirrors filled with blind, disembodied heads greeted them at Floor 19, and Jack was losing hope that the next few layouts were going to be pleasant in any way.

  They moved up to Floor 20 and found themselves standing on an enormous table. A six-story turkey sat steaming to their right, a mountain of mashed potatoes in a ceramic bowl stood to their left, and behind them was a stick of butter the size of a freight train. The Exit Orb plinth appeared lodged in the yellow block of butter at an angle like a giant had come along and shoved it in with their thumb, its white orb pulsing softly.

  “Now that’s what I call a feast,” Jack said, trying to see around an elaborate cornucopia centerpiece. The new cows were going to take a few days before they started to produce milk, and although Jack wasn’t hungry, the thought of butter-drenched mashed potatoes had a similar effect on his insides. Butter-drenched anything, really.

  They took their time dispatching the violent silverware that lay in wait, wrapped in their carefully folded cloth napkins. Alt was currently in his Angry Sun form because both he and Jack could typically melt things with their combined ranged attacks in one second, and this aggressive silverware was no different. The monsters on the Floor had 180 Hit Points each, and they were able to dispatch their foes quickly. This Floor 20 Boss ended up being a 50-foot grandmother in a white, ruffled apron who came to the table after all the silverware had been defeated.

  She slammed her fists down directly on Lex, but the Bastion shifted to her Aether Form in the nick of time. Although the tremendous strikes were like thunder mixed with an earthquake, Jack and Alt were able to burn her down with their combined death lasers.

  The freestanding door to Floor 21 and Boss chest appeared near the overturned green bean casserole, and Jack moved his boots over the long walk to collect the loot.

  When he turned around to see if Lex was ready, she was nowhere to be seen. And neither was Alt.

  “Lex?” he called out, his eyebrows coming down. “Guys?”

  “Over here, Jack,” the Bastion said, and he turned to see her blonde head peeking out from a pile of giant cloth napkins.

  “What are you doing in there? Did you find a chest?”

  “You could say that,” she said as she sunk down into the napkins, a playful smile on her beautiful face.

  - 16 -

  “What’ll you have, Hero?”

  Haylee turned her intense gray eyes up to the silver-haired Innkeeper.

  “Thymus said I should focus on Magic Power but seeing as my Hit Points are so low and that I won’t be contributing as a Damage Dealer yet, I believe I should focus my first Rest Bonus on higher survivability.”

  Demi’s eyebrows arched upward, and they stayed there as she responded.

  “Pheasant and potatoes, it is,” she said and then moved her attention to Lex.

  “Defense and HPs for me,” the Bastion said with a smile. “The usual, please.”

  Jack almost ordered his usual, but young Perix’s song about pancakes stuck with him.

  “Can you work a high dodge bonus into a stack of pancakes?”

  Demi nodded. “I have some scraps of fruit from the Farm that I didn’t have enough of to make into anything else, but not a lot. Probably enough for one dish until I get more. That’ll also be an extra 3 coins.”

  Jack grinned and glanced at his Inventory.

  Coins: 2624

  He moved 300 over to Demi, spawning a Trade panel in the process.

  “Here, this should cover all our rooms and meals for a little while.”

  Demi looked past the phantom trade menu and deep into Jack’s eyes.

  “This advance should cover the three of you for the next 7 days.”

  “Got nothing else to spend it on. Need to keep these lovely ladies in top fighting condition.”

  The Innkeeper pawed the ‘Accept’ button, the interface vanished, and then she also vanished behind the curtain.

  “Thanks, Jack,” Lex said, hugging his arm into her side.

  He got a single nod from Haylee before she turned her gray eyes to the wooden bar.

  “Did you sleep okay in my old room, upstairs?” Lex asked her.

  Another nod. This time, she didn’t even look up.

  Jack exchanged a glance with Lex before he decided to just jump right to business.

  “Once we get inside and make sure the entrance area is clear, I am going to blow your mind with some more cheating that no one but Thymus knows about. Depending on the layout and what type of monsters spawn, I’ll expect you to get off some good Light Rays. Go all out. Lex will prevent anything from harming you. We’re going to climb to the Floor 4 Boss, popping you up to Hero Level 5 and hopefully
getting you some sweet new gear. Then you are taking the Exit Orb out for the day.”

  Haylee nodded again, keeping her eyes down. Was she afraid? She should be afraid, especially at her age, but the intense girl had seemed fearless up until now.

  Demi came back from behind the curtain and laid down a dish in front of each of them. And when Jack saw the multicolored mush cascading down his stack of thin, steaming pancakes, he had to swallow or let drool run down his chin.

  He glanced over to see that Demi had given the Dark Prism the breaded pheasant nuggets that he usually got, with a stack of fried potato wedges. Surrounding it all were three cups of dipping sauce. Lex dug right into her crab and mushroom omelet, but Jack kept his eye on the new Hero. After a few silent moments of her staring past her plate, he decided to speak up.

  “Haylee,” he said quietly, and she finally looked up. “You okay?”

  She blinked, and her normal confidence slipped back in place. But he’d seen past the mask for only a moment.

  “Yes, of course,” she said, turning back to her plate and picking up a potato wedge. “The rented room was new to me and sleep came late in the evening.”

  He continued to watch the girl and noticed that she stopped just before putting the food in her mouth. She paused again, holding it right to her lips. Jack let her work it out for a few minutes while he dug into the dazzlingly colorful creation in front of him. It was as if Demi had melted a rainbow over thin, almost burnt slabs of fried dough. The burst of tangy, sweet fruit combined with the hearty pancake made Jack groan with contentment.

  He chawed about halfway through the stack when he remembered to send a glance over to the new Hero. She was still staring down at her plate with her hand clutching the same uneaten bit of potato.

  Jack cleared his throat. “Haylee, if you aren’t feeling it, you don’t have to go in today.”

  She snapped her eyes on his. “You don’t think I can do it, do you? You never thought I could-”

  Jack dropped his fork with a clatter.

  “Hey!” he snapped back loudly, letting his anger out. “If I didn’t think you could do it, why did I just buy a week’s worth of Rest Bonus for you? I want you on our team more than anything. If you believe you are ready, prove it! Shake off whatever this is right now and shove that potato in your face.”

  Her eyes opened wide and then squinted back down, determination flaring back up inside her.

  “Honestly,” Lex added, trying to soften Jack’s words. “We desperately want you to help with the climbs.”

  Haylee clenched the wedge in her small hand and angrily bit it in half, her eyes never leaving Jack’s as she chewed. She swallowed and gave him an annoyed shrug.

  “What, are you going to watch me eat now?”

  Jack smiled and said, “No ma’am,” before going back to his flavorful pancakes. The new Hero was so determined to prove Jack wrong that she went all-out and almost finished her plate before he did. It was exactly what he was looking for.

  He tossed his fork down again, this time because he no longer had a use for it. With a hand on his pleasantly full stomach, Jack checked his rest bonus.

  Rest Bonus [+40 Health | +60 Mana | +28 Dodge | +10 Magic Power | Gain 2 MP/ kill | Duration: Exit]

  ~ A myriad of fruit flavors!

  “Hmm,” he mumbled. “Less health, more mana…”

  “I have so many Hit Points and Mana!” Haylee said from his right, and Jack turned to see her fists clutched to her chest as she read over her stats. Other than when she was playing in the woods with Pan, he’d never seen her show this type of joyful emotion.

  “You’re damn straight,” Jack said, hopping off his stool. “I bet it’s huge! For my first Rest Bonus at Hero Level 1, I only got an extra 10 HP and 10 MP.” He walked toward the door to the outside without looking back and stepped out into the morning light.

  Jack had skipped his rounds today as all the current Townsfolk of Blackmoor were situated into their roles, and there wasn’t much good to be done anyway. He’d only be driving himself insane with micro-management.

  He stopped by the fountain and turned to find both the blonde Bastion and the curly-haired Dark Prism close behind him. Wordlessly, he opened their character windows and added them to his party as the leader.

  Just like with Thymus, Jack suggested that Lex enter first, then Haylee, and then he’d be in right behind her. It seemed like the perfect way to handle new or shaky Heroes. Sol’s daughter paused before touching the iron ring and took a deep breath, but she lunged out a small hand in the end and entered the Tower as a ball of blue light.

  Jack smiled and promptly followed her in. When the pure-white everything washed from his eyes, they were assaulted with vibrant swirling colors on all sides. He tried to ignore the madness for now and checked the locations of his party.

  Haylee held her bow drawn already, frantically looking for a target, and the leather-armored Lex was right beside her. Nestled into an alcove of swirling colors behind them both was the softly pulsing Exit Orb.

  Knowing the drill without communication, Lex stalked forward to secure the immediate area while Jack focused on the new Hero.

  “You’re going to want to relax that draw,” he said calmly. “I did the same thing when I started. I kept my sword clenched in my hand, ready for enemies to jump out from every corner, but in the end, all I did was make my arm tired.”

  Haylee nodded and lowered her weapon. “What is all this… color?” she asked. “It looks like paint.”

  Jack took a moment to determine the layout for today’s Floor 1 and found that she was right. They were inside a room with one exit. Every surface appeared to be a continuous flow of paint originating from a grate in the ceiling. A vivid red hue poured straight down with a gloopy, thick consistency and into a central reservoir that took up most of the room. He shifted his boots on top of the dizzying swirl of colors and found the surface was hard and dry, as if there was a thin layer of glass over everything. The only place color seemed to settle down and relax was the square pool of thick red liquid ahead of them.

  “Every Floor is unique, Haylee,” Jack said, turning back to face the new Hero. “Every day is not only something new but many, many somethings new.”

  “Movement in the middle,” Lex said. She’d been halfway around the edge of the square room but now began creeping back toward the group. He looked at where she indicated and saw a blob of red paint rising from the depths of the central reservoir.

  Jack moved to block Haylee, just in case, but the new Hero stepped out from behind him to get a better view of what was happening. He let her. She needed to be exposed to as many new things as she could today, and a Floor 1 monster likely wouldn’t one-shot her with her current rest bonus.

  As the humanoid entity formed before them, Jack shot his eyes to his periphery to check her current HP anyway, just to make sure.

  JACK HP 349/349 MP 192/192

  LEX HP 524/524

  HAYLEE HP 73/73

  Coins: 2324

  Inventory Value: 0

  Alt Value: 12,844/250,000

  She was going to be fine taking a few hits, and this Floor would be the best place to learn from them.

  “Shoot it,” he ordered.

  The Dark Prism took another careful step forward, and Jack held out a hand to Lex. The Bastion saw his sign for her to hold position, and she nodded, understanding his intention instantly.

  “What is it?” Haylee asked, creeping even closer.

  Before Jack could answer, the red, person-shaped blob forming out of the pool held up its hand and sent out a stream of liquid at the new Hero. It struck her in the chest, and red paint splashed everywhere.

  Haylee -3 HP | 70/73

  The girl grunted from the pain, and Jack half-expected her to squeal and run back behind him, but to her credit, she lifted her bow and fired a perfect ray of brilliant white light back at the creature in retaliation.

  Red Pigment -7 | Defeated

  Jack
heard the tinkling tone that signified Alt had collected the dropped item for him.

  He was about to signal to his friend his desire to shut that ability off for the time being so Haylee got the full effect of collecting loot drops, but his brain stalled when the entire swimming pool of red paint slid up and out of its three-foot recess and through the hallway leading out of the room. The liquid pushed all the other colors aside as it flowed against gravity to reach its destination.

  As confusing as the behavior was, Haylee spun to face him. Her eyes were narrow and intense.

  “You said you wouldn’t let anything hurt me. That hurt.”

  Jack crossed his arms. “Maybe you should have shot it when I told you to. Sure as the ocean slaps the shore, I will not be able to protect you if you don’t listen to what I tell you to do.”

  The Dark Prism in Floor 1 gear pressed her lips tight, and he could tell she wanted to argue. He was learning that she absolutely hated being wrong. In the end, her intelligence won out, and she nodded once.

  “Good!” Jack said with a bright smile. “Now that we got that out of the way, Lex,” he said, raising his voice and looking over at the Bastion. “Did you see her zap that thing with her Light Ray?”

  Lex was already moving to stand behind Haylee. “I absolutely did! Jack was right about you.”

  The Bastion held out her hand and placed it on Haylee’s shoulder before she let out a short yet pleasant melody, bringing the girl back to full health.

  He decided to put off summoning Alt right away as he’d done with Thymus and Lex. Everything was new to this girl, and he didn’t want to throw a bunch of heavy concepts at her all at once. The entity of pure energy connected to his mind agreed.

  “I’ve turned off item auto-collection for now,” Alt said telepathically.

  Jack nodded.

  “Okay,” he said, clapping his hands. “Let’s figure out where that red goo went, shall we? Lex, you’re up front. Haylee, stay behind her and shoot the first paint-blob monster you see. I’ll cover our behinds.”

  Both Heroes nodded and turned to follow his orders.