by Tao Wong
“Interesting. Will you be partying with them for a while?” Bill says, brows furrowing as I smile at Luthien, who looks puzzled at my reaction.
“What’s it to you?” I tilt my head, leaning back in my seat.
“Nothing at this time. I feel like you and I might have something in common. You do not suffer the fools on the Council, like I do. You’ve also gained in power outside of their silly rules,” Bill says.
“Thanks, but you’re not my type.”
Bill’s eyes tighten slightly though his lips don’t shift from that smile of his. “May I ask why?”
“Her.” I point at Luthien. “You can go now.”
“Well, that is… unfortunate.” Bill turns and gestures to Luthien, who has a snarl on her face. He grabs her arm, tugging on it as he walks and forces her to walk after him.
My eyes narrow as I read her lips. “I told you so.”
“Yes, you did. I wanted to…”
They’re fully turned away and too far away to catch the rest, so I just watch the trio move away. I frown then look at Ali.
“Do you remember what the third of the group was doing?” I frown, racking my memories.
“No. Hmmm…” Ali frowns, staring into the distance as he accesses the System. After a moment, he lets out a low hiss. “Right, she’s a spy or rogue or assassin of some form. Data’s entirely hidden in the System. Pretty sure she’s got a Skill that makes you forget about her.”
“Interesting.” I grimace, watching the trio sit down at their table. Very, very interesting.
Chapter 8
“You need to make your motions even smaller,” Mikito says as I groan, rotating my shoulder after our latest sparring match.
In terms of raw speed, I actually am faster than her these days. The problem is, she’s got at least a Master’s level of Skill and years of experience dueling humanoids and learning to move her body. I still have a tendency to make too large a motion, especially when I make my sword disappear, the shift in weight throwing my body off. Between that and smart positioning on her part, most of my attacks have to cover more ground than hers, allowing her to hit me more often than I do her. Good thing I have a lot more health than she does.
“Easier said than done.” I eye her naginata. “Am I wrong or is that thing hitting harder?”
Mikito hugs the naginata, glaring at me as I speak so casually of her prized possession. “It is. It gained a new Skill.”
“Your weapon got a Skill?” My jaw drops.
Mikito smiles, the coldness dropping off her face for a moment as she looks at the weapon lovingly and caresses the haft. “Yes.”
I’d call her attachment to it weird except I know that the weapon is the last gift from her husband, his sacrifice of his Perk to give her a chance to survive. “Is it Leveling?”
She nods slightly.
Ali zips over, his eyes wide as we speak, and hovers next to her. “You got to be shitting me, girlie. You mean your boytoy got you a linked weapon?”
“Linked?”
“It levels every time you level,” Ali explains.
“No. It levels over time after use,” Mikito replies.
Ali’s jaw drops. He moves to hover near the weapon, a hand held out but not touching. “May I?”
For a long moment, Mikito hesitates before she nods, offering the weapon to Ali. He doesn’t take it, instead flying low to touch the weapon. After a moment, I see Mikito’s eyes focus just in front of her face before she taps on the screen. The moment she does, information blooms in front of me.
Tier II Polearm (Hitoshi)
Base Damage: 94
Durability: 750/750
Special Abilities: Soul Drinker (Level 3), Armor Piercing (Level 1)
“Soul Drinker?” I cough. “That’s not at all ominous. Not one bit.”
“Oh, stop being a whiny baby,” Ali says, rolling his eyes. “Some overly melodramatic idiot decided to translate it as that. It just means that Hitoshi over there can Level the more it gets used.”
“Why is it only Level 3?”
“Don’t think of its levels like your sword. It isn’t.” Ali lets the weapon go before floating up to Mikito’s face to stare at her, his face utterly serious. “Don’t ever let anyone do that again.”
“Care to explain?” I have an inkling why, but better to be sure.
“Soul Drinker weapons are rare. Many of the most powerful weapons in the System are Soul Drinkers. Gods, you are right—that sounds so fucking pretentious,” Ali grumbles. Mikito clears her throat and Ali sighs, switching back to the topic at hand. “Your sword is soulbound, so it’ll level at the same rate as you do, but in a different way. It’ll get more… swordy. Eventually, it might even get a new ability or two. Uncommon, but not rare. Hitoshi on the other hand will Level like a person. It’ll get Skills, and unlike your sword, it won’t ever disappear. Weapons like these are heirlooms—they grow stronger with each wielder.”
“Is it alive?”
“No. Not yet,” Ali replies immediately. “I’ve heard rumors that at high enough levels, these weapons might gain a personality, but I’ve never met one.”
I nod and Mikito hugs her weapon once again. I have one more question. “Hitoshi—was that the name of your…?”
She shakes her head before she slowly looks up, her answer barely a whisper. “It was what we would have called our son.”
I flinch, looking away, and she steps back too.
Ali just stares at the two of us before snorting. “Right, well, now we know why you hit so damn hard. Keep using it and don’t tell anyone else. Got it?”
Mikito nods, then after a moment, she turns and flees back into the house. I watch her go, breathing slightly easier as the tension eases. I never know what to say to things like that.
I’ve got a day off from dungeoneering today, since the Yerick are busy with some internal issue in their compound. I guess when your party leader is also the leader of the community, you can’t go out killing monsters every day. You have responsibilities that transcend simple leveling.
I don’t, of course. I’m not responsible for anyone but me, which means I get to run around killing things for my pleasure. Okay, that just seems a bit psychotic. Then again, we kind of live in a psychotic world. I could lounge around at home but Lana is always busy and I only spot her in the evenings at best when I finally make my way back. Mikito and Richard are out as always and since the kids no longer need to rely on our house for electricity, we’ve mostly gotten the place back. That leaves sitting at home playing computer games or watching movies, something I used to love doing. Now, between the burbling pit of anger in my stomach and the ever-present sense of doom the System has brought, I can’t sit still.
As I jog through the lower zones around Whitehorse, I dodge around the monsters that pop up. Most don’t even attempt to attack me, hiding from the bigger predator. I’ve got a goal today—check out my fort then do some hunting.
As I pound through the forest, I find myself curious about my companion floating beside me, his eyes locked on an invisible screen in front of him. “What are you watching now?”
“Island Hunters.” Ali shakes his head. “It’s… so strange. It’s strangely addictive. Will they buy this piece of property or this one? Are the granite countertops of this residence worth the trade-off in space? Most importantly, why did you humans spend so much time caring about dumb shit like that?”
“Seriously, why are you obsessed with our TV?” I ask, pausing long enough to lop off the head of a snake-worm creature that pops out of the ground before I continue onward. “And don’t tell me it’s about the tits and ass, because you’re watching house hunting.”
“Research,” Ali says, his face unusually serious. “I’m doing research on you humans.”
“Through reality TV?” I stop and stare at Ali, my eyes wide. “You’re shitting me. Please don’t tell me you think we’re like Jersey Shore or the Real Housewives?”
“Gods, that’d be fabulou
s. Even better if you were like Queer Eye. At least you’d have a fashion sense. ‘What am I going to wear today? Oh, black. Black. More black!’” Ali says. “I’m a Spirit, boy-o, not stupid.”
“Then why reality TV? Half of it is scripted.”
“Have you ever tried watching a documentary? Trust me, if I’ve got to do research, I might as well be entertained while doing it. Your fictional TV is amusing, but your reality TV is useful.”
“What are you trying to learn?”
“About humans of course.” Ali stops, pointing at a monster in the distance that has spotted us.
I pull up my rifle, and a few moments later, it lies on the ground, smoking.
Before I can walk farther, Ali holds up a hand. “Let’s talk first.”
“Okay.”
“When I was first summoned, I got a basic download of you people. I got to choose my sex and my general appearance. I threw together what you saw while I was nursing a headache, which by the way, isn’t a lot of fun and is rather unique to you humans. My appearance, my body, the knowledge downloaded is what was set up by the System by some hackjob. While I’m not really human, I’m not really what I was—what I am—when I’m not here.”
I nod. I’m not entirely surprised he doesn’t look like a Middle Eastern man when he’s banished. I kind of assumed his appearance was some random generation pulled from my mind, maybe something based off a twisted idea of what a Djinn should look like. It does make me wonder what he really looks like as a Spirit, and for that matter, why they recognized him immediately in the Shop. Questions, questions, questions.
“But in the Shop?” I ask, recalling how they knew who he was when he first went in.
“They recognized my Mana signature. As System-bound Spirit Companions, it’s not unusual for us to change forms. My Mana Signature doesn’t change though,” Ali explains, and I nod. “Here’s the thing. I still have a bunch of your urges and some really, really weird memories and experiences in my head. I mean, shoulder pads and queues?” Ali shakes his head. “On top of that, I’ve got you and all the data you humans are dumping into the System. The better I understand you humans, the better I understand you. The better I understand you, the more likely I can keep you from killing yourself.”
“Almost sounds like you care,” I tease.
“Funny. It’s my job, boy-o.”
“So how’d you get this job anyway? You applied to be a Spirit Companion or…?”
“Not exactly.” Ali frowns, his lips tightening before he blows out a breath in a huff. “Right, well, I’m contracted to be here because I’m indentured to the System for a rather large debt.”
“So you didn’t have a choice?” I frown.
Ali waggles his hand slightly. “Not exactly. I could have done some other things, but being a Companion can be a pretty good-paying gig. Generally we get paid based off how long you survive. As a Linked Companion, my pay scale goes up based on your Level. The longer you stay alive and the higher your level, the more I earn, which means the faster my debt is paid off.”
I nod slowly and wait. He doesn’t say anything more, so I turn, finish looting the corpse, and take it into my Altered Space. I start jogging again and Ali floats alongside, keeping pace easily.
As the silence grows, he finally cracks. “So you’re okay with that?”
“With what?”
“The fact that you’re just a job.”
“I don’t know. It’s nice to know that your motivations are kind of normal, you know? On the other hand, it was kind of nice thinking you were, you know… doing this because you were some System-gifted Companion, my very own Tinker Bell.”
“Tinker Bell?”
“Spirit,” I say, hiding my smile by ducking underneath a tree branch.
“Well, I’m System-bound to not harm you,” Ali points out.
“You’ve mentioned.” I fall silent again, letting my feet carry me deeper into the zone.
Seemingly satisfied, Ali turns back to his viewing.
After a time, I say softly, “You know, it was kind of nice.”
“Not your Tinker Bell.”
“Talking. We don’t do much of that,” I say.
“I take it back. Be less Queer Eye.”
“Asshole.”
The Carcross Cutoff is no different than the last time I was here. I look around the location once more, scratching my chin as I walk through the rooms. I pull a beer from the fridge as I think about what to do. I could upgrade the fort, make it even stronger and more defensible, but that makes no sense. I don’t have the means or the people to take care of the place and really, no desire. A fort, at the end of the day, is a facility for an organization or a city, not a holding for one person. Costs that wouldn’t even be a line-item for a larger organization are a major investment for me.
Looking around the place one last time, I mentally make myself give it up. I’ll pick it up if it’s available, I’ll keep an eye on it, but at the end of the day, it just isn’t for me. Learning to let things go, things that I can’t affect or in the end don’t matter, is important. It’s not an easy thing to do and just saying you intend to do it isn’t really a solution, but it’s the best I can do.
Walking out of the fort, I leave it unlocked. Let someone else struggle for it. It’s time for me to focus on what I can change, what I can affect.
“Ali, map,” I call to the Spirit.
He flicks his hand and I look over the information he’s given me, searching for clusters and Bosses. Mostly to avoid the last, but you never know. Charting my path for the day, I realize I’m going to be closing in on Carcross for the largest and most numerous clusters. They weren’t joking when they said they needed help dealing with the growing monster population.
Well, thinking isn’t going to get me there. One nice thing about the System is that I don’t even have to start at a jog to warm up. So long as I keep an eye on my stamina consumption, I’m good. Slipping into high gear immediately, I run toward the closest dot. Time to go hunting.
“Go right,” Ali says suddenly.
It’s been a couple of hours of hunting and killing, moving from one monster to another, but the urgency in his voice has me perking up. I move automatically, scanning for dangers.
“I’ll patch you in,” he says.
“We need more people over at Wall 2. They won’t stop coming…”
“Jason, marker 3. Ice storm.”
“Autogun 3 is down. I repeat, Autogun 3 is down!”
“If anyone can hear us, please. We need your help!”
Quest received: Save Carcross!
Save the city from the monster swarm. Destroy or drive away the monster swarm before they kill all the survivors in Carcross. Note that experience during this event for monster kills will be reduced.
Reward: 50,000XP(shared)
Type: Unique
The voices cut off in my helmet and I find myself speeding up, going from a fast jog to a full sprint. I turn on Thousand Steps for the speed boost, feeling myself grow just slightly lighter. Faster. I have to get there faster.
“What’s happening?”
“Monster swarm,” Ali says. “Too many Bosses, too many monsters. The lower-level bosses and their kind finally get pushed out and swarm the next zone down. Those monsters then swarm the next one and so forth...”
“So not an attack?” I duck under a pine tree branch, wishing for once that running was easier. Even cutting a straight line and plowing through smaller obstacles, a forested hill isn’t exactly fast running. Then again, maybe I should be glad it isn’t a damn jungle.
“Not a direct attack,” Ali confirms.
I grimace. Well, that’s good, because the swarm of gray, yellow, and green dots is bad enough as it stands. Now that he’s mentioned it, I can see the movement, the way the swarm is packed on one side and more dispersed in others. They’re still attacking, probably because monsters are stupid and aggressive, but they aren’t pressuring the walls in a coordinated maneuver.
“Time,” I growl and Ali lets out a sigh.
A few seconds later, a timer appears in the top right of my heads-up-display in my helmet, counting down how long it’ll take to arrive. Thirty-four minutes and change. That’s an eternity in a fight.
For a time, the fight seems very one-sided. The shields must be holding, the defenders able to pick off and kill monsters without danger. It doesn’t last though. At the nine-minute mark, blue dots, friendlies, flash out at the wall, one by one. I don’t ask for the radio (or whatever they were) transmissions again. I don’t need to hear it—the little dots tell their story more than sufficiently. At five minutes left, the swarm of monster dots suddenly appears behind the now-sparse blue line. The flood of colorful dots stops, frozen and boiling for a minute as more blue dots appear to face the tide, monster dots disappearing to be replaced by ever more. Then a blue dot disappears in the center and the tide floods the streets before they suddenly freeze again at another line.
Two minutes later, I realize that the timer is going to be off. I can’t run in a straight line anymore, can’t afford to completely dodge my attackers. I don’t have time to shoot with my rifle, so I’m cutting at anything that gets close and shooting targets in front of me with my beam pistol. I cut off the Thousand Steps, conserving my Mana because I know I’m going to need it in a second—in fact, I grab a potion out of my inventory and down it to speed up my Mana regeneration. Best to get this going now when I have time.
The second, hastily improvised line breaks, and monster dots flood through the new gaps into the city proper. Ali is floating above me, flying back and forth and drawing attention to create the gaps I need to keep running. Cutting across the corner of the city to get to the break through, I feel my lips pull into a wolfish grin, blood pounding in my ears as adrenaline courses through my body.
Monsters in all shapes and sizes flash by me, most of them, but not all, mutated Earth creatures. A brown pod that travels on a trio of spiky legs rears up, facing me with its single eye that begins to glow. I duck low and slide as it unleashes a beam of fire at where I was. I cut off a leg as I slide pass, my sword sliding through muscle and bone without catching. Once past the monster, I push off and keep running.