Noob Game Plus
Page 4
“Hello. I’m in a cell. Can you let me out?” I replied. It was best to try a straightforward approach. She, and I was positive it was a she, laughed.
“If I could do that, do you think I’d be here?” she asked.
“Well, I need to break out,” I replied.
“More power to you,” she said. “If you do get out, be a dear and release me, as well.”
I growled, but further efforts to rouse her got no response. I searched the room, hoping something would activate my Improvised Tools skill. Then, I could find a lock pick. That was how I discovered the bodies, well, the skeletons. There were at least three of them, huddled in what appeared to be the warmest section of the room.
“Shart,” I hissed mentally, “There are three skeletons here.”
“Excellent,” replied the demon.
“No, not excellent! People have died here,” I replied.
“Yes, that’s unfortunate. Those random, unnamed people will be missed by someone, I’m sure,” said Shart solemnly, before continuing, “but I can use the three skeletons to narrow the search criteria.”
“So, you are just looking for a cold prison cell that has me and three skeletons in it?” I asked dumbfounded.
“No, I WAS just looking for a cell with you in it. Now, I can enhance the search criteria to include the skeletons. Your amulet makes searching for you tricky with my current tools,” replied Shart. He was in Limbo using substandard equipment, after all.
“Should I take it off?” I asked.
“No, I want you to be hard to find,” replied the demon. “Makes it less likely that other people will find you.”
As a Cleric, I said a small prayer to the skeletons. As an adventurer, one who was currently freezing his nards off, I tried to root through their stuff. At least one of them had fallen with his robe partially intact. By partially, I mean there was enough there to at least cover my shame, and, in this cold, my shame was quite small. That did not help much.
Biting the bullet, I sifted through the bones. Unfortunately, even with my Improvised Tools, I didn’t see anything to turn into a lock pick of any variety. I needed to think outside the box. I had no weapons or equipment, and I was in danger of attack at any time. I needed to use my class abilities or my skills. It was just so cold. If only I could start a fire, I would be warm enough to think.
“Damn it,” I muttered, bringing up my Flameology skill.
● Flameology: Journeyman, Your skill with the magic of fire continues to burn!
One of the abilities of Flameology was the ability to generate light and heat by using Mana. I usually only used the light part, but the heat part was sounding pretty attractive at the moment. I concentrated on my mana network and started to move my Mana around, only to discover a problem.
“Shart, what’s up with my Fire Core?” I thought. You used your Cores to convert Mana into worked magic. Right now, neither of my Cores appeared to be at all developed, meaning that I couldn’t use them to convert Mana into Fire magic.
“Poor Dum Dum,” replied Shart, “You didn’t get a Path for your Mage, so it looks like you don’t have access to your magical Cores.”
“How does a Cleric cast spells then?” I grumbled.
“Prayer,” replied Shart.
I understood that, at least. Different classes used magic differently and I had Clerical magic now. I just hadn’t used any of it. Maybe, just maybe, I’d get lucky. I brought up my spell list.
● Jim, Cleric 1
● Spells: Light, Mending, Heal Damage
I instinctively knew which prayers would activate the spells. I was long past the point where having knowledge jammed into my mind bothered me. At least, that’s what I thought, until I discovered the verbiage of the prayers.
“Duz, the soap that Duz everything presents: Light,” I intoned. Quite suddenly, a large glowing orb of light appeared, floating directly in front of me.
“You figured out a prayer,” stated Shart.
“I am certain that was an old sales jingle for a soap opera,” I said.
“What’s a soap opera?” asked Shart.
Sighing, I prepared to cast Mending, which would bring two parts of an object together. “Strong enough for the toughest jobs on Ordinal!” I rolled my eyes as I Mended two skeleton bones together. “Did Charles come up with all the Clerical Spells?”
“Just the most commonly used ones,” replied Shart. “The Grebtharian religion is the dominant religion on Ordinal, after all.”
I wasn’t injured, so I didn’t want to use the Healing spell yet. The other spells required almost no Mana, while the Healing spell was quite expensive at 30 points. The Mending spell held some promise, though. I could use Mending to combine several items and make a lock pick. Unfortunately, there just weren’t enough small items lying about to accomplish very much.
As an unusually cold blast of wind blew through my cell, a thought occurred to me. I remembered a story about a man who had killed a bear with a frozen weapon. I sighed, pulling aside my flap.
“What the hell are you doing?” yelled Shart, as my grunting filled our ears.
“Making a lock pick,” I replied.
“No, oh, that’s gross even for you, you stupid meat bag,” groaned the demon. “I have a better idea, anyway.”
“Can you remotely open the door?” I asked, hopefully. I wasn’t super interested in making a frozen brownie brick to use as a lock pick anyway.
“Nope, but it looks like I can activate your old class levels. I just need to make some minor adjustments,” stated Shart.
That sounded great, but Shart was notoriously unreliable in situations like this. “How confident are you of this?”
“Very, let me just flick a switch here and…” began the demon. Suddenly… nothing happened.
“Should something have happened?” I asked.
“I tried activating Duelist. It looks like it did activate, but nothing happened,” stated Shart.
“Is there an error message?” I responded, flexing my muscles in an attempt to see if I felt more buff. I didn’t.
“Of course not! I’m hacking the
“Well, that was disappointing,” I replied.
“Shut up, I’ve been working on this since you told me you were flung through the Demon Door and fully intended on fighting the Dark Overlord,” stated Shart. “So much of my life wasted on your trivial nonsense.”
“You are immortal,” I commented, as I resumed my squat on the floor. I was concerned I’d need to eat something first. Then again, maybe doing your business on command was a Skill. My uncle was able to fart on command. Those two abilities had to be related.
“I don’t see why it isn’t working, though,” replied Shart. He grew quiet again for several minutes. “I mean, they are staying activated. You should have access. Let me try Adventurer.”
One moment, I was an average man, squatting next to skeletons in a freezing prison cell with his loincloth pulled to the side. A man who was buried in the basement of some strange building. The next moment, I was a man in searing agony in the exact same place. My very body seemed to warp under my skin. My skull slamming into the floor was something I hardly noticed, as pain tore through my being. My bones seemed to shatter, my muscles shredded, and my spine felt like it was splitting in two. Then, after what seemed like days, the pain ended. I was just a man lying in a puddle of rapidly freezing drool.
“Jim, no, Jim!” shrieked Shart.
“You suck,” I hissed awkwardly, trying to get my face off the floor. I was finding it impossible, as my cheek was frozen to the stone.
“You’re alive,” cried the demon, as delighted as I’d ever heard him.
“That’s debatable. What the hell happened?” I croaked, yanking my head free with a snap. A sickly warm sensation followed, as blood ran down my cheek. Looking at the floor, I realized I’d left a non-trivial amount of skin there.
“I think I screwed up,” stated Shart hesitantly. “I got you your levels, but, when they reactivated, you didn’t get any of the other level-up benefits. You know, like the euphoria that fills you and allows you to ignore the pain of leveling up.”
“Why does everything on Ordinal cause pain?” I shrieked. I gingerly felt my cheek and realized how badly I’d just ruined my face.
“Well, in this case, your body is being fundamentally altered,” explained Shart meekly.
I brought up my character sheet.
● Jim, Cleric Level 1
● Adventurer Level 14
● HP: 29/190
● Mana: 50/50
● Stamina: 205/205
● Strength: +0
● Dexterity: +3 (increased by 3)
● Endurance: +2 (increased by 1)
● Spirit: +1
● Willpower: +2
● Charisma: +1 (increased by 1)
The pain I was in was due to a Health Crash. Iron Will let me function, but that did not mean the sensation was pleasant. I tried to curl up into a corner, but I was so cold that I was starting to suffer frostbite in my extremities.
“You could use your Healing spell,” offered Shart.
“Okay, I’m Healing it,” I prayed,
● You have cast Heal Damage: Base Healing: 10 points for 30 Mana. Bonus healing: +4 Willpower, +2 Spirit, +5 Charisma. Total Healing: 21 points. Cooldown: 1 Minute
Suddenly, I regained 21 Hit Points. The bleeding from my face stopped. When I touched the skin, it felt sort of like plastic, but my cheek was whole. Clerical healing was on a whole different level than healing potions. Healing potions tended to have minor side effects. You could also tell, even hours later, that you’d drank one. With Clerical healing, I felt right as rain with no adverse side effects. I was loving it.
I cast the spell again a minute later, and the pain level dropped to a reasonable amount. Well, what I thought was a reasonable amount, considering I was at half-health. Unfortunately, two castings of that spell in a row were all I could manage with my current reserve of magic unless I wanted to Mana Crash. My lower stats were preventing me from recovering Mana very quickly. At my current rate, I was recovering 2 points of Mana every five and a half seconds. That meant that I was earning just a hair over 20 Mana a minute. Not really, though. Mathematically, I was recovering 20 Mana every fifty-five seconds.
That was still much faster than my natural healing, which was currently only 2 points every seven hours. Then again, I’d never been much for natural healing. I’d almost always used various herbal remedies to heal faster. Now, the need to use those was debatable if I could just magic myself whole. I mean, I had a massive stock of healroot in my dimensional storage, if I could ever get to it. With this, though, why would I bother?
I kept healing myself every minute and a half until I was at full health.
“Why didn’t my Hit Points top off when I leveled up? Was it because of your hack?” I asked.
“Yes, and I’m sorry,” groused Shart. “I didn’t think it would happen that way, but, in my defense, I don’t think anyone has ever done that before.”
“Water under the bridge,” I said, stretching. Now that I was at full health and with increased stats, as well as having access to all my Adventurer perks, things were looking up.”
“I’ll keep looking into it. We can have you at your old fighting trim in no time,” assured Shart.
“What do you think you can manage?” I asked, considering my classes. “Can you turn them on and off? Maybe bypass that level 60 restriction?”
“Hmm,” thought Shart, while the sound of typing filled my ears, “I’m trying to work my magic for a workaround. Right now, I can turn classes on; however, I am in Limbo. My options are somewhat restricted through this connection. If I get back onto Ordinal proper, I think I’ll be able to do more.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Like turn classes on and off,” said Shart hopefully, “But, they are going to be locked in at whatever level you had them. I don’t have the kind of access I’d need to remove levels from you.”
“If you can’t remove levels, could you add them,” I asked, now also hopeful. It would suck if I was level 31 in Duelist and couldn’t activate a level 30 class at the same time.
“And mess with your character sheet? Perish the thought,” said Shart chagrined. “No, your character sheet is sacred.”
“But not my memories?” I asked.
“Why would they be?” replied the demon.
The
“But you don’t think you could raise my max level?” I asked. That had started this whole issue. All my active classes combined couldn’t exceed level 60. That didn’t include classes I wasn’t using anymore, but I only got a sliver of their power, anyway.
“It's hard coded into the system,” replied Shart with an air of long-suffering patience.
“I thought it was just a value on a sheet,” I stated.
Shart was quiet for a very long moment and then a second, much longer moment. “Well, shit.”
“Has this never come up before?” I asked.
“No,” said Shart, his mind still whirring, “At least, it hasn’t been an issue to anyone that mattered. There must be a way to increase your Max Level, if I can just think it up.”
“Okay, then. We have a plan. Hold off on activating any more classes for the time being,” I replied. “If I can gain levels in these classes, I want to do that. I want to get as many Paths as I possibly can. That means, at most, four classes.”
“Oh, that’s smart,” said Shart. “I wouldn’t try to turn on any more classes right now, anyway. Not until I figure out why this isn’t working. What do you want to do in the meantime?”
“Well, with Healing magic, I can deal with the frostbite,” I said, thinking about my options. If I slept, the cold would likely kill me. As long as I was awake, I would be able to manage this cell just fine.
“Did you die?” came the husky voice again.
“Nope, I had to use some Healing magic,” I replied.
“Oh, I thought the Cleric in there had died,” she replied.
“I’m fine,” I replied.
“Not you, the other guy,” she said.
I looked over at the picked over, frozen skeletons and swallowed hard. Maybe I wasn’t going to survive the night, even if I was awake. It was too cold for their flesh to have rotted away. Something must have eaten it. Great.
Searching around the body, I found what might have been footprints. I didn’t see where they would have come from, though. Looking up, I did see some deep scars in the wood that could have been claw marks. Maybe something dropped down on him?
I still needed the lock pick. Without one, I would die in here. I began inhaling deeply. Adventurer came with Explorer’s Nose, which I already had, thanks to the Remort. All of the talents of Explorer’s Nose combined to turn my nose into a practical radar dish for strange items. Inhaling deeply again, I began searching for secrets.
“Third brick to the left,” I said to myself as I walked over to the wall of the cell. I carefully examined the bricks. The mortar was fully intact, and there were no cracks or other deficits. If my nose hadn’t been driving me crazy, I would have ignored the wall entirely. However, with the sort of twitch I was experiencing, I knew something had to be behind that brick. I scratched at the mortar but quickly realized I’d need a tool.
Grabbing the bones of one of the dearly departed, I returned and started to chip away at the spot my nose told me to. Within moments, I’d easily managed to extract a small fragment. It was only the size of my fingernail, but it gave me hope. I started smacking the brick with a femur.
“What are you doing?” came the husky voice again.
“Escaping,” I replied.
“Is that all?” sh
e said with a resigned laugh. “Seriously, if you get out of your cell, you have to help me out, too.”
“Sure,” I muttered, as I continued bashing the bone into the mortar. I started pounding it relentlessly, going faster, then slower, as my Stamina started to wan. After an incredibly hard smack, the femur snapped in half. Despite all my efforts, I’d barely scratched the surface. I brought the broken pieces of bone together, preparing to cast Mend on them. Then, I realized I had a better option.
Within moments, I had Mended both parts of the bone to the brick, making a crude handle. The Mend spell seemed to create a bond between objects that was a hybrid of materials used. That effectively meant that my bone handle was as integrated into the stone as if it had always been part of it.
Grabbing onto it, I pulled with all my inconsiderable strength.
● Jim, Cleric Level 1
● Strength: +0
I was used to being strong. Currently, I was about as strong as your average paper pusher. Not one of the tough ones, either, like the kind that carried massive reams of paper throughout the office. No, I’m talking about the type of paper pusher that sat at one spot all day, shuffling a single sheet of paper back and forth until it was time to go.
I realized that was why my chiseling at the stone hadn’t worked. I had been lovingly caressing the brick, not pounding it hard and fast as it needed. The brick was a demanding mistress, and I wasn’t performing like she needed me to. No, I needed some way to get my back into the job. I used several bones from my rapidly diminishing pile in an attempt to make a harness. Unfortunately, the Mend spell didn’t seem to work very well if you were mending many pieces together and applying significant pressure to them. Next, I considered using my One Punch perk to the wall. After all, it did bonus Damage to objects. Debating with myself, I decided that it was not a great choice. I didn’t know what was behind the stone. It could have been multiple vials of dangerous potions that I would smash with a fist