by S Bailey
“Did the dead bodies go into your ring too?”
“I don’t think so. If I focus on the ring, the system gives me a list of everything in it, and I don’t see the bodies on the list. The bodies just seemed to disappear after they were looted.”
“I wonder where the bodies go?”
“Beats me. They just vanished. Made clean up a lot easier though.”
“True. Have you tried to take anything out of the ring yet?”
“No. Let me try to give you one of the other rings. Oh!! Here it is. I just thought about getting it out to give to you, and it just appeared in my hand.”
Jen was grinning with excitement as Sam handed her the ring. She placed the ring on her finger and watched with amazement as the ring shrunk to fit. “This is so cool!” she said, as she moved the ring to different fingers to watch it change sizes. “There’s nothing in this ring though,” Jen said as she tried to view its contents.
Sam nodded, “Right, when I looted the next body, I’m pretty sure it pulled everything out of the ring and placed those items separately in the ring I was wearing. Let me give you some of the loot.”
“Wait.” Jen said, as she pulled the ring off of her finger. “Store my ring back into yours, and think of it, or label it, as ‘Jen’s ring’. Then try to mentally select items in your inventory and move them into my ring.”
As soon as Jen released the ring into Sam’s hand, it simply disappeared, “Wow, I didn’t even have to touch my ring to yours. I was just thinking about putting your ring in my inventory and it disappeared going directly into my ring. There are so many possibilities with this!” Sam said.
Jen asked, “Hang on a second, does it show if there is a limit to the amount of stuff you can put into it?”
Sam had a vacant look again as Jen watched him “stare” into the ring. He then replied, “I had to mentally think about the ring’s capacity before a bar appeared in the inventory showing it being 87% full.”
“O.K. Now see if you can move a large item from you inventory into my ring.” Jen said.
Sam could see the excitement in her eyes. He was also very excited and wanted to experiment with the rings more himself, but he felt like he was being selfish doing all the “fun” stuff while she just watched. He took the ring off his finger handing it to Jen, and said, “It's your turn to play around with it some. You give it a try.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. You know more about this stuff than I do.”
Sam kept watch, but noticed Jen as she put the ring on and off, pulled out the other ring, put on both rings at the same time, and then she said, “I labeled your ring as ‘Sam’s ring’, and I simply labeled the third ring as ‘spare ring’. If you look closely, you can see that all the rings are slightly different in make, and they all have different capacity limits. Your ring has about four times more space than the other two rings, and the space inside the rings don’t stack.”
“What do you mean by they don’t stack?” Sam asked.
“I’ll use an example to explain. If a small ring can hold 50 pounds of gear and it is full, and a large ring can hold 100 pounds of gear and it is 99% full, you can’t put the small ring inside the big ring, because the big ring only has enough capacity to hold one more pound. The small ring doesn’t come close to weighing a pound, but the gear inside the ring accounts for 50 pounds of storage space. You would just have to wear two rings instead of one, if your total gear exceeded 100 pounds.”
“How much total weight do you think the big ring can hold?” asked Sam
“Sorry, I was using pounds in the example to make it easier to explain, I actually think the capacity is determined by physical size/volume of the items, but can’t say for sure. It could be limited by both. I just don’t know.”
Sam grinned mischievously when he said, “If it’s OK with you, just give me back one of the small rings and you keep the big ring and everything else. I’ll keep watch while you continue experimenting with the rings, checking out the loot, and going through all your system messages. I’ll try to forward you the messages I received about the loot and my stats.”
“Sure” Jen replied as she handed Sam a ring and then moved further back into the brush to spend some time reviewing the system messages she’d pushed aside earlier during the bandit attack.
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Welcome to the Seven Decks – Your 12x training buff has ended.
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Full System interaction is now active.
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Jennifer Cho: Mana channels 2
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If you are willing to risk everything and beat the odds of dying, then upon reaching the seventh deck you will receive a wish from the gods.
Only those who are willing to have all their mana drained may teleport between decks.
Minimum of 20 mana required to teleport between decks 1 and 2. 10 additional mana for each accompanying beast.
Minimum of 40 mana required to teleport between decks 2 and 3. 20 additional mana for each accompanying beast.
Minimum of 80 mana required to teleport between decks 3 and 4. 40 additional man for each accompanying beast.
Minimum of 160 mana required to teleport between decks 4 and 5. 80 additional mana for each accompanying beast.
Minimum of 320 mana required to teleport between decks 5 and 6. 160 additional mana for each accompanying beast.
Minimum of 640 mana required to teleport between decks 6 and 7. 320 additional mana for each accompanying beast.
The Greater the Risk, the Greater the Reward!
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Gambling Quest: Make it to Casino City
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Requirements: Reach Casino City… (Map will be provided if quest accepted. Quest can only be accepted while still in the Blackjack Forest)
In one day – odds of dying 75% Reward of 3 ability points and euphoria for every ability point gambled, maximum bet of 3.
In two days – odds of dying 60% Reward of 2 ability points and euphoria for every ability point gambled, maximum bet of 2.
In three days – odds of dying 50% Reward of 1 ability point and euphoria for every ability point gambled, maximum bet of 1.
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Accept: Yes/No
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As Jen read through all her messages and then the loot messages Sam sent her, she thought, “That’s cool, he was actually able to forward me his messages.” When she was finished, instead of just swiping them away and dismissing them, she organized them all in her “on board” computer and told Sam, “We both gained enough experience points from killing the bandits to reach level 4. Now it’s your turn to read through everything and tell me what you think.”
A few minutes later, Jen looked over at Sam as it sounded like he was hyperventilating or something. “What’s wrong, why are you shaking? What’s happening!” as she reached over to see if he had somehow been injured, or poisoned, or who knows what.
He turned towards Jen with tears in his eyes, and then focused for a second as he texted her, “I can get her back!”
Jen was a little confused, and she could see a determined look in his face that actually frightened her a little.
“Get who back? What are you talking about?” Jen messaged with confusion on her face.
Sam pulled out Kelly’s lock of hair that he always kept with him. “The system said if we ascend the Seven Decks, we get a wish from the gods!... I can wish for the gods to bring Kelly back, alive and healthy!”
Jen could see that Sam was still shaking, but she could now see the hope and pure determination filling him. She wondered how someone so cynical would believe that these “gods” could or would grant such a wish.
Before speaking, Jen paused and thought about the impossibility of them even being in this “world,” and why not, what did they have to lose? Why not go for it? Even if there is a .00001% chance of getting Kelly back, she would give it her all. Jen allowed hope, certainty, and passion to fill her, and blinked away her own t
ears as she texted “Sam, we are going to get Kelly back, and there is nothing that is going to stop us from reaching these gods on the Seventh Deck!”
After they both sat there for a few minutes just absorbing the reality that they were going to conquer these mysterious decks and get Kelly back, Jen said, “We can’t fail this mission; the stakes are too high. Let’s take stock of everything and consider where we should add the ability points from level increases. Keep in mind, we’ve lost the 12x progression growth buff.”
Jen and Sam continued to quietly scan the approach from their overwatch position as they considered their stats and options.
Chapter 12:
Distributing Ability Points
After a few minutes, Jen said, “The system awarded us experience points for killing the bandits, but the amount of experience points per level goes up exponentially. Also, did you notice the change in the mana regen and the two mana channels?
“I saw that, mine dropped to 1 mana regenerated per hour, but I only have one mana channel. Do you think the mana channels have anything to do with the drop in the mana regen?”
“I pulled up the original system message, and this is just a guess, but on Earth the system said it was supplying all our mana needs, but here in the Decks these mana channels are having to absorb the mana directly from the world around us, and it also feels much more diluted, possibly making it a slower process. I’m also wondering why I have more mana channels than you and if there is a way to get more. What are your thoughts?” Jen asked.
Sam replied, “I don’t have a better explanation, and it’s anyone’s guess if we can get more mana channels. What do you think about the ability points? What stat should we put our points in, or should we save them to use later?”
Jen frowned, “There are good arguments for both options. I think we need to do everything to stay alive, and getting killed with unused ability points would be stupid. I have two more ability points in mana regen than you, but that only equates to an additional 0.3 mana per hour. The mana regen rate may increase or decrease if we find an area that has more or less ambient mana.”
“How would we know if an area has more or less mana?” asked Sam.
“It might feel different, or maybe when we check our stats, we will see a different rate of mana regen. Just guessing here really. Either way, we can’t ignore the mana regen stat for long, but for now, our mana pool is the lowest of our stats, and I think we should put all 8 ability points into our mana pools. Most emergencies don’t last very long, and we can save our mana up to use in those situations.
Sam lost focus as he pulled up his stat sheet to add the ability points to his mana pool for a total of 15 and said, “Oh, I meant to ask, is there a pattern to the exponential growth of experience points per level?”
Jen finished adding her ability points to her mana pool for a total of 17 and replied “I couldn’t determine a specific exponential growth pattern… yet, but it could just be a random growth number determined by these gods. I remember from a statistics seminar in college, that numbers with unexplainable growth rates were said to have a ‘Litrpg Effect”.
Chapter 13:
Taking Inventory
Jen looked into the rings of holding as she texted, “Getting jumped by a bunch of blood thirsty bandits was a pretty shitty start to this new world, but glass half full: we did receive some useful loot. The three rings of holding we got off the bandits feel like they are going to be real life savers, and we can disguise ourselves with the clean clothes they had stored in the rings.”
Jen reached towards Sam and said, “Let me take a look at your ring for a second.” She looked into each one of the rings again, pushed her mana through her channels as she focused for her on-board computer to sort and inventory all the items in the rings.
Jen’s face turned real excited, and she texted, “Heyyyyy, you won’t believe this, when I pushed my on-board laptop to store the inventory data – it stored it, but if feels like it is stored straight into my mind. I can literally recall every single item that we have down to the bullet, without even trying, It’s just there. Oh, I just got a new skill notice.”
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Skill: Inventory, Novice – level 2
Most never learn this skill even exists, but apparently you are an anal-retentive list maker!
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Jen thought “that’s fucking weird,” as she read the insult, but then her face went white for a second when she noticed her inventory did not include any of their tech, but instead an enormous list of “slag metal.” She pulled out the bag with the tech gear. Sam had removed all batteries, drained all power from the equipment, brought solar panels, a manual generator, and battery rechargers.
Jen was feeling physically sick. She had just been thinking about getting the drones out and sending them off to do some recon, but as she unloaded the contents of the bag on the ground, EVERTHING that was in any way electronic was slag, useless metal and plastic.
She was throwing a silent temper tantrum and having an emotional break-down as she thought, “All my tech is gone. My psych skill is basically useless without tech. I’m in some medieval backwoods magic barbarian world; I’ll never get to build a Mech suit, we had to kill some bandits, and now we are hiding to stay alive.”
Just at that moment, Jen actually thought more about the act of killing the bandits. It made her want to vomit, feel immense guilt, and hollow inside, all at the same time. She thought to herself, “What if they weren’t barbarians or bandits, but just people trying to survive, and we appeared out of nowhere surprising them, and they thought they were being attacked.”
Jen really started to spiral down, but then she remembered the bandits would have seen the rainbow and would have known they were clearly just teleporting in. Jen was able to maintain her sanity when she realized the bandits… definitely bandits, must have been spawn camping people arriving from Earth.
Jen took a few more moments to herself before crawling forward to lie next to Sam.
Sam could see the distraught look in her eyes, and knew she was having a difficult time. Jen messaged Sam with a summary of their inventory, “All our tech is slag metal.”
“What? Slag metal— What do you mean?
“Yea, anything that contained any type of electronic component is fried like it had been hit with a lightning surge, without a surge protector.”
Sam now understood why Jen looked so miserable, and said, “Damnit! I was really hoping the work we put into draining the power from all the tech would pay off. Thank god our weapons still function!”
“True, we need to try and look on the bright side. My inventory list of the loot and our gear also includes some shit swords and hammers, or I guess they could be good for this world, but they are useless to us. Neither of us know how to effectively use an axe or sword in a battle against anyone skilled. We also have some local clothing. We looted a total of 12 silver and 80 copper, but I don’t know how much that will buy here. That leaves us with the two M-4 5.56 assault rifles with 3,000 rounds, one 380 bodyguard with 94 rounds left after killing the bandits, one magazine fed 308 with 1,000 rounds, two Springfield 45 calibers with 1,000 rounds, 2-22 caliber rifles with 5000 rounds, 2 12-guage pump shotguns with 500 shells, two sets of level 3 torso body armor, one crossbow with 40 bolts, a medical kit, and a pack of 50 small chem lights.”
“Damn, we’re lucky we recovered these space rings” Sam said again trying to cheer Jen up. “You saw the message ‘With Great Risks come Great Rewards’, and I know you love functional jewelry like these rings” he teased continuing to try and bring her spirits back up.
Jen tried to smile back but then explained she thought the bandits were waiting to ambush or “spawn camping” people arriving from earth.
Sam’s only response was, “Mother Fuckers!”
Sam received his ring back from Jen, and after they both kept watch in silence for a while just letting their circumstances sink in, he messaged, “What do you think about the quest?�
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Jen shrugged, “I don’t want to gamble any of my ability points, but it would be nice to have a map. We don’t have to make a decision now, so let’s just put a pin in that until we get fully rested and our mana fully charged up. We both only have about 4 mana in our system right now, so I estimate it’ll be another 13 to 15 hours before we are fully charged up.”
Sam nodded, “I agree. I don’t know how long the days and nights are in this world, but I really want to be able to use our night vision enhancement when it gets dark.”
“Me too,” Jen agreed. “It feels like we arrived in the early morning based on how the position of the sun has moved since we arrived here. That assumes we are on a planet, and there isn’t more than one sun. Ugh…it’s a waste of time to keep going down that rabbit hole right now.”
Sam snorted in frustration with all the unknowns of the world they were dropped into, and said, “Yeah, let’s just keep rolling with punches one minute at a time. Let me try something.”
Sam pulled out a small stack of the forgetme charms he had made back on earth, and said, “Like I was just thinking, they have all been drained of the mana I stored in them. Actually, that’s not correct, I can feel just a sliver of mana remaining. That actually makes some sense, because otherwise I think they would have become brittle and broke apart.”