Then Ludus had happened.
The longer Jason survived on Ludus, the more he kept tapping that dark part of himself, the sleeping anger that his soul practically swam in. He had thought he could control it. It had seemed like a necessary tool to live on Ludus and protect his loved ones.
Then he’d turned into a raging shadow-thing and fought a demigod.
Jason put his arms behind his head and stared up at the alien night sky. His bedroll was already lulling him into sleep, despite his aching arms. He’d spent his entire watch practicing sword forms with a Breeze-sized stick, the hours of practice made possible due to his endurance ability. The stick had been necessary to practice with. Using live steel for forms was kind of dumb anyway, but he definitely couldn’t draw his sword just to do drills anymore. Breeze had changed.
Just like Jason had.
The lanky man from Earth made a face and started counting stars. He was tired, but his mind was still racing. He couldn’t help thinking about everyone in the group. He’d never realized how much Henry had helped with morale until his friend had been gone. Even Uluula had felt the Asian man’s absence and she didn’t like him very much.
Then there was Mareen. Jason frowned. Mareen has been acting oddly. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t have enough reason to ask her, but he was pretty good at sensing when women were not themselves. He knew he was better than a lot of guys at sensing if something was wrong, but most men had not spent a few of their formative years in women’s shelters.
I’m doing it again. Jason shook his head. Stewing on sad memories was not going to get him to sleep any faster. He’d just swallowed two spirit stones, dammit. He wanted to see if he could level up.
Jason focused on counting stars. From the bedroll next to his, he distantly felt Uluula’s slight Areva frame pressed up against him, her arms around him. He felt peace and comfort. The sensation of his wife’s white hair tickling his nose accompanied him as he drifted off into sleep.
***
A piano was on fire. Jason sat at a table wearing a zoot suit, a mixed drink in his hand. The center of his table sported a hand-blown glass flower, holding a lit, purple aromatic candle.
He sat in the middle of a dark room, in what looked like an old speakeasy club, and the purple cartoon cat was playing the flaming piano in the corner. The cat’s chubby, stubby little fingers somehow flawlessly played ‘Friend like Me’, but modified with a 1920s Americana flair. The sound of brass instruments and a bass came from nowhere.
A detailed, model train ran around the room on a track near the ceiling. Candles similar to the one on Jason’s table dotted the walls of the room in sconces, and a shrine to Gandhi was set up behind the empty bar.
“Okay,” muttered Jason. “This is officially weird.”
From the corner, the music stopped and the purple cartoon cat waddled over, his round, lighter-colored chest and stomach partially covered by a little tuxedo vest. “Greetings!” said the cat.
“What the hell is this place? Why did you bring us here?”
The purple cartoon cat twitched his crooked whiskers. “...Really? Haven’t you accepted by now that we are in your mind? Whether I chose this place or not kind of doesn’t matter. It had to exist somewhere in your memories first.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. I’m pretty much convinced this point you’re low key trolling me. I have a hard time believing this place could set me at ease.” The tall man put his hands to his hips in annoyance, but felt something that made his eyebrows climb. Breeze was in its sheath, hanging at his side where it usually did. “Why is my sword here?” he asked.
“Beats me,” said the cat, climbing up into the chair opposite Jason’s. “You and your friend both are doing some odd things. I am sure Dolos is happy.”
“I really don’t find that very reassuring,” groused Jason. “Speaking of which, you’re a jerk for not telling me Henry was okay. The way orbs have to be connected, you must have known.”
“Yeah, because we have casual chats so often, right?” The cartoon cat blew a raspberry.
Jason narrowed his eyes. “You are more...cheeky than usual.”
“Not really. You are growing in power, so I am too. I am developing more of a personality.”
“That’s...great.”
“Oh come off it, tall, dark, and clueless. Without me, you’d be lost. I’m happy to be of assistance, though. It never hurts to help!”
Jason facepalmed and resisted the urge to hit his head on the table in front of him. The purple cat was irritating him, but beating himself up in his own imagination wasn’t going to solve anything. He was starting to relate to Henry’s frustration with his own orb, though. On the other hand, at least Henry’s orb was a bikini model. Jason was stuck with this goggle-eyed, cartoon cat.
What did I do to deserve this?
“Okay, whatever. You’re here to help me with my level up, right? I have given this a lot of thought.”
“You know, it’s not really a level up, but I guess that is close enough if you…” Jason cocked an eyebrow at the cat. The orb controller sighed and said, “Oh alright, take all the fun out of it. Fine, what did you decide?”
Jason began to think out loud, “Okay, so I already have consciousness, well, space magic. I also have time magic. It seems like there is no clear cut prerequisite for getting hybrid magics, so—”
“Hybrid magics?”
“Yes, this is what I am calling the hidden magic schools I know about now, mixing the magic schools to create, like...death magic. Like Liangyu used with her army of zombies.”
“Hmmm…” The purple cat put a hand to his chin. “That name actually makes sense. Okay, continue.”
“I thought about all the hybrid magic we talked about before, like mixing my Time school with Water school to have friction magic. Most of these hybrid magics sound interesting, but since you refuse to tell me anything about them other than the name, it’s hard for me to min-max.”
“Min-max?”
Jason sighed. “You are literally in my head. I have a hard time believing you really need me to clarify anything out loud.”
“Well, this is true, but it’s so much easier to be friends when we talk things out!” The cat gave a winning grin, transforming half of his face into huge, blocky teeth.
Jason didn’t say anything for a second. “Can we just move on? I know you know what I know.”
“Yes, but this is a big decision, and thinking through it one last time helps with making the choice, right?”
“See!” Jason pointed. “You literally just proved you are in my head right now! Do I really need to tell you what min-maxing is?”
“I would prefer you do. Otherwise it will hurt my feelings.” The cat’s whiskers drooped.
Jason massaged his eye sockets. He’d interacted with his orb controller enough now to know that sometimes it was just easier to play along. “Fine. Min-maxing is a gamer term for increasing an ability in a way to make the most powerful or specialized characters possible. It’s using the system to find synergies and loopholes that can work to your advantage.”
“Oh, how daring!” The cat’s tail stood straight out.
Jason ignored the reaction and continued his earlier thoughts. “Some of the other hybrid schools were really interesting too. But all my points in magic control so far have been in Consciousness school, or Space, I guess. This means I need to find some sort of pairing with that side of my current magic, not with Time. Otherwise I probably don’t have the points for any hybrid magic.”
“Do you remember how many points you have now?” asked the cat. “Do you need a rundown of all your choices up until now?”
“I don’t think so. We talked about this last time. Last rank I had twelve points and I used eight of them. I picked up more magic power for two points, magic control for three points, speed for one point, monster lore for one point, and a first level of mind enhancement for one point too. This left four points to carry over to now. I
should have gotten thirteen points with this rank. Rank three, right?”
“Yes! This rank gives the most number of advancement points you will ever have at once! It is a very important choice, critical even. Rank three is when—”
“You aren’t helping.”
“Oh, sorry.”
Jason continued, “So with the extra four points, I have seventeen points to work with. While thinking about what I wanted to spend them on, I focused on the hybrid magics you told me were associated with space magic, my strongest school. Some of them like ‘spirit,’ and ‘sleep’ sounded interesting, especially ‘mind enchantments’. Like, what the hell is that? I thought about picking up Air school, but I can already kind of half assed fly. In fact, my flight is probably better than most air mages in some ways. The hybrid magic with the air route was like, ‘mind’ and stuff, but I’m already enhanced that way.
“I have to hedge my bets. I think I’m going to choose the Psionics hybrid school. This means I will need to get fire magic. Well, I’ll actually be getting Matter school magic, then spend some points in Matter school focus, right?”
“Kum ba yah! What a strange choice. Why are you working towards psionics magic?”
Jason looked at the purple cat with no expression. The cartoon merely grinned. Jason asked, “Can’t I just spend the points now?”
“Nope! Part of my job is to make sure you reach your full potential! Talking through these things helps you. You should keep talking! It never hurts to help!”
Jason sighed. “Fine. Something about the name of it caught my attention. Psionics usually means psychic powers, like telekinesis, stuff like that. However, I have magic, which uses the power of the Dhu. It’s really not the same thing at all. So logically, this hybrid school must mimic psychic abilities using magic, not actually impart psychic powers.
“Not only is that interesting, but I started thinking about what type of mage I am. This entire world and this level up system was based on games, or games are based on it, or something. Anyway, Henry is like a tank with ranged abilities. As he progresses in power, he’ll probably be able to shield himself and get really tough. ‘Tank’ is not truly accurate because he has guns and stuff, but that’s mainly because he’s been thinking outside the box and doing his own form of min-maxing.
“My build is kind of a fightermage, jack of all trades sort of thing, but I’m objectively a little overpowered right now because like Henry, I’m using my magic in new ways. This is good. I want to be even more OP. Since any magical gains I get will keep strengthening my existing abilities, it makes sense to cover for my existing weaknesses with new magic.
“Between Henry and I, and even within our entire group, we’re lacking with subtlety. Gonzo is a spy, sure, but he’s not really part of the group and I don’t really trust him. Henry is great at breaking and killing things, but he’s about as subtle as a car crash. I’d like to think I can have a light touch, but I don’t really have any magic to use for that right now.
“Meeting Governor Holtz, then fighting a zombie-user ‘Bonded made me realize that I’m kind of limited right now. Thinking about that, I remembered some of what I can recall from my limitbreak. I have a theory I used some hybrid magics while in that state. This made me really start thinking about what directions my power could go.
“Choosing psionics magic is a bit of a risk, but I took a risk choosing my original magic to begin with and it turned out well. At least I’m still alive, anyway. Plus, fire mages aren’t exactly uncommon so I know what matter magic actually is. Creating temporary duplicates of things, or temporarily subtracting or adding from things is a really interesting ability, even if one that is not utilized much on Ludus. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that creativity is important, or even more important than the actual magic someone can use.
“So all of this added together makes psionics magic the most logical choice, at least without the addition of any additional information. I already know asking you for any more data would be useless. And based on my asking around for the last few weeks, understanding on Ludus of hybrid schools is even less common than the rarer schools of magic like my consciousness and space choice.”
The cartoon nodded. “I see, that is some impressive thinking there...if you are right. So how do you want to spend the points?”
“Let’s see,” said Jason, rubbing his hands together. “I have a lot of points to work with, but I don’t want to dump it all into magic if possible. So far every single power I’ve acquired has been useful. I think I am actually stronger for it, too. So let me ask you something. Picking up a new magic school is five points, right?”
“That’s right!”
“And choosing Matter school will also give me fire magic, right? My first magic choice actually gave me two schools with one being weaker. This is a…two sides of the same coin sort of thing?”
“Effectively, yes. But that’s your perspective as an orb-Bonded since you can choose any magic you want. If you were a regular mage, you’d consider subschools, well...subschools.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Jason waved a hand. “Okay, so if I choose Matter school magic for five points, and I take another level of magic control for my consciousness/space magic, and two levels of control for Matter, how many points would that cost?”
The cat answered, “Five points for the magic school, two points for the first level of control, three points for the second level of control, and four points for your third level of control for your Consciousness school. So a total of fourteen points.”
“That’s what I thought.” Jason nodded. “Is this enough to unlock psionics magic?”
“Yes. Barely.”
“Great!” Jason smiled. This had been the part he was a little unsure of. Luckily, he’d been able to grab a hybrid magic school and now he could use his last three points in utility. “Okay, I think I also want to take ‘Infrared Vision’ for two points.”
“Why?”
“It’s pretty simple. Some of our group members can see pretty well in the dark, but Henry and I can’t. Plus, and more importantly, I’ve been thinking about conversations I had with Henry about how magic users could hide themselves. It seems like it would be pretty handy to have Predator vision. The fact this ability costs two points is a big clue that it can be really powerful, too.”
“If it makes sense to you, it makes sense to me. Are you going to spend your last point?”
“Yeah. This one was actually easy to decide on, and if I had been left with less points, I would have ditched something else for it. I want to take ‘Etiquette’ for one point.”
“I figure you have a good reason for this one, too?”
“Yup. Picking up ‘monster knowledge’ really made me realize truly how little I knew. Then on top of that, Henry and I got into trouble all the time in Tolstey due to cultural problems, and we are heading to Berber where things could be even worse. We’re also going to be pretending—well, I guess we really will be aristocrats, so acting like uneducated morons is not an option.
“We could have avoided a ton of trouble on Ludus if we’d known how to act, especially Henry. But I can help us both out in the future if I can identify cultural pitfalls. Plus, this could work well with my new psionics magic.”
“Why do you say that?” asked the purple cat.
“It’s kind of a gamer hunch. I won’t be able to choose paragon or renegade dialogue options in real life if I don’t even know the options are there.” Jason grinned. The rest of his choices he was still not entirely sure about, but this one had seemed obvious.
“Okay!” said the cat. “This is going to take me all night so you need to sleep now. We can talk later! It feels good to help!”
“Wait a minute, can’t you—”
The burning piano receded into the distance, the purple cartoon cat waving goodbye. Jason felt like he was falling down a dark tunnel until he knew no more.
***
The next morning, Jason woke up before d
awn and immediately went through his list of available magic abilities, verifying his new schools of magic. His scalp tingled with surprise and delight when he saw some of the new things he could do. Choosing a simple psionics magic ability, he closed his eyes and lay in bed next to the sleeping Uluula for a couple hours before Bezzi-ibbi, who’d been on watch, started waking everyone up.
When Jason finally opened his eyes again, he could sense where everyone was in the camp. “This is awesome,” he whispered.
The tall man from Earth squeezed his eyes shut and smiled. I was right about psionics! He knew in his bones, knew as a life-long gamer, that he’d just grown enormously in potential power.
Now he needed to focus hard on developing his new abilities. If he did, maybe he could protect the people he cared about without losing himself in the process. The rage was a useful tool, but he couldn’t deny how dangerous it was anymore. It wouldn’t do him any good to protect all the others if he still ended up losing himself. He didn’t understand why, but he knew Uluula really loved him. He didn’t want to lose her, and he didn’t want her to suffer a broken heart like Mareen almost had.
Jason sighed, casting aside the negative thoughts. He needed to think about these things, but he couldn’t afford to dwell on them. The sun was rising in the west, it was a new day, and Henry was alive.
As usual, Uluula had promptly gone back to sleep after the last watch woke her up. Jason shook his beautiful, softly snoring wife awake again and grinned. He had an entirely new school of magic to explore, two actually since now he also had fire magic. It was time to get to work.
Jelly Spitters
Killing river monsters was becoming stupidly easy. Jason teleported back to the bank of the river near the Battlewagon and placed his hands on his hips, surveying the carnage he’d just wrought. The newest batch of monsters to appear looked something like scaly jellyfish that popped up and spat acid. Gonzo had said they were called ‘thinly armored spitting water ambush demons’. Jason had been calling them jelly spitters.
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