The elder sister blinked slowly then unleashed a ridiculous grin. "Shara, I love you."
Shara made a happy squealing sound then hugged her sister tightly. "Yay!"
Origin rolled her eyes then lightly stroked her younger sister's hair. She was a sweet girl, a sweet girl who had given her a wonderful daydream. Origin closed her eyes and vividly dreamed about an epic slap fight with Sarah. There was background music and everything.
~*~
The slight scraping sound of metal lightly brushing against metal echoed through the room, but it alerted no one. A hellion wearing the customary odd raincoat stood directly beneath the air conditioning vent for the security room. He made no sign that he might have heard the slight noise.
Truth be told, the building was full of these little noises. The hellions were used to minor noises and due to the way the world worked, they were unaware that they had an intruder in their midst.
The hellion sighed loudly then glanced at another security feed. A glowing crystalline orb on the desk in front of him shifted color as the image on screen changed to a close-in view of the cafeteria. "Meat... So, hungry."
He was so embroiled with his desire to eat sweet, sweet, meat that he did not notice the overhead grate slide open then hang down ominously. He certainly did not notice it when Scott slipped halfway out of the low ceiling. However, he did notice it when two powerful arms snaked around his neck and snatched his oversized ass up into the air slightly.
The hellion tried to scream. He beat at the arms holding him in the air by his neck, but he could get no leverage. His feet dangled uselessly just a few inches off the ground.
Scott dropped the monster after a he held it aloft for a full minute. He swiftly rolled out of the large opening in the ceiling, an obvious security oversight that he had exploited several times now, and landed on the floor with grace and skill.
He wasted no time. Scott placed his palm against the monster's forehead and began to concentrate. A soft blue glow formed around his hand. Several seconds passed and the air temperature began to drop drastically in the immediate area. Soon the flesh of the monster's head began to take on a darker color. Frost and then ice began to form along its face.
Scott sighed loudly after he spent the better part of a minute directing elemental water in the form of ice to do his bidding. He stomped downward with his booted foot and the hellion's head shattered in a gruesome display.
He stood up then glanced at his palm. "Not quite there, yet." It took too long to generate the icing effect. It was not like the freeze spell that he had used on the casual server. That particular spell had been his go to spell for much of his early career as a sorcerer.
Ranged attack spells were particularly difficult for him to create at the moment. However, he had learned that he could create minor elemental effects if he created simple touch-spells. He called the power that he had just used, [Grasp of Winter].
Scott set about looting the corpse of his latest security office victim. He had taken out a few of the hellions in this manner once he had discovered an easily accessible entry into the building's ventilation system. Much like the overly large air ducts in a typical videogame, the ducts in this building were quite spacious.
He checked the security footage and counted all of the remaining hellions. There were twelve of them scattered throughout the building. Recently, Scott had begun to whittle down their numbers in anticipation of his final push. He could feel that he was close to the point where he would not be able to do much more in this location. Before that happened, he wanted to get the number of remaining monsters down to one or two.
Scott noticed that four of the monsters were milling around in the employee lounge on the first floor. He grinned. That was not unexpected as he normally found at least one or two of them there.
Despite the tempting nature of so many monsters packed together in a single room, he had other prey in mind. He zoomed-in on the chief director's office on the third floor. There was a single hellion, slightly larger than the rest, sitting in the director's comfortable office chair.
Scott had slain the boss several times now. He had developed a method of attack through trial and error that nearly always worked. Each time the boss had died, the number of hellions left had decreased by one. He suspected that whatever hellion was next in line for the title got to be the boss since the old one had died. Their memories of events were always reset if Scott died or returned to his safe room.
The main reason that he primarily focused on killing the boss and the hellion in the security room was that they both granted him something beyond a removal of monsters from his quest. The security room hellion granted him access to the monitors so that he would know the displayed location of the hellions. The boss dropped better loot, mostly in coinage, but still it was a chance at better loot!
From the moment that he had discovered his current method of attack, he had exclusively killed only the security room guard and the boss. He did occasionally farm the other hellions for experience and things to analyze, but he only killed those specific monsters.
Scott hopped back up into the ceiling then moved quietly along his chosen route. He had to stop now and then to wait for roaming hellions to continue walking away. They tended to be more alert than the stationary ones. They would notice creaking metal and other things.
He slipped out of the ducts then climbed the stairs to the third floor, and entered a different set of ducts at the top of the stairs. It was more efficient, as the other set of ducts was like a labyrinth due to improbably placed grates and fans that seemingly had no purpose other than to make his life difficult. The ventilation shaft that he used now led up to the ceiling and allowed him to take a straight route to the director's room.
Once he arrived, Scott stretched out quietly and listened for a while. The boss always started the same conversation whenever he arrived. He was on the phone with the city government, negotiating for the release of hostages that they did not even have. He had been through every room in the place, including the hidden basement sub-level. He had found nothing but hellions to contend with. Though, the secret basement level occasionally spawned a random useful crate. He typically looted it for food and water after killing the boss.
Scott listened attentively to the conversation as the hellion spoke about killing and eating one hostage every hour till his demands were met. These guys were disturbing on so many levels.
After the call ended, Scott listened for the movement of heavy boots on the carpeted floor. The boss always did the exact same thing after the phone call ended.
The hidden sorcerous assassin reached into his bag and pulled out a smiling grenade. He quietly opened the grate in front of him, and then casually tossed the grenade over toward the Boss' location.
The hellion boss gazed impassively out of the overly large glass window. He was fearless despite the possibility of snipers, or perhaps too stupid to realize that standing in front of a window is the best way to get shot by the police when you were an armed hostage taker.
The sound of the grenade hitting the floor nearby caused the hellion to look down. His eyes opened in surprise. He had just enough time to exclaim, "Oh Shit!" and throw his arms up before the smiling face on the grenade grew three sizes.
The subsequent explosion rocked the area and sent the boss hurtling through the glass window with tremendous force. Scott immediately hopped out and ran over to the door to the room. He locked it with the deadbolt then trotted over to the destroyed window and looked down. On the ground three stories below he could see the dead hellion artfully arrayed on the stone.
Scott doubted that the fall could have killed the beast, but he accepted it all the same. It had the feeling of an end-scene from a movie or action game. Every time that he'd done this, he had said something different after the fact. This time was no different. He nodded to the boss then said, "Applesauce. Bitch."
The body on the ground shimmered then disappeared. A moment later it faded into sig
ht in the room once more. Scott immediately began to loot the corpse. It would not be long before the nearby hellions raced toward the room now that the fight was over.
"Aha. Special loot get!" exclaimed Scott happily before he pulled a shotgun out of a hidden holster on the boss' hip. It was a short-barreled weapon, but it was clearly some sort of shotgun. He also looted all of the boss' equipment and discovered two silver coins and several dozen copper coins.
Rapid pounding noises came from the door just as Scott finished looting the corpse. He glanced down to see what underwear the boss wore this time. It was a disturbing habit, but he blamed the system. Each time he had slain the boss, he had noticed that the deceased former hellion leader had worn different comically styled underwear. The first time he had worn boxer shorts with cute little ducks on them. Another time, it had been women's panties; exceptionally lacey women's panties. This time they were tight white briefs with a Hello Kitty themed print.
"Seriously? That exists here?" That little cat popped up everywhere. Wait, was she a cat? He was fairly certain that he'd read somewhere that she was actually supposed to be a little girl who lived in London.
The pounding on the door became more insistent. Scott had heard it all before, of course. It did not bother him much to know that there were several angry demonic ogres on the other side of that single door who wanted to eat his sweet meats. "Yeah, that's right. She's a little girl. A little British girl."
He glanced at the images of the little girl emblazoned on the hellion's underwear then rubbed his chin. "I didn't know that little British girls had cat whiskers, but hey, everyone has their own special thing I suppose."
"You in there meat?! I smell you! Come out, meat!" shouted the hellions.
Scott glanced at the door for a moment then frowned. "So noisy."
He sighed lightly then moved over to the ventilation system and returned to his personal inter-office highway. Scott was long gone by the time the hellions broke into the room and discovered what sort of things their former boss had been into.
Scott stopped by the sub-basement to loot the crate and discovered several pieces of fruit, a candy bar, and a bottle of water. "Sugar it is!" exclaimed Scott before heading back to his safe room.
It could easily be said that he had made this place his home. He no longer feared leaving his safe room in the slightest. If he died, it merely meant that he had screwed up. He endeavored not to do that same thing again in the future.
Currently, he had a very simple and easy method of clearing out all of the hellions. As long as he killed only the security hellion and the boss, he would finish the quest in another five rotations.
Scott sat on his cot and drank from his bottle of water. Food and water had not been an issue since he had discovered that crate in the basement. Before that, he had subsisted off of candy bars and the sodas he had taken from the drink machine on the far end of the first floor. He had died a few times trying to get to that life-saving elixir.
When he died and respawned here he was no longer hungry. If he went a long period of time between deaths he became hungry like a normal person. The cot seemed to slow that process a bit, but he did eventually have to eat and drink.
"I'm done here, aren't I?" he asked the empty room after a while. Every skill that he could increase in this place had risen to at least thirty. He had started to develop a rather nasty headache recently, and he had more loot than he could carry in his bag by a wide margin.
Scott sighed. "Yeah, I should finish this soon." It had been a lovely place to train, but his skills were not increasing at all, and he was certain that he had reached his level caps for both combat and skill levels. All he could really do at this point was farm items and coins. If he did that for too much longer he might reach a point where his headache became so severe that he would not even be able to open his eyes or move around.
He performed his customary analysis of his items, an action that caused his headache to increase slightly in severity, and then set out to repeat his previous hunting actions. It was time to end this dungeon crawl. He had developed boss killing in this dungeon to a science. It did not take long before he had finished off the hellions.
After the last boss hellion had been blown out the window by a happy grenade, Scott looted the corpse and checked the underwear. The last boss had worn a bright yellow panties with the word Sassy Girl emblazoned on the back. "I don't even..." said Scott before he took a shuddering step back from the terrible visual image. Afterward something surprising occurred. The phone rang.
He glanced around the room for a moment then shrugged and picked up the receiver. The crystalline spheres on either end of the device lit up as a familiar voice spoke to him across the line.
"So, seems you finally finished the tutorial." said Mid.
"I suppose, so. What happens now?" he asked with a smile. It was nice to hear a voice that did not sound interested in eating his sweet meats. Though, with Mid one could never tell.
"Head back to the safe room and follow the instructions that you find in the box there." said Mid before the line went dead. Scott replaced the fantasy phone back onto its cradle and the glowing sphere at the center of the device dimmed.
Scott meandered his way through the transit authority building without concern. He had killed everything in the place already.
After he returned to his safe room, he glanced at the mirror then checked the little box for further information. There was a new letter waiting for him inside, along with ten silver coins and a small light blue colored crystal.
Scott pocketed the money and the crystal then read the letter. It was a congratulatory message on completing the tutorial.
[Message]
Congratulations on completing the tutorial dungeon!
Unfortunately, you cannot take the items and money that you have gathered with you out into the world. It would be problematic for various reasons.
Do not be too upset about the situation, however. If you place everything, including your quest rewards, into the box and close the lid you will be compensated accordingly.
~ Mid
[—]
Scott frowned. "Man, that's weak. What was the point of farming all this stuff then dammit!"
He analyzed each item one at a time before he placed them into the box. He had a mountain of armor and weapons to place inside, and did not bother to count them at all. Even though the items were shrunk down to the size of something a typical Barbie Doll might be able to use, the items were heaped above the rim of the box.
Scott stood there naked and annoyed as he closed the lid. A brilliant light flared from the box and then it died back slightly. The box continued to glow for a moment afterward. Once the glow died down and the lid opened, Scott took a look inside.
"The hell is this?" Scott picked up an item that looked a lot like a fantasy version of a cell phone. The device sit easily in his palm, had a large glass screen on the front and three crystal spheres situated just underneath the screen that were arrayed like buttons.
The little sphere in the center lit up and then started flashing in a rapid manner. Immediately after the flashing began, the device emitted a cutesy ring-tone sound reminiscent of the victory tunes from the casual server. Some strange instinct overtook him and he touched the flashing crystal.
The screen lit-up and an image of Mid appeared like they were having a video conference. "Hi! I see that you received your compensation!"
"Compensation? Mid, what is this?" asked Scott.
"It's a Crysta-com, dear childe. You have something similar on Earth." she said with a smile.
"So, it's some kind of smart phone?" asked Scott.
"Yep, the ARS equivalent. You can even use the Aethernet to order stuff online." she said in a perky manner.
"Wow, that's neat." said Scott. Sure, he was butt naked and faythless, but this was still pretty neat.
Mid chuckled warmly. "It's pre-set with a few global store chain addresses. As a premium account holder
you'll be able to buy and sell from various stores with greater success."
"Now that does sound neat. Any of these places sell clothes?" asked Scott.
Mid laughed musically then nodded. "Dear childe, of course they do. Normally ordering off of the Aethernet would require you to wait twenty-four hours before your packages arrived in the mail. If you order now, they will all appear in the mail box on the first floor by the time you arrive there."
"I can order without money?" asked Scott, a confused tone in his voice.
"Check your bank balance." said Mid.
"Gladly, but how?"
Mid laughed again then gave him a basic rundown of his new toy worked. Scott fiddled with the crystals located below her laughing image. A moment later her image shrunk down and he used his finger to move her to the corner of the screen.
"Oh, you touch me so forcefully." said Mid with a silly giggle. She was in high spirits today, for some reason.
He checked his com-menu and located his bank balance. His eyes lit-up when he saw that he had a little over twenty-three thousand Fayth.
[Bank Balance]
[Balance: 23,438]
[Copper: 38][Silver: 34][Gold: 2][Platinum: 0][Aurans: 0]
[—]
He let out a low, slow, whistle. "Definitely better than just twenty silver!"
"Absolutely. Tutorial stuff needs to stay in the tutorial, but we compensate our premium players according to their efforts. It is one of the special services."
"Wow, not bad. I should probably do a little shopping!" said Scott in rising excitement. Suddenly, his prospects in this world had never looked so high.
"Lucky! I have to work another few hours before I can shop." said Mid with a smile.
Origin ARS 5 Page 12