SpeedRunner (Tower of Babel Book 1)

by Adam Elliott

  “And it exits...” Cayden mused.

  "Seven miles out of the city without a soul in sight. I've checked the entrance myself three times over the last few days." Tyson grinned. "You get out that far, and we can use one of the back ways to get to the third floor. Once you're out of the city, it'll be a needle and a haystack trying to track you down so long as you don't run around like a jackass saying-"

  “I've got a bounty on my head?”

  “-I was going to say come and get me assassins. But that works too.”

  It was now Cayden to pace. Behind him, Iwamatsu emerged from the backroom, broom, and mop in hand as he cursed Cayden's name. The Elan seemed to recognize the import of the meeting, for he kept his complaints and grumbles focused inward rather than yelling at Cayden directly. "There is no way I can trust you not to be at the exit waiting to strike the moment I exit."

  "Well, there is one. I'd be going with you."

  Cayden burst out laughing. “And how do you plot that course?”

  “It is a dungeon. One that there are no significant guides for, and one you've never done. You're what... level five?”

  “Seven.”

  Shifty raised an eyebrow. "Impressive. Fine. You're level seven. It is a level four dungeon; you aren't taking that on by yourself. You won't just need me either; you'll need a healer as well."

  “I might have someone in mind.” Cayden said with a slight grin. “That doesn't change the fact that I can't trust you not to backstab me.”

  "You beat me before, you out level me now, and you'll outnumber me two to one. If I pull some trick at the exit all you have to do is back up into the instance, and they won't be able to follow you unless you invite them to party."

  It was a good point.

  “And once we get a mile away from the exit and you tell them where we are?” Cayden said thoughtfully.

  “Lock out the comms on my mirror, block the tracking on it and pick a random direction once you leave the dungeon.” Tyson shrugged. “Once we're out of the dungeon I can leave party and head to the third floor separately if it makes you feel any better.”

  Cayden was quickly running out of arguments against the idea. Besides the obvious one.

  “You tried to kill me.”

  “And I can't change that.” The other man shrugged helplessly. “What I can do is try and make amends, and maybe help myself in the process.”

  Cayden raised an eyebrow at that.

  "I'm unemployed, have two mouths to feed beside my own and am absolute garbage at this game when I play solo. Unlike you." The slightest hints of a smile had become to creep onto Shifty's face. "If... when this works out, I want you to keep me on. As a full member of your party."

  Chapter Fourteen

  Three days was all it took for Cayden to make up his mind.

  Logically he knew it was probably a mistake and a perilous one at that. Shifty hadn't exactly made a good first impression, and despite his silver tongue Cayden didn't have a reason to believe in the sincerity of his offer. Yet it had festered in his mind from the moment they'd parted ways. A chance to get out from under the thumb of his would be assailants. More importantly, an opportunity to get back on track, to get back to playing.

  Cayden had waited over two years to risk his life playing Babel and had thrown himself into it with abandon the moment that the opportunity presented itself. Impulse control was never his strong suit.

  “Cayden! Over here!” The too chipper voice of Celia rang out over the low volume traffic of one of Islo's side streets, though the last of her words were strangled in horror as she realized what she'd done.

  “Definitely the way to help him keep a low profile.” Shifty chuckled in bemusement at the mortified young girl. “Glad to see you could make it.”

  Cayden nodded absently, his head twisting this way and that as he observed the crowd for any sign that Celia's outburst had drawn attention. “Sorry about making you-”

  Skill Level Up: Perception

  Type: Passive

  Skill Level: Novice Level 5

  Effect: Improved situational awareness. 10% increased hearing and vision within 200ft.

  “-wait. Are you kidding me?” Cayden finished in annoyance. He gestured with a gloved hand dismissing the notification and summoning his options menu. Only after he'd finished permanently killing direct notification for his perception skill did he finally finish his thought. “I had to take a circuitous route to ditch a hanger on who spotted me leaving the inn.”

  Shifty waved away the apology. "No damage done. Gave me and the young lady time to acquaint ourselves with one another. You have fascinating friends Cayden."

  “We're more acquaintances ourselves than friends.” Celia admitted, doing her best to shake off the embarrassment of her earlier misstep. “I was honestly a little surprised he asked me to party with him at all.”

  "I don't exactly have a bounty of friends or acquaintances. Let alone ones I can trust. I was more surprised you accepted than anything." Cayden smiled. "For all her jokes about babysitting, I didn't think Silver would let you out of her sight, let along go dungeon crawling with a wanted man."

  Now it was Celia's turn to smile, a sly grin creeping across her features. “Technically I'm supposed to be working on my crafting right now.”

  Cayden cocked his head to one side, apparently confused.

  "They are grinding out Amorath the Wise to try and get components for another run on Sobol's Demon, so they needed her for the afternoon." She shrugged. "She won't be back until late this evening, and as far as she knows I'm just sitting at a table mixing potions.” Celia glanced at Shifty and winked. “No damage done, right?”

  "Like I said, fascinating friends." The elder man snickered.

  Cayden opened his mouth to complain, then thought better of it. Shifty's plan wouldn't work without a healer he could trust, which meant relying on Celia. Even if helping her play hooky might end up putting him on Silver's bad side. A rather dangerous place to be.

  "Looks that way." He said, at last, two fingers swiping through the air once more as he sent each of them both party and friend requests. "This makes it official."

  Celia smiled, reaching up to brush the air in front of her. A second later a callout sprung into existence above her head, marking her as Avaritia. Meanwhile, Shifty dug into a pouch at his hip, producing his mirror before cycling through menus to accept the offered invitations.

  “Avaritia? Cute name.” Shifty said.

  “Thanks. I wanted something to make my sister proud without it being too obvious.”

  “Your sister?”

  “Older sister. Had a little bit of a head start on her.” Cayden interjected. He gestured to Shifty's mirror in an attempt to move the subject away from Celia's familial relations, before things could get even more complicated. “You sure you're going to be okay without a display?”

  "I'll be fine. Never really relied on them anyways." Shifty smiled. "I kicked the hell out of you if you recall, and I didn't even have the damn thing on at the time."

  Celia narrowed her eyes, glancing between the two men.

  “Huh? Oh! A practice match.” Cayden stammered unconvincingly. He hadn't come up with an excuse, besides desperation, for why he should trust Shifty, which meant telling her how they'd met was entirely out of the question.

  Skepticism radiated from the young woman's face; her soft green eyes narrowed as they continued studying the two men. Perhaps Shifty seemed more sincere than Cayden, or perhaps she simply didn't want to know, but eventually, she shook her head and began manipulating objects in AR space.

  Cayden didn't have to see her display to guess what she was doing, if only because it was the same thing he was eager to do. Now that they were partied up, he had access to their character info, minus anything they had intentionally marked private. Time to study up on his new companions.

  Name: Avaritia

  Gender: Female

  Bloodline: Leraje-Naya'il

  Class: Chro
nomagi 8

  Experience: 32,777

  Next Level: 36,000

  Strength: 10

  Dexterity: 18

  Vitality: 16

  Energy: 35

  Stat Points Remaining: 0

  Max HP: 740

  HP Recovery: 1.6/Second

  Max MP: 1280

  MP Recovery: 7.0/Second

  Max TP: 640

  TP Recovery: 4.4/Second

  Name: Shifty

  Gender: Male

  Bloodline: Shax-Cassiel

  Class: Carnivalist 6, Scout 1

  Experience: 21,215

  Next Level: 28,000

  Strength: 18

  Dexterity: 30

  Vitality: 18

  Energy: 8

  Stat Points Remaining: 0

  Max HP: 1000

  HP Recovery: 2.7/Second

  Max Blades:26

  Blade Recovery:0.6/Second

  Max MP: 350

  MP Recovery: 0.8/Second

  Max TP: 1300

  TP Recovery: 6.6/Second

  “I thought you said she was a Cleric.” Shifty asked after the three of them had spent several minutes paging through each other's information.

  “I said she was a healer. There is a difference.”

  Shifty seemed dubious. “Healing is a divine caster thing. She's arcane.”

  He wasn't wrong. While Babel's system of magic was incredibly complex, it did have some rather simple and nearly universal ground rules. Arcane mages couldn't cast spells wearing significant armor, divine mages typically had shorter incantations and so forth. Perhaps one of the most ironclad of all such rules was the prohibition of Arcane healing. Cayden could count on one hand the number of Arcane spells that could heal damage, and those few were situational or significantly weaker than comparable divine magics.

  However, every rule had an exception.

  “It isn't actual healing.” Cayden explained. “Chronomagi are a hybrid class DPS/Healer, sort of similar to my Guardian. Her spells don't heal the damage by mending the wound directly the way a cleric might, instead they alter the past or future of the wound itself.”

  Shifty stared at Cayden deadpan.

  “Didn't see a lot of Chronomagi on the farms huh?”

  The other man snorted. "I took my first level as a scout because that was the build I was assigned to. They only switched me to Carnivalist after they saw how good I was with a knife, and my crew chief had to fill out two dozen forms just to get permission for me to do that."

  It was the way the farms worked, Cayden knew. Companies like Vitalita had grinding down to a science, with mapped sets of resource nodes and a series of well-regimented company builds that had proven to be the safest, or at least the most profitable, for their farmers. Chances were if you bumped into a corporate farming group anywhere on the first five floors you'd be meeting a Scout, a Radiant Servant, A Juggernaut and a pair of Wizards.

  Creativity was not exactly their strong suit.

  “It is a great class for someone who knows what they are doing. High risk, high reward.” Cayden couldn't help but notice the small smile of satisfaction creeping across Celia's lips. “Here, let me show you.”

  He reached for Shifty's mirror and navigated to the skills section of Celia's character sheet. There were a large number of abilities listed there, though the majority of them were grayed out. Like most magic casters, Celia had access to more spells than she was allowed to prepare at any one time. Each morning she selected a number based on her level and equipment and was limited to those particular spells for the entirety of the day.

  The system allowed casters significant flexibility compared to classes like Guardian or Carnivalist, but it came at the cost of specialization, as individual spells could not level or progress in the same way a skill like Southern Cross. They could only be improved by items, or by mastery, the latter of which wasn't even available until a player hit level ten. This meant mages were always on the hunt for the next new thing. A scroll to grant them a new spell, a wand to improve the power of an existing class of magic. They couldn't simply grind their abilities the way Cayden and Shifty were able to.

  "This is her main spike heal." Cayden said, at last, pulling up the skill from amidst the sea of its fellows.

  Time Warp

  Type: Active Combat Spell

  Skill Level: N/A.

  Effect on Ally: Reverse any damage dealt to the target in the previous 1.5 seconds.

  Effect on Enemy: Reverse any healing granted to the target in the previous 1.5 seconds

  Cost: 125 MP

  “Reverse damage?” Shifty asked. “Don't think I've ever seen that before.”

  "Not Chronomagi specific, but definitely something we are the best at." Celia said, leaning over Cayden's right shoulder to look at the screen as he swiped through to another ability. "As he said, it isn't traditional healing. I don't fix the wound, I just sort of rewind things, as if it had never happened at all. Ideal for when a big hit gets through unexpectedly."

  “Mhmm, and this is her efficient heal.”

  Future Theft

  Type: Active Combat Spell

  Skill Level: N/A.

  Effect on Ally: 800% HP Recovery/Second for ten seconds. After this, reduce HP Recovery to 95%/Second for 160 seconds. The penalty is cumulative with successive casts.

  Effect on Enemy: Grant target's HP Recovery/Second to an ally for ten seconds.

  Cost: 80 MP

  Shifty squinted at the ability for several long seconds before a smile blossomed on his lips. "Okay, that is cool."

  “So I'm good enough to party with you now?” The blonde said, grinning at him.

  “Hey! I never said you weren't.” Shifty lifted his hands in surrender. “Just wanted to make sure someone was able to keep the meat shield up between me and the guy I'm throwing knives at.”

  “Speaking of...” Celia said, her attention returning briefly to her AR display before a layer alert appeared on Shifty's device. A tap of a button pulled them completely free of Celia's character and deposited them back at the outline of Shifty's. “What exactly does Max Blades mean?”

  "I can't think of a phrase that describes it better than that? It is the maximum number of blades I carry." Shifty replied, trying to get a rise out of her.

  "It is a Carnivalist special resource." Cayden interjected before Celia could shoot back the harsh response that was clearly on the tip of her tongue. "Well, technically a bunch of classes use it but..."

  “Cayden...”

  “Right, right. Sorry.” He made a few motions on Shifty's device to pull up a skill description.

  Flurry of Knives

  Type: Channelled Combat Skill

  Skill Level: Novice Level 10. See skill trainer to advance this skill to intermediate.

  Effect: Throw a barrage of knives at a single target. Three knives are thrown at a target per second, each dealing 95% damage.

  Cost: 150 TP + 100 TP/Second.

  Celia whistled softly. “That... is some good damage.”

  “You're too kind. You're too kind.” Shifty smiled.

  "Humble too." Cayden grumbled, stealing a line from Silver. "Just like with any class that uses ammunition, spell components or anything else, the game doesn't track individual items. He equips a throwing knife as a weapon, and his bandoleers just populated with copies of it that will disappear an hour after being used. Unlike an archer, however, Carnivalists have a limited number of knives at any one time, and they refill just like any other resource."

  Celia didn't seem to be paying attention. Her eyes stared at nothing as she navigated her AR display for a short time then returned her attention to Shifty. “Are all of your skills maxed?”

  “All the ones that matter, yeah.” He shrugged.

  “Why haven't you...?”

  "Ranked them up? The earliest Carnivalist trainer is on floor twenty four and I was staffed on floor two."

  “But you must have been playing for months. Why not try an
d get there in your downtime?” She frowned.

  Shifty eyed her carefully for a moment as if trying to decide just how to proceed. "I worked fourteen-hour days grinding out potion components. Even if I had downtime, I'd have gotten canned the moment my foreman got word I was aiming for it."

  "Why?" Celia asked. "If you leveled up further you'd be more use, wouldn't you?"

  Shifty shook his head. “The corps don't want people with ambition. If I level up, suddenly I start asking why I'm working for them at all. Or I pull off three or four other guys and make a party that they gotta replace.”

  “You know, interesting a discussion as this is, maybe we ought to get off the streets.” Cayden said. He didn't like the way one of the men at the far end kept glancing his way.

  “Truer words were never spoken.” Shifty replied, tucking away his mirror before walking a handful of feet to a nearby sewer grate. Once there he squatted down, grasped the bars with his gloved hands and lifted with a grunt of exertion. The entire grate came away, the man pushing himself upright as he half walked, half stumbled to a nearby and set the grate down against it. “After you my lady.”

  “Oh, such a gentleman.” Celia said with a wan smile.

  “No, no. I meant her.” He gestured to Cayden who returned it with a more potent gesture of his own.

  “So did it have to be a sewer?” Cayden asked, walking around Celia to take his first steps down the ladder.

  “Technically I think they are waterways.”