The Final Trial, page 4
part #3 of Level Up Series
After a while the general subjects turned into more personal ones as our group broke off into couples. Alik whispered with Veronica, Kesha and Marina made out, while Cyril, Gleb and I were left to chat with each other.
I didn't even need the interface to tell me that everyone’s Mood was good. But most of all I was happy for Gleb. He was indifferently watching everyone drink the frothy amber beer, while Kesha and Alik drank something a little stronger. The only explanation I had for his complete disinterest in alcohol was the system’s role after the debuff had been removed. It was kind of like that with my smoking: the nicotine withdrawal debuff was removed, and that was that. You just lost the cravings.
Of course, that sort of thing is rare when you’re living without an interface, and for a long time afterward, if not forever, former alcoholics and smokers swallow hard whenever they’re faced with their old temptations.
When we’d finished dinner, the gang dispersed around the club. Cyril and Gleb headed off to shoot some pool, and the girls dragged their guys to the dance floor where Alik started dancing feverishly with Veronica, throwing off the seriousness of the buttoned-down dude he was during the day. Kesha hesitantly lurked in the wings, shuffling from foot to foot. Meanwhile, I’d settled onto a couch and watched everyone.
When was the last time I’d been in a night club? I couldn’t remember, but it was a long time ago, I think, when I’d just started dating Yanna. That’s it — we were celebrating her graduation.
That time, I’d gotten so drunk that Yanna and another girl had had to carry me out of the club. To this day I was ashamed of that episode. Not that I'd drunk too much — who doesn't do that? — but that I’d gotten hammered instead of being there to protect the girls in case they needed it. If anything had happened, there wouldn't have been anyone to defend them. At the time my sense of responsibility was negative even though I was almost thirty years old.
It’s strange how I understood that only now. And that’s why, instead of taking pleasure in that beer that I used to love so much (the interface would have immediately screamed at me about alcohol intoxication, toxic ethanol in the blood, destruction of brain neurons and increased estrogen levels), I was now drinking Georgian mineral water. And while I was at it, I kept an eye on my friends.
What was even stranger, that this didn't faze me at all. I felt comfortable and content; on the whole, the socializing was making me feel warm. Had it not been for the Trial...
What the hell? My high Perception zeroed in on something that didn’t fit with the pulsing music of the club.
I listened closely and looked around.
Some commotion was brewing near the pool tables, men’s shouting cutting right through the music.
I jumped off the couch and headed over, assessing the situation along the way.
Cyril was grappling with a guy in a colorful fitted shirt while Gleb, who had thrown himself between them, was being dragged aside by a bouncer. I didn't know what sparked the quarrel, but I was getting used to this sort of thing just lately. What I felt was neither fear nor adrenaline. It was control, confidence and the desire to resolve matters peacefully. Not out of fear but with the knowledge that I was prepared to fight.
I inserted myself between Cyril and the tall dude, 23-year-old Alexander Dorozhkin. These days, I would memorize the names and ages of everyone around me, committing them to my KIDD database. It had become second nature, really. You never knew when it would come in handy.
“Stop!” I bellowed at the purple, panting Cyril who was continuing to awkwardly hammer the air, his eyes half closed. “Cyril! Knock it off!”
Taking advantage of the fact that Cyril dropped his hands, heeding me, his opponent plunged his fist into Cyril’s ear and then into the back of his neck and cheekbone. Cyril buckled from the pain.
I had to pull Dorozhkin off as he flew at my friend.
“Have you lost your mind, man? He’s stopped. Why are you still bashing him?” I blocked Cyril out, spreading my arms wide and not letting the guy pass.
“Who the hell are you?” Alexander demanded.
“Philip. I'm the head of the company where this fatso works,” I tried to joke in order to bring the tension down a notch. “He’s my employee. I’m responsible for him. Talk to me.”
“What kind of company is it?” he asked, screwing up his lips.
“The Great Job Recruitment Agency.”
“Sergei, here’s another one of those smartasses!” he shouted over my shoulder. “Get him out of here!”
The bouncer who was holding Gleb punched him in the ribs. Gleb doubled over.
Cracking his knuckles, the bouncer walked toward me. Name: Sergei, Age: 26, Strength: 28, Wrestling skill: 7. He was a formidable opponent, and I know it sounds like a contradiction, but I desperately didn't want to fight.
Where were the security guards? I had a lingering memory of them disappearing — and before that, one of them had kept looking at us menacingly while we’d been eating and laughing.
“Hey, man, how about we solve this peacefully?” I said to Dorozhkin. “We all came here to hang out and have some fun, what’s the point of spoiling it for each other?”
“Beat it, moron!” he answered without looking at me, no longer deigning to give me his attention. His glassy eyes were trained on Cyril; he had plenty of buffs and debuffs showing slight narcotic intoxication which both raised his Endurance and Vigor and lowered his Self-Control. “I'm not talking to you. Sergei, get rid of him!”
A half inch before contact, I sensed that Sergei was about to grab me by the shoulder. I ducked away and took up a fighting stance, fully intending to get rid of him myself if he didn't back off.
The adrenaline surging through my seething blood was agitating me, raising my pain threshold and sharpening my reaction. Sergei pushed through like a bully, trying to grab me by the collar, but I evaded him again and pushed away Dorozhkin who was making a beeline for Cyril.
A crowd of spectators was gathering around us. I saw my friends among them. Veronica was restraining Alik who was chomping at the bit to help. Marina was yelling for security.
The bouncer decided I was too quick for him and slammed me against the pool table, cornering me. Once again Cyril started to grapple with Dorozhkin behind his back, but it was a losing battle because his sluggish punches landed in thin air. Blood was streaming into his eyes, his lip was cut, and as he covered his face with his swollen hands, he was rather defending himself than attacking. The other guy ran amok and hammered Cyril right, left and center.
Yet no one intervened. Not even Alik.
Sergei managed to grab me by the collar, but that's where his success ended. Acting on Righteous Anger, I slammed him in the nose. When he doubled over in pain, I landed my signature uppercut into his jaw, dislocating it.
I received a stream of notifications about the critical damage I’d dealt. The numbers were crazy, all above 1000, but I wasn’t in the mood for them.
I lunged in and wedged myself between Cyril and the stoned Dorozhkin, then landed a preventive blow in his solar plexus, knocking the stuffing out of him. Dorozhkin lurched back and toppled to the ground, clutching his abdomen.
Only then did I notice that the music had stopped. In the deathly silence, guards came out of nowhere. They pushed through the crowd and fanned out: two of them went to help Dorozhkin and his minder while four more grabbed Cyril and me under the arms and dragged us away. They were holding on so hard I couldn't free myself.
“It’s the end of you and your company, capiche? The end!” Dorozhkin shouted after me.
The guards carried me out of the club and threw me onto the pavement, then dragged Cyril out after me. Laughing, they started to talk about what had just happened.
One of them lit a cigarette and asked calmly, “Hey, dude, are you sick?”
“Meaning?”
“Are you sick of being alive? You just created a mountain of problems for yourself. Don’t you know who you just tangled with? Any idea who you raised your hand to?”
“A guy who was hassling my friend.”
“He started it!” Cyril wheezed. “He said the table where we were playing was his. He swore at us and insulted us...”
“He has the right to,” the guard said. “He’s Edward Dorozhkin’s son.”
“Who the hell is Edward Dorozhkin?”
“What planet are you from?” he asked incredulously. “He's the first deputy mayor!”
“Shit,” Cyril whispered. “I’m sorry, Phil. I didn't know...”
Chapter 3. Far from Home
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
THE WHOLE TIME I waited for resurrection, I experienced postmortem pain. Death is not a deliverance, and the pain during those three seconds in the void between lives is like a punishment — a stiff, scorching whip that is meant to tattoo it on your subconscious: you need to fight to the end because even after you die, you’ll suffer.
As if to taunt me, the respawn countdown timer measured out what were obviously not three Earth seconds. Time seemed to drag on forever as I kept screaming soundlessly, writhing from the torment of the afterlife.
When the three seconds had finally expired, the pain abated and the world came back into focus. I found myself back at the white stone — the command center. I was overwhelmed with feelings like nothing I’d ever known. Not even the massive satisfaction of leveling up could compare to how I felt when the pain had stopped. It was kind of like when you walk around all day in a shoe that's too tight, and then when you take it off, you feel like a different person. Multiply that by a thousand and that gives you an idea of what this was like.
I didn’t see any system notifications or penalties other than a change in the number of lives. I was now down to two.
Two! It was laughably shameful to lose a life in the first hour of the Trial, especially when it was for doing something stupid. I'd almost smoked that local boss, blast it! The Kreken! Who came up with these names anyway?
I was still wearing my ripped jeans. As I fixed my eyes on them, the system identified them:
Fabric pants
Protection: +1.
Durability: 19%
What did that +1 pt. to Protection mean? Did it lower any incoming damage 1 pt? How the hell did this work? Would my jeans protect me only from damage dealt to my legs, or did this rule apply to all of me, even if the damage were dealt to an exposed area of my body? I had no clue.
There were no guides or forums. Apparently, you were supposed to figure it all out on your own. I really could have used Martha’s help right about now.
OK, the clock was ticking and I had only one existence resource point left. Not only would I not stockpile enough to activate the command center, but I would pointlessly wind up dead and down to one life. But before blundering into combat I would need to distribute my characteristic points. Pointless trying to save them if I could get killed by some overgrown horsefly before I could say “acid spittle”. Not investing into Strength before venturing out on my unsuccessful farming foray had been a major blunder.
I checked that my visible radius was clear, then opened my profile and tapped the quivering green balloon that was blinking in my field of vision, urging me to invest my bonus characteristic points. I had a whopping 11 points, which in real life — where Yanna, Victoria and Alik now were — was pretty badass. But I still had to figure out how those characteristics worked here.
To test things out, I put a point into Strength. An option to accept or cancel the change popped up. Great, so I didn’t need to keep all the calculations in my head and I could play around with the numbers on the fly.
I added and subtracted single points to each characteristic and watched the changes.
The additional Strength point raised damage by one point and critical damage by three points.
I added a point to Agility, which increased travel speed by 1%. Theoretically, if I had a long-range weapon, I’d increase that damage, but I didn't even see any rocks on the ground that I could throw like a weapon.
Intellect increased the chances of receiving bonus existence resources from the corpses of enemies which, in turn, would speed up development, since leveling up was activated by resources. Also, Intellect would speed up the upgrade of the base modules, but that was still far ahead of me, and I didn’t want to level up that characteristic yet. I now had a 20% chance of getting bonus loot, and a few extra percent wouldn’t open the floodgates, all the more so because to receive loot, I first needed to kill someone, but I had low damage.
When I added a point to Stamina, I got 100 more life points. That was a pretty important characteristic that would increase my ability to survive, but should I invest in it so soon? I’d have to think about that one.
Adding a point to Perception instantly gave me a 1.5% chance of a crit. That was in addition to a 10-yard expansion in the visible radius of the fog of war that surrounded me, and a chance to find a lost artifact.
The points invested in Charisma added slots to the fighting units, but for now that was useless. Luck sharply increased the chance of a crit by 1% per point. That was less than the 1.5% from Perception, but it was still good.
Absentmindedly scratching the back of my neck, I took a break to think. How many life points had that Kreken had? According to the log, it had 1800. The boss did me in by spitting on me three times, each time taking away 300 or 400 life points, but the last blow was critical and immediately deducted 700-plus, sending me back to my resurrection point. OK, so it took time for the creature to produce its napalm spittle: there had been about four local seconds between the second and third assaults. In that time, I could deal around 20 blows, each of which would take about 30 health points from it — counting any crits. But that was without factoring in the bonus characteristic points.
I spent the next couple of minutes moving the Strength and Perception points around every which way to find the optimal combination. Seven points to Strength and four to Perception, and my critical damage without a weapon would go up to almost 84, or an average of 53, factoring in the chance of a crit.
This world had quite an interesting setup. It was simplified, but if you didn’t have a minimal understanding of mathematics, you could create such a crooked build that later on you’d be so annoyed you wouldn’t have enough feet to kick yourself with.
Main characteristics
Strength — 20.
Agility — 11.
Intellect — 20.
Stamina — 11.
Perception — 19.
Charisma — 17.
Luck — 14.
Accept / Cancel change
Accept! Unlike with my interface on Earth, here the characteristics changed instantly, which again made me think about the virtual or artificial nature of this world, taking into account the technology of the Elders.
My muscles swelled like balloons, filling with fresh blood. I didn’t need a mirror to tell me I was like one of those muscleheads in the jokes. I felt an unfamiliar discomfort in my armpits when I moved my arms around. My neck stiffened; it was now harder to move my head. My shoulders were turning into bowling balls, my powerful chest concealing my lower body from view. My only protection — my jeans — had become the saddest casualty of my transformation: my puffed-up quads and glutes were ripping the fabric until all that was left were a few shreds of denim helplessly lying on the ground.
The system identified them as “rags” without any bonuses. All I had on now were my boxer shorts, and they had no use in this game. But I still checked to make sure that my skin hadn’t turned green. Nope, I wasn’t the Incredible Hulk.
The fact that I could see farther around me made me feel better about wearing nothing but my shorts. The wall of the fog of war had receded 40 yards and now I could see what was beyond the ravine. A herd of level 2 and 3 “whistlers” was grazing there, so that seemed like a great place for me to farm. From a distance the whistlers reminded me of overgrown baby hamsters with outsized heads topped by a spiked crest. They came up to my waist, but without any tricks on their part, I could not only smoke them, but smoke them easily.
The task was complicated by the fact that I couldn't see the outer edge of the ravine, and that's where the nasty, napalm-spitting killer Kreken had settled down. According to my rough estimates, in order to take it out, I’d need to inflict 34 blows within 12 to 15 seconds, as fast as I could swing. Earth seconds, that is, which were around about 6 or 7 seconds here. The creature had six refills of napalm. To withstand their spitting attacks, the important thing for me to do would be not to run away, but to wage war and turn away from the spittle so I wouldn't get my eyes burned.
Should I risk it? Or should I just take things easy and annihilate the baby kirpi? I shuddered at the memory of the burning feeling when I’d made contact with it. A cross between a hedgehog and octopus covered in an acid jelly. Grrrr... I’d need to fight them with my fists until I found a stick or branch I could fashion into a club.
