The Final Trial, page 5
part #3 of Level Up Series
I decided to risk it. My gaming experience was telling me that it was worth the effort, and after all, I had mathematics on my side. I mean, had I leveled up boxing in vain? Even if I didn't see the skill in my profile here, I hadn’t forgotten how to fight, had I?
I did a little shadow boxing and punched the air. Yes, I still had it. Three, two, and go!
My personal rule of three seconds says that I need to throw myself into action right after I make a decision so that I won't get into an internal debate and find reasons and cop-outs not to follow through. Otherwise, there’s a strong probability that I’ll either lose time or not take action at all.
This time as I climbed down into the ravine, I already knew what awaited me there. I jumped to the bottom and turned in circles, searching for the glare of the local boss, but I didn’t see anything. Time passed; in a few minutes, my existence resources would be gone.
I took about 20 steps to the right to be sure that the Kreken wasn't there. Some cockroaches the size of a cat scurried in front of me — level 1 sarasurs — but the idea of getting some easy resources fell by the wayside. The creatures were agile and nimble. My attempt to crush one of them failed: the little bastard bristled its spikes and I couldn’t penetrate its chitinous shell. In return, I received some minor but painful damage and a fleeting poison debuff. Meanwhile the cockroach went to hide in a crevice.
While I cursed and jumped on one foot, a repulsive, silvery, level 3 millipede ran out of the crevice. It slithered around my one good foot and squeezed, sinking its sharp bristles in. The searing pain made me forget about my injuries; I fell down, crying out and trying to tear the bloodthirsty monster off me, but I couldn’t. The millipede’s bristles were cleverly shaped like fishing hooks, so when I tried to pull the creature off my foot, it took my skin and flesh along for the ride, ripping through my muscles that had just been fortified.
The bloody fog blurred my vision, but still the damage numbers updated with furious speed. My health points dropped so fast that in an instant I was down to 66%. And this was the playpen? The starting location for noobs? If it goes like this, I might get thrown out of the Trial without meeting a single other candidate.
In spite of the attacks, I battered the vermin, pummeling it in its whitish gut where the bristles weren’t as long. According to its health reading, I almost killed it, but it suddenly flew off my foot and quickly disappeared into a crevice in the ravine.
What kind of mobs were these? Each one was scarier than the last. I didn't have time to contemplate this before I realized why my bristly adversary had suddenly taken off: my back burned and exploded in pain.
I had a funny feeling I knew what was coming next. The odor of scorched flesh stung my nostrils.
Although my bare back was now on fire from the Kreken's spittle — there was nothing else it could possibly be — I broke out in a cold sweat. What a bum deal! I was mutilated by the millipede, my feet were bleeding and I was too scared to step on them, let alone jump or run with barely half a life left...
My mind raced in panic, saying good-bye to my life. My body, however — which seemed to realize that running would be pointless and that I’d be in pain even after death — was already heading toward the boss in leaps and bounds, ignoring the damage.
Up close I got to see how the creature generated the napalm. It was like a flame pumped by its glands. It accumulated in the rivets under the proboscis, becoming brighter and brighter.
My eyes saw but my hands took action — with my teeth clenched, I pummeled the giant horsefly despite the exposed nerve endings on my blood-covered fists. The monster’s life dropped haltingly, percent after a reluctant percent, which was much less than I’d calculated. Apparently, I didn’t take the boss’s chitinous armor into account, and that was a mortal error. The damage was halved, which in turn very nearly ended in a wipe.
A wave of hopelessness washed over me.
The Kreken flattened its proboscis, readying itself to release the hellish flame. Without even thinking, I grabbed at it, folded it above the muzzle and pointed it right into the creature’s compound eye that took up nearly half of the surface of this ghastly creature’s head.
Boom! I could feel a fireball slip along inside the proboscis. Then it spurted and burst into a white flame, sticking and spreading along the horsefly’s eye. Still, it didn't kill it. Eating away at the netted surface of the eye, the napalm sputtered and smoked as the creature chirred at nearly ultrasound levels, while I became a desperate hammer, beating the last percentage of life out of it.
The Kreken tried to run away, dissolving into thin air, but it didn't have a chance. I put all my remaining strength into one last uppercut, and the monster died.
Scattering dust, the boss’s body fell to the ground. It sounded like an enormous wineskin filled with liquid.
Not feeling my feet, I slumped to the ground beside it. It was a Pyrrhic victory: my health had long been in the red, drained by all the DOTs of bleeding, poison and burns I’d received. My back was smoking.
Still, it occurred to me that the most important thing was to gather loot before I was sent back to my resurrection point.
Health points: 186/1100.
The boss’s corpse flickered and disappeared, leaving behind a Large Existence Crystal and another object.
Health points: 113/1100.
Just another couple of ticks, and I’d be a corpse. Without thinking about it, I grabbed the loot and reached out for the crystal:
+100 existence resource pt.
Verifying the probability of receiving bonus existence resources (20% chance). Check complete!
+100 existence resource pt.
The Kreken was being generous. Two hundred points! Now I had enough to activate the command center. What a shame that I was on my last life.
I wondered if the boss would be resurrected. If so, I’d be able to pay it one more visit.
Health points: 40/1100.
The idea that popped into my head was like a cold shower. If only I had enough time!
Open the profile!
Are you sure you want to activate a level up?
Accept / Decline
Yes! For good measure I poked the word with my finger to confirm.
My idea worked. A healing wave washed over my body, removing all the DOTs and restoring my Health points completely.
Congratulations, test subject! You’ve reached level 2!
You receive +2 Characteristic points to invest into any characteristics of your choice.
Put more fire under your enemies’ feet, test subject!
I did a happy jig, dispersing the cockroaches that had already caught a whiff of the fresh corpse, and shook my fists in triumph. I still had another 27 existence points left, which meant that the matter of my survival was becoming less relevant. I’d polished off that sneaky local boss with my bare hands, wearing nothing but my boxers.
Two gold balloons joined my dance, vying for my attention.
I brushed them away. “Can’t you wait a little bit?”
I've hated insects since I was a kid, so I scampered out of the other side of the ravine as fast as I could — into the air, closer to the sky and a little farther from the heinous local inhabitants.
No one was waiting for me on the surface, so I decided to examine my loot and the new system messages. The gold balloons were a sure gift from the system.
The object dropped by the Kreken turned out not to be useless crap, as is usually the case at low-level locations in games. I examined it lovingly, studying the smoothness and perfection of its lines, its pleasant weight, the warmth emanating from it and the flashing sparks upon its surface:
Furious Power Fist
The best weapon for close combat.
Powered by existence resources (1% of your points for each damage dealt).
Damage: 12-24.
+50% to critical damage.
The brass knuckles actually looked like a metallic glove, but it was clearly not a metal known on Earth because it stretched like rubber when I wedged my right hand in. It enveloped my hand, stretched over my entire forearm and moved easily. I bent and straightened my fingers and rotated my hand. The power fist lay there as if it had been poured on.
It was my first real loot. When I opened my profile, I saw that thanks to the power fist, my damage was now much higher: 30–46 for regular and 262 for critical damage. Awesome. It was high time to farm resources, but it was getting dark and I didn’t have a place to spend the night. What did the instructions say about nighttime? That the carnivorous creatures were especially active? I wasn’t really in the mood to go to sleep in just my boxers on the bare ground and not wake up.
But first I needed to check on what the system was saying. I reached for the first gold balloon. It dissipated in a cloud of flickering dust that turned into a message:
Test subject! You’ve unlocked the First Giant Slayer achievement!
You’re the first candidate in this wave to kill a local boss.
You receive +3 Characteristic points to invest into any characteristics of your choice.
Since I’d already figured out what would happen next, I triumphantly tapped the second achievement message.
Test subject! You’ve unlocked the First Daredevil achievement!
You’re the first candidate in this wave to kill a mob that is 5 levels higher than you.
You receive +3 Characteristic points to invest into any characteristics of your choice.
Two for leveling up, plus 6 from the achievements, added up to a total of 8 characteristic points. I immediately distributed all of them. My procrastination had very nearly cost me my life.
I added 4 points to Stamina, raising my health points; without clothing I had no protection, and I needed to increase my ability to survive.
I added 1 point to Luck — extra points in this were never a waste. Then 1 point to Strength, and the last 2 to Perception.
The chance of a crit increased to 45.5%, and the chance of critical damage rose to almost 300. Ah, the crit machine.
With stats like that I'd be able to topple creatures like the Kreken in a couple of seconds. Well, almost.
Anyway, now it was time to farm. But I’d have to be careful about it and stay on my guard.
Dusk was starting to set in when I finally added another 100-plus to my stockpile of existence resources. A hundred to activate the command center, and the extra for sustenance. The mobs I was running across weren't striking in their variety — they were the same kirpi whose spikes I now squashed with one blow of the power fist; aggressive whistlers which looked like the overgrown hamsters that attacked in a flock, then ran away, their health barely dropping below half; the krekniks, a sort of light non-rare version of the Kreken who spat a scorching, but not deadly, substance instead of napalm and were half the size.
Maddeningly, a lot of time was wasted on regeneration whenever the wounded bastards turned tail and darted off without giving me a chance in hell of catching up with them. When on the next pursuit I walked into a kirpi ambush, I stopped chasing the deserters at full speed. Instead, whenever a mob was about to take off, I grabbed it and held on to it so it wouldn't escape.
Nothing dropped from the mobs besides existence resources, so my plan to loot some clothes fell by the wayside.
Following this process, I crossed my whole hexagon and reached the next one along. I realized that was what I was doing when I stepped over the border — it felt like walking through a spider's web. I could sense the barely audible drone of an energy field that divided hexagons. It let me pass, but I saw a whistler get repelled as it somersaulted backward.
Should I turn back or keep pushing on? I remembered that I could also capture a neutral hexagon instead of the one I had first appeared on. In theory, moving back toward its center would take me as long as going toward the center of this zone.
I decided to keep going — farming was farming, now that I wasn’t tired or hungry. What difference did it make which command center I activated, mine or a neutral one? But to make up for it, I would be getting all the additional existence resources — and the more of them there were, the faster I’d be able to develop.
I took exactly fifty steps and then abruptly dropped to the grass when I spotted a human figure — an unusual sight in these parts — nearly at the edge of my fog of war.
Carter, human
Level 4.
The chubby Carter was prowling, bending toward the ground. I couldn't tell if he’d noticed me, but encountering him would be a fraught proposition. How many resources had he needed to farm to already activate level 4, and to get that spear with its head glinting predatorily, and that squadron of club-brandishing mobs which surrounded him protectively as they advanced?
One of them suddenly stopped, sniffed, turned its head and looked at me. In a split second the entire squadron, including Carter, was glaring at me.
Chapter 4. Like a Loaded Pistol
You could always get the truth from Tommy. That was one of his major weaknesses.
— Mark "Rent-boy" Renton, Trainspotting
NO DOUBT about it, I was the world champion at finding trouble and sticking my nose into it. It was all because of my boxing success and the confidence that had come with it. How many scuffles had I managed to avoid during my life without the interface? Almost all of them! Of course, sometimes my self-respect suffered for that, but when all was said and done it didn’t cause any serious problems. But now?
These were the thoughts running through my head on my way home from the night club. I continued to reprimand myself for quite a while, and even after I got home, I kept dissecting everything until I finally realized that I myself had created all my recent problems. I’d been kicked out of the boxing club because I had gotten into a fight with Mohammed, and I had nearly ended up with Tural’s foot stuck in my ribs because I’d chased him. Things like that had never happened before. And now, what do you know, it was exactly the same again.[2]
When the security guards had thrown Cyril and me out of the club, the others had paid the bill, then left to catch up with us. We decamped to a nearby coffeeshop to talk everything over and figure out how to handle the situation, which had just become more complicated.
“Yeah, we’ve gotten ourselves into a mess,” Alik said pensively. “Who could have known?”
“Those spoiled rich brats are always causing problems,” Gleb said morosely. “I’ve seen more than enough of their kind in the poker clubs. You don't want to say anything that will put you on their bad side. The minute something doesn't go their way, they screw everyone over.”
Alik nodded. “They’re full of themselves.”
“Cyril, why on earth did you get into a fight?” Veronica asked.
“Me?” Cyril’s eyes widened like saucers. “Gleb and I were minding our own business and shooting some pool and then he tried to take the cue away from me. What was I supposed to do? Give it to him?”
Cyril’s broken nose made his voice sound nasal, and his colorful bruises made him look like a Native American in full war paint.
“You should have just given him the table,” Marina whispered so softly we could barely hear her.
“Ah,” Kesha breathed, burying his face in his hands. “But everything started off so well...”
“Come on, that’s enough!” I had to take a commanding tone. “Cyril and Gleb did the right thing. Are they men or pussies? Did this Dorozhkin guy have a sign on his forehead saying who he was? Even if he was wearing a sign, the guys were completely within their rights.”
“That may well be, but unfortunately, that won’t make the problem go away,” Kesha pointed out.
“We’ll deal with the problems as they crop up,” I said. “But let's be proactive. I want everyone in the office tomorrow morning in top form. We need to study all our documentation and contracts to see if everything is in order in case any auditors come knocking.”
“Should we call Mr. Katz?” Alik asked, picking up his phone.
“No, not at this time of night. I’ll call him myself in the morning. It’s time for bed. Let’s all go home.”
“Oh God, what a night that scumbag screwed up for us!” Gleb slammed his fist on the table. “Ah...”
His voice expressed regret about more than just the spoiled evening. He’d brought up the thing that was on all our minds: the consequences. I knew I had to calm everyone down.
“Hey, guys,” I stood up, smiled broadly and gave them a look that was meant to infect them with confidence. “Everything will be OK.”
