What few tables and chairs remained, Mort had moved near the walls to clear enough space at the center of the room for their sparring. The haze of cigarette smoke was gone, and the old player piano had vanished, too. Hunter didn’t mind. If he ever decided he wanted the old look and ambiance back, he was sure Mort could restore it with a snap of his fingers.
“Hi there, Mortimer,” he said. “How’s it hanging?”
“As ever, sir,” the bartender replied with a polite nod. “Still here, still at your service. How have you been?”
“Eh, you know. I’m taking a couple of days off, and I figured I might pop in for a short while to take a closer look at my notifications. They’ve been piling up for too long.”
“I see. Refreshment of choice, sir?”
“Tea, Earl Grey, hot—no, scratch that. Make it a Manhattan. It’s five o’clock somewhere, right?”
“Very well, sir.”
Hunter slid onto a barstool and pulled up his torrent of unread notifications. That’s exactly what they felt like – a torrent, far too many to sift through without getting a headache. He willed them to reorganize, grouping by notification type, and the chaotic list instantly became more manageable.
Mort set a silver coaster and a polished glass on the bar in front of Hunter, the rich amber liquid catching the light. It was garnished with a perfectly twisted orange peel, the slice resting on the rim like it had been placed there by a master of the craft.
“Your Manhattan, sir.”
“Thank you, Mort.”
“You are very welcome, sir.”
Hunter lifted the glass, savoring the cool weight of it in his hand, then took a slow sip. The sharp bite of rye whiskey hit his tongue first, followed by the smooth sweetness of vermouth and the citrusy hint of the orange peel. He was quickly becoming a huge fan of Manhattans. He could hardly believe he’d never had one in the real world. Would they taste as good as Mort’s? He sure hoped they would.
Smacking his lips, he turned his attention back to the now-grouped list of notifications hovering somewhere on the left-hand side of his field of vision.
First were combat notifications. He skimmed over those, as they were of no particular interest – save the one demonstrating how Yuma had crippled him with a devastating critical hit to his hand. Hunter winced. That one, he definitely hadn’t been looking forward to reading through. Even now, reading the cold, clinical description made his stomach twist. He had a new Trait, too;
Yikes. Reading through that description didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know – but it still was disheartening.
He skipped forward to the Skill and Ability progression notifications. Those, he had been looking forward to, and thankfully, they made up a considerable part of his backlog. Even more than he’d been expecting, in fact. He suspected the Blessing of the Aspirants he’d received from the Sacred Training Grounds Totem place of power had something to do with that; it accelerated the rate at which his Skills and Abilities improved, as well as he remained within the Training Grounds.
To make tracking his progress easier, he pulled up the Skills and Abilities tab of his Character Sheet, overlaying it beside the notifications.
Skills:
Athletics: 25
Close Combat: 22
Cycle Essence: 17
Evasion: 8
Meditation: 25
Occultism: 11
Polearm Mastery: 23
Short Blade Mastery: 3
Survival: 24
Abilities:
Augmented Familiar: 19
Conditioning: 11
Conjure Familiar: 25
Craft Spirit Charm: 10
Glaive Expertise: 5
Low-Light Vision: 25
Mystic’s Eye: 10
Toughness: 25
At first glance, there were quite a few things to unpack there. For starters, he’d gotten a new Skill.
He should’ve expected that, of course. He skipped down to the last of Cycle Essence Skill Progression notifications.
Seventeen. Not bad for a few days’ worth of training. And it wasn’t even his only vastly improved Skill. His Meditation had been at 8 when he turned off his notifications. Now it stood at a lofty 25. That made sense, since those two worked together.
Other than that, there were no surprises. He’d gained two points in Close Combat and another two in Polearm Mastery—most likely from the recent sparring matches. He expected to see real growth in those areas soon, once his hand was finally healed. Then, all those long hours of studying the Italian Masters with Mort might actually start paying dividends.
Other than that, he’d gained another five points in Athletics and one in Survival. The Athletics progression made sense, though Hunter had expected to see a bit more of it. As for Survival… that was probably from gathering firewood and helping build a fire.
Moving on to his Ability Progression notifications, Hunter noticed that his Conditioning had improved substantially, too. It was one of his most recently acquired Skills, and it was already at 11. He had Wroth’s endurance training to thank for that, he supposed. His other recently acquired skill, Glaive Expertise, was at 5. Like with his weapons-related Skills, he expected this one to show some real growth soon enough too.
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He’d gained a single point in Conjure Familiar, another in Low-Light Vision, and four points in Toughness. That last one was a surprise, and not the pleasant kind; Toughness had been working double time all these days to help him with the constant pain from his hand. He’d expected it to have skyrocketed. His next batch of notifications quickly explained why it hadn’t.
Hunter couldn’t decide if he should feel proud for hitting the ceiling of his current Rung, or frustrated by the massive speed bump that came with it. At least it explained why so many of his Skills and Abilities had plateaued right at 25.
His mood quickly changed once he saw his the rest of the notifications in this group:
That was…
That was a goddamn gamechanger.
Inspiration had been the main bottleneck in his progression so far. If ranking Skills and Abilities up to 25 awarded extra Inspiration points, it meant he’d found a semi-steady source for it. That was huge. He already had a long list of Abilities he’d wanted to try but had to skip over in favor of more pressing choices – and he now had 5 whole points of Inspiration burning a hole in his pocket. It was all he could do not to slam them on new Abilities right then and there.
And, speaking of new Abilities…His Meditation had hit 20, and that meant a couple of new, relevant Ability options had just been unlocked.
There was a lot to unpack here, too – like the fact that both of the Abilities had ‘Mystic’ in their name. That likely meant they were considered a core part of his Class, more integral than the close-combat Skills and Abilities he’d been prioritizing lately. Also worthy of note was the fact that they both revolved around the use of his Inspiration Quality.
Mystic Reflection would let him learn new Abilities without spending Inspiration, though he was sure it would take a significant amount of time and effort. The description also mentioned piecing together ancient knowledge and uncovering hidden truths by immersing himself in fragments of Insight – with a capital I. That part was much more nebulous than the Ability’s other use, but Insight was supposed to be a core component of the Mystic Class, so it had to be important.
Mystic Confluence, on the other hand, provided another way for him to spend his Inspiration points. It allowed him to merge and evolve Skills and Abilities, though, as usual, the description was frustratingly vague on the specifics. The ability to merge Skills and Abilities sounded powerful on paper, sure. Without knowing exactly what the outcomes might be, though, it was hard to gauge its real usefulness. How stronger would the resulting Skills and Abilities be? Would he have to start leveling them from scratch again? There were too many moving parts for him to be able to make an educated guess.
One thing was certain, though: Mystic Confluence would be a good Ability to keep in mind if there turned out to be a limit to the number of Skills and Abilities he could learn. It might just give him a way to streamline and refine his build if he ever hit that wall.
That left him with a last batch of notifications to go through. Well, it was one, self-evident notification, repeated ad nauseam:
Hunter opened the Qualities section of his Character Sheet, curious to see what it all added up to.
Qualities:
Aether: 1790
élan: 7
Insight: 5
Inspiration: 5
Serendipity: 1
He already had 1000 Aether from completing Whispers of the Dark Below – he’d pretty much forgotten about those. That meant that he’d absorbed another 790 from the marble.
Not bad at all.
He did some quick math in his head. At a ballpark estimate, he’d say he’d cycled through four fifths of his marble. That would put the Aether total of each marble at around 1000 Aether. If each of the other Aspirants had managed to absorb about two fifths of their marble – and that was a generous if – the remaining marbles, his own included, should still contain about 2000 Aether. Given enough time to absorb them too, that would put his total to about 3800.
The base cost for upgrading an Attribute was 100 Aether, with each subsequent upgrade increasing by 10%. That would add up fast. Still, 3800 Aether should be able to get him a lot – though just how much, he wasn’t entirely sure. He’d flunked Calculus 1 hard, and that was years ago. His friend Packman had always been the numbers guy, not him.
“Mort?”
“Yes, sir?”
“How’s your math skills?”
“I’d say adequate, sir.”
“Good.”
“Might I ask why, sir?”
“Because I’m pretty sure that trying to calculate the compound cost of upgrading my Attributes will give me a brain hernia.”
“I may be able to assist with that, sir.”
“Thanks, Mort. What would I do without you?”
“I imagine you’d be forced to revisit eighth-grade math, sir.”
“Good thing you’re here, then,” Hunter winced and pulled up his Attributes screen.
Attributes:
Health: 165
Essence: 100
Stamina: 141
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 10
Intellect: 10
Willpower: 10
Presence: 10
He’d already upgraded his base Health four times, and his base Stamina another three. That put them at 140 and 130 respectively. His Health got another 25 points from Toughness, and his Stamina another 11 from Conditioning. The rest of his Attributes were still at the baseline values of a perfectly average human.
Back when he’d dumped everything into Health and Stamina, he was in the belly of the Halls of the Cor Ancestors, mostly concerned with how to avoid having his ticket punched again. Now, though, he’d like to think he had the luxury to set different priorities.
Still, the longer he stared at the list of Attributes, the more he realized he was directionless. What was he even building toward? Lately, he’d been focused on glaive fighting, but that hadn’t exactly been a deliberate choice. It felt more like the result of a string of outside influences. Plus, what Hank had told him earlier was true; Mystic wasn’t really a fighter-type Class – so why had he been trying to play it as one?
“Might I suggest something, sir?” Mort asked, as if he’d read his mind. Which, considering Mort was at least partly a figment of his own psyche, was probably the case.
“Shoot.”
“Why not consult Fawkes directly?”
Hunter gave it some thought.
“She’s got zero experience with the System. I’m not even sure she fully understands what it is.”
“Quite true, sir,” the bartender nodded. “However, Fawkes is remarkably perceptive. You might consider dropping the gamified terminology and approach and discussing the various possibilities in a more qualitative and intuitive fashion.”
Mort was right. Hunter didn’t have to frame everything in terms of the System. In fact, wasn’t that exactly what Buggy had warned him against? Leaning too heavily on the System’s mechanics instead of trusting his own intuition?
“Thanks, Mort,” he said with a grateful nod. “That’s what I’ll do.”
“My pleasure, sir. It’s what I’m here for.”
Hunter drained the last drops of his Manhattan, then wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve.
“In the meantime, fancy some sparring?”
The bartender allowed himself a small smile.
“But of course, sir. I was beginning to think you’d never ask.”
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