Time left for Tier 1: 6 Days,15 Hours.
As my vision faded back in I found myself inside the room I had started to step into before I was whisked away to the tutorial Convergence hall with Gary. Marco was in the room with TAI sitting against the wall. I noticed that most of the room was gutted and exposed to the internal workings of the station. It looked like someone had removed every metal panel possible from inside, some of the wiring and almost all of the piping from the walls and ceiling seemed to be gone as well. Hell whoever scraped this room like an abandoned car at the junkyard even took the vent covers off the bottom of the walls. Honestly, it didn’t feel safe to be around.
“What happened to this place?” I asked TAI after taking a quick look around.
“My best guess Voyager would be the Kobalts. They are a scavenger group of NPC’s. They scrap metal from anywhere they can easily get it and use to to fabricate their own supplies, everything from basic armor and weapons, all the way up to their own dwellings. They live in a monarchal society. Their king must have sent them out to scavenge when they first arrived here.” She informed me.
“Oh, that’s weird but I guess makes sense. So for the bigger question, Marco ummm… did you know you could throw fire? ” I looked at Marco wonderingly.
“No, I had no clue, I have never done anything like that before and had no idea I could. I just saw that creature about to attack you while you were distracted and I really didn’t want that to happen. I felt a weird energy fill my arm and I just let it go in the direction of the Kobalt. TAI told me what had happened and I started practicing while you were gone. I think I can do it whenever I want now. As long as I have the mana to do so.” He told me with excitement in his voice. I could tell he was genuinely surprised by his new found power but very excited to have it.
“So TAI, what’s the insight on this. Why can our boy Marco here throw the hot stuff around like a super hero now. Did he unlock a new power through grit and determination, radioactive spider, born with it and parents lied to him about his potential? Which origin story did he roll on the universal luck die.” I asked like a smartass, this was cool but also really weird. “I mean there has to be a reason for this transformation right?”
“None of the above Voyager, he is simply part of the system and doing what the rules of the game dictate. NPCs come in three different variations. Monsters which are the most common, they have no sentience or self preservation for the most part. They may run from a fight if provoked enough such as you yelling at that duck in the first couple minutes here. Other than that though they will usually just try to kill you. The next is Combative NPCs. These NPCs are capable of fighting with their environment. They aren’t inherently hostile to the Voyagers, as you can see by Marco not wanting to kill you. It is a common personality trait though as they tend to be bandits, thieves, nomads, mercenaries, and other bad guy analogies, They will over time become the more common enemy of the Trials for you. As you will experience for yourself. Mobs that lack intelligence will become less and less intimidating to you as time goes by, so calculating and intelligent NPCs will take the mantel. Lastly, we have Non-combative NPCs, they are almost always civil to the Voyagers. They populate the various societal areas of the Trials. Living in large groups and usually within a defense structure of some sort. Towns, villages, forts, even cities if you get far enough in the Trials.” She was just info dumping all over me. I was trying to keep up as much as possible. This was a lot though. It was not the norm for her either. She use to answer my questions with as short an answer as possible. this was more like Gary educating me than my experience with TAI. I wasn’t complaining though.
“Marco has made the transition from Non-combative to Combative. He has been outside of his village long enough for his program to adapt and give him combat skills in order to endure the hostile environment he has found himself in. It came at a really good time for you by the way. I had about a 67% odds that you were not going to survive the attack from the second Kobalt if he had not stepped in.” She said with barely any hint of remorse at my near death.
“Yeah, thanks for that Marco. I didn’t want to be lizard food on my first day here. That really seems like a one year anniversary kind of thing.” I said with a vague attempt at humor. “We should probably get moving again. Marco are you comfortable being my support going forward? Are you willing to enter combat with me and watch my back. I won’t put you upfront and in danger. More a hang back and do some range attacks. I would feel a whole lot better knowing I had some fire raining down on the other guys.”
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“I think I can do that. Me and TAI worked on it while you were gone and I think I know my limitations. I’ll try to help as best I can.” he said with an uncertainty.
I could understand that, I mean how often do you learn that you can shoot fire from your hands? not exactly something you adjust to easily. it’s a sleep on it kind of thing at least.
I started moving towards the door and into the hallway. Pausing before I left to listen to any ominous sounds outside. Last thing we needed was to leave the room only to immediately face more of the medieval geckos picking over the remains of their fallen friends. I went to open the door and TAI stopped me.
“Double check your character sheet Voyager. Make sure everything is looking correct before you run into more danger” She suggested
“Right, good Idea. Let’s see”
CHARACTER SHEET
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Name: Nathan Stryder
Time Remaining (Tier 1): 6 Days, 15 Hours
Class: Voyager (Unassigned)
Race: Human
Level: 2
Tier: 1
Attribute Points Available: 0
══════════════════════════════════════════════
CORE ATTRIBUTES
══════════════════════════════════════════════
PHYSICAL- 6
MENTAL- 5
ETHEREAL- 3
══════════════════════════════════════════════
STATUS
══════════════════════════════════════════════
Health (HP): 125 / 125
Mana (MP): 10 / 10
Stamina: 100%
Armor Effectiveness:
? Damage Reduction: **10%**
? Retributive Damage: **10%**
══════════════════════════════════════════════
I saw the extra point in Physical and remembered how it had felt to add a point to it. I felt a wave of energy and exhilaration pass through my body. The closest feeling I could compare it to is the feeling that occurs to distance runners when you do as we call ‘hit the wall’ and then break through it. A phenomenon when your body feels exhausted and you can’t go much farther then a wave of energy just flows through you and you can suddenly both pick up speed and go for another thirty minutes, seemingly out of no where. Usually followed by a runners high, a moment of unrivaled clarity. I had felt this feeling but tripled at least. I felt stronger, healthier, and some how less tired than before I added the point. Physically I didn’t change.
“Yeah, Everything seems to be in order. let’s get moving.” I opened the door and stepped out.
The two bodies were sitting on top of each other out in the hallway near by. I don’t know why every time I kill things they always end up on or inside each other. It was becoming concerning. What happens when I start facing larger numbers? Will I accidentally build a wall with corpses, a fort, an entire building. Welcome to fort dead corpse I’m your commander Major Stryder. I chuckled to myself. Marco asked what was funny and I described my thoughts to him and he didn’t get it. It was awkward.
So i reached down and looted the two Kobalts I had dispatched earlier today with the assistance of Marco. We were getting close to the fourteen hour mark on the clock. It had appeared in my vision after leaving the classroom again. Now it hovered in the top right, just out of direct line of sight, like my vitals in the top left. If I intentionally went to look at it, it would stay in place and I could view it, otherwise it remained fixed in that place just outside of my main vision.
The Kobalts contained some fairly average stuff again. It seemed to be constant in this game. A few coins each and a crafting material. This time the coins were seven each and the material was an assortment of scales, in a bucket. A bucket of scales. Super fucking weird. I dicked around with the absurdity of the situation by pulling one of the buckets out of my inventory, taking a few scales out and leaving them on the ground. Returning the bucket with the missing scales to my inventory yielded me with a [Nearly full] Bucket of scales. When I put the scales back into my inventory as a group to themselves they appeared in the bucket and the bucket title changed to Bucket of Scales. Weird but OK, on to the last thing I received from these bipedal Iguana fucks. A new shirt for me called a Scaly Shirt. I dropped it into my inventory and selected to equip it.
It was a rougher feel than my original Super Mario Tee, but it wasnt uncomfortable, it also made me feel super resistant, which made sense when I took a look at the stats for the item.
Title: Scaly Shirt
Rarity: Uncommon
Item: Shirt
Category: Clothing
Stats: +2 damage resistance.
“Dragons are scary, but I bet I could make a cool fucking shirt from his scales” -Prince Henry. Last Words before hunting Dal ‘fug The dragon.
It was a weird sensation putting the shirt on. unlike the jacket, which I put on manually, I tried equipping the shirt through the menu. It worked one second my Mario tee was on my torso and next I had on a scaly looking shirt, It started off green at the top of the shoulders. Bright deep forest green scales, all pointing down, cascaded into the material and slowly transitioned into a deep royal purple after going thru shades of Seafoam and blue. Like the item was made from a section of a large scaly rainbow. It looked pretty cool, and it didn’t feel as uncomfortable as you might think, it was lined with some kind of material that kept it soft on my skin.
I got up, and now with even more confidence in my survivability we headed off down the dilapidated hallway the Kobalts must have eviscerated with their need to recycle any and all metal for their own purposes.
