“I…um…well…”

  “What have you done?” Kian said. “What’s wrong?”

  Charlotte looked at her boyfriend with those doe-eyes that always seemed to work on men. It didn’t matter which woman it was. I’d seen it from Carmen. When they’d done something you wouldn’t approve of, but they needed you to not get annoyed with them. Like using your card to purchase something for the home that’s absolutely not needed. I’d tried the same thing once with Carmen. Can’t remember what it was for, but I gave her the doe-eyed look. It didn’t land.

  “I was looking at the abilities,” Charlotte spoke as if it was only her and Kian in the room. “When you were talking about needing to buy abilities and enhancements.”

  “So?” Kian responded.

  “So…I might’ve purchased something.”

  That didn’t sound like the mistake. We would have all needed to purchase stuff anyway. It was a good thing actually that someone was figuring out how the system worked. It was the kind of thing I would’ve done if I wasn’t the one who needed to make sensible decisions. I’m glad there was someone else who could fill the role.

  “Might’ve?” Kian said, with a raised eyebrow.

  “Well, I did purchase something. A heal ability.” She kept that same doe-eyed look, and sheepish smile as she included the rest of us in her conversation. “And now I only have healing type abilities that I can choose to purchase.”

  “How much was it?” Carmen asked, as she was pulling up her own screen. I did the same. The others followed.

  “100 SE Coins for level 1 Light Heal.”

  “How many SE coins do you have?” Carmen continued to ask as she pressed buttons on her screen.

  “Er, right now?” Charlotte replied, looking at her screen. “384.”

  “What did you start with?”

  “…one…twenty-eight, if I remember correctly.”

  Carmen looked into the distance, as you do when trying to work something out. I could tell what it was she was thinking.

  “I have 264, which is 86 plus 178. So, each wolf was worth 178 SE coins,” she said, frowning at her screen. “For some reason, I don’t have access to any abilities.”

  I quickly glanced at her as I navigated my own screen. Why did she not have access? First, I collected the loot I had available – 534 coins, then on the options screen, I went to the USPE, which presented two options.

  [System Trade]

  [Participant Trade]

  I went to the System Trade.

  [Enhancements]

  [Abilities]

  [Consumables]

  On the abilities screen, in the top right corner was the SE coins available to me – 742. The rest of the screen was full of various abilities from heals to toxin resistance; fireballs to stone boulders; close-combat strikes, with or without weapons; long-range strikes; there was even one for beast-taming.

  “Don’t worry about it Charlotte,” I said. “In fact, you’ve done us a favour. There’s nothing here that would indicate that selecting an ability will lock you in to only that kind of ability. At least we know now, before we select anything.”

  “There is one issue with it,” Charlotte said. “I’m locked into healing now. I won’t be effective in combat.”

  There was a moment of silence as we considered the implications. I sat back in my chair, stretching my legs out beneath the table. “What kind of abilities do you have, Kaelyn?”

  She had a quick look. “Assassin.”

  “You still couldn’t have known,” Kian said, looking at his own screen. It was true. I clicked into a random ability.

  [Class: Mage]

  [Ability: Dying Embers]

  [Level: 1]

  [Requirements: Fireball]

  [Adds 3 ticks of damage over time to your fireball spell.

  Tick damage is 5% / 3% / 1% of your fireball damage.]

  [Purchase | Unavailable]

  There was nothing to suggest you were locked into the class at the top.

  “Charlotte. When you purchased, was there any warning?”

  “There was a confirmation screen.”

  “Nothing to tell you it locks you into this class?”

  “No.”

  “At least we know now,” Kian said.

  “Exactly,” I agreed. “Now, we need to figure out what abilities us three should choose. It would have been good if Charlotte was a Brawler or Warrior type, but I guess she’ll have to be our accidental healer.”

  Charlotte pursed her lips. Her eyes became a little larger, her face a little more sheepish.

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  “She can still fight,” Kaelyn said. “She just won’t be as effective.”

  “I’m guessing if it’s locking us into classes, it would be important to focus on the class.”

  “Hold on,” Carmen said. “System.”

  [“Hello, Sufferer. How can I help?”]

  “I wanted to clarify something you said earlier about synergies between enhancements and abilities. What did you mean by that?”

  [“Your abilities can be affected by the enhancements you choose.”]

  “Do our screens give us any indication of how? It didn’t tell us we get locked into classes.”

  [“Oh, that’s me just having a little fun! And no, you won’t get that information from your screen.”]

  “But the information is available?”

  [“Not from me.”]

  “Is there any way to unlock ourselves? Or to choose a different class later?”

  [“Did you misunderstand what I meant when I said you would not get that information from me?”]

  “Fine,” Carmen said, sounding anything but fine. She sounded exasperated. Now she had a little taste of how I felt when the System was talking. “Are you able to tell me why I don’t have access to any abilities yet at least?”

  [“Abilities and enhancements are available from Tier Common, Rank E. You do not meet the threshold.”]

  “What do I need to do?”

  [“Without quests, there is only one way.”]

  “I need to kill some…mobs?”

  [“Indeed.”]

  “Thanks. You can go.” She didn’t sound happy.

  The System didn’t make an announcement, but we assumed it had gone. Although, where did it go to really? In my first conversation, it had said it saw and heard everything. So, whether we could hear it or not, it was definitely hearing us. I just hope it was an unbiased referee and wasn’t sending information to the other Champions.

  “I think we should keep a base amount of SE and build it up over time,” Carmen said, a hint of annoyance still in her voice. “I don’t think we should spend it all right away. And there’s the participant’s trade, as well. Maybe there’ll be better things to buy on from others than from the System?”

  I looked over at Charlotte and Kian. “Agreed we should probably set a base limit that we don’t go below. We can keep it rising as we earn more SE. A bit like a savings fund for a rainy day.”

  “How about how much we each started with?” Kian said. “And then like you say, we can increase that as we get more SE.”

  Carmen nodded, and I didn’t disagree either.

  Mary and Tom came in, a couple of plates in hand, the aroma of greasy sausage fat and tangy tomatoes following them as they placed the plates in front of Carmen and I, and Kian and Charlotte, before ducking back into the kitchen and returning with the last three plates for Kaelyn and themselves. Tom went back to the kitchen one last time and returned with a pot of tea and cups as well as cutlery for everyone.

  “They didn’t have everything,” Mary said in that way mothers do when they feel they’ve let you down because they couldn’t cook you exactly what they wanted. Tom was going around the table, pouring everyone a cup of tea. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad do anything like that for me. Some men are just different.

  “It’s great,” I said, Carmen enthusiastically agreeing next to me. It was a full-English breakfast – well, a half-English breakfast, as it was missing the bacon, tomatoes and black pudding but none of those were particularly appealing to me anyway. It had the sausages, eggs, beans, mushrooms and toast. It smelled amazing.

  Everyone tucked in. I cut a slice of sausage, swirled it into the golden egg yolk and covered it with beans before popping it into my mouth. I chewed slowly. Methodically. This might be the last time we got a meal like this for a long time. I was gonna savour it. As I swallowed down the meat and beans and runny yolk, I looked over to Kaelyn.

  I couldn’t help but smile. She was digging in carefully, like she was on an archaeology site and was worried she would ruin something. Before every bite, she took a sniff of the food but once she placed it in her mouth, you could almost see the taste spread through her cheeks and lips.

  “Kaelyn,” I said, and she jerked as if brought back from a dream of rainbows and ice-cream. I felt bad interrupting her moment, but we weren’t done with our discussion. “Do you have any advice about what classes we should choose?”

  She thought on it a moment, taking the opportunity to savour another bite of the food before answering. “I’m a damage dealer. And Charlotte is a healer now.” She took another bite of food, and another moment to think. “I think since you have the artifact, you might want to pick something like a mage. Ranged damage dealer, reliant on mana abilities. I think Carmen should perhaps be a different sort of ranged damage dealer. A hunter, maybe? And then Kian could be a Warrior sort. Another close-combat damage dealer. Someone who will be able to protect you both from closer quarters?”

  “There’s nothing stopping us from also learning to fight in close quarters?” Carmen said, in between tossing some egg and beans in her mouth.

  “I think everyone should train for any possibility. Your class will dictate where you will do best with the System’s help, but even as ranged damage dealers, if someone or something gets close to you, having even a little defence or dodging ability can only help.”

  I looked up at the clock. It was nearing half past four. “It’s a couple of hours until sunrise. Let’s finish breakfast, do a stock-take of our weapons and ammo, then hit the road. I’d like to get to parliament before the sun comes up. Then we can figure out our next steps from there.”

  “And the abilities?” Kian asked.

  “Well, Carmen can’t select anything. I’ll go mage and you go close quarters?”

  Kian nodded.

  “What about enhancements?” Charlotte asked with a mouthful of food. She was sitting opposite me so I got to see a lovely sight. “Do we concentrate on getting and building abilities or do we want to try and balance it? And how to even figure out what enhancements to take? Say if you get limited on them as well? You select one and suddenly, you can’t select any of the others.”

  It was a good point. “Max the abilities for now. I think we’ve decided what roles we’re going to take so the abilities make sense, but let’s hold off on enhancements until we know more. The System said there’s information out there.

  “Last thing. Kaelyn.” She looked up at me. “I know you wanted to get home, but I wanted to ask you to stay and help us. And when we’ve won this battle, we’ll help you get home.”

  She had a confused look on her face and stared off into the distance, her lips pressed together to the right, then slowly moving to the left. She turned back to me. “I can remember wanting to go home. I remember I asked you to start the USP for that reason. But now I can’t remember how to get home.” Her face took on a melancholic look.

  “System.”

  [“Hello, Godkiller.”]

  “Can you tell me the status of my home, Xepharion?”

  [“Planet 653,334 is not actively involved in a battle.”]

  “Thank you.” Kaelyn turned to us, with a small smile. “It’s still there. I will stay with you and do my best to help you win this battle.” Then she turned to Mary. “Especially if I can taste some more of your cooking!”

  Mary gave her a smile. “That’s what we’ll be for you. The cooks!”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that,” Kaelyn said, a touch of red in her cheeks.

  “It’s fine, girl,” Tom said. “We’re a little on the older side. We won’t be of much use to you for anything else.”

  “Every little could help,” I chipped in. “We just need to find a way for you to accumulate SE Coins. We’ll figure it out. But I don’t mind if you just want to cook. This was delicious!”

  Everyone else enthusiastically agreed.

  “We just want to stay close to Charlotte, if you’ll have us,” Mary said. “We won’t cause you any trouble.”

  “You’re no trouble at all,” Kian said. His eyes were down a little, a sorrowful smile on his face. No doubt he was thinking about his own mum.

  “Let’s all finish up this delightful breakfast,” I cut in. Not only did I not want Kian thinking too much about his mum right now – but we needed to get a move on. “Charlotte, max out your abilities. Then let’s grab our stuff. You and Carmen can drive. Kian and I can sort out our classes in the cars.”

  Kian nodded and we tucked into our food without further interruptions.

  Maybe it was the food or the loving glint in Mary’s eyes when she looked at Charlotte. Or maybe it was the mournful look in Kian’s eyes but as I ate, savouring the meaty, tangy taste, and the slimy mushrooms and eggs, I thought about my mother. I missed her cooking. I missed her smile. Missed her tender, loving arms. Missed the way she used to hold me, when I couldn’t sleep in the dark because of the monsters under my bed. It turned out the monsters were never under the bed. They’d always been where I could see them.

  Thinking of my mum made me think of the parent that was still alive. That one, and the cunt of a brother that lived with him.

  It was giving me an itch to scratch.

  I hadn’t been able to do anything about it back then. Too young. Too small. Too weak. That wasn’t the case now. That’s what happens in life. If you wait long enough, opportunities present themselves.

  Maybe I should check in on them. The family home was only a short detour on our way to Parliament. It wouldn’t take more than a few minutes. I could check whether the System might’ve taken care of them for me. And if it hadn’t?

  Well, I might just have to scratch that itch for good myself.