Chapter 6
“So, they’re connected to stuff. Like What? Objects?”
The courier, Philipe, gave me a pitying smile, which was the most emotion I’d gotten out of the man since the moment we’d met. I wasn’t sure if I liked the change either. The man’s default setting seemed to be a dismissive aloofness that bordered just on the polite side of patronizing, and he didn’t like to range far from that starting point.
Then again, that might have been Hidden Strength putting in work.
Hidden Strength: More easily portray yourself as less threatening in the eyes of your target. Also conveys a small bonus to hiding in plain sight when using Stealth. Efficacy is directly tied to Mind and Deception.
“Somewhat,” he said, his tone professionally neutral as he explained. “Objects are common, places more so. It depends on the nature of the jump point. The theory is a bit too complicated to get into here, though.” Philipe’s gaze drifted slightly past me to one of the ‘empty’ hallways we were in the middle of crossing. His eyebrows rose ever so slightly, his version of a warning.
I sighed. I’d already noticed what was skulking in there, but now he was going to think he’d saved the poor Level 1’s life again.
Oh, well. It was the cost of doing business, I guessed.
*BOOF*
The darkness of the hallway exploded in purple light followed by a firework show of white-hot sparks and stringy, glowing orange goo that would play havoc on my already weak night vision. Detect had clued me in to the danger that was stalking just inside the threshold, even if my eyes weren’t strong enough to pierce the darkness on their own.
My aim was pretty good, actually, which still came as a surprise even after more than ten of these types of encounters. The undead amalgamation that had been clinging to the side of the tunnel suddenly found its entire upper half a smoking ruin, bones broken and rapidly blackening as the intense heat sped up their oxidation process by multiple millions of times.
My job done, I flipped the little handheld shotgun around in my hand and started summoning more pellets to drop into the end of the barrel.
The skull/spinal cord/tentacle creature started thrashing as soon as its stunned status wore off and it registered what had happened, but by the time it was able to wriggle free from its broken body, it was already too late. The molten lead I’d used as ammunition was already cool enough to reach a semi-solid state, wrecking the monster’s escape plan before it could even be tried. The tentacles the monsters used to get around were fast and super flexible, but not particularly strong, especially when you applied upward of 700 degrees of heat to them and a bit of extra weight.
The amalgamation struggled, clacking its jaw as its body betrayed it, trying and failing to slither out of its predicament, but it was only able to manage a wiggle boarding on a pathetic writhe. They all did that.
Belle practically leaped on the chance to finish the downed monster off. She zipped over, stuck her carbine in the thing’s mouth, and spewed red death all up in the skeleton’s cranial cavity like a deranged pastry chef.
You have defeated Undying Amalgamation.
You gain 70 experience points. [300 base, +150 Near Death Experience, -240 non combat class, +30 level, -170 party split]
Experience rate 145/min.
“Woo! Twelve! Twelve dead skellies! Mwahahaha!” Belle cackled as the XP flowed in. She didn’t even seem to mind the electric shock she’d received.
“We’re still not keeping count,” Gizelle grumbled from behind me, her pulse steady, body tensed as she walked backwards to keep our rear free of enemies.
“Only because you’re losing,” Belle giggled maniacally. A tiny light flashed in the corner of her weird, wrap-around safety goggles that she and Gizelle had put on before we dug our way in here. “Don’t worry, though. I’m saving the footage for review.”
I tried to keep the envy from my expression.
It wasn’t fair at all. When they told me their fancy goggles had low light vision, I already wanted a pair. Now I was hearing that they could do other stuff? Recording? Playback? What else? I needed them in my life… like right now. I was really tired of being the guy who couldn’t see in the dark. Why’d everywhere I needed to go have to be dark?
Though I’d collapsed a hill on top of it, most of this dungeon (yes, we were calling it that now) was fairly intact and accommodating for the four of us. The halls were wide enough to walk two by two and arranged as a utilitarian grid of rectangular hallways capped by the occasional stairwell. It was dark, damp, and utterly quiet, as one might imagine an underground dungeon.
The walls were the real standout. They weren’t walls so much as a system of inlaid stone shelving with bones lined up in neat rows on every square inch of space they could fit. There must have been thousands of them… hundreds of thousands, and they weren’t organized by… person like you’d expect. We’d noticed that very early. All the bones were lined up with others of its kind, femurs with femurs, ribs with ribs, and so on. Total case of OCD combined with no respect for the dead. Notably absent, however, were skulls.
The bones themselves were all engraved with tiny script that the System helpfully translated into something disturbing, one of those cases where reading the words aloud seemed like a good way to curse yourself or summon a demon to the mortal plane (The old fashioned kind of demon. Not my kind).
“You’re poaching kills from the contract,” Gizelle complained. “It’s hardly a fair competition if he’s doing half of the work.”
“I have to be next to him to protect him! Besides, I can’t hold two guns…” Belle’s voice trailed off, and I could practically feel the temperature rising as her mind went to work. “Hey, newbie… Do you-”
“Nope. Sorry,” I said. “This one’s mine. Use your own gun.”
“Your Body score isn’t high enough anyway, love,” Gizelle added.
“I’ve put the points in,” Belle argued, though I noticed her rolling her shoulder where her first test shot of my little inventions had given her a nasty bruise. “I’m just not used to ballistic weapons is all.”
All I could do was shrug and hope she didn’t think too hard on how I handled the recoil at my level. That would lead to some awkward questions. I mean, yes, I was cheating using my prosthetic to do my heavy lifting, but I was also becoming more and more aware of how high my Body was compared to the others.
Included in ‘others’ were the Undead Amalgamations as well. The poor things had come at me in ones and twos a handful of times now, and every encounter came with this odd feeling, one I’d never really experienced before: I outclassed these guys. I outclassed them by a lot, and it was bugging me. With every fumbling grab, every slow, clumsy sword swing they threw my way, the feeling grew more intense until it was almost all I could think about. My body was making it all look easy, while my mind screamed that this wasn’t natural. There had to be something I was missing, some clever trap being set for me, some monster with dripping teeth waiting just around the corner. So far, though, said trap had not been sprung, no monster materialized.
Face it. You’ve got juiced stats. Just enjoy not being overwhelmed for once.
To distract from my feeling of impending doom, I focused on the steady drip of experience I was getting through my feed.
You have created: Melt Ammunition Pellet.
You have been awarded 5 experience points.
Experience rate 93/min.
The Automated cylinder inside of my weapon was slowly working on Shaping and Automating the next batch of melty ammo at a rate of about three pellets per minute. Both guns, mine and Gizelle’s, working full time put out about 30 xp/min while the Amalgamations would spike my rate by an additional 70 each time they died. It wasn’t much, I had to admit, but this was all more a proof of concept than a full on attempt to reach for a new Level.
The SpewerTM, as an experiment, told me two things. 1: I got experience for both the killing they did and the things they made. 2: I got experience even when another Exotic was using them. These two discoveries, though not Earth shattering, absolutely justified the time and mana I’d used to create them.
The Spewers were essentially repurposed turret barrels, shortened, widened, and reinforced, then molded until they fit in the hand easily. They weren’t exactly mechanical wonders, just big steel tubes with a spring trigger that would activate the propulsion cubes. The ammunition was similarly primitive, a handful of lead and tin pebbles I’d had wobbling around in my Spatial Storage for a while.
The real cool factor, the thing that made these things so effective as both weapons and science experiments, came from the Automated cylinder at the back of the gun. That thing was magical.
After Gizelle and I loaded our guns and the retention irises closed, said Automated cylinder went to work, slowly infusing the tiny BBs one by one with simple instructions for performing a State Change as soon as they made contact with solid matter outside the weapon. The longer a particular ‘load’ of ore pebbles spent inside the chamber, the more of them got charged, and every pellet gave me experience both when it was made and when it killed.
The magically molten ammunition was devastating stuff. A shot to the monster's spine would practically disconnect the metal parts from their extremities, shattering the old bones, and the molten lead/tin would drip onto the more delicate bits like melted wax. Then, the amalgamations found themselves unable to get free of their broken husks thanks to all the quickly solidifying metal fouling up their tentacle arms.
It was metal I wasn’t going to get back, but the price in materials was worth it, if only for the knowledge I’d gained.
A couple casting bowls and a healthy number of worker drones, and I could probably get a good way through Level 3 or 4, no sweat. What about past that? How would level 10 even be possible? 20? I’d either need enough iron to form a minor gravity well or enough enemies to do the same if I wanted to go even farther.
*BOOF*
*SCREEEEEECH*
*CRACK*
You have defeated Undying Amalgamation.
You gain 70 experience points. [300 base, +150 Near Death Experience, -240 non combat class, +30 level, -170 party split]
Experience rate 112/min.
Gizelle downed another monster that had been sneaking up behind us. The attack came shortly after Belle’s kill but not soon enough to spike my XP rate up to level 2. Disappointing in that regard, but, again, what I didn’t gain in experience I was gaining in knowledge. I was starting to see how XP spikes were going to be extremely useful in surpassing Level thresholds.
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“There,” Philipe said, pointing out into the dark after we’d exited a stairwell and into a more open area.
“What am I looking at?” I asked. Detect wasn’t giving me anything within range, so I was blind beyond about 15 feet.
“What? No darkvision?” Belle asked me. “How’ve you been getting around down here without?”
I ground my teeth together but tried not to let my irritation show.
No more, Ryan. We’re not going to be the blind guy in every party we join. Goggles. ASAP.
Belle saw right through me. “Okay. Okay. Sorry, newbie. You’re gonna burst a blood vessel or something,” she said with a grimace. Then she reached up and tapped the side of her goggles a few times until directional lamps affixed to both sides of her head winked on and bathed the area in bright light. Gizelle did the same.
The room was a big one, cathedral-like with high, vaulted ceilings and intricately carved support beams that started as singular columns near the floor then split into smaller and smaller beams until they spread all across the roof and joined with their partners on the other side.
In the very center of the room was a huge mound of dirt that was in the process of turning into a mountain. The base had already swallowed several of the stone pillars. The walls (those not buried by the landslide at least) were neatly constructed sets of rectangular alcoves where more rows of bones had been meticulously arranged by type.
“There,” Philipe repeated. This time I saw where he was pointing. One of our carved standing stones jutted out of the soil near the top of the huge mound of dirt.
“So, it’s the standing stone,” I guessed.
“More of a leaning stone now, isn’t it?” Belle japed.
Philipe shrugged, not bothering to answer either of us.
This felt like a place of worship or maybe like a court you might see in some old paintings, a big hall where the king would hold an audience with his people or make proclamations to his subjects. Except all that was here now was bones.
Another of my drones appeared in the pocket of my pants, its flash concealed partially by the fabric. Then I let the little drone slip through the hole I’d ripped in the bottom of the pocket and felt it roll down my trouser leg. I conjured a couple of semi-convincing coughs to conceal the metal thump as it landed on the floor and the tiny *tinks* of its little insect feet as it scuttled off into the dark.
That makes eight.
“I appreciate you all doing this for me,” Philipe said in a tone one might use when excusing yourself from an unwanted social occasion. From his cloak he pulled out a stack of hexagonal coins and handed them over to me, dropping the stack into my palm. They didn’t show up for Detect Iron, but they felt cool and smooth like metal.
“As promised,” the courier declared.
Belle whistled in appreciation.
I looked from Philipe to the Pathfinders and back. Was what I was just given a lot? I had no way of knowing. Philipe didn’t seem sad to part with it, but the Pathfinders seemed impressed enough to stare hungrily at the collection of coins.
“Good to meet you, Philipe,” I lied as I hefted the coins in a way I hoped came off as casual. They were surprisingly heavy, even for a dude with more than 50 Body. “Remember to tell them this place is infested with nasties when you get over there.”
“I will, though they don’t seem to be much of a problem. We should have this cleaned up in no time if our kill teams are half as competent as you three.”
It wasn’t technically a backhanded compliment, but I decided to take it as one in solidarity with my Pathfinders.
Gizelle, bless her heart, delivered the line so I didn’t have to. “This place is big. Lots of hallways and unexplored chambers. Best not to assume.”
“Of course,” Philipe replied with a slight bow. Then, with no further fanfare, he took off. The man was fast. Very fast. He moved in such a way that tricked the eye, made you wonder if you’d blinked at the wrong time… repeatedly. It was like someone had dialed up the frame rate on Philipe’s… everything… until it reached uncanny valley territory. The dirt under the courier’s feet puffed up into little clouds as he ran, scaling the giant dirt mound all the way to the top.
*BAMF*
And he was gone.
That was when the standing stone began to move. It slid, slowly, out of the soil, unearthing itself, tipping onto its side and tumbling down the mound in a series of weighty thumps until it came to rest at the bottom. As it did so, the loose dirt cascaded down and around something solid. A slight twitch from beneath the surface revealed a form, an arm resting on the side of an enormous high-backed chair with lots of carvings and golden inlays…
Oh, wow, did I call it. That’s totally a throne.
Then, the thing that was attached to the arm rose out of its seat, casting off hundreds of pounds of loose dirt and rocks like they were nothing more than an inconvenience. A black, crowned dome with bone accents and tarnished gold spikes rose from the ground followed by a helm of black metal. A set of glowing eyes winked into existence within.
The amalgamations’ trademark teapot scream echoed inside that helm, only the magnitude of it was ten times the power of the others, and it shook the walls around us enough to dislodge ancient dust from the mortar.
I let out a self effacing “Huh.”
That’s a throne, and this is a boss room. In hindsight, I should have seen this coming.
I let another drone fall to the floor.
Nine.
With a warcry that was nearly as loud as the King Amalgamation’s initial scream, Belle let off a volley of bolts with her las-carbine, which spanged off of the monster’s armor in a shower of sparks, completely ineffectual.
She turned around and shook her head. “Nope!” she shouted as she took a step back, stretching out her arm across my chest protectively. “Nope! Nope! Nope!”
“Run, Kotes,” Gizelle ordered me, grabbing my jacket collar and shoving me back into the stairwell.
I hesitated, looking back to make sure they were-
“We’re right behind you! Don’t stop!” Belle screamed.
*pock*
Another drone fell from my pant leg and rolled across the stone floor. Fortunately, the Pathfinders were too distracted to either notice or ask about it.
The glowing eyes focused, narrowed, pulsed.
A sickly green beam of light lanced into the stones to my right.
*BOOM*
The last thing I saw with my actual eyes was an explosion of dust and jagged flakes of pulverized rock. They shot into my face like shrapnel from a grenade, and I barely got a hand up in time to shield myself. It was no good, though. Blood ran into my eyes, blinding me.
You take 10 damage (piercing).
You gain status: Bleeding [2 HP/sec]
“Go! Go! Go!” Belle screamed again. I felt hands on my back, pushing, getting me back to my feet. Detect told me I was dribbling blood onto the stone steps as we climbed.
*BOOM*
More rocks pelted our backs, and I detected the faint scent of ozone.
We ran. We ran until we felt rain on our skin.
—-----------------------------
It was nighttime by the time we got to the next jump. Just as the Pathfinders had said, it was only a few clicks away, though going around all the hills and sticking to the valleys delayed us somewhat. Plus I was blind for half of it. On an intellectual level, I knew I wasn’t actually blind. The System would have told me that kind of thing, and I’d poured through the logs to make sure. However, not being able to see really freaked me out. I made myself a nervous wreck until Belle was kind enough to wash the moldy tomb dust and dried blood from my eyes with her canteen.
“There you are, newbie. It’s alright,” Belle cooed when my eyes finally opened. “You really didn’t need your eyes down there did you? Got by without ‘em just fine.”
I blinked more debris away and rubbed the grime off my face. Once I was clean-ish and calmed down enough to reply, I gave her a weak smile. “I might not always use them, but I’m pretty attached to them all the same.”
“Those really are your natural eyes then? Thought that shine came from aftermarket work,” she replied with a grin.
I wobbled my head back and forth. “Would you believe me if I said it was both?”
She tilted her head, confused, but didn’t say if she actually believed me.
Our next jump was built up a bit more than the jump to Proxis. Where our Proxis one was attached to a set of standing stones atop (until recently) a burial mound with a skeleton king inside, this place was once a castle on a hill. You could almost see the bones of the castle, the walls and the floors, now moss covered and eroded, the keep a pile of roughly carved blocks that still had a couple intact walls and a corner of a roof intact.
The jump itself was in the Middle of the yard. Grass had reclaimed it, but if I squinted I could almost see soldiers or knights doing drills or patrolling around the place. I felt that thrill in my stomach as soon as we got close enough.
“Alright. This one’s a clean jump, so it shouldn’t be as dangerous as the last,” Belle claimed. “Better let me go first, though. In case someone’s waiting for us.”
“That happen a lot?” I asked.
“No, not unless- Well-,” she said, sighing and seeming to battle with herself on whether or not to explain further.
“The best place to ambush a Chosen is right on the other side of a jump,” she said, after a moment of consideration.
“Bee!” Gizelle admonished the other Pathfinder with a scowl.
“I know! I know! It’s considered a shitty thing to do, newbie. Don’t do it, even if it’s done to you. If we make a habit of using the jumps for war, the whole human thing falls apart, get me? They’re all that connects us. If we can’t trust them, we’re on our own. No more intergalactic civilization. Total collapse.” She nodded slowly as she spoke, trying to get me to nod along with her to signal I understood. The red haired Pathfinder looked serious, like she was imparting some wisdom of which I had no way to grasp the real value.
I thought for a few heartbeats, still wondering if my new points in Mind actually made me smarter. All I came up with was: “That’s all it would take? Just like that?”
Belle exchanged a look with her fellow Pathfinder, who shook her head.
“Yeah,” Belle replied. “Just like that. The jumps aren’t for fighting, newbie.”
Belle nodded, took a deep breath, and put her carbine up to her shoulder. Then she was gone through the jump in a puff of air.
Gizelle gave it a good ten-count before she spoke. “Go ahead,” she said, gesturing toward the jump point.
“Oh, no. You go,” I insisted, trying not to look back in the direction we’d just come. “I’m not a fighter, really.”
The tall woman shook her head, setting her jewelry to tinkling. “It’s a clean jump. We’re supposed to guard you all the way to Sabium, remember?” she asked before spearing me with a suspicious stare. “No. Perhaps you don’t.”
“Uh. Sure. Yeah. I remember,” I replied.
Gizelle scoffed. “No need to pretend. I see what you are. Would have seen it even if you weren’t going to Sabium.”
“Not going so much as being sent against my will,” I grumbled under my breath.
“Good.” The Pathfinder nodded like she’d just said something profound.
I blinked. “Uh. Good? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
She lifted her punch dagger until it was pointed at my chest, where my heart would have been. “Still alive where it counts.”
“I don’t-”
Her dagger brushed against the material of my jacket as she stepped closer. “A thing like you doesn’t need help becoming a monster, Kotes,” Gizelle declared. Her expression held no malice or deceit, even if the words themselves were charged.
The icy lake that lurked in my center made itself known, its frozen surface showing fine cracks that hadn’t quite healed yet. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted them to heal, to return to that smooth, featureless solidity it used to have. Those cracks marked where I’d been, what I’d been. They were reminders.
A thing like me… I’m a botched reroll of a buggy character, lady. Nobody knows what I am. Not even me and I’m kind of sick of that fact.
What I did know, however, was that I wasn’t going to figure things out in a prison cell. It was time to put that problem in the rear view for a little while.
I reached into that part of my mind where I kept all my Volatility triggers. The drones should have been ready by now. They’d been charging for hours, tucked away somewhere near the ceilings of the tunnels back in the burial mound, preferably somewhere load bearing such as a doorway or the crest of an arch.
I gave all nine triggers a solid mental push.
It didn’t take long to feel the tremors through the thick soles of my work boots.
You have defeated Undying Amalgamation.
You gain 240 experience points. [300 base, +150 Near Death Experience, -240 non combat class, +30 level]
You have defeated Undying Amalgamation.
You gain 264 experience points. [300 base, +150 Near Death Experience, -240 non combat class, +30 level, +24 group]
You have defeated Undying Amalgamation.
You gain 274 experience points. [300 base, +150 Near Death Experience, -240 non combat class, +30 level, +34 group]
You have defeated Undying Amalgamation.
You gain 285 experience points. [300 base, +150 Near Death Experience, -240 non combat class, +30 level, +45 group]
You have defeated Undying Amalgamation.
You gain 290 experience points. [300 base, +150 Near Death Experience, -240 non combat class, +30 level, +50 group]
Experience rate 1,363/min.
Level up!
You are now level 2.
Max HP +5
Max MP +5
+1 attribute point.
Achievements awarded this level:
Ambitious: You have defeated a foe above your level. [+1 to lowest level ability]
All Natural: You have spent 80% of this level with full mana. [+1 body]
Spirit of the Warrior: You gained 51% of your experience this level from defeated foes as a non-combat class. [+3 spirit]
Level up!
You are now level 3.
Max HP +5
Max MP +5
+1 attribute point.
Achievements awarded this level:
Ambitious: You have defeated a foe above your level. [+1 to lowest level ability]
All Natural: You have spent 80% of this level with full mana. [+1 body]
Spirit of the Warrior: You gained 51% of your experience this level from defeated foes as a non-combat class. [+3 spirit]
“What was that?” Gizelle gasped, dropping into her fighting stance. “Did you fee-”
But I wasn’t there to answer.
Hey. Thanks for giving In my Defense a chance. New chapters will be posted Tuesdays and Thursdays, eventually ramping up depending on the amount of interest we can generate here.
As of right now, Patreon is about 30k words ahead of Royal Road. Additionally, patrons have the dubious honor of access to my audio tracks where I do silly voices and pretend to know what I’m doing.
