Ghosts of the Battlefield

Instantly, Tom clutched his head as a wave of agony spread from his eyes to the back of his head. To Tom, it felt like he was being electrified, the pain building as wave after wave assaulted him. He fell to his knees, gritting his teeth as the waves built to a crescendo before it suddenly stopped.

The pain vanished just as quickly as it had started. Tom wobbled back to his feet, his legs unsteady and shaking.

Just as he stood back up, a surge of boxes appeared across his vision, peppering his view with snippets of blue boxes and black text. A new form of agony threatened to overtake him as the boxes overwhelmed him. He had no sooner wished that the boxes would go away when, to his surprise, they did.

The headache that had started to build began to recede as he started to take stock of what had just happened.

He opened his status screen again.

Status

Name: Thomas Moore

Race: Human (G)

Class: None

Subclass: None

Level: 1 (0/400)

Attributes

Strength: 4

Agility: 6

Endurance: 5

Vitality: 5

Intelligence: 9

Wisdom: 8

Skills

Evaluate 1 (15/200)

Intuition 1 (0/25)

Titles

Selected of Lemures

Affiliation

None

The skills Evaluate and Intuition had both appeared in his status menu, just like he thought might happen.

When he had read the skill description for Evaluate and saw that the word intuition had been highlighted, he had thought that the skills must be connected somehow. He’d had a few ideas for what it might mean, but the simplest idea had been that Intuition must have been a prerequisite skill for obtaining Evaluation, so the reason for it costing 2 skill points wasn’t because it was a more powerful skill, but because it required obtaining another skill entirely.

He felt that Multi-Tasking would also work the same way, requiring the skill Processing to obtain and use and therefore there would be other skills that would use the same method to unlock.

Just as he had that feeling, he watched as the counter on Intuition increased by 1.

Intuition 1 (0/25) > Intuition 1 (1/25)

Seeing this, Tom pulled up the details for Intuition.

Skill: Intuition 1 (1/25)

Attribute – Wisdom

Rarity - Common

Gut feelings can be sharper than logic, listen to your inner voice. Enhances your ability to understand or know something without needing to think or reason. Each level increases the knowledge or conviction gained from a situation.

Seeing the changes to the skill detail window confirmed for Tom the feeling he’d had before about Multi-Tasking and Processing must have come from the Intuition skill; it also confirmed that the skills could gain experience with use. looking at Evaluate showed that he was already at 15 out of 200 experience points for the skill which, he guessed, had come from the onslaught of windows he had been barraged with when he had first unlocked the skill.

He wasn’t sure what would happen at the next skill level or what the max level was for the skill, but the very idea that he could just improve the skill from use alone made him excited to try it out.

He looked down at his pants, the same ones he had been wearing the whole time since he’d found himself in this ordeal. Triggering Evaluate was easy enough; just thinking about it caused the same blue window from before to appear in his vision.

Black Pants

A pair of black pants designed for men.

Quality: Basic

Bonuses: None

Condition: 43%

The description was underwhelming, but Tom wasn’t sure what he should have been expecting. These were the cheapest pair of work pants he had been able to find at the store after all, they weren't a pair of legendary pants made of silk or whatever passed for a high-quality material under the system. They sure wouldn’t last for too much longer at this rate.

He checked the counter for Evaluate, but it had remained the same. He looked around, trying the skill on some other nearby items, his shoes, shirt, the floor, and anything that he could see in front of him. The window appeared, and the text displayed some basic information, but the counter still refused to increase.

Looking around, he focused on Mark, who still stood some distance away, still practicing with his axe and the shield he’d taken from Tom. Activating Evaluate caused the window to appear again.

Mark King

Gender: Male

Race: Human (G)

Level: 1

Class: None

Again, the window didn’t display any earth-shattering information, but this time, the counter for Evaluate had increased by 1 to 16/200. Tom wondered why the skill had increased from this use but not from any of the others. He realised that Mark hadn’t been in view when the skill had first activated.

Maybe it only works the first time I use it on something or someone, he thought to himself.

He felt the activation of Intuition this time as information and understanding worked themselves into his mind. He felt that his interpretation was mostly on point, but something else was missing or not entirely correct with how he thought the skill worked.

Looking again at his experience counter for Intuition he saw that it had increased again by 1 to 2/25. This confirmed to Tom that Intuition worked as the description of the skill indicated, that knowledge and understanding would be given to him to further his own understanding of the topic.

I wonder what the limits of this skill could be, Tom thought to himself. Do I have to be actively involved in thinking about the topic, or will it just come to me when the situation happens? Do I have to come to some conclusion first? The first two increases in the skill experience only happened once I thought I had come to some understanding of the skill. I’m going to need to start taking notes about this and test it some more.

For Tom, even getting a hint of understanding of how his skills worked was a good start, but he’d have to experiment with Evaluate to find out what was missing from his own understanding. He had no idea what it might be, but he did think it was weird that when he used the skill on something, it showed such little detail about it that it was barely worth it. He was intrigued by the skills and how they worked and let his inner curiosity take over as he inspected everything within the light of the torch.

Windows popped up on weapons, clothing, the skeleton’s bones, and, of course, both Dave and Adam. The information was the same for most items, simply informing him of what they were, their quality level, and if they had any bonuses, of which there were none. Not a single item had any bonuses to them at all, not even the weapons. He was able to find out the last names of Adam and Dave at least, but other than being rank G humans and that Dave's full name was David, not Dave, not much else about them was shown.

David Lynch

Gender: Male

Race: Human (G)

Level: 1

Class: None

Adam Fletcher

Gender: Male

Race: Human (G)

Level: 1

Class: None

He’d been able to increase the counter of Evaluate to 25/200 by using it on everything and everyone he could see, but he hadn’t been able to pick up any other details from Intuition yet.

That’s more to test, He thought. The skill description says that will get more accurate. Does that mean more information? Clearer information? Will it be more reliable? Too many questions, not enough details yet.

He checked the dungeon information to see that they had 21 Hours and 21 Minutes remaining to complete the dungeon. Looking around at the others, he called out to them as he started to walk over to where he’d dropped his sword, which conveniently was near the torch. He’d already used Evaluate on it in his frenzy of scanning things earlier, but he checked it again as he walked.

Handheld Flame Torch

A torch made of wood, pitch, sulfur, and lime.

Quality: Basic

Bonuses: None

Condition: 12%

The others came together as he picked up his sword and stuck it through his belt before walking over to pick up the torch.

“This torch won’t last too much longer, and we still have a lot of the dungeon to cover. Has everyone finished with their skills and stuff?” he asked. The others all nodded.

“We still have a couple of torches left, right? How much longer do you think that one’ll burn for?” Adam asked Tom.

Tom relayed to the others what information Evaluate had given him of the Torch. Doing some quick math, he arrived at the conclusion that each torch burned for about 3 hours, given the percentage left on its condition, and he said as much to the others.

“We have four more torches that should be fairly fresh” Tom said, turning to Mark who had them shoved in deep pockets in his pants leg. Mark fetched them from his pockets and held them out to Tom, who evaluated them revealing that they were at 95%, 86%, 98% and 100%.

“Some of them had been burning when we found them, so that makes sense,” Tom said. “Assuming that some of the torches started to burn when we entered the dungeon, that means that any that are still burning will run out in about 20 minutes or so. These torches will last us another 11 and a bit hours if we only use one at a time.”

“Will that be enough?” Mark asked.

“How long is a piece of string?” Tom shrugged in response.

“What?” said Dave, looking confused. “The hell does string have to do with anything?”

“It's an idiom,” Tom said before quickly adding more information as he saw Dave about to erupt. “It’s a common saying that means there is no exact answer to the question. It could take us 2 hours, or it could take us 10 hours. We don’t know anything about this place, where it goes, how big it is, or what we’ll face.”

Dave grumbled in response to his answer. Adam gestured to the other side of the cave they stood in.

“Well, seeing as you’re the one with the knowledge skills, you can choose where we go next,” he said. “That skill of yours should be helpful with finding our way out of here.”

Tom nodded and led the group toward the centre of the cave. Roughly 50 meters in diameter, the cave was wide enough so that standing in the middle, the light from the torch would just barely reach the other side. Tom stood in the middle and looked around at the walls.

Above the tunnel they had just come from was a circle with a dot in the middle. Turning in a circle, he could see another tunnel at a dot with two circles and the third had a dot and three circles.

Oh! A simple organisational code like a counting system or a suggested order, maybe? It depends if this place was set up to just be a dungeon or if it had another purpose before this. Hmmm, not enough information to tell yet, but since Intuition hasn’t fired again, that’s also telling me something unless I’m completely wrong about how it works that, in which case I’m screwed.

As he looked around, he saw an indent on the wall between the second and third tunnels. It stood out to him because, until now, the tunnel walls had been very uniform. Other than the sconces that had held the torches they had collected on the way, they had been blank and nearly completely smooth to the touch. Tom led the group over.

Inspecting the indent, they found a rectangular imprint in the wall, roughly 1 meter wide and 2 meters high, roughly the same shape and size as the door leading into the dungeon from the odd, almost waiting room they had been portalled into at the start.

I wonder if that guy is watching us bumble about down here; I hope you're getting your money’s worth, he thought to himself.

In the center of the indent were two deep cutouts that pointed into the rockface. Both were roughly the size of Tom’s hand; one, he could tell by looking into the hole with the light of the torch, was a pyramid shape with 4 faces leading to a point inside the rock. The other was in the shape of a cone, a singular curved face that tapered to a point.

Keys maybe? Or something to unlock a way through? I’m guessing we have to go down each tunnel, kill a bunch of things, and retrieve each of whatever fits into these slots, and that will open the way forward, Tom postulated to himself.

A moment later, his thoughts were confirmed by a now familiar rush. Intuition confirmed his hypothesis by providing him with the knowledge that this was fairly common in dungeons. It would require the participants to go and seek out the objectives, therefore face combat and struggle to overcome the obstacles.

I think I’m getting the hang of this now. It looks like Intuition can provide either confirmation if something is correct or at least partially correct or provide me with information to give more context and understanding, especially if I’m not likely to know already, but at the same time, it won’t give me everything I need to know but will hint at what I’m missing. Annoying, but better than nothing, I guess.

Tom narrated all this to the group as he was inspecting the wall and making his findings public. Adam was interested in what else Intuition could do, suggesting that based on the wording, it could, based on Tom’s own knowledge and skill, be used to probe people for information or test for lies. It might also have other effects, like possibly acting like a detector of sorts. Dave was looking nervous again and was starting to shake.

Probably either the adrenaline is wearing off from the fight before, or he’s about to go into withdrawal. Actually, how does that work? If we died and got transported here, what happened to the drugs in his system? Do they stay there or were they cured when we got healed, as the guy said he did?

Mark looked bored. He’d started swinging his axe around again, almost like he was shadow-fighting someone.

He reviewed the dungeon information once more.

Trial Dungeon of Lemures Level 1

Time Remaining – 21 Hours, 3 Minutes

Enemies Remaining – 49

Dungeon Requirements:

– Reach the end of the dungeon alive 0/1

– Kill Enemies 1/11 (Stage 2)

They had just over 21 hours to kill 49 enemies in a dungeon they had only just entered, of which their first fight had very nearly been the end of at least 2 of their group.

That bodes well for the future, Tom thought to himself.

They’d have to go down both tunnels at some point, Tom knew, but which one first? \

He tapped his pockets, looking for his wallet or a coin to flip, but found nothing. To make things simple, he decided on numerical order, and after lighting another torch before the old one ran out, the group made their way down the tunnel marked with two circles around the centre dot, which Tom had decided was the number 2.

It was time to pick a fight with a dungeon.