NOVEL NEXT Chapter 47: Weight
2 Weeks Ago
Mercy struggled to get the bar up. She breathed deeply and pushed up as hard as she could. Including the weight of the bar, she was trying to bench press 100 pounds.
Madeline was spotting her. “Come on girl, you got this.”
The bar wobbled a bit before Mercy was able to fully extend her arms. “There!” she said with a triumphant smile. And then immediately let the bar drop.
Madeline caught the bar before it came down on Mercy's windpipe. “Right, but safety first. Don't celebrate until you rack the weights.”
Mercy's arms flopped to her sides. “That was intense.”
“That was one rep.”
“It was a lot for me! Besides, why is this important for me anyways? I just use magic and costume powers.”
Madeline rolled her eyes. “Strength training in the modern era is less so you can swing an axe, and more so your mind and muscles are used to strain.”
“My mind? What's that got to do with pumping iron?”
Madeline began to rack the weights, knowing that this session was already over. “You have to be able to push through the pain. When you're training you're pushing through physical pain, but when emotional pain comes at you, you'll be able to push through that as well.”
“Like in a dungeon?” Mercy wiped sweat from her hands with a towel. “Not sure I'm going to be having emotional trauma unless Jun breaks up with me.”
Madeline is quiet for a moment before breaking it to Mercy harshly. “Someone you know will die. When it happens you have to be able to push through the pain. All the physically stressful training that law enforcement and the military does, it's not so you are super fit while you're flying a drone or sniping from 1000 feet away. It's so you know what pain is, and you can fight through it.”
The smile slid from Mercy's face. “Have you lost someone in the... Uh... Field?”
“Yeah, my first partner.” Madeline sat down on the bench. “I wasn't ready for it. So afterwards I took training seriously.” Madeline stared down at her rough hands and thick forearms. “So I could be tougher next time. So I could push through.”
Mercy sat down next to Madeline and put her soft hand around the other woman's rough hand.
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“I'll be okay,” Mercy says. She looks up at me with her big, dark eyes. Eyes usually sparkling with light and joy. Now eyes filled with sadness. Sadness and... Determination.
I look at the group. They're sitting, snacking and taking drinks from various bottles and cans. They had needed a break anyway.
There hasn't been much talk since Franco died. That was normal, I think. Each of us dealing with it on our own. I... Don't know how to feel. On the one hand, he died in a way that I wasn't responsible for. I wasn't there. On the other hand, I wasn't there. I could have been if I'd managed my Ki better in the fight before. If I had been stronger, had more Charisma or more Ki points. I could have been down here. I might have stopped his death. Or at least helped him pass in less pain.
Aside from that, I didn't really know the guy. I wouldn't call him a friend. An employee? A squad mate? I don't know. I'm not particularly good at dealing with loss. Or any emotion, really. Maybe I should upgrade my Wisdom. Does that govern emotional intelligence? I think I read that somewhere.
I stand up. Others start to stand as well, but I wave them back down. “I can take care of the rest of this floor. You guys rest up. Next floor is the 10th, so there's probably another horrible boss fight awaiting us.”
I begin to walk away when I feel a tug on my sleeve. “Come back soon,” I hear Mercy say in a soft voice. I nod and walk to the thoroughly wrecked hall where we fought the radioactive guys.
I look at the half-exploded area. Quins swept it for coins and items already. He also said the next group of foes was pretty far away, down the hall and around where the path takes a right turn. I walk slowly forward and send a wakizashi ahead, casting Ping every few seconds. I find my targets.
I can see them on my radar, about 250 feet away. I dash over to the end of the hall and take a peek. There's a dozen more radioactive men sitting down at desks, doing... Paperwork? It's a large open air office area with dozens of desks, only some of which are occupied by these creatures. I take in the odd scene, humanoids in thick, tan hazmat suits sitting quietly and scribbling on paper. I quietly get closer and try to see what they're doing.
One gets up to fill a coffee cup. He goes to the coffee pot and pours piping hot joe into his “World's Best Dad” mug. He flips his visor open and green radioactive glow shines out. He pours some of the coffee into the visor. It makes a sizzling sound, and the green glow brightens a bit.
Dungeons are fucking weird.
I have 90 Arcana Points. That's 7.5 AP per bad guy until I'm empty. I can do that. I hover 7 wakizashis in front of me and begin my assault. The coffee drinker is standing up and closest to me so he gets it first. Seven cutting streams of water lance his face. He drops to the ground and all the others turn to face me. I take that second to pull my blades into position above the head of another foe and literally rain death down on him. The others stand and all of them open their visors to begin charging their radiation beams. My blades each take a different target, firing short bursts of water to stagger or distract the monsters. It doesn't work, and I run back around the corner. Green rays crisscross the spot I was just standing in. The carpet and walls are set ablaze with the raw heat and energy.
If I stay behind cover, it doesn't do much and I can't see to shoot. So fuck it, as soon as the beams stop I head back to the office space. I run at top speed and pass the desks in an instant to find myself at the far wall of the room. My blades fly and split into two groups, two groups of three wakizashis each. Each group encircles a hazmat hoodlum and then water cuts it to death. With fewer focused on each monster it takes two shots per blade. 62 AP and 8 monsters left.
Two guys try to rush me but I'm way too quick for them. I run to the back left corner of the room while my Water Cutter slices up two more foes. Three hazmat visors open and the monsters charge their beams at me. I run into the center of the room, leaping on top of one desk and leaping to another, then another desk. As I fly through the room my magic works it's magic and the two goons who tried to chase me fall to the ground, heads punctured by very hard water.
The monsters track my movements and I timed it right. Their beams fire off as I'm in their midst. I leap high as the three second charge time lapses and their beams fire into each other. Blazing heat engulfs the room. Desks and papers catch fire or are incinerated. The radioactive guys who are in another's blast are knocked a dozen feet back, toppling over. As I land from my jump there's just one still standing. He gets seven hydro beams to the face. The rest scramble to get up, but their clumsy bodies have difficulty doing so. I shoot another full of holes. 34 AP and four monsters left. I got this. I turn around in place and watch as Water Cutter rips apart each of the remaining baddies, jets dropping on their heads from my wakizashis above them. I've got 6 AP and no one left but me.
My Intelligence is 100, which means I get back 100 AP per hour, or 1.66 per minute. If I need to kill about 25 more monsters, and each one takes 7 seconds of water cutter to finish off. No, I have 116% proficiency with Water Cutter now, granting me 16% extra pressure. So let's say 6 streams per kill, 6 AP per kill. I'll need... 150 AP to use Water cutter to finish things off. Except I'll be getting more and more proficiency as I go. I do some math and with proficiency and pressure scaling up with each 1 AP use of the spell, I'll need 99 AP to clear out the entire floor. A little over an hour.
That's not fast enough. I need another type of attack, one that won't use AP and won't cut or pierce the hazmat suits. Punching? Punching could work. I look around at the wrecked office and spy a few blunt objects I could use with telekinesis.
I swing open the double doors out of the office and walk down a short hall to find a cafeteria to my right. I peer through the window in the door. There are six radioactive guys at a table. They have food in front of them but it looks like it's made of plastic. They make the motions of eating but the sandwiches just push against their visors and then get put back down on their paper plates.
I'm going to try something... Stupid. Yeah, I'll admit that this is probably stupid. One of my inventory slots has a red cooler in it. I bring it out and open it up. Inside is a pile of Jimmy John's sandwiches. I grab six, and enact telekinesis on them. I crack open the door to the cafeteria. I float the sandwiches over to the radioactive guys. I put the sandwiches on their plates, on top of the plastic food.
The first guy to notice lifts the sandwich and tries to shove it through his visor. It's at this point I realize that I should have unwrapped the sandwiches. The wrapped sub gets mushed into the guy's visor. Another guy unwraps the sandwich first, then mashes it into his visor. Well done, sir, well done. A third guy unwraps his sandwich, then opens the visor and then puts it inside the suit. I hear a sizzle and smell toasted sandwich. The bulge of the sandwich slides down the inside of the guy's suit. Then smoke comes out of his visor and I can see the orange glow of flames mixed with his green radiation glow. Then his suit starts on fire from the inside out, shooting green lasers across the room as it opens up. The lasers hit his buddies who are knocked out of their blue plastic chairs. That guy continues to burn but is still sitting calmly at the table, and eventually he slumps over dead... I think.
So, what I think happened, is that the sandwich started on fire, and whatever these things are actually made of is highly flammable. Or, perhaps the suits can contain the heat of the radioactive men, but not the additional heat of a burning sandwich. I'm not really sure. I'll call a Mythbuster and find out later.
That's when the others get up, find their sandwiches, unwrap them and eat them the same way. Over the next few minutes I see the remaining five monsters start on fire and explode because of eating sandwiches.
I repeat, dungeons are fucking weird.
And Franco is dead. Shit.
I find my next cluster of goons through the cafeteria. They're spread out down a long, winding hall. There are doors on both sides of the hall, and when I open them I find each one has a single-person bathroom behind it. And they're all identical. I ignore that oddity and approach the first of 10 radioactive guys. He turns to me and a stapler beans him in the head, followed by a rotary telephone to the gut. This first knocks him back, then doubles him over. My telekinesis slams down a coffee cup over his head, which just shatters. Then I bring out the biggest blunt objects I found, two large steel typewriters, each painted teal. I bring them around to his sides and then clap them together, crushing the thing's head. It collapses.
Having figured out that yes, a large, 30 pound typewriter is a better weapon than a plastic stapler, I begin to walk calmly down the hall, clapping each hazmat suit wearing creature as I go. It only takes a single typewriter clap to take one down, and things go smoothly.
I reach the end of the hall and find another set of double doors. These look fancier than previous doors. They look like they're solid wood. There's a secretary desk outside the doors, suggesting that it's some kind of big wig's office. I check the papers on the desk and there are various notes for visitors in May of 1969. The notes are mostly in French, so that's as much as I can gather. I grab the papers and stow them for someone else, probably Gwen L'Ronge, to translate. I also take a minute to rummage through the desk and find lipstick, some chewing gum, 15 francs, empty folders and what looks like a Faberge egg.
Mistress's Valuable Egg. Like that of most mistresses, if this gets fertilized, it's a huge problem for everyone. Do NOT let this hatch or open unless you want to be cursed for oh, around 18 years or so. And your significant other will leave you.
What the crappity crap is this crap? Whatever, I shove it back in the desk. I don't want any part of that nonsense.
I check my stats before I open the door. I've gained one level, which goes into Scoundrel/Archmage. With the free points I bump my Strength up to 79 and my Arcana goes to 100. I get another ability choice.
Notice! You have reached 100 Arcana and are offered the following choice: Expanded Pool or Refined Use.
Expanded Pool - Each point of Arcana now increases your maximum AP by 1.5.
Refined Use - Your Arcana Point spell costs are halved.
To the untrained eye, a plus 50% bonus and a -50% bonus might look identical. But halving the costs of spells doubles the number of spells I can use. So obviously I take Refined Use.
I also finally take a look at the spells I can choose from for the Archmage class. It's extensive, and I get to keep half of them.
Torch Flame... Basic... 1 AP/10 minutes
Burning Palm... Master... 30 AP
Electro Charge... Basic... 1 AP/second
Grounding... Basic... 1 AP/5 seconds
Electric Cage... Expert... 15 AP/10 seconds
Lightning Lance... Master... 50 AP
Sand Slash... Basic... 2 AP
Sand Cloak... Basic... 3 AP/minute
Rock Hide... Expert... 15 AP/minute
Sand Storm... Master... 30 AP/10 seconds
Air Bullet... Basic... 1 AP
Blow Out... Basic... 1 AP
Air Rifle... Expert... 15 AP
Bubble Spray... Basic... 3 AP
Needle Rain... Master... 30 AP
Frost Skin... Basic... 1 AP/minute
Chill Guard... Basic... 1 AP/hour
Snow Blind... Expert... 20 AP
Light Mote... Basic... 1 AP
Solar Slam... Master... 35 AP
Night Shield... Basic... 3 AP/minute
Shadow Slash... Expert... 12 AP
Rot Touch... Basic... 1 AP
Rancid Breath... Basic... 1 AP
Iron Stomach... Basic... 1 AP/hour
Noxious Dart... Master... 40 AP
Telepathy... Basic 1 AP/minute
Mental Wall... Expert... 15 AP/10 minutes
I get 14 of these. Okay, I'm taking all six Master rank spells, plus Telepathy. Those are easy picks. Then... Electric Cage and Snow Blind for some status effect spells. Sand Cloak, Frost Skin and Night Shield for defense, then a couple cheap offensive spells with Air Bullet and Sand Slash.
Overall my spell list has really grown since the days of trying to cast Dark Mote. It's also shocking to think that was only 2 months ago.
I ponder the changes the system has brought to Earth as I enter the final room and utterly demolish the last set of radioactive guys with half price spells. I get one last level for my trouble and snag another Scoundrel/Archmage combo. With Archmage, I take the four most interesting spells out of a list of all Basic spells.
Electro Charge... Basic... 1 AP/second
Blow Out... Basic... 1 AP
Bubble Spray... Basic... 3 AP
Rot Touch... Basic... 1 AP
Though with Scoundrel I get something really, really good.
Iron Cloak
While wearing a cloak or coat and no armor, the damage resistance from Toughness is increased by 50% of your current Agility.
Passive
Proficiency: 0%
This stacks with the other two no-armor techniques I already have from my Monk levels.
Unarmored Armor
Your Toughness is increased by 10% when not wearing armor. You can still wear clothes, we're not promoting nudists. FYI, abilities like this only increase their proficiency for each minute you're in battle.
Passive
Proficiency: 87%
Ki Body Armor
While not wearing armor the damage resistance from Toughness is increased by 50% of your current Ki Points. Thus incentivizing you to never use KP on all the fancy abilities you have.
Passive
Proficiency: 87%
So with a base Toughness of 30, 105 Agility and 70 Ki, I'm looking at 120 effective Toughness? Damn, I'm a friggin tank now! Nice!
Franco is dead.
I sigh deeply, double check to see that this last room contains an elevator down to the 10th floor, and then I head back to my team.
The room smells like tacos. “Jose did you bring tacos?” I ask with hope in my voice. I find him with two coolers open, one with drinks and the other contains homemade tacos and tamales. I recognize the way the paper towels are folded around each. “Ohh, those are Abuela Amarillo tacos!” Jose's mom makes THE BEST Mexican food.
Jose smiles and hands me a taco and a Dr. Pepper. “Thought we needed something good in our stomachs. Floor clear?”
I just nod as I bite into pastor, onions and cilantro on a corn tortilla. It's absolutely delicious. I still have no idea what she does to pork to make it so flipping good.
I look around at my team. I can tell they needed the break, and probably the tacos. They don't look cheerful, but they don't look like they're about to quit and go home either.
We talk and rest a bit more as my AP and KP recover and our food digests. The nuclear power plant control room we're in has some desks and office chairs so we're all comfortable for the first time in hours.
After a while, checking her watch, Alicia says, “we need to go. Still five more floors. And they're going to be increasingly tough.”
“She's right.” I turn to Mercy and Quins. “There's still time to back out.”
Mercy shakes her head. “I've actually been putting every free point into Toughness and Constitution, because my costumes handle mobility and attacks so well. I'm ready. I can handle more than you think I can.”
Quins smiles at that. “Right, and until I prove that I'm better than your other sniper, I'm in.” Jose gives a scoff at that.
We head to the elevator, scavenging a few coins along the way. Alicia takes photos of the probably meaningless paperwork. I find a random donut with pink icing.
Springfield Original Donut. It's a donut. There's no other meaning to it. This is just a pop culture reference inside a dungeon trying to kill you. Hopefully reading this description distracted you enough to mean your death. Hey. Sooooo you're not dead I guess. Fine. Up yours, Flanders.
I eat it. It's just okay.
Notice! You ate a mysterious food item from the dungeon. It could have been poisoned, but it wasn't. You gain +1 Luck and -1 Wisdom.
“Goddammit!” I shout as my Wisdom falls back to 7.
Everyone turns with weapons drawn, expecting trouble. “It's fine, calm down. Just the Dracosys being a dick to me, personally.”
Mercy pats me on the shoulder and we move to the elevator down. We slide inside. Innocuous elevator synth is piped in through a speaker in the ceiling. There are only two buttons. Quins hits the down button and we begin our descent.
Seconds pass by. Then a whole minute. Then another, and then 5 minutes have passed. We quickly decide to check and make sure we're actually moving. Jose pops open the roof hatch and yes, we seem to be moving at a normal elevator speed. We're just going... deep.
Finally after almost 10 minutes the elevator stops and opens up to... Holy shit, I recognize this. We all do. Inside a massive cave is a full size replica of the Statue Of Liberty.
Over a loud speaker comes a nasaly voice. “Greetings, fools! I, the mad genius known only as THE PROFESSIONAL have planted five nuclear bombs inside of your precious symbol of freedom! You have just five minutes to find and disarm them all or poof! Your beloved copper lady will be blown sky high! Hahaha hahaha hah! Well? Time's ticking, get to it!”
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Conversation Log 0034
Skull Master Flash: So I made something. Something good.
Fortuna: Get on with it I don't have much time.
Skull Master Flash: I made an enchanted belt.
Spear Saint: Ooooooh!
Hyperion: Effects?
Skull Master Flash: Improved strength. It's super weird watching someone instantly grow muscles when they put it on, and then watching them deflate when they take it off.
Fortuna: Side effects?
Spear Saint: I need your data.
Skull Master Flash: Putting it on and off once seems fine, taking it off and putting it back on multiple times results in the effects being slower, but they get to 100% effectiveness eventually.
Saturn's 2nd Ring: Permanently slower?
Skull Master Flash: Seems to reset every 24 hours. Was this your design, Saturn?
Saturn's 2nd Ring: There's nothing in the code about item cooldown.
Spear Saint: The RNA restructure roll out hasn't finished yet. Did you get infected, Skull?
Skull Master Flash: Hasn't hit my country bad yet. Damn government taking things seriously for once.
Hyperion: Everyone wants to prevent a second COVID, even if our virus doesn't kill.
Saturn's 2nd Ring: Spear Saint, what happens to those who don't get infected?
Spear Saint: Over time their RNA will degrade due to the Etheric radiation. They'll look like they have a novel autoimmune disease and die over the next few years.
Fortuna: Estimated death rates?
Spear Saint: Of those uninfected by my virus? 100% over 5 years. Of those infected? 0%.
Hyperion: *Our* virus. All of us bear the responsibility for Ether and SIVID-1.