NOVEL NEXT 18 - I Want to do My Best, Too
The Roadrunners didn't say anything to us the whole time we walked out of the portal. And they didn't say anything as they loaded the unconscious, bleeding woman into the back of their car and drove away. I didn't mind.
After all, we'd won. We'd killed the boss. We'd taken the loot. And they were leaving with nothing except an injured teammate and even more injured pride. All three of us were filthy, and all I wanted to do was take a shower, check out what we'd gotten, and go over my status. I did that last one on the studio apartment floor while Jeff and I waited for Ellen to finish cleaning up and change into her not-quite-as-dirty workout clothes. She'd won the rock-paper-scissors game between her and Jeff, after all.
I'd decided to pass. It was my place, and I could clean up after they left.
User: Kade Noelstra
E-Rank
Stamina: 47/170, Mana: 28/200 (Stamina +10)
Skills:
1. Stormsteel Core (E-07 to E-08, Unique, Merged)
2. Dodge (E-09)
3. Light Blade Mastery (E-08)
4. Parry (E-05 to E-07)
5. Footwork (E-05 to E-06)
6. Vital Lunge (E-04 to E-06, Active)
7. Riposte (E-03 to E-05)
My growth was excellent—Stormsteel Core was getting close to the D-Rank breakthrough. I'd need to get ready for that; while fighting could trigger a push from skill level ten to the next rank's level one, it was more consistent to do it through focused study of the skill itself. Through learning something about it. Those revelations could be powerful, but learning about them in combat wasn't a safe move at all.
Equally importantly, Dodge hadn't leveled. I needed it to stay below D-Rank until I finished this skill merge and had my next skills all lined up. Then I could just…stop dodging for a while. It'd suck, but taking hits was a part of three out of the next five skills.
That was gonna be fun.
Ellen appeared, her hair a tangled mess and wearing the same loose shirt and shorts. She pointed at Jeff with her unburnt arm. "Next."
"You sure the two of you don't want to get those checked out?" Jeff asked. "They look bad."
"Yep. We're fine. Go. Clean up. I want to see what we got," Ellen said, lying through her teeth.
I shrugged as he looked at me. He shrugged back, then vanished into the bathroom.
Ellen waited until the door shut and the water was running, then lowered her voice. "Thanks again. You're right; I was panicking. It happens…a lot more than I wish it did."
"No problem. It's normal when things go wrong."
"Do they go wrong a lot for you?"
I flashed back. Back to a year ago. To the house Jessie and I had grown up in. To the portal break across the street. To Dad, and his stand at the door against the centipedes, and me hiding in the bathroom with my sister and waiting for something—anything—to save us, to save Dad, to…
To my promise to him as I ran up the stairs. "Take care of Jessie," he'd said, and I thought he'd meant until the massive bugs with dozens of legs too many were gone. I hadn't realized that he'd known he was going to die. I hadn't thought he could die.
Jeff cleared his throat. He'd only done a quick rinse. "All done. Ready for the loot?"
"Yes," I said quietly to Ellen. Then, a little louder, "Yeah, let's see what we got!"
Jeff emptied his pack on the floor, and we sat, cross-legged, to divide everything up.
He got the E-Rank boss's core. That was his price for helping out, and it was one I'd gladly pay. The money he got from selling it to the GC would go a long way toward taking care of any equipment he had that couldn't self-repair—which, at D-Rank, was most of it. Until B, any 'quality of life' enchantments were rare.
He also took the Stonewall Boots. No one wanted them, and a piece of E-Rank equipment on the open market was worth a couple thousand dollars. They might be good for Javier, and I gave his name to Jeff before Ellen could make her pick.
She waffled for a bit. "The lesser Mana potion would be solid. I got so much out of the one you gave me that I'm tempted."
"I wouldn't," I said. "They're super-valuable, but right now, we want to look at things that'll help us survive D-Rank dungeons consistently."
"Right, the two of you are all-in on merges, huh?" Jeff asked. "I'd think about something more defensive, then. You do plenty of damage with those spells, but both times you got hit, it knocked you out of the fight."
"That's because both times I got hit, they were grappling attacks!" Ellen rolled her eyes. "All of my spells take two hands or a focus, and we don't have any of those here."
"So buy one," I suggested. "Take something no one here wants, then trade it for what you want or sell it, then buy a basic E-Rank focus. There's nothing that says we have to stick with what's here except that you might have to pay a little extra to get exactly what you need, and that's acceptable to get what you need."
She stared at the pile, then grabbed the mana potion anyway.
"Ellen, what did I just say?" I said.
Jeff rolled his eyes. "You said they're super-valuable, then told her to pick the most valuable thing. What'd you think would happen?"
"Are you selling?" she asked, "or do you have a massive pile of money hidden away with no strings attached?"
"No to both." I reached for my choice. It was a vest; a layer of boiled, hardened leather on the outside, a thin layer of chain under that, and a thick set of overlapping cloth pads against my skin. I pulled the wreckage of my hoodie and T-shirt off. The burns across my hip and stomach were an angry red, and my toned body felt woefully inadequate next to Jeff's bulky frame and the borrowed shirt he'd filled almost to bursting.
But I strapped on the gray-black brigantine anyway. It felt awkward for a moment, then, as I tightened some straps and loosened others, it started to act more like a second skin. It only covered my upper body; the shoulder-straps wouldn't stop a blow, and the padding stopped just below my ribs. But I could move in it. It wouldn't last forever, but hopefully, it'd make it long enough to save my life a couple of times.
Stoneworm Leather Breastplate
E-Rank
Shock Absorption
"I need it for my next merged skill," I said, "and I'm tired of not having any defenses. It'll fit under a jacket and over a shirt.
"Great," Jeff said. He gathered up the rest. "I'll get these sold and get your cuts back to you. Ellen, do you mind dropping me off at the nearest GC center?"
"Sure. Make sure you buckle up, though. Deimos is fast," Ellen said. Was Deimos her car? I knew a few other people who named their vehicles, so maybe. She headed for the door, then looked over her shoulder and smiled. Her white-blonde hair hung from her head in a tangled mop. "Thanks for the invite, Kade. It was fun."
"It was. We'll have to do it again sometime."
Then the door clicked shut, and I had nothing to do but clean up and wait for Jessie to get home.
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"Hey, Kade, come here!" Jessie said.
"What?" I asked. I'd just sat down at the counter, and she was across the room, on her laptop. I didn't want to move.
I'd been training alone at the closest GC center or Peoria's main one for the last couple of days. Ellen had texted a few times about her egg, and Jeff had swung by with my earnings; I'd made almost two thousand dollars from that E-Rank dungeon. After factoring in the costs of a shirt, hoodie, and half a gallon of burn cream for my stomach, it had been worth it. Of course, it had been worth it for the skill levels alone.
Training alone meant it was harder to push, but paradoxically, I also found myself pushing harder. I'd get stuck in my thoughts and memories, and even though I hadn't thought about Dad in a couple of weeks, something about Ellen's question had opened those doors again. The best way to deal with them was to push harder, fight harder, and make myself so tired I couldn't think about them. I'd been pushing my body to the limit, and I didn't want to move.
But Jessie was having one of her bad days. One of the days when her joints swelled up and she could barely move. It was in her knees and hips today; to get to me, she'd have to stand up, get into her chair, and push herself over, and that wasn't realistic.
"Just…just come here, okay?"
I sighed, pushed my sore body off the stool, and walked the half-dozen steps to sit down next to Jessie.
She might not have been much in the physical world, but my half-sister had inherited Mom's gift for the digital one. It took me a few seconds to even start understanding what she was showing me, and even then, I wasn't sure. It looked like a sign-up screen, and the Governing Council's logo was plastered all over it. "Did you…?"
"I enrolled in the GC's rep training program! Just have to get a signature and hit yes, and I'll be on my way to a desk rep job."
"And how's that going to work?" I asked, trying not to be annoyed. "You're supposed to be in school, and you can't be a GC rep until you graduate. They want that diploma, not just training in their programs."
"No. They require a diploma, but…there's a workaround. If you can prove you're in the top ten percent of your class, on track to graduate, and you can get a guardian to sign off on it, they'll let you take the training at fourteen. Phoenix is just as desperate for reps as it is for delvers, and I already know their programs, but I can't tell them that."
Understanding hit me. If it hadn't been for that last requirement, I wouldn't have known until Jessie needed help getting to her training. "You need that guardian signature, though. And how do you know their programs?" I asked.
She smiled. Her curly, light brown hair didn't match mine at all; she'd gotten it from my step-dad. I groaned. That thought was going to take a few hundred sit-ups to work through. Then she winked. "Trade secret."
"Did you…no, you didn't," I said.
"I did."
"Jessie! Using a loophole to get into their training is one thing, but you cracked their computers and stole their programs?" I rubbed my eyes. It wouldn't help anything to get mad. Getting mad wouldn't solve this. But I couldn't help it. "That was dumb. If I were Dad, I'd ground you for a month. Maybe two."
"Good thing you're not," Jessie said, grinning. I didn't return the look, and she got serious. "Kade, you're out there every day, trying to get stronger and get us out of here. I know you promised Dad you'd take care of me, and you're doing your best. But…I'm not cheap, am I?"
I sighed. "That doesn't matter. I'm close to my second skill merge, then I'll start ranking up more quickly. I'm already starting to make better money now that I can pull my weight in teams that aren't Jeff's, and it's only a matter of time—"
"You don't have to lie," Jessie said. She lifted a swollen, red elbow. "I know what this costs to treat. I looked the meds up. So, here's my plan: I'm going to take the training course, get a weekend job at one of the GC centers, and start pitching in. I can deal with the people—rep work is all scripted, anyway."
"No," I said.
"Come on!" Jessie set her laptop aside and rolled to face me. Tears ran down her cheeks—tears of frustration as much as of pain. "You're pulling your weight. You're doing your best. I want to do my best, too. And it'll let me talk to people—my classmates all suck except for Stephen. Just…just let me try!"
I cracked first.
Jessie had done her research, and I had no way to stop her.
And I wasn't sure I wanted to. E-Rank money wasn't huge, and of the two thousand dollars I'd just earned, almost a thousand of it was going to Jessie's after-school therapy and the anti-swelling shots she got twice a week. It'd be easier if we could pay for cures instead of treatments, but no one knew what was wrong with her. Even the Spark of Life didn't.
And Jessie was right. It was unfair of me to want her to sit at home and do nothing when she had the skills to do the job, the passion to do it well, and the determination to spend weeks maneuvering both herself and me into a position where I wouldn't have a leg to stand on if I said no.
She'd won this round, that smart cookie.
So, after a few seconds, I nodded, reached over to the laptop's touchpad, and signed my digital name. Then I smiled. "Fine, miss fifteen-year-old GC rep-in-training. If you can convince them you're serious, I'll buy you the suit."
"They provide those. And the tablets." Jessie reached out and waved her arm. I helped her sit up, then let her hug me for a while, ignoring the wet spot on my shoulder. "Thanks."
When she finally pulled away, I forced a second smile. "Tonight, you and I are ordering in to celebrate your new job."
After stuffing ourselves on sweet and sour chicken, I lay on the floor and stared up at the ceiling.
I couldn't sleep. Jessie's quiet breathing from the bed filled the studio apartment, but I was used to that. And I'd accepted that she wanted to help.
No. This had nothing to do with Jessie and everything to do with the egg.
It was growing.
Eggs weren't supposed to grow—at least, not that I knew of. My understanding of farming was pretty limited, but the size of a chicken egg was the size of a chicken egg, more or less. Some species had bigger ones, and some had smaller, but after they were hatched, I thought they were pretty much the size they needed to be.
But my stormcloud gray egg was definitely growing. It had pushed the towels I'd wrapped it in to the side and tipped over as its weight unbalanced it. I'd propped it up against some cleaning supplies, but that wouldn't last for long.
It was…unsettling.
I'd texted Ellen about it, but hadn't heard back from her yet. If she'd seen the same thing, she wasn't giving me any hints about it. Or she was asleep.
Either way, I wasn't getting any sleep tonight.
I pulled out my old journal and flipped to the page I'd started writing down my build.
The first skill had been labeled 'Stormbreak Merge.' It was crossed out, with 'Stormsteel Core' scribbled next to it. That was finished, and the second skill was locked in. It had to be Grassi's Greater Swordplay. Nothing else would work with the skills I had.
But after that…I had options.
My first thought was to work toward Flowing Stream Stance. It'd take Dodge, Light Armor Mastery, Lightning Reflexes, Recovery, and Flow State. Once I'd merged it, though, I'd be a lot tougher, and could start fighting less like a pure striker and more like a striker/fighter hybrid. The ultimate goal was to combine striker, fighter, and mage into a jack of all trades, but if I took any real hits right now, I didn't have the skills to do more than ignore them with Stamina.
Then, after that, I wanted to move into Stormwind School, combining Ariette's Grimoire, Spellsword Affinity, Focus Casting, and Overcharge. That would take care of the mage part of the spellblade build, and it'd let me use Mana to act the part of a striker and Stamina to focus on my fighting.
Then, finally, I'd be able to work on my familiar merge. I'd settled on Spatial Sheathe, Dimensional Anchor, and Familiar Bond. It was the safest, cleanest way to handle a monstrous familiar.
The problem was the egg's growth. Did it mean it was close to hatching? And if it was, could I afford to compromise Flowing Stream Stance or Stormwind School to merge the bond skill early?
I had a lot of questions, and only one answer: I had to get stronger, faster. And I needed to do something to speed up the number of D-Rank—or higher—cores I had access to.
Kade: Jeff, what's the status on your team?
Jeff: Jesus, it's late. Don't you ever sleep?
Kade: I need to know.
Kade: It's important.
Jeff: It's always important. Okay. So, right now, I've got tank, mage, and one sustained damage dealer covered. I found a fighter who's about to break into D-Rank. There's a chance of a support, but I'm not confident. She's more of a crowd-controller than you were, and she's hyper-specialized into it. I guess the Coyotes are sniffing around, trying to get her. That leaves a slot open, assuming she says yes.
Kade: No healer?
Jeff: Not unless Sophia says yes before you do.
That made sense. Healers were the rarest role. Most people awakened with fighting Unique skills, because most people needed to fight for their lives to survive the portal break that awakened them. And then there was the retirement rate; healers quit delving, on average, seven years earlier than any other role, and they tended to stop around C-Rank. It was a hard role—maybe the hardest.
Kade: When will you be up and running?
Jeff: Next week? The week after? It depends on whether we can fill out to six. I'm working on it.
Kade: Okay. Thanks.
I leaned back onto my thin blanket and groaned. That wouldn't be fast enough. I had to start pushing harder. With Jessie taking the training, she'd be busy for a few hours on the weekends, and she could take care of herself for a night if she had to. There wasn't anything holding me back.
The next time I got a message from the Governing Council about a D-Rank portal nearby, I was taking it, as long as I had a shot at the core.