System Lost: My Own Best Friend

Allison and Maggie are quiet while I carefully butcher the dead lizard. In hindsight, it probably would have been smarter to remove the guts before draining it, but hopefully that won't cause too many problems. Things seem to decay slower than I expect in this world. It took a very long time for the meat we'd scavenged to start going sour, and while the pile of viscera back at the labyrinth is foul, it doesn't actually smell rotten.

I've only done this twice before, and even with the help of my attributes it's a long and exhausting process. The dull knife isn't really helping, either. At the very least, I manage to avoid spilling the offal all over the place this time.

The silence gives me some time to put together a plan. Allison needs direction and I can't let Magdalena seize the initiative uncontested. It's not enough for her to just train something that integrates well into our communal class, she needs a dedicated role that she can put her focus into. With Maggie taking over the pursuit of magic, Allie is going to feel lost for something to do. At best, she'll get bored again, and at worst she'll get depressed about feeling like a burden. If that happens, I'm sure Maggie will be more than happy to swoop in and give her a job grinding classes to merge with Maggie's.

I still can't believe she tried to suggest focusing all our attributes into a single-person class. She never outright said it, but it was obvious that she intended herself to be the bearer of that class. For all that Allison worries about being a burden, she's not the one actively trying to advance herself at our expense.

I let out a weary sigh. No sense getting worked up over it now. Maggie is here to stay, and there's nothing I can do about it.

Unfortunately, while I know just what to suggest for Allison's new role, it means that I'm going to have to convince Maggie to commit the most time to improving our shared class. Given how selfish she's been so far, that's going to be an uphill battle.

I finish my work, and manage to get the best yield so far. Altogether, there's several long, slightly stringy strips of lean lizard meat—mostly from the legs, tail, and back, with a few smaller cuts from the belly that probably weren't too contaminated by the offal. I hope. On top of that, I also managed to salvage the skin, mostly clean and at least partially intact.

I'm hoping to try using it as a makeshift sack to carry the meat back to the labyrinth.

With that finished, I drag most of it away from the remains and take a break at the entrance of the cave, far away from the stinking guts. I take one of the nicer cuts of meat and bite into it—much to Allison's apparent dismay.

"Wait, Vi—we can cook now!" she protests.

I shrug. "I'm too tired and hungry for that right now," I say. "Besides, it's not too bad when it's fresh. A bit like sushi if I don't think about it too hard."

"I bet that comes easily to you," Maggie quips.

I sigh. I guess that's the end of my quiet moment. It was nice while it lasted, at least.

"I think I've got a route planned for our class development," I say, moving on. "I'm stuck with [Defender] for now, until I've mastered it, and I've got something urgent in mind for Allison."

"Oh?" Allie inquires enthusiastically. "What's up?"

"I think I've changed my mind about [Medic]," I explain.

[Tier 0 Medic]*

An aspiring healer, applying first aid and treating minor injuries.

Skill - First Aid: Increased Awareness and Ego when treating recent injuries.

Attribute bonus: Ego.

Advancement: Treat injuries.

"Really?" she asks. "Isn't that the one that we decided would be too hard to level up? We'd have to get hurt in order to have any injuries to practice on."

I look down at our body, covered in scrapes, cuts, bruises, and the general wear of underground travel without any equipment. I would do heinous things for a pair of shoes right now.

"I don't think it's going to be a problem," I say. "It was naive of me to think we'd avoid injury entirely, and if we don't have a way to deal with it, then our injuries will just keep on accumulating until we eventually succumb to them."

"Okay..." she says, hesitating. "But you're the one who remembers the first-aid training or whatever, not me."

"Like I said, I'm stuck with [Defender] until I master it," I remind her. "And I think you're better suited for a supporting role like this. You did a great job with our leg before."

"That's all well and good," Maggie interrupts, "but doesn't that leave me with the short end of the stick? Are you going to make me develop our main class all by myself?"

"Temporarily, yes," I say. "But you're the one who wants to maximize our attributes as a top priority, and you said yourself that you don't actually care about the skills."

"Well, yeah, but I mean—"

"Or were you thinking that you'd just get to focus on your own personal class while Allie and I slaved away improving the communal one for you?"

"Violet!" Allie reprimands me. "That's not fair!"

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

It's perfectly fair, and Maggie's silence is proof enough that I hit the nail on the head.

"Well?" I press. "Are you going to cooperate with our survival, or become an obstacle to it?"

"Fine!" Maggie huffs. "I was gonna take a Will class anyway."

"One that will benefit the entire group?"

"Yes! Geez!"

"And you'll combine it with [Survivalist]?" I insist.

"Yeah, I can figure that part out on my own, thank you," she grumbles. "You can get off my ass about it now."

Honestly, that was easier than expected, and I almost feel bad for anticipating more of a fight. I remind myself that she'd happily exploit us for her own gain if we let her, though. It's my job to keep us safe, even from ourselves if need be. I'm glad Allison is willing to see the best in Maggie, because I doubt I ever will.

"Good," I say with a nod. "With that out of the way, I'll focus on taking a Power-based class next. [Thrower], if nothing better presents itself. For Allie, I recommend either [Hiker] or [Orator]."

"Oh man, I would love that Sure Feet skill," Allie sighs happily. "But why [Orator]? Don't we already have enough Ego?"

"You're good with people, and when we finally find our way out of these caves we'll need you to be our face," I explain. "Plus, I doubt we've seen the last disagreement between Maggie and I. We may need you to step in and mediate for us."

"Hold on, back up!" Maggie interrupts again. "Does that mean I'm also stuck with leveling up something to fuse with the damn candle class?"

"I thought you'd want that," I reply. "It's the class we used to discover magic, after all. Maybe you'll get something magic related."

"Oh, fuck you, Vi!" she shouts. "That's not what this is, and you know it."

Allison gasps. "Maggie! There's no need for that kind of language."

"Shut up, prep-school, adults are talking," Maggie snaps. "I'm not just an extra class slot for you to play with, Violet! You can't sideline me and pretend I don't exist."

"I'm not. [Candle Enthusiast] is the closest thing we have to a magic class, and if that's going to be your focus, then it stands to reason that it should also be your responsibility."

"As if!" she retorts. "You've hated me from the second I showed up. You'd get rid of me in a second if you could, but you can't so you figured out the next best thing!"

"Guys..." Allison interjects nervously. "Let's just calm down for a second, okay?"

"I said shut the fuck up!" I scream, my voice echoing loudly through the empty tunnels beyond the cave.

I feel a little woozy all of a sudden and have to lean on one hand to support myself. Everything's quiet now. What just happened? Allison and Violet aren't talking anymore and I really feel like I'm alone for once.

Wait...

[Magdalena: Tier 1 Human]

[Class Slot 1: Tier 1 [Unified Wanderers]** - Level 3/10

[Class Slot 2: Tier 0 [Candle Enthusiast]* - Level 10/10

[Attributes]

Power: 2

Resilience: 18

Awareness: 12

Ego: 18

Will: 2

[Skills]

Parallel Wills (2)

The Beaten Path (Retraced Steps)

Candle Seeker

Oh hell yeah! I'm in front again! And without the other two nagging me? I'm sure this isn't going to last, but I may as well take advantage while I can.

I quickly finish off the half-eaten bit of lizard meat—wow, it really does kinda go down like sushi—and saunter over to what's left of the carcass. I pull out the other eye, since it might come in handy, and scoop the stomach out of the pile of guts while I'm at it.

While I'm tempted to just toss them onto the skin with the meat, I'd never hear the end of it if I contaminated our food supply, so I just stuff them into some cloak pockets instead.

With that finished, I make good on my promise to that backstabbing bitch and take the stupid [Organizer] class. A gross sense of vertigo overwhelms me briefly as my Awareness plummets down to a pitiful two points, which is still not enough to prevent me from feeling some otherworldly tendrils rooting around in my head.

Soon the moment passes, and after a brief struggle against the impulse to switch to [Pyromaniac] just to spite Violet, I instead dump all of our candles onto the floor.

"Time to see if this works," I mumble to myself as I focus on the set of mostly identical light sources.

From left to right, most magical to least magical. I start moving my hands, just placing each candle in whichever spot feels right. It only takes a minute or so, and once I'm done I feel a weird sense of certainty that they are organized correctly. I take the time to confirm it with my burgeoning new magical senses, then nod to myself—that's a much faster way to do it.

I stuff them back into the cloak, taking special note of where the most and least magical candles are for later, and just grabbing one arbitrarily from the middle for lighting.

Next up, the meat! In order of best to worst tasting. Looks like those belly bits are the most choice cuts, while what might be part of a leg is the worst. Good to know. How about most to least toxic? Nope, not getting anything. I guess none of them are toxic? Damn, this skill rules. I might have been wrong about them not mattering.

On a whim, I shove all the discarded lizard bits off into a corner. I get my hands pretty dirty in the process, but there's no longer dead lizard scattered all across the cave.

[Level up!]

Unified Wanderers is now level 4.

Organizer is now level 1.

+2 Resilience.

+2 Ego.

+1 Will.

Easy peasy. Though I can't say I was expecting the Wanderers level—isn't that supposed to be for when we work together or something? Whatever, stats are stats—I'm not complaining.

There's nothing left to do in this dingy little cave, so I do my best to gather up the lizard skin in the shape of a loose sack full of meat. I'm not confident in my ability to tie it off, so I just give it a little spin to seal the top and sling it over my shoulder.

"Oof!" I grunt as I lift it up.

Even with all the bones, guts, and—let's be honest—a pretty significant portion of the meat gone, the man-sized lizard is still pretty damn heavy. Ah well, Violet's the one who said I didn't need any Power. Let her deal with whatever muscle soreness this leads to.

Sack of meat in hand, I venture out into the tunnel and look both ways. Hmm, back the way we came, or out into the unknown? On one hand, we need to restock on water, update our maps, and get some more rest. On the other hand—I really want to know what's at the end of this huge tunnel.

It's hardly even a choice, really. I take the right path and start exploring further down the tunnel.

"I wonder how far I'll get before they wake up," I muse as my footsteps echo down the otherwise silent path.