Chapter 35: The Gamble

Achievement Unlocked: The Three Spectral Bears

Once, in the woods, there were three bears. The first bear was a killer. He loved to stalk through the forest and take down unsuspecting prey. The second one, that bear loved killing too. The third one was, in fact, really very enthusiastic about murder. The three were not, you might say, exactly porridge enthusiasts.

Most hunters don’t screw with the bears. Fighting nine enemies for the experience of only three isn’t that appealing of a deal, and the bears mostly leave folks alone once they see a good, stiff defense against the various tricks the bears use.

But you killed one, they got angry, and in the brawl, you came out on top. Which means you get to know that there’s a difference between defeating a single monster and exterminating their whole family. Killing one of the bears just gives you just what was promised. A fair amount of experience for a fair day’s work. But hunting the bears to extinction is a different story.

Those bears were originally envisioned as a sort of field mini-boss for this area, something unavoidable if you wanted to leave. Together, they amount to the equivalent of a level 17 named rare, with loot and experience to match.

Physical Improvement: Slightly diminished noticability when moving over natural terrain in the dark.

Additional Rewards: Teeth of the Ghost Bear

Teeth of the Ghost Bear

Useful for various decorative, functional, and alchemic purposes, the teeth of the ghost bear straddle the fine line between the physical and the spiritual in an honestly confusing way. That ambiguity may make this a difficult material for non-masters to transform, but when used to their full potential, the ghost teeth are a highly variable material that can achieve effects that other items just can’t.

“You move softer now. That’s more useful than you’d think in these woods,” Cedarhelm said as Sean worked his way through the grove.

The rest of the day’s hunting had been mediocre at best. There had been no more named rares, and in fact no more high-leveled enemies of any kind. The bears had issued a truly enormous amount of experience points by his old standards, but judged by his level 12 needs, it had been a great deal smaller than hoped.

The first batch of stat points had come just after his victory, where Sean pumped all five into MAG for a predictable linear increase in how well the stat helped Hard Time. That brought him up to 21 points in the stat or 23 if he counted the effects of his Stat Enhancement Ring, an annoyingly un-round number that his inner video game appreciator hated.

The second batch came almost at quitting time, as he finished dispatching a huge but mostly harmless caterpillar. That particular stat allocation was cut short as the first four points of MAG slid into place, pushing the un-augmented base stat up to 25.

Skill-Related MAG Threshold Reached

Your Hard Time skill has evolved or changed as a result of your most recent stat allocations. Please inspect the skill for more details on the changes.

Sean did. The skill was mostly unchanged, except for one big difference. Now, it said that the effect would slightly increase based on the size of the object targeted. He’d have to think about how to use that. In his testing so far, the skill had treated his targets as a single solid object or entity which included weapons that his enemies were holding. So, he had been simply releasing it in the general direction of his foe, without paying attention to the size of the objects he was slowing or speeding up.

It wasn’t a disappointment, though. Reading between the lines, Sean could see that in the worst case, the improvement would act like a conditional buff without any explicit downside. And between his frequent use of the skill, his understanding of the force that drove it, and whatever other wacky things were feeding into the system, Hard Time had also ticked over to level 3, something he hadn’t had a great chance to test yet.

“I hope so. It’s been things sneaking up on me so far. It would be nice to get the drop on the beasts, for a change,” Sean said. “Actually, I had a question for you, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t. It’s not exactly as if I’m busy,” Cedarhelm hummed a bit, apparently amused at its own observation.

“Thanks. So, stat thresholds. Are those consistent? I have a skill that explicitly scales with a stat, but also changes at certain thresholds. My other skills haven’t alerted me to any threshold bonuses so far, so…”

“You don’t know if the other skills have them. I see.” Cedarhelm paused. “I wish I had a better answer for you. The system in general seems to be fond of surprises. Some skills grow with their related stat, without any sudden borders to cross. Others don’t. I have a friend of a sort who had to put over a hundred points in a stat before the system revealed a threshold had been crossed. He was ecstatic.”

“What did he get?”

“Slightly better digging skills. It’s a long story.”

Sean didn’t press for the details. He had what he needed, anyway. He had one more stat point left to assign, and had been braving the system’s mental annoyance until he could get back to the grove and ask Cedarhelm about thresholds. Now there was no more need to wait, and he slid it into SAV immediately.

Sean Lawrence
Level 12 Human (Prisoner of Time)
EXP: 457/5000

STR: 6 (8)
DEX: 26 (28)
VIT: 9 (10)
SAV: 30 (31)
MAG: 25 (27)

—

Abilities: Shankmaster LV3, Adhesives Mastery LV2, Stitch Up LV2, Hard Time LV3, Cellblock Brewmaster LV1

Achievements: E-Raticator, Uncommon De-nominator, Three Spectral Bears (New, Increased situational stealth)

There were no notifications of the changes, but Shankmaster flipping over to level three was clearly a result of the stat reaching 30. That couldn’t have been the only requirement, since Sean had seen the skill level without a direct stat increase before. But knowing that it would likely fail to level again without him keeping up on SAV was beyond valuable.

“Hm. Stronger,” Cedarhelm said. “You’ll be able to leave soon, at this rate. Time is only one of the ways this forest uses to determine when you are done.”

“How do you know that?” Sean said, before becoming slightly annoyed at the big dragon’s revelation of not relaying vital, need-to-know information earlier. “And why not tell me that other part about leaving sooner?”

“Calm down, young one. Take a breath.”

Sean did. For a moment, he had been drunk on his new strength and forgotten how big of a danger Cedarhelm posed to him. And, for what it was worth, Cedarhelm didn’t owe him a single thing.

“As to the leaving, I simply didn’t think you’d grow as fast as you did. Most won’t take the kinds of risks you have, you know.” Cedarhelm shifted gently side to side, shaking off a bit of soil as he did. “As to your strength, a dragon doesn’t live as long as I have without learning a bit about assessing opponents. Although that living streak might be coming to an end, soon.”

That brought new questions. The dragon seemed to have been here for a while, but Sean doubted it could survive the planet vanishing or exploding. Or whatever planets did when they died.

“And there’s no way out of that for you? No chance of escape?”

“I’m afraid not. I’m bound to this apocalypse, and this body will die when the planet does.”

“You don’t seem very upset about that, Cedarhelm.” Sean didn’t have a lot of friends on this world, but the dragon had proved itself as trustworthy as anything else at this point. Seeing his friend talk about its impending death like it was just another Tuesday was hard.

“Oh, it’s different for me than you. This body is bound to the planet, yes. But my soul is bound to my homeworld, despite whatever the system has done. After all this, I’ll be reborn there.”

“Just right back to normal? That’s great.”

“Well, I still have to die. That’s not nothing,” Cedarhelm huffed. “And the body I’ll have will be young, like yours. Weak. The other dragons will have to keep me safe until I’m strong, once more.”

“Still.” Sean said. “There’s something funny about them packing you off for experience for their kids, and the kids not even getting to it. It’s gonna go to waste.”

For a moment, Sean actually felt the sting of that waste. If level 20 rares were giving him close to multiple levels, he couldn’t imagine what one entire Cedarhelm, Dragon of the Forest, Named Elite Probably-Stage-Boss would do. Almost as quickly, he shook the feeling off and shuddered. It felt, of all things, like cannibalism, as if he had considered taking a bite out of a friend because he was hungry.

Cedarhelm didn’t miss it.

“Oh, you want that experience yourself, I see.”

“No, I mean…”

Cedarhelm laughed, loudly, the first time Sean had actually really heard him do it.

“It’s okay, little one. It’s understandable. Life and death are both on a tightrope balanced by experience points, for you. It would be odder if you didn’t want them. But you didn’t ask. Which counts for something. I wonder what you’d do if it were instead offered.”

So far, Sean had seen the dragon move enough to give the impression of being a living thing, but never much more than that. But suddenly Cedarhelm moved in a way that went beyond adjustment. Sean didn’t realize he was scrambling back until he found himself a few dozen feet away, standing at guard, watching as the school-bus-sized mound of dirt slowly rose into the air. As the gap between the dragon and the ground grew, Sean was able to see its massive, oak-trunk-thick legs, full of more than enough power to not only gelatinize him, but to force his juiced remains into the soil, never to be seen again.

And then, with no warning, the dragon flopped over onto its side like a big, lazy dog asking for a belly rub.

“Sean Lawrence.” The dragon’s voice rumbled out, intimidatingly deep. Sean didn’t answer. He was frozen to the spot, still not able to entirely parse the raw power of what he had seen. Flop or not, there were limits to what he could get used to on short notice, and this was one. “Sean Lawrence. Come. Don’t keep me waiting.”

Cautiously, Sean approached the dragon. When he was within a dozen or so feet of its legs, he stopped as one of the dragon’s back legs came forward and Cedarhelm hooked one of the three brown claws under a coffee-table sized, moss-covered scale.

Sean watched with morbid curiosity as the scale lifted, exposing some kind of jewel in the dragon’s torso. Some kind of green, glowing, emerald of some kind, as big as a motorcycle, shining like it was packed full of LED lights. As the shock wore off, Sean realized the gem more than some kind of hidden wealth. It was beating.

“Well? My heart is here. Would you strike it? To get what you seek?”

Sean was tempted. Of course, it was a risk. The dragon could be testing him, or just luring him in to eat him now that it had gotten whatever jollies a dragon could get from his company. But it was also a risk to go out and fight panthers, bears, and various messed up forest denizens all day. It was a risk to just walk around at his level, considering offworlders were out there taking potshots at anyone who looked vulnerable or had anything they wanted.

He had no idea what level the offworlder bastards walked around at, but even a fraction of the levels he could get from slaying a dragon would probably close whatever gap there was between them.

Everything he wanted was right in front of him, just as long as there wasn’t a trick involved.