Chapter 33: Cellblock Brewmaster

“Well, you look much better than this morning, at least.” Cedarhelm creaked as he shook back and forth a little, entering what Sean was starting to think of as his active mode, where he went from looking like a big lump of dirt to an alive-looking big lump of dirt. “Happier. And you’ve gained some levels, unless I miss my mark.”

“Something like that.” Sean really wanted to like Cedarhelm. He really did. But it was fundamentally hard to have an even-footing relationship with a big, scary dirt dragon who could crush him at any time. He had to be constantly on guard of annoying the big guy, regardless of how reasonable and safe the dragon might seem.

“Good. And I’m glad to see someone has already instructed you to keep the details of your growth to yourself.”

Sean sat down at a distance that he hoped was within what Cedarhelm thought of as polite conversation range, while not being so close that every small shift in the dragon’s reclining position would startle him half to death.

“I’ve had some good advice on that,” Sean said. “It does make things hard in a different way. I don’t know as much as some, and it’s hard to learn what I need to know without asking.”

Sean was currently sitting on two levels worth of points, courtesy of a full day’s worth of hunting. After the sloths, he had stumbled on a ghost bear sleeping and found, to his delight, that they couldn’t manifest the ghosts in the daytime. Between those, a few miscellaneous low-level animals he had taken out easily and the fact that the average beast in the forest gave out far, far more experience than he expected, he was on the fast lane for leveling. He was pretty sure he should spend his points all on MAG, but pretty sure was a far cry from completely sure and left the gaping possibility that he was about to make a huge mistake.

“Would you mind if I gave you some advice?” Cedarhelm shifted once more. Sean tried hard not to flinch. “No information requested or wanted, but just some advice that was given to me once.”

Sean nodded. “Absolutely. Please do.”

The hill hummed a bit, as if thinking as it put together its thoughts about whatever it was about to say.

“It is a mistake to think of the system as a living thing, but it has… something like a personality, you might say. And the face it shows through the Apocalypse System, even more so. It doesn’t show bias for individuals, no matter how good or bad they might be, but it does move in certain patterns and seems to have certain preferences in how it communicates. It expresses things in odd ways. You’ve likely seen this.”

Sean nodded. The system’s communications to him were bizarre, varying between fairly dry filler text and messages that were almost personalized. But there was a bent towards trying to be funny and amusing that couldn’t be ignored.

“There are as many theories on what the system really is as there are leaves in a forest, but the few that have made sense to me all revolve around one idea, and that the system loves stories. More than anything, its basic purpose is to hear stories, and to help make sure that more are told.”

The dragon shifted, sending a torrent of dirt towards the ground.

“I am an earth dragon. And the tale of us has always been narrow. To roam the forests and any place that life grows, protecting it. For an earth dragon, a dragon of the forest, strength comes from adhering to and amplifying that principle in small ways over the centuries. In echoing such a thing out over time, we build a story of a steadfast people.”

The demonstration over, Cedarhelm fell still once more, settling back down to being an unusual feature of the forest rather than a terrifying moving avalanche of power.

“But in leaving my home and seeing more, I’ve begun to think that every creature has the opportunity to maintain their path, or to break from it. They have the possibility to weave an extraordinary story that exists on the edge of what the system believes is possible for that being. Some are encouraged to it more than others. I do not know your story, nor do I ask you to tell it, but…”

The hill hummed again, with a certain hesitant politeness.

“I believe anyone as weak as you who comes back to this grove with multiple levels wrested from stronger foes has a story in them. Which means you likely have a choice. I believe the system will not keep you from following a mundane story. But you might also have an extraordinary one, waiting for you to take a risk so it can unfold.”

Cedarhelm settled further into the forest floor, apparently done with his speech. Sean considered what he had said for a moment and brought the conversation in a different direction.

“So, if I wanted to have a more interesting story, what does that mean for my stats? It can’t just be, for instance, only investing in STR. I’d die, right?”

“Correct, at least from what I’ve seen of your class. But each class has at least one element that makes it special. Or, rather, that makes it interesting. The system will certainly allow you to ignore that to whatever extent you wish, to make safe choices and allocate your stats to guaranteed things. But I suspect that, based on what little I know of you, your story is not one of safety and steadfastness as mine is.”

Sean considered what Cedarhelm had said for a while, then a while longer. SAV would clearly always be a heavy part of his build because it did so many things. It helped him build and use weapons, and was the crux for most of his offensive power.

DEX was different. For him, DEX had always been what he thought of as his safety stat, the one that kept him safe. It allowed him to run from danger in a way that Hard Time’s immediate and short-lived effect didn’t. Every point in DEX was a point in survivability, in making sure he could live through his own story.

But does it make my story more interesting? Sean thought. Not really. If anything, it takes me away from it.

Closing his eyes, he willed his point assignment, aware as he did that he was making the choice that might just drive him towards his own death.

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

STR: 6 (8)
DEX: 26 (28)
VIT: 9 (10)
SAV: 29 (30)
MAG: 16 (18)

—

Abilities: Shankmaster LV2, Adhesives Mastery LV2, Stitch Up LV2, Hard Time LV2
Achievements: E-Raticator, Right of Refuse-al, Uncommon De-nominator

Once the points were in, Sean exhaled slow and hard. Like that midair moment after someone fully commits to jumping into a pool, he couldn’t undo his past. But it was okay. Before he came to the future, his life was almost assured to be a series of minimally fulfilling jobs like Insurance Adjuster just to pay the bills. An almost assured long life of boring, unfulfilled living stretched out in front of him. If this one was short and exciting, was that really a worse use of his time?

As if it were waiting for him to come to terms with things, the Apocalypse System waited until after he had finished that thought to hit him with a series of notifications.

Threshold Reached: Understanding Time

Your thinking on time has evolved in multiple ways. While each step has a noticeable effect on the performance of some of your skills, you have reached a notable threshold in your understanding of the force, flow, and purpose of time.

Such thresholds represent significant evolutions in your interactions with your elemental alignment and grant additional efficacy to skills in that element beyond what the increase in understanding normally implies.

New Skill Granted! (Cellblock Brewmaster)

A Cellblock Brewmaster uses unconventional ingredients, containers, and methods to transform both mundane and bizarre ingredients into edible or useful concoctions. The results of any given brew are unpredictable, and there is no recipe book that can guide you on what is perhaps the least formal path of alchemy.

Cellblock Brewmaster scales with your MAG stat in terms of the efficacy of the products it outputs as well as with your overall affinity with time when determining fermentation time. While the use of a toilet as a brewing vessel is not mandatory, the skill will reject all conventional fermentation chambers and bottling techniques and works more efficiently with ingredients outside the norm.

Enhanced Description Granted: Hard Time

Your understanding of the Hard Time class skill has granted you additional information about its purpose and use.

Hard Time allows objects and beings to either resist or welcome the flow of time. The skill has a variable cooldown that increases with each consecutive charge of Hard Time used, with a limit on the total charges possible. In simple terms, recharging from having only used one charge is much, much quicker than recharging from a fully empty tank.

Your MAG stat both shortens cooldown times related to this skill and increases the magnitude at which an object or creature is affected by it. At higher MAG thresholds, other parameters of the skill might evolve, improve, or otherwise change for the better.

“Holy shit.”

Cedarhelm shifted slightly as Sean cursed in joy, raising the side of his body Sean thought of as his head slightly in curiosity.

“Good things?”

“Yes, I think so. Thank you for your advice, I think it helped.”

“You are most welcome. Thank you for taking it seriously. Not all do,” Lowering his head back to the ground, Cedarhelm hummed contentedly. “You do feel more… balanced, I think, than you did when we first met. Like there was some sort of discord around you that is now resolved.”

“My stats are a little better balanced out now, probably.”

“That’s not what I meant, little one,” the dragon said, settling into the forest a bit more. “It’s time for me to rest, I’m afraid. Feel free to sleep wherever you like, but keep any fires contained, if you would be so kind.”

—

After a meal of revenge-seasoned bear meat and lentils, Sean passed out hard, and slept through the night without interruption before waking up just before dawn where the world was still dark. True to the dragon’s general behavior so far, there was no evidence that Cedarhelm had moved the entire night, and Sean woke up fully alive, just as he had always preferred.

Rather than bother Cedarhelm, Sean began to pack up his things quietly. Not that there was a lot to pack. As he began to strap his bedroll to his pack, he stopped for a moment, considering something. He had more or less filled the bag with various pelts the day before, including a massive amount of sloth-skin that he could ditch if he found anything that seemed better.

But if he was going hunting, keeping everything on him was a bit excessive. Stopping outside of the border of Cedarhelm’s grove, Sean shoved the pelts into various trash bags, made sure none were ripping, and left them in a conveniently high crook of a tree. Even though his Strength score did an admirable job of compensating for his increasingly large amount of loot, a bit less weight would probably help him move a bit better in combat.

He had walked away from the camp for a few minutes before something started bothering him, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He had both his weapons, at least, and a quick reach towards his back to feel for lumps in his pack confirmed he still had his water. It took a few more minutes to realize what it was. Cedarhelm’s clearing was usually pretty quiet except for birds.

The forest at large, however, was not the same way. There were sounds of birds, insects, and various relatively mundane, non-monstrous animals moving through it. Right now, there was none of that. It was quiet, and he had no idea why, until a small sprinkle of light from the break of day spilled through the canopy of the trees.

Stalking him, without the slightest bit of sound, were two ghastly bears. Or six, if he counted the ghost versions of them that the light was apparently not yet strong enough to prevent.