HLP - Chapter 1

[Authors' Note: Please see the November 12 update for details on what this story is about, who wrote it, and what to expect in the future. AFK BRB]

Chapter One

“Your boyfriend is late.”

Hamma jumped at the sudden sound. She blinked away the Abilities Display she’d been studying and looked up to see Ky standing in the doorway of the dining room. “Late?” repeated Hamma.

“Yes, late,” said Ky with an irritated sigh. “Again.”

Hamma sat up straighter in her chair and checked the clock on her display.

After returning from their flight through the stars, the party had split up inside the Blood Gate. Hamma, Lylan, and Ky had taken a portal to the Shattered Sun to sync. Ruwen had stayed in the Black Pyramid with Rami to collect their reward for his Ink Lord quest, and Sift and Xavier had stayed with them.

Ruwen was supposed to talk with Blapy, receive Rami’s evolution codex, and then they were all going to return here.

Hamma and Lylan had spent most of their time since then going through all the new notifications they’d received after syncing with Uru, and then deciding how to allocate their newly earned points.

That was four hours ago.

Factoring in the time compression between this world and Blapy’s, Ruwen had already had around sixteen hours to complete his business. More than long enough.

Hamma clenched her jaw. Everything was probably fine, but... She’d just spent a year and a half of her life fetching Ruwen from where he’d gotten stranded at the edge of the universe. Uru help her, if he’d gotten himself into another life-or-death situation, she was going to lose it. Absolutely lose it.

Lylan stood up from her chair across the table and shook out her stiff limbs, her dark, shoulder-length hair swinging with the motion. “It has been a while. But how much trouble can they stumble on inside Blapy?” Lylan suddenly disappeared, then popped into existence right beside Hamma.

Hamma jerked back in surprise. “Would it kill you to walk?” she asked, heart pounding. She would never get used to Shades.

“Maybe,” said Lylan. “You never know.” She’d somehow acquired half a dozen pistachio muffins during her Blink and handed one to Hamma now. She studied the other muffins in her hands, thinking.

Lylan was lithe, petite, and lightning fast when she chose it, but standing at-ease like this, she exuded a vast stillness that Hamma admired. It was as if Lylan were casting an aura of tranquility, except it wasn’t magic, just her. Lylan looked up at Ky again. “The boys probably got the summons for the master’s trial, that’s all.”

Ky raised her eyebrows. “Shade’s first rule: Wishful thinking’s ugly twin sister is disappointment.” She lifted a hand and Lylan threw her a muffin. “If those two can’t find any trouble, they manufacture it from the abundance of their combined stupidity.”

Normally, Hamma would agree with Ky, even if she wouldn’t put it quite so harshly. But Ruwen had promised not to fly off on any adventures without discussing it first.

Still, sixteen hours was a long time. She bit her lip. “Rami is with them, though, so…”

Ky simply stared at her.

And Hamma had to admit once more that Ky was correct. Rami might have a lot more sense than Ruwen and Sift, but she rarely put her foot down when Ruwen pulled out his puppy dog eyes. And Rami’s penchant for adventure was just as strong as his, if not stronger. Hamma stood up and started gathering her things. “We’d best go check in on them.”

“First,” said Ky, “have you finalized your attribute distributions and spell choices?”

“No,” said Lylan. “But I think I’ve decided exactly how I want to do it.”

Hamma nodded. “Same here.”

“Do that first. You should be ready for anything.” Ky spun around and marched out of the room. “I’ll meet you in the Blood Gate in thirty minutes.”

Hamma sat down and opened her Profile again.

#

General

Name: Hamma Blakrock

Race: Human

Age: 19

Class: Order

Sub Class: Priest

Specialization: Warden

Level: 60

Class Rank: Expert

Deaths: 2

Deity: Goddess Uru

Experience: 206,583/1,830,000

Inventory: 50/50

Realm Count: 2

Wealth: 44 terium 258 Platinum 168 gold 159 silver 501 copper

Marks

Black Pyramid

Shattered Sun

Marks’ Details

Black Pyramid Level: 1

Black Pyramid Rank: Novice

Black Pyramid Cipher Level: 0

Black Pyramid Dungeon Level (Completed): 6

Black Pyramid Priestess Rank: Chapel Candle Bearer

Prayer Points: 0

Black Pyramid Tokens: 25

Available Points

Unassigned Ability: 40

Unassigned Spell: 60

Unassigned Attribute: 80

Pools

Health: 187/187

Mana: 1330/1330

Energy: 370/370

Attributes

Strength: 20

Stamina: 19

Dexterity: 17

Intelligence: 17

Wisdom: 133

Charisma: 19

#

Her current Attributes were odd looking because she’d leveled 40 times without distributing any points. Since her Order class added plus two to Wisdom at every level, she’d automatically gained eighty points to Wisdom, a shocking change. Those points affected her Mana, as well, since Order’s Mana pool was based on Wisdom.

Her Strength and Stamina stats had gone up a bit, too, because of her Order ability Assist which gave both those stats a ten percent boost. Lifting bodies out of temple tubs was heavy work, and she’d needed that ability back when she worked as a priestess in Deepwell.

Until level twenty—the last time she’d distributed any points—her method for choosing where to put points was simply to keep most everything proportional to how she was born. Every time she’d leveled, she’d gained plus two to Wisdom automatically and then added her remaining points one at a time to each of her other Attributes. Going down the list like that had always made point distribution easy, and it had kept her stats somewhat balanced.

But her time in Shelly had made her rethink her strategy. Hamma, Lylan, Sift, and then later, Overlord, had spent nearly every day in constant dungeon delving. It had given her a new appreciation for her class and all it had to offer, but that of the other classes, as well, and how they all fit together.

A balanced set of attributes was always a sensible course, but Hamma had begun to wonder if leaning into her strengths might not be just as sensible. She wasn’t alone after all; she was a member of a party. And balance could be found there, too, not just in the individual.

She breathed out heavily, nervous about the ground-shaking effect her new plan would have on her stats—on her very self, in fact.

She had another eighty attribute points to put wherever she liked. She took half of those and distributed them evenly among all her stats except Wisdom. Then she used the remaining half to increase the two stats she most wanted to emphasize: Stamina, because it both helped her survive in battle and increased her Health and Energy pools; and Charisma because one of the Warden abilities she now had access to, Intercession, depended on this stat and its potential seemed worth the cost. The bump to her Persuasion percentage from increased Charisma would be nice, too.

She allocated the points according to her new system to see how they looked.

Attributes

Strength: 29

Stamina: 50

Dexterity: 25

Intelligence: 25

Wisdom: 133

Charisma: 47

Hamma winced at the display. She’d thought long and hard about the benefits of this new method, but it was still shocking to look at, especially the pathetic levels in Dexterity and Strength. Without Overlord around, she’d be mince-meat in a fight.

She felt her cheeks warm as a memory from her time in the dungeon with Overlord flashed across her mind, but she shoved it away. No time for nonsense right now. She had a button to push.

Yes, her low offensive capabilities were scary, but her Wisdom points had increased her Mana pool to an astounding one-thousand-three-hundred-thirty. She had heals to spare, and then some.

She hit the button to confirm her choices and let herself exhale.

“You did it,” said Lylan, smiling from the other side of the room. “I wasn’t sure you’d go through with it.”

“How’d you know?”

“Hamma, please,” said Lylan, her eyes glazing as she returned her attention to her own display. “With my new Micro-Gesture level, your mind has become an open book.”

Hamma stuck her tongue out at Lylan, then returned to her own interface.

Hamma’s other points were easier to allocate. Shelly had allowed them to try out new spells and abilities while in her dungeon levels, so Hamma had a fair amount of certainty about her choices.

For fighting abilities, she already had Blunt Weapon which increased her proficiency with the staff; Judgment, a party aura to boost damage; and Assist to help with her Strength and Stamina stats. She increased all these abilities to level five if they weren’t there already.

On the defensive side, she already had Unshackled, which allowed her to wear leather armor; Purify to cleanse poison and crowd control effects on herself; Fortitude and Shelter which helped with resistances and armor class; Sense Harm; and finally Light Guardian. She increased the level of most of these as well.

Before leaving in Shelly, Rami had arranged for both Hamma and Lylan to get copies of books that contained all the spell and ability symbols they would need to learn new things. She pulled these out of her dimensional bag and learned the new abilities she’d chosen. She’d put bookmarks in all the relevant pages, so it went rather quickly.

Hamma took Night Shift, which would help her see in the dark and decrease sounds as she moved; Stethoscope to improve her hearing; and Communion, an area of effect Regen booster.

That was the boring stuff, though. There were three new abilities she was excited about. The first was the Healer subclass ability Triage. Now, her vision and map would color code everyone in range according to their Health status: red indicated that someone was in danger of death, yellow that they were taking damage, and green that they had recently recovered from injury and were now out of danger. Triage also increased her Perception by twenty-five percent.

Second was the Warden ability Intercession. This ability was the reason she’d thrown a whopping twenty points into Charisma. With Intercession, all her healing spells would get a boost based on her Charisma stat so long as she murmured a prayer as she cast. That kind of advantage more than justified the points that would otherwise have been used for little more than vanity.

Last, she took the Warden ability Divine Mirror. Now, she could absorb any spell cast at her once per day—even those from another class—and then recast it as she chose. There was a one minute time limit to recast even after she’d added five points, but in the heat of battle, that was an eternity.

Next, she turned to her Mana spells. Upgrading all her healing spells to level five was her priority. She had four types—minor, major, instant, and channeled. Maxing those increased their power, of course, but it also raised the Mana cost of each. A fair trade, she supposed.

But she had an advantage many healers didn’t—when adventuring in Blapy, Hamma had acquired a soulbound bracelet which cut the cost of all true healing spells in half. Combined with her new ability, Intercession, and Hamma’s worth as a healer was far above average for her level.

Her other Mana spells were another story. Apparently, Uru had decided that the Order class ought to focus on healing, so she’d not only given them a practical monopoly on that power but also made doing anything else rather expensive.

Still, a few of the spells had come in handy inside Shelly, so she learned them now. Fear Ward had a chance to paralyze aggressors, Faint slowed the falls of people or objects, and Holy Fire created a ring of fire around her that exploded outwards. She almost didn’t take the last one because it was so expensive—not only in terms of Mana, but because every time she used it, she had to listen to terrible puns from Lylan about it “looked like a blast.”

The Healer subclass Mana spells she took were also annoyingly expensive, but useful. Whisper gave her the power to send short, one-way telepathic messages. Contain would create a shield around the target and cancel Mana spells before they could harm her party. And Operation allowed Hamma to retrieve low weight, close range items like surgical tools and debris lodged in wounds.

She didn’t bother with the Warden Mana spells, as they all cost five points to activate, and she didn’t have enough points for that.

Hamma smiled as the new spells appeared in her interface. She used two-hundred Mana and cast Whisper.

Whatcha doing? she whispered to Lylan.

Lylan jerked to the side and nearly fell off her chair. They’d learned in Shelly that Whisper didn’t add anything to an ascended person’s interface like the Fighter ability Chat did, so there was no warning a message might be incoming. Lylan absolutely hated this spell.

Hamma laughed. It served Lylan right for all the times she’d Blinked just to annoy Hamma.

Hamma cast it again. I’m nearly done. You?

Lylan shuttered at the message, then glared at Hamma for a moment before smiling. In a flash, she vanished, and then Ruwen appeared directly to Hamma’s left. “I’ve upgraded my Mimic and Impersonate abilities,” Lylan said in Ruwen’s voice. “How do you like me now, baby?” She leaned in, making kissing noises.

“Har, har,” said Hamma, shoving her away.

“I’ve been finished for a while,” said Lylan, turning back into herself. “What’s taking you so long?”

“Just being careful,” said Hamma. “I finished with all my Mana spells, but I think I’m just going to get one Energy spell, then leave the last thirteen points in reserve.”

“Great,” said Lylan, standing up and dusting herself off. “So put five points in Sacred Vessel, and let’s go.”

“I’m getting tired of the Micro-Gesture mind reading.”

“Be less predictable, then.”

Hamma rolled her eyes and put five points exactly where Lylan had predicted. Sacred Vessel would allow Hamma to create an orb of Energy and then cast any spell inside it. It could be carried, thrown, or even given away to another person. She was very curious to see what would happen if Ruwen put one into his void band. Not that he would need it now that he could cast practically anything he wanted. Cheater.

“Okay, all done,” said Hamma, standing as well. “I’m not going to gear up just to visit Blapy.” She wore only her white Order clothing and a few rings she never took off because they held sentimental value. “What about you?”

Lylan looked at Hamma like she was crazy. “I don’t need gear. My body is a weapon.”

Hamma rolled her eyes.

“Let’s go find those nerds,” said Lylan.