Rexus ~ Chapter 18!

The options were very straightforward, but Jaxon read through them very carefully to ensure that there was no tricky word play at work.

Ten free skill points

Five free characteristic points

10,000 experience points

One skill useful to your class (Minimum rarity: Rare)

One weapon designed for your class (Minimum rarity: Rare)

One piece of armor designed for your class (Minimum rarity: Rare)

One accessory designed for your class (Minimum rarity: Rare)

Jaxon was currently in a black space, a void where nothing was around him or visible except for the screen. As interesting as the options were, he was still rather disappointed. Truly, he had hoped that he would find what he needed in order to specialize. Instead, he was looking at a near-standard quest reward. Ah, well. At least he had tried. Jaxon reached out and tapped the skill option.

Are you sure that you want to choose a skill as your reward? You will not be able to change your mind. Yes / No

“Yes, I am sure. Thank you, game, I appreciate you trying to look out for me." Jaxon smiled as the screen in front of him vanished. A spot of color appeared on the horizon, instantly noticeable against the black void. He did not squint; he did not stare. Jaxon knew that if it were coming for him, whatever it was would appear shortly.

Within moments, a massive wheel broken into thousands of tiny segments appeared in front of him. As far as he could see, whether it was up, down, left, or right, the wheel filled his view. The noise of a massive gong being struck filled the area, and a single section of the wheel splintered off. That section shrunk and compressed, turning from a pie slice into its own wheel. That zoomed closer to Jaxon, and all he could see as an identifier was the word ‘Monk’.

This tiny wheel began to spin, moving so fast that static electricity built up and discharged around it. With a sound like thunder, it stopped, and Jaxon received a new notification.

Skill gained: Body Compression (Novice IX). Your body is still only flesh and bone, but now it will grow stronger as you deal or receive damage. Gain one health point per five hundred points of damage taken and survived. (Not retroactive). Gain one point of Constitution per 1,000 points of damage dealt from physical attacks. (Not retroactive). Bonuses may increase as the ranking of this skill does.

The world around Jaxon begin to appear again, the black of the Void and the colorful wheel vanishing and the white walls of the temple and the muted browns and greens of the plateau and plains around the area appearing. He was excited about his new ability and was very much so looking forward to speaking with Jess and telling her about it. He was also curious what she had received, since it was likely that she would be able to see and defeat the monster that had taken him down.

"Jess? Jess, are you out yet?" He heard a sound from around the corner of the temple and skipped over to say hello. He screeched to a halt and raised his fists in readiness to attack when he saw the small group of people standing over Jess with a knife to the back of her neck.

"Ah! You must be the famous Jaxon!" A man in Rogue leathers stepped away and cautiously approached the Monk. "My name is Chris. I am the leader of this small group. I'm not sure what all Jess has told you, but she ran off with some of our guild’s tools. We are simply here to reclaim them. I ask that you stay out of the way, and then we will deal with you soon."

"He means he’s going to kill you, Jaxon!" Jess screamed from her position on the ground. "Run! Run, you moron!"

"The hick heard me just as well as you did!" Chris stepped over and kicked her in the side of the face. "He obviously knows better than to run like you did!"

Jess just spit out a tooth and tried to get as much blood and saliva as possible on Chris's boot. "Jaxon is not exactly known for his mastery of subtle language."

"Fine, we will deal with him first." The Rogue looked over at Jaxon, measuring him up and down. "You don't seem to understand the situation that you are in, and it seems that Jess does not believe you will be able to understand. So I'm going to lay this out for you very clearly: give me all the money you have, give me any items you have, and you are free to go."

"Nah." Jaxon took a threatening step forward. He paused as the knife at Jess's neck dipped and drew blood.

"Ah, ah, ah... none of that now." Chris smiled a sneering grin, flicking his tongue over parched lips. " Either you give it to us willingly, or we take it off of your corpse. Take another move that is not exactly what we tell you to do, and she will be sent to respawn before you. Now, if you both do what I tell you to do... I will make sure to go ahead and leave you here, alive. It is not the most hospitable of places, but from what she tells us, if she were to respawn before you… well, the Wolfmen would not be as pleasant as we are."

Jaxon slowed to a halt, for the first time since joining this game genuinely feeling bad for another person. If Jess were slain here, her respawn point would be the Wolfman encampment, and they would kill her over and over until he was able to arrive and save her. If he were to fling himself off the cliff, the intentional death would likely set his respawn time to double or triple the norm. “What do you want?”

“I already told you.” Chris smiled and gestured at Jaxon. “I want all the money and items you have. Keep the ratty stuff you’re wearing, but lose the gloves. I can recognize a fist fighter when I see one. Don’t bother trying to hide things. We can scan your inventory.”

Jaxon reached into his inventory and pulled out a small fistful of coins: a couple gold but mostly silver and a single copper. He tossed them to the ground, followed by some seeds, a picture of a skeleton covered by a goopy, red overlay, a few empty bottles, and an empty water jug. Then he took off his gloves and threw them on the pile, finally looking up and staring at the thieves. “All set then?”

“Sure looks like it.” Chris took the money, the water jug, and the gloves. After he picked over the pile, he turned back to the others. “This guy is carrying around more trash than he is actually useful anything. He has more seeds than coins on him! You planning to be a farmer, Jaxon?”

His party members laughed along with him and moved away from Jess. She slowly sat up, apparently exhausted by the whole ordeal. Chris walked over to her, grabbed her by the chin, and forced her to meet his eyes. “You find and return that dagger. You try to skip out on this, and we’ll hunt you until you hit level one again. You get me?”

Jess averted her eyes, so Chris smacked her in the face. “I said, get me?”

“I get you, Chris! Jeez!” Jess spat out a mouthful of blood from the powerful backhand.

“Well, hot dang, she can listen.” Chris strode over to his team and started down the plateau without looking back. “Let’s get going. Looks like we need to try and recruit a new member again. Have fun with those monkeys, you two!”

After Jaxon and Jess were alone again, Jaxon blew out an extended breath. “Fun friends you have, there. I’m glad I took a skill reward.”

“You had the option for a skill reward?” Jess looked up, her curiosity beating out her anger and embarrassment momentarily. “How far did you get through the temple?”

“I only got to the seventh room. There was some kind of invisible monster that bit my head off.” Jaxon growled about that, but there was no help for it at this point. “How about yourself?”

“Room three,” she stated quietly. “It was really hard to do anything without a weapon. Listen, Jaxon, I’m so sorry. I’ll find a way to make it up to you.”

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that. Some people are just terrible for no good reason. We didn’t lose anything that is hard to replace, so how about we just figure out what to do next?” Jaxon offered his hand to her and pulled her off the ground. As he did so, a door appeared and opened in the wall. “What the…?”

He let go of her hand, and the door vanished as if it had never existed. Grabbing her hand again, the doorway opened. “You know… I do remember this place telling me that I was only barred from solo attempts. Want to go together?”

Jess was staring at the temple with burning fervor. “Oh, abyss yes.”