All Night Long

The longest day of John’s life was nearly at its end. After everything the day had thrown at him, even though the sun was only just beginning to set, all he wanted to do was curl up in bed and pass out. Instead he paced around his room and fretted over the impending catastrophe of Jolene Baxter enrolling at Ashcroft.

He should have been happy. It was like a dream come true. For the first time in at least a decade, he’d get to see one of his oldest friends. Better, he’d be able to see her daily. But in the halls of Ashcroft, it would be a nightmare.

John could already see it, he and Jo standing outside of class, just chatting. Passing students would cast suspicious glances and whisper to each other. It wouldn't be long before some well meaning classmate pulled her aside to explain his reputation. By that point, he’d be grateful if she kept it to herself and just avoided him. More likely, she’d tell her parents, and they would tell his mother. He hoped that she would believe in his innocence, but he wasn’t sure. Either way, it would break her heart.

Yesterday, he would have given up. He would have contrived a reason to drop out, just to avoid the problem altogether. He may have intentionally bombed a few exams to make continuation appear futile. Ashcroft was an elite school with high standards, afterall. Maybe he just wasn’t cut out for it. His mother would have been disappointed, but that would have been the lesser of two evils.

Today, he had magic. As terrifying as the situation felt, that gave him just enough hope to believe that he could dig his way out of this mess, that he could undo nearly six years of slander in the two short months that separated him from the fall semester. How exactly he was going to do that, he couldn't quite figure out.

Boosting his Charisma seemed like the obvious first step. If the Stat worked the way he thought it should — his tooltips still hadn’t finished installing — he might come across less awkwardly with his peers. He may even be able to convince some of them that he wasn’t the kind of person that they thought he was. Maybe a few would believe that he never had been.

But that wouldn’t stop the rumors. He’d either have to prove them false or confront their progenitors. Proving a negative felt nearly impossible even with magic, and it still seemed more doable than convincing the two worst people that John had ever met to publicly admit that they had been lying about him for years. Would their confessions even matter? What if the rumors had already taken on a life of their own? Did their peers even know where they started? What if they just added fresh fuel to the fire? What if they recanted later? What if they claimed that their "confessions” had been coerced?

Aching pressure built between his eyes. His head throbbed. John shut his eyes tight and massaged his temples with trembling hands. ‘I'm just going in circles… again. I need to expand my options and hope something useful comes out of it.’ He took a deep breath, held it, shakily exhaled, then repeated a few times more. ‘Worst case scenario, I can always drop out.’

For now, John had only one recourse, the last resort of any gamer when faced with a challenge too great to be conquered by skill alone: farming XP. But if he was going to delve another dungeon barrier, he needed to properly prepare. But where should he start?

Taking a seat at his desk, John weighed his options. ‘I’ve got no Quests and no clue when another might appear. So, I can’t rely on that for leveling. If learning magic without Observe is anything like this morning, then that’s going to be rough, and I need to double my INT before I can learn anything through a Skill Book. I guess that just leaves equipment as my only option. Is that going to be enough?’

John pulled his mage-spear from his Inventory and began to inspect the damage the improvised weapon had suffered from the boss. The wooden shaft had caught alight when he struck the construct's exposed frame and had charred heavily. He ran his fingers over the blackened wood, and the metal pins that anchored the blade to the shaft wobbled in their sockets. The exposed capacitor had suffered some mild pitting across its surfaces but was still functional. Barring a few light scratches, the bronze edge seemed almost perfect.

‘Archaic…’ John thought to himself, the tension in his shoulders beginning to ease. A gentle vibration sprung to life at the base of his skull. ‘But good enough. And now that I’ve got guild backing, it’ll be more than enough.’ The vibration grew steadily until it reached a subdued thrum. Foreign designs faded into his thoughts, fuzzy and incomplete.

After laying the weapon down on his bed, John took an old notebook from the desk drawer and tore out every page marred by mundane academics. With a bit of scrap metal whipped into a straight edge, he began to sketch out these designs, filling gaps where he could and taking notes where he couldn’t.

Revisions to the mage-spear came through more clearly than the others, perhaps as a result of the original's flawed, desperation-driven design. The exposed capacitor served well enough as regulator and trigger. But it leaked constantly, and its discharges were shallow. The former problem could be solved, partially, by wrapping the capacitor in a few sheets of bronze, the latter entirely by replacing its bronze blade with arcano-steel. The Abyssal alloy could hold a sharper edge, and its highly emissive nature could plant destructive mana in deeper flesh.

However, a direct connection between the capacitor and the blade reintroduced the same mana bleeding problems that this archaic design was meant to solve. Without an enchantment, emitters like arcano-steel freely radiated mana to their surroundings. The capacitor would be little more than a bottleneck as the blade drained John’s mana dry.

‘I should put a manual switch above the grip for priming the capacitor. The blade’s still gonna leak until it hits something. It needs a trigger specifically for impact.’

John jotted down a few quick sketches for such a mechanism. He wasn’t quite satisfied with any of them, but he wasn’t unhappy with these efforts either. 'This might actually be fun if there weren’t a deadline attached.'

As the inspiration of his primary weapon waned, John’s thoughts shifted to the auxiliary. He’d need a new shield. One made of stronger, more durable material, perhaps thaumic bronze. A shield that was both magically resistant and self repairing was appealing. Of course, it was the only other magical material he knew of. He thought to himself, 'I should ask Daryl for some metal samples to expand my catalog,' and made a note in his book.

Thoughts of revision shifted to invention, and for a couple hours or so, John struggled to draw new weapon designs from his artificing Mastery. Though it buzzed and crackled, its manifest designs were so hazy that he could only jot down a few quick notes. The few substantive designs he could muster had each been inspired, in one way or another, by the tarnished construct.

The first, and most critical in John's opinion, was a means to penetrate armor, mana resistant armor especially. Whether by luck or design, he only survived against the boss because it shook itself to pieces, and he wasn’t about to count on that happening again. Unfortunately, although he invested most of his focus here, the only insight he could muster was a warbling vision of some emitters and a flash.

The latter two were tools to control engagement distance, something to repel opponents that got too close, like the construct’s shockwave, and something to apply pressure to those that kept their distance, like its mana cannon. The immediate solution to both was trivial and unhelpful: enchant an emitter to do the job. Something in his gut told him there was another way. So, he kept picking at it. He only managed to scrounge up a few speculative notes for some form of shockwave generator, but as he pondered the mana cannon, from somewhere deep in his psyche, he could hear a faint electric hum.

He shut his eyes tight, focused on the noise, and mentally strained to pull it to the forefront. From the darkness emerged a crystalline sphere slowly orbited by a golden ring. Light swelled within the crystal. The ring began to accelerate. The hum grew faster and resonated painfully in his teeth. Bands of mana, like spiraling arms, unfurled from the ring’s inner surface, caressed the sphere, and stirred the light into a whirlpool. The vision grew brighter and louder. John’s head throbbed and the sphere flashed as swirling bands crashed against the crystal’s every fault and fissure.

Then, his phone buzzed. His eyes shot open, and he gasped for air. Had he been holding his breath? His jaw ached. He hadn’t realized he had been clenching it. The vision collapsed. Frantically, he wrote down everything he could before it faded away entirely.

‘God, I didn’t think I had to be careful with both of them.’ The thought elicited a confused buzz and a self-satisfied gurgle from his subconscious Skills.

His phone buzzed again, and again.

Once he’d scribbled down everything he could, which wasn’t much, John wiped the sweat from his brow and pulled his phone from his pocket. Daryl had finally responded. Maybe he’d finally be able to explain what shattering a thaumic star had done to John’s body.

Daryl: Never heard of it
Daryl: Dungeon find?
Daryl: Quest reward?

John: Quest Reward. It was a lumpy crystal about the size of a baseball. The inside looked like a bunch of colored smoke frozen in place. The description said they used to be used as mana batteries.

Daryl: Was?

John: I salvaged it to get a new skill, but I still have a couple of the shards. I can send pictures if that helps.

Several minutes passed without response. John considered sending the pictures anyway. Then his phone buzzed, then again, then twice more in rapid succession.

‘Oh, no. He’s one of those people.’

Daryl: No pictures
Daryl: Checked with Rooster
Daryl: He hasn’t heard of it either
Daryl: Says he’s going to look into it

John grimaced. ‘Neither of them have heard of it? I’m starting to get a feeling that I'm going to regret salvaging that star in more ways than one.’ John made a note, “Thaumic dust: reserve for critical components.”

Daryl: How’d you want to handle pickup tomorrow?

After a brief text exchange, and a quick break to stretch, John sat back down at his desk and began to flip through his notebook. It was late, almost eleven, and exhaustion was quickly catching up with him. Even his artificing Mastery struggled to idle in the background. He pushed himself anyway, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to sleep unless he at least laid out the foundations for a proper suit of artificed armor.

Naturally, this new set would be metal. As well as the improvised suit had held up against raptor teeth and searing waves of energy, there was no doubt in John's mind that the tarnished construct's halberd would have ripped through it like a chainsaw through paper. He tried not to think about what its cannon might have done had it landed a direct hit.

Before Daryl’s texts, the armor would have been made from thaumic bronze, or at least, steel coated in thaumic bronze. Now, plain steel was the best option he had. John flipped to his revised shield notes and underlined the words “magic material samples” a few times for good measure.

What material composed the plate was less important than the systems it protected. To support his weapons, a mana battery, mounted like a backpack, would supplement his relatively meager mana pool. Conduit running beneath armor plates then supplied power to his weapons. Mana siphons, mounted somewhere against his person, would allow him to recharge the batteries from his natural pool.

The design was simple in principle but tricky in implementation. The core problem was one of weight. John's default battery recipe granted 200 MP capacity in exchange for fifty pounds of bulk, and due to the limitations of siphons, that they can't push mana uphill, he wouldn't be able charge it beyond his own maximum capacity, about half the battery's full capacity. John suspected he could overcome this problem with some form of mana pump, and he even took the time to sketch a few rough designs. But between the battery, pump, and conduit, the design might weigh close to seventy pounds. By the time he added armor, he'd be close to doubling his body weight.

The simple solution was to cut the default battery in half. It would cut the battery’s bulk and eliminate the need for a pump. Unfortunately, both the battery's capacity and maximum output current scaled roughly linearly with mass. It would double the charge times of everything downstream. A bank of capacitors wired in parallel could mitigate the problem by slowly charging from the battery and rapidly charging downstream components as demand arose. With enough capacitors, he could even achieve the same net capacity as the full battery. It was the perfect solution, if he ignored charge stability.

Functioning batteries retained mana nearly indefinitely. Functioning capacitors leaked relatively quickly. It wasn't ideal, but with proper shielding, it was manageable. Damaged batteries slowly leaked over time. Damaged capacitors might spew jets of arcane fire. Even properly shielded, John wasn't comfortable strapping such volatile components to his back.

As he wrestled with the prospects of slimming down the battery or reducing armor thickness, a thought occurred to him; a vigorous churning erupted from his subconscious, eager for a second-go at sculpting his flesh.

John pinched the bridge of his nose and whispered to himself, "Not tonight. I'm not saying no. I just… I've had enough pain for one day."

A sullen ripple washed over him as the biomantic Skill faded into the background.

As annoying as the Skill had become, John had to admit that it had had the right idea this time. He might be better off increasing his carrying capacity than compromising his design, but his options felt so limited. Putting aside biomancy, he still had a level’s worth of Stat Points to invest, but he’d prefer to invest in whichever Stat that boosted mana generation, Wisdom, if he had to guess.

'Maybe… maybe I can mechanize it.'

If he could manage it, an actuated exoskeleton could magnify his strength and carry the armor’s mass, but if the warbling thrum in his head was an accurate indicator, he couldn't quite handle it. Actuation of the frame would be demanding. Whether pneumatic, hydraulic, or electric, the actuators and their supporting systems would significantly increase the armor's bulk and power demands, limiting their impact and starving other systems.

Controlling it would be the bigger nightmare. Evidently, his artificer Mastery was limited to analog systems. A thrumming vision of myriad levers and webs of tensioned cables floated up from his subconscious. The scale of the armor suit bloated to encapsulate the underlying control systems. John would have to be nestled inside the contraption like a living battery.

A certain disgruntled Skill bubbled in the background.

John sighed. ‘I’ll try to limit the design to purely assistive mechanization.’ As he looked through the disorderly mechanization notes, he thought to himself, ‘I might need enchantments to simplify this.’

John continued with his work, sketching small alternatives in his designs and noting down questions for Daryl. Gradually, his eyes grew heavy and the thrumming faded away. For a little while, he stared down at a fresh page of his notebook and tried to muster a single productive thought. When it failed to manifest, he closed the book and stowed it away in his Inventory.

John rose from his chair, stripped down to his boxers, turned to get in bed, and was struck dumb. He muttered to himself, "Oh, what the fuck?"

Resting atop the covers, he found half of his mage spear. Both the shaft and the capacitor’s iron core had vanished, leaving only the bronze blade, a siphon dangling from a length of copper coil, and the faint impression of the missing components in the sheets. Incredulously, he picked up the remains, examined them for a moment, and thought to himself, ‘That’s tomorrow’s problem,’ then shoved them into his Inventory.

John laid down in bed, pulled the covers over himself, and before sleep could take him, a bright orange system panel appeared in the darkness behind his eyelids.

System Install Complete.
Thank you for your patience.

John rolled over and checked his clock. It was just past midnight. He should have dismissed the panel and gone to sleep, but curiosity overcame him.

‘A quick skim couldn’t hurt. I've still got a few Stat Points to invest anyway.’

Propping himself up in bed, John opened his character sheet and began to read through the tooltips for his primary Stats. He only made it through Agility before he retrieved his notebook and began to update his notes.

The primary Stat descriptions didn’t offer much insight beyond what he could already intuit. Strength governed the magnitude of force he could generate. Endurance governed his ability to resist exhaustion. So on and so forth. What caught his attention were the secondary Stats, those derived from the primary.

Hit Points (HP) - Measures a creature's capacity to survive harm. Upon reaching zero, a creature is mortally wounded, and further damage taken accelerates the onset of death. Maximum HP is equal to [5] plus [5] per point of Endurance.

Hit Point Regeneration (REG) - Measures a creature's ability to recover from harm. Base regeneration is equal to [0.5] percent of maximum HP per hour and increases by [0.01] HP per hour per point of Strength.

'So, I get better damage, carry capacity and healing just for investing in Strength. That feels too good not to be a priority.'

Mana Points (MP) - Measures a creature's capacity to store mana. Attempting to cast a spell without sufficient mana may cause it to miscast, chaotically unleashing already invested mana. Maximum MP is equal to [10] plus [2] per point of Intelligence.

Mana Point Generation (GEN) - Measures a creature's capacity to generate mana. Base generation is equal to [0.5] percent of maximum MP per minute and increases by [0.02] MP per minute per point of Wisdom.

After reading through Mana Gen's tooltip, John thought to himself, 'Wait… That doesn't make sense.' He read it again and redid the math in his head. Just to be sure, he double checked his work with the calculator on his phone. 'Why? Just why?'

Due to the base mana generation scaling proportionally with capacity, every point invested into Intelligence yielded 0.01 MP per minute, half that gained by a point of Wisdom, in addition to the explicit increase in capacity. Add to that its benefits to his problem solving and crafting abilities,and there wasn’t much of an argument in Wisdom’s favor.

'I should put my next few Levels into Strength to compensate for armor weight. I'll probably keep Endurance about even with it just so I don't exhaust myself immediately. Besides, I don't love the fact that a third of my HP comes from Biomancy.' Mental fatigue kept the normally energetic Skill silent. 'I guess that applies to my MP and Thaumaturgy now that I think about it. Maybe I should switch between the first two until they reach Intelligence's level, and then I can rotate through the three of them. Agility and Wisdom are fine for now. Libido is worse than useless. Am I forgetting something?'

John stared down at his notebook and flipped through, trying to find something that would jog his memory. His eyelids grew heavier by the minute. He was starting to nod off when he found some notes on enchanting his equipment. ‘Oh… yeah. I still need to check the Skill Book rules.’

Mechanic: Skill Books
Unlock Requirement: Observe lvl 1+, INT 10+
Description: The user may acquire mundane and magical skills or spells by casting Observe on relevant texts. One text may be absorbed this way upon mechanic unlock. Additional usages of this mechanic unlock with each INT Milestone.

Mechanic: Milestones
Unlock Requirement: None
Description: As the user’s primary Stats, excluding bonuses, cross certain thresholds, they will earn Milestones. The effects of some spells and mechanics are limited by or scale with the number of Milestones that have been reached in one or more relevant Stats.

Milestones Earned

INT [1]
Mana per INT [1] -> [2]
Skill Book Limit [1] -> [2]

"Oh," John muttered. Then, his eyes went wide. He shot up in bed. "Oh."

Suddenly, Wisdom’s relative unimpressiveness made sense. It wasn’t inadequate, INT had just been given a head start. The question was, how good would it be once it met its first Milestone? How good would any of them be? What would happen to Agility, Charisma, or even Libido? Could something unknown scale with them? Would new mechanics unlock?

‘Oh, this changes things.’

Too excited to sleep, John kicked on his computer and fired up excel. He projected scaling curves and scribbled notes well into the morning.