Be chairful of splinters.

The second floor of the Academy was surreal. Chairs littered every surface, piling up in mountains across the hall or sticking to the walls and ceiling. John was reminded of a modern art exhibition, if much creepier. The eerie sight was worsened by the windows, which looked as if they were formed out of melting glass. What light managed to cast through them was severely distorted, illuminating only parts of the room and leaving the rest in deep shadows. In the dim, the towering mounds of furniture loomed.

John hurried around the stairs to continue down.

-1 hp.

He ran right into a nearly-invisible wall, a translucent barrier that shifted constantly like disturbed water. Gamer's Body absorbed the impact, but it still hurt like hell and John stumbled back. His path forward was blocked. John cautiously took in his surroundings using Astral Observe.

The same magical lines from the floor above also covered the walls and windows here, but these glowed a burning red and all of them converged at the barrier blocking his path. John's heart had begun to sink, but when he tried the stairs back up and found them equally blocked, he knew he was trapped. His interface helpfully confirmed his suspicion.

Floor Sealed - 1/1 enemies remaining.

Great.

This meant that the Game had monsters. John braced himself for whatever would come at him, maybe it'd be an orc or a skeleton, like he'd seen further down. He mentally prepared himself for something straight out of a fantasy game and gritted his teeth. Whatever was thrown at him, he could handle it.

Seconds later he was attacked by a chair.

It flew out of nowhere, crashing into him and taking out 5 hp with a slam that knocked him into one of the piles of chairs. John whipped his head around, looking for his assailant, but all he saw were dozens and dozens of theoretically hostile furniture. Any one of them could have been the attacker. Since Astral Observe was still active, he closed one eye and prayed it'd help.

Several feet away, sitting innocently on the ground and shrouded in a hazy white glow was his enemy. Observe handily provided more details.

Haunted Chair
Level 1 Construct
Weak poltergeists infest these and other objects to plague the living.
13/13 hp
Status Effect: Spirit-linked

The construct scraped forward along the ground, its back legs lifting and hovering just above the floor. With his enhanced vision, John could see the haze behind it coalesce into a form that swirled through the air. It was humanoid but faceless, featureless and twisted.

Poltergeist (Lesser)
Level 3 Undead
A spirit that died with grudges against the living but without the willpower or magic to become a specter. Attacks by animating objects to fight for it.
25/25 hp

John gulped. He'd had his powers for less than a full day and was already in a fight for his life? Maybe the Developer wanted to kill him off.

The possessed chair began to levitate higher and then lunged for him again. As it careened through the air, something pulled inside of John. He dove to the side just quickly enough to avoid being crushed into what was now a pile of wooden shrapnel. The impact sprayed splinters everywhere and John was thankful for picking up Evasion. At the very least, he'd have something to help him stay alive. Fighting back was another matter altogether.

When the spectral chair floated out of the mess it'd created, John noticed that it had lost 2 hp and broken one of its front legs. He momentarily considered trying to keep dodging until the chair mangled itself to ****, but that sounded like a stupid plan. So instead, John pointed a finger at the construct and yelled, "Rend!"

A blink of scarlet light lanced through the air and hit the wooden construct. Instead of dissipating or piercing through it, his spell wrapped around the material of the chair and tore it apart. Nails bent and snapped, chunks of wood were torn off as though by invisible claws.

Critical Hit! 12 immutable damage!

Along with the earlier self-inflicted damage, it was enough to slay the haunted furniture. A mess of pieces that no longer even slightly resembled a chair clattered to the ground and the hovering form of the ghost howled at John, a piercing cry of utter agony that made his stomach turn.

5 damage inflicted from feedback (spirit-link).

John was a bit distracted by the other popup that had appeared.

Achievement Unlocked! - "First Blood?"
Kill your first non-biological creature.
+50 Experience
+1 Unallocated Stat Point

The bonus was a welcome one, but it still left him shy of leveling up and the use of Astral Observe and Rend were not being kind to John's mana pool. Between them, he was down to 41 mp and his only means of fighting relied on that. He switched off Astral Observe and the poltergeist disappeared from view.

Well, that's not fair at all.

Two new chairs rattled; their legs jerkily dragging them closer to John's prone position and he realized he should probably stand up. Getting to his feet, he glared at the two would-be harbingers of **** and steeled himself. He would not die to a chair! He was the Gamer and-

One of them smacked into his side, inflicting -3 hp and interrupting John's motivational speech. He stumbled and grabbed onto the closest thing, the other haunted chair. It struggled against his grip, thrashing back and forth as he picked it up, but it was just a chair. John hefted it over his shoulders and brought the construct down on its ally.

5 damage.
5 damage.

Parts of each chair broke off, showering him in splinters that mercifully did no damage and John smiled. He was in power now and these chairs would learn why they were sat on and not the other-

-4 hp.

A third chair knocked his legs out from under him and John lost his grip on the one he was holding, toppling over and swearing loudly.

Okay. Enough gloating, just kill these stupid things and get the hell out of here.

Achievement Unlocked! - "Humility"
Be brought back to reality by a weak foe, learning a valuable lesson in the process.
+1 Intellect
+1 Experience

Thanks.

John pushed himself up again, grabbing the chair that had bowled him over. He hefted the annoying furniture and started bludgeoning its damaged allies. The first swing took two legs off his 'weapon' and crushed one enemy. The second completely destroyed the seat, leaving John with only the back and a couple of stray nails. This, he stabbed into the other construct, leaving it at half health before finishing it off with a cast of Rend. With the **** of each of its servants, the invisible poltergeist screeched and screamed, and John was rewarded with damage popups.

5 damage inflicted from feedback (spirit-link).
5 damage inflicted from feedback (spirit-link).
5 damage inflicted from feedback (spirit-link).

According to his math, this would leave the ghost with the health to animate one more object, but John wanted to expedite the process. It would be close, with only 27 mp left, but he decided to risk it and used Astral Observe. The poltergeist was hovering only a few feet away, gesturing angrily with claw-like fingers. It looked badly injured; parts of its body were completely gone and what was left was in tatters. Observe's analysis of its remaining health validated his math. 5/25 hp.

This time though, the creature turned to face him and its featureless face split to reveal a mouth full of hundreds upon hundreds of teeth, which, upon second glance, were actually fragments of glass, broken nails and splinters of wood. The poltergeist opened wide. Then wider. Then almost tore itself apart as its jaws became a maw of horrifying scale and lunged at him. John could only throw out an arm and pray that his magic would work on the monster.

6 immutable damage.

His spell tore into the creature and ripped it apart less than a heartbeat before it reached him. John stared at the empty space it had left behind, breathing heavily. If he survived this he was definitely going to need therapy.

Poltergeist (Lesser) slain!
Encounter complete: All enemies defeated.
+120 Experience

Even before John had a chance to fully process his new experience total, more popups began.

Ding!
You have leveled up!
Level 3 -> Level 4
+5 Unallocated Stat Points
+1 Libido
+$50, don't spend it all in one place

Achievement Unlocked! - "First Steps"
Reach level 4.
+1 to All Stats (24 hours)

Achievement Unlocked! - "Who Needs Weapons?"
Complete an encounter while unarmed.
+1 Strength
+1 Agility
+1 Endurance
+Weapon Voucher

With five more unspent stat points, John now had a total of seven. He checked his Character Sheet to find a way to spend them and noticed a timer next to each of his stat numbers. Probably the remaining period of his level-up buff. It was a welcome benefit, if the barrier contained more enemies. While looking, he saw his mana drop and remembered to shut off Astral Observe before it drained any more. He needed what little he had left.

John tried tapping on one of the scores and it expanded to fill a whole page. Each had a small description explaining what the stat did for him, as well as providing actual numbers for some of the effects. He examined each in turn.

Strength improved his damage with melee weapons, increased his inventory size and allowed him to lift heavier objects.

Agility also improved his damage with melee weapons, as well as improved his chances to inflict critical hits and perform skills like Evasion.

Endurance increased his health, boosted his health regeneration and physical stamina.

Intellect increased his maximum mana, improved his mana regeneration and had an impact on his spells.

Wisdom similarly improved his mana regeneration, lowered the cost of spells and improved their effects.

Charisma only stated that it improved the likelihood of skill checks succeeding and increased RP gains.

Libido was even more vague, stating that it would allow him to fuck more often, more easily and more effectively. It would have been a compelling possibility for his stat points, if it didn't also have an addendum: This attribute cannot be voluntarily raised or lowered by stat distribution.

Frustratingly, the only stat that had any impact on his maximum mana was intellect and it was a paltry increase; each point was worth only two points of mana. Clearly, if he wanted to improve his mana pool significantly, he'd need to do it through other means.

The detailed pages also had a spot for him to input the unspent points and John heavily considered his options. He needed to improve his casting ability, so he could use his spells more often. All in intellect would make it possible to cast more spells, but he already had a high score in comparison to his abysmally low charisma. On the other hand, there was no obvious benefit for investing into charisma and more wisdom would improve his mana regeneration...

Eventually, after several minutes of indecisiveness he improved his Intellect by three points, his Wisdom by two and his Charisma by two as well. Closing the sheets prompted him with confirmation windows and John hit accept on each one.

Now that his stats were taken care of, there was still another reward to examine. Checking his inventory, John found not one but two new items. One was a slip of paper inscribed with the words 'Redeem for a weapon of the Gamer's choice' in feminine handwriting. Obviously the rewarded 'Weapon Voucher'. He took note of the handwriting; the Developer was female. The other was a heavy book that he had no memory of buying or picking up.

The Complete Works of HP Lovecraft
(Stolen from Samantha Nui)

John put the book away, and thought back to that morning's altercation. He must have accidentally cast Theft on the girl he ran into instead of Frank. It was a disappointment; he'd hoped to lift the bully's wallet or something else valuable. Still, the book might be interesting, and if he got bored he could always throw it out. The name Lovecraft seemed oddly familiar though... It probably wasn't important.

Retrieving the Weapon Voucher, he held it out and waited for something to happen. A window opened, showing him dozens of icons of various weapons. There were swords, flails, axes, polearms, even guns! John scrolled through it, astounded at the options that the Developer was willing to let him choose from. There was a grenade launcher!

It took several minutes to browse through his choices, having to keep himself from impulsively picking the most ridiculous ones, like a Scottish claymore that he probably couldn't lift. He noted that all the guns were listed with the number of bullets that they would presumably come with. That limitation struck sniper rifle and grenade launcher off the list, as well as most of the other interesting firearms. Eventually he came to a decision and pressed the icon for a coiled whip.

Are you sure you don't just want a sword?
YES/NO

John grinned, he'd show the Developer this time. If Victor Belmont and Indiana Jones could do it, so could he. The paper disappeared in a flash and was replaced by a heavy leather whip with a metal handle.

Slayer's Whip
Standard weapon of the 'whip' class. Consecrated and reinforced with alchemist's leather.
Base Damage: 4
Attribute Focus: Agility/Strength
+4 damage against Undead and Demons

Now this... John liked this. He'd always enjoyed messing around with prop weapons in theater and the weight of the whip felt good. Grabbing the handle with his right hand, John let the rest of it uncoil and fall to the floor. Then, with a single motion, he snapped the whip forwards. Instead of it cracking perfectly, he had to duck as the tail end of the whip arced through the space his head had vacated a second before and struck several feet to the right of his target. He winced, clearly the weapon hadn't come with the skill to use it.

John equipped the weapon into one of the open slots on his Character Sheet and it vanished from his hand. It only took a brief thought to call it back, appearing in his hand as though it'd never left. He looked at the whip and settled on dismissing it. Without knowing how to use it properly, the weapon was more dangerous than useful.

Having finished leveling up, John surveyed the carnage of splintered wood that lay between him and the stairwell. He was glad that the ghost had never thought to use broken chairs as weapons. The slam attacks would have been much worse if they had been performed by a mess of rusty metal and sharp chunks. He picked his way through the results of his chairmageddon and almost missed the sparkling silver ball that lay amidst the splinters. When he picked it up, the ball vanished and left behind a message.

Loot Retrieved (Poltergeist):
Spirit Essence x1

Bonus!
Healing Potion x2

Neat.