Fire on High

John’s phone alarm went off, and he squinted at the light that came in through the curtains. Jenny stirred next to him, still clinging to him as tightly as she was when they went to sleep. “We need to get up, Jenny,” John said, standing and slowly stretching, several pops and cracks heard in the process.

“Five more minutes,” Jenny responded, grabbing him from behind and pulling him back into bed.

“Alright, but just five more minutes.” He pulled up the Auction as she spooned him. The helmet and the rapier had both sold, the former for $60,000 and the latter for $25,000. That put him at just above $133,000. That’s way more money than I’ve ever had in my life! If I could find a way to not get sunk for tax evasion, I could easily buy a house! I could retire right now and be pretty much set for life. With my skills, I could just drop off the Abyss and live happily. But… Jenny would never go for it. Who am I kidding? I need to see where the hell this rabbit hole ends up. Time to spend more money on a pair of shoes than rent.

John spent more time in bed than he would’ve liked, but at least it was spent productively. He let Jenny rest another fifteen minutes while he searched the Auction for footwear that was both within his budget and helpful. The most useful enchantments, like shadowmeld or airwalking, were way out of his price range.

Sneakers of Fate
When wearing these sporty shoes, a glowing red line appears on the ground that will lead you to your destination! Warning: Does not guarantee the shortest path to your destination. Your destination must be a physical place.
Enchantments: One-Size-Fits-Most, The Adventure Line™
Price: $120,000

Omnidirectional Engineer Boots
These fully customizable, steel-toe engineer boots come preloaded with the enchantment that when the user is in the air an air pocket that they can jump off will be created! You must touch solid ground in order for the effect to activate again! This is due to the leather these are made of - taken from bison of the floating city! Each pair is handmade! Look for the more expensive version which allows you to redirect gravity!
Enchantments: One-Size-Fits-Most, Air-Jump
Price: $90,000

Shrouded Gumshoes
Be the essence of stealth while wearing this dapper footwear! Leave no tracks in even the softest of materials! Make no noise even with the heaviest of footsteps! Nobody will see you coming if you wear the Shrouded Gumshoes! Get yours within moments of ordering!
Enchantments: Muffle, Untraceable, One-Size-Fits-Most
Price: $111,666

I do want to have some sort of muffle enchantment, since I said I would try a stealthier approach, but… the double-jump boots are really tempting. I move around way more than I try to be stealthy. The boots also fit my cowboy motif way more. Let’s see if I can customize a muffle enchant onto them.

John set out customizing the boots and saw that he could add one of three enchantments onto them without them exceeding his price range: greater durability, minor waterwalking, or muffle. Greater durability was the cheapest, increasing the price by $20,000. Minor Waterwalking was the middle-ground, increasing it by $35,000. Muffle was the most expensive, increasing the price by $42,000. Minor waterwalking looked interesting, as it allowed the user to walk on the surface of a body of water for five steps as though it were solid land, but too situational for John’s tastes.

“Turn the phone off,” Jenny mumbled, reaching over him and flipping it down. “Alright. I’m up. I’m up and I’m going to shower.” She blew her hair out of her face as she took her bass case into the bathroom with her.

John unequipped all his clothes and used Clean on both them and himself. Afterwards, he used Craft to repair the minor damage the duster hadn’t self-repaired overnight. It only took about twenty mana. If I get any of those enchantments, I can kiss getting good pants goodbye. Unless I have something else I can sell… John looked through his inventory quickly but found that all he had left was a mix of materials left over from grinding. They were too useful to sell, especially since their auction prices weren’t particularly high. Except for the diamond cipher, but he had no plans to sell that yet.

I could reinforce my jeans with this stuff. That’ll give me some armor at least. It’d probably be best to use the magisteel microfiber I got from that weird medieval sci-fi barrier. I should reopen it sometime. John opened up Craft and got most of his materials out from his inventory. There were three enticing results.

Gamer’s Armored Jeans
Rare item. Light armor. -1 Agi, +3 DR, +15 DT. A regular pair of blue jeans with a magisteel microfiber woven into it to add to its durability and armor rating. As an undesirable side-effect, the jeans become stiffer.
Ingredients: Blue Jeans, Magisteel Microfiber, 75 Mana

Jeans of Free Motion
Epic item. Lightweight. +5 DT. A regular pair of blue jeans with a primordial insect’s silk replacing most of the denim to add to its freedom of movement. The wearer can move in these jeans as though they weren’t wearing pants at all. Due to the low molecular density of the silk, its armor is 2x effective against sonic attacks.
Ingredients: Silkspitter Silk, Blue Jeans, 400 Mana

Minor Daemonic Jeans
Epic item. Medium Armor. -5 Agi, +5 DR, +25 DT. A pair of jeans whose material has been partially replaced with scales and hide from minor demons. As a result, 25% of any fire damage dealt to the wearer is nullified. Provides no armor bonuses against light, holy, or frost elements.
Ingredients: Imp Hide, Daemon Horn, 700 Mana

I could double-down on freedom of movement and go with the second one. It provides the least armor… but that doesn’t matter as much as long as I don’t get hit. I’ll go with the Jeans of Free Motion and add muffle to the boots. That’ll round out my equipment nicely. John did just that, adding muffle to the boots and ordering them, then crafting the Jeans of Free Motion.

The jeans began floating in the air, and the spool of silk slowly unravelled, spinning itself into the jeans. Its thread wove itself inward, lacing together with the denim. John was reminded of the disgusting squelch the insect boss had made when he killed it and reminded himself never to open an insect-themed barrier ever again.

He went over to the window, closing it and ripping open the box next to it. The brown leather hat he had ordered was inside, and he used Advanced Spy on it, then put it on.

He pressed on Fitted and Truesense, as even though he could guess what they did based on their names and the description of the item, he wanted to see exactly what they did.

Fitted, Enchantment
Clothing or accessories that have this enchantment will be harder to knock off from day to day jumble. While it is possible for it to get knocked off, it is much harder.

Truesense, Enchantment
Clothing or accessories that have this enchantment confer the ability to use True Sight or True Strike (Agility/10) times per day to the wearer for one round.

That started another chain of tooltip tapping, as he wanted to know what the real life equivalent of True Sight and True Strike were.

True Sight, Quality
While under the effects of True Sight, the user ignores all illusions or otherwise false realities. Invisible entities become visible, and the loss of vision due to darkness is mitigated.

True Strike, Quality
While under the effects of True Strike, the user’s next attack ignores most qualities or defensive spells of a target that would normally absorb or otherwise redirect the damage.

Wow, that’s overpowered as hell. I wonder if I could get a weapon that does True Strike all the time. That would probably be ridiculously expensive, John thought, resisting the urge to test it. There’s probably no ‘false realities’ in my apartment anyway. Time to spend that perk point. I’ll put it into Foreboding. Knowing whether or not I’m going to die or lose fifty percent of my health at once sounds essential. John selected the aforementioned perk and immediately had a vision.

John leapt back, Ivory out in front of him. Bubbles spread over the forest, populated by giant redwoods. He tried to shift his eyes around to see any people with him, but everything else was blurry. Black clouds formed above the bubble field, several bolts of lightning striking the bubbles. They sparked with electricity as they floated toward him. He tried to create a wall with Mana Construct, but the moment a bubble touched it, a chain reaction formed. Dozens exploded, their lightning shattering his construct easily and sending him flying into the tree behind him.

He was pulled out of it by Jenny poking him in the back. “What just happened to you?” she asked, toothbrush in mouth.

“Nothing important just… messing with my powers,” John answered, resolving to keep whatever that vision had shown him from happening. “You ready to swing by Keith’s? Kimberly made us breakfast.”

“How long do we have?” Jenny asked, wrapping a black-banded watch John had never seen before around her wrist. He raised an eyebrow at the new gadget. “New smart watch. Works with our Abyssal phones. They’re ridiculously expensive, so I couldn’t get you one. You have a character sheet for telling the time anyway.”

“Can’t argue with that. We’ve got about an hour and a half until we need to be there. Should take us about fifteen minutes to get to the new base from Keith’s. Apparently it’s in the creepy, abandoned, industrial district,” John answered, unequipping his gunbelt and putting on his duster.

“That’s reassuring,” Jenny sarcastically remarked, slipping the datapad they were given into her bass case. I guess she had edited it last night. John checked to make sure his was in his inventory before opening the window to the fire escape. A drone flew through it, depositing the box that contained his boots.

“Perfect, I wanted to test these. You’ll see what they do,” John said, using Advanced Spy on the boots, then putting them on.

They headed up to the roof, where John tested his new boots. He jumped as high as he could, then attempted to kick off the air below himself. The result was a disorienting feeling as he started to descend before the air below him solidified and propelled him upward. Jenny, expecting something to go wrong, caught him with a few blasts of sound. “That looks really dangerous, John.”

“Once I learn how to use them, they’ll be really good. I need to time when I kick off the air as it solidifies,” John replied, cracking his neck. He leapt toward the building across from them, activating the boots’ enchantment further on his way down to propel himself further horizontally while gaining less height. As a result, he nearly made it. Instead, he smacked his face against the side of the building and fell into the fire escape. Jenny leapt onto the fire escape, aided by her bass, though she had turned its volume down so as not to attract attention to them as they made their way from building to building. Her spells were less powerful, but she needed less help to make her way from building to building than John did, based on Agility alone.

“Alright, shortcut barrier is down a block that way. Please don't use those boots again… I don't want to have to keep catching you," Jenny said, to which John mock-begrudgingly agreed. “Let's go!”

After parkouring across a dozen or so buildings, they slowly descended into an alleyway, just across from the barrier in question.

“There’s the shortcut barrier. So, we have breakfast, I pick up some potions, and we make our way to the tryouts. You ready?” John asked, climbing down the fire escape of the building near the shortcut.

“As long as we stay together,” Jenny replied, still slightly unnerved from last night. A dangerous state to be in considering the upcoming trials. He looked back at her, flashing a confident smile.