Learning to Dive

John sat in his room next to his desk, doing his biology homework, which was the only one he hadn’t finished in class; fortunately, with him learning the entirety of the textbook by heart earlier that day, he finished it quickly, taking only an hour because of a particularly long essay question.

Now finished with his homework, John decided to get something to eat, both because of his ever-growing hunger and the buff it would grant to his regen. Grabbing some leftover food from the day before, he heated it up, and wolfed it down quickly, as he wanted to get back to developing his powers as soon as possible.

While I could let the batteries charge all day, that would definitely still waste some mana, considering the mana resistance and capacity of those things, John mused internally. It might be best if I use it all today and charge the batteries when I’m sleeping; they might not get fully charged, but it will definitely be more efficient.

Deciding to go with the second option, John headed up to his room, and once he was in there, he realized something: he didn’t have anywhere to reliably train without damaging something or alerting someone to his powers, and he definitely didn’t want to find out what happened when regular people saw magic.

Anyways, John was still stuck as to how to make a dungeon, so he closed his eyes and focused on the sensation of mana exiting his body, focusing it to make… a hole, an access point to somewhere he could farm for experience, and even maybe level up once or twice.

Skill Acquired: Barrier Dive

That is exactly what I needed, thank you, deus ex machina or whatever made my powers! John thought, happy that he could get some grinding done with this new skill, but what was a barrier, anyways?

Leaving that question for later, when it could be answered, John activated the skill and was met with a menu.

Well then, John thought, I guess I can’t see them all right now since I’m such a low level, probably to avoid me immediately killing myself in one of these

Curious about the Crude Golems, John pressed that, and another prompt appeared.

Initiate Barrier Dive?
Enemy: Crude Golems
Cost: 15 MP
Yes/No

John clicked yes; after all, he couldn’t wait for his first dungeon.

Initiating Barrier Dive...
Engaging Stabilization...
Pulling Back the Curtain...
Dive in Progress…

After seeing that, John felt everything... shift. He didn’t move, and yet the next thing he knew, he was in what seemed to be a massive city, well, town really from what John could see, which really wasn’t much, with the darkness of the night everywhere.

Everything seemed... old but well kept; however, there wasn’t anything electrical that he’d come to take for granted over his life, the nearest to that would be the light orbs that floated every so often above the street, providing light in the otherwise dreary blackness of the night.

Why do these buildings seem like they’re being taken care of? Are the golems taking care of them? John thought, as he examined the building.

Suddenly, John heard the clanking of heavy footsteps about to round the corner of where he had landed. Ducking behind one of the storefronts nearby, John peeked his head out a bit after channeling an Observe for a few seconds and directed it at the golem.

The thing looked... creepy; it was humanoid, certainly, with arms and legs, but it was far from lifelike. Its limbs were stiff, moving mechanically, with wooden access panels scattered around what John assumed were the golem’s vital systems, and its face was made of porcelain, smiling stiffly, with a never changing expression, at best it was intimidating, but on a dark night like this, it seemed menacing.

“Holy shit, that thing is creepy,” John whispered to himself, scared that the creature might hear him.

The Observe menu did say it only had basic combat abilities, so it might not be as powerful as I think, right? John thought, simultaneously contemplating his chances against such a thing.

Fuck it, John thought, charging a Mana Javelin in his hand with the maximum mana of seventeen.

“On 3… 2… 1…” John said before rushing out of the storefront and throwing the Mana Javelin at the mechanical joint of one of the Golem’s legs.

And the entire leg came apart at the knee, to John’s surprise, leaving it immobile.

“Oh, I thought that thing would be more of a challenge,” John stated before throwing two more Mana Javelins at the Golem trying to crawl towards him, destroying it completely and leaving behind what seemed to be a ten dollar note.

+19 XP

Noting the lack of damage popups, John picked it up, before stowing it in his inventory. I guess the usual loot mechanics are in play here, good way to make money, I guess, he thought.

He continued to walk around the incredibly quiet town, making sure to listen to the footsteps of the golems, That’s really their main flaw, their inability to sneak up on someone, John thought.

Spying another two golems, each sweeping the street, John tried his best to silence his footsteps as he approached the two, but he was careful to stay out of their line of sight. He channeled a Mana Javelin over a few seconds and threw it at the first one’s knee joint, crippling it like he did the last one.

The other golem, now aware of the threat that was John, decided to charge directly at him, seemingly intent on hitting him with the broom he had just been using to sweep.

John, attempting to dodge, only further allowed the Golem to hit him with the broom, which snapped in half on impact.

-14 HP

He quickly threw a Mana Javelin at the Golem, disabling it as he had with the others, and executed it with another cast.

+17 XP

Realizing that he had forgotten about the other one, he quickly turned to it. Spotting that it was about to pull a lever on the side of the building he hadn’t seen in his haste to attack, he threw a Mana Javelin at it once more.

But he was too late. Just as the javelin impacted, it pulled the lever before slumping over and disintegrating into loot. A second later, a shrieking sound began to be emitted around the city.

John quickly rushed over to the lever and turned it off. But he suspected that it was too late to stop what had happened; a quick look at a pop-up that just appeared confirmed this.

Warning: An alarm has been activated, Golems will now attack on sight.

Picking up the loot the two golems had dropped without looking at it, John gathered the broken but sharp broom that the golem had been using, deciding to use it as a backup weapon, as his mana pool was almost out already.

Knowing that he couldn’t beat these golems in a battle of shear strength, the broom was only a last resort if one got up close. I really need a ranged weapon that isn’t mana based, John thought before continuing to walk around the barrier, cautious to stay in the darkness of the shadows to make himself harder to see.

If I can only get one more kill off a worker golem, I’ll get a level up and hopefully a refill on my mana, John thought, whose mana had only somewhat regenerated in the time he had spent searching for another golem.

After a short few minutes, John had found another golem, this one looking much more alert than the other ones he had faced but thankfully still not spotting him thanks to his cover in the darkness around himself.

He needed a plan in this fight; unlike all of the other fights he had had with these, he was low on Mana and it was aware that he was around, not passively cleaning or maintaining the buildings of the barrier.

John thought for a few moments while the golem continued to look around. If I can just disable the thing’s legs, and possibly destroy what was under one of the wooden plates on its chest, maybe I can kill it and perhaps get a level. John was met with a pop-up as he thought, which he then read.

Achievement Unlocked: Planning Ahead
Plan something ahead of time instead of just charging in like a moron, good, you’re learning. But the real question is: can you pull it off?

+1 Wis

John was already starting to get tired of the sass in these achievements, but hey, free Wisdom is amazing, so he couldn’t complain about it.

Readying a Mana Javelin, John charged it to his maximum, mentally steadying himself about what he had to do for this to work as he had planned.

John threw the mana javelin at one of the golem’s legs, crippling its movement and making it fall to the ground, apparently very confused where it had come from, as demonstrated by it wildly glancing everywhere.

Charging from his hiding place in the shadows, John made it about a quarter of the way there before the golem caught sight of him and attempted to crawl towards him.

He quickly ran towards the golem and opened the maintenance hatch on its back, revealing a whirling mess of gears, rusted but still functional, all drawing motion from a glowing central core, but John had no time to think about this as he jammed the broom shaft into the teeth of the biggest gear inside, quickly stopping it and the golem’s motion, but it hadn’t disintegrated into loot yet.

With no time to think, John reached inside the golem, careful to not get his fingers stuck in any of the still spinning gears. He strained against the motor giving power to the entire contraption for a second before completely ripping it out and backed away, as the golem began to sink into nothingness.

“Man, I really need to get some higher Endurance,” John declared, panting after what he had just done.

+21 XP

What was that? John thought and checked his character sheet

He had gotten a level up, which he was quite happy about, and saw that he had also gotten some more achievements, which he then looked over.

Achievement Unlocked: Planned Success
Plan ahead to defeat an enemy and enact that plan successfully. Good Boy, you’ve earned yourself a sticker.

+1 Wis
+1 Golden Star Sticker of Gaia’s approval
+50 XP

Achievement Unlocked: Component Sunderer
Defeat a robotic or mechanical enemy by ripping out an important component. Brutal.

+1 Str

Achievement Unlocked: License to Maim
Use an improvised weapon to maim an enemy. Resourceful!

+1 Int
+100 XP

Well, that was amazing from an experience standpoint but also irritatingly sarcastic and interesting all at once; however, putting those concerns to the side, he checked to see what the sticker was.

Well, that’s just rude, and I guess Gaia is the thing that gave me my power? Thanks for that, Gaia, John thought, before deciding what to spend his newly acquired skill points on.

Remembering how quickly he had gotten winded and the obvious mana economy issues, John decided to put two points into Endurance, two in Wisdom, and one more in Intelligence, for the extra mana capacity.

John checked his phone, saw that he still had a few hours to go until he should go to bed before school, and decided he should continue farming this for as long as he could and use the same strategy he had been using so far, it did work, after all.