Of Arson and Upgrades

Radiant golden-green light gently faded from Ela. She held one hand in the other in front of her, running a thumb over her palm as she experimentally wiggled her fingers. Running a hand up her arm, she examined all the patches where the boss’ ribs had cut into her. No trace remained, neither scratches, nor bruises, nor scars.

Where barely a minute ago she had felt exhaustion and emptiness, now the knight was full to the brim with mana. She tensed and relaxed her muscles, still somewhat stunned by her sudden recovery. Exhaling, the blonde allowed her healing to extend to her armor, the suit’s fibers beginning to weave themselves back together.

Ela looked up just in time for a stunning lightshow as the boss exploded into loot. Vibrant greens and blues flashed all around her as loot and money sacks covered the room. Pillars of color, unsullied by the corruption around them, broke through the oppressive darkness they’d fought through. Their radiance outshone even the heart’s light.

The Bookworm Knight turned off her headlamp, allowing herself to decompress for a moment.

“You… alright?” John asked, drawing her attention from the splendor of leveling.

The Gamer stood a few feet away, where his staff had been frozen to the ground. Amber-infused ice ran up and down the handle, completely encasing the lower half. Icicles hung from the lantern, whose glow refracted through the translucent crystals. He experimentally kicked the base, trying to chip off some of its frozen prison without damaging his equipment. Sighing with frustration, he started trying to wiggle it free.

Ela smiled widely, turning to her companion. “I feel better than I did when we started.

“This is truly incredible,” she continued, looking herself over once more. “Though, it is odd to feel refreshed so suddenly.”

“I’m just glad you’re alright. It was pretty rough there for a few minutes.” He returned her smile, before turning back to the problem in front of him. With both hands, he tried to yank the weapon from the floor, to no avail.

Ela giggled at his frustration, walking around the room to retrieve her lost weapons.

“You warned me that this would be dangerous,” she stated, sliding her knife back into her boot.
“It was my fault that I got injured.”

“How do you figure?” John asked, kneeling to examine the base of his frozen-over staff. “I was dragging down your speed there for most of it, and I was the one who had to stand in place to channel a spell.”

“A spell which killed our enemy,” the buxom blonde retorted, carefully cleaning off her recovered axe’s blade. “I was overconfident in my ability to fight without a shield. Had I been fully equipped, I would not have gotten hurt.”

The Gamer had laid down next to the ice by now, attempting to use his crowbar as a pick. “Oh, do you normally use a shield? I didn’t see one with your gear.”

“Most of my martial training involved a shield, yes,” Ela answered, idly scratching her arm. “Mine was… destroyed in battle, some time ago. I never requisitioned a new one from the Order.”

“Maybe we’ll find one here. You can have it if we do.”

“Thanks.” The knight walked over to join The Gamer, looking past him at the still-beating heart.

John sat in deep focus, trying to undo the magic he’d wielded to create the wave of ice that now anchored the Lantern Bearer’s Battle Staff to the floor. The Gamer had given up on physically freeing it, and now sought an alternative solution. Unfortunately, the upgrade that allowed him to freeze water did not also give him the ability to melt it easily.

’Maybe there’s a way for me to just make it go away since it’s my own construct?’ he wondered.

“Everything OK?” Ela asked.

“Yeah, just a side effect of using the spell, I guess. Or maybe this is just because it’s so humid down here.” He shrugged. “I’ve got an idea though.”

Exhaling, The Gamer reached out with his [Reshape Matter] ability, feeling out the world around himself. The mana in water he’d felt before had always flown freely around, yet now it had been halted, petrified into ice. His mind swam through the river, seeking a weak point. He’d figured that he didn’t need to melt all of it if he could shatter the block from within.

’Maybe if I can find an air pocket or something…’

A loud snap broke the silence between John and Ela, followed by cracking noises as a chunk of the ice around the staff shattered. Then again, and again, it continued to break, until the whole block split in two. Bits of frozen water shot up into a small cloud, peppering The Gamer as he moved to inspect his work.

“Good enough, I think.” Shoving the crowbar into the opening, he slowly pried free his weapon. He turned the staff around in his hand a few times before using [Observe] on it, checking for any damage and finding little. Offering a successful smile to his companion, John moved to stand next to her, the boss room, filled with loot, laid out before them.

“Anyway, congrats on the level! I just hit six there, and that’s what, nine for you?” he said, brushing the snow off the top of his weapon. ’Nice.’

He opened several of his own windows. “Your name in my UI did a whole thing with flashing 8-bit lights and stuff, too. All sorts of fancy colors. Super retro. Then ‘LEVEL NINE’ in a cool font next to it. You’d have liked it, I bet.”

“Fancy. I wonder what I did to deserve such fanfare?”

He leaned over to whisper. “You didn’t hear this from me, but I think my powers like you.”

The two shared a laugh at that.

“We should have some more exp coming soon, too. The side quest hasn't been completed yet, I don’t think,” John said, calming himself. “At least I haven’t seen a legendary item reward.”

He turned to his companion. “You didn’t, like, get a popup for stat points or anything, did you?”

“No, I do not think so,” Ela replied, checking all of the bits of UI she could see while in the party. “Perhaps I am not measured with stats as you are. Regardless, I do feel stronger.”

The Gamer shrugged. “Could be any number of things. Your health bar does seem a little bigger, but I don’t have any way to measure it. I’d guess that you got some kind of power up.

“Speaking of…” John opened up his own character sheet.

’Ack. I need health; I need mana. My strength is still below ten… I need more stat points ASAP,’ he thought, looking over his stats and available options. ’I’m almost tempted to just dump endurance, since my damage seems fine.’

He spent another minute doing math in his head for how much mana would be a useful breakpoint for him, not noticing a blonde slowly inching closer to him.

’So… I’ve got eighty-eight mana now total. If I were to put a single point more into INT, I think I’d be able to use another [Lesser Air Burst] before running out, since it costs 12, though that’s not counting any regeneration in the meantime. Maybe it would be better to get WIS to help sustain long term. That’s all ignoring health though…’

“John?” came a sing-song voice, right in his ear.

He jumped. She smiled. “You space out a lot when thinking, and get distracted very suddenly. While I believe we are safe for the moment, it is a bad habit in a dangerous environment.”

“Yeah.” John swallowed, dropping down from a momentary surge of adrenaline. “I’ll try to be more careful. I’m just mapping out where I want to put my stats. Here, take a look.”

The Gamer shared his windows with Ela, running through this thought process for the options he’d been considering. “I think my damage output is fine, all things considered. I’m leaning towards something to bolster my defense or regeneration.”

“Hmm…” she mused, crossing her arms and putting a finger on her chin. “My first idea would be for you to work on your core. Your strength is your only single digit stat remaining. A strong foundation is best in my experience, both in RPGs and in training.”

John scratched the back of his neck. “That was something I’ve considered, too. I don’t really want to raise it a ton yet, but at least one point to ten makes sense, if I'm operating on the idea that that's the baseline normal level.”

The blonde knight nodded at that, and The Gamer applied the first of his new points, setting his strength to ten. He was greeted by a popup after he confirmed that selection.

Stat Breakpoint - INT 25: Max MP Scaling increased (2 -> 2.5)

“OK, well, that’s really useful,” John exclaimed, reading over his new upgrades. “Wish I’d been in the know about that before; I’d have done it last night.”

He shared the results with Ela, who read them over as he rapidly readjusted his math given the new numbers. ’Geez, that’s a solid chunk more, too. Now… does that make INT more or less desirable for the time being?’

“Impressive,” the blonde stated, “I wonder what other bonuses you might get.”

“Yeah, same. It’s unfortunate that the only other stat I’m even close to twenty-five on is Lib- wait a second.” John froze for a second, realizing what was visible on his character sheet. “Have you been able to see that this whole time?”

“I wasn’t going to mention it until you did.”

He nodded. “I appreciate that.”

“Second highest stat, though?” she teased with a mischievous grin.

The Gamer flushed. "I don't wanna talk about it.”

It’s a fair question.

’Come on, not you too.’

John swore he heard a laugh in his mind.

“I’m not dealing with this right now,” he stated, ignoring two sets of cheery giggles to focus on his stats again. “Since my mana seems taken care of now, and strength gave me a little more regen, I’m just going to go with Endurance. I want more HP.”

“Fair enough,” Ela said, shrugging as she held back a broad smile.

John applied his last four points into END, his happy red HP bar climbing farther across his vision. Checking his stat totals, he was satisfied with significant upgrades for the time being, though he now desperately craved knowledge about what the rest of his stats would do at each breakpoint.

’And the first one I check out will NOT be Libido, hear me?’

We’ll see.

“Alright. What next?” he asked, turning to his companion and closing his windows.

“Well, I think we should deal with that.” She gestured behind him, where the monstrous heart sat, still beating, pumping mana into great pools of ooze.

John had gotten so caught up in the two of them leveling and the mechanics of his achievement that he’d almost forgotten about the giant mass of flesh suspended in the center of the subway station. Its neon blue glow had lost some of its vibrance, yet it still colored much of the room. It dripped with black fluids, faintly pattering against the deeply stained concrete all around.

“Oh, yeah. That’s there. Doing whatever it’s doing,” he muttered, examining the gooey, black webbing that held it to the roof of the subway. “Yeah, we probably ought not to leave it here.”

“I am guessing that may be why our quest is not complete,” Ela replied, picking up her duffel from where she’d dropped it near John. “Before we attempt to destroy it, I would like to take a sample of the blue liquid within it.”

“Are you planning to study it or something?”

“I was a doctor, not a researcher. I would not really be able to do anything with it,” she commented, walking up to the heart, “but I am curious about just what these things are. We could possibly request The Order to look into it.”

“...Or I-” She paused, uncertainly. “I know someone who would be able to analyze it, if they will not.”

John chose not to press her on her strange intonation, instead focusing on trying to locate any weakpoints on the fleshy bulb. Thinking back to his previous boss fight, he figured that he could eventually cut it down from the ceiling, though that would be terribly mana inefficient.

’I might be able to just burn it, honestly,’ he thought, noting in the corner of his eye how Ela pulled some supplies from her bag. ’The boss really didn’t seem to like holy fire.’

As The Gamer pondered damage options, the blonde medic withdrew a surgical kit and another doctor’s bag from her duffel, laying things out in front of her. From among her bags, she withdrew an empty blood bag along with a syringe and some tubing. Cautiously, Ela approached the heart, making sure that it wasn’t going to react to her. Once it seemed safe enough, she carefully prodded a large glowing patch, hooking up her setup and beginning to siphon out the fluids within.

“Alright, well, while you finish doing that, I’m going to start picking stuff up,” John said, turning away from his party member’s work. “We can burn it down after.”

Diligently, The Gamer gathered and examined all the loot he could get to. He was disappointed to find mostly the same scrap armor and weaponry as before, though each piece was generally in good shape now. The types of equipment had also diversified dramatically, but most of it was still pretty plain. The vast majority was junk that he discarded to one side.

Among what The Gamer was able to salvage, he’d found most of a full set of the medium armor that already adorned his hands. Sturdy, tanned leather of a deep, earthy brown ran from his waist down, and rested on his forearms. Fastened to critical areas were plates of tarnished steel. The metal was dirtied, stained with age, though there was no visible damage that he thought would compromise it defensively.

John thought that the brown and silver looked almost cool on top of his jeans and old t-shirt. ’Very urban fantasy fashion. If only I had a full set that matched.’

Of all the pieces John hadn’t found, he still didn’t have a chest piece he could wear besides the padded one that Ela had loaned to him. The newly-leveled nerd hoped that the reinforced leather armor pieces he’d collected would finally offer some real protection, though he was not expecting it to be as nice as Ela’s suit.

All of the new pieces did have minor enchantments, at least. The metal atop the new boots glowed faintly with ocean blue, shimmering in the relative shadow of the underground. They provided The Gamer with 10 flat HP, which he'd decided was better than the single point of agility from his previous leather shoes, though he didn't discard them either.

The gauntlets were hefty, glimmering with a similar but fainter blue, adding a single point of strength. His new pants had a gentle green glow, mostly focused on the leather layer instead of the metal plating, and provided a small amount of health regeneration.

The gear overall was somewhat heavier, though not dramatically so. John guessed that his improved stats were helping him handle it. He’d optimistically tested a few pieces of full plate, but he still couldn’t really move with much of it on. With equipment sorted, he moved onto the cash drops.

’The money continues to scale excellently,’ John thought, gathering all of the green-glowing sacks scattered all around. ’Gotta be more than a thousand dollars here, maybe two.’

“Huh, missed something,” he muttered, noticing a small bag tucked among a pile of green, its tiny purple glow drowned out by the colors around it. Digging into it, he realized that it wasn’t a bag of loot. The bag itself was the loot - a soft, deep purple-red bag just big enough to fit in his palm.

’Wait, could I not use gems inside bags in my inventory before?’ John wondered, examining the item. ’Maybe that’s a limitation on magic bags or something. Regardless, this is definitely a nice pickup, since my inventory was already struggling before.’

Excited at the possibilities for organization, The Gamer began shifting all of his skill gems into the soft bag. ’So much glorious decluttering.’

With his item juggling complete, he returned to where Ela was finishing filling a second blood bag with neon blue fluids. The first she had already capped off and wrapped up for storage. The monstrous heart continued to beat despite her intrusion, raw power still flowing from it into the surrounding area.

“Almost finished?” John asked, tapping his staff on the ground as he walked over.

The blonde turned to him, nodding. “Yes. Just a second. I see you have found some upgrades.”

“Yup. Nothing crazy, but it’s better than what I had before,” he replied.

“I like it. Much better than your old mish-mash of armor,” she commented, pulling her syringe from a drained lump of blue-stained flesh.

He smiled. “Thanks. Um, no shield, unfortunately.”

’And there was still a ton of junk I’ll be leaving behind again. Maybe if I had a way to salvage it or something…’ The Gamer pondered as Ela began to pack her things up.

“Oh well. I will get another eventually. Shall we?” She gestured away from the fleshy growth.

With both of their gathering objectives complete, the two stepped back to a safe distance, climbing up off the tracks at last. Turning around, John planted his staff in the floor, swapping his [Ice Surge] gem back out for [Lesser Air Burst]. Once more, the familiar waves of amber wind began to build around him. Glorious gold radiated from the lantern atop his weapon.

’You know, at this rate, I’m never going to actually level a skill up. I’m decimating my XP all the time. Oh, well.’

The Gamer took a moment to bathe in his spell’s radiance, enjoying the warmth. With a satisfied sigh, he unleashed his spell on the heart. Green and amber flashed across the station before smashing into the mass of flesh. Searing holy fire erupted all around as the orb exploded on contact. Lumps of flesh and ooze seemed to recoil from the point of contact.

John prepared a second volley. Another concentration of mana and wind swirled around him, gathering strength and pressure. He channeled this one to full, allowing it to grow and expand until it almost enveloped him. Then, he let it go.

This [Lesser Air Burst] landed with devastating results, sizzling as it blackened the heart’s exterior. The Gamer swore he heard a final, **** shriek all around them as a tremor ran through his target. Its bioluminescent sacks shifted from vibrant blue to a sickly red, a wave running out from it through all the ooze around them.

’Uh oh.’ John reacted instinctively this time, throwing up a wall of ice between the party and the heart.

The beating flesh monstrosity finally ruptured under the stress of holy fire, exploding with the last of its stored power in a ****, final attempt at ****. Blood and ooze and liquid mana sprayed everywhere, painting the walls in strange reds and purples. The fluids had turned acidic, eating gnarly holes and grooves into everything they touched.

Unfortunately for the horrid growth, the objects of its ire sat together, shielded by pristine blue crystals of ice. John smiled widely as the notice of completing the side area popped up, depositing a full grand into his inventory, as well as more experience.

As they waited out the splattering of acid around them, The Gamer turned to his companion. “There’s definitely a heart attack joke in here somewhere.”