When I had received my first Crime Alert early on after being Augmented, Angie had made it clear that generally speaking, they would appear only if I could make it to the crime in time. That meant that when I could only run around, I had had an extremely limited range, but now that I could fly at speeds that would let me cover miles in mere minutes, my effective range had grown by leaps and bounds. So far, the system had generated Crime Alerts for Swansong and I for each of the Clockwork appearances that we had eventually quelled and I didn’t expect that to change any time soon.
With that in mind, we split off for our own Safe Houses to complete our level ups, though I hesitated on the roof for a few minutes before even heading through the stairwell. It was entirely possible that it was already too late since I had leveled up, but my Pendant of Paramount Ascension guaranteed an extra stat point for my lowest stat with each level. If I didn’t have the necklace equipped that was just wasted.
The Pendant had taken a mental backseat over the last few hours but Jon was surprised when I pulled the window open and selected the stats without even taking the time to do a final discussion. As I had known from the moment I had received it, Luck was the obvious first choice, but now that I was actually in a squad with Swansong, it actually made the second choice easier.
Choosing Strength could have been a good idea simply to hit harder and stack my stamina higher quicker, but I was already hitting damn hard, and Swansong’s boosting songs made me hit even harder. After the fight with the monkeys, the choice really became pretty clear and with a quick mental selection with the item’s window open, the stats were set to Luck and Dexterity.
While I probably wouldn’t be throwing a ton of points in the stat like I did either my Luck, this did give me a good boost to work from, and I could always reconsider a few of my gear choices to raise it even higher. Maybe I was imagining it, but even with just the new hood and cloak I had attached, I felt like I was both moving faster and more nimbly on my feet.
With that decision made and the necklace attached and tucked under my gear, I headed through the roof access and down the stairs. I made sure to have the item equipped to both my active patrol gear and my civilian gear. Thankfully the faint glow that emanated from the Pendant wasn’t bright enough that it shone through the basic black shirt that I had worn just so I wouldn’t be shirtless when I did deactivate my gear.
“You know, I still don’t know if I fully like the squad name,” I said after I closed the front door behind me.
“Why not? I mean, it’s a mix of both of your powers and sounds unique,” Jon called from the kitchen.
“I don’t know… Fortune’s Cadence. It kinda just sounds like an ability name… and besides, what if we do eventually get more people to join?” I asked, walking over to the living room and dropping onto the couch.
“Well that’s why it’s a good thing the name isn’t set in stone then isn’t it, it’s just one visit to Registration to swap,” Jon shot back, tossing me a bottle of water before he started to walk toward the door to the Command Room. “But like… if you didn’t like it, why did you guys use it?”
“I’m still annoyed that you two just ignored my suggestion! I even complimented Loophole by calling him Beauty!” Angie said.
“Please, we could have spent the rest of the day brainstorming, although given how frazzled Swansong got after those monkeys nearly blew up under our feet, maybe I shouldn’t have pushed her to get right back out there,” I said, ignoring Angie. I leaned back into the couch and threw my feet up on the coffee table as I took a long drink from the bottle. “I hid in my room for a few days after I turned my Acceptance Matrix off…”
“Yeah but you had also just been pretty heavily traumatized, I think you did the right thing,” Jon said and I looked over the couch at him as he swiveled in his chair. “She said it herself, she’s not a fighter. That means the fights you two have been in together are the only fights she’s been in, it’s better to get her used to fighting with it off. Now chop chop, you’ve got stat points to assign and loot boxes to open.”
“Sheesh, can’t a dude even put his feet up for five minutes?”
“You can relax and do that stuff at the same time, I think we both know it’s Luck and Dexterity this time around,” He shot back and I knew he was right. I opened up my level up window and was pleasantly surprised to see that my Style stat, being my lowest base score, had been increased by a single point. Changing the Pendant of Paramount Ascension out for the Lucky Pendant I had originally just put into the necklace slot to have it occupied meant losing two points from my Luck stat. I dropped two points into both Luck and Dexterity and then activated my active gear.
“Damn, that brings my Luck up to 57 and my Dexterity up to 54… I need to get another S+ box,” I muttered as the Ability Augmentation window opened.
“If my opinion matters here, I think you should go with Sting Like a Bee… At 57 that skill is gonna give you what.. 114% chance to strike weak spots? At this point, I think if you’re gonna make that skill stronger, other than dumping your Targeted Ability Level Up scrolls into it, Augmenting it is gonna be the way to do it, especially with how frequently you still use it,” Jon suggested.
“That’s not a bad idea,” I agreed. “Although I am a bit curious what would happen if I used one of these on one of my passive or movement skills. Would be really nice if I could get these Augmentations more frequently.”
“It is up to you at the end of the day. Given that Swansong can fly on her own though, it’s not like you really need to try to fish with your Personal Gravity Laws to be able to move people around with you… Though yeah, it would be interesting to see what would happen to Phase Step.”
“Yeah, but maybe next time,” I said and selected Sting Like a Bee.
“Sting Like a Bee: Level 3 Activated Ability. You gain a 2% chance (increasing by 2% for every 1 point of Luck you have) for your next 3 Unarmed Strikes to strike Weak Spots and inflict an additional 35% damage! Additional effects may also occur. This ability has a 2 minute and 30 second cooldown after the final strike is thrown. This ability has the Time Adjustment Augmentation, removing its time limit.”
“First Modification Option! Passive Upgrade! All of your Unarmed Strikes now have a 1% chance (increasing by 1% for every 1 point of Luck you have) to strike Weak Spots, dealing the same damage as the activated version. This Passive Ability does not stack with the activated version and is not in effect while the ability is on cooldown.”
“Second Modification Option! Highlighter Perk! When this ability is activated, possible weak spots will be highlighted on enemies within your local area. Hitting one of these highlighted areas grants an additional 5% chance of dealing critical damage and causing an instant KO.”
“Third Modification Option! Double Up! This modification is as simple and straightforward as can be and it almost makes me think Axio doesn’t have a whole lot of ideas for how to modify this particular ability. The maximum number of strikes that this ability can deliver is doubled.”
“Those first two were options when I first augmented this one too,” I said as I looked between them. I hadn’t actually chosen the Time Adjustment augmentation when I had last seen this list and I was once again thankful that turning off the Acceptance Matrix also got rid of the countdown. A thought crossed my mind and I almost wished there was a way to send a group message but shrugged it off. I was sure BrainCraft had probably already filled Pinky in about the rather useful side effect of turning off the Matrix.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Heads up, I just volunteered you to help Swansong out with deciding her Level 12 Augmentation,” I said and he laughed.
“Oh sweet, I really want to see what sort of augmentations she’ll get but didn't know if I should just offer to help or not,” he replied and then sighed. “Kinda a shame that forming the squad didn’t give me an upgrade in here to better help her but oh well… a dude can dream.”
“To be completely fair, since the Command Room is experimental and Axio hasn’t included it into databases there’s no way to tell for sure just how the room will evolve as you increase its level,” Angie chimed in.
“Huh, well then a dude really can dream then,” Jon said with a laugh. “Swansong just messaged me, need any input on your choice? I feel like you’d be talking it out with me already if you did.”
“Yeah, I kinda think the choice here is easy. The Highlighter perk is tempting for that chance to KO people, but honestly with my luck rising higher and higher, giving it the Passive just makes sense to me, right?”
“Yup, pretty much what I was thinking too. Now, I’m gonna help Swansong out here, are you gonna open those loot boxes or did you want to wait for my reroll?” He asked and I shook my head, unsure if he was even looking over at me.
“Nah, I only have an A:Tier, a B:Tier, and a C:Tier to open. I guess I could hold the A until after Axio’s announcement when you refresh, but I think anything lower than an A, F’s withstanding, I can just open when I think to sit down, don’t you?”
“Eh, it’s really up to you but you’re probably right. It would take days to open up your boxes if we tried to wait to reroll every item. You get them pretty fast overall,” he agreed. “She’s augmenting the Song of Hercules, in case you’re wondering.”
"Huh, not the one I was expecting her to pick but maybe she had already done her healing ones," I replied.
"Ding ding ding," Jon called out. "She had gone through pretty much all of her other skills once, she really didn't have a lot of abilities to go through and other than the Song of the Peaceful Mind that she just created, the Song of Hercules was the only one she hadn't augmented once. She's sending the Augmentations now, I'll let you know what she picks."
I focused on the Ability Augmentation window as he quieted down and selected the Passive Upgrade, causing the window to vanish in a flash, leaving the stat window open in its place. When I wasn’t placing points in it, the window looked a lot like the character sheet that Jon had made for me for the few times I had played Dungeons and Dragons with him. There were dedicated slots underneath my name, level and powerset name that listed both my Primary and my Secondary Powers, with nothing but question marks for the slot that should have listed my Hidden Power.
“You know... I also really kinda wish I knew even a bit of what to expect with whatever the hell this Hidden Power is going to be. I mean… I get it, I know Angie isn’t going to say anything and you can’t access it in the database yet since this whole game is set up around keeping us in the dark as long as possible about shit, but it would be nice to know something,” I said before closing the window out.
“Well if you wanted to try hunting Tempest’s Wrath down, you could always ask her,” Jon responded and I looked over my shoulder at him again. “Not sure when she got there, was looking at the Leaderboard when you were on your way down and noticed she had gotten up to level 15.”
“Huh… well I guess I didn’t exactly expect her to stop whatever rampage she’s been on just because the first phase finished,” I said. While I hadn’t met the woman who stood at the top of our leaderboard, I had seen her in person just once before and the thought made me involuntarily shudder. “She had some weird energy to her though, so maybe not. I could message Silver Wrangler, I bet if I bought him a beer or two he might say something.”
“I wouldn’t count on it, Loophole,” Angie said. “That’s one of those details that would definitely get suppressed. If Axio wanted you all to get that information that easily, he’d have let us just tell you. It’s supposed to be a surprise, stop trying to spoil the fun and open your loot boxes. That’s something you can actually enjoy right now.”
“Eh fair, I might still try anyway but it’s not something I have to do this minute,” I said and then materialized the three boxes onto the couch next to me.
C:Tier boxes, unlike D:Tiers, weren’t completely useless to get and as I opened up the one I had, I was happy to receive Targeted Ability Level Up Scroll and 1000 Credits. I was sitting on four of the Targeted level up scrolls and two of the Random ones. I had been sitting on them because I hadn’t necessarily wanted to use all of them until I knew just how hard it would be to increase the levels of my skills, but it really didn’t make sense to hold onto the Random ones.
I pulled the two scrolls from my B.E.L.T. and activated them one after another.
"Float Like A Butterfly. This ability has increased to level 4. The duration of this skill has increased from 20 seconds to 25 seconds. This ability has not been augmented."
“Fun House. This ability has increased to level 2. This ability now creates 4 afterimages of yourself in random locations. This ability has been augmented one of three times. Current Augmentations: Recording.”
I left the Targeted scrolls and moved on to the B:Tier loot box. This one had a Satchel of Stamina Injectors and a trophy called The Adrenaline Anchor. I materialized it into my hands and turned the clear glass case in my hands, unsure what exactly I was looking at. There were two pieces of rock in opposite corners with two chains pulled taut between them that had a faint red glow to the entire thing. At the end of the day though, it really didn’t matter what the trophy looked like since I still had an open slot on my display case that I could put it on, so I opened up its description to see what exactly it would do.
“The Adrenaline Anchor. This is a standard trophy. Passive Effect: Dodging attacks grants you a level 1 Adrenaline buff, increasing the speed in which you throw physical strikes by 10% and increasing their damage by 10% for 3 seconds.”
“Umm... Can trophies be sold in the resale shop? Am I blanking, was that a filter option?” I asked, pulling the trophy back into my B.E.L.T. It wasn't useless by any stretch and I would definitely be using the trophy, but I knew I needed to be better about the different aspects of the system that I had been failing to properly keep up with.
“Yeah it was an option I think, probably wouldn’t be a bad thing to check them out next time you’re over there. Baby’s First News Appearance is okay and you’ve gotten its boost up to 11% at this point, but it’s really just a reputation boost, might be the first one you’ll want to replace,” Jon suggested and I heard him groan slightly. I looked over in time to see him stretching. “I got Swansong all squared away.”
“Dang already?”
“Yeah, she had a couple of interesting choices but I’d be willing to bet that most of her songs are going to see a lot of similar options. Although I think that sorta makes sense given her abilities are always going to generate in similar ways,” He explained as he swiveled in his chair to face me. “That’s not important though. We settled on an augmentation called Reverberation. When she stops singing, the effect of the song will linger for a minute, but slowly get weaker the longer she’s not singing. I’m gonna try and think of some more ideas that she can use to create abilities, it would be nice if we could stack some effects from her.”
“Well if anyone’s gonna come up with some ideas, it’ll be you,” I said and then eyed the A:Tier. “I know I should probably wait to open this but screw it, my Super Luck alone has its base modification from my luck stat, let’s gamble and see what I get.”
“I mean, that’s kinda being a bit impatient don’t yah think? You know… since my reroll only has an hour and a half or so until I can use it, especially since it’s not like you’re sitting on any F:Tiers or higher ones we could use the reroll on,” Jon said.
“Maybe, but I don’t know, call it a hunch or a gut feeling,” I said and he just shrugged.
“Well seeing that I know you well enough to know you're just going to open it then, let’s make it interesting. If it’s something you are gonna wish you could reroll, dinners on you tonight,” Jon shot back and I laughed.
“Deal,” I said and then opened the box. Jon swiveled in his chair and then I immediately heard him let out a loud, practically annoyed groan.
“Yeah, I think you lost, Codex,” Angie giggled.
“Oh fine, I’ll go grab some dinner,” he said, immediately turning back out of his chair and hopping to his feet.
While the A:Tier box did only contain one item, it was a knowledge book. That alone probably wouldn’t have made Jon concede defeat right away given that there were plenty of knowledge books that I had seen at the Beacon of Knowledge that I had no interest in buying, but the title alone was.
Something I had noticed early on was just how fittingly perfect many of the items that I had received from my boxes were for the situations and challenges I had found myself in. Receiving a book titled The Little Engineer’s Handbook when there were a ton of robots appearing for me to fight really just went ahead and reinforced that trend.
Sure, there was always the chance that the Level 3 Mechanical Engineering knowledge wouldn’t be enough to overtake creations from an Augment with powers literally designed to build robots, but like the book on Venom Knowledge I had received before I had first really encountered the Sal clones, it was a start. I was just going to have to get creative.
Happy Monday! If you're enjoying the story make sure you Comment, Rate, or Review!
Updated Character Sheet with New Level:
Loophole - Level 14 Perfect Planner
Current General Stats
(denotes score increase from Pendant of Paramount Ascension)
Current Equipment
Features:
Come on over to my Discord to talk about the story, see advanced news, and just talk nonsense!