Chapter 172

A Soul That Shook the Nether (I)

Shopkeeper was on his knees, his arms stretched outbound, chained at the wrists, hanging. His head was hung low, the eternal hood pulled back to reveal an elongated and bald head with asymmetrical wrinkles rummaging about like pulsating veins. However, his eyes still burned with defiance, even as the group slowly entered the basement, one by one.

Cain flung forward a sphere of light he quickly fashioned into a Skill, illuminating the drab and cold walls. Luckily, the Soullink Skill persisted through Cain’s awakening; all he had to do was create one anew swiftly, and he was able to commune with the seed he’d planted deep inside Shopkeeper’s soul. There was a brief stare-down between the two sides before the Shopkeeper scoffed and looked away.

“You will pay dearly for this, Thief,” he said. “And regret the day you ushered the ire of my people.”

“... no,” Cain said calmly. “Quite the opposite actually; sooner or later, they’ll come to regret ever getting even false-upset over your death. But, that’s for the future. One you won’t get to see. For now... I’ll kindly ask you to shut the fuck up so my friends here can beat your ass as much as they want. If you so much as glare at one of them, I’ll burn you. If you hiss, I’ll burn you. If you piss yourself and it stinks, I’ll burn you. Actually, I’ll just burn you no matter what you do. So, give us your worst.”

Shopkeeper merely stared back, curling his tongue and keeping silent. Cain lit up a cigarette and turned around, leaving. He didn’t care what they did to him; in the end, they couldn’t truly hurt him. The only reason even Cain was capable of doing it is that he caught the man off-guard and planted a Mind-connected seed inside the latter’s soul.

Besides, whatever they were about to do to him, Cain was willing to bet he’d to something that would be a hundred times worse. He climbed back upstairs and stared out the window, ignoring the noises coming from down below. They needed it, even if for just a little while.

He, on the other hand, went back to tinkering with the system; though he didn’t test out any Skills, he did create quite a few just to slowly begin exploring how the system determines the cost, cooldowns, damage, and other aspects of the Skills that he had no control over. The most basic answer was simple -- the more complex the Skill, the more it cost, but it didn’t necessarily mean it dealt more damage.

Damage part of the Skill seemed to be linked more so with how the Skill is structured rather than anything else; that is to say, how the Elements work together, and how they work within the framework of what the Skill is supposed to do.

He created a simple ‘Fireball’ Skill -- a straightforward, shoot a ball of fire at the target sort of a deal. What determined other aspects of the Skill, however, varied; damage by how much Elemental charge he demanded inside the core; duration of the cast by how much damage it dealt, being instant beneath a certain curve; cooldown by the duration of the cast; 1 second cast seemed to demand a 5 second cooldown, while no cast also meant no cooldown. Adding any extra affixes, such as the target then being burned further when hit by the fireball, changes up the costs and damage, but doesn’t seem to impact the cooldown or the cast time as the affix’s strength is based entirely off of the base fireball.

The system appeared to truly be open-ended and unrestricted, though Cain still had to push it eventually to find the limits of the framework. Sighing, he ended the Spell Creation and returned to reality where he saw Emma walking out of the basement and up to the window, taking the cigarette from his hands and taking a puff herself, coughing right after. Cain swiftly took it back, looking at her oddly.

“... should I ask?”

“You said they calm you, cough,” Emma muttered through the violent coughs. “Fuck, calm my ass!! That bitch burns!”

“Well, yeah,” Cain said. “When you inhale it like a moron.”

“Didn’t think there was a skill to sucking poison into your lungs...”

“There’s always some skill involved in ‘sucking’ things.” he added with a grin. She glared at him for a moment and rolled her eyes, sighing.

“... glad to see you’re at least okay.”

“Aww, you were worried? I’m fairly certain I’ve crossed the threshold of a sociopath about a decade and a half ago.”

“Of course I was worried,” she groaned, leaning against the wall. “I know you like to shoulder on everything like a soldier. And, for once, it ain’t even your fault.”

“Ouch.”

“Ha ha ha...”

“... you’re doing better than I expected.”

“Oh? What did you expect?”

“... remember when nana died?” Cain’s question prompted Emma’s face to darken as she sighed. “Something like that. You were always great at healing the pain of others... but awful when it came to yourself.”

“... I dealt with losing you once,” she said, glancing at him. “Made me feel so strong I thought I could fight a Terminator or something.”

“Tsk, I always thought you could fight a Terminator.”

“... you are okay, right? You’re not gonna go out and get blackout drunk for 3 months straight?” she asked with genuine worry and even a trace of anxiety in her voice.

“Well, I will have to go out,” Cain said. “I mean, we all will -- but, seeing as I’m level 1 again--”

“You are what now?!” Emma interrupted swiftly. “What happened?! Who did it to you?”

“Uh... me?”

“Huh?”

“I got a new class... kinda,” Cain elaborated. “Pretty strong, but the requirement was that I destroy all my items and go back to being level 1. And, well, I did.”

“All... items?”

“Yup.”

“Plus levels?”

“Yup.”

“This class better be fucking god-sent, dude,” she said. “You had a lot of good items and the highest level in the world...”

“Eh, items are easily replaced,” Cain shrugged. “And leveling back up is a joke. Besides, the class is fun -- I get to make however many Skills I want and in whichever way I want. You always wanted bigger boobs, right? I can probably make a Skill to make it happen.”

“... you mean, you wanted me to have bigger boobs, right?” Emma asked with slanted eyes.

“What? No. I always liked your boobs,” Cain said. “I was actually kinda afraid when they started mega growing during our junior year.”

“O’ yea,” Emma chuckled. “You did always look terrified when I let you get to the second. I always just figured you were afraid of boobs in general.”

“... I was a horned-up fifteen-year-old who was given keys to his house of worship,” Cain said. “I just didn’t wanna break anything.”

“... pfft, ha ha ha ha,” Emma laughed suddenly, seemingly letting go of something in her throat, something that was clogging her up. It was a hearty laugh, a free-spirited one, the one that sounded like the springtime chimes.

“Day after day,” Cain said, his expression mellowing out. “I keep re-discovering all the things I loved about you. As awful as it sounds... I’m glad I forgot some of them.”

“Hey, you and me buddy,” she replied, smiling freely at him. “Plus, I learn some new things. Like, when you were a depressed piece of shit, your sarcasm was just mean and angry. Now, though, it’s mostly just weird, if I’m being honest, but... also kinda funny.”

“... Em’.”

“Yes, Cain?”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“Huh?”

“I know you can do most if not all things in the world just fine by yourself,” he said. “But...”

“I get it,” she said. “It’s like with Lana. I do want her to experience the world, but I also wanna kinda gate how she experiences it. And... I do like that, C’. From time to time,” she added, taking his hand and gently caressing it. “I do like feeling like a princess, and you being my Prince Charming, riding in and rescuing me. It feels good to be taken care of, to not need to think about anything. But... that’s not who I am. And that’s not who you are either. Just because the scenery and scenario of where we are changed, doesn’t mean we did too.”

“... it’s nothing to do with that,” Cain said. “I just don’t wanna see the woman I love bleeding her veins dry. Is that so wrong?”

“Oh? Oh? You’re really pulling that card? That card?” she glared at him with a strange look. “As if I just enjoy having the man I love disappear and casually drop ‘oh, yea, I beat this mega-boss of the first floor, no biggie, didn’t even get hurt’, or have him swoop in and fight off everything on his own while the rest of us stick back and suck our thumbs and watch you get wounded time and time again? Yes, indeed. This whole Tower experience has been a fucking picnic for me.”

“... alright,” Cain nodded, though unable to hold back a grin of joy from emerging on his face. “So, promise -- from now on, we fight together, we bleed together -- unless it’s one of those delightful few days for you--”

“--dude...”

“--and we beat this whole thing together.”

“... why do you wanna beat it anyway?” Emma said. “Is there like a time-limit since you returned from the future? Or did you lie before and mankind will actually go extinct and you were like the last human alive or something?”

“No,” Cain shook his head. “I... I just wanna know the truth.”

“The truth? About what?” she quizzed.

“Everything, I suppose,” Cain shrugged. “This place gets really interesting later on, Em’, especially if you dig into the myths. Plus, some things you’ll learn will subvert your entire knowledge of the universe. Eternity itself is discovered in this place. I... I just wanna know how. Don’t mean I’ll finish it. I’ll try and try, but, if I ever do hit a wall... we can just retire, move somewhere up the mountain and fuck like crazy rabbits all day long ‘till we croak.”

“Eh, to be fair, that last one doesn’t sound too bad,” she chuckled. “Maybe we should skip everything else and do it as soon as Lana decides she’s tired of our shit at the age of 18 and moves out with her biker boyfriend.”

“And, I’m guessing, I’m at fault for a biker boyfriend, eh?”

“Well, girls don’t get boyfriends who have more tattoos than dollar bills ‘cause of mommy issues, that’s for sure.”

“Like you would know,” Cain groaned. “You settled for a first crook who showed you his cook.”

“... what the fuck’s that even mean? I swear, sometimes you try so hard to make a pun, you just utter complete nonsense.”

“... yea, maybe moving up to a mountain with you isn’t the best idea.”

“O’ ye’ faithful, bite me.”