By the time Isabella had managed to get her laughter under control, I’d already gotten up and started rummaging around for our last vestiges of food. Unfortunately, our cupboards were, more or less, bare. Feeling hungry, I went over, dug a few of the remaining packs of crackers out of the vending machine, and opened one of them to snack on. Cream Cheese on Rye. I would’ve said yuck it it in the past, but somehow eating rat made ones taste buds adapt.

“Brandr,” I asked puzzled, “what was you eating for the last few weeks? I didn’t see anything in the room there much for a person to live on.”

She glanced over, and with a dispassionate face, told us, “Myself.”

“Yourself?” I asked puzzled.

She nodded lightly. “When fighting the beasts, I noticed that I now healed from their wounds in a few hours. If I could heal from their wounds, should I not heal from wounds I gave myself? I would carve a thin strip from my leg and chew it as I grew hunger.”

Holy crap! Talk about a hardcore survival machine! “Did.. didn’t that hurt?”

“Life hurts, but the strong endure.” Her gentle thoughts were silent for a moment, then continued. “I must admit, I did not enjoy the trial. It is why I wished to gain the ability to overcome hunger completely and not just weaken it.”

Damn. That made a lot of sense to me. If I was to the point where I was eating my own leg, I don’t think I’d ever want to be in the grip of hunger ever again. One thing puzzled me though.

“Why not eat the beasts you killed?” I just had to ask.

“They were unworthy. Unclean. I did not wish to taint myself with their essence or blood.” She made it sound so common sense like, but I couldn’t follow that line of reasoning at all. I’d personally rather eat the leftover kernels of corn from a pig’s poop than I would to carve chunks out of myself, chew them up, and eat them raw. I couldn’t help but shiver at the thought of actually being desperate enough to do either.

Isabella was slowly getting up and holding her sides. Trails of dried tears lined her face and she wobbled slowly towards the bathroom. “I’ve got to clean off quickly, so I’m hopping in the shower real fast,” she told us. I simply nodded while trying to continue the conversation with Brandr.

“Do you know how the goblins got fruit? I don’t think I even recognized some of the things I was eating yesterday. There was something that tasted like a combination between an apple and a banana. An apanana? Banapple? I guess banapple sounded good enough for its name, for now.

Brandr was quiet for a moment, as if she was thinking. “Females,” was the cryptic response she finally gave.

“Females?” I asked puzzled.

She nodded. “I saw a few females with Red Skin before he died. They were weak. Worthless. But they could glow their hands and produce fruit from them. They offered to me when Red Skin died but I did not want anything from those so broken. One must be careful what one puts in the temple that is their body. I did not know their food, so I refused and sent them away.”

What the hell?! She had freed, or captured, women who could make food with magic; and instead of eating it; she sent them away? Isabella I could at least pretend to understand sometimes, but Brandr’s way of thinking was a complete mystery to me. Slowly I rubbed my temple while finishing my second pack of crackers. At least I was learning a bit more about things outside this room.

“And Red Skin? What was he?”

“When he died, a message appeared which said a Goblin Champion had been defeated. It didn’t seem important, so I did not bother to read more than that. I did not need to know by what name the beast was called. I just knew it could not defeat me, though it was much stronger than the others.”

A goblin champion? Oh shit! When I’d killed the Boss Rat, I’d gotten a message about killing 1 of 4 rats, and 0 of 4 goblins. I was assuming that there was a champion on each hallway. If that was so, one person would been to be there when each champion died, to unlock the elevators. I wasn’t there when Brandr slew the champion for this hallway, and she wasn’t here when I slew the Boss Rat. Did that mean we were going to be stuck on this level of the school forever?

Brandr was silent while I let worry gnaw and mull itself ever deeper into my mind, when a DING went off! Looking up, I saw a popup window appear in front of me.

System Notification: Update 0.1a.211 has completed!

The Dungeon of Walmart #0214 has been discovered and may now be explored! Bonus experience will be granted for the next 30 days for those who dare its dangers!

North Street Cowtown has been fully conquered by The Red Dog clan. Adventures should be on their guard if near there now!

The Beginner’s Dungeon, Floor 2 has had all Adventures defeated. These monsters will now live and grow in strength. What may they evolve into, if some brave band doesn’t go stop them? (Note: Beginner’s Dungeon, Floor 2 will remain locked until all four other floors are either cleared, or conquered by the monsters on them.)

The new magic Heartsong was discovered!

The new Heartsinger has been slain before they could master their art and the talent could be passed on. Is the magic of Heartsong gone forever from the lands, or can it be found again?

The World Allied Force #012 was defeated by Blackflame the Dragon! Can the World Allied forces recover from such a devastating loss?

Human Score:

Dead: 57%

Captured: 22%

Free: 17%

Converted: 4%

All interaction systems are now operational once again.[tr]

Reading over the notification, I almost felt like crying. The crap about the Walmart dungeon or North Street didn’t mean anything to me, but the human score was heartbreaking. Over half the people were dead. About a fourth of the people were captured. I didn’t know if that was the score for just the island we were on, or for all of humanity, but I really feared it was the latter. The report that The World Allied force had been defeated by a dragon told me that the news wasn’t just about here on the island. I’m certain we would’ve noticed if a dragon was blowing up an army out there!

And that figure for 4% of the people converted? What the heck did that mean? Were they joining the monsters? Somehow changing from human to something else like Isabella? Were Brandr and me free, or converted?

I honestly didn’t know what to make of it all, and the information about the Beginner’s Dungeon Floor 2 defeating all the adventurer’s on it, was also worrisome. It had four more floors, which means it was a five floor structure. WE were in a five floor structure! Was it possible that the message directly related to the survivors, or lack of them now, just a few floors below us?

Isabella came dripping out of the bathroom with a worried look on her face. “Did you guys see all that?” She asked.

Brandr just nodded, and I confirmed that I had as well. “I did, and I don’t like the information on the second floor of the Beginner’s Dungeon. What’s the chance that that’s the floor a little below us?”

Brandr shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her one way or the other, but Isabella stopped and chewed on her lower lip lightly. “I don’t know,” she admitted finally. “Some of the information seemed to be about local things, such as the Walmart and North Street information, and some seemed to be global type information such as the army defeat and casualty counts.

“If it was a local message, then there’s a very good chance that it’s here where we are. I’m thinking it has a high probability of being where we’re at. I’d imagine that there would be a lot of ‘Beginner Dungeons’ in a place as big as the whole world.”

“Then that means there’s a floor below us,“ I looked down past my feet, “that has killed all the people in it, and the monsters are growing and evolving.” I shivered at the thought. “And if we’re the last to clear our floor, we’ll unlock that floor when we unlock this one. The last floor to fall, or be unlocked, is going to have all the other floors unlocked at the same time and then have to deal with the monsters which have had time to multiple and evolve on the fallen floors."

I quickly tapped Brandr’s slave icon and then the icon to pull up her stats window.

[tr]Name: Zephyr RoseheartTitle: Rubber MaidAge: 16Class: NightbladeLevel: 5CP: 198STR: 12SYI: 12WIL: 12DEX: 26MYS: 10PRE: 2CON: 10SPR: 0LUC: 10STA: 110Status: Slave-SwornHP: 140MP: 140SP: 0PD: 4DR: 0MR: 0FR: 0CR: 0AR: 0DR: 25WR: 0OR: 0ER: 0LR: -25

198 points left to help give her an improvement on her stats. “Bran, tell me what type of class a Nightblade is. Where do you need your stats put to help you become stronger?”

“I’m evil,” her voice quietly whispered in my head, but she shrugged her shoulders. “When Red Skin died, he had a book, which I read. It offered three choices: Guardian, Warden, or Nightblade. I chose the nightblade as it was the only one that seemed to speak about weapons.

“The book changed and I had a smaller one to study. It taught me the ways of what it called a nightblade. A silent warrior of the darkness, forever banished from the light of the gods. It had a history of the people who practiced the way of the nightblades, and it seems as if they were murderers and assassins by trade. I do not care what they were. I am simply what I am, and that is all I am.

“From the book, I have learned to walk in darkness, cloak myself in darkness, and to use the darkness to strength my strikes. I am evil, and the gods refuse to shine upon me.” Then she shrugged her shoulders once more. “I have never needed to have gods shine upon me before, and I would not wish them to, even if they wanted. I shall grow, or fall, by my own strength, not by the blessing of some force I know nothing about.”

Isabella giggled lightly and then went over and hugged her. “That’s OK. I’m more evil than you. I don’t just have a zero spirituality, I have a negative ones. I’m a demon, so the gods don’t like me at all. You must just be a beginner in the ways of evil, where me and Drake are veteran evil doers.”

We are? Since when? And I still had some spirituality left. A whole two points of it! The gods would still notice me enough to shit on me apparently!

Mother, please forgive me. I thought I was trying to be a decent person and do the right thing, and yet it seems like I’m now forever partied with evil. A demon on my side, an assassin on the other, and since they both claim to listen to me, apparently I’m the evil overlord who takes the blame for not keeping them in line. I wanted to cry, but there wasn’t any time for that. We didn’t want to be the last to unlock our floor. It wasn’t just about survival now, it was also a race against the other survivors!

Since it didn’t sound like Brandr was a wizard or anything like Isabella, I decided to simply raise her physical abilities for now. First, her strength to 15 and then her constitution to 15. She had 99 points left after that, but I was going to save 28 of them for a ‘just in case’ thing. That gave 71 points to spend elsewhere. I did some quick counting, and I couldn’t take anything up beyond 20 to try for the inhuman bonus, so instead I went ahead and raised her luck up to a 15 as well for 60 points.

There were 11 more that the girls said I could spend on stats, and 28 for ‘just in case’, for a total of 39 left, and not much to spend it on since everything now seemed higher than that.

Name: Zephyr RoseheartTitle: Rubber MaidAge: 16Class: NightbladeLevel: 5CP: 39STR: 15SYI: 12WIL: 12DEX: 26MYS: 10PRE: 2CON: 15SPR: 0LUC: 15STA: 150Status: Slave-SwornHP: 140MP: 140SP: 0PD: 4DR: 0MR: 0FR: 0CR: 0AR: 0DR: 25WR: 0OR: 0ER: 0LR: -25

Saying, ‘Screw it’, to myself, I went ahead and put one more point into strength. It left her with 24 instead of 28, but that was close enough and some extra strength on her part might make up for the extreme lack of it from Isabella’s. Isabella couldn’t carry a lot of weight, or gear, so Brandr could help with her potion now.

Taking another moment, I tapped all the buttons for her options and looked at the complete information that came up.

Name: Zephyr RoseheartTitle: Rubber MaidAge: 16Class: NightbladeLevel: 5CP: 24STR: 16SYI: 12WIL: 12DEX: 26MYS: 10PRE: 2CON: 15SPR: 0LUC: 15STA: 155Status: Slave-SwornHP: 140MP: 140SP: 0PD: 4DR: 0MR: 0FR: 0CR: 0AR: 0DR: 25WR: 0OR: 0ER: 0LR: -25

Weapon Proficiency – Hand-to-Hand (100)

Weapon Specialty – Hand-to-Hand (100)

Weapon Mastery – Hand-to-Hand (47)

Broad-Base Weapon Proficiency – All Swords (100)

Broad-Base Weapon Specialty – All Swords (100)

Broad-Base Weapon Mastery – All Swords (100)

Broad-Base Weapon Grand-Mastery – All Swords (72)

Dodge (72)

Parry (60)

Riposte (100)

Riposte – Specialty (42)

Dance (56)

Nightstep (12)

Nightshade (16)

Nightstrike (11)

Acrobatics (50)

Meditate (72)

Slave-Sworn – the character has sworn to faithfully follow another, without question or reservation

100% immunity to mental effects due to unwavering faith to owner. (fear, charm, confusion)

Inability to refuse direct command of bond-holder.

Zephyr Namesake – the character has taken the divine namepath “Zephyr”, allowing them to move light and gentle as a breeze

Character’s physical weight is reduced 90%. (Current weight 14.2 pounds)

Character can reduce falling speed by up to 90%.

Character can increase falling speed by up to 500%

Roseheart Namesake -- the character has taken the divine namepath “Roseheart” and gains various benefits while under the various aspects of roses. The greater the character is influenced by the aspect, the greater the bonus granted by the aspect becomes.

Red – Aspect of Love/Romance – combat abilities increase

Pink – Aspect of Gratitude/Appreciation -- skills affected by grace and elegance will increase

White – Aspect of Purity/Spirtuality – spiritualism and spiritual effects are increased

Orange – Aspect to Enthsuam/Passion – rate of learning increases

Black – Aspect of Death/Mourning – various bonuses, dependent on intent of action

Bloody hell!

I had a weapon proficiency of about 10. She had 100 proficiency, 100 specialty, 100 mastery, and 72 grand-mastery. I guess that made her about 37 times better at fighting than I was. I thought I was doing good, and now I just wanted to cry! A guess a week of beating something with a stick was worlds apart from a lifetime training with a sword under a master.

I was so awestruck, my eyes glazed over and I just skimmed the rest of the information. I knew enough to be certain of one thing: Brandr was a bad ass, and I was thankful as I could be that she had someone joined us.

“Get ready girls.” I was starting to put my clothes and get my weapons readied as well. “We’ve got to do some serious hunting now. We don’t want to be the last to unlock our floor and end up swarmed by the beasts that conquered below us. I was going to harvest the goblins we had here, but they can just wait until we’re hurt and needing to heal. Fight while healthy, rest or practice when hurt.

“For starters, let’s see if we can find some of those fruit makers!” Advertisement Support "The 8th Day" PayPal Patreon Previous

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