4.10

“And he said: ‘This chest definitely has treasures in it’, and then I ate him! Hahaha!” - Mimicron The Living Dungeon recounting its early years.

Noam punched the air.

Strength: 7-10

“Again, and as hard as you can.”

Strength: 11-14

“Is it thirteen?”

Noam wiped some sweat off his face.

Stamina: 8-11

“Close,” he answered as Greenie bought him a waterskin. “It was twelve.”

Strength: 12

“Stamina ten,” I guessed.

“Right on,” he answered sounding impressed.

Stamina: 10

I opened my vision. My back was turned to Noam, but I could still see him clearly through Greenie.

“Good thing too, otherwise I would’ve gotten traumatised for nothing.”

“Your sacrifice was worth it,” I drily said.

“Fuck you- Why am I insulting myself!?”

Ignoring my- Declan- whatever’s outburst, I stood up. Feeling the soft sand underneath me. The sun had set some time ago, so the beach was safe for me. Annoyingly even when I wore three layers worth of protection, heavy sunlight still got to me.

“Why does my mouth suddenly feel like it’s burning?”

Strange, so was mine, “Probably nothing.”

“You are literally talking to yourself now,” Noam said as he stood next to me. “I’m kinda impressed you lack so many friends you’ve made one with yourself.”

“The guys an asshole though.” “The guys an asshole though.” Both of us said at once.

“Wait, he can’t hear me.”

“Other Dustin said Dustin was an asshole,” Yellow helpfully supplied.

Noam looked at me strangely for a moment, before shaking his head. “Don’t comment on it,” he muttered. “Let him figure it out himself.”

“Mental stats are harder to figure out,” I said as I leafed through my notepad. “Especially charisma.”

I quickly wrote something down on my notepad, before tearing the page.

“Noam solve this differential equation would you?”

He stared at me, eyes darting between my extended hand and my face. He pointed at himself.

“Yes,” I impatiently said, “you.”

He grumbled something before taking the page.

“You too Declan,” I said, “You can see it from Greenie’s perspective.”

“Ah, you’re using me as another measuring stick since Eve confirmed my intelligence to be fifteen. Smart.”

“I gotta be, otherwise I dumped these points into wisdom for nothing.”

“Most of it was from your racial bonuses though.”

“Only four, which admittedly is a large amount relatively.”

“Done,” Declan said. I briefly checked his vision, seeing the notepad display where he solved the problem.

“Done,” Noam said after a moment, handing the page back to me.

I quickly checked the answers between them, finding both to be correct.

Intelligence: 8-14

“Needs something with more challenge doesn’t it?”

“Yep,” I answered.

I began writing another question, “Can you-”

“It’s twelve,” Noam gave up.

Intelligence: 12

“Got it.” I didn’t need to write it down. The information was already stuck in my head and not something I would forget. That was the main strength behind Analyse.

It’s something that is initially rather useless, but with every encounter, the more I will know about my opponent.

“Don’t forget my contribution,” Declan said.

And yeah, Observation buffed it by an incredible amount. It doesn’t have to be me that sees it. Since I can remake Greenie and Yellow as many times as I needed so long as I have the mana. I effectively had access to four separate perspectives from which I can gather information from.

“The information game is the most important after all.”

“You going to use that thing on me anyway?” Noam asked.

“Oh yeah, almost forgot.” I raised a hand, placing it on his shoulder.

“Observe,” Declan said through me.

A new set of vision opened up in my mind.

“Unfortunately I can’t share what I’m seeing with you,” I said somewhat annoyed.

“Probably wishing for too much.”

“What level are you anyways? Your stats are pretty low.”

“Three.”

“Huh?” Huh?

“Open your character sheet for me?”

Noam Character Sheet

Name: Noam

Classes: Skald Level 3

Body

Strength: 12

Agility: 14

Dexterity: 10

Constitution: 9

Stamina: 10

Vitality: 8

Mind

Intelligence: 12

Wisdom: 10

Charisma: 14

Soul

Will: 10

Aura: 10

Perception: 10

Racials:

Darkvision, Hellish Resistance

Class Skills:

Breathless

Martial Arts:

Swift Strike

Spells:

T0: Biting Words, Vicious Mockery

Available Spell Slots:

T0: 2

T1: 2

Proficiencies:

Polearms: Novice

Languages:

Common

Infernal

Oh. Of course, his race didn’t automatically make him min/max.

“Our mistake.”

Damn though, is this what a normal character sheet looks like? I just realised now we have four stats in the negative.

“Subject Noam has been promoted to meatshield.”

Noam kicked me, “You were insulting me somehow weren’t you?”

I hastily shook my head, “Nope, just wondering why you haven’t taken a Path yet if you dinged Level Three.”

“I dinged it at the restaurant, haven’t gotten around to getting one yet.”

What restaurannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn-

“Abort that thought process!”

“Huh, what are you waiting for then?” I asked as I bent down slightly, just in time to avoid his roundhouse.

“You, idiot,” he said, “I’m thinking of doing a restat somehow. A halberd was a decent weapon but it lacked short-range,” he said, gesturing to the broken weapon head on his belt.

“I see no problem with just taking a close melee weapon,” I answered, “you already have spells for ranged.”

“I can’t just fire them off willy-nilly you know?”

“He can’t?” “You can’t?”

“Yeah,” Noam answered, “I could, but it wouldn’t hurt as much.”

“I have to offend my target on a deep and personal level for them to deal the most damage,” he stressed. “How is someone supposed to take damage from insults if they weren’t insulted!?”

“Ah.” Those were annoying conditions, “But you can still spam it right?” He did so at the forest after all.

“Yeah, but it wastes a lot more mana as I’m shotgunning it then. With small effect other than making them pissed.”

“He really is suited for a meatshield.”

I absentmindedly dodged Noam’s punch, “That is annoying.”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“Make a new character?”

“And miss out on this?” he gestured to himself.

“Hmmm…”

“Dave?” Greenie suggested.

“Huh, that could work actually,” I said as I took out a Gold Coin.

“Oooh! Let me,” Noam said, snatching the coin from my hand.

He rolled it between his fingers for a moment, before flicking it upwards.

The coin soon landed, creating another door to Daves. Noam walked in, only pausing briefly to pick up the coin. I followed behind him.

Dave’s store was still the same as ever, though it felt… larger compared to before.

“God there’s three of you now,” Noam joked, gesturing to the other Dave taking my appearance, albeit with a monocle.

“Welcome, whatever you want or need, you can purchase here,” all three Daves said.

“Ok, that is creepy,” Noam said.

“It’s routine by now,” the Tiefling Dave chuckled, “You are looking for a way to fix your long-range and short-range problems?”

“Huh, they really can mind-read.”

“May I suggest this?” with a dramatic flourish, the Dave gestured toward a display case, showing two… very strange swords.

“Those have to be fantasy weapons.”

Inside were two… ‘swords’, but with some extremely strange characteristics. For one, the tip of the blade was bent forward in a hook, leaving a rounded point, there was a spike on the hilt and another sharp crescent blade acted as a hilt guard.

“These are Hook Swords, very difficult to master, however as you see-”

Noam pushed the Dave aside, “The guard can act like a knuckle duster in a pinch, and the hooked ends are meant to hook enemies into close range.”

“Also, it may be used similarly to a whip if you hook both ends,” Dave continued.

“Allowing it to be used at a decent range as well!”

Noam turned to Dave, “How much?”

“Thirty Traveller Gold, however, I can also give it magical properties for an additional five gold cost.”

“Such as?”

“I can make the hooked ends magnetise with each other with a command or input of some kind, you may customise, allowing you to extend your range further and use to something like a short polearm.”

“Would my polearm proficiency count towards it then?”

“In that form, absolutely. Though the rest will need-”

“I’ll buy it!”

I coughed. “He forgot who actually holds the money.”

“Dust Decs, I will beat the shit out of you IRL if you don’t buy this for me.”

“I can just wait till after you do it to log off,” I answered.

“Hey!”

“I can do it right now as well,” he said, rolling up his sleeves.

I raised an eyebrow, before turning to the weapon.

“This thing just looks fake.”

“It’s an actual weapon,” myconid Dave interjected, “you can search it up.”

“Holy shit it actually is.”

“Did people actually use it though?” I asked Declan.

“Ancient China did, it would fix Noam’s problems.”

“Can you use this correctly?”

“Easy! I’ll get the hang of it after a few tries!” he boasted.

“He probably can.”

“Yeah, unlike me he’s actually insane.”

I sighed, “Wait here, I’ll get the money.”

Noam whooped as I turned to leave.

“What about your eye?” Dave suddenly asked.

“Wha-” Both wisps jumped up to shush my mouth.

“Oh that sly-”

“You cunning bastard,” I replied impressed, “still not a question.”

The myconid Dave shrugged, “Had to try, though seriously, what’s with your eye?” he asked, finger gesturing to his left eye crevice.

I raised my hand to touch it… and felt a sphere inside, held by several strands of… something.

“You didn’t tell me about this?” I directed to both Noam and myself.

“I thought you knew.”

“Same here.”

For now, I just got my Polypores to cover that crevice up, hiding the eye. I’ll examine it in detail later. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Hurry up!”

Weapons bought for Noam, we left the shop with him absolutely giddy.

“That reminds me of something,” I started as we headed to the Wayshard so I could swap back to my Dustin body. “Have you logged off yet?”

“Umm…” he began nervously.

I rolled my eyes, of course not. Taking advantage of my now superior height, I bonked him on the head, which he strangely didn’t dodge. “Hurry up and log off.”

“Absorbing you disorientated me for a solid five minutes, and that was just two days.”

“For your own health and safety, get your Path and log off for the night,” I said. “Nothing else to do anyway.”

Noam rolled his eyes, “Sure mom.”

Regardless of his sarcasm, he still touched the Wayshard and disappeared. Hopefully logging off soon after.

I changed back to my Dustin body.

“You can’t really log off can you?”

“Not yet,” I answered back, “not when we don’t know, what will happen with Observe inside your head.”

There was the heart of the problem. If I had Observe in the real world and it was coded into my very head, then when my virtual self logged off and merged back, would I get a copy of Observe once I logged back on?

“Better not test it.”

What the Historian said was still fresh in my mind. Taking a power currently beyond me would only lead to some kind of calamity in the future. I cheated to get both Observe and Analyse, but if I rejoined with myself and got another Observe in this world…

“Let’s hope whatever it is, it won’t be too bad.”

Back off for now. Accept what I’ve gotten without overstepping until I’ve seen what a calamity could mean.

“Slow and steady,”

“Wins the race.”

I was about to head to sleep when I got a video call request from Matt.

Curious, I accepted.

“What could he want at this hour?” Dustin asked.

On-screen, Matt had his trademarked shit-eating grin, before putting both his hands to his mouth and,

“BOOTS TI TI! BOOTS TI PSH!”

“Are you beatboxing?” I asked him.

Still smiling, Noam declared, “I learned how to beatbox!”

“Uhh. What’s so special about that?” Dustin’s thoughts must’ve shown on my face, because soon, Matt messaged me something.

Path: Spitfire

Beatbox [Passive] [Active]: You gain knowledge of how to beatbox alongside proficiency at the Adept level. You may also, as a free action, lock up to 5 seconds of beatboxing in a loop, where it’ll continuously emanate from you at the original volume at a negligible mana cost per loop.

Fire [Passive]: When verbal based attacks land a critical hit, the target is set alight by non-magical flame.

Catch These Hands! [Active]: Once per day, you may activate this skill to gain bonus stats to AGI, DEX and CHA for every person around you currently irritated, angered, generally pissed and/or displaying hostility towards you. Stats disappear when the cooldown has ended or when hostile individuals leave your range or cease being hostile to you.

“Did he just-”

“I chose that so I could learn to beatbox!”

I didn’t even need Observe to know both of me facepalmed.

“Wait a moment,” I directed to Dustin, a sudden moment of clarity descending upon me, “does that mean if you learnt thermodynamics I would as-”

“Not you too! Me too? Why is this so confusing!”

Guess I still had to do homework the hard way.