Side Chapter

The high and mighty of Solas, of the Outer Ring, of The Roots, watched in horrified fascination as the Parade of Wonders threw the balance of power into complete chaos. The flow of the economy, the distribution of magic, the concentrations of rare skills and abilities; everything that made a magical city work, blasted away in a single day, by a single skill, used by a single human. Prince Ben.

“Well, looks like Anna was right. Wasn’t he one of the ones we were supposed to assassinate?” a high level [Crime Lord] of The Roots asked his counterpart in Solas.

“One of the ‘Exceptional Aliens’, yes. He was the one in the party with the Aeon Slug,” the [Council Leader] responded, watching.

“Going to be hard to make him disappear now,” the [Crime Lord] said, laughing. “He’s the single most well liked individual in Solas. Putting your face on treasure,” he said, looking at an enchanted gold coin with Ben’s face on it, “now that’s an inspired move.”

“Thank you, I’m aware of that,” the [Council Leader] snapped, feeling all of their usual tools and techniques for dealing with problems evaporate under the blinding light of global attention.

“Something about a Purebeast, right?” the [Crime Lord] taunted, “and summoning? Oh well, looks like you’ll have to play this one strictly by the book. Give them their rights and all that. I’ll be seeing you,” the [Crime Lord] said, turning around and walking away.

“Where are you going?” the [Council Leader] snapped, glaring daggers at her husband.

“I’m going to keep our fool daughter safe and get some of that swag,” Anna’s father, the [Crime Lord] of The Roots said to Anna’s mother, the [Council Leader] of all Sunlets and Solas.

“Someone stole the Vault,” she said quietly, and Anna’s father missed a step on his way out. He said nothing, crystal eyes wide, and listened. “the whole thing is just. . . gone. The Deepest Vault as well, whatever happened scooped them both up all at once.”

“We lost the Edge-”

“We haven’t lost anything,” she said quickly, “because we are going to find whoever did this. Track them down, use all your skills, all your people. Be discreet, because nobody can ever find out about this.”

“In the middle of all this?” he said, waving a hand towards the general concept of the Parade of Wonders, “what am I supposed to do, look for unexplained windfalls? No, the better question is why haven’t the [Bankers] been able to locate their vault? It’s been loaded down with so many tracking spells and wards and devices that it should be screaming it’s location loud and clear for us to find!”

“They won’t say,” the [Council Leader] said, worried, “but they can’t find it. We suspect the Aeon Slugs, especially in light of. . . him.”

“Who. . . no, it can’t be him. He would never rebirth back to the surface.”

“I was just informed by the [Royal Sage of Solas] of a number of premium rebirths that were generated by this Parade of Wonders. In addition to every questor still living,” she hissed, an expression close to panic on her face, “a number of dangerous individuals across all the layers have recently been reborn with their skills, classes and equipment intact, albeit still at level one.”

“How could the [Duke] possibly have had the time or the foresight to predict-”

“Because he’s a fucking Aeon Slug!” she shouted, her fists balled, “there’s no telling what kind of magical bullshit they’ve got brewing inside of them at any given moment! Duke Sluggington is here in my city, right at the exact moment our Vault goes missing and we are about to execute his favorite nephew in a slaughterhouse courtroom. Tell me with a straight face you don’t think he’s capable of it.”

“He’s level one,” the [Crime Lord] said, “could anyone have done that at- what do we do? Stars, what are you going to tell me next, that the [Dean] of the college of eternal life decided to come up here as well?”

“He declined his invitation,” the [Council Leader] said to her husband, prompting a brief flash of alarm from him. “So here’s what we are going to do. Investigate the [Duke], discretely, and see if you can figure out where he stashed the Vault. Stars, if you can only recover the Deepest Vault, let him keep everything else. Until you are able to do so, however, just give him whatever he asks for. He knows he’s got us by the bright and shinies,” a Sunlet euphemism for ‘balls’, “so it’s in our best interest to figure out how to appease him, level him as quickly as possible, and dump him into the next layer.”

Chapter 14

Day 1, The very next day

[Sage] Breah, who took the [Ever Piercing Eye] as her Plus Perk, could see everything. The perk let her see someone’s name, their class and their levels, floating right over their heads. It let her know how much HP and MP they had by convenient color coded bars, it told her all their skills, their cooldowns, how close they were to leveling and how close they were to getting a new skill or ability. She could freely navigate the hidden skill tree, reading requirements and prescribing plans for anyone to obtain, theoretically, any skill. She could see the hidden properties of items she could-

To put it simply, she could read the data of The World. With time, she felt she could even learn how to use it as well. . . but she couldn’t understand whatever the fuck Ben was going on about right now.

“Frankie, from the top,” Ben said, gesturing to his bonded elemental, who opened a large utility pocket over Ben’s head and started dumping water on the already dripping wet Leap-rechaun. “No, no no no!” Ben said playfully, “Rain, it needs to be a heavy rain, come one, one more time, you can do it!”

Breah watched in fascination as several more elemental beings, who were hidden from everyone but her eyes, from which nothing could truly be hidden, came to assist the exasperated Frankie. They combined their abilities and began altering the giant Utility Pocket over Ben’s head, fluffing it out until it was a black and purple pseudocloud. A pregnant pause, and then, little drops of water started falling, a passable simulation of rain.

“Oh, great!” Ben said, with a big grin, “great! Now make it heavier,” the drops got bigger, “heavier!” big, fat raindrops fell from the pseudocloud as Frankie played along in friendly, obviously pantomimed exasperation. “Perfect! Perfect! Ok, just give me a second here,” Ben said, shaking himself off and taking a deep breath. Then, his face broke and he fell to his knees, an expression of unsurpassing grief, of true anguish on his face. He began sobbing as he fell forward onto his hands in the simulated rain, hitting his fists against the wet ground, before raising up and yelling to the sky, pain, sorrow and triumph in equal parts.

“WE DID IT MOTHERFUCKER! WE FUCKING DID IT! WE’RE ALIVE! HALLELUJAH , WE’RE FUCKING ALIVE! WHOOOOOOOO!” Then he raised up two middle fingers and began listing off a long list of people, places and organizations that could go fuck themselves. Breah was about to say something, then read his ‘death counter’ which was approaching three digits and wisely decided to let him vent. She hadn’t even died once, so what the fuck did she know? Breah felt a stab in her heart as she remembered arrogant days, when she thought she did know. When she was sure about things. The shame of it was enough to make her want to die, but she steeled herself against it once again, her only defense that she was fixing herself, one day at a time. That she would never make that same mistake twice.

So, she watched the dramatic display instead of speaking about it, content to ponder without opinion. [Sage] might have been a freebie class for anyone with the [Ever Piercing Eye], but it was a harsh and terrible class for a fool to bear. Some classes required a sword, some a crown, but the [Sage] required uncertainty. To never stop considering if one was right or wrong. There was a time in her life, back on Earth, when she wouldn’t have understood what a terrible price that was.

Ben’s outpouring of emotion was winding down, laying on his back in a puddle that was being slyly siphoned off into a Utility Pocket and then recycled as more rain. He was breathing hard, all stretched out on the ground outside of Solas. He took one last deep breath and exhaled slowly. The rain stopped, and a tiny black storm of Utility Pockets ran over his body, sucking up all the water, leaving him perfectly dry. Breah was amazed at the display, and the sheer number of Utility Pocket Elementals Ben had assisting him in controlling his Utility Pocket. He was so humble about it, not having mentioned it even once.

“Thanks for meeting me out here,” Ben said, looking at her with a calm, peaceful expression, “I needed to get out of that,” he took a small breath, calming himself further, “of that city. How’s that holding up for you?” Ben asked, referencing the small Utility Pouch he’d given her the previous day. The ability to divide up and give lesser versions of the Plus Perks was something humanity hadn’t fully explored yet, but they were learning.

“I can fit all my stuff in it, and it hasn’t overcome my natural MP regen, so I’m happy to have it.” Breah didn’t mention how absurdly high the human MP regen was, on par with Aeon Slugs. She wondered what all that mana was supposed to be used for, considering that humans were thus far likely the worst at magic of any species that had ever lived. Breah reached down to the tiny, tiny little bag attached to her waistband, which opened into a portal large enough for her Experience Extrator, the large spiky syringe gun, to be pulled out. “So, I’m reading your sheet right now, and it says you’ve done a lot since. . . how did you find time to ‘marry a princess’?”

“Time Loop,” Ben said, patting a pocket watch attached to his waistband, “and yeah, I’ve been busy. There was this whole stupid trial nonsense, but I got it taken care of.”

“I was at the Parade, Ben,” Breah said, hiding a smile, “I know what happened. Everybody knows what happened. Which is why I know that you are in critical need of treatment; defeating the Solas legal system is a major experience event, and all that experience is currently bouncing around in your body without anything to plug into. If you aren’t careful-”

“I’ll explode?” Ben asked rhetorically.

“You’ll die,” Breah corrected. “Now go sit on that stump over there and I’ll get to work.”

--

Several painful hours later, and Ben had to admit that he did feel better. He had asked Breah to lunch in an entirely platonic sense, and she had platonically accepted. Sometimes a single man and woman in a professional relationship could have lunch together and not have it be sexual. They were eating the closest thing to burgers that could be found in Solas, made from entirely substitute ingredients, but still decent.

“See, the real problem here is,” Breah said after swallowing a well chewed bite, “is that we’ve got to replace your broken class with something new. The easiest solution would be a prosthetic-”

“Excuse me, did you say a prosthetic? Like prosthetic leg?”

“Yes. A prosthetic class is the typical solution to the kind of catastrophic wounds you suffered in the Overcavern forest. We’ve weirdly got a cultural reference for them, like the One Ring or Castle Greyskull, stuff like that. Objects that grant a supernatural powerset to a person. We could take the broken pieces of your class and place them into something and transform it into a stand in for a class. There are upsides to that, namely that objects of power tend to level much faster than classes, and the obvious downside, which is that they can be taken away or broken. I don’t like that as a solution for you, however. No offense, but it seems like you tend to break things.”

“None taken, I break things,” Ben agreed whole heartedly, “but on that subject, my party member, Red, is a Beyonder. She was, apparently, improperly summoned, and couldn’t get a class. Would a prosthetic work for her?”

“That’s what [System Looting] is all about, Ben,” Breah said, “it allows Beyonders like her to use items as a stand in for a class. It’s a very powerful ability, by the way, especially when it’s been upgraded a few times. Does she break things too?” Breah asked, and Ben nodded, “well, she’ll be able to replace them at least. For you. . .” she sighed, “ideally I find a way to put the class back together, but at this point I doubt the pieces will fit neatly together, nor would I trust the class not to break again, especially with the abuse you will likely put it through. These things just aren’t designed to clear a Citadel one day, run three wishes the next, hold a well loved cross layer event which granted you a ton of royal experience btw, and then defeat an entire government in court. That sequence of events would have broken any class. No, with you I’d like to come up with a more, mmmm, robust solution.”

“Oh yeah?” Ben asked, taking a bit of not-burger.

“I’m looking at your system readout, and it says you’ve qualified for several class upgrades, as well as a transition to a legendary class. We can do something with that. Oh, by the way, you couldn’t have wished for your class to be fixed, Mr. ‘Parade of Wonders’?”

“I honestly forgot,” Ben said, apologizing only because it seemed like Breah wanted one.

“Well, make fixing this your next big priority. Oh, and make some progress on your Quest, your party has less than a week before it starts applying pressure.”

“Those fucking gremlins,” Ben said, shaking his head, “yeah, we’re on it, trust me. Red isn’t going to let this go, Quest or not. You seem like you know what the fuck is going on,” Ben said, taking the lead in the conversation, “what’s this new shit with the Quest? You know, the Easy Mode stuff.”

“I have no clue,” Breah said, “but clearly The System piggybacked on your wish, because every Questor in The World is in Solas now. Apparently when you touch the Capitol Crystal, which you need to do, you’ll receive instructions. Don’t touch the crystal until your class is fixed, or that thing might just decided to ‘path of least resistance’ fix you. You don’t want that.”

“Got it, I need to touch the crystal, but don’t touch the crystal. Crystal clear,” Ben said with a quick wink.

“You seem way too stupid to have survived anything close to what you’ve been through.” Breah was clearly joking with him. “Also, you need to be eating. A lot.”

“Why?” Ben asked, not sure about how the conversation shifted to food.

“Because you’re a mana ghost, and you need to eat enough physical food to get a real body back, and you need a real body so you can [Evolve] into a full human, and you need to [Evolve] into a full human because that will clear out all the broken bullshit in your system chart and let me actually fix you. Plus, being Human is awesome. It’s so much better than that fae bullshit we have to go through.”

In response, Ben started devouring the burger with a will. In between bites, he managed to ask, “How long is this going to take?”

“Lucky for you, we humans are already so used to putting valuable information on the internet for free,” she said, pulling out a phone- Ben interrupted.

“How do you have a phone?” he asked, looking at her, and then at the phone, then back at her, “you’ve got the Brightest Spark.”

“And I’ve got a Utility Pocket too,” she said, pointing at the one Ben had given her, “all plus perks can make lesser versions of themselves and freely distributed. They all come with drawbacks, for instance, this phone plan is so expensive,” Breah pretended to gag, “like seriously expensive, but I’m on a pay as you go contract, so it’s tolerable.”

“All of them?” Ben asked.

“All of them,” she confirmed.

“Damn,” Ben said, “I thought only the Worm Enclosure, the Dark Wish one, could really do that at scale.”

“You know,” Breah said, “you don’t have to be an evil prick with the Worm Enclosure. You can just grant yourself Dark Wishes and pay them off with earned experience, did you know that?”

“Sounds OP,” Ben said.

“It’s expensive, but it can be done. God I love having the internet back,” she said, rapidly typing into the phone, “so anyways, back to the mana ghost thing. Someone who apparently knows what they’re talking about made a chart, and it’s got the [System Verified] red pentagram next to it,” Ben snickered at the obvious Twitter joke, “so we can be sure the information is correct. So with a quick scan,” she pointed the phone at him for half a second, “I’ve got your measurements, and. . .” she made a face as she did some math on the website, “if you follow a very intense meal plan, you can be back to normal in forty to forty five days.”

“That’s a fucking harsh death penalty,” Ben said, “Can you give me a printout of the meal plan?”

“Yeah,” she said, pressed a couple of buttons, and Ben watched in amazement as the back of the phone opened up, revealing a swirling vortex of darkness, that then launched a wadded piece of paper at him, like someone on the other side had thrown it at him.

“Ow,” Ben said without emotion when the paper struck him between the eyes. He picked it up, uncrumpled it, and started reading. “Fuck, this is worse than trying to get fit. That’s a lot of eating.”

“Sorry,” Breah said, “there’s no getting around it. When you make it to full human and get [Instant Digestion], you’ll be able to reconstitute a body in about two days, provided you have a giant pile of food you can shove down your throat.”

“Well,” Ben said, “I guess I’m buying about five hundred pounds of protein powder.” Ben stopped, realizing he was in an alien city, and that getting the food he needed wasn’t going to be as easy as going to GNC.

“Mice Labs,” Breah said, seeming to have read his mind, “They’re a human owned business in Solas specializing in, well, human needs. I know the owner, Nick, he’s a great guy. Want me to let him know you’re going to be coming by?”

“Please,” Ben said in relief, “I need to get all this taken care of before my ‘community service’ starts. And before I have to go to ‘The Mines’,” Ben said, making air quotes, speaking in a sarcastic voice, and trying to hide how nervous the sentence was making him.

“I don’t. . . know anyone who’s actually worked ‘The Mines’,” Breah said, imitating his voice briefly, “but the rumor is that they’re much easier when you’ve got some equipment enchanted with explosion resistance. It’s not a common damage type,” Breah hedged, “surprisingly, but I’m sure you’ll be able to find something in a week. If nothing else, find someone with a phone and see what’s on the auction house. Mine can’t connect,” she said, shaking it limply with a raised arm, “it’s just a knockoff. See?” she pointed to a small brand logo, which read ‘SmertestPhony’. Ben snorted, and Breah giggled. “This place can be so silly sometimes.”

--

Day 1: Continued

“Psst,” Ben heard a voice directly in his mind, on that wasn’t Short Bus. The Man-Shark was with him in the church, though they’d mostly been goofing around by making silly faces at the bored looking kids.

“Did you hear something?” Ben asked, and Short Bus shrugged.

“Psst!” it was louder this time, and came with a directional cue. A small white mouse with black goggles on his face and a lab coat for clothes, had covertly approached the duo on the floor. He sent Ben looked down and saw the little mouse pull out a cigar and start smoking it, coughing little squeaky mouse coughs as he lit it.

“Oh, hello,” Ben said, squatting down to get closer to the little mouse.

“You looking to buy some stuff?” he said, his mental voice conveying a shocking amount of undisguised slyness, “kid, you don’t know shit about Solas, do you? Want to make some real money? Buy some real weapons? Fuck up some cops?”

“Uh, yes to all three!” Short Bus said enthusiastically.

“That was a little unprompted,” Ben said, looking at the little mouse doubtfully. The little guy in a labcoat gave out another squeak of a cough, spitting out smoke in the process. “Did Breah send you?”

“Gouda you to check,” he said, “I’m from Mice Labs.”

“How do I know that’s true?” Ben asked, even though it was a tiny mouse in a lab coat. It could have been a coincidence?

“That’s the right attitude for Solas, but you and me?” he said, gesturing to Ben and then himself, “we’re kin. We’re family. We’re the same species, genetically speaking. That’s why we all came together as a package deal when The System stripped our planet bare and dumped our asses in this miserable, monster infested science experiment these aliens call a world. We’re all we have, you know?” It only took a moment, just a single sentence, before Ben realized the mouse was being sincere.

“I guess so,” Ben said, nodding his head.

“Now, you’re looking for food? Forget about it, Breah says you know how to break stuff. So, what do you boys know about the exciting and profitable world of Industrialized Necromancy?”