A. GO OUTSIDE AND SLIT HIS THROAT

B. SHOOT HIM FROM INSIDE THE KITCHEN

On the surface, it was a question of range. Would I rather be up close to an attacker or far away? Superficially, the answer was B, far away.

But the question is flawed. Window. Kitchen. It specifically calls to mind a domestic setting. My LSAT knowledge tickled. Assuming the question is tailored to me, specifically, this is a stand-your-ground state. Option A isn't going to fly—There's Greystone Garcia v. Florida, but that shit was borderline and the wording is questionable. Option B is justified under both stand-your-ground and most Castle Doctrine laws, but looking outside the letter of the law, this is happening late at night, with presumably no witnesses. It would be hard to prove the lethal force was justified.

Or, it was just a superficial question about range. But the system had a history of asking nasty questions that were anything but surface level.

“Gonna go with Option C. Call the cops,” I murmured to myself. Not that they would actually do anything, but it would at least establish a paper trail and context for later decisions.

The option appeared as if it had always been there.

Before I could channel my angry sputtering about bad proctoring into more colorful epithets, more system text began to scroll.

I stared at the ability in silent horror. From the beginning, my largest issue with the Ordinator class was its total absence of any direct damage. Daphne could smash my face into the ground. Wife-beater guy could burn me to death with acid birds.

And now, I could kindly ask them to stop.

The cushioning grass welcomed me as I laid down slowly, the system screen following as I fought the urge to punch something. Even if it was something completely overpowered like direct mind control—which I highly doubted, considering the name—the skill had the same subscript as Probability Spiral, a little number 1 at the bottom right. Meaning it was single target. So if I was attacked by the group, I could kindly ask one of them to go easy, while the rest curb-stomped me into the ground.

And naturally, the system wasn’t going to give me any more information if I focused—

Option C. My eyes widened. It was like opening a present that hinted at a much larger present to come. I tore through my various screens until I found what I was looking for.

/////

I spent the better part of an hour trying to separate out the flowerfang corpses. I had really done a number on their roots, they were thoroughly tangled. In the end, I just started cutting them apart, getting covered with green goo up to my elbows. I accidentally got some in my mouth, which tasted like burning.

My goal? To collect everything valuable I could get my hands on, of course.

Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to have anything decent. At least, not that I could decipher - I wasn’t an alchemist that could use their blood to make healing potions or grind their petals into a lethal poison. Biology had never been my subject anyway. As far as I could tell, they were just dead plants. And kind of gross.

Then I cut open a root bulb, expecting to find nothing but fibrous flesh and green sap. I was so absorbed in my task, I didn’t even notice it at first. A system message.

Holy shit. Is this monster amphetamine? Because it sounds like monster amphetamine.

Excited, I repeated the process for the rest of the flowerfangs, collecting 12 more Greenbulb Crystals. The last one I killed and the largest yielded even more surprises.

Well, this was unexpected and potentially life changing. It seemed like this would summon a monster of my own, but was I ready for the responsibility?

Mom would just love to gloat how she had never been a single, teenage parent.

My looting frenzy nearly over, I couldn’t help myself and gathered some of the longer, undamaged vines. They had dried out after the monsters died, but were still very pliable and tough to cut. You never know, they could come in handy for climbing or securing prisoners with. I was able to recover 15 of my bolts, with a few having broken and the others lost in the grass.

The final item was actually the first, which I had ignored after killing the flowerfang that had bit me. I found it in my system inventory grid while storing everything else, which was amazing but quickly becoming filled.

So now it was onto the question of my level up points and build. I had been playing it safe by spreading my points around, but maybe I should start focusing on something else.

The hand in the shadows, huh?

I definitely liked the idea of staying in the background with Suggestion and having others fight for me. This might also help when it came to keeping other Users from thinking I was one of them. Then again, the ranged manipulator role has been working pretty good so far. Once I got the hang of it, I had slaughtered those flowerfangs.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?

Regardless, I needed to see what I had to work with. I pulled up my “character sheet” and tweaked some of the settings more to my liking.

Level: 5

Strength: 5

Toughness: 4

Agility: 7

Intelligence: 13

Perception: 8

Will: 6

Companionship: 1

Active Title: Jaded Eye

Feats: Double-Blind, Ordinator’s Guile I.

Skills: Probability Spiral, LVL 6. Suggestion, LVL 1. One-handed, LVL 4

Stat Points Available: 6. Feat points available: 4.

Selve: 352 (-100 per week)

<>

Six points to work with, I could really change the way I was going about encounters. Of course, raising Intelligence was just as critical as before and remained a focus, as both of my abilities keyed into it. Will—according to an otherwise vague tool-tip—allowed better control over my summons. I guessed Companionship might factor somehow, but wasn’t willing to risk precious skill-points over a hunch. Best to play it safe until I had more information. I placed two points in Intelligence, three in Will, and one in Agility. I was torn on where to put the last point, but Agility was invaluable when it came to direct combat.

There were no Ordinator perks available that had anything to do with summons. I picked two generic feats instead. It was easier now that I had an idea what I was building towards.

I couldn’t find anything that affected directly, so both selections were almost automatic. Stealth was paramount for both sneak-attacks and getting an early read on a situation. Not to mention running away unseen. I’d gotten lucky that the flowerfangs were slow and weak to my tactics. And I knew better than to rely on my luck. If I was being honest, there might have been better choices, but not sticking out and being able to blend into the crowd was second nature to me, so this was a perfect fit.

Awareness was—Well. Let’s just be honest. It was copyright-friendly Spidey-Sense. And who in their right mind would turn down Spidey-Sense? My only concern reading the description was the off-chance that it might, in a spat of system fuckery, open a literal third-eye on my forehead.

I did one last lap around the meadow to confirm the perimeter was secure in case I passed out, picking up another stray bolt I had missed, and hit the confirm button.

My vision blurred as my body and mind changed as one. The pain was expected, but it still hit me like a truck. It had hurt before, but this was on another level. It felt like I was melting from the inside out. My throat went raw from screaming as I passed out.

When I regained consciousness a few minutes later, I immediately felt restored. In fact, I felt ten times better than before. Despite the memory of horrendous pain, a warm trickling sense of accomplishment flooded my veins. The giddy feeling only grew stronger as I realized my perspective had radically shifted. The scent of the slain flowerfangs held notes of pungent cedar, now impossible to ignore. I could see them without turning my head, far back and to my left, at an angle so sharp it should have been impossible. What should have been incredibly disorientating felt completely natural instead.

I had unlocked the side-eye to end all side-eyes.

I did this. Me. I overcame an obstacle and earned this. And it was only going to get better. More levels. More power. More rewards—

Wake the fuck up. This is textbook operant conditioning. You’re a rat in the Skinner Box. And Skinner, in this case, is kind of an asshole. Jaded Eye’s grating inner-voice cut through my fugue. The feeling was so strong I almost dismissed the warning before I realized how right it was.

An image of Daphne driving her fist into the bounty’s face over and over popped into my mind like a bucket of cold water splashing over my head.

Even before we fell out, back when we still played games, she wasn’t the greatest friend. She’d always been quick to screw me over a piece of loot, or laugh when I failed.

But she was never a monster.

The easiest explanation at the time was that she’d gone insane, like the rest of the city. But what if the difference between me and her came down to how she started? I was generally conflict avoidant, and I’d already harmed two people. If she’d had a more tumultuous start that ended in a body-count, and the result was this feeling of euphoria and accomplishment? And she kept chasing it, surrounded by people doing the same thing?

It was grasping at straws, but the fact remained that she was definitely not the same person I remembered. Also, I know I had changed some as well, especially after facing the flowerfangs, but I was nothing like her. At least, that’s what I told myself.

At any rate, disregarding the system entirely would be foolish. Impossible, actually. It had always felt shady, no reason to believe otherwise. I needed to be careful, use Daphne as a cautionary tale of what could happen if I sunk too deeply into my role as a User.

There needed to be rules, a regimen. A basic first tenant was that jumping more than one level was a no-fly zone unless absolutely necessary. And I had to be on the lookout for other ways the system tried to affect my judgment.

Eat the cheese. Just keep asking who’s feeding you.

I consumed the monster core and braced myself. I really hoped this wouldn’t hurt.