Level: 6

Strength: 6

Toughness: 4

Agility: 10

Intelligence: 15

Perception: 8

Will: 9

Companionship: 1

Active Title: Born Nihilist

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

Skills: Probability Spiral, LVL 7. Suggestion, LVL 5. One-handed, LVL 4

Summons: Audrey — Omnivorous Flower Hybrid. Bond LVL 2

Selve: 352 (-100 per week)

<>

There was no headache this time, but the dopamine hit wasn’t enough to mute the clear ache that covered my entire body.

Whatever the end-stage of Ordinator was meant to be, the class was clearly a slow burn. I’d been biding my time, spreading out stats, hoping to get a better idea of what I was building toward before I really committed in any single area.

Now, I had to improvise.

I’d poured through the feat screen, looking for anything that resembled a fighting style. There was nothing specifically for my class—big surprise there—but even a general skill would do. I’d hunted for something similar before and found nothing, and even with the recent level-ups and increased feat information, now found much the same. No automatic Kung-fu or weapons mastery. It was doubtful that a system centered around direct conflict was lacking these skills completely, but I was now almost convinced they were exclusive to other classes.

Then, I found it.

My eyes widened. As a rule, any ability with that many restrictions was the inevitable result of a game designer’s effort to keep it from being completely broken. And for good reason. The feat itself was almost as much of a game-changer as my first perk. Forget the gnolls. I could, eventually, actively round out my abilities with bits and pieces from other Users, with more flexibility as my level climbed.

Granted, it wasn’t complete bullshit. It specifically said with enough observation and understanding, so it wasn’t like I could see something once and immediately replicate it. Understanding an ability when I had no idea how it worked would be difficult. Something as useful as Kinsley’s doors was probably on the restricted list. And putting myself in a position where I could actively observe other Users was a significant problem.

Damn.

I had countless questions on how it worked, and what exactly constituted understanding. Not to mention, what was the system was protecting to the point it would redact a name in the description?

There was also the unique interaction with Double-Blind to consider.

None of that changed that it was an insta-pick.

For now though, I needed to focus on surviving this floor of the dungeon. Spending two points on Agility was a natural conclusion. Raising Strength another point was almost physically painful, but I couldn’t take the stat restriction warning lightly. The gnoll’s fighting style looked relatively light on brute force.

Below, a gnoll barked something that sounded vaguely like a question.

I held my breath. Had they noticed the pack leader was missing?

The gnoll across from him made an empty-handed motion miming drinking from a bottle, and the entire group exploded in a series of yips not unlike laughter.

Your time is limited. They’ll realize something is wrong soon enough. Make the most of it.

/////

The gnolls never tried to cook the human. Set-up indeed.

Hours later, I had yet to acquire an emulation of their fighting skill. I’d thought I already understood it to some extent, recognizing its similarities to certain human martial arts. Maybe if I’d actually had a background in any of them, that would have mattered, but the bar for emulation was clearly set higher.

It wasn’t pointless, though. As I watched them attack and defend, the patterns became definable. I could almost predict what they were going to do before they did it.

A vivid image of a half-eaten gnoll recognizable as the pack leader flashed into my mind. Irritation. Hunger.

Audrey stared up at me, stared at the tower where the dead leader lay, then back at me.

Soon. Patience. I sent back.

She ruffled her petals and laid down, pointedly looking away.

A fortunate side effect of watching the gnolls so closely was that I was beginning to get an idea of the hierarchy. There were six of them in total. Headdress Gnoll, who wore a white tribal mask with red markings, was the highest ranking, followed by two bruisers that took most of their time fighting, one with a clipped ear, the other with reddish hair. Three smaller gnolls filled up the rest of the ranks.

They weren’t constantly sparing, so I’d raised three levels over the last few hours, though progress slowed down significantly at level 10. Headdress was now painstakingly aware of every mistake the two large bruisers made, and his barks growing more feral over time. The two bruisers pushed themselves harder, and all the while, I stoked their resentment of both Headdress and each other.

The runts had both a clear inferiority complex to the bruisers and a natural camaraderie with each other. I turned their envy towards the clip-eared bruiser, who seemed the rougher of the two, highlighting every sleight.

I raised to level 8, just by tripping the clip-eared bruiser every time he returned to the fire, where he would inevitably bump one of the smaller gnolls.

Eventually, Headdress called them over and Clip-ear faced off against one of the runts. I studied their movements carefully. The runt struck out immediately, rushing at Clip-ear, abandoning any form of artfulness and jabbing the dulled short-sword directly at his eyes.

I predicted the reaction immediately. Sidestep. Trip him with his own momentum. Shove his head down into the ground to add impact and hold a sword to his throat to send a message.

The runt’s yelp echoed across the stone floor as Clip-ear did exactly as expected.

I immediately pushed through Headdress’s mental defense, as I had a dozen times before, and sent an image of three broken runts.

Headdress stomped over to Clip-ear and let out a barrage of angry yips.

Clip-ear growled at Headdress, snapping at his face. Headdress held his staff out, a clear threat.

No, not yet. I sent a wave of calm to Headdress. The gnoll lowered his staff.

The notification light pinged at the corner of my vision.

Hell yes. I accepted the prompt. The resulting change was subtle. You can study something for years academically and understand how it functions down to the most minute detail, but it takes practice and muscle-memory to apply that knowledge. Emulation skipped that phase entirely.

I couldn’t help but smile.

”Get in position,” I told Audrey.

Then I sent a series of images to clip-ear of the pack-leader drinking himself into a stupor. Clip-ear, still fuming, stomped off towards the tower.

I’d traded a death trap for a powder-keg. And it was time to light the fuse.