Curiously, John didn't move to exit the tunnels, not that I knew where the exit even was.

I was walking behind him, bending my knees as the ceiling required. "What do you call this place anyway?"

"Never really bothered to think of a name. It's just home for me." He said over his shoulder. "For you too as long as you want it to be. I owe you that much."

"Snow Tunnels?" I offered.

"Eh." John rebutted. "There's a place on the edge of what I've explored that fits that description better."

"Well, that's all I got for now. We're not going down on the ground?" I noticed John had literally no equipment, no weapon at all. I'd put money on the fact his [Power] was combat-related.

He might've noticed my own lack of equipment because he asked me before I could him. "If you don't mind me asking, I see you don't really have anything on you. I'm not gonna ask what your [Powers] are but just be prepared, we might run into something. That's part of the reason we're taking the tunnels. We're safe from anything roaming the forest below. We'll use my tunnels as far as I've carved them, from there we'll be on the ground."

"I'll be ready when the time comes." I replied.

The further we went the smaller the tunnels became. As if John only had time to make walking-sized tunnels closer to the center of his home. Eventually, we'd be crawling if the tunnels kept tapering.

At the very least, it gave me time to think.

The random chance of my [Powers] were nice but the whole premise of taking [Gamble] and making a bet in the [System Shop] was to risk it all for a larger reward. So far, I couldn't determine any such cost to any of my [Powers].

"We'll bail once we have to start crawling. It won't be worth our time to move like that. How you holding up?" John broke my reverie.

"Busy looking a gift horse in the mouth." I frowned ruefully. "My [Powers] seem to have no drawback. It's leaving me slightly... I don't know, uneasy?" My voice was contemplative.

I wasn't about to tell John that I craved that risk, that the chance of defeat made the victories all the more sweet. It was so illogical; to desire a drawback from a set of [Powers] that could only benefit you, if not always in a meaningful way. But gambling was illogical, it was the chance that drew me in. It was what I fell in love with.

But this? This was just getting lucky. I wanted to gamble.

Perhaps a shred of that thinking led me to help a complete stranger in an even stranger world. If not that, then following the squirrel that led me to that stranger. That risk paid off in the end. That's what I loved about gambling; ending up with more than you had by putting what you had at risk.

"The better ones tend to be like that." John responded. "But their effects might be less than one with drawbacks. It's push and pull, really. You should've spent enough time in the [System Shop] to see it for yourself. People come in according to how much time they spend in there. And you're pretty late. At least comparatively."

"How do you even know that?" John had only interacted with two people from my understanding.

"I had a lot of time to think. Plus some assumptions coming from a gaming background. What little help that might amount to." He had to duck under a particularly low ceiling before moving normally again, slightly bent over. "Besides, I had people to compare with. We arrived at the same time and spent the same amount of time in there."

[Classes] and [Attributes] apparently, according to John, were where he got the most help. Those were often run of the mill in RPG games. Not that that lack of knowledge really affected me negatively at all. [Titles] too, but I had already figured those out.

If this was my life for the foreseeable future then eventually I would catch on. I wasn't expecting myself to be the only one completely clueless at some of the terminology. At the very least, I was familiar with idea of magic and such. But, that was all speculation, I'd barely been here for a day.

"Here." John whispered, peeking out a hole in the tunnel. "Keep quiet from now on and stick close to me. Here on out, we're exposed on the ground. Gibber should be nearby. Listen for his warning signal."

I nodded, years playing in my backyard with the neighborhood kids left me agile coming down the tree. I landed with a crunch of snow behind John. I had forgotten the squirrel existed, but it made sense he wasn't in these tunnels with us. He was a squirrel. He could just use the trees.

A pink-purple semi-transparent sword appeared in John's hand. It came into being with a deep hum. I blinked but caught on quick. It must be his [Power]. Or at least one of them.

I followed him as he turned around and began walking. He didn't walk as if he was in danger. He wasn't tense. Only, his eyes kept themselves on the trees around us. I prepped myself as well, the nature of my [Powers] would be up to John's best guess. It'd be ill-advised to reveal your hand if you didn't specifically need to.

Weapon: [Weighted Staff]

A branch from a sturdy tree, trimmed and shaped into a perfect staff. The crafter kept in mind the natural density of the wood and picked the perfect section to create the weapon. As a result, this staff, though mundane, is nearly perfect.

Buff: [Helpful Sync]

When participating in an activity with another you naturally adjust to the group's rhythm and your own actions amplify their efficiency. You have a vague innate awareness of those with you.

Armor: [Padded Vest]

A reinforced vest that protects against blunt attacks. The leather is stuffed with kinetic padding that helps to mitigate strikes. Normally used for practice and sparring.

Other than the staff in my hand, I had the vaguest inclination to eye the trees around John and I. He gave me a look, eyebrows raising when he saw my staff but only nodded and turned back. He hadn't seen my new vest as my cloak usually hid the extra armor that appeared on me.

I stepped to John's side and kept watch as he did. I saw the tenseness slip from his shoulders a bit, a detail I had missed earlier. His pink-purple sword was pointed low to the ground, and it looked every bit as sharp as anything I've invoked from my [Powers].

For a while, it was the crunch of snow and only that. The soft fur of my white cloak made the light snow negligible; what little that came through the canopy. I could see frost forming on John's facial hair. And now, from the warmth of my clothing, the snow was beautiful again. A perspective that was deadly if I wasn't ready to brave its reality.

At some invisible line, John began to talk.

"That stretch of forest is where I run into things the most. Luckily, we were able to avoid any encounters." He said. "Eyes up ahead, you'll see it soon."

He also noticed I was barehanded once again. My [Powers] had run out. Perhaps there was a drawback: the time they spent active. My heartbeat hastened. It made a little more sense in theory. I had to use my [Powers] during combat. I'd be a sitting duck if not. If I used them before, in anticipation of a fight, that would run the risk of them dissipating in the middle of it. This necessitated a complete toss-up of my equipment in the heat of the moment.

I had experimented enough, the downtime for [Armor Roll], [Weapon Roll], and [Buff Roll] was roughly equivalent to their uptime. That was the entire fight if I compared it to how long it took me to... kill the snowman. The giant as I had named it. The thought gripped my psyche for a moment before I tuned back in to what John had just said.

"See what-"

I spotted ruins. The trees were cleared here and I could finally see the sky in its entirety, not hidden by branches. We walked over what could only have been pavement and made our way into the middle of the street. Asphalt. The buildings on the block were recognizable, if not worse for wear. Snow fell more freely here. The place was buried in snow.

I stared. "Have you looted the place already? Supplies?" I asked immediately. Simultaneously, I noticed sections of snow plowed away, obviously already reforming but the signs were there.

"In the first few weeks, yes. Despite the cold not much made it unscathed. There was evidence of other scavengers." John replied leaving that to my imagination.

"Monsters?" I asked, realizing we were walking out in the open. John had seemed to let up his wariness.

"Not here. That group up north? They used to camp out here, cleared the entire place of monsters. Nothing comes here anymore, but... best to keep an eye out anyway." John spoke, his voice echoing across an empty street. He barely took in the sights, as if it was something he had seen many times before. "This one's just a block of a city."

"No housing, huh?" I noticed it looked like a city center. If the library was any indication. Or the post office. I said as much. "Looks like a city center. Of a small city, probably."

"If there was housing I wouldn't be living in a tree would I?" John rose an eyebrow at me. He chuckled but continued. "Anyways, our first stop is here because you need to see something. Bingo on the city center, by the way. Check it out."

He pointed at something in lieu of explanation. I followed his finger and threw my gaze forward and upward.

It was a bell tower.

Walking distance away, I only missed it because I was staring around me. All the buildings here were modernized, but they were unmistakably recognizable as something I might've seen in my own town despite being partly destroyed. The bell tower didn't fit in. But cities often kept parts of their past with them as they grew and developed.

"A vantage point?" I said in surprise. I could imagine easily seeing the surrounding area if we were that high. The bell tower rose higher than the trees, much higher. "That'd be a great spot to see the place from." I said, turning to John.

He nodded. "What better way to show you what I've been living in the past month?" John's voice was hard.