Standard terms of probability and prediction, [Such as LUC] do not apply to Black Swan Events since they depend on large population and past sample sizes that are never available for extremely rare [Epic] events by definition.

~investopedia.com [with System commentary]

POV - Sledgrick

This was bad. Lady had more fingers for me. I had full used up hand one. This was bad cause next I would have to swap hands and then I might make an oopsee.

As I stomped down the stairs at the library entrance I had to check my fingers again and again. Some of these new fingers were hard. Finger three. Don’t hit babies. This meant anybody who was two Tiers or more below me. Because they were weak. Like the silly badguys. This was okay. I knew finger three after Lady told me after bigger badguy went for a fly. That’s why I didn’t hit little badguy. I poked him. A poke is not a hit. It is a poke. Then Lady got cross. I could tell she was cross cause she said my name. Twice. This means I have done something wrong even when I did everything right. Then she gave me finger four. Finger four was very hard. Don’t even touching weakies. That means no poking. No anythinging. It made it a bit hard to leave the Library cause the skinny library lady was in the doorway. With her mouth open and closing. She was like a fishie. I like fishies. They are funny, always opening their mouths. One of Boss Chase’s friends has fishies in their restaurant lobby. I get to see them each time I go get some money. That is fun.

I had to give library lady my cross face. Cause finger two was shut up and finger four was don’t touch weakies. Library lady was very funny. She went white and lay down fast. I stepped over her and the little badguy just bumped over her. That was okay because I didn’t touch her. Only he did. I even thought please and thankyou at her for getting out of the way.

The System gave me a [Beep].

> >

I didn’t know what [Courtesy] was so I asked System.

This was a good Skill. Especially since what Skills I usually used to do my jobs was very hard with fingers two and four. “Yes please and thankyou.” I could say it to System cause no one else was here so I didn’t need to do finger two.

At the bottom of the stairs I saw a flowerer. He had a big basket on wheels full of flowers. I could borrow his wheelbasketa. That would be much better than just bumping little badguy all the way to the dump.

The flowerer was silly. I didn’t want flowers. I didn't want money. He wanted to give me both. I shook my head. He shook his hands. I pointed to his wheelbasketa please and thankyou. He gave it to me. I like my new skill. I gave him a nod. And all his flowers back. They were nice but I didn’t want flowers. I just kept one yellow one for the Lady. I pulled shookupguy out of my inventory. He was bad. Real bad. I membered Boss Chase telling me not to put food in my inventory cause it will go bad. He didn’t tell me that shookupguy would go bad too. I would tell him next time I saw him. I put him in the wheelbasketa. Flowerer guy had a sleep. I put his coat under his head. Oopsee, I forgot finger four. Bad hencher. But lucky no one see'd that to tell Lady.

Now I needed to get little badguy in the wheelbasketa too. This was hard without breaking finger four. I looped the rope I had put around little badguy’s foot around his other foot and then lifted both foots high with the rope and swung him up on top of shookupguy. Good. I was a clever hench.

Now I could do finger five very easy.

POV - Tad

And that was the weirdest dream. I was running and running. Run, run, run. And then I hit the wall. That was a jaunty tune I liked to whistle. I paused, maybe the wall had hit me. I certainly felt like a wall had fallen on me. I lay there with a groan and tried to gather myself.

What was that smell? It was putrid. I opened my eyes to find a corpse draped over me. I closed my eyes. That was disturbing. With a mighty shout I surged up. Yuck, tastes bad as well as smells bad. Both the corpse and I went careening down a steep bank. No, I was in some sort of chute that we had somehow been tangled up and wedged in. The sides were getting higher and now slick with wear. I couldn’t stop the slide. I tried to scramble up on top of the corpse and succeeded just as the slide ended. Time sort of froze as we, that is the corpse and I, hung in midair over a giant blue swirl of a portal. Oh, I had activated my perk. That meant time hadn’t frozen, just my perception of it had slowed down. It didn’t help. There was nothing I could do. There was nothing the corpse could do either. We were both helpless. We both fell through the portal. One with a quiet dignity, the other shouting and flailing, surfing a cadaver into the unknown.

Forget dignity, this was scary.

System Message

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. My heart sank as I read the System message.

Oh Dear.

This was not so good. A series of dings announced more notifications. I was numb. Isekai’d for the second time in less than two days. At least I think it is less than two days. I pulled up my Character Sheet. Arrggghhh. Insult to injury. Over 48 hours had passed since I had opened that very first Award. It was now active. My cunning plan to blitz Skill acquisition had been foiled. It was now going to be much harder to get new skills and take much longer to improve them. But this was the least of my worries. I was a Level 1; G Tier and the minimum recommended was D Tier; Level 100. This was bad. I had only just reached the cap for Level 1 but I could level up all the way to Level 4 if I didn’t try to maximise by Stats at each level.

But I would worry about that later. I had more immediate concerns. Rather than exploring all the changes to my Sheet I sat up and looked around. We, that is my corpse companion and I, were in a large cavern. Refuse was scattered all around us. Strangely the foul smell that had emanated from my companion was notably absent.

Thankful for small mercies I stood carefully and looked up. No portal. Just a distant cavern roof. Thankfully there was that indeterminate lighting which had intrigued me earlier at the bath and Bank. I shuddered as I imagined landing here in the dark. It didn’t even bear thinking about.

Just then I heard a patter and thud of falling debris and swinging around, I was just in time to see another portal wink closed in the far distance while the dumped things tumbled and settled on another mound some far distance away. I readjusted my approximation of the size of the cavern. Hang on, I activated my [Observation] Skill. I would need every advantage I could get and the more information I could glean the better decisions I would make. There didn’t seem to be any movement visible in the almost endless hills and valleys of trash that I was situated on. But there was a strange pattern emerging from the way the valleys sort of curved around and twisted back in on themselves.

[Observation] was a powerful passive Skill. It was quite different to [Identify]. With [Identify] I had to trigger it in respect to a particular person or item. It was an active Skill and required my direct concentration and focus. [Observation] on the other hand was a background Skill. It worked even when I wasn’t focused on using it. And it was much more than just looking at things. It brought things to my notice. It was a great perception tool. And with a little bit of concentration it allowed me to draw out knowledge from what was observed. To make observations based on what I saw. Intuiting the ramifications and consequences of what I saw and drawing conclusions of what it might mean or how it might impact me. Hence these patterns in the valleys were intriguing. What was causing them? My intuition was ringing an alarm. I did not want to find myself in the way of the being or event or whatever that was making these patterns. I scanned again for movement. Nope, all was still. I checked my current position. I was not in a valley and neither was I on a hilltop or more correctly I was not on a ridge. All the hills were ridges. And the rise I was on wasn’t one of the higher ones either. I realised that there was actually very little variation between the highest ridge and the lowest ridge. Maybe four or five times my height at most. This was remarkable for the size of the cavern. I couldn’t even see the edges. This was going to be a challenge to navigate.

Not seeing any immediate danger, I sat down again next to Mr Stiff and took stock. What did I have? What were my options? What had happened and what was I going to do? What could I do?

Well.

What could I do? What should I do? Rather than being paralysed with indecision I should start at the top. I didn’t want another indecisive award. First question it was. What did I have?

I had my clothing. That was a positive. That was much better than last time. I shuddered again as I remembered my hospital gown. I had some footwear. Both clothing and footwear were extremely basic and probably not very durable and provided no additional benefit with either Stats or effects. I had my iAPD. It was empty. I needed to refill it. I had bought 20 potions from the System Shop. I was kicking myself now that I hadn’t bought more of the things I needed. I didn’t even have a weapon. Or armour. Or… Or… Or… I dragged my regrets back into line. They weren’t helping.

I thought back to when I did my shopping. I had equipped my undies with a thought. I had loaded the iAPD with a thought. How did I do this? I don’t know. I just did it and it happened. I thought about a Health Potion. A small brown flask materialised in my hand. Neat. I have an inventory. I had tried to open my inventory back in that idyllic clearing. It seemed a lifetime ago. And it was so different to the post-apocalyptic dreary wasteland I currently found myself in. It hadn’t worked then, but perhaps that was because I hadn’t been initiated through the System Tutorial. I summoned an Energy potion. Another small brown flask materialised in my other hand. They were identical to look at. It would be easy to mix these up. Oh, wait. Duh I could just identify them. So I did.

>Item:

Health Potion

> Grade:

Trash

> Status:

Normal

> Description:

A low grade health potion.

Will replenish 50HP over a period of 2 hours

>Item:

Energy Potion

> Grade:

Trash

> Status:

Normal

> Description:

A low grade energy potion.

Will boost STA regeneration +20% for a period of 4 hours

I equipped the Health Potion in my dispenser and drank the energy potion. I immediately felt a fresh surge of energy. Wow. I hadn’t realised how tired I had been. I sighed. “It's been a pretty tough ride so far hasn’t it Mr Stiff.?” He didn’t answer. Which was good. I didn’t expect him to. In fact, if he had, it would be very bad. He’d had it even tougher than me though, that was for sure.

I turned to look at him. He didn’t look too good at all. I practised [Inspect]. After all, he wasn’t going to complain.

>OBJECT:

Corpse

>SPECIES:

Human

>DESCRIPTION:

A recently deceased corpse but with advanced decay.

Further information may be obtained with additional effort.

Additional effort? Oh. Like an autopsy or something. Nope. I wasn’t interested in investigating how he died, thank you. My [Observation] skill kicked in. His clothing was significantly better than mine. He looked a bit like a Rogue, with a long dark duster, a high collared long sleeved shirt with loose cuffs. His pants were well made and very stylely. And his boots were leather with a good heel and lovely flex.

Oh. Man. I was turning into a grave robber. Except he wasn’t in a grave. So technically I wasn't. That was good. And he was dead so he didn’t need his stuff anymore. Actually I suppose I was stealing from his kids. But they were never going to get this stuff. It was here with me in this Level outside the Levels. Yep, that was good justifications. I could live with that.

I stripped off the duster. Hmmmm. He had a holster under it with two wicked looking knives that sat tucked in under each arm. Whoop whoop. I was now armed. With knives that I didn’t know how to use. But it is better than nothing I suppose. I took off the holster. Now the shirt. Thankfully he was also wearing a long sleeved singlet. That had protected the shirt mostly. I could still wear this. And he had more knives. In quick release holsters under his sleeves that would drop straight into his hands. Whoever had killed him hadn’t given him time to even draw his weapons. I was readjusting my estimation of Mr Stiff from a perfectly normal respectable businessman to one on the more shady side. These knives looked weighted for throwing. That was good. A bit of range. Provided I could throw of course. I would need to practise. Both throwing and using the holsters. A problem for another time.

I passed on the pants. Sadly they were more than a little worse for wear. And I had no way to clean them. I moved straight to the boots. They were all I hoped for and, even better, he had self cleaning socks. Good underwear is critical. I was glad I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Socks and undies for the win. I ditched my sandals, cape and rough spun shirt and donned my new garb, including the holsters. As I put on the duster, I noted that it seemed to be weighted. I checked out the hem. Perhaps it was to stop the light material from billowing up with every slight gust of wind. Whoops, I found a hidden zip. A stream of small gold coins gushed out. What the hey? They weighed significantly more than the entire duster had with them in it. It must have an enchantment. My evaluation of the duster increased. This was valuable in itself. I stashed the gold back in the hem. I couldn’t even tell it was there. This was good. Having looted the low lying fruit I considered my next steps.

Yes, I should check my status.

I pulled up my character sheet.

NAME

Known As:

Totally Awesome Dude

Tad

Blank

>SPECIES:

>TIER:

Human

G

>XP:

>EXP:

27556

2729/2756

>LVL:

1** CAPPED**

>MINION:

>Nige [Expand]

>CON:

23.5/336.17HP

STR: STA: AGI:

[Hide]

4.83 52.2 8.05

[Variance]

+1.83 +12.2 +5.05

>WIS:

36.96MP

MEM: IMA: INT:

[Hide]

4.44 5.55 8.88

[Variance]

+0.44 +0.55 +1.88

>KAR:

332.11E

CHA: SPI: HON:

[Hide]

11.1* 29.92* 11.1*

[Variance]

+1.1 +3.67 +1.1

>LUC:

0.6***

+0.05 on Loot/Drop rolls

Unassigned

Total:

6

142.67

0 28.32

>SKILLS:

(Unlocked) [Hide]

Delve

Mine

Prospect

Deception

>>Run<<

>>Dream<<

(Active) [Hide]

Rage

Dodge

Advanced Meditation

Observation

Inspect

Basic Cultivation

(Proficiency) [Hide All]

[Novice]

[Novice]

[Apprentice]

[Novice]

[Novice]

[Novice]

>PATHS:

Nasal Prospector Class

>PERKS:

Gallifreudian Slip

>TITLES:

Pertinacious

Black Swan Survivor (Pending acceptance)

Audacious Pioneer (Pending acceptance)

>AWARDS:

Atelophobia Award

Precocious Award