Allen and the others checked into an inn that afternoon. It was a different one than two nights before since nobody wanted to test how well they would have been received after stealing everything that hadn’t been nailed the floor.

The agreement was that they would leave for the capital of the East Sylvan Federation, Rotherham, by train in the morning. The ESF was a mostly rural and a fairly large nation in the far end of the Western hemisphere. Beyond that was Unnamed Word’s equivalent of the Pacific Ocean.

The East Sylvan Federation was not named for its place on the world map though. Rather, it was named for the Sylvan Forest that occupied more than half its landmass. It was a temperate forest, being in the Northern half of the country, which was itself in the Northern hemisphere. There was a sister forest on the same continent, unsurprisingly named the West Sylvan Forest, only it was actually more South than it was West of the Easter Sylvan Forrest.

Allen didn’t make the maps, he only read them, and the one he was holding then was not the best. He was trying to decide whether it would be best to sail across the Ocean to the West or take an airship to the Nash Republic on the other side of the sea to the East. Both options would take around the same amount of time. Airships were much faster than seafaring vessels, but they were harder to get on and it was more than likely that none would take them straight to Krëztland, the country where Lödensburg and all Allen’s stuff was located.

Allen folded the map away and glanced over at Christopher. “Shower first, then I’ll ask him what he thinks.” He got up a moment later and wordlessly walked into the cramped yet functional bathroom.

Personally, Allen favored the idea of crossing the sea by airship and then traveling the remainder of the journey by land. The ocean would be boring, and they still had time to spare on side quests. Andy would show up again eventually, and Allen figured they should try to reach as high a level as possible before then. Sitting on a ship for weeks would be a waste of time.

Allen groaned under the stream of steamy water. A nice, scalding hot shower right after a dungeon delve was one of the best things that Unnamed World had to offer. An understatement in certain circumstances, yes, but it mainly depended on his mood at the moment.

With nothing in particular to think about, Allen turned to his status. He had one hundred stat points to spend, which was quite the sum. For a moment, he thought about min-maxing more aggressively, but that could wait for more specialized jobs in the later levels. Until Advanced jobs were unlocked at level two-hundred, min-maxing was not really worth it. More well-rounded stats were better in the lower levels, especially when the secondary stats could end up becoming dangerously low or high.

“A hundred and twenty-four dexterity is already pushing it with my perception where it is…” High dexterity is great, but useless to Allen if he didn’t have the perception to go with it. “You can only dodge an attack that you can see coming,” Allen thought.

With a thought, he distributed his points almost evenly. He put ten points into every stat, and then another ten into strength and endurance. Lastly, he split the remaining twenty points by putting five into intelligence and fifteen into focus.

Status:

Jeremiah Allen Durand

Human – Rogue – Level 55

XP: 8622/15393 (419932)

Stat Points: 0, Skill Points: 20, Job Points: 2

Jobs:

Silent Assassin

Basic – Tier 3

Heavy Striker

Basic – Tier 2

Stats:

HP: 1750/1750

Regen: 78/min

SP: 3900/3900

Regen: 35/min

MP: 1575/1575

Regen: 70/min

Primary:

STR: 78

INT: 45

VIT: 31 (35)

WIS: 38 (35)

END: 40 (50)

FCS: 70

Secondary:

DEX: 187 (156)

PER: 27

RES: 28

STB: 64

SPD: 119 (109)

LCK: 17

---

Satisfied, Allen moved onto his jobs. Advancing a job would change the skills that it offered, so it was a good idea to advance jobs first and choose skills after. Something almost always changed in his list of available skills when Allen had advanced one of his jobs. He’d figured that out even before getting any real training from the Spades.

Jobs available to class: Rogue

All…

Silent Assassin:

Basic – Tier 4: Elite Assassin – An assassin with more than just skill in killing.

Basic – Tier 5: Silent Lurker – Lurk in the silence before the battle; become one with the lull of Dusk.

Heavy Striker:

Basic – Tier 3: Power Striker – Empowered with enhancement magic, you become a much greater threat.

Basic – Tier 4: Breaker – Break through defenses; destroy your opponents.

Basic – Tier 4: Vital Striker – A well placed attack can leave damage beneath the surface.

He did notice that there were fewer options than he had expected. He usually went the Elite Assassin route, and he was tempted to switch over to it just for simplicity, but the other Assassin job caught his eye. It was more than the high tier; it was the reference to the Dusk aspect that stood out to Allen. Dusk was the same aspect that mind magic fell under. Allen chose Silent Lurker in the hopes that it would have some Dusk aspect magic. That way it would synergize with his illusion magic which was also Dusk aspect. That is, once he got around to picking up the Mentalist job again. At the moment, there were still better ways to spend his other job point.

The choice was between Breaker and Vital Striker. As was typical of the System, the blurbs were nearly useless, so Allen had to choose based on intuition alone. He figured Breaker would probably be more versatile than Vital Striker since it wasn’t limited to vital zones like Vital Striker seemed to be.

Allen stood under the hot shower for a few minutes. He used the entire contents of the little shampoo bottle to wash his hair twice. It was absolutely filthy, even after splashing some water on it. Incidentally, since the Well of Gloom didn’t actually have any water in it, the group had ended up quickly washing themselves off in a nearby stream. They had looked ‘passable’ when returning to Hillford, but simple water couldn’t get the caked over black ooze out of anyone’s hair.

A few moments passed after Allen had rinsed himself. He mentally shrugged and chose both Silent Lurker and Breaker with a quick thought. The boxes popped into his mind’s eye an instant later.

Job: Silent Lurker

Lurk in the silence before the battle; become one with the lull of Dusk.

Class: Rogue/Ranger – Type: Basic – Tier 5 Max

Description:

The Silent Lurker specializes in hiding in the shadows and stalking just out of sight. Not only are you quiet enough to remain undetected, but you are nimble enough to move quickly in silence as well. Harness the magic of Dusk and bring terror upon your enemies.

Requirements: None

Modifiers: Mana shift: Dusk

Skill: Body of the Assassin, has become Skill: Body of the Lurker

Skill: Body of the Lurker

Your body changes to blend in with the silence.

Category: Enhancement Magic – Type: Passive – Tier 2

Effects: Your body is 10% lighter and more flexible. Your bones are 5% more elastic. Effective power of channeled Dusk miasma is increased by 10%.

Cost: None

Skill: Silence, has become Skill: Feather Walk

Skill: Feather Walk

Enhanced with magic, you are unheard and unfelt until it’s too late.

Category: Enhancement Magic – Type: Passive – Tier 2

Effects: Reduces the sound and vibrations caused by all movement by 10%.

Cost: 1MP/s while in use.

Job: Breaker

Break through defenses; destroy your opponents.

Class: Rogue/Warrior – Type: Basic – Tier 4

Description:

Dealing damage is not enough to get past your enemy’s defenses, nor is it enough to shred their flesh and break their bones. A Breaker brings swift pain and destruction to their foes.

Requirements: None

Modifiers: None

Skill: Heavy Strike, has become Skill: Break

Skill: Break

Channel mana into a single attack to break your enemies and deal devastating destruction.

Category: Channeling Magic – Type: Active – Tier 5 Max

Effects: Charge an attack with mana to the base minimum to deal magic damage. Overcharge by any amount to deal additional equivalent physical damage; a portion of the physical damage is absorbed by you. Damage dealt is proportional to strength, intelligence, and the tier of this skill.

Cost: 50MP/min – 200MP Base – 400MP Max

Allen smirked at the descriptions. There was a lot of fluff in the lower level jobs and not a lot of useful information. Of course, there really wasn’t much to the lower level jobs in the first place since they tended not to have any real effects or modifiers themselves.

Silent Lurker was an exception though. It did provide a mana shift modifier that would allow Allen to use Dusk miasma directly instead of pure arcane miasma like he had been doing. The benefits were many, he assumed, but Allen would have to talk to Christopher to refresh his memory. What he could remember was that the aspect of Dusk included mind, void, fate, end, repression, corruption, and anti-magic. Allen assumed Silent Lurker would mainly give him suppression magic to make him quieter. Something like void magic was pretty end game, especially for a non-mage.

Allen glanced over the new skills before deciding to max out all of the ones he had. Doing so used twelve skill points, which was better than he had expected. Getting a few free tiers was always a good thing.

Skill: Feather Walk

Enhanced with magic, you are unheard and unfelt until it’s too late.

Category: Enhancement Magic – Type: Passive – Tier 5 Max

Effects: Reduces the sound and vibrations caused by all movement by 20%. Reduces the weight of your steps and the damage you take from falling by 10%. Increases your movement speed by 10%.

Cost: 5 SP/s while in use.

Skill: Suppression

Channel mana into an enemy to daze and confuse them.

Category: Channeling Magic – Type: Active – Tier 5 Max

Effects: Send a burst of mana directly into the target on contact. Dazed enemies may be startled, blinded and/or confused. Enemies below 2/5 of your level will receive an additional fear effect. Duration proportional to the difference in level between you and the target; Max of 10s. Selectively numb 20% of the pain from any of your attacks; unlimited duration and no level requirements.

Cost: 20MP.

Skill: Body of the Lurker

Your body changes to blend in with the silence.

Category: Enhancement Magic – Type: Passive – Tier 5 Max

Effects: Your body is 20% lighter and more flexible. Your bones are 10% more elastic. You become harder to perceive while in your enemy’s peripheral vision. Your body will no longer make sounds on its own. Effective power of channeled Dusk miasma is increased by 20%.

Cost: None

Skill: Heavy Accelerate

Drastically increase your speed for a single moment.

Category: Enhancement Magic – Type: Active – Tier 5 Max

Effects: Instantaneously increase your movement speed and attacking speed; magnitude of +200%, duration of 1s. Additional speed does not add additional momentum.

Cost: 100MP

Skill: Heavy Jab

Apply damaging magic to your attacks.

Category: Channeling Magic – Type: Active – Tier 5 Max

Effects: Increases the physical damage of your attacks by 50%. Increases the speed of your attacks by 10%.

Cost: 50MP

Skill: Vital Strike

Your strikes land true and cripple your enemy.

Category: Martial Arts – Type: Meta – Tier 4

Effects: Your enemy’s vital zones are 10% larger against your attacks. Attacking your enemy’s critical vital zones will ignore 5% of their resistance. Taking more than 80% of your enemy’s HP in a single hit will cause paralysis; duration proportional to the difference in level between you and the target. Max of 5s.

Cost: 50SP Base – 100SP to cause paralysis

Allen barely had the chance to go over the changes to his skills before someone banged on the bathroom door. His eyes flew open again and he peeked out through the shower curtain. “Yes?” he said.

“Allen, get the hell out of the shower already!” came Ty’s voice. “You’ve been in there for-fucking-ever,” he continued, banging on the door twice more.

Allen groaned. “I haven’t conditioned yet!” He quickly searched around for the little bottle. “Why don’t you join me then?” he said with a smirk.

There was a brief moment of silence before the door clicked, coming unlocked. “If you insist,” Ty began as the door creaked open.

“Wait… he wouldn’t. I’m pure!” Allen quickly snatched up the bottle of conditioner. “Fine, just give me a few seconds!” he said aloud. Relief filled him when he heard the door swing shut again.