It took us about two hours to get ourselves ready and healed and caffeinated and become something vaguely human in temperament (except Star and Ren, who weren’t actually human at all and got no less strange when exposed to coffee) We took Magnus’s ridiculous hummer to the tower entrance, since we all managed to fit into it (with some creative squeezing from everyone, I think at one point I had three people on my lap at the same time and one of them was Aiden, which thoroughly ruined the whole thing). We arrived in record time, stumbling out of the car and desperately hugging the ground in relief as Aiden and Ali physically pried the keys from Erins hands while we all vehemently swore we would never let her behind the wheel of a car again.

After properly shaming my maniac sister for her lunatic driving skills we all huddled up to go over our plan of action. Shawn was of course our strategist, having the highest intelligence and being a giant nerd who spent hours every night memorizing lore books for fun. Of course the mage was exceedingly smug about the importance of his role and grinned around at us all “Ok everyone, our last run was decent but we have some new people to work in as well as new skills and equipment that will play a role in our overall strategy. Ren, Star, what exactly are your stats?”

Star grinned at me “Oh much higher than yours. You need to understand two things about me, the first is my level, I’m level twelve, at least four times what you are, I’m also a tier four race. Non human races, like specific types of demons or fae, are tiered, the more powerful the race the more points they get in their focused stat per level. As a tier four race I got four charisma per level until level ten and then eight per level for the next two, putting me at a total of sixty Charisma. My other stats are all twelve, but my passive lets me substitute my Charisma for my strength if needed, which makes me even stronger than your thunder lug over there.”

She gestured over at Magnus, whose eyes widened at the ridiculous numbers “About by the way, that strength isn’t going to be the game breaker you think it is. Yes strength is important, but with yours outstripping you stamina by so much you wont be able to use it properly. You muscles wont actually hurt you or anything, but you aren’t physically tough enough to actually take any hits from creatures high level enough to match that. If you fight a level thirty ogre, you might be able to hurt it with a hammer, but one return tap will kill you instantly, or if you knock down a building on yourself, the debris can easily crush you.”

She gave him a smile “Don’t get me wrong, at higher levels you’re going to be a certified monster, you’re basically a tier six strength based creature and that’s not even taking into account that extra two points past ten, or the extra four past twenty. You’re looking at breaking past the five hundred point barrier in strength easily if you hit one hundred, which will put you on a physical footing with some of the weaker GODS. Of course the Gods are all universal tiered, so they get those points into every stat when they level, not to mention being high tiered to boot. The princes of hell for instance are all tier nine universal, and Lucifer is tier ten, but strength wise some of the lesser Gods will be weaker than you will.”

Magnus looked shocked but I focused on something else she had said “Wait there are universal creatures? Things that get points in every stat per level? And Lucifer is the strongest of them? Or are there other tier ten universal beings?” My head was spinning, imagining the scale of power someone would be at if they could break one hundred in every stat by level ten. The distance between him and the other princes by level one hundred must be massive.

Star shook her head “Of course not, Lucifer created the system. The whole thing is a way for him to source XP from all the infernals. The other high Gods like Odin and Zeus are tier nine universal but they had to pay for the privilege. I doubt it would have happened if Lucifer didn’t need them to be strong to offset coup attempts from the other princes. What you need to understand is that the XP requirements to level are different for higher tiered creatures. Multiplied by their tier actually. At the higher levels its impossible for high tier beings to become more powerful without massive amounts of XP.”

“In order to create high tier beings Lucifer had to funnel the gained XP that would have gone to him personally to the other gods and the princes. A lot of people suspect its why theres a level cap. Each pantheon harvests their own descendants XP through the blood bond they share with them. And don’t ask what effect their former power predating the system has on their abilities. No one really knows. Anyway we’re getting off topic. Point is I’m more than strong enough to keep up, and Ren is a tier two level nine with a stamina focus. The question is, does that mean you want us to come into the tower with you?”

My head was spinning at all the information Star had given us. She knew about the party from spending so much time with us but it honestly never occurred to me she might be so much stronger than us. It struck me how little I still knew about this whole world. I gave her a manic grin “Oh yes. You’re definitely coming with us. Welcome to the party ladies, this is going to be fun.”