“I could have sworn it was over this way though.” Jackie said.

“Nah, I’m pretty sure it was back the other way.” Leif replied.

Nick had spent the last fifteen minutes getting dragged around the 65th floor by the Hogs. Instead of just asking someone they had decided that they definitely remembered where the button was located. They definitely didn’t though and they didn’t seem quite ready to admit it.

“Don’t you guys have a map skill? I would have thought it would have been a common skill to get.” Nick asked.

“Of course laddy. Why tha hell would we use it though?” Kim answered.

“Huh?” Nick was being left confused an awful lot today.

“Lemme give ya bit of advice lad.” Kim pulled Nick close. “Don’t touch tha skill.”

“Piece of shit it is.” Jackie complained.

“Biggest waste of a skill I ever got.” Leif added on.

Now Nick was just extra confused. Why he certainly hadn’t really used the skill that much, that was because he hadn’t gotten a lot mapped out yet. Once he had explored more of the Complex he was sure that the skill would prove invaluable. Other people seemed to think that it was an incredibly handy skill. It certainly had prevented him from getting too lost in the endless sea of rooms that was the hotel.

“What’s wrong with the skill? It feels pretty good to me.”

“Bah. Ya too fresh laddy. Tha skill issa curse, tha’s what.” Kim spat. “Can’t open tha damn thing without getting a splittin headache fa days.”

That’s when it dawned on him.

“Wait. Is this to do with the layout of the Complex not making sense?” He asked.

“Shut it, kid. We don’t need to be reminded. Us Explorers don’t talk about that, just leads to problems.” Jackie answered.

Nick thought about it for a while and it started clicking together for him. The more of the Complex he explored, the more his map would be filled out. That in and of itself seemed like a good thing overall, until he remembered how his brain responded to things like the car park and Parklands not lining up properly. Just that part of his skill had the potential to cripple him for a moment and leave him with a slight headache. What if he just kept building that up? Stacking more and more of those paradoxes until his map was just a massive compilation of them? Now it made sense to him.

People like Kim, high-level Explorers who’d likely been to most places in the Complex, would have incredibly detailed maps. These maps would be stuffed to the brim with these slight logistical paradoxes. No wonder they refused to open them, just one paradox was enough to beat Nick over the head, let alone a dozen, maybe even more. Looking at it now, he had to agree with Leif. The map skill seemed like it might just be more of a waste than it was anything actually useful. Well, that sucked. Nick now had a relatively useless skill he was stuck with, and it had seemed so promising when he first got it.

Eventually, the Explorers managed to live up to their class and found the button room, though Nick was almost certain it was entirely because of their Luck rather than any actual navigational ability. Though now that they had finally made it, Nick wasn’t entirely sure why they had gone out of their way to find it, did he need the button to use the gems? Not one to sit on a question for too long, Nick asked the Hogs.

“Nah ya can use tha gems whenever lad. Ya just about ta have two evolutions and a new skill. I’m sure ya will wanna check them over when ya done, hence tha button.”

Well, that seemed awfully considerate of the man. Nick wasn’t going to say no to such a thing and pulled out his gems. He hesitated though, what did a class evolution actually entail? He’d only ever gotten vague information secondhand from Lily. Was he sure he wanted to level up Explorer? He’d heard some pretty gnarly stories about them going insane, though the Hogs seemed relatively well adjusted.

“Why ya hesitating laddy? We ain’t got all day ya know? Gotta get ta serious business afta this.” Kim pushed.

That was all Nick really needed, he crushed one of the level three gems and was greeted by a prompt.

Class Level Up!

Two Available Classes Found!

Choose one!

Nick decided to bite the bullet and mentally accepted Explorer first.

Explorer Level 3!

Choose an evolution:

Violent Explorer

Lucky Explorer

Subservient Explorer

Well, Nick certainly wasn’t impressed by his options. Lucky Explorer didn’t sound bad, but the other two certainly didn’t paint the nicest picture. He wasn’t that violent, was he? And Subservient? Nick felt rather disrespected by that one, he wasn’t subservient to anyone but himself! Nick then realised he could open up each class and get a bit of flavour text about each one.

Violent Explorer

An Explorer who uses violence to assist with the hunt for treasure and new territory.

Well, it didn’t sound too far from the truth when it was put like that. Nick practically got all of his loot from defeating monsters in challenge rooms.

Lucky Explorer

An Explorer who relies on their luck for their finds, skill takes a backseat but the gains don’t suffer.

Nick no longer liked Lucky Explorer. Nick liked to think it was at least somewhat competent, he wasn’t that reliant on his Luck skill, right? In fact, he felt like the skill had been letting him down more often than not. Other than his loot he didn’t feel like he was exceptionally lucky. Nick certainly wouldn’t be taking that one, even if it made him luckier. He felt like luck hadn’t done much for him so far, why would he trust it to make things any better for him? No, Nick trusted in his own competence.

Subservient Explorer

An Explorer who works for the whims of another, using their skills to achieve others' goals.

Well, Nick hated that one. While he had to admit that he wanted to help Paige out, he wasn’t sure if evolving his class around helping her was the smartest choice to make. Though the more he thought about it, the better of a choice it was. He was rather weak and Paige was rather strong, if he could just complement her skill set and work for her, then surely that would work out in his favour?

Nick noticed the direction of his thoughts and wasn’t liking it one bit. He pulled Abby’s necklace out of his pocket and put it on. Suddenly he felt his mind clear up a bit and was hit by a resounding fact. Taking Subservient Explorer was a terrible idea and he was an absolute idiot for even considering it. Nick then had to accept that being offered the class was a little too accurate for him to be comfortable with. Nick suddenly pieced together something that seemed far too obvious for him to have missed up until this point.

“I really shouldn’t let her keep biting me huh?” Nick muttered to himself.

“Anyone coulda told ya tha lad.” Kim laughed. “Ya chosen ya class yet?”

Nick didn’t reply. Though he knew which class he was going to take. He didn’t like the Lucky one or the Subservient one, so while he didn’t like the name of the other, it was his only choice left. At least the flavour text made it sound rather fitting for his situation. Nodding to himself Nick accepted Violent Explorer.

Violent Explorer

Skill 1 - Treasure Sense - Active

You can vaguely sense the direction to and location of treasure.

Skill 2 - Lucky - Passive

You are luckier than most. Better loot, more coincidental finds and narrowly avoiding danger more often.

Skill 3 - Hasten - Active

Gain a burst of speed, higher spatial awareness and dexterity.

Skill 4 - Map - Active

You have access to a map of your surroundings, locations only marked as you discover them and labelled by your knowledge.

Skill 5 - Fight For Your Treasure - Active

Gain a temporary burst of strength and speed. The boost is dependent on the amount of loot that’s on the line.

Other than then the new skill he got, he also noticed that Hasty Escape had changed into something far more useful for him. The other three skills didn’t seem to have changed at all though. Nick checked his mental faculties, but he didn’t think he felt insane. Though would he actually know if levelling up the class had made him insane? Would insane just be the new normal for him? Nick just tried to stop thinking about it.

“Violent Explorer huh? That’s certainly one choice.” Jackie commented.

“Certainly seen people pick worse.” Leif shrugged.

Nick then squeezed the other level three class gem. This time he liked the options before him a whole lot more

Striking Brawler

A Brawler who mainly uses their strikes to deal with whatever opponent faces them.

Gritty Brawler

A Brawler who often ends up on the receiving end, they always manage to come through based on grit.

Group Brawler

A Brawler who often finds themselves facing off against more than one opponent at once.

All of the choices sounded great to Nick, each of them fit exactly what he needed from his class right now. That did just make it harder for him to choose a single one though. Nick tried to break down the pros and cons of each one, firstly Striking Brawler played into his strengths. He was already pretty confident with most of his strikes and the class would surely make him even more of a force to be reckoned with, though that was also the drawback. Would he be putting all of his eggs into one basket?

Next was Gritty Brawler, this one Nick really liked. Something about it just made him feel awesome, the fact that he was getting recognition for his fights felt great. The only issue he had with the class was what it implied moving forward. While he certainly had been finding himself on the receiving end a lot recently, he didn’t want that to become the normal. He wanted to absolutely dominate his opponents, not force them into drawn out slugging matches that he could out endure his opponent in. Actually, now that he thought about it, that sounded awesome.

The last one sounded like it could possibly be the most useful of the classes for him though. Group Brawler seemed to fit a lot of the recent fights he’d been taking, both challenge rooms and with people. He certainly enjoyed the wave rooms far more than any of the other types of challenge rooms so far, not just because of the insane loot he could get from them. His run-ins with the bandits had shown that he’d probably always be stuck fighting more than one person at a time. Overall, the strengths of the class sounded very beneficial to him right now. The cons weren’t very clear but Nick could see them being related to diminishing his capabilities in one on one situations, which wouldn’t be fantastic.

Looking at all three of the classes Nick had quite the difficult decision on his hands. He eliminated Striking Brawler first, while it sounded great he didn’t want to accidentally trap himself into only being able to strike. He was serious about learning some more techniques he could take advantage of. That left Gritty or Group. It was a hard decision for him to make, but he certainly felt one of the classes calling to him more than the other. Nick decided to trust his gut.

Gritty Brawler -

Skill 1 - Gritty Constitution - Passive

During a fight, gain durability based on strength and duration of the fight. After a fight, gain recovery based on endurance, injury severity, and fight duration.

Skill 2 - Deep Blows - Passive

Your unarmed strikes penetrate your opponent, dealing internal damage. Damage now starts lower but climbs higher as a fight progresses.

Skill 3 - Jeer - Active

Your next words debuff all opponents that hear you. Debuff to all attributes.

Skil 4 - Punishing Blows - Passive

The bigger your combination of blows, the more damage each consecutive hit does.

Skill 5 - Endurance Sap - Passive

Your successful unarmed strikes return some endurance to you.

Yep. Nick was certain that he made the right decision. Two of his skills had changed, with one of them being made slightly weaker but he thought it was totally worth it. Brawler’s Constitution had become Gritty Constitution, the change seeming to just have added scaling to the durability and recovery parts of the ability, which was amazing. The changes to Deep Blows were a bit worse for him, with the damage being lowered but a scaling amount added to them based on fight duration. That meant that he’d struggle to quickly deal with opponents, but he’d certainly start racking the damage up if the fight was drawn out. While it wasn’t the best, Nick was excited to see the new heights his damage could reach.

Then there was the new skill, which sounded a bit weak to him at first but the more he thought about it the better it got. The skill seemed to allow him to sustain his way through the longer fights, giving him an edge over any opponents that decided to try and go the distance with him. Nick wasn’t sure how good it would be until he tested it, but he was certainly excited. Overall, Nick was incredibly pumped about his choice of class.

Now he just had to decide what class to raise to level four.