A sharp prodding jabs into his shoulder and Todd surfaces blearily from REM sleep.

“Hu – wha?” He inquires.

The illuminating crystals set against the sides of the room are dim like crescent-moonlight, and the Purkinje shift (the colors of the night) has left the room painted only in shades of blue. The walls and ceiling bound a claustrophobic cube, the crystal sconces are inset into three walls, and a dark rift splits the fourth. The subtle grades of shadow define the shapes of the room’s occupants and the splash of water echoes from the small cave.

Oh shit, that’s a face. “Who?” Todd jerks awake and the back of his head bounces against the stone wall behind him. “Ow.”

“Hey,” the figure holds their hands up, rising from a squat up to a looming height, but a slight slouch. “It’s just me, Drips,” Joe assures him. “Wakey wakey.”

“Ungh,” Todd clutches at the back of his head, but the rest of his bones protest louder. They resent being dumped in a jumble against the wall. What an awful position to sleep in.

“Morning,” Todd groans. “Did you guys crash here?”

“Yea,” Joe chuckles. “Turns out the magic exit teleport? It’s keyed to you on the inside too. We can’t get out.”

Todd thinks about that for a moment. “A great way to get stuck forever. That’s actually kind of terrifying, isn’t it.”

“Ciforre technically did warn us.”

“Okay,” Todd stretches his arms and shoulders wide and then carefully straightens his back to a seated position. “I’m up. I’m assuming it’s still pretty early if the lights aren’t coming on?”

“Hoping so. We’ve got to sort out the leadership situation, and it’s an open question if Donnellson is up to it. So I want to get an early start; see if I can help.”

A large shape moves perceptibly in the other corner of the room. Randall. A figure on the bed. Candra.

Todd presses against the wall behind him and levers himself to his feet. “Were you on the floor? Sorry, that can’t have been comfortable.”

In response, Joe lifts a large rectangular white object from the floor and it droops spongily. “Bought a pillow.”

“How? From the…?”

Joe pinches his brow and nods. “From the store. It cost 70 nexus coins and I have no idea if that’s a good deal or a bad one.” He indicates the far light-crystal with his head, and there’s a smaller square black plate beneath it. “Your relay crystal is right over here in the wall.”

“I don’t suppose I can get a change of clothes.”

Joe lifts a hand up, spread flat and wobbles it. “They’re a little expensive.”

“Mhm.” Todd slips into the water spout alcove and collects the clothing from the floor. Gi jackets for all four of them, and Candra’s trousers. Most of the bug muck has been rinsed off overnight, but the stains have only faded not vanished.

“I don’t suppose we have a way to dry these?” He asks, weaving through the five foot cleft and back into the room. He tosses Joe’s jacket, and the cloth makes a slopping noise as it wraps around the tall boy’s arm. “Great, wet clothing. My favorite way to start the day.”

Candra ends up waking up in short order, though instead of dressing right away she simply claims Todd’s spare sheet. Randall takes some convincing to rise, then yawns loudly and holds his soaked jacket as far from himself as possible.

The teleportation array is activated by touch and intention, it doesn’t take much of either. The effect carries the resident, their clothing, carried possessions, and any free standing object connected by touch; even indirectly.

For that reason, Todd, Joe, Candra, and Randall appear in the plaza, half-clothed and holding hands in a chain. The moment they soundlessly translocate, they let go of each other and look around nervously in fear of witnesses.

There are several.

“Hey kids!” Shouts Alderman Donnellson from across the way, waving a high but subdued waggle of the hand. “Mornin’!”

Joe shifts his sopping wet jacket from one arm, to drape over the other. “Hey Mr. Donnellson!” He grimaces cheerfully, then his face opens up into astonishment. The plaza is entirely cleared of redburr crab corpses or debris, the tile a serene blue except for one last upturned tile and tunnel towards the center. “Wow, they really cleaned up, didn’t they?” Then he leans in to the group and whispers, “I think I gotta go grab my armor at least. Break for restroom and be back in 15?”

Standing at the foot of the huge featureless enamel colored building, Todd watches his friends lay their hands on the wall and vanish. The wastefulness of the process is not lost on him, but this is something which can’t be delayed further. Todd limps over to the wall and lays his hand on it

After a few minutes, the four regroup as planned. This time Todd chooses to carry his armor in his [Greed Satchel], while the other three return with theirs strapped on. None of them found an amicable solution to the drying issue, so they dribble little puddles onto the floor and smell mildly of soap.

“Wait, give me two seconds,” Todd blurts out. “I forgot to spend my, whatever, my points from leveling up.”

It takes a moment for his friends to alight on what he’s saying. Levels, [System]s, points, this is all still so new, so unnatural. Even a single Free Point is a transformational opportunity, but even though he has a reserve of eight, they’d slipped completely out of mind.

At least he assumes he has eight. Last night, Todd had managed to squeak by into Level 6. The sensation of the Cosmic Energy, rising and breaking the boundaries between levels, was becoming more familiar and noticeable. He felt it in his heart, like the surge and breaking of the tide.

Todd begins by pulling up his status menu and confirming his level and available points. Six and eight. Without any new guidance, Todd chooses to trust himself and his plan to balance out his portfolio. He assigns the first five points to everything but intelligence, and the energy soaks through his body, charging his muscles, bones, and nerves. That leaves him with three points remaining.

Name

Todd Kalogeropoulos

Level

6

Race

F – Human

Alignment

Human (Earth)

Titles

Chosen

Strength

12

Dexterity

12

Endurance

12

Vitality

12

Intelligence

13

Wisdom

13

Luck

9

Nexus Coins

1240

Free Points

3

If he follows the plan, the next step is to boost his physical stats further; with all this fighting, it wouldn’t even be a bad idea. But two things hold him back. Firstly, he can’t deny the appeal of the Intelligence attribute. It doesn’t seem to work the same way as his Strength, its effects are not as immediate or as obvious. But there’s a clarity, a nimbleness of mind that he feels now, and the thought of more has a powerful allure. Besides, Todd reminds himself practically, his [Water Spear] does scale with his Intelligence stat. That would help, right?

The second consideration is one that he keeps going back and forward over in his mind. Pixie Ciforre’s offhand comment the other day about Wisdom and illusions… something is wrong here. Beyond the obvious, and the fantasy world insanity. It’s becoming even more apparent as his mind has grown sharper, almost like he can feel a cloudy boundary around some of his own thoughts.

Todd draws in a sharp breath and resolves himself. This isn’t something he should put off, and there’s no guarantee someone else is going to do this either.

So Todd mixes diligence and indulgence, and clears the final two points to reach fifteen Wisdom, plus one to Intelligence to hit fourteen. The effect of the change is harder to describe this time. It’s like the space around him is bigger, but he’s closer to it now. That thought doesn’t make sense, but it’s the closest he can get to putting it to words.

Candra looks down at her arms, turns her wrists, inspects her hands. “You know, I can kind of see a little bit of a difference, but not really. I’m so much stronger, so much more... everything really, but I still look the same.”

“You’d rather look like a giant bodybuilder?” Joe chuckles.

“I could be happy being taller,” Candra smirks.

Illuminated, starless, quiet, the volume of the plaza stretches out before Todd. He sees the corner that his peers and fellows have chosen to defend. One corner of four. He sees the size, the number of buildings around the edge, the placement of the outpost crystal so far off center. The number four was important, beyond important. Fourth section, which meant more sections. Fourth administrator, because –

Todd’s left foot steps before he has the sense to tell it not to. His right is still sore, still scabbed, still limping. But that’s not a reason to stop, is it? The other side of the plaza is so far away. Wincing, Todd picks up the pace and his friends begin to call out to him in alarm.

“Two seconds!” He calls back behind him.

Todd skirts a wide berth around the redburr tunnel. The sallow grey dirt smudges out in patches away from the hole itself. He watches it carefully from twenty yards away, but it remains silent and still.

The plastic clatter of cleated footsteps slow down behind him. “Hey man,” Randall begins conversationally. “You okay? I’m kind of feeling like this is a little dangerous over here. Why are you even going this way?”

Normally, Randall’s cheeks and brow would puff up red with even a hint of exertion. That wasn’t a sign of his limit, he could run a lot further than people gave a young man of his size credit for. He just had a lot of weight to carry, and it tended to show on his face. But he had thirty six, maybe even thirty eight, miracle magical points of difference in between himself and his old life. There’s not a blush hint on him.

Randall fidgets as Todd regards him wordlessly. “It was hard to run at first – when I got stronger, but I’m kinda getting used to it.”

The far, empty corner is largely indistinguishable from the others. The looming white buildings are fitted tighter than teeth, and the teal-turquoise squares of the floor are smooth stone. But it’s not exactly blue, is it? There’s a red line here. What an obvious thing to have overlooked.

“You’re suspicious of something. You think it’s strange we’ve all bunched up on one side, and –” Randal pinches at his chin for a second. “You know or see something which I like, seem to can’t.”

“Whoa, Randall. Where’s this coming from?”

The big guy shrugs. “Was that good? I kind of dumped a lot of points into Intelligence.”

“Nice. That’s real responsible.”

Randal beams in an effort to showcase as many teeth as possible. “It’s gonna make my fireballs awesome.”

Shaking his head, Todd shuffles gingerly towards the red line. As he approaches, he begins to understand the true nature of the effect. It wasn’t that he couldn’t see the line, he had. It’s that the word for it had been stolen from him. Without the context of language, a thing has no shape, and without a shape it has no boundary, and without a boundary how can a thing be seen at all? “Oh man, I’m gonna regret this aren’t I.”

Todd steps across the dividing line. Blue is not the same as red, or as green or yellow. A round is not a square. And a grown man with an animal face from another world is not a floor.

Fifty of the Ishiate people huddle in a cluster. Their system provided gis are haggard and stained with ichor and their own blood. Their short-furred faces are strained and afraid. They turn with shock to face Todd, as If he’d appeared from thin air.

And then the fourth and final administrator of subsection four turns away from her charges. Her raiment is in pale green, and her long narrow fingers (only four!) steeple together. She floats in the air and when her eyes fall on Todd, her eyes widen, her shoulders droop, and her mouth curls down.

“Oh shit,” she says.