For defeating a foe several levels above you, you have gained bonus rewards! +1 TP

Ding! For being the first person to send someone to a System prison, you have gained a reward!

Augment gained! Paci-Fist

Level up! Level up!

A wave of energy flooded through Steven. He felt like he’d just gotten a whole night's sleep and a shot of espresso. The aches from his chest and back lessened, and even some of the mental fatigue faded, though not all of it.

Leveling felt good.

“And yes, you can get rewards without killing your foes, but only if it was a real-life or death struggle. I casually let you break physics. You think I can’t tell if you are throwing or not?”

Okay, so no exploiting that for easy levels.

He was a little shocked to have leveled up twice. Just what level had Reina been?

“Character sheet.”

Character sheet: Steven Kalio: Level 3

Skill slots: 1

Class: Spiteful Defender

Rarity: Uncommon

Purpose: to defend others

Scope: Narrow. Conditionally, very narrow

Skills: Hand-Shield

Augments: Paci-Fist

Skill points: 3

Trait points: 4

All he’d gotten was Skill and Trait points, no new skills or slots.

What did he use those points for in the first place?

He decided to shelve that train of thought for later. He could really dig into his character sheet at Margie’s.

It felt wrong to casually walk back to the case of water after fighting for his life, but what else was he supposed to do?

He couldn’t find the cashier or any of the others. Not that he’d expected to, they’d have to have been stupid to stick around.

Still, that left him with no one to ring up his groceries. Part of him said he was being stupid worrying about that now. Money might not be worth anything by the end of the week, but he couldn’t just shake a lifetime of habit in a heartbeat.

After a few seconds of hesitation, Steven left the money on the counter and headed out. He took two trips for all the stuff, deciding to throw in a few bags of chips while he was at it.

He started his car and just stared straight ahead. He felt…nothing. That was the problem. His panic, his anger, his fear, as soon as he started trying, they were almost effortless to shove down.

He took a deep breath and tried to feel. It was hard, much, much harder than suppressing the emotions had been.

What was he feeling right now, at this very moment? It was hard to tell. Like trying to feel how hot something was while wearing oven mitts.

Fear? Some, but it was so muted he wasn’t sure. Relief? …Yes, that was definitely there. He had felt it right after realizing he wouldn’t have to kill Reina, but the feeling faded quickly.

I want to know what skill points do.

Steven latched onto that thought and the curiosity that came with it. He pulled on it like a lifeline and slowly felt himself coming back. He sighed and sagged into his seat.

His calm had kept him alive in there, but if he weren’t careful, he would slide right back into that apathetic pit. And once he was in it, he wouldn’t care enough to crawl his way back out.

He took another deep breath, then straightened.

It was time to see Margie.

~<>~<>~

Anchorage was lined on one side by water and mountains on the other. They towered over the skyline, their craggy, snow-covered peaks visible right from the highway. Hell, they were the first things you saw stepping out of the airport.

You literally couldn’t miss them.

The city stretched right up to them, spilling over the hillside. And just when you thought, surely, the homes don’t go higher, they went up and up and up, and why the hell did an old woman live so high up?

It was absurd. Why Big Mountain Drive, of all places? The neighborhood was actually pretty nice, but Steven had thought his old car would give out on him.

It was so high up that you could look down on other hillside neighborhoods like they were at sea level.

His phone chimed, telling him to turn right. Margie’s drive was tucked against the hill and stretched down a few dozen feet to reveal her massive three-story house. Dark blue and lined with snow-covered spruce, it struck an imposing image in the dark.

Well, it wasn’t that dark with the glowing dome overhead.

He parked and got out just in time for the front door to open and a mass of grey fur and chuffs to come running.

“Buford!” Steven cried just before the massive Malamute slammed into him.

The grey-furred behemoth planted his paws on Steven’s shoulders, nearly knocking him down as he went for his face.

“Gack!” Steven tried to fight the hound off, but Buford was relentless, licking and chuffing at Steven with the kind of endless excitement only found in dogs and children.

“Okay, okay! Get off me for a second, and I’ll pet you!”

Buford complied, and Steven crouched down. The dog leaned against Steven as he buried his hands in his fur.

“I missed you too, buddy.”

“Roof!”

“I thought I’d broken him of that habit, but I suppose the lug lost his brain when he saw you pull in.” Steven’s gaze shot up to see Margie standing in the doorway.

She was average height, with medium-length grey hair that never seemed to escape its intricate braid. She was one of those lucky people that showed their age in their hair more than their face and said face was pulled into a smile.

“Hey, Margie. It’s been a bit.”

She nodded. “Yeah. It has.”

Steven swallowed the lump in his throat and climbed to his feet. Buford chuffed but allowed him to get up.

Steven felt like he was in a dream as he climbed up the front porch. Seeing Margie in person brought back a flood of memories that he wasn’t prepared to deal with, along with a surge of emotions that he was still getting used to feeling again.

She wrapped him in a hug, her frail arms squeezing for all they were worth.

He hugged her back.

It felt…warm.

“Roof” Buford padded up and leaned against them like a fluffy wall. Steven laughed and pulled away. “I need to put the groceries inside.”

Margie nodded, and her dark grey eyes shown with warmth. “Right, let’s be quick about it if there’s really magical moose on the prowl.”

A few minutes later, Steven sat in Margie’s living room, a cup of steaming mocha warming his hands.

She had nearly dropped her kettle when he’d stepped into the better-lit kitchen, and she had seen the bruises on his face.

To be fair, Steven had been pretty surprised too. He’d all but forgotten about the punches Reina had landed. Leveling up seemed to do the body good. The bruises weren’t healed, but it felt like he’d gotten them last week instead of less than an hour ago.

Margie sat down across from him, her own steaming mug in hand.

“So…what do we do.”

Steven shrugged. “I was going to go back to my dorm, but I don’t want to leave you alone, and besides, I can mooch off your food here.”

She snorted. “I wouldn’t have stood for you going off to your dorm. Nows no time to be alone.”

Steven rolled his shoulders. “I guess we just hunker down for now. We have enough food to survive the week. We can plan more when we know more.”

She nodded, and Steven turned to stare out the window. Margie’s living room looked out over the city. It was a breathtaking view, the city's lights sprawling out on one side and the inlet on the other. However, that view was now interrupted by the massive dome of green, blue, and purple.

Well, at least the thing trapping them was pretty.

After enjoying the view for a minute, Steven turned his focus toward his character sheet. Now that he was in a safe, or at least hopefully safe, place, it was time to dig into his sheet.

But before that, “hey, Margie, what does your character sheet say?”

“Huh?” She glanced up from petting Noodle, a stocky basset hound who always seemed slightly put out to Steven. The dog reminded him of

Eeyore now that he thought about it.

“My character sheet? It says…” she trailed off as she stared into space. “Margie Vern level 0. Class: None.”

“Huh, it’s rather bare-bones.”

“Oh, bare-bones? My magical sheet not have enough words on it for you?”

Steven laughed and held his hands up. “Sorry, didn’t mean it to sound insulting.” He paused as Buford trundled up to him. He continued after giving him a quick scratch. “I think it’s because you don’t have a Class.”

Margie quirked a gray brow. “I have plenty of class, thank you very much.”

Steven laughed again. “Not class, a Class. Note the capital. Didn’t the System mention them in its briefing?”

She nodded. “It said something about Classes, yeah. So, what are they?”

“I don’t know the specifics of how this works, but a Class is a gaming term. It’s like your role, things like a paladin or a thief. Stuff like that. These Classes, well, they give you superpowers.” Steven summoned a shield horizontally in front of them.

Buford glanced at it for a second before resting his chin on it.

“Well, aren’t you an opportunist?”

Buford chuffed.

Margie eyed the shield with interest. “Well, I’ll be damned. That’s pretty groovy.”

Steven blinked. “Groovy. Did you just say groovy unironically?”

She waved his words away and scoffed. “I’m old. I can say things like groovy.”

“I’ve never heard you say groovy in my life.”

“Well, not that many things are as groovy as magic, are they?”

He opened his mouth, then shrugged. “Fair enough.”

Margie leaned forward towards the shield. Buford wagged as she drew closer. She gave him a scratch then tried to move his head off the shield.

The dog blinked at her.

“I want to get a better look at it, you big lug!”

Another, slower blink.

Steven summoned a second shield for her to examine. The drain took him off guard. Those two shields tired him out more than all the times he had called them in the store combined. Why? What was different?

He pulled up his character sheet.

Steven Kalio: Level 3

Skill slots: 1

Class: Spiteful Defender

Rarity: Uncommon

Purpose: to defend others

Scope: Narrow. Conditionally, very narrow

Skills: Hand-Shield

Augments: Paci-Fist

Skill points: 3

Trait points: 4

…maybe it had something to do with the Class purpose? When he had summoned the first shield in the store, it had felt different. Almost…eager, as if the Skill couldn’t wait to be used.

He’d been using it to protect the idiot that had set Reina off, and Steven hadn’t even noticed the energy drain at the time.

Was that what a Class purpose meant? If you used your Skills in line with the Purpose, they were easier to use?

He would need to do some testing. But first, he needed to figure out what exactly Skill points and Trait points were used for. And what Paci-Fist was.

Augment

Paci-Fist

Rarity: rare

Gained by being the first person to send an enemy to the Systems Fun Camp For Losers.

“A Pacifists fist can do its fair share of pacifying”

Effect: Prevents augmented Skill from directly killing. If damage is caused that would normally kill the target, the fatal damage is negated, and they are rendered unconscious instead.

Steven read the Augment description three more times before leaning back into the couch.

That was…that was amazing. It wasn’t an actual increase in his power, but that Augment meant the world to him.

If he had killed Reina, he’d have been torn up, but he would have recovered. She was crazy and hadn’t given him a choice. But Steven knew how these things worked. The System providing food would curb some of the absolute worst of it, but people were still going to be desperate.

Their society wasn’t ready to suddenly deal with magic, and who knew what else. And that was without accounting for whatever was going to happen when the timer ran out.

Not everyone he fought were going to be crazies out for blood. Some of them were just going to be scared or desperate. And now Steven could protect himself and others without having to kill.

Had…had the System given him this because it knew how much it would mean to him? It could read their minds. It knew he had charged the moose out of spite.

The message said it was because he was the first to use the Prison feature, which didn’t surprise Steven. This hadn’t been going on for more then three hours, it would have been weirder if others had already used that feature.

It was just…this Augment fit him almost too well. But why would the System do him a solid?

He didn’t know enough about it to even try to answer that. He didn’t even know what the System wanted.

Shaking his head, Steven mentally scrolled to the Skill points.

He focused on them and they expanded.

Skill Points can be used to upgrade Skills.

They cannot be used to acquire new Skills.

Steven frowned. He’d really been hoping for a skill shop or a skill tree of some kind. Not much deliberating to do to with that description, he only had one Skill to upgrade.

He moved on to Trait points.

Trait points can be spent to unlock character traits. They function like passive Skills, but unlike passive Skills, cannot be augmented.

Would you like to open your Tier 1 Trait shop?

Steven thought, “Yes.” And the words expanded into a green and black edged shop screen.

“You a fan of gotcha?”

Rolling for Tier 1 Traits…

A trumpet blasted into Steven’s mind, the sound startingly loud and triumphant only to putter off halfway through.

YOU GOT, drumroll please, …TWO TRAITS TO CHOOSE FROM!

…That’s actually kind of shitty luck. People usually get 3 Traits on average. Sucks to suck I guess.

Steven flipped the air off. Screw you too, System.

Tier 1 Traits: Defensive Juicing.

Your shields have been hitting the gym with a little something extra in their systems. And while they might be disqualified from ever stepping foot in professional sports, they’re beefy boys.

Effect: Increase all shield strength by 50%

Cost: 10 TP

Steven started, both at the description and the insane cost. 10 Trait points? He had 4 and that was with gaining a bonus point for beating someone higher leveled then him. That one trait cost the equivalent of 10 levels, assuming the amount of TP gained remained consistent.

But it’s effect seemed powerful, if not immediately useful. He hadn’t tested his shields against much, but they hadn’t shown any signs of damage yet.

He was sure this Trait would look much more appealing when something managed to break his shields.

He looked to his second Trait.

I Could Do This For Like 10 More Minutes

While you can’t do this all day, an extra couple minutes is totally doable.

Affect: Increases your energy level by 10%

Cost: 2 TP

Huh, kind of boring, but also immediately useful. Steven was curious to see if energy level only applied to how many Shields he could summon or if it also gave him more energy in general. He certainly hoped it was the second.

He paused before buying the Trait. Should he save up for Defensive Juicing instead? The Trait did look powerful, and with its high cost, The System seemed to agree.

No, he certainly wanted the Trait eventually, but he didn’t know when he would gain more Traits, or how quickly he would gain levels.

He had gotten to 3 rather quickly, but he’d almost died in the process. And in most games leveling slowed down the further you progressed. He had a feeling this would be the same.

He couldn’t turn down the immediate power offered by the second Trait.

With a thought, he brought it back up.

Would you like to buy ‘I Could Do This For Like 10 More Minutes’ for 2 TP?

“Yes.”

He felt the Trait points leave him only to be replaced by a rush of energy. It felt like he’d just taken a power nap.

Well, that definitely affects my overall energy.

“Roof.”

Steven looked at Buford, who was still resting his chin on a shield. Margie was using the other shield as a floating coaster.

“My shields only last for 10 minutes, so you might want to grab the cup.”

She snatched her mug without looking up from her phone. The dome didn't seem to block cell reception or internet; that was something, at least.

Steven reached out to absently scratch Buford’s snout.

He’d dug deeper into his character sheet, he was safely with Margie, and they had enough supplies to last the week…so time to hunker down, and try to avoid trouble.

Though he had a sinking feeling that the System had other plans.