As long as there’s breath in our lungs, our story is still being written.

Pre-Fall quote

The boss fights in that “dungeon” had brought in a lot of XP. Moore’s plan was to keep the four of them in synchronous levels, or at least as much as he could. Their individual XP pools were drifting, even if the combat XP was perfectly split, and the global pool had enough to rebalance everything. He still wanted to allocate at least one useful skill per stat, preferably one that could be also ground out of combat for extra XP. Since they all needed a new skill point, therefore a level, it was time to do it. He would have to invest in some stats later, but that was okay. Raising levels gave them a slight boost in any case.

The first candidate, as usual, was Peter. He needed only XP from the personal pool which was over 8k and committed immediately the level 6. The plan was still to put 6k afterward for Strength, so he ignored further changes, focusing instead on his newly expanded horizon.

With level 7 skills now listed, he took advantage of accelerated time to check the new list. There were relatively few of them, he noted before realizing that most of those newly visible were requiring higher stats as well. And for those, he was still mostly limited to 19 in a stat or 17 for PER.

Well, well. I will definitively have to invest in raising stats soon…

Expanding his horizon in that “horizontal” direction was going to be useful anyway since it did increase their abilities and pools. Even more in the case of Tom and Peter who had already two skills in their main stat. And with the cost of levels ramping up, it was getting relatively cheaper and cheaper.

3647XP from the global pool later, everyone was level 6. And everyone got a new skill point.

With under 2k XP remaining for distribution, he had no immediate options in terms of new skills, though. Peter would get Forced Attack once he raised his Strength to 16, meaning six thousand XP. Tom was waiting for 3k and therefore 16 Dexterity, to get Block, the 18STR/16DEX/Lvl 4 skill that would allow him to get some defense. Not too much, compared to the dodge of Peter, but some. While Authority and Perception were also options, the skills there were all mana-based, like Peter’s. And he was not about to spend points to get a ×1 skill that brought back a dropped weapon in his hands, just to complete a build. Besides, he had an unshakable grip as a passive.

For Johanna and Laura, though, he had some real choices to anticipate.

For the healer, his original plan had been to invest in Perception. With baseline Fixer skills, there were a few that might be useful there. But with level 7 visible, he had The Perfect Skill for that stat.

Regrow

Requires: Empathy 19/Agility 17/Perception 17/Level 7

Effective: N × Perception + Level (adds mana)

Passive: You know instinctively the gravity of a wound.

Active: Regrow (Eff/100000) ounces of bone, muscle or organs per second. Damaged organs or bone can be fixed at double the speed rather than being reconstructed.

Active cost: 1 mana per (Eff) seconds

Deep Fixer

EMP 17/AGI 16/Lvl 5

N=2

Combat Fixer

EMP 17/DEX 16/Lvl 5

N=1

Fixer

EMP 16/Lvl 1

N=1

Tyrant Fixer

EMP 17/AUT 16/Lvl 5

N=1

Presumably, whatever specialization that awaited at EMP17-PER16 was also going to get a 2× multiplier. Not that it really mattered for that one skill. Being out of specialization just meant longer sessions on quiet days.

They might not need it right now, but given some of the hairy situations they put themselves into, there was only so much time before they ran into trouble First Aid couldn’t fix. If the cut from that Eversharp sword had been aimed at Tom’s arm, he could have lost it entirely, and fixing trauma was certainly not an option in that case. Re-growing about 3 pounds of flesh per day was… well, 3 pounds more than nothing. So, for Laura, it was now “wait for 13k XP, then whatever is needed to complete stats”.

With 16 Agility already there, due to the inauspicious choice of Earthbind, Johanna had one immediately available skill, Burning Coals. But, while it promised spectacular effects, leaving a wake of burning behind her was not the best of skills for combat.

She might decide to grind it, but that was doubtful, and thus not a priority. Grinding was partially why he was not entirely ready to replace Flame Handling – which would be cheap to remove at 500XP – with another more combat-oriented skill of the same multiplier. As it was, it still did provide a higher cap on her flame temperature and was also providing some good XP per day.

The much better alternative was Steam Breath. But that one was going to wait for 3k to put into Empathy. It wasn’t as offensive as pumping Fireballs into faces, but it offered a decent – and cheap, skill-wise – short-range area of effect. Burning Ground at 2 points in Authority was clearly superior, but if she used it, she was completely cut off from Laura’s support, because 5 feet all around her would be a burning hell.

Heck, he didn’t even know if her boots or clothes would be safe from it. Moore was not going to bet on finding a ranged heal anyway, and without experimenting, he didn’t know how fast that could be turned off. Probably almost as instantly as the hand or blade flames, but, again, he was not willing to risk 3000XP to realize it was too dangerous for everyone.

Enough dithering. Need more XP anyway before I finish this level.

Johanna had played with the gloves. If you separated them, then the mana flow dried up. It restarted as soon as they got close, flowing into one of the two, then into the other, seemingly at random. In fact, if she put them together, any sudden move tended to invert the flow, which then entered through a different glove.

The others were letting her check. Johanna could see the mana, after all. Unfortunately, that was pretty much all she could do.

“I’m going to try them,” she finally admitted defeat.

“Most of them seemed straightforward,” Peter remarked.

“Not all. Whoever tested Siegebreaker against walls got lucky.”

“By the way, we haven’t named the sword,” he replied.

“I thought we did? Swordcutter?”

“Not the best name. A sword that cuts…”

“Well, you’re getting your chance again with the gloves. If we figure out what they do.”

“Best case, they should be good armor,” Tom noted.

“Fingerless gloves, like those things for artisans that need touch and grip. You still get your last phalange cut.”

She finally slipped the gloves. They were slightly bigger than her hands. Not by much, but she had to tighten the wrist strap.

When she spread out her arms beyond the two feet at which manalight vanished, the flow extended, running from one hand to the other by following her arms and crossing over her shoulders. She couldn’t see it under her chin, but it was unnecessary.

She flexed her hands a bit, trying to see if something was special.

There was a deep rumble. Johanna was startled, but the flickering of light attracted her eyes upward. The holes in the ceiling had darkened, and she could see some drops of water coming. The idea that the gloves brought in thunder seemed awesome in its own right, but she doubted it was that.

She ran her gloved hand across herself. She even fingered the cut across her shoulder where the Murid had bitten her, trying to see if the gloves worked like the Hammer of Fixing. She felt her way across the floor of the room and grabbed her hunting knife to check.

“Can’t figure it out, so far,” she admitted.

“Keep them on?” Tom suggested.

“I will…”

She took stock of their situation, as another peal of thunder sounded.

“We’re looking horrible.”

“Save for Laura,” Tom noted.

The woman punched her husband, then raised her hands defensively.

“If I’d known, I’d have stolen some spare tunics,” Peter said.

The other door’s handle moved a bit too freely. In fact, when pushed by Tom’s feet, the door itself opened without needing to push the bar. He threw the improvised torch in the room and moved back as the rest of the team tensed.

Nothing moved so Johanna gave her torch to Tom and her husband peered.

This time, no mouse jumped out of the dark.

Once they pushed light into that room, she saw that there was another door at the end, but that one was unlikely to lead further. The door itself was bent by pressure, and dirt and black earth spilled, filling the rear. The rest of the room was filled with what looked like a metal desk whose Ancient covering had rotted away, leaving only a handful of fragments glued to the frame. On the other side, there was a row of what looked like nine lockers. The metal cupboards’ doors had fallen away and were lying on the floor.

Any hope of things to salvage died when she saw what was in those lockers. Stripes of undefined materials were hanging from twisted metal wires.

Then she realized that you might be able to do something with that. None of them had anything for that, but the strips of Ancient cloth might be good enough to patch their outfits somewhat.