It was a relief to find that my previous evaluation of the attack was correct. We’d taken light casualties, nothing particularly unexpected. There were perhaps twenty or so people injured, and only three people had died.

I spent the afternoon visiting the families and loved ones of the fallen, making sure they were cared for, offering words of comfort that felt alien on my lips but seemed accepted and appreciated. The first two were more or less taken care of, with close ties to the Adventurer’s guild or other friends or family members positioned to look after them. Only one family had lost their primary User—a father with a defender class, and I spent perhaps more time than I should have ensuring they were settled and connected with other parties who could help them.

Now, I was situated in Iris’s dark room adjacent to my mother’s flat, running my hands through her hair as I reviewed my character sheet. Iris herself was non responsive, laying on her side and facing the wall, either asleep or pretending to be. I’d been tempted to tell her about the potion, but given what she’d just been through she wasn’t remotely ready for that discussion.

And to be honest, neither was I.

Instead, I tried to take comfort in the silence. Let my mind wander as I reviewed my character screen.

Matt

Level 24 Ordinator

Identity: Myrddin, Level 24 ???

Strength: 6

Toughness: 12

Agility: 33+

Intelligence: 20+

Perception: 14

Will: 21

Companionship: 3

Active Title: Jaded Eye

Feats: Double-Blind, Ordinator’s Guile II, Ordinator’s Emulation, Stealth II, Awareness I, Harrowing Anticipation, Page’s Quickdraw, Squelch, Acclimation, Hinder, Escalating Fire, Assassin II, Mind Spike, Decisive Action.

Skills: Probability Cascade, LVL 18. Suggestion, LVL 27. Command, LVL 15. One-handed, LVL 30. Negotiation, LVL 25. Unsparing Fang (Emulated), Level 19. Bow Adept, LVL 12. Twilight’s Nocturne, LVL 15. Subjugation, LVL 30. Riposte, LVL 10.

Boons: Nychta’s Veil, Eldritch Favor, Ordinator’s Implements, Retainer’s Guiding Hand

Summons: Audrey — Flowerfang Hybrid, Bond LVL 10. Talia — Eidolon Wolf, Bond LVL 12. Azure — Abrogated Lithid, Bond LVL 20.

The last month had been nothing but grind, and despite running myself ragged, I couldn’t help but feel that I had precious little to show for it. That wasn’t necessarily true. Reality was, leveling slowed down exponentially for everyone in the twenties. Compared to the average high-level User, I was practically sprinting through advancement, probably closing the gap with the top outliers.

But it still didn’t feel like enough.

I pinched the ability section and widened my fingers, zooming in.

My primary stats were still Intelligence and Agility, though somewhat ironically, I was starting to doubt the practicality of the former. Early on, every point I assigned had a clear and definitive impact. I could recall memories long since forgotten, going all the way back to childhood. It was common knowledge that after a certain point dumping points into stats led to diminishing returns, but the fact that I could no longer directly feel the difference was frustrating.

Still needed to raise it, of course. worked far better when my Intelligence dwarfed my target’s, as well as a handful of other Ordinator abilities. But level mattered far more. Probably would have raised Intelligence higher if Nick hadn’t kept harping on me for my low Toughness after a near one-shot in the tower.

And unlike Intelligence, every point put into Perception gave an obvious advantage, amplifying Jaded Eye’s natural trap-detection and ambush awareness.

I’d made significantly more progress in terms of feats. Like the Adaptive Dungeon, the Gilded Tower handed out feat points like candy, especially if you were among the first to clear a floor. The second tier of not only reduced the draw of the class exclusive mana-hungry abilities and extended the effective range of my summons, but also increased the rate of my mana regeneration in general.

combined with my sky-high agility made it all too easy to be invisible when I needed to be. Paired with both levels of —which functioned like Blade of Woe on overdrive specifically on human enemies, providing a constant stream of information about their weak points and vulnerabilities I could exploit—made dropping rogue Users far easier than it used to be.

Though I wanted to avoid that whenever possible.

Nevertheless, in terms of stealth-build I was almost set. All I was really lacking for my use case was a practical way to disappear when stealth failed me, which I was using a mix of items to compensate for.

In terms of direct combat… eh. That was a little more meager. I could scrap moderately well, and the combined psychological warfare I could reign down and bullshit I could throw out with my Ordinator abilities made me hell to deal with in a one-on-one fight with no interference, but that was in ideal circumstances. If I was outnumbered and surrounded, things were likely to get dire.

There was an ongoing attempt to rectify that weakness. was a Page Feat that gave me several basic combat skills I’d be desperately lacking, starting with which was effectively a counter. Counter-attacks were already a priority for me before I’d received the skill, now they just hit harder. And once the skill hit 25, would bestow another. I’d continued to train the fighting-style Nychta gifted me, whenever I could. It wasn’t flashy, but it was efficient and brutal. The problem was, it required me to be in some degree of flow-state. If pressed or surprised, I still had a recurring habit of falling back on That was still working for now. The style was exotic and relatively unknown, but eventually I was going to need to branch out more. It just wasn’t hitting the same way it used to, especially against monsters and Users with high defense.

Last time I was caught skulking around a hostile region by a tough-as-nails bruiser with uncommonly high perception, I’d spent nearly half-an-hour trying to bring him down before I caved and used my most recent acquisition, He politely did as I asked and jumped off the roof, only the fall hadn’t killed him, and considering the racket he was making at the bottom his buddies had gotten to him before I could.

Yeah. I needed something else. Sooner, rather than later.

Though was endlessly useful, it was definitely situational. I’d picked the ability at level twenty, assuming that after I had it, would take a back seat as a method of mental communication and subtle nudging. At first, second, and third glance, they seemed more or less linked. Suggestion allowed me to put thoughts in the minds of others, hopefully resulting in action. Command skipped the hope and forced that action.

There were quite a few differences in practice.

To use an extreme example, if I painstakingly convinced someone they could fly with the thought would probably persist. They’d keep thinking they could fly even after they were proven wrong. Depending on personality and frankly, how stupid they were, they might even climb to the top of something high and try again. didn’t persist the same way. Nor did it fill in the blanks and try to justify the action to the target like The target simply felt a compulsion to do as asked, and after they carried the command out, the compulsion faded.

Which meant Perceptive Bruiser spent the next few days screaming about how the mystery intruder “forced” him to jump before I could get to him and edit his memories with My only saving grace was that they hadn’t connected me to Myrddin. In his mind, I was just a random stranger.

The longer I could keep people from realizing that Myrddin had powers of compulsion, the better.

And of course, the only recent addition to my boons was I knew precious little about it, beyond that it was a gift from Hastur. It had no dropdown text, which made me think it fell in the “unregulated,” system category.

Beyond my existing build, I didn’t really have a plan for twenty-five. I think, on some level, I was hoping there’d be a skill evolution, something to help me even the playing field. But if there wasn’t, I needed to come up with an alternative.

After a few hours spent scrolling through feats and not coming up with anything definitive, I received a message that filled me with dread.