Chapter 35: Good Things Came to Those That Waited (Patreon)

The silver elevator doors opened back up to the clock tower, just as Earnest had said they would.

“How can you even say Dalton first?” asked Hugo, his voice rising.

He was sat next to Damian on the floor looking up at him.

Damian sighed. “Because he’s better.”

“Fine. So you’d go with Dalton and then?”

“Connery, Craig, Brosnan, Lazenby, then Moore.”

Hugo shook his head. “Now, I know you’re crazy. Why would you put Lazenby over Moore?”

Damian shrugged. “His movie was better.”

“But he only had a single appearance!”

“And I’d watch it a dozen times over something like A View to a Kill.”

“Okay, that’s fair. But…” Hugo stopped as heard the elevator door open. “Halt! Who goes there? You better be a friend because I’ve studied seven different forms of Aikido,” he warned.

“Good to know,” I said, stepping out.

“You’re back!” Hugo said excitedly before lowering his voice. “I mean, you’re back. That’s cool I guess.”

“Did you travel to another floor?” asked Damian.

I handed him the health potion to drink and said, “the silver ones can take you any other silver that you’ve already discovered, even ones on the same floor.”

Damian nodded. “I’ll have to remember that one. Damn, the System doesn’t tell us anything,” he muttered before downing the health potion.

We watched as the bruises on his face started to fade and then disappear. Within thirty seconds, he’d completely recovered and stood up.

“Appreciate the help,” he said, and we shook hands.

Instead going down and using the door, Damian went up the stairs to the belfry.

[Damian Sutter has disbanded the party]

We followed him up there and watched as he activated his shadow ability. This time he became completely invisible to me and made no sound as he climbed down the clock tower.

“That was kind of abrupt,” said Hugo, feeling disappointed.

“Don’t take it personally. He probably just prefers working alone,” I said. “Now let’s spend those points to boost our stats.”

I looked up my stats page.

Stats

Name: Lucas Hudson

Race: Human (Class F)

Class: Blood Reaver Level 13

Currency: 222 coins

Strength: 50

Vitality: 40

Intelligence: 10

Constitution: 40

Dexterity: 103

Perception: 65

Willpower: 7

Free points remaining: 300

Three hundred points to spend? Now that is what I like to see. Okay, so it’s clear that I’ve been neglecting certain stats here. While dexterity and perception were at the core of my fighting style, strength, vitality, and constitution were important secondary stats that I needed to keep at a respectable level.

I put fifty points each into those secondary stats, which left me with 150 points remaining. I still had no idea what willpower does for me and I think so far I’ve only used intelligence once when crafting a blood potion. I hadn’t really needed to make blood potions since though. If my enemies are bleeding, it’s because I’m standing right next to them. Which reminds me, I should probably throw away that goblin dog blood that I left in the fridge that I’d forgotten about before it stinks up the place. Still, I allocated 10 pity points into intelligence and willpower just because I felt uncomfortable keeping them so low.

The remaining 130 points I split between perception and dexterity, with 35 going to perception to round it up to an even 100, and the remainder going into dexterity.

I entered the stats and felt the new power course through me.

Stats

Name: Lucas Hudson

Race: Human (Class F)

Class: Blood Reaver Level 13

Currency: 222 coins

Strength: 100

Vitality: 90

Intelligence: 20

Constitution: 90

Dexterity: 198

Perception: 100

Willpower: 17

Free points remaining: 0

“I guess we’re not discussing our stats this time?” asked Hugo, who noticed I’d visibly improved.

I felt a lot stronger and there was more lean muscle visible on my body.

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s easy to get carried away when upgrading feels so good.”

“It’s fine. I actually went ahead and did mine while you were busy getting the health potion.”

*DING!* [You have unlocked a potential new ability. Select one]

[Skill: Basic Knife Dueling (uncommon)] – This ability allows you to gain basic proficiency in using a knife to fight enemies with a similar weapon to your own.

[Skill: Heightened Awareness (common)] – This perception ability can be activated for one minute and has a cooldown after use. It can enhance any sense you direct your focus to. This ability stacks with perception for its power and constitution for the cooldown.

[Skill: Shadow Vault (common)] – A physical ability that improves your jumping ability in the dark.

Huh, that’s the second time I’ve gotten knife dueling. Not that I now suddenly see a pressing need to get it. Shadow Vault sounded fun, but I’ve already got a decent climbing ability, so I’m not sure how valuable better jumping is. In the end, I picked Heightened Awareness. It was a little more boring on the surface but infinitely more useful, especially since I planned to pursue the town founder quest. This new skill would make spying on people a lot easier.

I was about to ask Hugo something when another message popped up.

*DING!* [You have unlocked a potential new ability. Select one]

[Skill: Savage Rupture (uncommon)] – This melee ability massively improves your ability to target the arteries of your enemies to allow for maximum blood loss.

[Skill: Basic Shadow Builder (uncommon)] – This skill can deepen and lengthen even the smallest of shadows to improve stealth ability.

[Skill: Basic Rope Dart (common)] – This skill will give you the basic knowledge and experience to fight using rope dart weapons.

You see. This is why I don’t upgrade points in the middle of a fight. Because then I’m distracted by contemplating what amazing skill I’m going to take.

My kunai had a ring on the end of the handle that would make the rope dart work, but I wasn’t sure about changing it as a weapon right now since I liked it a lot as a dagger. Basic Shadow Builder had a lot of appeal in how it could synergize with other shadow abilities. But despite all my recent talk of stealth and spying, the thing I most hungered to improve was my fighting abilities. I chose Savage Rupture to lean harder into using my blades and to increase my chances for blood healing.

After I was done, I checked Hugo’s stats to see how he’d done after helping to clear floor 97.

Name: Hugo

Race: Corvus (Class F)

Class: Psychopomp Level 10

Currency: 169 coins

Strength: 15

Vitality: 30

Intelligence: 140

Constitution: 25

Dexterity: 35

Perception: 20

Willpower: 92

Free points remaining: 0

It looks like he’s added more points into constitution and vitality while keeping intelligence and willpower as his main stats. Not that I could blame him after seeing firsthand how powerful his Archer summon was.

I told Hugo about my new skills and he replied that he’d gotten one too.

“It’s called Phantom Possession,” he said. “It lets me take direct control of one of my spirit summons so that I can see what they see.”

“Very nice. Now, are you ready to head out?”

Hugo frowned. “You want to go out again? But we just cleared floor 97!”

“No, not to fight. I’m heading down to a bar to meet an old friend who thinks that they might have a lead on who the town founder is.”

He looked out and saw the sun was about to set. “Ooohh, a night on the town to celebrate? Count me in.”

I wanted to argue with him that we were going there to work on solving the quest, but his enthusiasm was too infectious, so I let him think that was the case.

“I’m going to get so wasted!” he declared as we got into the elevator.

On second thought…