Chapter One Hundred and Sixty-Six: Social Quests Require Friends (Patreon)

QUEST COMPLETED: WIN THE ARGUMENT.

REWARDS: +2 CHARISMA, +2 INTELLIGENCE, +6,473,228 XP

YOU HAVE SUCCEEDED IN A SOCIAL QUEST THANKS TO THE INTERVENTION OF A CLOSE PERSONAL FRIEND.

SOCIAL QUESTS ARE BEST RESOLVED AS A TEAM. SEEK OUT LIKE-MINDED INDIVIDUALS WHO CAN HELP YOU NEGOTIATE THE TOUGH CHALLENGES.

+1 WISDOM FOR LEARNING THAT SOCIAL QUESTS REQUIRE FRIENDS.

LEVEL UP X 3!

YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 51.

ATTRIBUTE BOOSTS AVAILABLE: 3.

A risky lesson, but an impressive one.

Frankly the idea that six-and-a-half million people viewed me sympathetically had come as a shock.

Agni was demonstrably good at managing public opinion. In less than ten minutes, she’d done what I’d failed to do for the rest of the interview - won people over to my side, and with a margin far better than I’d dared to hope for.

So I decided to surprise her with dinner. A home-cooked candlelit meal.

The candles would, of course, be lit by her.

“You’re really going all out on this,” commented Paul, trying to snag a dhokla.

“Those are for Agni,” I batted his hand away. “The ones in the fridge are for you.”

“Oh, thanks. How many did you make?”

“Forty each.”

“How many courses are you making?”

“Let’s see. Chicken biryani, mutton rogan josh, kheema pav, paneer tikka masala, kebabs… I think nine courses, plus five types of desserts should do it. That should be enough, don’t you think?”

“If you’re feeding the whole of Phoenix Company, maybe. Have you talked to her about tonight?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“She sees through flames, and you’re cooking.”

“That’s why I’m using the electric cookers.”

“You must have done really well in the quest.”

“I levelled up three times. And I got a bonus wisdom point.”

Paul almost choked. “That’s… Andrew, did you get the equivalent of eight boosts from one quest?”

“Which I would have failed without Agni, so yeah, I owe her big.”

“May I suggest you consider something more than food, then?”

“Like what?”

“There’s a thing called jewellery that women tend to like. You can afford some. Go splurge.”

“... You’re suggesting I buy Agni jewellery?”

“Good point. Take Anne with you to pick out something suitable.”

“Isn’t jewellery expensive?”

“The Royal Army confirmed that they’re taking delivery of the suits next week. Evidently the chaos caused by the Parliamentary Question has fizzled out.”

“Are you looking forward to your new role as armourer?”

“Quite. It’s a road trip to Scotland, paid for by BAE-Dragonfly. What’s not to like?” Paul successfully pocketed a kachori. “Anne and I can visit Edinborough Castle, see where they shot Braveheart, and try haggis. It’ll be a good cultural experience.” He eyed me meaningfully. “You’ll have the house to yourself. And Agni.”

“Who will roast me alive if I lay a hand wrong.”

“So lay your hands right.”

I almost choked. “We’re not at that stage of our relationship.”

“You never know, son. Don’t be afraid to try new things.” Paul walked off whistling.

With three attribute boosts to spare, I added them to Intelligence and Wisdom, bringing both up to a nice round 50.

Watching my capacity go up to 2500 was refreshing, but even more impressive was another surprise quirk from my power:

YOU HAVE ACHIEVED AN INTELLIGENCE ATTRIBUTE OF 50.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE BROKEN THE LIMITS OF WHAT IS NORMALLY POSSIBLE FOR HUMANS TO REACH A TRULY SUPERHUMAN LEVEL OF INTELLIGENCE.

PERK UNLOCKED: RATIONAL MIND.

YOU CAN SHUT DOWN YOUR EMOTIONAL RESPONSES SUCH AS ANGER, HATE, FEAR AND GRIEF TO BECOME A PURELY RATIONAL BEING, UNAFFECTED BY WHAT IS GOING ON AROUND YOU. AS A SIDE BENEFIT, YOU BECOME IMMUNE TO MASTER EFFECTS.

WHEN INVOKED, YOU CAN APPLY RATIONAL MIND FOR A DURATION OF 10x INT SECONDS. ONCE DEACTIVATED, IT CAN ONLY BE APPLIED AGAIN AFTER A COOLDOWN OF 5 x DURATION FOR WHICH IT WAS ACTIVE.

YOU HAVE ACHIEVED A WISDOM ATTRIBUTE OF 50.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE ACHIEVED A TRULY UNEARTHLY LEVEL OF WISDOM.

PERK UNLOCKED: ENLIGHTENMENT.

GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING INTO THE DEEPER TRUTHS OF NATURE, REALITY, AND YOUR PLACE IN THE WORLD. KNOWLEDGE OF THE DEEPER TRUTHS WILL MANIFEST ITSELF WHEN THE SITUATION IS APPROPRIATE.

Okay, mind control immunity and what looks like limited-effect precognition…

No. Stop.

There was more to these ‘perks’ than just the description. I could feel it. At some point I would need to explore it, too.

Did each attribute give a benefit when you hit 50? What about 100?

Questions for another time, perhaps.

“This is …. Interesting,” Agni surveyed the dining room, decked with unlit candles and flowers.

“I made a few dishes you might like,” I pointed to the bowls on the table.

“And in the right quantity, too. Smart boy.”

“There’s more,” I gently seated Agni in the chair. “Watch this.”

With a gentle touch of MP, I lit the candles.

“You’ve been practicing! Keep it up.”

“Wait, there’s even more.” I held out a tiny box. “Hope you like it.”

The supervillainess raised an eyebrow. “Flowers, dinner, candlelight and now a box? You’re not going to do something stupid, are you?”

I grinned. “Open it.”

Agni chuckled as she clicked open the box. “Fire opal drop earrings. Nice touch.”

“You like?”

“Did Anne help you pick them out?”

“... How did you know?”

“I know your taste. This choice needed help.” She smiled. “Relax. I like them.”

“That’s a relief.”

“How’re they finding Scotland anyway?”

“Loving it. Anne is developing an appreciation for hatted kit.”

“Is that a dress?”

“It’s a dessert. They’re trying the cuisine while Paul’s fitting the troops. It should be done next week.”

“He’ll call you when he’s done?”

“No need. The XP boost will kick in the moment the quest is considered ‘done’.”

“That’s probably the weirdest part of your power. If you could control what quests you got….”

“So far, I have no idea how to do that.”

Agni dug into the kebabs. “Yum. Food’s good. So what next?”

“Once we get the contract done and I get my hands on the Carnotaur skin - tauralloy.”

“The super-material you’re so excited about.”

“That’s a fairly good description. With it - and a few other blueprints I’ve recently unlocked - I can start making some really powerful systems.”

“More powerful than the Greyhound?”

“The Greyhound is a Level 2 armour. You know my skills improve when I use them, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So, after making a thousand sets of Boar Armour, they’ve improved a lot. Level Five, now.”

Agni sat back, a puzzled look on her face. “Wait. Boar Armour is Level One and Greyhound is Level Two… and the second is a hell of a lot more powerful than the first….”

“Level Three armour, which I was aiming for, is what’s called the Fox class,” I said. “As much of an improvement over the Greyhound as the Greyhound is over the Boar. Then we have the Shadowcat at Level Four, which is even better and tougher. But the one I’m going to really try for is the Level Five Armour - the Wolf Class Battlesuit.” I took a bite of the kebabs … ah, heavenly.

“So that’s why you were pushing for that many suits,” Agni nodded. “Not just the XP. You wanted to boost the skill as well.”

“Exactly. I’d hoped to get it to Level Three - which it hit after about a hundred Boar suits. Then I thought, let’s keep going, how far can I get? Between that and the six thousand nanofibre weave suits, I ended up at Level Five.”

“What do you need to make the new suits?”

“Level three and bigger suits are massive. The Wolf Class, for example, is thirty feet tall.”

“Andrew, that’s not a suit. That’s a mech.” She paused. “How are you going to power it?”

“You know how my existing suits have six elements each, right?”

“Bodyplate, braces, gauntlets, greaves, boots and helmet. After all these months of wearing nanofibre weave I think I’ve got the order right.”

“Well, in Level Three and higher suits, each of these is a system - and they have subassemblies. The Wolf Armour has a reactor subassembly built into the suit. I can pack in a hundred-megawatt reactor there. Two, probably.”

“And the reactors would be stable - under fire.”

“Hence the Tauralloy plating. Fullersteel would be enough on the Fox class, but with thirty feet of walking, fighting machine, I need something more.”

“Tell me something. The Greyhound is five times the armor of the Boar, right? So how tough is the Wolf Class?”

I smiled. “That’s the best part. The Greyhound has 5,000 armour points. The Wolf has 250,000.”

Agni dropped her fork. Very slowly, she turned to look at me. “Did you say … a quarter of a million. Armour. Points.”

“Yeah.”

“As much as, say, those battle tanks you scanned.”

“The equal of a modern battle tank. Yes. And, it’s got the nimbleness of a battlesuit - at least when I’m wearing it.”

“So it’ll take nearly two thousand Raptors firing at it together to overwhelm the suit?”

“Even better, it’s got a damage negation of 1000. Normal Raptor weapons won’t scratch it. Heck, nothing less than the Lynxian Stealth Rover will scratch the paint.”

“But it’s going to be one heck of a target.”

“Hence the Tauralloy plate. It adds a 75% damage reduction to kinetic, thermal, radiological and explosive attacks.”

“And the weapons?”

“Eight missile hardpoints. Imagine being able to fire eight Starfalls into a Carnotaur.”

“You sure know how to make a girl feel inadequate.”

I blushed. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. You’ll still fall short of the Accelerating Flame.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you. What is that? It did a ton of damage to the Carnotaurs back in London.”

“A girl’s got to have her secrets, Andrew. Maybe someday I’ll tell you.”