“This is good,” Pete said, trying to manufacture some kind of excitement about the fact that they’d survived. “We should be ecstatic! We beat an elite boss that we were completely underprepared for.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah, but it still feels like we got shafted. We should never have had to fight an enemy that high up to begin with, but the System has it out for us.”
“I get that,” Pete replied, “but we actually survived. So, maybe that means the System will leave us alone now. I mean, you said it picks a few players in the early game to focus on, but we’ve just beat the odds, so maybe the System will focus somewhere else, right, Nero?”
[Nero] That is most unlikely, Pete. In fact, given that you have defeated an elite enemy that was so far above your current level, it is likely that the Mammon System will accelerate its attempts to destroy you.
Pete felt all the energy instantly drain from his body. Everything that Nero had just said confirmed a suspicion Pete had been harboring himself. This was never going to end, not until the System got what it wanted, and they were all dead. That was the reason why none of them felt particularly excited about the ludicrous fight they’d just survived, because they all knew that it was only going to get worse from here.
Sam walked over and put a hand on his shoulder, giving him a weak smile. “You still did good, though. I mean, we get to live another day and fight some other big bastard. That’s something at least.”
“So much blood,” Grizzle nodded, clutching her blood-spattered book to her chest and staring off into the distance. “So much death.”
They all turned to face the little goblin. Now that Pete looked more closely at her, he saw that her previously white robe was awash with goblin blood, grease, and scorch marks. The precious religious tome she held was also splattered with blood, and its cover was scored with slash marks.
Pete felt a sudden need to lift their spirits, to say something, anything, that would inject a little more hope into the mood. He cleared his throat.
“Look, I get that we’re all worried and that this was a lot. But fuck the System and fuck this game and the Dominion. FUCK ALL OF IT!”
He shouted the words, suddenly remembering that they were likely being heard by millions of viewers who were watching the game feeds. If he was already a target, how could this make it any worse?
“I don’t care if the whole fucking game is against us! We can still win.” He pointed back at the decoy. “Who cares that we won because of that thing? We still won; we still beat that Coin Lord bastard even though he was much bigger and stronger than us. And we’ll do it again if we have to. We’ll beat every fucking enemy the System sends against us. And we won’t die, we’ll…”
>> Blood Overdraft Ability Triggered
“…keep going and going, and we’ll kill whatever gets in our way until we make it to the professional league. Because we don’t have any other option and because there’s no fucking way I’m going to let the Mammon System squash us just because it wants to ramp up its ratings!”
“Yes!” Craig said, thrusting his rifle into the air.
Pete looked around at the rest of the group, noting that they were significantly less enthused. Still, the goblins seemed to take heart in Craig’s sudden excitement, and even Coop was standing a little straighter.
“Alright, chief,” Sam said with a grin. “We get the idea. Thanks for the pep talk.” She pointed towards his hands. “You might want to put the arrows away now.”
He looked down at his hands and saw that he’d pulled two arrows from his inventory without realizing it and was holding them like daggers. He had also triggered his berserker ability but didn’t remember consciously doing so.
>> ACHIEVEMENT: Perfectly Mild Inspiration!
Congratulations! You’ve just stirred the inner workings of your fellow contestants, lifting their mood from thoroughly morose to slightly bummed with the use of your brutish oratory skills. You might not have a face that could launch a thousand ships; you might not speak like an angel or possess a voice like Pied Piper’s flute, but you can say words, and that’s something.
Next time, maybe add in a little of that anti-dick doctrine you’re known for to really push your speech over the line!
ACHIEVEMENT REWARD: Temporary Status – Mildly Inspiring. For the next 2 hours, party members will feel slightly more upbeat about the unmitigated shitstorm that their lives have become.
>> LEADERSHIP PROFICIENCY +1
>> PERSUASION PROFICIENCY +1
“Alright,” Sam said. “There’s a kiosk a few miles from here, so I guess I’ll go and pick up a key for your loot box.”
“I’ll come too,” Coop said. “I’m keen to see if there’s anything I can buy that will stop some big bastard from choking me out the next time we come up against a boss like this.”
Sam shrugged. “Alright, anyone else want anything?”
“More medkits,” Pete said. “And maybe check if there’s any armor?”
[Nero] It is doubtful that armor will be available before you enter the Novice Arena, Pete. There may be an item or two, but there is unlikely to be anything of worth. Once you enter the Novice Arena and you have chosen your soulbound weapon, better quality armor items will become available.
“Okay, well nothing for me then, I guess,” Pete said, looking around and suddenly changing his mind. “Unless there are any arrows.”
Sam nodded, turning to face the goblins. Craig spoke for the group.
“Nothing for us.”
“Alright then,” Sam said, looking around at the dead bodies and carnage all around. “I guess we should start looting, and then I’ll go pick up the key.”
The group set about doing just that, carefully picking their way through enemies and ensuring that they only looted corpses of foes that they had killed. Thankfully, the System made the task a little easier by tagging each enemy with a faint kill symbol, a glowing skull with the name of whichever player had dealt the deathblow. This allowed the group to properly distribute the loot and meant that Pete wouldn’t accidentally touch something that should have gone to someone else, instantly dropping the value of the item by ninety percent.
Pete opened up his profile and thought about what points he would assign.
>> DOMINION ULTRIMAX PLAYER PROFILE
NAME: Pete – Vault Breaker, Dice Doomsayer
CLASS: Penny Pincher
LEVEL: Novice
>> CORE ATTRIBUTES:
Credit Rating [Constitution]: 2
Asset Leverage [Strength]: 2
Liquidity [Agility]: 10
Market Insight [Intelligence]: 0
Capital Stability [Wisdom]: 0
Investor Confidence [Charisma]: 0
Speculative Yield [Luck]: 3
>> AVAILABLE POINTS TO SPEND: 20
[Nero] Given the combination of ranged and melee fighting you seem to gravitate towards, Pete, I would suggest bolstering Strength and Agility as your primary attributes. However, this group seems to be looking to you for leadership, both during heavy fighting and in a broader sense. So, a little attention to Charisma might not be a bad thing, given that leadership Proficiencies tend to sit within that area. Luck is always welcome as well.
Pete snorted with laughter. “So, basically add points to everything except Intelligence and Wisdom.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
[Nero] There are benefits to both of those attributes as well, but essentially, yes. Given that you have only twenty points to spend, you would do well to focus on areas that capitalize on your strengths.
Pete turned his attention back to the stats, and a thought occurred as he tapped on his Agility metric. “Hang on, I need a hundred points to level up, right?”
[Nero] Correct.
“Okay, but I get double points for anything I put into Agility because of my Penny Pincher class?”
[Nero] Indeed you do.
“Just so I’ve got this straight then, if I reach a hundred points, even though a bunch of those are just doubles in Agility, I can still level up based on that. I mean, I don’t need to actually acquire the full one hundred points.”
[Nero] Correct. It seems that this is yet another benefit of your unique class. There are others that have similar benefits, of course. Even Sam’s Woe Binder class starts with +20 to Intelligence, and those points automatically add to the hundred required for leveling up as well.
Pete grinned. “Well, damn. That feels like a hell of a nice loophole.”
[Nero] It is certainly a significant benefit, especially considering that your bonus is not limited to an initial addition of attribute points. You will continue to double anything you add to Agility while you are still in the contest.
Pete was still grinning as he assigned the points, spreading them out among the attributes Nero had suggested and trying not to worry too much about whether or not he was assigning the points in the best possible way. He’d seen people he’d gamed with in the past agonize over the choice of assigning points like this to a class build, but Pete found that it was always better to just go with his gut and deal with the consequences.
Of course, this was literally a life-and-death scenario, so maybe he should have been more worried. But there were already a thousand other things occupying his thoughts, and he figured that Nero would tell him if he was making any big mistakes.
>> CORE ATTRIBUTES:
Credit Rating [Constitution]: 4
Asset Leverage [Strength]: 9
Liquidity [Agility]: 24
Market Insight [Intelligence]:
Capital Stability [Wisdom]: 0
Investor Confidence [Charisma]: 2
Speculative Yield [Luck]: 5
“Got a question for you, Nero,” Pete said as he moved over to one of the dead Noob Riders and bent down beside the body, reaching out to pluck a golden ring from the goblin’s finger. “Back there, while I was talking, it felt like the Blood Overdraft ability triggered without me actually meaning to use it.”
[Nero] You are correct. It seems that you have connected with this new ability especially well and quickly. It’s quite common for players to find that certain abilities trigger automatically in times of danger or need. This typically only begins happening after you have been using the abilities for some time, however. There is a kind of precognition that occurs which allows the System to trigger certain abilities in anticipation that they will be needed.
“Okay. Weird that it’s the berserker ability that did it though.”
[Nero] How so?
“Well, the Penny Pincher class is primarily a rogue type of class, right? So, why isn’t it any of the more rogue-like abilities that triggered automatically?”
[Nero] I would suggest that the Blood Overdraft ability triggered because the System sensed your agitation and interpreted that as a response to some external threat. Also, while you have used your other abilities quite a lot, you leaned on the berserker subclass a great deal during that fight and seemed to demonstrate an affinity with it. Perhaps the System recognized that and thus automatically triggered Blood Overdraft?
“That’s the other thing I don’t quite get though,” Pete went on as he began searching through the pockets of the goblin. “The Mammon System controls everything, right? I’ve already seen how it changes the game to make things more exciting. It’s got a vested interest in making the competition as thrilling as possible, even if that means screwing over players like me. But it also controls our abilities, and now it’s auto-triggering shit? Isn’t that a massive conflict of interest? I mean, what’s to stop the System from just removing an ability or triggering it at the wrong time so that I get shafted in the middle of a fight?”
[Nero] I see your dilemma, but you should know that there are certain safeguards in place to prevent the System from actively interfering with the function of a given class or specific abilities. Chief among those are the protocols established and maintained by the Tongsly Belch Corporation.
Pete rolled his eyes. “Well, shit. That makes me feel a hell of a lot better. There’s clearly no one more trustworthy than Tongsly Belch!”
[Nero] In order for the vast network of casinos and betting syndicates connected with the Dominion Ultrimax Contest to function effectively, it is necessary that certain rules are in place consistently throughout the game. One such rule is that players cannot be directly interfered with. The System can manipulate circumstances so that new enemies are diverted towards a player or natural obstacles are put in place, but it cannot actively alter a player’s class, attribute makeup, inventory, abilities, and so on. While it may not seem that way to you now, you can be confident that these protocols are utterly immutable. If they were to be compromised, the whole apparatus of the Dominion Ultrimax Contest would be put at risk, and that is something Baron Tongsly Belch and the board of directors would never allow.
“Well, I wish I had your confidence. Truth is, I don’t trust anything about this whole contest, least of all the System.”
[Nero] Then perhaps you should trust the metrics of salience, Pete. Take out your communications device and check the Ultrifeed app. Then, perhaps, you will see that you have more of a say in your future than the experiences of the past few hours might suggest.
>> FOLLOWERS: 1.2m
>> VIEWS: 500m
>> LIKES: 1.1m
>> SPONSOR BOOKMARKS: 35
[Nero] You have gained a significant number of followers and, most importantly, Sponsor Bookmarks. This means that you are a highly valued commodity, which means in turn that the System will have to take care to treat you fairly from here on in.
“I thought you said the System was going to do everything it could to kill us?”
[Nero] It will continue to present more and more difficult foes in the interests of making the contest as exciting as possible; that much is true. Enemies and challenges will certainly get harder—much harder, perhaps, than they would otherwise be if you hadn’t garnered the System’s attention so early on in the game. But if you can survive and endure, your fame will only increase. It is a great deal of pressure to bear, and you will need to give everything you have to advance as quickly as possible—amassing attribute points, new abilities, ramping up proficiencies. But there is always a chance of success, and the more fame you gather, the greater that chance becomes. Consider your connection with the Burrower clan. It was because of the mercy you showed and the contract you formed with that group that you were able to secure the decoy and, in turn, kill Coin Lord Grindle. If you have powerful sponsors on your side, you may do likewise with their aid.
Pete nodded, staring down at the communications device and flicking through some of the details. Nero seemed to be giving him contradictory advice, and Pete suspected that the AI was somewhat out of its depth.
“Okay, we’re done,” Sam said, walking over with Coop and Wolfy on either side of her.
The Ferret immediately started dropping items out of her inventory onto the ground in front of Pete. He picked up the various weapons and trinkets, then handed them right back.
“Might as well sell these at the kiosk,” he said, noting that the Red Ledger had once more reached a ‘well-fed’ status. “Not that they’re gonna be worth much.”
Coop picked up the items as Sam threw a thumb over her shoulder. “We’re gonna go get that loot key. Should be a short round trip, but we’ll keep in touch and let you know if we get into anything.”
Pete nodded. “Nero, is this a good enough place to set up the decoy, or are we gonna have to move it further away from the Novice Arena?”
[Nero] This should be a sufficient location. It will take a little time to prepare the necessary code, and we will need a means of infusing it into the decoy. A computer of some sort or even one of your human cell phones should do the trick.
Pete looked around. “Got to be one around here somewhere. If we don’t find anything, we can go back to the car park.”
An alert appeared on Pete’s HUD, showing an incoming call. He pulled out his communications device from his inventory again, noting the flashing green light next to Ollie’s name.
“Shit!” he blurted.
“What is it?” Sam asked, moving closer.
“It’s Ollie! He must have finally paid to get his communicator unlocked.”
Pete tapped the answer button.
“Dude!” he said without preamble.
“DUDE!” Ollie replied, shouting on the other side of the line. “I can’t believe this actually works!”
Pete laughed. “I can’t believe it took us so long to get hold of each other. I’ve been waiting to call you all day.”
“Yeah, I had a bit of trouble after I picked up my gauntlet. I’ve been flat out, running my ass off to keep ahead of all these goblin zombie dickheads. Racked up some decent coin selling Bobo dolls and got an awesome paladin class, but the zombies just keep coming, so that’s kept me bogged down all day. It’s been a lot!”
“Yeah, I hear you, dude.”
“I started unlocking the phone ages ago,” Ollie went on, “but then I ran out of cash, and then it’s been nothing but zombies for hours and hours. Bastards are coming out of everywhere. I swear the System won’t stop until one of the fuckers bites me. Things finally settled down, though, and I just snagged myself a pile of cash, so I finally got this damned phone fully unlocked!”
Pete turned to Sam. “We tried to come get you, but the System wouldn’t allow it. I’ll just check though; the way could be clear now.”
Sam brought up her map and pointed to the dot with Ollie’s name hovering above it. The dot and the name were both red.
Pete looked up at Sam, frowning as understanding slowly dawned.
“So, how do we meet up, dude?” Ollie continued. “I got a ton of stuff to show you. This class, Treasury Paladin class, is the tits, and I see here that you’re a Penny Pincher. Sounds a bit pervy, but I guess you’ve survived this long.”
Sam jabbed a finger towards the red dot, mouthing the word Reaver. Pete shook his head.
“Dude? You still there?” Ollie asked.
“Yeah, sorry… just trying to work out the best way to get to you. There were barriers in place for a while and… Never mind. Looks like we’re clear now. We just need to take care of the Coinflayer Storm first.”
“Coinflayer? Oh yeah. I’ve seen that thing. It’s hovering near the Novice Arena. I was trying to figure out a way to get past it.”
[Pete-Private-Sam] Has to be a mistake?!
[Sam-Private-Pete] No, it’s not. Your friend is a Reaver.
[Pete-Private-Sam] He’s not a killer. He can’t be a Reaver.
“Dude?” Ollie repeated.
“Yeah, I’m still here.”
“Damn, this connection is shit. We’re paying through the nose for it too.”
Sam rolled her eyes, zooming in on the area where Ollie was located. There was a second symbol just next to the red dot with Ollie’s name written above it. The symbol showed a black skull with the words DECEASED PLAYER written in block letters above the skull.
“Yeah,” Pete said, his gut starting to churn. “Everything costs money here. Everything. Anyway, we’ve got a plan to draw the Coinflayer Storm away from the arena, then we’re gonna swing around and get inside before it comes back.”
Sam twisted her fingers as she zoomed in further on the map, shifting the perspective so that it was possible to see Ollie’s red dot from the top and side. As she did this, three more black skulls with DECEASED PLAYER labels came into view, clustered together right in front of where he was standing.
“Cool, well, you do your thing, dude,” Ollie said. “Take care of that storm and I’ll meet you at the Novice Arena, I guess.”
“Yeah,” Pete said, his throat suddenly dry. “Definitely.”
“Sweet. You’ll have to introduce me to your crew. The more the merrier, I guess.”
While they were all watching the map, Ollie’s dot and name disappeared, along with the skull icons.
“See you soon, dude,” Ollie said a moment before the call cut off.
Pete stared down at the phone for a few seconds, shaking his head, his mind racing.
“Shit.”
Artemis System Series