Mage Tank

Chapter 20: What? Your Skills are Evolving!

[So, you haven’t heard a single one of my carefully curated communiques concerning the curious ongoings of this primitive and infuriating culture you’ve wandered out into?]

[That’s right. Though, I don’t know why it gave me the option to mute you. Or why it turned it on by default. It says it’s because I’m your boss now, but I dunno.]

[The System seems to treat you… strangely. Perhaps it did it to irritate us.]

[Well, that’s an uncomfortable thought. I’m listening now, so communique away.]

[I am displeased by this revelation, and will need a moment to gather my thoughts into a digestible form that will not cause your mind to suffer psionic damage from the complexity of the information to which I wish to make you privy.]

[Alright. Take your time. Not looking for a nosebleed.]

[Why would psionic damage cause your nose to bleed?]

[I dunno. That’s what it does in all the tv shows. You know, a little girl with psychic powers overexerts herself and gets a nosebleed. Something like that.]

[That isn’t how it works at all. Psionic damage attacks your psyche itself. It is madness distilled and made real. It shatters and eviscerates your persona, not your mucosa.]

[Was that a pun?]

I ignored the question and went back to the Bonded Familiar description.

Shared Fate: Your bond with Grotto extends beyond the normal magical connection found between the bonded and the familiar, and Grotto has integrated himself with your organic systems. This provides a number of benefits and drawbacks, some of which even we cannot be certain of, which is very exciting. For us, not for you. You should be terrified. You have currently discovered 1 benefit, 1 drawback, and 1 ability that might be good or bad depending on how you look at it. Hopefully you’re a glass-half-full kind of guy.

Benefit: By integrating with a delve core you have gained a portion of its ability to ambiently draw in mana from your environment. All living entities possess some level of this ability, but a delve core has been artfully and painstakingly designed to maximize this effect. Your mana regeneration will increase based on the amount, quality, and type of ambient mana surrounding you, in addition to the strength of your bonded delve core. Mana which possesses an attribute matching your own magical attunement will be absorbed with the highest level of efficiency, while mana from the two opposing schools will be the least efficient, and may even cause interference with your ambient absorption.

You are currently in an area with notable concentrations of both dimensional and divine mana. Dimensional mana matches your attunement and is absorbed with high efficiency. Divine mana is from an opposing school and is interfering with your absorption of dimensional mana.

Drawback: Shared experience. An attack on your body is an attack on Grotto’s mind and vice versa. Better keep an eye on this little guy, because if he throws himself into a volcano then you’re gonna have a really bad day. Whenever either of you suffers damage, the other is made acutely aware of that fact with a stunning delivery of mental torment. Depending on the amount of damage, this can vary from a mild sense of impending doom, to a complete mental breakdown which leaves you sobbing inconsolably on the ground. You, that is. Grotto doesn’t cry. Not only does he lack the physical capability to do so, but he also just doesn’t care that much about you or anyone else.

Benefit? Organic Access: Grotto has access to, and the ability to regulate and adjust, a variety of your biological functions. This ranges from the ability to increase your pain tolerance, to slowly reducing your heart rate until your body shuts down and you pass silently into the Big Sleep. But, we’re sure he wouldn’t do something like that. (Maybe try to stay on his good side.)

The first benefit explained why my mana regen was higher. I was better able to absorb nearby dimensional mana, but the ability was also being hamstrung by the presence of divine mana. Still, even with the interference, my regen was quadrupled, so this ability looked like a solid win overall.

The second ability was phrased as a drawback, but I could see it being useful. Even if we were unable to communicate psychically for some reason, Grotto and I would each have an intuitive understanding of the other’s physical wellbeing. Hopefully this wouldn’t be too much of a problem for Grotto, since I doubted he was planning on tanking any more giant octopus monsters. I also wasn’t planning on being eighty-five-percent dead again anytime soon, though I hadn’t planned on being one-hundred-percent dead during my bike ride yesterday. Man makes plans and the gods laugh, so on and so forth.

The third ability was fucking terrifying. I had given this floating ball of malice enough control over my body that he could apparently kill me? What would stop him from using that to extort me into doing his bidding?

[I am not so base that I would force you to obey my whims like some maniacal overmind.]

[Jesus. Are you listening to my thoughts?]

[I am able to monitor what you are reading and receive relevant information concerning the subject from your mind.]

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[So that’s a yes.]

[...yes.]

[I’ve had nightmares about this. Fuck, I’m going to have to monitor my thoughts. What if I start thinking about weird shit?]

[Miss Frizzle in a sexy bunny costume is not as off-putting as you might think. Your scandalous ponderings will not faze me, as I am unconcerned with such trivialities of human desire. If anything, the way you ogled one of those Littans earlier is more worrying, as they are not even human. Then again, Miss Frizzle is a cartoon, so perhaps that is also problematic.]

[Goddammit.]

[Even so, I do not care who or what you fawn over. I will filter any of your passing perversions out from the information my conscious mind is aware of unless they are hindering our efforts.]

[Sure. Just… strap in I guess.]

[I will fortify myself for the inevitable deluge of filth emanating from your thoughts.]

This whole arrangement was going to make taking care of my masculine needs a lot more challenging, which was a thought that I immediately regretted having. I know the System said that I could mute the guy, but I trusted that about as much as I trusted Alexa when she told me she wasn’t listening to my conversations. I knew she was still listening. The machines were always listening.

I climbed out of the bath and was about to get under the shower again, when a new notification popped up.

Yo! You’ve placed your level one stats and have unlocked additional Delver systems and upgrades. Would you like to view those now?

It was unusually polite of the system to give me the option, rather than dumping windows into my field of view. That had started to get annoying, and I wondered if the System was adapting to my preference. If it was, this thing acted like it had some sort of personality disorder. Did it want to help me, make fun of me, or get me killed? I couldn’t tell. I was tempted to dismiss the notification and look at it later, but when I saw the word ‘upgrades’, I couldn't help myself.

HUD: As a level 1 Delver you now have access to additional Heads Up Display (“HUD”) functionality. You may now view the level of any Delver you see, but may not view the types of Delves they have completed unless they allow it. You may also see additional information about cataloged monsters and magical creatures encountered both inside and outside of the Delves.

Party members in your group are now able to share specific values for their health, stamina, and mana, which can be viewed on your HUD. Additional party interface options are also unlocked, and can be viewed at will. Your HUD can be customized by concentrating on the aspects you wish to change.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

That was nice to have. I made a mental note to explore the customization and display options once I’d gotten some sleep.

Item Descriptions: You are now able to view additional information about items and their effects. This information can only be viewed for items that you own or which are not currently owned by anyone. Ownership is a tricky thing though, so don’t assume that just because you can view an item description there won’t be anybody coming to look for it. Items owned by others can have their descriptions revealed with permission from the owner.

A ubiquitous feature of RPG’s. I was surprised this hadn’t come up sooner, though I had been able to explore some item descriptions while in character creation. I suppose that was a complimentary functionality, or this was just a way for the system to take something from you and then give it back later and act like it was doing you a favor. Either way, I’d be sure to awkwardly stare at everything I owned until I knew what it did.

You have unlocked intrinsic skills! Well, that’s what we would have said if you hadn’t already cheated your way into them. As a reward for discovering a new exploit, you are offered the intrinsic skill: “Perfectly Balanced”.

Perfectly Balanced: Upon acquiring this intrinsic skill you become twice as likely to identify exploits and loopholes in the rules and mechanics that govern any (un)intelligently-designed system. The gods themselves will tremble as you tear down their house of cards and use their own rules against them to expose how this game is, in fact, operating entirely as intended. So pour yourself a cup of Yorkshire Tea Gold and become the nightmare of game designers across the multiverse. Additional levels in this skill will further increase your ability to identify such exploits and decrease the chance that future patches, amendments, laws, and/or changes to the fundamental nature of reality will remove the exploit or scour you from existence.

You may accept or decline this intrinsic skill at any time from your user interface. You may have a maximum of 10 intrinsic skills and, once they are chosen, they cannot be changed without significant cost, effort, and bodily discomfort. You currently have 2 intrinsic skills.

Wait! We know what you’re thinking: “But you said I’d exploited my way into 1 intrinsic skill.” WRONG! We never said that. Go back and re-read the notification, my guy. Your starting subracial ability has granted you Dimensional Magic 10. Guess what? That’s an intrinsic skill! You don’t get a say in whether or not you accept it, you just do. So, bam! You’ve unlocked Dimensional Magic and your skill level is raised to 10.

Dimensional Magic: Ever wanted to cast your mind and body into the open jaws of an eldritch god who will flay your soul for all eternity, but you just didn’t have the tools to do it? Now you do! You are able to access realms and dimensions adjacent to your own and use that power to a variety of ends. You’re also able to reach into the realm between realms to cast things into oblivion, or use it as a convenient time-saver when you need to travel vast distances in as short a time as possible. Just be careful not to awaken the force of endless darkness that was imprisoned there at the dawn of time.

At level 1 this skill allows you to find and learn basic Dimensional Magic spells. Additional levels unlock the ability to discover more powerful spells, while also increasing the potency and efficiency of the spells you already know.

I was beginning to wonder how obscure the system’s pop culture references were going to get. Maybe it would stick to things I understood, since it might have been pulling these straight from my own brain.

I re-read the text, but I wasn’t ready to commit to the “Perfectly Balanced” skill. It seemed dangerous, and I already did a pretty good job finding ways to manipulate the rules in my favor.

The description for Dimensional Magic was even spookier than the one for Perfectly Balanced, and I was starting to worry about how liberally I’d been using the spell Oblivion Orb. Was casting it actually an existential threat to reality, or did the System just like seeing me squirm? So far there hadn’t been any weird side-effects that I could remember, though that may be due to the spell’s level being too low. I’d have to ask around or do some research to see what other people thought about it.

Good news, Traveler. Your Dimensional Magic skill has reached rank 10 and you may choose a new evolution for the skill. Please choose one of the following options to assist you in inadvertently devouring this realm and all those who exist within it.

1: Dimensional Shielding: A portion of the damage you receive is divided and distributed to alternate versions of yourself across all existing realities. Don’t worry, they probably won’t even notice. There are a lot of those dudes out there. Starting damage reduction is 10% and may scale with your Dimensional Magic skill.

2: Pocket Closet: This is an inventory “upgrade”. Your inventory becomes an accessible three-dimensional space which exists within a pocket dimension. You are able to freely enter and leave this space through a portal that you can summon with one minute of concentration, but certain effects or conditions may prevent the portal from opening. Up to 50% of the space inside can be designated as “quick access” space. Quick access space can be used to store and retrieve items through your normal inventory window. You will receive an initial increase to your inventory size, but Strength will no longer have any impact on the amount you can hold within your inventory. This space may be upgraded and expanded if certain conditions are met. Additional details will be revealed upon acquiring this evolution.

3: Mana Void: Entities damaged by your dimensional magic lose mana equal to the damage taken. You regain mana equal to the mana lost by the entity up to a maximum of 50% of the cost of the dimensional spell that caused the damage.

The implications of the first option, Dimensional Shielding, made me very uncomfortable. First, there were different versions of me across multiple realities? I mean, the idea had crossed my mind, but it was mostly a fun thought experiment. Having a way to confirm that it was true would have incredible implications on philosophy and science, at least back on Earth. Maybe here that was common knowledge and people just lived with that. Maybe they regularly had conversations with other versions of themselves and I was the weirdo for not having weekend brews with the other yous.

Still, even if diverting damage and dividing it between a million copies of myself reduced it to an itch on the thigh, it was still impacting their lives without permission. I wasn’t into that. Plus, what if every copy of me in an alternate reality making similar choices chose this same skill? Would we constantly be beset by mild discomforts or inexplicable tingles? Would the damage diverted manifest on the copy in the form of a single human cell being destroyed within the body, or was it more significant than that? I didn’t want to take it, mainly because I wouldn’t want another me to take it either.

Pocket Closet looked like the exact type of monkey-business I was into. I’d get my own extra-dimensional room to keep all my crap in, and I could still access at least half of it through my normal inventory screen. I’d lose any buffs to my carry space from Strength, which I was just learning was a thing, but the description said the space could be upgraded, it was just ambiguous as to how.

In any event, I’d get an initial bonus to my inventory, though it was equally ambiguous about how much of a bonus. Even if it locked me in to my current inventory space and wasn’t upgradable, the fact that I could literally disappear off the face of the planet into a room outside of reality was a very valuable skill to have. My mind also ran wild with what “upgradable” meant. It didn’t have to mean more space. Maybe I could get it to acquire some sort of temporal distortion, so I could train with some sort of time dilation. Or get a few extra hours of sleep. Or procrastinate with greater flair.

Mana Void looked… useful. It was probably a solid, practical choice. If I ended up fighting a mage or a creature that used mana in any way, I’d be hitting them in two resource pools with every attack: health and mana. If monsters in the Delve had had this, I would have been useless a lot of the time. It was also one of those skills that was probably better than it looked. There were almost certainly other applications for the effect beyond straight combat. I thought that the use of the word ‘entities' as opposed to ‘creatures’ or ‘enemies’ hinted at that. Maybe I could deactivate magical traps or devices with it. Who knows?

I stared at this choice for a while, then asked Grotto for his thoughts.

[I wouldn’t worry too much about destroying the world with your underdeveloped magical abilities. Perhaps if you were to reach the height of mortal competency you might pose some minor risk to the integrity of the local fabric of space-time, but the thought that you would become capable of causing permanent damage is laughable. The entrances and exits to the Delves themselves utilize dimensional magic far above anything you can perform and those are highly stable.

[Dimensional Shielding is a monkey’s paw. Without knowing how it functions you rely on the forthrightness of this description to determine the relative safety of yourself and any other version of you that exists. I also find the idea that alternate versions of you exist a dubious conclusion given solely this description. If they aren’t you then they aren’t you. You’d just be assigning the consequences of your poor life choices to strangers. Also, it says that it may increase the damage mitigation as your skill level rises, which is ridiculous. That’s like a box made of “up to” fifty-percent recycled material. It could have no recycled material! It’s a sham! A farce! An affront to the integrity of our existence to be offered such a poor skill evolution!”

[Do they recycle here?] I thought to Grotto. [Where did you get that analogy from? And why is it an affront to you as well?]

[Your mind perpetually seeps excrement into my consciousness and our fates are shared, lest you have forgotten. Your misfortune becomes my own and my integration with your biological systems is not easily disentangled. Your survival is paramount to my own.]

[Thanks for your concern, I guess.]

[Do not thank me. Accrue power! Dominate your enemies! Attain immortality so that we might live forever!]

[I’ll add those to The List.]

[Very well. Mana Void is tempting, but it does not give you anything, it only allows you to deprive others of something. You cannot improve or train it. You cannot use it alone. You cannot wield it in secret to dethrone emperors and topple their empires.]

[I mean, I could if they were magic emperors.]

[Regardless, it lacks the essence of a truly powerful skill. Something that can be perpetually curated into a devastating weapon. Something that can be cultivated to attain untold power.]

[Something that scales well.]

[Precisely.]

[So you like Pocket Closet? Its description also leaves a lot unknown.]

[Yes, but the ability to improve upon the space is not discretionary. It is something that can be done, it is just unclear as to how. I would also be able to… find my own use for such a space.]

That got me curious, and a little scared.

[What kind of use?]

[Constructing a new Delve.]