[Class Upgraded]
[Ocular Sensors: Increased Performance]
[Target Identification Enabled]
[Next Upgrade: 25 Souls]

As soon as the text faded away from the inside of my vision, the world around me became sharper, more detailed. The greens of the grass and trees were now a variety of different hues than the plain vibrancy I had seen before. I could see the gravel on the ground, the different sizes and color of the stones.

“Oh shit, Port, now you have eyes?” Kate drew my attention.

I looked up toward her, now seeing her in higher definition. Scars ran across her left cheek, with a further healing wound on her forehead. Eyes still just as green, but now I was taken aback with how different she looked this way.

“Really?” Lore stepped up beside her to regard me. I noted now he was a different skin tone than I had seen before. More tan, a deeper brown than the pinkish hues of the Cleric. “Huh, you’re right. Like some kind of magic slate.”

“Unfortunately, I am unable to see my own face.” I felt myself frown, something I had never done before. Widened them. Rolled them.

A bright smile had appeared across Kate’s face, seemingly amused at whatever I was doing had accomplished. “Here, Port. I have a small mirror somewhere.”

The other two now came to be audience to my class upgrade. Daniel was a lot rougher around the edges than my previous determination, but there was still the charismatic grin across his face, even if it had more jutting teeth than before. Manny was mostly the same. Somehow, the increase in definition did little to change his complexion in my mind.

Kate lifted up the mirror, and I stared down at it.

My gray-glass face now had two circles of an even darker gray. Just the outlines, however. Like hoops. I frowned again and watched them turn into semi-circles. They moved across the flat of my face as I looked side to side. They seemed wholly useless in the grand scheme of things, but would perhaps assist me in interfacing with normal humanoids.

“Intriguing, thank you.” I gave the woman a brief nod. How foolish would I have looked to unlock such an upgrade but have no way of knowing for sure. The second part of my ascension seemed more practical and easier to process.

“Let’s get to looting and move on,” Daniel said, eyes still lingering on my own - besotted with the novelty and little else, I assumed.

They moved away, or at least, all but Lore did. I focused my eyes on him to bring up the target identification.

[Human Arcanist (4)]

Not exactly the ream of information I had expected. Ancestry, class, and… some form of power level or threat. The text faded from the inside of my screen as he continued to watch me intently.

My new eyes narrowed toward him. “I apologize for taking the lion's share of souls. I hope I did not slow your power increase.”

“Hmm?” He tilted his head to the side. “You mentioned souls before, do you… take them from those you kill?”

I turned my head around to watch the others. They were removing things from the corpses, but were intent on hearing my response. It came to my attention that perhaps they did not grow in power in the same manner that I did. Perhaps they needed to steal from the dead to ascend.

“My apologies, Lore.” I looked back at him. “Perhaps it is just a miscommunication. Allow me to assist with taking objects from those slain.”

“We’ll split gold with you equally,” Dan mentioned, as he stepped over to the hobgoblin. “You more than earned it.”

“I have few components that require gold.” Not that I had any indication of how to fix those. “Although I would need to melt down the small discs I have… acquired.”

“Gold coins?” Lore raised an eyebrow. “Those are currency. You’ll need them to buy things.”

“Currency,” I repeated. My eyes flickered downward at one of the dead goblins. While the Wizard continued to watch me, I kneeled down beside it. I lifted up the part of the arm I had severed and rotated it into my vision. “Are all humanoids created in the same manner?”

“On the inside, we’re pretty similar, sure.” Lore crouched down with me, although seemed put off by the goblin parts. “Oh, you took a bit of damage, Port.”

He pointed out a finger toward my chest, where I had been struck by an arrow. I looked down to see that he was correct. An almost circular area about an inch across had been chipped off, leaving a groove.

“You’re not metal, then.” He adjusted his glasses and then cupped his chin in thought. “Some other composite I haven’t seen before. There’s an odd pattern to the shorn area, small ridges like broken pottery.”

“I am able to repair myself.” From my backpack, I withdrew the paste to show him. The other two circled to do the rest of the looting while we spoke.

“May I?” He held out a hand gingerly.

I placed it in his hand. After all, if he was to inherit my spent corpse, then knowing how to repair me might be a step in… something. I hadn’t really considered what that meant for me past the failure of continually doing good in the world.

His hand illuminated blue, and his head tilted. My eyes went back over to the other members of the adventuring group.

[Human Cleric (4)]
[Orc Fighter (4)]
[Half-Elf Ranger (3)]

The Ranger was weaker than the others, but it seemed impolite to ask him why. Perhaps because he was only a half-elf, and would need to ascend to a full one to get more powerful. I would ask him as such, at a more convenient time.

I realized I had been putting off purchasing some skills. Part of it hurt my internals, that these hard won souls would be spent and gone. But I would grow more powerful to get more souls, so perhaps at some stage it would level out and eleven souls would seem such a paltry amount in the scheme of my full adventure.

This prompted something. “Daniel, am I an adventurer now?” I blinked.

“Of course, Port.” He smiled and stretched his back out. “I dare say if you keep up your efficiency you’ll surpass us in not time.”

“Don’t sell us so short,” Kate interjected. “Ass. Although… with Port helping us, you think we could do the dungeon?”

The orc clucked his tongue and shifted awkwardly. “Entirely up to Port. It’s a lot to ask someone we’ve just met.”

A point of conflict between the two, perhaps. Or apprehension over a task that previously was deemed too risky, that I may now alleviate to a sufficient degree. It would help if I had more information. “What is a dungeon?”

“Short answer,” Lore said, as he handed back my paste, “is that it’s a lair of evil monsters.”

“I’m in.”

I narrowed my eyes and popped the cap of the paste off, put some in the shallow divot on my chest and smoothed it over. Cap back on, and into my bag it went. My eyes went back to Lore, one eye raised in anticipation of his findings.

“It’s magical, to some degree.” He shrugged and then stood back up. “Beats me how exactly, though.” He swung his own pack around to look through.

While he did so, I took the material possessions of the goblin I had killed. A handful of currency. A small glass ball with a swirl of blue inside that delighted me. His weapons were subpar and had brought shame to his efforts. They could remain with him as an eternal reminder to do better.

“This is totally up to you,” Lore eventually said, meeting my eyes as I stood back up. “You could probably prevent some structural damage with some simple clothing. I have a scarf for around your neck, and a blanket you could fashion into a skirt, or kilt, I guess.”

He held them out for inspection. Both a burgundy color and somewhat aged. The wizard was right, however. They would be able to disrupt some lighter attacks so that my plate didn’t chip so often. “I accept your gifts, Lore.” A smile crossed his face.

“Let me help you with that.” Kate stepped over, avoiding the corpses. “I guess… you’re not really a girl or a boy, huh?”

“No, I am without gender. Although I was created in the image of my Father, I accept any designation you feel is appropriate.” It was enough that these adventurers had given me a proper name. I could ask little more than that.

The Cleric moved behind me as Lore passed over the blanket and she assisted with tying it around my waist. “You’re quite the character, you are. Smart, kind, and murderous as fuck.”

“My library was limited. I hope to learn more one day.” My combat training was a lot more well-rounded, but I didn’t want to delve deeper into that at this stage. “What is ‘fuck’?”

Kate snorted behind me, while Daniel rolled his eyes.

“It’s a very versatile word, Port. You can use it in any circumstance, in any context,” she said, finishing off the binding to hold my new clothes in place.

“It is an uncouth phrase, however,” Daniel was keen to add. “I would not use it in pleasant company.”

Manny was leaning up against the wagon and had been grinning at proceedings. “Kate just had a mouth that gets away from her sometimes.”

“Yep.” She shrugged as she circled back to my front to see how the blanket wore on me. “Got me a few of these scars. But you know what? Those fuckers are in the ground now, so joke’s on them.”

That seemed like a terrible place to be, unless they were naturally subterranean. Maybe there were humanoids like that.

“Let’s move out,” Daniel said, a stern tone in his voice now. “It’s not good to hang around. We’ll head toward the dungeon and discuss it along the way.”

They each nodded and gathered themselves. I hoisted my axe upon my shoulder. As we left the camp, I turned my eyes to see the devastation we had wrought. If an outside observer might come across the scene, they might see it as an act of villainy. Certainly, to the goblins we were monsters. Angels of death. How short-sighted that they couldn’t see they were evil, and we were just helping them away from that mistake.

While we left the clearing and walked back through the woods, I decided now was a good time to bring up the cursed text and say my farewells to the souls I had wrung from the sinister goblins. At least my Class Upgrade was based on total over my lifetime, rather than current - so my progression was guaranteed, eventually.

Pressing my STAR in, it clicked until it brought up what was essentially a shop where the results were determined by fate. Perhaps the randomness was in part due to the nature of souls, although that was speculation on my part.

[Souls: 11]
[Buy Minor Skill (Req:5)]

[Minor Skill Bought: <Flame Enchant I>]
[Minor Skill Bought: <Cat’s Reflexes I>]

[Souls: 1]

At least one remained. I liked to think it was Father’s, although there was no way to tell. Intrigued by the names of the two abilities gained, the text on the inside of my vision was keen to give me further details.

[<Flame Enchant I> Weapon enchantment adding minor fire damage]
[<Cat’s Reflexes> Limb maneuverability increased]

Energy flowed through me, oddly cold. Parts of my internals clicked or sent signals to others. I brought my left hand up and stared at it. Wiggled my fingers and flexed my elbow joint. There was a small amount of extra fluidity to the movement. Not a great deal, but every house was made brick by brick. Or wooden planks, depending on the local resources available, climate of location, and available tradespeople.

“Everything okay, Port?” Lore’s voice had a tint of concern to it, as he turned his head to watch me.

I brought down my axe and held it forward. My right arm now held a small tube that I perhaps hadn’t noticed before. Embedded into my arm and filled with a bright amber liquid.

With a thought, I activated it and the head of my axe burst into flame.

“Yes, Lore,” I said, turning to him. “Things are ‘fucking’ okay.”