24 – Steampunk

Cal spent a long moment thinking, watching Julian light yet another fire. He had gained two levels, so he knew that his friend needed to level up as well, although he didn’t know how many levels he would gain this time. The fact was, and this was something Julian had suspected for a long time, the system did some obscure calculations to figure out how many runes to ask for a level up, but nobody knew what those calculations were. There was no formula, no mathematical certainty. Sometimes it required less runes than the level before, some other times ten times as much.

Julian had not been happy when Cal told him that, stoking the fire pensively. The unfairness of it all hit him hard, especially considering how much less value he was extracting with each level than the other people. Cal is getting +0.3 VIG +0.3 MIND +0.5 INT per level plus an extra point every five levels, which means 1.3 stat points per level. If he evolves his class with the world quest, he’s going to get +0.4 VIG +0.3 MIND +0.6 INT per level plus the extra point every five, bringing the stat increase per level to 1.5. Meanwhile I’m stuck at one. I have skills to make up for it, but is it really worth it? If someone with 60 levels in his belt, or 90 stat points, rolls up to me can I really make up for the difference in stats with the skills?

Cal too was pensive. He was reliving his last conversation with Julian like a film that played itself back in his mind. Eventually he shook himself out of his pensiveness. “You read me like an open book, how?” he asked.

“You are a textbook example of somebody who’s felt inadequate your whole life.” Julian said, feeding more paper and roots to the fire. “When you were in a position of power, you took it out on others, now you just try to avoid stuff that makes you feel like that. This makes you appear as lazy and hedonistic and carefree.”

“I… I didn’t know you were so good at reading people after, you know, all the incidents.”

Julian tried to recall the past events, coming up empty. “What incidents?”

“All those times you spoke without thinking how the other person was going to react?” Cal said, almost unsure.

Julian finally understood what Cal was talking about. “That’s because I have a short temper.” He said. And I can do it because I don’t die for good.

“But if you understand people, you could at least—”

“Na.” Julian stopped him with a finger held up. “Not going to do that.”

“But it would be in your best interest.”

“People are irrational, and they always react in ways I don’t understand. With you it’s different.”

“Different how?”

“It just is. I know you, and I know your motives and your personality and your quirks… with strangers it’s harder. And I do have a short temper. Arrogant people make me so mad.”

“I see… thank you.”

“No worries.”

“I’ll be better.” Cal said after a while.

Julian looked at him.

“I want to change. To be better.”

“I bet you will. I can see you are quite determined right now. Let’s hope that determination lasts, however. It tends to be quite temporary in most individuals.”

“You will help me, won’t you?”

“I’ll try. I’ll smack you out of any self-loathing guilt trip you might fall into. However be warned: I am not the best role model here.” Julian said, and opened his status. “Oh, and try to change the mindset from needing to show others that you are superior to actually really connecting with your own personal power. It is when you do it for yourself and your own objectives that the motivation to do it is strongest. Otherwise it’s just in the wind, exposed and defenseless against the storm.”

“You’re better than you think.”

Julian stopped. “No. I’m not better,” He minimized his level-up status so that he could focus on the conversation. “the multiverse is worse. I am selfish, don’t care about others except my close friends and family, and will take what I want with any means I have. On top of that I have a bad temper, I don’t always think before I act and probably a whole bunch of other things. It just so happens that the multiverse is probably much worse than this. Back on Earth, when there still was a society, this was only fine because I was rich and smart. That’s all. My family barely talked to me.”

“Family?” Cal perked up. “You have a family?”

“Of course I do.”

“I didn’t know. We… we have to go find them, then! It’s not safe out there!”

“No need.”

“What do you mean?”

“They are safe for now. No need to worry. By the way, can you read me your world quest again?” he asked, deciding that he was too distracted to go and level up right now anyway.

“Here, I can show it to you.”

Julian thanked him, and a status window appeared before his eyes. It was System, that much was clear, but it was different than his own status windows. It was the little details, his system looking more like a beta version of this.

>NEW WORLD QUEST
>Renegade Core II. Garland has given you invaluable information about the whereabouts of the renegade core.
>Task: Retrieve the Core before anyone else.
>Reward: Minor Class Upgrade: Air Mage -> Air Sorcerer. +0.3 VIG +0.3 MIND +0.5 INT per level -> +0.4 VIG +0.3 MIND +0.6 INT per level. Access to new Class Quest options

Indeed as I thought. Lots of free stats to lure him towards the core. “And the first quest in the chain?” Julian asked.

“I don’t have it anymore.”

He sighed. “I need to confirm a thing. Do you remember what it said?”

“It said something like… Your friend needs your help if he ever wants to break through the first barrier in acquiring power.”

Julian laughed. “See? I don’t get it. Why would the system be interested in helping a renegade like me? That’s what doesn’t make any sense. It could have me stuck at level 100 and instead it gives me the tool to overcome that problem before I even hit the wall.”

After Julian calmed down from his outburst he took some time to level up, choose his skills, and they left. They still had a mission to complete, and even though all this new information was making Julian’s head swim with countless thoughts, ideas and theories, he knew very well what needed to be done. The sooner he managed to gain control of the space mirror, the better.

As for his level up, he decided to allocate two points to Arcane as a good luck charm, and one to Vigor.

Julian V. Terror.
Level: 17 -> 20
Class: null

VIGOR: 26 (16+10) -> 27 (17+10)
MIND: 11
ENDURANCE: 15 (12+3)
STRENGTH: 20 (10+0+10)
DEXTERITY: 17 (14+3)
INTELLIGENCE: 10
FAITH: 10
ARCANE: 15 -> 17

Runes: 32
Runes needed: 47022

The rune cost to level up next time was worrying. It was a huge increase over the last few levels, which had all been around 8k runes each. At least the skill selection was interesting and gave him a little bit of hope that his run wasn’t doomed to have him be weak for a very long time.

Seppuku lv1 -> 2: Coat your blade -> weapon with your own blood, taking moderate HP damage and gaining a Bleed debuff. Your blade -> weapon becomes empowered, dealing bonus slash damage and applying Bleed. Can be resisted. ARC scaling: F

The first skill he chose was an upgrade to the infamous Seppuku. The new wording on the updated description was what made him choose this over the other two options: it was clear that the system knew that he was not using a sword anymore and was trying to make the skill viable even without it. The implications were gross, for lack of a different term, but interesting.

Eye of the Beholder lv1: Focus to be able to see farther and in greater detail. Consumes SP.

Bold Butcher lv.1: Critical hits have a life steal effect.

The other two choices were one functional, the other instrumental. Both were going to be useful soon, he felt, especially since he didn’t really have a viable option to restore his HP yet. Cal had bought some potions back at the village to bring around for his Quest, but had used them all up in his escape. He, on the other hand, completely forgot about them as his mind milled about a thousand different things, and when Cal made him leave in a hurry the thought of buying potions didn’t even cross his mind.

At least now he had a way to heal, provided he could find a good amount of easy targets to kill or stunlock with his Parry.

A splash. “Huh,” Julian said, looking down at his foot. “There’s water. There wasn’t any water here a moment ago.”

After a good deal of walking, they reached the room at the end of the corridor. Thousands of tiny copper and brass pipes emerged from the floor like an eerie organ of a forgotten church, coiling and twisting around a central, larger pipe. They were warm to the touch, but most of them were damaged and broken, and from the rips in the metal a soft hiss signaled where the pressurized hot gas was leaking.

“Water vapor,” Julian said.

“What is this place?” Asked Cal.

“Must be a middle station of some sort.” He said, pacing around. There were grates on the wall, and crouching down he saw the long crisscrossing shadows where the light of the torch didn’t reach. “These copper pipes transport hot steam from somewhere underground all the way to here, where it’s supposed to cool down before being sent to the surface for terraforming. Which means that there’s something beneath, close to the core of the asteroid.”

“I see.” Cal said, but Julian was quite sure that Cal did not, in fact, see.

Julian tried to force open one of the grates, bending the golden hued metal until it came off the hinges. The cement around it came off as well, raising a small cloud of smoke. The technology of the room, Julian’s mind thought as he crawled through the descending tunnel, was an interesting mix of modern concrete brutalism and classical steampunk looks. And let’s not forget that all this is in an asteroid in space. We went from nature-loving space elves to world war two bunker to steampunk, all the while above our heads the mirror looks completely alien.

The duo dropped down in the room below from the air vent on its ceiling. The furniture here was baroque, made of chromed metal and an assortment of knick-knacks laid haphazardly on a long table. The air was dry and hot, and the walls were punctuated by scalding pipes or huge cylindrical tanks that were warm to the touch, and make the room feel claustrophobic. The two doors were closed, and while Cal went to open them to let some air in, Julian examined the technology on display.

A small rectangle of glass and mechanical gears captured his attention. Two little antennae extended from its top section, ending each in a small sphere of iron suspended by springs. Inside, the gears were spinning rapidly, generating charge by gathering static electricity.

“Rudimentary radio electronics.” Julian’s voice was excited. He went to sift through the rest of the small items and half disassembled pieces on the table with a wide smile on his face, jittering and jumping about like a kid in a candy store. There were designs of the asteroid too, showing a central room with all the machinery to extract heat and energy, and a cobbled together draft for a huge machine.

The machine looked similar to the small radio he found. Looking through the schematics, he got the idea that this central machine was built to communicate with the speculorefractor, to make it rearrange its many mirrors to give the impression of day and night on the asteroid. Although… the tech showed here, even in the designs, was very rudimentary. It definitely was not at the level of mirror itself, which in fact was only represented with a small symbol.

“It’s ingenious, but this could never go to space. The radio signals would reach the upper layer of the artificial atmosphere at best, before being drowned by solar radiation.”

A strong current of cold air suddenly rushed in as Cal opened the two doors leading to more dark tunnels. Julian kept flipping the design in his hands, feeling that something was amiss. Represented at the center of the asteroid was not the core, but the machine. And all around the circle that was the asteroid, were little dots like stars. In the distance, on one of the corners of the diagram, the rough shape of the speculorefractor as visible from the surface of Space Habitat Alpha 3 Phoebi. What if the machine’s purpose was to amplify the radio signals, making use of the core for resonance? This way the builders could have overcome their technological limitations and communicated with the mirror.

“I need to see the machine with my own eyes.” He said, pocketing the small radio toy and approaching Cal. “Have you figured out where these corridors go?”

He nodded. “This one goes up to a flooded section. There’s a door with water leaking.” He pointed. “This one goes deeper down still.”

“Is the water spreading?” Julian asked.

Cal nodded yes.

“We must have unblocked something when we defeated the root monstrosities. How fast is the water spreading?”

“The room I was in was still dry, but the one beyond has at least knee-deep water. I closed all the doors on the way back, and if we shut these two and maybe seal them off…”

“We can buy ourselves time. Let’s go.”