Sponsored Apocalypse, Chapter 16

Wow, I thought.  14 advancement points really was quite a bit.

An obvious thing to spend my points on was the path of [Bone Strengthening] -> [Elastic Joints] -> [Natural Armor] that I’d seen before.  There were some other good paths, too, though.  I was impressed by how tough my body already was.  Of course, the reason I’d emerged from getting clocked by the troll earlier was because of [Stalwart Pan of the Lonely Mountain].  I had reason to believe it would stack with my other toughness-related abilities or stats.  Being tankier wasn’t bad, not at all, but right now I didn’t have a great way to do damage.

I’d already spent time in the menus, so I had a good idea of what I could spend my points on, but I wanted to ask Aldina a question first.  It would require extending a little bit of trust to her, which made me nervous.  However, the fact she’d just told me such a crazy story made made me more willing to do so.  If she was telling the truth, and I believed she was, it also helped explain how she’d acted before, so I was a bit less wary now.

She likely wouldn’t kill me for no reason.  Now that I knew her past, that she had been killed several times and already experienced the world ending twice before… She was merciless, but given her past, it was understandable.  At least I thought so.

“Aldina, I have a question.”

“Mmmm?”

“I have all these points to spend, but I’m thinking about what you said, the training wheels thing.  If I sink points into higher stats, will that actually…stick, if I end up going anywhere else?”

“It depends.  Like, there are some changes that take place in your body on a cellular level if you raise your stats.  But how you use your body after that matters, too.  For instance, if someone invests in high strength and never uses is, like… a pure mage, yeah.  They’ll lose most of what they paid for.  But if you are a warrior or even just work out, getting used to that strength, fortifying it, it’ll likely stick with you.”

Now I understood more about what she meant.  About making skills and abilities a part of yourself.

The next part I wanted to ask her about had been the part I didn’t really want to divulge.  “Okay, this next part is about another, second skill purchase menu, and it needs some backstory.  It’s also a little more…uh…dicey.  See, it all started around two year ago when I started seeing a screen, just like the system screens now.  It told me when the world was going to end.”

Then I told her everything.  She was the first person I’d ever told the entire story to.  For the most part, her expression didn’t change much, but her eye did narrow when I mentioned the man who had appeared from the corner to give me a few tiny tidbits of information.

When I was finished, she shook her head and gave a crooked smile.  “You lucky bastard.  Was your mother a high priestess or something?”

I shrugged.  “Don’t think so.”

“Well, you have somehow caught a god’s attention.”

“I figured that part out already.”

“Maybe, but you don’t know what it…”  She closed her mouth with a click.  “Sorry, not trying to be condescending.  I know you have no way to know this stuff. Okay, you want to know about this extra skill menu you have?”  When I nodded, she continued, “I think it’ll help to know exactly what situation you’re in.”

“Sounds good to me.  Whatever you can tell me,”I said.

“Remember how I told you that all of this, everything, is feeding into this proxy war called the Eternal Strugger, and the gods are super fucking keen on finding emissaries and warriors–champions?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, agin, this is a ‘good’ world, as hard as it may be to believe.  That gives the good gods first pick of any warriors discovered on this planet.  The evil gods obviously don’t want them to be successful, so they all agree to use their limited means to make it harder for warriors of good worlds to grow in power.  They don’t even have a system for their worlds, and the system on a good world makes it easier to survive.  The special system that good gods offered to their chosen warriors was blatant favoritism, even though there were so many abilities and skills that were one-per-world, first come, first served.

“Way, way long ago, the evil gods pitched a fit.  To make the scales even again, the evil gods were allowed to mess with the item names in the divine menu, even the descriptions.  That’s why nothing you bought with points ended up actually being anything like the names.

But all of this usually only matters to people who get an invitation to become at Champion at at least level twenty, the level we also get to choose our class.  But you, you were scouted before anything even kicked off.  You were even given a quest, and ended up getting a massive number of points within the first few minutes.”

“Had to max out my credit card for that,” I grumbled.  Then I frowned.  “So how do you know all this stuff?  Were you a champion?”

“Still am.  Different god now.  It’s actually how I got my third life.  I got poached.”  She laughed.  “My old god I was championed to was great…”  She looked around,  “Whether she’s listening or not, I have nothing bad to say about her.  But she had a lot of champions.  I never did anything to stand out enough for her to care too much about me.  But after I died, another god that had noticed me negotiated for my service and another chance at life if I accepted.  I did.”

“Okay.”  I nodded.  “So let me see if I understand.  Normally, if I were level 20 or higher and had a class, a god might offer a deal for me to become a Champion.  Not even gonna bother asking more about being a champion right now.  But if I accepted becoming a Champion, then I’d get access to the special menu with stupid names.  That right?”

“Yes,” said Aldina.  “But there’s more.  Once a good god’s champion is level 30 or higher, they get access to the Eternal Struggle reward system.  Evil gods’ champions get access to that automatically, since they don’t have levels or a system.  No training wheels for them.”

“Eternal Struggle reward system?  What the hell is that?”

“It’s like…”  She looked up at the ceiling, trying to find the words.  “It’s like a rewards program where you ask for a certain type of reward using points, and you can invest more points on top of that to get a better outcome, but what choices you’re given are ultimately randomized.”

I thought about games I’d played as a kid.  “Sounds like a…gacha thing.”

“”What is gatha?”  I explained what sort of game it was, and she pursed her lips.  Then she said, “Sort of like that.  But the points you use in the Eternal Struggle reward system are based on renown…or fame.  You can’t buy them.   Some champions can go their entire lives without getting a single point.”

I scratched my head and shrugged as I thought.  Then I said out loud, “So somehow, a god noticed me before the world even went sideways.  And because of that, I’m not a champion, but I’m being…sponsored.  So I get special access to this system that is normally champions-only.”

“Yes.  Got it.”

“Do you know how many Sponsored people there are, or how many champions there will be?”

She gave me a knowing look.  “You’re thinking about those first come, first serve skills, right?  The Unique ones?”  I nodded and she said, “I have no idea.”

“Aren’t you sponsored right now, too?” I asked.  “A god chose you to be a champion, but you’re not level 20 yet.”

“That’s right.  I’m sponsored.  But I don’t mess with that menu.  It’s too easy to waste points on stupid shit.”

I processed what she said and got a momentary burst of excitement.  “You bought some skills from the special menu in your past life!?  Do you remember the names? Maybe I can–”

“No use,” she said, interrupting me.  “The names change with each new world or dimension.  The evil gods are trying to handicap us.  They’re not dumb enough to leave the same names on everything, especially when some champions don’t stay dead.  I’m a great example of that.”

“Darn.”

“Yeah.”

I said slowly, “So buying anything in the special menu is basically completely random.  What about the point cost?”

“That’s…kind of weird.  To stay fair, the point cost is consistent with how valuable or useful the skill is, how powerful.  But the way the system is screwed up, probably more tampering by evil gods, is how that value is determined.  Like, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.  So whose perspective the skill is priced at…who knows?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.  She frowned.  “So what are you gonna do?  I’ll warn you, I’m not going to tell you what to do.  It’s your life and your path is a lot different than mine. Like, it’s probably good if you don’t choose something dumb, but I’m not too worried about that.  Figure you already got something making you tougher based on how you survived last night.”

“Yeah.  I can be more durable now.  But don’t worry, I’m definitely going to make my own decisions.  Already planning on that.”  I privately admitted to myself that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do yet, though.

“Well, whatever you choose, don’t take all day.  We should head out in an hour or less to level.  That is if you’re coming with me, but either way you need to leave with me.”

I nodded slowly.  Part of me wanted to think some more, figure out what my goals were and what my next move should be.  But no matter what I decided, I needed more power.  Sitting on my ass outside Adlina’s bunker wasn’t going to help me level.

When she left the common room, I dove back into my menus.  Just to satisfy my curiosity, I clicked into the Special Sponsored Skills menu.  Once I was in, I made a random list of only unique skills.  A few I’d seen before were in there.  A partial list read:

Vagaries of Baseball - Cost 12 - Unique - Gloves and balls and bats oh my

Battle Chicken - Cost 20 - Unique - Peppa is a friend

Snake Oil Tycoon - Cost 12 - Unique -  it's lonely at the top

Hitman’s Breakfast - Cost 15 - Unique -  Murder needs salt

Social Media Downer - Cost 13 - Unique - Nobody cares about your problems

Rat in the Muffler - Cost 17 - Unique - Vermin flavored gasoline

Donkey Punch Collector - Take a trip to heaven

Compliments for Dummies - Cost 12 - Unique - How hard can it be?

Technicality Generator - Food for the pedantic

Madness in a Box - The cheese is old and moldy

Periwinkle Gift of Charity - Mauve has a lot of problems

Counting Unstable Particles - An answer is probably 43

Nose Job Regrets - Having a blast in the past

Aldina came back into the common room.  I frowned and said, “I’m looking at the sponsored skills menu right now.  Some of the options I saw before are gone.”

“Are you looking at the unique ones or just in general?”

“Just Unique ones right now, but before I hit the filter, now that I think about it, some were missing.”

She nodded.  “That’s because your weird, exclusive magic ability doesn’t allow you to learn any other actual magic system.  Some abilities are obviously still okay.  The system took out the stuff that wouldn’t work for you.  The evil gods might have fucked up all the names of the entries in the Sponsored skills menu, but they can’t make the menu give you a truly useless ability.”

“Hmmm.”

“Wait, are you going to choose another sponsored ability!?  That’s like gambling.”

I just shrugged.  She was right, it was much more practical to raise my stats or start investing into the skill trees that made me more tanky, but my gut was telling me to take a chance.  Plus, if there’d be lots of Champions at level 20 and on, all the Unique abilities would likely be gone after that.  This was likely one of my last chances to actually get a unique skill.  Unique for Earth.  Of course, it could be trash but…

Ultimately, I’d already made my choice.  I could tell myself that it was a logical decision to gamble with unique skills now since I was working with Aldina and she could take up the slack right now, but that was just rationalizing it.  Now that I’d started to see how my skills I’d previously gotten from the Sponsored menu actually weren’t useless, and might even end up being super powerful with enough time and creativity, I kind of wanted to take a chance again.

There was just the question of which one to choose.

I organized the list into only entries that I could afford with my 14 points.  Then I thought about the purchases I’d made before.  At first, I’d thought they had nothing to do with their descriptors, but maybe if someone had a really lame, stupid sense of humor…

Maybe my best bet would be making a choice that sounded the least like anything related to combat or attack.

“Alright, screw it,” I muttered.  “Here goes.”

Compliment for Dummies- Cost 12 - Unique - Many a story ends in fire

After selecting it, it prompted me again if I wanted to make the purchase. I hit, “Accept.”

Just like the other big, unique skills I’d bought, I felt a weird jolt of energy and tingles all over my body.  After it faded, I got to see what I’d just actually bought.

The screen read:

***

Compliments For Dummies

Augment ability.

Unlocked abilities:

Stat increases:

Will

Endurance

New skills:

Pulverizing Pebbles: Solid metal objects can be enchanted to increase in mass after leaving the caster’s immediate area.  Effect lasts approximately five seconds after activation.  Enchantment can be dormant for length of time based on mastery level.

Angry Arrows: Ability to enchant solid metal objects to explode upon impact or a timed delay up to five seconds.  Enchantment is armed after leaving the caster’s immediate area and will explode after up to 5 seconds unless enchantment is deliberately canceled.  Length of time enchantment will stay dormant without fading is based on caster’s mastery level.  

***

I blinked.  “What the hell?”

Aldina shook her head.  “What, bought a weird skill from the Sponsored menu and got something useless for you?”

“Sorta.  Actually, not really.”  I scratched my head and touched the pistol at my hip.  There was one more magazine of ammo left. “It’s not useless, at least I don’t think so.  Sort of ironic, with everything that happened yesterday.  It’s actually an ability that lets me enchant projectiles.  The skill says arrows, but I bet it works on bullets, too.”

I mentally explored my new skills.  It seemed that the larger the metal object, the longer it would take to enchant it.  Everything I enchanted could be increased in effect up to a certain amount, up to a limit, though.  There were diminishing returns, too.  And it would take me a lot of concentration to use the ability.

“That sounds…actually pretty good,” said Aldina.  “Ammo abilities are hard to get or hard to work towards.  The problem is that sourcing ammo can get hard later on, especially versus hordes of weaker monsters.”

“I can see how that would be the case,” I said.  Then I tapped my leg with a finger and asked, “Is it normal to get stat increases with a skill.  Ability.  Whatever?”

“We can kind of use the two words interchangeably,” said Adlina.  “At least I do.  Some people might get pissy about it, but I kind of don’t give a shit.  But what are you talking about?  You got a stat increase?”

I nodded.  “I’ve gotten a stat increase for every unique ability I’ve bought.  In fact, my Endurance just went up to ten…”

Aldina’s jaw dropped.  “You’ve gotten a bunch of stat points?  That’s super lucky!  Usually you can only get stat points after finishing out a skill chain.  Not all unique Sponsored skills have stats, either. The ones that do are basically like an entire skill chain rolled into one.  But hitting ten in one stat…that’s super human!  In fact–”

I held up a hand as I got a new notification.

First Transcendents.  You are one of the first 1000 of your world to reach a Transcendent level in at least one stat.  Reward: 5SP

“Uh, I just got a new title.  First Transcendents.  Gave me another 5SP.”

“Fuck my life.”  Aldina facepalmed.  “Lucky you.  I’m not eligible for any of this stuff anymore, I think.  Second, er, third life and all.  My Will is actually at 10, but I haven’t seen shit for it.  And since I am developing my main power set through experience and practice, I’ve mostly just been investing in physical stats or durability skills.”

She stood.  “Now I’m jelly.  Time to go kill some stuff.  Not gonna level if we just fuck off all day eating MREs.”

“Alright,” I said and stood up, too.  It was making me jittery to really think about it, but I realized I was actually ready to risk my life again.  No risk, no reward.  The various titles I’d gotten offered a strange, but very real sense of accomplishment and validation.  Besides, I’d already seen the writing on the wall.

Opting out of participating in this new world was not an option.  At least not long-term.  I still wasn’t sure about my partnership with Aldina, but for the moment, I was fine with not shaking the boat.

She got a couple small backpacks from somewhere and we added a few pieces of gear and supplies, along with food.  It was definitely more handy to carry than the packs we’d had on before.

I took one last look around the bunker, felt the antique pan sliding over my butt, and really felt how much crap I was already carrying with me for my magic ability.  For now I could handle it, but what about the future.  I  made a snap decision.  I currently had 7 points left.

My strength was currently at 6.  To raise my strength to 7 would cost me 4 points.  I triggered the change, hit [Accept], then looked at my stats page again while the change ran through my body.

Miles Lindstrom

Title(s):

First Ten to Five

First Five to Ten

First Transcendents

Level 14

Class: none

Traits: none

Stats:
Str: 7

Dex: 4

End: 10

Int: 6

Will: 8

Luck: 6

Reflex: 7

Armor (nat): 0

Affiliations: Sponsored by *hidden*

Associated Sponsor Titles: *hidden*

Boons:

Free skill voucher at 20. (locked)

Prime Skills:

Tsukumogami Embrace

Spirits of the Past

Built Different

First to Five Eyes

Lower Prime Skills

Bone Strengthening

Active Skills:

Saliva of Hared Ha

Bone Truth Eyes

Basic Enchanted Sleep

Pulverizing Pebbles

Angry Arrows

Equipment-related Skills:
Better Days Auto Whisk

Beaded Benediction of Delayed Solace

Stalwart Pan of the Lonely Mountain

Lindstrom Family Hammer

Skills:

Dagger Combat

Hammer Combat

Club Combat

Spear Combat

Sword Combat

Scythe Combat

Ambush

Healing Salve Application

Firearms (pistols)

Combat Endurance

Available Advancement Points: 2

***

Now my Dexterity was even more noticeably lacking, but I figured I could fix it later.  I needed to get outside and test my new skills with my last few pistol bullets, but I was feeling much more confident about my ability to earn more XP now.

As we moved towards the tunnel entrance at the bottom of the bunker to go back outside, I asked, “You already have all these supplies here.  Why did you need to get camping stuff from the gun store?”

“Same reason I didn’t come straight here before.  I was with Amanda, spent time at her condo.  Wasn’t even sure when I’d be able to make it here.”

I shook my head, not understanding.  “But like, couldn’t you have supplies that you took with you?”

“Yup.  I did.  They were in my car.  I was hanging out with Amanda.  Unlike your screen counting down to the day everything would kick off, I wasn’t sure.  Then when everything started going down, I tried to go outside to get my go-bag from my car.  That’s when Amanda got attacked.  After that, I needed to get her the fuck out and the only direction not covered in monsters was towards town, ironically.”

“Oh.”  Now I understood.  I also felt bad about asking.  Aldina was tough, but she was definitely still grieving for her friend.