Chapter Six - Digging Deep

We spent the afternoon with one of our summer traditions: Talking about everything that had happened over the past year. We both weren’t great at keeping regular contact, so much fell to the wayside when one of us did remember to call. Gamma was sitting at the computer, either browsing the internet or listening intently; I couldn’t decide.

Around four, I noticed Livia squirming and stretching weirdly. “What’s up? Can I offer you a massage?”

“That’s not it,” she replied. “I just. Um. I was expecting farts an hour ago already. But nothing’s happening, so I thought I was clamping up or something…”

“Have you checked your race description?” Gamma asked out of left field.

“My what?”

“The part of your character sheet that tells you about the quirks and abilities of your race.”

“My what?” Livia repeated.

“Yes, please tell us about that character sheet,” I added. “That’s gamification bullshit, isn’t it?”

“In a way? They get more important when that’s live, but they are always there. You do have skills from your class, so you need to look at them…”

“And how do we—“ I started when the world froze. My sight stayed blank, which was how I knew it was Livia who had found her way into the menus. I prepared for a long and boring wait, but time resumed after just a handful of seconds.

“Found it,” Livia exclaimed excitedly. “Just will to see it.”

With that, time stopped again as she obviously had gone back to hers. I hoped it would work while time was already stopped and tried, too. Luckily, it worked.

Character summary for Yoana ‘Jane’ Asterfield-YiLong

Race: 3/4 human, 1/4 demon (Variant 31, “China, traditional”)

Gender: mixed

Sex: female

Age: 21 (plus 73 years of time-skip)

Base Power Level: 5-34 (human tier, dangerous)

Class: none selected (available: 12 common, 0 uncommon, 2 rare, 1 epic, 0 legendary, 1 unique)

Race details for Yoana ‘Jane’ Asterfield-YiLong

Restrictions: female only

Abilities: average fast healing, full conception control, full disease immunity, improved muscle control, improved skin toughness, improved tissue stretchiness, improved bone density, extreme oxygen retention, extreme joint range, average night vision, minor pheromone control, average pheromone resistance, full second form (human)

Skills: glamour (reality-altering), Level 1, 0/500 XP; telekinesis (magical), Level 1, 3/100 XP; blade control/fingernails (reality altering), Level 1, 0/50 XP; blade control/teeth (reality altering), Level 1, 0/50 XP; blade control/toenails (reality-altering), Level 1, 0/50 XP; spell magic proficiency (magical), 0/1 spells, Level 1, 0/100 XP; ritual magic proficiency (magical), 0 spells, Level 1, 0/100 XP; acrobatics (physical), Level 3, 49/300 XP; sexual techniques (physical), Level 5, 402/500 XP; horn attack (physical), Level 1; 0/100 XP

Available new skills (0 skill points available): stealth (magical), attention (magical), telepathy (magical), hovering (magical), speed (magical), command (magical), magic missile (magical), pushback (magical), phasing (reality altering), flight (reality altering), arousing aura (reality altering), giant’s strength (reality altering), domineering aura (reality altering), life absorption (reality altering), claw fighting (physical), seduction (physical), blood digestion (physical), soul digestion (physical)

Class details for Yoana ‘Jane’ Asterfield-YiLong

Classless skills: fighting (physical), Level 3, 9/300 XP; killing/humanoids (physical), Level 2, 0/2000 XP; pain hold (physical), Level 4, 33/400 XP; blackmail/extortion (physical), Level 4, 198/400 XP; groin kick (physical), Level 5, 205/500 XP; acting (physical), Level 5, 2/500 XP

Note: Further skills with low System relevancy are not shown.

🖹

Warning: XP gain and level-up notifications have been disabled by SOL-GB-Liverpool-39-Alpha. You have 18 missed notifications since August 8th, 9:35 am, local time. Re-enable notifications? Show missed notifications?

I didn’t bother with the missed notifications; I could see where my skills stood at right now. And man, that was an eyeful. I had not expected my race to come with such a huge list. Nor had I expected the system to give me skills for stuff I had done in the past. My most expensive skill wasn’t something to be proud of.

I went over the list a couple of times, then concluded the level cost was “current level” times “base value”. Pretty straightforward. Physical skills (and I guessed the system included mental ones in that) and magical had a base value of 100 XP; reality-altering was half as expensive. Some skills had a “times 10” cost, but those seemed to have strong effects. Glamour allowed me to change my whole body instantly, and the other one, well, it made it so your intent would guide your strike.

That power level had me baffled for a moment, but then I remembered to check the memory implant I had gotten with my class. Aside from detailed descriptions of what each of the class skills and abilities did, it also contained an explanation for that. Those numbers were my highest skill and the sum of all my skill levels, telling about the depth and width of my skill set. With 5-34, I had plenty of skills, but none was really strong. Somehow, enemies would be able to get that information, I surmised. Maybe there was an “inspect” type skill?

One titbit of information I found particularly interesting. “Level 1, 0 XP” was what a typical human would have in a skill if they were proficient in it. This put me at some advanced levels for stuff like acting, lovemaking and groin kicking. Who’d have thought?

I felt that Livia was no longer holding up time, so I also closed my menu.

🙚⚜🙘

“I’m at 9-19 already,” she exclaimed, standing in front of me. Her preparing movements during time pauses looked like something to exploit. “And you?”

“Only 5-34. I got a shit-ton of skills with my race, but they are all level 1. What’s your highest? 9 is impressive.”

“Sexual techniques, no surprise there. Next highest is acting at 4, then a couple 3s and 1s. Yours?”

“Sex and acting at 5, a couple of schoolyard tussling stuff at 3, the rest ones,” I lied by omission.

“Tussling? Like what?” Livia insisted.

“Fighting, pain hold, groin kick and acrobatics…”

“Level 3 is not children level. Unless you received professional training at a young age, you must have practised those skills after the onset of puberty,” Gamma, very unwelcomed, informed us. “Even adults regularly engaging in fighting without being trained in specific martial arts rarely advance past level 2 in that skill.”

“I had some training, ok?” I barked, holding back tears.

“Shush,” Livia whispered as she sat down in my lap, took my head into her hands and lightly kissed me on the lips. “This druggy whore is not judging you.”

I sighed. “Fine. No secrets between fiancees, right?”

She nodded. “No secrets.”

“You know how my parents are. When I got on their nerves, they always said, ‘Get out and make some friends to bother’. I tried a couple of times, but antisocial me… Then, when I was thirteen, I found a group that accepted me. They were all older; I think the youngest was 16 when I joined, and they had a pretty bad rep around the block. They had a private gym where we hung out, knocked back a beer or two, and trained. Building up muscles and street-fighting. They knew their stuff, not just how to become fit or make your moves look good, but how to really hurt someone effectively. It was fun, but then, it turned out their rep was well-earned. I joined in with the posing and hustling, giving people a beating if they didn’t pay whoever funded our group. I didn’t really care; that’s just how things are in the bad part of town. But when I turned sixteen, I got promoted from guest to member. And then I saw the real shit.”

“It’s ok. Take a deep breath. I’ve run with the same crowd, just on another level. Those muscle boys always had cash flying around. Earned my first lunch money with a blowjob around the time you joined your gang. Not that I had any type of appetite left after that.”

I shook my head and opened my eyes again for the last part. “There was that one guy who had disrespected the boss. Multiple times. Our first job, no, my first job as a regular was to take him out.” I paused for a moment. “Kill him.”

Livia stiffened. I couldn’t blame her. What was she imagining right now? “I did it. And I enjoyed every second of it. Had two guys hold him down by the arms for me. Then I kicked him in the groin. Hard. With my whole body behind it. I think he passed out for a moment from that. Then I got down and put my whole weight onto his sternum with one knee. Hit him in the face, knocking out a couple of teeth and bloodying my knuckles. He was gasping for air at that point, trying to beg for mercy. I grabbed his head and slammed it into the pavement. Again and again, until I saw pieces of skull mixed in with the blood. It made me feel so alive, so powerful. I’d have gone on, but Chester stopped me, saying something about not needing to mutilate a dead body. And that I had done a fine job. That made me so proud.” There it was. The one thing I had never told anyone. That I even held secret from myself, only letting it out deep at night when I was alone with myself.

“When I got back home that fall, after my first summer with you, they wanted nothing to do with me anymore. I don’t know who talked to them or what they said. My parents must have been part of it, I’m sure. That’s why they sent me up here, and that’s why my dumbbells were gone from my room. It put me in a bit of depression, but I clung to my memory of you. In the end, months later, I realised how messed up that had been. Funny how perspective changes when you’re no longer part of a group.”

“You lied to me,” Livia said accusingly.

“Yes, duh—“

“No, not about that. The second summer, you gaslighted me! When I asked about your muscles. You made me think I had dreamt up an exaggerated memory of you over the year, but you really had them. You just stopped training!”

“That’s your take on it?” I asked, confused to no end.

“Yes. That’s what matters. You did dumb shit and liked it. I did dumb shit and liked it. You’re trying to regret it, and so do I.”

“Mine was dumber. You only hurt yourself. I hurt others.” I didn’t manage to get myself to say the k-word again.

“I hurt you.”

“Never!”

“I did. You remember that first time we had sex?”

“How could I forget?” Although the memory was a bit hazy. We had come home very late from a party…

“I spiked your drink.”

“What?”

“I spiked your drink. I raped you. Technically. Morally. Whatever. It wasn’t right.”

“That was you? I had suspected one of the guys.”

“You knew?”

“I tasted it and spit it back out. The taste of that cheap stuff is quite characteristic once you know it.” It also wasn’t that effective; more a scam than a real product. Yet it still could knock you out when you were drunk enough. Chester had insisted I knew the taste. He even gave me a full dose to experience how it felt. And I felt safe doing that with them. That’s how much he, how much all of them cared for their little lucky charm. I sometimes fantasised about still running with them, beating the crap out of a random arsehole, when life handed me another bunch of rotten lemons. “So no, you did not rape me. I may have had a little too much to drink, but I had wanted you badly for days; I just was too chicken to ask.”

Livia opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, unsure of what to say. I freed her of her indecision with a kiss. That one ended with a badly timed doorbell. And I was still in my panties.