8 – Pools of Light

As Andy finished looking over his much-truncated list of skills and spells, he realized something had been tickling the back of his mind: it was so quiet. “No more Reaper’s Senses,” he said with a sigh. He hoped he’d gain some kind of ability to enhance his vision, at least. Otherwise, his ability to move unseen in the dark would be severely hampered. At the thought, he read over the description for his Unseen Stalker spell again:

Unseen Stalker – bound: By etching the glyphs of smoke, air, and shadow into your own skin, you blur your outline and soften your presence. Light bends slightly, and sound dulls around you, making it harder for others to notice you. While active, you can move and stalk prey more easily without drawing attention, though sudden movements, sounds, or direct contact may still reveal you. Mana Cost: 20 per minute.

“Hold up…” he muttered. The description didn’t say anything about needing shadows or darkness to work. He jumped up, grabbed his spear, and went outside. He stretched for a moment and frowned at the darkness. Had it been this dim before, but his Reaper’s Senses had compensated? The western skyline was still orange and red; the sun wasn’t yet down for the night. Still, the shadows felt so much deeper.

Shrugging, he put his spear on his shoulder and made his way toward Lucy’s trailer. The sounds of conversation and laughter drifted to him from neighboring lanes, making him want to pause and soak in the peaceful atmosphere. When he looked around, there were little pools of brightness here and there where residents were gathered on picnic tables or on stoops near their camp lanterns—there’d been more than a dozen and lots of fuel canisters on the wagon from the other settlement.

He continued, and soon he saw Lucy’s trailer ahead of him. The door was open, and the yellow lamplight spilled out onto the concrete, creating a rather inviting scene. Again, he paused, smiling as he took it in; it seemed almost picturesque—the trailer cloaked in twilight with the light pouring out through the doorway. As he stood there, he realized the air was much cooler than when he’d gone into his trailer. He looked eastward, where Bea had said the storm would be rolling in, but he still didn’t see any dark clouds blocking the gathering stars.

“Gonna stand there all night? Kinda creepy…” Lucy’s teasing voice came from the trailer door, and Andy chuckled as he started forward.

“It just seemed so peaceful. I wanted a mental snapshot.” He laughed, shrugging, as he approached. “Wanna help me test something?”

She looked at him, cocking her head to the side as she narrowed her eyes. “You seem different.”

“Yeah? Like how?”

“Not really sure…” She looked him up and down, and Andy noted a gleam in her eye that seemed almost unnatural. Was that mana? Was she doing something? “I think…” She held up her hand, chuckling nervously. “Don’t get all offended, all right?”

“Offended?” Andy surreptitiously sniffed an armpit.

“Okay, okay, it’s just like, you seemed more dangerous before. Did you have a certain spell active, or…”

Andy laughed, shaking his head. “I think you’re sensing my level. I’m back to one.”

“What

? A new class?”

Andy leaned a shoulder on the side of the trailer, one hand tucked into his jeans pocket as he looked at her on her stoop, backlit by the lamp inside her trailer. “Yep. Happened really fast, actually. I was just sitting there on the couch, thinking about how both my classes seemed to impact my fighting style in similar ways, and the System said there was a merger available.”

“So, you lost your other classes?”

“Yeah. Back to level one with a new class, and I lost most of the abilities that came with my other two classes when the System took them away. I think it’s gonna be good, though. It seems like a really strong class.” He could see she was about to ask what the class was, so he just said, “Brimstone Stalker, heh. Kind of sounds a little try-hard, doesn’t it?”

Lucy giggled. “I guess so. I mean, I think it sounds tough, though.”

Andy arched an eyebrow. “Tough, huh?”

“Brimstone…makes me think of volcanoes and demons and old movies about swords and sorcery…” She trailed off, shrugging, then grinned and added, “I’m seeing a bunch of fantasy novel covers floating through my mind’s eye.”

“All right, all right, Miss Monster Hunter.”

She giggled again—a low, rolling, bubbly sound that made Andy’s smile widen.

“I like your laugh.”

She clamped her lips tight and put her hand in front of her mouth. “Don’t tease.”

“I’m serious!”

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Her cheeks were red, but he could see the smile threatening to stretch to her ears. She ducked her face toward her shoulder, looking away as she cleared her throat. When she looked back at him, she was still smiling, but it was much more subdued. “So, anyway, you wanted me to help you with something?”

“Oh…” Andy straightened up and stepped over into the pool of light spilling out around Lucy. “Yeah, I did. Can you watch me while I cast my new spell?”

“Watch you? Are you afraid something’s going to happen?”

“No, it’s supposed to make it easy for me to, uh, stalk my enemies, but I don’t know if it works in the light.”

“Oh!” Lucy nodded, stepping down to sit on the bottom step of her trailer’s little stoop. “Okay, I’m watching.”

Andy nodded and, using knowledge he hadn’t even known existed prior to that moment, pushed some mana into the pattern that would trigger his new spell, Unseen Stalker. He could feel the mana flowing from that strange space

in the center of his being. It sort of diffused around his body, in a tingling, almost chilly sensation.

When he looked down at his arms, he saw smoke—white and gray—swirling around his flesh. It tickled a little when he concentrated on it, and it clung to him as he moved his arms up and down, but it sure didn’t seem to make it hard for him to see himself. He could still feel that tendril of mana connecting to the magical layer of smoke. He supposed that was why the spell had a constant mana drain.

“Um,” Lucy said, squinting her eyes at him. “Okay, that was weird. I saw, like, smoke gather around you, and now you’re hard to focus on. I know you’re there, but it makes me want to blink—like looking through someone else’s prescription glasses.” She blinked her eyes, rubbing them, and Andy took a careful step to the side. When she lowered her hands, she looked at the spot where he’d been standing, then looked around, darting her gaze from left to right. “Andy?”

He laughed. “I’m here!”

Lucy jerked her head toward him, squinting into the spot where he stood—right on the edge of the rectangle of light and the shadow beyond it. “Oh my gosh! I can look right at you, and if I don’t really focus, I can’t see you!”

“Okay, do me a favor and close your eyes again.” When she complied, Andy stepped back into the light and took one step back.

“Can I look?” Andy didn’t answer, not wanting to reveal his position. When he didn’t say anything, Lucy uncovered her eyes. “I’m looking.” She blinked, glanced at him, then left and right, then back toward him again. She narrowed her eyes and then gasped. “I see you! But only because my eyes got uncomfortable when I looked that way, and I knew your spell made me feel that way!”

Andy nodded and ended the spell, severing the tie it had to his mana pool. “Well, that’s way better than I’d even hoped. Thanks, Luce.”

She nodded, leaning her elbows on her knees as she looked up at him. “So, are you all done?”

Andy laughed, shaking his head. “You wanna hear something crazy?”

“Always.”

“Well, thanks to our various victories over the last few days, I had like seven Improvement Points. When the System took away my abilities, it refunded me some more. Now I’m sitting on fourteen.”

“Fourteen?” Lucy cried out.

Andy laughed, tamping his hands down. “Chill! You’re gonna have the whole park running over here.”

“What are you going to put them in?”

“I don’t know. I’ve, uh, hit most of my attribute soft-caps. Same with spears. I could dump some points into short blades or that new spell we just tested, but even if I do that, I’ll have a lot of points left.”

“Dang. Those soft-caps are a killer. If you could keep putting points into speed or something…” She trailed off, clicking her tongue.

“Why’d you say speed? I mean, why’d that one come to your mind first?”

Lucy shrugged. “Too many superhero movies, probably. Seems like people with super speed are always really cool. Or, you know, archers!” She mimed shooting a bow really fast.

Andy chuckled. “Yeah, super speed would be cool. But what if high vitality increases your longevity or makes you regenerate like Wolverine?”

Lucy’s eyes widened. “Or what if high perception gives you X-ray vision like Superman!”

Andy laughed and, before he could catch himself, he held out his palm, “Nice one.”

Lucy grinned and gently slapped her hand over his rough, calloused palm. She softly drew it away, her fingertips lingering against his, and Andy felt goosebumps popping out all over his arm. “So? What are you going to do?”

“Well, there’s this thing.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the little Codex book. “I got it as a System award.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a Codex fragment called ‘Fracture the Limit.’ If someone reads it, they’ll learn a way to break the natural limit of a skill, spell, or attribute. It will only work once.”

Lucy brushed some loose hair behind an ear and looked up at him, one eyebrow slightly cocked. “So, like, it’s obvious what you should do, right?”

“I wasn’t so sure I should use this. What if I gave it to—”

“Oh, stop!” Lucy laughed. “You have fourteen improvement points! If you break the ceiling on one of your attributes, you might be able to do something really cool! Nobody else has that many points to spend!”

“Heh.” Andy shrugged. She was right, but he’d thought of that, and he wondered if the cap would only lead to another one. He said as much, “What if it just breaks the ceiling and lets me put one or two more points in? What if there’s another ceiling right after this one?”

“Well, there probably is, but it might be way higher. What if it's twenty or something? We’ll never know until someone breaks through one.”

Andy slowly nodded. He didn’t disagree; he just hated having so many choices and absolutely zero guidance. “I think the right move is to use the breaker on an attribute, not a skill. I mean, it would be great to get more spear skill, but, to use your superhero analogy, super-speed would supersede”—he chuckled at his choice of words—"regular fighting skill. You could be really good with a spear, for instance, but if you can’t hit your enemy or see their attacks, it won’t save you.”

Lucy nodded. “So you’re going for speed?”

Andy groaned. “I don’t know! Take will, for instance. It has at least one hidden effect—mana regeneration. I think it can also impact the effectiveness of your magic. I used to have a spell that did more damage based on my will attribute.”

Lucy nodded, rubbing her chin. “A tough decision. Should we get more opinions?”

“I dunno. Might just muddy the waters more.”

“Maybe just Eduardo?”

Andy frowned, turning to look into the darkness of the park, wondering if people were gathered in the little dog park. Would he find Eduardo there? He supposed he ought to check on Lydia, and then there was the matter of the tunnels. Had Bella and Jace gone out to the dungeon? He should probably check in with—

“Andy?”

He looked back at Lucy and smiled crookedly, shaking his head as he slapped the little book against his palm. “Let’s do this. I’ll tell Eduardo what happens after the fact.”