What Victory Feels Like

I fell as much as sat down leaning against the door. My heart was still beating fast and loud and I couldn't make it stop. I tried taking deep breaths, but ended up hyperventilating. Again, it happened again. Fuck this tower, fuck the world, fuck everything and everybody. I was not supposed to survive this. All of them were better at this shit than me. Hell, I'd probably gotten in the way. Maybe if they had a harder time with the monsters leading up to the lounge, they wouldn't have gone in so brazenly, maybe they'd have turned back. Maybe I'm cursed. My breathing calmed over the next five minutes and Hannah came out to join me. She was carrying Sig's bag and it was full of junk from the lounge. I looked at her face, drained of all blood.

"Fuck," I said. "Fucking motherfucker," she said. "Goddamn!" exclaimed Chum cheerfully. I chuckled. I felt like laughing, really. It was all just too much, like what else could you do? Apparently, the answer was nothing, as I sat and stared at the wall opposite. "Vibes are unfucked," Hannah said. "Jaquis never did learn any magic," I said. "God I hate that they're gone. We were becoming friends, you know. My team abandoned me. You know, back from Earth," she said. It was clearly not easy for her to talk, but it seemed important to her. It was important, "But they stood by me. Through fucking horrors beyond the pale." "They were really good people. I could tell, right away," I said. "Pisses me off I can't even despair over losing them," Hannah said. "I'm in enough despair for the both of us, don't worry," I said. "What the hell happened in there?" she said. "It's this tower. It's way overtuned. Like we're not supposed to survive or something. Every named room is full of fucking horrors of nightmare. Chum is cagey about it, but from what I've gleaned from him it's supposed to be like, a goblin band or a dozen skeletons. You know, shit that's meant to let us get over the thought of hitting things with weapons until they stop moving, not actual danger," I said. "A dozen well armed skeletons could fuck you up," Chum said, "Just wait for missy here to keep leveling while sloughing off flesh." "Why would you ever use that word? Sloughing, really?" Hannah said.

I let out a deep breath and looked at the ceiling.

"The mage guy was odd though. Fully human, sure, super dangerous, sure, but there was something about those brands," I said. "Vile Incompetent," Hannah said. "Just doesn't sound like something that's put there to intimidate us, you know?" I said. "How about you? Got any friends you're looking for? Family?" Hannah said. "I'm still hoping that they're not here. But just my parents, a brother, frankly I haven't seen them in months. My friends though, they were visiting when I got transported here. It was a really fun night, then poof. Hah, I was excited to be here," I said. "They're fine. I doubt most people go into the danger rooms," Hannah said. "Shit, you know the fucked up thing? I'm still sort of excited to be here. I am sitting here and thinking about what's going to be in that fucking journal. If I go back into the lounge and loot the body of the wizard, do I get something cool?" I said. "I was just looking in my reflection, thinking about how I could make my ex shit his pants if I came at him in the night now," Hannah said. "We're alive," I said. "Well, I-" Hannah said. "Fuck that, you're moving, you need to consume nutrients- and so what if they're magic juice and brains- you're thinking, you're talking. You're alive. Living is not about being warm and breathing," I said. "Sure. But I think it's kind of about feeling. And I don't feel so much right now," Hannah said. "Maybe that's the shock," I said, incorrectly. "So here we are, getting fucked up in the head and body by an evil tower. I guess life fucking goes on, even when it doesn't. Here, your scroll, go back in there and loot the shit out of that wizard bastard," Hannah said, "I'll wait here, and we can check our journals together and go back to Artemis."

And, yeah. That was all there was to it. I was beat and tired and emotionally entirely drained. But the choices ahead of me either sit here waiting to die, or get up and do something, anything, to increase my chances of living. Brad, Clara, Siegfried, Jaquis, Bella. Me, Chum and Hannah. Worse than fifty-fifty odds of survival so far, worse yet if you didn't count the imp, which, honestly, why would you. But everything we did survive made us stronger.

I had never thought of myself as powerhungry. Power to me was only ever useful as far as making myself safe, comfortable and as free as possible. But that wasn't the purpose of power here. Or, at least, you needed a lot more power than a wage and a decent education could give you here to achieve those ends.

And squandering it was even more selfish. If I didn't use what power I had back on Earth for good, some people may go hungry for a day, not have a place to sleep, feel like there's nobody at their back. I could do very little to stop people from dying on Earth. It was different here though. If I was strong enough, and if I met people in danger I could help them. I could save lives. Hell, I already had a few times.

And so, I decided that I needed power. Not in a mua-ha-ha Unlimited Pwah kind of way. Things were fucked. If I wanted to unfuck them, even a little, even if just for the people closest to me, I needed to be stronger. And so I paved my good intentions into the room where a dead necromancer lay next to his bloodied staff.

It was not difficult to find the body of the wizard. I had half expected for it not to be where we left it, but when I got there I saw the limp, gaunt body in too-big robes and had to sigh. Without him waving his hands around and proclaiming his superiority along with a stream of dark arcana he seemed little more than a kid in a wizard costume. He was of age, I was pretty sure, but couldn't have been more than 25. The brands on his face still sizzled, but underneath them there was a small, fairly weak face. His open eyes had orange irises and yellow whites, as if some terrible illness had taken him, and his hat fallen to the side I could see he was bald. Shit, he kind of looked like a cancer patient, now that he was laying there like that.

I kicked him a little.

I picked up the staff, the hat and went through his pockets. There was a brass device- at first I thought it was a pocket-watch, but it was a compass. He had had a spellbook like mine, but it appeared that there had been some sort of a mishap or a failsafe, for it looked like it was stabbed through by a burning dagger, unusable. I considered his robes, but they were just too small for me. Maybe there was some magical power to them, but I wasn't going to wear a wrong sized dead man's clothes for a point in an attribute or whatever. They were sliced through by Hannah's blade now anyhow.

I went through the cabinets more methodically this time. We had mostly got everything, except for another stereotypical find in a teacher's lounge- a small cabinet with several half-empty bottles of liquor. There was a mostly full bottle of gin, two different half-empty bottles of bourbon, and a nearly empty bottle of vodka in there. I pocketed them all.

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I felt some pity for the women in the Tower. I had pockets to spare even with all the junk I had in them. Cargo pants and custom wizard robes from good friends meant that I was only kind of filling them up now. If I checked my inventory, I would have to go through the character sheet and log and I'd agree to go through these together with Hannah, so I left the room to do just that.

"Got his stuff. You check your character sheet first," I said. "Alright, here I go," she said. She hesitated, but opened it up. I couldn't read any emotion on her face, but it wasn't entirely void of expressions, they were just small and subtle. "Wild stuff. So, I'm still human, but my title is now Undead, and it says I won't be able to change it. It's like Chum described, more or less. My class changed too. It's Death Knight now. Any idea what that means?" Hannah said. "Frostmourne hungers," I said. "Is that WoW?" Hannah said. "Fuck, not used to people catching my stupid references. Yeah, I don't know, like a death-themed knight, right? Maybe with some necromancy powers?" I said. "That's what the description suggests. I get to replace some abilities from my Commander class, since they won't work anymore. The abilities are kind of creepy. Oh, wait, hold on, definitely taking this one. Reduces the rate of decay, body temperature and gives me slow healing," she said. Then she shivered and even from three feet away I could feel cold radiating from her. "Neat. Look, a lot of wild shit is going to happen. You'll get more abilities that let you get some normal back," I said. "Maybe. Though so far all they've done is made me weirder," she said, "I got a level, I'm level nine now. So, more abilities, more attributes…" "Remember to get your willpower up," Chum said. "Got it, it's pretty high already. And that's mostly that. I feel strong, Alex," Hannah said. "That's good. We'll need to be strong to get through this. Alright, my turn," I said.

And so I checked. I had gone up a level, I had fucking better. The log was full of updates about slain Walking Dead and

Killed Kalax the Vile: Experience gained: 55 Skill gained: Tactics 1 Skill experience gained Tactics 12/25 to level 2 Teacher's Lounge liberated anti-monster barrier activated. You have reached level 5, attribute point available You have reached level 5, you may increase one of your capacities You have reached an odd level, title ability available

I had gained a level somewhere around the middle of clearing the room, and was now

Helpful Human Coward, level 5

Which reminded me, "Hey, Chum, I'm level five now." "Congratulations, Boss. Do not put your capacity point into Mind. Normally that'd be the obvious choice for a caster, but you need your attributes maxed to get to Wizard," Chum said. "Thanks for the tip, but I was thinking about your combat aid," I said. "Hey, look, boss, I live to help, you know," Chum said. "But?" I said. "Right, but your particular demiplane of heroism is a fucking nightmare. I'm not getting involved, and I probably wouldn't be that much help if I did," he said. "Well, thanks for your help so far. So, Hannah, I got a level, title ability, pretty normal stuff. It says that we can use the lounge as a safe room. Seems kind of useless with the Guild, and I don't really want to go back in there," I said. "I have a feeling that the tower is talking to us with the abilities. I bet that it matters," she said. "I can buy that. I really don't want to clear out the corpses. Shit, we won't even be able to bury your friends," I said. "I've been thinking about fire. But that seems dangerous," Hannah said and I went back to reading my journal and making my choices.

Level 5 Helpful abilities unlocked:

Community: choose one group of no more than 100 people. When you are in this community, your negative traits are negated and your support skills and abilities are improved

Hunter and Gatherer: When you bring back food or drink to help someone else, you gain nourishment equivalent to the supplies given up

Active Listener: When someone talks to you about their problems, or recounts a story of their experiences, you gain experience in the otherwise locked Therapist skill. They gain an advantage in resolving the Trauma trait and heal mental or psychological damage

These were sort of esoteric. The Hunter/Gatherer one was pretty straightforward, but food and drink hadn't really been an issue so far. The other two were both interesting, though there were a lot of questions about both. Ultimately, I just didn't feel that I was stable enough myself to help others with their mental issues, and I wanted to help Artemis and her adventuring guild. So I picked the Community ability and wrote in 'Artemis Adventuring Guild', which the Journal seemed to accept.

I had a thought about the capacities and attributes. I needed arcana right away, or I would become entirely useless. Hannah's experience had proved Chum's theory that people with a 0 in Arcana couldn't cast spells, and now that I had given away my hat, I didn't have any left. But my last source of arcana was a wizard hat, and now I had found another. So I checked my new equipment before moving on to assigning my points.

Equipment

Felt Wizard Hat: This slightly damp hat was worn by Kalax the Vile, stolen from his teacher's dresser before being exiled to the Tower. A lesser magical item, it is nonetheless a wizard's hat and therefore of potent arcane power and value. While wearing this hat you gain +1 to your Arcana attribute and spells of the Necromancy school require one less syllable of incantation to cast.

Gnarled Staff: This staff was wielded by Kalax the Vile. The skull once atop it was entirely decorative. You may store up to two ranks of spells in the staff and cast them without performing the common casting procedure up to 1xArcana times every 12 hours or whenever you restore your health to full using a self-healing ability. While wielding this staff you gain the Quarterstaff Combat skill at level 3.

As I had hoped, I gained arcana from the hat. What's more, I wouldn't effectively lose a point in arcana from investing it in the attribute. So I could choose between Enlightenment and Arcana, as my Knowledge was already maxed out. Seemed sort of six of one half a dozen of the other; these most esoteric of attributes didn't give me any clue about which would be significantly better. I picked arcana to shore up the weakness, and the boost was exceedingly strange. My mind didn't so much go up, as it did sideways. It was tilted strangewise. I think I literally could not explain it, except to say that I could better think in multiple lanes at the same time.

That left me with the rarer cap increase. I didn't even consider not following Chum's advice. I was left with Power and Resilience.

"Hey, Chum, what's a capacity increase anyways? Would I just raise the cap and get no immediate benefit?" I said. "You're not quite getting it, boss. The relation between caps and attributes isn't entirely disconnected. Increasing your capacity is a significant boost to your potential, and that doesn't come without a profound change to your body and mind. Attributes are a related benefit, the cap is the juice," Chum said.

Which didn't help me understand it much at all. I was willing to bet that, Intensity, for example, would increase the damage I did with my magical attacks, but on the other hand, surviving was pretty fucking important. In the end that's what decided it- I could get more powerful as I got higher levels; if I didn't survive that was that. So I put the point in resilience. It felt like what I imagined meth must feel like for a moment, and then it evened out to a new normal. I was, simply put, healthier than I had ever been. I was awake, less tired, my injuries didn't hurt as much.

"Holy shit this capacity shit is almost good enough to forget the nightmare that is our life now," I said. "You're fucking telling me," Hannah said, as she was righting her chestplate to better keep her torso together. "We've spent more than enough time here. Let's go tell Artemis the terrible fucking news," I said.

And we walked.

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