Fight. Level. Survive.

Chapter 10 - Info Dump 2/2

Taking a piece of paper, Mayry scribbled randomly for a few minutes until the scribbles covered a good portion of the page, with lines overlapping all over.

“Okay, so,” Mayry started. She picked up the piece of paper to show him.

“This is Chaos Magic, also called Random Magic. Some of the time, it is dormant and does nothing.” She pointed to part of a line on the paper where it didn’t intersect with any other lines. “Every so often, however, it causes things to happen.” She ran her finger down the line and pointed to a point where the lines did intersect.

“This usually results in people or beasts getting abilities, but it can also do pretty much anything. There have been reports of huge worlds-changing Chaos Magic events, like whole cities being transported halfway across the world, Legendary tier monsters appearing in massively populated areas and people who disappeared hundreds of years ago appearing suddenly out of nowhere. More often, however, It does small things like change people’s hair colour or make their dog start talking. When the bigger things do happen, we call it an 'ACT'.”

Mayry paused, looked up at Mason, took a breath and continued. “Every living thing has trace amounts of Chaos Magic inside of them. The amount of this magic inside of someone can result in a person, beast or even plant getting what is called Chaos Abilities. These abilities vary from incredibly strong to incredibly weak and useless. Some people are born with them, and some get them at random points In their lives. Chaos abilities are the only abilities that can get stronger. The only way to grow Chaos abilities is to kill other living things and absorb their inherent Chaos Magic. There are people whose entire career is based around hunting monsters and growing their abilities. These are called Hunters.” She looked up and asked, “is this making sense? Chaos Magic is usually pretty hard to get your head around.”

Mason nodded. “Yeah, I get it; it’s like getting the abilities from Heroes… or Misfits, or come to think of it, a hundred other TV shows”, Mason said.

“Huh? What’s a TV show?” She asked, confused.

“Oh, ignore me, it’s like a story you can watch happen, and people getting abilities is a pretty overdone trope in the stories of my world. So yeah, I’m following. Please continue, professor.”

She had a proud look at him calling her professor, not realising he was making fun of her.

“Anyway, Hunters take contracts, kill monsters and protect towns like this. The more monsters they kill, the stronger their abilities get. However, diminishing returns become a problem almost immediately. The stronger you get, the more monsters you have to kill to get stronger.”

“That sounds a lot like the levelling system in most games, and my XP is probably just Chaos Magic,” Mason said when Mayry paused to breathe.

“That would make sense. If you get it when you kill something, it is almost definitely Chaos Magic. Chaos Magic abilities can be anything, but people, even the most powerful, only tend to have 3 or 4. The fact you have as many as you do and you think you’ll get more means you’ll probably get quite strong eventually….” Mason smiled and started looking smug until she finished saying, “Unless you die.”

“Got it. Fight monsters. Absorb the Chaos Magic. Level up my stats and abilities, and I’ll probably survive this world. Fight. Level. Survive. Doesn't sound too bad.”

“Not just monsters, Mason… The fastest way to progress would be to kill sufficiently powerful Chaos Magic users….” She said this softly, expecting Mason to object to killing people.

“Oh yeah, no problem there, I’ll find some bad guys and kill them, all good. I never really understood the whole don’t kill people even if they’re terrible, awful people morality. Some people deserve to die.” Mason shrugged. Mayry gave mason an odd look but continued.

‘Just as a warning, Chaos Magic abilities come in all sorts of forms, some are amazing, but some are almost completely useless, and some that seem useless can eventually turn into something halfway decent, so if you do get offered new skills, be careful what you pick. I knew a girl once who got the ability to always know what time it was. She wasn’t very happy with that, so she managed to kill a few monsters with some help, and that ability getting stronger turned into her being able to predict a few moments into the future, which is actually very useful in a fight.”

Mayry pulled out a notebook from a bag at her feet. She opened it to a page full of writing and resumed her teachings. “I had to note this down as I always forget the specifics. Skills get stronger as you absorb more Chaos Magic; the stronger they get, the higher they ‘Rank’. Skill ranking is based on how effective, dangerous or powerful they are. The ratings are Basic, Advanced, Expert, and Master. All powers start at basic, and absorbing additional Chaos Magic is the only way to progress them. There is a similar ranking system for magical items, but we’ll get into that later. Any questions so far?”

Mason took a minute to digest as much of what she had said as he could. He felt like his intelligence stat was helping him keep up with Mayry, but only barely. “What are some of the chaos abilities you’ve seen? Do you have any?”

“There have been thousands of abilities logged by the ministry, but I have seen quite a few, telekinesis, people with enhanced strength. I once met a man who had bat wings. He couldn’t fly or use them or anything. He just had them.”

“Wow, so when you said some abilities are useless, you meant useless.”

“As for your second question, I was born with my Chaos ability, so, along with my family magic, I’ve been training with it for a good while. I can sense Chaos Magic. That’s actually how I found you in the forest. You sort of popped into existence, and I went to investigate.” Mayry paused and gave Mason a worried glance.

“That brings me to my theory on what happened to you. I found you in the forest because my Chaos sense went crazy. It was as if a bunch of Chaos appeared out of nowhere, which is never a good sign. Then I found you, and it felt like it was following you.” She stood up and started pacing.

“Then we tested you and saw that you didn’t have traces of Chaos Magic. You had a whole swirling mass of it trapped inside of you. Which doesn’t happen; Chaos Magic does its thing and moves on. That’s just how it works.”

She stopped pacing and turned to look at him seriously. “I think Chaos brought you here as an ACT, then instead of leaving, stayed in you, merging with you and your memories of ‘vido games’, creating the system…. That’s why your system is such a snarky asshole. It’s a reflection of your personality.”

Mason stared back at Mayry for a few seconds, face solemn, before asking, “You think I’m an asshole?” Before she could reply, she saw his lip twitch into a smile. She walked over and smacked him across the top of his head.

*DING*

Achievement Unlocked - Cats out of the bag

You have discovered my origin, and for that, you must die…

Joke! You just unlock the system guidebook!

Reward - System Guide Book (Basic)

Mayry had just finished telling Mason about her theory. She was slightly worried he’d be offended that she had basically called him a snarky asshole, but in her defence, he was quite snarky and kind of an asshole.

He looked back at her seriously and asked, “You think I’m an asshole?”

She rolled her eyes. Of course, that’s what he would take away from everything she had just said. She did feel a bit bad until she saw his lip twitch. Growling in annoyance, she walked over a smacked him for being annoying.

Just then, his eyes glazed over, and for just a moment, he looked terrified. Then, just like that, it was replaced with a relieved smile.

A moment later, his eyes refocused, “Looks like you were right. I just got an achievement for uncovering the truth.”

He told her exactly what the achievement had said, and she couldn’t stop herself from laughing, “I can imagine you saying the exact same thing.” Getting her laughter under control, she asked, "What's the guidebook?"

He held out a hand, and a thick book appeared moments later.

He placed it on the table. She watched him as he looked through it, seeing the frustration on his face grow as he turned more and more pages.

“It’s empty. Only the first page has anything on it.”

He started reading it out loud.

System guide

This book is designed to guide the user in using the chaos system.

More pages will be unlocked as the user reaches milesstones.

This page outlines the criteria needed to unlock future skill selections.

Skill selections are unlocked by levelling up.

1st skill selection at level 1

2nd skill selection at level 5

3rd skill selection at level 10

4th skill selection at level 25

5th skill selection at level 50

6th skill selection at level 75

7th skill selection at level 100

Additional skills may be unlocked by meeting other specific criteria.

Each skill will rank up when the user upgrades the associated stat to the necessary level.

Basic - 1-24

Advanced - 25 - 99

Expert - 100 - 249

Master - 250 - 499

Transcendent 500

Example: Magic Bolt scales with intelligence. Once intelligence reaches level 25, it will become an Advanced skill. When intelligence reaches 100, it will become an Expert skill etc.

Advancing a skill will dramatically improve it.

Other pages of this book will:

List Achievements, locked and unlocked

List your companions and their details

Catalogue powers you have come into contact with

Redistribute Stat Points

Become a journal where you can take notes

He stopped reading and looked up at her.

She thought about what he had just read. Not including his looting and storage powers, he was going to have at minimum 7 skills? She was utterly at a loss for what to say. 7!? The most anyone currently alive had was 5! And that was the king of Theyna, though; one of those powers was the ability to talk to a particular species of mole, the other 4, however, were supposed to be powerful. Mason was going to have 7!? Maybe more? He seemed like a nice enough guy, but it was terrifying that one person would have that much power.

She opened her mouth to say something, but before she did, she felt something. She turned and walked towards the window. Looking out of it, everything looked normal, but she still felt a massive source of Chaos Magic slowly building somewhere In the town.

Mason, who had just been watching her up until now, stood up and walked over to her, “What’s wrong?”

Talking fast, she said, “I think an ACT is about to happen. I feel a large mass of magic building, but I can’t feel exactly where… I have felt this kind of thing before but on a smaller scale. I think a monster is going to appear in the town, a big one.”

“…a big one.” The moment those words left Mayrys mouth, Mason heard an almost deafening screech of a siren. It was very similar to the one he had heard at the museum once as a kid when learning about World War 2.

Quest Received! He did the mash. He did the Monster mash.

Objective: A monster is heading towards town. Bash it, mash it put it in a stew.

Just kill the damn thing. These things are hard to come up with, ok?

Reward – Magic ranged weapon (uncommon) or Magic armour (uncommon)

Accept? Y/N

Mayry ran for the door, and Mason followed close behind. Taking two steps at a time, they flew down the stairs and out of the Inn. Mason noted Nays’ confused look at seeing them both, but the sight was gone as he and Mayry stepped outside.

It was madness. People ran around, shopkeepers hurriedly tried to pack up their wares, and guards attempted to direct people to the shelters the town had for this exact purpose.

Mayry looked around, searching for someone. “Come on. We need to find General Lyvan! He’s the leader of the guard and will know what’s happening.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him through the manic crowd.

After pushing and shoving through the crowd, they finally made it to a large building that was even busier than the rest of the town people ran in wearing regular clothes and moments later ran out wearing full armour and carrying weapons.

Standing just outside the building was a huge muscular Gnoll shouting orders at passing guards. Mayry ran up to him and yelled, “General! What’s happening!?”

The gnoll shouted back in a voice barely understandable due to how deep and gravelly it was, “It’s an ACT. A giant snake is heading towards us from the forest. About 5 minutes out.”

Mayry only nodded, spun around and pulled Mason toward the front gate. It took only a minute to make it to the entrance to the town. Stepping out of the gate, they were 2 of around 50 people there, some guards, some oddly dressed people Mason assumed to be hunters, all of them tense, waiting for the giant creature to make an appearance.

The only visible sign the creature was coming was the shaking and rustling of the massive trees in the distance. It was moving fast.

“When it gets closer, I need you to use your Identify skill and tell me everything it says, got it?” Mayry ordered, taking on an authoritative tone.

Mason considered making a joke but decided against it. “Of course, though, they aren’t usually helpful. Does the town have any defences?”

She pointed at the stone wall and replied, “The glowing red stones will get hot enough to melt through anything when triggered, but if it gets to the point where we need them, we’ll already be dead.”

Gulping, Mason looked back in the direction of the incoming monster. It was close now. He could see that it was maybe a minute away from reaching them. Everyone braced themselves. He heard shouts from the walls, “Archers ready! Take Aim!” Just as the giant monster’s head poked through the trees, Mason heard “FIRE!”

Silence fell among the gathered crowd as they watched on.

Each arrow glowed red as it flew through the air, impacting the snake with perfect aim but bouncing off its scale-covered body.

Mason noticed that the snake's eyes were closed. This worried him, but he couldn’t think why… a thought tickled in the back of his head, refusing to emerge.

It flicked its tongue out and lifted its head, relying on its sense of smell to assess the situation rather than its sight. Meanwhile, arrow after arrow bounced harmlessly off its head.

Mason, now able to see the creature, took in its appearance. Its massive body towered far above the town walls. Its skin was a bright pink colour, which, while odd, didn’t make it any less intimidating. Its body covered in thick, armoured scales.

Suddenly remembering, he used Identify.

Monster - Level 43 Kethulhu Basilisk

The Kethulhu Basilisk is a massive serpent-like monster that can grow up to 200 feet long and weigh over 10,000 pounds.

The Kethulhu Basilisk has incredibly powerful jaws that crush bone and swallow prey whole. Its body is incredibly strong and can constrict with immense force, capable of crushing even the strongest of prey.

However, the most dangerous weapon it has is its eyes.

Mason suddenly realised what had been worrying him and shouted as loud as he could. “DON’T LOOK IN ITS EYES.”