Pathbreakers: Multiclassing For Fun And Profit

I gained 9 levels. Jose gained 2. Odysseus got all the way up to 10 in Acolyte, then has 3 free levels. Henry Gallup and Madeline Diaz both hit level 10 in their classes. Gwen rose to level 8 Oracle.

Using my Scan confirms we killed 4501 of the insects. Gwen whips out a laptop and does a lot of math very quickly. Number's fly by on a spreadsheet.

“As I suspected, ze leveling system is indeed based upon your current average level. In zis case, killing 50 insects was enough to rise from level 1 to level 2.

“Levels are automatically assigned unless you have a choice as to which class you will choose next. For most of us that only happens when you reach level 10 in your current class. So, as each of us rose in level during the massacre, our leveling slowed.”

I hover over her shoulder and peer at a cell that's red on her sheet. The top of the column has my name on it. “Why am I red?” I ask.

She waves me away. “You have a limit to ze number of levels you can stock up at once. Ze limit is ten. You should have gained more, but alas, ze Dracosys is not utterly broken by your class. Just mostly broken.”

So I'll have to actually spend my level ups and can't just wait until I have 99 and buy everything. Drat. Ah well, might as well take on the next step to unlimited power, that being the Ranger class.

Ranger

Melee combat, ranged combat, exploration. You're not exactly a jack of all trades. You're more like an expert in some, master of none.

A third step class. 5 subclasses. Nine class evolutions.

Gain 2 Strength, 2 Agility, 2 Dexterity and 4 Ki upon choosing this class. Two basic, advanced or expert mapping or dueling techniques will be granted to you upon choosing this class.

Uses Strength, Agility, Dexterity.

Upon level up three additional random basic, advanced or expert mapping or dueling techniques will be granted, until all basic, advanced and expert mapping and dueling techniques are known. Each level you gain 1 Strength, 2 Dexterity, 2 Agility and 5 free points.

Subclasses

Long- The maximum ranges of your ranged weapon attacks increases by 25%

Mid - You can use techniques limited to either melee or ranged weapons with the opposite type, assuming it isn't an impossibility to do so.

Short - Your attack speed while wielding two melee weapons increases by 10%.

Lone - While fighting alone you gain +10% to all stats.

Power - You gain a transformation that provides +5% to all stats for each ally who also transforms using this ability.

Mid Ranger is why I'm here. If I combine that ability with the Hedge Rake ability to swap magic for weapon attacks, I think that I'll be able to use a ranged magic spell as a melee weapon attack. Which is the kind of dumb, game breaking thing I'm into.

I get the subclass ability and then try something. I take three steps forward, then activate Lunge and Shadow Stab at the same time. I slide forward a foot and the shadow spear shoots out from under my foot in a diagonal forward direction. It works. It friggin works!

I shake myself out of the gamer fugue state and address my team. “Okay, anyone get anything that needs to be talked about?”

“I indeed got squad support skills. They're actually active right now.” Henry says this and I look around and see a thin translucent circle hovering around Henry. It's about 10 feet across.

“An aura?” I ask.

Henry nods and says, “increases the defense of those inside the ring. It says 10% but I don't know how that works exactly.”

“Your cells become denser and harder to break,” Gwen says. She's taking copious notes. “Zey studied it at ‘arvard.” Her Canadian French drops the H in Harvard. “Zat is what Toughness does. You become denser, heavier. You seem very dense in particular.” She points at Madeline Diaz without actually looking in her direction.

Diaz answers “yup,” her familiar all-meaning, all encompassing affirmation. Diaz then speaks up after that. “Got stuff to make me tougher, too.” She holsters her pistol and draws the axe from her back. She takes a few swings with it, the third time the thing is coated with golden fire. She again has that child-like grin except now she's thinking about axe murder so it's creepy.

Grant types away on his wrist cell. “Got to level 10 Acolyte. Can go in different directions but Clerk is the healing path, right? Cleric. Sorry, autocorrect.”

Gwen cuts in. “Yes, Cleric leads to more healing and light based abilities than other paths. It should make your EMT training completely obsolete.”

Grant types back, “Wow. Thanks.” Due to the neutral tone of the text to speech software, I have no idea if that was sarcasm or not.

Gwen starts packing up her laptop and says, “Ze Oracle spells are quite complex and I do wish to experiment with zem, but not now.” She holsters the laptop in her bag and stands. “Shall we continue? I have ‘eard of zis ice wall and wish to see it for myself.”

I point at the far wall which is clearly visible due to the cone of fire burning down half the corn field. It's been visible for minutes, she just wasn't paying attention. I... Better keep an eye on her from now on.

We approach the ice wall which I still have no idea how to properly get past. Henry Gallup is off to the side and says “Hey, look at that!” He points off to the far west side of the corn. There's a bright red tractor cab peeking up over the corn.

Henry slides his gun down and goes into handsome charming mode. “That's a Rexluxe 150 combine harvester. Haven't seen one of those since I worked on my grandfather's farm in Iowa. That's an older model, but I think I get what they want us to do to get through the ice wall.”

Of course he worked on his grandpa's farm and knows tractors. This jerk is going to be President within 10 years. Well, better get on his good side I guess. “Lead the way,” I say.

We stride through the corn field, taking out a handful of the remaining flies as we go. When we get to the tractor it's one of those with a wide spinning blade wheel out front.

“Ah, the Rex-luxe. The company went defunct in the 70s but a lot of their machines still work today.” Henry says this as he mounts and starts up the tractor. “Can't beat American manufacturing!” he yells over the roar of the machine.

We get out of the way and he drives the tractor back to the ice wall. He starts the front blades spinning then aims for the glowing exit sign above the stairs up. He just rams the blades into the ice. Instantly snow cone quality ice chunks fly backwards as the big blade wheel, which is almost 5 feet tall itself, makes rapid progress through the wall.

“Huh,” says Jose. He turns to me. “You should check the ice for treasure.” Jose motions to the long wall that runs the length of the store. It'll take Henry a few minutes to carve out a path to the door so I might as well.

I take Jose and Diaz and walk west, torching the wall with flames as we go. To speed up the process I let my AP dip below 0, then do a charged Flame Thrower. The red horns grow again and my fingertips ignite. The boost from Burning Chimerablood and the double damage from charging the spell let me quickly melt ice. I send a knife out and hose down the wall with bright red fire. Sure enough there's an alcove about halfway down and it contains a small table. On the table are three small bags of sunflower seeds. I scan one.

Lucky You, You Get! It! Promotional Sunflower Seeds. These already shelled sunflower, super salty seeds grant the consumer +2 Strength and +2 Luck, the perfect thing for an aspiring baseballer. This benefit is permanent, but can only be applied once.

I immediately hand a bag to Diaz and tell her to eat it. I crack open one for myself (I can really use the Luck) and offer the last to Jose, explaining the benefits.

“Is it okay if I give it to my son?” He asks this but he's already popping the bag into his inventory.

I shrug. “I guess. Ernesto or Mike?”

He shrugs back, “Ernesto. That kid keeps injuring himself so I'm hoping Luck will help him out.” I nod that the reasoning makes sense.

I clear out the rest of the ice wall on the west and have a knife start on the same on the east side. The ice in front of the stairs up is about 20 feet thick, while around the walls it's only about 6 inches. I glance over at the combine harvester and it looks like it's buried in 3 feet of snow, but is still plugging away. Gwen and Grant have joined Henry on top of the harvester and are hanging off the sides. It honestly looks like they're having a great time. I mentally write this all off as being an appropriate team building exercise.

I clear the east side of the ice at about the same time as Henry breaks through the wall and reveals the stairs. The east side wall didn't hold any secrets. We all meet up at the stairs.

“Hey, Jose, how'd you know there'd be treasure over there?” I ask.

He simply says, “Zelda.”

Grant nods and types out, “in Zelda they often have secrets off to the side of the main path.”

Diaz gives a “yup,” in agreement. Both Henry and Gwen also nod as if they know this information precisely.

I say “I never played those-” but am then cut off by a barrage of complaints.

“Those are the best-”

“And you call yourself a gamer!”

“I'm ashamed to be your best friend now.”

“Those are a staple of culture-”

Grant's digital voice comes in last, “we'll fix that when we're done here.”

They then banter for 10 minutes and come to an agreement that Jose's best game ever Link To The Past is the best in the series. Henry liked Wind Waker because of the freedom, Diaz liked Skyward Sword because of the motion controls, Grant's favorite is Ocarina of Time, Gwen swears Spirit Tracks is good. They also agree that I am a truly bad person for never having played any of them.

“Damn, y'all, not my fault.” I hold my hands up defensively. “We didn't have Nintendo consoles but I had a computer. I know Baldur's Gate and Counter-Strike and the rest, just not the Nintendo exclusives.”

I find myself smiling as I continue to explain that I am a real nerd. This is pretty good, actually. It's starting to feel like a combination of the Coyotes but also Jose and I's lunch group. This is good. This can work. This can be exactly what we need to both clear rooms like a squad and clear a dungeon like adventurers.

I halt the chatter as I point to the stairs up. “Alright, alright team. Let's get back into soldier mode and Jose and I will prep you on what to expect going forward.”

-----

The team now knows what to expect. The escalator going up is back in service, and we have to go single file. To allow room to back up or dodge, I have Diaz go up front, shield raised, followed by Henry Gallup 5 feet back. We climb the stairs and the escalation makes our trip take just seconds.

Diaz hits the small beauty department first and I hear the pop of handgun fire as I assume she's downing the masked zombie. Then a few seconds later I hear the loud blast from Gallup's shotgun and then I get up to the second floor and see what's happening.

There are now three- Diaz pops one and it falls- correction, two masked employees in the beauty department. Problem is that where one falls, two more identical ones materialize. I fire my rifle into the remaining two masked creatures and they fall, but four more have just popped up. Grant and Jose join us and my team puts down the four masquerade escapees only just in time for four more to pop into existence.

Splitting Masques. You thought you were really clever, last time, just popping it in the head and skipping the brutal melee fight awaiting you? Well, look who's back and bringing friends!

Possible Loot: Splitting Masque, cheap lipstick.

“This might be endless,” I say over sporadic gunfire. “Push into the seasonal section.” I point at the next area and see something that's probably a bad sign. The seasonal section has transitioned from summer patio furniture to fall halloween decor and costumes. There is a giant skeleton overlooking the area. “Actually maybe pharmacy is a better idea.”

Gwen gets to the top of the escalator and immediately says “Madeline, use your axe, the rest of you stop shooting.”

Agent Diaz holsters her handgun and draws her fire axe in a flash then commences chopping into the masked monsters. Each of them looks like a different coworker who died in the Get! so this is all quite unsettling for me and Jose.

She cleaves into the first with an overhead chop and buries the axe deep into the monster's head. White slime oozes out of the monster's wound, looking like paint that might have been used for the mask itself. She swings at the next as that one falls, slashing horizontally and shearing the head clean off. The white paint spurts out of Jason from the deli's neck. We used to give him a hard time about his name and department. Now he's dead and a simulacra of his corpse is on the floor. Fuck this place.

As these corpses fall they aren't replaced by more doppelgangers. Gwen talks over the chopping of former employees. “These creatures were killed by gunfire. The adaptation the dungeon made to zem was to have them multiply when killed by guns again.”

Diaz finishes re-killing my coworkers and Gwen continues. “We must be careful to think about how the monsters were fought last time, and what changes may have been made to avert ze same outcome.”

She goes into detail. The dungeons reset every 24 hours, respawning monsters. The monsters come back ready to negate or at least avert their previous method of defeat. Monsters seem to be able to have up to six of these “adaptations,” though they gain only one per 24 hours. Since we were the only ones who killed monsters since this dungeon started, we can sort of estimate and project how things have changed.

“Problem is that we didn't go through pharmacy, and seasonal got real spooky,” I say.

Grant types out, “pharmacy might have medical items.”

“And Halloween town might have a whole grim reaper,” Henry says.

“Right, so we'll take- Jose where are you going?” I swear at his receding back.

“Dude, halloween,” he mutters and points at the big smiling pumpkin. Jose loves halloween and scary movies. Of course he wants to go there.

I say “maybe on the way out. I don't want to chance running into a vampire this early.”

“Or a sexy nurse,” comes Henry's voice, with a note of wistful hope. We all turn and stare at the unexpectedly horny response from our future president. He tries to recover and fake coughs. “Or a Freddy Kruger. You know, typical Halloween stuff.”

We all decide to let his slip up slip by.

I lead the way this time, heading into the pharmacy section. The area is even whiter than normal for the Get! and the aisles are barely wide enough to let one person through at a time. The aisles, each stocked with store brand “over the counter” drugs, are also tightly woven together in a zig zag pattern. Just three aisles run the length of the long, narrow area. We effectively have three paths in front of us, but due to the zig zags, we won't be able to see much further than 10 feet in either direction.

I give the command. “We'll split up into teams of two. We won't be able to shoot past each other anyway.”

“Splitting the party?” Jose asks, mentioning the ultimate tabletop RPG taboo.

“We have guns,” I say. “We'll handle it. Diaz, take Gwen. Gallop, you're in front with Amarillo on your six. Grant, I'll take point and you're behind me.”

The teams assemble and everyone realizes that I put a smaller person in front of a taller person so the one in front can duck and let their partner shoot. I get nods of approval. This is my first command but Davis gave me a hell of an example to follow.

We all take one last look at each other and step into the unknown.

We take our time weaving into the aisles. It's not until we get past the first zig zag and I truly can't see out the front or back that I notice something is wrong. The shelves are repeating. I progress further in and yeah, the shelves are repeating. I purposefully knock over a bottle of... R Vitamins(?) to make sure I'm not mistaken.

R Vitamins. These are not meant for humans or dogs. Sooooo... You gonna try one anyway? What's the worst that could happen?

We carry on and sure enough, I find the tipped over bottle of R Vitamins. “The aisle is repeating!” I call out. I turn and point out the bottle to Grant. “It's some kinda loop! Anyone got an idea of how we break it?”

There's no reply from anyone else. Grant types out, “I haven't heard any of their footsteps since we entered.”

I check my radar and it's completely empty. Not even Grant and I are on it.

“Okay so this is some kind of extradimensional bullshit. How do people escape these in stories?”

Odysseus thinks for a minute, then does something very obvious. He sweeps his arm across several shelves to clear them, then climbs. He gets to the top and lets out a harsh coughing sound. He drops back down and gives me really, really bad news.

“There are now infinite aisles.” I hold my head in my hands as he explains. “The floor looks infinite and it looks like there is no end to it. All pharmacy aisles, all the way forever.”

I take a deep breath and then look around. “If this is a trap or puzzle, there should be clues.” Grant and I both start to analyze the shelves more closely.

There's various unknown vitamins, bandages in abstract shapes, protein bars that seem like they're literally just iron bars and toothpaste in awful flavors like rancid bacon and burnt squash.

Grant is looking at the various vitamin bottles and scrutinizing the labels. He puts one back on the shelf and then does a double take. Suddenly he shuffles bottles around and I see what he's doing. He's arranged the seven types of pills into a word.

“FORWARD” he types excitedly, though the robo voice remains calm. “I can also spell BACK if you want.”

“Oh shit man, this is awesome! So... Are we supposed to eat the pills?”

He shakes his head and holds up a bottle to show me the child proof cap. It reads “Press and turn to remove cap. Pull and turn to use letter.”

He pulls and spins each letter in forward and then we hear a grinding sound. I pull a knife into my hand and we take our first steps truly forward. In just a few seconds I see the entrance to the electronics department and the rest of the team waiting for us. Grant and I are the last to arrive.

“Over half an hour, pay up,” Diaz says, checking her watch. The other three hand her small bills from their pockets. These jerks bet on how long it would take us?

“Wait, how long did it take you guys?” I ask.

“Less than 30 seconds,” comes Gwen's reply.

Henry and Jose turn to each other. “About 5 minutes?” Henry guesses, and Jose nods.

Grant pats me on the shoulder and then taps out, “Sorry man, I have low Wisdom too.”

“Dammit Jose, stop telling people about my Wisdom!” Everyone laughs.

And then the Halloween monsters spill out of the seasonal section and things get really nasty, really quickly.