Chương 94: [A Closed Loop]

Phil was the last one out of the bathroom, pulling his jacket on as he came into the living room. The others were already waiting, Luka with a mug he hadn't quite finished, Sam leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets.

"So," Phil said, sitting down.

"How'd your conversation with Shai go this morning?" Leo was looking at the door. He kept looking at it.

"Fine." Parmo looked up. Luka lowered his mug slightly.

"Yeah?" Phil said.

"Even after last night?" Leo turned to look at him. Phil just waited, grinning.

"For fuck's sake." Leo looked at the other three.

"Fine. During the film. When Haldir died—""I hate that bit," Luka said.

"Yeah. And Shai looked pretty cut up about it, and her tail was in my lap, so I just—" he moved his hand slightly "—stroked it. A bit. She didn't freak out. We spoke about it this morning. She said it felt comfortable. That's it." Luka stared at him.

"Jesus, dude. Where did the sudden bravery come from? She could kick your arse, you know that, right?"

"What if that's like—" Parmo started, "—what if that's the equivalent of grabbing her arse?" Leo laughed despite himself.

"It's not. She was fine with it."

"She could have just been being polite. Trying not to make a scene."

"She said it felt nice and was comfortable. She's not exactly someone who keeps her mouth shut when something's bothering her."

"Fair," Parmo conceded. Sam gave him a single nod. Leo caught it and looked away. Phil was grinning.

"So when are you asking her out then?"

"This is why I didn't say anything... It's not like that. It was just—""Not like that yet," Parmo said, with a smirk.

"It's exactly like that," Phil said.

"Knock it off." Phil held his hands up, still grinning. A knock at the door. Leo pointed at Parmo without looking at him.

"Not a word of this to Rika."

"I'm not stupid," Parmo said.

"She'd be asking me about it for the next three weeks. My mouth is shut."

"Good." Leo went to the door.

The stone dummies were already set out in the same rough line as before, Marcus's rune work catching the morning light. The trio had come with them, Shai and Rika settling toward the edge of the space, Torren taking up his usual amount of room just behind them. Luka was looking at the targets.

"So," he said.

"I got the dome up a level. I can cast it at range now, not far, but enough." He nodded at the nearest dummy.

"I want to put it up over one of them and have you lot fire at it. See if it holds under your spells."

"That's pretty smart," Phil said, pretending to be shocked.

"Yeah, 'cos you're the model of intellect. So anyway, you fire at it, the dome takes the hit, I feel it through the connection. Best way to get used to taking hits I can think of outside of Torren whaling on it with his Maul."

"And if it doesn't hold?"

"Then the dummy gets a rough afternoon." Rika's wings shifted. Torren looked at the target, then at Luka. They looked worried but it needed to be done. Shai spoke first.

"It'll have to hold under worse than that eventually." She looked at the dummy.

"Best to get used to it in a safe place." They spread out. Luka faced the nearest target, raised his hand, and the dome came up over it, wider and further than a self-cast, the edges less stable but holding. He exhaled slowly, keeping the spell steady.

"Go," he said. Parmo fired first. The Ice Shard hit the dome and the sound that came back was different to stone, a sharp dispersed crack, fragments scattering sideways off the curved surface. Luka's jaw tightened. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"Again," he said. Phil's Volcanic Blast hit next. The dome held but the runes flared hard. Luka felt it through the connection, not pain but pressure. Leo added a Lightning Blast and the dome shuddered visibly before settling.

"Right," Luka said, breathing through it.

"That's different."

"You holding up ok?" Leo said.

"Yeah." He let the dome go after a few more seconds.

"I can feel what it's taking. That's useful. It's a little like taking a punch but with no pain, just the force pushing against the dome. I can feel where the hits land in my mind, if that makes sense?"

"Yeah, makes sense to me," said Sam. They ran it twice more before Luka started resting his pool between attempts, the others settling into their own work against the remaining targets. Parmo was on his fourth Ice Shard by the time Leo had fired his second Lightning Blast. Phil stepped back, eyes on his pool, before stepping forward again.

"It's the mana cost," Sam said, not looking up from the fog coiling around his feet.

"You and Luka are burning through your pools faster. We've got one spell each and its higher mastery is making it cheaper to cast. More reps."

"Yeah," Leo said.

"You'll probably get your next unlock before us."

"Probably," Sam said.

"Definitely," Parmo said, already raising his hand again. Leo fired another bolt and watched it cross the gap, tighter than yesterday, the drain a fraction less. Getting there, just slower than the other three.

"Right," Phil said, stepping back from his target.

"Everyone fire at once. See if it holds." Luka looked at him.

"At the same time?"

"Yeah. Why not." Luka turned back to the dummy and brought the dome up. The others spread out around it, finding their angles. He exhaled and focused.

"Go," Phil said. All three fired together. Ice, fire and lightning hit the curved surface in the same fraction of a second. The runes blazed, the dome shuddered hard, fragments of ice spraying sideways, a crack of thunder and a roll of heat swallowed by the barrier. It held. Three seconds. Four. Luka's arm dropped and the dome collapsed.

"Jesus." He put both hands on his knees.

"That drained me."

"You actually held it," Parmo said.

"Yeah. Well done, man. I thought it was going to break on the second or third hit," Leo said.

"Same," Phil said, looking at the dummy still standing untouched in the centre.

"That was cool." Torren looked at Luka for a moment.

"When you can hold that without dropping it," he said, "nothing is going to reach the people standing behind you. You're going to be an unbreakable wall sometime soon." Luka straightened up, still breathing through the drain.

They sat on the grass, pools too low to push further. Sam had his eyes glazed over, checking his stats.

"My mana pool's gone up a lot this week," he said.

"More than I expected. Getting practice in whenever we have a spare minute is doing more than just improving the spells."

"I noticed, the other day. We can send longer messages now," Leo said. The others nodded. Leo leaned back on his elbows, the dry grass pricking at his skin through his shirt. He called up his status screen with a thought. The translucent interface flickered into existence, hovering in front of him like a thin sheet of blue glass.

"Actually," Leo said, eyes scanning the lines.

"Speaking of the UI... have you lot looked at your actual stats lately? The attribute page?" Phil, lying flat on his back a few feet away, didn't even look up.

"Every morning, mate. I thought you lot were doing the same."

"Every morning?" Leo asked, surprised.

"Course," Phil said, finally sitting up.

"It's a progress report. There's no point-buy system, so it's not like I can min-max, but I like seeing the register. My [Strength] is up to an 18—it's up another point since Tuesday. It's the only way to know for sure that the work is actually doing something." Luka grunted, his own screen shimmering into life.

"I check mine every now and then. But I don't want to be one of those gym-rats who spends more time looking in the mirror and checking his 'gains' than actually lifting. It'll go up when it goes up, won't it?"

"I forgot it even existed," Parmo admitted, looking slightly embarrassed as he summoned his own.

"Bloody hell. My [Agility] is a 19. I remember being a 9 when I checked at the pub before we all changed. You might as well change my name to Legolas."

"More like Dobby with that nose," said Luka, getting a laugh out of Phil. Leo looked back at his own. His [Agility]—which had been a dismal 6—was now a 17. His [Charisma] sat at 14. He looked at his hands; they stayed still.

"It's weird, though," Sam said, his gaze returning from his UI to the real world.

"I've been thinking about the scaling. The stats look so similar to D&D but the scaling is way off. Having a 22 in [Intelligence] should make me the smartest person on the planet. I'd be a god-tier wizard."

"And?" Phil grinned.

"Maybe you are, Einstein."

"I'm not, though," Sam said, shaking his head.

"I feel sharper, sure. But I'm not a genius. I spent the first week trying to find a way to break it—see if there was a hidden menu to dump points into stats—but it's a closed loop. It just records what we've actually achieved."

"So a 20 here is like a 12 in D&D?" Leo asked.

"Something like that," Sam agreed.

"The ceiling here is just way higher. If 10 was the average human on Earth, then we've already blown past that. We might have stats similar to athletes or we may even be higher. But here? We're probably just getting started. It's hard to tell." Leo looked back at his sub-skills. Under [Agility], the entry Swordsmanship – Level 2 sat in clean white text.

"You guys got any sub skills? I've got level 2 in swordsmanship."

"Yeah, I've got the same in archery," said Parmo.

"There's no mention of magic skill but then I suppose that's all stored in the magic tab. This is more for physical and mental stats," added Sam. Luka grinned, and sent Leo a message over his UI. [Luka] I bet you have a level in tail touching or something. Pervert. [Leo] Fuck you man. Leo grinned at the message, the others chuckling along.

"What's so funny?" asked Rika. The lads stopped laughing.

"I asked if Luka's race has changed from Hobbit to Human. I sent it in the UI."

"Why didn't you just say it then?"

"It's funny when a message pops up and you check it only to notice it's a joke about Luka's height. That's it really."

"Hmm..." said Rika, not fully convinced. That bullet dodged, the lads went back to checking their stats.

"I wonder if there's a way to focus on one activity to boost a stat," said Parmo.

"I mean you probably could, but I don't think the stat going up in the UI is what boosts the actual physical attribute. I think it's the other way round, so it feels kind of pointless compared to just doing what we're already doing," answered Sam.

"Yeah, fair enough."

"Okay, I'm starving. Let's get cleaned up and grab some food," said Phil.

"Sounds good to me. I want to ask Lauren about D&D. I wonder if she can do a campaign for the eight of us." said Sam.

"I can't believe I'm going to get roped into playing. Fucking make believe. I can't wait for Mike to tell us it's fine to get the Playstation out." moaned Parmo.

"What's a Playstation?" asked Rika.

"Just wait, Rika. I'm going to show you this cool game called Elden Ring. You'll love it," said Parmo, with a sadistic grin.