Chapter 79 – Habitual

  Matt and Ash continued their stare down that felt like it went on for days but in reality, was only a few seconds. Neither moved other than slight shifts that were natural to any living being. Finally, Matt’s voice cracked over his external speaker.

  “I have got to admit, that is pretty freaking cool.” He said while getting a good look at the nearly 3-meter-tall werewolf.

  Ash’s wolf form was massive with limbs that were slightly too long for its body, but they rippled with muscle under the long black fur. Her face was not completely lupine either, instead having a slightly shorter muzzle and a wider overall shape. Her fur was of a medium length, slightly shaggier along the backs of the arms, legs and tail.

  The feet looked like a cross between a human and a wolf, with long claws that hooked slightly but remained mostly canine. Her hands were a different story. It appeared that the fingers had stretched, elongating more than her size would suggest and likely making her arms look overly long. Each of her fingers was tipped with a much more hooked claw that was only slightly duller than what he would see on the feline hunters.

  All and all, Matt was very impressed but had a very pressing concern. “How do we get you to change back? Oh, wait!” he suddenly got an idea and extended his palm out. “Shh, suns getting real low…” he began before she snorted, rolled her eyes and took a step backward as her body distorted.

  Half a second later, there was Ash, kneeling on the ground and panting slightly. She looked like she had seen better days, with cuts and bruises on her exposed skin. He had to admit, she looked like someone kicked the crap out of her.

  “Sorry about that.” She said in a hoarse voice. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Ah, its fine. Actually, one of the cooler things I have seen.” Matt said and summoned a canteen, tossing it to her. “Question though. What happened to your things when you shifted? Like your armor and stuff.”

  Ash took a long pull from the water before capping it and tossing it back. She stood on legs that only trembled a little before replying. “It was the perk I picked. Back home when you shift, your clothes don’t so it was a constant struggle in a war.” She stretched and Matt heard joints pop. “Thankfully, between my perk and trait, I don’t completely loose myself and am completely lucid. For better or worse.”

  “Oh? What are they?” Matt was curious, he didn’t really know anyone’s perk or trait except Tobias’ but he could guess at some of the others.

  “Umm…” she looked like she didn’t want to answer for a moment. “Ah, fuck it, might as well. My trait is ‘Lucid Mind’ which pretty much keeps this part of me in control if I shift.” She said finally just rolling with it and trusting Matt. “The perk is called ‘Changeling Convenience’ which deals with all my stuff.”

  “Nice.” Matt said and explained his own before it got awkward. “I have a perk called ‘Resource Generation’ which just gives me better resource recovery times. My trait is something called ‘Sovereign Aura Domain’ which seems to not affect you.”

  Ash thought for a moment as they began making their way back to Van, Echo trailing behind them as they picked up the bodies of the apes. After clearing all the corpses, they pushed to the edge of the woods to move on.

  “So, I think that your trait did affect me. Well, in my other form.” Ash said. “It felt weird. Like when we were having the standoff it felt like… oh, I don’t know. Like I should be excited or something.”

  “Oh, that would be me.” Matt admitted. “I thought it was super cool to see a werewolf and couldn’t help my excitement.”

  “So, your aura can influence people?”

  “And other things. When paired with my affinity it actually kinda sets things on fire. Well, it doesn’t set them on fire per se, but it burns things.” He was having a hard time explaining as they climbed back into the cockpit.

  Eventually he just played some of the footage from the city defense, letting her see for herself. After she watched the clip of his fight with the icon, she found the video library and began rolling through a lot of the footage he recorded since landing on the planet.

  He could also see what she was viewing in a little popup icon in the corner of his vision which made it a little awkward when she saw the footage of him taking the armor off at one point. While she switched off of it, she did linger a little longer than absolutely necessary.

  Eventually Van broke the silence. “Matt, while I don’t wish to cut our trip short, we are running low on storage space so any fights will mostly be for the experience gain.”

  “Oh, man. That sucks.” Matt said. “Did we fill your storage already?”

  “Between the wyverns, the water monster and those apes, yes.” Van had the tone of a very patient father trying to explain something to his ADHD child.

  “Ash, how are you looking on levels?” Matt asked as he turned to head more toward the city rather than the planned looping route.

  She hesitated for a moment and then her eyes lost focus as she reviewed the system messages. “I am up by 3 so that puts me at 52 in total.” She seemed to hesitate and keep staring off to space. “Why did I go up so much?”

  “Remember when I invited you to the party?” Matt said. “All those bugs I killed added up too. We share experience while you are in my party.”

  “Ah, well that clears that up.” She said. Then was silent for a moment longer. Suddenly her demeanor shifted back to normal, and she looked around the cockpit.

  “Sooo…” Matt lead. “Get a good skill?”

  It turns out that she was given a few choices around group combat, something Matt fully expected with the party system. When he asked about her skill choices and the two forms, she clarified what it was like for her.

  Her stat sheet looked the same as his, but she was offered skills for either her human form or her wolf form. The options actually noted which was which for her. She admitted to neglecting some skills she wanted for her other form because she couldn’t use it back at the tower.

  Matt said she should focus on those now and that there was no reason to hide that. She seemed hesitant but he insisted, telling her of how other people reacted to him literally setting everything within a bubble on fire and how nobody cared that he didn’t look human anymore.

  “Look, we are all in this shit together. You being a werewolf probably isn’t the strangest thing in the city, likely not the strangest thing that happened this week.” He laughed when thinking about Venri and her experiments. “Just be you and don’t be a dick.”

  Ash looked like he slapped her and huffed a reply. “I look nothing like a penis.”

  “Wait, no, no-no-no. That’s not what that means.” He quickly tried to explain while Van laughed at him. She eventually calmed down when he clarified the statement and also shared some other phrases, he was likely to say.

  Van was rather helpful in this for some reason. The core shared that he was constantly confused by Matt and Tobias for the first few weeks. He even admitted to still not fully comprehending their sayings but he ‘gets the gist’ as it were. They ended up exchanging common phrases and proverbs from their worlds while they made their way to Vil’ Krad.

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  *****

  “Look, I don’t know how many ways I can say this and am running out of patience.” Rohm said. “I will not use my personal relationship with Tobias to get him to make you new gear. If he says he is busy and recommends another crafter, then go see that crafter.”

  “It’s not fair that all the pilots get this stuff, and we don’t.” Said Tadic. He was one of the original members of the city, falling under the classer path. Naturally, being a dwarf, he was very stubborn and not letting the topic drop.

  Rohm new of him, knew that he was stagnant in his growth. He also was aware that Tadic was neglecting his second class, only ever taking jobs around his combat class. Like everyone else, except pilots, the man had to find a balance.

  Actually starting to growl, Rohm glared at him. “Let me be perfectly clear.” He began in a very low tone, making the dwarf lean in over the desk a little. “Tobias is currently working on things that will benefit the most people the fastest. That means, machines for crafters, weapons for defense of the walls and upgrades for our most casualty producing weapons.

  “You don’t need his personal attention to have a new rifle made or to get upgrades done to your armor. If you are having a hard time waiting, I suggest you do something to actually fix your leveling problem.” Rohm was slowly building in volume. “You are a brewer, go and find one of the other brewers or restaurant owners and see about partnering with them.”

  “But I…”

  “No, we all know from the introductions in the classrooms that you need to balance both your classes if you want meaningful growth. If you are going to be too stubborn to accept the word of the System about how it works, then you can die in E grade when you fail to gain another level.”

  Tadic looked like he just had his hand slapped as he shuffles his feet and hung his head. “Yes, commander Rohm.”

  Not being one to only give the stick, Rohm extended some advice. “Listen, I was talking to Chassha over at The Gilded Skewer, he was trying to get a deal with a brewer for some mead, but I think ale would fit their menu better. Why don’t you head over there and tell him I sent you.”

  “Oh, umm, sure thing.” Tadic said, looking up with a little more excitement.

  “There you go, head on out.” Rohm dismissed the man and returned to his review of the recent scouting reports. He briefly wondered if he should mention that one of the armor smiths happens to frequent that eatery but figured he would quit trying to tamper with people’s lives.

  He was making his way through the reports of beasts seeming to be migrating or rotating their normal territory when a knock sounded. He barely suppressed a groan before he looked up to see Franklin standing in the door.

  “Oh, come in. How can I help, governor?” he quickly stood and greeted the orc.

  “Relax, just here for a bit of a social visit.” Franklin said. “I was just talking with the coven and needed someone sane to talk to.”

  Rohm chuckled. “And you picked me over the likes of Tobias or the commandos?”

  “Rohm, none of those people are in any way right in the head.” Franklin sighed as he plopped down in the chair. “Those commandos have still been hogging the simulations in the training hall, barely rotating out to eat and sleep.”

  That peaked the commander’s interest and he pressed for more details. “What do you mean hogging?”

  “It’s all Tobias’ fault.” Franklin moaned, covering his face with his hand. “The lunatic has managed to bring some games from his home world.”

  “Ok, what do games have to do with the simulation arena?”

  “Apparently games for Earthlings are much more… vivid than those of our worlds. They use computers and stuff… oh, just come watch, it’s easier to explain that way.”

  They walked out of Rohm’s office in the hub and down the street toward the forge. A large stadium like structure had populated when Franklin purchased the upgrades after the event. The inside was an open arena which could have real fights in it, but also could have simulated encounters through some magical devices that the user just had to touch.

  They braved the surprising number of people that were crowded into the stands and found seats to watch what was happening. It took a few moments for Rohm to get a hang of what he was seeing and to make any sense out of the 9 images that seemed to expand based on his attention.

  The screens showed two teams of 4, each team wearing matching colored armor. One team had blue armor and the other had red. The armor itself slightly resembled Matt’s but looked bulkier and more angular with a strange, visored helmet.

  He watched as one blue team member appeared in what looked like a desert canyon with a squat grey building at either end. The armored figure ran up a ramp on the building and picked up a rifle that was just sitting there in the sun next to some strange white boxes.

  That person then seemed to magnify an image of the distant caverns in the walls of the canyon where two red armored figures had just emerged. The rifle barked once, twice, three times in quick succession, each shot leaving a white vapor trail that led to the enemy troops.

  Rohm tried to focus on the image, and it expanded to fill his vision when he saw those two red figures get shot, a faint glow around them before they fell. Suddenly a voice boomed in his ears.

  “Double-Kill”

  And he looked around only to see another screen focus on the blue soldier and a similar vapor trail connect the red marksman’s rifle to the blue soldier’s head.

  “Frank what the hell am I looking at?” Rohm asked after watching the exchange that occurred over a few seconds. The individual screens that had gone dark then switched to new views as they began moving again.

  “These are called ‘First Person Shooter’ games or FPS games.” The orc sighed. “Its all the rage with the classers and the commandos.”

  “Tripple-Kill” The voice suddenly said again and many of the watching crowd began applauding.

  “Isn’t this supposed to be used for training? Like, why are we playing games when we could use the simulations for monsters and enemy soldiers?” Rohm was very confused at what was happening.

  “Just wait.” Franklin said and the watched for a few more minutes until the game was called for a red victory, eliciting many cheers from the stands.

  After several more minutes, the arena lit up once more with a wall of text. Someone seemed to be scrolling through and selecting options for various scenarios and inputting values. Eventually the screen changed again to show an urban setting with buildings and streets that were several stories tall.

  The number of screens changed as well, shifting to eight on each side. The central screen turned into a very detailed image showing the city from above with many markers showing the competitors and where they were looking with little arrows.

  Each side seemed to be of two teams. That put two constructs and six dismounts on each. Rohm recognized Jesse’s construct standing with another of the commando constructs. The central screen flashed a count down and the two teams leapt into action.

  They watched as the teams deployed, some of the dismounts moving along streets, some going into buildings while others actually found underground tunnels. They maneuvered into place and slowly converged until two opposing constructs spotted each other.

  Thump, thump, thump. Jesse fired a trio of rounds from her new cannon that missed her opponent from the extreme range. Lisk, who had narrowly dodged the attack, ducked behind a building and rushed forward down another street.

  Jesse moved sideways, attempting to flank but was stopped by a rocket streaking across from a five-story building, forcing her to stop. That stop was all it took for her to return fire and punch several holes into the concrete side of the structure. A moment later, one of the screens winked out.

  Two of the screens on Jesse’s side suddenly went dark and a puff of dust and debris went airborne from around a mile from her. Pivoting, she kicked forward just in time to dodge a shot from another opposing construct.

  The one that had fired at her, was soon toppled as two rockets impacted it. The first took it in the hip joint while the second hit it square in the side of the torso. The whole construct pitched forward and fell face first into the ground.

  Rohm then hears small arms fire erupt from a section where two of the dismount teams had encountered another. They were beginning to suppress and flank that team when Lisk suddenly appeared and leveled his shotgun.

  Before the demon could get a shot off. 5 rounds of cannon fire stitched up the side of his mech and he also toppled. Jesse leaned back into cover of the building she was behind and shoved another five rounds into her cannon, topping off the magazine and getting ready to move.

  Franklin gestured to the screen. “This has been going on for the past week. Every time they convince one of the forge staff to design a new arena, they face off. Not always in constructs either. The last one was a brutal slog through an underground that was collapsing in certain sections.”

  “So, what did we see earlier?”

  “Ah, that was some of the other classers. They prefer the games for some reason.” Franklin rubbed his chin while he thought. “Come to think of it, they said something about getting inspiration for new equipment? Ah, I don’t know. I just know interfering might make it worse.”

  “Umm, probably not.” Tobias said, suddenly behind them.

  “GYAH!” Rohm and Franklin both shouted and flinched away.

  “Oh, sorry, just came to watch and saw you here.” Tobias gestured to the screen. “Its easy to get sucked in and loose track of your surroundings.”

  “Right, right.” Rohm sat back down. “What were you saying earlier?”

  “Oh, video game addiction is a very real thing. At least back home.” Tobias pulled out his tablet. “We should consider limiting time or making a reward system to use the game features. I think the commandos are fine since they are actually training and leaving only long enough to go fight and rest. Problem is since they are rather high level, they don’t need as much rest, so they are here a lot.”

  They watched as the fights continued. Occasionally the realistic setting would change and more of the video games would show but the matches only lasted a fraction as long as the actual training did. Tobias took the time to explain each game and how it worked. Rohm was both impressed and annoyed at the spectacle. He would just have to get a turn of his own sooner than later.