He sighed as he looked down into her face. Her hood had fallen off her head as he’d moved them to the nearby Safe Zone in the dungeon. She was mesmerizing, with a soft elegant curve to her high cheek bones and long dark lashes. Her long hair was soft and a beautiful amber color.
He wondered what her name was as he leaned back against the wall, gently playing with her hair as her head rested in his lap. How was he going to justify this to her? She was amazingly skilled, or so it seemed, but he could tell that her [Linear] was not doing as much damage as it should, since she was here in the Tower, her level had to be near his own.
Thunder looked into the upper left hand corner of his vision; his own level was 12 so she had to be at least level 10. And if she was allocating her skill points correctly, she should not need to use her Special Moves to Over Kill the mobs. Maybe she was a newer Player to games? That might explain why she was Over Killing the goblins with [Linear] instead of using normal sword moves.
He stopped running his fingers through her soft, soft hair when he heard her stir and felt her head move in his lap. He pulled his hands away as her eyes slowly blinked open, revealing the color of her eyes.
He felt as if his breath had been stolen when she turned her soft amber eyes to stare into his own ebony gaze. “G-good morning,” he stuttered.
She sat up in a flash, “What happened!”
“You passed out,” he managed to reply evenly, he could feel his heart pounding. “H-how long have you been in here?” He wasn’t sure how he’d kept his voice so steady.
“Four days.” Her eyes narrowed, “Why did you help me?”
He held up his hands in surrender again, “I was only doing what anyone would,” he muttered, turning his eyes to look into his lap as he tried to hide the faint blush on his cheeks.
“You’re wrong.”
His head snapped up and their eyes met again. “What?”
She shook her head, “No one would have helped me, they’d have left me to die.”
He took offence to that, “In this Death Game no they would not have.” He blushed, looking to the side as his cheeks burned, “The unspoken rule is not to let any other Player’s HP drop to zero.”
“What were you doing here anyway?”
He lowered his head, shoulders slumping, “Looking for the Boss Room.” Thunder sighed, pulling his knees to his chest, “I feel so stupid…”
“Why?” she put her hand over one of his.
He looked up almost shyly, “On the first day I told a newbie that I’d been training that we’d already be on area ten by now.”
She scooted over to sit shoulder to shoulder with him, “Why would you say something like that?”
His slight blush darkened, “I’m a Beta Tester, and the tenth area was how high we’d climbed in the two month long Beta Test.” He turned to look her in the eye, “Why are you in here?”
“Because I want to be myself.”
He blinked in confusion, waiting for her to continue. “Be yourself?”
It was her turn to look away with a red face, “I spent the first week crying my eyes out in an inn in the [Town of Beginnings]. In the end I decided that if I was going to die in this world that I would die as myself. That I wouldn’t let this game beat me.” She pulled her knees to her chest, mimicking his posture, “So, I bought a bunch of Iron Rapiers and came here.”
He bit his lip as he thought about what to say to that, “Have you, have you ever played any games before this one?”
Her face darkened, “I don’t,” she paused, “Usually play games, I’ve played the games that are on smart phones, but I’m using my brother’s system and copy of the game.”
“Have you distributed your Skill Points?”
“Skill Points? What are those?” she looked adorably confused.
He stared. No way, he was dealing with a total n00b? She had so much talent! He took a deep breath, “Open your Menu.”
She blinked at him uncomprehendingly.
He gave her a smile, “Beta Tester remember?” he poked her shoulder almost playfully, “Don’t worry; I’m going to help you.”
Silently, she raised her hand, pointer and index fingers extended and brought them down to bring up her menu.
“Ok, make it visible to me too, you should be able to do that by going into the [Options] menu and selecting, [System].”
She nodded, navigating her menu.
“Once there, you should see a [Share Status] option, you need to check that.”
She found it at the very bottom of the list and a second later he leaned closer, to get a better look.
He leaned his head back and groaned.
“Is there a problem?” she growled.
Her Skill Points, she hadn’t allocated any of them at all. On the bright side she was at a higher level than he’d thought: 11.
“You have 33 Attribute points and 22 Skill Points,” he pointed to her menu, “See the + next to all your attributes?”
She nodded uncertainly, “What about them?”
“Clicking on each of them will raise that attribute by however many times you press the + next to each,” he looked her up and down, “You have an Agility build, so, you should put 2 points into AGI for every point you put into STR.”
She blushed, “Ok.” She grumbled as she started playing around with her stats.
He stopped her, “Every other level you should put one point into DEF, because no one wants to be a Glass Cannon.”
She looked up at him, “Glass Cannon?”
Thunder smiled, “It means that you can dish out damage, but you can’t take any hits yourself or you can die.”
She nodded hesitantly, paling at the thought of actually dying before dumping a bunch of points in her defense stat before pulling her hand away. “How’s this?”
Her stats, which had once been all 15, were now much better. Her STR was nearing 30 as was her DEF and her AGI was just passed it at 31.
Thunder nodded in satisfaction. “That’s much better, just remember, every other level from now on you need to put one point in STR, DEF and AGI instead of two in AGI and one in STR.”
She leaned against his shoulder, nodding. “What about the other points?”
“As you work on your skills you will get better at them,” Thunder replied, eyeing her Skills. Rapier and Parry. “Putting points into your skills allows you to master them faster. For now, I’d suggest not allocating any of them.”
“Why?”
“The points allow you to master skills faster yes?” Thunder looked down at her.
She bit her lip, “Yes.” She understood that at least.
“I suggest you use them on skills that are not immediately useful, such as Cooking or Tailoring.” Thunder shrugged, “Not that it matters yet, since you only have two slots available.”
She closed her menu. “Now what?”
Thunder looked up at the ceiling, “Well, tomorrow there’s going to be a meeting, not sure about what it will be though.” He stood, “You’ve spent all your time in here?”
“What of it?” she muttered, taking his offered hand.
“Have you eaten or slept at all?”
She shook her head, “Why would I need to?”
He sighed, “We need sleep, even in a game like this.” He turned to face her, “Had you collapsed like that and I wasn’t there you’d have died.”
Her shoulders slumped her eyes down turned. He was right, and she knew it.
Comments (0)
See all