Random Portals

Steven had over thirty zombies out at this point. There were only five skeletons left now, and some zombies were starting to wonder around. The huge dog pile of zombies was an odd sight to behold.

He snuck up to one of the zombies not in the dog pile and stabbed it with both his daggers in the back of the neck, killing it instantly.

Defeated level 4 zombie.

Essence gained 21.

He assumed the zombie had taken damage from the skeletons to die immediately but quickly dismissed the thought. Steven thought the noise of fighting would bring other skeletons. But that didn’t seem to be the case. Now that he thought about it, skeletons didn’t have ears.

Sneaking up behind another zombie, he stabbed it in the back as well. However, this one didn’t die. Kicking it towards the dog pile for the poison to finish it, he backed away. The dog pile of zombies should keep the remaining skellies busy for now.

He couldn’t be sure what this world was going to throw at him, and it was best to stay informed. Once he felt hidden, he opened the notification.

Congratulations! Through hard work and grit you have obtained the talent Stealth. Continue to sharpen this talent and it may just grow in power.

Lesser Stealth-

10% less likely to be noticed while in stealth.

10% noise reduction while in stealth.

13% more damage when attacking in stealth.

“Oh!” Steven said before he quickly closed his mouth and looked around. This new skill or talent, as it was called, changed everything. He wasn’t even aware he could gain skills like this, and as it was lesser, meaning it should be upgradable.

It seemed he was going to have a stealth build, which he was perfectly fine with him. His next thought was, if he could learn a magic talent? Was there a limit to talents like there was with shards? He had so many questions. Shaking his head, he focused on the problem at hand.

He needed to deal with the zombies and skeletons. He could take the skeletons and drop them…

Defeated level 7 zombie.

Essence gained 29.

Steven nearly jumped when the notification appeared in his vision. It took him a moment to realize that the zombie he stabbed had died from poison. With the excitement of his new talent, he had completely forgotten about it. He wished he could turn off notifications, especially the ones telling him of the essence he gained. It was easy enough to simply check the stat page.

No sooner than he had that thought a new page appeared. It looked to be some sort of settings page. It was surreal looking at something like this in real life. Minimizing the screen, he checked his surrounding, seeing nothing around, he reopened it, after only a bit of searching he found the part about essence. After experimenting with it, he found a setting he liked. It even showed him a little preview of each version he could choose from. He chose the one he was most familiar with from gaming and took the least amount of vision away.

In the bottom right corner of his vision, there was a barely visible number. When he focused on the number, it turned white and became visible, though still translucent. The number was his current essence. There was also a version that told him how much essence he needed for each level, but he didn’t want to clutter up his vision. He could always just open his stat page for that. The best part about this version was that when he gained essence, a translucent number of how much essence he gained would slowly become visible at the edge of his vision before adding it to his total and vanishing. He had tried to just turn it off completely, but the system just wouldn’t allow it. He could also go and manually look at what he killed if he wanted the name and level.

It was a tremendous improvement versus something just popping up in his vision. Especially since he was using poison, things would sometimes die while he was doing something else startling him. Heading back out while in stealth, he noticed a translucent eye that hadn’t been there before. He knew exactly what that was, and a half smile crossed his lips. This would definitely help.

The eye was completely shut at the moment. Just seeing the eye shut made Steven much more comfortable. He was no longer worried someone was looking at him. However, he quickly realized he had to be crouched for the eye to appear, reminding him of hours and hours of certain game, though now that he thought about it, he probably spent more time crafting daggers than sneaking.

Steven methodically snuck around and pulled in zombies and skeletons alike into his inventory, doing his best to keep the eye from opening. It got close one time, but it never fully opened and he felt accomplished. He wondered if doing this would help level up the talent. Maybe if he attacked while in stealth.

He suddenly realized there were no zombies or skeletons left in his immediate area. He had been so caught up in what he was doing he had zoned out. Steven was behind a boulder and the eye was closed so he pulled up his inventory page he was happy to find that eye was visible through the page.

“Well, this will make life easier.”

Mentally scrolling down, he noticed he had twelve skeletons and thirty-eight zombies, although many of the zombies were of varying health. It also seemed as though the zombies managed to kill some of the skeletons as he only ended up with twelve.

Deciding to go drop the skeletons into the spike pit, he started back to the hidden path, but paused. There were several weapons laying on the ground. Bows a few axes, swords and a… Halberd. Steven didn’t remember any of the skeletons carrying a halberd. He would have surely noticed that. Was this some sort of loot drop? Steven had no idea, but whatever the case, he grabbed every weapon he could find. He ended up gathering sixteen decent looking arrows as well. There were several more, but they looked broken, so he just left them on the ground before pulling up the stats on the halberd.

Halberd

Rarity- Uncommon

~ Effect]- None

~Cost]- None

~ Requirement]- 18 Strength 14 Dexterity

Yep, he would not be using that halberd anytime soon. Pulling up the rest of the descriptions, he looked them over for something to use other than the daggers. Sneaking up behind some with a halberd would do a lot of damage, or did the daggers get bonus damage, he didn’t see that in the description anywhere. But his description was a part of his inventory ability and could be greatly lacking for all he knew. Surely there was more powerful version that only did descriptions.

Short sword

Rarity- Common

~ Effect]- None

~Cost]- None

~ Requirement]- 9 Strength 7 Dexterity

Basic axe

Rarity- Common

~ Effect]- None

~Cost]- None

~ Requirement]- 10 Strength 5 Dexterity

Short bow

Rarity- Uncommon

~ Effect]- Power shot x2 damage

~Cost]- 30 stanimia

~ Requirement]- 4 Strength 11 Dexterity

After reading over all the requirements, he groaned. He needed six more levels before he could even use the bow, much less anything else. He liked the halberd, but it looked like he was going to be stuck with the daggers for now.

Glancing over the daggers description, he noticed they now had a durability, seventy-one of eighty. He tried to look at the daggers individually, but it didn’t seem to allow that. Did that mean if he just used one, both would still break? “This world is weird.”

Standing over the spike trap, Steven begin dropping skeletons one after another into the pit bellow.

+58

+54

+51

He quit paying attention to the essence as he dropped them to their deaths. It all added to the total, after all. He kinda felt bad for them, but they did try to kill him.

Once he reached the ninth skeleton, he didn’t receive any essence. He looked down to see a skeleton trying to crawl. Just as he suspected between the massive axes and the zombies, it was becoming too full to kill on impact. Steven was fixing to open his stat page to see how much essence he now had, but remembered all he had to do was focus on the white translucent number at the bottom of his vision.

863

He wasn’t sure how much he needed to level so he opened his stat page to take a look.

{Stats*} {Equipment} {Shards} {Inventory}

Level -5

Available Attribute ~0

Essence- 863

Essence required for next level 867.

HP ~ 72

Stamina ~ 40

Mana ~ 173

Poise ~ 0

Vitality ~ 7

Endurance ~ 4

Strength ~ 4

Dexterity ~ 5

Resistance ~ 7

Spirit ~ 13

Talents-

Lesser Stealth -

10% less likely to be noticed while in stealth.

10% noise reduction while in stealth.

13% more damage when attacking in stealth.

“Oh, come on!” Steven complained.

Walking back over to the pit, he saw the top half of a skeleton trying to crawl around with one arm. Its bottom half and other arm were completely missing. Pulling out a zombie, he tried to drop it on the skeleton but missed. The zombie’s legs and most likely spine broke, but it slowly opened its mouth and began chattering. Irritated, he dropped two more zombies in quick procession.

+24

Steven had been aiming at the skeleton, but hit the zombie. He had wasted three zombies and a skeleton just to gain twenty-four essence. He was going to have to figure something else out. As for now, he would level up, although this time he would save his attribute point. If he found a weapon he liked, he could use his free attributes to meet the requirements.

Looking around, Steven decided this was as good a place as any to eat and take a much needed rest. He wondered if it was day or night outside, though he supposed it really didn’t matter while in here.

Holding the water stone above his head, he drank a few gulps of water as it splashed all over his leather armor. He didn’t mind, if anything, the cool water felt nice. Steven then reluctantly pulled out his water pipe. He didn’t have much left. Steven took two long hits and sat back up against the dungeon wall. And pondered his next move.

Steven’s eyes shot open. Had he really fallen asleep? His dark vision only had a bit over thirty mins remaining so he had definitely fell asleep. He wasn’t sure for how long because he hadn’t been paying attention to the timer on the dark vision, which was his only source of time. Though it’s not like he had anywhere to be exactly.

Before he had fallen asleep, he was trying to decide if he should go back to the first level and look for Sirus and the others or continue on the second floor. The size of the first floor was the only reason he was even questioning it. Well, that and he didn’t know if it was a good idea to tell Sirus about his inventory ability. Steven wanted to pull out the water pipe, but he also wanted to save what he had. He wasn’t addicted, he just enjoyed it and became a bit irritable if he couldn’t get it.

Not addicted, he could easily quit. He just didn’t want to! Steven stood up and headed to the first floor with determination. He needed help, and more dark vision potions and food.

Before Steven realized it, he was back on the first floor, next to the tunnel.

“Damn… This place is massive.” Steven decided to venture out on the side he hadn’t explored yet. He considered going back to the entrance and checking out the other tunnels, but he really didn’t want to deal with traps. Not that he knew if there would be any traps, it was just those stone tiles gave him a bad feeling. He was hoping to get basic trap detection or something so he could spot them easier, but maybe he would get that later.

As he crept behind rock after rock, he wondered what to tell Sirus. Should he just tell him the truth?

“Hey Sirus, I got this ability from an apple core an Angel of Chaos gave me for completing his dad’s quest.”

Yea, he would have to work on how to explain it. It wasn’t long before he started seeing zombies again. He was happy to deal with the weaponless and dumb creatures. The skeletons were dumb, but they had a much wider aggro range and they also had weapons!

Steven went through a wave of sixteen zombies without ever breaking stealth. He was hoping to level it up while clearing the floor of zombies. It was lucky the first floor was so vast. If he was trapped in a small room with these zombies, that would be the end of him, even with his inventory ability.

Steven groaned. He hoped he found Sirus soon. He had already drank the rest of his dark vision potion. Leaving him with just a single bottle. And he was nearly out of weed, or whatever this world called it, though he didn’t think Sirus would get that for him.

Steven swept through the zombies like a ghost, sending them to inventory before the zombies realized what had happened. He was getting good at this stealth thing. The eye almost felt like cheating. He spent hours just sneaking around, sending every single zombie he could find to inventory. He didn’t break stealth even once he was starting to think the zombies were just too easy to sneak around and wouldn’t help him level. Steven had spent a ridiculous amount of time letting the eye almost open before hiding and closing it.

He now wished he hadn’t wasted so much time on his dark vision, but what was done was done. His legs were beyond cramping at this point. Having to stay crouched to be in stealth was annoying.

Steven was crouched next to a large rock surrounded by zombies. He wanted to stand up and stretch his legs but remained in stealth. He was just fixing to head back to an area he had already cleared when he suddenly received a notification. Seeing his eye was closed, he opened it.

Congratulations! Through hard work and grit you have reached the basic rank in Stealth. Continue to sharpen this talent and it may just grow in power.

Basic Stealth -

15% less likely to be noticed while in stealth.

15% noise reduction while in stealth.

20% more damage when attacking in stealth.

“Finally!” Steven shouted, causing the translucent eye to open and break his stealth while surrounded by zombies.

Steven froze, trying to will the eye to close, but it was no use. Zombies were already heading towards him.

“Ugh! I’ve really gotta stop talking to myself!”

Steven forced his legs to run. They felt like jello but luckily they obeyed. He dashed through the zombies, sending several to inventory in his getaway. Soon he was out of their aggro range, which was a lot further now that they spotted him. He did a few light stretches, hoping it would help with the mild cramping.

The zombies were so dumb and slow; he didn’t understand how anyone could get killed by these guys. Although he very well could become trapped if he couldn’t instantaneously send zombies to inventory with a simple touch. He opened up the notification and admired his new and improved talent.

Twenty percent was an incredible amount of bonus damage. He wondered how powerful the talent could get. He supposed he would find out with time. No doubt it would be incredibly difficult to level it up again. He also had a feeling that sneaking around and sending the zombies to inventory somehow gave him extra experience, though he couldn’t be sure. His legs were cramping hard, and he decided he should stay out of stealth for the moment. Steven decided to leave that group of zombies alone for now and keep on moving. He would get them on the way back when they weren’t so aggressive.

While he was looking for Sirus, he was also searching for a place to offload some zombies and gain some essence. Though he doubted he would come across any good pit traps out in the open cavern. By the time he was done with this floor, he would have a ton of zombies in inventory. He no longer worried about running out of inventory room as far as he could tell it was completely infinite, which was hard to wrap his mind around.

After taking a wide berth around a couple more groups of zombies, Steven stopped and got a drink of water. Suddenly he got the sense he was being watched again, and he whirled around, but there was nothing. His mind raced. Was he going crazy? Or was someone watching him?

He looked down at the bottom of his vision, half expecting a view counter as if he was getting views in some sort of game. Was any of this crazy mess real? Before Steven could really fall down that rabbit hole, a voice echoed out from behind him.

“Hello.”