Soulforged Dungeoneer

I ended up giving free Skill Sage readings to people for a little while, but there was nothing particularly insightful that I gained out it, except the knowledge that most people both had lower skill ranks and lower growth ranks than my main skills, which (apart from not knowing how growth rank is calculated) is kind of what I would have imagined.

Skill Sage itself was rank [D] with only a few levels after all those readings, which told me I was definitely using it wrong. I would have to look it up later, but in the meantime, I used it on everything I could. My grandest hope was that I could use it to get more information on my memorized items, but apparently that was a different category of ability entirely, because no amount of poking or prodding gave me Skill-like information for them. The enhancements, in contrast, would pop up a skill window if they were a booster for a skill I had, or a blank window if they were a booster for a skill I didn't, but it didn't seem as powerful as I wanted it to be.

In the meantime, the group seemed to have organized some kind of intervention with Jenna, with Louise also hovering and looking concerned. The combination of someone interacting with me and them talking with Jenna was a fairly obvious attempt to make sure Jenna didn't explode and that she and I didn't get into any kind of argument that we'd regret.

For my part, although I was getting kind of upset, I wasn't pissed off by her the way I was with Brock, mostly because Brock seemed to be riding a high of self-satisfaction while Jenna was clearly at some kind of low. That didn't forgive her bullshit, but she hadn't done any harm, and I was actually a little pleased to have a chance to open up about some things. I know Louise had basically given me an open invitation to talk to her, but... I still got a strong impression that she just wasn't going to understand. If anything, a group of adventurers seemed more likely to get me than she would, even knowing that she was also... well.

Anyway, partly into her intervention or whatever, she did kind of blow up, but not at me.

"...at HIM!" was the first part of the conversation that registered with me, since I was listening to Mel talk briefly about the difference in using polearms compared to swords, a topic I figured I'd eventually need to know if I found one to absorb. Her willingness to discuss such a boring topic out of nowhere was also part of what clued me in to the fact that they were separating us, which, whatever, I guess.

"But you ARE mad," said Will, testily.

"Don't YOU fucking start, Will," she snapped back. "You were the one who fucking pushed me not to experiment, not to try one of the weirder character classes." Her voice took on a mocking tone, the kind that people did when they were not actually interested in doing an impression but the conversation required them to. "Oh no, Jenna," she mimicked, "if you do the wrong thing EVERYONE WILL DIE!"

"I didn't say that," he replied, defensive and more than a little hostile.

To my surprise, it was the assassin who spoke up at that, literally fading out of the shadows as he dropped a stealth skill that in all honestly he had no real reason to be in under the circumstances, except maybe to be an asshole. "You did lay it on kind of thick," was his contribution. "Especially after it was obviously pissing her off."

"I didn't--she was--"

Mel put a hand on my shoulder to draw my attention away, and shook her head. "We'll handle it," she said, drawing my attention away from the argument. "Jenna has been upset at her choice of classes since the beginning. She had a dream that becoming a Dungeoneer was going to mean being a superhero, able to do whatever she put her mind to. She's not talked about it much since you met us, but she complains a lot that her class just gives her push-button abilities and not the ability to... well..." she shrugged. "Be more like you were, I guess. She's trying to figure you out and failing."

I grunted, thinking back over it. The biggest explosion she'd had--when she punched me--was after I suggested that everyone else was relying on skill levels instead of figuring the system out. After that... I guess I could see her being frustrated whenever I revealed something, but to be fair, I was mostly just not thinking about things and talking my way through the problem a piece at a time?

"Well," I said slowly, my mental process making it impossible to follow Jenna's ongoing rant, but her rant making it a little difficult to think clearly, "I promise that I don't have a secret roadmap to power that I'm hiding from people. Telekinesis wasn't even a core skill to my class; I picked it up out of a skill book." I pursed my lips. "My class did make it easier, because a lot of items become skill boosters, but..."

"How exactly does your class work?" Mel dismissed the skill window she'd been looking at before Jenna erupted and summoned her halberd just to fidget with, apparently.

I gave a brief overview, and she frowned a couple times, but eventually shrugged. "Sounds like you don't have a lot of class features aside from the core ones. Why are you saving up class points?"

"Because the features are ridiculously expensive and I want to get them sooner rather than later." I shrugged. "Fifty for a tier one, one hundred for a tier two, five hundred for a three, two thousand for a four, ten thousand for a tier five."

"Cripes," breathed Mel. "What the shit kind of ability do you get at tier five?"

"I don't know," I replied. "But for reference, one ability I know I want that's at tier 4 lets me create real items out of my absorbed ones, which would let me effectively remix and resell things. Aside from the fact that that would have me set for life as far as income goes, it would be a really useful party ability, plus..." I paused, then shrugged. "No, that's really it. It wouldn't do much for me personally that my class doesn't already do."

"Except let you have defensive equipment on constantly," deadpanned Mel in return. "It doesn't sound like you can materialize things while you're sleeping, and everybody gets ambushed sometimes. Also, you said it costs mana to have them out? That's not a thing, usually."

I sighed through my teeth, then laughed. "Yeah, fair. Sorry. I probably thought of that at one point, but not in a while." I should have, after that fucking pep-talk from Vlad, but I guess I'd mostly been repressing any idea that I might actually ever have assassins after me.

She just shook her head. Over by the others, the conversation had calmed down. I'd missed most of it, but whatever. Jenna wasn't doing anything to become friends, and if there was anything my past prepared me for, it was to walk away from someone if I'd had enough, even in the middle of a Dungeon. If I was concerned about anything, it was Louise, and she seemed to be getting along with them well enough, if mostly by being demure.

Sooner or later, of course, we had to keep moving, and we entered the boss floor of the Cloudless Sky biome, me feeling mostly dissatisfied with the amount of grinding that I'd done on this run. This floor was close enough to the Tower that it was technically a part of the level, acting as one wall of the room. A strong wind now blew across the entire floor, and Mel told me briefly that there were a lot more dead ends to the pathways than there used to be. There was another Harpsichord Harpy mini-boss in the center of the room, and the main floor boss was also visible, at the center of a tornado that was right up against the wall of the tower. I declined any advice on getting through from Mel's party, but suggested that Louise go with them since I wasn't sure I could catch her if she fell the way I could catch myself. They would wait until I got to the entrance to the Boss Room to fight, so that I could watch it and get some information, and then I'd be free to try a solo dive of it if I so chose.

Louise gave me a very strange look, but went along with that plan. I guess she was suspicious that I was going to search for that secret quest I'd pretended to lie about, which of course I was, but far more than that, I wanted to grind, especially with the Telekinesis skill. Honestly, I was more enthused by Skill Sage reportedly having skill ranks above AA, meaning I was far from mastering the skill, than I was excited by the Administrator's suggestion that I had a 'True' skill that was unregulated by the Dungeon System. Because... yes, in a sense, that was an interesting proposition, but if I was nowhere near mastering the skill as it was, then why focus on something new until I was content with my own performance with the skill as it was? Most likely, the path to improving the True skill would run parallel to improving the Dungeoneer skill, at least for a while. Getting better had to mean figuring out how the skill really worked, and that would let me do it myself, right?

Still, for all that I was excited--and I was--there was still a reserve and a fear there that had nothing to do with wind, enemies, and invisible platforms. It was hard to put into words, but... it felt like I was giving something up to become better. In a very real way, the more I deep dove into that skill, the more I dedicated myself to figuring it out, the less time I was spending on being a normal person. And... if I was honest, the time I spent with this group made it clear just how far from a normal person I'd become. I couldn't put my thoughts in order, didn't understand their reactions very well, and when I needed or wanted help, I suffered through things alone instead of asking for it.

I was honestly surprised when, before we split up, Jenna came forward, her face still screwed up like she disliked my presence. It was obvious from literally everyone watching her that she had been pushed into this, but ...whatever?

"...Sorry," she said, after a long awkward silence. "I wasn't mad at you. I've wanted to screw around with the dungeon system for a long time but everyone keeps telling me not to, and..." she ground her teeth, hard enough that I could hear it, which couldn't be healthy, "...and you kind of prove that they were wrong and I was right, but you're also... obviously doing it wrong, and that pisses me off. So I'm sorry, I was a jerk and you didn't deserve that."

It felt... honestly kind of weird. "Apology accepted," I said easily, offering a polite smile that I didn't feel, but not because I was mad. When was the last time anyone bothered to apologize to me, sincerely? High school? My boss and coworkers never did. Sure as hell my family didn't.

She nodded back to me, and after another awkward moment, she reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, in what I gathered was supposed to be friendly-but-not-too-friendly. "Don't die," she said. "And, um, if you're willing later, I have a whole lot of questions."

I looked at her, my thoughts still mostly stuck on that point about my family never apologized, and I kind of nodded numbly. "Yeah, that's fine." In the grand scheme of things, talking shop didn't matter all that much, especially if I didn't have to hide my... past.

With little more fanfare than that, they set off, and I had to meditate for a little bit to get back into a headspace where I could really work deeply with Telekinesis, setting aside any attempts to process Jenna, my family, or the other things we'd discussed recently. It's not that it was difficult to get my focus back... but it did take effort.

Still, I felt better for having had people to talk to for once, and for the catharsis of the Administrator telling me I wasn't crazy. Or, well, not completely crazy.