Max stared at the parachute in disbelief. How was he supposed to use this without jumping off a cliff? There weren’t even any cliffs around here to jump off of. None of the trees around here were big enough to jump off of, even if he was willing to risk his life to a random magic parachute.

  Eventually he swore and dropped the parachute on the ground. “I give up. I’m just going to have to carry my backpack for today.”

  Bisrat nodded. “Might be a good idea to carry it for the rest of your trip. A storage device is rare enough that certain people would be willing to kill for it. Even cursed items can change owners when the original is dead.”

  Max looked forward to the men Gus was happily chatting with. “Ok, yeah. I think you are right.”

  He dumped some of the extra tools to lighten his load. He left himself with a hammer and a circular saw. The hammer was the one he had charged up yesterday with Augment. He wondered how long the stronger spell would last. And what form it would take. He hadn’t tested out his Augment card on the hammers’ super strike yet.

  They had to hurry to catch up with the group. Despite only pausing for a short while, they had gotten far behind. They were keeping up a fast pace.

  Max would say it was a pace that only the fit could keep up, but with magic, who knew. He suspected that the higher leveled people were stronger and healthier, even though there weren’t stats for that. Speaking of which, Max activated his own Levitate stat and the walk through the forest became much easier. Roughly an hour later, he started cursing himself. He remembered another use for parachutes. He could have played with it like they did in elementary school. A big dome with everyone inside. Although, that would have required a few more participants, and Bisrat was right, it was better that no one else knew he had a storage belt.

  About two hours into the journey, the caravan was attacked. Three monsters walked out of the tree line. They were hairless and gray, with long floppy ears. Each of their four limbs ended in long claws. Max’s Insight called them Bat Fiends. They scrambled across the clearing towards the front of the line. Everyone stopped and pulled out a weapon. Five people from across the line sent out ranged magics. Glass shards, green hoops, red lightning, yellow cubes, and a fireball grapeshot all pelted the incoming monsters. One of them fell and didn’t get back up.

  The other two bat-fiends stumbled but kept coming. When they were about fifteen feet away, they both screeched. The sound attack hit like a punch, bowling over several people near the front. Some people fell to the ground, holding their ears and screaming.

  Their tall leader, Karl, and two others were entirely unaffected by the attack. One held off the monsters with an enormous shield, and the other two fighters stepped in with a mace and spear. Karl’s mace glowed a sickly green that transferred to the monsters with every strike. The bat-fiends were dead moments later.

  Small white orbs appeared over each of the corpses. There was a brief discussion of who earned the final kill and everyone collected their due. Max was slightly surprised that it went so smoothly. Then again, this exact situation must be common. He almost wished one of the monsters had come his way. White cores were money and he could always use money.

  Max belatedly remembered he had a crossbow tucked away in his pack. He took a moment to pull it out and loaded it up. He had two bolts for now, but he thought today would be a good day to change that. He didn’t have to worry about bottoming out on mana when there were so many other capable fighters around.

  Once he had enough mana, he created a thin drill. Just like last time, he cut off the backs of his old bolts for the fletchings. He had a glue gun card to attach the two. But he didn’t want to ask James for help anymore.

  “Hey, Bisrat, did you pick Specialize or Generalize?”

  “I specialize in Clover cards, remember?”

  “Oh yeah,” Max said. He turned and said, “Gus, hold up a second. I need a quick favor.”

  Gus stopped walking and let Max and Bisrat catch up. “What’s up?”

  “I need you to use this card real quick and create a glue gun.” Max said and handed it over.

  Gus absorbed the card and failed to create a glue gun.

  Max jogged over to a nearby tree and broke off a branch. He came back to Gus and said, “It’s like a 3D printer. You change one thing into another thing.”

  Gus grumbled and took the branch. A short while later, Gus handed over the Glue Gun card and its creation.

  “Thanks. I might ask you to do that every so often. I’m happy to keep making your hammers in exchange.”

  “Yeah, give me one I can use while I’m human and we’ll be square.” Gus paused. “At least for now, anyway.”

  “What else do you want?”

  “Excellent question. You might have to do a lot to keep me on your team. These four tell me that I’m hot shit with four cards slotted. Most people have one or two, if they have any at all. I might move to a new team, one that appreciates me more.”

  Max turned to him. “I do appreciate you, Gus. Why would you think otherwise? You’ve helped us stay alive day after day.”

  “Thanks for that, but there are other ways to show appreciation. Like how you gave me the best card this morning.”

  Max gave him a flat stare. “You want me to always give you the best loot, otherwise you are bailing? Is that what you are saying?”

  “No, no. I haven’t made up my mind yet about anything. I’m not going to jump ship with the first people that offer. I’m just saying, there are ways to ensure my loyalty.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Max grumped as he put together his new bolts.

  “That’s all I ask,” Gus said and spread his arms wide. He hurried up to join the four burly men.

  More monsters attacked as they walked. Max was able to pick up two more orbs with his new bolts. The rest of the monsters were taken down by others. Scaled Gnolls, Poison Bears, and Crawling Claws all fell to the combined might of twenty-four armed dungeon climbers.

  Wait, no. That wasn’t right. There were twenty-five people in the caravan. Where was Yang? Max scanned the line, not seeing her. He had to lean into Insight before he finally found a suspicious blob of magic. He hurried forward until he was close to her.

  “How high is your Paranoia, Yang?” Max asked the nearby bush.

  Yang’s camouflage dropped and a few people were startled. She scowled at him in mock anger and said, “I have several points in the stat. I won’t tell you how many. There are several curious ears in the group.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  Max was about to say she could whisper the number before he realized that would be a mistake. The Sight stat enhanced all senses, not just vision. There were likely a few people listening in from a distance, just like she said.

  “I’m trying to decide on my last stat choice. Presence or Paranoia. I know you said you didn’t feel like the stat affected you before, but do you think it might be pushing you to hide when you don’t need to?”

  “No. I have always been one to stick to the shadows. Avoiding attention comes naturally to me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She opened and closed her mouth. Then she said, “I am less sure now then before you asked. Bisrat has been here for a while, yes? We should ask her.”

  They slowed down to let her catch up. Bisrat had been talking to a short African woman, but they stopped talking when Max and Yang drew near.

  “Hello, Max and Yang. This is Amari. We met at the Blue Forest Dungeon, so we haven’t known each other long. Still, I have a feeling we will be friends one day,” Bisrat said with a smile.

  Amari nodded at them both. She had mismatched armor, but it seemed to be quality. Her demeanor was calm, but she had a hand on her waist where a curved sword hung. Her black hair was tied in a bun and she had a smattering of freckles across her cheeks.

  Max said, “Nice to meet you Amari. I would like to hear your opinion as well. We wanted to ask Bisrat about the Presence vs Paranoia choice.”

  She clicked. “Ah let me guess. You want to know if Presence changes you or the viewer?”

  “Uh, no. I wanted to ask if Paranoia changes your personality. But now I am more concerned about Presence.”

  “Don’t be concerned about either. They change your personality, but it’s not significant.”

  “Uh, changing your personality sounds significant to me,” Max said and nervously flicked his eyes back to Yang.

  Yang tilted her head. “Are you sure it changes you? Our Lunuk guide said that the Paranoia only helped her avoid attention, it didn’t actually make her paranoid.”

  Amari shook her head. “No, there is a mental effect. It is gentle, but it is there. I chose Paranoia years ago, and I have to remind myself to be present sometimes. Large parties are difficult. Smaller groups are easier. But it’s never been hard to push against the impulse to hide.”

  “I chose Presence to help with negotiations. It’s practically a requirement. I think I am more outgoing and happier at parties. But I have to remind myself to let others talk, and I am always targeted in monster ambushes,” Bisrat interjected.

  Max slowly blinked. “Negotiations. All of the shopkeepers I have met since I got here have had high Presence. That’s why I felt bad about driving a hard bargain.”

  “Probably,” Bisrat said. “Having a high Presence of your own helps counteract the advantage. Even without it, you can still get a good deal. It’s one of many factors.”

  Max glanced away. “Honestly, it makes me concerned about choosing either one. I don’t want to change who I am, even if it’s minor.”

  Yang scoffed. “Don’t be an idiot. You have been changing since you got here. Don’t you think all this fighting has made you a more resilient and violent person? Of course it has. Changing yourself is good, as long as it’s the direction you want to go in.”

  She stepped away from the group, fading into the background. Max sighed and looked away. He chose to let her disappear without comment. He liked teasing her, but not actually making her mad.

  A few moments later, she reappeared next to the group. She didn’t say anything, just kept walking with her eyes forward. Max had to fight to keep a smirk off his face. Yang was fighting against her Paranoia, maybe proving to herself that she could do it.

  Bisrat cleared her throat. “Anyway. The choice is all about attention. Do you want to draw attention to yourself or push it away? The effect is subtle on people and pronounced on monsters. Decide what you want and go for it.”

  Max said, “Thanks for the advice.”

  They fell into a companionable silence. The caravan had bunched up a little during the day, so they could defend from monster attacks easier. They heard the chatter around them and felt no need to add to it.

  Max pulled up his stat screen and read over his choices again.

  After that discussion, Max felt like he should make his final choice. He didn’t want to though. Either option didn’t seem like him. He didn’t want to be the center of attention or hide from everyone.

  He put off the choice for now. Instead, he focused on what would help him fight better. Yang was right, he was a bit more violent these days. He wanted to be a better monster hunter.

  Specialize was fine until he added his final card to his deck. Levitate was a good option, it helped with his mobility a lot, and had uses outside of fighting as well. Broaden was tempting. He hated running out of mana when he used Augment. But adding to it now wouldn’t help him fight and level up later.

  He liked the extra dexterity from Flow, but it hadn’t really helped him in the last dungeon run. Maybe he avoided an attack or two, but it wasn’t game changing. Insight could be very useful. Learning more about monsters would help him kill them.

  On the other hand, Bisrat was in his party for now. She had Insight covered. Until that changed, there was no point in investing in it himself.

  That made his decision easy. Of the six stats, only Levitate could help him right now. He pushed both points into the stat. Only afterwards did he realize he had broken through the six point barrier. Now that he was level twelve, he could raise any one stat above six. Nice.

  He immediately felt even lighter. Two points equated to several pounds of weight, and changed the stat somehow. Levitate felt different. Like he could do more with it.

  He turned Levitate on and off again. It felt the same, and took the same time to activate and deactivate. Still, he had a sense that he could do something new now.

  One change was that his backpack unbalanced him more now. His body didn’t have the mass to counteract the weight of his pack, so he had to lean forward more than was comfortable.

  The thought immediately had him trying something new. He deactivated Levitate and reactivated it. This time he tried to focus on making his backpack lighter, not himself.

  The stat fought against him. It was like he was trying to push water out of a bowl. It kept slipping through his mental hands and making his body lighter instead. The fact that he could push against the skill at all was encouraging. Before that wasn’t possible.

  After about fifteen minutes of effort, he did it. He felt the skill lock into his backpack and the pressure eased off his shoulders. He almost jumped for joy. His body was back to normal and his pack was fifty pounds lighter. Perfect.

  The caravan stopped about an hour before sunset. They had found a shallow cave that would be easy to defend in the night. The leader didn’t think they would find anything better in the next hour, so they set up camp there.

  He assigned a watch and everyone ate dinner. Max noticed that monster meat was a popular choice among the veterans in the group. He wondered which monsters tasted the best.

  Despite the long walk today, Max wasn’t tired yet. He felt like playing something. He had given a deck of cards to the Igra group that threw them off the mountains, which left him with one last deck of playing cards. He hadn’t even opened the pack yet.

  “Gus, Bisrat. You guys want to play something? Maybe we can invite some of your new friends to play too.” He held up the pack as he talked.

  Bisrat’s eyes went wide. “Is that a new pack? Never been played?”

  “Yeah. I haven’t gotten around to opening it. It’s actually kind of interesting. Each card has different survival facts printed-”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence before Bisrat snatched the pack out of his hands. She held the pack reverently and whispered, “New in the box.”

  She looked up at him, “Sorry. I don’t think you realize how special this is. Do you mind if I set up a card game? I promise you can play too.”

  “Uh, sure. Why are playing cards special? I’m sure humans bring them to Earth all the time.”

  “Yes, constantly. But after several rounds of playing, the cards start to pick up tiny imperfections. You might not notice them, but anyone that invested in Sight will be able to pick them up. We don’t let anyone that has the stat gamble with us.” She held up the pack. “Unless of course, it’s using a brand new deck. We are going to play poker with people with high Sight stats tonight. And since they never get to gamble, the stakes will be very high.” Her grin almost seemed predatory.