I knew that she lacked experience, but once I started digging into what she knew I realized this may as well have been her first day here on another world. She’d somehow managed to stay completely outside of the adventuring world of Players like me, apart from occasionally taking their dinner orders and bringing them food, and knew nothing about it.
She was a bit prickly about the subject, and I’m not one to probe into others people’s business but I got the distinct feeling that she’d been purposefully avoiding the game aspects of life here, if not out of spite, then at least because she was disappointed in her starting abilities. With one unexpected visit I’d changed all that, and now she was eager to catch up. Crash course on Crucible it was, then.
I decided to trust her and told her everything. And I do mean everything, including the things I hadn’t even told Sigrid. Well, everything except about Ruka; my succubus pal remained my one secret. I told Lianna about the God Game at the convention, and about Stratos, and about how it was my fault everyone was there. She heard the whole story of my unique first quest and why I wasn’t on Team Maple Leaf. I explained System to the best of my ability, and what Statuses were all about with their divisions into gifts, powers, and skills. Then we went over the affinity circle and how those worked.
To her credit, she absorbed everything without interruptions, except for the occasional perceptive question. She didn’t even seem upset when I told her about my culpability in her being dragged into the game. All she did was ask why she’d been chosen, and if anything seemed happy with my answer. She took it all in stride.
Then I showed her my Status.
“This isn’t normal, is it?” she said, doom-scrolling through it.
“No.”
“How many abilities is normal?”
I explained it to her, using her own Status as an example.
Then I explained why my Status looked the way it did.
“Things are starting to make more sense now,” she said when we were done with that.
“What things?”
She gave me a droll look. “You, mostly.”
Next, we went over the teleportation network and how as a member of Team Player she could use it to go anywhere. She’d never used one before, so I showed her how and had her take us to the Light Dungeon. I introduced her to Alice and the gang, telling them that they should take anything Lianna said as if it had come from me.
After that, we did the same at the Nature Dungeon, meeting Petal and the Magikist, and set her up with a tree house next to mine. I stopped short of taking her to the Void Dungeon, though. Even if she could have withstood the Withers, which she couldn’t, she’d already been through enough lately. Inflicting the Void upon her at this point would just be cruel.
The last thing I planned to show her was the arena. One of her responsibilities was going to be helping with the bookie arrangement, and to facilitate that I gave her another item I’d made for her and her only, one that I didn’t want the others to know about because along with various sight-related powers it also gave her an ability she probably shouldn't have.
Team Player Vice-Captain’s Glasses
Seeing is believing. Restriction: Use locked to first wearer
Powers:
Far Sighted - Microscopic vision; Affinity with Life required
Feel It Hot, Hot, Hot - Thermal vision; Affinity with Life required
I See All - True sight; Affinity with Life required
Near Sighted - Telescopic vision; Affinity with Life required
You Can’t Hide From Me - See any Status; Affinity with Life required
“That last power,” she said, “Is that...?”
“The ability that only team builders got, the one to see Statuses? Yes.”
She put the glasses on, then started looking around. “Holy moly. Does everything have a Status?”
“Most things. It goes without saying you should be careful with that one and keep the fact that you have it under wraps.”
“And yet you said it anyway. When I put them on I got a message that the glasses are now locked to me."
"Yeah. It's a pretty convenient loophole, actually. The more powers I try to put on an item and the more powerful they are, the harder it is. Sometimes, the only way to do it is to place restrictions on them. Putting the restriction that only one person could ever use them was necessary to put that evaluating ability on it, but it works out fine because we don't want anyone but you to be able to use them."
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
"Nice."
I had one more present for her: a little pouch that fit nicely onto a belt that let her Life affinity live up to its healing potential, at least until I could figure out how to get her the real powers.
Medkit
Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a...oh yeah. So where does it hurt?
Powers:
A Spoonful of Sugar - Cure wounds and ailments; Affinity with Life required
Everyone Gets A Heal - Cure wounds and ailments within an area; Affinity with Life required
Medicine Bag - Extra-dimensional storage
In addition to individual and group healing powers, it acted as a pouch of holding containing a tiny pocket dimension meant for storing healing and mana potions, but you could put anything in it as long as it fit through the opening.
Either Lianna was a very cool customer or she was totally overwhelmed by all the things that had been dumped on her in the past few days because she accepted it all stoically. Then I introduced her to the sisters.
“Is this your girlfriend?” was the first thing Akari said, looking her over. “Well done, Daniel.”
“Be nice,” Annabelle said.
“How is that not being nice?” Akari retorted playfully.
I introduced them all properly.
“Ha!” Akari said. “I knew she couldn’t be your girlfriend.”
“Mind if we use the arena for a bit, Annabelle? I’d like to teach Lianna how to use a crossbow.”
“You don’t need to ask, Daniel,” Annabelle said.
I pulled out a crossbow for Lianna.
“Got another for me? I’ll help,” Akari said.
I gave her one too and Annabelle created some targets for us to practice on. As I taught Lianna about crossbow basics, Akari “helped” by cartwheeling around the arena while shooting and reloading her crossbow at the same time, hitting every target with a bullseye.
“How are you doing that, Akari?” I said. “You don’t even have the crossbow skill.”
She stopped tumbling. “I don’t? Whoops.” She shot her crossbow one more time, missing the target by a mile and fumbling comically with the weapon before dropping it. “Clumsy me. How do you work these things again?”
I rolled my eyes. I contemplated telling her I knew they weren’t normal NPCs but decided not to, not until I had a better idea of what they really were first.
“Just ignore her,” I said to Lianna.
Sure enough, I was right about Lianna’s capacity to learn quickly and in no time she had picked up the Crossbow skill. There was still a bit of time before we were due to meet up with Sigrid and Jane for dinner, so I spent it teaching Lianna Affinity Control. As expected, she learned it easily too.
“I don’t believe it,” Lianna said when we’d finished and said goodbye to the sisters. “I’ve learned more in one day with you than I did my entire time in this stupid place.”
“If there’s anything you want to learn, any skills or whatever, let me know and I’ll teach you. Same goes for powers, if there's any you want I can try enchanting it onto an item. Doesn't have to be jewelery either.”
“You said before you could teach me anything. I didn’t think you meant it literally, but now? My friends couldn’t believe it when I told them you’d recruited me for Team Player. Even when they kept going on about all the things you’ve done I still thought it was an exaggeration or a big mistake. But you really are the real deal.”
“Just a reasonable facsimile thereof. You know, the guild house is going to need lots of staff. Your friends..."
"I'd already know what jobs to give them," she said.
"Make sure they also take advantage of the training opportunities. Just because they didn't start off with the best abilities or get onto a team, that doesn't mean they can't grow stronger and play the game."
She nodded. "That is the whole point of this venture, right?"
Just then, my Dick Tracy Communicator vibrated with an incoming call. The diamond was glowing slightly indicating it was Jane. I let it go for a few seconds before answering.
“Are you two done yet? I’m hangry,” Jane said.
“We’re just wrapping up,” I said.
“Great. Let’s eat out.”
“Where do you want to go?”
The little holographic image of Jane rolled its eyes. “Do you really have to ask?”
We’d almost made it to Sadie’s — where else would Jane pick — when I remembered one more thing I wanted to ask Lianna.
“Who’s your favorite superhero?”
“My what?” she said.
“You heard me. Favorite superhero.”
Her eyes looked up as she thought about her answer. “I guess I always thought Black Widow was pretty cool. I liked how she didn’t actually have any powers but could keep up with the big dicks.”
“Excellent choice,” I said.
After dinner, I went with them back to the dojo. There was a bonfire that night to properly welcome all the newcomers to our teams. Amy the gothic lolita had the music skill and showed off her amazing singing voice. Byron demonstrated his newly improved forge by replicating Jane’s guitar so Amy could have one too, and everyone took turns demonstrating their new items. By the time Morgan used her forge’s new replicate function to churn out a platter of Jell-O shooters, the party was in full swing.
We all knew that the big quest could start at any moment so most people were hesitant to let loose at first, but when Morgan pulled out a potion she guaranteed would eliminate any hangovers everyone relaxed and Morgan found herself quite busy. I pulled out my own Alchemy forge and she and I had a lot of fun trying to see who could come up with the best new cocktail. She won, of course. I may have known Alchemy too and had the same mixology and chemistry skills she had, but it was no substitute for actual experience.
After I conceded to her, I claimed exhaustion and made it an early night. I escaped to my room and immediately ducked inside my Fortress of Solitude again. I had some things I needed to do in there. Again.
The next morning (real time) I came out for an early morning kung fu lesson only to find Sigrid waiting in my room at the dojo.
“Hey there. What’re you doing here?” I said.
“Waiting for you,” she said curtly.
“How long have you—”
“All night.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I knew what you were up to, leaving the party early, and I wanted to see if I needed to arrange an intervention or something. You have to stop doing this, Daniel.”
“Doing what?”
She raised her fist and brought it down hard on the bedside table, reducing it to splinters. “Be serious!”
Uh oh. I’d never seen her this angry.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But—”
“Yeah yeah,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “There were some things you just had to make and it couldn’t possibly wait. I’ve heard it before, Daniel.”
“I’m sorry.”
“This is your mental health we’re talking about. And...” She lost steam at the end of the sentence, letting it peter out without finishing the thought.
“And my mental health is precarious enough as it is?”
She met my eye with a look of defiance. “You need to stop taking risks.”
We looked at each other for a long while. My immediate impulse was to tell her off but I knew that was just ego talking, what little of it I had. The thing was, she was right.
I reached out and put my arms around her. She tensed up, probably expecting me to tell her off, but as I held her she relaxed and her arms found their way around me too.
“Thanks for caring about me, Sigrid,” I said.
“Dummy,” she said.
We stood there for at least half a minute, saying nothing, at least not out loud.
She let go first, pushing me away. “Okay, enough mush.”
“I’m going to sneak in a training sesh with Sifu,” I said.
Sigrid’s smile was strange. “Oh yeah? In that case, I’ll go get changed and join you. I want to see that.”
“See what?” I said.
“You’ll see.”
Up next: Lianna dresses up