20

Apparently, the only thing it took to kill the mood for camping night was to get Superboy to say he wanted to kill Superman.

Well, alright, 'Defeat'.

Semantics.

After that the kids had all turned in to bed. Leslie was still up, watching the dwindling coals.

These... These were kids. Maybe not in the traditional sense, not when you factored in the clones or M'gann, but still kids.

And they were ready, eager even, to throw their lives on the line and try to fight the good fight.

How do you tell kids like that the fight was already over? The hero's had already lost. They just didn't know it yet.

That the Illuminati he'd joked about just a few days back knew who they all were. Knew the identities of their mentors. Were replacing people with clones and aliens, or just making up new people wholesale and placing them where they needed to be.

That if they wanted to do anything more than struggle along as puppets on a string, they had to flip the table and play a different game?

Except they couldn't afford to be -too good- or Vandal Savage or Ra'as Al Ghuul would take off the kid gloves and kill them without so much as a second thought.

Idly scrolling through the Game Shop he wasn't finding any answers. He didn't have much to work with at the moment, just a bit under fifteen-thousand GP, but he could figure out options.

He had to.

Spells were out. Anything good was too expensive.

Artifacts of great and useful power were out, too. Same reason.

What about skill books? He needed power multipliers. Things that would expand what he could do, and make those things more powerful...

The limitations of human memory were a serious problem for him here. He'd played games where there were skill books to learn actual skills, but he couldn't remember most of them, the details were just... Old.

He remembered one of them was literally called a tome of some sort, and it had a passive ability to increase MP. It had been in a JRPG, but he'd played a lot of those.

A lot.

He just typed 'MP' into the search bar.

Once the list populated, he started looking down, down and further down.

Amp, camp, hemp...

He backed that up and typed 'MP Increase'.

The list was a lot shorter this time. By literally tens of thousands of entries.

He could purchase an enchantment that he could apply to his equipment?

Maybe later once he actually had the enchanting skill. If he ever got the enchanting skill.

Books, books, books...

Or maybe not? There was a passive skill he could purchase, two-thousand GP for a flat ten percent increase.

'Arcane Knowledge' seemed like a fair deal.

He clicked purchase and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

-ERROR!-

-Skill: Arcane Knowledge could not be purchased from the game shop!-

-Prerequisite: Gamer's Mind not met!-

-Your GP has been refunded.-

-An error ticket has been generated. Please contact your local administrator for further assistance.-

Well alright then! Back to the books it was.

Further down was a skillbook, literally called MP Boost and it was eight-thousand GP. It offered a flat bonus to MP.

Though it would level up over time, so potentially more useful.

He checked his inventory, making sure it actually showed up, before going back to the shop.

If he was going to do things properly, he needed to have tools or abilities the Light didn't know existed, things that were out of context. Amazonite and Nth metal were both things they'd encountered. Knew how to work around.

Ceratanium, Titanium-X, Lightanium... Were all interesting, but only insofar as they were especially strong compared to their weight.

Necrodermis... Eight-hundred GP for twenty-eight grams was a little steep, but he paid for it. Self-healing metal rated for interplanetary travel could have all kinds of uses.

Leslie froze for a moment, straining his ears to listen beyond the soft crackling of the dying flames.

It wouldn't do any good if any Emperor fanboys found out he was working with filthy xenotech.

Adamantite and Adamantine were both far too expensive. Darksteel, on the other hand, was reasonable. Barely. Two-thousand gp for twenty-eight grams.

But, and this is the important part, it's a magically reactive indestructable metal.

He was about to purchase a nugget of transparent aluminum when he felt a hand on his shoulder and nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Alchemist." Came Player One's voice. It was quiet, so impossibly quiet. "We need to talk."

"I was wondering when you were going to ask." Leslie felt the world -shift-. The fire, almost dead, was now long cold. The tents around them were torn and faded. "Zombie world, eh Gamer?"

"You know." Leslie would like to say it was said menacingly, but really Player One had no inflection in their voice. At all.

"I've known since day one, yes." Leslie stood and turned around, barely able to see Player One in the dead of night. The only reason he could see them at all was because they'd swapped back to the stark-white hockey mask.

"You said... You got your powers after you died. You got them from a goddess." Alchemist nodded. "I didn't. I didn't die. I didn't meet a goddess."

Now that was odd, Leslie hadn't figured they were a native gamer.

"I just woke up, and the screens were there. Welcoming me to the game. Explaining everything. After the worst week of my life... I thought I was having a psychotic break. I told my parents, and they took me to the hospital." A zombie shuffled into the clearing, but it only lasted a moment before its head exploded.

"So you used your newfound power to try and fix whatever your problem was, and it didn't work." Leslie wasn't exactly impressed so far. He'd heard this story a thousand times over in as many different books and games.

Still, Player One wanted an audience and he didn't feel it necessary to be rude, at least until they attacked him.

"No. I couldn't find my friend. Couldn't fix what I let happen. I thought... I thought the mob was involved, maybe. I found them. I fought them. I -hurt- them. They didn't know anything, but that was how Batman found me. With a bloody bat and surrounded by broken men." Well golly gee willickers, Player One, that's not horrifying at all!

"He told me I couldn't do that. He beat me. He beat me like I was nothing to him. When I couldn't fight back anymore, he asked me why. So I told him. I told him everything. I don't even remember when I started crying but... He gives good hugs." Also something Leslie never thought he'd hear.

"I had to stay out of trouble, keep my nose clean, he said. Then maybe he'd be able to find a group of kids like me, kids with powers trying to learn a purpose. So I kept busy for two weeks. I was in here, killing zombies and getting stronger until I hit the level cap (level cap?) and on Mondays I had therapy. If you want to know about that you can ask M'gann. She already told everyone else, now they all think I'm fragile, that I can't take criticism or being told I'm doing things wrong! I just thought us girls had to stick together..." Player One was a girl? Leslie legitimately couldn't tell. The zombie leather gear they had on didn't exactly expose... Anything.

"I'm not trying to be rude, but is there a point to all of this? Because if not, I could've just thrown another log on the fire and we could've had the same conversation over some cold lemonade." A trio of zombies showed up as Leslie spoke. A trio of zombies suffered sudden cranial explosions as Leslie spoke.

"You're legitimately an asshole, aren't you?" Player One's voice was finally picking up some inflection, so regardless of whatever else happened, Leslie considered this a win.

"Yes."

"Fine, yes there's a point. Prick. I have a quest, and it involves you." Alright, here it comes. "The system says you need to check your messages."

What?

"What?"

"Your messages, asshole. Check them."

Leslie did so. Only messages were the ones from way back when Terra was taunting him.

"Yeah, I got nothing in there. Did your quest update?"

"No."

"Okay. I think I know what's going on. Go to your messages and hit compose. You need to send a message to, and don't laugh, Super Ultra Powerful Best Goddess Terra-Tan."

"Please tell me you're kidding."

"Nope, dead serious. She's the admin here."

"Fine... Now what do I tell her?" A larger zombie carrying an axe tried to show up, but it didn't last very long before it took a Flare to the head.

"Tell her you can't complete your quest because she blocked the person you were told to pass a message to."

"She blocked you?"

"Yep."

"Dick picks?"

"Ew, no. I asked her how to mine for fish."

"...I don't even know what that means. Anyway, got a message back. She says she's unblocked you."

Leslie could already tell. He had two-hundred messages in his inbox.

'Stop ignoring me!'

'Real mature'

'You think you're cool?'

'Please stop ignoring me.'

'I'll give you stuff, please respond.'

Leslie didn't know what was weirder. How needy the goddess sounded? Or how creepy some of the pictures she sent looked.

Stats!

Name: (@**&@%$#%) Leslie Winters

Race: Human

Level: 21

GP: 3900

USD: $17000

Stats-

HP: 700

MP: 322

-STR: 15

-VIT: 35

-DEX: 6

-AGI: 15

-INT: 43

-WIS: 43

-LUK: 7

Abilities:

-Alchemy

--Transmutation (51)

--Conversion (1)

--Advanced Homonculus Creation (1)

-Divination

--Scrying (4)

-Magical Engineering

--Living Steel Manufacturing and Production (Max)

Spells:

--Final Fantasy series!

-Esuna (11)

-Life (16 -Max)

-Teleport (12)

-Cure (16 -Max)

-Blink (10)

-Protect (10)

-Toad (6)

-Flare (8)

-Osmose (16 -Max)

--Dark Souls series!

-Repair (10)

-Twisted Wall of Light (25)

-Hidden Weapon (1)

-Hidden Body (1)

-Cast Light (1)

Inventory:

-Weapons

--Nagrarok (Atk: 1, Evade +50%, On-hit: Toad)

-Skillbooks

-- Transmutation (read)

-- Scrying (read)

-- Advanced Homonculi by C.Grande (read)

-- De Le Metalica (read)

-- Synthesis: Fusion (Unread)

-- MP Boost (Unread)

-Consumables

--Nectar X63

--Magic Carrot X77

--Heal Berry X99

-Spellbooks

-- Esuna (read)

-- Protect (read)

-- Cure (read)

-- Teleport (read)

-- Blink (read)

-- Life (read)

-- Toad (read)

-- Flare (read)

-- Osmose (read)

-- Break (Unread)

-- Haste (Unread)

-- Berserk (Unread)

-- Shell (Unread)

-- Curse (Unread)

-- Holy (Unread)

-- Golden Scroll (read)

-- Necronomicon X3 (Unread)

-Familiars

-- ??? Dragon Egg

-Miscellaneous

-- Metal Sample "Necrodermis"

-- Metal Sample "Darksteel"

Perks:

-Bright Soul (MP regen +50%)

-Shining Soul (MP +50%)

--Combined effect! Magical attunement is now visible!

-Metamagic: Expand (Double spell area of effect OR double spell duration)

-Metamagic: Lock (Persistent spell effects are more difficult to dispel based on level)

-Metamagic: Pierce (Spells ignore magic resistance. Up to 50% at max level)

-Metamagic: Minimum Powah! (Spells retain potency when multicast. Up to 50% at max level)

-Magically Apprenticed (Spell values are increased by 10%. Spell costs are reduced by 10%)

-Magically A-Practiced (Spell Values are increased by 20%. Spell costs are reduced by 20%)