"You did call me the force multiplier, our team's damage." Wade said, feeling real smug. "Witness. Damage, multiplied."

He had his chest puffed out, arms folded as he watched Illy circle the fallen checkpoint golem. She was clearly eyeing its integrated weapon arm with greed. "I know what I said yank, now you gonna help me loot this machine gun or just stand there preening like an peacock?"

"Preening like a peacock please." Wade said, "Easy choice, no taksies backsies."

Illy rolled her eyes with a groan while Leon laughed his ass off to the side. "Walked right into that one, I did."

She picked a spot and got to work, applying leverage to one of her wedged daggers, but nothing moved. "Feck. Need something with more lever to it." She tried a few more times, climbing over the thing, pulling from different angles. "Bloody thing's rusted solid. What you numpty's looking at? Piss or get off the fecking pot! This arm isn't gonna tear itself off."

Wade shrugged, but his attempt to help proved equally futile. Selena gave him a few warning glares, but he tapped his arm, reminding her that his blackrot was gone as he'd told her earlier. He'd even taken off his entire shirt to prove it. She hadn't thought it was possible, but apparently traveling to an entire new world that had a working sun did a great job at expanding her horizons.

Wade turned to Illy, as the Scott continued to try and pry value out of the golem like a scavenger. "When are we going to tell her about the System and all that? She's got a hundred and two questions given how often her ears have been moving, but she's too professional to ask us."

"LEON, get yer arse over here you big oaf, help me pry this lobster open. As for you yank, reckon now's as good a time as any." Illy shrugged, starting to pry with her dagger again. "Was hoping I'd sort out how to learn elvish so I could tell her meself. But that's not in the cards."

The russian shrugged, then cracked his knuckles. "Stand back, smoll feeble people. Is time for muscle."

"You have one spare storefront coin if I remember right," Wade asked as he tapped around for any hollow point on the arm. All sounded very solid.

"Aye, what's it to yeh? I don't think I can trade those, no way to access them out here."

"Maybe you could buy a translation or some buff for Selena? Could be considered basic supplies to understand other languages?"

She stopped right in the middle of an attempt, "Feck! I should have thought of that. Got too used to relying on you. You think the storefront would allow that?"

She couldn't quite ask or talk to Nox right now, but Wade had a direct line to a goddess himself. And she could check the storefront for them. He took out his phone.

Nada, just like the blackrot antidote. Zero results.

He took a break from the looting, focusing on the phone while Leon and Illy both tried to pry the golem parts apart.

"How about equipment? Maybe a ring of translation?"

There was a pause as Play tested the request.

Pretty sure something like that exists, but it's def not starter gear.

Maybe a sneakier way to get a buff of some kind? "The system gave me mana potions. There such a thing as potion of translation or something? Temporary translation?"

Mana potions are the most basic thing out there lol, but the system does offer Minor health potions. Set of ten for one coin. Little steep

"How do healing potions work?"

They're just glorified mana potions but pre-converted with the holy affinity. Just pour over the wounded area. Very safe to use, so long as you don't drink it. And before you ask, it wouldn't work on your friends, not unless you cut right up to their injuries. Not great for head trauma lol

Illy did seem to perk up at the mention of healing when he read out that text, "They effective?"

On superficial cuts. It doesn't penetrate skin, that's why it's safe to use. Would be a pain to explain it, so ask your local paladin-in-training for the full lecture later. ╮(￣ω￣;)╭

"Fine. What about that translation potion? Any luck?"

"Probably not, but I'll ask." Wade shrugged.

There's no potion that can do that in the world, so ofc the storefront doesn't have it. (￣▽￣*)ゞ

Plus I think the system wants you to unlock potion crafting and do that yourself imo

Maybe a skill tome? Video games had those. "How about some kind of book?"

Oh, that one works. Full set of english to moonwing elvish for one coin.

"Fecking bet I'd need to spend a few months learning it like a proper language though." Illy said when he dutifully relayed the message. "Don't have time for that. Sorry Selena, not saying you ain't worth it, but I figure in a month from now we'll have found other options."

The elf wasn't certain what was being said, but her ears wiggled just slightly at the mention of her name.

"That can't possibly exist in the world somewhere." Wade muttered, thinking. If it really was english-english, with elvish as the translation, then that meant the System had to have written it up by itself somehow. He was rather curious on how the System would write that. Might give him clues on how it operates or thinks.

Maybe he could get it to write something less dense and more easy to understand?

"Right well, while Leon and I get the parts out of this junkpile, get knife-ears up to speed on everything if you could. And so help me god, if you tell me twenty quid right now, I will stab you."

"...So nineteen would be fine?"

"WADE, you bloody twat. No extortion allowed!" The knife paused in its actions, and waggled in his direction, threateningly.

"Me? Extort my companions?" Wade protested his innocence. "What kind of impression do you have of me?"

Illy stared him down. "... that a serious question right now?"

Well, well, well. If it isn't the consequences to his own actions. "I'm a changed man, I swear!"

Illy laughed, "Gobshite. We all know you're someone who'd charge his own reflection for the privilege of showing up in the mirror if he could, you shameless weasel."

"As it so happens, I met a weasel earlier, and trust me. I'm nowhere near that level of bloodthirsty." Wade smoothly lied.

"Devushka, no bullying the American." Leon calmly called out with a mild chuckle, as if soothing a kitten while he focused on scraping the rust off. "Money make him more comfortable. Easy to understand. No feeling of owing other, or of being owed. See it in people with overtaxed nervous systems. Brain always looking for ways to avoid stress, it take odd paths. Depression, anxiety, irrational feelings. I betting he the type that have trouble accepting gift of kindness back, da?"

"I…" Wade wanted to argue with that, but found himself unable to. He'd been joking around earlier, sure, but Leon's casual remark had hit a nerve out of nowhere. Like he could tell what the humor here was masking and exposed it all at once. Goddamn that Russian.

He had pride in himself, enough that accepting people's charity was… difficult. To the point he couldn't stand living rent free with Jason and Catherin while he and Ann were getting back on their feet. Both the Wade siblings had the same issue. They moved into their own apartment the moment they could afford it. Zin might have some hangerups with that pad, but to Wade, it was home. The idea of owing people made him deeply uncomfortable in a way he hadn't really thought about until Leon shined a light right on it.

The old metal under the Russian also had years of neglect, and the environment here had fused it into a parody of what it had probably started out like. And just like his own life, it needed an outside force to pry it open.

They all turned to Selena, who was still standing guard. Specifically looking at her spear, the one thing that could act like a great lever with a sharp end.

She didn't even need them to ask to know what they wanted. "We already caused damage to my spear in the earlier attempt, the shaft is on earth skywards." She hissed out, feathers puffing out in a defensive measure.

... What?

It's only when she fully turned to Wade that the other parts of her speech suddenly clarified in his head. Now that he could see her feather body language.

Earth and skywords munged together and turned to mean 'slightly bent' solely because of a few feather twitches by her upper temples.

No it made no sense why those completely separated concepts all munged together to mean that, but Wade realized english was also filled with weird quirks.

Like how 'that's shit.' means it's terrible, and 'that's the shit.' means it's expensive high-quality ramen, just by adding a single 'the' in the sentence.

As quick as the thought came, it vanished as Selena brought her spear closer to her chest, protective. "I would rather not continue to damage my equipment like so. Replacing or repairing it would be too exp-" She stopped. flattened her feathers, then stood taller. "It would be far too bothersome and beneath my station to mire a serviceable weapon such as this."

Wade turned to the others. "She says no."

"What clued you in on that one bampot? Was it the way she's tryin' to hide her fecking spear from us like a fat kid hiding her cookie? Or the part where she looks to be hissing at us? Leon, what's your thoughts?"

"The hissing." He said with his usual grin. "We make do with my hammer then. That could work as lever, maybe?"

"No way to jam it in. Wouldn't fit." Illy said.

"Okey, then I vote we crack it like crab then?"

"Wait! That might damage my loot." Illy hissed back.

"And you assholes were saying I'm the one who's loot obsessed. I vote for crab plan too."

Illy shot him a betrayed glare.

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"Either that or we leave it behind." Wade said, doubling down. "Maybe we hammer it a bit, get the rust loose and then keep trying to pry the arm off? The knockback effect could help out a lot. Come to think of it, shouldnt the plating be damaged already from currosion?"

That was what his boon did. But when he looked over the golem, it didn't seem to have any signs of it. Sure there was some light mist coming out that had looked like acid... but was it really? MMO's and games often had cool spell effects that did absolutely nothing other than look visually pleasing. The mechanics of the game deep down were simple numbers.

Could... could the System be doing something like that? He went on overdrive thinking, and then realized there was a way to find out. Selena. "Hey, do skeletons just collapse when they've taken enough damage?" He asked her.

She waggled her ears.

"Well, kinda." Wade said. "It was something that should have been from my boon. Spell. I don't even know how to explain it better."

She waggled her ears, accusingly.

"That's a really complicated topic and there's no way I could explain it with any justice. But you sure they don't fall apart like that?"

"They do not." She said with finality. "Only when all mana is consumed would they break apart like so. I had thought you used a spell of some kind that forced the mana out of the bones?"

"Uh, don't think it worked like that." And if it really had been corrosion, wouldn't the skeleton start slowing down halfway through as its body broke down and failed? Instead it moved just fine one second, and then collapsed the next second.

Less like real life, more like an actual video game.

"Ye look deep in thought about something, and not smashin' open the golem fer loot with us. What you mulling over there yank?"

"Starting to think the health bar is a mechanic by which you convince God if someone lives or dies. But not completely certain on that."

Maybe it was an amalgamation? A mix of both real life situation and a catch-all for the System's physics-breaking boons? The skeletons had just died earlier. And so had the golem. One moment functional, next moment, dead.

There was more to it. But Wade needed more data to figure it out. He had a feeling understanding just what the health bar really was, or how the System used it, would help him understand the game itself as a whole.

But mostly it was his min/maxing exploit side whispering there were shenanigans he could pull off with a slapped on system like that. It felt brute forced into reality, rather than something that's merged naturally.

But then again, Wade supposed forcing a world to operate under video game rules wasn't ever going to be a natural process.

The group coordinated their efforts, Wade and Illy bracing the limb while Leon brought the hammer down, and the metal finally split open after four repeated strikes. Not quite their goal, but it worked. It was unfortunately loud, although the rifle arm was finally dislodged and fully on the ground.

The thing was massive, something only Leon and Wade working together could lug around. That wouldn't stop them from doing that of course.

Wade peered inside the broken casing to start testing how to make it work, excitement fading as he examined the internal components. "It… uh, doesn't look like anything we can use." He said, running his fingers along the corroded wiring. "Nothing glowing on the inside, no trigger or anything. Lot of smaller parts."

He'd thought there'd be a mana crystal in there, which would give him a lot more options to work with. But he saw no sign of anything like that.

A lot of the inner parts looked like a blend of mithril and other metals. There weren't any gears or internal parts that looked anywhere remotely human-tech. Screws were about the only thing Wade could recognize.

"Feck." Illy said, then kicked the side of the golem, upset. "Anyone got any idea what parts are what? Identity's only showing me 'Nathir Metal Scraps.'"

They did not, and after a good ten minutes of trying just about everything including phoning for help, Wade had a realization when thinking of the golem's tech from the other way around: "If I were in charge of a slave empire, I wouldn't want my slaves getting their hands on my weapons if they somehow managed to take down a guard."

Which meant their attempt to get a weapon off this thing could have been doomed from the start. And of course they wouldn't put any kind of easy to use mana crystal that could be looted out. For all he knew, the golem was rigged to vent all its power automatically on destruction so even if the slaves could use the tech, it wouldn't function.

"Figures we can't have anythin' nice for ourselves." She kicked it again, harder.

It did make for some good spare parts for his future plans at least, and Wade yanked as much of the scrap metal parts into the backpack that he could stuff. Plenty of mithril parts, though none as nice and easy as the disks. It ended up weighing a good twenty pounds on his back, but he could always drop the backpack before combat.

"And Selena?" Wade looked over to Illy. "Do you want me to fill her in on the System? We almost got into it earlier, but thought you'd want to do that yourself."

Illy shook her head. "Yeh. She deserves that much from me. I want to be the one to do it. I'm the reason she's getting yanked around left, right and center. I'll give it another day, see if Nox might help with something when I talk to her next. Could possibly bring Selena with me to that storefront. Does say I can summon her at will once per round. Maybe having her goddess herself explain it to her might help smooth things out."

Wade shrugged. "Sounds good to me. Let me know when you need my translation services." He took a sidestep out of elbow range. "On the house, of course!"

They decided to continue ahead, looking around for where this golem had come from. There could be more damaged ones ahead, which would mean easy XP.

Slowly walking in the gloom and dim streetlights above, led only by Wade's single flashlight, the party continued.

"Guess the city's not as big as we thought." Illy said, looking at the end of their ten minute long journey. "Or we just got lucky on the endpoints."

Wade's flashlight hit the end of the tunnel, revealing not another stretch of sewer but a large archway inscribed with lightly glowing symbols. As they approached, the tunnel opened into a wide chamber that served as some kind of security checkpoint.

New Regional Quest: Gateway Toll - Pass through the Nathir security gateway without dying. Rewards: One storefront coin.

"Oh, now the fecking quests start popping up." Illy grumbled. "Identify. Ah, need the wardkey thing to get through that."

He opened his questlog and looked for the prior quest he'd gotten at the very start.

The keys to the city - Find and attune to a master wardkey rune. Rewards: Free passage within Nathir Shelter-Cities.

"That's our way out I think. Play, any idea what a wardkey is, or how it looks like?"

Gonna look like a ward, that's a key.

".... Are you serious?"

ofc not lol, why would I know? Nathir tech doesn't grow on trees out here. usually it just shoots you and causes massive environmental damage across multiple realms. Think nuclear disaster zone. Except with a gun. Usually a lot of those.

Wade sighed, "Anyone here got any employee badges by chance? No?"

Could draw straws and try checking what happens when you go through without a key~

"I think not." Leon said, laughing under his breath. "Better we figure out and be safe."

"Play, how do the wards around these shelter-cities work?" Wade asked. "Maybe we can dig around the checkpoint?"

These checkpoints aren't the barrier lol, they're a potential hole in the barrier. It's been tried before to tunnel into one of these bunkers from the outside in. You're lucky it's still powered. ┐(￣∀￣)┌

"And what's with the things around the gate?" Illy pointed, and Wade moved his flashlight over them.

Golems. About a dozen all stationed around the gateway, standing like statues to the side. One was missing, around the only spot where the ground looked dry. The rest were filled with rust, and didn't look to be powered at all. Even the glowing blue orbs for their heads weren't there, instead Wade found them further off, on the ground. Empty of any glow. They'd fallen off and rolled away.

"I think we found the bouncers." Wade said.

"I think we got fecking lucky is what I think." Illy said, kicking one of the orb heads. "Imagine if they were all functioning. We'd have been flushed out of the sewers by twelve of these giants hunting after us. They'd have shot us dead from a distance."

Identify didn't even show them as dead targets, just piles of junk. No free XP. Damn.

"Well, now what?" Wade asked. "We could go back where I came from, but doubt the mines would have a wardkey. City might be better."

"City's a deathtrap." Illy said, folding her arms up. "We ain't going there until we get you supplying us with tech, radios and guns. Fecking stuff you up to the gills as our supply mule, and only then do we think about going to that hellhole. Got that?"

Wade heard free money and more free money, but he knew better than to say that out loud.

"Quit grinning like a loon, fecking obvious what you're drolling about now."

"Business aside," Wade said, trying to school his expression. "If there's a dead end here, and going back to the mines isn't going to lead us anywhere close, how about we start looking for a blackrot critter or make an attempt on Lapushka?"

"I vote blackrot." Leon said, "American was having fun with it last round, I want to try too. Plus," He waved at the broken down golems all around them. "We have many spare parts for necklaces."

There were mithril capacitors, but they weren't disk shaped. It took about thirty minutes of dismantling and using up all the string Wade had brought with him in the backpack, but the result were three very asymmetric barely functioning mithril necklaces. Flimsy, without any of the care that the first mithril collar. Mostly because the crew realized whenever they come back to earth, the blackrot isn't coming with them. So no need for anything that powerful.

They hadn't made a fourth because Selena looked more like she was holding back from stabbing them all and their terrible ideas.

"Best keep Selena back fer now though. Can't be sure if she pops back up like we do, we only know it works for our sorry hides." Illy said.

Selena didn't appreciate being the one told to keep themselves safe while their 'employer' was in the line of fire, but Wade reminded her that Illy couldn't die, and more importantly, the elf wasn't getting paid. 'Employment' was a very loose word.

She understood the first part, and argued about the second part, which is the opposite of how Wade would have approached that. Apparently a god-given mission by her goddess was very important to the elf.

It was a good thing they'd made the preparations, because not even five minutes into their return hike, they heard terrified squeaking up ahead.

It felt almost like deja-vu to Wade. Seeing the frantic little rat outright sprint across the open sewer terrain, desperately looking for any nook or cranny it could hide in. And behind it, Wade's old nemesis.

They hadn't found the Hyper-Weasel.

It had found them.

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