Reluctant Heroes Part 3 (Patreon)

Sarah glanced over the group of half a dozen annoyed looking Americans sitting in the otherwise empty inn then glanced over at the glowing sconces on the walls. 'Same type of light as the sewers.'

'Nice to know that not everyone drank the kool aid,' Myst mused as he glanced over the group of strangers, some of whom he sort of recognized from the bus. 'One teenage male, one kid, one lady that's probably in her sixties, a girl in her early twenties and two teenage girls, could be worse I guess but could be a lot better.'

"I'm just saying that the sooner we're out of here, the better," the young man argued.

"And where are we supposed to go?" the teenage girl sitting by the old lady asked. "My grandmother can't exactly run to the edge of the country and even if she could, you heard what the guards said, there are monsters out there."

The grey haired old lady smiled at her granddaughter. "I'm not that feeble Ella and the young man has a point, if we stay here, it's a lot easier for them to find us." She turned to look at Alice, Myst and Sara. "Trouble?"

Alice shrugged. "I ran into some thugs that tried to mug me, I took care of the problem."

"Which is another reason we should consider leaving," the young man arguing they should leave pointed out. "If we go somewhere else we can join the adventuring guild."

"Sounds like a good way to die," the woman in her twenties said, less than happy about finding herself in a strange world.

"I'm going to be a knight!" a ten year old boy said enthusiastically.

The teenager sitting next to the boy sighed. "Not until you're older Rigby."

"You're no fun," Rigby grumbled at his older sister.

"I don't care," she snapped as she turned to look at Alice, Sarah and Myst. "I don't suppose you have a plan that doesn't involve running around like chickens with their heads cut off?"

"More or less." Myst glanced over at the waitress wearing an apron that was wiping down a table shamelessly listening to the group talk. "We're planning on heading to the sewers, with any luck we'll be able to find something worth selling that will let us hire a wagon to take us to the next town, you're welcome to come with us."

"To the sewers?" the young woman asked in disgust.

Myst laughed. "I meant the other town but sure, if you want to come hunt slimes and you have a distance weapon, you're welcome."

"How does that help get us home?" she asked, not seeing the point of risking her life.

"From what the noble said, they're unable or at least unwilling to send us back while the Demon King is still alive which means we're going to be here a while unless we can find another way home." Myst looked over the group.

"Which means we should help," Rigby declared.

"Not a chance," his sister snapped. "You're ten."

"Almost eleven," he complained before smiling. "It's like Harry Potter, only better."

"Even if they manage to defeat the Demon Lord, do you honestly think they'll just let us walk away with our more interesting skills?" the old lady asked, fairly sure they'd try to make giving up their skills part of any deal to get home.

"Probably not," the male teenager grumbled.

"Even if we helped them?" Ella asked in disbelief.

"Have you watched Game of Thrones?" Myst asked.

"No," Ella lied, ignoring her grandmother's raised eyebrow. "But I've heard people talk about it so I can see your point, nobles will be nobles. So what do we do?"

Myst walked over so he didn't have to talk across the room. "We survive, we learn magic and we go home."

The teenage male snorted. "You say that like it's easy."

"I'm not saying it's going to be easy but it's certainly possible considering skill orbs exist in this world," Myst pointed out.

"Which is crazy," the twenty something woman complained.

"I can't say you're wrong. If you'd asked me if magic was real yesterday, I'd have shrugged and said there might be coincidental magic, blessings or curses that could nudge events one way or another at best if they were already on a razor's edge," Myst said as he looked at each of the strangers that had found themselves on another world with him. "None of that compares to summoning a bus across dimensions or conjuring a ball of fire and tossing it."

"Which means we're sort of screwed if they aren't telling the truth about being able to send us back," the teen pointed out.

Myst laughed. "Maybe but the world has a skill system and skill orbs and we have a burning fire in our hearts that they'll never understand. For them, magic is just one more option, maybe it's an expensive option but I doubt most of them spent their nights growing up reading stories about magic and wishing with all their heart that magic was real because for them it was. We might not have grown up with actual magic but we've seen countless movies and games dealing with magic."

"They're not real," he argued.

"Just because they're fictional doesn't mean we can't use them for inspiration. Imagine for a minute if there was a rock or metal that floated for a couple of minutes after getting hit by lightning, we know what lightning is which means we could come up with a way to feed electricity to the material in a controlled fashion while the locals wouldn't have a use for it."

"You're reaching," the teen argued.

The old lady shook her head. "He's merely saying that we have ideas that they've probably never imagined. Take the assembly line, it's not a particularly hard concept in theory, it just required a change in the way people thought about things."

"You've played video games, right?" Myst asked, when he realized the guy wasn't connecting the dots.

"No shit," the teenager replied sarcastically.

"Think of it like a game. You can either be a casual player or you can figure out the best way to exploit the system."

"That's obvious," Rigby said.

Myst shrugged. "You'd think. I remember playing an online game that had a resource spawn equation that basically caused another node in the zone to instantly spawn 'randomly' when a node was harvested. The nodes could only spawn in fixed places."

"That's normal enough, what of it?" he male teen asked.

Myst grinned. "We got a dozen people to camp the spawn points in a small zone and just continually farmed for about an hour and filled up our bags with expensive high grade resources."

"I'll admit that's a decent exploit if you can talk people into doing it but I don't think the world has nodes or anything we can exploit," the teen argued.

"You're right, it probably doesn't have nodes," Myst admitted with a grin. "But nothing says we can't find something that works just as well."

"Wouldn't they have already found it?" Rigby asked.

"You'd think but I remember having to talk the people into 'wasting' the time to set everything up and try my 'crazy' idea on the online game despite the fact that there was at least one website that talked about the spawn mechanic." Myst glanced over at the waitress that was walking over. "Can I get some soup or something?"

"Sure, we have chicken and potato soup," the waitress said as she turned to look at Alice and Sarah. "Anything for the ladies?"

"Same," Sarah said as she took a seat next to Rigby.

"Soup and bread," Alice said as she walked over and took a seat at the table.

"Bread sounds good," Myst said, knowing he'd do better with a bit of food, especially since he didn't really trust the food in his belt pouch that might have gotten soaked in the dirty water.

"I'll bring it right out," the waitress said as she headed towards the kitchen.

Myst pulled his attention off the waitress and focused on the group. "Maybe there's nothing to find but we're looking at everything with fresh eyes compared to the natives and we've seen countless ways to break various systems. With any luck, we'll find another uncommon or even a rare skill orb off the slimes in the sewers that we can sell for enough gold to hire a wagon to take us to the nearest town."

"Nothing is free, what do you want for it?" the woman in her twenties asked.

"A bit of help or a bit of people's time crafting or using skills." Myst gestured towards the ten year old. "I don't have Enchanting yet but Rigby said he could summon magic swords, if we can figure out how to duplicate his swords it might help someone level enchanting faster which should make hunting monsters safer."

"Happy to help," Rigby said cheerfully.

Rigby's sister sighed in relief that no one expected her younger brother to actually fight. "I don't see a problem with that."

"I don't have a problem with staying somewhere safe and crafting," the old lady offered, knowing it was something she could do.

"I'm not going to object to a bit of help getting set up, I'm Brian," the teenage male said, glad that he'd run into people willing to help as he didn't have much of a plan other than being an adventurer and making sure he didn't sign any magically binding contracts with crazy nobles.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Myst." Myst glanced over at the waitress that was walking out of the kitchen with a tray then walked over and sat down on the empty chair next to Brian.

"What type of special skills do you have?" Rigby asked.

"That's a secret," Myst replied with a grin as he brought up his skill manipulation menu and looked over his new skills. "At least until we're somewhere else."

"That's no fun," Rigby complained.

Sarah laughed. "Don't worry, you'll figure it out eventually."

The waitress grinned as she passed out the bowls of soup. "You'll get used to it, most people don't like talking about their more interesting skills or skill levels unless they're bragging."

"Why?" Rigby asked.

"Generally speaking people want someone with the highest skill that will work for the lowest price even if it doesn't really matter after a certain point, people can get weird about skill levels," the waitress explained.

"Wouldn't it be better to have the expert make your stuff?" Rigby asked.

"Experts also tend to charge more, if you just need a shovel to take ash out of a fireplace and toss it outside every now and then, it just needs to work," the waitress explained. "Two silver each for the soup."

"Here," Alice said as she handed the waitress six silver.

"Thanks," Sarah said.

"Don't worry, we're in this together," Alice said, not particularly worried about a couple of silver when they were liable to make more hunting monsters.

Myst dropped his left hand under the table and created a skill orb for his Cleanse Self skill. 'First step is to get the time down to something more reasonable,' he mused as he brought up his Cleanse Self and Skinning skills. He swapped the durations then hit the button and looked at his new skinning skill.

Quick Skinning: L1 [Un]

Target: [Dead Creature]

Use Time: [10 Seconds]

Requires: [Knife]

Effect: [Extracts][Material] from target. [[SkillLv]X.01%] chance of receiving rare quality [Material]

'That's certainly faster.' Myst examined his new Slow Cleanse skill, not seeing a difference other than the 10 minute use time. 'It's probably worth selling,' he mused as he used his skill orb to get his old skill back. He took a bite of his soup and smiled as the delicious taste hit his tongue.

"Good isn't it?" the waitress asked with amusement.

"Yes," Myst replied after swallowing. "Thanks."

"You're welcome, if you need anything else just call," she said as she walked off towards the kitchen.

"Thanks." Myst focused on his Beginner's Stealth skill and created an orb then selected Skinning and his Stealth skill. 'Okay, let's see how much this hurts.' He swapped the [35%+[SkillLv]X5%] quality from his stealth skill for the [[SkillLv]X.01%] quality from the skinning skill and hit the button, half expecting the blinding pain and stars that exploded in his vision but still less than happy about it.

"Are you okay?" the old lady asked, having noticed Myst twitch and close his eyes in obvious pain.

"I'll be fine," Myst replied as he took another bite of soup while he waited for his vision to clear enough that he could read his new skill.

Legendary Skinning: Lv 1 [VR]

Target: [Dead Creature]

Use Time: [10 Seconds]

Requires: [Knife]

Effect: [Extracts][Material] from target. [35%+[SkillLv]X5%] chance of receiving rare quality [Material]

Fool's Stealth Lv 1

Target: [Self]

Effect: Activates [Stealth][[SkillLv]X.01%]

He stared at the description for his new skills when his vision cleared enough that he could make out the details. 'That should help with Leatherworking and making armor.' He took a couple more bites of soup as he waited for the rest of the pain and spots to fade.

"Migraines?" the old lady asked.

Myst rubbed his eyes and used the stealth skill orb. "Don't worry, it's skill related, it shouldn't bother me on a mission."

"Do you need aspirin?" the twenty something woman asked.

"I doubt it would help and don't worry about it, I should be fine in a couple of minutes," Myst promised as he pulled up with his Meditation skill.

Meditation:

Target: [Self]

Requires: [Being Stationary]

Effect: Activates [1][Mana Regeneration]

'Being stationary sucks,' Myst used as he selected his Fool's Stealth ability and swapped the [Being Stationary] requirement for the [Stealth] quality and hit the button, causing the remaining stars to flash brightly but not explode in pain. He glanced at his new skills.

Ninja Meditation:

Target: [Self]

Requires: [Stealth]

Effect: Activates [1][Mana Regeneration]

Momentum Theft Lv 1

Target: [Self]

Effect: Activates [Standing Still][[SkillLv]X.01%]

'Momentum Theft?' Myst asked himself, wishing his power would actually give better descriptions. 'Weird. I might have to fix that. At least the Ninja Meditation skill worked,' he mused as he worked on eating his soup, trying to psych himself up for his next tweak which was probably going to hurt.

"Are we staying here tonight?" Ella asked.

"Yep, that way we have all of tomorrow on the road," Sarah said, figuring it was better to travel during the day.

Myst brought his Healing Touch (Sealed) skill up along with his Ninja Meditation and swapped the [1] quality from Meditation and the [100] quality from Healing Touch and hit the button. He twitched and grinned as the world twisted and lurched. He looked at his new skills, rather amused by the results.

Ninja Lord Meditation: [R]

Target: [Self]

Requires: [Stealth]

Effect: Activates [100][Mana Regeneration]

Healing Touch (Sealed) Lv 5

Target: [Living Creature]

Range: [Touch]

Cost: [1]/[Holy Power]

Restrictions: [Sealed]

Effect: [Heal][[SkillLv]X5] target

'It's almost like the world wants me to be a stealth character,' Myst mused as he finished his soup. He created a Momentum Theft orb then brought the skill up along with Healing Touch and swapped the [Sealed] quality for the [Standing Still] quality. He hit the button and shivered as he felt a thousand bugs crawl over his skin mixed with the unnerving feeling of being watched that you sometimes got on a dark night turned up to a hundred.

Brian stared as Myst twitched and nearly fell out of his chair. "What's the matter?"

"I was thinking about the slime in the sewer," Myst lied as he tried to get himself back under control, relieved that the bugs weren't real.

"Don't worry, the slime tried to eat him, he'll be fine in a bit," Sarah promised, hoping he'd be able to hold it together in the dungeon and that it was just a skill thing.

"Do we have a plan?" Alice asked, watching Myst out of the corner of her eye.

"Sure, we're basically just going to go room by room and blast the slimes until we've killed all of the large ones then we'll take what we find and leave," Sarah said, not really having much of a plan beyond kill some slimes so that Myst could sell a skill orb without it looking too suspicious.

"We should probably go over tactics," Alice suggested.

Myst used his Momentum orb to get his skill back then looked at his healing skill while the girls discussed basic tactics for clearing rooms.

Healing Touch Lv 5

Target: [Living Creature]

Range: [Touch]

Cost: [1]/[Holy Power]

Restrictions: [Standing Still]

Effect: [Heal][[SkillLv]X5] target

'One step closer,' Myst mused as he looked at his second skill.

Seal Self Lv 1 [R]

Target: [Self]

Effect: Activates [Sealed][[SkillLv]X.01%]

'I can probably do something with that later, maybe Seal crafting,' he mused, knowing he should probably improve his combat skills before he worried about seals. He created a Firebolt skill orb then brought his Firebolt skill up with his Healing Touch skill, swapped [Holy Power] with [[SkillLv]/5], and hit the button. He stared at the mana cost for his new spell, noticing that it had changed to [1]. 'Huh, it must have a minimum or maybe it just simplified the math. Either way, I'm not complaining.'

He frowned slightly when he noticed his new spell.

Holy Firebolt: [Un]

Mana Cost: [5]-[Holy Power]

Effect: Conjure ball of [Fire] that can be thrown for [Low Damage]

'That would actually be decent for a priest or someone with Holy Power,' he thought as he created a skill orb for Smite. He brought up his Smite skill and swapped it's [High Damage] for the Firebolt's [Low Damage] and hit the button. He sighed in relief when the room merely wobbled slightly rather than break, fracture or do any of the other annoying things his power seemed to like doing.

Eldritch Firebolt: Lv 1 [R]

Mana Cost: [5]-[[SkillLv]/5]

Effect: Conjure ball of [Fire] that can be thrown for [High Damage]

Weak Slap: Lv 1

Target: [Low Level Monster]

Effect: [Low Damage] is [dealt] to target.

Myst used the Smite orb to get his skill back then created a Stealth orb. He brought up his stealth skill and his Acid Resistance skill and swapped the [35%+[SkillLv]X5%] from the Stealth skill for the [10%+[SkillLv]X10%] on his Acid Resistance.

Enhanced Acid Resistance Lv 1 [Un]

Effect: Passive Increase[35%+[SkillLv]X5%][Acid][Resistance].

Clumsy Stealth: Lv 1

Target: [Self]

Effect: Activates [Stealth][10%+[SkillLv]X10%]

Myst used his Beginner's Stealth orb then brought up Momentum Thief and the Clumsy Stealth skill, swapped the activation percentages and hit the button. He looked at his new skill.

Momentum Theft: Lv 1 [Un]

Target: [Self]

Effect: Activates [Standing Still][10%+[SkillLv]X10%]

'That's either going to be useful or completely useless, but 20% is a lot easier to actually hit than .01% which should let me test it out,' Myst mused as he stood up once he realized that Brian, Sarah and Alice were standing and looking at him. "Ready?"

"Yes. Please tell me you're not going to be drifting off in the dungeon," Alice said, trying not to snap.

Myst shook his head. "I should be fine, I'm not actually as crazy as I look."

Brian laughed as they headed for the door. "For the best."

"Stay safe," the old lady offered.

"We'll try," Myst replied then followed the other three out of the inn.

"What are you going to use for a weapon?" Brian asked as they headed towards the sewers.

"Eldritch Firebolt," Myst replied with a grin.

"And when you run out of mana?" Brian asked with a raised eyebrow.

Myst glanced at the people giving them odd looks as they walked down the street. "Nothing right now but I'll pick up another sword when I can afford it. I have a mana regeneration skill so I should be fine for mana."

Alice pulled a dagger in a sheath out of her jacket and handed it to Myst. "Here, I got it off one of the idiots and it's shit but it's better than nothing."

"Thanks, with any luck I won't need it," Myst said as he hooked the dagger to his belt.

"We can hope," Alice muttered. "I'm going to be burning mana for ammo, so I'm not sure how many shots I'll have but I'm fairly sure one shot should kill just about anything we'll run into."

"The only problem is going to be the noise," Brian complained.

"I have earplugs but that doesn't really help the rest of you," Myst said as he pulled his earplugs out of his back pocket.

"Why do you have earplugs?" Sarah asked.

"They help with distractions and writing," Myst replied as they walked up towards the guard standing by the entrance to the sewers. "Hey."

"Couldn't get enough?" the guard asked when he noticed the group.

"I wanted revenge," Myst replied with a grin.

"And trinkets," Sarah added as she headed down the stairs.

"Best of luck," the guard replied as he gestured towards the stairs leading down.

"Thanks," Myst replied as he headed down the stairs hoping things went better than the last time.

"If you hear any loud booms, it's probably us," Alice warned the guard then followed Myst down the steps.

"Don't wreck anything!" the guard ordered, hoping the captain wasn't going to blame him for whatever happened.

"Better than rats in a basement," Brian muttered as he headed down into the sewer, happy to see the torches. "Do we have a plan?"

Myst grinned as he set up his teaching skill. "Don't freak out and hit yes."

Brian stared at the popup window asking him if he wanted to learn Enhanced Acid Resistance. "Special Skill?" he asked as he tapped the Yes icon.

"One of them," Myst replied as he taught Alice the same skill. "This should help."

Alice looked over the new skill then tapped Yes. "Thanks, nice skill."

"It's one of the reasons I think we can make a group work," Myst explained as he shared the skill with Sarah. "But yeah, try not to mention it, I'd rather not let the nobles know about that particular skill."

Brian nodded. "Makes sense. What else do you have to share?"

"Firebolt, a halfway decent stealth skill, and a mana regeneration skill that works while you're sneaking that should help with mana issues," Myst explained as he continued teaching the group the new skills.

"Why is Alice even using a gun if we have spells?" Brian asked as he looked at Alice's pistol.

Sarah conjured a ball of fire and tossed it at the wall, scorching a bit of moss. "Accuracy and rate of fire."

Brian used his skill menu and created a ball of fire. "It can't be that…" he trailed off as he tossed the ball of fire and it struck the wall tree feet to the left and a foot down from the burned patch of moss he'd been aiming at. "I might need to work on that."

"Just a bit," Alice said as she headed deeper into the sewer, hoping they weren't making a mistake.

Myst put his earplugs in and covered his nose with his handkerchief and mask then followed Alice, wishing he had something better for dealing with the stench.

"If I shoot the one near the far wall are the rest of them going to mob us?" Alice asked as the rest of the group spread out a touch so they'd have clear shots.

"No idea," Myst admitted, not sure if the noise would cause them to swarm or run away.

"In that case, let's find out," Alice said as she drew her gun and lined up her shot.

Brian and Sarah quickly plugged their ears.

Myst wasn't sure how to feel as he watched the slime near the wall explode followed by the four slimes that launched themselves out of the water, causing the echo from the first shot to blur into a storm of thunder as she continued shooting the slimes as they burst out of the sludge that made up the water.

"Fuck that's loud!" Sarah complained once Alice stopped shooting, mostly because she'd run out of slimes after the fourteenth shot.

"You need a silencer," Brian grumbled as he stared at the skill orb sitting on the stone walkway.

"What the hell was that?!" the guard shouted from outside.

"It would certainly help," Alice said, ignoring the guard as she shifted her stance and activated her stealth ability. "Your mana regeneration skill is insane."

"Pretty much," Myst agreed as he walked over and picked up the skill orb. "Acid Resistance."

"Why aren't you wincing or deaf?" Sarah asked Alice, surprised that she wasn't showing more of a reaction to the noise.

"One of my skills prevents the Deaf status effect," Alice replied with a grin as she started walking down the stone path. "Let's go."

"Does anyone else feel cheated by their cheat skill?" Brian asked as he followed Alice.

"Not even remotely," Myst replied with amusement as he followed them.

Sarah snickered. "Nope."