You have obtained the Intelligence benefit Index.
I opened my eyes and glanced around the clearing we rested in. I saw the familiar orange glint of some Lava Slugs off in a couple distant bushes, but no assistant.
Erani was staring at me expectantly. “So?”
“Nothing,” I frowned. “Don’t see it anywhere.”
“Maybe you need to activate it somehow. Or it’ll only show up when you have a Choice.”
“Yeah, guess it’s something like that. We’ll have to see what this ‘assistant’ is later.”
“Hey!” A new, high-pitched voice said. “My name is not assistant! It’s Index.”
“What the fuck?!” I exclaimed and looked around for the speaker.
“What? Do you see it? Is it behind me?” Erani turned and looked, too.
“No, no, I don’t see it. But didn’t you hear that?”“No? Hear what?”
“It’s– wait, you seriously didn’t hear it? Sounded like–”
“She can’t hear me, dummy,” the voice said again. “I’m here to help you, not anyone else.”
“Um, okay,” I said, “so, it’s speaking to me. Said you can’t hear it, though.”
“Uh, hello~?” it said in a singsong voice. “Stop talking about me like I’m not even in the room!”
“It is way more Human than I thought it’d be,” I said. “This is seriously freaky.”
“So, what’s it saying, then?” Erani asked. “Do you think it’ll start repeating lines if you wait long enough? I’m sure it’s just, like, pre-made messages made to come through until you say something.”
“Wh– I’m not saying pre-made messages! I’m way more advanced than that. Arlan, tell that woman that she’s totally wrong.”
“Uhh, doesn’t seem like they’re pre-made. Sounds pretty personalized to me.”
“Stop talking about me like I’m not here! I’m a real person, you know.”
“I mean, objectively, you’re not.”
“What?” Erani asked.
“Uh, sorry, I’m just trying to talk to it.”
“How’s that going?”
“I am a person!” it said. “Sure, I don’t have a ‘physical body’ and I’m ‘just a fragment of the System’ but that doesn’t make me any less real than you are.”
“Okay, so it’s apparently, like, very alive. At least, it sure as hells thinks that it is.”
“Can you see it?” Erani asked.
I glanced around. “Seems like I can’t.”
“That’s just ‘cause you’re dumb,” the voice said.
“Dumb?”
“What?” Erani squinted at me.
“Uh, just give me a second. Trying to talk to it.”
“You’d normally be able to see me,” the voice said, “but your Intelligence is too low. System’s limiting you.”
“Oh. Wait, so you really do have a physical form, but you’re just, like, what? Invisible?”
“I mean, no, I don’t have a physical form – I can’t touch anything – but I have a body. I’m flying right in front of you!”
“Huh…” I absentmindedly waved a hand in front of my face.
“Stop that!’ it said, obviously annoyed. “Your hand’s going through me. It’s rude to do that, you know.”
“So, what, exactly, do you… do?”
“Well, talk, mainly.”
“Right, okay, what do you talk about?”
“I’m an advisor! I stop you from making bad decisions.”
“Sure, you help me choose the right Spells or whatever. But why are you here now? I’m not choosing anything. Is this just, like, an introduction thing? And you’ll go away later?”
“Rude. Why am I here? I just said! I’m here to advise you.”
“On what?”
“Anything! Sure, technically I’m only omniscient about the System, but I can still advise you about whatever.”
“...Okay,” I blinked. “Let’s start with questions about the System. Um, what are the effects of my next Spell options?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Alright. What are my options going to be for Crippling Chill’s Rank 10 Upgrade?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Well, what can you tell me?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
I sighed. “Can you tell me when you’ll be able to do anything useful?”
“It depends. Getting more Intelligence can increase the information I’m allowed to give you, but so can getting more information on your own. So, you could ask me about the technicalities of your current Spells, since you already know a lot about them. You might be able to ask me some questions about the Spells you’re already being shown. Listen, my specialty isn’t in just telling you random stuff like your next Spell Choice. It’s advising you! I can tell you about secret synergies, aspects of your options that you aren’t considering, monsters you’re fighting, anything.”
“Wait, monsters? I thought you were just omniscient about the System.”
“Well, monsters have Status sheets, don’t they? I know ‘em.”
“Huh.” I rubbed my chin. “And you can tell me about stuff you aren’t omniscient about, too, right?”
“...Yeah?”
“You said you were flying right in front of me before. Where are you now?”
“Sitting on top of your head.”
“Wh– get off,” I rubbed my hand through my hair. It’d gotten pretty long, and was now past my ears. “Um… are there any Lava Slugs on that bush over there?” I pointed at a bush to my side, deliberately not looking at it.
“Hm, let me check.” There was a moment of silence, and I could imagine the owner of the voice – Index – flying over and searching through the bush. Then, it spoke again, “Yeah. Two of ‘em.”
“Where on the bush are they?”
“One’s on the lowest branch, closer to you, and another’s near the middle of it. Why? Are you trying to take a piss and wanna know where’s safe?”
“No. How’d you know that?”
“I… looked?”
“Can you look up to the top of that mountain?” I pointed. “Tell me if there’s a Dragon up there.”
“Oh, I can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Can’t move that far.”
“Well, how far can you move?”
“Couple dozen paces. It kinda depends on the circumstances. So… why do you want to know?”
“If nobody can see you, but you can see them, and you can tell me what you see… Y’know, I think I’m seeing just how useful you are more and more.”
“That’s my purpose! Though, I’m really supposed to be an advisor, not a scout.”
“Well, is there anything you can advise me on right now?”
“Hm, let’s see…” There was another moment of silence, only this time I wasn’t actually sure what Index was doing. “Just pulled up the logs for your most recent fight. Wanna go over it? I can coach you.”
“...So, when it lunged there, you should’ve used the opportunity to cast Ray of Frost and refresh the Frostbite, instead of doing Noxious Grasp for its Fester. The Frostbite was two seconds from falling off, while the Fester was four, and you could tell from its movements that it was about to strike again, so the lowered Dexterity was more important.”
“Mhm.”
This had been going on for about an hour now, Index the assistant going through that fight with the Mountain Troll – both timelines I’d fought it in – and talking through every decision I made. It even talked through the decisions I didn’t make, but thought about making. Since it knew my thoughts, it could even see when I just deliberated on doing something.
Honestly, though, I was still reeling from the fact that it knew what I’d done in previous timelines. It made sense – Time Loop preserved my Status, and Trailblazer was a part of my Status, so its log got preserved as well – but still, this was the first time someone actually knew what’d happened in a timeline I’d come back from. It was completely surreal.
“Mountain Trolls get a random amount between 7 and 13 Endurance per Level,” Index continued, “so this one’s max Health was probably around 1700. So, at this point, with the amount of damage you’d dealt to it and the Mana you had left, you could afford to spend the rest of your Mana on Rays of Frost and finish it off. Because of your mistake, it scraped you eleven seconds later and you lost an additional 13 Health. But it also could’ve cost you–”
“So,” I interrupted Index’s spiel, “how far back do you have knowledge of me?”
“I can only remember back as far as when you got to 16 Intelligence. So, just a couple days.”
“Remember? So you were here this whole time? Just couldn’t say anything, or something?”
“Well, I wasn’t technically here, but I have such detailed knowledge of the log that I may as well have been.”
“Yeah, so that log. What, exactly, is it?”
“Oh, I thought the System explained it quite well. It’s just a list of pretty much everything that went through your head or body from the moment you got that benefit until now.”
“Wait, if it includes all my thoughts, do I even need to be saying things out loud right now? You could just read what I want to say in the log.”
“Well, yeah, but that’s a bit impersonal, don’t you think? Besides, it takes longer for me to read through the whole log every time you want to say something, instead of just listening to you talk.”
“How big even is the log? I think a lot of stuff. You can look through it that quickly?”
“I’m a fragment of the System,” I could sense some humor in Index’s voice. “I can read pretty fast.”
“Huh.”
“So?” Erani cut in. She’d been patiently watching me talk with Index all this time, and looked like she was ready to burst by now. “What’s up with this thing? What’d you learn?”
“Well, ironically, not too much about the System. I mean, not immediately, at least. Index said it could tell me about monsters we’re fighting, I can ask about technicalities and edge cases for my Spell and Talent Choices, that sort of thing. But what I really figured out that helps immediately, is how it helps with reconnaissance.”
“Couple dozen paces, huh?” Erani said after I was finished telling her my findings with Index. Seems pretty useful. Can it move through solid objects? Like, it doesn’t need to go through walls, does it?”
“I’m actually not sure. Uh, Index, can you–”
“Yep. No corporeal form.”
“Okay. Yeah, it can move through walls.”
“That’s fantastic,” Erani smiled. “Earlier, those Humans in the patrol that passed us were talking about some ‘fort’ right? Well, if we can get close enough to it, we can just send Index through the walls, have it check everything out, find weak points or areas we could move through, and boom. We can sneak right by without having to fight anyone.”
“Well, that’s assuming there are weak points or areas we could move through. Besides, they were also talking about Hellions patrolling the surrounding area, right? How could we get through that without alerting anyone?”
Erani looked down. “Index can move through the ground, right?”
We snuck along the path through Kingdom’s Edge, making heavy use of Index’s reconnaissance abilities. We’d keep it up ahead, at the two-dozen-pace distance limit, and have it peek around corners and through bushes for us. If it ever saw anything, it’d tell me, and we’d run off and hide in the wilderness next to the trail until they passed.
And, of course, we also had it dip underground periodically to look for Hellions. There was obviously no light down beneath the solid stone, but that apparently wasn’t a problem for Index. Besides, it didn’t even need to see the monsters themselves – just the tunnels they left behind when digging through the ground. The moment we saw those, we’d back off and start looking for another way in. But so far, so good.
Erani had volunteered to explain everything about Index to the Dryad, who was understandably curious about why I suddenly began talking to myself. Apparently, she was still having that discussion. The Dryad clearly was having some trouble understanding what Index was.
While we traveled, Ethereal Armor’s one hour timer ran out, and my Light Plate dissolved like it normally did. I routinely re-cast the Spell, Erani and the Dryad taking a pause, knowing I’d have to take a minute to don the armor once more. But when I cast the Spell and the Light Plate fell to the ground in front of me, I got an unexpected notification.
Threshold reached. Ethereal Armor XP has reached 130.
Ethereal Armor Rank has increased to 9.
Due to Ethereal Armor Rank reaching 9, it has undergone the following changes:
Mana Cost: From 182 to 187
Dark Plate Downtime: From 39.9 to 37.9
Light Plate Discount: From 40.4% to 43.4%
Wait, what? Why did–
“Because you Leveled up,” Index’s voice interrupted my thoughts.
“What?” I said, disoriented by her reading my thoughts.
“You forgot your Soft Cap went up,” it said. “When you Leveled up to 16.”
“Oh,” I blinked. “Yeah, I guess it slipped my mind.”
“Ah, I feel so important,” Index joked. “I even made you forget about the rest of your Level-up benefits.”
“That’s not–”
“Arlan?” Erani asked, looking at me. “You good?”
“Oh, right,” I said, “forgot you can’t hear Index. I just Ranked up Ethereal Armor, forgot about my Soft Cap going up.”
“Oh, good!”
“Yeah, got an extra 3% discount on Spells with Light Plate, which is really solid. I should probably Rank the rest of my Spells that are still at 8.”
She nodded. “Go ahead.”
My other two Spells to Rank up were Expedite and Gravity Well, so I just cast both on myself until I got a notification for them.
Threshold reached. Expedite XP has reached 130.
Expedite Rank has increased to 9.
Due to Expedite Rank reaching 9, it has undergone the following changes:
Mana Cost: From 67 to 68.7
Dexterity Buff: From 29.6 to 31.1
Buff Duration: From 44.3 to 46.5
Threshold reached. Gravity Well XP has reached 130.
Gravity Well Rank has increased to 9.
Due to Gravity Well Rank reaching 9, it has undergone the following changes:
Mana Cost: From 12.4 to 12.7
Gravity Increase: From 55% to 61%
I smiled at the numerical increases. With Ethereal Armor’s increased discount and Expedite’s increased duration, the ratio of Mana spent to seconds active for Expedite went way up.
“Approximately 0.8362 Mana spent per second of Expedite now,” Index said.
I blinked, startled by its sudden words. “Gods, you’ve got to stop just randomly butting into my thoughts.”
“I’m here to help you! If I don’t say anything, I won’t be helping.”
“So there’s no way for me to get you to stop talking? What if talking harms me by startling me when I’m trying to hide, or something?”
“If you actually think me talking will hurt you, I won’t do it. Right now, though, you just think it’s annoying for me to say stuff unexpectedly, but recognize its usefulness. So it’s not harmful, therefore I’ll keep doing it. I can see into your mind, remember?”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine.”
“Anyway, as I was saying, you’re now spending approximately 0.8362 Mana per second you keep Expedite active, compared to what it was before, at 0.9014.”
“You can seriously do all that math in your head that quickly?”
“Yep! I’ve got a whole lot of power from the System dedicated to me, so I can do all kinds of stuff!”
“Yeah, I’ve been noticing that more and more.”
We walked like that for a couple hours, with me continuing to get to know Index as we went, until finally we came across something.
“Hey, be careful rounding this next corner,” Index said. “I think it’s what you’re looking for. Far off, so I can’t see real well. But there’s a lot of people.”
I relayed that information to Erani and the Dryad, and we slowly crept up to the edge of a rock face. Once we got there, we peered around, and…
“Good gods…”
It was massive. When I heard ‘fort’, I imagined a building made of stone on the edge of the road housing some soldiers – maybe some wall that covered the road and had people manning the ramparts. Not this.
The massive structure was built between the two steep rock faces, connecting them so that I couldn’t even see the sky on the other side of their blockade. It was a stone wall built so tall and so thick, I couldn’t imagine anything short of an army’s-worth siege equipment getting through.
The wall itself wasn’t flat. It was covered in stone rooms that jutted out from the face, square boxes that had windows to shoot out from, or cannons pointed out the walls, or holes in the floors to dump boiling oil out of. Stringing these rooms in the wall together were dozens – hundreds – of rope bridges, all teeming with soldiers walking back and forth.
The wall itself was constructed at the end of a long, straight section of road between two tall cliff faces. There’d be no way to get close without walking down this multi-hundred-pace stretch of cleared-out road – under which the ground was supposedly teeming with hellions – and there was no way to get around short of going all the way back to the beginning of the path, and climbing up the mountains the wall was situated between. We’d have to climb for days – weeks – just to get to this point from the beginning, and this wall was probably just part of the way through Kingdom’s Edge. We’d have to go for even longer to actually arrive at the Barinruth Empire.
There was one weird part of the fort, though.
It was covered in scorch marks.
I could see, lying at the bottom of the wall were the burnt remains of ropes and planks used to make their bridges. The stone bricks making up the wall had blackened areas – massive burn spots that dotted the entire thing.
And when I thought back to when I’d seen the Dragon attacking something in this very valley, I suspected I knew exactly where those burn marks came from.
“How are we supposed to get through that alone?” Erani asked.
“I don’t think we can get through alone,” I said, glancing up at the mountain. “But I suspect we may have an ally to turn to.”