Just as soon as the darkness consumed him, Owen found himself back at his F.O.B., sitting at his cardboard table. Curious and confused, Owen brought up his Status.
“Weird, I got an Attribute Point, and nothing else changed except my Level got reset; looks like all my mana is back. Speaking of mana, how does that class effect work.” Using his Inspect on his class brought up the description he saw earlier.
With that in mind, Owen summoned his Pistol and inspected it again.
“I wonder if my Inspect evolving is why I’m getting different descriptions now. I know it said it can be used on everything now; guess I’ll just need to keep using it to find out.” Grabbing his now heated food, Owen began to eat while going over his Skills, just to make sure nothing else changed without his knowing. As he read through everything, he noted that the only thing that changed was his mana cost for his ammunition. As he finished off his food, he made it to his Other tab and opened up his Map. To his surprise, it was much larger than before; it now reached all the way to Moonkeep. Even more surprising was that there were dots everywhere, from red to green; Owen could see them and track them as they moved. Looking up at his empty mini-map, Owen was confused for a moment.
“Fuck, I’m stupid, It’s not broken, there’s just nothing around me. I’m in the middle of the woods, for God's sake.” Laughing at himself, Owen stared at the Map for a few more moments. Noting how most of the green dots were still, with a handful walking down roads. A few yellow dots were around, but thankfully, no red dots were in the city. “I wonder what the colors actually mean; so far, all it's just been Red is an Enemy, Green is a person. There has to be a way to upgrade this as well.” Next on the list was the World Display; Owen checked it just to see what it would say this time. Would it still show as Warrior or something else?
Focusing on the strange class, another screen popped up.
“Alright, so I got a rare class. I’ll have to ask Fell or Todd about that when I return. Maybe I could ask Todd to take me to the library and read some of the books instead of constantly bombarding him with questions. Yeah, that sounds like a better plan.” Checking his Achievements, and Shop showed no change, so Owen closed it. “Alright, nothing changed, but I have Points to spend. As usual, I’ll put a point into luck, but what about my Skill Point. I guess I’ll just put it in my Unique Skill, so what, I need more right now? The F.O.B. is nice and all, but I don't really need it.” With his mind made up, Owen put his skill point into Summon Weapon. To his surprise, another notification appeared.
With his heartbeat rising, Owen concentrated, willing his weapon to take shape as he let his memories guide it. He remembered the adjustable stock, looking down his ACOG sights, flipping the safety to semi, bracing himself with his forward hand grip before squeezing the trigger. Once he felt his mana stop pulling, he looked down into his hands, and as before, his weapon was there, just as he remembered it. Happy with his choice to go for firepower, Owen checked his new option in his Other Tab.
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“Well, that’s something,” Owen mused, “I can add sights to my Pistol or switch out my ACOG. I don’t need to, though; all my targets have been pretty close, and I now have a perfect long-range option. Under-barrel, however, must mean the M203, and who would I be to say no to grenades. Liberal use of grenades is the correct use, after all. This F.O.B. upgrade is the most interesting thing, though. Why is it on my Upgrade list? Although I guess there is the option to upgrade any Skill in my Shop, so maybe this is just a more focused Shop.” As Owen mused, he took out his bedroll and laid it on one of the elevated mounds of dirt. Looking down at his weapon, Owen tried to get a feel of the mana. Once he could feel it, he tried to change its form back into the Pistol. “Yes!” As the weapon changed forms, Owen exclaimed, “That makes things so much better.” Owen said as he returned to his pack, storing everything besides his bedroll and some of the Light Sticks. Walking around his earthen perimeter, Owen placed the light sticks, hoping that they would deter anything that wasn't Mist-Born. Content with what he could do, Owen laid down in the Sleeping bag, keeping his weapon summoned and inside with him. Getting comfortable, Owen laid there for a minute, thankful for the enchantment Boulder put on it, as he drifted off to sleep.
Waking as the rays of light began to rise over the earth's wall, Owen's eyes slowly opened as he checked his Map first. Thankfully, no one was around exhaling. Owen got up and got to his morning routine. On his way back from the woods after his morning business, Owen walked over to the strange stone embedded in his wall. A quick inspection confirmed it was a Waterstone. Summing the soap Boulder had made for him, Owen cleaned himself up before getting ready to leave. As he re-summoned everything he stored away last night, Owen grabbed a few MREs and tucked them into his pack. Checking his armor and weapons, Owen looked back at the F.O.B., wondering what he was supposed to do with it. When another notification appeared, Owen chuckled, “Sometimes you answer me; sometimes I’m left hanging. I just never know with you, do I ARMS?” As he elected Yes on this new screen.
Owen stood and watched as the walls began to crack and crumble, the dirt mounds collapsing into the earth. As the walls started to fall apart into light blue mist, Owen couldn’t help but compare them to monsters. It looked exactly the same; the color of the mist was just different. “Does that mean monsters are just made out of some type of mana? Add that to the list of things to figure out, I suppose.” Owen said as he summoned his notepad and made a quick note. As Owen walked over to the spot his F.O.B. had just been, there was no sign of it, except the ground was unusually clean. Without thinking, Owen began to kick dirt and leaves around, trying to make it look natural. It didn’t take long for the ground to look natural again. Satisfied, Owen opened his Map, hoping to find the next pack of monsters to kill. Seeing that there were no enemies in his area, Owen remembered, “That’s right. The crown thing, I’m probably up before it can spawn all the monsters.”
With a stray thought entering his mind, Owen made his way through the empty woods. After a few moments, Owen began to jog, trying to watch his step but keeping a moderate pace. When he got notifications of Physical Boost and Tracking leveling up, Owen picked up the pace until he saw the end of the tree line. Coming out of the woods, Owen slowed as he looked West for the sun’s. Seeing them just in time for a flash of white light to go off from the Crown, Owen used his Critical Eye on the object.
As Owen stared and tried to understand what he had just read, he noticed a large group of red dots near him. Summoning his M4, Owen began to head in that direction before willing his full Map open. Seeing it open, Owen's stomach dropped because there were so many enemies. Red dots, in large groups, spread everywhere. Panic began to set in as Owen made his way to the nearest set of enemies. When he arrived, they were still in their blob form, but he had only 15 seconds before they would spawn. “One, two, three…seven, eight. Fuck. Okay, I can deal with that. ARMS, any way you can highlight enemies on my Map that are abnormal or above F-Grade.” Shouldering his M4, Owen took aim, glad for his large mana pool. “I’ll see what spawns, kill anything that isn’t a regular monster, then use my sword to kill the rest. Got to conserve mana.” Just as the countdown reached single digits, a new box appeared in his vision.
