Frank was nervous. He had sort of enjoyed their first day, but how had it gone? What would Mr Madison think of how they had done? He had been the leader, or he had tried to lead anyway, how had he done? And what would Susan think of him? That was a stupid question. They were here to make money, not to be all romantic or whatever.
He opened the door to the waiting room. Great, everyone else was there. He was the last to arrive.
Well, of course he was. He lived farther away and he had walked here. He had seen George’s bike outside, and Seth and Susan lived much closer.
“Hey, guys,” he said, taking a Sprite from the fridge. “He hasn’t called you in yet?”
“Nope,” Seth said. “Probably editing the video to get it out.”
“Well, how did we do?” Susan asked.
“I think we did fine,” Seth said. “Come on, it was our first day! How much could he expect?”
“Well, maybe for you lot not to be covered in bandages the whole time?” George said.
“Cute, coming from the guy who’s covered head to toe in armor!” Seth said.
“Yes, well, he’s the tank. And he knows it isn’t fair to send you out to try to protect Susan against murder bunnies.”
“And he says he doesn’t care a bit about ‘fair’,” Seth said. “It was awful, but it had to be good training.”
“And good for your class selection,” George said. “You aren’t supposed to be the protector, you are supposed to be the wild man with the sticks.”
“Tah, tah, tah!!” said Seth, dancing around and pretending he was killing furniture with sticks.
You do realise that I have cameras in the waiting room, too?
Seth stopped and looked appalled. Then grinned and started killing more furniture. Sue rolled her eyes, and George and Frank just watched him, grinning.
“It is a game, you know!” Seth said, after a particularly violent imaginary blow at the cooler.
Yes, and I’m not actually going to use any footage from the waiting room. Too unprofessional. I’ll call you guys in in a minute, so just don’t destroy anything in the meantime.
“Did we really do good?” Sue asked, nervously.
“Nah!” Seth said. “But we weren’t supposed to. Who wants to watch a bunch of newbies do good? I hate those LITRPG stories where the new guy is suddenly good at everything. Stories need growth! So the stupider you look in the beginning, the more heroic the ending!”
“Really?”
“Character arc, Darling Healer, Character arc. Now you are binding up our Murder Bunny Bites with strips of your infinite dress, later you will merely wave your hand and heal us. Growth!”
“But, I don’t want to look too stupid in the beginning!”
“Too late for that. Just think of the payoff!”
Sue didn’t care about the payoff… well, she did, she and her family could really use the money… but she really didn’t want everyone watching her get bitten by Murder Bunnies! And she wasn’t really sure how she felt about being the ‘damsel in distress’. She had no desire whatever to be some sort of warrior, but the other girls would probably bug her about always needing to be protected.
Unless she could sell the ‘produced’ idea. They all loved films about half naked damsels getting rescued by even more naked warrior types. That new film about the dragon… although that hero wore armor for half the film. She wondered if it was even him half the time, since he had his visor down. They could have just dubbed in the voice. The film had done really well. The girls all liked the romance part (and, she could swear, loved the ‘damsel being rescued’ theme), and the boys all loved the R rated violence. She had covered her eyes for half of the battles. That one scene where the lance had gone into the dragon’s eye!
Oi, come on in, you lot!
Seth grabbed another kolache and they went in.
“Well, good news, all of you have gotten to level ten. It was my goal for the first day, and we achieved it. And with level ten, you got your class. Which I selected for you, of course. I’ll be interviewing you and talking about it, and I will put them in the videos at the appropriate time, but let’s go over them so that you each understand the other’s strengths. George?”
“I got the knight track for George. It’s a popular track. His initial class is ‘Man at Arms’ and it helps with strength. It’s two skills off the bat are ‘Basic Swing’… which is kind of generic to all weapons one would ‘swing’, and ‘Shield Stun’… which doesn’t help him hit with the shield, but gives a small chance of stunning once he does.
For Seth boy we got the ‘Stuff your Mouth’ class…” Seth lost it, and lost his sausage dog at the same time, and everyone laughed. “No, just kidding… great video tho, kid. He’s got ‘Scout’ at the very lowest level, which helps with dexterity. His skills are Basic Bow and Basic Knife. Very basic. His targets need to stand still for him to hit them with the bow, and run at the point for him to hit them with his knife.
“Now, for our fearless leader, I got him ‘Reactor’, which is a kind of rare class, and meant to be mostly defensive… like for bodyguards. It’s skills are ‘Basic Blow’, which is even more generic and weaker than ‘swing’… and ‘Quick React’… which is the reason I got it. It shaves a little time off any kind of ‘surprise’, in battle or outside of it.
“And now, the best at the last, our girl Sue,” Oscar said. “Go ahead, Sue, tell them your level.”
Sue flushed a bright red. “I, umm, I’m at level thirteen.”
“Thirteen!” Seth said. “And you never told us! What’s your class?”
“And skills?” Frank asked.
“My, umm, class is called ‘Natural Healer’. And my skill, I only got one, is called ‘Nature’s Touch’.”
As the others mulled this over, Oscar pulled up a description on his screen. “But when she says ‘only one’, I think I need to disagree. Read this, gentleman!”
Nature’s Touch
Unique to ‘Natural Healer’ class
Touch any of one of your party, and for the next five minutes their health will increase by a small amount.
x3 uses, ten minute cool-down.
“Hmm, rather a slow heal,” Frank said. “Five minutes.”
“Dude, you don’t get it,” Seth said. “Read it like a buff.”
“A buff… oh. Oh, yeah. You could get hurt after you get it, and you would start to heal.”
“I think you both might be wrong,” George said. “Did you notice that there is no maximum?”
“What do you mean?” Seth asked.
“Normally with health, the buff reads ‘up to your full level of health’ or somesuch.”
“Do you mean this might let you overclock your health? Fill it up above 100%?”
“It seems like it might.”
They all turned to Oscar, who was staring at Susan and grinning. “Sue my girl?”
She nodded. “I used it in our last fight. It shows me how it works, and it showed me your health, Frank, and it went up above 100%”
“That’s awesome!” Seth yelled, leaping out of his seat and knocking one of his donuts on the ground. “That’s broken!”
“Well, no, it’s not quite broken,” Oscar said, as Seth sat down, picked up his donut, dusted it off, and took a bite. “As we mentioned, she only got one skill. And it gives a very small benefit. But it is perfect for our purposes that it is both a buff and a healing skill. She can take the advance to that skill every time with perfect confidence.”
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Von