Chapter 103

  Castle Archewald, Part VI (Equipment)

  Time in Loch Stray: 2 Days, 2 Hours, 32 Minutes.

  The bruises bloom across my skin like twisted watercolors—black, blue, and the occasional splotch of reddish-purple that looks like a crater on a tortured moon. I taste copper every time I breathe. The cracked molar on the left side of my mouth sings a mournful little dirge every time I flex my jaw. I’ve grown numb to the prickling, burning itch of my body patching itself together. It’s not half as fast enough, but the punctured lung from the broken rib? Healed. The fractured skull and likely brain bleed? Recovered through the sheer will of the System. So, all in all, I’m not doing half bad.

  It’s been two days in this glorified hellhole. Technically only a day outside, back in the castle. But here in Loch Stray? Two, long, punishing days of getting my shit absolutely rocked by a giant wind-up frog. I’m limping through wildflowers, knees feeling like jelly, when the familiar rumble hits the air.

  THOOM.

  Time has no meaning anymore. Nothing but running, gasping, hitting [Speed Boost] as soon as the cooldown ticks down, and praying that this time I can finally outrun the monstrosity.

  Spoiler: I can’t.

  CRACK.

  The tongue hits me like a cold, slimy blue siege engine. A sticky mucous latches onto my shoulders andlats, ripping me through the air. My back slams into the hard, metallic surface of the Guardian just as it bull rushes me and—oh, hello ground! We meet again. My face skids across earth, tearing up grass and flowers. My ribs crunch. I feel a femur do something femurs aren’t supposed to do. My vision flashes red and my Health bar appears in the bottom right corner of my HUD, dangerously low and about to bottom out again.

  But that’s been par for the course these past couple of days.

  Just… pain. An endless buffet of it.

  My Health bar angrily blinks at me, pinned at 1. Not moving. Not dropping. Just flickering like it’s caught in a feedback loop. This is the bug. The Guardian’s flaw. At first, hearing how Dr. Archewald had described it, I thought the Guardian would simply relent or stop attacking when my Health reached the bottom of the barrel. Give me a second to catch my breath before it continued its attempts to chip away at my regenerating Health. I was horribly, horribly wrong. The Guardian just keeps going, smashing me into the dirt like I insulted its mother. But the System refuses to let my Health drop below 1, as though it doesn’t recognize the damage (though my body certainly does). Regeneration kicks in, barely enough to keep my internal organs from turning into a fine slurry. It focuses everything on my vitals—lungs, heart, brain stem, and then spares some additional healing when it can.

  I try to crawl, but my left arm doesn’t answer the call. It just flops there like a wet noodle someone dropped on a battlefield. “F-fuck,” I wheeze, coughing up more blood.

  THOOM.

  The next leap lands just behind me. A shockwave ripples through the earth. I’m tossed forward like a ragdoll again. I think a molar finally gives up and ejects itself from my mouth.

  [Speed Boost] ping-pings back online.

  I mentally slam the activation, and the cursed jorts flare to life. Heat and power surge through my legs, and I move. It’s not graceful by any means, far from it. In fact, it starts as a limp before my legs are forced to move in a somewhat normal gait. I use the temporary boost to place as much distance between myself and the Guardian. It’s not much, but enough to give the System enough time to do a little more work, and for my Health to tick back up a few more points.

  Nothing about the jorts have changed. They still cling to my legs, the same as before. More importantly, [Speed Boost] also hasn’t changed. The same short boost, and long cooldown.

  I don’t even know if I’m learning anything anymore. This whole training exercise just seems like torture, if I’m being honest with myself.

  “Pain is the truth,” I growl between gasps, half-laughing, half-sobbing. “And the truth will flatten you like a goddamn pancake.”

  Somewhere deep in the air, I hear the click of the Guardian’s wind-up key ratcheting again. Then, I hear and feel its tongue lash out again, ready to restart the punishing and vicious cycle.

  Time in Loch Stray: 3 Days, 19 Hours, 13 Minutes.

  My whole body feels like it’s humming in a pitch only pain can hear.

  There’s a rhythm to the beatings now. A tempo. THOOM—CRACK—GASP—COOLDOWN—RUN. The Guardian doesn’t tire. It pursues me with an obsessive determination. I’ve grown so used to the routine by now, my body is moving on autopilot, absorbing the blows while I wait for [Speed Boost]’s cooldown timer to reset. It gives me time to think, to contemplate what in the hell I’m supposed to accomplish here and, more importantly, how.

  In my right hand I grasp the knurling patterns on the length of my Full Metal Staff, the weight of the weapon familiar in my grip. I’ve been wielding it during my training for about a day now, after it took me too long to realize I should be using this time to multi-task and store more energy into the staff. The silver-chrome rod glints in the daylight, pulsing faintly with latent energy—its passive effect already tugging gently on my Stamina, leeching and storing it like a parasitic battery pack, growing the plates on either end.

  It was early in the morning on the third day that I had an idea.

  “Alright, you amphibian freight train. Let’s see if I can make this suck a little for you, too,” I had spat.

  As I had grown accustomed to, the tongue hit me again, slammed into my torso like a wrecking ball. My body bent around the blow, but I didn’t let go of the staff. I focused on the moment of impact, and actually managed to trigger something. The staff had absorbed a sliver of the force of the impact, drinking it in like a sponge soaking up someone else’s misery. It wasn’t not much. Wisps of silver gathered at one end of the barbell, joining the two plates of blue energy formed by my Stamina.

  Now, I’ve gone through the process enough times that two small, hand-width plates of silver force energy have gathered on either end of my staff. I’ve since added the use of the staff as enough automatic feature of my training in this room. I expect the next lash of the tongue when it comes, and instead of trying to dodge it, brace myself. It slams into me again, with the same force as usual. I stagger back, bones creaking, vision spotted with red and static. But the staff is buzzing in my grip, faint arcs of kinetic charge dancing down its length.

  Another hop. Another tongue-lash. I brace again, but keep my legs soft. This time consciously turning with the blow and slamming the butt of the staff into the earth to ground it. Pain blossoms across my back in a spray of shattered nerves, but the staff hums. Instead of being toppled over, I remain on my feet.

  Ping!

  [Speed Boost] is back online. Now, it’s time for the cardio portion of our routine! I turn and run. And so, the cycle continues. Time passes in pulses. And somewhere between one rib-cracking belly flop and the next, something clicks.

  Not in my spine, or my knees, though I certainly feeling something clicking there too. In my head.

  Time-under-tension.

  Progressive overload.

  This isn’t a battle. It’s a fucking workout.

  The way the Guardian’s massive bulk slams me into the dirt over and over? It’s just resistance. Overwhelming, bone-melting resistance. I’m not talking about warm-up sets. No, this is the kind of resistance that builds strength. The kind that breaks you down to build you back up. Training to failure.

  And there’s the jorts. The cursed abominations clinging to my thighs like denim demons. Archewald said I had to “connect” with them, understand the jorts, in order for them to evolve. Fuck, I think, all I’ve been doing is thinking about these damned things.

  I stagger upright just as the Guardian croaks and launches another hop, the wind-up key on its back spinning like a music box wound by a sadistic toddler. Its body blots out the sun, casting me in shadow. And so, the onslaught continues.

  Time in Loch Stray: 4 Days, 00 Hours, 3 Minutes

  The Guardian—let’s call him Tormenting Toad—hasn’t stopped since the first tongue-lashing. I’ve been ragdolled, powerbombed, flattened, and pancaked. If there’s a name for it in professional wrestling or medieval torture, it’s happened to me. Repeatedly.

  I’m twitching in a shallow crater near the edge of the lake, mud smeared in my ears, wondering if my liver has migrated somewhere new, and still thinking, really thinking about the jorts. My body has drowned in the pain, allowing my mind to oddly focus on the meditation with ease. The revelation on this being like any other workout has helped focus my mind even further.

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  But what about these fucking jorts?!

  For a while I thought they were a cruel joke implemented by the System. A cosmic punchline wrapped in ugly denim. But what are they, really? They’re equipment. Like a barbell. Like the sled at the gym.

  A tool. A medium by which one can achieve gains!

  My brain drifts. Back to that week in Des Moines when I was sent on some bullshit work trip. The firm placed me in a crappy hotel, with just about the worst gym set-up I’d ever seen. No flat bench, no dumbbells. Just a janky Smith machine, half-rusted and squeaky. I remember standing there, feeling like my whole training split was ruined. And it was chest day. My favorite.

  I was going to resign myself to just heading back to the hotel room to get some more work done. But then I remembered Dad’s old bench in the garage. Summer after my senior year in high school. I had always been the fat kid, and an east target for bullying because of it. But that summer, before I set off for college, I was determined to try my best to change that. To change myself, really. Start fresh and leave all that old shit behind me. I knew my dad had some old workout stuff tucked into the back of the garage, and what would be better than turning our garage into a little home gym. A place I could workout as a newbie without feeling embarrassed or judged.

  The workout equipment had just been a single bench with an old barbell, covered in rust spots. But it worked. With a few online videos of fitness instructors showing proper lifting form and a few variations to focus on triceps and other parts of the chest, I set out on my fitness journey. And dammit, I made progress that summer! As a fat, tired, determined teenager who wanted to see something different in the mirror.

  It didn’t matter that it wasn’t optimal. It mattered that I showed up. Every day, in that stinking, hot garage. So, why should a fucking Smith machine in Des Moines stop me?!

  I made that Smith machine sing by the end of the trip. It didn’t matter that my workout wasn’t fancy. I took what I had, used it, and achieved an incredible pump regardless.

  The same should apply to these shorts. I thought I had outgrown their Stat buff, and was too good for the [Speed Boost] Skill. The problem’s never been the equipment. It’s been me.

  I push up from the crater, spitting out dirt and blood, smiling like a lunatic. The Tormenting Toad lets out another hydraulic croak, tongue twitching, ready to ruin my day again.

  Too bad for him. My day just got interesting.

  I roll my shoulders. My body screams. My muscles feel like they’re being wrung out like a wet towel. I clench my fists and dig my heels into the dirt, ready to move.

  I’m gonna push this outdated-ass gear past its limits. Gonna squeeze every last ounce of performance out of these cursed jorts like they’re that fucking Smith machine!

  “Let’s go,” I whisper, grinning madly.

  The Tormenting Toad lunges, taking to the air again. Ready to continue to the cycle.

  This time I run before activating [Speed Boost]. I still to the shore of the lake, digging deep and pushing my body to move as fast as it can. And right at that razor-thin moment, when my heels dig in and I feel like I’m going as fast as I possibly can—then I trigger [Speed Boost].

  And holy shit. I fly. I can barely feel my feet touch the ground as my top velocity is doubled for the short burst granted by the Skill. I’m a comet in jorts. Fire trailing, dirt exploding behind me, and the air itself ripping around my form.

  Turns out, I was using [Speed Boost] incorrectly this entire time. See, I’d been triggering it from a standstill. From a jog. From something comfortable. But the Skill doesn’t scale to my potential—it scales to my moment. The second I activate it, it snapshots where I’m at.

  For ten glorious, blazing, leg-pounding seconds, I’m free. I create more distance between myself and the Tormenting Toad as I have since entering Loch Stay. Finally, an accomplishment!

  Then the Skill ends.

  And the pain returns.

  And not after long, it catches me, again. The wind-up key on its back lets out a mechanical clunk as it launches through the air, tongue lashing out like a blue-hued chrome whip, and WHAM—I’m back on the ground, skipping across the grass like a human stone across a lack of grass.

  Time in Loch Stray: 5 Days, 1 Hour, 19 Minutes.

  Why jorts? I think, racking my brain for an answer. I’m convinced that the answer contains the secret to their evolution.

  Why would a shame-based curse manifest in these? Sure, they’re the result of a curse based in eliciting shame. Denim cutoff at mid-thigh, a generous four-inch inseam, frayed ends, tight enough to leave the bare minimum to the imagination.

  But maybe there’s more. They’re minimalistic. No fabric riding up. No pants dragging at the ankles. They expose my legs and allow for absolute freedom of movement. Range of motion. The ability to move.

  Is that what this was about all along?

  Movement. Not just physical, but emotional. The opportunity to move past where I was in any given moment. I’m exposed to the world, and there is no where to hide. The only option is to simply move forward. Movement. The ability to get from who I was to who I want to become.

  I chew on the idea—along with another Adventurer’s Cookie, because even epiphanies need carbs—and I keep going. No time to feel bad for myself for having had to survive on these System-generated rations in the few moments I have to spare.

  Nothing. Again…

  No ping. No breakthrough.

  Another day.

  I’m breaking. I can feel it.

  I’m losing my fucking mind!

  Every nerve is frayed. My body is bruised and broken, my mind a soup of jumbled thoughts and cursed legwear.

  And still the Guardian chases me. Still, it slams me. And, somehow, still I rise.

  Ping!

  I run, pumping my arms.

  [Speed Boost]

  The cycle continues.

  I need to break… I’m breaking… I need to break. This. Cycle!

  I’m being pulverized again.

  It’s in the haze between fleeing and limping that something clicks.

  I feel my legs. I feel them. Every twitch. Every fiber. The soreness. The strain. The pump. I can feel it from heel to hip, like lightning crawling up my nerves. The shorts were helping this entire time. They didn’t curse me.

  They challenged me. No where to hide. I had to move!

  [Speed Boost]

  The world is a blur. Air whips past my face, grass tears under my boots, and the wind lashes my skin.

  And then—ping!

  The first notification hits with the force of a barbell cracking your sternum mid-rep.

  Ping!

  A second notification.

  I pull them up with a light thought. And the first one is entirely unexpected.

  New Ability Gained!

  [Progressive Overload] (Master)

  Description: You have mastered the art of long, sustained combat! While this Ability is equipped, the longer you remain in active combat, the stronger you become. All Physical Statistics will receive a temporary percentage bonus, which will gradually increase over time during battle. Additionally, natural Stamina depletion slows the longer a fight continues.

  I bark out a laugh as I skid across the field, momentum nearly dragging me into a cartwheel of flailing limbs and post-leg-day regret.

  I can feel it. My muscles don’t just burn—they respond. Like they’ve been waiting for this moment. Like the System finally caught up with what I’ve always known: gains don’t come from bursts. They come from grinding. From consistently putting in the work.

  I spin mid-sprint, barely dodging a tongue-slap from the wind-up frog bastard, and vault over a gigantic chunk of torn up earth from one of the previous encounters with the Tormenting Toad, adrenaline screaming through me.

  I check the second System Message. And this message is the one I had been hoping for!

  SYSTEM MESSAGE:

  Your Equipment —[Trousers of the Serpentine Lord]—is evolving!

  The world flashes as a pure, blinding light engulfs my legs.

  The light fades.

  I look down.

  And nothing has changed.

  Still clinging to me like a clingy ex who’s had just enough wine to make things awkward at a wedding.

  “What the hell—”

  I’m interrupted by another System Message slamming itself into my vision.

  SYSTEM MESSAGE:

  Evolution complete.

  [Trousers of the Serpentine Lord] upgraded to [Immaculate Trousers of the Serpentine Lord]!

  Item: Immaculate Trousers of the Serpentine Lord (Legendary)

  Description: Crafted and cursed by Dr. Archewald, the Serpentine Lord, this is an enchanted item of great power, improved through the efforts of Joseph Sullivan. No, the sweat stains won’t come out!

  Enchantments:

  [Personalized]: These trousers will take a unique form specific to the wearer.

  [Growth]: These trousers will grow in strength the more often they are equipped and used in combat.

  Attributes:

  +30 to Dexterity

  +50 to Willpower

  +50% chance to evade any area of effect type Spells and Skills.

  Skills: [Speed Boost] upgraded to [Range of Motion]!

  Skill: [Range of Motion]

  Description: The User is capable of visualizing their movements up to ten seconds ahead of time and instantly transporting themselves to a single frame of motion they select. This Skill only affects the User. This Skill has a cooldown of 30 seconds.

  Oh.

  Oh.

  I let out a low whistle. “Okay. That’s worth staying in a tiny amount of denim.”

  My [Perception] screams at me, and I look up just in time to see the wind-up frog is coming again—leaping high, casting a massive shadow across the field like an incoming orbital strike. Its tongue lashes, jaws open.

  I scramble just in time to get out of the way of its impact, which sends me toppling to the ground and rolling. Rolling into a crouch, I focus on the Tormenting Toad, just as it opens its mouth for another tongue attack. I activate [Range of Motion].

  Projections of myself, made of blue light connected by silvery mist extend out from my position like frames in an animation booklet. Standing from my crouch, running towards the wind-up Guardian, leaping, twisting, and ending up airborne, behind the Tormenting Toad’s head.

  I select one, the last one. And I snap to it.

  The world stutters. My vision blinks and the next thing I know I’m in the air. I see the Guardian’s tongue lash out only to find air where I had just been standing. It croaks in rage and confusion.

  I fall, landing on the back of the Tormenting Toad with a thud.

  “One more rep!” I scream through bloody teeth.

  The monster croaks, and from this position it sounds glitchy, warbled. A subwoofer underwater. No time to hesitate. I grip the wind-up key. I plant my feet against the Guardian’s metallic spine and twist.

  It resists, emitting an ugly, long groan. I grit my teeth, veins bulging from my forearms. The muscles in my neck are screaming. The thing clicks forward once. Then again. And then—

  KA-CHUNK.

  SHHHHHRRRRKKKK—THUD!

  The Tormenting Toad locks up, limbs twitching, teal lights in its eyes flickering like dying LEDs. It stands frozen for a breathless second, before it collapses. Metal grinds against grass as it slams into the dirt with the weight of a derailed semi truck.

  I leap off its back as it topples over, hitting the ground and stumbling as my legs do their best not to buckle and break. Luckily, I remain on my feet.

  Silence.

  Then, a slow clap rings out behind me.

  I spin, heart still racing, expecting another monster. But it’s Dr. Archewald.

  Resplendent in his corset, fishnets, lab coat, and smug sense of timing. He’s standing beside an open door, applauding.

  “Bravo, darling,” he purrs. “Absolutely delicious.”

  Next to him is Walter, scratching at the side of his skull. Preston is there too, and has his arms crossed, nodding with a slow, thoughtful approval. At least, I think so. It’s hard to see the zombie goldfish floating in his fishbowl helmet. Grush and Liv are in the doorway, standing in the hall of the castle on the other side.

  Grush looks unimpressed. Liv is smiling. A wide, toothy grin filled with joy and pride. She gives me a big thumbs up.

  I drop to the ground beside the Guardian’s cooling corpse and brush the sweat from my forehead.

  “Okay,” I say, panting, hands on my knees. “Who’s up for leg day?”