The Games We Play

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryuugi. This has been pulled from his Spacebattles publishment at threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/. Anyway on with the show...err read.

Regrouping

Raven Branwen

LV 173

Those were the words revealed on the Party screen as Raven furrowed her brow and pressed the accept button, writing themselves next to a pair of colored bars—her HP and MP. While I'd only ever done it a few times, I could make parties with people of a higher level than me just fine.

There just wasn't much point, generally speaking. Experience couldn't be divided equally unless our levels were close to one another and by default, the only thing revealed about someone that strong was their level. While that was useful in its own way, levels being a broad indicator of someone's general ability, the fact remained that it was fairly unhelpful on its own. While the difference between two people at level one might not be huge, the difference between those who have grown and developed was immense. From the focus in their stats to the nature of their Semblance, those at high levels grew in vastly different directions and possessed their own strengths and weaknesses, so boiling them down to a number became almost useless. There could be a warrior with a Semblance that granted inhuman strength and a Dust-user with the power to create elaborate Glyphs and they could both be the same level—but they weren't the same.

At the level I was at now especially, I pretty much ignored levels entirely, beyond noting whether or not I was able to see them. The information revealed by Observe was vastly more important that the numbers about their head, especially since at three digits or more, it wouldn't be odd if a person's effective strength could vary by a few dozen levels based on the precise nature of their Semblance and the situation. Knowing the specifics was a necessity, in cases like that.

Added to that, the truth was that while being a member of my party had its uses, it also had its limits. Even if they were connected to me in some fashion, it wasn't as though they obtained my Semblance or anything. As I'd tested with Adam a lot time ago, they couldn't use skill books to learn things more quickly, nor did they gain the ability to learn skills—or rather, the ability to learn skills the way I did. If we were all close in level, then we could see each other's HP bars, but they didn't gain any of the other perceptive abilities that came with my Semblance, so they couldn't see names, titles, or levels. They didn't gain the benefits of the Gamer's Mind or Body, either. Really, all they got out of it was the ability to earn experience by killing monsters.

Not that that wasn't amazing in its own right, of course. One of the advantages of my parties was that if you got enough experience while a member of one, you'd level up and get a handful of points to distribute however you wanted. Unlike conventional training, it didn't matter what you'd been focusing on, so you could freely place points in Intelligence, Wisdom, or even Luck, despite having done nothing to improve them directly. Given that training such things normally became exceedingly difficult as the stats got higher—even for me, despite all the advantages I'd leveraged to the task—this was a godsend.

In addition, unless they were a member of my party, levels weren't tied to killing the Grimm at all and improving them depended entirely on a person's own ability—and from what little I'd seen of Hunter graduates, their growth would usually slow down greatly around the time they'd finished attending schools like Haven or Beacon. None of the graduates I'd seen had levels that strayed too far from the higher end of the student body, which I guess made sense; once you'd already spent years and years training your body, mastered the use of your Semblance, finished polishing your combat style, and had some actual experience under your belt, it was unlikely to make any of the massive improvements that could be seen early on. Even then, while I'd seen people leap forward five levels overnight in my short time at Haven, that increase in levels was probably from gaining a greater understanding of how to use their Semblance or something and hadn't been accompanied by any change in their stats.

Thankfully, in my case, improving levels was a standardized process of reaching quotas, without anything like bottlenecks and with guaranteed rewards each time. Even if I didn't make any random improvements from sudden realizations—beyond the natural benefit of whatever I came up with, of course; my power wasn't actually tied to my level, after all—what gains I did make generally had more value to them, or at least more consistency. I'd seen people with stats far higher than their levels would indicate and also far lower, but I knew for a fact where I stood at any given time.

As always, I was grateful to my power for that, among many other things.

But still, what had Raven been eating? Even keeping in mind that levels were nothing but a broad measure of strength, for her level to be the better part of twice my mother and father's…I still couldn't Observe her to tell, but was it simply because of her Semblance or had she simply grown that strong on her own somehow? I suppose that if you added up all my gains from training and divided them by the five points per level, I wasn't too far away from the point myself—and I was stronger than my stats indicated regardless—but it was still very impressive, even though I'd known she had to be about this strong, given that I hadn't been able to see her level even after breaking the three digit barrier. Given what I knew about growth rates besides my own…she must have been at least three digits when she graduated from Beacon.

Or was she and exception somehow, like I was? Had she had some other way of growing this strong? If it wasn't just her Semblance, then it would have to be her skills, but…

And God, what about the rest of her team? Cinder? Ozpin?

Even though it was just a number on a screen, it was hard not to find the implications disheartening. It seemed I still had a long, long way to go.

"Did that do something?" Raven asked after a moment, the screen in front of her vanishing without any obvious changes from her perspective.

"Try saying 'Status,'" I replied, careful not to let my worries show.

"Status," Raven replied and started slightly as a window appeared before her eyes. She paused for a moment when her eyebrows furrowed, considering it for a moment. "…Ah. This is…?"

"Your status screen," I replied, nodding. "Just like in a game. You should be able to see the general details, at least."

Raven shot me an odd look.

"Can you not see it?" She asked.

"I can," I replied, shaking my head slightly as I spoke. "But I thought you might like a moment to go over it first."

Well, while that sounded polite, there was also the fact that there wasn't much point in snooping. Unfortunately, the status screens my party system provided weren't as useful or detailed as my own—probably because most of the options I had simply weren't relevant to them. As they didn't have Inventories or skills the way I did, those things weren't available or displayed, nor was a lot of the other information that I could usually see. It didn't bother showing thing like their emotional states, backgrounds, or all the other stuff I found useful as a voyeur, either, presumably because they were expected know. Truthfully, it was really nothing but a simple, streamlined window with their names, HP, MP, stats, points, and the other basic stuff, along with the option to improve stats if points were available to do so; the stuff that they could actually use, essentially.

Which meant that it wasn't of much value to me because I had Observe, which displayed far more information and which was why whenever Adam wanted to see the details of his stats, I usually just created illusory versions of whatever I could see using it. While I was curious to know what stats Raven had, they were fairly far down the list of things I'd like to see on her status page, so it was hard to get too excited—I knew better than anyone how much your skills and abilities could play with your states, so that information was also of limited use on its own; her Aura alone probably at least doubled their effective values. If I'd been able to see her Status in its entirety, I'd probably have shamelessly taken a look, but it wasn't meant to be.

Raven pondered that for a moment before nodding and I glanced over it once. She was built similarly to Adam, with a focus on her physical stats, though they were a fair bit higher than his and arranged somewhat differently, favoring Dexterity first, Stamina second, and Strength last—not that any of them were less than two hundred. Both Intelligence and Wisdom were fairly high as well, though her Luck was only about equal to mine. All told, she had the highest stat total I'd ever seen on a human.

"It's interesting," Raven mused. "Certainly, it's convenient to have such things numbered. They're accurate, I assume?"

I nodded.

"Adam can testify to that," I answered. "So long as you're a member of my party, each level you gain will give you five points to distribute freely among your stats. Adam's made a lot of improvement lately, as I'm sure you've noticed."

"So that's why," She replied, tilting her head. "Yes, I've noticed that he's become quite a bit stronger and faster—amazingly so, though he's always been a fairly quick study in such things. This is why? What a convenient power…how do you gain levels?"

"By defeating enemies," I replied. "Adam and I hunt the Grimm nearby at night, when we're not busy training other things."

Raven raised an eyebrow suddenly, casting me a look.

"I thought that might be you," She said. "I hope you're aware that you've gathered quite a bit of attention burning down fields and rearranging the landscape."

I shrugged with a smile.

"It happens," I told her. "It's not like anyone was using those fields but the Grimm, anyway."

"True," She conceded before falling silent for a minute. "Given that you've shown me this, am I correct in assuming that you'd like me to accompany the two of you from now on?"

"You are," I replied. "Given the strength of our enemies and the schedule we're on, it looks like we'll have to pick up the pace as well. Unfortunately, our options on that front are limited and the potential dangers are great, and I'd appreciate it if you were willing to help."

"I'm willing," She assured, giving me a slight smile before letting the expression vanish and looking at me seriously. "With how dire things are now…I hope you have something impressive in mind."

I took a breath and exhaled slowly.

"Something," I agreed. "I can't say it's something I'd wanted to do, but beggars can't be choosers. I'll explain the rest on the way."

I stepped through the portal, returning to the place where it all began.

The land of Grimm. The continent north of Vytal that Mankind had long since abandoned—or rather, been driven from. Absently, I realized I was probably one of the few people with some idea or when or why; I'd read my fair share of history books and then some, but I'd never heard any concrete details on how it happened, presumably because it had occurred too long ago for anyone to remember. Most of what we knew of the place came from the infrequent expeditions that rarely ended well.

But, hard as it was to believe given what I knew, this place had once been home to the greatest civilization that had ever existed on this planet.

And it had been my home.

"Jian, are you sure about this?" Raven murmured as she followed me through, keeping her voice quite as if afraid the sound would draw down an endless horde of monsters—which was a fair possibility, granted. I had already locked down the area around use with Levant, covered us with an illusion, and was generally doing my best to hide our presence, and I still wasn't sure it would be enough.

Even so, I answered her question.

"More or less," I replied, not bothering to hide my lack of confidence. When it came to gathering power and training, this was probably the best place in the world for me—at least, in theory. A land ruled entirely by the Grimm, where all traces of Mankind had been wiped out…needless to say, it played host of some of the worst creatures Mankind had ever seen and I was betting a fair few more besides, given that no one had gotten very far. While it wasn't anything as extreme as the final levels of an RPG where each and every creature had an unbelievably high level, even just a quick survey of the area revealed that all the Grimm nearby were a fair bit more powerful than the norm, being both larger and covered in more spikes. Was that because of their age or simple because of the location? Both were a possibility, given that this had been their birth place. "I've been planning to come her for quite some time, anyway."

"Really?" Raven asked, sending me a somewhat dubious glance that I simply nodded to.

"Ever since I found out my connection to it, it's been wearing on my mind," I admitted. "Though truthfully, I guess I'd always believed that there was something important here. I think everyone does."

"Well, if there are a billion guards around something, it's usually safe to assume there's something inside," Adam remarked as he followed his mother through the portal. Despite his easy going tone, it was plain to see from the way he was scanning the surroundings and the tension in his body that he was frightened—which was to say, smart. Gou followed on his heels and didn't say a word, but that was probably more because he was picking up on our tension than anything else.

"Something like that," I agreed. "Since this is where it all started, there might still be something here, if only something that Malkuth decided to preserve for his own sake. He allowed people to continue living everywhere else, if only in remote corners of the world, but here? Nothing. The Grimm slaughter anyone who tries. There's probably something worth finding around here."

"But that's not why we're here today," Raven said.

"No," I confirmed. "It's not. Even with our power, I don't think we're ready for such a thing. Instead, we need to prepare for what's ahead of us and this is the best place to do it."

"And the most dangerous place to do it," She noted.

"Sadly, that's why it's the best," I answered with a sigh. "Truthfully, I'd prefer to keep playing things safe, the way I have been, never fighting an opponent I wasn't sure I could overcome or, at least, escape from—but there isn't enough time for that anymore. I've been carefully testing the waters around Mistral and slowly reaching out, like I did with the Leviathan and then the Hydra—"

"What's this?" Raven asked with rising eyebrows, turning her head towards her son.

"It's a long story," Adam replied. "Short version is that he drags me to all kinds of fucked up places."

"But each time something proves to be dangerous, I withdraw to prepare myself further," I continued, ignoring them both. "When I understood the implications of the Leviathan's might, I delayed crossing the sea for quite some time so that I could grow stronger in safety. When I finally did and faced a Hydra, I received a reminder of how terrifying the Grimm can be when it transformed into an Ananta and I had to scramble to keep it from evolving, so I put off exploration again to continue my training."

"What?" Raven asked, furrowing her brow and blinking. She glanced back to me and then at Adam. "I feel as though you just brushed past something important, Jian."

"Fucked up places," Adam repeated.

"That's only smart," I forged on. "It only makes sense not to do something you know you aren't ready for, for reasons that are fairly self-explanatory. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread and all that—and if it were up to me, I'd keep doing things that way. But it's not. We're on a time limit—and Cinder proved far more dangerous than I feared. The schedule we were on had us tackling Hydras again in a month or two, but we just don't have that much time anymore. There is a massive gap in power between us and our enemies and Cinder isn't even the most powerful of them. If things were scheduled to come to ahead in several years or perhaps a decade from now, we could take things slow and take them safe, but they aren't. Cinder's plans will start moving forward in a matter of months and it may well start everything off. Even if they don't, if it turns out that Cinder needs to be stopped, which has grown increasingly likely with time, we need to be prepared. We can't afford to take this as slowly as we have been anymore, which only leaves us with a few choices left. That's where you come in Raven."

"So I'm not just your chauffeur?" She asked, glancing at me again before blinking her eyes closed. "Ah, I think I see. A safety net, is it?"

"Partially," I confirmed. "Truthfully, we could have escaped from the Ananta while it was still recovering, but there was too much of a risk that it'd turn towards Mistral, then or later. I couldn't take that risk any more than I could with anything near the Kingdoms. Part of the reason we're here is because, though extremely dangerous, it's also remote enough that we can relax somewhat. With the nature of your power especially, we should be able to withdraw at any time without them following us towards civilization, though we'll play it safe for the time being. But also, yes, you are our safety net, to catch us when things inevitably go awry…at least for the time being. Early on especially, I suspect things will be rather touch and go, but later…"

I shook my head.

"Is that alright with you?" I asked.

"It would not be the first time I've played this role," She replied, inclining her head my way. "And time is of the essence. I'll be on guard."

"Thank you," I told her truthfully, bowing my head more deeply then she had as a gesture of respect. "Now, a few warnings—and don't be surprised if I add to this randomly, given where we are. First of all, stay away from the trees."

"The trees?" Adam asked, glancing around us. Right now, we were standing in the middle of what looked like a forest, surrounded by dark trees with white blossoms. Adam paused for a moment, squinted for a moment, and then widened his eyes. "Are those?"

"Lotus Eaters," I said with a nod.

The Fruit of Madness

LV 63

Lotus Eater

Those were the words that appeared over the branches of the nearest tree and a closer look at it revealed the truth behind them. Though it was disguised well, the delicate-looking petals of its blossoms were in fact made of hard bone spikes, giving away its true nature. It was a Lotus Eater, a species of Grimm that took on the forms of a variety of different kinds of plant life; however it looked, though, what mattered was its true nature. From its open petals, which did in fact look like lotus blossoms, wafted clouds of dust-like material—it's 'pollen.' Though the trees themselves had little combat ability, those who inhaled their pollen would quickly fall prey to its effects.

The symptoms were as horrible as they were varied and looking at the spores, I could see why. They'd drive their victims to madness with hallucinations and toxins, literally attacking their brain from within until they collapsed, sickened and senseless. Then, the trees would drag them into their trunks while they were still trapped within their nightmares and digest them.

Slowly. Though they were thankfully rare in other parts of the world, Vacuo had done several studies on them out of necessity, as there were some places north of it where they could grow. After a costly first encounter, they'd managed to destroy an infestation of the things relatively close to the Kingdom, and when the Grimm had faded, they left behind the corpses within. Autopsies had agreed they'd all died of the same thing—starvation.

"I'm shielding us," I said. "But don't let your guard down. This isn't exactly a place to go on vacation to."

"Please," Adam snorted. "You'd spend your vacations here in a heartbeat, Jaune."

I smiled at that, if not as brightly as I normally might.

"Well," I hedged. "Maybe. Just follow my lead, okay?"

Having said that, I took a moment to close my eyes. Sadly, returning to my horrific homeland was only part one of my magnificent strategy for meeting the approaching deadline—and it wasn't even the part I was most uncomfortable with. Taking a deep breath, I activated part two.

Venenum (Active) LV1 EXP: 47.03%

An ancient art utilizing the principles of Alchemy. Through the process of transmutation, it is possible to convert one's body and soul into baser materials, but due to the requirement of one's vital fluids, few alchemists were willing to transform large quantities, especially given the risks involved. Instead, many alchemists chose to convert small amounts of their blood into medicines, allowing them to profit without undue harm—after all, due to the process occurring within the user's body, even carefully bleeding the results out does not guarantee the alchemist himself will not suffer the medicines effects. For that reason, poisons were rarely created, but this skill allows for the creation of any toxin or medicine that may be produced organically, limited only by the users power and skill. Masters of the art, however, are said to be able to create far greater things.

10 HP and 10 MP per milliliter.

Immediately after using Venenum, I started feeling strange and knew that the blood I'd converted into poison was taking effect even before the pain took hold. I brought up my HP and looked at it carefully, Semblance keeping my body steady even when it should have been collapsing under the near liter of poison I'd filled my veins with. Immediately, several windows appeared, notifying me of the improvements to Poison Resistance, but even that wasn't enough to keep my HP from ticking down.

"Jaune?" Adam asked, concern filling his voice. He was close enough to my level to see my HP and how quickly it was dropping.

"Don't worry about it," I replied, still watching it fall. Only when it was nearly empty did I heal myself, carefully regulating my returning health to insure it didn't go too high and tried to keep it steady.

This was the next step of my plan, making use of the skill I'd obtained from the Ananta and which I hadn't used much until now, because of the danger involved. Despite its enormous power, using it carried enough risk that I had only used it sparingly and never in battle—and even then, I wouldn't have even considered using it at all without Second Chance. Though I didn't mind hurting myself a for the sake of training and didn't care what happened to my body in generally, it was a bit different when my life was on the line.

But desperate times…

Etz Hayim (Passive) LV1 EXP: 12.11%

The Tree of Life is what gives shape to the mortal soul, defining it between the states of life and death. Through life, the soul is polished, the truth of oneself being slowly revealed by the hands of time—and yet, at the same time, man is born to die. Yet death, too, has its place and role, for if to live is to learn, then it awaits as the final lesson. With this skill, the user may approach, in small part, the truth of that mystery.

Increase all experience gains by 200% while HP is below 1%.

Increase all experience gains by an additional 300% while only 1 HP remains.

…Call for desperate measures.