Zeroth Moment: My Cheat Skill Is Stupid, So I'll Just Ignore It

Topher's guts clenched as his carefully empty palms sweated. This is a real, real bad idea.

He was standing directly in front of the giant skeletal guardian-beast, protected (at least for now) by another of his dwindling supply of Sanctuary spells, Hana's silver vial dangling from a pair of strings suspended between his two thumbs. He didn't have any clue if this would work, but he had a suspicion that it would; the Sanctuary spell seemed to be extremely literal (as did most of the magic he'd dealt with here, which gave him some deep-seated and inarticulate concerns about exactly what was powering it) and wearing things on his hands didn't seem to disrupt it (since he'd been wearing the warding ring since the beginning of the dungeon). Stretching his arms out in front of him, he carefully maneuvered the vial so that it hung precisely above the lead foreclaw of the beast, about five feet off the ground (the fact that the claw itself was nearly two feet thick was not something he wanted to think about at the moment).

If this doesn't work, I'm almost definitely dead, he thought to himself grimly, but there was no help for it; if either Hana or Zanasha got anywhere near this thing, he was pretty sure it would instantly leap out and obliterate them; he didn't know what Level the thing was, but he was pretty sure it was going to be much higher than all of their Levels put together. So, instead, they'd come up with this plan; using Topher's Sanctuary spell to get him close enough to do this.

Extremely carefully, he pulled his hands apart, making a tremendous effort to keep the vial level and centered between them. He wouldn't get a second chance at this, which was another reason he thought this plan was insane, but he'd been forced to agree with the others that all their other options were worse.

"And what did you say this stuff is, exactly?" he'd asked Hana previously.

She'd smoothed her luxurious hair back over her left ear self-consciously in a shy, pretty movement that would have been enchanting to anyone other than Topher, who just felt uncomfortable. "It's called a Tincture of Timelessness, Bailey-san. It can be used in a number of different ways, but the most common is to preserve a document or other perishable object against decay or decomposition. Any object which has the oil applied to it will be protected from the passage of time."

"Uh huh." Topher folded his arms. "And how's that gonna help us?"

The other girl ducked her head shyly. "As I said, Bailey-san, it can be used many different ways. One can drink it to hasten one's movements for a brief period, or pour it on a possession to protect it from damage. Applied to a weapon as a poison, it can slow a foe's movements and thoughts. And, as a last resort..." -- she looked slightly stricken -- "...one can apply the oil directly to an enemy, to freeze them in time for a few moments."

Topher rolled his eyes. "Right. And exactly how long is 'a few moments'? Because it definitely sounds like you want to try to use it to sneak past the guardian."

"Topher, it may well work," interjected Zanasha, which destroyed Topher's defenses utterly. "Even a drop or two of the oil can stop any creature, no matter how big. What is more, the creature will not perceive time as passing, so it would not detect us as long as we were gone before the effects wore off."

Topher nodded, entirely too eagerly for his own tastes, and swallowed his objections. "All right. I'm guessing you think it'll be incapacitated long enough to pass by its guarded area, so I'll trust that you know what you're talking about. So let's say we're gonna use this against the thing: how do we do that, exactly?"

And that had led to this moment. Topher stretched his hands apart, his nerves humming with tension and stress. The vial's stopper, secured to the string around his right thumb, began to inch its way out of the vial's neck as the vial was pulled away by the string tied to Topher's left thumb. He had to do this carefully, or the vial would --

Instantly, what he'd been fearing happened; the stopper, which had been resisting his pull quite stubbornly up until that moment, gave way and popped out much too forcefully, launching the vial in the opposite direction and threatening to spill the oil everywhere but on the creature's paw. Topher, however, had been ready for this, and instantly clamped down with his will on the bottle with his Attract Object power, desperately pulling it towards his right hand. In total defiance of gravity, the tiny vial immediately pulled itself back upright, pulling the string on his left thumb taut and returning to a vertical position before any of the oil could escape.

Letting out a quiet sigh of relief, Topher considered the situation carefully, then began to raise his left hand slightly while lowering his right. The bottle, fully extended between his two hands and held firmly in place by his power, slowly rotated to match the orientation of his hands. A single drop of oil gathered tantalizingly at the edge of the vial's neck, glistened wetly there for a moment, then slipped soundlessly off and fell with almost dreamlike slowness to splash on the guardian's claw.

Flinching a little, Topher hastily righted the bottle (raising his right hand above his left so that the bottle was vertical again) and stopped. Shit. What do I do now?

If the oil had worked, he needed to signal the others immediately (so they could dash past before the effect wore off), but doing so would break his Sanctuary spell -- if the oil took a moment or two to take effect, he'd be torn apart by the guardian before that could happen. He glanced up at the creature, checking to see if he could detect any sign of movement or paralysis.

This proved to be a very bad idea; he looked up directly into its terrifying visage, mere feet away from his own, and jerked back a little in surprise; he hadn't realized he was that close to its face. Doing so disrupted his concentration, and the little vial began to fall away from his outstretched hand; reflexively, he grabbed it with his left thumb and forefinger, then rammed the stopper back into place with his right hand before it could spill again. And then he realized he'd just broken his Sanctuary.

He cringed, expecting sudden and violent death; but to his relief, the guardian didn't move. The flames of its eyesockets still danced and flickered, but the rest of it seemed motionless. Ducking away before he could question his luck, he waved frantically to the others.

What happened next impressed him; the instant he made his signal, Zanasha scooped up Hana with the economy of a well-practiced technique and began to sprint full-tilt towards Topher. Hana, moving her well-toned body sinuously, snaked up the half-orc's arm and onto her shoulder in exactly the right way to move from being carried like a sack of grain to instead being seated on Zanasha's shoulder while facing back the way they'd come. Her right hand kept hold of Zanasha's wrist while her other hand shaded her eyes; she's monitoring the situation, thought Topher approvingly. They operate as a unit. He noticed, as they pelted closer, that the guardian had stopped its shifting about on the platform; it must be working. As long as it lasts --

Then, abruptly, everything went to shit.

Just as Zanasha was about to clear the first step down towards the figures below, the guardian jerked and abruptly re-entered the timestream; from Hana's expression, that had been much faster than she'd been expecting, and she drew in a breath to cry out a warning -- Zanasha, facing the other way, wouldn't know to dodge. But it didn't matter; the beast, moving so fast its form was a blur, was already lunging to crush them both with a single swipe of its massive paw.

Yeah, no. Topher, who had spent his entire life waiting to fall in love, wasn't about to watch the object of his affections get obliterated by a giant skeleton dog monster twenty minutes into their acquaintance. He stepped backwards off the step.

In that merest fraction of mid-air weightlessness, he activated his Attract Object power again; it catapulted him forward and shot Zanasha and Hana forward with precisely equal velocity, pulling them out from under the guardian's claw by the slimmest of margins. Topher, hurtling through the air directly towards certain death, summoned his Stylus and began spinning it.

He'd have to be careful, he knew; the distance traveled by the Magic Gem along the gesture of the spell's casting multiplied and concentrated the force of the spell for each fraction of an inch traveled, and spinning his wand effectively turned what would otherwise have been a short, sharp arc into a looping, multi-vectored hyper-parabolic projection. As he rocketed through the air, he precisely measured five full rotations, then snapped the wand down at the guardian. Can't fuck this up. Gotta destroy the monster and not the whole dungeon with it. He took a short, sharp breath, scrambling to select a spell to gamble with, then snapped out "Lhei Viak Elrr Gadiph!"

His Entangle spell, which he hadn't used seriously since he'd come to this place, erupted with a breathtaking fury; lashing, ashy tendrils two feet thick erupted from the ground and caught the guardian almost instantly. The thermal radiation from them blazed so fiercely that Topher was seared by the heat even ten feet away; he quickly tugged on a pillar behind him to arrest his momentum before he could plow face-first into the blast, then fell unceremoniously onto his ass and scrambled backwards alacritously. He raised his wand, desperately trying to figure out something to follow up with, but it quickly turned out that he didn't need to bother; the strands of his spell, which he'd only hoped would immobilize his opponent, instead crushed the skeletal beast to powder as he watched, awestruck. Damn. Okay, definitely worth remembering that I can do that.

He winced, looking around in a panic for any signs of an alarm or reinforcements, but the great echoing hall remained still; apparently he'd obliterated the guardian before it could trigger anything. Probably had some kind of shout that could awaken other defenses, he realized with satisfaction. Groaning, he levered himself up to his feet with difficulty as he let his concentration lapse on the Entangle spell; the whipping tendrils vanished, leaving behind only shattered and powdered fragments of bone and metal.

He dismissed his Stylus, looking at the wreckage with disbelief. This thing had to be Level 50, easy. How the hell did I destroy it almost by accident? There's no way my wand-spinning technique can be that powerful, right?

A groan floated up the stairs behind him, shocking him back to reality; he turned guiltily and stared down at the two women sprawled at the bottom of the long stone staircase, nearly twenty feet below him. Oh fuck!

He scampered with unseemly haste down to reach them, but all seemed well; Zanasha sat up, rubbing the back of her head sheepishly, while Hana seemed mostly confused. "What happened? I saw the creature move, and then...?"

Topher sighed, feeling embarrassed. "Yeah. I pulled you out of the way its attack, using... um, a telekinesis spell." And accidentally launched you down a flight of stone stairs and almost broke your necks, but let's leave that part out. "Are you okay?"

"A few bruises; the constant companion of a warrior," replied Zanasha with her half-shy smile; Topher's stomach transformed abruptly into a mass of butterflies and he had to fight to avoid involuntarily sitting down again. "I note the area is silent; did you use more oil on the guardian?"

"Uh, not exactly." Topher shied away a little. "I kinda... accidentally destroyed it. I guess it wasn't all that strong."

"We were fortunate if so, Bailey-san." Hana gracefully rose to her own feet and bowed to Topher, a little deeper than before. "Nevertheless, I am grateful to you for your aid. We might easily have been killed if not for your efforts." She clasped her hands prayerfully before her. "How can we repay you?"

You can give me your friend's number, Topher didn't say. "No thanks necessary," he replied gruffly. Something uncomfortable tugged at his attention, but he shoved it away; he was already uncomfortable enough and didn't need any additional distractions at the moment. "Let's just keep moving."

Zanasha nodded and rose, dusting herself off and checking her equipment. They'd had to leave her helmet behind (Topher's initial greeting had bent it so badly that she couldn't get it back on), but her sword and the rest of her armor had mostly escaped unscathed. "Agreed. We should be gone from this place before any alarm is raised. Topher, are you able to make another light for us, or should we attempt to construct some torches?"

"I probably can. Let me check my remaining MP." Topher opened his Status; after a moment, his mouth dropped open. "Holy Jesus."

"Topher? Are you well?" Zanasha's voice was tinged with concern.

Topher gulped. "Well, good news and bad news. The bad news is I'm down to 5 MP."

Zanasha frowned. "You are able to measure your own MP?"

"Huh?" Topher blinked, then remembered that not everyone had Improved Status. "Uh, yeah. I have Improved Status. But I gained a few Levels from killing that thing."

"Multiple Levels?" A tiny frown creased Hana's porcelain skin between her eyebrows. "How many?"

Topher gulped. "Um... a few."

Name:

Christopher Bailey

Level:

24

Class:

Clerk

HP:

73/73

MP:

5/96

SP:

24/24

Strength:

Rank F

Dexterity:

Rank F

Constitution:

Rank D [+1: Rank D]

Intelligence:

Rank D

Wisdom:

Rank D [+1: Rank D]

Charisma:

Rank F

Skills:

Literacy (Rank D)

Mathematics (Rank C)

Cooking (Rank F)

Customer Service (Rank D)

Data Entry and Filing (Rank B)

Packaging and Shipping (Rank D)

Home Appliance Repair (Rank F)

Pen Spinning (Rank A)

[Cold Resistance (Rank F)]

[Heat Resistance (Rank F)]

[Obscure Location (Rank C)]

[Nondetection (Rank C)]

Special Skills:

Disrupt Illusion

Conjure Shield (Rank D)

Conjure Light (Rank F)

Improved Status

Summon Ledger

Remove Fatigue (Rank D)

Minor Sorcery (Rank C)

Summon Stylus

Sanctuary (Rank F)

[Pass Without Trace (Rank C)]

Unique Skill:

Attract Object