Chapter Forty – Rebound – Part Three

Sometimes you just have to do something, anything, stagnation is not healthy.

-WSA Chronicler Ebbengale

Light crests my eyelashes as they unfurl. There's a feeling of stiffness all over my body as I try to stir. Like I'm being held in place by something.

"What did you say the cause of this was again?" a voice asks.

"It's classified," a more familiar one says, it's Dorliac.

"Classified doesn't tell me much, Amber."

"Consider it a personal favor to not put him on the official rosters," Dorliac says, and then with a sigh, "And another personal favor to not ask too many questions."

"Fine, but if any suits ask, I'm not covering, we're tight, but not that tight," the voice says.

"Fair enough," Dorliac says, I can't quite make her out, my vision is blurry.

Where am I? My eyes start coming into focus and then don't, they hurt every time I move them, everything kind of hurts.

"He's not out?" the voice asks, "How's that possible? You said that he's level eight."

"Like I said, classified."

"How the hell am I supposed to give him proper medications when I don't know his stats? You know as well as I do that certain stats can influence effectiveness," a blurry hand points towards me, "Case in point, he should be in dreamland right now. You don't want to tell me his stats, fine, I'll requisition someone to read them."

Dorliac moves toward what I think is a door and closes it. Am I in a hospital? That smell, like disinfectant and depression. I think I'm in a hospital. How long have I been out?

"Look, Maevis, we've been friends for more than ten years, I'm asking you, no, begging you, do not call for a reading, do not put any paperwork in for him."

"I need to ask though, how the hell am I going to…"

"Ask him, he should be able to tell you," Dorliac says, moving toward me, "Soldier, pull up your stats."

"Ma'am," I begin, but my lips hurt, what the fuck is going on?

"Careful, I think your strength stat might have jumped a bit too high for your body to handle," she says.

"You think?" Maevis says, pushing her finger into my bicep, "He is very clearly rebounding."

Dorliac gives her some kind of look, but my eyes hurt, too blurry.

"Hands… can't."

"Yeah, we've disconnected the tendons for now," Dorliac says.

What the fuck… I try to sit up, but I feel a belt strapped across my chest. Dorliac's hand presses against me.

"Fucking… crazy…" I manage to groan before she interrupts me.

"Your muscles kept ripping them off the bone, once the stats settle, I will personally reattach them," Dorliac says, then softer, "Just relax, you're in good hands, it shouldn't be more than a week."

"Don't lie to my patient," Maevis says sternly, "He's totally fucked."

"So much for bedside manner."

"I don't give out doses of bullshit, that's your specialty," Maevis says.

"It's not bullshit, we don't even know what his stats are yet."

Both of them look at me, my vision is still blurred for some reason.

"Fuck… you…"

Maevis laughs, and Dorliac sighs. Groaning, I try to will the interface to open. It's not as easy without hands, but it can be done. After a whole minute I manage to get into my stat sheet, and I immediately identify the problem…

Class: Witherbrand

Subclass: Pending

Level: 24

Titles: Ready to Claim

Strength: (15 + 16) = 31

Dexterity: (19 + 2) = 21

Constitution: (16 + 1) = 17

Intelligence: (16 + 3) = 19

Wisdom: (13 + 2) = 15

Charisma: (13 + 1) = 14

Luck: (22 + 2) = 24

My strength more than doubled… meanwhile, my constitution barely moved. Makes sense why my body is basically bricked right now. Constitution directly affects your body's sturdiness. If it gets high enough, you can become bulletproof… mostly, a fifty-caliber rifle will probably still dome you unless it's ridiculously high. Meanwhile, if it's really low, you're like a wet tissue… made me think of Red, fuck Red, probably tampered with my stat rolls somehow with Ulana on vacation.

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Anyway, a low constitution and high strength is a recipe for being fucked. My bones and tendons will need to strengthen over time naturally to hold the new power from the system, even then, I'll probably hurt myself accidentally. I'm really going to need healing skill. Without it, I don't see this working. I can't have Dorliac by my side all the time.

I'm lucky my constitution was already over ten, if it wasn't, I think I'd be dead, regardless of what they did to help me.

***

It took me a solid hour to tell them all of my stats, Dorliac's friend, Maeve, kept interrupting. Impossible this, impossible that, how did he get so many levels, why do I need to keep the staff away from his ring… the list of questions went on and on.

Dorliac finally left, and so did Doctor Maeve. Leaving me with my thoughts… keep it down. There we go. Deep breaths.

After another ten minutes, I'm getting bored waiting here, unable to do much except be frustrated. It's bullshit. But I'm alive, Cortez, everyone else, they're alive too. Dorliac says I'll see them, I guess she's going to have them all rotate in shifts.

***

Two hours later… I think, I don't actually know, can't see the clock. I'm still lying here. Dorliac told me not to roll for my subclass, she said I should focus on recovery and wait for everyone to gather. She even said not to roll for my skills, as I might get one with a passive that makes me worse off. It's unlikely that it would happen, but it could, which for her is enough.

For me though… I'm not good with just my thoughts and being unable to scratch my own ass. Also, I don't want to think about what happens when I need to use the bathroom.

***

My eyes are still blurry, but I know it's been hours, I've slept four or five times, lost track. The light from the window is growing darker. Still no one here either to keep me company. Which I'm thankful for, because finding out about how I'm supposed to use the bathroom, that was… well, shitty. I'm alive though, and I will recover, come hell or high water, I'm getting out of this bed someday soon. Until then, I really need a distraction.

Fuck it.

Fuck Dorliac and her tendon-cutting ass… I'm making the decision to check my new skills. Not them. Just me.

[ Level Fifteen Milestone Skill Roll Ready ]

[ Roll? ]

[ Yes / No ]

Please don't fuck me. I mentally hit the yes button.

[ Rolling for Witherbrand Class Skill… Success ]

[ New Skill Obtained… Wither Guardian ]

Wither guardian, that sounds promising. Guardians are usually summons that protect the caster. I saw a Flame Guardian once on TV, it belonged to one of the WHA heroes. Forget which one, but they summoned it to destroy a horde of large centipedes that escaped from a fully open gate. Saved a city, forgot the name, somewhere in Europe though. At the time I was impressed, but after reading more about it on forums, apparently, the Flame Guardian also destroyed a lot of buildings in the process. On top of that, years later I found out it was the local military outpost that dealt with the majority of the threat. Mwangi apparently was a grunt back in the day when it happened. Funny how your perspective can change the more you know about something.

Needless to say though, Earth's heroes have a varied reputation. One that the WHA tries tirelessly to improve with propaganda. For most of the population it works. But those who have worked around them, they talk, soldiers talk.

Moving through the skill menu again, I click on the new skill.

[ Skill: Wither Guardian ]

[ Usage: Allows the user to exchange Wither Charges to create Guardians. ]

[ Effect: Creates a Guardian pulled from the Well of Souls. ]

[ Duration: Each Guardian lasts until Wither Charges are expended, or the user releases Guardian. ]

[ Activation: Spoken. ]

[ Incantation: Come forth from beyond the veil… rise and become my Wither Guardian. ]

[ Cost: 10 Wither Charges per Guardian. 1 x Wither Charge per minute, per Guardian. ]

[ Unique Passive: Wither Charges gained from Guardian's actions have a chance to extend Guardian's summon without consuming a charge. ]

Wow… that's… what's Well of Souls? I've never heard of that before. Sounds like a powerful skill though. Just wish I had… no, I don't wish I had more charges. The only way I could get it in a hospital is if people pass. I don't need any more memories. They're already heavy enough.

Refocusing myself, I read the unique passive again. Interesting. So, a Guardian that can refuel itself potentially. I wonder how strong they are. Also, I wonder what the chance of activation is. If I could get a bunch of them together, wait… it doesn't say anything about me controlling them. I read it again, yeah, nothing. So, that might be a problem, or maybe it's just implied? Guess I'll have to test it out when I get ten charges.

I'm on a roll, why stop here? I pull up the next skill notification.

[ Level Twenty Milestone Skill Roll Ready ]

[ Roll? ]

[ Yes / No ]

I tap yes with my mind.

[ Rolling for Witherbrand Class Skill… Success ]

[ New Skill Obtained… Convergence of Decay ]

Interesting name. What that means though, I'm not sure. I don't feel any different, I guess that's a good sign. My mind moves through the menu, pulling up the new skill.

[ Skill: Convergence of Decay ]

[ Usage: Allows the user to manipulate brands after application. ]

[ Effect: Allows the user to direct all applied brands to a single target. ]

[ Cooldown: 72 hours ]

[ Activation: Intention. ]

[ Cost: None. ]

My eyes blink at it. Reading it three times. Seventy-two-hour cooldown sucks… but, no cost… that's broken. The hardest part about the fight with the Emperor Dragonfly was that I had to keep restacking and delivering charges because I was only level fourteen. Now though, I can put them on the closest enemy… what's the distance? Is there a cap on it? Holy shit… if there isn't a cap on distance, and if I don't have to touch them. Fuck me.

Even if I do have to touch the target, that's still broken. If I already made a hundred brands and none activated, I could instantly stack a boss with one hundred. How is this skill even allowed?

No wonder people who know about Witherbrand fear it. The entire class skill set is becoming broken the more I get. Normal classes aren't this broken right? To think that I was disappointed with this class roll before. I'm such a fool. I can't even imagine what it will be like at level one hundred. I really hope I never have to Respec again. Losing any piece of this class would be tragic.

Thinking about classes… if Witherbrand is broken, what would a subclass of it look like? Those are generally better than the base class. More specialized. I don't think I can wait for Dorliac to give me the go-ahead… I need to know.

My mind traces towards the next notification.

[ Level Twenty Subclass Assignment Ready To Roll. ]

[ Roll? ]

In for a penny in for a pound.

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