Enemy Defeated!– –Artemis Lian CrockX1!– –You have gained 1000 XP!– –You have gained 500 GP!– –You have reached Level: 11!– –You have 5 unused stat points!– –You have 0 unused perk points!– Leslie looked over his notifications as the girl remembered she was a human.
The level up was nice, the stat points would be fantastic.
With the plus fifty percent modifier to his MP from Shining Soul, that was another fifteen points.
And with the Bright Soul modifier, the boost to his Wisdom got him another three percent of his MP back per hour.
He would be able to cast all of his spells one more time before running dry.
Well, three more times for Toad.
That one was harder to level without a valid target, so it was sitting at four.
His last point went into Vitality.
It wasn’t terribly healthy, nineteen points meant three-hundred and eighty HP.
Leslie figured it would at least give him an opportunity to run away from anything that wouldn’t kill him in one hit.
Like any of the metahumans.
He ran his gaze over his stats one more time.
Nine Strength, Nineteen Vitality, Five Dexterity, Nine Agility, Twenty-Two Intelligence and Twenty-Two Wisdom with Six points in Luck.
He was never going to compare to the powerhouses in this reality, and he was okay with that.
He could try moving in a different direction, magic and utility instead of raw damage.
The girl, Artemis, was starting to come to, but still seemed to struggle with the sensory disparity between being a toad and human.
Leslie took that time to double check his perks.
He didn’t have any points left, but there had been a few things he wanted to double check.
Metamagic: Lock had been a tough choice, there were a few branching options down that tree, but Lock had been especially interesting.
It would make his spells and enchantments harder to dispel by others until he mastered the spell, at which point it was permanent unless he personally dispelled it or something with significantly greater metaphysical weight than him got rid of it.
So gods, spirits, demons and the fae wouldn’t have much trouble, but he could force John Constantine to burn a favor to undo a curse.
Or he could make his buffs permanent when cast.
Both options were good!
It does suck that it locked him out of purchasing Metamagic: Overcharge but he figured if he couldn’t deal with something in one hit, it would deal with him in one hit instead.
Magically Apprenticed had been the last perk he bought.
It just made spellcasting Ten percent easier.
That wasn’t too impressive, but the level Fifty archmage perk was the end of that perk tree and it did the same thing but at a Fifty percent magnitude.
Terra was not exactly imaginative.
Leslie nearly jumped when Artemis launched herself to her feet.
He stared, intentionally keeping his eyes locked on hers and not on…
Other things.
His body was thirteen, not his mind.
She seemed at a loss for words, or perhaps this was how she instinctively acted.
Leslie wasn’t sure.
He waited one second, then two…
Then five.
“What…” He finally said, uncertain what to say, to do next.
“Do you want?” If he’d been watching anything else, he might have seen her feet moving before one of them slammed into his jaw.
–Critical Hit!– –Headshot!– — -80 HP!– — -2 VP!– “Son of a bitch!” He didn’t care about the numbers, that just legitimately hurt!
And he only had Seven VP, so he couldn’t afford to take too many more of those.
“Where the hell are my clothes?!” Artemis backed her way to the middle of the bare room, one arm across her chest while she tried to maintain an aggressive stance.
Leslie tapped his jaw twice, casting Life and Cure sequentially, repairing all of the damage she’d caused.
“Assuming nobody else picked them up?
Probably still in the alley you grabbed me in.” He glared, silently casting Protect and Blink.
“Give me back my clothes, asshole!” She tensed, readying herself to attack him again.
And missed when he stepped to the side.
“Yeah, no.
I ain’t got ’em.
You want ’em you can walk out and find them yourself!” He stepped to the side again when she tried to grab him.
Her third attempt came up short when he stepped backwards, out the door to the room and slammed it on her.
She was pounding on the door, but he took the moment to think.
He could either turn her back into a toad and drop her somewhere.
Turn her into a toad and leave her as a toad.
Teleport out and just leave this as a bad job…
Or he could try and talk to the angry naked blond girl.
“Why were you following me?” The pounding stopped for a moment before she hit the door one final time.
There was a squeak of skin on varnish as she probably sat down on the other side.
“…Because I wanted to ask you something.” “And you couldn’t have tried the sane, non-ninja method of just asking?” She may have started to calm down, but Leslie was still holding the door shut.
“I just…
This is what I know how to do, okay?” Artemis sounded defensive, not apologetic.
“Okay.
Let’s try this again.
Why were you following me?” Leslie looked around the main room of the apartment.
The only thing he’d left out this morning had been his camping cot, and that was easy to grab.
And easy to replace, if it came down to it.
“You’re a healer, right?” Ah, damn.
He could hear the hope in her voice.
“Let me guess.
You were somehow nearby enough to hear my conversation with Batman the other week, weren’t you?” This was the only option that made sense, seeing as he hadn’t brought it up, at all, with anyone else.
“What?
How did you know?” “Because reality runs on Narrative-ium and I’m a wizard.” He stepped away from the door, materializing a pair of lawn chairs as he moved.
“So get out here and we’ll have a proper talk about this.” He’d set both chairs up before she awkwardly shuffled out of the empty room, hands once again covering her body.
“Do you, do you have -anything- I can wear?” “No.”