Chapter 5: Mysteries of the Menu

Chapter 5: Mysteries of the Menu

The dark settled around Jadis as both of her bodies huddled together under a rocky overhang situated at the base of the cliff overlooking the valley. The recess carved by some natural event of geology was nothing near what anyone would call a cave. It did provide a meager amount of shelter, though, letting Jadis put her backs to a presumably unassailable wall. She had further fortified her makeshift hidey-hole by dragging a few broken logs and branches to cover the front of the alcove.

Fort Knox the nook was not, but it was a place for Jadis to rest that to any casual observer on the outside looked like nothing more than a pile of pine debris scattered against a natural stone wall.

Jadis took a deep breath, one head with eyes closed, leaning against the back of the alcove while the other stared out of the gaps in the branches, watching for any sign of movement in the darkening forest.

Damn but if it wasn’t weird to have eyes open and closed at the same time. In a sense, it wasn’t any different from when she closed one eye and kept the other open. Whenever she thought about it, though, her head would hurt as the disparate sensations of one body too many assaulted her.

“Okay, order of business, I need to see what exactly changed when I took that weird-ass Mirror Knight class,” her leaning self said.

“I mean, other than the obvious,” her self on watch continued the thought.

She was getting a little better at voicing different sentences from only one or the other source the more she did it.

Willing the status menu into existence, she examined it for any changes.

Jadis AhlstromViiSiit novelbi/n(.)c/(o)m for latest novels

Race: Nephilim

Primary Class: Mirror Knight (1)

Secondary Class: None

Tertiary Class: None

Combined Level Rating: 1

Health: 161/200

Magic: 10/10

Attributes

Strength: 30

Dexterity: 10

Agility: 10

Vitality: 20

Fortitude: 15

Endurance: 15

Arcane: 0

Divine: 0

Eldritch: 70

Focus: 1

Resilience: 10

Will: 5

Aside from the change in primary class to the expected Mirror Knight, Jadis noted her combined level rating was at one instead of zero.

“That makes sense, I guess. If you can have multiple classes, it keeps track of the total level. If I’ve got one class, though, then it’d be the same number as the one class.”

A flash of annoyance crossed Jadis’ face as she realized she’d been speaking from dual voices at the same time again. Continuing her thoughts, she made conscious effort to only speak from one of her selves.

“Looking at my other stats, the only thing that’s changed is my health. I’m, what, about a quarter dead?” She looked down at her arms and legs, both pairs, noting the bruises and lacerations, some of which were still oozing a little blood.

“Guess I could be a lot worse off, though.” Her on-watch self responded to her resting self’s pseudo-question. “But, that does make me wonder: is my health pool separate for each body or is it shared?”

From what Jadis could tell, her injuries were unique to the individual bodies. There were scratch marks on her one left arm that were not mirrored on her other body’s left arm. However, when she tried to will a different status menu into existence for her other self, nothing happened.

“One mind, one status,” she concluded. “...but does that mean if I get one head cut off, the other me dies, too?”

She stared at herself for a moment before shaking her head at the thought, not willing or able to experiment with the possibility.

“Lets just assume no matter what, I don’t want a lethal blow to either of my bodies.”

Jadis wiped one hand across her face, wishing she had access to a bath, some rubbing alcohol, and some medical gauze. Even a few band aids would be better than the big fat nothing she had at the moment.

Well, not nothing. She had her loincloth still, right? Looking down, Jadis noticed that both of her bodies had a loincloth.

“Wait, my class doubled my clothes? Hold on, would it have doubled everything I was holding, if I had anything to hold?”

The possibilities of what could be done by doubling herself and anything in her possession were starting to make Jadis’ head spin.

“Fuck, please tell me I can do this again. Please, D, tell me I did not just miss a massive opportunity to double my equipment or something.”

Race: Nephilim

Primary Class: Mirror Knight (2)

Secondary Class: None

Tertiary Class: None

Combined Level Rating: 2

Health: 171/210

Magic: 10/10

Attributes

Strength: 30

Dexterity: 10

Agility: 10

Vitality: 21

Fortitude: 15

Endurance: 15

Arcane: 0

Divine: 0

Eldritch: 70

Focus: 1

Resilience: 10

Will: 5

“Ha! It is a times ten ratio,” Jadis crowed in delight to see her hypothesis confirmed. “Even better, it raised my current health, too!”

She checked her bodies, looking for signs of any change to her injuries. She didn’t feel especially better, but some of her cuts looks less severe, like they had been healing for a day or two, rather than hours fresh.

“Okay, okay, that’s a big step forward. Still have a lot of questions about attributes, but this is a start.” Lightly running a hand over one particularly bad bruise on her thigh, Jadis considered her next step. “Now, there has to be some explanation somewhere in the menu for having a clone. Maybe there are pages?”

Jadis focused on her status menu and tried to turn it over, like a page in a book. Nothing happened. Next, she tried concentrating on concepts like ‘page two’ or ‘expand’. Still nothing. Eventually, she resorted to thinking hard on different concepts, just as she had when she’d first figured out how to access her status page.

Eventually, one straightforward phrase clicked.

“Skills Menu.”

Skills

Primary:

Mirrored Body

Secondary:

None

Tertiary:

None

Jadis let out a small exuberant victory whoop from both her selves, arms wrapping around each other in a gleeful hug.

“One skill, Mirrored Body’, and nothing else, huh. There’s got to be more to the menu than this, though...” She had to admit, she was feeling excited. Living in a true fantasy world with leveling up mechanics was what she had wanted from D. She’d had a rocky start to Oros, but the more she was able to unpack the capabilities of her menu and stats, the more interested she was in exploring more.

Willing the title of the skill to explain itself was the simple trick to learning more.

Mirrored Body

Passive Skill. Your physical form is duplicated, allowing you to exist as two beings at once. While the body is duplicated, the mind and attributes are not. Your twin bodies share the same health and magic pool. The further your bodies are apart from one another, the more mental strain you will be under.

“Oh.”

Jadis was glad for the confirmation on what she’d suspected about her new extra body, but also a bit let down, in a sense. Passive skill meant Mirrored Body was on all the time, she was sure, which was great in that she wasn’t spending any resources to activate it or keep it active, so far as she could tell. On the other hand, she truly had missed the opportunity to duplicate any tools or weapons she might have been able to find.

“Imagine if I’d been holding some sacred sword of holy damage or the like when I accepted the class,” Jadis mused leaning one head against the other form’s shoulder.

“I know, right?” She sighed in response. “Also, if this is on all the time, like, all day and night, does that mean I need double the food and water? Donkey balls on toast this is weird...”

“It really is,” she laughed, huddling in both bodies close as the night grew chillier. Jadis had nothing but herself, at least for the moment. She hoped she would be enough to get through to morning.