Now that I was awake, I was moved to a different room, but they still found me a bed to sit up in. I felt better. My head didn’t hurt. I didn’t realize I had a headache until the pain was gone. My abs and leg were still sore, but much better than they were. Jack had informed me that the blade that sliced my abs was poisoned, and they used up one of the only neutralize poison potions we had acquired from days of fighting and killing monsters. I didn’t realize I had been poisoned, but I tended to ignore far too many notifications. I needed to be better about that.

  Brittney joined me in the room alongside Billy and Natalie. Frank was on the roof directing air strikes and sharing intelligence. Nora was supposed to join us, but infusing the class core forced her body to expel anything this increased core thought was an impurity. She sweat piss and other bodily fluids and released all the contents of her stomach and intestines for an hour straight. Then, she collapsed. Three women were helping her take a shower in one of the only showers in the building. Nora might sleep through the entire night. She wouldn’t be handy for any of the identifying or planning. That was a problem. She was the real brains of the operation.

  I pulled everything out of the pouch of storage, and I asked Brittney, “If you could add any unidentified items, that would be great.” She began putting a large number of weapons, cloaks, and even a set of armor on the bed. How had I let this get so backed up? “Damn, Brittney, how bad have I been about identifying items?”

  She looked at me with this dead look in her eyes, “Horribly bad. Nora did what she could, but most of the time she was identifying unlabeled potions and some of the easy to use weapons like daggers, machetes, and a bow for me. She needed to find out what each of the scrolls did too. She made a big deal about needing to know what kind ‘firepower’ she had on hand.” Brittney even air-quoted fire power. It was cute in its own way.

  “Sounds like I will be doing work for the rest of the night and into tomorrow. This is what I get for putting this off.” It was foolish of me not to spend time identifying things during the day when I got new items, but I was always afraid like I would be out of mana. That happened the first day, and I didn’t want it to happen again. So much about that first day sucked. I was paying for that fear now: in dead friends and soldiers. I took the first item, an earring. I used Identify. I knew I had only 6 uses before I needed to recover mana. I better make them count

  Earring of Telepathic Bond

  This earring is typically part of a large set. Each person wears one earring, and it allows all individuals wearing one to communicate telepathically. The distance is 100 meters.

  Well, that sucked. By itself, it is worthless. I guess I should move on to the next. A silver ring with small topaz embedded in it. No inscriptions, so I identified this as well.

  Ring of Swimming

  Wearer of this ring gains a swim speed like a fish. That speed is set to 7 meters every 10 seconds. They are not nearly as encumbered by clothes or other items worn. Such items will weigh 25% of what they normally would. It does not grant water breathing.

  Well, that isn’t all that useful either. I had everyone looking at me. The look of hope on their eyes. I couldn’t lie to them about what the items did, as they would figure out soon enough. I broke down and explained.

  “The earring allows telepathy between everyone who wears one. If we had multiple they would be great, but one just sucks.” Then I lifted up the ring, “This will make the wearer an excellent swimmer, and their gear will weigh less in water.” No one looked particularly pleased so far.

  “A ring of swimming,” Billy said in an almost dejected way. All I could do is nod in confirmation. I moved on to the next ring. It was bronze with large oval shaped gem in it. The gem looked to change colors depending on the angle I held it. No inscriptions again to help give me a clue as to what it did.

  Ring of Light

  This ring can project at will light from its surface. The user may select how focused the light is as well as the brightness up to the limits of the light spell contained within.

  “Ring of light. Glorified flashlight, but no batteries. So, at least there is that.” The look he got from Billy mirrored his own feelings on the matter: disappointment. Logically I knew it was useful, but it didn’t have the oomph of the wand of force bolt, or my ring of lesser force armor. I noticed Natalie put on the ring of swimming. If she wanted it, I wasn’t going to argue. She’d earned an item that was at best, situational. I didn’t foresee that being the kind of thing that would impact things. It wasn’t like we were fighting on the actual Mississippi River. Before I got further distracted I picked up a necklace. It had a massive Opal in the center and was otherwise made of silvery material that felt heavier than silver should. None the less, it was beautiful. Please it be good.

  Amulet of Purified Air

  This amulet can, at will, form a bubble around the wearer’s head of pure air. This air bubble cannot be breached by water, nor by harmful particles in the air. This will allow some to breathe air underwater. Note that while in the bubble the amulet will continue to produce more clean breathable air for the wearer. They will not normally be able to suffocate while wearing such a necklace, unless they can’t breathe air.

  In conjunction with the Ring of Swimming it was a solid combination. It wasn’t overpowering, but situationally it was fantastic. I spoke up, “Amulet of purified air. Essentially a bubble of purified air. Together with the ring of swimming would allow someone to operate underwater up until whatever depth that the water pressure would be too much on the body.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Everyone nodded. Natalie slipped the ring of swimming off. I gave her a look. Her reply was, “Now there is a use for combat or tactical purposes. Before, it was just pretty ring to wear at the beach or the pool.” We all laughed a little bit at that.

  I took off the amulet of protection, and gave it to Natalie. “I would feel a whole lot better if you were wearing an amulet that provides protection.” She took it in her hand and immediately put it on. She gave me a smile that had more meanings than I could really discuss around a thirteen year old. I blushed a little and she laughed at my expense. Her laugh made me feel much happier than I should right now.

  Next I moved onto a cloak. It had a beautiful feather pattern embroidered into it. I wonder what it might be, as the craftsmanship was fantastic.

  Cloak of Slowfall

  The wearer of this cloak will always fall slow enough to negate any damage upon landing. This does nothing to help the wearer if they land on an object or terrain that is otherwise damaging.

  “Feather fall cloak.”

  Billly smiled. “Hell yeah. Sounds like it is a complimentary thing for Joe’s Wand of Spider Climb.”

  “Then it goes to him, unless anyone objects,” I responded. There were nods all around. I was happy that we were finally getting things that had real practical use. Next up was the small rolled up mat. I unrolled it and looked it over. It had 5 squares outlined within it, and a long rectangular section at the bottom. The squares were arranged with three smaller squares on top, and the two larger squares in the middle butting up against the long rectangle along the bottom. It reminded me of something, but I figured might as well use Identify anyways. Though I do believe I could figure this out given enough time. I started up identify, and the answer came fast enough.

  Portable Cooking Pad

  This pad when unrolled and placed on a hard flat surface makes an excellent cooking platform. Start by pushing one point of mana into it. The controls from along the bottom will light up. Each of the five squares is a separate cooking space allowing you to have five things cooking at once. Each of the five squares is individually adjustable. The user still needs cookware and cooking utensils to utilize the cooking surfaces.

  “Portable magical convection stove top. Not a bad concept. It rolls up and can be stored in most extradimensional storage items and spaces. It isn’t what we need to get us out of here, but if we have to go and rough it, it would be awesome.”

  Brittney’s hands got almost itchy with the way she started to reach for it. I smiled, “Brittney, you can have it. You do more cooking than the rest of us combined. It does take one point of mana to get it going each time, so keep that in mind.” She didn’t hesitate any longer and snatched it. It disappeared into her storage ring in the blink of an eye.

  “Thanks. This will be amazing.” She had this happy grin on her face. It was like she had gotten a Christmas present. It faded eventually, probably because of the loss of her brother. I wasn’t going to ask, but simply be there if she needed me.

  “Your welcome, but that little run of identify was a bit of a bust. I just used 12 mana. I feel a bit drained. I think I should rest until I have mana back to do some more.”

  Everyone agreed and left the room. I just spent 15 minutes identifying and conversing, but nothing really came of it. I was frustrated. I was more than frustrated; I was angry. I had wasted their time and mine. Unless the Mississippi River shifts over ten miles to be right outside our front door, will two of those items be useless in the next 24 hours?

  Then I remembered the staff. It must have been a long day for that to happen. I pulled it out and checked to see how many uses I could get out of it before I had to worry about losing a charge. It looked like 13 charges were available, but I could only use twelve without worrying about losing a permanent charge. I went rapid fire through a set of identifies. I found a lot of interesting things. A bow with increased range and accuracy. For it being a short bow of some type, it had a longer range than any long bow I’d ever heard of. I found two short swords that did extra damage to anyone larger than the bearer. That feels like it would be useful against orcs. I found a pouch with 4 uses of a dust that made a person invisible until they made an attack or 15 minutes went by. That felt useful in our situation. There was a large sword that was designed to poison outsiders. I was guessing that demons were outsiders. That was going in someone’s hands, just not sure who yet. There was a set of boots that made someone’s steps silent. That felt useful for us. There was also self-cleaning cooking gear that could just go to Brittney without much thought. That cooking gear ate up more of the staff’s identify uses than I care to remember.

  This left me sitting around waiting for charges to fill the staff back up over time, and kind of the same for me. It feels sort of like my mana battery simply needs to be refilled. I just soak up extra mana from the environment. That is such a strange concept. Like we are all plants now and we are soaking up life giving energy from the sun. The only difference is that we didn’t need to be outside at all.

  I set an alarm on my phone, and I slept for a few hours. I had a bunch more stuff to identify, and not enough time. Anxiety ruled my dream. My nightmare was riddled with far too many options and pathways to take. I woke up hours later, freaking out about which path to take, but I didn’t remember what each path was. Every path had tragedy. I decided on no more sleep. That seemed the wisest course of action given what sleep had in store for me. It was nearing midnight, and I had no plan, and most of the items up until now were rather lackluster. I had only slept 4 of those 6 hours, but I got started anyway.

  The biggest item to check was the suit of armor. It was made from some strange black leather that felt very substantial and quite dense. It was large for a human, but about right for a smallish orc. Frank might fit in it, but there might be a few others. I went ahead with the identify, because I could spend all night long looking it over and not be any closer to understanding its benefits.

  Gorgon Leather of Sturdiness

  This studded leather armor has enhanced physical and magical protection. It provides the wearer a moderate bonus to resist be pushed, grappled, or tackled. The gorgon material makes the wearer more resistant to petrification and stunning effects. Please note that while this armor will resize to the wearer, it is still heavy for studded leather armor.

  That’s a winner. I wasn’t sure when any of us would have to worry about being turned to stone, but the stun resistance felt like a regular occurrence. That, combined with the forced movement resistance, was pretty powerful. As much as I would love to have all those things in my favor, the ring of lesser force armor was perfectly fine for me. Besides, I think this armor is going to weigh thirty pounds or more.

  I continued to identify items and found a ring that let a person do impressive jumps, and an armband that the wearer traded mana to power a burst of speed ability. For mana, they could double their rate of attacks and movement. However, at 3 mana for every 10 seconds, no one was going to use it for long bursts. I set that aside, as I had no idea who should be using that.

  I identified a whetstone that temporarily enchanted bladed weapons. It still had over 70 uses left before being ground to dust. We could have used that; we would have used that. Regardless, now we would be using it on all the scouts who had to engage in melee.

  My next 5 went poorly. All five items required abyssal or hellish affinity to use. They were powerful items, too, but we had absolutely no way to remove the affinity requirement from the items. This felt like it was a defensive measure to prevent others from using powerful weapons against them, which begged the question: Why didn’t more of the items use that?

  At first, it felt like a rhetorical question. I tossed it back and forth a little bit more. What this really meant was that demons and devils didn’t actually make a ton of items themselves. They got what they had from elsewhere. Initially, a lot of items came from different empires. Lately, the items have been more generic in explanation. Maybe there is a place where items are made that isn’t associated with any kind of empire. Then again, I was still groggy, so what did I know?