This chapter marks the start of Faria Lyton's and my attempts to start leapfrogging through the story. Party Invite 2.2 advances the story and fleshes out a scene not covered in Co-Op mode. So this is not just Taylor PoV of other content. Join Taylor Hebert and James Barron for lunch:

Party Invite 2.2

I took off my mask and sat down to eat with James on the little picnic spread he'd laid out. My bugs were back on patrol duty, so we'd have ample warning before anyone got close. "I'm glad you thought to bring food. I brought stuff to test powers with, but forgot to bring food." He deserved the compliment. He had sandwiches in little tupperware containers instead of merely shoved in baggies, plus bottled water for us both and even a blanket. So even if the food was basic, he'd tried, and that was more than I'd done.

"My power suggested I pack lunch. So, what stuff did you bring?" James sounded politely curious as he grabbed a fake ham sandwich.

I opted for a dependable PB&J over the questionable pseudo-ham. I took a bite and discovered that the jelly was strawberry; I approved. After a sip of water to clear my palate I answered him. "Well, one thing I want to test that we still don't know for sure: do you have a thinker power that is quantifying things, or is your power granting and/or helping us gain skills."

James sighed, probably thinking of my warning. "I'm pretty sure it's actually improving things, but it would be good to be sure. How would we test it?

I sketched out my plan for using a kitchen scale and an oil drum to approximate our how much we could lift, then we both do strength workouts until we get a stat increases and try again. "And normal people after a workout would have sore muscles. If either of us can lift more…"

"… Then we know that my power helps people get better. That reminds me, how do you want me to spend my points to help you? Vitality to take more damage? Strength to dish it out? Agility to hit things?"

"I don't know how to answer that." Really, I wasn't sure what the points meant. How was I supposed to decide for James? "Right now I'd be tempted to put my points in luck, but there was that thing about it getting harder to get stat increases from practice." With all that had happened, I wasn't sure about the exact wording, but the meaning was clear. "So maybe rather than bump up my luck, I should try to play yahtzee, or poker, or something, and see if I can increase it."

James nodded with eager enthusiasm. "That's probably a good idea. Also, most game systems reward specializing. Your wisdom is probably so high because you're a master, so spending points on your wisdom would probably make you a better master. On the other hand, you don't want your dump stats so low you get penalties."

A few hours of reviewing rule books had obviously not taught me geek-speak. "So a dump stat is my lowest stat?"

He made a wavy gesture with his sandwich free hand. "Well, yes and no. Normally a dump stat is one you purposely let be low so you can spend your limited points on other stats and skills that fit your build better. I didn't choose to have a low wisdom, but the cool thing about my power is that I've been getting wisdom bonuses just for not being an idiot. I probably won't spend points on it since I'm not a master, and it's increasing slowly anyway. I don't think anyone chooses luck as a dump stat. It usually affects everything a little."

That earned him an eye roll. "Can't imagine why."

"Yeah, sorry about that, but anyway, you're probably right about being able to level up your luck easily, judging by my wisdom increases and the vitality bumps that I've gotten since yesterday."

I nodded. "Which lead me to believe your power really is augmenting us. However, I don't like all the guessing. Maybe we should save the points until we have a better idea what the stats really do and how easy they are to raise?"

James grinned. "We'll make a munchkin out of you yet!"

I hated to ask, but… "So what do the little people from Wizard of Oz have to do with anything?"

"A munchkin is someone who games the system. They figure out power combos to take advantage of the rules."

"Right." I tried a fake-ham sandwich. It looked like deviled ham, except it was a darker pink. The texture was off, and it was maybe a little on the sweet side. Not exactly bad, just different. Still better than my father's cooking. If it didn't come out of a box with an attached recipe, he was clueless. I took a sip of water. "So let's put aside spending stat points. I want to test gaining and leveling skills. We both already got way more skills than I expected, but I brought a knife and we can both try stabbing and throwing with it to see if we get a knife skill. Also your danger sense could be awesome, and I wanted to try to level it up, young grasshopper."

"Young grasshopper? Is that a kung-fu movie reference?"

"Yeah, my father likes kung-fu movies and westerns. To get back to the point, I have a stick and a blindfold. You wear the blindfold and use your danger sense to avoid me hitting you with the stick."

James only briefly looked hesitant about me hitting him with a stick, then he embraced the idea. "That's brilliant! I didn't know how to level danger sense safely. I can also check the exp gain to see if it is working."

Note to self, it wasn't just James's power that was weird. "So… in addition to testing leveling up skills, I wanted to test gaining new skills. I brought a fishing knife out of my father's tackle box. We can both try stabbing a target with it to see if we pick up a knife skill. The other thing I thought up was some kind of Stranger ability. I thought we could try sneaking up on each other. We could both use it for different reasons."

"Well in your case, most Masters try to avoid attention. However, it doesn't look like you're going that route. You're a little too shiny."

I held up a hand for him to wait while I chewed my fake ham sandwich. It really wasn't that bad. In fact, compared to some of the things my bugs found delicious, it was downright tasty. "You're partly right. My Lady Bug costume has a -20% to stealth, but things aren't always what they seem." I gave a completely unnecessary wave and my bugs flew off with my cape and hung it black side out up against a nearby wall. "At night, I have my own portable concealment. I've also got this combat map of everything around me in my head. So despite my glittery costume, I can probably do a good job at avoiding attention if I put my mind to it. I still want some kind of stealth. My combat map doesn't do me much good if I stomp around like an elephant."

"Detachable cape, cool. [Inventory]" James poked at the air. "Where did you see the stealth penalty for your costume?"

"Let me check. [Inventory]" I'm sure we looked odd pushing invisible buttons together. "It's at the bottom of my little Barbie doll thing in inventory, in yellow print. Fashion Rating, Impressive. +50% to Reaction Rolls, +25% to Intimidate, -20% to Stealth. Moderate Protection vs. Slashing Damage. Moderate Protection vs. Piercing Damage. Minor Protection vs. Crushing Damage." I swiped my screen closed.

"Wow, that sounds pretty good. I don't see any yellow print. I guess because my clothes give no bonuses."

Or maybe it was because you had to have the Fashion Design skill to see fashion ratings? I didn't really feel like volunteering that. James obviously respected me, and fashion design sounded a bit flakey. However, there was something else that I could offer. "I'll be glad to make you a suit. It won't take half the time it took me to make mine. Most of my time was spent building up a supply of spiders to weave it."

"Wait, you had spiders weave that?"

I grinned. "Yeah. It's mostly spider silk. Black widow dragline spider silk to be precise. If the stuff I've read is correct, it stops bullets better than Kevlar. I haven't had a chance to test it. I've used common house spiders to color the white parts and golden orb spiders spun the breastplates and other bits. I've also used chitin to reinforce the breast, helmet and striking surfaces for my hands."

"Wow… you're a crafter! That's… Yes! Please, make me a set. I still want to see what the bonuses are for the zombie armor, but it will probably take me a while to farm the parts anyway and that's assuming that the blueprints drop to make the other pieces. I'd like something like yours, but could mine be darker? I love the shiny image you're working, but I want something less, um, New Wave."

I grinned. "Darker? Maybe a bit edgy? I think that I've got just the thing for you. Strip away the cosmetic layers of white and gold silk on my suit and you get pure black widow dragline silk, which is a yellowish gray, plus the black widow and chitin sectons which are a mottled gray. It is plenty dark and edgy." Parian had claimed it looked villainous, but I was sure I could make an edgy antihero out of it. "I also had this idea for a mandible looking sections along the jaw line of the mask to give it more of an insectile look. I've got a sketch at home. I'll bring it next time."

[Relationship with James Barron increased!]

"Sounds cool. I'll…" James lost focus for a moment staring at something between us that I couldn't see. "Huh, I just got a quest pop-up. Assemble a costume. I have to obtain a full costume. Doesn't seem to matter how I do it. I just have to get one."

"Oh." I was in the party this time and hadn't received that quest. So that part of his power seemed to be for James only. I felt a bit disappointed, but really it was amazing how much of James's power could be shared. "So what do you get for the quest?"

"For success I get 500 XP and a matching item!"

And James's power goes beyond weird into total bullshit. Why was I even surprised? James had already mentioned crafting armor out of zombie parts. "Matching item?"

"Yeah! If it's like most games it will probably be some minor bit of jewelry with a negligible stat plus on it, like plus one agility or such. If I'm really lucky it will be a matching weapon."

I glanced at the bat that I already regarded as mine. Yeah, his power really did make stuff out of thin air. How easily I had accepted that, but if his power was correct I could multitask a simply ridiculous 10 to the 48th power concurrent operations. Powers were all bullshit in some way. "So does that mean you want to skip power testing and work on your costume quest?"

"What? No." He waved his hand in a gesture I was growing to recognize as dismissing an unseen window. "I'll work on that tonight at home. I want to do power testing first, then maybe try more zombies. I gotta get more drops if I want to make zombie armor."

Somewhere along the way we'd eaten most of the sandwiches. "So about costume design. Best advice I can give you is pick a name first and work towards it." I took a gulp of my water. Something else that I'd let slip my mind. "Also I'm worried about the name of your Illusion Barrier power. What if it is a master effect? What if when we're in an illusion barrier both of us are standing around staring at illusions? That would leave us vulnerable."

"Oh. Yeah. That would be bad. I didn't consider that, but on the other hand my inventory is extradimensional weirdness. So maybe it's a pocket dimension or something."

I nodded my head in agreement. "That would be better. It could even be exploited. It left my bugs out. So if it leaves out people, we could use it to infiltrate. It's not quite teleporting, but you could open up a zone, and we walk inside a building and just appear inside. Or if we get over our head fighting Hookwolf or someone we could use it to run away." And that would be extremely bad to do if it was a Master effect. "So we test it. My bugs gave me a pretty good idea on the range of your zone. It's a bit more than a football field. I'll be outside and can test whether you're standing around staring at nothing or if you vanished into a pocket dimension."

James started laughing. "Taylor, are you sure you don't game much? Because you were born to munchkin. Yeah, if it is a pocket dimension, then we can exploit the hell out of that."

For a moment James's laugh had set me on edge. Lately laughter meant people laughing at me. However, James's laugh was friendly, even admiring. It felt good. "Thanks, but testing first."

Testing out my ideas proved to be mostly boring sprinkled with a few moments of excitement. I'd grown to enjoy running, but lifting weights didn't give me the same kind of charge. It was boring lifting things over and over and over. Still, we stuck with it for an hour until I gained a point of strength. During that time James gained two. My kitchen scale and oil drum test confirmed what we'd both guessed – James's power really did cause improvements. We were both noticeably stronger, James more so than me. He also seemed less tired.

We moved on to beating James with a stick. It worked in a way. James reported small increases to both his [Danger Sense] and [Physical Endurance] skills. However, I didn't turn out like I'd expected. The bamboo pole training thing had been funny to watch in movies. While I wasn't raising a mark on James, hitting him with a stick obviously hurt him. There was nothing funny about it. A quick calculation showed it would take hours of hitting James with a stick for him to gain levels in his skills. I didn't have the stomach for that.

Trying to pick up Stranger abilities was more fun. I sent my bugs to the edge of my range and practiced using a knife on a life preserver while James tried to sneak up on me. That earned me skills in [Knife Mastery], [Knife Throwing], and an unexpected one called [Detect] that gave me bonuses to spotting enemies. Meanwhile, James picked up a [Stealth] skill. We swapped places so we can learn the other skills.

I was a bit disappointed that Stealth wasn't more useful. It only gave a 2% bonus to remaining hidden while stationary and 1% while moving slowly. However, it leveled much faster than [Danger Sense] or [Physical Endurance] so maybe there was hope for it. I also took shameless advantage of my multitasking ability to practice my powers the whole time. I ordered bugs at the edge of my range to fly away for a bit and then come back. This worked and slowly increased both my Master Control Area and Lingering Command skills. I even leveled [Lingering Command] from level 22 to 23 – further proof that James's power could help parahumans improve their own powers.

James suggested we try hand to hand and wanted me to go first because he didn't want to hit a girl. He begged for me to give him my best shot, so I decked him in the face. He'd been asking for it on multiple levels. Maybe I hit him a little too hard, but I picked up a [Brawling] skill out of it. However, he was apparently serious about that chivalry crap and didn't want to hit me back.

I wasn't a raging feminist. It might be nice to have a guy open a door for me sometime. However, training was no time to get chivalrous. Plus what would he do in combat? His only offense was hitting things. Would he not hit Cricket or Rune because they were female? Also we'd need to take things up to sparring sometime soon. I didn't like hitting James with a stick, but sparring would be different. He wouldn't be just standing there and taking it. I wanted to rage at James about this. I wasn't some fragile flower, but… he seemed pretty serious about it. Now wasn't the time for an argument. There were other things to test. I could come back to this later.

While I would have loved to try increasing my luck, I didn't even know I had a luck stat this morning when I put together my training kit. So I didn't know to pack dice or cards. So that had to be postponed for a little while at least. "So… I think we made progress. Ready to test to see if Illusion Barrier is a Master effect or pocket dimension?"

"Sure, you're the boss lady..." He smirked at me. "Make that the boss Lady Bug."