Mage Tank

The text for the ‘unique’ extra-dimensional entity sign was also in the same messy handwriting.

Unique Sign: The Traveler. Travelers go places and do things, bla bla bla, putting something here because there’s a minimum text requirement for the description.

Bonuses:

1) Spectacular Vernacular: You have an eidetic memory for languages and an intuitive grasp of grammar. You learn new languages and dialects at incredible speed.

2) That’s a Lot of Stats!: You can gain bonus attribute points through training up to a maximum score of ten in each attribute.

The bonuses looked good, but I was suspicious of the author’s motives. Who was this person? Were they responsible for my ‘respawn’? Did they really have my best interests at heart? My mind turned to classic tales of mercurial gods making playthings out of mortals. Still, I couldn’t see how either of those options could burden me with a monkey’s-paw-style curse of some sort.

I was curious about the That’s a Lot of Stats! bonus, as well. Was ten a high number, or was it trivial? How much of an advantage was it to gain stat points that way? I looked over the other options.

They ranged from quicker skill advancement, to extra mana, to the ability to turn invisible for one minute per day–very tempting–and one even offered an increase to the potency of poisons and mind-affecting spells and abilities. Pretty standard RPG fare.

I shrugged and decided to trust the author of the notes for now. At the very least, quickly learning new languages was useful. I got the feeling I wouldn’t meet too many native English speakers in whatever this ‘new zone’ was. I could already read the language that the big book was in, so I had a head start, but who knew if that was the mother tongue of these lands. I selected The Traveler, got a confirmation message, and the window disappeared.

“Bonus Item Selection!”

A new window popped up, once again scribbled by the mysterious author.

You died and all your shit is gone. Too bad, now you’re poor. Lucky for you I’m feeling generous, so you can pick one item from the following list:

1) 50 Hiwardian golden notes: Cold, hard, Hiwardian currency, the most widely accepted in your new region. Better buy a fancy purse to carry it all in;

2) Ring of Healing: While wearing this ring you’re granted +100% to your health regeneration. Heal those nasty paper cuts faster;

3) Big-Ass Hammer: A six-foot-long war maul that weighs as much as a one-handed battle hammer, but still hurts as much as a full-sized war maul when you smack someone with it;

4) Infinity Quiver: A quiver of steel-tipped arrows that never runs out of ammo. No, you can’t dump it out endlessly and fill up the ocean or become a war merchant with a cost-basis of zero and ruin the economy or any other weird exploit you’re thinking of. You need an arrow, you get an arrow, that’s it;

5) Edgelord Wakizashi: A wakizashi with a steel blade that will upgrade into higher quality materials after slaying a certain number of your enemies with it. It also gains bonus damage if you’re brooding.

I was beginning to become a bit concerned about the item descriptions. Why were they all so snarky?

I spent a few minutes looking over the choices. The weapons seemed nice, but without knowing what I had gotten myself into I didn’t feel confident in choosing one. If life outside this room was in any way similar to my Earth life, I wouldn’t have much use for a melee weapon or a quiver of arrows.

The style of the room I was in and the choices I was being given led me to suspect I was wandering into some sort of medieval fantasy combat scenario, but it’s possible all that window dressing was setting me up to make biased assumptions that I would pay for later. As for the currency, I didn’t have any idea what it was worth. Would one golden note get me a bag of rice, a year’s supply of rice, or an entire rice farm?

Maybe rice wasn’t the best expression of buying power.

I picked the Ring of Healing, because healing twice as fast as normal sounded good no matter what situation I was in. Fix a broken bone in three weeks instead of six? Works for me. Maybe it’ll help with indigestion too.

After making my decision the ring appeared in front of me and hovered in the air until I grabbed it. It was a simple golden band with three small rubies set into it. I slipped the ring on and it fit perfectly, but I didn’t feel any surge of power or sudden sense of wellbeing.

Having gone through all my ‘bonus’ options, I went back to the big book and turned the page.

A translucent blue window appeared over the book with text written in the normal decorative font.

You do not have a name, please input your name.

I was shit at names, but I ran a few options through my head, eventually settling on one I liked. “Arlo”. Arlo wasn’t my real name, but I’d always liked it, so might as well. The name automatically appeared on the screen, and I promptly ignored the implication that some mind-reading AI or entity was monitoring my thoughts.

I considered whether I should come up with a surname but there wasn’t any way to know if that was what the screen wanted. Maybe I would be assigned a last name, or maybe I’d keep my old one. I’d hate to enter a name into the window like it was my first and last name only to end up having the text I entered count only as my first name and be in the uncomfortable situation of having two names as my first name. I’d never been a fan of compound names, and if that meant I didn’t get a last name I wasn’t too worried about it. I’d rather be a Cher than a Mary-Kate. The screen updated with my new name along with a host of other information.

Name: Arlo

Age: 0 (physical age 18. Actual age 35)

Delver Level: 0

Special Delves Completed: 0

Health: 23

Health Regeneration: 4/hour

Stamina: 20

Stamina Regeneration: 2/hour

Mana: 40

Mana Regeneration: 4/hour

Race: Human

Subrace: Extradimensional Entity

Racial Bonus: Adaptable

Adaptable: Adaptable races possess a high capacity for modifying their environments and developing technologies to suit their needs. +100% to crafting skill progression.

Subracial Bonus: From the Beyond

From the Beyond: Your mind and body have been subjected to incredible dimensional forces and your soul has been irrevocably altered. This experience has earned you Dimensional Attunement. You’ve earned +10 to the Dimensional Magic skill. You gain +100% to Dimensional Magic skill progression. You gain 50% resistance to non-consensual dimensional effects. You gain the active ability Shortcut.

Birth Sign: The Traveler

Birth Sign Bonuses: Spectacular Vernacular, That’s a Lot of Stats!

Divine Favor: For better or worse you have garnered the attention of a divine being. This divine being is currently your patron and has granted you a series of perks. Continue to garner their favor to be granted additional rewards. Anger your patron and suffer the consequences.

Divine Perks: Respawn, Customized Physical Appearance, Unique Birth Sign, Bonus Item Selection, Carryover Stats.

Carryover Stats: Your achievements from a past life have earned you bonus attribute points to certain stats.

Huzzah! More plates, more dates! Your focus on strength training during a previous life has earned you +1 STR.

Huzzah! You can touch your toes! Your focus on flexibility training during a previous life has earned you +1 AGI.

Huzzah! Half marathons are for half asses! Your focus on long-distance running during a previous life has earned you +1 SPD.

Huzzah! Smile through the pain! Your experience of significant physical injury during a previous life has earned you +1 FOR.

Huzzah! How many degrees do you have?! Your focus on academic learning during a previous life has earned you +4 INT.

Huzzah! Everyone needs therapy! Your focus on self-reflection and cognitive behavioral therapy during a previous life has earned you +3 WIS.

Huzzah! This guy’s got jokes! Your focus on concealing your feelings of inadequacy through humor during a previous life has earned you +2 CHA.

Huzzah! Don’t look behind you! A divine being is watching you, and has interceded on your behalf in a previous life. This has earned you +1 LCK.

Stats:

Strength 2

Agility 2

Speed 2

Fortitude 2

Intelligence 5

Wisdom 4

Charisma 3

Luck 2

You have 10 attribute points to distribute. You must spend these points before leaving the Character Creation room, or they will be lost. Select a stat to see additional details.

Active Abilities (1/10):

Shortcut

Dimensional

Cost: 10 mana

Requirements: Dimensional Magic 10

Travel through the cracks between dimensions and teleport to a place you can see within a number of feet equal to 10x your Dimensional Magic skill level.

Passive Abilities (0/4):

None

Intrinsic Abilities (1/10) [Locked - Cannot acquire new intrinsic skills]:

Dimensional Magic 10

Attunement:

Dimensional

Languages:

English

Hiwardian

Loward

There was a decent amount of information here, but most of it left me with more questions than answers. The entry for my age was unusual. I had, in fact, lost seventeen years in physical age. I remembered reading about how the brain didn’t fully mature until twenty-four or so, but maybe that was bullshit. Was my brain still 35? I still had all my memories, so maybe. It didn’t have much impact on me at the moment, so I moved on.

What were Delver levels? Was that like character levels? I tried to bring up more detail by focusing on it, but nothing happened. I looked at my health, stamina, and mana. I was more magically inclined than anything else from the looks of it. Also, according to my math my health would fully recover in under six hours.

Did that mean I could recover from any injury in an afternoon? Forget healing a broken bone in three weeks, this speed of healing was superhuman.

I moved past the racial bonuses to crafting and dimensional magic. Other than confirming that magic was, in fact, a thing here, it didn’t tell me much, though I did shudder when I saw that my soul had been irrevocably altered. That sounded ominous.

The active skill, Shortcut, sounded good. Escape, repositioning, crossing the street without waiting on the crosswalk, it had a lot of utility. The skill said that I could teleport to a place I could see. If so, transparent barriers wouldn’t stop me. I could find a jewelry store and pop in through the glass without setting off any alarms. Not that I’d ever been predisposed to stealing, but it’s good to consider these types of things. You know, just in case.

The parts that talked about a divine presence and its favor were the most concerning to me. Was the divine entity the one leaving me the notes? What did I have to do to garner their favor, and what sort of consequences were there for angering them? It made me deeply uncomfortable.

The carryover stats were interesting and gave me some insight about what sorts of activities each stat influenced, or what activities I could undertake to train them using my birth sign. Physical training was probably the easiest, but studying, meditation, and mindfulness were also concrete activities.

I’d gotten Charisma for being funny. Or, at least, trying to be funny. So telling jokes helped. Maybe there were some open mic nights that I could hit up.

Luck gave me nothing to work with, aside from reminding me that some god was involved with whatever was going on here.

The stat values felt… underwhelming. Didn’t games with these types of systems usually start out in the teens, or even the hundreds? Everything being single digit made me feel underpowered, but I had no frame of reference. I assumed that I was at least in an OK place.

I also had ten stats to distribute. Assuming that each stat started at one, I already had fourteen points spread out across stats from my carryovers. So, ten more stats was about seventy-one percent more stat points than I’d already been given, and a little less than a forty-eight percent total increase to my stats. I paused over doing that math so quickly in my head. I knew I wasn’t that good at math. More mysteries.

I selected Strength to see more detail, then made my way down the list.

Strength

Pick heavy things up, put them back down. Strength determines how heavy you can lift and how many random guys give you awkward compliments before asking about your protein intake. If you want to be a brawler, wear heavy armor, or be accused of steroid use, then Strength is the stat for you!

That wasn’t very helpful. Strength makes you stronger. Great. It also garners the attention of men. That was fine, I enjoyed compliments. But how much stronger would one point of Strength make me? I moved on to Agility.

Agility

Backflips and handstands always impress at parties and staying limber is one of the best ways to slow the ever-increasing torment your body plagues you with in old age. Hide in the shadows, round-house kick your foes, and nail your kids from across the room with the Disciplinary House-Shoe by investing in this must-have stat!

Also more or less what I would expect. I’d never been very flexible, so there was an opportunity for some personal growth there. I kept going down the list.

Speed

Not just for athletes! Speed not only determines how well you can keep up with track stars or run away from mounted bandits and stray dogs, it also enhances how quickly you think, react, or decide what to have for lunch! Wanna go fast? Then Speed is key!

The descriptions were beginning to make me question my assumptions about the medieval fantasy impression I’d been getting. These were references to modern day life. Was this world some sort of hybrid?

Fortitude

It doesn’t matter if the enemy hits you when you just. won’t. die. If you’re a petty mortal who fears death or a twisted masochist who wants to experience the limits of the human mind’s capacity for pain (without suffering life-altering injuries), then live long and prosper with Fortitude.

DISCLAIMER: Fortitude may help you heal from physical trauma, but it will also curse you with the burden of watching all your friends and loved ones die before you.

Dark. Did…Fortitude make you immortal? Or was life so dangerous that you’d be the only one who wouldn’t die an early, violent death?

Intelligence

Push up your glasses and practice saying “actually”, because you’re about to be the smartest person in the room! Your trivia team will love you and your classmates will hate you as you ameliorate your crippling insecurity by proving that you can memorize facts and learn new spells on the first pass. Intelligence isn’t just a stat, it’s an entire personality!

Easy memorization was good, but I felt like this description was a personal jab, especially since this was my highest base stat. I didn’t even like trivia, and I got along fine with my classmates!

Wisdom

When should you act, and when should you refrain? When should you follow the herd, and when should you take the road less traveled? Wisdom gives you insight into life’s mysteries, helps you decide the best course of action in any situation, and provides both mental resilience and a wellspring of mana. Know yourself and you shall know the universe.

This was the only stat with a serious description.

Charisma

Charming compliments, rousing speeches, and looking good. Charisma lets you know what to say and how to act in order to get what you want, whether it’s a discount on a used car or the autocratic power over a nation. Become an adored sex symbol, a terrifying warlord, or that clerk at the grocery store who’s not too bright, but who everyone seems to like, and you like them too because they’re kind of cute and they always ask about how your dog is doing.

This description had to be talking about a girl at my local Kroger named Ashley. I stopped in one time with my pug Dozer and she never forgot. It was really endearing.

Luck

Fools assume they have some sort of control over their lives, but you know the truth: the universe is random and your destiny is dictated by circumstance. Tragedies strike down saints and monsters get rich off random picks on the stock market. Luck may not have always been on your side, but it damn well better be now! Load the dice of creation in your favor and stumble your way into power, fame, or a life-time supply of free chicken tenders.

Talk about pessimistic. It was almost like the author was trying to scare me away from putting points here.

I took a deep breath and concentrated on the numbers. I could distribute my points evenly, making me a jack of all trades, but I didn’t think that was a good idea. I had the perk from my birth sign that let me train stats up to a maximum score of ten. Any points I spent on stats below that threshold were giving up potential free stats. In fact, if I didn’t have to spend the stats before I left the room I would have saved them all until I got to ten in each on my own, then chosen where to dump them.

In order to maximize my points, Intelligence was the obvious choice. It was my highest stat, which meant that I’d only be giving up five free points to get it to ten. If I threw all ten there I’d have an INT of fifteen.

I tapped the window and was able to place a point in a stat to see the changes it made to my character. When I did, a confirm button appeared at the bottom. I was able to take the point back without confirming.

Fortitude buffed both stamina and health. With stamina, it was a linear improvement, ten per level. With health, there was an escalating benefit. When I went to a three in Fort, I got thirteen extra HP. When I went to a four in Fort, I got fourteen extra HP. That pattern continued as high as I could preview the stat, with point twelve offering twenty-two extra health.

Fortitude also improved stamina regeneration by one per point, and health regen improved by some formula that kept it at twenty percent of my total health.

Wisdom gave ten to mana and one to mana regen. Aside from Fort and WIS, none of the other stats had an effect that I could see displayed numerically.

So, I could gain unknown benefits from most of the stats, or go in on something more concrete like Fortitude or Wisdom. As I agonized over the choices, a new window popped up in front of the character screen.

Four of five party members have completed their character creation process and have initiated a ready check. You have ten minutes to complete character creation.

Shit.