When I came to this time, I was immersed in some kind of liquid or gel. You know that reaction, where you wake up suddenly and the first thing you do is pop your eyes open and maybe take a deep gulp of air with an open mouth? Don’t do that when submerged in goo. 10 out of 10 would not recommend.
So, mouth open and gulping into lungs whatever this goo was. Eyes open, a little burning sensation that reminded me of pool chlorine. There was a light to my right, and turning to look showed light coming through the wall of whatever I was encased in.
I reached out and pushed on it, and for a moment all that happened was I was pushed back against the opposite wall. Braced now, I kept pushing and the wall I was pushing on started to stretch. My hindbrain finally caught up and started telling me I was drowning, that I needed air.
My pushing on this… membrane? Yeah, let’s go with that. The membrane started getting thinner where I was pushing against it. Finally my hand tore through and that seemed to release everything.
Whatever this liquid was, along with myself in a new body, tumbled out and onto the ground rather unceremoniously. I hacked and coughed the goo out of my lungs, finally able to take breaths of air. I was in a body, I was breathing air. I was seeing things, hearing myself and… watching the goo be absorbed into the floor.
Looking behind me, the membrane that had covered the enclosure was shriveling and turning to dust. That dust, and the goo that remained, were also absorbed by the stone floor and walls. What had covered me either dropped to the floor to disappear, or was evaporating.
I took several moments to just collect myself. My breathing calmed, my heart stopped racing and my thoughts collected themselves. Right, I wish. I was doing my best to keep my breathing steady and not hyperventilate from the terror of almost drowning in… Wait, had that been some kind of amniotic fluid??
While I contemplated that stunning thought, I looked around at the chamber I was now in. Walls, ceiling and floor of stone. It had a color that struck me as odd, but familiar: a dark shade of orange. The walls had recesses that, as I looked more closely and my thoughts finally started to slow down enough to make sense of things, really felt like they had uses. Practical uses.
That could be a chair, with a table beside it. Space under for storage. Laid out on the table was a sleeveless gown, or really long shirt and a length of cord. The fluid I’d been in had evaporated or dried, so I put the gown on. As soon as I did, a window popped up.
{Linen Tunic and Cord: A basic bit of clothing to start your adventures}
Well, I thought as I tied the cord around my waist, at least I wouldn’t be naked doing all of this.
I shifted a bit as I got used to the fit of the tunic, and continued to examine my surroundings. The opposite wall had… I could imagine an open armoire and a standing closet there. Next to those were definitely shelves. The hole in the wall I’d woken up in was large enough that I’d be able to sleep inside, though it would definitely need work to be comfortable. I could sit up straight inside, though I wouldn’t want to try and stretch.
This whole chamber in stone was what I think I had as a studio apartment once. Right out of school, working a crappy job and barely making enough to pay the rent on the place. I did have a few happy moments there. Couldn’t tell you what they were, but there was a feeling of having been happy. Haggard, a lot of the time, but happy.
I’d stood while I was looking around, and the realization that I couldn’t remember a lot of my past life had me sitting in the stone chair rather heavily. No pun intended, there, honest. I was about to start some hard thinking… Okay, yeah, just… A new screen popped up in front of me, this one an arms length away from me. Perks of having a body?
{Welcome to Tregasa! This tutorial has been designed to get you familiar with your new class, and explore a few ways that you can make a life in this new world.}
Oh, this is different. A new screen personality, though I had actually half expected that. The part that was different was this one seemed friendly, not bothered by having to work with me. Talk about black magic… Heh, magic.
{Processing of your status sheet has been completed! Statistics will now be filled in based upon your physical and mental states. Notice: Many professions give an increase to some stats at 1st level, and all give a small number of bonus stats at varying levels.
Your Class utilizes Willpower as a primary ability, with Aura as a secondary. You have been granted a stat pool, which has been distributed amongst your abilities. These abilities and their scores are representations of your physical and mental capabilities.}
I looked at the scores that had been preselected for me. If I understood what had been said, a 3 would be considered an average score. My head bobbed a little as I forced my focus on the screen with my ‘status’ sheet. Apparently, there would be time enough for my existential crisis later. Right now, I needed to try and focus..
{Status Sheet for Ian Luna
Class: Celestial Sage (Level 1)
Health: 16
Action: 4
Mana: 17
~Base of all pools are (Ability + Class + 1/level + Bonus/level [not retroactive]). All pools increase 1 point per level, and receive bonus per level from the pool's ability score.
~Reaching 0 in any of these pools will result in unconsciousness, exhaustion and/or severe head pain. It is not recommended to go below 0 in any of these pools. Regeneration of pools can be managed over time, or through magical or mundane means. Regeneration rates are based on Ability Bonus.
-Ability scores provide a bonus of +1 for every 4 points in the stat.
Strength: 4
Reflex: 3
Fortitude: 6
Perception:3
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Willpower:7
Aura:5}
This was all fitting into what my swiss cheese memory said would be a tabletop style role playing game. Health and mana were kind of obvious. One was what would keep me alive, the other was what would fuel magic. Stamina was an outlier. I couldn’t remember any tabletop games that used it, but in a few of the video games I could think of, it was used for melee attacks or other non-magical abilities.
The abilities themselves were almost self explanatory. Strength dealt with the physical in several ways, from extra damage when hitting something to how much weight one could theoretically carry. Standard stat in most games.
Reflex was a little esoteric and situational with the things it described as examples. Damage avoidance was a no brainer. From traps to magic attacks, and dodging physical attacks. There seemed to be a little addition to doing additional damage in critical strikes as well. Not surprisingly, it provided the base numbers for the Stamina pool, as well as that pool's bonus and regeneration rates.
Fortitude would act to reduce damage once you took a hit, or help to stave off various magical or natural afflictions of the body. It also acted on the Health pool much as Reflex did to Action.
The next ability wasn’t what I had expected, though I had seen it used in a time or two. Perception took into account the little details. Whether it was recognizing something was out of place, or that a foe was positioned to hit at the right location to do a lot of damage.
To me, Willpower seemed to be a combination of several abilities I’d seen used. It was the catch all for magical usage. The mana pool, the bonus per level and the regeneration rate fell in with the previous pool abilities. Like strength for physical attacks, Willpower added a bonus to magical attacks.
Aura was a new one to me. In most games, this would be a stat that represented how good looking, or not, you were. Here, it was your presence, how your very being affected the world or others around you. Intimidation? Check. Sell somebody a lemon of a used car? There’s a bonus here for that.
After the usual suspects of abilities and numbers, came the things that tended to differ from game to game, book wise or sessions. Abilities, skills, spells, etc. I remember seeing these from the previous screens, but couldn’t get any kind of description from them.
{Knowledges -
Arcana (Level 1) - At level 1 this skill provides the barest of foundations for the various schools and elements of magic.
Religion (Level 1) - Current level provides a layman's comprehension of the gods and powers of Tregasa.
Skills -
Healing Magic (Level 1) - A school of magic that requires divine influence to maximise its usage. Spells of this school can heal physical wounds or cure natural and magical maladies. The ability to use this school of magic is granted by your Patron.
Light Magic (Level 1) - An element of magic that is distantly tied to the divine. Typically results in spells that inflict extra damage upon ‘evil’ creatures, or those of a particularly unnatural origin. The ability to use this element is granted by your Patron.
Ritual Magic (Level 1) - A form of magic that requires large formations and various ingredients to cast spells. Many ‘regular’ spells can be cast in Ritual form to provide more powerful results, but also have increased casting requirements and/or costs.
Rune Magic (Level 1) - Every spell is composed of a formation of letters, numbers and/or symbols that form up the basis for this type of magic. Whether breaking down a known spell formation to its base components or building on known elements to create a new spell, this type of magic is influenced by the caster's overall knowledge of the Arcane or Divine.}
“Well,” I thought to myself, not able to keep the grin from my face, “You are a wizard, Ian. Of a sort.”
I hadn’t been overly devout, I didn’t think. I believed in a being that had created everything. After that, I wasn’t so sure. There had been too many things that kept me from lining up to the accepted theologies, but way too much for me to say they were wrong, either.
Here, in this new life, I not only had in my face confirmation that could not be dismissed, but I was in the service of a god. Well, goddess. Of the moon. A flicker of memory about myths and legends of my old world went through my head, and suddenly the other two classes made a whole lot of sense.
“Eh, maybe all universes are built on a template?” I said aloud as I focused back on the screen.
{Spells -
Moonray - Launch a ray of hard light at your target, doing minor damage.
- Mana Cost - 0
- Casting Time - Instant
- Range - 100 meters
Minor Healing - Regenerate a minor amount of damage to one target. Additional mana increases healing by a minor amount per point spent.
- Mana Cost - 1 (+1 mana/per 1 bonus healing)
- Casting Time - Instant
Minor Warding - Creates a thin veneer of magic around the target, reducing incoming physical damage by a minor amount.
- Mana Cost - 1
- Casting Time - Minor
- Duration 1 hour}
There you had it. Three spells that did three different things. A damage spell, a healing spell and a defensive spell. I was officially a hybrid class. I glanced back up at my ability stats and shook my head a little, though I still was rocking a smile on my lips.
My physical stats said that yes, I could stand up in a fight. My ‘mental’ stats though, said I should be away from the main fighting either slinging these Moonrays or tossing healing spells. Who I was going to be tossing them onto, was yet to be determined.
Though something did catch my attention, the use of ‘minor’ seemed to cover more than one range of numbers. Deal a ‘minor’ amount of damage, heal a ‘minor’ amount of damage, get a bonus of a ‘minor’ amount. No idea what those numbers were. Experience and experimentation for the win?
I waited a few moments, looking at the screen to see if more information was going to be forthcoming. When nothing new showed up, I mentally thought of the screen closing. Like a window on a computer, it minimized out of existence. I felt I knew I could bring it back up at a moment's notice.
At least one thing I didn’t have to worry about there then, I thought with a sigh. I leaned back against the stone that would be the back of the chair that had been formed out of the stone. It was cool, and a lot more comfortable than stone had any right being. Which meant, of course, that now was the perfect time for these screens to throw something at me to freak me out.
{New Quest - Exploration
New Quest - Scavenging}
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. Then, I did it again. “Ten minutes. You couldn’t let me have ten minutes…”
{Quest - Exploration
You’ve awakened in a tutorial created to aid you in learning about your new class and acclimate you to certain aspects of your new life. First though, you need to find a source of water, and food. Explore your surroundings!
- Rewards - Varied, minimum of 100xp
Quest - Scavenging
You are lacking in the most basic of essentials. Surely while you are exploring, you can find things to remedy this lack of equipment.
- Rewards - Varied, minimum of 100xp}
Okay, they had a point. “Fine. But why do I have the feeling this isn’t going to be as easy as you’re trying to make it sound?”
Of course, I didn’t get any kind of response. Shaking my head, I gave the little room another once over. Nope, I didn’t miss anything. There wasn’t a +3 Fire Sword hiding in the corner somewhere.
Across from where the ‘bed’ was located, was an opening that led to a hallway. Giving a peek into it, I saw that a few meters from the entrance it cut to the left. The lighting in the hallway wasn’t as bright as in the room, but it was still enough that I wouldn’t be worried. Yet.
“All right, let's get started then… and hope I don’t get myself killed.”