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Launching The Introduction
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The claret eyes found an uncomfortably familiar chamber. It was his room, back when he was a student in a military academy, in the end of his 20s. He got a chance to move here from the communal barracks six months before graduation - a prize for his squad outperforming others in the final test. He tried to smile, but found himself being unable to, since he couldn't move a finger.
“Don`t worry Athelstan, nothing and no one can hurt you here, including me,” an androgynous voice came from the left.
He instinctively tried to check it and this time the paralysis didn't stop him. A strange thing was sitting on a couch next to him in front of a fireplace. Sometimes it was a man, sometimes a woman. One second a drow, the next one a human, a moment later it turned into a griffon, then into a weird whirlwind of nothingness. It was seamlessly changing both in shape and in colour, taking forms of things and creatures Athelstan recognized, but more often not. Gazing at it was as if you were looking at everything and nothing at the same time, though for some reason, despite being an eerie sight, the drow felt peaceful.
“The Accords,” he whispered the name that he remembered out of nowhere, yet it was as familiar as his own.
“The Accords Aspect to be exact,” the fire cracked, spitting heat, as the white fox corrected him. “Since I finally was born, the Accords System was launched automatically, as part of my internal functions,” the black and green minotaur tacked on, “Alas, this is our first meeting, so I had to turn your panic off to avoid wasting time and to let you make a few important choices with a clear head,” a brightly orange, suspiciously small rock concluded.
Now he didn't need to guess why he was so calm. Future me, I`ll leave the panicking part for you, I'm sure you will be grateful.
A moment later he felt the urge to call the Accords again, a thought he didn't try to oppose in his current state of mind.
A scroll of dark skin appeared in front of him. It looked exactly like the one his father showed him back when Athelstan was little, revealing secrets of House Kieran`s magic. Made about 5000 years ago, from a black minotaur, a race of mighty and intelligent monsters, once rivals to the drow for control of the underworld. Ancestors didn't know yet how to dye the thing, nor how to make a non black ink, so they had written with their own blood and magically made it glow forever, at the cost of the mage`s life. The crude sheet in front of him copied that detail as well.
System
Name: Athelstan Kieran
Race: Dark elf - Rank 0
Race traits:
-10 % Strength;
+7 % Intelligence;
+7 % Willpower;
+20 % Wisdom;
+ Night vision;
+ Night affinity
Title: Blessed by the Blood Aspect
+10% Vitality;
+10% Endurance;
+ Blood affinity.
Class: N/A
Profession: N/A
Mysteries: N/A
Life Points (LP): 88/88
Mana Points (MP): 139/139
Stamina: 88/88
Life Force (LF): 8,8/8,8
Stats
Strength: 5.4
Agility: 8
Endurance: 8.8
Vitality: 8.8
Intelligence: 13.9
Perception: 13
Willpower: 16
Hidden Stats
Wisdom: 20.4
Well, if that's not confusing, then I love sunbathing, Athelstan thought. Scanning through the sheet he decided to start questioning the creature.
“Difference between life force and life points?”
“The first one allows you to live, makes your heart beat, as well as ensures all the other internal organs are working. Also protects you from diseases and wound infections.”
“Life points?”
“Can be seen as a layer of protection for your body and life force - your toughness. Bones being sturdy and skin not being cutted as if it's butter, should all thank the life points for it. On low ranks, fatal injuries, like the one you struck that guard with, cause life force to disappear in a matter of seconds, sometimes immediately in cases of decapitation. At the same time his life points stayed, simply because a certain amount of them will always do so. However, the more time passes the less life points it has, until it decays completely.”
“How does night affinity work? I could never use it, unlike other drow.”
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“Due to the low amount of mana in the world and its inhabitants, no one could use more than one affinity. Now that both got a bigger pool it's accessible. Night affinity offers a good shortcut to the darkness affinity, a bit weaker variant, that works during the day as well.”
“Blessed by the Blood Aspect?”
“Related mostly to the Life Aspect and the Water, but a bit to the Death one too. As well as a dozen of others, though on a much smaller scale, like Murder, Sharpness et cetera. Your family is blessed by the Blood Aspect, granting its affinity to one person in each generation of House Kieran.”
“Is it strong?”
“Being the main means to carry life force through the body it's one of the strongest aspects, outside of the Primordial ones. And no, I`m not going to tell you what they are, this information won't do you any good right now.”
“Fine,” he grumbled, “How stats affect me?”
“Strength is obvious. Agility defines the level of control over the body, the acrobatic feats it can perform, and how well it can do them.” It continued in quick succession, “Endurance, Vitality and Intelligence are your Stamina, Life force/Life points, and Mana pool, respectively, as well as their regeneration rate.”
“Perception I already understand.”
“Willpower is an equivalent of Strength for mages. It defines magic damage, throwing force behind the magic projectiles, resistance to illusions, mental manipulations and pain. As for Wisdom, it doesn't affect your damage or resource pools directly. Instead a certain amount of the attribute grants you access to common sense, which is not so common. It allows you to analyse the battle situation faster and better, strike in the best moment, properly make important decisions and so on. It also boosts your resistance to mind-affecting spells and taunts, similar to Willpower.”
And I had hopes for that 20%. Athelstan let out a disappointed sigh. The gesture did not escape the attention of the cosmic being, which currently have taken the form of a purple, duck-billed, beaver-tailed abomination. The fuck is that?!
The same androgynous voice came from the distorted creature, “Wisdom is one of the few attributes that naturally change with time and cannot be empowered otherwise. You shouldn't look down on it. Had you have this attribute less than 10 you wouldn't have logic at all; 4 and you would be considered one of the smartest goblins to ever live. You might even experience this, since there are paths that directly make you less wise… or worse, more so.” Accords ended with a smile on its 3 wolf-like heads.
Dumb as a Goblin? Not interested, thank you, he grimaced.“How can it be worse?” Athelstan asked the raven.
“Let's just say, if someone gets much more wisdom than they can handle, they may or may not kill themself out of a sudden insanity or enlightenment, you choose,” the red bear shrugged, “Don`t worry though, it only happened once, due to various unlikely factors assembling all at once. Mostly because of Fortuna`s bad mood. Speaking of whom, Luck!”
An attribute with such a name appeared among the hidden ones, equal 12. The Accords continued.
“Luck is another mostly unchangeable stat, thus hidden. It is defined before your birth and helps or harms everything your luck affects… which is, well, everything. Yours is average for a high nobility, but better than 90% of people in this world.”
“I'm literally a slave,” Athelstan pointed out.
“And that has little to do with Luck. You were born as a drow, a noble one, in the house, blessed by one of the Elder Aspects. The fact that you managed to go from riches to rags… or even worse,” the aspect eyed his naked, now fortunately clean, figure, “is not Fortuna`s accomplishment in any way.”
Athelstan changed the topic to a more interesting one and, admittedly, less unpleasant.
“So, classes and professions, do I get to choose any of those now?” After his question, the letters on the scroll moved, forming a different content.
Generated Class choices according to your affinities and life path:
Mage (Common)
Warrior (Common)
Blood Mage (Exotic)
Blood Warrior (Exotic)
Night Mage (Rare)
Night Warrior (Rare)
He scanned through the choices. First thing he found interesting is that every warrior`s class first perk had both active and passive function, unlike mages. He most likely got the melee options due to his experience with combat fencing, rapier, in particular.
All of the variants give the same amount of attributes, so the rarity must be connected to the affinity.
Night classes worked the same way, the common drow forces worked. More power at night, less at day, constant buff in the underworld, since there the night was eternal.
After all, he decided to concentrate on blood affinity choices. Even without taking into account what it represented and meant for him as a heir of House Kieran, it still was a power he was used to, the one he learned to respect and admire. Besides, there was something enticing in spilling blood of your enemies using more blood.
Blood affinity classes - allow the user to use life force instead of mana. The cost of every spell that manipulates, creates and strengthens blood - mostly consists of Life force. These classes are the only archetypes that can use Life force without damaging their Life points. They also can steal Life points from their enemies (dead and alive) and convert them into Life force to heal the user or to continue spellcasting.
1) Blood Warrior (Exotic) - Blood affinity class. A variation of a common Warrior. Focuses on various weapons and armor usage, acts of empowering or creating them with Blood magic; debuffing enemies with bleed effects. Prefers melee combat. Works great with the Crimson Blacksmith profession.
Stat bonuses per level: +2 Str, +1 Agi, +2 Vit, +1 End.
First skill: Blood boil (passive/active).
Samples of the common class choices later on: Blood Monk, Blood Knight, Blood Berserk.
Compatibility: 94%
2) Blood Mage (Exotic) - Blood affinity class. A variation of a common Mage. Focuses on various ranged weapons and arcane force usage, acts of empowering or creating them with Blood magic; debuffing enemies with bleed effects. Prefers ranged combat. Works great with the Crimson Ritualist profession.
Stat bonuses per level: +1 Wil, +1 Int, +2 Vit, +1 Agi, +1 Per.
First skill: Blood arrows (active).
Samples of the common class choices later on: Blood summoner, Blood arcanist, Blood Master.
Compatibility: 96%
The class` compatibility quite clearly showed the importance of their affinity to Athelstan, all the other choices never scored higher than 67%. Athelstan liked the warrior variant, but in the end decided to choose the mage one. He never managed to control the blood of any other person than himself, and if there is a path to such power, it was most certainly not in the melee option.
One important choice and 30 seconds of bearable headache later, he checked the updates.
Mysteries:
Blood manipulation (common) - +1% Vit
Use blood magic and life force to spellcast; life force makes your creations incredibly durable; spells affected by this mystery cause additional bleeding. You lose control over the blood projectiles as soon as they travel from you for more than a meter.
Mana manipulation (common) - +1% Int
Use mana for various feats of arcane mastery.
Skills:
Blood arrow (Common) - Create an arrow using your blood, life force and mana, before sending it to the enemy.
He couldn't use the perk in this weird space, so he decided to ask the Accords about the mysteries. Instead of an answer all he got was silence and a shrug.
He turned his head and found himself staring at a set of armour floating in the air. A human chainmail with a steel 4 in 1 weaving, an inferior variant of drow`s hauberk made from dark steel with 6 in 1 plaiting for peasants and 8 in 2 for nobles. Still better than being naked. But first he had to take on the black gambeson that was hovering near the mail.
23 minutes later and dozens of failed attempts to question the Accords about everything, from the reason behind its creation, to what the hell was that damn duck-billed, beaver-tailed misery, Athelstan finally got dressed.
“Ready to go?” Asked the black and white doll.
“As long as you say where,” he shrugged.
“You, as well as the rest of the sentient creatures, will be sent through tutorials for a month. While you are killing each other, monsters with less than 4 Wisdom will get their own event. In the meantime, this planet will go through forceful enrichment of mana and physical enlargement. At the end of the tutorial, you will be granted rewards, depending on your results. As long as you survive it of course. I advise you to do so, if you really want to find out answers to all those questions.”
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Launching The Tutorial
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If Athelstan had a coin for every time he lost consciousness because of the system he`d get two coins. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.
