The screen had been floating in front of his head for five minutes now.
The alarm clock to his side was still beeping, the current hour, 10:25 A.M., shining on its screen in a neon green hue, one that contrasted sharply with the crimson red apparition in front of him.
While anything in this situation would have been worrying—he had heard of what sensory curses could do to a mind if given the time—the contents of the screen were, if anything, the most disconcerting part of it.
Kurt Celik
STATUS
LV: 1
STATS
STR: 12
VIT: 15
DEX: 21
MND: 17
SPT: 8
SKILLS
Bare-Handed Combat Mastery—Adept Rank 8-50
Bladed Weapon Mastery—Adept Rank 5-50
Polearm Mastery—Novice Rank 7-25
Pneuma-Adept Rank 11-50
Smithing-Novice Rank 4-25
Cooking-Expert Rank 8-100
"What is this thing?" he muttered to himself. For five minutes he had been pondering on that very question.
Finally, emboldened and, quite frankly, tired of this state of indecision, he reached to touch the screen, which disappeared in a blur. "Uh, ok."
"Kurt!" called a female voice from downstairs. "Are you coming for breakfast or what? You have work to do today."
With a grunt, Kurt rose from his bed and, after changing his pajamas for a regular t-shirt and pants combo, exited his room and made his way down the stairs. As he reached the first floor, he passed a certain side table on which two objects were displayed: an urn and the picture of a blonde woman, whose amber eyes matched Kurt's.
He bolted past it, making a point of not looking at the picture, and quickly hurried to the kitchen. There, at the same time as the smell of burnt bread invaded his nostrils, he saw a certain twenty-year-old girl sitting on the kitchen table, a plate of black bread with smears of jelly and a cup of tea beside her.
Kurt barely paid this any mind, though, instead centering his attention on the screen above her head.
Sorceress of the Order of Myra
Blair Anderson
LV:31
"Hey, are you okay? What are you staring at?" she said, looking at the spot over her head his eyes had been fixed on, not giving any signs of seeing anything herself.
"Uh, nothing," Kurt said. "It’s not important."
She glared at him for a few seconds, clearly suspicious, before talking herself.
"Yeah, okay, whatever. Just eat something fast. Your class starts soon," she told him, quickly picking up a piece of bread. "You sure overslept today, uh?"
Following her example, the boy sat on his chair, before his very own portion of coal. "Hey," he said, ignoring her last remark, "Any news on your dad? He’s already been gone for a while now. What is he even doing?"
She stared at him for a moment, her face hard to read. "My father," she said, "is currently following the trail of a certain artifact that’s at risk of falling in the wrong hands. Nothing he hasn’t done before. He is merely fulfilling his duty with the order, just like me and you and everybody else must…"
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
"Okay, okay, I get it!" He interrupted, "I already said I would do this class thing. You don’t have to feed me one of your speeches about duty or ... "
"Good morning." A monotonous voice interrupted. "Are you fighting again? Can’t you stop even on our birthday?"
"No, Abby." Blair said, looking at him while doing so, "We are not fighting."
With this front of conversation cut short, Kurt looked at his side, where the new arrival had sat, and, once again, saw what hovered over her head.
Saintess of Manna
Abbigail ‘Abby’ Celik
LV: 15
"Hmm?" Abby looked at him, chewing on a piece of toast. If the flavor bothered her, she didn't show it. "What? Is there something on my face?"
"Don’t mind him; he just got up on the wrong foot," Blair said.
"Are you still mad about having to give that class?" She asked bluntly, her face impassive.
"As a matter of fact, I am," he said. "I really would rather not do it."
"Kurt, I don’t think you are seeing this through," Blair spoke, her voice clear with well-practiced passion. Great, he thought, she is giving a speech. "Our order, for all the good it has done, is still not all it could be. Most of our members are kids with skills too unlike each other to form a true, unified army that could act like a proper order." Her voice started reaching a crescendo. "But, with your knowledge of Pneuma, that could change. You could be the one to turn those kids into true heroes. Just imagine: if someone like you could attain this strength through Pneuma, then …"
If someone like you could…
"… just picture what they could be capable of!" Blair continued undeterred. "The lives that would be saved, the horrors that would be slain, all of that could be thanks to you. All for the little cost of just some of your time…"
Kurt got up from his seat suddenly, slamming both hands down on the table as he did so, and Blair stopped talking. "I should go do that then, shouldn't I? Since this is so important and all," Not bothering to wait for an answer, he spun on the balls of his feet and quickly made his way to the door. He stopped before exiting and turned to the table. "Your toast sucks, by the way. You really need to learn how to cook something that doesn't taste like shit, if only for when I'm not around."
He saw Blair's face twist in shock, and more than a little outrage, at his words, an image that he was more than satisfied with, and so he left before any retort could be shot his way.
As soon as he had exited the wooden cabin he called home, though, that scant satisfaction vanished, replaced by vitriol at the 'mission' he had ahead.
What a great beginning for a birthday, he thought bitterly. He would go, teach his class, and be done with it, but no speech or anything was going to make him think of it as anything but a pain in the ass.
Another screen appeared.
A new quest started!
Strength beyond Strength
It is often said that no man is an island and that the truly strong are those who help uplift those called weak.
Quest objectives:
*Spend 2 hours imparting a class about Pneuma to your peers.
Bonus objectives:
*Have at least one student grasp the first stage of Pneuma.
"Four," thought Kurt as he descended the gentle slope that separated the cottage and the settlement's main grounds. He had already seen four of those strange, video game-like screens just this morning, and he still had no idea where they had come from or their purpose.
The last one had been the oddest and the most unnerving: a quest. One of those screens had popped out with a message telling him what to do. It had even offered secondary objectives. While it was true that they hadn’t forced him into it or even done much to convince him apart from implying a reward with their existence, he had not liked it. The reason was simple: while the first three had been cold, objective data, this one had some form of intelligence behind it.
His thoughts went back to that first screen, the one about him. Maybe... "Status," he muttered.
Kurt Celik
STATUS
LV: 1
STATS
STR: 12
VIT: 15
DEX: 21
MND: 17
SPT: 8
SKILLS
Bare-Handed Combat Mastery—Adept Rank 8-50
Bladed Weapon Mastery—Adept Rank 5-50
Polearm Mastery—Novice Rank 7-25
Pneuma-Adept Rank 11-50
Smithing-Novice Rank 4-25
Cooking-Expert Rank 8-100
There it was. Just as he remembered, that row of numbers and names seemed to quantify his power, as if he were a video game character. At the top right corner of his vision, he saw something new, or something he had missed the first time.
A red bar labeled HP, a blue bar with AP on it, and a percentual digit (99.8% currently) with the letters STM to its left. Health, some kind of magic value, and stamina, he realized, were yet another video game concept.
If status had worked, maybe other commands also would have? "Stats," he said.
Another screen opened, filled with text.
Stats are the numerical values that represent the user's physical, mental, and magical prowess.
STRENGTH (STR): The capacity of the body to both exert and resist force.
Determines physical strength, HP, and toughness. Also determines speed alongside DEX.
VITALITY (VIT): The capacity of one's flesh to circulate and interact with their lifeforce.
Determines stamina, sharpness of the physical senses, HP recovery rate, stamina recovery rate, and Od purity.
DEXTERITY (DEX): The level of perception one has over their own body and its energies, both magical and physical.
Determines reflexes, coordination, and control over one's own body. Also determines speed alongside STR.
MIND (MND): The ability of the mind to ground and use aether, as well as storing and processing information. Determines max AP alongside SPT, AP control, psychic resistance, and memory.
*Note: Creativity and wisdom are not governed by this stat, as they are wholly subjective properties that cannot be 'increased.'
SPIRIT (SPT): The ability of the soul to resonate with the world around it. Determines AP recovery rate, max Ap alongside MND, and the ability to sense magic energy.
*Note: The ability to resist foreign magic is dependent on both this stat and the amount of aether that is possessed at any given moment, as well as the type of magic to be resisted.
Oh, so that’s what MND and SPT had meant. Okay, this was useful; the first screen he had had no problems with. What about skills? "Skills"—Nothing. No screen appeared this time. "Oh… maybe something more specific? Then what about … Pneuma?"
Pneuma (Adept Rank/Level 11-50)
Since time immemorial, man has sought to understand the essence of what life is. The user has reached further than many in this pursuit, grasping their very lifeforce… and wielding it as a sword.
The user of this skill may call upon his inner energy, taking hold of it in order to increase his own physical prowess.
Through the consumption of stamina, the user may vastly increase the effects of the STR, DEX, and VIT stats. Effectiveness depends on stamina consumption, skill level, rank, and base physical stats.
At the current rank, Od may be harnessed and exploited without the need for anything but the user's will.
That was… correct, slightly simplified, but all in all a proper assessment of both Pneuma's functioning and his own level of mastery. But it was also nothing new, as if the skills description had been built on his own knowledge. Maybe it was something that, depending on the origin of these screens, could either be a good sign (this skill emanated entirely from within himself) or very, very bad (it came from somebody else, and they had access to his mind and memories).
He needed to find what this was, maybe running tests on just what these screens could show him, but before anything, he would have to wait until Mr. Anderson came back; if there was something to know about these screens, he would know. In the meantime, he probably should just…
"… Kurt? Kurt! Are you okay?" A feminine voice called to him, worry clear in her tone.
"What?" He turned his head towards the voice and saw ten pairs of eyes staring at him. He looked around. He was at the settlement's training grounds, having reached his destination while lost in his thoughts.
"Oh, yes, yes, I am, thanks." He answered, "Okay, everybody, um… Welcome to Od Control 101," he exclaimed, bringing his hands together in a thunderous clap, smokeless white flames darting over his arms, back, and chest.
Okay, he thought, let's get this over with.
