“WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK IS THIS!?!?!” Neal found himself shouting out loud. He took several deep breaths, only to hear each of his 5 friends with similar statements of dismay. I quickly walked inside the massive ‘cabin’ to stand in the open living and dining area. The others were coming out of their rooms. I simply sat down at one of the couches, mentally said ‘status’
Neal Cassland Human
Level: 1 0% to next level
Affinities: Intelligence, Charisma, Knowledge, Law, Politics
Current Class: Legislative Aide Lvl 1/5
Strength 3; Agility 3; Constitution 4; Intelligence 4; Wisdom 3; Charisma 5; Health 21; Mana 9
Skills of Note: Pistols 2, Rifles 2, Running 4, Hunting 3, Fishing 2, History 3, Public Speaking 3, Law 4, Persuasion 3
Abilites: 0/6 slots used Class Ability- Assess
Class Ability-Assess (Tier 1)-Arcane, Knowledge, Divine, Performance
Due to it being a class ability, it may be used for no mana cost a number of times equal to your Intelligence. Additional uses use your standard cost for a Tier 1 ability
This ability gives information on beings. It provides information on species, class, level, resistances, and any weaknesses. The higher the effect level, the more information. At the first level of effect, only species, class, and level can be obtained. Individuals subjected to this ability can become aware of its use on them if their level is higher than the effect level of the user. If the subject is significantly higher level than the caster, then they may resist such attempts at assess.
“Guys and Nora, I’m checking my status and drilling down into these things. All of you need to do the same. It’s like we just got put into some hellscape of a video game. That is just so not cool.”
Nora responded first, “Yeah, I am working on affinities and the details of my current class. It literally made my class child prodigy. That is ABSOLUTELY not a class, yet this system thinks it is.”
With that, I dug back in. I selected ‘Human’ first.
Your race is human. They are generic humanoids, neither strong nor smart. Their unique species traits are a bonus ability slot and minimal affinity restrictions. Their characteristics typically range from 1 to 10. Most adults should have stats between 2 and 4, with 3 being the most common. Exceptional humans can have stats that exceed 10 without levels, but this is exceedingly rare. Humans gain 1 additional stat point and an ability slot every 5 levels. Humans gain 1 caster level at 1st level, 4th level, and every 4th level after that. The effect level of any abilities goes up for every level the individual has. In mana-rich environments, humans often develop an ability before gaining a class.
What had me curious were the affinities. Those seemed intriguing and might give him some insight. However, he was interrupted by Billy. “We get a stat point every 5 levels, and an extra ability slot then as well. Sounds like every 5th level is a bit of a boost to our overall power.”
I responded, “Well, my class only goes for 5 levels, so I would agree that at 5th level I will be a much more capable legislative aide. Wow, that class sounds like it sucks worse when I say it out loud. Nora, you have no room to complain about your child prodigy class.”
Everyone busted out laughing. The insanity of the situation, combined with the fairly lame sounding class, was all a bit much.
Billy decided at that moment to add further hilarity, “If it makes everyone feel better, my class is called Money Guy.” The laughing continued for a few more minutes.
Chris broke in with, “So what is this whole caster level versus ability effective level?” Everyone immediately turned to look at Nora. She was clearly going to be the one to piece that together with almost no context.
She smiled a little bit, “I’m sure I’ll figure it out.”
They all looked at her dubiously. Billy and I looked at each other. She probably had it mostly figured out, but she just wanted some type of confirmation
I was back to looking over affinities and then my class. Affinities were like concepts, whether stat-based or otherwise. That was all I had for now. Classes gave affinities. Affinities were associated with abilities and skills. With my class, that meant skills and abilities with affinities with intelligence, charisma, knowledge, law, or politics would be useful. I realized quickly that none of that was going to help with survival skills. I need to figure out how to acquire some sort of military intelligence or political operative class, if those are even things.
Class: Legislative Aide (Basic Tier, Uncommon Rarity) Levels: 5
Affinities: Intelligence, Charisma, Knowledge, Law, Politics
Health/Level: 4 Mana/level: 0 Mana: Intelligence + Constitution + 1/3 Charisma
Gains ability/caster levels at 1st, 3rd, and 5th level
Gains one point in Charisma at 2nd, gains one point in Intelligence at 4th
Gains Ability Slots at 1st level (already reflected on status page) and another ability slot at 4th level
Class Ability-Assess (Tier 1)-Arcane, Knowledge, Divine, Performance
As a class ability, Assess may be used a number of times per day for no cost equal to the user’s Intelligence.
This ability gives information on beings. It provides information on species, class, level, resistances, and any weaknesses where applicable. The higher the effect level, the more information. Individuals subjected to this ability can become aware of its use on them if their level is higher than the effect level of the user.
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“I take it all back. My class isn’t so bad. “How many stats and levels y'all's classes get?”
Billy responded first, “2 into Intelligence, and 5 levels.”
Chis chimed in, “4 stats, 3 physical, 1 of my choice, and 7 levels. Anyone else get a class with 7 levels? Seems a bit odd.”
Joe chipped in, "4 stats spread between agility, constitution, and wisdom. Oh, and 10 levels. Feels very Ranger-like.”
Frank responded, “4 stats. 1 to each of the physical ones, with an extra to constitution. 10 levels. Multiple ability slots gains, and an ability called shield taunt, not that you asked.”
Nora gently squeezed Frank's arm from where they were standing on the balcony. “5 stats and 5 levels. I guess I can’t complain about my class now. It sounds like Neal and Billy got the short end of the stick. Oh, and my class ability is a permanent benefit. Being a child prodigy kinda rocks. Though I really need to see everyone’s affinities, since I get to permanently add affinities to myself regardless of future classes. I also suspect that affinities hold importance to future options. I am not sure what the impact will be, but I am guessing it is going to matter.”
“Well, you are the child prodigy. Clearly, you get to be the one to solve all the puzzles.”
“All you guys don’t just get put all that on me. Not dying in this illegal demonic invasion is our collective job. I will gladly try to figure out things when I have time, but we need to figure out how to survive long enough to get our families to safety.”
“And I’m back to thinking my class sucks. 2 stats every 5 levels seems the norm. Joe and Frank averaged that as well. Not sure why Joe got so lucky. Otherwise, my class ability is solid; it’s called assess. Apparently, it is sort of like identity, but for monsters. It sounds like it goes up in power as I level.”
Nora smiled. “That’s perfect, Neal. We can actually gain information to understand the situation better. Did it give you any other useful nuggets?”
“Yeah, it comes across like Identify. So, there is probably an identify ability as well.”
“Then in that case, it means we have a chance to survive our new reality. So long as we keep Chris away from a fireball ability.” We all laughed, including Chris. He did look a little hopeful and sheepish at the same time. Nora and Frank came downstairs from the second-floor balcony and made their way to the kitchen.
Frank spoke up, “I guess I’ll get breakfast started. I can get pancakes going and biscuits in the oven. We are all going to need to get lots of fuel in us. The next 24 hours are probably going to be way more unpredictable than we can imagine.
I sat down to look at other aspects of my class and status page in general. Based on my class, I was already at an effective caster level of 2. That seemed like an actual advantage, though I didn’t understand how yet. I spent some time reviewing mana, abilities, and was finally able to figure out the cost based on my caster level. Tier 0 abilities cost 1 mana, and Tier 1 abilities cost 3 mana. I only had 9 mana currently, so I could cast Assess 4 times for free as a class ability and then 3 more times before I ran out of mana. Tier 2 abilities probably cost at least double a tier 1, so how do humans get enough mana to cast anything remotely powerful? This restriction probably hits the invaders equally, but they probably have tons of levels on us, and I have to imagine gaining mana as part of their species.
“Billy and Nora, have the 2 of you looked at abilities and mana costs yet. I have 9 mana and that feels above average for a human. However, even a tier 1 ability costs 3 mana. Do either of you even get extra mana from your class?”
Billy frowned. “I have 8 mana. But my money bags ability doesn’t cost anything. It just exists. I am restricted to storing system-approved currency, so I have no idea what that will entail. I am wondering how we can game that for additional benefits. I will figure that out in a few minutes. I am stuck with the fact that my affinities feel very weak. I have intelligence, academics, and money. I can’t even fathom a bunch of cool gaming spells that work off of those affinities. I can only hope that with intelligence and academics that it leads to some sort of wizard-like class.”
Nora grimaced a bit at Billy’s self-deprecation. “I have no abilities yet, but I have 15 mana. Since I have no abilities with any tier info, I can’t dig into mana cost. I feel like 15 mana is probably on the high end for a human. I hope that gives me enough to cast a tier 3 or tier 4 ability. Oh, and don’t forget that casting higher-tier abilities requires you to have a higher corresponding stat.” That statement alone was a bit of a problem, how high do our stats need to be to cast tier 2, tier 3, or even a tier 4
Frank jumped in mid flapjack flip, “so I guess I need to keep moving my agility up for any kind of shooting ability, or strength up for some sort of epic type of shield bash.”
We all smiled as Frank put all our thoughts into simple concrete terms. He was always good at that. He was smart, but he never tried to talk me or Billy when we got into gaming stuff. I chimed in, “First, we need to get you a solid riot shield before we worry about shield-bashing anything.”
Eventually, we all sat down at the table and ate breakfast. We were well into the pancakes and bacon. I got up briefly and grabbed my gaming notebook and pencil before returning to the table. Once I sat down, several faces looked pointedly at me, the notebook, and the pencil. “We need to write down some things. I am starting with classes in general. Then I want everyone to write down the details of their class in the same format that it appears in your status page. Whenever we encounter more people, we will have them contribute as well. Somehow, we need to get information to those in charge on our side.”
“You might need to rename your class to government lackey,” Billy said, thinking he was funny.
“Seriously? We only know what we know due to us having multiple classes to compare with one another. I imagine the more people we run into, the more effective this information will become.”
“Fine. Go ahead, Mr. Lackey.”
I rolled my eyes. “Skills and abilities have affinities associated with them. Sometimes those affinities are stat-based, and at other times they are concepts, or categories of concepts like Joe’s hunter affinity from outdoorsman, or even Arcane in the description of my assess ability.”
Nora interrupted, “Thanks for those, by the way. I have selected both for 2 of my 3 remaining bonus affinities from child prodigy. I am not sure what to do for the last one. If I had a master list, that would be fantastic.”
“We now have an expanding list, but clearly not an all-encompassing one. It seems like the system will explain things a little bit, but it lacks genuine help files, master lists, and a whole bunch of things I haven’t thought of yet.” Everyone nodded and grunted in affirmation as to the lack of complete or centralized information. After getting that small frustration off my chest, I realized that lack of information bugged me, but a DEMONIC INVASION didn’t! What the hell, err rather what the abyss. If anything, I felt some pent-up energy and a need to go out and see what my new abilities could do. I wasn’t hung up on force integration into our new earth, complete with video game and RPG logic.
“Hey guys, is anyone still having any kind of freak out over this change? I don’t have any anxiety over a freakin demonic invasion and our entire existence altering to be closer to a video game. I am starting to freak out that I’m not freaking out.”
Billy got this strange look in his eyes. “Damn. I’m actually excited. That feels entirely wrong. You might have something, Neal.”
“What do we do about our lack of freaking out. Do we do anything about this. What is causing this? Clearly, something is causing us to be okay with this radical change to reality. Maybe all the mana in the air is drugging us?”
Nora grinned. “The mana everywhere is probably the X factor to all of this. Our bodies have probably been soaking up mana to acclimate to the system. At the moment, I bet it is a really sweet extended dopamine hit. Our endorphins will rise as well, and we should remain amped up through the entire integration to this system as it calls itself.”
Chris and Billy smiled at each other and spoke in unison, “That’s why she’s the child prodigy.” All Nora did was roll her eyes.
With that, we finished up the food at the table and cleaned up after ourselves.
Billy got a look on his face. “We may be slowly figuring out the system, but we really don’t know what is going on out there. We still have no cell phone signal out here. Abyssal invasion means demons. Neal, do you have a plan? I know there is at least a small gun safe here for all the hunting you guys do on this property. Are guns even going to work?”
“Well damn. Good questions. I have no clue if guns will work, but there is only one way to find out.” With that, we got ourselves packed up and scoured the basement for supplies. There were tons of them, as my family used this for a certain level of doomsday prepping. Guns, ammo, and MREs for months were all available. We packed up that and all the camping supplies we could need; we even found a trailer to hitch up to my SUV. It was all a blur, but soon enough we were on the road.
