It was mid-afternoon when I was left on my own to think.
I did decide to follow Rep’s recommendations and started by opening the Shop. Skimming the display, I went straight for the search function and looked up the Guide Book. At a cost of 20 points, it was an investment. Its description quickly sold me on it, though: it holds information about things in my Character, as well as other explanations about my new reality. I bought it.
New system - Guide Book 1 - purchased!
The panel popped up where the last one, in blue and copper, did and disappeared after a short while.
I went after Rep’s second recommendation now and checked the Notifications. On the way there, I noticed a new icon of a book with a question mark, labeled ‘Guide Book’ in the main display. The notifications display had the message I just got and the previous one in chronological order with time and date. The date made no sense to me, but it was probably simply local.
The Guide Book distracted me from my original goal of just thinking, now that I had a source of information that wasn’t a near-omniscient being. I sat down on the bed, my back to the uneven stone wall, and opened the Guide Book display.
There was a lot of information to parse, so I narrowed down what I was looking for: just information about what was contained in my Character.
I started with checking my masteries:
Melee Combat: the ability to handle yourself in a melee. Able to handle weapons and shields with little penalty.
Self-Awareness: an awareness of your true self, for better or worse. Raise with caution.
Then my skills:
Essential Cooking: a unique level of skill, below basic. Allows for consistent results in making the most essential and bland of foods.
Basic Honesty: the proactive application of honesty as a social tool. Increases trust in what you say, as you seem honest.
Basic Mechanic: handling of mechanical objects and understanding of basic mechanical concepts applied in mechanical systems.
Basic Money Management: the ability to manage your funds correctly, investing and saving as needed.
Basic Stealth: fading into the background and away from notice.
Intermediate Quarterstaff Fighting: the ability to fight using a quarterstaff.
My techniques:
Leg Sweep: an attack aimed at the legs with a long-shafted weapon. Meant to destabilize opponents. 5 Focus.
Powerful Jab: a strong attack with the end of a long-shafted weapon. Meant to push or simply strike hard. 5 Focus.
And, finally, my systems:
Character: a display of your true self. Set to change with increases to Self-Awareness, in order to display greater detail.
Conversation History: a log of conversations made, with others and yourself. Currently limited to conversations with Rep.
Guide Book: this system, which logs and curates information about your true self.
Shop: a system to purchase new levels and features for your true self.
Reading up put my mind at ease. Next up was understanding my reserves and how skills and techniques work, since those still felt grossly unclear.
Health: a measure of your distance from death. Every hit you take will lower this total, which will mean your death when it reaches 0. Wounds and injuries originating outside this system are nullified. Can be easily restored through sleep and treatment.
Focus: a reserve which decides how many mundane techniques you can activate. Every mundane technique has a cost in Focus. Fully restores over a night’s sleep and can also be restored by taking some time to relax and rest.
Mana: a reserve which decides how many magical techniques you can activate. Every magical technique has a cost in Mana. Fully restores over a night’s sleep but requires special items to restore otherwise. This would has an understanding of Mana and its existence.
Providence: a unique reserve that allows you to affect reality in specific, tangible ways. Uses include changing the disposition of another person, improving the worth of unknown rewards, forcing a change in situation of an external. Difficult to restore, and can only be done under certain circumstances.
Skills: provide a latent understanding and ability to perform the named skill. Some may be ‘switched on’, like Fighting skills, while others are always active, like Money Management.
Techniques: in order to activate a technique, you need only clearly think its name, and your body and mind will follow a pattern practiced and refined for the situation at hand.
I was beginning to feel exhausted at the amount of information I was getting, but I was also running out of things to check on my Character. A quick skim of the Guide Book exposed no information about the world I was currently in, except what information I received from Bozhidar so far. I might have this information logged as I find things out, but it won’t come for free.
I also checked how the whole Sheet thing works: I can think it away, but unless I do so, it will remain available in meta-physical space. Grabbing at a notification will do one of two things - by default, it will highlight the change wherever it occurred. I can also think it to bring up the notification log and highlight the notification. In either case, if the Sheet is not out when I do, it will appear in my hand fully.
The final thing I checked was how things with numbers improved and I found very little useful information: systems improve with purchases, the rest organically, with use, or purchases. A purchase costs points, while organic growth provides points. With so much new information, I had enough and I decided to take a nap. Despite being uneventful, the day so far has been exceedingly tiring.
———————————————————
I woke up in late afternoon to a rumbling stomach and not much daylight left. As I sitting in bed, still bleary, a knock came from the door. I opened it, and there stood the ratling that had previously brought me a meal, holding a tray with another meal on it.
“Master Traveler, I am one of Bozhidar’s aides. I have brought you a meal since it has been a while since you were last seen. Additionally, Bozhidar asks, if you are willing, that you come visit him with what daylight remains, so you may finish your conversation.” The ratling had presented me the meal and said.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
“Um, yeah, sure, let me just eat first.” I nodded and took the tray to the table in the room. The meal was pretty good, again, and I was promptly done. The ratling took the tray back and told me to follow.
He led me back to camp, and made a beeline for the more impressive and large of the tents. The cloth used was a deep, blue color and from various points on it were hung trinkets and oddities. Inside the air smelled of incense and I could see Bozhidar absorbed in reading a book, sitting close to the center of the tent. Around him were many chests and containers of various things.
It took a few moments for Bozhidar to raise his head and notice that I arrived. He put the book away and greeted me. “Good to see you, Traveler. I had sent my aide a while ago to fetch you and was mildly surprised at the time it took.” He motioned to a single chair that was larger than the rest in the tent. “Do sit down.”
I gave a small nod and went to sit. The chair was a bit uncomfortable, but that might be my Earth sensibilities talking about unknown materials. A moment after I sat down, Bozhidar began, “You must still have things to ask and verify. We don’t have too long now, but quite enough time for some questions. Ask away.”
That one woman always told me “if you find yourself in a completely unfamiliar place, make sure you know what counts for money. That’s always step 1.” So I followed that bit of wisdom and asked, “How does currency work here?”
Bozhidar seemed to think for a moment before replying, “Well, humans dictate it in most places, but everywhere will probably do it a little differently. With us you have no need for currency, within reason. We will provide you with what you request to the best of our abilities and resources. If you were to travel into any settlement a few days distance… copper bits are the smallest denomination, followed by silver pence and shillings, those followed by gold pounds.”
The similarity to Britain’s not-that-old currency struck me as surprising. “I… I could get used to that, yeah. Do you know the rates of exchange between those?”
“Extraordinarily, I do now. One of our more slender members had gone to a nearby town to get you some coin by trading and asked that exact thing. 4 bits to the penny, 12 penny to the shilling, 20 shilling to the pound.” Bozhidar answered.
“I could definitely get used to that. Thank you.” I replied, relieved to hear it’s essentially identical. A stray thought to check if I can get Wikipedia as a system came to mind.
“Anything else you’d like answered?”
“Um, yes. Could I possibly meat a dragon?” I asked.
“They exist, but I know of no one to have ‘met’ one, as much as meeting one is possible. They’re considered the most dangerous kind of wild animal.”
That was disappointing to me. I really hoped to get to talk with the classic fantasy dragon. “What do you think I will be doing with myself, once this week is over? Could I join you?”
Bozhidar seemed to consider his answer for a few moments, before carefully replying. “You will not be able to join us, no. There is magic near the Traveler’s Stone that translates speech. Once we get far enough away, we wouldn’t be able to communicate. My previous Traveler left to become an adventurer, and I’ve learned from other mystics that that is the case for most of your kind. Adventurers are vagabonds and strangers by nature, so you would appear significantly less out of place as well.”
I nodded. That was also a fantasy staple, if a dangerous one. I will be wanting to train for combat before Bozhidar and his clan leave me to my devices. “What about Mana. What can you tell me?” I relied on the fact that it is a known element in this world. Thank you Guide Book.
Bozhidar seemed surprised, “You’re the first Traveler I’ve heard of to ask about Mana so quickly. It is the source of life and magic on Estand. It was allows the casting of miraculous spells. Do you know magic?”
“I do not, not yet.” I replied, not thinking about the implications and realizing too late.
“So you intend to study. I would happily teach you what I can” Mercifully, it seems like anyone can study magic here. I got lucky. “What kind of magic are you thinking about?”
I considered it for a moment, but couldn’t decide. “I’d like to think more on it for now. Is magic something that can be taught in a handful of days like this? If so, I would expect everyone to know some magic.”
Bozhidar chuckled at my question. “You’d be right, except it takes students of talent and patience to actually pick up any significant magic. Even then, all magic requires a chant and that is a cost most are unwilling to bear for a little convenience. Finally, not everyone has the Mana reserves for any magic, never mind substantial spells.”
He signaled to his aide to bring him over his staff, which the aide did, and proceeded with a demonstration. “My Mana reserves are middling, so I rely on this precious staff to supplement them. Just this staff could pay for this entire camp for multiple weeks, if sold. Let me show you some magic.” It took Bozhidar several seconds of whispering that I just couldn’t catch before an effect appeared. Above his outstretched hand floated a ball of light the size of my first. “This is among the simplest spells. From here, even more eloquence and memorization are required. Magic is not an easy art.”
I nodded, understanding. I was about to decide to not bother with magic, since I wasn’t about to invest so much time and energy into such an exhausting art, when it occurred to me to ask. “Is there chantless magic? Is it rare?”
Bozhidar rolled his eyes and laughed, “You younglings always looking for the shortcuts. Yes, there are methods to cast both more quickly and in entirely alternative ways, but those that aren’t exhausting produce weaker effects using more Mana. I’ll demonstrate.” He seemed to focus for a moment, his hand outstretched again. A small mote of light, significantly smaller and weaker than the previous one, simply appeared. “This is how strong I can make it without a chant. Mayhaps your power allow you to do more with less.”
I nodded and got lost in thought for a minute, “I still need to think on what magic I want. I’ll hear what you can teach me, but I’ll decide by tomorrow.”
Bozhidar nodded and listed off, “I am an expert at healing magic, light magic, plant magic and earth magic. I can teach you any of these, with light being the easiest.” Bozhidar closed his hand, the mote of light winking out. “Let’s meet here tomorrow morning for your first lesson, whatever you choose to learn.”
I agreed, tomorrow morning felt like a good time to start. “Yes, thank you.” I looked towards the tent’s opening, noticing the deep sunset colors outside. We have spoken for a while. “I think I should go. Is there any light I can take with me?”
Bozhidar gestured to his aide once more, who nodded. “Follow my aide and she’ll set you up with one of our lanterns. We can’t let you keep it for good, but it will serve you while we’re here.”
The aide, a woman it turns out, led me to another, larger tent. Inside was what seemed like a stockpile. She removed a lantern from a case and handed it to me, along with a flask of oil which she said would last me another 4 hours on top the 4 the lantern already has in it.
I thanked her and bid farewell before returning to my hovel, my curiosity satisfied and some of my anxiety lessened. The lamp was heavy in my hands, but lit up well when I returned to the hovel and it was getting dark.
———————————————————
Having learned about the world, and more about what I have available to me right now, I had one last stop in my decision-making process: talk with Rep.
“Hey, Rep, I have some questions!” I called out. Moments later, I could feel Rep’s presence arrive.
*A day is unusually quick for a Traveler to want to talk again. Yes, Sebastian, I’ll try my best, so ask away.*
“I have thoughts about what to invest in right now, but I wanted to consult about some things:
“One. Could I get a more powerful version of chantless magic?”
*Probably, yes. Try and look it up in the Shop.*
“Two. Would I be painting a target on my back by getting that?”
*Perhaps, but uncertain. Depends where you do what.*
“Three. Can I purchase access to Wikipedia?”
*Oh, that’s a topic. I believe you could, eventually, but certainly not right now.*
“Four and final. Any more recommendations for me?”
*I am choosing not to provide. It’s still early enough for you to make mistakes.*
That sounded a bit patronizing, but also fair. I tried to think of more questions but had none. “Rep, thank you, I’m good for now.”
*No problem. I am your Rep after all. Goodbye Sebastian.*
“Bye Rep.” I replied and their presence disappeared.
I had no way to test out spending my Mana and Focus without spending more points, and I was wary of spending Providence. Left with little other options, I hit the hay.