The silence in the room dragged on. Tanner, having been the only one to speak, had most people’s attention on him. The appearance on the faces crowd varied little from horror to distress or dejection. After having had conversations with many other people in the room, Tanner had concluded that what he thought to be an intercom system before, was actually being either projected into the mind of everyone or emanating from the air itself. Both options terrifying, he decided to move on and focus on practical matters.
“Alright, I’m sure everyone is scared but it sure looks like we don’t have any other choices here. Ill go into the next room and tell you all what happens when I get back. If I don’t come back, you all should start looking for a way out of here or maybe trying to find a way to convince that voice to give you more information. Anyone have any objections?”
“If you want to go into the room to be experimented on and anally probed feel free, but I won’t be going anywhere willingly.” Chimed someone in the room.
“Well, I guess ill just have to keep my butthole puckered to be safe. Ill let you know what happens.”
As he started to push through the group of people who were all now standing, apparently trying to get rid of some of the adrenalin in their systems, Austin grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Are you sure about this?”
“No, but someone must figure this out and it might as well be me; Plus, I’m pretty sure I’m one of the only people in this room that doesn’t need to go wipe.”
Tanner turned and pushed through the door. The room was entirely black, light from the other room couldn’t even penetrate the door frame. It was like stepping into the void, and tanner marched through with absolute conviction.
“WELCOME INITIATE”
“You name has been identified as Tanner Kyle Moore; would you like to maintain?”
“Ugh, yes?”
“Current status:”
* Name: Tanner Moore
* Age: 24
* Race: Human
* Echelon: Initiate
* Level: 1
* Profession: Unawakened
* Power Strand: Unawakened
* Body Strand: Unawakened
* Mind Strand: Unawakened
* Spirit Strand: Unawakened
* Acuity Strand: Unawakened
* Health Points: 10
* Mana Points: 36
* Attributes:
* Power: 3
* Body: 3
* Mind: 5
* Spirit: 6
* Acuity: 5
* Equipment:
* None
“Achievement Unlocked: A Leader rises.”
“Congratulations! Due to your willingness to lead from the front and take charge in an unknown and potentially dangerous situation, you have been awarded the ‘a Leader Rises” achievement. Continue to foster your leadership and control and you will go great places, I’m sure of it.”
+2 Spirit Attribute
+1 Acuity Attribute
“Welcome to profession unawakening”
“ERROR…ERROR…ERROR…”
“Profession unlocked, Human resources.”
“ERROR…ERROR…ERROR…”
“Profession Evolution: Species Management”
“ERROR…ERROR…ERROR…”
“Profession Evolution: Minor Lord of Earth”
“Achievement Unlocked: Expedited Profession Evolution.
“Congratulations! Due to your unnatural driving need for power and control, your profession has evolved!”
+1 Spirit Attribute
+1 Acuity Attribute
“Achievement Unlocked: Never Enough Power.”
“Congratulations! Due to your super-natural demand for Command and Control, your profession has evolved!”
+3 Power Attribute
+5 Spirit Attribute
+3 Acuity Attribute
“Congratulations on selecting your profession!”
Tanner could hardly rap his head around all thing things he heard, at first things went as expected. He wasn’t really prepared for the first achievement, but at least that made sense. Everything that happened with his profession was just confusing. He was supposed to be able to choose but this weird MAP thing didn’t give him a choice. Stranger was the error messages. How was this thing having errors this soon, it seemed like a super buggy video game just after launch.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Minor Lord of Earth is crazy, what the fuck does that even mean.”
He could feel a sudden rush of energy like the wind through a window on a cold night. Once the wind passed, he felt strange. Like he just gotten done working out at the gym and picked up a cute girl’s number, but without the fatigue, soreness, or anxiety that came with those things.
“Profession ability selection, please select two of the following abilities.”
Rubber duck (Common): summon a minimally intelligent Rubber duck, communicating with the duck causes a passive increase to your wisdom and intelligence stats when applied to your current task.
Inspiring Presence (Common): Your aura carries a passive bonus to the willpower stat of allies contained within it. This passive bonus is ineffective when distracted.
Delegation (Rare): Change or modify the professions of people under your command, the person effected must be a willing participant.
Minor Quest decree (Uncommon): Summon a piece of paper and a writing utensil. Any who read the Decree will be prompted to accept or decline the written quest. Once completed, they will be granted a compass back to the Baron for their reward. Quests must meet a minimum difficulty threshold.
Keeper (Inferior): Assign a person to be your keeper. Keeper has a very short-range telepathic communication with you.
Tanner’s mind was swimming in information, the intercom had stopped speaking but the knowledge of the choices he had lingered present at the front of his mind. He figured he might as well press on, not like he had much of a choice. Rubber duck was neat, he could see the usefulness it could have in certain situations, but it just didn’t really fit him. He was always good at making friends and meeting people, so having an imaginary friend he could get advice from just didn’t suit him. Inspiring Presence caused him to pause though, it outright claimed the existence of a personal aura. Obviously, the life he led had changed forever but accepting that some of those Vudu witch chicks he knew I high school might have been right; nonsensically, it felt a bit too far. The ability seemed useful, but not something he probably couldn’t already do with enough people’s attention on him when he spoke about something he is passionate about.
Delegation was tagged with “Rare”, which was enough for Tanner to put a lot of thought into it. After the initial briefing by the intercom, he was worried that this might be the only opportunity to choose a profession. Obviously, he didn’t actually know for sure, but this ability implied further that someone couldn’t just change their profession. At best, it would be very difficult to achieve. He could imagine it could be akin to someone finishing school to be a lawyer just to decided they wanted to be a doctor. Not impossible, just unrealistically hard.
Consideration for the other three skills stopped as soon as he focused on Minor Quest Decree and Keeper. They just seemed to hold so much value in their current situation. The quest skill was most notable for the compass part. Giving minor quests was cool and all, but knowing all the people in the other room, that he had so suddenly grown attached to, could find a way back to the group if sent out on a mission; well, it just seemed very comforting and powerful. He should probably exam himself on why he felt so attached to all those strangers, but that was a matter for a different time. As for keeper though, that was an easy choice. Having a mental connection to his only friend in this place, the only man he knew he could truly trust here, it brought him a level on confidence he didn’t realize he had been without.
The Rarities of the skills seemed arbitrary. How was that Rubber duck skill possibly better than keeper. Sure, the duck seemed useful, but the keeper skill could basically do the same thing. It just didn’t require him to temporarily summon what the MAP had acknowledged was a stupid duck. He would have to learn more about how the skills rarities were categorized.
“Congratulations on your first skill unlocks. Now, lets focus on how you’re going to eradicate your enemies! SO EXCITING!”
“Strand selection, please select one of the following Strands.”
Tanner mind was bombarded with information, none if it was very intensive, but the quantity of options was immense. From what he could tell, there was exactly 500 options to pick. The MAP didn’t give any information on what they did, what they were for, how many he could have, or if they were permanent. All of the options felt like they were mere concepts, not tangible things. Some of them hardly made sense to him. There were what he would consider normal options like: Fire, Ice, Wind, Sky, and Shadow. Others fit into more fundamental concepts like: Gravity, Time, Knowledge, and Death. The third category were what confused him though, they seemed more like intangible titles to non-existent things. It was like the MAP had given recognition to man made concepts and not just ones based around reality. Ethereal, Eldritch, Data, Sin, Ordain and many others that he couldn’t really wrap his mind around what they could possibly mean.
In the end, he knew he had to decide. He started picking through the list and focusing on the more fundamental concepts as they seemed more interesting but not impossible to grasp.
“Categorizing.”
His mind instantly lost focus and knowledge of all the non-fundamental strands. It was disconcerting to his conscious mind to feel like he just had his thoughts focused for him, but to his subconscious, everything felt normal.
“Wait a second, did this thing just read my mind and alter the information in my head. That is scary as shit, is this all a simulation or something?”
“We are capable of anything but only in extreme cases do we consciously intervene in the affairs or minds of mortals, that interaction was simply a biproduct on your subconscious minds’ desires and our subconscious willingness to oblige the request. It isn’t to be concerned about, simply a useful function we have devised to enable all life forms of the multiverse to grow in knowledge without destroying their minds from the overload.”
“Then why are you telling me this now, isn’t you telling me this against what you just said?”
“Someone must lead, and leaders must know.”
“Know what, exactly?”
Tanner waited a few seconds but never got a reply. This conversation hadn’t made him feel much better but, like he had some many times already today, he figured he might as well move on.
After spending about 20 minutes of internal deliberation on the available Strands, he decided to go for gravity. It was something he had a relatively strong understanding of, and he thought one day it could end up giving him some super cool abilities.
“Gravity Strand has bound to your Power Attribute.”
“Congratulations on your first Attribute! Please select two from the following abilities:”
Push (Inferior): Send out a wave of energy, slightly bending space and minorly altering the location and course of small objects and projectiles.
Glancing Blow (Common): All of your attacks have a extremely small gravitational pull. If a strike would have been a glancing miss, the target is now hit and takes bonus damage.
Gravity Well (Common): Place a ward on the ground, any magical object or living being that crosses this ward will be momentarily slowed or stopped based on the speed they were traveling and their Strength Stat.
Distortion Cube (Inferior): Cause a 5-foot cube of distorted space. All things within and on the opposite side are visually distorted.
Gravitational Lensing (Uncommon): Passively curve light around your body, very slightly smearing your exactly position over a 2-foot area. Ability can be enabled and disabled at will but requires 10 seconds of cast time to enable.
With the newest upload of knowledge into his head, Tanner could feel his heart rate increase significantly. These things were proper magic powers. Not some kind of rug pull deception magic, but the real deal. After a few minutes focused on clearing his head, he started focusing on what was being offered to him. Push seemed like some cool Star Wars type magic, useful but no as exciting as the others. Glancing blow seemed super effective and general enough to probably always be useful. It was like rolling a 19 and still getting a crit. Gravity well is where things got interesting. It allowed him to use some kind of physical manifestation magic to lay a trap, while distortion cube and gravitational lensing seemed to be the opposite sides of the same excellent coin.
Tanner internally bickered with himself for way longer than he would care to admit. Lots of neat options, but there was so much unknown. First, he didn’t know if any of it had requirements or downsides. He didn’t know what he would be facing in the future or what could possibly be waiting in this new rebuilt world the MAP talked about.
“Got any advice for me?”
The silence hung thick in the air.
“Alright then… I guess I just wing it.”
He finally decided to just pick the safe choices. Sure, the others seemed extravagant and exciting, but with so many unknowns he felt he just had to pick the safe options that would probably always have a use.
“Congratulations on your first Strand abilities! Please Return to the Briefing room”