Kahli was stuck at a standstill, altogether uncertain of how to proceed as far as choosing for herself a [skill]. This was, of course, all thanks to her new [skill] options that came directly from her [class] of [Time Manipulator]. She kept going back and forth internally - was it more prudent to choose a new [skill], such as [Minor Time Rift] or, indeed, [Minor Time Warp], as intimidating as that was? Or would it be better to massively expand her already existing [skill] - the one that originally got her her [class] - to the point wherein Kahli could easily twist any of her timeline scenarios and then pick from, again, any of them? [Seismic Sense] had proved to be such an impactful [skill] that it was a truly viable option to ignore her other [class] related [skills] in order to focus solely instead on the one that had gotten her this far. After all, Kahli knew that it was what Froufrou would do...

And yet, she wasn't sure it was what she, Kahli would do. Kahli liked to have a somewhat balanced character sheet. With that, she thought even harder, until she finally hit a realization as she noticed her mind delving into odd trains of thought that were altogether uncommon in her entire history of thinking.

See, Kahli was very familiar with her own thought processes. She was prone to daydreaming, she was prone to wishing, and she was prone to hoping. That was all very well and good, she thought. However, at the same time, Kahli was not prone to very detailed imaginings of possible timelines that could arise from the consequences of one of her decisions. That isn't to say she never thought of the consequences of her decisions, in fact sometimes Kahli was prone to overthinking the consequences of her actions, but indeed this felt entirely different. It was methodical, it was systematic, it was like her mind was reeling through possibilities that Kahli would've never even considered or wondered about normally.

And that is what made her wonder. And apart from wonder, it was almost as if she knew. This had to be due to one of her [class] [attributes]. There was no other way.

[Clarification: Indeed, you are presently experiencing the effects of your Clairvoyance (CLA) working in tandem with your Perception (PER) to allow your mind to determine with complexity and high confidence what might happen if you decide to choose either of the skills you are interested in either learning or increasing. This is an ideal usage of such attributes, as you are presently unable to launch into a checkpoint during your leveling sequence.]

Kahli could see in one potential future that choosing [Seismic Sense] could indeed be a prudent choice. She could easily picture all the myriad of possibilities she would soon find herself experiencing if she increased it, and could thusly twist each scenario in her repertoire before making any decisions... Kahli would almost have a way to do something akin to a [Minor Time Warp] without ever even formally obtaining that [skill]. Was this what Froufrou liked so much about leveling up one thing so much? That it all seemed to wrap around and gain many of the benefits of other abilities? Potentially, however, Kahli also knew that [Seismic Sense] [checkpoints] were not willful - that is, they happened when her system calculated that they should, and when they most needed to as determined by her system - and while that, too, would eventually change, there was a potential opportunity cost to consider in not immediately gaining the ability to do something such as a [Minor Time Warp] on demand and at will.

Regardless, as Kahli focused more and more on her combined [attributes], she noticed an almost turning in of her mind wherein she entered a bit of a mini-scenario - that is to say, she didn't functionally enter a [checkpoint] or a scenario within, but instead she was picturing the rough outlines of one in her mind. Sure, it was generally a little less clear - that is to say, it was like she was viewing it all through a bit of a foggy lens, or possibly a foggy realm, and yet it was that Kahli could picture herself choosing [Seismic Sense] as the [skill] she would level up with. And through this, she could see that it was granting her clear ability and advantage in her altercation with Taubitha, and yet... there was something off. Something gloomy, something doom ridden about the whole thing. Something foreboding.Kahli began to feel like putting all her eggs in the proverbial basket here, and spending her sole [skill] slot on increasing [Seismic Sense], was a bit of a risky choice, if not an altogether incorrect one for the current situation. Indeed, somehow - Kahli wasn't certain exactly why - she could see Taubitha triumphing over her by choosing this [skill]. How could that even be possible? Kahli was thrown aback and befuddled - indeed, it made no sense. If she'd have the power to twist any timeline scenario, and indeed to pick any timeline she wanted even after the fact, it seemed hard to believe that doing so would ultimately put her in harm's way via Taubitha of all people. After all, Taubitha had always seemed to fail horrendously whenever she'd tried to fight Kahli. Kahli barely considered her a serious threat at this point. But, clearly, if her [CLA] specifically was to be believed - for Kahli could tell that it was this [attribute] specifically that was sounding off the majority of the alarms in her psyche - then increasing [Seismic Sense] was clearly not the move for this particular encounter. And yet, there was a large part of Kahli that wanted to scream why. Unfortunately, it seemed that her [attributes] were unable to provide her with all this reasoning, which was incredibly frustrating. Still, Kahli felt deeply that she should consider her other options.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

And indeed, consider them she did. Kahli at first felt somewhat at ease by the fact that, as far as she could tell, both [Minor Time Warp] and [Minor Time Rift] did not have as much of the same sense of foreboding that increasing [Seismic Sense] did. This almost made Kahli wonder if her system was hiding something from her, but then - somewhat thanks to her [attributes] - she thought better of it. Ever since she'd enabled verbosity and the beta version of clarifications, her system had gone out of its way to provide her with as much information as she requested. Along with that, she could sense that it was something else going on that made choosing an increase to [Seismic Sense] less than ideal. Kahli had a feeling she'd get more used to these intuitive hunches as time wore on, but in the moment, it was a little off-putting. Regardless, she thought again on the two [skills], and noted that each seemed to have a different path it would lead her down - and yet, at the same time, neither felt oppressively scattered full of doom, which was nice.

So, how was Kahli to then decide, from each of these new [skills]? She pictured, with the best employment of her [attributes] she could muster, what it would be like to choose [Minor Time Rift]. She could see her rifts coming in mighty handy, specifically within the context of the next upcoming [checkpoint] she encountered. That was interesting. So she was going to enter into a [checkpoint] soon, which originally she'd thought would take quite a while to enter, potentially because of some grave danger. With that, Kahli noted with increasing intrigue that not only was she going to soon enter a [checkpoint], but that this [checkpoint] itself was most likely the reason she should notincrease [Seismic Sense] during the present leveling prompt. How bizarre. Regardless, she saw a lot of use cases for [Minor Time Rift] in the situation.

Next, was [Minor Time Warp]. Now, this [skill] was a bit of a hard sell for Kahli. Of course, she knew she'd have to learn it eventually, as it was clearly key to her [class], and yet she was very scared to. Something just felt so risky about the ability to warp time in the way her system described, in a manner that treated her entire life like one timeline instead of many countless branches. Indeed, it was this oneness that Kahli couldn't get out of her head. She saw the [skill] working in her favor, but she also saw a lot of stress, some of it potentially undue, as a result of obtaining such a power before she was fully acclimated to the idea of it. With that, Kahli felt confident enough to tell herself that, most likely, she would not be selecting [Minor Time Warp] for this leveling session. If [Minor Time Rift] could aid her in whatever tense situation was upcoming, and she was more attuned to the idea of rifts in time versus warping events themselves, then it was just as well.

And then, Kahli felt something strange. Something off. And she felt a terrible, wretched sense of foreboding that pervaded and indeed seemed to blot out all of the possibilities she had been picturing with her combined [CLA] and [PER]. It was confusing, confounding even. It left Kahli so bewildered that she couldn't even select a [skill] to spend her slot on before... it happened.

"Like, well, well, well!" spat Taubitha's voice as she, inexplicably, became animate and zoomed over to greet Kahli, who was still frozen solid in her leveling prompt. "Looks like somebody's having a good time leveling up, huh? Like, oh my gods, you look like you're about to spend a [skill] slot! Like, that's so totally cool! I leveled up recently myself, and it was, like, mega fun. I spent a [skill] slot myself, believe it or not. Like, oh my gods, isn't that so mega coooool?"

Kahli would've grimaced, because Taubitha had leaned right up next to her face as she'd said coooool, but she couldn't - she was, of course, still inanimate due to her system prompting her to spend a [skill] slot.

"Oh, sorry. Like, I totally forgot you can't move or anything while you're leveling up." Taubitha looked around at the frozen scene around her. "And, like, nobody else can, either! I would be frozen, too, if like, I wasn't super cool and mega powerful now. But I am! So, like, should I just go ahead and totally kill you?"