Robin tried the pur… satchel on, slipping it over his arms and onto his shoulders. He froze halfway when he remembered the mantis on his shoulder, but it didn’t seem to react and after a little gentle nudging with the strap of the satchel, it lifted its legs to let him fully don it. It fit perfectly, of course. Robin sighed. At least it was useful… The thrill of finding a genuinely magical object was somewhat tampered by the appearance, but Robin wasn’t prideful enough to leave it behind, or the broom, for that matter. Both the bottles, the broom, and the linens went into the satchel. It was a bit like dropping a stick into deep, thick mud - it just fell and stayed where it landed, with no vibrations or bouncing. Robin thought it was kind of unsettling.

  Robin went and sat down on the toilet closest to the wall. It felt a little weird, but there was nowhere else to sit that was not on the floor. As he sat, the pink mantis riding on his shoulder let out a startling cross between a chirp and a hiss, leaping to the wall even as Robin was just beginning to flinch from the abrupt noise. It was wobbling like an old woman trying to cross a street in a Boy Scouts training video, and slowly ascending the wall, carefully placing, lifting, and placing each foot again multiple times before every step. Robin frowned. How did I scare it so badly? What did I do?

  Robin sighed and shook his head. Nothing he could do about it now. He figured it was time to see if there was anything more to the menus and text boxes he could summon with a little concentration. He focused on pulling up what he thought of as the “main” box. As an afterthought, he thought about attempting to pull up the skills box at the same time. Two boxes immediately came to view. Robin whistled the victory tune from Final Fantasy 7 to himself, and then immediately wished he hadn’t. At the sound of the whistle, the mantis scurried up the wall to the ceiling in a sudden burst of non-wobbling speed, and skittered a few feet away from the wall. It remained there, staring down at the center of the room, dancing like a leaf in the wind.

  The tune also made him think of his father. Robin had played the game to impress him, and it had turned out to be one of the few attempts like that of Robin’s that had succeeded. Robin pushed that thought away and focused on the text box.

STR 9 0 + AGI 11 0 + CON 10 0 + BODY 10 0 + INT 14 0 + WILL 10 0 + AURA 10 0 + LOOKS 10 0 + PHYSDEF 2 0 + MENTDEF 0 0 + ENERDDEF 1 0 + SPEED 3 0 + RECOV 5 0 + REGEN 0 0 + PHYSTAM 40 0 + MENSTAM 48 0 + MANA 0 0 + RUN 6 0 + SWIM 2 0 + LEAP 2 0 +

Skills Level Learning 5 Perception 4 Bug Taming 1 Delay Reaction 2 Identify 1

He had gotten a new skill, apparently. It probably came from him messing with the items in the cabinet. It seemed like it could be useful, though. Robin tried to call up a “record” menu, one with his name, age, titles… A box popped up next to the first two, and Robin pumped his fist in success.

Name

Robin Alabi Class Title(s) Lawblessed Available SP 6

  Robin almost yelled. He had starting SP!? That would have been nice to know earlier. Maybe he could raise his stats! Robin’s eyes gleamed as he pictured himself with a perfect physique, accidentally ripping doors off hinges. He liked the mental image. Robin looked at his stats. Was strength really the best one to improve, though? Robin chewed the edge of his lip.

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  He concentrated on clicking the “+” beside “STR”, and it went up by one. Simultaneously, his available SP went down by one. Then he clicked twice on INT. Robin used his third to last point on AGI, bringing it up to 12, and then hesitated. Two points left, and they have to count…

  Robin added his point to mana before he could change his mind. To his surprise, one point got him 5 points of mana. He added his other point to REGEN, hoping it was tied to mana. If magic is real, this is the right choice. Right? It has to be. Right? Oh crap you just doomed yourself. Why didn’t you take AGI!? Everyone knows AGI is a god stat in most games!

  He waited for a moment, slowing his breathing. Robin didn’t feel any different. He glanced at the mantis, but it was still distressed, dancing on the ceiling. Robin had no idea what was going on with it. He closed his eyes, trying to feel any power, sensations, or anything at all that was different. His butt was falling asleep from sitting on the toilet seat for so long, but other than that… wait. It wasn’t pins and needles he was feeling. It almost felt like an electrical current was running through the seat. Robin felt the buzzing at his back, too, and realized that that was where the satchel was sitting.

  Robin extended his hand and tried to push out ...something. He tried every spell he could remember from Harry Potter, even holding his finger out like a wand. He tried a Hadouken, a Kamehameha wave, and even “Burning Hands” from every D&D clone. Nothing worked, but he did manage to deplete a couple points of MENSTAM in his attempts. They seemed to come back pretty quickly, though.

  Robin sighed and stood up. Too much time hiding from the constant arguing of his parents in the bathroom had given Robin a sort of familiarity with the particular sensation of having sat on a toilet seat too long. It was time to stretch. Robin brought his menus back up. He wanted to see if there was an “options” function. To his elation, a box immediately appeared as he concentrated. He saw a bright pink flash right as the box appeared, and then he felt the impact of the mantis.

  It scurried up the front of him from where it had landed on the side of his arm and stomach. It quickly reached his shoulder and folded its foreclaws, staring at him with bright pink eyes. It looked like it was staring right as if to scold him for something. Robin stared at the black spots in the eyes of the mantis and said “...I’m sorry? Oh god, what do you say to calm down a giant scared mantis!?”

  Robin kept staring at it, his mind racing. Maybe it would like hearing about itself? Robin took a deep breath and said “You know, you don’t really have pupils. You have pseudopupils, actually.” Robin pictured himself saying “Well, AK-TUALLY” and cringed. The mantis probably wouldn’t judge him, would it? He pressed on anyway. “They just look like pupils because of the way the light bends in your eyes. It’s an optical illusion! You’re like a tiny little magician, and definitely not a huge predator sitting on my shoulder.”

  The mantis stared at Robin, unmoving.

  That seemed like a good sign, so Robin pressed on. “Maybe… maybe I should name you? You seem like you’re sticking with me, at least in here.” At the very least, it would be a good distraction of the bigger mantises find me or get in here somehow. Robin felt immediately guilty and mentally retracted that line of thought with vehemence. “I think I am going to call you Opal”, he said, carefully pronouncing each word. The mantis slowly moved its head to look out at the room. I’ll take it! Robin recalled the options menu.

Display Bonus Attributes from Items separately Yes Display Individual SP and Experience Gains No Display Skill Rarity NO

  Might as well turn that first one off, it clutters my vision a little bit more than necessary. The second… hmm. I think I should turn that on, but I can always disable it if it gets overwhelming. He shuddered, picturing himself torn to pieces by mantises because he was overwhelmed by experience pop-ups after stepping on a group of Grapeflies. The last one was particularly fascinating, however. Were some skills more rare than others? Robin changed the first option to “No”, the second to “yes”, and the third to “yes” before calling up the skills box. He was pleased to note that Bug Taming had gone up a point, probably thanks to his excellent work at taming the orchid mantis. He looked sidelong at the housecat-sized pink insect on his shoulder. Maybe tamed is too strong of a word… or the wrong word altogether.

Learning

5

P

Perception

4

C

Bug Taming

3

R

Delay Reaction

2

U

Identify

2

U

  Robin noticed that there was new information beside the skill. That must be the skill rarity. He focused on the “C” beside Perception. I bet that’s “common.” A small box appeared.

Common

  Robin did a jig in his head. I should get extra points for guessing that, he thought ruefully. After focusing on the other letters, he found that “C”, as expected, stood for “Common.” “U” stood for “Uncommon”, “R” stood for “Rare”, and “P” stood for “Primal.” I wonder how far up that is on the rarity scale. I hope it’s not one of those power scales that has a billion different types of tiers, like that Solar Saviour Silver spin-off. I don’t want to have to remember the difference in Copper Tier, Silver Tier, Gold-Tier, pre-WWII non-irradiated “Low background” Steel Tier, Palladium Tier, Orichalcum Tier…

  Robin released air from his nose in a small snort. I am Solar Saviour Low background Steel!

  Wait a minute… Robin had an idea. It probably wouldn’t do anything, but it couldn’t hurt. He closed his eyes and began to concentrate. He felt the painful clench of the claws of the mantis on his shoulder. He could feel the faint pins-and-needles tingle of his satchel on his back. Maybe if he… Robin concentrated on the feeling of his skin at the point where the orchid man… Opal, he reminded himself, was clutching him. It hurt, like a continuous cat scratch and a pinch from a drunk uncle on “St. Paddy’s Day” combined. He tried to focus on willing his mana there, to those exact four spots, on making that skin tingle. If I just push…

BOND INSECT (R)

You may bond an insect to yourself using mana. The bond will last 1 minute per mana point spent through the base application of the skill. You may perceive through its senses, though this may be disorienting. It is significantly easier to tame a creature that has been bonded.

Bind Familiar

The user may forge a connection to a creature, binding them together with mana. When the spell is completed, the two are forever linked, until one or both die. The two will share an empathic link. The spell grants no obedience or training, though the familiar bond does reduce the difficulty of training. The familiar will share in the power of the caster. Skills, titles, powers, abilities, changes in the subtype of the caster, certain spells, or similar effects can trigger mutations, evolutions, or changes in the familiar.

  Opal... was his familiar now?