“Silver? How does that work?” Naomi asked.

“I don’t know how it works for magic, just that it is my element,” Jenna said. “I was hoping someone could explain how I’m supposed to cast spells in this game. It’s not exactly point-and-click or smash the buttons like the games I’ve seen you all play.”

“It’s voice activated,” Susie said. “Well, voice and intent activated. That way you can talk about your spells without actually casting them. But what spells do you have?”

We had to teach Jenna how to access her character sheet, again basically intent activated, and how to dig deeper into the sheet.

“Under abilities, it says two slash ten,” Jenna said. “I have, um, Assertive Argentomancy.” She sounded out the unfamiliar word. “That’s got a little two after it. Then Assistive Argentomancy with a little one after it. Both are Tier 0. And I have a locked class passive also at Tier 0. It’s called Reflective Meditation and has an ‘x’ after it instead of a number.”

“The ‘Tier’ is the level of the ability,” Susie started in on lecture mode, “As you level up, you get points you can assign to level up your abilities or learn new ones. And the number after the ability is how many skills or spells it contains. As the ability levels up, your skills or spells get stronger or you get new ones. So a two after Assertive Argentomancy means you have two spells, probably, in that ability.”

“And the ‘x’?” I asked. After all, one of my abilities was marked the same way.

“It’s an ability that can level up and get stronger, but it provides a benefit of its own rather than being the top-level for a group of spells or skills. Basically a passive that can get stronger,” Susie answered.

“So why do I have three abilities, but it says two of ten?” Jenna asked. “I may not be good at games, but I can count to three.”

“Sometimes,” I winked.

“Shush. We’re not talking about chores!”

“Um, I think,” Susie emphasized that word, “any locked abilities, that is abilities you have to have and can’t ever replace, don’t count toward your total of ten. From what I’ve read, almost every single locked ability is because someone is a certain race or a certain class. All my locked abilities are racial, anyway. And those abilities can’t get stronger, so they don’t have that ‘Tier 0’ in front of them.”

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“So some people have more skills than others?” Naomi asked.

“Pretty much. There are trade-offs. Like I bet James has a racial skill that lets him fly, but is probably much weaker than average. His tiny little form isn’t going to be able to carry much weight or wear heavy armor, probably.”

I nodded.

“But things won’t be perfectly balanced. DVI may be a game, but balance and a system of being fair aren’t part of its core tenets.” Susie frowned. “It is copying life too much that way, and no one has ever successfully claimed that life is fair. Here, the more rare the race and class, the more and better skills they have. Partially balanced against the more common the race and class, the faster they get stronger and can more easily adapt. You and Jenna will probably outlevel the rest of us.”

“Is there a level cap?” Mika asked, “Where they’ll stop and we’ll catch up?”

“Not that I’ve heard.”

“Hmm.”

Jenna interrupted, “We were talking about my spells, not about levels. I looked at each ability the way you said, and I have three spells: Silver Slash, Silver Shot, and Silver Shield. That last one is in Assistive Argentomancy.”

“Very alliterative. But Silver Shot should have been called Silver Bullet. Jenna the Vampire Slayer, like that old TV show,” Mika said.

“Wait, aren’t vampires supposed to be vulnerable to wood?” I asked.

Naomi nodded. “Yeah, it’s werewolves that are weak to silver.”

“Jenna the Werewolf Slayer,” my sister said. “I like that. Wait. Wait, Jazmyn the Werewolf Slayer. We should be using these character names we made, right? I mean, it’s kinda weird to call James ‘James’ right now.”

As one, they all looked at me and I couldn’t help but blush under the attention.

“Your sister does have a point,” Naomi said.

I shrugged. “I guess it is a bit different when we’re actually in the game than when we’re using a chatserver or PTT sidestream. I don’t mind. Let’s see, besides me and Jazmyn, we’ve got ….”

Naomi was Noa, not a big change to her name and easy enough to remember. Mika used Mikachu, the same character name she used for almost everything despite never having electrical powers. And Susie was …

“Wait, you didn’t seriously call yourself Rockette, did you?” I asked in disbelief as I looked back through the friend invites.

Susie’s crystal shoulders shrugged. “Call me ‘Ette.’ I couldn’t think of anything else. None of the names I was going to use seemed right for the race I got, and I didn’t want to keep everyone waiting while I tried to figure out something good. The only other name I could think of was Killishandra Ree, and that would have been like you calling yourself Tinkerbell.”

Well, I guess I couldn’t complain. After all, my character’s name -- Rie -- came from ‘faerie,’ so it would have been a bit hypocritical to really dis Susie’s naming. However, I was now definitely not going to mention my name’s origin.

“Alright. Ette it is,” I said agreeably. “So, shall we exit the city and see about learning how to use our abilities?”