Trenton stared at the screen, not quite believing it could actually be there. Yet lo and behold, a screen was hovering in the darkness, about a foot from his chest, sideways, like he was. Trenton got up into a sitting position and the screen moved with him, now facing upright. He reached out to touch it, and with a pixel effect, the screen disappeared, like a mini explosion. Deciding to play along, Trenton responded.
“Who needs to talk? And why with me?”
Oh, good, you responded. According to the guidebook, it would be a bit before the hero decided to play along with it. So, I’m Kenny, and you are the hero of your realm! Congratulations!
“O-Okay…” Trenton said with a puzzled look on his face. “I’m a hero? What does that even mean?”
Well, there’s a… huge evil! Yeah, something bad is going to happen! So, you have been chosen to fight it!
“A huge evil? Really?” Trenton crossed his arms, not quite believing the story.
Yeah, totally! We have to train you and stuff for it!
“Alright, I’ll bite. How are we going to do that?”
Uh… Hold on.
Trenton sighed and got up from his bed. He walked over to his desk and booted up his laptop, stepping around the piles of dirty clothes on the floor. He really needed to clean up the place. As he was about to look up his current situation, the blue screen responded.
Okay! I have a way, hold on, this might… feel weird.
You have been granted mana!
You have been granted the skill Identify!
As these windows popped up, warmth spread throughout Trenton’s body, making him feel more able than before. He felt stronger, smarter, and generally better.
You still okay? Apparently, you’re a natural conduit for mana, which gives you a bunch of perks. You should feel stronger and stuff because of this. As long as you have mana, your body’s muscles and organs work better, cool, huh? That must’ve been why they chose you to be hero.
“Well, yeah, I do feel better, but what do you mean chose me? Who chose me? Were there other candidates?”
Uh… About that skill Identify! You can’t really learn skills that well here, so with Identify, you can scan things and get their properties. It works differently on certain things, like it won’t work the same on humans as it does items. And, it’s a cool skill because after levelling it up, sometimes you’ll gain an additional perk!
“That’s awesome, but you avoided the question. Who chose me?”
Would you take I can’t answer that as a response?
Trenton sighed and rubbed his temples. “Fine, but I will get an answer later.”
The second I get permission to tell you, I will
Satisfied, Trenton nodded his head in agreement, then went back to his computer. He looked up reports of blue screens, and found articles only about computers crashing. Desperate, Trenton went onto the second page of Google, where similar reports were, except for one oddball. A psychological report on Hitler popped up at him. Written by Daniel Abrams, it detailed mental disorders Hitler might’ve had. One of them was schizophrenia, because when he was interviewed, he briefly mentioned a blue screen giving him abilities, such as “Increasing his Charisma stat”
“Hey, Kenny, was it? I looked it up, and it seemed like some other people have been ‘heroes.’ Some bad people.”
Well, yeah. The power is given out randomly, and we don’t control their morality. Most heroes have been not so nice. The last hero was a guy named Adolf Hitler.
“Why do you call them heroes, then? Hitler was no hero.”
That’s just the term for all people given the power, because it’s called the Hero System. We categorize them into two different classes, Saviors and Scourges. Hitler was of course, a Scourge
“Well, it also said that he ‘increased his Charisma stat,’ can I get an explanation for that?”
Well, I wasn’t going to tell you until later, because it doesn’t quite work yet, but using the hero system, when you level up, you can obtain stat points to make you smarter, stronger, more dexterous, luckier, or more charismatic.
Trenton grew excited at this information. “How do I level up? I have to know!”
That’s the thing, you level up by fighting things or accomplishing quests, and since nobody has the power to make quests, you’re limited to fighting things. Unfortunately, you don’t live in a place with a lot of creatures to fight, and you shouldn’t just go around fighting innocent civilians, so you’re limited even further by that.
“What about crime? Couldn’t I stop that? There are sorta a lot of criminals here.”
Oh yeah! Just do that then. Don’t take on people you can’t win against, though. Death is permanent here! I don’t really think you should do that today, you should try to improve and gain skills here, or where you work if you are so inclined.
“My job is here. I’m a digital artist.”
Really? That’s so cool! I’ve always wanted to be an artist! Are you any good?
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“I guess so, here, I’ll draw something and you can rate it yourself”
I, uh, can’t see you or your room, I don’t have a cam set up
“This whole hero system seems really unprofessional, then. Whatever, maybe you can set it up in the future and then you’ll be able to see.”
Sounds great! I’ll try to set it up now, be back in a while. I’ll set this to autopilot so you’ll still get updates for doing things, but it isn’t very great at talking
“Okay, later.” As Trenton said this, he got his drawing tablet and started doodling, trying to get inspired for is project. He had to draw a fantasy setting for this website some guy was setting up. After filling u his screen with random sketches, he hunkered down and started to draw the background.
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Kenny got up from the old terminal and wiped the sweat off of his brow. He had gotten the hero acquainted, and he didn’t seem too suspicious of Kenny’s mess-up, but He couldn’t hold it up for long without the proper hero system equipment. Kenny copied over the signal codes onto a flash drive and left the autopilot to run while he went off to set up a real computer. He could probably convince one of his friends in the tech department to set up his office computer to transmit the hero system. How hard could taking care of two heroes be? Trenton, of course wasn’t officially his, luckily he was able to take him out of the pool of available heroes, so nobody else got him. His other hero was being pretty cool about it though. She was a black woman named Sarah, and was pretty independent and upbeat. It was odd, because she was supposed to be the Scourge of her world. Aside from the occasional evil deed, she didn’t seem to be too intent on filling her role. The Savior of that world was a jerk, though. He treated it like the citizens weren’t actual people. Focusing back to his task at hand, Kenny went down to the tech department. He asked his buddy if he could get another computer, and his friend thankfully delivered. It was a bit older model, so there could be some problems, but it should serve Kenny well. Sneaking back to his cubicle, Kenny Plugged in his laptop and went back to Trenton, no problems being evident so far. As the screen flickered on, Kenny could get a good look at Trenton and his living space. Trenton was a white heavyset male, with blonde hair. He was in a dirty apartment at the unusually clean desk, quickly glancing from his drawing tablet to his screen, creating a fantasy world. It looked alright, about average for an artist, Kenny would guess. Steeling his nerves, Kenny went back to taking care of Trenton.
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Hey Trenton! I’m back, and your drawing looks great! Anything interesting happen while I was gone?
“Nope, anything interesting happen in the hour you were gone?”
Nope, but I’ve gotten a real computer to view you on, so I can see you and manage you better. If something goes wrong, I can look it up in a jiffy.
“Sounds good! I was thinking of going to the store, I’m out of milk and I like cereal.”
Okay, be careful. We still don’t know if any of the effects of the hero system have changed in this world yet. Don’t start arguments.
“Will do” As Trenton said this, He finished up the preliminary parts of his drawing, and a window popped up.
For your practice of art, you have gained the skill Drawing!
“Hey Kenny, I got a skill for drawing? But I already knew how to do that.”
Sure! Just because you know how to do something doesn’t mean you already have that skill. It works for some things, like languages, but not for others, like skills. You won’t have to relearn how to draw, however. You should level up pretty quickly until you get to where you are now. After that, you’ll grow better and better at art!
“Sweet! I always like getting better at things.”
Don’t we all
“Why am I detecting sarcasm?”
You gave such a generic answer, I expected something more interesting from a hero.
“Well, I’m a hero in a pretty boring place. You had to give me magic, which tells me that magic doesn’t exist here naturally. I bet you haven’t even planned for long term, after I defeat this so-called evil, then what happens?”
Well, I sort of, have to… make the evil first.
“What.”
There isn’t an evil for you to defeat here yet
“There’s no evil here?”
Not… particularly.
“But, I can still solve some of the world’s problems, right? I can still be the good guy?”
Well, yeah, I guess. You’ll just have to do unspecific good deeds, maybe topple a few dictatorships, that kind of thing.
“Ugh, fine. But I do want an evil. There has to be an end goal. What’s the point if there isn’t?”
Fine, I’ll make an evil.