Ted’s next reaction was to try and slap at the message, as if it were a fly buzzing around his head, but he managed to avoid doing so and cuffing himself round the head.

*New Skill Learned*

*New Message: (1)*

It was still there, floating in the top left of his vision. It took Ted a second to understand; this must be a CPS message, like the Stats screen, and seemingly how everything else was run here. But how did he get to it?

‘Read message.’ he said. Nothing happened.

‘Open message.’ Again, no response.

‘Show messages.’ Nothing.

Ted tried a whole slew of commands that he thought might open up a message from the system, with no response at all. Finally he decided to try going through the one screen he did have access to.

He said ‘View Stats’, and once again his stats screen appeared before him. He was hoping for a tab, or a new subheading entitled ‘Messages’ to have appeared, but it was exactly the same as it had been in the seminar room.

Or was it?

Because now, under Skills, there was a new line.

‘Spear Mastery - Level 1’

‘What the fuck?’ Ted breathed. ‘Spear Mastery? What the hell is that?’

As if on cue, a line of text popped up in front of his stats screen.

____________________________________________________________________________

Spear Mastery - Level 1. The basic pillar of spear usage for defence and attack, the Spear Mastery skill shows the user has an understanding of the techniques and movements required for spear based combat.

Improving this Skill will increase the user’s ability with the spear and may unlock further techniques.

This skill is supported by the Strength and Agility attributes.

____________________________________________________________________________

‘Well. That does explain it I guess.’ Ted admitted begrudgingly. Voice controlled video game mechanics. It felt unoriginal, and Ted hated to say it, as he felt like he’d been saying it a lot, but also stupid. The thing about video game levels was that they worked well in restricted environments like games, but in the real world things were never so simple. He’d always been frustrated by games with a lockpicking skill, that showed you twiddling some bits of metal around until you became a lock magician, able to open any door. In reality it wasn’t like that; you could be the best pin twiddler around but it would mean little when you came to a yale lock or a deadbolt, or even a door chain. He wondered whether ‘sword fighting’ would be a single skill, or if it would get broken down into all the potential dozen iterations, and looked forward to complaining either way.

He looked around at the other weapons in the stacks, wondering whether he should give them a try, but he had a strange reluctance to drop the spear that he still held in his right hand. It also seemed unlikely that the strange flash of brilliance that had come across him with the spear would happen again. Although, saying that, it was worth a try; imagine if he walked away as a Master of all the Weapons?

Well, he’d be impressed at least, as it occurred to him that there was no one else around for him to tell. That thought came with a stab of emotion that he swiftly pushed down on. Not today.

Sword, axe, daggers, claymore, and scythe all felt awkward in his hand as he gave them a go, though the shield felt more comfortable on his arm than he’d expected. He was unsure of how you practiced with a shield against a dummy though, he dropped it quickly.

The message in the top left of his vision had still not gone away, though Ted was already starting to get used to it. He was starting to worry that it would start becoming a full length list of updates, getting longer and longer as life went on until it was all that he could see. Something to talk to the people running the camp, he figured.

He went back to the racks and picked up the spear again, enjoying the balance of the thing. The dummy that he’d been attacking stood in front of him, defeated and ashamed, but there were others in the same training area, of different shapes and sizes, some with limbs or holding weapons. He plodded over to one of them; a wooden dummy around his height, standing on two legs, rather than a pole affixed to the ground like most of the others, in a roughly carved shape of a human being. It had only one arm, but the hand of that arm held a sword, held forward as if in mid strike. Ted wondered if that was to allow the person training to have realistic dodging and ducking requirements, trying a few weaves underneath it to test. Unsatisfied, he decided to give his new Spear Mastery another go with a challenging opponent, jabbing the dummy’s torso with the point of his spear.

There was a click, a circle of white light appeared on the dummy’s chest, and the dummy started to move.

‘Combat Training Level 1, Activated.’ a robotic voice announced from the direction of the dummy. Another notification popped up.

*New Mission Received*

Ted ignored it, instead leaping back, shocked, as the dummy lifted its sword as if in salute, and then moved towards him. He was concerned to see that the dummy was neither robotic in its movements, nor was it slow, moving with the fluidity of an actual person and the speed of a… Well, not a well trained swordsman, but certainly faster than you’d expect a wooden dummy to move. As the dummy managed to get in range, Ted had to jump aside as a swift chop from the sword came down where he had been standing. He realised that he might be in actual danger here.

The Spear Mastery knowledge he’d gained just moments ago helped him settle into a stance, with his left foot forward, right foot back, spear resting comfortably in both hands across his body. The dummy wheeled round to face him again, and he saw a slice coming from his left as the one handed dummy attacked again.

He brought the spear up to block, and the sword hit it, harder than he expected, rebounding off. Ted reacted well, shifting the spear from vertical to horizontal and shoving it into the dummy’s face. It pushed the dummy back a single pace, but did little else; the dummy had no nose to break or nerves to feel pain.

The dummy recovered quickly, stepping forward and continuing with slicing sword movements, flinging its blade back and forth in wide arcs. Ted backed away, giving himself time to think, and it seemed that the solution was pretty obvious; he activated it by stabbing it with a spear, and there was now a bright glowing circle on its chest. To win, and assumedly deactivate the dummy, he probably just had to stab it in the circle, dealing a ‘killing’ blow. He had the spear, which gave him an advantage when attacking from a distance, and he had his Spear Mastery Skill.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Better get stabbing then. He went on the offensive, jabbing forward, wondering if the dummy would dodge, or have any defensive manoeuvres. He found a second later that it did, as the wooden sword was used to firmly push the spear aside as the dummy itself side-stepped to complete the evasive move. Ted withdrew it and stabbed again, trying to repeat the machine gun style peppering of attacks that he’d undertaken with the static dummy. It was much harder with a moving opponent though, and without the force of the spear bouncing back, he couldn’t build up a rhythm, as the dummy continued to shift aside and deflect the spear with its sword.

The blade came again, this time stabbing rather than slicing. He slapped it aside the same way that the dummy had his own attempts, using as much force as possible to try and fling the dummy aside. The dummy’s arm was thrown aside, and Ted charged forward, aiming to pierce the body of the dummy, but unable to bring his spear up in time. Instead, his shoulder collided with the dummy in a vicious tackle that left Ted’s shoulder ringing in pain as both he and the dummy fell to the ground.

He found himself lying on top of the dummy, and with a speed that came from a real fear of death, or at least the pain of being smacked by a wooden fist holding a wooden sword, he slammed his fists down on the chest of the dummy, aiming for the glowing circle. It took a single blow for the dummy to go limp, the single sword hand dropping to the floor. Ted let out a roar of victory, slamming his fists down onto the dummy twice more in a primal celebration. He’d been in one on one fights before, it was part of the job, having chosen a life of crime, but never like this.

He stood up, picking up his spear and using it to rest his weight on. Adrenaline was still flooding through his body, but he could already feel a number of bruises beginning to show themselves. He tensed as the dummy stood up.

‘Combat Training, Level 1, complete. Activate Level 2?’

‘Oh fuck no!’

‘Combat Training ended.’ the voice from the dummy said.

Ted breathed a sigh of relief, and after a second of ensuring that no dummies were moving to attack he turned and walked stiffly back to the shed where all the weapons were held. That was probably enough for today.

But thinking back to the fight, he felt a rush of exhilaration. That had been real; life and death, or as close to it as a wooden sword would allow, skill against skill, testing each other and one coming out the victor, only slightly battered and bruised. Admittedly the opponent had been a one armed dummy, but this was only day one, step one of a long road. He’d get better. That was what this place was for, right?

He found himself reviewing where he’d gone wrong and what he’d done right. The tackle at the end had been a good move, if a bit brutish and basic; it had ended the fight, and quickly, using the dummy’s lack of balance from the hard block to his advantage. But he’d not really used the advantages he’d had, and he’d only ever reacted, not acted. The spear had the longer reach, allowing Ted to attack from outside of the dummy’s range, and he could have done so with a range of attacks, from overhead strikes to low swings. This would have helped the other major advantage that Ted had over the dummy; the dummy had only one arm, limiting it to a weak defence on its left hand side.

Something to think about for next time. He checked his status page, and saw that the collision with the dummy had reduced his HP to 92/100 - not much, but significant considering the dummy hadn’t actually hit him - that was mostly self inflicted, from blocks and the tackle. He’d have to work on that too. He noticed that the Spear Mastery had actually increased to Level 2 as well, which was a pleasant surprise.

Finding himself finished with everything in that area, he retrieved his document pack and left, closing the gate behind him once more. With no real drive to check any of the other less obvious areas out, he found himself aimlessly wandering around the outskirts of them, just inside of the assault course. The light had dimmed slightly, though not enough to definitively say it was becoming evening. Whilst messing around with his status window he’d realised that there actually was a clock on there, something he’d somehow missed before, so he knew it was 6pm; did that translate to early evening, like in the UK on his planet? He found that he didn’t want to go back to the barracks, full of strangers more strange than he’d ever encountered before. He wanted to go home. Even if that meant back to being Ted the Lollipop man again.

In the very short time he’d seen them, the others had seemed much more self assured, and he wondered whether the others had come to this place in a more peaceful way that set them up for this new, second life. They all would have been expecting an afterlife, so maybe this was something they’d anticipated, and even felt entitled to. But if their deaths had been expected, if they’d been on their deathbeds, or had slightly longer to prepare for their own demise, it might have been an easier transition to this.

Whatever this was.

Ted hadn’t been friendless, even in his second go at life in Bristol, but he’d never been a big personality. He’d go with the flow, or if he really didn’t like the flow, he’d excuse himself, then find a new flow. It felt like the new world was going to be a lot of big personalities expecting people to follow their lead. He’d see how it went, but if he had to, he’d leave. He hadn’t dealt with all the shit in the previous world, just to deal with more in this one.

He considered returning to the barracks and the brewing race war, but couldn’t quite make himself do it; instead he walked back to the square, put his back to a building, and sat down. He’d read the documents in the folder first, and then look for another reason not to go back.

Pulling out the sheets, he saw the map that he’d already looked at, with the training area and horseshoe of buildings, surrounded further by a small network of buildings just labelled ‘administration’ or ‘sleeping quarters’, with one ‘medic station’. He put it aside.

Beneath it was a Welcome pamphlet, that repeated some of the spiel that Ted had received twice already; once from Kai, and once from the stocky woman that he’d never learnt the name of. The pamphlet welcomed him to the Second World, where the Authority was waging its final battle against the Enemy, and how Ted was needed in the battle for good. He wondered how the recruits on the other side were being proselytised to. ‘Come and join the battle for Evil and show the goody two shoes being nice is bad!’? It didn’t make sense. Even bad people didn’t think they were bad people. The devil in Christianity’s purpose had been to just fuck shit up, but if there had been any truth in the story at all, surely that bit was propaganda. No one went into things without justification.

‘Suck it up Ted, it’s not going to make sense.’ Ted told himself. He just had to make it through training. Either he’d wake up at some point, or he’d find some freedom to work out what was really going on. He wondered whether any of the rest of his group were thinking something similar, or whether they were all swept up in religious fervour.

After the welcome document there was a timetable of the next two weeks, ranging between exercise classes, understanding of the Central Processing System, Class Based Training, Weapon Training, Basic Combat Tactics, History, and World Familiarisation. It seemed like an intense couple of weeks, and while it looked like it would give Ted a good grounding in everything he’d need to survive in this world, a large part of him was telling him to just walk off and leave. He had a map of the grounds; there’d be an exit somewhere. There had to be.

He sighed, and told himself that he’d keep the option open.

The last document was a short reference guide to the CPS, something to support the lessons that would be taking place. Ted read it with interest in the hope that it would reveal how to get rid of the notification in his eyesight. He quickly saw the pertinent paragraph.

‘Your full access to the CPS will not be unlocked until you have undertaken the relevant lesson with your tutor. This will reduce confusion and allow you to fully understand and integrate with the CPS, and avoid overload.

‘Your full CPS interface will include:

* Statistics Overview

* Inventory Management System

* Journal

* Mission Log

* Class and Rank Management System

* Help Menu

Although this may be expanded upon updates to the CPS.’

That all made sense, and followed standard game system rules. In fact, Ted realised, chastising himself for not realising it earlier; what he was currently sitting in was effectively a tutorial. Restricted access to skills and menus? Training areas, magical dummies, and zones to teach about class and weapon types? NPCs wandering the halls providing some information but little else? It all screamed tutorial.

He wasn’t sure if that helped him in any way, but it was a good thing to keep in mind. He could probably leave this place overpowered and all skills powered up to level 5. Or 10. Whatever was a good level here.

For some reason it put him in a slightly better mood; he felt a little more in control. With nothing else to read, he put all documents back into the folder, and stood up, brushing his hands on his grey clothes. With a newfound peace he strode back into the barracks through the double doors, and stopped abruptly.

The room was silent, and there were now two armed guards in the room, swords drawn, one pointed at a small Lizardman, the other facing the group of humanas. Spots and streaks of blood covered the floor, growing thicker and larger towards the centre of the room, where an Earth human lay, unmoving.