William exited the alleyway, the sun breaking across his face as he leaned against the building he had cowered against. It felt like waking up from a dream, or rather, nightmare. Several more prompts were hidden behind the first one that had appeared, informing him that he had unlocked various game mechanics, gained experience, etc. Surprisingly, the game world (he’d begun thinking of the world as a game the instant the first prompt had appeared) allotted experience based on the activity or task completed.
He’d been told that in order to bring up his stats, he could simply summon it by thought. He’d practiced pulling it up in the alleyway, marvelling at the novelty of it. The first few times, he’d had to mentally speak the words USER INTERFACE, then STATISTICS, but after a few passes he got the hang of just willing the screen into place without the intervening steps.
He pulled up his stats again, the right portion of the panel a vertical running tally of game events. He could scroll back up, reviewing events that hed already happened, which could come in handy if he found himself in a fight or running for his life and needed to figure out what happened after the fact.
He scrolled up, pulling the few lines cut off by the top of the window into view.
ITEMS OBTAINED
CASH: $358
MAGICAL TOME...UNIDENTIFIED.
YOU LACK THE REQUISITE EXPERIENCE LEVELS
TO READ OR IDENTIFY THIS TOME.
EXPERIENCE GAINED: +2350 WISDOM, +1500 INTELLIGENCE
EXPERIENCE TO NEXT LEVEL: 6,350
William started reverse engineering the game mechanics of the new world in his head. He had no idea if the levelling/experience system scaled exponentially or not, he would just have to pay attention as he continued to accumulate experience and see, but he was off to a fairly decent start for not having done anything but hide. The system apparently thought that he made the right call, since it had rewarded him in Intelligence and Wisdom. He wondered if he had managed to fight off the monsters through melee combat if his strength, dexterity, etc would have gained experience.
The entire concept of receiving experience by attribute confused him. In every game he had played, experience was just...experience. You totalled it up, and once you had enough of it, you reached the next level and assigned whatever bonus or skill points the game deemed appropriate. He put it aside in his mind, skimming his current stat levels, which he assumed had to have been pre-allotted by some arbitrary criteria. Maybe it measured his real world attributes and assigned him what it thought those qualities worked out to? There was so much he didn’t know about this world. With a thought, his STATS screen came into view, and he read through it. A multicolored spreadsheet listed off all of his most important information, reducing the sum of his virtual existence into neat rows and columns.
CHARACTER: WILLIAM
CLASS: (EMPTY)
RACE: HUMAN
LEVEL: 1
EXPERIENCE: 3,850
EXP. TO NEXT LVL: 6,150
HIT POINTS: 63
STRENGTH: 7 (ADJ-0)
DEXTERITY: 9 (ADJ-0)
INTELLIGENCE: 16 (ADJ-0.15)
CONSTITUTION: 9 (ADJ-0)
CHARISMA: 12 (ADJ-0)
WISDOM: 14 (ADJ-0.235)
His eyes focused on the (ADJ-0.235) next to WISDOM, and after a moment, the math clicked in his head. The system assigned experience to each attribute because that is how you increased each attribute, by engaging in activities that used them. According to the napkin math he did in his head, that meant that for every 10,000 experience that he gained in each attribute, he’d gain an additional stat point in that attribute. He double checked everything by looking it over several times, and it all checked out. It made sense, it happening automatically instead of having to assign the points with each level, since it would more accurately reflect your play style and encourage players to train their attributes through practice and actual gameplay, instead of simply min-maxing their character regardless of what happened in the game. He wished a few of the attributes had started off a little higher, though. Generally speaking, he tended to skew towards Rogue classes when he played RPG’s, but the stats he saw before him suggested a mage build might come more naturally.
Wait... was the magic tome a spellbook?
The idea hit him like a shot of adrenaline. Magic. Actual magic. Well, virtual magic, but still. He rolled the idea over and over in his head, a stupid grin growing across his face. He could live with the ability to do magic. Of course, he had no idea how to actually become a mage. The CLASS designation on his character sheet was empty, and he assumed there was more to it than simply spinning in a circle three times chanting the word MAGE.
Shaking his head, he cleared the prompts with a thought and looked around. The sun was definitely getting closer to sunset than sunrise, and he still had living arrangements to figure out. Popping his wallet out, he discovered the additional money he’d looted from the hooded figure had appeared inside. He now had $658, which should at the very least get him a hotel room for the next few nights until he figured out his next step.
Of course, the hotel wasn’t going to come to him, so he tucked his wallet back into his pocket and continued on further into town. The buildings stretched off into the distance, progressively growing taller, giving him the impression that he was climbing a mountain. The stray thought entered his head that he’d stumbled on a pretty apt metaphor for the economy. Larger buildings equated more money, meaning that if you wanted to get into those buildings, to either own them or to get jobs that increased in pay as you climbed the floors, it required a climb.
He shook his head again, surprised by the metaphor but understanding that flowery ideas wouldn’t get a roof over his head for the night. He pushed away from the wall he’d been leaning against and started off in the direction he’d been moving in before the fight had distracted him. He started walking, and...almost ran into someone moving in the opposite direction. He’d been so wrapped up in his prompts, he hadn’t noticed that all of the people had magically reappeared on the street. A few minutes ago, that would have tripped him out, but after witnessing the fight he had just seen, and spending time wrapping his head around the fact that the world around him was driven by math, and that he could pull up a holographic spreadsheet in front of him to get a glimpse behind it’s curtain, he took it in stride. Maybe the people were computer controlled NPC’s, or “non player characters” that knew to hide when the shadow monsters appeared? It was the best answer he could come up with at the moment, so he went with it.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
One building caught his eye as he passed it, and he stopped to stare at the storefront. People were seated at tables on the large outdoor space that took up the 15 feet or so between the sidewalk and the canopy that shaded the front of the building. A wrought iron fence enclosed the space, which suggested that this building was at least as old as the larger structures looming over it. The entire mood was of a flower growing out of a crack in the sidewalk, and he found himself clutching the railing as he tried to figure out why he was smiling so damn much at a restaurant.
But smiling he was. He must have lost track of time, because the next thing he knew, a woman's voice spoke to him. He hadn’t been aware of anyone sitting at the table next to where he was standing, but she sounded close. He took his eyes off the building and spotted a blonde haired woman sitting nearby, sipping on some sort of fancy coffee.
“You new around here?”
Her voice was light, and something about it was instantly familiar. William had no idea what her name was, but thought that maybe he had met her in the past at some point, maybe even knew her. Then it came to him. it was the woman he had seen earlier during the attack, sipping the iced coffee. He instantly decided to not mention anything about the game mechanics until he knew more about her.
“I…”, he paused. “You know? I’m not sure.”
“Huh. That sounds like something you should know.”
William shook his head ruefully.
“You would think.” He pointed at his temple with one hand, “but I’m having a hard time remembering things lately. Must have bumped my head.”
The woman’s face cycled through a range of emotions. First humor, assuming he was making a joke, then confusion, when she started to suspect he wasn’t, before settling on concern, when she realized he had meant what he said.
“Oh my god, you’re not joking.”
It wasn’t even a question.
“No, I’m not. But it seems like the further I walk into the city, the more it starts to look familiar.”
She glanced from him, to the cafe, and back.
“Is that why you’re staring at the cafe like a lovesick puppy?”
A corner of his mouth lifted into a wry smile. He must know this woman from somewhere. Part of him knew that he wouldn’t take a casual stranger mocking him well, but that he accepted it from friends. He thought back to the doctor, and what she said about people from his memories populating the world. He assumed the woman must be one of those people. He wanted to sit down and talk to her, but him telling her that she looked familiar when she hadn’t really acted like she knew who he was prevented him from saying so.
“Probably. Is it alright if I take the seat across from you while I wait to see if anything else comes back to me?”
She gestured to the seat with her cup, still steaming in the chill air. He made his way around to the gap in the fence and over to the table.
“I’m William.” He held out a hand to her to shake.
“Kristie.” She shook the offered hand.
“Nice to meet you, Kristie.” He felt good knowing that he had at least a modicum of social skills. It was something most people probably took for granted, but when you don’t know anything about yourself, every feather in your cap, no matter how small, is a reassurance.
She smiled back.
He had so many questions, but didn’t want to scare her off by unloading them on her so quickly after they just introduced themselves.
“So, if someone told you that they were new to the area, what would you feel they needed to know in order to survive around here?” His smile was slight, just enough to let her know he was using it as an opener to their conversation, but obvious enough to admit that he was telling the truth.
She looked around at the tall buildings around them.
“Well, William, I would say that it’s not a bad place to be. Usually, when people come her they’re looking for something, and if they give this place a chance, they usually end up finding it.
His smile faltered for a moment before he caught himself. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with what she said, but something the Doctor had said to him before came back.
“Artificially intelligent non-player characters will take the place of your loved ones, your adult family, and there will also be a suitable number of unrelated people created in the simulation to fill out the environment and make it more believable. Some of them are there to subtly help you along on your path to recovery. They’ll never admit that, if asked, but they will still make every attempt to make sure you’re moving towards where you need to be. You’ll never be alone inside the simulation, not really.”
Not knowing for sure who this woman was to him had slowly begun to form a pit of doubt in his chest. Was she one of those helpers that the Doctor had told him about, or was she someone that he should be more wary of, like the shadow monsters? She’d stayed in her seat earlier during the attack, which made her seem more significant than the rest of the passersby that had disappeared and reappeared as though a mirage.
“You okay?” Kristie, with what sounded like genuine concern in her voice.
“Ahh, yeah. I’m good.” William was a little embarrassed how his mind had wandered in the middle of a conversation like that. He decided that there was no way he could know what she wanted without getting more information, so he gave her his full attention, and got back to his questions.
“Any places you’d recommend to stay? Like a hotel, I mean. I literally just set foot in the city half an hour ago, so I need to find a place to get something to eat and a roof over my head while I look for something more permanent.”
Again, she glanced up, almost as though she were accessing some database of information in that direction.
“I’d assume there are plenty of decent places in the city to stay for a night or two. And you can get something to eat right here.”
She gestured at the restaurant behind her before handing him a menu. He tilted his head to the side, an affectation meant to show that he should have realized that already.
“Fair point.”
He took the offered menu and began to survey it. It seemed to offer the usual light deli fare, with a substantial section of the menu dedicated to coffee and tea. The prices seemed reasonable, which was odd because he couldn’t recall anything specific about prices he had paid in the past. He thought it interesting that he couldn’t remember specifics, but the general sense of things remained. It was almost like his mind was on the highway, with a vague sense of where he was going, but he couldn’t quite make out the text on the exit signs.
“I guess I’ll try a sandwich?”
His tone was more questioning than certain. Kristie laughed.
“Are you asking me, or telling me?”
William smiled through his embarrassment. He hadn’t meant to appear so indecisive.
“Sandwich, definitely. I think the turkey club sounds good. Do I need to order up there,” he gestured at the counter, “or…”
“Got it, turkey club. Anything to drink?”
A woman in an apron to his right smiled at him, waiting to take the rest of his order. It took everything in him to not jerk away at her surprise appearance. Had she been there before? For how long? William stammered on, again trying to hide his awkwardness.
“I’ll, uhh...have a water, I guess.”
She nodded and turned away, towards the counter.
“So...how long was she standing there? I didn’t even see her.”
Kristie was looking at something on her phone, and answered without looking up.
“Who, the waitress? She must have walked up when she saw you looking at the menu.”
It sounded completely plausible to William, but in his gut he thought there was more to it. Assuming she was an NPC, it shouldn't have been so surprising that she could pop into and out of existence, but the transition of it was going to take a little getting used to.