For the first time in more than a month, Finn simply walked unencumbered, a feeling that would probably feel gratifying on any other day, but right now his mind was a churning mix of fear, guilt, and a more than an unhealthy amount of curiosity. The words had been appearing in his vision all day, sometimes when he called for them, sometimes out of nowhere, invading his field of view to show him things.
Finn had been sweating bullets as the Rangers rode to New Hope. Over the course of the morning, his frantic imagination had concocted all sorts of scenarios like getting to the gates only to be spotted by an Inquisitor and killed on the spot, or maybe he’d catch fire as he walked by a Church. No, fate had an even more horrific homecoming planned for him. In a nightmare scenario his mind hadn’t even bothered to contemplate since it was that ridiculously on the nose, the goddess of New Hope her holy fucking self just so happened to be there to welcome him home. He thought he might die of a heart attack while he was waiting for her to vaporize him or eat him or whatever she did with heretics, but that didn’t happen. Yshmari didn’t even deign to look at him. Her knight got within smelling distance and didn’t say a thing, even as Finn’s new ‘muscle’ twitched.
Human - Level 9
Of course, Finn had looked away and dismissed the message as quickly as he could, frightened that the floating text might somehow implicate him, but its contents stuck with him. All the humans he’d seen, the Rangers and a few of the farm hands at that point, had been level 1, but the knight had a level that was significantly higher. What’s more, some of the Guard that came close enough to Finn during their walk through the city were level 2, while the regular citizens were pretty uniformly level 1 with only a couple outliers among the pit fighters. At least that’s what data he’d managed to glean while trying not to stare.
What made someone a higher level? Assuming the words were a product of Finn’s mind, were they just assumptions he unconsciously made when he saw someone?
No, that didn’t make sense. He had to be within spitting distance to get the words to appear, and he was pretty sure he started sizing people up as soon as he spotted them, even from a block away.
Could he even trust that the words told the truth instead of just what he perceived to be the truth? Again, the uncomfortable question of madness was right there, staring him in the face, and if he didn’t get some kind of answer soon, it might just drive him mad.
By the time he'd dropped off his gear and set out for home, Finn’s curiosity had nearly overtaken all of his other emotions.
He wanted to stop and bring up his…
There was no use in denying it, crazy as it was. He had a character sheet. Nerdy and obsessed with pre-Fall culture as Finn was, he’d had enough exposure to that kind of thing to recognize game logic when he saw it.
Of course, the fact that the words his mind conjured looked like game text put another point in the ‘it’s all in my head’ column. Finn knew that. At the same time, he couldn’t help but ask himself ‘what if?’ What if he’d finally made something of his Gift? The character sheet said as much, but that just came back to his original madness problem.
He stopped, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, trying to clear his mind of questions, at least for now. It would do no good to go around and around on the subject until he found a way to test it scientifically.
The eastern parts of the city were a bit less populated than the market district, and that was fine with Finn. Fewer people meant fewer messages popping up in his head. Soon, the all-too-familiar stone sign that marked the entrance to his neighborhood greeted him. It was a faded monument of carved rock that time, the elements, and a feral ogre had rendered down to just a quarter of its original size, leaving only with ‘-t Oaks’ legible on its surface, prompting the residents here just called the neighborhood “The Oaks.”
A feeling of uneasy anticipation fluttered around in his stomach. He smoothed out his wrinkly jacket, straightened his belt buckle, tucked in his boot laces, and ran his fingers through his hair. He hadn’t felt the need before, but now that he was here he felt too rough around the edges. He felt out of place, like being out there in the wilds somehow allowed his carefully constructed veneer of civility to slip, and now he had to consciously hold it in place.
It wasn’t that the middle class community of the Oaks was anything threatening or judgmental. Hell, Finn knew most of the people that lived here by first name, and he’d played with their children. Everyone took some pride in their homes. The lawns were cut neatly, at least as well as can be expected in times like these. Old, well trimmed shrubs along with giant trees loomed over most of the houses, though the ancient trees had seen some trauma from lightning strikes or the odd monster intrusion. The neighborhood's namesake were all taking the apocalypse and its aftermath in stride, and would probably outlive them all. All the houses stood bright and colorful as well, and many of the porches held chairs and swings where neighbors would gather for lemonade or whisky or whisky-lemonade.
In the middle of the cracked street, a gaggle of children played some variant of dodge ball, or maybe that's how the game started. New Hope’s children born post-fall manifested their Gifts at an early age, and most of these kids showed signs of it now.
A skinny little girl attempted a powerful two handed throw at a pre-teen boy, but as the ball left the girl’s hands, a violet portal swallowed the ball up. The girl frowned at her intended victim and opened her mouth to say something but then ducked suddenly as another portal opened behind her head, the ball sailing out into open air to be caught by a floating girl with long pigtails, beaming expression on her face. Her victory was cut short, however, when the ball seemed to melt through her fingers and splatter down into the hand of a boy no older than ten. The liquified matter seemed to congeal in the kid's hand then *pop* back the way it was meant to be. He threw it at a kid with purple hair and swirling tattoos that wound around his eyes and mouth who simply caught the throw one-handed.
Finn thanked whatever higher power had looked out for him during his childhood, back when Gifts were less well understood and relegated to places where they could be practiced and studied safely. Now, it seemed that every kid's game was destined to turn into Calvinball unless an adult was there to arbitrate. Even then, he doubted kids would stop using the Gifts they’d been born with if pride was on the line.
Upon noticing Finn, the floating girl called for a time-out, touching down and running up to him, her long, dark pigtails still seeming to defy gravity like she was perpetually underwater. “Finn! You came back!” she shouted as she bowled into him, hugging for all she was worth.
Human - Level 1
Finn blinked and shook his head distractedly. “Ah! Hey, Bubbles. Of course I came back. Who said I wouldn’t come back?”
“Jamie said you’d get put in a goblin's pot. He knows lots about goblins. Also, my name’s not Bubbles,” the girl replied with a proudly raised chin.
“Aw. You used to like that name.”
The girl took a step back and crossed her arms defensively. “Well, I’m not in first grade anymore either.”
“What would you like to be called now?” Finn asked, quirking an eyebrow.
“Barrier... -Ooh! Or maybe Vanessa. That's a good one too,” she answered proudly.
Finn tilted his head and frowned. “Why Vanessa? That’s just, like, a name. Your birth name is Susan.”
“Because I like Vanessa better,” the girl stated matter-of-factly as if her logic was perfectly sound.
"Can I share some Ranger wisdom with you from beyond the walls?"
"Yes! Yes!" Susan shouted, her little eyes widening in anticipation.
Finn gave an exaggerated nod and crouched down to whisper in the girl's ear. “Jamie doesn't know a thing. Goblins don't put people in pots. They eat hair."
Susan giggled and looked back over her shoulder to where Jamie stood with the rest of the children. "That's not true... is it?" she asked, her face a study in incredulousness.
Finn nodded gravely. "Notice how my hair is shorter than when I left? They got me, Bubbles."
"Stop teasing. Hey! Remember, it's Barrier now!"
"Sorry."
“Do you wanna play?” She asked with a bounce that made Finn miss the old Bubbles moniker.
“Not today uh- Barrier. I’ve gotta go see my dad.”
“I think he’s home. I heard him exercising in the backyard earlier,” she said just as a ball sailed toward her from the other side of the street only to hit the nearly translucent bubble that winked into place just before impact. The bubble popped, stopping the ball’s momentum dead and allowing it to fall straight down onto the street.
Finn raised an eyebrow and nodded approvingly. “Full body coverage now?”
“Yep! I can make ‘em really big.”
Finn gestured toward the air around the girl. “I still like Bubbles.”
“Mom says people have to respect my choices.”
“Alright. Fine. I’m off to see my dad then maybe I’ll come play, okay?”
“Yesssss!” Susan… Barrier shouted triumphantly. She ran back to her friends carrying the ball. “He said he might play later!” All the children yipped and hooted with joy, some because of the novelty of an adult joining their game, others because Finn was a fresh body whose underwhelming Gift wouldn’t complicate the game further than it already was. Finn would be in for some pain later if he decided to come outside.
Finn continued past the playing children and turned down his street shortly thereafter. The houses were smaller in this part of the neighborhood, but they all did their best to fit in with the comfortable motif everyone had going on with lots of emphasis on warm colors and neat gardens. Soon, he found himself outside of his childhood home, a two-floor brick and wood house meticulously maintained by his father, the grass evenly cut and trees carefully pruned so as not to rub the siding. Dad had repainted since Finn had been gone, using the same shade of yellow he’d always used, a yellow Finn’s mom had supposedly chosen when they’d moved in.
Taking a deep breath, Finn plodded up the front walk and inserted the key into the lock. He hesitated, staring at the door for a long moment as he steeled himself. Dad was probably in there, and he’d not have his boy dithering on the welcome mat like a frightened deer.
As Finn entered, he was confronted by the man himself, the Eric McIntire, or at least his face. The front door opened onto a wooden landing facing a wall probably originally designed for hanging coats or hats. However, this wall had a ragged, fist-sized hole directly through the drywall that allowed one to see from the front door into the kitchen and dining room. It was through this hole that Finn now saw his father sitting at the folding table in the dining room, a steaming bowl of chicken, beans, and rice in front of him. The look on Eric McIntyre’s face was sour as he met Finn’s eyes, like he’d expected a different, more worthy son to walk through the front door.
The old man didn't open his mouth to speak, choosing, instead, to stare and chew his food.
Dropping his bag on a little bench next to the door, Finn walked to the right, through the living room. On his way through the den, he had to pick his way around a several empty bottles and semi-dirty plates discarded between the spartan pieces of furniture.
“Hi, Dad. I’m back,” Finn said, affecting a light tone as he entered the dining room and sat across from his old man.
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Human - Level 1
The man’s eyes bore into Finn’s with that same intensity he used to give his opponents in the pits, as he attacked his chicken, beans, and rice, shoving another huge spoonful into his mouth and chewing a long time before swallowing. This was his go-to meal for training days, and most days were training days. “About time. Was starting to worry you wouldn't make it,” Dad said flatly, like he was reading instructions for a blender.
No greetings and no questions. This didn’t bode well at all. How long had dad been waiting for him? Dad pushed the bowl of food over to Finn.
“Eat something. You look skinny. You been keeping up with your strength training on the road?”
“Yes, sir.” Finn said, his hand going to the spoon and lifting it to his mouth, complying automatically. The food was bland, but that’s how Dad liked it. Food was fuel for the muscles and the mind, nothing more.
“Extra weight? Extra duties? Extra calories?” Dad asked.
“Yeshir,” came Finn’s reply, his mouth full of beans.
“Then why do you look so frail? They not feeding you?”
Finn swallowed. It was true. He looked terrible, especially after his little episode outside Fistshollow. “Nothing like that. Lots of moving and fighting out there,” he said, hoping it was a convincing answer.
“Straight up fights or that bullshit they do where you never get to look your opponent in the eye.”
“Uh… the latter mostly.” The kind of risk averse hit and run the Rangers preferred doing had been honed over a long time and was very effective against monsters, which was fine by Finn considering what happened with the carnobear. However, Dad seemed to think the only fighting worth doing was up close and personal like you would with a man, fists flying to meet face over and over again. “Time in the field is just… we want to bring all of our people home.”
Dad clenched his fists on the table. Finn could hear the man’s knuckles popping and imagined the sound of tendons being stretched over hard bone. “You’ll never toughen up if you never put yourself in front and fight. We prepared you for that.”
Finn could feel himself getting perceptively smaller, his shoulders slumping, his spine bowing like he was carrying an overweight pack, his eyes drifting down to linger on the old fighter's scarred hands. He knew where this was going. It was old ground they'd covered so many times. “I’ve been training my hand to hand with Carl. You know Carl,” Finn said, hoping to redirect the conversation.
Dad sneered with contempt. “That’s the little one that sees things, right?”
“Sees everything, yeah. I guess with Carl I’ve been training how to get hit more than anything else. He’s good.” Finn laughed nervously. “Nowhere near your level though.”
“Glad to hear the Rangers aren't complete wastes. Did you at least figure anything out with your Gift? Anything useful?”
That question hit Finn right between the eyes. What, exactly, could he say? It was possible Dad would be happy that Finn might finally have been able to force some kind of change to his Gift, but what if floating menus and messages about Chaos energy freaked the man out? What if hallucinatory text that told you things was just the latest and greatest disappointment out of Eric McIntire's son to date?
Finn could feel a tiny bead of sweat trickle down the back of his neck as he struggled for something to say. His father seemed to take his silence as an answer in the negative.
Dad sighed. “Well, I was hoping for more when you got back, but we’ll just have to do this as is.”
Finn was having a hard time finishing the whole bowl of food. Damn it was filling. “Um, do what?”
“They’re having another Induction this afternoon, and we’re going.”
Finn swallowed his bite, barely getting it down. “Dad, I haven’t slept in days.”
“We can't pass this up.”
“I’m just saying I’m not at my best.”
“You can’t do anything you haven’t already done. You’ve got nothing more to lose going in.”
Finn winced. That was probably true from his father’s perspective. Last time he went to the Induction, he’d done well on all the written tests and middling on the physical ones, just well enough to pass. Finn had been chosen for service, but the Rangers used their trump card to poach him from the Guard roster. The Guard didn’t try to fight it.
Finn was pretty sure that’s what Dad blamed him for. Not excelling. Not being worth fighting for.
A small part of Finn resented that, wanting to prove that he was more than just an underwhelming Gift. “Dad, The Rangers have b-”
“The Rangers-,” Dad interrupted, “took you from a place where your metal would be honed and polished and then stuck you in the wind where you’d just be ground down. It’s not the place for you. It's needlessly dangerous and serves no purpose. Today, we can change your situation. ‘Get another shot.”
“It’s not that I mind being tested. I just think-”
“Stop that,” Dad said with a dour shake of his head. “Overthinking and underperforming got you where you are now. Go get your things together and let’s go.” Dad got up from the table and dominated the room just by standing, his wide shoulders and deep chest filling Finn’s vision.
That was it. That was all the discussion there was going to be. Finn felt his will suffocating.
He did his best to control his face as he wrestled with his emotions. His body felt pretty good, despite nearly dying last night, but his… spirit?... felt stretched, or maybe that wasn’t the right word. It didn’t matter though, did it? Dad was going to put him through Induction again.
Defeated, Finn let the spoon fall back into the bowl. “Let me drop off my bags and shower. Do I have time?”
“Barely. Get going.”
Finn rose to his feet and forced his hands to relax. They had curled into fists at some unknown point in the conversation. He turned and walked stiffly to the stairs.
About halfway up, Dad called out to him. “Finn.”
Finn stopped and looked back to see his father standing awkwardly on the landing, the nearly empty bowl in his hands. “I’m glad you’re back, son. I’m-” He didn’t finish his sentence, looking down at the wooden steps and frowning pensively. “I just- I don’t know. I’m just glad you’re back.”
“Me too, Dad,” Finn replied, his chest feeling a little tight.
Dad nodded once, paused like he wanted to say more, but then turned to go wash the dishes.
Finn went upstairs to his room, finding it just as he’d left it. Nerdy sci-fi books, board games, and replicas of old posters covered the walls and shelf space. Red and black dice were strewn across a pile of old yellowing comic books and sketch pads on his desk. A faded yellow dresser sat in the corner, one of the drawers askew, its track broken years ago. Opening said drawer, Finn dug inside to find the thing he was looking for.
There.
Underneath a hardcover rulebook was a set of handmade character sheets for the game Crusaders and Cultists, written in the thick, shaky penmanship that had afflicted Finn in his childhood. Upon review, they were nothing like the character sheet he had in his head, but the similarities were there, at least philosophically. The collection of labels and values represented people, or at least they were attempts to represent something so complex as a person. Most games had some kind of unique method of doing so. Some did it well. Some did it poorly.
What most fascinated Finn about the concept, however, was that, in the world they represented, the values on these sheets were true. If it was on the sheet, it was real, unassailable. Finn had always liked that, how certain he could be when looking at one of these pieces of paper.
Clutching the papers in his hand, Finn quietly closed his bedroom door and engaged the lock. He sat down on the bed and did what he’d been itching to do all day. He focused on his Status, a thing he hadn’t dared to do since he entered Yshmari’s domain for fear of some priest or inquisitor smelling the chaos energy on him as he conjured it up.
Status:
Finn McIntire - Level 1 Shard
Type - Human(ERROR)
Physical- 0
Mental- 0
Chaos - 1
Dominion - 1
Territory - 0
Spell Forms - 1 [Meditate - Evolved]
Minions - 0
The sheet read the same as it did this morning when he awoke. He read it slowly, line by line. What did it mean?
He knew the definition of the words, but he didn’t know how they pertained to him. Why did he have Physical and Mental scores of 0? It would stand to reason that he was at least average as far as humanity went when it came to physical fitness, maybe even above average. In Crusaders and Cultists, the average human being had a score of 10 in every stat.
If this whole thing was the product of his mind, why didn’t it default to something he was comfortable with instead of this? Then again, he was unconscious and cooking his brain when the changes had occurred. Who knew what weird crap his fever dreams might have conjured for him to figure out?
He needed something concrete to latch onto, something he could test to see if it worked, but the only thing on the menu that felt familiar was the Meditate spell form. He’d had that his entire life. The sheet said the spell form was evolved, though. What did that tell him?
He focused on the Meditate spell and nearly jumped when the character sheet dissolved and brought up something new.
Meditate - Lvl 5 - Evolved[ERROR]
Lvl 1 - User enters an altered state, gaining the ability to absorb ambient energy and use it to heal the body and mind. This is a generalized effect.
Lvl 2 - Amplify - Effect increased.
Lvl 3 - Emergency Triage - Effect will now trigger when user is under extreme stress.
Lvl 4 - Adaptation - Gain slight resistance to damage while under the effects of Meditate. Resistance gained in this way has a small chance to become permanent.
Lvl 5 - Evolved[ERROR] - User gains [ERROR].
Finn blinked. That was enlightening, in a way. It didn't explain everything, but if the information was to be trusted, he’d leveled up this skill drastically after his encounter with the carnobear’s c-core. At the very least, he’d gone from level 2 to level 5. As far as what ERROR meant, he didn’t really want to think about it, especially if this was all in his head. Could your brain throw error messages?
Now that he knew that some parts of the character sheet could be explored, he had to try others. He flexed that part of his mind that he’d come to associate with the status page, and it dutifully returned. Exploration got him a few answers, but also a multitude of questions.
For one, Physical and Mental were not stats in and of themselves but categories.
Physical - 0
Strength - 0[+]
Dexterity - 0[+]
Agility - 0[+]
Endurance - 0[+]
Synthesis - 0[+]
You have one point of Chaos available.
----
Mental - 0
Intellect - 0[+]
Will - 0[+]
Perception - 0[+]
Memory - 0[+]
Depth - 0[+]
You have one point of Chaos available.
A thundering fist rattled the bedroom door in its frame. “Finn!” shouted Dad from out in the hall, clearly upset. Finn nearly jumped out of his skin. His heart beat a million miles an hour, pounding against the walls of his chest. “What the hell are you doing in there? We’ve got to go! Induction is in an hour!”
“Ah! I’m- aw hell- I’m coming!” Finn sputtered out a reply, dashing to his dresser again to rifle through his clothes and find something appropriate to wear.
“Get a move on, or you’ll be stuck as a Ranger for who knows how long.” Dad warned, his words trailing away as his heavy footsteps clomped down the stairs again.
Finn almost leapt across the hall and to bathroom. He turned on the shower, stepping inside without waiting for it to get warm. The water smelled faintly of the sea even though he was pretty sure it was treated and purified. Not bothering to dry, he changed into something comfortable: loose fitting pants and a shirt that felt a little too tight in the shoulders. Despite what Dad said before, Finn was pretty sure he’d put on some muscle, though he did look more lean than powerful.
All the while, the words “You have one point of Chaos available” played through his head. Yes, the character sheet and the menus could all be in his head, but…
What if they weren’t? More interestingly, what if they were but also very real?
He needed a way to... Oh.
A giddy feeling slowly spread through his body.
When Finn came downstairs, Dad was waiting impatiently at the door.
“You look bright eyed. Needed a shower that bad, eh?” Dad asked, the corner of his lip hinting at an emotion almost akin to pleased.
“Oh yeah,” Finn replied with a wide grin. “I’m ready to be tested.”