“First, another question. Will skills in the real world transfer to a different skill here? I mean I know some technological stuff, right, and would that equate to magic, somehow or something…?”
“A good question, try it and find out,” he said.
I scowled… this would make things more difficult. Well not really… I could alter the order of my planned tests. If I didn’t do education first like I had planned I should be able to get answers without losing anything. It was a good thing I had asked first…
“Okay then, I want my first test to be about homemaking and running an estate.”
David smiled at me and shook his head, “You know if I couldn’t read your mind I would have no idea why you seem so ridiculously pleased with this test, have fun!”
The white faded away until I stood on an empty grass field.
“David?”
No response. Hmm, I was not quite sure what they wanted me to do. I could see to the horizon in every direction, and there was no sign of a house or even any building at all. Building… maybe that was the answer. I focused and imagined adding a small tree to the landscape. It appeared exactly as I imagined it.
Okay then, this I could work with, even if it was a more literal interpretation of “homemaking” than I had planned. Hell, I might even get a skill or two from this when I was done. I removed the tree and drew upon my modest knowledge of architecture to start designing a large house. I started with an entryway and grand courtyard with the house surrounding it in the Spanish style. I put in everything I could think of and knew that as I went I would probably need to add in more.
In the back I added a large garden that tiered downward (after I raised the house up onto a hill) and a greenhouse with a covered walkway to the house. Then I placed a small orchard behind the garden. I knew a lot about gardening and plants, so I imagined each plant the way it looked as I put them in.
When I finished putting the garden together I added more decorative trees around the house. Then I looked at the empty plain. I had always lived near mountains and hills, and with my house being on the only hill around it made the infinite plain even more obvious. I started by adding mountains, some distant and some close enough that dawn would be late as the sun rose above them. Then I carved out more terrain into a valley with a series of lakes and rivers feeding into them. I covered the tops of the mountains with snow and pines which gradually transformed into green spring growth on foothills that lead down into the valley. I added more hills near my house and small copses of trees throughout the valley, especially by the rivers. I looked at it with a smile. It still felt too empty though, so I added farms, fields, roads, shopping centers and homes. I only vaguely imagined these, letting the world fill in the details for me until I added a road and then a long driveway right up to my house. I smiled as I turned around a couple times, now I could start.
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You have learned skills:
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* Visualization
* Construction
* Architecture Lore
* Landscaping
* Cartography
* Read Terrain
* Arborist
* Herbology
* Gardening
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For unlocking Visualization you have unlocked a hidden statistic:
Concentration
Concentration decreases the odds of being interrupted while using skills. Concentration also decreases debuffs from fatigue.
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“Yes! Now that is what I am talking about!” I grinned somewhat idiotically as I pumped my arms up in the air. After I calmed down a bit I remembered that I had more to do… a lot more. Deciding to get to it I walked into the courtyard and then entered the kitchen.
The kitchen was ultra modern with all the appliances one could want. I had thought about trying to make it medieval style with a wood burning stove and a large open fireplace with a skewer and hook, but the truth was that I had no idea how to cook using those. So ultimately I went with what I knew. Cooking was one of my great passions, and I had absolutely no plans to live in a game for years without having the ability to cook at least as well in the game as I could in real life. I had grown up on home cooking and when I moved away from home for college I missed it terribly. I picked up the basics just by helping out and occasionally making a small meal when I lived with my parents, but that was hardly the same as needing to prepare every meal for myself. So, I went out, bought a basic spice rack and some utensils and got started. That was several years ago and now I was pretty damn good.
I imagined David beside me and he appeared. He looked at me quizzically for a moment and I said, “Want to help me do some cooking?”
“I am not very good at cooking,” he said.
“Oh that’s fine, I will just have you work on the basics. It is just a lot more fun to cook with someone else, and I actually really love teaching other people.”
I started in on bread. If there was something more divine than bread fresh out of the oven, I am not sure what it is. I started by simply explaining the basics of bread, and that there was a lot of chemistry involved. How the yeast was dried out and then could be reactivated in some gently warm water, and that you had to be aware that it was a living organism that didn’t like the water too hot, and that having the yeast in direct contact with salt was bad for it.
Then I showed him how to make a simple white bread with just a touch of salt and sugar and a little melted butter, and explained that the simplest yeast bread could be made with just water, yeast, salt and flour and still be delicious. That the sweetness of the bread was generally unlocked more from the flour than anything else.
As the dough started to thicken as I added more flour I turned it out onto a floured countertop, the marble looking cloudy under the thick patina of dust that covered it. I coated my hands in flour since this was going to be a drier dough and explained how kneading the dough built up gluten that held the bread together and trapped air bubbles as the yeast converted sugars into carbon dioxide. I had David try it and grinned as he got flour everywhere as he kneaded it.
“This is harder than I thought, my arms will get tired pretty quickly at this rate.”
“Yeah, it took quite a bit of making bread before it wasn’t really a strain anymore. It’s surprisingly enjoyable to knead dough though, works out stress or something.”
“Yeah I can see that, here you take back over.”
I did, and told him different ways to tell if the dough was ready. I showed him the texture of the bread and explained for many fairly dry doughs like with one that having the bread feel slightly tacky but no longer sticking to the counter or hands is ideal. I took some bread and stretched it to show him what is called the “windowpane test” where properly kneaded dough is elastic enough to stretch out under its own weight and become thin enough to see the light on the other side. After that I set the dough aside to proof.
“A lot of the flavor in bread comes from the yeast. When you break open freshly baked bread and there is that deep aroma that comes out it, that is from the yeast. To maximize your flavor you want to let the yeast grow as much as possible. So for that you let the bread proof, which generally means leaving it covered in a warm place to happily grow. You can proof it multiple times, but the general rule is that you want to let it proof to double the size at least once before you shape it for baking.”
So we proceeded to wait for the bread to proof and I showed him a wet dough. I told him about how to make sour dough. In this case I decided to simply imagine a good sourdough starter already in the fridge, but explain to David how to make one.
“Sourdough is great, but it is a little different, because it involves wild yeast and bacteria for your flavor.”
“Wild yeast?”
“Yeah, yeast pretty much floats in the air and lives everywhere that humans do. Same for the bacteria. The wild yeast tends to work slower than the commercial stuff though, but has a subtler sour flavor. The bacteria adds to that flavor as well. You can make a starter just by combining equal parts flour and water and leaving it out for a few days until you see it start to bubble. You can have them in your fridge for years if you keep adding more flour and water periodically. You can also get starter yeast shipped from different places, because the wild yeast is different everywhere. I imagined this one to be like the starter I got from San Francisco that was in my fridge for a few years. My sourdough never managed to be as good as the stuff I got whenever I was there, but mine is pretty good, if I do say so myself.”
Mixing half the starter with more flour, water, and adding salt I made the basics for sourdough. This dough I left much wetter, and explained that having wet hands was the ideal way to keep very wet dough from sticking to you. I showed him how to knead the sticky goop and smiled as the gluten formation in it started to turn the dough into a more solid, though still very soft, dough. Setting that aside to proof I returned to the previous dough to find it about doubled. I cut the dough with a bread knife right on the floured cloth I had been using for proofing and shaped the dough into simple rectangles that I put in bread tins.
“I will show you different shaping techniques later, like baguettes, and the boule, braiding, etc… with different types of bread, but shaping them into a basic rectangle with the ends tucked underneath and put into a bread tin is the most basic. It also tends to produce the most consistent result, and is usually best for sandwich bread.”
We left the bread to rise once more in the bread tins and continued making different kinds of bread. When the white bread in the tins was almost ready I turned on the oven and then put the bread in when it got hot enough. I told him that we could mimic a professional steam oven by pouring water into a pan heated in the oven, but that we would wait to do that with the sourdough.
“You have to be careful when pouring or spraying water into an oven though. If you have glass on the front of the oven you can shatter it. I have never actually done that, but I did break the light bulb in the oven once when I accidentally hit it with a spray bottle I was spritzing into the oven to make steam. Glass is not too fond sudden changes in temperature.”
We continued, shaping the sourdough and making more bread until the timer I had set out dinged the readiness of white bread. I took some hot pads and opened the oven, sliding the rack the tins were sitting on partly out of the oven. The tops of the bread were a deep golden brown, and I flicked the top of the bread and listened.
“Bread sounds somewhat hollow when it is ready. If it is still doughy it won’t sound right, so that’s a test you can do without cutting into the bread. Also, you generally want to let the bread cool for a little while without cutting into it, because it is still cooking just a little bit. You are supposed to let bread cool completely before cutting into it, but I never do that, it is just too good warm with butter melting on it.”
I showed David how to make tons of different types of bread. After the white bread cooled somewhat, and we ate far more than we should have of it, I started using my ability to alter the reality of the test to accelerate the time of proofing and baking, also multiplying the bread when it was done and freezing it in time to stay perfectly warm and ready. Eventually we had a mountain of bread: Anadama, cracked wheat, French baguettes, Italian Easter bread with eggs baked into the braided ring, brioche, cinnamon bread, monkey bread, and more and more and more. If I hadn’t sped up time I have no idea how long it would have taken me to make all the bread, days or weeks maybe.
We continued like this for a long time as I demonstrated skills in making cakes and pastries, various cuisines like French, Italian, Thai, and Indian, delicious soups, my less than impressive grilling skills, and my fairly minor skills in making candy. Through all this I tried to teach David how to balance flavors, and how you could imagine flavors in your head in advance and try putting them together. He didn’t have much luck with it, but I told him it was a skill that would take time since his brain would need to start actively remembering flavors.
I frequently went out to the garden to harvest fresh ingredients, explaining to David what each was and how you could tell when they were ready. I also had him rub his fingers through the fresh herbs so he could smell them as I identified what each one was for him. I showed him how to properly hold a knife with the thumb and forefinger on the sides of the blade for maximum control and how to sharpen the knife to make cutting as easy as possible.
Past a certain point I simply created anything he had cut or worked with before so it did not get tedious. I even talked about the material that the knives were made of and how having a soft material (up to a point) was beneficial since it was easier to sharpen and achieved a sharper edge. And I showed him all the pans and talked about the difference in heat transfer in something like a cast iron Dutch oven versus a stainless steel or copper bottomed casserole dish. I finished up with sushi though I had to simply imagine the rice in the right flavor and consistency, since I could never get it right when I made it.
Eventually I had showed him everything I could create, though I was certain there were hundreds more little tips and things I had forgotten. We had so much food that I had expand the dining room into a massive dining hall with the food, perfectly preserved in time, on long buffet tables that stretched around three edges of the room.
“Okay, unless I urgently remember something that I want to show you, I am done with the cooking part of homemaking.”
David smiled, “I am not sure I will ever love cooking as much as you, but I actually had fun learning. I had more fun eating though.”
I laughed, eating was definitely fun. “I find it fulfilling to watch when people eat what I make and love. I don’t think I would like making a career out of it though, I love cooking and would hate for it to become a chore instead of… whatever this is,” I said as I waved at the tables of food.
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You have learned skills:
* Prepare Raw Food
* Baking
* Stove Work
* Grilling
* Assemble Food
* Candy Making
* Regional Cuisine Lore
* Alchemy
* Ferment
* Reduction
* Grinding
* Teach
* Sharpen
* Metallurgy Lore
* Chop
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You have unlocked hidden stats:
For demonstrating a keen understanding of fire, heat, and their interactions you have unlocked the sub-stat:
Fire Affinity
Fire Affinity decreases damage due to heat and fire and increases the strength of fire based magic.
For unlocking Fire Affinity, you have unlocked the hidden stat group:
Elemental Affinities
A measure of your understanding and relationship with various elements.
For opening the stat group Elemental Affinities, you have unlocked:
Water Affinity, Earth Affinity, Air Affinity
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For successfully identifying multiple ingredients and plants, and showing those characteristics to another you have learned an ability:
Identify
Allows you to determine the properties of anything. Advanced levels allow for greater range and information. Bonuses are given to the Identify ability from appropriate skills. Cost and cooldown decrease with greater ability.
Base Cost: 100 Mana, 60 Second Cooldown
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For demonstrating competency with an array of cooking skills you have earned the title:
Professional Chef
+10% Chance to have food increase in quality one rank
+10 Charisma while cooking, serving, and eating food you prepared
+5 Charisma when dealing with cooking professionals
Ability to open a restaurant or be hired as a chef
+10% to the value and taste of food you prepare
+5 to all stats (one-time bonus)
You have been awarded the one-time bonuses for the titles - Novice Chef, Trainee Chef, Apprentice Chef, and Journeyman Chef: +10 to all stats
One-time bonus to levels from all titles has been cancelled – other reward will apply (all players start game at level 1)
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My smile grew wider and wider as I read through each of the prompts as they came up. I was trying to resist laughing maniacally when I read the last window and frowned. There were things that bothered me about that. I was likely to unlock other hidden stats while I was testing, and I would have loved to have gotten the +15 stats bonus to apply to them. I wasn’t quite sure why the other four titles only had +10 when the one title had +5 by itself; I had some ideas, but without more information I could not be sure. The leveling situation bothered me too. It looked like no matter how well I did, I was going to start at level one like everyone else. It looked like they were not going to just ignore it though and were going to give me something in compensation, so I guess I could hardly complain too much…
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
On the plus side… I had no knowledge of alchemy and for skills to unlock in it meant that either the skills I was doing just happened to fall into that category, or some skills did translate the way that I hoped. All I could do was keep going. I was done with cooking for the moment, but I still had plenty of skills to work on, even if none of them were nearly as intensive.
“Hey David? I am going to keep working on skills, but I doubt any of them are going to be nearly as fun as cooking, so you can go if you want.”
“Nah, I’m good, it’s fun to do different things here, it reminds me of the real world.”
“Okay, well then this place will need to be cleaned. I am not sure that this skill will ever help too much, but you never know. Anyway, before we do that, I want to have a dinner party later since I have so much food. I don’t really have anyone to invite though, I mean, I imagine you could make a hundred copies of yourself, but it wouldn’t be the same. Is there anyone you can invite?”
He smiled, “I think I can work something out. You want to do It last after everything else?”
“Yeah, that would be great!”
After that I got started on the cleaning, but felt something was lacking. Ah, I know what it is!
“Hey David, you guys copied all the files from my old system to this one, right?”
He looked up from where he was applying a toothbrush to the baseboards. “Yep, if you need something let me or the system know.”
I gave him a quick smile as I thought a bit about how to get what I wanted in the most natural way possible, given my surroundings. I had placed a pod and a computer system hook-up in one of the rooms already, so I imagined a further connection to the house and imagined it all being wired through the house and controlled by a dedicated VI.
“VI, please play random music from favorite’s list.” I said as music began to emanate from hidden speakers throughout the house.
I loved music dearly and just my favorite music comprised about 1300 musical pieces. I smiled as I got back to work with the music helping me get into it. The beat of the music matched my vacuuming, dusting, washing dishes, sweeping, doing laundry, and the various other sundry tasks required to keep a house clean. I could have had an autonomous VI robot do it, but I couldn’t afford that in real life and doubted I would get skills from just having a robot do it instead of doing it myself. As time progressed I automatically identified the songs in my head as they popped up. My tastes are eclectic to say the least; I had everything from some modern rock all the way to Gregorian Chant. I sang and whistled to the music and as I finished, I got another pop-up.
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You have learned skills that are often seen as useless but may have surprising overlap with other skills:
* Cleaning
* Singing
* Whistling
* Musical History (Modern)
* Musical History (Recent)
* Musical History (Old)
* Musical History (Classical)
* Musical History (Ancient)
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Okay… I didn’t know what that meant, but it looked like either the skills had more potential than I thought or the system was trolling me a bit. After getting the strange Blave of the System title it was apparent that the person (or whatever) at the reins had a sense of humor and I would not be surprised at all if the system had placed this description here as a joke. I would be on the lookout to see if the skills helped me though, because you never knew. Heck I had seen and read enough comics, manga, and anime to imagine a weird Kung-Fu style based entirely around cleaning.
Losing myself for a moment I imagined creating a dust storm with a sweeping skill, or a tidal wave with mopping, then laughed and shook my head. Someone out there might get be able to do that, but considering how little I liked just doing the dishes I doubted I would be the one to put in the effort. The system was bound to have many many other ways to do incredible deeds. If nothing else a game like this was bound to have some kind of bardic magic; it wasn’t what I wanted to do, but I was not going to turn my nose up at extra skills.
Oh wait… It looks like in my daydreaming about mop warriors I missed another couple popups.
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You have unlocked a hidden stat:
For demonstrating a knowledge of music, performance, and doing tasks to a musical beat you have revealed:
Rhythm
Rhythm increases the effectiveness of repeated or sustained sonic skills, spells, and abilities. Rhythm also increases learning and performing dance, swordsmanship, and other tasks involving precise timing.
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For demonstrating knowledge of multiple periods of musical history you have the earned the title:
Novice Musical Historian
+1 Charisma when dealing with professional music historians
+1 to all stats (one-time bonus)
One-time bonus to levels from title has been cancelled – other reward will apply (all players start game at level 1)
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I am sure that David must think I am an idiot with the amount of foolish prancing and shouting I do from getting all these skills. I keep getting more out of them then I intended. I looked with special interest at the last window detailing the new title. Since both the chef title and this one were the result of having many skills in the same category, I am guessing that these titles show up whenever someone shows a broad grasp of a profession. The novice title only gave +1 to stats, versus the +5 from the professional title. If I had to guess, I would say that each rank up gave increasing stats in order: so +1 for novice, then +2 for trainee, etc… I wonder if the level rewards work out like that too…
I was honestly not sure what skills I would unlock next, I seemed to acquire quite a few from unintended actions. Oh well… what to do next. I thought about all the cooking I did. I had simply imagined the ingredients that I needed, which was fine, but usually I would have to drive to the store to buy ingredients and food and that might actually have some translatable skills. If I ended up with a skill for driving an automobile I doubted it would be particularly useful, but hopefully it would translate. And the shopping should have some applicable skill either way.
I went through my usual procedure, as I imagined store ads and let the system fill in the details. Then I made a list of things that I would usually get and started comparing prices. It would mean stopping at more stores, but in real life I ended up doing this all the time because I definitely had less money than I would like. As I went I added things to the list I had either forgotten or that were on sale enough that it was worth stocking up.
I asked David if he wanted to come, but he apparently was not a fan of shopping. I understood, there were times I didn’t enjoy doing it either, but outside of testing I doubted I could simply imagine food to live on.
After imagining some cars in the garage I had added to the side of the house, I began to drive to the store. I had no idea where they were in this faux city, but I had created a map for myself and had everything marked down. I drove carefully because I had no idea what getting a ticket would do to my stats or starting position. It could start me with a negative reputation with the law or reduce my charisma or luck, or something else.
Eventually I reached the first store and began shopping. Everything proceeded normally as I filled up the cart and compared some prices that had not been listed in the ads. I tried to be polite and nice to everyone, even if usually shopping could make me a little annoyed. I even smiled politely at the VI-Droid that rang up all my purchases at the end, before I moved on to the next store to repeat the process.
The roads were crowded with more traffic this time and I tried not to sigh too much even as I watched people act like idiots on the road. I was never sure what it was, but something about getting behind the wheel seemed to make people both less intelligent and more aggressive, not a particularly nice combo. My long-suffering thoughts aside, the traffic kept moving, though I had to pull over for a couple of emergency vehicles slowly making their way through the morass of traffic.
Eventually I made it to the second store and everything proceeded normally from their until I returned to my house. No pop-ups had appeared yet, so I did what I would normally and carried the groceries inside and stored them neatly in the fridge or pantry. After I was done with everything I finally got the window I was looking for.
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You have learned skills:
* Organize
* Drive Vehicle
* Haggle
* Appraise
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I scowled a bit. I was happy to get the skills, but the driving skill was incredibly vague. I had failed to think that you could drive carts, carriages, and so on in a fantasy setting. This meant that I was no closer to being sure if I could translate skills. Well I was not done, and I had some other ways that I was sure would make the system tell me one way or the other.
I smiled and waved to David who I could see grazing at the buffet tables on some of the food we had prepared earlier. I always loved it when people liked the food I made. I stopped in and said hi to him and quickly grabbed a plate and spooned out some artichoke spinach dip and then grabbed some of the sliced fresh cut rosemary bread. After that quick diversion to gustatory heaven, I told him I was going to go try to force the system to reveal a secret to me and if he wanted to come. He smiled with his mouth full and shook his head. He didn’t stop eating as I left.
I had thought about how to force the system to give me enough information to determine if skills would transfer over to the other world and I had come up with a plan. Most skills had corollaries in the other world that were vague enough that they would not give me information. I had seen that with the driving skill. However, there were things that would either simply fail to give me a skill or would translate into something different enough that the system could not hide it. Either result would give me enough information to decide about the tests ahead. And so, I found myself staring at the TV.
I operated the TV, using the remote to go through all the menus and even reading a bit of the manual as I programmed it to record shows, have different sound effects, etc… From there I went into the kitchen and specifically operated the electronics on the oven, microwave, and fridge. This continued throughout the house, as I programmed lights, shower temperatures, air conditioning, the security system, the water heater, the pod in my computer room, the sprinkler system, a sowing machine, and more. If it ran on electronics and had controls I used it. I even pulled out a phone and went through all its options. I talked with the VI that I had put in control of the house and modified options till I had it exactly the way that I wanted. I made it so that either no applicable skill for electronics would show up, I would get a translated skill, or I would get a skill for electronics and discover that the game could possibly progress that far someday. No matter what, I was going to force the system to give me enough information to learn something about how it worked. When I was done, a window popped up.
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By backing the system into a corner and abusing it (You Monster!) you have gained skills:
* Use Magical Device
* Magical Warding
* Scry
* Enchant Golem
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I was grinning again with this result. I now knew for sure that skills translated and I could use all my education to gain as many skills as possible. I was not entirely certain why I had gotten these exact skills, but they were the proof I needed, so I was happy enough with them, even if the system was complaining about it.
To my satisfaction David still seemed preoccupied with the food we had made, so I continued without him.
I still had several skills that I should be able to acquire in this test as they were appropriate for running a household, so I continued. I went to the bathroom and imagined into existence all the pills and medicines I could remember and described what they were for. I also went through a first aid kit and did the same. Then I went out to the garden and described the various medicinal properties of some of the plants. I even made myself a small pot of chamomile tea with honey and cream to demonstrate making a medicinal tea (and because it is delicious).
I ignored any prompts for now and went to the room with the sowing machine I had made earlier. I sat down, created a shirt with a rip and repaired it, terribly, by hand with a needle and thread. I then did the same thing with a much better result using the machine. I then took out a pattern and cut out cloth to match and made a monstrosity that could be generously called a shirt. I did the same with a few more patterns, doing some by hand and some with the machine. I don’t think I would want to be seen walking down the street in any of the clothes that I made. I am even not sure they would survive a walk down the street… Eventually I finished traumatizing the poor sowing machine and moved on to the art room to scar some art supplies and ruin some canvases.
Unfortunately, my drawing skills were no better than my sowing, but that didn’t stop me. I drew various shapes and people with horribly disfigured hands (I did that on purpose I swear…). About the only thing that I drew well were the eyes, everything else could be passed off as some post-modern art. I went from drawing to painting and demonstrated for the world that whatever ability I had to visualize beautiful scenes in my head did not translate well to a tactile visual medium. In other words, my painting sucked even worse than my drawing, and each attempt to demonstrate a painting technique tended to rather emphasize my lack of it.
From there I moved onto a skill that I was at least moderately talented in, carpentry. The small upright jewelry box I made was not going to win any awards, but it was functional, shiny, and the doors were almost level.
Deciding that I had yet to sufficiently desecrate the hallowed halls of art I moved onto working with clay. With the simple coil technique, I could produce a moderately good pot but any attempt to make anything more complicated resulted in abysmal failure. My best works would make the monstrosities from Beetlejuice look like masterpieces. Though, after they were all fired in a kiln, my glaze work was downright decent. Deciding my war on art, human decency, and good taste was finished for the moment, I proceeded to the game room.
I had always been a fan of many different types of computer games. For copyright reasons, it appeared that SitLot couldn’t make actual copies of the games that I wanted to play, but it did make reasonable stand-in games. This, I decided, would probably work even better than the original games, because I had originally wanted to demonstrate my dexterity and perception by playing and beating games. This way I would be able to gain wisdom and intelligence by solving puzzles and riddles I had not actually played before. Before I continued, however, I went to see if David wanted to join me.
It turned out that he did. With a large plate stacked high with, among other things, cream cheese cookies, fried chicken, garlic and parmesan breadsticks, and bruschetta on sliced Italian bread fried in butter he followed me down the hall and sprawled out onto one of the couches where he could see the TV. His mouth full and his eyes squinting in happiness with every chew he watched me play various games.
I wanted to show as much skill as possible, so I played a wide variety of games. I started with some typical hack and slash games and then moved on to metroidvanias which allowed me to demonstrate good skills with tactics, puzzle solving, and reflexes. I moved on through all the genres I typically enjoyed and even tried a few that were not my favorite, but thought I could play well. After David had polished off his current plate, I am not sure how many times he went back to get more, he and I played racing games against one another until he got tired. I didn’t take the time to completely play through any of the games because I was trying not to push my luck with the test too far, and just a single RPG played through to discover everything could take fifty hours. While I could justify having the games as part of the entertainment responsibilities of a host, sitting down and playing through all the games would take far longer than was reasonable.
At this point I was getting tired. My body was still in perfect condition, a side effect of this world not being real, but my mind was growing weary despite that. This condition was hardly new to me. Anyone who used the pods was familiar with having their bodies sleep while their minds raced ahead, three times faster than possible in the real world. And the new pods were supposed to be much faster. The exact amount they were supposed to be capable of wasn’t clear, but I had been told after gaining one of the entry slots and filling out entire reams of paperwork that we would be starting at seven times the speed of the world. I didn’t know exactly how long I had been plugging away at my test, but I suspected that I had been here at least a few days in game time. If that was true then I should have been breaking down from mental fatigue a while ago; well, all that paperwork had said that the acceleration method was completely different. My train of thought derailed into a flaming wreck as I yawned.
“Hey David? I don’t know about you, but I have to sleep.”
He smiled and said, “Go ahead, I am going to stay up.”
I wondered somewhat fuzzily if Vis, or a tiny projection of a UHI, or whatever David was needed to sleep. In the end, as I flopped into a bed that was as soft as I could imagine, I fell asleep.
As I woke up I discovered that, in fact, someone was not trying to strangle me, but I was just inexplicably and intricately bound up in my bedding. For whatever reason, sheets slept upon and wires placed in storage have the almost mystical ability to tangle. After I cut the Gordian knot of my linens and I had performed my morning ablutions, I realized I probably could have just imagined myself untangled and clean. I briefly considered trying to gain a fashion skill by trying different outfits, but realized that I would be more likely get some kind of fashion disaster trait or something. I decided to err on the side of caution. With a shrug, I went on with my day, and considered what to do next with my, albeit temporary, godlike powers to manipulate reality.
I decided to create life, or more specifically, pets. Taking care of pets, animals, and livestock are traditional elements of running an estate, so I knew that this was covered under the test. I started with dogs, since I figured they were easy to work with. I looked for David before I started, but there was no sign of him around the house, so I continued.
I started with a Golden Retriever and set about teaching it various tricks, as well as just playing, feeding, and generally taking good care of it. When I was done I dismissed it back to whatever digital realm it came from and proceeded with taking care of the various pets I actually knew enough about. After a slew of rats, gerbils, mice, rabbits, snakes, fish, turtles, hedgehogs, cats, and more I was done with the pets. Of them all, only the cats remained, a couple sleeping with ridiculous abandon, and a few kittens stalking each other around corners. I had planned to send them back, but they were simply too cute. Oh well, at least cats are low maintenance.
What little I knew of various farm animals I demonstrated in short and smelly order, before winking them back out of existence without a second thought. I now hate goats, even if they, no especially, if they think my clothes are delicious.
I was sure that I was forgetting skills that I could get from this experience, but for now I decided it was time to go ahead with hosting a party. I looked around for David again, but when I was unable to find him I called out for him and he appeared.
“I am going to set everything up for the party, how many people are coming?”
“I asked around and it looks like 136.”
Well, that was more than I had anticipated, but I had a buffet that would never run out of food, and could stretch space like Dali. I got to work and the dining room was soon a banquet hall. Carved heavy oak tables showed through lacy tablecloths, and soft balls of light hovered gently in the air, casting a faintly shifting light glinting off china and repetitive silver cutlery. Soft draperies were pulled back from arching windows facing into the courtyard, and double French doors opened inviting a gentle breeze. I set the sun to pale evening twilight, and filled the courtyard with lilies and candles in water. Fireflies glowed with the pale colors of red, yellow, and orange like a faint mirage of contained fire. The pathway through the courtyard into the hall was plush red velvet, until I decided it was tacky, and just lined the path with trellises of climbing jasmine, their white flowers perfuming the evening air.
Eventually I was finished and told David I was ready. As guests arrived I stood just to the side in the entryway to the hall and greeted each guest. The guests were rather more diverse than I was used to, with outlandish hair, clothing, and even bodies. Regardless of the menagerie of guests I tried to be welcoming and polite to everyone, introducing myself and politely escorting guests to appropriate seats. Eventually everyone had arrived and I took my place at the head of a table. With a soft bell-like tone of fork on glass I called the room to silence from the gentle murmur of conversation.
“A toast! To a lovely night, good food, and pleasant company!”
After the toast, I indicated for everyone to eat from the buffet tables. The meal began, and amidst relishing my food I tried to keep up good conversation. The man who seemed to be made of liquid shadows discussed education and careers with me. The small lady sitting on the other side of him, who was clothed entirely in leaves and vines and with hair that seemed to literally be growing grass interjected occasionally. When she spoke, her teeth could be seen, they were sharp and the pale deathly white of bleached bone. David, who sat on my right side made occasional comments as well, but he mostly spoke with the suspiciously normal looking man to his right. The evening wore on and people turned from focusing on appetizers and entrees towards dessert and eventually the evening wound down until all the guests had left and only David and I remained. Overall things had gone well, and I had received mostly good commentary about the food and the decorations.
Now, I decided it was time to end the test.
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You have gained skills:
* First Aid
* Craft Potion
* Sowing
* Drawing
* Painting
* Carpentry
* Craft Pottery
* Play Game
* Animal Lore
* Tame Pet
* Train Pet
* Running
* Hide Self
* Unarmed Combat
* Animal Husbandry
* Interior Decorating
* Speech Giving
* Etiquette
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You have been awarded stats:
* For asking more good questions and altering your testing plan in response: +2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom
* For quickly figuring out how to construct the test: +4 Intelligence
* You unlocked a hidden stat – Concentration: +15 Concentration, +5 Luck
* For unlocking your first hidden stat before the game begins (one-time bonus): +5 Luck
* The Iron-Willed trait has unlocked a bonus to Concentration: +10 Concentration, +5 Luck
* For discovering a trait synergy for the first time before the game begins (one-time bonus): +5 Luck
* For engaging in truly friendly behavior with David, including teaching him about cooking, over a long period of time: +10 Charisma
* For kneading and shaping a mountain of dough and other ingredients without any perceptible effort: +5 Strength, +10 Endurance, +5 Dexterity
* For demonstrating the use of all your senses in testing food for doneness, flavor, etc…: +10 Perception
* For demonstrating the knowledge of the processes behind cooking: +5 Intelligence, +5 Wisdom
* For simultaneously unlocking more than 10 skills (one-time bonus): +9 Luck
* You unlocked the sub-stat – Fire Affinity: +20 Fire Affinity, +5 Luck
* The sub-stat Fire Affinity has unlocked the hidden stat group – Elemental Affinities: +5 Luck
* The Iron-Willed trait has unlocked a bonus to Earth Affinity: +5 Earth Affinity, +5 Luck
* For unlocking the ability - Identify: +5 Luck
* Unlocking your first ability before game start (one-time bonus): +5 Luck
* For unlocking the title – Professional Chef: +5 Luck
* For unlocking and skipping the titles proceeding the title – Professional Chef: +20 Luck
* For unlocking (canceled) levels for the first time before the game starts: +5 Luck
* For working on unlocking another skill with David, even if you were uncertain of the skills usefulness: +5 Charisma, +5 Wisdom, +2 Endurance, +1 Strength, +2 Dexterity
* For wanting music and bringing it in a way that fit the test: +4 Intelligence
* For unlocking a series of skills that might be more than they seem: +2 Luck
* For unlocking the hidden stat – Rhythm: +15 Rhythm, +5 Luck
* For unlocking the title – Novice Musical Historian: +5 Luck
* For figuring out the game mechanic of stat progression in titles correctly with limited data: +5 Intelligence, +5 Wisdom, +5 Luck (Bonuses to luck for learning game mechanics given pregame only)
* For figuring out your first game mechanic before the game starts (one-time bonus): +5 Luck
* Blave of the System bonus, all rewards from learning game mechanics doubled: +5 Intelligence, +5 Wisdom, +10 Luck
* For demonstrating reasonable driving skills: +2 Dexterity, +2 Perception
* For meticulously shopping to get the best value: +3 Wisdom, +1 Intelligence, +2 Concentration
* For being pleasant even in tedious tasks: +2 Charisma
* For considering a possible game mechanic and then successfully forcing the game to provide an answer through meticulous reiteration: +7 Intelligence, +5 Wisdom, +3 Concentration, +1 Endurance, +5 Luck (Bonuses to luck for learning game mechanics given pregame only)
* Blave of the System bonus, all rewards from learning game mechanics doubled: +7 Intelligence, +5 Wisdom, +3 Concentration, +1 Endurance, +5 Luck
* For depressingly bad sowing: +1 Dexterity, -1 Wisdom
* For offending the world with drawing and painting: +1 Dexterity, -1 Wisdom
* For actually making something inoffensive in out of wood: +2 Dexterity, +2 Perception, +3 Wisdom
* For making something even worse out of clay, and then glazing it with some talent: +2 Dexterity, -1 Wisdom
* For involving David in your games but not your art: +5 Charisma
* For playing games in multiple styles, with multiple objectives and difficulties without stopping: +10 Dexterity, +10 Perception, +10 Intelligence, +10 Wisdom, +10 Concentration, +4 Rhythm
* For pursuing mental and physical activities for a long time without sleep: +10 Endurance, +5 Concentration
* For demonstrating good interactions with various creature (with the notable goat exception): +5 Charisma
* For running away, hiding, and defending yourself from the goats with some skill over a prolonged period: +10 Strength, +10 Endurance, +10 Dexterity, -10 Wisdom, -10 Luck
* For successfully throwing a party without knowing who was coming, or understanding who the guests were when they arrived, and managing not to offend any of the guests: -10 Wisdom, -10 Intelligence, +10 Charisma, +30 Luck