Gahl did not see the point in picking luck. Everyone told him to. “Pick luck,” they said, “It’s the only attribute you can’t earn yourself,” they said. Was there any point in picking an attribute that no one really knew the use of?
These thoughts flooded his mind as he strolled through the great elm doors of the temple. He was twenty-one tomorrow - as such the Imperial Society obliged him to a feast in his honour with his parents and the parents of all those also to make the Choice Ceremony the next day. He took a seat at one of the edges of the temple, his position at the circular table provided an excellent view of a single grand wall of the great grand hall, and as such did not see much. He still turned his head to see the altar.
Laid in all its beholden glory, the Choice stone glowed atop its pedestal in the centre.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it,’ the voice of a stranger flowed as a whisper into his ear. He spun to face them. Looming high above everyone else, with a cloak that hung off his comparatively slim shoulders, the stranger seemed no older than Gahl - obviously another about to make their Choice.
‘Mhm…’ Gahl sighed in distracted agreement. If someone chose to forsake luck and faced bad repercussions, surely he would have heard about it. It would be, at least for a while, the talk of the town. Everyone heard horror stories of people who picked a null stat that lost the ability entirely, but was luck a stat of which there was an ability? He could not trust convention on this, but perhaps the reason no one ever told him of it was that no one ever did it.
I guess I just have to be the first.
‘What do you plan on choosing?’ The stranger emanated an excitement Gahl lacked. While Gahl shivered at the thought of yet another combat in arms class, the excitement he felt for his soon to be budding career in magic was muted in comparison.
Gahl handed over his Choice Card, the card given to him by the Imperial Society to list his preferred stats on.
Gahl of Freitfa
Race: Human (Tordana)
Class of Wish: Mage (To-Be wizard)
Strikestone of Wish: Elemental/Force
Human Average: 2
Strength: 1
Dexterity: 1
Vigour: 1
Knowledge: 6
Wisdom: 4
Charismatic Charm: 1
Luck: 0
‘There is no way! Has no one told you to keep luck at two?’
‘Oh, people have, it’s just where did they get that knowledge from?’
‘People much smarter than you currently!’
‘They won’t be much smarter than me after I start out with 6 knowledge.’
‘Maybe then you will recognise your mistake! Look at my sheet!’ the stranger forced his own sheet into Gahl’s hands.
Yl of Hanun
Race: Human (Siscon)
Class of Wish: Fighter (To-Be Adventurer)
Strikestone of Wish: Piercing
Human average: 2
Strength: 3
Dexterity: 2
Vigour: 3
Knowledge: 1
Wisdom: 2
Charismatic Charm: 1
Luck: 2
‘An adventurer, eh?’
‘You know it! Adventurers are paid so well, just to be out in the countryside enjoying life.’
‘Only dying five times out of six.’
Yl scowled at Gahl but could not retort in the wake of a calling voice filling the room.
‘Children of the Empire!’ The officiating priest was an older man. His white robes flowed off his tan skin, and the stained oak staff in his right hands shone a flickering orange in accordance with the dancing flames of the candles around. ‘Today is a day of great joy. The Choice Feast dates back hundreds of years - you can tell as I still have fond memories of mine.’ A chuckle sounded from the tables around as the priest took a breath.
‘But this day also marks a very serious point in your journey into the Empire. This is, by most accounts, the last day of your childhood. This is the day when you set aside your passions, your fears and your fortune, for the sake of our dear Empire.
‘In case anyone is unaware, perhaps a parent with a low knowledge, the day that comes when the sun next rises, we will meet here. I will call up the newfounds and they will present to me their statistic sheets.
‘They will then input their sheet’s information into the Choice Stone, and their abilities will shape to their choice.
‘Once you input your choice, you keep those statistics. For life!
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‘Your child will then spin two wheels. One, to determine their class and one to determine their strikestone - what form of attack they can use to damage others. Thankfully, due to the prosperity faced by our New Age of Empire, the latter will not be needed, unless you get called into the conscription notice, but reserved only for tradition’s sake - and your class of choice is nearly guaranteed. With those formalities aside, I wish you all a merry feast and you are expected at noon tomorrow.’ A cheer rose from the crowd as all turned back in to face their family, and their feast.
‘Wow, I almost forgot.’
Everyone turned back to face the priest.
‘Perhaps the single most important fact about stats is how we in the Grand Imperium use them to make efficient use of all our children. How could you ever know how best to make use of one of our Iuvenes de Imperio without being able to see stats.’
With this the priest pulled up his staff, grabbed a bucket of water from the altar and tossed it upon the Choice Stone.
Radiants beams were cast from the Choice Stone onto the walls, bearing the same wavy disclarity as the sun’s rays through a waterfall. Collecting some water runoff within the hook of his staff, the priest flung some water into the crowd. He swung it a few more times, droplets flying through the air.
A droplet hit Gahl in the forehead, and the strange sensation of his eyes filling with water made them shut instinctively. When he opened his eyes again, everything was different.
Or, well, much in fact was the same, it was just Gahl was unaccustomed to the blue boxed windows that opened when he focused on someone, or something.
Sarembai of High
Race: Human (Saran)
Class: Mage (Wizard) (Priest)
Strength: 1
Dexterity: 1
Vigour: 1
Knowledge: 6
Wisdom: 5
Charismatic Charm: 4
Luck: 2
Skills:
requires understanding of listed skills to view
Speech: 4.8
Inventory:
requires knowledge 4 or above, or for entity to share their inventory list with you
Abilities:
requires knowledge 6 or above, or for entity to share their ability list with you
Why does he need such a large Charismatic Charm attribute, Gahl wondered. He was able to see the speech skill due to his father’s training as an orator. Shrugging the abnormal attribute off as just good public speaking skills that come with priesthood, Gahl then peered at the staff.
Mindflare
Material: Oak, Psychstone
Class: Staff
Material Average: 2
Physical: 2
Mental:
Force: 3
Elemental: 2
Psychic: 13
Durability:
Physical: 5
Mental: 40
Holy Stone, that is a lot of stats. I guess that’s what you get after long days toiling hard, working to climb the ranks.
He glanced at the to-be adventurers.
Yl of Hanun
Race: Human (Siscon)
Class: Yet unknown
Strikestone: Yet unknown.
Newfounds brave and newfounds tall
All are beckoned to the call
Stats to be revealed when chosen
Gahl didn’t know why he planned on checking the stats of someone who hadn’t picked their stats yet. He turned over to his father.
Freitfa of Sheitfal
Race: Human (Tordana)
Class: Bard (Wordsmith)
Strength: 1
Dexterity: 1
Vigour: 1
Knowledge: 3
Wisdom: 2
Charismatic Charm: 4
Luck: 2
Skills:
Speech: 4.4
Wit: 4 (4.5 Charismatic Charm + 3.5 Knowledge / 2)
Inventory:
Speaker’s robes
Fallscroll and Quill
Abilities:
Invigorate (mana cost revealed upon study of spell)
Zone of truth (mana cost revealed upon study of spell)
Envision (mana cost revealed upon study of spell)
‘Can you see my stats?’ Gahl’s father asked.
‘Yes.’
‘They’re not as good as the priest’s, but they’re something.’ Gahl could never understand how his father could stay so humble, considering he was a speaker of such renown.
‘I mean the priest has studied for years.’
’He has. He officiated my Choice Ceremony - didn’t look a day younger while doing it.’ Gahl’s family shared a chuckle.
The night wore on at a pleasant gait, and Gahl forgot about his conversation with the to-be adventurer. Of course, he gave his parents a fake stat sheet, so he need not worry about their disapproval. It will be all too late for their input when the altar shines with his stats.
‘Hey Gahl,’ a soft voice spoke close to his ear. He shot around. Stood at an average height, with her lute slung over her cloaked shoulder, was Ana.
‘Hey.’
‘Is that a proper way to greet the only friend you’ve ever had on the day of your big feast?’
‘Well…’
‘Well?’ Ana was smiling, her dark tan skin pulled into laugh lines around her mouth. Her wavy black hair was pulled and tied in a style Gahl could only really describe as “fancy”. Her eyes were still the dusty grey of all people who hadn’t taken their Choice yet. Not for long. She gave Gahl a hug and sat down next to him.
Ana kept talking, but Gahl’s eyes affixed upon his stat sheet. Soon, he could hear Ana’s voice trail off, and her eyes slowly trail to where his lay.
‘You’re really trying it, huh.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, it’s your funeral.’
‘It could also be my transcendence.’
‘And which do you think it’s going to be, big guy?’
‘One of them.’
‘So, you are completely happy with the odds you’ll either be the smartest person in Pirn, or dead at the bottom of a lake or something.’
‘I’d say so.’
‘Gahl, you know you’re crazy, right?’
‘Either crazy smart or crazy dead by the looks of it.’
‘No, just crazy.’ They shared a laugh.
‘I’m sorry for not talking in a while.’ Gahl was so consumed by his research the last few weeks that even when Ana sat in his room, staring at him work, he didn’t even so much as regard her.
‘It’s okay. As long as I can run your funeral.’
‘In fifty years you can write my obituary and read it out to the town council for me.’
‘I know that you like things to take time, but fifty years between death and obituary writing? At that stage you’d be about as obsolete as you are now!’
‘Can we talk about something else?’
‘Your last thoughts want to be of pleasantries. Good thing you’re with me.’ They laughed and the night continued, the topic of conversation sailing hastily away.
***
By the end of the night, Gahl barely remembered he was choosing tomorrow, a matter of both confidence and weariness. A brief lapse in conversation allowed him to sit in silence for a moment. A much needed moment.
Gahl didn’t need to be entertained, and as such spent most of this moment staring at the wall in front of him. He watched as his vision slowly lifted itself along the stone wall, until it was just under the stained glass windows.
With no more sun, the stained glass now showed flatter pictures - though still beautiful. The tables on which families ate their feasts shone now with the orange hues of flickering candles upon them. Gahl’s own table shone with an amber light that resembled the evening sky he left earlier to join the feast.
In place of the light of stained glass windows from the roof, and accompanying the candlelight, staffs cast light upon the temple from the rings from which they hung - which themselves hung from chains bound to the ceiling. They were powered by Mana Stones, but Gahl could hardly see the translucent stones in the blinding light.
Gahl traced the light of the staffs around the room. It landed on the people below, the candles and staffs casting a shadow outwards and downwards from the subject. The staff was the main illuminator of the walls, but as they rose the staffs soon became their only source of light, shining even upon the dimmed panes.
Below the coloured panes, a set of murals caught his eye. Fine paintings done upon finer cloth, the murals were one of the many prides of the Imperium. Or, at least, they were part of the Artistic Liberty Imperii - Gahl had never actually seen those paintings themselves before. As the works fell over beams of polished iron, a tail of the same cloth weighed down on the other side of the beam. The light of the staffs barely penetrated the shadow cast upon it.
The temple council, of course, tried to hide these sides - but they were always there. On every painting, no matter how bright and colourful the front was, the back was always visible in its cool dark monochrome. A cool dark monochrome, on which the once bright painting was cast by the light, and its brightness tarnished by dark, muted tones.
‘Honey?’ Gahl’s mother’s voice cut through his thoughts, and he snapped back to attention.
‘Yes?’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to tell you we’re going to head now.’
‘I will come with you.’ His tiredness once again struck him, and Gahl wanted nothing more than to return to his bed.
And so Gahl walked with his parents through the cool night air back to their home, and slept soundly for the last time in his life.