“Always tell only the truth, and all the truth, and do so promptly – right now.”
A Buckminster Fuller
I returned to the world, able to hear and see more than the blue screen reality had hidden behind. There was a new line to my status.
Level: 12
Title: Lord
Name: Callen Kai Silversea
Métier: Apprentice Singer
Age: 5 years Experience: 0
Health: 1000/1000 Stamina: 1000/1000 Mana: 1000/1000 Psi: 1000/1000
Trait: Long-Lived, Fast Learner, Super Senses, Source of Mana, Quick Witted, Celerity, Durability, Supreme Strength, Charming, Lucky
Vitality: 100
Endurance: 100
Strength: 100
Dexterity: 100
Senses: 100
Mind: 100
Clarity: 100
Magic: 100
Charisma: 100
Luck: 100
Free Points: 171
There was also a certain tension in the room. I had taken significantly longer than everyone else in choosing their professions. There was also a knocking at the door to the sanctum of the Lodestar that Grandfather was casually holding shut. Despite the clear efforts of someone trying to enter they were unable to do so.
“Is he finally finished?” he asked gruffly.
“I’m finished,” I answered myself. No one seemed to be staring at me in astonishment more curiosity and possibly exasperation, so I assumed that there were no physical changes despite the changes within, just the fact that I took longer than the rest of them to make my choice.
“Aliyah, try to reign in your temper. Better yet Kaius hold onto my daughter. Aleera hold onto Kai just to be sure and Kai make sure you hold your tongue. Let Lady Acacia do the talking and hopefully, we can get out of here without ruffling any more feathers.” He said before he flickered, swiftly stepping away from the door and letting slam open. While he stood nonchalantly a few steps further than would have been possible for him to hold the door closed.
A white-haired old man stood in the doorway surprised at its sudden opening. One hand must have been pushing against the door because he stumbled forward into the room as it swung open and the other hand looked like it had been the one that had been rapidly growing closer to thumping on it rather than knocking.
“Lady Acacia, what do you mean by this?” he demanded once he had managed to stop himself from falling flat on his face and stood up straight to face us. He was flushed from exertion, either pushing to get into the inner sanctum or running back to the church it was impossible to tell.
“It was time for Lady Aleera to choose her first métier so we visited the Lodestar as a family. Is there a problem?” she asked as she emphasised Aleera’s status while seeming concerned that something else might be the problem.
“It is customary for me to oversee the selection.” He stated simply as he struggled to calm his breathing.
“Customs are only customs, not laws. Most nobility in the capital have their own chapels and so select in the privacy of their family chapel. We are of course planning to build a Lodestar Chapel but at the moment are only on the first step of the process.” She explained the reasoning behind our presence.
“I am aware. I have just had a meeting with Smit about such plans.” He replied. “I would have been happy to help Aleera make the best choice for the future. It is a shame that she did so uninformed of her full options.”
“I hope you are not implying, Aravan, that I am incapable of guiding a child in her options, young man.” She raised he chin further to look down upon him her posture already perfectly straight and tall.
“Young . . .” He sputtered. “I have been guiding children and adults’ choices for the last five decades.” He declared. “How dare you suggest a level of incompetence through inexperience.” He continued angrily defensive.
“Young Aravan,” she emphasized his youth once more. “I neither imply incompetence nor ignorance. That you have read such into my statements is all your own interpretation of my words.” She paused to push her hair back behind her ear highlighting the points to them before continuing, “What I am stating is that I have been advising children and adults for the last 10 decades on their choices, including the current Prince of Ponente and am fully capable of enlightening my students of their choices as well as affording them the privacy to do so privately.” She added pointedly.
Aravan’s eyes flicked to her ears as the realization of Lady Acacia’s race made itself known. Lady Acacia did not advertise her race keeping her hair falling over her ears but she was neither ashamed nor afraid to use it to browbeat Aravan into compliance. “Naturally, I was merely worried that Aleera would not be able to make the best choice for her future.” His conciliatory tone was as grating as his initial pretentious insinuation that he should have been present for the selection.
“Of course. Now if you have no further objections, we will be departing to discuss Aleera’s progress on the path she has chosen.” She stepped forward without waiting for a response. So that whether he was going to reply with a positive or negative response he would still have to step out of the way to let her proceed or he would find himself physically barring her path, which he was clearly not ready to do. Our family silently filed out behind her focused on getting home to discuss our discoveries. Although Grandfather had a huge grin on his face as he passed the old priest. He was on the side of his daughter or there was some other history between the two or just with the church in general. Our family had never been particularly religious. Judging by the frown on priest Arawn’s face as we left with him none the wiser about my recalibration or my sister’s métier something else was at play here.
. . .
We waited to talk until we had finally returned home. As a family, we were perfectly aware, of how stats and skills, could allow you to listen in to many a whispered conversation in town whether the participants wished it or not.
“So, were you able to choose a métier?” Aleera asked me the question I was sure they were all wanting the answer to.
“Yes, but there were a few complications.” I gave a forced half smile. I was smiling due to the positive outcomes while at the same time grimacing about the complications. Also, I was wondering how much to divulge.
“Why am I not surprised.” Muttered Grandfather as he reached for a drink. He was going to need it although he was the only one who seemed to realise it.
“Is everything alright?” Mother asked holding father’s hand concern her most evident emotion.
“And they were?” Lady Acacia inquired quietly but intensely. As if awaiting to hear confirmation of something she already suspected.
. . .
I hesitated, how much to say, what to say. Keeping any lies in my head straight was going to be impossible with the number of changes that had happened. My eyes stopped searching for an answer and I told the truth.
“Well, I’m no longer two.” I started with the first error the system had declared although skipped the part where it oscillated between the two ages.
“What?” They asked confused. Not yet realizing the impact that this statement would have upon the system and my status.
“Well age is just a number, and the system decided the number for my age should be 5.” I jumped to the end result of the system shenanigans avoiding the oscillation and talking about my former life. “I’m obviously too mature for my age,” I added.
“Mature?” Aleera asked laughing at me. Grandfather just had a drink. While it looked like Father squeezed my mother’s hand.
“Relatively speaking.” I qualified well aware of all the immature mistakes I still managed to make on a near daily basis despite having lived longer than her or my parents.
“This . . . is a first for me, but then most of your status is a first for anyone.” Lady Acacia started unsure where this had come from. My family used to onion-like layer after layer of surprises and were perhaps less surprised, in that they knew to expect the unexpected. “While I doubt the system made the change due to your maturity it certainly changes the timeline on our training. First off it makes the more physical aspects of it more possible if the system is accurately describing your physical nature.” She continued a little bemused by the unheard-of change.
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“That is almost a letdown,” Aleera said. “I was expecting more. Although you better not keep doing that otherwise, you will be my older brother rather than my younger one.” She said half in jest half in fear.
“Don’t you want to be my little sister?” I asked a little surprised. I knew that she was my older sister physically but, in many ways, I still considered her my younger sister as I felt I had so much more life experience than her. Even if it was life experience from another world. “Don’t worry Aleera, there’s more so you shouldn’t feel letdown just yet.” I grinned imagining what her response would be in a minute.
“No, I don’t want to be your little sister,” Aleera answered emphatically.
“More? What do you mean there is more?” Lady Acacia demanded. She had quickly put her confusion at the first change and was focused once more on my answers.
“Well, after the system decided to change my age to better reflect my maturity.” I smiled at my sister’s response to that statement. “It then checked my traits and decided I was not exactly human.” I shrugged. If I was going to tell them about my age change, it only seemed natural that I confessed to the new race as well.
“Not human?” Father asked concerned although he refused to let go of Mother’s hand who looked decidedly worried.
“Are you a half-elf after all?” She asked intrigued and possibly excited by the prospect of being proved right. Especially as that had been one of her earlier suspicions.
“No, it seemed to want to apply a lot of half statuses to my race due to my traits achieved before the age of five. It flickered between the races before it decided in the end that due to my infant nature and traits, my system required recalibration.” I answered honestly. This made as little sense to me as it did to them.
“Recalibration?” Father asked worriedly, “What’s that mean exactly?”
“It reset my stats.” I declared.
“Oh no.” mother gasped covering her mouth with her hand fearing the worst.
“To the 10 in each stat that all 5-year-olds receive?” asked Lady Acacia shocked that I could have possibly lost hundreds of points. “That . . . the lodestar should never remove stats . . . otherwise I would have never . . . ”
“No, no, no.” I interrupted and stopped them from speculating any further in fear.
“It reset my stats to 100 for each stat. Not just my Vitality but endurance, strength, dexterity, mind, clarity, magic, charisma and . . .” I hesitated conflicted. I had kept this stat to myself so far but it was impossible to speculate or hypothesize on false data “. . .and luck.” I added apprehensively. On the one hand, I hated laying my soul bare but on the other hand how much they could help me depended on how honest I was. And honestly, there were so many changes happening here I needed as much help as I could get.
“Luck? You have the tenth stat?” Lady Acacia demanded furiously.
“Um yes,” I answered cautiously. I was surprised she had heard of it when it appeared the rest of my family had never heard of it before.
“What is the luck stat? Who has that? What does it do?” asked Aleera always the first to quiz for the unknown and not yet afraid to appear ignorant in front of her family.
“In humans, it is rare beyond belief. Not even the Kings can claim to have it. It affects not only yourself like the physical stats or others like the mental stats such as charisma but the inanimate world. It is the stat of heroes causing them to survive their stories or causing them to happen in the first place. And you have it at 100?” she asked to clarify the absurdity of the changes to my status.
“Um, yes?” I answered confused as to whether this was a good thing or not.
“What additional attributes did you acquire? She asked.
“For Luck one called Lucky. And for Charisma, one called Charming.” I answered pleasantly pleased to let someone else worry about what was going on. A burden shared is a burden halved after all. “
“Lucky, Charming?” She questioned.
“Yes.”
“And they all were recalibrated to 100,” she qualified.
“Yes. But . . . the attributes are no longer deemed attributes but traits. I think this is what caused the problem with the Lodestar I think.” I outlined the next surprise and my thoughts.
“They are traits?” she asked.
While Grandfather noticed the ‘no longer’ aspect of my sentence and dove in on that, “All of your attributes?”
“Yes, all of my attributes were turned into traits at the same time as the system changed my age to 5,” I answered firmly. Then when the system could not declare me an elf, or a half-elf due to my extra traits it cycled through all the other races dwarves, gnomes, giants, dwarves etc and half versions of each before it finally reset my status to a . . . new race . . . I am now a level 12 Arithmos.” I answered explaining everything that had happened to me. I was something else. Something new, an Arithmos. I needed to know what this meant, whether it was for good or for ill.
“What does that even mean?” Asked Aleera confused.
I waited for anyone else in the room to respond. To add clarity to my situation but when they sat there in shocked silence I was left to fill the void on my own.
“It would appear to be a race that starts age with their stats at 100 — with a full set of traits, a perfect cascade of 10. That has to be at least 10 times better than the human race! Bow before your all-powerful brother.” I hammed it up in an attempt to make like of the situation and twirled for my sister’s benefit. A sister, who was having none of it and promptly rubbed her knuckles on my head to remind me of my place. The movement seemed to wake my parents from their shock. Reinstall Lady Acacia's laser-like focus and allow my Grandfather to continue drinking his alcoholic beverage.
“An Arithmos? Not an Elf or half-elf?” Lady Acacia almost sounded disappointed by the lack of a common race between us. Even though based on the numbers alone this ‘new’ race was objectively and subjectively superior.
“What is an Arithmos?” Mother asked the question Aleera had already asked once more.
“My new race at 5 years old at least seems to be 10 times stronger than a human race while retaining the key trait for each compass kingdom race,” I repeated as I shrugged my shoulders in response and we all turned to look at Lady Acacia to see if she had any words of wisdom on nuggets of knowledge to enlighten us with. But . . . she didn’t.
“I don’t know.” She replied stunned either by my new status or her lack of knowledge.
. . .
We sat in silence for a moment digesting the new information. But I had already had time to ponder my new predicament and I was not quite yet over revealing every change the system had enforced upon me and I was about to do so when someone else realized something didn’t add up.
“But you had over 1000 points spread out between your stats did the system steal the other 200?” Aleera asked afraid of what the system could do. “What happened to the rest of your stats?”
“It didn’t delete them,” I answered her immediate fear before extrapolating. “It seems that if you earn them you get to keep them. I just need to wait another 5 years to do so. Which is shorter than I was expecting to wait this morning so . . .” I was doing a lot of shrugging this morning.
“With a perfect cascade of traits and a pure harmony of stats you could assign them wherever you wished when you turn ten.” Lady Acacia seemed either humbled or lost in the revelations of this morning.
“This did not all happen for free though the last act system did as part of the recalibration process was to take over 800000 points of experience,” I whined. Everyone around the table winced at that imagining how long it had taken me to accrue all of that.
“That’s a lot to take in.” Lady Acacia continued to lead the conversation while my family mainly sat in contemplation of the changes I was revealing.
“Believe me, it was a lot for me to take in too! That is why it took me so much longer than you lot to exit. It wasn’t that I was taking a long time to make my choice of métier. I was unable to choose until the Lodestar deemed my status recalibrated enough to be able to make sense of it. The final choice the system gave me was to choose my metier.”
. . .
“So what did you choose?” Aleera realized that despite all the information I had given everyone I had yet to tell them what I had chosen.
“Tell me yours and I will tell you mine.” I sang to her unabashed at the immaturity of the moment.
“Merchant! Now stop stalling.” She demanded.
“What about Mother and Father? I’ve been answering all your questions all morning.” I refused to give up the last little bit of leverage I had without finally gaining a little more knowledge about the rest of my family.
“Spellsong Seamstress.” Mother answered proudly.
“How do you have two words to your metier?” Aleera asked “I only have the one.”
Ever the teacher Lady Acacia answered, “Apprentice Metier are generally a single word describing the profession. As your skills expand and your experience broadens you can take on a journeyman metier which often although not always can consist of two words broadening and deepening your profession.”
“Father?” I asked.
“Seafarer Sailor,” Father added equally happy with his improvement.
“Weren’t you already a Sailor?” I asked.
“Yes but this is my third metier. I was a fisherman first, then a sailor. Now thanks to working on the open water more often I can claim the Seafarer Sailor metier.” He described his progression.
“Grandfather?” I asked intrigued to see if he would answer.
We all waited to see if he would answer. We watched as he finished his drink. Then waited a little longer.
. . .
“I choose Honor Bound Guardian.” He quietly answered with the most personal information he had ever given us.
“A fine choice.” Lady Acacia commented equally quietly and I felt as if there was a layer to the conversation being carried out I was aware of but could not understand.
Aleera oblivious asked, “Is that a Master metier?”
“Yes, but not my first.” He answered ambiguously without adding more even Aleera took the hint and did not dig any further.
“So . . . Kai. What metier did you take?” she returned to questioning me.
“Well . . .
. . . I took . . .
the metier . . . Singer!” I drew it out extending Aleera’s frustration at not knowing and enjoying every second of it.
“Superb.” Lady Acacia sighed in relief at me finally listening to her lessons and advice. “We are ready for the next stage in your education. It is time for you to sing for your supper.”
Aleera laughed at my predicament until Lady Acacia turned to face the young lady merchant. “And you my dear will have to pay for it.”