Chapter 4

Stats, stats, and more stats.

I stood up from the floor once I saw that the coast was clear.

All around me were the bodies of the dead skeletons, but this time they were really dead, for I could see their HP(hit points) bars at zero.

I was the only survivor.

I walked toward the corner, and sat down, my hollow eyes staring intensively at the light blue transparent screen floating in front of me.

The screen appeared to be a character screen of sorts, showing me information about my character.

image [https://i.imgur.com/rNviiGB.png]

“Skeleton,” it read, my name was a basic name, just like the names of the other skeletons that lay on the floor of this room.

“Lvl 1 has increase to 2. “

“HP has increase from 10 to 13.”

Which was good, since I would need all the health I could get. Luckily, it seemed that leveling up had given me a full bar of health, which was nice.

However, my MP(magic points) was still at zero despite leveling up, making me wonder if I could even raise it, but I ignore that for now, as there was a lot more to go over.

“EXP(experience points) gained 1 , EXP needed for next level: 6.”

I needed six more experience points to level up to the next level, six times more than before, which made sense.

“ Strength has increase by 1.”

I hovered my bony hand over that stat , triggering a small text box to appear next to the stat.

“Strength measures how physically strong a character is, the higher the strength the more damage attacks inflict on opponents.”

I thought about those words, I was weak, there was no question about it. My stats made it all too clear just how weak I was. But now was not the time to think about my weakness. I still had a lot of stats to go through, so I continued my light reading.

“Vitality has increased to 2. Vitality determines how sturdy and healthy a character is, the more vitality the more health a character has. Every point increases health by 0.25.”

Great this game had math, I hated math. But luckily it was no calculus. But it was clear, I needed to increase my vitality if I was to survive.

“Endurance has increase to 2. Endurance measures how strong and resilient a character is, the higher the endurance the higher the defense.”

Hmm, interesting, this was definitely a stat I should keep an eye out , along with vitality, as my survival depends on it.

‘Agility has increase to 2. Agility measures how agile a character is, the higher the agility the harder it is for a character to get hit.”

‘Intelligence measures how intelligent a character is as well as increases the experience a character gets. Effects null.”

This stat stopped me in my tracks, as it did not have a number but an infinity symbol next to it. It looked like it hadn’t increased or would increase like the other stats. Sure, I like to think of myself as a pretty smart guy, but I wasn’t some genius.

I ignore the symbol for now, as I already had enough questions running through my mind, I didn’t need to add more just yet.

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image [https://i.imgur.com/icb5cTT.png]

“ Wisdom has been increase to zero,” I read,

“Wisdom controls the ability to cast spells, communicate to mystical entities and discern other character’s motives and or feelings.”

I was not surprised this one had stayed at zero since I don’t think I can cast spells.

“Presence has been increase by 1. Presence determines a character’s social skills, and influence, as well as presence.”

I was surprise my presence had increase, considering I had very little social skills in real life since I spend most of my time playing games online, but luckily this didn't seem to matter in this game, which I was glad.

But the two stats that really caught my eyes, where ego and luck.

“Ego, has increase to three, Ego provides resistance against mind altering effects, as well as increases extra stat points, can only be increase through actions.”

“Luck has increase by one, Luck measures a character’s luck, influencing random items, encounters and success and failures, can only be increase or decrease through actions.”

It appeared that these two stat didn’t level up like the other ones, and it seemed that the luck one even decreases, just my luck.

As for the action part, I think I knew what that meant. I had killed the skeleton that almost got me killed and leveled up in the process, not getting caught in that situation was lucky, which probably increased my luck.

All my stats were in the 1's and 2's, which was to be expected since I had just been a level one skeleton, and most of my stats had only increased by one with the exception of strength.

“Extra stat points: + 3.”

It seemed I could put three extra points in any stats of my choosing with the exception of the ones that required actions and the intelligence one. I looked down at the screen floating in front of me and saw I had other option windows as well.

Gear, Map/Quest, Inventory,” it read, I hovered my bony hand on it, swiping my hand to the side as if I was on a dating app swiping through my options.

Before I used my extra stat points, I wanted to see what else there was.

The gear window option had my character in all its glory. He was facing forward like he was being examined, and to the sides where small little boxes with names for body parts.

There were long rectangular window shapes with the name of my stats next to my character, with plus and minus options next to the ones I could increase.

I notice that the strength stat was at four and not three, and the endurance stat was at three and not two. There was also two small weapon icons on the hand boxes.

“Basic sword increases strength by one, Basic shield increases endurance by one.”

I see, my gear increases my stats, which was obvious. But yet I didn’t have the weapons on my hands, perhaps I still had them equipped, making the increase in stats applicable, which was weird since I didn’t have the weapons with me.

"Basic Sword and shield," I said, and to my surprise the two weapons materialize in my hands.

"Neat," I said, placing the weapons next to me. It appeared that it didn't matter if i lost the weapons, as long as I had them equipped I could call to them.

I went to the other options, making sure I went over everything. The map and quest screen had two window side by side. And to my surprise, I had one quest already.

“Survive the first room,” it read, those words send a chill down my spine, the faces of the adventurers flashing before me. No, right now was not the time to think about them.

I moved to the other screen, which had a map with a top view of what appear to be rooms.

“First floor,” those words were written at the top, along with the name of the dungeon.

“The dungeon of the undead, “ it read, so I was in a dungeon after all. I had a feeling I was, of course the stone walls and floors and the long corridors already told me that, well, showed me. But somehow reading it made it official.

I notice a skull on one of the rooms in the dungeon, no doubt showing me my position on the map. I saw the big room that I must have come from, there were three other rooms I hadn’t gone through, yet.

I had three extra stat points that I needed to spend. And I also had a quest to complete.

“ To survive the first room.”

That meant I needed health, attack damage, and defense. I placed my hand over the strength stat and pushed the plus sign, increasing my strength by one, as well as increasing the endurance and vitality stat.

“Str increased to 5

End increased to 3

Vit increased to 3 “

After I was done, I grabbed my sword and shield and got up from the floor. I had a new sense of vitality cursing through my bones, almost as if I was a new person.

The only thing that was bothering me was the giant screen in front of me.

I don’t know how long I stared at my character screen. I had gone over each screen more than once, wondering how to exit out of it. Having a screen in front of me felt like I had a tv screen right on my face, which I found annoying. It wasn’t just the screen in front of me, there was also the screens of the dead skeletons being sprinkle on my line of vision, it felt as if I was staring at a computer screen that was infected by a virus that made pop-up windows appeared all over the screen.

“Character screen close,” I said, moving my jaw, which produced nothing but empty air, but to my surprise my words were heard, for the character screen I was looking up had disappeared. I moved back in disbelief.

“Character screen open,” I said, and the screen came back up.

"YES!"

I moved my arms up and down as if I had just won a prize of sorts.

“Character screen close, gear screen close, map screen close, inventory screen close.“

And just like that, the windows that were all too real in front of me had vanished.

I walked to one of the skeletons and looked down at his text box floating above his head.

“Text close,” I said, but nothing. Okay, so that wasn’t it.

“Enemy screen close,” nothing.

“Screen close,”

“Name screen close “ still nothing.

I really didn’t want to go through every piece of word that was in my vocabulary. But I had no other options, so I spend most of my time trying to come up with a phrase that would make the text box above the dead skeleton close, it was a nice distraction I found.

“Character name close,” I said, but nothing, I stared at the skeleton and its floating text box to see if something would appear in my mind, like magic.

“Character info close .”

And to my surprise, it worked.

I went up to each skeleton and looked at them, only thinking about them,

“Character info close,” I said, over and over making all the windows vanished.

I walked to the treasure chest,

“Item info close,” and the floating box vanished as well.

I stared at the treasure chest , wondering what was inside. And just when I was going to touch it, an arched entrance door appeared like a mirage, spitting out four other skeletons. I looked at the floor and saw the bodies of the death skeletons begin to vanish, their bodies turning into particles of light that disappeared.

I glanced back at my new skeleton bothers,

“Character info open,” I said, creating a text box to appear above their heads. They were all level 1 through 5. Which meant more adventurers where soon to come.

But this time I was more prepared. This time I wasn't going to let them get the better of me.

image [https://i.imgur.com/78k5ZO3.png]