A character sheet? Of him? At this point why not?
Though it did raise the question that perhaps this wasn’t the afterlife after all. At least not one he was meant to stay in. Dante wasn’t unfamiliar with the concept of reincarnation or ‘Isekai’, as some of his more nerdy friends called it. One of his close friends, Daniel, loved the genre and often raved about it. To get closer to him, Dante had read a couple works so they would have something in common.
He could recall more than a few in which character sheets or status like this one were a thing, with not too dissimilar features to this. Dante remembered that a lot of them had been pure wish fulfillment, which really bode well for his future. Though … his life up to this point had been any indicator, then he wouldn’t bet on it. As if he would get a happy ending —
It was as if lightning struck him as he realized something. In a lot of those stories, the hero would return home after accomplishing whatever task they were summoned to complete. Dante could very well see Soph again, as well as the few friends he had begun reconnecting with. Hell, he would even be happy to see Mr. McClellan again.
For most things Dante needed rigorous proof, but for this one jump in logic he would make an exception. He vowed right then that he would complete whatever task he was assigned to accomplish and then return home.
Perhaps save a world while he was at it, if he was lucky.
Though … there were a few discrepancies with what had happened so far that poked holes in his theory. For one, there usually would be an explanation for what he was being reincarnated to do by a god or some such. The quite possibly divine being that was still blazing across his perception would count as such a figure, but at the moment they did not seem interested in providing explanations. Perhaps that would come later?
He scanned the character sheet again feeling slightly … unsettled. To think the entirety of his life, who he was, and what he accomplished could all be represented by a single sheet. It was degradingly reductive.
Dante now apparently had attributes, of which there seemed to be ten. Some of which he was familiar with from RPGs, games, and web novels. Attributes such as strength, dexterity, constitution, perception, charisma, and willpower were classics in such media. Though Dante wondered just how much he could infer from his previous knowledge.
The rest of the stats — that was endurance, alacrity, resistance, and cognition — were less conventional. He could hazard a guess what they did for nearly all of them, with the exception being alacrity. Dante wasn’t even quite sure what the word meant, though it brought to mind images of speed. Though he thought that would have been covered by dexterity.
Dante also had no idea what exactly each stat would change.
It was one thing to know that leveling charisma would likely make him more convincing but it was all together ambiguous what it would actually accomplish. Would it make him more attractive? Or, more frighteningly, would his words become more convincing then they otherwise should?
Which would be tantamount to mind control.
Damien pictured lords or kings able to change the mind of their subjects with but a few words. Truly dystopian.
Assuming that the baseline for these stats was ten, which was an assumption that he felt safe in making given the other stat values, that meant … he wasn’t that bad with people was he? Dante had friends after all. Not very many of them, but good ones. Though supposed he had never been good with women.
He fought the sudden urge to dump points into it. He should wait to distribute any stats or talents until he had a more solid idea of what he wanted to go for. Though it certainly was tempting.
Later, he promised himself.
At least his cognition and willpower were very good.
Actually, given that the most average person would have ten in every stat and that there were ten stats, then the baseline should be around one hundred stat points. He had one hundred and five stat points, which was a little flattering. The pluses next to them reminded him of the few RPG’s he had played, though it was odd that there was nothing to indicate how many he had to distribute. He decided to leave that alone for the moment.
Inspecting the skills … Dante concluded that they certainly reflected his past. He had to admit that he was slightly dissatisfied with that fact. He had no desire for that part of his life to define him so heavily. He was certain that he had gotten the logic skill from his recent computer science degree and resulting job.
He could have a worse selection of skills he supposed, he could not deny that things such as [Stealth] or [Brawl] would be helpful in his new life. Dante was also surprised that he had so few skills and that they were so low level. It seemed like acquiring them was probably a time intensive task.
Which brought him to the abilities section, which was empty except for a blinking tab that read [selections available]. As soon as he wondered how to use it, another window opened.
Abilities
Place Mark
Recall
Imbue Flower
Grow Epidermis
Command Steel
These options were certainly varied.
Who would ever want to grow an epidermis? In fact, there seems to be no guarantee that you could remove the epidermis. Maybe there is a way to get more information?
There certainly had been in the stories he had read.
There didn’t seem to be a button for this, so he focused on the name. This didn’t seem to have any effect. Perhaps, there is a command? Information? Details? Stats?
No response from any of those. He kept trying with every other relevant word that he could think of to similar effect.
Was he really meant to select some of these without really knowing what they did?
Dante HAD to be missing something.
He would have to come back to this later. Moving on, he focused on another thing that had caught his attention, a scroll bar at the side of the list. With another thought more options were revealed. Curious, he kept scrolling down and options kept appearing.
After some browsing, he quickly came to the conclusion that there was probably a skill for everything, if you spent enough time looking for it. Fortunately, there were more conventional abilities such as the traditional [Fireball] or the boring [Piercing strike]. Given the near total deprivation of all of Dante’s senses it was hard to keep track of time in this place, but he scrolled down for quite a time and never found the end.
In essence, these options are practically infinite. So that's something at least. The main barrier is simply going to be my patience. And my memory …
That's enough of that for the moment, there was one last section.
The traits section which only had two entries, [Human Tenacity] and [Fickle Fate]. Of the two the second, [Human Tenacity], seemed the easier to parse. Was something that he got purely from being human? He had no idea what it affected either, as tenacity could refer to many things. His character sheet didn’t seem to yield any details. It was probably useless to speculate beyond that. It was the other one that was more interesting to him, [Fickle Fate].
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
So it involved fate, probably his? Does that mean that it had the ability to change the future? And what did it mean for it to be fickle? It sounded unreliable at best. Was it possible for a trait to be bad for him? Also …
Whoever created this … System … Has the ability to control fate?
Focusing again on the quite possibly divine being amongst them, he could believe it. He couldn’t say he liked it. Dante paused as he realized that something had changed while he had been focused on the menus. The entity was now broadcasting something else to him through the tether, a single number.
9,752.
Cryptic.
As he continued to watch, it ticked down.
9,741.
Well, that's just concerning. What could the number possibly represent? Was it how much time they had left?
It didn’t seem to tick down at a consistent rate, but he also had nothing to compare it too.
Maybe it’s a currency of some sort for the skills or stats?
That seemed more likely, but he had no way of confirming that unless he purchased them. For a split second, he had the urge to immediately start spending his points but managed to rein it in. Panic would not help here. Which meant that he needed to get to it and come up with a strategy for his new life sooner rather than later.
Taking stock, there were very few things he knew for certain. He had been saved from certain death, probably for a purpose. No such thing as a free lunch and all that. It seemed certain that there was going to be … something after this that would involve the use of a character sheet and likely the associated mechanics that would follow. Likely, his next life would be similar to some of the media he had read on the topic. Though, he was leery about placing too much faith in those tropes.
Everything else, it seemed, was up in the air.
Such as what exactly his purpose in this other world was going to be. In most of the literature he read, it would be to save the world. Usually from the Demon Lord or some other great evil. Though even this was no guarantee. The status screen certainly wasn’t going to give him any more information.
Which brought up another point entirely, the fact that this System seemed to be supremely unhelpful. It explained nothing, which meant that he was forced to make these choice’s blind. This would make mistakes inevitable and Dante had no way of knowing if he could change any of the choices.
Why would it ever be designed this way?
It truly stumped him. Perhaps, it was a test of some sort? Though the thought of his future life being treated as a test did not sit right with him. His feelings about it didn’t change the possibility however.
Likely an unanswerable question for the moment, so Dante decided to put it aside and focus on finding a strategy.
Any “build”, to use an RPG term, would work best if it followed his natural talents so it was time to consider what he already had.
Dante summoned the stat sheet again.
Name: Dante Embry
Race: Human
Class: Unclassed
Level: 1
Attributes
Alacrity 9 [+] Endurance 13 [+] Charisma 6 [+] Fortitude 11 [+] Cognition 13 [+] Perception 8 [+] Constitution 12 [+] Strength 7 [+] Dexterity 12 [+] Willpower 14 [+]
Skills
Brawl 2 Deception 1 Lock Picking 4 Logic 4 Menial Labor 3 Sleight of Hand 1 Stealth 2
Abilities
[Selections Available]
Traits
Fickle Fate MAX Human Tenacity 4
If he were being honest with himself, it seemed like his skills really favored more of a cloak and dagger style. It was what he had done in the past after all. As far as he was concerned though, that was not going to work for him. He had promised to Sophia to put all of that behind him, new life or no.
Fortunately, it seemed that his attributes told a different story. His high cognition — which he assumed was analogous to intelligence — and willpower would seem to favor a caster type build. This resonated with him far more. Also, If he was going to a fantasy world, he was going to use magic. No question about it. He had seen some pretty interesting abilities in that list afterall.
Although … Dante hesitated, remembering an incident that occurred a few years prior.
It had been about four years earlier, he had just gotten out of his latest stint in prison and was really trying to get his act together for once. Afterall, as his sister had reminded him, next time they would try him as an adult. He had been playing his first campaign in Demesnes & Daemons and it had been one of the first times he had met Raymond, who had originally been Sophia’s friend.
Dante had decided to play a wizard and even back then, he liked to optimize. That is to say that he maxed every stat involved in spell casting at the expense of everything else. Dante had done this despite the many, many warnings that he had been given.
It had been a few sessions in and they were in their first dungeon. They had been beaten and battered and had just reached the bosses lair. The villain, a necromancer, had cast a fireball straight into their midst. He had failed his save due to having low dexterity and it had utterly vaporized him. Literally. Near full health to ashes in a moment. The rest of the party had been fine.
He still remember staring dumbly at the game board in utter silence before Ray had slapped his back and said,
“That’s rough, but no worries. We will get you right back into the fray.”
Ray had then passed him a new character sheet.
Some probably would have stormed out of the room, but for Dante … the stakes had just risen. From that point onward, he found every encounter to be more engaging as there was actual risk involved.
Needless to say, but his new character — a sorcerer — had much more constitution.
The same core idea applied here, but the stakes were real this time. Dante had already died once and he had no desire for a repeat performance. He was definitely not going to waste his second chance.