Eric stared into the dark empty eye sockets as the skull somehow seemed to smile at him. He watched the unmoving presence for a time before slowly lowering his arm, pushing off from the wall he stood up straight, and swallowed before asking “Wh…who a-are y-y-you?”
The skeletal figure raised a bony hand up to stroke his chin,
“I am a conscious representation of the place between life and death, I am the aspect know as Limbo… and this”
He gestured around the room
“Is both me and my realm, I exist within myself and while I don’t directly control the minds of the inhabitants, I do give them physical form so they can interact within my universe, as I did you.”
He gestured towards Eric who looked at his hand as he clenched and unclenched his fist.
“Okay, does that mean I am dying then?”
Limbo seemed to glide across the floor as he moved slowly towards Eric before placing a hand on his shoulder.
“Yes, and in your current condition, chances are you won’t survive”
He slipped behind him placing a hand of each of his shoulders he moved towards his ear before continuing with
“Was quite a blow to the head you took, brains swelling” He threw his arms in the air before moving in front of him
“Even if you do wake, you will most likely be a vegetable”
Upon hearing that Eric fell to his knees, a blank expression on his face he asked
“Are those really my only options?”
Limbo moved up beside him, putting an arm around him he pulled him close
“Well, just between us, there might be a third option, I could make ensure that you wake up with a fully functional mind, there will of course be a price to pay in advance”
Erics’ eyes widened and he jumped to his feet turning to face the once again grinning skull
“Whats your price?”
Limbo clasped his hands under his chin and just watched Eric for a short while before responding
“Play my game, reach the top level, and defeat the final boss without dying”
Eric blinked at that “Game?”
“Yes, I will explain the basics in your tutorial, before we get into that thou, do you accept the terms?”
Eric paused for a moment before asking
“What happens if I die?”
“If you die the game is lost, and you will be dead”
Eric stood for a moment considering the offer made, in the end he decided that if he wanted to see his family again, then there really was no choice.
“I accept”
Limbo clapped his hands together and there was a flash of light before a series of screens moved in front of his eyes and a voice that sounded like a grandfather talking to his favorite grand child read what was on each screen within his head.
“Welcome to the tutorial, we will begin by talking about your status screen which is a summary of your personal statistics, think status to bring it up.”
Eric did as he was told and another screen appeared in front of him.
Character Sheet
Name: Eric
Race: Human
Age: 24
Height: 5’8
Class: None
Specialization: None
LVL 1
HP: 60/60
Sta: 60/60 Regen: 0.6/s
MP: 40 Regen: 0.4/s
Starting stats
STR: 7
CON: 6
Dex: 5
Agi: 5
End: 6
RES: 6
WIL: 4
Mag: 1
LUC: 3
Soul abilities
Soul weapon:
Can summon a scalable mace and shield
Perks:
None
Spells/ Abilities:
None
Each stat was then highlighted in a separate smaller box containing a brief explanation of it.
Strength
Strength increases damage dealt with strength based weapons and carry/ equip weight 10kg/point.
Constituion
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Increases poison/disease/elemental resistances, also reduces the duration of debuffs.
Dexterity
Measures hand/eye co-ordination, increases damage dealt with Dexterity based weapons.
Agility
Measures reaction time/reflexes/balance and movement/attack speed.
Endurance
Increases stamina by 10/point, also affects fatigue and fatigue recovery rate.
Resilience
Increases hp by 10/point, increases physical resistances.
Willpower
Increases mana by 10/point, increases mental resistances.
Magic
Measure of magical ability, increases potency of spells and effects.
Luck
Affects loot drops, can only be increased by buffs / special rewards, random stat selection, or extremely rare loot drops.
Each box disappeared as he read through it before the tutorial voice continued.
“In the bottom right of your vision you will see a blue dot, this dot represents your soul ability, focus on the dot to activate it”
A small blue dot appeared in the bottom right of Erics vision, doing as the tutorial asked he focused on it and it started to glow, his arms moved without him intending to into a combat ready position as a small wooden shield that looked like a re-purposed barrel lid appeared in one arm and a wooden club in the other.
He barely had any time to look at his new weapons before the tutorial continued
“Well done now….oh no look a giant rat has magically appeared from nowhere, kill it brave hero, before it kills you, unless you want to die during the tutorial”.
Instinctively Eric raised his shield and readied his club to strike, he looked around, and sure enough a rat the size of a medium dog magically appeared in front of him in a puff of white glittery smoke. It bared its teeth at him and hissed before charging forward, jumping at him with its mouth wide open, Eric raised his shield and it bounced off leaving one of its teeth stuck in the wooden surface, the impact jarred his arm causing a shooting pain to race up his shoulder almost causing him to drop it. The rat rolled on the ground before turning to hiss at him again. Eric let out a shout before charging forward and bringing his club down on its head which made a wet crunching noise as it caved in under the blow. Eric jumped back, his shield raised looking around the room his other white knuckled hand gripping his club. A bright yellow light flashed around him and the tutorial voice sang in his head.
“Congratulations, you have defeated your first enemy and leveled up, not only do you have 5 stats points to distribute, you also get to choose a new perk and spell / ability. You can do this yourself or you can opt to have luck decide what you get. If you choose the second option then one of your stat points will be added to luck (just so you know, there is no other way of raising luck) the other 4 will be distributed randomly, you can also potentially gain a perk or spell / ability that would otherwise not be available. So make a choice, choose for yourself or leave the decision to luck, you have 1 minute to decide, if you run out of time before making a decision then you will automatically be given the second option.”
A countdown timer appeared in the bottom left corner of Erics vision but he ignored it his attention focused on the now dead rat. His arms shook as he relaxed lowering his club and shield, stepping forward he poked the rat with his club and a box appeared over the top of it “Would you like to loot giant rat?”. He thought yes and the corpse vanished in a puff of smoke leaving behind a few teeth and a patch of fur. His posture relaxed as a chime sounded in his head. “You have selected option 2 and have gained, luck increased by 1 to 4, dexterity increased by 2 to 7 and willpower increased by 2 to 6. Perk: - Strong build: gain 50% extra weight allowance from strength. Spell: - Clean, mana cost: variable, activate the spell while touching something you want cleaning and it will be cleaned”. A second icon appeared in the bottom corner of his vision depicting a bar of soap covered in bubbles. He watched as his mace gained a metal ring round the top adding extra weight to his swing while making it more durable, his shield likewise gained a seam of iron round the outside making it slightly heavier yet more durable. He couldn’t help but notice that in spite of the increased weight of the sword and shield both items felt lighter in his hands, he also noticed that his previously hurt arm had stopped hurting.
“Shit” he said to himself, there was a rumbling as a door appeared in the wall and opened up in front of him.
“Congratulations on completing the tutorial, now step through the door brave adventurer and see what heroic deeds you can accomplish”.
The area behind the door was was full of a thick white fog, not being able to see what was in front of him he raised his shield and club before slowly walking through the door ready as he could be to face whatever would greet him on the other side.