---James---

James tried to figure out what he wanted to do. On one hand, he didn’t actually want to do something for this strange kid – who spoke in a strange manner through blue boxes…it didn’t feel official in the same way achievements did. He didn’t know what chips were – probably a currency though – what they were worth, how much he would get...

He could be scammed, nothing proved the kid would give him anything.

…but really, did he have anything to lose?

Out of the corner of his eye, James saw an alleyway and what looked like a mugging. A violent one with a bookish-looking fellow held up against the wall being beaten with what looked like brass knuckles.

That scene, mostly out of the way of regular city life looked so normal he hadn’t noticed it till now.

James remembered the ‘PK’er.

He didn’t want to be taken advantage of.

He remembered how much fun he had had killing monsters. How much simpler it was. If something attacked him he could fight it. If a person stole from him...attacking them back was a crime right? Was self-defense encouraged? He was a foreigner would anyone take his side?

…he wanted to be strong. Strong enough that he wouldn't even need to think about these sorts of problems.

He wanted to go to the best hunting ground and push himself as hard as he could there.

“I think…I think you should find someone else.”

Not listening to the boy’s response, James left the city, a destination planned.

No supplies, no information, an individual walked towards the land of death the sun low in the sky.

----------------------------------------

---Maddy---

It was hard to ask for information about magic without being able to communicate with the natives, it felt almost like she was on a linear path – the main questline in a game.

* First, she would have to gather money – enough to buy the expensive translator that would allow her to use any words she wanted.

* Then she would have to ask people about what breaking a skill meant. She'd gather information by asking questions until she got a better picture.

* Finally, she would decide to follow their advice or not.

It seemed like too many steps to reach where she wanted if Maddy was being honest.

“Maddy?”. Instantly Maddy found herself focusing on her companions. Jess had just asked what her plans were.

“Well…I’ve been thinking. We need to get information right? …and that means we need a translator and to do that we need money.” She began. There wasn’t any point in hiding this at least.

“Okay…just asking but do we really need to buy a translator? That can be a good goal if we don’t know what else to do but…shouldn’t our goal be to be getting as many achievements as we can? I’m sure knowledge would help and there’s probably some quests we need to be able to talk to people to get but…”

"We should go to the dungeon." Troy spoke adding in his unwanted opinion.

Esh…without knowing she could die she would have suggested it first. She was being too critical – they were probably picking the best plan based on what they knew – but diving into that blind made Maddy shiver.

“Have both of you already used your quest board?” Maddy asked, mind racing as she stalled for time.

She could get someone to ask for "skill break knowledge " and see if there were any quests for it.

"Yes"

"Sorry"

"Drat" Maddy whispered. She was running out of ideas.

Maddy’s mind continued to churn through options. The healthiest action was obviously to tell them both the truth. Tell her of her resurrection issue…say the world was a bit more real than they were treating it…say she could get that back if she got magic and that was why she was hoping for magic…

But did she really know them that well? She had a pretty good mental profile set up for each of them…but did she trust them?

Years of training said no. Years of her mother reminding her not to show weakness even to friends.

The message had mentioned a "non snitching agreement" – who knows how enforceable that was or what the penalty for failure would be. Magic existed after all. What if she was turned into a newt?

Maddy flipped through solutions. She could push as hard as she could – fall back on easy solutions and convince them with some lies but…that was failing. She would rather force herself to tell the truth right now.

“I got it. A quicker option but one that's not guaranteed…and one I think we should do."

"Let’s hear it then" Jess stood back crossing her arms slightly looking suddenly much younger than Maddy had been placing her.

"Who says we need to ask the locals? Let's check to see if there's a library or a bookstore in this town!"

Glancing up for a moment then looking her in the eye Jess nodded. She seemed less enthusiastic than Maddy was for obvious reasons…

"But let's be quick, you had us leave early – admittedly I haven't been tired since then – and I want to act on the idea you originally promised. So far we haven't gotten much for coming early. We've gotten one small achievement for helping an old man. That's not enough! It's been too long since I’ve gotten an achievement!"

Thankful her desires had won out over her companions' growing impatience Maddy dragged them through a crowd of people and started looking for something – anything that looked like it had books.

Thankfully that wasn’t hard to do. Unthankfully those books were not in English.

The two bookstores Maddy found sold leatherbound books full of dense text. Some had pictures and diagrams which were helpful but…it wasn’t enough. She could feel her companions annoyance grow the more time she wasted,

Finally she found one that offered a unique service.

A machine that looked like a cross between a microscope and a photocopier sat in a dusty corner. A solid boxy base with a curved viewing glass the machine was surprisingly mechanical – glass and interlocking parts and dials to shift what had to be dozens of amber panes bouncing light off mirrors and through lenses.

The shopkeeper was happy to explain it translated any text placed in front of it into the language of the user. Apparently creating text that translated, was easier than translating existing text and this machine only worked on a few languages but it was still impressive.

The problem of course was that this was a store. You were supposed to bring books over check through them and decide to buy/photocopy them into your own language.

Maddy just wanted to read them.

Taking books over, one by one flipping through them as if she was studying their quality, Maddy tried to gather information in bits and pieces. She could only spend a minute tops on each book – the shopkeeper was getting less and less friendly the less it looked like she was going to buy something – but a picture was starting to form from the scraps she had gotten.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Skill ‘breaking’ meant something almost religious to these people – it turns out skills were relatively rare for the ‘natives’ and the system itself was barely mentiond despite them obviously using it with all the blue boxes floating about.

A skill – or ‘trapped power’ as it was sometimes translated –seemed to be something gained when fighting a great beast or delving deep into a dungeon.

It was always great but…it was fixed from the moment you gained it. No matter how much you used it, no matter how much practice you did it would never get better. It wasn’t fully ‘yours’.

That was the main reason for ‘breaking’ it. Once ‘claimed as your own’ the power could grow. Multiple skills could be gained without breaking any of them – max one a rank with each getting harder to gain – but…once you broke a skill it was easier to get more of them. The true benefits were all in its growth however. Claiming the skill as your own let you change it. Work it out like a muscle. Let you create new abilities. Let magic happen.

One book claimed it was best to find your own manner of ‘breaking’ the skill – stressing it by using it in an unattended way but one that you came up with on your own. Getting help would lower your potential, 'make you weaker' – unable to progress. You had to 'find the answers on your own'.

Another book just listed an example – someone using a speed affinity to slow something down by adding speed opposite to motion. That split into proper movement magic – both speed and slow – and that’s where Maddy learned more about magic for the first time.

A magic affinity always had its opposite inside of it – its inverse effect. When you split a skill into its magical parts you could create both heat and cold. Light and darkness. Creation and destruction.

…and they seemed to think those opposites or ‘inverses’ were real physical things. Darkness wasn’t just the absence of light it was the existence of its opposite. Cold wasn’t the lack of heat, it was a type of energy in its own right.

📘 Achievement get: Bookworm. (rare)

Description: For having sought knowledge in pages despite the barrier of language. You have consumed a lot of new information from the study of books.

----------------------------------------

Stat: +5 brain power.

…the shopkeeper was coughing. Maddy was starting to get a bit too obvious with her reading.

Searching for a book or two on dungeons Maddy was partway through finding out they were dangerous but structured – usually a gradual increase in difficulty with varied monsters and puzzles and rewards that warned you if anything was different – before a hand came down on her shoulder.

I’m going to have to ask you to buy something if you want to continue reading. I imported this translator from well past Ser.

Nodding slightly Maddy left the shop companions in tow.

“Did you get what you were hoping for?” Jess asked a few steps out – a hint of curiosity in her tone.

“Yes and I’m up for the dungeon now. Wish I could find anything specific about this one but it shouldn't be deadly. The main thing I learned was about magic. Guys! There’s magic here! You should break your skills, I learned a whole bunch about how to do it and what the rewards are – you can either break a skill into you or out of you – stick it into your body or soul – and depending on which you choice you make there’s a whole path for advancement. You can become a magic warrior or a mage!”

Maddy’s excitement leaked into her explanation and she gushed at the possibilities. Slowly her companions learned about the options and began admitting it was good to know.

----------------------------------------

---Richard---

Richard stood in the center of Bandpass – physically it was a side of the cliff but there was enough bustle and general ‘happening’ that it felt like the center.

In one hand he held a small bag of large rice shaped coins called ‘pips’ in the other a pair of translators. The pips had been traded for his coin – sorry sold – and the translators had been procured ‘half off’.

Richard had bought the funny broken version for 20 pips, used [misfortune] to cause a distraction and then swiped the expensive one on his way out.

📘 Achievement get: Shoplifter. (uncommon)

Description: Stolen from an open shop. You know that’s a crime right – you’re supposed to pay for those!

----------------------------------------

Stat: +1 Planning power.

Stat: +1 Decision speed.

Stat: +2 Body speed.

…he hadn’t ever shoplifted in ‘real life’ but had some practice in video games.

After gaining money he had spent some on a back holster for his hammer – it was awkward lugging the thing around all the time – then found something to eat.

Buying a bread-like product from a stand – it was a single pip and looked like a pretzel – Richard walked along the open edge thinking.

What to do, what to do? I want to find something at least slightly fun. 'They' seemed to have tried a bit more with the theming here? Not that they had to do much to improve how shitty the tutorial looked.

The town was made of stone. Stone in different shades – marbled blue a lot of the times – and somehow fused to itself.

Along the street were houses and shops – glorified boxy caves – covered in lanterns shining out a bright light and decorated with plenty of weird shaped plants. A few vines dropped down from the floor above, and a few shrubs seemed to be playing “public attraction” duty… but most of the plants were in boxes hanging under windows – or kept in the occasional ledge out into the pit covered in vegetables like a community garden.

There were people here as well – quite a bit more than the last area, both players and NPCs.

Players were players – easy enough to tell because even though most had new clothing and armor that hid their grey track clothing…they spoke in English.

The NPC’s were the weird ones, speaking in some strange made up language like the devs had gotten lazy and didn’t want to narrate the conversations between background characters.

…if Richard was being honest with himself, the NPC’s acted quite a bit more lifelike than their tutorial counterparts. Scarily so – he knew they were fake…was pretty sure they were fake, but they no longer did stupid repetitive tasks or acted in robotic manners.

So how much does the game want me to push someone in that pit?

Richard looked out staring down at the water far below.

It was the first thing he thought of when he saw the town's setup – the first thing anyone probably thought while seeing that pit.

…that’s high enough the water would feel like concrete…Would my defense be enough to survive it?

…no dumbass, there’s a death penalty now. Its not worth jumping and I already cheesed those achievements. Are you becoming an adrenaline junky? We haven’t done that before?

Richard took a bite of his pretzel thing.

It was spicy. Like someone had filled a ginger-tinged bread with sugared chillies. The inside of the roll was full of melt in your mouth reeds of some unknown plant that made his mouth burn.

“Oh Fuck, I wasn’t expecting that.”

Staring at the spicy bread Richard took another bite.

“That’s a fucking good stick of buttery bread stuff. Want some?”

Offering it to a player standing and staring at him from a few feet away, the voyeur paused and looked shocked to be called out.

“What? No gross, you already took a bite of it.” he spoke while backing up.

…Richard shrugged and moved on eating the rest of his roll as he thought.

Pushing someone off would only be funny in specific convoluted circumstances. Stuff is funny when it's unexpected – thanks spicy roll – so I need to figure out something people would be surprised by.

What do I actually want to do?

If Richard was even slightly honest with himself. What he wanted to do more than anything else was fuck with people. People in this case meant players not NPCs…and ‘fuck with’ meant.

…well he wasn’t sure yet. Something he would think was funny.

Why am I never creative when I want to be? Why is all my time spent trying to think of things to do instead of just doing them?

All his current prank ideas really just boiled down to hurting people and his consciousness was still reeling about from that flashback. The memory of the ‘unfunny prank’ clawing at him fresh-cutting his personal code deep into his mind.

Hurting people is only funny if they deserve it.

This mantra ran through his brain again and again as he tried to relax and think about something fun instead of lines he wanted to make. Lines he didn’t want to cross.

Lines weren’t fun. Consequences weren’t fun.

Richard really was an impulsive guy rather than a planner and it showed. Staring at his 20 pip translator of miscommunication, Richard tried to imagine the best use for it.

...

Slipping the pure translator on for a moment he walked over to an NPC and tried asking them for hints.

“Hey, does this town have a mayor or something? Do you have any events with speeches?”

Staring at him for a moment with a blank look, Richard sighed and pulled out a pip offering it towards them.

Pocketing the pip, the NPC went back to staring at him blankly.

...

…Richard waited for a minute before realizing they weren’t going to respond and laughing.

“Alright got me, I didn’t actually say that was for anything… how many more pips do you want for some information?” Richard asked fingering his bag.

Instead of answering the man pointed at his translator.

“…that’s not a payment. I need this.”

Shaking his head the man began an elaborate miming session – making shapes with his hands and speaking out of habit, then pausing and looking confused when Richard didn’t understand.

Oh, got it he doesn’t have one.

“You’re only borrowing this okay? I want it back after”

Nodding the NPC took his translator and began speaking.

Traveller! Welcome welcome! Lots of travellers lately!

You want me to bring you to the general? He’s responsible for a lot.

Festival! We haven’t had one of those in a long time. Happens every time someone reaches the end of the dungeon.

Want me to show you around the town? I can show you beautiful bandpass for small donations.

Richard took the translator back and declined the help.

Alright, I have a plan. Either clear the dungeon or know when someone else has cleared it and then swap the mayor – sorry generals’ translator for this one.

Unexpected things are always funny. I want to confuse the shit out of anyone listening to that speech!