When I came back to my car with a shopping cart laden with canned goods, a hand-cranked flashlight, a space heater, and dozens of other items that would be useful during a disaster. Though the cashier looked at me strangely as I put my goods on the check-out belt, I wasn’t the only person panic buying. Two other people, both of which seemed to be college age, were also buying every canned good they could find.
By the time the trunk of my car was full and my shopping car was returned, there were only five minutes left before eleven. I sped out of the supermarket parking lot with a compass and several large maps cluttering my dashboard.
I made it about half of the way back to Carlos’s apartment before I realized that I wasn’t going to make it. The silver watch sitting on my wrist said that I had less than sixty seconds before System Integration, so I pulled my car over onto the side of the highway. I clipped my holster to my belt, allowing my handgun to hang at my hip, and exited out of my car. If System Integration brought earthquakes or a significant change to the topography, I didn’t want to be flying down the road at 60 mph when it happened.
I stared hard at the face of my watch as the second’s hand slowly ticked up toward twelve. Ten seconds… five seconds… the hand reached twelve. I found myself holding my breath. A moment passed, and I didn’t feel any different. Just when I thought nothing would happen, another blue textbox appeared.
[SYSTEM INTEGRATION COMPLETE!]
[WELCOME TO THE REVELATION SYSTEM]
[WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE YOUR STATS?]
“Sure,” I answered with confusion in my voice. I didn’t see any visible interface, so I assumed it was asking for an audible input.
Name: None
Class: None
Level: 1
MDC: N/A
SDC: 12/12
Body: 12
Mind: 16
Name None Class None Level 1 MDC N/A SDC 12/12 Body 12 Mind 16
An entire [Menu] clogged my vision. The textbox showing my stats only composed the top right of the [Menu], and the rest of my vision contained various other information. The left side of my vision showed a drop-down list of various options one would expect to find in an RPG.
Inventory
Skills
Equipment
Journal
Status
Inventory Skills Equipment Journal Status
Before I could explore the [Menu], another message was overlaid over everything.
[YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 1]
[WOULD YOU LIKE TO CHOOSE A CLASS?]
“Yes,” I said, looking around at the highway around me. There was minimal chaos, but several other cars within view had pulled over. They were probably also dealing with the [Menu] that had suddenly been foisted upon them.
[YOU MAY CHOOSE ONE OF FIVE CLASSES]
[KNIGHT]
[MAGE]
[PRIEST]
[THIEF]
[ALCHEMIST]
[WITH YOUR STATS, IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU CHOOSE MAGE OR ALCHEMIST]
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“I can’t make such an important decision without more information,” I told the System. I couldn’t be completely sure just how intelligent the System was, but I figured it would understand a simple request for more info.
[WARNING: THE ENEMY WILL REACH YOU WITHIN FIVE MINUTES]
[WHAT INFORMATION DO YOU WISH TO KNOW?]
“What is a Mage, and what is an Alchemist?”
[A MAGE IS A PURE SPELLCASTER WITH POWERFUL OFFENSIVE CAPABILITIES AND NEGLIGIBLE DEFENSIVE CAPABILITIES]
[TO PUT IT SIMPLY, A MAGE CASTS SPELLS AND DOES LITTLE ELSE]
[AN ALCHEMIST, ON THE OTHER HAND, IS A HALF-CASTER WITH THE ABILITY TO UTILIZE A CRAFTING SYSTEM IN ORDER TO CREATE POWERFUL ITEMS]
[HOWEVER, AN ALCHEMIST MUST BE WITHIN HIS WORKSHOP IN ORDER TO USE THE CRAFTING SYSTEM]
“Okay, I understand,” I said, getting the gist of it. “Before I make a choice, can you walk me through my stats and any traits I might have that would affect my choice?”
[WARNING: THREE MINUTES REMAIN UNTIL CONFLICT]
[HERE IS YOUR CHARACTER SHEET IN MORE DETAIL]
The small stat block in the upper right-hand corner of the [Menu] expanded quickly, and a three-item drop-down list appeared under the [Body] item.
Body: 12
Fortitude: 14
Power: 13
Agility: 9
Below those three items, another drop-down box had opened that showed my traits.
Genius: +6 to [Mind].
Lunatic: Every day at Midnight, there is a 10% chance that [Mad Insight] will activate, and you will unlock a new spell or crafting item at random.
Permanent Brain Injury: -2 to [Mind].
Genius +6 to [Mind] Lunatic Every day at Midnight, there is a 10% chance that [Mad Insight] will activate, and you will unlock a new spell or crafting item at random Permanent Brain Injury -2 to [Mind]
“Gee, thanks game,” I muttered to myself. It wasn’t exactly politically correct to call people like me lunatics anymore. Though, the terminology did fit with the retro design aesthetic.
It was strange, though. The [Lunatic] trait seemed to have no downsides, as far as I could tell. It was an incredibly useful trait to have. I supposed the downsides were obvious enough to not require explicit explanation. The hallucinations and fragile grasp on reality that I had been suffering from over the past five years was the detriment there.
The brain injury trait surprised me, actually. That must have been from the car crash a few years ago. I was in a coma for a few days, but the doctors had told me that I had made a full recovery. Apparently, some of the damage was permanent. You know what they say; neurology is more of an art than a science.
[WARNING: ONE MINUTE UNTIL CONFLICT]
“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” I said quickly, waving away the blue box. “I choose Alchemist.”
I figured that I might as well stick with what was familiar to me. In video games and tabletop RPGs, I always picked the “engineer” class if one was available. Plus, I was a sucker for crafting systems.
[CONGRATULATIONS: YOU ARE NOW AN ALCHEMIST]
In the top right of my [Menu], my stat block changed.
Name: None
Class: Alchemist
Level: 1
MDC: N/A
SDC: 12/12
Body: 12
Mind: 16
To the left of my [Menu], a new item appeared at the top of the drop-down list.
Crafting
Magic
Crafting Inventory Skills Magic Equipment Journal Status
I was just about to ask the System to explain to me what “MDC” and “SDC” meant, but my thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a cacophonous screech that came from the sky. The [Menu] closed once more as I looked up to see an orange comet streak through the sky. It passed just over my head and crashed a few hundred feet away.
Through the dense foliage, I could see the orange fireball light up the forest. It was silent for a moment, but then I saw the trees bend as an invisible shockwave spread from the location of the crash. I barely had time to clamp my hands over my ears before a wave of force knocked me off my feet, and a deafening boom rattled my bones. The windows of my car all shattered simultaneously, and the anti-theft alarm went off as the shockwave caused it to shake.
Painfully, I rose to my feet. The force of the blast was minimal, but my ears were still ringing. If I hadn’t covered my ears, I would have certainly suffered permanent hearing damage.
Just as I was thinking that nothing could have possibly survived that crash, another notification popped up in the center of my vision.
[NEW QUEST, EMERGENCY BEACON: INVESTIGATE THE CRASH SITE AND SEARCH FOR SURVIVORS, +20 EXP]
NEW QUEST, EMERGENCY BEACON: INVESTIGATE THE CRASH SITE AND SEARCH FOR SURVIVORS, +20 EXP
With a deep sight, I unholstered my pistol and chambered a round. In those System Apocalypse stories, EXP was necessary for survival. I knew that this [Side Quest] would increase the amount of time before I could regroup with Carlos and Liz, but they would be better served if I was level 2 or level 3 when I reached them.
To this day, I’m still not sure if I made the right decision.