Life at the hotel had settled into a consistent pattern following Harris’ departure and the start of the tutorial proper. The instructors for the tutorial, led by Ruven, Elen and Naesala, provided the team with an intensive two week course of classroom instruction ahead of any practical exercises. The instructors covered topics like the fundamentals of magic, basic history, geography, monster identification, skill training techniques and basic class based tactics. The instructors also provided details about the Unified System, the stats that it used and how to plan for growth and development.

It may sound a little boring, but to people as thirsty for information on their new situation as Jim, Karen and the rest of the team it was like water in the desert. Everyone absorbed absolutely everything that they could. The tutorial instructors came extremely well prepared for this portion of their educational program and, as they would later find, for each section to follow. They provided a textbook to each team member for the general education course and another that addressed the Unified System. The instructors had also prepared a program of practical exercises that would help them to assess and advance along their paths.

The information provided was exceedingly valuable to the team, especially regarding the way that the Unified system interacted with the growth of the awakened. The instructors clarified an lingering open question from the initial blue screens of their awakening: the Unified System didn’t drive or control their progression in a direct way. Rather than control, the Unified System reflected the growth of the individual based on their experiences and provided navigational support, collaboration tools and information tracking resources for the awakened.

As a race humans were as average as they come. The mean stat for a human in the eight base attributes were normalized at 100 in the Unified System. If someone was exceptionally intelligent, they would have a base stat in Intelligence greater than 100, but they would also have to work much harder to increase their intelligence than someone with a base statistic of 100. In pre-awakened life it was difficult to become more intelligent and the same was true for an awakened person, but the ability to push past this friction and make an improvement was very real for an awakened person. The difference was magic particles and their ability to influence both internal and external phenomena.

The eight base stats of the Unified System were relatively simple and generally aligned to many of the games on earth.

Strength - The ability to apply and resist physical force. Plain, simple and always a crowd favorite.

Intelligence - The ability to apply reason, logic and knowledge to achieve results. They call magic arcane for a reason and Intelligence helps you understand how to solve problems, magical or otherwise.

Agility - The ability to control your movements. Agility allows you to change course and to move your body as you intend.

Dexterity - Dexterity is about fine motor control, in particular with your hands. It is about precise movements and fine motor control.

Wisdom - The ability to apply your experience to a situation, Wisdom involves both discerning and intuiting the inner relationships at play. It is distinct, but related to Intelligence, and is required for good decision making.

Charisma - You know those popular people that folks can’t help but like, support, follow or fawn over. They have high Charisma. Charisma is the ability to influence others through your will.

Discipline - Discipline is the ability to influence yourself through your will. Can you calmly stand under a freezing waterfall for hours or train yourself to punch through a wooden board? Doing these things requires Discipline.

Ingenuity - Ingenuity is essentially practical creativity. When you develop new ideas or unique combinations of existing concepts to generate something new, you are utilizing Ingenuity. It is critical to crafters as well as those looking to advance the arcane arts.

In addition to the eight base stats, the Unified System also tracks health points (HP), magic points (MP) and Spirit. Health points are a basic expression of how much damage you can take before you reach the brink of death. You don’t die at zero HP, but at zero HP the Unified System is evaluating your physical condition as impaired and expressing that additional physical damage will likely be fatal. You can definitely die before your health points reach zero, but it isn’t common. There isn’t an explicit maximum, but the average for a healthy human is around 100 HP. The awakened generally don’t have to worry about normal diseases and are resistant to the ravages of age, though the degree of resistance is a function of many factors.

Magic Points are an expression of how many free internal magic particles you have to work with at a given time. Humans are relatively weak in their internal capacity to generate and hold onto magic particles, an average MP for a human is around 75. Spirit is a more advanced topic, but it describes both the quantity of magic particles that you have absorbed from the environment, your potential to absorb magic particles given a constant environmental magic particle density and the ability to influence environmental magic particles.

These various statistics could be seen on the primary status screen in the Unified System interface and the secondary status screen showed skill progression and mastery. For example, the primary status screen for Sarah Bruce from this timeframe demonstrates strong initial compatibility with her mage class, but that she is also well rounded and would likely make an excellent leader.

Category

Value

Notes

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Name

Sarah Bruce

Race

Human

Origin: Earth

Class

Mage - Red

HP

120

MP

180

Spirit

1000

Strength

75

Intelligence

140

Agility

95

Dexterity

100

Wisdom

120

Charisma

150

Discipline

80

Ingenuity

120

An interesting point that the instructors shared was that, although there were many class skills that would provide information about other awakened individuals, there wasn’t a known skill that would allow one to view the primary or secondary status screen of an awakened person. You could identify a skill as it was used based on experience or with a skill, but you couldn’t see the skills that an individual had that weren’t actively being used.

The party interface was the part of the Unified System that provided the most detailed information about other awakened individuals. It was a powerful tool, but outside of the initial tutorial, it required consent to access. Most of the time what could be seen for other party members was HP, MP, any status ailments and anything related to common quests. Again, since the Unified System generally only helped to quantify, reflect and track information, one couldn’t share quests using the interface. Quests flowed from the situation and the actions of an individual and those around them. Quests could be identified and, if they were held in common, tracked in the party interface, but that was as far as it went.

***

“I can’t imagine that a vote could possibly be necessary,” said Sarah. She spoke with authority and it wouldn’t be obvious to anyone who didn’t know her, but she was very upset. A dismissive Sarah was a dangerous Sarah.

“Agreed,” seconded Queakers with her message board. “It seems like a waste of time, but I’d like to hear Karl’s reasoning for it.”

Karl had no doubt expected this resistance and he replied in kind, “First off the trainers suggested that we review our party before heading into the first practical sections. Being down a team member is likely to influence the development of our team work and potentially make passing the class trials and the final assessment that much more difficult. Plus we don’t know how Harris is progressing in his internship.”

Queakers pounced, “I see Karl. You are having doubts. I suppose it is natural for some to feel this way. I have more than enough confidence in myself that this is not an issue for me, but I think that you are right that we owe it to Harris to demonstrate where we stand. Afterall, I think that his path is harder and he is, nonetheless, helping to support us. I for one have been enjoying all of the food that those nice elf ladies dropped off and the account that they provided at the grocer.”

Score one for the dog. She had dunked on Karl hard and followed up with the very tangible contribution Harris had made just one week after leaving the hotel. Queakers was of course referring to Deldes and Delirin, who had stopped by the hotel after their first hunt with Harris. They had brought many choice cuts of monster meat with them and explained that they sold the rest of Harris’ portion to the grocer and that the money had been deposited on account. They further explained that the team could use the account to purchase what they liked at the grocer and that every other week the grocer would have meat for them as well as a new deposit so long as Harris survived the hunt. The wild elves chuckled at that one, but no one else really got why that was funny. Elf humor, you get it or you don’t.

Deldes and Delirin had taken an immediate liking to Queakers, providing her with some head scratches and a belly rub during the few minutes that they had spent with the team at the hotel. Queakers didn’t seem to feel anything amiss from the pair, but the rest of the team felt an oppressive air of equal parts of chaos, indifference and distrust. When the two simply walked back out without a word, the team, sans Queakers, breathed a sigh of relief. It felt like a pair of predators had just gotten bored and wandered away when they could have pounced just as easily. Still the meat was good.

There really wasn’t a point to a secret ballot, as folks would have to own their opinions eventually, so it was done with a show of hands (and paws). It was six to three in favor of keeping Harris in the party indefinitely. Erin, Karl and Lyle had voted to remove Harris as a party member and seek a replacement. In a way it was important in a way, but the vote didn’t really matter. I wasn’t planning on relying on the party and I was already planning to do what I could to support them whether I was in the party or not. In my mind it was a social contract thing, where my support without respect to the benefits I received paid for my selfishness in otherwise pursuing what I wanted. Still, it is helpful to know how others felt about you and, perhaps, where their allegiances lie.