“Crafter?” Callum asked. “That’s the class it gave you?”

“Actually, no. I was wrong. It says it’s a profession. What other professions do you think there are? Can you have a class and a profession? If I pick a profession, does that mean I can’t pick a class now?” Ryan seemed to be back to his tirade of questions after reading over everything presented to him.

“Okay let’s take a beat Ryan. I’m about as new to all this as you are. If I had the answers I’d gladly share them with you, but unfortunately I don’t.” Callum sat back and thought a moment. “Do you still have the starting classes I told you about available?”

“Sorry, sorry. I’ll focus now. Yes I do have those classes available. What should I pick?”

“I’m not going to tell you what to pick, that’s up to you. But the test would be if you pick a class does it still let you pick the crafter profession. Or you could try picking the profession.”

Callum could see the indecision on his face and knew there were a dozen questions he wished he could ask, but was trying to hold it back.

“I think I’m going to pick the class first and hope that the profession stays. I need to be able to fight before I can worry about crafting anything.” Ryan was silent for a moment as he confirmed his class. “It’s done. I picked mage.” Barely a second later, he jumped, held out his hand, and yelled, “Fireball!”

Callum flinched, not sure what would happen. Thankfully, no flames shot from his hand and nothing spontaneously combusted.

“Hold on. Maybe we should be a bit more careful with what we’re doing. If you had managed to shoot a fireball at the wall, what would we have done? I know it seems like a game, but this is real life.”

Ryan sheepishly looked at the floor. “Yeah, you’re right. That was kinda dumb. But how cool would it have been if it worked.”

Callum saw no reason to join in on at least a little of the fun. “Yeah, you’re right, it would have been cool, but maybe next time, lets not be somewhere so flammable. Another thing, you should be able to see your character sheet if you say status.” He half expected his own to pop up in front of him. When it didn’t it raised the question of if intent mattered.

“Status,” Ryan said and got that far-off look in his eyes.

Callum, however, was paying very little attention as he was interested in testing a theory. If intent mattered, then thinking it should be enough. Status. His theory was confirmed when his status page populated in his field of view.

[Status: Callum Green]

Duellist Level 1

HP: 30/30 MP: 0/30 SP: 30/45

Strength: 3

Dexterity: 5

Endurance: 2

Intelligence: 3

Wits: 4

Resolve: 2

Skills:

One-Handed Weapons:

Rank: Novice 1

Proficiency: 2%

His mana was curiously still at zero and his stamina had gone down a little, but something else stood out to him. His proficiency in One-Handed Weapons had gone up. It was confusing at first, but he remembered when he had practiced a little in his apartment earlier that day.

“Hey how come I don’t have any mana? Do you have mana? It says I have zero of forty mana, but nothing about how to get any more.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“No, I don’t have any mana either and I don’t know why it is that way. If you figure it out, let me know.” Unable to glean any more information from his status page, Callum dismissed it with a mental command. “I just confirmed it, but you can bring up your status just by thinking it.”

“Oh. That’s neat. What skill did you get with your class? I got something called Basic Magic, but I have no clue what it does. Maybe I need mana for it?”

“I got One-Handed Weapons. I managed to raise the proficiency for it a little by basically swinging my sword around, I’m not sure yet how that would apply to Basic Magic, but any information has to be some kind of help.”

Ryan was silent for once as he thought about how one could practice magic without knowing anything about it.

Seeing as he had given Ryan all the information he could think of, Callum moved on to the plan for the next day. He went over the plan to meet with Eliza before the apocalypse was supposed to officially begin. Callum was able to get all the information out as Ryan seemed to be taking things more seriously now.

By the time their conversation was over, it was late in the day, and Callum had one more thing he wanted to do before getting some sleep. He told Ryan he would see him tomorrow and returned to his apartment.

Callum debated knocking on some other doors to see if anyone else had figured anything out he didn’t know, but was worried people would think he was crazy, apocalypse or not. Plus, he didn’t have anything else that he thought would work as a weapon.

No, what he wanted to do now was practice. He guessed it to be around 5 p.m., which meant he had plenty of time.

He started by completely rearranging the furniture in his apartment which left him a good ten-by-ten feet area to practice. Starting with his stance, he pulled his sword from his belt loop and struck up a stereotypical fencer's pose.

Guided by instinct, he could tell immediately it was wrong. He shifted his feet putting them slightly wider than shoulder width, with a slight bend in the knees. He imagined a target dummy right in front of him and turned his body to a forty-five-degree angle, with the sword pointed straight out. Then, he began the work.

He wished that he had someone to instruct him, but the skill seemed to be wordlessly guiding him. Each thrust that was off the mark, he could feel when it was wrong, and corrected it. After two hours of constant work and correction, his focus was interrupted.

[Skill Progressed: One-Handed Weapons: Novice 1 -> Novice 2]

The notification was surprising, but the result was not. He made one more thrust and found that it felt better but in an intangible way. Something about the motion was smoother like there was some level of muscle memory behind it.

That final thrust was the last amount of effort he had. He could feel the exhaustion all the way to his bones, and his shirt was entirely soaked through with sweat. Laying the sword down, he walked over to his cabinet to figure out something to eat.

He settled for some a cold can of beans, not the most appetizing, but filling. With dinner sorted, he was tempted to go back to his practice with the sword but found himself still completely drained.

Feeling that he would need his strength for tomorrow, he did his best to clean himself with what he had around the house and flopped down on his bed. The practice with the sword was the hardest he had worked at anything in a long time, and sleep claimed him in no time.

He woke the next morning as the first light of the sun was coming through his window. Rejuvenated, he began his preparation.

Clothes were the first thing he needed and seeing as he had no clue what the apocalypse would bring, he threw two changes of clothes into his backpack. Next was food. He figured that he wouldn’t be going far from his apartment, so he grabbed a couple of days worth of food, and that went into his pack as well. Finally, his sword. He slid that through his belt loop, and felt as prepared as he could be without knowing what the day would bring.

On his way out, he knocked on Ryan’s door and a few minutes later his bleary-eyed neighbor came to the door. Callum helped Ryan get some gear together.

On their way down the stairs, Callum told Ryan what little he knew about Eliza and warned that she was a little quick to go for her knife, but she seemed friendly enough.

To their shock, at the bottom of the stairs was someone fast asleep. The person was wrapped in a dark coat they seemed to be using as a blanket, with the hood pulled over their face. Callum nervously approached, but once he got close enough he realized who it was.

“Eliza!?” he blurted out.

What is she doing here? I watched her walk away yesterday.

“Huh?’ Eliza said with groggy confusion until her eyes focused on Callum. “Oh, shit.” She jumped to her feet and backed away a little.

“What are you doing here?”

“Uhh, look I can explain.” The flashes of nervousness that Callum had seen the day before seemed to be growing into full-blown panic. “It’s not what it looks like.”

“It looks kind of like you’re stalking me.” Some anger was starting to creep into Callum’s voice.

There was a brief pause as she gathered her courage before stating it plainly. “I don’t know how best to put this, but, I didn’t have anywhere I could go.”

“What do you mean? You’re homeless?” With that realization, Callum’s heart sank. If he had known, he would have offered for her to stay with him. He may not know her well, but she seemed a good enough person.

“Yeahhh,” she said, really drawing the word out. “I got kicked out of the shelter yesterday morning when they found the knife. They have a ‘no weapons policy’ and I didn’t know where to go, and since we were gonna meet up anyway I figured I could just crash here. I’m sorry.”

Callum was stunned for a moment both because of the admission and because it was the most he had heard her say at once.

Ryan spoke up before Callum had a chance to respond. “You have no reason to apologize. I’m sure Callum doesn’t hold it against you, right?” He punctuated the question with a light kick to Callum’s leg.

Finding his voice, Callum finally responded. “Absolutely. There’s nothing to be sorry about. If I had known, you could have stayed with me.”

“Well we can still go out into the city if you want. I want to know what’s gonna happen, and maybe we’ll find some other people.” Eliza said.

“Let’s do that then. There’s a library somewhere in the city I want to go to cause I’m hoping they’ll have some survival books. It’s looking like we’re gonna need it.

With a clear objective laid out, the group set out towards the city. They walked for about an hour before the first signs of what was to come started.