I looked over the screen trying to see if highlighting my “skills” would reveal more information. None populated; but, I had an idea of what I could do.
Mana sensitivity was probably responsible for the glowing will-o’-the-wisps floating about the room, many entering the bodies of my fellow classmates.
Mana shaping gave me the impression that I could control those somehow. Maybe Willing them too? I foused on just one and willed it to bob up and down in place. To my surprise it not only did so but the number by the skill went up by one.
No notification or other way to have know if the sheet wasn’t right in front of me.
Forge Spell felt like the way to make the mana motes, that’s a much better name or at least not a mouthful, do useful things. The way to do so was like a word on the tip tip of my tongue. I wanted to explore that feeling but forced my self back from what was going to be a task that would consume me. Later I promised myself.
Scholarship didn’t seem too odd, but as I was pondering it the Page once more turned without my input and read:
“ Now applying life experiences to date and updating skills accordingly”
Oh good, I was wondering if it was going to do that.
“Class Ablities:
Greater Mana sensitivity: 2
Greater Mana Shape: 2
Forge Spell: 1
Greater Scholarship: 7
Subclass abilities:
Greater Reading: 11
Greater librarian science: 3
Greater Book Binding:4
Greater Spell: book channeling: 1
Auric Skill: Mana Draw:1”
haha, looks like working last summer in the library paid at least a little more than minimum wage.
Well back to Scholarship, I think it’s just that, how good I am at pursuing academic subjects. For once the institutionalized education system of the U.S has an unexpected upside!
Down to my Specialization ablities, Reading again seems to make sense, okay what the fuck! As I focused on the skill I suddenly had a near flood of thoughts as every book i’ve ever read appeared before me like in a vast library. Okay… I picked a fantasy novel off a “shelf” at random. Huh neat, perfect recall of anything i’ve read. Is it because this skill is so far past the others? Do I get neat things like this as they level? More things to dive into later.
Liberian Science seems to be my ability to curate a collection of knowledge. I learned that there’s a lot more to being a Liberian than checking in and out books when I had to digitize the entire card catalog over the summer. So I can see this being useful to a book mage, but I really hope I don’t have to run my own library.
Book Binding seemed to be a little less literal and more the ablity to compile like knowledge in parsable format. That could be really interesting if I figure out just how far that goes.
Greater spellbook Channeling, no that’s not right. It’s Greater Spell: Book Channeling. Hmm, I wonder if everyone gets a greater spell. Book Channeling seems like a figure out with use kind of thing.
I looked down at my chemistry textbook, or I tried too but the Page with my Updated Status followed my eyes. mentally I imaged closing a large leather bound tome and the page seemed to mimic the mental image. I tried opening it in the same way and it worked. I played with just doing that for a second before I was able to get back on task. I looked down at the textbook and put a hand on it. I focused on Book Channeling feeling a little silly but far too excited to care. I felt it, that spells related to enacting changes to chemical structure would be a little more effective, cost a bit less, and be a bit easier to get going. Then my head felt like It took an Icepick and my sense of balance went out with it. If I wasn’t sitting already I would be on the floor. I’d read enough fantasy to know what that was, it was me trying to sprint before learning to crawl. Then I noticed the mana motes drifting to me faster than before. I took my hand off my textbook and they slowed a small amount. Putting my hand back on the book sped them back up. Huh, I think I get a regen buff based on the book i’m holding, I feel like it’s coming from liberian science so i’m guessing books in my possession? what happens if I open wikipedia on my phone. The answer is an information overload of the century and all the motes in the room zipping strait to me. As the staggering headache, complete with a slap to the face by Rene brought me back to land of the sane I looked at the petite girl who had struck me. “The hell was that for” I asked. She gage me her best flat stare and said “ you went glassy eyed, glowed, then all the mana in the room zipped to you at once. Then you stayed like that for ten minutes.” “Oh” I replied lamely. “ Thanks for snapping me out of it.” “No problem but what the fuck is going on? I go this page out of an RPG and had to choose a job already! I had two more years until I wanted to think about it!” It was my turn to give her a flat stare, “ you’ve wanted to be an architect since you were 11.” “well yes” she replied. “ But I didn’t want to have to lock that in this soon, what if I was wrong!” I let a small smirk show, “ well you don’t have much of a choice now, you have to make it work. Is that an inventor specialization?” She gave me a look caught between hurt and disbelief before answering “ yes, it’s an inventor specialization. Did you go the inventor route too?” She looked so hopeful, like there might be someone with a similar path and a better handle on the situation. I had to let her down.” nope, I went Wizard” in a voice that was uncharacteristically giddy for me. The disappointment in how her shoulders dropped almost hurt to see. Wait i’m not that good at reading body language, what’s going on with that. I opened my status:
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“
Profession: Wizard
Specialization: Bibliomancer
Affinity: Arcana; Apocrypha
Lvl: 22
Int:75(+5)
Will:73(+10)(+5)
Per:27(+5)
Chr: 4
End:27
Str:4
Agi:6
Aura:1
free: 154
Class abilities:
Greater Mana sensitivity: 18
Greater Mana Shape: 6
Forge Spell: 2
Greater Scholarship: 11
Subclass abilities:
Greater Reading: 54
Greater librarian science: 68
Greater Book Binding:100
Greater Spell: book channeling: 5
Auric Skill: Mana Draw:1
Traits:
ADHD( Tier 3) + 10 will when engaged in an activity that has captured your interest. -5 will all other times.
Mind for Magic. Your mind considers spells a perfectly natural form of expression of will. +5 int, will, and per as well as cap when you have mana remaining.
Hyper mobil joints: +1 Agi and Agi cap
Titles:
journeyman Liberian
“
Okay, I thought, worth the headache. Shit did it just count wikipedia as a library, and me as a liberian for it? Oh this is wild. I don’t think this specialization was built with the internet in mind. I started laughing, which is concerning for a lot of people because i’m told I have the deep belly laugh of a cartoon villan.
Welp. Might as well invest in stats. I feel like a balanced approach is best here. Min/max is fine if you get redos, but my luck isn’t that good. I should round out the numbers to make myself happy and go from there.
“
Int:75(+5)
Will:75(+10)(+5)
Per:50(+5)
Chr: 15
End:50
Str:15
Agi:15
Aura:15
free: 61
“
Better. Now how do I want to do this. I’ve got four stats that don’t seem to play into my build, but I’d feel really dumb missing something vital because I tried to outsmart an already obviously broken system.
If I spend 20 free points to each group of stats that should work.
“
Int:85(+5)
Will:85(+10)(+5)
Per:60(+5)
Chr: 20
End:60
Str:20
Agi:20
Aura:20
free: 1
“
Hey where did that (-1) modifier to perception go? I looked at the trait and realized I had just corrected my terrible vision. Okay so far this whole thing has been nothing but a win for me. So when is the other shoe going to drop?
I felt a pinch on my arm, not as pain but just the knowlage that someone was pinching the skin. I closed my status and saw Rene pinching me. I gave her glance and said “yes, can I help you?” “ you zoned out for a second there, wanted to make sure you were still with us.” okay, that means I prarsed that information in a few moments when it felt like minutes. That’s got to be a stat increase thing. I looked back and said “yeah just getting used to this thing, I found out some stuff the hard way and had to digest it.“ It was at this point Tommas shouted “what the fuck is going on! What screens, what are you talking about!” ah ,I thought, so not everyone but almost everyone in the room seemed to have the new system. I wonder what the criteria is for if you get it or not? Let’s see, Tommas isn’t all that special. Fitter than average, slightly taller than average, and all round not outstanding anywhere else. As much as i’d like to consider a minimum dick length requirement, Rene and other female classmates seemingly having the system eliminates that. Wel mild potential ego boost eliminated, could it be linked to the attributes and a minimum requirement over all? Not enough capacity for mana? No attiributes above 5? That one seems unlikely as my physical attributes were largely at 4 and he’s definitely stronger than I am. I need more data. I wonder if greater reading works for social media? What if, assuming this isn’t some local phenomenon I use the internet to compare those who get the system and those who don’t then…
I felt a pinch on my arm again. Looking over Rene has annoyed expression that probably matched mine. “Yes?” I asked in a cold voice. She replied “ you were doing it again. And you seem to be only person in here with some kind of grasp on what’s happening. Care to fill us in?” at this point my mind registered the facts it had been turning out in favor of more interesting trains of thought. Many of my classmates were looking at me, even Mr. Beckmen was looking my way. All of them had questions and were looking for answers they seemed to think I had. Choosing to focus on Rene as a well practiced way of suppressing my anxiety talking to groups, I replied “ honestly i’m just rolling with it. As best as I can tell magic is real and something or someone was nice enough to give us instructions on what it it’s and how it works. I don’t know more than that outside of a few things i’ve discovered about my specialization paying around. I think the first thing we need to know is if this is a local thing, a nation thing, or a global thing.”
At that point Sun Ming one of the chinese students studying abroad here answered “My parents are asking what’s happening, They are in bejing.” “Well” I supplied “ that’s a pretty good case for global.” Which means we might just have a Problem. That was quickly confirmed when I looked out the window to see a swirling mass of mana motes on the ground semingly disappearing sideways from reality. “well that’s worth a look.”