A conversation between a Passivity Precept Counselor and Jeremy B., age 23. April 23rd 20XX

“I don’t understand why you haven’t done anything about him! He’s a terror! He cares nothing for anything but himself and always drags me into the most uncomfortable situations!”

“Yes, Jeremy, your little brother does seem to be a fountain of chaos.”

“Exactly! Do something about him.”

“We brought you here because you made a false claim that your brother was being violent.”

“I made the claim because he’s ruining my life!”

“But he hasn’t caused anyone any harm. He hasn’t destroyed any property that wasn’t his own.”

“He’s broken our grandmother’s antiques because he was upset, cheated on Vanessa and can barely hold down a job.”

“Those antiques were his, bequeathed to him by your grandmother; we care nothing for your human romances, and prefer to stay out of that unless there is any type of abuse on any side; and we’re not exactly a welfare program, Jeremy. We don’t go around handing out jobs.”

“But I’ve heard you’ve taken drug addicts and the homeless off the streets!”

“Yes, we have. Those people were abused by your society and your social norms. They were abused in a way that to you may seem non-violent but to us, the mental and self-damaging violence that was done to them was unacceptable, so yes, we helped them.”

“Then help my brother too!”

“Your brother doesn’t need help.”

“But—“

“Yes, he isn’t a rocket scientist, he isn’t very successful to your culture’s point of view but he doesn’t need help, Jeremy.”

“Then what should I do?”

“Enjoy the chaos he brings to your life. While we have eradicated violence that doesn’t mean that you won’t still experience conflict or terrible things happening. It is how you overcome and deal with those conflicts that will help you to become a whole person.”

“Those are some pretty words but you’re not the one who has to deal with his shit every day!”

“And you’re not your brother’s keeper. You have the choice to not deal with him either.”

“But... but he’s family. Blood is thicker than water!”

“That’s actually not what that saying means at all. Perhaps you should look up the whole statement. The truth is that the family you choose for yourself can often be a stronger connection than your blood relatives. Even if you think your brother is messing up his life it doesn’t have to have anything to do with you if you don’t want it to.”

[https://www.tanyarochester.com/uploads/5/4/5/5/54553809/grace3_orig.png]

“But first,” Lore said. “Watch what the sim does to the body.”

I did as he asked.

The carcass caught fire. Heat bombarded the air.

A meep released from my lips and my limbs froze. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t move. Usually, I’d be able to walk away or something, but the suddenness of the heat beating at my skin had me clamping my muscles until they strained. Shivers ran through me uncontrollably.

The flames died leaving only a few coins and teeth which flew into an invisible pocket in front of me. I assumed it was my inventory.

“What do you think? Interesting, huh?”

Lore touched my shoulder. I jumped up and took several steps back. His eyes narrowed.

“Sorry,” I said with a higher pitched voice. “I zoned out.”

His eyes widened. “You are incredibly bad at lying.” He crossed his arms. “What is it really? Is your other race enthralled by fire or something? No, that’s not it. Do you have an unnatural obsession with fire? No. You were shaking, weren’t you? Maybe you have some kind of weakness towards it.”

I couldn’t take his speculation anymore, and I couldn’t stand the embarrassment of my fear. I mean, who was scared of fire? It was illogical. But fear didn’t have to be logical. It just was. “Shut up,” I said before he could continue. “Shut up! Just leave it alone!”

He blinked once, slowly.

I softened my voice. “Please?”

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“Alright. We don’t have to talk about it now. But if you really have some kind of weakness towards it, you’ll have to let me know eventually.”

“No. I won’t.”

“Yes. You will. We could end up facing some kind of elemental in these caves. And it could be a fire elemental. For now, let me heal you.”

I nodded and prayed that we didn’t run into one. I wasn’t sure how I would fight the thing if we did.

It only took a second or two, but I still attempted to analyze each step Lore took to heal, fascinated. First, he made a pose as if he were about to fire an arrow. His lips moved, but he made no sound. An unnatural wind blew around him tossing his hair and robe in jerks and swirls. A near invisible arrow and bow appeared in his grasp. It looked like he yelled something, but the words were sucked away and into the body of the arrow. Then he shot the spell right into my chest. A small pinch stung my shoulder where the bolt hit. A cool mint and strawberry scent filled the air and pain I didn’t even know I had dissolved. I took a look at my health. The arrow healed me up to full!

I remembered something about the fight. “So, why was my first attack so much greater than my following ones?”

“You sure you want me to answer that?”

“I assume it’s because of some kind of sneak attack bonus. Don’t answer if you’ll count it against me.”

“Fine, I’ll tell you about it but let’s keep going.”

We shuffled off down the corridor passing through the same uninspired walls.

I crossed my arms under my breasts. “We’re walking so out with it.”

He shot me a look that let me know I was too impatient.

“It’s simple. As a rogue class, if you can hit a monster on the back or on its weak point, then you get a bonus to damage. Two times for low levels but it slowly increases for higher levels. It’s called backstab.”

“But I did way more than two times damage.”

“That’s because it was also a surprise attack. Any class can get a surprise attack and do two times the damage. If you want to see the math, I’m sure the prompts will be happy to show you.”

“Yeah, I’m good. The prompts and I have a special relationship right now. I never know when it will randomly try to start shit with me.”

He chuckled. “That does happen.”

A noise from up ahead had my limbs freezing up. Lore also stilled without me prodding him. In that moment, I really wished this game had a Teamspeak app.

What? And let you players make audible secret plans that your enemies have no chance of hearing? That wouldn’t be fair. There is a group chat option, but it’s no good mid-battle.

Ignoring the text, I whispered to Lore, “I’ll scout ahead.”

He rose a brow but waved me forward.

I stealthily stepped up to the corner. The tunnel turned into a short hallway with one side-tunnel. The hall dropped off into a dark cavernous space. Not believing that the area below was empty, I crept up to the edge and peered down.

Below me, several rats smaller than the previous one used pickaxes to mine. Their tools quietly tapped on stone, slow and careful. Three larger rats sat around a table periodically yelling at the workers in some squeak language. Two of these bigger rats were similar to the one I killed earlier, but the other one was much larger with what looked like bits of armor it had somehow collected from adventurers and sewed together to fit it.

I used Observe on each one. The smaller warriors were Rat Grunts with 55 HP while the armored one had 87 HP.

Congratulations! Through hard work and studying the world around you, you’ve leveled your Observe Skill to Level 3! And you seriously need to eat that pie I gave you! The pie is real and delicious! It even has whipped cream.

I ignored the prompt and its obvious lies and made my way back to Lore. After I explained what I saw he shrugged.

“Do you want my help now?”

“Nope. I’m good.”

He snorted with derision.

I sauntered back the way I’d come only this time I took the side tunnel believing that it had to connect to the larger room. The passage slipped down, but the roof stayed flat. Something above me exuded forest green smoke. I peered up, squinting my eyes in the dark. The source of the smoke was a glowing treasure chest sitting in an alcove.

Now how could I get up there?

I jumped, reaching for the ledge. I missed it by a few feet. In frustration, I kicked out with my full strength and struck the bottom of the dirt surface. Part of it crumbled creating a foothold. An idea struck. I pulled a scabbard from my back and started to dig out a few hand and footholds for myself, just enough to reach the chest.

I climbed my makeshift ladder and placed my hand on the leather and wood surface. The iridescent green smoke that surrounded it vanished and the lid opened revealing a small pile of glittery coins and a thick black book. When I reached for the cash, it disappeared. I assumed it would show up in my inventory or possibly be split between Lore and myself.

The book called to me and I picked it up. On the side, the word Parkour was written in thick gold letters. Sweet! A skill book!

I jumped down and put the book in my inventory for later review.

Through cunning and not giving up you have learned the moving skill Parkour level 1! You can now climb and fall from buildings with less effort and damage. Feel free to try and jump down from that building again. It might hurt less! For the first 5 levels of Parkour you gain a level of Climbing.

This game had a lot of obscure skills!

I continued down the tunnel until I reached the bottom, hiding myself behind a wall and peeking over at the working rats. The area was too open with too many wandering eyes. If I decided to try to stealth my way over there I would immediately get caught. No, I had to use invisibility but with only 11 seconds to work with I needed to run.

I first used the Add Air spell on my two swords and waited a few seconds for my mana to reach full. I sucked in a deep breath. I could do this!

After crouching in a runner's stance, I let out a breath. In one move, I crossed my arms over my chest and shoved them down to my sides to cast invisibility. I didn’t waste time to check if it worked. Instead, I sprinted forward as fast as my legs could carry me. The rats didn’t notice, and I didn’t tarry, plunging my twin blades into the back of a grunt rat’s head.

It died immediately, without a squeak, and collapsed into a twitching pile of rat limbs.

I was surprised by the amount of damage I’d just done, and also by another damn prompt.

Congratulations! You have learned the combat skill Dual Sword Wielding Level 1! This skill does not improve damage, but it will help with your technique, attack speed, attack success percentage and allow you to learn new moves that will come in handy during battle!

Pain! It burst from my spleen and cracked nose. Something pulled out of me and blood drenched my side. I fell back a few steps, stumbling with the effort. Apparently, while I’d been reading, the other two rats had attacked.

I tried to move back, but they flanked me with the armored rat in front of me. Not willing to go down without a fight I ran forward and stabbed the Rat Enforcer in the chest. My swords bounced off his armor.

Three points of sharp agony hit my back. Air rushed out of my lungs. I couldn't scream!

Everything went black, and all the residual aches subsided.

You have been killed by a Grunt Rat. Your current death penalty is: “Sneezing once every one minute for 30 ISS minutes.” Congratulations on dying for the first time! Try not to do it again.

Shit! If I sneezed I would totally get noticed. That meant I could only hold Stealth for a little under a minute! Now how was, I supposed to kill these rodents without it?