The Comprehensive and Concise Guide to Ranking by Chezly Falthrick
A Summary of Rankings and Their Associated Milestones
> A common misconception among new arrivals is that progression through ranks is one time and one way. This assumption is generally shared either among beings who come from tutorials which are technologically advanced, or highly magical.
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> In the case of techno tutorials, the belief is clearly linked toward entertainment norms and the undeniable similarity between tutorial media and UICI interface. This relationship is known to be due to one of the UICI founder’s obsession with a particular fiction series. The presumably unforeseen consequence is that the relative familiarity with “the system” tends to lead to inaccurate beliefs. The UICI itself is a creation of the gods, rather than a Universal Law. While the UICI is often used to inform users and interface with Universal Laws and their effects, such as providing clearer prompts regarding a being’s choice upon death, the UICI itself is not controlling or causing anything at all. It is, as the name suggests, just an interface.
Willow
Respawn Point AA-001-92-119, Farcem City, Motrendi
“…So I spun around and punched the pop-hopper-Willow-stopper as hard as I could with all my mana! I hit it, and just as I did I saw a flash from the corner of my eye…” Stopping for dramatic effect, Willow checked to see if her audience was on the edge of their seats. Of course, given their absolutely ridiculous bowl-chairs, they weren’t. Luzzi at least appeared to be paying rapt attention, assuming that what was indicated by her tail being straight up with its tips wrapped together. Ravavka was staring at her, but his creepy too-wide mouth was closed and he didn’t seem excited. At least, as far as she could tell.
Deciding Luzzi being excited - hopefully - was enough, she finished, “Then the world spun around and I was staring at my own headless body!” she concluded with a slash of her hand. Neither Luzzi nor Ravavka had been what she’d consider a fantastic audience to her story. They’d listened well enough, but they never gasped or groaned, or interjected with, ‘No, really?!’. Is this what people feel like when recording stories or writing them? No real idea how it’s being received. Ew.
Realizing she was done, Luzzi’s tail relaxed and she tapped her forehead several times. “An interesting, if not action packed, story.”
Willow stared, “What? The pop-hopper war, the giants they turned into, and a fae that can literally write stuff into being aren’t action packed enough?!”
“Pft, kid, any random being will have a dozen more exciting stories to tell. They’ll be better at telling them too.” Ravavka’s brash voice cut in. Clearly noticing her outrage - I’m a great story teller, thank you! - he waved one of his little hands with way too many fingers. “Not to say it’s not a decent story for someone so young, it’s fine. Just give it another thousand years or so and then come back, then you might have something interesting to tell us.”
Slumping back into her much more comfortably shaped chair, Willow did her best to make a spectacle of how much less horrible her seat was to get back at Ravavka a bit. He didn’t seem to care, maybe didn’t notice.
Rubbing both hands down her face, Luzzi added, “Ravavka exaggerates, Willow. For many, your tale would be exciting. I particularly enjoyed the way you hopped around while telling. You’re quite an energetic bard.”
Doing her best to ignore the flush of embarrassment creeping into her cheeks, Willow remained silent. I’m not pouting. “It is your misfortune that myself and Ravavka have both had the opportunity to delve rifts and have many of our own stories of lived adventure. He is still being too uncharitable, though. I found hearing of your experiences quite interesting. In particular the disrespect with which you treat Madrick. He’s not known for being generous or forgiving of insults. He must truly believe you’re worth investing in.”
“Ehh, maybe? Has he always been a jerk? Or is that something he picked up after reaching godhood?” It was a question Willow had been pondering since his revelation that he’d once been a god. Was his arrogance and disregard for others and their opinions just because Madrick was Madrick, or was it something he picked up over his presumed years of godhood.
Noting that Luzzi was pointing at Ravavka with two fingers, he shrugged his shoulders and answered. “No idea. It could be either way. I’d guess he’s just naturally like that, though. The thing about reaching godhood is that it means you’ve followed your path to such an extreme that you have become the embodiment of it. There can never be more than one god of a path. If someone following the path of blazing stars wants to reach rank 100, they have to diverge from the path and form something new.”
“Doesn’t that mean the first gods had it easiest?”
“Some believe so, most don’t.” Luzzi’s silky voice answered, “There are some who believe the simplest paths are already taken, so to speak. However, most of us eventually come to believe that all paths are unique and therefore it’s impossible to truly follow in the footsteps of another. The issue most people have when trying to reach godhood isn’t actually that their path is too similar to an existing one. From what I understand, the problem that generally arises is a lack of personal potentia.”
Thinking through it a moment, Willow considered whether she cared more about getting answers or about potentially looking stupid. She chose the former and asked carefully, “Like, mana? I know potentia is converted into mana, so people have a trouble getting to rank one hundred because their mana stores are too small?”
Ravavka snorted rudely, but Luzzi simply shook her head - Oooh so she does use some normal body language! “Not mana, but potentia. Everything in existence is either made up of potentia, or generates it. There is much debate regarding which is correct. The higher milestones include requirements for the amount of potentia which either comprises you, or is generated by you. Which way it works is irrelevant for the purposes of advancement.”
It seemed that, besides Ravavka’s amusement, they wouldn’t be berating her for her lack of knowledge. Emboldened, Willow leaned forward to start asking the questions she’d had piling up for months.
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Hours passed as Willow asked questions and had them fielded by Ravavka or Luzzi, sometimes both. The most interesting answers were those where the two disagreed entirely about the answer. It seemed some things were either not fully understood, or somewhat subjective. She wasn’t really sure which.
Even so, she was ecstatic to have people to talk to who knew things! And are willing to share them freely without being pains in the neck like some Madricks. The day was slipping by quickly. So much so that Willow was shocked when she saw Luzzi tense at the same moment that lights begun playing across the gray material which made up the room. Spinning her chair to look down the hallway, rather than at the other occupants, she saw millions of floating lights. Lights of every color, some of which Willow was pretty certain she’d never seen before, floated lazily through the walls, ceiling, and floor. They swirled as if in a gentle breeze before, suddenly, they all rushed together in a brilliant flash.
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White after flash fading, Willow saw a man standing where the lights had converged. For a brief moment she thought it was Jonah before recognizing that besides being lanky he looked nothing like her friend. Wearing the same boring gray jumpsuit Willow herself was still wearing, the respawnee blinked several times before his eyes focused and took herself and the others in.
“State your name and faction” Ravavka demanded in a harsh tone.
His eyes flicked off of Willow toward the little man-thing - Did anyone ever tell me what species he is? - behind her. Frowning slightly, he answered clearly, “Tison Barge, with the Frazzlen.”
“Ah, one of ours then.” Luzzi cut in smoothly. “I’m sending you the standard debriefing form. Please fill it out, then you may leave.”
He scowled, “I’ve never been asked to fill anything out before.”
“It’s a relatively new process. The Frazzlen have determined that, in order to better protect their members, they need information regarding the reason and method of our deaths.” Ravavka’s voice was monotonous and bored.
“Just fill in the thing so you can leave. We don’t want you here any more than you want to be here.”
“I’ll be reporting your lack of decorum or empathy.” The newcomer barked.
Glancing behind herself, curious whether Ravavka would lose his mind like when she’d challenged him, Willow had time to see Luzzi’s ears lying flat against her head and a blur. Snapping her head back toward the end of the room, she found a burning man-sized smear on the wall.
“He’ll probably complain more when he comes back again.” Willow pointed out.
“Probably” Ravavka agreed with a shrug.
“How’d you get out of that chair so fast? It seems to literally be designed to make that impossible.”
“Practice.”
“If you two are done making light of Ravavka’s murder” Luzzi said, soft voice as formal and calm as ever, “Then Ravavka can get to work cleaning his mess up.”
“New kid can do it. She can just have the wall swallow it.” He challenged.
Willow hadn’t taken her eyes off of the little man and caught the smirk he threw her. “Nope!” She answered cheerily, pulling down under one of her eyes and sticking her tongue out.
It was unlikely he understood the gesture, but it was probably clear enough without context. He brought his hands up, popping his knuckles slowly. “Oh, really?”
“Really, Ravvy? You think I can’t just send you off to nigh-nigh land again if I need to?” She asked sweetly.
With a groan, he turned his back to her and took the couple steps toward the wall. He raised a hand and a bright light flashed. As he turned and walked back toward herself and Luzzi, Willow saw there wasn’t anything left on the wall. Whatever he’d done seemed to have disintegrated everything that had been left of the man.
“Should you be killing people right after they respawn just because they don’t do what you want right away, or mouth off a bit?” Willow asked curiously. Now that she knew death wasn’t permanent, it was remarkably easy to be blase about the entire thing. In fact, looking back to her first conversation with Skeetha and Halshath she found that she was finally able to understand why they hadn’t been too concerned about their warriors dying. Though, they did seem upset about their kids… Actually, come to think of it, I haven’t seen any kids since I got here.
Frowning, Willow thought back through the entire walk with Luzzi through the city yesterday. Then reviewed their run this morning. Not a single kid? Are they just all in school?
Before she could continue the line of thought, Ravavka answered her question, “It doesn’t matter. I’m strong enough to, so I can. If he respawns and complains, whoever gets the complaint might care. If so, they’ll either put some demerits on my record or they’ll come punish me themselves. Hopefully the later, that sounds much more interesting.” With the final sentence he actually sounded somewhat engaged, not quite as bored.
“He’s killed about a dozen ‘mouthy’ respawnees since I joined him in this duty.” Luzzi informed her.
Willow frowned over at the strangely funny sight of the diminutive, but dangerous, man climbing back into his cup-shaped seat. “If you’re so bored doing this job, why don’t you leave? Do something else? You said you were before, right? When you were rank fifty?”
With a sharp laugh, he finished settling himself in the chair, “Yep. Unfortunately in order to get to level fifty I had to sign a contract with the faction which forfeit my services to them for the next one hundred years after my next death. I’ve got twenty two years left.”
I have to be missing something here, this just seems stupid. “Why’d you sign that? Also, why not just break it?”
The silence which slowly stretched in the room was oddly heavy. Huh, I guess I finally said something stupid enough to upset them.
“Interesting. She’s still alive and standing before us.” Ravavka said with a thoughtful set to his mouth.
“What?”
Taking pity on her, Luzzi answered the extremely articulate question, “Generally any suggestion of insurrection is immediately punished. For more powerful beings the punishment is generally a swift and sudden death. Though, since you are newly respawned it makes sense that wasn’t your fate. For lower ranked beings, they are generally taken away to be imprisoned and ‘educated’ upon the merits of following faction contracts.”
“Maybe they didn’t take her because she’s not part of the faction? Does that offer any legal protection?” Speculated Ravavka.
“It does not.” A new, but familiar, voice answered.
It was only slightly surprising to Willow to find Madrick standing beside her, one hand casually on the chair back. The other hand was holding what looked like a mix between a spider and a lizard by the throat.
“If you want to discuss rebelling against a system which is supposedly billions of years old, you should at least protect yourself from reprisal.” He said in a disappointed tone, as if that was something she could have known.
Pointing at the spidery lizard, which now that she looked at it really seemed like a bipedal lizard had been grafted onto a black widow body, she asked, “That was supposed kidnap me?”
Glancing down, Madrick released the creature. It gasped for breath and prostrated itself on the ground in front of him. “It was, yeah. It’s rank ten, barely. I’m guessing it has some kind of poison or paralytic spell. Maybe an ability. Anyway, now that I’m here, time for a pep talk!”
“Please, no.” I’m not pleading. Nope. My voice is strong and authoritative.
As expected, he ignored her. “Form up a team. You can have up to three others beside yourself. You’re going through a rift in two weeks.”
“Would you be willing to tell her which rift she’ll be running? I can help her prepare, if so.” Came Luzzi’s surprisingly timid voice. Previously, Willow had noticed that while her body language was extremely expressive her voice rarely changed from a soothing but confident tone.
Looking toward her, Willow found that the paavaras was standing in the cup-chair and bowing stiffly. Her tail was standing in a stiff C, tips wrapped. Her ears were twisted sharply outward rather than standing at relaxed attention as they usually were. Haven’t seen that one. If she was a cat I’d say she was alert? Angry?
“Do I know you? You seem familiar.” Madrick noted thoughtfully as he also watched her. “I don’t interact with paavaras often.”
Not moving a muscle, she answered, “I previously annoyed you. You killed me for the slight.”
“Ah, were you on Saklavas defending the artifact?” He held up his left hand, showing the black band with what seemed to be the jaws of some kind of animal set on its surface.
“I was, yes.”
“Should have chosen the winning side” Madrick snorted.
Seeing that she wasn’t going to answer, he rolled his eyes, “Come on, tell me what you’re thinking. I can’t read minds yet.”
Yet?
“Yes, lord. I asked you not to kill another defender who you’d already defeated. I didn’t even attack you, much less stop you from your goal.”
“Oh. Hm… That sounds like me.” He turned to look at Willow, “The rift you’ll be running is sheerna four twenty three. It’s a classic exploration and conquest rift. This will help you advance. You have a year to reach rank ten, or I’ll give you to whatever faction or order will pay the most.”
“Excuse me?” Willow asked in a low, threatening, tone. “I must have misheard, because it sounded like you said you would sell me.”
“You heard correctly.”
Willow saw red. Fury flared within her and she funneled it into her focus, forcing herself to remain calm. She could hit him, if she wanted to. She’d proved that last time he’d pissed her off. But she couldn’t hurt him. Her hand would probably just break again.
“Fuck you.” She snapped. Mah-mah probably wouldn’t even be upset, she’d be calling gram gram up to get her voodoo kit out.
Rolling his eyes, Madrick waved in dismissal of her anger, “Then don’t fail your task.”
With that, he vanished. At least, he seemed to. Willow activated her moment of focus the moment he’d disappeared. As soon as she did, she saw an area of color amidst the grey cast by her ability. The color was faded and blurred, as if trying to blend into the background. Some kind of invisibility? She considered doing something to show Madrick he wasn’t able to hide from her, but dismissed the thought.
I’ll show him when it actually matters. I’m going to break his jaw some day and he’s not gonna be able to escape.