I close my eyes and let out a slow breath. It’s the first time since this started I don’t feel a weight on my chest.

In the distance, people enjoy themselves. Someone found a propane stove and houses have been raided for food. They’re having a barbecue. This is probably the last time any food we come across will look appealing enough to eat. Even in a freezer, without power by tomorrow, it’s going to be melted and while edible, I’m not sure who’d want to eat it. If it can even be cooked.

Who knows how to cook over a fire in this day and age? I don’t.

They can have their party. The food would be nice, but the solitude is much better.

An icon flashes in the upper right of my vision. Someone lying down in a red box that is slowly turning orange. I mentally sigh. I might as well start with that, since I have promised myself I was done ignoring the system.

So, what is that icon about?

System Query: Rest

Resting is entering a state with reduced physical and mental stress. Resting states affect the rate at which Mana, Stamina, Willpower, and Health regenerate.

Active State, No Icon. -50% to recovery rate.

When in an active state, you are exerting stress on your body and mind, and recuperation is hampered.

Immobile state, Red Icon. No modifier to recovery rate.

You are in an inactive state, but stress is still being exerted on the body and mind. Recuperation is neither hampered nor helped.

Orange Icon. +10% to recovery rate.

You are in an inactive state, and the stress on the body and mind is low. Recuperation is assisted.

Relaxing. Yellow Icon. +25% to recovery rate.

You are in an inactive and comfortable state and the stress on the body is minimal, while the stress on the mind can be minimal. Recuperation is helped.

Relaxed. Green Icon. +65% to recovery rate.

You are in an inactive and comfortable, physical and mental state and the stress on the body and mind is minimal. Recuperation is greatly helped.

Sleeping. Blue Icon. +100% to recovery rate.

You are in a restful, unconscious state. Recuperation is maximized.

The Icon has settled in the orange. I guess it’s as high as it will go while I’m working through this. With the mention of sleep, a question occurs to me and the system answers it almost before it’s formed.

System Query: Sleep

You can go for twice your Endurance before the effect of sleep deprivation will occur. A full period of sleep before that time has counted down will reset the timer. The effect of Sleep deprivation is a lowering of your attributes. 10% for each (1/2 endurance) hour(s) without a full period of sleep.

A partial sleep period will lead to a partial recovery of decreased attributes, but not a resetting of the timer.

A complete sleep period is 8 hours spent in the Sleeping State, reduced based on your endurance level plus 1 hour for each 10% of reduced attributes due to sleep deprivation. Sleep first reduces the deprivation before counting toward the reset of the timer.

That means that not only could someone with a high endurance stay awake longer without repercussions, but unless needed less sleep and it was harder for them to suffer from severe sleep deprivation. Getting over that seems to be the only part not affected by how much endurance.

From the conversations I overheard during the trek, ten seems to be an average. At twelve, my endurance means I need less sleep and can go longer. Unless there’s a maximum to the attributes, someone could end up basically not needing to sleep anymore.

System Query: Level Cap

There are no system-imposed caps.

Had I wondered that?

I dismiss the window and look at the tabs. I might as well go through them one at a time.

Name: Chuck Dorval

Species: Human (ethnicity: Caucasian)

Class: Aether Guardian, Level: 1

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Experience: 1666

Ability Tree: Bodyguard

Ability: Switch, Level 1

Attributes

Strength: 13

Dexterity: 10

Endurance: 12

Intelligence: 11

Charisma: 10

Aether: 11

Health: 12

Hit Points: 27/120

Mana: 110/110

Will Power: 7/23

Stamina: 129/129

Skills

System note

to avoid overcrowding your display, only skills with a level 5 or above are listed as part of the Identity Sheet. For a complete list, please refer to your Skill window.

Automotive repair, Level 6

Driving, Level 8

Endurance training, Level 8

Perception, Level 6

Strength Training, Level 10

Other than now having experience, this looks like the first time I looked it over.

The next tab is my inventory, with the stylized form showing what I am wearing, as well as the twenty-five inventory spaces. There is an extra free one. I’ve gone through my trail mix bars from having to deal with everyone questioning me about how to organize the lodging.

How did it come to them looking to me for decisions? I spent the entire trek doing my best to avoid them.

I’m surprised at the lack of response from the system. I guess there are things even it doesn’t know.

I bring up the next tab

Mental

Below are listed the mental conditions with an effect on your behavior

Paranoia (moderate) Mitigated through willpower and/or medication

Bad Temper (mild) Mitigated through willpower and/or meditation

Introvert (mild) Mitigated through eating and/or meditation

I want to object to the prognosis. I have an almost irrational need to argue that I am not an introvert, that I don’t have a bad temper, and that I am not paranoid.

The paranoid me needs to have this stricken from my record so it can’t be used against me.

I have hundreds of justifications for why I act the way I do. Ways to excuse my behavior. Explain how none of it is my fault. I’m a child of abuse. How can anyone expect me to be mentally stable? That’s not an excuse to put it out there for everyone to see.

System Query: accessibility

Identity Sheets can not be accessed by people other than the person it is attached to without the use of powerful abilities.

I bristle at the statement.

“That’s not the comfort you think it is,” I grumble. The fact there is a way it can be done puts me on edge. The ways someone can use that information against me are incalculable. If my father were to ever find out he had this effect on me, not only would he rejoice, but he would take full advantage of the knowledge.

The green bar drops and I’m on my feet. I need… I need to…

With a scream, I punch the oak I leaned against. It hurts and the red bar flashes, but the drop isn’t noticeable. I high it again and again and it’s the yellow bar of stamina that stops me as it drops quickly and leaves me panting and leaning against the offending tree.

I am screwed up in the head that I unleashed my anger on a defenseless tree. There are far more deserving people of it in the world; and one formless system. Unfortunately, they aren’t here, and it doesn’t have anything I can hit.

I let out a breath as the yellow bar climbs quickly now that I’m resting. The red Icon resting that appeared the instant I stopped punching the tree is back to turning orange. I sit back down and do my best not to think of anything for a few seconds.

Someone at the courier company who’d caught me pacing, after a bad meeting with our boss, suggested I learn to meditate as a way of learning to manage my stress. Now I wish I’d stuck with it. It had felt too much like I was wasting my time, sitting there counting my breath.

My mother always advised honesty. Not the hurtful kind, she was a very tactful woman. But she was honest.

I try that again. I do have a temper. I do have a problem with having people around me—although I question calling what I have being an introvert—and yes, I am definitely paranoid. Knowing it’s mild feels odd. I wouldn’t want to meet someone who has it worse than I do.

I’m still pissed at the system for knowing all that about me, but I can look at the tabs again and not feel the need to punch the poor tree. I’m sure it’s grateful for that.

The next one is a combat log

You have hit an Attrach, Fire (minor) Thrown, blunt object. 13 Damage, knock back effect due to target’s light weight

You take 11 points of Damage, Heat.

You have hit an Attrach, Fire (minor), Swing, blunt Object. 16 damage, vital area hit, triple damage.

You have killed an Attrach, Fire (minor). You gain 666 XP.

I close the tab. It’s too much information about something I don’t even want to know about. I had to fight. I killed something that might have been someone before all this started. That’s more than I care to have done, let alone know about.

Better get used to it. My father says and as much as I hate it, I don’t think I can contradict him. There were too many indications of violence on the way here. Anywhere there used to be people, it occurred. Deloy is proof it can’t be the system forcing them to do it, but Bernard shows that the shock can be significant enough for people to snap momentarily. What else did people turn into that they didn’t know how to react to?

With slight trepidation, I open the next tab and I’m assaulted with a list of skills passing so fast I can’t make them out. Only the title of the tab tells me what I’m looking at. I mentally put the brake on it and I look at them. When did I ever learn horticulture? With a skill of one, it can’t have been much. Gardening is at four. Did that come from helping my mother in her garden?

Lip Reading? I vaguely remember reading a book on it, back when I was a teen. An attempt at getting one over my father. If I could spy on him and make out what he said, I could use that against him. With a skill of two, I’m glad I don’t remember what came of it.

I scroll through the list and it’s mainly that, things I either tried to learn or picked up in passing, except for those on in my first tabs, above five. There are a lot of skills in there. I can’t even explain how I learned to cook enough to be at level three. I certainly never cooked one meal in my life.

The next one is magic, and it only shows a blue bar at the top. I don’t know any magic. Can I learn magic?

System Query: Learning

Skill and spells can be learned through being taught, through practicing (if the affinity exists for spells), or by buying them through the system store.

Without another prompt, I think the system store open. Knowing how to go about buying skills I need will—

Error, system Store inaccessible. Please try again later.

I roll my eyes. Even the thing that destroyed technology isn’t reliable. Maybe things haven’t changed all that much.