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She started jumping up and down and running around in her new set, shrieking that she was a ‘Valykree’ now once she got it on. Her little rod was in a fasten on her waist. Like a rip-away velcro loop?
Toria chose that moment to show up in the doorway, looking haggard. She blinked at Sophia for a moment before asking, “did you change her clothes?”
“Yes, and we’re going to change yours, too. I know this is a lot, but there are monsters running rampant. One attacked us,” I said. “We need to outfit you with self-defense and good equipment.”
She sniffled and walked over to sit next to me. “I could never handle stuff like you and Jeremy. You’re always so good in crises.”
ADHD and Autism comorbidity for the win.
Neither of us was really sure which one we had, we had too many symptoms of both, but… we definitely had something.
“What Classes are showing up for you? Oh… you have to pick up your locket and look it in the eye.”
“What eyes?” she asked and looked down, holding it up on the chain, then dropped it and shrieked before shortly choking herself off and flapping her hands like she was trying to fly or something.
“Calm down, it’s just your familiar,” I said. “It’s like having an AI built to help you survive. Okay?”
I’ve never been good at comforting. Some people want to be touched, some people don’t… so I just focus on verbal affirmations and directions.
Her breathing began to even out as she rubbed hard at her eyes before nodding sharply and picking up the locket again. It was long enough she could look into the eye upside down.
“Just ask it to open the menu,” I said. “You don’t have to say it out-”
A sharp inhale. “Uh… ohhhh. It looks like my Spacetime account… is that normal?”
That space-themed social media thing, I recalled. Though I had no idea what the dashboards looked like as I preferred Chainly. And my own menu looked nothing like either. It looked like a normal video game menu. Dark mode with red accents...
“Well, they probably all look different,” I said. “Go to the icon that means ‘inbox’, what does it look like for you?”
“It’s an envelope, just like on the site,” she said. “A letter…”
As she read through it, I called Phobos and used the Menu to look through my Skills again. Killing that thing… gave me points.
And now there was a Bestiary and I knew it was called a Warg. Like those things in some fantasy settings that Goblins often used or Orcs or… some other ‘evil’ species. It’s probably different in reality. They’ll likely just be people, or animals shaped like people. Not ‘evil’ or whatever.
Fourty-five skill points. Because I’m F-class and the Warg was D-class. When fighting something above your class, you get half again the multiplier, apparently.
If I could fight a class S monster and win, I’d get three and a half times the base points. Which was 30 for Wargs…
Shaking that thought away, I reprimanded myself. What, do you think you’re the chosen one? What’s important is survival, not heroics or earning money and skill points just for the sake of it.
But I knew games. We’d have to grind up to a point where we’d be safe, and THEN maybe it’d calm down.
“This says something about… Inventory and an introduction to Battle?” Toria intoned aloud.
I hadn’t seen that. “Is that a letter or a codex entry?”
“I-it’s in the instant message folder,” she said.
Letter.
The menu opened my Inbox and I found I had three unopened letters, actually.
I sighed and opened each and every one.
Inventory and Introduction to Battle were two different letters. But they had all the information I needed. They seemed to have been sent the same time as the first letter.
Battle, as is stated in the letter, is about killing the opponent when facing a monster. But anything that has sapience is a person and combat with people should fall into three categories. Duels, War and Self-defense.
War doesn’t earn Skill Points for your lord, only for yourself. And they’re non-trasferrable so it was a good thing the Entities apparently understood exploitation.
The Last Letter was about Death and Healing.
Healing would heal you, but if you died before it could fix the problem, there was no bringing you back. ‘Revival’ skills only bring you back from the BRINK of death, or trade someone else’s vitality in exchange for you being healed much faster so you won’t die before it works.
All written in that strange tone, same as the first letter. With that note about it being translated for 'mortal understanding' at the top of each one. Which meant Letters were only ever from those Above, Beyond and In-Between, or the System, maybe. But I think the System primarily communicates through every other-
“Well, at least Death still exists,” Toria sniffled.
Sophia was standing next to her, leaning on her side and patting her gently on the knee. She was much better at comforting than I was.
“I’ll bet there’s even a tax system,” I said.
The Codex chimed, but I checked it and it was just ‘Taxes’ and things that I already knew by now. It was like it was just keeping track of things I discovered and as a result, giving me tidbits of information I didn’t have before. Just like Codexes in games. At least it confirmed there WERE taxes...
“Alright, close it,” I said as I finished looking through the new entries.
“It’s telling me I have Journal Entries,” she said.
That’s her Codex, I guess.
“Tell it to read them to you aloud and close it,” I said.
I didn’t know if it would work, but it was worth testing out. It's what it did for Sophia. But maybe it didn't work for adults?
She told the Locket to read out her Codex entries and-
It did. Slowly, in a monotone voice, using a low tone in-between each one, to denote that it was moving to a new one.
When it was finished, I had no new information, really, but she’d unlocked an entry about the Familiar’s capabilities, which outlined what we’d already learned. So… at least it was confirmed.
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“Don’t look at it and ask it to list the possible Classes to you, and their subclasses and what those subclasses are,” I told her. "Call it by the name you gave it. You probably said or thought about Jeremy, so that's likely it."
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and asked, "Jeremy... what are my class... uh... options?"
“Classes available are: Calligrapher, Elemental Mage, Color Mage, Beastmaster, Healer, Monk.”
The sub-classes it listed were basically the same as before, except Calligrapher and Monk. Monks were usually associated more with religion than martial arts, but in RPG's that was the opposite. So I wondered if her weekly Tai-Chi and Taekwondo sessions had anything to do with that. And it seemed that everyone even remotely familiar with animals was getting Beastmaster...
“Color Mage,” she whispered. “It says… the subclasses are switchable if I pay mana? That’s that magic energy stuff in games, right? Jeremy made me play once, so I learned a few things.”
“Yes, it’s unique that way. Most others, you have to choose a subclass and stick to it. The powers of a color mage are potent, but limited. That’s probably why you can just switch subclasses with mana but only one ability is listed for each.”
Each color had its own power, and I’d bet you could build on the original power but not get new ones. It’d be overpowered otherwise.
“I… I wanna pick that one. Is that… okay?” she asked, fiddling with her locket.
“It’s your class, and I think it would suit our party well. Sophia chose to become a healer with regeneration abilities and I’m a Sigilrant. I’m sure your Codex will load up with information about those two things in a moment.”
She nodded and told the Locket what she’d chosen.
“Now, open the Shop,” I said. “Ask it for the upgraded Starter Set and choose the one that you’ll be using for the next few months, at least. Something good. Don’t worry about price unless it goes above three thousand and some Coins.” It was a good starting price, I'd found. I'd had to sell basically everything else in our apartment to leave us with eating money after buying Sophia's at fifteen-hundred, but that was fine. As long as it lasts. And thank god kids were cheaper to outfit.
“Ohhh I don’t know any of this,” she muttered. “I like how they look and all, but the effects are…”
“Choose something with Weatherproofing, me and Sophia both have something with that and extra pocket slots for the inventory.” Sophia and I now had five pocket slots each instead of four because of the upgrade.
She muttered more as she looked through the options before finally gasping and saying, “I found one like that! And it says it has good mobility?”
The same combination that showed up for my starter upgrade, AND Sophia’s. Odd. Either those just went together naturally in the system, or we accidentally thought them into being somehow and the System accommodated it.
“Do you have enough Coin to pay for it?” I asked.
She stared at the locket in shock. “It… it says I have eight thousand coin? That’s not right! My balance in the bank was like three-thousand something!”
“You had investments though,” I said. “All our assets like that were liquidated.” I suddenly regretted not having invested anything. But it was better to be safe than sorry, I'd felt.
“But that wasn’t worth-” she pauses and appears to read something. “Oh. It says it had a multiplier for how well the stocks would do in the next year. And apparently they were going to do… pretty well…”
Sophia petted her knee again, making shushing noises as Toria's voice cracked.
“Stocks rise and then fall, it’s the nature of them. Thank the Eldritch Assholes that you managed to get a rising year.”
She snorted and rubbed at her eyes. “I’m buying it.”
“You can also dye it for extra coin,” I told her. “You’ll be wearing it every day, make sure it’s something you’ll like to look at.”
All my outfits were black. There were accents of course, of gold, green, red. The one I was wearing was just black with silver fastens and things, though. Looked fine.
“I… uh… want a rainbow tie-dye pattern?” she said. “With… uh… well, if it’s got leather belts and stuff, just leave it leather brown colored?”
The outfit appeared after she equipped it, like a hazy dream being overlaid on her body and her clothes from before were just, behind us on the bed.
“Ohhhh that was… very cool and also creepy as hell,” she muttered and looked at herself in her mirror, getting up to look from multiple angles. Shorts with thigh-high stockings, boots that went to mid-calf. Poofed sleeves that belled around her wrists and a hood. The ends of her blonde hair poked out, the pink tips on full display.
Sophia had gone with a sort of Magical Girl style dress with cute little ‘going to a church recital’ shoes and a ‘Rod’ with a butterfly at the top in her hand. She also wore an adorable beret on her head with a butterfly on it.
I couldn’t really appreciate the cuteness before, because I was in crisis mode. Still am, to some extent. But it’s been a few minutes since the attack, so I’m able to notice more around me that isn’t essential to survival.
“You look so cuuuuute!” Toria finally said and swooped Sophia up in her arms giving her kisses on her cheek while Sophia laughed and shrieked.
“Noises!” I hissed.
Toria stopped and looked like a deer caught in headlights. “Oh my god, you said you were attacked-” she put Sophia on the bed and looked at both of us. “How, are you hurt? Should we call an ambulance?”
“It just broke the door and rushed in, no, and the phones don’t work yet because the ‘network’ isn’t set up, whatever that means,” I replied. “Sophia picked the healer class ‘Regenerator’, but she’ll probably not be able to do much. We can’t rely on her healing us, so we need to be extremely careful.”
She nodded.
“You need to change your color to Scarlet and see if you have an attack skill,” I said.
The Scarlet subclass was ‘Blood Blade’ which made a sword of the person’s own blood. I had a codex about the colors after she chose her class. But without attack skills, she wouldn’t know how to use it and we were therefore boned.
She instantly opened her Menu and started muttering to herself, still kneeling there on the floor in front of us.
“Slash!” She said with excitement. “It says I can use Slash… but that’s all.”
“It’s probably to keep your class balanced,” I said. “One skill per every color of the rainbow, they’re probably going to be mostly useless at the start.”
“I can’t buy more, it says I have no skill points,” she said.
“You get them when you kill monsters. But we’re F-rank and those Warg things are D-rank. We’d get fourty-five points apiece for them, but… it’s not as easy as it looks. I stabbed one with a dagger that was heating up to melting point and it still ran around the room howling and crashing into things for at least thirty seconds… maybe a full minute.”
“THAT’S what that was?” She reached up and shoved her hands in her hair, knocking off her hood. “Oh god, I thought I imagined that like everything else. I should’ve come and help!”
“You would have died, as you hadn’t chosen a class yet,” I replied. “We need to find more people in the building and help them choose their classes and equipment. Do you think there are many still in their rooms? I know at least two people on lower floors died.”
“Oh Christ,” she pursed her lips and then shot up. “Mrs. Katz!”
She rushed toward the door but I hissed “STOP!” as loudly as I dared.
Halted, she seemed to actually think and stopped altogether. Shifting out of her 'just about to sprint to the door' pose into resting position again. She had such good body control, it honestly made me jealous.
“We need to all move together, so I can protect us until you learn to use Slash with your blood blade. Did you even pick scarlet yet?”
“I’m doing it, I’m doing it!” she said frantically. “Uh… Color Change… Scarlet?”
Stupidly, it actually worked. Her rainbow became a gradient of reds.
“Ah!” she gasped. “I didn’t want that to happen. Fuck. The Rainbow is gone…”
“No,” I said. “That makes no sense and defeats the purpose of buying a dye pack… check your codex and ask why it did that.”
“It says it’ll bleed away with time because I have a time limit to use every color and... when I choose 'No color' it'll go away and be a rainbow again. Still really annoying.” She appeared to be pouting.
“It would be better if they’d just changed the red bands to black or something and had them slowly fade,” I said and sighed. “Call your blood blade ONLY if we encounter a Warg. Call it immediately, do not hesitate. They are NOT friendly... unless you’re a Beastmaster, I'd guess.”
“Got it, this way,” she opened the front door and ushered us through before locking it behind us. “We’ll get Poggers before we leave… but for now I’m not letting him out.”
“Probably best,” I replied. And then wondered how we were going to protect and care for a cat while on the run from Wargs.
A codex pinged, but I ignored it. It didn’t seem like either of them noticed it, which confirmed my suspicion that our ‘pings’ were in our heads.
We went down the hall to the third on the right, the opposite side from Toria’s apartment, the same side as ours.
“Mrs. Katz-” she stopped knocking loud when I literally hissed at her. She reached down to grab the doorknob instead and it easily opened, unlocked.
Mrs. Katz was sitting in her recliner, asleep. I could clearly see her breathing. But I had no idea where her Familiar was, if she’d even found one.
“Oh shit,” Toria stepped in and went straight to Mrs. Katz, stepping over two cats on the way. They appeared to be frozen or trying to make themselves small. The fright in their eyes was obvious. Mrs. Katz gave Toria her own ginger cat and regularly fostered homeless cats to give away to people in the building.
So she had about ten in the apartment at any one time. And they all looked terrified. But unwilling to run off and hide without Mrs. Katz.
I walked in with Sophia, then shut and locked the door behind us.
Sophia clung to my leg. “Did she get her famillyler? Did it go away forever?”
A shock like that to her body, I was thinking she had a heart attack or stroke. Maybe she might’ve just been exhausted. But I don’t know what happens if they leave after you pass out and almost die. Or maybe they kill you.
She wasn’t dead yet, that much was certain when Toria shook her, called her name and she blinked her eyes open.
“Ohhh… Victoria,” she mumbled. “Good morning, dear. What… oof. I had the strangest dream, you know?”
“What did you choose?” I asked.
Her head turned to look at me and blinked hard once, twice. “My, you and your sister look so adorable all dressed up… and you too, Victoria. So very cute.”
“Mrs. Katz,” I said and moved closer. “There was a voice or words, right? They said ‘choose a vessel’, didn’t they?”
She stared at me with wide eyes. “Beg your pardon?”
I looked at her person and all around the chair, then had a suspicion and lifted her left hand. Her wedding ring had an occlusion in it, that looked like an eye. And the gemstone had turned bright spring yellow.
“My ring!” she gasped. “It’s yellowed!”
“No, ma’am,” I said. “Your spirit is in there. And I’m guessing you called it by your husband’s name.”
It was relatively easy to figure out. Toria only had her brother and Mrs. Katz had her late husband and a bunch of kids off in all directions.
If she felt like she was dying, of course she’d say something like ‘I’m coming to you, Harry’ and so…
“Well, yes…” she blinked hard again. “How… how did you know?”
“Because she’s a freaky detective mind-reader with powers unknown,” Victoria said. “But, it happened to us, too. Even Sophia. That freaky pain and throbbing in our chest, the weird letters and voices.”
Mrs. Katz gasped, “The End of Days!”
“No, Mrs. Katz,” I said. “It’s a science thing, not a religion thing. Some weird aliens from another dimension thought we were loud and did this to the world to shut us up. It’s all in the menu. Just look at your ring and ask it to open the menu and you’ll see the letter.”
She stared at me askance.
“Lila…” Toria sighed. “Mrs. Katz, if you want to believe it’s the end of days, that’s fine, but you really should do your best to protect your cats. Even if we’re all left on earth in the wake of the rapture or something, and we’re meant to suffer… the innocent shouldn’t, right? And Sophia and your cats, they’re all still here. So maybe we have to protect them.”
Mrs. Katz seemed to calm at that explanation.
I know I messed that one up, but that’s literally what is happening. It says so in the letter. I have no idea how to ‘dress it up’ without being manipulative.
I’m not even sure what Toria did just now wasn’t manipulative, but I never know where the line is.
“You’re right, dear,” Mrs. Katz said and grasped for Toria’s hand. She heaved up out of her recliner with Toria’s help and said, “what is it I need to do?”