“Without opportunities to test the limits of our Skills, they stagnate. We stagnate. It’s why crime is tolerated, to a point. Without criminals, those recruited to enforce the law lack opportunities to advance. Of course, the inverse is also true, to a point. Moving unnoticed into a home is not much of an accomplishment when there is no real risk involved. It’s an odd balance.”
~Unknown
The wheel turns. The cow shits. Whatever imagery you assign to the passage of time does nothing to halt its steady procession. My childhood days continued to pass with regularity that eventually became routine as I settled further into my identity as Will Duscall. Duscall, the same surname as my mother’s side of the family. For the record, Tulos’ surname was Tostro. Tradition dictated I adopt the family name of the parent with the highest social status. In our case, that was Tina by a wide margin. I occasionally wondered how such a thing was determined in less obvious situations but didn’t devote much energy to the question.
My fifth birthday was weeks behind me. The calendar was another one of those eerily familiar details that prevented me from completely dismissing the possibility that I was still on Earth. Hours in a day, days in week, weeks in a month and months in a year. It was all the same. Stuff had different names, of course, but it was otherwise uncanny. That last birthday weighed heavily on my mind.
My fiancé and I were together for five years before my sudden, unexpected death. A death I still couldn’t remember. I had officially been apart from her longer than we were together. Cruel realities are often the most haunting. Like all good intrusive thoughts, it would strike suddenly and without rhyme or reason, ravaging my mood and digging its slimy tendrils into my psyche. I’d feel empty. Hollow. Sick. Those days were not productive. Even with the support of Perseverance I’d usually wind up wasting the rest of the day in ruthless self-critique for things beyond my control.
It wasn’t all bad, though. No, that phrasing is unfair. Most days were, objectively, wonderful, and I collected many fond memories. Tulos and I shared our enjoyment of thunderstorms when they happened to roll through. We wouldn’t talk, just enjoy silent company while watching lightning split the sky. Tina took note of my love for dogs. When I was big enough to take a more active role during our daily visits to the kennel she began teaching me the basics of her profession. There was even a new litter of puppies to replace those who graduated and were shipped off to work in neighboring villages. There were smiles, there was laughter. There were tears and there was frustration. We were a family.
Some nights, when I was left alone with my thoughts, I’d ask myself why I was holding on so fiercely to the life I lost…
I didn’t have a good answer.
It’s funny, isn’t it? Part of me knew she’d want me to let go - to move on. Part of me knew that tearing myself between who I was and who I was becoming would cause me nothing but pain. I knew this, yet I could not let go. I wasn’t ready.
I don’t think I ever wanted to be. Funny, right?
***
I was on the cusp of my first Advancement. The rate at which I was able to generate proficiency points was, according to my parents, absurd for my age. Fortunately, they accredited most of my progress to the nature of my Skill and not that I had the cognitive capacity to deliberately plan and push the limits of Perseverance. The benefits of the Skill I’d previously observed grew more pronounced with every level. It had reached the point I could stick to positive routines with barely any conscious effort.
Perseverance Level 7/10
Current proficiency points: 700/700
You have gained sufficient recognized proficiency to advance to Perseverance Level 8.
Perseverance Level 8/10
Current proficiency points: 800/800
You have gained sufficient recognized proficiency to advance to Perseverance Level 9.
Perseverance Level 9/10
Current proficiency points: 899/900
I was barred by a bottleneck. That last proficiency point eluded me. Most of my progress over the last couple of years came from learning to read and adopting a simple exercise regime. It was nothing fancy, just the occasional jog when I was given free rein of the yard and some stretches I vaguely remembered from my brief jaunts into yoga and general gym culture. Tina taught me my letters and numbers with a stick and a patch of dirt, not that I needed much help for the latter. It wasn’t the fanciest classroom, but it got the job done.
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Those lessons concluded with Tina coaching me in calling up the System screen and explaining what I had already inferred regarding proficiency points and leveling up my Skills.
The problem was that my existing strategies for farming proficiency points in a low leveled Skill, which ultimately amounted to repetition, wouldn’t be enough to push it over the edge. I needed guidance, so I asked Tulos. He almost choked on his drink when I mentioned that I felt Perseverance was about to advance. According to him, Advancement would require something more. A deed. A feat. An innovation. Any of them would suffice, what mattered was that my Skill was forced beyond its already stretched limits in the process.
Neither Tina nor Tulos knew of ‘common Advancement strategies’ - which were apparently a thing - for my Core Skill. They cautioned against trying to force the issue unless I was absolutely certain I knew how I wanted to define the progression of my Skill. They were annoyingly cagey as to what they meant by that.
Why would they want to delay or deny me? Maybe they worried it would make it even harder for me to fly under the radar. Perhaps there was something ephemeral about the first Advancement, a potency that would be blunted if I knew exactly what to expect. Or it could have been one of a bajillion other reasons. Regardless, they were adamant in their refusal to go into explicit detail.
The annoying part was, if they were trying to delay me, it was working. I didn’t want to risk accidently stunting my future System growth by rushing, so I stalled. I began contemplating my understanding of Perseverance and making a list of ways I might be able to push it to level 10. That list was topped by a possibility inspired by my first use of the Skill: pushing through exhaustion.
I started making plans. It wouldn’t be fun, but if no better opportunities presented themselves I’d deny myself sleep for as long as possible and see if that did the trick. Suffice to say, another opportunity eventually did present itself. I just wish it hadn’t.
***
“Will! You died! I used my Skill to explode you.” Jusep crowed his apparent victory at me as we played in the fields around my house. We’d been told stories about heroic figures who could conjure balls of fire and other fantastical feats of magic. It was never clear how those feats were connected to The System, or if they were at all, but the concept had begun to bleed into our games of make believe.
“Okay, Jusep,” I replied placatingly and sat down on the ground to represent my imaginary death. I heard Bella giggle before she pointed an accusatory finger at me.
“No, silly! You got exploded! You have to die like you got exploded!” She took the pause in the game to brush a stray lock of dirty blonde hair out of her face, the usual culprit. I rolled my eyes but capitulated, making a dramatic showing of clutching at my everything and miming explosions as I crumpled to the ground. Bella gave an approving laugh and resumed her epic duel with Jusep. Now that we had the freedom to play without constant adult supervision I couldn’t help but feel a sense of responsibility for those two. Telling myself I was like their pint-sized babysitter helped me play along with their antics without feeling too ridiculous.
Tulos was working on something in his shed and Tina was in the kennel on the other side of the property. I was initially surprised that they let us play around without constant supervision, but it was the same at Bella and Jusep’s houses. I quickly realized it was my old life sensibilities that made the situation seem odd, but even those were recent historically speaking. My dad’s generation would be told to go play outside or ride their bikes around the neighborhood unsupervised so long as they were home before dinner.
“I’m bored now,” Jusep declared after a brief exchange with Bella in which they were yelling over each other about why their imaginary Skills made them the winner. He dropped the stick he’d been wielding as a pretend sword and started looking around for his next whim. As the - biologically - oldest he often insisted on taking charge of our games and activities. Despite my initial reluctance to be bossed around by a kid, I eventually decided to just go along with it and avoid conflict as much as possible. Since learning about Tulos’ situation I didn’t want to drag our parents into unnecessary spats or disputes. I only ever spoke up when he consistently shut down Bella’s ideas to make sure she also got a turn playing games she enjoyed.
“How about we all go inside and relax?” That suggestion had been accepted a grand total of zero times, but I still had to ask. Given Jusep’s Core Skill I was disappointed he didn’t enjoy showing it off more. Unfortunately not even The System can interfere with a child’s desire to play.
Over the years I’d managed to weasel Jusep and Bella’s Core Skills out of them. Jusep’s was Cooking [Stews], a Professional Core, labeled as such because it positioned him to excel in a profession. The Skill gave Jusep an instinctive understanding of ingredients, flavor, cooking times - basically everything - but only when it came to stews. It was impressive for an eight-year-old and I could hardly imagine what a high level cooking Skill might be able to accomplish. I was excited to find out. It was also interesting to gain some insight into the limits of a specialized Skill. Jusep struggled to draw connections between the ingredients he used and how they might apply to non-stew dishes since he’d gotten used to feeling his way through the cooking process. Age, practice, and experience would probably bridge the gap over time, but Jusep had different priorities most days.
Bella’s Core Skill worried me and I was glad I found out about it before she was old enough to develop too much cunning. From what I could gather, Observation [Social, Truth] basically helped Bella identify and interpret a person’s social tells. Obviously, the Skill didn’t turn her into a human lie detector at such a low level, but she had a knack for winning the ‘guess which hand the rock is in’ game. She also wouldn’t be low-leveled forever. I started carefully policing what I told her and knew I would have to eventually try and limit our time together. I had some big secrets.
It was funny to watch her consistently call out Jusep’s bullshit though.
They were under the impression my Core Skill was Trapping [Small Game], the same Skill Tina told Zetta I had all those years ago. The idea was people wouldn’t expect me to start properly utilizing the Skill without an apprenticeship of sorts when I was old enough to responsibly explore the edges of the forest. Tina had even begun secretly training one of the new litter of puppies, a process I was closely involved with, to serve as a hunting dog. The plan was for Snare to make my performance appear Skill-Enhanced… for a time at least.
“No. I want to explore the forest today.” I frowned to make my displeasure at the suggestion known. We had one rule and it was not to wander into the forest. Rather, I should say The Forest. Note the capitalization. Turns out whatever continent I was on was dominated by a central forest the size of a massive country. Animals as I knew them lived on the outskirts but deeper in is where things got weird. Remember my odd rhino-toad plushie? They’re called swonts and they live in the First Ring.
Elbura bordered a sort of ‘forest peninsula’ that was effectively all outskirts when considered on the scale of the greater whole. It was a safe, backwater part of the world. That didn’t mean that it was free of predators, though. Tina trained livestock guardians for a reason.
“No, Jusep. We are not going to go into the forest.” What was it about children that made them want to do the one thing they were told not to?
“Yes, we are.” Jusep’s eyes narrowed. Apparently he wasn’t in the mood to be denied that day and was about to make it my problem.
Why does it always have to be a whole thing with this kid?