Quickly, I realized that I was reaching a point of diminishing returns. Every search started returning error after error, and eventually, I decided that I was better served just by giving up and moving on. It seemed like many of the core parts of the menu worked correctly, but the peripheral information still didn’t work.
“Is anyone else starting to get errors? Are we okay with moving on?”
“Yep”, “Yes”, Cindy and Taylor answered at almost the exact same time.
I let out a long breath as I started considering what I should tackle next.
“I guess that’s it for the menu. With that out of the way, we need to work on our next steps. Did both of you get that letter explaining things before your status opened?”
Once again, they both answered in the affirmative.
“In that case, you already understand that this isn’t going to stop with just us. I got an additional message when I woke up from someone claiming to be a ‘system administrator’, and they tipped me off that the next wave would happen 24 hours after the first. I didn’t want to believe them, but they also informed me that both of you had changed, just like me. I think it’s better if we assume the admin was being truthful.”
I quickly checked my phone for the time. It had been around five hours since I’d been struck by lightning.
“That means we have only 19 hours or so to plan our next steps before shit royally hits the fan. Does anyone have any ideas?”
Cautiously, Cindy nodded her head, before speaking in an even tone.
“I think first we should cross reference some of our information. That would give us a chance to better understand each of our situations, and maybe reveal some of the intricacies of this ‘system’.”
I nodded in affirmation as Cindy spread out some paper fetched from her study materials placed nearby, and we all started transcribing information from our personal statuses. Once we were done, we all looked over each other’s sheets, taking in information.
I got Cindy’s first.
Menu: v1.0.2
Name: Cindy Shepherd
Age: 5 Hours
Gender: Female
Race: Magic Race
Type: Lesser Forest Fey
Class: n/a
Magic Circle: 0 (T1)
Affinity: Obfuscation, Administration
Character Archetype: Hidden Royalty
Her two highest stats were Intelligence, which sat at 12 with a cap of 20, and Wisdom, which sat at 10 with a cap of 20. Her stat caps for the magic stats were impressive, but the rest only had caps at 10.
Meanwhile, she had only two skills pre-selected for her, not including her Archetype Skills; Identify, like myself, and Illusion magic. She also had an impressive FOUR skill options available for her magic skills, the same two for general, and only one for racial.
On her sheet, ‘Core’ was replaced with ‘Magic Circle’. It seemed like the different Races played by slightly different rules.
Similar to my flight ability, her type included something called “Etheric Grace”, which naturally allowed her to hide her thoughts and emotions.
I couldn’t help but snicker at her Character Archetype when I got to it.
“Hidden Royalty? Wow, they’ve got you figured out, Cindy.”
Her pristine elven eyebrows arched cynically.
“Sure thing, Lone Wanderer.”
“Touché.”
Taylor’s sheet was fairly similar to Cindy’s.
Menu: v1.0.2
Name: Taylor Lachlan
Age: 5 Hours
Gender: Female
Race: Magic Race
Type: Lesser Woodland Dryad
Class: n/a
Magic Circle: 0 (T1)
Affinity: Charm, Nature
Character Archetype: Oblivious
Taylor had the highest single stat of us all. Her Wisdom was at 13 with a cap of 20, and her Charisma followed closely behind at 12 with the same cap. The rest of her stats matched closely with Cindy’s, though her physical stat caps were a bit lower on average.
Her two skills were Identify, and Nature Magic, and the distribution of skill slots was identical to Cindy’s.
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Her Type, meanwhile, was how she intuitively controlled the plants growing around her, and also why she was so terribly against wearing any clothing. Because she was a Woodland Dryad, wearing clothes over her leaves was supposedly extremely uncomfortable on an instinctual level. Instead, the vines and creepers growing out of her body could be controlled at will, doing her bidding.
I don’t think I would enjoy that situation for myself, but Taylor seemed particularly interested when she brought up her ‘type feature’, as we decided to call it.
Once we were done reading each other’s information, Taylor spoke up first, annoyance entering her tone.
“Can we figure out what the fuck these Character Archetypes are? Oblivious is really offensive.”
I agreed with her. If selecting skills was our next step, we needed to figure out what the extra abilities we had did. It would determine what holes we needed to fill in later, and potentially what builds we should go for.
Of course, I doubted that Taylor and Cindy would even know what a ‘build’ was in this context. It was something that I sorely needed to explain to both of them, though I thought I still had some gaming stuff in my room that could give them a leg up.
Cindy turned to the sheets once more, nodding after a slight pause.
“I agree. I think the best way to go about this is to start from the Archetype Skills and work backward.”
That made sense.
Quickly, everyone took back their papers and added their archetype skills as a quick addition.
Cindy’s were fairly interesting, with their layout mirroring mine.
Skill Name:
Proficiency:
Description:
High and Mighty
1/100
Acting prim and proper increases your magic skill proficiency gain (1%).
Secret Status
1/1
Skills used to reveal your status have double the cost and proficiency requirement when used against you.
I took a look at Taylor’s next.
Skill Name:
Proficiency:
Description:
Unknown Temptation
1/100
Unintentionally tempting others with your appearance increases your magic skill proficiency gain (1%).
Fan Favorite
1/1
People have a natural predisposition to look at you in a favorable light.
I could see why her skills might make her feel awkward, but I also couldn’t help but notice that they suited her lifestyle. Taylor was openly bisexual and tended to switch between partners fairly quickly. She also had a collection of ‘friends’ at her beck and call that frequently stayed the night with her.
Not to mention, of course, that she was a regular social butterfly, with more friends than both Cindy and I combined. I was often surprised at how well she managed all of her connections, but I guess some people were just good at different things.
Once I was done reading she took her sheet back and turned to me in outrage.
“See what I mean, Vic?!? Where did these skill descriptions even come from?”
I shared a knowing look with Cindy, as Taylor huffed in annoyance. Unfortunately, she saw the glance, then immediately started bickering with Cindy. It was such a normal thing hearing them argue back and forth, that I almost forgot the seriousness of the situation.
I was already starting to get a suspicion about what these Character Archetypes were.
Loudly clearing my throat, I got their attention back on me.
“Guys, I think these character archetypes are references to tropes in media. I mean, come on. Lone Wanderer? Born to Roam? I’m thinking it’s based on the classic wild west cowboy going from place to place. That would make the skill and the archetype description make perfect sense. Both of yours fit common tropes too.”
They turned confused glances my way, clearly not understanding what I meant.
“Taylor, I know you watch anime. Think about some of the characters you’ve seen. Hidden Royalty? I mean, come ON. Then there’s always that one girl who’s just painfully oblivious to their own appearance and gets into a mess of trouble with the main character! They all fit.”
At my comment, Taylor’s eyes went wide, clearly making the same connection. She stood quickly, her action shifting her vine clothes and giving both Cindy and me a flash of leg from her foot up to her waist. Of course, clothed with leaves as she was, she had no underwear.
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.
“Character Archetype! Of course, it literally meant Characters! Like Characters from a TV show! Wait, something just changed… I leveled up my archetype skill to 2. I wonder why.”
I shared another knowing look with Cindy, as a slight smirk graced her lips.
Slowly, as she collected her thoughts, Cindy nodded. I think she was coming to understand the implications of the archetypes.
Seeming to come to a new realization, she turned to me.
“Vic, you’re likely the expert on these things, but just understanding the mathematics, our priority should likely be to increase the level of our archetype skill as quickly as possible, correct?”
Thinking over her comment, I couldn’t help but agree.
“Absolutely. They increase experience gained for all other abilities. Technically, the most efficient way to level would be to max out that skill first and then level everything else, but that’s not tenable. Our best bet is to keep ourselves in a situation where we can level our archetypes, all the while working on our other skills.”
I couldn’t help but sigh. I’d just figured out what I needed to do next.
“Unfortunately, it also means that while you guys stay here and figure out stuff at home, I probably need to leave. If we have only 19 hours before the next wave, I want to be as prepared as I possibly can be. Every proficiency level is going to count as a massive advantage. Things are already chaotic out there, but when everyone else changes? I can’t even imagine.”
I twisted my head, trying to crack my neck on the sore spot that always showed up when I was stressed, failing, of course, due to my new body. Nervous tick unfulfilled, I sighed yet again.
“I’m going to go back to my mom’s house. There are lots of camping supplies in the garage and an old battery-powered CB radio. She also had a few more guns kept there, as well as plenty of ammunition. I think she even had an old box of MREs as well, and I’d rather have those on hand, just in case.”
Taylor exploded in panicked outrage.
“Vic, you can’t be serious! It’s not safe out there!”
Cindy quickly shook her head.
“No, Taylor, Vic is right. She should go. She’s as strong as the strongest human alive, as fast as the fastest human alive, and tougher than anyone else here. To top it off, she can just fly away if she’s in trouble. The roads are mostly empty right now due to the panic sending everyone home hours ago, and she doesn’t have to pass through any major streets to get there. She can be there and back before the next wave even starts.”
Taylor gaped like a fish, but eventually came to the conclusion that Cindy was right, her eyes filling with resignation.
Steeling herself, she turned to Cindy.
“What are we going to do, Cin? I don’t feel like just waiting around.”
Cindy nodded in agreement.
“Neither do I. That’s why, while you start taking stock of all of the food we have, I’ll check on the Garcias and fill them in on all of this. After that, we can start warning the people on this street about what’s coming and get them to start preparing. I think things are going to get worse, quickly, and time is of the essence.”
With a plan in place, we all moved out to start getting ready. I returned to my room and came to my small bookshelf where I kept my gaming and D&D supplies. I spent a few minutes pulling out all of the books I could, as well as my notes on character builds I’d been working on for previous campaigns. I would turn them over to Cindy and Taylor as a little light reading, which should help them get a head start on things while I was away.
Grabbing some empty duffel bags from the bottom of my closet and the biggest backpack I could find, I turned and left. As I arrived at the front door though, I found both Cindy and Taylor waiting for me.
Cindy looked me in the eyes and called out in a calm and stoic voice.
“Good luck, Vic.”
I knew her well enough to tell that she was worried and just trying not to show it. I nodded gently, then gave her a light hug.
Taylor, meanwhile, started tearing up. She wrapped me in a tight embrace.
“Please come back safe.”
I smiled, despite the pit of nerves in my chest, and hugged her back.
“I will. See you both soon.”
Letting go, I turned, heading out the front door.
It was just a quick drive across town. What could possibly go wrong?