It was a calm afternoon. I’d just finished my dinner, and I was leaving my house to go for a walk. Then, it happened.
Mana density has reached 1%. Connection to Earth restored!
Compatible creatures detected: Humans, population 8,197,828,907. Determining method of Mana distribution…
Method selected: Widescale role assignment, full communication.
Hello, Humans of Earth! We apologize for the delay, we’re rebooting your Mana Systems now! Power will gradually be restored to the world at a rate of 1% per Earth Standard day to ensure an easier adjustment period. You may look forward to the return of all your favorite System representatives, such as Fenrir, Devourer of the Sun, and Shiva, the God of Destruction!
New Misc. Quest: Reintegration
As compensation for this little mishap, enjoy this consolatory gift.
Requirements: Day 1/100
Quest Reward: +50% to all Attributes
Processing…
Role Assignment: Speaker for the Dead
Description: Sometimes people leave unfinished business after their deaths, and sometimes those they leave behind have unanswered questions. The Speaker for the Dead spans the bridge between life and death, allowing the user to bring back an echo of a spirit to resolve any final issues it has left behind.
Main Skill: Immortal Questions
Secondary Skill Choices: Fallen Talent, Eidolon’s Embrace
Passive: Echo Garden
Reeling from the sudden there-and-gone migraine, I almost didn’t notice the sudden, distant roar.
I did see the shadow encompassing me, though.
Looking to the sky, I saw a huge red-scaled lizard with wings.
“Nope,” I shook my head and walked back into my house. “That is not how today is going to go, thank you very much.”
Rummaging through my cupboards and the fridge, I poured myself a bowl of sugary, berry-flavoured cereal and started crunching on it as I stared at the magic words in my vision and very willfully ignored the obvious question of what sort of lizards had wings.
“How am I supposed to choose one of these without knowing what any of these Skills do?”
Immortal Questions (Lv. 1)
Allows the user to speak a word while touching the body of a deceased creature, gaining an Echo of that creature associated with the word spoken. Each corpse may have a number of Echoes harvested from it equal to the level of Immortal Questions.
Fallen Talent (Lv. 1)
You engage a portion of one of your Echoes, temporarily gaining one of their Skills. If the level of the Skill would be higher than the level of Fallen Talent, it is instead reduced to match it.
Eidolon's Embrace (Lv. 1)
Wrap a target in the grip of an Echo. The Echo may speak to the target freely, providing advice, encouragement, and consolement, and if you’re the target it increases your Attributes by 10% of its own per level in Eidolon's Embrace.
Echo Garden (Passive)
Any bodies that you personally bury summon simple Echoes that cannot be harvested. These Echoes gain a limited ability to interact with the environment, and constantly work to maintain and improve the area. Furthermore, the echoes passively boost your Mana recovery and will help to ward off intruders. The size of the Garden and potency of the Echoes improves with each creature buried within, with stronger creatures causing a greater impact.
Another headache flared in my head, but after letting it pass, I got to reading.
Before long, I frowned, swallowing a bite of my cereal. “What are Attributes?”
Name: Kenny Bert
Race: Human (Earth)
Role: Speaker for the Dead
Strength: 5
Mana: 5
Dexterity: 5
Mana Recovery: 5
Passives: Human Versatility, Echo Garden
Skills: Immortal Questions (Lv. 1)
Quests: Reintegration (1%)
“So, probably the numbers. What’s Human Versatility?”
Human Versatility (Passive)
Humans are known for their adaptability. Gain 1 free Attribute point that can be used to increase any of your stats by 1 when any of your Skills level up.
That made sense. Probably.
Without any Echoes, it was hard to tell which Skill would be stronger.
I could probably just go get one now? But would that help me figure out what to go with? Or would it just confuse me further?
Skills seemed very potent. But how significant were Attributes? Would 10% of my current 5 be 0, .5, or 1? And would 1 more Strength make me 20% stronger?
I pulled out my phone and checked for the internet, but it seemed to be down.
It was a little freaky, but I’d kind of already assumed something like that would happen. The internet didn’t usually last long during these sorts of things.
I was still stewing over my Secondary Skill choice when I heard a massive thud. Presumably, that meant the dragon had landed. Whether that was because of it getting injured I had no clue, but I’d been hearing some helicopters and guns, so it was probable that they’d already engaged the creature.
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I set the decision aside, as well as my now-empty bowl.
Not because I'd made my choice, oh no. It was because I'd just decided what my next step should be.
I'd steal an Echo from the dragon. That should be pretty strong, and might help inform my decision.
I knew on some level that I should be scared, and part of me was utterly terrified, but the rest had decided that the best reaction to the situation was to go along with it. That didn't involve running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I’d played video games before: as long as I kept the same sort of mindset I’d use in one of those, I’d be fine.
I poked my head out of my place. I was currently watching over my aunt’s house while she was on vacation, so there wasn’t anyone else to try to clear out. Instead, I just locked the door, scanned the skies for the helicopters for a second, and then hopped in my car.
While the monster did appear to be a dragon, from the glimpse I’d gotten, it wasn’t really that big. More elephant size than blue whale size. Plus, the military seemed to be handling it just fine, and I hadn’t seen any smoke so far, so it probably lacked any sort of “fire breath.”
I slowly drove my car towards the action, only really able to see the helicopters firing, but I made sure not to go over the speed limit. While there was a dragon, and there were likely a lot of other monsters out and about, that didn’t mean that law and order had failed entirely. Maybe at some point in the next couple of months everything would turn around, but for now it was better to be safe. The government had functioned before the internet, and it would likely continue to do so after.
Before long, the helicopters started flying away from the dragon, presumably to put out fires somewhere else. If a dragon had appeared in a small city in Ohio, then who’s to say that something bigger might show up someplace else? In fact, there were probably a lot of monsters out and about right now.
I pulled up a block away from the dragon corpse, and spent a moment observing. A couple buildings had gotten crushed, but as it was a Sunday and they were mostly just small, locally owned businesses, there hadn’t been anyone inside. One house had gotten its roof torn off, and there were firefighters and paramedics on the scene trying to pull people out.
To the side, there were a few cop cars, and a few men stood beside them locked in an intense discussion.
Nobody seemed to be guarding the corpse.
It made sense– who was going to try to drag the body of a five ton dragon away?
I spent a moment considering my plan. They’d probably get concerned if I ran for it, but they’d also probably try to stop me if I got too close.
I also wouldn’t have the time to really think about a word for Immortal Questions, so I’d need to have it ready on the tip of my tongue.
After I felt ready, I started walking slowly towards the scene.
As I got closer, the details of the dragon’s form got clearer. It wasn’t quite red– closer to burgundy in color, though its scales glimmered as though they’d been polished, and it was adorned with a pair of majestic horns that twisted and curled atop its skull.
Its wings, once long and bat-like, were now tattered, shredded through with holes by the might of the military industrial complex.
Once I was within maybe twenty feet of the dragon, one of the police officers started slowly approaching me with a grim expression. That expression turned to confusion when I picked up my pace and set my hand down on the slain beast.
“Hey kid, what are you–”
“Power.”
The world exploded into grey and purple tones, drowning out everything before fading to black.
The newborn soared through the skies, inhaling the magic contained within the very air. His blood told him that it was weaker than it should have been, but it didn’t matter. Not when there was prey to be hunted.
His wings flapped, sending him soaring into the heavens. He followed his nose– there was fresh meat this way. Lots of it.
A number of odd rock formations came into view. He could sense that there was meat hiding in them– a foolish endeavor. He would rend their walls and topple their burrows.
The drake allowed himself to fall through the sky before catching himself again, soaring directly over the cravenous morsels. His blood told him that the purpose of hunting was twofold: to consume, and to instill fear. A dragon’s rule was uncontested, and the deplorable meat sacks needed to know it.
Then something tore through his wing. The meat sacks were fighting back?
He turned his malevolent gaze upon the odd, metallic structure that flew while somehow holding itself stationary and carrying… more meat?
Fury pumped through the drake’s stomach, and he flapped his wings, hurtling towards the insubordinate meat-things.
Before he got the chance to tear into the construct, something heavy and fiery slammed against its wing, tearing it to shreds, sending the dragon into a descending spiral.
He hurtled towards the ground, his back smashing against the rock formations and reducing them to rubble, his forward velocity dragging him across the earth to impact another structure, rendering it, too, to naught but debris.
He roared his fury to the skies and righted himself, flailing his wings once and failing to rise.
He turned to face the despicable meat sacks approaching him, pointing black sticks in his direction.
Heat built up in the drake’s chest, and it opened its maw wide, preparing to–
I gasped, stumbling away from the corpse.
“--doing?” The cop increased his pace, arriving beside me. “Are you alright?”
I rose to my feet, dismissing his hand. “Yeah, I’m alright.”
“They told us to stand guard in case the body did something weird,” the cop said with a frown, “Sorry, I guess we should’ve put up warnings or something.”
“No, no, it’s fine,” I explained, “that was on me I think. I’ll be on my way now?”
“Oh, uh… okay. Bye?” The man seemed extremely confused. Part of me wanted to explain, but I was preoccupied dealing with the Echo I’d harvested.
It had been like… I’d been me, but I didn’t know I was me? Like, I’d had all of my memories and my own personality, but for some reason none of them had applied to my thoughts? I’d been both the drake and myself, all at once.
And now I just felt weak, like I was under anaesthetics.
But clearly that had been a powerful Echo.
Plus…
Immortal Questions (Lv. 1) → (Lv. 2)
+1 Mana
+1 Attribute Point (Human Versatility)
That explained how Attributes worked. Right away, my weakness got just a little bit easier to deal with, which I took to mean that the feeling was some problem with my Mana.
I tried to mentally command the screens to put the extra Attribute Point into Mana as well, and the feeling got even easier to deal with.
I got back in my car and idled for a while. Now was time for the decision, after all. I’d just gotten a particularly strong Echo, and now I needed a way to use it.
Just like with the Attribute Point, I tried to will the system to give me my choice, and then I quickly tested it out, checking the screen for the changes.
Name: Kenny Bert
Race: Human (Earth)
Role: Speaker for the Dead
Strength: 5 (+3)
Mana: 7 (+4)
Dexterity: 5 (+1)
Mana Recovery: 5 (+2)
Passives: Human Versatility, Echo Garden
Skills: Immortal Questions (Lv. 2) , Eidolon's Embrace (Lv. 1)
Quests: Reintegration (1%)
Instantly, my body surged with power. I was faster, stronger, and that odd feeling with my Mana had completely evaporated.
I was currently getting nine total stats from the drake’s echo, and was left with an odd feeling somewhere between joy and inadequacy. My numbers had just gone up a lot, and they’d only continue to grow as I leveled up my Embrace and got stronger Echoes. On the other hand, depending on how the system rounded, the Drake had probably possessed somewhere around one hundred total Attribute Points, compared to my twenty-two.
I was left wondering how those interacted with the body, though. Was 5 the base for everything, and then there was a multiplier based on the species or body type? Or did different things start with different Attributes in the first place?
I was currently leaning towards the latter option, since the drake had thought of itself as a newborn and had probably literally been born today.
But in any case, I’d gotten my dragon Echo and picked out a Secondary Skill, and now I needed to figure out how to level up my Skills more and get some Attributes.
Hopefully things wouldn’t go to complete crap before I managed to figure everything out.
I stepped off the treadmill sweating like a pig.
“Alright, that’s an hour,” I panted. “No Attributes boosted, no level in Eidolon's Embrace, nothing.”
That probably disproved my theory that exercising could boost Attributes. There was always the chance that I hadn’t gone as hard or as long as I should’ve, but I was absolutely wrecked.
I’d also been hoping that leveling Eidolon's Embrace would just be a matter of using the Attributes granted by the Echo, but it appeared that it would be a bit more complicated than that.
Part of me wanted to go out and try to hunt down monsters, figuring that not everything would be as dangerous as the drake, but there wasn’t that much of a purpose. Weak Echoes wouldn’t do much for me, other than maybe let me use my Echo Garden Passive, but I didn’t have too much of a need for that yet either. My time would likely be best spent securing reliable food and water for when things really got bad, but I didn’t want to get caught up in the crowds that were already doing exactly that and was a bit more worried about the monsters that were coming.
I was a bit worried that I’d jumped the gun by taking Eidolon's Embrace over Fallen Talent. The latter would have let me collect more Skills, whereas what I had now was limited to just one.
There was nothing for it now, though. I had my Skills, and the only way I knew to level either of them was by touching dead things.
I still didn’t want to go around casually breaking laws, though. There was a graveyard nearby, but that was a bit too much. I might get desperate later on and resort to such tactics, but I wasn’t at that point quite yet.
Instead, the best plan I could think of was to replicate what I’d already done. I’d already harvested the drake, which I’d had absolutely no part in killing. Why not just do that same thing again? Follow trained professionals and profit off of their hard work?
It was a flawless plan, and there was absolutely no chance of it going wrong.