Mage Tank

I read on, and the text for the unique extra-dimensional entity sign was also in the same sloppy handwriting.

Unique Sign: The Traveler. Travelers go places and do things, bla bla bla, putting something here because there’s a minimum text requirement for the description. Bonuses: (1) Spectacular Vernacular: You have an eidetic memory for languages and an intuitive grasp of grammar. You learn new languages and dialects at incredible speed. (2) That’s a Lot of Stats!: You can gain bonus attribute points through training up to a maximum score of ten in each attribute.

The bonuses looked good, but I was suspicious of the author’s motives. Who was this person? Were they responsible for my ‘respawn’? Did they really have my best interests at heart? My mind turned to classic tales of mercurial gods making playthings out of mortals. Still, I couldn’t see how either of those options could burden me with a monkey’s-paw-style curse of some sort. Even so, I looked over the other options.

They ranged from bonus experience when leveling different types of skills, such as martial, magical, crafting, or performance, to extra mana, the ability to turn invisible for one minute per day–very tempting–and one even offered an increase to the potency of poisons and mind-affecting spells and abilities. Pretty standard RPG fare. I was curious about the That’s a Lot of Stats! bonus. Was ten a high number, or was it trivial? How much of an advantage was it to gain stat points that way? I shrugged and decided to trust the author of the notes for now. At the very least, quickly learning new languages seemed useful. After all, I had respawned in a new zone, whatever that meant, so there was a good chance that English wasn't the mother tongue. I selected The Traveler, got a confirmation message, and the window disappeared.

“Bonus Item Selection!”

A new window popped up, once again scribbled by the mysterious author.

You died and all your shit is gone. Too bad, now you’re poor. Lucky for you I’m feeling generous, so you can pick one item from the following list. The items are roughly equivalent in value to your personal net worth at death (when exchanged into Arzian currency), which wasn’t a whole lot thanks to your outstanding student loans. Womp womp. Here are your choices:

(1) 37 gold, 15 silver, and 85 copper: A straight cash exchange into hard Littan currency, which is the most widely accepted in your new region. Better buy a fancy purse to carry it all in;

(2) Ring of Healing: While wearing this ring you’re granted +100% to your health regeneration. Heal those nasty paper cuts faster;

(3) Big-Ass Hammer: A six-foot-long war maul that weighs as much as a one-handed battle hammer, but still hurts as much as a full-sized war maul when you smack someone with it;

(4) Infinity Quiver: Fletchers hate this one simple trick. A quiver of steel-tipped arrows that never runs out of ammo. No, you can’t dump it out endlessly and fill up the ocean or become a war merchant with a cost-basis of zero and ruin the economy or any other weird exploit you’re thinking of. You need an arrow, you get an arrow, that’s it;

(5) Edgelord Wakizashi: A wakizashi with a steel blade that will upgrade into higher quality materials after slaying a certain number of your enemies with it. Become the anime protagonist you’ve always dreamed of cosplaying;

(6) Wand of Wanting: a wand that will produce an item of minor value that your heart desires three times per day. Never pay for food delivery again. Want to know what counts as an ‘item’? Get the wand and find out, I don’t have time to explain it to you.

The jab at my net worth stung and I was beginning to become a bit concerned about the item descriptions. Why were they all so snarky? I spent a few minutes looking over the choices. The weapons seemed nice, but without knowing what I had gotten myself into I didn’t feel confident in choosing one. If life outside this room was in any way similar to the one I’d lived up to this point I wouldn’t have much use for a melee weapon, and a quiver of arrows wouldn’t be very helpful outside of an archery range. The style of the room I was in and the choices I was being given led me to suspect I was wandering into some sort of medieval fantasy combat scenario, but it’s possible all that window dressing was setting me up to make biased assumptions that I would pay for later. As for the currency, although the author said I was getting the equivalent to my net worth at death, I didn’t really know what that meant. I was apparently somewhere called Arzia, but the economy could be fucked. There was all sorts of nuance to local economies, especially when considered in the context of what time period the economy was in. There was also the fact that I hadn’t exactly done an accounting of my material wealth lately. I didn’t even know what was in my 401(k), and I was pretty sure I’d lost the password to my online brokerage account.

I almost went with the Wand of Wanting, but decided its description and benefits were too ambiguous. I ended up picking the Ring of Healing. Healing twice as fast as normal sounded good no matter what situation I was in. Fix a broken bone in three weeks instead of six? Works for me. Maybe it’ll help with indigestion too. After making my selection the ring appeared in front of me and hovered in the air until I grabbed it. It was a simple golden band with three small rubies set into it. I slipped the ring on and it fit perfectly, but I didn’t feel any surge of power or sudden sense of wellbeing. Having gone through all my ‘bonus’ options, I went back to the large book and turned the page.

A familiar translucent blue window appeared over the book with text written in the normal decorative font of the previous page.

You do not have a name, please input your name.

I always had trouble with this part of making any character. I was shit at names. I also wasn’t sure how to put the name in. I focused on the name “Arlo” and it appeared on the screen. It wasn’t my real name, but I’d always liked it, so might as well. I considered whether I should come up with a surname but there wasn’t any way to know if that was what the screen wanted. Maybe I would be assigned a last name, or maybe I’d keep my old one. I’d hate to enter a name into the window like it was my first and last name only to end up having the text I entered count only as my first name and be in the uncomfortable situation of having two names as my first name. I’d never been a fan of compound names, and if that meant I didn’t get a last name I wasn’t too worried about it. I’d rather be a Cher than a Mary-Kate. The screen updated with my new name along with a host of other information.

Name: Arlo

Age: 0 (physical age 18. Actual age 35)

Citizenship: The United States of America

Delver Level: 0

Level Breakdown: Copper: 0, Silver: 0, Gold: 0, Platinum: 0

Special Delves Completed: 0

Health: 22

Health Regeneration: 4/hour

Stamina: 22

Stamina Regeneration: 2/hour

Mana: 45

Mana Regeneration: 4/hour

Race: Human

Subrace: Extradimensional Entity

Racial Bonus: Adaptable

Adaptable: While Adaptable races lack many of the more powerful evolutionary advantages of other sentient creatures, they possess a high capacity for modifying their environments and developing technologies to suit their needs and desires. +100% to crafting skill progression.

Subracial Bonus: From the Beyond

From the Beyond: Your mind and body have been subjected to incredible dimensional forces and your soul has been irrevocably altered. This experience has earned you Dimensional Attunement. You’ve earned +10 to the Dimensional Magic skill. You gain +100% to Dimensional Magic skill progression. You gain 50% resistance to non-consensual dimensional effects. You gain the active ability Shortcut.

Birth Sign: The Traveler

Birth Sign Bonuses: Spectacular Vernacular, That’s a Lot of Stats!

Divine Favor: For better or worse you have garnered the attention of a divine being. This divine being is currently your patron and has granted you a series of perks. Continue to garner their favor to be granted additional rewards. Anger your patron and suffer the consequences.

Divine Perks: Respawn, Customized Physical Appearance, Unique Birth Sign, Bonus Item Selection, Carryover Stats.

Carryover Stats: Your achievements from a past life have earned you bonus attribute points to certain stats.

Huzzah! More plates, more dates! Your focus on strength training during a previous life has earned you +1 STR.

Huzzah! You can touch your toes! Your focus on flexibility training during a previous life has earned you +1 AGI.

Huzzah! Half marathons are for half asses! Your focus on long-distance running during a previous life has earned you +1 SPD.

Huzzah! Smile through the pain! Your experience of significant physical injury during a previous life has earned you +1 FOR.

Huzzah! How many degrees do you have?! Your focus on academic learning during a previous life has earned you +4 INT.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Huzzah! Everyone needs therapy! Your focus on self-reflection and cognitive behavioral therapy during a previous life has earned you +3 WIS.

Huzzah! This guy’s got jokes! Your focus on concealing your feeling of inadequacy through humor during a previous life has earned you +2 CHA.

Huzzah! Don’t look behind you! A divine being is watching you, and has interceded on your behalf in a previous life. This has granted you +1 LCK.

Stats:

Strength 2

Agility 2

Speed 2

Fortitude 2

Intelligence 5

Wisdom 4

Charisma 3

Luck 2

You have 10 attribute points to distribute. These are Character Creation points and can only be assigned while inside the Character Creation room. Any unassigned points will be lost when you leave the Character Creation room. Select a stat to see additional details.

Active Abilities (1/10):

Shortcut

Cost: 10 mana.

Cooldown: None.

Requirements: Dimensional Magic 10.

Travel through the cracks between dimensions and teleport to a place you can see within 15 meters. Higher levels of Dimensional Magic skill increase range and unlock additional effects.

Passive Abilities (0/4):

None

Intrinsic Abilities (1/10) [Locked - Cannot acquire new intrinsic skills]:

Dimensional Magic 10

Attunements: 1/1

Dimensional

Languages:

English

Hiward

Loward

There was a decent amount of information here, but most of it left me with more questions than answers. The entry for my age was unusual. At least, I thought it was. I had, in fact, lost seventeen years in physical age. I remembered reading about how the brain didn’t fully mature until twenty-four or so. But maybe that was bullshit. Was my brain still 35? I still had all my memories, so maybe. It didn’t have much impact on me at the moment, so I moved on.

What were Delver levels? Was that like character levels? Why were there four different kinds of Delver levels? I tried to bring up more detail by focusing on it, but no more information came. I looked at my health, stamina, and mana. I was more magically inclined than anything else from the looks of it. Also, according to my math my health would fully recover in five and a half hours. Did that mean I could recover from any injury in an afternoon? Forget healing a broken bone in three weeks, this speed of healing was superhuman. Still, if I was actively in a fight getting one health back every fifteen minutes probably wouldn’t make much of a difference.

I’d already seen a note about being an extra-dimensional entity, so I glossed over that as well. I also moved past the racial bonuses to crafting and dimensional magic. Other than confirming that magic was, in fact, a thing here, it didn’t tell me much, though I did shudder when I saw that my soul had been irrevocably altered. That sounded ominous.

The active skill, Shortcut, would probably be helpful. The obvious use would be escaping something or someone, or repositioning myself while in danger, but it could also help me cross the street without waiting on the crosswalk. The skill said that I could teleport to a place that I could see. I imagined that transparent barriers wouldn’t stop me then. I could find a jewelry store and pop in through the glass without setting off any alarms. Not that I’d ever been predisposed to stealing, but it’s good to consider these types of things. You know, just in case.

The parts that talked about a divine presence and its favor were the most concerning to me. Was the divine entity the one leaving me the notes? What did I have to do to garner their favor, and what sort of consequences were there for angering them? It made me deeply uncomfortable.

The carryover stats were interesting and gave me some insight about what sorts of activities each stat influenced, or what activities I could undertake to train them using my birth sign. Physical training was probably the easiest, but studying, meditation, and mindfulness were also concrete activities. I’d gotten Charisma for being funny. Or, at least, trying to be funny. So telling jokes helped. Maybe there were some open mic nights that I could hit up. Luck, though, gave me nothing to work with. Again, the divine presence had granted me one to Luck, and I focused on that wording. The other stats that carried over were ones that I earned, while Luck was the only one I’d been granted. Was that significant, or an inconsistency in wording?

The stat values felt… underwhelming. Didn’t games with these types of systems usually start out in the teens, or even the hundreds? Everything being single digit made me feel underpowered, but I also had no frame of reference so I assumed that I was at least in an OK place. I also had ten stats to distribute. Assuming that each stat started at one, I already had fourteen points spread out across stats from my carryovers. So, ten more stats was about seventy-one percent more stat points than I’d already been given, and a little less than a forty-eight percent total increase to my stats. The fact that I did that math so quickly in my head gave me pause. I knew I wasn’t that good at math. More mysteries. I followed the window’s advice to select a stat to see more detail, starting with Strength.

Strength

Pick heavy things up, put them back down, and pack on slabs of muscle to show off under a too-tight polo at your eight-to-five office job. Strength determines how heavy you can lift and how many random guys give you awkward compliments then ask about your protein intake. If you want to be a brawler, wear heavy armor, or be accused of steroid use, then strength is the stat for you!

Ok, that wasn’t very helpful. Strength makes you stronger. Great. It also possibly garners the attention of men. That was fine. I didn’t mind compliments. But how much stronger would a point of Strength make me? I moved on to Agility.

Agility

Backflips and handstands always impress at parties and staying limber is one of the best ways to slow the ever-increasing torment your body plagues you with in old age. Hide in the shadows, round-house kick your foes, and tear it up on the dance floor! If you want to fight with bows, dodge attacks, or nail your kids from across the room with the Disciplinary House-Shoe, then throwing points in Agility is a must.

Also more or less what I would expect. I’d never been a great dancer, so there was an opportunity for some personal growth there. I kept going down the list.

Speed

Wanna go fast? It’s not just for athletes. While speed determines how well you can keep up with track stars or run away from mounted bandits and stray dogs, it also enhances how quickly you think, react, or decide what to have for lunch. Whether you feel like wearing red tights for aerodynamics or want to start writing your graduate thesis three hours before it’s due, speed is the key stat you need.

The descriptions were beginning to make me question my assumptions about the medieval fantasy impression I’d been getting. These were references to modern day life. Was this world or place or whatever some sort of hybrid? The fact that speed affected your thinking as well as physical movement was interesting. Probably useful if I wanted to win at Jeopardy.

Fortitude

Getting stabbed, poisoned, or taking a fireball to the face? It doesn’t matter that the enemy hit you when you just. won’t. die. If you’re a petty mortal who fears death or a twisted masochist who wants to experience the limits of the human mind’s capacity for pain without suffering life-altering injuries, then live long and prosper with this must-have stat. DISCLAIMER: Fortitude may help you heal from physical trauma, but it will also curse you with the burden of watching all your friends and loved ones die before you.

Did…fortitude make you immortal? Or was life so dangerous that you’d be the only one who didn’t die an early, violent death?

Intelligence

Push up your glasses and practice saying “actually”, because you’re about to be the smartest person in the room! Your trivia team will love you and your classmates will hate you as you ameliorate your crippling insecurity by proving you can memorize facts and understand spells on the first pass. But, it’s not just about memory. Intelligence also helps you combine old ideas in new ways and even allows you to come up with an original thought once in a while. Intelligence isn’t just a stat, it’s an entire personality!

Easy memorization and having novel ideas was good. Maybe I could patent something and live rich on the royalties. But I felt like this description was a personal jab, especially since this was my highest base stat. I didn’t even like trivia. Realizing that, my dream of becoming a Jeopardy champion died. Rest in peace.

Wisdom

When should you act, and when should you refrain? When should you follow the herd, and when should you take the road less traveled? Wisdom gives you insight into life’s mysteries and helps you decide the best course of action in any situation. It allows you to tap into the strength of your spirit, providing both mental fortitude and a wellspring of mana. Know yourself and you shall know the universe.

This was the only stat with a serious description.

Charisma

Charming compliments, rousing speeches, and looking good. Charisma lets you know what to say and how to act in order to get what you want, whether it’s a discount on a used car or the autocratic power over a nation. Become an adored sex symbol, a terrifying warlord, or that clerk at the grocery store who’s not too bright, but who everyone seems to like, and you like them too because whenever you go through the line they know just the right compliment to give you on your hair or clothes, but not in an uncomfortable way like a come-on it’s just something nice they say to brighten your day and one time it really cheered you up after your cat had just passed away and even if it were a come-on maybe you wouldn’t mind because they’re actually kind of cute.

This description was literally talking about a girl at my local Kroger named Ashley. At least, I thought it was. But I wasn’t thirsting over Ashley, I was spoken for. I mean, she was attractive and, again, I didn’t mind compliments, but that’s where it would start and end.

Luck

Fools assume they have some sort of control over their lives, but you know the truth: the universe is random and your destiny is dictated by circumstance. Sudden tragedies strike down saints and monsters get rich off random picks on the stock market. You’re a cynic, and let’s be honest, why else would you pick this stat? Luck may not have always been on your side, but it damn well better be now! Load the dice of creation in your favor and stumble your way into power, fame, or a life-time supply of free chicken tenders.

Talk about pessimistic. It was almost like the author was trying to scare me away from putting points here.

I took a deep breath and concentrated on the numbers. I could distribute my points evenly, making me a jack of all trades, but I didn’t think that was a good idea. I had the perk from my birth sign that let me train skills up to a maximum score of ten. Any points I spent on stats below that threshold were giving up potential free stats. In fact, if I didn’t have to spend the stats before I left the room I would have saved them all until I got to ten in each on my own, then chosen where to dump them.

In order to maximize my points, Intelligence was the obvious choice. It was my highest stat, which meant that I’d only be giving up five free points to get it to ten. If I threw all ten there I’d have an INT of fifteen. I tapped the window and was able to place a stat there to see the changes it made to my character. When I did, a confirm button appeared at the bottom. I was able to take the point back without confirming. Putting the point in INT gave me one to my mana, but I couldn’t see it affecting anything else. I went down the list this way. Strength gave one to health with each level, Agility gave one to stamina, Speed didn’t do anything, Fortitude gave ten to both health and stamina and improved health regen by two and stamina regen by one, Wisdom gave ten to mana and one to mana regen, neither Charisma or Luck did anything.

So, I could gain ephemeral and unknown benefits from most of the stats, or go in on something more concrete like Fortitude or Wisdom. As I agonized over the choices, a new window popped up in front of the character screen.

Four of five party members have completed their character creation process and have initiated a ready check. You have ten minutes to complete character creation.

Shit.

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