“Danielle! It is you. The System did this to you. It gave you a bonus to Charisma when you accepted your Title. Charisma is your appeal to other people. It made you… prettier. More charming. It’s still you. I recognize you. You’re just even more gorgeous. Here, catch!”
As I said “catch,” I tossed my glasses at her. I’d been holding them trying to decide whether to pack them.
She caught them so neatly I didn’t even see her hand move.
“Whoa,” she said. “I… I didn’t even think about it. I just caught them.” She was holding them exactly at the bridge: she hadn’t even smudged the lenses. She looked down at her hand in wonder.
“Your Dexterity, what is it?” I was going to have to give her a crash course in Statistics for Nerds.
“Twenty-three. Is that a lot?”
“If it’s using the scale I think it is, ten is average, five is probably barely able to walk and chew gum at the same time, and… twenty-three is higher than should be possible for a human being. What’s your Charisma?”
“T… Twenty-four.” Now she did sound frightened. “What does that mean?”
I gave her my best charming smile.
“It means you’re still cuter than me, mine’s only twenty. I got a bonus too.” She looked, really looked, at my face, and blinked again.
“Oh, wow. I see it now. You’re… oh, wow. I like nerdy guys but you’re… wow.” Danielle shook her head, causing wavy red hair to shimmer around her face like the ocean at sunset. I had to force myself to stop thinking about it.
“Never mind that,” I said, shaking my head. “We have to see what’s going on. My messages told me that this area will be really dangerous soon. Something about…” I hesitated. She wasn’t a video gamer. I wasn’t even sure if she was into fantasy. This was going to be hard for her. “Something about the magic making the animals dangerous. Maybe the plants, too.”
Her face fell, and then, while no less adorable, her expression became petulant.
“Magic? Magic isn’t real. This isn’t a Harry Potter movie.” She was shaking her head, subconsciously reinforcing her belief.
“It wasn’t real,” I answered, “But that was yesterday and this is today. How are we both supermodel gorgeous? How do I not need my glasses? Where are these damn messages coming from?”
“I don’t know. Something weird is definitely going on. But that doesn’t mean magic. I mean, maybe somebody gave us a suggestion. I don’t know for sure you didn’t give me one. I mean, I really like you.” She blushed and my blood pressure surged. God damn she was cute. “So if you convinced me to play along I might.” Now she was nodding to herself.
“I didn’t, Danielle, and I don’t trance for other people. You know that. I already got my class, I’m a…” It was my turn to hesitate. Did I trust her?
We’ll see.
“I’m a mind mage. A kind of wizard. And I can do magic. Let me see if I can make it work.”
I picked up an empty bottle of water on the bedside table, and set it in a vacant corner of the room. I then stood well back and gestured her to stand beside me. She did, looking suspicious.
“What are you going to do?” Even her doubtful face was amazing.
“This.” I stared at the bottle, pointed at it, and said, “Mana Bolt!”
A flash of light, looking for all the world like a bolt from a Star Wars blaster, flew from my finger and hit the bottle, which exploded into tiny shards with a faint ‘pop.’ I don’t know who was more surprised, me or Danielle. A message appeared at the corner of my vision.
COMBAT: 1 MP Mana Bolt does 1 Damage to Harmless Water Bottle. Harmless Water Bottle obliterated. Nice shootin’, Tex. 0 XP. Git gud and try a real target, noob. 249/250 MP.
God damn smartass System.
“What the HELL!” Danielle almost shouted. “What was THAT?”
“A mana bolt,” I said. “It’s like a magic missile… and you don’t know what that is either, do you?”
“No,” she said, “But I get the idea. Can… can you do that to people?” She backed away a step, eyes wide.
“Probably,” I said with a rueful smile. “But I hope I don’t have to. I also have a healing spell. Don’t think it’ll help the bottle, though.”
“Okay, if this is a joke, it’s gone far enough, James,” she said, her voice ragged. “Stop it. I’m scared. You’re scaring me.”
“I’m scared too, Danielle,” I said as sincerely as I could. “I think something terrible is happening. I’ve read stories like this. They don’t go well for most people. We’ll have to be careful and we’ll have to help each other.” I picked up my suitcase, which was light as this had only been a weekend getaway. “We should go see if the others are awake and what they know.”
She grabbed her bag, which was just a big purple duffel.
“All right. Let’s go,” she said, voice still a bit unsteady.
Before I opened the door, I paused and looked at her, an unpleasant thought coming to me. I’d talked to Danielle quite a bit online, and yesterday and last night we’d done more than talk. I had at least a little faith I knew what kind of person she was.
The others, not so much. I didn’t know anything bad about them. But I didn’t really know them, period.
“Danielle, we should be careful about telling the others about our abilities. I don’t know about you, but I don’t really know them well. Not like I know you.” I struggled with how to say what I was thinking without sounding like a paranoid jerk. Especially since I was kinda being a paranoid jerk. I hadn’t told her my real class or about my own Title.
“What I mean is,” I said after a second, “that we don’t know what’s happening. We should try to help each other, but if we tell the others everything, they… they could use it against us. If it turns out they’re not good people. I’m just saying, let’s be careful.”
“What do you mean, use it against us?” she said, confused.
“If they know what we can do, they can defend themselves better than we can if we don’t know what they can do. I hope it won’t be like that. But I know you. I think I can trust you. Some of them I’d never really even talked to before yesterday. See what I mean?”
Her face drooped. I wanted to kiss it better. This superhuman charisma thing was going to be trouble.
“Yeah, I… I guess so,” she said after a moment. “I’ll try to be careful.”
“We can talk about other things,” I said quickly. “Anything that might not be a weakness for us personally. Just not anything specific about what we can do. Not unless we have to. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said, lips pursed. Her expression firmed a bit.
“Good. Ready now?” I asked? She nodded.
I opened the door and stepped into the hall.
Chapter 2
Group Chat
The cabin was set up for groups of friends or a large family gathering: the upper floor was a long hallway with three bedrooms and a bathroom on either side. On either end, stairs descended to the first floor, which had a kitchen area and a great room that opened onto a big deck with a hot tub. No one was in the hall and all the doors were closed.