“These kids aren’t ours,” I said, indicating Sally and Billy. “Aran said they could stay with us tonight.”
“That’s fine,” she said. “We’d just have to put them with somebody else they don’t know. You got them to town. Mandy told me a little.” She swallowed, her expression fearful. “You had a Hell of a time.”
“I think we’ll all have a Hell of a time before this is over,” said Mike grimly. “We can’t stay here. We have kids. We have to get to them.”
“Where are they?” Stephanie sounded almost afraid to ask.
“With my folks. Little town outside Nashville,” he said. “My dad’s a tough old bastard. He’ll keep them safe if anybody can.”
“I’m sure he will,” she responded with relief. “Put your things down and I’ll show you where the food is. Your other friends were there eating when I came to get you.”
“I’ll stay here,” I said. “Watch our stuff. I could use a little time to think. Danielle, maybe you could bring me something?”
“Of course,” she said with a wan smile.
“Nobody will touch your things,” said Stephanie, sounding almost offended.
“I could still use a little time,” I said.
“All right. We’re trying to stretch out the food, but I’ll tell them she’s bringing you some.”
Right, I thought. No refrigeration. No deliveries.
“I have some meat we got from the bear,” I said. “I can contribute a little.”
“We have plenty of… wait, you skinned the bear?” she asked with shock. “Are you a hunter?”
“No,” I said. “I Looted it. The System did all the work.”
“Have you been looting? Things aren’t that bad yet. We don’t need any looters in our town.” She was past offended now.
“No,” I answered quickly. “If you kill something, you can Loot it. If it’s an animal, it gives you things like meat and hide.”
Stephanie looked completely lost. Apparently the people in town hadn’t had the learn-or-die crash course in the System that we had.
“It’s not important,” I said. “I didn’t steal it. It came from the bear we killed, that’s all.”
“Well, if you want to give it to one of your friends, they can probably use it in the kitchen.” She had apparently decided it wasn’t worth talking to the crazy man any more.
“I’ll take it,” said Joe.
I walked over to him and held out my hands. “Here. I’ll give it to you and you can put it in your Inventory until you get to the cooks.”
He reached out, and I summoned one of the ham-sized pieces of bear meat. It fell into his hands and I heard Stephanie gasp.
“What… where did that come from?” She sounded shocked.
Joe put the meat in his Inventory and Stephanie let out a little cry of shock as it vanished. He turned to answer her.
“You don’t know about your Inventory? It’s something the System does. Just think ‘Inventory’ and you’ll see it. You can only put certain things in it, though.” He’d been through this explanation multiple times now and he was rattling it off.
“Did you at least check your Status?” added Anthony.
“I… what?” Now she was shocked and confused.
“Why don’t you guys go see about food?” I said. “If she doesn’t know, lots of other people probably don’t either. The more you tell the faster it spreads.”
“Good idea,” said Samantha firmly. “Come on, kids.” She walked over and took Billy and Sally by the hand. “A little walk will do us good.”
Still talking to the bewildered Stephanie, they all filed out, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Well, as alone as I was ever going to be in a world with Party Chat and Private Messaging. In my head.
PARTY CHAT / JAMES: Tell anybody and everybody who will listen about Inventory and Status and picking Classes and stuff like that. Please don’t tell anybody anything about any of our abilities that you don’t have to. They seem to be trying to do good but anything somebody knows can be a weapon. And word travels fast.
I didn’t get any pushback on this request. After the Hunters, everybody knew that knowledge of our Class Skills was a valuable secret that could be used against us. The rest of the party seemed to be concentrating on getting food and giving lessons.
Now then. Class Skills. This I had been looking forward to. I called up my Status.
Name:
James Erickson
Class:
Mesmerist (Hidden) / Mage
Level:
8
EXP:
20001
HP:
140/140 (5/Min)
MP:
260/260 (8/Min)
STA:
120/120 (5/Min)
REM XP:
5499
Attributes (3 Points To Allocate)
STR: 10
INT: 26
WIS: 11
DEX: 10
CON: 14
CHA: 20
Class Skills (2 Slots to Allocate)
Instant Induction
Psychic Healing
Mana Bolt
General Skills
Hypnosis (Master)
Meditation (Int.)
Titles
Mesmer’s Heir (Unique, Hidden), Adamant
One point went to Constitution to bring it to 15, as I’d already decided. I also decided that I needed to put at least a little work into my physical attributes, because leveling up was going to involve a lot of running around and survival was going to involve leveling up. So one each into Strength and Dexterity. I checked my stats every time I put in a point.
The point in Constitution raised my HP by 10, as expected, and raised my Stamina likewise, but didn’t change my regeneration rates. The point in Strength didn’t change my HP or my Stamina, but added a point per minute to regeneration for both. I’d have to compare notes with Anthony and Joe, but it was clear that HP was controlled by Constitution, but Stamina, and health and stamina regeneration, was controlled by some combination of them.
Meanwhile, the point in Dexterity didn’t seem to change anything obvious. But given that Samantha had been cured of being a lifelong klutz and Danielle was now an elf, movement-skill-wise, it was definitely worth increasing. I’d have to add a point to Wisdom next time and see what that did.
Now the GOOD part.
I called up available Class Skills, hoping there’d be new ones to reflect my increased abilities. Or skill trees, or something.
There were.
Name
Description
Suggestion
Range: Special (Target must be able to hear and understand caster)
1 Minute Cooldown
100 Mana
Mana cost halved due to title Mesmer’s Heir.
Effectiveness doubled due to title Mesmer’s Heir.
Allows the caster to give the target a single command, not more than five words long and taking not more than five seconds to execute, which will be obeyed if caster is at least five levels higher than target or sum of caster’s intelligence and charisma is at least five points higher than target’s.