~ Guy de Maupassant.
Sarah slept for ten hours. She had not returned home to her rarely-used apartment until after 1 A.M., totally exhausted from the insanity of the day. Honestly, she should have been in far worse shape, considering she'd been blown up and mostly died.
Her body felt remarkably good, although that was probably just a result of transferring back to her native form again. Every time she paused long enough to think about the fact that she’d escaped the disaster somehow back in her own skin, she could not help grinning, despite the grim circumstances she was caught up in all night.
She had spent far more time in Alterego in recent years, only returning to her spacious apartment in the rare days she had off with her own skin. Some other donors had stopped leasing their own apartments, and just lived at Alterego full time, but she was glad she had maintained her place.
The apartment buildings that they used when on Alterego grounds had not been destroyed by the explosion, but the police and firefighters had cordoned off the entire complex until they verified there was no additional danger. Those donors who only lived on site had to find hotels in nearby communities for a couple days at least.
When she woke up, she enjoyed the feel of lying in her own bed in her own body, and sighed with relief. Then she opened her eyes and exclaimed, “What the hell?”
Another blue screen was hovering in the air above her head, waiting for her to open her eyes. That same woman's oddly accented voice read the text as it scrolled past her vision.
New quest: Path of Ancients. Unlock your bloodline.
Welcome to the Path of Ancients. You have taken the first step on the path of your heritage. Unlocking your bloodline will grant you access to vital power, but the path is one of strife and danger. Powerful entities will soon become aware of your presence. Use your time wisely.
Part 1: Advance to Spirit rank D1 and Talent rank D1.
“What?” Sarah repeated as she sat up, eyes glued to the screen.
It moved in the air with her, staying a constant distance away. Unlike previous notifications, this one sounded pretty serious. Path of Ancients would have sounded cool if it didn’t hint at vague, unknown dangers.
No kidding there were powerful entities becoming aware of her. Mai Luan was a psycho murdering Terminator, and Eirene was like a valkyrie of soul-stealing punishment.
The voice did not continue, shared no information about what the Path of Ancients meant, what a bloodline was, or how she was supposed to advance those weird rankings that had gotten dumped into her mind.
Sarah bit back a curse. What had she gotten herself into?
When the screen had popped up while she was dying in the vault and suggested she could survive, of course she had jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, it looked like there had been some fine print she should have found out about.
Not that she would have made any other choice. Refusing the offer to unlock her bloodline, whatever that meant, had been her only chance at survival. Now it seemed that by doing that, she had signed up for some kind of quest thing.
She didn’t want to see Mai Luan ever again, assuming Eirene was right about her somehow surviving imploding a burning building down onto herself. Honestly, she’d prefer never seeing Eirene again, but as she sat there thinking about it, she realized that she had no choice.
Tomas and Eirene were the only ones she knew who might be able to explain what was happening to her. She really didn’t want to tell them everything and have them decide she was suffering soul fragmentation and rip off her face, then shove it into one of those nasty coffins.
Better to take her chances with insanity. On the other hand, could they offer a bit of guidance? If Mai Luan really was out there, it would be nice to know how to avoid her for the rest of her life.
“Getting my body back might have been the easy part,” Sarah grumbled.
She had hoped for a much-needed vacation, but now it sounded like she was far from safe. She needed answers, and fast. More text scroll past as she watched the screen.
Daily Quest. Complete the following conditioning requirements: 100 push-ups. 100 sit-ups. 5 mile run.
“You're giving me a workout routine?” Sarah exclaimed. That was not what she’d expected.
She barked a laugh. As if she expected any of this. Doing a morning workout was the least insane thing that had happened to her in the past couple days.
As a top-ten donor, she always kept her body in excellent physical condition, so the requirements for the workout were not bad, although she preferred using the rower machine then straight running.
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How was working out going to help her progress on the ambiguous Path of Ancients? “It’s not like I’m One-Punch guy,” she chuckled.
Wondering about it wasn’t going to help, so she hopped out of bed. Thankfully, the quest screen disappeared. Normal life would quickly become a major hassle if she had a huge hovering screen blocking half of her vision all the time.
She considered the strange situation while she took a long, hot shower, but gained no additional insights. After throwing on some workout clothes, she headed to the kitchen. She hadn't spent much time in her apartment for a while, so she only had a little food, and nothing fresh.
She made a protein shake and pulled an English muffin out of a freezer to toast it. While she munched and drank the shake, she considered the weird quest again.
Still no information. Floating screens, disembodied voices, and random quests were nuts and should not be possible. Since she didn’t plan to check herself into the nearest loony bin, she had to deal with it, though. At least until she figured out what was going on.
It wasn't like she had to go to work that day either. She was planning on working out anyway, so why not fulfill the quest and see what happened? The vague warning about possibly being in danger soon was definitely a motivator, so it was worth doing a little experimenting.
Push-ups were not Sarah's favorite activity. She tried to work every part of her body to keep herself in top shape, but like most women, she did not excel with push-ups. Still, she could do them, and she decided to tackle that part of the daily quest first.
“I hope that's not 100 push-ups in a single set,” she muttered as she pulled a workout mat out of a closet, dropped to the floor, and started pumping out her first 20.
As she did them, a tiny blue screen opened in the corner of her vision labeled Quest Status. It showed the amount required for each challenge and started showing the amount completed. As she did each push-up, the completed number ticked up by one.
She stopped at 20 for a rest and the number did not reset to zero. So it looked like she could take as much time and use as many reps as she needed in order to complete the quest. That was a relief.
While she rested her arms, she rolled onto her back and pumped out 50 sit-ups. Her core was in great shape, so doing 100 sit-ups was not difficult. Still, she stopped at 50 to rest and watched as the counter steadily incremented.
Testing how clever the counter was, she switched to doing some mountain climbers and oblique sit-ups. They did not add to the completed counter, unfortunately. That was annoying. No one who did just basic sit-ups would get as much of a workout as working the rest of their core.
Over the next half hour, Sarah quickly finished the push-up and sit-up requirements, adding some other yoga stretching and core exercises to round out her routine. Then she donned her running sneakers and headed outside.
She had slept through the morning, so emerged into a beautiful midday, sunny but not too hot, and Sarah smiled as she broke into an easy jog. Thankfully the quest did not require her to run at any specific speed, and the miles steadily scrolled by.
She might not prefer jogging, but she'd done a lot of it. Despite just getting the body back from a renter, she was still able to handle 5 miles pretty well, so she pushed through to the end before stopping.
She finished at a small park not far from her apartment and dropped onto a bench while she drained her water bottle. While she sat, another blue screen popped up.
Daily Quest Complete. Plus 4 free points. Health and Spirit refreshed to full.
Huh. As she read the text, that warm feeling of energizing strength flowed through her again, washing away any sense of feeling tired and revitalizing her like she'd just slept another 12 hours.
“I can get used to that,” Sarah said with a grin.
She willed opened her character sheet. It popped up in front of her in another blue screen.
Name: Sarah.
Level 1
Rank:
Spirit: E1
Talent F3
Body: F7
Body Stats:
Strength: F7
Toughness: F7
Agility: F7
Willpower: F7
Health Points: F9 (98)
Free points: 4
Sarah pursed her lips as she considered her character sheet. The daily quest had rewarded her with free points. If the system worked like games she’d played, that suggested she could choose where to apply them.
She mentally focused on her Spirit rank and willed one of the free points to apply there, but nothing happened. Not surprising, but it was worth a test. She also confirmed she could not apply any of the points directly to her Talent or Body rankings before focusing on the body stats.
By that process of elimination, hopefully those stats would let her apply the points, unless they meant something totally different. It was strange that she was getting numeric points, but the stats were listed with the same alphanumeric code as the ranks. Hopefully they’d get translated properly.
If it did, the next question was, which stats should she focus on? The problem was, she wasn't entirely sure what each of those stats meant, so it was hard to know what benefits she would get, if any, from applying the free points into any particular categories.
She sighed and muttered, “That's assuming these stats mean anything to begin with, and it's not just some deranged delusions my mind conjured to try to deal with my soul fragmentation.”
It would be so much easier if this weird mental gaming system came with a tutorial. She focused on those stats and said, “Help.”
Nothing happened. She tried several variations of the request, trying “Tutorial”, “Helpdesk”, “Explain the stats”, and a few other ones, growing increasingly frustrated as nothing resulted in clarification. She even tried saying “Menu”, and that did result in a new screen popping up. It was not a help menu, but something new.
Menu:
- Stats
- Abilities
- Titles
That was it, and only the stats menu option was available. It was interesting, because it suggested the strange mental game interface of the oh-so-grandiose Path of Ancients would continue to grow and become more complex.
Since she didn't understand what it was doing or what benefits she might get from it, she was not sure that was a good thing, but it was fascinating.
So she focused on the stats menu and her regular stat screen popped up again. Back to her body stats.
Their names suggested their purpose, and they were similar to stats she was familiar with in video games and even some fantasy novels she'd read. How did they actually apply to her, and which ones should she focus on, though?
The idea of being able to grow stronger was pretty exciting. There was no guarantee this would work, but those feelings of strength and revitalization she’d felt as new ranks and stats had been applied had been real.
When she'd first accepted the prompt to unlock her bloodline and absorbed all that energy from those soul masks, her body had healed almost instantly from fatal wounds. That suggested this system might have some real power, so it was worth trying out. Besides, Eirene, Dr. Maerwynn, and Mai Luan had all shown superhuman powers, so why not gain some kind of boost for crashing their murder party?
The Strength stat made sense. It suggested it would make her, well, stronger. Toughness sounded a lot like constitution, which was a common stat in games and fantasy novels. It suggested it might help her resist damage, or even increase her health points. Agility suggested it would help her be more nimble and sure footed, but Willpower was a puzzle.
Did it just mean she'd be more determined? Or did it tie into her Spirit rank, like mana points in games? It was unclear, and would require testing.