The screens appeared in his direct line of sight, as if the very thought brought them to the forefront. The first one remained from earlier.
You’ve entered a [Secure Sector]
In this area, you will be safe from monster attacks
Attacking others in a [Secure Sector] will result in varying penalties in accordance with frequency of breach of conduct
This janitor’s closet was some kind of “safe zone” where he wouldn’t have to worry about being attacked. That was convenient, considering he was going to need time to assess the situation properly and from as many angles as he could. The monsters outside wouldn’t give him any second chances after making a mistake.
He saw an “X” on the bottom of the screen and absently noted the unusual placement of the exiting icon. He surmised it was likely so whomever received it would have to at least skim the contents before clicking off of it. If Arthur wasn’t so razor focused on looking for information, he would have appreciated the intuitive nature of it. He pressed on the “X”, understanding that he couldn’t get anything else from this screen. In exiting that one, the one that had been with him since the beginning of this madness once again made itself known, coming front and center.
Name: Arthur Lindow
Title: N/A
Class: N/A
Level: 1
Stats
STR: 2
VIT: 4
DEF: 3
DEX: 3
INT: 5
Accord: N/A
Link Mates: N/A
Feats: N/A
Arthur studied the screen closely. He had no idea what “Accord” or “Link Mates” meant, but at least had a general idea of the others. He loved to play MMORPGs whenever he had time, which was unfortunately less than he’d like, as his depression and pressure to find a vocation continued to amp up in concert with one another. Whenever playing those games, he’d always choose a class with the role of “tank” or “defender”. When he was young, the tank role’s responsibility of keeping their friends safe had enamored him. When he grew older, the only thing that changed was the label of “friends” to “party members”, as he understood that not every party member was always friendly.
He’d done many things as a dedicated tank across many MMO’s, sometimes getting bored and adopting personas that were not his actual bland personality in his youth. Once, he’d even used dancing emotes while the monsters attacked him as his party members took them apart. Some things he’d done over the years he cringed at to this day, though most he looked back at fondly. His favorite by far, and one that he revisited often, was a jokey persona. He found that making others laugh felt good, and if he was a good tank on top of that, also found that people quite enjoyed his presence. He was often lauded as “the best tank so and so had ever seen”, though he knew it to be untrue or out of date, fully understanding that there were people better than him. He’d lead his own and often others’ teams through raids safely and merrily, cracking jokes and making most of them laugh throughout. He’d felt that it was his responsibility to at least attempt to make their time as enjoyable as possible if he could, which is why he revisited it so often.
Arthur’s stat screen brought him back to those days, where he’d play MMO’s for hours upon hours. The games may not have been real life, but they took place in real life, which meant there were just as many bad times as good. He’d known that it was just a game, but he considered any deaths under his watch as directly his fault. He never blamed the healer or the person in question themselves, as it was his responsibility to keep them safe. He would often apologize when people died, which just as often brought confusion as they safely respawned or were revived. Sometimes he’d been cursed out for making a mistake, and sometimes he’d even been kicked out of the party completely for not being perfect. Nine times out of ten, he would defuse the situation or take it quietly, but the times that fell under the one out of ten, he’d strike back verbally. He usually thought of those moments with great shame.
The pain in his arms brought him back from his reminiscence, and he refocused on the screen. He inspected the screen closer, looking for any scrolling icons in case there was more to it. He didn’t find any, but to his surprise, there was a question mark in a box that he could’ve sworn had not been there before. He pressed it with his finger, and the screen changed. Each of the listed items on the screen now had a plus symbol next to them, which he assumed would bring up an explaination of the text it was affixed to.
After some consideration, Arthur deemed that while he needed to know as much as possible, he couldn’t just spend hours in this place reading information that might not help his immediate situation. While he was in an area safe from monster attacks, he didn’t know if that mattered, in contrast with the integrity of the building itself. He wasn’t willing to find out if the ceiling would fall on him again, which is why he decided to only read what he deemed to be important for the near future.
Arthur pressed on the plus symbol next to his class. He remembered that the first screen he got had something to do with classes in it, but couldn’t remember what. He figured that if he could get a class, survival in this place would be easier. If it could help him get out, then even better. He read the text that came up.
Class: An expression of your power. Classes allow for the gaining of skills associated with that class. While skills can be obtained without a class, certain skills are exclusive to certain classes. You can only gain a class upon gaining Level 2, and your class options will be listed out upon level up. You may postpone choosing a class until a later level, but if you pass level 20 without a class, you will no longer be offered one. The classes offered to you will be decided upon your accomplishments over your life, and your personality traits. You will be offered Class Changes every 50 levels, but will lose levels in accordance with the rarity of the new class, with varying other penalties. Every 100 levels without changing classes, you will be allowed a Class Evolution. For those who change their class, Class Evolution will occur at different levels corresponding to the changed class and the time it was changed.
While Arthur was initially disappointed that he couldn’t get a class immediately, he was soon mollified as he gained more and more information throughout the explanation. He was still unsure of how the System accomplished any of this, but knew that trying to reason things out right now would be a futile effort. The important thing was that he could gain a class once he leveled up at least once. He wondered what it took to gain experience; he had a feeling about what it was already but didn’t like what it implied.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
He wanted to get a tank-like class, but didn’t dare hope for anything. He felt that his life was rather lacking, and his accomplishments were sitting at a big fat zero. His personality was bland and uninteresting, so he felt that he’d get a class that would keep true to that, whether he liked it or not. At first he was disheartened, but then realized that if he could protect others and be unassuming or even anonymous while doing it, that would be all he’d need in his life. He shook his head. Why was he thinking about this as if he was going to be doing “this”, whatever it was, as a profession? He moved on to the next thing he wanted to read up on, which were the stats. The word “Stats” itself didn’t have any plus symbol next to it, but the stats themselves did.
STR: Determines melee damage with heavy weapons and overall force application. Also determines the amount of weight and armor one can carry. When the user gains a class, can be changed to house only heavy melee damage, doubling its effects and transferring its weight tolerance or force application properties to the VIT stat. Choosing this option doubles the effectiveness of the heavy melee damage and other remaining properties of the stat, but also doubles the lack of the properties if the stat is low.
The description was moderately confusing, but after a moment, Arthur thought he understood. Basically, he could customize the core nature of the stat to a certain degree. He could make it house only two characteristics instead of three and make those characteristics scale to an extreme degree. He also saw that this would also allow him to make the moved characteristic scale off of a different stat, allowing for grand build opportunities with just stats alone. This feature, however, had trade-offs. If he moved a characteristic from a low stat, the low stat would be even worse. He would have to be careful, but couldn’t help brainstorming the possibilities. He’d never seen anything like this and felt thoroughly impressed by the scope of things such a feature would allow. He continued with the next stat.
VIT: Determines how much HP the user has, as well as stamina. Stamina recovery speed is interchangeable depending on VIT, the armor the user is in, and the disparity between heft of the weapon/armor and the user’s weight tolerance. When the user gains a class, can be changed to house only how much HP the user has, doubling its effect and transferring the staminas properties into the INT stat. Choosing this option doubles the effectiveness of the HP properties of the stat, but also doubles the lack of the properties if the stat is low.
Similar to the strength stat, the vitality stat allowed for the movement of its properties into a different stat once he got a class. Stamina recovery speed depended on the gear you were in and the weight of it, balanced with your weight tolerance. Arthur immediately thought that moving weight tolerance into the vitality stat would be a good move, as it would mean that all the factors would be under one roof. It would mean that the higher his vitality would be, the more stamina and stamina recovery he would get, regardless of the weight of his gear. And instead of having to split the gains of two stats to ensure that, he would only need to improve his vitality. He continued on to defense, then dexterity and intelligence.
DEF: Determines both physical and magical defense. When the user gains a class, can be changed to house only the physical defense, doubling its effect and transferring its magical defense properties to the INT stat. Choosing this option doubles the effectiveness of the physical defense properties of the stat, but also doubles the lack of properties if the stat is low.
DEX: Determines mobility speed and the user’s accuracy. If using a light weapon, also determines the weapons damage and critical damage counts. DEX is more effective the lower the users weight with equipped weapons and armor.
INT: Determines the user’s magical damage, mana count and mana recovery. When the user gains a class, can be changed to house only magical damage and mana count, doubling its effect and transferring its mana recovery property to the VIT stat. Choosing this option doubles the effectiveness of the magical damage and mana count properties of the stat, but also doubles the lack of the properties if the stat is low.
After Arthur finished reading, he sat back to absorb it all. His arms continued to ache, but less than before. He didn’t understand how, but he already had enough to think about. The customization of the stats was a lot to take in, and complicated besides. One thing, however, was certain. If he got a tank class somehow, vitality would be the most important stat to him, with the closest second being defense. Closest being the operative word, however, as vitality was the easy number 1. If he was understanding the stat allocations right, he could have weight tolerance and mana recovery both in vitality. If he did this, it would allow him to scale stamina recovery and mana recovery under the same roof, while boosting arguably the most important stat for a tank, HP, to the max. Having the stamina to hold up a shield or dodge was important, and mana recovery would allow him to fire off more skills with less time in between.
The reason that HP was traditionally the debatable best stat for a tank over something like a defense stat is because of the same traditional trait of the defense stats. In most games Arthur played, the defense stat only scaled physical defense, while magical defenses were usually left to another one. The main argument of HP enthusiasts was that HP accounted for both magic and physical defense, because both types of hits are taken out of your health pool. Therefore, investing in the one stat that gave HP was better than trying to split the numbers between which stats gave physical and magical defense. However, here things were different as physical and magical defenses were under the same roof unless you chose to change it.
This would normally bring the debate to life all over again, but for Arthur, the answer was already clear. The arguments of the HP enthusiasts didn’t disappear, and both types of damage was still taken out of your health pool. However, with the added benefits of the vitality stat through the ability to move stat properties, he would be foolish not to invest in it as his main stat for the build he would have in mind.
Arthur brought himself back to the present, admonishing himself. His ADHD addled mind refocused, and he went over what he learned. Stats were both what he expected and not what he expected. His highest stat was intelligence, which he wasn’t sure if he agreed with. He’d always considered himself to be rather slow, but his lowest stat was strength, which he absolutely agreed with. Vitality was his second highest, which confused him, and dexterity and defense were tied for the second lowest. He felt that all his stats should be tied with strength, as not only did he feel he was rather dumb, but also knew that he was quite unathletic. He figured that for now all that mattered were his stats and his class, as they were the only ones that might get him out of the situation he currently found himself in, trapped inside of the Secure Sector.
He put his ear to the door to listen to the gurgling screams of the abominations, only to be surprised that he heard nothing. He’d been so engrossed in reading and theory crafting that he’d missed their departure. He understood that his chance would be now if he wanted to slip by. He gave the room he was in one last look.
This room had saved his life; no two ways about it. If that door hadn’t been there when Arthur needed it the most, he would’ve likely already been torn apart by the creatures and maybe even became like them. He felt the warm glow of the silver ball in the middle of the room on his face, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he mouthed a silent thanks to the orb, before closing the screen that had been open since the beginning. He steeled himself before silently opening the door to take a peek, then slip through. He didn’t see the orb behind him pulse as he left.
Gordeau speed walked through the hallway. He hadn’t forgotten that the new universe was being conquered today, but drank to his fullest, regardless. He’d partly felt he deserved it after finally gaining the position of a Dungeon Admin, but he also raised more than one glass to the trials the new universe would soon face. He now regretted it as well, however, as he rushed to not be late on his very first day. His assistant, Halla, sped next to him as a metal cube levitating to keep up with Gordeau’s pace.
“The Dungeon General Admin has left you: 76 new messages.” It spoke in a robotic voice that somehow exuded exasperation and a hint of sass.
“Oh, great observation Halla, should I give you a cookie?! Oh right, you don’t have a mouth, so keep that mouth you don’t have shut unless you have something helpful to say!”
“Distance to the Undersea Redoubt admin office: 658 meters.”
“OOOOH, REAL MATURE!!” Gordeau yelled as he picked up the pace. The Admin offices for the new universe had an entire planet dedicated to them, and he was lucky enough for his living quarters to be stationed even that close to his office. Even so, he cursed his luck for not getting him closer as he debated tossing the rules of the planet out and flying there instead. Of course, such an action would get him arrested and tried immediately, with the least of the punishments being the loss of his office.
When he finally reached that office, he began his duties immediately, but stopped when he noticed something that shouldn’t have been there yet. It was normal for new universes in the Macrocosm to trap people in dungeons when they formed, but they almost never survived. Of course, in the Macrocosm’s vastness, there were bound to be many people who overturned this normality. This didn’t make it any less surprising, however, to see what he saw on the screen in front of him.
“Er… Halla? Is that a HUMAN on the second floor?”
“Yes. He just exited the secure sector,” Halla said. “He made it to the safe room?? Already?” Gordeau was surprised, as he’d never heard of someone making it this far, this fast. He’d prepared to bring up the feed for the dungeon, feeling excited. One would think that being a dungeon admin would mean defending the dungeon from would-be pillagers, but in reality dungeon admins received rewards requisite to the amount of people that defeats the final boss. You couldn’t make your dungeon dirt easy to take advantage of this, however, as the rewards you received also depended on the dungeon’s difficulty when beaten, requiring a balance between the two conditions. If his dungeon was the first to be beaten on this planet, he would receive grand rewards. As his eyes glazed over with greed, Halla shot him down with the accuracy of a certain bow using superhero, but if they had a rocket launcher instead.
“Human is leaving the area. Current occupants of the second floor: 0.”
“WHAT?!”