Before the moment stretched out too long and got really awkward, I spoke up, “So,” I said, “anyone checked their status? Get a level or two?” The new-world weather conversation, talk about status. Mine looked pretty good:

Status

Name

Maysoon Alacrity Seebring “Monsoon”, “Chief”

Level (Monk/Mage)

13/13

Class(es)

Monk/Mage

Attribute

Points

0

Skill Points

133

Strength

51

Intelligence

83

Dexterity

40

Wisdom

82

Agility

72

Perception

56

Constitution

54

Charisma

44

Vitality

58

Luck

24

AC

4

Health:

366

Mana:

335

Qi:

336

Stamina

354

“I’m level 6 now,” said Big Mike.

“I also am level 6,” said Consuelo.

“Level 6,” said Amada.

“Level 6, oorah!” said Baila.

Of course, the whole group of us went oorah back at her. The three newcomers jumped a little.

I looked at Janet and Tanya who both smiled and said, “14”.

“Sweet,” I said. “I’m Level 13, just a bit under 14. I’m thinking that with another rat battle and I’ll be there.”

“I can learn more spells,” said Baila. “I don’t feel full anymore.”

“I can learn more too,” said Amada.

“Alright, go team!” I said. “Whose bad? We’re bad?” Roxie came around the corner of the teepee then and ran up to Janet who picked her up and started cuddling her. Of course, the little girls had to pet her and then eGirl and Miranda and even Jake had to. I just stood back and smiled. After a while, Miranda asked again, “Loot?”

“Let see how much you know of what we’ve figured out. Nod if you think you know what I’m talking about.”

“Imues”, I said. No one nodded.

“Multi-class,” I said. Both eGirl and Miranda nodded. Jake didn’t.

“Inventory,” I said. All three nodded.

“Level points,” I said. No one nodded.

“Experience points,” I said. Everyone nodded.

“Mana, Qi, Stamina, Health,” I said. All three nodded, but then Miranda said, “What is Qi, anyway?” which both eGirl and Jake nodded too.

“Hang on, we’ll get there. Primary and secondary stats,” I said. eGirl nodded. Miranda and Jake didn’t.

“Parties, party talk,” I said. No one nodded.

“Sharing screens?” I said. No one nodded.

“Item/Spell/Monster/Adventurer ranks,” I said. No one nodded, although eGirl looked like she might be on the edge of saying she knew.

“Monster and Beast Cores,” I said. No one nodded.

“Loot,” I said. No one nodded.

“Meditation,” I said. Both eGirl and Miranda nodded and so did Jake.

“Spell Burn or blowback,” I said. No one nodded.

“New calendar,” I said. Everyone nodded.

“New money,” I said. Everyone nodded.

“Classless or kid’s levels,” I said. No one nodded.

“Wow,” I said. “We’ve learned a lot, haven’t we?” I asked the group. And they all shook their heads yes. “OK, why don’t we tell our story to you guys and we’ll try to cover all of the things I mentioned. Sound good?” I asked. And everybody nodded.

And so we spent the rest of the afternoon telling our tale, how we all survived and the cost we paid. At the end of it, I mentioned that I wished we had some way to make a book or something that we could hand out to people. Monsoon’s Angels Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse. I survived the mild beating I received from Tanya and Janet.

But as we calmed down, eGirl said, “I’ve got that covered, I think.”

“What?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“You know my class is Scholar, right?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “I got offered it, I figured it’s probably a type of mage.”

“Yes,” she said, “but it’s much more than that. Besides the spell Force Bolt, I got two skills, ‘Create Catalog’ and ‘Share Catalog.’ And they are damn cool! ‘Create Catalog’ is a way of gathering up knowledge about a particular subject, like Oklahoma Monsters or, say the Apocalypse. It allows me to gather everything that I know to be true about a subject and arrange it however I want. It’s like a dissertation, but it can be about anything. Like I said, Monsters, Sex, Spells, or even the Apocalypse. Anything. However, it doesn’t allow lies to be included. No more non-fake news being labeled as fake news, nor fake news being labeled as news. If it’s not true, I can’t include it.”

“But it’s a little bit limited in that I have to define the collection before I can start it AND I can’t do more than one per my rank. That’s why I almost said that I knew what ranks were, I suspected they were something like that, but I wasn’t sure.”

“When you say ‘it doesn’t allow lies to be included’, do you mean things that you are certain that are true or things that are actually true?” I asked.

“Good question,” she said.

Looking around she must have sensed that I’d confused everyone again because she said, “Ok, let me give you an example. ‘Miranda will always love me.’ A statement that is not true.” Miranda punched her then.

“Ow! Ow! Baby, it’s just an example,” she said to Miranda. “Don’t be so aggressive.”

She turned back to us and continued, “It may ultimately be proven to be true, (honey, it will, I know this), but we don’t know that yet. Maybe six months from now, I do something (not that I will, don’t hit me again please) and she decides that’s it, we’re done (won’t happen, I know). However, I could say, ‘I believe that Miranda will always love me.’ That’s is true; however, it is a subjective fact and unless I really needed that statement to prove something in my Catalog it wouldn’t be allowed. I might even need to add some additional information to the statement to make it true enough to be included, like when I believed this, or why I believed this or even what my definition of love is. Nor could I add information that I thought to be true, but wasn’t. If something is explicitly not factual, it can’t be put in the catalog. No more lies, little white lies, no slips of the tongue, no mistaken dates, wrong memories, no wrong interpretations, no conspiracy theories, nothing that is not 100% factual. If you are given a ‘Catalog’, you can be sure that it’s 100% true.”

“Wow,” Janet said. “Do They oversee the creation of Catalogs?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I don’t know if They are doing it, or it’s just the way the skill works, but somehow, when I or another Scholar create a Catalog, you can be sure that it is true or at least factual. I also think the skill is a little weird, it kind of requires bone-deep honesty. It’s not enough to just create a Catalog, you have to believe in what you’re saying. You can’t simply add a bunch of facts to a Catalog and have them give a slant that the facts do not support.”

“How do you give Catalogs?” Tanya asked. “I mean, do you just touch someone’s hands and wish the person had the knowledge?”

“That’s the second skill,” she said. “I can pass the Catalog to other people just like casting a spell. It costs about the same, 20 mana at rank one and they suddenly have access to all of the information that I’ve included in the Catalog.”

“Cool. Does it update? I mean if you are doing a Catalog about the apocalypse and you learn something else and add it to the Catalog, then does the Catalogs that you’ve created in the past and passed out to people get that information?” Big Mike asked.

“I don’t think so,” said eGirl. “I think that’s why there’s such an emphasis on truth. What you’ve passed needs to be true even in the future.”

“That sounds totally cool. Useful too.” I said. “Can you create a Catalog on the apocalypse?”

“Yes, well, maybe,” she said. “It’s complicated. You have to start like you want to finish. I going to try. But, right now, I haven’t got into the right headspace to do it. But soon, I hope.”

“That class sounds so cool!” I said. “I wish I’d taken it. Can you learn all spells? Do you have any penalties for learning other abilities, skills, spells?”

“I don’t know that either,” she said. “I think that there are limits or maybe different paths. Just like clerics get ‘Light Heal’ and Mages get ‘Light Heal’ and the spells are different, I think that I might get spells that are named the same that are different. I’m more of an info path, rather than an elemental path spell caster, I think if that even makes sense.”

“Can you kill rats?” asked Baila.

“I can,” eGirl said.

“Good,” said Baila and went back to petting Roxie.

“So, when you create Catalogs and you pass them out, does the knowledge get absorbed by the receiver, is it still a Catalog, like a book, or is it somehow made into that person’s knowledge, kind of like the knowledge of the new money is?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I think it’s both though. I think it stays in your head as a Catalog and as you use it, absorb it, make decisions based on it, it becomes yours, like when you read a textbook. At first, it’s outside information, but then you internalize it and it becomes yours. Pretty cool huh?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I just had to make sure that it wasn’t going to be creating new memories, new knowledge out of nothing. I’m really not happy that They can do that. That They do that.”

“Well, let us know when you have something to share,” I said. “It would be handy to have something that we could just pass out to new people that we meet and not have to do a three to a four-hour briefing to get them up to speed.”