Chapter 5 - Game Has Started

'She seems a little excited' Harold thought as Abbigale continued pumping his hand up and down. He brought his free hand up and used it to lay on top of hers to stop the handshake. He noticed while doing so that several of her fingers were just protruding bone, like his own.

"Yes it's nice to meet you too Abbigale. Um, if you don't mind could you please let go of my hand now?" Harold asked, patting the back of her hands for emphasis.

"Oops sorry about that," Abbigale apologized and released his hand, taking a step backwards away from Harold. "I'm just so excited to finally be chosen. No-one's wanted me to be their advisor before. Now I can make Bluesy pay in person." She made a fist and smacked it into her palm. "That'll show him for sure this time!"

Harold was confused. "Who's Bluesy?" he asked.

"Bluesy? Bluesy is the blue player. Or players. Sometimes there's more than just one," stated Abbigale, sounding like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Right," he replied, still confused on what the significance of 'Bluesy' was. He decided to change subjects instead of delving deeper on why he should care about the blue players.

"So no offense, but why are you my advisor? You don't look much like a skeleton." he asked.

"Hm? Oh I'm not a skeleton I'm a zombie," she said pinching her arm. "See? Still have some meat left. It is weird though, your advisor is supposed to be the same race as you. Hmm." Abbigale frowned and furrowed her eyebrows, tapping a bony finger on her chin in contemplation.

After a few seconds of thought she shrugged her shoulders. "Must be because how awesome I am," she said simply.

Harold didn't know what to make of the situation. 'I think my advisor might have a few screws loose,' he thought to himself. 'Well I guess I better find out what she can do to help me, that Jack guy was pretty clear we only get one. Oh that's right, the game started already. Maybe she knows what I should do first.'

With this realization Herald looked away from Abbigale and took in their surroundings. He found they were both standing in the middle of a forest with no obvious paths or significant clearings he could discern. Above them the trees reached towards a bright blue sky with no clouds in sight. With no sense of direction or any obvious indicators to point the way, Herald was definitely lost.

"Well Miss Abbigale, I'm open to suggestions if you know where to get started with everything," he said looking back to his advisor.

"Sure! Let me see, hmm. The advisor package suggests getting you acquainted with character commands. We don't have to worry about all of them yet though, just the important ones should be good for now. Say Status while focusing a bit of intent behind it, like it's what you want."

While he was a little concerned with what his potentially crazy advisor might consider important or not, he still did as she instructed. "Status," he said while focusing on the word.

A miniature version of the popup screens he interacted with during character creation appeared before him an arms length away at roughly chest height. He looked down at it and found his character's name and stats were listed as well as several traits.

Thanatos

Faction: The Fallen Legion

Race: Skeleton

Class: Wraith Lord

Level: 1

Stats

Confirm Starting Stats?

HP: 120/120

MP: N/A

Soul Essence: 0

Strength: - 12 +

Dexterity: - 10 +

Vitality: - 12 +

Intelligence: - 10 +

Wisdom: - 10 +

Luck: - 0 +

Leadership: - 4 +

Defense: 8(14)

Unspent Skill Points: 5

Traits: Character, Skeletal, Undead, Essence Harvest

Statuses/Ailments: None

"Did your character sheet pop up?" Abbigale asked. Harold stopped going over his stats and looked up to her. "Yeah, can you not see it?"

She shook her head, "Nope, notification boxes are always only visible to those whose they are, unless they share them with someone. You could use Inspect on others to view their information, but they can also Inspect you back."

"You can inspect others? That'll be handy." Harold's mind started thinking of different ways he could use information of his opponent's stats.

"Yeah you'd think so but it's not really all that special," Abbigale said while taking a seat on the ground. She drew her knees up to her chest and continued, "It can't be used much further apart than what we are and the information gained is limited if they aren't part of your faction. You usually just see their name, faction, and level. Plus if you get this close to another player it's because you are usually trying to kill each other. It does have its uses though I guess. If you ever run into something who's level appears red you should run away because they are much, much stronger than you."

Harold was a little disappointed at her words but didn't dwell on it for too long. Even if it wasn't as good as it first sounded he was sure it could come in handy later sometime.

He went back to viewing his character screen. "So what do all the stats do? I have a general idea and whatnot but do you know the specifics for each one?" he asked Abbigale.

"Mhm, just click on what you want to view," she replied. She then leaned back to lay on the ground and stared into the sky while Harold started going through everything on his character screen.

'Right, where to start then. Race information should be viewable now.' Harold decided to work his way from the top to the bottom and clicked on his race. Another small screen popped into existence before him.

Skeleton: Typically the risen remains of an average humanoid, skeletons are usually brought into creation through dark magic that binds their bodies to the summoner's will. Being a skeleton grants the following Racial Traits: Skeletal and Undead. Note: Some skeletons may have additional traits granted based on what corpse they are derived from.

'Wait that's it?' Harold was disappointed. He closed the screen and skipped past the rest of his character information to find if there were any clues in his two racial traits at the bottom. He selected the trait Skeletal and more information popped up on another screen.

Skeletal: A being lacking flesh and blood. Grants:

-50% Slashing and Piercing damage received.

+100% Bludgeoning damage received.

Breathless: Immunity to all effects that require breathing(Ex: Poison Clouds, Drowning, Etc).

Fleshless: Reduced Strength, Vitality, Intelligence, and Wisdom by 30% on Non-Characters. Does not require food upkeep.

'That's what I'm talking about.' Harold thought as he read over his race's Skeletal trait. 'Well it doesn't seem too bad. Breathless seems really good, and so does 50% reduced damage, but if I run into anyone using hammers they'll rip through me like wet tissue paper. I was expecting something like Fleshless, otherwise I bet basic skeletons would be about the same power as humans without the damage modifiers.'

He closed the screen to bring open his other racial trait.

Undead: Cursed to an existence of walking above the dirt that should bury you. Grants:

Mindless: Non-characters perform no actions outside of self defense without instruction from a superior. Immune to morale.

Restless: Unnecessary to take rests. Wont receive Overstrain from not resting.

Unnatural: Your presence unsettles nearby non-Undead, lowering their Morale. Higher level difference will raise or lower this effect. Also causes negative effect on relationships.

Unholy: +50% Holy damage received. -25% Shadow damage received.

"Hey Abbigale," Harold looked up to ask a question, only to see his advisor had her arms held out flat on either side of where she lay, sweeping them and her legs in tandem across the forest floor. "Uh, what are you doing?"

She giggled, "I'm making a dirt angel! I figured you're going to take a minute so I'm just passing the time. If you have any more questions just ask. All the other players should be going through the entire list of commands right now if their advisors are following the package instructions, which is totally pointless since you can't use half of them until you have the necessary buildings constructed. And the regions are big enough we should be at least a full day's journey from any nearby players so it's not like we need to worry about being attacked. Unless they can fly or something. Anyway you still need to finish the Status tutorial first before anything else."

"Until I construct the buildings?" Harold asked curiously.

"Status first!" Abbigale replied simply.

Harold sighed and was about to close the Undead screen when he remembered he had a question for Abbigale. "Hey what is Overstrain?" he asked.

She continued sweeping her limbs back and forth on the ground as she answered him, "Overstrain is like exhaustion you get from doing certain things. Mostly it happens from not letting you or your units get proper rest every night. Every night without rest causes a level of Overstrain, stacking up five times. Each stack lowers all of your stats and damage by a further 10% and once you hit five you fall unconscious. If you go above five you die. You can also get Overstrain by trying to do something beyond your stats, like lifting a really heavy rock."

'Huh, well Restless is good then. Really, really good. I can be doing stuff while everyone else has to sleep. I don't know if it's enough to offset Fleshless but it might be.' "Thanks Abbigale."

She lifted one arm and gave him a thumbs up without looking before dropping it and continued making her 'dirt angel'. "It's what I'm here for!"

Harold couldn't hold back a small smile at her antics. As eccentric as he thought she was, he found her happy attitude was infectious.

He closed the information on Undead and quickly went through everything else on his status.

Wraith Lord: A powerful skeleton unit whose soul was also carried back into the realm of the living when their body was raised. Wraith Lords are close combat fighters who possess a mix of powerful melee attacks and the ability to bolster their allies around them. Wraith Lords do not have Mana to cast spells, but utilize Soul Essence to fuel their abilities. Grants the Essence Harvest trait.

Essence Harvest: Whenever a non-construct is slain near a unit with Essence Harvest, that unit immediately gains a portion of their lifeforce and adds it to their Soul Essence pool. If multiple units have this trait, only the closest to the slain unit will gain Soul Essence.

Stats: 5 Stat points are gained every level and can be assigned however the player wishes. Stats have 'roadmiles' every few levels that grant traits or abilities. Higher levels of point investment unlock stronger abilities.

Strength: Increases max carry weight and melee damage. Increases defense on block.

Dexterity: Slightly increases movement speed and attack speed with one-handed weapons. Small chance for enemy attacks to miss.

Vitality: Each point increases maximum hit points by 10 and slightly increases hit point regeneration.

Intelligence: Increases spell damage, spell healing, and maximum mana points.

Wisdom: Increases mana regeneration. Slightly increases chances to notice hidden items/units.

Luck: Decreases the chance of spell failure. Slightly increases chances of finding additional loot, critical hits in combat, and critical successes when crafting. Highest Luck in party is used when looting.

Leadership: Passively increases the combat effectiveness of all nearby allies, including self, granting minor increased damage, speed, and defense. Effectiveness increases with level. A unit will only be affected by the highest level friendly Leadership if multiple are present.

Defense: Directly reduces physical damage received. Reduction is applied after multipliers. Can only be increased by items, blocking, and status effects. Displayed to show base Defense, followed by Blocking value in parenthesis.

'Alright,' Harold concluded after looking through all of his stats, 'this is pretty cool.' He hadn't been too confident of his class choice before simply because he couldn't see what it or any of the others did when he selected it. After looking over his character sheet he was sure that he had made the right choice.

Finally finished looking over his status he still had a question. "So my stats list is asking me to 'Confirm starting stats', do you know what's up with that?" he asked.

"Ooh yeah, it's really fun!" Abbigale stopped what she was doing and climbed to her feet. She blew hair that had fallen across her face out of the way with a loud puff and stood next to Harold. "Okay," she said plucking a leaf from her hair, "Focus on the screen and wanting to let me see it. Then say Share like you did before with Status."

Once more he did as instructed, focusing on the word as he spoke 'Share' and Abbigale became able to see Harold's status screen. "Looks like you haven't even changed from default yet. This is so exciting! Okay so you can reduce or add stat points from your stats until you're happy with it, but you can't reduce any stat below 1. You also can't reallocate the free stats from your class."

"Got it. This is going to be easy, I can't even use mana so Intelligence is useless to me. Wisdom is mostly useless too, I don't think I'll need the increased perception too much. I want to be able to take a couple of hits so Vitality is a must. And I'll need some Strength so I can deal damage. My main focus should be Leadership so I can buff everyone around me."

Abbigale nodded her head along as Harold was explaining his reasoning. "Don't forget Dexterity and Luck too. It might not be a high chance without investing into them but getting a lucky critical or auto-dodging an attack can win a fight." she suggested when he finished.

"Alright, I'll leave a few into those as well then." Harold then proceeded to rearrange his various stats until he was satisfied. He selected and reviewed his final character sheet.

Thanatos

Faction: The Fallen Legion

Race: Skeleton

Class: Wraith Lord

Level: 1

Stats

HP: 160/160

MP: N/A

Soul Essence: 0

Strength: 15

Dexterity: 5

Vitality: 16

Intelligence: 1

Wisdom: 1

Luck: 5

Leadership: 20

Defense: 12(20)

Unspent Skill Points: 0

Traits: Character, Skeletal, Undead, Essence Harvest, Inspiring Presence

Statuses/Ailments: Leadership Aura

After going over the changes he saw he had gained a sizable chunk of hit points and defense as well as another Trait. He clicked it and brought open its information screen.

Inspiring Presence: While you are nearby allies fight with renewed vigor and determination. Nearby friendly units are Inspired, increasing their stats by 10%. Higher levels of Leadership improve this Trait. Does not affect self.

'Awesome!' Harold thought after reading his new trait. 'It might not be that good right now, only 1 or 2 points, but higher level? That's going to be insane!' He dismissed the screen and looked to his advisor, "So what's next?"

"Alright, now that you've finalized your starting stats you should see your health bar and notifications when you close your character sheet." Abbigale informed him. "Try to bring them up."

Herald closed the screen and immediately noticed a red bar appear in the top right of his vision and a small blue light underneath blinking. He first tried to turn his head to look at it but found that they followed along in the same location. Remembering how Abbigale had been having him 'focus intent' with the verbal commands, he tried focusing on the red bar. It took a moment, but he was able to successfully 'focus' on his health bar. It didn't change from where it was located but he became aware it read 160/160, the information appearing in his mind's eye.

Next he tried it with the blinking light and was able to manage easier than his health bar. Another screen appeared before him just like with his character sheet when he used 'Status'.

Congratulations!

You have successfully finalized your starting stats! Your health and mana bars are now visible, as well as notification alerts. Would you like to make notifications automatic? You may change this setting at any time:

He selected and several more screens appeared back to back as he quickly went through his notifications.

You may now access your inventory.

Local map has been unlocked.

Faction may now be established.

He hovered on closing the last notification. 'I thought I already made one? It's even on my character sheet.' He asked Abbigale if she knew what the notification was referencing since he already had a faction.

"Mhm, you made one during character creation but it's not established yet. You should have a Land Claim in your inventory. When you use it your faction will claim the surrounding area and be officially established. Once that's done you can start recruiting units and building your base." she replied.

He was about to ask how to view his inventory when he realized he could already guess her answer so instead said, "Inventory."

His inventory screen appeared much like how his character sheet had. Instead of just text however, his inventory screen was divided into two boxes. The box on the left occupied roughly a third of the total space and had a diagram of a humanoid, and the right box was split into many small squares. Three of the squares had something in them and clicking on them brought up the item's information.

Land Claim: One use only(Bound). A land claim may be used to claim a portion of land for the user's faction. *Warning: Item consumed on use. Bound items cannot be traded. Will immediately claim the surrounding land as faction territory.*

Worn Shortsword: One-Handed. Deals 1-3 Damage. A worn out sword covered in nicks and dings.

Battered Shield: Offhand. +3 Defense when used to Block. It's missing more than what's left. It'll still stop a sword... sometimes.

The figure on the left also had several of the same smaller squares covering the chest, legs, head, hands, feet, and several squares off to the side and below. The chest and legs already had an item, as well as one of the squares on the side. Harold clicked on the occupied squares to view their contents.

Rusty Chain Shirt: Chest. +8 Defense. Missing a few links, but better than nothing.

Simple Pants: Legs. A pair of pants made from homespun cloth. Can be worn under armor.

Faction Tabard: Tabard. A plain Tabard in the colors of the wearer's faction.

Harold found the setup similar to most role-playing games he'd played before and was comfortable with it. He clicked back onto the sword and shield in the inventory and selected . Both of the boxes below the figure were filled and a sword materialized belted to his hip while the shield appeared strapped to his arm.

He drew the sword and swung it around a few times experimentally before sheathing it again. There was now only one item left in his inventory. He clicked on the Land Claim to bring up its information screen again. He reached forward to select and stopped right before clicking. He stood still, bony finger hovering above the button as a thought crossed his mind.

"Abbigale, do I need to use the Land Claim right here or can I hold onto it?" he asked.

"Well, you don't need to use it right now. But you definitely want to use it soon. You can't do a whole lot without having a base setup." she answered while cleaning one of her ears with her pinky. She inspected it momentarily before flicking what ever she found away. "My advisor package is telling me to recommend using it right away so you can get your faction established."

"And how far does the map show you?" Harold was still holding his arm outstretched not pressing .

"Um, like one or two miles around? It can zoom out to five before stopping. The more you explore, the more of the map is revealed. Once you use the Land Claim," she emphasized Land Claim pointedly, "then you can build your base and unlock using the world map."

"Eh, thanks." Harold grunted in response. He swiftly swiped away both the Land Claim screen and his Inventory. "Map," he commanded and a new screen once more appeared before him. The Local Map held his position in the middle of the screen and showed the area immediately around them.

He zoomed it out as far as he could and stared at the map intently. After a moment he had a smile spreading across his face when he found what he was looking for. He turned left of where he was currently facing, watching as the map spun in coordination with his movement. Nodding his head he closed out of his map after taking a few steps forward.

"Hey wait! Where are you going?" Abbigale asked and started hurrying to follow his sudden departure.

"Come on, I'm going to teach you something about history," Harold called over his shoulder to Abbigale as she ran to catch up to him. "Like they say in the real estate business: It's all about location, location, location."