The pair finally distributed their stat points.

Strength: 3

Dexterity: 5

Intelligence: 6

Wisdom: 4

Charisma: 6

Luck: 2

Surprisingly, Lucy only had two requests. One, she refused to have a low charisma, so vehemently that she caved on her second request to accommodate the first. The second, which is entirely irrelevant at this point, was to be super strong. In fact, she wanted to dump half their points into strength. When Quake figured out that her colossal ego would work for him for once, mostly, he was able to get what he wanted in point distribution.

Before Quake mentally accepted their selection, he had a few questions that he wanted answered before the knowledge could be locked away.

“So, I get how the Met boost most of the stats, but I don’t understand how they affect wisdom, or luck. Tell me, how does that work?”

Disgusted to her core, but bored beyond what mere words could express, Lucy decided to forgo all beratement of Quake, choosing just to answer the question for once. “Met adjust synapse responses for wisdom. It’s complex and I don’t really know the details. Honestly, it’s not my kind of thing.” She shrugged. “Luck, well you humans know almost as much as the rest of the Universe.”

“Almost?” he sighed, asking after it became clear she wouldn’t respond until he did.

“Why, yes, dipshit, almost. The rest have a numerical value they can see.”

“And?” Quake pressed, after a minute of silence.

“And nothing. It’s an abstract concept and no one truly knows how it works. I have heard of people piling points in luck and swearing by it, until they die horridly. It’s generally accepted that a few points can be placed safely, but too many and probability starts getting funky. Really, the only thing the experts agree on is that luck is real. Well, most do.” She waved him on. “Look, it’s not important, if it were, I would have said something.”

It was Quake’s turn to shrug as he mentally accepted the points placement. Just before blinking out of the blackness, he heard. “Or would I?”

***

It was night and raining. Quake thought it was the Universe showing its feelings. Lucy thought it was fun, until she was completely soaked, then she wanted to commit horrendous acts of violence against the sky, which had nothing to do with their current situation and was quite offended.

They were in a lush forest, close to its edge as the trees were thicker behind them than in front of them. It was a lovely forest, and on most days both prime changelings would have marveled at the natural wonder all around them. Tonight, however, all they could see was muddy ground, the rain blocking their vision after fifty feet.

In the distance, they could see a massive city, so large they couldn’t see the other end of it. This wasn’t just an issue of impaired visibility. The city in front of them was one of the largest on the planet. Capital of a mighty empire that spanned continents. However, neither was aware of this fact, the rain causing them to see only lights and vague shapes in the darkness. Not to mention that they had just arrived and had no idea of the geopolitical landscape.

Both wore cotton shirts, denim pants, and leather boots with soles made of a material neither had seen before. It was derived from a tree that was a close relative of the rubber tree. Its name translates into ‘rubber tree that interacts with mana’. Or as residents of this plane of reality call it, Quicksole. In the people of this realm’s defense, the word rubtrenactsith, was impossible to say with any regularity.

Each had a dark, forest green cloak wrapped around them that wasn’t watertight. Quake’s shirt was red, his jeans a washed-out blue that the cool kids used to wear when he was in high school. The boots were a nice wheat color. Overall, Quake was incredibly happy with his clothing, even if he wasn’t with their general situation. Lucy had on a black shirt that, for only the Universe knew why, read, “douchebag” with a picture of Quake’s face under it. Her jeans were a few shades darker than his, with black boots to complete the ensemble. She too was rather pleased with her attire.

“Well, at least we’re not naked anymore,” Quake muttered to himself, shaking his head in unconscious dismay after reading Lucy’s shirt. “Well, shit, should,” he stopped mid-sentence as a prompt filled his vision.

Welcome to Abnoba!

Unlocking martial and magical knowledge.

Good Luck!

Hands out in front of them, their bodies locked up rigidly. In fact, should someone happen to see them at that moment, being mistaken for zombies was a distinct possibility. The knowledge of years of sword training and a form of mixed martial arts seemed to be downloaded directly into Quake’s brain, his muscles reforming to incorporate all the newly discovered memories unlocked in them.

Lucy’s body also received the muscle memories, this being the first time she’d had a true physical body. The knowledge that was transmitted to Quake came from her years of training to better torture souls. Though her magic had been unlocked, Lucy failed to understand magic at the soul level, making the memories sent to her from Quake useless. Well, not entirely, it made her give a tiny bit of grudging respect to the mental fortitude it took to survive the void. Though, she would never tell him that.

They both fell backwards before scrambling to get back to their feet.

“So, why don’t I have hit points, or a mana bar? Oh, and what’s my mana regeneration?” Quake asked, frustrated with the world in general. Their current muddy situation, not helping in the least. To his immense satisfaction a box appeared.

Mana Regeneration

1.n^n per second. Where n equals wisdom score.

“One question down. Lucy, answer the others.” Quake was aware the word please would have been the polite thing to say. That didn’t mean he intended to be polite.

“Fine, but can we head toward that city? This rain is bullshit.” Lucy proclaimed.

“Agreed,” Quake replied as they made their way through the muddy forest.

“Well, I have no idea what ‘hit points’, or a ‘mana bar’, are… is maybe. I don’t fucking care. Why don’t you try to use your words and explain what you’re talking about, dipshit.” Lucy delicately asked Quake. Delicately in her opinion, an opinion that Quake surprisingly shared.

“Hit points are a way to gauge how much damage you can take before dying. Like… I don’t know, a small cut would be minus one HP.” Quake explained, hitting all the high points.

“I have never heard of anything like that. Ever.” Lucy looked thoughtful. “We have a mana unit standard. I guess it isn’t possible to have a standard health unit… too difficult… probably?” Lucy continued talking aloud to herself as they walked through the forest.

“What do you mean mana unit standard?” Quake asked, a little more creeped out than usual with Lucy’s ongoing monologue.

“It’s in the name, dipshit. It’s the agreed upon unit of measure for mana. One mana takes up an extremely small volume of space. I think, like one micron, or something ridiculously miniscule. Anyway,” she waved her hand around in front of her to clear a cobweb out of her path. “It’s also used to base the power required to perform a magical act. For instance, it takes one mana a minute to power a ten-lumen light spell.” She explained, wiping the dead remains of the poor, squashed spider that had resided in the earlier cobweb, on her pants.

So how is mana calculated?” Tony decided to test a theory. His initial findings were positive, but like many budding scientists, his assumptions would make an ass out of him.

MUST:

Mana Unit Standard Total. This number represents the amount of mana standard units an individual has access to before resting.

MUST:

n^n. Where n equals intelligence.

Closing these prompts, Quake noticed a blinking eye icon in the corner right of his vision. It was steadily getting brighter, leaving afterimages after each blink as he stared at it. After cursing for smacking face-first into a tree, he was able to think about opening the prompt.

True Conjurer:

Your understanding of how mana is turned into magical energy is astounding. You can create objects out of nothing but mana.

Ability:

Able to conjure nonliving matter permanently.

Cost: 100 MUS per cubic inch. Can create objects at one cubic inch a second.

“So, mana bars. They are usually a blue bar that decreases as you use mana displayed somewhere in your vision. That’s something that can be done?” Quake asked, as they made their way onto a cobblestone road that had plenty of puddles to step in. The city was at most a mile away, a distance Quake wanted over with as soon as possible.

“I mean… I guess you could. It isn’t the craziest thing I heard being displayed.” Lucy said, absolutely miserable, answering Quake to take her mind off her misery.

“What else can you display?” Curiosity and misery also making him talkative.

“I don’t know. Honestly, they were more like cautionary tales. You know, don’t block your vision with friend counts, or some other trendy bullshit. The only one that I was told was acceptable, and only if it was transparent, was the map function.” Knowing that he would want more detail Lucy provided just that. “It’s a map that the Met keeps constantly updating, if you turn it on, it will sit in the bottom left-hand corner of your vision. You can play with the transparency so that it doesn’t block your vision. Then, focus on that part of your vision, and boom there’s a large, perfectly detailed map of everywhere you’ve been. It also shows everything the Met can sense in your surroundings.”

They were about halfway to the massive, metal city gates they could see in the distance.

“Nice, a mini-map feature.” Quake grinned, turning the function on together with a mana bar. The bar he put center top of his vision at half transparency. Right at his brow line, hoping it wouldn’t interfere with his vision, which worked for him. He turned the transparency on his map all the way up though, as Lucy had suggested, before saying, “Lucy, you’re in charge of the map.”

On the verge of exploding, breathing a deep sigh, Lucy responded, “As you wish, dipshit. Hope you get genital herpes, asshole.” Lucy stopped to point at her shirt then to Quake at a passing stranger who had no idea what it was all about. Whom, after witnessing such an act, hokey-pokeyed his way to his wife’s brother’s house at a light jog.

Mana powered streetlights started to appear along the road as traffic picked up. A cut golden topaz gemstone acted like a mana battery, allowing the light spell to operate. This was done through a delicate, hollow tube of mana-infused aluminum, which acted the same way an electrical wire would work, making a mana circuit. Without malfunction, and with regular charging, the lights would last for millennia.

Lucy mentally agreed to keep quiet around others to better understand how to torment denizens of the realm she now resided in. Quake did the same because he had no idea what situation he was in anyway. He didn’t know if they spoke the language, if outsiders were unwelcome, or any number of unpleasant possibilities. All in all, Quake thought it was better to be thought the fool than open his mouth and prove it.

Stopping in the four-hundred-yard-long line in front of the imposing city gates, Quake pulled up his character sheet to familiarize himself with it.

Quake

Prime Changeling (CP)

Level: 1

Experience: 0

(Levels gained following the Fibonacci sequence. Level one zero experience, level two one experience… and so on)

Strength: 3

Dexterity: 5

Intelligence: 6

Wisdom: 4

Charisma: 6

Luck: 2

MUST: 46,656 MUS

Special:

Trans dimensional Soul Playing God True Conjurer

Skills:

Swordsman: Is considered a master swordsman. Grappling: Is a master martial artist in close combat grappling. Soul Sorcerer: Is a master in the arcane arts. Shapeshifting: Can transform any part, or whole body, into any living tissue.

It wasn’t the most in-depth character sheet Tony had ever seen. However, as that name and the knowledge of other character sheets he had seen in the past were locked up tight, Quake thought it was fine. Although, he did have a question about what a CP was.

The pair still had about two hundred yards to the gate. Lucy was becoming increasingly excited with each step, whereas Quake was living up to his name and becoming increasingly nervous with each step. The throng of people crowded around them seemed to have doubled, while the traffic going out was picking up as the dawn sun peeked over the horizon.

Quake was surprised by the modern style clothing. Of course, it was different in its design and function, but the fabrics all had the mass-produced quality of twenty first century industry and technology. With magic being real, he had assumed—for the second time being made an ass for it—that it would be a medieval level civilization. Realizing how awful that would be, Quake thanked the Source for small favors.

The pair noticed most of the masses were engaged with a screen only they could see. Some laughing, others shouting in frustration, the noise picking up to the point of a dull roar. Still, the line moved steadily if slowly. The surprising thing to Quake was he understood it all.

Hey, Lucy, how can I understand everybody? Quake realized his mistake as soon as the first insult involving his mother and timing—a nice call back to his lack of getting her joke—came into his mind. After another fifty feet of progress toward the gate, Lucy, deciding that she had proved her point about asking random questions telepathically, answered.

The Met, dipshit. They translate any language your physical body can respond in. Knowing she would need to explain further, she plowed on. Researchers believe that the Met do this to avoid unnecessary violence. I disagree with that theory as understanding different beings has only led me to further violence, but it could just be me. Lucy sent a mental shrug. Quake, who knew it was definitely her, kept silent. As shapeshifters, we can match any form of communication so we will understand everyone. Lucy thought this was wonderful, bringing a unique opportunity to torture a new type of biological being. Quake thought correctly that it was just going to cause a huge amount of craziness that he would rather not know existed.

Finally getting to the front of the line at the gate, they were greeted by a large human man wearing heavy armor. The composite metal made of nanofiber consisting of titanium and carbon was covered in a navy-blue fabric. The armor fit his form snugly but not skin-tight. The armor clearly consisted of three pieces. A top armored shirt tucked into armored slacks that were tucked into armored boots, the plates of the armor covering all vital organs, as well as significant areas and limbs. It reminded Quake of a superhero costume, only classier, due to it not being a formfitting onesie, while still providing excellent protection and screaming police officer. This was only reinforced by the badge and helpful tag above the human’s head.

Human (name unknown)

City Watch

NCP

Neither Lucy, nor Quake knew what an NCP was, but he planned to ask as soon as possible. However, Lucy beat him to the punch.

“What’s an NCP?” She asked with the exact amount of thought a horse has before pooping in the front of a parade. Which is to say none at all.

“What? Were you dropped on your head as a kid or something? Fucking CPs. A gold each, then move along. You’re holding up the line.” He pointed to the large box next to him. It had a slot for a coin—the box not the NCP—a coin neither had. Seeing the hesitation on their faces, the watchman helpfully told them. “I’m also authorized to take the amount needed to enter in equivalent goods. However, if you can’t pay, fuck off!” He finished in a yell that echoed behind them.

Cold and wet, Quake stepped out of line, utterly infuriated with the world.

Lucy who was being ‘gently’ thrown… err… escorted in his direction, never stopped telling the human where he could put the gold coin needed to enter the city.