Not for the first time, Solon reread the squarish runes floating in front of him. Strangely enough, he could decipher the words they formed with ease, despite never having learned how to. He wasn’t even surprised by it, though. It seemed that just was the way his life now worked, and he had just better get used to it. No need to say, he had always considered himself pretty adaptable...

Quest: Gotta catch ‘em all!

You want to be the very best, like no one ever was?

Bad news, getting a Full Set won’t take you there! Still, it’s better than nothing.

Objective: Get a Full Set of Keystones.

Reward: Class. Random.

Progress: 1/6

Skill: Fool me Twice! (I)

Feel shame. Bring shame. All the same!

Effects:

(I)-Sucks to be you!

For a Small to High Od and Small Stamina cost, create a controllable Ethereal Body Double of Caster. An Ethereal Body Double is a physical construct that mimics all of Caster’s parameters, including appearance, auras, boons, and ailments, but see their Vitality increased by a semi-aleatory factor, depending on initial Od density and Skill level.

Ethereal Body Doubles are unable to make use of active Skills.

Ethereal Body Doubles expend an Insignificant to Tiny amount of Od per Breath, depending on exertion, and will automatically disperse upon depletion.

Ethereal Body Doubles can be dispersed at will by Caster, refunding a part of the Skill’s Cost.

Cooldown: 30 minutes.

Currently active instances: [0/1]

::Begin Local Tutorial? [Yes/Aye!]

No matter what, a part of him still wanted to doubt his eyes. Another, bigger part of him was experiencing a severe case of absurdity fatigue, though, and just didn’t feel like giving a flying fuck about anything anymore. So what if whatever sort of intelligence was behind the runes seemed to be a sarcastic, smug little shit, or somehow knew enough to throw in references from popular culture?

“A-yes! Aye cap’n! Bring on the fucking Tutorial, why the hell not!”

As soon as he agreed -not like he actually seemed to have an option-, two things happened. First, the floating words blinked, as if acknowledging his acquiescence, before being replaced by a new set of runes. Then, the small cell he was being held suddenly expanded. There was no gradual transition, nor any sort of physical tell; one moment the walls on his sides were close enough that he could almost touch them with his arms outstretched, the next, they were at least thrice as far.

“Uh?” Solon deadpanned, glancing at the new boundaries. “Fancy trick.”

Perhaps it wasn’t the sanest thing, but he was starting to get the feeling that the System -as he was coming to think of it- had its own will, and that said Will was having a good laugh at his expense. As far he was concerned, it could go get screwed.

Welcome to the Lower Realms, Traveler from faraway lands!

Rejoice! In their infinite wisdom and mercy, the Lords and Ladies have mandated that new arrivals be granted a Modicum of Help, before being thrown out into the wide World.

New Quest acquired!

Quest: Modicum of Help(1)-Freebie Hunting!

O virginal Hunter, may thou have a pleasant first experience.

Objective: Defeat the enemy.

Reward: Unlocking of Basic Functionalities, Fancy Weapon.

Honestly, by then he had started to think that nothing could faze him anymore. Which is probably why life decided to prove how thoroughly wrong he was.

As soon as he was done reading, space seemed to shatter, for lack of a better word, at the opposite side of the room. Just the sound it made sent him jumping.

“What the fuck is going on now!?”

The pitch-black cracks spread rapidly, in a circular fashion, as if the fabric of reality was nothing but common glass someone had casually broken. The phenomenon was anything but common, however. He could physically feel the fracture, crackling with power, and it just felt wrong on so many levels that his brain seemed to be unable to actually make sense out of it. He could only look on with a sort of morbid curiosity, half-frozen in place by fear...

A couple of seconds later, the entire thing exploded inwards, into thousands of shards, leaving a jagged window into the abyss in its place. Something primal within him was completely terrified by the gaping wound. For once, the world itself seemed to agree with him, as if reality itself was holding its breath in anticipation.

Then, something was shoved out of the darkness.

A horrified scream left Solon’s lips before his eyes even had time to register the abyssal spawn. When they finally did, however, the scream died on his lips.

“A-A... scarecrow?”

Seemingly harmless, with an inane smile sewn across its stupid face -although suspended in midair by what, he had no doubts, had to be sinister forces-, there was no mistaking the straw-man for anything else. It looked stereotypical and perfectly inanimate.

Are you fucking serious?

Despite its overall benign appearance, he kept his distance, looking at the thing with suspicion. He had seen enough horror movies.

Several minutes later, however, nothing had changed, and the object? still had to make a single move. Still, prudence demanded he stayed away, both from it and -more importantly- the portal it had come out from. That being said, as time went on, it became pretty obvious he had to do something, which left him at a bit of an impasse. He had no way to test the waters safely. After all, the only thing in the room, aside from his naked self, was...

Yeah, no way I’m going to start literally flinging shit, thank you very much.

Maybe, if the statuette had still been at hand, he could at least have thrown it at the thing...

“Duh, the Skill, you bloody genius!”

The thought made him want to facepalm. In retrospect, maybe not having tested it, even before agreeing to join the tutorial, had been a bit of a mistake. Not to mention, not having made use of it immediately after being told he had to ‘defeat the enemy’... In fact, now that he actually thought about it, many of his reactions thus far didn’t seem to be exactly his, almost as if he was being pushed in a certain direction...

Then again, his brain, weak fleshy bastard as it was, was probably entitled to act a bit out of sorts, what with everything that had happened. Plus, he hadn’t been able to catch even a wink of sleep in what was starting to feel like an entire lifetime...

Yeah, good old paranoia showing its fangs.

At least Bobby finally went sile-

...Uh?

He frowned.

I guess didn’t notice when that happened either... Man, I really need some coffee.

Well, first things first. Now, how do I- Oh.

As soon as he thought about it, knowledge on how to activate his Skill seemed to flow into his mind from somewhere else. Then, it was as if he had always known about it.

Well, here goes nothing.

Taking a deep breath, he stood straight, feet shoulder-width apart, hands resting over his stomach. When he focused his mind’s eye on them, there was a warm, tingling feeling coming below his navel. If what he had just spontaneously learned was correct, that was his Od, the energy he would be spending to activate the Skill. Becoming aware of it was a weird experience, like having just acquired a new, awkward limb. Stiff as it felt, however, it turned out coaxing into spreading up his spine and into his head -as he was supposed to- was easy enough.

“From the One came Two.”

The words flowed out of his mouth almost on their own, then it felt as if something had been torn out of him, and he became acutely aware of a sizable part of his Od left his body. Also, he suddenly felt as if he had gone up a decent number of stairs. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

By the end of it, there was a white flash. Then, he found himself standing in front of, well, himself, confusing as it may sound. The Body Double was identical to him, down to the tiniest detail. It was quite a bit uncanny, actually, and he wasn’t really sure how he felt about it, but...

You could really use a shave, my man. And a shower.

He had some sort of mental link to the body, not too different from the feeling he got of his newly discovered Od. Though, not quite.

As he willed the puppet to walk, he found out he didn’t have to take care of its every minute movement. Which was quite relieving, actually. Clearly, even if it wasn’t intelligent, there was some level of automation to the Skill.

“Alright,” Solon patted his shoulder. “off to your possible death you go, second me!”

With another mental instruction, his double slowly approached the scarecrow. Then, as Solon himself waited from relative safety -he was already growing quite fond of the skill-, the double gingerly prodded the floating scarecrow with a hand, and... nothing happened, at all.

Solon let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding.

“Well, the quest does say I have to defeat it...”

Exactly how did one go about ‘defeating’ something that wasn't even alive, to begin with? There would obviously be no beating it into submission, so... Did he have to destroy it? If so, just how thoroughly?

Hopefully not very.

Standing at almost 1m90, Solon was on the bigger end of the scale, true, but, as shown by the generous belly flab around his double’s waist -though maybe the Skill had exaggerated that a bit, just to spite him-, it’d been a while since he had last cared enough to stay in shape. Plus, although a rather fiery -why, he hadn’t been a soulless husk his entire life!- temperament had seen him through a handful of fistfights, during his teens, one could hardly say he had trained his bare hands into lethal weapons.

Guess we’ll just have to see...