Madelaine blinked into the darkness. A blue screen appeared, again.

Madelaine Tegrile

Accursed

Wanderer

Level 4

0 Misfortunes / 3 Fortunes

1 Curses / 0 Blessings

20/20 Health

5/5 Mana

6/6 Stamina

2 Distinctions Available

46 Skill Points Available

25 Customization Points Available

Strength

Constitution

Intelligence

-4

-5

2

-3 Melee Damage Bonus

20 Maximum Health

33 Additional Skill Points

-1 Maximum Worn Armor

-4 Damage Reduction

4 Maximum Stamina Points

-3 Deflection *

6 Base Armor

2 Spell Piercing *

Wisdom

Agility

Perception

1

5

1

2 Lores

6 Bonus Targeting

1 Reaction Time

2 Arcane Resistance

6 Evasion

3 Stamina Regeneration

5 Mana *

30 Movement *

2 Missile Range Bonus *

She stared at the … statistics screen. That was … a lot.

Class Distinction: Accursed

Special: You randomly get one of three available Distinctions for this class on each level. Use of a Fortune permits rerolling; use of a Blessing permits specification.

Class Distinction: Lucky Streak

You begin with 3 Fortunes and 1 Curse; you may gain 3 Fortunes and 1 Curse once per day

Okay ... ?

Fated Distinction: Dance of Death

You recover one additional Stamina per turn, and your maximum Stamina is increased by 1

Fated Distinction: Spell School: Illusion

If you have at least 1 Stamina, and adding 2 to any form of Defense would result in a successful Defense, spend 1 Stamina to increase that Defense by 2

She'd barely had time to read these before another screen popped up, then another.

Cursed!

Fated Distinction: Dance of Death

You recover one additional Stamina per turn, and your maximum Stamina is increased by 1

Fated Distinction: Armor Expertise: Heavy

When wearing Heavy Armor, you may spend 1 Stamina to apply your full Deflection Bonus to your AC until the beginning of your next turn; +1 to Strength

So … she'd lost the ability to learn Illusion magic, and been given … what, an extra bonus to wearing heavy armor? That … oh. That wasn't what she wanted to do at all. That was a bit of a curse, wasn't it? The blue screen flickered for a moment, then expanded

Class Distinction: Accursed

Special: You randomly get one of three available Distinctions for this class on each level. Use of a Fortune permits rerolling; use of a Blessing permits specification.

Class Distinction: Lucky Streak

You begin with 3 Fortunes and 1 Curse; you may gain 3 Fortunes and 1 Curse once per day

Class Distinction: Fate's Hand

Randomly receive two distinctions from the Distinction list

Class Distinction: Flippancy

Opponents striking you get +2 Imprecision, +1 Precision

Class Distinction: Pessimistic

You get -4 maximum MP, and +10 maximum HP

Fated Distinction: Dance of Death

You recover one additional Stamina per turn, and your maximum Stamina is increased by 1

Fated Distinction: Armor Expertise: Heavy

When wearing Heavy Armor, you may spend 1 Stamina to apply your full Deflection Bonus to your AC until the beginning of your next turn; +1 to Strength

And then this screen vanished again, revealing the original statistics screen behind it. Updated, maybe?

Madelaine Tegrile

Accursed

Wanderer

Level 4

0 Misfortunes / 3 Fortunes

0 Curses / 0 Blessings

30/30 Health

1/1 Mana

6/6 Stamina

2 Distinctions Available

46 Skill Points Available

25 Customization Points Available

Strength

Constitution

Intelligence

-3

-5

2

-2 Melee Damage Bonus

20 Maximum Health

33 Additional Skill Points

0 Maximum Worn Armor

-4 Damage Reduction

4 Maximum Stamina Points

-2 Deflection *

6 Base Armor

2 Spell Piercing *

Wisdom

Agility

Perception

1

5

1

2 Lores

6 Bonus Targeting

1 Reaction Time

2 Arcane Resistance

6 Evasion

3 Stamina Regeneration

5 Mana *

30 Movement *

2 Missile Range Bonus *

Alright. What did the - a blinding blue, filling her brain with excruciating pain. The blue flickered, faded into black.

She must have woken up some time later. Immediate pain. Strange pain. Alien pain. She found herself flailing, then reached for her face – her glasses were gone! - and had to stop herself from clawing at her eyes. Lores. Just pick something.

Lore: Breaking

Your knowledge of the practical applications of reductionist theory, and the risks involved in the misapplication of reductionist dichotomies - that is to say, the art of hitting things, and breaking the thing you're hitting instead of the thing you're hitting them with.

+2 to Discipline when attempting to break mundane objects

You know the difficulty involved in breaking mundane objects

Lore: Volcanoes

Your knowledge of the desert, the magma, the lava, the world of the ever-burning embers, and the memories of dried-up husks of those who thought they, too, knew the land they traversed.

+2 to Endurance when navigating extremely hot environments

You know the difficulty involved to go without injury in a given hot environment

The pain immediately faded as the list collapsed into the two lores she'd chosen. She breathed heavily, clutching at her head. That had hurt. That had hurt in ways she hadn't even known she could hurt. This couldn't be contact lenses. Contact lenses didn't … rip your vision open like that, make you see more than you could see. She felt a panic attack coming on, and forced herself to breath steadily. This had to be a dream, right?

Inserting avatar. Please stand by.

The unending blackness lit up in a blinding flash of light, followed by … a slightly brighter darkness. She was somewhat startled to discover she was laying down, her orientation taking a moment to catch up with her, and she sat up, looking around. It was … weird and blurry. She pulled her glasses off – and wasn't sure if she was surprised to find them there or not – but was halfway to trying to clean them on her pajamas in the dim light when she realized that she … could see without them. Madelaine looked up again, and around. And the light was dim … but she could still see. And smell – it smelled like her grandparent's vacation house, a sweet kind of wooden rot smell. Light filtered in through cracks in the walls and ceiling around them, and she was sitting up, surrounded by … bodies in various states of dress. Mostly older.

Someone else was sitting up next to her, the figure grabbing its head, and groaning. An older boy – maybe a high schooler? He was … in shadows. In shadows where nobody else was. Others were stirring, roused by the motion and sound, and then a girl screamed, and then everything turned into shouting, angry shouting, and – and then there was motion, and something sprayed across her, and Madelaine stared down at the hot, sticky … that was blood?

Time just kind of crumpled, then, like a train hitting a mountain face at full speed. There was an arm on the ground next to her. Not attached to anybody. Somebody grabbed her. There was screaming, there was shouting. She was in motion. An old man, completely naked, swung a sword at a woman dressed like someone from a ren faire. The sword exploded; so did the woman. There were bodies – a girl not much older than her, also naked, lay on the ground, staring blankly upward. Madelaine only saw the feathers sticking out of her neck. The older boy was dragging her – he was still in shadow, no matter how he moved. An explosion of light, of fire. People screamed.

It all happened so slowly. It all happened at once. And none of it happened in any particular order.

And then the boy was dragging her through a field of grass. In the sun, he was still in shadow, in darkness.

The world stopped spinning. She was panting. Madelaine could barely find breath. They were underneath a bridge, there was water trickling by their feet. The boy lay on his back in the sand. Still in shadow, wrapped in shadow, like he was wearing it. Her eyes couldn't focus on that properly, and she looked at his face, trying to find something to … what was going on? What was happening?

He was pale, pimply, freckled, and gangly, with a buzz-cut; a ginger. From his neck up, she could see him. From his wrists and ankles down. He didn't have shoes on. Everything between was like … looking into darkness. It was … disconcerting. She slowly gathered her wits about herself, looking up at the wooden planks of the bridge over her, at the light on either side. Okay. Weird shadow ginger. Those … those people had been dead. The girl had been naked. That girl had died naked. That horrified her more than either alone could have; it was … it was terrible. To be stripped of dignity and life together. She found herself thinking of the way she'd felt as a child when told that she shouldn't stop to get dressed if her house was on fire; that it was more important to get outside, than to get dressed. The girl's blank eyes. No. No this wasn't real. This … this wasn't a dream, it was a nightmare.

She curled up in a ball in the dirt. Footsteps thumped overhead. She didn't cry out. She didn't whimper. A hand touched her back, and she nearly screamed. It was the ginger boy. He looked … terrified. His eyes kept darting between hers, and up to the footsteps. The footsteps crossed the bridge. They both lay in the dirt.

Night fell. She wasn't sure if she had moved at all; her mind just kept replaying the nightmare scene in the … in the building. The shouts. The unintelligible rage. The blood. Her pajamas had blood on them. Maybe the girl's blood. Maybe the blood of whoever had lost an arm. The old man. The others.

The boy moved. He leaned around the bridge, looking out, then up. She watched him move, numb. A remote series of thoughts; he might get killed. Somebody might see him, and kill him. If they killed him, they'd look to see who else was under the bridge, and come and kill her too. Would the pajamas really matter, if there were arrows in her neck? He disappeared from sight. From what sight she had of him in the first place. Weird shadow … magic. Obviously magic. But magic wasn't real, just like Santa Clause wasn't real. Who … who was Santa Clause? She froze. She remembered … she remembered being angry that he wasn't real. Who was he? Why did it matter whether he was real? Santa. Saint. The thought … didn't go anywhere.

Madelaine sat up, the shock of the void bringing her back to herself, a little bit. Santa Clause. Wasn't real. Santa meant saint. Saint meant … a good person. To somebody. To somebody … to somebody else. It meant you … had done good, hard work. But it … didn't mean that. That's just … she shook her head. Not. Helpful. She moved to crawl to the edge of the underneath of the bridge. And then dashed forward at a sudden noise behind her, thoughts filled with horrifying images.

A shout, then the boy grabbed her and ran even faster. She kicked for a second longer, and then her new orientation showed her … holy shit that was an alligator. Only alligators weren't that goddamned big. And they had just been laying there a few feet from the water. Madelaine's eyes dropped to the ground beneath her, and then up again. The alligator was falling behind. The boy was running way fast.

“Hey. I'm Elijah.”

“Madelaine.” She wrapped her arms around herself. They had stopped again, the boy out of breath. This time on the side of a small hill, just above the muddy little spot at the low spot between it and the next. “What's going on, Elijah?”

“I don't know, Madelaine. I went to be, and then woke up, and then those, those other people, some of them died.” He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself. And then stopped, and lifted an arm, turning it slowly back and forth. His eyes drifted down over himself. “I … uh. Huh.” Madelaine just watched him. “This doesn't look like … video games don't … ” She nodded slowly, as Elijah started going through thoughts she'd already passed. Okay. He didn't know any more than she did.

“I don't think it's a video game. The lore … screen … hurt. I saw more, uh, I saw … ” She lapsed into uncomfortable silence as she tried to figure out how to convey the experience of seeing more than she could see. Elijah, however, nodded slowly.

“You're right. Do you … do you remember your parents' names?”

Madelaine froze. Her mother was dead, her father was named … was named … he looked like … “I … I don't.”

Elijah looked down from his arm. He looked terrified. Madelaine found his fear … reassuring, somehow. She found herself mentally moving back from a chasm. Okay. She could do this. She was smart, she was … she blinked. Okay. She could do this. “What level are you, Elijah?”

“Level? Oh. Uh. One.”

“What's your class?”

“Selenomancer.”

“Alright. What … what traits did you pick? The … sins, and virtues?”

“Honor. Valor. They seemed … I don't know, they seemed heroic.” Okay. Actually, first. Madelaine concentrated. Honesty. It was important to be honest. It was important to be true to yourself. Lies were for other people; to lie was to give a part of yourself away, to stop being yourself, for the benefit of somebody else. But – honesty began with the idea of being your consistent self. To be honest with somebody was to share yourself with them. And you didn't owe yourself to everybody. It wasn't about subverting yourself, it wasn't about putting on a mask; it was about realizing that you yourself were valuable.

Trait: Honesty satisfied. You have accepted your nature as an honest person, and then moved beyond it. You have earned five customization points. You've reached class level 5! You've reached path level 2!

Class Distinction: Stubborn

You get -2 Wisdom, and +6 Spell Resistance

She stared at the option. She could use Fortune, right?

Class Distinction: Absent-Minded

You get +2 Wisdom, and -2 Spell Resistance

That was … better. No. Fortune.

Class Distinction: Stubborn

You get -2 Wisdom, and +6 Spell Resistance

Damn it. No. Fortune. There was a third option.

Class Distinction: Fate's Hand

Randomly receive two distinctions from the Distinction list

Oh. Oh! Was that always an option?

Class Distinction: Accursed

Special: You randomly get one of three available Distinctions for this class on each level. Use of a Fortune permits rerolling; use of a Blessing permits specification.

Class Distinction: Lucky Streak

You begin with 3 Fortunes and 1 Curse; you may gain 3 Fortunes and 1 Curse once per day

Class Distinction: Fate's Hand

Randomly receive two distinctions from the Distinction list

Class Distinction: Flippancy

Opponents striking you get +2 Imprecision, +1 Precision

Class Distinction: Pessimistic

You get -4 maximum MP, and +10 maximum HP

Class Distinction: Fate's Hand

Randomly receive two distinctions from the Distinction list

Class Path Distinction: Free Will

You may reroll for your Distinction once per level

Fated Distinction: Dance of Death

You recover one additional Stamina per turn, and your maximum Stamina is increased by 1

Fated Distinction: Armor Expertise: Heavy

When wearing Heavy Armor, you may spend 1 Stamina to apply your full Deflection Bonus to your AC until the beginning of your next turn; +1 to Strength

Fated Distinction: Weapon Expertise: Sword

+2 Targeting when attacking with a one-handed slashing sword. When an opponent moves adjacent to you, you will spend 1 Stamina to immediately Attack them.

Fated Distinction: Weapon Expertise: Rapier

+1 Armor while wielding a rapier, epee, or similar fencing weapon. +1 Precision when attacking with a rapier/epee.

She blinked at what she got. Oh. Uh. Okay. That was … worse. Maybe. Okay, don't cry, just move on with things. She returned her attention to Elijah.

“Okay. So. Think about … ” She paused. It was probably more personal than that; she probably couldn't just tell him what honor should be to him. Plus, she'd never actually sat and thought about honor, or valor. Laziness, however, she'd thought a lot about, as she'd never had to work as hard as any of the other students in … in school. And honesty had been very important to her father, but dealing with the other girls in school had quickly taught her that, as smart as … she shook her head. No crying. Move on.

“Think about?”

“You need to … you need to come to terms with what valor and honor mean to you. You need to understand why they are important. But you also need to learn to move beyond them. Like, I chose sloth, because I think laziness is something that gets a lot of undeserved disrespect, when really industrial society is the culmination of laziness.” Elijah's expression shifted, somewhat, and he stared at her.

“How old are you?”

“Eleven.”

“Huh. Uh. Alright.” He shook his head, then shook it again. “Okay. Why do I need to do those things?”

“You'll level up.”

“Riight.” And then he paused again, looking at his arms, then down at his body. He moved to try to pluck at the shadow cast over him, like … clothing. The shadow didn't move. He kept trying to pluck at it.

“You're level 1. I'm level 5. I have no idea what that means, and … ” she stopped herself short of finishing “we'll probably die anyways.” It wasn't … her voice. It felt out of place and alien. She was flippant and pessimistic, was she? With a thought, the list of distinctions came up again. It didn't … oh. Free Will. Could she … just once. Could she Free Will her way out of the Sword expertise?

Class Distinction: Accursed

Special: You randomly get one of three available Distinctions for this class on each level. Use of a Fortune permits rerolling; use of a Blessing permits specification.

Class Distinction: Lucky Streak

You begin with 3 Fortunes and 1 Curse; you may gain 3 Fortunes and 1 Curse once per day

Class Distinction: Fate's Hand

Randomly receive two distinctions from the Distinction list

Class Distinction: Flippancy

Opponents striking you get +2 Imprecision, +1 Precision

Class Distinction: Pessimistic

You get -4 maximum MP, and +10 maximum HP

Class Distinction: Fate's Hand

Randomly receive two distinctions from the Distinction list

Class Path Distinction: Free Will

You may reroll for your Distinction once per level

Fated Distinction: Dance of Death

You recover one additional Stamina per turn, and your maximum Stamina is increased by 1

Fated Distinction: Armor Expertise: Heavy

When wearing Heavy Armor, you may spend 1 Stamina to apply your full Deflection Bonus to your AC until the beginning of your next turn; +1 to Strength

Fated Distinction: Weapon Expertise: Rapier

+1 Armor while wielding a rapier, epee, or similar fencing weapon. +1 Precision when attacking with a rapier/epee.

Fated Distinction: Spell School: Necromancy

You may learn and cast spells of the Necromancy school of magic. +2 to Maximum MP

What.