They ended up taking me to the breaded butter, which I found to be a little backwards, but as soon as I smelled the fresh baked bread inside I did not care if the name was a little odd. Hanging outside the tavern was one of those old fashioned wooden signs that had a carving of a loaf of bread and a pint of ale. Way too many carbs if your just going to eat some bread and drink some ale but who cares? This is a new world, maybe beer belly's aren't a thing here, right?

We walked through the door and I was greeted by an even stronger smell of fresh baked bread, raucous music and much laughter. I could also see based on some of the patrons that my hypothesis about beer belly's was completely off track. The music was coming from a somewhat talented bard playing a lute and at least 5 tables drunkenly singing along to his tune. Something about a halfling and a princess. I would have liked to hear the lyrics but the group was even more out of tune with each other than my family singing happy birthday.

We found a table in a corner not too far from the bard and sat down to start talking.

"I'm surprised that you didn't even know how to open your screen." Tom decided to kick off the conversation. "It something so basic that anyone knows how to do it.".

"Well what can I say, Whatever hit me must have knocked a few too many brain cells loose. I can open it now though." As We started talking a server came over to take our drink orders.

"What'll it be for ya?"

Gus answered for the group "We'll start wit a round o moger. This lad is payin fer us tonight!" I had no idea what a moger was, but by the expressions on everyone's faces it must be halfway decent. at the least.

Once the drinks were served I was excited to really dig into my screen.

Andrew Williams

Age: 31

Height: 6'2"

Weight: 207 lbs

Class: Undetermined, enter creation mode to select

Level: Undetermined, enter creation mode to select

Skills: Undetermined, enter creation mode to select

Wealth: 0 Platinum, 2 gold, 73 silver, 24 copper

At the top there were the four flashing icons as well, Top left was a flashing envelope, like I had a message, then there was a flashing star, question mark, and exclamation point. What is creation mode?

I started to quickly get the sense that my situation was a little unique, and it might not be the best idea to share everything I was seeing with my new friends.

"I know you were going to help me dig through my status sheet and figure all of this out again, but I've got a massive headache coming on. Probably left over from whatever knocked me out earlier. I'm going to hit they hay and take it easy tonight. I would appreciate if you could come by tomorrow to show me the ropes though."

"What about dinner? We only just got our first round of drinks." I could tell Tom was joking a bit, but I did feel bad offering for dinner and then just bailing on them..

"Don't worry, I'll pay in advance, just make sure you use the full tab." It was the least I could do for the help bringing me out of that desert. I went over to the barkeep and both secured a room for the night, and some good food for my friends. All for the low cost of 1 gold 12 silvers. Almost half of what I started with.

I quickly headed to the room I had just rented, excited to read whatever message I had. Hopefully it would explain what was going on a little bit better for me. Once I was safely tucked away by myself I opened my status screen again and selected the envelope Icon.

Andrew,

Welcome to Carbranthia. A world of unlimited potential and second chances. You have been chosen to receive a second chance. As you are not native to this world there are some differences in how the rules are expected to work for you. For example, by the time someone native to this world reaches adulthood, they would have surpassed level 10 and chosen a class already just by accumulation of natural experiences. Unfortunately, you have missed out on this. So we prepared something special for you. There is a star on your status sheet, when you focus your intent on the star you will enter creation mode. You will not be able to change your race or physical attributes, as you would be able to in a video game, however you will be given a number of allotment point that you will be able to distribute between your starting level, class, wealth, and even your affinities. This is a great boon as typically ones affinities are determined by their path they take on the road to becoming an adult. With the correct application of allotment points you have the potential to become one of the most powerful, or most pitiful, beings on this planet. Choose wisely. You have also been given a starting wealth which is yours, regardless of what you choose for wealth with your allocation points. Your starting wealth is a representation of how much you had accumulated in your previous life. We hope that you find yourself making full use of your second chance, and welcome to a new world.

Carbranthia

Huh, I guess my life savings were worth less than three measly gold in this world. I did only have about five hundred dollars in the bank before I came here. If I don't get to count the value of my car, seeing as I totaled it seconds before arriving, that would sound about right. Equating what I spent to a night at a cheap motel with dinner and drinks for 5, that sounds about right on the conversion.

Now this creation mode. I needed to dive into that. But first, these other two icons. I focused on the exclamation point first and a quest screen popped up.

Quest: Join the adventurers guild, Novice

You have heard of the adventurers guild from Gus and his companions. Joining the adventurers guild offers stability not usually found in the life of an adventurer and has its own benefits in addition to job security. Join the local branch and prove your worth.

Rewards: 10 XP, 20 silver

The rewards sounded pretty pitiful, however it was something I was planning on doing anyway, so I accepted the quest. Next up was the question mark icon. When I focused on it nothing happened for a moment. The I felt like my attention was drawn to the star icon by an external force. Apparently whatever this question mark represented I would not be able to access it until I had taken care of the creation mode. As I focused on the star I began to feel excitement. Up until now I had mostly been just going with the flow, not really excited, but not apprehensive about anything. I felt kind of bleh for the most part. But now I got the feeling of making my first character for D&D back in college. the excitement of something new, figuring out the best way to use my resources to create something epic and awesome. But this time, there was no second chance. This was already my second chance. If I messed up here and gave myself the wrong set of affinities or an weak class I would be stuck with it forever. Pitiful, as the letter said. I would not let that happen though.

When the screen for the star opened it was not as exciting as I originally thought, no more flashing lights or trumpets blasting triumphant tunes as I got to create my new self, but rather just some lines of text. What those lines of text represented, I was stoked for.

Welcome to creation mode Andrew.

You have 105 allotment points available to you. Spend them wisely. If you have any questions about what a specific section is, focus your intent on the phrase, and a tooltip will appear.

Base Affinities:

-Strength: None

-Agility: None

-Durability: None

-Mental Acuity: None

-Charisma: None

-Willpower: None

I focused on Base affinities before looking at everything else available. As I focused a tooltip appeared.

Your base affinities represent the rate at which you will accumulate points in these attributes. A person with no affinity to strength will find it difficult to increase their raw physical prowess, while someone with Perfect affinity to strength can make massive gains with minimal effort. There are Six levels to affinities. None - Below average - Average - Above Average - Exceptional - Perfect. Gaining a class will increase your affinities or you may increase them at the cost of allotment points. Granting an affinity costs an additional 3 allotment points for each stage, compounded. So Below average costs 3, average costs 6 plus the 3 from below average for 9, above average costs 9 plus the 9 from the previous two stages for a total of 18, and so on. Your affinities can grow naturally, however this is something that usually takes decades of dedicated training to raise a single affinity by one tier.

So I can blow most of my points on two affinities and have 15 points left over. I don't want to cripple myself by having a sub par class or levels. Wealth I can always earn later on so I wont spend any points on that. It's a trap to sacrifice future growth for immediate comfort. The next portion of the screen described how levels and classes worked.

Level 0

There are 10 tiers of levels from 1-100. Each tier consisting of 10 levels. To purchase a level you must spend an amount of allotment points per level equal to the tier the level belongs in. For example, level 4 would cost 4 allotment points. One per level, however level 21 would cost 33 points. 1 each for levels 1-10, 2 for levels 11-20, and 3 for level 21.

Class: None

You may choose a starting class now, with better options unlocking for each tier of levels you unlock. No class options will be available if you start under level 10. Upon reaching the final level in each tier (10, 20, 30, etc) you will have the ability to upgrade your class to something that more suits your style and abilities.

It is good to know that taking a lower tier class now will not prevent me from achieving a better class later. After seeing all of this I am even more tempted to just dump everything into one or two affinities and take what I can with the remaining points. Last on the screen was wealth.

Wealth: 1 gold 61 silver 24 copper.

You will receive 10 platinum for each allotment point dedicated to wealth.

10 platinum! are the platinum here worth 10 gold or 100? In either case that is a staggering amount of wealth for a single allotment point. If a little less than 3 gold is worth $500 then 10 platinum is 15 grand, at minimum. 150 grand if it goes by the 100:1 scale. I might spend a point or two in wealth after all if it pays out this well. Before I get into that I want to see what my class options are though. Focusing on where it said Class was enough to bring up my options.

Class options

Tier 1: Free. No classes available

Tier 2: 5 allotment points. Alchemist, Baker, Blacksmith, Bowman, Mage, Swordsman, Thief

Tier 3: 10 allotment points. Tinkerer, Archer, Berserker, Knight, Rogue, Wizard

Tier 4: 15 allotment points. Paladin, Ranger, Sorcerer

Tier 5: 0 allotment points. Unknown

0 allotment points for the highest tier? That made no sense. At least, until I realized that getting to level 41 and entering tier 5 would cost all 105 allotment points. Nothing left over for aptitudes. Nothing for wealth. It would be an all in on jumping the game to an absurdly high level, and getting a random class. As tempting as that was, I knew I could not go all in on just my levels. It was the same trap as wealth, sacrificing potential growth for an immediate power spike instead of immediate comfort. But it was tempting. I bet I would immediately qualify for steel adventurer if it came out that I was level 41 and had a tier 5 class, even if it was an unknown one.

I could not move away from starting at unknown for thirty seconds. In my mind, it felt like hours though. The system started me out with 105 allotment points. Such a random amount, why not 100? why not 110? 105 was exactly enough to get level 41 and then the tier 5 class is free. I almost sleeted it then and there, despite my misgivings, but I managed to hold off the temptation and went back to affinities now that I knew how the rest of the system worked.

After playing with different allocations I decided to go with one perfect affinity, and balance the others as well as I could. to allow me to pick a tier 2 class. The question was, what affinity did I want to be perfect? Strength would be useful, but was raw power my style? Besides, by looking at the higher tier classes it looks like most paths converge around tier four and become hybrid classes of some kind. That felt a little weird to me that there were no high tier pure melee or pure wizard class, and for that matter, there was hardly anything nature attuned. Sure there is ranger at tier 4 but no druids, no Wildmaster, nothing lower tier to pick. I was starting to think that the options presented weren't all the options available, but a selection based on my preferences. How this system knew my preferences I had no idea, and it was a little scary to think about, but I always chose to play some form of hybrid class when I gamed. Some kind of gish. On the same line, I never chose a druid or nature aligned class. It just wasn't my style.

I decided willpower was going to be my perfect affinity. I couldn't say exactly why I chose willpower as it felt more defensive and I usually stayed more offensive but it just felt right. besides, I am sure that a class option will appear later that uses willpower. If even my starting classes were tailored to suit my preferences, the options I get from leveling naturally will surely be tailored to my abilities.

I placed it in, willpower at perfect, Reflexes at excellent, and everything else at below average. level 11 with a tier 2 class (swordsman) left me with one point that I stuck into wealth since I had nowhere else for it. Just as I was about to lock in my choices, something inside me rebelled at this choice. In my games, In always min-maxed, take a few core things to their limit at the cost of some stats that didn't matter in the game. But this was my life. Did I really want to have a below average aptitude for the majority of who I was? I couldn't finalize it. As much as I wanted the perfect affinity to power level my willpower, I couldn't min max my life. Well, not to that degree. I made some slight changes and finalized my selections.

Andrew Williams

Age: 31

Height: 6'2"

Weight: 207 lbs

Class: Swordsman (200 xp to next level)

Level: 11

Skills:

-Slash (class): Novice

-Block (Class): Novice

Wealth: 40 Platinum, 1 gold, 53 silver, 24 copper

That was it. That was my new status sheet. Something I did notice however, the flashing question mark I had earlier was gone. No amount of shifting my focus or trying to bring it up did anything. Weird. I'll have to ask about that tomorrow but at least I have soime official stats to talk about with the group. Hopefully they wont get suspicious now.