The menu appeared before him as a glowing circle of runes. He quickly found stamina, health, and mana nestled into a rune that meant “Energies.” The three stats floated before him as pools of colored light: blue for mana, which was by far the largest, followed by red for health and green for stamina. He could tell that his mana wasn’t at its full capacity, because the glowing orb didn’t reach the boundaries of its circles. It was basically a health or mana bar from a video game, he realized, only circular, to fit with the menu. Additionally, each energy displayed runic numbers indicating how much of that particular energy was left.

Mana: 76/100

Health: 50/50

Stamina: 35/50

Theo frowned. He figured that fighting the armor bear and then carrying Ron to the cave must have drained his stamina. And he did feel it; he was tired and sore from the effort. Still, as he watched, he could slowly see the mana and stamina spheres regenerate. That’s good. No need to take the potions then. I wonder at what rate my energies will regenerate? Can that be increased?

Satisfied, he moved to the next menu, inventory.

Equipped:

Woodsman’s Boots (Basic)

Traveling Clothes (Basic)

Quarterstaff (Basic)

Other:

Woodsman’s Cloak (Ruined)

Potions:

Mana potion: Weak

Stamina potion: Weak

He frowned at the sight of his ruined cloak in the inventory. They were given such a small amount of gear to begin with, ruining one felt like a huge loss. But he shook it off and messed around with the ‘equipped’ menu, thinking he could perhaps auto-equip certain items. He pressed the rune for woodsman’s boots, but nothing happened. He half expected them to vanish from his feet like it was a real video game, but he guessed that was one way the Great Game differed. He’d have to take his socks and shoes off the old fashioned way.

He moved on from the inventory and returned to his character menu. The same basic format as before appeared, circling in front of him in glowing runes:

Name: Theodore Cross

Species: Human (Basic)

Class: Druid

Character Level: 1

Essences:

Strength: 1.3

Agility: 0.9

Durability: 1.8

Charisma: 0.5

Intelligence: 1.5

Wisdom: 2.0

Uncommon Skills:

Bushcraft (Basic)

Herblore (Basic)

Wilderness Medicine (Basic)

Common Skills:

Swimming (Basic)

Chemistry (Basic)

Cooking (Remedial)

+1,569 others

For more, see Common Skill menu.

Languages:

English (Native)

Spanish (Remedial)

Universal

Except the moment he opened the menu, notifications began to appear, popping up as separate circles of glowing runes.

Level up! Congratulations on defeating your first enemy! For killing Armor Bear (Level 1.9) with your party of six, you have earned 3 units of Universal Power. Allocate these units as you see fit to unlock new skills!

Power Points Available: 3

The power points floated in front of him, swirling in eddies of blue light. When he raised his hand to them, he could feel their heat, feel the power in them crackling like electricity. It was like he was actually seeing and feeling some bit of the power of the universe, floating before him like sparks. He reached out and touched one, and it clung to his hand as the menu rearranged.

Suddenly, the six pools of colored light that had appeared before him during class selection appeared again: Green Wisdom, Blue Intelligence, Purple Charisma, Gold Agility, Silver Durability, and Red Strength.

He understood intuitively that adding the blue spark of universal power to one of his pools of essences would increase his power in that arena.

Almost instantly, he wanted to fill the areas that were lacking: charisma and agility. But was that worth it? Would charisma and agility actually help a Druid, whose primary skills were Wisdom and Durability?

He considered the others. In the last fight, he’d only actually used Wisdom to cast his spells. Durability would have been nice if he was hit, but that was what Ron was for, ultimately. And as for the rest of the skills, they were accounted for by the rest of the group. If he were to upgrade those skills, he assumed they would still be far below those of his party members, and this would make them ultimately useless.

He still didn’t know exactly what Wisdom did, except it somehow affected his ability to cast spells. But that was his best stat, and the reason he had been brought to the team. So he figured it was his best bet to maximize that trait.

He dragged the speck of universal power over to the glowing green sphere of Wisdom.

The blue speck merged with the sphere, sending a ripple of power over him that made his whole body briefly glow, and a wind whip around him. His hair and clothes rustled, then settled down.

Woah, he thought, that felt good.

He knew he’d already decided to dump the rest of his stats into Wisdom, so he quickly dragged the last two sparks of power into the Wisdom category. Two more flashes of light and power surged through him, and then faded, leaving him feeling invigorated and re-energized.

His new stat sheet flashed before him:

Name: Theodore Cross

Species: Human (Basic)

Class: Druid

Character Level: 1

Essences:

Strength: 1.3

Agility: 0.9

Durability: 1.8

Charisma: 0.5

Intelligence: 1.5

Wisdom: 2.3

Uncommon Skills:

Bushcraft (Basic)

Herblore (Basic)

Wilderness Medicine (Basic)

Common Skills:

Swimming (Basic)

Chemistry (Basic)

Cooking (Remedial)

+1,569 others

For more, see Common Skill menu.

Languages:

English (Native)

Spanish (Remedial)

Universal

The menu was followed by a notification:

New skills available! Select now?

He quickly opted to enter the skill menu, and was presented by four options:

Skill: Minor Mending (Remedial)

Gain the ability to magically repair any object, such as torn or worn cloth, leather, or armor. Becomes less effective depending on the age and size of the damage. Applies to small wounds and abrasions on humans and animals, but becomes less effective depending on the level and health points of the patient.

He considered this one briefly. It would be nice to repair his cloak, and any other items the party had damaged. It seemed there was small healing affect to the spell as well, but it didn’t specify how helpful that would be. If we were to venture a guess, he’d say it wasn’t primarily a healing spell, and would likely only mend small wounds like scrapes and cuts. Besides, Jessica already had a healing spell that was pretty effective. Overall, he didn’t see the point in having a pure mending spell, despite having a broken cloak, so he continued down the list.

Skill: Birchhide (Remedial)

Treehide skills are Druid specific magic that increases defense and durability. When Birchhide is activated, provides a marginal bonus to Durability.

Pretty basic armor boost, he thought. And birch wasn’t known to be the strongest bark. It was more like paper. He could see this one being useful down the line, with a few upgrades, but right now his Durability was his second highest stat. He put a bookmark in Birchhide and decided to come back to it.

Skill: Staff of Nature’s Power (Basic)

Imbue your druid’s staff with the power of the wild. Allows a Druid to melee attack using their Wisdom rather than their strength. May create minor nature-oriented magical effects while attacking. Also grants the same benefits as the Bowstaff Combat Skill (Basic) which includes knowledge of quarterstaff, full staff, bow staff, and shillelagh combat techniques.

Now that was a skill. Something combat oriented, with another skill nestled inside? He would feel stupid not to take it. Plus, attacking with Wisdom rather than strength seemed like a good idea, seeing as to it was his highest stat. Still, he wanted to read the next options. He lifted a hand and turned the wheel of runes in front of him, producing a new skill choice.

Call of the Wild (Rare)

Nature hears your song, oh Druid, and heeds your call. From the lowliest vine and the smallest insect, to the greatest monstrosity and the tallest mountain, one day all of nature will bow before thee. Allows for the manipulation of plants and animals based on your Wisdom. This Skill is a gift from DEITY UNKNOWN.

This one vexed him. Who, or what, was DEITY UNKNOWN? Deity meant God — the Dev had said something about lesser gods, and about Patrons. Could this be a Patron, reaching out with a sign of favor? But it didn’t have a clear benefit, and so he was conflicted. On one hand, it was clearly the rarest of the skills. It was Rare, which sounded a lot better than basic or remedial. He hadn’t even seen Common yet, but he had to assume that it was between Basic and Rare.

The other thing that vexed him was the lack of clarity. The other skills had pretty concrete effects. Healing, mending, staff usage, defense. But this one was vague. What did it mean to have animals and plants heed your call? And how did it differ from minor Beastspeak, the skill he’d chosen earlier?

But then there was the bit about making the greatest monstrosities bow to his will… how could he pass that up?

He pressed his palm into the words “Call of the Wild.”

Instantly, green energy surged through his hand and into his body. The skill, the power, and the knowledge of how to use it — basically — seared into his brain.

Skill selected! Call of the Wild (Rare)

DEITY UNKNOWN grants you their Favor (Lesser)

The menu vanished, dissipating in a flash of blue light. And then he was standing, looking at the cave with new eyes. He could see the hum of life in everything around him: it glowed brightest in Tiberius, sleeping on the floor, but it was in the moss on the stone walls, in the insects flying around, even in his party mates. He reached out for it, into the life energy that glowed from a firefly passing by him, and called to it.

The firefly changed courses and came towards him, heeding his call. It landed on the tip of his finger, then flashed three times. His identify skill flashed on the firefly without him even summoning the menu. It appeared overlaid across his pupils, circles of glowing runes.

Name: N/A

Species: Firefly (Basic)

Class: N/A

Character Level: 0

Essences:

Strength: 0

Agility: 0.1

Durability: 0

Charisma: 0.1

Intelligence: 0

Wisdom: 0.1

Skills:

Flash (Useless)

Flight (Basic)

Languages: N/A

He stared at the Firefly’s stat sheet for a while. Did every living thing in the multiverse have stats just like his? He grimaced as he remembered his Charisma was only 0.5, or 0.4 higher than a Firefly. Was he really that uncharismatic? With a thought, he sent the firefly flying across the room. He released his mental hold on it, and vanished out of the mouth of the cave-head.

This game was getting weirder and weirder.