"Okay, then, let's start with the basics of how you interface with Harmony," Eve said. "You can pull up your information and ERL by…"

"Wait," I interrupted, "what's ERL?"

"That is your Estimated Resonance Level, which is a rough estimation of how strong your relationship with the Harmony System is. It also indicates how many Resonance Points or RP you have earned. Almost everything you can do gains resonance with the System, but the quickest way to do it is through quests or the death of other beings. There is also your tier, but we will get into that later."

"Right now, you have an impressive ERL of 56. So you've got a lot of Resonance Points waiting to be spent. Let's get back into things by doing something with them. Start by thinking of the words' Character Sheet'. That should bring up everything about you."

I gasped in surprise as a blue tabbed window popped up in my vision, and I started to read the details across the top.

"As you can see," Eve continued with a flourish of her hand, "There are sections for your basic stats, class, profession, skills, and ideals."

A frown wrinkled across my face. It was as if the perky micro bitch was reading my mind.

"I am," Eve stated bluntly. "The main screen has your basic stats and titles and will list your current condition and equipment. The Class tab shows your classes, their trees, and eventual upgrades. Professions, skills, and ideals work similarly. You can invest your Resonance Points into any of these things, except ideals. Those you must work on your own. But everything you are or can do can be upgraded through effort or spending Resonance. You can also have as many classes, professions, skills, and ideas as you want. However, they usually advance independently. So you would wind up being able to do a lot of things but be good at none of them."

This was seriously weirding me out. The little freak was just sitting in the passenger seat like it was the most natural thing in the world. But the black leather upholstery didn't creak or move. She barely even had a shadow. She smoothed out her little black dress as if it was real. Noah and Koko kept taking turns poking at her. Koko was especially confused and kept trying to sniff her, only to come up empty

The scary thing was that I was starting to believe Eve. There was no way this was some sort of mass delusion if even the dog was affected. That left only one choice. I would have preferred the chemical attack.

"Back on the main page," Eve continued, "it looks like your health and stats are normal for someone of your species just starting out. But you have earned a bunch of titles. Those usually come with nice bonuses, so try to collect as many as possible. Let's see… 'First Kill,' 'Zoologist,' 'First to Five,' and ten and so on up to fifty. 'First Portal Closer,' 'Road Rage,' and 'Champion of Humanity'. You got that at ERL 35, and it is super important. It allows you to take a city center and upgrade it to found a nation. With that, you can unite your people and lead them in a war against the colonists."

I stared at her blankly for a moment. Then crossed my arms over my chest. "No," I said simply.

"So we need to start by finding a nexus and…" Eve paused. "What do you mean 'no'?" She jumped up, and her high-pitched voice rose to glass-shattering levels. Koko barked, and Eve wheeled her head at the dog and jabbed her finger out at it. "You stay out of this! And you," she turned back to me, "do you not know what your refusal will mean? Right now, you are the best hope for your species! And if you don't step up, your entire planet could die off!"

"I mean no," I answered, "that is not my role. I am no leader, and I won't let you put that burden on me. And that is the end of it. Okay, Ee-vee-ee?" I was actually in a leadership position at work once. As the most senior guy there, they let me run the show while the manager was out sick. That ended in disaster. Being able to delegate is not my strong suit, and I tried to do everything myself while correcting everyone else's work. I nearly burned the team to the ground. After that, no one let me play boss again. Just let me take care of my work and be responsible for myself.

I flipped open the menu again and started dinking around. "I think I get most of this. Actually, it seems self-explanatory. But what is this with ideals?"

The little pink-haired tart huffed and sat back down. Which, again, was eerie. "The ideals are special areas of concepts that connect you directly to the Harmony System. But this connection goes both ways. For example, a person with the ideal of fire would grow the System's concept of fire while giving the user increased control over fire. Ideas are special because you can only grow them by understanding the ideal and cannot invest RP into them."

"Which brings us to the last introductory item in the tutorial, the inventory system. You can open it up just like you did with your menu. From there, you can sort things or open up a trade. All it costs is a small amount of mana to…"

"Hey, Dad, what's this?" Noah interrupted, holding up a small vial. The egg-sized bottle sloshed an iridescent red liquid inside.

"Where did you get that?" I asked.

"You set everything to auto loot earlier," replied Eve.

Koko, who saw the outstretched hand, immediately assumed it was meant for pets. Her fuzzy head quickly jammed up under Noah's hand. The vial fell and shattered on the floormat of the Jeep. The contents bubbled and fizzled like baking soda and vinegar before melting, bottle and all, into nothing.

Noah was smacking and screaming at Koko when I heard a strange noise. I turned and saw the shattered window slowly melting into place, looking factory new. I stammered for a moment, trying to find the words before pointing at the window and yelling, "what the french toast monkey farmer just happened?"

Eve sighed. "Healing potion. It repaired the window because you added Liberty to the party when you kept saying yes to all those prompts. Stupid name for a Jeep anyways."

"What prompt?" I asked, trying not to sound manic. I failed. "And what's wrong with Liberty's name?"

Eve ignored me. "If you pull up the party menu, you will see that Liberty is registered as your mount, and Koko is Noah's animal companion. With that potion, Liberty's health is up to about seventy percent. However, it will take some time to work. Use a couple more potions on the Jeep before we start the next part. Spending your RP will take a few minutes."

I was suddenly aware of how much time we had already wasted here. We were distracted. And those green beasts, those gobkin were still out there. Sitting still was not the best choice. "Just hurry it up. We need to get out of here," I said.