After a fairly long shower, and a change of clothes delivered by one of the church’s acolytes, Dix met Error and Thunk in the latter's office. The dwarf had a keg of mead set up at the end of the table, along with meals for each of them. Seeing the priest already digging into the food, Dix followed his lead. Shortly after he got started, Error joined them as well.

With conversation decidedly missing, Dix got the chance to savor the meal. While it looked like a variation on a number of half chicken dishes he had seen, there were a few differences. The rice and beans were replaced by a thick vegetable stew, and what looked to be purple corn bread. The stew may have had vegetables that he had never seen before, but it tasted fantastic, and the bread was sweet and creamy. The bird definitely wasn’t chicken. Dix had never before eaten a bird as flavourful as what he had that day. The flavor density and sheer deliciousness of it compared to gravy made of bacon. Even the mead, something he had once tried on Earth at a Renaissance Fair he had been seduced into attending, was leaps and bounds beyond anything he had had before.

Finished with his food, he followed Thunk’s actions and left his dishes on a tray near the door, before washing up in what appeared to be a fairly modern style sink. Once more it reminded him that he had no idea what was really going on with things like that on Mantra. His earlier shower had brought a fair amount of confusion with it, as he had no idea how to take the obviously magical contrivance that only superficially resembled a shower. Truly, magic was the only explanation for the large, water producing gem set in the ceiling that was the main apparatus of the excellent shower he had enjoyed. Shrugging off the small differences between his two worlds, he filled up another mug with mead and headed to the sitting area to begin the discussion.

Error eagerly jumped right into what he felt were the important bits. “Do you have any idea why your Enhanced skills are so powerful? You really shouldn’t be doing that kind of damage at your level and stats, even to a rat. I know there aren’t any numbers on your skill tabs, but you should have a bit of a feel for them that can give you a better understanding. Is there anything there that can help explain it?”

Taking a sip of his drink, Dix pondered over the question. Thunk had called his Enhanced skills basic, being quite incensed about the entire set. He seemed more upset that they couldn’t be upgraded than anything else, except the fact that he had one for each different type of combat. Error was quite the opposite. He appeared to be convinced that the skills were not only a fantastic idea, but also powerful. Certainly they pumped out a staggering amount of damage, and were easy to use, but pinning down the specific reasoning behind what made them that way could be difficult. Dix slowly stroked his bearded chin as he tried to think it over. With the strange function of his brain, what he was really doing was clearing his mind, so that the logical portion could drop an answer in easier. Periodically he would poke at his skills with his thoughts, or twist some mana around in his hand.

When the mana he had been playing with started twitching, he looked down. Instead of a mana construct, he had created a mathematical equation. Specifically the equation for force. Force equals mass times acceleration. His previously wandering thoughts suddenly coalesced. There were no specific numbers that he could use to explain, but he had something he could work with. Smiling, he looked back up and started explaining.

“It’s a combination of several things, actually. The first, isn’t actually my Enhanced skills, it’s Empower. Empower increases strength, speed, and toughness. The last is far more important than you realize. Without the toughness, I would likely tear myself apart trying to use the other two, not to mention the Enhanced skills. Empower doesn’t increase my statistics, it’s both more comprehensive and more simple than that. It fundamentally changes the body to be better at those three aspects. While I don’t have the means to measure it, I get the feeling that there is about a 25% increase in each of those aspects. That doesn’t mean a 25% increase in striking power though, as strength and speed are multiplicative in their ability to increase force. That means it gives me closer to a 56% increase in damage over a normal strike.

“Secondly, the Enhanced skills work similarly. Power and Quick, when used together are also multiplicative, but their boost is closer to 50%, each. That means just those two Enhanced modifiers give a 125% increase. Combine that with Empower, and you end up at an increase of over 250%, or a multiplier of 3.5. So if a spear thrown normally does 100 damage, then a spear thrown with Empower, as well as both Power and Quick from Enhanced used on it, would do 350 damage.”

There was a moment of silence as the two men pondered the lunacy of a low level skill combination that does three and a half times the damage of a normal attack, without using any of the elements to modify it. The fact that there was also nothing at all flashy, repetitive, or signaled in any way that the skill had even been used was something that only Error really considered. Even the majority of his skills that he used for assassinations had at least some visible cue that a skill was being used, although they were difficult to notice and easy to hide. Still pondering on the vagaries of Dix’s skill he absently asked, “Any way you could show me the skill card?”

“Sure thing,” Dix said, while sending the skill description to Error with a thought.

The eager expression on the elf’s face soon gave way to delight, followed closely by a series of rapidly changing expressions including confusion, determination, more delight, and frustration. After mumbling to himself for a time, he eventually leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes to think. During this time, Dix and Thunk simply watched him. They were curious, but it was outweighed by patience.

Finally, he spoke, “So, I think I’ve figured it out. It’s not that the skill is incredibly strong, although it is, it’s just that it is already fully evolved.” Seeing the look of shock on Thunk’s face, he smiled, but continued his explanation. “This isn’t a skill someone should really have at this point in their leveling, as it more closely resembles a Class skill than that of a Classless. Which is both good and bad. Good in that it will make a huge impression on your ability to fight, and level quickly. Bad in that you won’t be able to level the skill at all until you get a class.

“Also to the good, is that it has all of those other abilities that become available at later skill levels. It’s impossible to know how much of an increase in damage each of them will give you until they are unlocked, but from the names they are mostly utility modifiers?” His voice rose in pitch at the end, signifying a question. Seeing Dix nod, he continued his thoughts. “With that much utility, it almost doesn’t matter how much damage they do. You will have the skills to make damaging attacks from almost anywhere, with the added utility of making them be an area of effect, or higher damaging single target. That will really widen your role in later levels.”

Dix wasn’t really surprised by the revelation. He felt that his Enhanced skills would end up being a mainstay of his combat skills for a very long time, so while he was slightly disappointed that he couldn’t level them yet, he knew he would eventually. And there were a lot of other skills he could learn and level in the meantime.

Error’s voice and hand raised in a stopping motion broke through his musings with some bad news, “However, if you really intend to use a hybrid build, your damage will start to drop as the levels of yourself and others increase. With you placing your stat points into a mixture of different areas, even with your staggering multipliers to damage with your skills, you will eventually fall behind. You will need to keep an eye out for ways to negate this issue as you level. New skills, skill evolutions, even certain pieces of gear can all help you mitigate the variance. I also have a few other thoughts on the matter.”

Edging forward on his seat, and leaning towards Error, Dix dove right into trying to learn as much as he could about the new world he found himself in, and how he could grow stronger. With a willing and knowledgeable teacher in front of him, he was determined to learn everything he could. Despite his certainty that killing Tuti was the best decision possible, it may have cost him easy access to important basic knowledge. However, now it was proving to be just as good of a decision as he had always thought. Error wouldn’t have helped him if the vicious irritant was still around, and he would have missed out on a lot of training, and personal knowledge of life on Mantra. The pixie may have been designed by the gods to help new arrivals settle in, but their knowledge was lacking in a number of areas, most importantly, personal experience.

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While Error and Dix bantered back and forth, covering a startling array of topics involved in life on Mantra, Thunk couldn’t help but think back to his own arrival. Much like all of the other arrivals from Earth he had spoken to, he hadn’t accepted the reality of being on another world quickly or easily. From the beginning he had thought it was a dream, or some sort of VR game world designed to help coma patients or something. He didn’t know how he had ended up in a coma, but it was still easier to accept than being in a different world.

His inability to accept all of it led to a number of poor decisions, the first of which was his name. Believing it all to be a strangely lifelike game, when he was asked for his name, he used one of his character names. In the last MMORPG he had played, his main character had been an orc named Thunk, so he went with the same moniker. Having enjoyed the playstyle of bashing things in the face with a club, he hoped to continue it in this new, and more realistic, game. By the time he realized the truth, it was too late to change his name. Much later, long after he had made it to Mantra, he had another chance to change his name, but by that time he had accepted it as his new identity.

Worse than the naming problem, was his actual combat potential. When he went through the Tests, he ended up a nervous wreck despite barely passing. When given the chance to learn more fighting skills, he declined, focusing on magic instead. Even then he focused on magic based skills for healing and buffing. At that point he was still treating everything like a game, and figured every group needed a healer. To his game-addled mind, healers were the most protected and least exposed to fighting of any group members. Once more reality had failed to live up to his expectations. Yes, people wanted a healer, but those without combat skills of any kind were forced into non-combat roles until they learned to fight. So instead of learning combat skills in the much easier testing environments, he had been forced to learn them the hard way. Eventually he managed to make his way forward, but it had taken time, pain, and loss. Not to mention the nightmares, and guilt. Every healer loses people eventually, but he had never properly been mentaly prepared for that eventuality. Losing party members had been worse, much worse.

By contrast, Dix almost seemed to be a local. Not only had he come to Mantra with a number of combat and general skills, he was still sane. Or at least as sane as the people of Mantra who had grown to adulthood fighting and killing monsters. Furthermore, the man was eager to fight, and seemed to excel at it. Thinking back, Thunk wondered how much was actually Dix, and how much was his Adaptation Trait. He didn’t know the particulars, as he had refrained from trying to identify the Trait, but the name likely said enough about what it did.

He sighed into his mead as he took another drink. The new guy was a strange mix of incredibly competent, and totally screwed. Illegal skill turned Trait. Necromancy that was quite powerful, but would get him hunted or set up by every paladin and scumbag out there. Empower, probably one of the most powerful buff skills he had ever seen for its unevolved level. And the Enhanced skills, that were basic to the point they weren’t even their own attacks, but provided startling levels of boost. If Error was right, and there was a way to add elements to the skills, there was no telling how far they could take him, but they would never evolve into something more powerful. Eventually he was doomed to hit a wall where he just didn’t hit hard or fast enough to push through without the skills growing.

And the final coffin nail was his general skill for weapons. It had long been known that Advanced Weapons was a terrible skill to have. Not because it couldn’t be useful, but because it was a massive pain in the ass to level. And it actually got worse the more weapons you knew how to use. For the most part, people had given up on learning the skill. Instead they focused on learning a single weapon type like Swords, or Spears. Even those skills were difficult to level, as they needed you to raise each of the base sub skills for the skill to increase. The benefit of having the accumulated bonuses applied to every sword type you could use was seen as a good, cost effective balance between the time and difficulty of raising the skill versus what it actually gave you. Advanced weapons, however, was an amalgamation of several different type skills, and a staggering number of actual weapon skills. While its bonuses were also greatly elevated, the time sink was exponentially larger.

As Thunk pondered how far Dix could actually get in the new world they were both trapped in, he couldn’t help but think of his own quest. Completing it would finally send him home, but he was concerned about getting his hopes up again. The problem with his quest wasn’t that it was difficult, but that it relied on other people. Specifically, people new to Mantra. None of those who had come before had managed to complete the final steps needed to finish it. It had seemed so simple when he had first gotten it, but the constant failures had dragged him down. All he needed to do was get a new arrival through the Trials of the Hero.

The problem was that no one really knew what the Trials were. He had taken them himself, but the memories faded immediately upon completion, leaving only generalities. He knew there was combat, but not what he fought. He knew there were puzzles, but not their form or how to complete them. He knew he’d been given directions on how to get through them, but not what they were. He’d spoken to many other people who had gone through the Trials, and none of them remembered anything more than he did. How do you prepare someone for something you couldn’t explain?

Thunk knew Dix had the possibility of actually completing the Trials, but he was concerned over how to properly help him get ready. Furthermore, could he really use someone to get him home, without bothering to explain to the man that he was essentially doomed? Even in a group, after a certain point, Dix wouldn’t have the damage output to keep up with the increasing durability of monsters. Or at least, three of his current skills wouldn’t. Somehow, they would have to convince the man to take up more traditional skills. Even then, with three of his skill slots already filled with sub par offerings, his damage would be too low, but his ability to actually fight would hopefully make up for it. There was no way of knowing how many class skills a person could actually have until they met their own personal cap, but it was normally between twenty and thirty.

Doomed or not, at the lower levels, Dix was almost a juggernaut. With a little luck, and a lot of preparation, he could pass the Trials, and then Thunk could go back home to his family. He tried not to think about them too often, as who knows what could have happened in the five years he had been gone. Even his memories had started to fade a little. He could still see the faces of his wife and children, but they were starting to blur around the edges. Just thinking of them in passing helped strengthen his resolve. No matter the cost, he would get back home. His family needed him.