Watcher's Test

by Sean Oswald

  Chapter Two

  “For rebirth to mean something the soul must go through the forge of adversity.” -Line found on the sole remaining wall of the Fallen Temple, Imperial City."

  The last sound Dave heard was the sound of Sara screaming. Her warning only coming soon enough for him to turn forward again and see the gaping maw of glowing silver that hung in the road before him. In the time it took him to recognize the danger, it was already too late. He couldn’t direct his body fast enough to steer out of the way, and even if it could have, the car likely wasn’t capable of such a maneuver. In an instant, the car and everything else in his life was obliterated. He felt a single nanosecond of excruciating pain as he was torn asunder, body and soul. Only his immortal spirit was able to traverse the void, crossing from one universe to the next, for no created force existed which could bring lasting harm to an immortal spirit.

  Whether it took an instant or a million years, his soul was reformed, memory by memory recreated, byte by byte the data which made him who he was filled his newly formed soul. He didn’t remember anything about this process, just as no other mortal recalls its conception.

  Then from nothingness, there he was—or at least he was self-aware. It was instantly clear that he was no longer in the car with his family.

  There was a faint gray light all around him, like moonlight through a hazy fog. There didn’t seem to be any walls or ceiling. Even looking down, there was no floor. His awareness was just floating. Since he wasn’t seeing anything around him, he instead turned his focus toward himself. He wasn’t able to look around but was just aware of what was around him without having eyes, a head, or even a body.

  Being able to see but not having a body was very disorienting. His first impulse was a wave of panic. Where was he? Where was his body? Where was his family? Each of these questions raced through his mind in rapid succession. As he tried to turn his focus inward, a screen lit up.

  Welcome to the world of Eloria. You have been transported here from your home world. The process of transferring you here has resulted in the complete destruction of your body and all possessions you had on your person at the time.

  Eloria follows some of the same laws of physics that you are accustomed to, but not all. It is a world of magic, not science. It is a world more akin in functioning to what you know as a video game. Learn and respect the natural laws of Eloria just as you respected the law of gravity on your home world. Death is still very real and very permanent here.

  You will be provided with a new body just as you have been provided with a new soul using the deconstructed material of your body. Think carefully and be wise, for the choices you make here will be permanent. In Eloria, life is conflict.

  All other individuals with you are simultaneously experiencing this same process.

  Rather than panicking after reading this text, he felt a rush of excitement. This was quite literally a dream come true. How many times had dreamed about what it would be like to live life in one of his games? A life of purpose rather than the drivel that filled his life now. Chasing dragons rather than chasing paperwork.

  One thing was different though. In none of the fantasies he had ever daydreamed about or discussed with gaming buddies had he ever thought his family would come into the game with him. He didn’t really know if this was a game or a new reality, but either way, he wanted to throw himself wholeheartedly into it, yet how could he do that if his family was still here?

  The advice he was given was to think carefully and choose wisely, but he didn’t know if there was a time limit to this. Worse, if his wife and kids were with him, what would happen if they chose more quickly than him? Would they get new bodies before him and end up appearing in Eloria before him? His wife and kids wouldn’t know what to do. Well, Jackson might have some idea of what to do. Jackson might not be into gaming as much as his dad was, but he at least would understand some of the principals of a world based upon a game.

  Emily, Mira, to say nothing of Sara, would have no idea how to adapt to a world based upon game rules. What would happen if they appeared in a new world surrounded by monsters?

  Suddenly, his dream-made-real was more of a nightmare. He started to examine the tabs that had opened up before his eyes: race, stats, basic skills, crafting skills, melee skills, rogue skills, mage skills, hybrid skills, spells, inventory.

  Looking first at the race tab, he learned much as he had expected that he was provided with a number of options for race. Again, he was advised that the choice of race was permanent and would affect the race of any children that he had. He found he was able to scroll through the various options with his mind. He could see images and descriptions of the various races. Most had bonuses and penalties to various stats, and many of them had specialized skills. The choices laid out included some of the typical races such as two types of Elves, Sun and Moon, Dwarves, and Orcs, as well as standard Human. There were also more unique choices, Minotaurs, Centaurs, Dragonkin, and Spiderkin. He chuckled. At least he didn’t end up as slime.

  Dave considered various races but quickly rejected all but human. He couldn’t flippantly choose a race. If his kids were coming through, then it would be irresponsible to choose a race that would lead to them being some sort of awkward hybrid. Images of his children as half-human combinations with the other races made him shudder, less at the images of what his children would look like and more about the reaction that he would get from Emily. Besides, even though humans didn’t get any bonus stats or skills, they also didn’t have any penalties, and they had the unique advantage of gaining experience points 50% faster. No other race could boast that. So, without further thought, he made the choice to be human and was greeted with a prompt asking if he was sure. He indicated with his mind that he was sure and suddenly he began to feel.

  It wasn’t pain or pleasure or any distinctive feeling that he could remember from his former life. It was just suddenly feeling again. His disembodied spirit self hadn’t felt any physical sensations at all. Now he was feeling each tiny change as his new body was formed. Bones, muscles, blood, organs, and nerves each felt different as they formed in sequence to create his new body. In mere moments, it was over, and he felt a floor under his feet where none had been before. The space around him was still misty gray, but there was definitely a solid floor under him. He was tempted to feel around his surroundings again, but then he thought of little Sara materializing, scared and alone, and he dove back into the various tabs required to complete this process.

  Even in his urgency, he couldn’t help but take a second to look himself over. He didn’t have a mirror to see his face, but looking down, he saw one thing that had been missing for far too long: abs. As he moved his arms and legs, he could feel firm, tight muscles flexing and extending. By God, he felt like he was twenty-five years old. This was awesome, and he felt a bit giddy despite his worry for his family. He could certainly get used to this again.

  He noticed a new notification in the corner of his eye and mentally focused on it. The notification explained that his peak attributes of body and mind from his former life had been assessed and incorporated into this body. Additionally, he would be assigned credit for the skills that he had possessed previously.

  Name: David Nelson

  Race: Human

  Age: 40

  Level: 1

  Movement: 34

  Alignment:

  Factions:

  Guild:

  Stats

  Core Attributes

  Regen Rates:

  STRENGTH: 16

  Health: 140

  1.4/hour

  DEXTERITY: 8

  Mana: 150

  150/hour

  AGILITY: 8

  Stamina: 2.75

  2.2/hour

  CONSTITUTION: 14

  Fury: 7

  1.4/hour

  ENDURANCE: 11

  Teamwork: 3

  1/hour

  INTELLIGENCE: 15

  Bravery: 4.8

&nbs
p; 1.6/hour

  WISDOM: 10

  Faith: 3

  1/hour

  CHARISMA: 10

  Base Defense: 5

  LUCK: 0

  Base Attack: 10

  Total XP: 80

  Unspent Stat Points: 0

  Unspent CP: 4

  XP to Next: 100

  As he opened his stat sheet for the first time, further notifications sprang up.

  Your stats have been optimized for the peak of any point in your life. Strength is determined based upon 1 pt. for every 20 pounds of maximum bench press rounded down, and Intelligence is based upon what was known as an IQ scale at the rate of a 10:1 ratio. Other stats are harder to quantify.

  So much information was coming at him and it was hard to process it all. Even though he was tempted to be excited by all of this, he had to rush his character creation to get into this Eloria and try to be there waiting for his family to arrive.

  He was prompted again that his skills and abilities from him formal life had been assessed and extrapolated over as best as possible to this world.

  General Skills

  Running: 3 - +30% maximum speed and maximum duration. So that is what four years of track and a state competing 400-meter time got him.

  Sense Motive: 5 - +25% chance - thanks to dealing with ethically challenged clients.

  Speak Languages: 7- base: Human, Elven, Dwarven, Orc, Dragonish, Minotaur, and Goblin. Hmm, interesting. Well, finally his undergrad in ancient languages had paid off for something.

  Diplomacy: 15, +75% experience negotiating deals.

  Knowledge - Research: 25, +125% information obtained and speed of research. Thank you for all that time looking up case law.

  Knowledge - Law: 3, +15% understanding and ability to apply. While the legal systems of Eloria are different than your home world, some understanding has been placed into your new soul.

  Survival - Forest: 5, +25% - thanks to the USMC and two years in Boy Scouts.

  Survival - Desert: 7, +35% - thanks to a tour in Iraq.

  Melee Skills

  Unarmed Combat Proficiency: 10, +50% atk, +25% dmg - thanks to 2nd degree black belt.

  Archery: 5, +25% atk, +12.5% dmg - never was a very good shot.

  Overall, Dave wasn’t too upset. Sure, he wasn’t going to start out this game as some beast, but he had adequate skills for a noob, and let's face it: no matter what experience he had with MMOs back home, this was a whole other thing.

  In examining his sheet, he noted that he had two stat points that were unassigned and four character points. Dave always played a magic-using class and the chance to wield magic for real was a wet dream, but magic users were typically physically weak in his experience and had poor defensive capabilities. This would not help him protect his family in the early stages even if it would be useful and really cool later on. He would have to buckle down and make the responsible choices, even here in his fantasy world. So he assigned one point to Strength. The effect was immediate. His muscles increased in size slightly, and he felt a surge of power go through his arms and legs. Even his pecs felt denser. This was amazing. He had never been one for recreational drugs, but he had a hard time imagining a high that would be better than the rush this additional point of strength gave him. Next, he dropped his second point into Constitution. Again, the effect was immediate. He felt healthy. It was hard to explain, but he just felt hardier and he liked it.

  Looking at his skills, he decided on spending one point in a magical skill: Divination. He shook his head in frustration at the need to spend one of his four points on a non-combat skill, but the ability to get information that would protect his family was too important to pass up. After spending the point, he got an immediate notification:

  Divination: Often discounted, this magic of the mind opens the secrets of the world to you. With enough skill, no treasure can be hidden from you, nothing can be lost which cannot be found. Even your enemies’ weaknesses will be laid bare before you. Effect: Determines the highest tier of divination spell accessible to you as well as increasing the effectiveness of those spells by 5%/level. 3x 1st tier spells gained.

  Assess Enemy: Determine weaknesses and abilities of target enemy. Difficulty rating revealed: Green- no threat, Light Blue- minimal threat, Blue- average threat, Yellow- significant threat, Red- deadly threat. Greater success will reveal more information. Cost: 2 mana. Cooldown: N/A

  Identify: Used to discovery the properties both magical and non-magical of an item. Cost: 20 mana. Cooldown: 1 minute.

  Sure Strike: Enables you to see the openings in your opponent’s defense. Grants +200% +20%/divination level to attack on next strike. Further grants: +25% +3%/divination level to critical strike and +50%+6%/divination level in increased critical damage. Cost: 35 mana, Duration: 1 minute/level or next strike, Cooldown: 1 minute- 1 second/divination level.

  Sure Strike seemed very powerful, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it now.

  For his other points, he assigned one point into Long Blades because how would wielding a sword not be crazy cool, one point into Heavy Armor to give himself the best chance at protecting his family, and he saved the final point. There didn’t seem to be any requirement that he spend it right away, so he thought he would save it for what might come up. Though it wasn’t his nature to hold back potential resources, it was the responsible thing to do. Which was really a polite way of saying he was impatient. He was moving so fast that he didn’t even take time to read notification boxes for those skills.

  He took one last glance at his updated stat sheet and then approved it all, hoping this would trigger him to be spawned into the world of Eloria, out of whatever staging platform this was. The more that he looked at it, the more that it seemed like the loading program from The Matrix. After clicking yes for the third time, he felt the gray mists around him part and his body was forcibly flung out into a sunny field. His eyes struggled to adjust to the light, but what was most important was that he didn’t see any of his family, so hopefully he had beat them all here.

  Chapter Three

  “Dark is the night and tangled the path, when he walks alone. Wise is the traveler who moves within the light of the moon, Queen of the night. So also his path in life is most smooth when he walks in the light put forth by Queen of his heart.” —Moon Elf proverb offered to grooms the night of their wedding.

  What is it about fifteen? Emily paced the floor in the kitchen, trying not to erupt in anger at her daughter Mira. Something about this age seemed to make children intentionally aggravating. Old enough to want independence in far too many things, and young enough to make too much freedom unwise. Emily loved all her children so much that it made her heart ache, so why couldn’t Mira just get on board and do what was best for the family? Jackson and Sara never got obstinate like this, but her firstborn seemed to reject anything that Emily asked of her just because Emily was the one asking. Worse yet, she had Dave wrapped around her finger. Bat those pretty blue eyes of hers and her father would give in on anything but the most outrageous of teen-aged requests.

  Count to ten. Count to ten. Emily repeated this in her head without actually doing any counting. She needed to get her anger under control. Lately, it seemed that she had a very short fuse, and she didn’t want to make this into a bigger deal than it was. Mira had arrived home from school and gone straight to her room without even a hello, as per usual. When Emily had gone up to her room an hour later to ask her about her day, she got only half-hearted comments that didn’t reveal anything. Emily did her best and tried the conversations starters from Dr. Lipschitz’s latest book on teenagers, but nothing seemed to work. Finally, in frustration, Emily had mentioned that she hoped Mira would wear something nice when the family went to visit Nana Gonzalez that evening, and that was when the fireworks went off.

  “What? It’s Friday night. I’m not going to a nursing home on Friday night,” burst out Mira.

  Shocked by the sudden display of emotion after all of the completely fl
at answers she had received for the last ten minutes, Emily responded back, “You are going wherever I say you are going. I’m still your mother.”

  “Geez, Mom. It’s Friday night. Jessica is gonna pick me up and a group of us are going to the movies.”

  “You haven’t asked permission to go out tonight, and we have a family event planned tonight anyway.”

  “This is no fair, Mom. We’ve been planning this for weeks. I can’t be the only one who doesn’t get to go. All of us are going.”

  Struggling to regain control of the conversation, Emily tried a different tactic. “Well, who all is in this group? And will there be any parents along?”

  “Mommm…” Mira had a way of saying that one word in just the right tone with just the right dragging out of the sound that it sounded like more of an insult than a name. “It’s me, Jessica, and Kirsten, and maybe a few other people... but I don’t really know for sure.”

  The way Mira’s voice trailed off at the end and her eyes darted to the floor sent Emily’s mom radar into overdrive and told her that Mira knew exactly who was going to be in this ‘group,’ but she didn’t want to reveal that information to her mother. Adopting her best stern voice, she said, “Well, if you can’t tell me who is in the group, then you most certainly are not going, even if we weren’t going to visit Nana tonight.”