Watcher's Test

by Sean Oswald

  After ending the boar, Dave’s shoulders slumped. Fatigue and the reality of his first-ever life-and-death battle sunk in, but then a new feeling hit him. Like a rush of adrenaline but so much more. His body tingled, and he felt indestructible for just a moment as this new energy rushed through him. A welcome notice popped up before his eyes.

  You have defeated: Small Alpha Boar Level 8. XP: 48 x .8 (numerical penalty) /3 = 12.8 x 2 (killing blow bonus) = 25.6 x racial bonus 50% -Net gain =38 (all XP gains rounded down to the nearest whole number)

  You have 1 new character point available.

  Chapter Six

  “Survival may not be the same as a good life, but it is a prerequisite.” —Found etched into the walls of an Orcish mine by an unknown slave

  38 XP? What the heck? He almost died, and he only got 38 XP. That was the thought going through Dave’s mind as Emily came running to him, followed by his children. Even Mira ran forward once the boar fell, demonstrating her concern for her father. Emily reached him first, though, and noticed the stunned look on his face. She immediately began looking him over for any injuries he might have to explain his slack-jawed expression. She asked if he was okay but only heard him mumbling something about 38 XP. Seeing as he clearly wasn’t hurt, Emily grabbed him and hugged him close. She was still hugging him as the rest of the family reached them and joined in that family hug. Deep fear broke through Mira’s normal aloofness as she joined in, and soon Emily and all of the kids were shedding tears.

  Life in a small midwestern town did not prepare any of them for life-and-death struggles. While the battle with the boar likely lasted less than two minutes in total, it felt like hours had passed and they all felt that strain settle into their bodies as the rush of adrenaline started to fade. Dave continued to hold his family until he decided he wanted to see Jackson’s leg. He stepped back from the family. “Let me see that leg, Jack. How do you feel?”

  “It feels perfect, Dad. Whatever Mom did to it worked like magic.”

  The family laughed as Dave replied, “Well, it actually was magic, I think.” His comment wasn’t actually all that funny, but the shared stress made it funnier than it otherwise would have been.

  The laughter was a bit cathartic, each of them laughing longer and louder than otherwise would have been appropriate. As they all calmed down, Jackson asked his dad, “So did anyone else get any XP?”

  “What’s XP?” questioned a still-laughing Sara.

  “It’s experience points. Geez, everybody knows that, small fry.” There it was. As if they hadn’t just fought for their lives? As if they hadn’t been disintegrated and transported to a completely alien world. Not even such traumas could completely erase the dynamics of older brother and little sister.

  “Don’t talk to your sister like that,” both Dave and Emily reflexively snapped.

  Meanwhile, Mira just laughed, “Only computer nerds who have never been on a date know about stuff like that.”

  “Please don’t add on, Mira,” her mother said. “We need to not fight and try to figure all of this out.”

  Dave agreed, supporting his wife and asking the kids to be quiet so that he could explain what was going on. “In most RPG games, the players gain experience points for killing monsters or completing quests. The message we all got was that Eloria follows game-like rules. So, I don’t know if there are quests here, but it seems that we can gain experience points from killing monsters. ‘XP’ is a common abbreviation for experience points.” Dave went on to explain that he had gotten 38 XP and exactly what he knew about the formula that had been listed in his notification. He also discussed that he had gained another character point.

  Jackson said, “Wait, you got 38 XP? I only got 1 XP and some sorta message that level 0s only get 1/10th normal XP.”

  For her part, Emily added that she had gotten 12 XP from the fight while both the girls said they hadn’t received any notifications from XP. They all discussed why that was and came up with a couple different theories. Either, the girls were too far away from the fighting to gain any XP or perhaps only people who had actually participated in killing the boar were awarded XP. Dave thought that the latter theory was more likely as it matched with what they had been told about Eloria. Life is conflict.

  As the conversation about the notices they received died off, Dave asked the kids to all stay together and go try to see if there was any water in the backpacks. “Mira, if you find any water, please use some of it to help Jackson. Try to wash the blood off of his leg, but don’t use too much because we don’t know when or where we will get more water.”

  Mira started to complain but then quickly caught herself. She was scared out of her mind but was close enough with her parents that, despite her usual sarcasm, even she realized that now was not the time for being argumentative. Mira took Sara by the hand with a quick, “Okay, Dad.” Then the three kids started to walk toward the backpacks. Emily started to follow them, but Dave placed his hand upon her forearm and gently restrained her. As she turned toward him, their eyes met. There was a look that passed between them, the sort of look that can only happen with two people who know each other at a very deep level. Dave asked her to walk back slowly with him so that they could talk about what they needed to do.

  Emily fell in alongside Dave and they walked arm in arm slowly back to where the kids were digging through the backpacks. They discussed all of the concerns they each had and all the while, Dave kept making quick furtive glances back at the tree line but didn’t say anything about that. Emily noticed each look back over his shoulder but didn’t mention it, knowing that Dave was worried and finding his trying to be protective strangely attractive.

  The first issue that they had to discuss was what they were going to do about shelter. The terrain didn’t give them much hope. Around them was the clearly logged area of the woods, and the few small pine trees that remained wouldn’t provide any shelter as they were not even large enough or of a type that would allow the stranded family to climb into a tree. Certainly, the trees in the dark, thick forested area would probably have many areas to seek shelter in, but they both agreed that going into the forest where that boar had come out of would be a last resort. To the west, or what they assumed was the west based upon the movement of the sun overhead—if the sun even moved east to west in Eloria—there was what appeared to be a large river. This didn’t give them many options, and both agreed that they needed to find a safe place for their kids to sleep and that based upon the movement of the sun, they probably only had a few hours before dark. They didn’t discuss that the assumptions they were making that night were more dangerous than daytime, but they can certainly be excused for working with the information they had available to them.

  As they got closer to where the children were, both seemed to simultaneously stop so that they could maintain at least thirty feet and hold their quiet discussion in a limited degree of privacy. Numerous subjects came up and were discussed briefly, such as the need to identify the remaining magical items, to determine what food and water supplies they had, if they had changes of clothing, and many other things like that. Dave was silently glad that Emily was with him, as he wouldn’t have even considered thinking about things like extra clothes at this stage. Heck, he probably wouldn’t have thought about it until his clothing was smelling rank.

  The issue that caused their first real disagreement was when Dave expressed that after shelter and supplies, the next most important issue was finding ways to get XP. Dave couldn’t understand why Emily didn’t understand that they needed to get stronger so that they could protect the kids, and Emily didn’t understand why Dave would consider actually seeking out things to fight. Both meant the best but saw it from a completely different perspective.

  Finally, in worried exasperation, Emily blurted out, “If you need to get more XP, you just need to get some quests. Quests seem to give a lot more XP than fighting that monster did.”

  Dave was caught off guard by her comment. Truth be t
old, he had only been half-listening to what she was saying as he was trying to figure out the best way to explore and see if there were easier monsters to fight. “Wait, what do you mean, quests give more XP?”

  “Well, I was gonna tell you all about it, but there just hasn’t been a chance yet.” Then she launched into a recounting of her Class Determination quest. She was frequently interrupted by Dave, who was standing there, mouth agape, as he heard her describe the voice that had spoken to her, her decisions, and finally the notification that she got.

  “I don’t even have a spot for class on my character sheet. I wondered about that, but now you are telling me that classes do exist, but they are only granted under special unknown circumstances.” Dave tried to not sound like he was whining, but when he heard that Emily received 1000 XP for the quest it was all he could do to not say, “That’s not fair,” and when he heard that she had gained 12 stat points and 50 character points, he about had a stroke.

  Despite trying to hide his reactions from his wife, he was an open book to her. She asked him if this was a problem, with just a hint of smugness in her tone, but seeing the pained look on his face, she relented. “So, since whoever the Watcher is seemingly isn’t going to help me figure out what to do with these points, can you help me?”

  Her question completely diffused Dave’s tension and his inner gamer combined with his strong desire to solve all of his wife’s problems made him forget about any jealousy, at least for the moment. He launched into a set of questions about her stats and skills and what options she had. They learned that both of them seemed to have basically the same options for assigning points and that her character sheet only differed from his in that it included a spot to designate her class. Dave tried to get to the bottom of how she wanted to develop her stats and skills, thinking about it much as he would have thought about developing a character in a game. In contrast, Emily’s answers and questions back were much more centered in the here and now and thinking about what would help them to better protect the kids. This helped rein Dave in some and bring him back to thinking of this as what it was, a real-world situation that just happened to follow game rules rather than a game that carried no real consequences.

  They weighed out the benefits of assigning points to different stats but ultimately decided to play completely to Emily’s strengths at this time and to focus on Agility and Wisdom because of the racial and class bonuses she had. Dave convinced her that she would need to add at least a couple of points to Constitution to increase her durability. As Emily applied the stat points, it became clear that her racial modifiers continued to be applied. The two points that she added to Constitution only increased her actual Constitution by one point because of the negative 20% penalty. That sucked, but the upside was that the five points that she put into Wisdom increased her total score from 18 the last time she had checked her screen to 28 now. She was thrilled with the difference that the 30% racial and 20% class bonuses added. When she had increased her Constitution, she had only felt the slightest tingling in her body, a nominal increase in health level, but when she increased her Wisdom, she felt as though her mind expanded. Her understanding of the knowledge she had increased, and her ability to think of creative applications leaped forward. She also felt a deepen emotional connection to her family as well as an understanding of their feelings and motivations. Simply put, things just made more sense. The points added to her Agility were equally thrilling. She had thought that when she first got this new body that she had the graceful fluidity of an Olympic gymnast or dancer. Now as her agility shot up from 19 to 26, she felt practically superhuman. She felt capable of moving like fictional female superheroes from movies and couldn’t hold herself back from jumping into the air and doing a series of flips before coming to a landing as light as a cat.

  Dave grinned at her as she put on her little display, and she flourished a bow when she heard Sara clapping, “Yeah, Mommy.”

  “I take it that you are starting to like at least one thing about this body. Or maybe I should just say, ‘I think she likes it, Mikey.’”

  Emily smiled but then it turned a bit sour, “If I could wake up from this bad dream and find out that we are all having dinner with Nana Gonzalez, I’d be happy, but if we are stuck here, then I might as well find joy in the little things.” She paused and continued with a sigh. “Besides, we have to put on a good show for the kids. They must be scared senseless. Sara probably doesn’t fully understand what is going on. Jackson is putting on a brave face, but being injured like that shook him to his core, and Mira… well, Mira is so in shock that she is barely saying anything, and when was the last time that happened?”

  “Well, the stat points seem to be paying off from what I can tell. So the best way that you can help the kids is by being able to protect them and help us all survive here.”

  Emily noted a reticence in Dave’s words but trusted in her knew found perceptiveness. “Dave, I know it must be hard for you that I got all of these extra stats and stuff that you didn’t get. I really do get it, but we are a team and the truth is, I wouldn’t have any idea how to survive here even with ten times as many stat points. The kids and I are really depending on you to figure this out.”

  Dave didn’t say anything back but looked at the ground. He recognized the peace offering in her words, and yet her sudden surge in level made him feel as though she was supplanting him. Intellectually he knew that wasn’t true, but he couldn’t help struggling with these feelings. Not wanting to spend too much time dwelling in this mindset, he decided to sidestep the emotions as was par for the course for him. “Well, we should probably take a look at how we can assign those character points that you have. Do you know what you wanna focus on? You could focus on your dagger skills and your ‘ninja skills?’” Emily could hear the air quotes around ninja skills and grinned even if she was tactful enough not to rub it in. “Or do you want to focus on your healing power or even try some new type of magic skill? Based on what you told me before, your total mana points are not all that high, but your mana regeneration must be at least 7 points per minute now, so you will regenerate a lot faster than I do.”

  Emily paused as she answered, “Well, what would you recommend?”

  “Emily, you ultimately have to decide, but I think we should first try improving your healing power. Who knows, maybe you will get more spells or other kinds of goodies.” As he spoke, his eyes lit up, his focus settled back onto the gamer mindset and off of his insecurity at Emily surpassing him.

  Emily closed her eyes and focused. She attempted to put 20 points into her Essence Magic skill. “Hmmm, I can’t seem to put more than nine more points into Essence Magic. I tried to put twenty in, but it only let me put nine in. The notification I got says that I can’t go beyond level 10 in any skill until I reach Tier 2 in character level. Does that mean that I have to increase my class to Tier 2?”

  Dave thought for a moment and then replied, “I don’t think so. From what you told me, your class is very rare and there isn’t any clear path to increasing its tier. It’s more likely that once you reach a certain class level, maybe 10 or 11, you will cross into Tier 2.” They discussed some possibilities and decided that Emily should also try to put ten points into Short Blades. With an act of will, she attempted to and was surprised that she was able to put the full 10 points into Short Blades to bring her skill up to 15. Once again, she received the same notification, but this time it indicated that she was able to reach a max of 10 plus 5 for a racial bonus. She received a notification that she hit Tier 2 in Short Blades and received an extra bonus of +5% to critical strike chance and +20% to critical strike damage with Short Blades.

  Emily looked at her skills page and saw the upgrades to her various skills before looking at her complete character sheet:

  Essence Magic: 10, +50% effectiveness to associated spells.

  Short Blades: 15, +75% attack rating, +15% to base damage.

  Tier 2 Bonus: +5% crit chance, +20% crit dmg.

>   Name: Emily Nelson

  Race: Moon Elf

  Age: 39

  Level: 7

  Movement: 50

  Class: Daughter of Redemption

  Alignment:

  Factions:

  Guild:

  Stats

  Core Attributes

  Regen Rates:

  STRENGTH: 5

  Health: 80

  1.6/hour

  DEXTERITY: 13

  Mana: 110

  420/hour

  AGILITY: 26

  Stamina: 2.5

  2/hour

  CONSTITUTION: 8

  Fury: 4.0

  .8/hour

  ENDURANCE: 10

  Teamwork: 3.9

  1.3/hour

  INTELLIGENCE: 11

  Bravery: 1.5

  .5/hour

  WISDOM: 28

  Faith: 8.4

  2.8/hour

  CHARISMA: 14

  Base Defense: 5

  LUCK: 0

  Base Attack: 10

  Total XP: 1092

  Unspent Stat Points: 0

  Unspent CP: 31

  XP to Next: 108

  She was thrilled and still had 31 character points to spend. Now though, she had to think about what would be better for her. The only disappointing part was that she had originally gotten three spells when her first point had been put into Essence Magic, but now, despite putting in 9 more points, she didn’t get any further spells. Or at least, she was disappointed after David asked her about what new spells she had gotten. It seemed that you only got new spells when you first got a new type of magic, or at least that is what their investigation would lead them to believe.