-The fact that I can gain points through difficult scenarios means that the points can be used for something else other then the scenarios themselves, and the fact that the bunker costs 9 points means that the points are valuable enough to deserve such treatment, keeping in mind the mentality that the person who is selling something always sells things for a profit, I can sort of assume that the bunker isn’t truly worth 9 points but less then that through comparing every other scenario which costs points and those that give me points, those that give me points should be the original values while those that take points should slightly spiked, considering that the “Infected” scenario gives me exactly 5 points and starts me out in the city, this is a fair assumption to make, but then what do I do ?
Gaining points was a attractive choice if it meant that I could somehow benefit from it significantly but at the same time I simply didn’t want to take the risk when considering the fact that I was not a person who could take on risky situations such as this.
Taking my previous point, using points to get a safer start seemed good then, but at the same time considering that I maybe spending more then I needed to for something temporary hurt my spirit.
In the end I didn’t want to earn or spend any points for a scenario which is why I eventually decided on neither of those.
-This scenario…it isn’t bad and it doesn’t cost me anything either..
What I ended up choosing was a scenario called “Out Of Town” the reason I chose this scenario over every other was mainly because it costed 0 points, there were many 0 point scenarios but they all either had something of a risk or were in some sense too remote for my liking.
The scenario itself says that the player was out of town when the cataclysm occurred where exactly “out of town” was could be anyone’s guess but at least the scenario suggested that it isn’t in the complete wilderness.
-In either case, I can only pray now…
I slowly whispered choosing my scenario with a shaky mind and as I did so the screen momentarily flickered and changed going towards the next tab.
I immediately tried to go back to the scenario tab, but just as I feared, it was indeed permanent with me being unable to return.
I didn’t know whether or not I should have been glad or sad, but in either case since I couldn’t return I now knew that once I made a choice it was permanent.
-Focus, no point in regretting anything..
And with those words I finally looked at the new tab called “Profession” properly.
Just like “Scenario” it had a extremely long and enormous list, all showing different kinds of “professions” one could have and just like the “scenario” points were needed to purchase these “professions” depending on how good they were, the better ones being more expensive, there were also some profession that gave me points instead of costing me points which was similar to how being with slight disadvantages or inconveniences in the “scenario” tab.
Next to the list was another screen with more information, the screen was divided into 4 each having a sentence over them that started with the prefix “profession” and then differed to “traits”,”skills”,”items” and then “bionics”.
The word “bionics” momentarily caught my focus making me feel curious but since there was nothing there yet I quickly looked over something else.
Just like the scenario tab when a profession is selected its highlighted and then described bellow.
I focused on the very first profession called the “Survivor”.
Its description says “There is nothing notable or exceptional about you, but you survived and that’s more then most people can say right now” the witty comment made me want to chuckle but at the same time made my imaginary gums itch from anxiety.
Looking at the separate screen I could see it change, the traits,skills and bionics were still indicated as “none” but the item section filled up some more but with only things like a full set of cloths and basic gear to 2 bottles of water and a matchbox with 20 matchsticks inside plus a pocket knife.
Just like the “Evacuee” scenario it was really was just a ordinary profession with nothing special about it, in fact it costed 0 points most likely because it didn’t have anything other then starting supplies.
Obviously I quickly move on to see what other professions there are and feeling a sense of deja vu the next “profession” made my imaginary eyes twitch.
-“Tweaker” ?
The transition from normal to abnormal quickly became apparent to me like a wave crashing against the side of a cliff, looking at the other screen I also noticed that a 5th entry without the prefix “profession” appeared all of sudden called “addictions” which didn’t sound good at all.
The addiction in question was called “amphetamine withdrawal”, I wasn’t exactly sure what amphetamine actually was and could only assume it to be some kind of drug.
Expecting the rest of the entries to fill up some more I looked over them, only to discover that they were all barren, other then pants, boxer shorts and a t-shirt this profession had nothing, in fact it gave me 2 points if I choose this profession letting me understand that it was one of the negative professions.
-This seems far more significant then the scenario tab, I am essentially choosing my background here, maybe its here that I should start spending my points more generously.
I continued to look over all of the professions on the list, at first glance the amount of professions looked just about the same as the scenarios but after overlooking them I came to the conclusion that there were at least 3 times as many professions compared to the scenarios.
And there was literally anything considered a profession on the list.
From “Prostitute” to “Lawyer”, from “Assassin” to “Farmer” it was a hodgepodge of every individual found in society.
Majority of these professions didn’t have any skills or traits but rather began with better items related to their profession, I categorized these professions as laborers since they only seemed to rely on brute force to work.
The ones that needed skills for their profession finally gave me insight into what kind of skills there were.
And from what I had gathered I had found out that there were a total of 28 skills from what I’ve seen.
Those were: bartering, computers, construction, cooking, driving, electronics, fabrication, first aid, mechanics, speaking, survival, swimming, tailoring, trapping, dodging, melee, bashing, cutting, piercing, unarmed, marksmanship, archery, launching, throwing, handguns, rifles, shotguns and finally sub-machine guns.
Skills also seemed to have proficiency levels to them meaning that the higher the number next to the skill the better the profession was in that specific skill, I highest proficiency I had seen a profession have was 9 and in most cases profession that have such a high level of skill usually lack in all other areas with on skill whatsoever.
I wasn’t completely sure if these were all of the skills either, I was also unaware what each skill specifically did or how it worked exactly, skills like bartering and throwing seemed extremely straightforward, but then there were skills like survival that made me want to scratch my head since the word was so broad.
The combat skills were more in depth in this case, with the main skill being melee for close range and marksmanship for long range combat, they further devolve into separate skills that specialize in certain combat like using blunt weapons, cutting weapons or piercing weapons which each respectively being things like maces, swords or spears, finally unarmed being hand to hand combat.
The ranged options are also self-explanatory at this point which is why I wasn’t going to mention them.
This leaves only the traits and bionics which I also found out certain professions have but still wasn’t sure of what they did completely.
Of course I knew the meaning of traits and bionics, it was just that traits were broad terms while bionics were a type of physical augmentation that needed a lot of knowledge to recognize.
“Cyborg” was in fact one of the professions I could choose that had more then +10 Bionics installed on their body, the names of those bionics were extremely technical giving me only a tiny idea on what they actually did making me quickly give on the notion of choosing a cyborg as my profession when I didn’t even know what each individual part on my did once I had become a cyborg.
Traits as I said were broad terms and in fact traits were rare for most of these professions to have.
“Zoo Keepers” have a trait called “Animal Empathy” which I assume makes it easier to connect with a animal or be less likely to be attacked by them just by going by the name.
“Librarians” have a trait called “Great Memory” which isn’t very clear to me other then taking it by face value and saying that a person with that trait can remember things better.
Then there are traits which seem redundant like “Stylish” which belongs to the “Model” profession, the name of the trait doesn’t tell me much, but even so I simply couldn’t find a trait like this useful in any way considering the fact that the only audience for a trait like this to show to would be walking heaps of dead flesh that didn’t even know the first thing about this so called “Style”, what was even more ridiculous was the fact that the “Model” actually cost me points instead of granting me points for a trait that seems incredibly useless.
-I already looked over every profession there is and I also have narrowed it down towards those that had caught my attention, the only thing is who exactly do I want to be ? What kind of role would help me the most surviving in a world like this ?
I briefly considered what I would need to survive a apocalypse such as this, the first thought that came in mind was in fact combat ability, I would need it to defend myself from the hordes of zombies and monsters while also using it to maybe hunt for food as well, fighting was not the goal but surviving was, basically without combat ability I would likely not be able to survive for a very long time if I met with a unexpected enemy, putting the professions that have skills in combat on priority.
-Now the only thing I have to figure out is what kind of combatant do I want to be ? Ranged seems powerful since I don’t have to stay close, but once the enemy gets close to me somehow I essentially become useless, gathering ammunition and better weapons will be tough as well if I can’t find right away and if I run out of ammunition my ranged skills become obsolete too, once again defeating my enemy is not the goal here, but surviving the enemy is, I can only rely on myself at the moment, meaning running is my safest option most of the time, this puts dodging as a highly effective skill since if I can’t get hit while running it is likely that I will always survive and in the worst case if I have to confront my enemy I at least will be assured not to be hit as much…so which profession does have the highest dodging skill ?
I reorganized my list for a moment looking for the profession for the highest dodging skill I quickly found it plus it was also a pure combat profession as well specializing in close quarter combat, the profession was called “Black Belt” it only had 3 skills which were melee, unarmed combat and dodging but all of them were at a staggering level 8, it even had a profession trait with the same name of “Black Belt” I had no clue on what it did just by the name, but I at least could expect it had something to do with combat which only made me want to chose the profession even more.
-But at the same time…the cost is really high huh..
Of course “Black Belt’ was really powerful and for its power it had a equal amount of cost needing 8 of my 10 points to be purchased.
For a moment I considered whether or not I was making a mistake by prematurely choosing a class that may not be as amazing or worthy as it seemed, but as I thought about what kind of environment I would be in the moment I stepped foot into that world, my hesitation seem to disappear into the void around me.
-No regrets here, hesitating is not the way for me to live.
Believing that thinking will only make me steer away from choice even further I quickly decided that Black Belt would be profession without another thought.
Once again the screen flickered and changed bringing me to the traits tab.
Once again I couldn’t return back to the previous tab.
A Place Of Legends 