The stats screen was the shortest tab so far.
It only had 4 rows of lines, but reading those lines I came to understand that they were the most fundamentally important lines of my character.
The 4 lines each individually were.
Strength.
Dexterity.
Intelligence.
Perception.
These would decide the raw capabilities of my character, currently they were all at 8. Reading the description bellow it immediately informed me that a 8 in all of these stats was what every average full grown human in the world was capable of with differences being present in gender and genes if someone wanted to go beyond the average.
In general a 10 was the highest any average human could get through training and practice.
If a person wanted to go beyond that they needed to either a gene in their body that allowed such breakthrough or assistance of other tools which directly implies that the path to breakthrough your limit lay in mutation or bionics.
At the current stage I was a 8 in every single stat meaning I was a complete and average individual.
Strength as described allowed a individual to carry more and do more physical damage, it also allowed the person to resist more diseases and poisons if they are stronger.
Dexterity determined hit chance be it melee or ranged, it also played into anything that required a certain amount of finesse.
Intelligence was the broadest of these stats is determined your ability to learn and remember things, interacting with others or understand certain things.
Perception on the other hand is your ability to be aware of your surroundings, its useful for detecting traps, enemies or anything hidden from sight, it is your basic 5 senses bundled into one, hit chance is also determined by perception to some degree but not by a lot.
-(Sigh) I have no points, there is nothing I can do here unfortunately.
I lamented for a moment, even though I knew that I shouldn’t be regretting my decisions I still couldn’t help but feel as if I missed out, but alas there was nothing I could do, my choices were permanent.
Taking one last look at my stats I immediately moved forward not wanting to look at it anymore then I had to.
The screen flickered like I was used to and finally brought me to the skills tab.
Seeing it, I could find all the 28 skills listed, my melee, dodging and unarmed were already +8 every other skill was still zero.
Just to test it I wanted to see how much a single level of a skill costed and if there was something I had missed out on, I knew that doing so could hurt my psyche and maybe make me regret even more but I didn’t care as I wanted to know.
Amazingly though, what I discovered made me smile up to my cheeks.
-Haha ! 1 level is actually equal to 1 point in any other skill ! And not only that skills even have certain thresholds that increase the cost of the level the higher it gets !
For a simple test I put my Archery skill at 8 just like my melee skill and what I discovered was that I needed 16 points to have any skill reach level 8 the cost only skyrocketed the higher I wanted the level to go the max being 10 and costing 25 points to get it there.
And since I had 3 skills on level 8, I had essential used 8 points to gain a benefit of 48 points meaning I saved a total of 40 points for skills !
-And it isn’t just that, even though I couldn’t do anything in my stats tab, I still gained a exclusive trait for my profession, what it does yet is unknown but maybe that is what going to be able to carry me after all ?
I mused, not bother to continue looking at the skills tab before deciding to go the final tab.
And for the last time the screen flickered finally about to reach the last tab which was my description tab.
But upon doing so, the screen weirdly started to shake startling me, the void beside me seemed to expand or at least thats what I perceived with my limited senses.
The screen also expanded becoming bigger until finally it burst into thousands of particles and lights gathering into one spot forming a human shape.
The facial features and body shapes became more detailed as the light sculpted and formed the being, for a moment I was completely unsure what was going on but the more observed the more I started to understand the human form was like me or rather my character.
I was fascinated, staring in awe as I saw the being that would be my body come to existence.
Short black hair, with browns eyes, 170 cms tall with somewhat tanned skin, the facial features were simple with nothing special on it, but even I could recognize that I wasn’t a looker at all, not hideous per say but definitely bellow average even though I never met anyone who I could compare human aesthetic with.
-At least I am glad I know what I am, a Human, but then who am I ?
I asked myself, the entire time I was occupied with creating myself that I didn’t even think about the one simple thing that would make me, me.
My name, what was my name.
I glanced upwards, seeing all of the information about my suddenly appear as it showed every detail I made about myself.
Where I came from, what my profession was, my traits and stats there was only one thing that was empty and that was my name.
-What do I write there ? How do I even call myself when I don’t even know what kind of names there are ? Don’t parents name their children ? Who are my parents then ? Was I even born ?
I stayed like that, staring at my name as if I was transfixed, as hoping it would suddenly appear like that, but nothing did, there was no name, if I couldn’t give myself a name then who could ?
-Wait…what is that button ?
As I contemplated, I suddenly noticed from the corner of my eye a strange star like symbol next to me name, instinctively I knew it to be a button, but I simply didn’t know what it did, usually I would cautious about every unknown factor but this time I felt myself drawn towards that button pressing it without thinking twice and suddenly the empty row next to my name started to fill up finally giving me what I wanted.
-Tommy…I am Tommy Malloy.
(Whoosh)
Upon saying my name a breeze seemed to sweep through the left, my spirit moving on its own as it entered the body that was just created and when I opened my eyes, the darkness of the world was replaced by a pure white space a dark screen now facing me.
I reached for that screen seeing for the first time my own hands, and when I finally reached the screen I could see the words written one them.
You have completed character creation.
Because of your profession trait “Black Belt” you are allowed to choose 1 unarmed martial art that you become proficient in, please make your choice.
The screen once again gave me a selection.
There were only 7 this time and I also only knew 2 of these martial arts while the rest I simply didn’t recognize, luckily the screen was kind enough to tell me the strength and weaknesses of each style and in the end I decided to go for “Karate”, it wasn’t fancy or anything but very simple and efficient.
After I made my choice the screen flickered and disappeared.
The world started to go dark again and I felt incredibly sleepy.
Before I closed my eyes I could feel someone holding me and carrying me somewhere.
And finally I woke up.
-What is this ? Is that a wooden roof ?
I stood up, somewhat disoriented as I had no idea where I was now, but upon standing up I immediately recognized that I was in some kind of wooden house, it was cold and dark too, for a moment I considered whether or not there someone there who could possibly taken me here, but after getting my mind back together I quickly understood.
-No…this..this is actually my place, I live here.
Recognition came to me like a flood. Slowly walking towards the sole window of this little shack with a familiar step, I slightly opened the curtains to see the snow falling to the ground explaining the cold, spring had just begun and it was still snowing.
I took my time looking outside from the window, the reason I was so rooted in place was because of the beauty of nature in front of me, even though I knew what nature was, knowing and see were still 2 completely different things and from now on I would experience much more so I had to get used to it.
I smiled.
-I’m Tommy Malloy and from today on I will live until I die.
My life had only just begun.
A Place Of Legends 