Watcher's Test

by Sean Oswald

  When they got back to the house and had settled Jackson and Sara into bed, Emily sat down with Mira and Dave to discuss the one last thing that they had not had a chance to discuss about their recent rapid increase in levels. Up to this point, she had been so focused on the two men she needed to heal and then the celebration had just sorta sprung up. Now though, she wanted to talk about the notification that they had received about getting a 20% bonus to one stat as well as the increase she was supposed to get to the skills that she had received from the Watcher when they first arrived.

  It took a bit for Mira to stop giggling about the reactions of all the guys tonight, but for Dave, his inner gamer came out as soon as his wife asked him about the notifications. He chuckled that all it took for the two of them to share in some gaming was the end of their existence as they knew it and being flung together into a completely alien and hostile world. Oh well, he would take it. The 20% bonus was simple enough, and he explained what he had sorted out about it being a tier bonus as well as opining that there likely would be a similar bonus if and when they made it up to the next tier. He explained that he hoped to get more books and be able to do some research on the subject but that until he got more resources it was at best mere speculation. In the end, after weighing all of the options, Emily decided to put the 20% bonus into Strength. They argued back and forth about the pros and cons of this since it wasn’t necessarily playing to her strengths, but she really was tired of being weak. This new body was far more agile, beyond anything even the best of Olympic gymnasts could hope for, but she didn’t have the strength to make use of it and her racial penalty in Strength was -30%, so she was hoping that the tier bonus would cancel out most of that. As soon as she applied the bonus, she felt the change. It didn’t visibly pump up her body like the increasing Strength was doing for Dave. Who, she thought to herself, had never looked so good. The best mix of broad shoulders and well-defined muscles without the freakish look of a bodybuilder. Mmmm. For Emily, the change was more about her muscles feeling more toned. The numerical effect was to increase her Strength score from 5 up to 7 all without having to add a single stat point. It might be a drop in the hat compared to Dave, especially super-sized Dave, but it still made her feel stronger. Better able to use all of her body’s incredible flexibility and Agility.

  For Mira, the decision was simple and neither of her parents were surprised when she told them she had just applied her 20% bonus to Intelligence. Her face had gotten that cold distant look of deep concentration as she felt a surge in her mind. As soon as she told them, she also added a comment about how she should have done this before teaching Mom the spells earlier that morning and how that was the type of miscalculation that she would seek to avoid from now on. Dave thought it interesting that his Strength, Emily’s Wisdom, and Mira’s Intelligence now all sat at 31, but Mira assured him that it was a mere coincidence and not indicative of any higher pattern. The way she spoke about it analytically reminded him of the Superman villain, Brainiac. He made a mental note to discuss his concern about that issue with Emily later but from the worried expression on her face, he was pretty sure she was already thinking the same thing.

  Pushing past that worry though, at least for the moment, Dave explained what he had done with the increase in skills that he had been granted. It turned out though that the message the girls had received was a bit different from his notification, primarily because they didn’t have an excess of prior life skills to choose from.

  Watcher’s Preparation: ongoing - As a result of reaching character tier 2, each of your prior life skills will have their base level doubled. Each tier gained will provide an increase to a decreasing number of these skills and only the skills enhanced at this tier gain will be eligible for future improvement. Bear this in mind.

  Since Emily only had 5 prior life skills and Mira had 4, they were all doubled for both of them. Emily ended up with: Running-2, Swimming-8, Speak Languages-4, First Aid-16, and Balance-60. She chose to add the Moon Elf dialect and Dwarven as her two new languages. Two of her skills increased to the point that she got tier perks to them.

  First Aid (16): +160% to related skill checks. You have reached Initiate Level (Tier 2) in this skill. You may now use this skill to apply bandages and stop the Bleeding Status condition.

  Balance: (60): +300% to related skill checks. You have now reached the Journeyman Level (Tier 4). Your balance is uncanny, much as a cat, if it is at all possible, you will always land on your feet and suffer no penalty to your ability to move or react despite performing what will be to the uninformed seemingly impossible acts of balance.

  Sure, it was only balance—but still, Dave had to center himself again so as not to be jealous of his wife hitting a Journeyman Level skill. He had wanted to be the only one of them with a tier 4 skill, but not only was her skill higher than his, the description of it also sounded cooler. She was well on her way to being the ninja she joked about. Meanwhile, his Journeyman Level skill in research probably qualified him to be the world’s most boring book worm. If he thought though that he struggled not to be jealous that Emily had a Journeyman Level skill like he did, he flipped when Mira told them about her skill upgrades. Balance-80, Bluff-20, Speak Languages-4, Running-6. For her languages, she added Moon Elf dialect and Draconic just because it sounded cool. She was probably lucky that her parents were so blown away by her level in Balance. It might not be the most impressive skill, but wow, to be that high. On a whim, Mira assigned a single character point to Balance. Her enhanced Intelligence had already determined that it was likely that 81 was a new tier and so it seemed worth expenditure of a single point just to see what the difference was. With that, she got a new notification which she read out loud.

  Balance: (81): +452% to related skill checks. You have now reached the Master Level (Tier 6). Your balance is now supernatural. It no longer merely depends upon your physical body but from this point on relies in part upon the ambient mana around you. From now on your weight for any balance related check will be treated as if it were 10% of your actual weight and will be reduced a further .2% by each additional point gained in Balance. You are now close to literally being able to balance upon a blade of grass. Work hard for mastery is but the true beginning of any skill. In Eloria, life is conflict. You have persevered to the point of Mastery. As this is your first skill to reach Mastery you receive a one time bonus of 1000 XP.

  Congratulations!

  XP Gained: 1000.

  Ding!

  Levels gained: 12, 13.

  Stat Points Gained: 6. Character Points Gained: 50.

  You have 89 unspent Character Points.

  Wow, just wow. Dave even a few days ago would have lost it with jealousy, but he was now more confident of who he was and able to not feel less because of the successes that Emily or Mira were having in Eloria. Of course, though, that message about what she could do with the Balance skill had them testing it out. Caught up in the exuberance of the moment, Mira sank 4 of her new stat points into Agility to bring her race modified total to 23 and 2 points into Wisdom bringing her total to 12. Then they watched as she ran up the wall and did flips off the wall in a style reminiscent of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or other old kung fu movies that Dave had insisted on watching around the kids.

  After the excitement from her new Balance skill, the rest of the discussion about spending points was rather dry. They discussed different ideas or paths to take for their development. In the end, they decided it would be best to wait longer since they all had plenty of skills that they were still mastering. More than that, they were all tired tonight and didn’t want to make any bad decisions. As he fell asleep that night though, Dave was pondering how the skills granted to them by the Watcher, whoever that was, allowed them to really sorta hack the system. He really needed to find a way to utilize that effect with his extra skills.

  The next morning Dave woke up, once again well before the rest of the family. He went and got some of the porridge that was in the kit
chen over the low burning embers of fire. While eating the rather bland breakfast, he tried to break down the various things he wanted to accomplish that day. His list included spending some time on further clearing the animals from the nearby forest areas, exploring deeper into the forest, ensuring that work started on their home and the temple sites, connecting with each of the kids, trying to research some of the books in Talvenicus’ library, and working on refining his skills and spells. A short list, he thought as he laughed. Besides that, he also needed to follow up on the order he had put in with the general store, though he thought it would still be a couple days until that order came in.

  After eating and downing some water, Dave walked outside behind the mayor’s home and pulled out his sword. He tried to think like the forms he would have practiced in tae kwon do back home but modify them to use the sword. His goal was two-fold. He had the skill points in Long Blades to use the sword just fine, but the knowledge programmed into his head by the magic of Eloria or the Watcher or whatever, was not the same as feeling comfortable with the sword. He needed to understand its feel, the weight of it, the texture of the handle, and how he gripped it. Now, he planned to do something about that.

  An hour later, drenched in sweat and breathing heavy but still controlled breaths, Dave finally lowered his sword. He had twirled and moved through thrusting and slashing movements as quickly as he could while still being intentional, sort of creating his own sword forms. It was a refreshing exercise and allowed him to engage the mind and body at the same time as he created a set of movements. Cognizant of the low level he had in Long Blades, a quick thought assigned 10 more character points to Long Blades, pushing him into the Initiate levels and gaining an additional perk of .5%/level chance to block another long blade with his blade. As the extra levels in the skill filled his mind with a better understanding of how to fight with his sword, he also began to realize some of the mistakes he had been making in his form. He still had no delusions about being a sword master, but he was proud of the form that he created. It captured both the knowledge that had filled his head as he spent character points in Long Blades with his practical understanding of how to fight with a longsword against the beasts of the forest. The form focused on powerful thrusting movements for its finishing moves at the end of long chains of light slashing movements while pivoting as he had so often had to do to avoid the charges or leaps of his attackers, whether they be huge boars or nimble cats. It was devoid of blocking or parrying type motions that one might expect to use when fighting another swordsman. In honor of his first fight, he named his new form the Boar’s Tusk and then practiced it all the way through half a dozen more times until he was sure it was committed to memory.

  He had loved doing such a simple exercise and had given himself over to it with abandon. Reveling in the power of his new body, he danced and swung his sword faster and more forcefully than he could have ever hoped to do back on Earth. Yet as he glanced at his character sheet, he noted that his Stamina never went down no matter how hard he pushed himself. Free in the movements of his body, his mind pondered that this likely meant that Talvenicus was correct in what he had told him about stamina. The old mayor didn’t know a lot about any combat skills that were not part of his own limited magical repertoire but had told Dave that Stamina along the Fury, Bravery, Teamwork, and Faith listed on his sheet were not measurements of Endurance or any so hard to measure trait. Rather, they were alternative power sources for skills much as mana powered spells, these other sources provided the energy for other types of skills. This seemed to coincide with his observations about how the Dodge and Offensive Stance skills seemed to work.

  The time spent creating and memorizing the Boar’s Tusk form also allowed Dave the mental capacity to assign his 6 remaining stat points and some more of his character points, although he planned to keep a good chunk of those in reserve for if he got the ability to play a more magical character. For the first time, he decided not to place any points into Strength and instead added 2 points into Agility because again, he wanted to keep a certain amount of mobility to go with his enhanced Strength. Two points also went into Constitution since their hunting trip had shown him there was no such thing as too much health. The final 2 points he put into Intelligence to increase his mana pool and because the increased mental acuity seemed to be helpful in a lot of things. Even now as he was engaged in multiple tasks at the same time. By splitting the points up, he didn’t get quite the same rush that Emily and Mira had gotten the night before, but he still felt it.

  As far as assigning more skill points, he thought about and rejected both his flanking skill and sneak attack. He was not a stealth fighter, so the sneak attack bonus was only really useful in conjunction with his flanking skill, and he wasn’t sure he really wanted Emily standing still and fighting long enough for him to make good use of it. He also didn’t want to put any more points into Divination because it didn’t seem to increase the potency of his tier 1 spells or give him any other spells, so there was little reason until he could access a new type of magic and honestly, with the way he was envisioning using Minor Binding, he didn’t really have any mana to spare. For that reason, he ruled out some of the other skill options that he saw on his sheet. Many of them he didn’t meet the prerequisites for like Flaming Weapon, but he could have spent his accumulated character points to acquire the necessary skill levels.

  Other skills like Enhance Arrows looked interesting but didn’t really mesh with his tank role. The one that he saw that he really liked was Flurry of Blows, but he didn’t meet the Dexterity or Agility requirements, and stats were the one thing he couldn’t use his character points to buy. The final thing that he considered and rejected was crafting skills. Some of them like Skinning or Herb Gathering might be useful, but they all apparently required a trainer to be able to learn them initially before assigning character points. He was perplexed by the fact that Eloria seemed perfectly willing to download sword fighting techniques into his head but not flower picking skills. He could only assume it has something to do with the statement that life in Eloria was conflict, but he had to admit that it got his curiosity going. He really wanted to learn more about the underlying rules of Eloria and probably more importantly, who made those rules.

  He shook his head, pushing away those musings as something for another day. He needed to remember that they had been in Eloria for less than a week. He wasn’t going to uncover all of the secrets of a new world so quickly, and he had more pragmatic issues to deal with for now. So, his list of skills to acquire or increase was boiled down to Heavy Armor for obvious reasons, Toughness because it would grant him an innate damage resistance, Tracking as it would undoubtedly be useful in his new job as sheriff, Unarmed Combat because of the Watcher’s gifted points he would be able to raise it up to 40, Taunt to make sure it was effective when he was working with his family and needed to be the tank, Improved Critical Strike as it increased his chances of landing a critical blow and Double Strike as it gave him a chance to get an extra attack every time that he attacked. Seven choices which if all maxed out would cost him 128 character points, but he only had 65 available. For the first time, he was really feeling that he would have to make hard choices about how the points were spent.

  Ultimately, he decided that Unarmed Combat was already high enough in relation to his other skills, and he still wasn’t convinced that punching and kicking bears was the way to go. He chuckled thinking about how the realism of Eloria sorta put the lie to monks or brawlers in many games he had played. Those skills were undoubtedly viable or even excellent in regard to fighting other people, but not so much against larger animals with their entirely different body structures. People just have so many more easily accessible vulnerable spots. He also skipped putting any points into Heavy Armor as he still wasn’t sure if he wanted to go the route of heavy armor vs some sort of lighter and more mobile armor. With any luck, he wouldn’t be fighting with anyone else so more points into Taunt could wait. So once deci
ding, he assigned his points with a split over the remaining four skills.

  Toughness: 20. Negate first four damage received from each physical attack. Tier 2 Bonus: also applies to fire-based attacks.

  Tracking: 15, +75% chance to successfully find and follow evidence of target. Enhanced by survival skills and favored terrain in their respective environments. Tier 2 Bonus: Nighttime tracking penalty is reduced by half.

  Improved Critical Strike: 10, +10% chance to land a critical strike. Current total chance: 15%.

  Double Strike: 20, +40% chance to perform an additional attack every time you land a successful strike. The additional attack cannot trigger Double Strike or Dual Wield. Tier 2 bonus: when landing a critical strike, get an automatic Double Strike.

  So much for saving points. After assigning the last of his character points and finishing practicing his newly created form, Dave became aware of his surroundings. He hadn’t realized that he had drawn an audience. Most of the villagers were serfs who had little or even no experience with fighting. The most experience any of them had other than the few leveled individuals was with the encounter in the woods recently. So, it perhaps should not be surprising that many of the women, children, and even some of the men had gathered to watch their new sheriff work out in the small grassy area behind the mayor’s home. It had begun simply enough with a child running an errand who happened to see Dave. That child ran and told another, and soon a number of children were watching. This, of course, prompted one of the mothers to wonder what was taking her son so long and after a while looking for him, she stumbled upon the group of children, mostly boys gawking at Dave. There is something about little boys in any world that is drawn to militaristic things like swordsmanship, even for those boys who would never want to actually participate themselves. Before long, several mothers were watching and eventually one of them decided to run and tell the other adults who were out and about on their various tasks. The men who were busy clearing the lot where the Nelsons new home was going to be built, while reluctant to take off from work on the first day, especially with what they were being paid for the work, were also exceptionally curious to see just what kind of man their new sheriff was.