I observe the head, the stone, and the book.

Graaa's Head

Required to collect the bounty on Graaa.

Dawn Stone

Absorbs all visible light in a 100 foot radius for 30 seconds. At the end of this time, all accumulated light blasts forth bathing the area in light for one second. Usable once per day.

Darkvision Skillbook

Teaches the skill Darkvision. Allows the user to see in up to complete darkness. Starts at 15 feet and shades of gray. Distance and color increase with skill level. The skillbook is consumed upon use.

I'm not sure anyone other than me could use the skillbook, at least until I unlock skills for my Party System. It might be worth checking, but I kind of want this. I imagine myself as Garrett, sneaking in and out of all kinds of places, using water arrows to douse torches and a blackjack to make piles of bodies. Then loot the place clean. Ahh memories.

“So, the head is for a bounty, his name was Graaa evidently. Not sure how much it's worth. The stone is a Dawn Stone. It absorbs light for 30 seconds then releases it for one second. The book is a skillbook. It teaches a skill to see in absolute darkness. It may or may not work for anyone but me, but it's consumed on use. Also, we can take the stone and book out of the game with us, it happened before with things generated by the loot system. The head too, I guess.”

“I think we'll keep our head in the game. How much would a stone like that cost Valerie?” asks Dad.

“Something that small, once a day? Somewhere between ten and twenty thousand dollars. It would do well at auction. I could make one, but it would take a week and cost a thousand dollars in materials. There would be few other people in the world who could do the same. Maybe a dozen, but only three that I know of in America.”

“How much would the book be worth if other people could use it?”

“Priceless, because of how it works rather than what it does. You can do that with mana, but to teach someone with no magic a skill like that? The city would drown in blood until the secret of its creation was found. I hope I don't need to say this, but don't try to sell it.”

“I think you should use it Jack,” said Mom. They just aren't going to call me Adam are they?

“I agree. And you should keep the stone. They seem like a pair,” says Dad.

“Seconded,” Valerie chimes in.

“The motion passes unanimously,” says Dad.

Graaa had a serious problem with hoarding. He should have sought psychological help because there is nothing of worth in here. Scraps of leather, a few broken swords, paper that has rotten away so badly I can't even guess where it came from. “Val, what kind of loot would be typical for a battle like this?”

“Earrings, some bracelets or necklaces, the chieftain's weapon, maybe some scrolls if they used magic. Not much. It's pretty low level. It would total out to maybe ten gold.”

We had killed maybe sixty goblins all together, and they seemed to drop two to five dollars each. That worked out to more than 800 gold. There hadn't been anything except cash on the goblins. I'm not sure how that stacks up against end game content, but my loot system was clearly superior at lower levels. We would need to shut it off during battle from now on though. Some of the cash burned when I set the place on fire, and a corpse wall would have helped during the battle with the horde.

“I can't really think of any safer place to read it. I don't know how this works, so keep an eye on me.” I open the book, the pages start to stir, then flip straight to the front of the book. There are multicolored lights springing up from the pages, and they start to flip slowly. Images rush into my brain and I suddenly understand.

Not really. I open it, it vanishes, and I get a skill notification telling me I unlocked Darkvision. There is no understanding involved. Disappointing.

The whole room is much brighter now. It's not black and white except in the areas that Valerie's light doesn't cover. It does cut off abruptly at 15 feet, like some kind of video game clipping error, but other than that, it's great.

“It worked.”

“Great! All done here, time to go drink and tell grand tales. Gabriel, put that head in your inventory. Dear, Would you be so kind as to portal us to the adventurer's guild?”

Valerie opens a portal so my parents can go get drunk. Out of a lack of ideas, I figure town is better than this cave, so I follow. Valerie follows me.

I turn to her. “What's next?”

“Is there anything you want to do?”

“Learn more magic and practice alchemy.”

“Anything in particular for either of those?”

“I want to learn life energy healing and mind magic. For alchemy, I want to figure out how to put together a potion that I can bring to Chester. I have some ideas, but I don't know if they will work. Mostly I just need to make a few stamina potions.

“Switch your magic over to life energy now. We'll do alchemy first, then your energy should have recovered and we'll do healing. After that we will leave town and find some targets for mind magic.” Schedule locked in, we head to the training grounds.

I switch from mana and much-neglected chakra, to just life. My mana bar empties and I decide to switch to a life/mana combo instead of chakra. I just don't have enough time to train it right now. We head to Thorn's Mixtures to buy ingredients and use their back room.

* * *

“You can use any equipment you want, just clean up after yourself.”

“Just wanted to let you know. Shouldn't be more than an hour.”

I hear him mutter, “Damn travelers, awake all night and bothering good normal folk.”

I wait until we are in the back room and out of hearing range. “Are stamina potions bad for you? Why doesn't he just use those for sleep?”

“People still need sleep, stamina potions only refresh the body. Trying to stay awake on them is a bad idea. Players can stay awake because the game system is simulating sleep for them. The people here can pop a mental energy potion, but it's like caffeine. It won't keep you up forever. You would need more and more over time. Eventually, the amount of potions you would need would kill you.”

If the high-quality stamina potions felt like a resort vacation, I wonder what the high-quality mental energy potions feel like.

I take out a potion bought at Boil Boil, and pour out half. Then I fill it back to full with a potion from Thorn's. I shake it very thoroughly. Then we extract the gear I bought at Boil Boil from my inventory, and set it up.

Valerie walks me through the process for making a stamina potion. Her instructions are very close to the comprehensive guide the librarian showed me. I started by making a potion with only Earth ingredients. Then I used up the rest of the Earth ingredients mixed with Ellesmere ingredients. I tested one, and it felt like a regular stamina potion. I made more and dropped them in my inventory.

Finally, I clear away all my stuff. I strictly use the shop's equipment and ingredients. The only thing that isn't from the game is my labor. I only make one potion and put it in my inventory.

For the testing portion, I logged out of the game.

I started with the half and half pre-made potion. I fished around in my inventory and grabbed it. Everything was going normally until I tried to pull it through the threshold into the real world. It resisted coming out of the blue window, so I pulled harder. I didn't want to shatter the potion, but this sucker was coming out one way or the other.

There was a pop, and I fell backward with the potion in my hand. Luckily I didn't drop it, and the force I had to put in didn't break it. I examined the potion.

Lesser Stamina Potion

Refills an average human's stamina to full.

It worked! Half of that potion had been digital, but here it was in the real world. I would have to bring it into work and see if they could put it under the microscope or something.

I noticed my mana bar had dipped about a fifth. That wasn't good. I could only take out five potions before I ran out of mana, and I would have to fight with every one. This was not a really workable solution, but it was interesting.

I set myself up for another tug of war contest, and pulled at the potion I had hand made with partially digital ingredients. I was able to grab it just like the other, and as it came to the window I almost fell forward this time. There was very, very little resistance. I felt the loss of mana, but it was so small I think I regained more mana than I expended. I could pull out something the size of a bathtub without draining myself.

Last test. I grab the potion I had created with the shop's tools and ingredients. Or rather, I try to grab it. I can't get a grip on it, just like the the potion I bought from Thorn's.

So. I can mix real and digital things, and pull them out at a cost. If I have a hand in making them, it reduces the cost to almost nothing.

Maybe it has something to do with the transformative process? Or specifically alchemy, changing one thing into another. Somehow the potion I made had more data than the one I bought.

I've gotten a few answers, but I'm more confused now than I was before. The more I learn about my skills, the more I believe they have something to do with the nature of data, and now I'm screwing around with altering the data of both people, with my Party System, and items, with alchemy and my inventory. It's very strange to feel like you are actually peeking under the lid of Pandora's Box.

I'm dead set on keeping my Party System, so maybe I'll hedge my bets by trying to only use items from the world I'm in. That said...if I learn to make a set of armor like Valerie's...

I mean, how cool would it be to have enchanted armor in real life?

* * *

I wanted to learn how to heal using the easiest method in the game. Life energy. Valerie demanded a sacrifice and I went with it.

“The tip is still moving, oh my god, I can feel it.”

“It was supposed to come off!”

“I can't look at it anymore. I can feel the blade. It's inside my finger!”

So, we've learned what happens when someone tries to dismember me before my HP drops to zero.

I'm looking her straight in the eyes so I don't accidentally look down at the pinky finger that refuses to die. She yanks at the blade, and it comes out cleanly. I look down, and there's a red circle around my finger, but it's whole. My Hit Points have dropped by an eighth.

The very worst part is that because it didn't come off the first time, we need to chop it off again. The whole point is to regenerate my missing finger. I can't stomach the idea of screwing around trying to do this safely. I need this whole thing to be over. Now.

I take my dagger out of my belt, and stab myself deeply in the leg, ruining yet another pair of pants. My HP drops by a quarter. I stab two more times. I've got an eighth left, so I stab my hand this time. That does it. It hurts like crazy, but it isn't healing yet.

“Do it.”

This time my pinky comes off cleanly, and I did not watch. It hurts less if you don't watch.

“Now the life energy. Hurry. Like I showed you.”

My hand's stab wound closes instantly, and I watch my pinky regrow in front of my eyes. It's like squeezing toothpaste out of the tube, which makes me slightly sick again, but at least this part is over. I leave the energy there, and my HP starts to refill. I decide that isn't fast enough, so I spread the energy out through my body. My HP shoots up, and fills in just under a minute. I finally feel healed.

“Oh my god that was awful.”

“Healing energy is supposed to feel amazing. How could you screw that up?”

“Me? You are the one who couldn't chop off a finger off properly.”

“Lets just drop it and never speak of this again.”

* * *

It may be a rocky ride, but I am learning everything I wanted to learn tonight. I have a feeling I'm not going to be directing my own learning for long, so I should take advantage while I can.

We took the slow way to the rabbit's clover field. I had eaten rabbit once, so I felt less bad about killings rabbits than wolves and bears. I know that doesn't make sense, because they are digital and we aren't getting meat, but there it is. Once you eat something you lose respect for its life's sanctity.

I wanted to do three things with mind control. Calm something, put something to sleep, and push it into a frenzy. Valerie assured me all three were possible.

“You can use mathemagics and a sufficient understanding of the human brain to affect humans, but most of the things you fight won't be human. Mana is better for imposing mental effects.”

“So like adding PCP directly to the bloodstream? Flooding the brain with dopamine?”

“Yes, on humans. But you'll have trouble learning it since we have a distinct lack of volunteers.”

Right...Hmm...I could try it on prisoners but that would be considered torture until I was good enough at it, which I couldn't be until I practiced on prisoners. Maybe I could try to make aerosolized drugs to start my training...and suddenly I'm thinking about breaking the Geneva Convention. Chemical and biological weapons are bad.

“I'm convinced. Mana it is.” I had taken the time on the slow walk here to finish reintegrating mana into my mental energy, so I was good to go.

“Good. Mind magic is about knowing your target. Watch.”

She telekinetically pulls a rabbit into her hand. It's freaking out and trying to escape, but she has a good grip behind the neck and it's going nowhere.

“Consider the rabbit's situation. This has likely never happened before in it's life, and its instincts are screaming that I am a deadly threat. It wants to run, but is trapped. It's not really smart enough to be thinking deep thoughts about it's situation, and that makes things easier.”

She lets some raw mana out into the air. It isn't under any strong compulsion, so it just spreads out around the rabbit.

“The rabbit is safe. It is not captive. It is peaceful.” She charges the mana slightly, and it seems to wrap the rabbit in a blanket of energy. The rabbit even breathes some of it in. It takes a moment, but the rabbit calms down.

“You have to visualize the situation, emotion, or psychosis necessary for the outcome you want. Then make it real, and ensure the target only receives mana from the visualization. It's like an illusion, except you aren't bending light, you are bending mana. And it's not just the head. You need to surround them so there are no conflicting signals in their entire mana supply.”

You are always absorbing mana. It's everywhere. That's it's primary feature. And the whole 'All Stories Are True' thing means we are always expelling energy. Energy out, mana in.

“Does this have anything to do with how angry mobs form, or the serenity you feel in a church?”

“Good question. Yes. When you are starved for any other source of mana, you take in the nature of your surroundings. It's mental pollution. Your body will naturally try to take mana you are most attuned to. Angry people eat and expel angry mana. When there is dissonance, your mind is more free to do whatever it wants. So to control someone, you don't let them have dissonance. Deep thoughts like self-awareness and contemplation will make it much harder to affect someone. Willpower matters too. As does the concentration of mana they already have.”

Sounds easy enough. More resistance requires more mana, more self-awareness requires more intricacy. I push some mana out to the nearest rabbit. It's just a rabbit, so I put it in it's warren. It's night time. Its stomach is full. It's safe. I smother the rabbit with the mana so nothing that isn't my mana can reach it. There is some mana coming out of the rabbit, and I push it away quickly.

The rabbit lays down and closes its eyes. I'm not sure if it's asleep, but its definitely resting when it was eating before.

“Like that?”

“Yes. It's sleeping. It's just a normal sleep though. If you smack it around, the dissonance will wake it. Sleeping isn't the same as coma. If you remove the mana, the sleep will become natural and it will continue to sleep for at least half an hour. Light sleepers will wake to sound or light as they normally would.”

I drop the mana around the rabbit and search out my next victim. The next rabbit I wrap in feelings of calmness, normality, and unchanging environment. I walk up to the rabbit, and am able to get it to eat grass out of my hand. Aww. I like this one now.

I pick one further off, and push my mana out. This time will be harder I think. Rabbits are peaceful in general, so I don't have an easy trigger for what I want to do. I envision it coming home. It's hungry. There hasn't been much food for a while. Soon it will come back to its children. But there's a snake entering the den. The children are in danger. There are snakes everywhere. These things that look like rabbits are actually snakes.

The rabbit walks in circles getting increasingly agitated. Soon it sprints at the nearest other rabbit, bites down hard, and starts kicking. The other rabbit freaks out, especially because the mana I've been using to envelop the first rabbit has now enveloped it as well. The mana does not have time to sink in. Both rabbits fight, the first thinking the other a snake, the second defending itself against a crazed fellow. Neither rabbit secures a solid victory, and the fight goes on for a while. The mana around the rabbits continues to increase in influence. Soon they both see each other as snakes.

While this display is interesting, it is also a little sickening. Even I don't want the rabbits to suffer too much. I release the mana surrounding them, and they keep fighting for a while, until they both tire and just wander away from each other.

“Well done. Especially how you spread the mana over both. Some mages specialize in mind magic, I think you could do well if you chose that path.”

“You know I don't want to specialize. I may train up a skill to a useful point, but I'm not going to master any one field and neglect others.”

“You may not have a choice. If you were put on a team now, what would your role be?”

“Morale officer. If that position is taken, I'd probably blast things from range and heal.”

“And you think you know how to really blast things? You've got the most elementary basics. Do you know how to bypass or overcome magical shields? Can you teach your fire to not burn your allies?”

“My stats and skills reward me when I diversify. Sub-skills are enhanced by, and in turn enhance, parent skills. I learned swords faster because of how my hand to hand skill increased the Melee Combat skill. The Melee Combat skill is papering over the cracks in my Sword skill. The same happens with magic, only ten times more complex. I may not know how to make a leaf dance on the wind, but I will. Have you ever, in all your lives, had a better student?”

She's quiet for a while. “I would agree that, in some ways, your learning surpasses anything I have ever seen. But you are still a novice at everything. Including at how to learn. I just don't know if we have enough time to let you grow the way you should be allowed to grow.”

“Sounds like one of those future problems we can't do anything about. Maybe we can just grind stats for a while? My Wisdom is by far my lowest stat, but Vitality is close to hitting the threshold at 50.”

That seems to snap her out of her funk.

“I would very much like it if you didn't kill yourself with all these new powers... We'll go shopping for strategy games when we get out. There should be a mix of short and long term planning. Focusing on the consequences of your decisions will help shore up your wisdom if the chess we played before is any indication. But we'll have to mix it up. If the game just becomes a rote exercise, it won't help you learn.”

“I never thought I'd grow up and make money playing games. Sounds great.”

“Until then, we'll see about getting that vitality up.”

“Less great.”

Jack Ambrose Webb's Statistics

Strength

37

Wisdom

27

Agility

56

Charisma

38 (+1)

Dexterity

56

Luck

13

Vitality

47 (+1)

Transcend

8

Intelligence

68 (+2)

Unallocated

15