‘Be who you are and say what you feel

because those who mind don't matter

and those who matter don't mind.’

~ Dr. Seuss

POV - Tad

Going new places and meeting new people was always exciting and at the same time somewhat daunting. I hadn’t had much opportunity for either in my previous existence, generally I was too ill to travel and too miserable to be outgoing. This new me though, I was going to people new places with a new zest for living.

Meeting Nigel No. 2 was a great start. People were all so different. Different experiences and expectations. Different shapes, sizes and haircuts. Sure there would be clashes, it was inevitable, but on the whole people meeting was simply going to be fun.

Nigel the Dom was an interesting fellow. He was actually 87 years old. From what I could gather from his disjointed account he had suffered from dementia or Alzheimers or some variant. His wife had passed at least thirty years back and his two kids had packed him into care at some stage and disappeared. He was pretty vague about it all but I gathered he was from the Gold Coast and had been a municipal sanitation vehicle operator up until his retirement. Apparently a MSVO was a highly sought after job and required professionalism, punctuality and precision. Once I had got past his initial hesitancy and self effacing shyness he was happy to burble on about whatever caught his fancy.

He hadn’t had the best time of his renewed youth. His children hadn’t bothered to try a meet up and he had not been very fortunate with the people he had grouped up with. They were a bunch of self seeking pretentious twats apparently. No one was interested in carving out a niche and settling down with a comfortable job to cover off the few expenses there were. And there was simply no demand for MSVOs and he hadn’t found another occupation to replace it. I was somewhat staggered that he wanted the same old job. There was a whole new world out there to be discovered. In fact there was a whole new world inside of me as well. It was amazing and I couldn’t wait to check it all out. Nigel was dismissive. He could remember losing his strength as age and disease robbed him of his vigour. Now he was strong. And vigorous. And invincible. And indomitable. And strong. I stopped him as he started to cycle through his new found characteristics.

“Hey Dom… - do you mind if I call you Dom? It’s your middle name after all?”

“What’s wrong with Nigel? It’s a strong male pronoun, it is! It means Champion. I’m Champion the Indomicable Nigel. I mean I’m Nigel the Indomatible Champion.” Before he worked himself up too much more I interrupted.

“Ahh… yes it is. A strong name that is. I completely agree. In fact I called my minion Nige as a matter of fact. And now I’m getting all mixed up…”

“Hey you called it Nige? That’s cool. I called mine Tinkerbell. It didn’t answer that well though…” he petered out before continuing. “Do you think it wanted a better name? Is that why yours stayed? Cause you gave it a strong name? I wish I had named mine Nigel too now.” He sighed. “But Dom sounds strong too. Classy, like a cool title even. Better than Indom, that sounds silly, like special kind of dumb idiot.”

While he hadn’t answered me directly I gathered that he was okay with my lazy shortening of his title. This would make things easier. Three Nigels now with three different names. Go me. And I had completely forgotten what I had intended to ask him.

“So Dom, how did you decide on your character build? Did you go for the Barbarian trope for a particular reason?”

“I’m not a Barbarian! Barbarians are rough and uncouth and smelly and, and” he was spluttering. Okay so not a barbarian. I hesitated. “Absolutely! Of course you aren’t a barbarian. That’s obvious. In fact it’s obvious you are a…” I was searching for it.

“I’m a Warrior.” He paused, obviously reading a blue box. Before somehow flicking it to me.

“How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Show me your blue box description.”

“Ummm, I just did?”

Okay, good to know. “Are you able to share your Character Sheet like that too?”

He came to a complete stop and looked at me closely. “Why?” He wasn’t particularly defensive or abrupt, more curious as to why I was asking I think.

Nige chipped in.

“I was just wondering if it was possible, that’s all.” I scrambled to reassure him. “I am curious on how to proceed with my own build and what path to pursue.”

“You get offered a path as you do stuff,” he informed me. ”I just wanted to get strong. I had to do all these other things as well and get Stats in the other attributes but all my free ones I stuck in the Body points.”

“So not Mind?” I clarified, “what about the Soul attributes like Honour?

We resumed walking, following Nige as he led the way to the bank.

“Yeah I got some but not much. Mostly when I did good stuff I got a point or two. But no free ones there.” He grimaced. “My wisp kept wanting me to put more points in mind and soul but it was wrong. Strength is best. It is good to be strong.”

“Do you know what the Stats Charisma and Honour are about?”

“Yes. Charisma is looking good and Honour is doing good.” He seemed to think that was the end of it. This was borne out when he continued. “I don’t need those. I already look real good. You should have seen me when I was old. I was old. And weak, with lots of wrinkles. Now I look even better than when I was young.” He flexed. “I got lots of muscles now instead of wrinkles and I am heaps taller too!” There was a bit of a lull, and he continued. “And I don’t need more Honour to tell me what’s right and good. I do that already!” He seemed somewhat affronted that the System would insinuate that his honour was lacking.

He stopped.

“What about Honour?”

“What about Honour? I just told you already? I got honour and I am honourest already! I don’t need no more…”

“Sorry, I was asking Nige and forgot that speaking out loud was not required, not to mention confusing. And I think you mean honourable or honest and yes, I think you are too.” Dom settled down as he accepted my apology.

“Sorry - I remember asking you, I just don’t remember listening to your answer.” And there I was, apologising again. At least this time it was silently, thinking the words to Nige rather than speaking them.

Okay, so a bit to process and mull over. It would make a good subject to meditate on later.

Meanwhile we had arrived at the bank. It was a grand three storey building with an imposing squat frontage and a colonnade of Corinthian pillars framing up an oversized set of heavy stone doors. A pair of stout dwarfs with heavy armour bracketed the door. They were so still, I had subconsciously figured them for statues and thus when the left one smoothly pivoted and swung the door open ahead of me, I was considerably startled. I felt tempted to try and [Inspect] them but refrained, unsure on etiquette regarding using the Skill. Another thing to quiz Nige on.

We entered the building together. I couldn’t wait to see the System Shop once this errand was completed.