Looking up at his parent’s Jarrod knew, instinctively, if he was open about who his patron God was, he would be shunned. The Other was simply not even mentioned in polite company, they were the Patron of all those who had unsavoury acts in life. If you wanted to live a life like that and still operate in society, it was well known you took The Mother as your patron. She loved us all and excluded no one. Yet he couldn’t lie, he was a terrible liar! Obfuscation and half-truths, that’s the sweet spot, that’s where he could operate safely.

“It was, different. No not a strong enough word, it was inexplicable. One moment passed to the outside world, yet it felt like I had spent hours pondering and talking. I went from red-hot to ice-cool with no outside influence”

“Yes, yes my boy that’s often how it is for folk upon their first Awakening.” His father was nodding sagely to himself and had his fingers steepled below his mouth. “More importantly though, what is your class & what did The Father say to you?”

“Now, Gerald, we don’t know for sure our Jarrod took The Father. He’s always been inquisitive, perhaps he has gone down one of the many myriad paths that The Scholar has to offer.” His mother, only just now starting to grey even though she was entering her 9th decade looked admonishingly back at Gerald.

“Why, why would a good, God-fearing young man such as our Jarrod choose anything other than The Fathers path? Protection of the weak is his core tenant, you all know that.”

Ahh, there’s Pop’s good old prejudice coming through. Once a soldier, always a soldier and you won’t be able to get a thought into his salt and pepper head that someone else’s viewpoint might be correct. Right, it’s been a good minute now and they’re just watching me. I need to say something, remember Jarrod, half-truths.

“Well, he explained a little bit of the system to me, a choice of a few different classes and he also gave me a quest!”

“Ahhh, a quest, I remember the first quest he gave me! It took me over 5 years to complete, I had to go and find three different individuals who had never stepped foot into a dungeon before and help them through their first clear. I had to protect them through the trials of different dungeons and could only do it one at once. After I managed to complete it though I got my sword, ol’ trusty Ailbe. I used her from level 9 all the way to 39 where I sit now. It kept me safe through all my levels of Guardsman, and it all came from a quest.”

“On the other hand, I didn’t get a quest till I hit tin rank! It’s a bit different for crafters than fighter type classes of course. We get a few more skill points, but they get used in different ways to how you fighting classes get them. What was the quest he gave you?”

“Well, the quest itself was to clear all 3 dungeons required to rank up”

“Huh. That’s quite an easy one, I mean compared to how some of them can be. Some of the quests can give really really good rewards but come with really harsh punishments if you fail to complete them. It is normally worth focusing first and foremost on quests from your Patron, people normally call them System quests. Other quests, adventures or however else they would be called can be handed out by various organisations. These organisations get mortal patrons who are looking for an item, needing some pest control or other service rendered, and will pay for this. One would be the shard-spanning Adventurer’s Guild, they act as an intermediary for payment from patrons to those who will go out and well, basically be mercenaries.

It doesn’t matter for you of course. Now we have you properly set up we can slowly clear some dungeons, find you a nice lady and….” Gerald trailed off, with a sharp pinching look from Enola.

Clearing her throat “Well, what class did you get Jarrod? It doesn’t matter to us what you got, there’s a place for everyone in the God’s great tapestry after all!”

Okay, no way to hide this. I know Mom has got an enhanced identification skill at a minimum, and Dad can tell when someone is flat out lying.

“Well, it was actually an uncommon class, he said it was called Lucky Warrior! The thing is, I don’t really know what to do with my free stats and how to allocate them as needed. One thing this class does say is I need to keep my LUCK stat total double what any other single stat is. Also, all the stats from level ups in the class are automatically applied – so it’s only my free racial stats per level I can choose where to put”

“Hmm. Well, that is certainly different, but such luck! Oh, not luck, I guess chance, or possibly fortune to get a class like that! Even if it’s one I’ve not heard of, that’s not unknown, it’s an uncommon class to begin with! You’ll have the pick of the ladies of the town my lad! Now, we just need to get you some good starting equipment and figure out how your class gains experience to get you some levels in.”

“OK, so free stats wise? Well, there are several options of course, but the primary two are someone either goes for a “balanced” build and keeps all their stats as equal as they can. The other being that someone would specialise in one or possibly two stats and become a powerhouse in that area. Whilst it may leave them exposed in certain areas, if you can find challenges and dungeons that play to your strengths you can even take on challenge and possibly elite tiers of the same dungeons, reaping the rewards for taking on the challenge. Wait, where is your equipment chest Jarrod?” His mom started casting around the room, checking to see if he had left it just outside the door or something. “Gerald, there’s no equipment chest?”

“Hmm? Oh, well maybe that is to help balance out the class and the fact that it is an uncommon starting class? I’ve heard the story that rumour about Her Majesty Faeyonar got her rare starting class, and had to walk back from her Awakening naked as the day she was born”

Receiving a quick slap on the back of the head Enola turned back to Jarrod.

“Well, we have some spare basic starting leather and a common longsword you can be using whilst you start out in this shard at least”

Leaving the two of her male relatives sat at the table Enola leaves the room for a few minutes, searching around in the upstairs cupboards, whilst Jarrod and Gerald talk some more about stat allocations and what certain builds strengths were and what they could play well to. Coming back into the room, she hands over a full suit of leather armour and a longsword to Jarrod who took them both with something approaching reverence. This was it, his very first pieces of equipment, he would be able to make a name for himself now!

“Now, it’s been nearly 2 hours we’ve been up boys, time for bed! Jarrod, you can start late on your weeding chores tomorrow, remember to think about your stat allocations and practicing skills as often as you can, this will mean you unlock more and rank up your existing ones even quicker. And if you can, get analyse or something similar, it won’t notify people when you use it on them unlike your base level identify.”

At that mention he turned his gaze over his Mom – [Level 47] [Chef], and then his Dad as well – [Level 39] [Guardsman+++] It was here he noted a few things that would probably hold true the more people he worked on in the future. Firstly, the red colouring on his parent’s levels must be the system denoting relative strength based on level discrepancy (or something similar) and secondly, his Dads class was a base class with 3 evolutions of the same thing, whereas his Mom’s was clearly an evolved class. The colourings on the classes themselves must be their rarity or choice.

Lying there on his bed, he was kicking his feet staring at the ceiling, his mind absolutely roiling. He had to try and decide where to put his free stats first and foremost.

Well lucky warrior, the name itself leant him to thinking that evolutions would be based on fighting classes. Fighting stats. Did he want to be strength based though, or did he want to be quick, in and out striking fast and dodging counter attacks. Or did he want to ignore all of that and go down an insight route? He knew from research that those who wanted to delve deep into the secrets hidden in the earth that would be his route.

It was slightly irrelevant of course, as he would never be a true powerhouse build, not when he had to put so many darn points into LUCK just to keep his class. Sighing, he decided that hitting things would probably be the best way forward in the short term and he could always correct this later down the line if needed, he had the spare points on his level ups after all. Opening his status, he assigned 4 of his 10 free points into LUCK bringing it to 16, then his remaining 6 points were split between STRENGTH, CONSTITUTION and REFLEXES evenly, bringing them all to 7 and his HP total to 70.

With a satisfied sigh, he closed his eyes and let his mind wander, trying to decide if he could sneak off tomorrow after his chores to try and clear his first wood tier dungeon….