(Clara’s POV)

“Hello everyone, Mr Spencer is indisposed today so I’m here to teach you instead” I don’t recognize that voice.

Appearing from the trapdoor is a young man, like 23 at most with messy brown hair and a thick stubble wearing a pair of dark sunglasses and a mismatched brown and grey suit.

“Erm who are you?” It’s not like I’m looking forward to Spencer in the morning but it’s nice to see him with all his smiles and sauntering attitude.

“Ah I’m Sean, nice to meet you” He turns towards me with a creepy quickness as if just spotting me.

Sean continues appearing and with some weird clicking sound walks shoe into the lecturer’s desk, smoothly stopping and taking a long breath.

“Right, Mr Spencer has left me a few notes on the lecture today…”

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“And?” Sean has been standing still for a little bit too long and I swear I just heard him swear under his breath.

“Talkative miss, could you please come down?” Ah bugger.

Getting up and stomping down, start berating me and get it over with.

“Could you please read the notes to class”

“And what about you?”

He takes his glasses off

…Oh

“Man I really didn’t think this job through ahahaha” He’s rather chuckly “So I’ll try my best to explain whatever he teaches you”

“We’re doing 4 dimensional drawing” Perfect, just what I didn’t want to do

“Yay” Shut up Princess Stone.

“Ah well… what is that?”

“You’re not a very useful substitute”

“Hey it’s my first time give me a little break” Yea..no “Ok miss could you please tell everyone about it, and I will…learn and help teach when I can”

I might as well have become the substitute..or maybe…

“Hey Emma, would you like to teach us? Since you understand 4 dimensional drawing better” She doesn’t, none of us have any clue what Spencer is trying to convey with this, but at least she’s passionate about learning.

“Ok” She jumps out her seat and skips down, looking wide-eyed at the illegibly hurried scrawls that are supposed to be lecture notes. “Well…he says here, show students Picasso’s early childhood drawings, explain then show them graphical design on computers how it uses 4 dimension drawing theory”

I’m actually impressed she can read those demon scratchings.

“Well that sounds simple, we can totally do this” Thanks for the cheerleading Sean

“Does anyone have a computer?” I look around because there certainly isn’t one

…

(Baila’s POV)

Well that was a complete failure of a lesson, we ended up simply learning how it is to be blind, to open our minds. My face hurt from falling so much.

“Morning Baila, you look like you’ve bitten a lemon”

“Maybe I have Zzoid, maybe I have”

His face runs through a serious of complicated expressions “Well before you go sucking that lemon dry, we’ve got a meeting planned” Ah yes, the final meeting before I can bugger off and find Joat.

Seriously, having me run after him and now that he is gone we won’t be able to sneak out just the two of us….haah.

Heading to the field outside, it’s already packed with the many other ‘Orphans’ each one looking better equipped than before; well quite a few of them are using Avani’s shields.

Standing on a cart is Braxel and DillyDally.

“Where’s Joat?” Braxel grunts at me, well I know we’re not far apart sometimes but I have literally no idea Braxel, no idea.

“Indisposed” Zzoid cuts in “So Baila will take his place” Braxel just snorts.

Ok onto the cart *gulp*

“Hey”

“Seems like Joat really is missing” DillyDally shakes his head

“Let’s focus on this meeting shall we?” Don’t want it to devolve into btiching about Joat disappearing again.

“Good Morning everyone” I turn towards the crowd, le’s get this started.

A small chorus of good morning’s back.

“Joat’s currently indisposed so I’m taking charge of the meeting. It will work like our first meeting splitting it into Stats, skills and other knowledge about the system. But I’d also like to add onto there titles since that is very good xp, and classes” No dissenters on that. “The original goal of us working together was to get everyone to level 10 to gain the hopeful milestone so after this meeting we should be able to get to level 10”

“We will be telling people about hidden or better things?”

“Tell everything” And here come’s the bitching about how it’s unfair for those who worked

“LISTEN”

“LISTEN” Thank you Tikari, it’s nice to hear you again.

Everyone quiets down to listen to me

“We’re here for another 8 weeks…and then this is all over. Everything we’ve gained is probably going to go so instead of spending the next 8 weeks grueling through trying to level up alone, we should try gaining as much knowledge as possible for the actual game”

“But how do you know they’ll delete our characters after the beta” Goldy shouts out from the crowd.

“We don’t, but would you rather have a level 20 character with everything you came up with, or someone much much higher level which embodies 100 people’s knowledge and experience” Thanks Zzoid

…

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“But what if people lie and don’t tell us things?” Someone else spoke up, ah the goblin whoever he is

“…Trust, and you don’t believe you can trust anyone then leave after this meeting” I mean if someone wants to lie there is little I can do about it

“We can sense a person’s motive, mostly when they’re lying” The fish-sisters speak up. Huh that’ll work too.

“What if we have something that cannot be told to the public?” Honey speaks up this time

Oh yeah, that title “If it specifically says the public cannot know about it, then you don’t need to tell us. And before you all start bitching, having one of those things isn’t good” Ok no real dissenters yet.

Nobody really? Guess the prospect of a goldmine of xp is seriously convincing.

“Alright, so let’s begin with Stats. So far the stats I have learnt are: Agility, Dexterity, Vitality, Strength, Wisdom, Intelligence, Willpower, Luck, Endurance, Darkness, Light, Flexibility, Rage, Stamina, Mana, Communication, Brutality and Speed” Many oohs at the multiple stats, especially as I’ve got 3 ‘pools’…which I don’t use any of yet. “Has anybody got anything to add?

“Fel” Princess speaks up, that sounds interesting

“Eloquency” Honey has that one, well he’s a merchant so unsurprising

“Fame” Different to reputation? Hmm odd

“Leadership” I wonder why what hadn’t come up before.

“Fire, Earth, Wind, Water, Death, Life , Light, Darkness, Nature and Psychic affinity” affinities count as stats Ravenna? That is odd

“And Memory” Anoobis adds onto the end

“Any more?”

Stats seem surprisingly hard to find, especially physical ones…

“Alright so let’s move on how to get these stats” Just copy Joat and everything will work out

…

So gaining Fel is technically impossible at the moment, but the affinities are gained through using proper magic of that kind, very simple, and without them you can’t cast more than a circle 1 spell whatever that means .

Memory is gained through trying to remember multiple things, like an insane amount according to Tikari who had to memorise the better part of a book to get it.

Eloquency is gained through persuading someone for their loss and your gain through speech…so swindling someone could count. And leadership is basically leading people.

All in all that’s 10 new stats so a whole level if not more…pretty good.

“Alright so onto skills, since there are a lot, we’ll take a few minutes break to bring food here” Oh a lot of people are already prepared for that it seems.

“Alright, so the skills learnt thus far are; Aura of Darkness, Aura of Light, Acrobatics, Balance, Bartering, Bite, Cannibalize, Catch, Climb, Cooking, Commanding Shout, Crawling, Dagger mastery with 16 styles, Dance mastery with salsa and breakdance styles, Detect Alignment, Diplomacy, Dodge, Fire resistance, Frenzy, Grapple, Headbutt, Hearing, Hold your Breath, Jump, Kick mastery, Light feet, Lockpicking, Lucky Roll, Mana adept, Massaging, Mild Monster’s Aura Monster Identification, Pain Tolerance, Poison tolearance, Reading, Repair, Roll, Sacrifice, Sense Motive, Skinning, Sprint, Smell, Sneak, Stomp, Suicide, Swim, Throw, Tracking, Vision of some kind, Unarmed mastery, Writing” These are all the non-combat skills I know of, if anybody knows anymore add to the list and we’ll go through ALL of them later.

“Polearm, Mace, Sword, Two-handed, One-handed, Two-weapon and Axe mastery and their styles” Braxel grunts out

“Archery, Blindfighting and Echolocation, Blindsense” Some owl-beastman said that, he learnt some fancy skills there. And many definitely think that.

“Unleashing the beast, Glamorize and Appraisal” Honey’s got quite a few skills

“Meditation” That came from MrSpeedTurtle, huh that’s one I didn’t think of.

“Martial arts and their styles” Old Bitch and Pinky Seniour say that.

“Second wind” DillyDally, please you’ve got more than that, or are they combat skills? “Tactics” Ooh “and all the tactical sub-skills that come with it”

“Slime Shield” Oh so that’s B0mber’s racial skill

“Musical Proficiency” the old crow-beastman seems to be doing something interesting

“Any more?” I mean I expected people to be doing things…but then again I did list out a lot of skills and it’s likely they all learnt the same thing. “Ok so now for crafting skills. We have Leatherworking, Weaponsmithing, Armoursmithing, Alchemy with subtypes”

“Blacksmithing for non equipment” Zzard calls out

“Tailoring” Nekineki, she’s still here huh.

“Carpentry and Woodworking” Someone in the crowd sounded enthusiastic

“Farming” Apexus is doing farming? Wow he’s really changed hahaha

That isn’t many but crafting skills take time.

“Ok, so now to combat skills” I’m waiting for a lot to come here.

“Stand ground, Block, Deflect, Parry, Riposte, Counter-Riposte, Push” DillyDilly starts listing “Disarm, Power Strike, Sweeping Strike, Pommel Smash, Brace, Feint, Sneak attack, Charge, Critical strike” That’s a lot

“Assassinate and Haemorrage” I mean I know a few from his list but this is my big one. Sneak attack but way better and a lot of people are starting to look at me strangely

“Rip, Neckbreak, Bone snap” BoneCracker’s learnt some…special things

“Point blank shot, Quick shot, Far shot, Double shot, Precise shot, Mark, Blind shot” This owl is a serious archer

“Multiattack, Chop, Impale and Bash” The black-eared rabbit-beastman who stands next to the owl shouts that out.

“Shield Bash” From Glorious, ah he’s got one of Avani’s shields

Wow Joat is missing out on a lot of skills, he’s going to be livid when he hears of this.

“Any more or can we move onto spells?” This is so much easier than it looks, jeez Joat’s really been joking around with us making it seem so hard.

“Ah languages!” Tikari suddenly speaks up “There’s Dekin, Yandor, Kran as the main 3, then racial languages such as Dwarven, Draconic, Goblin, Elvish, Undercommon, Abyssal, Aquan, Auran, Celestial, Giant, Gnome, Halfling, Gnoll, Undead, Sylvan, Druidic, Ignan, Infernal, Terran and Orc are the ones I have found that existed” That’s a lot…how many has she learnt?

After that, no one’s is saying anything so to spells

“Since no one can use Fel, there’s no point in telling you about her spells right?” Krudel has a small point

“Well actually I can” Anoobis speaks up “But I do agree with you, especially as the way her spells works are different from everyone elses so I don’t recommend teaching anyone it”

“Anyone against this?” Less time spent teaching something we can’t really learn, the more time we hae to find Joat.

No dissenters. I gesture for Anoobis and Ravenna to come up, for they’re going to be needed for all the explaining.

“Right so spells are a bit strange, we’ve learnt 10 but technically we’ve learnt an unlimited amount. As far as I know, each spell has up to 7 parts; the affinity, Power, target, range, area, repetitions and spell name.

Affinity is chosen when you call the nam e of the creator for example ignis” Ooh a small flame on her finger.

The power is a keyword, so something like tickle would be small whereas erupt would have a stronger effect.

Target is simple, just name the target, it’s usuall enemy, ally, or a specific person.

Range is a little more complicated, it can be stated but usually it’s just implied within the spell.

Area is once again implied but it can be stated too within the sentence

Repetitions requires constant repetitions of a portion of the spell to keep it going

And the spell name, needs to be shouted.

If you say any in a wrong order, negative feedback, if you forget something that needs to be stated, negative feedback. If you mispronounce the name of the creator, extreme negative feedback and if you try to use the spell in a different way than it’s made for, possible negative feedback.

For example, Anoobis” She passes the figurative torch onto him. To which he rolls his eyes.

“Ignis-----¬_¬_¬_---¬¬¬_¬_¬_¬_¬_¬” I literally have no idea what he just said” FIREBALL” And he just set himself on fire… “Aqua ¬--¬_¬_`-`-¬_ RAIN” and a little cloud is above him now.

“Also it’s in a different language, except for the spell name”

…

..

.

Well I guess that’s why Rassin doesn’t like it, seems like a lot of work for something cool but also quite dangerous if you experiment.

“So onto actual spells that we’ve learnt: Detect magic, read magic, Gust, Create Breeze, Create Flame, Fireball, Rain, Create Water, Earth wall, Create Earth, Minor telekenises, Invisible Servant. I’ve written down the incantations for each fo them. As ou may notice we don’t actually have any Dark, Light, Life, Death or Nature spells as the one we’re learning from hasn’t studied them”

Well that was certainly a lot to take in…and that’s just the beginning for how to gain all these skills

…

And the sun is already so high up in the sky, what a day already.

Learning how to actually get all those skills took FOREVER, especially the combat skills because we had a demonstration so everyone got an idea how they worked.

So much to learn, so much and that’s JUST for skills.

“Has everyone gotten dinner ready?” we’ll definitely get to dinner at this rate.

Many nods and people are already taking a late lunch out.

“Next thing on our list” ok I think I understand the pain of being up here, standing, constantly talking, and having to be attentive... “Is classes. And I believe we have something called sub-classes?” People nod “Ok so starting with me, I’ve got the Assassin, Rare class, it’s a rogue that specializes in killing,”

Some people blanche at that, but a few like Zzoid just nod as if confirming a theory.

“We’ve got the gladiator, hidden class, barehanded variant. We get bonuses when fighting one on one and when large crowds are cheering” So that explains the bloody leathery armour they’re wearing…

“Alchemist, Rare class. I make potions with more effectiveness” Charmine, wow that’s pretty scary

“Barmaid, Hidden class” One of the fish-sisters speak up. Sounds more like a sub-class…

“Berzerker, Rare class. Name speaks for itself”

“Wait a second how are there so many rare classes?” Zzoid speaks everyone’s thoughts. There are so many rare classes

“Well how did you get your rare class? We got our hidden class by asking about it”

“So the pre-requesites are different…Rare means something that has a larger number of prerequisites than a normal class while Hidden simply requires you to find it first” DillyDally states his thought, well that seems kind of correct.

“Would there be something like a Rare hidden class?” I mean my class should’ve counted as a Rare hidden right? Or is it because I didn’t find it, or that assassin isn’t a hidden class really.

“Possibly but has anyone got one?”

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.

Nope guess not then

“I’ve got the Merchant class” Honey’s the only one so far with a normal class

“Archer, normal class” the owl-beastman

“Warrior, normal class” the black-rabbit beastman who’s next to him. Ok so they’re normals

“Bard, normal class” The crow-beastman is actually a bard cool.

“Pharmacist sub-class” So Zzand has that

“Farmer class” These sub-classes and classes are strange.

“Why are things classes and some sub-classes?” Once again Zzoid’s on the questioning.

“Well when we got the Barmaid class, we got a choice of having it as a class or a sub-class…but we don’t really want to fight so we took it as a class”

“I believe sub-classes are jobs whereas classes are your lifestyle since I’ve got the cook and warrior subclass…but the benefits from it are very small, about a tenth of what I’d get for the class” Oh so 10 subclasses to make up one class, that’s a lot of work for little but I’m sure there’s someone who’d be up for that.

“So does that mean we can get sub-classes even though we already have classes? And the sub-classes are just other things we can do as well as our main class?” I belive that was Anoobis speaking

“Yes, but it’s a little more complicated than that. Even if you know how to shoot a bow, you won’t get the archer sub-class unless you hit a certain prerequisite. For example Zzard hasn’t gotten the blacksmith sub-class because he doesn’t actually work in a blacksmiths” Ok Zzoid, well there’s much to learn about classes and sub-classes another day, let’s move forward.

“Ok continue with telling us classes and sub-classes”

“Wizard, normal class” Anoobis only has a normal class? How odd

“Mage, normal class” Ravenna has a different class to him? Even more odd “I study, Anoobis simply uses…but it means his spells are more effective”

Interesting.

“Fel apprentice, normal class” Only normal? Maybe magic classes have a different grading…

“Bodyguard, Hidden class” Of course Krudel…not even surprised

“So any more classes?” I mean I expected someone else to have a class…especially as most of the ones stated were part of my squad.

“Legionnaire, Hidden class, don’t fight well alone but formations much more effective” Glorious speaks up. Oh, so I guess the 30 with shields are legionnairs.

“Ok so can I get a count on classes?”

30 legionnaires, 12 berzerkers (one is SirStripy according to DillyDally, 3 merchants, 1 farmer, 4 barmaids, 1 assassin, 1 mage, 1 wizard, 1 warrior, 2 archers, 1 alchemist, 1 fel apprentice, 4 bodyguards (the 3 minions of Ravenna, what a surprise), 6 bards (all the birds for some reason, except Goldy) and 22 classless so far. Well seeing as though some of the mage squad don’t have a class but they soon will that’s another 11 mages/wizards. So 11 people, 2 being Thrash who probably has some strange hunting class by now and Joat.

The rest of the classless people are, Grawla, Keruskegh, Kale, Rakshak, NekiNeki, Goldy, Blacky, Tikari and Allie.

How neither Allie nor Tikari have a class is beyond me since they’re both with DillyDally’s Squad. Strange.

Well those lot now know there’s a bunch of things they can go for.

All in all we’ve got a few more classes than I’d thought.

“Have we got anymore subclasses?” because all are possible classes too

“Librarian” So that’s what Tikari’s been up to then.

“Tracker” Grawla growls with a grin

“Adventurer” Both Goldy and Blacky shout out

Ok so these people have already had chances for a class they just decided not to.

“Any more?”

Nope??? Well time to discuss prerequisites and then we’re finally finished!!!

…

Talk about an information dump, my brain!

“Ok with that we’re done…with skills” I forgot we had game information to talk about. And the sun is already hanging low… “onto system and game information, have anyone got anything?”

“Npc’s are the same as us in terms of gaining stats and skills but we’ve got better regeneration than them” Grawla knows quite a bit about Npc’s…what has she been doing in these past few days? “Also when a skill reaches level 9 it can be evolved to a better version of the skill if it has reached the max it can. That also means without classes skills cannot increase in grade”

Well I guess that’s game limitations.

“Alcohol is a thing and you can get drunk” One of the fish ladies speaks up for that tidbit. Joat you are in so much trouble.

“Basic Combat skills do not require any sort of ‘pool’ but they are much more effective when using a pool. The only skill so far that requires stamina to use is Frenzy but that’s a martial skill so it’s slightly different” DillyDally surely knows quite a bit

Also I know that already since none of my skills need stamina or anything to be used…but with a question of effectiveness, it depends whether limiting yourself with a pool overbears the benefit of using one.

“When you log off, you now stay in game” Which is a real problem, especially as all of us will be offline at one point “Unless your character is in a safe zone such as a bed or a tent” Honey must’ve tried out the tents then.

“Our characters have implied abilities, for example I’m immune to pain and I technically don’t have the skill” Krudel has a point there. I should check out poison resistance on the Zz’s.

“Messages don’t send across different zones” We figured that one out a while back Anoobis, but thanks for the reminder

“Religion is a thing in this game” Zzoid makes everyone’s heads turn “And it’s banned at minimum in the Dekin nation, so magical healing isn’t really a widespread thing” Huh…wait a second I have a feeling he’s hiding something.

“You’re hiding something” One of the fish-ladies speak up.

“What is the rule Baila, hide things that state you cannot speak? The implication should be enough”

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“Basically he’s got a class we can’t talk about because it’s hated in this nation at least” Anoobis gets long nod from Zzoid.

Zzoid’s done something in the past day, with Hobo?

“Right, anything else?”

“At level 10 we get a milestone to lock one out of three spots with our character”

Ok anything else? Nope? Nope it is.

“Ok then we’ve got 2 options form here, firstly separate and do our own thing, secondly everyone do their own thing but we have a weekly meeting teaching eachother the new things we’ve learnt as however happy you are doing whatever you’re doing now, we’ve got 8 weeks until it’s over so the more information we can pool together, the better our lives after this Beta test”

“And more importantly, we’re not alone in this Beta test and I don’t want to be at a lower level than the other testers, do you?” DillyDally steps forward with a fantastic point.

Almost forgot about the other Beta testers, of which we’ve only seen 30 but there are surely a lot more.

“Hands up for working solo”

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Not a single one. Heheh

“Hands up for working together”

Ninety seven including me…perfect.

“Well meeting in one week time, chances are Joat’s squad won’t be here since we’re off to find him and SirStripy. So DillyDally take’s over?”

“We’ll be coming with you, can’t leave SirStripy all alone now, Tikari, you’re in charge and learn some magic”

“Yes Dally”

…

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“Meeting Adjourned” ok I did need to say that for everyone to get moving.

*ding*

Thank god it’s over, that was so ling, iring and annoying having to actually be listening the entire time.

Now, to find one high as hell Joat who walked off somewhere, he can’t have gotten far right?