New Story -- Chapter 28

Chapter 28

The message window filled Thaden’s entire vision, so it was virtually impossible for him to look at anything else. Thankfully, it explained what had happened; at the same time, it also made his heart drop at what it also indicated for him specifically.

Congratulations, Contenders!

After successfully completing your Training program, you are now ready to enter the world of Tarth! As a reminder, this world is as real as your Earth, and has the same kinds of dangers you experienced within the Training simulation; needless to say, you can and will die if you are not careful. All safeguards preventing death that were used throughout Training have now been eliminated.

As indicated at the start, upon entering the world of Tarth, all of your simulated progression earned through Training has been reset back to Level 1 and you no longer have a Class. Please visit your nearest Class Representatives to choose your new Class now that you’ve had a chance to experiment with the various options available to you.

Good luck and fight well, Contenders! Your world is counting on you to prevail!

Sucking in a breath at the consequences of what this announcement entailed, Thaden felt around inside of himself, trying to feel if anything had changed.  It didn’t take long to discover that the previous feeling of invulnerability that he hadn’t really noticed until it wasn’t there any longer… was gone. He could only conclude that what had resurrected him after his entire body was eaten by Vogmites was gone, as it had apparently been a part of the Training.

That means… I can really die now, doesn’t it? It was hard to contemplate even though it was something that he was aware was a possibility, but the safety net of knowing that he could come back to life if he was killed and his head wasn’t completely destroyed had made him take more risks than he normally would. It was like having additional lives in a video game, but now his extra lives sat at a big fat 0 now.

Overall, it didn’t really change much in the way he approached his new existence here on Tarth, though he knew he would have to be extra careful from now on to be sure he wasn’t taking too many risks. Fortunately, he knew that he could always run through the Mausoleum again if he needed more loot or PICK, as it was easy enough that it wasn’t really a challenge or dangerous to him anymore.

Another thought occurred to him at that moment, so he pulled up his Character Report after casting his Minor Repulsion Field on himself. He sighed in relief when he didn’t see his Mana deplete while it was active; he had half-worried that his unlimited Mana had also gone away along with his invulnerability, but it appeared as though it was still intact. Looking down at his Mana Management Competency, it even still said “N/A”. Thankful that it stayed the same, he was about to close out his Report when something caught his eye.

#32599999-E

Assistant Healer

Level – 1

Progressive Internal Combat Knowledge (PICK) – 100/100

Adventurer Coalition Rank: Bronze 450/450 RP

Health – 190/190

Mana – 330/330

Physicality – 19

Celerity – 4

Mentality – 33

Personality – 5

Fortuity – 8

(14) Free Stat Points

Wait. What?

Thaden had been reset back to Level 1, just like the message in the window had mentioned about the other Contenders. Apparently, he had been roped into that as well, as he was still technically a Contender even if he didn’t go through Training. What was confusing was that his stats didn’t change, being exactly the same as it was before his Level was reset, including his extra Free Stat Points. Looking further down the Report, his available spells were also unchanged, as were his Competencies.

What’s going on?

It took him a few seconds to realize what had happened, and whether it was intentional or yet another glitch, it appeared as though while he had technically been reset to Level 1, all of his earned progression – which wasn’t achieved through a simulation such as the Training the other Contenders went through – had been maintained, as well as his Class, which was a slight disappointment. However, as he began to consider the possibilities of what this meant, he smiled as he realized that he could Level up all over again and gain even more stats from each Level-up… and perhaps all of the spells he’d had to pass up before, as well.

At least, he hoped that was the way it worked, though he wouldn’t know until he deliberately went through the Level-up process.

Before he could look into it any further, the doors to the Adventurer Coalition slammed open. Dozens of people streamed inside the building, the cacophony they were making as they entered was so loud that it almost seemed sacrilegious compared to the absolute silence of a few seconds ago. It was such a powerful wave of sound that it took him a moment to realized who these people were.

Humans.

From Earth.

They were the Contenders that had been snatched up at the same time as Thaden had been, though they had spent the last three months participating in their Training. As he saw his own people looking around the interior of the building, all wearing an identical white shirt and pants, he could feel a tear threatening to fall from his eye; it hit him in that moment that he had missed seeing other Humans around even if he wasn’t the most sociable of people. He missed the way they looked, which was definitely a lot more “normal” to him than any of the Charee were; he also saw the emotional strength in these people who approached the prospect of being in a brand new world filled with monsters and realized he missed their perseverance in the face of tragedy, a very Human trait; in addition, he missed—

“I have arrived, all ya’ll weak-ass motherfuckers! The Contender to end all Contenders is here, so get the fuck out of my way!”

Ugh. I don’t miss that.

Looking at the speaker, a large man in the front of the pack that looked like he should be flexing shirtless on the front of some weightlifting magazine, Thaden could only shake his head at the ridiculousness and arrogance of the guy. Sure, it was fine to be confident in yourself, but he was literally Level 1 and had just arrived in a dangerous world he wasn’t ready for. Well, that might not be completely accurate; I still don’t know what they did for three months in their Training.

Glancing around at the people around the arrogant man, he could see that more than a few of the others were looking at him as if he was some sort of leader, their expressions a mixture of hero-worship and… hope. It was a hope that this would be the man to help protect them from the dangers of this new world, to lead them so that they would succeed in surviving their new existence as Contenders.

Or at least that was the impression that Thaden got when he looked at them.

All told, he estimated that at least 150 Humans had arrived, though only about 30 of them were near the muscle-bound man. The rest of them were a mixed bag of emotions that he recognized immediately, as he had gone through them all at one point or another since he arrived. First, there were those that looked completely lost and confused, as if wondering what they were even doing there. They hesitantly followed the pack as they peered nervously around them, rearing back when the saw the people behind the counters, though more from the Charee rather than the Class Representatives for some reason. He could only conclude that they had seen them somewhere before, likely during training, which started to put some things together in his mind about the creepily mysterious race with question marks where their Levels should be.

The second type of person he saw were those that weren’t lost or confused, but something that was likely a bit worse. Walking with their heads down, staring at their feet, they appeared defeated, as if they had acknowledged what had happened to them – being ripped away from home and transported to a different world – and now realized that they either wouldn’t be able to cope with their new existence, or were already resigned to dying to some vicious monster outside the walls of the town.

The last, and most numerous, was what he saw at first when they walked in. These people all had determined, no-nonsense expressions upon their faces, and they moved with purpose. They weren’t arrogant or dismissive of the others, but they also didn’t look like they expected someone to come save them from this nightmare; they were ones that would do everything they had to in order to survive, one way or another.

As a whole, there were a couple other things he noticed in the first few seconds of their arrival. The most obvious was the fact that the group was quite diverse; he wasn’t sure if they were all actually from different parts of Earth, but their ethnicities ran the gamut through just about everything he could identify with a look, and even some that appeared to be mixed. That didn’t seem to matter to any of them, however, as they all realized that here on Tarth, they were all one ethnicity: Human. He saw it in the way they crowded together as they advanced into the large room, taking strength in their numbers when presented with adversity, and they spoke to each other as if uncaring of who they were or where they came from.

Probably because they all come from the same place now. Earth.

Furthermore, although it took him a little longer to notice it, he was fairly certain that none of these people knew each other. Even those that were fawning after the arrogant man in front were only flocking to him because he proclaimed himself God’s gift to Contenders, but the others were clearly all separate; there was just enough space around them despite coming in as a crowd that there was no close familiarity present. Sure, they spoke with each other, but they were also cautious and wary of the others, showing a front of strength that most of them identified with, but not necessarily through familiarity.

There were those that, even at this early stage, Thaden could tell were already feeling out the others to see where they stood and whether they might be a good addition to any party they might organize. The calculating looks between people accompanied by frantically spoken questions obvious enough to his discerning eye, and he wondered why they seemed like in such a hurry; they just got there, after all, so shouldn’t they take at least a minute to acclimate themselves to their new environment before jumping in headfirst.

As he was noticing all these things, Thaden shook his head in disbelief. Not at the people, not even at the arrogant man out front, but at his own extremely quick evaluation of his fellow Humans who had just walked through the door; somehow, he had discerned their motivations and overall mental well-being in seconds. Whether or not he was correct about them all was still to be determined, but the fact that he had done it at all was both amazing and unbelievable.

Are these my stats at work? My Mentality, perhaps?

He’d not really noticed a difference before this when he looked at other people, but then again, he didn’t really deal with many others all that much. He had generally kept to himself while delving through the Mausoleum, with his only interactions with a few shopkeepers and food sellers, as well as Boydlen from the Coalition. He already knew how most of the people felt about him so he hadn’t necessarily needed to evaluate them, but for some reason it kicked in while looking at the new Humans.

It wasn’t necessarily bad, but it was certainly a strange occurrence.

Thaden was still on his knees as he contemplated the people moving through the room toward the Class Representatives. Based on the message window earlier, it seemed as though they knew – at least generally – what they were supposed to do when they arrived; it was yet another thing he figured they had learned during Training that he hadn’t.

As they lined up in front of the Representatives in relatively orderly queues, the words above their heads, which had been jumbled together and a bit overwhelming because they were all so close to each other, finally started to become clear to Thaden. He looked at Mr. Arrogant, who had moved to the front of the line now set up in front of the Fighter Class Representative, and could finally put a name to him.

Chad

Human

Level 1

Chad? Figures.

The words above Chad’s head didn’t give a last name or any other description other than “Human”, but it did list the Level. Thaden knew from his own experience that the words above his own head were a bit borked, showing only #32599999-E instead of his name, but they also showed his race and his Level. From what he understood, it didn’t show his Class, but he was curious if it showed on other Contenders.

As the Assistant Healer watched those at the front of the lines seemingly look out into space for a moment, which he figured meant they were looking at message windows that would allow them to pick their initial Class, he saw Chad and a few others quickly make a selection and then move out of the lines. A glance at the words above their heads didn’t reveal a Class or any other indication of what they had chosen.

Continuing to kneel as he observed everyone from his spot near the wall, he was largely ignored by the group of Humans assembling to acquire their Class. There were more than a few, however, that looked at him in a mixture of confusion and curiosity.

“Who is that? It says he’s Human, but he’s wearing strange clothes and his name is similar to our Training designations,” he heard whispered from a tall woman with long, dirty blonde hair near the back of the Mage Class line, asking a shorter, Asian-looking man standing next to her. She wasn’t the only one to mutter a question about him, though no one stepped out of line to approach him or even ask him directly.

Thaden ignored the questions and mutterings as he simply observed what was going on. Thoughts of getting to the Representatives before everyone else had already been abandoned as soon as he discovered his Level had been reset to 1, as it wasn’t important until he Leveled-up again.

While nearly half of those who came in through the doors were in line in front of the Fighter and Mage Class Representatives, the other half was distributed to the Scout, Control, and Support Class Representatives – in that order. Around 35 people were in line to be a Scout Class, another 30 or so were in the Control Class group, and only about 10 were in line for Support. Of those who were in the Support Class group, most of them seemed to be the ones he had identified earlier as being lost and confused, or had given up completely and were simply going through the motions.

Not a popular Class type, I guess. I would’ve thought being a healer of some sort would appeal to more people, especially going into a world with dangerous monsters.

Then again, maybe he was missing a key piece of information and they knew something that he didn’t. In fact, he was convinced of that fact as the others looked upon the ones in the Support line with something approaching pity.

Thaden needed to know more. He was tired of not being privy to the important knowledge that these other Contenders seemed to possess, which he could only imagine ranged from why exactly they were on this world, what it meant to be a Contender, what the Assimilation System really was, and any number of other tidbits regarding Classes, monsters, and dungeons that he didn’t know already. Since he was fairly certain that he had barely scratched the surface of what he needed to know, these people from back home were a treasure trove of information for him.

But the real question was how he could gain that information without admitting that he didn’t know it. Glancing at the tall, creepy forms of the Representatives again, he could only conclude that their strange appearance and unknown Level indicated that they were somehow a part of this whole process with transporting people to Tarth. The familiar way the Humans reacted to such a bizarre alien species was enough to convince him that they’d seen them before, perhaps plenty of times, during Training; if that was the case, then they might even have a direct connection to the Assimilation System.

Being noticed was something that he wanted to avoid. The last time the System really noticed him had him dropped into a volcano, and he could only conclude that he had been ignored while most of its attention was on Training. Now that these Representatives were here, it was possible that the System had turned its attention to Tarth now that the Contenders were present. The last thing he wanted was for it to notice him as an aberration and to try and correct the glitch he represented, either by killing him or taking away what made him special.

And advertising those special differences to these other Contenders might not be the smartest idea. He worried that some individual, jealous of what he’d already accomplished before they even arrived, complained to the Representatives about Thaden’s Level or Achievements – and then the System might make pains to level the playing field.

As he knelt there, contemplating his options, he heard something that made him a little more hopeful that everything wouldn’t be taken away from him, though he wasn’t sure how much he trusted it.

“But what if I make the wrong choice? Can’t we have everything reset again?”

“No. Don’t remember what we were taught? The System could only directly affect us while we were in Training; once we got here, we were on our own.  We can make our own choices here, but we would have to live with them, as well. No more resets, no restarts, no nothing. Everything is automatic from this point forward, with the only direct communication with the System through these, uh, Representatives,” another man answered, waving toward the creepy beings.

So… the System isn’t omniscient? Am I to assume that all my messages and Character Report information is just something natural to this world, controlled by automatic processes like a software program? If that’s the case, then these Representatives are simply a way to access the actual hardware behind it all?

He wasn’t sure if comparing the entire world and his new existence to a computer and its programs was strictly correct, but it was what made the most sense to Thaden. So, will interfacing with the hardware reveal the glitches in me? If so, what will be done about it, if anything? He had no way of knowing without trying it himself; he doubted that any of the other Contenders would have any information on what would happen if he went up to one of the Representatives.

Of course, he didn’t need to do that right now because he already had a Class; however, he needed to know what would happen if he were to reveal himself to the Representatives, sooner rather than later. Sure, he could put off the confrontation, but if it was going to happen, he’d rather it happen sooner rather than later; any delay would make his resolve waver as he dreaded either having everything he had accomplished being reset or perhaps his entire self being wiped from existence.

He wasn’t going to do it right now, of course. He needed to Level up to 21 again, but he didn’t want to do it right there in the middle of the Coalition building surrounded by the new arrivals. Instead, he decided to do it in the privacy of his own room, and then come down later when there were hopefully fewer people around to see the change in him.

With that decision in place, he got to his feet and headed toward the back of the room where the familiar stairs up to his room was located. As he passed by one of the other counters, he heard the conversations from some of the Coalition Receptionists talking to the Contenders who had already chosen their Class and were looking to join the Adventurer Coalition.

“…and as a Contender, we’ll provide you with basic starting equipment for your Class, as well as a small signing bonus to get you started. This package doesn’t come free, however, as the Coalition will keep 50% of your monetary Quest rewards until the 1 gold Registration Fee has been paid in full...”

Thaden chuckled as he kept walking, glad that he had avoided those kinds of fees when he first signed up with the Coalition. Granted, a single gold wasn’t much to him right now, but when he was still a Level 1, that would’ve seemed an almost insurmountable goal. If he remembered correctly, the monetary rewards for the kinds of Quests that they could actually complete were only copper coins and low amounts of silver, so it would take them a while to pay off their debt. Then again, having a set of starting equipment would’ve been nice.

It didn’t take him long to arrive at his room, and he locked the door as he sat down on the edge of his bed. After a few minutes of further deliberation on whether this was a good idea, he took a deep breath and took his first step by willing his Level to increase.

Let’s just hope this works the way I think it will.