Check the System

I checked Valentia’s character sheet again. “Hey, why don’t you have numbers next to your skills? They just say ‘unskilled.’”

Valentia frowned. “What do you mean, numbers?”

It was my turn to be confused. “My notifications tell me when I get a new skill. It says I’m at level one and that I’m also unskilled. When I reached level five in Magic Theory, it said I was a novice. Your sheet doesn’t have the numbers.”

The two girls looked at each other, sharing an expression I couldn’t quite read.

Valentia turned back to me. “We need to get you to a System Sage.”

“A what?”

“A System Sage. There’s one at the Royal Academy in Aurelmont. Master Gaspard, I think his name is. He teaches System Theory there.”

“System Theory?”

She nodded. “People who study the System.” She looked at me for a long moment. “Riven, I don’t think you understand how strange this is.”

“Oh, I think I’m getting the idea.” I sighed. “How do we get to Aurelmont?”

“It’s about a week and a half if we head north,” Valentia said.

“I don’t have that kind of time.”

“We could head east to the Imperial River, then take a boat. Maybe five days.”

Ami shook her head. “Not quite.”

Valentia looked at her girlfriend. “What?”

“The Imperial River donna go ta Aurelmont. Ye have ta change boats at the Golden River.”

“How long would that take?” I asked.

The dwarf shrugged. “A day or two.”

“So six or seven days?” That seemed doable. Cutting it close, but doable.

Ami nodded. “We could also go ta the Holds.”

This time, Valentia shook her head. “The Holds are west of here. It would take us five days to get there, then another two weeks to get to Aurelmont.”

Ami shook her head again. “Not if we take the Carts.”

“The what?”

“The Carts. Rapid transit ta the capital.” She looked at me. “Takes about a day.”

I sat back. “So ten or eleven days to walk, six or seven by boat, and six by Cart?”

Both girls nodded.

“By Cart it is.” I looked between them. “I’m going to get cleaned up. We should get moving as soon as possible. Not only do I not have a whole lot of time, but I don’t want to be anywhere near here come nightfall.”

“True,” Valentia said.

“Aye,” Ami agreed.

I headed back to the stream and washed my pants and cloak. Another Mend spell fixed my shirt, closing the holes torn into it by the Lutins.

While I was there, I spent my points.

It seemed like a lot of Talents had prerequisites at multiples of five, so it was probably best to get each Attribute up to at least five. At the same time, I didn’t want to stray too far from the path of the wizard.

I put three points into Empathy, bringing it up to five. Then I dropped another five into Reasoning. That should open up a whole new set of Talents.

And it did.

I now had a hell of a lot of options.

Spellweaver

Prerequisites: Reasoning 10, Magic Theory 5, Arcane Intuition

You see spells as structures rather than instructions, and instinctively recognize how they might be changed.

Effect:

• You can modify learned spells without needing to create an entirely new spell.
• Minor modifications to range, area, duration, intensity, delivery, and shape become possible.
• Modifications increase mana cost and/or casting difficulty depending on their magnitude.
• You can experiment with spell modifications and receive System feedback when an alteration is theoretically viable.
• +10% experience when learning, modifying, or creating spells.

Sensual Resonance

Prerequisites: Empathy 5, Sex 1, Intimate Resonance

Your awareness of intimacy has deepened into something almost instinctive.

Effect:

• Gain +20% effectiveness in Sex, Seduction, and Foreplay when interacting with a willing partner.
• Gain +15% effectiveness when responding to a partner's physical or emotional cues during intimacy.
• When both partners possess Intimate Resonance, their magical synchronization gains an additional +10%.

Shared Sensation

Prerequisites: Empathy 5, Intimate Resonance, Magic Theory 5

Connection allows sensation to travel both ways.

Effect: When voluntarily linked with a willing partner, you can perceive subtle aspects of their sensory and emotional state through magical resonance.

Accelerated Learning

Prerequisites: Reasoning 15, Rapid Comprehension

Once you’ve understood the pattern, repetition becomes almost unnecessary.

Effect: +10% experience gained from all skills, abilities, and quests.

Creative Synthesis

Prerequisites: Reasoning 15, Magic Theory 5

You don’t merely learn existing solutions. You find ways to combine them.

Effect:

• +20% effectiveness when combining known skills, spells, or techniques into a novel application.
• Improvised combinations are 20% less likely to fail or produce unintended results.

Arcane Efficiency

Prerequisites: Magic Theory 5, Arcane Resonance

Understanding the structure of a spell allows you to waste less magic casting it.

Effect: -10% mana cost for spells you have mastered.

Resonant Casting

Prerequisites: Magic Theory 5, Resonant Mind

Your will, thought, and magic have begun to move as one.

Effect:

• Casting time reduced by 15%.
• Spell disruption chance reduced by 15%.
• Recovery time after casting reduced by 15%.

Battlefield Awareness

Prerequisite: Level 5

You have learned that the most dangerous attack isn’t always the one aimed at you.

Effect:

• +15% Initiative and Defense when fighting multiple opponents.
• Threat awareness is improved by 15%, reducing the chance of being surprised or flanked.

Fast Recovery

Prerequisite: Level 5

Experience has taught your body to recover more efficiently.

Effect: +20% Health and Stamina recovery while resting.

Natural Charmer

Prerequisite: Level 5, Captivating Presence

Some people simply make others want to spend more time around them.

Effect: +20% effectiveness to initial social interactions and Seduction checks when the target is already favorably disposed toward you.

Analytical Appraisal

Prerequisites: Level 5, Reasoning 5, Arcane Intuition

There is information hidden in everything. You simply need to know how to look for it.

Effect: Allows you to examine a person’s System information.

• Name
• Level
• Health / Maximum Health
• Mana / Maximum Mana
• Rank of their primary skills
• Names of their Talents, but not their effects or prerequisites

Read the Heart

Prerequisites: Empathy 5, Captivating Presence

People reveal more than they realize.

Effect: Allows you to perceive a person’s emotional and interpersonal state rather than their numerical statistics.

• Current dominant emotion
• General attitude toward you
• Whether they’re frightened, angry, attracted, suspicious, etc.
• Whether they’re concealing a strong emotion
• Whether they’re under an obvious mental or emotional influence
• Strength of an existing emotional bond

I stopped.

That was a shit ton more information than I’d gotten on the previous options.

Was this part of the patch? Had there actually been something in there about providing useful information about Talents? If there was, that would be a huge quality-of-life improvement…

...If I survived long enough to make use of it.