Duh

All I need to do to complete the quest is brush my teeth and get dressed. I do both with a lot more enthusiasm than normal, curious as to exactly what’s going to happen. Looking in the mirror presents me with another oddity: my name, title and level are floating as text above my head. I rinse out the toothpaste, then go get dressed. As I slip on my jacket, I get another popup.

Quest completed!

Get ready for school

Reward: 20xp

Optional: 10xp

Cool! I check my character sheet again, to see that I now have 30 more XP on my character sheet. I hope I keep getting easy quests like this one, I’ll be able to level up relatively quickly if I do. I really look forward to testing out more about these apparent powers, and what I’ll come across on the way.

New Quest!

Get through a day of university

Goals:

• Attend a complete day of class

Reward:

• 50xp

Accept?

Yes/No

Well now going to class isn’t optional. Not like I was going to skip anyway though, I am slightly more interested in university classes than I was in high school classes. At least most of the people there are decent, as opposed to high school when most of the people were absolute morons. Besides, these classes actually have a not completely stupid purpose, that being filling out requirements for a degree. I touch the accept button and pack a couple of things in my bag before heading out.

I continue to use the observe skill on everything I can find. Within a few minutes, I see another person, a random guy walking, presumably on his way to work. I can see a name, title and level above his head too, which if he has noticed, he doesn’t seem to be doing anything about.

Randall Kline

Lvl 6, junior tech support

Computer Novice

More than double my level. Almost certainly, he could overpower me, given my physical weakness. This creates more questions, am I weak or is he strong? Is level 3-6 average? At least the title is mildly amusing when compared with his job. I use observe to see if I can get more information.

Randall Kline

Lvl 6, junior tech support

Computer Novice

24 years old

Single

Well it’s not a whole lot more, but it could be useful, if I swung that way. I continue to walk to the bus stop, using observe on things and people as I go. I’m not entirely sure what my aim here is, but at least it’s relatively interesting to learn things I didn’t know before. I remember that according to my character sheet, I’m supposed to have magic. As I walk, I decide to open my character sheet, and in doing so, test whether other people can see this too. It’s unlikely, given that they don’t seem to be able to notice any of my uses of observe, or the text floating above their heads, but it’s still a possibility.

I notice a few things immediately. My mana has gone down from its maximum. Observe is my first and only active skill, meaning that using it must have been what cost me mana. The little amount of cash in my wallet has been extracted into my inventory. Interestingly enough, the money in my bank account seems to have been ignored. If I’m going to use this system long term, I might have to take out all the money in my account in cash, to get it to work. Time will tell whether these new powers make it better than a conventional card.

It also doesn’t list the shirt that I’m wearing, in the equipment section. I wonder if that’s because I can only have one piece of equipment per slot that gives me a bonus in anything? Clicking on the icon of my jacket reveals that I get a slight amount of protection from it, though seemingly not enough to make much of a difference.

I also look at the two listed things below my level. Statpoints and skill evolutions? I guess statpoints are the points I get from levelling up, if this system is like other RPGs. But what the hell are skill evolutions? I can’t find that out until I get one, so I push the question aside for later.