"Should we chase that thing?" Quint asked. He looked back and forth between me and the trees like a Labrador unsure if you had actually thrown the stick or were hiding it behind your back.

  "You really can't go off on your own?" I replied with another question. "I'm not sure how I feel about such a tight leash."

  Quint abandoned his ping pong spectator's impression.

  "I'm not itching to test it. Don't need another reminder of my predicament."

  "We'll need to experiment with it at some point. Learn the limitations. For now? Nah, we don't chase it. I say we move in the exact opposite direction. For all we know the woods are crawling with goblins and other critters. And what do we have? Jack and or shit."

  I was walking before I started on my explanation.

  "I would at least want to be wearing real armor before we start fighting monsters," I continued. "Especially when they're on their home turf."

  Quint followed me, his hand resting on the holster. I made a note to mention how he should start training his muscle memory to go for the javelins instead.

  That would have to wait until we stopped to rest, and I didn't intend for that to happen anytime soon. I particularly had no desire to meet that boss the goblin screeched about.

  Rifling through the camp, it struck me as odd that there was the fancy tent but no fancy corpse. I was the furthest thing from an expert on goblin fashion, but it still made sense to me that whoever stayed in that gaudy tent would stand out among the regular goblins.

  I pictured heavy neck chains, a cheap facsimile of a crown, and an overall perversion of extravagance. More importantly, I imagined guards, dirty tricks, and maybe even shamans backing up that hypothetical boss. We definitely weren't yet ready to deal with any shamans.

  Our pace was brisk. Just shy of actual running. Moving past the thick weathered trunks, I marveled at how easy it was to keep that pace. At our Agility level we didn't even need to worry about stumbling over a root or slipping on a mossy rock. We moved effortlessly through the forest for several hours before the idea of taking a breather appeared on the horizon.

  Throughout this, I noted that my energy bar wasn't actually going down as we walked. Or rather, it wasn't depleting. By the time the sun had moved into the afternoon, the blue bar was sitting at 90/90.

  The lost energy between 90 and 100 was covered with a greyed-out texture. This was the maximum energy level lowering, not the current one draining, like I initially assumed.

  The rate at which it ticked down was encouraging. We started our day before dawn, had a harrowing fight, turned over the goblin camp, and then spent hours in a borderline run over rough terrain.

  These observations got me curious. If physical activity had very little effect on the current energy level, just the maximum, then what expended it in the more obvious way?

  This line of thinking eventually allowed me to discover a new feature of my UI. If I focused my thoughts in a specific way, I could pull up my complete character sheet.

  Unlike the status bars and level-up indicator, there was no specific point I had to focus on to make that scroll appear. I basically needed to will it into existence. The sensation of using my thoughts as an almost physical instrument was unusual and strangely exhausting. Thankfully, it didn't seem to affect the energy bar.

  What I soon discovered while checking my skills and attributes was that I was now able to examine them. This got me a rudimentary description of what they did.

  Strength, as expected, affected physical damage, the ability to lift heavier weights, and the overall robustness. Feeling the newly tightened cords of my muscles ripple under the clothes was a testament to me raising it to 14.

  The other attributes followed a similar pattern. Agility made you faster and better at avoiding attacks. Perception helped you aim and spot hidden stuff, both when dealing with treasure and people. The one attribute that surprised me was Intelligence. Instead of making you smarter, like I assumed it would, it granted access to spells of higher circles and improved something called casting efficiency.

  The bulk of my skills was much the same. They made me better at basic things like jumping or swimming. The Dodging skill, to my surprise, was uncoupled from armor and represented a spectacular ability to avoid blows that looked like they should connect.

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  I interpreted this as my AC being first tested against an attack, and if that failed, then I got a separate Dodging roll. At my current rank of 2, I had an extra 10% chance to dodge a physical attack.

  I also noticed that unlike attributes that simply listed a number, skills had a bar associated with them. That bar was segmented into ten distinct sections. All my skills had two of them filled, suggesting that skills went up to 10. The notches marking the 5th and 10th ranks were more pronounced, making it seem like something special happened once I unlocked those ranks.

  Finally, I got to the Armament Master skill.

  Armament Master

  The ability to wield arms and armor. An exclusive Fighter skill. At higher ranks, proficiency in this skill grants abilities indistinguishable from supernatural.

  Rank 1 – allows to effortlessly use any conventional weapon and armor

  Rank 2 – treats mundane weapons as enchanted +1 for the purposes of overcoming Damage Resistance

  Not yet unlocked skill ranks didn't get a description. I was annoyed by this for a second before my mind took me back to the morning events. My heart quickened. I remembered how the Sensate shrugged off a hail of lead like it wasn't a big deal. But when I went at him with my cane, his shield cracked, allowing Quint to finish him off.

  At the time I chalked that up to me being special. The Sensate called me a rounder, whatever that meant. Now I knew that we were alive thanks to my build. And Quint's shooting. Mostly my build. If not for that Old Dog trait I used to think was a complete rip-off, I wouldn't have had that second level of Armament Master, and so we wouldn't be able to get through the Sensate's bubble.

  I told this to Quint and taught him how to open his own character sheet. He half-heartedly disputed my version of the events, putting significantly more importance on his shooting. Even as he did, his eyes glazed over while he examined his new self.

  Quint's skills weren't quite as straightforward as mine. They still mostly did what you expected them to. Especially since he only had a single level in his. That first level was often an introduction that allowed you to interact with the activity governed by the skill in the first place.

  Performance was an exclusive Bard skill that made him better at singing and taught him the basics of playing a wide range of instruments. Persuasion was key to weaving a more compelling argument. And the first level of Loremaster bestowed upon him the knowledge of common historical artifacts.

  I struggled to wrap my head around the idea of a place having history when it literally sprouted up overnight. It was also good to know that the Dragon Tooth we found was a common trinket. It was disappointing, sure, but helpful. Going by its description I assumed the warrior it summoned was pretty powerful. A single necklace worth of the things was enough to conquer a kingdom, after all. Now, instead of saving it for a rainy day, I moved the artifact into a more "use it or lose it" category.

  Quint examined his spells next. Outside of leveling him up I couldn't see his spellbook directly, or at least didn't know how to. I had to go by what he was telling me.

  Healing Touch was both simple and mysterious. At first glance it was your basic healing spell. Quint had to physically touch his target for it to work, and it seemingly worked instantaneously. However, the spell's description didn't list a cost, the amount healed, or any limitations. And because neither of us was damaged, Quint wasn't allowed to use it.

  His other spell, Dazzling Panache, was a curious one. According to Quint's description of its description, it was the magician's best friend that elevated the art of misdirection beyond what was possible to achieve with mere smoke and mirrors.

  That one, Quint was allowed to cast.

  "What are you waiting for? Do it," I prompted him as we paused among the trees.

  Quint hesitated. He lifted his hand, looking at his fingers. "It's magic," he said.

  "Oh, don't tell me you're one of those 'magic is satanic' people."

  "What? No." Quint turned to me. "But it is magic. It shouldn't be real."

  "Well it is now. So, chop chop, hop to it. We're on a schedule here."

  "Screw you, hoss," Quint said, twisting his hand into an elaborate glyph that flashed with an otherworldly light.

  The words reverberated through the air, turning into a neverending echo in a place where there shouldn't have been any echo. Then, I was startled by the crackling sizzle of a firecracker in my peripheral vision. The orange sparks rained down from an empty spot of air at around my eye level. And finally, a mighty roar of what had to be a large beast, like a bear or lion, hit the back of my neck, making me swing towards it only to face a pristine forest.

  When I turned back to face Quint, his gesture transformed into a fist with a single outstretched middle finger aimed at me.

  "That part of the spell too?" I asked.

  "It sure ain't," Quint replied, putting the bird away. He then huffed. "Hey, that there display drained 6 points of energy from me."

  Further grilling Quint on the specifics of it revealed that this wasn't the maximum energy going down. The spell simply subtracted 6 points from his total. Quint assured me he could cast his spell again right away.

  This meant we weren't dealing with a Vancian system where Quint only had a limited number of spells he could cast per day. And it wasn't a traditional mana system, as the spells were tied to an energy bar that also governed your physical exhaustion.

  I was already regretting saddling Quint with measly 8 Intelligence. My reasoning for that was not wanting to turn him into an obnoxious know-it-all. Because of that, he was now low on casting efficiency, which I assumed governed how much energy you spent on spells. There was also the issue of high-level spells, but that was a problem for another day.

  Billy Joel Facts - Chapter 12:

  Story Facts - Chapter 12:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kN87BwWkTM