Seeds of Discordia

Liam spun around to see three people standing on the stage.

On the left was a middle-aged strict looking man. He had a clean cropped brown hair style and blue eyes. His tank top fit snuggly over his torso and chest as his muscular arms rested behind his back. The bottom of his brown pants was sucked into his boots.

The figure in the middle was a lady who looked like she was in her early thirties. Her long flowing golden hair looked flawless. Her green eyes hid behind glasses. She wore a weirdly designed white and yellow robe giving her a scholarly appearance.

The last individual was an elderly woman. She wore her long white hair in a ponytail fashion. Her assessing, but kind hazel eyes took everyone in as she looked around the room. Her outfit gave her a martial artist look. The sleeveless shirt showed that even though she looked old, she wasn’t far from her prime.

“Damn, are you psychic or something?” Blair questioned as she looked at Liam.

Liam shook his head. “No, it was just a guess.”

The younger lady took a step forward and started, “Greetings, lost lambs. I know you are confused about the present situation. If you could give us some of your time, we will explain what is going on. I am Nalia. This gentleman is called Phorge. And the elderly woman next to me is Adva.”

The loud chatter slowly became murmurs as the crowd gave their attention to the three before them.

“Lost lambs?” Liam thought as he raised an eyebrow.

“Prior to arriving here, your planets were on the brink of destruction. Before that could happen, we did all that we could to make sure you could survive by summoning you here.”

“Where is here!?” A voice called out.

“You are on the planet called Paracosm. Well…to be precise…you are in a small area separated from the world of Paracosm. In a few of your worlds you can think of it as tutorial area of sorts. A place to help you get better acquainted with how our world works,” Nalia responded.

“What the hell are you talking about?” A random person asked.

“Tutorial area? What is this? A video game?” Another shouted.

“Summoned us? How do we know this isn’t a ruse!?”

The idle people started up again as panic slowly kicked back in.

“Silence!” Phorge roared. The force of his voice bared down on everyone causing them to cover their ears.

The voices became silent as they looked back at the three.

“We know this is confusing to you all,” Adva began. “However, you must understand. We didn’t have you summoned directly into the world due to the dangers hidden within it. Walking into a world you have no clue about is equivalent to dropping you in an ocean with no support. This world is much different than the ones you’re from,” her voice sounded like a soothing grandmother who was parting wisdom upon her grandchildren, “Instead, we created this place to help you accumulate better knowledge and gain the skills and abilities you’ll need to survive.”

People looked at her skeptically.

“The best way for you to understand what we are talking about is real, is by pulling up something called a Character Sheet. To do so just think the words, Character Sheet.”

Liam looked dubious, but played along and thought, “Character Sheet.” A shocked expression replaced his uncertainty as a light blue see-through screen much like ones he’s seen in games popped up in front of him.

 

“This is…,” Liam softly muttered as his brain began to swirl trying to make sense of it all. “This is an actual character sheet…my own personal character sheet.” he brought a hand to cover his mouth as a smile slowly crept on his face.

“I have a question,” someone shouted with a hand raised.

“Yes?” Nalia responded.

“Why does my character sheet say points used? I don’t remember putting any points anywhere. Also why are there areas blank and locked?”

Nalia smiled. “That is an excellent question. Areas you see blank means you have not been given or achieved anything to fill that area. Places you see locked means you have yet to unlock that specific area. For example, you’ll see that your Class is locked. That is because you haven’t unlocked your starting class yet. I’ll get to that in a moment though.”

The crowd was filled with light murmurs as they stared at their personal Character Sheets.

Nalia continued, “The reason why you have points used is because of the experiences you had in the other world you lived in translated into their respected stats. Also, please keep in mind no one can see your character sheet unless you allow them to.”

“If you want to see where your points were put into, simply click on the Body, Mind, and Spirit sections for a drop-down window to appear showing where everything is placed,” Adva said.

Liam did as she suggested and was mind boggled at how it broke down.

“While you all look at that we will explain how it all works,” Nalia started up. “As you have seen there are three categories for your attributes. Body, Mind, and Spirit. The Body Category deals with your physical stats. The Mind Category deals with your mental and magical stats. Lastly, the Spirit Category deals with your recovery, focus, and luck.”

Nalia waited for her words to settle and then turned to Phorge, “Would you like to explain the Body Categories?”

Phorge stepped forward and began to speak. The powerful roar from earlier was still fresh in everyone’s minds so they braced for it again but was shocked as he spoke normally. “The Body Category has four main stats. They are Constitution, Dexterity, Endurance, and Strength. Each stat has a sub-stat you can train to bring your capabilities up. Constitution has the sub-stats: Ailment Resistance, Resilience, and Vitality.”

“Your Ailment Resistance is a sub-stat that deals with different types of physical afflictions that can harm your body. The Resilience is a sub-stat that strengthens your pain tolerance as well as your natural defenses from attacks. I will warn you that you will never be completely numb to pain so don’t get your hopes up. And lastly, Vitality is the sub-stat that ties in with your Health pool, or HP for short.”

Someone in the crowd raised their hand as they asked, “How do we know what our Ailment resistances are? Does it just focus on all or does it show what resistance we have to what?”

Phorge gave a smile as he answered, “That is an excellent question. Like many things you’ll learn, for things like Ailment Resistance, you’ll have a drop down for that to show you. You’ll have to learn how to get a resistance to an ailment on your own. I will say this though, working on your resistances will be painful.”

Phorge waited to see if there were any more questions before continuing, “The next main stat in the Body Category is Dexterity. Dexterity has four sub-stats: Agility, Fine Motor, Reflex, and Speed. Agility raises the ability to being able to move stealthily, attack speed, and controlling the direction and position of one's body while maintaining momentum. The Fine Motor sub-stat works your small muscles to be able to control movements in areas such as the hands and fingers. Reflex works the larger muscles in the arms, legs, torso, and feet to dodge away from strikes and surprise attacks. Lastly, Speed raises your movement speed when running or sprinting.”

“So, you’re saying by raising your speed you can just run faster and longer?” A random female asked.

“Yes and no. Most sub-stats are tied in with your other sub-stats in other categories. For example, Your Speed sub-stat doesn’t work on how long you can run or sprint. It’ll only work on your movements going forward. I believe you can see colored bars in your peripherals.”

Liam looked around but couldn’t see anything. He then tried to focus on what Phorge meant until he finally saw it.

“The green bar is your Health Pool. The blue is your Mana Pool. And your yellow bar is your Stamina Pool. Your Stamina Pool plays into your physical movements and ties in with your physical activities. The more you run, dodge, grip something harder, etcetera, will drain your Stamina Pool.”

“Then how do we work on lessening that drain?” Someone asked.

“By working on your Endurance sub-stats. There are three sub-stats in your Endurance stat. They are Stamina Endurance, Body Endurance, and Crafter Endurance. Your Stamina Endurance determines how long you can run, dodge, and carry heavy items. Body Endurance determines how many times you can block attacks before getting tired.”

“The last one, Crafter Endurance plays into effect when you are crafting. It takes a lot of stamina to wield a hammer or focus on stitching something when tailoring an item. Not to mention the heat you must endure while in the smithy and other variations.”

Phorge paused to wait for any more questions before continuing, “The last sub-stats are in Strength. These are Power and Body Strength. Power, like how it sounds, determines the damage you can deal when attacking. Body Strength determines the type of weapon and armor you can wear and use. I will tell you now that most weapons and armor have requirements in order to use them.”

People searched for what he was talking about and grew confused as they kept looking.

“Is the Weapon’s training and Craft’s section the same as a drop down? We can’t see what crafts are out there or what weapons and armor we can use,” A man questioned.

“Correct,” Adva replied. “Many things in this world require you to find them out yourselves and learn them. Weapons training can start after using a weapon for the first time and either train with it to get a better feel or during combat. However, please keep in mind…before the first level of training for the weapon skill appears you will have a heavy penalty wielding it. Power in your strikes are weak, successful hits are less likely to land, and for heavy weapons they drain your stamina quicker than it would if you have a level in it. So please think twice before going into battle with a brand-new weapon you have no knowledge in.”

“Speaking of learning and knowledge,” Nalia chimed in. “I’ll explain the Mind Category. There are three main stats: Fortitude, Intelligence, and Wisdom. The Fortitude has two sub-stats: Cognition Perseverance and Mental Resilience. Cognition Perseverance helps your mind focus more on your surroundings as well as being able to think while going through painful experiences. Mental Resilience is much like the Ailment Resistance sub-stat except it focuses more on mental ailments.”

“Why is there Cognition Perseverance if there is a Resilience sub-stat in the Body Category?” A curious person inquired.

“Excellent question. There is a difference between the two. My fellow colleague here doesn’t always explain things thoroughly.” Nalia glanced at Phorge who frowned at her. “The difference between the two is that one helps you to still be able to move through pain when your body is screaming not to, and the other helps your mind focus through the pain.”

Nalia waited to see if there was any more questions before continuing, “Intelligence has three sub-stats: Knowledge, Mental absorption, and Perception. Knowledge raises your ability to understand how something works by reading or by experimenting. The more you read and re-read a subject the better you understand it. Mental absorption helps your memory on what you learn. Lastly, Perception helps you to perceive your environment and surroundings, to pick up clues and any subtleties.”

“Does knowledge have a drop-down window as well? I feel like it’s one that would,” Someone asked.

“Yes. In that drop down section you gain things called a Knowledge Theory. Knowledge Theories are bits of knowledge of a subject that can help you gain a better understanding for them. These bit of information can be anywhere from weapon skills to magical abilities, or sub-stats to history.”

Nalia again waited to see if there were any questions.

When no one spoke up she carried on saying, “The last main stat is Wisdom. This has four sub-stats: Magical Practicality, Physical Practicality, Crafting Practicality, and Common sense. Magical and Physical Practicality are fairly the same except one deals with magic while the other doesn’t. Working on these sub-stats will help you to better understand how to use magical abilities and weapon skills. However, you can’t have a better understanding of how to use things without having equal knowledge of said abilities or skills.”

“Crafting Practicality is the same except its more with your crafting. The last one is Common Sense. This helps you understand other races and peoples’ cultures, what to say or not to say during certain times.”

Nalia gave a sigh. “You’d think many would have some and there wouldn’t be a need for this to be a sub-stat, but many mortals are, surprisingly, lacking it.”

Adva glared at Nalia as Phorge lightly elbowed her arm.

“Ow,” Nalia complained as she rubbed her arm.

“Mortals?” Liam thought as he caught the comment.

Adva gave the crowd a friendly smile as she said, “The last is the Spirit Category. There are three Main stats. They are Luck, Recovery, and Will.”

“Luck has two sub-stats. They are: Lucky Break and Lucky Soul. There are still many things we are unclear on when it comes to these. The only things we know is that these two play a part in critical strikes, dodge successions, being able to craft a level above what you can and finding rare items or resources.”

“How can no one fully know what they can do if they are a sub-stat?” Someone commented.

“Because we cannot determine luck based on knowledge. No matter how long one studies a thing like luck, luck will always prove you wrong. Luck in of itself is a mystery,” Adva replied.

She looked around and waited for the murmurs to die down as much as they could before continuing, “Next is Recovery. Recovery has three sub-stats. They are HP Recovery, MP, Recovery, and Stamina Recovery. All three of these can be explained easily together. These sub-stats tie in with how quickly you can recover lost health, mana, or stamina. The last main stat is Will. There are two sub-stats in this. They are Willpower and Zen. Willpower helps strengthen your resolve when faced with obstacles that would bring you down or hesitate. Lastly, Zen helps you focus on your tasks more efficiently.”

Adva, Nalia, and Phorge waited as they looked at everyone. After a minute passed, Nalia inquired, “Does anyone have any questions they would like to ask?”

“Yes, how do you level these sub-stats? Do they level up when you level?” a random person asked.

“Yes and no. There are two ways to level sub-stats,” Nalia lifted a hand up with her index finger pointing. “One way is when you personally level you get a certain number of points in each Category. You use these points to place them into a sub-stat to level them up. Please keep in mind the higher your sub-stat level is the more points it’ll take to level it.” She then raised her middle finger up. “Two, you train the sub-stats individually. There are numerous ways to raise them, but you’ll have to learn them as you grow.”

“This seems like a lot. Why is everything so separate? Why not just combine things together?” A skeptical voice questioned.

“There’s the question I was waiting for,” Nalia sighed.

“I’ll answer this one,” Adva said. “The reason is simple. Not everyone needs certain things for the type of build they are trying to make or envision themselves with. For example, a person who is making a purely physical build wouldn’t have much need for mana or a purely magical person wouldn’t need much power for physical strikes. Instead of people training and getting things they don’t need they can focus on what it is they truly need to make the best build for their class.”

“It’s about quality over quantity,” Phorge smiled.

Nalia glanced at him and said with a look, “Yes, that’s it.”

“Why does our Zodiac show up on our character sheet?” someone inquired.

“Dear me, I almost forgot about that,” Nalia started. “Your Zodiac comes into play with your abilities. Each Zodiac has different abilities that can help you grow. For example, the Aries Zodiac gives a person a berserk like ability without losing their minds to the berserk effect. The after affects still come into play where the person with it will feel drained and weak so use your ability wisely when using them. Anyone else have any questions?”

Liam remembered the strange event that happened before they came out of the room and asked, “Earlier something said it was assessing us as a light outlined our bodies. What was that and what did it mean by assessment?”

“That was just a magical spell casted on everyone used to help with filling out your personal character sheet as well as determining what your starting class and abilities will be.” Nalia smiled.

“So, it looked into us to see what our starting classes would be?” Liam pressed.

“It determined what your starting class is, not classes. Unless you meant it in the context of everyone’s then yes you are correct,” Nalia eyed him. “That is what you meant right?”

Liam looked at her straight in the eyes before smiling and answering, “Yes, that is what I meant.” He looked back at his character sheet and stared at the words Secondary Class. He then thought to himself, “Why do I have two classes then?”

“Why is our class locked if they were assessed?” Avery asked as she glanced at Liam before looking back at the three.

“We will explain that next,” Adva replied.

Adva, Nalia, and Phorge turned their bodies around and then snapped their fingers.

After they snapped their fingers five colorful portals appeared. They were colored from left to right: Light green, light red, light blue, light yellow, black.

“These portals are entrances to what we call dungeons,” Nalia began as they turned back around. “Dungeons have different colors to help you determine the type of environments and monsters to expect in them. They also have different shades to the colors to help determine the difficulty. The lighter the color the easier they are while the darker they are the harder they become. After some time, they will change colors, especially when they have not been challenged after a while.”

“You’ll also come across other types as you adventure the world,” Adva stated. “Keep this in mind as you come across them. Not all is what it seems in them.”

“That doesn’t sound ominous at all,” Artem whispered.

Liam and the others nodded their heads in agreement.

“Now in order to unlock your starting class you will have to go in the dungeon assigned to you and beat the first-floor boss. Since this is a tutorial dungeon there aren’t many enemies. There should be just enough for you to get your first level on the weapon given to you.”

“What weapon? I never got any weapon!” Someone shouted.

“How do we know what dungeon we are assigned to?” Another asked.

“Quiet!” Phorge yelled trying to stop the discord slowly brewing.

After the crowd quieted Nalia reassured, “Your weapon is in your inventory. You’ll be able to take it out of your inventory once you enter the dungeon. Well, inside a starter bag that’s in your inventory. Oh, now that I think of it we never got to that.”

Adva closed her eyes and shook her head slightly while giving a quiet sigh.

Nalia glared at her before continuing, “You all have an inventory space. There is not much room in there, so I advise you only keep your most precious items. Also, I advised getting a spatial bag when you earn enough money. Spatial bags are not as grand as the inventory because your inventory doesn’t affect your carrying capacity, but they do reduce the weight of the items you place in them. The amount it reduces depends on the bag you get.”

“Nalia, you’re going off topic,” Phorge remarked.

“Silly me,” Nalia said with a laugh. It was one that felt forced and made Liam grimace.

“What’s wrong?” Avery asked quietly as she saw the expression.

“I hate it when people force a laugh. It’s kind of a pet peeve of mine,” Liam replied in the same volume.

“Hm…interesting,” Avery responded before looking back at the stage.

Liam gave her a questioning look.

“Anyways,” Nalia started up again. “The light that assessed you also assigned which dungeon you’re going into.” She twisted her left wrist up and produced a clear orb. She then placed a hand into the air and pulled out a table. After the table was set with a cloth over it and a stand, she placed the orb on it. “You each will come up to the stage one at a time and place a hand on this orb. The orb will glow one of the five colors and that color will be the dungeon you’ll enter.”

“The first floor is an individual floor meaning you’ll be going in alone. Take your time in there and get acquainted with what you’re given. These dungeons are for training, so you won’t die, but that doesn’t mean you won’t feel pain or get hurt,” Adva advised.

“After you defeat the first floor, you’ll be given a chance to rest in the city behind you,” Nalia informed causing everyone to turn around.

The solid wall that was once there was gone showing a deep dark cavern. Suddenly a small light glowed, then another, and another. Before they knew it a city had appear all lit up. It wasn’t a big one, but you could hear voices coming from that direction.

“There in that city you’ll get to know the others that went into the same dungeon as you. Form teams with them and prepare to tackle the rest of the floors. There are places where you can practice your skills, libraries to learn things, and even buildings to start learning certain crafts. Not all will be available, but there are some useful ones that can help.”

“There are a total of six floors in these dungeons. Each floor gets increasingly tougher for your levels. You can take your time approaching each floor. Train your sub-stats, hone your skills, try out strategies, whatever you want to do that’ll help you,” Phorge added.

“Now then,” Adva clapped. “Let’s have you line up and start entering so we can proceed.”

                                                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After an hour of waiting in line Liam was finally close enough to see the orb. Avery was in front of him. She placed a hand on the orb and watched it fill with a dark color.

“Black dungeon with you sweetie,” Adva smiled softly.

“I guess so,” Avery softly said as she slowly walked over and entered the portal.

“Next,” Phorge said with a yawn.

Liam approached the orb and placed a hand on it. At first it didn’t do anything, then a black smoke filled the orb. Liam froze as he saw the smoke form an indistinguishable face smiling at him. It disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

“Hm, that’s weird,” Adva muttered with a volume that was barely a whisper.

“What is?” Liam questioned.

Adva looked at him forgetting he was there before answering, “In all my life I have never seen it appear as smoke. It’s supposed to be only a color. Maybe I’m overthinking it. Looks like it’s the black dungeon for you too, young man.”

Liam glanced at the orb once more before walking towards his destination. He stopped in front of it and took a deep breath in. As he released it Phorge stated, “Nothing happens by just idling around.”

Liam jumped at his sudden voice took him out of his focus.

Phorge laughed. “My bad. I was just trying to give you some encouraging words.”

Liam smiled sheepishly before looking back at the portal. “You’re right.” He took one more deep breath, released it and stepped forward.