"Well, the usual first step is deciding on your avatar but I think you've already got that covered. You can tune what you want to start off wearing though. After that we need to do the next step in your starlit clearing.

"Hmmm. What can you tell us about the starting conditions? Are we dropping somewhere safe? Will we have the opportunity to acquire armor before facing combat? What's the weather like?"

"Sanctuary is safe. It's actually the safest place in the whole game. And it'll be about seventy degrees today, fahrenheit, perhaps a bit cooler in shaded areas. The quality of armor I'm allowed to start you with is easy to acquire in the starting area."

"Hmm. Tough decision. We quite like this, but it's not exactly suited to combat. What's harder to acquire in Sanctuary, outfits this cute or starter armor?"

"Honestly, they're about the same. I would recommend going with what you'd prefer people to base first impressions on. Do you want to come across as someone who's playing the game for the fighting or someone who's playing for less martial reasons?"

"That settles it, then," she replies as she continues walking toward the starlit clearing. "We'll gladly fight if we have to — and we expect we will have to — but we'd rather talk when we can. We'll go in this."

Emerging back into the clearing, there's now a lightly glowing mirror near the doors. As she gets close words write themselves out upon its surface.

Strength: 9 + / -

Endurance: 10 + / -

Range of motion: 10 + / -

Proprioception: 10 + / -

Quickness: 10 + / -

Acuity: 10 + / -

Retention: 10 + / -

Focus: 10 + / -

Available points: 10 [Reset]

"Here's your first glimpse of the stats menu. Since we made your body basically from scratch you're close to the max for a new player but everyone starts off on close to even footing. You can put a maximum of four points into any specific stat and the changes will apply over the first week after launch."

She looks the points up and down, humming thoughtfully.

"Can you explain the stats?"

"I can go through all of them but it might be faster to focus on any of them you're confused by. In general the stats are using a mix of slight of hand and changes to your avatar to produce their results."

"Mostly I'm curious how the mental ones are implemented. At least as much as you can tell us, anyway."

"I'm not sure why, but the devs want that to be mostly hush hush. Something about explaining the trick breaking the illusion. I can explain the results but not the how."

"Oh? Interesting. I suppose the results will have to do. Thanks for telling us what you can."

"For most of the early game quickness is mostly about reaction times. As you get higher, it starts to also edge into making it seem like you can think faster than before. Acuity is about your senses it lets you sense with more fidelity and distinguish more subtle differences. Retention means you're more likely to be reminded of important information when it's relevant and focus makes you less likely to be distracted by things that aren't important at any given moment."

"Hm." She considers that for a moment. "Torn between either building for well-rounded with a hint of bonus quickness, or leaning hard into Thinkers Win The Day. What options are there for raising stats over the course of the game?"

"A lot of what you might do in public areas earns you experience points and you can convert experience points into stat points. That includes training close to your limits, completing tasks that help either your fellow players or allied characters, negotiating with unaligned characters or fighting with hostile characters. There's other opportunities too but those are less common. You can also use experience points for certain equipment upgrades and skills. Training close to your limits can also improve some stats directly. There may be other ways to improve them but if so you'll need to discover them yourself."

"Fascinating." She tilts her head thoughtfully. "Can you tell me anything about what training quickness, acuity, retention, and focus look like? I can imagine limited options for how to train those, especially acuity and retention, but it seems like they might be harder to train than the physical stats."

"You can train quickness with time trials so testing how fast you can react to something and pushing yourself to react faster. Acuity is about trying to discern things at the limit of your ability either because they're far away or because the difference is tiny or a combination. Retention you can train by learning memory techniques and focus you can learn by doing difficult things in distracting environments. You're right that all of those are harder to do and more fussy to see real progress in though."

"That makes sense. I think I'll make our initial build a little lopsided, then."

She bumps strength to ten, endurance to eleven, and then quickness, acuity, retention, and focus to twelve.

"Solid foundation, endurance to train a little bit longer, and a heavier boost to the trickier stats. What d'you think?"

"I think most choices are good here. The developers didn't want anybody to feel like they screwed themselves with early choices so it doesn't matter that much for early game and you'll be able to change things up later on. Also as a little secret 10 is a starting point and subsequent points don't really scale relative to that. They picked 10 just so people didn't have stats that started at 0 or negative numbers."

"Thank you. That sounds like a plan then." She smiles. "So what next?"

"If you're happy with your choices I'll finalize them and leave you to the next step in your adventure."

They have a bit of an internal conference.

Do we like these stats?, Sable asks.

        Neo shares an image of using the quickness for better rapier practice.

                And I really like the idea of being fast!, Ruby exclaims excitedly.

    Maya adds, Thinkers win the day, as well. This will be a solid start.

            Let's fucking go, Hailey cheers.

"Okay, Veria! Thanks for all the help! We'll go with this!"

"Alright then. I hope you enjoy your time in Gates of Eternity. You know how to get my attention if you need it."

Veria swirls away and in the same moment the stats disappear and the mirror starts to ripple. As it does the surface gets brighter and cloudier until it's a bit like the surface of a glowing blue pond only vertical.

Ooh, trippy portal thing, Hailey thinks. I wonder if it'll be as crazy a ride as portkeys back "home".

She strides through it.