Sapphire's day is going like most others do, she's currently helping with washing clothes along with thee other children her age and an adult supervisor.
Life is simple though her mind does sometimes drift to the spring ritual this year it's her turn and she's not sure she's ready for it.
Laundry Skill Gained! Laundry Speed 5% Faster, 10% Chance of Removing Stains
This day is now very much not like others, considering the glowing grey… rectangle thing? Also, she can read the words on it. That doesn’t make them make any sense, but she can definitely read now.
If she pays attention, she can notice that she has a sort of ingrained knowledge of effectively washing clothes. Not a lot, but she knows how to clean expensive silks without damaging them, now, in addition to her normal knowledge.
Well that's strange. Can she touch the weird glowing rectangle?
Her hand… hits something, faces a bit a resistance, and then goes through it. One of the other kids is giving her a weird look, presumably because she’s sticking her hand in the air.
Well that's something. For the moment she'll just ignore the box maybe it will go away on its own. For the moment there's laundry to do.
There is indeed! Ignoring it does not seem to make it go away, unfortunately.
Laundry Skill Leveled Up! 1 —> 2 Laundry Speed 5% Faster, 15% Chance of Removing Stains
And now there are two floating rectangles! Does this laundry have any stains, perhaps?
Apparently this is her life now, if strange questions were an okay thing to ask she might ask someone about this but she's learned that adults don't like those. Questions about how to do chores better are fine, questions about why the world is the way it is are not.
There are some stains, she'll do her best to apply her newfound knowledge to removing the stain on this tunic.
Well, some of them are removable, according to her newfound knowledge! Unfortunately, most of them require more specialized tools than “basic soap” and “a river.”
Oddly, when she gets to one that, according to said knowledge, is impossible to remove, it just disappears as soon as she puts it under the water to wash the soap off.
She startles at that and rubs at the spot a couple times to confirm it's really gone. And then she continues like nothing happened. Eventually all the laundry will be done.
Yep! The boxes will stick in her vision if she walks away, but if she tries to look past them, they’ll turn translucent.
Nobody appears to be paying enough attention to notice disappearing stains, thankfully.
She whispers "please go away" at the mysterious boxes after walking away doesn't work.
That actually does make then disappear!
At the midday meal, she overhears two adults talking about heavy rains causing flooding on the Zergru River.
Hopefully the flooding won't damage their lands. They're a fair distance from the river. She moves on to help with checking the crops for pests.
And after a few minutes of that, the glowing rectangles return! Or, rectangle singular, this time.
Farming Skill Gained! 1% Faster Growing Speed, 5% Chance of Double Harvests. Claiming Land Feature Unlocked!
The crops are undamaged, thankfully!
Maybe she doesn't have to whisper, she tries wishing this new one away and goes back to weeding. She can worry about whatever a land claiming feature is when she's alone.
That also makes it go away! Unfortunately, another one just appears.
Farming Subskill Weeding Gained! 3% Less Weeds on claimed land. Go to Skills for an explanation on subskills!
There sure are a lot of these boxes. It seems like they're mostly making her better at chores though... she doesn't think that's bad. She hasn't heard any stories of the dragon touched doing something like this. She wishes this one away too.
Thinking them away continues to work just fine!
Well there's that at least, she'll finish her field work, help with the evening meal and finally get some time to herself.
The boxes continue!
Cooking Skill Gained! 5% More Damage With Knives, Food Based Buffs and Debuffs Last 5% Longer when food is personally cooked.
There seem to be blurry words over the food, and when she squints at them, they resolve into more rectangles.
Pot of Soup: 50% more Health Regeneration for 8 Hours
Loaf Bread: Cut to Craft Bread Slices
Even more boxes.... great. She wishes these away too. Once she's alone she tries to summon one of the boxes.
The boxes over the food will not go away! The best she can do is make them blurry again.
Trying to summon one of the previous boxes gets her an odd sensation, as if the boxes are confused, before getting a new box with the words Previous Notifications at the top. Below it are the previous rectangles.
The boxes over food not going away is distressing.
Boxes appearing when she wants is good for once. She tries wishing them away and then wishing again using this new magic phrase previous notifications.
It goes away and come back just as she hoped!
It's consistent at least. Now one of these notifications told her to go to Skills... She tries thinking that word really hard at the boxes.
Indeed, a new rectangle appears!
Indeed, a new rectangle appears!
Skill Menu:
Welcome to your skill menu! Skills will increase your ability to do various actions by providing bonuses and additional knowledge. Skills will level up by using the skills in question. More complex tasks will increase skills more. As you level up your skills, leveling gets slower and more difficult. Gain skills by doing various actions, reading books, learning from a mentor, or completing quests!
Subskills are skills that are attached to other skills. For instance, the Embroidery Skill might be a subskill of Sewing. A subskill can’t have a higher level than its related main skill, but practicing it will earn experience for both skills. Additionally, bonuses will apply from both applicable skills and subskills.
Your Skills:
Cooking 1: 5% More Damage With Knives, Food Based Buffs and Debuffs Last 5% Longer when food is personally cooked.
Farming 1: 1% Faster Growing Speed, 5% Chance of Double Harvests.
- Weeding 1: 3% Less Weeds on claimed land.
Laundry 2: 5% Faster, 15% Chance of Removing Stains
She recognized most of those words... she isn't sure what quests are though. She thinks Quests at the box to see if it'll explain.
You have no Quests! Do tasks in the world, set goals for yourself, and interact with others to gain Quests!
Set goals.... that's going to take more thought. In the meantime she turns her attention to the other thing mentioned by the boxes and thinks land claiming at them.
Land Claiming:Some Skills require Claimed Land to use. Claiming land requires owning the land in question through inheritance, legal claim, or purchase.
A new option will appear when on land that satisfies this criteria.
It looks like she doesn't need to worry about that right now then. She thinks back to setting goals. At the moment the thing she wants most is to understand these boxes. That's a goal. She tries to decide this as firmly as possible.
New Quest Available: New LifeYou have been thrown into the world of the Gamer, and you need more knowledge. Open three more menus, and learn more about the Interface.
Objectives: 0/3 Menus OpenedRewards: 100 XP, and a better understanding of your new powers
Well that worked... She thinks menu at the boxes.
New Life Quest: 1/3 Objectives Complete!
Menu:
Social [LOCKED]
Character Customizer [LOCKED]
Settings
Statistics
Gameplay
Skills
Achievements
Notebook
Hint: You can add additional submenus to the main menu by willing so!
That's a lot of things. She'll start at the beginning. Settings
New Life Quest: 2/3 Objectives Complete!
Settings:
Volume
Graphics
Accessibility
Controls
She continues in order: Volume
New Life Quest Complete! 100 XP Earned.
Volume:
Master Volume: 100 (-) (+)
Music: OFF
Music Volume: 100 (-) (+)
Speech Volume: 100 (-) (+)
She starts by trying to turn on the music. If that works she tries adjusting its volume.
This does work! She can now hear a cheerful flute tune that is not apparently coming from anywhere in particular! The line symbol makes it less loud, and the crossed-line symbol makes it more loud.
She says "Hello" then tries to decrease speech volume and says "Hello" again.
It definitely sounds quieter! The sounds of work in the distant stay the same, but the sounds of shouting seem comparatively quieter, like they’re only talking loudly and not yelling.
She tries making master volume quieter.
Everything gets quieter! It’s very odd - almost as if she put a blanket over her head, but everything still just as clear. More as if everything, including her own breathing, was farther away.
She turns off the music puts all the volume settings to how they were and tries to remember what came next. Oh yes Graphics
Graphics:Brightness: 100 (-) (+)
Viewpoint: First Person
Graphics Quality: [LOCKED]
See Nametags: Off
She'll change brightness first. Is 100 the max and does it do to her vision what the volume did to her hearing? After that she'll try touching first person.
The maximum appears to be 300, and she can see in dark shadows as if it was a very bright sunny day. Almost painfully bright. Looking outside, she can’t see anything except glowiness.
Touching first person makes her vision shift to behind her, as if she was looking at herself from her back. Her proprioception is the same, though. It is extremely disconcerting, and probably quite nausea inducing! It now says Third Person instead of First.
She tries to hold in her dinner and firmly thinks first person.
That fixes it! No more weird outside-body experience.
Well that's one thing she won't touch again any time soon. She goes back to Volume to check if she can make that louder than normal too. Then she tries turning on Nametags.
Volume also goes to 300, which makes it thrice as loud! She can easily hear her heartbeat, her breathing is very loud, shuffling a little sounds as if it should echo.
Nametags… do not do anything immediately obvious, unless she’s looking above her own head.
Does she see it if she looks up?
Looking up, she’ll see glowing words! They read: Sapphire Irellia, The Gamer, Level 1
Nobody else seems to have noticed her changing anything or the boxes she'll leave the Nametags on. On to Accessibility
Accessability:Colorblind Mode: Off
Subtitles: Off
She tries both.
Subtitles also does not have any noticeable effects! Colorblind Mode gives her another intuitive action - if she uses it, it tells her the color of whatever she’s focusing it on.
She'll leave both on for now, the ability isn't distracting. On to and the last part of settings was controls.
Speech: Enabled:Touch: Enabled
Thought: Enabled
She turns off touch then tries touching the box.
It feels the same, but it doesn’t change the settings.
That's annoying, she turns touch back on. That's it for settings. On to Statistics.
Please note that Statistics does not track events from before System Activation! Also note that kills of single-cellular organisms will not count towards totals!:
Non-Sapient Kills: 0
Sapient Kills: 0
Steps: [LOCKED]
Items Crafted: [LOCKED]
Best Item Quality: [QUALITY]
Highest Skill: Laundry
Lives Saved: [LOCKED]
What.... it expects her to maybe kill people. She pauses for a minute to digest that. Maybe the boxes are evil after all. It did also say lives saved though. She takes a deep breathe and continues to Gameplay
Gameplay:
Difficulty: Hardcore [LOCKED]
World: Lydriu [LOCKED]
Mob Loot: Off
Friendly Fire: On
Friendly fire sounds important but she's not sure what it means. Can you tell me what Friendly Fire does? Doesn't hurt to try.
No answer.
She won't change that then. She'll leave the other one alone too. She's already seen Skills so Achievements
Achievements:
Achievements are milestones that the System grants various rewards for completing. These rewards are usually related titles, skills, items, or new System options. Some menus are locked behind certain achievements.
Note: Not all available achievements are listed here, and traveling to new worlds will grant new achievements.
Killer: Kill 1 Human
Killer 2: Kill 100 Humans
Killer 3: Kill 10,000 Humans
Killer 4: Kill 1,000,000 Humans
Dragonslayer: Kill a Dragon
Dragonslayer 2: Kill 100 Dragons
Duelist: Win a Duel
Duelist 2: Win 10 Duels in a Row
Savior: Save a Life
Hero: Save 100 Lives
Big Damn Hero: Save a Planet
Gold, Gold, Gold!: Own your weight in gold.
Evil: Kick a Puppy
Polyglot: Get 10 Language Skills to Level 10
Parent: Adopt a Child
Firebug: Set 100 Fires
Pointers: Meet Another Version of Yourself
…
And she's back to thinking the boxes might be evil. She can't even count that high. The elders might say dragons are evil but they don't advocate going out and killing them. Again though it rewards good and bad things and she doesn't have to do the bad ones. The last item was Notebook.
It opens up an illusionary notebook with an illusionary pen. She can move the notebook anywhere, and can draw and write on it with the pen. Closing it removes the notebook, and thinking notebook summons it again. The writing and/or drawings remain unless she tears out the page.
Well, that's helpful now that she knows how to read.
She closes all the boxes and tries to get some sleep.
She sleeps well, and wakes up with a new text box.
Slept in a bed! All hit points restored!
What are hit points. Nothing for it. She dismisses the system and goes to breakfast.
Breakfast is rice porridge, as usual. After breakfast, she’s told to go feed the chickens.
Life goes on even with mysterious possibly evil boxes. She goes to feed the chickens.
Yep! Perhaps surprisingly, no boxes show up.
That's unexpected. It's nice to have a break though. She'll continue onto the next task, the meeting room needs to be cleaned.
Cleaning Skill Gained! 10% Faster Cleaning Speed, 10% More Attack Speed With Brooms
Why would she attack someone with a broom. The boxes are so weird. Being able to clean faster will be nice though. She dismisses the box and keeps cleaning.
Cleaning Skill Leveled Up! 1 —> 2 Cleaning Speed 15% Faster, 5% Chance of Removing Stains
That's a similar progression to the laundry skill. She'll pay attention to a few spots that nobody has been able to get out for a while. Maybe she'll get lucky.
Well, if there are twenty of those, she’ll probably get one!
There's at least that many, someone wasn't careful when they tried to repaint one of the walls a few years ago.
Then around five percent will disappear! Although if she keeps trying to remove the same spot, they’ll still randomly disappear at the same rate.
She does try that... that's interesting. She stops after getting a couple... she doesn't want to be obviously magical. People might think she's dragon touched.
Probably a good idea, since people use the building quite often!
Cleaning Skill Leveled Up! 2 —> 3 Cleaning Speed 20% Faster, 10% Chance of Removing Stains
She finishes cleaning and decides to help with preparing for the midday meal. She tries to think of what other chores might yield skills. That's a goal that might be a quest, finding some pattern in what is and isn't a skill.
Quest: Jack of All Trades
To Complete: Gain Five Skills
Reward: Jack of All Trades Title, Deck of Cards
Alright that's not exactly what she meant but it's a step in the right direction. The interface talked about music. She'll try practicing her singing as she cooks, softly so people won't get annoyed with her.
Singing Skill Gained!
Incompatible. Converting…Apologies for the inconvenience. Please Choose a Subskill:
Battle Cry
Lullaby
A Cappella
Singing Skill Gained! 10% Bonus to Subskill Effects
She tries to open Skills to see if that clarifies what the options mean. Otherwise she'll go with Lullaby.
Skills is the same as before, plus the Singing skill.
Singing Subskill Gained! Lullaby
Lullaby is a Spell. Check the Spell Menu for an explanation of Spells!
Active Skill. When active, singing slow music, particularly lullabies, has a minimum 10% chance of putting those nearby to sleep. Chances are higher if victim is drowsy, tired, and/or consenting. Better tone amd song choice will also improve odds. Odds are worse if victim is attempting to resist.
Spells She stops singing for the moment she wants to make sure it's off first.
Spells:
Spells are one-time magical effects! Spells have a specific trigger, and may cost Mana Points (MP). Unlike Rituals, they do not take material components. Spells can have many different effects! Spells are different from advanced skills in that they create new effects, rather than enhancing existing ones.
What exactly are mana points, does she have any? She tries to get the boxes to show her mana points.
MP: 20/20
She'll leave the mp box open and start singing again presumably if it doesn't change she's not putting people to sleep.
The number of mana points does not go down!
Alright, she might try fiddling with it more later, maybe she'll help out with some of the babies and see if it works.
In the meantime she continues stirring and chopping and helping in various ways until the meal is ready.
Cooking Skill Leveled Up! 2 —> 3 10% More Damage With Knives, Food Based Buffs and Debuffs Last 8% Longer when food is personally cooked.
In not too much longer, the meal is ready afterwards she decides to go help with mending clothes. That seems like the kind of thing that might yield a skill and even if it doesn't it's a useful skill to have.
Sewing Skill Gained! 5% Faster Sewing Speed!
She does feel as if she could sew a bit faster, or maybe make slightly neater seams if she went at the same speed.
Hmm, is that the second skill or do the other skills she had before the quest count? She tries bringing the quest back up to see if it will tell her.
It's counting from when she received the quest - it's marked as 2/5.
That's honestly what she expected but she was hoping it was the other way. Ah well, she'll keep working on her sewing being neater seems better than faster. She isn't sure how many other things could even be skills. There aren't that many chores.
She thinks for a bit as she sews. She can help with mending the chicken coop, she's done that a couple times though it isn't needed that often so it'll probably be a couple days.
In the meantime she can just keep living, she wasn't too unhappy with life before these boxes and the boxes seem mostly as unwilling to answer questions as the adults which was her only real complaint.