Cat With a Raygun

Joe didn't have too much trouble getting to sleep. Even though everything was new and weird, and this cabin smelled dusty, he was excited about his new life. He really didn't understand why he wasn't more upset about the loss of his old life and his family. It's like there was a barrier on his emotional connection to Earth. When he woke up the next morning and ate the last of his crab meat lumps for breakfast, he was eager to meet up with Ferric and learn more about this CWEST system.

Ferric met him outside of The Rusty Cup, waving as Joe approached. “Good morning, Joe. I trust you slept well?”

“Yes, thank you for the cabin. I hope your faith in me isn't misplaced.”

“Don't worry too much,” replied Ferric. “Based on what you've already proven you can do I already have ideas of how you can pay us back that Sally and Jack are working on.”

“What do you mean?” asked Joe.

“Well, you have a harvesting spell, right?”

“Yeah, although I picked it by mistake, I was afraid it had to do with farming. I was glad for the mistake when it gave me meat off those crabs.”

“That's exactly what I mean, but not with meat. We have a lot of deer in the woods nearby. We haven't hunted them because we're low on arrows for Sally's bow and we don't have any good butcher or skinning knives, so it would have been a waste. Your spell will hopefully give us both the meat and skins off the deer, so we can offer more to the merchant when she arrives in five days. As it is she buys our iron ingots, as they are the one product we can still make thanks to Teril sticking to the town. He works at the smelter.”

Going through the people he's met in his head Joe asked, “And what about the last resident? You said there were six of you total, and Teril makes five.”

“That would be my little sister Ferrite. She works the farm here, which is the only thing that's been keeping us going. With only three miners we don't produce enough ore to sell a lot when the merchants come buy, the little income we get all goes to keeping the town going. I'm hoping your magic will give us some breathing room, maybe get us enough money to attract a smith. Hell, I'd even take an inexperienced dwarf willing to learn. We have instruction books left by the last blacksmith before he went off to the war, but they're all in Dwarven so none of us can make heads or tails of them.

“Before I get into the bulk of my CGS explanation, a word of caution. Don't pick your profession until you're sure of what you want. Your choices will change as you develop your skills and you can put off choosing as long as you want. Unlike your class which you have to pick immediately or it picks for you at random. That's why mages are so rare. So few people are born with high enough Intelligence to qualify, and you can't develop your skills to raise it before you have to pick.”

Ferric gestured Joe towards the door to the tavern so they could sit and make themselves comfortable for the lesson.

After they both sat at a table Ferric got started. “Now, I know you probably have a bunch of questions, but let me go through my explanation first, and if you still have questions afterwards I'll answer them as best as I can.

“To start with the CWEST Guidance Service is a magical, omniscient, omnipresent force created millennia ago by a king to help his descendants get strong enough to succeed him. No one knows exactly what he did to create it, a favorite rumor is that he killed the old gods and used their essences to birth it. Over a few generations the CGS expanded its reach to everyone in the kingdom, regardless of their lineage. A few centuries after that it encompassed the entire world.

“The word CWEST is an acronym standing for Combat, Work, Exploration, Strategy, and Treasure. Each of those categories is another way the system grants us experience to improve our class or profession. Combat is for killing monsters and animals, Work only applies once you have a profession and do something that's part of it, Exploration is for finding places new to you, Strategy is for developing or adopting new tactics to deal with enemies, monsters, or hostile animals, and Treasure is for finding or creating objects of magic. For example, if you knew how to make alchemical products you'd get CWEST experience just for creating them, even if they don't relate to your class or profession.

“Now, take out your Guidebook and we'll go over the different categories of features we get.”

“My what?”

“Your Guidebook. The book that listed your class options when you picked mage.”

“I don't have a book. Instead I see the words in the air. I assumed everyone got the same thing.”

Ferric looked perplexed for a moment. “I've never heard of anyone not having a Guidebook, even other mages. I wonder if it works the same. Can you access your Statistics?”

Joe nodded, “Yes, I just have to say or think Statistics while wanting to see them.”

The CWEST window popped up in the air in front of Joe displaying his information.

Individual Statistics

Name: Joseph Pinkerton

Age: 18

Race: Felinoid

Class: Mage Level 2

Profession: N/A

Hit Points: 6/6

Stamina: 10/10

Mana: 24/24

Strength: 5

Agility: 9

Vitality: 3

Toughness: 2

Intelligence: 12

Wisdom: 5

Unassigned: 2

Ferric looked shocked. He was looking at the transparent screen from the other side. “I've never seen anything like that. I've met felinoids before and have seen them reading their Guidebooks, so it's not a racial thing, either.”

Joe looked uncomfortable with all of his information there on display for everyone to see, which Ferric took notice of.

“Don't worry, no one else can read anything from your Guidebook unless you allow them to. I can see the colored area in the air, but I can't see any writing on it. Here, check out my Guidebook to see for yourself.”

A small green book appeared in Ferric's hand and he opened it up to the first page and showed it to Joe. It was blank.

“Keep your eyes on it,” Ferric warned.

As Joe watched, a few lines appeared on the top of the page, in the same script as he could see in his screens.

Individual Statistics

Name: Ferric Rustkeeper

Age:

Race: Orc

Class: Fighter Level 3

Profession: Mayor Level 2

“You see? Not only can you only read it because I want you to, you can only see the information I allow you to see. For instance, you can't see my age at all. I could have kept you from viewing that row at all, but I wanted to illustrate a point about permissions.”

Ferric flipped the page over in his Guidebook and showed a page that simply said Abilities at the top. From there he flipped to Spells and finally to Skills.

“Now, there are three different features available to everyone via the CGS. Abilities, Spells, and Skills. Despite their name, spells are not the domain of mages like yourself. Abilities come in both active and passive varieties. Active ones will require either stamina or mana to activate. Their strength is listed as a rank, and it goes from 1 to 5. You improve their rank by using them, however there is no set number of times required to improve their rank, the CGS determines that based on its own system of measurements. Each ability has an associate attribute, and at rank 2 you get +1 to that attribute, and that bonus is doubled for each additional rank, so by rank 5 you will have received a bonus of 15 points to that attribute.

“Spells do not have passive versions, so they all require either stamina or mana to activate. They range from level 1 to level 25. They do not grant any bonuses when you level them up, but they do gain additional functions every fifth level. Wars can be won by level 25 spells. Fortunately they are very rare.

“Lastly we have skills. Skills are open to anyone, although the skills you have will often play a part in what professions you can choose from. Skills are the best part of the CWEST system, because they grant enormous attribute bonuses over time. Skills go from level 1 to 100, and each level grants you that number of points to the skill's associated attribute. I've never known anyone to get above level 40 in a skill, but if someone were to get the full 100 levels they would gain over 5000 points in that attribute. Sadly people are limited to 12 official skills. They can still learn and train new skills naturally, but they would not be recognized by the CGS.”

At Ferric's mention of the 12 skill limit Joe heard the familiar chime in his mind from the CGS, so he pulled up the new notification.

Attention: due to an error in your soul's migration process, the maximum number of skills limitation can not be enacted. Current number of skills 3/Ꝏ.