Mage Tank

“Can I see as well?” Xim asked. I granted her access and sat for several minutes while they combed through the text, my knee bouncing with anxiety.

“Huh,” Varrin finally grunted. He had his arms crossed as he stared into space, reading my screen.

“You’re actually thirty-five?” said Xim.

“Maybe,” I said. “I don’t know if the years here are longer, shorter, or the same.”

“Why is that your first question?” said Varrin.

“I thought I was the oldest.”

“Let me go down the list of how ridiculous all of this is,” said Varrin. “I’ll ignore the fact that your health and regen are massive. That’s relatively normal considering the rest of this. First, you’re an extra-dimensional entity. What is that?”

“No idea,” I said. “Aside from the fact that I am an entity, and that I am from another dimension. Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Alright. Plus ten to the Dimensional Magic intrinsic skill right out of the gate is incredible, not to mention that you progress at double the normal rate and have a fifty percent resistance to it. Both extraordinary bonuses.”

“The human trait looks pretty bad in comparison,” said Xim.

“Don’t underestimate crafting,” said Varrin. “Your birth sign is just…” He held out a hand like he was waiting for someone to hand him something. “It’s overpowered. I don’t know what else to call it.”

“Stats through training!” said Xim. “Sure, languages are cool, but stats through training!”

“That’s not something you can normally do?” I asked.

“No,” said Varrin. “You start at one in everything and get ten to distribute at level zero. Then you get a certain amount every Delve, which is dependent on the difficulty. What you have here is an ability that defies the normal logic of the Delves. We get stats from Delves. We don’t get them through training.”

“So, what? People here don’t work out? They just all have the same stats until they become Delvers?”

“No,” said Varrin. “Non-Delvers still benefit from exercise, be it physical or mental. When you become a Delver your body and mind become more idealized. Remember when we said that a Delver’s body is remade when they become a Delver?”

“Yeah.”

“A value of one in any given stat represents a high competency in that attribute based on your personal potential. So, for example, a one in strength is what you would have if you spent several years focusing on strength training, while trying not to sacrifice Agility or Speed. A one in Intelligence is your mind on your best day after years of rigorous mental exercise. Becoming level zero makes you into the best version of yourself.”

“So my personal one in Strength,” said Xim, “isn’t as good as Varrin’s one in Strength.” She was over a foot shorter than he was, so that made sense.

“Do only big dudes go for Strength builds?” I asked. “Hognay was pretty short, but crazy buff. Was his build sub-optimal?”

“It scales off as you level,” said Varrin. “If Xim and I both had a Strength of twenty, our raw capacity for generating force would be the same. There’s nothing stopping you from going that way as long as you don’t mind a disadvantage during early levels. But while we are stuck at a value of one without delving, you can continue to train and gain benefits.”

“A nine is the best any exceptional human can attain,” said Xim. “So a nine in Strength is about as strong as the strongest non-Delver who ever lived.”

“And a nine in Speed, the fastest,” said Varrin. “A nine isn’t your highest potential, it’s the highest potential possible for a mortal of your race.”

“And a ten is where people start being considered superhuman,” said Xim. “What this is saying is that you have the capability of training yourself to superhuman levels in every stat, without relying on the Delves.”

“He’s still relying on the Delves,” said Varrin. “He got this ability from the Delve.”

“No, he got these traits from whatever this divine being is, the one mentioned on the sheet.”

“Hmm. Fair enough. Regardless, being able to obtain this many free stats is a huge boon to your early delving career. Take that in conjunction with the fact that you already started with free stat points from ‘prior achievements’. It’s an advantage most would kill for.”

“Most?” I said.

“If not all.”

“Would you?”

He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t answer.

“What about Intelligence?” I said, ignoring Varrin’s suspicious silence.

“What do you mean?” said Xim.

“If a ten is superhuman, does that mean I’d become smart enough to divine new fundamental truths concerning reality?”

“Intelligence is weird,” said Xim. “Plenty of high-INT Delvers come up with new ideas, but from what I’ve seen it has more to do with memory, inferences, intuition, and processing speed. What you’re talking about might also involve Wisdom, or maybe just someone’s personality.”

“When I read the stat descriptions, the System implied that Speed dealt with how fast you think.”

“Sure, but Intelligence has to do with how fast you comprehend. They stack to some degree. A lot of the distinctions between stats bleed into one another.”

“If all of that weren’t enough,” said Varrin, “you have this ridiculous Dumping achievement. It gives you even more free stats. Dumping. I don’t understand the names of half of these things. Some look like jokes but Body of Theseus makes no sense at all. Who or what is Theseus? Why do you have their body?”

“He was a guy with a confusing boat,” I said.

“The boat was confusing?”

“Yeah. No one knew if it was the same boat now as it used to be. It doesn’t matter.”

“Gods,” said Xim. “I would almost say we should take you straight to Central to get this stuff documented. Even if it can’t be replicated, it would be great to let others know that some of these abilities and achievements are even possible.”

“Yes,” said Varrin, “but then they would ask to see his character screen.”

“Yeah, and then they’d see it explicitly state that he’s from another dimension.” She sounded quite downtrodden over that fact.

“And that he had a previous life,” said Varrin.

“And that a divine being is watching him.”

“And that I chose how I look,” I said. “Which would invite all sorts of criticisms that my fragile ego couldn’t handle.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” said Xim.

“You are a handsome man,” Varrin added, eyeing my boa.

“I will graciously accept your compliment, Varrin. Because it’s true,” I clutched the boa more tightly around my shoulders. “Obviously.”

Varrin shook his head and went back to studying the screen.

“Some of this looks normal, though,” he said. “This Exposure Therapy achievement. I got one similar, though the name isn’t the same.”

“Me too,” said Xim. “Mine gave me the option of getting Cleanse as an active ability and made it cost half mana when cleansing poison.”

“That’s pretty good.”

“Yeah. I was looking for Cleanse anyway, so it worked out.”

“If I’m doing my math right,” said Varrin, “then if you trained everything to ten without doing another Delve, you’d already have an effective level of nine.”

“Level nine stats at level one!” said Xim. She looked at me, excited, but quickly realized I had no idea what she was talking about. “Sorry. For reference, a level one Delver has a minimum of eight stat points beyond what they received during character creation. A level nine would have at least seventy-two, which is what you would have.”

“Maybe break that down for me again, a bit slower?” I said.

“You have eight stat points to start, one in each of your primary stats. Then you get ten to distribute at character creation, so that gives you eighteen at level zero. From then on, levels are divided into eight-point increments, so that every eight points you gain causes you to go up another level. Basically, everyone is level zero until they get up to eight extra points, then they’re level one. At sixteen, you’re level two, and so on.”

Xim’s eyes went wide and she grabbed a fistful of my leather vest, holding her other hand out toward Varrin.

“But, Arlo’s level one,” she said to him, voice emphatic. “Based on these numbers, he should already be level three.”

Varrin scratched his jaw, and his eyes flitted up to where my level hung above my head.

“Many people use stats and Delves interchangeably,” he said, “when talking about levels. Stats are an easy way to frame it in your mind, but you could also say that to gain one level you need to do eights stats worth of Delves. So, one platinum, two golds, four silvers, or eight coppers.”

“The System doesn’t care what his stats are when assigning his level?” said Xim. “Only what Delves he’s run?” Her hand dropped from my vest and she pressed the back of it to her forehead. “This is… unexpected information to have all of a sudden.”

Varrin sighed, his expression tightening as he compartmentalized what, according to Xim’s reaction, was world-shaking news.

“Most people run into a soft level cap,” Varrin continued, abruptly leaving the issue of my aberrant level behind us. “It’s based on the difficulty of the Delves they pursue, but that’s something we can go over later. It gets complicated.”

“It’s not that complicated,” said Xim, still recovering from the burden of her new knowledge.

“You’re saying that because you’ve spent your whole life knowing about it. Imagine trying to explain to a five-year-old the nuance of the escalating difficulty problem.”

“He’s not five.”

“You’re right. His character screen says that he’s zero. Insofar as this world and this culture, that’s the truth.”

“I still don’t think it’s that complicated.”

“How about this,” said Varrin. “Imagine that a Hiwardian peasant woke up in the Third Layer and you wanted to tell them everything about Adaramalech and the nine hierarchies of Ghotrithodon?”

“That’s an esoteric subject. First, I’d have to figure out how to keep them from dying.”

“Yes. Right now, Arlo is in the same boat. The soft cap doesn’t matter. What matters is trying to get this figured out so that Arlo doesn’t get killed, kidnapped, or imprisoned.”

“Are those all likely possibilities?” I said.

I began to feel a warmness in my chest over Varrin’s concern. The two of them weren’t freaking out, not about me, that is. They weren’t accusing me of being a lunatic or trying to trick them. They weren’t trying to abduct me or sell me to some shady laboratory. They were explaining shit to me. And it seemed like they genuinely wanted to help. It took a huge weight off that I didn’t realize I’d been holding, and I was truly grateful for it.

“Delvers are not a monolithic organization,” said Varrin. “In Hiward, access to the Delves is restricted to the noble classes, but we are bound by treaty to offer a certain number of slots to neighboring nations, whose access is governed by their own rules. Even within Hiward, where Delvers are some of the most visible members of society, many underground organizations still form to achieve their ends through illegal means.”

“He’s saying yes,” said Xim. “People will be very interested in your abilities and even more interested in reincarnation and dimensional travel. While there may not be any official organizations that will lock you in a dungeon and extract your bone marrow, there are some unofficial ones that will.”

“Like the Cabal of Shadows,” said Varrin.

“Or the Obsidian Court,” said Xim.

“Or the Cult of Singularity.”

“Maybe even the Three Scales.”

“I wouldn’t put it past the Beacon Watch, either.”

“Jesus,” I said. “That’s so many. Why are there so many? Why do you know about so many?”

“I’m a noble lord,” said Varrin. “My mother and father keep me apprised of the goings-on in the realms.”

“And I just think they’re neat,” said Xim.

I shuddered.

“There’s enough evidence here to convince most that what you’re saying is at least partially true,” said Varrin. “That information can prove dangerous, so you should be careful who you tell.”

“No trouble there,” I said. “I almost didn’t tell you two.”

“I understand your hesitation, but I also believe that would have made things very difficult for you.”

“So, what now?”

“You’re already in the Delver system. That is proof that you are who you say you are.”

“Like a state-issued ID?”

“It’s better than that,” said Xim. “Your Delver credentials are embedded in the System itself. The slate Myria had you touch just shows her the info that’s in there. The System-provided information is absolute proof and can’t be faked.”

“There’s some info that gets added by the government, like entry permissions and Delve fee records,” said Varrin. “It’s easy to tell the difference, though. The System-generated info will always be prioritized.”

“So what does that do for me?”

“It satisfies almost everything that would require proof of identity,” said Varrin. “For Delvers it is the best form of identification. You can use it to buy property, open bank accounts, settle any circumstance where your identity might be questioned.”

“I don’t need to forge a passport and social security number,” I said. “Got it.”

“What did you tell Lito and Myria about your nationality?” asked Varrin. “That’s something Hiward appends to the System records.”

“Nothing. Myria said that my nationality was redacted, and that sent the pair of them into some sort of fit. They didn’t ask any followups.”

“Curious,” said Varrin. “Hiward might agree to redact certain information they’ve appended to the System records for reasons of national security. That would have implied that you were a hornet’s nest that Lito and Myria were about to stick their hands inside.”

“Guess that’s why they cut me loose so fast.”

“But no one in the Hiwardian government redacted that information,” Varrin said.

“Right. I assume it was my mysterious divine patron.”

“Someone with higher authority may eventually notice that your nationality shouldn’t be blank. That might lead them to look more deeply at your file, and hunt down the people who handled your entry paperwork. There are no such people, which would raise concerns. It’s possible that you get lost in the bureaucracy, but…”

“But if someone starts digging,” I said, “they’d realize no one actually approved my presence in the Creation Delve.”

“The approval is in the System, though,” said Varrin. “That alone should trump any independent investigation.”

“Is knowing all this part of your lordly training?”

“Yes. It also helps that my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents are well-known Delvers. My family wrote many of the laws that surround the governance of Delvers and incorporation of the System into the existing power structures.”

“Oh. Ok.”

“The best move would be to have you immigrate. That way you can claim Hiwardian citizenship and avoid questions about your nationality. That settles most of your problems.”

“Then you’ll just be that weird guy who refers to things that no one understands,” said Xim.

“Like twinkies and hotdogs and AR-15’s?”

“Exactly like that,” said Xim.

“Maybe try not to,” said Varrin. “As tempting as I’m sure you’ll find it.”

“That sounds like a plan to me.” I stood and stretched, then clapped my hands together.

“So, how do I immigrate?”