Autumn Days Chapter 1: Enter Ruby, a rwby fanfic

Chapter 1 : Enter Ruby

A/N: So I watched RWBY a while back, and I loved it. I've also wanted to write an RPG Fic for quite a few years now. Way before The Gamer and SAO started being a thing. When that first Naruto RPG Fic came out, I forget which. RWBY is one of those worlds where it has every element required to make a good RPG Fic. And, of course, I've read a few good RPG Fics in this fandom. So I decided, why not? Especially since I do want to do a tribute to Monty Oum, who I believe was a man inspired by his firm beliefs in the potential of humanity.

So here it is. RWBY: Autumn Days. It is named in remembrance of Monty. The days after the Summer of our lives. It also coincides nicely with RWBY itself, seeing as it tells the story of life after Summer Rose. Requiescat in pace, Monty.

Note that I'll be borrowing the major concepts of The Gamer, while adding a few of my own tweaks to the system to make it more interesting. The fic will centre on Ruby, because while Jaune is an interesting character to drop The Gamer on, he's a pale shade compared to Ruby. Not only is she a more interesting character in general, she's smarter than Jaune, she gets a bunch of plot dumped onto her, and I think she'll just work it better. Unfortunately, the fic Grimm Games by Shadlith (Check it out!) has already done one of my favourite build paths in any MMORPG, so I'll be forced to build something else instead lest I get sued for plagiarism. Kidding. But it's no fun if I follow suit, so I'll be running a different build.

Here we go.

-AD-

There were many things that could be said about Ruby Rose.

One: She was a lovable, excitable, slightly klutzy girl with an adorable smile.

Two: She was smarter than most people assumed. Likely smarter than anyone accusing her of being dim.

And three: She loved video games. Yes, Ruby Rose was a gamer. And a damn good one, too.

Better yet, she was The Gamer. A life-changing fact that she had just discovered barely two seconds ago.

Welcome to Remnant! As the Gamer, you are the main character of your own story. Feel free to explore the continents, meet exciting people and discover the innermost secrets of Remnant! The world is at your fingertips. Good luck and have fun!

Ruby rubbed her eyes. Maybe she was seeing things? She opened her eyes again.

Nope, still there... and not there, at the same time. It was strange, but while she could see the sentence in front of her, she knew it wasn't physically there at the same time.

A quick pinch reassured her that she wasn't dreaming either.

"Huh. That's new." Ruby muttered. "Where's the controller? How am I supposed to continue... Ah."

Would you like to access the tutorial? (Recommended for new players)

"Yes."

Welcome to the Tutorial! The first thing to learn is how to access the system. There are two types of Commands: Hard and Soft. Hard Commands can only be activated by speaking, while Soft Commands can be activated by thinking. To continue, think 'Next'.

Ruby did so.

Well done! Soft Commands generally include, but are not limited to, Commands such as 'Next', 'Close', 'Yes', 'No', and 'Go Back'. Later in the game, you can set Macros to activate several system commands at once with a single thought. These include activating Skills, swapping Classes/Titles and many more!

Macros sounded extremely useful and time-saving. Ruby took a quick note of them before thinking, 'Next.'

You're getting the hang of it! Hard Commands on the other hand, can only be activated by speaking out loud. Don't worry about seeming crazy in public, no one else will notice it. Go ahead and try opening the Main Menu.

Ruby frowned. From what she could glean from the sentence, no one would be able to interact with the system, meaning she was alone in this. But that would be thinking too far ahead. "Menu."

An overlay appeared before her, both visual and mental like the other sentences from before, and another sentence appeared.

Good job! Hard Commands can only be activated when you intend to activate them. So don't worry if you're at a restaurant and you ask to see a menu!

Ruby giggled. It was a pretty good joke. 'Next.'

The Main Menu lists the system features that you currently have access to. Take a good look!

Status

Skills

Inventory

Quests

Other features will be unlocked as you come across them in your travels. Now let's take a look at the Status screen.

Ruby wondered how hard-coded the tutorial was, so she decided to try something else. "Skills."

You're such a rebel! While exploring the system is certainly encouraged, let's complete the tutorial first. Now access the Status screen this time, you rebel you.

Ruby laughed. At least the narration had some amusing commentary, however crazy this entire situation was. "Fine, fine. Let's see the Status screen."

The overlay changed.

Ruby Rose
Title: The Gamer
Level: 1
EXP: 0/100

HP: 80/80
HPR: 1.1/min

STR: 4
AGI: 9
VIT: 3
DEX: 6
INT: 7
WIS: 6
LUK: 5

Points: 0

Condition: Normal

Credits: 100 Lien

The girl stared at the Status Screen. 'Looks like I just started a New Game. I'm only level 1, with 0 EXP to boot.'

This is your profile page. You should familiarize yourself with this page as soon as possible, because you'll be seeing it a lot!

'Next.'

Here is an explanation of the various attributes that are listed on the Stats screen.

Title – This your current Title. Titles are granted when you meet certain conditions and can grant special bonuses.

Level – This is your current Level. Levels are the main way to measure power. It can be increased by earning Experience Points (EXP). Levelling up increases Maximum HP and AP and grants 5 points to allocate to your main stats.

Experience Points (EXP) – This tells you how much experience you have accumulated and how much you require to hit the next Level. Experience Points can be gained from defeating opponents or completing Quests.

Health Points (HP) – Health Points determine how much damage you can take in battle before falling. As you take damage, your current HP will drop. If you drop to zero, you will lose consciousness or die, depending on the circumstances. You can recover HP by resting, using items, or sleeping.

Health Points Regeneration (HPR) – Health Points Regeneration affect how much HP you recover passively per second, measured in minutes.

These seemed pretty standard to Ruby. AP was mentioned, which she took to mean Aura Points, but wasn't explained, probably because her Aura wasn't unlocked yet. 'Next.'

Strength (STR) – Strength determines how physically strong you are. This translates to how hard you can swing a weapon, how much weight you can lift, and how many things you can fit into your inventory. Do you even lift?

Agility (AGI) – Agility determines how quick you move. This directly affects speed and reflexes, which are some of the most important combat statistics. How fast can you go?

Vitality (VIT) – Vitality measures how tough you are. This determines your HP, your HP Regeneration and your resistance to physical ailments. Come at me bro!

Dexterity (DEX) – Dexterity measures your body coordination. This affects your reflexes and your hand-eye coordination with ranged weapons, among other things. So you think you can dance?

Intelligence (INT) – Intelligence determines how smart you are. This affects your learning rate along with Maximum AP. Most spells are dependent on Intelligence. Joke? What do you mean, 'joke'?

Wisdom (WIS) – Wisdom determines how you utilize your knowledge. This also affects your perception, intuition, and AP Regeneration. The Answer is always 42.

Luck (LUK) – Luck determines your lot in life. It affects all your stats in small ways along with how fortunate (or unfortunate) you are. So do you feel lucky, punk?

Points – These are the number of points you have to allocate to your main attributes.

Condition – This determines your current state of being. It directly affects how well you perform.

Credits – This is how much money you currently have. The default currency of Remnant is Lien.

Ruby blinked. That was a lot of information, and important, too. At least everything was similar to the standard RPG staples. 'Next.'

Tip: Your main attributes can be improved in other ways besides spending points. For example, weight training can improve Strength, while sprinting can improve Agility. As you go through life, you'll discover that many things can affect your stats. However, be sure to use your free points carefully, as the higher your stats go, the harder it is to increase them naturally.

The girl frowned at the last sentence. From a logical standpoint, that meant that she should hold back her stat points as much as possible until her natural attribute increases hit a plateau. And with that thought, a quick notification appeared.

Your realization on the best way to improve your stats increases your WIS by 1.

Ruby blinked and inexplicably felt her mind clear slightly. Now that she had experienced it, she saw that increasing her Wisdom as soon as possible would help best in the long run, seeing as each point directly affected how well she planned things.

Your realization that Wisdom is the wisest thing to increase early on increases your WIS by 1.

The Gamer realized that her stats were only increasing so quickly because it was currently low.

...Nothing?

"Well, it was worth a shot." Ruby muttered. "At least now I know that it's not that easy."

Your realization that Wisdom doesn't come easy increases your WIS by 1.

"There it is."

With her mind clearer than it was before, Ruby immediately theorized that Wisdom could be increased by mental activities, and that Wisdom paid for itself, so to speak. That meant that she had to place as much focus on the stat as possible in order to get more of it as soon as possible.

It also seemed clear to her that she could most likely earn Wisdom via actually planning things smartly along with actually understanding more life lessons, rather than just faking it.

Your understanding of the way to train Wisdom increases your WIS by 1.

And that meant that Ruby could probably increase Wisdom extremely quickly early on with little effort, and her plateau would only come once she ran out of wise things to think about. At that point, the only way to increase Wisdom naturally would be clever decision-making.

Interesting. Seeing as this was her life now, and would probably be for the foreseeable future, it would be best if she got about to min-maxing herself.

Your wise decision to plan to maximize your stats early on increases your WIS by 1.

After all, she now had a game system. And there is always a best, most efficient way to play every game. Breaking the system, as it were.

Now keen to move on, Ruby closed the notifications and went back to where she was before.

'Next.'

Let's return to the Main Menu.

'Go back.'

Status

Skills

Inventory

Quests

Now that we've covered the Status page, let's try the accessing the Skills page.

"Skills." Ruby said. Another overlay appeared.

Skill List

Gamer's Mind – Level: MAX

Gamer's Body – Level: MAX

Observe – Level: 1

This is your skill list! While it may look rather empty right now, as your keep playing, your skill list will only grow larger. As such, there are a few features to help organize things. You can shift the layout of the list by Hard Commanding 'Grid' or 'List', which can be arranged by Soft Commanding 'Category', 'Alphabetical', and so on. However, feel free to modify the page however you like. The skill page is perfectly customizable to your needs.

That was useful to Ruby. She swapped back and forth between the Grid and List modes for a while, before deciding she preferred List. She then categorized the list by 'Passive' and 'Active', along with adding the 'Interest', 'Useful', 'Maybe' and 'Clutter' categories and immediately moving both Gamer's Mind and Gamer's Body to the last one. While they would definitely classify under useful, they were static passives that she couldn't improve by any means, and thus only served to make the overlay interface more cluttered. This would save her a couple of headaches and misreads in the future.

Your wise decision to keep everything organized has increased your WIS by 1.

Ruby closed the notification. It was common sense really. An organized HUD was always preferable to one that was a general mess. She only wished that normal video games allowed such customizable menus. She continued the tutorial with a 'Next.'

To find out more about a particular skill, Soft Command its name. Try finding out more about Gamer's Mind.

'Gamer's Mind.'

Gamer's Mind (Passive) – Level: MAX

Description: Allows the user to live reality as a video game. As such, the user can calmly and logically think through any situation. Grants Immunity to Psychological Effects.

"That explains why I'm not freaking out right now." Ruby mused. "I'm treating the whole thing as a video game. I guess reality hasn't kicked in yet." She quickly exited the Skill Details and was greeted with a quick message.

Great! Now check out the other skills you have!

She quickly checked out Gamer's Body.

Gamer's Body (Passive) – Level: MAX

Description: The user is given a body that functions as if in a video game. As such, all HP, AP and Status Effects are recovered after sleeping. If the user sleeps in a proper bed for at least 7 hours, their Condition is improved.

Ruby blinked. Apparently even her body functioned as if it was an RPG. Which was brilliant, because that meant that she could recover from anything by simply sleeping. That meant that she could train herself to exhaustion one day, sleep, and be perfectly fine the next! No muscle sores, nothing!

This allowed her to push herself physically as well to improve her non-mental statistics quickly. Lastly, she decided to find out about 'Observe.'

Observe (Active/Passive) – Level: 1

Description: Created through continued observation. This skill allows the user to gain information on any object or being. Active use increases the amount of information observed. Higher levels increase the amount of information given during active use.

Cost: Free

She closed the Details box.

Observe is currently only at Level 1, but can be levelled up by using it repeatedly. As with your Attributes, they develop quickly at lower levels, and are much harder to develop at higher levels.

Observe was free to use, so there was no excuse for her not levelling it up. 'Next.'

Tip: Skills can be created by performing Special Actions. These Special Actions can be anything from mundane activities, to specialized training or simply experimenting. However, keep in mind that these have to actually be performed and not just theorized. Have fun discovering and using new Skills!

Also another interesting point for our Gamer. She made a note to figure out exactly what constituted Special Actions. 'Next.'

Let's go back to the Main Menu.

She did.

Access your Inventory.

She did that too. A new overlay appeared before her. The left side showed what she was currently wearing, which was her casual clothes. The right side, however, was disappointingly empty.

This is your Inventory. You don't have anything at the moment. Here, have a cookie!

A cookie randomly appeared in one of the slots on the right.

Much like the skills page, the Inventory page is also fully customizable. The default categories include All, Usable, Weapons, Armour, Accessories, Key Items and Etc.

It seemed to be efficient enough, so aside from creating a 'Junk' category, Ruby left it well enough alone.

On your left is the Equipment Screen. You do not have to access this screen to swap equipment, but it serves as a convenient way to see what you're currently wearing. Remember, you are what you wear, so pick carefully now.

Let's go back to the Main Menu.

Ruby was getting a bit bored of the tutorial, but she decided to stick it out in case anything important was mentioned.

Your wise decision to be patient increases your WIS by 1.

Ruby closed the notification, and then followed the system prompting to return to the Main Menu.

Let's visit the last page, Quests.

"Quests." A new interface popped up. In it, there was one thing that really stood out.

Finish the Tutorial

It was listed under Current Quests. There were two other categories as well; Available and Completed. Immediately thankful for her previous decision, Ruby read the message that inevitably appeared.

Quests are tasks that you can choose to undertake. These can be anything ranging from defeating monsters to attending an event or even persuading someone. The rewards for completing a Quest are often beneficial, while failing it can have disastrous effects. Be sure that when you accept a quest, you can complete it successfully. Now let's complete the Quest "Finish the Tutorial." Close the Main Menu.

The moment Ruby did so, she was greeted by a message.

Congratulations, you have completed the Tutorial! Now, armed with the necessary knowledge, go forth into the World of Remnant and make your mark! Most importantly, enjoy yourself! Oh, and you get to keep the Cookie!

Closing the message, a notification appeared.

"Finish the Tutorial" – Quest Complete!

Rewards: 50 EXP, +1 INT, +1 WIS

Bonus: You're such a rebel! +50 EXP

A separate notification appeared.

You have gained a level! You are now Level 2.

The effects were immediate. And now that Ruby had gained a point of Intelligence, she realized how different it was from Wisdom. For one, Wisdom made her mind clearer, but Intelligence made her mind sharper. She felt smarter already.

Just to note the differences from levelling up, she decided to bring up the Status page.

Ruby Rose
Title: The Gamer
Level: 2
EXP: 0/200

HP: 100/100
HPR: 1.3/min

STR: 4
AGI: 9
VIT: 3
DEX: 6
INT: 8
WIS: 14
LUK: 5

Points: 5

Condition: Normal

Credits: 100 Lien

Levelling up had increased her Max HP from 80 to 100. A difference of 20 HP. She decided to document it in order to figure out the formulas to the game. She could only truly min-max herself if she could figure out the formulas behind the system.

Her HPR had increased too, from 1.1 to 1.3, which had a net difference of 0.2. That was suspiciously similar to the 20 HP increase. Was the added value based on the level increase or the change in Max HP?

Her WIS had shot up quite a fair amount while her INT had gone up by one. She also had five free points to allocate now.

There were so many questions left to be answered, so many formulas to derive! While it wasn't her most favourite thing in the world, Ruby was pretty good at math. She kinda had to be, seeing as she wanted to design the most badass Sniper-Scythe in existence! The blueprints for her darling weapon, aptly christened Crescent Rose, was over half complete. It was just begging to worked on!

But Crescent Rose would have to wait for now, because Ruby Rose had a game to break.

-AD-

A/N: Well now. I wrote this in... somewhere close to 6 hours straight, I believe. That includes coming up with formulas, game concepts and other stuff that I may or may not throw in later. So. Reasons as to why I don't see Ruby as being OOC.

First off, it's not too far-fetched that Ruby is a gamer. Seeing as she's rather socially awkward, I'd say it's pretty fair that we can assume she spends a fair amount of time playing video games when she's free. Secondly, she has to be extremely intelligent, at least in mathematics and physics. In canon, Ruby admits she may have gone a bit overboard designing Crescent Rose. That's right, she designed an absolutely ridiculous piece of mechanized technology that would make experienced engineers blush. Before she even turns 15. Think about that.

With the Gamer's Mind passive and her gaming experience, she is looking at her life objectively. She knows she needs to min-max herself if she wants to be the very best Huntress there is. That's why she's actually trying to break the game. The reality of her life turning into a game hasn't really set in yet, however, but Ruby is one who takes things by stride... even if she's quite a worrier at times.

The main reason WIS is increasing so fast is because Ruby is actually being wise about handling things. Rather than jumping straight into things, she's taking her time, planning things out. Plus, it's easy to gain Wisdom early on, as there are many lessons that can be learnt, but only applied once. For example, she won't gain another point in Wisdom for discovering the best way to actually raise her stats, even if she manages to derive the full formulas, because she already claimed the point for that.

However, she may get WIS points for deciding to derive said formulas. However, it becomes harder to raise WIS after a certain point. She may need to make ten wise decisions before increasing WIS by one, or realize a whole bunch of things. Life lessons, however, always grants a point in WIS, because of their rare nature.

Also, she needs to honestly feel a certain way or really learn a lesson before she gets a point in Wisdom for it. That's harder than you'd think. You can read something like 'Patience is a Virtue' and walk away without actually learning anything. You have to experience 'Patience is a Virtue' and agree with it before getting that one point in WIS. Which Ruby hasn't, by the way. She just made a wise decision to finish the tutorial, not really understanding the value of patience itself.

Who knows where this fic'll go. Writing game-fics are very tiring, however, so I'll probably update this only when I feel the urge to.

Seeya.