Installation 1.1
December 23, 2010, Dev's House - Brockton Bay, 8:03 AM
"Bro? Who're you cussing at?" Dada's voice came from across the door, I just sat very still, carefully trying out mental sanity-check exercises. A soft knock on the door, all I could manage was a croaky "uhhhh". The door opened, his head poked in, mildly irritated expression smoothed out into a more sombre one when he saw my vacant expression (carefully crafted upon years of practice in not letting emotions show on face). "Nightmare again?" I nodded blankly, then noticed the blue letters floating on top of his head
Coolest Brother Ever
Dev SenGupta (NPC)
Lvl. 15 Financial Genius
and managed to eloquently retort, "uhh?".
His smile was forlorn "Just because it's your birthday, I'll make the tea, you freshen up, and happy birthday!". I manage another nod, but by then my mental gears are spinning furiously, "Hey, dada, wait!"
"What?"
"Answer me honestly dada, did you recently trigger with a tinker, thinker or master power?"
"What? No! Why?"
"Have you recently met someone who meets those criteria?"
"No! Aveek, you're scaring me, what's the matter?!"
"Do you notice anything odd about our surroundings?"
He walked in, looked around carefully and shook his head.
"Um, nothing that I can't place out of context, are you alright?"
I nodded again, It was all in my head then, "Hmm, no, I mean yes, I'm alright, something about the nightmare, I'll tell you once I'm properly awake, go make me some tea minion!"
Dada brightened up and gave a mock salute, "Sir, yes sir! Just for today you get away with that sir. And for your kind information, you're going to explain to me what this was all about, sir!"
I huffed and fell into comfortable banter "Of course, minion, I don't need to hide shit from you, except for my porn stash, who do you think you are? My parent?"
"Sir No Sir! Refined men like me have no need for your juvenile porn, Sir!" He gave me another salute, then gave me the finger and left. Blue letters were right though, coolest brother ever.
Okay, back to this mess, I'd just arrived in this country one day ago, I knew of no one with powers or motive for this to be a specific attack on my mind, unless it was part of a broader phenomenon? Grabbed phone, checked PHO, checked gaming forums, checked darknet conspiracy theory boards, no, it was all me.
Fair enough, now though my gaming addict days were thankfully over, but I'd played enough RPGs to notice the format of the blue boxes, hence I started testing my hypothesis.
I passed my hand through the boxes, they were intangible, the colour was a deep, shimmering blue, much like Cherenkov Radiation pictures that I remembered. Specifically touching the [x] on the previous HP/MP alert vanished it, some tactile feedback, more like a tingle. Hmm, so pressing the buttons worked, what about voice commands?
Looking at the quest panel, I said "I accept" and it vanished, so voice commands, yes. Next to try other possible commands.
"Settings" - nothing
"Character" - nothing
"Help" - nothing
"Menu" - Yep!
The Gamer
Menu
[Messages (1)]
[Status]
[Inventory]
[Skills]
[Party]
[Options]
Holy Mother of... Wow, Okay, "Messages"
There was a panel with three boxes, the second and the third being the two boxes I had just dismissed, while the topmost one was still shining bright Cherenkov Blue, it just read "Happy Birthday!" with a [read message] button.
Might as well read it. With no small amount of trepidation, I tapped the read button.
And there was the Laughing Man again.
"Good man! I knew you were smart enough to start with this. So here's the deal, I'm your friendly (TransUniversal)neighbourhood ROB(Random Omnipotent Being), call me Rob. The thing is, your universe is infested with some nasty parasites which are causing wanton xenocide, so me being the good Samaritan that I am, I chose to intervene."
"Now you might ask ''Why can't you just get rid of the parasites Rob?' And I'd tell you, I can, of course I can, but that'd be boring right? So to avoid the greater Evil that is boredom, I chose a lucky human (that's you!) to be able to borrow some power from my Universe and take care of your pest problem by yourself! now you'll ask me 'Why this RPG shit Rob?' Well, this is a tribute to one of my colleagues who's taken it upon herself to be the caretaker of some of your parallel Earths, they call her Gaia there. Also because it's more fun this way. And you're a nerd aren't you? Would you like a power that you can't customize and tweak and munchkin the fuck out of? Would you? - On that note, if you think you've found a way to completely break the rules and get Mega OP and shit, that's not happening, because I'm a dick.
So anyway, I've given you this power - 'Why me Rob?' - Ah, don't interrupt me kid, you because you're one of the few people in the area who has no chance to trigger with conventional parasite powers because you're too rational and even tempered, okay? Damn impatient kids."
"So, where was I? Power, yes, three gifts I've given you:
First is The gift of Mana, which flows through your mind and body, its capacity knows no bounds.
Second is The Gamer AI, which runs The Gamer System, it's actually just a mana computational matrix which plugs into you and takes most informational and linguistic cues from your memories and your surroundings themselves.
Third, and possibly the most broken, is The Akashic Records. Fancy name eh? Actually it's just a conduit to some of my knowledge about your universe plugged into the AI, it'll dole out contextual information as and when it deems necessary, so when the AI gives quirky titles to people, that's me messin' with ya!
But it's all true though."
"So there you go, exposition done, now go have a good adventure, also, another secret motive of mine, I'm bored, would like a friend, so I can't wait till you ascend beyond your universe, see you on the other side!"
"Oh, oh I almost forgot, if you do nothing, humanity can still defeat one or two of these parasites, but without your help the death toll is a few billions higher, so... No pressure!"
...
Holy Grandmother of-
QUEST COMPLETE!
What the Fuck?!
Found out what is causing this strange blue panel thingy to appear!
Success!
You Receive 100 XP
You Gain Knowledge about your power
Check inventory for goodies!
Okay, deep breaths, brutally quashed the urge to whoop and dance around the bed. Billions of deaths Aveek, remember? Great, now, goodies, what goodies?
"Inventory"
A grid appeared in front of me, looking exactly like an RPG inventory would, in the first box, there was a picture of an armored apple like fruit, with the subscript:
Plot Armor X3
"Is this what I think it is?" I put my hand into the box, it went in, didn't come out the other side, well within expectations, still very freaky. Something touched my finger, pulled it out, lo and behold, one tiny armored apple, blue glow from within, very sci-fi looking, the count in the inventory dropped to X2, I dismissed the inventory and sat watching and twirling the apple in my hand, thinking of a way to confirm what it did, apart from the obvious eating it.
SKILL CREATED!
A new skill has been created through a special action!
Observe: (Active) Lvl. 1 - 5.0%
A passive scan of target, cross referenced with Akashic Records:
provides information regarding target.
Depth of information increases with skill level.
Cost: 3 MP per use
Huh. Won't whoop and dance, won't whoop and dance. Dismissing the window, I looked at the apple thingy again and said "Observe". I could feel something going away from my body, a momentary diminishing of self, that was the mana I had just spent I guess. It quickly passed.
Plot Armor
Key Item (TransUniversal)
Quality: Epic.
Feed this to an NPC to ensure they live through the story without any permanent damage.
Oh what the heck, I calmly untangled myself from the sheets, got up in a dignified manner, smoothly checked the floor for anything that I might trip on, then whooped with joy and did a victory dance.
