Installation 1.2

December 23, 2010, Dev's House - Brockton Bay, 8:25 AM

Mini-celebration done, brother placated with a shouted "No worries!", I headed off to the bathroom to freshen up, stood in front of the mirror, well, I look the same old lame old me, freakishly tall (by Indian standards), skinny build (I like to call it athletic, thank you very much), wheatish complexion, acne scars pockmarking my plain face, slightly crooked nose, beady black eyes - no superpowered improvements here, or, as I suspect the nature of mana and The Gamer System, no superpowered improvements yet.

Critical Thinking has improved your INT by 1

Oh hush, you flatterer, I dismissed the window, stat checking will come later, but first thing is the only noticeable difference in the mirror, no points for guessing, blue letters above my head.

The Gamer
Aveek SenSharma
Lvl. 1 Shameless Nerd

And proud of it! Anyway, ablutions finished, I went back to my room, message to self, get toiletries unpacked first.

From: Me

Get toiletries unpacked first.

Huh, nifty, so there must be a way to give commands mentally, would need to research that later, to begin with, I decided to have a quick overview of all the menu options.

"Status"

Aveek SenSharma

Title: The Gamer

Class: Shameless Nerd

Level: 1 - 100/500XP

HP: 150/150 - Regen. 0.8%/s

MP: 160/160 - Regen 1.2%/s

STR: 7

DEX: 13

VIT: 8

INT: 16

WIS: 12

CHA: 5

Status Points: 0

Desc: You want a description of yourself? This is an AI, not a fucking psychologist.

Right, Rob's AI is a dick too. Anyway stats looked fair enough, 60 point build, HP/MP/Regen calcs were pretty basic, stat division matched my nature, needed to compare with others if I could find a way to. Moving on:

"Skills"

Another inventory-like window opened up, with anime-style pictures (Ha ha, very funny, dick AI) and skill names and levels in subscript, there were 4 occupied boxes, I tapped them one by one.


The Gamer's Mind: (Passive) Lvl. MAX - 0.0%
Your brain is part of a mana hypercomputer:

Allows emotional reactions to be suppressed during need.
Lets you perceive the world as a game.
Blocks negative mental effects. (Anti master/stranger fuck yeah!)


The Gamer's Body: (Passive) Lvl. MAX - 0.0%
Your body is a persistent mana construct:

Allows your body to perform at peak capacity as long as you have HP.
Lets you interact with the world and evolve as a game character would.


Basic Mana Capacity: (Passive) Lvl. MAX - 0.0%
Mana, the energy of thoughts, the energy of creation, flows through you:

Mana can do anything, you just have to figure out how.
Allows you to sense, control, and manifest mana into any form of energy.


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, so I was not me anymore, oh well, I believe in the school of thought where the me from the previous moment is not the me in the next moment, so no philosophical crisis there; but still, fuck you Rob. You ask before changing a person into a mana construct, basic bloody courtesy dammit!

Anyway, The Gamer's Mind seemed to be an amazing thinker power by itself, while The Gamer's Body was a budget brute package which could be improved into a serious brute package if I wanted. Again, if my suspicions about mana were correct (That given its extraUniversal nature, it's just bullshit reality manipulation), with time I would be able to mimic any possible power, imagination being the limit. Time being the bottlenecked resource in this case I was sure, or Rob would have given me these powers during my tete-a-tete with the overgrown water lizard. On that note, I realized that soon I might have to fight him, or the special effects minotaur, or the techie bird bitch. Sobering thought that, and yes, I could feel the effects of Gamer's Mind, specifically by the fact that I wasn't having a massive panic attack while thinking of fighting a freaking kaiju.

Well, mixed emotions aside, power experimentation will wait. Next item:

"Party"

Party menu to be unlocked at level 10.

Fair enough, not that I had anyone to party with right then, dada being marked NPC, and honestly, though we were as close as siblings, our age gap would just make partying with him awkward, I'd rather give him the Plot Armor and let him be my cash cow minion that he was.

On to the final item then, I rubbed my hands in anticipation as I called it out:

"Options"

OPTIONS

Command input methods:
[✔] Vocal
[✔] Touch
[ _ ] Mental - Warning, unchecked thoughts might initiate commands, recommend higher INT and WIS before enabling this option.

Information output methods:
(✔) Visual
( _ ) Mental - Warning, Too much information might strain attention span, recommend high INT before enabling this option.

Skill names and Commands
[ _ ] Allow adding aliases to skills and commands - Warning, may cause confusion when newer skills have same name as older aliases.

Mana Manipulation AI Assist:
|- 0% - Warning, accidents can annihilate galaxies. Use this if you have Godlike stats.
|- 50% (current setting)
|- 100% - Warning, low flexibility can make skill creation very difficult. Use this if you're a wuss.

AI pseudo-personality core:
(✔) AI messages take personality cue from The Gamer's subconscious - Warning, may result in snarky messages if you're a dick.
( _ ) AI messages are mechanical and dry - warning, you're Armsmaster, and still a dick.

Gamer's Mind AI assist
[✔] Suppress emotions during combat
[✔] Suppress emotion spikes out of combat
[ _ ] Suppress all emotions - warning, will make your social life very interesting.

Message log Archival
[✔] Archive repeating messages
[✔] Archive status and warning messages

Avatar Options (locked until you find a way to change your body)
Party Options (locked until you have a party)

-Other options will appear with newer skills

That was actually pretty well thought out, I didn't really need to change anything right then. And the messages were being snarky because I'm a dick. And I had researched Brockton Bay capes almost too well. Well, I didn't want to turn into Armsmaster, so I let the snarky messages stay, and I had an almost nonexistent social life anyway, no need to fuck it up with complete emotional suppression. Damn my nerd tendencies, not getting to change a single option was such a downer.

QUEST CREATED!

Downers are bad for health.

Reach level 10 so that you can at least change some options!

Success: 20K XP + Moar Superpowers!

Failure: Be pathetic.

[ACCEPT/Y] [DECLINE/N]

Heh, well that's a sentiment I could get behind. "Accept." The window vanished, it was time to go talk to my brother, I debated when to tell him the truth. Was it a good time?

QUEST CREATED!

Come clean to the only person you can trust.

Go tell your brother the truth and reveal your powers before he leaves for work!

Success: 200 XP + Increased relationship with Dev.

Failure: He finds out anyway + decreased relationship with Dev + Shame + Guilt.

[ACCEPT/Y] [DECLINE/N]

Cues from my own subconscious eh? Well, apparently my subconscious was excellent at guilt tripping me. Anyway, he's a fuckin genius, it's a sucker's bet, I tapped accept. Fuck you Rob.