Zavier came in late, showering before slipping into bed. He stretched his leg out, gently resting it against Tess's calf. She turned and slid an arm over his chest, and the two of them fell asleep together.
The next morning, they went through what had become their standard routine: eating and cleaning up breakfast, reviewing the tablet for any new threats, checking the scraper for any new information from the internet, then gathering in the living room to discuss the plans for the day. The fight from the night before had cut their conversation short and both Tess and Zavier had more to reveal.
"Hey, before we start - are you guys okay?" Luna looked between her parents with concern. Zavier and Tess looked at each other in understanding. They didn't agree and likely wouldn't, but the moment had passed.
Zavier looked at Tess. "I still don't agree and I don't know that I ever will, but I understand why you made the choice."
Tess didn't look upset at that but neither did she look happy. "You don't have to agree, just don't imply that I'm not doing what's best for my family too."
Zavier took a steadying breath. He could tell that they were a few wrong words from another fight and he didn't want that. He knew Tess didn't either. "Let's not fight about this, Honey. We just need to figure out what we're going to do in the future."
"I don't think we do," Tess said sharply. Her voice relented when she saw the expression on Zavier's face. "I'm sorry, Honey, I'm just still feeling sensitive about this. I didn't like how you made me feel." She patted the air gently as he opened his mouth to rebut. "I don't like how I made you feel either," she said. "I'm sorry about that."
They looked at each other with patience and love, but they couldn't hide anything from each other; they both knew this was not the last time they would have this fight. Not everything could be resolved with a conversation; some things you just pushed away and hoped that it wouldn't be too bad the next time it came up.
Zavier waved at Tess. "You go first, Love, mine is going to take some explaining."
She smiled and leaned forward excitedly. "You already saw the skill I got, but that wasn't really our reward. Choosing it was nice but everyone is going to get a skill at level five just like we're going to be assigned classes. The real reward was this new enhancement I got."
She showed them her character sheet. "The class they gave me is Lone Warrior. I don't know what that'll mean for future skills or abilities but I'm sure I got it from taking things down alone more than with you guys."
"But here's the extra cool part - an enhancement!" She shared that part of her character screen with them.
Tess Torres, Level: 5
Class: Lone Warrior
Enhancements/Impairments:
Enhanced Perception (Level 1): Awarded for your adeptness in quickly recognizing and evaluating threats, this enhancement sharpens your overall sensory awareness. It enhances your ability to detect details in your environment, both passively and actively, accelerating your information processing capabilities. As a result, you'll respond more swiftly to threats, experience enhanced night vision, and achieve greater accuracy with projectile weapons from a distance.
"You basically got a Spidey-sense," Cass noted with appreciation and they all laughed at that.
They turned to look at Zavier. "What about you, Captain Mysterious over there?"
Zavier smiled widely at Tess's jibe. "You're not going to believe this," he said.
He relayed the whole conversation with the Architect to his captive audience but by the end they all looked baffled.
"So you didn't get a reward?" Tess asked.
"I got an enhancement, like you," Zavier said and shared that screen with them.
Zavier Torres, Level: 5
Class: Opportunist
Enhancements/Impairments:
Tactical Synergy (Level 1): This enhancement has been provided due to your proficiency in planning and your successful attempts to create team tactics. This skill will allow you to create a squad of up to four individuals. At its current level the skill will allow instant mental communication between all members as well as a visual readout of any buffs, impairments, and the current percentage of health for each member.
"But that's not the real prize here. Look at this," he said before sharing the next part of his character sheet.
Skills and Abilities
**Error. Not defined.**
Now they all looked even more confused. Zavier spread his arms like a magician about to end the show with a big flourish.
"I hacked The System!"
Blank stares.
"What does that even mean?" Cass asked.
"Okay, there are a few things that we worked out. The first is that I will get to control my own improvements. You know how The System assigns you stat points, abilities, and things like that on its own based on what it thinks you need? It's not going to do that for me. I will have complete control over where the points get distributed."
"That's cool," Cass said, "but how will you know which skills to choose?"
"Okay, that's the part that I should have defined a little better," Zavier said with a slightly embarrassed tone. "I don't actually get to choose from the skill list. I have to create my skills from the available energy that is assigned to me when I level. Energy basically comes in two forms: stat improvements are energy that you earn and use to enhance yourself, and skills are your ability to access and control energy owned by The System. When you enhance yourself, you're slotting energy into a preset configuration and it locks in place, becoming a permanent part of you - like a stem cell. When you use a skill or ability, you're borrowing energy from The System, basically channeling it into a template or algorithm that already exists."
"So why not just create some sort of skill that kills all creatures you look at or lets us fly?" Luna asked.
"Maybe one day," Zavier chuckled, "but the limits on what I can do are based on the ability of my body and mind to withstand the sheer amounts of energy I'd have access to. Think of The System as an unending supply of paint and I'm holding the paint gun. The maximum amount of paint I can spray out depends on how big the gun I'm able to hold is, and the paintings I can create are based on my experience, ability to use the gun, and the intelligence or understanding to create what I'm trying to create. Right now, I'm holding a very small paint gun and I have almost no idea how to use it."
This time it was Tess's turn to look angry. "And you thought this was best for us HOW?"
"I know this is practically useless right now," Zavier pleaded, "but if I can just keep making myself smarter, I'll get a stronger understanding of The System. Once my knowledge and experience with The System are strong enough, I will be able to create anything, understand everything, and use The System to its fullest potential! Even with where I'm at now, I understand so much more. I can see system settings where I couldn't before and I understand how some of them work. Some are far beyond me and the amount of information out there is so infinite that I can barely peek at my little corner of it, but I've already found settings that I can manipulate, and I've learned more about how this works."
"For instance," Zavier opened up the screen that showed his class, then dove into the next level down, "here is what is essentially the metadata for my class. It's called 'Opportunist' because that falls into a category of classes that can best be described as jack of all trades. As you can see here, this one was chosen because I met requirements for how many times I used found weapons versus ones given to me, how many different types and varieties of weapons I found, and how creatively I used those items. It's all classified in neat data that I can reference when I want to further sculpt my class in the future. It can see the same with all of your character sheets as well so I can help maximize the advances you're going to make!"
He had to fill his lungs and catch his breath, his face flush with excitement. The looks on the faces in front of him didn't return the sentiment.
"What are you trying to show us, dad?" Cass asked.
"This!" Zavier flashed the metadata for all of the decisions for how their core stats had updated at the last level.
"We don't see anything," Tess said.
Zavier's eyes scrunched with frustration and he saw a small blinking light in the bottom corner of his vision. He cleared out the screens and called up the alert.
** You are attempting to share root data with users who do not have the skills to interpret it. Attempts at sharing this data will not be visible to users without the access permissions. **
Zavier sighed. "Well Team, it seems like you can't see the data like I can. Basically, I can see how The System determines what skills and abilities we should get, and why certain things behave the way they do. I can mess with that a little and can even toggle some of the features now. For instance, the creatures disappearing and turning into items is a system selection to help us get more useful, magical loot in the beginning. I'm guessing it'll get shut off in later levels, but I can shut it off now if I want. Instead of turning into an item, I have the ability to leave it as-is, just a dead creature with meat and bones, or I can divert the energy it would have taken to turn into an item into extra energy for myself or anyone who would have gotten experience for it. It may only be a percent or two, but it's extra energy for leveling! Every 100 creatures or so would get a free level!"
He could tell he was losing them. Tess thought for a minute then asked, "So, if you don't have any more abilities and might not for a while, how are you going to level up when things get harder?"
Zavier had had the same concern. "I guess I'm going to have to make sure you all are strong enough to protect me while I'm still squishy," he said.
"The two rewards I asked for, understanding The System and controlling it, were too big of an ask," Zavier explained. "He didn't want me killing myself immediately, so there's going to be a learning process and metered permissions. For now I get to play around with a few minor settings and get to see behind the scenes on how the basics of the system work. As I grow I will be able to unlock more and more. Evidently there are some trials that they're placing throughout the world that I'll only be able to reach once I'm at an appropriate level to handle them. Those trials will let me prove I am fully capable of learning the next steps and opening up new areas of The System to explore."
"What happens if you don't find or complete the trials?" Cass asked.
"Well, then I get stuck where I'm at and can't grow - at least not much. I will be able to create skills and develop just like anyone else, but I'll never be able to unlock the full potential of my class and skills without doing these trials. The System wants me to advance enough to take advantage of this opportunity it's giving me, so it's forcing me not to stagnate by spending too much time playing around in menus. I'll get boosts every time I complete one."
"And if you rush headlong into a trial that you're not ready for?" Tess asked dubiously.
Zavier rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. "That… wouldn't be ideal. That's not an option we want to happen."
"Don't play coy with me, Zavier," Tess snapped. "This isn't one of those stories where the plot is driven by people acting mysterious and secretive. What. Happens?"
Zavier sighed and looked her in the eyes. "I die. Once I enter a trial I either complete it or die."
Tess's hand was over her open mouth, shock in her eyes.
Luna's voice was shaky. "So you either don't look for these trials and die because you're too weak, or…"
"... you find the trials and could die every single time you try one." Cass finished, horror dawning in his voice.
Tess stood slowly on shaking legs and left the room like a fawn crossing a frozen lake. The bedroom door shut and none of them missed the sounds of sobs being buried in a pillow.