You see my kidneys must have started working, or maybe they have worked for a while and I didn't notice. Anyway working kidneys mean urine. Urine means pee and when you are trapped in a balloon it isn't going anywhere but back round in a circle. My very own water cycle.
Which is where my point that everybody else does it comes in. At least that's what I'm telling myself. I'm just being a little more direct about it.
You see back on earth the idea was that as dinosaurs had been around for so many million years they had to have drunk all the water in circulation on the earth therefore we were all drinking Dinosaur Pee! Anyway that idea makes it a little more palatable. As there is nothing else on tap in here. Although I don't know if dinosaurs exist or existed where I am now so maybe not.
It’s been a month in here now. A whole 4 weeks! 28 days! Maybe only 16 more weeks to go but it sounds a lot longer when you say maybe another 112 days.
Maybe only one more to go who knows. But I doubt that as I still have a fair amount of room in here. Not sure exactly when I gained consciousness. Also, not sure how long gestation will be here on this world or with whatever species I am.
I have all my old skills which I have continued to level up and now I’ve got one more, memorisation.
I’m learning the songs!
I don’t understand them but hopefully I’ll be able to hum them when I’m born. It’s harder to remember a song without knowing what it means but I guess it’s good for gaining the memorisation skill. Memorising a completely random, from my perspective at least, set of syllables attached to an interesting set of pitches, tones and rhythms.
I remember learning a song in primary school in African. I’ve still no idea what it means. But I can remember it because I memorised the sounds, pitch and rhythm. Once you get the first three syllables the rest roll out of my memory. Same goes for Frere Jaque in French means something about brother John but not sure about the meaning of the rest of the lines even though I can still remember the song and words.
Quite proud of my progress so far but maybe I shouldn't be after all pride cometh before a fall. Maybe all babies are born with stats around 10 and my efforts so far are lacklustre, I just don't know. So guess I will have to wait and see.
Either way I’ve got all the skills and started to improve my senses. Although I’m still level four some of my skills are catching up with one another as it takes longer and longer to level them. Level 6 for time sense took approximately 32 hours but during that time I was able to level meditation from level 3 to level 5 and sense mana from level 2 to level 5 as well! But the most important thing to note is that levelling Eavesdrop from level 1 to level 5 in the same time has given me the same amount of experience as the rest of my old skills combined!
Need to work on gaining some more intermediate skills. But I haven’t managed it yet.
Anyway, I’ve been developing a daily routine meditating at night when my mother is asleep, eavesdropping and memorising when she’s singing, keeping track of time when she seems to be sitting still or between movements, oh and sensing mana and trying to do that all the time got sense mana to skill level five not sure what else I can get.
My main problem still seems to be . . . that I’m falling asleep . . . half the time.
Still as my stamina grows so does the length of time I can stay awake. Although simply growing seems to be using my stamina up as I double in size. At least I assume I'm doubling in size nothing to measure with in here and it's all relative and changing size anyway.
As my senses have got better with my ears developing and increased with each level of listening combined with an increase in my senses stat I can hear more. It’s still mainly my mother’s heartbeat and listening to her songs and memorising those for the majority of the time. But there’s also another voice maybe a sibling as it is higher pitched and possibly a father’s voice as it is lower still not sure as it is harder to hear what they’re saying and because it’s a bit muffled coming from outside my little world but I think this is where the eavesdrop skill is coming in. Since when I use the skill it gets closer and easier to being able to hear it. Maybe the eavesdrop skill started levelling up quicker as I listen to someone else rather than my mother or when she is talking to someone else rather than me.
I’ve also just realised we’re probably not in a sci-fi world as my mother doesn’t seem to go anywhere other than where we are now. There are no sudden accelerations, limited to the movement of walking and it doesn’t feel like there’s any quick vertical movement so no elevators.
I’ve been trying to work out how and when we are moving and how far and where using my listening skill and I can now make out sounds of things being moved around. I'm not sure how much is coming through hearing or feeling but I can’t close my ears off to just feel although I can close my eyes to just listen and still can’t see much of anything anyway.
Time for another nap, night night.
Level: 4 Experience: 1900/3200 Age: 28 days
Health: 70/70 Stamina: 50/50 Mana 70/70
Vitality: 7
Endurance: 4
Strength: 4
Dexterity: 4
Senses: 10
Mind 55
Clarity: 7
Magic: 7
Free Points: 40
Skills: Time sense (LV 6) Listening (LV 5) Meditation (LV 5) Sense Mana (LV 5) Swimming (LV 2) Eavesdrop (LV 5) Memorisation (LV 1)
The scaling on experience for levels and skills is a bit too harsh... A doubleing of experience every level is effectively a exponential curve where a increase in 1 level means 2 times more difficult/stronger than the previous level.
At higher levels a different of 2 - 3 levels will mean they can squish you like a bug because the higher the level the lower the resolution on the power difference...
I know you probably just copied it from others because many stories like to use it but I would have preferred a saner increase that doesn't result in a ridiculous curve at higher levels.
I actually think this makes a lot of sense. A less steep incline would be better, but a doubling of experience from level to level means higher level people have to fight a significant amount of there is a combat experience mechanic, craft a significant amount of there is a profession experience mechanic, and level a large number of skills frequently to bump up their high levels. Which all means actual experience is required to level. But each level doesn't mean much for overall power increases, same stats per level, but th high level people will have incredible ability aptitude making them more potent.
@C3 that would be the case either way though even in a system without a exponential curve the only difference is what level you start struggling at... but in this system you are loosing precision the higher level you get in the system.
You will get to a point where someone in the same level but in the first 10% towards the next level can be squashed easily by someone who is 50% towards the same level efficiently making the level metric meaningless in determining how powerful someone is...
This can only be offset by scaling how much XP can be earned as the difficulty rises but that will eventually reach a cap and at that point it becomes a clear problem.
@Fuxy an idea could be an expontial exp curve but a decaying positive rate of power so it eventually plataus where each level is basically a small boost in power but require enormous exp to gain. This would make it so at early levels you could sqish an infant who was only level one because you were level 5 but a level 30 couldnt be just sqished by a level 40 as easily
Sleep is a skill for sure. In the army the most seasoned guys could all sleep on command in any conditions.
Time for another nap, night night.
Level: 4 Experience: 1900/3200 Age: 28 days
Health: 70/70 Stamina: 50/50 Mana 70/70
Vitality: 7
Endurance: 4
Strength: 4
Dexterity: 4
Senses: 10
Mind 55
Clarity: 7
Magic: 7
Free Points: 40
Skills: Time sense (LV 6) Listening (LV 5) Meditation (LV 5) Sense Mana (LV 5) Swimming (LV 2) Eavesdrop (LV 5) Memorisation (LV 1)
Lol. goes to sleep with full stamina. What a champ.
The concept for this introduction is quite interesting. I am again impressed by the ability to manage multiple activities like that. Character growth.
no quote this chapter?