Arc Three: Preparations

“Hey, you, you’re finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Society ambush. Same as me, and that dragon over there.” Kali said, jerking a finger at Siph.

Lilith blinked. “What?”

Kali giggled. “You heard me right.”

“So…I wake up, ready to begin your massive, world-changing plan, and the first thing out of your mouth is a meme?”

“A meme from the intro to a game! It works! But, seriously, how are you feeling?”

Lilith took a moment to take stock of herself. “Honestly? Awful. I feel weak, sickly, and tired.”

Kali nodded. “That’s to be expected. I had to set all your attributes to what I want the “average” value to be. I’ve gone ahead and given you a skill that’ll get you back up to your old stats soon, but it’s going to take a few levels. If you want to check go ahead and think about your Status and you should get a pop-up window.”

Lilith went ahead and did so and was greeted with three pop-up windows, similar to the ones given to her by Help Yourself or Instinct.

Warning: Due to the sheer number of racial classes possessed, information about racial classes has been relegated to its section, appended to the bottom of the Status. Experience has been collapsed into a percentage next to level, exact experience will be shown on the information on for each racial class.
Warning: Due to the sheer number of racial classes possessed, racial classes have been merged where applicable to reduce clutter. Merged classes level up as one class, and have shared abilities merged. There is no difference between a fully advanced merged class and fully advance separate classes.

Lilith stared at Kali, trying to figure out where to even start. “Uh…”

Kali smirked. “Questions, I assume?”

“A lot. First off, what’s this Original Sin business?! I don’t seem to recall exhibiting any particularly sinful qualities, but even more than that, how can I have both Envy and Kindness?! I thought those were two opposing qualities!”

“That’s by design.” Kali said. “Mind if we talk about this one last, though? It ties into our later plans, so it just fits better that way.”

“Fine.” Lilith said, holding her hands up. “Alright, we’ll start from the top of the list, then. So, class. How does it work? What’s “Progenitor”?”

Kali motioned for Lilith to sit down next to her on the bed, and Lilith gratefully did so, wincing as she realized just how sore she really was. Siph sat down behind Lilith and rubbed her back. Lilith flashed her a grateful smile; knowing that her mother was there to support her did wonders to soothe her nerves, and she was immediately glad that Kali decided to take Siph with them.

“So, let’s lay out the ground rules for how this system works. Fortunately for you, you’re getting this information straight from the source instead of the pop-up everyone else will get, so feel free to stop me and ask questions whenever.”

“Class is just what you think it is. It affects what Skills you can learn, and the distribution of stats you get upon Leveling up. Racial Class is basically a Domain from the old system, just easier to understand. Both Class and Racial Class gain experience from defeating enemies, whether through killing them, incapacitating them, convincing them to stand down, beating them in a cooking contest, anything that could be counted as a “victory” could potentially give experience. Some Classes gain more experience from certain types of victories than others, and some can’t gain experience from some types of victory. The Thief Class won’t earn any experience from defeating someone in a cooking contest, but the Chef Class certainly would.”

“Each Class also has a modifier for how much more experience the next level up will take, ranging from .01% to 10%. Racial Classes have one too, but their experience is counted separately, and comes from all victories, if at a reduced rate compared to normal Classes. Each class has a maximum level of 100, and reaching that level will unlock a special Skill, as well as “lock” the class Skills in place when you perform a Reset.”

“Classes can be changed at any point…with a couple of caveats. First, any progress towards your next level is replaced. Then, if the new Class’s experience scaling is higher than your previous Class, it changes to match. This doesn’t scale back if you change off the Class, though, so be careful! You shouldn’t need this as much as others, though, thanks to King’s Knowledge. Anyone can use Skills they’ve unlocked from Classes that aren’t their current Class, so reasonably the only reason you’d need to switch is if you need to level another Class right away, or if the Class you got isn’t living up to expectations.”

“But King’s Knowledge should give you all that information in advance, so unless something’s gone horribly wrong you should know all the benefits a Class can give you in advance. You should know everything from experience scaling to stat bonus on leveling to what skills you’ll learn when. Everyone else is going to be flying blind, so don’t take that for granted, alright? ”

“But, for the sake of argument, let’s say you’re finding it hard to level, and you want to ditch some of your levels. In that case, you can perform a Reset. This sends you back to level 0 in a specific Class, losing benefits you got from leveling that Class, including Skills. If you were level 100 in that Class, though, while your stats still decrease, you get to keep those Skills, and if having that class at a specific level was a prerequisite to anything, it’s still treated as if it’s level 100.”

“As for Progenitor, that’s a little present from me!” She smiled mischievously. “It’s for being the system’s first time. So, be gentle, alright?” She paused for a second, letting Lilith process what she said before smiling even wider. “And by be gentle I mean don’t be gentle at all. By the time I’m done with you, I’m planning to have you break the system hard enough that it’d beg for mercy if it had a consciousness.” She winked. “All consensual, of course. You’re free to step out any time you want, and as the closest thing to the system’s aforementioned consciousness, I’m all for this.”

Siph’s momentarily tightened her grip on Lilith, and she knew there would be no backing out if Siph had anything to say about it. She was riding this out until the end, come what may.

“Alright, so…” Lilith began. “I think I get what’s going on with Classes. But, still, what’s Progenitor’s focus? What do I get from it?”

Kali nodded. “An excellent question. When you have a window up, just focus on any specific part of it with the intent of learning more and you’ll get more information. Windows relating to you like Class information have their own shortcut, so just think about that and it should pull it right up. Go ahead, do it now, then ask your questions.”

“What’s the Rank mean?” Lilith asked.

Kali tapped her forehead with her palm. “Duh, can’t believe I forgot to mention that. So, Skills, Classes, Achievements, Titles, and items have Ranks. A Rank is a general indicator of how rare something is. From common to least common, you have Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, and Mythic.”

“And Unique?”

“And then there’s Unique and Exclusive. They’re considered outside the regular rarities, and items don’t come in them. Something Exclusive can only be had by one person at one time. If someone more fitting comes along, the least fitting person is stripped of the thing and it gets passed on to the new person. The Title a ruler of a country would have would be Exclusive. Unique is something only ever given to one person. For instance, the founder of that country might get a Unique Title.”

“Alright, so Progenitor is Unique because there can only be one first, right?”

“Yup!”

“And why’s the experience scaling so small?”

Kali shrugged. “I tailor-made the Class for what we’re doing now and that was the lowest the system would let me go without it throwing a fit. I wanted to make it 0, but I learned my lesson, it’s a bad idea messing around with things when you’re not exactly sure what you’re doing. This system is pretty popular among my peers, so I just shamelessly took it and added my system as a sort of…add on. That’s greatly oversimplifying things and I had to get outside advice on how to even do that, so long story short I just turned it down to the point where it would be basically free instead of trying to force it to be actually free. This is a real outlier, though. I think the next scales by 0.5% every level? Don’t remember. “

“Alright. And the Skills?”

Kali pouted. “It’s no fun if you find out now. I mean, you could just look at the information with King’s Knowledge, but please? I want you to be surprised.”

Lilith hesitated. She was curious, yes, but she didn’t really have to know, right? Better to keep Kali happy than to sate her curiosity. “Alright.”

Lilith swore she caught a hint of a frown on Kali’s face after she said that, but it was gone just as soon as it appeared, leaving her to doubt whether she actually saw it. “Anyway, I think I get the gist of Classes. Why is there all this stuff about sealed things on my Status?”

“Oh, that was just to keep your skills from affecting your stats for setting the average. They’ll all unlock after you level up once, so it’s no big deal.”

Lilith tapped her chin and smiled as Siph moved to begin rubbing her shoulders. “I think that’s everything but the Original Sin thing.”

Kali straightened up. “Ok. So, the Sins and Virtues thing. The two systems work a little differently – the Sins are all obtained through some quantifiable goal, and don’t really mean you have that quality.”

She paused, frowning. “Actually, maybe for someone with weaker mental resistance it might nudge them in that direction? It’d only really be noticeable after completing all the requirements, so they’d probably know what they’re getting into at that point. Ah well, something to look into later. Anyway, it shouldn’t be noticeable enough to affect you before you level up and after you’re all unsealed any lingering influence should go away.” She stopped for a moment, embarrassedly coughing into her fist. “Point is, they’re designed that way for the sake of competition for the title of Sin. It has a pretty nice Skill and stat boost to go with it, so I’ve heard a lot of the more…unsavory people tend to go for them once the word gets out. Honestly, you probably don’t meet most of the requirements, but the system likes to always have one person appointed to each Sin and Virtue, so you get to skip a bunch of stuff for being the first person to get any relation to that Sin or Virtue at all.”

“Virtues are a little more complex than Sins, though. They are based on merit and analysis of the person’s psyche instead of a simple checklist. They don’t take having a position as a Sin against you provided you don’t actually do anything sinful. In fact, it’s often easier to get points towards being a Virtue if you’re a Sin, as the system sees it as walking a harder path to keep to that Virtue or something.”

“Fortunately, these are all backdated, so they take into account things from before you got the system. You can go ahead and check what exactly you did to unlock those later, but from the quick peek I took here’s the simple version: Greed for having Exclusive or Unique things, Envy for having skills that were gained from others in some fashion, Lust for having really high charm, Pride for having subordinates, Kindness for agreeing to help with a project like this for no particular reason other than wanting to help, Patience for not being angry with those that wronged you, Charity for giving when you didn't have much to give, and Humility for treating those “far below” you as equals. Probably Alex, if I had to guess, but it was vague.”

Kali clapped her hands. “Great. When I list it like that, we’re farther along than I thought. This shouldn’t take too much time at all!”

Lilith got a sinking feeling in her stomach. “Let me guess. You want to get me all of the Sins and Virtues?”

Kali nodded happily. “Yup! That’ll net you a really strong Title and Achievement, as well as free up that stuff for others to get later. As a bonus, even if the titles of Sin or Virtue are lost, none of those abilities will be able to be taken away from you once someone more qualified eventually comes along. Because, believe me, that’ll happen for at least some of those pretty fast. Pride in particular will be gone the moment we open the system to everyone…”

Lilith could practically see the gears turning in her head as she considered that.

“No, change of plans, we’re going to make sure you can hold on to that one until our adjustment period is over, then let it loose. I’ve got an idea that I’m reasonably sure could work, but we can talk about that later.”

“So. Right now we need to get you strong. As the Administrator, I can’t be constantly down there making sure everything goes the way I want, and I doubt I would be strong enough to do so anyway. Once I officially switch systems, the world does too, so I can’t powerlevel beforehand and I have to babysit the thing to make sure everything works as intended after the switch, so the most I’ll be able to spare is an avatar, maybe two down there.”

“I mean, I mostly used an avatar to interact with the world, and they’re strong enough to be information specialists for the Council, but nothing more. Not nearly as tough as a lot of combatants the Council would have. But, going down myself requires concentration I can’t afford to give at that time, so we’ll need you to do the heavy lifting for me.”

Kali frowned, looking at Lilith. “And that’s where our first snag comes in. Since I needed someone without any hang-ups about to any one group of people, I wanted someone who’s never been in a war. And that’s a pretty big drawback, because the people you’ll be keeping in line are mostly people who have hundreds of years of fighting experience.”

“So,” she said, getting up and stretching, “Since we can’t just get you all that fighting experience at once, we’re going to have to get your specs high enough that it doesn’t matter. An ant can only do so much against a dragon, you know?”

“Step one of that plan, get all the Sins and Virtues. I’ve already got that figured out, so don’t worry about that. Step two, get as many Classes and Skills as possible, preferably Resetting a few at level 100 for best effect. Step three, train with those Skills and your new stats so you’re used to those. Question mark, question mark, question mark, profit. Any questions?”

Lilith shook her head.

Kali grinned. “Perfect. We start now! Chastity should be the next easiest one, so let’s work on it.”

“How?”

“Simple.” Kali adopted a serious demeanor, looking Lilith squarely in the eye. “No matter what I do or say, you are not allowed to have any contact with me for the next ten minutes, sexual or otherwise.”

Lilith frowned. “Simple enough.”

Kali smiled slightly. “We’ll see. Siph, I need you to leave the room, it won’t count if you’re holding her back.”

Reluctantly, Siph took her hands off of Lilith’s shoulders and left the room, leaving only Lilith and Kali. The room was filled with a sweet smell, and Lilith found herself growing somewhat drowsy.

Had Kali always been that attractive? She hadn’t paid much attention to her before, but she really struck a striking figure. The way her usually conservative dress sense clashed with the way she acted, and the way her current sloppy clothing left just enough to the imagination to get one hungry for more.

Kali smiled. “It’s been a long day. Do you want to come and snuggle with me for a bit before we officially start?”

That sounded great, honestly. Get some time to detox with a cute girl before starting serious work, just enjoying each other’s company…

Kali sat down on the opposite side of the bed from Lilith, and Lilith scooted closer to her.

“Yeah, I’d love…” Lilith paused. Something wasn’t right. Didn’t Kali say the next ten minutes earlier? That meant she already started, right? That meant she wasn’t supposed to touch Kali, right? But…she offered, so it’s had to be fine, right? But Kali said no matter what she said or did to not touch, so that comes first, right? But that was in the past, and this is now, so that’s more important, right?

Lilith was frozen in place for a solid ten seconds, conflicting lines of logic running through her cloudy thoughts. Eventually, she got off the bed and went into the corner. “N-not now, Kali. I’m going to keep my word. No touching.”

A box appeared in the corner of her vision, but she was too out of it to notice or care.

“It’s not really touching if we just touch through clothes, right? We can do it while wrapped up in blankets or something, that way you don’t break your promise.”

A tempting offer. For 30 seconds Lilith’s increasingly faulty logic circuits ran, eventually outputting a response with a metaphorical sputter. “I think that still counts. I’m going to stay here.”

Another box popped into existence, just as ignored as the first. There was silence for another thirty seconds, broken only by Kali shuffling somewhere out of Lilith’s view.

The shuffling stopped. Then started again. Then stopped. Rustling. Shuffling. Nothing.

Lilith was finding it even harder to think now. Why? Was she just that tired?

“Hey.” Kali whispered, right into Lilith’s ear. Lilith jumped, scrambling back towards the corner in surprise. Kali’s pajamas were looser now, and the bed looked to be arranged so that there were two visible sides.

“You’re tired, right? Why don’t you just lie down? If you roll over in your sleep, it’s no big deal. Accidents happen. It’s not your fault.”

Lilith nodded mechanically, stumbling to her feet. “Yes.”

She moved to take a step, but something stopped her. What? It was something about the bed. Why would it matter if she rolled over?

The twisting, burning remnants of those same logic circuits screamed at Lilith as Kali laid down on one half of the bed.

“We’re…sleeping…together?” Lilith mumbled.

“Of course! It’s my bed.”

That sounded right. It was Kali’s bed, so it made sense Kali would sleep in it.

Wait. Wasn’t there a reason sleeping together with someone was wrong?

For the life of her, Lilith couldn’t remember why.

Oh well. Not remembering why something is bad isn’t a reason to do that thing, so Lilith stumbled her way over to one of the beanbag chairs and curled up in it, swiftly falling asleep.

Kali shook Lilith awake. Yawning, she stretched and took stock of the windows that had popped up.

“Great job.” Kali said, smiling. “Sorry about the drugs. I made sure to give you just enough of a dose for it to count for the system, but not enough to actually get you to do anything you normally wouldn’t. And if you had tried, I would have stopped you and taken the blame myself. And then I made you drowsy so you would be able to sleep it all off. Feeling better?”

Lilith examined Kali again. She looked normal, no trace of the unnatural attraction she felt earlier. “Yeah, feeling fine. Now that I’m thinking about it, though, why do I have Lust right now? My Charm is at 10, so even if it’s backdated, I shouldn’t meet the requirements at the moment.”

Kali shrugged. “While I was setting the system up, I made sure there was a tiny one-way connection to Carmen, enough that it could read her current status. It treats hers status as a part of your status, even if technically she’s disconnected from you. Right now, the system just thinks Carmen’s locked out of it or something, so as long as she doesn’t suddenly lose that charm, it’ll be fine. Would be unfair to strip someone of a title like that every time someone temporarily lowered their stats, right? So, the title looks for someone’s normal stats, not ones from temporary buffs or debuffs.”

Lilith nodded. “Alright, so, what do I do next?”

Kali grinned. “Nothing!”

“Nothing?”

“Yup! You’re going to kick back and do nothing while Siph gets you some experience! It won’t take more than a day, and she’s already working on it, so what do you say we watch a movie or something?”

“Sure, why not?”

Fighterman481

Wow. Late release for me. I lost track of time while working on this chapter - putting the Status together took quite a while, but I had fun writing it so it all works out.

Of course, I'm not done with it just yet, once Lilith levels up she'll be getting all those actives and passives back, as well as stat bonuses and the like.

We also have a (partial) explanation of the new system. I feel it's a lot more structured than the old one, but it's also really late at night so there's a good possibility that I didn't explain it well enough. Skills haven't been touched on much yet, but they will be once Lilith actually has something to work with in that regard.

Which won't be next chapter. Next chapter we're going back to Carmen. I'm looking forward to this one, but it's going to require some careful execution if I want it to turn out as nice as it sounds in my head. Still, we get to knuckle down and focus on character interactions and politics. As I mentioned in the Q&A answers, Lilith is going to be all about those gains and Carmen's going to be more character focused. I'm hoping I'll be able to make the Lilith sections more interesting than "Then Lilith killed some things and got x abilities", but if I find that they're getting too repetitive, I'll start doing less of those and focus more on Carmen.

As a side note: yes, the tables look bad. I'm going to have to play around and find something I like, but I wanted to get this chapter out and it's too late for me to do that and be effective. Once I find something effective, I'll change those tables so they look better.

And finally, let me know if you spotted any capitalization errors. I tried to be consistent with capitalizing things like "Class", "Skill', "Title", etc, but there's a pretty large chance I missed something.

I'm sure I had more to say here but I'm too tired to remember what it was. Ah well. A mystery for another day, I guess.