I felt my body returning back to normal functionality as I was being carried into the office. That said, I don't think I can run away from this situation.
I got put into a chair in the office while the door seemed to close on its own. Xedne was on the other side of the desk; I felt trapped. "So, you implied having come from another world. And a literal another world."
I need to figure out more stuff before I talk. "…You have something that can detect lies?"
"I do. Perceive Deception is a common Skill for people in positions such as mine, so there's no point in lying to me. So tell me, how and why did you come to this world? What intentions do you have?"
Those… sounds like pretty reasonable questions, I guess. I took a deep breath. I need to figure out what I should and shouldn't say. For now, I'll keep the book and my vampire half a secret. I don't want the book to be confiscated before I can try to figure out the teleportation spell, and it's rare that people respond well to my being a vampire. "I'm… not sure how or why I came here; it just happened suddenly. I don't have any ill intentions, though, I just want to figure out what's going on and if I can go back."
"You didn't intend to come here?"
I shook my head. "I did not."
"I see." Xedne closed her eyes, seemingly deep in thought. Then she looked towards me. "I apologise for being so forceful. To make it up to you, I'll answer any questions you have and I'll answer within limits, I'll also give you some coin."
"Oh, uh, thank you very much." I was expecting… worse. Well, that didn't happen, so I guess things are good now. "Um… I don't really know much about magic or status stuff here, so I would like to know more about that."
"I can do that. How much do you already know?"
"Uh… please assume I know nothing."
"From nothing… please wait a second." She appeared to go deep into thought. I guess explaining from zero isn't really something she's used to. "First, directing your thoughts to 'status' allows you to see your own status…"
It seems everybody has access to their own status, although with some Skills, it's possible to see other people's status. It has one's name, race, Class, HP/MP, and Skills, although it's also possible to see your abilities, which seems similar to basic stats in an RPG game, as well. There's some additional functionality using, well, the system menus aside from seeing your stats. There's a note-taking feature and a clock and calendar as well. It's basically a smartphone in your mind. There doesn't seem to be messaging or calling though.
HP are Health Points and MP are Mana Points. Basically they're the same as the equivalent in RPGs(which this system seems to take a lot from), but if they're zero, you only go unconscious until they recover. You don't die from the lack of either, that sorta happens the normal way. The more max HP you have, the less damage your body will take from attacks and such, it seems. Being really low on MP is why I had trouble moving my body near the end of that fight. Both of these recover naturally over time.
People gain and increase(level up) skills by, well, doing stuff related to that Skill. Each time you increase a Skill, it improves in effectiveness and you can get an option for that Skill, which can have various effects. You can't increase a Skill if there's still an option waiting to be picked, however. Skills can only go up to level 5, but they can be increased further for more options. The level itself doesn't go up, however.
After meeting certain conditions, usually including being at level 5, Skills can also evolve. Evolved skills keep the options of the skill they've evolved from.
Having a Class helps with gaining and increasing Skills; it can roughly double the speed for related skills, so I should choose one soon. Classes also have modifiers to abilities, some of which can be negative, which is the only downside of Classes. Pretty much everybody has one and you can choose and change them at pretty much any time. Classes level up as related Skills do and can evolve as well, similar to Skills.
Magic isn't too different from what I figured out, although it seems that the MP cost is additive within categories, multiplicative between categories. Dark element is costs 10, Shooting is 2, so together it's 20MP. If I use two elements and Shooting and Area, it's (10 + 10) × (2 + 2), or 80MP. Apparently I'm missing a few basic things, like the Basic Element and Basic Magic, although they're pretty easy to pick up with the Mage Class. Oh, right, she told me of the other elements I can obtain: Ice, Lightning, Metal, and Plant. They're the combination of two of the starting elements, Ice is Water + Wind, Lightning is Wind + Fire, Metal is Fire + Earth, and Plant is Earth + Water.
Magic related Skills tend to have a bunch of MP cost reduction options which are considered very useful. I do have a lot of MP though… but then again, I still ran out, so maybe I should consider those.
Xedne then left me alone so that I can consider everything I've learned…
