Chapter 2

The Never Ending Stat Screen of Doom

[ Username: RaeDarz 

Given Name: Darcy Rae

Age: 24

Yo-yoing: 3

Cooking: 4

Burping: 8

Toilet Activities: 12

Fishing: 2

Show Binging: 155

Bitching: 20

Reading: 35

Fingernail Biting: 50

Video gaming: 200

Coding: 1

Building: 1

Animal grooming: 1

Singing: 1

Fishing: 1

Basketball: 1

Football: 1

Fencing: 1

+1… +1… +1…

I closed my stat screen and sighed. Everyone else in the Interverse gets a kick out of showing their stats, but me? I hated it. There was nothing on mine to brag about. Just failed attempts at finding something I love... and endless +1's. 

It wasn't fair. Everyone else got a worthwhile Starter Skill. Something that kickstarted their stats and gave them an understanding of what they should focus on, what they were destined for. But what was I stuck with? A "super rare never before seen Skill!" It's called Jack of All. And, on paper, it seems like it really would be one of the best Skills ever. To be able to be naturally good at EVERYTHING? Insane, right? 

Right. Which meant it was way too good to be true. The drawback of the Skill was that it only provided a +1 bonus. Plus. Fucking. One. What good is that?? 

Oh, the never before seen nature of it made me special, at first. I was toured around by the media and interviewed countless times. A real child star. But my star fizzled out almost as quickly as it came. Once everyone realized that +1 to every stat didn't mean a damn thing and I was just a living embodiment of "the master of none" I was tossed aside for other more exciting topics that they too would be dropped after a week, an endless cycle of joy and disinterest. 

The same cycle that I'd been stuck in my entire life. I've tried to "find my thing" since I was little. The thing that gave my life purpose. The thing that everyone else seemed to have. 

Everyone found it so easy to excel in the Interverse. My mom always said the real world wasn't like that, that I would have been right at home there. Where it was normal for the youth to struggle and flounder around, unsure of what they were meant to do or even who they were as a person. She said knowing all that came later, and usually even then only to the lucky or really hard working ones. Everyone else? Just drifting through life. Or drowning, grabbing onto anything that looked like it could keep them afloat.

Which especially summed up the past year of my life. I’d doubled down, deciding I’d had enough. I knew what I needed: a boost to my Starter Skill. Everyone immediately thought I was a god when hearing my Skill. All I needed was to actually make it that way. 

I sat at my dining room table, alone, as usual–my eyes glazed over as I frantically searched Interverse forums for any nugget of hope. 

[ A new Interverse renowned enhancement! ]

CLICK.

[ In this article I will let all the bros out there know how I enhanced my member size in less than… ]

FUCK. You would not believe how often I got drawn in by a title like that. The only enhancements that seemed to exist were for dudes’ fucking penises. Where was the help out there for ME, huh!?

As if they were tuned into my desperation, a message popped in the bottom of my view from the biggest thorn in my side since I was a kid. You know how I said I was alone? I guess I should have said alone by choice. There were others who shared in my misery, a whole group of them: Statistic Anomalies. 

My brand of worthless skill might have been unique to me, but there were countless other crap Starter Skills out there. Statistic Anomalies were the biggest losers in the Interverse, a support group for people with the worst of the worst Skills. They’d been trying to make me a member for decades, ever since my star fizzled out. 

I closed the message without reading it, something that I did so often and came so naturally to me it felt like a reflex. I pushed the thoughts of the stupid group away as I continued my search. 

[ A How to Guide on How to Enhance Your– ]

FUCK, ANOTHER PENIS GUIDE.

I canceled out the search, abandoning the word ‘enhancement’ and instead searching for ‘how to boost my Stats with bad Starter Skill.’

[ Bad Starter Skill? Feeling alone? Like you’ve been dealt a crappy hand? ]

I hung on every word, my eyes moving like mad, absorbing every individual character. 

[ Well have we got the solution for you! Here at Statistic Anomalies… ]

I headbutted the table three times. Just kill me right fucking now. It took me a bit to recover from that one. It seemed like no matter what I searched for it was all just dead ends and false hopes.

At my wits’ end, like I’d completely driven off of the metaphorical Wit Road and was now in free fall, I exited out the search and mashed, in all caps: ‘WHY ARE THE ADMINS SUCH DICKS??’ And slammed my head down in complete and utter defeat. 

But, from the jostle of my head, the Interverse entered that as my search quarry and a whole host of threads popped up. 

[ Are The Admins Dicks? This is a popular theory but is, 100% not true! The Admins have only our best interest at heart. They have given us this digital wonderland… ]

Ew, barf, Admin asskissers. And that’s the first thing that comes up? This world was fucked. I almost cut the search out right then, but the next result caught my eye: 

[ When are those Admin dicks going to admit that the tournament is real?? ]

Curious, I clicked on that one. 

[ Surely you guys have heard the rumors? That The Admins are planning a massive tournament to boost morale (and likely bring in the bookoo bucks). Well, it’s been months since those rumors started, where the fuck is my tournament?? ]

I had not heard those rumors, no, do tell BootLickerKicker72. I clicked on his profile. It brought me to a whole host of threads he’d made, all increasingly outlandish. 

[ I think the Earth started off round, but whatever apocalypse scenario happened turned it flat. Flat Earthers unite! ]

[ Birds were definitely living cameras that the aliens installed. Oh, and The Admins? Totally aliens. ]

I sighed. If this lunatic was so into conspiracy theories I didn’t have much hope of this tournament thing being real. But, I didn’t have anything else to search and this was mildly interesting, so I returned to the main thread, scanning the comments.

[ {MeanBean}: I have heard the rumors, yeah. It seems cool, I wish they would hurry up and announce it. ]

[ {NotAnAdmin}: I take offense to you calling our glorious Admins dicks. Reported. ]

[ {ChainedThinker}: I have heard the rumors, too. But what I don’t see talked about is the prize. An Interverse wide tournament is only as cool as the prize. What would it take for you to fight to the death? ]

ChainedThinker’s comment completely derailed the discussion. Everyone popped in with what they would fight to earn. Money was the popular answer; fame. But ChainedThinker put forth another option:

 

[ {ChainedThinker}: I know for me there is only one thing worth fighting for, something I can’t get easily on my own: Stat boosts. I’m talking, crazy unfathomable gains. I want to get so much experience that I can become a God in any Stat I choose. ]

Yet again, the thread was derailed, spinning out of control as people played with that idea. My own head was abuzz. Could that be possible? I mean, surely it could be. They were The Admins, they designed this whole ass world, they could do whatever they wanted with it. 

My mind raced. A tournament. A chance at becoming good at anything I chose. Did I even hope to dream? Of course not, it was a joke. I was so bothered that I responded to ChainedThinker.

[ {RaeDarz}: Man, you almost gave me hope for a second, until I realized that a tournament is just a chance for people who are already amazing to prove how amazing they are. And your idea for a prize would just make one amazing person one hundred times more amazing. And if you’re implying that they would turn off Respawn for the tournament the probability of anyone but the elites entering goes down to near zero. ]

The thread was over twelve hours old, with no new responses in about six. But, amazingly, I didn’t get barely any time to drown in my misery before the man himself replied. 

[ {ChainedThinker}: You raise good points. I don’t know if they would turn off Respawn, but I know for something like this they would want as many people as possible to compete. So I think they will offer enhancements to those that compete, even on the lower ranks. Everyone will enter because everyone has chances to gain. It’s the only way to do it, in my opinion. ]

I sat up in my chair, a smile forming on my face. What he said made sense. If they wanted it to be a big, huge thing to unite everyone, it only made sense they would offer something to entice the nobodies of the Interverse. Almost like a consolation prize. It might not be a crazy gain but it would be something, with the possibility of more. It was a slim chance, but it was the closest I’d gotten to real hope in, oh, two decades. 

It was enough of a hopeful distraction that I’d forgotten what day it was, that every second I spent looking for answers brought me closer to the end. An alarm went off, jolting me back to reality. 11:59 PM flashed in the middle of my vision, an Interverse feature that could not be turned off, believe me, I checked. It wanted to make sure I was completely aware of what dreaded day it was.

My birthday. 

My twenty-fifth, to be exact. Not a very special milestone back on Earth, but kind of a stealth important one: that was the year a human brain became fully developed. In the Interverse, as humans age before reaching that point they are blessed with experience points. A pretty hefty boost to them. And, you guessed it, after the magic twenty-fifth birthday? It disappeared. 

So, not only had I been wasting my life away trying to find my thing, I’d also not been taking advantage of a natural experience boost. Quite a lovely combo. That one two punch had practically brought me to complete insanity. Or, desperation. 

Even with that shred of hope about the tournament, now that I had a freaking minute left before my youth effectively ended, I was back where I started my night, crying at my kitchen table. 

I considered ending it all. Of course I did. The thought always popped up. But I pushed it aside. I couldn't... I couldn't do that. Not many people care about me but that wasn't even my main concern. Just the headline of it, Child Star Follows in Her Mother's Footsteps. 

That couldn't be our legacy. 

My mom, even though we didn't have the best of relationships at times, was brilliant. A technical genius and historian, obsessed with old technology and new. I wouldn't let her be known as the kooky techy lady who killed herself and her daughter followed soon after. 

Nope, her legacy would instead be me, the Jack of All, continuing to live a miserable, pointless life. 

I continued to sob. I tried not to think about my mom. There was too much still unworked out there. Trauma and hurt feelings, that can never be put right. On top of this most terrible of birthdays, leaving it all behind didn't sound so bad. 

The clock struck midnight. A sharp pain went through my head and I winced, a message appeared before me:

[ Achievement unlocked! 25th Birthday reached!

You're a big girl now! ]

[ Stat boost: 0% ]

[ Youth Stat Bonus: 0% ] 

[ Welcome to the rest of your life! ] 

Ouch. And there it was. The end of my advantage. Now I was just like any other adult. Except worse off cause I'd squandered it. A normal adult would have made the perfect build for their life, gotten good and far up in levels in the needed stats and be set for life. 

Me? I was all alone on this milestone birthday, considering ending it all.

Yet again, right on time, I got another message from my least favorite people. And for the first time in my entire life I actually opened it. 

[ Hello, Darcy! Happy Birthday! We know this is the big one. We won’t beat around the bush, we know this day can find people like us in a bad way. But we just want you to know this: you are not alone. There are tons of others, just like you who know what its like and how to help. Even if you don’t have a worthwhile Starter Skill there is still hope! We can all find our meaning… together. Just click the link, there are always groups going on, filled with people ready to help. We are always here for you. ]

If I’d already been sobbing, I don’t know what you would call what that message made me do. I’d unlocked a new level of tears. I shut my eyes and buried my face in my hands. Had it really come to this? I was so helpless and desperate that an email from Statistic Anomalies didn't immediately garner disdain and ridicule but fucking tears?? 

I’d hit rock bottom. After two decades of resisting, I clicked the link and was whisked away to a fucking AA meeting for Interverse losers.

Just like me.  

Thank you for reading! You can read up to chapter 8 on Royal Road here and if you want to read up to FIFTEEN chapters ahead please consider supporting me on Patreon.