sigh.
I must be having a mid-life crisis or something, on top of the existing crisis. An infinite number of possibilities, and we choose walking? WALKING!? It must be the heat.
“Now for my skill… hmm”. As much as I wish I could just move on, I need to think about this.
I only have 1 SP, but it looks like I can choose between spending it on a Combat Skill or a Utility Skill. I suppose I could unlock a defensive skill like a barrier, or an escape skill like a teleport, though all the teleport skills seem far too limiting. Maybe they'll improve at higher grades?
With what happened when I unlocked the walking proficiency… do we have an innate skill we could benefit from in the same way? I don’t think procrastinating is a skill that will be helpful in this situation. Could walking be a skill and a proficiency? but that isn’t going to save my ass if, or when, an entire settlement of aliens hunts me down on six-legged unicorn elephants. Hmm, I do have one idea...
Divergent… Aberrant… Skills… It all sounds so cool, but I’m just lost and scared. What else would you expect, after being dropped in the middle of an alien desert with all this System stuff!. I'm just trying my best not to think about how crazy all of this is.
There are people that say autism is a gift; a superpower. In their defense, their parents were probably siblings. Now here I am with access to actual superpowers of my choice, and I’m really contemplating giving that up for something we can kinda already do in the hopes it'll improve enough to be useful? What if I’m never able to level up? I don’t know how hard it is to get 20,000 Ether, but it sounds like a lot. Twenty times the amount of experience needed for me to hit level 2 anyway.
Why here? This planet. Desert. Settlement? Just what is Siri trying to accomplish with all this; and was I really ‘Isolated’ because of my neurodivergence? What the hell!
I don’t know what’s going on back on Earth. I wonder if Siri talks to them too. A world of billions trying to level up and get superpowers…
Maybe it’s a blessing we were isolated after all. Maybe… maybe our friends and family were isolated too? Well, family. Who am I trying to kid here?
We never really spoke about it, but we were all kinds of messed up. I hope Rita is doing okay at least. Could some of them be here? At this settlement? or maybe somewhere else on Astrion?
Something tells me Siri isn’t so considerate.
> [Xenomasking]
> Adapt your social skills to fit the alien culture and societal expectations that surround you. Your personality is automatically adjusted to fit in. Once this effect ends, you will suffer from exhaustion for several hours. Using this skill will reduce your current Mental Attributes depending on the amount of effort required. This has a duration of 1 Hour and a cooldown of 1 Day
Will this work? It seems similar enough. The thought of Siri being able to influence our personality is a bit scary, but we're used to changing our personality to fit in already so it's nothing we’re not used to. Fitting in might be my best shot at survival when I reach the settlement. It seems like a stupid idea to try to survive on my own out here, and hopeless if I were to try to outrun the aliens and fight back if - or when - things go wrong in the settlement.
> Skill Unlocked: [Xenomasking - Novice Grade]
> Innate skill [Neurovanilla Masking] Detected. 97% Compatibility.
> Combining…
> Skill Unlocked: [Masking - Beginner Grade]. New traits available
> Skill Unlocked: [Masking - Intermediate Grade]. New traits available
> Title Unlocked: Divergent Forerunner - Skill Mastery III
> Skill Unlocked: [Masking - Skilled Grade]. New traits available
> Title Unlocked: Divergent Forerunner - Skill Mastery IV
Woo! that’s exactly what we were hoping for! but what’s a -
> Skill Unlocked: [Masking - Advanced Grade]. New traits available
> Title Unlocked: Divergent Forerunner - Skill Mastery V
> Skill Unlocked: [Masking - Expert Grade]. New traits available
> Title Unlocked: Divergent Forerunner - Skill Mastery VI
> Skill Unlocked: [Masking - Master Grade]. New traits available
> Congratulations! The [Masking] skill has reached the highest grade possible.
> Title Unlocked: Divergent Forerunner - Skill Mastery VIII
Woah! That’s… what the heck? Were we already that good? That can’t be right. I mean sure, we’ve been masking for as long as we can remem-
> Warning: Innate Skill [Neurovanilla Masking] Exceeds System Maximum.
> Calibrating…
> Error: Calibration failed.
> Retrying… Calibration failed.
> Retrying… Calibration failed.
> External System Diagnostic Initiated...
> Aberrant Anomaly Detected. Divergent Anomaly Detected. Anomaly identification xb1Tb-77849-5d242-2cD98-61ae4-86P445-82fz
> Fatal: Failed to locate appropriate protocol. System Failure. Error Code 404.
> Please contact your [System Caretaker] for more information.
> Error: System Interface Corruption Detected. Shutting down…
> Error: Shutdown Failed. Please shutdown manually.
“Uhhhhhhh?!?”
> Warning: Self-Preservation Protocol Deactivated
“Nanidafrak? It wants us to do WHAT!?” I shout while crossing my arms. Hmph. Well. Now I’m not doing it.
How is it our life is so messed up that even the witch is now broken? As if being broken myself wasn’t hard enough, I have to deal with a broken System? A corrupt system interface?
“What is that title thing?”
> [Divergent Forerunner - Skill Mastery VIII]
> Title awarded to the Divergent Forerunners from the System Integration of #MWG-239-SolC.
> This individual was the first Divergent from their homeworld to have a skill reach the grade of Master. +10% Effectiveness to all Skills.
> … first … to have a skill reach the grade of Expert. +10% Effectiveness to all Skills.
> … first … to have a skill reach the grade of Advanced. +10% Effectiveness to all Skills.
> … first … to have a skill reach the grade of Skilled. +10% Effectiveness to all Skills.
> … fourth … to have a skill reach the grade of Intermediate. +7% Effectiveness to all Skills.
> Total +47% Effectiveness to all Skills
“I don’t like that number. Could we make it 45% instead?”
…
I guess not... at least it's a prime number I suppose. A near 50% increase seems pretty crazy good. I guess I didn't get my intermediate proficiency for walking fast enough for a title?
“Show me my [Masking] skill please Siri”
> [Masking - Mastery Grade]
> Adapt your social skills at-will to masterfully fit the culture and societal expectations that surround you. Your personality is automatically adjusted to fit in when desired. Using this skill will reduce your current Mental Attributes depending on the amount of effort required.
> TP: 7/7
> Traits Available:
> - Biological Mimicry
> - Vocal Mimicry
> - Historical Mimicry
> - …
Well now, that’s interesting. It seems the exhaustion penalty was removed, and it has no cooldown or duration as it is permanently active for as long as I want. After checking the traits, they are also really interesting. I wasn’t able to tell how similar the humanoids riding the Elephantays were to humans but if we do look different then [Biological Mimicry] would help, and if I grab [Language Mimicry] I would also be able to solve the language barrier issue! [Vocal Mimicry] sounds interesting too, hmm.
I’m not sure what a divergent forerunner is, but by the sounds of it there are others like me out there trying to figure this system out.
> Masking Trait [Biological Mimicry] Unlocked!
> Masking Trait [Language Mimicry] Unlocked!
> Masking Trait [Clothing Mimicry] Unlocked!
That leaves me with some unused trait points, in case I need to pick up something else later. I wonder how long it takes for someone to reach Master grade in a skill normally?
“Show me my status please Siri”
> AP: 1/1
Ah… we forgot about our attribute point. Let’s put it in [Wisdom], based on what Siri said before, it should help us fit in when we get to the settlement. Plus, it seems like mental attributes will also help with [Masking]
> [Wisdom] has increased from 3 to 6
Oh wow, 1 AP gave me 3 points? That's good to know.
“Well Nora, it looks like we’re as prepared as we’re going to be. Let’s head to the settlement. Maybe we can figure out what’s going on with this Divergent Forerunner stuff, or at least pet some elephantays!”
“SQUAWK!”
“Oh, do you think they’ll have toilets there?”
…
“Yeah…”, I sighed. That’s what I thought.
