Samuel Graves and the Akemic Chronicles

You Can Pick Your Class...

Samuel opened his eyes to the blinding light of the morning sun, the chirps of birds, and the cool dampness of morning dew beneath him. Blinking back his sleep, he stared up into the clear sky above while wondering why the Hell he’d fallen asleep outside.

“Did I get jumped again?” He groaned, sitting up. Rubbing his head, he looked around before his eyes went wide at the surrounding scenery. “… and kidnapped?”

Plymouth was in the middle of scrub land, which meant two things: heat and vast stretches of ugly drab fields. It was always muggy, especially in the mornings, and there was rarely any wind to speak of. Wherever he was… he could confidently say that he wasn’t anywhere near home.

He was lying on the slope of a gentle hill covered in verdant emerald grass, small thickets of trees clumped together every few hundred feet. A cool wind billowed past, carrying the aroma of countless flowers, and he could hear the warbling cries of birds flapping by as he pushed himself to his feet. Dusting off his pants, he heaved a sigh and looked around.

“Well… this sucks.” He groused, smacking his lips. “Last thing I remember, I was in my room… did Theresa drug me again?”

Before he could think on his first experience facing ethics charges, he heard the whinnying of a horse close by, which surprised him.

Mostly because it was the whinnying of a freaking horse!

“Where the Hell did someone get a horse? What, am I in Amish country?” He asked aloud before stopping. “Wait… where the Hell are there Amish in Texas?”

Deciding to investigate rather than get lost in a debate with himself, he walked down the slope and around the hill to see if he could find some help. While he didn’t expect to find anyone with a phone (the Amish not using such things as they seemed to enjoy living in a time when dysentery was a threat) he hoped they could bring him somewhere that embraced the concept of electricity.

And soap.

Stepping over a small rise of rocks, he caught sight of the horse making the noises and paused as he grew even more confused.

It was just a horse.

Not a horse and buggy, or a horse pulling a plow for a farm, or a cop mounted on a horse.

Just… a lone horse, chewing on some grass.

It was brown, but Samuel had kind of assumed it would be. It looked smaller than he thought it would be, but maybe it was a pony or something.

The horse noticed him and looked up, chewing idly on a dandelion as it studied him with a look akin to “Huh, a person. How odd…”

Samuel looked around, wondering where the horse’s owner was.

“Who do you belong to?” He asked it, feeling a tad bit silly as he did so. “I mean, you couldn’t be wild, right? Are there wild horses anymore?”

The horse responded with a grunt as it continued chewing.

Samuel heaved a sigh. “Great, I’m lost and spending my time talking to a- WHOA!”

He damn near fell back as his field of vision was consumed by a translucent blue panel.

WELCOME TO TERRA

NEW GAME

CONTINUE

CREDITS

The screen didn’t disappear, and a small cursor floated next to the highlighted “NEW GAME” option, with the “CONTINUE” and “CREDITS” grayed out. Blinking, he studied the screen for a few seconds before turning to look around it.

… which proved impossible, as the damnable thing rigidly floated before him despite any of his attempts to shake it.

“Okay… so I finally lost my mind.” He said, doing his best to remain calm. “No worries, Sammy, no worries. You always knew this would happen. Just kind of assumed I’d… I don’t know, try to conquer a MacDonalds or something. Not… not imagine whatever the Hell this is.”

Staring at the screen, he felt at a loss for words. It wouldn’t go away, and the cursor kept flicking in and out of existence, almost as if it were getting impatient.

“Well… might as well play along until someone wakes me up, or the drugs wear off.” He mused, shaking his head. “Um, how do I…?”

He reached up and tapped the “NEW GAME” option, surprised when it flashed gold and burned away. He clapped his hands over his ears as the blaring of trumpets blasted into his ears, and a booming voice began shouting.

“Welcome to Terra, young hero, and take heed! This is a world of magic and mystery, one plagued by villains most foul! Will you rise to the task and make your mark on history, or will you fall to the blade of some fell warrior? Choose your class and begin your quest to become ruler of these fair lands!”

The screen flickered before being filled with hundreds of smaller options, all names of classes you’d expect from a video game.

“Okay,” he mused as he stared at the options. “That does it, Theresa was right. I play too many games.”

Flicking his hand on the sidebar, he started scrolling through the options. Each time he selected a class, it brought up a brief description and mentions of other concepts never found outside of a cheesy role-playing game.

“Let’s see… Invoker?” He read, looking over the description.

INVOKER

ROLE: DPS

STAT: INTELLIGENCE

STRENGTHS: POWERFUL OFFENSIVE MAGICS

WEAKNESS: LIMITED DEFENSIVE SPELLS, LOW HEALTH

STARTING GEAR: APPRENTICE ROBES, INVOKER’S TOME

THE INVOKER IS A DISCIPLE OF ELEMENTAL WAR, WIELDING THE POTENT ENERGIES OF FIRE TO LAY WASTE TO ALL WHO STAND BEFORE THEM.

“That doesn’t sound too bad…” he mused, scrolling past it to check over a few other options. “I doubt I could be any kind of warrior, not really that strong.”

The thought made him think of the conversation, and thoughts, he’d had yesterday after Theresa had saved him. They made him frown, as he considered maybe trying to find something that would make him strong like her. Continuing to scroll, he swept past dozens of options, all seeming just as good as the last.

He slowed and stopped to think. No, he shook his head, I shouldn’t do something that I’m not comfortable with, and I always hate games where I go warrior. Doesn’t matter how tough one would be, something with magic can make them eat two fireballs and drop ‘em like nothing…

Focusing on something with magic, he started finding options he liked, but nothing that he fell in love with.

Until he stopped on Clockwork Caster.

CLOCKWORK CASTER

ROLE: DPS, TANK

STAT: INTELLIGENCE

STRENGTHS: A COMBINATION OF OFFENSIVE MAGICS WITH CLOCKWORK AUGMENTS ALLOW A VERSATILE ARRAY OF ABILITIES

WEAKNESS: LIMITED OFFENSIVE OPTIONS

STARTING GEAR: APPRENTICE ROBES, CLOCKWORK ASSISTANT

Huh… that doesn’t seem too bad, he mused, thinking over how he always enjoyed tinkering and working on his computer. He wasn’t the best, but he always enjoyed the work as he found it relaxing and rewarding.

Especially when he did an upgrade.

Still…

Clockwork Assistant? Is that like a pet, or something? He thought, looking over the entry for any kind of reference to what that might be. Stupid menu, a class description would be freaking helpful here!

Looking around, the surrounding area barely discernible behind the blue screen. He frowned.

“I can’t keep standing around out in the open like this.” He grumbled, getting worried. “If this is like any other game, I’ll get jumped by a slime or something if I just stand here playing with my d**k like this… ah, screw it! I’ll be waking up any time now. Might as well try this one.”

Clicking the option “SELECT” at the bottom of the screen, he winced as the screen flashed bright before disappearing. A faint glow at his feet told him he should move, and he darted back just in time to dodge a bundle of clothes and a backpack as they materialized into being where he’d been standing.

The horse, still grazing, didn’t seem fazed by this and just glanced over as Samuel stood up and brushed himself off. He glared at it before stooping down to investigate what had just spawned in.

“Okay… this sucks.” He said after he’d emptied the backpack.

Inside had been a blank journal, a stoppered bottle of blue ink and a few feather quills, and some jerkied meat of dubious origin and a stoppered flask of what smelled like water. There was also a sack of what he could only describe as random bits of junk and scrap, a few copper tools, and a smattering of heavy silver coins.

The clothes were… terrible, to be frank. They looked like a poor imitation of Harry Potter clothes, the kind you’d expect to find at an anime convention worn by some greasy neckbeard wielding a stick shouting poorly thought out Latin with his buddies. They were dull brown, with deep pockets and heavy sleeves made of an itchy wool. The only advantage was that it had a hood attached that, when pulled up, looked like it would swallow up his head and let him walk around without having to worry about a bright day.

Before he could even consider whether he would don the horrible thing, the damnable screen sprang back to life, blinding him.

“Son of a w***e!” He snarled, stumbling back as the disembodied voice boomed in his head once more.

“Young Hero, you have taken the first step to greatness and a applaud you! Now, you must select your abilities! Choose carefully, the fate of our world is in your noble hands!”

“Miserable piece of… Jesus, what the Hell?” He cried as hundreds of options started filling up the menu. “Who the Hell would design a game like this?”

He spent the next twenty minutes sitting cross-legged on the ground, scrolling through the options before he figured out what could loosely be described as a pattern between them.

Each skill had a passive effect, meaning something that was just always running, and an active effect, which he had to focus to use. They all cost XP to gain, something he would gather from killing things, Samuel assumed, and many had requirements such as having a high strength score, or having completed some task or quest.

“Huh… how do I check my ability scores, I wonder?” He mused, flicking through a section of abilities that seemed to revolve around cooking, of all things. “Maybe I can see it after I select my abilities?”

He found he could select entire groups of skills relegated to abilities (the ability to use a sword, for example) by class (the Clockwork Caster had an ungodly amount of options), or by activity (the aforementioned cooking). He found that he seemed to have started with one-thousand XP to spend, which sounded good until he realized most skills cost several hundred.

“Well… let’s test this system out with something easy then, I guess…” He said, searching for a truly cheap skill he could nab to see how it would work.

Searching, he found one that seemed to fit the bill, surprisingly enough, in his class list.

SKILL: SCRAPPER

PASSIVE: +5% METAL LOOTED FROM DEFEATED ENEMIES

ACTIVE: MAY SPEND AN HOUR DISASSEMBLING ANY CLOCKWORK, STEAM-POWERED, OR COALFUELD DEVICE TO GAIN THE SCHEMATIC. INCREASE MATERIAL GAIN FROM SUCH ENDEAVORS BY +10%.

COST: 50 XP

“Seems useful, I suppose… seeing as I got a sack of junk, I’ll probably need to gather materials for this game whenever I can.” He mused, tapping the “SELECT SKILL” option.

He jumped as the blaring trumpets rang through his head, a brilliant white light flashing to fill his vision as it swirled around him. “Jesus Christ! Gah, my eyes!” He shouted, dropping to the ground as he felt his retinas burn. “Mother of God, why?”

By the time he regained his vision, his eyes feeling like someone had tried to scramble them, he found that the screen was still there and it had allotted his skill to him. He didn’t feel any different, so perhaps it’d been one of the less useful skills to test with.

“Okay… note to self, don’t learn a new skill unless you’re somewhere safe…” he said, shaking his head. “God damn, that is brisk! Wakes you up better than coffee… now, what other skills should I nab?”

He spent the next few hours selecting skills, all the while being kept company by the same disinterested horse and the singing birds roosted in nearby trees. He then spent another few hours trying to coax the horse into letting him mount it. After the second time it had bitten him, he started reconsidering as he hadn’t ever really ridden a horse outside of a video game and was finding that despite this clearly being a gamer dream, the horse wasn’t going to cooperate.