NeoRealm – Staring Back Into the Future

Back in game morning has come and the party are all logged back in. Rosha claps her hands to get everyone's attention, “Ok guys, time to get some skills! I did some research so I know what I want. Hopefully you two weren’t lazy last night.” and with that she bounces out of the room. The Jason and James both glance at each other before following.

Soon they arrive at the Guild and for the first time Jason gets a look into the training hall. The place actually shocked him as he was expecting just a hall with people standing around. In reality, though it is almost more of a hallway as each instructor has walls around their area. At the moment most of the instructors are just standing around chatting. Rosha looks around before striding forward and getting on a nearby box of equipment. Most people in the room at this point are looking at her. Soon though the whole room is paying attention as she starts to speak, “Now I have a weapon here” and she holds up the bow in one hand and her daggers in the other. “This is one weapon” then she assembles it, “and I would like to know if any of you can train me in the skill for it and its various forms.”

Her announcement gets everyone arguing. The warrior types want to just have her train in each form separately and aim for a weapon master style skill. All the magic types seem to think she should ignore the basic skills and go for empowering the weapon as then the form won't matter. However in the end a group of rangers come forward and admit they know a way to get a skill specifically for the weapon. The option will however take all her free beginner skills. Despite having wanted some other things Rosha has to admit what is basically 3 or 4 separate weapon skills is probably worth it.

As everyone calms down from that nonsense Jason and James head towards the people likely to have what they want. James finds the trainer for himself easily enough just needing some weapons training. Turns out he uses a whip and shield. After these two skills though the trainers cut him off commenting on how he shouldn’t be greedy.

On the other hand Jason has some trouble finding the trainers he needs. While his current armor is leather, that might not be a permanent thing and it isn’t like he is using a shield. That, weapons, and magic covers most what people are teaching for free in this area. Not exactly helpful in this instance.

Eventually he works his way over to the rogue style trainers. Since Rosha’s tactic worked so well Jason decides to try it on a smaller scale here. Just heading towards the shady looking types in the corner gets their attentions though most don’t show it. When he is close enough that he can easily be heard by all of them without shouting Jason starts talking.

Not having any fancy weapon to show off it takes a bit more of a preamble to describe his problem but eventually Jason gets to his point, “I don’t need the normal starting skills. In fact I likely need nothing from most of you either. While I don’t want to be too cocky or at least more so than I already have been, but could some of you explain what you have to offer me?”

As if on prior agreement a pale man with rough tan suit step forward and address Jason, “You can call me John and if I don’t miss the mark, you aren’t talking about the more thief flavored stuff.”

“True, I am a martial artist, not one of the sneaky types either.”

John nods, “We won’t just give you a list of skills and you very well know why but how about a selection of a few movement skills and maybe a little extra if you show some talent in what you choose. I don’t personally care if you are okay with this. Either you agree and follow me into a more secluded training area or just go somewhere else for all I care.” and with that John starts walking away into one of the nearby enclosed areas.

It doesn’t take Jason that long to think before he follows. Once he enters the walled off area though he stops in shock. What looked like a small empty training yard from the outside has changed. Instead there is a relatively large yard which appears to be made of all the adjacent areas connected. In the center is a mass of poles stuck in the ground. Starting on one side with decent size logs of a uniform shape though quickly shrinking to willow bamboo shoots of varying heights.

John is standing on the opposite side of the room in a dark corner with his hands behind his back. In the time he was out of sight his suit has changed to a mottled black armor that seems to bleed into the surrounding shadows. He gestures at the poles and explains, “Whatever movement skill you choose we will use this field. Now because I am feeling a bit lazy, I will only tell you the names of the three skills. Your options are ‘Winding Snake of the Forest’, ‘Desolate Traversal Technique’, and ‘Swift Footed Passthrough’. Take your pick, they are all about the same.”

Jason resists the urge to smirk. As he was planning on getting some skills he had already looked into what was available. While the System restricted things like the details of skills, the general descriptions for such common skills where easy to find. The Snake one was a movement skill but focused more on dodging through trees or a crowd of people. Swift Footed Passthrough was a short range movement skill that focused ongoing through the enemies space quickly to set up for something like a backstab or running away. The last one, Desolate Traversal Technique though was the one for him. If he had to compare it to anything, the skill would be like an enhanced parkour which uses a person's energy to allow for normally impossible things. Stuff like running on the ceiling and such though that was admittedly quite a high level. Speaking up Jason tells him that, “I want to learn the Desolate Traversal Technique.”

John nods, “Now I am not going to describe the skill, if you didn’t do your homework on what skills are available then that's not my problem. Anyway I know I said we would use this”, and he gestures at the poles, “but that isn’t quite true. For this skill we need to change things, like so” and he steps to the side reveal what is clearly a control panel. With the press of a few buttons the field begins to change.

First the bigger poles start to shrink until everything is of a uniform size. Next several poles create pairs and boards form between them before raising above the others. Finally several normal poles lean over at odd angles to the rest. After a quick check of the field John nods his head before continuing with, “This is the field we will be using. If you had chosen either of the other skills, I wouldn’t have had to change anything. This field isn’t quite a secret but I would prefer if you told no one about it. Anyway I want you to jump around on top a bit so I can get a feel for your ability to move around like a monkey.”

Shrugging his shoulders Jason heads over to what looks like the starting area. After a couple of simple stretches he hops up a group of poles set up like stairs and onto the only horizontal platform. Even with most poles being the width it is clear when up this close that these are much stiffer than those farther away. A deep breath and Jason hops onto the closest pole. Seeing no reason to try to impress he decides to slowly ramp it up. A hop to the next pole and then wait to be steady. Taking a deep breath and then onto the next. Slowly he makes his way down the field. While not speeding up he doesn’t slow down either as the poles flex, bend, and tilt from his momentum. Soon he reaches one of the vertical platforms. After steadying himself next to it Jason gives it a shove. This one doesn’t bend and stays straight.

Nodding, Jason continues and is quickly at some tilted poles. Now he is forced to slow down as the slanted poles don’t just stabilize. Soon however this doesn’t work. The poles are now flexible enough and at odd enough angles that if he tries to stay on one too long he will fall off. At this point he is almost seeming to walk around from pole to pole. Finally however he can’t keep it up and a pole almost seems to collapse under him causing a quick trip to the floor.

John is standing next to Jason looking down at him, “Decent skills if a little below what I would require for me to personally train someone. Luckily I don’t have to personally train you, not technically. To get the skill will be simple enough sounding though of course these things are always more difficult in implementation rather than planning.” and he goes back over to the control panel and turns back, “I will set it so the poles light up in a pattern. Your task will be to only ever stop on a lit spot. Your current location will flash twice before disappearing so don’t linger because if you aren’t on a spot the pole will become like a wet noodle. Then of course you will have to start over.” Turning back to the panel his hand suddenly blurs into action. Presumably he is pressing buttons but Jason can’t make heads or tails but to take long enough for him to even notice it is happen shows how many presses it takes. John finishes with, “Start when you want, I will be back when you done.” and with a wave of his hand Jason loses sight of him.

Shaking his head Jason heads back to the starting platform. Farther than the pole he started with last time has a pole with the top lit up. Jumping to it is easy enough but right away another which is back a little bit glows. Deciding to test it he decides to just stay where he is and within a handful of seconds the light under him flashes. Then it flashes again before going dark. The pole just falls out from under him. Being prepared this time he lands a bit more gracefully and looks back at the pole in time to see it right itself. Sighing that this wasn’t going to be one of those limited chances sort of deals. Then it is back to the starting platform. However when he gets there a different pole is lit up. Seems this won't be a simple memorization of the path.

Deciding that was enough testing Jason starts a serious try. From pole to pole he jumps. Slow at first but soon he isn’t allowed to stop as the light starts to flash even before he gets to the next pole. Then he falls. Not because he couldn’t reach the next pole but because one didn’t light up right away and his momentum caused him to slip off.

Back to the start and a completely new course of lights. This time he is prepared and doesn’t get thrown by the delay of the next light. Then he falls again. Instead of the top of the pole, one of the leaning poles lit up on the side and went limp when he didn’t land there. Start over but he falls for the delayed light after being distracted by the side light.

This goes on and on. New tricks getting him or not over and over but soon he can’t even remember them all. Soon it all falls away and he continues. Back and forth across the field as if he was walking on a flat path. Even when the vertical panels light up it doesn’t phase him and he simply bounces off of them. But all things must come to an end and this time it happens because the lit pole is too far to jump to.

Back to the start but this time the lights start off at the higher level and Jason is soon back into the groove. Again a light too far and he falls. Rinse and repeat a few more times but eventually he gets it. The light only matters when he stops on it. This time through when the light is too far away he doesn’t just try to jump to it. Instead he bounces off the poles in the way. They might fall limp but not before he uses them to push off and he makes its.

Now the light just appears at the various edges of the field forcing him to criss cross the place. But still he falls. Simply put Jason was using too many poles. They just didn’t recover quick enough and he got trapped with no poles nearby. Not giving up he continues. Falling less and less as time goes on.

Then something changes. Jason doesn’t notice it but his last jump brought him to a vertical platform. The next pole didn’t light up right away and so on pure instincts he just stayed on his current spot. Then a light appears elsewhere and he was off. Over in the shadows John lets a hint of amazement leak onto his face. Jason had finally achieved the first step.

Akhier

Things I wanted to mention but didn’t:

There are Skill Sets. Both as broad categories and more specific. For instance there might not be a ‘thief’ class there is a thief skill set and while there isn’t a direct skill for specifically throwing axes you can combine throwing and axe mastery into ‘throwing axe mastery’. By getting all of them you have two options. The first is to combine them. This will remove all the skills and create the ‘thieving’ skill at the average level of all the combined skills. The benefit of this is that anything you would do to improve one of the skills that you just combined will help level the new skill. You could practice hiding all day and be better at picking pockets. There is also a synergistic effect to using multiple effects of the skill. An example would be hiding and moving silently so as to pickpocket someone. A normal person with just those skills will have a hard time with using them all at the same time while the person with the thieving skill will find it flows a lot easier. For instance the slight prompts the system gives for where to hide will take into consideration that your continuing to move instead of just suggesting that barrel over there would be good to hide behind. This allows you to level the skill a lot faster early on. Also as it levels up and ranks up the skill will add in other related skills if you don’t have them already. As an example a thieving skill might start out as just pickpocket, hide, and move silently but then gain pick lock later. Also if you gain the correct skills it is possible to evolve the skills set (this is so you can start with one and specialize later). With the thieving skill if you then later on pick up gather information and disguise and get them to a high enough level it is possible to rank up thieving to spying. Though of course you could always just directly make the spying skill. In the end though the biggest benefit people will get from this use of skill sets is that it hides what you can do. If you can justify your mix of skills combining to make thieving then the system will let you. While there is a ranking for these skill sets (thieving is of the lowest rank while spying and magical theft are both higher rank) you can’t be quite certain what a person can do with it. One thief might be able to get out of handcuffs in a matter of seconds while another doesn’t even know where to begin.

However there is a downside to it. The biggest is that there is a progressively worse xp penalty. This can be alleviated if you evenly use the all of what makes up the thief skill or act in the spirit of the skill. However to really reach high levels you need to have a high talent for it. Someone might be able to master the thieving skill set while if they upgrade it to spying the skill might just stagnate. Another of the downsides is that the individual skills are gone. This means if you combine your move silently skill into the thieving skill you wont be able to make a ranger skill set with it. Basically doing it this way limits what other skill sets you can make. Even worse lets say you wanted to become a spy but early in your career you made the make-up artistry skill and part of that was the disguise skill. You wont be able to upgrade thieving to spying because you can't combine skill sets. While some of what you put in a skill might be variable certain things are just required and a part of the spying skill is the ability to keep up appearences and look like you belong which needs the disguise skill. This is why they didn't come out and say that Rosha needed to do this.

Anyway the other options with skills sets is more popular for those with ambitions. This second option is to link the skills into a skill set. This allows you to combine the skills for thieving without actually losing them. While this does let you use the skills together with more flow (your moving silently while hiding instead of moving silently and hiding) it doesn't provide the better synergistic effects. Also while for instance thieving combines all the skills together so it is all the same level and rank, simply linking the skills does not. Instead when you try to hide and move silently it will use the lower level of the two for the combined efforts. You could be a master at hiding but if your just a journeyman at moving silently that is what you will be when doing both. The only thing that breaks this rule is the highest rank as that rank tends to break the rules anyway. While linking skills can't be done at the drop of a hat it is a popular method to allow future skills to be kept for better combined skills. As an example take the above thief that was trying to be a spy but had already used up disguise to be a makeup artist. If they had instead just linked the skills for makeup artist then they would be able to simply unlink them and then combine disguise into thieving to make spying.