Fight. Level. Survive.

Chapter 9 - Info Dump

Mason eagerly settled into a plush leather armchair across from Mayry, ready to finally learn more about the world that he was trapped in. Mayry had brought a piece of paper with her, which she had placed on the table between them. Looking at the paper, he saw the odd symbols she wrote change into words of English. He picked up the sheet and read.

Money

Magic

-Family

-General

-Chaos

Mason Theory

Training

General stuff about the world

Politics

Just as he finished reading, she spoke, “That’s what we are going to talk about, but first, I want you to tell me everything that you remember and everything about your system thing.”

Mason jumped right to it, explaining the story of him hearing a knock, answering it and then waking up in a forest fully naked. He then explained what video games were, the game interface, and their similarities with his ‘system’.

She didn’t stop him to ask questions but seemed intrigued when he mentioned electricity, things like TV and the internet.

When he had finished explaining everything, he listed what he could currently do.

“There is the storage and looting power you know about, but I also get stats I can sort of spend on myself to increase my strength and speed and all sorts of other things.” Pausing for a moment feeling like he had forgotten something, he added. “Oh! And my Magic Bolt, of course, which is like a little bit of magic I can shoot out of my hand. It isn’t very strong yet, but I think I can strengthen it by upping my intelligence stat. The Magic Bolt was from a skill selection I think I might eventually get more of, but I’m unsure when or how that works.” He had purposely missed out his Emotional Wreck skill, as he was still a bit embarrassed by it.

“You have looting and storage, these stat things and an attack? And you think you’ll get more? Damn, that’s insane.” She sat back in her chair. “I have a theory on what happened to you, but I think we should start with Money, as it’s relatively simple and once we delve into magic, it gets more complicated and, frankly, weird.”

“Sure…” Mason said, curious about the theory but not enough to push,” Sounds good, so I gather that there are copper, bronze, iron and silver and probably gold, but I haven't seen any of those yet.

“The chances you will ever see a gold coin is very low. My family owns this town, but I’ve never even seen a gold.”

“That much, huh? Wow?” he said, wondering what kind of monster he would have to kill to get a gold coin out of it.

Mayry took the paper, started writing, and handed it back to Mason.

100 Copper = 1 Bronze

100 Bronze = 1 Iron

100 Iron = 1 Silver

20 Silver = 1 Gold

Mason read as she started talking again.

“A copper by itself won’t buy you anything. A Bronze will get you a meal somewhere cheap; an Iron is slightly less than an average week’s wage….” Mason cut her off.

“You took an iron from me for these clothes! There is no way they cost that much!”

Laughing, she replied, “Not even close, but you offered it; I just accepted. Now shush.” Shooting him a mock glare.

She continued her little lecture. “A silver will buy you almost anything you want, as it’s worth 100 Iron; it’s a lot of money; the fact you got 2 of them on your first day here is insane, but probably due to how rare Drakes are.“ Mason felt a twinge of guilt for having killed something considered rare.

“Lastly, gold. Gold is only really used by the insanely rich. With a few gold coins, you could probably buy this entire town. So, while incredibly unlikely, if you ever loot a monster and get gold, tell no one about it. I hate to say this but don’t even tell me… I’m not above murdering for gold.”

Her expression had been completely neutral as she calmly warned him about her possibly trying to murder him for his money. He wasn’t sure if she was joking, but he expected he didn’t want to find out.

Wanting a minute to figure out how the money related to his world, he snatched the paper and motioned for the pencil Mayry was holding.

He jotted down a few notes and made a few guesses considering an iron was a week’s pay and a Bronze could buy a cheap meal. Coming to a rough estimate, he wrote:

Copper 0.05p

Bronze 5£

Iron £500

Silver £50,000

Gold £1,000,000

Staring at his estimates, he realised he had spent nearly £20,000 just on this hotel room and had tipped the waitress…

“Oh my Go…” before he could finish the word ‘God’, Mayry moved like lightning, out of her seat over the table and on top of him, planting her hand over his mouth. Mason struggled, not knowing what was happening but calmed as Mayry moved her hand.

Panting from moving so fast, she whispered, “The next time you try and say that, I will kill you, and that is not a joke.”

Mason, shocked and confused at the situation Mason exclaimed, “Jesus Christ”! Before slapping a hand to his mouth and shooting a worried glance, a Mayry, wait, can I say that?”

“Who’s Jesus Christ? You know what? I don’t care. Say whatever you want. The only thing you can’t say is that word, or you risk waking one of them… anytime that word is said out loud, bad things happen….”

“An info hazard? That’s pretty cool! That word is used openly in my world a lot, so I’ll do my best not to say it.”

“Don’t try. Just don’t do it unless you want a Dragon to swoop down and kill everything within sight.”

Mason bit down on his tongue to stop himself from saying what he wanted to say. Mayry noticed and said impatiently, “What is it?”

Mason burst out with, “Seeing a real-life dragon would be really cool. Do you reckon I could get strong enough to fight one and be a dragon slayer? Or A dragon rider! Are there dragon riders here?”

Speaking loudly, Mayry assumed her lecturer persona and held up 3 fingers. “There are three main types of Magic. There is Family Magic we talked a bit about, there is General Magic and Chaos Magic.”

She withdrew a second piece of paper and started drawing what looked to be a family tree.

“Family Magic is pretty much what it sounds like; different families pass down different abilities to their children. My father has Elemental family magic he got from his mother and passed down to me. When he married my mother, she got a weaker version and could now somewhat control Air and Nature. If someone with family magic has children with someone else with different family magic, the child will either get both or neither.” Pausing, she said, “Does this make sense so far?”

Mason, entranced by Mayry’s lesson, nodded and said, “Please go on.”

“With Family Magic, you can learn the ins and out and practice until you master it, but the ability itself never gets stronger, so a fireball I shoot now will be as powerful as it will be in 20 years, but my ability to control it will no doubt be better. However, it tends to get stronger every time it gets passed down. Any questions?”

Mason considered curiously. He asked, “Two questions. Where did it originally come from? You say it’s passed down, but who had it first, and where did they get it? Also, what other types of Family Magic are there?”

“For your first question, I can’t answer that as it involved the word I told you never to say, but there are books on the subject you can find out later if you’re interested. As for your second question, There are, at last count, 53 families who have Family Magic. Some are huge, and some are down to their last surviving member. The Magic varies greatly but tends to be either utility-based, offensive-based, or both. There is a family that can control light, one that can focus magic into their limbs to make them stronger or faster; I once heard of a family who could disappear from one spot and appear again miles away. There isn’t an extensive list of the family’s powers, so there is a lot of rumour and gossip flying around, but my family’s magic is pretty public knowledge.”

“The second type of magic is general magic. General magic is something anyone can learn. Runes, Rituals, and Alchemy are all examples of general magic; this magic is all about study and, so, takes a lot longer to progress, there aren’t schools that teach general magic, and for each person, the magic is different. For example, if I were to take 2 ingredients and add them to a pot, they might become a potion. You could take 2 identical ingredients to do the same thing, but the result, in the end, will be different. This is because of the innate Chaos Magic everyone possesses interfering with the ingredients.

Midway through Mayry talking, Mason picked up the paper and took notes. Looking down at his writing, he asked, “Are Runes, Alchemy and Rituals the only types of General magic?”

“Sort of; there is also divination and Blood Magic… but no one sane believes in divination, and Blood Magic is more of an offshoot of ritual magic.”

“What sort of stuff does Blood Magic do?

“I’m not an expert, but I’ve heard it can heal, give you temporary boosts in other areas, and some types of transformations that are also temporary.”

Are you ready to hear about Chaos Magic? It’s the most complicated and one most relevant to you.”

“Yeah, lay it on me.”