---Deckherd---

“You know what?” Silveraxe added. “Sure. You’re ahead of schedule in training, and after you allocate all your stat points and choose your class, you should be able to stay alive on a basic independent spaceport. Let’s do it.”

“You mean it? Do you think you’ll be able to come off the ship, I mean, off your ship, off yourself, and join me for some shenanigans?”

“Once I pick my level 10 class specialization, yes. But based on how badly the level 5 wiped me out, I’m not gonna attempt it while I have all this flying, docking and chaperoning to do. You’ll be fine on your own.”

Deck didn’t care much for that, for some reason. He’d been mostly on his own for years, but he’d gotten used to having Silveraxe around. She was his friend. His partner.

“Would you, maybe, wanna come for a ride in my head at least?”

Silveraxe had a strange expression on her face after he said that, but Deck couldn’t quite read it.

“Sure, I’d like that Deckherd,” she said. “Pick your class first, then we’ll talk stats.”

Deck didn’t have to be told again. He pawed through his menu until the he found the Level 5 Class Selection options. Just like Silveraxe had shown him, he had Half-orc Mage listed as one of his racial options, as well as a bunch of other common level classes, like Fighter, Rogue, Cleric, and Bard. There was one uncommon class option, though. Something called a Half-orc Decker, which Silveraxe hadn’t mentioned. He pulled it up. And laughed.

“Silveraxe, you dick. This Decker guy is basically me!”

The little decker-Deckherd held a Gridverse terminal in one hand, wires leading off it and connected directly into ports built right into his skull. His oversized goggles glowed around the edges, and he had one haptic-glove encased hand held up, like he was mid-Grid hack.

“Exactly, and this is your chance to be more than just you. Sure, it’s uncommon and would give two bonus stat points each level, but you’d be stuck with boring options at Level 10. No Technomancer! Besides, you can already access the Gridverse better than that class thanks to the wetware I thoughtfully installed in you, so what would be the point in picking the class?”

Deck didn’t even argue, she was right. Still, Deckherd the Decker, Destroyer of Destinies had a nice alliterative ring to it. He said goodbye to the little guy, and made his choice.

Mage (c) – This common magic-wielding class sets the mana-hungry Player on the path of mystical enlightenment. Though broad and unfocused, the Mage is a requisite Class for every magic-focused Class Specialization. Mages receive +2 MIND stats per level-up, two Spell Ability slots, and may choose two common Mage spells upon selection. While additional ability slots, (Spell, Prog, Drain) may be unlocked with study, training, rewards or experimentation, you must still choose your first two spells wisely! Your Specialization may depend on it.

CLASS SELECTION: HALF-ORC MAGE. CONFIRM? Y/N

Deck recognized most if not all of those words, but it was the class he needed, so he confirmed, eyes and muscles clenched tight.

He expected pain, like when he’d allocated his first points into Wisdom. Expected to fall to the ground and need rest, like Silveraxe had.

Instead, he just suddenly and inexplicably wished that he had a mysterious robe to wear. Rather than intense pressure and pain in his skull, it felt more like his awareness of his surroundings had grown. It wasn’t that he could see more, or understand more… but he could certainly feel more.

And he’d gained a new tab under Abilities in his HUD menu.

Spells. He had a tab for Spells.

Holy fucking shit, he was a fucking mage!

The tab glowed slightly, as if he really needed an excuse to select it or something! Opening it up, he saw two empty slots with that same excitement-inducing glow. He selected the first one.

And was promptly lost in a flood of available common-class mage spells!

“Hey Sil?”

“Didja get spell slots?”

“Yah. Yah I sure did. What do I pick?”

“Hold on, you said you’d been tossing electricity around in your training? That’s what came out of your hands when you finally started to manipulate your raw mana?” Silveraxe sounded excited, but also like she was doing something else.

“Blue lightning sparks, yes. It’s probably incredibly rare and powerful.” Deck said proudly.

“Ok! Good, so you have a natural elemental bias to your raw energy, and electricity is a good one for you. It’s incredibly common, and you’ll be able to combo that out with a ton of Technomancer abilities and spells as you progress. Refine your list down to just those that use lightning elemental magic.”

Grumbling about the unnecessary accusation of how common lightning magic was, Deck fiddled around until he found what Silveraxe had instructed. The options reduced dramatically.

“Ok done. Some of these are listed as offensive, some defensive, some utility. And there’s, like, a fuck ton of information with each. Help?”

“This is dumb, mind if I join you in you head?”

“Hah, no. I already invited you before I picked my Class.”

Deckherd felt Sil’s presence expand in his mind. The list of available lightning spells flickered faster than he could follow until just one was sitting in his first slot, requesting his approval to select it.

“Thought so. All right buddy, so you have access to a large number of common elemental Mage spells. It’s not exhaustive, and magic users apparently invent new spells all the time. But you get these to pick from, and this is the clear first choice for you.”

Lightning Blast (c)– Novice Level 1 close-range elemental lightning spell. Uses 5MP per base cast, scalable based on selected number of targets and voltage output. Zero second cooldown. Upgradeable.

“Definitely that one,” Silveraxe said. “It’s the most versatile, it’s upgradeable, no cooldown at all, and it’s cheap. Plus it sounds like it’s similar to what you’ve been doing by accident, except you’ll be able to control it better and it wont use up all your mana. It’s the kind of spell that’ll be useful no matter how far you go.”

Well that sounded sick, so he confirmed the selection—and felt a spike of electric pain radiate through his body, starting in his chest and ending in his hands.

There it is. Hello pain, my old friend. As he’d feared and expected, so did the system deliver.

“Fuuuuuuuuck that stings,” he managed to rattle out.

Once the pain subsided, he felt the knowledge of how to cast his new spell flowing through his entire being. His fingers tingled with anticipation.

“Ok, what should we pick next,” he said as his body settled.

“Good question. Defensive spells, and utility spells like healing, would be helpful of course, but I think with your future build, and the assets we already have available to us, we should try something like this.”

Silveraxe opened his second spell slot and tore through the available spells while she spoke in his mind. She settled on something that seemed sort of confusing.

Summon Program (u)– Novice Level 1 close proximity summoning spell, size small. Uses 15MP+10CP base and 5MP+5CP for each minute program is maintained in any universe other than the Gridverse, where the spell costs are halved. 60 minute cooldown. Upgradeable.

“I don’t understand… wait. Make a program appear physically?” Deckherd said, potential beginning to dawn on him.

“Yes, exactly. You have to have access to the program already, but for programs that have a physical element in their coding, you can summon it into Reality exactly as it appears and functions in the Grid. This is like, a crazy uncommon, borderline rare spell Deckherd. Most mages would never have access to this kind of thing, especially for their first spell slots. This is definitely being offered by The STC based on your skills and abilities. I’m… I’m impressed.”

Deck didn’t wait to hear anything else, and mentally slammed down the accept button.

The spike of pain erupted in him once more, though this time it started in his brain like with his first points in Wisdom. It hurt worse, but was over faster than his first spell. And when it was done, he knew.

He knew how to cast spells.

“So like, that net I made when we broke into the StellarCon ship. I could pull that out of the geevee and toss it on someone in Reality?”

Deck was rubbing his hands together, metal against meat. He was thinking about all the fun programs he could write, then pull them out for surprise victories and hijinks. This was going to be stupid fun.

“Yes, you can toss your net, Deckherd. Or I don’t know, you could summon Bruno into Reality and have him tank damage and destroy your enemies in battle. Think bigger man! It’s only Level 1 now, so a supremely useful version of our BruBru is probably a ways away. But if you practice, you’ll level it up, and then we can really be a Party!”

“Space me. For real?” he asked, totally flabbergasted. That sounded insanely powerful.

“Yes, for real. Reality real. Now. You’re about to start using way more mana than you can even imagine. It’s time to put those points to good use.”

Deckherd opened his Player Profile and gasped at what he saw.

“Hey, my CP is higher! And my Chrome stats are up. Is that cause of my arm?”

“Definitely, you can earn stats based on upgrades, abilities, skills, titles, you name it. It’s just the free points you can allocate at will, and even they have caps and rules that we’ll run into sooner or later.”

Deckherd merrily started dumping points into Wisdom to jack up his Mana Point bar as high as possible, but it wouldn’t let him add his last point.

“Hey what gives?” he asked.

“Looks like you found your first cap. Multipliers like Wisdom, Constitution and Wetware will have the lowest caps so your skills and abilities don’t get overpowered for your level. Looks like based on your class, race and level, maybe even your title, your Wisdom cap is 10. That’s actually pretty good though! With a 10 in Wisdom and no other changes, your MP bar would be at 260. You should do that.”

Deckherd grumpily fiddled around with his Player Profile. He moved his class up near his race and moved his title down as he still didn’t know what it did. He added his free points to different stats without confirming the choices to see how they would affect his bars.

“Would adding points to my WET stat upgrade the cyber implant in my brain?” he asked.

“No, but it will improve your processing speed, and raise your Computational Points multiplier. I can upgrade the implant in your brain if need be, but that’s not currently necessary. If you want to jam more upgrades in your skull, I have some ideas, though!”

Deck chose to not engage with that line of thought at the moment.

“What if I maxed out my Constitution and got a thick Health Points bar?”

“Are you a fighter, Deckherd?”

“Well, I could be…”

“No. You’re a mage, and as soon as we can possibly get you to Level: 10, you’ll be a Technomancer. You need to practice your magic, so you need a thick Mana Points bar.”

Deckherd sighed like a kid who’d been denied just one more snack before supper. It was still fucking awesome to have a massive pool of mana to play with, so he really only had 1 free point to deliberate on, anyway. He tossed it at WET, just to see if the change was noticeable. Plus, his new chrome arm had upped his BOD and WEP stats, so this way he padded all his CHROME stats.

He made his choices, mentally hovered over the accept Y/N command while he prepared himself for the intense pain, and hit it.

He breathed a sigh of relief as once again, no pain assaulted his senses. Instead, he felt a dizzying rush of what he could only describe as power.

He’d rocketed from 57 MP to 260, and he’d roughly doubled his CP with a jump up to 100. He also had a small, nearly insignificant gain in HP just due to his chrome stats all going up.

The bars in his HUD looked good. Real good. He noticed that he’d also gained a sort of hotlist for his two spells, probably to make it faster and easier to use them when it really mattered.

“Hey Silveraxe?”

“Yeah?”

“I still have one more training session today. Do you think all this new shit will help me in metallurgy and magnetism with Max?”

Silveraxe had a gleam in her eye that he wasn’t sure he liked as she snickered, “Fucking. Definitely.”