Chapter 5: Metatheory

Kathryne's eyes shoot wide open, still half submerged in Wolfgang's bed.

Half the room is shrouded in darkness, with the other half illuminated by the lava lamp's dim light.

Her memories are back.

She's from a different world, one that never had magic or monsters.

She was also a huge Wrathfinder nerd, spending hours at a time looking at rules and forums over the internet, brainstorming character builds that would never actually see the light of a game table.

Slowly, Kathryne's sleep paralysis begins to fade, but she cannot shake the feeling of being watched. She looks down at her ring, slipping her hand underneath the blanket to prevent the eye from looking back at her.

That dream... How much of that was a memory?

Suddenly, Kathryne feels another presence in the corner of the room, hidden in shadow.

She quickly clambers to grab the lava lamp, ready to throw it at whatever else was in the room.

However, she manages to stop herself as the light reveals Wolfgang sitting in a meditative position, breathing deeply.

Kathryne breathes a sigh of relief, watching Wolfgang resting quietly. The slayer's posture was a little hunched, with her head tilted to the side.

... Is she asleep?

Wolfgang's eyes flutter open in response to the lava lamp's light, quickly straightening her posture when she notices Kathryne studying her. "Hm?"

"Ah, sorry! Were you meditating?"

The slayer's ears stiffen up in response to the question, before slowly drooping in disappointment. "No. I fell asleep."

Kathryne smiles, putting down the lava lamp. "Is that such a bad thing? You must be tired after fighting those grem."

Wolfgang readjusts her position. "Master slayers can last for days with only a few hours in sitting meditation. I hope to at least last the night in focus."

That sounds really boring.

Kathryne pulls out her ringed finger from underneath the covers, taking a closer look at the eye.

Now that I think of it, this thing was telling me the d20 result of attack rolls and saving throws earlier. Can it do anything else?

Suddenly, a light shines from the ring's pupil, projecting a large holographic screen in front of her face.

Kathryne gasps in surprise before taking a moment to inspect its contents, an overwhelming amount of numbers and stats.

"Is this... my character sheet?"

"What?"

Kathryne flinches as Wolfgang speaks up, quickly covering the ring to hide the projection. "N-nothing! It's not important!"

Bluff: 2.

Wolfgang squints suspiciously at her.

Kathryne whimpers, feeling guilty over lying so blatantly to Wolfgang's face after everything.

Not to mention, if she turned out to be someone dangerous, Wolfgang would have to protect the gnomes.

Kathryne slowly removes her hand from covering the ring, revealing the holographic screen. "I'm sorry."

The slayer pays no heed to the apology, standing over her and looking at the screen. "What is this?"

"It's- ehm- it's my character sheet? It has all my statistics."

Wolfgang's suspicious expression is replaced with confusion, lightly poking at random tabs for a few quiet seconds. "What's a character sheet?"

"It's a nerd thing. It's supposed to represent your abilities.. and stuff.."

Kathryne's voice trails off, remembering a time when she tried to explain a character sheet to her father. He ended up confused, saying that knowing so much about the rules was a waste of time, and to pick up a more acceptable hobby.

Wolfgang probably thinks I'm weird now...

"This looks like metatheory," Wolfgang says.

"Huh?"

The slayer points towards a section labeled 'Saves'. "I learned about this concept when I was training to be a slayer. If you know your enemy's weakness, you can better utilize your maneuvers and tools in a fight."

"The rest, however..." Wolfgang motions to the rest of the stats. "I don't know much about it."

"Huh." Kathryne looks over the rest of the sheet. To her, the seemingly random data and terms all connected with each other. "Who thought of 'metatheory?'"

"King Merlin. He made it popular among wizards, and many groups adapted the concepts into his teachings."

Kathryne makes a mental note to research King Merlin later, flipping through the screens and arriving at the main page, where her attributes and basic information was visible.

Including the name of her class.

"Level 2 wizard!" Kathryne smiles in excitement. Back in her home world, she was a master of the wizard class, knowing every class feature and spell available to them.

However, her mood quickly turns to apprehension when she reads on. "School of Foresight?"

Wolfgang notices Kathryne's conflicted expression. "Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong." Kathryne scratches her cheek. "What do you know about wizards?"

Wolfgang closes her eyes and crosses her arms. Her suspicions had subsided, but metatheory and wizards were topics she wasn't confident in. "I know they are arcane casters who rely on their knowledge to cast spells."

Kathryne nods in approval. "Wizards can prepare and cast any spell recorded in their spellbook. In addition, they gain unique abilities depending on what aspect of magic they focus on. Usually it's one of the 8 schools, but there's also sub-schools and more esoteric magic like elemental magic.

"It seems that I've chosen to specialize in a sub-school of Divination called Foresight." Kathryne shrugs. "It wouldn't be my first choice, though. I would rather have something from the Conjuration or Evocation schools.

"Why is that?" Wolfgang seems a little confused. Divination was obviously Kathryne's first choice, since it's the class she currently specializing in.

Kathryne continues. "Other school abilities are more useful tools to have, like short range teleportation or changing the damage type of spells. A lot of Divination spells tend to be redundant, but it's not a bad school to specialize in. Unlike-" Kathryne suddenly shudders. "Enchantment."

Wolfgang doesn't know enough about magic to understand why Kathryne would feel such disgust. "What's wrong with Enchantment?"

"Enchantment is a school of magic that focuses on manipulating the psyche." Kathryne coldly explains. "Problem is, any monster that would be worth using Enchantment on either has an immunity to mind effecting spells or has a high enough Will save to reliably negate the spell effect entirely."

"Hm."

"Not to mention, it's probably illegal everywhere, since it's basically mind control." Kathryne sighs, scrolling over her race and background to see what benefit she gains. It was nice to have someone actually listen to her ramble about magic.

It looks like my background describes me as a 'Revenant.' What benefits does the 'America' origin give me?

'Proficiency in all firearms.'

Heh.

"As for being a half-gnome, I get some extra skills and- the Mana+1 trait! Nice!"

"What does that do?"

"Wonderful question." Kathryne smiles. Wolfgang was weirdly good at asking the right things. "Mana+1 means that I have more mana than usual, and thus, can cast more spells than someone who didn't possess the trait. It's especially powerful with a class like the arcanist!"

"An arcanist?" Wolfgang's ears perk up. "Isn't that a sorcerer with a spellbook?"

Kathryne nods affirmatively. "The arcanist class has both the raw magic power of a sorcerer and the mastery of a wizard. They're the pinnacle of arcane power!

"If it turns out I have a sorcerous bloodline, I can reclass into the arcanist and reap the full benefits of the Mana+1 trait." Kathryne smiles evilly, flipping to her attributes page.

"Hm. I know there's a test for that, but you'd need to find someone who can perform it."

Kathryne looks over the six main attributes: Strength, Agility, Vigor, Intellect, Wisdom, and Charisma. Most of them were better than average, with her Intellect peaking at 20.

For suddenly being sucked into a foreign body, this was a good hand to be dealt. High level wizard play is extremely powerful, even though she'll have to survive to level 5 to really get the magic ball rolling.

To survive and level up, I'll need good companions I can trust. Hopefully they'll be strong too.

"Hey, do you want to look at your stats?" Kathryne asks Wolfgang, excited.

"Hm?" The slayer's ears wiggle anxiously. "How do you do that?"

"Ehm..." Kathryne looks back at her ring, scratching her cheek.

Sensing her intent, the ring presents a new screen in the forefront.

Invite Wolfgang into your party?

Kathryne smiles at the hand shake icon underneath it, holding her hand out. "It looks like if you join my party, I'll be able to access your sheet and show you."

Wolfgang looks at Kathryne's hand apprehensively. "Would I be able to leave?"

"I don't see why not!"

"... Hm." Wolfgang relents, taking Kathryne's hand.

Wolfgang has joined your party.

As the notification disappears, the eye begins to glow brightly, shadows extending from the ring and wrapping around Wolfgang's index finger.

A decorated, metallic band produces a sapphire gem held in place by silver fangs, a storm brewing within the jewel.

Wolfgang raises her brow in surprise as she inspects the ring. "How does it work?"

"I think it works with a mental command?"

To be honest, I was expecting it to produce Wolfgang's sheet onto my screen, not create an entirely new ring.

Now's probably not a good time to mention that the ring doesn't come off.

Once a character sheet appears in front of Wolfgang, Kathryne couldn't help but rest her chin on Wolfgang's shoulder to look.

"Woah! Your stats are really high!"

Every one of Wolfgang's attributes other than Charisma was well above average, with her Strength being the highest as 19.

"And you're only level 3? From the way you fought those grem, I thought you would be at least level 5!"

"Thanks?"

Kathryne extends a finger. "These six attributes represent your raw talent, and they contribute to almost everything else in your sheet. It's especially important to manage when you're a Multiple Attribute Dependent build."

Wolfgang blinks, trying not to make it obvious that she's overwhelmed by all the different terms she's seeing on her sheet. "And this describes my capabilities?"

Kathryne notices the slayer's hesitance in manipulating the screens. "If you'd like, I can write up a small pamphlet to help you understand all this. I know it's a lot, but I think it'd be useful to know!"

"Hm."

That sounded like an "I'd like that" hm.

Kathryne sits back in the bed and pulls up her own ring's interface again, noticing that she now had access to an abridged version of Wolfgang's sheet.

However, Wolfgang's racial traits were hidden by a dark bar.

That's weird. Isn't she supposed to be some sort of beast woman?

"Hey Wolfgang? What does your sheet say about your race? I can't read it on my end." Kathryne asks, only to find Wolfgang quickly getting rid of her screen and moving for her meditation bench.

"This was nice, but I need to get my rest. Thank you for the gift."

"A-ah, no problem..."

Kathryne nervously turns away from Wolfgang, wringing her hands. Did I upset her somehow? Maybe she wants to keep her lineage a secret?

Wolfgang mentioned being from the same village as Ermon and Errick. Maybe she's a little touchy about it, so I shouldn't pry for now.

She spends some time studying the ins and outs of her character sheet, before lying back down on the dog bed and sighing deeply. So much in her life had changed so quickly, to the point that she literally wasn't the same person she was a day ago.

Come to think of it, my life was pretty depressing before now.

A memory flashes in her mind's eye, gruesome and bloody. Zac's death.

Kathryne gently pulls her blanket over her chest, looking outside a nearby window. But now, if I put the work in, maybe I won't so helpless anymore.

Maybe I'll go on fun adventures. And find new friends.

That sounds nice.