Frostbitten Wayfarer

Zoe idly walked down the street as she began to realize a new problem that required immediate attention.

She needed to shit. She didn’t know where she would be able to, but she knew she needed to. Would the bookstore have a bathroom? Do inns have public bathrooms? Or are people just throwing it out their windows into the alleyways? She didn’t see any, or even smell any so probably not. But she needed to find a bathroom, and now.

She stopped at the first building that looked like an inn to her. A drawing of a bed hanging from a wooden pole extending from above the door. Either that or a brothel. Didn’t matter, she thought. Both would have a toilet.

The inside was closer to a bar than an inn. A long wooden table near one of the walls with a large bearded man with short brown hair behind it pouring drinks. Several tables set up in a row on the other side of it. Other smaller round tables set up throughout the establishment with folk sitting and eating meals.

When Zoe entered, the worker looked up and nodded at her then went back to chatting with the people sitting at the bar.

She walked up to the worker, “Hi, do you have a bathroom I can use?”

“Not if you ain’t a customer, I don’t.” He said, putting down the glass he was cleaning and grabbing another.

“Look I’m gonna shit, and I bet we both want it to be in the bathroom instead of here. I don’t have money but I can wash some dishes for the rest of the day just please let me use your bathroom.” She pleaded.

The man laughed, his voice echoing through the bar. “Fine, fine. Up the stairs and to the right. Don’t stink it up too much. And make it two days of dish-washing.”

“Okay fine but I’m sleeping here tonight too then.”

“On the kitchen floor, rooms are full lady.”

“Fine, whatever.” Zoe walked to the stairs on the other side of the room, her face flush as the patrons watched her walk of shame, a few hushed giggles audible to her improved hearing. The creaking of the stairs grating on her with each step as she rushed up to the bathroom.

She was pleased, though. A little embarrassment was better than homelessness.

The bathroom was clean, and the toilet — while little more than a metal bowl with a pipe extending into the floor, at least looked like it had plumbing. A metal sink sat in the wall next to it, with rough toilet paper on the ground below.

She sat on the bowl and winced a little as the cold metal dug into her behind. She didn’t have a phone, but she did have some magic to play with, Zoe thought as she pulled up her status.

Name: Zoe Mara

Race: Human

——

Stat Points: 10

Strength: 20

Dexterity: 20

Vitality: 20

Endurance: 20

Intelligence: 20

Wisdom: 20

Health: 200/200

Stamina: 200/200

Mana: 200/200

——

Class 1: Earthian (3)

- Identify (2)

——

General Skills:

- Vampyric Regeneration (2)

- Vampyric Senses (4)

- Vampyric Resistance (2)

- Vampyric Immortality (1)

- Vampyric Charm (2)

- Vampyric Empathy (5)

Resistances:

- Mental (7)

Many of her skills had levelled, and even her class had. But there were no notifications for any of them, she realized. She would just have to check this regularly to see her progress then. There were ten stat points she could use somehow too, but she didn’t know what any of the stats actually did yet.

Zoe sat on the toilet and fiddled with her screens as they shifted around to her will. It seemed as though she had a great deal of control over how they were displayed. Zoe settled on a translucent dark pink, blue and white background, the text a large black font with a white drop shadow.

She was never good with designing interfaces, and it showed, but it was at least easy enough to read.

She focused on her health, willing it to appear somewhere else and it appeared in the centre of her vision. It was a little in the way, so she urged it to move somewhere else. The health indicator slid up to the top left of her vision. She did the same with her Stamina and Mana as well, placing one below the other at the top left of her vision.

Somehow, the information was always visible but also out of the way in her peripheral vision. She had expected it to feel much like a fly that hung around just to your side but it wasn’t distracting at all, forgettable even, if she wasn’t trying to see it.

The rough looking toilet paper was just as unpleasant as she thought it would be. And the metal bowl did little for making her not feel gross about it as she bent over to pull the lever she assumed would flush the toilet. As she did, she felt a surge of power rush out of her and water flooded the metal bowl, washing everything down the pipe.

Mana: 187/200

Thirteen mana just to flush a toilet, she chuckled. Hopefully it comes back quick or she’d have to manage her bathroom usage. The sink drained another five mana from her to wash her hands, and she headed back downstairs to help out with the dish washing.

“Hi, where do I get started?” She asked the man tending the bar.

“Back there, big sink. Get cleaning, girl.” The man pointed through a door behind him, a few of the patrons chuckling again.

The kitchen looked almost modern, with what looked like hybrid gas and wood stoves as well as a large sink divided into three sections with a drying rack sat next to it. Dishes piled in the sink in the left most section, covered in soapy water. The right section was full of some kind of red fluid. Wash, rinse, sanitize. She wasn’t expecting that. She took a quick look at her mana, silently bemoaning her new job and the feeling that would come with using the sinks.

Mana: 193/200

Eleven mana in a couple minutes was good enough, Zoe thought. She had no idea how much she would need but it was enough for the toilets, at least.

Zoe grabbed a small brush that sat on the drying rack in one hand, and a white plate stained with brown food of some sort in the other. She had worked as a dishwasher before, when she was a teenager. She wasn’t excited to be back. But at least she had a roof over her head now, she reminded herself.

The man she spoke with earlier came back every so often dropping off more dishes, and grabbing bowls of soup, or piling meat onto a plate. She felt like it was a never ending task, just a bottomless sink full of grimy, greasy dishes.

It took what felt like ages, but she scrubbed all of the dishes, leaving an organized mass of bowls, plates and cutlery in the drying rack next to the sink. Dripping with what she hoped was red sanitizer.

She leaned against the counter across from the sink, rubbing her arms. They hurt, and her hands were as dry as sandpaper. Zoe looked up as the man walked into the kitchen again.

“Good job, girl. Time to close up shop.” He pointed to the pots and pans on top of the stoves, the remnants of the days food burnt onto them. “Get all these cleaned, and wash down the stove tops.” He headed back out to the front, the chatter of people quieting down.

She wanted to scream. She was thankful for the place to stay and tried not to complain about it, but cleaning dirty, grimy pots full of burnt crud did not excite her.

Maybe she could just invent a dishwasher. She had no idea how they worked, but she wanted one anyway. Or maybe they do have dishwashers and this guy’s just not rich enough for the cutting edge technology yet.

Zoe placed the large soup pot on the ground and looked back to the sink, wishing for an extendable tap she could just aim at the pot.

Instead, she picked up one of the bowls from the drying rack and filled it with the soapy water, then dumped it into the giant pot next to her. Then she grabbed her brush and knelt, reaching for the bottom of the pot to scrub it. It was deep, and she needed to have her head almost inside of the pot to even reach the bottom. The smell was almost pleasant, were it not to be contaminated with burnt crusty gunk and the off smelling soap.

Satisfied with her scrubbing, she raised her head out of the pot and sat back, looking up at the door. The man was leaning against the frame with his arms crossed, shaking his head.

“You hungry, girl?” The man asked her.

“Um. I don’t really have money.” Zoe’s stomach grumbled.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I could eat.” Her stomach growled.

Zoe watched as the man walked over to her pile of clean, drying dishes and grabbed one of the pans from it. He placed it on the oven, and summoned some kind of red meat into it.

“Wait how did you do that?” Zoe stared at the meat that appeared in his hand, her mouth agape.

The man shook his head again, “You really are strange, you know that?”

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“You come into my shop looking to trade days of your life for access to a toilet. Then you spend nearly two hours scrubbing dishes by hand, freak out about a storage item and to top it all off you’re how old? Maybe twenty? Twenty-five? And yet when you came in, you were level three. What don’t I mean, girl. You are strange.” He pointed his spatula at her.

Zoe realized she hadn’t identified the man, a stupid mistake she’d need to get used to. What if he was a demon or something. Probably not, but still. She needed to build the habit.

[Worker - ??]

“Why do you have green question marks?” Zoe asked.

The mans belly shook as he chuckled, his white apron shaking as he looked at her.

“It means I have my third class. You really don’t know anything, do you? Where are you from?”

“I…” Zoe was torn. She liked the man, at least as much as she could like somebody she’d known for a few hours. But she was unsure how much she felt comfortable sharing. She had already told the green monster, how bad could humans be? Much worse, she thought.

“You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to. I was just curious.” He flipped the meat out of the pan onto a plate, summoning a bunch of leafy greens next to it as he handed it to her.

“Thanks. I… grew up without any magic, so I don’t really know any of this class stuff. And skills and stats and stuff.”

The man chuckled, “Yeah, I can see that. You can stay here for a while.”

Zoe bit into the meat, half expecting some magical cooking skills to shake her world, folding texture and flavour in on itself to create something more than a regular steak. But it just tasted like a pretty good steak with arugula salad and some kind of vinaigrette. Good, and yet somehow disappointing.

The man closed his eyes for a moment as she ate, and Zoe felt a surge of something rushing past her, before the same something exploded out from him, covering all of the cookery and dishes in a pale blue light. All of the bits of food and gunk seemed to evaporate away to nothing.

She stared at the scene in awe, and then anger.

“Why’d you make me clean dishes for so long if you could just wave your hand anyway. And why do you have the damn sinks if you don’t even use them.”

“We made a deal, remember?” He laughed, “You clean the dishes in exchange for using my toilet. You’re the one who decided to do it by hand.” He smiled and shook his head. “As for the sinks, well, innkeeper skills don’t work if you’re not in an inn. Which needs sinks, for some reason.” He shrugged.

“Innkeeper skills? You’re an innkeeper then?” Zoe asked, standing up after she finished her meal to lean against the counter again.

“Of course, does this place look like I sell furniture or something?” He chortled.

“Well no I mean like, your class. You’re an innkeeper?”

“Yes I am, but as a heads up, it’s not generally considered polite to inquire about people’s skills.”

“Oh, sorry.” Zoe’s head turned to face the ground.

“No, you didn’t know. And I prompted it anyway, just something to keep in mind when you talk to people. I tell you what. You help out around here, and I’ll answer your questions when I can.” He said.

“Okay, um, how do I get a class?” She asked, looking back up at him.

“Well, everybody gets to take their first class at level eight. Most of the time, this happens when you’re around six or seven years old.” He looked at her with smirk.

“What you get to pick from depends on what you’ve done, achievements you’ve made, stuff like that. Most people take an apprentice class, or a student class, learning from their parents.” The man paused to look above Zoe’s head.

“For you, I imagine you’ll have quite a few more interesting classes to choose from. You just have to sit down and focus inwards on your class. The rest will explain itself.”

“So the longer I wait, the better classes I get?” Zoe asked.

“Well, sure, in theory. But we don’t live forever. Better to take what you have and work on improving it as you go than to optimize each step just to die of old age with only two classes.”

“I see… So, what do all of the stats do then?”

“I know I said I can answer your questions, but this’ll be the last one tonight. Still got an inn to run.” The man said, looking back at the kitchen doorway.

“Right, thanks.”

“So, Vitality, Endurance and Intelligence are mostly just for your pools. Vitality affects your maximum health, as well as your general resistance to the more subtle effects on your body — poisons and the like. Endurance is the same for your stamina and the less subtle effects like being stabbed or scratched. Intelligence is the outlier, it’s the same for your mana but affects your magic power, not resistance.”

“Magic power?” Zoe asked.

“Last question, remember? Strength and Dexterity are exactly as they say. More strength makes you stronger, more dexterity makes you faster. Though, you need some amount of both to be great at either. Wisdom is your mana regeneration, as well as a general resistance to mental effects.”

“How much mana regeneration per point in wisdom?”

“Ah ah ah, no more questions. Get some sleep and get ready to help out in the morning.” The man turned and left the kitchen.

Zoe sat down on the immaculately clean floor, thinking back on the blue glow that flooded the room when he cast his spell. She wanted to cast spells of her own, though maybe something more exciting than cleaning. She focused inwards, trying to bring up her stat window again for one last check before she took her first class.

Name: Zoe Mara

Race: Human

——

Stat Points: 35

Strength: 20

Dexterity: 20

Vitality: 20

Endurance: 20

Intelligence: 20

Wisdom: 20

Health: 200/200

Stamina: 200/200

Mana: 200/200

——

Class 1: Earthian (8)

- Identify (3)

——

General Skills:

- Vampyric Regeneration (2)

- Vampyric Senses (5)

- Vampyric Resistance (2)

- Vampyric Immortality (1)

- Vampyric Charm (3)

- Vampyric Empathy (5)

Resistances:

- Mental (7)

She wanted spells. Lots of spells. So she should pump her wisdom as high as possible, she thought. Or maybe she wanted big spells, so intelligence for more magic power?

Zoe looked around the kitchen for something small and flat, finding a small coaster made of some cork-like material. She made a small scratch on one side of it. If it lands scratch side up, intelligence. Scratch side down, wisdom. She tossed the coaster in the air and realized she was hoping for it to land scratch side up.

Thirty to intelligence for a nice round fifty, then five to wisdom to get it to twenty-five. She urged her stats to move and they did.

Zoe gripped her head out reflex as a flood of weight hit her mind, making her vision go dizzy. Power seemed to flood through her, invigorating every cell of her body. It was intoxicating, and she wanted more. She turned her attention to her class choices.