Chapter 5: Dad's Tutorial

The blue skeleton cracked his neck and elbow bones, which sounded kind of like a xylophone. It made Kahli cringe a little, but she tried to hide her reaction. She was excited to see her dad regardless of his corporeal form - if it could even be considered that at this point. Her neck was getting a little sore from staring up at his floating tartan blanket, though.

"Oh, Kahli, I thought this day would never come!" There was joy brimming in his hoarse, otherworldly voice that seemed to echo across the waters impossibly. "I remember when we first had 'the talk' about systems, and [skills], and about how you didn't have either, and about how you would have to fight tooth and nail, figuratively of course, against the innate advantages people with systems have in this wide world of ours. Everything has changed now!"

"Yes, dad." Kahli agreed. "You're dead!"

"Let's not dwell on that, please." Her father lowered his sombrero, looking a little uncomfortable at the mention of his lack of life. Then he sprung up with renewed enthusiasm and lifted his hat back up. "Let's focus on the fun stuff! See, now that you've [paired] with this... this... um, what is the thing that you're [paired] with, again?"

"I don't know." Kahli looked at the putrid beast that sat there in her canoe making strange squelching noises. "I named it Froufrou."

"Ah, yes." Her father nodded cautiously as he took mental stock of the situation. "Well now that you've [paired] with Froufrou, I've got to show you the ropes of system use. I remember when I first started using my system, I was a natural. Do you know what my first [skill] was, Kahli?"

Kahli rolled her eyes. "Yes, dad." She'd never forget her father's first [skill], it was etched into her mind forever. The amount of times he'd bragged about it absentmindedly, almost like his brain was just a record skipping on that one juicy tidbit over and over again, was countless and near impossible to-

"Well, let's just go over it one more time. After all, Kahli, the context is going to be completely different for you now that you have your own system."

"It's Froufrou's system, dad!"

"Yea, well, same difference," the skeleton said with a shrug. "Which, I guess I ought to explain before I talk about my awesome [skills]. As long as you're [paired] with Froufrou, its system is your system. It's actually one of the rare advantages of not being born with a system, you know, as it allows you to [pair] with another entity that does have a system. Of course, there are a few constraints even to that. Constraints that are well understood by my skeletal self - as I like to say these days - and that I as a result feel compelled to elaborate upon.

"Firstly, you've got to understand that you cannot [pair] with a member of your own species. Otherwise, you'd have a case of overpowered literal 'power couples' running around and ruling the world.

"Secondly, you've got to understand that once [paired], you can't [separate], at least from a system standpoint, until either one of you dies."

"Great." Kahli wrinkled her nose with a glance at Froufrou. How was she to know that by trying to set things right, she'd end up with a life sentence of Froufrou?

"Hey, my little squash casserole, don't scrunch your face up like that. I know you're a 'grown-up' now, but until the plaster on your face hardens and you get your wooden mask, you've got to be careful! You don't want your face to look like that forever, do you?"

Kahli groaned. Even from the afterlife, her dad was embarrassing her.

"Sorry," he said, sensing her frustration. "Erm, anyways... Where were we? Ah, yes, my awesome [skills], starting of course with my very first [skill], a [skill] you happen to know an awful lot about." Kahli's dad strummed the banjo ferociously. "My [skill] known best as [Impeccable Rhythm]!"

Kahli sighed as her dad started to belt out in a thick accent reminiscent of the Gapplantian Mountain Region.

"Oh, when I was born I was torn

'Cause I had this banjo in my hand

Not liter'ly I must say

But in my mind I had it, anyway

Oh, so it was I was born in April

Yet I sang and sang 'til the sheep were shorn

Never once did I skip a beat

Nor did I stop kickin' my feet

Oh-"

"Dad," Kahli interjected, "I've heard all of this before. Like, way too many times. Why don't you just... show me how to use Froufrou's system to analyze your [skill]? Then I can learn more about it myself, while learning about my system. And you don't have to sing."

"Oh... okay." Somehow, his barren skull managed to look rather sad. "Well, um, go ahead and focus your mental energy on me and... uh... just think about looking at my character sheet. It should pop up pretty quickly. You know, what they don't really tell you about systems is that they're honestly pretty intuitive to people that have access to them, either through nature or through... [pairing]..."

"Stop giving Froufrou that look, Dad! You're going to make her uncomfortable." Kahli stopped for a second. Was Froufrou a she? Froufrou didn't necessarily sound like a guy's name, at least. She looked at the thing again and quickly decided that she didn't need to know. She'd had enough trouble doing that with house cats, there really seemed to be no use in doing so for an unspeakable horror from the Pit of Despair.

"Yes, sure... I'm going to make that thing uncomfortable..."

"Don't call Froufrou a thing," said Kahli, noting in the back of her mind her own hypocritical behavior. She was, however, surprised to note how protective she suddenly felt of the beast. Was this a feature of [pairing]? Kahli hoped so. It was easier to blame it on some feature of her system than to admit that maybe she didn't completely mind Froufrou's disgusting company.

"Well? Have you looked at my character sheet?"

Kahli shook her head. It was time to focus!

[Dad (Ghost)]

[Level: 69]

[Skills: Impeccable Rhythm, Dazzle, Minor Telekinesis, Fruit Magnetism, Spectral Essence]

[Description: Dad's doing okay as a ghost, though he seems a little lonely. Still has his favorite banjo and that old sombrero he got from his uncle, though.]

"Dad, I've got a question."

"Yes, I know, it's probably about that [Fruit Magnetism] skill, and listen-"

"What? No, I don't care about that," said Kahli. "It's more that the description on your character sheet seems catered specifically to myself and my thoughts. I was under the impression that every system was a part of a whole and had some sort of backend that stored all of the system data. And that each system accessed the same backend when it referenced someone or something's character sheet."

"You're almost right, pumpkin," said Kahli's dad. She groaned when he called her pumpkin. "You see, while every system does indeed look at the same backend, how each person or thing's system looks at something else's character sheet through the backend can be a sometimes unique process. Everyone and everything with a system has a slightly different system, a system unique to themselves, their experiences and their understanding. It's known as localization."

"Localization?"

"Yea, localization. Consider this, my little cream custard."

Kahli sighed.

"What if you were from Blandia? Would you want everything described to you in the way that someone from a normal region of Nomachiato would describe it? What about current you, the you from Gifflenberg? Would you want your system, well Froufrou's system, to describe things to you as if you were from Blandia?"

Kahli laughed at her dad's trademark xenophobia out of impulse, even though it made her a little uncomfortable. "I guess not."

"Yea, that's what I thought." He strummed his banjo and hummed for a second. "Oh, sorry, I forgot you don't want me to sing. Um, but the other thing you need to know is, people can actually hide things from you. Even people without systems have barriers between what information you can see."

"Oh, really?" Kahli hadn't considered that, but it made a lot of sense. And it was better than the alternative, because otherwise people with systems would know everything about her just by looking at her! Then, she wondered something. "But, dad, there's got to be somewhere in the backend where all that information is coming from, right?"

"You're not wrong, Kahli. It's called the Ohmgashyick Archive, and it contains all data of everything ever, described by many to a universal programmatic structure underlying all existence. It's what Froufrou's system uses in order to not only provide you with information and data points, but indeed also to grant systemic powers and privileges. Hell, it's even how I'm here talking to you right now. Usually it keeps us dead separated in ways from the living, but you could say this is a bit of a special case. Then again, the veil has been experiencing more... perforations... than usual, but we won't go into that now. We need to talk more about the system you've got, and how to use it! Right? After all, you want to learn how to level up, don't you? You do know that even [paired] users can level up, don't you?"

"Of course I know that, Dad!" Kahli hadn't known it.

"Oh. Good. Okay." He nodded, visibly impressed. "Well, let me just show you how to level up, then. Did you know you're only at level 5?"

"Level 5?" Kahli felt insulted. She was an adult! How could she only be level 5?

"Don't get all worked up now. Pretty much everybody ends up capping out around a level 5 if they don't have a system. A few lucky folks might get up to a 7 or 8, and even that's once in a blue me!"

Kahli rolled her eyes at her dad's painful attempt at humor.

"Well... regardless, it doesn't mean you're not gaining experience, commonly referred to as [XP] among us system users. It just means you don't have the means to use it. That said, now that you've got Froufrou's system at the ready, you should be able to pull this off without a hitch, and you've probably got more than a few latent level ups queued up and ready to pop off!"

"Alright, Dad, I get it. So how do I level up?"

He strummed his banjo. "Mind if I tell you in song?"

Kahli told him that yes, she did mind, excruciatingly so.

"Oh," her dad hung his head. "Well, alright. It's really easy, honestly. You'll know you're ready to level up by a sort of... stiffness, fullness that you'll feel along your lower back. And essentially, all you have to do is picture a ball of light moving from the bottom of your spine up to the top of your head. Do it right, and the tightness in your back with start uncoiling like a snake, and soon enough, well-"

Kahli's Dad was preparing to make some sort of dramatic hand gestured, but he was abruptly cut off by a terrible roar that shook the sticky waters Kahli's canoe was floating upon.

"Oh, fuck my afterlife."

"What was that, Dad?"

"You know how I mentioned that there had been more perforations between the living and dead recently?"

"...Yes?"

Kahli's dad didn't have much time to answer, because a dreadful something was swooping towards him from a far distance in the sky. It looked bony, and angry, and it looked like it was spitting purple flames at them.

"This is, um, all part of the tutorial, pumpkin," said her Dad nervously.