Game mechanics

The door to the shrine had been smashed in. It did not give Rosa confidence in surviving the night.

Leading up, the courtyard had an iron fence with a gate. It looked like it was rusted open.

'Do I dare try to shut the gate?' It was a thought quickly dismissed. Rosa might have tried if she hadn't inherited Iris's thoughts.

The noise would be ear splitting and attract attention. Attention was what would kill her right now. The illusion of safety by shutting the gate wasn't worth the risk.

The deserted city around her was beginning to light up with sun stones. The sun had set. She was running out of time.

A quick inhale to steady her nerves, Rosa ran. She had been hiding in the alley opposite the shrine. She moved through the gate, up to the shattered door and in.

The doorway lead directly to the main hall where pews were set in rows. There were scattered things around the pulpit. Behind the pulpit was a door that would lead to the bell tower.

"Clang!" A sudden noise had Rosa diving behind to hide behind a pew. Suppressing the sound of her breathing, she strained her ears to listen.

"Clang!" It was the sound of night bells in the distance. It was the first sign of human activity she heard. Rosa nearly sighed in relief. People were alive. Then she froze in abject terror.

Night had arrived.

The howling of monsters echoed everywhere in the lower city. The snarling of beasts as the darkness gave them power.

Rosa forced her frozen limbs to move while the cacophony of noise covered her movements. She made a mad scramble down the aisle for the pulpit. The door was heavy as she pulled it open and shut it quickly.

It was pitch black in the room beyond the door. Knowing that the slightest noise could mean death now, Rosa slowly got to her knees.

Iris's knowledge of horror games helped. Move agonizing slow in the pitch dark. Wave your hands in front to feel obstacles before you bumped into them.

It was three shards of sharp pottery and one table leg later that she found the stairs. Step by step, Rosa crawled up the narrow and winding stairs.

Halfway up, she saw a window to the outside. She did not look out. Even in the dark, she did not want to risk her outline in a window.

End of the road was the door leading out to the belfry. Going outside to hide was dangerous. It could have given her an advantage in the day as a lookout point, but at night that was useless.

Monsters could see in the dark, she couldn't.

Monster aggression in games was usually centered down to three things.

First was sight. They saw you, they attacked.

Second was the player attacking them. Retribution was to be expected.

Third was proximity. If the player was in a certain range to a monster and did something to alert them of their presence, they attacked.

The plan was to get as high up as possible to reduce her proximity on the ground.

Rosa was just praying that scent agression wasn't added to this realistic fantasy world. If it was, the monsters could track her scent easily. The door downstairs was not much of an obstacle, more of a distraction.

Now it was time to put the second phase of her plan in motion.

'Inventory.' Rosa thought.

Nothing happened.

"Inventory." Rosa whispered.

Again, nothing happened.

'Main menu. Settings. Equipment. Options. Game mode. Interface.' Rosa continued on alternating thinking and whispering game commands.

Between Rosa's very limited knowledge of her world and Iris's gaming instincts, there should be something she could do.

'System.' A window appeared before Rosa's face. Text appeared.

"System is loading. Please wait a moment."

Rosa was stunned. In all of the chaos that happened, she had forgotten that she was seven. It was common for seven year olds not being able to read here.

Work and survival were more important than education. The Empire had mandatory elementary graduation but that was it.

This was written in Iris's language. Rosa could read it because of her other life's memories. It was called the holy runes by the church and only nobles and educated people could read it after years of study. She was stunned.

"System loading. System integration complete." The window flickered off. After a few moments nothing else happened.

'Inventory?' A blue window appeared in a grid with nothing in it. There was the appearance of her as an avatar in the corner with empty slots. 'Probably for equipment.' Rosa mused.

There was nothing useful here. She literally had nothing on her. There was an x in the corner that tapped to get rid of the window.

'Skills.' Another window popped up. This time there were tabs to look through.

The first tab had her attributes such as strength, wisdom, agility and such set as a numerical value. Rosa rolled her eyes, she was seven so her stats were all set at one.

Underneath her attributes had her daily skills listed. Things like walking, eating and breathing were listed. Not useful.

Next tab had fighting skills listed. It was pitifully short list with running being level one and hiding level one. There was an icon in the corner of hiding so Rosa tapped it. A window popped up.

"You are hiding in a dangerous situation. Experience level up plus one." Rosa snorted as she closed the window then paused.

'Does an experience gain happen only when you are in danger?' It was a thought to explore another day.

Setting, Options and Chat didn't reveal any new windows.

Quests did though. A grid like window appeared that was typical to keeping track of tasks in many games. There was a new task from the system. Clicking on it, Rosa paled the further she read.

"Congratulations for unlocking the system. A new task has been generated. Difficulty has been adjusted due to age of recipient. Rank difficulty S. Survive the night. Task: Monsters have invaded Aurora City. Live to see a new day." Rosa nearly laughed in frustration.

'Even the system knows I'm in serious danger. This is absolutely unfair.' Rosa forced herself to take a deep breath before she became hysterical. Continuing on, she read the rewards.

"Rewards: one random weapon, two random potions, two attribute points and one skill book."

Rosa blinked. Unsure of if these rewards were good or not. She clicked accept request as she had no intention of dying tonight if she could help it.

'Magic.' A window opened again.

"Magic system being activated. Please wait a moment."

A faint glow enveloped Rosa as the system window seemed to change and shift.

'Well someone has an ego.' The magic panel glowed multi-colors with stylized elegant lines and cursive font.

If Rosa had to compare, the regular system was made for the military whereas the magic system was for the wealthy. Military was clear cut, simple and effective in style. Wealthy had eye catching lines, distracting gimmicks and attention grabbing details.

The two systems overlapped. The regular system window changing to blue whereas the magic one stayed the same.

"It is not recommended for the user to cast Magic Spells until they are eighteen." The system warned.

"Welcome to the Magic system, Do you want a tutorial?"

Rosa looked between the two messages baffled. There was an extra icon on the systems panel so she clicked on it. A long line of text appeared.

"People under the age of eighteen are still growing. Magic use and skill use are closely connected by their similar pathways due to the system. Magic channels-"

Rosa read the warning. What it boiled down to was that by using Magic underage she could damage her magical pathways. Furthermore, she could permanently cut off her ability to do battle skills. Leaving her disabled.

'Just using the tutorial isn't casting magic right?' She exited out and clicked on the tutorial.

A kite shaped jewel popped up. It floated as it introduced the magic panels to her one by one.

The first tab was magic skills. What should have taken five minutes to explain was a long winded twenty minutes. In summary, spells had elements, attributes, levels, distance and use.

The second tab was mostly hidden by locks with chains and nine slots with one exception. This was her magical core. What was locked was elemental blessings and/or substitute cores.

Rosa had never heard of substitute cores. Blessings were common as she had heard of them. At twelve, people go through the graduation ceremony where they could be blessed.

'What are these cores?' Rosa tapped on the text. A system panel popped up.

"Magical cores can be refined from spiritual stones dropped by monsters. Warning: equipping spiritual stones without processing will yield monster corruption in the user leading to madness and eventual death."

Rosa made a decision to never equip the spiritual stones without refining them to cores.

The third tab was empty as it was her magical attribute page. The user had to learn spells and then equip them to use in battle.

The last tab was where you could learn magic spells. It was set up as a skill tree and you needed to sacrifice monster spirit stones to unlock spells.

'No wonder. Only the rich can afford monster spirit stones.' Rosa silently fumed.

The bigger the spell, the more you need to sacrifice in return. Users can't learn advanced spells unless you've learned the prerequisite.

The tutorial recommended that the user grow their magical core as they were young. Then the tutorial ended. Rosa went back to her magical core page and clicked on it. A prompt followed.

"Enlarge magical core: meditation lvl 1, focus lvl 1, intelligence lvl 2 and magical foci lvl 1 needed."

Rosa felt the crushing weight of her situation bear down on her. She may have activated her magical system; but without preparation, she was still a waiting target. Before she could sink into despair a chime sounded.

"Ding! Hiding skill level up. Hiding is now level two. Your presence has diminished by five."

Rosa looked manic as she clicked on her skill page. A regular person had a presence of thirty points. As a child, her presence was slightly lower at twenty seven. If she had to crunch the numbers, she'd bet this affected the radius of her proximity agression.

If she focused on hiding she may just live the night. Rosa forced herself as close to the door as physically possible and tried to regulate her breathing to be quiet as possible.

About ten minutes passed by when the system activated.

"Through actions you are trying to learn skill quiet breathing. Do you want to learn this skill?"

Rosa quickly tapped yes.

"Ding! Quiet breathing learned. Your presence has dropped by three."

Practicing these two new skills became her new goal in life. Rosa sat still and waited. A prompt signaling her level up in a skill was her only comfort.

It was nearly midnight when she heard the first screams.