Chapter 2: The Insane Realization

The big change comes on my fifth birthday. I say it's my birthday, but I don't know if that's actually true. We celebrate birthdays at the start of a season, so everyone born in that season has the same celebration. My two sisters were both born in the spring, so their birthdays are at the start of spring, usually a few days after the first budding of the plants. My father has a winter birthday, so we celebrate that when the first frost comes. My mother and I are both summer babies, so we celebrate on the longest day of the year.

Which makes me feel kind of special. The day with the most sunlight of the entire year. I like that.

On my fifth birthday, I wake up and see something surprising. It's a box with text in it, floating in the air in front of me. An interface.

Name: Harper. Level: 1. HP: 7. SP: 8. MP: 21. Defense: 3. XP: 0/50. Skills: none. Strength: 2. Vitality: 2. Dexterity: 2. Perception: 3. Charm: 1. Manipulation: 1. Intelligence: 15. Willpower: 1. Reaction: 1. Traits: Child, Deep Knowledge.

I stare at it for a long time. I wonder if I'm going insane. My mother tells me that everyone gets their interface on their fifth birthday, and not to worry about it. She assures me that I'll pick up skills as I go and that learning skills gets me experience, which can help me gain levels. She also tells me that I can focus on various things to find explanations for them. This will help me raise stats more easily because I'll know what to do to raise them.

I spend most of my birthday obsessively reading over what everything means. Not because of a precocious desire, but because of the building feeling of dread and familiarity I find with the various definitions.

Child: you are still learning and developing. Skills are much more likely to be learned and increased. XP from combat is disabled. XP from skill gain is increased. Stat points cannot be spent. Duration: 10 years.

HP: your health points, the amount of damage you can suffer without permanent effects such as dismemberment or death. Based on your level and Vitality.

SP: your stamina points, representing how much activity you can undertake before becoming exhausted. Based on your level, Vitality, and Willpower.

MP: your magic points, representing how much mana energy you can infuse into spells. Based on your level, Intelligence, and Willpower.

Defense: your ability to avoid or absorb damage. Based on your Reaction, Dexterity, and armor.

Strength: physical might and coordination; the ability to apply the strength of your body to do what you want to do.

Vitality: physical endurance, toughness, and health. How well your body can handle the things you want it to do.

Dexterity: physical agility and speed. How coordinated your body is.

Perception: your attention to the world around you and what you can notice. How you differentiate things in the world and how you find things.

Charm: your inherent social ability, determining how people react to you and how they interpret your actions.

Manipulation: your ability to influence other people to do the things you want them to do or to tell you things you want to know.

Intelligence: your mental acuity, memory, and ability to process information.

Willpower: your mental strength and ability to both impose your will on the world and resist the imposition of other people's will.

Reaction: how quickly you react to external stimuli, such as danger, witticisms, or surprise.

The thing about those descriptions that makes me read them over and over again is how familiar they are. A little bit pithy, a little bit of a humorous tone. Exactly the kind of thing that will make someone comfortable with the descriptions, but that also leaves a lot of room for expansion and for understanding. Nine attributes that cover most of what a person can naturally do. Written in a way that is incredibly familiar.

Incredibly familiar because I remember writing them. I remember creating those attributes. I remember the meetings where we discussed whether we should call it dexterity or agility. Where we debated calling vitality stamina and decided not to because SP stood for stamina points, and we didn't want to use the same word twice. I remember differentiating intelligence from willpower, and why we decided against calling it wisdom.

I remember these traits, because I wrote them. Well, I wrote the Child trait. I didn’t write this other one. The second one is new to me.

Deep Knowledge: you are aware of things in the world and know secrets that you have no right or reason to know. Benefit: you gain knowledge skills much more quickly, and their maximum threshold is not limited by your level.

Yeah. I know things that I shouldn't know. I know the secrets of the world. I know them, because I wrote them. I created them.

I've been reincarnated in the world that I created. I'm both a person in the world and the creator of that world. I'm god. Or, at least, I remember being god.

***

It takes me a long time to really process this idea. But a few experiments prove it to myself. When I look at one of the customers and see that he has a fox tail and ears on the top of his head, I immediately remember that we put that species – called the Antro – in the world to cater to the people who love anthropomorphized animals. There were a lot of jokes about furries, but also a lot of argument that cat people and fox people were a staple of modern fantasy archetypes. I look at the customer and I know that Antros come in four types: fox, cat, dog, and lizard. I know that they are genetically compatible with all the other playable heritages, and I know that we used heritage instead of race for a reason.

As I look at him, I get a notification.

New skill gained: Antro lore.

Skill increased: Antro lore 1-10.

XP gained: 100.

Just to test things out, I go around the inn and see what I can remember about all the various heritages, and I just keep getting more and more skills. I don't mention to my parents how quickly I'm leveling up; I just look at my sheet and see what's new.

Name: Harper. Level: 4. HP: 22. SP: 24. MP: 38. Defense: 3. XP: 100/500. Skills: Knowledge: Antro Lore 10, Elf Lore 10, Human Lore 10, Orc Lore 10. Strength: 2. Vitality: 2. Dexterity: 2. Perception: 4. Charm: 2. Manipulation: 1. Intelligence: 16. Willpower: 2. Reaction: 1. Ability points: 15. Traits: Child, Deep Knowledge.