Inside, the dome was divided into quadrants by two straight walls running NE to SW and NW to SE, so that the archways faced into corners. The ceiling was perhaps 10 feet high at the peak, right over the corner, and a pillar rested near the corner, just within arm’s reach of the walls. It was perhaps three feet tall, square, slightly tapered with a rounded top, and looked like it could have been carved from local stone. In the center of the very top she found a recess in the exact shape of the token. As she crossed the threshold under the arch, her System interface lit up with text: “Welcome to this Firmitatem organization-controlled System Access Point. Location Name: Dome of Decision, North Chamber. Place your hands on the Access Point to activate System Access features. If you want to use a token, place it in the top of the Access Point.”
She put the token in the obvious spot, and placed her hands on the rounded stone surface to either side. The system interface printed, “Firmitatem Exile Advancement Token accepted. Your age category has been changed from “Youth” to “Adult.” Trait: Parental Assistance has expired, and is removed from your status. Your organizational status has changed from “Minor Citizen of Firmitatem” to “Firmitatem Exile.” You have been granted career: “Survivor.” Your active career has changed from “Academy Student” to “Survivor.” You have been granted skill: “Token Manifestation.” You have been granted custom token template: “Firmitatem Exile Advancement Token.” You have been granted System token template: “Class token.” You have been granted System token template: “Mana token.” You have been granted trait: “Payment Plan.” You have been granted 800 mana to use for ability advancement.”
Well that was a nasty shock – the word “exile” was never used for the Sent, among those Inside. Exiles were people who didn’t get to come back, and most parents and teachers would punish kids that used that word for Sent. The System was known for never pulling its punches in descriptions, though, and at least the “custom” token seemed to have included a number of good things as well.
The System, moreover, wasn’t done; her interface was displaying a read-confirmation prompt. When she acknowledged it, the upscroll cleared and new messages appeared.
- “Do you want to manifest your class token?”
- “Do you want to search for advanceable skills and traits?”
“Yes and yes,” Danielle murmured. Nothing happened. “I want to use my Class token,” she tried.
“To use a Class Token, you must place it in the slot. If you have 400 mana or a Class credit available, you may manifest a token for that purpose.” The System paused, then added on a new line, “Do you want to manifest your class token?”
“Please manifest my Class token,” Danielle said.
The System printed out, “Manifest Token: Select token type,” and listed her three options: Mana token (variable mana cost), Class token (400 mana – credit available), Firmitatem Exile Advancement Token (1000 mana).” She selected the Class token – hadn’t she already specified that? This was so inefficient.
To her surprise, a token popped out of the pillar top and rattled as it fell back, not quite fully back into the hole, but tilted over one edge. She picked it up nervously, wondering if she’d done something wrong, and looked into the recess; it was empty. A glance at the token in her hand revealed that it wasn’t the Advancement token, which had apparently disappeared while she was focused on her interface. Instead, it said “CLASS” on both sides in large block letters.
“OK, then. Search for advanceable Skills and Traits, please,” Danielle said. For a moment, she wasn’t sure it would work with only one hand on the pillar, but then her visual interface started scrolling with System messages.
“Searching for Firmitatem Exile skills and traits:
- Logistics skill tree is added to your available skills.
- Medic skill tree is added to your available skills.
- Outdoor Cooking skill tree is added to your available skills.
- Trait: Skill Sharer is added to your available traits.
“Searching for Academy Student skills and traits:
- Stealth skill tree is added to your available skills.
- Study skill tree is added to your available skills.
- Bow weapon skill tree is added to your available skills.
- Staff weapon skill tree is added to your available skills.
- Sword weapon skill tree is added to your available skills.
Searching for Survivor skills and traits:
- Determination skill tree is added to your available skills.
- Observation skill tree is added to your available skills.
- Observation trait pool is added to your available traits.
- Trait: Planner is added to your available traits.
Searching for individual skills and traits:
- You have uncovered hidden trait: Mana Improvement.
- Mana development skill tree is added to your available skills.
- Mana development trait pool is added to your available traits.
- You have uncovered hidden trait: Body Level Two.
- Exercise skill tree is added to your available skills.
- You have uncovered hidden trait: Mind Level Three.
- Puzzler skill tree is added to your available skills.
- Digital Interaction skill tree is added to your available skills.
- Improvised tools skill tree is added to your available skills.
- Improvised weapons skill tree is added to your available skills.
- Living Awareness skill tree is added to your available skills.
You have 400 mana available for advancement. Advancement mana may be used at any time during this session. Do you want to select skills and traits now?”
Danielle was a little overwhelmed by this deluge of information. “Stealth? Really?? Why stealth?!” she asked, struggling to keep her voice low. The System did not answer. “I don’t even know what all of these are!” That also did not trigger a response. Danielle pressed the Class token against her head, as if to cool off an overheating processor. It didn’t help, of course – though it didn’t exactly feel bad. It was rather warm there in the Outside.
She knew she needed to choose and move on. Three minutes? That wasn’t nearly enough time to properly examine all those Skill trees. She could open a few, though. She rationed herself a minute to flip through some likely-looking options, and quickly learned a few important things. First of all, all her unlocked Skills were tier 1. That made sense, since she couldn’t take Skills of a higher tier than her base, which of course was level 1; in the context of Skill trees, though, it might suggest that anything she had nearly unlocked that was tier 2 or higher would stay hidden until she brought her base level up and completed that last requirement.
Tier 1 Skills and Traits evidently all cost 100 mana, so that was simple at least. The Sending Advancement – no, the Firmitatem Exile Advancement had given her enough mana for a Class and four extra abilities. “OK, survival first,” reminded herself, and returned to the Medic Skill tree. Near the top was one of the Skills she’d included in her survey, Medic’s Diagnostics. She had brought a lot of medications and as much equipment and supplies as she could reasonably manage, but some help knowing when and how to use them might go a long way. “OK, um, Access Point, I want to choose Medic’s Diagnostics,” she said.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Advance Skill: Medic’s Diagnostics?” the access point echoed.
“Yes!”
“Skill: Medic’s Diagnostics (T1) added at level 1.”
“OK, making progress – some basic instructions on how to use the access point would’ve helped,” Danielle muttered to herself. Would a Systemist’s Meditations Before Advancing include things like that? For all she knew, Systemist parents would teach their kids this kind of terminology even before then. Or would figuring it out be considered part of the rite of passage?
“Focus, Danielle,” she told herself. “Medical situation is improved; what about self-defense, like that Ranger said?” The weapon Skill trees seemed like the place to start with that one. Their placement under the Academic search category made it obvious they were related to gym class. Her best weapon in gym had always been staff, and the basic Skill in that Skill tree was Staff Apprentice.
“That’s not great for hunting, though. I have to hope the others will choose skills that work together with mine – Sadie’s best weapon was bow, she’ll probably take that,” Danielle muttered to herself. She couldn’t have said why she was talking out loud, exactly. It helped with the nerves a little, though – something about making it all feel more real, maybe. “Focus, focus. What’s good for hunting? Maybe something from Observation – oh, or Living Awareness?”
She was flicking back and forth, trying to figure out what do go for, when the agent outside her archway announced, “You’re at 3 minutes, Miss Falconer.”
“I’m trying!!” she exclaimed, loud enough to hear. Lowering her voice again, she blurted, “System, advance Skill: Sense Mana Source!” That would supposedly let her see the mana of living creatures, so it should help with hunting and with staying away from mana monsters, right? “Advance Skill: Staff Apprentice. What else? Come on brain, think!”
The System printed,
- “Skill: Sense Mana Source (T1) added at level 1.
- Skill: Staff Apprentice (T1) added at level 1.”
“What about Traits?” Danielle asked herself. To her amusement, the Access Point promptly printed a repeat of her Trait unlocks: “Trait: Skill Sharer has recently been added to your available traits. Trait: Planner has recently been added to your available traits. Mana development trait pool has recently been added to your available traits.”
In her memory, Danielle heard her father’s voice, praying for her to “grow into someone honorable, and kind, and generous.” Skill Sharer sounded generous – and anyway, if she managed to get anything good (let alone rare!) she would certainly want to share it with her friends, the better to ensure they all survived. One thing was for sure, she thought to herself; no middle schooler was going to survive all by themselves in the forest where the Rangers didn’t clear away the dangerous mutations and high-tier animals. “All right, advance Trait: Skill Sharer,” Danielle concluded.
“Trait: Skill Sharer (T1) added at level 1,” the System echoed blandly into her Interface text. “You have used all your advancement mana. Do you want to end this session? [Firmitatem organization message: Skills and Traits can be upgraded any time you have the mana for them, but tokens can only be used at an Access Point. The nearest wild access point is approximately 4 miles from here. The government of Firmitatem recommends those who are being Sent to manifest and use their class token before leaving.]”
Danielle snorted. Now there was as blunt a hint as she’d ever seen. She slid the Class token back into the recess it had come from, this time paying attention to what happened to it. It wasn’t visually spectacular, but it still kind of took her breath away; one moment the token was there, filling the void in the top of the pillar – and the next, it simply was not. “New token added. You may now choose a new class! All classes added to your status will be accessible at all times, however, if you choose to have more than one class, you must designate no more than one class to absorb environmental mana. Do you want to see your currently available classes?” Of course she said yes, so the System filled her sight with another list.
“Available classes for System user Danielle Falconer:
- Basic Academic: advance skills and traits related to teaching and learning
- Basic Clerk: advance skills and traits related to administration and record keeping
- Basic Healer: advance skills and traits related to identifying, treating, and healing injuries and illnesses (warning, high mana costs)
- Basic Sneak: advance skills and traits relating to stealth
- Basic Weapon Fighter: advance skills and traits related to fighting with weapons
- Basic Body Enhancer: enable basic physical improvement and advance skills and traits related to unarmed fighting and athletics (warning, high energy costs)
- Basic Element Shaper: enables apprentice studies in shaping elemental energy (warning, high mana costs)
- Basic Mana Caster: enable apprentice studies in directly shaping mana (warning, high mana costs)”
This choice was agonizing, but she reminded herself that she could try again later if today’s Class didn’t work well for her. “Focus – what’s best for survival, right now? Pick that and move on,” she told herself. Her academic days would seem to be behind her, she thought; clerk had to be for office work, not even worth considering right now. Basic Mana Caster was incredibly tempting but she didn’t know if she would have the resources (or time and safety) for “studies” out here. If she could handle the “high mana costs,” she reasoned, then she could manifest another Class token and add the Class later – ideally, after seeing how the studying thing went for someone else! Element shaper had the same problems, but more so since she wasn’t even sure what ‘elemental energy’ would look like or what it would mean to shape it, vs. mana. Body enhancer was out, because she wasn’t sure what it did, or what its “high energy cost” actually referred to.
The real choice, then, was between the remaining three. Basic Weapon Fighter would presumably make her better in a fight; Basic Healer would make her valuable after a fight; and Basic Sneak would help her avoid a fight. Of course, Danielle had never exactly been top 10% in any of the gym-class stuff; not even foot races or endurance challenges, let alone the weapons units, and that wasn’t even mentioning the fact that half the kids – Sent, she reminded herself – out here were older than her. In a straight fight, she was probably going to lose to anyone else with Basic Weapon Fighter, or Basic Body Enhancer, or anything else in that general field, even if she chose one of those Classes herself. Basic Healer was a strong contender, but Heather was trying for that, wasn’t she? Besides, someone might go easy on a Healer because of their valuable Skills, but that seemed like it could backfire in a different way, with people trying to control her instead.
That left stealth – Sneak classes weren’t exactly associated with high honor or good reputation, despite certain fictional characters to the contrary; with that acknowledged, though, it seemed like her best survival prospect for the risk of fighting within the Sending. It also seemed like the only option out of her top three that might have real potential outside of emergency situations – unless, say, weapon fighting might also make her a better bow hunter? Again, though, Sadie was already much better than her with a bow. She really wished she could consult with her friends –
“Five minutes, Miss Falconer!”
“OK, the safe money is on Sadie to go for something good for hunting, she’s got food on the mind. Heather seemed like she really wanted to go for Healer, and we did all we could to pursue that. Neither of them is likely to choose stealth, so if we need a scout… yes. I select Class: Basic Sneak.”
The system responded: “Class: Basic Sneak added. You are currently directing mana to Base Levels. Do you want to direct mana to Class: Basic Sneak instead?”
“No thank you,” Danielle said, thinking for a moment that she was done. Then the System said, “Please select level one options for Class: Basic Sneak.
- > Choose one trait from: Silent Steps (T1-L1) or Beneath Notice (T1-L1)
- > Choose one trait from: Speed Improvement (T1-L1) or Jump Improvement (T1-L1)
- > Choose one skill from: Active Camouflage (T1-L1), Step Light (T1-L1), or Personal Shadow (T1-L1)
- > Choose one skill from: Eavesdropping (T1-L1), Bubble of Silence (T1-L1), or Spot Watch (T1-L1)
Danielle quickly chose Silent Steps, Speed Improvement, Active Camouflage, and Bubble of Silence – she could hear people outside yelling to hurry up, and she had decided on this Class to go for ‘stealthy hunter,’ not ‘thief’ or ‘spy.’ She was reasonably confident of those choices without spending more precious minutes reading all the details.
The system printed, “You have selected all your available class options. Do you want to end this session?” and repeated the Firmitatem message. This time, she chose to end the session and jogged towards the gate in the fence. Someone in line yelled, “What were you doing in there, reading your whole status aloud?” The agent managing the head of the line barked back “No chatter! Once you Advance, you go through the gate!”
Danielle mentally translated that as “no giving hints to the people in line.” Well, fine – after carrying all her gear across the field and back for three hours, she was looking forward to sitting down anyway.
Edited 9/24/2025 to fix several places where "tier" was improperly called "level."
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