To go with my last post where I outlined a system of classes and abilities, I’ve now written a scene where people from normal our every day world find themselves in the world where these abilities exist. I used some characters from a little thing I’ve been working on (but haven’t posted yet) where there is a team of techies who work in the basement of a store and repair shop called Computer World. These techies at Computer World are somehow expected to single-handedly support all of computer technology and operating systems. This is because people who buy computers from here (many of them custom built or fixed by the team) also buy a tech support contract with them. In addition, the sales people in the store above know nothing about computers (like something out of The Website is Down: Sales Guy VS Web Dude) and have little care or respect for the basement dwellers who struggle to keep the customers after the sales people sell them what they don’t want or need. A post with some of their antics, trials, and all will follow at some point.

I wondered what would happen to them when thrust into this other world that is likely in the books they read and video games they play, and here’s what came out of it.

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“So, people come to this school and… what chose a class like a job?” Ben asked.

“It’s not so much people chose a class as it chooses you… Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that it’s already part of who you are, you just don’t know it yet. The Test just lets you know what your abilities are and what your focuses should be to develop yourselves into skilled soldiers.”

“If we have any abilities at all. You said there were some people who came out of the test with nothing,” Craig pointed out.

“Correct…. and then there are those who come out with less than nothing. The Test is not something people take lightly. It can scar or even kill you. Even if you come out on grid, you may be a different person after. But really, the test brings out who you really were before and shows your potential for success and failure. Some face that better than others… and some cannot face that at all.”

“That explains why not everyone does this. The abilities people have here are amazing…” Angus had earlier watched a class they had passed in absolute awe and more than a little bit of longing.

“So there’s more to it than getting a focus, and getting abilities. People see things and learn things about themselves… How exactly does that work?” Ben asked.

The teacher smiled lightly, as if addressing a novice pupil, “People don’t generally discuss their own test. It’s very personal. And, we’re not entirely sure how or why it works. It’s a ritual handed down that takes twelve of us, a representative of each focus, to perform.”

“So, it’s magic?” Bill asked.

“Not exactly magic, as that only covers the powers of one school. It’s all the powers combined, drawing to the surface the aptitudes of a person. It also draws forth truth and weaknesses as well. People may face their demons. Or… there are people who have claimed remembering nothing at all after wards.”

“…and we have to do this?” Bill asked with a bit more urgency than he meant to.

“If you want to stand a chance of survival, then yes, you do. Even if you reject your role, it won’t stop The Others from finding and killing you. They know you’re in this world now, and that very fact is a threat to them. As it is… you won’t have much time to train. I dare say, the test is the least of your worries, and the greatest of your chances.”

It hung in the air, the unsaid. It was unlikely we’d all survive to see home: our own world again. We were brought here for a common cause tied to the fate of this world and had to follow it whether to help or just to get back to where we belonged. Each of us knew we were more than a little overwhelmed, and by looking at each others’ faces we knew we weren’t alone in that sentiment. We were all plagued by a combination of worry, doubt, and amazement. I doubt we’d all handle it well, thought Sarah, if handled at all any time soon.

“So we should all take the test as soon as possible,” Sarah announced.

“Won’t we be safe here, though? All of these skilled people here… and you and the other teacher pwned them Others, or whatever, pretty good,” Bill was grasping at straws.

“Them?” he chuckled lightly as he pounded his staff on the packed earth, “That was but one of their Masters. They have their own schools, their own soldiers, and many more to send after you. If you stay here too long… we’ll all die. We sent some Masters ahead to prepare the way for when you do get sent off. We sent messages to those we trust to create more than a few red herrings, but I’m afraid even the most optimistic we can be is that you’ll get a few weeks here to prepare.”

“Well, I don’t get it. Why us? What’s so different or special about us? I mean you have to understand, we come from a world where we’re a bunch of lazy asses,” Craig was trying to explain away reality like Bill was, but with a little more confusion than urgency, “We go to work every day and sit in cubes and work on computers. What the hell do we have that these guys, some of who have been training since they were in diapers, don’t?”

“I don’t know,” admitted the Master, “and I know little of your world. All we have are the prophecies. These prophecies were left by the same people who left us the ritual of The Test, so I expect they have some powerful truth to them.”

“There’s a lot of room in these prophecies for us to be offed,” Sarah sighed, “If nothing else, we are smart and we do work well as a team, guys. Don’t be so quick to give up.”

“Another thing I don’t get is why only half of us are here, and why this half,” Craig said as if trying to argue that this was a dream he was waiting to wake from.

“Good point. With the other five of our team here, we might have had a better chance,” Bill paused, “This is not good.”

“I don’t know, would you rather be dealing with customers?” Ben asked, when no one answered, “It was meant to be a joke.”

“How soon can we do the test?” Sarah wanted to see what kind of chance they all had as soon as possible, but without getting that bit out of the way, there was no way to know.

“Wow, you’re in a hurry,” Angus smiled as if this was part of some cosmic joke, “Can’t wait to cast Magic Missile, can you?”

That gave the group a bit of a laugh, except for the Master who furrowed his brow in confusion, but didn’t say anything.

“I want to cast… magic missile,” quoted Ben in a geeky voice. There was a pause and a bit of tension release before the group turned serious again.

“We need to know what our own as well as each others’ strengths and weaknesses are as soon as possible, to work as a team in this,” Sarah pointed out, “Like right now we know to go to Angus for a Linux question or Craig for anything to do with daisy chaining crap together…”

“It’s a good point, we need all the time we can get to train,” admitted Angus, “It’s not like ya’ll are like me, doing martial arts in your spare time.”

Sarah didn’t continue the point as she was mentally beating herself up for not exercising more.

“No, we can’t all be as awesome as you, Angus,” Bill said in his sarcastic, good-natured way, “Some of us were stupid and played sports in our spare time instead. If only we knew our life would turn into a freaking Narnia book.”

“Word,” Angus said with a short chuckle like a hiccup.

The Master continued leading them down a path in what the rest didn’t realize was confused silence. They all seemed to speak a common language, and yet it was times like these the Master had no idea what flowers had to do with chains or what sort of animal a Linux was. He chalked it up to cultural differences and figured that in spite what Craig had said, they were knowledgeable, skilled people who would all have strong focus once they had done The Test. If people were lazy in their world, he figured these people who were brought over were an exception.

It was probably better that he didn’t know a IT tech support team for a computer repair and reseller was their one hope for winning the war and continuing existence as he knew it.

I come up with ideas for writing in a lot of different places. This is something that was kicking in my head from a dream that I expanded on in waking times, in the shower, driving to work, falling asleep. At some point sometimes ideas stop kicking around in the head and I try to put what I’m thinking on paper. Sometimes I start writing the story, and other times I write character sketches, draw places, write scenes, or in this case: figure out mechanics.

One of the most fun things about the Sci-fi and Fantasy genre is the mechanics of how your world works. What makes it full of magic? What are the systems, schools, and conventions by which normal people become adventurers?

In this case I had the idea of four of each type of three categories of adventurers. Where (and if) you fall on this grid is determined by an extensive and even dangerous test, kind of like some sort of spirit journey. By the end of that journey it has been divined what school(s) you fall into.

Here are some of the sketches I did in my Blue Book (on of my journal sketchbooks) to help me figure out this grid. I figured each school next to each other should have abilities in common as well as each school having its own unique focus. There are 3 main schools: Warrior, Wizard, and Toil. Warrior covers the types of fighters. Wizards are the ones who harness magic. Toils are those who use worldly skills to make something otherworldly. If you read the charts the other way, You get the four worlds: Physical World, Natural World, Inner World, and Spiritual World.

To help figure these out, I thought of people I knew and what they might be based on the system I figured out.

Each particular class has a name and color. Each also has one main focus, and four minor focuses (or abilities) that are shared with the surrounding major focuses. Primes are those who only have a single class and those four surrounding abilities. They also usually have a special ability unique to having a strict focus. These abilities vary from person to person and sometimes are not immediately apparent. Most of the time, it s found out by the time a disciple has left their school.

I also left room for mixing classes across the grid: dual, tri, and quad classes. The further divided you are in your classes, the further split your focus.

A dual class gets two main focuses, but only a total of four surrounding abilities. Those four surrounding abilities have to be two from each focus and must be either horizontal or vertical.

A Tri class is also known as a Worlder as they pick a world. They get three focuses, and only the shared abilities from their world (those listed vertical). This gives them three main focuses and three abilities.

A quad class is usually known by the larger class name: Quad Warrior, Quad Wizard, or Quad Toil. They have those four focuses going across, and then the abilities between each. Since the classes have more abilities, it is usually found by the time a disciple graduates that they are weak in a couple of the abilities or lose a couple of the focuses. Those who keep their focuses remain Quads, as the abilities that are weak can be improved upon over time. However, if a focus is lost, the Quad usually will become a Prime or Dual. This is not considered a bad thing or a dishonor to have a more narrowed focus or a more broadened one, it is simply the way things naturally occur in a particular person.

Here are the stats for readers of my blog for about the past four months which you may find interesting:

Current Country Totals
From 1 Oct 2008 to 22 Jan 2009

United States (US) 1,462
Canada (CA) 123
United Kingdom (GB) 115
Germany (DE) 49
Brazil (BR) 28
Hungary (HU) 28
Australia (AU) 25
France (FR) 21
Poland (PL) 21
Puerto Rico (PR) 18
Netherlands (NL) 18
Italy (IT) 18
Spain (ES) 16
Mexico (MX) 16
Sweden (SE) 15
Belgium (BE) 14
Ireland (IE) 13
Denmark (DK) 12
Finland (FI) 10
Russian Federation (RU) 9
Romania (RO) 9
Japan (JP) 8
Israel (IL) 8
Argentina (AR) 8
Portugal (PT) 7
Europe (EU) 7
Singapore (SG) 7
Turkey (TR) 7
India (IN) 7
Chile (CL) 6
Switzerland (CH) 6
Colombia (CO) 6
Norway (NO) 6
Korea, Republic of (KR) 6
Philippines (PH) 6
Peru (PE) 5
Serbia (RS) 5
Indonesia (ID) 4
China (CN) 4
Czech Republic (CZ) 4
Thailand (TH) 4
Austria (AT) 4
Vietnam (VN) 4
Costa Rica (CR) 3
Greece (GR) 3
Slovakia (SK) 2
Malaysia (MY) 2
South Africa (ZA) 2
New Zealand (NZ) 2
Venezuela (VE) 2
El Salvador (SV) 2
Ukraine (UA) 2
Iceland (IS) 1
Paraguay (PY) 1
Uruguay (UY) 1
Lithuania (LT) 1
Latvia (LV) 1
Mauritius (MU) 1
Jamaica (JM) 1
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BA) 1
Egypt (EG) 1
Iran, Islamic Republic of (IR) 1
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (LY) 1
Pakistan (PK) 1
Kuwait (KW) 1
Hong Kong (HK) 1
United Arab Emirates (AE) 1
Malta (MT) 1
Dominican Republic (DO) 1
Netherlands Antilles (AN) 1
Slovenia (SI) 1
Sri Lanka (LK) 1
Honduras (HN) 1
Panama (PA) 1
Bulgaria (BG) 1
Mongolia (MN) 1

There are several things I enjoy about these stats, but I think the lone fellow from Mongolia takes the cake.

I also admit I had to look up where Malta and Mauritius was and didn’t know anything about them.

For anyone who wants to know, I got some info from Wikipedia and I will share the juicy bits with you.

The Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation off the coast of Africa east of Madagascar. One of the coolest things I read about it is that there is a plan for Mauritius to become the first nation to have coast-to-coast wireless internet access. The wireless hot spot currently covers about 60% of the island and is accessible by about 70% of its population. Also, Mauritius was the only known habitat of the extinct Dodo bird.

Republic of Malta is an archipelago of seven islands off the coast of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea. All education is free there (which is always an obsession to us in the USA who start life off with debt to be educated) and Malta was ranked number 5 in the World Health Organization’s ranking of the world’s health systems (also an obsession to those of us in the USA who have periods in life with no health insurance). The official language of Malta is Maltese which I didn’t even know was a language.

I hope this has been educational for everyone. Thank you all for stopping by!

I’m single now, but have been in long term relationships, one which was almost five years long. Even though been cheated on, abandoned, and I still don’t get the whole jealousy thing.

I don’t understand the purpose being jealous. Feeling threatened by other people or even (ahem) objects just shows a lack of trust in the other person and security with one self. It’s also a major turn off.

I equally don’t get it when other couples tip toe around, being careful not to make the other person jealous.

I’m not saying I haven’t done stupid things like neglected friendships when being in relationships. However, I have never thought to give up one on one encounters with people of the opposite sex just because of the status of being in a relationship. I (surprise) connect with guys. I enjoy their company in an entirely non-sexual way.

Many of them are gay and many of them have relationships of their own anyways. Sometimes I’m in a big group, and sometimes, one on one with a person. I don’t think you give up that right to have plans with your friends when you enter into a relationship, even if the friend is of the opposite sex and even if it’s just the you two doing something together. I have always been more likely to hang out with people one on one or in a very small group, so maybe that’s why I don’t see anything wrong with people keeping their other close knit friends no matter what their relationship status.

If anything, maybe a guy should take care with women having gay and bisexual women friends. It makes the same amount of sense.

If a boyfriend or husband ever tried to tell me to not hang out with someone, how would I handle it? I think I would have a hard time seeing their point of view, though I’d try. I’ve let guys come between be and friends too much in the past. There just has to be enough trust to allow that most important person in your life have other people be important in theirs. If your significant other isn’t worthy of your trust, what are you doing trusting them enough to be in any kind of relationship with you?

Do you worry about flirting? Anything can be flirting. Anything can be interpreted as flirting. Worrying about that is like worrying about a ‘your mom’ joke. It isn’t serious unless it’s serious, and really, how often is that?

I’d give any guy the same free reign I expect from them, to hang out with whoever. The guys who are going to cheat on me will whether or not I try to control their friendships. They are not worth keeping anyways. If I can’t trust someone without monitoring them, then I can’t trust them at all.

I guess the most important thing is to make sure you’re on the same page in a relationship. If you’re not, that could take some serious discussion. It’s probably a better discussion to have before hand than after the fact. Different people have different boundaries and limits, and for those to be respected, they have to be known first. Then, I guess, you can tackle the obstacle of trying to understand why and coming to some sort of understanding.

Some people are very good at forgiveness and some people are very good at betrayal.

When two such people link together, arm in arm, it’s a terrible combination and very sad to watch.

Forgiveness, loyalty, love, and even hope can be a bad thing to have concerning the right people. It sets up a cycle of pain hard to break from.

The hindsight of escaping such an cycle can be just as worse. We figure we’re stronger and smarter now, but deep down we know we’d do it again. Really there are some things about us that don’t change so much. We all have an outer aura that is subject to change, but everyone also has a core of what makes them who they are.

I’m not sure what that core consists of is the same for people, but I do think that he bigger traits that I’m talking about usually reside in the core of a person. The further into the core the trait, the harder it is to change.

Words like ’should’ don’t apply, only will. They shouldn’t lie, but they will. You should let them go, but you will hold on until they leave you defeated. You come back until loyalty has reached its limit, hope is hollow, and the entire experience leaves you empty.

Some people have a very strong will that accompanies things like loyalty and hope. Some people don’t ever know when to quit.

And when it’s all over, we ask why. The why of it doesn’t really matter, but still we ask it every time. You’re never going to be satisfied with the answer. With or without, these things are and continue to be this way.

The question isn’t why so much as it’s why not. Why not work out? Why not change for the better?

It’s so much easier as an outsider looking in. I say maybe you shouldn’t (again), watch with horrible fascination, and tell you to be careful even as the outcome is apparent.

Look out. It’s a tarp.

“Something is not right.”

“What? That ROM isn’t working? The emulator?”

I got a CycloDS Evolution for a friend for her birthday (and general holiday gift). Since she visited only recently, it wasn’t until now that I got to play with it. Of course, I said “Yea- I get to play with it,” while she actually had the idea in mind that I would spend a couple hours making it bend to her will. Since I’m the resident ‘knows-how-to-do-technical-stuff” person, being the actual day of her birthday, I complied. If scouring the web is what she wants, it’s what I’ll do.

“You did something. It’s not right. When it boots up it’s not supposed to make that noise,” she turned the Nintendo DS off again and on again.

“What noise?” I asked not really understanding what she meant, and of course annoyed at the accusation. The only worse thing than being the, “Can you fix my computer?” recipient is being the, “I asked you to fix it and you broke it!” recipient.

She turned it off and on again, and the chimes rang. I don’t own a Nintendo DS, so I have no idea what the chimes normally sound like when it turns on, so I say, “Okay, is there any other sound that’s messed up? When you open a ROM or use a game, is the sound different?”

“No, just when I turn it on.”

“Maybe you or I accidentally changed a setting so it has different music on boot up?”

“No, I checked that.”

Now I’m giving her the ‘you’re crazy’ look as she’s obsessively booting it, and turning it off, and booting again, and becomingly increasingly upset. Finally she has to go to the bathroom, so I figure I’ll search the internet and come up with the setting that must’ve been changed, or I can tell her she’s nuts with confidence.

I search Google and am surprised to find the issue is not a setting.

A similarly upset and worried fellow posted about this on a forum who had the exact same issue. Actually there were several hits as it is a common issue. I read further and find out the big problem, what was broken:

The Nintendo DS gives you a special chime on your birthday. It also gives you a rainbow “Happy Birthday” message in PictoChat.

I laughed my ass off. As she came out of the bathroom I continued to laugh. I wanted to look grim when I gave her the news, play it up, and tell her something was seriously wrong with her game system. I couldn’t do it, though.

And after all, it was her birthday.

Nintendo- making people everywhere think that their DS has broken on their birthday. Happy Birthday indeed.