Making Friends

I think I tried to dodge? It definitely didn't work and the baseball bat wielded by a man a head taller than me hit me on the head. I'm pretty sure he drew back at the last moment, because I wasn't unconscious or dead. I fell on my ass and grabbed my forehead and said: "Ow!"

"Shit, man, sorry, I didn't think," the man said. He had a sort of bro-y way of speaking, but he sounded sincere. "Ow, shit, I'm fine, I'll be fine," I said. "It's just that you came out of nowhere," he said. "Brad, you cannot just hit people over the head if they come out of nowhere," a woman's voice said. She sounded like she wasn't used to raising her voice, but she had now. "It's fine, really. It might even be a good idea," I said. "Good idea?" Brad said, "Do you mean you have any idea what's going on?" "Not really, just some guesses from the context clues," I said, "I'm Alex." "I'm Brad, this is Clara," he said, and as my vision cleared, I saw that the two were college kids, or at least in that age range. Brad was pretty built and short-haired blond in a school jersey and jeans, while Clara had brown hair in a bun and wore a cardigan and a long skirt. Brad held out his hand to help me up and I took it.

"What context clues? I've been trying to figure anything out, but there's just this notebook that keeps insulting me and showing me numbers that don't mean anything," Clara said. "That's mostly what I have too, but there are a few things. First, of all, are we on the same page about magic, or sufficiently advanced technology, or whatever being real?" I said. "Wait, are you a wizard? Is that a staff? Have you been here for longer than us?" Brad said. "Nah, a wizard's staff has a knob on the end," I said, "But I mean there are things that cannot be explained by smoke and mirrors. Notice how well the notebook knows you, or how the chalk numbers on the blackboard move, or that you cannot even budge the room doors once they're open. It's not some sort of a trick, or a prank, or special effects or something. It's real."

"Shit, that's what Clara's been saying. Maybe it's aliens," Brad said. "Yes, and I have been saying that a countdown clock with the objective 'survive' is fucking terrifying," Clara said. "You're not wrong, but I also don't think we're in terrible danger. Like I don't think whoever or whatever has done this to us wants us dead. Or at least it's not the only outcome acceptable to them," I said. "The experience points, the advancement, the video game shit you mean?" Brad said. "Yeah. If it was just about getting their kicks off seeing us all starve or struggle against odds we cannot beat, why give us any advantages at all," I said. "That's… technically less terrifying," Clara said. "But I think there might be enemies here," I said. "What, like people want us dead?" Brad said.

"Like, maybe not people. When I picked up a weapon the notebook mentioned 'creatures of the Tower'. Like there's things here that might have to be attacked," I said. Brad huffed up and held his bat higher. I saw that Clara had keys sticking out of her clenched fist, "I don't think it'll be anything too scary. We're only just starting out, they cannot expect us to fight giant monsters or something." "Alright you two definitely stick with me then. No offense old man, but you don't strike me as much of a fighter," Brad said. "No argument from me. I've been drawing out a map and wanted to go this direction, have you explored that way already?" I said. "Both our rooms were that way. I met Brad, and then we went back to get his notebook when I realized he hadn't found it," Clara said. "Can we not talk about that? Makes me sound like a dumb jock," Brad said. "You said it, not me," Clara said. "Whatever," Brad said. "Okay, then let's go that way," I said, pointing behind me, to the right from my original direction. I drew a few lines, and heard scratching. Under my traits it now said:

Traits:

General Anxiety Disorder (Mild) Novice Recovery

Novice Recovery: not having a class doesn't make you completely worthless. While you do not have a class you recover health at 1 health point per minute. You gained this ability by being reduced to under 50% of your health without a class.

"That's useful," I said and showed the notebook to the kids. "Oh, it doesn't work if you show it to others. It all just looks like wingdings to me," Clara said. "Really? Well, thanks to Brad hitting me over the head I now recover health. It seems pretty slow, but faster than natural healing," I said. A minute must have passed, because I suddenly felt quite a bit better. Which was worrisome, as it meant that one hit point was a significant portion of my health, but also exciting, because my freaking back hurt less for the first time in three years. Looked like it would heal pre-existing conditions. Take that health insurance companies.

We walked in silence at first, but as obvious dangers didn't immediately manifest we struck up a conversation. Their story was quite similar to mine- they were from the same city, walking to a bar near their university and suddenly woke up in a magic tower. They had been in the same group when they got teleported- teleported?- here and had still ended up several rooms away from one another. So, if I wanted to meet my friends, assuming they were even here, they could be quite the distance away.

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Brad was actually a really nice guy, and Clara was on the nerdier side, which I thought was cool. She was the most worried of us three. Brad didn't know what was happening, but he felt comfortable leading and protecting people, and I could see it gave him confidence to lead the group. I, of course, was exactly the sort of nerd that would find being transported to a magical maze exciting. Clara though was smart enough to understand that we could be in real danger, and not delusional about her chances in a fight against monsters. When I got to mentioning my spell, Clara spoke up.

"We should probably start checking the classrooms then. I mean, Brad found the bat, and I didn't really get anything, so it seems like there must be some useful stuff in at least some of the rooms, right?" she said.

And it made a lot of sense. I'd been thinking about exploring as an end itself and a means to getting experience. But then I must have like a handful of hitpoints and no real abilities. In a situation like that, now that she mentioned it, it was obvious that we should be looking for gear. A level one wizard cannot kill a hobgoblin with his own abilities, not before being ripped apart, but a stick of dynamite was a stick of dynamite.

We started going through the classrooms one by one, and at first all it did was slow us down. But since our only objective was 'survive', not 'achieve X', any time we could spend in relative safety was a boon to us. I was disappointed I didn't get any more experience from exploring more classrooms, but then again I wasn't actually discovering anything new.

Most of the rooms had little in the way of useful gear. Most of it was office supplies, basic clothing and a few tools that could be used as improvised weapons. A few pool cues, a length of gym rope- the sort used for climbing practice- a few more half-full bottles of what smelled like alcohol. Essentially, with the exception of my one spell we didn't find anything here that wouldn't be in a normal school building. We were just about to give up and return to just walking straight down the hallway, when Brad called out:

"Hey, guys, check this out!" he said. He sounded pretty excited. Clara rushed over. "What is it?" She said. "It's like pirate booty. Doubloons," Brad said.

I moved over and saw what he was talking about. In the teacher's desk in one of the classrooms we were in, there was a leather pouch, roughly the size of an orange. Brad had opened it, and inside there were coins. These were definitely not modern Earth coins, but relatively large, likely silver, disks.

"Odd. How many are there?" I said. Brad poured the silver out on the desk, and counted out a dozen silver coins. I picked one up and examined both sides. There were clear markings on them. One side was a picture of a tower. It looked quite a bit like the Tower tarot card, from what I could remember. Straight, stylized, with a crenelated top and one window near the roof. On the other there was the same pentagram with the same runes that we had on our notebooks.

"Sweet, I'm sure there'll be a way to use these. Brad, you found them, how do you want to split them?" I said. "Evenly for sure. We're a team, right?" Brad said. Good kid.

I picked up four of the coins, put them in my pocket and- Huh. As soon as I pulled my hand out of my pocket, the weight had disappeared and there was a scratching from the notebook.

Under

Equipment

, after all of my gear it now said

Money: 0p, 0g, 4s, 0c

I reached into my pocket, and when I thought of retrieving the coins, there they were.

"Check it out, that is definitely magic," I said. They tried it and were confused, then checked their journals too.

"What's the letters mean?" Brad said. "I'm mostly guessing, but in a game it would be p for platinum, g for gold, s for silver and c for copper. Seeing as it seems to be counting our silver coins as 's' I'm thinking it's a pretty good guess," I said.

We still checked the other rooms on our way, but there wasn't really anything of note, so we advanced more quickly, only making sure there wasn't anything obvious in them.

It took about an hour for anything to change. The hallways seemed to be distributed in a maze-like pattern, and we had found neither a dead-end, an exit, or the center so far. But we did come across a double door with a light-up white sign above it saying CAFETERIA in poorly backlit red on white.

"If we're going to be here for three days we probably should find some food," I said. "I am not sure I want to eat anything in here, but we don't have a choice but to find water. Unless we want to die of thirst that is," Clara said. "There's tap water in the bathrooms. It's just as likely to be safe as whatever we find in a cafeteria. But we should check it out, we can't be too cautious. What if we need to earn experience for something later?" I said "Alright," Brad said and went for the door, but I asked him to wait. "Look, if I was going to put monsters anywhere, it would be in the cafeteria, maybe other places that people would have to go to, like bathrooms," Clara said. "Bathrooms seem safe. But you might be right about this room," I said. "Right, I see your point. It's like a trap," Brad said. "It could be," I said, "we should be careful and have a plan. I bet if there is something and we beat it we'll get a bunch of experience." "I literally have never been in a fight, not even, like, a girl-fight or whatever," Clara said. "Don't worry, I'll protect you," Brad said. "Shut up, Brad," Clara said. "I haven't been in many fights either," I said, "But we'll have the best chance if we work together. I think Brad should go first, then I can poke whatever it is over his shoulder with this stick. It is probably best if you stay in the middle, Clara. Like, kick it in the shins, pull its hair, distracting whatever creature would still be very helpful." "Doesn't sound fair," Brad said. "It could be a life or death situation," I said. "And we're here against our consent. We were basically kidnapped. Hell, not basically, literally. Anything we do to survive here is fair game," Clara said. "Shit, I just thought of something," I said, "there could be monsters in there, or there could be more people that got taken in there. Let's just make sure before we start swinging baseball bats." "Dude, I said I'm sorry, get off my balls," Brad said. "Alright, let's get in line, Brad, open the door when you're ready," I said.

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