Ginger focused on the crafting tutorial option in her menu. The screen shifted, and she started to read eagerly.

  Ginger focused on the first option, mildly peeved by how few options there were. Was that all there was to it?

  Well that was... simplistic. There wasn't really much to the tutorial, was there? But it did seem like focusing on a single stat for crafting would probably be good. Maybe there would be more depth to it when she got started?

  Ginger was suddenly broken out of her thoughts by a scream. She looked up and saw that someone new had landed. She leapt to her feet, and hurried over. "Woah there! It'll be alright. Deep breaths."

  The young man finally took in a great shuddering breath. "I died. Oh gods. I should have stayed out of it. But the dude was pointing his gun at a kid! Oh gods."

  "Right, bad news? You died. Good news? Apparently we can be reborn. So it sucks, but it's not the end."

  "We... What?" the young man's eyes went glazed as he seemed to focus on him menu. "Oh. Oh! Well that's something..."

  "Right?" Ginger agreed. "Something to focus on over the panic at least. Anyways I'm Ginger. What's your name."

  "Huh, there was a Ginger that just died yesterday in my town... Oh, right, I'm Silas."

  "Huh, weird coincidence," Ginger said, not interested at all in figuring out if she was the same Ginger. She didn't want anyone else to know how she'd died. Embarrassing. "Anyways, Kolvar and I are trying to figure out the crafting system. You can take a workshop next to us if you want."

  "Sure, might as well," Silas agreed. "Though crafting isn't exactly what I normally do in games. Maybe it'll be different here, I guess."

  "Looks like it's super important, so it's at least worth a try, right?" Ginger asked. "But maybe only some of us actually need to be crafters. It's not like there are any houses or anything, though, so if you want a private space, I bet the workshops are your best bet."

  "Which one is yours, then?" Silas asked. "Skipping a free resource would just be silly."

  "I took the one on the end here," Ginger said, pointing to hers. "Kolvar has the one next to me, so you can take the middle?"

  "Sure," Silas said, reaching out to the middle door. "Uh, says it's claimed and private. Let me try the next one... Yeah, that one worked."

  "Guess it's still pretty close by," Ginger said. "I'm going to go try crafting a stat rune, now. I'm really curious."

  "Okay," Silas said. "I think I'll, uh, do the same..."

  Ginger had a feeling he was going to have a meltdown like she'd had, instead. But that was his business. Her goal was to try and make a rune. She went inside her own workshop, ready to get started. She looked closer at the workbenches inside her little space. There were three of them there, and they each said what they were for on the front corner. She settled in at the rune bench, and considered the tutorial again.

  If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  She found that there was a little rack of drawers, each one marked. There were twenty drawers, labeled with Tier Zero through Tier Nineteen. She opened the Tier Zero drawer, and found a stencil she assumed was what the tutorial referenced for making the rune. She set it down on the bench in front of her, ready to start. Except... "Focus my Merit... How do I even do that?"

  Ginger closed her eyes, trying to visualize it. Just as she was starting to get frustrated, she managed to feel what she was pretty sure was merit. She focused on that feeling, drawing it into her chest. It grew easier to feel, and she just spent a few minutes getting used to the feeling. Then, she directed it down towards her finger. She shuddered a little at the feeling and look. She must have done something wrong, because it felt thick and gloopy, and just awful. And she could see it in her transparent arm. It was blue, but looked chunky. And watching it travel through her arm was just nasty. She let the merit all go, and it slowly started to almost melt back into the rest of her body.

  "So don't take too much, I guess? And it takes a while to go back to normal..." Ginger muttered as she waited. "Unless it's supposed to feel that way? No, surely it wouldn't feel that bad if I did it right!"

  Once she couldn't feel the Merit anymore, she started again. This time reaching for far less. She brought it like a little string down her arm. Much better this time. She started to fill in the stencil, thinking strong Tier Zero thoughts, in case that helped. It was a bit clumsy, but soon enough she heard the sound of a notification from her system. She pulled up the screen.

  "Twenty!" Ginger exclaimed. "And that's just the first half. Dang! Well, I'm already this far..."

  She thought for a good moment on what stat to imbue. Mind for sure, since that was usually the primary stat for crafting skills. Control, probably. She didn't feel too tired to keep going. She looked at the line of Merit in her hand, and focused on the Mind-Control stat. Then pressed her finger to the rune. To her surprise, it actually worked on the first try. It drew in her merit, ending with a ding.

  That took a lot of merit for just one rune. Ginger would have to get better at this. For now, though, she was eager to try it out. She poked at the rune.

  Ginger confirmed, then checked her stats.

  It worked! Her stat was one higher now! Though, what was up with that bit next to paths? She'd never seen a section for body before in her status. She focused on it, hoping for a tooltip to explain it.

  She supposed that explained it. It told her what sort of body she had? Though she still thought it was a little weird that it had a whole line for it. Maybe it would make sense in the future. For now, there was little point working herself up over it.

  Instead, she decided to try to make another Stat Rune, curious if she could manage to bring down the cost any. She tried making the strand of Merit going through her arm thinner, the Merit itself smoother. Tried filling the stencil more evenly.

  Yes! Sure, it was only by one Merit. But she'd already made an improvement! Making Stat Runes did require skill, which made her quite happy. She focused on the second half of making the rune. Thinking strongly of the Mind-Control stat as she filled the rune with more of her precious Merit.

  That wasn't as great. Still better, but only by one point when that stage cost over twice as much. She still had a lot of room to improve, it seemed. She used the rune, and decided it was time to move on. Skill crafting seemed interesting.