“Inquisitor Silver? Sir?” A young voice said. I opened my eyes to find myself kneeling in a pew. I was in the first row of a small church with arching ceilings and colorful stained glass windows. A large cross hung above a black stone altar and golden candles filled the air with a pleasant aroma.

  “Inquisitor?” The voice came again. A young man dressed in some sort of vestments was standing to my right at the end of the pew.

  “What?” I said blearily, still coming to terms with my surroundings.

  “Sorry to interrupt your prayers Inquisitor, but the Archbishop asked me to come get you. He wants to brief you on your mission. I will have your things sent to your room after I guide you to his office,” the young man said.

  “Thank you,” I said, standing from the hard wooden kneeler. As I did, I realized that I was wearing rough traveling clothes and boots. I was glad to see the utilitarian clothes instead of some sort of clerical vestment. I liked the idea of being an enforcer and detective, not really the idea of wearing robes and giving mass.

  The young man, a curate, guided me to the Archbishop’s office and then left, presumably to have my things moved to my room, whatever that means. I knocked on the finely carved wooden door. “Enter” Called a deep voice and I opened the door.

  The office was lightly furnished, but each item was clearly expensive. The crucifix hanging across from the large oil painting looked to be real gold, and the desk that dominated the room was made of a beautiful dark wood and covered in intricate carvings.. Behind the desk was a large man. He was older, maybe in his fifties, and was slightly pudgy, but he gave off an air of confidence.

  “Greetings Inquisitor Silver,” he said in a deep voice with an English accent. He stood and offered his hand. His grip was firm and dry. “I am Archbishop Peter. Welcome to St. Paul’s Cathedral,” he said, gesturing to the building as a whole.

  “Thank you for coming, I know it was short notice, but the city's need is great. I will get into that more, but first we need some paperwork on file,” he said with a grimace. He handed over a small stack of papers and continued. “We received a copy of your resume from the Inquisitor Records, but there seems to have been a mistake. Almost all of the pages were left blank. If you could take a minute and fill them in, it would be greatly appreciated.”

  I looked down at the stack of papers and recognized the character sheet I had filled out just a few minutes ago. Instead of just name, race, and class though, it now had a sheet for primary statistics, and proficiencies. “Alright I will see what I can do,” I said and took a fountain pen from the desk.

  The first thing that I noticed was that the class page had additional options.

  I thought about it for a moment and then chose Inquiro Haereticum. At the end of the day, the main threat is always other humans. Especially if there was going to be any player versus player content. I was never really into PVP, but I had no idea how the game was designed, so it was better to have a leg up just in case.

  I took a deep breath as I flipped to the next page, Primary Statistics. Here is where things would get complicated.

  I tapped each stat to make the tooltip appear.

  Curious to see how the spell system worked, I tapped on the words ‘spells prepared’ and ‘cool down reduction’ to see if tooltips would come up.

  So I will have a number of spells based on my Intelligence, and they will come off cooldown faster based on Willpower. Seems pretty straightforward.

  I played around with increasing and decreasing my stats by tapping on the plus and minus symbols next to each stat. The effects were very disconcerting. As I increased or decreased my strength I could actually feel my muscles changing tone. Luckily, lowering my intelligence stat did not really seem to affect my critical thinking ability. I noticed that with my intelligence maxed at ten, I could do mental math quickly, as if a calculator was telling me the answers as I thought them. It was neat, but not really a ‘drop everything for this stat’ kind of bonus.

  In sudden inspiration, dropped all of the stats to their minimum of three, and then maxed out Intelligence and Willpower. It probably would not make a difference, but I might as well have these stats maxed while I looked over the rest of my character options. I could always come back and assign my stat points seriously.

  The next page described Proficiencies.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “What are the Basic Proficiencies I can choose from?” I wondered out loud.

  “Would you like to know about weapons, armor, or tools?” A deep voice asked. I jumped in my seat. I had completely forgotten that the Archbishop was even in the room.

  “Uh, armor please,” I told the older man. No matter what proficiencies I ended up taking, I definitely needed armor.

  “The Basic Proficiencies for armor are very simple. You can be proficient in Light, Medium, and or Heavy armor,” the Archbishop answered. “Light armor provides the least protection, but is the easiest to move around in. Heavy armor offers the most protection, but is the hardest to move around in. Medium armor is a balance of the two. It is still possible to run and jump in heavy armor, but it is exhausting to do so. Heavier armor can also impede the fluidity some magic disciplines need in order to cast magic. You won’t have to worry about that though.”

  I nodded absentmindedly and wrote Medium armor in as one of my proficiencies. The class description said it focused on medium armor after all, it would be dumb to go with anything else. Eventually I would learn enough about the game system to make custom builds, but until I knew what I was doing there was no reason to handicap myself.

  “What about weapons?” I asked Peter.

  “Easier to show you than list them all out,” the archbishop said before sketching a diagram on a loose piece of paper and handing it to me.

  “Besides those 13, there are two more. Unarmed attacks and Grappling. They don’t fit into my chart as nicely as they are a mix of one and two handed,” he explained with a frown.

  “Firearms huh?” I said absentmindedly. I had no idea what level of firearm technology the Victorian era had. I was not much of a history buff. Are we talking black powder muskets here, or did magazines exist?

  “Yes, disgraceful isn't it?” Peter replied scornfully. “Despite the church’s boycott of the man killing monstrosities they are still prevalent in the country. The crown says they need them for the military, but why are private citizens allowed to have them then?”

  “What makes them worse than all the other weapons?” I ask in surprise. I did not expect such an impassioned outburst from the old man.

  “Weapons are the holy tools of God we use to strike down the abominations that plague humanity. Guns on the other hand are a weapon specifically designed to kill humans. This is an affront to God. All human life is precious and needed to stand against the darkness.”

  “Guns only work on people?” I asked in surprise. I would have thought getting chunks blasted out of you would be bad for anybody.

  “The undead menace cannot be killed by blood loss or organ failure. Yes, enough shots to the head will destroy the brain enough to dispel the dark magics, but that requires accuracy and time. This makes them virtually useless in the war against the undead. Cannon and greek fire are a different story. The destructive power they bring to bear can devastate undead hordes. There are even monastic orders dedicated to producing blessed greek fire. It is only personal scale firearms that are anathema.”

  “I see,” I said, not knowing how else to respond. I didn't really want to play a ranged character anyway, so no great loss, but now I was curious. “But how are arrows and crossbow bolts any better? They cannot be any more effective against the undead, right?”

  “Ah, but arrows and bolts stick into their target as long as the bow’s power is calculated correctly. So the shafts can be blessed with either holy or fire magics. Once embedded into the undead the shaft will burn the monster from the inside out,” Peter responded with zealous pride.

  “Nice. That is all well and good, but I am more of an up close and personal fighter anyway,” I told the Archbishop. I figured I would go with a one handed weapon and shield. Sword and board was a classic, and if fit well with the character I was planning on building. Before I confirmed that though, I wanted to see what tool proficiencies there were. “And what are the basic tool proficiencies?”

  “The tool proficiencies are a little different in that they start out fairly specific, such as sculptors tools. The advanced proficiencies for these tools are specific styles of use such as reliefs verses busts carving. Tool proficiencies cover any tools, vehicles, or skills you can think of. Common tool proficiencies for Inquisitors include knots, tracking, and cryptology.”

  “Thanks. I’ll get more proficiencies later right?” I asked. Given how many options there were, it seemed like a given that I would unlock more as I go on, but better safe than sorry.

  “Of course,” Peter said with a nod. “Whenever you reach an odd level you will be able to choose a new proficiency. Either a new basic proficiency or an advanced version of a proficiency you already have.”

  The fact that the old man referenced game mechanics surprised me, but I guess he would not be much of a resource if he had to stick to vague statements about growing as I gained work experience. I briefly considered choosing a firearm proficiency, but ultimately decided against it. A weapon that was extra effective against humans would stack nicely with the 10% damage bonus I got from my Inquiro perk, but I doubt the choice would make me friends with the Archbishop and I was planning on being melee based anyway. I selected one handed sword and shield for my two proficiencies. I could always select a tool or two later after I had some time to figure out what would be useful.

  That done, I flipped back to stats. As fun as it was to have a calculator in my head, I needed to figure out what would be best for my character. First of all, I didn’t plan on using ranged weapons, so Perception stays at the minimum of three.

  Next, spellcasting. I didn’t know what exactly the “untyped” magic my class had access to could do. I would have to tell the dev team about that. I understand not wanting to overwhelm new players, but without knowing what spells I had access to, how could I make an informed decision about how much to focus my build around spellcasting? At the end of the day though, I didn't want to play a caster. I wanted to focus on melee damage and damage mitigation. With that in mind, I dropped Intelligence and Willpower down to three.

  That left me with 17 points to bring up my Constitution, Dexterity, and Strength. I put them each to 5 for starters. Attack speed, damage, and stamina were all critical to the build I wanted. I decided to put Dexterity to the maximum of 10, leaving me with 6 points. Since I would be using one handed weapons, I figured more numerous weaker blows would end up being better damage. That, and I liked the idea of being fast. There is nothing worse than wasting half your game time slogging from one area to the next because you are too heavily armored to sprint.

  I had enough to max either Constitution or Strength, but that would leave the other only just above average. I decided to split the difference and put each of them up to 8. It was pretty min maxed, but I was happy with the build. I figured I would be able to hit my enemies, often, hard, and without getting tired.

  I was about to confirm my choices when I remembered that Willpower was also used to resist mental status effects. What was the point of being able to hit like a champ if I kept getting charmed or stunned? Figuring I could afford to lose the stamina, I dropped Constitution down to 6 and raised my Willpower back up to 5.

  I took one last look at my character sheet before handing it back to the Archbishop.

  Satisfied, I handed the pages back to the Archbishop.