Sarah's Story Chapter 007 - Sarah's Class Selection

Sarah instinctively noted her surroundings as her eyes reopened. A smooth floor, wide open space with no walls, dull grey sky with no sun, but also no clouds, flat lighting.

And a multitude of girls her age, no…

A multitude of copies of herself.

The vast majority were wearing her sparring clothes. But there were a few other versions of herself wearing other clothes. Off to the left was one of her wearing a baker’s hat and holding a tray of cookies. Behind the Baker was a version of her wearing a more formal Martial Artist’s gi. In fact, as she looked, she could see that the Martial Artist was the second most common Class, although still far far fewer than Brawlers.

She walked up to a version of herself wearing houseclothes and an apron, with her hair up, and asked, “So, what’s going on here?”

From what she had learned asking everyone in their village, the Class selection was supposed to open with the general version of each available Class, then the options for specializations were supposed to appear.

The Homemaker version of herself gave a wry grin.

“Well, you’re set on Brawler already, and, well…”

The Homemaker put a hand on her hip and snapped her fingers, and all the various class options merged and appeared standing next to the Homemaker, except for one in running clothes who was running in place and couldn’t seem to stand still.

There was the Homemaker, and the Baker she had seen earlier, and the Runner looking impatient, and a Brawler with a cocky smile – Sarah noted one of the Brawler’s hands was casually concealed – and a Martial Artist standing with formal posture, and several more.

And in the back, leering at her, was a version of herself with pale skin, thin hair, and… was that bloodstained clothing?

Sarah shivered, despite the perfectly comfortable temperature.

A Farmer version of herself, wearing a straw hat and clothes for working in the field, noted her gaze and made an awkward expression.

Sarah’s sense of dread increased as the other Classes stepped aside to let the creepy Class step forward.

Sarah swallowed. “And what class are you?” She tried to sound confident, but her voice quavered.

“I… am Avenger.”

Sarah took an involuntary step backwards.

“Well, I don’t want to be an Avenger, so… step back.”

The Avenger smirked.

“Ah… yes, sure, sure. You want to be a Brawler, no? That was your oath. But… I’ll be back. I’m the only other option. See you soon…”

And the Avenger faded away, slowly, as though mist was overtaking it and it alone, and it disappeared.

In unison, Sarah and all the other Classes breathed a sigh of relief. Then, without any more hesitation, Sarah stepped up to the version of herself wearing her sparring clothes.

“Brawler?” she asked to confirm.

“Brawler.” came the confirmation.

Sarah knew instinctively what to do next.

“I want to brawl.” she said confidently.

The brawler’s cocky grin widened into a genuine smile and all the other classes disappeared.

And were instantly replaced by dozens and dozens of brawlers.

Brawler Class selected. Will you specialize?

Sarah looked around, confused, and the Brawler in front of her answered the unspoken question.

“If you specialize the Class, what skills you learn, how fast you learn them, even your attribute boosts can change. Normally, Brawlers get boosts in Dexterity and Speed, but if you specialized in the right way, you might get a Strength boost instead.” The Brawler gestured to the side where Sarah saw a version of herself with huge muscles standing in place and flexing. “That’s about as far as the range goes for you, a Brawler that’s almost a Grappler with boosts in Strength and Endurance.”

Sarah shook her head. “No, not that one. Way too easy to beat in an unfair fight.”

The Brawler snapped her fingers and pointed at Sarah. “Exactly!”

The muscular Brawler folded her arms – managing to flex them one last time – pouted, and disappeared.

Sarah turned in a full circle, completely surrounded by nearly identical copies of herself, for she now noted she was also wearing the same sparring outfit as everyone else, and was overwhelmed by the number of choices. She noted small differences out of habit. One was wearing brass knuckles. Another had long, braided hair with a heavy jade ring woven in at the end. Another was wearing smoked glasses and had pockets bulging with sand. An oddly shorter version of herself had knives poking out from between her fingers…

Wait, could choosing a class make her shorter?

One was carrying an absurd number of weapons, but Sarah couldn’t see an opening in its stance. Another was sprawled out on the ground, surrounded by beer bottles, seemingly sleeping but one eye was cracked open. Another was swinging around a bar stool madly. One was… surprisingly clean and well dressed, standing up straight, and telling another brawler how to fight while the other brawler listened studiously.

On and on the options went.

Sarah turned back to the first Brawler. “So… what’s your specialization?”

“None! I’m the general class: anything the specializations can do, I can do, although it will take significantly more training.”

“More training?”

“Yeah, more training, not that you’re a stranger to hard work. But, if you take a specialization, for example…” The Brawler grabbed another Brawler, this one juggling various objects, and brought it back to Sarah.

“Hi!” she said, effortlessly continuing to juggle. “Do you like throwing things? Then I’m the specialization for you! You’ll get lots of skills for throwing things really easily, and you’ll improve a lot faster!”

Sarah knew that in fact, she did like throwing things. She was particularly proud of her throwing, compared to her tumbling…

“But!” the juggler continued, “You won’t be so good at all that rolling around and grappling, just so you know!”

The first Brawler spoke up. “If you take this specialization, you’ll get a proficiency bonus towards throwing, and a proficiency penalty towards, well, most other things.”

Sarah frowned. “A proficiency… penalty?” she asked. Nobody had ever mentioned that when she had asked around the village, nor had her parents mentioned it.

The general Brawler nodded as the juggling Brawler continued, more interested in her knives and beer bottles and rocks than the conversation. “Right. This class can still learn those other skills and improve them, but it’s slower, far slower. Me, on the other hand, I can learn and improve all the skills in the Class, and I won’t be as fast in some aspects as a specialized Class, but I’ll be faster in the aspects where a specialized Class is penalized.

Sarah’s frown deepened. “Wait, then why would anyone pick a specialized Class at all?” She couldn’t understand why someone would trade fast improvement in some things for worse improvement in others. It would just lead to an unbalanced class…

The general Brawler nodded. “Yeah, that’s my take on it too, but imagine if you were a Baker working in a Bakery with other Bakers. And you were competing with other Bakers in other Bakeries. If you specialized in, say, cakes, and took a proficiency penalty in quiches and pies, you’d be able to become a master cake Baker far faster than a general Baker. In fact, a general Baker might not be able to reach the pinnacle of cake baking in an entire lifetime, but a specialized Cake Baker will reach those heights and enjoy their mastery, and the rewards it brings them, for a decent portion of their life. And, of course, they still can bake other things, just not as well as cakes, or as well as other bakers, not without a lot more effort and practice.”

Sarah could just barely imagine this, having grown up in a village with only the one bakery.

The general Brawler continued. “Similarly, with Farmers, some Farmers focus on specific crops: grains, fruit trees, root vegetables, and so on. If a Farmer knew that for her whole life she was going to be growing wheat and selling it, it might make sense to specialize in Wheat Farming and take a proficiency penalty to fruit trees, since she doesn’t plan on ever growing them. Early on, when she’s just getting established, she would quickly learn the finer details of wheat farming and get better crops, and later on, she’d be much better at growing wheat than a general Farmer, and could out-compete him with more and higher quality wheat.”

Sarah nodded slowly. Her own father grew a bit of everything, and loved growing new things, always testing out new crops in a sectioned off garden away from the main fields. There was no way he had specialized.

But she still needed to decide.

“Well, is there a Brawler specialization for finding people?”

The general Brawler tilted her head and put a finger on her chin in thought, then shook her head no.

“Nope! Not here anyway. Finding people isn’t really a Brawler kind of thing, you know?”

Sarah sighed. “Yeah, I figured. Okay.”

She gazed around at all the options.

“Can you just tell me which specialization is the strongest?”

Instantly all the various Brawlers lined up next to the general Brawler, stretching off into the distance to Sarah’s right.

“It’s not really about what’s ‘strongest,’ every specialization is strong in its own way and in certain circumstances, but I know what you mean.”

“So not picking a specialization is the strongest?” Sarah asked.

“In a general sense, yes, but don’t discount the specializations right off the bat.”

Sarah looked at the next Brawler in line, which turned out to be the Brawler that had been getting lectured by the teacherly Brawler earlier.

“Hi! Yeah, I’m a Quick-Learning Brawler! Boosts to Dexterity and Speed, but if you want, you can also swap one of those boosts for Intelligence and learn even faster!”

Sarah hmmm’d. “Wait, so there’s no proficiency penalty?”

The Quick-Learning Brawler nodded. “Yep! But…” its expression fell. “There’s a lower cap on how much you can improve your skills.”

The general Brawler interjected. “That’s right, early on, the Quick-Learning Brawler is stronger than a general Brawler, but after a few years a general Brawler will catch up and surpass them.”

Sarah shook her head. “Nope, not interested. I need to be even stronger than my mother, and she’s had a long time to practice and train. I can’t trade my future for shortcuts.”

She turned to the general Brawler, the first Brawler she’d seen, the one without any little unique quirks or items.

Specialization rejected. No proficiency bonus applied. No proficiency penalty applied. [Brawler] Class selected. Will you choose the [Brawler] Class?

“Yes.” Sarah said with confidence.

And then.

[Brawler] Class chosen. 1/2 Classes chosen. Please select a Class.

Sarah squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. She had to fulfill her oath.

“No!” she shouted. “I want to wait and choose later!”

And she opened her eyes to find her mother gazing at her with a worried expression.