Anyone expecting some kind of narrative irony, sorry to disappoint, it's a straight no for sockets. But there was a popup offering upgrades to my headphones and phone to run on mana. I'll probably buy those after I figure out the value of the coins. They seem to be both currency and experience points simultaneously.
My skills are pretty cool. MetaModder, allows me to create "mods" for the system. I'd compare it to the ability to craft artefacts, like artificer or legendary smiths in stories, only centered around homebrewing game content. SystemLink gives me the Linux terminal aesthetic for the system window, rudimentary scripting capabilities and the ability to access the API of the system. Basically, direct access to my own personal user account including some storage. Both are extremely bare bones in their base form, with MetaModder literally having nothing by default, except the "package shop" which allows me to buy new components for it and the ChaosCharm and SystemLink-synergy-packages, which allows it to interact with them. SystemLink comes with basic bash, VIM editor, a few more standard linux conveniences and a package management program that allows me to buy packages.
Despite them giving the appearance of video game modding, which I do dabble in, they're completely independent... in theory at least. Looking closer at my rare ability, it takes a lot of preparation to create and implement a mod, even a basic one. But using scripts with the system should allow me to give it at least some adaptability on the run.
Then there's my last ability, ChaosCharm. Gonna call it CC from now on. It's the skill that surprised me even more than a skill based on my ancient Taekwondo classes from my early teens. It's an activated aura skill that causes anyone in range that I consider an enemy to become disoriented and uncoordinated. I have no idea where that comes from.
There's also an inventory window which lists all items I've got stored and my coins. Stored items are currently empty and I have 5000 coins. The popup offered the upgrade at 1000 per item, so 20% of my starting income. It's part of a system shop that offers items, skills and services for coins. A common skill costs 500 for level 1 non combat skills and double for combat skills. Uncommon skills are more expensive, starting at 2000 for utility skills, 3000 for defence and 4000 for combat skills. There are some cheaper uncommon skills, but they are mostly useless. CC is priced at 3000, listed as utility. SysLink (too bored to say the whole thing) is a 1000 utility skill. Honestly, makes sense since it's absolutely useless without investment. Even the manual for using it is sold separately (500 coins). I guess the skill caused a lot of trouble during beta testing and needed some nerfing and disincentive to be bought. My rare skill is a whopping 20k coins and the store page specifically says that it only contains the shop, synergies need to be bought through it. It also gives requirements to be able to buy and use it, which is having the Gamer trait on major or Gamer[Modder] at least on medium.
I spend too much time Meta analysing the situation and at least two hours sitting there, reading all skill information closely as well as the SysLink manual I caved in to buying after an hour of unsuccessful attempts at remembering anything about bash and finding out that even the -help flag is locked behind the manual pay wall as well. At least the manual is extensive... and might just be the official gnu bash document... I probably got ripped off... Wait, the API is stapled at the end of the document. Not a complete ripoff. A few minutes of reading later I made my first very simple script that just shows me how long it has been since I got here. 12643 seconds. Roughly, I had to estimate when I got here from my phone. Every time I call my little script, I giggle gleefully with euphoria.
Now that I have a fidget toy, I should get back to proper preparation. From the item store I can buy food and medication, about 1000 per meal and 5000 for a month worth of my pills. That's without the 90% discount Hali gave me, that one only applies to the physical shop. Guess you're supposed to gather your own food and sucks to have an illness. Medical equipment is also extremely expensive. I mean... it's boring to watch players just farm and live peacefully, at least for most watchers, so keep the non action stuff expensive, makes the players have to take action. I don't need to buy anything right now, for now, so I pack my bag and head to the shop around the corner.
I'm glad nobody had to witness me spending about two more hours just browsing the games section of Rootmart, how I dubbed it. There was so much! A whole aisle filled with physical prints of pen and paper mini zines, another just filled with homebrew content for popular games and several shelves filled dice, minis and tabletop accessories. I was tempted, but could control myself... until I saw a small zine with not even a proper cover and some atrocious spelling.
"Spacey Salvaging by Nikopol Alset"
A physical copy of my first role-playing game I created when I was 12. I made stuff before then, but this was the first one I actually made a complete rulebook for. Without hesitation, I grabbed it, buying it for 500 coins, with the discount though, my curiosity getting the best of me. As I open it and start reading, chuckling at my own attempts at writing a rulebook, such inexperienced approaches but I can still see my attempts at balancing. After finishing the ten pages of rambling rules, I get a notification. Apparently reading the whole rulebook gave me a package for MetaModder, unlocking components for me to use. I buy another short zine, about five psges, about raccoons doing magical high jinks, but this time I don't get a notification and package from finishing it. I guess there's some other condition to unlocking from a book.
I resist the temptation of trying a third book and instead get ready for actual adventures, heading back to my room. Since I got some components I spend another two hours studying and experimenting. While I enjoy it, it's rather boring to watch, just lying on the bed and staring at nothing while my terminals flicker in front of me. I manage some simple mods and how to use the API, before falling asleep. It's about 3 in the morning, which I didn't notice but it definitely explains my lacking self control earlier. I really hope I won't have too bad nightmares before slumber takes me.