1 Prologue
Emilia was on her way to school when she spotted a silk pouch with an icosahedron drawn on both sides. Woven around the opening, there was a thin silver chain, used to fasten it.
It's not uncommon to find disposed and lost objects in Plano Piloto's bus station since there are always so many people walking around, often bumping into each other. She regularly found coins lying around, but this pouch looked quite valuable.
Emilia picks it up, loosening the silver chain to check the contents. Inside the pouch, seven dice made of different materials are nestled. As soon as she realizes what the contents are, her smartphone vibrates and makes a short banjo sound.
[Twang!]
The phone is displaying a mysterious message:
[Roll Insight.]
She recognizes the prompt and the dice from her favorite tabletop role-playing game. A D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, and a D20, with four, six, eight, twelve, and twenty sides, respectively.
'Is this some sort of prank?'
She wonders.
Without further deliberation, she sticks the pouch in her backpack and keeps walking towards the bus platform, checking the timetable for the 112 line, the bus Emilia usually takes to school.
Emilia looks at the timetable on a screen hanging from the ceiling, just in front of the platform where the bus parks for the passengers to embark.
'13 minutes until the next bus. I've got enough time for a snack.'
She makes a left and walks to the nearest pastry shop, the most popular one in Brasilia. A woman dressed in rags extends her hands towards Emilia, begging:
"Could you please spare some change for me to buy some food?"
[Twang!]
Her phone again. She doesn't check it right away.
"Sorry, I only have enough money for my snack and the bus fare, I can't help you right now."
[Twang!]
She turns towards the cashier: "Hey, I'd like a palm-heart fried pastry please."
"Would you like the combo with some sugarcane juice?"
[Twang!]
"No, thanks, just the pastry please."
[Twang!]
"That'll be four reais¹, please."
"Here you go."
The cashier hands her a token to swap for her food and she checks her phone.
[Female beggar rolls Deception! Female beggar has failed!]
[Pastry shop cashier rolls Persuasion! Pastry shop cashier has failed!]
Emilia had never seen those notifications on her smartphone before, even though she knew what had happened. The beggar tried to deceive her by saying she would use the money to buy food when her purpose was different. As for the cashier, he tried to persuade Emilia into spending more money.
'That's weird. Is someone watching me or something?'
She looks around but doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary. After picking up her food, she takes the bus, arriving in front of her high school ten minutes later.
Upon arrival, Emilia checks the time on her phone: 7:15 AM.
'I better run, don't wanna be late for mister Mota's class.'
She rushes to class and sits in her assigned place. Emilia usually walks looking at the ground, since she has always been quite clumsy and really shy. That habit makes other students think of her as someone arrogant and avoid approaching her.
When Richard talked to her on the first day of class and introduced her to the [Faction], a group of students who had the same hobbies and interests as her, she felt grateful to be allowed among them, because she was someone poor who was granted a scholarship to study in an upper-class society school.
The school bell rang and Mister Mota's Mathematics class began, pulling Emilia out of her daydream.
"Let's do the roll call, then correct your homework."
[Twang!]
"Who was that? Emilia! Are you gonna set that phone to silent or am I gonna have to confiscate it?"
'Ugh... I haven't done the homework and I've already been called out, a great way to start my day!'
Emilia unlocks her smartphone's screen to silence it and notices another eerie notification had popped up.
[Roll Survival.]
Upon closer inspection, she notices a new app has been installed on her device. The icon is an icosahedron, a twenty-sided platonic solid. She opens it up and a welcome message pops up.
[You have acquired a set of the 7 mystical shapes. They link your decisions to your fate. As the dice fall from your hand, you boldly advance.]
She closes the message and a few options are displayed.
[Character Sheet]
[Inventory]
[Powers]
[Quests]
[Chat]
[Settings]
"Emilia!"
Richard pokes her right side and points to mister Mota, alerting her that she has been called.
She frowns at Richard then answers, "Here!" Looking back at the teacher.
Emilia decides to pick up the pouch containing the dice, removes the D20 from among them, and places it on her desk.
"That's a pretty cool D20, where did you buy it?"
Richard asks from beside her.
"I found it at the bus station. Lucky, right?".
The sapphire-colored dice with white numbers carved in was cold to the touch, so it was not made of glass. Emilia wondered if it was made of some sort of valuable material while handling it in her right hand.
"[Roll Survival]? Well, here goes nothing."
She turned her hand upside down, letting the die roll. It rolled a few centimeters down her desk and landed with the number [20] facing upwards.
[Emilia rolls Survival! Critical success!]
"Oi, Emilia!"
She feels someone poking her shoulder from behind, Patricia is waving a completed exercise sheet in her face.
"I know you haven't done your homework, but be quick, copy it from mine!"
Emilia takes the sheet from Patricia, opens her notebook, and takes her own exercise sheet from inside it. She's dismayed with what her eyes are witnessing. Her own handwriting is filling in every exercise as if several invisible hands were copying Patricia's work.
[Your survival skills allow you to compile the homework almost instantly!]
Turning back to Patricia with a forced smile because of how nervous she is, Emilia hands her the exercise sheet back.
"I... Uhm... I-I have actually done it, but t-thanks for your kindness!"
"What... On... Earth?!"
Emilia was still dumbfounded when mister Mota finished the roll call and announced he would begin correcting the homework.
¹: Real(R$) is Brazil's currency. 1,00R$ is approximately 0,20US$.
