THE MOMENT
The stranger certainly didn't look stressed. A bit unsure maybe; but, he seemed to be coping well. Mundo knew how to read people and that talent was enhanced with a numerical display over people's heads. She could see other details, but they weren't particularly useful while working. She found 'Stress Levels' to be the ideal stat to focus on while tending bar. Mundo tried to keep a low stress environment and of the few people in the bar only one of them was above 20. But, it was also over 1000; the highest normal she'd seen was 100 and those people didn't last long her bar. But, this man was sitting on over 1000 stress and he seemed only mildly befuddled. She gave him a few minutes alone to see if he sorted himself out; but, the number remained in the 4-digit range.
"Hi, I'm Mundo," She approached him with a free drink, and he relaxed almost instantly. His Stress dropped down to 3 digits.
"Oh thank god, I wasn't sure!" he chuckled. "Hi, I'm Calvin...I'm still very new...," he said.
"I can tell," Mundo gave him a warm smile and more stress dropped off. "Are you stuck on anything?" she asked. Calvin chuckled as if she were making a joke they were both in on.
"I'm still figuring out the beginning!" he said. "How do...YOU work? Are you the same Mundo I talked to yesterday? Or, do you know what I was already told? All he said was 'All Mundos are the same'." She smiled and shook her head.
"No, it's not that involved," Mundo said. "We all call ourselves 'Mundo' to make it easier on everyone else. I'm kind of new too," she added. "But, in a couple of weeks, the name here will be changed to 'Mundo's Bar'. We're like the rulebook, so the easier someone finds one of us, the better. And, instead of saying, "Bobby, Dennis, Roberta," explained things to me, it's quicker if everyone just says 'Mundo explained it'. It doesn't really matter which Mundo you run into, we all give the same information more or less."
"I don't know anything about this place...," Calvin leaned over the bar and lowered his voice. "I don't even know if it's safe to check..."
"Asking Mundo works great too," she smiled and flicked her wrist over the. A smokey-grey Slate appeared. "But, if you pull up your Slate, there's a setting that automatically gives you the details when you visit a new Earth. There are other ways to tell, and once you experience enough variation, you might want to turn it off. But, it's a good setting to have on if you're new."
"Oh, thanks..," Calvin nodded and flicked his wrist. The crystal clear transparent Slate appeared in front of him.
"Go to Settings, UI, and activate [Server Details]," Mundo explained step by step each time he pressed the Slate. As soon as he activated it, text appeared in his vision.
[Server: Newbie Room - Mundo38895]
[Status: AlterNet Integrated]
[Population: Multiverse Aware]
[SST: May 6]
"Whoa.. handy...," Calvin glanced around the bar and the text hung in the corner of his gaze no matter where he looked. Mundo noticed his stress level had been cut in half; but, still higher than normal.
"There's another setting that's good for new players to have on...," Mundo gestured at his Slate. It was smokey grey to her the same as hers was to him; but, she was only guiding his attention.
"Go to Settings, UI, My UI, and check the box that says, 'Dynamic Stats'," she said. Calvin changed the setting and he only saw a brief notification.
[Dynamic Stats: On]. The text did not persist like the Server Details and faded in a few seconds. He looked around again and didn't see much of a change.
"What'd that do?" he asked.
"Each Server is still a different Earth, and oftentimes they'll have different baselines...," she raised her hand and gestured at the empty space above her own head. "You can't see it, but there are others, like me, who can see stats above your head. If your Stats are 'Static', like they were, everyone will always see values of the same baseline. Making them 'Dynamic' changes your stats to match whatever's common on that Earth. Your stress looked really high when you got here," she giggled. "Now it's more normal."
"How big was it? How'd you know I wasn't that stressed?"
"It was over 1000," Mundo smiled. "On this Server, people rarely reach a hundred, because that's the number where they just die from stress."
"Oh...," he looked up but didn't see anything. "What's it at now?"
"One," Mundo smiled. "You must've come from a really sensitive Server. I'll bet they didn't know about the AlterNet at all."