Inside the tent, Gene had begun to grow frustrated. Voices outside of it raised and raged in a language he couldn’t comprehend and he could tell they were talking about him. What had he done to deserve this ridicule? It wasn’t like he wanted to fall from space into whatever mess this was.

  He wanted to be with his superteam that were surely missing the puzzle piece that was the team Psychic. He wanted to be in a modern world, flanked by skyscrapers, not twisted demon spires and woodland sprites. More than anything, he wanted his creature comforts like pizza and toilet paper. God, he prayed there was toilet paper.

  When he’d finally had enough of the shouting of unknown words, he closed his eyes and his consciousness sank into the Margins. Within the space between panels, he saw himself once more, smiling in his Character Profile and thought, “There must be a way to break down this language barrier. What telepath worth their weight in aspirin can’t just pop a language in their head?”

  He accessed the powers panel with a thought, but this time, instead of being overwhelmed by the massive list of options, he mentally partitioned off all of the abilities related to knowledge and language learning. He felt triumphant when the list of thousands whittled itself down to a list of six that proved a far easier cognitive load to lift.

  He shuffled through their descriptions, groaning as he read the costs for these abilities. Four points, five, ten, even twenty for some insane reason. He thought of the piddly single power point he had and saw it sadly bow its head in shame.

  “How am I supposed to afford any of this?!” he exclaimed. He wanted to cry. This felt worse than when you awkwardly join a board game in the middle of play and miss the rules. This was like trying to play a ttrpg except you only know the name of it, didn’t bring any dice, and everyone at the table with their fully detailed character sheets and custom minifigs refused to help.

  He wallowed in the abyss of the Margins for an indeterminate amount of time before thinking, “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  Hero System Message: Hello, Name: Gene Gray. Do you require assistance?

  The voice of the system boomed too loudly through his mind and he mentally covered the ears he didn’t have at the moment.

  “Uh…yeah?” he asked, more to himself than to the other disembodied voice in the void. “I need to learn a language but I can’t afford any of the powers related to learning. Can you help?”

  There was silence, for how long was hard to know. Just when Gene thought he was wasting his time, the system chimed in.

  Hero System Message: Custom ability has been created. Language Absorption 1: Temporarily learn the language of any being you’ve been in active mental communication with. Cost: 1pp. Would you like to add this power and confirm your selection?

  Gene would’ve jumped if he had a body at that time. The system spoke so loudly and suddenly that it shook him out of his funk. He looked over the bespoke ability. It wasn’t permanent like any of the other choices. He’d be able to borrow Kyrie’s knowledge for a day before the comprehension faded. He groaned, thought about groaning and confirmed the selection. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  He stepped out of the Margins and it was as if no time had passed. He reached out to Kyrie, bridging the language centers of their minds ever so gently before he heard Winnie shouting, “That creature is dangerous! For all we know, it’s some new weapon from the Dark Lord that escaped!”

  Gene froze, pain shooting through his chest at how easily and callously Winnie called him a creature. He mustered all his strength to stand and shuffled out of the tent to say, “Um…hi…My name is Gene and I don’t know what a dark lord is. Well, no, I mean I don’t know who yours is. I know what that is conceptually.”

  Everyone gasped. Kyrie’s eyes shot open in confusion as he wondered, “How?”

  Gene smiled at him and thought, “I’m just borrowing the knowledge. Thanks for being so kind.”

  All eyes were on him and the back of his neck was hot. He staggered out of the tent, still worse for wear from his fall. He took a rusty step towards a tree stump near the fire and finally looked at everyone.

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  “I come in peace,” he chuckled, joking to himself about his extraterrestrial status. No one laughed and even worse, pain shot through his arm from the effort of laughter. Kyrie stepped to assist him, much to Kyra’s chagrin.

  “I’m fine, but thanks,” said Gene, sitting up. “I’m sorry for whatever…this is. I didn’t mean to fall out of the sky like that. I don’t think there are many willingly doing that, other than adrenaline junkies. Sorry, I’m getting sidetracked. My head’s still a little loopy from the whole tree thing. What are we talking about?”

  Gene’s question hung in the air for an uncomfortable amount of time before Kyrie sucked his teeth and took a seat next to him and said, “We were talking about finishing our mission.”

  “Kyrie!” exclaimed Kyra, cutting him a sharp look that gave Gene pause. There was a menace in her eyes, directed at Kyrie, for a split second that faded when she looked back at Gene.

  Kyrie ignored it and continued, “Our mission was to assess the growth level of the Spire and to gauge how many Forsaken occupied it.”

  “That proved a problem when we got just a little too close,” said Eonis, picking up the yarn Kyrie was spinning. “One of their scouts spotted our scout.” Eonis paused to point at himself before continuing, “Then all hell broke loose. I rushed to regroup, they rushed to rally their forces to eat our group. We fought in a running retreat and then you drifted down so elegantly to squash the problem.”

  He cut Gene a hard stare before cracking a smile and shrugging the tension away.

  “Now, we stand at a crossroads.” Kyra spoke into the light of the fire. “Do we return home, travel for a week to finish our quest, and leave the unoccupied spire there, poisoning the land around it? Or do we storm the structure, steal what resources we can, and topple it, thus freeing this area from occupation for however many months it takes the Dark Lord to expand his territory back here?”

  Gene’s eyes flitted from person to person as they spoke. He tried his best to keep up with their circuitous cadence and to comprehend what was going on here. He really had landed in the middle of a fantasy warzone. The problem was, he didn’t know how big of a war or what stakes they were dealing with. He read comic books, not fantasy books, and from what little he knew of the genre and its conventions. This could either be a saga for the ages or a tawdry romance novel where the backdrop was a formality for the fornication. He glanced at Kyrie hoped for the latter.

  He shook his head to focus on the task at hand. Before him, he saw the forked road, both alien paths he’d been dropped in the middle of and he didn’t know enough to make a sound decision. His head still reeled from his descent and his body ached all over. What help could he be if conflict broke out again? He barely understood his new powers but at the same time, from how tense the air was between the members of Silvayn, he could tell it was a weighty decision to make. In the end, he decided to go with the scarier path.

  “We should do it.” All eyes shot to Gene. “Since I….took care of those Forsaken things, it should be unguarded, right? Why waste time going back to town and give the enemy a chance to regroup? I don’t know if I can be that helpful again. I’m still trying to figure out how my powers work but I can at least help out by acting as a walkie talkie.”

  The group stared blankly at Gene before he continued, “A communication device. I can reach out with my thoughts while we’re in the building, relaying messages to whoever’s going in.”

  “That would be us.” said Kyrie as his and Winnie’s hands shot up. “Eonis will get us there with Nature’s Passing. That was the spell he used to get us to this camp. Just to be safe, Kyra will stay a safe distance away with Eonis.”

  Kyrie sat up and took out his sword. He began to draw a crude battlefield map as he laid out his plan.

  “Eonis will post up here with her and cast Eyes of the Unseen Critter to survey the area for any possible dangers. Kyra will act as a distraction, casting Beacon of Observance to draw the attention away from us and onto a remote area while we rush inside. I’ll take Gene–”

  “I’ll take Gene,” interjected Winnie. She gave Kyrie a hard stare before he continued.

  “Right. Winnie and Gene will go to the spire’s war room and gather whatever plans or resources they can find, being mindful of any possible traps. Meanwhile, I’ll hit the armory and shuffle everything I can find into my hoarder’s handbag. We’ll slip out, Winnie will blow the structure, and we’ll flee to Taos for safety and praise.”

  Kyrie sat up and began to make exaggerated cheering noises, much to the annoyance of the others who laughed halfheartedly. Gene’s hand shot up with a question.

  “Who’s Taos?”

  “Not who, where,” answered Kyrie. “It’s the nearest settlement and guildhall for the United Front. I’ll show you around after we turn in this quest with the Guild Mistress and book a room at the best inn this side of New Venturis.”

  “Laying it on a little thick there, aren’t we, playboy?” asked Eonis as he sat up with a groan that belayed how ancient he truly was. “We have a mission to do, I guess.”

  His noncommittal attitude caught Gene by surprise but he just nodded along and said, “Right!”

  Hero System Notification: New Mission…Raid and destroy the Dark Lord’s Spire 1 of 20,000.

  Gene nearly fainted when he heard the system’s message in his head. His stomach plummeted at the scale of the conflict he found himself in. This was no tawdry romance story. He let out a yelp, making a sound he didn’t know he could make and all eyes shot to him. He quickly plastered a smile on his face and gave everyone a thumbs up. They all stared at him with confused expressions.