Gabriel

  Shit. My eyes went wide as I fell forward and barely caught myself just before kissing the ground, it helped my arms were already in front of me. My contacts fell out, jarred by the impact. Still lucky, would’ve been spitting teeth otherwise. The floor was smooth solid stone.

  I gathered my lenses and got up, they were completely dried out. Looking at the contacts in my palm caused a realization to dawn, of seeing clearly.

  How did I get here? Dreaming? This didn’t feel like a dream. The air smelled stale. Scratching my head led to a noisy shuffle characteristic to cigarettes shifting around in their jumbo 5XL pack. Reading the warning dismissed any lingering doubt, letters always appeared illegible in my dreams. What the fuck is going on? A memory surfaced and it made my mind recoil in horror. Sheer mental reflex suppressed it, favoring diversion instead.

  Despite my refusal, my stomach had already dropped. My hands shook while lighting up. A deep drag calmed my nerves ever so slightly, along with rising spite.

  I jumped like a startled cat. A lit cigarette followed my contacts to the floor and all were immediately forgotten. Point bnk whispering in both ears caused the scare.

  “Think: interface.”

  Looking around in a panic revealed nothing but a roughly five-by-five meter grey room and a hallway roughly the width of a bike path heading off into shifting shadows which faded into absolute darkness. The whispered words kept repeating and sparked the suggested thought involuntary.

  The proverbial acid dropped. My vision shifted into pure greyscale and my body refused to obey. All feeling had left me. A rectangur bck panel with intricate yellow outlining and lettering took up a good, central chunk of my vision. It was easy on the eyes but ugly as all hell.

  Words blinked in the middle of the screen, yet an internal mantra of ‘what the fuck?’, repeated over and over, took precedence instead. A sensation broke my hysterics and feeling returned to my ears, but only my ears.

  “Read,” the creepy voice demanded.

  ‘Christ, okay, okay.

  The gently blinking box said ‘Orientation’. Focusing on it brought up a wall of text, overpowering all other impulses. I couldn’t think, only read.

  “Greetings, inhabitants of Earth. This is an automated message. You may refer to me as the System. While you may have questions, this is not about what I am, but what has happened to you, and what you may become. I regretfully inform you that, factually, your pnet suffered an impact by a high-tier Errant projectile and was mostly annihited as a consequence. Practically, you may envision this as being struck down by a god – even if the attack was unintentional but merely a combination of circumstance and poor luck. Considering the btant injustice of such an event, I have taken it upon myself to resurrect you and reconstruct the pnet to the reasonable best of my ability.

  During this process, you have been automatically assessed for natural talent with regards to maniputing energy; however, as you have none, you have been gifted with basic self-sustaining energy structures, such as this interface. Specifics are irrelevant, but if you must, you may consider energy as another yer to physical reality which you were previously unaware of. However, this impartment is costly, so any further empowerment must be earned.

  You may feel powerless, but fear not. All of you now have the potential to become, in time, powerful enough to avert or even overpower strikes such as the one your pnet suffered. You will also need power, as your world has become significantly more dangerous and there is unfortunately no undoing this. The Errant are everywhere, and they will never stop.

  This message will end shortly, and you will be given a quick tour through your current interface functions and have to make a few choices regarding your future. Once complete, you will be returned to the regur flow of time to do as you please.”

  My faculties returned and the interface expanded. Several new sections had been added, but they were grayed out. The topmost one blinked, ‘stats’.

  Yet a disquieting dissonance drew my attention to it. Ignoring recent events proved impossible now. Facing them should have drawn forth a need to scream, a panic attack, a heart attack, and then a few more of both for good measure. Instead I felt… still. It had all come together as soon as the message ended. The experience already festered in the back of my mind, witnessing the end of the world. The strange cognizance of how I should react contrasted sharply with how far away it all seemed. Best let it stay that way, for now.

  My focus returned to the fshing console. It froze my mind again, a wall of text scrolled past, impossible to consciously follow. Somehow, I took it all in anyway. It was pretty straightforward.

  There were six stats and they were… bnd, cking individual popups; physical power, physical speed, physical endurance, magical power, magical speed and magical endurance. Apparently ‘the System’ gave me and possibly the entirety of humanity, ten in each to start with. It informed me of two ways to improve them.

  One was by ‘linking’ an appropriate ‘regur skill’ to a stat and practicing for an amount of hours equal to the current bonus. Magical endurance proved the exception to the rule, which went up by spending energy. The other was ‘leveling up’ by killing ‘Errant’.

  What is this gamified nonsense? And magic… my bullshit-sense went off the charts. I worked at a sales consultancy and this was just like the kind of shit we’d advise. Still, about 5000 hours of practice promised to make me ten times as strong, or fast, or dead. There was a not-so-subtle foreshadowing of murder and mayhem, after all.

  My interface also showed a ‘refilling temporary energy reserve’. The mouthful was immediately mentally repced by mana-bar. Currently it read 100/100. The only remaining element was a little weathervane pced next to it. It pointed out which way was north. That was all. Very bare bones stuff.

  A new box blinked, ‘css’. Getting into the groove despite my apprehension, I anticipated the good stuff here and happily tched onto the distraction. My interface spared me from a speed-reading session this time around. Instead it showcased two categories of csses. Pures, which were selectable, and hybrids, those were grayed out.

  There were 6 types of pures and the names were boring as hell. Power fighter, speed fighter, endurance fighter, and then the same pattern but ‘fighter’ repced with ‘mage’ for what I presumed to be the magical variants. It showed the stats they gained per level-up but not much else. Compared to the escating amount of time training would take, the increases from level ups seemed disproportionately beneficial. A power fighter gained four physical power per level, one physical speed and one physical endurance. The same stat split repeated ad nauseam for all the other csses and with the equivalent magical stats for mages.

  Opting out wasn’t an option. My choice leaned towards the magical csses because fucking magic. The real problem cking a point of reference for it actually did. All this shit looked like magic to me. Becoming some kind of physical superman appealed somewhat too.

  Also violence had to enter the consideration. Fighting meant taking hits. Fuck. I wanted both. The ck of information reinforced my capriciousness. A button with the word ‘continue’ on it urged me to make a selection, but browsing around felt like the prudent choice. The hybrids had unlocked and I prepared myself for another wave of bndness, which appeared to be the running theme here.

  Oh yeah, this is the good stuff. Definitely getting pyed. The design of a forced browsing-order pushed me towards the pure csses, but the naming really favored the hybrids. The inherent mixed messages reminded me of high school, and this time they weren’t imagined.

  The options were touchcaster, sniper, antimage, weapon mage, assassin, binder, bomber, bruiser, and enhancer. They encompassed every possible combination of physical power, speed and endurance with magical power, speed and endurance. The list went down in neat ordering of first physical power combined with MP, MS, ME, and then physical speed plus MP, MS, ME, and finally physical endurance with MP, MS, ME. All of them gave a total of six points per level, like the pures. Those which weren’t focused on endurance had two-two splits in their main foci, with one in both physical and magical endurance. When endurance was a primary, it instead gave three in that. The final one, enhancer, was a three-three split between PE and ME.

  My monkey brain sort of took over and ser focused on the weapon mage css, spurred by fond memories of D&D spell bdes. It had physical speed, magical power and banced endurance. Weapon mage implied weapons and I was currently painfully unarmed and apparently expected to go kill stuff. All the csses suggested a design aimed at combat, with a few theming towards support. Fighting seemed inevitable.

  This was just too fucking suspicious. I was nearly certain the smart choice pointed towards picking a pure and promised myself any further browsing was for research purposes only. Speed fighter, maybe. I knew how to a box a little and had been pretty quick in my heyday, which hopefully implied a good fit. Shame my peak was about 10 years ago. But first, curiosity drew me towards weapon mage. Pressing the ‘continue’ button failed to bring about the expected detail.

  Instead it gave a confirmation.

  “Css selection complete. Weapon mages must specialize. Vocalize a specialization.”

  My mouth unfroze.

  “Fuck.”

  “Invalid specialization.”

  “Thank god.”

  “Invalid specialization.”

  “Thermonuclear bomb.”

  “Invalid specialization.”

  This went on for a while. Cruise missile, invalid. Artillery, invalid. Light machine gun, invalid. Assault rifle, invalid. Glock, invalid. Bow, invalid. Fuck it, invalid. Sword.

  “Specialization chosen: Sword. Resolving css. Please wait.”

  Shit. I’d gotten annoyed and half expected my final pick to be rejected. The frustration faded just as quickly as it had come, although my vague awareness of it remained. The result created a slight problem, because I knew jack shit about sword-fighting.

  Then again, it probably wouldn’t matter. Fights to the death were unfamiliar territory to begin with, leaving me stuck with a learning curve no matter what. Besides, maybe I’ll get lucky. The css was called weapon mage after all, not weapon master or any crap like that. Magery pointed more towards doing magical stuff rather than actually wielding a bde. Once again my worries went where they belonged, somewhere deep down a pit in the recesses of my mind. This System shit reminded me of taking Xanax. It was a good thing the stuff never hooked me. Any existing prescriptions were unlikely to be refilled anytime soon, or ever.

  “Css resolved. Ingrained ability [Summon Sword]. Ingraining two cantrip slots… Ingrained cantrip [Create food and drink].”

  The ability now resided in my css tab and even had a description.

  “Summon a magical sword under your control for you to wield. Range: Touch. Cost: 50 energy.”

  Fuck.