Kevin’s eyes opened. He was a little startled because instead of looking at his dusty computer screen in his office at his excruciatingly boring 9 to 5, he was now looking at a foggy landscape that reminded him of nothing so much as the horror-scape that was Silent Hill. Kevin looked around and realized he was standing on nothing at all.
“Well that’s new.” Kevin said with an even voice. He had always prided himself on being composed under pressure. Since his military days that meant more keeping his cool while his eight year old threw a temper tantrum, and less not freaking out when he found himself floating in death fog.
Kevin looked back up as two screens appeared in front of him, also floating in thin air. Kevin mused on how this is what screens kind of looked like in those VR/AR games he had seen videos of. One screen was titled “Abilities'' the other “Artifacts”
Shop: Available Points 152,083
Status: Name Kevin Moses
Points: 152,083
Race: Human
Age: 34
Stats: Strength: 15
Endurance: 10
Recovery: 9
Soul: 13
Abilities: 0/7
“Please spend your allotted points until they are completely used up, you have one hour to choose. After that hour all remaining points will be discarded and you will be transported to the first layer.” A feminine voice sounded all around as Kevin rubber necked around trying to see who spoke.
“First layer?” Kevin responded. “What layer? Where am I? Wait, does that say ‘Soul’?”
A notification appeared answering Kevin’s realistically rhetorical question.
— Soul Status: 13 —
The voice answered the last real question first. “You are in The Shop. You may purchase items from the shop with your available points. Please spend your allotted points until they are completely used up, you have one hour to choose. After that hours …”
Kevin noticed the repetition to the first interaction with the voice and interrupted it.
“OK OK, stop. What layer, where is my family?”
This time the voice answered the first question. “The First Layer of the Mystical Layers.” The voice responded cooly. Kevin felt no emotion from the layer, like he was talking to one of those Chatbots.
“Where is my family?” Kevin repeated his question.
The Voice didn’t answer.
“Fine.” Kevin said with a huff. “Can you tell me what the layer is like?”
“The First Layer is your staging area.” The voice responded.
“And?” Kevin pressed.
“The First Layer is your staging area.” The voice repeated.
“Helpful.” Kevin said. He looked around again, only a minute or two had passed since he found himself in this place. He was feeling rushed but also oddly at ease. He felt like he should be much more worried about what was going on, even for him, but he felt like he was where he was supposed to be. He found that unsettling. Kevin did not like the notion of destiny or predestination, so feeling like he was where he was supposed to be when, where he was, was flowing in a fogscape with two holo-screens in front of him did not make him feel mentally sound.
Kevin took a breath and landed on a decision. “Go with it.”
First he tapped on the Abilities Screen. He scrolled through hundreds of abilities in a moment using all of his college honed speed reading to browse the list as quickly as possible. He saw right away that most of the abilities on the list were WAY outside his spending limit.
He found he could sort and filter the list, now that was helpful. He filtered out the Abilities he couldn’t afford. Still, probably hundreds of abilities. He noticed some of the powers had a limit to the number of users. Some of those abilities were already purchased. That gave Kevin a growing sense of urgency as he realized he wasn’t alone in selecting from The Shop. That meant other people.
“Voice,” Kevin said, finally a note of urgency showing through, “Will I arrive with other people on the first layer?”
“The First Layer is your staging area.” The voice repeated. Only this time Kevin thought he might have heard an emphasis on “your” to mean deeper than himself. Maybe it meant it was Humanity’s staging area. Kevin decided to assume that was true. What if he didn’t show up with his family at this First Layer. What if he couldn’t find them?
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Kevin’s worries changed sharply from a concern of his own sanity to a concern for his family. He had two children and a wife. He NEEDED to keep them safe.
Kevin turned his eyes back to the Abilities screen and started browsing for any ability that even halfway looked like an ability to help find someone.
Kevin scanned through page after page before something caught his eye.
Ki Cultivator Mortal Tier - 5,000 pts
Ki Cultivator Earth Tier - 95,000 pts
“Nope” Kevin said to himself, but let’s remember that for later. Kevin moved on before finally finding something.
Soul Tracker - 28,000 pts
Kevin clicked on the ability and a pop-up description appeared.
“Soul Tracker - 28,000 points
While this ability is active, get the exact direction of your target relative to yourself. You may only use this ability to find friendly allies, or more generally to find nearby monsters. This ability cannot be used on unfamiliar allies, strangers, or non-monster enemies.”
Kevin was a little surprised at how Perfect this ability was for him. And at only 28,000 points, he had plenty of allotted points. “Ability Select” was a button at the bottom, Kevin clicked the button - then “Yes” on the all too familiar “Are you Sure” pop up window.
Kevin watched as his “Abilities” went from 0/7 to 1/7.
With that weight off his chest, Kevin went back to the list. “Where was that..” Kevin continued to speak to himself as he searched the list from the other ability that had caught his eye. “Ah ha!” He exclaimed as he found “Ki Cultivator” listed again.
Kevin had been a bit of a nerd before coming to The Shop, but you didn’t really need to be a nerd to have heard of ‘ki’ before. Dragon ball Z and a slew of other animes that waxed and waned in popularity over the years all had different types of ki, qi, chi or whatever.
Cultivation on the other hand, that is where his nerd background kicked in a little. “Cultivation” in the fantasy world was the practice of graining insane superhuman strength through training and meditation. Goku could blow up a planet, Jin could crush rocks like puddy and his Chicken could super-kick bandits, and finally Lindon went from being the weakest person on the planet to being strong even by heaven’s standards in a decade or less.
Ki Cultivator was going to be added to Kevin’s Abilities list. The only question is, which one. Mortal or Earth. Kevin assumed that Mortal tier would grow into Earth tier eventually, so Earth tier would be stronger and faster and better than Mortal tier, but at 95,000 points, Earth tier was pricey, but more than that - the Cultivators in all these books that Kevin read never took the shortcut. Well that wasn’t really true in Lindon’s case, but almost never.
Kevin decided to go with his gut. Hard work was going to pay off.
Ki Cultivator - Mortal Tier 5,000 pts “Ability Select” “Yes”
Abilities 1/7 to 2/7.
“How much time do I have?” Kevin said slow.
“47 minutes 21 seconds” The Voice responded.
Kevin went back to the list. He remembered the long list of abilities outside his price range. Either his allotted points were just low compared to other people, or he was going to have a chance to earn more points later. That meant he shouldn’t fill his abilities up yet, even if he found a good set of abilities. As he browsed the list he noticed something.
Shield Mastery - 10,000 pts
Sword Mastery - 10,000 pts
Axe Mastery - 10,000 pts
Spear Mastery - 10,000 pts
Bow Mastery - 10,000 pts
The weapons mastery list continued. What Kevin didn’t see on that mastery list was any firearms of any kind. Hmm. He thought for a moment. He switched to the Artifacts screen.
Filtering the Artifacts screen to show him weapons only, he started browsing through the list. It was like scrolling through every fantasy game he had ever even heard of. The list of weapons was expansive. Every knife, dagger, sword, bow, spear or any other bladed weapon could be found on the list. Kevin noticed the discrepancy pretty quickly; though he found a few guns here or there, there were A LOT more bladed weapons than firearms. The highest value firearm was expensive, a million points to be sure, but the highest value sword was measured in tens of millions.
That Artifact list, combined with the lack of a “Firearm Mastery” ability told Kevin a story. “Guns aren’t a big deal here.” Kevin said out loud. It sort of made sense to him. Half the beasties in the fantasy world were straight up bullet proof. You put a sword in between their ribs though and they’d die right quick.
Kevin came to two more decisions pretty quickly then. Based on the description of “infusing weapon strikes with energy from the environment” he could assume that “Mastery” was the Ki Cultivator equivalent for weapons, so he would need to pick one up; And two - he wasn’t going to stop at one.
Kevin clicked on Basic Shield Mastery. Finding his family was priority number 1. Protecting his family was priority number 2. One of his kids was only 9. If she was thrust into this Mystical Layers bullshit then she was going to need help in a big way. Kevin was not going to let her be hurt. Kevin was her shield.
Shield Mastery - 10,000 pts “Ability Select” “Yes”
Abilities 2/7 to 3/7
Kevin looked through the list again. Swords were the obvious choice, everyone liked swords and the Artifacts list was full of options. Spears were another obvious one. Kevin didn’t know what was waiting for him, but he did know that whatever it was would be nice to stab from a little farther away. Bow would obviously be a great choice then, except Kevin wasn’t exactly Legolas and then he’d have to buy a bow from the Shop and worry about arrows.
Kevin selected a mastery and pressed “Select Ability.” “Yes.”
Abilities 3/7 to 4/7
Kevin took a moment to check on his status.
Status: Name Kevin Moses
Points: 99,083
Race: Human
Age: 34
Stats: Strength: 15 - 31
Endurance: 10 - 17
Recovery: 9 - 12
Soul: 13
Abilities: 4/7
Soul Tracker
Ki Cultivator Mortal Tier (Early)
Basic Shield Mastery (1/5)
Basic Axe Mastery (1/5)
Kevin had planned to look at his points total, but was distracted by his stats first. “Strength 31!?” Kevin cried. “What? It was 15 before. YES! This cultivator stuff is already paying off.” He noticed his endurance and recovery were up too and pumped his fist in the air a few more times while he glanced over other parts of the screen.
Kevin checked his points. He still had almost 100,000 points. Should he try and find one more ability or should he move on to artifacts and buy some really good stuff? He really didn’t know. Kevin felt a little more confident about his allotted time, but definitely didn’t want to lose out on spending his points by taking too much time.
Ki Cultivator and the two Basic Masteries were almost definitely good pics. The tracker ability was a necessity too. That meant Kevin really didn’t have any legitimate abilities yet. Ki cultivator didn’t necessarily give him anything but a much improved body and the Masteries probably wouldn’t show their true colors for a long while. Kevin decided to find one ability to give him an edge in this strange world he found himself.
“OK, one more ability.” Kevin decided.
Kevin looked through the lists. He didn’t want to be a vampire, or a werewolf. He saw Life Orbs and almost selected it immediately but that would only help him live, not help him fight or protect his loved ones. He saw abilities that improved the might, another thing to think about for the future but that wouldn’t help him fight today. His abilities list was getting pretty short after spending the points he had.
After searching for what felt like far too long, Kevin found an ability that peaked his creativity.
Light Heavy Type - 48,000 pts
The description read, “Manipulate the weight of any non-living objects that come in contact with the user and the user themselves.”
“Oh.” Kevin Said. “Oh that’s perfect.”
Abilities 4/7 to 5/7
“Alright on to Artifacts.” Kevin said.