Jorden landed in a crouch, blue light blasting away from him in a wave.

He blinked and looked around, his heart in his throat.

He was in a conference room of some kind, with red plastic chairs leaning against the wall in one corner, along with a stack of fold-up tables.

The floor was white and blue tile, and the room smelled sharply of antiseptic and lemon.

He noticed all of that in passing.

What took most of his attention was the dozen people staring at him, their arms or weapons raised to point at Jorden.

At a glance, he could tell it was two separate groups, one with four members, the other with eight.

A Scenario map floated between the groups, zoomed in on a cluster of neighborhoods near Midtown.

Did I teleport into the middle of a negotiation?

The group shouted questions at him, Skills flaring with their voices.

Jorden held his hands up, panic building in his chest.

His eyes flicked to his Skill box for Are Those New Shoes?

60 seconds.

Shit!

Since running immediately wasn’t on the table, Jorden tried diplomacy.

He raised his hands, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! This is my bad. I have a movement skill that, well, does what it wants.

The man who seemed to represent the larger group stared at him blankly. He was short, with a ruddy complexion and a closely trimmed brown beard. He was dressed in a suit of all things, and yellow and gray light shimmered around his right hand. “You just randomly teleported into the middle of this room?“

His voice dripped with skepticism. He glanced to the apparent leader of the smaller group.

She looked like his polar opposite, with smooth features, tall, and rail thin with pale blonde hair that was so light it was almost white.

She made no obvious display of power, but how she carried herself told Jorden she could fight.

The man continued. “If I didn’t know better, I would think Roseanne here is trying to pull something. But she wouldn’t do something this random and stupid.“

Jorden chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, my skill has a tendency to screw me over. I don’t want to impose on whatever is going on here, so I’ll just –“

“Stop,” the man cut in, his voice hard.

Jorden, who had been in the process of turning away, froze. His eyes flicked back to the man, then to the map, then to the woman Roseanne.

They were making some deal. Either giving over territory or setting boundaries on where they would or wouldn’t push.

Either way, these groups were making a landgrab.

There wouldn’t be any reason for the Scenario map otherwise.

“You see right there,“ the man tisked. “That look you just gave tells me you know what’s going on.”

“Nope. I have no clue what’s going on. I’ll just leave.”

“You’ve seen the map.” The man said, sounding exasperated.

“Maybe you don’t care, maybe you do. Maybe you run over to [Blank] and tell them someone’s planning something in exchange for a reward.“

The sense of danger in the room spiked.

Hands tightened around weapons, Skills brightened, and several people took a step closer.

“Hey now!“ Jorden said.

45 seconds.

“Let's not be hasty. I have an unpredictable Skill, and it’s thrown me into the situation. That’s no reason to kill a man, is it?”

They all exchanged looks.

The man inclined his head to Jorden. “I prefer not to kill anybody if I can help it, son, but if you scamper off and say something you shouldn’t, some of the people in this room could die. You expect me to weigh your life higher than my friends or my potential allies?“

The man didn’t sound angry. He sounded perfectly reasonable.

Jorden swallowed. Reasonable was far more frightening. Someone killing him in a fit of pique or in a panic was bad enough, but calm, collected, and thought through?

Jorden would rather have to fight someone who wasn’t thinking.

I have to keep him talking.

The man hadn’t ordered an attack yet, so Jorden didn’t move.

Sure enough, he kept going. “I’m not a monster. If you surrender and show us your class screen and your skill descriptions, we’ll take you hostage if we can until our little tussle is finished.”

The man raised his right hand as if offering up a platter. “Or you can surrender to us, and I’ll send you to a system camp. Either way, you come out of this alive.“

Jorden forced himself to breathe steady. Option one wouldn’t work. The man knew it wouldn’t work. Jorden could teleport unless they had a way to keep him unconscious 24 seven, or god forbid, a way to block him from using his skills. There was virtually no way they could keep him prisoner.

Which meant going to a system camp.

A camp run by the thing that had mocked and taunted him at every turn. A creature that seemed hell-bent on getting him into more trouble. He would pick the System camp over death, but it was a close thing.

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He didn’t move backward. He didn’t need to get closer to the door. He needed his stupid Skill to come off cooldown.

25 seconds.

The woman spoke, sensing Jorden‘s hesitation. “It’s a good deal. Fair, all things considered. Worst case scenario, you’re in a system camp until this blows over. I don’t know how fun that’s going to be, but you’ll survive.“

Assuming the system hadn’t been lying to them about how safe the camp was.

“Or, you’re on house arrest for a few days. Don’t be unreasonable. Take the deal.”

The woman shifted, one hand moving behind her side. She was subtle about it, but not subtle enough.

If he stalled any longer, they were going to attack.

“OK. I’ll share my Class with you guys. Just don’t jump me.“

Jorden focused on his base character sheet first. He needed 15 more seconds. He was okay with them reading over his bare description. It was better than him getting his Skills.

Jorden Moore: level 10

Class: And The Kitchen Sink

Purpose: to survive

Scope: singular

Skills: are those new shoes? Wizards Gambit. It’ll block something!

Augments: The Frozen North. Farcast.

Traits: grippers. Grippers 2 electric Boogaloo

Jorden saw the exact instant the room read level 10. Everyone took a step back, and the hand Roseanne hid burst into white light and a horrible scratching noise.

None of them attacked him, though, not yet.

The man whistled. “Level 10! I’ll be damned. Makes sense that you’ve survived, though, with a Purpose like that. Why don’t you send over that movement Skill next.”

Jorden nodded and tried to give a reassuring smile.

1 second.

The timer reached zero, and Jorden activated Are Those New Shoes?

There was a flash of turquoise light, and his shoes brightened, the faded white of his sneakers turning into a lustrous marble. His frayed laces rearranged themselves, mending and shifting before tying themselves into a perfect knot.

After a second, his shoes did look new.

He stared at the room in utter silence as they stared back.

“Fuck.”

The woman’s hand blurred, and Jorden sprinted to the side.

Stupid Skill! You can teleport me into trouble, but not out!

The Skill, unsurprisingly, didn’t answer.

The System did. It started to laugh at him.

While it wasn’t a teleport, his Skill did do something. He booked it across the room like a runaway horse, dodging Roseanne’s Skill, which warbled and hissed through the air.

It blasted through the far wall like it wasn’t even there before continuing through the building. He heard a horrific grinding noise each time it struck a wall. At least, he hoped it was only striking walls.

A fireball, a knife, a chair, and a vibrating rock flew for him.

Most of the projectiles missed, unable to account for his speed. But the fireball—of course, it had to be the fireball—swerved to keep after him.

Jorden was faster. He could keep ahead of it long enough to get through the door.

Unfortunately, everyone in the room knew where he was heading. Half a dozen Skills crashed towards the door.

He cursed, juking to the side and running deeper into the room. Four people chased after him, Skills kindling to life around the feet or in their grips.

One man threw a punch that echoed through the air like a struck gong. It missed him by several feet, but his back still cramped up as if he'd been grazed by lightning. He stumbled, nearly catching a kick to his knee. His shoes flashed as he pushed off the ground.

He flew 10 feet forward as if launched from a trampoline.

He landed like he’d been practicing long jumps his entire life.

Jorden had gotten very good at adapting to sudden changes, but he wasn’t that good.

The Skill was helping.

The two groups obviously hadn’t fought together before. This was a good thing for Jorden because he was pretty sure they would’ve killed him by now if they had.

The four chasing after him got in each other’s way and blocked shots from the rest of the room, forcing people to spread out or risk friendly fire.

Roseanne didn’t try to fire another of those warbling blasts, not wanting to carve up her own people like roast turkey.

The hell was that analogy, brain?

The fireball had never stopped chasing Jorden. He could feel it. It’s heat pressing against his lower back. If he slowed for just a second too long…

His eyes snapped to the man responsible in time to see him hurl a second red ball.

Shit! Jorden activated Wizards Gambit.

The Skill made a deep thrum! before a blast of compressed air launched from his right shoulder, detonating the new fireball before lancing through the rest of the room.

The kickback from the blast sent Jorden hurtling toward the far wall.

He tried to right himself on instinct, and his feet glowed. His shoes tugged him through the air as he did a sideways flip and landed on the wall in a deep crouch.

For a brief, wonderful moment, Jorden felt like a badass. Then the light in his shoes died.

He had enough grace to land on his feet instead of his face as he took off in a much slower sprint.

He desperately scanned his Skill.

Cooldown: 15 seconds

Oh, come on!

Jorden raced towards something, anything as the room seemed to close in around him.

He couldn’t make it to the door.

Two people had moved to guard it.

Fortunately, they had been kind enough to make a second exit.

Jorden sprinted for the hole in the wall. He heard Skills fire and knew they’d land. He didn’t have the speed to keep dodging without his Skill up.

So he reached out to his third Skill, the one he’d gotten upon reaching level 10.

It’ll Block Something!

Epic

Effect: activate a random defensive Skill within your current Thresholds.

Range: X

Energy cost: X

Cooldown: X

It’ll block something activated with a deep thrum, the sound rolling through his chest like a base speaker.

The air to his right rippled, creating a shimmer in space.

A massive white hand punched through with a sound like shattering glass.

Bigger than his entire torso, it made a sweeping motion as he ran past.

Sounds overlapped, booming, slashing, screeching, scratching until it was just a cacophony of noise.

The Skill saved his life, but it didn’t block everything.

Something stabbed into his shoulder, and only terror and adrenaline kept him on his feet. It didn’t even hurt, which struck him as a bad sign since he felt wetness pour down his back.

Jorden made it through the hole in the wall. A stairway led down to his left, and he bolted to it. Clamoring behind him shouts and threats.

Are Those New Shoes? Came off cool down, and he activated it immediately.

The world blurred, seeming to slow and then speed up. The next thing he knew, his single step had flung him into the open air, directly into the center of the spiral staircase. For a brief moment, he wondered if this was how Wiley Coyote felt.

Then he plummeted straight down.