Spoiler: Spoiler

OK so this is what I am working on at the moment and yes I am aware that I haven't done anything with the others for quite a while but this one is what I have been wanting to write. I am going to try to update at least once a week but honestly, I work full time and I was planning to wait until I had more chapters before I posted this. I really wanted to know what you guys think of it though. I think this is the part where I am supposed to beg for reviews but really feedback is welcome if you think there is something I should change or have any suggestions feel free. 

P.S. This is in a spoiler since I couldn't figure out how to do that thing where everyone else was doing their author notes feel free to laugh at me if you want to =)

Do you remember where you were when the world as we know it ended?

I don't believe that I will ever forget... it might have been the worst place to be during something like that.

You see after high school like all my family has since what feels like the dawn of time... I joined the Navy.

Now don't get me wrong being on a Naval base when the Apocalypse goes down would probably be perfect... unfortunately we weren't at the base. 

I was at sea onboard the ship I had been serving on and found myself quite alone.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Initializing…

Begin Startup-Sequence…

ERROR!! ANOMALY DETECTED!! ERROR!!

WARNING NATIVE MAGIC USERS DETECTED! HOTFIX REQUIRED!

APPLYING HOTFIX!

REINITIALIZE…

STARTUP SEQUENCE… DONE!

BOOT COMPLETED!

Stefan blinked finding himself alone on the bridge of the ship he served on with a blue screen taking up most of his view.

Welcome to the SYSTEM!

Native Magic-User Detected!

Warning System does not allow for baseline humans to be Mages.

You have 1 local hour to change your Race or deal with unspecified possibly fatal consequences! =) Have a Wonder-filled day!

Race Change Yes/-

Startled the young man focused his attention on the Yes option not really having any other choice as there wasn’t another option and it was blocking his vision.

Congratulations you have selected your new Race!

Prepare for race change in…

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

‘What the hell!!’ Stefan thought staring at the new box that had popped up and told him exactly nothing. The next thing he knew was pain. Pain like nothing he had felt before it was like what he imagined the pain curse from one of his favorite series of books would feel like concentrated over the entirety of his body and everything went black.

When he came to Stefan groaned pushing himself up off the deck plating wondering if anyone had gotten the number of the elephant that had trampled him into the ground… several times… before sitting on him and maybe stomping a few times as it walked away.

Several lights blinked away before his eyes though he was hesitant to concentrate on them considering what had happened the last time he had. Looking around himself he blinked wondering where everyone was before looking out the front window at the open ocean and wondering where he­ was. Turning to the nearest console he wasn’t sure whether to be surprised or not that the thing wasn’t on before he turned to the next and the next finding the same thing as he realized there were no overhead lights on either and if it wasn’t daylight out he wouldn’t be able to see at all.

Pulling the radio out of the holster on his belt he wasn’t really surprised to note that it too wasn’t working before he thrust it back into his belt and made his way to the port side door to the outside not wanting to deal with the fact that it was most likely pitch black within the ship if the lights weren’t working and figuring that if there was anyone else around they would head for the outside and the light too.

Clicking the door closed behind him the young man stared out over the empty water to the port side hoping that maybe just maybe he had just picked the wrong side of the ship to check and there might be land on the other side of the ship.

He set off around the other side not feeling like cutting through the bridge again paying more attention to what was going on the water than to what was going on around him. Coming around the corner he barely reacted in time to through himself backward as a spear flashed towards his side. Wild eyes looking to where it had come from; he couldn’t stop himself from blinking stupidly at the creature that was stalking slowly towards him.

It stood about five feet tall on legs that looked like a frog in fact if it wasn’t for the head he would have named it a Murloc like those he had seen in the MMORPG's that he loved to play when he had the time. The head though that was truly terrifying… it had a face that looked way closer to a shark than a frog-like the murlocs had though it still carried around a crude-looking spear in a far too human-looking hand.

Getting impatient the creature raised the spear and started to run towards him knocking him out of his surprise. Calling up his magic as fast as he could to blast the creature away he was shocked when his hand glowed silver and a blast of magic lashed out slicing through the spear as if it was made of clouds causing the strange being to screech to a stop staring at him warily.

When he just stood there staring stupidly at the thing too long for it’s admittedly limited patience the creature grunted harshly pulling a knife that seemed to be made of shell and bone out of its beltline before once more raising the thing and pausing as the silver light lashed out once again though this time he took control of it and forced it to slice across the things throat and almost threw up as its head fell off.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

+20 EXPERIENCE

Stefan blinked at this latest message beginning to think that the Gods were playing tricks on him making him think that his life had turned into a video game. Though when he stopped to think about it, it wasn’t really all that far outside the realm of the possible considering how his magic was acting up on him… he had after all been intending to hit the creature with a lightning bolt not whatever the hell that silver cutting magic had been. Magic, not spell, as he hadn’t been focusing on a spell at the time.

Remembering a fanfiction trope that he had read some time ago the young man focused and said “Menu!” Not sure what he was expecting to happen.

WARNING! NO ACCESS TO A MENU FUNCTION!

…Was not really what he had been expecting and he couldn’t help but wonder if him not having access was something to do with him being what he was before this all started or if there really wasn’t such a thing in this system?

“Status!” He tried again.

Stefan Rayven

Race: Fae(?)

Level 1 (20 of 1000)

Powers Unlocked: (Unknown), General Spellcasting Abilities

Locked Powers: BLOCKED

That might just have been the most useless status page he had ever heard of not stats or characteristics or anything that might describe anything helpful… Ok so knowing he could still use his normal magic was slightly helpful but he was sure he would have figured that out by himself eventually and knowing that he was some kind of Fae now was useful as well though not as useful as knowing what kind he was would have been because there were a lot of differences that he could think of despite not being an expert.

Family Lore said they were descended from the Fae it never did say who or what they were descended from and honestly he had never really paid much attention to it assuming that it was just… bragging on the parts of his ancestors. This though could almost convince him that they weren’t lying. It seemed this system whatever it was wasn’t going to tell him anything for free which was a bit disheartening if that creature he had just killed showed him anything it was that this was no game.

Turning his attention back to his surroundings after closing the small window and thanking every God he could name that nothing else had snuck up on him while he was distracted, he looked around curious to see if anything had changed.

The corpse was still there telling him that it was going to just conveniently dissolve into the atmosphere or wherever they went to in the games when they disappeared, of course, that usually happened after you looted them and he hadn’t even tried to see if he could not really all that interested in touching the rough rubbery skin of whatever they called themselves.

Looking further he let out a cry of delight as he could see the shore from this angle where he hadn’t been able to see it before at least now he knew if he wanted to get back to land it would be possible to swim to it since he wasn’t that far out really. Well, it wouldn’t be as easy as all that, because he had no intention of jumping off the side of the ship from this high up it would be a good way to break a limb and then he definitely would not be swimming anywhere. None of which even answered the question of if there was some dangerous thing swimming around down there.

Always possible to make a Portal to the shore if we are close enough to somewhere, I would know, but first! He thought with a shrug which changed into his trademark easy grin. Searching this hunk of metal to see if I can find out what happened to the rest of the crew, I can’t possibly be the only one here… Hopefully, no one who is unarmed ran into another of those damn shark-head-things.

Making his way the rest of the way around the front mast he took one last look before making his way through the door calling up a mage-light as soon as he closed the door behind himself making a mental note that this was probably where his attacker had come from leaving it open behind itself like one wasn’t supposed to.

He found the first body one deck down. It wasn’t someone that he recognized which wasn’t really all that surprising on a ship this size, he had a jagged wound down the front of his torso neatly bisecting a name strip with the generic name of Smith, clearly not done by a blade even a crude one telling him that the Murloc wasn’t the only danger on the ship at the moment.

He made his way from office to office not finding any more bodies though there were a few signs of struggles here and there and a dead spider the size of a pit-bull with puncture wounds everywhere on its huge body that must have been responsible for the first body he had found. He couldn’t tell if it had been killed by more Murlocs or maybe even members of the crew had fought back as unlikely as that seemed. If the crew was fighting back it would more likely be with the weapons in the armory than a blade.

Heck never having been inside the armory itself he wasn’t sure he could eliminate the possibility that they carried blades of some kind though most GM’s seemed more likely to have stashed guns than knives. Stopping in the ET shop, his former shop, Stefan let out a breath of relief when there weren’t any bodies though it was clear that there had been a struggle in the shop with things strewn all about he couldn’t see any blood at all… actually, the blood on Smith had so far been all he had found.

Moving cautiously down the next ladder he found ready the entire time to toss the fireball he was holding just inside his skin, had been holding since he made his way into the ship. There was no way for him to hide after all there was no light down here aside from the mage-light following behind him and there was no way in hell he would wander these halls blind.

Nothing really changed as he made his way down through the ship, signs of a struggle all around or at least a hasty exit with things strewn all over the place as if knocked over or dropped as people rushed off. The only thing he could think of was that they had evacuated when the power went out though why they hadn’t come up where he had found himself he couldn’t guess… if they had a choice in the matter at least.

He hadn’t been attacked either though he had found a couple of more spider corpses of similar size and a few bodies of even bigger rats as if whatever had happened had taken what was already there and blown them up out of all proportion. He had even stopped in the armory thinking that it would be the first place he would go if something happened hoping to find anyone else.

No luck there either though he had run across the bodies of several Murlocs who had clearly been trying to take the armory… successfully it turned out though it had clearly cost them in blood. The armory itself was a bloodbath both the red of human blood and the greenish slime that the Murlocs secreted. There were no human bodies though and he couldn’t figure out why they would bother taking those when they left their own here to rot.

Shaking his head Stefan made his way down another ladder finally making it to the vending area pausing halfway down to stare at the back of the Murloc that had probably been meant to guard this space but had instead broken into the front of one of the machines and was busily ripping into the packages and scarfing down whatever it found.

Dismissing the fireball that he was still holding onto Stefan called up the silver magic he had used on the last of these he had found sending out a small tendril which he stabbed through the back of its neck all while still trying to understand what exactly it was other than sharper than anything else he had ever heard of.

Hearing a shout from the direction of the ship's garage area Stefan hurried the rest of the way down the ladder hiding behind the nearest soda machine in case something had noticed what he had done to the guard… it hadn’t occurred to him that they might have a spell on the guard to tell them if he died. Him not paying attention made more sense that way since he didn’t really need to be alive to alert the rest of his people.

Five minutes later and he was starting to wonder if he had given the creatures too much credit or they were waiting for him to come out into the open so they could get to him easier. On silent feet, he made his way to the door leading to the ship's store and slowly looked through making sure not to stick more of his head out than necessary. Seeing nothing alarming he made his way through making sure to keep his boots away from the knee knockers so the steel toes wouldn’t clang off like they would if they struck. It may not sound like a bell when that happened, but it would be far too loud at this moment.

Seeing nothing in the immediate area of the door he crept past the mail area and made his way to the corner of the ship's store once more slowly looking around the corner making sure not to expose himself too much. The ship store had clearly been broken into and that put him in something of a quandary if something was looking in this direction from the big empty garage space they would be able to see him clearly well before he made it into the ships store to check it for more of those creatures looting it for snacks or whatever else they wanted in there.

On the other hand, if he made his way around to investigate the garage which as he had said before was empty… they weren’t hauling any Marine equipment at the moment after all. Anything in the store or coming out of the store would be able to attack him from behind. Assuming they understood how to sneak up without screeching like the one he had fought near the bridge.

Seeing nothing in the area in front of the store he frowned before moving to the wall across from where he had been crouching knowing that he couldn’t stay there forever and he would have to see what he was up against eventually anyway as the shouting in the garage area hadn’t stopped once since he had made it to this deck.

Slowly making his way to the end of the wall that separated the ship store area and the garage making sure to keep his eyes and senses on all the ways that one of those creatures could sneak up on him he snuck a swift glance around the wall and quickly pulled back hoping he hadn’t seen by the five creatures milling around just on the other side of the lift.

Hearing nothing he looked again seeing that all five had their gazes focused in the opposite direction watching the rest of their people standing around screeching at each other as what looked to be most of the rest of the crew that he had been looking for watched them apprehensively.

There were far too many of the creatures for him to take out by himself even if he was the only mage on the ship… if the creatures had some kind of magic users there was no way he would manage to defeat them all.