It all started with the letter in my door this morning.

Now if I was a better person I probably would’ve reported the appearance of a magical object coming into my possession, but I decided that all the laws about magical containment and control could go fuck themselves once the letter ended up stabbed into the door of my apartment with that weird knife. I mean real magic was a new thing to the world, but the fact that the knifes blade was floating independently away from its hilt and seemed to be held together only by the blue smoke coating the thing told me the knife was definitely magical.

I of course knew that magic could be dangerous, I had seen plenty reports on the news about people transmorphing themselves into horrors or just generally blowing up when they came into contact with magic. Still, it was magic, real honest to goodness magic. There was no way in hell I would be passing up a chance at getting my hands on actual magic.

So instead of calling 911 and reporting that I found a potentially dangerous magical item I was sitting at my breakfast nook working up the courage to open the letter.

Sure I had personally seen a life ruined by the pursuit of magic, but I had also heard stories about people whose entire lives turned around because they came across some magical trinket or power. I wanted to be one of those success stories almost as much as I didn’t want to be a late night story of magical tragedy on the news. The thing was, there was no way of knowing which was more likely to happen and the weird magical smoke dagger didn’t tell me much about what I could be getting into by opening the letter. Honestly I was already pretty lucky for not bursting into flame or turning into a frog or something just for touching the thing.

I sat there, blueberry muffin in hand, and contemplated my choices. I was seventeen, attending university, and living independently on the emancipation checks my mom sent every month. I had a bright future ahead of me, and by this time next year I’d be a working partner at the LX Cross pawn shop. I could lose all that if I messed with this stuff and had it backfire on me. I could end up crippled, morphed, dead, or even undead. Plenty of other badness I can’t even think of could happen to me as well…

Yet on the other hand I could get magical powers or this could be one of those rare summons to the world beyond the rift I’d heard about. Hell even if the letter was nothing and the only power the knife had was looking awesome and bending physics or however else the blade floated like that I’d still have a cool story and two new pieces of merchandise I could potentially pawn off.

Sighing I took a bite of my muffin before picking up the knife, turning it over in my hands I didn’t feel any different. There was no surge of sudden power or knowledge, and thankfully I didn’t turn into a lump of writhing flesh or explode either. It just seemed like a normal knife, a normal magical knife, a normal magical knife that was embedded in my front door this morning.

In retrospect calling the knife normal was probably dumb…

Regardless the knife didn’t seem to do anything special, after swinging it a few times from my seat and cutting into my muffin in the name of science I was fairly certain of that much. In fact I was so certain of that fact I was willing to bet my nonexistent magical expert degree.

Which only left the letter I was to chicken to open.

Setting down my half eaten slightly bisected muffin I decided to just bite the bullet. I guess the fact that I knew there were beings out there with power over life and death that I could potentially negotiate with even should the worst happen made me braver than I would normally be, brave enough to grab ahold of my destiny and take a step towards ultimate magical power. That or I was being really stupid, about to make a huge mistake, and none of the so called gods or what have you would be willing to pay my life the littlest amount of attention let alone hear me out. It could be either or really…

Tearing open the envelope and pulling out the piece of paper inside I unfolded the paper and began to read. I got as far as Dear Evander Swan before the world went white.

***

Allow me to make this clear: you are a pawn.

Stolen story; please report.

Now you can either try denying this fact or accept it and move on with the rest of your life, in truth I don’t care which of these approaches any of you chose to do as long as you all accomplish what I need of you.

Your job is simple, I need you all to become powerful. Powerful enough that you can ensure the survival of many in what is to come, I assure you this shall be quite the daunting task. I suppose you could be called a “Hero” of sorts, but I shall not use the term as I find it foolish to think of the individuals I have chosen as heroes. The word hero implies that the subject is heroic, an idol that the masses can look to and feel proud of or safe around. Many of you can’t hope to ever wear such a noble moniker, and some would only laugh at being presented with it, hence it is an inappropriate moniker to use.

Returning to the point, an apocalypse is coming. I know not if it shall arrive in a single year or a century from this moment, but it is coming. And soon at that, at least soon from the perspectives of those of us not confined by mortal lifespans. You chosen few were selected and plucked from your original worlds because you each have the potential to survive what is to come, and it is my hope that this potential shall spread to those you encounter and interact with. You are each arks, arks that could save many from the cataclysm to come and mayhaps even allow for rebirth and resurgence after the storm passes.

Sadly each of you as you are would be doomed to failure, and as such I have taken the appropriate measures to correct the problem. You shall find that your classes and skills have been reset, and in some cases even had your race changed to offer you better survivability. This will likely disturb many of you. Some due to the loss of so much, others to the sudden changes, and I’m sure a few from less orderly or magical realities shall find this entire process and system disturbing.

I don’t care.

Each of you will have to overcome your personal feelings on the circumstances and adapt to your new reality. The other chose is death, and if you die over something so simple than obviously you were not what I was looking for in the first place and your death shall be no great loss.

I have also increased the number of classes you may hold to five at one time, this should allow each of you to amass great power and cover any glaring weaknesses a class you hold may have. Take this as a gift and use it as well as you are able.

Oh, and if you should meet with any of your colleagues I do ask that you don’t unnecessarily kill them. It would decrease the likelihood of a large enough population of people surviving the trials to come…

I stared at the message that seemed imposed over everything else in my vision. For a minute after reading the message I couldn’t think of anything, even after the screen the message was on had disappeared from view I couldn’t think of anything. I stood frozen.

“Well at least I didn’t blow up…”

I felt a laugh rise up inside myself before it bubbled over and I found myself cackling with some strange emotion I couldn’t identify.

“And I sure as shit didn’t turn into a frog!”

I looked down at my vaguely greyish hued skin that seemed to be blemish and hair free. I was still wearing the tee shirt and baggy sweatpants I had been lounging around in, but now there was a smooth black bangle snugly attached around my left wrist and a pair of sneakers on my feet I remember buying a few weeks back to replace my old beat up pair.

Running my hand through my hair half in an attempt to calm myself down and half to assure myself that the hair was still there. I discovered two things. One: my hair was thankfully still there and even felt smoother and softer than ever, and two: my ears seem to be slightly longer, sharper, and far more sensitive at the tips than I ever remembered them being.

Suppressing my oncoming freak-out I stopped fiddling the tips of my ears and decided to fiddle with the weird bangle around my wrist instead. As I ran my fingers across the bangle I wondered what it was, it felt sort of like if glass work was mixed with plastic.

Name Unavailable

Half elf (human-moon elf)

LV: 1

Class Unavailable

LV: N/A

Skills

Elven Constitution. Dark Sight. Light’s warmth.

I felt a strange sort of smile come onto my face as I looked at the new screen that popped up when I touched the bangle. In a way I had sort of asked for this when I had opened the letter, I had known that magical items had unpredictable and world shaking effects. I had known that, but I hadn’t thought that just opening a letter would cause all this…

And worst of all, I didn’t get to keep that badass magical knife through all this. Really there was only one thing that could’ve come to mind at a moment like this.

“Well… Fuck…”