I stood still and closed my eyes, Breathe, iiiiinnn, ouuuuuuut, focus all my perception on the feeling of the air moving through my body, let that sooth my spirit… innnnn, ouuuuuut… I keep doing this till anger based solutions to dealing with this clusterfuck stop being in my top 10 answers….Then I do it more, in and out. It’s way harder than it used to be… is that the mid 20s hormones coming back? or something else?

“Yamina, I still needed to talk to your mother. I need shoes, armor, a sword, a cool cloak that waves in the breeze behind me when I pause dramatically… All of that stuff.”

“I’m sorry, but you were done, you said we’d go when we were both done.” Dimming again both literally and metaphorically.

“Any apology that starts with ‘I’m sorry, but’ isn’t’ an apology, it’s an excuse cosplaying as an apology.”

“Ok, I’m sorry Bill”, her shoulder slumping even more.

“Thank you.” I paused for another breath.

“Secondly, I had 200cp saved up to negotiate a ‘Character backstory” that would set us up with all the gear we needed to start on the right foot. In character creation, you can do that, it’s pretty hard to impossible to do after. You can’t suddenly retroactively become the orphan child of circus performers.”

I take a quick look around at where we are, standing under a large, possibly immense, oak tree, next to a large chunk of the pale creamy limestone called “Austin White”. A suspiciously cleanly block shaped chunk, about waist high, the same depth, and a third longer. The tree stood in an open area, mostly green grass, shaggy and natural, but short, unnaturally short and too obviously pastoral. Around the grassy area, way out, was a ring of various trees, mostly oaks, though smaller than the one I stood under. The smaller oaks, and brush formed a near palisade ringing us to the, I glanced at the sun, and the shadows north and east? We’d have to watch the sun for a bit and see which way it moved. The ground fell off to the south and west. I couldn’t hear or see anything, but it smelled like there was open water off that way. It was clearly not a sea, by the smell, or a huge lake, because I could see sparsely wooded light brown hills off in the distance, a river, or a small lake… Not stagnant at all by the smell. So maybe both? Past the trees to the north, I could see the hint of mountains but no detail. I suspect the ring of trees is complete, marking off our safe area, and when it came to water, my money was betting on a clear blue, perfectly drinkable river, for all the obvious reasons.

I bring my hand to my chin, one finger covering my mouth and I think for a few more seconds taking the scenery in. Then back to breathe, in… out…feel the air moving in my lungs… God my emotions are just barely under my control for some reason, I don’t remember being this bad in my early 20s, a bit whiny, sure, but not like this. Stop, Focus on the sensation of air running in and out of my lungs, let everything else fade away, but the way it feels. in … out… knots untie, and I try again at a lower intensity level.

“Can we establish a general rule, when there is no time pressure, to discuss actions that can’t be undone -before- we do them? Like a team? In combat any decision fast is usually better than waiting, but if there is time…”

“Suuuuuuurrrre!” she said brightly, as if she could say it any other way, blasting off and zooming up and around a nearby tree.

Great, even her contrition is hyperactive… Just what I need. I take a deep breath, and remind myself that ADHD is a survival benefit, or ancient cave men would have breed it out of existence. Grok the caveman was the member of the tribe who was always working, always exploring, always moving. Hyperfocus alone, made ADHD an evolutionary “good thing” From Grok the hyperfocused caveman who figured out how to take 2 sticks from “Look stick warm” to “Look Fire!” nearly every creative and technical genius had Hyperfocus and or Flowstate to get them there.

“Wheeeeeee, the sky is so biiiiiiiiiig!, I love it here! It’s so pretty here and it was so dark back there!” Yep still zooming. One of my boys was ADD, hell I’m probably ADD, I’m just old enough they hadn’t invented the term yet. But they never had the zoomies like this… It’s like she ate a whole plate of cookies laced with Meth. I need to find excuses for her to move a lot to burn off energy.

“Yamina, can you please land here a moment and let’s make plans for going hunting?”

“Sure, Bill” she said zooming over and landing on the large rock. At first she was jumping and then unable to stand still in excitement.

“Oh wow Bill, you need to come touch this rock, like soonest”.

I wander over and put my hand on the Rock. Popups Lots of popups.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

I clicked NO on skipping the tutorial, because I’m not an idiot. Now we need to manage these messages.

“Yamina how do I fix this interface, this many popups are going to be annoying, and in combat it’s going to get us dead.”

“I told you already silly, it’s adaptive, just concentrate on how you want it to work and it’ll change.”

I ponder various games I’ve played, devices I’ve used, and programs I’d written in 30 years as a developer, 10 of which making games. First, I concentrate on a notification bar, next to the question marks, with a bubble for waiting messages, and move all the messages to that.

Whoa that worked. A little chat bubble with the number 4 blinking in it. Okay, add small a quest bubble, and add the parties status under my status Bars. A small golden ‘!’ button with the number 2 on it appeared next to the other buttons. And a thumbnail of Yamina’s face appeared below my stats bars with bars of her own. Then my bars shifted over and a thumbnail of my own face appeared to keep things nicely aligned.

My grin lit again, and my eyes lit with that inner sparkle. Wow, this is going to be handy. Point Goddess for this clever system. Minimap upper right, check. Next add party, enemies and navigation to the mini map. A blue dot, and a yellow ! appear on the map. I can’t think of anything else I need this second, so I mentally click on the quest indicator, thinking about a quests interface.

“Yamina, can you ask your mom for some clothes, and gear? Barefoot in a speedo isn’t exactly how I planned to fight monsters. We rushed out of there waaay too fast.”

“I can’t open divine chat, she has to, remember?” she said once again looking at me.

In a clear, slightly too loud voice, I say, my face pointed up towards the sun, “I refuse to believe that a mother and A Goddess aren’t watching us, her youngest daughter and her newest gardener, first emissaries to a new world, right now, to see how we get started, unless something major is on fire, she’s totally watching us right now.”

Yamina grinned and zipped up into the air again about face high on me. “Momma says, Point Gardener 4 to 1, she can’t do much though, she’s already bent the rules till they’re bleeding. She might be able to slip one small thing into the next few quests, and neither of you can redeem points till we’re higher level. At least level 5, maybe more depending on how much attention we draw to ourselves.”

“A stealth quest really Danu? Do you think I’m that demotivated?” I say towards the clouds.

“She says 1 small item, very small. You pick. And she says a pair of shoes is 2 items”.

I think about everything we need, what do we need most, I try to be logical, to be survival oriented, to do the right thing. But my shoulders hunching and my head drooping, I think I can’t. My emotions swell again, nearly overwhelming me… but this time it wasn’t’ anger. As soon as she said “Very small” I knew what I really wanted. My eyes start to tear, just thinking about it. My throat clenches, my hands start to shake. Tears run down my face. I can’t. I just can’t. I’m losing it, quietly, but I’m losing it. Dammit Bill, pull your shit together.

In a voice so choked, I can’t recognize is at my own I say. “Dammit, I want my wedding ring. No copies, no facsimiles, -my- wedding ring.”

Yamina Dims, and freezes, dammit she’s only what? a day old? she’s probably never seen an adult cry before. I Need to pull myself together. I can’t. I drop to my knees and start crying quietly my back hunched by the weight of all my emotions. Tears begin streaming down my face. I’m never going to see -her- again, or my kids. Never. She thinks, no, she knows I’m dead. What the fuck am I going to do. Apparently, the answer is, “Ugly Cry” so I let that happen for a bit, it’ll purge some of the stress, some of that junk cocktail in my brain and bloodstream. Just trying to keep it quiet, and let it run its course. Then I put my hand out to steady myself, try to get my control back, but it’s slipping though my mental fingers. My hand touches the rock.

For some reason, that popup makes me laugh, Dark pained laughs, but I can’t stop them either, my face now looking up into the canopy of the great oak, painful barks of laughter leaping from me.

Okay stress, trauma, I just died this morning after all. Despite fantasies, I’m not an Uber Mensh superguy. I’m not my dad. I’m just me, and I apparently just accepted it. I’m dead, this world is real Yasmin and Danu are real. My wife and family are gone. Forever.

I bind at the altar, just to make the message go away, and turn and sit, leaning my back and my head against it looking up at the sky with no expression at all on my face, except a touch of tiredness, feeling emptier, perhaps..

“Are you going to be ok?” that tiny, tiny voice says. Her hands and ankles are crossed in a protective gesture.

With my eyes moving to the wall of trees in the distance the words come from somewhere, “Better than, ok, I’m going to be Me.” I say , still chuckling, still crying, just a little. “It’s alright, It just all hit me at once, I’ve been playing this like a game, but it not. It’s real, I died, I’ll never see my family again. I’m stuck here. It was just a lot to process all at once. Y’no.” I promise myself I’ll suck it up and get back to work in a moment. I needed a moment to be a human being.

“No, but I’m sorry you’re sad” she says still looking at her hands. “Mom says she’s sorry too, and she’s impressed you held up this long. She says she has to go, but take your time, and get yourself together, then accept the quests and explore the grove.” A pause “She’s gone.”