Nathaniel sat on the bed in the room the hotel gave him. The room was lit by a lone candle that threw shadows around the room. Nathaniel looked around him. The room was similar to cheep hotel room, short of tv, bathroom, and electricity.

He tried to organize his thoughts. It wasn’t easy, he had a very weird day. But as much as he tried to deny it, magic was happening in front of his eyes.

He could now feel Siri inside of him, but for some reason she stayed silence. He could be crazy, tied to a bed in a madhouse, and everything is happening in his head. However. As much as it made sense, it felt to real to consider it.

On the other side. He feared that he will lose his mined sooner or later.

He sighed.

“Nathaniel, I looked through the system, and you need to open the control panel before you talk to Tolverstov.”

Why?

“Open it.”

Is it good or bad?

“Good.”

More magic?

“What do want me to say?”

Nothing. I’m going to sleep.

He waited for her to respond, but she remained silence.

He lay down on the bed, and tried to empty his mind.

***

Nathaniel was frustrated after an hour of lying on the bed, he desperately wanted to fall asleep, but he stayed very much awake.

The candle light wasn’t much help either.

“Probably because you have jet lag.”

Jet lag?

“Yes. It is one forty-two pm now in New York.”

I suppose you’re right. I didn’t think about jet lag.

He got out of bed and went out of the room. The hotel was a two-story wood building, and a balcony connected the rooms on the second floor, where Nathaniel’s room was.

He looked around, but everything was dark. Looking up, he could see skies full of stars, but he could barley see anything around him.

“Maybe if you turn action mode on you will be able to see.”

Good idea. Action mode on.

His vision immediately cleared. Everything was still dark, but he could see clearly through the dark.

To his surprise, he saw Velony standing in front of the balcony glowing blue.

“Velony?” he asked.

She looked up at the balcony. “Nathaniel?”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Yes, it’s so dark here…” he trailed off.

“Come down here, you’ll wake everybody up.” She told him.

“Right.” He walked down the stairs and approached Velony.

“What are you doing here? I thought you’d be asleep by now; you’ve had a stressful day.”

“I thought so myself.” He said. “But apparently, I have interplanetary jet lag.”

“You have what?”

“Exactly. But when you think about it, it makes sense”

Velony took a short stick from her waist and a ball on the end of the stick started glowing. She blinked and looked at him with a weird look.

“Are you sleep walking?” she asked suspiciously.

“No, why?”

“You look dreamy.” She wasn’t convinced.

“It’s so dark.” He said softly looking around at the now lit hotel yard.

“It’s night.” She pointed out.

“Still.” He insisted. “we’re outside, and it’s like we’re in a cave or something. It’s pitch black.”

“And in your world, there’s light in the night?”

He stopped to think about it. “Yeah.” He told her after a moment. “From the moon. and in the cities, where I use to be, there’s always light over the city.”

“What’s a moon?” She asked him.

“What do you mean ‘what’s a moon’, is there a problem with my translation ability?”

“No, I just don’t know what a moon is.”

“You know what a sun is?” He asked her confused.

“Of cores I know what a sun is, don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not the one being ridiculous.” He insisted. “Not knowing what is a moon, is as ridiculous as not knowing what a sun is.”

“I don’t think so.” She said defensively. “The sun is something you can’t miss unless you’re blind, it’s in the sky.”

“And you think the moon is underground?” Nathaniel started getting annoyed.

“I think that they do not have a moon here.”

Ha.

“Maybe you tell me what a moon is.” Velony suggested.

“I’m sorry.” Nathaniel apologized when he realized what’s going on. “a moon, is like the sun but very pale, it’s emitting very weak light, and it’s usually in the sky at night.”

“And you have a moon in your world.” She concluded. “that’s why you’ve never seen a night that dark.”

“I gauss.” Nathaniel agreed. “So why are you here in the dark?”

“I’m practicing my senses.”

“What does that mean?”

“When I move fast, I need to see fast enough to be able to function. But I don’t always get my slow eyes ability, so I need to practice moving with my other senses.”

“Like a bat?” Nathaniel found it funny for some reason.

“I don’t know what a bat is, but if it moves fast and it’s blind I gauss I do move like a bat.” She smiled.

“It is blind.” Nathaniel smiled back. “But it’s not especially fast.”

She laughed. “So that makes me fast bat woman.”

“That would be a really bad movie.” Nathaniel told her.

“For some reason, I don’t understand half of what you’re saying.” She told him.

“Probably for the best.” He assured her. “I’ll let go back to your training, it was nice talking to you.” He turned and walked back to his room.

Velony looked after him trying to make sense of their conversation, but after a minute she gave up, turned off the glowing stick, and got back to her training.

***

Control panel.

Control panel

Magic system is on local mode.

Game mode is available.

Action mode is on fps mode.

Tps mode is available.

Warning

system magic selection blocked partially by magic system mode.

I have no idea what I just read. What is so important that you wanted me to see here?

“The important thing is, the system trying to tell me something when I read it.”

Do you even understand any of that?

“The second option is pretty obvious; your action mode is on ‘first person shooter’ and you can change it to ‘third person shooter’.”

Really? How exactly it’s supposed to work?

“I do not know. But the system does not care about it, it is excited about the other two.”

And what exactly the other two mean?

“I do not know, but the warning is clearly telling you to change the magic system, to game mode.”

Are you sure it’s a good idea?

“You can always change it back, and the system seem to be very eager for you to change it.”

Okey. It should be easy. Magic system to game mode.

Nothing happened.

Change magic system to game mode.

magic system is on game mode now.

Local mode is available.

The warning disappeared.

Nathaniel waited for something to happened, he thought there would be some change in the system or something else, but everything looked and felt the same.

Is the system happy now?

“I think so. And you have two new quests.”