Sparky pulled the nearly new PlayStation 11 out of the dumpster and grinned. He flipped it over and immediately knew what had happened to it. Someone had kicked or thrown the device and the cord had broken the solder connections inside the plug and it had stopped working. An easy fix and an easy sale online. This was going to be a more comfortable week than most. He popped the console into his backpack and slung it over his shoulder.
As he walked back to his camp where he kept his soldering iron, he thought about his life. He had chosen the homeless lifestyle. There were innumerable downsides but the upsides were great, especially for a non-druggie like him. Camping every day, scrounging for what you can get, taking the government's checks, and hanging out with his buddies. If he hadn't just turned fifty with all of the aches and pains that came along with aging after a rough life, he would be happy for things to stay the same.
"Hey Sparks, how's it hanging man." Justin ran a little bit to catch up with Sparky and then matched his pace. Sparky groaned under his breath, Justin was not his favorite person.
"Man, when are you going to try my stuff? I have been offering you a free hit for years, beginning to believe you don't like me, dude." Justin was one of those people who had the ability to be deeply intimidating while at the same time seeming to be nice.
Sparky smiled at Justin and just kept walking.
Justin put out a hand and stopped Sparky. "Hey, man. You know that these are my streets and you live in my backyard, but you don't pay any rent. My customers pay rent when they buy, but you never buy, so what am I supposed to do with you?"
Justin had stopped Sparky at the opening of a dark alley in downtown Stockton, not the best position to be in, he decided. When he had lived in a home, before his foster parents had kicked him out on his 18th birthday, Sparky had played a little football. He was tall and thin but also whipcord strong. He had been able to run faster than most of the other players so they had made him a wide receiver.
Sparky juked like he was going to run in the same direction they had been walking and then spun and sprinted away. His knees hurt a little, but life on the streets had kept him thin and strong.
Sparky could hear Justin running behind him puffing out phrases like "You little...", and "I'm gonna..." But as he ran he could hear Justin getting further behind. Sparky took a hard left through a small park, a right into an alley, and then jumped to clear a six-foot fence. As he jumped he realized again that he was fifty and not fifteen anymore and his belly slammed hard into the chain links. Adding to his dismay, his backpack slipped off his shoulder and slammed into a pole and he heard a crunch come from inside.
Sparky got his leg over the fence and then rolled himself the rest of the way over, falling down on the other side. Once down and out of sight behind some garbage cans he listened carefully but couldn't hear any pursuit. With trepidation, he pulled the small console out of his pack and groaned. The case was cracked open and inside he could see that the main board of the PlayStation was cracked in two, a total waste. He felt broken just like the electronic device. The preacher man had encouraged him to put his trust in Jesus, so he did and something changed inside Sparky.
After maybe half an hour, Sparky began the short trek back to his campsite, but as he approached he saw a column of smoke rising, and as he came around the last corner he saw what he had feared. Justin or one of his goons had burned his camp. His soldering iron, his food stash, his extra clothes, his tent, and his sleeping bag were all either burned or stolen.
"What do I do now?" Sparky asked. The feeling he was experiencing was strange. He was not afraid, he was not angry, but he was finding that he was just trusting in Jesus. But the answer was clear so he turned and began his hike to the Mission. He had been pushed out of every area of town and he was actually surprised that Justin had allowed him to stay on his turf as long as he had. So what next? Modesto? Maybe Lodi? Would word about the strange homeless guy who did not do drugs follow him there or could he get by for a while? A new town meant making new friends and leaving old friends. There didn’t seem to be a good option. As he came around the corner and saw the Gospel Mission he picked up his pace until he was inside the administration building.
"Hey Sparky, how can I help you?" said the nice volunteer behind the desk.
"Hey Susan, is Ray available?"
"Let me see." She picked up her phone and dialed a few numbers. "Hey, you free, Sparky is asking to see you." She listened for a minute and then hung up. "Yeah, go on back." She smiled at him.
Sparky walked back to Ray's office, knocked once on the door, and then let himself in, plopping into a well-worn chair.
The Hispanic man behind the desk had tattoos peeking out from under his short-sleeved shirt. Ray, had done 27 years on a murder charge and had served most of that time as a saved man. When he got out, he had gone to the local community college and earned his counseling certificate and the Mission hired him almost immediately. Guys like Ray who had serious street cred and a serious faith were rare and valuable to homeless missions. "What's going on Sparky?"
"I have great news and terrible news." Sparky smiled at Ray and then recounted what had happened to him over the last hour.
Ray listened with careful attention to what Sparky said and a small tear slid down his cheek when Sparky described being saved. But he stayed quiet and listened to the whole story.
When Sparky was done Ray stood up, walked around the desk, pulled him out of his chair, and gave him a bear hug. "I have been waiting a long time for this day brother! A long time." Sparky felt Ray shake with emotion for a moment and then they came apart. "This stuff with Justin is disturbing, however." Guys like you used to get a pass back in the day, but now they treat homelessness like a business.
Sparky nodded.
Ray rounded the desk again and sat down. "Okay, I have been hearing about something for a while and thought you might want to consider it. You play games on those consoles you fix sometimes, right?"
Sparky nodded.
Ray went on to describe Fantasy Mainline. "They have been asking us to suggest people for the first phase. We would hate to lose you, but I know that once God has ahold of a man He never lets go so I have no fear for your soul."
Sparky thought about it for a moment, he loved playing VR games on the consoles he recovered and repaired but this sounded next level. If this was something he could try and then decline later he would already be signing on the dotted line, but never being able to come back out, that was extreme. Then Sparky considered his condition. He was over fifty now and the winters had been getting colder and the ground harder. On the flip side, the thought of being able to sleep outside again but with a younger and healthier body sounded amazing. "Okay." He said and that was that. Sparky stayed inside the mission for the next two days but when the bus came to take the first load down to the Fantasy Mainline center he had been the last on and the first off. Once Sparky made a decision, that was it. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Waking up inside the game had been strange, but when he had heard that he was going to be an elf and that he could throw lightning around as an air mage his choice had been simple. A Sparky-elf throwing lightning felt like a perfect fit, and that felt like a God thing to him.
**********
When he had given that cute foot-tall elf maiden named Edie the go-ahead, Sparky had found himself in a dome of light. "Fifteen seconds to entry, the threat level is two."
"Is two bad?" Sparky queried.
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"Nope, one is totally safe and two just means that there are some baddies somewhere around where you will be entering," Edie replied.
Sparky waited out the seconds and when the dome faded he was in a whole new world. He found himself in the middle of a forest.
"So, Edie," Sparky said with wonder in his voice at the beauty around him, "Which way from here?"
"Normally players are dropped somewhere near their race's city in the starter area, but since the Elves do not have a city you get to start out in the woods. You can just look around the woods or I can point you in the general direction of one of the other race's towns."
"What are the other races?"
"Well, we have the Humans, the Dwarves, and," Edie shuddered a bit, "The Orcs."
"Orcs are clearly out, Dwarves are often a bit less friendly to us woodland creatures, let's head toward the Humans."
Sparky began wondering in the direction that Edie pointed him, smelling the fragrant flowers, enjoying the easy breeze that made gentle noises in the tree tops and brushed softly against his skin.
After a while, what looked to Sparky like a normal human village appeared in the distance, most of the villagers seemed to be gathered out east of town, but he felt a pressure there he did not like so he avoided going that direction.
Okay, town, but it still looked a lot more like a village to him.
There was an old-looking woman in the distance wringing her hands so Sparky walked over to her. "Can I help you, ma'am?"
The woman looked at him with pleading eyes, "Two goblins have stolen my kitty, and I am afraid that they mean her great harm." Will you please save Mr. Socks? They took her right over there." The lady pointed at a dense copse of trees.
"Absolutely!" Sparky responded. He had salvaged several older consoles and had spent many hours playing games like this. This was a quest, quests were good.
I'm going to get to use Lightning Bolt soon! Sparky thought to himself, way cool.
"Hey Edie, remind me how to activate this stuff again."
"You just think about what you want to do. Simple as that." Edie responded.
Sparky thought about sneaking and suddenly his footfalls became lighter, but at the same time, a green bar at the top right of his HUD became visible and began to drop fairly quickly. He stopped sneaking and the green bar began filling again but very slowly.
As he drew near to the tightly spaced group of trees Sparky turned sneak on again and stepped lightly into the shade of the trees. Once his eyes had adjusted to the darker environment he could see three goblins, one was holding a rather cute-looking cat while the other two prepared a small fire.
Sparky turned off Sneak as he waited a few moments. He pointed his finger at one of the little green humanoids but still waited.
One of the two goblins slipped a little in the muddy ground and his partner grabbed him to help stabilize him. Just then Sparky thought "Lightning Bolt" and a bolt of white electricity jumped from his finger directly to the goblin he had pointed his finger at. But, just as Sparky had hoped, that direct contact provided an easy pathway for the electric attack to move from one goblin to the other.
"Conductivity! Sparky knows his electricity." Sparky said as the two goblins dropped and notifications appeared in his HUD.
The third goblin dropped the cat and charged at him.
"Trying to charge me, ha, I'm going to charge you!" Sparky yelled as he zapped the last goblin with another lightning bolt.
Sparky spent the next ten minutes hunting the cat. Frustrated, he sat down. Just then he saw something climbing a tree, but it turned out to be a large rat so he zapped it.
Sparky's body suddenly felt filled with light and pleasure. Oof, so that was what his buddies must have felt like when they took a hit of heroin. He had never tried it himself, but wow, that felt good!
He thought about his lightning bolt spell and a small window popped up:
One enemy, ha! Thought Sparky, Conductivity rules!
Sparky had not missed the notification that said he got a new skill. Rubbing his hands together, he mentally selected that notification.
[You may choose one of the following skills.]
[1. Learn Cantrip - This allows the mage to learn and cast cantrips.]
Meh, cantrip… Sparky thought dismissively.
[2. Forked Lightning - Allows the mage to split his lightning attack up to 19 times reducing the total damage done by the spell by 5% for each split, remaining damage is divided evenly among all enemies.]
Sparky pictured himself killing 19 squirrels at one time and smiled.
[3. Shock Dodge - A successful dodge leaves a ball of lightning in the place where the mage had been before the dodge.]
Sparky thought this would be a fun surprise to leave behind and would probably look really cool as well, but he shuddered at the thought of being close enough to an attacker to need this.
[4. Electrified Strike - The mage can electrify their staff to deliver both physical and electrical damage on a successful strike.]
Again, way too close for comfort. If he was close enough to strike others, they were close enough to strike him. There was really only one choice here.
[Congratulations, you have learned the skill Forked Lightning.]
Sparky tried to focus back on his task at hand. "Hey Edie, is there a way to get some meat from that rat? And what is all this about assigning attribute points?"
"If you walk over near the rat and think `Loot` you will be able to take whatever it dropped, likely some meat. On the attribute points, you can move the ones around for each level. You have seven you can move now, when you are ready, you can let the system know you are done and then you will get five more you can put where you like."
Sparky thought, "System, I am done." And suddenly he had five more points to assign. He stuck one in Constitution because he did not want to die, one in Dexterity since that allowed him to sneak and he guessed to dodge as well, and three into Intelligence because, well, lightning bolt.
Sparky then walked over to the rat he had killed thinking Loot and a window popped up showing what he assumed must be his inventory on the left and the rat's on the right. He mentally moved the rat meat that had dropped over to his side. Next, he looted the three goblins and found 12 coppers and three Goblin iron short swords. Which he also took.
"Okay," he thought out loud, "where is that cat?"
He moved to the place where the goblin had dropped the cat and summoned the piece of rat meat into his hand. "Here kitty, kitty." He crooned. Almost immediately he noticed two huge kitten eyes peeking out from under a bush. Slowly the cat moved toward him, clearly wary. But as he continued to call and offer the meat, the cat became increasingly comfortable with him. Soon Mr, Socks was nestled in his arms munching on pieces of rat meat.
When they arrived at the old lady she reached out for her rescued cat and when she received it she looked genuinely relieved. "Thank you so much Sparky, I was so worried that they were going to eat Mr. Socks! Follow me, I'll see that you receive your reward."
"At your service ma'am," Sparky said as he followed her into town.
She led him into an unassuming shop on the back end of the main street. Once inside, he looked around and saw what appeared to him like test tubes, beakers, and even larger containers of liquids of all colors. "Are you an alchemist?" He asked.
"No, but my husband is." She said, hollering, "Jaonos!"
A thin, tall, and aged man entered the main room from the back wiping his hands on a clean rag. "Hi darling, Let me guess... You were outside walking Mr. Socks when suddenly, two goblins ran up and stole him. Then soon after, this fine adventurer came up and offered to help get the cat back. You offered to give him some copper and a class-appropriate item if he returned the cat safely."
She nodded sheepishly.
"You know we are going to go broke if you keep doing this, don't you."
She grinned in a shy way, "I know, but I just somehow feel so compelled. And with all of these adventurers around, there is no shortage of business."
He groaned, took out a pouch, and gave Sparky five coppers from it. Next, he rummaged behind the counter for a bit, then exclaimed. "Well, where did you come from." He stood up, holding a large floppy hat, and tossed it to Sparky.
As he caught it, Sparky got a message.
Sparky immediately put the hat on and felt both quicker and stronger. "Thank you." He said. "Is there any way I can learn to do what you do?"
"Well, if you want to dedicate your life to the craft, you could become my apprentice."
Sparky shook his head.
"There is a strong divide between those who want to learn a profession and those who want to adventure, I am guessing you want to adventure."
Sparky nodded. "You sell potions that restore health, stamina, and mana, right?”
“Correct, but you are likely not wealthy enough to afford them yet.”
“Thought so,” Sparky said as he turned and walked out of the shop with a wave goodbye.
The town was filling up bit by bit with adventurers, and there was certainly an increasing buzz of excitement. Looking around, Sparky saw what he was looking for and headed down the street until he arrived at the smithy. Inside, he found a player named Dorian, who sighed as he bought the swords he had found. After selling them for next to nothing, he asked for directions again and stepped outside.
Upon entering the inn, he ordered an ale, sat down, took a long sip of a surprisingly nutty-flavored ale, set the mug down, and sighed. This was going to be awesome.