If you were to ask the average person whether or not asphalt was comfortable to sleep on, they would say no. If they said yes then you would be well within your rights to consider them a weirdo. It wasn’t so much an opinion as it was a fact: asphalt is not comfortable as a bed.
Of course, that only remained true under most normal circumstances. Lightforge found himself outside the scope of what most people would consider normal, so he found the asphalt quite comfortable. Not the nicest thing that he’d slept on, but not the worst either. It was comfortable in the way that a nice cool floor was comfortable after one too many drinks.
Unfortunately, that only lasted for a few moments before the splitting headache made him groan and he tried to hide his face in his pillow. Since he was lying in the street, this just led to him scraping his face against the pavement, which dispelled the last vestiges of the illusion.
Ever so slowly, he peeled himself off the ground and forced himself to his feet. The world was spinning and unsteady, but he managed it on only his third attempt. What he found when he had risen was an area that was both familiar and strange.
The most obvious difference was the swirling dome of rainbow colors that enclosed everything within a couple hundred feet of where he was standing. That was unquestionably new, and it was concerning that he couldn’t even see the world outside of the dome. He strongly suspected that trying to bypass the barrier would be a very bad idea.
The next thing he noticed was the state of the little strip mall that held his shop. Even aside from his ransacked storefront, the place had been a little dingy and beaten up. It had clearly seen better days, and most of the stores had been abandoned. At least, that had been the case when he’d first arrived.
Not so anymore. Each storefront was filled, with a smiling NPC standing inside and busily at work. None of the stores was busy, and their owners didn’t even notice him.
What was going on?
Groaning sounds from behind him brought his attention around to his next surprise. Gray Guardian and Circe were pulling themselves off the ground, recovering a bit more slowly than he had. He couldn’t help but smile at the sight of them; whatever was going on around here, it would be nice not to face it alone.
He raised a hand to wave to them, but was cut off when his vision was completely covered by a flurry of system notifications that appeared thick and fast.
New Mission: Path of Heroes
* Catch your first criminal!
* Mission Complete!
New Mission: The First Step
* Level Up for the first time
* Mission Complete!
New Mission: My Hero!
* Rescue a civilian in distress
* Mission Complete!
There were more than a dozen notifications for missions that he’d apparently already completed. They were the kind of fluff, nothing missions that were handed out like candy at the beginning of the game to ensure that no one got stuck at the lowest levels. And speaking of which…
You have reached level 14!
His mouth went dry at the message, unbelieving. He’d gained two levels in an instant, just from the rewards for things that he’d already done. Inventing new items, opening a shop, avenging his own death, and other things were all worth valuable XP that was coming to him all at once.
Requirements Met! Hidden Skill Unlocked!
* Gadgeteer: Compressed Technology
* Take any device that you’ve invented and decrease the size without affecting its function
* Amount of compression dependent on item quality and effects
Huh. That was an interesting skill, but he wasn’t sure what he’d done to gain it in that particular moment.
He looked to his friends, each of whom was staring, wide-eyed, at the empty air in front of them. They were apparently going through a quite similar experience, which only added to the questions that were streaming through his mind.
Circe looked up from her own notifications and he could see her shaking slightly.
“Lightforge, what happened here? What’s going on?”
“I would love to know. One moment I was working in my lab, and the next? Here I was, with no idea what’s going on.”
“What were you working on?”
“I was trying to refill a Revival Pod battery.”
“Is that even possible?”
“Maybe? I thought I was making progress, but this was definitely not what I was going for.”
Gray Guardian had finally finished with their own notifications and stepped closer to the others.
“Recharge Revival Pods? You were trying to help Cannoneer?”
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“Yeah. And I wish I knew how I’d made this happen.”
“Well, what were you working on? In detail, I mean.”
Lightforge nodded and started to walk his friends through the experiments that he had been up to recently. It was actually a lot harder than he had expected, especially since he didn’t really understand what he was doing.
“Hold on,” Circe said, “This is a lot. But if I understand you right, you’ve basically been playing around with the fundamental forces of this universe. Right?”
“You make it sound a lot more dangerous than it is.”
“We’re trapped in a bizarro version of the area and the rules surrounding missions are different than they were five minutes ago.”
“Yeah, that’s fair. Just don’t act like I was playing god or something.”
“That’s exactly what you were doing. What if you had imploded the universe or something?”
“That definitely wouldn’t happen. The energy is explicitly for restoring things. It wouldn’t just destroy things.”
“It was still reckless.”
“Maybe, though I’m surprised that you’re the one calling me out on it.”
“I was caught up in it. Risking yourself is one thing, but you also risked us without even realizing it.”
“...That’s fair. Look, let’s just look around and try to figure out what’s going on here. Maybe one of those NPCs knows something, let’s ask them.”
He hurried away from her and made straight for the shop on the far end of the strip mall. It was a convenience store, the only other shop besides his that had been occupied before this incident.
The inside of the shop was much as he remembered it. The only big difference was that it was a bit cleaner than it had been before. The owner, Lou Whitmore, looked healthier too. Lightforge remembered him as a large man with haunted eyes and a somewhat skittish demeanor. But the shopkeeper before him now was rosy-cheeked with a pleasant smile. Lightforge grinned and waved at him.
“Hey, Lou. You’re looking good.”
The man looked up with a wide grin and waved, but Lightforge felt his steps slow. Upon closer inspection, the shopkeeper’s movements were a little bit stiff and stilted, just a little unnatural. The same was true of his voice when he spoke.
“Well, hello stranger! Welcome to my humble store, how can I help you?”
“What? Lou, are you feeling alright?”
“It’s not the biggest, but my items are all top quality.”
Lightforge’s stomach was sinking as the large man’s expression passed over him without ever focusing on him.
“Lou? You know me, we’ve talked before.”
“Take your time, I’m right here if you need anything.”
What was wrong with him? He wasn’t responding or even reacting to what the gadgeteer was saying. It was like talking to an NPC.
Which is exactly what he was. Realization dawned on Lightforge as the pieces clicked into place of what this space was. He turned and sprinted back outside. He ran right up to Circe and grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Circe, this whole area’s a game again!”
She was startled enough to try and back away from him, but his hands dug into her shoulders to keep her in place. There was a mad gleam in his eye that almost anyone would find unsettling. Even a villain who had built a personal brand on being cool, collected, and mysterious. But she narrowed her eyes at him as she processed his words.
“What do you mean? We’ve been in a game for months.”
“No, we haven’t! The world is a lot like a game, but the rules aren’t the same. NPCs have too much personality, things get dirty, missions don’t really work. But here? All the rules have gone back to how they were in the game! Everything, in every detail.”
Circe gently nudged at his hands, and he let go of her. She looked around, taking in the area around them with new eyes. Calculating and adjusting based on what he’d told her. Her face was so carefully blank that she might as well have been jumping up and down.
After a few moments of consideration, she nodded.
“I think you’re right. Something has changed this little section of the world back to how it was. But what?”
Gray Guardian wandered back over to them with similar observations. When they heard about the theory, they nodded immediately.
“That makes sense. Lightforge, you said you were working with some sort of restorative energy, right? Couldn’t that do this?”
“Maybe, but I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t really understand what I did.”
“All I want to know is how long we’re going to be stuck here. No offense to the two of you, but this would be an awful place to spend a lifetime.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Circe said, “The dome around us is starting to change. Take a look.”
Sure enough, the glowing dome of swirling colors was notably dimmer than it had been when they’d arrived. The remaining colors were also moving more slowly, as if they were running out of energy. Circe snapped her fingers to get the others’ attention back, eyes darting back and forth as her mind whirled.
“When we get out, we can’t tell anyone about this.”
“Why not?”
“Think about it! Intentional or not, you just invented a way to bring back missions. Don’t even pretend like you didn’t level just from showing up here.”
The words froze Lightforge in place for a moment before he nodded. So much of the strife and gang warfare that he’d seen so far had ultimately been driven by the lack of the normal mission system. Having such limited options to level up had made the conflicts between people more vicious and brutal. And if they heard about what he had made?
He would be lucky to make it three days before someone either killed or captured him. From the lowliest of people all the way to the strongest, they would all be after him.
“Agreed. We don’t tell anyone that we don’t trust 100%. For me that means just Sunbird and Cannoneer.”
“Not even them! The more people know, the sooner it will leak. We can’t afford to have that happen.”
“But it will leak. And when that happens, we’ll need help to keep it and ourselves safe. We have to have backup.”
“I’m with Lightforge,” Gray Guardian said, “No offense, Circe, but you’re the one that I have the most trouble trusting. If you know, then they can know.”
“Fine. I can see that I’m not winning this one. But we badly need a plan. This is probably the biggest discovery in the history of this world. And the only way that we’ll be able to keep it safe is if we use it to get stronger. A lot stronger.”
“Agreed.”
As the dome faded into darkness, the three stood close together and started to make plans. This was an opportunity as much as it was a risk, and they were certainly going to make the most of it, so long as it didn’t kill them first.