((Author’s Note: The observant among you will notice I have another fiction started here on RR that I never got around to finishing or expanding. Truth is, I chose a bad point in my life to start writing a new fiction, and I just wasn’t up to the task of keeping up with it. I do have plans to finish it one day, but this is the one that is calling out to me now, and the one I will be focusing on in the foreseeable future. Sidenote, this is also the first time I’ve done a slightly humorous story, and that wasn’t the plan. But sometimes you write the characters, and sometimes the characters write themselves. If anyone has any complaints/comments about the humour please let me know, as I do not consider that my forte. Thanks to all the readers, past, present and future!))
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(Dan’s POV)
The click clack of keys resounded in the air as Danny typed away madly on his keyboard. There was no reason for the rush as he had no deadline, but he had an unusually focused mind and as always he’d become wrapped up in his work and had forgotten the hour. Just like so the sun set without his notice, putting him firmly in the dark hours of the night sometime between three and four A.M., that moment of time known to some as the Witching Hour.
Some did not include Danny of course, whose only thoughts revolved around putting the finishing touches on the project that had been all consuming of late. Besides Danny had never had a high opinion of witches, or of time for that matter.
There was nothing special about Danny, to my eyes at least. I saw a chubby man whose glasses slid down his sloped nose and required his fingers to flick from the keyboard every so often to push them back up. There was nothing special about the unsightly pockmarks from the bad acne he’d had as a teen, or his pale skin that almost shone in the dark room as a testament to his aversion of sunlight and all that came with it. No indeed, not even his black hair that fell in greasy strands and shifted occasionally to obscure his view of the bright monitor seemed special in any way, besides adding another lapse in his beat as his fingers flicked it out of his sight without conscious thought.
Even this project he was frantically working on wasn’t that special. To be frank, and coming from someone with no skin in the game, it was pretty much trash. A not quite generic RPG style game, one in which he’d neglected the plot, the characterization, the setting and the resolution all to focus on what he’d really cared about creating. A one of a kind skill system, in which the game would spontaneously generate skills based on your actions and decisions throughout the game.
I will say that was pretty cool. Too bad the rest of his game was trash however, and would cause any self respecting gamer to turn up their nose in scorn and swear him off as a developer. Perhaps I’m being too harsh, but trust me when I say i’ve seen it all, and Danny’s all was pretty piss poor.
Hey don’t worry about the fact this guy sucks at what he does, I already have other plans for Danny. I’m going to make him my Protagonist, so he really doesn’t have to do any of the hard lifting of plot creation and world building. I’ve got all that covered, and really, I just need Danny for those pesky conflict resolution aspects.
You might at this point have some questions, and if i’m right very few of them are about Danny right now. In fact I think you might be wondering who I am, how I know Danny, and what I’m doing here, nevermind what in the world I have planned for the poor kid.
Well let’s answer them in order. First, I am a being never before seen on this earth and my true name is ancient and full of the sort of power that would cause your eardrums to shatter, your blood to boil, and your soul to seek refuge by escaping your mortal coil. For brevity’s sake you can call me Dan.
As for the second question, I met Danny only recently, after he suddenly appeared in my home far, far away on an undefined astral plane approximately an undetermined number of units in a direction inexpressible in your language. Although perhaps you’ll get the gist if I say it’s somewhere in between left and backwards, but not quite because you also have to turn slightly to the side. Which to my knowledge meant that our meeting should have been impossible.
As for what I’m doing here, After having a hoo-man pop into my demesne so suddenly I just had to see how he’d managed it. So I utilized a spell to rewind time and go back to now, about five minutes before this meatbag is destined to appear in my realm. I’ve already told you the plan, he’s going to be my Protagonist and make me a lot of money!
On a whim I OBSERVED him, which just raised other questions, like how he manages to change his Class in the next ten minutes.
Name: Daniel Rosenthaw
Class: NEET
LV: 1
HP: 85/87
MP: 130/130
Actually I was a bit nonplussed. I hoped this wasn’t the average specimen of man, or Danny would be in for some real trouble when he stepped into the Tower. Nevermind the rest of the competition, the average level one Lillithin had a base HP of 500, and an MP that neared 300. For the life of me I couldn’t remember the last time a Lillithin made it past floor 50, which might give you some idea of how weak Danny appeared in my eyes.
Silly me. I forgot you hoo-mans know nothing of the Tower, so I suppose it really doesn’t give you a good comparison of how weak he is. Lets just say that in the Tower’s racial rankings a Lillithin might be considered marginally stronger than an ant. Which would make Danny… well I don’t know really. A bacterium, I suppose.
What’s that? You want to know how strong I am? Well If Danny is the microbe, and a Lillithin is an ant and the average challenger such as a Roctgar would be a hoo-man in this weird comparison, that would make me… The sun? Well that sounds about right. A giant burning mass of indescribable glory who’d turn all that oppose me into dust and ash.
That’s enough exposition however, let's get back to the important things, like figuring out how Danny managed to steal across the ephemeral leylines that combined all the varied planes, universes, multiverses, realities, and dimensions into one indivisible whole, landing on my doorstep in the process. In case you were wondering, Danny doesn’t know either. The reason I know that and everything else I know about this planet you call earth, is because I mindraped the intrepid explorer after he’d appeared only to find out he had no idea how he’d gotten there either.
What? Don’t look at me like that. I’m a transdimensional being and your insipid ideas of human morality hardly apply to me. Besides, may I remind you that HE broke into MY home. My fortress of solitude, my monument to the intense loneliness and despair I feel, my own personal slice of Nirvana.
Ahem. Only two minutes left to go and I’m starting to get impatient. I need to know how this travesty managed to occur, if only to prevent it from happening again. The last thing I want or need is more uninvited guests.
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
One minute left to go. My… Well I guess the roughly analogous version would be a foot so let’s go with that, my foot was tapping faster, proof that my agitation was showing. Thirty seconds…. Why was I so agitated? Perhaps because this idiot didn’t appear to realize he had a very important meeting to attend soon, and I honestly hated to be kept waiting. Well I suppose I didn’t know he was showing up so I wasn’t really waiting, but the point remains. In about ten seconds he’s supposed to be dropping in on me in the middle of my bat... My intense barechested wrestling match against the sun god himself. Well one of many. The best one.
NINE. EIGHT. SEVEN. SIX. FI…
“FINISHED” Danny yelled, and I watched, brow (technically I’m not sure if what I have counts as a brow, but i’ll use local idioms to help you Hoo-mans understand the meaning of my highly cultured bodily expressions) furrowed, as his pinkie pressed down on the ctrl key, and his middle finger stretched towards the S.
As I watched him save his game without a care for whom he might be inconveniencing with his tardiness, I turned green (purple to you hoo-mans) with rage, and bellowed “DON’T YOU HAVE SOMEWHERE TO BE?” as I reached back, and moving faster than a hoo-mans eye (Or a Roctgar’s for that matter) could see, slapped the disrespectful hoo-man into another dimension.
I stood there alone in the silent room for some time. “Huh.” I said, rubbing a tentacle? across my chin?. Well this certainly changed things. Or did it? After all maybe this was how it always played out. “Well,” I finally muttered to myself after a few more minutes of scratching my chin thing, “It certainly confused things.”
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(Danny’s POV)
I was so close to finishing I could taste it. My Magnus Opus, a revolutionary system that would redefine gaming. I would do for skills what Mario had done for jumping, what Tetris had done for puzzles, what Metal Gear Solid had done for stealth gaming.
There was just one elusive bug to catch, and then the world of gaming would be changed for good. I could taste it, and it tasted so, so good. The taste lingered, it tasted salty, and a little greasy. My fingers faltered for a second as my mind caught up to my senses, and then I spit out the lock of hair i’d inadvertantly been chewing in disgust.
Then, like magic there it was, I’d finally spotted the little bugger. The holy grail, the salt on my pretzel, the end of my long hard journey through mediocrity. I tapped on the keyboard like a madman rewriting those few lines of buggy code in a frenzy, intent on the screen in front of me.
In that moment I was connected heart, mind, and soul to these lines of code I had written, that I had drug from the depths of my being, kicking and screaming and cast into reality, through my actions changing a probability to a certainty. In this moment these lines of code were an extension of my very being, like a master swordsman who was one with his sword.
“FINISHED!” I shouted, ecstatic with joy, my fingers dancing across the keyboard one last time to save all my hard work. And then right at that moment, it all disappeared. All that was left was Pain. My world was Pain.
For a few brief eternities, or a couple of endless moments, I could not say, I felt my soul being stretched, my very being being contorted, I felt myself expand until I filled every iota of space, and at the same time crushed as me and the space I filled were shoved into the point of a pin. I was stuck there forever, or for no time at all, caught being expansion and compression, at once whole and incomplete.
Just like that it was over, and I stood there shakily, clenching my fists with my eyes closed and breathing deep ragged breaths. What the fuck just happened? I wondered, as I felt my heart beating madly and slowly trying to calm down, until…
“EEEEEKKKKKKKKK!” The soul piercing shout seemed to come from all directions, boring into my ears and causing my eyes to snap open, where they were greeted with a most unusual sight. I stood on the edges of a marble bath that sunk into the floor, one that stretched further than my eye could see, and looked deeper than I could fathom. Although what really caught me by surprise was the gigantic THING that was wallowing in the depths and threatening to shatter my eardrums.
IT was a massively monstrous body, and I could just imagine that I was seeing the tip of the iceberg. It shifted colours and I watched, mostly sticking to various shades of gray scale, but with the odd splash of green or orange in there. From the creature's body hung or stuck out innumerable protrusions, knobs, ends and dongles.
If that wasn’t enough, it seemed to actively shift in shape, and what seemed to be a wing appeared before collapsing into sludge and arising as a tentacled suckered thing. Which promptly grew what appeared to be a round fruit from its end, before the fruit spun around and looked at me, and I found myself staring eye to eye with an eyeball that was larger than my apartment building back home.
The Thing seemed to realize I was staring at roughly the same time I realized it was staring. After a moment’s pause, it slowly sunk the rest of it’s mass into the pool until only the eye that was looking at me poked out. The next minute was spent staring at each other, me too afraid to move and the Thing perhaps incapable? I wasn’t sure. I realized that my staring might be interpreted as rudeness, so I finally averted my gaze.
Not that I wasn’t loathe to take my eyes off of the monster, but I had no idea where I was, or how to leave, and those both seemed like pretty important things to figure out. Besides it didn’t seem hostile yet, so I should use this opportunity to plan my escape before I became fish food. Was the monster a fish? It was in the water after all, so as long as I avoided that pool I should be good.
That was about the time I noticed the second new thing in this strange place. Namely a blinking icon in the upper left corner of my vision. No matter how I turned or where I looked It stayed right there in the same spot, annoying me with it’s incessant blinks in this moment of crisis.
“GO AWAY!” I thought mentally, willing the little blinking icon to disappear, distracting me as it was with it’s presence. I just didn’t have the time for too much weird shit right now. Then, to my bemusement, a not very helpful screen popped up.
4 UNREAD MESSAGES
WOULD YOU LIKE TO TURN OFF NOTIFICATIONS?
Y/N
As I’d been trying, and failing, to see a way out of this room that seemed to stretch into endless darkness, my stress was reaching nearly apoplectic levels. This was just the senseless cherry on top. What messages? I thought to myself helplessly for all the good it would do.
YOU HAVE UNLOCKED A NEW CLASS!
THE GAMER
Change log:
Your reality, now gamified!
Your body will be restored to peak physical condition upon obtaining full HP!
Personal/Racial skill limits broken, All skills are now available!
NEW SKILL
Free skill, because skills are good!
OBSERVE (Active) Lv1 EXP 0.00%
Through observation you can discern details about places, objects and creatures, pretty much anything you can see!
NEW SKILL
Through contact with a transdimensional being and experience with the rigors of interdimensional travel you have unlocked:
SPACE MASTERY (Passive) Lv1 EXP 0.00%
Mastery over the use and manipulation of space itself. Higher levels improve the damage, mana cost, and spell penetration of all spatial spells.
+5% Increase in Damage/Range/Duration
-5% Mana cost of Spatial Spells
+2.5% Increase in Spell Penetration
NEW SPELL
Through experience you have learned a new spell!
Teleport (Active) Lv1 EXP 0.00% Mana cost: 1000
Teleports the user to any space within 3 meters of themselves.
The fuck? I thought helplessly. I really wish I knew what was going on, and this was all very, very, unhelpful right now. The THING was still lurking in the depths of the pool, and all I could think of right now was getting as far away as I could. Go away! I yelled in my head desperately, and to my relief the bright blue screens that had been obscuring my vision disappeared.
Which turned out to not be any great relief at all, as I once again had an unobscured view of the THING in the pool. Dread grew in my heart and shivers ran down my spine as I stood frozen there helplessly at what was before me.
At some point while I was distracted the thing had brought another appendage above the water. A long mass of sleek flesh curved above the eyeball, poised for all the world like a scorpion’s tail. I gulped as the deadly point wavered mesmerizingly in the dim light, and i’m not ashamed to say I pissed myself.
Then, faster than I could blink, the appendage lashed out at me, and my world was Pain. I was Pain. It was all Pain.