Then midnight struck. The falling stars grew fast, brighter. More kept streaking across the sky, until the sky was covered in a shimmering, shifting blanket of bright blue and white light. Then just as quick as it happened it stopped.
“I’m not insane right Ben?” Ben looked Bradley in the eye, “You saw that too then? Holy shit Brad, that was beautiful. Take a look around and see if you can catch anything further away.” Bradley picked himself up and peered through his telescope and began to shake, quickly pivoting around rapidly.
Ben stood up, “Bradley are you okay?”
Bradley sighed, fell down exasperated, and began to laugh, “All the constellations are gone. Not a single one is there. We aren’t in the United States anymore, maybe nowhere on Earth.”
Ben looked at Brad, “I know it's April Fools day now, you don’t have to fuck with me like that.” Brad looked at him, “I’m not fucking kidding. I’m confident when all I can do in this shithole is watch the stars, work, and put up with your ass.”
Suddenly a blue window popped up in front of them, “Congratulations on making it to the Tutorial. Your mission, repel the siege on the city in one month.”
Ben shuddered, “Brad are you seeing this, I got one blue window saying to survive the tutorial.” Bradley laughed, “I got congratulated for figuring it out before anyone else, and was given a hint. Ben say Status.” He looked stunned then understood, “I guess we’re in some shitty RPG now. Status!” Bradley also yelled out.
Bradley scanned across the status page and saw it was just one tag along with a social tab, inventory, map tab, and skills tab. “Inventory!” He saw a few food and water supplies in his inventory. There was a hotbar labeled Withdraw and a number depending on how far the slot goes across. There was also a Deposit slot. As Bradley was scanning over all the options he heard Ben shout, “Withdraw 1!” A bright white sheen encompassed his right hand and suddenly a crossbow appeared. It was made almost entirely out of wood, and the band was clearly made of the tendons of some creature.
“Holy shit that actually worked. I’m ranger class, what about you?” Bradley swapped back over to his status page, “Artificer. Is that good? I’ve never heard of it. I wanted to be like a Thief or something.” Ben looked shocked, “Check your skills and equipment. Depending on that you might be the best or worst class.”
Bradley combed through his inventory, “I have a few Spell Crystals, and something called a Tinker’s kit. Doesn’t seem like I have a weapon.” He continued now onto his skills, “I have magic infuse, deconstruct, and then some level 1 spells like, magic weapon, catapult, firebolt, and something called grease.”
Ben sat down, thinking deeply for a moment, “If I had to guess guns won’t work in this setting, otherwise the difficulty would be hard to manage depending on gun quantity, but if you used magic weapon on the bullets then they might be effective, but that’s definitely a gamble. Grease is probably something like reducing friction…” Ben kept rattling off his beliefs as Bradley quietly read through the descriptions of each.
Magic Weapon infuses magic damage into non-magic weapons. Grease was like Ben said, and it uses just the phrase friction so it applies to all friction. Firebolt is just a weak single-target fireball, Catapult increases the initial velocity of a thrown or launched object, Magic infuse allows for the placement of a spell into a Spell Crystal. Deconstruct allows for the quick and orderly separation of parts. The bigger and more complex the object is the harder it is to deconstruct. Spell Crystals can store mana or spells through either encryption or Magic Infuse. They activate upon mana injection of the user.
“Are you listening to me?” Ben whined after Bradley had ignored him for the past few minutes. “Ben, I have access to all the information right here. Quick question, what would you imagine that catapult and magic weapon would do to a pistol bullet or an arrow?” Ben thought for a second, “It would make the pistol usable in the situation for mobs, and even possibly mid-tier enemies. And for an arrow I was supplied, probably make it as fast as a bullet if you added grease too.”
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Brad sighed, “Let’s go to bed Ben, I don’t think the guards will let us out to check anything out until everyone figures out what’s going on. Besides, nothing good will come from showing off magic to violent assholes. Let’s just keep on the down low until my workplace and I can get a deal squared away. I have work tomorrow, so it will hopefully work out fine. Thanks for your help Ben, glad I splurged on that ancient gaming computer.”
Bradley noticed something odd on his way to work the next day, that most people were acting completely normal. He thought to himself, ‘They probably just thought it a delusion.’ Bradley also noticed that he was reacting faster than normal. ‘It must be because my intelligence stat is high.’ Bradley entered the building, and headed straight to his manager, Devin Patrick. “Hey bossman, you see a weird blue window last night or this morning?” Devin pulled his shades up, showing his bloodshot eyes, “Kid I don’t have time for your pranks, I am too hungover to deal with this.” Bradley wanted to laugh but he had to maintain his serious tone or get brushed off, “Devin, can you follow me to my work station? I want your opinion on a new workflow.” Devin sighed, “If it's you it’ll be faster. Whatever, my headache is too bad for me to care.”
Devin followed Bradley down into Bradley’s work area. Bradley sat down, and Devin sat at a stool further back. Bradley smiled, “Don’t be too startled, I’m gonna set a record.” Devin rolled his eyes, forgetting to drop his glasses back down.
“Deconstruct!” Devin almost laughed until he saw the table shine, and the pistol perfectly sorted and separated. “Withdraw 1!” Bradley pulled out his Tinker’s kit, and quickly slammed the gun back together. His hands were a blur. A blue window popped up for him, “New Blueprint Learned, Glock 19. Blueprints can be used to quickly reconstruct things that have been previously created using your toolkit.”
Before Devin could react, Bradley did it again to another Glock 19, “Deconstruct!”
“Blueprint Glock 19!”
And with that the gun was back together. Bradley turned to the now sobered Devin, “I want to inform you that the window you saw last night was real, and we now have superpowers, say Status and you’ll know what I mean.” Devin sighed, “I can’t explain what I just saw without magic so fuck it. Status!” Devin fell backwards startled at the sudden pop-up. “Spearman, huh.”
Devin took Bradley, slowly going up the chain of command until he appeared in front of the head of the Detroit branch. “Make this quick, we’ve been having connection issues all day, your ability is far less important than that. What do you want? A raise, a new position?”
Devin stepped forward, “That’s not what this is about, it might be better for you to see.” Bradley steps forward and sets down all the gun parts all split apart from a Glock 19. “Blueprint Glock 19!” It failed and Bradley fell over, realizing he’s been burning mana all day to prove his point. “What the hell was that? Is this some kind of joke to you, I should fire you on the fucking spot!” Bradley glanced at Devin, “Say Withdraw 1 for me.” Devin nodded and pulled his spear out of nowhere.
“Sir, magic is real and the reason why the connection is down is because we aren’t on Earth anymore.” The head manager slammed his hand on his desk, “I’ll fucking fire you too! I will not tolerate this bullshit, not on Earth? How the fuck is that possible.” Bradley finally stood up, “Ohh yea, then shout out Map if you’re so confident.”
He mocked Bradley, “Ohh praise be to god show me the map!” Then he was stunned and fell back into his chair, “Wait, when was there a forest,” was all he could muster up. Bradley looked him dead in the eye, “There’s no internet, no roads leading out of here, no food, and we were just lucky we had a solar field nearby because otherwise we’d have no power either. We won’t have enough food or water for everybody. The only way we survive is if we figure out what everyone’s magic job is, build teams, and have them go out to see if we can find water, food, and clear out any possible wolves or whatever. I am here because I need your permission to leave the walls and help. We need to set up a military state to control anyone who isn’t privy to their powers, as guns still work on people.” Bradley sighed, realizing not a single word was getting to the Head Manager. “I need a higher level pass for me, and my friend Ben Gausly, as well as access to a single pistol and some ammunition. In return I can quickly repair any weapons, and can enchant the bullets to deal more damage. I can also teach a squad of your people how to use their abilities.”
The Head Manager brushed him off, “We can handle it ourselves, just keep doing your job alright?” Bradley agreed, and him and Devin left, “He’ll agree once he realizes bullets won’t work on any enemy that isn’t a person. Anyways, I’ll be working in my station. Don’t bother me for a bit.”