System Initializing…
1%... 15%...
I snapped awake with a start and took in a deep, shuddering breath.
Where… was I? I glanced around. This definitely wasn’t my apartment. I slowly rose to my feet and glanced around.
I was in a blasted wasteland. The ground was dry and arid, with scorch marks burnt into the ground. It was flat and rocky.
78%...
“Did I get kidnapped and brought to Trinity, New Mexico?” I asked, to nobody in particular. “I don’t feel like I’m dreaming. I don’t usually dream in color.”
I glanced down at myself. I was still wearing the same clothes I’d gone to sleep in, my pajama pants and graphic tee standing out starkly against the sand and stone.
100%. System Loaded.
A gray screen with white text appeared in my vision, and I let out a yelp of surprise and scrambled back.
“What the hell was that?” I asked. Was I on a show? No, I hadn’t signed a waiver to appear on any sort of show like that, and I didn’t think they could literally kidnap people in their sleep.
I took a second to take a breath, then read the screen.
New Quest: Welcome to Ddeaer. During the [REDACTED] event, powerful magic was used. An unintentional backlash of this reached across universal boundaries and transported your soul from Earth to Ddeaer, leaving a lifeless husk behind. You are currently in the Grim Waste, and need to reach the nearest town, which is to your east.
Objective: Enter the town of Orilla.
Rewards: 500 Silver, Mana Gate Choice (1/3).
Accept? (Yes/No)
I stared at the screen. It was like a video game quest, almost. I had no idea how much silver that was. In a lot of video games, gold was the base unit, but even then, it didn’t tell me much.
And that was ignoring the Mana Gate bit. I had no clue what that was meant to be. Did I have mana?
At the thought, an image appeared in the bottom right of my vision. There was a small icon of my body in a bright green color, and next to it was a circle in a blue color. It had three silver dots on it, equidistant from one another.
“Stamina and mana? What about health?”
Health: Full
Mana: Full
“Oh, come on!” I said. “Why is health GREEN? Everyone knows health is supposed to be red.”
I realized what I was saying and bit my lip. I still wasn’t entirely sure about this. It could just be an unusually vivid dream. But even if it was a dream, there was no harm in playing along…
“Yes,” I said.
The quest vanished, and a mini-map appeared in the corner of my vision, with an arrow pointing me to a marker far to the east. I turned and began to walk.
I walked.
And walked.
After what had to be several hours, judging by the movement of the sun, if nothing else, the landscape finally began to change, the sand turning more and more solidly into rock, and I thought I could see light on the horizon.
I was relieved. All my walking had left me tired, sweaty, thirsty, and hungry. I was ready to get into a town.
Suddenly, the earth underneath my feet began to rumble.
New Quest: The Telluric Elemental. The Grim Waste is home to several magical creatures. One of the most common is the Telluric Elemental. Currently an Ungated Telluric Elemental is attacking you.
Objectives: Kill or escape the Ungated Telluric Elemental.
Rewards: 15 Silver, Bottled Water.
This quest cannot be denied.
I swore loudly as a sandy figure burst out from under my feet. I stumbled back and began to sprint to the side. The elemental moved shockingly fast, skating across the ground elegantly.
“Aren’t earth type creatures supposed to be tough and slow?” I asked to nobody in particular.
I dodged back as the sandy elemental swung its fist at me, then leaned back in and gave it a kick to the side.
I wasn’t a great fighter. I’d taken a few martial arts lessons in my youth, like a lot of middle class kids do, but I was far from an actual fighter.
Even still, my foot tore off its arm. I was so surprised that I lost my balance and fell to the ground. The elemental closed in and punched me in the stomach. It hurt, but not as much as I feared. The green health indicator in my vision grew a bit less vibrant.
I reached up and grabbed the elemental with both arms, then rose and threw it down. It burst apart in a splash of sand.
Quest Complete: The Telluric Elemental. 15 silver and a bottle of water has been added to your inventory.
You have defeated a Telluric Elemental. Telluric Elemental has been looted. A single portion of Ungated Telluric Sand has been added to your inventory
“I have an inventory?” I asked.
Immediately, an inventory opened in my vision. It was a classic list inventory, though there was currently only three things in it – the fifteen silver I’d been awarded, the water bottle, and the sand. I focused on the water bottle and it appeared in my hand.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
It was a glass bottle to my surprise, and had no cap, but it was cool and refreshing.
Item: Water Bottle. Common item, nonmagical. Water inside a simple glass bottle.
I drained the entire bottle quickly – the walk and brief fight had left me incredibly thirsty. I tried to put the water bottle back into my inventory, where it appeared as an empty bottle.
I set off towards the town again. Despite how close it looked, it took me almost three more hours to get there, the flat ground skewing my ability to judge distance.
When I finally arrived at the edge of town, I was surprised to see no wall around it, and only a few guards. One of them stepped over to greet me.
“Stop, what’s your business in Orilla?”
“I wound up in the Grim Waste,” I said, jerking a thumb over my shoulder.
“How?” she asked suspiciously.
“Frankly, I’ve no idea,” I admitted, my brain churning to come up with a believable story, in case she pressed further. “I do have five hundred silver though, so hopefully I can get an room and a meal?”
She chuckled and shook her head.
“You must be from a huge city if that’s what it costs you. That’s enough to rent a room and board for ten days, easily.”
I let out a sigh of relief and nodded to her.
“But you really have no idea how you got out there?”
“I think,” I said slowly, “There was some pretty big working of magic, and it caught me up in the backlash.”
That was what the quest had said. I had no reason to think it was lying, but I also had no reference for what any of it meant. To my relief, the guard nodded.
“Yeah, out in the desert there was a huge spatial spell about fifty years ago,” she said, nodding. “It’s been messing with stuff ever since. We get a bunch of random, low powered monsters, and occasionally it snatches someone out of their bed and teleports them. It’s been calming down, but I guess it grabbed you. Where are you from?”
“Bluffton,” I said, though that was in South Carolina, Earth, not anywhere on Ddeaer.
“Never heard of it, it must be pretty far from the Grim Wastes,” she said, raising her voice at the end, as if it was a question.
“Yeah,” I said, “very far. We don’t really even have much magic back home.”
“Primes, really?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’d heard of a few backwaters that didn’t have good magic, but…”
I let out a dry laugh.
“To be honest, I’m happy to be here. My life at home was not good. I’d love to see my sister, but anyone else? No, if I can learn magic here? I’m happy to be here.”
I’d been so caught up in surviving that I hadn’t really considered my family, or much more than getting to a town to sleep.
My sister was going to wake up to see a lifeless husk in my bed. I felt a huge surge of guilt at that, but also a bit of relief. My sister was pretty much the only person who stood to inherit my life insurance money, and even though it wasn’t anything massive, it should cover her doctors bills and college for a good while. My apparent death would help her.
But I also needed to find a way to make it back to her, if I could.
“We can definitely do that,” the guard said as she stepped out of my path. “Old Gerald has enough knowledge mana to run the tests on you, see what you’re working with. He’s on Kipperstreet.”
New Quest: Magic on Ddeaer. You have arrived in town, and have been informed of a local diviner who will be able to assist you in learning your magical abilities.
Objectives: Find Old Gerald and have him identify your legacy and explain magic.
Rewards: Mana Gate Choice (2/3), Foundation Compacting Pill.
Accept? (Yes/No)
“Thanks,” I said, nodding to her and stepping into the town. I mentally tried to agree to the quest, rather than speaking aloud, and was pleasantly surprised to see it accept.
Quest Complete: Welcome to Ddeaer. Five hundred silver has been added to your inventory. You may now select the mana type for one of your gates.
Available Mana Types: Solar, Lunar, Telluric, Tempest, Life, Death, Temporal, Spatial, Physical, Mental, Knowledge, Abnegation, Creation, Desolation.
I had no clue what each of the mana types actually did, so I held off on picking a choice just yet, dismissing the screen and walking to Old Grerald’s place. The guard had said a night’s rest would cost me about fifty silver, so as long as he didn’t charge an obscene amount, I should be able to afford to complete this newest quest.
It took me a while to find Kipperstreet, but eventually I found a place called ‘The Curious Mage’, which I presumed had to be the place the guard had told me about. I stepped inside, expecting a room full of incense and crystals, darkly lit, like that of a palm reader from Earth.
Instead, it resembled a secondhand bookstore more than anything, with shelves of books in various states of ware, a simple checkout counter, and an old man who was missing a few teeth sitting behind it.
“Evening, sonny,” he said, “you caught me right before I closed up. What can I do for you?”
“A guard by the entrance told me that I could probably get a legacy test here, and have my mana types explained?”
“Oh, sure,” he said, nodding. “It’ll run you… Eh… Seventy silver?”
I thought about withdrawing seventy silver from my inventory as I reached into my pocket, and immediately my pocket bulged with the coins. I was glad they were small. I slid them across the table to the man.
He looked at them and squinted.
“These are blanks. Unminted silver.”
“Is that going to be a problem?” I asked, nervous.
“Nah, sonny. Most banks accept unminted coins, so they’re used by a lotta travelers. Just wasn’t expectin’ it, that’s all.”
That was fairly convenient.
“What now?” I asked.
The old man raised his hands and waved them through the air, as if he was painting something. I felt a tingle of something I’d never felt before, and then he lowered his hand.
Suddenly he began to speak in a strange voice.
“Legacy identified: The System. This legacy equips the user with a game interface that encompasses health and mana markers, quests, looting, inventory, and more. This is a choice type legacy. This user is equipped with three mana gates.”
He blinked and then nodded.
“Hope you got that, Sonny. I’ve never heard of a legacy like it, but it sure does sound useful.”
“It does,” I said with a nod. “But what does it mean it’s a choice type legacy?”
“Oh, that means you get to choose which mana types you gain access to. They’re a bit rare, but far from unheard of. My niece has one.”
After a moment he let out a dry chuckle and added.
“Admittedly, hers doesn’t come with all that other stuff. It does let her master spells quicker, though.”
“Sounds useful,” I said with a nod. “But I’m afraid I come from a region where we don’t really use magic. I’ve not even had the most basic of magic education. I don’t know a single spell. Nothing. Can you help?”
He nodded, and we spent a while discussing magic, and what each type of mana could do. Eventually, however, I left the bookshop with a small book of ungated spells to start with, and a few ideas about what I was going to do.
As soon as I stepped out of the shop, I got a series of notifications. I paused and read through them one at a time.
Quest Complete: Magic on Ddeaer. A Foundation Compacting Pill has been added to your inventory. You may now select the mana type for one of your gates.
Available Mana Types: Solar, Lunar, Telluric, Tempest, Life, Death, Temporal, Spatial, Physical, Mental, Knowledge, Abnegation, Creation, Desolation.
I didn’t know what the Foundation Compacting Pill did, so I pulled it from my inventory.
Item: Foundation Compacting Pill. Legendary, First Gate. This pill will compact all the power within your first gates, instantly transforming all currently mastered spells into ingrained spells.
I whistled. I definitely could get used to this system. I looked over the next mission.
New Quest: The Long Road Home. In order to get home, it will take extreme levels of magic, more than any single mage could manage. If you wish to return home, you will need the assistance of the three greatest spatial mages on Ddeaer: The Space King, The Analyst, and The Keeper.
Objectives: Open a universal link to Earth from Ddeaer.
Rewards: [REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED], [REDACTED], 5,000,000,000 silver.
Accept? (Yes/No)
I stared at the quest for a long time. I didn’t like that the quest rewards were redacted – wasn’t this supposed to be my own power?
I did want to return home, though. I didn’t have much that I wanted to do, but I did want to offer my sister a way here. Our lives were horrible on Earth.
But maybe on Ddeaer, we could start fresh, and actually make something of ourselves.
I let out a sigh as I headed towards the nearest inn. I was a long way from any sort of legendary hero. For now, I just needed to sleep.