"I did say that I can cure cancer," Bob replied calmly, "one hundred mana crystals," he pulled a handful of crystals from his satchel, "and one hundred seconds."

Bob ended his flight spell, dropping to the floor.

"Lakisha's mother has cancer," Tony said quietly, his eyes intent on Bob's own, "I know you want us to do something; you aren't offering magic to strangers for free," he walked around the table and stood in front of Bob, "so let me be clear; you cure her cancer, I'll do whatever you want."

"Ok," Bob gestured towards the hallway, "take me to her, and I'll cure her cancer."

Tony nodded and took his keys out of his pocket, his hand shaking.

"How about someone else drives," Dave said slowly.

"We'll take my van," Vera volunteered, "plenty of room for everyone."

The gaming group quietly filed outside, where Jack moved his truck to allow Vera's van to escape the driveway.

"So," Bob said as Vera backed the van out, "I'm sure you all have a lot of questions, so why don't you take turns asking."

"I'll start," Dave turned in his seat to face him, "how did you get magic?"

"About a year and a half ago," Bob began, "I was working at Fermilab, designing protocols to run on the particle accelerator."

Jack interrupted excitedly, "Did you get magic from some super particle?"

"One of my colleagues stole my work and altered it to fit her methodology, however in doing so, she made a mistake and changed the impulse parameters, which caused the accelerator to suffer a critical failure," Bob replied, "I was leaving, walking down a hallway alongside the accelerator, when it exploded, quite literally blowing me into an alternate universe."

"You went to another world?" Amanda asked incredulously.

"I did," Bob confirmed, "which is where the magic came from."

"So, how do we get magic?" Jack was eager.

"Well," Bob began, "the first thing to understand is that the alternate universe is permeated by active particles of dark matter that the locals refer to as mana, although I'm certain that isn't exactly accurate."

"What are the locals like?" Vera asked as she turned onto the onramp for I5.

"When you enter that universe, the active particles of dark matter permeate you as well, which is what allows you to gain skills and spells," Bob finished his answer before turning towards Vera, "as for the locals, they're pretty nice, at least most of them are, although they aren't nearly as technologically advanced as we are."

"How do you get spells?" Jack persisted.

"You level up, and each level lets you choose a skill or spell," Bob replied.

"Do we need to kill monsters to level up?" Jack asked.

"You need mana crystals to level up, and mana crystals drop from monsters, which are effectively mana constructs that appear when mana reaches a certain density," Bob explained, "you need fifty of them each time you increase your level, for the first five levels, and you can use any crystal for that."

"That was an oddly specific turn of phrase at the end there," Dave said.

"In order to progress past the first threshold, which is level five," Bob went on, "you have to use crystals that drop from a monster you've killed or helped to kill."

"So you've killed a lot of monsters then?" Amanda asked.

Bob nodded, "hundreds of thousands," he sighed, "mana crystals don't coalesce from every monster you kill, so you end up killing a lot of them, which works out because you earn experience for killing monsters, which increases the level and therefore the power of your skills."

"This all sounds suspiciously like a gaming system," Tony stated quietly.

"From what I've been able to gather, the species which developed the technology that energized the dark matter setup an AI to control the energy, with the ultimate goal being to prevent the heat death of the universe," Bob explained, "the AI determined that the way to do this was to keep the particles circulating, rather than condensing on celestial bodies, so it programmed the particles to spawn monsters, and to provide sapient beings with skills to kill the monsters, dispersing the mana, while cycling some of it through their own bodies."

"Aliens?" Dave shook his head.

"I know," Bob said, "it's a lot to take in."

Dave pushed his hand into his bag of holding and then pulled it back out. "If it weren't for your extraordinary evidence," he nudged Amanda, smiling at her, "I don't think I'd be able to believe any of this."

"I think I actually had an easier time of it," Bob said thoughtfully, "I found myself in another world, surrounded by people who spoke a completely different language, who used magic to light their campfire."

He shook his head, "I had a preponderance of evidence that couldn't be denied, whereas you just have me."

"Although after I fix your mother-in-law," he nodded to Tony, "I can take you there."

"Just like that?" Jack asked.

"Pretty much," Bob replied, "all I need is a hundred mana crystals and a hundred seconds to open a portal back to Thayland."

"Thailand?" Vera muttered as she moved to pass a semi.

"Thayland," Bob corrected, "that's the name of the planet I wound up on, as well as the name of the language everyone speaks."

"So not an alternate Earth?" Amanda chimed in.

"Nope, near as I can figure the equivalent of Earth is the next planet over," Bob said, "given that Thayland has some pretty significant ice caps above the fiftieth parallel and is quite a bit cooler overall; it tracks."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"That's just incredible," Dave murmured.

"All this begs the question of why you want to give people here on Earth magic," Tony locked eyes with Bob.

"I was kind of hoping to build up to this," Bob muttered, "but here is the long and short of it; when I was integrated into the System that governs that universe, it pulled all the knowledge I had of our world out of my mind, and copied it."

He sighed and shook his head, "Someone noticed the new information and decided to pop over and take a look. The active mana present in that being started a chain reaction, which will eventually lead to our universe being integrated into the System, at which point all the dark matter particles will become energized simultaneously."

"So everyone is going to end up as part of the system and have magic, eventually," Jack grinned.

"Something tells me that you aren't here just to give some old friends a head start," Tony said.

"When it happens, monsters are going to spawn everywhere, and they're going to keep spawning for days," Bob was solemn, "and everyone on Earth is going to be level zero, facing a tidal wave of monsters that are level fifty, sixty, even one hundred," he shook his head again.

"We've got to get everyone off the planet until the monsters dissipate, which will take about a hundred and ten days," Bob finished.

The van was quiet except for the noise of the road.

"I'd ask if you were serious," Jack said, "except I'm up to my elbow in a bag six inches deep."

"I don't even know what to ask at this point," Amanda confessed.

"What exactly do you want us to do?" Dave asked.

Bob took a deep breath before beginning. "I need you to level up and to take the skills necessary to allow you to delve the Dungeon quickly and safely, in order to gather a truly insane number of mana crystals, which will be necessary to build more Dungeons and more housing for more people."

"Then I need each of you to teach a new group of people what you've learned from me," Bob's hands tightened on the armrest of his seat, which creaked dangerously before he realized what he was doing.

"But moreover, I need you to find people who can do a better job of this than me," Bob continued, "because I'm not the person who should be responsible for saving the population of Earth; particle physics does not lend itself to logistics or civil engineering, and while my knowledge of the System is extensive, it won't take long to get people up to speed on what they need to know about that."

Amanda reached forward and placed a hand on Bob's shoulder, unknowingly echoing the gesture from Thayland. "We can help with that, right Dave?"

"Sure," Dave muttered, "save the world, no problem."

Amanda elbowed him.

"If you're looking at building houses, I'm a project manager with three years experience bringing a four hundred home project to completion," Jack offered.

"That would actually be incredibly helpful," Bob said slowly, "I don't suppose you happen to know a civil engineer who could be convinced?"

"Not off the top of my head," Jack said, "but I made a lot of contacts in the industry over the past couple of years, so I should be able to find someone."

Bob closed his eyes and took a deep breath, followed by another. If he could find someone to design and then build the towers, it would be a big step, especially if he could get them working quickly.

He opened his eyes to find Jack looking at him thoughtfully.

"We're here," Vera announced as she pulled into the hospital parking lot.

----------------------------------------

Tony led the group through the hospital, occasionally nodding to men and women in scrubs. He'd spent a lot of time here over the past few years.

Talima had helped raise him when he'd lost his own parents. He'd spent more time at her house than he had his aunts. When he'd started dating Lakisha, she'd been nothing but supportive, and she'd stood up with both of them on their wedding day.

Her cancer had hit him hard, all the more so because there was nothing he could do.

Arriving at her room, he walked in and smiled at her as she used the remote to move the bed up to a sitting position.

"What brings you here on a Sunday evening, Tony?" she asked him with a feeble smile.

As the others filed in, she looked at him questioningly.

"These are my friends, the ones I play D&D with every Sunday," Tony replied, "This is Amanda, Dave, Jack, Vera, and a new addition, Bob," he gestured to each in turn.

"It's nice to meet you all," she replied tiredly.

"Bob is..." he trailed off.

He didn't know how to explain it to her. Hell, he wasn't sure he believed it, and the last thing he wanted to do was give her false hope about some miracle treatment.

"I'm a healer," Bob smiled his awkward smile at Talima, "would you mind giving me just two minutes of your time?"

"I'm not sure what you expect to heal," Talima said gently, "I have stage four cancer, and according to the doctors, there isn't much they can do for me at this point."

"Yes, well, I have something they don't," Bob smiled.

"A fancy costume?" Talima joked.

"How do you feel about cats?" Bob asked.

"I love cats," Talima replied, confusion evident in her voice.

"What does this have to do with healing her?" Tony asked.

"I just thought that she might like to pet Monroe while I work," Bob replied as he slid a sleepy Monroe out of his inventory, placing the big Maine-Coone on Talima's lap.

"Oh my!" She exclaimed as the beautiful feline appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

She reached down hesitantly and stroked the huge cat, who began to emit a low rumbling purr.

"Let me borrow the other hand," Bob asked as he gently clasped the hand not occupied with kitty worship.

Tony watched as Bob closed his eyes while Talima stroked the massive grey cat.

"Do we need to be quiet? Can we talk?" Jack asked quietly, only to be shushed by Vera.

Seconds passed by before Bob's eyes opened, and Talima gasped.

Tony watched in awe as her eyes brightened and her skin flushed, losing the paper-thin quality it had developed.

She took a deep breath and then another, as she looked up at Bob in wonder.

"And that should do it," Bob said, picking Monroe up and sliding the economy-sized cat onto his shoulders, eliciting some sort of clicking noise.

Talima reached out her hand to Tony, who was surprised by the strength of her grip, then shocked as she used him to pull herself to her feet.

"Praise the Lord," she whispered as she stepped forward to hug him.

"How do you feel?" Tony asked.

"I've got my wind back," Talima replied, "and I can stand on my own two feet again for the first time in months," she sobbed into his chest, "it's a miracle."

Tony looked over at Bob, who stood awkwardly, running a hand through the huge cat's ruff.

Talima suddenly coughed then gasped, clinging to him as she whimpered in pain.

Tony tried to help her back to the bed, glaring at Bob, but she resisted, turning her head to cough and gasp again before spitting something out onto the floor.

Tony glanced down, expecting to see bloody phlegm, and frowned.

"Oh, my," Talima gasped, lifting her head, an odd expression on her face.

"What's wrong?" Tony asked worriedly, reaching for the call button.

"New teeth," Talima said simply, pulling his hand back from the button.

Tony glanced down again, recognizing that what she'd spat out was, in fact, her dentures.

"Yeah," Bob sounded embarrassed, "probably should have warned you, that was Regeneration, which pretty much does what it says, so if you were missing anything, it's going to grow back."

"They took out half of her lung last year," Tony muttered, "does that mean..."

"Yep," Bob replied as he carefully toyed with his cat's toe tufts, "so, not for nothing, but I need to get out of here, I've been holding a spell that's turning the air opaque over the lenses and stilling it over the microphones of the security cameras here, but that's pretty well tapped me out for the moment."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I'd rather not end up at a government black site being poked and prodded, thank you very much," Bob said acerbically, "I could leave, but I'd end up forever running away from men in cheap suits with no sense of humor."

"I can see that," Dave agreed.

"Where are your clothes?" Tony asked Talima.

"Bottom drawer of the cabinet, dear," she replied, "I only have the one outfit. Lord knows I didn't think I'd be wearing anything but this hospital gown ever again."

Tony pulled out a clear plastic bag from the drawer and watched as she walked into the bathroom to change. She didn't shuffle; she walked confidently and smoothly.

He turned back to Bob.

"Thank you," he said simply, "I'll help you in any way I can."

Bob nodded, clearly uncomfortable.

"So," Jack drew out the word, "how are we going to explain this?"

"Why explain anything?" Bob asked, "I'm going to Portal out of here, and I'd suggest you all come with me to avoid any awkward questions later."

"And by 'Portal,' you mean..." Tony trailed off.

"I open a portal to somewhere else, and we all go through it," Bob replied, "I need to recharge my mana, which I can't do on Earth, so I might as well pop back home for a few minutes anyway, you can check the place out and get integrated into the System," he finished enthusiastically.

"In the interest of keeping Bob from being disappeared, I'll agree to duck out of here," Amanda stated with a glance towards Dave, who nodded his agreement.

Vera sighed, "Someone is going to have to bring me back to pick up my van."