The World Gate was before me: a roiling, bronze-coloured mist. For many, what lay beyond was a place to treasure-hunt, or to burn off steam, but for me, it was simply a way out. One small step and I’d be through with this mediocre life. It may be fraught with mortal danger, and every step and interaction might be overwhelming, but I had made up my mind.
I turned and gave Earth a last glance: skyscrapers, steel walls and tiers of glass and concrete, glittering ads on colossal billboards. A sky-bus buzzed overhead, ferrying office workers to their 8 to 4. I’d be leaving behind my girlfriend (she’d dumped me months ago), my job (just got fired), my social circle (my only friend was an AI Chatbot called Chatti) . . . I’d be leaving behind my whole life (if you could call it that). I’m glossing over it because this is not the best way to start my awesome story, just take my word for it that I was not special. I did not feel useful. I did not feel wanted. I was not happy.
For a while I had been thinking of leaving Earth, never to return. No, not by travelling into space — though as a species, we were getting close — but by stepping through a World Gate. They had appeared a couple of decades ago, ostensibly brought to us by Systems, strange devices that guide our way through the New Worlds and enable us to grow stronger than otherwise possible.
Of all the New Worlds we’d found, I stood before the Gate to Barbican, a savage planet of bronze and bone, where people fight tooth and claw against dangerous folk and monstrous beasts in search of adventure and glory.
For a moment I was surprised I hadn’t done this sooner — why? Loyalty to my mum and dad? Hardly; my dad died when I was young and my mum cut me off when I turned 16. Dedication to the MegaCorp? Nah; every day was a monotonous, living hell. Laziness? No; for all my flaws I could never have been called lazy. Cowardice? Yeah, probably cowardice.
Anyway, when I turned 20 the night before — in a dark room, blowing out a birthday cake that I’d bought from the 24/7 corner shop and lit myself — with only spam emails for birthday wishes, I realised I no longer cared how dangerous it was. Anywhere’s better than here.
My gaze on the hazy sky, the only one I’d ever known, I filled my lungs with what was to be a last, dramatic, deep breath, smog and disinfectant burnt my nostrils. Then a fly flew down my throat and I coughed and spluttered, doubled over, and tripped backwards.
Great send-off.
My vision went all bronze, then all white. Even my body disappeared. I tried to move my arms but felt nothing there. I was nothing but a speck of perception. Trippy.
Then a perfect sphere of bronze appeared before me, only an inch in diameter. It split a seam along its centre and an eye, normal-shaped but fully electric-blue, opened up. A robotic, feminine voice rang out, both warm and unsettling, like a teacher’s hug:
// SYS : Welcome, Talbot. You are entering a New World : Barbican. First, choose your profession. //
I didn’t take it too seriously — I’d looked into the classes a little, but they didn’t really lock you into anything this early on. It’s more for your starting gear.
// SYS :
WARRIOR : Disciplined master of close combat Str : 8 Dex : 6 Con : 10 Mnd : 4 Skills : Battle Tactics Lvl 1 Vigour Lvl 1 Weapon Mastery Lvl 1 Special : Berserk
// Starting gear : Bronze Spear, Wooden Shield, Linothorax, 12 Copper Coins, and a random uncommon trinket.
HUNTER : Agile tracker and beast tamer Str : 6 Dex : 8 Con : 8 Mnd : 6 Skills : Beast Mastery Lvl 1 Shadowcraft Lvl 1 Survivalism Lvl 1 Special : Trap
// Starting gear : Shortbow, Bronze Arrows, Cloak of Camouflage, 18 Copper Coins.
MYSTIC : Versatile practitioner of primal magic Str : 4 Dex : 8 Con : 6 Mnd : 10 Skills : Elementalism Lvl 1 Influence Lvl 1 Mysticism Lvl 1 Special : Balance Power
// Starting gear : Ritual Staff, Carved Bone Talisman, 6 Copper Coins, and a scroll of three random Incantations.
SMITH : Artisan and master of the forge Str : 8 Dex : 4 Con : 8 Mnd : 8 Skills : Crafting Lvl 1 Influence Lvl 1 Vigour Lvl 1 Special : Perfect Craft
// Starting gear : Hammer, Bronze Dagger, 12 Copper Coins, and three random materials.
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HEALER : Compassionate practitioner of restorative magic Str : 6 Dex : 6 Con : 8 Mnd : 8 Skills : Herbalism Lvl 1 Survivalism Lvl 1 Vigour Lvl 1 Special : Protection
// Starting gear : Bronze Scalpel, Bandages, Light Cloth Robes, 8 Copper Coins, and three bunches of random herbs.
// Alternatively, you can roll — //
“Yeah, okay, I’ll go Warrior. Hold on, alternatively I can roll what?”
// SYS : Thank you, Talbot. You have selected Warrior. //
Oops.
A body materialised in the white plane — my body. I recognised my hands, feet, and more-or-less my own height and weight — tall and as good a body as I could achieve working out half-heartedly at the MegaCorp gym once a week. Instead of my bright polyester work-casual fit, however, I now wore a tight-woven, stiff linen breastplate and a very, very short blue tunic. I lifted up what was essentially my new very manly mini-skirt and saw I also wore an off-white loincloth.
Authentic.
My fingers closed around the pole of a spear in one hand and the grip of a shield in the other, and I had a sort of bandoleer or baldric over my shoulder with a small pouch at my hip.
“Well, this is cool, anyway,” I cooed, moving the spear around.
The weird eye in the bronze orb stared on.
// SYS : Second, choose your starting location. Beware, Talbot, nothing in Barbican is balanced, so choose carefully. //
This mattered a little more, as it can take weeks travelling between different towns, and apparently can be very dangerous. I should mention here that despite the slight change that the body undergoes while travelling through a World Gate, it really is you. Death travels the New Worlds just the same.
Not that death’s going to be very likely in a starting town!
// SYS : Morroc’s Roost : A cliffside town of hardy, suns-bronzed fishermen.
// Jurot’s Cradle : A bustling market town, a melting pot of travellers and farmers.
// Ur-Kadesh : A secretive mountain city, whose bronze gates stand sentinel against the wild lands beyond. Its chthonic tunnels stretch for untold miles, connecting dimly-lit halls where artisans hammer away at cruel weapons and forbidden tools under the watchful eye of Kadesh of the Bloodied Throat. Few outsiders are trusted enough to see its lightless inner sanctums, and none who bear witness to Kadesh himself ever speak of the terrors they were subjected to deep within. //
“Uh, that last one sounds a bit—”
// SYS : Thank you, Talbot. You have selected Ur-Kadesh. You are granted a boon for your baseless bravery, your death-embracing audacity, your pure-hearted idiocy. //
“No, wait, that was—”
The voice then took on a different timbre; where before was near emotionless steadiness, there came a fervent rhythm and urgency.
// SYS : Rejoice, He Who Flees Life, for Death is coming for you, now! Where life has conquered you, you may now conquer death! Of ALL Earthlings, you ALONE are capable of this! //
“So I’m the Chosen One, huh? Can we just get past —”
// SYS : To overcome the Undying Foe, I shall grant you the knowledge of the Gods! You shall know all eternity — you shall peer through the armour of your enemies and perceive their mortality, you shall gaze into the eyes of your friends and divine their truth! Good luck to you, Warrior, you will need it. //
“Come on, what on Earth are you —”
Suddenly the bronze mists reappeared and started to shift, then became turbulent and wild. The voice continued frenetic, even louder than before:
// SYS : Not Earth, Talbot — no longer! And true to your destiny, you shall not know Earth for a very long time! //
The electric eye set in the small bronze sphere was wide open now, and the blue was glowing and buzzing energy. A cold, biting wind picked up, tearing at my skin. The mist at one point, perhaps far from me — distance was impossible to accurately guess — began to harden into shapes and textures, ridges and spikes.
Something coalesced quickly within the liminal space, far from where SYS and I floated. It was dark, tempestuous, barely holding onto form as it seemed to will itself into the space. But what form this Something did hold was monstrous; a rolling, ever-contorting mass; savage angles which amalgamated into something like enormous shadowy bones, or the joints of bats’ wings, and in front of it all formed a void, a gaping maw, lined with deep purple-silver fangs.
“What the HELL is that thing?” I pointed.
The bronze sphere glanced over to it then turned back. Though entirely emotionless, there was somehow a great fear in it. Then in the same non-visual way, another feeling poured into me, coming from the Something — HUNGER.
// SYS : WARRIOR OF THE GODS, GUARDIAN OF THE NEW WORLDS — TARRY NEVER, MOVE IN BRUTAL ACTION, AND YOU MAY YET AVERT CATASTROPHE. //
If that was part of the ‘excitement’ of moving to a New World, it was way more dramatic than I’d heard.
Then in defiance, a hundred tiny lights grew from dots and converged before me into an image of a man bearing a long golden spear. I couldn't see his face, but his hair flowed, his muscles rippled, and his stance spread wide. For a moment the figure and the enormity of the monster stood before one another, separated by an unknowably distance gulf in space, then with a RUSH of energy that set my teeth on edge, the man's thighs propelled him forwards. He moved like lightning, and a bright fire lit in a trail behind, scorching the space and shedding further light.
The Something recoiled from the light, but as one fanged maw twisted away and turned inwards on itself, another formed out of the monstrous dark mass to meet the man's advance. They met with a FLASH of impact and black tendrils tore through the space towards the man's searing bright silhouette. There was a ripple that threw me back, I covered my eyes with my hands for a moment as they burnt closed against the heat, then forced them back open. The man's body was aloft, still shining — from my distance he seemed a speck of dust in a storm, but with another sunburst he twisted in the air and brought the point of the spear down towards the beast.
Last I saw, the man's spearhead was gleaming golden, tracing lines of ichor as he stabbed and cut and parried innumerable tendrils and fangs and claws, then a BRUTAL energy exploded from the beast and racked my body. It felt like serrated steel walls closing in on me. I pressed my eyes closed again and screamed as the shockwaves threw my body with savage force this way and that. . . .