If he was being honest, Fredrick couldn’t say he was too bothered with losing his old life.
Failure to get any higher education, any meaningful job or romantic relations, Combined with an general low need to socialize meant that his first reaction didn’t include any strong feeling of loss, or perhaps he was in shock and subconsciously delaying his reaction as a coping mechanism, because this sure as heck wasn’t where he went to bed last night.
He was laying in broken remnants of his old home. Water from the not-there-before Lake were sending lazy waves into what little of his combined living and kitchen room remained. Plants had somehow grown in whatever time had passed between Fredrick falling asleep and waking up, and beautiful Red Lotus-like Flowers now adorned the “seashore” in his house.
He got up from his sofa-bed combination, walked towards a flower and picked one up. It had an intoxicating, able-like smell. Just like the Ables he used to eat on the old farm back when he was a kid.
Entranced, Hypnotized, he reached for it and picked it up. A Flower had never looked so edible before.
‘Whatever is going, I can worry about that after I eat this flower’ He thought and ate the leaves.
Sweet Ambrosia!…
He had to get more! It was like the embrace of a mother.
As he reached out for another he stared into the waters the flowers came from. Its deep dark blue was drawing in his gaze, he felt his body drawn into it, dragging his mind, If the flower had tasted so well, then surely the water would be more potent. What Joy, What Bliss was there to be found at the bottom of this deep?
A sudden thought entered his mind:
'Come to think of it, didn’t I just dream of something like this?'
He just had a dream-turned-nightmare about being lured into evil waters. A promise of bliss turned into a suffocating prison.
“Fuck!” With a Jolt he backed away from the water, quick breaths and adrenaline cleared his mind and put everything in sharp focus..
Somehow he was awake, and somehow he knew that to be true. Baffling enough, the water was still here, drawing him in, begging him to experience the bliss of the abyss, to be dragged down into sweet oblivion, only this time for real.
Smack! He smacked himself, and looked away from the water.
Whatever was going on he had to escape this place first.
He ran right to his door, ignored how his door looked nothing like it used to, and how part of his house had become deformed and fused with the forest outside, and bolted away from there. Every step felt mentally like ruining waist-high in a river flowing the opposite direction. Only because he recognized it as a literal manifestation of a nightmare did he find the strenght to run. As he left the house behind the mental drag slowly dissipated.
Only when he couldn’t feel the waters pull on his mind did he stop to catch his breath.
He was in a forest, on a path made from powdered glass. The trees looked strange and quirky, nonsensical and unalike in their shapes, some even looked like old school street lamps, ready to illuminate the path once it got dark.
Those provided the only regularity in this madness.
'Am I really not dreaming?'
He took a moment to reassess reality, for all he could tell, it felt real.
'It's real. Either I have gone insane, I am dreaming that I'm not dreaming, or something major has happened. You’re supposed to reorient yourself after something like this, right? better check my phone…'
As he grabbed his Phone it melted in his hands.
'Okay maybe I'm just tripping balls right now.'
The phone melted, but the screen stayed, expanded, became see-through, and positioned itself in front of his face. A text appeared in front of him.
'I wonder what drug I took'
Your reality has collapsed due to [No direct cultural translation available]
..ERROR..
Searching for the closest working approximation…
False Vacuum decay
False Vacuum Decay? He was feeling awfully alive for not existing anymore…
Welcome all Sapient and Non-Sapient life to
…[No direct cultural translation available]...
..ERROR
Searching for the closest working approximation:
“Alternate Reality” ..ERROR, PROVIDES FALSE ASSUMPTIONS.
“Heaven” ..ERROR, PROVIDES FALSE ASSUMPTIONS.
“Hell”..ERROR, PROVIDES FALSE ASSUMPTIONS.
“DreamWorld” ..ERROR, PROVIDES FALSE ASSUMPTIONS.
“Spirit World” ..ERROR, PROVIDES FALSE ASSUMPTIONS.
“Higher Dimensional plane of existence" ..ERROR, PROVIDES FALSE ASSUMPTIONS.
“The System '' ..ERROR, PROVIDES FALSE ASSUMPTIONS.
Sufficient understanding reached based on shared context of previous words, synthesizing working designation…..
Welcome to OtherWorld!
'Yeah that makes things SO to much clearer.'
Fredrick decided to just sit down by one of the lamp-post trees, while catching a breather.
He returned to his non-existent-but-still-there Phone-screen.
There were plenty of notifications he had yet to read.
There was more to the Welcome..
Welcome to OtherWorld!
OtherWorlds reality has been expanded and rewritten according to the inhabitants of Earth's collective perception of reality the moment it ended for them.
Minor flaws and changes from your previous reality may be noticed.
This should mainly come from compromises between Yours and OtherWorlds previous understanding of reality, as well as integration of the geographies.
If you noticed no difference it is perfectly normal.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
'Oh yeah, almost an exact replica, I couldn't tell instantly at all, no sir.'
Sarcastic thoughts aside, there was more to read, and so he clicked.
and ended up simply staring in disbelief…
'Is that…a status-screen?'
Name:
Frederik Andersen
Lvl: 1 (100/200 exp)
The strength of your Spirit: That which lies between your Heavenly Soul and your Earthly Body.
Mystical Resources:
Unassigned Resource Points: 10
The Soul wishes to rule, yet Heaven must bow to the laws of Earth.
These are the resources with which you may exert your will on Earth.
Stamina: 7/10
This Is consumed upon physical exertions, partly supports physical energy consumption and assists you according to associated Empowerments:
Agility empowers this resource
Mana: 10/10
The resource of your personal sorcery.
Adrenalin: 7/10
When under mental stress, this empowers the use of other resources with a 1 to 1 ratio. Doubling the felt efficacy.
Empowerments:
Unassigned Empowerment Points: 1
The strenght of you spirit, your ability to transcend the Laws of Earth
Self-determination: 2
Empowers you baseline ability to resist foreign influences, and to act according to your own will.
Agility: 1
Empowers your baseline speed and agility when using Stamina.
Other Effects:
What else may shape your spirit
Curse of the Lotus : 1
You have eaten the Lotus of Blissful Surrender. Now it grows in your spirit and the longing for the waters which held it originally grows forevermore with time and proximity.
There was a lot to unpack here: It appeared a bit different than your typical RPG-game, there was a lot of talk about "spirit" and "Earth", he had Mana, there were some points he could assign, and.....
Oh Great!…He was cursed.
‘It had been such a fun read until then’ He thought.
It grew with time and proximity. Did that mean he had to continuously run away from it?
He looked in the direction of his “House” ‘Spawn-Point’ He decided to call it. Through the crooked and strange trees he could just barely see the house and the waters behind it.
Perhaps it was just his imagination, but he could already feel the faintest of longing in the back of his head. looking away, with a bit more mental effort than he was happy about, he refocused on his status-screen.
There was one more section that he hoped would make things more clear to him: The Notifications. ‘Perhaps those will make things more sensible’ He chuckled and began reading.
Lvl 0!
Determining Starting Resources and Empowerments…
Detected strong soul and mind associated with being human. Noticed an ability and desire to change the world accordingly:
The Resource “Mana” has been created!
Found a strong desire to Escape, Synergy with being Human…
“Agility” has been Empowered!
The resource “Stamina” has been created!
Struggle and great fear has been detected. Detecting a belief of performing better under duress…
The Resource “Adrenalin” has been created!
Noticed inherent desire to not be controlled or lured by others…
“Self-Determination” has been empowered.
'F Me "Struggle and great fear has been detected." my ass, I was dreaming! Did OtherWorld really determined everything with a mere snapshot?'
Fredrick went over it a few times. it appeared to assign stats according to Spawn-conditions, which meant people wouldn’t start out with the same “stats”.
One exception that stood out was Mana, the wording indicated that most, if not all, humans would start with having it.
'No, it's merely a correlation with being human, the wording indicates that Mana is granted to beings of strong mind and soul and a desire to change the world to their will.'
As far as he could tell it didn’t mean all humans, nor did it exclude Animals.
Almost as if it knew what he was thinking about, a squirrel showed itself nearby, running confused up and down an weirdly symmetrical and angular tree.
Frederick eyed it a little closer, did it appear different from normal squirrels? Did it have stats? probably. Should he fear squirrels throwing fireballs at him? Who knew? He couldn’t tell if “OtherWorld” thought the proclivity of hoarding nuts would make them worthy of wielding mana.
Unable to tell a difference, he returned to his screen.
You have eaten the Lotus of Blissful Surrender. It lays roots in your spirit.
+1 “Curse of the Lotus”. You’ve gained 100 exp!
Wait, the curse gave experience? What kind of logic was that!?
Also: The part of it growing in his spirit still worried him in a strange and uncomfortable way.
Level up! 0 → 1
+10 mystical Resource points
+1 Empowerments Points
You’ve displayed an strong ability and desire to resist temptation:
+1 “Self-Determination” You’ve gained 100 exp!
So he was able to grow his stats independently by performing actions associated with them, and that gave him experience which would further help increase his stats when he leveled up. Good to know.
As for his currently unassigned stat-points from leveling up…. If he had to be honest no stats stood out to him as worth immediate upgrade. Perhaps things would change later, until then he would wait a little time with assigning them.
Now for the real treat: Mana. Mana meant magic which meant he got to throw spells around!
He didn’t know exactly how it worked, but he had played computer games before, he had read his fiction and watched his anime. He knew what to do: The first step was always meditation and introspection.
He adjusted his posture. ‘Deep breaths, quiet your mind, and look for doopass magical energies within you. HeHe, the real problem here is the sheer excitement, I can’t Calm down! Of Course the Waters of Blissful surrender would be quite calming NO!'
He immediately stood up. That damn Lotus! He remembered his nightmare of drowning quite vividly, it couldn’t trick him!
That being said, he also couldn’t meditate with its intrusive thoughts interfering, so plan B it was: Running away, and put as much distance between him at the waters as possible. Truly a heroic choice.
Who knew, perhaps he could level up his Agility while he was at it.