Marke opened his eyes to see a white void all around him. Marke started complaining. “Why can’t I incarnate with my eyes already open? Why do I have to go from eyes open to eyes closed every time?” No one answered. A box popped up with a short message.
> Name:
Marke thought firmly towards the box. Cancel. Exit. No. Skip. Enter. But nothing happened. He tried speaking. “Hello?” The box changed.
> Name: Hello. Confirm?
“No” Marke said. Verbal input, so I have to say the name. Let’s see what it thinks is a name. Marke took a deep breath and screamed as long and loud as he could. The box changed.
> Name: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA….. Confirm?
“Wow, ok, I can be impressed with that. No.” The box reset. Marke reached up and rubbed his chin for a minute. He got a bit distracted and ran his fingers over his whole face and scalp to feel the stubble on his skin. He shook his head and readied himself. He began making nonsense sounds like little mouth squeaks, raspberries, quacks, and pops. The whole while he clapped his hands over and over. When he finished, the box updated.
> Name: � � � � � �. Confirm?
Marke raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Ah, well you got me. Yes.” The box changed.
> Assign your attributes.
>
> Available points: 10
>
> Name: � � � � � �
>
> Str: 0 (-/+)
>
> Dex: 0 (-/+)
>
> Con: 0 (-/+)
>
> Int: 0 (-/+)
>
> Done
Marke reached out and pressed the plus next to ‘Str’, the number went up by one, and the available points reduced by one. He pressed the minus and the process reversed. He clicked the minus again, but nothing happened. Then Marke pressed the minus next to ‘Dex’ and smiled as the number went from zero to negative one, and the available points went up to 11. “This one goes up to eleven!” Marke laughed and continued pressing the minus button on ‘Dex’. Marke continued pulling points from dex until the number read ‘-2000’, then he pressed the plus next to ‘Con’ to raise it up to ‘2000’. He put the original 10 points into ‘Int’, then pressed the ’done’ button.
> Welcome to _WORLDNAME_
“Oof. Forgot the realm name, that’s embarrassing” Marke watched the white void around him fade to reveal a vista of grassy hills under a grey blue sky. Marke held very still. He tried to look around but instead he held very still. He tried to move his legs or arms. He tried to blink. Marke continued to hold very still.
Oh no I can’t move! Ohonononononononon… Marke spend some time panicking in complete stillness. The sky above the hills began to lighten and shift to regular sky blue. Marke managed to get his panic somewhat under control by focusing on the changes outside himself. A sunbeam peaked over the distant hills on Marke’s left and the day began. The sunlight warmed Marke’s skin.
After about twenty minutes, Marke had stopped panicking completely and was miserably bored. He couldn’t move his eyes to watch the grass move in the breeze or track birds in the sky. His left side was damp with sweat. There isn’t even anything interesting to listen to in this dumb realm. Marke thought grumpily. My left side is getting uncomfortably warm. Status? A box popped up.
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> Name: � � � � � �
>
> Str: 0
>
> Dex: -2000
>
> Con: 2000
>
> Int: 10
I guess if I had put Int at zero I would just be standing here drooling. Marke internally sighed. His status suddenly disappeared, and another box replaced it and quickly cycled through a series of messages, almost too fast for Marke to read.
> Sunburn damage. 0 damage
>
> Damage fully mitigated, applying reflected damage to attacker
>
> Sun takes 1 damage
>
> Sun dies. Experience Awarded
What??? Marke thought. I killed the sun by being too tough? How would that- Marke’s thoughts were interrupted by the sun exploding. The sky was suddenly covered with white and red fire. The fire rushed down from the sky and annihilated everything in sight. Marke held perfectly still as the fire passed him by and left an emptiness all around him.
> Nova damage. 0 damage
>
> Damage fully mitigated, applying reflected damage to attacker
>
> ERR takes 75000 damage
>
> ERR damage. 0 damage
>
> Damage fully mitigated, applying reflected damage to attacker
>
> Self takes 75000 damage
>
> Self Damage. Received ERR damage
The realm shattered. Yes! Finally! Marke rejoiced.
----------------------------------------
Marke kept his eyes closed after he appeared in the next realm. He spent a long time just slowly moving all his limbs and sobbing through the repressed emotions from being paralyzed. When he opened his eyes, he saw yet another cave. This cave had blue and white crystals all over. A crystal-looking box popped up.
> Name: _
Marke sighed and wiped his face dry on his rough brown clothes. “I need a break.”
> Name: Ineedabreak. Select your class:
>
> - Body
>
> - Arcane
>
> - None
Marke’s tired emotions suddenly flared into anger. “What the hell kind of classes are those? How could- Any- Stupid… NONE!” The box disappeared and a status box appeared. Marke waved it away without reading it and stomped out of the cave. He exited the cave tunnel onto a wet gravel bank of a quickly flowing stream. Marke found a mostly dry boulder and sat down on it. He stared at the stream for a while. The sound of rushing water slowly brought Marke around to a stable state of mind. He shifted on the boulder to sit crossed-legged.
“Marke.” He said to himself. “This isn’t going to work like this. I can’t just rush through one thousand and one realms in an afternoon, it’s too disorienting and exhausting. Too fast. How long have I even been doing this for? An hour? Two hours? How many realms have I done?” Marke tried to count in his head but lost track multiple times. He jumped down from the boulder and picked up a small rock.
“Ok, let’s try and write it out. First one was the freebie realm.” Marke scratched ‘1 - F’ into the top of the boulder. “Then the brown one with the mushrooms.” He scratched ‘2 – B’ into the boulder. He continued counting realms until he arrived at a completed list.
> 1 – F
>
> 2 – B
>
> 3 – C
>
> 4 – C
>
> ? – C?
>
> 5 – AAA
>
> 6 – S
>
> 7 – X
“It’s only been seven or eight realms and I already lost track. Can’t remember how many broke with the cancel button.” Marke turned and tossed his rock scribe into the stream. He looked up and down stream. “Let’s go up.” Marke began to hike upstream as he continued to talk to himself.
“I need some priorities and some sort of schedule. I can’t take a journal between realms, but that would be nice for taking notes and counting realms. Ok, top priority: Don’t Suffer. Being paralyzed was bad, very surprising and very bad. Do not get any permanent affliction.” Marke Jumped across a gap between large stones in the stream. “Second priority: Don’t Die. Living it up in these realms isn’t gonna be worth ten thousand years of microbial…” Marke paused for a second, trying to finish the line with a joke. “Ten thousand years of microbial Marke. So don’t die. Third priority: Take Breaks. I guess that should be ‘Self Care’. I won’t break realms if I have a panic attack every time I have to enter my name—I need to take care of myself so I don’t break down. Fourth-“ Marke stumbled on a stick poking out of a patch of mud. He regained his balance and continued his hike upstream. “Fourth priority: Hobbies. I’m not just here to do QuARK’s wark, er, work. I want to do things that I want to do. I might be in these realms a long time and I want to have more of a life than just breaking things. Last priority: Break Realms. Simple enough.” Marke scrambled up the side of the ravine and came out onto flat ground. Above him, twin moons hung in the sky across from a pale white sun. Storm clouds slowly boiled in the distance, and sparse shrubs shifted in the wind across a wide plain.
“Nice.” Marke said.