Chapter One:

I awoke to a burning pain in my wrist. Not my hand, because that was gone. I would soon find out where, but for now all I knew was the agonising ball of pain where my left arm terminated. “Lights on!” I yelled as I rolled out of bed, clutching the stump where my left hand once was, trying to stem the spurting crimzon with little success. The efforts were made much more difficult by a green skinned child doing their level best to kneecap me with what appeared to be a table leg as the smart home device turned on every light in the house.

The light sheet that was all I ever slept under tangled around my feet and I fell, knocking over the bokken I kept by the nightstand in case of a midnight intruder. Pain and shock made it hard to focus and I thought about the trip to Japan I’d shared with my wife years before where I had acquired the faux sword. The bemused look on the local’s faces as the weird gaikokujin bumbled around with it sticking out of his backpack had been priceless. They didn’t, couldn’t, know that the white guy from Australia knew both the language and the sport.

More pain and a burst of stars in front of my eyes brought me back to the present. The thing that had been trying to beat me around the shins with the makeshift club now sat on my chest, raising their weapon for another blow. I snatched the bokken and blocked the swing, my retaliatory strike crashing into the crown of its skull with a sound like a watermelon hitting a wall. 

Weird,was all I had time to think as it slid off me and the second childlike form I had barely been aware of dropped the thing it had been gnawing on and launched itself at me with a scream, swinging one of my own kitchen knives. I recognised it immediately, as we’d bought the set on the same trip and it was unlikely that random tiny hulk-children would be bringing their own high-class chef’s knives to a break in. As to how unlikely that children in green body paint would break into our house in the middle of the night would be, the probability of that is exactly one. It was currently happening.

I tried to block the knife with my left hand, but in its absence the knife slashed through the air and cut into my chest. All that saved me from a deeper wound was the weird angle of attack and my copious chest hair. Knife enthusiasts love to show how sharp their knives are by shaving with them, but human hair is the WORST for an edge. I jammed my stump into the thing’s face, screaming in pain as hot lances seared up my forearm, and when it recoiled I smashed it in the forehead with the pommel of the bokken. With a sharp retort the misshapen neck snapped and it fell, lifeless, to the ground.

I bit into the sheet still wrapped around me and tore off a strip, the lessons in fieldcraft my father had given me as a child coming back in a rush, and I bound the stump with a makeshift tourniquet. More sheet strips followed as improvised bandages until I realised something was very wrong. Ok, MORE wrong.

I looked over at the other side of the bed where my wife should have been laying. “Aimee? AIMEE? Where are you?” I choked out, my throat tight with fear. Irrationally I flipped back the bedclothes and searched the obviously empty bed. I wasn’t game to try shouting in case it brought more of the little menaces. 

There was no sign of Aimee anywhere. The only blood in the room was my own and the homicidal kids’. I wanted to run screaming into the street but my everything hurt. Lumps were beginning to form on my legs, blood was dripping down my chest and I had no idea what more to do about my left limb.

I stumbled into the bathroom to find some of the leftover painkillers from my crash a few years back. I washed them down with water from the cup beside the sink and splashed some on my face. I didn’t even try turning on the tap, for the same reason I hadn't shouted for Aimee. Noises bad. 

Breathing slowly and evenly like my martial art instructors had taught me helped get my racing heart and thoughts under control. My arm was still in agony, but I could think a little clearer now. I whispered thanks under my breath to Aimee for the well stocked medical kit under the sink as I cut a sticking plaster to length and applied it to the gash on my chest. The gauze in the middle immediately reddened with my blood but it didn't sleep through. There wasn't any remedy for the welts on my legs, but that's of no concern.

Returning to the bedroom I took a clearer look about. Are they serious? I wondered as I poked the corpses with a toe. Frikkin GOBLINS? I mean, I’d been an anime fan since the 80s, and had for a time wished to be isekai’d the hell off this planet even if it meant getting hit by a truck - apparently that’s the requirement  for most manga heroes to get reborn in a new world. But, I’d been hit by a Toyota Landcruiser four years back and all I got was a lengthy hospital stay and a bunch of metal in me that was never coming out. Maybe it needed to be a bigger truck?

Realising I was getting a mite irrational I collected the bokken and stepped onto the landing outside the bedroom. There wasn’t much upstairs in this house, master bedroom with ensuite, tiny visitor bedroom, tiny office and tiny bathroom that was just slightly bigger than the ensuite. I guess there was technically a lounge, there was a recess for a TV, three feet of carpet and a couch, but behind the couch was the stairs down. You could sit on the couch and watch TV, but you’d have a boomer materialise and yell at you for sitting too close to the screen if you did. Lights blazed from the office and spare bedroom, but no noise or shadows to indicate anything suspicious. Crashes and growls from the ground floor on the other hand suggested there were more intruders down there. 

I tiptoed down the stairs, the carpeted steps muffling the steps as I breathed slowly through my mouth. More fieldcraft thanks to my Dad. We’d hunted anything that moved in northwest Queensland, from massive feral pigs to the more skittish kangaroos to feral cats who would actually hunt you back if you weren’t careful. Yeah, this isn’t just Mittens who got out once or twice. I’m talking the basis for “I saw a panther in the bush!” myths.

Reaching the ground floor I leaned out to peek into the kitchen. Two more greenskins were rifling through the cupboard, pouring MY chips into their faces. Ha! Habanero flavour! There’s a reason no-one pinches my snacks. I hope it burns! Still no sign of Aimee, but also no sign of a struggle. Wherever she is, I hope she’s ok, I hoped fervently. A smashing sound that echoed down the hall from the downstairs bedroom clued me in that there was at least one more being in the house. I raised the bokken into a high guard position as best I could one-handed, stepped up behind the closest goblin and brought it down as hard as I could. Again with the watermelon sound, with a hint of extra squishyness. The other one dropped the box of museli bars it had been tearing through and dived for cover behind the kitchen counter, screaming blue murder.

Bugger, I thought as I tried to figure out what to do. He’s going to bring friends like that. Gotta shut him up! I rounded the corner of the kitchen bench, leading with the bokken, just in time for the little bastard to roll out of the dishwasher recess and stab me in the foot. I’d argued with Aimee for years that we should get a dishwasher and she always said “You’re my dishwasher, silly”. Didn’t feel so silly now with a steak knife through my foot. Still, it was a minor inconvenience compared to the pain in my arm and I punted that green turd back into the recess so hard he splattered a bit and I clipped my knee on the bench.

I fell to the ground swearing. This was not going well, I had multiple holes in me and I still had no idea where my wife was. As I lay on my back holding my knee and foot a growl from above drew my attention the way an “Oi, mate!” in a bar does. It promised a very short future full of pain. Well, more pain.

I looked up into the teeth of what I thought could only be a wolf. We don’t really have wolves in Oz, some dingoes, some feral dogs, but wolves are not really a Southern Hemisphere thing. Yet, here it was. Big, shaggy, toothy. And I was about to become a midnight snack. It snarled and bared its fangs, nose an inch from my forehead so I did what any sensible person would in the circumstances. 

I peed myself. Not gonna sugar coat it, I was scared out of my mind. I’m lucky my bowels didn’t go at the same time, as I was not wearing my brown pants and I would have had a much bigger clean up later. Fortunately the second thing I did was NOT what any sane person would do. I ripped the steak knife out of my foot and jammed it in the wolf’s eye and wiggled it around.

I must have hit something pretty important too, cos the bloody thing collapsed straight away, right on my head. I saw stars for the second time that night as my skull bounced off the kitchen tiles.  Once I’d managed to wriggle out from under the dead thing I batted away what looked like a random sheet of paper that fluttered in my face and grabbed a tea towel to tie around my foot, which was covered in blood but wasn’t really hurting anymore. Probably shock, I thought. I’m going to need an ambo after this. If they’re even around that is.

The house was silent. I set myself in preparation for another attack and inched down the hall into the front bedroom. The front door stood at the end of the hall and was completely intact and still closed. I guessed that the monsters had come in via the bedroom window, we’d left the glass open to get some breeze through and trusted the mesh to keep the bugs out.

I ducked into the room, ready to jab anything that moved with the tip of the bokken. It wasn’t particularly pointy but so far everything had been susceptible to the weight of the hard wooden blade and the strength of a moderately fit nearing-forty year old. I was thinking more clearly too and the pain of my injuries had faded. Definitely shock, maybe blood loss. Gotta clear the house and call 000.

The steel mesh of the front window was bowed in and split, rent down the middle. So much for Crim-Safe! I thought. Not goblin safe though. I wonder how they managed this? 

Keeping an eye on the opening, I double checked the miniscule ensuite attached to the front bedroom. Empty. Good.

I crossed to the mangled window screen and took a closer look. The screen was bowed in, indicating it had been pushed by something with significant weight or strength, but that shouldn't have been enough to compromise the integrity. On closer inspection, the edges of the tear looked melted, and the geek in me suggested a lightsabre had been used to cut it. Well, goblins are real now, why not Jedi? Whatever had been used, the mesh was burnt and pushed in. None of the goblins had possessed a weapon capable and I doubted a wolf was able to carry a plasma cutter of any variety. I pushed the tortured metal out, pulled the glass closed and slid the curtains across too. Not that glass would stop a determined intruder, but that was equally true before as now.

With the illusion of security created, I searched the house for my wife. The back door was still locked, as was the front. No other windows had been compromised. None of her belongings were missing apart from the clothing she’d been sleeping. 

I found my hand, though. It was lying beside the bed with half the flesh chewed away. Even if I called the ambulance right now, there was no way this ragged thing was getting reattached. Which really sucked because I’m left handed. I took it with me back downstairs and sank into a couch.

“House, call triple zero,” I commanded. It was easier than hunting for my phone in the chaos that had once been my bedroom. Sure, I could normally use the “find my phone” function of my smartwatch, but that had been on my left wrist and was now in a pool of blood upstairs.

“Emergency, what service do you need?” The dispatcher sounded exhausted. 

I’m guessing this isn’t an isolated incident then, I thought. “Ambos and police please,” I answered.

“If you are not in immediate mortal danger, I recommend calling the non-emergency line” the guy intoned, sounding like he was reading from a script. Which he probably was. “There’s at least a half hour wait on ambulance and an hour or more on police. However, we do not recommend you attempt to make it to the hospital or police station alone. Remain in your house. Are you bleeding out or do you have first aid supplies?”

“I have a tourniquet on my left arm and a wound on my left foot. Let me see how badly it’s bleeding.” I peeled away the tea towel and goggled in amazement. “Uh, this can’t be right. I was stabbed and there's blood everywhere, but just a scar on my foot?”

“Sir, you appear to have experienced the new phenomenon. Did you get a level up notification?”

I frowned. “Are you kidding me? A WHAT?”

“Sir…”

“Just Ace will do, please,” I sighed.

“Mr Ace, we’ve had multiple reports of people experiencing a videogame-like pop up notification in their vision after traumatic events tonight. Did you see this too?”

I thought back to what I'd believed was a bit of paper hitting me in the face on the kitchen floor. “Maybe? I was a bit busy at the time.”

“Mr Ace, if you have dismissed the notification it appears you can bring up the interface by thinking of the word menu in a clear and concise way. I can’t describe it any better, it’s just what I’ve been told to say.” I could hear the undertone of I don’t get paid near enough to deal with this in his voice. “I have been advised that the first level up will result in any open wounds being healed, and thus ambulance services can be prioritised elsewhere. As you are not screaming, I am guessing there are no intruders currently in your home, or attempting to gain entry. Therefore police are not required urgently either. Congratulations on surviving your first level up, may I end the call?”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

I tore the bandages off my stump, wincing as the dried blood stuck to the skin and pulled out hairs. The end of my arm was pink and raw, but no longer an open wound. Huh. Look at that. 

I heard the dispatcher repeat his request to end the call.“Wait,” I shouted. “My wife is missing. Gone. Vanished into thin air. Will the police come for that?”

“Unless you can say for certain she is in imminent danger, no. It is a missing person, and can be routed to the non-emergency line. I can transfer your call if you prefer.”

“Non-emergency? Are you for real? What qualifies as an emergency then?” The smart home speaker was only a few feet away but I was using my outside voice. Possibly my outside my mind voice.

“Turn on your TV, if you have power.”

I turned on the TV and watched the national broadcast for a minute. “Oh. Yeah, transfer me please.”

“Please hold.” The most annoying on-hold music began pouring out of the speaker.

I didn’t care. There was a horror movie right there on my TV, and it was shocking me right out of my brain. Monsters, mayhem and murder in every city across the globe. Pundits were trying to make sense of the situation, but there was too little information. The best guess anyone had was that somehow, magic had come back. But not Lord of The Rings magic. No, this was the sort of thing that would have a certain group of sorcerers who live by the beach phoning their lawyers. In fact, they probably were on that call right now to see if they could copyright reality. 

In the mean time, there was a cave troll using a motorcycle as a club in downtown Melbourne. It stood in the middle of the bridge right next to Central Station and was in a heated argument with a lamp post, of all things. Police were pouring rounds into it, but the damn thing kept regenerating and spitting them out like someone had taken a Wolverine/Hulk crossplay WAY too far. Eventually the combined output must have overcome its regeneration and it fell into the river, but not before tossing the motorbike onto the tracks and derailing the Cranbourne line.

Other reports suggested that people were discovering they had spells or could talk to ghosts, or their neighbours were Orcs. Racism was bad enough before, now we’re going to have speciesism, I realised.

On hold music stopped to remind me that my call was important to the Victoria Police and they would get to me as soon as they could. Frustrated with inaction, I got up and went to the kitchen. I had a vague feeling I should clean up, Aimee wouldn’t like the mess when she got home and I stared at the three dead bodies on the floor. Well, definitely not a game, they haven’t despawned. Mildly grossed out, I grabbed the goblins by the legs and the wolf by the tail and dragged them to the back door, unlocked it and dumped them in the postage-stamp sized back yard. I was reminded of the time I knocked over a razorback from three hundred meters, right into a stream. Best shot of my teenage years, and then I had to walk all the way over there and drag it out of the mud before the body could poison the watercourse. Oh no, I wonder if the feral pigs are affected. Dire Razorbacks would be bigger than water buffalo.

Back inside I locked the door once more and surveyed the mess in the kitchen. I pulled on a kitchen glove with my teeth, fetched a broom from the hall cupboard, swept all the junk strewn across the floor into a pile and jammed it into the bin. 

“Come on!” I yelled at the smart home speaker, still spewing the most inane and inappropriate elevator music. It was totally at odds with the scenes still playing out on the TV, though by now they were shifting to aftermath reporting. The giant croc near Port Douglas had been put down by a teen who’d somehow acquired the ability to command lightning. He stood beside the bloated body, spear in hand and his tribe looking proud of their boy. A man in cuffs in Perth being loaded into a paddy wagon, and one of the cops gently placing a very large glass jar in the passenger seat. In the jar danced a humanoid composed completely of flame. More cases from around the world reported in the scrolling marquee at the bottom of the screen, mythical beasts emerging from the woods, unexplainable phenomena and crazy occurrences.

I kept cleaning and hate-watching the news until finally, just as the light of the sun peeked over the horizon, someone finally picked up the phone. “Point Cook station, how can I help you?” An exhausted older lady, from the sound of her voice.

“Gorramit, finally!” I threw down the mop, smacking myself in the knee in the process.

“Sir, if you can’t be civil I will hang up right away.”

I composed myself and tried again. “Sorry. It’s been a long night. I had monsters break in and my wife is missing.”

“Monsters kidnapped your wife? Why didn’t you call triple zero?” The “you and me both” went unsaid.

“I did, but they said it wasn’t an emergency. I can’t say for sure she was kidnapped, there’s just no sign of her.”

“But you said there was a break in? What happened?”

I introduced myself properly and went over the events as best I could remember. Waking up, the attempted murder, the empty bed. I glossed over the sneak attack on the chip thief but was very clear on the foot stabbery and attempted head consumption. “I’m not going to be charged for this am I? They’re literal monsters from a fantasy movie.”

“I’m going to level with you Mr Farris, we just don’t know yet,” she sighed. He heard her take a sip of something and hoped it was coffee. “We’ve been directed to use our discretion and when it comes to metahumans, as the geeks in the department are calling them, all the usual rules are out the window. Elves and orcs seem to be regular folks who woke up in a new body, for the most part, but gremlins and goblins seem to be popping into existence like one of those Nintendo games my boys play. Vicious little beggars they are too. So, no, we probably won’t be charging you for what appears to be self defence but we will need to come out and investigate. Please leave the rest of the bodies where they are, you’ve contaminated the scene enough as it is.”

I looked guiltily at the pile of trash poking out the top of the bin. “But what about my wife? What are you doing to find her?”

“Right now? Nothing. Shift change in five minutes and we’ll send out a team as soon as we can. As you said, there’s no evidence of foul play. It could be she stepped out for a breath of fresh air right before the event and simply took fright and sheltered at a neighbor’s.”

My heart rate lowered slowly from a peak I hadn’t realised it was at. “Thaaaat actually makes sense. She’s friends with everyone in a mile radius, and normally this is a safe area. She might have been doing a lap of the park for fresh air, saw what was going on and hid with a friend. I’ll go look.”

“I’d rather you stayed Mr Farris. Officers will be there before midday to secure the scene and do a proper interview. Just, try to stay out of the kitchen and bedrooms.”

“Can I at least make breakfast first?” Looked longingly at the open cupboard.

“I’ll have the officers bring coffee and doughnuts. Is Coles Express coffee ok?”

Now, I love Coles Express coffee. It’s the Rolls Royce of servo coffee machines and often better than ones made by actual baristas. But I am also, despite being whiter than snow on a polar bear in a blizzard, rather distrustful of police. Long story, for another time. But right now I’m getting that itchy feeling between my shoulder blades. “I guess. I’ll wait in the lounge then. Is that ok?”

“That is fine. Is there something else?”

“No… no. I guess that’s everything.” I fell back onto the couch. “Thank you.”

“Have a good day then.” The speaker emitted a loud click as she hung up.

I put my head in my hands. Have a good day. Sure. I fumbled for the remote and turned the TV off. Even muted it irritated me with the flashing colours and hot takes and inbetween, ads reminding me that even something resembling the apocalypse doesn’t stop capitalism. I leaned back and stared at my reflection in the now black screen. I had no idea what to do with myself and looked around. My gaze settled on a takeout menu for the Indian restaurant down the road.

MENU. A menu popped up in my vision. It really reminded me of little more than the kind from early Final Fantasy games. Light blue, grey rim, kinda translucent. Time didn’t stop while it was open, and the options were pretty sparse.

CONSTITUTION    4

DEXTERITY        4

STRENGTH        3

INTELLIGENCE    4

WISDOM        2

CHARISMA        3

I found I could select an option by thinking its name and it would offer a bunch of sub options. CON had a series of body modifications. DEX did too, but related to, well, dexterity. Which I found hilarious since in my crash I’d broken both arms and messed up the nerves in my left hand so I used to joke I was ambisinister - incompetent with both hands. I looked at my stump. Guess that joke is out now.

INT and WIS offered upgrades to my mind, which I found incredibly concerning. I poked around in the INT menu, but I was already pretty smart. Like, I’d never considered myself intelligent, all my teachers at school used the phrase “talented but doesn’t apply himself” which according to social media these days means “undiagnosed ADHD”. Intelligence is knowing tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. Oh, and charisma is being able to sell a tomato based fruit smoothie.

At the moment it looked like all the values were set, and based on my actual self. It looked like whatever was running the system had accounted for my incredibly weird history. My parents divorced when I was three and every holiday I would spend with Dad in deep western Queensland learning practical skills. All of them. 

At age five I learned to hunt and fish. I hate fish, but that’s beside the point. I can shoot pistols, rifles, long and crossbows. It was all there in the DEX menu, like a numerical biography.

By age ten I’d basically completed an electrical apprenticeship by working for Dad. I certainly wasn’t licensed, but I was capable of rewiring an electric forklift to do 80km/hr on the backroads as long as you don’t get caught. The not getting caught part is vital. Strangely to me, this was in the INT menu.

By age 18 I had a black belt in tae kwan do, and had learned the basics of three other styles. I found these in the CON menu. I’d have thought they’d be in the WS one, since I’d played a LOT of DnD and Monks were a Wisdom based class. 

Yeah, despite the previous I’m a hella geek. There’s few RPGs I haven’t played and I’ve got all the current gen consoles. Dad really didn’t like that, but such is the price of spending the majority of my childhood with my narcissist mother and her series of husbands. I spent as much of my time at home as I could in my room, reading. Also, I can’t stand any code of football. 

I was still distracted when a pounding on the door surprised the crap out of me and I threw myself out of the chair. CLOSE MENU? I thought dubiously. It worked though and I called out “Coming!” as I stood up.

I opened the door to a very shocking sight. An elf and an orc in VicPol uniforms and stab vests. Again, however, geek. “G’day guys. You here to help me find my wife?”

The elf smiled. The orc… did something with his mouth. It could have been a smile. The prominent tusks jutting up from his lower jaw made it hard to tell. “You Mister Ferris?” he grunted.

“Farris, but don’t stand in the doorway, come in.” There’s a couple ways to deal with cops. My favourite is “best mate”. They’re not used to it and it throws them off balance. Why would I do that to the people who are there to help me find Aimee? Well, for a start they did it to me first. You didn’t think their choice of officers was an accident, did you? “I’d offer you a cuppa but the lady on the phone said I had to stay out of the kitchen.” I hoped the hint would prompt the proffering of coffee as I led the way down the hall past the kitchen and into the downstairs lounge. “Pull up a pew. Kitchen’s there, but the bodies are outside.”

The elf officer swept through the back door gracefully, but I noted that the grace seemed forced somehow? I’m betting he didn’t go to bed an elf last night. The orc dropped his bulk into the armchair near the back door, the one that faced the kitchen. He dropped a paper bag and cardboard cup holder on the coffee table, extracted a cup and gestured to the rest. “Hope you like cappuccino.”

“I do! Thank you so much.” I grabbed the remaining cup from the carrier and took a long pull. They’d put sugar in it, but I can live with that. “So the lady on the phone said you’re going to have a look here to make sure I didn’t murder anyone and then help me find Aimee. How can I help you do that?”

“Hmmm,” he growled around the tusks. I wondered if he’d been practicing that all morning. “You can start by telling me what happened here. In detail.”

“No worries. So I woke up with these little buggers in my bedroom. One of them had my hand off already,” I waved my stump at him. “I bonked them with that,” I pointed at the bokken still leaning against the kitchen counter. “That’s when I found Aimee was gone. So I came down to look for her, and the three out the back tried to murder me or eat me. Both, I guess?”

“Mr Farris, there’s only one body out here. A very large canine,” the elf officer poked his head in the door. “Are you sure about your story?”

“I’m certain,” I answered, confused. “Their heads were caved in, so unless someone has worked out necromancy already then I have no idea where they’ve gone. Look, I haven’t been back upstairs, so there should be two goblins in the bedroom. The main one at the top of the stairs.”

While the officer ascended the stairs to check I drank my coffee under the watchful gaze of his mate. I kept a grin on my face, but I have to admit I was getting a bit worried.

“Hey Bob, I got blood but no bodies up here.” The voice echoed weirdly down the stairs and out of the walkie talkie on the orcs’ hip.

“Yeah, that’s my blood. Happy to provide a sample if you need.” I smiled and held out my hand stump again. “I sleep on the left side of the bed, and all the blood is on my side, isn’t it?”

Bob the orc keyed the mic on his shoulder. “Steve…”

“That’s not my name Bob, and you know it!” The shout from upstairs made me chuckle inside and dispelled all the tension.

“Delenthor, is the blood on the left hand side?” Bob buried his face in his palm.

“Yes it is. Some red, some green. Still no bodies though.”

Bob did that thing with his tusks again. “Hrrrm. Well, with only a dog body the worst I’d be able to do is call the RSPCA, if the bloody thing hadn’t been in your kitchen and probably feral.”

Steve… Delenthor came back down the stairs. “No sign of spousal abuse. He’s good.”

Bingo, knew it. “That’s great! So, can you help me find her now?”

Bob stood up and gestured to Delenthor. “Sorry mate. Not in the job description.” He headed to the front door.

Delenthor paused for a moment. “Mr Farris, there’s no evidence you’ve harmed your wife, but also no evidence she hasn’t just nipped out to the shops or that you’ve had a fight and she’s gone to her mother’s for a bit. Maybe give it a bit, I’m sure she’ll be home for dinner.”

Did this idiot just imply my MISSING WIFE is like a cat that didn’t come home overnight? “Right you are officer, I’ll just clean up around here and wait for Aimee to come home.” I followed them to the door and closed it firmly behind them. ACAB.