Endless rows of glowing aquariums, empty boxes, and wet floor signs marked the polished concrete floor. Fluorescent lights, dimmed to make the late-night effort more comfortable, flickered. What few empty cardboard boxes scattered on the ground were cleaned up, stowed under arm, and hauled back to the access hall. None chose the late-night shift at Aquarium Warehouse Bonanza, but one always seemed to get the job.
Ethan rested his hand on the light switch, looking back on his good work with pride. Clean floors weren’t in his job description, but that hadn’t stopped him in the past. A tired hand flicked the switch, killing the overhead lights. Only the soft glow of the tanks was left, casting a bars of light over the slick floor. Just because a job was boring, because it was considered the worst job, didn’t mean it had to be done poorly. Labor was its own reward.
Overstock still needed to find its way to the back room. Still needed to be placed among the endless rows of ornaments, substrate, and other things these enthusiasts insisted on buying. Ethan hefted a box, groaning under its weight as he left the main floor of the shop. Off into that crowded, dingy hallway to find the storeroom. The hall itself was nothing special, some exterior-facing length of concrete that was never heated. His breath caught in the air as he made his way down the long hall, feet slipping on the slick ground.
The box shifted, and the man nearly pitched over. A constant complaint that never found resolution. But at this late hour, with the solitude of the fish, he was at home. Deep-treaded boots saw his journey safe, although he slipped a few more times. Nestling the box among its peers, Ethan sat on a pile of package aquarium rocks. Like always, the notifications on his phone were empty. This vampiric lifestyle had squeezed the life out of his friendships, his family life suffering just as badly.
But there was a welcoming party waiting for him at home. A warm bed, fifteen minutes of whatever junk he found to watch, then the embrace of sleep. Alone, he counted time in hours. Not minutes. Without customers to bother him, his shift bled into one long nocturnal labor, ending only when the fear of driving those icy roads became a reality. The small hours of the morning saw more mistakes than one was likely to commit otherwise.
Like swapping those boots for worn-down sneakers. No laces, no support, just a pair of old skating shoes that hadn’t seen use in their purpose. Ethan’s tired hands removed the waterproof apron, stowing it under arm with his boots. Black ice was impossible to detect near the service exit. With a turn of a key, and a normally skilled spin, his feet were removed from beneath him.
“Whoops.”
The only sound Ethan Stout made before slipping. He heard his head smashing against the ground. Even felt the phantom pain of the injury, but blackness overtook him before his senses caught up. Time, as was often the case, meant nothing on the night shift. So time, when he cracked his skull open, lost all meaning. A swirling black sense of nothing, only punctuated by the occasional glint of something silver in the distance. Moments could have passed, or minutes, but that light grew closer.
“Squirrel,” Ethan said, finally spotting something tangible within the light. His voice echoed through the void.
A small, silver squirrel-like creature bounded through the darkness. Where it jumped, puddles of white light were left behind. It gave a landscape to the endless void. Some kind of comfort drawn from emptiness. Ethan’s mind couldn’t piece together why the critter brought a sense of warmth with it. He got a better look at the little guy. Ears like those fancy red squirrels, ending with great tufts of fur, but with dangling baubles of light. A face more narrow than most he’d seen, a pair of cute little fangs accenting the face. The tail was bushy enough to be a squirrel’s, even with the wisp of fur that curled on its back. Stubby little legs, paws ending in faint claws, it seemed more like a predator.
“Come,” the squirrel said.
Ethan wasn’t sure if squirrels could talk. A moment in the void made that a distinct possibility, so he rose to his feet. Looking down, he realized he didn’t have feet. Not exactly. He had lengths of shadowy appendages, and a shadowy torso as well. His flabby body was gone, replaced with a slight thing made of condensed darkness. The sensation was otherworldly, as though he were little more than smoke. He followed the glowing creature.
They walked through the void for an eternity. Or the blink of an eye. It was impossible to tell. A silver path led them through twists and turns, over invisible hills and through unseeable valleys. Until a glimmer of something emerged far in the distance. Too distant to be his home, but warm. Warmer than the dead of winter outside the fish store. Ethan’s life felt like an island, back there in the void. An impossibly far thing that stretched his memory.
“Go,” the squirrel said, gesturing with a paw. “Through.”
It was as good an idea as any, so Ethan obeyed. He stepped through the void, over an obstacle he couldn’t see, and into the colorful landscape. The world whipped by in a whirlwind of sights and sounds. Colors stretched out into thin lines, stretching out to fill the void in an instant. Then he stumbled, tumbling onto hard stone and prickly overgrowth.
In a flood, Ethan’s senses came back to him. Fear sent his heart thumping hard in his chest, filling his ears with a rhythmic terror. He counted the seconds out, controlling his breath. He took stock of where he was. The ruins around him looked similar to old Maya ruins, overgrown and constructed from massive blocks of stone. Pillars were crumbled, turned to dust in spots, while ornate steles hung in various states of decay; on the wall, the ground, or propped against those disintegrating pillars.
Silver light spun out of nothingness. The squirrel.
“My temple,” the creature said, gesturing with a free paw. Everywhere the creature walked, it left behind a puddle of pulsing silver. Each word radiated a sense of comfort that banished the fear away.
These people really liked squirrels. Enough to build a temple to the glowing silver one. The longer Ethan lingered there, the more he liked the squirrel. Despite his sudden shift into the forest, he was feeling good about himself. And the squirrel. And the ruins.
“She’s a fixer-upper,” Ethan said, finding the noise his voice made to be foreign. He understood the words, but the sounds were strange.
Lucantele gaze off into the distance for some time, sagging for a moment before righting himself. He turned, shifting that silver-eyed gaze to Ethan.
“You’re dead.”
“Really?”
“I’ll rephrase. You died.”
Ethan rose to his feet and looked around. He pinched his arm, finding the pain to be quite real, and shrugged the thought away. Remembering the slip on the ice, he had trouble being mad. The squirrel was cool. The temple was cool. Even the plants growing near the temple were neat. They looked exotic. Dangling parts of leaves, multi-colored and entirely without function, set them apart from what he had seen. Especially in winter.
“I’m… having trouble with that,” Ethan said, rubbing his arm where it still hurt.
The squirrel let out a frustrated breath, although Ethan doubted it breathed. “I’m Lucantele. Great Spirit of this temple.”
“Hi, Luca. I’m Ethan. Nice to meet you.”
Luca floated on the spot, hovering until their nose was pressing up against Ethan’s. It stayed there for some time before speaking again. “What do you desire? In life.”
Philosophy with a squirrel was the last thing he expected for the day. He thought of things to say that would impress the spirit. Ethan didn’t understand the significance of his situation, but he knew lying to a floating silver squirrel had no merit. Boiling his desires down to a single phrase, he spoke.
“I want to do my best.”
Luca cocked its head. “That’s all?”
“I figure you’d know if I lied,” Ethan said, leaning in to press his nose against the spirit’s. It was warm, like a nice hot bath. The sensation radiated outward from his nose, covering his body in a strong sense of comfort.
“You’re right,” Luca said. “I’m releasing the system-restriction on your soul. Don’t leave the temple until you understand your new abilities. Follow the tutorial, but be careful. I must rest.”
Without further posturing, Luca vanished from the spot. Ethan felt a rush of something spreading through his body. It started in his chest, where a faint pain flared. Then it spread through him like an oncoming tide, surging through him without remorse. No sound came when he opened his mouth to shout against the pain. The boots, still tucked firmly under his arm, thudded to the ground. Then he did.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Waking in a cold sweat, Ethan found he was still alive. It would have been a shame to die twice in the same day, so he was grateful. He blinked, trying to remove the smudge in his vision. But the more he blinked, the clearer it became. A box, floating and following where his eyes darted.
“A… quest?” he asked. No one answered.
[Learn The Ropes]
Quest
Description:
Welcome, outworlder! You died!
At 5:35AM (Eastern Local Time), February 4th 2009, your body was discovered at Aquarium Warehouse Bonanza. Cause of death: slip and fall!
Isn’t that exciting?
The Great Spirit Lucantele has vouched for your transfer to Avansea. The Great Spirit of Hope has blessed you with their power.
Neat!
Avansea is a system-world, which means you need to understand how the system works. If you don’t, you’re likely to die. Open your various system interfaces. Don’t just open and close them. Read the stuff that’s there, or you’re going to get stabbed by a goblin.
Objectives:
Open your status screen.
Open your core screen within the status screen.
Open your quest screen.
There was no way to decline the quest. But there was a lot of information to parse within the quest. He really had died on Earth, and now he was in another world? His mind spun, trying to come to grips with that information. Luca had vouched for him, but what did that mean? And he had interfaces. Assuming those were like the quest box, still hovering in his vision, he took a moment.
Ethan wouldn’t see his friends and family if this was another world. He’d died outside that stupid fish store. Unaccomplished in life with too many things left to do. But that was a good thing, wasn’t it? A chance to start over again. Maybe find a decent job in this world, one that let him see the sun. A sense of resolute determination filled his mind.
“This is a good thing,” he said. The words were a great comfort.
Ethan scratched at his chest. Through the Aquarium Warehouse Bonanza shirt, to the place that radiated a dull pain. It took him longer than he would admit to understand how the screens work. They functioned off of intent, so the quest screen only closed when he willed it to. Sitting on a fallen slab of stone, he worked out how to open his status screen. Like the quest prompt, a floating interface crowded his vision. There was a circular button labeled “cores”, and a list of information about himself.
[Ethan Stout]
Outworlder Human
Caller
Rank 0
Level 1
Health
54
Mana
140
Strength
1
Vigor
2
Agility
3
Mind
8
Affinity
5
Health Regen
5
Mana Regen
9
The attributes reminded him of video games. Or those table-top games he remembered from school. The ones that over-reaching parents said were born of the devil. Without context, it was just a smear of information that meant nothing to him. He felt the quest moving forward though. It was as though a bell rang in his mind. A satisfying chime he wanted to feel again. He clicked the circular button, finding a new screen. This one had a circle, a cage of metal from where a light spilled onto the screen. There was a smaller circle that was empty, but he found he could mentally click on the big one. Another screen popped up.
[Caller’s Core]
Mythic
Summoner-Style Core
Rank
0
Level
1
Description:
Dedicated to the Great Spirits of the land, callers may tap into a fraction of their power. Through their deep connection with the Great Spirits, Callers may call upon symbols to fight for a time.
Callers may view their available summons, based on which Great Spirit’s favor they’ve earned, but may not use normal spellcraft unless supported by a sub-core.
Latent Effects:
Double base mana.
Mana regen scales with Mind.
“Caller,” Ethan repeated.
That’s what Luca was talking about. So Ethan could call on Luca for help, and… something would happen? It wasn’t clear, but the description of the [Caller’s Core] said he could view his available summons. Assuming he had the squirrel’s favor, he should be able to do something with that? It was unclear. Poking around for a while, he found a screen within the [Caller’s Core] where he had a list of his available summons. Lucantele was the only one present.
[Lucantele]
Spirit of Hope
Bond Level
1
Bond Rank
0
Mana Cost
Medium
Perpetuation Cost
Low
Description:
Lucantele is the Great Spirit of Hope. He is known for bolstering the hearts of those who have lost hope, often appearing at the end of a rainbow. Finding him is said to bring good luck.
Abilities:
[Claw]
“I don’t see any rainbows. But boy do I feel hopeful,” Ethan said, chuckling. The temple didn’t laugh at the joke, but he wouldn’t hold it against the building. Crumbling had a way of dulling one’s humor.
The quest screen in the interface only held the [Learning the Ropes] quest. Once he opened the screen, he saw it roll over to completed. The interface closed itself, opening a new quest in its place.
[Summon Lucantele]
Quest
Description:
As a [Caller], you have the ability to call on summons to help you in battle. Your summoning ability is limited to those Great Spirits you’ve formed a pact with.
To cast a spell, you merely need to focus on that spell for a certain amount of time. The cast times of spells varry, but summon-style spells have high cast times. If you take a sub-core that specializes in spells, you’ll gain a different system for spellcasting.
Objectives:
Cast the [Summon Lucantele] spell.
Easy enough. So long as this interface thing took care of the hard work, Ethan only needed to focus. His first few attempts failed. After poking around in the interface, he found a “spellbook” within his [Caller’s Core]. Viewing the spell seemed enough to solidify the concept in his mind. He rose to his feet, closing his eyes and feeling the spell. Like Lucantele himself, it was like a warm blanket of hope. Something drained within him, a status bar appearing in his lower-left vision, when motes of silver light flowed off him like a river.
After about 15 seconds of casting, a silver circle appeared on the ground. It filled with Luca’s light, then the silver squirrel jumped out. Before he got a good look at the creature, another quest window popped up.
[Kill Something!]
Quest
Description:
You got all the tools. You’re a badass summoner. Go outside and kill something!
Objectives:
Defeat any enemy.
Reward:
Rank 0 [Caller] specific weapon.
Ethan banished the window, only to find two versions of the creature standing before him.
“We call these our Symbols,” Luca said, gesturing to his copy. “Notice how your mana is draining.”
The status bar in the bottom right, containing a red bar for health and a blue bar for mana, was draining. The number read 99, compared to his pool of 140 mana. It ticked down, draining a single mana point per second.
“Dismiss the copy,” Luca said.
With a thought, the copy of the Great Spirit created another circle of silver. It jumped inside, vanishing and ceasing the mana drain.
Luca hopped over, staring up at Ethan. “Watch your mana.”
Ethan counted out five seconds, then watched as his mana jumped up by 9 points. That would be the [Mana Regen] attribute he saw on his screen. Which meant keeping his summon out drained more mana than he could get back. But there were other questions lingering in his mind. More than the weird game-like world.
“Why me?” Ethan asked. “Why did you bring me from Earth… If this is an entirely different world, why did you rope me in?”
“Your spirit called to me,” Luca said. “It reached out through the void. An unfulfilled voice I couldn’t ignore. It’s happened in the past, but you felt different.”
“To what end?”
Luca didn’t respond immediately. He stared, pensive. “Practice with my Symbol. Understand how your attributes work before you leave. Then complete the quest. Eat the red fruit on the trees to the north. Return to my temple if you need direction.”
“Alright, I’ll just…” Ethan started, but the Great Spirit was gone. “Eat fruit. I really like fruit.”
The Great Spirit’s advice wasn’t bad, though. Ethan had subsisted on little more than junk since he started the night shift. Why he couldn’t have gotten a new body, one without the flab, was beyond him. Without a mirror, he could only see his torso. That stupid logo from the bonanza. At least he had boots.
Exploring the temple was fun enough. There were sections that screamed danger, so he avoided those. He edged toward an exit, shimmying around a fallen pillar to find the sun burning bright in the sky above. There were no fruit trees here, but a sense of vindication spread through him. The temple was a pyramid. Exactly like those flat-topped ones he’d seen online belonging to the Maya. The ground floor of the temple held a massive room, a central pillar resting in the center. Outside of that area, a webwork of rooms snaked through the place. Stairways, rotten wooden doors, and alcoves were etched into the walls.
It must have been beautiful in its day. Now, it was a mess of ruined stone and cracked tablets. Heading back into the temple, Ethan found an entrance blocked. He tried another, then the last one. Stretching into the distance were short trees, bright red fruit growing in their boughs. Rubbing his hands together, the new Caller made his way out onto those fields.