The world was no longer safe. Technology still existed, but society was fractured and gone. At least, as far as Frank could tell. He hadn’t actually been anywhere yet, but looking out the windows all he could see was wreckage on the freeway, burnt out husks of cars and those few unlucky enough to be in an accident before they could be teleported out.

He squinted, leaning closer to the window. Is there something moving down there? Are there still people?

A shape moved stolidly between vehicles, largely obscured and keeping low. As the embers of fire still on the road continued to glow, the shape stepped out of cover. Several others moved with it. Frank gasped, jerking away from the window.

It was a group of deer- rather, it had been a group of deer at one point. Just like the squirrel he’d put out of its misery, these deer were twisted in odd ways. Unlike the squirrel, however, these deer had rather minor changes. They looked a bit rougher around the edges, with darker fur and some brutal hooves. These were not the kind of hooves to go clippity-cloppity through the forest. These hooves would crunch through bone with ease.

If ever there were a species of deer known to be predatory, it would be these.

If that’s what’s lurking outside, I feel a bit better about this mess.

He turned back to his impromptu crafts desk. He’d scavenged up an assortment of supplies from the building, anything that looked useful and anything that looked deadly. The second pile was far smaller.

He swiped open the description of his new Skill.

[Enchanting]

Enchanting uses [Resource Type] to magically infuse intent into an object.

Higher levels of proficiency allow for more nuanced intent.

It was vague, but Frank had played a video game or two. He had some preconceived notions to work with. The first of which being that this is where he would unlock mana as a usable resource. He popped open his stats page.

I have… Health and stamina.

He tried to scroll down on the page. It didn’t budge.

Only health and stamina. Getting the Skill didn’t unlock my mana pool, so that must mean I have to use the Skill first. Easy enough.

He reached out, grabbing a sheet of paper from a fresh ream. They’re no iron daggers, but these’ll do.

“[Enchanting].”

The Skill description popped up again. He waited expectantly, but nothing else happened.

Grunting, he swiped it away. “Okay, so I have to activate it in some other way. Let’s see… I have to ‘infuse intent into an object’. Maybe…”

He held the sheet in front of himself, gripping it on either side. He stared at it intently. Become tough. Become rigid. Become tough…

He stood there, glaring holes into his sheet for a minute or so. I don’t think this is doing anything. He tried to tear the paper, and it split with little resistance. Damn.

“So, I’m not gonna get mana just because I have [Enchanting]. Which means I need to use one of the resources I do have to do this… and I have no idea how I would use stamina for it.” He glanced warily at the boxcutter on the table.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Probably don’t need to go that far, right? He took a peek out the window again. The deer were still wandering around amidst the wreckage on the road. As he watched, one of the larger ones kicked at a large chunk of twisted metal, sending it skidding off.

Maybe just a little cut to start. Heart rate rising, he slid the blade across his palm lightly, grimacing. He let the blood pool into a mug he’d found on someone's desk. Looking at his stat page, he saw his health pool ticking down slowly.

With a small pool of blood in his mug, he quickly stamped his hand on his next sheet, palm open, leaving a bloody handprint. “Be tough. Be rigid.” As he said the words, he felt a small tugging, like he had a hook stuck in his wound, pulling some measure of energy out of his palm.

There was a crackling as the bloodstains in the paper almost seemed to shift, and Frank excitedly grabbed the paper up, feeling that it was stiff– until it wasn’t. Shortly after he stopped trying to send his intent for the Skill, it collapsed back to regular paper.

He stared at it for a moment, confused. Is [Enchanting] different in the System? How I understand it, it’s supposed to last longer. It feels like as soon as I stop communicating my intent, it just ends.

He cocked his head. Communicate? Maybe that’s what I’m missing. He set another sheet down, and gently dipped his finger into the mug of blood. Carefully, he wrote on the sheet ‘Rigid’. Almost immediately he felt the same kind of tugging, centered more on the blood in the mug, almost as if it was giving him a phantom limb sensation from the blood he’d spilled. The sheet crackled as the magic kicked in, and he could see it stiffen, every little wrinkle preserved.

After a few seconds passed, he tapped the sheet on the table. It was still solid.

Frank grinned. “I think I can work with this. Let’s see what we can slap together.”

Some time and several small experiments later, Frank had several enchanted sheets of paper, each with a single word on them. The few times he’d tried to add more, the blood he’d used to place the enchantments suddenly and violently tore free of the paper.

He looked over the things he’d found in the office, and considered his options. There wasn’t anything here that he could really call a ‘weapon’. The closest he had were some scissors. There was an abundance of office supplies, and he’d found quite a few boxes throughout the building, but there had been nothing of interest in most of them.

Humming thoughtfully, he tried to shift his perspective. True, these were run of the mill tools of any good corporate drone, but he had access to magic now. If I can’t whip up a weapon and a full suit of armor from the bits and bobs left by corporate drudgery, how can I ever face the wildlife in righteous combat?

He stopped a moment, caught by the thought. It would have been insanity yesterday, but now he was making jokes to cope with the reality of the situation. He chuckled, and turned back to the crafts.

If I wanted to make some armor, how would I even go about it? He grabbed the ‘Durable’ sheet, using it as an improvised mitten to protect his hand from the ‘Sharp’ paper. Apparently amplifying the cutting power of paper made the edges practically lethal, and he’d learned that the hard way.

“If I avoid adding multiple enchantments to things, maybe I can just connect a bunch of pieces together?”

Experimentally, he stacked two sheets on top of each other, and thoroughly stapled them on the edges. With the two secured to each other, he folded them in half, lengthwise to form a wedge. He flipped it over and wrote ‘rigid’ on the sheet that was inside the angle formed. Then, he placed a ‘durable’ paper towel roll in the wedge and secured it in place with ‘durable’ duct tape. As a finishing touch, he wrote ‘sharp’ on the wedge.

He hefted his cardboard-paper axe dubiously. It didn’t feel particularly magical. He swung it at the table.

With little effort, the paper axe buried itself into the furniture.

A notification appeared in front of him.

You have unlocked [Fabrication]

You have a knack for crafting what you need from what you have.

Due to use of [Enchanting], Skill [Fabrication] upgraded to [Artificer]

Infusing intent into an object is one thing; Infusing intent into an object that is purpose-built?

Welcome to new horizons.

Frank looked at the office scraps in front of him with new eyes. “Time to learn some origami.”