“Your majesty.” The King heard but didn’t acknowledge.

“Your Majesty!” This time, the Elven King raised his head.

He looked around like he didn’t recognize where he was. His queen also bore the same traits of movement that indicated she was likewise confused at her surroundings. They sat upon golden thrones with tall backs. The thrones sat upon a dais around a meter above the polished white marble of the floor of the throne room. Massive columns of the same glorious marble with gold inlay marched along the sides of the throne room. They held up a ceiling that stretched at least ten to fifteen meters up.

An elf in court garb held a blanket wrapped corpse. He was bowed over the corpse, waiting to be acknowledged. He’d been warned that the King and Queen were ill. They’d lived for thousands of years so just the thought of them physically discomforted was painful to most everyone in the court.

The King finally spoke. “Why do you carry a dead unicorn foal into my throne room?” Everyone could tell the King was attempting to be upset about the incident. However, he barely had enough conscious will to simply realize what was happening.

“It was born still, your majesty.” The elf stated, his eyes downcast. A message such as this to the King of old would have brought thundering rage and swift action.

“Ah.” The King remarked while everyone in the throne room stared at the foal. Terror clamped a fist around the hearts of all in the throne room. “It seems the time has finally come.”

The King slowly creaked into a standing position and held out his hand for his wife. Her wan smile showed she barely knew what was happening. It didn’t stop her from taking his hand and standing up from her throne.

“The world of men has left us so bereft of magic that the most noble of magical creatures no longer have enough mana to live. I am sorry, my good and noble elves. I have failed you.” The King stepped toward the edge of the dais as he spoke the words he’d been dreading and foreseeing for centuries.

He was about to step down from the dais when a cry from the back was heard. All eyes, even the rheumy eyes of the old elven King sought and found the source of the cry.

“Your Majesty, if I may?” The voice called, now loud and clear due to silence and general shock that someone had interrupted the King.

“I am not who I was, or I would have you flayed for breathing without my approval.” The King growled, his eyes showing a shadow of their old ferocity. After a breath, he calmed. “I don’t have the energy to smite you, so we all might as well hear what is so urgent.”

A light twitter of laughter swept the hall. The elf that had spoken out of turn stumbled through the gathered courtiers until he was bowing to the King.

The elven King chuckled. “Now he bows.”

Another slightly louder chuckle. The King sighed. “Stand and speak, elf. Even the undying have limits to patience.” Louder chuckle.

“Yes, your majesty.” The absent-minded appearing elf nodded. “I think I’ve found a solution. Recently I’ve been reading the fiction of the humans-.”

“No wonder you’ve shown such flagrant disrespect for this court.” The King snorted. Now the courtiers were laughing freely. Finally, the King thought to himself. He waved a hand for the elf to continue.

“Yes, well, um, your majesty, it seems there might be a way to reintroduce magic into their world. There are these books called apocalypse litrpg…” ***

Dale Stevens barely twinged when the giant white light blasted through him and everything else around him. Years of having no warning and suddenly being in the middle of hell on earth were normal for him. At least for who he used to be when he worked as a logistics specialist for boat teams and other Navy special operations units.

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He'd been retired for a few years now. That didn’t roll back years of training and experience, however.

His car was dead. That was the first thing he realized. The second was that he was barreling down Dave Lyle boulevard at forty miles an hour. Looking around him, he smoothly slowed the car and pulled it to the side of the road.

Dale had been travelling west along Dave Lyle on his way home from stopping by the Buffalo Wild Wings. He’d been hungry after his college class let out and figured he might as well top off his gas tank while he was at it.

A blue screen popped up in front of his face.

DRIVING SKILL UNLOCKED.

Dale cursed, “Shit. Things were just starting to get interesting.” His business venture he’d been working on with his friends was just finishing up an app they were about to release. His last semester, he’d successfully finished with a four-oh. He was only four weeks into this most recent semester and his grades so far were perfect.

"Alright, let's see if it's as bad as I think it is. Status!" Nothing happened. "Okay smart ass, Character sheet!"

A giant blue screen appeared in front of his face:

STR:0, INT:0, DEX:0, CHA:0, CON:0, WIS:0

Skills: Driving

HP: 20

MP: 00

STA: 20

“Yep, I’m stuck in a gamelit novel. A lazy one too!” Dale growled while starting at the sky. He looked down and picked up his phone. “Dead as a door knob.”

Dale looked around and saw a couple minor fender benders. The highway and the airport were going to be the worst off. Dale didn’t even want to think of how many people were about to die just so some lame asshole could try and get some readers on Royal Road or even worse build up a fricking Patreon following. Probably put his stuff on Kindle fricking unlimited just like the army of wanna be writers out there chasing their dreams.

After a moment, he stepped out of his car and shut the door, then locked it. He’d slung his backpack onto his back and growled to himself about having to WALK back to his house.

“Twenty miles! Twenty fricking miles I have to walk to amuse your audience you no-talent hack!” Dale said another few curse words under his breath.

NEW QUEST: SAVE THE FAMILY!

Dale flung his hand up and swept away the blue screen. Looking around, he spotted two things that looked like freaking gremlins pulling on the door handles of an SUV.

Dale jogged to the back of his car and opened the trunk the old fashion way of using a key. He pulled out the tire iron and tossed his backpack into the trunk before closing it. Then he sorta sprinted, sorta stumbled down the road toward the SUV being assaulted by the little shits.

“Hey assholes!” Dale cried while waving his arms.

SAD TAUNT SKILL UNLOCKED.

HALF-ASS WALKING SKILL UNLOCKED.

“Minimize you dickwad!” Dale cried. The two blue screens shrunk to a corner. He knew they were there, they just weren’t in his field of vision.

The two gremlins turned out to be three gremlins.

Dale screamed and charged one, swinging wild and managing to clip the little green, scaly monster. He teetered for a second before feeling sharp pains in his shin.

“Little bastard bit me!” Dale swung down and hit the monster dead center on his ear. There was a crack and the little beast swayed a couple times before tumbling and lying still.

The one he clipped was just coming around. Dale had his bearings now so the iron smashed into the gremlin’s neck. It slumped to the ground. The last one looked at Dale, looked at its friends, looked back and Dale, then sprinted away on all fours like a monkey.

“Lizard monkey fucker!” Dale cried, brandishing his tire iron at it. He looked down at his shin. “Damn it! If I’d have KNOWN some lazy hack was gonna write my life into a poor excuse for a story today, I would have worn PANTS!”

“Sir? Are you okay?” A timid voice asked him. The woman driving the SUV had her door open a little bit and was staring at him.

“Yeah.” Dale nodded. “Look, you guys need to find shelter. Those gremlins are only the beginning if what I’m thinking is happening is happening.”

“What’s happening?” She asked, turning to glance at what looked to be a five-year-old in the backseat of her SUV. “My phone isn’t working and the car won’t start back up!”

By the end of the sentence, she was starting to shriek.

Dale grimaced, shot a dirty look at the sky, then walked over. He kept his voice quiet and soothing. “Ma’am, for now, you won’t have technology. For a little while, people are gonna be scrambling to figure out a way to get life back to a semblance of what it was before all this. Best to grab some supplies and hunker down.”

“Can, Can you help us get home?” She asked.

Dale sighed. “Look, Academy Sports is right over there. I’m about to go rob them blind. Feel free to come along if you want.”

“Oh my god! You’re bleeding!” She stared at his shin in horror. The little boy in the back started to cry again.

Dale waved them down. “It’s fine. I have plot armor. This shit ain’t gonna kill me.” He turned a nasty look to the sky. “Hurt like hell!” He looked back to the woman. “But not gonna kill me. They have First Aid kits in Academy.” He started walking toward the large sporting goods store. The woman grabbed her purse and her son and followed him.