> “Level 38. Feels good.”

* Stonemuncher,

“I don’t understand, sir. No one’s gone across the Great Ocean. The Glorious Kingdom stretches as far as any man has right or reason to travel.”

“Frankly, Mr. Olton, I don’t think it’s your business where a bequeathed Lord travels or why.” The response came to Garston’s lips quickly, and it was enunciated clearly, said with that pompous, airy bent of someone who considered themself better than all of it. He then licked his lips, blinked hard, and genuinely answered. “Sorry, old instincts die hard. It’s a good question, Mr. Olton, it really is. After all, most men don’t get more than a few dozen miles from their home over the course of their lives, and are quite happy with it. But some, some have an itch, a urge, a emptiness inside them they want to fill, that can only be satiated by traveling near and far, to all kinds of places. You’re a for a reason, Mr. Olton, and I’m traveling for a reason. We’ve got a lot in common that way.” His explanation was an eloquent lie; the truth was that he needed to get as far away from the heartlands and discovery as possible. But Brance Olton didn’t need to know that. In his own eyes, he was just a low-level agreeing, for a hefty sum, to transport an eccentric rural lord going through a midlife crisis to his seasonal home.

Brance Olton hadn’t ever surpassed level 10; he was happy enough to be humble, average, and altogether unthreatening and boring. He had survived more than sixty years traveling all across the Glorious Kingdom by not getting himself overly involved in anything in particular, and planned to continue his previous plan of behavior for, ideally, another decade or two before retiring and living out his final days in a little cottage, and donating what little he had in savings to the nearest orphanage. A simple, tidy life.

It was then quite surprising for him when an arrow thunked into his skull, and another one sent a wave of burning pain through his torso. He garbled out some kind of desperate prayer, and collapsed over the side of the cart, face pale. The goats he had been holding the reins of spooked and ran.

Meanwhile, Garston was thrown from the cart and landed, hard, on the mucky road, dirty water splashing all over him. “Boy, ain’t he dressed nicely, lads?” One of the, presumably, called out, with dark chuckles as his response. Out of the dark night, a trio of archers approached, still distant, with two of them, each standing off to the side of the third, a bigger, meaner looking archer.

“I’m called Feldspar ‘round these parts, buckaroo. You’re a Lord or Baron or some such, there’s no denying it. I s’spect you’ve got a right nice sum of coin in your purse, don’t ye?”

Garston made a quiet sound.

“What was that, prince man?”

Garston looked up, made muddy, eyes with deep gray bags under them, clean, expensive clothes stained and wet, and just let out a strangled laugh. “It’s all an illusion, you fool. It’s all an elaborate trick, a collective hallucination. Likely a dream. I just need to wake up.”

One of the lesser bandit-archers turned to the larger and muttered: “Sounds cracked, boss. We should just take ‘is money and go. No need to get mixed up with crazy.”

“Here, you want money? Have it.” The former tore off his coin purse and threw it weakly toward the trio, where it fell halfway between the three and himself. “None of it’s real anyway.”

ERROR

ERROR

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removed.

Level reset initiated

Calibrating!

“Oh, that’s funny.” He laughed, and it became manic. “Take away my levels, my class, everything I’ve fought and bled and wept and worked for, prayed for, everything I’ve done. Steal it away with a thought, with a glance, with barely a modicum of effort. What next? Have your puppets shoot me dead, defenseless, in the dark? My only question is-- why not do it sooner? Why all the games, all the tricks? Why not just smite me, and my friends, down, as soon as we got even an inkling of the bigger picture?”

Calibrating!

“Calibrating? Is the Grand Clockwork stuttering along? Are you even listening? Is all of this just an automatic little device to distract me?”

Calibrating!

“Fine. I don’t want answers from you. The Great Machine of Creation is broken anyway. It’s ruled by six shitty tinpot narcissists who can’t even keep everything running smoothly, apparently.”

In a daze, laughing madly, Garston stumbled forward. “It’s all fake, right? So if I can move a rock, and throw it, if they can just take away all my levels in here, I might as well- heh.” He stumbled over to the big archer, who took a step back and raised his bow. “Get back, you mad idiot, before you get yourself k--” Garston ran forward, and grabbed his wrist. “Gimme ‘em.”

The Archer stared in shock and anger. “What are y--”

ERROR

ERROR

Incompat---

ERROR

Then, like a rubber band snapping, each chime tumbled through.

Level 14 seized!

gained!

gained!

gained!

gained!

And on and on.

“Huh. It’s just that easy.” Garston mused out loud idly.

“What? What did you DO?” The big archer, now two inches shorter and his muscles much less developed, shouted, scrambling back.

“Just pushed at the mist. This’ll do for now.” Garston stretched, testing his new musculature. “Although… We’ll see.”

“I don’t know what the hell you are, but I don’t want any part of it.” The formerly large archer said, sprinting away from him, quickly followed by his two cronies.

Walking along the road in the direction of his destination, the rain began to pour down harder. “I am a at heart, you know.” He said to the wind. “Though living in the North, I learned to endure the elements pretty well.”

Calibrating!

“I got frostbite, once, when Oakchild forced me out into the cold after I ‘talked back to him’ as a ‘lesson in humility.’ I had a shirt and trousers on, and not much else. Not even a thin jacket. It was snowing hard outside, and the cold got into my bones. Three minutes I stood out there, shivering, losing feeling in my nose and fingers and toes, before he dragged me back in and allowed me to warm up. He was a horrible man, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

Calibrating!

“He said I had the fortitude to be a , a even, but that as a I would be able to do so much more. I would cure illnesses, clean wounds, save lives-- maybe even end death. That was him and his old college buddies’ dream. Curing death. A fat lot of good it did him, though.”

Calibrating!

Translating…

New Class created!

Level 24 attained!

Talent Suites unlocked!

+ + + + =

Talent merges unlocked!

+ =

+ =

“So 24 levels in , and 14 in . Not bad for a day’s work. The only question is: how do I wake up?”