The world around Dave spun and he suddenly found himself standing on a hill. Green plains stretched to the horizon. An ocean of leaves dancing in the wind and a bright blue sky above it. A single dark mountain rose far in the distance, Dave had to strain to even see it. Turning around Dave saw a tiny village, maybe ten huts with thatch roofs, nothing too interesting.

What was interesting though, was the person Dave found himself next to. A black hood drawn over the man’s head, hiding his face. He held a bow in his hands, an arrow at the ready. The arrow had a golden head, its feathers bore the same golden color and elegant patterns decorated the shaft. It was fine craftsmanship indeed, probably worth a lot too.

“Huh he has no quiver,” Dave thought to himself “How odd.” Dave was scared to say something, not wanting to interrupt the archer's focus. Besides, he somehow knew he couldn’t interact with the archer, Dave didn’t really feel here. The archer seemed to be waiting, his concentration never lingering.

Following his gaze Dave suddenly noticed the mountain in the distance moving. He hadn’t noticed it before because of how slow it moved. But minute by minute it got bigger and bigger, until Dave thought he could make out a rough humanoid shape.

He shook his head a few times not believing his eyes. This didn’t look like a mountain. There were a few fantasy creatures Dave could think of. Was this a giant? It took another few seconds for the realization that the giant was moving towards them to sink in. And with it panic sunk into Dave as well.

Dave almost wanted to run before he remembered he was only here in a vision. Then he looked back at the village. Somebody had to warn these people. A sudden voice came out of nowhere and interrupted him.

“As we’ve told you there are many extraordinary creatures in the different Mana Planes. Many of them don’t want well. But with embracing Mana you have tools to use against them.”

Just as the voice finished speaking, the archer let his arrow loose. It soared through the air impossibly fast, leaving a glowing tail through the air. One moment the archer was concentrating with his arrow ready, the next he just stood there and started slinging his bow over his shoulder. Dave was lucky he didn’t blink or else he would’ve missed it.

Dave looked back at the horizon but he couldn’t make out the dark form anymore, only the glowing tail left by the arrow indicating the giant's direction. Had the archer really shot something from this far? It must’ve been a coincidence. This thing had been at least a mile away. Yet the archer slung his bow over his shoulder and turned to walk away.

Just as Dave wanted to say something he suddenly found himself floating a few dozen meters in the air. Looking down he first thought he saw just a weirdly shaped mountain range. Looking closer Dave could describe what he saw only as a dead giant. It was a vaguely humanoid shape, although at least forty meters tall.

A single arrow probed out of its chest.

Dave immediately knew this was no coincidence otherwise the vision wouldn’t have shown it to him. Indeed investigating the arrow he got proof. The arrow slaying the giant was golden tipped and feathered with elegant drawings.

The archer had really felt a giant in one shot. Dave was deeply impressed. Was this the sort of power that Mana could give you?

The world around Dave switched a few more times. He saw a woman, leaping down from an impossibly tall tree, falling multiple hundreds of meters before transforming into a falcon and soaring away through the air.

He saw a whole field of grain being grown and collected only a few minutes. A house being built by a single person carrying logs that even modern machinery would struggle with. And a sword fight between two people, their weapons moving in a blur. So fast that Dave could only see faint movement and silvery lines in the air.

All of that was impressive, but what caught his attention most were the displays of what he thought of as more traditional magic.

He was shown a person parting the sea like Moses. Another flew high through the air and nailed what looked like Goblins down with created weapons of light. It looked easy to the man and he moved with such elegance that Dave had trouble even noticing the goblins succumbing to his weapons.

Then it switched to the final scene.

The world around Dave started spinning and he suddenly found himself flying high in the air. Beneath him he saw a huge battlefield, it stretched further then he could see, thousands upon thousands of people battling.

He was too high up to see details but he noticed that some of the people down there didn’t look human. They stood too high, with their limbs too long. Just as he was trying to see more, a sudden burst of flame drew his eye towards his left.

A wall of flame had appeared and pushed its way through the battlefield. Inch by inch it crept forward, leaving nothing but ash in its wake. Even high up as he was he could hear the faint cries of panic and agony.

People were scrambling to get away from the wall, trampling over each other but there was no escape. Dave didn’t want to think about how many people were dying, he felt a bit sick, but he couldn’t look away. Just then he noticed a person standing on top of the wall of fire. Casually riding it as if it was merely a pleasant walk in the park.

Dave felt sickened by this casual display of violence. It was a scene of horror but yet he found another emotion inside of him. Awe.

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

And all of a sudden Dave was back in the empty black space. He still couldn’t comprehend all the things he saw. He felt like he was in a movie, yet it all felt so real. At the back of his mind a little voice kept worrying, all of a sudden he wanted that new world way too much.

Before he could think further, the man appeared again.

“You may now speak to a member of the council to answer your questions. Be warned though the time is limited.”

The man paused for a second before continuing. He looked sharper now and he smiled, although the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. This time his voice sounded different and it seemed like he himself was doing the talking now.

“Hello Dave.” the man simply said, his voice was warm but old.

“Whoa you know my name?” Dave admittedly was caught off guard.

“Haha after all you’ve just seen that still surprises you?” he chuckled “Anyways, my name is Reginald. I’m a member of the council assigned to answer this sector's human questions.”

“What does that mean? No wait. I can ask you everything?” Dave asked.

“Yes.”

“You’ve ever wet your bed when you were already way too old for it, so you embarrassingly made an early morning emergency laundry to hide it from your mother, but when she confronted you, you told her some lame excuse about spilling orange juice and it’s just never been the same basis of trust between you two since then?”

The man stared at him, not fully comprehending. “Uh.. what?”

“Ha all good me neither.” Dave clasped his hand at the back of his neck “But man after all you’ve seen that still surprised you?”

A broad smile broke out on the old man's face, this one for real.

“Ha you’re entertaining boy.” he laughed, but regained his composure before continuing “But the council spoke the truth, our time is limited. You should try to learn about the Mana system.”

“Tell me about it then.” Dave shrugged.

“I’m sorry but you have to ask. The Greater Whole prevents us from talking about it, we can only answer questions. There are certain.. uh limits placed on us” the man looked a bit ashamed about that. It made Dave a little worried.

“Ok so how can I get as strong as the people in the vision?” Dave asked the first question on his mind. Ready to be disappointed.

Raising his eyebrows the man answered “Interesting choice. Well it’s hard to say. You must be willing to do the hard things. You have to fight and struggle to grow your skills. The Greater Whole rewards people for taking risks and growing. You’ll need a decent amount of luck too. It’s a struggle between life and death to survive.”

“That's a rather vague man. What exactly does one do to get stronger? How can I do magic stuff like them?”

“Well at the beginning you’ll get a Domain and a skill assigned to you, through working on that Skill and activities linked to your Domain, you can level that Skill to make it grow stronger and learn new Skills. You can also increase your overall Level by either fighting monsters or again working on your Skills.” the man answered immediately. It sounded like he had given that explanation a million times. Who knows, maybe he had.

“That sounds a lot like.. like video games? Levels and Mana? Why is it called like it's out of a video game?” It sounded so simple, yet he doubted it would be.

“Well it’s not called like from a video game, we influenced parts of your culture so you could adapt quicker. So it’s more like the other way around.”

“Whoa that’s cheeky.” and Dave didn’t believe it, to facilitate such a thing, this Council would have to be nearly omnipotent. “What is the best way to grow as strong as the people from the vision with the Skills I get?”

For a brief second the smile on the man’s face reached his eyes again but it quickly retreated again as the monotonous answer came, “I’m sorry but I’m bound by the not to indulge into specifics too much, newly attuned races humans have to learn on their own.”

Dave was disappointed with the way the man dodged the question, but it didn’t hold him for long, he had too many questions ready to burst out. “So tell me more about this Greater Whole. What is it?”

“The Greater Whole is basically just another name for Mana. It is the force behind the unifying on different dimensional planes, that’s why we also call it Greater Whole, but in the end Mana is just a thing, a law of nature.” Dave could tell he was holding something back.

“Didn’t your Council friends say they couldn’t keep us seperated any longer? Why did you even keep us seperated from Mana if it’s just the natural law of things?”

“You have a sharp wit, kid. Most of the time people are too scared and focus on the immediate things. Unfortunately this is very dangerous territory in terms of what I can and can not talk about. Let’s just say that Mana is a fine thing indeed, but it brings with it a certain lifestyle. One that isn’t as peaceful as Earth is probably used to.” he gave Dave a look full of sympathy but Dave had to hold back a chuckle. *Peaceful? I don’t think he really knew what was going on on our world before* he thought to himself.

Half tempted to argue, he still decided to rest the issue and explore another avenue.

“What happened to the missing people and why don’t electronics work?”

“Our best guess is that due to the rising Mana levels, your plane just couldn’t sustain so many unattuned sources. To the best of our knowledge these people are gone now, dissolved in the limbo of Mana. I’m truly and deeply sorry for your loss.

As for your electronic devices, these will have stopped working because Mana interferes with more advanced levels of technology. That’s a thing we don’t fully understand but we’ve seen it happen across multiple worlds.” Again the tone of the man’s voice implied he had answered that question more than once already. But that’s not what caught Dave off guard again.

“Wait multiple worlds?” Dave was more and more shocked.

“Not a good question. But yes. Our time is almost up though so I won’t waste it on that further.” his face looked conflicted before he continued. “We’re not allowed to talk about this freely, but you know I'm about to retire soon anyways. And I like you, boy. It’s not often people still surprise me anymore and God knows, you’ll need all the help you can get. So here’s some advice for you: Be careful of the greater whole. try to keep a sense of good. beware of nipseys.”

After hesitating for a second the man took a step forward and touched Dave’s forehead, a yellowish glow emanated from his hand and a smooth sensation washed over Dave.

“That will hopefully help you, good Luck Dave.”

He took a step back, his warm smile vanishing and then his voice sounded different again. Without missing a beat it began talking again.

“This is all the time we could open to communicate with you. There will be a lot of change not just for your world but for everyone of you individually. Mana has its own underlying system that will explain all the further things to you. Trust what old stories told you. And survive.” With that the man blinked out of existence.