1] A call to arms

Stirring from a light doze, I cracked my eyes open and squinted at the red numbers on the alarm clock until I could make out through my blurred vision that the first number was an eight and not a five.

Which meant I had laid in bed for at least six hours, aside from two shuffling nighttime walks to the bathroom, and it wasn't likely that I was going to get any more sleep.

Not that I was getting up right away. The air in my north facing bedroom was still chilled from the early spring’s chilly night, and the bed was now almost too warm. All too soon however, I would wake up enough to feel everything that was wrong with me as my body started to let me know how much it hurt just to be alive at my age.

I used to reject the saying "Never grow old." since I believed that it beat the alternative, but I've since learned what they meant.

Squirming, I slowly began to bend my knees and elbows to find out what was going to hurt the most today, eventually, I peeled back the sheet and the sleeping bag I had been using as a blanket and pushed my way up until I could set my feet on the floor so that I didn't get too dizzy going from halfway prone to sitting upright.

My right knee, both hips, the lower back, neck, hands, and today for some reason, my left elbow all reported in. Situation normal, it all hurts.

Ignoring the various pains as I sat slumped on the edge of my bed, I took a moment to plan out my day…

Oh yeah. Another birthday.

Seventy five years old, and all alone in this big, old, drafty, and dusty house.

So pretty much like every day for the last five years, except now a whole year older.

[Alert]

“Huh?” I stared at the blue letters hovering in front of the transparent gray square rectangle a few feet in front of my face as they slowly began to fade away. The letters at least.

All of which had been big enough for me to read them without my glasses.

[ Your world has begun to enter the outer edges of a Primordial field ]

[ You call it Dark Matter ]

I blinked at the words and stared at them through blurry eyes. “I do? Since when?”

[ To save your world. The Harvesting process will now begin ]

“It will?”

I reached out my hand at the two new gray squares floating there in front of me, one over the other, running my fingers through the letters made them scatter into little blue dots that shifted around my fingertips and then came back together in front of the gray boxes, which didn't react at all as my hand passed through them.

Then they both faded away before a series of rapidly appearing and fading letters over squares began.

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[ The Primordial field is leftover unprocessed Chaos from the creation of the universe ]

[ It has a caustic effect on processed matter and energy ]

[ What you can call Dungeons will collect and manifest these energies to prevent this causticity ]

[ These manifestations can be harvested through destruction and will empower the Harvesters ]

[ The forms of some of these manifestations will take the shape of hostile entities ]

[ The threat of this hostile entites will encourage Harvesters to harvest this processed energy ]

[ Processing is required so that the energy doesn't build up to dangerous levels ]

I looked around my bedroom, “Is this some kind of joke?”

[ You have survived to be five times the age of maturity for your race ]

[ Therefore you have been judged to be mature enough to be responsible ]

[ Worthy to be trusted to take up the duties of a Harvester ]

“Uh-oh.” I struggled to my feet, feeling every one of those seventy five years. Five times? They considered fifteen year olds to be mature? Have they not met any?

“No, no, no. I’m not mature, I’m just old because I haven’t managed to die yet. Stop this. Stop it!” I waved both of my hands through the letters over and over again, but they just faded away.

Then more came.

[ As you live alone in a desolate wilderness, you have been designated as a Hermit Harvester Class ]

[ Congratulations ]

“Desolate wilderness?” It was true that most of the people living in the neighborhood had moved away, and this area was zoned both commercial and residential, so it never had very many people living here in the first place, but it was hardly a wilderness. There were plenty of people living…

When had I last seen anyone else living around here?

Even the homeless had drifted away. There was nothing here for them without any sort of support programs. No shelters, no soup lines.

[ As a Hermit your focus is on surviving in the wild ]

[ As well as Spiritual Awakenings from your life of isolation and contemplation ]

“Wait, what now? Spiritual? I’m alone because I don’t like people. Stop this, I don’t want it. I don’t need it.”

[ At each level you will receive one point in Intuition, and four free points to spend how you like ]

{ ERROR ERROR ERROR}

{ Candidate is in terminally poor condition }

I eased myself back down onto the bed. “Thank god.” Whatever this was, it had figured out that picking an old man to deal with whatever the hell these “Hostile entities” were was a bad choice.

[ Due to your poor condition, all free points will be assigned to Health until your condition improves]

[ A number of Condition Points will be generated equal to all points spent on your Health ]

[ Condition Points can be used to remove poor conditions ]

I blinked at the fading letters. “Wha- What conditions?”

[ Eyesight 1 ]

[ Teeth 2 ]

[ Heart 5 ]

[ Body 4 ]

[ Pancreas 2 ]

[ Bones 1 ]

[ Libido 1 ]

[ Senility 2 ]

[ Terminal Growths 5 ]

I stared. Most of it was what I expected from being old. The pancreas was from Type 2 Diabetics or rather the other way around, and the doctors had been telling me for years, decades even, that my heart was going to go out on me someday if I didn’t cut out the salty foods.

I had, mostly. But… Bacon. One package a month doled out slice by slice. Followed up with a lot of water to thin out the salt.

Scoff if you will, but I’m still alive. Right?

But, Terminal Growth… Did it mean Cancer? Wait, Growths, plural?

“Where… Where do I got it? The Cancer, the Terminal Growths?” If it was only a few, it could be treated.

A larger gray square appeared, this time with a sitting blue transparent human shape hovering in front of it filled with ghostly white bones and a red spider web of veins and arteries growing out of the image of a red, beating heart.

And nearly everywhere, all throughout the blue body that stood up to reflect me standing up, with the gray box growing taller to show me a full standing transparent body, with too many little dark patches.

Some of the patches were foggy gray and transparent. Others were hard little blotches so dark they looked solid.

Spine, armpits, brain, lungs, everywhere…

Cancer. Of all my problems the square had been so kind to list out for me, the cancer wouldn’t be the one to kill me first, but… It would only grow worse over time, and probably more expensive to fix the longer it was in me.

Hopefully, I don't have to buy anything off the list all at once. “Assign those points from Hermit and spend four Condition Points to drop Terminal Growths down to a one.”

Most of the black patches in my blue reflection faded away or broke up, but not all of them. The gray square and the image of my insides faded away after a moment, then I fell over back onto my bed as I felt faint.

From the shock, but mostly from standing up too fast like that catching up to me.

I lay there for a while, hoping to pass out or something, but…

“I need to pee.”