~Prologue

From beyond the four death instrument-lined walls that made up my temporary cage, I heard the announcer.

“Here for his forty-fourth battle, his pride, his victory,” the voice drew out the vowels of the words, pausing between each for dramatic effect, “and, his, freedom!”

Ignoring it, I picked up a sword–a heavy, battle-worn hunk of steel–and tested its edge.

Sufficient.

I gave it a twirl, testing the balance.

Not the best, but I’ll make do.

The rising weapons room in which I was currently locked finally hit the top of the shaft, socketing into place with a series of clicks. I looked up from the weapons bench to the steel door that was soon to open. It was scored with a history of dents, claw marks, blood, and a variety of other tasteless fluid decorations.

With no idea of what I was about to face, my heart began to pound in my chest. My forty-fourth–well, technically my forty-fifth–arena battle was about to begin, where I’d finally be given the chance to win my freedom.

A loud clank echoed through the room, and the door ratcheted upwards. Harsh lighting spilled into the room, and I squinted while my eyes adjusted.

I ducked under the rising door into the brightly lit arena from my room of darkness, and looked to my opponent while a steel portcullis quickly fell behind me.

A cold anger seeped out from my bones into my body.

It would appear they don’t even want to give me a chance.

I grinned nastily, hefting my sword up into both hands.

That’s too bad.

[Active Ability: ‘Primordial Fury’]

I’m not in the mood to lose.

~

FAR EARLIER

***

Ah yes. Yet another stealth archer build. So boring.

With a series of mouse clicks, I equipped my two-handed greatsword, my stealth detection circlet, and a useless unicorn helmet for video content potential. What a joke.

He was concealed, hiding behind a rock. I pitied him. He couldn’t know my build was centered around absolutely ripping apart common tropes like the stealth archer. Equip one circlet, and stealth became useless. Equip another and magic had no effect. Another, and I regained health too quickly to kill via ranged attacks. Too easy.

I walked over to where he was hiding and lopped off his head. +30xp

Hehe.

I went through his loot. Mediocre.

As you might’ve been able to tell, I didn’t have a lot of friends.

I heard the distant sound of a church bell tolling from outside my noise-canceling headset.

Oh crap. I’m late.

I logged off, scrambling to pull my stuff together before jogging the four blocks to school. I sprinted past classrooms and lockers I haven’t needed to use for two years.

Damn. Has it been two years?

I shrugged my backpack a little farther up onto my shoulder, ignoring the staring, half-familiar kids I hadn’t talked to since I graduated. So what if I finished high school a little early? So what if I left without saying goodbye? They hadn’t ever talked to me anyway.

I opened the door to the study room, closing it behind me.

“Hey, John,” I sighed. I’d been half hoping he gave up and left already.

“You’re a little late, Alex,” John mused with his back to me, staring at the clock. Our session was scheduled for eleven thirty am. It was now two minutes past twelve.

“My bad. I didn’t wake to my alarm.” I said, sitting down.

“Sure, Alex.” He knew full well that wasn’t true, but I knew he didn’t care, as long as I showed up. “Are you ready to get started?”

I whipped out my laptop in response, pulling up my assignments, and he nodded.

John was a private tutor my parents had employed, specifically to ‘deal’ with me. He kept me on track with my university courses, and was, unfortunately, just as smart, if not smarter, than I was. I couldn’t really pull one over on him, and not for a lack of trying.

Shame.

I sighed, looking at the list of Javascript and Jquery assignments I had to complete.

“Come on Alex. You graduated high school in eighth grade. You’re in the second year of your first degree, and you’re only sixteen. You can handle a little bit of JQuery.”

I wanted to tell him obviously I can handle a bit of JQuery, but I knew it was bait, purposefully stoking my pride before suggesting that the assignments were too difficult for me. So I deflected instead.

“First? What, you think I’ll go for multiple PhDs or something, like you?”

“A teacher can hope.” He smiled, knowing that I’d seen through him.

We lapsed into silence, me solving small assignments given by two of the six online courses I was doing, him staring out the window in thought.

It wasn’t that these problems were difficult in any capacity. Given enough effort, I solved them as I solved anything else. It was just...so tedious. I didn’t even like front-end web development.

I leaned forward, dropping my head onto the laptop. I closed my eyes. The cool metal felt nice against my forehead.

“You know, sometimes I wish my life was like a video game,” I muttered, “I could just invest all my skill points into the skill tree I want, rather than having to branch out all the time, for no reason.”

He didn’t reply. I looked up to find him staring at me, mouth slightly open.

“What?”

His mouth snapped shut, but his eyes twinkled a little, the way they did when he knew he had given me a problem that was more than a little ridiculous.

“Nothing. I just had an idea.”

I raised my eyebrow at him, but he said nothing more.

The rest of the session passed in a standard fashion, except for right before I left. I opened the door, and he stopped me, gripping my elbow. It surprised me, because he didn’t usually touch people at all. Ever.

“Alex,” he began, then sighed, releasing me. “Just know that I see a ridiculous amount of potential in you–most of which I don’t believe you’re using.” He paused, eyes still kind, but somehow a little sad. “I’m going to do everything in my power to change that.”

Not knowing what to say, I nodded awkwardly, closing the door.

Weird.

John was a little eccentric, but that sort of came as a byproduct of growing up a polymathic prodigy and having three doctorates in completely different fields before the age of twenty-five. Why he took time out of his day to tutor me–well, it was beyond me, and beyond my parents. Apparently, he didn’t even let them pay him.

I logged back onto my game the second I got home, spending some time fleshing out a new cracked cheese build I’d come up with, that I was going to take for a spin in the dueling arena just for the heck of it.

The rest of the day passed much like the morning, and by the end of it I was several millions of in-game currency richer. Now, not only was I the number one ranked duelist, but also the richest. I even recorded everything, so I had the content to show exactly how I did it, which I’d probably end up editing tomorrow.

Hehe. I love cheese strats.

I pulled the covers over me in bed while I watched a mindless anime episode, sleep gnawing at the edge of my mind.

I guess I should just get it over with, I thought and laid my phone down before turning onto my side to try and quiet my mind. It spun on though, on and on, with weird shapes twirling in my vision.

I felt a tingle in my bones, and a disembodied voice echoed from far away.

MU...FA….

..

MUNDI... FA....ARE

...

MUNDI FABRICARE

I remembered nothing more.

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was how much my back hurt.

The hell?

I sat up, rubbing my bleary eyes. My butt felt like I was sitting on concrete, and my back felt like I’d been sleeping on it. My body also just felt weird...in general.

There was also a health bar floating in the top left-hand corner of my vision.

Um, what.

A number one with an empty bar floated just below it. It was a HUD or Heads Up Display.

This must be a dream.

I shook my head, placing my hand down, and–

Uh, this is not my bed.

I looked down to find myself on a stone bench. No, I thought, as I looked up.

It was some kind of stone frame, in the middle a sea of darkness, illuminated only by a soft purple light coming from the stone itself. It was silhouetting my hand–

My hands.

My hands were–they weren’t mine. They were smaller. I turned them over, inspecting them. A tattoo ran around my right wrist, a crest inked just under the base of my palm.

A Penrose triangle.

How weird. Mom’s gonna kill me.

I traced it with my other hand, and almost had a heart attack.

A digital panel appeared in the air in front of me, displaying what looked like a stat sheet.

Level 1

–Stats–

Vitality–––––––1

Strength–––––1

Agility–––––––1

Stealth––––––1

Perception–––1

Luck––––––––1

LOCKED–––––0

LOCKED–––––0

Each stat after perception had a silver progress bar next to it. All three were empty.

This is a video game. A whole video game dream. An RPG dream.

Role-Playing Game that is, for the uninitiated.

I tried pinching myself, to no avail. But then, did I even want to wake up? This was…

Kinda exciting?

I glanced over the stats, most of them made sense except for luck. I had no clue what that was supposed to do. And then there were the two locked stats.

I tapped on the items tab, and my finger met a slight resistance, almost undetectable, sending ripples through the panel. It was empty of any items, but a pop-up appeared, sending a gentle ping through my body.

-RECEIVED-

+5 Rare Elixir of Learning [Level ∞] acquired - one-time use.

Would you like to use them now? Y/N

Uh, no.

I tapped the ‘N’ button on the display. Another message popped up.

Are you certain? Elixirs will be deleted. Continue/Cancel

What!?

I hit cancel. What the hell–I was being forced to use them now?

Would you like to use them now? Y/N

Yes.

Please select a skill.

I stood up, thinking. Five elixirs–and five attributes that it was pretty safe to assume were useful skills to level up. I took a step, going over my logic in my head–

–and promptly tripped on my own feet. I landed on my face, groaning. Something was definitely very wrong with my body.

Another notification pinged through my body. I focused on the display.

Skill: Luck selected. Continue Selected. All five Elixirs will be used on Skill: Luck.

Now, wait just a minute–

The stat page appeared again, and the progress bar under luck began to move. The Elixir count ticked down to four, and the progress bar began shooting up and resetting so fast I barely had time to register. By the time it slowed down, my luck statistic was already–

Rare Elixir of Learning [Level ∞] x4

Luck––––––––25

–Crap. Assuming it caps at one hundred, it already filled a quarter of the way with just one Elixir? How do I cancel this?

Another Elixir ticked away before I could move, and once again the progress bar repeatedly filled faster than I could follow.

Rare Elixir of Learning [Level ∞] x3

Luck––––––––50

I yelled in an attempt to verbally cancel, but that didn't work, and yet another Elixir was used to increase my luck.

Rare Elixir of Learning [Level ∞] x2

Luck––––––––75

While I searched desperately for some type of cancel button, the fourth elixir was drained, completing past the ninety-ninth level until the bar just read-MAX next to it. My hopes rose for a moment with the realization that perhaps the dream game was programmed with user idiocy in mind. Most games were, anyway.

It should realize Luck is already full, and I can save the last one from being squandered.

The ticker fell.

Rare Elixir of Learning [Level ∞] x0

So much for that.

With nowhere left to go, the progress bar, already maxed out, began to shake.

It flickered, then turned red, a glitch of static bookending the bar. It slowly melted away to reveal three question marks where Max had been previously. My stats now read:

Level 1

–Stats–

Vitality–––––––1

Strength–––––1

Agility–––––––1

Stealth––––––1

Perception–––1

Luck––––––––???

LOCKED–––––0

LOCKED–––––0

I sat down in defeat. I landed kinda hard, my butt impacting the ground before I expected. Using the purple glow, I took a look at myself. It wasn’t just my hands that were smaller.

Oh.

“I’m a goddamn kid again.”

I heard a small scuff from a ways away in the dark, the sound of something opening, and a smooth baritone voice rang out from the same direction.

“Did I hear a fellow traveler?” it asked.

“Who’s there?” I replied, more than a little perturbed. While I was taking this whole ‘I woke up in a video game in a child's avatar’ thing in stride, I wasn’t sure if that was because I was just in shock, or that most of me still suspected this as a dream.

“Just a humble guide.” A torch lit up in the dark, casting a warm glow to the face lined with a wide, welcoming smile. Well. If this was a video game, then this part would probably be the tutorial.

“Great, because I have a lot of questions,” I said, marching down the stairs to meet the man. I’d decided by now, no matter what sort of bullcrap this turned out to be, I’d be better off figuring stuff out from the get-go.

“Where am I?” I asked the man as I got closer. He was tall (or looked so, given that I was small again), a little reedy, with longer, black hair bound in a bun behind his head. His clothes were also a little gaudy, like he was trying to imitate a high-noble from a stereotypical RPG game.

“You’re in the great country of Welt, traveler, ruled over by the Tebath royal family,” he replied, and bowed, “May they live long and prosper.”

He spoke with an official-sounding accent, properish, like old english.

“I uh, I see,” I said, taken a little off guard by the whole custom.

“May I ask, young traveler, did you travel through the portal?”

I glanced back at the purplish light source.

“I suppose I did.”

“A portal-goer you are, then.”

“There have been others that came through the portal?” I asked, excitedly.

“Not for at least sixty years, traveler,” he said, and my face must have fallen, because he hastily continued, “Of course, there are archives of previous portal-goers, I’m certain they would be of interest to you.”

I brightened, then glanced at the tattoo on my wrist.

I wonder if they had these. I tapped it once more, and I noticed the luminescent display didn’t seem to cast light anywhere.

“Can you see–?” I started to ask, gesturing to the display hovering in front of me. The man was watching me confusedly, and I noticed there was no tattoo on his wrist.

“Ah–you know what, never mind. What did you say your name was again?”

“Tultius the third, at your service.”

“Nice to meet you Tultius, I’m Alex.”

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Alex.”

“So, what do we do now?”

He swept his arms in a grand gesture to point upward, “We go to the capital, traveler Alex. To the capital.”