Age Recommendation: 16+
When you think about fantasy worlds, about the dreams of authors and mystics, it conjures up images of regal and noble elves. Of beautiful faeries bestowing magic swords to young heroes. Those faeries were sociopaths.
It's strange the things you remember when you're faced with your own death.
Attribute Unlocked: Curiosity.
The things that you thought were so important don't seem to matter at all. The things you expected would stay with you don't even come to mind.
He didn't remember his wedding day. Nor the day he lost his wife.
What he did recall was standing and looking through a pane of glass of a shop at a small metal car. A toy that he wanted. His mother tried to pull him away, but he was insistent.
He hadn't received any present that day, not that it was particularly surprising, they had so little.
Yet, come the time of snow and ice, when stomachs went empty and neighbours fell ill and died... His mother presented him with one last little gift.
He had treasured that toy car.
Attribute Unlocked: Wealth.
A last happy memory before his mother's slow decent into both death, and her own madness. That was a memory he wished he could forget. Even now, bleeding out on the ground, he could still remember her soft and gentle face distorting into anger and rage. Remember her slashing at him with the knife.
Attribute Unlocked: Determination.
He breathed his last.
Commencing: Rebirth.
He gasped, his lungs filling with air.
Commencing: Initialisation.
He was wracked with pain as he tried to breathe. Like his ribs were cracked and broken. Holding himself, it certainly felt like they were. Which didn't make much sense, considering... He'd been stabbed. Not kicked.
He'd been stabbed.
Analysis: Prior memories intact.
Commencing: Welcome program.
Indicate: Welcome, Commander.
He paused, trying to get his bearings. He could hear something mumbling away in the background, but it didn't feel... Real. None of this did. It felt almost like a dream. A lucid dream.
He was sitting in a room he didn't recognise, on a rough wooden seat. He was at the head of a table, and he wasn't the only one sitting by it. There were six other people, all of them staring at him, as if waiting for an answer.
If this was a dream, then he'd be able to know why. An instinct.
Skill Selection: Intuition. Two points remaining.
They wanted something from him. A choice. He was at the head of the table. Right now, it didn't matter that he could remember dying. In the here and now, he was in command, and that meant he could demand that they explain, without fear of retaliation.
"Explain it again."
The one closest to him, a woman, he thought, faceplanted into the table, "Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!"
The one across from her, a man with a truly impressive beard, thumped a fist on the table, and then spoke with a surprisingly lyrical voice, "Calm down, Rose. The Commander has always been like this. Our fault for using too many words."
The woman glared, "Fine, you explain it."
"There's a bloody great big dragon attacking the city's warehouses at night. Needs to be dealt with."
Dragon.
What kind of screwed up dream was he having? Some adolescent fantasy about being a hero in a world with magic and dragons and demons and whatever else he could conjure up out of nowhere?
Skill Selection: Magic. Summoning. One point remaining.
"What do you expect me to do about it?" He said tiredly, "I'm not a dragonslayer."
At least, he didn't think he was a dragonslayer. That wouldn't make sense. He was at the head of the table. He must be some sort of administrator. Maybe he was having a bad dream about being a tax auditor?
Skill Selection: Failure. Categorisation not found. One point still remaining.
Rose yelled into her hands with frustration, and then glared up at him, "Dragonslayers are too expensive to hire. The salt mines are at the lowest output they've ever been. We can't hire anyone to deal with this."
He wish he knew what to say to her. It kind of hurt to have such a cute girl hating him in his own dream.
Skill Selection: Charisma.
Indicate: Skill selection complete.
Indicate: Final task outstanding before initialisation complete - Class selection.
"Rose." He said gently.
The woman took a deep breath, and looked him in the eye. For the first time, he realised that they were blood red, as was her hair. She didn't just look cute. She was more than that. She was actually gorgeous.
Her face softened, "Sorry. I don't have an answer either. Just surprised that you didn't. Dragon-sized problems."
His heart thudded, and he looked away from her, "You said it only attacks at night?"
The bearded man with the musical voice nodded. "That's right, Commander."
"Anything weird in that?"
The man shook his head, "Not really. Dragons don't like archers. Pouring out fire at night tends to work better at wrecking night vision. They're intelligent creatures, if destructive."
He sighed and tapped his fingers on the table. May as well go all in on the dream. He didn't seem to be waking up anytime soon. "Which warehouses? Salt?"
"Gold." Rose said as if it were obvious. So dragons in this dream liked to hoarde gold, too. Probably meant that they were fairly cliche. In which case defeating them was ridiculously difficult, requiring a perfect shot by an archer into the heart.
The six around the table might be fantasy cliches, too. The bearded man seemed squat. He couldn't tell without looking under the table, but he might be a dwarf. Rose, on the other hand... He didn't know what she was. Probably not quite human. A half-human of some kind?
One of those who hadn't spoken yet was definitely an elf. Too androgynous to tell if male or female. Blonde, blue-eyed, and wearing bright green. Flawless white skin.
"Did you take a look last night?"
The elf jerked in surprise, "Me, Commander? I... Guess. Mostly hid inside my house, but I took a peek. Why?"
"Elf eyes." He shrugged, "You might have seen something. A weak spot that the archers need to look for."
The woman shook her head, and Rose sighed, "Commander. You know Taylor is a coward. Just because she's cute doesn't mean you need to talk to her every time you get an excuse."
So the elf was a girl. And Rose was jealous of her. Did that mean he had a relationship with Rose? Or was she the kind of woman who disliked having women around her altogether?
The other three were easier to guess. All women.
One was very clearly a witch. Black pointed hat, and stare to boil your brains behind your eyes. Cute, though. Even if she did still have a wart on her face. Did that mean she was human with magic, or were witches a different species in this dream?
"Any help from your end?"
The witch scoffed, "I detected it. It's your job to deal with it. Commander."
She spoke his apparent title with more scorn than he'd ever heard from anyone in his life before. Did she hate him? Well, that ruined the idea of this being an adolescent dream.
Rose whispered to him, "You know Alice hates you. Why are you picking a fight?"
He didn't think he was trying to pick a fight. But apparently talking to her at all was. She must really, really hate the fact he existed. So why was she at the table at all, then? Was this some kind of city council? Board of directors?
Only two more. "Anything to add?"
One of them stuttered nervously, the wings on her back showing the same disposition. A shy angel, or something like it. That wasn't something he thought he would have come up on his own, but who knows the depths to which their subconscious was willing to sink?
"I... I... I... I th..."
"Spit it out, April!" Rose yelled.
The angel's head dropped and her knees came up. Her wings wrapped around her and she seemed to disappear into a ball of feathers. He blinked, not having a damn clue what he was supposed to do about that.
The last woman laughed, "Oh, Rose. You never disappoint. To answer your question, Commander, my thought is that I will run and hide if a creature of flames appears. I am not useful here, and none of you are worth my life."
Her hair was long and white, and her eyes were a crystal blue that reminded him of the ice sticking here and there to her skin. She was probably a Snow Woman of some kind. Made sense to fear evaporating.
"Thanks..."
The woman glared at him, "I've been here for ten years. And you still forget my name. Commander. So... Disappointing. Haven't I done enough to hold your attention?"
Rose jumped onto the table, "Shut. Up."
The snow woman laughed softly, "As you wish, demon."
He looked up at Rose, trying not to linger on the view in case this wasn't that kind of a dream. "You can tolerate fire, right, Rose?"
She turned to him, and then dropped onto the table cross-legged, "Yeah. And?"
"You could take a look for us, at the next attack. See if there's a weakness to target." He shrugged, "That's our best hope. Being able to know how to bring the dragon down. Unless you want to move the warehouse district underground."
"Now, that's an idea!" The dwarf said excitedly, "We could bury it. Dig tunnels to it. So deep that the dragon won't even try and attack."
"Dragons tear down mountains for gold." Rose sneered, "Get over your rock fetish, Agate."
He tried not to be obvious as he looked at the dwarf again. Agate wasn't exactly a manly sort of name, even though it was the name of a rock. Could... Was the dwarf not the only other man at the table? Were they a girl dwarf? Was there a taboo about noticing that in this dream world?
"Rose." He pulled her attention, "What do you think?"
The girl blew her cheeks out, thinking, "I don't think it'll work. If we lose another few tonnes of gold, we won't be able to pay our fees and workers. There'll be a revolt."
Was... Was the demon girl an accountant? She had been talking like... A business secretary. She seemed to understand the ongoing operations of the business better than anyone else.
This was totally a nightmare from doing his taxes.
Indicate: Final task outstanding before initialisation complete - Class selection.
He had no idea what that voice was, but nobody else seemed to be paying it any mind. It had responded to thoughts he'd had before. Like that random gibberish about summoning earlier. Seemed it wanted him to do something.
Class selection.
Well, he was obviously upper class. Or at least, middle class. He was part of a group of people operating a salt mining business. Apparently he usually had literal tonnes of gold at his disposal, if not actually disposable income.
Indicate: A character class is a fundamental part of identity. A character's capabilities, strengths and weaknesses are largely defined by its class.
So the voice really did pick up on his thoughts then. It sounded like this was some kind of fantasy game, which made some sense. Maybe he was in some sort of tutorial or character creation? When he woke up, he needed to see a therapist.
Class Selection: Psychic.
Indicate: Initialisation complete.
Indicate: Enabling class abilities.
He was swamped with buzzing noises. It wasn't painful, but it was suddenly irritating. Like a hundred people chattering away, but in the background where he couldn't quite make out what they were saying without concentrating.
He tried to refocus himself. Rose was sitting in front of him, so he focused on her and as he did, she seemed to change. A pink hue surrounded her, and he heard a quiet sort of panting. If he couldn't see her face, he would have said she would be drooling.
Indicate: Psychics have the ability to see the hidden desires of various characters, within the right environment.
He looked down nervously. Apparently he was staring at her private thoughts. He didn't understand what they were, but that was probably the kind of thing that was off limits. Maybe even illegal, if people like that existed here.
Rose coughed, "Uh... What's wrong, Commander?"
"Just thinking." He said quickly.
The woman laughed, "Don't hurt yourself."
He really didn't know how to solve the current problem. He hadn't a clue about fighting dragons, and if one more hit was going to bring them down... "Division."
The table seemed to snap to attention and he looked up at all of them as Rose re-took her seat to his side. "I don't know how to stop a dragon. But right now we're interesting because it can fly off with tonnes of gold after a single attack. We have to have a bunch of other properties, right? Spread the gold out. We'll probably lose some due to corruption or theft, but less than if the dragon hits us again."
"The worker townhouses." Agate nodded, the dwarf thinking. "I could whip up some safes easy enough. Distributing them will be the difficult part."
"Taylor and Alice." Rose nodded, "I'll help too. The three of us are the strongest. We can haul full safes around the town. It'll at least give us a breather and space to try and come up with a better solution."
He stood up, "Get it done."
The meeting immediately ended, and everyone except the witch took it as a symbol to file out of the room. Alice, however, wandered over to a window, obviously waiting for him to approach and speak to her... Outside of the ear reach of the others.
He waited until the doors closed and walked over to her, "Yes?"
The witch sighed heavily, "You are a terrible person, Commander."
"I suppose." He agreed. This was his dream. Coming up with this convoluted exercise was the mark of a truly despicable persona.
"You forgot our names again."
He took a deep breath in, "I won't forget them again. Alice."
The witch smiled slowly, "The snow woman's name is Erica. You saved her life when a village attempted to burn her out. Used her up as a power source. Similar stories for all of us. We're here, because we owe you. Yet, you don't remember it. Such a womaniser."
He had the sense to blush. What did his character even do? Run around the countryside saving exclusively women? What kind of fucked up way of living was that?
"I dare do all that becomes a man. Who dares less, is none." The quote didn't quite fit, but he didn't actually know what to say.
"Do you think we can stop the dragon?"
"No idea." He shrugged, "Actually... I might need to see a doctor."
Her face changed to one of concern, and she held up a hand, a green disk of light spinning into existence, covered in strange writing he didn't understand. The witch glared at him slowly, and then lowered her hand. She didn't seem like she was about to hit him.
"Uh... Did you like... Scan me?"
The witch rolled her eyes, "Yes. I did like scan you. Specifically, your memories. This isn't the first time you've suffered catastrophic memory loss... But it has never been this bad before. You don't even remember walking into the meeting. All you remember is your death."
He felt his mouth run dry, "You know about that?"
"Everyone does." The witch smiled in amusement at him, "This is the afterlife. We all died to get here. Died and reincarnated into things we never believed even existed. I was a good Catholic in my last life. Can you imagine how much I hated being made into a witch?"
So witches were a new species here, then. Probably. At least born that way. So he probably wasn't going to be able to become an amazing mage or something like that. Though, there was the summoning thing. Was he a magic user?
"That... Sounds difficult." He said slowly, "Sorry to be selfish... But I've lost my memories before? How?"
"Side effect of how you ended up here." Alice explained, "Most people die, and then they're done. With you, the doctors managed to revive you. After your soul had passed on. Ripped you right out of this world and into the last, but only for a moment. It... For want of a better word... Corrupted you. Every now and then the system has to reset you."
He nodded slowly, "So... You can hear a voice, sometimes?"
Alice shrugged, "The System. Think of it as... A narrator. A way for you to interact with the God you never believed in before you ended up here. Did you go through initialisation again?"
"I think so." He frowned, wondering how she had managed to pronounce the word the way she had. "If I've done it before, does that mean I usually choose the same traits?"
"No." Alice shook her head, "It's... Confusing. For a newcomer. I became a witch because one of my first thoughts was... Oh fuck, this is magic."
He laughed softly, "The good Catholic girl."
She punched him lightly in the shoulder, "Shut up, Commander."
"Commander. I don't remember my name." He said curiously, wondering why he wasn't upset that he couldn't remember it. Surely a name... It was a piece of your identity. A piece of who you are.
"No one knows it." Alice shook her head, "Like I said, you've forgotten everything before. Which brings me to a few things you really need to know. The rest you'll have to pick up as you go along. I'll warn the others... But... These are important."
"Something to do with how I'm working with six women at a salt mining business?"
Alice laughed softly, "There is that. You might have noticed that Rose is... Possessive of you. If you're not a complete idiot."
"Yeah." He nodded, "Turned pink when I watched her. Like a smog cloud."
"Psychic." Alice said in surprise, "Well, you've never been that class before. Not sure I like the idea you can read my thoughts. Rose is... You summoned her. She's not a demon, but a demidemon. Half human. Summoning her was more than slightly illegal, because she has human rights."
He felt the blood drain from his face, "Oh. That sounds bad."
"You did it to help her escape a slave trader." Alice shrugged, "Technically her human half belongs to some asshole out there. But the summoning contract takes precedence. So she is almost free, but under your control. You order her, and she has to obey or go back to being a slave."
"I am going to have to be careful what I say." He said quickly.
Alice nodded, "True. But here we come to the awkward part. Rose is your ex-girlfriend, as well. It was just the two of you for a few years. Wandering around, doing odd jobs in tiny villages."
"Ex?" He said hesitantly, not really wanting to find out.
"Ex." Alice nodded, "You dumped her. Not the other way around. She has never quite forgiven you, nor given up."
"I didn't cheat on her, did I?" He said hopefully.
The witch grinned at him, "Of course you did. You forgot her. Woke up one morning and snuck out of the house to run around and play adventurer again."
"Oh, shit." He swore.
Alice laughed and shook her head, "Don't worry. You ended up with something that didn't last. You didn't date the rest of us. Just Rose and April."
"The angel." He took a deep breath, "I dated her? No wonder Rose lashed out at her."
"Not quite. April is a demiangel. Seems you have a thing for the hybrid girls." Alice teased him. "I wonder how far that monster girl fetish went in your past life?"
He thought about his browser history briefly, but hopefully none of that had an impact in this life. Probably not. Hopefully.
"Meeting an angel must be something for a Catholic." He offered.
Alice glared at him, "Not really. This world is nothing like the one I grew up in. Angels aren't some servant of God. They're holy beings, sure... But angels in that world and this one don't seem to have anything in common. For one, they can have kids here. Like April."
He sighed heavily, "How did I end up back with Rose around if I dated a demiangel?"
"Oh, that's simple." Alice smiled, "Rose caught up with you maybe six months after you abandoned her. The two of you had saved me, and I was able to figure out what is wrong with you. The corruption. We decided it'd be best if you settled down somewhere, to make it easier to deal with these episodes whenever they came up."
He looked out at the window, at what looked like a town from the industrial revolution. Everything covered in ash and smoke, and a strange mix between thatch roofs and new tiled ones. A town in technological transition.
"So we came here."
"Founded it, actually." Alice replied, "You found the salt deposits when you killed a nest of salamanders. Didn't take long for the industry to spring up around it."
He smiled softly, "So I'm not totally useless, then."
"You've been reinitialised." Alice cautioned him, "You're a psychic this time, not a fighter. Stick to politics and administration."
"You were telling me about April."
Alice nodded, "Well. Here's the bit I've been waiting to give you. Your face is going to be priceless. April isn't your ex."
He felt his throat catch.
The witch burst out laughing and grinned, "There! The perfect attack. I adore making you look that terrified. Makes all the crap you put me through worth it."
"If you hate me... Why are you helping me?"
Alice's face fell, "Oh, you stupid... I don't hate you, Commander. Hating you would be easier. I'm not just here because of a life debt. I've repaid that a thousand times over."
Indicate: Alice has saved the Commander 736 times.
"Don't exaggerate." He said quickly.
Indicate: The Commander has saved Alice 3 times.
Well, he regretted pointing it out, now.
Alice smiled and touched his face briefly, before turning and beginning to walk away. "I'll prepare a few presents for tonight. To try and distract our problem if we need to. You should find April. Tell her what's happened."
He didn't have a clue where to begin to search for her.
© Copyright 2024, James Milne