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Chapter 3: A Magic Experience
🕑 Added 2024-03-30 12:37:04 +0000 UTCIn the few moments before contact, he realized that thinking of it as a squirrel had been a rather hasty choice on his part. He could hardly be blamed for that, given the circumstances.
It wasn’t a squirrel, but it likely had been one at some point. Probably this morning. Possibly just before noon. Maybe it had stepped out for an early lunch, and got more than it bargained for.
Is this what that message talked about with terraforming? Frank thought dimly, as the once-squirrel bit his arm that he barely remembered raising. The clarity the pain brought helped him get a better look at the creature.
It had the same general shape of a squirrel, and would be easy to mistake for one at a distance. The proportions and the body were all wrong, however. Its snout had extended beyond the norm, and it had teeth protruding from its jaw at odd angles, a mess of snaggle-y spikes. Its spine was warped, and he watched in amazement and horror as it seemed to grow hard, calcified plates out of its back.
The poor, twisted creature let out a screech of pain as this happened, releasing its grip on his arm. He stepped back as it hit the ground, writhing. He made brief eye contact with it as it cried in distress.
His heart sank, but his body spun with adrenaline. “Ohh, I’m sorry about this buddy. I wish I could help you.” Without giving himself time to have doubts, he put the creature out of its misery.
Ding!
Warning! Unrefined aether absorbed. Unrefined aether is not suitable for living beings. Avoid coming into contact with sources of such aether, or contaminated creatures. It is advised to expel unrefined aether before reaching toxic levels.
Frank sighed. “Great. Another thing to worry about.” He glanced at the ex-squirrel, still releasing slight blue light into the air. “I’m sorry buddy. I would bury you, but that feels like a bad idea now. Besides, I have more pressing concerns right now.” With that said, and the surprise encounter bested, he made his way back into the office.
<O/%%%%%/O/%%%%%/O>
Tugging at the bandage on his arm, he tossed the first aid kit on his desk. Finding it had been fairly simple; the building was required to have first aid kits available and marked on their maps. It had always just been one of those things that you know, but never think about. He took a moment to thank everyone who’d ever pushed for safety regulations as he sat down.
“Okay, first order of business: see if I can reach my family.”
He slid open the drawer he put his phone in during work hours, and checked its charge. 73%. More than enough to call whoever he needed. Putting in his password, he quickly navigated through to his address book. With bated breath, he hit ‘Mom’.
As it rang, he couldn’t help but imagine his mom’s phone sitting on the freeway on the other side of the country, playing a song from her boyfriend's band, his name on the screen.
It rang.
And rang.
“The person you are trying to call cannot be reached right now. Feel free to leave a message after the beep.”
Frank paused for a few beats, disappointed. “Hey mom. I don’t know if you’re going to get this, but I just wanted to let you know I’m okay. If you can, please call, or leave a message. With everything going on, I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep my phone going, but I promise to check regularly. Stay safe. I love you.”
He stared at his phone for a few seconds, almost hoping for a call to come through. None did. “Well, that leaves me right back where I was, plus a bit of disappointment. Alex is still living with mom, so I can probably expect about the same result.”
Nevertheless, he clicked on his sister's name. The phone rang a few times.
A robotic voice came through. “The number you have dialed is unable to be reached at this time. It may be off or out of service range. Please try again later.”
“Damn,” he sighed, tossing his phone on the desk. “What use is a phone if no one is around to call?”
Frank tapped idly on his desk. “Ok. I’m alone in the office. I can’t reach my family. I still need to find a way to meet people, and try to figure out this system stuff. But, first things first: Let’s get some supplies together.”
He pulled his backpack out from under his desk, and started packing up anything useful he could find. The first aid kit, of course. Some office supplies, for taking notes, and as much food as he could find in the office. Jason’s desk was, as expected, a treasure trove for supplies.
“Talking about squirrels… Man loved to hide snacks everywhere,” Frank muttered as he shoved a bag of jerky in his pack. “Chips, ramen, jerky… Won’t be clean eating, but at least it’s something.”
A quiet ping pulled his attention. He looked up from his position kneeling on the floor of Jason’s cubicle.
Ping!
It was coming from Jason’s headset. Curious, Frank put the headset on and woke the computer to see what was causing it. “Why is he getting browser notifications?”
He scrolled through Jason’s tabs, ignoring the ones he was familiar with. “Wait, is this- How’d he get around the firewall?” Frank clicked into the suspect page: Reddit, still live and, evidently, still populated with actual people.
There on the front page, pinned at the top was a post. “The end of the world: a megathread.”
Frank clapped his hands together reverentially. “Thank you, honored ancestors, for blessing my generation with social media. Let’s see here… ‘Where did everyone go?’ ‘What does it mean to be a [Native]?’ ‘What is this System?’- That’s the one.” He expanded the comment thread, eager to see what others had figured out.
There were a lot of opinions.
‘Checkmate atheists.’
‘Does this mean we live in a simulation?’
‘Aliens finally decided we were ready to join real civilization.’
And so on. There were a few people who had actually found ways to access some information and menus in the System, so he took notes on those.
‘... It’s unclear exactly how to raise these ‘stats’ so far, but likely training or acquiring and allocating the ‘aether’ mentioned in System notes would be a way to do so. Likewise with Skills and Spells.’
‘Actually, I know how you can pick up a few of those! I was in the library when everyone vanished, and a bunch of books are showing up as Skill-books now! I think there’s a limit to how many Skills you can get from books though… I only managed to get 3. Now I’m stuck with [Beekeeping], [Charcuterie], and [Tactics] =(‘
‘Also, I’ve seen a few weird looking animals… Do you think we can get aether from them?’
Frank quickly responded to that comment. “Definitely do not go after the blue ones. The System doesn’t like when you pick up the aether they have, for some reason.”
Almost as soon as he posted it, someone replied. ‘Lots of animals are getting aggressive. It’s very dangerous to go outside. Definitely stay away from the blue ones, but they’re all bad right now.’
Well. Not great news, but he’d managed to warn people. Good deed done, he leaned back, looking over his notepad. He now had some information on how to navigate his new HUD, pulling up menus in the System that quantified how the System viewed him. Stats, Skills, Spells, and the like. There wasn’t much of interest for him there yet.
“Actually…” He stood, walking around toward Sanjay’s cubicle, “I’m pretty sure he had a book in here somewhere…” After opening a few drawers, he found it. A worn and bookmarked copy of Programming for Dummies.
As soon as he touched it, a notice popped up.
Consume Skill-book to learn [Programming]?
Y/N
Error! Skill [Programming] incompatible with System implementation.
Generalizing Skill…
Consume Skill-book to learn [Enchanting]?
Y/N
He sucked in a breath. “Magic? Oh man, am I about to learn magic? Sanjay, wherever you are, thank you for being career motivated. I forgive you for being a bit prickly.” He turned back to the book. “Yes!”
Instantly, it burst into small, dense particles of white light that landed on him, absorbing into his skin. As soon as the last bit of light was gone, Frank felt a rush as the energy implanted itself in his being. “Huh.”
He tapped his chin, looking around. “I think I’ve got what I need to test this out around here… Let’s see…”
