“Something is off,” Harvey complained. “Something feels wrong, like a great big piece is missing from a map.”

  Harvey clicked away, not liking how the last encounters had played out. They were all too dark. The monsters were too independent and real. They felt less like fantasy and more alien, more cunning. He had seen the first few player deaths today. There had been hospitalizations before, but those usually ended up being fun as well. The quick recovery times always confounded the doctors.

  Harvey had been stunned. He looked for an off switch for the encounters to give him more time to think, but he found a notice that a minimum number of encounters were required. All the major settings had threshold minimums.

  As Harvey looked for ways to dial back some of the settings, he failed to notice the change in his cat’s demeanor. It stood on a windowsill, tail swishing in an agitated motion. Its hair began to stand on end, and it let out a low growl from the back of its throat. It stared at the door to the hallway. From the doorframe crept a black, shadowy severed finger, hovering a few inches above the ground. Steadily, it moved into the room.

  Harvey was almost done delaying his first world event. He tampered with the threat levels and lowered the distribution so more of the players could participate in each instance, creating bigger teams. Hopefully, this would eliminate the—

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Mortimer let out a hiss and arched his back. As the finger closed in on Harvey, it shot forward. The nail stabbed into the back of Harvey’s neck, sinking partially into his skin, causing him to cry out in pain.

  Harvey lurched forward, unmoving. The finger of a warlock drained power into him. The shadowy blackness slowly seeped into Harvey, leaving a finger fully drained. The finger, now revealing red skin, quickly shriveled and fell to the floor.

  Harvey’s eyes began to glow red. He sat forward again, and without any input from Harvey, his hands began to move in a blur. His hands turned on everything they could find, often blindly hitting buttons and changing settings. The power moved as quickly as it could, knowing the energy it had would be spent quickly.

  After two minutes, Harvey’s own consciousness was slowly able to fight back. As his mind foggily focused on his screens, a setting he never fully understood and never wanted to mess with was pulled up.

  ^

  Dimensional Integration Safety Period

  11 months, 5 days, 15 hours, 37 seconds

  Harvey’s hand unwillingly clicked on the words, dropping an option he had never seen before.

  End Safety Period?

  Harvey struggled to regain control of his body as the last of the magic surged up out of Harvey’s mouth to say a single raspy word.

  “Yes.”