June, 2022

  How can you trust reality when it can irreversibly change in an instant?

  Adding more blood to its streaked brown fur, I wiped the blood of my last kill off my rapier on its unarmored arm. Standing, I looked down at it sprawling lifelessly on the pavement in front of the old Speedy Pizza place. It was a bright, hot, mid-morning June day, with thin high clouds drifting across the bright sun. I let my MANA Shield fade away.

  Once more, I was where I never expected to be outside of a game. The three dead creatures lay in front of me, their bodies weren’t human. Humanoid, mostly, with canine heads, some armor, and lots of fur. Gnolls. I wondered where someone would need me next, the next place I’d be needed again to protect people from what the Game generated.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Why me? Why not other people? I wondered. Other people can and do kill Game spawns so they, and their children can keep on living, until we beat this System at its own game. Our world has changed and some of us have changed with it. Some much more than others.

  Looking over my left shoulder at the person waiting for me across the street, I turned until I faced her, and finally smiled. The woman wore a light blue pantsuit over a cream collared shirt. She stood in front of my house, watching and recording the mid-morning fight on her iPhone.

  She works for the Library of Congress History Department. They said they wanted to preserve the what and how of these events for posterity and future research. They wanted to know how this all started for me. And how I’d become what I am. She’d patiently waited long enough. I might as well get it over with.

  Sheathing my rapier, and looking both ways first out of habit, I strode across the street to meet her. The warmth of the pavement radiated up through my boots and body as I joined her. My hand extended instinctively as I uttered, “Hello. My name is William of Brinsford, the First Mana Mage.”

  The Beginning.

  In The World.