《Magus Infinitatum》 Chapter 1 - The Breach Staring absently out the window at the world beyond, Dave idly watched everything going on, the wind tussling the branches of a disfigured oak tree across the street as faceless people passed by below, weaving in between each other in an endless dance. Dave constantly wishes he could escape the mundanity of his current life, unsatisfied to be yet another face in the crowd fading into obscurity. The bustle of the city seemed to fill the air, a quiet murmur of conversations with the occasional hell sounding out, creaks of signs banging and clunking in the breeze. The smell of smog and pollution heavily diffused in the air, occasionally interrupted with a fresh gust of wind, bringing with it the subtle scent of salt and seaweed carried along from the nearest coastline. Sounds of sirens could be dimly heard in the distance, no doubt responding to yet another example of human stupidity. Turning back to his client he brought himself back into the moment to respond to their latest ineptitude. "I agree that having a hashed password store on your database is going to lead to more work, this however is necessary. Without it, if you get breached you''ll find yourself with a lot more work believe me". Mentally facepalming this felt like he''d had to go over this for what must be the 100th time. How difficult is it to understand such a simple concept. Dave was a cyber security consultant by trade, he''d been in the field for the past 15 years working odd jobs here and there until he''d finally managed to start his own firm. He''d been trying to explain this concept to Charles repeatedly over the last few weeks, yet he just couldn''t get Charles to accept such a simple fact, that or he just simply didn''t care, either way Dave was done with this conversation and felt the intense need to escape. At thirty four years old he was really starting to feel the random phantom aches and pains ramping up, having been sat down in his chair for the past 3 hours, which whilst admittedly plush and comfy was causing his back to hurt once again. Standing up to his full height of 6''3 he brushed his unruly dark brown hair out of his eyes once more. Long overdue a haircut, I''ll have to get one this weekend. Dave was an average looking guy for the most part, whilst he didn''t consider himself attractive he had an almost roguish charm to him, smartly dressed in black jeans and a white textured shirt. His electric blue eyes looked back at Charles "Look I''ll send over the full details of how best to implement better security for your app tomorrow, our time is up I''m afraid". A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Dave navigated past his desk and grabbing the door he gestured for Charles to leave, following behind Dave locked up the office door behind him and briskly rushed out of the building, finally out of sight he gave a deep groan as he could finally stretch and work out the discomfort before stepping out into the main street, joining the faceless mass as he began walking back home. As Dave meandered the busy streets he couldn''t get the feeling out of his head that he was being watched, a profile at the back of his neck, a shiver down his spine like something was observing him unseen. Nervous glances around all he could see was the standard city, drab building facades cluttered with tattered posters, trash littering the sidewalks and grafitti half scrubbed from cracked walls. Trying to escape the feeling out of his mind Dave quickened his walk and hummed a meaningless tune to himself as he sought to get back quicker, the feeling never fully going away but somewhat receding into the back of his mind. Finally Dave''s apartment building came into view, it didn''t look like a lot, just a wooden door with faded black paint tucked into the corner of a small divot to the side of a takeaway but that didn''t matter to Dave, to him it was sanctuary, away from the banality of social ties and convention, where he could be safe from the stress and worries of day to day life. The familiar smell of Chinese invaded his senses, the sharp and tangy smell of sweet and sour sauce making his stomach give a quick grumble. Fiddling with his keys Dave unlocked the door, stepping through the entryway, his mind half on the thought of grabbing a takeaway later tonight, for now he just wanted to sit downs relax and have a cold beer to de-stress after today''s necessary social interactions. This wasn''t going to happen however, one moment Dave was deep in the city, the next he appeared bewildered into a wide grassy plain, bitter wind tearing across from behind he was blown out of the doorway and against all sensibility it slammed closed behind him. Dave looked around with visible confusion wondering how in the hell he''d got there, but one thing was for sure, this was not his home and he was pissed that his sanctuary had been breached. A chilling ethereal voice suddenly whispered in his ear barely discernible from the howl of the wind. Now¡­now you''re mine¡­ After a brief pause it appears again with a fresh gust of wind No escape... no, no escape for you¡­I shall come claim you when the time is right¡­ the last words fading as the wind dies down around Dave. Chapter 2 - BSOD What the hell did he mean by ''when the time is right'' Dave wondered, more to the point where the hell was he. Looking around at his surroundings, Dave realised that things definitely were not normal in any sense of the word. Sure the smooth grassy plain stretching out before him, blades of grass swaying in the breeze with ripples sweeping across the land seemed fine. A strange perfume pervaded the air, almost cloying in its presence, sounds of strange birdcalls called out, strange deep grumbles seems to emerge infrequently. Overloaded in all these strange new stimuli Dave tried to make sense of it all. Even the forest of trees in the distance despite looking somewhat normal with their trunks shooting straight up into the sky, their scraggly leaves shaking and swaying seemed slightly off, casting an almost unnatural darkness onto the grounds below them as if trying to hide their depths from the prying eyes. What really didn''t make sense to Dave though was in the sky, it was completely different than he was used to, not that he ever fully paid attention to the sky, after all who even does truly take the time to look above and take note of everything, it is after all just always there and apart from the odd cloud now and again unchanging. The sun was the main issue, it was very much larger than Dave had ever seen it, not just that it was completely the wrong colour, an almost ice like blue in appearance, almost mocking what colour the sky was back on earth. Whilst not as bright as he was used to be still had to squint his eyes against the foreign object, something just not quite right about looking directly at it The sky itself was an almost translucent purple allowing the stars and constellations to poke through. Dave could only really compare the sky against what he had seen when it was night-time. Dave knew this wasn''t night however as he could see everything crystal clear, bafflingly still lit with what he''d consider a normal colour, rays of vibrant yellow illuminating the alien landscape before him all because of the second sun poking it''s head above the horizon that''d be just noticed, this one more in line with what Dave would consider an actual proper sun, with the first being the imposter. Looking back up at the sky Dave could see that the blue sun seemed to be directly in the midst of a galaxy, starry constellations flocked together in a group making a dazzling display of beauty stretching across the sky, completely unlike anything Dave had ever seen before, yet despite this Dave couldn''t help but feel betrayed that this fiendish second sun would dare try and disrupt his sensibilities just by existing. Right that''s enough of this nonsense, time to get back home Dave thought, he turned back to the door to march right back into sanity once more. Gripping the handle and tugging he didn''t have much luck, the handle seeming to squirm and slip out of his grip, morphing into a very recognisable shape, one with a rather pointed message you could say. A fist appeared, clenched firmly, life-like in appearance with veins running across the back of its palm, the main thing that drew Dave''s attention however was the rather pronounced middle finger that stood up straight and proud. Without any warning the door rapidly faded out of view, seeming to phase out of reality with a noise that suspiciously sounded like laughter it disappeared, the upright finger being the last to disappear with a loud pop as the very air seemed to be displaced in the absence of this frankly rude door. What the hell was all that about Dave wondered before turning back around, being a man of action, he knew he couldn''t just stand around here waiting for a door to reappear, and even if it did it''d more than likely just flip him off again out of spite most likely. He''d have to go searching for answers, the only problem with this however being that there weren''t any signs of civilisation anywhere that he could see. Trying not to worry about being lost with no hope Dave tried to distract himself by focusing instead on the other thing that had him perplexed since the door disappeared. Continuing to walk forward without paying much attention to his surroundings, a rather sullen figure could be seen occasionally shaking his head from side to side every now and then. Dave was trying to figure out why there a blue circle with an ''i'' in the center that seemed to be locked into the periphery of his vision, no amount of shaking or moving his head could get it to budge, what''s more it was just blinking incessantlymas if trying to get his attention which it clearly already had. What was most annoying to Dave however was that the blinks weren''t even in a recognisable pattern or order, it just seemed to be randomly or whenever Dave tried to forget about it, driving his mad as he desperately tried to figure out how to interact with it, or better yet get rid of it. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. After approximately an hour of getting increasingly frustrated with this random icon ruining what could have been a somewhat pleasant stroll despite the circumstances, Dave finally managed to cause the vexing icon to disappear, it seemed that screaming GOD WHY DON''T YOU SHOW ME WHAT THE HELL YOU WANT!!! Seemed to do the trick somehow. Finally breathing a sigh of relief and trying to forgive that the vexing icon had ever existed, Dave continued to try to navigate his way to some form of civilisation. He had too many questions and they were just piling up unanswered. Dave headed toward a large hill in the distance to see if he could get a better vantage point and plan his next move, that was until his vision started glitching, his view warping the landscape seemed to both squeeze and stretch around him, bars of odd colours and shifting shapes appearing in random locations. Progressively getting worse and worse the optical artifacts appeared more frequently getting more and more obtrusive until with a final mind-warping flare he lost his vision all together, like a computer that had overloaded it''s RAM Dave felt like his vision had just experienced the worlds first human BSOD as he lost vision completely. For what felt like the longest 3 seconds in his life nothing happened, nothing until his vision finally flickered back on, like an old CRT monitor his vision seemed to fade back into view, everything stuttering back into place just how it had been before he''d apparently had a brain aneurysm. Everything looked exactly like it had before, everything except for the opaque blue box that blocked half of his view, it looked almost like one of the prompts that Dave used to ignore in pretty much every game he''d ever played on the pc. He''d never had much time for prompts preferring to just run around following quest markers than actually read what could only be useless information. This prompt however refused to close despite Dave repeatedly trying to swipe, mash and punch the X that appeared in the top right of the prompts. Resigned to his fate Dave decided to at least read the cascade of prompts and see what the hell it wanted with him but he wasn''t happy about it.
System Initilisation in Progress
Progress halted at 98.6% Errors: 42,036,097,641¡­
Failed to find transmit cause Failed to find character racial thread Failed to find arcane affinity
Illegal modifications detected
Virus scan started¡­ Error System does not have this functionality(yet)
Attempting to resolve stalled boot
______ Not found, reverting to base configuration
Welcome [%*Name*%] to Amoria
New skill discovered: ERROR skill not found X
Description: Congratulations, we''ve been online barely 5 seconds and you already broke something¡­ *slow claps* We''ll get right on that, don''t expect your skill anytime soon though, this error chain is a doozy
New Intrinisic Skill unlocked: Arcane Cultivation X
Description: ERROR 9349123645, please consult manual for error details. Skill deactivated until criteria met.
New skill discovered: Thought Stream X
Description: Allows user to interact with us mentally to interact with prompts, tweak settings and more. Also prevents said user from needing to scream at us, that was uncalled for, we are still learning.
New Unique Skill discovered: Gamified X
Description: Due to you not fully understanding the laws of nature for this realm, your inborn abilities have been converted to adapt to that which you know best, looks like all those hours wasted grinding for that perfect cloak weren''t wasted after all!
What you expected an explanation? Like you''d even read this far am I right? How''s that X mashing coming along?
Chapter 3 - A Sight to Behold Dave somewhat begrudgingly made this way through the backlog of system prompts, only about to close them once he had read the prompt through in their entirety, he couldn''t help but feel that he was being mocked somehow, the whole thing was just strange to him albeit somewhat interesting in its concept. Dave had played many games in the past, often as an escape from reality but he could never have believed it would actually have happened to him, let alone that it was with completely no warning. The prompts themselves were somewhat interesting, and he couldn''t help wondering just who this ''us'' was, he''d heard of Artificial Intelligence before but no way was it ever this snarky, but then again that could just be because it was clearly glitchy, just those amount of errors alone were cause of worry. Well it would be if Dave had even a basic idea of what to reference against. Deciding to worry about it later as it didn''t really seem to affect anything at this moment, he had more pressing concerns. Continuing on his journey he began the low ascension up the hill, feet dragging through hidden tufts of grass clumps, snagging and scuffing his smart brown shoes. Bushes seemed to snatch at his trench coat, causing small tears and rips, everything seeming to conspire against Dave having an easy journey up this hill which was becoming more and more of a slog. Finally after what felt like an arduous battle to reach the top Dave finally reached it and immediately decided to take a breather by collapsing onto his back. Man am I out of shape, can''t even climb up a bloody hill without almost dying, waaay too many hours just sitting behind a desk.
Endurance + 1 X
Huh, that''s new, almost makes that slog worth it, wonder if that''s what the system meant by ''Gamified'', more to the point does it actually have any effect? Hmm not noticing anything right now, still feel like I''m exhausted. I''ll worry about it later, maybe try and see if there a stat sheet but for now I gotta focus on survival. After what felt like an age Dave finally managed to get his breath back and stiffly pulled himself back into a standing position, brushing the loose leaves, dirt and pollen off of himself and as he did so loose threads from the new tears in his coat pulled free to drift forlornly in the wind, disappearing somewhere into the distance. Finally with a better vantage point, Dave took a look around to try and locate something new. Drinking in the alien landscape he took a better look at everything before him, he could see that the luscious green plain continued on for quite some distance all around him, small hillocks and dips dotted around adding an almost wave-like texture. Dave felt like it was almost a captured snapshot of being deep in the ocean stranded on an island, the scenic view almost surreal in its ethereal beauty.
Perception +1 X
Dave''s vision seemed to sharpen ever so slightly, now better able to focus on the forest on the outskirts of the plains to the left, no longer quite so blurry he could now distinguish an intricate tapestry of colours interwoven along the canopy, painting a subtle image of organised chaos as greens faded into light blues, vibrant yellows, pastel reds and even the occasion neon pink. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Focusing a little bit closer Dave could almost see that different patches of the first looked denser than others, almost as if it had grown patchy in areas, or better yet been cut down but he couldn''t really be sure without further investigation. Continuing to scan his vision around he looked towards the right, he could just barely see a shadow on the horizon, seemingly climbing towards the frigid sun it seeming stretched out for a sizable chunk of the horizon, Dave couldn''t fully see what it was but if he had to guess it would probably be a mountain as the shadow appeared to look a bit lighter towards the top, as if being lit up better towards its summit. A sharp pain suddenly caught Dave by surprise, seemingly originating from behind his eyes as his vision started glitching again. Ahh fuck goddamn it, must be that system playing silly bugger again. The pain seemed to fade in and out, occasional stabs of knives spiking into his ocular nerve as his vision continues to flash random images, most of them were nonsensical and unrecognisable but he could have almost sworn he saw a pig with fluorescent green wings flying across the sky doing barrel rolls at one stage. After a couple of minutes his vision finally seemed to calm down once again only to be treated by yet another prompt.
Perception + 1 X
Dave didn''t really know why he kept getting these prompts as he wasn''t doing much other than looking around but judging from the cracking headache he had going on, those stats weren''t just for show. While I don''t mind getting free stats and all, a little warning would be nice before you start messing around with my vision, maybe just use that blinky little thing I had before to stack up notifications so I can review them when I actually want to¡­ but make it less blinky and less annoying. Dave wasn''t really sure if the system was listening but hopefully if that ''Thought Stream'' skill he''d picked up worked as he''d hoped, the message would had gotten across to whatever this ''system'' was. One thing was for sure though, his vision seemed to have crossed a threshold as he could much more easily see things in the distance, that shadow he''d seen before was very clearly a mountain. Stretching up into the sky the sheer size of it defied belief, despite being so far in the distance it seemed to climb to the very heavens itself, clouds clustered around the midway point hiding the exact height of the thing in shadows and most, odd shadows and craggy rocks causing the clouds to have an ever shifting amorphous appearance, never truly showing the true extent of its appearance. Looking down towards the base of the mountain a river could be seen carving its way through, creating a meandering path almost by a whim through valleys and gorges, the sunlight from both sun''s seemed to glisten off of it, the light refracting and bouncing in every direction, the surrounding rocks looked like they were strewn with glitter as light danced across it in. Towards the bottom of the river it seemed to leap off of the edge of a harsh uneven rockface to fall thousands of feet below, a hazy mist hovered around the bottom of it as it fell into a humongous lake, stretching around the base of the mountain which continued on around the left hand side to fade further into the distance. What most caught Dave''s eye however was the wooden structures that were piled up around the side of the lake, he couldn''t fully see what there were but being boxed shaped and what looked like windows in the side gave Dave hope that this was finally civilisation, it was the first man made structure he''d seen and better yet it gave him a direction to head towards. Feeling his stomach grumble and wishing that he''d stopped off at the Chinese first, Dave took one last look to fix the landmarks in his memory and set off towards the lake.