For the second time in a day, he woke on a beach. 

 

A firetruck blared into his ears, a cacophony of bells that rattled his sore head. He groaned and tried to roll over, covering his head with his arms. The tangy scent of his waterlogged clothes hit him hard, and he retched.

 

Smells almost as bad as that squid, he thought.

 

He lurched upright, suddenly remembering the sea monster. He looked around frantically, heart pounding with adrenaline. It was early morning, the sun just beginning to shine on the gray sands and dull green sea. He could see his left leg where the creature had grabbed him, the skin was blistered and torn. The same was true of his left forearm, and my god, they hurt so bad!

 

He held himself still, riding out the pain until he could get a handle on it. He focused on details to cope, running his hands through the coarse gray sand (why is it gray?) and noticed that both of his wounds had small, circular ridges where the flesh was torn.

 

Suction cups. He shuddered.

 

A bell rang brightly in his ear three more times, spiking the pain in his head but distracting him from his arm and leg. Then he saw it: a small icon shaped like an exclamation point was flashing in the corner of his vision. 

 

"What is this?" He thought it looked like...No, that wouldn't make sense. 

 

Looking directly at it was impossible, it kept moving to the side.  He stood up, his legs protesting as the blistered skin stretched tight. He tried spinning toward the blinking object, but it'd dance away immediately. After five minutes, he had had enough. "AGH! What the hell! Open!"

 

And it did.

 

His vision was suddenly inundated with small blue boxes, semi-transparent and filled with large off-white script. He couldn't place why they seemed so familiar until he read one.

 

"No way."

 

 

 

This is insane, he managed, his mind reeling. It's like a game.

 

Dozens of names began to populate beneath the Race header, and he caught a few. Human, Elf, Dwarf, something called a Traxik. But then another notification popped up, covering the other options.

 

 

 

"What? I didn't choose anything..."

 

Before he could finish the sentence, the notifications cleared and repopulated.

 

 

Error? Omens? Magician? He didn't even know what that meant!

 

And then he did, as if the knowledge was shoved into his brain:

 

 

That's...less than useful. He ran a hand through his dark hair, slicking it back with an increasing amount of sweat. The heat (and his predicament) had him covered in a flop sweat. He was overwhelmed. Whatever was going on had more rules to it than he could grasp. As stupid as it sounded, even in the privacy of his own head, it felt like he was in an RPG or MMO game. Except he wasn't familiar with the Nym race in fiction, and the term "Omen" was also unfamiliar, though he guessed it was something like a class? No clue.

 

In less than a breath, another pop-up:

 

 

This time the notification was populated by dozens, hundreds, then thousands of options. A scroll bar on the side of the notification window slowly grew smaller and smaller, until he could barely see it. The error message doesn't reappear, however, and he found himself staring at more options than he knew what to do with. The growing list of options ranged from useful to downright bizarre.

 

 

"So many...."

 

Suddenly, he was almost glad his race and omen were chosen for him; if there were this many options for everything, then he'd be hip deep in these notifications for hours. He tried to close the window, hoping that he could put this off longer, but the notification would just shake before returning to its original position. Looked like he had to make his choice now.

 

He put his hands to his temples, feeling the remnants of his hangover resurfacing. The world felt like it was spinning just slightly too fast, and he had to crouch and sink a hand into the warm sand beneath him. This was too much. First that terrifying ocean, then the killer monster, now this? What next? And he was Nym, now? Not even Human anymore?

 

"Where the hell am I?!" he half-shouted and fell to his butt in the sand. He was so tired. He tried to close his eyes, but the pop-up notification was still there. He thrashed his arms and legs in the sand and yelled. "AAARRRAAAHHHH!"

 

Thirty seconds later, he panted in the white sands, physically and emotionally exhausted. His limbs were heavy from his little fit, and his left arm and leg throbbing from where he had torn open parts of his blisters. He was all alone in a strange land, with deadly monsters everywhere, and opaque RPG-style game rules.

 

Why? Why am I here? He scrunched his eyes closed and tried to envision himself laying on his futon in his tiny studio apartment. He tried to remember the feel of his down comforter, and the uncomfortable slats beneath the thin mattress. But the notification taunted him, glaring bright and blue and unavoidable. He opened his eyes with a sigh.

 

I don't know why I'm here, or how I can get home, but if I'm going to survive this insane place then I need some serious advantages. He squared his jaw and sat up, confronting the notification.

 

His Omen was called The Magician. It had something to do with Will or Willpower, according to the vague description. His Race was Nym, and he gained bonuses to some sort of stats. He couldn't remember, exactly. He started fumbling around his display, hoping for some reminder of what those bonuses were and received a single line of text in reply.

 

 

"Huh. So that means there is one."

 

Despite himself, he was intrigued. His frustrations began to fall behind curiosity. He was blind to whatever stats he had, but he thought that his Race and Omen gained bonuses to WIL, INT, DEX, END, and PER. If this was anything like the RPGs he'd played then those hopefully stood for Willpower, Intelligence, Dexterity, Endurance, and Perception. He had double bonuses to WIL and INT, which fed into the idea that his class had access to magic or something. His breath caught for a moment. Was magic real, here?

 

"Don't get distracted. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. The Trait options might clue me in. What sort of Traits do I have available?" He refocused on the Born Trait selection window, slowly making his way down.

 

There were thousands of options and he quickly got lost in reading them. They covered all sorts of options and character builds, but he had no clue what to expect in this strange place. Would the ability to cleanse his blood of impurities once daily be useful? Sure, especially if there was poison or something close by. Would it be better than the other options? He had no idea.

 

Three hours. He spent three hours sitting on the beach and reading the various Traits. He was surprised at how easily he lost himself, feeling a sudden thrill of fear at the thought of being caught unaware by some beast.

 

He ended up filing them into three categories: Utility, Neat But Useless, and Over Powered. Neat But Useless was easily the largest category, filled with thousands of Traits that seemed less than optimal. He was blind to the rules of this place and also his own stats, but even he could tell that being able to "eat a coconut whole and spit out the rind at high speed" was dumb. 

 

Utility had some interesting options, including a way to jump up to three times his height at will. That would be cool as hell, he thought. There was even a Trait called Mageborn, which granted him a larger than normal mana pool. It also confirmed the idea that magic existed on the Continent, wherever that might be. The knowledge thrilled him, and he couldn't help but grow excited thinking about hurling fireballs and other wizard stuff. But the last category contained the only Trait that seemed entirely perfect.

 

 

The nature of knowledge meant that memory was critical, and if his Omen description was any indication, knowledge was core to his class. While being stronger or faster might help him survive, Keen Mind would let him thrive. It was just a gamble on whether he could live long enough to make it useful.

 

He hesitated before selecting it. He spent long minutes going over the other options, but nothing caught his eye except for Mageborn which only gave him a small bump to his mana pool in the beginning. He didn't know how much mana he'd be using later, but he didn't even know any spells right now. He shook his head. Screwing up his courage, he selected Keen Mind.

 

 

He paused. Should he use his real name? He had never really liked his name, and who knew what things he'd encounter here. Maybe it was smart to hide his real name? So, feeling a little foolish he decided to input a name he had used in several games:

 

 

 

Then the blue window disappeared.

 

I'm sorry, what? He--no, Felix was worried. That last line was not encouraging.

 

Then his train of thought was interrupted by a metric fuck ton of PINGs and blue box notifications.

 

 

 

"What?" Felix was dumbfounded. "A title? Just from biting the squid? That's...yeah, that's weird."

 

The notifications continued. Every time he closed one, another was ready to take it's place. Most of them were damage notifications, probably from that nasty green ocean which Felix now assumed was a low grade acid.

 

 

That had been bugging him for a while.

 

 

Felix grimaced, the taste of the Dread's ichor still faint in his mouth. At least it was good for something. The moment he closed the notification, another three appeared in quick succession:

 

 

Huh. Felix's eyes widened as he felt his injuries begin to burn less. Now instead of a faint burning they just felt like a standard open wound, wet and stinging in the air. Did this mean he could train Acid Resistance by jumping in the brackish water? He glanced at the waveless sea before him, imagining the creatures squirming beneath.

 

He shuddered. Hard pass.

 

 

 

You have successfully identified your enemy!

 

 

Analyze, huh? Felix was inordinately pleased. If he was going the route of knowledge gatherer then this would be a core skill.

 

That monster name and lore though...Yikes.

 

 

Felix let out a shrill yawp as suddenly light enveloped his body. He scrambled to his feet as a nearly inaudible yet haunting melody crashed against his ears, and the light faded just as quickly as it appeared. A new notification appeared before him, and this time the box was gilded and surrounded by a stylized border.

 

 

"Holy shit," he said, his eyes wide. "It IS a video game."

 

This confirmed his increasingly paranoid suspicion that he had died and gone to a particularly strange afterlife. He had stats. And levels! What even was this?

 

The notifications continued, unabated.

 

 

 

 

Felix suddenly felt light-headed and sweaty, as if he hadn't eaten in days and tried to run a marathon. His hands shook as he held them up to his head. He saw flashes of blue and gold in the corners of his vision, like fireworks just out of sight.

 

His body felt like a deflating balloon, and all of his air was rushing out of him, gathering at the edges of his vision.

 

 

 

His head felt stuffed with cotton and also vaguely on fire. The pain of the evolving Skill was vivid but brief, a dull burn that even now faded away.

 

If he was reading this correctly, he could learn Skills from the memories of enemies he'd, what? Defeated? Encountered? That was wildly overpowered. His choice of Born Trait was already bearing fruit.