“Does this backwater reality of yours understand the multiverse theory?” Forge began.

Gary ignored the jibe.

“Uh, yeah, I guess so. I’ve heard of it. Isn’t that the idea that there are hundreds of distinct realities, all like this one but different? So there’s two of me in different worlds? That kind of thing?”

“Yeah, close enough,” Forge shrugged, “Although most realities diverge significantly from each other. It depends on how far back they diverged. And they’re very different from what you’re used to. You wouldn’t likely find two of you running around. At least not that you’d recognise.”

“Okay, so you’ve come from another reality?”

“We’re all from different realities. We just met along the way,” Annabel said, taking a deep swig from a metal tankard.

Forge and Morgan were drinking from similar tankards, sitting around the table. The tankards had, like so many objects Gary had seen, all appeared out of thin air in each of their hands. As they drank, various scratches and wounds that they had received healed up. Only Rain didn’t have a tankard. Instead, she produced a small blue bottle and drank the contents, which produced the same healing effect.

“Where are all these things coming from?” Gary asked.

“Stashes. Wow, you mean you don’t even have stashes here?” Forge asked.

“No?”

“This really is a backwater…”

“They’re our personal holding pockets,” Annabel explained. “Little dimensional rifts where we can store useful items. Everyone is born with them.”

Gary’s head was aching. He looked around the tent.

“Okay, and where are we?”

“A sanctuary. It’s half a shift across from the reality its produced in, so we’re still tethered to your dimension, just outside it ever so slightly. Anyone or anything trying to cross over the space it’s in won’t be able to enter it, unless we let them. Also, it repels the undead.”

“This is pointless,” Rain commented. She was sitting some distance from the group, cleaning her black knives. “He’s too stupid. We should go.”

“No, no, I get it,” Gary half-lied, “Its just a lot to take in, carry on. What are all these screens I keep seeing? Like character sheets and so on?”

“Oh wow,” Morgan muttered, “I’d almost forgotten what a class zero reality was like.”

Forge’s huge eyebrows furrowed. He looked like an adult trying to find the words to explain complex mathematics to a six-year-old.

“Okay, I think I know how to explain this. Listen, in your world, your reality, you have all these technology devices, right? Objects made of metal, powered by electrickery. They let you do normal stuff like talk to people over long distances, make things appear from nowhere, teleport from place to place?”

“Uh, well, the first one, sure. Not teleport or make things appear. Unless you count on home delivery, I suppose.”

“Right, and on these devices you play games, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so. Those games you are playing are how reality is for the rest of us. There are realities which never tap into the primal Mana source. They’re disconnected, and...”

Forge frowned, struggling to explain it.

Annabel picked it up.

“And what we’ve seen in these realities, the class zeros, focus on developing technology. What most of the technology is doing is trying to mimic what we can do without too much effort. It’s like the people in the class zero reality know that something is wrong. Their reality is missing something, and they try to use technology to compensate.”

“Right,” beamed Forge, “And those games you play on those metal machines, they’re like a reflection of what you don’t have but know instinctively to be true. That there’s something wrong with the way your reality works. You are missing the fundamentals that the rest of us take for granted.”

“Well... why wasn’t our reality... uh, dialled in?”

Annabel shrugged. “It just happens sometimes. A bit like the same reason some eggs don’t hatch. The reality is created. The potential is there, but nothing happens.”

“Right, okay, I get it, and the black rain, the slug things...”

“That was your world being activated. Brought into the fold, so to speak.”

“We joined the system?”

“You joined reality,” Annabel corrected, “The Admins discovered your dimension, saw that it hadn’t hatched, if you like, and gave it a boost to unlock all the potential.”

“Wow, okay,” Gary nodded. So there was a multiverse and his world had been sitting on the sidelines for millions of years, disconnected from the other worlds. Its magic potential never realised until the black rain.

“Okay, so far, so good, I guess. What about the zombies, the undead? There was a necromancer...”

All four faces darkened at this question.

Annabel picked up the explanation again.

“Long story short, there’s a war raging across the multiverse between the living and the dead. And the dead are winning. Whenever a reality is activated like this, the first ones to arrive are the necromancers. Their goal is simple: make sure they kill everyone in the world. To this end, the dead are raised.

“Once the entire world has been converted to the undead, portals are opened and the undead are transported en masse to fight in the war.”

“Wait, what?”

“It wasn’t always like this. I think, at least. The war has been going on for a thousand years. No-one can remember what it was like before.”

Gary’s mind was reeling again. “So the black rain, that wasn’t connected to the necromancer and the undead?”

“Not directly. That’s just the system activating. The necromancers always get to a newly activated reality before anyone else. We don’t know how.”

“Oh, of course we know how,” Forge thundered. “They’ve got someone in Admin on their side. It’s obvious. Some kind of bribery.”

“Come on, that’s against the rules, and you know it,” Annabel replied. “They’ve just got faster and better magic.”

She turned to Gary, “Here, have a drink.”

Annabel blinked a metal flagon out of her stash and offered it to Gary. Feeling shellshocked by the onslaught of revelations, he took it. The liquid inside was a deep amber.

He took a tentative sip.

His insides burned as soon as he did so, and he yelped in pain.

A notification popped up.

Ale of Healing. 2 Hit Points damage.

“What the hell?”

“I thought that might happen,” Annabel smirked.

“What?”

“You are undead, right? At least according to your classification. The Ale of Healing is for the living. When the undead consume it, it wounds them.”

“Oh, terrific! Thanks!”

“Healing spells would probably hurt you too, or have no effect,” Annabel mused. “I wonder what effect my shrivel the dead spell would have on you.”

“Uh, I don’t think I want to find out!” Gary protested, pushing the Ale of Healing away.

Annabel shrugged. “Well, it might burn the undead out of you, but leave you alive. It might act as a reset, in theory.”

“Or it most likely would just kill him like all the others,” Morgan added.

“True. It looks like the classification affects you physically, but because you still have your own will, anything trying to control your behaviour fails. Hm, I wonder what effect other items might have on you…”

“Okay, moving on.” Gary steered the conversation in another direction. “So, where do you fit in? You’re fighting against the dead, I suppose?”

“Yeah. Sure,” Annabel nodded.

“We’re glitch hunters,” Morgan expanded. “We cross the multiverse looking for realities where the system has a glitch we can exploit. An anomaly or something not working the way it should do, that can give us an edge.”

“Like the weapons glitch,” Forge added, taking another swig from his tankard. “That was a good one. We found out that if you took a weapon from your stash and dropped it but took it from your stash again immediately, it produced a duplicate.”

“That was brilliant.” Morgan nodded. “Infinite weapon supply. Shame the admin patched it.”

“They always patch the glitches. Remember the red curse glitch?”

“Yeah, that was rough,” Annabel nodded.

“What was that?”

“Ah, it was this spell called the red curse that some demons could cast back in the day. Caused your hit points to drain away. Easy enough to cure, but the thing was, it was infectious. It was only supposed to be infectious in small groups, as per Admin approved spell casting abilities, but this one was transferred to a pet, which carried it back to a city. Infected thousands...”

“More like millions,” Annabel scowled, “The clerics had no way of keeping up with their healing spells.”

“That sounds pretty rough,” Gary said. “How was that helpful, at all?”

“That one wasn’t, in fact. Total nightmare.”

“We’ve got a collection of them written down,” Forge waved the pocket-sized book Gary had noticed him holding earlier, “Whenever we go to a freshly integrated reality, its worth running tests to see if any of the glitches slipped through the patches.”

“So we track anomalies,” Annabel said. “System errors where Admin has stepped in to correct whatever problem occurred. Again, looking for potential exploits or advantages. Anything that can give us an edge.”

“Which is how you found me,” Gary said, understanding dawning at last, “When I was classified as a zombie, there was a message about a system error and an admin stepping in or something.”

“Explain what happened,” Annabel said.

Gary outlined as best he was able about the events earlier.

“So I guess there was some kind of system conflict, and that was when the Admin stepped in?” Gary ventured after describing the events.

“Right,” Forge said, “But in your case they made the wrong call.”

“Somebody made a mistake?” Gary asked, mortified.

“Well, sure, it happens. Have you never made a mistake at work? A reality getting seeded is a big job for the administrators, there’s a lot going on. Whoever looked at your error was probably rushed off their feet, made a snap decision and moved back to making sure the integration was going smoothly.”

Annabel almost sounded defensive on behalf of the mysterious administrators.

“Oh, terrific,” Gary muttered, “I’m someone’s lunch break bodge.”

“I mean, it could be worse. At least the undead are ignoring you, so you’re safe. At least for now, anyway.”

“It’s true,” Morgan nodded. “You’ve got a much higher chance of survival like this than if they had classified you as what you are, a no-skill level 1 human.”

“Wow, thanks...”

“I mean, you’re still going to die, of course. But you’ll last a bit longer.”