Ch: 1 Hello Darkness

 

It was the same dream as always, the one where the system came into his life with such sudden and implacable will.

Night, the soft hissing roar of tires on wet pavement, quiet voices from the front seats and music, always the music. Now bright light and a shattering crash and nothing.

Lights, terribly bright, arrhythmic beeping and pain. That is where it all started; with pain, noise and fear. He saw and heard again, this time from outside the room looking in on his own bandage swathed form, the social worker saying nonsense about foster care and how the state would see to his needs.

Doctors, surgeries, nurses, physical therapy, pain, misery. He watched it play again from the perspective of an audience member at a show. His own story viewed from the cheap seats, barely audible but so firmly emblazoned on his memory, he followed along unwillingly.

 

A big rig blew a tire and tore through the median. Other families had been shattered at the same instant, but he could not muster enough empathy to even consider them. His own was gone, no one left but him, a fourteen year old kid with crippling injuries.

#

 

It was morning in late spring, the breeze that drifted through the tent screen held birdsong and the scent of growing things. Shaking off the dream he grabbed his bum leg and twitched it out of his blankets. After four long years, the morning ritual was instinctive. Kickoff with the right while balancing on the weak left, a quick hop and he was standing.

 

That old familiar gripping twinge and electric tingle arrived right on time, they would be his constant companions for today, tomorrow and the rest of his life.

After a quick wash in the pail of water in his tent he dressed and ducked through the flaps, into a cool green oasis.

Deep in a blackberry bramble on a long vacant industrial yard was his home. A small tent, a few scavenged solar panels wired to a hodgepodge of mismatched parts and an old car battery powered what little of the modern world he had scavenged: A smartphone years out of date with a cracked screen and a radio. 

His camp was well screened by trees and his impenetrable bramble, so he probably didn't have to live so close to the bone. Whenever he considered bringing back a proper mattress, or a found sofa it always came back to the risk.

Risk of discovery, of being sent back. That was the last line, he was never giving the system power over his life again. He had run… well, limped away clean and cut all ties to his old life.

 

A stream ran through just a few yards away and a rusty barbed wire topped cyclone fence provided the illusion of abandonment from the road. A camp stove hidden under a camo tarp finished off the rough and ready home. He wound his way through the paths cut seemingly at random in that thorny tangle till he reached the lone gap in the fence. It was in the center of a thicket of half grown fig trees, hidden from any casual search.

He took a rusty eyesore of a bicycle from among the trees, mounted up and began laboriously pedaling towards town. Looking for all the world like a lower class semi rural highschooler riding a deeply unimpressive bike to school. The bike was more to hide his limp than for transport, pedaling with one and a half legs suuuuucks.

 

He had never considered before that night, how tranquil and well ordered his life had been up to the month after his fourteenth birthday. They lived over the store, mom’s studio in the attic. Grandpa lived over the workshop in the back. A tiny fiefdom of their own in the middle of a medium sized north coast town.

 

Outside school, he lived, breathed and slept music. It surrounded their little tribe and marked them out as different. They were strangers even in the community that grandpa, dad and he had been born in.

Everyone knew the Wards of course, they ran the music store that celebrities appeared at on occasion. They played music at every festival and fair in the area. 

They were fixtures at local events, while being so quiet in their daily lives as to almost disappear into the crowd. Now they had disappeared. 

The shop was foreclosed and their instruments scattered, sold to pay off a legion of ravenous vultures in bad suits. Even his own guitar, built with his own hands, was gone.

 

Of course he was not going to school, school meant adults, adults who would shove him back into the system that had already taken so much away and offered only rules and threats. 

He pedaled past the school, happily anonymous in the masks that were so common since the pandemic began.

 

He cranked his way down a seedy alley and knocked on a steel door marked only with an address number. After a moment it creaked open and he slipped inside. Abandoning his bike in the alley was no risk, he was secure knowing that no one would steal a klunker like that.

 

If his camp was a pleasant oasis this was a slice of dusty, slightly funky heaven. Musical instruments in all stages of repair and construction were everywhere, hanging from pegs, hooks, and racks, lying on benches and stands. A forest of gleaming wood and brass, shining in the bright workshop lights.

 

“Morning Gary '' the old man grunted, as he walked out to the sales floor into even more wonders. 

“Good morning to you too Mr Halls!” He cringed at his own obvious eagerness. 

“Kid, you gotta get yourself a poker face from somewhere. Go on, get to work.”

 

It's a strange thing, growing up in his parents' music store he expected to start his day just this way; cleaning, dusting, polishing and tuning the instruments before opening for business.

 

Hazy childhood days at school, rushing home for the important lessons, the ones he earned by working in the shop. From his earliest memories the music was always there, it was cool water on a hot day, a warm blanket in the night. 

There was always something playing, whether it was a record, dad’s guitar, flute or mandolin or mom's almost endless repertoire of instruments. Silence was a rare and unwelcome visitor.

The instruments were his passion and first romance. He loved them all and consumed them omnivorously; guitar, bass, mandolin, keys, percussion, violin and even a little trumpet. He played them, sold them and was gradually learning the skills of a luthier in the workshop.

 

Those days were gone now, lost in a single night on a rainy highway. Nobody was at fault, just bad weather and bad luck. Now he was living half the life he expected, with half the number of functional legs he planned for.

 

First, a morning of cleaning and tuning, then at opening time he would vanish into the workshop to repair customers' instruments. There was a lot of brass work today. 

The school district contracted with Mr Halls for their ragtag collection of student instruments for decades. The kindly old geezer had been paying out of his own pocket to have the repairs done in another town, since his partner had retired and his arthritis had made even simple repairs a challenge.

 

With a smile, Gary opened the first case in the pile. It was a nice tenor sax, just in need of a little care and attention. Gently tapping a dent from the bell and soldering a small crack, saw it neatly polished and snugged back in its case with little trouble.

 

A few hours later he stood sweaty and triumphant over a small mountain of battered instrument cases while checking the list a final time before calling it a day.

 

There was something about instruments people actually played, they felt more alive and vital than simple tools, metal and lumber could account for. Some subtle sense told him at a touch which instruments were loved and cherished by their creators and owners and which spent most of their time silent and abandoned.

 

School instruments were the best and the worst, they were usually low end student level, bought in bulk and maintained infrequently, but often better loved and more alive than some of the valuable guitars that well to do customers brought in for cleaning and maintenance.

 

Working on some lawyer’s ‘Look at my expensive wall decoration, doesn't it make my office look edgy?’ vintage Gibson was less enjoyable than replacing a stuck spit valve on a middle schooler’s beat up trombone.

 

“You got all those done today? Kid, whatever your deal is, I got no problem with your work. The usual?” The kid nodded. “I'm supposed to say don’t break anything, but you love these damn things more than I do.” Halls grinned, “I’ll be back in three hours, shops closed, go nuts kid.”

 

Three hours alone in a shop filled to bursting with every noise maker ever developed by man might not be everyone's cup of tea, but he planned to drink deeply. The bell over the door signaled Halls’ exit, heading to his twice weekly geezer jam session.

 

Gary scooped his pay envelope off the counter and into a pocket with barely a thought then settled down to an electric piano for some serious jazz noodling. After about twenty two minutes of ‘take five’, he scooted around and pulled a classical guitar into his lap. 

He didn't have his mother’s facility with the full array of instruments, but he could hold his own with guitar, mandolin and banjo and fake it pretty convincingly with most of the rest.

Halls had offered many times to bring Gary to his jam, but the rotating membership included cops and a district attorney, so that was out. A kid on the run from the foster system living on a vacant lot can’t just hang out with the forces of law and order, but he regretted playing alone. 

 

“Music played alone is like a fine meal eaten in silence.” Grandpa always said, whenever he found Gary practicing alone.

He tried to remember the last time he played with another person as music carried him off into his memories. “Cindy.” he whispered, recalling the girl who had first sparked his interest in brass. 

 

He took up trumpet with mom, because lessons were an excuse to talk to the pretty dark haired girl with laughing brown eyes. 

She was his first kiss, shared in the corner of the sales floor behind the cymbal display. “You can kiss me if you want Gary…” Cindy said that afternoon, as his heart thrashed against his ribs like a frightened bird. 

Cindy had been finding excuses to touch him during their lesson, and had followed him onto the sales floor after. She watched him work, humming and toying with the instruments as he dusted and tuned.

 

The taste of bubblegum lip balm and boba tea flooded his mind as he thought of her for the first time in so long.

 

Gary saw her a few times around town, after the accident, when he went into the system. She avoided him like a bad smell, not even looking his way. 

“Hey Cindy!” He called, hobbling on his shiny new crutches after her down the school hallway. She never even looked back

 

He had simply vanished that day, as though he had walked off the edge of the map of the world he once knew. Only the system remembered him, when it could be bothered.

That was almost as hard as the funerals… flowers and cards from around the world flooded in, or so the social worker said. 

He didn’t even remember her name, but she never remembered his either. She always snuck a peek at his file to remind herself at the start of their infrequent ‘sessions’.

 

Nearly four years since then and it still hurt, the numb burning ache of being lost at the mall as a child, and knowing he would never be found again. 

Just a few more days and he could step out into the light again. If only he could remember how.

 

That was the most terrifying part, how do you go from surviving to living again? Where do you go to begin again when you never had a chance to start?

 

When the old man got back everything was in order and tidy, the kid sitting at the counter tearing into a burrito from the truck across the street with admirable gusto. “When you want to become a real employee, let me know, kid. If you got law troubles, maybe I can help out…”

 

Halls trailed off as a sad smile came through the invisible mask Gary never removed. His expression seemed to dim the lights in the room just a bit. 

He slid off his stool and shuffle limped to the back door. “I’m not hiding from the law Mr Halls, my family is superJehovah Witness, so I'm not allowed to play music at home...”

 

It was a sweet little lie that hurt to tell to a man who had only offered kindness and access to his collection of marvelous toys. Just another debt to weigh down on him, but questions and paperwork were too big of a threat. Just one more week of this and he would be free, an adult, ready to live on his own terms and make his way in the open.

 

A little while later he was once more on his bike, cranking for home with a new coat from Goodwill, and best of all a pearwood soprano recorder, also from the thrift shop.

 

A recorder should be quiet enough to play at home without attracting unwanted attention and for three bucks it would be sad to just leave it there. Even now he could feel the smooth waxy wood on his fingertips… very distracting while riding in the evening.

 

‘Toast? Why do I smell toast and jam?’ He wondered briefly and then there was nothing.

 

#

With sinking dread he woke to bright lights again, not dream lights, but beaming sunrays filtered through leaves. “Wha?” He said with wit and insouciance, while drooling something viscous from his mouth and ears.

He scrabbled at the rapidly drying slime with panicked fingers finding it all but gone already. Leaving behind only a mild salty taste like snot, delightful. 

In a rush, he sat up and reached for his left leg from a long habit to get on his feet and found… smooth, warm flesh and straight bones?

 

It was a leg, a normal straight leg, with no ruddy purple scars or wasted muscles to be seen. In wonder he stood and stepped cautiously onto it, perfect. 

A wide grin spread across his face and was immediately replaced with confused concern. “I’m naked in the woods. And my leg is back.” And so he was; in a light forest glade of oaks and olive trees. Underfoot was a scruffy blend of tough herbs and grasses.

 

Birds and bugs, some quite unfamiliar, went about their day oblivious to the sticky, naked miracle among them. A tingle in the corner of his eye caught his attention and at a glance a pale amber window leapt out into view.

 

Interface it read in bold cheerful letters. Something traumatic has occurred, in the interest of keeping you alive, new resources and potentials have been unlocked within you. Enjoy the new you! 

A confused and exasperated thought sent it flittering away in faint yellow sparkles, only to be replaced by another

 

Congratulations, you are made anew!

Gary Wade, Demihuman/Monster Age:17 Rank:normal

Might:normal

Resilience:unknown

Agility:normal

Will:normal

Mind:normal

Animus:normal

Debuff removed, mobility, left leg. Debuff removed, mobility, spinal damage. New abilities unlocked.

 

This message filled much of his vision with a wall of friendly golden text.

 

Interface: gathers and disseminates environmental and internal information via graphical objects and text messages.

No mana cost, no cooldown.

 

Pockets!: Small to medium sized objects can be safely stashed and removed from a non dimensional space, attached to your spirit/soul/shade/ghost. Weight and mass limits apply. Minor mana cost, no cooldown.

 

Familiar Stranger: When first encountering non hostile entities you will appear to be vaguely known and non threatening. You may choose to seem more forgettable or noticeable to any creature of animal intelligence or higher, scales against subjects willpower and perception. Possible advantages to stealth and/or performance activities. Language and literacy adaptation. Written, spoken or gestural languages are adapted to immediately. No mana costs or cooldown.

 

Artisan: crafting, artistic and creative skills receive bonuses for current knowledge, new skills are much easier to acquire and promote. Can craft, repair and use objects of one rank higher than current level, not all functions or options will be available when using higher rank items.

No costs or cooldown. Resources and items may be extracted from interactions with the world. No mana cost no cooldown.

 

Homebody: Home is truly where the heart is. You may establish a dwelling in any open space capable of supporting a structure. Structure will conform to available space and creator’s parameters as much as possible. 10 minute ritual, very high mana cost, 1 hour cooldown. Temporary objects can be created in the dwelling at creators will for a minor mana cost, no cooldown. Created objects dissipate on exiting dwelling.

 

He shook off the new message after realizing he was outstanding in his field, nakedly. He looked about in the early stages of shock and panic, taking in nothing while musing on whether to call this emotion shanic or panock… ‘No those both suck’ He thought while still mid freakout.

 

“Did i just get bamfed to another world? Whose leg is this? Where's my pants? I just got paid! Where's my flute?”

 

The last one got him searching out of mindless animal reaction, he looked all around for any sign of where his things might have gone, even patting himself down briefly.

 

While patting his thigh his right hand slipped into a “Pocket!?” he gasped as his hand and forearm disappeared into empty leg meat. Nothing was in there, he checked the left and sure enough, a big empty pocket of nothing.

Getting his breathing under control he took a slow turn around. An empty clearing, marked only by the depression in the grass he had awakened on.

 

Trees and shrubs covered the low rolling hills in a semi arid scrub forest. A familiar environment at least. He could hear a stream not too far off, marked out by the greener foliage and reeds along its still hidden bank.

 

He took another turn looking to the near horizon for signs of human habitation. There! a thin streamer of gray smoke a mile or so off to the south west just, too far to smell it. He ambled over to the stream, relishing his newfound mobility and took a good look.

 

Clear and quick moving water, at a touch it was too cold to be anything but spring fed in this warm place. A new screen popped into the corner of his vision, softly glowing until he gave it attention.

 

Water; normal, potable/component/reagent/solvent.

He blinked it away, only to get another.

 

Common bullrush; normal, edible/component/reagent/medicinal.

 

And another.

Common plantain(herb); normal, edible/component/reagent/medicinal.

They kept coming for a while, detailing (presumably) everything he had touched since waking. Near the end of the list of herbs, fungus, minerals and lichens he found an outlier.

 

Etheric slime; magical, edible/component/reagent/medicinal/solvent/unknown/unknown/unknown. degrading/dissipating.

 

The other messages he had noted and dismissed, on this he looked deeper on instinct, the message expanded as he watched.

 

Etheric slime; magical, edible/component/reagent/medicinal/solvent/unknown/unknown/unknown. degrading/dissipating.

 

Residue produced by etheric travel, a short-lived and highly valued magical component, is non toxic and harmless. Dissipates into background magic within minutes of appearance unless preserved magically or alchemically.

This sample no longer exists.

 

The power to identify things by touch would be very handy, but that assumed he was not hallucinating, Gary had enough confidence in his own mental acuity to dismiss that thought. He made a conscious decision to push any doubts about the reality he was experiencing to the side.

 

No one who has lived in pain, with the scars and debilitating numbness could doubt their sudden absence. No one dealing with the burning, tingling shocks and outright electrocutions that a damaged nervous system provides, could ever fail to notice if the effects were to vanish one day. If today was the day that happened he was willing to accept anything.

 

Fortified in his own mind, he turned up stream, the flow came from the direction of the smoke trail. With a grunt of satisfaction, he started following just a bit away from the green wall of rushes and foliage surrounding his brook. 

Using the softer grass and soil near the water to ease his feet, it took over an hour to make his sore barefoot way upstream.

 

In a clearing, against a low cliff wall sheared from the hillside by some violent force in the distant past stood a small stone and plaster cabin, a lazy curl of smoke dribbling out from the chimney.

Nearby a spring leapt from a fissure in the rock, tumbling down to feed a small creek, swelling it into the stream he had followed up here. 

Mustering his courage and nothing else he strode into the cleaning and called out. “Hey, folks! I’m naked out here but I swear I'm not some crazy perv!” No answer. “Hello!” still nothing. “OK, I’m coming in, sunburn is a whole thing…”

 

He approached the porch, surrendering any attempt at modesty. Pinned to the door by a small iron nail was a parchment note in elegant flowing script, reading;

 

‘If you can read this, come inside, your nudity will not offend me.’

 

With a shrug he took hold of the door handle, a simple wooden sliding affair and gave it a push. The door swung open at his first touch, revealing a comfortable room, with a hearth holding a small, nearly exhausted fire, a cot in one corner and a simple but comfy looking chair on a rug by the hearth. A low table beside it held a small stack of books, a thick manuscript and a rolled scroll. 

One wall was obviously the sheer rock face of the hillside, unadorned save for an odd shaped door cut into the stone and filled by a solid looking bronze bound door of wide hardwood planks.

 

The chair held a skeleton, or rather a man so old that his flesh seemed to have become little more than taut leather over his bones.

 

More precisely a dead man. Not long dead, he was still slightly warm, composed in a restful position; he could have been asleep except for his emaciated and slowly cooling condition.

 

Realizing he was naked in the home of a dead man, standing over the body, naked, (did I mention naked?) he began looking for a closet or wardrobe.

 

A weird cabin in the woods with nobody around should make a trouser burglary child’s play, but a careful search of the cabin turned up no clothing beyond the robe on the dead man. 

Not a stitch, there was the bedroll on the cot, but that looked like it was a tidy bit of craftsmanship, it would be a shame to make it into a loincloth.

 

He found a cupboard containing a few bags of grain, flour, salt and some dried meat, fish and vegetables. It was probably enough food for a couple weeks if he was careful. More if he gathered whatever his weird ability said was edible. He remembered eating gathered cattails and duckroot while camping with his family. “Damn, now I want s’mores.” Talking to himself was getting to be a habit these last two years.

 

He turned to the books on the table, starting with the scroll, tied with a jolly orange silk braided cord and addressed ‘To the one who finds my corpse’ in clear and bold letters, completely unfamiliar letters that made perfect sense. “Weird!” he breathed softly while slipping the cord free.

 

‘Dear Stranger,

Congratulations, you found my cabin in the woods! I am Zygnos Matteus, Sorcerer first class, and your dearly departed benefactor! Contained in this cabin and on its grounds are my life’s work and all my worldly goods, they are yours on two conditions;

1: Please dispose of my body with some measure of dignity, I have no living relations and care little for what happens to it now.

 

2: Please carry the manuscript under this scroll to the town of Wheatford two days west of this place. Find Amicus Fawn, sorcerer and adjutant administrator of the College Arcanum there. Please present him the manuscript, and then tell him loudly; “Zygnos says suck it loser!” preferably in a very public setting.

 

While I have no way to enforce these requests, I would appreciate your assistance in this vital matter of academic honor.’

 

Under the scroll was the promised manuscript, covered in dense script on every page, even the drawings and diagrams revealed nothing but impenetrable jargon.

 

He took the hefty sheaf of paper and tucked it into his newfound Pocket! with a satisfied smile. Quickly, he produced it from the Pocket! and stuffed it back in, only to pull it from the other side. “Entertaining.” he mumbled to himself, leaving it in his mysterious Pockets!

He started looking for anything else of use. The next book in the pile was a field guide to local wildlife and flora, with an emphasis on self sufficiency. 

 

Gary had dabbled in that section of the library by necessity since taking up the unhoused lifestyle and found it interesting and useful. He added that book to his Pocket! as well.

Something deep within told him the gift’s proper name was always an exclamation of joyous surprise. Rather than the word, it was the feeling of putting on your favorite old coat and finding a wad of cash in the Pockets! 

 

The next in the stack was a romance novel of the steamy sort, including an artistically not quite obscene cover.

Titled; ‘An Affair Of Monsters’ It seemed to be the kind of thing that would be of questionable taste in any company. A ribbon marked what Gary assumed was the most salacious passage in the whole book, because it was pretty wild.

… captain Sisklikth let his tentacles squirm with glee, those semi sentient appendages knew what he liked and liked giving it to him. 

The slaves cowering in the hold had better be ready. His sperm sacks were nearly bursting with new life and eager to fill these trembling human bellies with innumerable children…

 

Reading a new language and alphabet at a glance was still startling, reading monster on human literary porn was another level of jarring. He closed the book and it slipped into his magic leghole. ‘For later…’ He thought guiltily. The last book was small and slim, a notebook filled with that now familiar writing, but his time in english.

 

  On impulse he went to the door and read the note still on its nail. It was in English as well, clear and well drawn by a steady hand. ‘Weird.'' He thought and took the note down and added it and the notebook to his growing library.

 

In the bare stone wall opposite the hearth, a wide low door led to a room carved into the cliff face. It was neatly cut and square, three walls were coated with smooth plaster. 

Clearly someone had used it as a whiteboard, nearly every surface within reach of a small person was covered in the same flowing, neat script as the manuscript.

Like the papers, the writing on the wall made sense as words and numbers, but they might equally have been technical drawings for a jet engine or the chemical composition of a nice apple crumble.

 

The fourth wall was, again, plain native stone set with another door. In the center of the room stood a desk piled with notebooks, papers, scrolls and tomes of the same neat handwriting and incomprehensible text. Finding nothing of immediate use, he went to the next door and opened it.

 

This room was a more natural cavern, damp and earthy smelling. The tinkling sound of water filled the room almost musically… no, it was music! Cool, calm and alien, it had a rhythm and melody all its own. 

Soft plonks of water dripping into sunken pools made a gentle percussive element, while trickling, tinkling rivulets sang sweetly in counterpoint to the throaty gurgle of the water draining out of a hole in the wall.

 

If not for the dark and damp this would be the most perfect place he had ever been. The only man made objects were the rough wooden planking that made a square platform over the uneven cavern floor, and a table holding an elaborate liquid filled apparatus of glass and brass.

 

Multiple glass bulbs and tubes held different colors of liquid at varying levels and clarity. Some bubbled, others were in viscous motion or completely still. It gave no clues to its purpose beyond being very shiny and fun to watch.

 

It was this contraption that lit the chamber in a pleasant amber glow. ”Ohh man, best lava lamp ever!” He whispered, reluctant to interrupt the unearthly chorus still quietly getting down around him. If he listened carefully it almost had lyrics… not quite, almost.

 

From deep within he could feel something building as he listened to that subtle interplay of water, gravity and stone, something strong and... *Rrrrruuuumble* 

His guts rang out in complete disregard for the music, reminding him that his burrito was a few hours ago, maybe more than just that.

 

Shutting each door behind him, he returned to the main room and rekindled the fire from a neat stack of firewood nearby.