There were also two spots for titles, which seemed different. The first was Competitive and the second Inheritor. They were marked differently, but I could only hope that I’d gain more information along the way.

  I shook my head and kept reading. The skills I got were pretty lame. I did laugh though because I got skills from the fight. It gave me blunt, piercing, and slashing weapons. I thought about it, and I suppose the rake had pierced the squirrel, the slashing because the edge of the shovel had cut the monster a few times, but most of it was the bashing I did. As for my other skills, they looked to be related to my experience in track and cross-country. I didn’t even get a research skill or anything like that for all the time I spent in school. Then again, I had never really enjoyed any of that.

  I pulled them up one by one and looked at their descriptions.

  Running: move 2% per skill level faster than your Agility would normally allow.

  Throwing: accuracy and damage with thrown objects or weapons increased by 1% per skill level while range is increased by 2% per skill level.

  Jumping: range both vertical and horizontal is increased by 2% per skill level beyond what Strength and Agility would normally allow.

  Blunt Weapons: accuracy and damage with blunt weapons is increased by 1% per skill level.

  Piercing Weapons: accuracy and damage with piercing weapons is increased by 1% per skill level.

  Slashing Weapons: accuracy and damage with slashing weapons is increased by 1% per skill level.

  So, nothing special, but I wasn’t gonna knock any advantage that I could get. I was used to beginning out any new game weak. Yet, this wasn’t a game. I might want to think it was, but everything was simply too visceral.

  Before checking the other prompts, I looked down at the gruesome remains of the mutated squirrel and said, “Loot.” Nobody could blame me for trying. It was at least worth asking.

  Chapter 4- First Loot

  For a second, I thought that it was wishful thinking but then I got another message and the body of the squirrel disappeared.

  Congratulations on absorbing your first mana-infused creature, the amount of available loot will double. Because this is the first mana-infused creature looted on your world, the grade of the loot will be upgraded from basic to uncommon, with a small chance at rare. For reference, loot categories are: basic, common, uncommon, rare, masterwork, epic, and legendary.

  Loot results:

  Squirrel Pelt, mana-infused, Uncommon x2

  Class Shard- Rogue, Rare

  Do you wish to accept all the loot?

  I immediately clicked yes and just as quickly, a folded, but very clean and glistening pile of furry pelts appeared at my feet. Next to them was a gray crystal that was about as long and thick as my thumb.

  When I bent over to pick up the crystal, another notification popped up.

  You have come into contact with a system asset while still a member of an un-inducted world. Do you wish to accept the ability: Identify- Basic? This ability is offered to all Forerunners and will not count against your maximum number of active abilities.

  Of course, I accepted and then felt a tickle at the back of my neck followed by a small amount of warmth. Then I suddenly knew what the crystal was. That was very cool. If I was going to have a fever dream, it might as well be awesome like that book I’d been reading about the royal cat with a human bodyguard. Come to think of it, that book was a little bit terrifying too. In many of the books I’d read or anime I’d watched, in order to identify something you had to cast a spell or even worse, shout ‘Identify’ for the world to hear.

  It was a common trope and that would have been pretty lame. It working automatically, was definitely a step forward.

  Class Shard- Rogue: This is a basic class shard and can be used to form your base core class. Caution. Once formed, a class core is very difficult to modify. Do you wish to absorb the class shard? Four shards are required to form a basic class core.

  As much as I wanted to, I held off. A rogue might be a good class… I didn’t exactly want to get into head-on battles with a bunch of these monsters. That was assuming there were more. I snorted again—there were always more, and they always got worse. I just didn’t want to rush into it too quickly.

  I shoved it into the pocket of my jeans. They were still shredded. Whatever force that healed my body hadn’t fixed my clothes.

  The pelts didn’t interest me that much, so I clicked on the link to Earth’s Candidacy. That notification scared the shit out of me.

  Earth has been selected to compete for a place in the Multi-verse. As per the rules established by the Committee for Induction, the world whose Forerunners scores the most points will be admitted to full membership within the Multi-verse. This will include services to gradually acclimate the planet to a mana rich environment and a guaranteed death toll of less than 1% of sapient life forms. Membership will include access to the technology and arts within the system.

  The second and third place Forerunners will have their worlds converted to dungeon worlds. They will be seeded with sapient cores and a variety of species based upon who wins the bids. Mana conversion will be much more rapid, but greater than 50% of sapient life forms may die in the initial conversion.

  The fourth and fifth Forerunners’ worlds will be mined for resources and destroyed depending upon who wins the bids. Total loss of life is expected on these planets, although the Forerunner may acquire enough points to buy transport off world for themself and a select few guests.

  Standings Board

  Induction countdown: 9,419/43,830 hours remaining.

  Current Rankings:

  Bar’jek- World points: 31,614,112 Forerunner points: 3,198

  Nargossa- World points: 22,940,816 Forerunner points: 1,116

  Earth- World points: 19,449,883 Forerunner points: 2,466

  Furloon- World points: 18,997,942 Forerunner points: 1,971

  Crembor- World points: 18,873,332 Forerunner points: 2,018

  This was totally messed up. If I was reading that right, this induction process, whatever that meant, had been going on for almost four years. There was only a year and change left before our world was integrated.

  Earth was currently in third place, but the other two worlds were catching up. This was too much to take in, but I was sticking with my ‘accept it until I can process it better’ position. That was one of dad’s sayings, of which he had many.

  Whoever Earth’s Forerunners were, they needed to get their backsides in gear because even second and third place didn’t sound so great. Even if we held onto third place, that still meant the death of fifty percent of the population. After that, I couldn’t imagine that living on a dungeon world would be ideal.

  I clicked on the world points list to see if there were any further details.

  World Points are earned by Forerunners for completing quests, competitions, and earning Forerunner points. World Points will determine the placement of each world.

  Forerunner points are earned by overcoming challenges, making significant gains in classes, levels, and abilities, or by winning duels. Each world is allowed a maximum of five forerunners. The forerunners split the forerunner points evenly. At the end of the induction countdown, the forerunners may use their share of the points to purchase various technologies, transportation, and boons.

  Wait, five forerunners? How many did Earth have? I clicked on the Forerunner points list and saw the following:

  Bar’jek- 1 forerunner

  Nargossa- 5 forerunners

  Earth- 4 forerunners

  Furloon- 5 forerunners

  Crembor- 5 forerunners

  Wait? How did the leading world only have one forerunner? I tried to click on the entry for Bar’jek but wasn’t allowed to.

  You have not earned access to information about competing worlds.

  Of course, that prompted me to click on Earth.

  Forerunners:

  Jiang Bai

  Anika Patel

  Nuri Khalid

  Emil Larsen- Inactive

  Daniel Becker- Deceased

  Uncle Dan’s name was there. This was just getting weirder by the moment. Could it really be that rather than being crazy, Uncle Dan had been trying to tell my parents about this weirdness? Wait… one of those names seemed familiar. I was far from any type of linguistic expert, but I was guessing Chinese, Indian, middle-eastern, and European. Although for all I knew, they could all live in this town because America was growing more multicultural all the time.

  Again, one of the names was familiar, but I just couldn’t place why, or where, I’d heard it… Emil Larsen… It would no doubt come back to me in the middle of the night just as I was trying to sleep. If it didn’t come back to me, I’d search the internet. Hopefully, I’d get a few pings.

  That brought me back around to my original thought. This whole thing was totally messed up. If this had been going on for almost four years already, then how was it that the government didn’t know anything about it? Or if they did—this was a better kept secret than all the alien hype.

  Part of me said, screw this and walk away. I was the man of the house; I had a duty, and this was irresponsible on so many levels. Another said that I should run to the local police station. Thing was, I hadn’t known my uncle Dan that well. He tended to like cats better than people, but what I remembered of him before he got “sick” was that he was a no nonsense kinda guy. Him and dad got on well before the cancer. In some ways those two acted closer to siblings than mom and uncle Dan did.

  I put myself into uncle’s shoes. There’s no way he would have kept this to himself. He would have tried telling people, particularly those closest to him. The reality was this was probably why people thought he was crazy—mom included. It was the biggest reason she didn’t want us visiting him that often. Dad was honestly the only one to ignore mom and pay him visits.

  Shit… mom, she’d think I’d gone crazy too. That uncle Dan’s “sickness” was contagious. She didn't need any further stress placed on her. I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. No, these thoughts were non-productive.

  However, I just couldn’t tell anyone about this, or I would end up being fitted for my own white jacket. If only we had come here to visit before he died. The year we discovered dad had cancer, was around the same time that Uncle Dan decided to put his affairs in order and wrote his will and testament… with that weird-ass stipulation added on. In fact it had sparked an argument between mom and him about it, with her telling him to shove his money where the sun don’t shine.

  In retrospect, Uncle Dan’s death felt like a precursor for everything that happened afterwards. Dad’s cancer just consumed our lives and then his death had wrecked us.

  I shook my head and pushed thoughts of death out of my head. It was non-productive. There was a mystery in front of me that needed to be solved.

  When Uncle Dan had died two years ago, give or take. He would have been a Forerunner for two years prior to his death. Yeah, in hindsight that made sense. Uncle Dan had been a ‘keep to himself’ kind of man four years prior. Nothing out of the ordinary before that to indicate his erratic behavior. Then, another piece of the puzzle clicked inside my head.

  Dad must have known something. It explained why Uncle Dan made sure to add the clause as mom’s oldest male in his will. With his death and no one to take over for him, Earth started to fall behind in World Points. I snorted and rubbed the back of my neck where I’d had the Identify-ability integrated there. For some crazy conspiracy stuff worthy of an aluminum foil hat, it was logical and made the most sense to me, even if some of my ‘logic’ was based on assumptions.

  I also had to wonder what the ‘Inactive’ designation meant for the fourth of Earth’s Forerunners. Emil Larsen. I guess I’d figure that out soon enough.

  Curiosity was getting the better of me, so I clicked on the connection to Forerunner’s Portal. As soon as I did, a trapdoor of sorts slid open in the floor. The light coming up from it was much more intense and I swear I could feel a vibrating warmth in the air.

  Forerunner’s portal is the term used for a trans-dimensional gateway which is keyed to the Forerunners set forth by a world undergoing induction. It is only usable by the Forerunners. It will provide transportation to the various dungeon worlds which host these induction events.

  Once a world’s Forerunner dies, a new one may be selected based upon the process set forth by the previous Forerunner.

  So that sucked. A small part of me had been holding out hope for there to be a respawn function for Uncle Dan. Yet that didn’t sound like it was in the works. There might be a lot of elements that made this feel like a game… but this was my reality.

  Wait, did that mean the mana-infused squirrel was Uncle Dan’s way of ensuring that I could become the new Forerunner? No, the more I thought about it the more I decided the squirrel was more likely a result of some type of overload. The strange energy in here was probably backed up because Uncle Dan hadn’t been here to do whatever it was that Forerunners did. That definitely explained the purple grass, even if no one else would accept that explanation.

  I thought back over the messages that I had received so far and the only conclusion that I could come up with was that I was being selected as the next Forerunner. Then it hit me. This was supposed to get dad ready for the induction. This was what it was all about. He didn’t care if I slept in the shed; he cared that I or more likely, my dad replaced him… Then another thought struck me. What if Uncle Dan was trying to cure dad the only way he knew how? I mean, I know for a fact that my body changed when I killed that mutant squirrel… Could that have been something that might have cured dad?

  Or maybe I was leaping to conclusions again. Before I thought about it too much, I climbed down the stairs to the level beneath the shed.

  I probably should have gone and gotten my mom, but I didn’t. I wanted to keep her safe from this. If dad hadn’t told her either, I certainly wasn’t about to do it. Besides it would soon be the end of the world, and she had enough on her plate emotionally now. I was going to have to play whatever game my uncle had in mind.

  Me saving the Earth didn’t seem very likely, but at least we’d have money for the next thirteen months. No, I shook my head. That wasn’t true. I didn’t have to win. All I had to do was get enough points to buy passage off world for me and my family. It might suck to be the sole surviving humans, but my first responsibility was to them. I’d promised my dad, after all. Wait… there were four other Forerunners under Earth’s banner. Did that mean I had to share?

  I stopped on the stairs and then went back up. I reached for the shovel but decided against it. The rake was what had really saved my life before. It might be a lame ass weapon, but it was still the best I had right now.

  When I got down the stairs, it took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the light. It was brighter than I expected, brighter than being outside. The space was much larger than I expected. There was a large bed with a nightstand. A stale beer and some pizza were sitting there, obviously nasty, but still far better off than I would have expected for two years.

  Against the side wall was a small bookshelf. It had an odd assortment of items, including a half dozen books in odd leather bindings. I walked around, looking for anything significant. The first thing that leapt out as me was a circular portal in the corner. The ring slowly started to hum as I got closer to it.

  If that wasn’t ominous then, I didn’t know what would qualify. Clearly it was the Forerunner’s portal. It was metallic, with strange runes written into it, about six feet tall and three feet wide. The inside shimmered like water, but it was like something was coming out of it.

  When I got close to it, I felt both scared and energized at the same time. The gamer in me said that it was probably leaking mana, that my body was recognizing it now, despite all this being new. There was no way for me to scientifically verify that, but I only had assumptions to go on at this stage.

  Gut instinct might be every bit as reliable now. And for once, my nerd knowledge was valuable.

  I walked past the portal, unwilling to touch it. Yet. As I continued to search, I found a handwritten diary on the bed, underneath a crumpled blanket.

  I grabbed it and felt a shock run up my arm. My muscles wouldn’t respond.

  You have been paralyzed. Duration: indefinite

  Chapter 5 Not the Intended Recipient

  Freaking… stupid dumbass. I got the Identify ability. Yet, I hadn’t used it. Or rather, I guess it hadn’t activated. Something as simple as a book couldn’t be harmful. I wanted to kick myself. Normal world thinking was gonna get me killed here. I had to think in game terms, yet treat it as the matter of life and death it so obviously was.