Stolen by the System

I’m so fired.

Scattered thoughts struggled together into a semblance of consciousness, and Ted found himself laid out on his back with blades of grass prickling against his neck.

Definitely not at work. On the plus side, all his limbs were still attached, reporting in with a mixture of dull pain and exhaustion.

His eyes begged to stay shut just a little while longer. If only. He took a pained breath and forced them open.

Blinding light flooded in, assailing his senses. He squeezed his eyes shut again, too late to stop his temples igniting with pounding agony. At least he wasn’t dead.

Where was he? The damp, springy ground beneath his back felt like grass, but that couldn’t be true. The air tasted fresh and earthy, full with the scent of decomposing leaves and wood instead of discarded couches and beer bottles.

None of it made sense. Either he was losing it, or something very weird was going on.

Let’s go for the latter for now, huh?

There had to be a rational explanation. If he approached it with an open mind and the scientific method, all would be revealed. He opened his eyes a sliver at a time, giving them time to adjust.

Staring up at the sky, he had to wonder—was it him, or was the sky a few shades too orange?

No, that had to be a perfectly normal orange-tinged sky. A trick of the light. How often did he really look up, anyway? His gut clenched. It didn’t sit right, but what was the alternative? That this wasn’t his sky? That was impossible.

Ted frowned. There weren’t trees like these anywhere nearby, either. At least, that’s what he’d thought. The evidence before his eyes said otherwise.

He dragged his arm up, shading his eyes from the sun’s assault. It didn’t make sense, none of it did. Why was the sun directly overhead in winter? Why was it so damned hot all of a sudden? What the hell was going on?

Eliminate the impossible and, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. Clearly, at least 12 hours had passed, and, predictably, no one had rescued him. Not beyond dragging him into a field, anyway. He clenched his jaw. If you need a job done right…

That was quite enough indulging himself; it was time to make a move. He pulled himself to his feet and tugged at his bottom lip, tasting salty sweat. He frowned again. Winter wasn’t supposed to be boiling, and trees definitely weren’t meant to be that big.

Fuck. He was not in Kansas anymore, not that he had been originally. He looked around at the enormous trees lining the forest clearing he was in. The thick tufts of green could conceivably have been grass, but the trees—the huge, interlocking sprawl of wood reaching up to the heavens—were unlike anything he’d ever seen before.

Branches linked every tree together, mingling into one another as far as the eye could see. His breath stalled and he stared, his jaw hanging open. Many of the trunks were wider than a car’s length. He’d never seen anything like it. Were they a single organism? Like quaking aspen, but joined above ground as well?

A faint crack, barely audible, triggered the familiar surge of adrenaline. Still as a mouse, his heart pounding, he scanned the forest.

A broken branch meant movement. Movement meant danger. Whatever was out there, he wasn’t getting caught flat-footed again.

There! The flurry of motion came to an eerie stillness. Without the streak of red blood across the creature’s flank, Ted never would have spotted it amidst the trees. The green and brown camouflage fur was unlike any creature he’d ever seen, but otherwise, it looked remarkably familiar.

Four legs, a tail, and brandishing two razor-sharp canines surrounded by an equally worrying array of teeth. A wolf, or close enough to make no difference. A hundred feet out, if that, and staring right at him with hungry intensity.

He wouldn’t make it far if he ran. Even if he had stood a chance of outrunning the beast, sprinting across the rough, unfamiliar terrain would have been suicide. Once again, there was only one thing for it—but this time, he stood a chance. He knew how to kill a wolf.

Well, at least on paper. He’d never hunted in his life, and even if he had, he was completely unarmed. Still, he had more of a chance against a wolf than a cloud of darkness. Especially a wolf with an arrow already sticking out of its side.

There had to be something he could use as a weapon. He stood completely still, moving only his eyes to search.

Grass.

Grass.

More grass.

Shit. Could he strangle the wolf with his bare hands? How strong were wolves?

Salvation! A thick branch, a few long strides in the wolf’s direction. If he was quick, he could pick it up and swing before the wolf—and its razor-sharp teeth—made short work of him.

Not that he’d make a very good meal, all skin and bone. The thought was little comfort, but it eased the tension holding him tight.

When it came to it, he’d have to be fast and smooth. Rigidity would get him killed.

The wolf’s paws were huge, doubtless sporting equally large claws. He’d have to avoid those, as well as its teeth.

It was already wounded. Could he exploit that?

Probably not quickly enough. If the arrow had hit anything vital, it would already be dead, not hunting him.

There was no way he could come out of an extended struggle uninjured. He’d have to aim for the head, go for a quick kill.

Wolf

Level: 4

The awareness popped up at the front of his mind, that sixth sense rearing its head once more.

Levels? Alright, brain, when this is over, we’re having a little heart-to-brain, because this isn’t a fucking video game.

HP: 32/125

Under half hit points. Sure, maybe his traumatized brain was imagining it all while he bled out after being mugged in the alley, but if not, this was the first bit of good news in a while.

He continued studying the wolf. Knowledge is power, and he needed as much as possible before the inevitable confrontation.

Stamina: 150/150

Status: Hungry

Less good news, but not exactly unexpected. It wasn’t like wolves habitually attacked humans. Too much trouble for a scrawny meal. The poor thing probably just wanted to survive until sundown, same as him.

Ted clenched his jaw. It didn’t matter. It was kill or be killed—and hesitation would get him killed.

He coiled up, readying himself to do what had to be done.

The wolf charged.

Ted darted for the fallen branch, his heart thundering.

He grasped the thinner end of the branch, hefted it up, and planted his feet wide.

The hungry beast bounded out from the tangled trees, its huge paws effortlessly finding purchase. Its jaws opened, flaunting an array of razor-sharp teeth.

Ted’s heart leaped into his throat. One shot was all he’d get.

The wolf pounced. Ted swung with all he had.

He struck it square in the jaw, rewarded with a vicious, stomach-churning crack.

22 bashing damage dealt!

Blunt weapons skill increased 0 → 1!

Not enough.

The wolf kept coming. Its jaws closed around his left arm. Teeth pierced skin and nerves ignited with an agony that shattered every thought.

47 piercing damage received!

Red-hot rage took the reins. He wasn’t going down, not like this, not against an overgrown mangy dog.

The wolf held on with its powerful jaws, refusing to let go.

Ted gritted his teeth and slammed the club down on the wolf’s head again. Another crack rang out, louder and even more sickening than the first.

13 bashing damage dealt!

30 bashing damage dealt!

30 bashing damage received!

Injury received (broken arm)!

100 XP received!

Level increased 0 → 1!

The wolf’s grip loosened and it slumped to the floor, motionless. He’d won.

Adrenaline dropped off a cliff, replaced by an agony that ripped at Ted’s arm and his skull. He dropped the branch and clasped his hand to his mouth, muffling his scream as best he could. He didn’t need anything else in the forest thinking of him as an easy lunch.

When the agony finally quelled down to mere excruciating pain, he reclaimed his makeshift club and looked down at what he’d done. The wolf lay dead at his feet, its eyes wide open and its tongue hanging out.

Ted’s stomach hardened. All it had wanted was to survive, but what choice had he had? Sorry, buddy. It was you or me.

He looked down at his own bloodied, mangled arm. Why did he have to be so damned stupid? His medical knowledge was second to, well, everyone, but even without the notification, he’d have known it was broken. To add insult to injury, it wasn’t the wolf that had broken it.

Looking around, he couldn’t see any more threats.

Would he, though?

Ted clenched the club tight and prayed that the wolf didn’t have any stealthy friends looking to play. Either way, he wouldn’t stick around to find out.

He needed a better plan. Priority one was finding safety, or as close to it as he could. Then he could assess what he had, what he needed, and how he was going to get it.

He slumped behind a tree and tenderly held his arm. The damned pain was incessant, and it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon, was it? He gritted his teeth. He’d have to bear it. On the plus side, his headache was gone. He chuckled to himself. Some upside.

Where was he? That was the first question, and the hardest to answer. One possibility was he’d completely cracked. If so, then, based on the current predicament, he was seriously off the deep end, and even more depraved than he’d thought.

That possibility could be discounted. Not because it wasn’t likely—he had to admit it was the most plausible explanation—but because if he was that crazy, a logical plan wasn’t going to help.

It felt real. Too real and too damned painful to be a dream, or a simulation of any kind. At least, not one that had been developed yet, not on Earth, anyway. He snorted. He’d need a lot more evidence before considering aliens or time machines as the explanation.

Not that the evidence he had was consistent with any other scenario he could come up with. Shadows chasing him. A voice that smashed its way into his head. Waking up… wherever the hell he was now. And none of that was even half as weird as the other message, the one that felt like it came from inside him. The one he wished he could just pretend never happened.

Quest received: Save your father, save the world.

His fingernails dug into his palm. Quests weren’t real, not like that. Then again, neither were alien worlds or hit points or skills or experience or half the things that had happened lately. If it wasn’t real, then nothing he did mattered. If it was, he was in deadly shit.

Whatever was going on, he’d play along for now.

Ted cocked his head. When he’d focused on the wolf, the weird sixth sense had eventually offered up information. What if he turned that inward?

Edwin Williams

Level: 1

Experience: 0/400

HP: 138/215

Stamina: 220/220

MP: 230/230

Status: Hero, Broken Arm

Muscles unclenched throughout his body. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, but there it was, mathematical proof he wasn’t even halfway dead. Still a third of the way, but that was a whole lot better than it could have been.

He’d have to deal with the broken arm sooner rather than later. For now, he’d grit his teeth and tough it out. The phrase “not yet out of the woods” had taken on an altogether too literal meaning for his liking.

The other status was a mystery. Hero. What did it do? Was it some kind of reward for killing a level 4 wolf at level 0?

Probably not. He’d had a notification about the broken arm, so it stood to reason that the Hero status was pre-existing. Whatever it meant, there wasn’t any indication it was temporary.

Nor on the broken arm effect, either. Was he stuck with that until he could heal? What about the lost hit points? He patted his pockets, but his phone was missing. All he had were the clothes on his back and a thick branch covered in blood.

He shrugged and stared at his current HP, willing it to go up.

One thousand, two thousand, three thousand…

The count went higher and higher but his HP stubbornly stayed the same. He counted off a minute on his fingers, then two. On the third, he growled and kicked the ground. Pain shot up his arm and he winced. Why did he have to be so stupid?

There had to be some way to work out his health regeneration. He took a while to think about it, and then, there it was, so bloody obvious. Berating himself taking so long to think of it, he focused inward again.

HP Regen: 3.4/h

Stamina Regen: 0.9/s

MP Regen: 1.6/s

His inner sense confirmed that, yes, that was 3.4 per hour. Some quick mental arithmetic gave him sixty-three hours until fully healed. Unless he found some magical healing pronto, he’d be in for a gritty ride.

That was one side of the coin. In better news, his new inner sense confirmed that MP meant mana points. He might not know any spells yet, but if he had mana, that had to mean magic was at least possible, right?

A giddy, tingling possibility that might even make this all half-way worth it. Who wouldn’t want the power to make things happen with their mind? So much less messy than…

His gaze settled back down upon the wolf’s lifeless corpse and its caved-in skull. Anything was less messy than that.

Less than half an hour in and he’d already taken nearly three days’ worth of damage. Finding safety had to be his top priority.

The arrow protruding from the wolf caught his eye again. Whoever had shot it was still out there somewhere. Best case, they could help, or at least clue him in to where the hell he was. Worst case, they’d kill him quickly.

Either outcome was better than sitting under the tree and praying that nothing came by for the next sixty-three hours, kept company only by the increasingly foul scent of blood.

He hauled himself to his feet and set off in the direction he thought the wolf had come from.

Once he got out of the clearing, the near-constant shade from the oversized leaves above kept the heat tolerable. Tolerable, at least, as long as he kept his leather jacket wrapped around his waist. Of course, that left his arms exposed to the abundant and painfully sharp thorns of the forest.

Progress was slow. The thick undergrowth often blocked his path, forcing him to backtrack and find another way through the luscious maze of vines, bushes, and thorns. And with the sun as high and hidden as it was, it was useless for navigation. Damn it, if only he had a compass. It would be all too easy to end up walking in circles for the rest of his no doubt short life.

He paused his stride and cocked his head. Would a compass even work here? He shrugged and continued on his hopefully more-or-less straight path. It was an interesting question, but without a compass or magnets, there was no way to test it. His phone had one, but in keeping with the spirit of “screw you, Ted,” that hadn’t made the trip. All he had were the clothes on his back and a chip on his shoulder.

Nothing new there.

The longer he traipsed through the tangled mess of the forest, the more appealing playing along was, insofar as treating it as real, anyway. What else was he to do otherwise? Giving up wasn’t an option.

In a world gone mad, he needed something to keep his mind focused on. A goal to be his North Star. For the moment, that was finding this hunter. Even someone trying to kill him would be better than trekking through the seemingly endless forest.

What did any of it even mean? Ted’s thoughts circled again and again around everything that had happened. With every futile lap, his chest grew a little tighter. The quest was important—he knew that deep in his bones—but it raised a lot more questions than it answered.

Save the world? He didn’t even know what world it was! His blood boiled at the sheer cheek of not just abducting him, but expecting him to save the world afterward. He had enough problems of his own, thank you very much.

Yet there the quest sat, taking up space in his head and goading him with its presence. Screw that, he had his own quest in mind: “Get home asap”, preferably before he failed his degree and missed out on his ticket out of beans and rice every night.

But the quest was there, and it needed doing. An entire world in need of saving, and someone, somewhere, had decided it was his job to do it.

Just how desperate did they have to pin an entire world’s hope on him?

That was bad enough by itself, but then there was the other half of the quest. The half that kept forcing itself to the surface, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it.

“Save your father.”

Ted’s fist slammed into a tree, accompanied by a roar that he couldn’t contain.

1 bashing damage received!

Years of not knowing, and now this? Heat flushed through him and his nostrils flared. Had someone stolen him away? Was it the same people who’d taken him? Why? Where the hell was he?

More. Fucking. Questions. That’s all his father had ever given him, wasn’t it? Questions, and now a stupid quest that was no doubt going to get him killed.

Ted stomped through the forest, wondering if dying was even possible here. If there were levels and hit points, maybe respawning was a thing too? He searched inward, but his new sixth sense offered up nothing but his painfully slow health regeneration.

Great.

Only just catching himself before kicking the floor again, he forced himself to take a deep breath. Getting angry wouldn’t help. He had to view the evidence without prejudice, and right now, all evidence pointed to this world working like a video game. For one thing, despite walking briskly for at least an hour, he was no more tired than when he set off.

His internal awareness of stamina confirmed it was full. Testing it out with a quick, and rather painful, sprint, his stamina immediately dropped. Video game rules it was, then. He grunted and shook his head. At least it wasn’t one of those games that killed you every five seconds until you got good.

Though, at least those games made death trivial. What if death was permanent here? His inner sense still offered up nothing about saving, loading, resurrection, reincarnation, or respawning.

Better not to test it. He’d probably find out soon enough, anyway.

“Hold it right there.”