“It means that I shall be confirming you as having taken your first step towards fulfilling your destiny.”
[System Message: Title Granted]
New Title Acquired: Warden
Your claim to the title has been acknowledged.
Lineage verified: Margaret, Former Warden – Confirmed
Authority Anchor: Unstable | Integration Incomplete. Alert.
The Warden stands where realms meet.
The Warden watches when all else turns away.
The Warden endures.
Benefits Conferred:
- Expanded Inventory Slots:
You may now carry +12 additional items in your personal inventory.
[Note: This does not extend to emotional baggage.] - Threshold Awareness (Passive):
Gain an intuitive sense of liminal spaces, passageways between things, and places that don’t quite belong. - Resonance Anchor (Passive):
You are slightly harder to displace across dimensions, both physically and metaphysically.
The Veil continues to thin. Prepare accordingly.
The Wizard looked at me, then, expression unreadable behind a thicket of beard and wizardry. “There is so much you need to be told, Elijah. Far too much. And not enough time to speak it, even should I be allowed. As it is, all I can tell you is that you are now a New Entry in the world of Bayteran and must plough your own furrow unaided. Should all proceed how Warden Margaret believed, in time you shall develop the Ability to transcend the Threshold and return to your own realm. Should this come to pass, why, then you shall truly be the Guardian of the Threshold.”
He winced at that and then stared up at the sky. “My apologies,” he said to, apparently, no-one in particular, then returned to looking at me. “I am not to speak of that right now. Why, had you chosen your Class before I arrived, I would not be able to tell you even as much as I have. As it is, I shall be allowed only some minor further latitude. But, even within those parameters, I am, obviously, being felt to have erred. We must trust that Warden Margaret made the right choice. Although, personally,” he added, “I shall note that I have... all sorts of concerns.”
Before I could respond to all of the ‘boding’ he was giving, the man’s eyes flared, and the floating rectangle in my eyeline began spinning, lines of text tumbling down like a broken slot machine. Each word glowed as it zipped past: Paladin. Rogue. Vowbound. Warrior. Echo Knight. Oathbreaker. Healer. Assassin.
“Your aunt always said you had an unhealthy interest in the dark,” the wizard said. “And, of course, she understood why. Your childhood... well. As far as I understand things, she did her best to mitigate the worst of it for you—though there’s only so much shielding one person can manage when the damage is coming from inside the house, as it were. You’ve had more doors slammed in your face than most people have keys, and not all of them were metaphorical, were they?”
He paused, either for effect or out of decency. It was hard to tell.
“However, as I hope I’ve made clear, that version of your life is now over. Warden Margaret was certain that, when your time came to join us here, you would step in without hesitation. That, when the Threshold began to crack, you would—in her stead—be the one to stand in the breach.”
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to that, but it didn’t seem like my comment was required as, and I don’t know how, I felt his presence reach out and touch the edge of the spinning display. At his intervention, the slot machine slowed. And then began to settle.
“Ah. Yes. I imagine the Warden would’ve found the choice of this Class for you particularly amusing. For someone who dedicated his life to avoiding notice … Yes. This will serve.”
He smiled then, and for the first time, I saw the sadness behind it. “And with that choice made, that is all the time I will be allowed to spend with you. Reality cannot allow itself to be paused for long, even for one of your legacy. I truly wish you well, Warden Elijah. Let me leave you with two last things. Firstly, remember the Guardian must stand where the threshold is thinnest. You must place yourself so that those who wish to enter your world cannot escape– both of our worlds depend on that.”
He glanced up at the sky again, tracking something I couldn’t see, then looked back at me with a sideways smile that had too much mischief to be reassuring. “And secondly, a little—unofficial—word to the wise. Just between us threshold-crossers. I will note, dear heart, that you were not the only being from your world to step through today. Your crossing... wasn’t singular.” He held my gaze a beat too long. “Now, it may well be they’re meant to be an ally. A helpful hand in dark times. Or, well. You know.”
I was about to ask more about that – did that mean Katya was somewhere out here too? - when the wizard vanished as if he had never existed and I was left in the silence of the field, with yet another massive glowing screen in my eyeline.
[System Notice: Class Assignment Override]
Previous Class Pathway: Rogue – incomplete.
Subclass confirmation: Failed.
Guardian of the Threshold not found.
Warden not present. Alert. Error. New Warden acknowledged.
Class Tree inaccessible.
Reviewing alternate vectors...
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
Behavioural anomaly detected.
Combat actions re-evaluated.
Threat redirection: Confirmed
Psychological resilience: Confirmed
Provocative presence under stress: Confirmed
Willingness to draw aggression away from allies: Confirmed
Stubborn Constitution: Already manifest
Reclassifying...
And then, with a swoosh, that screen was replaced by a new box.
[System Message: Core Class Assigned]
You have been assigned the Class: Iron Provocateur
This is an aggro tank archetype specialising in challenge, survival, and misdirection.
Where others flee, you remain. Where others dodge, you invite.
[System Message: Trait Acquired]
Stubborn Constitution (Passive)
You do not fall easily. Resistance to knockback, stagger, and panic effects increased.
Pain is informational. Panic is optional.
[System Message: Ability Acquired]
Aggro Magnetism (Active Aura)
Enemies within radius are compelled to focus attacks on you.
[Warning: May affect allies. Use with caution or abandon all caution entirely.]
[System Advisory: Subclass Assignment Delayed]
Subclass channel: Threshold Path
Subclass options available due to Warden Title.
Subclass progression suspended until Guardian is installed or restored.
Expect unstable development patterns.
[System Reminder: This Path Was Not Meant For You]
But then again, neither was death.
Carry on.
Okay. So, I could be wrong here, but that looked to me like Mr Wizard – aided and abetted by Aunt M - had just spectacularly set me up for the mother of all kickings. “Because that’s exactly what I need after my violent death, isn’t it, mate? A magical intervention making me the focus for everything bad going on in this new world!”
But it didn’t appear that there was anyone out there listening.
I didn’t have time to process what any of this meant before a new pop-up appeared, flashing annoyingly bright:
[System Quest Issued]
Title: Survive the Day
Classification: Emergency Priority Quest
Objective: Remain alive for the full cycle of one Bayterani day.
Time Limit: 24 hours
Countdown Begins Now: [24:00:00]
Context:
Veil stability critically low.
Guardian absence confirmed.
Local fauna, ambient mana surges, and unsupervised entities may pose fatal threat.
Current Realm: Unsecured
Current Status: Unclassed | Unarmed | Unsupervised
Reward Upon Completion:
- Continued existence.
- Formal System recognition as Warden.
- Potential Class Stability Upgrade.
- One (1) Progress Point
Failure Condition:
- Death.
- Consumption by entities unknown.
- Expulsion from the realm or disintegration via Veil collapse.
You are not safe.
Begin.
[23:59:59]...
Survive? When had I been transported to Murderworld?
I was barely adjusting to my post-shooting existence – what exactly is a Guardian of the Threshold when it is at home and how had Aunt M become one? - and now I had to worry about just surviving the day?
This was like, when I was still in school, I’d undertook my first shift at a well-known fast-food outlet fronted by a creepy clown. That was two seconds of training before being dumped straight on the drive-through till. Sartre was wrong. Hell isn’t other people. It’s hungry people wanting burgers. But enough of that.
I looked around, hoping to spot a Wizard who’d just remembered he’d left the exposition all a bit on the light side. But no. Silence. Complete and utter, tranquil, peace.
This gave me a moment to try to make sense of what was currently happening. First things first, the circumstances around my violent death. It was pretty obvious that one of my recent professional snafus had terminally caught up with me. I hadn’t recognised Katya, but it was hardly a deduction worthy of Holmes to suggest she’d been put on my trail and had, fairly smoothly it had to be said, taken care of business.
I was actually oddly okay with that. Griff had hammered into me since forever that, in this trade, you were only ever one intense phone call away from punching your ticket. And Lord knows I’d been giving all sorts of nasty people reason enough to start dialling numbers. Sure, my pride smarted at how that had worked out. Getting taken off the board that cleanly? Yeah, that stung. But there’s no real shame in losing to someone better.
I hadn’t caught so much as a twitch of ‘operative’ off her on the train. She’d played it perfectly. And turnaround is fair play. She got me and I could respect that. Still, the wizard had made it sound like she was here on Bayteran, too. So maybe it wasn’t mate in one. Maybe I’d get the chance of a rematch?
Round Two with me actually ready might have a very different outcome.
I put ideas of revenge away for now. Because, to be honest, it’s all the stuff that has come after being shot that is truly making my head spin. If I believed what I had been told, Aunt M had been . . . what? Some sort of Guardian of the Galaxy? That was going to take some getting on board with. Almost as much as the thought of my dead body falling through a portal in a gramophone and waking up in a whole new plane of existence . . .
And that poem? And the message she had left for me?
Yeah, I wasn’t sure one wizard and a brief ‘time for an awfully big adventure’ infodump was quite going to cut it. Especially not after those weird blue message boxes had started showing up like post-it notes from a reality that wasn’t entirely sold on me being here.
So, no, I wasn’t entirely convinced that “You’re the Guardian now, congrats” and a bit of lyrical muttering about destiny was going to be enough. Not when the last thing the ‘System’ – was that what I was going with? - told me was that I was unclassified, unstable, and the only thing with the power to keep the ‘Veil’ from having a nervous breakdown.
All I’m saying is that a bit more prep wouldn’t have gone amiss . . .
But then a strange rustling sound pulled me out of my thoughts, and my head snapped toward the bushes at the edge of the clearing. For a moment, everything was still. Then, without further ado, the bushes parted, and a small, grey-skinned creature tumbled out.
It looked like a goblin straight out of a low-budget fantasy movie.