Your limitations are your own. I can no more tell you how many fireballs you can throw than you could tell me how many pages of text I can copy.

  That said, I can give some small bit of advice. Do not try to perform miracles. Operate within what you’ve practiced, what you have trained. A strongman might lift a house with his bare hands, then fall when he tries to stop an incoming bullet with his strengthened flesh. Your insights, conceptual links between them, and mana aspects provide you a framework unique to yourself.

  Find your limits so you do not try to exceed them at an inopportune time.

  

  Jonah

  Messhall, Central Bridge, Wesnmen’s Coallition Trading Barge

  

  Two weeks and some change had flew by in what felt like an eye blink.

  Jonah had been amazed to find just how much xp he’d been able to accumulate in such a short time. He’d nearly made it to level eleven, purely by completing the many quests which popped up. Each quest was clearly designed to further his primary goals. His first had been to help Naomi train, the quest popping up the moment after she requested the same. The second was to stop Chaven from inadvertently revealing their plans. He’d had to run to find the avron and clumsily interrupt their conversation. He didn’t even remember what he’d spouted out to derail the conversation.

  Over the last sixteen days, one quest had popped up after another. Some of them had been things he’d seen needed to be done and had seemed to be assigned as a result, while others suddenly appeared without warning. There was little rhyme or reason to the questing system, so far as Jonah could tell. Sometimes it seemed uncannily omniscient, popping in to inform him of problems he needed to solve which he himself had no way to know. Other times, it ignored blatantly obvious issues until he decided to do something about them, only then offering a quest.

  Just like the rest of the ‘game system’ he found himself strapped to, it felt partially defined. Haphazard. It felt like a game system designed by someone who had played games, but never made any. It was increasingly becoming a worry, as he felt that the way this was going, he would run into hard limitations sooner than later. A system that was supposedly born of his own insight and understanding.

  Today, he’d finally decided he needed to stop and figure some things out. To that end, he had told Naomi he needed some time to think and would be locked away in his room for a while. She hadn’t even asked why, just nodded and said she’d come find him if there was an emergency.

  Alone at last, comfortable on his cot, he begun to take stock and really think things through. He’d had moments of insight into his, well, insights. Yet he still felt like the way his system worked was a mystery. With a good five hours to spare, he begun to take stock and summarize what he knew and what he speculated.

  First, his initial insight, ‘The world is just a game.’ Upon vocalizing his insight, the distinctly not UICI windows had begun to pop up. He suddenly had a status sheet, along with an ability and spell list. Along with the visual information came levels, his RTS View, and xp milestones.

  Having read plenty of LitRPG books, played many games, and generally fantasized about being in a world where he could watch his own ‘numbers go up’, he hadn’t questioned any of it much. Systems were what they were, the fact many of the attributes felt like they had overlap? Nothing he could do about it, it was just like that. The RTS View ability unlocking without choosing it through the system? Probably some kind of innate ability, or maybe a reward for how he’d ‘discovered’ the system. He’d hand waved it all. It’d all been too exciting, things had been moving too quickly, and he simply hadn’t wanted to poke any holes for fear of bursting his own bubble.

  Then came his second insight. ‘The game isn’t everything.’ This one, unlike the other, hadn’t been a result of desperately searching for some inner truth so he, too, could have powers like his friends. Instead, it had been almost involuntary. The truth of the statement forced through his lips. After speaking his second insight into the world, the only noticeable affect had been his interface elements had flickered for a brief moment. His health and mana bars had phased in an out for a moment, before solidifying again.

  A while ago, he’d realized he wasn’t represented by the ‘game’ world. His first and second insights seemed to directly contradict each other. Though, he knew they didn’t. They sit snugly next to each other. Avron and a few of the other allies he and Naomi had made recently were kind enough to have informed them that not all insights were ‘valid.’

  If an insight didn’t align with reality, it would not have any impact. Speaking it would simply fall flat and would not unlock any mana aspects. The revelation had been comforting in a way, it gave Jonah a bit of reassurance that he wasn’t just diluting himself. It meant he could consider more deeply, without the fear that he’d ‘break’ his insight somehow and leave himself powerless again.

  So saying, he probed his own understanding of his insights. Games were designed things, intentional. They were intended to entertain, and possibly to educate. Often, they took inspiration from real life. Tasks, chores, systems, everything was up to be ‘gamified.’ The key was games were supposed to be fun, designed to be.

  That much was reflected in his experience so far. Had there been horrible moments? Yes. Would he call his overall experience since his arrival fun? Definitely. He’d made friends, who he would easily call closer than any he’d had on Earth despite not having known them nearly as long. Adventure was around every corner, and there was no limit to his own potential. It was all exciting and fun.

  So certainly one point toward the “game” thing. The other part was the intentionalality of it. That part felt strained, off. The world could be intentional, but he didn’t think it was intentionally a game. There was far too much about it which served no ‘fun’ purpose. Following that line of thought, his mind came full circle. Maybe the world didn’t start as a game, but became one later. Maybe it’s even not a game to everyone, but only some. To those who want it to be a game. Who want the world to be fun, but also bound within mostly understandable rules.

  That resonated. Excited, he followed the thread of thought and balanced it against his second insight. Smiling, he suddenly realized his insights weren’t wrong but they were incomplete. First, he needed to refine his first insight. Doing so was as simple as speaking his new understanding aloud, “The world is a game to those who want to play.”

  His interface flickered, then came back looking brighter and smoother, as if a small UI patch had been applied. Next, his first and second insights weren’t doing much to help each other apart. However, they could be combined now. Focusing on the way in which the two intersected, he cut out all of the fluff and boiled it down to its essence. He spoke hundreds of phrases aloud, but none resonated. None clicked like he’d come to expect from an insight taking hold.

  Finally, he got it. His voice was cracking by the time he finally got there, “The world may be framed as a game, but someone must define the rules.”

  Eyes shining, Jonah’s smile so wide he felt strain in his jaw, he finished with one final statement, “I will be the game master.”

  His entire HUD display flickered and vanished, yet Jonah could only laugh.

  

  Luzzi

  Rat Keep, Sheerna

  

  Running after Willow, Luzzi felt the exact moment the perusing swarm of rat-men disappeared. Ravavka, a couple steps ahead, apparently noticed as well, as he threw a glance over his shoulder. Seeing they weren’t being chased, he slid to a stop, leaning over and gasping for breath.

  Halting beside him, Luzzi called out to Willow, telling her they weren’t being chased. She slowed, but turned the next corner. Not worrying, Luzzi assumed she would stop soon and they could regroup. It seemed the consequence of the human’s ill devised rebellion weren’t as catastrophic as they might have been. The stories she had heard about fully breaking from the path set by an interactive story dungeon were nothing short of devastating.

  The most famous of such stories came from a well known full-time delver named Chip. The story went that Chip was a tiefling with exceptional talent in fire magic. As such, when he came to a part within the story he’d been placed in where a building was blazing and near to collapsing, he simply snuffed the fire out. As it turned out, the narrative had necessitated the death of one of the characters within to drive the plot forward. Because of his hasty actions, which directly contradicted the story, Chip lost all direction.

  From that moment on he didn’t know what he was supposed to do to progress through the plot-line and wandered about aimlessly. He became an adventurer, trying to find some form of purpose within the unstructured world built by the rift. The physical laws within were loose, allowing impossibilities like stepping from one peak of a mountain to the next without the use of any mana. The sky would switch between day and night at random, characters would act as if they knew Chip despite never having met him. The entire thing, as he described it, was surreal.

  The true problem only became clear as years passed. They came and went, yet Chip never got any closer to finding a way to clear the rift. Ten years. Fifty. A hundred. In the end, the Chip reported the rift-made world was so messed up that nothing worked as expected. He would try to take a bite of a trail ration, only to find he had drank the perfume off of a woman who appeared and disappeared seemingly only for that purpose. Taking a step could take him in the direction he intended, or he might end up at the other end of the world.

  By then, it was too late for any form of escape. In Chip’s account of the experience, he said he had tried to force himself to respawn thousands of times and ways. Anything he could think of, he tried. Once finding himself in an ocean after trying to walk to a bar, he just remained still and waited for the notification. Realizing he could breath water, he had gone in search of monsters to consume him. The mountain-sized slug that trampled over him cleaned his body and clothing, leaving him spotless, instead of crushing him. Encountering the dark-lord who seemed to be ever-plotting and never doing, he let the villain run him through with his empowered great-sword. Yet he woke up as if it had all been a dream. It wasn’t until the rift itself faded, due to lack of outside stabilization, that he was freed.

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  Chip’s story didn’t end there, though. From that day on, he reported being unable to distinguish reality from imagination. He would think something was happening and react to it, only to realize it had been a delusion. His interview had been the last thing he did in the world. Directly after, he charged through the nearest window and fell to the ground, thousands of kilometers below, without using his mana to protect himself in any way. His body was recovered and he was never seen again, presumably he had chosen to replay the tutorial in the hope that having all of his memories wiped from his soul would finally free him of the torment which followed him.

  The entire tale was tragic. A cautionary lesson which all factions ensured to drill into their delvers before letting them go on a mission. Of course, Willow hadn’t been part of a faction. And Luzzi had neglected to ensure she understood the different risks associated with delving. She, like other young delvers, had realized she would respawn on death and assumed she was invincible.

  Seeing Ravavka had managed to get his breathing under control, she nodded at him and they went to find Willow together. Turning the corner, Luzzi realized she hadn’t heard the echos of the human’s foot falls past this point. I should have noticed that! Concern bubbled within her. Despite Willow making a bad decision, Luzzi liked the woman and hoped she was waiting for them nearby.

  Instead, they found themselves approaching the same ramshackle gate they had passed through before. Complete with two rat-men guards holding spears. “HALT, PAARAVAS! State your business with the great and glorious kingdom of ratakan!”

  The bubbling concern quickly turned to panic. Had Willow passed this way, there would certainly be signs of her passing. Either the guards would have been torn through, or she would still be talking to the guards. Those gates took far too long to open for her to have been ushered through. Not to mention, the leftmost guard would have escorted her to the rat-king just as he had last time.

  Feeling Ravavka’s head turn toward her, she turned her own eyeless head to confirm she was observing him as well. Glances exchanged thus, her shoulders slumped and she heard the huff of unhappy air he released. Knowing there was little else they could do, Luzzi stepped forward and answered the guard much the same as in the previous encounter.

  The exact same walk through the ramshackle ‘city’ built into an attic replayed itself. This time, the party didn’t resist their arrest. They followed the script.

  

  Willow

  City of Ashoosh, Sheerna

  

  Willow was exhausted: mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally - Are there any other ‘llys’? cuz those are exhausted too. Taking a deep breath, she looked up from the piece of paper to the wide-eyed little boy staring at her.

  She smiled wanly at him, “Would you mind showing me to an inn or something? My journey here was long and hard. I’ll go beat up the rat king after a good nap.”

  “Yes, yes, great adventurer! Follow me!”, the boy bobbed his head excitedly.

  As they walked, the kid rambled on about something or other. Something about the city of Ashoosh being prosperous and wonderful? The king was some good-guy who everyone loved, no one was poor, if anyone needed anything they just had to ask. A true fantasy land.

  When they got to the inn, Willow hesitated, “Hey, I don’t have any uh… Currency… To tip you right now. I have stuff I could trade but-”

  “No payments!” The kid hissed, eyes wide as he swung his head about as if verifying no one had heard. “Don’t offer that kind of thing! You’ll get in trouble!” So saying, he quickly sprinted off. Somehow, he had the same flyer Willow was still holding in her hand and was waving it dramatically as he retraced the path they’d just come down.

  With a shake of her head, Willow glanced up at the signage above the building she’d been lead to. There were no words, only a simple sign depicting a tankard over a bed. Shoving the large wooden open, she stepped into a dimly lit room.

  Willow’s ears picked up the gentle murmur of conversation before her slowly blinking eyes adjusted to the room’s gloom. To her left was a long bar which stretched all the way across the large room. A doorway without a door was positioned just to the side of the bar’s edge where customer’s could access it, beyond which Willow could see stairs leading up.

  The rest of the large room was filled with rough hewn round tables and cheaply made wooden chairs. Taking a deep breath, Willow approached the bar and nodded at the man who greeted her. His face face was oddly indistinct, as if her mind refused to processes or remember any details. Chalking it up to just another oddity, she smiled brightly and asked, “A meal and room for one, please.”

  “Not a problem, madam adventurer. Here’s your meal and key.” Not having turned to get anything, the man held out a tray of generic looking food and a key.

  “Room’s upstairs.” He spoke before she could ask.

  Mumbling a quick thanks, Willow took the proffered items and quickly made her way to the stairs. Balancing the tray to avoid spilling whatever was sloshing about in the tankard, she climbed the stairs. Thinking there might be a room number on the key, she glanced at it while alighting the final couple steps.

  Finding no room number, she sighed and nearly turned around to go ask. Before she turned, though, she noticed there was only a single door available. At the end of a very long hallway. A hallway without a single other door.

  “This is so, so, so weird.” She complained aloud.

  Ignoring the part of her mind which told her she’d somehow stepped directly into a horror movie, she followed the path to the door. It had no keyhole, but didn’t open until she tapped the key to the door knob. Swinging the door open, Willow admired the sparse, darkly lit, room.

  At the far end of the small space was a window so grubby that the bright noon light was mostly rejected. Rather than providing a bright and cheery atmosphere, the sparse beams of light which managed to find their way through the grey and black smeared glass seemed to highlight the disrepair of the room.

  In contrast to the downstairs, which was clearly cheaply but well maintained, this room was a mess. Several floorboards had straight up holes, several of which managed to be highlighted by the sparse beams of sunlight. The desk on the right side of the room appeared to be rotted to the point of being entire unusable, not that anyone could sit at a desk without a seat anywhere to be found anyway.

  Hesitantly, Willow turned her attention to the bed on the left of the room and sighed in relief. While literally everything else about the room looked horrible, the bed appeared clean and perfectly sound. Not quite trusting the assessment in the poor lightning, she carefully placed her meal on the bed and stepped between it and the desk to carefully pull open the window. The latch broke when she tried to push it up, but the hinges held as she carefully swung the framed pane of glass inward.

  Taking a quick breath of the fresh air, Willow realized there the room’s expected musty scent was nowhere to be found. In fact, the ‘fresh’ air she’d hoped for wasn’t there either. Everything had the same scent of neutral air. Nothing fantastic, nothing concerning. Yet another thing to add to the pile of not-right.

  At the very least, the room was now brightly illuminated. Looking around critically, she decided her initial assessment had been correct. The chairless desk was worthless and the floors were suspect, but the bed appeared almost brand new. Hesitantly touching the quilted comforter, she found it felt clean and sturdy. Pulling back layers: she confirmed that the cotton sheets were a bit rustic, but serviceable and also clean. Under everything, the mattress was straw-filled but unremarkable. No strange stains she could find, no bugs, nothing. The frame also seemed to be acceptable.

  Picking up her meal, which she had set on the window sill while she investigated the bed, she sat on the later and picked at it. Sighing, she forced herself to eat and drink. The liquid in the tankard was a near-tasteless beer or ale, tasting more like off-water than anything else. There was some kind of meat, and some green veggies which she’d normally turn her nose up at. She was hungry though. It wasn’t so bad, and she wanted to save the few days of rations she had left in her pack for when she didn’t have access to anything.

  Doing her best to ignore what was entering her mouth as she slowly forced the meal down, Willow thought back on her experience in this dungeon so far. The room with the sponge floor had seemed like a promising start. There had been a clear danger, which they had solved. It had been kind of trap-adjacent, actually.

  Then there was the cat room. That still made no sense. At first, it seemed like the challenge would be to navigate a room of hyper-alert predators without being detected. Failing that, they might have had to fight them all. Either of those would have been fine, but then they had that ‘hide and seek’ with Jemin. Willow was still annoyed at the stupid cat for messing with them with that illusory cat-girl.

  Luzzi uses illusions, shouldn’t she have been able to detect it or something? She grumped as she stabbed a vegetable a little too hard, making the too-soft plant break in two.

  Even though the “puzzle” was pretty weird, it still kind of made sense. The party had to pay enough attention to their surroundings to figure out what was going on and catch the green cat. They should have figured it out sooner, though they had mostly stopped paying attention to the feeding time festivities and just took those opportunities to rest. They had considered making a run for the door while the cats were being fed, but had decided not to on the chance Jemin would be guarding it or something. It was stupid in retrospect, they could have just brute-forced the door and gone through.

  I normally would have… There was only one potential enemy nearby when we tried the door the first time, after all. I could definitely take a single sabre tooth tiger on. That’s entirely ignoring Luzzi and Ravavka being strong combatants themselves. So why’d we chicken out like that?

  That was the root of Willow’s discomfort, she realized. Beyond the weird things happening, the disorienting lack of physical-law consistency, or the odd themes in the rift so far, she was being weird.

  Willow hadn’t ever been the type to play a rogue in any game where she wasn’t forced to. No, she’d be a warrior, a paladin, a spell-blade, a sorcerer, even a wizard! Never a sneaky and subtle type, though. That just wasn’t her. So why had she fallen so easily into assuming they had to be quiet? Why hadn’t she gone and tried to pet one of the big, but adorable, felines lounging around? That would have been fun! It would have been dangerous, maybe dumb, sure, but fun!

  Looking back, she remembered pushing her emotions down. Looking at the situation analytically, critically. Doing her best to be a good party member. Trying to do what she thought her more experienced party would want from a ‘serious’ and ‘good’ delver. She had been thinking about traps, which she still thought was valid, but it somehow lead her toward worrying more about being careful than enjoying herself.

  The point of rifts is to get stronger, not to have a good time. Right? But… What’s the point? Staring at her empty plate, Willow took a deep breath.

  She had been more than a little worried coming into this rift she’d do something stupid out of anger, excitement, or one of the other feelings which often tried to yank the reigns from her hands. The worry was stupid, and she knew she only felt that way because she was worried about making Luzzi and even Ravavka think less of her. They both treated her as an equal, despite having vastly more experience than her. She didn’t want to lose that.

  Despite all of her fears, she’d been stupid and weak. Somehow, she’d manage to exhaust herself so thoroughly that she was even now worried that trying to invoke her back into it as a spell would either knock her out entirely or at least make things worse. It was certainly because she’d been forcing her ability to do way too much she’d never tried before. She had converted her emotions to mana while walking, something she practiced plenty but never forced like she had today. Then she’d stuffed a ton of discipline mana into her body and forced herself to be even more in control than she normally was, which had felt just so strange. Following that she exclude Luzzi and Ravvy from the effects of her moment. She’d always thought she would be able to exclude people on command, but for some reason hadn’t tested it. Apparently, she couldn’t just let people wonder around inside her ability’s zone of influence. Instead, she had to counter her own ability; essentially she had to fight against herself.

  None of that would have been necessary if she’d been better. Looking back, she could have just relaxed. Why did I even need to use my ability to suppress my emotions? I’ve controlled them my whole life, this isn’t new. Just because they feel a little stronger? If they’re stronger, then I have to be too! It’s simple. Even that thought brought a swirling frustration, as she knew that wasn’t even the root of the issue.

  She had been going along with what Luzzi and Ravvy said they should because they were more experienced. If she’d been alone, or with her friends who were God-knew-where fighting space orcs, what would she have done differently? Luzzi said the story they had supposedly been following was supposed to be about taking the easiest path.

  Well, to her, the easiest path wasn’t to give in to others and do what they wanted. That was the absolute hardest thing for her. She could take guidance, but she didn’t take orders well. Never had. She’d only tried for the sake of looking good for people more experienced than herself.

  Urghhhh, I miss Jonah and Naomi. I wanna hang out with people that are just as lost as me!

  For the first time since entering the rift, she stopped carefully controlling her emotions. While she had only converted her emotions into mana sometimes, she had constantly kept a firm handle on them. That control had become more and more tenuous, more and more difficult, and most of all: more exhausting.

  Feeling tears forming in her eyes, Willow made no move to wipe them away and put no effort into controlling the roiling mess of anxiety, worry, frustration, anger, and fear causing them. Letting the negative emotions run rampant, she let herself cry. It had been a long time, she probably needed it.