Cindy looked rather conflicted at my suggestion.

“Vic, I honestly do not believe that is a good idea for us. Both my character archetype and Taylors, seem to benefit from being around people. I’ve already gained another level in ‘Hidden Royalty’ just from talking with you both. I don’t know if I can give up that chance at the experience. Plus, I can passively increase my intelligence and wisdom without even leaving the apartment. I believe that it is in my best interest to stay. I would also like to check up on my and Taylor's families, as I'm sure they are having a hard time with all of this.”

Taylor nods along with Cindy’s explanation and adds on to her explanation.

“Vic, I have waaay too many people in the city that might need people to watch out for them. I need to make sure my band is OK, and I’d like to try and figure out how my archetype works with Cindy. Personally, I don’t think I can go. It sucks, but its really not a good idea for me.”

They both made very good points, so I had to concede to it. Unfortunately, I still had the same issues that they did but in reverse. As long as I spent time in the city with them, my character archetype would be limited to personal skill improvement. I think a brief break from the city would be very beneficial to me. Also, if I mix a training trip with a supply run, I think we would be in a very good position food-wise, and I could help secure our little inner-city fortress here downtown with some firearms and some more combat knives or machetes. I didn’t want to risk getting attacked by a monster and having nothing to defend myself with.

My mother owned a ranch south of Austin just out of town, and after she died the property went to me. It was all paid off, and she had enough savings to pay the taxes on the property for another ten years. I couldn’t imagine a better place to go to be out of the way. The ranch itself was only about an hour out of town, so in an emergency I could quickly make my way back to help, if I could.

“Alright, how about this. I drive back to the ranch tomorrow and pick up some weapons and supplies. Then I leave when the second wave starts, and hopefully beat the third wave back to the city. With my constitution, I probably have the greatest chance to survive any attacks between the three of us if something goes wrong, plus I can just fly away if it becomes a big problem. Granted I’d need to level my skill up a bit, but I think my chances are pretty good.”

Both Taylor and Cindy looked pretty worried for me, but I could also tell they could see the benefits of it. Maybe they needed another push.

“I promise I’ll just go straight there and back, without stopping. It’s just outside of town. I’d like to stay out there for a couple of days, but I could also be there and back within one day if I really needed to.”

After a bit more arguing, Cindy and Taylor finally agreed to my idea.

With a nod, Cindy said, “We could definitely use some more supplies if you are amenable to the idea Vic. I’m concerned that things are going to get worse before they get better, and we must also account for the fact that the cell towers are down for some reason. I was fairly certain you have an old CB radio at the ranch? We might be able to use that to contact people until the cell towers are back up.”

“Alright then. I’ll spend the night here, and then go back to the ranch tomorrow. Has either of you checked the news since everything happened? Is the cable out?”

We all thought it was a good idea to find out what was happening in the world. If this was a local phenomenon that was one thing but is this ‘beta test’ was worldwide this could become a much bigger deal.

Cindy grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. Thankfully, the cable seemed to still be working. We went to a news channel and started listening in to see if we could learn a bit more about what was happening in the world.

President Trump has declared a state of emergency for the United States. Martial law has been declared, and the military has been deployed all across America to help shore up local police departments. Throughout the country, strange things have been happening.

According to reports, people all over the world have begun to experience something that they call ‘the First Wave.’ Apparently, they go through some type of transformation, turning them into things out of fantasy books. Now, folks, I know this is hard to believe, but the following images are very real. The people in these images are your friends and neighbors, and they have simply been changed. I would like to re-state that these people are not evil, and they are not monsters. They are just people going through difficult times, and they need our support.

After this, many different images of people flashed across the screen. Many people looked like different varieties of angels, who had wings on their backs but otherwise looked practically human. I saw someone that looked like a Tiefling, some type of human-demon hybrid. But the far most common were different varieties of animals combined with humans. Humans with dog ears, rabbit ears, cat ears. Even some that appeared to be a cross between a reptile and a human. At this point, it looked like no fantasy race was off-limits for the update.

Scientists are attributing this phenomenon with the changing of the Greene wave that took place around noon today. They are currently looking into different means to allow those that have been affected by this phenomenon to return to their previous states, and according to reports they are presently optimistic.

I didn’t believe that. Whatever was happening around the world seemed so illogical and unscientific. There is no way that modern science as we understood it could possibly explain the changes I was going through. It was all too structured, too much like a game. It was obvious to me that someone did this on purpose, that it was planned. The fact that this could be attributed to the Greene wave made some sense considering the changes to the constant phenomenon earlier today, but I didn’t know the history of the Greene wave well enough to give any definitive answer.

While we were all watching the TV, I decided to practice my flying skills. I activated it and levitated about 5 feet in the air. My roommates looked at me in surprise when I started levitating, but so many weird things had happened in the past few hours that they quickly got over it. It was very comfortable to fly, and It felt natural, almost like breathing. I floated up in the air and began to just drift on air currents.

While I was floating, I accidentally fell asleep. Eventually I felt something bonk me in the head, and I startled awake. I had drifted into the kitchen, and Cindy was trying to get past me to open one of the cabinets.

“How was the nap, Vic?”

I let out a slightly embarrassed cough.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t realize I was so tired. I guess it’s been a pretty long day.”

“Please do not worry about it. You’re not the only one who immediately fell asleep yesterday. Taylor is over there on the couch, 'sawing logs' as it were. Ho ho ho ho.”

Holy crap, was that a plant pun already? Also, she did that anime princess laugh into the back of her hand.

“You’re getting really into playing your character archetype, aren’t you?”

“Actually, yes. I’ve been experimenting, and it turns out that by playing your archetype better, you can get even more levels in it. Mine started at level 1 today, and already I’ve gotten it to level 7. The benefits compound as well, so it might be pretty helpful if you played the loner, as it were. I am starting to compile research on levels, and would enjoy more information to assist in my endeavors.”

That was certainly something to think about. How does one go about playing the role of lone wanderer? Best I could figure, I would pretty much have to go off and do my own thing, but I’m not willing to sacrifice my friends for the possible benefit. I'll have to think about it.

Now that I was waking up, I floated back down to the ground and deactivated my flight ability.

I should probably check if my flight skill changed. As I thought about it, I actually received a level up alert. It seems like skill gains that take place while sleeping is received upon waking up. That’s rather good to know. It's pretty cool that I could level flight while sleeping, but I’m sure there are going to be diminishing returns after a certain point.

Skill Alert! Level Increase!

Race Skill: Stormborn – lvl 6 to lvl 9

Race Skill: Elemental Flight – lvl 1 to lvl 6

Archetype Skill: Lone Wanderer – lvl 1 to lvl 4

Oh? That’s a welcome surprise. I didn’t expect lone wanderer to level up as well. Let’s check the rest of my skills. It also seems that sleeping under a thunderstorm is a good way to power level my stormborn attribute. I wonder if in the future I will become a storm chaser like those people that chase after tornadoes.

Skill

Level

Effect

General Skills

Identify

1/20

Gives user information. Amount and clarity based on the identify level. Shows only basic information.

Athletics

15/50

Increases efficiency of stamina use. (-30%) reduction in stamina consumption.

Crafter

70/100

The user is skilled in crafting and has an esthetic eye. Increases dexterity maximum (+2), and growth of all design-related jobs.

Enhanced Vision

10/20

Allows you to see objects at (+30ft) with clarity as if the object was 5ft away.

Race Skills

Stormborn

9/30

Increases effectiveness of strength, athletics, constitution, and wisdom when in stormy conditions (+9%). Grants enhanced regeneration when touching water (+90%). Gain mana from enemy storm attacks. (+12% mana steal)

Storm Fists

1/30

Your fists contain the might of storms. You can use mana to fuel powerful physical strikes. (+2 lightning damage). 1 mana per strike.

Electroreceptivity

1/20

You gain a 6th sense to sense electricity in a range of 10ft around you. Grows more powerful with use.

Elemental Flight

6/70

You gain the ability to fly. Flying speed and height based on skill level and agility. Intrinsic ability has no cost. (22 miles/hour, 22 ft. max height)

Combat Skills

Unarmed Combat

4/10

You have started down the path of unarmed combat. You deal (+4) damage while unarmed.

Magic Skills

Storm Aspect

1/30

Convert your body into a living storm. Gain (+50%) resistance to physical damage while converted. Contact deals +30 lightning damage per second. 100 mana for 30 seconds.

Electrokinesis

1/50

Control electricity with your mind. How shocking! Cost mana based on skill level and action.

Hydrokinesis

1/50

Control water with your mind. Bring the bath to you!

Cost mana based on skill level and action.

Aerokinesis

1/50

Control wind with your mind. Blow your troubles away! Cost mana based on skill level and action.

Resistance Skills

Intermediate Storm Resistance

12/30

Resist lightning, water, ice, and wind damage from all sources. (-32% from all sources)

Physical Resistance

12/20

Resist physical damage. Value limited by constitution. (-24%) = con + skill level.

Archetype Skills

Lone Wanderer

4/100

Skill growth is increased while exploring new places alone (+4%).

First 1!

1/1

You were the first person to become upgraded. +10% exp for killing roaming monsters.

For lone wanderer, it looks pretty simple to understand. For every level, it seems like I get plus 1% skill growth while exploring alone. It doesn’t seem to grant me any bonus experience, but I have a suspicion that skills are going to be more important than level regardless.

Stormborn makes sense as well. The mana absorption seems to come directly from my constitution. That has the potential to be crazy strong if I could crank my constitution up a bit.

The other stats seem pretty simple too. 6% became 9%, and the health regen increased from 60% to 90%. I guess I should really stay somewhere where there’s lots of water. It looks like those skills should cap out at 30% and 300% respectively, making me significantly more powerful.

Lastly, flight changed as well. It seems that for every level in flight I gain an additional 2 mph speed, and an additional flight height of 2 ft, bringing my current total speed up to 22 mph, and my height to 22 feet. That would mean at maximum, I could fly at 150 mph, and up to 15 stories in the air. That’s super cool. I don’t think I would bother driving anywhere ever again if I could move that fast. I’d definitely need some kind of GPS though, as I can’t tell directions worth a damn.

It would probably be a good idea if I kept up my sleep leveling tonight as well until the diminishing returns kicked in. Now that I was getting a better feel for my innate skills, I could sort of get an idea of what I needed to do in order to advance them. It was a slow process, but it was coming along. I could tell that my days of sleep leveling were severely limited.

I reactivated my flight and floated off to my room. After arriving at the door, I found a real problem. My flight seemed to work by giving me the density and mass of the air around me, which means I had the innate strength of a small breeze. When I tried to turn the doorknob and open my door, I found it to be an almost Herculean feat in my flight form. I had to descend to the ground to open up the door, enter the room, then reactivate flight.

I had realized after waking up that my clothes were still charred in places from when I was struck by lightning. I quickly removed them and walked into my bathroom to take a relaxing shower.

The hot water felt nice, and it ran off of my skin like it was hydrophobic, not slipping off in the way that water used to. I also noticed that while I still had hair on my head and eyebrows, I had no body hair to speak of. I went ahead and threw my razor into the trash can. Stepping out of the shower, I could finally take inventory of my whole body. I was definitely taller, so I made a mark with a ruler against the doorframe of my bathroom. Measuring it out, I was actually 6’7’’, truly Amazonian in proportions. My body was firm, not soft, with a feeling like dense muscles all over. Objectively, I was also beautiful, albeit in an exotic way. My eyes were fascinating to watch, and I could observe the gently shifting clouds on my skin for hours. Not to mention the beautiful gem sitting on my forehead, which was also captivating with its inner light.

As the water just slipped right off my body, I didn’t even need to use my towel to dry off. Even my hair seemed to retain no water, though it felt silky smooth after using shampoo and conditioner.

I walked back into my bedroom and grabbed some comfortable underwear and pajamas. I could tell that shoes were going to be a problem, but I think Taylor had some leftover from all old boyfriend that I could use. Hopefully they would fit. As well as my height, my breasts also seem to have increased a size, so I would need to get some replacement bras pretty soon. It makes sense that the first thing my roommates said when I got back was that I was ‘bigger’.

I floated over to the bed and tried to lay down without deactivating flight, but it didn’t really work. Not to mention I was perfectly comfortable in the cool air. Before the change, the cold would have bothered me, but now I could hardly tell.

I decided to pick up the D&D 5e monster manual and begin reading. If the world was now based on a book, then the most iconic fantasy game in history is probably a pretty safe bet for understanding these changes going on. If monsters were going to start appearing all over the world at the end of this week, I wanted to be prepared for the worst.

Just like I thought, there was no information on storm elementals in the monster manual, which means they were probably taken from a different universe. I would have to consult google, then.

A quick search led to an explanation similar to what I had heard before. They were strengthened by being near both lightning and water and were a mix between both wind and water elementals. Their unique combination made them particularly tricky to fight, as they had few easily met weaknesses. The only major weakness I could find was a weakness to earth damage, but that only made sense. Metal attracts lightning, and wind has trouble going through stone. Water may damage it over time, but a rock to the face would definitely stop me in my tracks.

On the other hand, it seemed I was virtually immune to fire. The resistances were rather intuitive and they were also almost cyclical. Also, I apparently had a sister elemental type, which was ice elementals. They share similar resistances to me, but they are stronger against stone, and weaker against fire. Idly, I wonder if one day I could meet an ice elemental. I have a feeling we would be good friends. I know that I have access to ice magic, but I can definitely tell that my main affinity is lightning.

After my research, I decided to head to sleep. I had a long day tomorrow if I wanted to get out to the ranch, load the car, and do all of that with enough time to start training. It didn’t take long for me to nod off, adrift in the eddy currents in the ceiling of my bedroom.

I woke up around 9 am, panicking that I was late for work. I sat up too fast and banged my head on the ceiling, and the past day’s strange circumstances came back to me through my sleep-addled brain. After disabling flight and coming to the ground, I changed into some more comfortable sports clothes. They were all flexible enough to account for my increased overall size, though I had a bit of midriff showing. I could smell coffee wafting in from the other room, and I craved a good cup.

Skill Alert! Level Increase!

Race Skill: Stormborn – lvl 9 to lvl 11

Race Skill: Elemental Flight – lvl 6 to lvl 15

Archetype Skill: Lone Wanderer – lvl 4 to lvl 10. New milestone met! New ability gained! Keep up the good work, desperado!

I opened my door and floated down the hall to the kitchen. The new skill information could wait until I had some caffeine. It took me a few tries to open up the cabinet of cups, but once I did, I was able to hook my hand around one and carefully pour a cup of coffee. Cindy was already awake and was in the living room watching the news. As I sipped my coffee at the ceiling, I looked through my skill list for the new change.

Lone Wanderer

10/100

Skill growth is increased while exploring new places alone (+10%). Increased experience gained hunting monsters alone (+10%).

Stormborn

11/30

Increases effectiveness of strength, athletics, constitution, and wisdom when in stormy conditions (+11%). Grants enhanced regeneration when touching water (+110%). Gain mana from enemy storm attacks. (+12% mana steal)

Elemental Flight

15/70

You gain the ability to fly. Flying speed and height based on skill level and agility. Intrinsic ability has no cost. (40 miles/hour, 40 ft. max height)

And there it was. That was definitely handy and would give me an even greater advantage in solo play.

I decided that I should go back to my room and pack, so once I finished my cup, I flew back down the hall. I threw enough clothes into my running backpack for four days, and I also set aside some toiletries in case I needed them. I tried on the old tennis shoes in Taylor's closet, and luckily they fit.

By the time I had finished packing it was already 10:30, and Taylor was awake as well. I grabbed a granola bar for breakfast, before deactivating my flight and wrapping both girls in a big hug before bidding them farewell.

“Wish me luck! I’ll be right back. The cell towers should be back up pretty soon, so call me if ANYTHING happens. Be safe and try not to leave the apartment if at all possible.”

Taylor had begun tearing up, and Cindy looked worried as well, but I knew that this had a good chance of giving us a significant leg up.

I opened up the window, and dived out of it, activating flight before gravity could take me. Currently, I could fly at 40 mph, but I would be going much faster than that down the highway, so it wasn’t quite worth it to just fly my way there. At least not yet. Flying from place to place sounds like too much fun.

I took my car out onto the Austin streets once again. There were more people driving around than there was yesterday, but it was still pretty empty for Austin. As I passed the parking lot where I saw the Dragonborn, I noticed severe scorch marks all over the buildings on either side. I bet the gangsters there didn’t have a very fun night last night.

The building that had the purple flames pouring out of it was now completely white. It looked like it was made of fancy marble, and I could see police tape blocking off the door.

Quickly, I made my way south out of town towards Dripping Springs, a town sitting just on the outskirts of Austin. It had been built up quite a lot recently, and a bunch more people were living out here than I was used to when growing up. They were mostly people who moved to Austin from California for the much cheaper houses, and it was often pretty funny how ignorant they could be. More than once I’ve seen Facebook posts about missing small pets. They left them in their backyards at night thinking it was safe, only for the dogs to get grabbed up by coyotes in the dark. It’s a shame, but that’s just the way things are in Texas.

After a while, I turned down a familiar dirt road. It led deeper into the woods, and I soon found myself looking at the gate to my old house.