Zeke wasn’t certain of when, exactly, he died. Nor did he know why. But as he floated in nothingness, he knew that he was, in fact, dead. His life was over. And there was no going back.

It was a curious feeling, being dead, a consciousness floating in a sea of oblivion. He knew who he was, but he could scarcely remember any details. He was sure that he should be panicking, that he should want something to happen, to break the chains binding him to the void, but he was comfortable. Content. It felt like he’d come home.

For what could’ve been an instant or an eternity, Zeke floated in that dark contentedness until, suddenly, a white dot appeared in his mind. He had no eyes. No body. There was nothing corporeal about him. In fact, there was nothing physical about his existence at all. But the light, it defied all logic, because it slowly drew closer and closer, growing larger all the while.

Zeke – or the entity that had once been him – grew to resent that light. It had disrupted his contentment. It had ruined his eternity. It had dissolved the nothingness. That alone was enough to make him hate it.

But what was he to do? He couldn’t stop it. He could barely string two coherent thoughts together, much less act. So, he merely waited, silently seething as the light drew closer. It might’ve taken seconds. It could’ve been eons. Eventually, though, the light was all Zeke could see. It enveloped him, forcing an awareness he could scarcely contemplate.

Then, suddenly, he was alive. No – not quite alive. He remembered that he had died. But he wasn’t completely dead, either. So, what had happened? In the space of an instant, he regained his awareness and physical presence. It was a jarring experience, to suddenly have a body again.

Zeke looked down, flexing his hands. He had fingers. Skin. He was whole. That was enough to send him into a panic, all by itself, but as he looked around, that panic turned to existential terror. All he saw was whiteness. There was no floor. No ceiling. No earth or sky. It was just an endless, white expanse.

“Takes some getting used to, I know,” came a voice from behind him. Zeke wheeled around, only to see an incredibly short, bearded man.

“You look familiar,” Zeke muttered, searching his mind for why that would be the case. Then it hit him – a memory of a television show he’d watched before he’d died. “Why do you look like Peter Dinklage?”

The dwarf laughed. “That’s kind of on you,” he said. “Something about the way your mind interacts with this place. I could explain it to you, but you’d probably fall asleep. Or your brain might explode. Either way, it’s probably best if we just skip past that.”

“W-what’s going on? Did I really die? I feel like I died,” Zeke said, his mind scrambling to latch onto something that might explain what was happening. It failed to find purchase.

“Hate to break it to you, but yeah,” the dwarf said. “You’re dead. I’m Oberon, by the way. In case you were wondering.”

“I…I’m…”

“You’re Ezekiel Blackwood,” Oberon said. “You’re nineteen years old. Died on an operating table while trying to save your little brother. Ouch. Bad break. If it’s any consolation, your little brother ended up getting a kidney when the story went national. So, in a way, you did save the kid. He ended up living for thirty more years. So, bravo. Good job and all that.”

“Wait…what?” Zeke said, running his hand through his hair. “Thirty years? I thought…I mean…”

“Yeah, I always forget how linearly your kind see time,” said the dwarf. He waved his hand, and suddenly, a pair of overstuffed, leather chairs appeared. He climbed onto one, saying, “Have a seat. This might take a few minutes. Or I guess time doesn’t really exist here, but you get my drift. Sit down.”

Zeke collapsed onto the chair, still trying to make sense of what was going on. He came up completely empty, so he just focused on the dwarf, who suddenly had a beer in his hand. He took a swig, saying, “I never get tired of that. Humanity did a lot of things wrong, but they definitely knew how to brew a good beer.”

“Can you please just tell me what’s going on?” Zeke pleaded, a tremor of panic in his voice.

Oberon sighed. “So impatient,” he said. “Fine. The gist of it is that humanity’s dead. Gone. The earth is now a wasteland, and everyone you’ve ever known or heard about is gone. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you’re getting something of a second chance here.”

“Earth is gone? How?” Zeke asked.

“Combination of nuclear war and environmental collapse,” Oberon said. “They actually hung on for a lot longer than most of us expected. You’re stubborn bastards. But as soon as the last one died, everyone ended up moving on from the tutorial.”

“The what? Tutorial? I don’t –”

Oberon gave a dramatic sigh. “Everything’s got to be explained,” he muttered. “Fine. Okay, throughout history, when a human died, they went into limbo. The In-Between. That was that scary black void you were in. Got me so far? Good. Well, once humanity kicked the bucket, everyone ended up in a version of this place. This is where the next part of your journey starts. The character creation construct.”

“Character creation? Like a video game?” Zeke said, not nearly as stressed out about the fact that humanity had become extinct as he thought he should be. Perhaps it was a function of the construct.

“For you, yes,” Oberon said. “The Framework takes the form of something you can understand. In your case, it’ll seem like a video game. For people from previous generations, a giant tome. The bottom line is that your perception of The Framework is tailor-made just for you. Convenient, right? Besides, where do you think all those people got the inspiration for those video game systems from? Yep. Us.”

“Who are you?” Zeke asked. “Not your name. Like, what are you?”

“Think of me as a combination of a middle-manager-slash-entrepreneur-slash-recruiter,” Oberon said with a note of pride. “And I’m here to make sure you don’t muck this up too badly. God knows that didn’t go well the last time.”

“The last time?”

“Oh, come on – you don’t think you’re the only civilization out there, do you? This has happened with an infinite number of civilizations,” the dwarf explained. “And between you and me, we’ve gotten pretty good at it. So, let’s jump right into it, shall we?”

“I…I guess,” said Zeke, though his mind was reeling with everything the dwarf had revealed. “How do we start?”

“Eager! I like it,” Oberon exclaimed, clapping his hands together. The motion summoned what looked like a free-floating screen. “So, the first step is to allocate your starting attributes. You should know that these statistics, along with your achievements, skills, and paths will affect your class choices.”

Suddenly, a table flashed onto the screen.

Name

Ezekiel Blackwood

Class

n/a

Level

1

Race

Human

Alignment

Isphodel

Achievements

n/a

Strength

6

Agility

7

Dexterity

10

Endurance

6

Vitality

4

Intelligence

5

Wisdom

3

Unassigned Attribute Points

30

Zeke scanned the screen over and over, trying to make sense of it. Certainly, it looked just like something you might find in a roleplaying game, right down to the stats. However, his rational mind told him that there was absolutely no way that could be real. In fact, he was beginning to think that this entire experience was a dream. Or a delusion. Maybe he’d gone insane or something.

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Oberon, suddenly standing behind him. “It’s real. More real than your old world, even.”

“But…but what’s the point?” Zeke asked. “You say I’m dead. Okay. Fine. And now you’re talking about classes and stats like I’m in a video game? Come on, man. What’s going on?”

Oberon took a long, deep breath, almost like he was trying to forcibly calm himself. Then, he said, “Look, kid – I know this is a big shock to you. Believe me, I get it. But whether you want to believe it’s real or not doesn’t matter. Because it is. And when we get finished here, you’re going to be thrust into the real world. So, you’d better take this shit seriously. Otherwise, you’re going to die again. And this time, there’s no white room and friendly dwarf waiting on you, okay?”

“You think you’re friendly?” Zeke said.

Oberon ground his teeth together in frustration. “All that, and that’s what you focus on…”

“Fine, fine – I get it,” Zeke said. “I can steer into it, and if it’s real, I survive. If it turns out not to be…then, well – I don’t really lose anything, I guess.”

“Something like that,” Oberon stated.

“So, you said something about classes,” Zeke said. “And a real world. What kind of world are we talking about?”

“The dangerous kind,” Oberon said, circling back around to his chair. He turned to face Zeke, saying, “I can’t tell you everything – not yet – but there’s a war out there. You could call it a war between good and evil. You’re on our side because you died trying to save someone else. That puts you firmly on the good side. But there are truly evil people on that other side. And they’re going to amass a lot of power very, very quickly. Your job is to do the same so you can oppose them.”

“You want soldiers,” Zeke reasoned.

“We want heroes,” Oberon said. “That doesn’t mean you have to fight. Plenty won’t. Once you get out into the world, you can choose whatever path you want. If that means becoming a craftsman or a merchant or a goddamned whoremonger, that’s your business. But you can be more. You can be a hero.”

Zeke stared at the dwarf, thinking about what he’d just explained. Certainly, Zeke had never wanted to go to war, but what boy hadn’t dreamed of being a hero? Still, he was skeptical, so he went with his gut instinct, asking, “Does that actually work? The hero speech, I mean.”

Oberon let out a loud guffaw, “Ha! I knew you were smarter than you looked.”

“Seriously, man – just tell me the truth,” Zeke said.

“Fine – yes, we want soldiers,” Oberon stated. “Happy? We’re fighting a war across millions of clusters, and we need people. And before you ask, yes. It’s worth it because if we don’t fight those bastards, they’ll take over everything. Nobody wants to see that.”

“So, this is kind of like a holy war or something? Angels and demons?” Zeke asked.

“Something like that,” Oberon grumbled. “They might be demons, but we aren’t angels. What I said stands, though – once you’re in the world, you can do whatever the hell you want to do. There are no restrictions. Just a world.”

“And these stats represent my…attributes? How?” asked Zeke.

“Aren’t most of them pretty self-explanatory?” asked the dwarf. Still, he took the time to explain the statistics. Strength represented physical power. Dexterity was coordination. Agility was speed and quickness. Endurance was the body’s durability. Vitality represented the body’s ability to recover from physical wounds. After that, Zeke got a bit of a surprise when he found out that wisdom and intelligence both governed the use of and defense against magic.

“Wait – like real magic? Shooting fireballs and stuff?” he asked.

“Yes,” Oberon said. “There are millions of different ways to do magic, but shooting fireballs is one of the popular ones. As I was saying, wisdom governs your mana regeneration as well as your defense against mental attacks. Intelligence dictates the size of your mana pool and your defense against the more physical sorts of magic. The ever-popular fireballs and such.”

“And…and my statistics will determine my class?” was Zeke’s next question. “When do I get that?”

Oberon said, “Level twenty-five.” Zeke started to say something, but Oberon forestalled him with a raised hand, continuing, “Yes, there are levels. You get them just like you would in your video games. So, don’t ask about that. And to answer your first question, your statistics play a large part in which class you get at twenty-five and move onto the next plane. Other considerations are your skills and proficiencies, paths, your achievements, and general style. After you allocate your statistics, you’re going to choose one basic skill, then off you go to start your new life.”

“Paths?” Zeke asked with a raised eyebrow.

Oberon let out a long-suffering sigh, saying, “Shouldn’t have mentioned those.” He looked around, and Zeke followed suit. As always, there was nothing to see, but the dwarf seemed satisfied, saying, “I won’t fully explain them, but paths represent higher concepts. Once you get a glimpse of one of them, you can use that to empower yourself in an appropriate way. I can’t say more than that, or I’ll draw The Framework’s attention.”

Zeke wanted to ask why that would be a problem, but he got the picture that Oberon was explaining more than was normal, and he was limited in what he could and couldn’t tell Zeke. So, he let it drop, asking, “Any advice? On the stat allocation, I mean.”

“Depends on what you want to do,” the dwarf said. “You want to be a traditional mage? Put your points in wisdom and intelligence. A fighter? Concentrate on strength and endurance. Vitality’s never a bad idea. But one piece of advice I can give you – don’t try to be a jack-of-all-trades. It never works. You need to pick a role and perfect it. The other way might work for a while, but eventually, you’ll be spread too thin. Then, you’ll just be mediocre-to-bad at everything.”

Zeke thought about it for a minute. On the one hand, the idea of using magic was an enticing one. It was easy to imagine himself as a supreme wizard throwing waves of fire and ice at his enemies. However, it was almost as enticing to think of himself as a warrior, swinging an axe or a sword and mowing down legions of bad guys that resembled the orcs and goblins he’d seen in video games and movies.

“You’ve got to pick something, kid,” Oberon said after a few minutes. “I know it’s a big choice, but you can’t just stare at that screen for forever.”

“I can’t help it,” Zeke said. “There’re so many choices…”

“Okay, I’m not really supposed to do this, but let me give you a tip,” Oberon said. “Play to your strengths. Humans have a maximum attribute of ten without any Framework alteration. So, you did something in your old life to warrant maximum dexterity. You’ve got decent agility and strength, too. Bad wisdom and intelligence, though. So, I’ll go ahead and leave you with that. And no, putting all your points into intelligence doesn’t actually make you smarter. It just facilitates certain types of magic.”

Clearly, Oberon was trying to guide Zeke towards skewing his stats towards physical abilities, and his reasoning made sense – enough that it actually tipped the balance in Zeke’s head.

“Alright, here goes,” he said before allocating ten points in strength and five points each in dexterity, agility, endurance, and vitality. “Okay, that’s done. What now?”

“Now, we get to pick skills,” a grinning Oberon said, and with a wave of his hand, the screen changed. “There are a little over forty-seven thousand skills to choose from, and that’s just the ones that are categorized as beginner skills by The Framework. There are an infinite number of more powerful skills, though. Some are overt combat skills, while the vast majority are non-combat abilities. Needless to say, I recommend that we exclude artisan skills. Would you like me to narrow it down?”

“Yeah,” Zeke said.

Oberon snapped his fingers, and the number went down to nine-thousand available skills. Zeke caught sight of a few skills that seemed to focus on healing and enhancement. As powerful as those might be, he couldn't help but think that he would need something that might do some damage. As if reading his mind, Oberon suggested, “Attack abilities?” Again, Zeke nodded, and the available pool was narrowed again. “It seems that you’ve already got some small mastery with blunt weapons, probably from something you did in your old life. So, I suggest that you focus on what you’re already good at.”

That made sense to Zeke, and so did his supposed ability with blunt weapons. He’d taken enough swings with a baseball bat that he should have something to show for it. Come to think of it, his history as an athlete probably explained his high dexterity skill as well.

“Narrow it down to activated skills, then,” Zeke said.

That took it down to a few hundred, which Zeke immediately began to peruse. There were plenty of obviously magical abilities, ranging from fireballs to poison clouds. There were even a few lightning skills. “Can we narrow it down to melee types of skills?” he asked.

Oberon complied, and from the fifty or so skills that were left, there were four that stood out to Zeke. They were as follows:

[Lightning Strike] (H) – Imbues a weapon with the power of lightning. Upgradeable.

[Flaming Blade] (H) – Creates a sword of flames. Upgradeable.

[Cudgel of Superiority] (H) – Imbues a blunt weapon with extreme weight, crushing your foes. Upgradeable.

[Leech Strike] (H) – Steals a small amount of vitality from an opponent, transferring it to the caster. Upgradeable.

[Lightning Strike] and [Flaming Blade] both seemed to belong to the same family of elemental attacks, and Zeke could certainly see the draw of burning his enemies alive or electrocuting them to death. Similarly, it was easy to imagine how [Cudgel of Superiority] would help, especially when he gained a few more points in strength. But to him, there wasn’t really a choice, presuming he understood the way things would work. Not only was [Leech Strike] an attack, but it was also a heal? That seemed a little overpowered.

He asked Oberon, “What’s with this one? If you could steal someone’s vitality like that, why would anyone want to do anything else?”

Oberon answered, “It’s a very weak attack. Maybe a quarter as powerful as the others up there. And it can lead to some…ah…less-than-reputable classes.”

“What does that even mean?” Zeke asked. “Less-than-reputable? Why does that matter?”

“Because people are people, and if you start fiddling with people’s life force, you’re going to have a difficult reputation,” Oberon said. “Is it powerful? Sure. It can be. But it takes a lot of work to get it to the point where its usefulness outweighs its demerits. And even if you put in all that work, there’s a good chance of you being ostracized because of your eventual class. I can’t say more about that, so don’t ask.”

“Well, that’s just bullshit,” Zeke mumbled. How was he supposed to decide when he didn’t have all the information? Or was that the point? “Just tell me this – will it help keep me alive?”

“Yes,” Oberon said. “Better than almost any other skill.”

“Then that’s all I need to know,” he said, selecting the skill. He felt a slight tingle in the back of his mind, but he ignored it. “What now?”

“You’re going to have a tough road, kid,” Oberon said. “But if you stick to it, you could make some waves, I think. Just remember – no matter what, there’s no substitute for hard work.”

“That’s what my dad used to tell me,” Zeke said. Indeed, the man had been all about telling others to work hard. Meanwhile, he’d never actually taken his own advice to heart. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s work.”

“Well, I hope you’re right,” Oberon said. “Because you’re going to get every chance to prove it. See you in a bit.”

Before Zeke could respond, Oberon snapped his fingers, and Zeke’s world went black again.