The Elder One followed Autumn to the house. There were a few wooden steps that led to the front door. As The Elder One stepped on the first step, the wood snapped, and his foot continued through it to land on the ground. He tried the second step with his other foot, and it broke under his weight also.

Autumn turned around to see what all the noise was. She looked at the steps, then looked at the house.

“Probably best if you wait out here,” Autumn said.

The Elder One frowned but didn’t move for the house.

“I’ll be fine just wait here and I’ll bring some clothes out,” Autumn said.

“Very well,” The Elder One said.

While Autumn was inside the house showering and getting dressed The Elder One started practicing his pyromancy. Jake and the other unarmed man stood around watching as The Elder One created and dismissed flames in the palm of his hand. The Elder One didn’t feel threatened by them so he didn’t pay them much mind as he poured more power into the flames. By the time he had gotten his flames three feet high, he started trying different elements.

He forced air to coalesce and flow from his hand, he checked his interface carefully and found on the magic tab that he’d learned both pyromancy and aeromancy. He focused on the ground and exerted his control over it, the dirt bulged, and he saw that he’d learned geomancy.

The Elder One turned to the now four men who were gathered around him. “I need some water,” he said.

There was a second of hesitation before James went back in the house. The Elder One noticed he wasn’t holding his hand anymore and his finger looked healed.

“How are you doing that?” Jake asked as The Elder One focused on the light streaming through the tree branches.

The Elder One pushed his will into the streaming light as he said, “That’s a good question, it’s difficult to quantify precisely. What I want to happen seems to manifest as long as I allow the appropriate amount of mana to leak into it. You can imagine or pretend right?”

“Yeah,” Jake answered as the light streaming out of the trees turned into a dazzling multicolored rainbow.

The Elder One laughed as the three men gasped, “Aethermancy, the possibilities are incredible! Human try to imagine or pretend that you’re manifesting one of these elements and allow the mana to flow into the construct. The more technical you are in imagining though, the less mana it requires.”

James handed The Elder One a glass of water as the three men started trying to perform various magics. The Elder One focused on the water in the glass and started making it swirl before handing the cup back. He checked to be sure that he’d also learned hydromancy.

The Elder One could see the four men were creating small flames and moving dirt around as Autumn came out of the house. She was wearing a pair of worn jeans and sneakers with a red and blue striped shirt that was clearly too big.

She approached him and handed him a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. “I didn’t think any of the shoes would fit you.”

He put on the clothes as Autumn watched the four men practicing magic and exclaiming in panicked tones to one another. The clothes were too tight but thankfully they were pliable enough to stretch over him. The sweatpants looked more like tights and the baggy t-shirt didn’t cover his midriff when he raised his arms.

“We’ll find some new clothes in the city,” Autumn said.

The Elder One nodded. “Humans! It’s time to go find the monsters!”

James cleared his throat, “About that, there’s Palisade not far from us, but it’s just a small town really. The problem is, I don’t think the truck will be able to carry you that far, just getting you here almost took out the suspension.”

“I was thinking about that,” The Elder One said. “We can use aethermancy, and if that doesn’t work then I can run along next to the truck.”

“Aethermancy?” Autumn asked before realization seemed to dawn on her.

“What’s that?” Jake asked The Elder One.

“There’s five elements, you all know the basic four, but the fifth is aether. You know how sound travels through the air as a medium? Well light, gravity, electromagnet waves and so on, travel through the aether.”

Autumn smiled and said, “So you want to try to lessen gravity’s effect on you? It might work but it’ll be a constant drain on our mana.”

“Obviously, I’ll have to run if the drain is too much.”

They both tried lessening the effects of gravity on The Elder One. Combined they were able to half The Elder One’s weight so he got in the bed of the truck with Autumn. They passed through several miles of orchards and farms on their way towards Palisade. During the trip, Autumn noted that the drain of holding the spell seemed to lessen the longer they did it, as if they were getting better at it.

The fires coming from Palisade could be seen from a distance, and as they got closer they could hear gunshots and screaming.

“I told you there were monsters,” The Elder One noted casually as a car sped past them.

“I never doubted it,” Autumn said. “Here, let’s join a party so we can split the rewards.”

“Good idea,” The Elder One said as the truck came to a stop in the road. He jumped out and walked up to the driver’s side, “Did the quest complete?” He asked James.

James nodded, slack-jawed.

“Good, want another quest?” The Elder One asked.

James kept staring at The Elder One, but Jake answered from the passenger’s side, “Yes, sir!”

“Hmm,” The Elder One said before turning to Autumn, “Any ideas?”

Autumn looked around, “Yes, you could have them form a party and hunt monsters. Actually, this towns not much to look at, but we could return stability to it with quests. It won’t help us if everyone dies, we need to complete the Quest for Access.”

The Elder One nodded before turning back to Jake, “Form up a party, you still have that one rifle, right? Get more guns and start hunting monsters. I’ll give you a bonus for magic kills and for every person you save. Also, I’m giving you a quest to create a safe haven, pick a building, fortify it, and post guards to keep non-combatants alive.”

Before Jake could respond The Elder One pointed at a goblin down the road, “Autumn, let’s try some magic out on those!”

The Elder One took off at a sprint towards the goblins, every step left foot size dents in the asphalt road as he pushed his body forward. He got to the goblin and it looked like it was trying to stab him, but it was moving in slow motion to him. He grabbed the goblins arms and twisted them behind its back.

“Try fire on this one,” The Elder One said.

A few moments later Autumn caught up to him, huffing and breathing heavily. “What?” she asked.

“I said, ‘try fire on this one.’ I don’t know how the experience will be doled out, but you need it more than me, so you should get the kill.”

Autumn, who was still huffing, straightened herself and held her arm out to the goblin. Another one was approaching The Elder One from behind, she ignored it though. A flame appeared in her hand, but she was about five feet from the goblin, so it didn’t reach. She started to walk forward but was stopped by The Elder One.

“Try mixing it with air, like a flamethrower,” he suggested.

She nodded and then tried to mix air and fire. Her hair whipped around as she pulled air from around her and funneled it from her hand towards the goblin. Then she created a fire like she did before. A trickle of fire stretched out in front of her and started licking at the goblin.

The goblin started screaming even more frantically as she poured her mana into her pyromancy. The trickle of fire turned into a full-on torrent and the Elder One had to duck behind the goblin to avoid the flames. After about half a minute of screaming the goblin finally succumbed to the flames.

The Elder One dropped the crispy corpse of the goblin. He was holding a short bronze sword in his right hand that he’d acquired from the monster.

“You want it?” The Elder One asked Autumn as he held it up for her.

“It’s yours. I gained three levels by the way.”

“Good! Now let’s do this one,” The Elder One said as he grabbed the goblin who was now stabbing him to no effect. “Try something different. It looks like there's three more goblins we can practice magic on.”

Autumn nodded after checking her mana. “I got an idea.”

She walked closer to the goblin and set her hand on it. The goblin was fighting vigorously to escape The Elder One's grip. It was thrashing around and screaming all to no avail. Then the goblin started to slow as ice spread from Autumn's hand.

“Oh, that’s a good one,” The Elder One said as he dropped the frozen goblin. It hit the street and broke into several pieces.

“Yeah, I was just trying to freeze its blood though. Too bad it takes so long, and I have to be touching it.”

The Elder One shrugged, “Try mixing it with air, or send it through the ground. I wonder what happens when you mix fire and ice? What if you mix it with aethermancy? Actually, that might even kill me.”

Autumn could tell The Elder One was getting excited, and she smiled faintly. “Yeah let’s save those experiments for when we get stronger, there’s no need to be risky right now.”

The Elder One nodded as he walked to a goblin that was just coming out of a house. “So how are you going to kill the next one?”

Autumn thought about it for a second, “Well combining air and fire to create the flamethrower effect takes a lot of mana, but it’s safer since I can attack from a distance. The freezing takes a lot less mana but its far more dangerous, I was thinking I’d try setting this one on fire by touch.”

The Elder One grinned as he saw the goblin charging him with another short bronze sword. He grabbed it by the arms and turned it to face Autumn.

“Wait,” Autumn said. “Let me examine this one, they’re so well made. You did a really great job with this.”

The goblin looked much like the other they’d encountered. It was about 4’6” tall with a wiry build. Unlike a human though, it had olive green skin and a row of shark-like teeth. There were thick, pointed ears coming from the sides of its bald head. Its eyes had black sclera, where a humans would be white. The pupils were a vertical yellow like a cat.

What was most peculiar to Autumn was that it was screaming in what seemed like a language of some kind. She listened to its high-pitched screaming and noticed there seemed to be a pattern.

“What’s it saying?” she asked The Elder One.

The Elder One laughed and said, “I don’t know, but it’s probably cursing me for holding it.”

“So, you didn’t create a language for it? Where’s that sword?”

The Elder One jerked his head to the side where a sword was lying on the ground. Autumn walked over and picked up the sword before returning in front of the goblin. She proceeded to vivisect the goblin by cutting an opening down its chest. She pulled the flaps of skin, and flesh back before reaching her hand inside its chest cavity.

“What are you doing?” The Elder One asked as he watched her reaching around inside the still live goblin.

Autumn pulled at the flaps, widening the opening, and some intestines fell out. The goblin continued wailing louder than ever while Autumn poked at its insides, blood was flowing freely from it.

“This is incredible,” Autumn said. “It’s anatomically correct, yet it’s alien. There are several organs in here I don’t even recognize. This arm looks like it was broken and then the bone fused back together improperly too. The scared tissue is a nice touch also. If not you, then who did create this?”

The Elder One leaned over to look inside the goblin as its wailing began to die down. “Well, I already told you my theory about the puzzles creator. Imagine a being with that tremendous power and information at their disposal. It would be a god compared to a human, literally. However, while I do believe it’s possible to create these creatures at this level of detail, it’s also possible they were taken from somewhere else and brought here.”

“Taken from where exactly?” Autumn asked as she leaned back to look at The Elder One.

The Elder One didn’t want to give away any technical information but at the rate things were progressing, and with his title being contested he might need her help, so he told her.

“The mathematics involved in solving the puzzle, I’m not entirely certain what all of it means combined but it involved the multi-verse as well as parallel realities, and more. Therefore, everything humans have imagined exists somewhere. They probably exist a lot, the problem would be finding them. There are probably a gambit of issues when tinkering with the multi-verse or parallel realities, for instance, realities collapsing into one another. But it’s by no means impossible.

“Things like magic become mundane by comparison. I imagine there are far more powerful and dangerous things we can do with full access, but that also means the dangers increase proportionally.

“You understand now why I’m in an alliance with you? I’ve never been in an alliance in my existence, but the dangers merit it. Especially with my title being contested.”

Autumn took on a grave expression as she stabbed the goblin through the heart. “I’m beginning to, but if you expect me to help you, you’re going to have to provide me with the details. Also, we need to stop wasting time and take advantage of the game. You need to create easy quests with a high reward for us to complete.”

The Elder One grimaced as he dropped the goblin corpse. Its insides poured out all over the ground. “That feels like cheating. Look if I have to I will try to game the system, but otherwise, let’s try to succeed by our own merits.”

“Fine, can you create more monsters for us to kill at least?”

A grin spread across The Elder One’s face as he looked to the mountains in the distance. He moved through his interface and created a quest to kill a dragon that lived in the mountains not far from Palisade.

The Elder One’s grin vanished as an earth-shattering roar pierced through the air. He could see a massive beam of light in the distance shooting down from the sky.