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Cowboys and Wizards

S1E2 - Restart

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*System Restart*

I blinked at the text hanging in the air.

A small image of da Vinci’s vitruvian man did calisthenics underneath the words.

More information scrolled upwards.

HumanOS

Version: 24.9

Model: Vincent J. Carter

Serial: 434-34-4334

Battery: 1600 @ 100%

Memory: 640 (1600)

Mana: 600 (600)

Expansion: None (1 slot available)

The words flashed then swirled and transformed into a small translucent cog that hovered in the top right corner of my vision. Other icons floated into existence across the top of my vision.

A (8E) symbol, signal bars at 100%, and a full battery symbol.

The time was currently 16:43 and it was Thursday, June 16th 1878

“What the heck?” I muttered, my voice loud in the silence of the ruined room.

I focused on the cog and a series of icons filled my vision. It took about two seconds to understand that I could move them around using nothing more than my thoughts.

App Store, Calculator, Calendar, Camera, Clock, Gear, Inventory, Messages, Maps, Messages, Notes, Phone, Settings.

“Did… Am I somehow fused with my smartphone?” I wondered aloud. The timeless chaos and the voice were fading to dreamlike memories, an event that scratched at the edge of my sanity and threatened to overwhelm me. Did that entity think that the cellphone was some part of me?

“Okay, no worries. Let’s get back home and deal with this later.” I grumbled. “Hopefully I don’t run into a protest or riot or get locked up for violating curfew or not wearing a mask.”

I mentally selected MAP

A transparent map of the room filled my vision along with tiny labels covering everything. Ruined chair, ruined bed, ruined table, rusty knife, leather pouch, unknown book.

A moment later I had mastered the controls and zoomed out to find… nothing. The map was blank.

*Local Map Updating…*

The Local map was updating, possibly because it needed to be filled in by my own exploration? I noticed a couple of icons on the left side of my vision and focused on them. Map Type, Search. Map Type allowed me to switch between Local, Transit, and Terrain.

I flipped between them and was rewarded with better information. The Transit map was like a traditional map, just lines and points of interest with the distance and travel times. I am currently in ‘Ruins of Fort Galos” with a dirt road that leads 3 miles south to “Wendleton Road” which zooms out to run between Wendleton and Comstock. Another zoom and I’m located in the Dutchy of Stratford… on the continent of Americus… on the planet of Aerth.

It sort of looks like Earth, if Earth had no polar ice caps. I can recognise the continents, although most are shaped strangely because the oceans are so high. North America is nearly split in two by a huge gulf that eats up most of Texas and carves a furrow nearly all the way up to the Great Lakes. Florida is missing, as is most of the eastern seaboard. The map calls that area ‘Colonia’ and it’s marked with a familiar red, white, and blue flag with just 21 stars. I’m located somewhere near my home in Nevada, but Nevada doesn’t exist anymore. It’s part of Wilmont county in the Dutchy of Stratford.

*// NEW DATA OBTAINED. AKASHIC RECORDS UPDATED. LEXICON UPDATED. EXPERIENCE GRANTED. //*

My hands started shaking. It’s some sort of joke. Some type of insanity. Some sort of delusion. Or maybe I’m delirious with the virus and having a mad dream. Okay. Okay. Deep breaths. Calm down and think rationally. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths, inhaling the musty and burnt scents of my new reality.

Okay, if I’m really in some alternate world then maybe things aren’t so bad? I was on the verge of being homeless and now I am homeless, so, nothing has really changed, right? And since I seem to be fused with my smartphone, maybe I can use that to my advantage? I quickly imagined a million ways I could die in a fantasy world and pushed down the panic. No sense in panicking just yet — we can do that later when I’m being burnt at the stake for witchcraft or something.

I flipped back over to Local Map and examined the room again. Leather pouch, rusty knife, and unknown book were located under the rotting carcass of the bed. I approached it and looked carefully to see if I could spot them. I smiled to myself thinking maybe I could make a living as some sort of detective or something, finding lost items with preternatural ability. Unable to see anything in the mass of mushrooms and ferns, I mentally grabbed the label “Leather pouch”.

*Place Item in Inventory? [Y/N]*

I selected [Y] and received a notification.

Mana: [1/1600]

Inventory. [1/640]

Huh. It uses mana.

I pulled the heavy pouch from inventory and into my hand. The leather was dried and stiff, but I managed to open it to reveal 7 gold coins, 50 silver, 68 copper, and 30 bronze coins of a size similar to a nickel. The copper coins were quite worn, but I could make out the face of a king on one side and a wheat leaf on the other. The brass were similarly worn, and featured king and an oak tree. The silver were tarnished and featured king and a bull. The gold coins were untouched by time and featured the same king and a crown on the opposite face. I popped everything back into Inventory. [M:2/1600 I:5/640]

Huh. It appears that everything I stick into inventory costs mana and counts against the available memory of 640 that was listed earlier, but coins stack into one slot each. Not bad, not bad. A little experimentation quickly proved that I could add the ruined chair and table too. One slot each. A seriously overpowered feature that I planned to abuse in the future — just put things in bags and boxes and my Inventory was practically unlimited! I rubbed my hands together like an evil villain. Half an hour ago I was a flat broke nobody with no future, and now I’m able to start completely fresh with cash and some strange abilities. Thank you strange entity!

It was terrifying and exhilarating. I wanted to dance and puke at the same time.

I placed the Unknown Book into Inventory and it popped into my hands a moment later along with a strong musty aroma. The leather cover was green with mold and starting to swell. Carefully flipping through the pages I stared in wonder at the illustrated script. It was like one of those old religious books you see in museums, every page a work of art. Too bad it’s written in some strange language I can’t read. Arabic maybe? Putting it back into Inventory, it took just a moment to figure out that I could get a quick overview of the item. [Unknown Book. A mouldy old book written in an unknown language.]

The rusty knife was what my father would have called a “pig sticker”, with a grubby leather sheath, bone handle, and a thick blade about ten inches long. Even though the blade was spotted with a bit of rust, it seemed to be in decent condition and could probably be salvaged with a whetstone and some oil. It was a weapon, and considering current events, a welcome addition to my new collection of personal possessions.

I kept the ruined chair and table in inventory. Never know when you might need firewood.

The Calculator was nice, selecting it allowed me to mentally perform arithmetic in moments. As long as it was open I could just think of the problem and the answer popped in my head along with a running tally. There was a scientific tab on it, but I didn’t foresee me using cosine functions anytime soon.

The Camera was interesting, allowing me to snap a photo of what I could see, but each picture used one mana and took up one Inventory slot. Delete, Delete, Delete.

Calendar was 13 months with 29 days each. The weeks were 6 days long and Monday was missing. Good. I don’t like Mondays. Especially since the days here were 25 hours long.

Clock was a basic clock with alarm and stopwatch function. Contacts was empty except for a card with my information. Messages looked just like you’d expect them to. How the heck was I supposed to Call or Message someone?

Notes was really cool though, it was like virtual paper. I could sketch things with my finger, or use thought-to-text, or even attach photos to the note and save them, which took up one Inventory slot per filename. The Export function created a thick piece of paper that appeared in my hand. Nice. Fire starting material!

It has an Import function too?

I created a new Note, then imported the mouldy book from my Inventory. It appeared as a virtual object in my vision that I could manipulate with a thought. Then I exported it. A duplicate appeared in my hand, minus the mould and smell. The leather cover was embossed with more of the strange Arabic writing. Sweet! I could set up shop as a magical print-wizard! Or work as a pack-mule, hauling entire warehouses of goods invisibly. I chuckled to myself imagining that. The mana cost for all this experimentation was adding up though. M:37/1600 I:7/640

System had some nice apps. One was Health Monitor, which gave me a general screen of any health issues. Notifications was also nice for popping up things that might be important. Nothing else of real importance, just some little tweaks to the User Interface and the ability to turn off the (8E) connection I had noticed earlier and turn on the (PSY) connection. I’m going to guess that’s the equivalent of a bluetooth connection? No idea what it does, but I have a hunch. I mean, (PSY) is pretty obvious.

Another hunch presented itself in the System and I opened up the language setting. English was currently selected. I scrolled through the selection and choose Arabic from the long list. A slight wave of dizziness washed over me and I examined the unknown book again. Nope. Still unknown.

I sighed and flipped back to the language settings. Hol up — there’s an “Auto” selection. Mentally mashing the illusory button in my User Interface, another wave of dizziness washed over me. This time the unknown book had a tag on it. [Old Avestan - Translate? Y/N]

Duh, yes, translate! An old, unknown book hidden in a burned out room? That just screams secret book of Incredibly Over Powered Magic, doesn’t it? Annnnd… Nope. I flipped through the copy and it seems to be nothing more than some religious Zoroastrian textbook. Beautifully illustrated, but I’m not getting any magic vibes off of it. I tossed it back in my inventory [Book. Zoroastrian religious text. Illustrated.] and continued my journey of self exploration.

When I enabled “Show Hidden Files” in System, it was absolutely terrifying. File names like “Digestion.dna”, “Endocrine.dna” and “Sensory.dna” filled my vision. I disabled that feature as soon as I realised what I was looking at. I’d hate to accidentally delete my sense of taste, or something even more important.

The Service tab under System was confusing. It seemed to be some sort of weird version of my mobile service plan that claimed that I was enrolled in the ‘Free No Contract Plan’ on the Aerth 8E network, which gave me ‘up to’ 100 MP/day. Considering that I had used nearly 40 mana just dicking around, that was limited AF.

There were other Mana Service Providers (MSPs) to choose from; Whitehall Wizard Group, Sorcerer’s United, Atlantic Magic and Enchantment, and a slew of overseas providers with different tiers named after gemstones and the best offering being the Diamond Unlimited plan that offered ‘unlimited mana, some limits apply’. I could see the service zones of each provider laid out across a transparent map, along with colour coding for the quality of service ranging from 1E to 8E.

I could also choose various Deific or Demonic Contracts which had entire pages of benefits and obligations. Another terrifying aspect of my new world.

I decided to dig into that mess later. I still had over 700 mana and finding a MSP was a problem for future-me. The free plan seemed to be a pretty good deal right now anyway, since I was hardly using any mana.

The Gear icon opened up a minimalist overlay with a picture of me and the items I was wearing. Socks, shorts, underwear, tee-shirt. A mental twitch rotated the image and confirmed that my backside was just as filthy as the floor. Two buttons were visible next to my image, [Custom] and [Labourer]. I selected Labourer and the image shifted to show me wearing work boots, wool socks, denim trousers, leather belt, cotton underwear, cotton pull-over shirt, leather gloves, soft-brim hat. [Select? Y/N]

A mental push of the button and a million indigo motes surrounded me. Two seconds and 10 mana later I was wearing the new gear. And clean! All the grime on my arms and legs had vanished. Seriously, how awesome is that?

I still feel like I need a shower though.

[Labourer class selected - Standard]

Skills: Lifting, toting, stepping, fetching, shifting, digging, hauling, packing…

Knowledge of menial labour filled my head. I somehow knew the most efficient ways to dig a ditch, safely shift a box, and casually walk to the water cooler.

Huh. Changing my gear changes my class. That’s interesting. What happens if I put on a Wizard hat? Would I become some sort of hybrid day-labour wizard with spells for digging ditches?

I opened up the App Store.

Holy. Shitsnacks.

Dozens of icons filled my vision, offering a vast selection of what appeared to be careers? Professions? Classes? Skills?

Archivist, Accountant, Bartender, Book keeper, Cartwright, Con-artist, Farmhand, Herbalist, Hobo, Inn keeper, …Priest, Prostitute, Politician, …Sorcerer, Tailor, …Wizard, Zookeeper.

It was a huge and confusing array of choices.

-= NOTES =-

[CAST]

Vincent J. Carter

[PLACES]

Ruined room

Ruins of Fort Galos

Wendleton

Comstock

Dutchy of Stratford

Wilmont County

Continent of Americus

Colonia

Aerth

Florida

Texas

Nevada

Great lakes

Earth

[PEOPLE]

[OTHERS]

-=- PERSONAL -=-

[[ Next chappie Wed 02Dec20 ]]