Greg woke up with a bad taste in his mouth, ugh it was so much worse than usual…wait a second. He bolted straight up struggling to remember what had happened. The more he observed his surroundings the more confused he became.

How did I end up in a desert?

Looking upwards his eyes widened for a second before he turned away from the blinding light.

Seeing two suns in the sky Greg wondered what that implied, Kansas? No probably not.

Greg reached in his coat for his cigarette case contemplating what it meant for there to be two suns only to realize he was missing his lighter.

Great now he was going to die without being able to enjoy a smoke. Deciding to first scout the area before accepting his fate he realized that he was in a lot more pain than the old man was used to. Doing a quick survey of himself he felt as of every fiber of his body was aching.

Thinking over it some more he confirmed his thinking, it was withdrawal. He felt something similar once before though not nearly this bad.

About a decade ago for whatever reason he ran out of booze and had a plane to catch the next day. Thinking he would grab some in the morning he overslept. Rushing to the plane the next day, the flight was pure torture as his headache intensified and the flight attendant explained they don’t serve alcohol for “short domestic flights”.

It was nearly 4 hours before he finally managed to drink some overpriced tincture at the airport, he landed in. A total of 18 hours had passed from his last drink, the withdrawal was so bad he ended up hallucinating. Ever since then he vowed to always have a secrete stash with him no matter where he went.

It would also explain why there where suddenly two suns instead of the one. Hallucination, after all, was much more plausible than an alien planet.

Digging around his pockets he sighed with relief as he found the flask he had in the inner pocket of his coat. It was filled with 190 proof tincture as he only ever intended to drink it to stave off withdrawal. Taking a small swig, he noticed something flashing in the bottom of his vision. Deciding one wasn’t enough since clearly, he was still seeing things, he took a much less modest pull.

Immediately his headache subsided to a low dull ache he associated with his advanced age and couldn’t help but grin. He wasn’t a brilliant man, that much was clear by his lifestyle, but he did learn from his mistakes. At least the mistakes he wanted to avoid making.

Getting up he realized the flashing was getting worse and felt a stab of pain in his ankle. Whoever dropped him off here clearly wasn’t too gentle. Looking around he saw what appeared to be a tower in the distance. Maybe a quarter of a mile of. It appeared to be made entirely out of sandstone, seeing no other option he slowly meandered his way toward the building.

After an agonizing walk, he finally got to the tower realizing that it was in state of disrepair and was obviously a ruin instead of some modern building. It was still quite impressive easily being over 20 stories high.

Walking inside the building he found it to be, by in large, empty with only what seemed to be broken clay vessels of some sort and other scattered debris. Painfully he walked up some floors before he peered out the tower on either side seeing nothing but endless dunes of sand and nothing else.

Observing the sky, he wondered if it was eternally daytime here. There was one sun close to setting, one sun in the middle of the sky, and now a third one was starting to creep up on the horizon.

Greg congratulated himself on making it to the tower. The three suns where not there for decoration and the heat was becoming unbearable with the emergence of the third sun. The shade probably saved his life.

Only a few short minutes he quickly realized that the shade was not going to help for long. The temperature was starting to soar up and he felt like he was cooking. He took another draw from his flask and his stomach tightened and protested on how hot the liquor felt going down.

He was confused at the temperature of the liquor he drank. If it was so hot how was he even alive in this temperature, it was clearly well above 100 degrees even in the shade. Each passing minute the temperature only increased, and Greg started scrambling around in desperation searching for something that would help him survive. He took off his leather jacket but somehow, he felt even more heat with it off than on so he quickly put it back on deciding he would investigate the mystery later. Working his way down the tower he found himself once again at the bottom. Feeling the heat, he started to sway around as he was undoubtably experiencing heat stroke from the quickly rising temperature, he went down on his knees to prevent himself from collapsing.

Doing so he quickly realized that the floor was somehow cool to the touch!

Quickly spreading his hands around the floor, he looked for the source before finding a latch of some kind buried under some sand. Hoisting it up he saw some stairs leading to what looked like a cellar of sorts. Not hesitating for too long he walked down the stairs shutting the lid behind him. The air was noticeably cooler, and he deeply breathed in and out. He was in almost complete darkness except for some runes that where drawn in the corners of the cellar that gave off a soft glow of light. Inspecting them closer he felt them giving off a cool breeze.

He was wondered if it was magic or some advanced form of technology. He ran his fingers through the runes, and it appeared to be just written script, making him lean toward the hypothesis of magic.

About 30 minutes or so later he felt much better and took sip from flask for courage and slightly opened the ceiling hatch before letting it back down quickly as it felt like opening an oven door with the heat blasting inward. He would have undoubtedly died in the heat by now if hadn’t have found the tower. He wanted to take a nap but surprisingly felt fairly good all things considered. Even his twisted ankle was barely bothering him anymore. It was extremely strange as only a short while ago he felt like he was going through heat stroke and now he felt like he was quite refreshed.

But instead he should by now be quite dehydrated but the telltale signs where missing. Further puzzling him on how exactly he was feeling so good. Standing up he stretched his body before he felt even more shock. His usual pain in his joints was gone! It was as if he was 40 years old again or even younger! He took a particularly long draw from his flask to celebrate the discovery. If only he had some way to light up his cigarettes. Taking one more sip he decided to explore the cellar some more.

He was met with mixed success as it was quite dark and it was difficult to see anything other than the runes in the corners. Doubting there was anything down here he looked closer at the runes, discovering they were inscribed on bricks that could be moved.

Curiosity tickled his brain, and he grabbed one of the bricks pulling it out of the socket. The runes started dimming and the temperature immediately started warming up. Quickly jabbing the stone back in Greg sighed a breath of relief when the runes brightened up and the temperature started to cool back down again.

Sitting down and leaning against the cool wall Greg started to really consider what he was going to do. He took stock of his belongings. He had: his custom-made case full of cigarettes, a half-filled flask of 190 proof liquor, and his clothes including his leather jacket.

He clearly didn’t favor his odds of surviving, but he didn’t really know or care what to do to increase his odds. He felt fine now but eventually he will need water and food. The problem was what to when he ran out of liquor and started to go through withdrawal again. He eyed his flask suspiciously. He had taken a lot of generous sips and although being and alcoholic for over 30 years raised his tolerance considerably, he should still have started feeling a much stronger buzz by now. After all, 190 proof was not a small amount by anyone’s standard. Thinking over it some more he most likely drank more than half of the liquor by now yet there was slightly more than half left in the flask.

Deciding to do a quick test he took several large sips from the flask looking down at the flask the level did indeed drop to well below half to his great disappointment. However, he still couldn’t feel almost any burn from the alcohol which was suspicious enough.

He knew this was certainly the genuine stuff as he taste-tested the drink when he initially filled the flask. He also staved off withdrawal earlier when he drank it, so what exactly changed?

Having nothing else to do Greg capped his flask to conserve what he had left. He decided to investigate the other mystery, his leather jacket. Taking it off he once again felt a discomfort take over. He felt slightly…weaker? And perhaps slightly more tired too, confused he took a closer look at the jacket and noticed that lined on the inside of the jacket was some strange looking runes. Similar in style as on the stones but clearly, they served a different purpose and shaped differently. Three different runes looked to be almost stitched into the jacket. One very large one taking up almost the entire backside that somehow looked strangely familiar to him. A second large rune overlapped partially with the first rune and a much smaller rune off to the side was also connected to the first large center rune. The other ones didn’t give off the same familiar feel that the first rune did.

Shaking his head, he gave up trying to figure out the mystery and put the coat back on feeling better at once. Deciding to try resting anyway he sat down and leaned against the cool wall. Eyes closed in the darkness he noticed again the flashing in the corner of his vision that was somehow even more intense. Wondering what it meant seemed to trigger something as his vision was suddenly assaulted with a boxes of boxes of information that seemed to respond to his thoughts scrolling up and down at will. Text filled his vision as he started to read through what looked like computer notifications.

Congratulations! ‘You have survived being exposed to arcane energy with Vitality under 50! You have earned the title “Arcane Touched”!’

Congratulations! ‘Arcane Resistance Reaches level 2! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘Arcane Resistance Reaches level 3! Experience gained!’

…

Congratulations! ‘Arcane Resistance Reaches level 7! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘You have gained “Void Resistance”! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘Congratulations you have survived being exposed to void energy with Constitution under 500! You have earned the title “Void Touched”!’ Congratulations! ‘Void Resistance Reaches level 2! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘Void Resistance Reaches level 3! Experience gained!’

…

Congratulations! ‘Void Resistance Reaches level 7! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘You have successfully survived being in the void with Constitution under 1000! You have earned the title “Into the Void!”!’ Congratulations! ‘Void Resistance Reaches level 8! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘Void Resistance Reaches level 9! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘Void Resistance Reaches Tier 2! Experience gained!’

Congratulations! You have reached Tier 2 in “Void Resistance” while having earned the title “Void Touched” and having the title “Into the Void” and having under 1500 Constitution.

Your titles “Void Touched” and “Into the Void” have merged and you have earned the title “Embraced by the Void”!’

Congratulations! ‘Void Resistance Reaches Tier 2 level 2! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘You have successfully Traversed realms to Residence of ??? ! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘You have survived a Realm Transportation initiated by ??? you have earned the title “Unwilling Realm Immigrant”!’ Congratulations! ‘You are now in an authorized System Initiated area! Re-initiating access…error non-initiated entity, initiating…’ Congratulations! ‘You are now Initiated! You may now interact with the system! Congratulations! ‘You have Initiated at the age of greater than 0! You have earned the title “Late Initiator”!’ Warning! ‘You have heard the command of a being of unimaginable greater power and level than you! You are frozen in fear for 1 hour!’ Congratulations! ‘You have met and survived a being of unimaginable greater power and level than you! You have gained the passive of “Battle-Worn”! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘Battle-Worn reaches level 2! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘Battle-Worn reaches level 3! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘Battle-Worn reaches level 4! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘Arcane Resistance Reaches level 8! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘You have successfully survived being submerged in liquid Arcane with vitality under 500! You have earned the title “Baptized in Arcane”!’ Congratulations! ‘Arcane Resistance Reaches level 9! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘Arcane Resistance Reaches Tier 2! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! You have reached Tier 2 in “Arcane Resistance” while having earned the title “Arcane Touched” and having the title “Baptized in Arcane” and having under 1000 Vitality. Your titles “Arcane Touched” and “Baptized in Arcane” have merged and you have earned the title “Changed by Arcane”!’ Congratulations! You have earned 2 Tier 3 or higher primordial titles “Embraced by the Void” and “Changed by Arcane” you have earned the title “Primordial Being”!’ Warning! ‘Your very soul has been marked by a being of unimaginable greater power and level than you!’ Congratulations! ‘You have successfully Traversed realms to Hestheria! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘You have survived a Realm Transportation initiated by ??? your title “Unwilling Realm Immigrant” has upgraded to “Unwilling Realm Sojourner”!’ Congratulations! ‘You have consumed “Greg’s Elixir” your stats have been temporarily updated! Congratulations! ‘You have consumed “Greg’s Elixir” buff already active! Duration refreshed! Congratulations! ‘You have consumed “Greg’s Elixir” buff already active! Duration refreshed!

…

Congratulations! ‘You have gained “Heat resistance”! Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘You have consumed “Greg’s Elixir” buff already active! Duration refreshed!

…

Congratulations! ‘Heat resistance Reaches Level 2!’ Experience gained!’ Congratulations! ‘You have consumed “Greg’s Elixir” buff already active! Duration refreshed!

…

As soon as he finished reading and dismissing the last notification a new one popped up in the corner of his vision. Opening it up with a mental command the new pop up read.

Congratulations! ‘You have enough experience to level up! Do you wish to distribute stats and level up now?

For the first time in a long time Greg spoke aloud.

“What in the actual hell?!”

...

Congratulations! ‘You have consumed “Greg’s Elixir” buff already active! Duration refreshed!