He felt the matter of his body dematerialize, then flow through space and time to somewhere else. It was hard to pin down exactly why Theo knew this, but when he coalesced again, he knew that he was not in the same place he had been. When he opened his eyes — or rather, when his eyes were recreated from those glowing blue particles — he saw that the teacher’s lounge had vanished. Instead, he was surrounded by the vastness of space. All around him, stars and galaxies blinked in the distance, nebulas floating like clouds overhead.

He looked down, only to see his feet dangled over an endless abyss. But he did not fall. He floated, weightless, in a sea of stars. What the hell is happening? he thought.

He looked down at his hands, which seemed almost immaterial. They glowed pale blue-white, as though seen underwater. And all around them, colors swirled. At first, they were small, just wisps of light. But as he rematerialized, they began to glow bright, whipping around him: red, blue, green, purple, silver, gold. Six colors, materializing in currents and rivers around his body.

Suddenly, the colored lights poured out of him, pooling around him in orbs of glowing power. He looked around at them, and saw that each was a different size. The green orb was the largest and brightest of the six.

A message appeared before him in swirling runes. It looked like a magic circle, a complex pentagram with strange lines and angles, with smaller sub-circles around it. The largest circle read, in runes:

Welcome, participant! You have been invited by the Gamemaker himself to participate in the Arena. In order to participate, you must first assess your natural abilities and choose a class. Continue with Class Selection? Y/N

“Wait,” he said aloud, “where am I? Who are you?”

You are currently within the Interdimension. A world that exists between realities.

You are reading a system message created by the Gamemaker to help manage the Game. Does this satisfy your inquiry? Y/N.

Before him, that strange circular panel appeared again, with two runes meaning Yes and No. It seemed like whatever the message was, it wasn’t really conscious. It was more like talking to a computer, or interfacing with a video game menu.

“Hell no that doesn’t satisfy my inquiry!” He shouted.

Please select a conversation option from your ring menu.

He scowled, then pressed the rune that meant ‘No.’

What further inquiries do you have?

“Where the hell am I even supposed to start?” He said, “for one, why is this so much like a video game?”

The Great Game has many forms, encompassing many realities. In your reality, video games are a prevalent form of interactive gameplay. And so in part, your mind interprets the Great Game as such. All participants in the Great Game are given the Skill Universal Speech, which allows them to interpret and speak any known intelligent multiversal language. Universal is the language that your menu appears in, but you interpret it as English. Because there is no direct translation, you interpret the concepts p resent in the Great Game as concepts from an Earth video game. But the reality is far more complex. Does this satisfy your inquiry? Y/N

Okay, so, it wasn’t really a video game. It just looked and acted like one. But if it walked like a duck and talked like a duck…

He selected the No rune again, then quickly asked his next question. “But why force whole realities into a game anyway? Who is the Gamemaker? What does he want?”

He is Unknowable. He is Ultimate.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Is he God or something?” Theo asked.

The Gamemaker has destroyed millions of what you might call God across as many universes. He has created and destroyed even more lesser gods. To call him a mere god is to insult his power. Does this satisfy your inquiry? Y/N

“Okay… cool, I guess…” he said. It sounded like the Gamemaker had a serious ego problem. So he was some kind of super-God, thrusting people into a Game… why? What was the point? Theo thought for a moment, then frowned. Why did anyone want to watch — or play — a video game?

Please select a prompt. If you are satisfied with your inquiry, select ‘Continue with Class Selection.’

He looked at the ring menu before him, runes and options floating in the air like a neon sign. He could stay and ask questions forever — maybe literally forever — but where would that really get him? Besides, he was curious to learn more about Class Selection. Hesitantly, he reached out and selection the option to move forward.

Welcome to Class Selection! You have travelled far and wide and accepted the Gamemaker’s invitation to participate in the Arena. Not all sentient beings are offered this opportunity. You have been selected by the Wisdom of the Gamemaker, due to some attribute he finds favorable. Before your astral form are your Six Sacred Essences: Strength, Agility, Durability, Charisma, Intelligence, and Wisdom.

He looked around him at the glowing spheres of colored light. They floated around him in space, each a small star of differing size. Beneath each one, menu runes appeared, then reformed into legible text.

By isolating your Six Essences, we have assigned each an Ability Score. These Scores reflect both your current ability and your innate potential to cultivate that ability. Here is your current character sheet:

Name: Theodore Cross

Species: Human (Basic)

Class: N/A

Character Level: 1

Essences:

Strength: 1.2

Agility: 0.9

Durability: 1.8

Charisma: 0.5

Intelligence: 1.5

Wisdom: 2.0

Uncommon Skills:

Bushcraft (Basic)

Herblore (Basic)

Common Skills:

Swimming (Basic)

Chemistry (Basic)

Cooking (Remedial)

+1,569 others

For more, see Common Skill menu.

Languages:

English (Native)

Spanish (Remedial)

Universal

Please read your menu options to learn more about each skill.

The menu flashed before him as a floating circle of runes — what he now realized must be Universal Runes, because he could understand them. If he squinted, it looked like he was interacting with a magic circle, almost like a magician in an anime or something. He didn’t really understand what the menu meant. He was disappointed to see that his charisma was his lowest stat, but wasn’t necessarily surprised, either. What wowed him was his Wisdom score. He never really considered himself a wise person, but the Great Game obviously disagreed. He turned to the right, where a floating orb of green energy hummed before him. It was larger than all the others, more than twice as big as the puny purple charisma orb, which was no larger than an apple. The wisdom orb was the size of a beach ball.

He selected the Wisdom menu option beneath the orb.

Wisdom encompasses the arenas of willpower, empathy, intuition, perception, awareness, common sense, and spirituality. Wisdom is the core ability for Sages. A person with High Wisdom is more likely to unlock deeper secrets of the Great Game and the multiverse itself. Those with High Wisdom make excellent healers, priests, advisors, naturalists, and tacticians. Although not as immediately useful as the Physical Essences of Strength, Agility, or Durability, the Mental Essences more often tread the Paths that lead to Vast Universal Power. Your native Wisdom is 2.0, and the average human Wisdom is 0.7.

Cool, Theo thought. Not that he needed a pat on the back, but it sounded like a pretty great ability to have. He collapsed the Wisdom menu option and looked around him.

Directly in front him of was a medium sized orb of red light. Beneath it, in red glowing letters, was the word ‘Strength’ and the number ‘1.2’ He was pretty sure he understood what Strength meant, so he focused on the score. Why a decimal point? Why not just level one or level two?

Ability Scores are simplified into decimals. To reach Level 2.0 strength, you must allocate eight more Skill Points. Allocate? Y/N

Out of curiosity, he picked the rune that meant Yes.

No Skill Points available. Gain Skill Points through combat, practice, and quests.

Well, it was worth a shot, he thought. He turned to analyze the remainder of the glowing essences around him. His next highest, by far, was Durability. That seemed self explanatory. Durability probably meant how resistant to damage something was. After Durability was Intelligence, and he was glad to see that Intelligence was his third highest natural stat. He was a teacher, after all.

He reached forward and touched the glowing runes with his hand. The runes expanded, revealing a paragraph of text.

Intelligence encompasses the arenas of rational thought, practice and learning, and logic. A person with High Intelligence is known to retain information quickly, recognize patterns, and understand the bottom line. Intelligence is most important for Wizards. Your native Intelligence is 1.5, and the average human intelligence is 0.8.

Hm, he thought, that’s not a good look for humanity.

He dismissed the Intelligence panel and then quickly went through the others. There seemed to be a number of common classes as well. Agility was naturally the best option for Rogues. Strength was great for Fighters. Charisma was naturally a good fit for Bards. Durability was also great for Knights. It seemed that there were six core classes, one for each Essence.

You have completed a read through of your Essences. Continue to Class Selection? Y/N.

He selected ‘Yes’ and the scene before him warped and changed. The essences moved from being spheres of light to glowing silhouettes of people. The sphere in front of him — the glowing red energy of Strength — morphed into a man in light armor holding a sword. He was just a collection of outlines, but Theo could see the man clearly: it was him. Next to the Fighter, formed out of similar purple energy, was another version of Theo. This one wore rich robes and held a harp. The Bard. Theo looked around at each one in turn: the Knight wore massive heavy armor and carried a huge broadsword. The Wizard wore starry robes and carried a spell book, and pausing magic flowed through his fingertips. The Rogue held a bow of glowing golden light and hid his face beneath a cowl. Twin daggers hung from his waist.

Theo began to explore the options for each class. It seemed that the six main classes could be broken down even further into shared subclasses. The Fighter, for example, could be a Monk or a Spellsword. A Knight could be a Paladin or a Gladiator, depending on their next highest stat after Durability. A Rogue could be an Archer or an Assassin, and a Wizard could be a Spellsword or a Healer. He briefly scanned each of the options, but none seemed to work with his stats. Why be a Bard with 0.5 charisma, anyway?

And finally, the man formed from the energy of Wisdom: the Sage.

Theo stared at the final incarnation of himself. This one wore a long cloak, his head completely hidden beneath the hood. He held a staff, but other than that, was very nondescript. Unlike the other classes, Theo wasn’t sure what this one really did. Still, Wisdom was his highest ability, and the Sage drew its power from Wisdom. He stepped forward and eagerly pressed his palm to the information panel.

The Sage is the class that relies on Wisdom as their primary ability. Subclasses of the Sage include Priests, Healers, Monks, Paladins, and Druids. To learn more, select a subclass.

Instantly, the Sage class offered him more subclass options than any other. He had to imagine that this was because of his higher Wisdom. If he had really high Agility, would the Rogue class offer him as many subclassed? He guessed that there were many choices of subclass that simply weren't available to him, based on his natural stats. He moved through the list, reading the description of each.

Priests didn’t necessarily appeal to Theo. He went to church as a kid, but it wasn’t really for him. To be honest, he didn’t really like the religious undertones. It looked like they were primarily a buff class, to give other members of the party blessings and heal them when necessary. He didn’t really like the idea of sitting on the sidelines praying about stuff, so he decided to skip. Besides, what would he be priest of? God? The Gamemaker? He didn’t have a lot of love for that guy, currently.

Healers were more interesting. That seemed like a useful skill, if this was really going to turn out to be like a video game. The Dev had mentioned combat… so it would be safe to assume that whatever the Arena was, there would be some fighting involve. Being a healer would mean that he could stay alive for longer. And he’d wanted to be a doctor earlier in life, anyway. That seemed like a good fit. Still, he wasn’t sure, so he moved on to the next one.

Monks seemed like a mix between a caster and a fighter. They could channel magic into their fighting moves, packing punches and kicks with cosmic energy. It suggested that it would be a good pick for someone with high Wisdom and high Agility… Theo’s Wisdom was high, but his agility sucked. That tracked, since he was a pretty big dude and speed and dexterity were not really something he was good at. When he’d played sports, he’d typically done endurance sports, like cross country or swimming. So he would skip on Monk, even though it seemed pretty cool.

Paladins were basically Priests with swords. Still a lot of praying, but with more stabbing this time. That bored him, so he moved on to the final one.

Druid.

This one was odd; he had read enough history to know that Druids were a real part of the real world. They were Celtic priests that revered nature, studied the stars, elements, animals, and plants. It was more of historical title from a specific region of the world, unlike Monks, which appeared in many cultures. So it seemed weird to have them show up with the other classes. But he supposed Gladiators, Priests, and Assassins were all part of history too. And again, they were mainstays of fantasy video games, and the Great Game was proving to behave almost exactly like an RPG. He hovered over the “Learn More” option and selected it.

Druids are an enigmatic class that are tied to the chaotic energy of nature and the greater multiverse. They focus on taming beasts, controlling plant life, harnessing the elements, and concocting medicines and poisons. Because Druids expose themselves to the wilderness to harness Universal Power, high Durability is a must. They are a Sage class that is beholden to no god or code of ethics, but to the whims of nature and the multiverse itself. Wild at heart and fierce as wolves, Druids are not to be underestimated.

That’s sick, Theo thought. And more than that, it just… sounded like him. It called to him. He didn’t want to be beholden to a god or a code. He wanted freedom, wilderness, chaos. And beyond that, Durability was his second highest stat after Wisdom.

He thought for a moment, looking around him at the different possible versions of himself. But the Druid made of green light, with the wooden staff and shadowy cloak, burned the brightest.

He couldn’t help it. He smiled. Something was overcoming him, something like… excitement? He looked into the Druid’s face and saw a version of himself, a possible future. No more work. No more kids asking stupid questions. Just the mystery of the Great Game.

He lifted a hand, gently rested it against the ring menu in front of him, and pressed the rune that meant ‘Druid.’

Class selected. Welcome, Theodore Cross, Druid, to the Great Game.