“I still don’t know how you know our language,” said Helen.

“We actually got very lucky. We encountered something with your language and images and such on a course for the wall of fire around your solar system. We used psychometry in conjunction with these artifacts and learned about you. You taught us what we needed to know to communicate with you. This is how we Larians serve the empire. It is how we will also serve you.” said the Larian.

“Why are you helping us?” asked Lawrence of the Arkanian.

“Because if I don’t my entire family dies in the war. I’m not helping you, I am saving my family. But I must get back to my position. You, you will be the sacrifice,” says the Arkanian pointing to a random Larian. The Larian bows just as the temperature on the ship suddenly warms.

“They have noticed you are gone, it is faster than I thought it would be. I need to be back now and you need to vanish.” said the nameless Arkanian racing down a corridor.

“Come Great Ones, we need to hide you before they locate and execute us,” says the Larian that was chosen as a sacrifice.

You ask, “do you have a schematic of the ship, a map of the ship’s locations? Do you also have an information processing device? We need something to display the information on.”

“We can get you “mind” slaves Great One,” said the Larian leading us adding, “first we must get you to the auxiliary bridge.”

Danny smiles.

Lawrence notices and says, “let me guess … you are responsible for this.”

Danny says, “I love when a future falls in place.”

You all run.

“Why are you taking us to the auxiliary bridge?” asked Alicia.

“It is from there that we can begin taking over the ship. Tell me … I don’t know your name,” Danny said to the Larian.

“My name is not pronounceable in your language, so call me Bob.” says the alien Bob.

“You’re kidding, you want us to call you Bob?” says the kid.

“What is your name anyway kid,” asks Lawrence.

“His name is Logan, Lawrence,” says Helen.

“Hi Logan, I’m Michael, I never introduced myself. Welcome to the Family.”

“My mom died in a car crash when I was four, I have no family,” said Logan. That was when a patrol of Arkanian warriors caught us. There were twelve of them, in full battle armor.

“Surrender slaves, we will kill you quickly,” said the Arkanian Leader, so you assume.

You pull out your gun, as do Danny, Helen, and Alicia, and Lawrence. They are about to fire when you shout, “this armor will resist bullets. The joints are weak points, joints, and groin. The neck can be twisted. As can the joints. They are about as strong as we are with their power armor on. They drew their crossbows and began firing.

You duck and roll, trusting Danny with Fortune defense. With a sweep of the leg, you bring one of them down. Claws come out as you roll onto him. You grab his arms and twist, but he attempts to claw you. You strain every ounce of energy from your muscles as you attempt to break his joints. He resists you with the exoskeleton’s strength.

One of his crossbow bolts drops and lodges in its armpit once you roll apart. It faints and you see it sicking out. It occurs to you it is poisoned. It injected itself with poison and now it is unconscious. You grab the bolt and stand to face the next Arkanian. It was odd. They don’t seem to do two on one. It is because of this that they will lose the battle with you, you think.

You enter a fighting stance, Single Whip. One arm pointed towards your opponent and one arm back with the sleep poison. In your y peripheral vision, you see everyone engaging two or three opponents. You get an idea. It is a longshot but worth a try. You put the crossbow bolt in your belt and leaped onto the Arkanian, screaming as loud as you can you box its ears as hard as you can. It falls. You feel agony as a crossbow bolt gets you in the leg. You pass out.

You wake up in a large room with dozens of alien-looking monsters. You look around and though you see no Arkanians, you see Larians and your Family. They were all dressed in Arkanian battle armor. You ask, “is this the auxiliary bridge?” as you try to get up. You notice that you too are in battle armor.

Danny says “it’s not quite as good as Kevlar, but better than nothing.”

You stand with Logan’s help. Danny says, “We’ve got a problem. In one hour they are folding space to get back to the planetoid. Takes that long to generate power. There are thousands of ships and a very large population, in the billions. We won’t be able to steal the ship out from so many of them. We will probably be killed, that’s what Lawrence saw in his latest vision, we go there we’re as good as dead. What do we do chief?”

“We trust Luck, what options do you see?” you ask.

“Something is wrong there too, we are low on energy, feel weak for some reason.”

You grunt, “You’ve been using luck too much. I wish we had character sheets that would show us how much Divine Energy we have.”

“Divine Energy?” asks Logan.

“A lot of the family believe we are gods. But enough of that. You need training, but first accept the quest, I give you the option of hijacking this ship with us, do you accept?”

“I guess so ...I’m here anyway and … what … this is a quest with another life? Power? Yes, I accept.” Logan shouts the last. “This is like a video game.”

“Something like that yes, “ you answer Logan then turn to Danny, “give me your options and I will do it.”

“I wish that all the Arkanians on this ship would drop dead.

I wish all the Arkanians on this ship would suddenly faint.

I wish that all the Arkanians on this ship would suddenly speak in tongues.

I wish that whatever the Arkanians do today will fail.

You are quiet for a moment.

“The further you go from what is real, the more expensive the wish. The more options you use the more expensive the wish also. You nailed the second with four options, good. The wishes you made are bad.

Whenever you are in the moment, you should include what is likely to happen or the overall cost will go up. You will lose your strength and before you can replenish, you would be killed. We are in the moment, the situation now, so one model has to reflect your honest perception of the present state. Are you following me?”

Danny shakes his head, “no, not a clue what you are talking about,” and then something blasts against the door to the room.

“We will continue this later, now we need to deal with unwanted visitors”. Before any of you could stop her, a slave opened the door for her master. There had to be a hundred of the Arkanians there. You only had Danny’s options, and nothing came to mind so you would have to use them. This would break you, you would need to regenerate the Divine Energy that let you work your magic. This would take time, days if not weeks. Nevertheless, you grasped those options, summoned the die, and you cast the die.

You are completely drained of Divine Energy and you slump against a random console. You look around at your group, they are all like you. The slave that opened the door screamed as all of the ‘Masters’ fell to the ground dead.

“This is what happens when you use too much energy, I need to check them,” you stand and check the bodies, they are dead. You walk over to the slave that opened the door. She looked down at her shoes. You call out in Arkanian, “We are the Terrans, human beings who opposed your masters and won. Until further notice, you work for us now. We control this ship. Is there anyone in disagreement here?”

“I’ve heard of you, you are the Great Ones. The Larians gave us hope you were real. We shall obey your commands Great Ones,” says an alien.

“Now we need to …’

System Message:

Quest completed. New Quest: Return to Earth

Success: 2000 Universal Experience Points. One Life, Dimensional Battery Ability

Failure: Death or Enslavement

Rewards Earned: 10,000 Universal Experience Points, 9 Slot Inventory, System Upgrade Level One, One Life

New Quest: Accept/Reject

You accept the quest and say, “People look over your stats by saying “stats” internally.”

You hear many Oh my Gods. What can you do with ten thousand experience points?

Name

Michael

Abilities

skills

Characteristics

Char Values

Fortune 15

Arkanian Culture

Strength

9

Travel 1

Arkanian Tech

Intelligence

16

System 1

Mythrian Sci

Knowledge

15

Mythrian Tech

Dexterity

10

Kung Fu

Constitution

9

Human History

Charisma

9

Human Sci 3

Luck

28

Human Tech 3

Wisdom

12

You focus on the experience points and System, Travel, Fortune, and your skills came up. Experience points could be used to improve any of them. 500 increased one skill one level, 1000 for raising one Ability one level or one new skill, 2000 for a new ability, 5000 was the cost to increase a stat by one point.

One of the nameless slaves spoke up, “masters multiple space folds are occurring. We have battleships coming in.”

You consider the defensive armaments on a Pintoch class Mothership and ask, “what is the status on the plasma shields?”

“Fully prepared and ready to use,” she said.

“And offensive armaments?”

“We have a wide assortment of explosive missiles and lasers and fighters, but we are without pilots, you killed them all.”

“OK land the ship,” you say and the crew flies into motion.

“Landing in 55 minutes, battleships arrive in half an hour.”

You turn to your Family and Lawrence, “anyone knows where a military base is?”

“Yes Fort Landers, it is outside the city in Upstate NY,” said Helen, “I did a story there once.”

“OK bring up a map of the planet,” you say and it is done.

You find North America and say, “focus in here,” and they do so. You continue to drill down getting closer and closer to New York. When the map focuses on New York, you have Helen help you find Fort Landers. You give the command to land there.

“Alien mothership to United States military base, come in please,” you say on the transceivers. No answer.

“Can you broadcast a message on all of the radio frequencies in this area of the world?” you ask.

“Yes Great One,” said a Larian.

“Repeat this, We’ve hijacked a mothership and need air support. We’ll be coming in under fire. We need all the help we can get,” you say.

You sit in your chair waiting for the ship to land. A few minutes later a Battleship comes out of a space fold. It begins opening fire on your ship and you give the order to fire back. Fifteen minutes later you are in the atmosphere and the battleship is right on your tail.

Your plasma shields are holding at twenty-five percent and you are diving at the base. Your missiles explode against the battleship’s plasma shields. You are doing damage to it but you don’t know how much. The atmosphere on Earth is weakening the shields, but it is weakening the battleship’s shields also.

Without the energy for them, you cannot use your abilities. Hopefully, in a few days, you will be back to normal. Then you see a fleet of planes coming towards you. They engage the battleship with lasers. After a moment of blaring laser fire, bullets, and missiles, the battleship pulls off.

You land.

Name

Michael

Abilities

skills

EXP

Characteristics

Char Values

Fortune 15

Arkanian Culture

10,000

Strength

9

Travel 1

Arkanian Tech

Life 1

Intelligence

16

System 1

Mythrian Sci

Knowledge

15

Mythrian Tech

Dexterity

10

Kung Fu

Constitution

9

Human History

Charisma

9

Human Sci 3

Luck

28

Human Tech 3

Wisdom

12