*Dae Ho*

General Sherwood is a coward and an imbecile. He heeds very little of my advice, even though it is the only way for us to be prepared for the coming of the gods. He is so hung up on this idea of having to rescue every single person on the planet that he is blind to the larger picture. Any day now the gods will be appearing and offering their poisoned grace. This will be the biggest turning point for our war, yet he is refusing to reinforce our forces and continues to poor our finite resources in the fool’s errand of rescuing these civilians trapped inside the cities. All he is doing is building the forces of the gods for them. The more people that get rescued the more will accept the grace offered to them. They will become our enemies. He is rescuing enemy combatants.

I brush past the simple minded major and burst into general Sherwood’s office, “Sherwood! WE need to talk! You have to listen to me, or we will only find ourselves in a worse situation!”

The general places down another bogus book he is reading, “Dae Ho, I am not one of your lackies. You will refer to me as general. I do not have to listen to anything you say. Even if I am considering your advice, there is plenty you do not understand about leading men. You may be informed, but you are far from a leader, or even trusted.”

This man, he is incorrigible, “no general, you don’t understand . . .”

The man again interrupts me, “I don’t understand Dae Ho? How is it that I could? When every day you come up with some other fragment of information that you just, forgot, to mention during your debriefs? Pieces of information that would drastically change operations if we had them beforehand. You are withholding information Dae Ho. That goes against what our agreement states, and you are dissatisfied with my actions?”

This man cannot be left in charge. He is not willing to do what needs to be done, “I am answering every question asked. I am trying to remember stuff that has happed decades ago. I am sorry if it all doesn’t come back to me right away.” The worst part of this is, what I said is true. Every day I encounter some scenario or event that dislodges something that I had forgotten. If I have forgotten this much, what else have I failed to remember. “Besides general, I already told you this, but this time things are different. Things are happening that didn’t happen last time.”

The general just looks at me, “Dae Ho, we are grateful for the information you provide us. But you are not the leader of the IDR. I am, and as from what I have seen so far, it is a good thing you are not. Now tell me what brilliant new insight or memory you have, and I will decide what to do with it.”

I grit my teeth, “I read reports that elves have been spotted exiting urban populations and entering forested locations. We cannot let them form a foothold in the forests. They were some of the most dangerous self class incursions we will face. They are intelligent. They will build bases and will work together. If we let them form clans, each clan will be a raid class and together they will be disaster class.”

General Sherwood sighs, “every time you sneak a look at our scout reports you want us to go destroy one group or another. You have even told me to go wipe out small towns before because they put up some trinket or another. Dae Ho we are not a military. If you want to go wage a war, got to the army or marines. We are a disaster relief force. We rescue people, secure their safety in times of need. That is what we are doing. I will not send my men to fight a war that has yet to happen.”

A war that has yet to happen?! I slam my fists on the table, “you say you are recuing people?! You are doing nothing more than hesitating like a coward. If you want to rescue people, then go rescue them! You have millions of volunteers to go and rescue your civilians, yet you only send the few remaining and highly valuable soldiers you have left! Send the volunteers to die meaninglessly instead of your own men. Despite any delusions you might have, we are fighting a war!”

General Sherwood stands up and walks to his bookshelf for another infernal book, “Dae Ho, you will not raise your voice to me. I have told you this before, sending in untrained civilians into the cities will just result in more casualties. Those volunteers will only cause panic and chaos. As soon as they encounter an incursion they will panic and waste their ammunition. They will draw more incursions, and then be overrun, killing both themselves and anyone they are trying to rescue. As hard as it is for me to say, it is safer for the survivors to remain in their barricaded buildings waiting for our men trained to operate in this kind of disaster than to be drawn out into a vulnerable area to be overrun and killed.”

This man is missing the point entirely, “if they are so safe, then leave them there and reinforce our forces in preparation.”

He sits back down with a new book in hand, “in preparation for your war? I have seen the scout reports Dae Ho. All I see are a mass of uncoordinated and uncooperative entities attacking civilians. This is more a riot than a war. There is no direction or strategy, not even ‘attack all humans’. They only seem to attack people that they see or sense. They do not appear to be seeking out anyone. Also, just because people are safer in their barricades than in the hands of the untrained, it does not mean they are safe. Thus, I will be continuing to send my Troopers in to escort them to safety.”

*Dae Ho*

From outside of the office chairs slide and tip as unintelligible voices flood the outside room. The general picks up his pistol and holsters it as we walk out the door. Most of the people in the room are standing and staring into blank space muttering. The major walks up to us with confusion plastered on his face, he addresses the general, “sir, what do you make of this?”

The gods must have arrived. These people are seeing the offers of grace. Depending on how many people accept the fool’s gold will determine how I will proceed next. I expect about eighty to ninety percent of people to accept the grace. As long as at least ten percent of people refuse the grace I can rebuild humanity after we take them down. It is a hard decision, but one that must be done. We need enough fools to accept the grace as possible so that they can fight off the incursions. I have already told my forces to refuse the offered grace. We can still guide and fight the influence of the gods to help the ones who accepted their influence. The side effects of disregarding the gods’ grace were minimal. Mostly, we just stopped growing stronger. As long as we protect those that do not accept the grace, I can fight against the gods and their influence.

Hopefully most of the IDR accepts, otherwise we will have a harder time of fighting the incursions. Guns may work against the self and partially against the party class incursions, but we need rockets to take on the raid class and there is nothing we can do against the disaster class, let alone the calamity class.

General Sherwood seems confused at what is happening. He is looking around the room randomly. Did he not receive an offer of grace? The gods likely withheld his offer since he is influential enough as is to unite the humans. Without a grace though, he will likely fall as his subordinates will stop listening to him as they grow stronger and will be dubious of him as someone unworthy until then as well. Similar ploys happened the first time as well. Very few leaders received a grace, only the insane and unstable ones did. Then the gods stoked the dissatisfaction in people’s hearts and caused revolution after revolution, starting the fracturing of humanity, preventing anyone from uniting us to fight against the gods.

General Sherwood turns back to the major, “Smith, what do you all see?”

The major looks at his system window and then back to the general, “you do not see them sir? There are semi transparent message windows appearing in front of us.”

The general nods and glances around the room, “what do they say?”

Major Smith responds, “they appear to be asking us to accept a grace from a god. It says in order for us to fight the incursions we will need a class. In order to get a class, we will need to accept a class. From what I have heard from others in the room, depending on the person, we can receive multiple offers of grace. Although we can only select one. I have only received one. Strange thing is, most of the higher ranked commanders have received far fewer offers than the rank and file. At least out of the ten I have talked to so far.”

General Sherwood looks at the room again, “what do these graces entail?”

Major Smith answers, “the grace gives added abilities, mine seems to be improved stealth, and something called sleuth. In return we are supposed to become believers in the respective god that we choose I assume. At least my offer wants me to become a ‘devotee’ of the god of secrets.”

As the general takes a moment to thing one of the specialists in the room call out. The general and major both look over and the major asks, “Specialist, what happened!?”

The specialist turned to them, “Sir, some of my grace offers just went away. It is saying if I don’t choose soon my offers will be retracted. What do I do sir? Something feels weird about these graces sir.”

The Major sneers and turns to the general, “sir, I am getting told if I do not select my grace, I will not receive a class and lose my innate abilities, inventory, identify and biometrics.” After a pause Major Smith continues, “Sir, this is suspicious as all hell, these things are using mind tricks to get us to accept the offers of grace. These are the same tricks used my retailers to trick us into buying their products.”

General Sherwood frowns, “you are right Smith, this smells, Listen Up Troopers. Do not accept anything these so called gods are offering. Send out a message to all installations and anyone else you can contact. Do not accept the grace. If anyone asks why not, tell them that the gods want us as their slaves, we are not their slaves and we will not become them. What benevolent god demands warship or faith? Those are the demands of malevolence. Our weapons have been working on the incursions for weeks. The only reason they would magically stop would be if these newly arrived gods gave their grace to the incursions as well. We will not subserve ourselves to those that would play both sides.” Turning to the major and I he lowers his voice to a sharp whisper, “Smith, Dae Ho, in my office now.”

Once in his office the major speaks up, “sir, my offer of grace has been retracted. It says I can still get a grace if I pray to a god and offer myself to them.”

The general nods and then scowls at me, “you have been notably quiet Dae Ho. You’re not going to tell me this little event is something you just so happened to forget about now, are you?”

No, this is something I will never forget, no matter how many lives I live.

*Dae Ho*

General Sherwood is outraged at me, “TALK Dae Ho, Now. Not the little bits and pieces. Not what you think I need to know, not what you only claim to remember. You will talk or you will be placed in a cell until this disaster is over. IF, we remember to let you out at all.”

The major moves to slightly behind me. I hear the buckle on his holster come undone. I did not expect for the general to see through the gods’ offer this fast. Although he is still too late, by the time the word gets out, well over half of our remaining population will have accepted the poisoned offer of grace and power. It had to be done. After glancing at the major I turn back to Sherwood, “I did hide the information about the gods. I had to do so. If I did not you would have spread the word to decline the offered grace. We need the players. Without them we will not be able to fight against the disaster class and especially the calamity class incursions. Hell, we can barely fight against the raid classes. We need to use rockets against them and if you haven’t figured out by now, those are in finite supply with no way to make more. We need the power of the gods to fight against the higher level incursions. I did not tell you about the offer of grace because you can’t do what needs to be done. This is the end of the world we are fighting against. Sacrifices will have to be made in order to overcome it. You are not strong enough to make those sacrifices. You are not strong enough to do what needs to be done General.”

The general raises himself up from hunching over his desk, “IT is NOT your place to decide what needs to be done Dae Ho! If you had it your way, there would not be humans left after you stopped the end of the world as you so call it! You would sacrifice everyone to further your goals.”

This ignorant, naïve, idealistic fool, “my goals are to save the human race. My goal is to stop the gods from ending us. I will sacrifice all I need to so that I can stop the systematic extermination of our species.”

General Sherwood frowns at me, “your goal is your vendetta against the incursions and these gods. You don’t give a damn about the human race. All you want is revenge on them for what they did to you, or what you claim they did to you. I will admit that there are far too many coincidences around you and your actions to disregard your story about knowing what is going to happen. Especially with all this fantasy bullshit happening right now, but how do we know that you aren’t some kind of spy from another faction all together? Maybe you can see the future, maybe you have already lived it once. Maybe you were told what would happen, maybe by a third party, maybe by the ones who were planning to perpetrate it in the first place.”

This man dares to suggest that I would be an agent of the gods, “I have done everything to prepare for this apocalypse. I made Shattered World. I made the IDR! I despise the gods true, but my goal is only the survival of the humans. To that end if I even knew of a third party that opposed the gods, I would seek their help without hesitation. Anything would be better than them.”

General Sherwood’s glare continues, “you made Shattered World? A game that sported the gods as the ultimate enemy. A message that would have carried over to now, when the gods have shown up and offered their power to us. That game you made will be a major influence, causing many to refuse the assistance of the gods. It has even influenced my decision to deny them. Now, what if, you are an enemy spy. What if, the gods are here to help us. What if, these graces are our saving grace. A way to effectively fight the incursions. Because of you, we will have millions refusing that grace, rendering us underequipped and underpowered to fight the incursions.”

I step forward, “this is ridiculous!”

From behind me I hear the major unholster his pistol. The general continues to accuse me, “is it? Not just has your influence caused us to deny the possible help of these gods, but because of the IDR, which you made, and your own lobbying, the world’s militaries have faced constant criticisms. Resulting in nearly every military in the world to be cut in half and downsized. There are multiple countries that have outright abolished their militaries in favor of the IDR. You have directly reduced our ability to wage warfare on a large scale. The only military force effectively left in the world is the IDR. A force not designed to wage large scale conflicts like what is happening now.”

The general’s scowl deepens. These two are considering if I am actually a traitor or not. I reach out my hand and cycle the mana in my body. I can feel what I want deep within me, not physically, not the inventory, somewhere else, deeper within me that anything else I have ever felt. No, I had felt that part of me once before, when I crossed into the river of time. Within my hand materializes a hilt. I grasp it as a chain and blade use the hilt as a base to materialize. Within moments the blade that sent me here, the anchor rests in my hand.

I do not need to look to know that the major has his pistol trained on my head. General Sherwood does not even flinch. I stab the blade into his desk, “this is what brought me back in time. Allowed me to relive my life and prepare for what’s to come. You want me to talk, fine.”

General Sherwood looks at the place where the sword is piercing his desk, “that is solid oak, and my favorite desk.” He sits down and folds his hands.

*Dae Ho*

I can feel the major staring holes is the back of my head with his killing intent as I sit opposite the general. His pistol is still raised and aimed at my head. He likely won’t lower it until general Sherwood tells him to.

I release my blade and begin, “first off, everything I did was to prevent disasters in the future.”

General Sherwood interrupts me, “and withholding the information about the gods?”

I level my own glare at the general, “general, if you want me to tell you my plans, I would appreciate it if you would not interrupt me every single sentence.”

He nods and I continue, “as for not telling you about the gods, like I said before, we need people to accept their grace. Not everyone, but most. There is a new kind of energy flooding our world. I has been since the first incursion. This energy is called mana. As we bathe in it, as we absorb it from the incursions it should make us stronger, faster, it will heighten our memory as well as let us perform feats once thought impossible.”

I raise my hand and cycle the small amount of mana I have been able to absorb from my blade. A small flame, no larger than a candle flickers in my palm. It is all I am capable of right now. General Sherwood looks at the flame intensely but says nothing.

I continue, “the problem is, this is a very slow process. I have been absorbing mana from my blade here for over a decade and this is all I am capable of. Even physically, I am only about on par with an Olympic athlete, and I know how to use mana to reinforce my body. The longer the incursions are around for, and the more we kill them, the more mana will flood this world, making it easier to absorb. This will still take too long. The way around this is the gods’ grace. The gods can, through their grace, drastically increase our rate of absorption. They will also instill the knowledge of how to use the mana in our brains. Those with the grace will grow drastically faster than anyone else. They will also be able to utilize the mana in even more drastic ways than my flame.”

I take a pause and a deep breath, “The grace is a poison though. The gods are using the grace to harvest mana from their devotees. Those that accept the grace, players as we called ourselves, will eventually reach a point where we will stop growing. We will hit a ceiling. The incursions won’t. The gods give the incursions the same grace as we get, or at least some variation of it. They do not experience a drastic increase in power like humans would, but they begin to operate like an army and not a mob. By the time we figured it out, it was already too late. The gods are the ones who initiated the invasion of incursions. They control the incursions.”

General Sherwood nods to the major behind me and he exits the room. He remains silently starring me down.

I continue, “yet, we need the players. At least for now. With the incursions operating like an organized army, we will need their added strength. The reason I weekend the militaries of the world and replaced them with the IDR is because of what happens after we fall to the reorganized incursion army. After we fell, the militaries either lost their leadership or came under the command of people less stable than insane. Under the influence of their gods, they started to attack each other. They launched nukes general. A large portion of the world became an irradiated hellscape. By reducing the world’s militaries and consolidating them under the IDR this fracturing should not happen. That is the reason for the IDR. I do not expect you to survive till the end. You are here to primarily prevent the world from going to war with itself.”

I take another second to compose myself, “as long as the IDR can prevent the worlds fracture, the regular humans will eventually become powerful enough themselves to match the incursions. Once that point is reached, humanity will be essentially saved. Without the IDR though, humanity will fracture, and those that did not accept the gods’ grace will die off. The gods won’t allow their survival. If they all die off, we are doomed, as the players will not be able to grow powerful enough to fight the incursions that will continue to grow after they have essentially stopped.”

I pause my story, it is then that General Sherwood asks a question, “and what would happen then to those who had accepted the grace? Kill them off like you want to do with the incursions?”

I shake my head, “no. We wouldn’t have to do anything. All they have to do is forsake their gods. The side effects are minimal. They will stop growing all together and lose most of their specialized skills and mana usages. Other than those, nothing much will happen to them.”

General Sherwood pulls out a folder and tosses it across to me. I open it and there are files on elves inside. General Sherwood speaks, “those elves are far more intelligent than you let on. Intelligent enough, that when our scouts captured some, they could be interrogated and understood.”

They were able to capture and interrogate an incursion?! General Sherwood continues, “most of it was gibberish and nonsense. But one part was about how we would serve their masters that sent them here soon enough. At first, we believed it to be nothing more than standard bullshit of an enemy. Now that these gods have appeared though, combined with your story, I am more inclined to believe what you say about these so-called gods. Just know, you have lost all but the smallest sliver of trust in me. If you ever withhold information from me again, you will be treated as an enemy spy. I do not care if you work for something else, whether it is an enemy of our enemy or another third party all together, or if it is just you. You will be imprisoned and be subjected to interrogation daily, and I will not be observing any ROE concerning you. You will be labeled a traitor to humanity and be treated as such. I will get as creative as I possibly can in your torture, whether you talk or not.”

*IDR HQ*

From outside the major burst into the general’s office with panic across his face, “Sir, report. Posts are calling all convoys back. They are reporting heavy casualties.”

Dae Ho turns back from the major and looks at the general, “the incursions are mobilizing. We need to send out those that have become players out to defend against them. They will be coming for the bases.”

General Sherwood stands up, “Dae Ho, you have already lost your right to advise me on any actions. Because you decided to hide the information about the gods, my convoys have received heavy damage. Those casualties are on you. You are an informant only now. Major, take this man to his quarters and have a trooper keep him there.”

Major Smith nods, “yes, sir. Corporal! Take this man back to his quarters, take a private with you, keep an eye on him. He is not to leave his quarters until summoned only by me or the General.”

Dae Ho erupts, “General, this is a mistake! You still need me! You don’t know what you are facing you . . .”

General Sherwood looks to Dae Ho, “Corporal, make sure he gets there safely.”

With a “yes sir” the corporal takes Dae Ho off to his quarters.

The general walks into the situation room, “alright Smith, what’s the situation?”

Major Smith informs, “sir, shortly after sending off the information on the gods we started getting reports about convoys calling emergency retreats. As a precaution the installations have recalled all convoys. This is happening everywhere, at every installation. As the convoys started returning, they reported about constant ambushes and attacks on their way back as well as large scale attacks within city limits. Our scouts are reporting strange movements in the incursion population. They are starting to congregate in larger and large groups. Reports from the convoys say that these groups are starting to actively pursue survivors and convoys. It appears the incursions are starting to fallow direction. They are becoming organized.”

General Sherwood remains silent for some short seconds, “how many do we have capable of rapid deployment?”

Major Smith looks at his notepad, “not enough, sir. The numbers are all over the place, but even the best estimates won’t be enough to defend against an attack.”

The general nods, “How about the first responders and training battalions?”

After flipping through his notebook, “on average, fifty thousand at each post combined. Planty of bodies, but they are yet to complete their training.”

General Sherwood leans against a table looking at the world map covered in pins and string, “they have completed their theoretical instruction by now. Most should be getting their rifles. All that is left would be practical instruction anyway. It will be enough. The training will just be a bit more realistic than we would have liked. Call them up, set them on the defensive line. Leave no one out, I don’t care what rank or position they hold. Tell them to prepare for incoming incursion attack.”

Major Smith moves rapidly, issuing messages to be sent and orders to be carried out. From beside the general another voice speaks up, “sir, what do we do about the civilians within the installation? There will be a panic if they find out about the oncoming attack.” The installation commander, Coronel Hix is standing with full kit and rifle.

The general responds to her with a frown on his face, “are our convoys returning in the same shape as the others?”

She nods to him without saying anything. General Sherwood sighs, “start spreading rumors about a failed operation to take down a disaster, no, say a calamity class has appeared in the center of the city. Spread rumors about how we tried to kill it before it could leave the city. Say we failed, but include that we injured it badly enough that it will be out of commission for a while.”

Colonel Hix frowns, “sir, you want me to lie about a failed operation that never happened? Won’t that destroy our moral and increase the panic in the civilians?”

The general nods, “yes, and it will. The difference being that the panic it will cause is a depressing hopeless panic. Not a panic of desperation that an approaching army will cause. This way the loss will be able to explain the heavy casualties that are coming in. The injury to the calamity class will be a much needed silver lining which will give us some time by preventing the chaotic riots that would occur if people thought a calamity class was headed their way, or an organized army of incursions.”

The colonel nods, “do you want me to tell Major Smith as well? Have him pass the info to the other installations as well? The sham will collapse much faster, but it should hold for a couple days. Enough time to face off against the oncoming army and repel it if we can.”

General Sherwood responds, “do that. And Hix, we will be able to hold them off. With the extra manpower from the training battalions as well as the first responders, we will be at near full strength, the first time since before the end of the world stated.”

Major Smith returns from his rounds with another report in his hands, “sir, I had a call sent out to get some sample numbers from the installations. The numbers just made it back.”

Colonel Hix asks, “numbers on what?”

Major Smith chuckles slightly, “How many people accepted the gods’ grace. I don’t know if this is good news or bad, but extrapolated from the sample, it looks like, in total, only one third of people accepted. Including IDR military and civilian populations.”

Hix looks confused, “damn, so many? I hoped there would have been fewer.”

General Sherwood shakes his head, “according to Dae Ho, the possibly bad news is that there are so few of us that accepted the gods’ grace, not so many. I guess only time will tell whether this turns out to be a good or bad thing for the human race. For now, though, we concentrate on getting over the hurdle in front of us.”