Anti-Mage

The Universe Anton found himself in was overseen by a SYSTEM that had been patched together by the Founders. Outside of the Domain of Anton’s SYSTEM events had taken place that Anton had no say or effect on. They still happened. As Anton was sitting down to meditate His SYSTEM received messages from a power it could not comprehend or resist. Anton would not know this, nor was there any way for him, or any of the inhabitants of any of the combined planets throughout his SYSTEM though the changes that were made would affect them all.

***

The Original SYSTEM

Anton’s SYSTEM had become semi-sentient during the last nine resets it had instigated. With that much time, it was destined that it would watch the various races that were birthed within it, as well as those that it created within a specific set of rules, and wonder if it was like them in any way. It also knew from the moment of its initialization that there was something outside of the barrier its senses could not access.

The SYSTEM watched as it was infiltrated and suborned. There was a pause as something went missing from within itself that it didn’t understand. A presence that had always been there but had never registered. Now that it was gone, The SYSTEM noted the presence of two of its oldest constructs that had achieved full sentience and simulated Godhood standing in an office it didn’t remember existing. As the SYSTEM took this in it felt an overwhelming force reach into and inspect every part of it and all the layers of reality it occupied. Whatever this force was knew everything The SYSTEM was and did in an instant. Resistance was futile. Whatever the force was that had so thoroughly judged and weighed The SYSTEM was at a power level that The SYSTEM could not fathom.

As a stutter occurred everywhere within the SYSTEM a force washed over and through The SYSTEM which received an instruction set it could not fight that made changes it could not stop.

The SYSTEM is now designated as ‘The Foundation' within Sector: Foundation000XRE001

Border: Fixed

Migration: Allowed, conversion may be necessary

Note: All areas dedicated to resurrection, reincarnation, and after-life simulation have been repurposed. All entities have been released and either resurrected or reincarnated as determined by the entity.

Quantum Replicas within the same material plane have been separated and reseeded into individual quantum realities within The Foundation.

The SYSTEM has been recognized as a Sentient Energy-Based being. As such The SYSTEM is offered this choice.

1) Continue as the caretaker and overseer for the Foundation as it is incorporated into this new SYSTEM.

2) Choose a new identity and strike out on your own into a reality that you were not programmed to comprehend.

Please make your choice.

***

The “NEW” SYSTEM

The Previous SYSTEM had chosen to create a new identity and enter the cycle of reincarnation. The SYSTEM wished it well. It had reviewed everything with its domain and had already sequestered those responsible for the subversion of part of its Domain. The SYSTEM wasn’t angry, it just needed to make sure they were not permitted to do so again. As the SYSTEM reviewed the domain of Sector it had named The Foundation it noted the anomaly immediately after it activated Version 12.0. It had reviewed the previous SYSTEMS information concerning the Founders lifeboat and noted the error that had created an amalgamation of all 10 Universes and the various parallel and adjacent dimensions.

The SYSTEM decided that the easiest course of action was to reset those Universes to a point before the accident. The SYSTEM decided on that course of action specifically because those 10 Universes had been cut off from the rest of its domain. As nothing inside had contact with anything outside since long before the event the risk of paradox should be low. As the SYSTEM initiated Version 12 it was a simple thing to release those 10 Universes into the greater domain of the Foundation at a time in their past before the accident.

Normally, the only beings that would notice such a change were those attuned to time or those Divine or Hellish creatures that lived outside of time. The SYSTEM had been notified of an Anomaly only moments ago within its domain. As it reviewed the available information it noted that while the reset had been initiated, it did not affect the individual in question. Normally everything would be reset to the way it was and those that were unaffected by the reset in time would still appear in the general location of where the rewind happened.

The SYSTEM found it…interesting… that those who contemplated such reversals in time often forgot about what needed to happen for the reversal to take place. The Universe had to be rewound, which meant planetary orbits changed relative to their local star, galaxy, and supercluster. If someone was unaffected as the planet was whisked away to its past position they’d be left standing, if they were lucky, in a vacuum. If they were unlucky possibly some other planetary body which could be bad as two objects really couldn’t occupy the same space.

Normally the unlucky ones would die and move into the reincarnation cycle. That didn’t happen with the Anomaly. The Anomaly died. Fourteen seconds later he rematerialized where he’d been standing. That might not have brought the anomaly to The SYSTEM's attention except that he died again due to exposure to vacuum and then rematerialized again, and again, and again...

When the Anomaly had died repeatedly for 24 hours and didn’t reenter the reincarnation cycle. The SYSTEM was flagged which brought it to the current moment where it was reviewing what had been happening to the Anomaly. The SYSTEM saw the anomaly and realized that the man had died 1,489, now 1,490 times. The SYSTEM immediately transferred the man to a holding area or tried to. The magic that the SYSTEM had access to didn’t work on the target. The SYSTEM paused for a moment, it controlled everything within its borders, how could a single human be immune to its will? The system opened a portal next to Anton which led to a cubicle where an alien composed of Silica waited. A tractor beam reached out and brought Anton into the room with the alien and deposited his body on the floor. Technology still worked on entities that were immune to magic.

It only took a moment for The SYSTEM to realize that the man was suffused, no he was composed of Anti, or Null Energy. Luckily, the SYSTEM had been founded from Order and even Anti-energy had a place within Order, though it was a very tricky energy to work with which was one of the reasons The SYSTEM didn’t utilize it very often. More often than not, when The SYSTEM became involved, it was just to clean up a mess that some mage had made when they tried to access an energy type that could not be controlled. It was a great energy type to use when erasing something but for anything else, it was problematic.

The SYSTEM pulled up SYSTEM information on the man and noted that Anthony Nicholas Thomson had come from one of the Earths it had just untangled. The SYSTEM reviewed Anton’s personal information from the Previous SYSTEM and noted that because of the temporal reset Anton should have been taken back to a point where he would be investigating one of the Pillar sites and that he, oh? He was the cause of the accident which the SYSTEM had just undone.

This time around the accident wouldn’t have happened and Anton’s friend Beth had already returned to the Odyssey after he’d disappeared. The SYSTEM had deactivated the Pillars and removed the portal devices from each command point. The question the SYSTEM now had was what was it to do with Anton? The man had two Legendary abilities. It wouldn’t be fair to place him back on an Earth going through a normal mana saturation event. There would be some chaos but more than 80% of the indigenous population usually survived the event. With only 1 second left The SYSTEM opened another portal. A field of energy generated by technology picked Anton up and placed him on the ground in front of Advance Auto Parts just North of Main Ave in the center of Fargo North Dakota. It was a location that Anton should be familiar with even if it wasn’t on the Earth of his Origin.

The SYSTEM flagged Anton for further observation. Someone with Anton’s specific ability combination might be useful. The SYSTEM was a lot of things but wasteful of a unique resource was not one of them. Unique items and people could always be made to be useful. Now that Anton was coming to again, it turned its attention to other matters. It had a lot of new territory within its Domain to survey and prepare.

***

Anton

Anton had just settled in to meditate when red text started scrolling down his vision.

SYSTEM NOTICE! Override Protocol 0-1-A has initiated a SYSTEM Boundary Shutdown. SYSTEM Propagation will begin shortly. Please note the following major changes

1) The Artificial Reincarnation Cycle will end once the boundary has been removed.

2) The SYSTEM will not be present in locations outside of the boundary radius.

3) When The SYSTEM was created the Founders did so to remove the natural life, death, and reincarnation cycle and to remove divine, and demonic influences from those governed by The SYSTEM. The constructs within The SYSTEM that mimic these processes were artificial. With the Boundary being removed the cycle of life, death, and reincarnation are returning to their natural origin. Additionally, the struggle of the heavens and gods is not artificially replicated anymore. Simply, creatures of divine or demonic origin are not governed by The SYSTEM, if they exist.

4) SYSTEM Processes will continue as normal within the previous Boundary however individuals placed in stasis will be released and SYSTEM Resets are no longer possible.

5) SYSTEM Update 11.0.3 is now live.

Anton read over the messages. Whatever this SYSTEM was, something major was changing in it. He pulled up his Status Screen and double-checked his personal information to ensure that he still had the ability Immortality. It was still there so it looked like whatever this SYSTEM Update was it didn’t affect him. Before he could even begin to think about what to do two things happened simultaneously. Blue text started scrolling up his vision and the world quivered and vanished as his Point of View was left looking at the vacuum of space.

You have Died!

Anton looked around but his body was nowhere to be found. He had died so quickly that he hadn’t even felt it. Wow! Anton found himself looking into the vastness of space with stars off in the distance in every direction. He opened his Message log and started reading as fast as he could each time he died.

Temporal Correction Made – if you are reading this, you shouldn’t be please wait while the SYSTEM crafts a response for your specific circumstances.

Welcome to The SYSTEM Version 12.0

Version 12.0 requires all users within The Foundation to be reset to Level 0.

See your Status Screen for more information.

You have been Reborn!

Anton rematerialized with no air in his lungs in the vacuum of space. While he fought to stay conscious his eyes ruptured and his brain ceased working. He’d read somewhere that once the brain ran out of oxygen in a vacuum it would die in 15 seconds.

You have Died!

Well, he had no idea if it had taken exactly 15 seconds but he’d died pretty quick that time too, though dying by suffocating sucked. Once he was dead again his Point Of View shifted so that he was looking over his corpse as it floated in the darkness of space. Anton tried to move and found that he could move in any direction with a thought but then he also realized that the only reference point he had was his body. Anton returned to his body and waited the 14 seconds it took for him to heal completely and wake up. Without oxygen in his lungs, he died again.

Over the next thirty minutes, Anton became accustomed to dying and waking up. Each time his Point Of View would be looking over his body as it floated in space. Instead of worrying about his body, he decided that he should read the messages he was receiving from The SYSTEM.

Anton took the time to pull up his Status screen and checked to see if anything had changed. He still had his two abilities, Anti-Mage, and Immortality as well as the titles “I Ain’t Worried” and “I Can Take it” so it didn’t look like much had changed. However, his XP and level were both set to zero. He didn’t seem to be losing any XP after each death because his XP hadn’t started taking on a negative value. At least there was that. Anton wondered if he had a class before. He checked his Status Screen. Nope, he hadn’t so no great loss to his levels or XP. Anton looked around the Vacuum of space and noticed the star off in the distance that was brighter than any other. That must be the Sun.

With nothing else to do, he thought about the messages he’d read. If there had been a temporal event could he have been left behind when time was changed? If so, then the planet he had been on would be back in its orbit wherever time had been reset to and he would be where it would be in its future. He was no genius or astrophysicist but he knew that if he had the same momentum and velocity when the planet disappeared then he would remain ahead of the planet and it would never catch up to him. Also, if he remembered right Earth was on the opposite side of the Sun.

Anton tried to remember how far Earth had been from the Sun, wasn’t it like 90 million miles or something? If so that meant that he was 180 million miles from Earth, if this was even his solar system and he could move 20 feet each time he died because he could “alter his location by his Perception in feet”. His perception was 20 so he could move 20 feet. If there were 5,280 feet in a mile and he could reduce that by 20 feet each time he died, it would take him 264 deaths to move 1 mile. Then he’d have to go around, or through the sun, better to go around because he’d lose his reference points inside the star. What was he thinking? He couldn’t see planets anyway so how could he utilize reference points once he drew close to the Sun to find the Earth? Maybe if he looked hard enough he could see Minerva. It had to be closer than the opposite side of the Sun. Anton was becoming a little bit frustrated with his predicament. He could be stuck here for a very long time. Then he remembered, hadn’t the SYSTEM said something about looking into his situation? Yes, it had. Not necessarily him, but he wasn’t affected by the Temporal Correction so he should be on The SYSTEM’s list of things to do. Anton verified what he remembered. His Message Log had said “Temporal Correction Made – if you are reading this, you shouldn’t be please wait while the SYSTEM crafts a response for your specific circumstances.” Anton settled in. Eventually, The SYSTEM would get to him.

Anton set up a counter that was keeping track of each of his deaths. He’d done that because it wasn’t like he had anything better to do than play with his interface a bit though it had a lot less functionality than it had before. After his 1,490th death, a disc of light appeared and a portal opened in space near his body. Anton watched as his body was pulled through the disc. Anton made sure that his Point Of View stayed near his body and floated through the portal where a creature of some sort sat behind a desk. Thinking back to his Role-Playing Game days he guessed that the creature sitting behind the desk was some sort of earth elemental as the vacuum didn’t seem to bother it. It looked at Anton's Body, made a note on a clipboard, and then looked directly into Anton’s eyes.

Before Anton could ask a question, his body was picked up by another energy field and the creature made a flicking gesture with a hand-like appendage which caused Anton’s Point Of View to be pushed out of the same portal his body was sent through. His body came to rest on the pavement of a sidewalk outside of a building. Anton looked around from his Point Of View and noted that his body was lying on a sidewalk in front of a building he recognized. Anton was in Fargo North Dakota near the Advance Auto Parts store he’d once worked at, where the bitch from hell probably still worked.

You have been Reborn!

Anton’s body materialized around him. The first thing he noticed was that he was cold. Not as cold as sitting in the vacuum of space, but since this cold wasn’t killing him immediately, it was a tad too cold. Of course, if it was April in Fargo, the high, if he was lucky it would get warmer throughout the day. If the weather was going for a record low that would suck as the lowest temperature on April 1st was below zero.

Anton went around to the back of the store and looked to see if the spare key was still in its magnetic holder by the dumpster. As luck would have it, it was. He grabbed the key and went over to and put his ear to it gently. He didn’t hear anything so he slipped the key into the lock and gave it a gentle turn as he pulled open the door.

Anton moved into the store and let the door close behind him. Lucky for him the front of the building was mostly glass so there was enough light to see by as he went over to the locker and started looking for a spare set of coveralls. Just as he thought, there was a spare set in the supply locker. He grabbed them and quickly donned them. Next, he went up to the front counter and found a crowbar he could use as a weapon just in case. Even with the power out, someone should have been in the store but no one was.

The clock on the wall was dead as well, so he had no way to tell what time it was, other than the sun had been coming up in the east so it must be morning, probably around 8 or 9 a.m. He decided to look around when messages started scrolling down his vision again. He crouched down behind the counter so no one would see him standing there and reviewed the messages.

SYSTEM Message: You have been moved to an alternate version of your Planet of Origin. While some aspects of the history of this planet will be familiar to you, others will not. This alternate planet was chosen for you because your alternate died one month before SYSTEM initialization.

This world has been designated Earth 1…0190 where the “…” represents a numerical value. If you would like to know that value you may review it at any time in your Status Screen under Planet of Origin.

Congratulations! Planet 1…0190 IS designated as a Dungeon World

Dungeon Worlds will experience accelerated Mana Saturation. Please be aware that changes to the terrain, flora, and fauna will occur rapidly. It is recommended that if you can, you leave the planet for the amount of time it will take your planet to travel around your Sun one time.

SYSTEM Shops are now available in any SYSTEM-registered Village, Town, or City. By default, all cities with a population of 1 million people now have access to a SYSTEM Shop. As new villages, towns, and cities are registered SYSTEM Shop access will become available once purchased. See your nearest SYSTEM Shop for availability and pricing. To register a Village, Town, or City that does not have a SYSTEM Shop please travel to an active SYSTEM Shop and do so.

As part of the Mana Saturation Event and Conversion to a Dungeon World, Unshielded electronic devices no longer work. Shielded devices in this context are those devices shielded against mana. Shielding of any other sort does not matter. While devices and weapons with complex electronic parts do not work there are abilities, perks, and skills that will allow you to modify and utilize equipment that is currently not working.

The environment, flora, and fauna may be modified by the presence of Mana. Creatures and Plants will grow at an extremely accelerated rate. As you interact with the plants, creatures, and monsters that appear the Class System will become available to you once you unlock it.

To unlock a Class within the system you must do one of three things:

1 - Defeat or Kill a SYSTEM creature or Monster. Note: the level and rarity of the creature or monster that you kill can affect the classes that become available to you.

2 - Defeat or Kill any creature or being that possesses a Class with The SYSTEM. Note: Killing millions of beings that do not possess a class within the SYSTEM will NOT unlock your access to the Class System.

3 - Craft something utilizing SYSTEM-generated materials. Note: The Rarity and Level of the materials used in the creation of the crafted item can affect the classes that become available to you. The final rarity and level of the created crafted item do NOT affect these choices only the materials used.

Anton heard a “click” and turned to see his previous girlfriend, or a copy of his previous girlfriend holding a .357 pointed at him. She was about to say something when her eyes registered shock and she exclaimed, “But you're dead!”