Luna died, as one does.
It was actually in a really cool and heroic way too. She had bravely intercepted the crushing might of precariously stacked merchandise from damaging the concrete warehouse floor. Could you imagine if all those pallets full of consumer goods had hit the floor directly? Probably would have caused a big scratch or something. Luckily Luna’s body cushioned the impact. For her efforts she was promptly rewarded…
…she didn’t stay dead.
She woke up in a conference room.
No tunnel of light. No fire and brimstone. Beige walls. A long table. Comfortable chairs. A pitcher of water. A fern in the corner that was hunched over, diligently counting every carpet fiber.
At the far end of the table sat two beings in ill-fitting approximations of human skin.
The one on the left wore a suit and the predatory grin of a less than truthful injury lawyer. The one on the right wore judicial robes and radiated the energy of a TV drama judge.
It was hard to read their expressions as their faces held features in roughly the right place, but not quite in the right time? Like a broken old timey cartoon or poorly dubbed drama.
“Luna Caine,” the lawyer-shaped one snarled while shuffling papers that looked blank from her angle. “Welcome and/or condolences.”
“Am I dead?” she asked questioningly, getting right to the point.
“You were, but not now,” the judge-thing said. “But that’s business, let's first focus on the fun.”
“You have been hand selected to appear on this cycle's season of our show!” The lawyer wiggled the entire top half of his head.
The robed one nodded, layers of face meat sloshing forward and back. “We’ve had a fairly successful run of the show so far, but have decided to branch out geographically for talent. All the way to your Earth!”
“Those Crazy Mortals—EARTH. That’s the rough translation, at least.” The judge continued.
A screen flickered into existence behind them. Static. Snatches of images. Fires. Monsters. Someone was belting out what sounded like a DND magic spell.
Luna squinted. “Is this… reality TV?” The clips made the show seem like some kind of survivor, fear factor, adventure show.
“Think of it as a reincarnation package with… audience engagement,” the lawyer said smoothly. “You get a new life, new world, new system. We get content. Everybody wins.”
The judge tapped a gavel that hadn’t been there a second ago. “Also, your file came up flagged for ‘unresolved potential.’ You died at… twenty-seven? We like twenty-somethings. Your brain is pretty much formed, but you are still plenty dumb and ambitious enough to be entertaining. Most importantly though is the decreased moral burden on those watching. The amount of angry letters regarding a twenty-something in mortal peril versus an age people actually care about? Like a baby or a sweet old person? Not even close.”
“Wow,” Luna said, wanting to counter the statement but not coming up with anything. “I guess I can’t argue with that. Bring on the ratings.”
“Perfect!,” the lawyer said as he presented a glowing slate from across the table. “First off, pick your starting race, it’s semi permanent so choose wisely.”
Text scrolled up before her eyes.
- Human
- Beastkin
- Goblin
- Angelkin (locked – insufficient karmic score)
- Nothing
She read the list twice more confused the second time.
“Nothing?” She questioned. “What’s tha…”
“Great pick!”
Oops…
“It’s extremely experimental for a sapient soul,” Robes said with too much enthusiasm. “Maintains awareness of self, but no body, no senses, no physical existence at all. Very difficult. High audience betting stakes.”
“They have fucking reality TV betting here,” Luna thought incredulously. “It’s bad enough trying to watch a single online video without seeing 10 gambling ads.”
“And high creative freedom!” Suit-Guy added, as though pitching an artsy year abroad.
Luna stared at the word that had floated off the projection and affixed itself in her vision.
Nothing.
“Yeah, I guess I’ll have to work with that,” Luna said.
Robes continued. “You will begin at Level 1 with—”
The menu updated:
Race: Nothing (Level 1)
You are an intangible node of self-awareness.
You cannot see, hear, touch, or speak.
You cannot cast spells or manipulate the world as a corporeal creature would.
You are, in fact, Nothing.
Meta Progression:
Nothing Points: 0/0
(Spend upon reaching appropriate milestones.)
“Wait,” Luna said. “I start with nothing… as Nothing?”
“The title is the description,” Suit-Guy said proudly.
“When do I get a class?”
“At Level 2,” Robes said. “You must accomplish something first.”
“How do I accomplish anything if I literally can’t do anything?!”
“That’s the fun!” Suit-Guy said brightly. “Now make sure to play it up for the cameras.”
The world blinked out.
Suddenly—
“Luna Caine,” the large judge boomed from a podium. The three of them had popped into a well lit movie set of a courtroom. The prosthetics that made the judges face look fake and slosh around up close looked animated and smooth from afar. “As punishment for your many heinous crimes, you shall be cursed to wander the world trapped in a cloud of energy and unfeeling magic. You are sentenced to an unending life of struggle and meaningless effort as a Nothing!
Luna put on a shocked face as they were obviously now rolling. “No! I have a wife and family! Please, Judge, isn’t there another way!?”
Suit was now playing as her lawyer and sat next to her. He didn’t seem like he was going to be much help, as he just fumbled with papers nervously.
“Miss Caine,” the Judge continued, “you will be stripped of any current powers and privileges and be reset to a level one Nothing.”
“Good thing I didn’t have any powers to begin with then, guy,” Luna muttered under her breath.
“You are allowed to do anything within your power to change your situation, as unlikely an outcome that may be.”
“You will have the right to appeal in one thousand years, or when you can make it back here under your own power, whichever comes first. This punishment is to take effect immediately.”
With the end of his statement, the judge brought down his gavel, shattering the room and sending Luna’s world into darkness.
Chapter 1:
Luna existed.
Sort of.
There was no light. No air. No up. No down. No discernable movement around her at all.
Only the vague awareness of self floating in an infinite dark that wasn’t even dark. Darkness would've been welcome.
“…okay,” Luna said internally. “Let’s take some inventory.”
She tried to wiggle fingers.
Nope.
Legs?
Nope.
Inner ear?
Absolutely not.
She poked the void with her thoughts.
Nothing.
She screamed internally.
Even her mental scream was absorbed like a damp sock thrown into a pile of even damper socks.
Okay, maybe try the classics? Menu, report, status, she thought desperately.
In classic fantasy fashion, something responded.
Luna Caine
Race: Nothing
Stolen novel; please report.
Class: (locked)
Level: 1
Health: n/a
Mana: 10/10
Mana Regen: 0.1/s
Abilities: None
You are a conceptual being. Good luck.
“Hey, at least I have a mana pool,” she thought. “I’ll just cast some super cool spell to allow me to see and feel…” She prodded at the faint connection that she felt to the line that reported her mana pool. “Uhhhh… cast hands? Mana hands. Spell of feeling.”
Nothing worked. She felt so limited.
No class.
No spells.
No summons.
No anything.
The producers, somewhere, were almost certainly laughing at her awful “choice.”
Luna inhaled (conceptually).
“This calls for a pro and con list”
Con:
No anything
Pro:
I can still think
I can make a pro–con list
I can do this?
000000/\______/\
00000/00o000o00\
0000(0==00^00==0)
00000)000000000(
0000(0(00)000(00)0)
0(_lll_(_lll_)__(_lll_)_lll_)
ART PLACEHOLDER :)
(ASCII art of a cat for those auditory learners out there.) **(note: spacing breaks on royal road, "0"'s are for spacing, working on work arounds :) )
“Having a mental notebook is pretty cool and will definitely come in handy to remember stuff.” —Luna Caine, today, age 27 or 0, not sure.
Luna shelved the list for now, willing her being to do something.
The ability to move in a direction didn’t come to her, as she couldn’t sense any directions, let alone her own being in space, if she even had a substantive being and if there even was space.
Con:
No senses
No me?
Pro:
Actually let me try something real quick.
schwingggggg swoosh fencing noises
ART PLACEHOLDER :)
000000000|\
000000000| 0\
()########| 00================================================*
000000000| 0/
000000000|/
(ASCII art of a fencing sword.)
Luna swung her mental sword around until she finally started to pick up some feedback.
ART PLACEHOLDER :)
(ASCII art of trees.)
Pro:
Alright now we are getting somewhereeee.
Luna didn’t get any tactile feedback from the sword hitting the trees, but a mental one. She could mentally visualize the sword interacting with the tree, not allowing the sword to pass through the solid material.
Luna continued her method of mapping out her surroundings, finding that she could actually move her body in space by willing it. Her body didn’t have any collision with the ground or objects around her, so she would have to keep using the sword to judge relative distances between herself and the environment.
Having no collision was kind of cool though, as she could just float through any obstacle. She just had to drop then re-summon/imagine her sword on the other side of the object to regain her bearings.
Luna wandered for a bit trying to make a mental map, but quickly got disoriented as her mental map wasn’t quite set up for 3D yet. Luna took a break to look inward once more at her stat sheet, focusing again on her 10/10 mana.
“FIREBALL!” she yelled, willing the fireball spell to manifest.
Though Luna thought real hard, she couldn’t quite get the image right.
A sword on the other hand…
Mana: 0/10
She felt her mental fencing sword materialize and immediately fall from her mental grip, now affected by gravity. The sword, she assumed because she couldn’t hear anything, thudded hard on the ground.
Though she could no longer manipulate it, the sword remained connected to her, with Luna able to see a clear picture of it sitting on the “ground” in the void around her.
Luna floated closer to the sword and attempted to lift it with her insubstantialness but quickly found herself sucked into the object.
Luna Caine
Race: Nothing
Class: (locked)
Level: 1
Fencing Sword
Level: 1
Health: n/a
Damage: 1d4 Piercing
Mana: 0/10
She found herself crammed into a smaller “body” than what she had been floating around in, but not uncomfortably. She could now also feel her body resting on the ground, being affected by gravity and a soft breeze.
She also found that she could still swing her mental sword around to get a slightly better picture of her surroundings.
After straining and even trying to force the summoned sword to grow legs, Luna found that she was unable to move in this body.
“Rough.” Luna popped back out of the sword and felt that she could dismiss it at any time. So she did.
Mana: 10/10
“Nice, full refund.”
Luna was starting to get a feel for how this was going to work. She was going to have to gain levels somehow to get more resources to build herself a better body. Just that thin level 1 sword cost all of her mana.
Soooo, Luna went a hunting.
With gentle use of her mental sword, Luna had begun to pick up on some animal tracks in the dirt paths she had come across. She recognized some of them as deer and rabbit, but couldn’t identify the others.
Luna painstakingly followed the rabbit tracks for hours, or maybe days, she had no way to tell, before finally whacking right into a good-sized rabbit. She almost didn’t register it as she had zoned out a looonggg time ago.
(\_/)
(o.o)
(> <) ART PLACEHOLDER :) This tiny rabbit works for now though
(ASCII art of a rabbit.)
“Looks like experience to me!” Luna exclaimed excitedly, snapping herself to attention.
Now, how Luna was going to dispatch this rabbit was going to be a feat of delicate swordsmanship of course—
Floating 50 ft or so above the rabbit, at least where she had last perceived the rabbit since it was well out of mental sword range now, Luna summoned the sword point-down, willed herself into the object, and let gravity do its thing.
“Yeeeeeehhhhaaaawwwwww!!!!!”
Luna missed…
She tried to find the rabbit again, but it seemed like she had scared it off with the sword falling into the forest floor.
Inspecting her sword stats, she was not pleased.
Fencing Sword Lvl. 1
Health: n/a
Damage: 1d4 Piercing
Mana: 0/10
slightly damaged
“Slightly damaged?” she said incredulously. “From one missed attack? Get out of my face.”
Luna dismissed the sword, becoming even more not pleased.
Mana: 9/10
“Don’t even have enough mana to summon the damn thing again.”
She resigned herself to try to track that rabbit back down.
She eventually regained her spent mana point, then eventually eventually came upon a different rabbit to target. She could tell it was a different one as her mental-sword-poking-sensing was getting smoother.
“Round two!”
Again, Luna floated up 50 ft or so before summoning the sword. She rode it all the way to the ground annnnndddd…
This took 17 attempts…
Whether her measuring was so far off or the rabbits just kept moving ever so slightly, she just kept missing. But she had nothing else better to do, so she kept on until—
*You have slain Rabbit Lvl. 1- Bonus xp for first kill.
Level Up!
Choose a Class—
Classes available:
Smith
Warrior
Hunter
Poltergeist
Summoner
Luna checked out her options, reading into their descriptions.
Smith just assisted in physically creating weapons.
Poltergeist — bonus to inducing fear and confusion. Inhabit inanimate objects to sow chaos.
+10 mana per level.
+1 fear radius per level.
Interesting, but not what she was going for.
Warrior and Hunter gave bonuses to weapon use, Hunter specifically for hunting animals.
Summoner though…
Summoner: Summon creatures and objects using mana. Creatures summoned will act as their real counterparts, though they are also able to obey simple commands from their summoner.
+10 mana per level.
+1 summon point per level.
It mostly just gave a name to what she was already doing with her sword.
Race: Nothing
Class: (Summoner)
Level: 2
Health: n/a
Mana: 19/20
Summon Points: 1/1
Summons:
Fencing Sword Lv 1 (10 mana)
Rabbit Lv 1 (20 mana)
“Hell yeah, dude,” Luna thought as she came out of her menus.
“Go RABBIT!” Luna immediately willed her existence into the summoned rabbit as soon as she was back at max mana.
Rabbit Lv. 1
Health: 1/1
Abilities: Bite — 1 piercing damage. Hop — jump 5 ft in any direction.
Mana: 0/20
“I can see.” Rabbit-Luna squeaked softly, at first incredulous at the gained ability after so long in the dark. “I can see!!!”
Luna basked in the sun rays that shone down on the shrubby, forested rabbit pathway, indulging in the ability to feel the warmth and hear the sounds of rustling trees, buzzing bugs, and… tearing flesh.
Luna didn’t need her mind-sword for this one. She turned with her new body to lay eyes on a brown, ferret-looking thing.
The thing looked up at her with a bloody, fur-covered mouth, looking like it could go for a double helping of rabbit.
Though it was about half the size of the dead rabbit, and naturally her current self. She still didn’t like her odds.
The ferret-like creature bounded over the rabbit corpse and engaged with Luna.
“Rabbit bite attack!” Luna shakily squeaked while activating her only offensive move.
She did connect, drawing a tiny line of blood. But the win was short-lived as her attacker snaked around behind her and delivered a piercing bite into her spine.
*You have been slain by Weasel Lv. 2*
Luna was once again cut off from all senses, thankfully this included the quick bit of pain from the bite that took her out almost immediately.
Mana: 0/20.
“Bun Luna didn’t stand a chance…”
Luna swung her mind-sword to take in the sight of the seemingly confused weasel that had just had its second helping of rabbit disappear on him.
It seemed that upon dropping to 0 HP, the rabbit body Luna was piloting had despawned, leaving her with no refunded mana and the weasel with no dinner #2.
She would have to come back even better and stronger if she wanted to get this guy.