The First Mage

Every living thing in this world appeared to produce an energy within their bodies, and it was pumped through them with something like a second heart, powered by some kind of energy coming from this realm. I still didn’t understand exactly what mana was though, and I really wished my past self would’ve taken more care in documenting this system. All my life I’d admonished myself for my spotty documentation, and now it was still haunting me even after my death...

What I did learn, however, was that scripts had never been supposed to be written on things. Instead, they were supposed to be drawn in the air, like the god had done. Try as I may, I couldn’t figure out how you would do that, however. Based on the logs, it sounded like you were supposed to just be able to control your mana, but of course I had not explained the how anywhere.

I also learned that humans had their mana circulation disabled by default. It was an all or nothing deal, to give this power to all living things or none, but since not all humans were supposed to be mages, I had apparently just toggled it off for them, and it would get turned on by getting the right job implanted into you. Though it wasn’t clear how Tomar’s and Riala’s mana circulation had been enabled in that case. Since it had been described like a second heart, however, I was picturing the incident back then as something like a defibrillator kicking our circulation into action somehow, even if it still wasn’t clear why this hadn’t happened to the captain.

The more I read, the more frustrated I got. Even though a lot of questions were answered, albeit in roundabout ways, there was still so much I either hadn’t written about at all or that I hadn’t found yet. What were the gods? What was up with the talking beasts? Was it me who named a currency after an anime character? Why were there no rivers? What are Mad Ones? I could guess that the answer to some of these questions was that they were simply bugs.

The water sources were a hotfix if I’ve ever seen one. Apparently there were some areas with freshwater, while in others, the water was crystalizing into blue stones, as a side-effect of something the system was doing. I hadn’t seen a log about it yet, but I just knew that the water sources had been a solution to that problem. People need water, there is no water, so we’ll just create a magic tool to produce water! Brilliant! ... and lazy. I would’ve also been really surprised if this whole “merging souls into people” thing would always go without a hitch.

The one question that really nagged at me was why there had been no mages in this world, however. As far as I knew, there had never been one, but if it was supposed to be a normal job, there really should’ve been. And they would’ve fit in well, with the Fighters keeping the beasts occupied, while the physically weak mages do the rest. Not to mention that healing powers would be mighty useful...

I was still going through my logs when I saw the air beside me break and distort. Dave!? He should probably not see this, I thought and hurriedly waved my hand to make the screen disappear, before he appeared.

“Miles. How are you doing?” he asked as he looked around.

“Hey. I’m working on getting up to speed, there’s a lot here that I still have to figure out.”

“You haven’t gotten your memory back yet? That is unfortunate. I thought maybe you just needed some time, but if a year wasn’t enough, then it might not happen at all.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “A... a year!? What do you mean!?”

Dave sighed at my outburst. “Will we have to go over everything again? The first time I came to check in on you and mentioned how many years had passed, you acted like I was crazy as well.”

“But... I mean, I understand the passing of time feels weird here, but I could’ve sworn it’s only been hours! What is a year here?”

“Had you taken a look at the manual, you would know. But I guess you didn’t, just like you were reluctant to do so before. At least you figured out how things worked somehow last time though... What have you been doing here for the past year?”

Based on the logs, he knew about the system, but not what it was supposed to do on the actual planet, so I tried to go with that. Not that it was entirely inaccurate.

“I figured out that I apparently created a new system here, and I’m trying to learn how it works.”

“Of course... Your system,” he said and let out another sigh. “I should’ve anticipated that you would immediately get sidetracked by that. You were very proud of it, for reasons I still don’t understand. You shouldn’t bother with it and finalize the world instead. You only have eight years left.”

“For all I know, those eight years could turn out to be centuries...”

“On our current rotation they won’t, trust me. I don’t have time to hold your hands at the moment, so I would suggest you stop dawdling and get to it,” he said and waved his hands, making a screen appear that said “Manual” at the top, followed by another wall of text. “At least skim it, and then—”

He seemingly noticed the annoyed expression on my face and sighed once more. “Yes, I know you don’t like our system, but if you don’t finish this on time, your soul will be recycled, and I assure you that that is not a pleasant experience for an architect. I’ll come back shortly before the deadline, so get to it,” he said and disappeared into a distortion in the air.

I looked at the screen, flicked it a few times, and watched the walls and walls of text fly by. It wasn’t even about liking this, it was just inconvenient! This looked like hundreds of thousands of words, without any discernible structure or categorization. Say I wanted to know something about the time, then I would have to first figure out where to find it!

Frustrated and annoyed, I waved my hand and closed the screen. I knew I was done with this job. The logs told me a lot about how I had felt while working on this world, and I understood that I hadn’t been happy towards the end. Just like I would expect, I had gotten bored after the initial high, and even if the experience might turn out to be unpleasant, I didn’t really care if this was the end. On the contrary, I had apparently gotten a lot out of this one last job, and that had most definitely been the reason why I had decided to take it in the first place. One last new experience. And even though I had forgotten about it, I felt like I had experienced it nonetheless.

I sat down and leaned against the water source. The entire time I spent here now, I had been laser-focused on learning more about the world, with the goal to finish it, like Dave had instructed me. Even though I apparently wasn’t doing a good job at that. I smiled as I came to terms with my situation, and as if a haze was lifted from my mind, I suddenly snapped back to reality. What the fuck!? Was I just getting ready to die!?

Jumping back to my feet I looked around in a panic. What had I been doing this entire time? I was just standing here, reading logs and thinking about completing my work. I had barely thought about Tomar and Riala at all, nor about what had happened before I got here. I was alone, so what had become of Tomar? What had the gods done? What happened afterwards? Were the others okay?

I instinctively waved my hand and thought, Live Mode, but nothing happened. I furrowed my brows and tried again, but the result was the same. I... can’t get in? If I couldn’t enter the world, that presumably meant that it was locked in. That’s what the progress bar was about... I already decided that I was done... Great, I pushed to production while everything was still messed up!

All I could think about at that moment was that I wanted to get back to them, make sure they were okay, and maybe, just maybe, I could stay with them a little longer. I brought up the dashboard again and hurriedly scrolled down through the logs, trying to reach the end, skimming over the messages. If an entire year passed here, how much time passed down there!?

I found what I was looking for, a few entries before reaching the end. One of the last log messages I had ever written.

[Well, this is it. The world isn’t exactly done yet, but it’s in a working state, as the great Dave demanded >_> I wish I could’ve done a better job, or at least finished it completely. Not even the job effects are done yet... But at least it’s not terrible, and with how it’s set up, the inhabitants will be able to shape the world even after I’m locked out. Or maybe I’ll be the one to do it?

After making peace with being done, I realized that architects must be getting brainwashed or something, because for hundreds of “years,” my one and only goal was finishing this stupid world, through frustration and depression, despite my nature. Now that I have a clear mind again, I definitely won’t go on to do this again, nor lie down and wait for a painful death. Now I can only hope that they’ll see the locked in world and leave it be, even if I’m gone. I just have to finish up a few things and then I’ll leave for Erinn.

I don’t know if anyone will ever read this, but that has never stopped me from writing logs like this before, so why stop now? If you’re reading this, and I’m not here... and your name is not Dave... Feel free to come visit me! Keyword: “Hello, world!” See you there~]

Did you really have to leave it at a clue...?

The last time I had reached this point, I had evidently decided to try to go into my world and live there. I probably didn’t have a lot of time left, even back whenever this had been, and I had gone while I still could.

The good thing about reading your own clues, is that the logic becomes apparent quickly. “Hello, world!” is a text message many programmers use when they test a new programming language for the first time, and I had not only re-invented Omega while I had been here, it was used to control the system, which was apparently hooked into... everything. The second clue was that “world” was highlighted. You were supposed to greet this world, which I had named “Erinn.” Not very imaginative, as I just pulled that from one of my favorite games.

This left the question of how I was supposed to use Omega, since I couldn’t figure out how to write with mana. However, if that meant drawing mana from your body, to write in the air, it should technically be the same process as when you write on yourself.

I waved my hand and made a marker appear in mid-air, which I immediately grabbed and used to draw an Omega script onto my arm. Possibly the shortest script I had ever seen. I didn’t know exactly what would happen once I activated it, or where I would arrive, or when. Hopefully, I would get back to the others, but in the worst case I might become a white stone again and land god knows where... I didn’t know how much time I had left here either though, so I’d rather hurry. Even if I lost my memories of this realm, like I apparently had last time, I could only hope that I would at least still remember Tomar, Riala, Berla, and Reurig. I steeled myself and pressed the script on my arm, which only said “Hello, Erinn!”

Here we go.