* Real World (in)Experiences

*

I was finally out and in the world. A world I had created over twenty-four painstaking years. I mean, sure, not as impressive as the other guy who supposedly did it in seven days. But, to be fair, he left out magic—and dragons. Regardless, no longer was the world of Esseria just words on a page to me. It was real, and I was walking its streets. Me!

Taking a deep breath in, I inhaled the fresh coastal air outside the shoppe as I felt the warmth of the sun on my face. That was when I noticed the first problem. Even with my eyes closed, I could immediately sense a great disturbance in this world.

Oh God, why is the sun so bright? I thought, trying to open my eyes, but found the blinding agony too much to manage. Why’d I write the sun so goddamn bright? I only said bright enough to bleach bones. This is too much, though! Much too much! Too. Damn. Much. Sun!

Holding a hand up to shield my face, I again tried to adjust my eyes against the brightness of the mid-morning glare. But nothing seemed to help as the light found a way to pierce my closed eyes and continue to blind me.

This turn of events confused me. I should have been physically accustomed to this world because of Ishara. But that scientific fact did little to save my retina from the vengeful fantasy star. It was as though the signals between my eyeballs and brain had lost something in the reincarnation process. Or maybe my mind simply couldn't process what the sight of absolute burning hate looked like.

But what did still work were my ears. This was why I was able to hear the commotion unfolding a block away and the resulting scream.

“Watch out!” A student's voice cried as I turned to face the call.

If I could have seen in this moment, I would have undoubtedly noticed the stray bolt of ice that cut through the air. It would have been fairly obvious as it glistened in the sun, leaving a vapour trail behind it. A small comet that sped down the cobblestone streets of this port town at the edge of a desert continent.

But I didn’t see it because the sun had instantly blinded me the moment I dared show my isekai'd ass. So, at present, it was less about what I saw and more about what I felt.

It was as though someone had taken an aluminum bat and left it in a deep freeze for a day before remembering that I needed a beating. The chilling blow hit me solidly in the lower gut, thankfully not so low as to hit the precious bits, but enough to cause me to crumple over the strike instinctively.

“Uhhnngg!” I whined, air escaping me like a deflating balloon as I collapsed to the ground in a miserable heap.

“Oh crap,” The voice called out and then laughed. “I said watch out, kid.”

“Hey, let’s get out of here before his parents show up!" Another spoke up, “For your trouble, poh’vert.”

A coin hit my head as footsteps raced away, leaving joyous laughter in their wake. 

Assholes. I thought, holding onto my aching gut as I lay there long enough to hear their giggles vanish and the sound of the square pick up again.

No one came to help me, which made sense. I had written this world to be cruel and thankless, meaning the people were even moreso. After countless divine cataclysms razing this reality time and again because of my angst, all that remained were tough landscapes and even tougher residents. No would help you, and as such, if you couldn’t help yourself, well, you were essentially doomed.

Once the frigid pain had dulled enough for me to move, I sat up and opened my finally adjusted eyes. Looking down at the gold coin that had been flicked at my face, I winced as I reached forward. Slowly taking it into my hand, I glanced around to see if anyone was looking my way, but no one cared.

Yeah...that tracks. I thought with a sigh as I glanced back down at the coin in my hand.

A single gold piece was equal to a year's wages for the lowest caste of mundane people, and it didn’t even provide enough for them to survive. Five hundred of those same coins could buy the Bottomless Bag that I had gotten from Phyllis. Meanwhile, some rich brat magic-spelled a random kid and tossed out the gold piece like nothing.

Little fugger. I thought to myself, tucking the point away. But don’t mind if I do. In for a penny in for—wait...no. In for a copper, in for a gold?

Unlike World Eighty-Two, I had made the money system easy in Esseria with the typical fantasy currency. Copper, Silver, and Gold coins were the name of the game. Ten Coppers were a Silver and ten Silvers were a Gold. I had thought about complicating the whole thing by including half-value coinage and different fiat currencies per nation. But, ultimately, I was a writer, and global exchange rates were harder than they needed to be.

Reaching into my bottomless bag, I rustled around the void to withdraw one of the lowest-level healing potions in my collection. All it took was a simple thought to call it from the bottomless pit on my hip, and the next thing I knew, I was lifting the bottle to my lips.

With a swig of the thick peppermint-flavoured liquid—which tasted suspiciously like schnapps—I was healed once more. Instantly, the pain in my gut was gone, and the bruising that had already appeared faded to nearly nothing.

Man, that’s great! I thought with a satisfying breath.

Even low-level healing potions rock! Goodbye, crappy healthcare system! I can just hear the conservatives crying into their body pillows now. Oh no! The socialist healing potions—

“Bwahahaha.” I laughed to myself maniacally from my seat in the middle of the square, finally drawing some attention to myself.

Finally adjusted to the worst mid-morning light imaginable, I was able to see well enough to move. Not wanting to waste this moment of relative comfort before the intensity of the afternoon sun assaulted me, I took off towards the magical academy that this island had been raised from the ocean to house.

The edge of the port town of Dwindlefyre was just a few houses away, making it easy for me to duck through the narrow alleys I had only ever imagined from the top down. The buildings of the small town were utilitarian at best. Much like a wild west town of the American frontier, the houses and shops were makeshift false-front buildings, log cabins, and sod houses. They were set atop rudimentary foundations and constructed simply, built long ago quickly and cheaply, and now maintained by magic. It was quaint and borderline dilapidated, but a nice taste of what the rest of the continent of Moal'aw to the south had to offer for me.

After racing down narrow alleyways like a convict escaping the sheriff and marshal in a wild west film, I reached the cliff that separated me from the academy. There I was met with the six hundred feet of switchback path that climbed up the relatively sheer rock face.

The walk up from Dwindlefyre was lovely, all things blinding being considered. Eventually rising above the buildings, I was met by a comforting coastal breeze that began to counteract the effects of the burning sun. I enjoyed the smells of salty ocean air mixing with both sweet and savoury scents coming from the local bakeries. And when I finally reached the top, I took a moment to catch my breath. Looking back over the town and ocean, I marvelled at the deep blue water that sparkled in the light as gentle whitecaps marked the slightest disturbances.

From this position, I could see four mighty galleons entering the port. And, even from here, it was easy to tell that students were already on deck, eager to begin their year of magical study. My vision then shifted to look farther beyond where, peeking just over the horizon, the faintest glimmer of Sutin’eli, the Governmental Capital of Moal’aw, could be seen. My heart began to race as memories of fingers clacking against keys came to mind, and a blocked emotion that I knew would be heavy with tears begged to be freed from my mind.

I instinctively grabbed at my chest, clutching at the leather armour as my knees wobbled.

Crap. I thought as tears formed. 

They raced down my cheeks as I firmly locked my eyes on the doomed city. I knew what was coming, and I could see it clearly in my mind. That one day in the coming years, that sparkling city would disappear beneath a mushroom cloud of arcane power. It would be a bomb so mighty that it would bring a continent to its knees. A moment, so traumatizing, that the world would shudder and shake at the thought of what else the enemy nation that wielded it could be hiding.

Today is the equinox... I did mental math as best I could, trying to calculate judgment day. And the first ships are showing up. It’s the first year of the Heroic Triops journey, meaning it’s Thirty-Three-Forty-Seven Post-Great Cataclysm. That means I have...just over three years until Samhain Thirty-Three-Fifty.

I fell to my knees, my legs finally giving out. With tears streaming down my cheeks, I looked at the small glimmer of the city. A broken city, but a living one nonetheless. Home to tens of thousands of souls that would be vaporized in the middle of the night while they slept.

Fug me, man. What did I do? So many people are going to die because of what I…crap.

It felt like my heart had been ripped from my body, thinking about what was going to happen to that capital. What was already written by me into the story of this world. And how, even though I was here now and could change the course of events if I wanted to, there was no telling how it would disrupt the story’s—no...this world’s—future.

If I did that, all the things I knew to be true would never come to pass. The future could unravel, changing everything. And in this reality, if the heroic triop didn’t win, then the Caering—that terrible, ancient pantheon—would destroy everyone and everything one final time. This world, my world, would cease to exist.

Game over. Forever.

“Hey, you okay, kid?” A soft voice asked.

Looking over with tears pouring down my cheeks, I noticed the compassionate expression in the blue eyes of an anthropomorphic bovine—a ruminantfolk. She looked at me with concern, brushing the blonde hair away from her gentle, humanoid face and tucking it behind a pair of big, floppy ears.

Instinctively, she raised a hand to cast a spell, and over the course of a few seconds, I felt a calming warmth wash over me. At the same moment, a strange sensation of synesthesia overwhelmed my senses as I suddenly smelled freshly baked buns.

“There you are, no reason to cry. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

It took me a moment to break from my stupor, but eventually I realized who this kind soul was. She was Maren Highland, and beside her were two others. A bashful turtle boy—a tortan—by the name of Giovanni Galilei and a disgruntled-looking faerie girl by the name of Lemon Poppy Seed.

Oh SHIT, the heroes! No. No. No. No. Nooo—

“I—uhh, I’m fine, miss. Thank you!” I yelled at her awkwardly as I jumped to my feet.

Looking towards campus and its hundreds of lavish, well-sculptured stone buildings, I plotted my escape. Trusting in my legs to take me where I needed to go, there was a brief skip before I darted towards school and away from a potentially story-breaking moment.