“What the bloody hell is going on?”
As if in response to his question, something appeared in front of him. It looked like a touch screen, floating in the air, disembodied. He reached out to touch it with an experimental finger, the screen shimmering as his finger passed straight through.
“Hologram?”
He looked at the ground and the nearby hedges for some kind of projector, but as he started moving, the screen followed. There was text on the screen, which he read.
New Quest: [Stranger in a Strange Land]
You have awoken in a place you do not know. Explore the area to discover more.
Objective: Explore the hedge maze 0/1.
Reward: Simple pants.
“Huh.”
He looked around suspiciously. He carefully probed the pointy foliage of the hedge walls, looking for hidden cameras. Looking up at the sky, he didn’t spot any camera drones. What he did notice was the moon, pale and easy to overlook in the daylight. Then he noticed another moon.
“That can’t be right.”
Jason looked down at the floating screen, then back up at the sky. Still two moons.
“Am I going nuts?”
Jason sat down on the grass, unsure what to do. He kept glancing up at the sky and the extra moon. In front of him, the screen still waited patiently.
“This is crazy. I mean, a quest? I’m not a level one sorcerer.”
Another screen appeared next to the first.
Jason Asano
Race: Outworlder.
Current rank: normal.
Progression to iron rank: 0% (0/4 essences)
Attributes
[Power] (no essence): normal.
[Speed] (no essence): normal.
[Spirit] (no essence): normal.
[Recovery] (no essence): normal.
Racial Abilities (Outworlder)
[Interface]
[Quest System]
[Inventory]
[Map]
[Astral Affinity]
[Mysterious Stranger]
Essences (0/4)
No Essence [No Attribute] (0/5)
No Essence [No Attribute] (0/5)
No Essence [No Attribute] (0/5)
No Essence [No Attribute] (0/5)
“Is this a character sheet? Am I meant to understand any of this?”
He shook his head in bewilderment.
“It could have at least gone with a game system I know.”
He looked over the screen again.
“Map,” he read, latching onto something familiar. “I know what maps are. How do I see the map?”
A new screen obligingly appeared, but as it was the third screen, the space in front of him was getting crowded. He absently thought it would be convenient for the other screens to close, which they immediately did.
“I’m sure that’s good.”
Things were getting harder to explain away, even ignoring the extra moon. Some kind of voice-command hologram was implausible, but not impossible. Mental command holograms were something else entirely.
“I’m becoming increasingly concerned. Also, I’m talking to myself a lot. I’m sure that’s fine and definitely not a defence machanism to stave off panic.”
Hoping it wouldn’t work, he started experimenting. He was able to open and close any of the windows with a simple thought.
“Maybe you’re unconscious,” he reassured himself. “Maybe you have a brain tumour and you’re in a hospital somewhere. Or passed out on the floor. Hallucinating in an asylum. A nice one, with a big garden. But no hedge maze.” He closed his eyes with a groan. “How is this the way I’m trying to comfort myself?”
Jason took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before opening his eyes again. The screens were still there, waiting.
“Just go with it, I guess,” he told himself. “Reserve judgement until more information is available. That’s the rational approach.”
He turned his gaze back to the map floating in front of him. It looked like a map from any video game, complete with a location listing.
Zone: Vane Estate (Hedge Maze).
Also like a video game map, it was mostly obscured. The only unveiled portion was the small section of the hedge maze he had already explored. He tried moving the map with mental commands, finding he could zoom it in and out as easily as he could open and close the disembodied screens.
Zooming all the way out he reached a world map that looked both familiar and unfamiliar. Although the details were obscured, he could decipher the outline of the continents. Disturbingly, they weren’t quite the same as the ones he knew. South East Asia was a singular landmass, pushing Australia south and east where it looked to have consumed New Zealand. The Iberian and Arabian peninsulas were missing entirely, leaving Africa wholly disconnected from Europe and Asia. Sri Lanka was further south and several times larger, making for a huge land mass in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
“Well, that’s not what the world looks like. Lax cartography?”
According to the map, Jason was in south-west Africa, somewhere around inland Namibia. He looked at the rich, green hedges boxing him in. The lush grass felt cool under his feet. He felt the hot, but not dry, air on his skin.
“This doesn’t feel like the Kalahari Desert.”
He sighed, closing the map.
“This is some strange business.”
He pulled up his character sheet again.
Racial Abilities (Outworlder)
[Interface]
[Quest System]
[Inventory]
[Map]
[Astral Affinity]
[Mysterious Stranger]
“Shouldn’t my race be human? What’s an outworlder?”
Jason half expected another screen to appear, but nothing did, so he looked down the list.
“Interface seems obvious. Quest system too, I guess. Inventory?”
A window appeared, dominated by an almost empty grid of icon slots. There were five spaces down and eight across, for a total of forty. There was also what looked like a currency counter at the bottom, depicting six different coins. Each coin had a counter that read zero.
“Well, that’s certainly a classic inventory,” Jason said. “Can I really put stuff in here?”
There was one item in the inventory, occupying the first slot. It was some kind of red icon, presumably representing an actual item.
“Alright, Jason. Time to see how nuts you’ve really gone. How do I get this thing out?”
After some quick trial and error, he discovered it was a simple as plucking the icon straight out of the screen. The icon vanished and the item appeared magically in his hand. It was a medallion the size of his palm. It looked and felt like polished red marble with gold engravings on both sides. It was pleasantly warm to the touch. On one side the engraving was a picture of a fire bird, while the other had symbols reading ‘Authority of the World Phoenix.’
“Well, that just magically appeared out of thin air,” Jason said. “That’s definitely not possible. Wait, why can I read this? I never even learned Japanese properly.”
Jason’s father, Ken Asano, was born in Japan, but raised in Australia from a very young age. Proving there is no zealot like a convert, Ken was all about the Australian lifestyle, from pub rock to footy matches and weekend barbecues. He fell right in with the family of his wife, Cheryl, which was as Australian as he could ask for. Miners and farmers, tracing their bloodline back through bushrangers, convicts, and indigenous Australians. Ironically, Cheryl was the one fascinated with Japan, trying to engage her children with their father’s cultural heritage. Despite strong support from her mother-in-law, results were mixed.