Well that was a lot to take in. I don’t really know what to do with that. Considering the design, whoever planned this certainly did take a page from video games. It also established a solid reason for the changes altogether. Someone made a wish to this Luna character. Didn’t they know that wishes were always dangerous and had unintended and rather dangerous consequences?

  I was clearly part of the first wave. I needed to get back to the apartment and see if Cindy and Taylor were OK. I also needed to get a handle on the changes to my body. I willed the screen away and appearing before me was a status board, obviously for myself.

  Nothing too difficult to understand there. I didn’t have a class yet because it wasn’t the fourth wave yet, and I didn’t have a level because I hadn’t been hunting monsters yet. I decided to ignore the job section for now.

  The not so great thing was the age. 3.2 hours? Really? I'd have to look into that later.

  The race was new. I knew about elementals from D&D, but I hadn’t seen any storm paraelementals in it. I'd have to do some research on them to see what they were.

  The affinities looked a little random to me, except perhaps Crafting. That’s probably from my degree, I’d guess.

  The archetype also makes little sense and seems pretty random. Let’s look for some more information.

  Ok, this also makes sense. It's not unlike D&D, so it's not too difficult to understand. It would also explain the abs and muscles. The physicality affinity makes sense as well, as strength, agility, and constitution all have increased values. I bet dexterity was from my Crafting affinity, and I guess my race increases my constitution and wisdom by an additional 5. The only two that don’t really make sense is Charisma and Luck. Drop rates seem pretty clear-cut, but personal narrative? Character Archetype? I’m already getting some idea of what that means, but I’d really not like that to be the case.

  Well, that seems to be it for the status. I wonder if there’s a skill list as well. It would only make sense, given the status.

  Once again, I whisper under my breath, “Skills”. Sure enough, an additional window opens up for me to see.

  That was a lot to take in. As soon as I opened the skill panel, it’s like all of the abilities that were only possible in my mind were suddenly taken to the real world. I took a few self-defense courses, so that’s probably where the unarmed combat came from. The Crafter skill was definitely from my college degree. I guess graphic design is a type of crafting, but it makes me happy that the level started so high. Most of the values made sense, given what I understood from my abilities.

  I could physically feel stormborn kicking into effect. The strength increase appeared small, but I could practically feel the buzz of energy in my body. Just for fun I attempted to use hydrokinesis to lift a small amount of water off of my bag. I could feel the pull of mana on my body and feel as the mana left, and acted on the world around me. A few drops of water clumped together and rose. I opened my door a crack and let them out. Elemental Flight seems awesome, and I can’t wait to try it.

  The menu seemed pretty intuitive. After a bit of testing I figured out I could access it with thought alone. I also learned that I could limit the information that I saw based on my desires. I called the menu up to check the skill drain on my mana.

  I could see the changes that stormborn caused. My soaked clothing gave me a +60% regen, and then the additional 6% on my health, stamina, and then all of my skill regens again as well. That was one powerful if situational skill.

  The drain of the hydrokinesis seemed to be pretty intense. Hopefully with practice I could reduce the cost so that it would actually be useful.

  Lastly, the archetype skills seemed pretty strange. What even IS this character archetype thing? What does it do? It’s true, I like to go off and do things by myself, but I also enjoy being around other people. Maybe identify can show its use.

  Now THAT is strange. Thank goodness I didn’t get something weird. I expect that certain archetypes are pretty dangerous. The lone wanderer is a common, and useful trope. I have always enjoyed going off and doing my own thing and getting bonuses for that seems pretty great. I feel really bad for people that get other tropes. What if someone got the Hero trope? How about if someone got demon king?

  I inspected my race next.

  Well, that makes a lot of sense. I guess this means that by reaching max level, I can enhance my race. That seems promising. It's nice to know I won't just bottom out upon reaching max level.

  I need to hurry back to my apartment to make sure that my roommates are okay. I grabbed my phone and tried to shoot them a text, but I had no service. That was strange because I had service when I got here. Something must be wrong with the cell towers. I stuck the keys into the ignition, and pulled out of the parking lot, ready to head downtown.

  As I got on the road, I very quickly noticed that there were far fewer people around than there were when I left. Considering it was 5:00 and supposed to be rush hour, this could mean nothing good. I accelerated until I was speeding over the limit. Occasionally I saw flashes of light across the cityscape, and the occasional burst of fire or energy. I could see police officers in their cruisers going from place to place, but they didn’t stop me or even give me a passing glance.

  One building I could see off on the side of the road had billowing purple flames coming from all of the windows. The building itself didn’t have a mark on it, but where the purple flame met the bricks, it left them looking like marble. It was a very strange sight and only cemented my race back to the apartment. I didn’t have any family left, and my friends were the closest thing I had.

  As I got off of the highway and into downtown proper, things got worse. I noticed windows were blown out, cars wrecked into poles, and powerlines hanging in the street. Occasionally I would see someone walking, but it looked like most people were hiding in their homes for good reason.

  As I passed an alley about a mile from the apartment, I saw a group of men standing in a parking lot. They had circled up, and I could glimpse that in the middle was what appeared to be a Dragonborn of some kind. Mind you, this was the D&D Dragonborn, not the Skyrim version. I saw a gout of flame and heard a surprised crowd before I was on my way.

  Finally, I made it back to my apartment. Thankfully, the building looked entirely unscathed, but I wanted to make sure that my friends were OK before deciding on the next move. I parked my car in my spot around the back. I emptied out my stuff, and slung my bag over my shoulder, running to the back door in the meanwhile.

  It was locked. I guess I should have expected it, given the madness going on in the city and all. The Garcia’s were nothing if not astute. I decided to try and take the fire escape again, but when I walked in the alley, I noticed that the ladder we always kept down was back in its raised position. There was no way to get up to the room without it. I guess my roommates were clever enough to cut off all obvious entrances.

  Luckily for me, I could fly. I activated the ability in my head, and suddenly I felt completely weightless like I was made of air. Looking down at my body, I could see small spots where I was completely transparent. Surprisingly, those spots covered my clothes, and neither my apparel nor my bag slipped through my much less dense form. I willed myself upward and could sense a gentle breeze carrying me 10ft up, where I could catch the rail of the fire escape and work my way into the apartment.

  I mantled over the railing and deactivated my ability. I climbed up to the third floor, eager to make sure my friends were OK, but when I reached the window, I paused.

  I looked very different now than I did before. There’s no telling whether or not my friends would even recognize me. Perhaps the strangest thing of all was that my own self-perception had changed. It was as if I had always been this way, and was totally fine with the changes that had happened to me. Clearly there was a psychological change associated with it as well, because the way I was acting seemed decidedly normal to what was clearly an irregular situation.

  With a sigh, I decided to enter the building anyway. I pulled up the window and enter the apartment. There in the living room were two unfamiliar forms, looking terrified up at where I stood. There were huddled on the couch. At first, I had no idea who they were, but after a while, I began to notice similarities in their forms, and I realized that I was not the only one changed today.

  Cindy and Taylor were both holding each other. Taylor seemed pretty shocked, but Cindy was as rock-solid as ever.

  “Um, hey guys. I guess I don’t really need to say that something really crazy is going on right now, right?”

  I saw Taylor’s eyes widen in recognition.

  “Is that you Vic?!? You’re huge! They're... huge.”

  “Ah, yeah. It’s me. I’m a Lesser Storm Paraelemental now, apparently. What happened here? Do you know what races you are? What happened after I left?”

  Cindy looked the most different. Her hair was now a light pastel pink, and her skin was supernaturally clean. Her eyes, normally blue, were now a deep lilac. On her back I could see four insect wings, and her ears tapered to long points, ending high above her head.

  Taylor seemed almost the exact same, but her skin had what appeared to be creeping ivy moving along it, and her once black irises now glowed with an iridescent green hue.

  I had tried to use inspect on them when I first saw them, but when I did, I got the feeling that it wasn’t high enough level to grant any information on another sentient being. I shut the window behind me and locked it closed. I walked across the room and sat down into my magnificent recliner chair and let out a contented sigh. It's nice to know that my friends are okay. Now I just needed to check with Donny. That being said, I wasn’t too worried about him. He was a huge nerd and did Historical European Martial Arts, and if anyone was okay in all this madness, it was him.

  “Were so glad you’re okay Vic, if a bit different, though we are certainly not the same either.” Said Cindy. “After you left, I sat down to catch up on the news. They were talking about a change in the Greene Wave, and then all of a sudden, there was a bright pink light, and I fell unconscious.”

  Taylor nodded, and followed with, “I was in my room listening to music still when I happened. All of a sudden, plants started growing all over everything, it was freaking wild. I tried to run away, but they wrapped me up into some kind of cocoon, and then bam. I woke up like this.”

  After explaining what happened to me, they both confirmed that their experiences were quite similar, along with the strange psychological correction. It was as if we were incapable of concern over our appearances. I wasn't sure if that was a blessing or a curse.

  “So, what races are you?”

  They both looked confused at my question. They must not have known about their status! I sat forward on my chair.

  “Do me a favor. Go ahead and say ‘Status’ out loud and see what you get.”

  They both followed my directions, and pretty soon I could tell they were working down their lists. I should get some paper, I bet it would help us to organize things.

  “When you are ready, go ahead and say ‘skills’ to see what you get. I’m honestly pretty curious about what our differences are.”

  After a while, it looked like they had gone through enough information to have a handle on their transformations. When they both finally accessed their skill lists, they actually had a visible change. All of a sudden, Cindy looked much more attractive. There was almost a hypnotic allure to her that wasn’t there before. After she caught us both staring though, the allure vanished.

  When Taylor activated her skills, the vines all along her body erupted outward, shredding the clothes on her body with inch-long thorns. We both looked away in embarrassment, but she seemed pretty fine with it, as she made no move to get up and grab new clothes. The leaves and vines on her body were pretty dense and covered everything important, but it still looked like she was wearing a small bikini.

  After that eruption, Cindy started us off.

  “Well, apparently I am called a lesser red fey. I have a bunch of abilities that come with this, and I have enhanced charisma and intelligence. It seems my skills are based around fire and charm magic. The ability I used before is a racial ability called Charming Visage. Anyone who sees me has a possibility to become charmed by my appearance when It activates. My highest stat is intelligence at 12, and it has a cap of 20. I must say, I find this quite vexing. If I had known that games would be of such import, I would have joined you when you asked to play dungeons and dragons, Vic.”

  I nodded in agreement. Those skills were pretty handy to have, and it seemed she was built as some kind of charisma caster.

  "To be fair, I don't think that anyone could have planned for this."

  Curious, I asked, “What is your Character Archetype?”

  She smiled as I asked. That can’t be good.

  “My character archetype is ‘Hidden Royalty’. I get bonuses for acting high and mighty, and for commanding people to do things for me, apparently. It honestly sounds quite enjoyable.”

  Taylor and I both groaned. That’s just perfect for her.

  Taylor sighed, and shared her information too.

  “ Ugh, here we go. I am a lesser woodland dryad. I have bonuses associated with interacting with plants and animals, and my skills are focused on nature and healing magic shit. I gain strength by letting my leaves soak in the sun, and when my leaves are covered my total abilities get reduced. My highest stats are intelligence and wisdom, with wisdom being the highest at 13, with a max of 20. My character archetype is ‘oblivious’, which is super offensive. I get bonuses for distracting people with my looks, and for standing out in public without realizing it. It looks like I also get bonuses for people knowing who I am, as long as I don’t care about their acknowledgment. Fuck me, I don't have the time for this shit.”

  I almost burst out laughing at Taylor's character archetype, as it also fit her personality especially, as well as for her appearance, even before she changed.

  “I guess it’s finally my turn. Well, as I said before, I am a Lesser Storm Paraelemental. I gain bonuses in physical combat, and while I do have storm magic abilities, they are pretty weak right now. My strength, agility, and constitution are my highest stats, with constitution being the best with a value of 12 and a cap of 20. My race has skills associated with storms, and I regenerate my health, stamina, and mana really fast while touching water. I also can fly, which is cool, because it doesn’t cost anything. My character archetype is Lone Wanderer, and it gives me bonuses when I explore places new by myself, or when I teach myself things. I also apparently get some kind of charisma mystique when someone that doesn’t know me first sees me. Seems pretty fun all things considered.”

  When I mentioned flight, Cindy actually looked a bit jealous. “I can fly too, obviously, as you could probably guess from the wings. It takes mana though, so I can’t do it for long yet.”

  I nodded. That makes sense. Her charm ability was really strong, and my flight seems like a major part of my race. It felt like each of these races and their abilities were balanced. I was curious about what the class and job would change when we got them, but there were more important things to consider.

  “Alright everyone. The next thing we need to do is plan our next steps. We all saw the opening script. I think it’s in our best interests if we find somewhere to train each of our abilities to their respective maxes. That way, we’d be prepared for the changes that the world is going to face. Getting skill level seems pretty important as well.

  Personally, I think we need to get the hell out of town. At least I do, as my archetype would really benefit from that. What do y’all think?”