Reading the title of the book in my hand, I had a full body shiver.

  You know the type that starts in your temporal bones and radiates down your body and kind of sputters out your ass?

  No, just me?

  Okay it’s really down the tailbone and then back up the spine. But still. That uncomfortable feeling that something else that you can’t exactly perceive is there, knowing more than you about you?

  Still me?

  Okay. Whatever.

  Here’s the deal. I was creeped the fuck out. One, there was a disembodied voice telling me what book to pull off a shelf in an empty treehouse in an unknown forest I had only just gotten to. And two, that voice seemed to know a thing or two about my experience with a certain overly gothic mirror and a stairwell. There was really no getting around that feeling of heebie-jeebies.

  Would you like to read Mirror King, The Story Behind the Royal Reflection? Doing so will select the Mirror Discipline, which is an irreversible and body altering decision.

  Yes/No.

  Yes.

  Congratulations! You’ve accepted a Discipline! This is your third Discipline out of three. All skills related to the Mirror discipline will be available to choose from, provided you have the appropriate skill book.

  Because you were a lucky son of a bitch and read from a legendary Discipline book, you may choose your first Mirror oriented skill in addition to your newly acquired Discipline. These skills were system-selected and cannot be swapped out for anything other than what is provided. If you do not want to accept any of skills or spells, you may decline and use a different skill book if you have one available.

  Please note that your Mirror Discipline will not be active until you have chosen your first skill, spell, or passive.

  Please note, to acquire any other additional skills, you must have a relevant Mirror skill book or a flexible skill book.

  Once chosen, this skill will fill one of the remaining spots in your power suite. If you have other skills, spells, or passives in a different discipline, they may be subject to interaction and skill evolution. For more information, please select see the glossary tab for further information on power interaction.

  Available Mirror Selections from 'Mirror King, The Story Behind the Royal Reflection':

  Reflection: [Active] [Illusion Spell] [Domain: Mirror] Confuse your enemies with multiple copies of yourself. Current limit: 3. Reflections are corporeal. Lasts a short time. (Mana cost: moderate).

  Shatter: [Active] [Destruction Spell] [Domain: Mirror] Strike out with a wave of power, inflicting force and blunt damage and breaking anything under a toughness of uncommon. This can be applied to items, inanimate objects, but not corporeal beings. Force damage applied to enemies pushes them back in relation to their power level, and applies a pressure debuff. Please see Glossary for further information. (Mana cost: varies).

  Mirror Door: [Active] [Conjuration/Escape Spell] [Domain: Mirror] Conjure two 12 ft tall mirrors that you can jump through. You must be able to see your exit, visually. Mirrors can be destroyed by your enemies. If destroyed while you’re in the mirror, you may be subject to temporal displacement. Use at own risk. (Mana cost: low).

  Switch Perspective: [Passive] [Aura] [Domain: Mirror] Foes and those hostile to you are subject to a constant barrage of visual impairments when targeting you, altering their depth perception, perspective, light refraction, or concentration. (Mana cost: none).

  Reading that last one, an error message came up in my field of view.

  *STATUS LOCKED, YOU DO NOT MEET THE NECESSARY QUALIFICATIONS TO LEARN THIS PASSIVE. PLEASE SEE GLOSSARY FOR FURTHER INFORMATION*

  Alright well, that sucks. But I thought I already knew which one I wanted to pick. But there were two more, so I kept reading.

  Object Permanence: [Passive] [Illusion/Evasion] [Domain: Mirror] When not directly focusing on you, enemies forget you’re there. This disrupts any active spell that requires concentration. Permanent bonus to stealth (Mana cost: none).

  Mirroring Blow: [Active] [Flexible Spell] [Domain: Mirror] After witnessing a spell, skill, aura, or anything perceptible you may copy that spell for the next minute. This spell cannot replicate spells whose source comes from an item, inherent skill, or racial bonus. (Mana cost: varies per cast).

  Well, creepy and overly domineering voice or not, I’m glad I read this one.

  Judging by the six options in this book, alone, I’d have a lot of really amazing powers to choose from in the future. That is if I could find more skill books or whatever they were called. I wasn’t quite sure… how… to differentiate a skill book from a Discipline book. So far, everything I’d picked up was the latter.

  It didn’t matter. I’d figure it out.

  Because who doesn’t want to teleport? And as I was really banking on the idea that the spell would get stronger the more I used it, I chose Mirror Door.

  This time, the surge of power felt cold and set into my bones. It wasn’t an exhausting feeling, per se. But it wasn’t an overly energetic feeling. It was more like that feeling you get when you step into the shower after running it for a few minutes and even then the warm water is still colder than your body was.

  Another quest item popped up in my lower right field of view. I had three now.

  New Quest! Portal away!

  I was about to sit down for a minute to catch my breath when the disembodied voice came back.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  “You’re gonna want to get down here.”

  I looked around, not seeing a reason to get up from the wicker chair.

  “No, really,” the voice interrupted himself with a healthy cackle, “No stop, I’m serious. Come down the rope ladder before…”

  “Before what?” I said to the room.

  “Before the purge, boy.”

  I didn’t know what that meant and I didn’t like it. References to shitty gore porn movies or not, I certainly didn’t like it. So, I climbed down the rope ladder and touched down onto the mossy forest floor. A few steps past the lantern, I felt it. That feeling of saliva building up in the back of the throat after a really bad shot of 151.

  Who am I kidding, all shots of 151 are really bad.

  I leaned over, hand on a branch, and puked my guts out for a solid five minutes straight. Oop, yep, there’s the stew.

  Then I passed out.

  A few minutes later, I came to. There was a figure looming above me in a green, grey robe sporting a big black bushy beard and wide eyes with black sclera under a… was that a bomber hat?

  “Glad you took my advice,” he said, voice matching the disembodied one I had followed a few minutes earlier.

  I stood up, accepting his proffered hand, and wiped my mouth on my sleeve

  “Ah, thanks,” I said in between grunts, “I feel like a pig pooped in my head.”

  “That will pass,” he said with a sly smile, and then offered me what looked like a wineskin.

  I was already deep into accepting this guy’s help for seemingly everything, so I took it and drained it. Was that… spiced apple cider? It was quite good.

  “So, uh… not to be rude or anything. But… who are you?”

  “We’ll get to that. Can you stand on your own?”

  I was still leaned up against the tree trunk, now that I had passed the wineskin back to the mystery man.

  “I think so. Where did all that energy go? I felt great just a minute ago.”

  The old man gave me a strange smile. Was that the misty eyed recollection of days past? Or was I just projecting? My therapist would say I was projecting.

  “It’ll return. In full force in just a moment. Here, come with me…” He offered me a gnarled staff as support this time. I think he had been holding it a second ago.

  Just rolling with it at this point, I let him guide me around the tree and into a clearing. The forest floor had a few things I hadn’t noticed before in my naked haste.

  There was a little woodshed, roof covered with moss. A few feet from it was the well, cobbled mossy rocks almost camouflaging it and the new body below. A few paces away from that was a stone bench and he gestured to sit.

  “Ah that’s better. Now where was I?”

  “Um… your name… sir?”

  “Sir!? Oh my, what wonderful manners you have. I do say! Well, I have said. Wait I will say? Oh no. Where was I?”

  I just gave him a pointed look.

  He cackled, and then when I didn’t join in the fun, he said, “Oh right, right. Yes of course. I’m Trelain. I used to be Trelain, Archduke of Schaldry. But let’s just go with Trelain. Or Tre, if you please. Or perhaps you want my title? Apostle Trelain? Apostle Tre is fine. I don’t care. I don’t much hear my name these days.”

  Man this guy loved to ramble. But, again, he was my only lifeline here and had so far only treated me with generosity and… guidance? We’ll call it guidance.

  “Pleased to meet you Trelain. I’m—”

  “Oh yes, I know who you are GZelle… I know perfectly well. Well whose to say who knows who very well, but I well know that your name is the name I said. That much I know, well.”

  “Right… and how… how do you?”

  “Magic! Boy, it’s all from magic. Speaking of! Do you have any of those delicious little quest logs? Oh I just love them so much. That satisfying little ping that happens when you complete them. But of course you wouldn’t know that yet, you’ve only just arrived. But trust me. Oh yes do trust me, you’ll love it. I know this.”

  I didn’t exactly want to skip over the fact that the man knew my name, but now he seemingly knew I had the quest system in my field of vision. Manic and slightly inane, aside—this guy had the answers I so desperately needed. Good thing I used to transport the elderly back as an EMT, so I just let him ramble.

  “And the wonderful thing about quests is that there are always more! More I say! And when you’re done doing the quests then there are skills to unlock, things to level. Oh it’s beautiful, your kind that is. Not like ours. No, no. You fell through the mirror and here you are! You—”

  “Hold on. How’d you know I fell through a mirror?”

  Tre just looked at me with his darker than dark sclera centered eyes and winked.

  “Okay. So should I do one of these quests now? Will that bring the energy back? I feel like complete and utter horse shit.”

  “Horse shit! Ah yes that’s a fine one. The saying not the shit. Of course you know that. Shit isn’t good for much but fertilizer but I suppose fertilizer is good for growing. And growing! Yes! That’s why you’re here, I dare say.”

  Getting a little used to the way Trelain talked, I resolved to stand from the bench and walk out to the middle of the clearing. I was getting kind of cold and I really, really wanted to try my spell Furnace, first.

  I stood there for a minute, struggling to do… anything. I turned to Tre with a look on my face.

  That seemed to remind him of something and he took out his staff, whispered something into the head of it, and then gestured with it in my direction.

  At first nothing happened.

  And then, as if a palm tree in a hurricane, I blew back five feet and into the air. Just when I was about to start screaming about trust and attacking a man when he was down, I came to a stop in the air and floated a few feet off the ground. Then my field of view lit up with notifications.

  Welcome! Congratulations. You’ve successfully read from three Discipline books and learned three powers. You are now eligible to begin your training as an Initiate. To access your stats, simply say or think “character sheet.”

  Please do so, now.

  I did.

  -

  Gregory Zell

  Human Initiate

  Discipline Progression: Three out of three filled.

  Disciplines: Mirror, Metallurgy, Fauna

  Progression to Acolyte: Three out of eighteen filled.

  Current Power Suite: Mirror Door, Furnace, Spirit Avatar

  Passive Perks: Reader, Dimensional Traveler, Mirror Affinity

  Achievements: Literate, Resilient

  Inherent Skills: Triage, Calm Under Pressure, Emergency Intervention, Identify, Polyglot, Quick Skill

  -

  “Well this is handy as fuck. Also, a little creepy. Does everyone have a screen like this?” I called over to Tre.

  “Oh no, oh no. Of course not. And that’s why I’m here! I’m here because you are here. And you’re here because the mirror was here. Or the mirror came through here. It matters not. What matters is that you’re bound to grow! I know it, so.”

  “So you’re saying you don’t have one of these HUDs?”

  “HUDs?”

  “Yeah, you know. Heads up display, the thing in my vision that told me to come to this place,” I said.

  Trelain looked at me for maybe the first real, serious time and said, “No, boy. That is not usual, but it’s not unusual. But I’ve made it a point, or maybe a hobby, to be here for those like you.”

  “So you’re saying more people have come through like I did? When? Was it recent?”

  I couldn’t help but get hopeful that maybe, just maybe the universe had deemed it so that someone I knew (please, please be Naomi) was also here.

  “No.”

  I was crestfallen.

  “So, more like me but not for a while?”

  “Yes.”

  I’m not sure why Trelain decided to be so clear just then after endless prattling before, but I’m sure its because he saw just how desperate I was for any sign of my life before.

  I turned my attention back to my notifications. I couldn’t dwell on it. Not yet. I’d get a handle on my situation here, maybe acquire some new spells, and go back for Naomi and my friends. But for now, I had to clear up my field of view.

  One of the quests was blinking, now. So I focused on it.

  Unlock Your Spirit Avatar.

  “Hey Tre, how do I cast a spell?” I called over, still hovering a few inches off the ground due to whatever the manic old coot was doing.

  “Hmm? Oh yes. Yes. Good question. You ask the good ones, you know. This much is true. Just think about the spell and it’ll come to you.”

  “Hey Trelain?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you stop rhyming?”

  “No.”

  I laughed a little to myself and then thought really hard about the spell I wanted to cast.

  Everysekai

  by Bluesycobalt

  > Female Lead with cast of developed side-characters

  > A lot of poking at Isekai tropes

  > Rational and Underpowered Protagonist fighting for her life

  > 1500-2500 Word Chapters

  Updates MWF at 7:10pm EST