Jake dragged slowly on his cigarette, staring at the being in front of him. They were sitting around a marble table that Lilith created, an ashtray resting in front of Jake. He exhales just as slowly, and extinguishes his smoke. Looking back up at the still grinning loli-goddess, he tries to settle his thoughts.

“So, let me get this straight. You want me to go into your world and take it over?”

She nods happily. “Pretty much.”

“Any specific reason why you want me to take over the world?” He leans back in his marble chair and crosses his arms. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m flattered that you think that I can do it, but I know next to nothing about dominating a world.”

“That’s the point!” She jumps up from her chair and starts floating around the table. “I wanted to see what a human could do to my world within the guidelines that I created! Your race has this insatiable bloodlust, killing off your fellow humans over basically nothing but pride! Out of all the worlds’ creations that I have seen, you humans are some of the most bloodthirsty and tenacious beings out there! As for you specifically, I’ve seen what you’ve done with the games that you played. You are tactical, imaginative, and ruthless! You’ve created the top build for almost every game that you got serious with, just off of your own instincts. And the way that you tend to crush those against you is just… invigorating.” She shudders, an evil smile on her face. “You are the best that I could find, and you’re perfect for my plans!”

Jake stares at her for a couple of seconds, thinking this information through. “Well, you seem to know me pretty well, at least as far as games. If you don’t mind me asking, why do you want me to do this?”

Her evil smile fell into a frown. “My world has become stagnant. My creations are not advancing as I want, and need, them to. They are keeping to themselves and ignoring the others, letting them live and die on their own strength.” She quietly sighs, “Things would be different if they had some common enemy to rally against. Bring them together, possibly.” She looks back at Jake and smiles. “This is where you come in. I want you to be the glue that keeps my world together. The monster underneath the bed, the dragon guarding the castle, the final boss to a long quest. Something that will force my creations to become united.” She floats back down to her chair. “What do you think?”

Jake stares at his hands on the table, mind jumping from one idea to the next. He looks up at her, back down to his hands, and shrugs. “I think this might work. A common enemy has healed a few rifts on the political side of my world.” He looks back up at Lilith. “Might as well, there was nothing really interesting going on back on Earth. So, anything specific that you can give me before I’m sent to your world?”

She smiles happily and jumps back into the air, bouncing up and down with excitement. “Great! For starters, we can go through what you want your persona to become down on Laeris. How would you like to proceed, oh Great Overlord?” She questions with a grin.

Jake grins back. “Magic would probably be the best. This world is probably advanced to what was medieval ages on mine, right? Swords, bows, that sort of thing?” Lilith nods. “If I can cast spells, that would give me a something to work with besides pure brawn.” Jake was beginning to get into the whole evil-overlord mindset, creating a plan for his domination.

Lilith smiles at Jake, “Figured. You always enjoyed the glass cannon type of builds in most of the games you played. Magic here is slightly different than the games back on Earth, though.” She gestures to her right, and a screen appeared.

Arcane Proficiencies Air - X.XX% Fire - X.XX% Earth - X.XX% Water - X.XX% Light - X.XX% Dark - X.XX% Long ago, the six affinities lived in harmony. Everything changed when people started throwing fireballs at each other. [Arcane Proficiencies] shows a beings ability to control a given element, as well as the mage's weakness to the opposing element.

“As you can see,” Lilith continues as Jake looks over the screen, “there are no specific spells that you can cast. Each ‘spell’ is created by an individual in their imagination. This makes fighting a mage very difficult, due to their ability to adapt quickly to any situation. But, if you can hit them with an opposing element, they can die pretty quickly. Most of my creatures have only one proficiency for magic, but there are a few that are able to wield more elements.” She gestures again and the screen disappears. “That was a status screen, by the way. Every creature that I have created has one of these. You will also get one when you get down to Laeris, but before that happens we need to get this introduction out of the way. Can’t have the readers get too bored!” She winks off to the side.

“Readers?” Jake questions while looking around. There was no one else here.

“Don’t worry about it. So, what element do you want to be able to control?” She drags him back to the lesson.

He scratches the back of his head. “How many can I get? If you want me to be able to bring your creations together, I’m going to need to be stronger than them to force them to group up.”

Lilith pauses, thinking. “That… actually makes sense. Umm, I don’t know? I don’t really want you to be too overpowered. Less interesting that way.” She taps her chin a few times, lost in thought. “Hmm, could go with three? It’s not that stronger than some of the creatures I’ve made, and it’s not the strongest either.” She shrugs, “I think three would fit. What do you want?”

Jake shrugs, “I’m not really too sure. Most of these are pretty obvious, but there are a few missing I think. Lightning and Summoning are the ones I’m most interested in.”

Lilith blinked, her eyes seeming to be focus on something only she could see. “Oh, sorry. Forgot that your favorite character was a Warlock back in the days of World of Warcraft. These are your basic arch-types of magic, and each of these have sub-types within them. For example, Air has a sub-type of Lightning, Fire has Smoke, Water has Ice, Earth has Metal, Light has Life and Dark has Death. And each arch-type has it’s own form of summoning, known as Binding. You bind an elemental of the arch-type to the physical realm and it will follow your orders… most of the time.” She shrugs. “Having a mindless beast follow you around and listen to your every order is pretty boring, at least from my point of view.”

Jake nods along with her explanation. “Alright, I think I get it now. Would someone with multiple affinities be able to Bind a creature from each of these affinities, or would they be able to combine them?”

Lilith grins. “Definitely combine them. While fielding an army of Bound creatures would be interesting, the power that they could get from having multiple affinities is far more potent.” She starts tapping on the table. “As you increase your affinity with a certain arch-type, you can summon either more powerful creatures, or multiple weaker ones. Think of it like a well; as the well gets deeper, you have more water to use. You can use it to fill up a large tub, or many smaller buckets.”

Jake scratches his neck. “Alright, I think I got it. I’m going to go with Dark, Fire and Air for my proficiencies.”

Lilith’s grin grows wider. “Oh? And why’s that?”

Jake grins back. “Like you said, I enjoyed my Warlock. The play style was enjoyable, and it would work perfectly here. This combination seems the closest to that point. I’ve also got a couple of ideas about what I can create for spells with this combination.” Jakes mind keeps bringing up pictures of flying skulls breathing fire on unsuspecting monsters. “I think it would be fun.”

Lilith smirks. “Nice, looks like something Metallica would come up with.” She stretches, making her dress shimmer through the color spectrum. “Anything else? We’ve been here for a while, and I’m getting pretty bored. I really want to see what you can do on Laeris.”

Jake grabs another cigarette and lights up, inhaling and exhaling slowly. “How about being able to read, speak and understand the languages of Laeris? It would be pretty stupid if I die too quickly because I couldn’t read any warning signs.”

Lilith giggles, “Not a problem, but don’t worry too much about getting killed off. I’m planning on throwing a blessing on you that will allow you to respawn at your last safe resting place after about a day. This world is dangerous, besides being stagnant.” She shrugs, “I got a little bored and tried to add too many things, so the wildlife is really quite deadly. Oh! And after each death, you’re coming back here so we can watch how you failed over and over again! It’s going to be so much fun!” She falls into another giggle fit.

Jake looks at her, and sighs. Great. A sadist loli-goddess is going to keep bringing me back to life to make fun of my efforts. I thought she wanted me to take over the world, not be her entertainment.

Lilith’s smile grows wider. “Of course! It wouldn’t be interesting if I created something that just dominated my world. You’re going to have to work for it. Makes a better story that way, and I can laugh at you. What else do you want? Last thing.”

Jake takes another drag. “Umm…” His mind is racing, trying to think of something that he missed. Anything that would give him even the smallest head start, but there is nothing that he can think of. He finishes his cigarette, and grabs another one. Putting it in his mouth, he freezes.

“Unlimited smokes. I will not be able to function without nicotine. I don’t care if you make it so that it can’t be given to anyone else, as long as I can have my smokes.”

Lilith stares at him. She starts giggling, which evolves into laughter. Soon she is laughing so hard tears are streaming out of her eyes. After a while, she calms down enough to speak, wiping tears off of her face. “I needed that. Yea, you can have your smokes. I thought you were going to ask for some blatantly powerful weapon or something.” She shakes her head, still grinning. “Humans are weird. Anyways, have a good trip! Keep me entertained and I won’t kill you!” She waves at him.

“Wait, what?” Jake tries to say, before the marble underneath his seat crumbles away, and he starts falling. “No, no, no, no, no!” He tries to stop himself, but he is quickly sucked through the hole. Blinding light once again hits his eyes, and when it clears, he is in freefall, falling towards what appeared to be a group of trees. Hard, spear-shaped trees that would certainly kill him from this height. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck Fuck Fuck FUCK!!!! WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT GIGGLES?! FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU…” His screams are cut off by a muffled thump, a cloud of dust, dirt and pine needles fly into the air from the impact site. Loud, feminine laughter could be heard, seemingly coming from everywhere at once.