“The [Demon King]? Will I have to fight one of the others?”

Thando considered what this could mean if he was right. He wouldn’t hurt one of his friends, that wasn’t in question, but could he attack one of the others if meant they’d get out of here? Definitely, if he lost control, but he’d promised himself that wouldn’t happen anymore.

To his surprise, just considering the possibility of giving in to his rage made a journal of his affirmations pop into existence next to him. Being inside your own head was incredibly convenient. He suddenly narrowed his eyes at the book floating at chest height.

“Fuck me, is this why I’m the [Writer]? Chan was right.”

The blond Inspired, Alexander, had told him he could find some answers here so he quested his attention across both panels of golden light suspended in front of him.

Name: Thando Nkhosi

Archetype: [Writer] (Primary)

Effect: Literary Devices

Acclimation: Poor

Narrative shift: Save the world

A group of unlikely heroes bump into each other at a tavern. Talk is tense and hushed. A pact is made. They’ve all heard the rumours swirling around and the telltale smell of burning on the air. An ancient evil has re-entered the world. War is coming. Though each is powerful in their own right, they know they lack the individual strength to stand up to the might of the adversary. But together? Together they may have a shot at victory! Quest: Defeat the [Demon King].

The first thing he needed was to understand his archetype. He’d guessed that literary devices were related to writing somehow, but he didn’t know what they were. He focused on the term and a nested text box faded in.

Literary Devices are the weapons a writer wields against bland literature. The best writers can make the mundane magical with a wide array of devices. Devices: Onomatopoeia, Hyperbole.

“It’s really rubbing in the idea that I’m a shit writer huh. Well, fuck you too golden screen, I only need two of these.”

Thando guessed he’d get access to more if he found a way to raise his acclimation but for now this would have to do. He tried focusing on the devices themselves to see if he could glean some meaning from them, but they stubbornly remained a mystery. No matter, Chan would know.

Turning his attention to the plot, he looked for a way forward. When he woke up, what were they meant to do next? Obviously, determining who the [Demon King] is takes first priority but it would be a very short story if the [Demon King] was right there with them. It wouldn’t make narrative sense unless he was hidden or difficult to reach somehow. So he likely wasn’t easily discovered. Johannesburg was a large city as well; they definitely hadn’t found all the archons in the Shift but that couldn’t be helped. They’d have to fend for themselves and hope that at least one of the groups of archons succeeded in unsealing the Shift if they failed.

Hovering his eyes over the objective of the Shift, he saw it split into smaller sub-steps that looked a lot more manageable.

Quest: Defeat the [Demon King].”

Sub-quest: Defeat the Archdemons of the Infernal Horde (0/6). Sub-quest: Close the Gate to the Abyss (0/1). Sub-quest: Defeat the Spectre of War (0/1).

That looked a lot like the conflicts Alexander talked about. They’d have to defeat all of these in order to get a shot at the [Demon King]. It seemed like a typical King class archetype, with the ability to designate generals and raise troops to fight on his behalf. There were many reasons the [High King] controlled most of the planet, for one, he had designated Archlords whom he could empower and send to project his authority anywhere in the world at speed. But that wasn’t even the main source of his hegemony. It was the fact that, for 6 cycles every day, he could boost the efficiency of vassal states tenfold. The cycles weren’t that long on their own but repeated every day for years on end, it was easy to see why most of the world had willingly accepted UN supremacy and joined the Federation. If [Demon King] abilities worked anything like [High King] ones, he could probably increase the strength of his “Archdemons” at critical moments. Definitely something to watch out for.

“I’m getting ahead of myself, lets deal with problems as they come.”

No other pieces of information offered themselves up after another sweep of the plot and his status.

“Status? Archetype page? What do people even call these things?”

Adding it to the growing list of questions he had about this whole situation, he willed the screens away, noting that the golden cracks spread throughout his domain did not disappear with them.

“Okay, I think I’m done here. How do I g-“

Everything went black.

Thando woke with a gasp. Opening his eyes, he saw a clear blue sky. Sitting up and moving his gaze across his environs, he witnessed the massive change the narrative shift had caused.

Gone were the eclectic buildings and paved streets. Instead he had woken up under a tree, a tree on the side of a dirt road that cut through what looked like a forest. Weirdly, he couldn’t make out the leaves on the trees further away.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Ah, I see you’re awake, Thando.” Alexander was sitting cross legged with his eyes closed nearby, relaxing in the shade.

“Where are the others?”

“Around the area, but spaced apart. Unfortunate things can happen when people are new to their abilities, especially if they don’t understand them.”

“How do you even know all this stuff? You’re Inspired, you never went through a Shift.”

“Indeed, but I’ve spent the better part of 130 years working closely with people who have. There aren’t many healing archetypes out there, so we get contracted out on missions with archons. All of them are scarred in some way from their experience in one of these, and Vitality serves as a therapist for a lot of them.”

“Really? I thought archons weren’t allowed to visit Utopia.”

“They aren’t. She talks through her Inspired.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

Alexander shrugged.

“It’s what I signed up for, I knew this going in. I used Vitality as Inspiration because I wanted to help people and if people are best served by talking directly to her through me, how could I refuse? Not to mention, it’s a much less stressful and more guaranteed way of gaining power than a Narrative Shift. Before I got stuck in here, I was convinced I’d live forever.”

“And now?”

“Honestly, depending on how this goes, I might not see out the week. You know about the theory that Narrative Shifts are getting stronger?”

“I’ve heard about it, yeah.”

“Well, they scale in difficulty according to the combined power of the archons inside. When [Gamer] unsealed his Shift, he was as powerful as a Muse but almost every secondary archetype was dead. I fully expect more than one primary archetype to manifest in here and if I’m right, nearly everything you’ll face is above my weight class. Luckily, staying alive is essentially my only ability but most likely the only help I can give is experience from other archons and some healing.”

“You have any experience from [Gamer] himself?”

Alexander narrowed his eyes suspiciously, then widened them in realisation.

“Great, you’re a primary. I’m going to die. A damn chestnut will drop down from this tree and one-shot me.”

“Don’t be dramatic, your whole thing is never-ending vitality.”

“Only outside of the Shift. I discovered shortly after putting you to sleep that I can’t talk to Vitality. Infinite energy is useless if you can’t access it and right now, both Connor and I are running on borrowed time. We have huge reserves of course, but that doesn’t really matter much when we’ll have to use them constantly just to not get immediately squished.”

Thando was about to respond to the man, but they heard another cry of shock and surprise nearby as someone else woke up.

“What the fuck!”

Thando and Alexander glanced at each other and chuckled, knowing it was definitely Sabine. They stood up and went over to her.

She was sitting up on the forest floor, wondering at her surroundings. As Thando and Alexander approached, she looked Thando up and down.

“Have you gotten skinnier?”

“Hello to you too, Sabine.” He spoke dryly.

She blushed heavily and stared at the ground.

“Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend in any way, it’s just that my mom’s a tailor so I’m sensitive to people’s body proportions. Yours have definitely changed since the last time I saw you.”

Thando hadn’t wanted to say anything but she had too. She likely hadn’t noticed yet but her hair had turned bright blonde and certain assets had been enhanced.

Alexander chimed in.

“That’s going to happen to all of you. Depending on how good your acclimation to your archetype is, your bodies will morph to better fit the generally held beliefs about what your archetype looks like. It’s never anything dramatic, it won’t change your height or sex, but your existing features, like Thando’s musculature or Sabine’s br- hair will change.”

A few other exclamations rang out around them, ending the conversation and signalling the wakefulness of the rest of their group. They went around gathering people, marvelling at the changes to everyone’s bodies, but someone was missing.

“Where’s Piet?” Thando asked after the group was together.

Alexander shrugged again.

“While you were asleep, he got up and walked off. This looks like a medieval setting so he’s likely in a town or on a farm. Again, there’s no point looking for him, he won’t know you and will be teleported out randomly. He will also start attacking you at some point, which leads me to my next question. What is the plot exactly?”

Thando, Willem and Chan shared a look that contained a promise. Alexander noticed, but decided this was a lesson they’d have to learn themselves.

Chan shared the plot with the group for the Inspired’s benefit, since they were the only ones that hadn’t seen it.

“Okay, seems like a standard Man vs Man focused story with Man vs Self, Man vs Nature and Man vs Society coming in that order. This is a bit of a long shot, but are any of you the [Demon King]?”

Everyone denied it of course, but it seemed Alexander didn’t care about the answers and was instead focusing on Connor who lightly shook his head.

“Okay, this is an opportunity. The [Demon King] is probably an archetype as new to his powers as you are, so the quicker we can go through the subquests, the quicker we can end this. What is it Sabine?”

Sabine, whose voice had pitched up a few notes higher, looked worried.

“When you say ‘end this’ what exactly do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Man vs Man conflicts don’t always require killing another archon, but when they are part of the main plot, they always do. It is quite literally either you or him.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Then the Shift will end in a catastrophe and we’ll probably all die.”

“How do you know though?”

“Because every archon alive today succeeded at completing their main quest.”

Everyone except Sabine and Connor gasped. She looked around in confusion.

“But that’s a good thing right?”

Annelise, Sabine’s friend, took her hands and clasped them in her own.

“Sabine. Babe. He means that those that don’t finish their quest like, never make it out.”

“…oh.”

“Yeah.”

Alexander continued, unfazed.

“Okay we know what we have to do, now we need to figure out how we’re going to do it. What are your archetypes?”

Thando went first.

“The [Writer].”

Then Willem.

“The [Dragonslayer].”

Then Sabine.

“Uh, I’m the [Princess].”

Then Maxwell.

“The [Dandy].”

Alexander went pale at Sabine’s archetype and fully sat down when he heard Maxwell’s.

“Okay, wait wait. How many of you are primary archetypes?”

They all raised their hands.

Alexander and Connor shared a look.

“Okay this changes things quite significantly. We need to get moving. Right now. I’ll talk as we run.”

He got up and started running off up the road, Connor in tow. The newly minted archons looked at each other and ran after.

Traversing the forest via the road was strange, as Thando knew that just a day earlier, it had been a bustling metropolis. All the people they’d left unconscious were gone, as was any sign there had ever been anything but a dirt road and trees for miles in this area. They passed a few farms that had actual livestock somehow. It really was a medieval fantasy setting.

As they ran, Alexander explained to them how their combined power meant that as the plot progressed, the difficulty would ratchet up beyond anything he’d heard of, and he’d been alive a long time. They needed to get a handle on their abilities as quickly as possible, but the forest was much too exposed and staying there was begging for a random encounter that they weren’t yet equipped to deal with.

They were currently in the exposition phase of the plot. They were given a grace period of about a day, during which towns would be safe, but after that, the first conflict would activate and they’d have to find this Spectre of War and put it in the ground before the plot moved on. If they couldn’t, the Spectre would massively jump in strength, but they’d still have to defeat it while also fending off another conflict.

Time was of the essence.

They came up to a small village that could barely even be called that, it was more of a hamlet. There were a few houses arranged in a circle around a sort of clearing. The group could see expansive farms behind each house, giving the area the look of a spoked wheel.

Alexander slowed as he approached the hamlet and once they were fully inside it, he turned to address them.

“This should be good enough. Okay, we need to figure out exactly what you guys ca-“

A scream tore through the peaceful air.

A crying woman ran into the clearing with them, inconsolable and clutching something close to her chest.

“They took him! The forest spirits! They took my betrothed!”

That was all she could say before she collapsed into a blubbering mess in front of them.

Annelise quickly took charge of the situation. She got on the ground next to her and tried calming her down, speaking in a measured tone while embracing the sobbing lady.

Maxwell smiled at the sight, remembering how much he loved her.

As Annelise was talking to the woman, Alexander called everyone together.

“Whatever she says, ignore it.”

Maxwell, Sabine and Willem all immediately protested, but Alexander continued.

“She’s trying to draw you into a side quest. These are always attempts by the plot to either kill you or derail your progress, which is ultimately the same thing. We cannot afford to give this our attention. Ignore it.”

The three quieted down, sobered up by the reality of where they were. The quaint surroundings and idyllic atmosphere hid the fact that everything was going to try to murder them eventually.

“Hey guys!”

The group looked over at Annelise. She was holding a picture frame and looking over at one of the houses.

“The woman says her betrothed was taken while he was in the field, and the ‘spirits’ ran off into those woods behind that farm.”

Thando sheepishly replied as she walked towards them.

“Uhh we’ll have to take a raincheck on helping this lady, Alexander says it’s probably a trap.”

“Yeah I figured when I saw the picture.”

She turned the frame towards them. It was Piet.

With a different hairstyle and strange attire, but they could clearly see it was him. Which was likely the point.

“Shit.”

Thando, Willem and Chan all looked at one another.

“Shit.”

All three of them took off running.