Susan groaned as the alarm on her nightstand started beeping. She stretched with another groan before sitting up and opening her eyes. She blinked in surprise as she saw Rhapsody's head floating in the air in front of her, a friendly smile on her face.
"Good morning, Susan, my name is Rhapsody," Rhapsody greeted her with a wink. "We've decided to add a leveling system to your world to make life more interesting for you. For those of you unaware of what a leveling system is, keep watching and I'll explain. If you don't have time for explanations right now, just focus your thoughts on the time of day you want to postpone this tutorial to replay. The tutorial will take about ten minutes."
"For those of you unfamiliar with what a leveling system is, it's a term from modern games, as well as a genre of fantasy novels called LitRPG. Its main purpose is to give you a kind of metric for where your skills rank for any given activity. For instance, if you are learning how to garden, you will notice that you will gain experience points for the time you put into gardening. When those experience points reach a certain limit, you will gain a level. Each time you gain a certain number of levels, you will receive a bonus reward. These rewards vary depending on the classification of the skill you are working on. For a gardener, level one might unlock the skill called deft touch. This skill increases the odds of anything you plant of actually reaching maturity and producing a harvest by ten percent."
"There are skills for anything in life, whether it's cleaning your kitchen, doing schoolwork, or learning to play a new instrument. If you're a programmer, you'll find levelling bonuses like knowledge boosts for different programming languages. If you're a carpenter, you'll receive boosts to your accuracy and proficiency. If you're a janitor, you'll find boosts to how easily a surface is cleaned, or your efficiency may increase. If you're a graphic design artist, you'll find increased creativity bonuses."
"You'll also notice an overlay that appears at the top of your vision, commonly called a heads-up display. The icon at the top left is a picture of your face and is where you go to access all the information regarding your class, progress, and abilities. The small bar at the top is your level progress bar, which shows how far you have to go to reach the next level. The heart on the right is your health. Keep a sharp eye on this—if you don't take care of yourself, you will notice it starts to change from red to black. Focus your attention on it to see more detail on what is causing you to be unhealthy, along with tips on how to rectify the issue."
"When you look at other people, you'll notice they have popup bubbles that appear above their heads. It will display their name, species, and if they want, orientation. It will also show their alignment to good or evil. Yes, you are going to be called out on being a bastard from now on. I'm looking at you, politicians."
"You can make your overlay disappear or change in transparency by focusing your intent on it to change. You can also put it to sleep for the rest of the day, and it won't appear until you wake up the next morning. "
"If you want a more detailed tutorial, just focus your intent on the words: more detailed tutorial. The more detailed tutorial explains how to use the chat feature, class options, friend requests, and instructions on how to use any abilities you gain."
"Now that the basic tutorial is out of the way, I'll give you a little more information on who I am. I'm known by many titles, but the one that is most familiar to you in your current culture is a fairy. However, this is just a projection of my true form, which is the world tree known as Yggdrasil. I'm sure most of you are aware of the Circle of Dominion in Northern California by now. Space is warped around this circle, so it is much larger on the inside. The magical creatures of the world live inside the Circles of Dominion, for the most part. Due to an unscrupulous spirit walker almost a thousand years ago, the other world trees of this world were destroyed. I'm in the process of restoring them, so those Circles of Dominion will once again bring life to the arid regions of the world and share their magic with the magical creatures of the world."
"I want to make it very clear to the governments of the world that any interference will not be tolerated. This world will die if the world trees are not restored soon. I have found five humans who have the capacity to transition into world trees. The process has already begun for three of them, so there is hope."
"This concludes the intro for the new leveling system. I hope you enjoy it! We'll stay in touch. Oh yeah, PS. This was Harmony's idea."
The floating head of Rhapsody vanished, and the overlay Rhapsody had described appeared in Susan's vision. She stared in shock for a moment before a delighted grin spread across her face. She bounced out of bed and ran to her mother's room.
Her mother's eyes were staring into space as she sat on the edge of her bed. She was clearly interacting with her new interface.
"This is so cool, Mom!" Susan exclaimed, her grin stretching across her face.
"Um, I guess it is," her mother answered in a much less confident voice. "How could she do something like this to everyone on Earth? Just how powerful is she?"
"She said she was a world tree," Susan answered with a shrug. "That seems like a pretty powerful being."
"Yeah, I suppose so," her mother murmured distractedly.
Susan looked around for something to do, anything that would show some kind of level increase. She went back to her room and started cleaning, curious if that counted as a skill. As soon as she finished picking everything up and made her bed, a firework appeared in the overlay, along with the words:
LEVEL UP!!! You are now at Level 1 for the skill: Cleaning. You will have the option to choose an ability at level 5. Note: each level increase requires increased work—also known as Grinding—in order to reach the next level. Well done, Susan! You rock!
Susan grinned as she finished reading the text. This was going to be so freaking cool!
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Eileen was awoken by the sound of Harnketi cackling loudly in their guest bedroom. She blinked as she suddenly found Rhapsody's head hovering in front of her. Her eyes widened as she listened to Rhapsody's introduction and brief tutorial. As soon as it was over, she went out into the living room and found a grinning Harnketi and her oldest son, Tiacan, who was also grinning widely.
"I had a feeling Rhapsody was going to do something crazy after Harmony showed up," Harnketi declared with another laugh. "She didn't disappoint."
Eileen stared at Harnketi with wide eyes as she tried to wrap her mind around all the implications of what Rhapsody had done. "Harnketi, I knew Rhapsody was powerful, but this... I can't even imagine how she could have done something like this to every human on Earth."
"Oh, this isn't just for the humans," Harnketi told her wryly. "This will affect all the magical creatures too. Knowing Rhapsody, there will be some augmented wildlife as well. As far as her power? There really is no limit to what Rhapsody could do. I spent almost six hundred years with her and learned things that would seem unbelievable if you heard about them. She's very respectful of how she uses her power though. She tries to work within the natural laws of this world, instead of just making things work the way she thinks they should. She doesn't want to be a dictator."
Eileen nodded slowly, feeling a growing sense of awe for the fairy her legends had always revered as a magical spirit walker. She was apparently a lot more than that.
Her husband, Tyee, walked through the front door looking harried. He'd been on the night shift at the fire department. He was tall with a medium build and long, black hair pulled back into a ponytail. He had wrinkles near his eyes from frequent laughing. He was a wonderful husband and father, making their home glow with love and cheer.
"You wouldn't believe how crazy things were getting this morning," Tyee told her with a disbelieving shake of his head as he walked over and kissed her. "People are having mass hallucinations. We had hundreds of calls for EMTs when people said they saw a woman's head appearing in front of them."
"They weren't hallucinations," Eileen informed him calmly. "I'm guessing you haven't seen them yet because you haven't gone to sleep. They appeared as soon as I woke up."
"Yeah, Rhapsody would have done it that way to prevent people from getting hurt if they were driving or operating dangerous equipment," Harnketi commented with a nod. "Go to sleep, Tyee. You'll see the same thing when you wake up."
Tyee stared at them curiously. "What did Rhapsody do?"
"I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise," Eileen told him with a laugh. "Go get some sleep. I want to be there when you wake up."
Tyee's lips quirked into a smile as he stared into her sparkling eyes. "Okay, fine. I'm not sure how I'm going to get to sleep now."
"I can put you to sleep, when you are ready," Harnketi offered, wiggling her fingers dramatically.
"I think I'll have to take you up on that," Tyee nodded, his eyes alight with curiosity.
Eileen's phone rang. She walked back into her bedroom and answered it. It was an automated announcement that school was cancelled for the day. She snorted a laugh, imagining the superintendent trying to decide how they were going to manage a school full of kids that were playing in their heads-up displays all day. There were certainly going to be a lot of far-reaching effects to Rhapsody's new system.
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World Reels From New Leveling System
The world is reeling as what were originally believed to be mass hallucinations have turned out to be a kind of gaming overlay that has appeared in people's vision after waking up this morning. So far, it has mostly affected the Western Hemisphere due to the time difference, though individuals on the other side of the world who were asleep in the daytime have reported seeing the same vision upon waking. A person claiming to be Rhapsody, a fairy that is a projection of the world tree, Yggdrasil, has appeared in front of peoples' vision and given a tutorial and introduction on what she refers to as a leveling system. She claims that the other world trees were killed by a spirit walker a thousand years ago, and that without new world trees, the world will end.
She also claimed to have found five humans to act as candidates to become some of the new world trees, with three of them already having begun the process. We are assuming that two of those people are Harmony and Mystery. Both women are known to have been inside of the ring where Rhapsody supposedly resides, in the Northern California redwoods. There is a good chance that the third candidate is Harmony's mother, Joline, who was believed to be with her daughter inside of the fairy ring. Harmony maintains custody of her two nieces, whom we also assume to be the other two candidates.
Experts are scratching their heads at how something like this could be possible. Considering the abilities exhibited by Rhapsody in the week leading up to this event, it is widely accepted that this is related to some kind of magic or advanced technology.
We have reached out to the White House for comment, but there has been no response at the time of this article's publishing.
There were a slew of social media videos where psychics claimed Rhapsody was actually a demon in the few days preceding the event. If she is a demon, she seems to have power over both religious and non-religious people, as even some world religious leaders have reported seeing the new system.
We have reached out to Vatican City for comment, but at the time of this writing we have not heard back. Several televangelists have claimed the new system to be the work of the devil and warned people to avoid using it. Oddly enough, the portion of the system that shows a person's alignment as good or evil has indicated that these televangelists are aligned with evil. They have claimed that it is the devil's work to try and poison the faithful against God's shepherds. When asked why God allowed the devil to put the system in their vision, they responded that it was a test of their faith. We were unable to get a clear answer on whether God approved of the devil's new system based on that response.
We'll be posting regular updates here at theshadowearth dot com as things progress. Now if you'll excuse us, we have some leveling to do.
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Harmony laughed as she finished reading the latest article out loud on her laptop. Rhapsody had been reading over her shoulder. They were in Harmony's front room with Serenity, Aurora, Mystery, Michael, and her mother.
"Well, this is certainly going to be an interesting year," Michael noted with a broad grin. "The world is about to get really interesting."
"Just how powerful can a person become?" Harmony's mother asked Rhapsody curiously. "How far up can they level something like strength?"
"It's set to peak at level one hundred," Rhapsody answered distractedly as she skimmed through the comments with Harmony. "That's to encourage people to find new things to level up and not just focus on one thing."
"How strong would a person at level one hundred be, compared to the strongest human alive today?" Michael asked intently. "Are they going to be like the Incredible Hulk type strength?"
Rhapsody squinted thoughtfully for a moment, her eyes calculating. "About five times stronger than the strongest human on record," Rhapsody responded after a moment. "That's within the range that other strength-based classes could still deal with, since places like law enforcement will likely add a working bonus for officers who work on that class. There shouldn't be a tide of overpowered humans taking the law into their own hands, because people will lose levels when they do things that are negatively aligned."
"Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that," Michael murmured thoughtfully. He looked up at Rhapsody curiously. "You didn't mention that in the tutorial. Why not?"
"I want them to figure that out on their own," Rhapsody replied with a mischievous grin. "I plan to have the system automatically record the looks on their faces when they realize they've lost a level."
The room erupted in laughter at Rhapsody's words. Harmony shook her head ruefully as she looked back at Rhapsody.
"You are a bad fairy," Harmony told her fondly.
"You have no idea how good it is to hear you say that," Rhapsody smiled at her affectionately.
"You are one odd duck," Harmony informed her with a wink.
"Quack quack," Rhapsody replied impishly.