A million million men have looked to the stars and dreamed of the power to rule, but what is it that gives any sovereign their power? Their people. At the end of the day all the military might, all the wealth of nations is wrested into the hands of one person, not because they were the most competent or the most clever or even the most charming. All the great sovereigns were given the chance to rise or fall because when they spoke, others listened. What an awful burden to bear.

  I awoke in an all white expanse with nothing but the clothes on my back. I’ve gotta say I’m a little proud of myself for the lack of absolute terror at such a strange situation. This is usually where I’d freak out because the aliens were about to analy probe me. That said, the terror may just be at the back of my mind waiting for the whirring anal death machines to come out. I was planning on laying still for a few more minutes before a pleasant, but unnecessarily loud female voice boomed from no particular direction.

  Welcome to your tutorial, Player! Here you will be assessed and your starting class will be revealed. Setta Verum Reiis!

  The whole of the expanse I found myself in shifted as one would expect a hologram too, at least according to all the sci fi movies I’ve seen, into a picturesque scene of a dense forest.

  Why are the boxes always light blue? Is it some sort of universal constant that light blue makes the complete and total breakdown of one's understanding of the world more palatable? I mean I know it doesn’t really matter given my current predicament, but I guess I was just expecting something less… I don’know… cliche? Whatever… First things first. Where’s my starting gear?

  “Inventory.”

  “Seriously?”

  Well shit, what am I supposed to do, beat the goblins to death with my bare hands? Ok, let’s see what my stat situation is looking like.

  “Status.”

  “What the hell do you mean hidden? My name is…”

  My name is… How can I possibly not know my own name? It’s not like I have amnesia. I remember last night. I remember my life, my family, my friends, and all of their names. So where the hell is mine? I can feel it sitting at the base of my skull but every time I reach for it, it just slips away. I’m willing to bet whatever’s enforcing this game system is keeping it from me for some reason. The fact that it can reach into my mind and block information is definitely unsettling. Putting that aside, none of these numbers mean anything to me. I mentally click on Expand next to skills, only to get a big fat buzzing noise as my reward. Guess they really do intend for me to go in raw here.

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  I finally sit myself up and look around. The grass under my hands is soft and there’s a palpable sense of undisturbed serenity. Ya know when you go into a library and there’s a sort of quiet that’s only allowed to be disturbed by necessary noises? Yea it’s like that. I can hear birds chirping, various bugs making their various bug sounds to add to the natural ambience, but I get the distinct feeling I should keep my thoughts internal from now on. Evidently there are goblins walking around.

  Well, it’s nice to get some sort of recognition for my decision making skills. I stand up and brush the dirt off my shorts before looking around for some sort of tool. I see a particularly thick looking piece of wood on the ground and pick it up to test its weight.

  Wow. I hope this place comes with a wiki because that looks like a lot of information I’m going to have to look into later. After a brief round of stick shuffling that most definitely does NOT look like arboreal masturbation, I pick a random direction and begin walking aimlessly.

  This is probably a good time to explain my remarkable amount of calm in the face of awakening to my knowledge of the natural world around me being taken out back and shot by a system of blue boxes. I am what is known in some parts of the world as… a huge nerd. More specifically I am a fan of fantasy and even more specifically something known as progression fantasy. This genre can be summed up essentially as, the world becomes a videogame and the milktoast personality-less protagonist gets to live a power fantasy as they stumble their way into a feudal lord harem situation. Level’s, stats, quests, gratuitous violence, bring it on I say.

  There are a whole host of “woke”-ism social justice warrior reasons for everything I’ve just described to be utterly repugnant. If we’re being perfectly honest I’d probably have to agree with the logos of most of them outright. That said I have no qualms with living through this fantasy anyway. As a matter of fact if we’re being perfectly honest I’m really hoping that it turns out that way. As time goes on I’m sure you’ll discover that I am one greedy, lecherous bastard between all the waxing poetic and grandstanding.

  This is also a good time to bring up that I am not a white guy. I’ve read quite a few of these power fantasies and I’m hoping this is one of the ones in which my race will have virtually no bearing on my goings on. I did however still feel the need to bring it up so that if by happenstance this is being read by any of those “how can I relate to the character if they’re not exactly like me” folks I can kick them out of the fun right here and now. I’ve got a feeling this one is going to be one for the ages.

  With that bit of housekeeping out of the way, we return to my misadventures in the clearing of mystery. After 15 minutes of what I must admit was one of the most pleasant walks through a forest of (hypothetical) death that I’ve ever taken, I heard goblin noises. I promise I’ll come back to ‘how I know what goblin noises are’ at a later date, but for now just take my word for it that they were goblin noises. I slowed down and crept through a rather large bushel of leaves to see a 3ft tall green skinned gremlin of a being facing the opposite direction of me.

  As I’m not sure to what degree I’m going to be censored, it’s going to be very euphemism-y for the length of this story. I raised my stick over my head in preparation for my first burst of experience from indulging in universe sanctioned violence. It was at this point, just as I was bringing all of my might to bear by swinking my stick down, that it occurred to me that this little goblin was “entertaining himself” in the middle of this clearing. Now, as someone who was also once a young boy in a very crowded household of mostly women and little privacy I couldn’t fault the guy. The problem here arises from the fact that I now live in a universe controlled by game mechanics, and it just so happened that my epiphany prompted it to comment.

  As you can imagine, this startled me causing me to stumble and completely miss my goblinic foe. Credit where credit is due, he (I was now painfully aware it was a he) recovered rather quickly and let out an angry shout that echoed through the forest. I couldn’t help but vocalize my dismay.

  “That can’t be good.”

  As much as I’m annoyed by having a system with a built in sense of humor I would find this absolutely hilarious at any other juncture. But as anyone born into a life of privilege learns when reality inevitably smacks them in the face, it's not so funny when it's happening to you.

  That’s fair. I summarily drop my stick, cut and run for what very well may be my life. Luckily my friend of significant goblinitude was far too busy arranging himself into a less vulnerable position to give chase immediately. Unluckily, I can hear a cacophonous amount of goblin noises not nearly far enough away for comfort. I trip on an unseen root and roll right next to a hollow under a very large tree.

  If I survive this the first thing I’m doing is looking into making these pop-ups situation sensitive.

  It takes all of my self control to keep my ‘No’ in the form of an inner monologue as a scramble forward and hide myself under the roots of this enormous tree. I curl up in a ball with my head against the ground and thank all that is holy that I sleep in camo-wear most nights. What feels like an hour but realistically is more like 10 minutes, passes by. I hear a non distinct but definitely large number of humanoids of the goblitudinous nature scurry by and am, for the first time, greeted by a welcomed pop-up.

  I uncurl myself from my admittedly undignified position and stand up and stretch. All things considered I’d say that worked out quite well. And then I make a rookie mistake.

  “Well that went well.”

  I look to my left to see none other than Goblin Pete the meat beater holding a very unfriendly looking set of daggers and an even less friendly looking grin.

  “Yea… I deserve that.”

  Understandably, his face scrunched into a rictus snarl and threw one of those mean looking daggers at me. It nicked me on the side of my torso.

  This is usually the part where I'm supposed to start musing about how the pain blazed or something, but realistically it was a cut. I’m fine it just doesn't feel particularly good.

  This is usually the part where I describe to you how blinding the pain was , but it's a cut from a dagger, you know it hurts so I'm just gonna save it. I’ve got time for one last play.

  “Any chance you speak english and can be reasoned with easily?”

  Let the record show that I died as I lived: trying and failing.