Second Chance | An Original Fantasy Quest [REBOOT]

The Moth nodded. "Very well. I think that will be all."

Nemo nodded in response, certainty dripping in his gesture. "What would you have me do?"

"I would tell you to let Fate guide you, but…" the Moth averted its gaze, in a mixture of cringe and non-malicious schadenfreude. "You'll do well. I can't quite tell, but looking at you makes me confident."

"Thank you. I'm ready."

The Moth snapped its fingers, and Nemo flew.

A lurching sensation caught hold of Nemo's stomach, his entire body being pulled downwards at such speeds that it took her a few seconds to realize he was moving at all. There was nothing but black for a few minutes. Then, there was a flash.

His vision swam through millions of different shades and hues of color, so quickly that his mind couldn't keep up with them, until the various colors all merged into white. A white so bright it probably would've instantly lobotomized someone in different circumstances.

It felt like he was being pulled on a string from every spot in her body, so hard he feared his body might violently and disgustingly tear at the seams. He could just picture it, vividly, like a scene from war: his scalp being ripped off, his joints detaching from the sheer force of his movement…

At the same time, though, he could almost feel limitlessly weightless, as if the forces that were pushing and pulling on him were protecting him, in much the same way as a jealous hunter protected their prey from other predators.

There was a sudden rip among all the sensory chaos, and everything was black again.

There was a tight sensation around his head, like a vice squeezing his temples to make them burst, but that release never came. It just got tighter, and tighter, hurting more and more. The sensation was familiar, too familiar.

Nemo finally allowed himself to breathe after what felt like a lifetime and a half, oxygen filling his lungs once again. His eyes hurt when sunlight shot into them, pulsing with painful throbs and waves of fire, threatening to pop out of his skull at the slightest provocation.

"Oh Gods," he shouted, grasping at the dry, coarse soil around him. It felt like he was fighting for his life, when in reality, he was just really scared. He didn't expect the experience to be so overwhelming, and while he had seen a lot during his very long life, this was unique. Almost like it was tailored to startle him in particular.

Once a few minutes of resting his eyes and mind while resting flat on the ground had gone by, he slowly opened his eyes again, to take in the immensity of his surroundings.

The maps didn't lie when they said this was a Great Wasteland. As far as the eye could see was a flat dryland, devoid of almost all life. There was no wind, no breeze, no chittering of small bugs, no distant noise of waves crashing on the shore. It was quiet, eerily so. A chill went up and down Nemo's spine.

Getting up and dusting the dirt and muck off his modest clothes, Nemo began thinking.

This place, formerly known as Bubhash Nul, was the epicenter of the worst disaster to grace Asterius, the Magic Calamity - second only to the Great Undead War that is still going to this day.

This terrible, tragic event happened only a decade or two before Nemo was born, but the effects were still very fresh even during his childhood; old technology malfunctioning, magic backfiring violently, old people mysteriously disappearing all over the globe…

But it did something to the place Nemo was currently in.

The tunnel system below this wasteland was now a magic ecosystem, loaded with so much mana to supply the entire planet lavishly for a thousand generations. Edible rocks, glowing macro-mushrooms, new lifeforms spawned solely from magic and surviving microbes, and most importantly, it created Freeform Mages.

The craziest motherfuckers around.

Nemo smiled to himself at the thought of possibly meeting one of them - in his travels, he'd never been here, nor had he been in the caves. It was almost the sole reason why he chose to come here, to the Great Wastelands. The problem now was finding an entrance to the caves, which could be problematic.

"I can't even pray," Nemo uttered to himself, kicking at a nearby rock.

And then, he walked.

He walked for a long time, longer than he realized - he had zoned out, at some point, and when he came to, he realized the two suns had gone down, the beautiful firmament of stars had come out, and the temperature had gone down noticeably. He was used to zoning out while walking.

Being completely unnoticeable meant there was surprisingly little that posed a threat to one's well-being, except maybe cliffs and bear traps. He knew from experience.

He decided to sit on a big rock that was next to him to take off his boots. As the shoes came off, he let out a fat sigh of relief, wiggling his toes. His calves were tense and his feet hurt. He didn't have any blisters, fortunately, but his heels felt as though they had been rubbed with a wooden cheese grater, minus the splinters.

Nemo looked up, at the cloak of evening above him. In a place with no artificial light whatsoever, the night sky was gorgeous. All the stars lit up brightly, with something resembling a teeming consciousness whenever they were looked at.

Endless nebulas of colors - like an artist's canvas - and distant swirling galaxies shone in the sky, the constellations twinkling among the beautiful sceneries of the visible cosmos. The lines that made up the constellations were visible here. Few places on Asterius allowed such a breathtaking sight.

When Nemo went to put his shoes back on to resume his search, he found that the boots were a few meters further than where he'd put them.

"Huh. Weird."

He stood up, and where his feet should've found ground, he found a hole.

"Oh no!- Not agaaaaAAAAAAHH!"

And he fell.

He slid down a surprisingly smooth rock slide for what must've been thirty, almost forty seconds, all the while yelling at the top of his lungs in a mixture of fright and exhilaration. Not that it would've done anything, but if no one could hear him, why not yell anyway?

Nemo hit the ground very hard, in a small chamber that was full of people. The glowing rocks in the room around him flickered when he impacted the soft floor. He noticed it was padded with mushrooms.

"What was that?" one of the men said, looking around.

"I felt that too," the only woman in the room replied, nodding at the man.

"Did something pass through the cushioning barrier?" The man who had spoken initially approached the place where Nemo was, ignoring him completely, to check the exit chute of the tube the unlucky Fateless had just been shat out of.

Nemo got up and quickly walked out of the way, in a corner of the room, to allow the people to do their work.

The man lifted a hand and hovered it in front of the hole. His palm began glowing, and a bunch of runes were made visible on the surface of the smooth slide. "No, it doesn't look like it," he said, after a few seconds.

"Then why did the lights flicker?"

"I have no idea, Jun.."


Nemo's (un)lucky encounter with a desert turtle opened the way to him reaching the Cave Civilization of the Wastelands. Due to a bad initial roll, he walked for far longer than he assumed, and he is now Tired. You have 6.5 Fate Coins (join the Discord!), but nothing to purchase with them yet.

What do you do?

[ ] Stalk the Mages - Stay and observe. There might be more to find out before he does anything around here.

[ ] Attempt to Communicate - Nemo has a few ideas on how to communicate, especially with mages that are supposed to be on the caliber of low archmages while casually spellcasting.

[ ] Leave the Room - Go and explore on your own.