His vision populated with more text once the first had faded, these new ones black-on-blue instead of the floating gold text that had initially greeted him.

  That was a lot, especially all at once. None of them carried any context for what the selections were and there definitely wasn’t any mental flash of information on what was up with that last box. Everything locked but one thing…was it something about him? Some unspoken hurdle he hadn’t cleared before his death? At least it was going to make his choice easy enough for that category.

  Is there a way I can get more information on these? Jay thought. Uh. Expand. Enhance. Extended display. Details. Read more.

  That didn’t seem to be working. Jay was beginning to think he should have gotten more details about how the System magic worked from Kalras. He tried repeating the instructions out loud, but that didn’t work any more than thinking them had. Maybe it worked like a touchscreen? He put a hand out and tried to touch one of the boxes. It didn’t feel like anything in particular, but did move as long as he didn’t try to pull his hand backwards. Lateral movement only, apparently.

  Jay separated each of the boxes into its own corner, tapping the first one where the close button would have been on a normal browser window. It worked, for some reason, and the choiceless box twisted in on itself and vanished. Since closing the window had worked how he’d expected it to, Jay knew exactly what he had to do to get more information out of these.

  He started with the Incentive window, just in case he was wrong. If he didn’t get the extra information he wanted, he’d just get the thing he was going to get anyway. He jabbed a finger at the entry for the Blessing of the High Goddess and held it there for a few seconds, only lifting it when another window bubbled out into his view.

  What the hell? Was that supposed to make actual sense, or was it one of those things that would only become clear later? It did say that he should make the other choices before doing anything with it, so maybe that was right. And why was it written in gold text? Well, when in doubt, take the easy route and all that.

  Jay quickly stabbed the selection screen then took a second to look at the golden orb that popped into his hand. It looked like there was a glittery mist inside, or maybe a particularly sparkly sandstorm, swirling around inside a nest of glowing golden light. It was mesmerizing, if he was being honest with himself, and it took an actual effort of will to tear his attention away. That window vanished as well, wrapping around itself like a scroll furling into nonexistence.

  He resisted the urge to look back at the orb. He didn’t have a place to put it, resorting to dropping it on the ground with a small squelch, and put one foot over it so he couldn’t forget it was there. What to choose from next? The things that seemed more important or the one that seemed less so?

  I’ll save the big ones for last, he decided. He opened the expanded windows for each of the item choices.

  There were too many good options. Jay’s brain nearly short-circuited. The Cloak was probably the worst thing on the list, but could still be useful. He was worried about potentially spending the Coin despite how useful its ability seemed. The Fortress could be very useful, but only if he managed to avoid making a scene out of summoning a building at random. Unless that was normal here? The Crystalband sounded a little bit like a lightsaber with the color changing, and having any tool ready to use immediately could definitely be useful, but “bonded to the user’s soul” was suspiciously vague and vaguely ominous.

  The Panacea Stone was the safe option. He should pick it. Jay knew he should pick it.

  But it hadn’t been a sickness that killed him last time, and he didn’t think he’d ever been the kind of person that got sick easily, even if he couldn’t fully remember why he thought that. Who knew how rare some of these things were? Maybe this would be the only chance he had to get something cooler than just an extremely effective pill.

  Screw it, he thought, selecting the Crystalband. Tools are useful for more than just a fever. The name turned out to be very appropriate, as it looked like nothing more than a clear crystal bangle that didn’t quite meet up at the back end. It was rigid right up until it touched his skin, when it slithered up his arm to nestle just above the crook of Jay’s elbow. Huh. Magic.

  He moved on to the passive ability selection.

  The repeated references to dungeons were interesting. That probably didn’t just mean a few underground cells. Jay had a sinking suspicion it involved a gauntlet of monsters or threats, maybe even traps like something involving a conspicuously celebrity-shaped archaeologist. What did the modifiers mean, though? “Fallen?” “Warped?” “Overgrowth?” What did that mean for something like this?

  They all seemed useful, with the possible exception of [Sense Undead], since he’d probably have something similar enough to that to do the job as part of the default necromancer abilities. Wait, why was he having to select all of these before seeing the normal array of abilities anyway? If there was something like that already included, what would have happened if he hadn’t thought it through and doubled up on the ability? That didn’t seem like good design.

  Finding cities didn’t seem like it was worth wasting something like this on, sensing areas with high concentrations of death didn’t seem like something that would be useful unless he really wanted to be a stereotype, and whatever the Unlife stuff was, Jay didn’t want anything to do with it.

  He tapped [Sense Magic] and moved on to the last choice.

  These options were shockingly straightforward. It was like all of – what had Kalras called it? A System? – the System’s creativity had gone into the details of the other choices he had to make. There was only really one choice, though: [Minor Healing]. Jay still didn’t know where he was on Halea or how far he’d have to go to get somewhere with a decent standard of life. He needed a way to stay alive until then.

  He tapped it and the box twisted away just as all the others had. Only now, there weren’t any more waiting behind it. Now, he could see, hear, smell, feel the world beyond. He saw gnarled trees and dark soil, heard sticks snapping and leaves rustling, smelled imminent rain and heady mold, felt the humidity in the air and the mud beneath his shoes. It all slammed into him now that the System’s boxes were gone, nearly overwhelming him by pure sensory feedback.

  And then it all shut off again as a new box spun into Jay’s vision.

  That one vanished quickly and Jay got another brief flash, even shorter than the last one, of all of the sensations again before it was shut out again by a new pair of boxes.

  Summary sheet, Jay thought. An interesting thing to call it. But those numbers aren’t very good.

  There had to be a way to increase those. He’d have to find it at some point, maybe in the detailed version, but it seemed like he had a full life to do that in. Minus twenty-some-odd years, at least. He had time. Jay pushed the summary sheet out of his vision, barely noticing as the health and mana sections became permanent-but-translucent additions to his vision, and took in the full breadth of the new world.

  It was a swamp. A wild, overgrown expanse of swamp, without even a hint of a ruined boardwalk or structure to imply civilization had ever been in the area. As he looked around, Jay realized he was standing on the only patch of dry land in the area, and it looked like every stick in the area had washed up there. Dry-ish, at least, given the odd muddy squelching under his feet every time he shifted his weight. The smells – it was mold and a faint salty tang mostly now that the rain smell was gone – were almost too much for him now that they weren’t being swept away by System notifications. A wind blew, not cold but not really warm either, and one side of Jay’s jacket blew open.

  Wait. Jacket? Wasn’t he in a fantasy world now? Jay tore his eyes from the surroundings and did what he probably should have done immediately: took stock of himself. Pants? They looked like black dress slacks but were far more comfortable than any pair of slacks could ever be. Shirt? Literally just a plain black long-sleeved shirt. The texture felt like dry wicking material but everything else about it screamed that the shirt was too thick to actually be an athletic shirt like that. The aforementioned jacket? Also surprisingly modern, but not a type of jacket he was familiar with. At least it felt waterproof.

  No fantasy clothes for him, then. Not that he minded; there’d be plenty of other chances to get some once he found other people here. Every fantasy town had a market. Every real town had some way to get local clothes anyway. And maybe this just was what they wore. No way to tell yet.

  His senses paused again and Jay’s thoughts ground to a halt. Another one? No box appeared to deliver any new selection screen. He just hung there, stuck with a view of the creepily bare trees scattered throughout the swamp, and absolutely nothing else. It lasted for exactly long enough to get worrying and for thoughts to show up about being stuck like that until someone or something came along to break him out of it.

  Then something appeared. A box that hung in his vision, but not one that looked like any of the others that he had seen. This one was a deep black with virulently red text. It felt ominous even before Jay began reading it.

  The frozen state ended and, even though he was pretty sure he was imagining it, Jay would have sworn the wind that resumed was suddenly much, much colder than it had been before that particular box had shown itself. The small display with his health in it became fully opaque as it ticked down one, then faded back to its transparency.

  That had definitely not been in Kalras’s binder.