Empire of Keys 1-6 (2021 Preview)

Hey Guys! You might think wow 6 chapters already, but it is the same length of about 3 of my regular chapters. I would also like to warn that this is in the third person which may or may not change if I actively work on this fiction.

Chapter 1

Cliff moved the mop in the same circular motion for what felt like the nine thousandth time that night. Just the mopping alone took most of the night but he still had to empty more than a thousand different trash cans for several hundred offices. Cliff actually looked forward to the times when an office made it through the day without throwing something away, but those were few and far between. 

Cliff was on the bottom floor having finished his section of the building and was on his way to return his keys for the night. Just the thought of having to repeat this tomorrow nearly made him sick to his stomach. The feeling quickly passed however as the thought of his daughter made him grit his teeth and march on. It was just the two of them now, Cliff’s wife had passed nearly a decade ago shortly after their daughter had been born. 

The sad part was that his wife had been from a well-off ex-noble kind of family. They had met in college and it was love at first sight. Of course when her family found out that Cliff was an orphan that was trying to get a degree in graphic design they had tried to force her to cut off all ties with him. Thankfully, the woman had a backbone made of steel and refused the order, thus getting cut off from the family. 

Cliff had just made it back to the maintenance office when a rumble shook the building. Their city had frequent earthquakes so he wasn’t too worried, the building he was in was supposed to be one of the best in the world for this kind of thing. Plus, if something did happen to him his daughter would collect a million dollars when she turned eighteen. He had been very thorough about teaching his daughter about what to do if something happened to him. 

As Cliff opened the cabinet where what seemed like several thousand keys hung, the building shook again. This time it didn’t stop and a box that was resting on the cabinet slid off then struck in the head before he could react. As the world went black, the sound of tinkling metal struck him as oddly loud. 

~~~~~

Cliff jerked his eyes open, as he felt something was very wrong. He looked around but nothing really struck him as different other than a few extra cracks in the walls around him. As he moved his arm to brace himself he jerked back as what looked like a solid gauntlet covered his arm. Strips of metal almost seemed to flow as if the piece of armor had grown rather then had been crafted. 

Surprised, Cliff quickly sat up then reached over and touched the armor with his free hand. When his fingers touched the metal a transparent screen appeared in front of him. He stared in even more shock as he looked at the information displayed. 

Dear Cliff Rain, 

It is a pleasure to inform you that your world has changed. As you were not conscious a brief introduction had been left for you. GRASP THE KEYS OF POWER. Any keys that you possessed during the change has been converted into power. Your world is no longer safe but a safe haven has been created so your race does not die out. Please head there if you feel you are unable to handle the change. 

NOTE: death is the only way to lose your keys, so do not die. 

Name: Cliff Rain

Level: 1

Age: 29

Strength: 109 

Agility: 79

Intelligence: 153

Materia: 99

Abilities: 

1. Reinforce body

2. Fireball

3. Conjure Weapon (sacrifice weapon)

4. Quick Steps

5. Locked

6. Locked

7. Lock...

Completely bewildered, Cliff sat there just staring at the screen. The list of abilities extend for what felt like a mile. As soon as he touched the gauntlet, his mind had seemed to open to knowledge, and he felt he could think faster than before. There was no additional information offered with the ability names so he had to hope they meant what they said. 

Worry instantly covered his face as he jerked up, his daughter! He couldn’t sit here he had to get home to his daughter! He went to stand up when the ground cracked under him from the force he accidently used. He took a calming breathe before he stood up more slowly. 

“This is going to be a bitch to get used to,” Cliff murmured to himself. 

He looked around and found one of those wrenches that were used for boilers. It easily extended a meter in length and was a solid steel. He went to lift it then nearly put a new hole in the wall as he again underestimated his strength. He concentrated then thought the conjure weapon with the wrench as the target. The wrench faded from view as if digitized, he examined his state but couldn’t sense any difference. He concentrated again then used the ability again. The wrench reappeared only it had turned a midnight blue with streaks of green running through it. Cliff just shook his head as he had no idea what that meant. 

Cliff turned around then made his way out of the service room. He expected to see the entrance to the parking garage but was met with the view from the top floor window. He noticed a man curled up next to the wall with a hollow look on his face. He knew the man as it was his boss’s boss’s boss… several layers of boss in the title. 

“Mister Paul, what’s wrong?” cliff asked carefully. Paul just pointed towards the window. 

Chapter 2

Cliff walked over to the window to peer out as the building was quite high. When he did he nearly stumbled back from the horror of what he saw. Cliff had seen hundreds if not thousands of horror and apocalypse movies in his time but this seemed to reach a new level. He quickly moved his hand to cover his mouth in case he vomited. 

Where the usual city should reside, a twisted version now took its place. Some of the buildings looked as if they had aged hundreds of years from the damage they had. Flames leapt from the ground in areas, the nearby buildings burned, which caused a tremendous amount of smoke to be released into the air. 

In what used to be a car garage next door, some type of twisted forest had grown. To call it a forest was already a stretch as there was only black thorns the size of cars that had ripped through the building. This was only one example of a bastardification of the city that he had called home for the last fifteen years. 

Movement on the street caught Cliff’s attention. He focused on a group of people that were coming out of another nearby building that was much shorter than this one. They were quite obviously injured as several of them were limping, at least that was what Cliff thought until one of the men that was limping jumped onto a woman in front of him then bit through her juglar, blood sprayed all over the pavement, and more of the, as I realized, zombies crowded around the woman.

Cliff probably would have stood there all day if the thought of his daughter being in the middle of this didn’t fill him with more dread than he had ever felt before. He tore his gaze from the outside back to his boss, previous boss. The man was still curled into a ball next to the wall, a large puddle around him. 

If the women that always gossiped about their amazing boss could see him now, Cliff wondered how they would take it. Cliff had to admit that Paul was pretty good looking, but looks probably weren’t as important now as they were before. Many values were about to change for many people and it was imperative that Cliff reach his daughter before something unthinkable happened. 

“Mister Paul!” Cliff shouted to break the man from his trance. 

“Huh! Wh… what… what do you want?” Paul asked nervously. Today he was supposed to broker a deal that would have made him nearly fifteen million dollars and now the world had broken somehow. 

“Did you have any keys on you when the change happened?” Cliff asked, obviously keys were the new gun in this world. 

“N… No…” Paul shook his head. Everything he owned was fingerprint encoded to him, even his car. Keys were lanky and annoying so he made it a habit to change anything that needed a key to some form of technology. 

“Surely you have a key to something in your office?!” Cliff asked a little taken aback. He had to lug around almost a pound worth of keys on some days and this man didn’t even have a house key. 

“Wait! I do have one!” Paul shouted excitedly as he remembered. Paul jumped up, filled with new energy then ran into his office. Cliff followed behind him. Paul made his way to the giant desk that was the size of Cliff’s bed back home then started pulling drawers out. In the fourth drawer, Paul reached in then pulled out a ornate box. Curious about what kind of key needed such a nice box Cliff moved over next to him. 

Paul lifted the lid slowly. Inside was the key he had gotten from when the building had been completed. While it probably no longer worked completely, before it would have been able to open any lock in the building. Paul reached forward slowly, just as he touched the key a flash of grey light filled the room. We turned our gaze to Paul’s right hand where a bracelet had formed. Cliff stretched his head as head took in this information, apparently, the more keys the bigger the piece of armor. Cliff took a closer look at Paul’s bracelet it looked like it had gears, hammers, and a table engraved in a circle. 

“You, ah, what’s your name?” Paul started to say then realized he didn’t know this person’s name. 

“Cliff, sir. As of this afternoon I was a janitor employed by the company, but I feel like that doesn’t matter now,” Cliff answered honestly, as he had no reason to lie. 

“Cliff, then, What should I do now?” Paul asked relieved he wasn’t alone in this hell. 

“When I woke, I touched this,” Cliff said as he lifted the gauntlet up, “Then a bunch of information was displayed for me.”

“Got it, thanks.”

Paul touched the bracelet with his free hand. Cliff couldn’t see anything displaying but he knew there was something there as Paul’s eye grew a bit wider. Paul looked at the status screen in bewilderment. 

Name: Paul Winter

Level: 1

Age: 31

Strength: 11 

Agility: 12

Intelligence: 35

Materia: 20

Abilities:  Crafting Lv.1

Paul stared at the screen much like Cliff had for several minutes as he tried to grasp the meaning behind the little bit of information. He could kind of guess why he got the Crafting ability from the key as his company was a large manufacturing firm. He tried the ability to see what would happen. Objects on his desk started to light up and information became superimposed next to each item. 

Paul grabbed the letter opener, stapler, and a few other objects. He set them down on the desk in a small pile then focused his ability again. The pile melted into a ball then a number appeared next to it. Paul moved by instinct as he pressed his hand against the ball and focused on sending energy into it. His body started to feel a bit weaker, much like he had ran a bit or climbed some stairs. The number next to the ball started to go down. 

When the number hit zero, there was a bang and a knife rested on the desk, as if it had just been made. Paul picked it up then tested it out. He was a complete novice but even he could tell that the balance needed work. He pointed the tip at the dart board he kept hanging on his wall then pushed a slight depression in the handle of the knife. A needle shot out, then drove into the board just at the edge. 

“Nice, you can create weapons!” Cliff said with a bit of admiration. 

“I think more than just weapons but yes,” Paul said with a small smile. 

“Mister Paul, what are your plans?” Cliff asked as he got an idea. 

“Plans….” Paul said as he stared out the window in his office. 

“I have to find my family, so I’ll be leaving sooner. I feel like we’ll be safer in a group, so if you want to come with me if you want to reach your own family. I would be more than happy to accompany you.”

“Family… sadly, my company has been my wife for the last few years and my parents passed a few years ago as well,” Paul said as he sat down in his chair, the thing looked more like a throne than an office chair. 

“There are supposed to be safe havens, we could make our way for one of those, or maybe even make our own with your crafting ability.”

Paul laughed, “I doubt I can do that, but… Alright, I hang with you until something changes the game board.”

“Don’t worry, I can protect us,” Cliff said than lightly kicked a nearby chair. It flew as if a pro baseball player had thrown the gaming winning pitch then slammed into the wall. It shattered into a hundred or so pieces. 

“That’s reassuring.”

The two looked at each other then shook hands in agreement. They left the office heading for the stairs. Cliff had just set his hand on the doorknob when a screen popped up in front of him.

Chapter 3

You are about to enter the Tower of Ruin. Would you like to enter as an individual or as a party?

Cliff examined the screen for a moment. It may have been a few years since he had really gamed but he knew this was likely a dungeon of some kind. A place designed to challenge the player for rewards or some kind of achievement.

Cliff turned to Paul and said, "there is some kind of trial ahead."

"Alright. After you," Paul said with an apologetic look.

"Party," Cliff said to the door then watched as it swung open on it's own. The stairwell that he expected with traps or a monster did not appear. Instead, they stepped into a hallway that looked like it was changing into a cave. A single torch burned on the wall barely giving off any light. 

They walked forward slowly as they tried not to make any sound. They got to a corner and Cliff held his hand up. He peeked around the corner to see if there was anything up ahead. A couple meters around the bend, there stood a creature of some kind. 

At first, Cliff thought it was a person but upon closer examination found that it was an insect that stood on two feet. Two long scythe like blades made up its hands and most of its arms. The reason Cliff got confused at first was that it was wearing a suit. A suit that had to be worth several thousand dollars. Cliff backed away and moved right next to Paul to explain what he saw. 

"Maybe it's a human who got a special power?" Paul suggested. 

Cliff considered that then said, "considering the door, I think it might be safer to assume that it's a human that got turned into a monster. "

Paul blanched but nodded, "true, alright. How do you want to play this?"

"Let me go first. I want to test some of my abilities," Cliff said after a moment. Paul nodded then gripped his knife a little tighter. 

Cliff thought of the Conjure Weapon ability and a moment later the giant wrench appeared in his hand. Just to be safe he used Reinforce Body skill. Cliff noticed there was a slight drain of some kind but he barely felt it. He walked around the corner without pause and braced himself. 

The creature sensed him immediately as it spun around sickle leading. Cliff paused as once the creature started charging him, the world seemed to slow down. The creature was moving ridiculously slowly. Just as a test, Cliff moved the wrench in the path of the creature. 

Suddenly, the world accelerated back to normal and Cliff was met with the sound of something dripping. He looked at the wrench. Green blood was dripping from the wrench. He looked past the weapon and saw the creature's upper torso had vanished. The part where it would have been connected looked as if something had torn the upper half brutally. 

Exp +10-5(Party), (Strength Key +1)

Cliff paused when the transparent screen appeared for a moment. When he finished reading it, a ball of light flew from the monster into his gauntlet. The whole process made him think of a video game, he found it ironic that the things that humans made to pass the time were now being used against them. He walked back to Paul. 

“Well… that was a let down,” Cliff said to a wide eyed Paul. 

“You… You… You vaporized it!” Paul said with horror in his voice. 

“Yeah, having a hard time getting used to this thing,” Cliff said as she shook the gauntlet.

“What the fuck?! I just thought you had a special key or something…” 

Cliff explained what happened when the world changed. He had never been bored enough to count all the keys that were in the maintenance office, but there had to have been nearly a thousand if not more. They turned back to the hallway and continued on their way. Paul had to stop and close his eyes several times, taking deep breaths so that he didn’t vomit. 

“If you kill the monster you get a key so it might be a good idea for you to take a few,” Cliff said as they made their way. 

“Thanks for the tip, but I’m not sure I could handle it,” Paul said as he shook his head. 

“I’ll tank for you so that you can grab one or two,” Cliff said. He was too worried as he had almost too much power at the moment and he wanted to create a last relationship with Paul. Cliff didn’t know if it was his increased intelligence stat or what but he knew that the ability that Paul had was quite powerful. 

“Tank?” Paul asked. It struck something in his memory but it wasn’t coming to the fore. 

“I’ll hold the monster’s attention while you kill it.”

“AH! Sounds good. Thank you!” Paul said with a grateful look. Paul may have been a CEO but it had mostly been his Father’s work before he died in an accident a few months ago. He had left everything to Paul, and much to the stockholders surprise he had managed to make them several profit margin increases since taking over as he was able to pull in quite a bit of young customers and businesses. He had learned at an earlier time that you needed to treat everyone as your equal or you might get stabbed in the back later. 

They made it to another turn in the hall. Their eyes were starting to hurt from the lack of light cast by the torches. Cliff peeked around the corner again. He observed pair of the insect monsters. He tightened his grip on the wrench then shot around the corner. The world slowed down again as he moved as fast as he could, a moment later he stopped as he vaguely realized that he had completely passed the monsters. In fact, he had bulldozed right through one with his wrench, on accident, as he passed. The other creature looked around confused then his antenna clicked. It turned around and charged at Cliff. 

“Go ahead! I have it’s attention!” Cliff shouted back to Paul. 

Paul peeked out around the corner then hurriedly ran towards where Cliff was smoothly dodging what he considered clumsy swings. Paul ran, his knife leading the way. The creature noticed at the last minute that something was coming up behind him and was about to turn when Paul slammed into its back. The knife dug deep into the back torso area. The creature made a loud screech, Paul quickly pulled the knife out and stabbed the back of its head. 

The creature stopped moving and slowly slid to the ground. Paul looked at his hands in horror. They had been covered in the creatures blood during his attack. Paul turned and ran over to the wall, he bent over and vomited. Finally, after he was only dry heaving, he managed to pull himself up. 

Paul:EXP +15(10+5 Party),(Materia Key +1)

Cliff:EXP +15(10+5 Party),(Agility Key +1)

“Fuck this shit!” Paul growled as he slammed his hand on the wall. 

“Yeah, I feel you. For some reason, I’m unreasonably calm for all this shit going on,” Cliff said with a shrug. 

Chapter 4

They continued to make their way through the floor. They really didn’t have any trouble. There was a close call when one of the creatures bent its arm in a weird way and almost impaled Paul through the stomach. Cliff was able to catch it before it moved too far but it was a close call. They were on their fifth group, the number per group had risen and they were fighting four of them. Of course, Cliff was able to pulverize anything that touched him but Paul still had trouble stomaching the killing. 

When the last one died, the now familiar screen appeared in front of them. 

Paul:EXP +15(10+5 Party),(Materia Key +1)(Strength Key +1) Level up!

Cliff:EXP +15(10+5 Party),(Strength Key +1)(Intelligence Key +1) Level up!

Cliff looked at his status screen when he saw the level up notification.

Name: Cliff Rain

Level: 2

Age: 29

Strength: 112 

Agility: 82

Intelligence: 154

Materia: 101

Abilities: 

1. Reinforce body

2. Fireball

3. Conjure Weapon (sacrifice weapon)

4. Quick Steps

5.  Sense

Paul also checked his but nothing had really changed except his attribute numbers were higher from the monsters they had killed. 

The pair ran into one last group at the end of the hallway. There was a door behind a much larger version of the insect creatures as well as two of the regular version. As Cliff peeked around the corner he got a weird flow of information that entered his mind. He could vaguely tell that the two normal monsters were level 1 and that the larger one was level 2. 

Cliff mentioned the change to Paul.

“You said another ability got unlocked right maybe its from that.”

Cliff considered that, then nodded and said, “I want to try out the ability I haven’t used yet.”

“Go right ahead,” Paul said without pause. Since the floor had begun, Paul knew he probably wouldn’t have survived if it wasn’t thanks to this man. 

Cliff peeked back around the corner then concentrated on his second ability. He was still trying to get used to just moving around without breaking anything so he hadn’t really tried this one out yet. He felt the now familiar energy leave his body. A small ball of flames formed over his palm. He swung his hand towards the group of monsters, the ball sped towards them much like a bullet. One moment it was in his hand, the next it was right in front of the monsters. 

There was a ‘boom’ as the fireball collided with the center monster. A sphere like explosion spread from the impact and engulfed the other two as well. There was only a moment of shreeching before the monsters collapsed into ash on the ground. Three balls of light flew over to him.

EXP +13 (13 Party) (Materia Key +2, Formless Blade Key +1)

Cliff looked at his stats again but couldn’t see the Formless Blade, so he had to assume that it was a skill that had gotten locked due to his level being too low. Paul moved around the corner with his mouth gaping, he secretly made a pact not to get on Cliff’s bad side. Cliff was about to close his status screen when he saw a new icon at the bottom, it looked like a chest with an open lid. He focused on it and another screen popped open. There was only one icon in this that had the image of a sword. 

Cliff concentrated on the image, and in his free hand another weapon materialized. It looked just like a long sword from medieval times. There was no special markings or unique traits, leading Cliff to feel a little disappointed. He looked between his wrench and the blade, he really couldn’t decide which was better as he was a novice in combat no matter what weapon. Cliff decided to just use his Conjure Weapon on the sword as well, with a jerk the weapon flew from his hand into the wrench and nothing else happened. 

Cliff put his wrench away then used the ability again. This did the trick as when the wrench emerged it had a blade sticking from the end. This made him pause and wonder if he continued sacrificing weapons to the skill would he eventually not be able to use the thing. He just shrugged then pushed on the door in front of him. 

The pair looked around as instead of stairs they had emerged on what would have been the next floor down. The pair blanched as the thought of having to fight through almost a hundred floors to reach the bottom of the tower crossed their minds. They looked around to see if anything could be used, Cliff was alright but Paul was actually starting to get hungry as he had emptied his stomach a few minutes ago. 

They were about to enter the fourth office when they heard a sound from inside.
 

Chapter 5

Cliff pushed the door open slowly, and the sound, which turned out to be whimpering, grew louder. He moved into the room as he tried to find the source of the sound. Paul entered behind him then with a flash he remembered who’s office this was. 

“Miss Eliza! Are you in here?!” Paul shouted. 

“Mister… Mister Winter?” a voice sent back. A head slowly peeked out from behind the desk, her make up running from the amount of crying she had been doing. 

“Eliza! Thank god you’re alive! Where is everyone else?” Paul asked. At this time of night there would usually be at least two or three people that had to stay for overtime. It sounded harsh but Paul made sure they were volunteers that wanted the extra income. 

“They… They… They changed!” Eliza screamed in horror. She had been taking a break with her co-workers for some much needed coffee when the building shook. They didn’t think anything about it as earthquakes while rare did happen on occasion here. Suddenly, there was a flash of light and her co-workers that were standing next to her were pulled bodily into the stairwell by some unseen force. When she ran after them the door wouldn’t budge not matter how hard she pulled. 

She happened to glance out the window and saw the city had changed into some nightmare landscape. A building exploded right as she watched and she was able to see several dozen bodies get flung from the upper floors completely on fire, if the fall wasn’t enough to kill them the burns most certainly would. Eliza had collapsed to the floor and crawled back to her office to hide under her desk. 

“It’s alright, Eliza. This man, Mister Cliff, here can handle any monsters that come our way. Not to tute my own horn but I’ve managed to kill a few myself,” Paul said to try to calm Eliza down a bit. 

Eliza looked over next to Paul to the other man in the room, he looked around the same age as her at roughly 30 or so years of age. He had black hair that was kept cut close to the scalp. He actually looked quite handsome to her. She blushed at the thought of finding someone handsome at a time like this. She really couldn’t help it, with this man standing next to her blond and fit boss, they seemed to make the front cover of a magazine. 

“Miss Eliza, did you have any keys on you when the change happened?” Cliff asked. 

“Keys? No. Ah, but I do have some in my purse!” Eliza said then pulled open a drawer of her desk. She pulled out a purse that even to Cliff’s untrained eye had to be worth several thousand dollars. Cliff wanted to sigh at the amount of money these two had to throw around on things when it felt like he was barely making ends meet while working at the same company. 

Eliza reached into her purse and her finger brushed her keychain. It had her house, car, a few miscellaneous that she had somehow collected over the years. When her fingertip touched the keys, the grey light that two men had seen in Paul’s office flashed out again. Eliza screamed as she felt something moving along her hand. She jerked her hand out of her purse then stared at the glove that had formed on it. 

“You need to touch it with your free hand,” Paul advised her. Eliza did as he said and the transparent screen appeared. 

Name: Eliza Hayes

Level: 1

Age: 26

Strength: 7

Agility: 9

Intelligence: 15

Materia: 15

Abilities: 

1. Create Water

2. Barrier 

Eliza quickly explained what she saw to the two men. Cliff’s borrows furrowed as he tried to figure out how Keys were decided. Paul however was depressed that she had gained two abilities when he only had the one. 

“Did you have a key related to water in some way?” Cliff asked.

“Water… my locker down on the beach, I store a swimsuit and surfboard there,” Eliza answered after a moment. 

“I would assume either your house key or car key gave you the barrier.”

“Probably, I can’t think of anything else that would correlate like that,” Eliza agreed while nodding. 

“Alright, lets try out your new ability, Create Water, I’m thirsty,” Paul suggested with a smile. They moved over to the water dispenser that hadn’t been filled yet, as it was just the night shift. Cliff was about to pull it off when Paul rushed forward and did it himself, “Sorry buddy, you touch it then it will be crushed.”

Cliff groaned but dropped his hand. He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t moving faster when he normally walks but maybe his brain was using his increased intelligence to control it a bit. Eliza looked on curiously but didn’t say anything. Paul held out the jug and Eliza placed her gloved hand over the hole. She concentrated on the ability then felt some… thing leaving her. A gush of water shot into the hole as well as all over the floor and Paul. It lasted for a good thirty seconds or so before the stream died down. Eliza had to point her hand down the hallway half way through as the jug was full. Paul placed the jug back on the dispenser then grabbed a paper cup and filled it up. 

“WOW! That is some of the best water I have ever had!” Paul shouted after he had drank the cup in one gulp. 

“Really?” Cliff asked then got some for himself. Eliza also poured herself a cup. The both gasped after they had finished their cups and shouted, “Amazing!” at the same time. They looked at each other and laughed. 

An explosion outside the building brought them back to reality. They looked at the window just in time to see the large building a block away reduced to rubble in a matter of seconds by some large creature that seemed to be turning it into a nest of some kind. Cliff crumbled the cup in his hand then glanced down to see it had been turned to a plup from the pressure he had used. 

“The city isn’t safe, we need to leave as soon as possible,” Cliff paused to look back at the creature, “Eliza, I recommend you join us for now, once we get somewhere safer we can part ways but I think more numbers will be safer.”

“Oh, Thank god you offered, I was about to beg to come along with you two,” Eliza said then blushed as she realized that it could have been taken the wrong way. 

Cliff nodded then said, “Then let's go, if the last stairwell was any indication then we’ll have to fight our way down.”

Chapter 6

~~Nearly 80 miles away and several hours ago~~~~~

Lily was out of school so she was heading over to her mother’s cyrpt. She always came here to play or talk about her day as her dad had to work late into the night. He of course did several things to make up for it, sometimes at the cost of his health and she knew that she had one of the best fathers in the world.

The crypt belonged to her mother’s family, she had heard it was unwillingly, but they had buried her here after her dad had begged them. Normally, it was locked but the gravekeeper had taken pity on her when Lily used her patented puppy dog eyes on him so he gave her the oldest key that he had for the crypt, sometimes it was hard to use especially on cold but Lily powered through. 

Lily was bundled up warmly and was tired from school so she had accidently fallen asleep next to her mother’s coffin. A rumble was what awoke Lily from her nap and she noticed that it was dark outside. She needed to get back home to cook for her dad, otherwise he wouldn’t eat anything. As long as it was made by her, he would make the effort to finish it. 

Suddenly, another rumble happened and pieces of debris fell from the walls and ceiling. Lily screamed and covered her head. A grey light overtook her for a moment then a message played in front of her.

Dear Lily Rain, 

It is a pleasure to inform you that your world has changed. GRASP THE KEYS OF POWER. Any keys that you possessed during the change has been converted into power. Your world is no longer safe but a safe haven has been created so your race does not die out. Please head there if you feel you are unable to handle the change. 

NOTE: death is the only way to lose your keys, so do not die. 

Lily read the message several times trying to understand it. As she read it for the fifth time she glanced at her right arm. A child sized gauntlet had formed over her arm, she knew it was a gauntlet as her dad had taken her to a renaissance fair a year ago. The gauntlet looked… evil to Lily. It had wicked looking claws with weird symbols that ran along the fingers up to the wrist. Lily took a deep breath to keep herself calm then reached over to touch the gauntlet.

Name: Lily Rain

Level: 1

Age: 11

Strength: 5

Agility: 5

Intelligence: 35

Materia: 11

Abilities: 

1. Necromancy

2. Barrier 

Lily read the information several times trying to understand it. As she read it for the seventh time she gave up. Lily was still sitting on the ground so she stood up carefully, it was hard to see with the light gone from the sun. Her now gauntlet arm grabbed the lip of the coffin to pull herself up. 

Lily suddenly felt something leave her body. Then a terrible screech echoed out from the coffin next to her. A bluish see through body emerged through the lid of the coffin. Lily screamed back then threw her hands in front of her, a transparent wall appeared in front of her. After nothing happened for several long moments, Lily opened her eyes that she had shut. The see-through body was still floating there but was just looking down at her. 

Lily dropped her arms and the light faded. She looked closely at the figure and realized it looked like her mother from the pictures that her dad kept. She was always thankful that her dad was open about her mother, she had seen a lot of movies where the parent can’t bare to see them once they were gone, as it caused too much pain. 

“Mo… Mom?” Lily asked hopefully.The figure just floated there without making a movement. 

Lily tried again, “are you my mother?” she asked with a little force.

This time the figure responded with a nod then a shack of its head. 

Lily looked a little annoyed, “What’s that supposed to mean?!” she yelled though it was more cute than anything. 

The figure only shrugged as it rubbed its neck, “So you’re not able to talk. Well, I’m sure dad will know what to do!” Lily said firmly with a finger pointed at the ghost. It nodded. Lily was about to leave to go home and wait for her father when the ghost waved both hands urgently. It didn’t know much more than the little girl that had somehow summoned it but it had a certain… knowledge. The ghost floated over to another coffin and gestured. 

“What about Granddad?” Lily asked confused. The ghost pointed at Lily’s arm that had the gauntlet then to the coffin, “You want me to do the same thing?” Lily asked and got a nod in reply. She moved over to the coffin then set her guantletted had on the lid, she waited for a few seconds, “Nothings happening…”

The ghost made a face like she was deep in thought with her hand directed towards the coffin. Lily made the connection, she had played some of her Dad’s old games and a few of them had necromancers in them. While they were usually the bad guys, there were a few times were they were on the good guys side. 

Lily thought of her necromancy ability then turned her focus on the coffin in front of her. She felt the flow of something leaving her when her mother came back, and was able to follow it into the coffin. A good minute went by with nothing happening. Lily was about to ask the ghost again when a loud ‘crack!’ rang out in the crypt. Lily quickly backed away from the coffin as it sounded like this one was much more present then her mother. 

The lid of the coffin exploded into pieces as it was flung off. A skeleton hand reached out then grabbed hold of the edge of the coffin. It pulled itself up slowly much like a rusty machine that hadn’t been used in a while. Cobwebs broke and fell off as a tall skeleton, clothes completely rotted off, stood then stepped down from the coffin. It moved in front of Lily then kneeled. 

“Granddad?” Lily asked. She only got a black stare from a skull that had two blue flames for eyes. Lily reached forward to touch the skull with a weird sense of curiosity. She had always like the creepier things, at least since the first Halloween that she could remember. When her gauntlet touched the skeleton’s skull, a screen popped up like the one from earlier. 

Name: Lily’s Pet (Undead Skeleton)

Level: 1

Age: N/A

Strength: 12

Agility: 10

Intelligence: 3

Materia: 5

Abilities: 

1. Materialize Weapon

2. Materialize Armor (Locked)

“Did the world become a video game?” Lily asked out loud with a mixture of excitement and a little worry.