How long is the blink of an eye? 400 milliseconds. It seems rapid and has even generated its own idiom, "in the blink of an eye", to describe a fast event. But 400 milliseconds is quite a long time. A hummingbird’s wings can beat 28 times, a car can easily travel 41 feet, and sound can travel 450 feet in that amount of time.

  So the blink of an eye isn't really all that fast. In some cases, one could say that the blink of an eye is an eternity. It certainly seemed that way to Marcus today.

  He'd gone to work just like any other weekday; back to the trudge through necessary steps to do the few things he truly enjoyed. While he loved the challenges he got to solve and the pure creativity of writing software, most of his time was consumed with niggling little details that simply had to be taken care of but which provided no joy. Ah, yes, this bit of input had to be cleaned by removing carriage returns; this bit of code needed to be accessible from this other bit so a dependency had to be added; a few hundred emails were necessary for the main clients to decide whether to take route A or B. Work was largely just a daily grind with few moments of inspiration or design involved.

  He started with his daily hot chocolate which was undoubtedly not helping his weight issue because he still refused to drink the foul sludge known to many as the nectar of the heavens, aka tar or even coffee, and gone straight to work.

  Unlike many of his colleagues, Marcus had grown up in a middle-class family so he was quite a bit more insular than even the normal programmer; he just wanted to get his work done to get paid. So, he didn't linger around the kitchen and chat, or sit at the table in the dining area and read the newspaper, or even walk around greeting people unnecessarily. Instead, he simply went to his desk and checked up on the tests he’d run overnight. His latest change-set failed only 17 tests … these were almost certainly random failures so he’d re-run them on the cluster and be able to submit the changes before lunch.

  After setting up the next test run he started checking the emails he’d received overnight from peers across the world: yes, Project A was still on-time; no, Pete wasn’t quitting, he’d just been sick from the flu; no, Marcus wasn’t going to become a project manager; yes, he could help inspect some changes that were getting weird test results; etc. A typical start to his day.

  But just before lunch Marcus got the results back from the latest test-run and a new test had failed. The report just called the test “Universe Inversion”. That seemed like an odd name for a compiler test. So, Marcus blinked.

  Marcus blinked again. He closed his eyes completely.

  It wasn’t often that one blinked and the scenery in front of them changed. The blink of an eye is so fast … but sometimes it isn’t. What Marcus saw when his eyes opened after his first blink was impossible. Instead of his left monitor, Marcus’ sight revealed a red-headed woman with an hourglass figure in a pink satin dress standing alone in a room with blue flowered ivy upon the walls.

  So, of course, he blinked a second time. Disbelief, nay impossibility, causes fairly predictable reactions. When his eyes opened again he saw the same woman in the same room, so he closed his eyes entirely to re-think what had just happened.

  Nope; I’ve got nothing. This is totally impossible. What in the fuck just happened? Did I die? Maybe another plane crashed and instantly killed me in the office? Does the afterlife really have buxom women just waiting in random ivy-covered rooms to greet all the random schlubs who show up? Where are the angels, St. Peter, or the pearly gates?

  Fuck. Fuck me. Whatever this is; I guess my old life is now over. Ah, fuck. Guess I’d better get it over with.

  Marcus opened his eyes slowly and embarked on … whatever … this new adventure would bring. Since the woman was an uncomfortable distance away for normal conversation, Marcus stood up from his office chair and walked over to her. As he was walking, he noted that she had green eyes and was just a few inches shorter than him. Her foot was tapping in the Greek sandals she was wearing. She looked to be about the same age as him: around 25 to 30 years old.

  “Hello, I’m Marcus.”

  “Hello, I’m Phoebe. I’m here to help you to choose your skills as a Traveler and transition you from Earth to Marin. I’m sure you have lots of questions, but unfortunately we don’t have a lot of time. Here in the interstices between universes time flows oddly and you are needed sooner rather than later upon Marin: civilization is under attack and every minute here corresponds to ten years there right now. You’ll only make your own life unpleasant if you take too much time trying to figure everything out. Are you going to be okay with the fast-track?”

  “Uh … sure. Just answer me one question: will I be able to return to Earth?”

  “No.”

  “Fuck. Okay. Nothing else much matters. Let’s get started.”

  “Please think ‘Status’ and you should see a status screen much like in your Earth’s role-playing games.”

  After he thought status, Marcus was presented with an abbreviated RPG status screen in blue. It hovered just in front of him like it had somehow been placed directly in his vision. When he turned his head to the left or right or rotated his eyes around the screen stayed centered and perfectly legible. It appeared to be about a foot in front of his nose.

  “There’s not much there ...”

  “These are just your base stats. When you regenerate health your Vitality and Constitution will go up increasing your health regen and total heal. When you regenerate mana your Wisdom and Intelligence will increase, and when you regenerate stamina your Metabolism and Endurance will increase. Formulas are available by thinking ‘Mana information’ or similar things.”

  “Got it.”

  “You’ll need to be thinking whether you want to keep your name, Marcus, or change it while I explain the rest.” Phoebe took a quick breath then continued. “Marin is a world of skills, unlike your Earth. When a sufficient number of people master a new skill, their collective knowledge is detected by the goddesses and we sort that knowledge into different skill levels.”

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  “When a new person then increases their understanding of that skill area, they eventually reach a threshold in their knowledge and gain the next level of understanding in that skill. You could say that they ‘leveled up’ the skill. Whatever experience and knowledge they applied to learn the skill, they get a static set of knowledge that was sorted into the new skill level by the goddesses.”

  Marcus interrupted: “So, learn and use skills and I’ll be gifted knowledge from the collective group of people who’ve used the skill in the past?”

  “Yes, that’s a succinct way of putting it. In order to gain levels for yourself and increase your health, mana, and stamina capacities you’ll need to level up your skills. Before personal level 10, you’ll need 3 skills at the new level to raise your personal level. After level 10, you’ll need 5 skills at the new level to raise your personal level. This distinction is made because level 10 unlocks a huge bump in power unlike any other – people below level 10 are in serious danger of dying, so we goddesses gave a little help to get that most-important power bump.”

  Phoebe squinted at Marcus and said “So, the importance of which skills you decide to increase can not be overstated. I’m going to let you choose your initial 10 skills shortly, after which I’d like to transport you directly to Marin. If you’ve chosen a name now, I’ll enter it for you and you can start searching through the list of skills available for Travelers by thinking ‘skills search’. Once you’re done selecting your skills and I’ve transported you, you can come to one of my temples and I’ll answer what questions I may.”

  Marcus thought for a few seconds then responded, “I think I’d like to be called Alexander Carpenter.”

  Thinking skills search Alex saw a blue menu with an obvious search bar and tons of skills already listed below. It looked something like this:

  I’m going to a world with magic. Alex thought. There is no way I’m going to rely upon a melee or physical process when I can defy the normal laws of physics. Swords, bows, axes, or even some Shaolin-monk style of martial arts simply aren’t for me. I’ll look for magic skills by searching for ‘spell’.

  Search: ‘spell’.

  Spell language information.

  Okay, well that’s pretty sparse but I definitely will be wanting to create my own spells so I’ll take it. I’m not sure why some of these others are on here, so I’ll check one out: Reading information.

  Ah … I guess it makes sense that since there’s a spell language that reading is connected with it. Probably the ‘X’ language skills just mention that the skill uses magic to help the person understand that language – speaking of which:

  “Phoebe, will I have a basic understanding of one of the local languages or do I need to invest in a skill to understand what people will be saying?”, Alex asked.

  “Oh, you’ll be given a basic understanding of the three most common languages which are Himmen, Phreneme, and Word. If you want to learn other languages quickly, you’d better pick up Language Basics. The first level gives you a very small spoken vocabulary so that you can converse in any language, and the vocabulary and knowledge of written forms only increase as you practice in any language. Also, you’d better take Identify so that you at least know the value of things. Everything else is really optional, but having something to make money with like Potions and Herbalism or Sword Crafting and Blacksmithing is a great idea. You typically need to use the products from one skill in a second before you make enough money in a day to keep yourself going.”

  “Thanks, Phoebe. I’ll probably take Potions and Herbalism and Language Basics.”

  After a few more minutes of searching and quickly reading each description, Alex ended up choosing the following ten skills:

  Phoebe said “You’re done! I’m transferring you now. I’m the Goddess of Change, so come find me once you’re settled and I’ll help out with a few questions!”

  Alex blinked ...