Perspective: Elias Vardas

  Setting: Nexlify office break room, 4:20 PM PST – March 22, 2025

  I’ll never forget the day my [Mana Core] formed. Seattle hummed along outside, a blur of honking cars and caffeine-fueled hustle, oblivious to the shift brewing within me. At Nexlify we’d turned that mysterious message into a running joke, tossing theories around over lukewarm coffee while churning out code and designs. Life felt normal, or as normal as it could be with an ominous cosmic riddle hanging over us. But that afternoon, in the break room, the world tilted.

  I’d ducked out of my cubicle, restless from hours of tweaking training data. My mind buzzed with an electric hum I couldn’t pin down. I needed a moment to breathe, to let my mind wander and rest, so I slipped into the break room blowing kisses at the chipped coffee machine droning in the corner. A well used microwave with a faint whiff of burnt popcorn sat on a wobbly table, in front of a window framing the city’s gray sprawl. Closing my eyes, letting the past few weeks wash over me, the tension slowly unwound. Confusion about the message had resurfaced lately, people claiming to be able to use the system and do magic. During a basketball game, Luka Doncic, forward for the Lakers began jumping around the court, waving his arms wildly before the TV cut out. Seconds later, a live feed came back and Luka was throwing glowing balls at the goals and nets, making them explode in showers of sparks and flame.

  Mine started with a warmth spreading in my chest, soft at first, then blooming outward, tingling through my arms and pooling in my fingertips. My hands glowed, a gentle light swirling into intricate, flowing patterns, familiar and alive. I inhaled sharply, caught between awe and a quiet thrill. My heart raced, but I stayed still, watching the mana dance.

  The warmth in my chest spiked, sharp and insistent, racing up my spine. The chipped coffee machine’s drone fading as my senses tunneled, fingers gripping the table. Hearing the faint hum of the microwave, my eyes fell on its scratched surface. I saw it, not just the outside, but into it. Circuitry flared in my mind’s eye, golden threads weaving loops through gateways and switches, pulsing like a living thing. The schematic clicked into place as if I had learned it before. Every pulse of electricity tickled my mind like tiny flecks of sand in the wind. I felt where the electrical connections were weak, the microwaves buzzing along the top of my brain, the air itself split and buzzed from the energy.

  The pressure hit next, right behind my forehead a screw tightening. I winced, muttering, “C’mon, not a migraine now…” But it wasn’t pain, it was something pushing, straining, alive. Images and concepts ripped through my mind like a tornado. Every thought was an epiphany, but unfocused. Concepts flooded my mind, ideas and processes, machines and connections. I began to feel reality start to shrink, my mind annihilated by the information pouring in.

  Then, pop.

  A jolt, like a cork bursting free, and the world snapped back into focus. Until I opened my eyes. A screen flickered into view, hovering in my vision—retro green text on a black background, like something out of an old terminal. It read:

  The screen blinked once, then vanished. This is it, I thought, This is the system. There must be a way to interact with it. “Character sheet.” I said, hoping it could hear me. My doubts were erased with awe and a lot of questions.

  I stared, the interface sharp yet and shimmering, like a layer I could see through. “Oh my god,” I whispered, the coffee machine’s hum swallowing my words.

  That’s when Marcus burst in, juggling a box of office supplies. He stopped dead, the box slipping from his grip and hitting the floor with a thud, scattering pens across the linoleum. Marcus’s jaw dropped, “Eli, what the hell is that?” he stammered, pointing at the glowing patterns spiraling around my hands. Pens rolling under the table, forgotten.

  “My mana core just formed, Marcus. It’s amazing! Can you see the interface in front of me?” I asked, jubilantly jumping up and further scaring Marcus.

  “Dios Mio! Don’t jump at me when your hands are glowing. Me cagó de miedo. No!! I can’t see anything except that weird shit around your hands.” Marcus ranted, eyes wide, hands swatting the mana away.

  I grinned, breathless, analytical calm warring with pure geek glee. “It’s a window that shows all of my stats and abilities.”

  “What, like a game or something?” Marcus asked, his earlier panic subsiding into annoyance.

  “Sort of, it seems to provide ways to interact using our intent or thoughts. Here roll that dry erase board over here, I will draw what I see.” Pointing at the board, littered with the remnants of lunch turned design sessions like fuzzy memories.

  After Marcus moved the board over and I found a working pen, Elias drew what he saw.

  Marcus whistled, and Dennis, who earlier heard Marcus cussing, stated the obvious, “Well that tells us nothing.”

  “Why do you say that,” Elias asked, Dennis’s grumpiness stinging.

  “What are the baselines? It says you have 10 Intelligence, what does that mean? Compared to what? Mana per hour, Stamina per hour both seem highly specific, but the rest is vague.” Dennis complained.

  “Let me try something,” Elias said, focusing on [Arcane Droneweaver].

  There was so much information packed into these few sentences, and more questions. Elias read over the description several times before copying it onto the white board.

  “Okay, the name is cool” Alicia said, the whole office now crammed into the break room.

  “It says ‘rare’ after the name, “ Marcus stated, “that means that there are degrees of professions, right? Like there could be a generic fighter class and maybe a more specialized version of a fighter?”

  “That makes sense,” Dennis continued, “and it means there is specialization within this System. If this is based on RPG-like rules, then specialization does not mean better. Eli, you DM’d a lot, didn’t you game this out one time?”

  “Yeah, it was for a math lab. Our professor said to take random variables and try to come up with a theory on how to solve them. I used Advanced Dungeons and Dragons as the source material, specifically the fighter class which had so many variants, no one knew what was better. I wanted to create a non-biased system that weighted each class by variable and stat, taking into account…” I droned on until Dennis broke my train of thought.

  “Stop sausage making Eli, just say yes, “ Dennis hated when I went on technical tangents. He said it made everyone feel stupid because I used words that no one knows about. He once told me they had a secret drinking game going, each minute meant a shot when I would go on about science or math.

  “Yes.” Elias begrudged. Defeated. I loved that project, he pouted.

  “Okay,“ Alicia giggled, her voice a balm on my stinging ego, “so rare doesn’t necessarily mean better, but I have to say Eli, this is very you. It says you can convert things into whatever you want. How?”

  “I think it is talking about the skill [Drone Link]. Let me try this out. Stand back.” I said, everyone moving to the edges of the room. “Drone Link,” I whispered, testing it. My hands trembled as Mana poured out, unbidden. The microwave jumped. Popping off the table, the appliance hit the floor, the door’s window cracking loudly. Blue tendrils of mana snaked from my fingertips, sinking into its frame. Metal groaned, reshaping. A low hum filled the room as it lifted, blue white circles glowing with power as the circular drone slowly raised off the floor.

  The drone was no bigger than my hand, lifting lightly off the ground, smaller circles glowed around the edges of its frame. Gun-ports. The drone was basically a flying gun that can be put on autopilot or I can take direct control. Keeping it running took effort, I could feel the mana pouring from me, into the machine. Thinking about the strain, my vision flared for a second and a small text area appeared.

  Recognizing the HUD, Elias was not surprised there was a view like this. The system seemed to have quantized everything about him into a character sheet. After a minute of everyone poking and prodding the drone, Elias felt a tingle and glanced down at his HUD, noting his mana had gone down again.

  “It looks like I have to spend mana points to keep drones active. Based on my recharge rate and mana pool, that gives me a max of 63 minutes. Not too bad, and based on the specific mana regen numbers, this will probably improve as I level up.” Elias mused.

  “This thing is really cool, Eli. Can you make more than one?

  “It doesn’t say anything about a limit, so I would guess yes. The strain would be substantial, just based on what this one is draining from me. My mana is down to 300 now.” Elias answered.

  The others had drifted away, the new curiosity waning against the matters of the day. Elias walked over to his cubicle, drone following behind like a silent watcher. Falling into his seat, he commanded the drone to land on his palm. As it came close, he could feel the air swirling around the little machine, faint tendrils of mana blinking and fading around the tiny circles on the top and bottom of the drone. This reminded him of something from his past, a memory of his first time as a DM.

  The session was unremarkable except for it being his first time leading a campaign. As the group discussed how to proceed through a doorway, he recalled doodling a shape along the edges of his notebook. Three circles, interlocked and connected, rotating around a central fuzz-ball. His doodles had variations of that same object, sometimes in armor, others casting spells. Now, It was also sitting in his hand.

  “The Arcane Droneweaver shapes vessels from the refuse of progress, extensions of a mind that dares to see”

  Elias ended the Drone Link, the drone falling silent in his palm, all traces of energy gone. He turned it over in his hand, looking for a way to open it, see what’s inside. It was utterly smooth and when he shook it, nothing rattled within. Twisting it in his hands, he tried to crack the exterior, its steel-like carapace ungiving. He placed the drone on his desk and thought, “Drone Link”.

  The drone immediately woke back up and Elias noted that his mana had only dropped by 5. “I can reactivate a drone after I create it. I wonder… “ he said, dismissing the drone again and focusing on his Optimus Prime action figure, sitting on the shelf. Concentrating on Optimus, he activated Drone Link and the little robot shuddered.

  Elias whooped and giggled in glee as it crackled and popped, each joint rotating as if testing itself out. Then the little robot transformed into a truck and drove forward, falling off the shelf and rattling onto the floor. It landed on its side, and like a turtle struggling to flip itself, revved its engine and spun its wheels. As a giggling Elias reached for the robot, it stopped struggling and transformed back into Optimus, righting itself once more.

  Releasing Drone Link, he picked up the toy, marvelling at how heavy and substantial it had become. Somehow, changing these things into drones makes them very durable. Magic-stuff. Roll with it, he told himself.

  He rotated and twisted the parts and pieces of the toy, now as tough as a tank, and wondered what he would do with something like this. Grinning, he activated drone link again, this time taking control of Optimus and imitating his voice, yelling “Autobots!! Transform and roll out.”

  Elias transformed his “body” and felt himself become a truck. The world was huge, towering desks and shoes stretching almost to the top of his truck. Somehow being aware of himself sitting, and aware of “himself” as a truck did not melt his brain into pudding. He revved his engine and hit the gas, the little truck drone scooting along the office carpet. Driving the drone felt natural, if he wanted to steer right or left, he just thought about it and it happened. He could “feel” the drone as it zipped around the office, causing everyone to jump up and holler at Elias to “stop” or “bring it over here”.

  Dennis, of course, was pretending he was shooting the drone, ideas of pranks and fun popping into Elias’s head. As the day waned on, Elias continued tinkering with the interface, settings and his skills. He also found out that Pulse can burn out computers, Marcus still grumbling about requisition reports and expense categories.