It's a routine recruitment day in F.I.X.F.I.C, the multiversal exception handling agency. Today, a particular sir will receive his recruitment letter, and the world will see what may come of him as an agent of Good...
From far away, the trained scriers and omen-recorders determine that he's not busy at the moment, and dispatch a messenger.
Nate (or Mud as he is tending to go by nowadays) is indeed quite free at the moment, currently seated at his living room desk, staring at a blank page that he has yet to write anything on for the last several hours.
He's been internally debating various possibilities for what to write, or really what to do to procrastinate on writing, but is sufficiently indifferent between his options that he's ended up doing nothing instead.
A tiny cobalt-blue pixie appears outside his window, holding a letter almost as big as she is. She doesn't seem to be having any trouble holding it.
She knocks on the glass, rap rap, and a little tinkle of silvery laughter filters through.
Was someone throwing pebbles at his window?
Turning to check through the gap between the living room's curtains, he rockets out of his chair upon seeing what appears to be a literal fairy, scrambling over to the window. After a moment figuring out the mechanism, he unlatches and cranks the window open.
"Hello?" He says, his uncertainty over the situation's reality tinging his voice with a questioning tone.
"Hi! Letter." The fairy's tiny voice is almost too high to understand.
She hands over the letter with both hands, and then flits back out the window.
Uh! "Thanks?"
He receives the letter, waves goodbye to the fairy, cranks the window closed, latches it, and slowly sits down on the loveseat in front of the window, staring at the letter for a long few minutes. Is it...actually addressed to him?
There is no name on the outside of the envelope, merely a seal with an image of a star.
He goes and shows it to his house-partner who confirms they aren't expecting any mail. Upon being told that he was handed it by a fairy floating outside the door, she gets a concerned look, asks whether he's feeling alright, and encourages him to make some soup and then get some rest.
He puts together a bowl of instant ramen, and while it's heating in the microwave, he finally decides to actually open the letter and give it a look.
Dear Nathan Wild
I hope this letter finds you well. We at the F.I.X.F.I.C. Agency have a job opportunity for you that we believe that you may be interested in. Contrary to what you might have expected, the multiverse is both quite real and quite accessible, with the right technology or 'magic'. Naturally, this both means that there are all the more problems to solve, and all the more options for how to solve them.
The F.I.X.F.I.C. Agency are but one amongst many groups that has access to multiversal travel and the fruits thereof. Our mission is to ensure the thriving of sapient life, with an especial focus on inserting our empowered agents into worlds undergoing great peril to 'fix' the arc of their world into something brighter and better. You in particular have been identified as likely to be especially compatible with both our empowerment methodologies and our mission.
The job is far from an easy one, but we have millennia of experience shepherding and supporting would-be heroes, and a broad selection of benefits available for those willing to undertake the task.
If you wish to speak with us in more detail about joining us, please tear the enclosed talisman, which will transport you to one of our bases, where you will be fully briefed and offered a selection of abilities and missions to undertake. Unfortunately, due to security considerations, a further explanation of those details cannot be included here, but rest assured that even if you decline, the worst that could happen would simply be that you return to your life as it was before.
If you wish to decline, simply discard or destroy the letter, and we shall trouble you no more.
Agent Asteris
F.I.X.F.I.C. Office f235bf
All preceding content is hereby certified to be true and accurate to the best of the knowledge of the F.I.X.F.I.C. organization, to be designed for honest and open communication, and to contain no geas, pact, glamour, enchantment or similar working, nor any supertechnological or esoteric enhancements to alter effective persuasiveness or the circumstances of reception, beyond your identification as an adequate potential and a discernment of minimum availability to read the contents of the letter. If you have any complaints about the manner or contents of this communication, please either discard this letter or report your concerns to Sapient Resources at your earliest convenience.
Wow.
Hm...
He stands there for a while, just considering the contents of the letter, as well as the talisman he also finds inside, before being broken from that reverie by the microwave's beep.
After he's had the ramen, he decides he should probably try and be a bit more presentable before giving this a try. It'd be awkward if he showed up to these people unwashed and in his pajamas. Worst case scenario, he shaved, showered, and got dressed for nothing.
About an hour later, he has done all those things. He's standing in the living room, dressed in a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals, his boonie hat on his head and his electronics backpack on his back. The talisman is in his hands.
He takes a deep, preparatory breath, then tears.
He appears in a dark-carpeted office. An expertly trimmed bonsai tree, which looks to be some form of teak, sits on the desk, along with a red-tinted pair of monitors. Black leather chairs sit behind and before the desk. There is no apparent entrance or exit from the room, though he can see through the windows on the north side of it a large hedge maze, over which two suns hang.
A red-haired woman of remarkable beauty sits behind the desk, wearing a well-fitted business suit and tie. A silver pen juts from her pocket, and her lips seem dyed a deeper red than should be natural, though they lack the sheen of lipstick.
"Welcome to Fix-Fic Headquarters, Nathan. I'm Agent Grey and I'll be handling your interview today."
She raises an eyebrow. "I'm certain you must have questions. I will provide what answers I can within the limits of operational security."
Lack of doors is a little uncomfortable but he supposes its natural for people who can just teleport wherever. He will try and adjust.
It really is just pronounced like that, huh?
"Being honest, I'm tempted to ask what the acronym stands for, and whether it's a backronym. I think that probably the better question might be, uh...what sort of qualifications do I have that made me-- compatible with your empowerment methodologies and mission?"
He approaches the chair in front of the desk, but doesn't sit down yet.
"The desire and inclination to help others, a good sense of how to munchkin limited power, and the ability to stay on-mission and focused. Mental skills are grantable by our organization, so we recruit primarily on the inclination to do the work, even in cases where it's suppressed by the potential agent's current circumstances."
Huh. "Fair enough."
He processes that for a while, though nothing really rises to the level of a coherent thought that he might spin into further questions.
"I think that's probably the only thing I really needed to know first, or at least the only one whose words are coming to me. I think the letter mentioned selecting jobs?"
"Yes, there are a number of them available. I can produce a list for you to look at on your monitor if you wish?"
Monitor?
"Uh, sure. It seems wise to know what sort things need doing before I pick what to be better at doing."
Agent grey points at the screen on the desk that's facing Nathan. "Here."
And then she taps a few keys, and a list of potential worlds and gear appears. (At present there is no indication that the Forbidden Vault or any world above 40 tokens exists.)
Wow, how had he missed that? He rubs his head a bit. "Sorry, I guess maybe adjusting to the reality of this situation was taking more of my attention than I thought."
He considers the worlds (with a particular eye on their primary and secondary objectives) for a long while. "Are these all going to have someone assigned to them, or is my decision here going to influence which of these is going to get help, or how soon they'll get help?"
"What you pick will actually materially affect how fast these worlds get aid, yes, but not to the degree that you might be worrying about; we have many, many agents, who are coming back and going to missions all the time, so the delay on identified worlds is on the order of a few days rather than the mission duration, which is generally much longer. We generally discourage prospective agents from rushing their choices on urgency grounds, however, as more certainty of a good outcome from a better-thought-through build generally saves far more lives and suffering."
He nods, though it leaves him a bit uncertain. If his decision had no impact he'd probably go with whatever seemed easiest, and if it was critical then naturally he'd go wherever seemed like it needed somebody the most. The fact that it's not exactly either leaves him searching for another criteria.
Ultimately, after reviewing the worlds and objectives two more times, he settles on Dualentera. He feels familiar enough with how this sort of worldbuilding can shake out, the ways magic and gods can be shaped, to have some meaningful informational advantage here, and to think that situation is solvable with the introduction of someone who is aware of the big picture and does want to solve it.
Moving on to the available equipment (and non-equipment forms of empowerment, of which there are plenty), he spends a while browsing all the options and occasionally muttering combinations to himself, and a longer while selecting and then de-selecting them, considering each one more deeply.
Finally, he arrives at his final selection: Dualentera, with Custom Body for a basic tune-up of his extant physiology, Gift of Tongues, the Dualentera-standard allotment of Basic Equipment, Light of Creation, a basic local Identity just to make things a bit less cumbersome when he starts doing proper diplomacy, a Skill Upload for military tactics and strategy at the superhuman level, the Cognitive Package since it seems like he's going to need it to keep track of everything, the Perfect Diplomatic to make sure he doesn't make any really basic faux pas during diplomacy, and his major selection, Extracalibur, to raise his personal combat ability to a level relevant to a low-level orc and give him some guidance on how to stay heroic in the midst of everything, as well as to give him the means to attack and kill the various hard targets like Deathbringer, Alzena, the pair of troublesome gods.
Before he submits his selections, he turns to Agent Grey. "I don't know if I can ask whether this seems like a...uh, if there's any obvious mistakes, I guess, that I've made? Could I go over my gameplan here with you?"
"Of course you can; that's actively encouraged, in fact. Please, explain to me your plan, since it seems you have one."
"So, in my head, I have things roughly in this order:
"First, I'll co-opt the orc horde through a combination of displayed swordplay and general warcraft skills;
"Second, I'll wheel them around towards the Drow, use the extra pressure on them from an unexpected direction to increase unrest in the drow underclasses;
"Third, I'll try and infiltrate and foment rebellion among that underclass, helping lead a rebellion against the theocrats, eventually overthrowing the theocracy and bringing the drow into alliance with the surface nations. I think I'd mostly be aiming to act as a military guy, but using my sword-granted abilities in whatever way my super-skill says would be the most effective for the war effort, modulo what Extracalibur feels is becoming of a hero.
" Fourth, splitting my time between A) helping direct a defensive coalition against both the undead and demonic armies, and B) acquiring personal power via local means and a party of peer-level combatants, to help me confront the mission-critical individual enemies.
"Fifth, find and neutralize Katauvir. This one is probably going to be hard, but I'm not really sure how to prepare without knowing more details about what his extent abilities are, and I figure some amount of information I'll just have to gather on my own after I'm deployed.
"Sixth, continue aiding the defensive alliance, using my super-skill and local advisors' counsel to determine whether a push towards Deathbringer or Alzena would be better. I'll also continue attempting to improve my personal combat ability, whether through personal improvement, the acquisition of local resources, allies capable of providing buffs, that sort of thing, before eventually hopefully engaging whichever of the two targets is easier to reach and relying on Extracalibur's absolute weapon-nature to overcome Deathbringer and Alzena's resistance to conventional death-dealing.
"Seventh, hopefully tackle whichever of the two enemy armies remains after that, including whichever of Deathbring or Alzena are left standing.
"Eighth, if I have the time, I'll try and keep escalating until I'm in a position to try and take out either of the Death God or Drow Goddess, and then eventually the other, and also maybe see if I can finagle the magical resources to invade Alzena's now-masterless abyssal realm and take it over."
"That seems like a basically reasonable plan. I think the most questionable piece is the drow rebellion, because it relies more on skills that your skill package is less likely to touch on and you're currently relying on Extracalibur to protect you from assassination. You'd have the resources to put on political pressure by then though, and could well pivot to a different enemy if need be."
Hm. "True, it might be better to let be less directly involved in a drow rebellion, just try and keep tabs on it and occasionally apply pressure from the outside when the opportunity presents itself, that internal revolutionaries can take advantage of as they see fit."
He pauses for a while to consider exactly how that changes his plans.
"Yeah, I don't think that actually changes the overall structure of the game plan very much. Probably gives me more time to focus on understanding and potentially reforming the orcs political system. Do you have any other advice? It just occurred to me, do you know Extracalibur very well as a person, and if you do, is there anything I should know about working with them on an interpersonal level?"
"Extracalibur can be a bit dour as an individual, but has a sense of humour under there if you get to know them. They view their duty to protect and uplift very seriously, but don't let that fool you; they're less uptight than they look."
She taps her chin. "If you wanted to strengthen your drow management, you might take a diplomacy skill upload rather than perfect diplomat... though that naturally has some tradeoffs with dealing with the orcs."
He nods along. "I suspect that the benefits of improving my ability to interface with drow rebels might outweighed by being in a better place to integrate the orcs, just since it seems like the latter will have a quicker turn around into meaningful additional forces against the undead and demons."
He pauses for a whole longer to see if anything else occurs to him.
"I think that's all the questions I have."
"Alright. Then there are the matters of any changes to your body, whether you wish to visit the Light Pools, and then dispatching you on your way. I assume you'd prefer to pursue both?"
He nods. "Handling my baseline health and fitness just seems reasonable, physically and mentally."
Hm. "Body tune-up first, I suppose. I don't imagine I'm at much risk of losing myself to despair in the meantime."
"I'll send you right on to our staff doctor, then. Hold for transfer..."
She taps a few keys, and the room disappears.
He appears in a small clinic, where a lab-coated doctor is mixing deep blue reagents in a chemistry set, though for some reason there's a ring of candles around it and an inscribed pentagram.
"Welcome to the clinic," says the doctor. "I'm Doctor Morning-Glory and I'll be handling your body upgrade today." Her tone is a little flat; she seems a little disinterested.
It takes him half a second to adjust from the spatial transition, but it's less jarring than the first time.
And, yeah, given what he saw in the load-out options menu, some kind of occult chemistry seems entirely plausible.
"Hello. Uh...So, what do I do for this?"
"We discuss what changes you'd like to make, and I'll mix a solution to apply them. Within near-human limits, you understand."
He nods. He had hoped there would be some kind of one-size-fits-all solution but he supposes that was a bit unreasonable.
"I figure generally improved fitness, fixing my eyes, getting rid of the diabetes, and I guess anything else that might be waiting in the wings and could pop out of my genome or epigenome on a mission-relevant time-scale would probably be a good starting point? If that all is feasible, I'm not sure how much, like--" he makes an obscure hand-waving gesture, "divination of problems I don't know the details about is included in the package."
"A general tune-up's on offer, though it's somewhat broad-spectrum. We can certainly fix what you've said so far. Let me see..."
She mixes a few vials together, and produces a deep black fluid. "This should cover that much. Any cosmetic adjustments you'd like?"
A part of him wonders whether a small pair of ornamental horns would be feasible, but he thinks better of it. Given the situation on Dualentera it would probably not be the right look.
He shakes his head. "I don't think so."
"Then let me just run a quick test..." She taps at her keyboard for a few moments, adds a small pinch of red dust to the vial, and then nods. "Okay, this should in fact cover everything; I don't have guarantees you won't develop something again, but I can give you a clean slate at least."
She passes Nathan the vial. "Bottoms up."