The Script

Five and a half months ago...

Within the void where time stood still, a white little light sparked to life. It pulsated a few times before it gradually grew bigger and brighter. Slowly shifting about, it started to take the form of a human body, until it faded to reveal a man seemingly in his mid-twenties, floating in space with his eyes closed. His head hung low, his dirty blond hair messily covering the top half of his tanned face. The man was clad in a light armor, colored ocean blue with some parts accented in black.

Magnus was his name, but he was also once known as The Bringer of The Sea's Wrath or The Righteous Shield, depending on whom it concerned.

The only movement coming from the man was his chest that slightly rose up and down, and he remained that way for what seemed like hours, until his eyelids fluttered open.

Dark brown iris on the right, soft blue on the left. The people he'd met had never failed to point out how his eyes were pretty and alluring. Right now, these eyes were moving erratically, trying to take in the surrounding and look for anything that might tell him where he was.

"Shit, did I fail?" was the first thing the man said. He was breathing harder as panic slowly set in. His last memory was of himself snatching a golden quill from the altar in the middle of The Hall of Gods, before Atlantis-that son of a bitch-planted his trident deep into his chest.

Naturally, he died after that. Or did he?

With a trembling hand, Magnus patted his chest, trying to feel the exact spot where he was stabbed. There was no hole, no blood, no pain. It was as if he had never been injured in the first place.

He looked up and around. Certainly, the place he was in was not The Hall of Gods. He was surrounded by darkness, like in the outer space minus the stars. However, somehow he could see himself even without any source of light.

No wait. It seemed like he was the source of light.

"Umm..." he hesitated. "Where the fuck am I?"

That was when a genderless mechanical voice rang inside his head.

[The Script has detected a new host. Processing...]

"Excuse me?"

[Integration with new host completed. Would the host like to rename the system?]

"Wait, what?" Naturally, Magnus didn't know where to even begin to question the voice. What was it? What was this script or this system the voice talked about? What integration? "Are you that quill I stole from the gods?" he decided to ask.

[Correct. However, the system can appear in any form the host desires. The individuals commonly known as the gods, in other words the system's previous hosts, decided to keep the system visible in the shape of a golden quill as a symbol of their might ever since their integration.]

"Oh, good to know." It was then that Magnus sensed something was off in the last part of the sentence. "Since their integration? Did they not have the system before that?"

[The system is but a piece of The Universe that has fallen into the hands of the gods, and has since then become a lower version of The Universe's mightiest force, otherwise known as Fate. To meet their goals, the gods were able to employ a tiny fraction of Fate's power using the system by writing stories of their chosen Protagonists.]

"Right. And I'm one of these Protagonists," Magnus said, gritting his teeth as memories of all the people that he'd lost flashed in his mind. They all died just to make the plot of his story more entertaining for the gods, especially that bastard Atlantis, his Author.

'Not anymore. I can rewrite everything,' Magnus thought as he wore a determined face.

[Would the host like to rename the system?]

Hearing the system asking the question again, Magnus assumed that 'The Script' had been its previous name, courtesy of the gods. However, he couldn't care less what name the system had. He just wanted to use it to tell his own stories. "It's a system, huh. So uuh...Storytelling System?"

[Renaming system...]

[System's name has been changed to Storytelling System.]

Now that the name was said, Magnus thought that The Script sounded better, but he didn't want to feel like he was using a secondhand tool. Hence, the new name.

[Would the host like to redesign the system?]

Magnus was faced with another question by the system. That made him wonder how the system worked, and how the gods had been using it. "Show me the current design."

As soon as he said that, a holographic screen glimmered to life in front of him, and words started to fill it out. Well, one word and a number, to be exact. They were located at the top left of the screen.

[Protagonist #1]

Under that title was a window of black screen, with two words written in the middle.

[POV unavailable]

Right next to the black screen was another window showing the stats of the Protagonist.

[Status Window

Name :

Race :

Age :

Level 0

XP :

Health :

Mana :

Strength :

Agility :

Perception:

Stamina :

Skills :...]

Currently, all the stats as well as the POV weren't available because there was no Protagonist selected. The whole screen for Protagonist #1 fell under the first out of three tabs displayed at the top. The second tab showed the screen for Protagonist #2 and the third for Protagonist #3.

"Wait a second," Magnus mumbled, finding something was slightly off. "Why are there only three Protagonists? Although I still don't know the exact number, I'm pretty sure the gods had more than ten of them, including me."

[As of the current moment, the host is only able to select three Protagonists, due to the low level of Divinity.]

Magnus blinked a few times. "Well, that's new. What the heck is Divinity?" he asked, although he could somewhat guess the answer.

[Divinity is a unit to determine an individual's level of influence towards the events happening in The Universe. The more one's choices cause changes and affect the direction The Universe is heading, the higher their level of Divinity becomes. As of the moment the host last encountered the gods, and due to the collective number of hosts, the level of Divinity the gods possessed enabled them to select up to three thousand and thirty Protagonists.]

"Damn, that's a lot of people with shitty luck," Magnus remarked. "So, what's my current level? And how did I get it?"

[The host's level of Divinity is seven. The average individual's level is one, and a few highly-influential figures in a single Realm can go up to level three. Although the host's actions have caused many changes in many Realms, for the most part they have been the product of the gods' plot. Therefore, the host's level stagnated for years until the host's decision to go against the gods' plot after the host's wife died. That action has increased host's level to three. However, the host's resignation to the plot after that event has once again caused the level stagnation. That is, until the host decided to defy the gods by stealing the system, which caused his level to jump up to seven. The host can add one Protagonist every two levels.]

Hearing the system mentioning the death of his wife, Magnus felt a weight dropped on him. He could still remember his dear wife's smiling face as tears ran down her cheeks before she heaved her final breath. "I love you, Magnus. No matter where in this universe, I hope to meet you again," were her final words.

'Don't worry, Alana. I'll definitely find you.'