Chapter 1: Chapter 1: It’s My Life

Dying was not a pleasant experience. Of course, the manner of my death might have made me slightly biased. Passing away quietly in your sleep might not be so bad. Me, though? I was thrown around violently as the train derailed, before being showered in broken glass and finally impaled by a stray metal pipe. I’m not sure how long I laid there bleeding out (it can’t have been long with my heart impaled and all) before passing out, but it hurt like hell the whole time. Zero out of ten; does not recommend.

What came after was strange.

I had never believed in an afterlife. I had seen way too much pain caused ‘in the name of God’ to hold any faith in the Abrahamic religions — and if there was an afterlife, what was even the point of an actual life. The concept of reincarnation was more intriguing, but if you can’t remember your past life, are you even ‘you’ anymore? No, I believed that when I died, my soul would just leave my body and scatter like sand on the wind.

Turns out: neither option was correct. Not in my case at least.

Apparently, death is just a pathway to a cornfield in Kansas! I imagine my case was somewhat unique, though. Maybe I was reincarnated, and I was simply a Child of the Corn? I should read that book at some point so I would actually know what that entailed.

Either way, I had woken up naked in the middle of a cornfield in what I later learned to be Kansas. No pain, no shards of glass, no metal pipe in my chest. I was wearing my own face, and my body still held the little scars and blemishes eighteen years of life had given me.

Beyond that, I was purple. Which was new. I also had a pair of horns protruding from my forehead and curving backwards. These were also new. I later learned that my eyes were now a bright, almost luminescent scarlet, which they certainly weren’t before.

Fortunately, I was enough of a nerd that I could recognize I was now a tiefling. Not a demon! Simply someone with demonic heritage. This either meant I now had an explanation for Grandma Daisy’s personality, or — more likely — some sort of powerful being was messing around with my DNA.

Unfortunately, knowing what I now was, and suspecting how I had become what I was, did not make me any less confused about my situation.

Fortunately, the man who had discovered my naked tiefling ass sitting in the middle of his field had a heart of gold. Rather than using the rifle he was carrying to shoot the demonic trespasser, he took one look at my bewildered face before choosing kindness. He lent me his flannel shirt to cover my modesty and led me back to his house where his wife clothed and fed me, before ushering me into a warm bath and then to bed.

This had been a month ago. In the time since, I had discovered a couple of interesting things about my situation.

First of all, I was now a magician!

I discovered I could instinctively summon a book filled with spells and instructions on how to cast them. The book could not be read by anyone other than me unless I gave them permission, and I could summon it to my hand or de-summon it whenever I wanted. Where it went when I de-summoned it, I didn’t know. I had taken to calling it the ‘Maginomicon’, simply because a spellbook as awesome as mine should have a mystical name.

The spells themselves seemed to be from Dungeons & Dragons, meaning that whatever sent me here had a theme going. Spells like ‘Mordekainen’s Magnificent Mansion’ were too specific to be from anywhere else. And oh boy did I look forward to being able to cast something like that!

I didn’t seem to have something as strict as ‘levels’, and neither the spellcasting nor the spells themselves behaved as mechanically as they would in a game. Spell slots weren’t a thing. I did seem to have something I assumed was mana though, since I could feel something being drained from me whenever I cast a spell of a higher level than ‘cantrips’.

Higher level spells cost more mana, and it was only recently I had been able to cast a second level spell; ‘Levitate’. They were also a lot more complicated, and thus, harder to cast. Since both mana cost and complexity increased exponentially, I was a long way away from casting a 7th-level spell like MMM.

Casting times weren’t a set thing either. Different spells simply had different casting times, and even if I could lower them through practice, a ritual simply took longer to cast than a cantrip. Spells with a “duration”, such as ‘Longstrider’, could also be held for much longer if I wanted to. “Concentration” spells were still only one at a time, though; for now at least.

All in all, the “mechanics” of spellcasting were completely different from the game.

I did seem to be some kind of super wizard, though. The Maginomicon held spells I recognized to be from all the classes in D&D, not just the wizard. Much to my hosts’ delight, since a simple ‘Healing Word’ and ‘Cure Wounds’ meant that they didn’t have to call the vet for Bessy when she stepped on a wayward nail. Spells like ‘Resurrection’ and ‘Wish’ were conspicuously absent, however. Which was probably for the best. Resurrecting the dead in a world where — unlike Faerûn — death was actually considered permanent could have some extreme consequences. And ‘Wish’ was… well, ‘Wish’. ‘Nuff said.

“Eve! Sweetie, could you go help Jonathan fix the fence? The storm last night did a real number on it.”

I was drawn from my musings when my hostess, Martha Kent, called from downstairs. I had been allowed to sleep in their son, Clark’s old room since he was now living in Metropolis. He tried to visit his parents in Smallville whenever he could, but his work as a journalist kept him busy.

“Sure, Martha! One second!” I called back as I sat up on my bed and cast a quick ‘Mending’ cantrip on my pillow. My horns had yet again poked holes in it. I had pretty much mastered that spell at this point, so it only took me a couple of seconds. After donning my leather boots — an old pair Clark had worn as a child — I rushed downstairs.

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“How can I help?” I asked as I jumped down the last couple of steps, eager to help my saviours and hosts in any way I could.

“The storm knocked down a tree last night and it fell on the fence. It’s an easy fix, but Jonathan isn’t as young as he used to.” She answered before placing a warm hand gently on my cheek and continuing. “I’m so sorry to ask you to help out so much when—”

“Martha!” I interrupted her as I took her hand and placed it in both of mine. “I had nothing when you found me, and considering my appearance, anyone else would have shot me on sight, much less house me and feed me. Your kindness is something I can never repay, but I’ll sure as hell try. Helping out is the least I can do.”

“Oh, sweetie,” She said with a warm smile. “You’ve been through hell and back, and we’ve seen stranger looking folks than you. It’s a pleasure to have you here for as long as you need.”

We stood there in comfortable silence for a moment before I spoke again. “South side? That’s where the fence is next to the forest, right?” She nodded.

“Well, I’m off then!” I said as I opened the door and cast both ‘Longstrider’ and ‘Expeditious Retreat’, making me a real speed demon (speed tiefling?). I didn’t have that much practice with these spells, so I had to cheat by checking the Maginomicon, but it didn’t take more than maybe twenty seconds in total. The southern edge of the fence was maybe a twenty minute walk from the house, but with my speed increased like this, I’d make it in less than five. ‘Longstrider’ had a nifty bonus effect that allowed me to run for much longer without getting tired as well.

As I ran, I considered the second interesting thing I had noticed: I knew these people. And not just because I had spent the last month living with them. I wasn’t the biggest comic book nerd, but I wasn’t exactly a normie either. I had my suspicions when they first introduced themselves, but it was pretty much confirmed the first time I watched the news and saw Superman himself smiling and waving at a crowd after having stopped a bank robbery.

And I was living with his parents.

I had later confirmed that the rest of the Justice League was also a thing. Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, two Green Lanterns, and more. Superheroes risking their lives to keep others safe, wearing a mask to keep their loved ones safe. And I knew them all. Their names, their pasts, and even some of their potential futures.

Discovering that I found myself in some variant of the DC Universe, I immediately decided that I had to come clean about what I knew and how I knew it. Not only did I put a high value on honesty, but what little I could remember about potential threats like Brainiac, Darkseid and Doomsday could save lives if someone like Batman knew about it.

Besides, I owed the Kents.

They had been curious about where I came from and how I had gotten here. I had told them that I was pretty sure I had died as a human and must have been resurrected somehow. And that I was sure this was another world than the one I had died in. But since I was so confused and overwhelmed back then, I had forgotten to mention the meta-knowledge part. Bringing it up later felt awkward, but I had resolved myself to give the full story when Clark came to visit. Which would be later today.

“Hey, Jonathan! Heard you could use some help!” I called out as I approached the man. He seemed to be fiddling with a chainsaw in the back of his tired, red pickup truck. A few meters away was the promised fallen tree.

“Eve!” His face lit up in a smile when he saw me. “Good of you to come, kid, but I’m afraid I’ll need to make a trip into town.” He held up a small white and metal part. “Spark plug is busted. Unless you got some magic to—” I touched the part with a quick ‘Mending’, and then a ‘Prestidigitation’ to clean it for good measure. “-fix it… well, damn. You’re an angel!”

“Magic is awesome.” I said with a grin. I had heard the term ‘spark plug’ before, but I had no idea what it did or how it worked. Fortunately, my magic didn’t care about that. ‘Mending’ was supposed to fix things, so when I fed the spellwork mana, that’s what it did.

“Heh! So it seems.” He grabbed a pair of safety goggles and ear protectors from the bed of the truck. “But magic or no, this thing is loud, so back off a bit while I cut it down to size.”

I obliged, and stepped back to a distance where the sound wasn’t deafening. Since it was obvious that he would take a while and I had nothing to contribute, I decided to work on my magic.

Practicing magic was largely a matter of patience and repetition. The spells themselves were created by constructing a specific pattern in my mind, focusing my intention, and feeding it mana. It was pretty instinctive after the first few times. If I cast a spell enough times, the pattern sort of ‘settled’ in my mind, and I could cast it without checking the Maginomicon. The more I cast it, the faster I was able to construct the pattern and feed it mana.

It also took less mana to cast spells I was more practiced with. ‘Magic Missile’ — which had been my go-to spell for practicing — could be cast continuously at this point; my natural mana regen outpacing the mana spent.

Because of the variable mana usage, it was difficult to determine how large my mana pool was. I could sort of feel it inside me, and I knew it was much larger than it was only a month ago. Over the past month, my experiments had determined that the more mana I spent, the more my pool grew.

The first cast of a spell also cost more than any subsequent ones by orders of magnitude. Casting 1st-level spells was easy enough, but the first time I cast ‘Levitate’ a couple of days ago, I had actually fainted. Fortunately, I had been in my room at the time so no one saw me pass out, but I imagine Martha would have been worried sick if she knew.

I decided to repeatedly cast and cancel ‘Levitate’ on myself. Being the most mana-intensive spell I could cast without risk of passing out made my pool increase faster, and it was a really practical spell that I wanted to be able to cast more efficiently. Based on how my other spells worked, I also suspected I’d be able to lift heavier things with it when I got more proficient. ‘Tenser’s Floating Disk’ could hold more than a tonne at this point! Six times more than when I first started experimenting with it.

“Well, that’s new.” Jonathan had finished chopping the large tree into pieces small enough that they could be rolled out of the way and was now looking at me. “Didn’t know you could fly.” His eyes held something that looked like… nostalgia? Maybe he was remembering when Clark first started to fly.

I grinned at him. “I’m not flying. I’m levitating. ‘Fly’ is a somewhat harder spell, so I think it’ll be a while before I can cast that.”

I was sitting cross-legged six meters in the air when I cut the spell, the remaining power causing me to float slowly down to the earth. When I got close enough to the ground, I stretched out my legs and tried to elegantly transition from vertical to horizontal movement, only to trip and almost faceplant.

“Still need some practice…” I grumbled before grinning at him. “On the up-side, this spell can be used on objects. Shouldn’t be too hard to load the logs on a Tenser’s Disk and drag them back to the farm in one go.”

He blinked at me a few times before he smiled, realizing how much easier our job just became. The truck would have needed several trips back and forth.

“That’s great! How about you start on that while I fix the fence?”

‘Tenser’s Floating Disk’ was a ritual, so it took longer to cast than other spells. But since I had a lot of practice with it — both from intentional practice and work around the farm — it was up in just thirty seconds. Since I had just gotten an hour of practice, ‘Levitate’ was much easier to cast, and manoeuvring the logs onto the opaque magic platform became a piece of cake.

Jonathan put the finishing touches on the fence while I strapped the logs securely to the disk, before we both got in the truck and drove back to the farm. He chatted excitedly as we drove, clearly looking forward to seeing his son again and introducing me to him. I could feel a little lump of anxiety gathering in my stomach, but I had resolved myself. The truth will out.