1 The dice spin

I'm not crazy, I'm not crazy, I'm not crazy! as Mark opens his eyes again the dice are still there being shaken in the air in front of him. A quick glance around shows that no one else seems to notice the larger than normal percentile dice dancing around in the air. When he moves his head the seem to move around with him so they stay in his field of vision. What the hell, he mutters to himself, why are these dice here and why cant anyone else see them. "Like what you see? Dont listen to what other people say bigger is always better." Mark flinched as the mental voice spoke to him. "Damn I thought I could get you to scream like a little girl" laughed the voice. "Who are you?" whispered Mark, his eyes darting around in quick sweeps across the room. "You can just think back to me and we can talk like that, wouldn't want anyone thinking your crazy just yet." The smirk practically oozed through the mental voice. "Fine, who or what the hell are you?" said Mark. "Oh that's an easy one to answer." The smirk still showing strong. "I am the god of all things ever changing, luck, chance, or you can just call me the god of dice since that is my favorite way of manifesting my power." A glance at the dice shaking around sobers mark up. "So I take it those are your dice then?" "Wrong!" the voice shouts. "Those lovely babies are in fact your's Mark. They are made with my power indeed but they can only be rolled by you." "Okay, so what do they do and why did I get them?" "Hmm well that's both easy and hard to answer... the easy part is they can grant your deepest desires ... or doom you to eternal failure. The hard part is this world is going to get much more interesting. There has been a spike in mana production by Earth over these last few years and it seems like she is about ready to wake up. While that is good for the other gods and I, it's really not so great for everyone and everything that is living here. You see we are able to feed off and process this mana but most of you humans and wildlife cant. It shouldn't be to much longer before the tipping point is reached and stuff starts to mutate." "WHAT!" Mark shouts out loud. As he notices people starting to stare at him for his outburst he quickly put his head down and pretends to look at his phone. "Well it's not really a scream but I'll take it" The voice seems to be amused by his outburst. "Look the reason I decided to pick you for the dice is because you are one of the few humans that can actually use mana and I like the way you take risks. Dont let it go to your head though there are other gods picking other humans just like you for their own reasons right now as well." Mark feels like the room is starting to spin a little and stumbles to a seat to sit down. As the dizziness starts to fade he decides to ask the god another question. " Can you give me a time frame on this tipping point?" The voice seems to withdraw for a few moments then says "If it continues at this rate I would say you have maybe a month or two before the first signs of mutation start appearing." "What happens when Earth wakes up all the way and how long will that take?" "Hmm that's a little hard to pinpoint... it could be a few decades or just a few years. At the very least she shouldn't wake up for about 8 years but if I had to guess it would be more like 15 to 20 years. As for what happens when she is awake fully.. not much. Mana will be at an all time high and while she is sentient to an extent think of her as more like a baby. Content to just lay there and look about. Maybe in a few more hundreds of billions of years she will be able to start acting but she is still pretty young still." Mark is floored by all this information but decides to try and get as much information as he can while he has the opportunity. "Will the mana ever recede again and things go back to normal?" "Unfortunately no these mutations will be permanent. This will be the new plateau of mana levels for the next few thousand years. Dont lose hope just yet though, if humans can avoid getting wiped out, with each new generation you will adapt to the mana more and more. Think of it as kind of starting over again at the stone age. Humans will need to lay the foundation for future humans by slowing learning all the new laws this world will have to offer. Sometime far in the future maybe humans can sit at the top of the food chain again and live freely but I'm afraid very soon you guys will find out just how very far you have dropped down that chain."