Lor awoke in the dark, and groped about for his phone. In his half asleep state, it took him around a minute to realize that not only was he not in his bed, he was also not wearing anything. Now, not having any pants or a shirt was how he normally slept, but no underwear? Now that was unexpected.

After the realization that he was naked, he also realized that he was sitting on bare stones. And that it was truly dark. Not the dark of a closed room, where there was a little background light. No, this was the pure darkness of the blind and underground. Sitting there in the dark, Lor tried to think of how he got there.

The last think he remembered, he collapsed into his bed after a day of arguing with lawyers as his siblings wheedled their way through inheritance laws to leave him with nothing.

“Did they have me kidnapped or something?”

The echo of his own voice startled him, coming back far louder than he expected. Standing up carefully, he discovered that while he could feel the rough wall behind him, he could not reach the ceiling of whatever place he was in.

“Well, standing around won’t get me anywhere. Just keep moving Lor, if you got in here, you should be able to get out. Probably.”

With those words of encouragement Lor began staggering through the dark cave, occasionally bonking his head on the walls and ceiling. His feet also failed to escape punishment, getting painfully scraped on the floor and banged into various ridges and rocks.

He had no idea how long he groped through the dark, possibly going in circles, before he found something different. Or that something different found him. All Lor could see was a pair of glowing red eyes, about two feet off the ground. After a few seconds of standing frozen, the eyes suddenly dashed towards him, covering the intervening distance faster than he could process. Whatever the creature was, it was furry, heavy, and had sharp teeth and claws.

Lor screamed as the creature tore into his skin. In a panic, he turned and ran, scrabbling away from the eyes in the dark as blood streamed down his arms and chest. He didn’t go far before the ground gave out under him and he fell, a second of falling before a jarring pain which stole his consciousness.

When he awoke for the second time since his arrival in these caves, Lor awoke. This time, however, not only did he have a splitting headache, but he could see. Blinking rapidly, he looked around, finding himself at the bottom of a pit about five feet wide. Groaning with pain, he slowly stood up and found that the creature that had attacked him had also fallen into the pit. It was not as lucky, however, as it appeared to have broken its neck from the impact. The creature, which he could see now was some form of oversized rat with metal claws, was very dead.

Glancing behind him, Lor let out a startled shout and jumped back, tripped over the rat and scraped his back on the wall. What had startled him turned out to be a human skeleton, in ancient armor and holding a strangely pristine dagger. Rubbing first his right eye then his left, he suddenly froze. When he closed his left eye, everything suddenly became dark again. Rapidly closing one eye then the other, he worked out that he could only see out of one eye, at least in the dark.

Having made that discovery, he carefully moved over to the skeleton and picked up the dagger. Immediately he jumped back, as his acquisition had cause the head to fall off. When the skull hit the ground, something round and wet looking rolled out of it. Bending down, Lor carefully poked it, only to yell when it was revealed to be a human eye. Looking closely at it, he nearly fainted when he realized that it was his eye, his left one to be exact. The strange purple patch in the otherwise brown iris a dead giveaway.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

Quickly holding the dagger up to his face, Lor attempted to look at his reflection in the blade, but discovered that while he could see in the dark he did not shed light and thus there was no reflection in the blade. While he was looking closely at the blade, however, sudden words entered his head.

Highsteel Dagger

Tier 3 Rank 4

It took Lor a moment to realize that the words were referring to the dagger he was holding. He also realized that there was other knowledge in his mind, aside from the information about the dagger. Concentrating, he found more words, forming something he had only seen in games in the past. A character sheet.

Name: Lor Telmrin

Tier: 0

Rank: 1

Stats:

Power: Kinetic (T0 R1)

Body: Dimension (T0 R1)

Mind: Space (T0 R1)

Energy: Time (T0 R1)

Skills:

Active

Discharge (Power) (T0 R1)

Inventory (Body) (T0 R1)

Blink (Mind) (T0 R1)

Time Stop (Energy) (T0 R1)

Passive

Absorb (Power) (T0 R1)

Dimensional Body (Body) (T0 R1)

Spacial Awareness (Mind) (T0 R1)

Looped Energy (Energy) (T0 R1)

Artifacts:

Eye of the Traveler (Bound)

Over the next hour, Lor experimented. He discovered that if he focused on something, be it material or part of his status, more information would appear in his mind. He also discovered that for each of these Skills he had an intuitive understanding of how to use it. He was also able to get a grasp of how much 'energy' he had, though no numeric representation. He also had no idea what the four stats were, or why they each had an element of some kind attached. The Tier and Rank part also confused him, but he assumed they functioned like a level would in a video game.

"So I'm in some place that has a video game like level system, in a cave, with something called the Eye of the Traveler instead of my left eye. And I am at the lowest level. Either that or I am hallucinating all of this and I am really in my room or a mental institute. I think it would be a good idea to treat this as reality just in case it is. If it isn't, I'll find out sooner or later and deal with it then. Whatever the case, I need to find food and water. Though I think I can eat that rat."

With those words of self encouragement, Lor fell into an exhausted sleep, filled with dreams of floating eyes, rats, and falling.

~~~~~

Discharge (Active): Release stored kinetic energy in a single blast targeted with a touch. Precision increases with Rank. Cost: Minor energy

Inventory (Active): You have an extra-dimensional space capable of storing inanimate objects. Size increases with Rank. Cost: Free

Blink (Active): You are able to teleport a short distance. There is a short period of time between uses of Blink. Distance increases with Rank. Cost: Minor energy

Time Stop (Active): You pause time for a short moment. There is a period of time between uses of Time Stop. Duration increases with Rank. Cost: High energy.

Absorb (Passive): Every impact, both attacks and getting attacked, stored kinetic energy. Maximum capacity increases with Rank.

Dimensional Body (Passive): Your body is not of this dimension. You are immune to lower Ranked poisons and critical attacks.

Spacial Awareness (Passive): You understand the location of everything within a short distance of you. Distance and accuracy increases with Rank.

Looped Energy (Passive): After a time, any energy you expend it returned at the rate you spent it. Time before reset decreases with Rank.

Blade Rat (Tier 1): A large and fierce rodent often found in caves on the northwestern continent. They are known for their long metal claws, glowing red eyes, and suicidal ferocity.