Two days had passed since Jim woke up. He stank, was covered in blood and ached like a freshly beaten piece of meat. In his time recovering he fell in and out of dreams, one that stuck with him was a memory of his old walk back home from school, back when Earth was his Earth. He’d stop in at the local butcher Riley O'callahan's on a weekly basis, the old man was always beating ten bells out of thick slabs of steak whenever Jim walked through the door. In his dreams the steaks were all wearing NASA overalls, and let out screaming yelps and curses as the old man clubbed the Steak Jim's flat as pancakes.
The ache ran all the way from his neck down to his spine from where the raptor had shaken and bit into his armour. The bunk he woke up in was part of many in the thrown together hospital at the Verastor Docking Co. Combining the injured crew from the attacked Cariba, along with the few injuries dished out by the escaped Cycloraptor pack, the company had opened its long out of use medical wing adjacent to the cargo yard.
Jim had needed plenty of time to recover as the basic health potions only closed his exterior wounds. Proper potions and healing magic were a rarity outside of the cities and guilds. Combined with Jim’s lowly level 1 status there was no magical way to heal him quickly. Many of the other patients protested endlessly during their time on the med wing and being forced to rest didn’t seem like a common practice in this world. Jim observed a mixture of motives from the other injured, from wanting to get back to their families, back to earning coins or to join the team hunting for the attackers. Jim however enjoyed his time being doted on and cared for. He wasn’t one for rushing medical recovery, especially in this case, after all he had pretty much died.
According to the game guide what he’d been through wasn’t a full death though. In the rules, if a player of Kaldoria dies they get a random chance to survive based on, and Jim couldn’t believe this part, a dice roll. The fate and lives of the whole of humanity could come down to something so trivial as a dice roll. Jim believed he hadn’t gone that down the path, a real path of death.
His visit from “The Reclaimer” was something that Jim struggled to fully remember in depth. That short time in the pool of water was hazy and hard to focus on, as if it shouldn’t exist in his mind. All he had to solidify the memory was real and not a deathbed hallucination was the small brass key in his inventory. He examined it several times over the days in his bunk, trying to force his mana into his skill to reveal more information.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Item: Brass Key
Rarity: ???
Use: ???
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It never showed more than the name of the item.
Jim took advantage of his time in the medical wing, studying his game guide and exploring his options for the foreseeable future. He knew that he needed to gain power, knowledge and, to Jim’s disdain, heaps of political and social influence to try and unravel the mystery of the calamity.
Jim hated the thought of being a socialite. At NASA, being an engineer, his actions were proof of his worth and respect. Not his promises. Jim was a doer, and doers get things done. He defined processes, invented tools, changed assumptions and proved his theories. Over and over he always pushed his mental, scientific and creative limits to solve problems, and now he might have to… brown nose, kiss ass! The thought physically made him feel a sickness in his stomach.
By far the biggest issue Jim had however, is that he had no clue on where to start. All he had at this moment was a group of strangers who saved his life.
A quick solution to his problem, he thought, may have been to get himself back up to the ISS and send a message to Dux. Surely he could ask for a steer in the right direction? Another issue crossed Jim’s mind at that moment as the only way to get back up there, from what Dux had explained, was to respawn and he didn’t fancy the idea of taking his own life. At the minute he couldn’t do that anyway, as one crucial part of the game guide pointed out.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Upon death at level 1 a player will die a true death.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That didn’t need any more explanation.
Jim talked to some of the other patients in the ward over his time there. A rather grumpy dwarf called Donny had given him the low down on the whole true death situation. Explaining why all of the low level people, from 1 to 5 are usually held up in the cities trying to keep safe from the outside world full of monsters and other deadlier foes. Once you hit level 3 you get to set a respawn point and are brought back with a heavy level and experience reduction. In some cases players have been known to come back at half their previous level, rounded down. It appeared even though you could respawn, the cost of doing so was so large that every battle was fought as if everyone’s true lives depended on it. Jim knew he needed to level up fast, else the only person with the knowledge of the previous version of Earth would be gone forever.
Jim continued to study the game guide, delving into the depths of the Thief class. There were some very cool abilities laid out in the future for him, although the nefarious nature and means of acquiring these were all extremely vague. He’d have to actually play along with this new game world, it’s all its glory and gore.
After a therapeutic back massage from a steam powered roller ball he equipped his gear, this time deciding to swap out the heavy dwarven metal boots for his “Sneaky boots”. The thin all black lightweight boots fit his feet like a warm embrace, and resembled the form of the classic Air Jordan 1’s all the rich kids had worn when Jim was a kid.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
He took a few steps around, followed by a couple of hops.
“Light as a feather” He said smugly as the old pair of armour boots blew into a wisp of dust, floating into his watch.
Just as Jim tucked his hammer securely into his belt he heard a creek of woodwork from above him. Looking up at the ceiling, between the struts and rafters of the building two unblinking eyes stared. In a flash of blue and green a small chimpanzee dropped from the ceiling above him in a thump.
“Hoggle?” Jim questioned.
With a huge smile the ape jumped in an agreeing spring and stretched out his hand to Jims.
“How long were you up there?”
Ignoring Jim’s words Hoggle grabbed him by the hand and started to drag him out of the room.
“Guess we’re going somewhere?”
“Ahh, ooh ooh” Hoggle replied as he let go of Jims hand and ran on all fours out of the room, waiting at the door for Jim with a beckoning wave of a hand.
Jim followed the Ape, they walked back through the central cargo hub of the ground floor, out of the entrance and across the street.
It must have been late into the evening as the street lamps and campfires around town were being lit by teams of workers. Some doing the manual task of lighting torches, others firing small fireballs from their hands into the harder to reach street lights.
Hoggle pushed open the saloon doors of a building bustling with activity inside. The place was packed, there must have been maybe 40 to 50 people inside, all different races. There were tables of people drinking and telling tales, games of something similar to poker happening around the edges of the room and a wide open dance floor filled with people line dancing. At the very rear end of the room a band playing steam driven string instruments and drums jigged and moved to a rhythm.
“What the… oh right!” Jim said in confusion.
He mentally opened the game guide and scrolled to settings, turning the music setting back on.
The room filled with noise as Hurdy-gurdy country music blasted into Jims ears.
“Ow, ow ow!!” He flinched.
“Where’s the damn volume option?”
In a submenu he found the volume slider and slide music down to around 60%.
Gaining his bearings he saw Hoggle waving at him, he was at the right hand side of the room sitting on a barstool.
“A bar? Yes!” Jim said, showing a thumbs up to Hoggle.
“You little legend, are you paying too?” Jim said as he rustled the hair of the chimps head.
“Ahhh oooooh oooh!” Hoggle replied laughing with a shake of his head.
“He won’t, but I will. Glad to see you’re feeling better.” Mae said as she patted Jim on the shoulder, taking the barstool next to him.
“I need to say thank you, I assume that massive sabertooth tiger looking thing I saw pounce on the raptor was this fella?” Jim nodded in the direction of Hoggle who was drinking a flagon of beer far too big for his mouth.
“Aye’ that was him. You got really lucky you know, we got to you just in the nick of time” Mae said with a serious tone.
“I know, I need to get my level up.” Jim said with a deep exhale.
“You also need to collect ya’ loot. I gathered it up and put it in my office.” Mae said as she took a swig from a small glass of what looked to be wine.
“Ah yeah i forgot about that, I’ll grab it tomorrow? Did I get anything good?” He said as he picked up a pint of beer from the bar.
“Wait, where’s the barkeep?” Jim asked.
“Magic bar.” Mae stated.
“As long as you put the coin down it’ll serve you the drink ya’ wantin’, picked it up on a hunt for a Nobblegobble a few years ago.” She said.
Jim spat out his beer over the bar.
“A what?” He smiled in a giggle.
“A Nobblegobble.” Mae looked perplexed at Jim's reaction.
“They’re notorious for raiding small towns and stealing anything higher than Rare rarity, they gobble everything up in their cheeks and hide in deep underground dens. Great source of loot if you can find them.” She took another sip of wine.
“Ha! Great name!” Jim said, taking another long gulp of beer.
“Anyway, did you at least level up some skills fighting that raptor?” Mae asked pryingly.
“I did indeed!” Jim said, finishing off his beer and whipping away the foam from his beard.
“This beer is amazing, I used to hate the stuff too.” He said as his glass floated into the air to begin refilling at the tap.
“I told you, magic bar, honestly one of the best things I’ve ever gotten my hands on.” Mae said as she clinked her wine glass again Jims as he grabbed it.
“Tonight I want you t’ take it easy, tomorrow you’ve gotta start paying me for tha’ raptor you killed. It was part of a contract and you fucked us on it. You owe me 145 silver coin for tha’.”
“Christ, ok.” Jim said as he sipped the top of the fresh beer.
“Twill and Filbert are around here somewhere, they’ll introduce you to the rest of the team you’ll be working with. You’re off to do some trainin’ and snag me some monsters for a contract.”
“What? But I’m not a fighter? You saw that, right? I can make stuff sure. I have a few ideas for making some quality of life improvements on the dock, the cargo bay, the town! Ever heard of a Tractor, or forklift truck?” Jim said in a panicked voice.
“That won’t get you level’d up kid, you’ve got t’ fight, and monsters are the best way to do that.” Mae patted him on the shoulder again.
“When you get back, we’ll talk about what improvement ideas you have. Those better not have been made up to give you time to run off though..?” Mae said with an interrogating stare into Jims eyes.
“No I swear!” Him exclaimed.
“Good, I'll hold you to make improvements if you have skills. Now go dance or something, or maybe get a shower first, you smell like the backside of a bloody Skunkenferter.” Mae said.
Hoggle quickly finished off his flagon of beer and jumped onto Mae's shoulders. As they walked past the ape gave Jim a quick slap over the head and blew a raspberry at him, laughing as the pair walked through the crowd towards the saloon doors.
“You cheatin’, half witted, scalebellied oaf! Shouted a familiar voice from the other sound of the room.
The crash of a table, followed by the rolling sound of coins filled the room as the band fell silent.
Filbert had flipped a table, and was shouting in the face of a mammoth of a Draconid.
“Time to go make some friends then.” Jim said to himself as he finished the beer and started walking over to the group.