Now what? Was there a character screen as well? He tried thinking the word status with some kind of intention and sure enough, a much more substantial blue window popped up in front of him.

[Name: Wulf Bergström

Class: Berserker

Level: 3 (554/1000 XP)

Health: 10 / Mana 10 / Rage: 0/5

Attributes:

Current (Max)

Strength: 3 (12)

Agility: 1 (10)

Resilience 2 (12)

Vitality 3 (15)

Willpower 5 (12)

Intelligence 6 (8)

Wyrd 12

Paths (0/6)

Spheres: 0/2

Perks:

Chosen of Uhir (Neutral)

Wanderer of Worlds

Cursed with the Red Fog]

Wulf of course recognized most of the terms from his extensive gaming. Health seemed to be on the low side, Rage was something to build up and he somehow had a current attribute score, and something called an attribute max. The limit to which he could train his attributes, he assumed.

Fascinated, he dug deeper into the menus, concentrating on the individual terms in front of him. After some time of experimentation, he found out that he could get short descriptions of most of the items on his list.

[Wyrd: bad and good luck, fate, and the measure of how intertwined your Wyrd is with those of others touched by fate.]

A luck-stat? He hated those, but there was more going on here. For example, the fact that it was the only attribute without a maximum. And the fact that he never had heard of the word before, of course. There was that.

Then, he came to the perks and his eyes widened with the information presented to him.

[Chosen of Uhir: Sensing you sublime Rage, Uhir, god of rage, bloodshed, and slaughter has chosen you to be one of his champions in the Great Game of the Gods. The more he is pleased by your actions and conduct, the more power you will unlock within yourself.

You are destined to live a life of bloodshed and violence, fighting in the name of the god of Rage, until you meet your end as violent and bloody as your life has been.

Strength and Vitality +50% while a Rage ability is active (Reputation Uhir: Neutral)]

[Wanderer of Worlds: You have visited more than one world on your travels.

You have been gifted with the Universal Tongue, the ability to understand and speak any language you hear for a certain amount of time, depending on familiarity, difficulty, and the reputation you have with that race or culture. You automatically learn every language of a race or culture that is [revered] to you]

Ah well. Now that was something. How would that work? Wulf read the passage again, flabbergasted by the implication of just how much meddling with other peoples’ brains seemed to be possible here. He went on, to save on some precious sanity.

[Cursed by the Red Fog: You carry with you the primordial rage, the Red Fog, which can overcome you at any moment of emotional distress or on the verge of death, stripping you of your ability to discern friends and foes, while you fall into a violent rage yearning to destroy everything in your path. Some say only those touched by the gods, spirits, or hells become cursed with the Red Fog, and the people afflicted by it are either revered or feared or both by everyone knowing of the curse.

You are destined to live a life of violence of bloodshed, cursed to die the selfsame way: You cannot be healed by spell or potion]

Well, shit! What the actual fuck did I do to deserve this? There were some…things to unpack there. Wulf had all the time in the world to meditate on his situation. Right now, he needed to focus and get this over with.

There was another tab with abilities, so he concentrated on that. The list was short with just two entries.

[Rage: You have the ability to initiate a state of battle rage in answer to being hurt, by invoking a fraction of the primordial anger of the Red Fog, by consuming certain concoctions, or an act of willpower.

During the Rage you get a bonus of 2 for Strength, Resilience, and Vitality. You become immune to fear effects and develop a strong pain resistance. You generate 1 Rage per second while you are raging.

During the Rage, you can focus your anger on your enemies, but once they are dead, a conscious decision is required to end the rage, dependent on your willpower.

If you cannot end the Rage after a certain amount of time, you will invoke the Red Fog and lose all control.]

[Raging Blow: A wild, unbalanced swing which moderately increases impact and force, but leaves your defense wide open.

Cost: 3 Rage]

Wulf exited the strange environment of the Menhir and let his gaze wander upon the mountains and the scenery. Berserker, huh? It sucked. He always had known that there might be something wrong with him. His friends always made fun of the genuine anger he felt if games did not go his way. He had ruined perfectly fun evenings, but he just could not stop caring so damn much about winning. What is wrong with me? It always had been a curse to him. Now there was a blue box right there, confirming it.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

In a perfect world, he would have chosen something else. The whole thing about rage and the bloodshed thing...he usually liked to play something with more control - as he was usually the one most invested in winning. He wanted to be able to do the most stuff and that meant playing a wizard in most games. Fighter types could do one thing and that was punching hard...but maybe...maybe that was not so bad here, as they tended to be very sturdy as well.

Even ignoring the fact that the mage classes that had been offered to him were utterly awful and would make his life difficult beyond belief, maybe it was not a dumb idea to be something survivable. Whatever this world, this reality was...peaceful it was not.

Then, there was the diplomatic angle to think about, or the whole life angle. If he was to spend more time here in this dream, or the mock reality his broken mind had made up to heal his insanity – I have seen Sucker Punch, thank you very much - he did not want to spend it alone. He had an anger issue, yes, but he was a sociable man. Of those two choices only one had promised a roof, beer, and some form of law and even a society to thrive in.

So, Berserker it was. The information he had received had not been plentiful, especially regarding further advancements or the importance of the role in this new society. So, what did he know about it? He was a bona fide nerd, of course he knew of the word. Berserkers were...angry Viking warriors? Something about drinking poisoned brews to induce a fighting rage so they would charge into an enemy shield wall to break it up before the two shield walls clashed.

Well, the Rage ability did seem powerful, especially combined with his perks, but there were risks involved. He put it out of his mind for the moment. He had no idea how to train willpower, which was what he had to train to do to increase his control. And I have no friends to protect, so who cares about hitting something that is not my enemy?

What can I do, right here and right now, to improve my chances of survival?

He had two Paths unlocked and stood right next to a stone he needed to lock them in and advance, as he understood. It seemed not ideal to him. Who could say what Paths waited for him along the line, and both of the Paths he had would certainly not make the cut in a min-maxed build...But do I have a choice?

He knew nothing about fighting and he was about to travel through a potentially deadly wilderness. Farsight could save his life. Unarmed Combat surely would. He needed something. Anything to help him survive. That would be two of his 6 slots gone...but Wulf was convinced already. He would make it work in the long run, somehow.

He returned to the stone and locked Unarmed Combat in one of his Path slots.

[Path chosen: Unarmed Combat. Forge your body into a weapon strong enough to tear the world asunder.]

Immediately, Wulf began to feel light-headed as he thought to feel different memories enter his mind, of the struggles and exercises of bare-handed fighters. Just...like watching a training montage on YouTube, directly implanted into his brain. Not explaining anything, no plan, just people boxing, kicking, or chopping wooden opponents, sacks hanging from the ceiling, sand, and even rocks.

Then he felt a presence, like someone standing very close behind him, whispering into his ear: “To use your body as a weapon, you have to sharpen its edge.”

Then it was gone, as quick as it had appeared. That was very creepy and not useful, you donkey. He had not suddenly transformed into someone knowing how to fight. No Matrix-like downloading of Kung Fu, to his chagrin. He had transformed into the same pudgy nerd with added confusion and the blurry idea of punching...trees maybe?

Was that what the creepy voice had told him to do? Punching something hard? That surely would suck. Or had it rather been some form of general advice to train his body to be more fit? That made a lot of sense as well. To be fair, that was not rocket science and something he could have come up with on his own.

That was the point of level 1, wasn‘t it? Something to get me started on a Path. He just happened to theoretically know how to get better at Kung Fu, thanks to his extensive library of movies in which people punching and hitting things in ever more ridiculous ways was the thing to replace the plot. Hit things. Train. A style could come later, or maybe his path would even provide him with one.

He took a deep breath, thinking over his second Path once more. Farsight. Far-sight. His Gamer brain screamed to ignore this one. It would be useless in a fight. But the scared human part of his brain was concerned about the dangers lurking in the shadows of the mountains and woods. He needed something to help him be alert. Something to evade the biggest dangers, rather than to fight them head on. Wulf had no illusions about his actual chances in a fair fight.

It would be beyond stupid at the first levels, he was sure of it. Look better! Try seeing more at once! But if he managed to level it beyond...Wulf was not sure. Mortal boundaries? Would it truly help him?

In the end, he decided based on the fact that he had indeed been cursed with the Red Fog. Even if he would be a fighter someday, he could not easily heal any wounds it seemed. And in situations like that he would need an edge to evade enemies. And that meant seeing them coming. With the decision done, he did not feel half as bad as he thought he would.

[Path chosen: Farsight. You have seen a lot and yet yearn to see more.]

Instead of blurry images bombarding his mind, his eyes began to water, as if the light had suddenly grown in intensity.

Then again, a voice rushed past his ears, small enough to be mistaken for the wind.

“You are not used to see. You just look. Take the time to need until you have seen everything there is to see, then double that.”

Look longer? He had known it would be stupid, but...but he had no idea how to train his eyesight, so he would take any advice given to him. There just had to be more...profound knowledge down the line. There had to be.

I should take some time to train, right? He now had an idea as to what to do but...if he wanted to reach something today, he had to leave early. He had a whole mountain to descend, with no idea how or where to find shelter.

Then again...he had time. His food would last a couple of days still, and water was no issue with all the snow around. There was the mysterious fire in the shack which burned without consuming the logs. Would that last a couple of days more?

Well, he had plenty of axes and a palisade to hack to pieces, even if he was not quite sure how exactly going about starting a fire anew. Well, that is decided then.After returning his backpack to his cabin, he went to the palisade, resolved to train.

Then he stood there, looking at the wooden, frozen…very very sturdy and hard looking… palisade. Balling his fists, just testing how it felt. Silly is how it feels. Ridiculous. What am I doing? Wulf cursed himself. Just hit the thing! Just a little bit of pain...could he break his hand with that? He had heard stories of dudes punching a wall, hurting themselves. He even knew that boxers wore gloves to protect their hands and not the faces of their opponents.

He punched the log, surprising himself with the sudden decision and the force he had put behind the blow. Seconds later he held his hand between his legs, cursing up a storm as the pain made him jump around in circles. Fucking hell!

Stupid, stupid, stupid...he plunged his hurting hand, skin scraped away across the knuckles, into the snow, shortly relieving himself of the pain as the cold took over.

He remembered plenty of movies in which the fighters had punched wooden constructions as if those had insulted their mothers, but apparently that...erm...needed some more ...what the fuck did Wulf know, he was not about to punch wood again anytime soon. That had hurt. What else could he do? He remembered other movies in which the Kung Fu heroes-to-be had plunged their hands into loose sand. Same goal, he reckoned, to harden the hands, or rather skin, and get used to the pain.

Was there something he could do like that here or would that be equally as painful? Well, everything was frozen around here, but maybe he could dig up some dirt and thaw it up near the fire...well, wait! He was on the top of a mountain. Not much earth around for him to punch, and he was not ready to punch rocks or gravel. Fuck that shit.

His compromise was making his first push-ups in years. He managed 11 of them, most of them very pathetic. He was not in good shape. As he sat there panting, collecting the resolve to make a second set, he had the idea to make those push-ups on his fists, so that the skin on his knuckles at least got some action according to his vague plan to harden his hands. After a second set, this time with burning hands and quivering arms, he fell back. What a shitshow.

Well. Next up, sit-ups.