I stood there for a moment, my breathing heavy, my stomach throbbing but only slightly as my berserker icon counted down to zero and the pain intensified. I put my hands over my stomach, it was bleeding, more than I would like but it didn’t seem as bad as I first heard, my health bar sat at 53% percent which was ok, I could live with that, literally.

“You don’t happen to have any health potions do you?” I asked Raven who kicked the dead Terrorminator in the side lightly as if she was checking that it was definitely dead. She shook her head, aside from some dirt on her clothes she had barely broken into a sweat, the complete opposite of me, who I was sure looked like I had been dragged through a meat grinder.

“What now?” I asked, “Should we look around some more for whatever it is you are lo-”

The Terrorminator exploded out of nowhere, I yelped like a small child and I was not afraid to say so as the explosion caught me off guard. To my surprise there was no blast impact from the explosion just a loud bang which sent loads of stuff flying through the air.

“What the?” As I looked up it was like seeing a rainbow of colours, well if the rainbow was, white, green and blue. “Is that?” It couldn’t be, just when I thought this world could not get any more insane, the boss we had just defeated had exploded into thin air sending a ton of bootable items across the the camp.

“It literally just exploded into loot,” I said bemused as Raven wasted no time flying through a pile of items in front of her. “Hey leave some for me.” I said as I scooped up a couple of health potions that had been dropped and quickly drank them allowing my health bar to replenish to full. The pain in my stomach completely stopped, although my white shirt was now torn and stained red with my wet blood, the wounds had healed though.

I wandered across the camp looking at the rest of the loot that had been dropped, naturally I was drawn to the ones that had a white, green or blue go about them. First up I reached a white coloured item.

*Uncommon weapon - Rusted dagger.

*Damage rating - Nine

I hasn’t noticed a damage rating with my cleaver when I had picked it up but when I checked my cleavers rating was nine so I left the dagger where it was, Raven also skirted past it. She wasn’t picking any of the loot up, she was definitely looking for something though.

I moved towards a green item to check out what it was and if it would be any use to me.

"*Ring of constitution*

*Item ability - Raises stamina by 1

It was better than nothing, I picked the ring up and placed it on the first finger of my right hand, it felt strange to put a ring on, aside from my watch I had never really bothered with jewels. If it helped me in anyway though, well that could only be good thing. I continued to walk around scooping up potions that I recognised as health potions and stamina potions there was even a blue one.

*mana potion

*Consumption will replenish mana, used for magic.

It read, as far as I knew I didn’t consume any mana but I felt it could be helpful at some point so I picked it up and added it to my inventory.

“Do you use mana?” I asked Raven, she nodded but she seemed distracted barely lifting her head as she continued to search through the items that remained. “Here take this,” I tossed her the mana potion and she caught it before continuing to search through the loot.

I knew where my focus was, there was one last item that had blown the firthest away when the Terrorinator had exploded Loot everywhere. When I reached it I knew straight away that whatever its stats were it was going to be more helpful than my cleaver.

*Rare Weapon

*Spirit Sword*

*Damage Rating - Fifteen*

Holy shit I thought to myself, that was an increase in six in damage, the sword was all black, the hilt, the cross guard and the blade, all of it. The outer edge of the sword had a seated edge, much like a saw and was clearly designed to cause maximum damage, the weapon was terrifying which was fitting given the terror camp we had just raided. I picked up the blade, it had a strange shine to it, with no blemishes as if it had just been made, I had no clue what the sword was made out of but it was cold to the touch, like a mixture between metal and stone, it was pretty heavy too but the craftsmanship on it was beautiful. As I looked over it, a blue line showdown the centre of it revealing three slots before disappearing again, it was like a magma crack you would see in the ground at a erupting volcano, threatening to spew molten lawa at any moment.

*Upgradable item

*This weapon can be upgraded beyond the rank of rare.

“This is so cool,” I said as I continued to look over the blade in awe, I swung the sword around a few times as I got used to its weight, I had never used a sword before but I already knew that it would put me in good stead compared to a cleaver, especially if I could rank it up too. Even if I dint know how to at this stage, I felt like it was only a matter of time before I would figure that out.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I continued to look over the incredible weapon, it was surprisingly light which was strange given that the texture of the blade was like a polished stone, I imagined it should feel heavier but non the less Iw as excited to see what this weapon was capable of. It would certainly stand me in good stead as opposed to a cleaver.

My vision filled with a. Hazy screen, it crackled with a static noise, the kind you get when you tried to tune in an old TV. Given I only knew one other person in this place, I presumed that it was Fidget.

“Someone’s calling me?” I said, not sure how to refer to the interaction. “Her names Fidget and she is apparently the person who brought me here.

Raven’s head shot back, and no sooner did I mention that someone was calling me she shook her head and pointed at herself before fetching her finger to her lips. She then disappeared into the shadow of the Terrornator’s body that remained still on the ground, face down in the dirt. Her behaviour was odd, but I took it as meaning she didn’t want me to say anything about her, which was fair enough, I could respect that wish given how helpful she had been.

“Hello, hello,” Fidget’s voice came through to me first, it was a strange sensation that made me feel like I was on some kind of acid trip. “Can you hear me? Silas are you there?”

“I'‘m here, can you hear me? Something is going on with your screen, I can’t see anything other than static.”

“What’s static?” She asked, “Hang on,” I could hear her rummaging around and laughed to myself, it was like watching someone try and mess around with a n old school ariel to try and get the best signal they could. Except here there didn’t seem to be any airwaves just magic.

A few more moments passed before Fidget finally came into my vision, it was like having a floating screen projected from my retina, any which way I moved my head or my eyes, the screen followed, slightly translucent so I could see the destroyed shanti huts of the terror’s camp.

“Oh good you're alive,” she said, offering a smile. The relief on her face was clear and she let put a large sigh of air like she had been holding her breathe for an age. “I was worried when we got cut off, I feared the worst, that when I had enough mana to make contact again that it would be too late.” Her words were crisp and clear, as if I was wearing some air pods that she was feeding directly into.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said with a sarcastic tone.

“What do you mean?” My humour clearly lost on her.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said with a smile. “It’s good to see a familiar face, this world is crazy.”

“Look at the state of you, are you ok? You look like you have beed dragged through the forrest backwards,” Fidget’s toe of voice changed, “Is that blood?”

Looking down at myself, I realised that my white shirt, wasn’t so white any more. “Yeah, it's been an interesting first day.”

“First day?” Fidget said with a puzzled expression. “It’s been two days since we last spoke.”

That was good to know, I had no way of telling the time given that my watch had stopped working as soon as I had landed here. “Are you sure? There hasn’t been a night time here?”

“How does night time work for you? I mean where you are from?” Fidget asked.

“Well there’s twenty four hours in a day, in the summer, night time would fall from between nine in the evening until about six in the morning.”

“Fascinating,” Fidget said, “I have no clue what those terminologies mean, but here the sun sets every second day, some regions it is less than that though so it can change.”

“How do you tell the time?” I asked, raising my watch up, I didn’t know if she would be able to see it. “See back home I have this time piece, it’s called a watch, it helps me keep track of what time of day it is. Helps me keep organised and on task.”

“How odd, perhaps it is something I can have a look at when we finally are able to meet in person.”

“Sounds good to me? I am grateful for the company.” I said.

“We’re getting off topic, where are you? Have you managed to find Sy yet?”

“Sy?” That must have been who she was referring to when we got cut off. “No,” I replied, “I kind of got side tracked.”

“What do you mean side tracked? I gave you very clear instructions, you were to head straight to the waterfall to the north of the forrest and meet Sy, he will be able to help you?”

“Well a lot of that message was lost when you cut out.” I said, “There’s quite a lot that has happened to me since I last spoke to you.”

“I can see that, I can only hope that that isn’t your blood on your shirt.”

“Some of it is.” I said coyly, I felt like I was being scolded.

Fidget raised her hand to the bridge of her snout and shook her head as if trying and failing to contain her disapointment. “You are my champion, I summoned you to this world. You have no idea the kind of magic that takes, I can’t have you simply going of galavanting. If the gods have brought you here then you are important for this world, you could be our only hope.”

“No pressure then,”

My sarcasm was lost on Fidget once again who just stared at me with a frown. I was still getting my head around the fact that Iw as talking to a half human half dog sorceress.

“Right, you're going to have to tell me everything that has happened.”

“Do you have enough mana?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean last time we got cut off because your mana ran out, there is quite a lot for me to tell you about so I just want to make sure we are not going to get cut off again.”

“That was perceptive of you,”

“I’m a data analyst, it’s kind of my thing.”

“Data analyst?”

“That was my job, is my job, back home. It’s what I did for work. Attention to detail is important, especially when you are running data projects.”

“You really re the most perculiar human I have ever come across, so much strange language that you use.” Fidget shook her head before saying, “We are getting distracted again, I need you to tell me exactly what has happened.”

“Where do I start? I found this legendary orb that let me pick my class, it said it was a gift from the gods, basically they were intervening because of how useless I was. It gave me a list of classes to choose from, some were balanced, some just seemed damn right evil so I ended up picking the berserker class, figured it was a different from what someone of my frame would normally go for. Any way I was attacked by these fire ants and found that I was getting stronger so I fought them for a while. Then while heading north, using the sun as a marker I found myself in a snare,” I was about to tell her about Raven when I stopped my self suddenly, remembering her gesture to me before she vanished into thin air.

“A snare? How did you get out? Whose snare was it?”

“I managed to wriggle free,” I said, “It wasn’t too difficult but I had to hide as some terrors started firing arrows at me, one caught me in the shoulder but Its ok I have been able to find some potions.”

“Interesting,” Fidget said.

“When they had gone I got a side quest, to infiltrate the terror camp.”

“Let me stop you there,” Fidget said, interupting me mid monologue. “Do not try and infiltrate a terror camp. Those little scamps are notoriously difficult to kill. Especially in large groups. Your level is far too low and you are too inexperienced to fight an entire camp.” she stopped talking before looking at me judge-ingly. “What have you done?”

“I kind of already infiltrated the camp, it’s where all the blood is from.” I said, “On my shirt. Wanting to keep Raven hidden for now I continued to tell her what had happened, skipping over the details where Raven was involved.”

“So let me get this straight, you have been farming spore spitters for the last two days to get stronger so that you could infiltrate the terror camp. I assume you have managed to escape and you're not in a prison cell somewhere, please tell me you're not captured? Those terrors are not opposed to eating humans.”

“I’m here now actually,” I said, spinning around. “Don’t worry there are no more terrors, I unlocked my skill tree, it helped build my streghth so I was strong enough to defeat them all.”

“What’s that?” Fidget asked, interupting me again, she was equal parts intrigue and apprehension.”

Looking over my shoulder I realised that the Terrorinator’s body was behind me. “Oh that was a boss that attacked us, you should have seen the loot that spewed out of that thing when I beat it.”

“You, you defeated a boss? On your own?” Fidget’s face lit up like it was a Christmas tree.”

“I did,” A little smuggly. “Ive managed to get some potions, health, than and mana as well as a new weapon, its a sword, it will put me in better stead than the rusted cleaver that I had.”

“Wait, wait wait, you are telling me that you managed to take down an entire terror camp and a boss with only a cleaver?”

“I guess so,”

“This is incredible, perhaps you are the one who is destined to free us all.” Fidget’s image started going all skewy, her mana draining down.

“Its happening again,”

“Get some rest, it will be night time soon, try your best to find some shelter before darkness falls, you don’t want to be o-” As soon as she had appeared, Fidget had vanished once again. “I guess by then,” I said as I waleked over to the dead boss. There were still a couple of bits of dropped loot that I wanted to go through before we left this place. “You can come out now.”

Raven hopped out of the shadow and into sight again.

“What was that about?”

Raven started signing but again it was a series of signs that I did not understand.

“I guess I will just have to take your word for it.”