The world was spinning, or maybe I was, honestly I couldn’t tell you. The last thing I remember was picking up a flyer and suddenly I was falling. When I finally stopped, I hit the ground hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs.
Groaning I slowly sat up and noticed there were a few other people in the room with me. A few of them were already on their feet, maybe they had landed on their feet, and one seemed to have landed in the superhero pose. I sat up slowly and made my way to my feet.
“Where the fuck are we?” I said as I looked around, we were in a circular room. The walls were made of some sort of sculpted stone blocks and the ceiling arched up into a dome about a dozen feet above our heads. Nothing stood out at first, at least until I realized there was no light source but I could see perfectly fine as if the room was lit with several overhead lamps.
“This place looks oddly familiar, anyone else?” One of the others spoke up as they scratched at the wall with a fingernail. There didn’t seem to be any doors or ways in or out. “I swear I’ve seen this place before.”
“Wait, doesn’t this look like the lobby of that old RPG?” Another spoke up.
“Huh, you’re right.”
At that moment a bright flash seemed to come from all around. I had to blink a few times to clear my vision but we were now in a room, there were dozens of different types of weapons on pedestals, each had a symbol on their pedestal that glowed softly. A woman with long black hair approached one of the weapons and attempted to pick it up. A different flash of light appeared and she was blown back several yards, the symbol on the pedestal flashed brightly.
“What? We can’t pick our weapon?” The woman who had been knocked back exclaimed, a bit indignant as she got back to her feet, seemingly unhurt after being thrown through the air.
As she spoke someone else gave a loud cry. “Everyone think the world ‘Status’!”
Without even bothering to wonder why I gave it a shot.
Name: Rhys Abbán Toutorix Race: Human Class: Chwedlonol Arglwydd y Faner (Legendary Banner Lord) Sub-Class: None Level: 0 Experience: 0/10 Bloodline: Unknown Health: 25/25 Mana: 25/25 Stamina: 25/25 Hunger: Inactive Strength: 5 Dexterity: 5 Constitution: 5 Wisdom: 5 Intelligence: 5 Charisma: 30 Luck: 50 Skills: Language Comprehension (All), NCO's Intuition Feats: Burden of Leadership Abilities: Commanding Aura, Dreadful Aura, Commander's Mark Items: Otherworld Clothing Outfit
"Woah..." I whispered to myself. In the background of the status menu was an emblem, which seemed to match the symbols on the pedestals the weapons where sitting on. It seemed my main stats were all pretty average but I had incredible Luck and Charisma, at least in comparison to my other stats. I also had a few other things, the Burden of Leadership caught my eye but I couldn't really tell much more about it for now so I just thought 'close' and the status window disappeared.
"It seems we have already been assigned classes and weapons, oh well." The voice that brought up that it was like a game as everyone began to wander around to find their own weapons. I had to walk for what felt like five minutes to find what I was looking for, a pedestal with my mark, on top of it was a large banner with a blue and gray flag in three parts with blue on the sides and gray in the center.
Obtained Baner Fawr*!
This item is Soulbound and cannot be lost or destroyed.
After I was bound with the banner I was in for a new shock, right after I picked it up the world grew bright once again and I had to close my eyes against being blinded. The light started to fade and with its dimming I could start to hear other voice, a low murmur from all around in a language I shouldn't understand but I did.
"That's them?"
"They seem no different from us, did the summoning really work?"
"Those are odd clothes, what horrible styles."
"That one, the one with the sword, looks quite useful, maybe we can draw him in."
As my vision cleared the rest of the way I found myself in another stone room, this one much larger than the original room we all started in. However this one was filled with people, at least a hundred of them at a quick glance. Closest to us were about a dozen figures in robes with deep hoods, though they all seemed to be either leaning heavily on staffs or sitting down, one was even laying down completely, their chest heaving like a bellows.
"What's going on?" I spoke up first, the others seemed to have tensed up, thinking there was going to be a fight.
A young man with dark hair and sword seemed to break first and he raised his sword as if he was about to strike down one of the robed figures who were obviously no threat to any of us. As he did so a voice boomed out from the crowd watching. "Greetings! I do understand your confusion and tension but I ask you to hear us out before you decide we are your enemies!"
From the crowd a man stepped out, he was tall, broadshouldered, with golden locks, all around the stereotypical handsome warrior king. Five people walked behind him, four in armor fitting for a medieval knight and another wearing similar robes to those that were exhausted around us. "I am King Slei Llwfrgi of the Kingdom of Bradwyr, welcome our Pillars." He gave a slight, barely noticeable if you weren't paying attention, bow. I couldn't help but tsk at this, were we supposed to feel honored some man we had never met who was calling himself a king was giving what amounted to a head nod. "We have summoned you in our hour of need, our Kingdom's enemies are attacking and capturing our territory. Our people are being slaughtered by the hundreds without any justice. We have called you to aid us, what say you, our Seven Pillars." He had clearly counted us before approaching and the speech felt like the hundreds I had heard before. A commander trying to get some volunteers for some shitty assignment.
I had opened my mouth to tell him what I thought of his idea but one of the other spoke up first, a woman with a bow in hand. "Of course, we cannot stand by while innocents are being killed, only a heartless bastard could do that." Well, so much for my opinion, this was a suicide mission, or they planned to get rid of us afterwards, no way would you summon outsiders from another world to deal with your problem and allow them to remain afterwards.
"I guess I could help out." The young guy with the sword said, stabbing it into the stone beneath him, it must have been a really nice sword.
"Well, I don't think we have much choice, looking at these guys, they probably can't send us back." The man who had told us about Status before said, he was holding a long handled axe, he also seemed to be the oldest in our group, at least older than myself.
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The others basically said similar things, leaving me the last one without having said anything, the others all looked at me expectantly. Exasperated by how easily they agreed to this foolish quest I nodded. "Axe-man over there is probably right, I'll help out, but afterwards I would like to be sent home." I emphasized the last word, trying to make sure the others understood what I was saying.
The 'King' flinched when I said I wanted to be sent home, however the other people summoned didn't notice as they were all facing me. A crack seemed to appear in his perfect smile as he answered. "Of course, once we have driven back our enemies and reclaimed our land we should have the resources to return you to your worlds." The words held the same weight as 'get all your work done early and we can head home after chow', empty promises.
"Very well, you have my... banner." I said holding out the hefty banner towards him before slamming the butt into the ground. Others flinched out the loud noise of the weighted banner hitting the stone floor but they all turned towards the king to make similar promises. We had an axe, a dagger, a bow, a hammer, a spear, and obviously a sword being offered to the King in exchange for the loose promise of being sent home after we had won the war for them. I doubted a single one of us would survive the 'final battle', but we would burn that bridge once we got to it.
The King clapped his hands, and the others that had been watching the exchange began to file out, through multiple doors that seemed hidden before but now seemed to suddenly appear. "Excellent. Please follow my deputy and they will give you some funds to begin your adventure. I apologize but we are unable to provide equipment at this point as you would not be able to use it, but there are several craftsmen in the city that can provide you low-level equipment to get you started." The King indicated the person behind him with the robes and hood who gave a slightly deeper bow than the King had before, their shoulders actually dipped a little bit, impressive.
Waving a sleeve behind them a glowing circle with runes appeared for a few seconds before an image of a bustling street appeared. "Just step through here and once everyone has gone in I will follow. I will be leading you to a few shops that sell equipment you should be able to use at your... level." They seemed to be looking down on us, and seemed to have some ability that could view our levels. The woman with the bow steps into the image and seemed as if they were just stepping through a doorway, the rest of us followed shortly after. Suddenly we were on a street with people moving around us, as if seven... eight people suddenly appearing in the middle of the street was a normal thing. Actually, here it might be.
The robed man, the voice seemed too deep to be a woman, and the build was rather wide, but I'm assuming here, reached into a small bag he seemed to magick from his sleeves and began pulling out more bags, the same size as the original. "In these bags you will find 50 silver coins, which you can trade with the merchants on this street for equipment and other essentials. I would ask you give me your current equipment once you have changed so to hide your origins from our enemies." Sounded simple enough, basically, go buy new clothes and hand our old stuff over to this stiff.
I opted to go to a smith first, a banner is cool and all but not very useful in a battle. The smith was a man with a decent sized gut and an even larger beard, he barely looked up from the hot metal he was hammering on to acknowledge my presence, however shortly after that a child seemed to run out from the back of the smithy, his hair and face seemed similar to the smith's, probably his kid. "Wha' ah ya lookin' for mista?" As he spoke I noticed he was missing his front teeth, probably causing him to speak a little odd.
"I need a weapon, me and some... friends are looking to go on a journey."
"Oooooh! 'ike a spear? Axe? Swa-ord?" The kid seemed interested but then turned towards the smith who was still working. "Da! DA! DAAAAA!" He yelled, progressively getting louder before the smith stopped what he was doing and looked up and over at us.
"What boy?!" He reached up and seemed to tug on either ear a couple times, then I noticed he pulled out balls of what looked like wax, it seemed they knew about hearing loss from loud noises at the very least.
"'e wan's a weapon." The boy gestured to me before he ran into the back of the shop again before either of us could say anything more to the child.
The smith looked me up and down and shook his head. "I got a few already made but if you want to order something I doubt you could afford it... what's with those clothes anyway..." He muttered the last part but I could hear it clearly, he wasn't more than five feet away at this point.
"Something easy, maybe a long knife or dagger... I can't really put this down." I wagged the banner back and forth. I wasn't sure why I thought that, the soulbound status only said it couldn't be lost or destroyed.
Nodding a few times the smith moved over to a stand of weapons and began looking at them, one by one before shaking his head and setting them back. Finally he picked up a long knife or dagger, about the length of my forearm and hand. "This should do. I doubt you'll be much of a front-line fighter but always good to have a backup to stick someone with." Walking over he handed me the weapon handle first. I picked it up and looked at it closely, wondering if there was anything special about it, or if I would be able to see item statuses or anything like that. Nothing happened.
"Has a good feel, I like the weight." I went to make an experimental swing and suddenly there was a sharp pain in my wrist and the dagger leapt from my hand with much more force than I could have thrown it with, it shattered against the anvil on the other side of the room.
Error! Class Chwedlonol Arglwydd y Faner is unable to use other weapons besides the Baner Fawr!
Progress and unlock a Sub-Class with weapon profiency to use other weapons alongside Baner Fawr.
Well... so much for that plan. At least it gave me the hope of getting a Sub-Class with the ability to use weapons in the future, though who knew how long it would take to reach that point. Lost in my own thoughts I didn't realize what was going on until the smith's fist connected with my face and dropped me to the floor.
"The hell was that you crazy bastard! You owe me for that dagger. That was worth six silvers, you best have the coin or I'm calling the city watch." He was towering over me and I almost fought back but realized I felt woozy. Quickly pulling up my status page showed I had lost 11 hitpoints from that single punch.
I held up my hand placatingly, I didn't want to die from some smith being angry I broke his stuff so I reached into my pouch and counted out six silver coins. Huffing he took the coins and gave me a glare. "What was that?" Now that he was paid he seemed curious about why I had tossed his dagger the way I did.
Not sure how to explain I just gave a sigh and simply said. "My class won't let me use any other weapons for now, besides this damned flag."
The smith couldn't help but laugh apparently he knew something I didn't. "How did you not know your restrictions, you should have learned that as a child."
"Well, I didn't... you know what, I'm already here, do you have anything for camping? Things like a spit, maybe a small pot and..."
"Yeah, yeah, I know what you need, looking to do a bit of adventuring, I've got a few things for that." Huffing he went off and came back with a everything one would need for camp cooking and surprisingly, a spoon was included. "Now that'll be two silver and twenty copper."
After a bit of haggling, promising to visit him in the future if I needed things I was able to bring him down to two silver. There was a slight announcement ping stating I gained a new skill, Haggling (Level 1). I left his shop having spent nine silver and only gotten things for cooking. I went to the next couple of shops, getting tailored boots, new pants, a shirt, padded leather jacket, and a few other minor things. In the end I spent a little under half of my coins, figuring I should save some for things later on in case I was away from the city and couldn't get in contact with the King or his people for more. I eventually met back up with the others and the King's Deputy, it seemed we were off to a relatively safe area near the capital's walls where youths would train to gain experience.
Name: Rhys Abbán Toutorix Race: Human Class: Chwedlonol Arglwydd y Faner (Legendary Banner Lord) Sub-Class: None Level: 0 Experience: 0/10 Bloodline: Unknown Health: 14/25 Mana: 25/25 Stamina: 25/25 Hunger: Inactive Strength: 5 Dexterity: 5 Constitution: 5 Wisdom: 5 Intelligence: 5 Charisma: 30 Luck: 50
Currency:
Platinum: 0 Gold: 0 Silver: 27 Copper: 90
Skills: Language Comprehension (All), Haggling (Level 1), NCO's Intuition Feats: Burden of Leadership Abilities: Commanding Aura, Dreadful Aura, Commander's Mark Items: Ocsid Leather Coat, Linen Tunic, Linen Hose, Ocsid Leather Boots, Linen Cape, Baner Fawr* (Great Banner), Cooking Utensils, Mess Kit (bowl, knife, spoon)