3.

I dreamt of home, a small town in the northwest Washington. I had a family, a job I liked…. despite the idiots I worked with, but none of that mattered now. I was home with my family, my beautiful wife and my kids. It was just flashes of moments and while sitting down for dinner I suddenly burst into flames, I startled awake.

I would never see them again; I laid there in the giant waterbed crying for a minute. I had things to do and a new world to see. I wanted to confirm with Garth, but with what I know about space travel and what we think about faster than light travel and gravity…. Things that I really barely only have a grasp on. Then my family had grown old and died already. They had thought I had died, but I came here because I was going to die in the correct conditions. I took a deep breath, counted to three and opened my eyes. Garth was inches from my nose.

"Gahhh! Why are you so close!?" I shrieked.

Garth slowly drifted up and away from me, "I was checking your stats, I sensed you were in danger, but you were having dreams that caused the alert. It seems you have recovered from the teleport debuff, this was…"

I cut him off, I'm pretty sure he would just go on and on if I let him. "I have some questions about my trip here, also I didn't notice any debuff on my character sheet, why not?"

YOU HAVE LEARNED OF THE SKILL “Perception”.

YOU GAIN 250 EXPERIENCE

YOU FAILED TO NOTICE THE DEBUFF ALERT, DUE TO FAILED PERCEPTION CHECK.

Well, I guess this might take a while. " I am going to need to take some time and need to just, think about skills." I thought out loud to myself and was taken as a request for a verbal storm.

"To answer your second question first, this is because of a failed perception check. I can of course answer any questions you may have about how you came to Granthel. To your last statement, that would give you a quick boost of experience points to purchase class abilities, of which all are open to you."

Good to know, I have a truly huge selection when it comes to my skills and other selections that I am so far unaware of. Now time to confirm what I've been dreading, "how much time has passed since I teleported?"

Garth's response broke me, "it is quite difficult to calculate. Though with the power used and distance traveled, with mostly only spiritual energy making the trip with minimal genetic traces. I would calculate five thousand seven hundred and two years nine months twelve days seventeen hours thirty-seven minutes and fifty-four seconds have passed. This is all of course based on the earth day that you are used to."

Again, this was way more information than I asked for, but my family is truly gone. I had to keep moving, or… no just move.

I climbed out of bed and proceeded to wash the sleep off my face in the most ridiculous and opulent bathroom I have personally ever used. There were three sinks, two different style showers, and a huge bathtub that looked bigger than most hot tubs I've seen. I soon discovered an issue, there were no towels. I began to worry, if there were no towels, I probably had no clothes, but then I found one article of clothing… a bright yellow.. ahem.. "Banana hammock," I whispered out loud…

I dawned the.. banana hammock and continued my search of the house and later the town for anything to wear, then possibly anything to make clothes.

***

Perception LEVEL INCREASE TO 1 "Dabbler"!

YOU HAVE LEARNED OF THE SKILL "Sewing"

YOU GAIN 250 EXPERIENCE

YOU HAVE LEARNED OF THE SKILL "Tanning"

YOU GAIN 250 EXPERIENCE

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

YOU HAVE LEARNED OF THE SKILL "Leatherworking"

YOU GAIN 250 EXPERIENCE

I found nothing in town, it was completely barren. I had found shops that apparently were for selling clothes or leather goods, but there was nothing inside that I could see through the windows. Every door I tried that wasn't for my house was locked. I continued down the street and found a Blacksmith shop.

YOU HAVE LEARNED OF THE SKILL "Blacksmithing"

YOU GAIN 500 EXPERIENCE [Metallurgy]

Blacksmithing INCREASED TO LEVEL 1 "Dabbler"!

"So, Metallurgy affects everything to do with metal?" I asked my own personal dirt devil.

"Yes, it is quite remarkable that you qualified for the Trait. Normally many of the traits are locked by bloodlines and classes. You have quite the unique situation. In fact…" Garth continued to speak but I noticed movement out of the order of my eye. The door to the Blacksmith shop was swinging open and… Ok, I'm not crazy… but, that's a bull man.. man bull? He was huge, the top of his head was easily six two (sorry six feet two inches). His horns went out about a foot and up another three and were slightly angled in towards each other. They started white at the base and darkened to onyx at the top. His hair was the glossy color of dark chocolate, and he wore a deep sky-blue martial arts uniform, a Gi if my love for anime taught me anything. There was a symbol on his chest and for a second, I wondered what it said, then it clicked. Sky Reed?

"That is a Minotaur, Dave. They are an NPC race and can be found all over Granthel, this appears to be Highlands Minotaur as seen by the long, tall horns and long silky…"

"Thanks, but I think your friend could use some pants," the Minotaur, my hero, interrupted.

"That would be appreciated," I replied, keeping Garth quiet. "It's kinda breezy," I muttered to myself.

***

DISCOVERY

YOU HAVE DISCOVERED AN NPC FOR THE FIRST TIME. THIS NPC IS A RARE NPC. +5 LUCK!!!

***

Now with pants and even a shirt… They were way too big, but he had rope.

" I can't thank you enough," I said honestly as I horribly altered the shirt to maybe fit me better… maybe. There was honestly a lot of extra material, I didn't get to keep my same body. At first, I just measured, and the Minotaur stood with his arms crossed leaning against the giant anvil in the middle of his forge. We had been like this once I had discovered the changes. I shut down and just… started working.

Those had been the first words I had said in hours. He had just sort of thrown the pants… the blessed pants.

What!? It's cold here, anyways…

With relief I strode forward, with my hand out to shake or grasp wrists? I don't know the customs here and he hands me a mirror. I tilted my head with a grin on my face. A stranger stared back at me… He of course knew what had happened. Garth started droning on about stuff that sounded important, if I'm honest, but I couldn't care about what that air bag had to say. I just walked into the smithy, I needed to think and for me that means doing something, and all the other doors are locked. Once inside I ordered Garth to be absolutely silent. I may have used him as a calculator with very specific instructions to display the numbers in the air.

"Sorry to just barge in, it's all a bit much." I said sheepishly.

"Hrmm" he grunted. Quiet guy, to be honest.

"My name's Dave, glad that I'm not completely alone up here." I said, setting down my ok-ish shirt. Not done but soon I just need to stretch my cramping hands. "I thought Garth said something about you being the guardian here?" I asked, prompting speech from the bull.

"Yes…….." I am in hell… suddenly there was a flash of white, as a huge grin spread across his huge face. "Sorry, you told that one to be quiet and you looked like you would band me if I interrupted you. This one's name is Xorion of the Bamboo Forest Maze." He straightened and bowed. I bowed back from my seated position. "However, it is this one's first season as the guardian, this one is truly fortuitous. Meh! Not even twoo decades pass." His grin got even bigger at the obvious bewilderment on my face. "The four mazes rotate their best in as guardians, we change guard at the turning of the season. The island we are on changes seasons every 40 years, our clans have been guarding your toown since the maze formed and the island broke free '' Ok maybe he isn't quiet, at least he's entertaining and I mean he's a bull man. "But that tale is for the elders to tell youu! Tell this one, is it truue? Do you really come from a different world?"

"Yeah, I thought that you Guys had like 15 other PCs kicking around?" I wondered how this could get any weirder. Now we have some Xiaxia flavored Minotaurs on flying islands.

"There are truly that many!" He bellowed, seeing the confused look on my face he continued. "You would not know; you are the first non-Minotaur this one has seen, and my maze consists of ten thoousand or so." He explained. Garth, exactly three feet away from me, looked like the inside of a running vacuum cleaner at this point. He was also exactly on the edge of my line of sight, and he was staying there no matter how I looked around. I finally needed some answers, and I could tell that Garth was about to explode. "Garth, what the hell? We're on a flying island?" He became a literal tornado of debris. "You can make noises again." Suddenly the sound of a word tornado exploded into the relative silence, and just as quickly stopped.

"Yes, Classless Island is one of many flying islands. However, some if not most, are not as isolated as this one. Their creation w…"

"This one already explained that the elders will tell him." My new best friend interrupted.

"Thanks!" I smiled; he got it. "So how big is this island?" I asked, staring right at Garth, as I didn't know if this place or the Minotaur's used a different unit of measurement.

" Classless Island is quite small compared to all of Granthel. The island is twenty-seven thousand five hundred and thirty-one point three repeating square miles. It is nearly round with a jagged edge; the one deviation is the large bay that resides on the edge of the village and makes up the port. The mass of the island in cubic…"

"That's bigger than some US states!" I blurted out mostly to cut off Garth from clogging my head with horrible, mostly useless information. "And port? Does it have water, or do you just fall and fall until you hit the planet?" Clearly asking Xorion, not Garth. You could never tell though.

"The island is surrounded by a sea that is held back by a coral stone wall…"

"Yes, the port is quite amazing." Xorion taking over with his deep rumbling basso voice. I hadn't really noticed it before, and it was much more pleasant than the nasal sound of my other companion. I was beginning to wonder what I had in store when I eventually looked at the notifications that I had turned off while making my clothes fit… they didn't fit. But now I could tell that by looking, and I could tell you what I had done wrong. Still covering my shame hammock with the huge Gi bottoms, I stood.

" Let's go take a look then, I need to move around. New body you know." I said stretching, getting familiar with my new surroundings and self.