“Ummm… Hello there?” was all that Xander could think to say to the dwarf, who had definitely noticed him and his, what he realized now was probably very odd looking, camp setup.
“Hello yourself,” came back from the dwarf, who was still carefully standing a good distance away. “What brings you to the forest this day?”
“I’m very lost, so I guess trying to get out of the forest is what brings me here?” Xander tried to inject a little humor to disarm the tension. “You wouldn’t happen to know how I could get to, well, anywhere, would you?”
The dwarf looked at him for a long moment and seemed to be thinking. “Doesn’t know where they are, wearing strange clothes… and using strange objects hmm. You wouldn’t happen to be a [Godsmarked], would you?”
“Yeah… you got me. I have no idea where I am, or anything about wherever here is. I’ve been here less than a day and I was really worried I wasn’t going to be able to find a town or anyone to help me before I ran out of supplies. I don’t really have the skills to be fully self sufficient out here. Would… would you be able to help me get somewhere like a town or a village or something like that?” Xander felt a little awkward at being noticed as out of place so quickly, but he definitely didn’t look like he was wearing anything even remotely like this dwarf was, and his tent was obviously not a material that would be available in a world where bows and axes were a common sight.
“Aye, I can do that,” answered the dwarf. “As long as you’re willing to put up with a few things. First, I’d like to see your status sheet to prove that you’re not lying to me, and second, I’m \[Track\]ing a bear that’s been taking livestock from the nearby town, so you’ll either have to wait here ‘til I’m done or come with me and watch my back. Though if you don’t mind, I’d like to set up camp here with ya as well, since it’s gettin’ dark.”
“Oh, okay, yeah that’s fine. How, uh, how do I show you my status? And, I guess I’ll go with you tomorrow, I don’t fancy being alone out here; I’ve already had one run in with a skeleton around here.”
“A skeleton,” the dwarf asked, interested “Where’d you find yourself one of them?”
“In what I think was an old mine, roughly that way.” Xander pointed in the direction he’d come from. “There was just one, I didn’t see or hear anything else in it. It’s where I woke up after being… transported?”
“Ah, I see. They do tend to occasionally appear in caves, old mines, anywhere it’s dark and people rarely go, really. Likely not the work of a [Necromancer], then. You must be fresh if you don’t know how to show someone your status. You just sort of will it to happen and it does. Like this.”
At the dwarf’s words, a status appeared in front of him and then turned around.
---THRIPUS WOODHAMMER (DWARF)---
---[RANGER] LEVEL 14---
---[WOODSMAN] LEVEL 17---
Xander noticed that the sheet left off most of the details, but showed enough for a person to prove who they were. Seemed a convenient feature. Or maybe, one could decide how much information to show? He’d try willing the same information to appear. His status appeared in front of him, and then turned around to face the Thripus.
---XANDER JONES (HUMAN, GODSMARKED)---
---[ARTIFICER] LEVEL 2---
---[SOLDIER] LEVEL 2---
Xander felt completely outclassed by the dwarf, who was 12 levels higher than him in his lowest class. He wondered just how much stronger, faster, and tougher such a level difference made the dwarf compared to him.
“[Soldier] and [Artificer], huh? Bit of an odd combination, but neither are bad classes. Everyone’s are a little bit different, though, even if they have the same name, so maybe they’ll grow to have a good synergy. You’re definitely fresh at level two, and I can see the [Godsmarked] on your status, so I’ll help ya. I’m sure you’re pretty confused right now, so ask away once I get my camp set up.”
Xander watched the dwarf set up his bed roll and a small cloth tent just big enough to keep out any rain. While he waited, he decided he’d try out creating something from [Schematic]. He’d fired one shotgun shell, so he might as well replace it. His mana was full by now, recovered from the small amount drained by creating the two tiny metal cubes.
---12g 00 Buckshot Shotshell created---
Xander felt an immediate drain on his mana as the shell formed in his hand and opened his status to see that creating a single shell had drained nearly three quarters of his mana. So much for refilling his ammo on the fly, he thought. He’d need to be proactive about restocking and do it during his downtime when he was safe, not in combat. Hopefully the bar would be full again by morning. He didn’t have a great feel of the rate at which it recharged, yet.
“Alright, I’m set up. Ask away, all that’s left for the night is for me to eat, and I’m happy to talk at the same time.” The dwarf sat down near his tent and began pulling some leather wrapped packets from a bag, which revealed trail rations as they were unwrapped. “Hungry?”
“No thanks, I already ate. Fortunately, I came here with a few days’ worth of food.”
“Fortunate for us both, then. I don’t have to cut the amount I’m eating and share.”
“So, where is here? I don’t even know the name of this world, or, I think I remember it was called a ‘realm?’ There was a lot going on. And, I hope this doesn’t come across as offensive, but I’ve never seen a dwarf. Are there lots of dwarves? Are there other races? Do humans exist here, at least?”
“Let’s see, well to answer your questions in order, ‘here’ is the realm of Tillania, and you’re currently in the Arjus forest in the kingdom of Dardin. Not much going on around here in this part of Dardin, mostly farming and the occasional band of guild mercenaries contracted to kill some big thing or other. Course, that happens everywhere else, too. Dwarves are about as common around these parts as humans are, and you’ll see the occasional elf, though anything more exotic than that you’d likely only see in a large city or another kingdom entirely.”
Xander found the concept of something more exotic than an elf to be amusing but kept that to himself. “I see. Well, I’m glad to find out I’m not the only human around. I think that would be pretty hard to adapt to. I’m not really sure what else to even ask right now. I guess maybe classes? I leveled up after I killed that skeleton. Is that the only way to level up? By killing things?”
“Not always, it depends on a class. For example, a [Duelist] could earn experience for that class by winning a duel, even without killing someone. Or someone with a class geared towards crafting would gain experience for creating something. Your [Artificer] class might work like that. But for other classes, like [Soldier] your main way of gaining levels is going to be defeating things, likely through violence. I will gain some experience for successfully [Track]ing this bear, but the majority will come with taking it down. And don’t worry about your levels, right now you’re low compared to the average person, but [Godsmarked] have a tendency to catch up quickly, plus you should always remember that with enough preparation, just about anyone can defeat something higher level than them.”
“How do you know about [Godsmarked]? Are there a lot of them?”
“It’s not exactly a common occurrence, but there have been enough of them that the average person at least knows what a [Godsmarked] is. It doesn’t hurt that they often become well known guild mercenaries or craftsmen, though there are still plenty that end up living quietly from what I understand. They’re a tiny portion of the population, though.”
“Good to know people like me aren’t feared or reviled, I guess. So, how long do you think it will take to find this bear, and how much help are you actually going to need from me?”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Luckily for you, I expect to be done with this affair tomorrow. We aren’t far off from it now, as it’s been staying relatively close to town now that it’s learned it can take a [Farmer]’s animals. I doubt I’ll need much of anything from you, but out in the forest you never know what could happen, and two is always better than one. The weather’s nice for a few months yet, so we won’t need a fire. I’m going to tuck in and sleep, I’ve been walking for most of the day. Don’t worry about setting a watch, the area isn’t known for banditry, and my skills will wake me if any dangerous animals get too close.”
“Oh, that’s good to know. Uh, thanks, for taking the time to help me. I really appreciate it.”
“It’s the right thing to do, especially to a [Godsmarked]. They say you’re put here for a reason, and I’d hate to slight the gods by hindering that so early. Now go to sleep, we’re rising with the sun tomorrow, if not before.”
Xander did his best to sleep, but it was a long time before he could do so. Since he wasn’t as tired as he should have been from walking so far with a plate carrier and helmet, he found his mind a whirlwind of thoughts as he lay in his sleeping bag. What was he going to do when he got to a town? He had no idea how to make a living for himself in a place like this. Would he be able to find a way to get home? He really hoped so. He was already missing Helen, and it hadn’t even been a full day. She’d probably be frantic that he wasn’t at home and couldn’t get in contact with him. He wondered if she’d already called the police. It felt odd to realize that he was technically a missing person, now. Would he end up on one of those true crime podcasts about people who mysteriously disappear?
Eventually, Xander fell asleep, his dreams full of strange figures in armor and the occasional skeleton. The morning came quickly, and he was awakened by the sounds of the dwarf, Thripus, he recalled after a few agonizing seconds of dreading having to awkwardly ask his name again, waking up and breaking his section of the camp down. Xander put his camouflage top back on along with his boots - he’d been too ill at ease to feel comfortable stripping down any more than that – and unzipped his tent, the noise drawing Thripus’s attention.
“Mornin’,” came from Thripus. “Glad to see I don’t have to try and wake you up through your tent. Time to get going after a quick breakfast.”
“Sounds good,” replied Xander. “I’ll get my stuff packed up and eat, then I’m ready for whatever.” Xander went to work rolling up his tent and sleeping bag and stuffing them in their respective sacks before popping them into his inventory and pulling the bag that held his food out from a different slot.
“That’s a handy trick, one of your class skills?” Thripus sounded a little jealous at the prospect of being able to store things and pull them from thin air.
“I don’t think so, it was one of the things I received for being a [Godsmarked]. Little bit of a consolation prize for being ripped from my own reality, I suppose.” It sounded a lot more melancholy when he said it than he meant it to, but it was true.
“Ah, sorry. My understanding is that’s something that many of the ‘marked struggle with. Some never truly get over it. I can only imagine being pulled away from my life and placed somewhere I’d never been before. Doesn’t sound pleasant.”
“I can’t say it’s been amazing so far. But it’s at least looking up some since I met you.” Xander tried his best to sound grateful for the dwarf, and he really was. It was just hard to shake off the feeling of homesickness that was already overtaking him. He pulled out another MRE, unsure what else to say to continue the conversation and started to eat it cold as he didn’t want Thripus wait any longer on him than he already was. “Alright, I’m ready,” he said, stowing his trash away. Never know when an empty plastic bag might come in handy, especially in a world where plastic bags might not even exist.
“Right then, let’s get to walking.” Thripus shouldered his bag and began walking confidently in a direction.
“How do you know where it is?”
“My [Track] skill is high enough at this point that once I’ve picked up an animal’s trail, especially one as large as a bear, I can relocate it and follow it like it was the king’s thoroughfare.” The ranger continued on, following a path completely invisible to Xander. The only sign Xander was able to identify at all was the occasional tree that had been used like a scratching post, bark stripped in portions and deep gouges marring the tree. Seeing that the scratches extended well above his head, Xander remembered just how big bears were. He should probably load for bear, literally. The mechanical racking sounds of him removing 00 buck from his shotgun and replacing them with solid slugs drew a curious look from Thripus. “What is that thing, anyway? Some kind of [Artificer] weapon? Seems like an awful lot of moving parts for a weapon to me.”
“Uhm, yeah, let’s go with that. That’s the easiest explanation, I think. It’s called a shotgun, and it fires a chunk of metal really fast at what I point it at, to put it simply. Also it’s loud as hell, just a forewarning in case I end up having to use it. Do dwarves get tinnitus?”
“What’s tinnitus?”
“Ringing in your ears that stays there forever because you heard too many loud sounds. Technicaly it’s damage to your ears, I believe.”
“Ah, can’t say that I have. But if it’s a form of physical damage, any half decent [Priest] ought to be able to put it right, though they’ll charge ya for it.”
“Okay, good to know that one, priests can magically heal things, which of course they can, I don’t know what I expected, and two, it’s pervasive enough that it’s a paid service. Thanks for that. Wouldn’t have even thought to ask. This is all… I don’t even know how to describe it. I just don’t know what I don’t know. Everything is new.”
“I hear the marked can struggle to integrate into society at times. Cultures and religions clash, and sometimes things would seem normal to any of us are things that some of them seem to consider immoral or wrong. Quite a few of them fall afoul of the nobility for a variety of reasons, from simple impoliteness to full on fomenting of rebellion.”
Xander didn’t know how to respond, so he didn’t. They walked in silence for another few hours, Xander’s mind wandering through thoughts of what the new world he found himself in and the societies in it would be like, and Thripus focusing on the bear’s trail. Xander was so engrossed in his thoughts that when Thripus stopped, he nearly walked into him.
“We’re close now. Time to keep quieter, make sure we’re upwind, and move slowly. Fortunately for us, your outfit might look odd, but it does a good job making you hard to see in the woods. And I’ve got my skills. Now just follow me, and try to step where I step. I don’t fancy having to track this bear even further because we ran it off.”
Xander kept the comment that the entire purpose of his clothes was exactly that, and just nodded, holding the shotgun a little closer. Slowly, the two began to move. Thripus was clearly taking a round about path, now, and Xander wondered how he even knew which direction ‘upwind’ was, since he couldn’t feel any wind. After about a half hour of painstakingly creeping through the woods, they came upon a clearing, which contained the bear. Unfortunately, it also contained what Xander could only think of as a gryphon, which was currently eating the bear. Thripus was quiet and stock still, clearly thinking. Finally he motioned for Xander to come closer.
“A gryphon this close to town is bad news,” whipered the dwarf. “We’re lucky it’s distracted by that bear right now, so we can try and plan something. Can’t let it settle into the area, or it’ll be more than livestock that start disappearing.”
“So what do we do?”
“Throw everything we’ve got at it and then run like hell if it doesn’t work. The woods are thick enough in part that we might be able to lose it and lay low. Just make sure you stick close to me if things go to shit. We’ll do it like this: I’ll fire the first shot, loaded up with all the skills I can throw on it. Then you follow up yourself as I’m drawing another arrow. Hopefully that should be enough overkill it doesn’t even know we’re here before it’s dead.”
Xander pulled up his status sheet just to review what he could possibly do in this situation. Only two things really applied: [Shock and Awe] and [Effective Ordnance]. One just increased the damage of an attack, while the other applied an elemental effect. Unsure of what to pick, or even what all the available elements were, Xander decided to just go with fire. He gave Thripus a thumbs up, which the dwarf seemed to understand well enough, and then shouldered his rifle to take aim. From the corner of his vision, he watched Thripus do the equivalent with his bow.
Thripus’s bowstring twanged, and the gryphon immediately turn in their direction, a split second before an arrow embedded itself in its shoulder. Or rather, it would have embedded itself in the gryphon’s shoulder, except that, to Xander, it seemed more like it exploded in several different ways, taking a huge chunk of meat along with it as the arrow shattered. They gryphon wasn’t dead though, at least not yet, so Xander took that as his cue to fire the round that he had chambered earlier, when he was merely worried about bears. Again he felt the almost robotic touch of what he realized now was [Weapons of War] adjusting his posture slightly, straightening his aim, and holding him steadier than he would have been able to achieve without it. The report of the shotgun firing so close to him caused Thripus to flinch, and he even dropped the arrow he’d been knocking. Fortunately for them, while the impact of Xander’s round on the gryphon’s chest was not quite as spectacular as Thripus’s, it was a well placed shot, and went far deeper than the arrow had, though that might have just been because the arrow had simply ceased to exist upon all the skills piling upon it activating. [Shock and Awe] and [Effective Ordnance] proved their worth, as the hole that was left in the now very dead gryphon’s body looked more like someone had fired a soda can at it than a twelve gauge slug, and was releasing copious amounts of smoke, as well as the scent of burnt flesh and feathers. It was not pleasant.
“By the hammers of all the gods, what in the hell is that thing?” Thripus nearly shouted, once he had gotten over the sudden noise and seen the gryphon collapsing to the ground.
“I told you it was loud,” Xander replied, shoving a finger in his ear in a vain attempt to relieve the ringing.
“Well, whatever the fuck it is, it did a good job. Probably would have bled out after the first hit, but you never know with gryphons. They’re right tough bastards, and an injured one is probably even more dangerous to people than an uninjured one; they’ve got a bad habit of viewing people as an easy meal. Let’s see if we can’t take some of the more useful bits like the talons and some feathers before we go. It’ll sell well, and provide some proof of the kill. We can split the parts since you did help.”