Chapter Two: Awakening

I woke with a gasp, a great pressure like a waterlogged blanket draped across my whole body. My arms and legs wouldn’t move and in a panic I opened my eyes and tried to look around, tried to move but nothing I was trapped. The only part of my body I could move even slightly was my head and it felt like it weighed about a thousand pounds. Ponderously to my panicked mind I looked down and saw that I’d been swaddled like a newborn babe, my whole body wrapped up tight. Craning my neck I looked around and I could see that I was in a strange and unfamiliar space too small to be called a room, more of an alcove. The alcove was rough hewn into some tight grained brown rock I didn’t recognize but then again my knowledge of rocks was thimble deep at best. From what little I could see and guesstimate the ceiling couldn’t be more than three, maybe four feet from the floor. The whole space didn’t look to be more than seven or eight feet square. Three of the walls and most of the fourth were the same rough hewn brown stone, the floor looked as though greater effort were made to make it smooth or at least it was slightly more shiny than the other rock faces. Near the middle of the wall opposite of where I was laying, a heavy looking rug or curtain seemed to serve as a door. An odd diffused gray-green light provided general illumination but I couldn’t spot any source for the light. It was just omnipresent, like a dream.

*Chime* Skill earned Dungeon Vision (special)

“Crap, what the hell.” I yelped as the soft chime and text appeared in my vision. “What’s going on!” I struggled even harder to escape my cocoon, to move my body but the more I struggled the more I felt a weight, a pressure holding me and slowly cinching down restricting me further. “I’m trapped!” My subconscious screamed in my head and cold fear sent icy tendrils down my spine. I panicked, screaming, thrashing around trying desperately to get free or to get the attention of someone, anyone, who could get me free. I struggled for what felt like forever until the constriction got too much to bear and my mind gave out.

*Chime* Skill earned Psychological Endurance (unique)

With a blink I was back the message hovering before my eyes. I wheezed, “Shit, shit, shit shiiiiiitttt.” The panic and fear seemed to just melt away. I was still stuck but I could think, the animalistic terror had gone. “What the hell is going on? Where am I?” I thought to myself whatever it was that was keeping me restrained made speaking aloud difficult and basically useless.

“Has to be some sort of psychotic break, no way this can be real, maybe somehow I got dosed with shrooms or ayahuasca but how would I have come in contact with either of those. Maybe I’m having some sort of lucid isekai dream. But lucid dreams have never felt like this before, shit, I can’t be dreaming, this is all too real. I can feel the lumpy mattress I’m laying on and feel the scratchy texture of the wrappings covering me. I can even see the grain in the rock on the ceiling. But there is no way that this wool swaddling blanket is keeping me locked in place and what the hell are these messages, they feel like game prompts.” Thoughts crashed around in my head as I tried to come to grips with my situation.

“Ok, I have to at least proceed as if this is real. If it is all really happening and then there are a couple of scenarios; I’m in some sort of simulation with game-like elements, or this is some sort of isekai situation. I've played plenty of games and read lots of stories in those genres. Time to be genre savvy please let this work.” I took as deep a breath as I could and said, “menu, help, log, character sheet, status.”

As the word status left my lips a series of bars and text appeared before my eyes. There were four bars clumped in the upper right of my vision: a red bar, a green bar, and two grayed out bars; nothing was labeled. There was also a little icon of a prone stick figure wrapped in rope just below the bars. The red and green bars looked to be full.

“Ok if this world is anything like the games I've played: red is heath and green is stamina. Looks like I'm at full Health and Stamina and the little stick person is either the icon for restrained or maybe prone hell could be both. Good to know that whatever's happened to me so far my Health and Stamina have either regenerated already or they, it, whatever is taking care to not hurt me. But the stick figure is a little on the nose.

Not quite what I was looking for but at least I know status brings up my bars and status effects or maybe debuffs or buffs,” as I thought status the bars faded away. “Alright, I can make it go away by repeating the word and bonus, I only have to think of the word and not say it, good to know. What else would they call the character sheet, maybe interface.”

As I thought the word interface my vision was completely filled with information:

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Name: Vet-vek Ravenblood

Tier: 0

Race: Djinn

Title(s): Outworlder, Summoned, Prince of Yamakai

Achievement(s): Summoned Champion

Rank: Prince

Profession: None

Class: None

Free Points Available: None

Free Points Spent: None

Attributes:

Physical attributes:

Strength: (6)* bonus from Title(s): Outworlder (1). Summoned (1)

Dexterity: (7)* bonus from Title(s): Outworlder (1). Summoned (1)

Stamina: (7) * bonus from Title(s): Outworlder (1). Summoned (1)

Mental attributes:

Intelligence: (6)

Perception: (7)* bonus from Skill(s): System Interface (1).

Wits: (5)

Social attributes:

Charisma: (6)+1 * bonus from Rank Prince (1), *Title: Prince of Yamakai gives plus 1 to all Demi-Humans

Manipulation: (4)

Appearance: (5)

Luck: (7) * bonus from Titles: Outworlder (1). Summoned (1)

Skills:

Common: Comprehend Language

Special: System Interface (basic), Dungeon Vision,

Racial Skill: Boundless (special)

Unique: Psychological Endurance

Actions:

Spells: None

Qi Abilities: None

“Fantastic, no idea what it all means but it looks like this is me. Not human well that’s…concerning. There’s nothing normal about any of this so I guess a little thing like not being human anymore is par for the course. I wonder if I can get more information on each of these or if I just have to guess? Lets try focusing on that one that’s keeping me from breaking down in a claustrophobic panic.”

I mentally focused on the skills section and it seemed to highlight and I imagined clicking on it with a mental mouse and the section expanded. The previous screen of information disappeared and I was left with just a list. I willed my mental mouse over to the skill Psychological Endurance and a tool tip popped up showing more information floating off to the side of the skill name.

Unique: Psychological Endurance – the capacity to endure conditions of psychological stress and to cope with and manage stress reactions and to maintain levels of performance and remain clear headed.

“That’s disturbing, useful, and absolutely clutch right now but more than a little terrifying that I just got a skill that locks down panic attacks and phobias.” Laying there I considered the implications of the skill, I zoned out depression at the uncertainty and the fucked upedness of my whole situation sinking in before I felt my spirits start to lift and my mind focused again. “Well, no depression either I guess, damn, I could have used this skill most of my life.”

Then, I heard a muffled noise coming from behind the rug covered opening. Adrenaline dumped into my system once more and I strained to identify the sound. It only took a couple of moments for me to recognize the sound as shuffling steps like someone sliding slippered feet across a gravel path coming my direction. I closed my eyes and focused on the noise and more little individual sounds distinguished themselves. A picture began to form in my mind’s eye.

*Chime* Mental attribute(s) increased: Perception +1

*Chime* Skill earned Visualization (special)

Details were sketchy at best but the new skill helped me form a mental map. I visualized the scene in my head, I could tell from the way the sounds interrelated that there was a narrow hallway on the other side of my alcove that extended past in both directions. The person was coming from the right. They moved deliberately and unhurriedly, the shuffle and the slippers spoke to me of age and as the person came closer the steady but still slightly tasked breathing gave me confidence in my assessment, they’re aged or infirm. I could also hear dozens of individual small clinks and rustles of jewelry or something similar tapping against each other and the rub of fabric rubbing against the floor but without the swishing of pant legs made me think of a dress or it could be a robe of some sort so maybe an old woman or maybe a man if they wore old timey wizard robes. My memory flashed and the visualization resolved into the hunch backed, green robed lizard woman walking down a rough hewn brown stone hallway some twenty feet away and coming closer. She was chanting with the same even deliberate cadence in rhythm with her shuffling walk. I couldn’t understand the words but they tickled some primal part of me.

Opening my eyes broke the visualization, she was casting a spell and I was the target. I could feel the goosebumps standing out across my whole body as some force began to dance across my skin. Suddenly I could see it, a blue mist or fog was sweeping under the rug hung in the doorway and up under the blanket.

*Chime* Skill earned Mana Sight (special)

As the blue mist finally covered my face and eyes I began to feel its effects, my body quickly became cold, numb, and completely immobilized moving from my toes up to my head as the numbness reached my eyes my vision and consciousness faded away.