2.

Roann stood there, in his birthday suit, frozen to the spot. The woman's voice sounded beautiful and he wasn't sure he had the nerve to turn around. Thinking quickly, he opened his menu and tabbed open the equipment icon. A screen popped up with a display of him on one half, and series of boxes corresponding to different parts of his body on the other.

He mentally prodded, or yanked on in his rush to try and figure it out, the box that had a line connected to his lower half. A sub-box appeared with two tabs, one saying [Nothing] while the other read [Rough Trousers]. Choosing the Rough Trousers option, the sub-screen closed and a small picture of pants replaced the empty square. He felt weight around his hips and was relieved to see the dark grey simple pants.

They felt like the name stated, rough on his skin, but he felt much better about his lot now that his danglies weren't exposed to the dangers of the world or to the woman standing behind him.

He slowly turned towards her and took in the first person he would meet in this new world. The woman was shorter than he expected, only being around 5 foot or so, with hair as white as snow put into a ponytail. Her small frame belied the muscle tone that shown through gaps in the green leather armor that covered most of her, with a black under suit covering the skin peeking through the armor on her torso and legs. Her face was pixieish with a slightly pointed nose and even sharper ears. Pointed ears. Was this lady an elf or something?

"Do you need help?" she asked, looking at him wearily.

Her eyes shocked him a little. Bright red irises shone from her alabaster face.

"I'm not sure to be honest." he replied with a half smile, trying to look non-threatening. "I'm kind of in a rough position. I woke up here alone in this clearing with no idea how I got here and was told to kill monsters and explore."

She watched him intently, seeming to go over something in her head. "What do you mean you were told to kill monsters? Are you a member of a Slayer guild?" she asked pointedly. Narrowing her eyes, her tone shifted slightly to suspicion,

"Are you poaching on unranked territory to boost your ranking? Usually Slayers tend to stay in Soldier-level or higher areas to gain some recognition around here. Killing off unranked monsters is just weak." She looked him over then a look of disgust and faint intrigue showed on her face. "Wait, you're not one of those insane berserker sex freaks are you? One of the ones that goes out and fights naked to get his-"

He put up both hands quickly, a look of horror coming over his face. "Whoa! No! I woke up without clothes and was given a quest to get some pants! That's why I was in my jollies when you turned up, I had just completed the quest."

He waited, watching her.

"What do you mean a quest?" she asked, this time not continuing on a tirade of questions, instead patiently waiting for him.

"Ya know, a quest. Little window that pops up telling you to do stuff for rewards." he said. "Sometimes good, Sometimes bad, usually a mix of both?"

She stared at him in confusion, then amazement flashed on her face.

"Are you a Reborn?!" she exclaimed excitedly.

"A what?" he asked.

"A Reborn. A person that isn't from our world. Sometimes they pop up out of nowhere with no memory and some weird thing guiding them. I don't know much more than that I'm afraid other than they usually end up being special in some way. Can you remember anything from before you got here?" she exclaimed in a rush.

She had started taking steps towards him, then stopped, wrinkling her nose.

"You smell like absolute Buzzwing dung." she said, taking a quick step backwards. She pulled a small bottle from seemingly nowhere and tossed it at him.

Catching it, a small screen popped up.

Claire Willowspark has given you -

Purity Dew x1

"Purity Dew?" he queried.

"A shower in a bottle. Pour it over your head." she answered. "I'm Claire by the way, Claire WIllowspark."

He unstoppered the small bottle wondering how such little liquid could wash him fully, then pouring it onto his head, felt a wave of warmth pass over his entire body.

Looking down he could see that the blue blood of the Buzzwings and the crimson of his own mixed with that of the Branch Lurker, fell off in sheets as if water were running over him. He could even feel his more private areas sloughing the gore from him. In just a few seconds he felt cleaner than he ever had.

"Wow, that stuff is amazing." he said, looking over his now clean body. Small pink marks showed the areas where he had used healing herbs. He wondered if they would fade or remain like scars.

"Now that that's done with." she said, moving closer and extending a hand. "What's your name?"

"Roann Thomas, at your service." he said, taking her hand in his.

A quick shake then releasing, she tilted her head slightly.

"So you're really a Reborn?" she asked again.

"I'm not entirely sure what that means. I woke up and was told i had to explore and kill unranked monsters to get pants. Other than that, I have no idea how I got here or where here even is. I don't remember anything about myself, just where I used to come from and where I worked. I remember bits of things like close family somewhat, but other than that I'm a full blank." he answered with sad smile.

He wasn't too happy knowing that he was basically running blind in a new world.

"Well, that pretty much assures me that you are a Reborn. You're very rare. Maybe one-in-a-million type thing. The only reason I've heard of you is my fath-" She cut herself off, looking awkward. "My father liked to study obscure things." she said quietly.

Roann got the impression that her father was a sensitive subject.

She looked up at him, seeming to analyze him.

"Well, what are you planning on doing then, Mr. Roann?" Her tone was back to its slightly jaunty nature, its clearness sounding like bells to Roann.

"I'm not sure. I've got my shelter for the rain." he said gesturing at his limb lean-to.

She looked over at it, back at him, then back at his limb shelter. She burst into laughter. A tinkling sound, it was beautiful, but Roann was annoyed by the woman's attitude towards his little area. He had worked hard getting the limb here, and it had helped him to kill one of the Buzzwings. It might have been a piece of crap, but it was his crap. The annoyance must have shown on his face, because she stopped openly laughing, settling for chiming giggles.

"No, you're not." she said covering her mouth, trying to stifle more laughter. "Come on, we're not too far from Bastion Falls. We can get you a room set up at the inn. Do you have any Spark Coins?"

He shook his head, wondering what Spark Coins were.

"That's fine, if you killed monsters, you must have some loot right? You can sell that for a little bit then get a room. After that, we can try and figure out what you should do next." She smiled at him.

He stared and wondered why she was helping him. If he were someone her size wandering around the forest and suddenly happened upon a strange man covered in blood and holding a scythe, he wouldn't have stopped to talk. He would've gotten as far away as he could then called the police about the obvious serial killer in the woods.

She stopped smiling, a look of concentration taking over her features, then before he could see or hear a thing, she was gone. In a streak of brown fur and a flash of steel, she was suddenly there again, but this time on the back of a Branch Lurker. She held two long shining daggers, both embedded deep in the Lurkers skull and back.

It gave out a gurgling wheeze than went still.

Roann had neither noticed the monster nor seen her take it down. It was like she had vanished and reappeared with the dying creature.

Pulling her blades sharply from its body with a wet tugging sound, she flicked the blood to either side, then looked up at Roann.

Smiling again, she slid the daggers into holsters on her back. "Ready to go?" she asked, like nothing had happened as the monster, who's siblings most likely nearly killed Roann, started turning into a rainbow puddle at her feet. They headed in the direction Claire pointed out and Roann noticed a prompt about his stats.

Stats

Name - Roann Thomas

Race - Human (Reborn)

Age - 26

Alliance - Unknown

Class - Unknown

Rank - Unranked

Path - Unbound

Essence shards - 0/5

Abilities - 0/15

Strength - 12

Dexterity - 10

Intelligence - 11

Wisdom - 9

Constitution - 10

Perception - 10

Charisma - 12

Luck - 18

Ki - Unknown

The question marks after his race had been revealed to say Reborn and guessed that finding out from Claire had revealed it. He wondered if the same would apply to the blanks on his map and the questions he had about his entire ordeal started bouncing around his head like ping-pong balls of iron spikes.

He sighed, knowing that answers would probably lead to even more headaches.

"You have no idea how lucky you are." Claire said suddenly. He looked over to see her eyeing him, her powder white hair bouncing in its high ponytail, eyes like rubies.

"Reborns usually live lives of grandeur and adoration. You don't seem to live like normal people with normal luck. It's always something new when dealing with a Reborn, and that something is usually riches, power, or unusual skill."

Her eyes searched him, and he looked away embarrassed.

"Anyways, we'll have to stop and meet up with my team before going to Bastion Falls. They shouldn't be far. Katarina and Yaun should be done with gathering the contract materials by now and Rufio is probably bored."

They walked in relative silence, him not knowing what to say to her, and her studying him.

She seemed genuinely interested in him. He wasn't sure how he should feel about that. On one hand, here was a beautiful woman giving him attention, on the other, it was because he was now an anomaly in her world. A freak. Someone who just appeared in her world with barely any memory of the past.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

How was anyone supposed to react to that? He was surprised he didn't feel as overwhelmed by that fact than he thought he would.

His entire life had been remade and he now had to adjust to it, or die. His emotion must have been plain on his face, because Claire bumped into him.

"Calm yourself. We'll show you the ropes here. I know how hard it can be to feel alone." She trailed off, her eyes taking on a flinty look. He nodded at her and kept walking.

Eventually, the wide trees thinned to normal size then to sapling size. A sky full of dark clouds opened up before them and Roann stopped to stare in amazement. Long fields stretched out before him, the grain growing in rows stretched into hills a deep golden hue and bushes that varied from deep blue to vibrant pink spread among it. The colors of this world were astounding. Everything seemed like it was more. More color, more life.

"Too bad it's about to rain. Usually this is much prettier with an open sky." Claire looked up to the dark poofs threatening showers in the sky.

Roann thought it seemed even more beautiful with the darkness overhead, the contrast of light playing off the bevy of colors.

They started through the grain at a steady pace. Roann stretched his arm and ran his scythe and hand over the stalks next to him, feeling the rough yet tender plants slide against his knuckles. They seemed to glow slightly under the stimulus but he could've just imagined that from the astounding arrangement of colors filling his vision. He wondered if everywhere in Euloria had this level of vibrancy to it.

Claire whistled, a long, high-pitched call interrupted with stutters that sounded like bird calling to its mate. Over the low hill ahead of them, a lower pitched whistle answered hers.

"Good, they'll be in the meeting spot." Claire said with a smile. "Rufio is going to love you. He always gets excited at new people and being a Reborn is going to have him over the moons."

Roann looked at her. "Moons? As in more than one?" he asked with confusion.

"Well, yeah? Did your old world not have 2 moons? Allenia and Russenia, both named after the sibling gods of heaven and space respectively. Don't mix them up in front of their followers though, they tend to be a bit testy about that sort of thing."

Roann was shocked. More than one moon? That was insane. How did the tides work here compared to earth's? Even more questions bombarded his thoughts and he started feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of having to relearn everything about basic science.

"If you ever see them, you should always give the proper respect. Lady Russenia is especially rancorous about being addressed as anything less than the utmost perfect being. Quite annoying when she starts going off on her followers about some perceived small slight that turns the divinity square into her own personal amphitheatre for a lecture on what and why they did wrong."

Claire looked over and noticed Roann had stopped, his scythe falling to his side.

"What's the matter?" she asked, seeing him wide-eyed.

"Lady Russenia? The one you just said the moon was named after? A god? That can't be right. I misunderstood you, right?"

She cocked her head slightly. "No? All the gods show up from time to time. They can't seem to stay away from the divinity squares if there is a chance for a few new followers." she said, as if gods materializing in front of you is something that occurs every week.

That did it.

Roann stared at her and felt the panic rise in him. Gods? Two moons? Monsters roaming the world? Why did he wake up here? Who even was he? What was he supposed to do? Was there some purpose to all this happening to him? Roann's breathing became shorter gasps of air as waves of anxiety and panic gripped him.

Claire walked forward, smiled at him with that beautiful smile, then reaching up, pinched him very hard on the nipple.

"AHH!! Stop it! What the hell?!" He yelled as he jumped back, bringing his his free hand up to his sore chest, trying to rub the stinging away.

"Stop thinking."she said with a smirk. "You're clearly going through some stuff right now that I have zero idea about and that means I can't help. I'm sorry I dropped that info on you like that. It's weird talking to someone as old as you that doesn't know anything about anything. I figured your world was somewhat similar to ours and I'm guessing now that it's not."

He stood there, still rubbing the tender area, thinking how strong her fingers were, but also realizing that her pinch had worked. His breathing had calmed down and he was now too focused on the pain and her to think about everything all at once.

"Thanks." he said. "This is going to be harder than I thought to wrap my head around. Trying to remember feels like looking into a deep pool where you can't see the bottom. You know something's there, you just can't see it." He trailed off.

He felt her gaze on him like someone pitying a lost puppy and decided that was enough of that. He started forward into a brisk pace past her, not wanting her to see him even more awkward than he felt after his clear panic.

She followed him in silence for a bit down the path through the grain before he heard more whistles chirping into the air from behind him. She was exceptional in her whistling he thought to himself, listening for a reply, then hearing it in the form of a deep pounding from the ground and much closer than before, he turned and looked through the grain.

His heart stopped.

A massive black and white shape was bounding through the stalks like a charging bear, right towards him.

It was only around 30 foot away and he had no time to react before it was upon him. Leaping through the last 10 foot, the mass of fur and muscle landed in front of him and stood up, reaching a massive 8 foot at least.

Roann knew he was about to die. He had only been in this world for a few hours and already he was going to die to a monster intent on ripping him limb from limb. He hoped it wouldn't hurt too badly.

"Who is this, Claire?" The shape boomed out in a baritone voice. Roann couldn't help but stare. It WAS a bear. Thick black fur with white markings swirling in strange patterns covered the towering beast, who looked at Roann, not as a meal but, with an intrigue like a dog greeting a visitor at his front door.

"Hello, Rufio!" Claire said.

Roann stared at the creature he had assumed was about to make him his next meal.

The bear's fur was thick and a heavy black color, like that of the night sky, with white markings seeming to shift within his hide to stay in their patterns and shapes unerringly. He seemed massive to Roann, who looked up and noticed the bear's eyes were a striking silver color that seemed to flow like a river over it's irises. It sniffed at the top of his head and then sat back and seemed to flop its body weight down into a sitting position to look at Roann and Claire at eye-level.

"He smells kinda funny." The bear said, scratching behind his ear with one long claw.

"He smells funny?" asked Claire, laughing again at the way Roann hadn't moved an inch.

"Are you okay? I didn't think he would come running like that but he does like new people." She walked up and stretched a hand out to scratch the top of the bear's head.

"What the hell?" he managed to sputter out, then trying to compose this new update that animals could freaking talk, he looked at Claire.

"Roann, this is Barufio Moonpaw. Rufio, this is Roann Thomas." The bear cocked its head and sniffed again.

"Why does he smell funny? Kinda like Honey Melon." Claire looked over at Roann.

"Uh, I guess it would have to do with being a Reborn?" She wondered aloud. "Maybe they smell different from normal people?"

The bears eyes lit up, almost literally, as Rufio stood up.

"You're a Reborn?" he asked in a deep excited tone.

"Yeah, I guess so.." He started to reply.

"We'll get to that later." Claire interrupted quickly. "We need to get Yaun and Katarina and go ahead to Bastion Falls before nightfall. Roann has no essences so he'd be more of a burden if night falls and anything decides it wants to play." Her tone had changed slightly, holding a commanding sound to it.

Rufio nodded and stood again, landing on all fours. He turned and they followed him through the path his body left behind in the grain.

Roann looked over at Claire.

"What are essences?" Rufio looked back over his shoulder and gave a grunting chuckle. Claire gave a small laugh. "It's so weird to meet someone your age who doesn't know about essences. They're basically the source of.."

She was cut off suddenly by another loud whistle and a small yell from over the hill. "Kat, where is Rufus? The damn bear made off with ma damn frosted wafers again! I tell ya, when i catch that looney fuzzball in the act.." the voice grunted as if lifting something heavy.

"Yaun, I did not eat your frosted wafers, you must have misplaced them." Rufio called out, as they crossed the hilltop and found a camp made with a Dwarve boasting stone-grey hair lifting a chest lid twice his size in front of one of the three tents. "Get out of there!." the bear snapped.

The dwarve turned, red in the face.

"Misplaced 'em, eh?!" he yelled as he dropped the heavy lid.

"Then where have you been, huh? Making sure no crumbs stay in your fur no doubt."

Roann watched in amusement as the bear trotted over to the dwarve and sat in front of him in the short grass of the hilltop, still towering above him by a good foot and a half.

"I have had no wafers today and I was greeting our new visitor, unlike you, who's just been rude in front of him this entire time."

"Visitor? What visitor?" Yaun glanced around, seeing Roann. "Who da bloody hell is this?" he asked, looking at Roann suspiciously with eyes the same color as his hair.

"I'm Roann. Who the bloody hell are you?" He answered.

The dwarves face reddened slightly more underneath his thick beard.

"Yaun, calm yourself. Roann will be with us for a bit. I found him while taking care of the Branch Lurker Queen. He was naked and covered in blood so I figured he needed help. Didn't realize I had stumbled upon a brand new Reborn."

With the words Reborn, Yaun's demeanor changed quickly.

"Well, why didn't ye say so?! Come on over boy, let's see if Claire here knows what she's talkin bout." he called out, gesturing for Roann to come closer, who glanced at Claire for reassurance.

"Not yet, Yaun. Get Kat over here. Are you two done gathering the Mellowroot?" The dwarve nodded and headed towards one of the tents.

They watched as Yaun stuck his head into one of the tents then withdrew it as a woman stepped from inside.

She was tall and muscular with skin like chocolate, wearing simple light armor and hefting a shield from the ground that sat at the entrance of the tent. She approached them and raised a hand to Roann. Taking it, he greeted her.

"Hello, I'm Roann Thomas."

"Katarina Warsaw." She replied in an accent Roann couldn't place. It was clipped, militaristic.

"Claire, we managed to gather enough Mellowroot to finish the contract and with you finishing the queen, I can assume we are heading to Bastion Falls."

Katarina seemed like the type to be very strict about herself. Her hair was cut short into a practical style for combat, with short bangs and a tapered cut, leaving it short in back but a bit longer up front. The blonde shining through the brown gave Roann the impression that she was in the sun a lot of the time to pick up those natural highlights. Her green eyes searched him.

"Yeah. We need to go ahead and pack everything. Roann here has no Spark Coins so we need to stop by the merchant to sell some of his loot so he can afford a room before night." Claire replied.

Katarina instantly turned and started to deconstruct the tent she had come from. Yaun also took to taking down the second tent and Rufio lumbered over to the chest. Roann turned to Claire.

"Need any help with anything?" he asked.

"No, it will only take a few minutes." she replied, gesturing back towards the others.

Looking back, he saw that everything was nearly put away into the chest that Rufio now held like it was a styrofoam cooler, all seeming to fit with no constraint.

He stared in amazement.

Where there had just been a camp that could sleep a group of people, there was now only a small burn spot near the middle where the fire had been set.

"How did.." he stuttered but caught himself. Don't question it, just go with it he thought to himself. Hopefully he could keep that up without having another freak-out.

His nipple was still a bit tender to get pinched again.

"Don't worry about anything. Just let us take care of it and thank us later. Think of it like being adopted by some loving travelers." she said with chiming laugh.

-

A little while later, Roann and the group of strange companions he had managed to acquire were steadily making their way through much more organized fields of different vegetable patches and orchards of fruit trees. Roann now wore a cloth shirt and some sandals given to him by Yaun. He might have been shorter, but Yaun was stocky so the shirt and sandals fit better than he would have thought.

"So, Roann, yerr really a Reborn, huh? I'm Yaun Gemron by the by" said Yaun in his gruff voice.

Roann looked at him and nodded. "Roann Thomas. Woke up just a few hours ago in a clearing, got told by a little window that I should hunt monsters to get some pants, and Claire found me shortly after I had bravely fended off a Branch Lurker Alpha." he said with some pride in his voice.

"Ahh, killed an Alpha did ye? I assume it wasn't too hard for ya, the alpha is nowhere near as big as the queen, but they can really get ya if they have their pack with em. I killed my first Alpha pack at 14. ohh ho! I remember the heat of the battle to this day."

Yaun continued on his story of felling four of the creatures in a battle in what seemed to be epic fashion, while Roann felt heat slowly rise in him. The only way he had survived that encounter was by sheer luck that the monster had landed on his weapon, and here was Yaun telling him how he killed four of them at half the age.

Claire rode atop Rufio, the chest seemingly weighing nothing behind her astride the bear. Roann had noticed she had been watching him for the entire journey so far.

"Roann, do you remember asking about essences earlier?" she asked.

Of course he did, it's not like a few hours worth of memory was easy to forget.

"Yeah, what are they? I managed to get an Essence Shard of Greater Weaponry. What is th..?" He started as he bumped into Katarina in front of him who had stopped.

She spun on him, "You have an Essence Shard of Greater Weaponry?" she asked hurriedly.

Glancing at Claire, she opened a satchel at her side and took out a black crystal with a white tip to it.

"Uh, yeah. What is.." he began.

"Can I see it?" she asked cutting him off. He raised an eyebrow then opened his inventory and thought about the Essence Shard. He felt a weight in his hand and he nearly dropped it is it materialized suddenly in his palm as a smooth opaque shard that looked like smokey glass.

Roann could feel a warmth in his hand where the gem touched his skin.

Katarina let out a small cough as she pointed the white end of the crystal towards the shard. The black end suddenly turned a silver gleaming color that took a few seconds to fade away.

"Wow. You found a really strong one too, somehow. I guess that's the Reborn effect in you though." she trailed off in thought.

Suddenly, the shard emitted a sharp light and in a flash of smoke, seemed to break apart and enter his hand in shards. He yelled in pain but then stopped as a sense of power rose up through him. A feeling of immense sharpness rose in him and entered his thoughts as his vision blanked out.

A vision played before his eyes, with the worried yells of his companions fading into the darkness around him.

-

In his mind, he could see a lake covered in fog. He seemed to be standing in the middle of the lake, looking up towards the sky. He put out his hand and felt the smooth metal of his scythe appear in it but it wasn't his own.

This scythe had two blades made of a pitch black metal that seemed to hold stars and galaxies within it and a handle made of seemingly pure light. Just by looking at it, Roann could feel himself wanting to seperate. He could feel the sharpness pressing against him like a warning, as if by looking too long, it would slice him from existence.

He curved the blade towards the sky and swung in one smooth slicing motion towards the bright orb above him, the only thing besides him and the fog. A line of multi-colored light slowly drew itself across the middle of the heavenly body, followed by another line of pitch black separating the color into two halves, and Roann could feel the power, the sharpness, the rending of the moon in his very soul.

He could hear in his head one word that seemed to stir power throughout the cosmos. A word echoing with an energy that started to separate the two halves of the moon, ripping the very fabric of reality to bring the scythe wielders action into fruition.

An echo of screaming, the pain of gods being rent asunder.

"REAP!!!"

The moon was broken. The foundation of his Oath to Oblivion.