“Tragedy at the Sigurdsson Ranch,” hello and welcome back to the Lone Voice Radio Podcast, I'm your host Mr. Mann, and whoa BOY do I have a strange story to start off tonight with! It seems that shortly after dark this past Monday, local rancher Wayne Sigurdsson was murdered on his ranch by Mexican invaders. I know what y'all are thinking, "must be a day that ends in Y, what makes this strange?"
Well evidently God took umbrage to THIS attack because, I shit you not, a BOLT OF LIGHTNING from a CLEAR SKY hit the site of the attack, killing all three murderers! Of course this might have something to do with Mr. Sigurdsson being out all day laying barbed wire around his property, to fend off attacks just like this according to his wife Pia, but hey...if it quacks like a duck AND THROWS LIGHTNING... Besides, unconfirmed reports state that SOMETHING was “left behind” where the bolt touched down…what that is and how it is notably different from other lightning-scoured ground is unknown.
Unfortunately, according to a source I have in the local P.D., a fourth man might have escaped the veritable Judgement of Heaven. I’ll follow up on this later, and let y’all know what is happening, if something comes up.
I feel like I should throw up, but with how raw my throat is, I think I already hork’d up my damn SPLEEN. And that’s not all, Oh holy FUCK does my head hurt…what happened? With a sudden flash of memory, I reach up to grab my throat, to keep my life INSIDE me. With a flash of relief, Must have been a nightmare or something, I find my throat un-slit. And also un-bearded, What the fuck?
I try to open my eyes, to shout my surprise and sit up in bed, but it feels like my flesh is filled with lead, and instead I just crack them open as I roll out of the bed I find myself in where it lays flat on the…DIRT floor?! Through my cracked lids I can see that I’m in some sort of primitive hut with a low fire in the middle, being tended by a veritable GIANT of a man who quickly turns in surprise to see me flop around. What the hell is happening, where’s the ranch, where’s Pia?
“…Pia…,” I manage to croak out through my weakness. The giant smiles, his teeth sharp white, almost fluorescently so, as he exclaims, “It worked? You made it, you’re alive!” He then nearly crawls to me, before scooping me up in his arms and hugging me tight, “Thank the deepest darkness and that which moves within it, I thought I had lost you too Laughash!”
The weirdness only gets deeper. I can HEAR him talk, I can HEAR the words, but they are all gibberish…yet somehow I understand him. I can see the thick beard on his face, but as he rubs his cheek against the side of my face I feel only skin. Plus, you know, the guy looks to be about THREE TIMES taller than I am…and I’m 6’0” tall!
“Here, stay in bed for now, I’ll make you some soup…you’ve been feverish for over a tenday and haven’t been able to keep anything down but water,” says the giant, before putting me back in the…pallet?...and pulling the furs up over me. Wait, furs?! Where the FUCK am I?!
I’m too weak to struggle or protest, barely able to move my hands up to pull down the furs from my naked body, but this lets me see that the man ISN’T a giant…I’m a child! My body is naked, hairless, and all the hard-working muscle I’ve put on throwing around cows is just GONE!
Plus, the weird markings all over my skin, that from rubbing one looks to have been painted on…yeah, that’s weird as hell. This is my last thought before, evidently having blown all my limited energy, I pass out.
I wake up sometime later, my upper body resting on the…just a guy’s…legs, as he uses a carved wooden spoon to feed me some sort of broth. I admit it doesn’t taste that bad, despite being totally un-spiced, but between bites my curiosity gets the better of me, “who are you?”
“Huh, your spirit must still be wandering from the fever, I can’t understand what you are saying Laughash,” my caretaker says in his weird language. Shit, I spoke in English, didn’t I? With a bit of effort I manage to puzzle out what I need to say in the same language, reversing whatever it is that lets me comprehend it, “who are you?”
He looks sad suddenly, his facing falling into what seems to be near-despair, “Oh no, the fever must have taken your mind. I’m Venradik, I’ve been taking care of you since your father died last spring.” He puts on a strained smile, “Don’t worry, your memory will come back after you recover, I’ve seen this happen to people who get snow-sick before.”
Yeah, obviously from his tone of voice, he doesn’t believe a WORD of that. I don’t either…this “Laughash” kid is obviously not in residence anymore. Fuck, I’ve been Isekai’d like one of Pia’s freaking anime, haven’t I? The realization of my situation is a shock, to say the least. What about Pia and Paul? Are they going to be OK? This is the kind of anime thing that PIA likes to make me watch! Why the FUCK am I the one “waking up to an unfamiliar ceiling”?!
Then I remember the voice I heard when I was attacked back on the ranch. I may not have gotten some scene where a goddess grants me a second life, complete with cheat-like super powers, but at least whatever entity sent me here promised to protect my family. I miss them already. At least they will make it, I think before once again passing out, to the feel of soup flowing down my chin like drool.
It is weeks before I am strong enough to do more than eat and do the inevitable side-effects of that. Embarrassing as all fuck the first time, when waking up to Venradik cleaning me off. Good thing babies don’t remember doing THAT. Imagine the therapy bills! Yeah, I admit it, I kept freaking out over all this. At least Venradik used WARM water to wipe off the strange runes he had evidently painted on my new body, while Laughash was unconscious from fever.
But Venradik seems to honestly care for this Laughash person. Whenever I am awake he keeps talking about my life, trying to kick-start “Laughash’s” memory, evidently. I may not remember this kid’s life, but at least his worried mumblings are giving me some sort of backstory. That will be useful if I am to survive in this strange place, in the body of a 5-year-old freaking CHILD!
Evidently, my people are (or were) a local primitive tribe here in the Land of Fire and Snow, nearly neolithic, and my mother died from an Ogre attack shortly after giving birth to me. Yeah, Ogres…fuck, this is some sort of fantasy world isn’t it?! Well last spring the tribe came to this volcanic valley in their wanderings, only to find a walled village was already here, surrounded by farmland. So they attacked it to take the land and food, only to find out that stone axes and bone spears didn’t do shit against even primitive iron blades…especially when wielded by a veritable BEAR of a king.
Despite the iron weaponry, and decent hide armor, the battle wasn’t completely one-sided. Many of the village’s warriors died, but ALL of the tribe’s warriors did! The ruler of this place, called the “Jarl” (heh, isn’t that some sort of Viking term?), decided to take in the tribe’s noncombatants. After all, he needed labor to replace the farmers who died, and even though the tribe doesn’t know shit about farming they can be taught. So now here I am; a veritable slave to some pseudo-proto-Viking wannabe king…great.
At least I’m not TOTALLY up shit’s creak. It seems that Venradik was the tribe’s doctor, for lack of a better term, and his skills with plants and potions gives him some status to the villagers thanks to his being useful. Hell, I even see him casting a SPELL once, filling his hand with fire, when the fire pit needs re-lighting! So he is a spellcaster and a doctor, no wonder he has some sort of respect from our New Overlords. He was also Laughash’s father’s childhood friend, like an older brother, and took me in after the guy died; so I seem to have SOME protection by association. At least I won’t have to worry about being worked half-to-death in the fields.
When it comes to technology, this place seems to be some sort of mix between cavemen and the Bronze age. Only with primitive Iron, thanks to the mountains around the valley being filled with Iron-rich ores. Other than that, education is nonexistent, with no seeming method of preserving knowledge beyond passing your skills on to your children. Even worse, when I tried using hashes to mark the passage of time, Venradik got upset and scraped out my efforts, “Don’t use runes, only us shamans and rulers are permitted to make runes, YOU will get in BAD trouble.”
Great, I’m going to have to hide most of what I know, aren’t I? Hey, then why the hell did he graffiti me? Something is off here, but I’m not exactly in a position to make an issue out of it!
***
It has been about three weeks, or “two tendays” according to Venradik, when I am finally strong enough to move about and take care of myself. The valley still has a lot of snow in it, kept there by the shadows cast from the mountain range to the east, but the days are at least warm enough that I don’t see my breath when I go outside. Venradik pushes me out of his dugout hut in the mornings, telling me to, “Go run around, get fresh air, you have been sick too long.” Shit, this guys acting like I’m HIS kid isn’t he? I remember doing much the same thing with Paul when he was this age, I’m going to have to act like a normal kid, to get by without being stoned by these primitive screwheads…fuuuuck.
The mountain valley isn’t completely enclosed, evidently the huge-ass mountain at the Eastern apex of the east-side and north-side ranges was once a volcano, and spewed out a lava flow deep in the past that built up here over time. So not only is the soil here rich from ancient volcanic ash, but the valley slowly spreads open to the SouthEast, eventually becoming just rolling hills covered in woodlands that the villagers have yet to clear. Venradik takes me out there from time to time, when he goes to collect mosses and plants for his elixers, I think trying to teach me these skills.
On the days he doesn’t take me to scavenge in the woods, I sneak around the village proper, trying to get a handle on what resources they have to survive around here. Mostly I just see normal, if primitive, people doing basic things like tanning leather or smelting ores. I get further confirmation that I AM living in some sort of fantasy isekai, when I see a shaman/priest chant in a field, and the sapling plants near him suddenly stand tall and vibrantly green, in a widely-growing circle. Other than him, the only magic stuff I see anybody doing is a handsome young woman seal a warrior’s wounds, when he comes back injured after a boar hunt. So, between these two and Venradik, and whomever ELSE I haven’t found yet, magical power is DEFINITLEY something I am going to have to deal with.
I wander into the woods after seeing the hunter’s dead boar, safe in the knowledge that I can get some at least semi-safe privacy there until a new hog moves into the territory. Great, here I am in a world of magic, and I get…nothing. Maybe I can figure out how that shaman worked his weirdness, or apprentice with the woman to learn that healing-hands trick? Nope, I’m not one of “them”, second-class citizen doesn’t even come CLOSE to the status of the tribe’s people, I think after washing off the pig-shit in the cool creak waters, thrown at me by the laughing local kids. At least out here, away from prying ears, I can speak English…which oddly enough gives me SOME comfort that I am not stark-raving mad!
“What the hell was that voice that brought me here? I understood what it meant, even if I couldn’t understand the WORDS, and they weren’t like these people’s languages…,” evidently the language Venradik speaks, and that I was speaking to him, isn’t the same as the village language. A language that I can somehow speak anyways, in the same kind of weird-comprehension that lets me speak the tribe’s language. I’m not unaccustomed to speaking languages besides English, thanks to Pia I was at least passable in Tagalog, but that was more of a hobby than a means of survival! Yet somehow I can speak these two additional languages as if I grew up with them?
“Is this some sort of cheat power, given to me by whatever force sucked me into this? Great, my big-ass ‘cheat’ power is the ability to speak a language that doesn’t exist ANYWHERE else…damnit, why couldn’t I have some sort of super-powerful weapon skill, or magic power?” I hate that I seem to be getting only a half-assed isekai life, like all the down-sides and NONE of the up-sides! And the worst part is, that I am WHINING about it.
“I don’t even have some sort of ‘status’ screen, like a character sheet…” which is when one pops up in front of my face!
NAME: Laughash
RACE: Human
SUBRACE: Primitive
AGE: 5.3 years
HIT DIE: 1(1/3)
ECL: 1/3
SIZE: Small
SPEED: 20 ft. (due to size)
ERA: Classical (Primitive, use one Era lower)
ABILITY SCORES: Cha 14 (12 due to age), Wis 12 (10 due to age), Int 15 (11 due to age), Dex 13, Con 10 (8 due to size), Str 8 (4 due to age and size)
DURABILITY: 0 (due to Small size)
SAVING THROWS: Fort –2 (0), Ref +1 (0), Will +1 (0)
SPECIAL ABILITIES
* Trickery Domain spells: 1 per day.
ATTACK: Base Attack Bonus +0, Melee –2, Ranged +2.
SKILLS (–3 to Social skills from Primitive): [allocate up to 18 skill points]
* Charisma-Linked (+1)
* * (CbF) Bluff
* * (CbF) Disguise
* * (P) Use Mystic Device
* Wisdom-Linked (+0)
* * (P) Survival +2 (0) [+2 from Primitive]
* Intelligence-Linked (+0)
* * (P) Alchemy
* Dexterity-Linked (+0)
* * (CbF) Hide +5 [+4 from size]
* * (P) Move Silently
* Constitution-Linked (+0)
* * (P) Control Shape
* Strength-Linked (+0)
* * (P) Climb
* Linguistics +2 (2 ranks)
FEATS (Simple Weapon Proficiency):
* HD 1: [none due to age]
* Human: Chosen by Fate (Trickery)
TRAITS (Mystical Hero):
* Favored: Skillful ×1
* HD 1: [choose one]
* HD 1: [none due to age]
* HD 1: [none due to age]
SPELLCASTING:
* Chosen by Fate CL 1 (+2), Max SL 0th.
* * 0th: [choose one Arcane or Divine]
SPECIAL ABILITIES:
* Advantage: Breaking the Limits (Eldritch Soul) [Charisma score –10 –Spell Level to spell effects]
* Extra skill points
“Hoe…Lee…FUCK!” I exclaim, shocked out of my little pity-party. The window I am seeing is translucent dark grey, like a faded square of paper fraying at the edges, which makes everything behind it look to be cast in shadows. The text itself if glowing faintly, giving a good contrast to the shadow-page, letting me read it even in the midday sun coming through the tree branches.
And…Why is it in ENGLISH?! Hey…wait a minute…this looks like…
No way, “No FUCKIN way!” I recognize the terms, I recognize the format, condensed as it is. This is a character sheet from The Harrowed Earth! “I’ve been fucking isekai’d into a The Harrowed Earth game?!”
“Ok, ok, calm down Wayne…or evidently ‘Laughash’…I know this system, this is my reality now, so just accept it…” Nope. Not gonna. I JUST got used to being trapped here in the body of a damn KID…now I got to accept that I am in a damn GAME WORLD I used to roll dice in?!
I collapse to my knees on the forest loam, clutching my too-thin chest, panting from the sudden panic attack. Is some fucker back on Earth rolling dice for ME? Is my entire new existence just somebody’s RPG game?! Was I EVER real?
After nearly hyperventilating into unconsciousness, I slowly calm down and THINK. I’ve been playing this game for months, I used to skim the core rule book for fun while watching the cattle. Nowhere in the book, and not even while playing, is there a mention of self-aware characters in the game…the closest thing is an allusion to the player as an Elder Deity called, appropriately enough, “The Player.” A kind of tongue-in-cheek joke acknowledging that, if the characters knew they were just miniatures being moved around a battleground, they would view their player as an existential eldritch horror. So “The Player” is the only Elder Deity to even SEE individual characters in the seas of chaos the universe floats in, and it gets its jollies from throwing them into the weirdest (and often ironic) situations they couldn’t ever imagine.
Well, that certainly describes THIS shitshow that I find myself in, Pinky, I think before laughing at myself nearly hysterically. So, maybe this is some sort of bizarre coincidence, maybe The Harrowed Earth was just one of The Player’s fucked-up jokes? Is the WRITER some sort of avatar of his, or just a guy The Player was fucking with?!
Or…maybe…THIS is my “cheat” ability!
Looking at the still-floating screen with its fuzzy edges, I see that in several places it says I have choices to make. So I can gain skills and such just by CHOOSING them? How is that NOT a massive CHEAT! And with my knowledge from slinging dice, I can try to optimize for whatever I want, swordsmanship to magic…Hmmmm, magic.
I remember the rule book having rules in it for using magic to travel across planes, skipping from the real world to places like the Hell Realms or even the game’s version of Heaven. And there was that section about using extreme measures to travel between UNIVERSES! If I can figure out how to do THAT, could I get back to Earth? I could see Paul and Pia again! I only remember the fact the rules exist, something about travelling the tides in the Astral Plane, and that it takes a LOT of potent magic. It could take me years, even DECADES, to build up to it…but I’m 5 right now, I GOT that time!
With a sight, a release of tension and misery I didn’t even know I had until then, I sit up and look at the screen, Time to cheat like I got loaded dice!
***
Ok, first step lets review what I got NOW, to see how I can improve best. So lets go over each item…
NAME: Laughash
RACE: Human
SUBRACE: Primitive
AGE: 5.3 years
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Looks pretty obvious, and evidently I was born sometime around…Christmas? Really? Sheesh, I’m not fantasy Isaac Newton, am I?,” I laugh, mumbling to myself in English.
HIT DIE: 1(1/3)
ECL: 1/3
“Great, wasn’t there some sort of rule about under-1st Hit Die creatures getting reduced stats? Well I AM only 5 years old, guess that comes with SOME drawbacks.
SIZE: Small
SPEED: 20 ft. (due to size)
ERA: Classical (Primitive, uses one Era lower)
“Yep, I’m a tiny shit AND from a near-Paleolithic tribe…this tracks. At least once I’m taller I will have longer legs!”
ABILITY SCORES: Cha 14 (12 due to age), Wis 12 (10 due to age), Int 15 (11 due to age), Dex 13, Con 10 (8 due to size), Str 8 (4 due to age and size)
“That…is…BULLSHIT! I have a LIFETIME of experiences, including almost 10 years in the navy, no WAY my ‘Wisdom’ is THAT low! Huh…well…maybe it’s just a carry-over from Laughash’s body? I know my Strength is going to be crapped out, thanks to being a kid, so it kinda makes sense that smaller brainmeat would have struggles processing my 30plus years of life. The size and age penalties are understandable, given everything, but no WAY am I just ‘average’ Intelligence. I ran the entire munitions stock on a freaking battleship! Must be another carry-over.”
DURABILITY: 0 (due to Small size)
SAVING THROWS: Fort –2 (0), Ref +1 (0), Will +1 (0)
“Yeah, I’m a small kid, so obviously I’ll be frailer than an adult. At 0 Durability I’ll be taking double damage from everything, but it should rise to 1 for once I hit Medium-size. My low Constitution and Strength explains the low Fortitude save, and why Laughash apparently ‘died’ this past winter. At least having a 12 in my Charisma and Dexterity lets me have +1 to Reflex and Will saves.”
SPECIAL ABILITIES
* Trickery Domain spells: 1 per day.
“Trickery domain?! Wait, this means I have MAGIC! But that’s ‘Daily Use’ spellcasting, not the ‘Prepared’ from Divine Agent or ‘Pool’ from Spiritualism…how the FUCK did I get THAT??”
ATTACK: Base Attack Bonus +0, Melee –2, Ranged +2.
“So I’m a little kid who can be kept at bay in melee by putting a hand on my head, but can hit stuff with rocks fairly well? Yeah, that tracks from all the roughhousing I did with Paul.”
SKILLS (–3 to Social skills from Primitive): [allocate up to 18 skill points]
* Charisma-Linked (+1)
* * (CbF) Bluff
* * (CbF) Disguise
* * (P) Use Mystic Device
* Wisdom-Linked (+0)
* * (P) Survival +2 (0) [+2 from Primitive]
* Intelligence-Linked (+0)
* * (P) Alchemy
* Dexterity-Linked (+0)
* * (CbF) Hide +5 [+4 from size]
* Constitution-Linked (+0)
* * (P) Control Shape
* Strength-Linked (+0)
* * (P) Climb
* Linguistics +2 (2 ranks)
“Ok, I’m guessing that the ‘(P)’ tags are to indicate my Perpetual-access skills. That social-skill penalty…yeah, I’m a ‘primitive screwhead’ as far as everybody in the village thinks, so I get it…no need to rub it in! At least I got plenty of skill point to distribute! From the looks of it, Laughash was set up to be Venradik’s apprentice. But wtf does ‘(CbF)’ mean?”
FEATS (Simple Weapon Proficiency):
* HD 1: [none due to age]
* Human: Chosen by Fate (Trickery)
“Great, no Hit Die 1 feat thanks to being a freaking toddler, but…Chosen by Fate?! That’s a Charisma and Wisdom based feat that doubles your luck, good and bad, while giving you minor spellcasting powers…aaaannnnddd…this explains the Daily Use spellcasting I got. Not to mention why Laughash is a veritable orphaned slave, but being taken care of by somebody at least in a minor position of respect. But the feat is only taken by characters that are, essentially, the Saturday-night TV show of some eldritch force or entity…” I look up to the trees and ponder for a bit.
“Yep, that CERTAINLY tracks, pretty much perfectly.”
TRAITS (Mystical Hero):
* Favored: Skillful ×1
* HD 1: [choose one]
* HD 1: [none due to age]
* HD 1: [none due to age]
“Well having ‘Skillful’ certainly shows where all those skill points to allocate came from, the trait gives 16 at 1st-HD and ALSO lets you put them anywhere…guess it comes from having both a hunter-type father and semi-doctor ‘uncle’. And BONUS, I seem to have a Hit Die 1 trait I can actually SELECT, from being a ‘strong’ character no doubt! I’ll have to put some thought into that…I need to start my magical powers ASAP, if I want to get back to Earth in any sort of reasonable time. Glad I got the ‘Mystical’ Hero Type, it will buff up whatever spells I cast, which could be VERY useful.”
SPELLCASTING:
* Chosen by Fate CL 1 (+2), Max SL 0th.
* * 0th: [choose one Arcane or Divine]
“And THERE’S my spellcasting bonus from the ‘Chosen by Fate’ feat. Looks like my Wisdom is too low to get more than the bonus 0th-Level spell each Hit Die. Guess I’ll get the 1st-Level Trickery domain spell once I get that full Hit Die, and my Wisdom goes up. But what spell to take? I’ll have to think on THIS one…” It has got to be something that I can rely on, to use my Earth knowledge for extra utility.
SPECIAL ABILITIES:
* Advantage: Breaking the Limits (Eldritch Soul) [Charisma score –10 –Spell Level to spell effects]
* Extra skill points
“Ok, being ‘Primitive’ gave me that +2 to Survival AND this Advantage, which it looks like is focused on the Eldritch Soul trait. I guess that since I’m a soul from another freaking REALITY, it makes sense that I would be focused towards ‘Eldritch Soul’ sorcery.” Yeah if ever ANYBODY was the living embodiment of the whole ‘mysterious relationship with the fundamental forces of reality’ thing, it would be ME, heh.
Ok, so it looks like I’m set up to sling spells out of a mystical pool of energy, reality-is-my-bitch style…awesome, I know how that works from play Herr Grey. So I got a leg up there.
Huh, guess this character sheet isn’t voice-controlled. That leaves touch, so I reach out to the image I see and…press the “[choose one]”? Yep! Now there is a list of all the trait categories:
TRAITS [SELECT ONE]:
* COMBAT
* SKILL
* SPELL
* SPECIAL
* PSYCHIC
* MONSTER
Ok, it’s a little freaky that I am seeing the “Monster” category…that’s usually only available for characters with more a-typical abilities, like claws or native spellcasting. Oh, wait, I realize that I HAVE “racial” spellcasting thanks to Chosen by Fate. Hmmm…I could take something there…NO, bad gamer, FOCUS! “Spellcasting” first, I got to get the hell OUT of here and back HOME, with a quickness.
So I reach out and press “Spellcasting” and…sure enough, it expands like a drop-down menu on a phone screen.
SPELLCASTING [SELECT ONE]:
* ARCANISM
* DIVINE AGENT
* ELDRITCH SOUL
* SPIRITUALISM
Hey, wait a minute, this list is missing stuff like “Call of the Wild” or “Exorcise Supernatural”? Does it only show what I already meet the requirements for? Great…if so, then I hope like HELL I can remember options that aren’t shown…in case I need them. Anyways, complaints about the user—unfriendliness of my cheat ability not withstanding, I press “Eldritch Soul”.
Ok, now THERE is a problem. I have the minimum Charisma score needed for the trait, I KNOW that, and there is no OTHER trait needed first like how “Call of the Wild” needs “Wildman” first…so why the FUCK can’t I select the VERY DAMN trait that I have “Breaking the Limits” for?!
Calm down, calm down…I’ll just let this percolate while I do something else, maybe the answer will come to me. Ok, so if I’m going to mess around with spell-tossing, what OTHER choices do I have? Oh, right, I still have the 0th-level spell from Chosen by Fate to select.
So I look over to the “Spellcasting” section of my sheet, and press the “[choose one Arcane or Divine]” there. I’m going to need something that is versatile, but that I can preferably utilize my lifetime of experience with…bring a little of the 21st century and show THEM whose the primitive screwhead!
The page I see is replaced by two columns, one labelled “Arcane” and the other “Divine”, with the Arcane list MUCH longer. Despite that there is a ton of cross-reference, both have detect magic on them after all, but I avoid stuff like that since I’ll get detect magic automatically when I finally figure out how to get Eldritch Soul. Hmmm…well, guess since Eldritch Soul ALSO gets spells off the Arcane list exclusively, there’s no point in selecting any Arcane spell…so it looks like Divine is where it is at.
A lot of these are either useless to me, only useful in limited circumstances (seriously, other than the “firehose” option of create water, why would I ever USE that spell in this winter wonderland?), and so on. Divine just doesn’t have the general-purpose versatility that Arcane does, but…oh yeah, summon weapon! I remember that as a 1st-level Arcane Spell from when I was playing Herr Grey, and here I can get it at 0th-level, so that it becomes FREE when I get my 1st-level Trickery domain spell? Heh, heh, heh…I can ABUSE this, oooooh, yeah…
So I press the spell, and confirm the selection when the “ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT THIS SELECTION YES/NO?” Then, excited, I hold out one hand and picture my old Colt 1911A2 .45, while saying “summon weapon” with FEELING.
Nothing happens, “FUCK!”
Ok, ok, ok…no “error” message popped up, so maybe I’m just doing this wrong? Let’s take a look at the spell description. I press the spell name on my character sheet, and sure enough, it pops up the spell’s description. So, evidently, it needs a “verbal” and “somatic” component when being cast. “Verbal” for Arcane spells is some sort of related chant or mantra, while “somatic” can mean a related action made with the hands…like pointing a finger at your target when casting a ray of frost. I remember that from playing Herr Grey, so why didn’t this work? I held my hand like I was going to have a gun in my palm…not like I was WIELDING the gun, maybe that’s it? And I just called out the NAME of the spell in the local lingo, BUT the sheet is in English, so…maybe if I say it in English?
I hold out my hand, fingers curled, like I am already clutching the gun’s grip. Imagining the same pistol like the text in the description says, I call out in English, “summon weapon”.
YES! FUCK YES! I AM A GOD AMONGST APES!!! There it is, a fucking FIREARM gripped in my hand.
Time for a function test. Remember, never trust a weapon until you have fired it. I flip the safety to “off”, and grab the slide to rack it.
Then there is a
The bullet on the ground quickly fades away, its piece of the spell losing integrity once it is no longer “held” by the caster. Just another reason to take summon weapon, no matter what I pull out of my memories nobody would be able to steal it and use it AGAINST me! But yeah…has to WORK first! Why didn’t it? I spent years of my life cleaning and maintaining these things in the navy, not to mention growing up learning to shoot using this EXACT SAME weapon, from my dad. I know that there is a skill check to successfully “summon” a useable weapon, but I know this thing BETTER than my own face!
Except…I don’t, do I. I know the mechanisms, the FEEL of each piece, even the smell of the same gun oil dad used, and that I have been using since inheriting it from him. Yep, smells the same. But I don’t know SHIT about how the METAL is made, do I? So I got the right SHAPE, the right FEEL, even the right SCENT…but NOT the correct MATERIAL. Just a look-alike facsimile made from whatever SEEMS right? Great, I’m going to have to take up blacksmithing or something, to get a comprehension of the MATERIALS needed…
Huh, hold on a minute, what if I didn’t? What if I just use ANOTHER type of magic to make up the difference? I remember there was a spell somewhere that let you FIND materials by DESIRE, so what if I used THAT to find the ores I need to MAKE UP the gunmetal and such I am missing? Going back to the character sheet, I sweep the spell description to the side so I can see my base sheet again, intent to see if I can figure out what trait I have to take to get the…detect metals and minerals spell?
And there it is, completely derailing my train of thought. The EXPLENATION for my current frustrations, staring me in the face like a slap with a wet fish: “
I need to train, don’t I? In The Harrowed Earth, you cannot take a trait unless you can JUSTIFY it…“Combat Bonuses” from getting into bar fights, “Stalker” from following people around town or ambushing people on the road, and so on. And here, in THIS world, evidently you cannot take “Eldritch Soul” without USING magic…or maybe at least TRYING to? Any way this works, evidently casting summon weapon qualifies as “training” for picking up Eldritch Soul…great, just great. Is my new life a comedy show for some twisted ancient deity or something?
Oh…yeah…that’s right, it IS. I want to kick its ass sooooo bad right now.
Rather than hunt around for a useful spell to make up the difference, it looks like I am going to be summoning a LOT of…I don’t know, deer-horn daggers? Great, just FUCKING great, so much for skipping the training montage. Great isekai ‘cheat’ ability.
***
Days pass, casting summon weapon in secret once every day after my spells recover at dawn, working on making IMMEDIATELY useful things. But with only ONE shot at this a day, it is slow going…like a mud slide in the arctic tundra slow. After a couple weeks or so (sorry one “tenday”), I finally manage to make a bone-bladed dagger that can actually scour a fallen branch, instead of just warping like it’s a rubber Halloween toy. But it still takes me a couple more days to repeat the accomplishment successfully.
It is mid-summer by the time I not only manage to get bone daggers semi-reliably, but can start making METAL ones. It is only a blade made from iron ore, similar to a chip of it that I managed to five-finger- discount from the village blacksmith (I refuse to SAY that damn name!). It is less reliable though, I’m only able to recreate the ore accurately around half the time. Guess ACTUAL metal will have to wait until I can figure out how to snag a piece of it to study…
And yes, iron ore does NOT make a functional firearm. I couldn’t even rack the slide it was so stiff from grit, gun oil or not.
And NOW I can’t even go to the forest to practice anymore! It seems that not only have fresh boars moved into the area, but there are ALSO bears and, supposedly, even ogre-sign is being seen by the hunters from time to time. I don’t know if I believe that, despite there being obvious magic in this world, wouldn’t seeing a BEAR moving around through thick underbrush be MISTAKEN for something like an ogre? Or hell, what do I know, for all I know it could be a troupe of dancing Japanese-style oni/ogres dressed like clowns!
But at least I can still “play” around the village, like I’m one of the REGULAR kids. An adult found in the smithy while the owner is eating lunch will have the shit kicked out of him…a kid will just be tossed out into the muddy village “street”. My butt still hurts from the impact.
And nobody can recognize an iron ring covered in mud. SUCCESS!
After going to the creek behind the village to rinse off the muck, hiding the ring in my diaper-like britches like the most valuable cock-ring in existence (at least to ME), I walk to the “home” I share with Venradik. The iron ring then joins the iron ore fragment in a secret spot under my bed-furs, to be used late at night when the fire is banked down to slow-burning coals, and “both” of us are asleep. I HAVE to keep them there, since what with being a “filthy savage” the village’s kids often bully (read: MUG) me whenever they can catch me around town outside of adult observation. I’ve lost a LOT of lunches that way…I can’t AFFORD to lose my study materials!
So late at night, once I am sure Venradik is asleep, I pulled out the iron ring and tried to replicate the material with my summon weapon spell. Once I can do that at least two out of three tries, I head to the woods (or now, the undergrowth-filled areas near the creek) to replicate the results.
It takes longer than I had hoped to get a 1911 that wouldn’t turn into something like black licorice when I try to rack it. This “iron” ring is more like low-grade pig iron than anything else, practically mostly slag, At least SHAPEABLE slag
It is truly the most beautiful sound I have ever heard since Paul’s cries when he was born, as the slide jumps forward and racks a bullet. An iron-cased slag-headed bullet, but a bullet none the less. Unfortunately, I’m not the only one to hear it.
In my excitement I forgot that Venradik was asleep in a pile of furs almost on the opposite side of the hut’s central fire pit. With a startled shock, he sits up and looks around for the alien sound, and sees me holding a precious iron object. “By the creeping dark Laughash, you need to STOP stealing trinkets from the villagers,” he says with exasperation as he lunges from his bed to snatch the firearm from me!
“NO! It’s Danger-,” I get out in shock, admittedly in English, as his hand grips the top of the slide. And his thumb goes into the trigger well.
With a sharp
“AAAGGGHHHRRR!,” Venradik screams as he falls to his unwounded side, clutching the entry wound as his injured arm flops around in blood-spraying spasms. “VENRADIK! Hold on, let me help!” Yeah, still using English, I quickly switch to the local lingo, “I can help, just hold on…”
I need to do this fast. I think the bullet nicked an artery, with how much blood is flowing from under his hand…at least the exit wound is small thanks to the low-energy bullet, and practically just seeping in comparison. Venradik may be annoying, what with his condescension and occasional lectures to what he thinks is just a five-year-old, but he is a GOOD man and doesn’t deserve to bleed to death on a packed dirt floor!
Almost panicking myself, surprised at how much I’ve grown to care about my erstwhile caretaker over these past months, I look around for something that I can use as a tourniquet. My own wounds forgotten, in my NEED to help the medicine man. I can’t spot anything, the few strips of plant bark or dried plants I see in his potion-crafting area being too fragile. But then I remember the leather necklace he is always wearing, the one covered with decorative stonework woven into it. THAT would work!
Quickly moving behind his head I start undoing the leather ties at the back, the seeping blood from my wounded hand actually provides some lubrication to work out the knots.
“NO LAUGHASH! LEAVE that al…,” he says before passing out from blood loss. Finally pulling it off I think, FUCK I got to work fast!, before stopping in surprise.
Venradik is gone. In his place, wearing his clothes, and still with the bleeding arm is a thinner figure with obsidian-black skin, dirty bone-white hair, and long tall sharply-pointed ears. Venradik is a freaking DROW?! Well that explains why I never felt his beard whenever he would hug me, but still…a BABY-EATING EVIL ELF HAS BEEN TAKING CARE OF ME!
I quickly shake my head clear. His race doesn’t matter, his ACTIONS do, and those have been nothing but kind and compassionate towards what he THOUGHT was just an orphan. I quickly use the necklace to tie off his arm between the entry hole in the bicep and the exit hole in the shoulder, realizing that it is probably something similar to a hat of disguise that he used to hide his true nature. I’ll have to ask him about this later.
Once I got the entry wound bleeding under control, I reach my damaged hand into the bottom of the banked fire pit, scalding it but also grabbing a fist full of ashes. Packing the ashes into the exit wound does for him what they did for the very-wounded hand I used: helping coagulate and seal the shredded flesh. Just before, with realization and none-too-little pain to remind me, I shove the last of the ashes into the wound in my own shoulder, at least the fragments vanished, so I don’t have to worry about pulling out shrapnel.
A bunch of the other tribesmen are at our doorway no, banging rocks on the wooden post beside it to get our attention, I guess knocking is a common custom, I chuckle to myself, obviously in shock. Lightheadedly I crawl to the entryway and pull myself up, before sweeping aside part of the animal pelt covering, to tell them, “Get-the-fuck-out-I’m-busy.”
“We heard thunder, then screaming! Where is Venradik?,” the one in front says, still holding the rock in one hand while clutching his barely-on leather pants in the other. I can’t wait until I’m old enough to get leather pants of my own, this whole semi-diaper thing is getting old FAST. Yeah, still in shock, my mind keeps wandering.
“One of his elixers went bad and he had an accident. Now go away so I can HELP him! Are YOU going to put him back together? Have any of YOU been learning healing at his side for years? No? Then GO AWAY and give me the time I need to HEAL him!,” I rant before closing the curtain. The look on their faces would have sent me into fits of laughter if I wasn’t so pressed for time and in throbbing pain of my own. Evidently they have never heard a small child speak so eloquently, let ALONE tell them off so well! I guess those ranks in Linguistics were good for something other than learning the local languages.
I go to Venradik’s supply of potions. Yeah it’s primitive as fuck, and I know from personal observation that there are some pretty DISGUSTING things in them, but I’ve also seen them WORK. Hunters with wounds that should have crippled them were walking around a couple weeks later, burns that should have left hideous scars healing like new in a few days, that sort of thing. I guess, what with this being a world of magic, things like hedge-medicine actually WORK now. Either that, or he is putting some sort of Drow…magic…into them.
Chanting to myself “this is not dead baby parts, this is NOT dead baby parts” I apply several pastes to his bullet wounds, before slowly releasing the necklace/tourniquet until I’m sure that the life-juice is sealed inside. I’m guessing that the reason his shattered hand isn’t spraying cherry soda everywhere is because of the superheated gasses that caused the explosion at least partially-cauterized the injury. That, and his hand smells like fried bacon.
FUCK I miss bacon…
After applying some of the goo to my own hand and shoulder, This stuff is like smelly superglue, I find a bone needle and some of his wound-sewing thread. It takes longer than I would like to clean out the shattered holes in his hand, sheesh, looks like he has THREE thumbs, this thing is so mangled, before sewing the bits into something hand-looking. Then coating it in more glue-goo, and strapping it straightened out between two pieces of flat-ish fire wood, At least the dried grasses are good for SOMETHING.
***
What’s rocking the boat, it is a clear day for fishing on the lake with Paul. Damnit kid, stop rocking the boat, or we might have to turn this into a swimming trip! I am shaken awake by Venradik sometime the next day, evidently having passed out face-first into the dirt next to him, one hand still on the dried medicinal grasses that I used to tie the two pieces of wood together.
I turn my head towards him, and his still-Drow appearance, “Are you doing well, Laughash?” The first though he has after THAT…is for some kid’s safety?!
“Yeah Venradik, I’m fine. I used your medicines to help heal the wounds.” Isn’t he going to freak you or something?
“You called down thunder, how did you do…,” he peters off, finally noticing that the hand he is shaking me with is dirt-smudged black instead of pinkish-white. Guess he forgot about the necklace, in the shock of being hurt.
“Oh…oh no…I’m NOT a bad Svartalf Laughash, I promise you! I’ll swear by anything you want that I am not going to eat you, spread plagues, or anything else you have heard that we do!” He’s almost panicking, lol. Funny, given that all the Svartalf horror stories I remember are ones HE has told me. I guess Laughash heard more…they DO seem like bogeyman stories. Or are they more his memoires, from when he was living with other drow?
“It is fine Laughash, you have been nothing but good to me, and even are a healer for everybody else. The monsters from the stories wouldn’t do any of that, so YOU must not be a monster,” I say as I sit up, and give him a hopefully-reassuring smile. “Here, but you will probably need this.” Then I give him the bloody necklace, which I was evidently sleeping on top of, having forgotten that I was holding it in my exhaustion.
“Laughash…please tell no one, I beg you to keep my secret, so I don’t have to run again!” Is he starting to tear up?!
“I said it was fine, I will keep your secret until death Venradik, I owe you that much after everything you have done for me.” He can’t get the necklace on, unable to knot the leather thongs together with just one hand. So I walk around to his back where he is sitting up, and use my one-and-a-half hands plus teeth to tie it off. Yuck, I guess Drow blood tastes like…aluminum? Strange but…he IS an alien in a world of magic, so “strange” is kind of the new “normal” I guess.
As his appearance seems to get blurry, then solidifies into the Venradik I’ve known these past months, he sighs in relief. “Wait, the thunder! What WAS that, HOW did you call it?!” The wide-eyed look in his eyes is almost funny, making me chuckle a bit as he turns to look at me.
“
“What? How…I don’t understand. And YOU, Laughash. You are speaking almost like an ADULT!,” says my flabbergasted caretaker.
“Huh, well, I think it also let me improve my speaking skills. It is called ‘Linguistics’, and evidently I have enough in it to understand and use things normally only understood by adults,” it’s not a TOTAL lie…I DO have two ranks in it! I realize I should keep the whole “not REALLY Laughash” thing to myself. After all, since MAGIC and DROW are real here, they probably have a taboo against things like possession. I may not have POSSESSED Laughash, but whatever happened is likely close enough to get my ass burned at the stake!
Over the next couple hours until dinner time, with a break so that Venradik can go out to get food and let everyone know he is going to be OK after the ruckus last night, I explain the “character sheet” to him…and my discoveries with it. Interestingly enough, “Eldritch Soul” now says “
“I think this is MY fault Laughash. When you were sick this winter you came close to death, and I tried to call upon the Elder Deities to heal you. It seemed to have worked, but there is ALWAYS a price paid for calling upon them, and I have been dreading them coming to collect for the debt. Beware the Elder Deities Laughash, their way of viewing the world is all twisted up and WRONG, so the costs for their gifts often is as well. I thought that I would be paying the price for saving you, but it looks like with this ‘KRAK-Tur SHE-hit’ and ‘Chosen by Fate’, that they have decided that their price is YOUR future. They will be watching you SPECIFICALLY, for the rest of your life, as…entertainment.
“You must KEEP this SECRET, and NEVER mention it again. This power that they have given you has great potential, but it is STILL the product of a bargain with the powers from the original darkness…people will be scared of what it could mean. Usually those who make a practice of such bargains destroy tribes and spread the attentions of foul powers, to keep the Elder Deities’ attention and satisfy their bargains. So please, NEVER mention it again,” Venradik pleads that night as he is kneeling down, clutching me to him in a hug. It sounds like he is talking about people who have taken Divine Agent for the Elder Deities instead of a NORMAL god, like “Cinda” from the Sunday-night game. I’m not THAT, I’m more like...leftover peas on the plate after they devoured the ORIGINAL Laughash. But still…this sounds like a good idea.
“I swear I won’t Venradik, so it’s fine,” hey, wait a minute! “But…can you HELP me with learning magic and stuff?”
He laughs as he holds me gently by my wounded shoulder, “Sure, son. Better to HELP you, than let you accidentally call thunder again!” Shit, looks like I now have a hidden DROW as my adopted father. I guess I really AM living in one of those isekai anime that Pia always used to sucker me into watching!