I woke up with my head pounding, lying back down on the altar.
Wanting to vomit, I try to focus, and my head quickly clears.
‘What was that… Did I come back to life?’
I realize the gravity of my situation ‘Does that mean I can’t die? What are the limitations of this death, and why am I suddenly now immortal?’
I feel my senses coming back to my body, and I quickly get off the altar, still aware of my situation.
Looking down reveals the same set of clothing I started with, and none of my previous findings.
‘None of my items seemed to have come with me. This must be a limitation of my revival.’
I walk down the stairs, to see the robed men and the knights of the churches of the seven gods.
‘Why does it feel like I should know the names of those cultists? I don’t recall ever seeing them before. Well, if I can’t remember it now, it shouldn’t be of extreme importance. I’ll look into it later.’
I went down the cavern back to where the bolders were, and found myself, sitting in a pool of blood.
Despite my best attempts, I can no longer hold back from puking.
*Vomit*
I try to come back to my senses, and take some deep breaths.
Finally, I managed to get myself back together.
I avoid the puddle of vomit I just created, and quickly get the stuff from my now dead self. Although the chest piece, which I was quite happy about, now has a hole in the back center and is drenched in blood, most of my other belongings are relatively fine.
My blade landed a few feet away, and the coins were still in my legging pocket, which didn’t experience much blood.
I grab everything, put the coins and ring back in my pocket, and look at the wall again.
I realize my mistake in scaling, mainly that the path I could take ended where I fell. I quickly find a new path, and attempt to rescale the wall.
With my newfound immortal bravery, I climb and occasionally use my dagger to get a foothold. After a while, I managed to scale the boulders and get to the crack in the blockage.
Slowly crawling out of the hole, I find myself grabbing hold of a branch from a bush, nearly slipping back down into the hole.
I grip hard onto the branch, cutting myself in a few places, and pull myself out of the hole, to find a forest. A forest with extremely tall trees on top of that.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
The trees are quite sparse but are extremely large in diameter, at least 2 feet, with a dark, nearly black bark.
"Out of the pan, into the fire." I laugh to myself; as I realize I’m even more lost than when I was in the cave.
With nothing but trees in sight, I decide to just pick a direction and stick with it.
Grabbing a branch and cracking it, I stand it up and let it drop, to decide the direction.
It drops, pointing towards the rising sun, and I proceed to follow it.
…
It feels like hours since I have proceeded to walk, and I see the outline of a mountain in front of my path.
I continue to walk, until I hear the howl of a wolf in the distance.
"Shit," I curse my bad luck, and quickly draw the dagger that has already aided me in forging numerous times.
I try to listen to where it is coming from, and quickly catch on to the disturbance in the forest.
I look to my right, to see a bush shaking.
Realizing its discovery, the gray haired wolf quickly pounces.
I attempt to sidestep the pounce.
*Clang* rang out as his claws scraped against the steel tunic I was wearing, unable to fully avoid the beast.
I manage to draw some blood by quickly stabbing it mid leap, but this only results in a mild injury to the wolf's side.
I try to catch my breath, staring the wolf down as it circles me.
We both realize our standstill, and he attempts to frighten me with growling, but to no avail.
I remember something I’ve read in the past, and respond with a fiercer, deeper shout, and the wolf looks at me with hesitance.
After staring it down for a few seconds, the wolf proceeds to lie over and seeming to play dead.
Sighing, I turn around and start walking, then proceed to quickly turn around.
Seeing the wolf still trying to play dead, I decide to continue to walk off.
…
It starts to get dark, and I quickly grab some branches in an attempt to get a fire going.
It takes numerous tries, and I failed for quite a while, but I finally managed to get an ember to catch. The kindling of leaves I formed starts to crackle and pop, and I continue to feed it until the log on top slowly burns.
‘Looks like that boy scout's training came in handy after all.’ After three years in the boy scouts, I am finally putting some of the training to use, approximately fifteen years later.
I was enjoying the fire until I realized I had no food, and probably couldn’t get any soon.
Starting to ponder what I should do next, I hear footsteps and turn around. The wolf that I had fought with was standing behind me, with a small rabbit looking creature in his mouth.
The rabbit had a horn on his head and clearly didn’t look normal.
The wolf, walking very slowly, sets the rabbit down a few feet in front of me, and turns to walk off.
‘That’s weird, normally wolves wouldn’t do that to anyone besides their pack leader, especially wild ones.’
I quickly pick up the rabbit-like creature, and start skinning it. I cut myself on the blade of my knife a few times, but they were only minor scrapes.
I set the pieces of meat I could acquire on a log next to the fire and fed the flames a bit more.
While the meat is cooking, I take the horn off the rabbit and try to turn the hide into something moderately useful.
…
Eventually I settled on a small pouch similar to the one I already had, and started making that for a while, cutting the pieces I didn’t need.
While I was doing that, the meat finally finished.
I look over to see the small pieces of meat mostly cooked, and decide to take a few.
I was about to dig in until I remembered the wolf that brought this here. I took about half the meat and put it on a log outside the camp.
Then I finally dug in, and let me tell you, it tasted like chicken.
…
After finishing the bag and eating my share, I decide the fire should ward off any insects and slowly fall asleep with my back against a tree.