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Chapter 3

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.

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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.