As Sam’s mind slowly came to, he could feel the grass underneath him, and his first reaction, without having opened his eyes, was to laugh. It was like one of those times when you dream something funny, but you haven’t woken up yet. What the hell was this crazy dream? Why am was he lying naked in the grass?

As he came to, he got more and more confused. He opened his eyes.

“What the—!? Trees? Why am I—? Where...?”

Confusion started to slowly turn into panic as his eyes darted around. Grass? Trees? Rabbits!? Why the hell was he naked in a forest, surrounded by friggin’ rabbits!?

He had no clue what had happened before, where he was or, quite frankly, where he should be. Only thing he knew was that he was somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.

One of the rabbits started to approach him. Seeing as he was still confused to hell and back, he grabbed a stick that was close to him and held it out in front of him while he was crawling backwards, fleeing from this creature.

“No, no, no. You stay the hell away from me!” he said and threw the stick at the rabbit and missed. The rabbit, unfazed, stopped and just looked at him. Then it got bored and was off to find something more interesting to get distracted by.

Danger averted, he thought. In his confused state of mind, even the smallest thing could set the inner alarm bells off.

Okay, let’s take a deep breath here.

As he regained some mental clarity and all the supposed “threats” were recognized as not being threats at all, he noticed that he did have something on him. Around his waist was a thin rope, like some sort of makeshift belt, and tied to that belt, for some reason, was a leather pouch.

It didn’t feel like it had anything in it, it was just a regular pouch. It was only when he tried to feel it out on the inside that he noticed what was off about this pouch… It had no bottom!

He could push his entire arm inside it and it still only grab air, in a pouch that was about as big as a shoe. He almost pushed his head through but stopped himself out of fear he might fall in and not be able to get out. Or end up in a state in which he would be eternally falling. Nightmare type scenarios. He should probably leave it alone until he knew what was going on.

His first instinct was that this simply had to be a dream. Could it be that he was lucid dreaming? He had seen a movie about it some time ago and was trying his best to reach the state of lucidity while dreaming, but it never worked, so he gave up after a while. But maybe this was how it felt and if it was, he could make this dream simply vanish.

All right, here goes nothing, he thought. He closed his eyes and started focusing really hard on making the dream vanish. He looked like little kids when they try to lift objects with the power of their minds. He opened his eyes again. But nothing changed. Nada! Zilch!

Okay, then, he thought. Maybe, if I climb a tree and jump down… Yes! That should wake me up.

And so, he executed the plan, clumsily. Clumsier than he would’ve done it in real life in fact, but maybe that was due to him wearing nothing but his skin (except for the pouch), which felt weird and, especially when climbing trees, imbued the undertaking with a sort of a “monkeyish” quality. Sam felt at one with his caveman ancestors.

Up the closest branch of a tree he felt was realistic to climb he went and jumped down. His feet hit the ground (since it wasn’t that high), but no. He was still there. Wherever that might have been. This was not a dream. Theory debunked and all hope for a simple solution to the problem shattered.

This was too much to take. He fell to his knees, laid down, curled up and stayed there, crying like a baby.

“How the hell do I get home? Someone, please, help me,” he mumbled to himself underneath all the sobs and tears.

Eventually, the dark helped him notice something that daylight had kept hidden from him. He had almost fallen asleep when he noticed something far away in the distance. A light. Artificial even. Some sort of… fire! He could make out that it might be a torch, so there might even be people there. Whatever it was, it was the first thing that gave him a direction to head in.

He stood up and immediately wanted to start dashing towards it but stopped himself. What if they were hostile?

If he approached it with caution, it should be safe, he figured, and beggars can’t be choosers. He was starving for the smallest hint at what was going on.

On his way towards the fire, he could hear all manner of strange noises coming from somewhere inside the forest. Sam tried to block these noises out, focused on his destination and prayed that there was nothing dangerous that would jump out at him. He tried to make as little noise as possible. As he got closer, the small torch turned into several, until he could make out what he was heading towards. It was a settlement!

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A small settlement, surrounded by a wooden fence, with its gate guarded by a tall, armored… Lizardman!?

Sam saw other people going in. They were all showing the armored lizard something first. They opened their pouches, he inspected something and then let them in. Hey, they all had a pouch, too! And the armored lizard didn’t seem dangerous.

Embarrassed for being naked, he plucked some of the bigger leaves off the trees and attached them to his belt. With his caveman cosplay now completed, he waited until there was no one else there and approached the lizard.

“Hold it, right there,” the Lizard said. “You can’t enter in such a state. Judging from your armor, or rather, the lack thereof, I can deduce that you haven’t completed the gauntlet. If you seek entrance, you must first prove your mettle, my little human friend.”

Holy crap, this looks so real, he thought. It’s best to just play along. Not like I have any other choice, anyway.

“How do I do that?”

“By finishing one of the three starting quests, of course. Didn’t you check your Journal? It is all explained in there.”

Five starting quests? Could it be that I—?

“Where am I?”

“Why, you can check that by looking at the map, which you should find it in the back of your journal. But the short of it is, you’re in the Shumerian Forest, on the continent of Watra,” the lizard explained.

Watra? Wait a minute…

A realization was starting to sink in.

“Holy crap! I got Isekai’d!” Sam exclaimed.

It finally started to make some sort of sense. Luckily, he had watched tons of anime with that sort of a storyline. He had no clue how the hell this was possible, but that’s the only explanation for this lizard-dude and everything else.

The lizard looked at Sam like he was crazy. “What is the meaning of that word?”

“Never mind that,” Sam said. “How do I open my inventory?”

“It’s all there, inside your pouch. Open it.”

He opened the pouch and for the first time took a closer look. He held it open for a while, but all he was looking at was a bottomless pit. Which was mindboggling in its own right, but what happened shortly after was just nuts.

A mental image crystalized in his mind, which helped him to see what was inside. Like a mind palace, of sorts. He could see more than just his inventory; the entire stats for the character he had created, his equipment, the name he gave his character, which brought back all the memories of what had happened before he got transported into this world. He now was, for real, his own character, inside the beta of the new game by Earth, Parchment & Swords: Flames of Watra.

If only he had known, he would’ve taken the time to create a more interesting character. What he regretted most was the name he gave the character (and thereby himself in this world). It was a silly reference to a character from a video game that almost no one played back when it came out, and most certainly almost no one remembered now. He named himself Gitaroo-Man, after the titular hero of a Japanese video game from 2001.

From the [inventory] he grabbed the [journal]. It was a brown, leatherbound notebook. The interesting thing about it was that no matter how often you flipped the pages, there was always another page, even though it always retained the same thickness. It looked like an optical illusion.

Sam opened it.

Gitaroo-Man’s [Lvl.1] Stats:

[Strength]: 1

[Vitality]: 1

[Agility]: 1

[Perception]: 1

[Wisdom]: 1

[Charisma]: 1

Available Stat Points: 6

“Okay, so, from the journal I can change my stats, or how does it work?”

“Yes, indeed,” the lizard answered. “If you desire change, write it down. After you write it down, the record and the transformation to your body is permanent. You’d be well advised to think every choice through.”

No kidding, Sam thought. It was quite different now that he actually was in that world and, as far as he could tell, his life depended on these choices. If this were just another game that he played he wouldn’t have cared one iota about small decisions like this. Or rather, he wouldn’t even have made them in the first place. He would’ve immediately copied the most OP build from somewhere on the internet and bought a Max-Level character to begin with.

These circumstances, however, made him hold off on spending his [Stat Points].

He also understood why he was feeling like he wasn’t himself. For one, he literally was not, but also, looking at the stats, he was the weakest possible character he could be.

[Race]: [Human]

[Innate Abilities]: World Knowledge (Basic) – Humans are known for their fondness of categorizing, sorting, and collecting everything around them. The amassing of knowledge helps them gain a basic understanding of the world around them.

[Class]: [Rogue]

[Skills]: [Attack]

Hm, this is all pretty standard. Let’s check out the [quest log].

Main Quest:

[Let’s Eat!]

Kill 5 of the following, to get the corresponding reward:

* Kill 5 [Tranquil Rabbits] get: [Light Gear], or

* Kill 5 [Blazing Snails] get: [Medium Gear], or

* Kill 5 [Bear Cubs] get: [Heavy Gear]

Well, he thought, I know where the [Tranquil Rabbits] are. Shouldn’t be all too difficult or dangerous. A typical fetch quest. Plus, I’m a [Rogue], so I should be going for the [Light Gear] anyway. Playing it meta, for now.

Sam checked his inventory for any kind of weapon that might help him with the task. One glance at his inventory and he didn’t know whether he should be laughing or crying.

Gitaroo-Man equipped: [Dual Butter Knives]

The developers certainly had a sense of humor. They drop you out in the woods naked, equipped with nothing but cutlery and send you out to hunt something with that. The folks over at Earth, Parchment & Swords must have been into survival games while they were developing this part of the game. Or hungry.

“I’ll be on my way then, Mr. Lizard,” Sam said.

“Stay vigilant out there.” The lizard pulled something out of his pouch. “And take this with you. It should help you in times of need.”

Gitaroo-man obtained: [Health Potion] x5

“Thank you,” Sam answered. “I’ll be back in a jiff.”

“Hah! You and your peculiar words. You must survive and teach me more about the way you talk.”

“It’s just some rabbits. No need to worry. I’ll be back,” he said, turned around and was on his way to where he had initially woken up.

Time to “hunt some wabbits”, to quote the most famous of all the “wabbit” hunters.