Another Lurch, and I found myself falling. I let myself go limp, my body in a small spin, and I catch a glimpse of the ground as I fall. Not too far. I think to myself. Another fracture unless the armour holds up.

I bounce, the sudden stop causes me to tense for a moment, and pain shoots up from my right arm, a part that falls just after the rest. I drag myself into a crouch, lethargic. Next, I fall from the sky. I think. Gliders, maybe I can make that from the Liaen, Oroc did say that the Brigadiers often customized their gear.

I raised my head, finding trees all around me. Just my luck to fall between them all. I stretched, prodding once again for injuries. The pain had been from the laceration, but the skin hadn’t torn, the muscle underneath had simply been jolted. Another day, and they’d heal.

A breeze blew in, and I pulled myself upright. It was almost sunset, and reddish light filtered through the leaves. Even odds we have civilization, even odds what direction it’s in. I climbed the closest tree, looking across the forest. The treeline stopped within sight range only in one direction, where some smoke was visible, scarlet against the stinging light.

I checked the sun, my sense of direction had never been impressive though, so I resolved to check again a while later. Sliding onto the ground, I broke into a jog. Humans were supposedly the world’s best endurance runners, and while I wasn’t much of a marathon runner, I was at least a lot fitter than when I first started.

I stopped once dusk fell, without a clear direction, I might undo all my efforts running in circles. Instead I began gathering twigs, the ground mercifully dry. Finding a spot where the trees weren’t bunched up, I cleared the leaves and grass, using a strip from my armour to act as a buffer between flame and grass.

Oroc had explained to me a method to alter the physical properties so friction between two surfaces would produce large amounts of heat. It was beyond me, and I resorted to the crude act of a twisting a stick with its point against the leaves against a piece of wood.

My fire started, I warmed myself. Tomorrow I’d need to find water, luckily I’d eaten before the Lurch. After some deliberation, I lay myself a short way from the fire. If something comes over, I sure hope I’ll hear it coming. I thought uneasily.

I woke periodically to feed the campfire, it took a toll on my fatigue, but kept me warm with the flame as my stolid companion.

I slept through the dawn, beginning my march after sunrise. I kept a lookout for edibles, finding few fruit trees that provided valuable nourishment for the morning. Perhaps I would prepare food for the next Lurch. My thirst satiated for the moment as well, I pressed on.

As I walked, I speculated on the nature of the civilization in question, distracting myself from recollection. Smoke indicated incomplete combustion, significant amounts of it in fact, which likely meant a society that still relied on it for a variety of things. Analogous to the medieval era, or earlier.

I couldn’t help but frown. How unlikely it was, that all these worlds shared similar plant life, and humans save for the Chtich’s world. How many more were there?

My mind consumed with these thoughts, I would have been mauled had my reflexes not recently been tested. An unbidden susurration of leaves interrupted my thought, and I turned, hopping sideways as something took a massive swing downwards. It clipped me on the shoulder, and I crouched as I moved to prevent my collarbone from snapping. I darted back to regard the creature.

It could use tools, evidenced by the club it held, hewn from rough wood and obviously shaped deliberately, with bones bound to its tip. It wore furs with bone as clips, guards and spaulders. A part of me idly wondered what had provided the spaulders, huge as they were, another reminded me that it wasn’t terribly important.

It swung at me again, and I stepped close, catching the club close to the hilt with my right arm, straining it even so. It was left handed, and indeed possessed five digits. A quick punch to its gut elicited a groan from the mottled, dark green creature that stood almost a head taller, before it sent a kick that caught me flat-footed.

I rolled to my feet, a snarl on my lips. Even at such a short distance, that strike had held immense force. I drew the carving knife, cursing myself for not grabbing a proper dagger from the armoury in Laroanther.

It bellowed, seeming to laugh as it viewed the knife. I held it in an ice-pick grip, and waited.

It swung again, diagonally from my right. I stepped diagonally as well, knowing it would have prepared to kick me again if I stepped forward. I caught its left arm with my right, placing the blade precisely in the way of the tendons in its forearm. The knife sank in, and I drew the two-inch blade hard down, severing them. Thanks Alida.

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Another bellow, this time of frustration, as it swapped the club to the other hand. I kept my calm, but a part of me was nervous. Tool making and craftsmanship tends to accompany social interaction and groups. I thought. Need to finish this quickly, and hide, then think.

Despite that, all I held was a carving knife, two inches of blade was hardly killing material. I wagered that the stocky creature had layers of at least half an inch of fat. Bleeding it to death was probably my next best course of action, unless I got hit head on with that club.

[Only if your goal is its death.] Page observed.

Right, I could run. I thought, dodging another blow from the slightly pig-headed creature. So few openings. If I want to run, I’ll need to slow it down.

I leapt back once more, evaluating. I’d need to practically slide to the ground to reach that tendon. Or perhaps… I grinned fiercely, looking the creature right in the eyes.

As it swung I stepped forward, this time after the swing had run its course. As it lashed out with a kick I shoved its outstretched arm, forcing it to pivot. I stooped low, the knife quickly sliding beneath its calf, close to the ankle, before ripping through the Achilles tendon.

As I turned to run, a shape bolted from the trees, I dived to the ground, rolling upright a few metres away. The sound of a wet squelch gave me pause, and I turned my head.

A spear had been thrust into the creature, the tip having sunk about three inches into its fleshy throat. The man jerked it out in one sudden burst of motion, sidestepping a last tired swing from the creature. Blood spurted from the wound as it swayed and fell to the ground, and he put one more thrust from above into its brain, causing it to spasm.

I watched him cautiously, outrunning him, while a possibility, hinged on him being less agile, as well as similarly unfamiliar with the terrain. He hadn’t focused on me when he came in, which likely indicated he wasn’t an enemy.

Having cleaned the spear he turned to me. He said something, a smile on the small part of his face visible beneath the helmet. Oh, gods. He had swapped languages twice before he finally gave up, but led me onward, looking at me with some fascination.

The language he used was… complicated to say the least. All I did understand was that there was a farm ahead, that held his friends, or acquaintances, or even family. Have I mentioned that different inflections provide different levels of intimacy for a word in his main tongue?

It’s like some overcomplicated laterally formed bastardization of Latin and… I halted my thoughts. Focus. Farm? Another medieval age then. Especially with that spear.

I thought back to the creature I had fought, restructuring its features from memory. Fantasy, medieval fantasy with what? An orc? The man had labelled it a Reavor, though that seemed more a classification of role than species.

He was greeted by a few others, wearing the same leather armour. Their expressions when they turned to me varied, from fascination to distrust to complete apathy. It was strange to me, as I was still completely covered in the armour, with the helm completely obscuring my features. I reached up to unlatch it, and removed the helm.

A short period of stunned silence followed, before the man who found me burst out in laughter, and at a few more of his words the rest began laughing as well. I raised a single eyebrow, and one of the few who stopped laughing tried to say something to me, instead interrupted by he who found me. They nodded, and the whole group began dragging me along with them towards what appeared to be the mess.

Over the next few days I enjoyed their hospitality, learning the language and being provided room and board. In exchange, I helped them in their daily tasks, dealing with the maintenance of the farm, weeding, watering, and so on. When that was done, I kept the wildlife from encroaching onto the farm.

The slime was hardly unexpected, but it’s movements caught me off guard. It oozed across the ground, small pockets of air within it that seemed to form a system of tubes within it. I sliced at its outer layers experimentally. It reformed quickly, sending out a small jet of itself in my direction, which it retracted when I dodged it.

Killing it was fairly simple, cut at that small slightly denser fluid that kept shifting around its body, along with the rest of its organs. I said simple, not easy. Whatever fluid made up its body, it was thick and viscous, slowing the blade whenever in contact. From what I had learned, touching it directly risked getting stung. It apparently had stingers like a jellyfish, causing localized numbness and paralysis in humans and larger, full body paralysis in dog sized animals, and outright killing anything smaller.

Besides that it was mildly corrosive, though that rarely came to be anything more than a minor annoyance, irritating the skin and rusting up metal armour, the latter could be fatal if its wearer faced something more formidable, but the slime would rarely be able to capitalize on it. I cut it a few more times, before it decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and slunk away.

I didn’t give chase, in the forest away from the farm it was difficult to be certain that nothing else would be hunting. The “orcs” I encountered for instance were bandits, renegades from their own civilization. These were nomadic, sometimes choosing to sack and burn a farm, village or other settlements for supplies. I doubted the practice would survive for long, though if all the wildlife was as hazardous as half of what I’d seen, I’d expect at least a little bit of retardation of technological progress.

In hushed whispers during the night, the farmers and the workers sometimes shared stories of great beasts that lurked in the deeper parts of the forest, or roamed about the world. I took it with a pinch of salt, similar to the folk tales and even ferocious critters that existed in my world. Yet, in a world where slimes, orcs, elves, and goblins exist, could there not be dragons, wraiths, or even treants?

Months passed, and autumn came. I was asked by the farmers to escort them as they brought their produce to town, accompanied by some of the others that helped secure the farm. It would be my first visit to a major city in the region, and also my first experience seeing other races.