It wasn't a day and a half more before I caught sight of the forest ahead of me, a long line of birch in the far distance. There was, still, no sign of civilization as I moved closer with every passing hour, and there was really no way for me to tell whether I had overshot too far to the east or too far to the west.

Worse, my attempts at shifting my eyes to eagle-sight did little more than leave me blinded - to the point that I had to use my spells to actually restore my vision not one, but three times. I made a personal note to myself not to try shifting any part of my mouth. No - the memories I had of trying to heal myself with a bleeding, stump of a tongue where the only ones that I ever hoped to ever have. Indeed, the sound of the audience's laughter still rang in my ears to this day.

I made a decision, then, to travel east. If I was wrong, that way at least, I would find myself in Southaven and well outside the reach of this traitorous, human culture. Which was far more to my liking than continuing deeper into Westershire and finding an Ocean at my back. And so it was that I continued on for another full day's trek.

Thankfully, as night approached, I had no issues with the darkness.I had already been successful in the shift to cat eyes, at least, and the dim light did little to dissuade me from my course. 

Ironically, when I had last checked, I'd received a status update regarding it too. I supposed that I needed to pay closer attention to such things, but the long months of torture and loneliness had done far too little toward maintaining the fragile machinery of my mind.

Ability:  Feline Senses (Witchcraft)(Wisdom)

Through trial and error (mostly error) you have successfully recreated the enhanced senses and abilities of a common housecat (difficulty: low). You may now access these enhancements at will through successful transformations. 

Not that it was really worth mentioning, I guess. Since, you know, I had already sort of figured that out, thank you very much.

Then again, perhaps there was an added bonus or two in there of which I was hitherto unaware - because I smelled the human encampment long before I arrived anywhere near its outskirts. The sounds where what came upon me next. The soft thudding of an axe against wood; the stomping of many, many feet; and, most of all, the den of agonizingly harsh voices against my lonely ears.

The humans didn't appear to have posted any sentries, at least not on this side of the forest, and so I was able to pad my way quite close to the encampment. And an encampment it was, more than anything. I saw no buildings, nor towers, nor barricades of any kind for as far as my eyes could see. Instead, there were tents - big ones, small ones, tents large enough to rival the largest of schoolhouses back on Earth, and tents so small that one wondered if they were meant for man or beast.

The little tent village was sprawled out across the border with the forest, broken only by small embankments that housed large fires wheren the majority of the humans... er, the people, were huddled.

What's more, the larger and most grandiose tents all seemed to be encircling a single, large... ish (I guess) Birch. And the farther from the tree, it seemed, that you got, the smaller the tents became. Until, down in the far, far distance, a smattering of small, single use hunting tents trailed off into nothing.

And so, as my... somewhat agitated... mentor had instructed, I took special care in seeking out the holographic nameplates of those before me. This group over here was made up of locals, avoid. This group over there where mainly Level Ones, double avoid. And... oh. There we go. The gathering near one of the larger fires, closer the 'city' center, consisted mostly of Level Twos.

Jackpot.

I melded my hands back into human digits and unsharpened the tips of my teeth. Yet when I went to change more fully into the practiced, human disguise, I found that I was unwilling or unable to discard the warm fur and the keen ears that had been my only companion all this long way.

Whatever. They hated elves, yes. But who was to say what exactly they thought of haggard, bloody cat people? It was-what-it-was, I figured, and so I sucked-it-up and padded quietly into the light.

...

The den of conversations suddenly, disturbingly, ceased, and I found myself the center of attention to a dozen, shocked pairs of eyes.I gazed at them in turn, as the echo of chatter died away. Each was outfitted like a warrior or as a mage, with your standard, fantasy fare of armor and swords or robes and staffs.

I stood quietly, the edges of the light bouncing quietly off of my ears and my furry neck - all the way down to my bootless, furry paws. Every muscle in my body tensed and tightened as I waited and as I watched. 

I could feel each of them sizing me up with their eyes - taking in my equipment, my title, everything that I was, and sizing up their chances should it come to a fight. Hesitantly, one of them (I don't know who) whispered. "Druid," and the others seemed to finally remember how to move their limbs. 

They all started to stand or to turn - bowing their heads slightly, respectfully even. And, one of them, a warrior in chainmail who had been polishing a large, shining breastplate when I had appeared, he took a hesitating step toward me. "Welcome, Druid. We are most humbly at your service" he had said with a hushed, quiet voice. 

Fr33ze the Wrathful 

Level: 2

Race: Human

And I, still uncertain of what to do, simply reacted to the sight of his name. I smiled warmly and I raised my voice,

"Shit. Whatsup guy? You got anything to eat around here, or what?"

His jaw fell open and there was a moment of intense silence as he just stared at me. And then he grinned and laughed. The pealing notes echoed softly across the plains and disappeared into the woods behind him. And, as if the tension had been cut with a very large knife, voices sprang to life behind him, building to a quiet roar of conversation.

"Ahhh, hell. You're alright, chicka," he brushed his forehead with his wrist. "Too many of these old folks don't know how to chill, you know? Comeon, comeon. Pop a squat."

I sat, nervously, on the log beside me, the knight waiting until I was fully seated before sitting back down himself. Someone threw me a loaf of bread - though it was less that he threw it to me than he threw it at me, and it bounced off the side of my head before I managed to snatch it out the air.

"Shithead," I called over over the din of conversation.

"Treehugger," he called back, and a slab of roast meat smacked my chest from a different angle. I couldn't help but laugh, the tension of a hundred days suddenly bleeding out of my shoulders, and the knowledge that, somehow, I had found my kin, sinking in.

Fucking geeks.

It was, quite possibly, the best thing meal I had ever... had thrown at me. And, by the time I finished, we were laughing and talking about home.

Fr33ze had, apparently, made his deal in 1996, during (of all things) an online game of... basically... Zork. The mage, Zerud, had apparently made his in 1981, after he received a 'Prank Phonecall" following a late running game of Pen and Paper RPGs. The others had similar stories, from what I could tell, and the fact that they were all children of 20th century culture seemed to unite them in a strange land. Still, disturbingly, some of them claimed to have been stranded here for hundreds of years, while others seemed to think some few decades had passed since their deaths had landed them here.

And yes, I did say 'Deaths'. Apparently, these PCs didn't get the... special attention... that I had gotten. And they all claimed not to have set foot in this place until their inevitable demise. I know what you're thinking too - but no, I did not tell them about my 'special' status, nor my hope to one day wake up to my old bed in my warm house. Since, you know, every one of them would have wanted to get word to their loved ones that they were safe... ish and alive... also -ish. I didn't relish the thought of being sent to the loony bin or, worse, trying to explain to their families that their loved ones were actually in hell. Nope. Not going to happen.

Besides, if the 'Right' ever got word of it, it would have been the 80s Satanic Panic all over again. But this time with amateur video. Yikes.

I also managed to slush out a confirmation that actual healers were rare here. Something about souls that found themselves consigned to the hellfires rarely left them of an inclination to take on helpful roles in the afterlife.

The only healer they knew, it turns out, happened to be a druid who had disappeared near on a hundred years ago. He was quite famous for being the founder of this little enclave, or 'town' or whatever, and it was a turn of good luck that the reverence for both him and his profession had lasted through to this day.

Nevermind that I'm not like, actually a druid. No, shut your face. They love me.

Also, again, I know what you are thinking - if souls are immortal here, then how is it that someone could just disappear? Did he get lost on the way to the privy? Stumble across a Police Box perhaps? Well, I'll tell you - as it turned out, there were a number of ways to stop a soul from reincarnating. My own playmate, Arrol, being a prime (if fumbling) example.

You could be trapped in a spell of living stone for all eternity, was one way. Or you could be literally frozen and left in a rootcellar up in the mountains. Demons could, and often did, come and take the souls that they owned off to Devil-knows-where, never to be seen again. Yes, there were tons of ways to have bad things happen to you that you never came back from, and I was already planning a half dozen ways to ensure that those things never happened to me.

Oh, it could always be worse, as they say. Even in the bowels of hell itself.

Of all those at the gathering, it turned out that Fr33ze and I got along the best. And we whiled away the hours getting to know each other and talking of home.

Fr33ze:  So what was your Mum like, anyway?

Me:  A mom, I guess? Kind of overbearing. Half decent cook. Yours.

Fr33ze:  Well... dead, really. But you know, a goddess among women when she was alive. I'm glad she's not here.

Me: Ya. Me too.

Fr33ze: So, you have any trouble getting to the place?

Me: Oh, you know. Nothing a little bit of dismemberment and... a couple of murders couldn't sort out.

Fr33ze:  *Ha!* Oh god, it's not like gaming much is it? What I wouldn't give to have my coffee mug and my feet up while I was grinding some Spriggin. 

Me: Meh, maybe. And a fuzzy blanket with slippers.

Fr33ze: Right? Shit.

Me: So, what are you all doing tomorrow? What do you even do during the day?

Fr33ze: Patrol, really. Clear out the woods. Sometimes we go in deeper if someone's feeling suicidal. But hey, man's got to eat right?

Me: I guess so?

Fr33ze: Hey, you want to come with me tomorrow? I'll show you the ropes, introduce you to the head honcho around here. You know. Edumacate you. And then we can go kill some stuff?

Me: Ya, whatever, dork. I'll see you in the morning then.

And that was pretty much my night. Thankfully, no one asked why I slept with a backpack over my head stuffed to the brim with blankets. I guess they didn't think to worry about it.