He awoke with a start and a rush of energy. A quick survey of his surroundings tells him that he is in a plain wooden room, on a rustic bed, there is little furniture in the room. A chair sits by his bed, next to a bowl of water, and a wet rag rests upon his lap, having fallen off his forehead as he sat up. He attempts to stand, and knowledge rapidly floods into him, forcing him to sit or fall.

The body he now inhabits is known as David, David is the son of a blacksmith and a huntress in the village of Eidrahm. David is the eldest of three, at ten years old. David has been practically catatonic from the moment of his birth to now. The only reason David isn’t dead yet is a prophecy made by a seer. He is David.

That knowledge was accompanied by an understanding of the basics of magic, flashes of another life’s knowledge, and a pounding headache. His body was weak, atrophied, standing was an almost Sisyphean task. But damn him if he wasn’t going to try. He grabbed onto the wall and hefted himself onto his feet, ignoring a pain that could really be anything, as he attempted to stay on his feet.

A noise like a bell’s toll heralded the arrival of an abnormality. He could hear the thump of feet on wood in the background. He ignored it, there were words floating in the air before him, they were more important than some sound in his surroundings. He had to read through the words several times to truly grasp their meaning.

[Greetings, traveler, welcome to Erisia, world of discord!]

[In order to activate the Ascendancy Operating System, please answer this question: 17 x 2957]

“Fifty thousand two-hundred and sixty-nine," said David. How he knew the answer to that question was a mystery to him.

[Congratulations, you have activated the Ascendancy Operating System!]

[ERROR: Divine shard detected, utilizing energy to optimize body, activating originator system.]

[The divine energy I left behind in your soul from reincarnating you appears to have condensed into a ‘shard’, this means that you are now incompatible with the system and will thusly be excluded from it. In other words, you get to perform ‘freeform’ magics, like most worlds’ peoples. Anyways, I do not know why the energy turned into a shard, there shouldn’t be enough of it, but I’d not look a gift horse in the mouth. - Tiwaz]

Then the blue screens disappeared completely, and David was left bemused. He briefly pondered the implications of what he’d just experienced before his body loudly reminded him that he was, in fact, very hungry, and weak. He found, however, that the strain of standing was significantly reduced, and so approached the door. He stopped when he noticed a brass mirror hanging from the wall, he had to see what he looked like.

He was not surprised to see that he was gaunt and pale, having never risen from his bed on his own due to his previously catatonic state. His new body was tall, for its age, which he knew was partly due to the, diluted, giant-blood in his veins, and he would likely be broad-shouldered in time, even if he was currently scrawny. Pale green eyes peered out from behind a gaunt visage, shoulder length tawny hair hung from his head, and an odd scar adorned his cheek. He was dressed in a plain shirt and pants made of wool and linen.

He took himself in; this is what he was now, who he was now. He was still human, he was still who he knew he once was, but now he was more. He decided to test his strength a bit before departing his room, picking up the bowl of water near his bed and finding that it wasn’t so heavy as he might have imagined. He then picked up the chair by his bed and found it far heavier than he thought it’d be. He was only able to lift it to waist height before it fell from his grasp, hitting the ground with a resounding thump.

The sequential thumps of a person running in his room’s general direction heralded the spontaneous opening of his room’s door. A child stood at the door, approximately seven years old in appearance, ginger haired and blue-eyed. He knew this to be one of his new siblings, Leif, who immediately broke into a scream. “Auntie! Mom! David is awake!” Leif yelled, bolting from his door and down what sounded like a stairwell, repeating his message all the while.

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David followed slowly. The stairs were difficult for his clumsy and weakened body to traverse, but so long as he held onto the railing and moved slowly, he probably wouldn’t lose his balance. It’d be a shame to have his life cut short by some stairs. It took some slight struggling, but he eventually reached the bottom of the stairs, a dining room, and decided to find a chair so he could sit down and rest his already strained eyes for a moment. Soon enough, a door in another room slammed open, and he could hear clamoring voices and running.

He heard the running draw closer and come to an abrupt stop, someone now stood at the doorway, staring at him. Another someone drew in a gasp. He opened his eyes and looked up to the two people that now stood there. One, a stocky, broad-shouldered man dressed in blacksmith’s clothes; David recognized him as his father, crimson haired and green-eyed. Another, a short, stocky woman who David knew to be his aunt, Ethel. She’d been the one to gasp, was he truly such a ghastly sight?

She was the first to move. She was at his side in the blink of an eye, looking him up and down. In another, she had him in a highly constrictive hug and was talking at him too quickly for his recently awakened brain to understand. She held him there until his father tapped her on the shoulder and she let go. Of course, the reprieve was short lived, and he was soon held in another crushing hug by his father, who did not speak.

David’s father was mute, having been born incapable of speaking. But he had other ways of expressing his feelings, like crying, and having his sister say them for him. “We thought you’d never wake!” Aunt Ethel exclaimed, speaking far more slowly.

“Ten years, I guess the oracle wasn’t wrong.” Said a man who’d just arrived, Uncle Olgierd, the tallest of his father’s siblings, a lumberjack by trade and a cynic at heart. By his side stood David’s eldest sibling, the tawny-haired and green-eyed Ingrid, who’d seen nine summers. Leif stood behind her, carrying a salamander the size of a medium dog.

“I’ll go get you some food, you’re probably hungry.” Ethel said and departed for what David assumed to be the kitchen or pantry. For whatever reason, the layout of his home wasn’t included in his instinctual knowledge. Then another person swept into the room, nimble and silent. She was the tallest of the group, dressed in leathers and carrying a bow and quiver strapped to her back. She had tawny blonde hair and blue eyes. His mother.

She too hugged him, and the rest soon followed, one by one, until only his youngest sibling, little bright Frieda, stood before him. She was five summers old, if his knowledge didn’t fail him, and looked like a near perfect copy of his mother, if a lot younger. “Want to play?” She asked, extending a wooden carving of some beast or another.

“Not today.” David responded to his audience’s great surprise. Another round of clamoring voices as they all rushed to converse with him. He almost felt… nostalgic, if that were at all possible.

________________________________________________________________

Over the course of the next few months, David would get to know everyone in the village, from the village elders to the lads and lasses of his ‘own age’. All the while he would learn to smith and hunt from his father and mother. They told him he was a “natural” at it. They couldn’t have been more wrong.

There was nothing natural about his skills and random bits of knowledge, nothing at all. He knew things he should not know, and many things were almost instinctive. He knew how to hold a smith’s hammer, and how to work the bellows. He knew how to draw a bow and fletch an arrow. He could not explain why. He even knew how to use magic of some sort, though he lacked the understanding to explain why.

He wasn’t supposed to be able to use magic. Per the elders, a person’s magic didn’t awaken until the age of twelve. Just another one of the multiple questions about himself to add to the pile, right alongside his anomalous strength and muscle gain. He no longer looked like a skeleton, he now looked like a perfectly normal lad for his age, recovering far faster than he should’ve recovered, or so something told him.

He currently found himself playing a game called “Jarl’s Gambit” with one of the village elders. The game itself was very much akin to chess, which he could not explain his knowledge of, the sole difference being the replacement of the unit names. He was, surprisingly enough, winning. One normally didn’t expect to win in any board game against the elders. Alas, winning wouldn’t be enough to get him a beer, which, oddly enough, he felt nostalgic for. How could you feel nostalgic for something you’ve never had?

Either way, he had to slay a monster, as part of his coming-of-age ceremony, before he could get a beer.