Well. This next part startled my earthly sensibilities to the core and thus took a while to put into words. This little notebook of mine will surely cause quite a ruckus if I ever get back to Earth and publish it. I'll be like Bilbo, writing my book of tales as an old man. I'd like to retire somewhere quiet. Mountains, maybe. Big Bear, or Colorado. Something akin to Saro's cabin. Sorry, I'm getting sidetracked. Dragons!

Dragons. I counted at least twelve, then gave up. My heart was hammering something awful and standing naked and exposed in the town square of a foreign village in a foreign land on a foreign planet surrounded by armed and armored men and women with fire and brimstone and the shaking wrath of mythical beasts descending all around me - well, I wasn't exactly coherent, or in the mood for counting. Fucking dragons. In the chaos, the guards forgot about me. I ran towards the nearest building, thinking that inside might be safer than out. Familiar green tiles rained down onto the street. I looked up. Perched atop my soon-to-be shelter, drooling muzzles raised to the sky, was a huge, three-headed dog. Have you read Clifford? It was red like that, but cruel and hungry, not cuddly and cute. Slobber dripped in large wet globules from its open mouths. Ivory-yellow teeth, gleaming red-black eyes, the whole lot. It looked down at me, six eyes calculating the protein content of one slightly overweight, defenseless human. Needless to say, I turned and ran. So far, we've got dragons, Cerberus, and magic. I was least excited about the power-pups. Dragons were a childhood favorite of mine, and magic was simply wonderful. If I don't seem too terrified by present circumstances, I'd like to kindly remind you, dear reader, that one, many weeks separate me from these recorded events, and two, I was in a state of thoughtless, fight or flight shock, and my mind was still in a suspended state of disbelief - not only from my recent reincarnation, but from the utter absurdity of the chaos Saro had dropped me into.

Smoke choked the streets as I ran, hand still glowing in a cloud of white particles that clung to me in a sphere-like halo, nakedness forgotten, adrenaline fueling my unathletic body to perform at levels far above my normal capabilities. For all the awe of the moment, the discovery of fairytale beasts and the exciting potential of unknown magics, the scene I ran through was nothing short of horrific. Good readers, if gore and graphic reliefs of suffering disturb your sensibilities, please feel free to skip ahead in the story. The following descriptions pain me to recollect but are necessary for understanding the type of person I am becoming, and the attitudes I have adopted. Remember, I am nothing more than your average, every day, middle class office worker. I did HR for a while, then got fired, and came to work at a nameless warehouse processing orders fifty hours a week. I was comfortable and was doing a decent job of convincing myself I was content. I was not at all prepared for the life I was thrown into.

My bare feet, accustomed to comfy, padded shoes, ached as I sprinted down the dust and rubble-covered street. I stepped on rocks, small and big. My feet bled. My lungs burned, and smoke caused me to cough violently. The scent of burning flesh, burning hair, burning wood, burning fabric, burning, everything burning, caused me to gag. I tripped on something, looked behind me, beneath me, and, on my hands and knees, I retched. Forgive me, reader, but I was thankful for the bile, for the taste, the smell, the terror that made me clench my eyes shut. The image of that which tripped me, a child, a girl, her torso, the rest of her was gone somewhere, devoured, haunts me to this day. Forever. I scrambled away. Her blood was on my feet, my ankles, my legs, my hands. I rolled over, the roughness of road on my back. I got up, falling, sprinting, screaming. The smoke invaded my throat. Dried me out. In front of me, another three-headed beast rounded a corner, emerging from an alley. To my right was a door. I shouldered it open, dove inside, and slammed it behind me. My hands fumbled for a lock and found an iron bar. I dropped it into the waiting arms on the wall and backed away from the door, breathing heavily.

I was alone in the room, thankfully. I don't think I could've handled being around people just then. I knew I wasn't safe, but the stillness of the room I'd entered, the dampened sounds of outside, allowed me to pause, for a moment, to breathe. I shuddered. Trembled. Tears flowed freely from me; my heart slammed erratically in the cramped confines of my chest; I collapsed into a wooden chair. I didn't care that I was naked anymore, sweating, soot-covered, bruised and bleeding. My skin was a tapestry of scrapes and aches, but the image of that girl, her face which I dare not describe, her torn, sundered, small body, her extinguished life, her forever-gone family, it eradicated any sense of self-pity that may have tempted me to feel sorry for myself. Somehow, her loss, and my second chance at life, made me determined to survive. If Saro had any hand in this world, then perhaps he was a crueler god than I thought. Could I make a change here? Do something more meaningful than reselling over-priced products to turn a profit for a company I didn't care about, that didn't care about me? Do something that mattered, help someone? My hand wasn't shimmering anymore. I didn't know what it meant. What it did. Slowly, with great difficulty and lots of self-talk, I regained control of my breathing. I was in an inn or something. Maybe a restaurant. There were abandoned bowls on the tables, still-hot soup, bread, wooden utensils, smooth sticks with two tines on the end, and a beveled edge - a cross between a marshmallow poker and a knife. Spoons. I stood up.

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The room was plainly ornamented: wooden tables, square and rectangular, wooden stools, chairs, booths along the walls, a fireplace, a bar across the room. I made my way, slowly, to the bar. Later, in better mental condition, I'd reflect on how much it reminded me of how I imagined Kvothe's inn from "The Name of The Wind" to look: rustic, organized, homely. There was even an assortment of bottles of various sizes and colors, their contents described by elaborate images and unreadable script. Many had been knocked over by the earth-shaking descent of dragons, breaking on the inn's floor and filling the air with a cornucopia of unfamiliar scents. Behind the bar, on the topmost shelf, I found what I was looking for: a sword. It was a bit longer than my outstretched arm, perhaps three feet. It was double-sided, sharp, and heavy in my sweaty palms. I set it on the bar top. The sounds outside terrified me. Screams, the roaring of dragons, the ruthless barks and howls of the demon dogs. I tried to ignore them as I scavenged the building, scarfing down bread, searching for anything I could take that might help me. Upstairs I found several bedrooms. In a few short minutes of looting, I'd equipped myself with a pair of tight-fitting canvas pants, a loose shirt, a belt, and a sack that I slung over my neck and shoulder. These, along with the sword, I still have with me today, though I've procured better fitting pants. To my dismay, there were no shoes to be found. After loading my sack with as much food as I could carry, precariously positioning the sword at my side underneath my belt and pocketing a single bottle of uncertain contents at random from the back bar, I stood before another door, one that hopefully led to a back exit, or an alley less fraught with danger than the street I'd left.

Steeling myself as best I could and feeling a bit more in control now that I was at least equipped with a weapon, I opened the door. Slowly, I entered the alleyway, scanning for any signs of danger. To my relief, it was abandoned, and closing the door behind me, I began making my way down the narrow passage. Despite the continued sounds of destruction and carnage that raged around me, all was well between the protective walls of the buildings to either side. As I neared an intersection that looked to open onto a larger street, a group of people passed before me, stopped, and turned into my alley. I saw them before they saw me. There were three of them; a short young woman with brown hair in a dark green, short sleeved dress that covered her shoulders and neck and ended midway down her shins, a short, portly figure, and a creature that stood easily seven feet tall, had grey-blue skin, and an egg-shaped head. His face was blank, his pale blue lips in a passive line, but his eyes shone with fear and pain.

They nearly barreled into me, but the woman caught my eyes, shot her arms out to her sides to stop her companions. Her hair was matted with sweat. It stuck to her neck and cheeks. Her face was pale and stained with soot, her eyes afraid yet fierce. The lines of her jaw were pronounced, and the tendons on her moon-white neck stood out as she turned to look back over her shoulder at the street, then back at me. She was shockingly beautiful, and for a moment, despite the hellscape, the fear, the madness of it all, I became powerfully self-aware. The moment passed.

She said something indecipherable to her short companion, gesturing toward the intersection, then placed a hand on the arm of the tall, blue-skinned behemoth in what appeared a soothing gesture. They all glanced at me, at my sword, then moved to stand with their backs against one another. The woman continued to watch me.

I again raised my hands in what I hoped was an interplanetary gesture of harmlessness and said, "Hello, I come in peace." Stupid. I know it was stupid, but I couldn't think of anything else to say. Something about the setting made me want to say "I mean no harm," or something else Lord of The Rings-esque. The woman frowned at me, clearly unable to understand what I said. I wanted to befriend them. The big guy would be a huge help in surviving whatever this was. "What's happening?" I asked. The woman said something to me, then gestured at her waist. It was my turn to frown. She gestured at me. A yipping bark and howl from the street beyond caused the group to collectively flinch, and they pressed closer to the wall.

I touched my sword, understanding what she meant. Slowly, I removed it from my belt, and tossed it on the ground between us. She approached, stooped to pick it up, and nodded at me. We couldn't understand each other's speech, but it seemed she was their leader, and they were willing to accept me into their party for now. The short figure, who had been standing on the opposite side of the woman in the green dress between she and the street, came around front. It was a he, and not a child, as I'd thought, but what I could only describe as a dwarf. Later I'd learn that I was correct in that assumption. A giant, a dwarf, and a human woman. The dwarf peered up at me from under the leather hood of his cloak, hard eyes weighing me. He grunted what seemed a begrudging approval of my presence and waved me over. Such is how I met Alana, Murid, and Gorn, my first three friends on Azuziel and the only reason I survived the decimation of Ziraza.