The sudden shift from astral to physical was jolting and Tyler collapsed onto his hands and knees, vomiting up some kind of...black sludge with sparkles in it. He shuddered. Then he remembered where he was and stood up on instinct as he took in his surroundings. In front of him was a rather buxom woman in a tight-fitting...nun’s habit? Or something similar to it. Her hair was the whitest he had ever seen and she appeared to be blind, given the cloth around her eyes.
“Um...hi?” Huh, his voice was younger sounding, just…what the hell was going on? He was still disoriented to hell and back, and was slightly in a state of shock.
The shuffling of metal then made him notice the six armored guards, covered head to toe in medieval knight armor. Only it was gaudy as shit. Seriously, it was pure gold with red linings here and there to break it up. Even the spears they held in their hands were of the same color scheme. And they all were pointing said weapons at him, making him raise his hands in a universal gesture of surrender. That was when it clicked. He was butt-ass naked. Tyler internally grimaced as he was exposing himself not to just the nun but her bodyguards apparently. Just where the fuck was he? Last thing he knew he was dying of cancer and...his brain was fuzzy. He KNEW he had died but…
A cough broke the awkward silence. A girl in a plain robe stepped forward, avoiding looking at Tyler and handing him a tunic, simple boots, and a pair of pants. Frowning at the lack of underwear, he slipped on the offered clothes and cleared his throat, looking between the servant girl, he assumed, who ran off when she met his eyes, the blind nun, and the faceless guards.
“Huh, talk about an odd afterlife…” Tyler mused to himself as he quickly got dressed.
The nun simply smiled, ignoring the awkwardness, before replying and waving her guards off with a flick of her wrist. They, of course, obliged by lowering their weapons. Although they did not move from staring at Tyler. At least that was what he assumed, it was hard to tell since they all were covered head to toe in armor.
“Yes, about that, this is not the afterlife.” The woman replied, making Tyler pivot to look at her.
“Pardon?” Tyler said, mind going blank at her words as he mentally tried to process what was going on. Hey, give him a break.
The woman had the decency to look a little sheepish, and bowed hesitantly before she replied.
"My name is Lady Renara, please follow me if you will and I will explain the best I can about your new situation.”
Having nothing better, he did so, making sure to keep an arms distance away from the guards who seemed to just stand there. Maybe he was having some kind of fever dream so he figured he may as well roll with it until he gets shoved to the actual afterlife.. Also, he really tried to keep his eyes off of the woman’s rear but Jesus, did her robe have to be so skintight? Shaking his head, he tore his eyes away, as he had more important things to think of though as they walked to a different part of what he thought, according to what his eyes were taking in, was a temple of sorts.
He had died, and now he was...well, young and healthy again. He knew his soul or whatever was flung through something, but he was having trouble recalling that strange multicolored tunnel. His internal musings were brought to a head when out of the corner of his eye, he saw the woman sit down and pull out a book. He looked around, noticing there was no other chair so he just kinda stood there awkwardly. Luckily, she began speaking as soon as she rested on the seat.
"I know you have a lot of questions, but I will try to explain the best I can. Normally your soul would have been reincarnated inside the Other Side and placed in a new vessel, such as a new body with no memories, or even as a plant or bord. Alas, we need your powers, champion. So with the Goddess Yavera’s blessing we pulled you out of the stream of souls and summoned you here to aid us!”
Renara clasped her hands together and smiled up at Tyler. Had Tyler been not still in shock, he would have seen just how forced said smile was.
For his part, he grimaced a bit at the knowledge and spoke up, he was already getting pretty weird vibes at the moment but kept it to himself. “So you basically plucked me out from having an actual afterlife and brought me here without my consent? Well, I guess I should thank you, as I’m pretty sure I’d go to Hell at best or be reincarnated as something horrible…”
The woman twitched slightly at his words, but it was impossible for Tyler to detect before she schooled her face.
“That….well your kind is the only kind that can help us with our task! Please, you must help us!” The priestess said, grabbing a hold of Tyler’s hand and placing it between her chest.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Tyler almost did a spit take, but he just looked around awkwardly, nerves on edge. Looks like even in what seemed to be a younger body, he still had anxiety around people, especially women. He quickly pulled his hand away, getting even more weird vibes from the woman before him but did his best to look sheepish even if, on the inside, he was having a mini panic attack. The only people who ever approached him like this wanted something from him. But he was in a whole new world, and had nothing to his name or anywhere to go. So he’d have to wing it for now. Putting on his best customer service smile, Tyler moved his hands behind his back.
"Of course, of course. Happy to help. What do I need to do?”
The woman seemed to calm down from her facade as she smiled and reached into her desk before pulling out a ring and handing it to him. Taking the object into his hand, he saw it was a simple red silver ring with a red and gold gem in the center that shone in the light that came in through the window behind the robed nun. As if reading his thoughts, Renara held up her own hand, showing a similar ring, though the gem was actually glowing.
“That is a System Integration Device, it allows one to access the System and keep track of their progress and things of that nature. Simply put it on a finger and you’ll see what I mean. Then think in your head the word ‘Status’.”
Seeing nothing else to do, Tyler did so and thought the word. There was a prickle in the back of his head and the finger he put the ring on before his vision shifted. That was the only way to describe it. Things became more in focus, and three bars filled a small section in the upper-right hand corner of his vision. Red, Blue, and Green. It...took awhile for him to process and he had to stop himself from pinching himself. There was no way this was happening, right?
“This is….Christ…”
Renara beamed a smile at him. “It’s a lot to take in, but simply mentally play around with it for a bit while I gather the rest of your party.”
Having nothing better to do than wait he supposed, Tyler followed her instructions and his vision was filled with what could only be described as a Status Screen straight out of an RPG.
Name Tyler Orchardson Race Human (E) / Transmigrator Class N/A Level 1 Health (HP) 105 Mana (MP) 108 Stamina (SP) 104 Primary Attributes Strength (STR) 11 Dexterity (DEX) 13 Constitution (CON) 10 Wisdom (WIS) 12 Intelligence (INT) 15 Charisma (CHA) 13 Secondary Attributes Endurance Luck Perception Skills N/A Abilities N/A
Most of the information displayed in front of Tyler was obvious to him. He had played enough games as a kid and young adult to get the gist of the information. The (E) after his name gave him pause as he had zero idea what that was supposed to mean, as did the Transmigrator after it, but he supposed the latter meant he was not native to the world. That’s what his memory was telling him. In the back of his mind, he remembered reading some novels with his brother as kids about those kinds of stories. Thinking about his brother and by proxy, his family, made his stomach turn upside down. But there was nothing to do so he shoved the feelings deep in the back of his mind, he had practice doing that. Healthy, probably not. But it was second nature to him.
Instead Tyler turned his attention to the sheet in front of him. The three bars in his vision obviously corresponded to the Health, Mana, and Stamina lines, anyone could see that. His primary attributes looked to be...mediocre at best. Namely his Strength and Constitution were abysmal. He idly wondered if that was a reflection of how he had died, or if these stats had always been there but unknown, and his low Constitution was why he had gotten cancer. At least his Intelligence score was decent, or at least he hoped so.
He also had Secondary Attributes that, like the primary ones, were obvious as to what they entailed. Endurance was what made his Stamina go up and likely worked to fuel how far he could run. Luck, well that was actually something he should ask about at some point but if it worked like he thought it did, it was basically just a small increase in literally everything. He focused on the attribute but nothing came up and he grunted before sliding his eyes over to the final Secondary Attribute, Perception.
That one dealt with senses, he was sure of it. Probably mostly to do with sight but he was sure other senses worked with it as well. There was some math regarding stats and how they worked, namely his secondary stats and resource pools but he was never a big math guy so he just ignored it for now. Tyler wondered how to close the Status Screen and did a little mental push, willing it to close. To his surprise, it did. He spent the next few minutes opening and closing the screen and playing around with its size, which was neat. So the screen was malleable, that was good to know.
Eventually though, Renara came back with four other people. The tallest was a blond man that looked like he could give Thor a run for his money if the height and obvious muscles were any indication. His thick, golden locks were swept back and out of the way of his chiseled face, making him look like Hercules or some other adonis-like figure. On his body, he wore silver armor trimmed in gold and a cloak of white across his back, which was clasped to his shoulder with golden buttons. This must be, if he guessed right, the party’s paladin. His weapon of choice seemed to be a large two-handed hammer that was also silver and gold, they must really like that scheme here.
The man gave a small nod and a cocky grin at Tyler. The second person was a woman dressed in a less-sleazy version of the priestess’ outfit. It was more loose and she had a hood over her face with a silver staff strapped across her back. Likely a healer then if Tyler had to guess. The third member of the party looked to be a ranger, a red cloak on his shoulders over leather armor and a bow and quiver on his person. The final member was a man wearing a cloak similar to the healer but it was red instead of white, and had a flame-like motif. He was lazily playing with a ball of golden fire that looked like a miniature sun. Caster class or some kind, Tyler surmised. Renara cleared her throat to bring everyone’s attention to her.
"Everyone this is the new recruit we talked about before, please take care of him as you would one of the veterans.”