Clinking armor, shuffling feet, these are the first things to enter my throbbing head when I come around. I’m not ready to open eyes yet, it hurts too bad. I hear grunts from the distance and something dragging along the ground. My first thought comes pounding into my head, “I hope we won that fight!”. Time to open my eyes. With that decision and a large force of will power, my eyes slowly start to open.  I’m welcomed back into the world with dull light from the setting sun and a small fire that is covered, so as not to allow the light to give away our position. Someone was kind enough to set some cans of food to warming up. As all my sense come together I start to take stock of my situation. I glance around I see Flax battered but bandaged leaning against a tree and seems to be fitfully sleeping. A pile of weapons sits on the far side of the clearing. I can see the armor of our camp soldiers, two giant axes and a broken crossbow sticking out of the pile. I sigh in relief but that comes with a small burst of pain from my head. I mutter to myself, “Got to stop holding my breath when I’m nervous.”. First thing is first, I look over myself and I seem pretty beat up. I have a bandage around my head and I feel like its going to split open. I check over the rest of myself and when I start to move my left shoulder more pain blossoms in my body all over again. My shoulder moves and it seems that someone was kind enough to put it back into place while I was out. I notice a steady sound in the distance like a shovel hitting rocky soil. I can’t quite see who is making that racket through the thicket. I mentally prepare myself to move not sure what to expect. I slowly rise from my resting place at the foot of a tree. I’m overwhelmed by a wave of nausea and almost fall back down. My iron grip on the tree is the only thing holding me up at this point. My muscles feel stronger if only by a little. It’s as if I have trained hard for a month and am now reaping the rewards. As the wave passes and I begin to stagger to the next tree for support I hear a voice from the far side of the camp. 

“Sit down soldier” A stern voiced Captain Darius says. “Now is not the time for wondering in the mountains.”

I stop in my tracks at the sound of the captain’s voice. “Sorry sir, I was going to go see what all the racket is about over there” I say shakily.

“Sit, Larry and Sam are on burial duty and should be wrapping it up shortly. You hit that tree pretty hard, we weren’t sure if you were going to wake up anytime soon.”

I plop back down glad for the rest and in the hopes my vision will stop spinning. That was disconcerting to hear they feared I wouldn’t wake up any time soon. “Thank you for bandaging me up. How is Flax? How many of us are left?” The questions blurted out of my mouth uninhibited by my usual shyness. I definitely must have hit my head pretty good. 

“Flax will be well; He just broke some ribs when that hulk punched him. As for how many of us are left, it’s just the five of us.” Darius’ tired face told me more than his words ever would. Ten of us against three of them. We should have been beaten up not destroyed. The ambush fell apart, it was a disaster and we should be thankful we barley scraped by with our lives. I could see the pain on Darius’ face. His mind would battle with the decision for the ambush for a long time. He was a good man but he never wanted to lead soldiers in battle. He wanted to live quietly and raise his crops there were no life and death decisions to make. That wasn’t a luxury we had anymore. Our world was under attack and unless we grew strong and united we would be wiped from the face of our planet like so many others were when the vanguard came.

“Sir, I... just want to say...”, I began to stammer

“Stow it Lucas. We have a lot of work left to do out here and we won’t even be able to complete our hunting mission. Now isn’t the time for talking. I’m going to check on the boys.” With that Darius rose and tromped out of the clearing. Well that wasn’t one of my more encouraging conversations, I thought. I took a mental inventory, my shield and my sword they were both still intact though my shield was a little worse for wear considering the gouge it had running down it. If I hadn’t focused my essence instinctively to my shield the hit would most likely have cut right through it. Our equipment wasn’t the highest quality steel and crystal. Our smiths and artificers were still learning how this all worked. Most of us survivors were new to the rules of this rapidly changing world. We just weren’t playing on the same field with the enemy. Its why three of them can wipe out entire groups of us if we aren’t prepared.

It was time to check my soul stone. I closed my eyes and focused, I emptied my mind and went to a meditative state. 

I could feel my essence of strength reinforcing my muscles letting me do feats only an active gym goer would be able to accomplish. Agility letting my body flow and balance itself with accuracy. Intellect letting my brain work like it never has before. My soul’s path didn’t put as much dependence on converting my essence into intellect as other paths like our budding priests and mages. Stamina fueling my energy to run farther, fight longer, and take a bigger beating. I could always take a hit since that was how most of my fights in the old world had ended up going. It was strange to call it the old world. That was before all this started we were just normal people without a care in the world. I used to build computers for a living. That was a little more than 4 years ago now. I just had my birthday a month ago, I think. Now I’m a 29-year-old man out in the mountains, dressed in plate mail, wielding a sword with a sliver of an essence stone in it, and trying not to get slaughtered by what most have started to call Orcs. It was strange feeling bordering on hysterical to think in such a short time this is where our world stands. Soul stones melded into our spirit and bodies by what I could only say was magic since I had no idea how they did it. All I know was that as I felt the essence in my soul stone I knew that it had grown. I’d always been a gamer and to stop myself from going mad I had started to think of this as a real life RPG. I was playing a game were the prize was survival and losing was my immediate demise. My soul stone would gather the essence from living things when they released it or it was torn from them. My soul would call any essence it could to it, like a bee to honey, it would come. Every living thing had essence in it or a soul as some call it. Some are stronger than others. For instance, a bear had a larger soul than a rabbit. We could hunt these and gain their essence but it was like hunting a low level creature in a video game. It didn’t do much for you beyond a certain point and was simply a drop in an ocean. Gaining large amounts of essence was beneficial in many ways. As a person’s essence grew their wrinkles would start to fade, their bodies would start to stand taller, and they would feel more confident. We haven’t had time to see what the long term effects of a large essence horde would do to a man but the prophets claim that it would extend your life. You would be more likable to people. Some even said that great people could bend other, weaker people to their will with their over powering presence and strength, but it was simply speculation since none ever bothered to come to our back water world.

As I came out of my meditation I felt better but my body still ached. As much as my mind resisted the idea I needed to get up and stretch. With an effort of will power I pushed myself up using the tree for support. Just as I was reaching my feet I heard the rustle of some branches and quickly following that came the three men. All grim faced with streaks of dirt and sweat streaking their faces. They look how I felt. Darius knelt down next to his brother and looked as if inspecting his bandages. Larry went to the fire to tend the cans of warming food. Sam grab a pack from the pile, by the weapons and started to make his way over to me. 

He plopped down and handed me a canteen and a blanket. On seeing this I grabbed hastily at the canteen and gulped down the water. With my spinning head I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Slow down there bro. You’re going to make yourself sick.”, Sam said with a slight worry in his eye. After a long swallow from the canteen I handed it back to Sam with a thank you.

“Sam what happened after I got thrown like a sack of potatoes?”

“You felled that Orc like you were in an old action movie! That was the craziest thing I have ever seen! You are a mad man if you ask me, but you did save Darius’ life!  That thing was going to snap him in half and I still can believe Darius blocked beasties chop. I never thought those things could be so terrifying or strong. We barley skid by this time.” Sam leaned in close and in a quiet whisper said, “I don’t think we should have tried to ambush those things. You know the baron wouldn’t want a hunting party, of all things, to reveal our location to the enemy. We will now have to move again.”

The Baron, I thought to myself with annoyance. He was the baron of a hundred strong nomadic town. We couldn’t settle yet,  we didn’t have enough warriors to put up a decent fight and our Baron was too nervous to try and settle near one of the castles. The Baron said castles brought too much attention and it would inevitably cause our enemy to come against us. The town seem to agree; they remember the Vanguard attacks on the major cities. The breaking of the shell around our world. The lights going out, phones and radios stopped working. Entire populations whipped out in one fell swoop. It was hard to forget that kind of fear. Even out here in the middle of nowhere tracking parties could be found and today I saw what it took to take them down. 

These thoughts rolled through my head as I contemplated what to say next. Sam gave me a moment to gather my thoughts while he went to the fire and retrieved our dinner. Canned beans and dried jerky again, I sighed to myself. 

“Dinner of champions”, he said as he handed me my can and spoon along with the two straps of jerky.

Between bites I asked Sam, “Do you feel stronger yet?”

He looked at me intently for a moment then answered, “Not really sure. After things calmed down and we got you and Flax fixed up I tried that meditation thing the disciples teach you to help guide your soul to the path you choose. I focused on strengthening myself and giving myself more stamina. I didn’t get winded digging that hole as fast as I normally would I think. What about you?”

“I tried the same thing except, I can’t decide if I want to try for the rangers or not. I’m not half bad with a bow and when I tried strengthening my arrow I could do a whole three of them which is more than those that don’t practice.”

Sam nodded in understanding of my loss for what to do. Most of this was new for all of us. We were all survivors in one way or another.  When the horde of monsters started to leave our world, leaving the smaller camps and scouting parties behind, we began to come out. Castles that Doom’s Day Preppers built became our cities. Hidden in the mountains and areas that no one bothered to live, were our salvation. The prophets had helped guide who they could but most ignored them till it was too late.

“As long as you aren’t trying to become one of those mages or priests everyone is talking about. Liam, the artificer’s son, chose that as his path. Now he shows off his ability to shoot “fire balls”, buts it’s no more damaging then a bottle rocket if you ask me.”

We both had a good chuckle, it felt good to release some of the tension in the air. It was a rough day and with the light going down it was time to turn in. 

Darius announced watch rotation. I was left out of the watch rotation. I tried to protest that I was fine to take a rotation on my own but the decision was final. They must have worried about my head condition and didn’t want me to be on watch alone. With a sigh, I rolled myself into my blanket and edged myself closer to the fire.

I woke with a start to a slight shake on the shoulder. My eyes were groggy but my senses were keen and scanning for danger. As my vision cleared and I saw the image of Larry standing over me with a slight grin at how jumpy I was. It was time to move out and every one was packing up. Darius was sorting the gear and the loot of our victory. The real prizes were the two oversized axes laying on the ground. We couldn’t take the precious gems out of the axes without damaging them. They were fused with the metal somehow and we didn’t have anyone with experience working with essence stones so we would have to lug the things for the day and a half hike back to camp. Besides the weapons, the Orcs didn’t carry much. Some left over food that you wouldn’t feed to the livestock and some weird metal disks that, in a game would have been what we collected for a farming quest. In general, we guessed these passed for currency among the invaders. Darius pocketed the disks as I tried to crane my neck to get a good look at them. I had whispered to Larry earlier wondering if we should have taken the soul stone from the Orcs chest, but he shook his head and informed me that they were broken and no one could do anything at our camp with them. They would just be another thing we would have to drag around with us.

As dawn light was just breaking we set out from camp and started the long boring trek back to our home. Nothing to see but the wilderness, although it’s had some definite improvements as of late. Lush vibrant green shone in all the plants even the dirt seemed more alive now that the shield was cracked and the essence of the universe could once again inhabit our world. Clouds seemed to dance of their own accord as if they had a small life of their own. Who knows maybe they did. The day was quiet as we walked out of the mountains till we hit more even terrain and then continued north. We had set up camp in the north east side of yellow stone park somewhere in Montana I think. A place even the monsters didn’t seem bothered enough to come explore with any force. The day was monotonous and only interrupted by the stop for a quick bite to eat and then back on the trail. I was lucky enough to not have to lug one of the giant axes that Darius and Sam sported on their back. As the light began to fade we fell back into our old routine of preparing camp and doing some light exploring of the area that Larry had already been through during his time scouting ahead of our party. 

Before I knew it I was getting the usual poke in the shoulder letting me know it was time to go back to the grind of the trail. We would be home today just after noon. Darius was the one with the watch in his pocket. You had to use mechanical watches since the battery ones always flickered any time people used their essence to force reality to a new shape. Us nerds called it magic but if you listened to the science folks they hypothesized it was a shock wave created by the phenomenon of matter displacement or some such nonsense. I myself would stick with magic since that is what I dreamed of entering our world since the days of playing MMOs as a priest of the realm casting healing and shadow magic with equal abandon. So far in real life a sword was much easier to wield then trying to heal people. I once tried to heal a bruise on my shin after I had expertly ran into solid metal fire pit and only ended up with a nose bleed and a pounding headache to show for it.

As the morning sun started to rise and we came closer to our destination Larry slid out of the trees in front of us and gave us the signal for a halt. He seemed tense as he rushed towards us.  The feeling of apprehension invaded my mind. We gathered around our winded ranger and waited for him to catch his breath so we could hear the news. 

“Camp… has been attacked! Raiders look like they are getting ready to settle in. We need to do something!  They have more than half our people as prisoners!” Larry said this with a slight shake in his voice.

“How many Orcs in the raid party?” Darius asked

“None… It’s one of those damn Militia groups!”, Larry said with disgust