It had been a normal day, Eric was sitting at home watching TV. He was half paying attention to it and half reading something on his phone. His friends had sent him some kind of message talking about “something crazy” happening and that he had to come see it. He was familiar with this kind of trick. He would go over to his friend's house and get roped into moving a couch or watching his kids while he was out on a date. Eric wasn’t falling for it.

He put the phone down and sat back on the couch. His headache was getting to him, and he already had an upset stomach from taking too much for the last one. So he just sat there and tried to relax. Everything got quiet, and before he knew it, it was dark outside. The TV was playing some kind of warning signal. Eric’s blurry eyes couldn’t even see what it said before the power cut out.

With a curse and a stomp, he stood up and leaned over to check his phone. It was dead too, great... He sighed and reached forward to grab the flashlight he kept on the coffee table, it was nighttime, so he could barely see his hand in front of his face. But when he clicked the little switch on the flashlight, it was dead too.

“Weird.” Eric said.

He ambled through the dark house, and was struck by just how dark it really was. It had been raining the last few days, so the clouds must have been covering up the moonlight. Even then… This was dark. Eventually he reached the front door and looked outside, it seemed that the entire town was out of power as well, because he could see the night sky brightly above. That shot down the clouds' theory, but something didn’t seem right. 

But things got worse, as he looked at the sky… Well, it might have been a trick of the light, or maybe he was dreaming, but it was getting darker. Stars started fading more and more until only the brightest ones were left, and even then those were getting darker. Then, more distressingly, the moon started to fade in the sky.

It was at about this time that he started hearing screams. Though, he didn’t have a lot of time to process that before it all went black.

When he came too, he was in an endless, black void. 

“What the hell?” Eric said, and chillingly, there was no echo at all. It was as if he was standing in the middle of a massive empty field, of a sound proofed room. There was something unnatural about it.

Then, as if to make things even more uncanny, he heard a voice.

“Ah, good, I see you’re awake.” The voice said.

Eric blinked, unsure if he just heard someone speak, or if he was imagining it. He pushed himself up off the not-ground and stood. Though it was a pitch black void, he could still see his hands as though it were normally lit. This did nothing to ease his worries.

“You need not worry, you are being preserved with what little power I have left.”

That was definitely a voice, and it was definitely speaking to him.

“I am afraid I don’t have much time left, it took almost all that I have to preserve you against the darkness, and I won’t be able to keep that hold for very long.” The voice said.

“What? What happened? Darkness?” Eric said.

“I am sorry, but I was not strong enough. Something beyond my control has engulfed the universe in endless darkness. Everything is gone. You are all that remains of your world.” The voice said. Eric was blindsided by the sudden proclamation. Gone?

“With the rest of my power, I will send you to another world. You will be a stranger there, and you will always be at the disadvantage. You will struggle, but struggle is better than annihilation. My only regret is that I couldn’t do more. I am sorry.” It said, then the void around him was bathed in blinding light, so bright then he could see the veins in his eyelids as they were closed.

Then time passed, he didn’t know how much, and he didn’t know how fast, but it passed. He saw nothing, and everything, all at once. He cried, he laughed, he went mad, and then he went quiet. The infinite nothing around him was his only companion for the longest time. Then, in a space of time that would make an instant feel like a thousand years, he awoke. It was night, and he was in a forest. Thankfully, the moon and stars seemed to be in the sky, and he could hear the sounds of the forested night all around him. It was overwhelming after so long in the darkness that he felt tears running down his cheeks.

Once he let the tears flow and his emotions came back to grips, he stood up again and dusted off his clothes. Though they were a bit different from what he remembered. To be fair, his memory was a big foggy on account of how much time felt like it past, but he remembered his clothes not looking like this.

It was a plain fabric shirt, not a t-shirt, but something that looked hand made with wool. His pants were similarly simple and plain, a slightly darker brown than his shirt and a bit thicker to boot. Speaking of boots, he was wearing a pair of leather boots and thick socks underneath it. It was very rustic, and not something he was familiar with.

The whole outfit was slightly damp because of the cool night weather. Luckily, it didn’t look like it was going to rain any time soon, so he wasn’t worried about getting soaked out here.

That’s when the question truly dawned on him. He didn’t know where he was.

He looked up at the sky to try and maybe get a sense of where he was. He was a scout when he was younger, so he had a sense of direction at night. But when he looked, the stars were all wrong, even the moon looked wrong. There wasn’t anything obviously wrong per se, it was just that he couldn’t pick out any constellations or astral bodies.

What he could tell was that it was summer, which was a total shock to his system. He could tell this from how low the moon hung in the sky. In the summer, the moon hung low because of the tilt of the earth, and it slowly rose in the night sky as the year went on until winter, where it reached it’s peak and fell back down. That explained the cool night air and the clear skies, but didn’t clear his confusion. Before now, he knew it was the middle of fall, the moon should have been much higher in the air then it was, and that meant he lost something close to nine months. Well, assuming this place worked the same as earth.

Stolen novel; please report.

His gut told him that this definitely wasn’t earth, the moon being wrong and the stars being all mixed up meant that he was almost definitely nowhere near earth in an astrological scale, considering the situation it wouldn’t even be that far-fetched to say he wasn’t in the same universe.

“Where the hell am I?” He asked. Then a strange buzz rang out in his head.

You are currently located in the Trilfage Woods.

Eric paused, and felt a shiver come down his spine when he realized that the voice he just heard came from inside his head.

“Who just spoke?” He asked.

What you currently hear is The Voice of Dominion. It communicates basic information and explanation details. Would you like to receive a tutorial?

Eric was stunned, in his mind was a voice speaking that sounded stilted, but not robotic, like one of those text to speech programs that almost had a human cadence, but were just off enough that you could tell it wasn’t a person speaking. Now this voice was asking him a strange question.

“Sure?” He said, unsure of what else to say.

Understood. To begin, the Voice of Dominion (also known as VOD) has several command phrases that allow the user to quickly ascertain information about their build, localized occurrences, and generalized concepts. The first and most important thing to do when using the VOD system is to ascertain your stats, to do so. Say “Status”.

Without much else to do, he went along with it. “Status.” He said. Then a semitransparent panel appeared in front of him, displaying the following information.

-----

* Name: Eric Reese

* Class: N/A

* Level: 1

* EXP: 0

* Base Stats:

* HP: 10

* MP: 10

* SP: 10

* Stats: 

* Strength: 10

* Dexterity: 10

* Intelligence: 10

* Faith: 10

* Guile: 10

* Agility: 10

* Luck: 10

* Innate Skills:

* Passive Skills:

-----

“What the hell?” Eric said, puzzled by the video-game-y looking panel in front of him. When he looked to the left and right, the panel followed his vision exactly. It was uncanny to see.

With your stats now understood, the next most important command to understand is the contextual information command. You may ask general questions about your situation or environment, and depending on the level of your Intelligence stat, a variable amount of information will be communicated.

“So, what? I can just ask any question and get a response?” Eric asked.

Technically correct, however, if the subject of your question has a higher intelligence stat than you, and or it has some kind of skill that resists observational skills, this information will be obfuscated or even incorrect. In such situations, you will be informed of such.

“So it’s like a hands-free encyclopedia?” Eric said, not even really asking a question, just thinking out loud.

This is correct. With this information now understood, the next most important feature of VOD is the programmable interface system. Depending on the sum total of your Guile and Intelligence, you are able to program the system to perform actions based on specified criteria. For example, with your current stat total of [20], you would be able to enable [Floating Names], which presents a floating placard of anyone’s name that you personally know. Would you like to activate this?

“Sure.” Eric said, then he waited for a moment, but nothing happened. “Uhh…”

There are no beings within range that you know the name of.

“Oh, I see… Wait… Why did you say it like that? How many beings are near me?” Eric asked.

One.

Eric’s blood ran cold. He turned quickly, having been dazed back to the reality that he was in the middle of a forest at night. It didn’t take long before he heard the sounds of something moving in the brush. Though it was still bright enough to see because of the moon, it was still very dark, and everything around him looked faintly the same, all shadows moving at the edge of his vision.

“What is it?” Eric asked, barely able to control his voice.

The being is one [Night Boar], a nocturnal, omnivorous boar that is aggressive to anything that is not a member towards its own kind. Caution is recommended.

Before he could respond snarkily to that last part, Eric heard a loud screeching whine from the brush, then a large boar the size of a large dog came rushing out of the trees. On instinct, Eric leapt to the right just as the boar came screaming through the clearing he was in. It dodged back into the brush where he couldn’t see it and went quiet.

Warning: You are unarmed at the current moment, it is recommended that you do not enter monster ridden locations without proper arms and equipment.

“No, you think?” Eric said, dodging again as the boar came through again. This time, a lot closer than he was comfortable.

The [Night Boar] is a beast that attacks by sneak attack from a secluded area, however it has trouble stopping once it has begun a charge.

Eric nodded at this information as he dodged again, he landed roughly this time and turned his head toward where the boar was going. This time, it slightly clipped a tree and took off a chunk of the bark. This gave him an idea. He got back to his feet and started preparing to dodge beforehand. It seemed the boar always came at him from the back or the side, never the front, so if he stood in place and turned slowly…

This time, the boar broke the rhythm and waited to attack for longer as he turned, the moment he stopped, it burst out from his left and he threw himself back to avoid it. Eric repeated this twice more, longer and longer. This is where his hunch came in. He kept going without intent to stop. After a minute, he heard an angry snarl from the bush. That’s when he stopped.

It didn’t wait a single second, he came charging from his front this time, off to the right and clearly in focus. This gave him plenty of time to dodge, and better yet, gave him a new idea.

Eric repeated this routine a few more times, getting a feel for the beast's patterns and tells. His idea was to time it so that the boars' path wouldn’t let it pass easily back into the brush. It took a few close brushes, but after turning for long enough, he heard the beast really let it out and rush with stopping. Because it was within his view, he dodged easily enough and watched the boar run head long in to a tree. There was a sickening crack and one of the boars tusks broke off and fell to the ground. It started whining loudly like a pig and shuttered off into the brush, he waited until he couldn’t hear it’s whining anymore and walked over to the tusk.

This wasn’t his goal, he just wanted to get the boar to hurt itself. But considering that this tusk was easily as long as his arm, it would be a nice bonus. However, when he touched it, he heard the voice again.

Insufficient stats to equip this item. Strength Requirement: 12. Until stat requirements are met, weapon damage is reduced by 90%, and any passive skills will not be granted.