Note: This chapter has not gone to my editors and events may change before final release. The below is also unedited and in a raw non-polished form.
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Toaby fell backward out of the portal. He landed on hard, compact dirt with a heavy thud. “Oww.” Rubbing his back, he got to his feet. A flashing white light in the bottom left of his vision drew his attention.
You suffer 3 falling damage.
A rectangular bar appeared in the upper left of Toaby’s vision. It was semi-translucent and almost full with red. As he stared more intently at it, a label reading ‘HP: 17/20’ appeared transposed over its center.
So those are my hit points. Only ten? That seems really low. I wonder where I can see more about myself. He looked around his vision for something that would pull up more information, but all he saw was his red health bar in the upper left and his notices in the bottom left. There was nothing else that he could see, so he tried something out of the box. He shouted, “Character” and was pleased when a box appeared in his vision.
Name: Toaby
Race: Human, Male
Age: 21
Class: Arbiter
HP: 17/20
Armor: 6
Level: 1
Experience: 0/100
Body:
-Strength: 2
-Agility: 1
-Constitution: 2
Mind:
-Intelligence: 1
-Wisdom: 1
Soul:
-Charisma: 2
-Spirit: 1
General Skills:
-N/A
Class Skills:
-Truth Seeker: 1
-Trial by Combat: 1
Traits:
-Authority
-Law Keeper
Toaby scrolled through the large box on his screen. A lot of information here. Wish I knew what it all meant. Most importantly, it doesn’t tell me what laws to enforce! “Thanks, Heimdall! Didn’t really give me a lot of information to work with!” He shook a fist toward the sky.
>>Ding<<
A bell chimed in his head. That’s an odd sensation. Looking around, he saw a small icon of an exclamation point glowing under his notification area. He focused on it and a new screen appeared.
You have been offered a quest by the God Heimdall. New Laws - Spread the world of law to the land. What laws? Let’s start with no murder, unless justified.
Number of times a law was enforced: 0/10
Rewards: 50 experience
Do you accept?
Yes / No
“Is that really the only law you can think of? Kind of embarrassing for a God…” Toaby muttered to himself. The screen in front of him blurred for a moment before becoming clear again with the text changed.
You have been offered a quest by the God Heimdall. New Laws - Spread the world of law to the land. What laws? Let’s start with no murder, unless justified. And we’ll throw in no stealing, rape, arson or kidnapping. There, does that make you happy?
Number of times a law was enforced: 0/10
Rewards: 50 experience
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Do you accept?
Yes / No
Toaby looked up to the sky. “A little happier, yeah.” He accepted the quest and then pondered what to do. Now where do I start. If this place is anything like Earth, it’s going to be massive. I know Yggdrasil, the actual prison, has been around for almost ten years. Last time I checked, which was a while ago, there were over ten thousand people in here. I’m just one guy. I guess I should start with finding people. Can’t stop someone from breaking the law if there is no someone.
Adjusting his belt, he slipped his franciscas through it. He had to make several adjustments to his belt because the weight of his weapons made it droop. When he was satisfied with where they sat and his belt wasn’t too tight, he picked a direction to walk.
There weren’t any markers anywhere and no roads. He was standing in the middle of a large open field with patches of compact dirt and grass spread throughout. Most directions he looked had rolling hills with distant mountains. With nothing to go off of, he ended up heading east so he could at least follow the rising sun. Plus, the forest would provide him some shade to walk under.
It took about an hour for him to reach the forest. It looked just like any other forest back home, but with a bit more nature. With the growing population on Earth over the past few generations, nature became a bit more sparse. One thing this forest had that Toaby hadn’t seen before was an abundance of wildlife.
In his brief hour jaunt through the woods, he spotted several bunnies, squirrels, a couple of foxes and even a small pack of deers. At the sight of all the animals, his body reacted in a way he hadn’t expected. His stomach growled.
Rubbing his stomach, he thought, I can get hungry? But I’m immortal. Why do I need to eat? Will I starve to death if I don’t eat? Not wanting to find out the answer to that question, he devised a plan to eat. It wasn’t so much a plan as it was a basic premise. He had a pair of sharp objects and was surrounded by small defenseless animals.
He pulled his francisca from his belt and looked for a target. There was a lone squirrel eating a nut on a low branch of a nearby tree. He took one step toward it before stopping. These are meant to be thrown, right? Taking aim, he planted his feet and cocked back his right arm. With all his might, he tossed his weapon.
It flew almost a foot to the left of his intended target and hit the tree without the strength necessary to embed itself. It clanged against the trunk and fell harmlessly to the ground, kicking up some leaves. The squirrel freaked out a bit and ran around the tree.
Ok. Let’s try this again. He tossed his spare weapon into his dominant hand and took aim. This time, the squirrel didn’t sit still. After circling the tree a few times, it ran toward him. Before he could respond to what was happening, the squirrel was repeatably bitting him.
A Wild Squirrel has bit you for 2 piercing damage.
A Wild Squirrel has bit you for 2 piercing damage.
A Wild Squirrel has scratched you for 1 slashing damage.
You are bleeding and will take 1 additional bleeding damage every second for 5 seconds.
An icon of a single blood drop appeared next to his red health bar. It had a number on it that appeared to be a countdown as it ticked from five to four. There was also a new green bar underneath his red one that was a third empty.
“What the fuck!” He swung his francisca down at it. Lucky for him, the squirrel was too busy gnawing at him to pay any attention to what he was doing.
You deal 2 slashing damage to a Wild Squirrel.
A Wild Squirrel has bit you for 2 piercing damage.
You have suffered a Minor Wound.
A Wild Squirrel has bit you for 2 piercing damage.
A Wild Squirrel attempts to scratch you but misses.
If Toaby didn’t do something fast, he was going to die. He was down to only three hit points. Frantically he slashed out again.
You deal 3 slashing damage to a Wild Squirrel.
Congratulations! You have defeated a Wild Squirrel.
You have been rewarded 5 experience.
Before he could take in all of what just happened to him, two large boxes crashed into his view. One overlapping the other.
You have suffered a minor wound. Whenever you fall below 50% of your maximum hit points, you will receive the minor wounds debuff. This debuff will reduce your maximum hit points by 10% until you have taken the proper measurements to recover. This can be done naturally over a long time period or by utilizing healing magic or items. If your hit points fall below 10%, you will suffer a major wound and have your hit points reduced by 50%. A major wound will take sufficient time, magic, or items to heal.
Reviewing his health, he let out a sigh of relief. He was reduced to three hit points. One more attack and he would have received a major wound. His health bar now had the top ten percent shaded in a dark gray. He also had an icon of a crudely drawn bandage next to it. Focusing on the green bar, a label came up that read ‘STA: 2/5’.
Wait. I only have five stamina. Toaby was breathing heavily and taking in generous gulps of air. I only swung my weapon a couple of times and threw one! He cleared the message about wounds and read the next one. This one made him smile. It was labeled ‘Loot’ and had a five by five grid of squares. Only the first box had something in it. He tapped the floating item and received a message.
You have received Squirrel Meat x1.
A cube of cleaned squirrel meat appeared in the hand he touched the icon with. He frowned. It’s raw. He cursed his parents for never making him join the scouts as a child and never taking him camping. The only fire he knew had to make was the one on his stove and, if he was being honest, the stove did the bulk of the work.
“Great. At least I have an axe to gather wood with.” He felt his trousers for a pocket but found none. Unsure with what to do with the meat, he tucked it under his belt.
He walked over and grabbed his other francisca that was lying on the ground. After having both, he took a swing at the tree’s trunk to shave off some bark. His attack was clumsy and ineffective. All he managed to do was leave a large scratch across its surface.
Your Basic Francisca has suffered 1 point of durability damage.
Wait! My axe is breaking? He held the weapon close to his face and focus his eyes on it.
Basic Francisca - Axe
1-3 Slashing damage
4/5 Durability
Consumes 1 stamina per attack
Toaby didn’t have anything to compare the weapon too, but he knew such low numbers couldn’t have been great. This did provide him with some important information. For example, he now knew he could only attack five times before his stamina was completely gone. Doing some quick and easy mental math, that meant he could deal anywhere from five to fifteen damage before collapsing.
He looked at his stamina bar again. It had refilled while he reviewed this information. So even in my best shape, I couldn’t kill someone like me. How am I supposed to enforce the law?
Looking at his health bar, he frowned. He had only recovered one hit point so far. If my health regenerates that slow, I’m not going to be able to go around killing things without getting healed every fight. What the hell am I supposed to do? For the third or fourth time that day, Toaby looked up to the sky and cursed Heimdall. At this point, he knew he was just being set up to fail.
I can do this! If I deal an average of two damage a swing, all I need to do is hit the squirrel a few times. That one died after two swings. As long as I use both weapons and swing like crazy, I should be able to kill it before it kills me.
With a plan in mind, he looked for another lone squirrel. It wasn’t hard to do as squirrels were virtually everywhere. Toaby chuckled at the thought of virtual squirrels being virtually everywhere. With a squirrel chosen, he prepared himself. He gripped both his weapons firmly and charged it.
As he approached, he swung down at it with his right arm. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the least bit stealthy barreling in like a madman. The animal easily dodged the strike by jumping on Toaby’s outstretched hand. As soon as it landed, it dug its teeth into his forearm.
A Wild Squirrel has bit you for 2 piercing damage.
You have suffered a Major Wound.
He slashed at it with his off-hand, but it was too late. New messages pop-up into view as his vision went black.
A Wild Squirrel has bit you for 2 piercing damage.
You have died!