Chapter 2

Four, three, two, one...

'Well, that's a nine. Off to a great start,' he thought with way too much sarcasm. He looked and saw a number nine appear on that blank piece of paper. He rolled again. Five, four, two, one.

"Eleven...come on! Please tell me that I get to reroll. If it doesn't reach seventy total!"

Three, three, one, one. "Oh, for fucks sake!" The dice bounced lazily across the table, the first stopped, six, "Fuck yeah!" Four, three, three...

"Thirteen...Don't tell me I'm just gonna hit the minimum and not be able to reroll."

"Come on, daddy needs a big roll here." Six, five, four, three.

"Okay! Fifteen I can work with that."

Roden gathered up the dice for one last roll. "Come on, daddy needs a new pair of shoes." He said as he cast the dice. Five, four, three, two..." He did a quick bit of math.

"Hey! Wait, that's a twelve! That's only sixty-seven! I get to reroll right?"

A question mark appeared on the page just under the sixth number. The dice on the table gathered themselves as if asking to be rolled again. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Roden grabbed the dice and cast them one more time.

Six, two, two, one... Dejected, Roden stared at the paper.

'It was just his luck that the one time he got to play he rolled utter trash stats.'

It was then that he noticed the writing on the paper was changing. The seven he just rolled disappeared and he watched as a line appeared off of the second one of his eleven and then a small curve sprouted from the bottom changing his eleven into a fifteen.

"Hey! Alright! I like your style, GM." With that small tweak, it brought his total to seventy one, a much more reasonable total in his mind. Looking up from the paper, he saw another series of lights illuminate another series of objects opposite those that represented the classes. Even with just a cursory glance, Roden could identify these represented the various races he could choose from: human, elf, hillfolk, dwarf, and all of the other less human looking races.

Taking everything into account, his first instinct was to go human.

'If everything matched up to Adventures and Antics, he could get a bonus to every stat and be in pretty good shape with his modifiers, but these are all just numbers, what kind of campaign was this even? What am I even supposed to do here?'

"Am I really going to have to live out this decision?" He said into the empty space. Without a response, he thought long and hard.

"That rules out barbarian for sure. There is no way I'm running around without armor and taking all of the damage." No sooner than the words left his lips did the light that represented the barbarian class disappear.

Intrigued at the place's reaction to his words he said, "You might as well take fighter, paladin, and ranger too cause none of that's happening either." The three classes mentioned also vanished.

Looking over the remaining classes. Roden mused aloud. "That leaves wizard, warlock, sorcerer, rogue...monk! Hey, monk could be cool."

Next came druid, cleric, and bard. Roden sat on the table as he contemplated his options.

"Well, if I'm gonna be walking around all by myself then there's no way I'm gonna be a Wizard or a Sorcerer. That is a sure fire way to die accidentally. Aye GM, get rid of Warlock too." No one likes warlocks.

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"Okay, so what is that leave us with? Bard, cleric, druid, monk, rogue." Looking at his remaining class options, Roden began to run through his mind list of characters he made and never got to play. After considering his list, Roden shook his head in frustration.

"Hey, GM. How am I supposed to come up with a character, If I don't even know the campaign I'm in. What kind of crap is that?" He waited for a response, but none was forthcoming, so he continued his rant, "Okay, if it's my world, at least tell me when we are. I've run campaigns up-and-down this world through hundreds of years of in game time."

After a moment that soft voice rang through the silence. "It is early spring in the year 93 A.O. " As soon as the year registered in Roden's mind, he immediately knew what campaign he was in and excitement exploded through him causing a goofy grin to spread wide across his face.

Seizing the paper from the table Roden spoke clearly into the air.

"Okay, GM I know what I want. Make me a cleric." As he spoke, the lights representing the other classes faded leaving the light illuminating the holy symbol he saw before. Then a series of lights illuminated behind the one that represented the cleric. Roden approached and looked over the option before him realizing that these must refer to the Clerical Orders, knowing the God he needed to follow, he quickly selected the one he had in mind. After a moment of contemplation, he made his selection.

Looking at the piece of paper. He noticed ink appearing to be bubbling up through the page scrawling itself into the proper place as the blank page with his random numbers of stats. Oriented itself into a familiar design. He was undoubtedly holding his character sheet.

Looking at the page, everything seemed to be in order. His stats were still blank, he assumed he'd have to fill those in at some point. Then Roden was hit with a sinking feeling.

"Hey, GM. Do I get a back story? Or am I just supposed to bullshit my way through this as some extra dimensional traveler?" He waited but no response came.

"Okay... I'm gonna come up with one anyway and I'm just gonna keep it in mind in case you decide you want it at some point?" His voice became more and more pensive as he spoke.

Turning back to the character sheet, Roden considered his options. He knew he had to be a cleric. That would make what he needed to do the easiest and truth be told he liked the idea of having healing spells at hand just in case.

Looking over the sheet, he saw his race had been filled in as half elf, which with the right bonuses could round his stats out nicely. Glancing at his numbers he saw that yes, indeed, it did round out his stat's nicely.

"Okay so I guess strength is our dump stat on this one. We're gonna want one of those fifteens going in wisdom. Probably should put the other fifteen in constitution. Yeah, but that means we'll be terrible with weapons and our AC will suffer. Alright, fifteen in dexterity, thirteen in constitution. Now where to put the twelve." He mused aloud as he tapped the table deep in thought.

"Well, a twelve in charisma gives me a fourteen with the bonus from being a half elf. Hmmm...a plus two is nice, but that means my intelligence would be nine and I'm not really sure how this whole situation works. If I have a nine intelligence. Does that mean I actually have a nine intelligence?"

'Fuck that,' he thought and immediately put his twelve in intelligence. The nine in charisma and that was that. He ended up with a seven strength, fifteen dexterity, a fourteen constitution, a twelve intelligence, a sixteen wisdom and an eleven charisma.

Next came background. Normally when making a character, Roden would consult a long list of all of the available options, but seeing that was not available here.

"Hey, GM, what do you think should be my background?"

That soft soothing voice rang out, "Considering your backstory, Wanderer seems like the best fit. "

Roden looked at his sheet and saw the section labeled background filled in with the word Wanderer. Immediately, Stealth and Survival were added to the skill section of his character sheet. It was then that he noticed the phrase one musical instrument. A brief moment of excitement went through Roden. As he most definitely was not a musician in his real life, but perhaps he could live out that dream on Mir. The question was what instrument?

"Hey, GM, If I say lute can I play anything lute-like? I really don't want to lug around a massive instrument." In response, the phrase changed to lute.

"I'm not sure what that means, but okay."

Thinking back to the list of skills from Adventures and Antics in his memory. Roden selected investigation, history, performance and persuasion.

Next in line was equipment. A series of pyramid shaped dice appeared on the table next to him. "Oh, you're gonna let me roll for gold!" He said with a bit of surprise. "Alright, let's see what happens." Four, four, three, two, two. When the last die stopped rolling, they were replaced with a pile of gold pieces.

"Okay, let's see. What am I gonna need? I'll definitely need an explorer's pack. I need a holy symbol. What should I do for a weapon? Well, I'm gonna need some distance, you know. I wouldn't mind having something with a little reach, give me a whip and let's go with a range weapon. I'll take a light crossbow and bolts. That should fill in for my lack of consistent ranged damage and keep me out of harm’s way. With this dexterity, give me studded leather armor." He watched as the pile of gold slowly became smaller with the mention of each item. "Oh I forgot an instrument!" With that the pile of gold shrunk to half of its current size.

"Okay GM, that is everything on the sheet, now what?" Even as he spoke he could feel his eyes close and he was once again consumed by sleep.