Chapter 6

Roden was jostled out of sleep by a clawed hand. Panic coursed through him as he grabbed the offending wrist.

“Easy there, big guy. It’s your turn for watch.”

Relieved to see it was just Riakon, Roden loosened his grip and sat up taking in his surroundings.

“You’ve got the last watch.” He said while shoving a small candle towards Roden.

“When the candle is burned all the way down, it is time to get a move on.”

“Makes sense…Hey Riakon, I wanted to thank you for the save yesterday with the spider.”

“Of course, you are one of us now. Just don’t make a habit of needing to be saved.”

“Yeah…I’ll try.”

“Either do or don’t. Fuck trying.”

“Fair enough.” Roden said with a chuckle.

Riakon tucked himself into his bedroll and was snoring a few moments later. Roden was left alone, but for the sounds of the cave and the forest outside it. The men had made camp just inside the mouth of the cave. They found that once they walked in a ways, there was a drop off of about thirty feet with no easy way to climb down without belaying down, a feat that they hoped would be much easier in the morning.

Roden peered over the drop, his eyes naturally adjusting to the darkness giving his vision a grayish overlay that made everything colorless, but much brighter overall. This must be the work of his half-elf night vision. What a strange thing it was to no longer be human. He had no way to compare the differences. Where he came from everyone was human and there was no question about it.

How strange it was to be living out what was technically someone else’s life. He most definitely wasn’t Roden…It was then he realized that he had not been using his real name. His name was August, but that name didn’t feel like his name in this body. It was odd that before he even realized where he was, he had already been thinking of himself as Roden.

Poking at the edges of his reality in this way gave him a powerful sense of vertigo. It was as if he was on a come up of too big of a dose of magic mushrooms. His vision blurred and he had to put a hand out to brace himself against a stalagmite.

'Okay I am never doing that again. I am Roden.' With that mental assertion, his dizziness subsided.

He shook his head a little to clear the fog and set to making some tea. He dug through his pack and was delighted to find quite a few things he hadn’t picked out. He found a good supply of tea in a small pouch, which couldn’t be more welcomed. Roden loved a nice hot drink in the mornings and had settled for hot water thus far.

He was usually a coffee person, but that required a lot more doing in this world so tea was going to be his best option for his morning pick me up. The only thing he was more excited to find was a beautiful pipe and herb box set made for smoking and storing the various herbs available in this world.

He pulled out the pipe and packed the bowl with some of the brownish green leaves. He lifted the herb box to his nose and took a sniff. The smell wasn’t entirely unknown, but not completely familiar either. It smelled of lavender and citrus.

He could recognize the stripes of tobacco mixed in adding a light cigar like smell. He was slightly disappointed. He had hoped the box would contain something a bit stronger.

He used the little flame of the watch candle to light a small twig to transfer the flame to the bowl of his pipe. He took a couple puffs drawing in the smoke. He let it linger in his mouth tasting it before taking a small inhale. It was actually quite pleasant. The flavors were pretty light, almost lemony.

Once his tea was ready he took his cup and pipe out to the front of the cave to take in the sunrise. His wards would alert him if anything tried to sneak up from within the cave, so he figured what better way to get accustomed to his new world than to take in a sunrise.

Once outside Roden could see that the tree line was going to put a serious dampener on his dreams of a beautiful sunrise. He looked up at the cliff wall behind him and saw a decent sized ledge about ten feet up. With a little finagling he managed to pull himself onto the ledge.

While not an amazing view it at least gave him somewhere to sit and enjoy his morning tea and pipe. As his tea grew cold Roden remembered he had that awesome spell that let him manipulate small fires. It was too late to save his tea, but the tiny embers in his pipe were easily stirred back into a flame with a flick of his hand.

As he blew out a cloud of fragrant smoke he took in the orange glow that caressed the tops of the trees. He had to admit his current situation was quite peaceful, down right tranquil. In that moment of calm he let his eyes close. His mind immediately took him to that place in-between time and consciousness.

He found himself once again on a path in that dark space. This time with a sunrise to his back casting its warm colors on the path in front of him. Not much changed as he walked the path selecting the same spells he had the previous times he had been here, except this time he realized he could take one more with him. His gamer brain exploded with delight. Another spell means he leveled up.

After yesterday, he knew just what spell to take. He had to double back to take it, but he knew it would be well worth it. As had happened before, the spell changed as it was pulled toward his Adventure domain. It went from a spell that gave his targets greater accuracy and reactions into the spell, Blessed Traveler. A spell that granted a substantial boost of alacrity without any bonus to accuracy.

While not exactly what he wanted when he took the spell he had to admit it wasn’t a terrible trade. Sure it didn’t grant a direct offensive bonus, but speed was king when it came to this group. With that final spell chosen, he stepped out into the clearing that was the end of his path, but instead of leaving he was presented with two versions of his holy symbol.

It was pretty evident they each stood for one of his domains. The fire domain gave off an ephemeral flame with the holy symbol in the center, while the one for his adventure domain was shrouded in dim light with the holy symbol acting as a sign post on a forked path.

At first he thought he had to choose one, but quickly came to realize this was his tutorial. When he reached for the symbol for his fire domain and grasped it his mind was flooded with the details of the ability. It was different than when he chose his spells. The knowledge of those came to him as a possibility. This was a certainty.

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The power he was given was a once per rest type of ability. One he could pretty much only use once a day, at least at this level. That had its drawbacks, but a restriction like that usually meant that the ability would be impactful.

His fire domain ability was called Moment of Ignition. When he activated the ability it would grant him an aura of fire magic that could burn up enemies and incinerate their ranged attacks. With this up, arrows were as good as useless against him and melee attackers would have a rude awakening when they walked into its range.

Once he had fully assumed the power he was nearly giddy to see what his Adventure domain had to offer. Grasping that symbol introduced the ability Pilgrim’s Rebuke, an ability that generated a shockwave of force to ripple out in front of him that could injure, and push the hostiles away, but it also came with a secondary effect that conjured a visage of divine dominance that made anything that took damage from the shockwave terrified of him. Roden was shocked that his Adventure domain had given him a power actually useful in a fight.

“Hell I wish I had that with the damn spiders.”

After absorbing the power into himself he was left standing in that empty clearing in the dark space. He sat down crossing his legs and closing his eyes. When he opened them he was looking out over the serene scenery once again. It wasn’t long before Errrkkkk woke and leaped up by Roden’s side, a single flap of his large wings easily covering the distance. They exchanged morning pleasantries and discussed their plan for the day when Errrkkkk raised the questions,

“What are we going to do about the mushrooms, cacaw.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well I was reading through the field guide and I noticed that the mushrooms we need release spores when touched, cacaw.”

Roden remembered this problem. It actually wasn’t a problem, but these two didn’t know that. What was about to come next would have lasting effects in his world. All because of an overly complicated solution to a perceived problem.

“Oh what do you propose we do about that?”

“I was looking around at all this moss and spider silk and thought we might be able to make some masks to help filter the air, cacaw.”

“Sounds like a good plan, I bet that spider silk will catch the spores quite nicely.” Roden was doing his best to sound genuinely intrigued and impressed, but it was kind of like watching a movie for the second time. Errrkkkk flew down and around gathering up moss and silk. Roden helped cut stripes off Errrkkkk’s spare shirt in order to make straps. By the time they were done they had three makeshift masks to wear as they collected their mushrooms. By the time Riakon joined them the sun had been in the sky for a couple hours.

“I took a look deeper in the cave. It looks like there are some large mushrooms just around the corner before the path splits in a couple directions.” His deep resonating voice booming out of the cave entrance.

“Well now is as good of a time as any, cacaw.”

The three men made their way through the cave. As much as he didn’t want to be, Roden took the lead. He was the only party member with dark vision so it fell to him to trek ahead just out of the reach of Riakon’s torch light. Lucky for him, there wasn’t anything to worry about for the first three quarters of the cave. Whenever they approached a mushroom of the correct variety they would gather the specimen and tuck it into Riakon’s dimensional bag.

After a few hours of steady spelunking Roden arrived at a high rise that overlooked a large circular chamber that held a small pool in the far northern corner. While waiting for the others to catch up Roden began casting his magic detection spell. He reveled in the ritual used to cast the spell. It was like casting in slow motion each movement an exaggerated version of the instant casting.

When the spell actualized, Roden's vision was filled with various auras and clouds that signified the various magical effects at work in this cave. He could see the secret entrance to the chamber under the pool and he could also see the cloud of conjuration magic set as a precaution by the necromancer in that secret chamber.

Roden thought back to when he designed this encounter for his friends. He had pulled the mushroom cave idea from one of the first games he ever got to play in. At the time he loved the idea that even though he wasn’t a player for his friends they shared some experiences.

He knew once they reached the bottom of the rise they would trigger the trap that would generate a fog that would obscure two ghouls hidden beneath the pool. He had designed this encounter so that there was no avoiding the ghouls. He cursed his past self for coming up with such a simple plan. When the other two caught up Roden filled them in on the situation.

“Okay boys here is the deal, I’m seeing some magic at the bottom of this slope that is going to trigger a trap of some kind. I anticipate there is going to be some type of guarding creature. If I had to guess based on the magic I am seeing I would say they are going to be undead.”

The two nodded their understanding, Riakon drawing his large hafted hammer from his back and Errrkkkk bringing his staff up to guard.

Knowing the other two couldn’t see in the dark, Roden lit a couple more torches off of Riakon’s and had the dragonkin throw them around what will be their battle field. As they took their first steps onto the chamber floor the fog started to waft up.

“Be ready boys, here they come!”

Roden could feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins as the impending fight drew nearer. He was ready this time. He had his Ignition bolt at the forefront of his mind and as soon as he saw movement out of the fog he released it with the word “Ignite!” Fire magic swirled before him before coalescing into a bead resembling a hot coal that hung briefly at eye level for a moment before hurtling off in a streak toward the necromantic aura of the ghoul in the fog.

Roden couldn’t see the spell make contact with his target, but he knew it had when the explosion rocked the cave and he saw the silhouette of the ghoul burst into flames. He activated his Fire domain power with its incantation “Blaze”. The image of the ghoul became even more distinct as the flames covering its skin burned brighter. In seconds the ghoul succumbed to the flames dropping to the ground in a smoldering heap.

Errrkkkk and Riakon made very quick work of the other ghoul. Riakon blasted it first with a torrent of his holy water breath weapon, this being one of the few instances where it was not only useful, but incredibly effective. Errrkkkk finished the ghoul off with a quick strike of his staff.

“That was a bit anticlimactic.” Riakon said, hefting his maul to his shoulder.

“Not even enough for a warm up, cacaw.”

Roden had to just shake his head at these two. Yet again he could see the difference in mentalities. These two were characters born of this world. They prepared their whole lives to become adventurers. They trained day in and day out to be warriors for good. It was nothing for them to crush a dozen giant spiders.

Roden couldn’t help, but feel out of place a bit as he had not grown up training unless you count all the martial arts he did as a kid, but even that didn’t prepare him to fight to the death. He learned to fight in his real life so that he could stand up for himself and those he cared about, but that rarely resulted in anything half as dangerous as he dealt with in this world. Simultaneously, he had more power now than he ever could in his real life.

“Yo Mir to Roden! You good man, cacaw.”

“huh, oh what? Did you say something?”

“ahhh yeah I was saying we should look around here and see what we can find. If there was a trap then there must be something here, cacaw.”

“Oh no need. Now that we are down here I can see there is a magic entrance right over there.” He gestured toward the pool.

Errrkkkk’s eyebrows went up in surprise “well alright cacaw” excitement in his voice

“How does it work, cacaw?”

Roden knew what needed to happen to access the door. The problem was he couldn’t just tell the guys or he would have to answer questions he wasn’t sure he was ready to answer just yet. Roden had faith that the guys would believe him if he could just build a rapport, but he wanted to get his feet under him in this world before he broached that topic with them. For this reason, he had a simple plan to make this work.

“I’m not positive, maybe we just take a rest while I look it over more closely.”

“Sounds good to me” Riakon interjected.

Roden set to work giving his Sight of the Magi spell plenty of time to take in all aspects of the magic on the pool. From what he could tell it functioned just as he imagined all those years ago. As long as a creature could see the entrance they could interact with it. While Roden was working by the pool, Errrkkkk and Riakon had done exactly as he had hoped they would.

They laid out their bedrolls and took out some rations, most importantly the fruit from the animated tree. He needed the two of them to eat that fruit or more accurately he needed them to eat the spores that clung to the outside of the fruit. Those spores will give them a short-lived version of his Sight of the Magi and allow them to use this entrance.

A few minutes later, the two men were looking about the cavern wide eyed, the spores finally taking effect. Roden remembered he had given the mushrooms a mild psychedelic effect as a way to complicate the process.

At the table this choice had resulted in minutes of hilariously improvised trippin from everyone at the table. Once they stopped laughing they had kind of just moved on. Roden watched Errrkkkk and Riakon from a distance as they stared at their own hands for minutes. Roden couldn't help but chuckle at these two characters.

He had to admit to himself that being in this world was crazy and intense, but having those two with him made him feel like he had his friends with him, not just their characters. He kept himself busy while their high wore off. He hoped it wouldn't be too long, but he also wasn't exactly looking forward to what they would find in the chamber under the cave.