[WP] Everyone considers you the village idiot. In reality, you are the most intelligent person the world has seen for sometime.

....

"What'er you fuckin' doin' Jake?" A man's voice shouted from afar distance. "Swear to the Light, if Knights see you playin' like this, and you'll be on the stakes! The stakes I say!" I heard the crusty yell wander over the hills that lined my thin edge of property by the forest. As always, Old Nan must have seen me doing something on her walk and started blabbering about it to her husband. By no means was this the first time.

"Hello Tom, good to see you too." I replied, cheerful as I could manage.

It had been three months since I'd had the pleasure of being transported to a fantasy world. A place filled to the brim of traditional cliches, but none of the beneficial ones; for me anyways. No personal magic powers to speak of, no chosen sword in the stone, no starting weapon blessed by some powerful god or similar divine gift. If anything I was thrown into the thick of it and left for the wolves. The unfairness of this all, so far, had been a humbling experience.

The only "blessing" I had, if I could even call it such, was that I'd arrived in my P-O-S hatchback and camping trailer. My budget-abiding rig had been warped along with a plot of asphalt that stretched about twenty by twenty in a rough square, complete with painted parking lines, and the rear-quarter of a very unfortunate Honda Accord. A light-show of blue flashes, some loud noises and wobbling ground: "Poof."

So far as I could deduce from logical analysis after the fact, whatever magic had brought me here went and took the liberty of also stripping a portion of the Walmart parking-lot where I'd stopped for the night on my way up for the yearly hunting trip. Just by minding my own business I'd managed to get unlucky enough to find myself in another dimension.

I could only imagine the shit-show of Government agents going over some maddening video footage with thick black suits and glasses. I wondered if somewhere in a far off reality, that Honda owner could find a way to claim dimension-rift damage on their insurance. Maybe that was something the Federal Government covered under some tiny printed sub-clause of FEMA assistance.

"Did you hear' me Jake? I said stakes!" The old man waved his hand in my direction as he approached. "Church has no tolerance'fer madmen!"

"I'm just trying to keep myself from getting killed Tom. I don't understand how you're all so content with the Goblins lurking around these parts." My reply was thrown over shoulder as I worked with the small trench shovel originally meant for little more than digging a hole to put two sticks over, now mostly re-purposed for more important tasks. At least it was durable.

"What'er you saying Jake? I see you here, putting sharp' sticks in the ground like you're preparing for some type'of battle? You've cut back half the saplings!" Old Tom stalked around my barricade carefully, wrinkled arm shaking with his balled fist high in the air as he glared at me. "You Daft boy? That's good wood you're wasting. Village might'ave took pity on you- but you're worryin' folk now!"

With a heavy sigh, I shoved the next spike of wood into place, a solid angle pointing the tip in a staggered position beside the others on the perimeter of my tiny parking lot. I was curious if there happened to be pipes underneath the terrain that came with the asphalt I might use, but I wasn't about to try and dig underneath to find out.

"Is Nan complaining again Tom? I thought for sure she'd be leaving me alone after I helped her get through that cold she caught." The memory of nightquil and aspirin flashed through my mind. This world apparently didn't have anything close to drugs, or even basic sanitation for that matter. They had all stared at me like I was crazy when I washed my hands too. One even asked if I was a priest.

"Aye... Worried, that she is." The old man's face looked a tad guilty for a moment, as he turned to stare at my vehicle- eyes wandering towards the trailer with a skeptical look. "She told me the madness be' possessin'ye. I think'yer strange beast here'as her all riled up."

The old Hyundai stared back, immobile and rusted body weighing in on half a tank of gas, the likes of which probably spoiled a bit more each week I left it sitting. That was a growing concern of a different variety, but it wasn't as though there were any corner-stations on the planet I could drive to; or many well-constructed roads either, for that matter. I hadn't bothered to turn it on for over a month now; didn't seem to have much purpose for anything other than scaring the ever-living piss out of the locals.

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"Listen, Tom." I sat down heavily onto the portioned honda bumper, long since re-purposed to a shoddy bench near the barricade's edge. "Much as everyone at the village might think I'm some sort of idiot sorcerer testing his luck until the Holy Church and Knights roll by and lynch me, I assure you I'd much rather not end up dead." I gestured grandly towards the spikes in the ground. "This here is a precautionary measure so I don't end up dead."

"By sharpen'n spears an' stickin'em in the ground?" Incredulous was what I might describe his voice; His face was another matter. "Entrenchin' yerself like a warrior?"

"Lots of spears." I corrected, not acknowledging the expression of almost mocking pity that waited for me. "And I'm definitely digging a trench next, now that you've mentioned it. Do you realize how many Goblins are in those woods?" I watched his face as he squinted in the forests direction about one hundred paces to our left. "Honestly, when was the last time anyone bothered to take a count?"

"Goblins?" Tom paused for a moment, considering. "Used to be trouble, maybe one tribe or'so... Haven't seen many past' couple seasons. Great rains, good Harvests... The last few' years have brought barely any trouble, truly." His eyes scanned the forest's edge, looking doubtfully at the dark shadows that lurked beneath the canopy of green.

"It's probably because you've all had such good years that they've left you alone. I counted at least fifty Tom. Fifty, and that's just my best guess considering how many I've spotted through the scope the past week."

He looked at me curiously, head slowly tilting to one side. "Scope is a looking glass, Tom. It lets me see far away." I explained, watching his expression shift again. Somehow that grin was sand-paper on my nerves.

"Ha! So you' are mad- Next you'll be tell'in me you've got noble blood in you. Jake, you couldn't 'ford one'o those fancy pieces in thirty seasons." Old Tom's laughter lifted with a flock of birds farther into the thick of distant trees. I eyed them, uneasy.

"Doesn't matter what you think Tom. I'm here, and they're there. Go head back to Nan and tell the others for me. Bolt your doors at night, and dust off your sword if you've got one. You were a soldier once, right?" The laughter died on his lips as he eyed me, amusement fading to a more serious. I stared back, my knife slipping along another bit of wood, carving out a sharp point as strips of growth shaved away. His left hand slowly slipped along the long and faded scar on his right arm, hesitant.

"Aye... That I was." He spoke softly, looking more closely at the growing barricade around my plot of tarred black stone, considering. Slowly he brought his eyes back towards the forest, sterner look passing over his weathered face as blue eyes scanned the distance. "Twenty years ago, but that I was."

Another flock of birds lifted into the air, calls and screeches lifting out over the setting sun in the distance. Getting up, I took hold of my short shovel yet again as I dropped the spear into the previously dug groove I'd made for it beside the others. Slowly, I resumed my work as the silence stretched. The crunch of my shovel and the distant caws of crows were all the noise present for a time. "I'll think on what you said." Old Tom paused, all expression of humor replaced by an aura of grim severity. "You stay safe now, light be with you."

"Take care Tom." I nodded in return, watching as he walked back and up the hill, his silhouette in the sunset casting a long shadow back down in my direction while I carried on where I'd left off. Fifteen more spears, and then another ten more for good measure. I felt the sweat rising off my skin like steam by the time I finished, locking my tools back up in the trailer and drawing water from the two liter pot I'd left boiling.

Nightfall came quickly and I settled down on the cold rooftop of my trailer, wrapped warmly within wool blankets and a thick jacket as I stared through the glass piece. My jaw worked slowly as I chewed a strip of dried meat bartered from the village. I was making it work for now, but I wondered if I'd been too slow to earn their trust; if maybe I'd gone about it in all the wrong ways.

I thought about Old Tom, and Nan. The other villagers still weren't sure of me, but they were going to have to be. I might not know everything I needed to about the world I'd landed just yet, but we would need each other; I could tell somehow. Those folks could call me a rogue wizard, a crazy lunatic, a foreign mad-man, even the village idiot if it fit their fancy: That was fine. It didn't matter so long as Old Tom had listened to what I said today. If he'd listened I didn't much care what they thought of me; I could work out the rest as time moved forward.

Lying alone beneath unfamiliar stars, listening the creaking branches and rustling wind over a foreign land, I felt at peace. The horror and madness of those first few days still haunted me at times, but it was nights like this that made up for all of that. For all I didn't know, I was beginning to grow truly fond of this world in which I'd found myself.

Still, out of all the questions floating there in my mind, I did have to wonder as I watched the moving figures begin to creep out of the dark cover beneath the far-off trees:

What was tougher, Goblin or .308?