Gaaaaaah Jacob cried as he fell arse over head out of the portal, it was two foot off the ground, but he had more important things to worry about. There was a tightness in his chest, almost a squeezing feeling. He started to panic.
“I can’t breathe”
“They said the world would be different what if there is no air”
“I’m going to die”
“No stop that”
“Deep slow breaths now” all these thoughts ran through Jacobs head as he lay there breathing deeply. As second after second went by his panic started to lessen. He was still alive he could breathe, the tightness and squeezing was still there. What had happened? Looking down he instantly realized the straps on his bag where ridiculously tight on him, not after Sunday dinner tight more like boa constrictor round the chest tight, no wonder he felt squeezed. He tried to undo the knots across his chest, to slip the bag off his shoulders but whatever had pulled the straps tight had also pulled the knots so tight he had no hope of untying them. Jacob could feel the panic starting to rise again, he stopped, took a couple of deep breaths, perhaps if he couldn’t untie them the straps would break if he pulled them. They were so tight they must already be close to breaking. So thinking, he started trying to pull at the various straps of his bag. It was no good the straps where made of tough leather and pulled so tight into his body that he couldn’t get a grip on them. In equal parts panic and irritation Jacob started flailing at the straps, not really having a plan in mind just wanting the damn straps off. Until suddenly they loosened, one strap was in pieces; Jacob immediately rolled the rest of the way out of the straps. Lying on the floor Jacob let out a cheer then started to laugh at the ridiculousness of it, celebrating taking a bag off.
Getting himself back under control Jacob looked over at the bag, the strap was cut. How? Crawling closer he could see it was definitely cut the end of the strap where perfectly straight, defiantly not frayed, jagged or in any way torn. The only thing that had been anywhere near the straps was his hand. This caused him to take a proper look at his hands for the first time, except they were not his hands at least not the hands he remembered. These hands where a grey in colour, it was more than just colour. The shape was completely different, these hands where thick with long fingers there were no nails but the tip of each finger came to a point. Somewhere in the back of his mind Jacob realized it must have been one of these points that cut the strap. His eyes traveled up his arms they were defiantly not his arms the same grey colour as the hands and much thicker than the ones he remembered having. They were longer to, it seemed like he could probably reach his knees while standing straight. By now the panic was really setting in Jacob wanted to scream but he couldn’t get any sound out; he was hyperventilating, curled in a ball on the ground. With a sudden thought, he jerked up, what about his face? Jacobs panic went into overdrive. His mind started to conjure up al l sorts of images of what he could look like, each more horrifying than the last. The not knowing was becoming worse than any horrendous image he was coming up with.
Gently, carful of his new sharp fingers, Jacob started to feel his face and head. Starting at the top, he didn’t seem to have any hair instead the top of his head seemed smooth and hard but with bumps and troughs running along it. Continuing down, his brow seemed thick with no eyebrows. From what he could tell with his fingers his eyes, at least the shape of them, seemed normal. His mouth and nose however seemed to come out from his face, it too was completely smooth but still seemed more animal in shape. This just was too much and not enough for Jacob he needed to see, in a stroke of surprisingly quick thinking for Jacobs panic addled mind he dived into his bag and pulled out the sauce pan, the new metal surface made a surprisingly good mirror, not perfect but enough for him to see his new self for the first time. What he had thought was the top of his head where a set of six dark grey horns side by side, starting out of his forehead and curving back over his head before flicking out into a point part way down the back of his head, there were also two more horns that came out from his temples then curving round his ears before coming forward along his jaw line but stopping well short of his mouth. The ears themselves where relatively normal, other than the grey which appeared to be his new skin colour. He had been mistaken about his eyes though, they were far from normal, they had retained a normal shape but the pupils had become vertical slits like a cat and the whites had become a rich orange, with an iris only slightly lighter colour so just about visible with his crude mirror. The mouth and nose was the biggest change, from Jacobs’s point of view. They were stretched forward something more like a dogs muzzle with a bit of cat thrown in.
Seeing all this seemed to shock Jacob back to his senses. He could remember them saying some peoples race would change, but this was nothing like the, handsome elves and rugged dwarves or menacing and powerful like the orcs, that had been shown to them all. Jacob didn’t even know what this, creature, was; it matched none of the fantasy races he knew of. There had to be a way to find out, it seemed like important information to know if he was going to be starting a new life here, and Jacob was certain that is exactly what he was going to do. If this was his new skin then so be it, he would just have to live with it, not like he could change it anyway. The few moments it took for him to decide all this were all that were needed for him to calm down completely and final do what he realized he should have done earlier. Jacob opened his status sheet.
Race: Gargoyle
Name: _ _ _
Level: 1
Experience to next level: 0/100
Health: 126/126
Stamina: 109/109
Mana: 62/62
Constitution: 11 Endurance: 8
Strength: 12 Agility: 5
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Dexterity: 5 Willpower: 8
Wisdom: 6 Intelligence: 6
Charisma: 3 Perception: 7
Luck: 5
Abilities
Racial:
* Grotesque: The Grotesque of a gargoyle is its strength, add monster parts to you to truly strike fear into others
* Dark vision: As creatures of the dark born to stand guard in the night you have excellent vision in the dark.
Personal
* Mana sight: Able to see the mana flow in the world
Jacob was relived it had worked as he was told it would. There it was the answer to what he was. A gargoyle, that was his race. e HHe didn’t know much about gargoyle’s, from what he could remember they were the creepy statues on gothic buildings, and traditionally made as ugly and scary as possible to watch over building and ward of evil. He supposed that given that he should just be thankful his face wasn’t worse than it was.
The next line Name was blank looking ready to be filled in. Upon thinking this Jacob was confronted with a new box in front of his face. The box kindly stated,
“Please enter your name”
With a blinking cursor underneath, ready for Jacob to fill in a name. Using his old name from the other world didn’t even cross his mind he was starting new, in a new world; he would have a new name. But he didn’t even know how to enter a name, let alone where to start with picking one. Not one to let little things, like not knowing how, stop him Jacob started thinking of new names. Speaking aloud to get some ideas out of his head he said
“Perhaps Gar as in short for Gargoyle.” No sooner had he said this then the box filled in with Gar. Again he spoke aloud
“Okay, so that’s how that works”. Considering it, Gar was a bit of a stupid name but what sort of name would be considered stupid here, maybe Jacob would be considered ridiculous so with no better information and without the time or inclination to spend longer on it, he just thought accept. For now he would be called Gar. He figured he could always change it later
In his head Gar returned to looking over the rest of his status sheet. All looked good and made sense. It seemed his stats where skewed more towards the physical than the mental but glancing at his body, that made some sense and if he was really honest he had always been a more hands on kind of guy than the think it through kind. He was a bit miffed about his low charisma score but he supposed a race that are by design ugly are bound to be stuck with low charisma. Perhaps if he could raise the stat he would get better looking, it was something he’d think about.
Now the ability’s at the end they were something Gar found interesting. They could make him strong help him survive. Dark vision was great if this world had any similarities to earth it was probably that the really dangerous predators came out at night, so being able to see in the dark was great. Grotesque on the other hand that was going to require some thought, it sounded like it could attach monster parts to him, which probably would help him get stronger but he was already going to have issues fitting into a society as he was. If he starts adding monster bits he might just end up getting attacked on sight by scared villagers. So in his mind Gar put that ability to one side, he hoped he wouldn’t need it for now. Now the last ability his personal ability was what really got Gar excited. Mana sight now that seemed useful, not only would it hopefully let him detect hidden enemy’s, it would also hopefully help him learn magic because despite his strength and size, he had never been in a fight. Gar hoped that if he could learn some magic it would help keep him safer, besides it was a fantasy world, who wouldn’t want magic?
Going through his status page had helped Gar to calm down. Somewhat calmer and with a bit of a clearer picture of himself, Gar looked around for the first time. He was in a bit of woodlands, trees fairly spread out, it seemed oddly dark here even in the gaps between trees there wasn’t much sunlight. Gar could just about hear the running of water off to one side. Now Gar didn’t really know what to do next. Civilisation that was what he needed the only thing he knew about surviving in the wild was what he had learnt from watching survival shows. He didn’t know which direction to go; he needed a better idea of his surroundings. So with that in mind Gar collected up his things dropped them at the base of a tree and started trying to climb.
The tree was old and large, the bark felt rough under his hand. The slight lean to the tree and some old knots in the trunk let Gar climb up to the first couple of branches, only now about 3 meters of the floor with many more to go did the challenge of what he was trying to do hit home. With no better idea though and always up for a challenge Gar kept going, as he got higher up the branches got closer together making the climb marginally easier. Gar was getting tired though he could see his stamina bar had dropped, the little green line was no more than a third full. That’s when it happened he slipped, his foot and weight now over nothing, nothing in his hands but the rough bark of the trunk, he tried to grab on, tried to stop himself and in his desperation as he felt himself tip forward over the void to the ground below. His fingers sank in the sharp tips had pierced the trunk and anchored him just before he fell. Reorienting himself and extracting his fingers from the tree, Gar stopped and sat on the branch, catching his breath letting his stamina refill. Whilst also letting his heart rate settle, he had thought he was gone then and he knew he would have been if not for his new body. A fall from that height could most defiantly be deadly even if he survived the initial fall, he most defiantly would of broken bones, and injured like that with no supplies or help that was certain death. Only then did Gar realise how precarious his situation was. Waiting a few more minutes until his stamina was full Gar stood and looked to the tree again he was about two thirds of the way up, he needed to go a bit further before he could see past the tree cover.
Before he started climbing though he decided some experimenting was in order. Taking his right hand he looked at his fingers before pushing the tip of his index finger into the wood, it sank in relatively easily and came out just as easy, repeating this with the other fingers on that hand they all went in just the same. Pulling back his hand and looking at it again Gar saw no difference in it no marks or scratches, placing his hand back on the tree he sank all the digits on his hand in at once. The smile on Gar’s face at this point was huge this was almost enough to make him forget his near death. Pulling his hand out he looked down at his feet, the shoes he had been wearing where gone ripped apart during his transformation no longer fitting his new feet. That wasn’t important to Gar right now, although he did note the rough wood was causing no issues on his bare feet. What was important to Gar then was that his toes now also ended in similar points to his fingers. A bit more experimenting and Gar was ready to get back to climbing. Starting by sinking fingers from his left hand and toes from his right foot into the trunk pushing up before repeating with the other hand and foot. Like this he climbed making steady progress. He stopped and rested frequently on branches never letting his stamina fall below half. Gar climbed as high as he thought he could get away with before the trunk started to bend and sway too much and his nerve gave out. Finally looking away from the trunk of the tree Gar got his first real look at his surroundings.