James gazed down at the body lying in a pool of blood at his feet. He hadn't realised it during the confusion of the kidnapping, but the creature was naked. A quick glance at the head of the person he had killed confirmed his suspicions. This wasn't a human. It had red skin, elongated canines, and two pupils in its remaining eye. The words floating in front of his eyes had called it a Khul. It took him by surprise but there was no other explanation for the strange creature. Only one thing was certain.

He was going to be rich.

Even when exploring the depths of jungles and canyons he hadn't come across anything like this. If he could bring it back intact to his truck, he was sure he could sell the body for a mint. All he’d need was a really big fridge to keep it in. James’s eyes flitted from side to side cautiously. He wasn't going to become swept up in his joy. He wasn't sure how far the thing had taken him, or where it was going, but something strange was going on here.

“Status screen.”

James Andross

Level: 2

Title: N/A

Class: N/A

Race: Undetermined (Progress: 0.2%)

Spirit Rank: Unranked

Health: 100/100

Mana: 100/100

Stats:

Vitality: 10

Strength: 13

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom: 11

Free Stat Points: 2

Pillars:

Pillar 1: Unearned

Pillar 2: Unearned.

Pillar 3: Unearned.

Skills:

None.

The strangest thing was the string of words that appeared in front of him every time he said the words ‘status screen’. It was like viewing a computer screen that was transparent. He wasn't sure if the words were actually there and swiping his arms over the words didn’t scatter them like water or mist. It was filled with terms he hadn't heard before. Health. Mana. Vitality. Pillars. Spirit rank. All of it was brand-new to James.

That didn't mean he couldn't work out some of the functions. Like health. His head had ached after the fight like he’d been kicked by a horse, but once he'd taken a ration out of his pocket the pain had gone away, and the health points had gone up from 31 to 100. More importantly, there was no sign of injury at the side of his head. The Khul's club had been bloodied and he'd felt it crash into his skull. Under normal circumstances he would be dead by now. Somehow his meagre rations had cured him of a bashed in skull. That was as crazy as doing CPR for a headshot wound.

He had also gained a level. He didn't know what that meant, but the free stat points he'd gained as a result were tempting to him. Strength and intelligence were self-explanatory. If he could increase them then he'd probably get stronger or smarter. Well, that was what he suspected. He wasn't sure how that would be possible. Or why. Nothing about the situation made much sense but he wasn't going to stop to smell the roses. He had a body to move.

James grunted as he grabbed the ankle of the strange creature. It was half his height and skinny as a branch, showing none of the toughness and heaviness of the punches it had thrown against him. He'd taken the knife out of its neck, its edge chipped and nearly useless. He'd come here looking for a rare animal and struck gold, but he needed to get it out of here before anything else came and tried to take advantage of him. There were some fierce animals in these woods.

Finding a clearing again was easy. The creature hadn’t dragged him too far and it hadn't been subtle about it. Twigs and blood were splattered around the forest floor and bugs had already set themselves onto the feast. He passed a shattered tree and saw the club snapped in two. Despite being thrown by a tiny creature it had beaten the tree down in a contest of strength. He shuddered, thinking about what it could've done to his head if it had connected to him. It wouldn't have been pretty.

The clearing soon came into view, and he paused as he reached the fireplace and the stone he'd been sitting on when he was attacked. There was blood splatter on the floor and a couple of shards of white material. His eyes slid over it and back at the Khul corpse he was dragging behind him. There was no way that he had recovered from an injury as grave as a blow to the skull. Rations didn't provide miracles. They cured hunger.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Something is seriously wrong." James frowned. He wasn’t dumb. Anything unknown in the wild was dangerous. The creature’s corpse wasn't worth his life, and he intended to get back to the nearby town as soon as possible. He could see his vehicle now, its shadowed hull lingering beyond the clearing behind some trees.

How had he missed it before? It was right in front of the clearing. That was something he added to the list of growing questions.

There was one other thing the vehicle provided. Safety. If there were more of the creatures out there, he would rather have a steel vehicle between them and himself. The vehicle in question was a pickup truck that was as reliable as it was old. His father had given it to him years ago and it hadn't given out on him yet. The branches of the trees gave way to his hand as he smacked them back and dragged the Khul corpse, throwing it over the back of the truck and placing a tarp over the body. He had a few coolers with ice at the back, but he'd been expecting to catch lizards, not a monster.

James pulled out the keys from his bloodied coat and sighed. The amount of gore over his clothing would raise a lot of questions. Even his hair was matted with blood. He took out a ration and eyed it suspiciously. Flour, water, and salt. He'd made them himself. There was no mystery ingredient inside them, but his weariness and nausea had died down after eating one.

He had five left.

That was just enough to survive two blows to the head if his previous experience was any indicator. He started the vehicle with a shake of his head. That kind of thinking was what landed people in the insane asylum.

The forest had a single dirt path that counted as a road. He'd followed it for a good twenty minutes from the nearest town. That town was Bricklelake, the saddest bordertown he'd ever had the disgrace of visiting. It was six hours away from civilization and the outhouses he'd been pointed to while visiting looked like they'd been put together by cavemen and rusted by a thousand years of time. On the other hand, they did have good coffee.

As the trees zoomed by, James narrowed his eyes, picking up on several differences from when he’d first come in the morning. The trees were different. Red leaves with a sheen of gold over their bark. That wasn't what he'd seen driving into the forest. He hadn't walked far from the vehicle. The lizards he'd been looking for were everywhere, contrary to his expectations, but the foliage had definitely been green. Full of ferns and bushes filled with berries that the lizards liked to eat.

The roar of the truck soon took his mind off the strange occurrences, his thoughts wandering over the day but not panicking. A strange creature, a set of floating words over his eyes, and foliage changing around him. He either had brain damage or something was terribly wrong. Considering his situation he couldn't discount the possibility of brain damage entirely, but he felt healthy enough.

That just left the other option.

"Health. Skills. Status race.” James tried speaking different phrases he'd seen on his status screen. Nothing. There was no reaction to his words.

He grimaced, stuck alone with the roar of the truck. He would have more time to experiment with the strange phenomena once he reached the town and got a proper meal inside his stomach and time to think. His radio had lost connection well before reaching the town, let alone after leaving it. He'd been too cheap to shell out for a satellite radio. The tarp at the back slapped in the wind as he sped up, but he knew the body underneath was secured tightly. The thought of how much he'd get paid for a find like this took over his thoughts. This was the kind of discovery that made people famous. Nationally famous. None of that late night public channel TV crap.

Soon he was so consumed in his thoughts that he almost missed the incoming tree line in front of him, blocking the path. James’s truck skid to a halt, protesting loudly at the sudden stop and flinging dirt and dust into the surroundings. James's muscles groaned as he stopped his head from smacking into the steering wheel and he swung his door open, cursing.

Those trees hadn't been there before. He could tell because the road cut off suddenly. One moment there had been a road and the next there were trees. It wasn't even a part of the forest. It was a grouping of two layers of trees and beyond them he could see the road starting up again. Each of them was sturdy and had blood-red leaves jutting out of their branches. Somehow between the morning and the afternoon these trees had popped up.

"Heck no." James rushed to the back of his truck, leaving the body untouched in favour of a large iron pipe he tied down at the side.

A strange creature was one thing. He could handle that and hold back his panic about being attacked until he was safe. Being stranded in the woods with an unknown number of creatures and weird things happening was another. He wasn't going to get caught by surprise this time. He gripped the iron pipe tightly and glanced from side to side. There was no way for him to move his vehicle past the trees. It was trapped.

He walked cautiously past the small layer of trees blocking the road. Their roots dug deep into the ground as though they'd been living and growing naturally for years. A few steps beyond them the dirt road lay untouched. There were no signs of roadwork or construction, and it didn't look like an elaborate prank.

James decided that the body would be safe on its own. Too many weird things were happening for him to focus on the one dead weird thing. He briefly considered staying with the vehicle and shook his head. Nobody would even know where he was, let alone send people out to find him. Not in this place where he hadn't even spent a single day.

Instead, he drank from one of the bottles of water he kept at the back of his vehicle and stuck another in his coat. All five of the ration packets he kept in different pockets and finally he made sure the iron pipe was steady in his hands. Judging from how far he’d driven, it would be a short walk to the town. Once he was there, he would be able to see what the heck was going on.

The track itself was uneventful despite James’s constant vigilance. He hadn't seen a single animal, natural or unnatural. He could see the outskirts of the town now, for some reason they had decided to let the trees grow closer than most other places did. Most likely they hadn't had the manpower or the time to chop them down and uproot the stumps. He was deeply regretting not bringing an extra pair of shoes now, the one shoe causing him no small amount of annoyance. But that feeling was blown away as he rushed through the final section of trees and beheld the small town, he had left this morning.

James was standing over a small hill, bushes, and grass around his feet. He coughed and his eyes narrowed. There were no visible houses, or bored people sitting at their porches. All that greeted his eyes was a large hole in the ground and smoke. As his eyes roamed over the surroundings, he spotted a shadow looming over the treeline and craned his neck up to see what was causing it. In the sky he saw the source of the smoke and the hole.

The town was on fire. It was also floating in the sky. The moment James lay his eyes on it words spread out across his vision.

[The town of Bricklelake is under siege.]

[Fend off the invaders: 322/325 remain.]

[Failure will result in destruction of the town’s defense array and loss of five levels. Invaders will be allowed to set up a warp array to their homeworld.]

[Success: Survivors will be awarded a (rare) pillar and a chance of spiritual rank awakening.]

[Mission will be considered a failure if the task is not completed after five days.]