After everyone had caught their breath, Cain and the party of four headed southeast away from the still smoking woodlands. The rising sun cast the landscape in a red glow that was turning more orange by the minute. The more relaxed pace allowed Cain to properly observe the area around him. Gradual slopes and inclines snaked across the fields of waist-high grass, and the gentle wind blew ripples through the stalks like water. Proper hills could be seen to the southwest, where white gull-like birds could be seen lazily circling some unseen prey. Stretching across the north as far as he could see were the birch-white trees they’d left behind earlier. Looking at the grass beneath him showed green stalks that were beginning to pale and dry up, once again reinforcing the belief that winter was fast approaching this region.
The party was understandably curious about Cain, but mostly kept to themselves after their initial questions were answered. Questions such as “where are you from?” and “what do you do for a living back home?” that he mostly dodged or lied through his teeth about. He was from the fictional town of New Gorn that was exceptionally small and disconnected from the wider world, and had worked on a small orchard with his family. The archer, who was named Fernald, was standoffish, sarcastic, and mostly content to not interact with him much. Mina seemed to be the unofficial leader of the party, and was a very serious person while somehow still coming off as approachable. Boulder Lady, actually named Irota, was the stereotypical ‘big sister’ of the group who liked to crush people in bear hugs and make good-natured jokes at her party’s expense. And Robeson— sorry, Roberts, was the party’s healer and resident bookworm. His red robes tied around the waist by a white sash seemed to symbolize his profession, and he was the only one of the group that continued taking an active interest in Cain after the preliminary questions had been answered.
“Why blood and fire? It’s not unheard of, but it’s certainly an uncommon combination of affinities.”
“I chose fire because those undead were weak to it, and blood because my hands were basically unusable,” Cain answered, both nervous about being questioned further and grateful for the information he was gleaning from the conversation. “But if I had to say another reason, it would be that fire can damage the user if they’re careless, and that effect only gets more pronounced the more powerful their fire is. Having a blood aspect lets me mitigate that and use my fire more freely.”
“I suppose that’s a good point,” Roberts contemplated, “but the main reason people don’t go for that combination is the pain. Sure, you can heal yourself with blood, but leaning into fire’s more destructive potential like that is essentially self-torture. Generally speaking, people don’t enjoy burning alive.” He stroked his wispy beard in thought.
“Maybe, but the combination gives me the potential to be a potent combatant in both close and long-range combat, as well as making me harder to take out of the fight.”
“That’s true, you’d be a nasty enemy to deal with alone or in a group, it’s just a question of whether you can cope with your own abilities. Maybe there’s a skill to help with that…”
Roberts trailed off into thought, releasing Cain from the conversation. Fortunately, he had managed to ad-lib his way through the interview using the context of Roberts’ questions and a little guesswork. It seemed to Cain like the aspects of a person’s mana were influenced by the spells they cast with it. When he had created fire, he’d gained a fire aspect from his formerly pure mana, and using blood to heal himself had caused a blood aspect to mix in with his fire-aspected mana. It was interesting that healing himself had given him a blood aspect rather than something like life or healing, but according to Roberts the life aspect of healing magic focused on directing mana outside of yourself to heal wounds on yourself and others, while blood healing used the mana in the blood to interact with and heal the body from the inside — which was exactly what Cain had done.
A well-traveled dirt road came into view as Cain continued pondering his new aspects and how they would affect him. Worst-case scenario, he could only cast magic using his existing aspects once they ‘solidified.’ Usually, a person only had three or so days after aspecting their mana for the first time before it cements and becomes much harder to change. That would be a very short timeframe for him to gather more information and decide what he wanted to do with his aspects. It was essentially a build for a video game character, except his choices had actual consequences that would impact him for the rest of his life. The rest of my life? Do I want to live? Cain contemplated the question as the group came onto the road and started walking east along it. He had died just recently, and of his own volition no less, yet here he was trying to plan for the future. Well, I died recently, but it didn’t change anything. I just came back to life. If dying just meant finding himself in yet another unfamiliar world, it would be more trouble than it was worth.
By the time carved brick walls had begun rising up from the horizon, Cain had made a decision. He would take the path of least resistance and try to live his life here and find something to do with himself, rather than driving himself mad trying to escape the inevitable. But that was another important question; what did he want to do with himself? He had no friends or family here, and little clue what the world had in store for him. An Adventurer’s Guild and a Mage’s Guild had already been mentioned, but those were complete wildcards. A guild of mages could be anything from research to global conquest, and “adventurer” could be a very broad occupation. It could just be job boards and quest rewards, or he could wind up as a soldier in an army-for-hire. That wasn’t an appealing future to Cain, and he would only entertain world domination if he was the one calling the shots. And ruling the world would be a lot of paperwork, so that was firmly off the table.
He ultimately couldn’t reach a decision before they reached an open iron portcullis leading into the town he didn’t know the name of yet. Cain returned his focus to his surroundings in time to see the cut stone-brick wall and wooden ramparts he was passing beneath. He was no expert, but the craftsmanship seemed rather good. Perhaps that was the influence of magic? The portcullis seemed rather crude in comparison. I wonder what that’s about? Maybe the stonework was actually the result of some earth magic like Irota’s, and for some reason metal didn’t count as earth and everything had to be done by hand. Cain continued pondering the whys and wherefores of inconsequential little details like that until the gate guards finished talking to Mina and waved the party through. Maybe he should have paid attention to that.
“Alright Cain,” called Mina, “let’s get you in to see a guild officer. They’ll want to hear about this.”
“Lead the way.”
As they walked out from under the gate checkpoint, Cain’s view opened up to reveal a pretty standard-looking medieval fantasy town lit by the golden morning light. Roofs were tiled in a variety of textures and colored various shades of blue, green, yellow, and red, while colorful stalls selling food and amenities lined the cobbled street in front of the gates. Speaking of cobbled streets, these people had drainage! That and the abundance of color were the biggest departure from an actual medieval town. Cain remembered from his history classes that sewage was usually just dumped out the windows and onto the street. The streets were relatively clean, so it was likely that there was working plumbing here in some capacity. He supposed that in a world where everyone had magic, certain amenities could be provided even if the technology for it was lacking. Wait, what was the technology like here? He had assumed a medieval-era level of tech because that was what was present in a majority of fantasy games he’d seen, but that could be completely wrong. The current sight didn’t disprove that line of thought but an actual city could be home to just about anything.
Cain’s thoughts were interrupted when he saw a middle-aged man with brown hair and lynx ears browsing locally caught fish at a stall. The party that found him, the gate guards, and everyone he’d seen on the street up until that point had looked like a perfectly normal human. Except him. Humans… aren’t the only civilized species here. That was a revelation and a half. Even magic hadn’t been too hard to adapt to — it felt more and more natural to Cain the more he used it, and the piece of Order that had attached itself to him had been giving him additional information that helped that process. But this? A foundational aspect of Cain’s life that he had taken for granted was now completely changed. It was exciting! How many different species were there? What kinds of different cultures and nations existed here that had no comparison back on Earth?
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“Alright, here we are.”
There it was again. He’d hyper fixated on a single detail and completely missed what was happening around him. Cain glanced up at the building he now stood before to see a silver emblem of a compass rose composed of swords and staves. It sat atop the dark wood archway of the entrance, to the sides of which were walls of the same dark wood lined with glossy windows sporting sills of white marble. Thick green curtains were tied back on either side of each window by thin silvery ropes. An intricately carved wooden door with a silver knob stood propped open as Cain was led past it into the interior. What he saw was an expansive lobby decorated in the same dark browns, greens, and silvers of the exterior. Along the rightmost wall was what appeared to be a bar that could double as a kitchen. Lining it was a row of wooden stools with thin green cushions, while the empty space between the bar and the room’s center was filled with tightly packed tables and chairs that looked much less comfortable. The leftmost side of the lobby was occupied by boards of cork speckled with pinned papers, while sleepy-looking attendants in velvety green uniforms manned kiosks interspersed between them. The front of the room was occupied entirely by a singular front desk that stretched across the room to house seven separate attendants, while a few more could be seen handling assorted paperwork behind them. The spacious lobby was mostly deserted, with only a singular party looking over the boards to the left while a few were having a light breakfast at the tables to the right.
Mina walked right up to the central attendant of the front desk with Cain and her party in tow.
“Ms. Smallaxe, what can I do for you?” asked the man, sounding like he’d been working the night shift.
“We believe we’ve identified the mage who started the fire in the Flutewood,” answered Mina. “We’ve brought Mr. Cain here to the guild to explain his side of things after we found him unconscious in the center of the forest with extensive burns.”
Cain waved.
“I see… I’ll get the manager for the Raids and Extermination section, he’ll want to do the interview.” The attendant got up from his desk and made his way over to a staircase at the back of the room, looking much more alert.
“So,” said Cain, “should I just wait here for him to get back?”
“That would be best,” replied Mina. “We’re probably going to grab something to eat, write up our report, and take the rest of the day off. Good luck with Simon, the guy’s a real hardass.”
The party walked away. So now that their job was done, they were just going to drop Cain in someone else’s lap and dip? He would do the same, of course, but seriously? The mention of food only reminded Cain that he hadn’t eaten anything besides a magical flower and poisonous berries in what had been the most turbulent twenty-four hours of his life. Not to mention he hadn’t gotten much sleep. Passing out from fatigue on two separate occasions hadn’t helped that much. Oh, maybe that was why he was getting distracted so easily…
“You would be Cain?” spoke a deep, booming voice.
“Uh, yes…”
“Good. Come around back and follow me.”
Cain made his way around the front desk to the back of the lobby and followed the stranger’s broad backside up the staircase the attendant had used earlier. Upon reaching the top, his view registered a hallway filled with doors bearing silver plaques that ended in a three-way intersection marked by a green-curtained window. He followed the man down the hallway and took a left at the fork, finding a similar hallway with windows evenly spaced across the right wall and doors across the left. They turned left at another intersection and found a hallway with only one door at the end. Cain got to glimpse yet another silver plaque reading ‘SIMON K. WELLS, RAIDS & EXTERMINATION’ as he was led past the door into a large office. The room had no windows, instead being lit by a ceiling-mounted brazier that held a glowing white orb. A magic lamp, he assumed. Before Cain could take in the details of the room, the man who was probably named Simon pulled over a chair and placed it in front of a large desk, gesturing for Cain to sit.
“My name is Simon Wells,” spoke the man as he seated himself in a cozy-looking armchair opposite Cain. “And I am the manager of the Raids and Extermination section for Fellgrave’s branch of the Adventurer’s Guild.”
“Cain, no surname.”
“Good to meet you, Mr. Cain. The extermination raid on the Flutewood scheduled to take place this morning instead began several hours before dawn when scouts reported smoke rising from the forest. I’m told that you were found badly burned in the heart of the blaze, and are suspected to be the one who started it. Would you care to share with me what happened?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Cain, doing his best to swallow his nerves. “I was making my way south and decided to cut through the woods to save time. I was unaware that it had become infested with entropic undead. When I realized my mistake, I was already too deep into the woods to escape before nightfall. I climbed a nearby tree when it started to get dark and tried not to draw attention to myself. When an undead found me, I began preparing to use magic to fight my way to safety. I eventually decided to start casting fire magic to defend myself once a small group had formed beneath me, but accidentally blinded myself in doing so. I fell out of the tree and was bitten by one of them, but managed to create enough fire to repel the beast and keep the rest at bay. In my panic and disorientation, I continued casting fire magic at my surroundings until I passed out from mana exhaustion. I woke up being carried by the party of four that brought me back, and escaped the forest together with them after using blood magic to heal myself. We made our way to Fellgrave and they brought me here. They mentioned writing up their report after they had eaten.”
“I see. Your story is that you unknowingly entered an entropic forest, and set fire to it out of panic. Is that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
Simon sighed, letting some of the tension fall out of his shoulders. “Well, you’ve lost a lot of people a lot of sleep, but by setting a fire right in the heart of the Flutewood, you may have made this mission a lot quicker than it would have been otherwise. When dealing with Entropy, time is never on our side. I’ll have a guest room prepared for you while we wait on that report, and if you need something to eat you can tell the servers downstairs to put it on my tab. When your story gets confirmed, we’ll discuss compensation. In the meantime, I have to prepare to finalize this raid and the sift through the reports we’ll be getting when the other parties get back. You may go.”
“Thank you, sir.”
With a silent breath of relief, Cain left the office and began heading back the way he came. Three things made him that nervous. Crowds, unfamiliar environments, and authority figures. The third had been ticked off the moment Simon had addressed him. Even before knowing he held a managerial position within the guild, the man cut an imposing figure and was several inches taller than Cain. Truthfully, he was surprised that he’d managed to keep up the act for so long. First managing to lie and deflect his way through the party’s questions about him, followed by discussing magic with Roberts, and now explaining how he’d started a forest fire without outing himself as having been recently reincarnated. He took a seat at a vacant stool by the bar.
“What can I get for you?” Asked a bored-sounding server in a green apron.
“Whatever you’ve got for breakfast and some water, to be billed to Simon K. Wells.”
“Sure, it’ll be out in a minute.”
Cain began thinking about the day he’d had — and frankly, he was exhausted. First, he’d killed himself. Then he woke up naked with magical powers. Then he ate poisonous berries. After that, he started a forest fire… nearly died again… ran away from flaming zombies, still naked… walked all the way to the nearest town… and then reported his whole sorry story to an Adventurer’s Guild officer. Speaking of which, he had expected Simon to have more questions for him, or at least talk with him for longer than it took Cain to give a brief summary of events. But instead he’d seemed satisfied after just that and let Cain go with no further questions. Mina mentioned having to write a report, didn’t she? Why was he getting off easy? She had even said that Simon was supposed to be a hardass, so why was that interaction so painless? He’d even given Cain free food! Oh, speak of the devil.
“Here you go.”
“Thanks,” said Cain. A plate bearing two large sausages and an over cooked egg were set before him, flanked by a wooden tankard of water. His stomach churned. Never before has such simple cuisine seemed so appetizing…
[ Objective Complete : “I Hunger” ]
The entity has sated their hunger, warding off the immediate threat of starvation.