I awoke in a somewhat old looking forest, the trees behind me were dry while those in front looked teeming with life. Of course the changes were marginal at best but still easy to see. And most surprising of all I could move, my body still hurt of course but I was mostly fine.
My muscles that were previously weak from lack of proper nutrition were now just like they were in the beginning of my journey. I noticed that my body almost reverted back to its younger self, but the change was only to the outermost layer, I could still feel the same strength in my body when moving as if I got abducted to this place and fed on my way here.
I checked my belongings, unsurprisingly my phone was broken, the documents about culture and languages and survival were covered in a layer of desert dust and I still had some rope. Overall either my savior was really kind, or picked me up and hoped to ransom me somewhere but after checking my stuff they decided that I wasn’t really worth anything.
Having nothing better to do I picked up a stick and placed it perpendicular to the ground with one of the ends touching the ground, and allowed it to fall in whatever direction. I went in the direction it fell which was towards the more alive trees. As I was walking aimlessly towards those trees I noticed that the trees teeming with life were tightly hugging the outer range of rather tall and steep mountains.
The day was almost over by the time I arrived at the cliff face that marked the beginning of the mountain area. I looked around for shelter, seeing no natural caves or high trees. I picked up fallen branches and built a makeshift treehouse on a nearby tree. I used leftover rope to tie the foundation of the treehouse to the tree itself, making myself some shitty roof and walls that were mostly to hide me from animals than protect me.
Seeing the finished product I couldn't help but to feel proud, yes the treehouse if you can even call it that was the ugliest thing I ever made but it was practical and sturdy. I gathered all of the plants that seemed at least somewhat familiar to those I ate or knew about. I used the ‘keep it in your mouth for 10 minutes’ method to determine if they were edible. I made a campfire and mashed all of these berries into a paste and boiled it. It tasted like strawberries and apples, It settled my hungry stomach and I extinguished the fire with soil and went to sleep.
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My peaceful sleep was disturbed by a burly old guy that looked like a stereotypical dwarf minus the beard. It was just a person that was at most 1.6 meters tall, old with quite long hair neatly tied into several braids that seemed to be tucked under his helmet and armor. He wore rather thick clothes that poked out from under his heavy armor that seemed too thick for any human to wear comfortably.
I couldn’t understand what he was saying at all, but his language, if you can even call these sounds that, sounded like a rumbling earth. The language or his accent made every word or string of noises rather low and hushed, similarly to the way you would speak in a church with someone incredibly intolerant of your ways of life. The silent threat in the voice the barely voiced promise of violence if the opposing part doesn’t fuck of or shut up.
“Could you move away? If you don’t like me being here I will go away just let me pack up.” I said assuming he was angry because I was on his land or he simply didn’t enjoy my presence in this area.
He looked surprised by my language because he screamed some word, probably a name because when another fellow that looked similar to the guy that woke me up came the guy repeated the word with more sounds while gesticulating at me wildly.
The fellow dwarf I started calling YD because he looked younger made other noises totally unfamiliar to the previous ones. YD probably tried using different languages to see if I could understand them. I pointed at a nearby tree and said “This is a tree, this is grass and I’m Josh” while pointing at related things I mentioned.
The dwarfs looked even more confused, they started debating between themselves something in even quieter voices. Looking at the current situation I thought about any prayer that could help me in this situation, after all a last rites ceremony saved my life so perhaps a specific prayer could actually help me.
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There were no prayers for learning languages or understanding them, but there was a prayer for ‘higher’ understanding or understanding of your mind. Those two were for more of a spiritual level of understanding, but If I combined them I could shift the meaning slightly to achieve the desired effect.
“O God, I am unworthy of the least of Thy favors. I freely acknowledge my need for understanding. I pray for Thy favor to rest upon my life, but know it cannot unless I so live that You can bless me with Thy Presence.
Forgive us our doubting and lift us, please, to higher levels of faith and understanding of others similar to your other faithful.
That are yet to see your miracles.
We do not ask that You change in any way whatsoever. We humbly pray that You will change us until our spirits shall be more like Yours, understanding the prayers of every faithful.
Amen.”
As I was saying the last words a blindingly golden light erupted and I started slowly relating the words the dwarves have said to other concepts. It appears that a prayer actually worked and I was gaining an understanding of their language based on our limited interactions.
This taught me several things, first of all praying for miracles and possibly other forms of altering reality exist and by the lack of stupefied looks of the dwarves these forms are quite common. Secondly these forms are probably based on actual data or things that happened in the past or stuff that’s already there. Like throwing fireballs were possible due to steam in the air or stuff like that.
And most importantly since miracles and logic defying shit happening around was common, plane walking or otherwolders weren’t that rare. And yes probably I’m in another world but that’s just a minor detail, simply another adventure, another journey for a sinner to purify his soul of sin.
Using still unfamiliar language I choked out with probably the most broken accent
“Can you understand me now? And If so please talk more till the miracle still lingers so I can pick up the whole language.
And to explain what I said earlier, At first I asked you if you could move away so I can pack up since you looked unhappy with my presence and the second thing was me pointing to a tree saying how it was pronounced, same with grass and my name which is Josh.”
I said in one breath, well actually in multiple breaths since the language was pretty straining to the untrained throat, but at the end it got marginally better.
They stayed silent for a while until the younger one said
“Well nice to meet you I’m Georg we were on the expedition to look for a new vein when we found a Wyrm it chased us out here and we are now licking our wounds looking a way to get back, the leader was trying to wake you up to see if you could help us with the beast?” He said frankly the ‘leader’ was grumbling about priests or something about them.
“I know some prayers for crusades against the infidels and some against sickness among the miscellaneous ones for purification of soul or healing or corruption.
As you can also see I’m quite frail right now, I came from the desert here I was looking for the holy land and somehow ended up here. I’m not sure how I could help but I’ll gladly do so.”
Man, I was getting better at this really fast. My throat didn’t hurt anymore and I actually managed to voice out my opinion far faster than before.
“A.. Are you an inquisitor or a bishop? You don’t have that aura of holy around you but knowing so much should certainly put you in that category. If we knew you were an inquisitor we could’ve left this place so long ago!” He added with frustration the surprise long forgotten.
“I never received the recognition of the Pope neither from the God I serve, and at most I’m but a pilgrim to Jerusalem. People at the occupations you speak of know far more prayers than I do. But enough talk please describe the wyrm and tell me what is its alignment and what’s its weakness if it has any.” I said slowly the miracle wore off after this sentence, the feeling of calmness and joy fleeing my body.
The wyrm as it turns out was just a giant worm with outer hide strong enough to resist the most powerful of pickaxes, the creature on its own was peaceful just when threatened it usually curled up using magic to strengthen its defenses.
Since it was peaceful it could be probably soothed by healing and soul purification prayer.