My name is Gerald and I am currently floating in an eternal void - the last thing that I remember is my vision fading away as I bled out on a cold concrete road after a truck hit me. Interestingly enough, I didn’t exactly see anything in whatever void I was in. No eternal blackness or whiteness, just a complete absence of vision, probably what people who were blind from birth see day to day.
At least I knew a form of afterlife exists, unless this is just my brain just lashing out in defiance in my last moments of life – maybe my perception of time and reality was being warped or something? The brain can do weird things under distress after all. I remained silent for around a minute and absolutely nothing happened, and this was when I began to start counting.
743 seconds later, give or take considering all the times I stumbled, the colour black flooded into my vision. I was now truly in an eternal black void as opposed to an eternal void-void.
Attempting to move my likely non-existent limbs and failing, I went right back to counting before a small bulb of light suddenly flickered into existence. According to nutjob conspiracy theorists and spiritualists I met on the internet, one should never ever trust the light. Of course, this advice turned out to be useless as I was completely incapable of moving – the light begun to expand in size.
Eventually, my entire world was just a bright whiteness, and it stayed like that for a little while before another abyssal black void snapped back in. I blinked. I then blinked again, realizing I could blink and then I decided to clench my fingers – giving myself some general bodily calibrations with some stretching or squeezing here and there I got myself back up on my feet to find myself I was inside some kind of absurdly deep cave. However, the room I was in was quite small in comparison to its depth.
The stone walls were quite jagged in formation and were dressed with moss, vines and odd little insects whilst the floor was cluttered with mushrooms glowing blue softly. There was only one entrance and it was situated just right behind me.
Patting down my body and observing my new apparel, I found that I was still a fairly young person but donned in quite rugged but robust-looking leather clothing complete with a set of gloves and a satchel. Staring at a cluster of mushrooms absent mindedly trying to contemplate exactly what is going on, a little blue box with a protruding line pointing at the mushroom popped into view. Needless to say, this startled me ever so slightly but I was in a dazed enough state to barely react.
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Grubshrooms
Friendly looking bioluminescent mushrooms that gently sway left and right. There are 27 of these mushrooms in this cluster.
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Being a fairly avid gamer in my life (or past life?), I could connect the dots as to what was going on quite easily. Looking at another cluster of mushrooms I tested a few of my theories by thinking about inspecting it. Nothing happened, so I said “Inspect” verbally, causing the same old blue box to come up.
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Grubshrooms
Friendly looking bioluminescent mushrooms that gently sway left and right. There are 22 of these mushrooms in this cluster.
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Doing the next logical thing, I decided to say “status”, causing another different blue box to open up in front of me.
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Your body feels robust.
Your torso is fine.
Your legs are fine.
Your arms are fine.
Your head is fine.
You have no attribute points to spend.
Running: Very Low
Jumping: Low
Strike: Very Low
Carry: Very Low
Toughen: Very Low
Listen: Very Low
You have no skills.
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Having read some of these “person-teleported-into-a-game-universe-after-death” pieces online before, I was quite surprised to see my quite vague status screen. Just a fact of this world I suppose, after saying “skills” or “health” nothing at all came up.
After looking over my environment again I checked my satchel and found what appeared to be a dagger and some odd-looking, dry food items – kind of like beef jerky. Not feeling particularly peckish, I closed my satchel and set forth into the exit that was behind me. It was a narrow, dimly lit corridor with no substantial features and no ceiling in sight. After a good few minutes of solid walking, I finally discovered something substantial.
A much larger room than the one I was initially in and a corpse. Well, the skeletal remains of one. The clothing upon it looked like it was just on its last tethers and there was a broadsword by the skeletons right hand, a kite-shield on the skeletons back as well as a satchel similar to mine. The bones that weren’t covered by the tattered clothing seemed to have odd bite marks all over them.
Time to desecrate some corpses. I flipped over the skeletons satchel and found only an iPad sized tablet complete with a button but with the “screen” section of the tablet completely missing. I picked it up with my both hands and pressed the button, causing the “screen” section of the tablet to flash blue and display some text.
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2 Charges.
Your torso has sustained 0 damage of any type.
Your legs have sustained 0 damage of any type.
Your arms have sustained 0 damage of any type.
Your head has sustained 0 damage of any type.
All of your organs are working perfectly.
You have no mana reserves.
No pathogens detected.
You have no attribute points to spend.
Running: 5 (Very Low)
Jumping: 10 (Low)
Strike: 4 (Very Low)
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Carry: 3 (Very Low)
Toughen: 1 (Very Low)
Listen: 8 (Very Low)
You have no skills.
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Oh fantastic, some kind of health analyser with much more specific information! However, I noted the “2 Charges” thing at the top and felt my mood drop at that, looks like I can’t check my status every five minutes after every minor action I take. Thankfully, reality was kind on me and transported me into a world that happened to speak mainly English – odd that I got transported into such a world, so it’s a fair bet to assume my transportation here was no mistake. Perhaps the tablet has some kind of auto translation feature by peaking into my brain with some magic gunk? Or my favourite theory, this is in fact all just in my head and my brain is doing its best to cling onto reality. Though, if that were the case this is an awfully detailed delusion.
Fiddling with the analyser further I found there was a chamber where four slots were located, one of which occupied by a cuboidal crystal that had a purple glow, though dimmer than even the mushrooms glow.
Ignoring that this was once a live human, I shrugged and picked up the long-dead persons broadsword, tablet and shield and started walking again, noticing how cobwebs started webbing the walls as well as how the amount of cobwebs increased as I kept walking. Clearly, I was just walking straight into a spiders lair, however a spiders lair is better than starving to death in some random desolate cave alongside my skeletal friend that I had just looted.
Looking down at my equipment, I found it quite odd at how even after such a long period of time, it had not rusted one, not even a single scratch was on it and it felt quite sharp – not that I know how sharp the average sword actually is. My shield, void of any décor and made out of wood but rimmed with metal, was also similarly in pristine condition. Whilst walking I gave my sword some experimental swings, finding it heavier than I expected it to be – it felt fairly hard to swing it with just one hand. Probably because I lacked the technique or strength, really.
The walls were now more cobweb than stone, as well as the floor though the mushrooms still jutted out of it, thankfully allowing me to still see. Eventually, I stumbled into a room where every inch of the wall and floor was covered in a thick layer of webbing. Oh, and not to mention three gigantic spiders that appeared to be sleeping nearby some egg-sacs. The room was quite small restricting how much I could move around, though I’d like to think of this as an advantage if anything considering how mobile the spiders probably are.
Briefly considering the prospect of attacking the spiders, I decided that living sounded like a far greater idea and got on my tiptoes, trying to sneak out of the entrance that the spiders were around but not obstructing.
Three steps later, a spider jolted awake and lunged at me just a second after awakening. The two other spiders also awakened, but watched from a distance. I raised my shield in panic and made an embarrassing whimper as I backed into the corridor that I had came in from, swinging my sword wildly whilst I had my eyes clenched closed.
Thankfully, it had yet to bite me as I was making a surprisingly good effort at blocking its attacks. It was twice as wide I was but only a quarter as tall, the other spiders didn’t seem to be attacking me, probably due to the lack of space.
Despite getting a few good slashes at the spider it didn’t seem too injured, though it was still visibly damaged. Deciding to go for a thrust, the spider immediately caught my sword with its large fangs and threw the sword backwards. Immediately reacting, I gripped the shield with both my hands and slammed it into the spider whilst it was in the process of throwing away my sword.
The sword clattered to the ground just behind it and the spiders carapace made an oddly satisfying crack noise. Seeing my success, I bashed and slammed the spider several more times before it eventually dropped limp, causing another spider to immediately lunge at me. It didn’t seem to learn from their friends mistake, and I dispatched it quickly, the same could be said for the third spider who wasn’t any brighter either.
Sitting down, I gave myself a moment for a breather. I looked at my shield and noticed how parts of it are splintering off slightly, though still in a good condition. After getting my breath back, I checked up on my status again (without the aid of an analyser).
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Your body feels okay.
Your torso is fine.
Your legs are fine.
Your arms are fine.
Your head is fine.
You have one attribute point. Spend?
Running: Very Low
Jumping: Low
Strike: Very Low
Carry: Very Low
Toughen: Very Low
Listen: Very Low
You have the following skills.
Shield: Very Low
Sword: Very Low
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Oh, an attribute point already? Saying “spend” caused my status screen to transform, I was already contemplating at what I wanted to specialize in.
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Agility – Strength – Toughness – Perception
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Wandering if the screens worked if I touched them, I tapped “Strength”. In response the menu morphed again.
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Strike [Very Low]
Carry [Very Low]
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A little more muscle never hurt anyone, and it would help me yield my sword a little better after all, so I invested into “Strike”.
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One point has been invested into Strike. It is still [Very Low]
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So that’d make my strike skill level five. I felt ever so slightly more robust, though it was probably just the good old placebo effect. I wonder how long it’d take for me to get noticeably stronger, since I don’t exactly feel like I can bend steel bars and crush steel as of now.
Grabbing my sword and getting back up, I observed the room a little more vigorously now that the spiders are living it up in spider-hell. Glancing at the egg-sacs littered all over the room, I decided to slice them all open with my dagger and crush the contents with the hilt of said dagger, just in case. Surprisingly, one of the sacs had a few well-preserved golden-looking rings encased within them, though only one of the sacs had such.
I threw all the rings into my satchel and kept walking yet again, whilst walking I started thinking about what kind of build would be the best for me. Perhaps an agility-toughness mix? Even if someone does hit me, I could just shrug it all of. Though, I don’t really know if that’s viable – how fast do you level up anyway? Killing three spiders gave me just one experiment point.
The webbed environment slowly got less and less webby and the “ceiling” remained an infinite void. After a solid ten minutes of walking with some ache-y legs, I stepped into a great cavern lit up by the same old mushrooms as usual.
The cavern was full of stalagmites and mounds, it had four exits and was devoid of any non-plant life other than myself as far as I knew. Looking around, I found another bonely fellow behind a large mound.
This bonely fellow of mine had the same clothing as the last person also equipped with a satchel, but with a bow on their back and an ornate dagger in their right hand. For some reason, they were missing quite a few fingers and this skeletons injuries seemed much worse than the other one.
Peering into the satchel, I found two small, vibrant purple crystals in a cuboidal shape alongside a rolled-up scroll and a quill.
Oh, the tablet-analyser-thing from before had the same looking crystal too, didn’t it? I pulled the analyser out of my satchel and inserted both the crystals, meaning now three out of four slots were occupied. There was no reaction from the analyser other than a pleasant “click” sound, experimentally I said “Charges” and in return a menu popped up.
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22 Charges left.
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I decided to not use the analyser on myself seeing as how not much has actually happened to me. Stuffing it back into my satchel I decided to unroll the scroll and found a map of what was most likely the cave system I was in. Also, assuming the quill operated on some kind of magic I scribbled it upon the back of the map, unfortunately, it didn’t work but I put it right into my satchel anyway. Whilst at it, I also pocketed the ornate looking dagger that didn’t seem any sharper than my own one.
The map was quite simple and didn’t go into much detail, only drawing out significant structures though I didn’t exactly have a point of reference, noting that the room I was currently in was the room where this individual had died it felt safe to assume he had not drawn it onto the map. After some momentary simple deduction, I knew exactly how to get out of the cave system. Well, I would know if I knew what door he came from, seems like the only chance is to explore every door!
Which I did and thankfully I didn’t happen to find any mean lifeforms within any of the doors, the last door I entered turned out to be the correct one! Fortunately, the rest of my journey was quite calming if anything, not a single spider in sight. I was expecting to find a dragon or something midway or maybe a funny gimmicky character to help guide me on my journey, but in the end it was all just me, me and me.
As I neared the end the sun's light started becoming visible, and I finally managed to exit the cave practically unscathed. My eyes weren’t adjusted to the great brightness so it took a while to readjust, but the fresh air flowing through my lungs felt good.
When I opened my eyes again the first sight that met me was a stumpy goblin staring right at me.