It still felt odd to suddenly have fabric and leather enclose me without actually putting them on. I wasn’t sure if I’d get used to that.
“These fit…well.” I was surprised.
“I can craft cloth and low-Level leather for any of the Player Races. I just set the specifications to ‘she’ so that you could wear it.”
He saw my look and chuckled.
“S-I-D-H-E,” he said, spelling it out, “it’s pronounced like ‘she’.”
“It’s a very intuitive pronunciation,” I said, incredulously, “so, what’s a…sidhe? And, wait, you’re trying to tell me we are actually in a video game?”
Anubis wiggled his feet and leaned back against the log.
“One thing at a time, please, Master,” he said and looked off at the river forging ever steadily beyond.
“Sidhe. I believe it’s based around the pronunciation customs of the Gaels. This whole world seems to be based on Celtic folklore. Your Character Race is a Sidhe, a race known for its increased Agility. In fact—“
“Anubis!” a voice called from far off. Both Anubis’ head and mine snapped toward the sound.
At the entrance to the forest, just beyond the rocky flat clearing we were sitting in, appeared several forms. I couldn’t make out much, but I saw armor. Lots of armor. My heart leaped into my throat, and I shot to my feet, tightening my grip on the Shattered Wood.
“Who’s that?” I whispered, nervousness creeping into my blood.
Anubis squinted his eyes. Clearly unable to tell, but then he sniffed the air in a long, slow drag, and his serious expression melted into a smile. He quarter-turned toward me and winked.
“Just some friends of mine, Master Vale.”
In a few moments, the group had met us at the little campsite. Dressed in a motley of colorful armaments, the warriors carried themselves with the swagger of those who knew they were capable fighters.
There were four of them, each a bizarrely contrasting race. Still, all were united with the glowing indicator of
A human—that was easy to tell—was leading the pack, but there were also two races I hadn’t encountered yet.
A tall, thin, amphibious-looking creature with gray-green skin and closely cropped black hair leaned lazily against a gnarled wooden staff.
Next was a four-and-a-half-foot-tall bearded being with long, downward-facing ears and a wide, toothy smile stretched across his face.
In the back stood a Sidhe—I could recognize now—with pinkish skin mottled by the telltale scrawl of the racial design on it. He had a scowl carved into his face.
Someone already doesn’t find me very trustworthy.
The human in blue chainmail, seemingly the leader, approached first. He had shaggy, black hair and caramel-colored skin. On his chin rested a neatly manicured patch of beard. He was taller than I was, possibly even more than my real body had been, with broad shoulders and a commanding presence.
“Anubis, who’s your pal?” he said, his voice kind and jovial.
“This is my—this is Master Vale,” the pup extolled happily. He placed a hand on my arm as if to shove me forward and looked back and forth between the group and me.
With a natural confidence and a friendly smile, the human extended his hand and grasped my forearm while I did the same.
“Master Vale,” he said, giving my arm a firm pump before releasing, “well met. I’m Kellmen, human Knight.”
“Please,” I said, shaking my head, “just Vale. The master thing is a new development I’m not sold on.”
Then, finding my manners, I returned the greeting.
“Well, uh, met, Kellmen.” I looked over at the others who had not yet moved.
“Kellmen is Guildmaster of the Beatdown Brigade, Master Vale,” Anubis said, “they call him Kellmen the Cursed. He is the one who has been training me.”
“Sounds like you’ve got a lot of masters now, Anubis,” I said, winking at Kellmen.
I wonder why they call him ‘the Cursed?’
“Master collector, collector of Masters,” said the tall, amphibious one. He had a strange, comical voice. He was dressed in a brown cloak covered in patterns and hanging below his throat was a necklace of bone. No one else seemed to pay him any mind. He didn’t continue, so I turned back to Kellmen.
“That’s Berieal,” he said, poking his thumb over his shoulder at the tall creature, “he’s a lochan Shaman.”
Next, he pointed at the shortest member of their group, who was eyeing me almost mischievously. He had a well-maintained and quite voluminous copper-colored beard. It ran along his jaw but didn’t climb up his face, and there was no mustache to speak of. It reminded me of the Amish. He was dressed in dyed-green leather armor. Along his hip was an array of pouches and bottles.
“This is—” Kellmen began, but the other interrupted him.
“I’m Tibbets!” he said, grasping my arm, “Clurichaun Prowler. It’s in the Scamp tree.”
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Well met Tib—“ I started.
“Whatcha got in there?” he interrupted, pointing at something at my waist. Confused, I looked down and was met with a finger flicking the end of my nose. A trick.
“Gotcha!” Tibbets said, smiling wide. He seemed satisfied and looked over at Kellmen, who rolled his eyes.
Kellmen gestured to the last member of the party, the sidhe in the white breastplate.
“That’s Iam. Like ‘I Am,’” Kellmen said, “sidhe Templar.”
The sidhe nodded and crossed his arms.
“He’s actually a pretty cool bloke,” Tibbets said, winking.
My eyes met Iam’s, but he didn’t look away. His stare was intense and made me a little uncomfortable.
“I’ll be honest,” I said, shrugging my shoulders, “I’m not really sure what’s going on, how I got here, or anything. I’m not even one hundred percent sure this is real.”
Kellmen spread his arms out and turned in a slow circle.
“None of us know how we got here, man, so no worries! We all start from nothing and have to work our way into something. It’s a fantastic equalizer.”
I looked around. It was nearing late afternoon, and a chill was starting to creep into my bones. I shivered a little and rubbed my own arms for warmth.
Kellmen noticed and chuckled.
“It can get cold here since it’s permanently misty-bullshit-o’clock. Here.”
He motioned to Berieal. The lochan stepped forward stiffly and opened his Menu.
A trade window opened in front of me.
Berieal would like to trade with you!
Yes/No
I confirmed and waited for the continued prompt.
What was he giving me?
Will you accept
[ Okay ] Leather Jerkin ?
[ Armor ]
Rarity: Common
Durability: 15 / 20
+1 to Shield
Accept | Decline
“It isn’t much, but your weary bones could do with a bit of warming,” Berieal said, his smile goofy and crooked. His way of speaking was almost as unnerving as Iam’s gaze.
I accepted and equipped the jerkin, feeling that now familiar sensation of immediate additional warmth. Berieal was right, it wasn’t much. But it did help a bit.
“So, what happened?” Kellmen asked, looking at Anubis seriously, “you took off like a bat out of hell and didn’t say anything.”
Anubis nodded, brandishing his blade, and pointed to the fire pit.
“I caught Master Vale’s scent, and as I approached, I could smell others wrapped in the odor of Malicious Intent. Three Squishies were attacking him, two of which he felled himself. The third was giving him a hard time, so I stepped in.”
He seemed proud, and I nodded.
“Yeah, those guys were very stereotypical villains in their bloodthirsty drive to kill me. Like, I did not do anything to them, and they wanted to punish me for it.”
“Classic Mals,” Tibbets said, shaking his head, “they pop a huge boner for power tripping, and they have “tipping the balance” in their motto, so the noobies usually misconstrue that as meaning general cliche mayhem. Filthy fucks.”
“Well,” Kellmen said, slapping me on the shoulder, “it’s pretty impressive that you were able to take out two Squishies on your own!”
He turned to Anubis.
“What Level were they?”
Anubis shrugged.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t see, but the one I squared off against was Level Four, and it appears Master Vale was able to hold his own for quite some time.”
“Fucking noice!” Tibbets said, also slapping me on the back.
“Is that good?” I asked.
“It’ll do, Nubby,” Tibbets said, and then paused, staring at my feet, “your boot laces are undone.”
I didn’t take the bait.
“Dude, my whole life is undone,” I said, “drinking, drugs, jumping through portals. The holy trinity, really. I’m glad I got transported here because my next step after that was going straight to the hard stuff.”
“Heroin?” Tibbets offered.
“Nah, dude. Wine coolers.”
Tibbets burst into a fit of laughter that sounded very forced. He pointed right at me while clutching his stomach in a dramatic flourish.
“I like you Nubby, you’re good people.”
I mockingly bowed back.
“Guys, let’s get going before these two run off into the sunset together,” Kellmen said, “the Newbue might also freeze to death, so let’s get somewhere warmer.”
Wait, wait, wait.
I had not consented to going anywhere yet. Especially so abruptly and out of the blue. I had just met these guys, and I’d need some information before diving into the woods with them.
“Get going where?” I asked, perhaps a bit too harshly.
Kellmen caught my tone and spread his hands out diplomatically.
“We will need to get out of Miodóg before dusk. It’s a Phase Turn area, so after the sun goes down, it’s a Skully hellhole.”
I blinked.
“Yeah, I only understood like two of those words.”
Kellmen chuckled.
“Sorry, I forgot you’re still noob-cruisin.’ My bad, dude.”
Quickly, the Guildmaster swiped open his Menu and selected a few options before pausing.
“Com’ere a sec,” he called, waving me over.
I moved around behind him. I noticed the other members of his party cautiously looking around the area, peering off into the distance. They were on their guard, hands hovering above their weapons.
I looked over Kellmen’s shoulder and saw that he had pulled up a map. It showed the area we were in. I could see a river coursing through a forest, and slightly to the right of the bank was a rotating red marker.
That’s Kellmen.
Clustered around the red dot were four additional black indicators.
The other members of the party.
Scrawled across the top was the marquee of the territory.
Aimsir
“What’s ‘Aim-ser’?”
“It’s pronounced Em-sher,” Kellmen corrected, “weird Celtic pronunciation, I think. We believe that it’s the name of the realm we are in.”
“Believe?” I asked, “you guys don’t know?”
Berieal shrugged and spoke up.
“No one really knows what machinations deus ex’d us here. Waking up with no memory in a strange land with very specific regulations fits a lot of tropes for fantasy novels and video games.”
No memory? I wondered. Wait, I remember everything, though. Does he mean something else?
I didn’t have the luxury of clarifying, however, because Berieal had continued his diatribe.
“Everyone has their own theories, of course, as to what this is. Some are sound. Others are crazier than Kellmen over here.” He nudged in the human’s direction with his elbow and made a circular motion next to his temple with his finger.
“For instance, Tibbets thinks it’s an alien abduction.”
“No, I don’t,” Tibbets said, looking offended.
“...and Anubis thinks we are the playthings of some god.”
Anubis scowled. “What? That’s not accurate at-“
“You know what I reckon?” Berieal interrupted, sidling forward, our faces inches apart, his large yellow eyes eerily blinked at me.
“...what do you reckon?” I asked timidly.
“I reckon we’re all dead.”
I was almost too unnerved to engage.
“Why?” I asked, albeit hesitantly.
“Because,” he said, and began and quickly whirled around in a circle with his arms outstretched and his head thrown back, “this HAS to be heaven!”
He stopped and then launched forward, taking me by surprise. He grabbed me by the shirt collar as if to attack me, but instead, he just smiled crookedly and nodded urgently, his necklace of bones rattling.
“Don’t you think so?” he asked, cocking his head to the side, “the combat, the magick, the bodacious babes!? We are experiencing something amazing, and we should consider ourselves lucky to be part of this event!” Tears were welling up in his eyes.
“Alright,” Kellmen said, sliding his hands between us and breaking it up, “I think that level of intensity is too much, too soon for our newbie, Berieal.”
Berieal never dropped his smile but let go of my collar and nodded, his eyes staying on mine.
“Bodacious babes,” he whispered as he nodded one final time for emphasis.
“What the fuck?” I wondered.