“Hah, I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to plan things out before I delve deeper into Riege’s memories.“ Archibald sighed while shifting his gaze back down to his arms. Pausing to look at the skin on his arms, Archibald for the first time since he awoke truly soaked in his new reality.

Rotating his arms, Archibald closely observed his skin. Unlike on Earth where he had slightly tanned skin and healthy skin, here his skin was pale in an almost sickly way like he hadn’t had enough nutrients or sunlight. There was also a scar just below his left elbow that he hadn’t had on Earth. Shifting his gaze, Archibald closely inspected his hands and found them to have calluses that didn’t exist on earth while also being a size smaller than he was used to.

Pushing through the dissociation of observing this eerily similar yet starkly different body, Archibald forced his gaze back onto the mirror and observed his face. Like on Earth, his eyes were gray and his hair was still black. His facial features also closely resembled those of when he was around sixteen on Earth. He still had an angular face and serious countenance. However, Unlike his face on Earth at twenty-one, his facial features still hadn’t fully developed and lacked maturity.

His pale skin also contributed to the difference in appearance. Where on Earth, his face was rugged and full due to ample exercise and nutrition, here due to his sickly skin he looked gaunt and a bit weak. “Probably because he was an orphan…” Archibald mumbled to himself while observing his face.

Shifting his gaze from his face to his hair, Archibald was presented with what seemed like a black bird's nest. Dissatisfied, Archibald set about fixing his hair by raking his hands through his hair. “All I need is water now, let me see here. Riege had some sort of tap for water didn’t he?” Archibald recalled what he, or Riege really, remembered about the bathroom and shifted his gaze to a small blue rune that was plastered above a trough on the wall that funneled into a smooth bowl that laid on a simple wooden counter below the mirror.

“I’m pretty sure all Riege did was press it down for a few seconds.” Recalling the image of how Riege got water from the font, Archibald placed his thumb over the font until it became slightly warm and started to produce a small spout of water that funneled into the bowl. The water in the bowl then disappeared into a red rune at the bottom of the bowl in a few seconds.

“That should do then. As for how the water is even being created, well… That’s a mystery for later, I’ve got more pressing matters on my mind.” Archibald mumbled out loud to himself as he started using water to sweep back his hair. After a few runs through his hair with wet hands, Archibald was satisfied with how his hair looked.

“Feels good to have some more semblance of my old self.” Truly, the main benefit of this whole thing wasn’t creating a tidy appearance, instead, it was the control and familiarity that the familiar swept-back hairstyle granted him. It made him feel more at home in Riege’s body.

“Wait,” Archibald caught himself as he shook his head, “It’s not Riege’s body, it’s mine.” Archibald shifted his gaze down from his hair and stared at himself in the eyes coldly. “The sooner you get used to the fact that this is now your body the better Archibald.” Staring at himself for a few seconds further, he imprinted the thought upon his mind as hard as he could.

Shifting his gaze downward slightly, Archibald placed his hands on the counter and gave a tired smile, “I guess that It’ll just take some getting used to. So many things have happened so fast… For now though,” Archibald looked back up in the mirror and spoke to his reflection in the mirror, “Wipe that dour expression off your face. It’s time to plan your next move.”

Giving one last sigh, Archibald removed his gaze from the mirror, withdrew from the bathroom, and walked back to the entrance of the bedroom with the dully glowing stone in hand. Gazing into the room, the general layout presented itself to him. To the right, in the far corner of the room was a large bed. It consisted of a frame that was made of a lustrous amber-colored wood that elevated the brown-furred mattress half a meter or so off the floor, brown sheets, and a worn-out quilt that lay messily on top of the bed. In the middle of the room, a greenish-brown fur rug was laid out.

Looking to the window that lay in the middle of the farthest wall, Archibald was only able to see the occasional speck of dim yellow light float by along with the patter of rain against the window. Overall, the patter of the rain combined with the dim white light of the glowstone created a serene ambiance where time seemed slow.

Racking his mind, Archibald’s gaze turned briefly vacant as images flashed through his mind. Regaining his focus Archibald thought to himself, “Pretty sure those specks of light flying around the window are the larvae of Glow Bugs.”

Archibald recalled Riege’s memory of the adult Glow Bugs, “Eesh those things are huge. Like the size of my fist huge. Their orange light when fully grown is pretty beautiful in Riege’s memory though.” Shaking his head, Archibald broke himself out of his thoughts and looked under the window where a simple wooden desk and chair presented itself. There were some vague inky-black outlines of objects on the desk, but it was impossible to see from the doorway. The warm yet dim white light of the glowstone tapered off only a few feet from him and prevented him from seeing much of the room’s finer details.

Looking to the left of the desk, Archibald saw the shadow of what looked like a small chest made of some type of gray stone and wood. “Pretty sure those are, or were, Riege’s personal belongings.” Shifting his gaze back to his bed, Archibald looked to the right of it and saw that against the right wall, there was a larger, wholly wood chest.

Walking into the bedroom, Archibald made his way over the rough greenish-brown rug made out of some unknown creature and arrived at the chest next to his bed. Leaning down, Archibald opened the chest and lowered his head until he was looking directly over it. Holding the glowstone over its contents Archibald found that the chest only seemed to hold clothes that were in around the same condition as the ones he was currently wearing.

Sighing, Archibald stood up and turned around. With the glowstone held towards the center of the room he pallidly inspected the bedroom, everything now mapped and memorized, “This is where I’ll be staying then? It’s pretty nice for an orphaned teen I guess, even if the room’s fairly simple, it’s still pretty large. Although the size is to be expected after all Riege’s whole family slept in here at one point given what I saw from some of Riege’s memories.”

Archibald’s mind briefly paused at that thought, “I never did look into what exactly happened to his parents. I guess I’ll have to rifle through his memories more for that one, it seems to be repressed deeper,” Archibald heaved another tired sigh before continuing his thoughts, “Well, I’ll save that for later. There are more urgent things to take care of.”

With his mind finally made up, Archibald walked over to the desk by the window and pulled out the wooden chair from under the desk. The chair itself was made of the same lustrous amber-looking wood as the rest of the house and it creaked as Archibald placed his full weight on it.

Placing the glowstone on the top right corner of the desk, Archibald was able to use the illumination to see a few previously hidden objects that were now uncovered by the dim white light. One of them was a brass-looking key in the middle of the desk, it looked rustic. One end of the key formed a circle, the bow, on which a tassel of leather hung freely from. On the other side was the actual key with its bits, key wards, and whatnot.

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Prompted by the sight of the key, the memory of its use came naturally to Archibald in a brief flash of images. Picking up the key Archibald rotated it in his hands and inspected it, “This is the house key then. Wonder what it’s made of, It’s pretty heavy.” Archibald's ruminations turned towards how he even knew it was the house key in the first place, “Funny how a bunch of images can convey so much nuance and detail without any words. It’s kind of weird though, I see everything that Riege saw, I know how he felt and the nuances of what it meant to him, but I just don’t feel anything from them. It’s just like… I’m watching a more in-depth movie, a playback of his life through his eyes. There’s a lack of true emotional connection. Kind of like I’m an indifferent spectator.”

Still ruminating over his interpretation of the images Archibald placed the key back down on the desk. “I suppose that’s a good thing though, that I don’t truly feel what Riege felt. If I relived his whole life perfectly maybe I would become some weird combination of both of us.” Archibald placed his elbows on the table and propped up his head with his hands as he stared down at the desk. “That would be truly horrible, to go through all I went through just to lose my sense of self when I had been conscious of the whole reincarnation process. Now that would be a rug pull. No, It’s better that I took over completely. No offense to Riege, but I don’t want to be like him, nor do I want to be some weird mix of both of us. In the end, I’m glad my mind somehow came through unscathed.”

Setting aside his ponderings over the nature of Riege’s memories, Archibald looked at the top left of the desk and saw a card made of some type of bronze-looking metal. Picking it up, Archibald inspected the thin metal card closely and found that it fit comfortably in the palm of his hand and had a nice heft to it. Looking at the foreign engravings on the card, images once again flashed by his mind rapidly and dazed him.

Quickly the images subsided and Archibald focused back on the card. Flipping the metal card in his hands, Archibald's attention shifted to the strange lettering on the front of the card, “This is my Craggvale citizenship card then according to Riege’s memory. Seems useful, let me see then, what exactly does it say? Can I even read this thing in the first place?”

Examining the bold and distinguished, yet wobbly silver engraved text, Archibald was somehow able to read the card, his brain deciphering each letter without his conscious thought.

Rubbing his eyes, Archibald stared at the letters on the card as they miraculously translated themselves in his mind, “...Woah, this is so trippy…This is Comot then I guess, or just common tongue as Riege and the other orphans seemed to call it. Thankfully, I can read it with the help of Riege’s memories, that’s a well fucking pleasant surprise. Makes things a lot simpler now that I don’t have to navigate a foreign world without being able to read or speak the language. This feels so strange though, it’s like I’m just remembering how to read without having to do any of the actual learning. The knowledge just kind of comes in spurts.”

Peering at the front of the card, Archibald read it from top to bottom. At the top center of the card was the name Archibald Riege and just underneath was his age and birthday. On the bottom of the card was his title which declared him an orphan along with an empty profession slot. On the middle left of the card was the red seal of the Lord of Craggvale. The seal depicted a strange komodo dragon-like creature behind which an imposing coat of arms with a scythe lay.

Skipping past the seal, Archibald scoured the card for other information “Let me see here, the card says that Archibald Riege was…” Archibald tsked aloud, deep in thought,”... sixteen years old and was born on the thirty-seventh of the Fourth Moon of Oris…” Archibald's thoughts were abruptly broken by a stream of images that imprinted information on his mind. Wincing, Archibald grit his teeth and spoke aloud to himself, “Fuuu…Ow… okay. That was a surprising amount of information. My head’s killing me…”

Archibald paused as he regained his train of thought and tried to withstand the waves of pain seemingly coursing through his brain, “Well… at least I know about the seasons and months here now. Like Earth, there does seem to be regular seasonal shifts and the days seem to be around the same length…I think at least. There are also twelve months that make a year, though the months are all weird. If Riege remembered correctly from the lessons of the orphanage’s Mentor every month is forty-five days long.“ Archibald did some quick mental math, before sucking in air out of sheer astonishment, “Damn, that means that a year here is five hundred and forty days long. In Riege’s memories though, there were some elders that lived past one hundred years. Damn, something's definitely up with that…”

Lost in thought, Archibald absentmindedly placed down the citizenship card and massaged his temples as he looked outside the window trying to gaze past the darkness into the night sky as he recalled more of what he learned from Riege’s memories, “There're also three moons here, huh... Oris, Vanquin, and Lune. Oris is the one that’s only visible the first fifteen days, after that Vanquin is visible for the next fifteen, and Lune follows for the last fifteen.”

Grumbling in thought slightly, Archibald murmured in his heart, “Hmm, well at least I know how the months were named, the first four months belong to Oris, the middle four belong to Vanquin, and the last four belong to Lune.”

Still vacantly staring outside the window, Archibald turned his thoughts to where and when he was, “The where is simple enough I guess,” Archibald forcefully recalled Riege’s memories as images of where he was flashed rapidly through his mind, “...Craggvale located in the Hidden Swamplands…Huh, Riege doesn’t know the name of the continent or the name of the world…Weird, but it’s probably because Craggvale’s a secluded place or something like that…”

Feeling a throbbing headache start to come on again from the frequent rush of images, Archibald finally turned his attention to the elephant in the room. Riege’s Awakening.

Expression turning serious, Archibald recalled what Riege knew of Awakening, and found that he knew very little, other than some vague parameters on who could Awaken. All Riege really knew was that a successful Awakening made one a Physiquer and that Physiquers had a Spirit Pool and Physique Tree. He didn’t even know how to use them or what made a Physiquer more than a regular human. Archibald only knew that Riege been taught that Physiquer's were superior to ordinary humans all his life. That ordinary mortals should avert their gaze and take the utmost care to be polite when in the presence of one.

Expression morphing into disappointment, Archibald grumbled, “Riege only saw a few Physiquers throughout his life, and even then it was from afar. However, there is one way to get some answers. Riege’s mentor at the orphanage mentioned that if any of them were to Awaken, they must report to the headmaster immediately for some sort of Initiation.”

Sighing in frustration, Archibald ran his hands through his hair, “That’s really all Riege knew huh? Fuck, for all I know this supposed Initiation could be some weird way to exploit newly Awakened Physiquers or something. I really don't have any other way to learn more though…Fuck it, I’ll just have to check it out in the morning.”

Snapping loudly, Archibald concluded his thoughts, “I just have two goals for now then. Check out this Initiation deal and try to learn more about Physiquers in any way I can.”

Less than satisfied with his bare-bone plans, Archibald yawned loudly. “I guess that It’ll have to do for now. Maybe I can dredge up some more of Riege’s memories, but for now, I’m just totally exhausted, both in body and mind.”

With a big stretch and a yawn, Archibald pushed himself out from under the desk and stood up. Walking a couple of meters to the right, Archibald soon made his way onto the bed. Laying on top of the quilt with his hands laid down by his sides, Archibald stared at the bare wooden ceiling as thoughts and images ran through his mind unprovoked.

Heaving a tired sigh, Archibald mentally observed that tonight would be a long night. As exhausted as he was, Riege’s memories kept on running through his mind, forcing him to stay semi-lucid in a half-dream state. Gradually, however, Archibald was able to forcefully quiet most of Riege’s rampant memories. No longer were they taking up most of his attention, instead, they became a low drone that melded with his dreams and imprinted vague knowledge on his mind.

Like this, Archibald drifted off into unrestful unconsciousness.