More and more deer , an occasional rabbit and a few of the wild dogs disappered into the ring on Xaras hand during the time he spent in the forest. He would have preferred to not attract any more attention of the local species of predators but nonetheless they had been attracted by the trail of blood and death Xara had left behind.
Xara wanted to avoid them at any cost , he really had no intention of seeing the ' alpha' again any time soon , but their instincts had lead them to Xara occasionally. Seemingly only a few of them were on the look out and at the place where he meet the 'alpha' was most likely close to their den or cave.
But now the sun rapidly faded and left the forest even darker then before. Additionally Xara occasionally heard something akin to a beasts roar close-by. After the fourth or fifth time he finally noticed those sounds originated from his own body.
Specifically his stomach area. In short he was hungry. He thought long and hard about making a fire in the forest and grill some of the meat , as he also had the urge to savor the taste of wild dog meat , but he decided otherwise.
To much attention would instantly shift towards the bellowing smoke in the otherwise simple appearing forest. After all he still had no idea about the area beyond the forest , or the situation in the town.
Once more he looked above into the roof of leafs just to sigh. He wasn't satisfied yet. Sure his hunting had been greatly successful , as in the real world there weren't as many critters in ANY forest , but he strangely found pleasure in this which he wouldn't in the real world.
Either driven to the brink of extinction or simply their domain had shrunk over the years to make room for an even denser population of humans an abundance of wild life animals would be hard to find in any forest on earth.
" Time to wrap things up ... " Xara said to himself without any energy while looking beyond the trees once again. This was done so he could navigate himself back to the town.
In total he had lost 4 arrows today , which left him with only 6 , but night was a dangerous time. Humans couldn't see too well in it but any canine breed could at least to some degree.
' Never hunt at night my boy. But if you are stuck fight until your last breath. ' This particular advice had stuck with Xara , one of his fathers teachings. Naturally there were hundreds more of those his father tried to brand into Xaras mind , but not many stuck.
With heavy steps he placed one foot in-front of the next while thinking about all the hunting he had done today. His body was tired and his muscles strained but he also noticed the slight line of perspiration that ran down his lower back.
Nonetheless he felt great and to prove this his lips parted and the sharp white teeth saw some of the last sun rays of the day. No work or any task given to him by his superior made Xara do this. This was solely for self satisfaction. Sure some would argue the point as he acquired this particular request from someone , but Xara had the choice to say NO.
Maybe it was an Illusion created by the game , the Illusion of real freedom , but Xara had the deep feeling he could have declined the request and something else would have given him access to the information he needed to find his way around in this particular game.
In preparation to the declining warmth and light of the sun , Xara wisely choose to re track his steps and hunt towards the city , instead of going deeper into it , so he reached the town quickly.
The leather soles rhymtically clicked on the cobblestone paved street as he made his way back to the intact building at the towns core. Just as he reached it he was surprised. The door was completely repaired and no trace of his past rampage remained.
It even looked better then before. The wood had a polished sheen and the marbled lines were proactively seeking attention. Xara thought of this as strange , at least when he compared it to the rest of the town , but his gut told him of no danger.
His gut was something he trusted in completely. Numerous times his gut hurt or clenched when something bad had happened or would happen , so he gained the ultimate trust from Xara himself.
Xara knocked on the polished wood , at least he tried to appear as normal as possible , which soon was answered by the pair of green eyes once again spying through a slit opening.
The man inside eyed Xara curiously but he neither opened or asked anything. Resulting in the tingling of skin to which Xara got used to by now , at least when it came to dealing with this particular person.
" I'm back ... " Xara told the man behind the door.
Again the man didn't reply in any way and just seemed to wait for something.
" You sent me out to hunt for food. I've just returned. " Xara said while trying , hard , not to visualize the Axe and simply chop down the door again.
Now something like surprise was visible in the mans eyes. Xara thought that just now the man realized that Xara had been the one he sent out.
" So where are the goods? " Finally the man spoke.
" Well , that's a bit of a problem. As soon as i tried to gut or skin the critters they disappeared ... into a ring? "
Xara was unsure if the man would believe him at this point. Heck , he knew he was inside of a game. Nonetheless everything disappearing? Sure it made things definitely easier and more audience friendly , as nobody would see more blood then they had too , but the simple notion of something disappearing into thin-air still gave Xara the chills.
" Ahh , why didn't you tell me earlier you have a Adventurers gift! " The man , unlike before , now had a very friendly tone instead of the either fearful or belittling one.
Our protagonist was at a loos of words. Completely speechless he immediately felt stupid. Not necessarily because of the mans words , but because he couldn't understand what he meant.
With hand motions the human tried to encourage him to show him either the ' Adventurers gift' or the ' loot' he had hunted for , but Xara was stupefied. After a few seconds he gathered himself enough to close his gaping jaw and speak.
" Uhm , I'm not entirely sure what a Adventurers gift is? "
" The ring , lad. You just told me that it absorbed the fruits of your hunt. The gods of our realm have granted Adventurers certain gifts and that ring is one of them. " The man replied.
" You simply have to wave your left hand over your other and the ring will appear , another Adventurer told me that when I had the pleasure to chat with them. " He continued.
The human performed a easy to recreate motion thus , curious as Xara was , he repeated it. A already familiar flash of blue light , that merely shone a few meters beyond him , erupted from his right index finger.
After the initial blindness had past there was the ring. Something that Xara was familiar with already.
" There it is. Ha ha , that would have made our previous conversations much easier. Thought you were another Orc that wanted to pillage our town. " The man said jokingly.
Xara shrugged his shoulders , not wanting to appear even more stupid then he already felt.
" Oh , if you want to get stuff out of that tiny marble you just have to say ' Inventory ' and touch the stone on top of it. " The human proceeded with his explanation.
Naturally Xara immediately said the word and touched the stone as he wanted to get the items out of it , then maybe disappear into the night in shame at his own stupidity.
Sure some would say not knowing isn't really stupid , but Xara had enough pride or ego to fill a whole 16 axel truck. He also knew there were more then enough short-comings with him , especially his social behavior , but in his mind his protruding good points outweighed those minor bad points greatly.
Inventory:
Experience tokens: 48 copper
Currency: 10 copper coins
25 Deer flanks
41 Deer meat slabs
13 Brown Deer pelts.
16 Wild dog flanks
24 Wild dog meat slabs
8 Brown Wild dog pelts.
10 hard bread
10 doses of water in a leather skin
A blue screen popped up in Xaras field of vision , which didn't surprise him in the least. You could think that Xara expected the unexpected at this point , but no it wasn't because of this.
It rather came from his own world. Multiple applications for hologram technology had been invented in the previous century and this seemed like just another one of those to Xara.
Xara also noticed a interactive symbol directly besides the words. Without hesitation he pressed it with the tip of his index finger which resulted in another smaller window overlapping the previous one.
A simple 0 with a up and down arrow above and below it. He clicked it numerous times until the stored number and the adjustable number were the same. With this done he wondered how to finalize the interaction so he decided to compare it with the technology in his world.
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With the push on the number itself , instead of the up or down arrows , a jovial ringing sound was audible and the previously selected item disappeared from the ' Inventory'.
Xara repeated this until everything besides the bread and water had disappeared from the screen.
Now as Xara looked up into the face of the man to inquire about his compensation , Xara was completely stupefied once again. The man in-front of him had tears dripping down his cheeks.
" Thank you , thank you oh great Adventurer! Finally all of our belly's will be filled for once! " The human said in joyous tones while the traces of the tears were wiped away with his sleeve.
Never one for showing alot of emotions , besides anger or frustration , Xara was speechless again. This rarely ever happened to him in the real world , but this game had done what many of his friends had unsuccessfully tried for years.
" Come , come. I have to introduce you to my Family! " The man told Xara excitedly while pulling him through the door.
Xara had already been inside the seemingly good in repair building , but now out of no where a staircase had appeared. It lead downwards and judging by the smell it was directly connected to the sewers.
As the man began to push Xara to urge him down said steps , he had no way to decline the offer in any way.
........................
As the troop of Xara and the human walked along the smelly and damp caves Xara thought of as caverns he immediately noticed many holes in the supposedly smooth walls. Surely they were artificial and human made as the edges were rough or smooth at times.
Like someone doing a poor job the smooth parts still outweighed the rougher or jagged parts. If a animal had made these there simply would be more spiky edges. Sometimes from those holes Xara heard muffled voices that distinctively sounded like human chatter.
The atmosphere was unusually cheerful , considering people lived down in this sewer. Xara found it strange that even though above was a , even though they were ruins , city. His intuition told him that they choose to live down here , but it couldn't explain any further.
As soon as the man stepped through one of the artificial holes with torch in hand a hall was dimly illuminated as the light of the flame couldn't reach the other end. But from the entrance there was simple yet superficial looking object visible.
A half of a circle , constructed from wood , stuck out of the ground. The material had a blood red sheen over it which reminded Xara of the particular tree he had seen in the woods.
Xara curiously examinated the construct , but the man that was his escort walked up to it and used a Hammer , that lay directly besides it , to strike the form.
The orc covered his ears as a loud sound similar to a bell resounded. Much to his surprise he noticed soon that covering his ears didn't reduce the intensity of the sound as hoped.
Suddenly he felt it. From within his body the sound rang out before it reached his ear. A strange feeling. Eerie yet warm and encasing. A rush of hope and tranquility reached through Xara.
Sounds were coming from all directions , as this hall seemed to be constructed to amplify sounds and echos itself.
Roughly 30 people stood in this hall now , including Xara and the man he had met before. As Xara looked through their ranks he was surprised to see over 20 of them were children.
5 more were in their teens and the sparse rest were adults. Each face was sunken in from malnutrition and some drew raspy breaths. Those were the better looking ones.
Xara was not surprised at the scared looks they gave him. His intuition once told him again something must have happened with the orcs of this world.
" Listen now , children and fellows. This is Xara , an Adventurer. " The man Xara knew said.
Suspicious glances were exchanged with one another as some of those looks were given to Xara.
" But he is an Orc or at least he closely resembles them. " One of the teens made herself hear-able.
" Anabell , he showed me his gift. There is no doubt about it. But yes i do agree , Xara here resembles an Orc a little to much for me to have trusted him from the beginning. Do you see this? " The man said while smirking.
At first Xara didn't notice the stares given to him , since he tried to remember if he ever told the man his name. But he simply had no recollection of telling him.
The adult male nudged him in the side as Xara wasn't reacting from alone and urged him to drop the items once again. Naturally somewhere they had to be stored and as the Inventory was a gift for Adventurers Xara had stored the loot of his hunting in the ring once again.
With a plop sound the first slab of meat fell to the ground soon the be accompanied by more and more until a quite size able mountain of raw meat and flesh was directly in-front of Xara.
Not much unlike the mans reaction to this , all of the natives began to shed tears of joy from the corner of their eyes.
" All hail Adventurer Xara! " A jubilous cry resounded from the cavern walls and immediately were reflected back to Xara in the form of echos.
Even though the sound drowned out anything else in his mind , Xara also shed a tear with the natives. Normally Xara was rather cold and unsocial ... but this ... it just stirred emotions that Xara thought had been locked away for years.
.............
Like a feast tables , tableware and other things were dragged into the big hall. A fire immediately was started and the man he first meet prepared to grill the meat over the open fire. Everybody began to sing and cheer as if they were in a glorious carnival.
Xara , taken aback by the situation , helped as best as he could and ate with the natives. Sooner then he had hoped everything was already over and everyone besides the chief , as he soon found out the man he had first meet was referred too , had left.
" Xara , i know many things are still clouded in mystery for you and there are many questions you want answers too. " The man began.
" But i am not the one that shall answer these questions. One of your kind will tell you everything you need to know in time. Either you find one of them on your own , or me as a chief of a village can assist you in establishing a patron magic with another person. "
" This person may or may not be good aligned. Some Adventurers extort their own kind. Other will gladly help you in any way they can. While even more help you until they can gain something back from you in return. Patron magic just assigns any Adventurer to you and i cannot control which one it will be. "
Xara fell deep into thought. He never liked relying on other people , but there were many things he wanted answers to immediately.
" If it doesn't cause to much trouble initiate the patron magic. " Xara said stead-fast.
Sure he this had it's virtues and set backs but he had always relied on his gut feeling and it told him to go for it. If anyone tried to harm him in any way the particiular feeling would return and he could just break of contact immediately.
The chief nodded understandingly and said a few words which Xara couldn't understand. Immediately he had the hunch that magic , as this was a Fantasy game , was spoken out in the arcane tongue or something along those lines.
" I'm done. Shortly another Adventurer will contact you through the established link. Let me say this before hand. Don't trust them to easily. "
Xara nodded and was about to walk back the way they had come from. He wanted to go back and wait out the night , to go hunting a new in the morning.
Strangely , Xara at first thought he would loose his way in the catacombic environment in the sewers but he found his way on the first try. As he left the sole remaining intact building of the entire city , a feeling of strain assaulted his mind.
" Hello there , can you hear me? " A unfamiliar voice called out to him.
This voice resonated in his mind but it sounded as if it came from someone just a few steps away from him. Xara laughed at this unconventional style of conversation.
" Yes. " He said out loud.
A giggle assaulted his mind which sounded more feminine , but the deep tone of the other persons voice indicated a male.
" Just think what you want to tell me. If you say it out loud i hear a echo with the thoughts. Okay I'm your patron. Name is Nick. I'm here to guide you as a new commer. " The person said into Xaras mind.
" Currently I'm on a training trip , so i don't have much time. But there are a few things i have to tell you today. First don't die. Second this is not a game as you probably think it is. You can't log out. " The person dropped a bomb directly into Xaras mind.