Copyright 2019 by Northwest Grant.
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This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
CHAPTER ONE
Screeching tires, and the smell of rubber. The bright lights of a Mercedes traveling fifty on a residential street blinded Nigel Wolfe.
Then everything went dark.
"Wake up, Nigel." He heard his dad's voice. His dad lived in Ohio. He wouldn't be here in California. Nigel would have responded if he could. He couldn't tell how much time had passed.
Sometime later her heard a voice with a Somalian accent. "This'll help you dream less, Mr. Wolfe," said the voice. He didn't remember dreaming at all. Things were still dark. He faded out of existence again.
He saw a light.
Nigel remembered something about not heading towards lights, but it drew on him. Light was good. The darkness had lasted a long time. He wasn't sure he could move in any direction at all--toward the light, away, or sideways.
His legs hurt like hell, as did his left arm, and his head. It had been a while since he felt pain. Not since a few moments after the car hit him. Now, getting hit by a car--that hurt. This was bearable by comparison.
Not knowing how to move, he didn't.
"Nigel," the voice was deep and sounded miles away, but carried to him perfectly. It was like the voice of God.
I'm dying. He'd never been religious. In fact, he didn't believe in God at all, until that instant. Now the divine existence seemed like a definite possibility. He didn't know how to talk. Maybe thinking was good enough. Yes?
That's not a respectful way to talk to God. Can He hear what I'm thinking when I'm not thinking at Him? If He's God, then probably so.
"Nigel, what class do you choose?" boomed the voice.
What the fuck?
"Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Lothario, Warlock, Demon Hunter, Paladin, Priest ... you can be almost anything you can think of."
Lothario? What kind of class is that?
"Not everyone likes to fight things."
Not everyone likes big booming voices in their head, either.
"Sorry Nigel. Is this better?" The voice was close, intimate, and female, like a smart home voice. "Time is short, so we need to make decisions. You can always pursue another path later, so just pick something."
Warrior, then. He'd always liked to play warriors or paladins when playing MMOs.
"Good choice, Nigel."
Would she have said that regardless?
"Yes. Gender?"
Male, he responded quickly.
"Human, Orc, Minotaur, Elf, Dwarf?"
He often liked to play the strange races, but he played it safe. Human.
"Eyes?"
Yes, please.
"Eye Color," said the voice, impatiently.
Blue. No, Brown.
"Hair?"
Let's go with blond for a change of pace.
"Sword and Shield, Florentine style, Two-handed?"
Nigel hesitated for a moment. He wondered what was going on. Did he die? Was he dreaming? Was he plugged into some machine? Why couldn't they give him a simple interface to do chargen with? Flo--
"Sorry Nigel, we have to get started or we'll lose you. Here you go."
Things went black again.
#
Nigel landed with a thump on the ground. There was a wide space all around him, green as far as he could see except for a white granite castle that loomed over the landscape in the distance and some golden leaves scattered on the ground. He had a hefty sword in his hands, a leather cuirass, a leather kilt, and sandals, and the muscles needed to carry that sword, too. A pack on his back contained rope, a few coins, some rough brown peasant clothes, and some hardtack.
He was sore all over, as if a truck had hit him. Which he had, but he found it hard to remember. The accident had taken only a second of his life. Not as big a memory as jiu-jitsu or kendo classes, the kiss of his girlfriend Marie's lips, or the pain of their breakup.
Stretching helped the soreness go away. He stood, expecting to be wobbly, but he was okay. He aimed an experimental kick in the air. Yep. Can still do that. His balance was good, too, as he tested it with a kendo stance. He was getting used to his new body.
A smell interrupted his joy of motion. Sweetness came to his nostrils from a patch of white and yellow flowers a few yards away. If this is VR, it's way better than anything anyone knows is possible.
But it has to be a game. I went through chargen and everything. This is make believe. Not really here. He ran his finger on the blade, to see if he'd bleed. It didn't cut him, but that was because it wasn't a very sharp sword. Realistic, from what I knew of western-style two-handed swords, which did most of their damage from bludgeoning. Or possibly it's just low quality newbie gear.
He wondered what shape his real world body was in, but he had no way of knowing. And until he knew the rules to this game, he'd have to assume it approximated some kind of real life, or a typical MMO, or both. Dying meant starting over, and that was harsher than any game he'd played recently, which all involved some kind of corpse run or something similar.
If only I could see my character sheet.
Suddenly, one popped up in front of Nigel's eyes. It made it kind of hard to see the scenery.
Nightwolf, Male Human. I didn't even get to pick my name, although Nightwolf was cool enough. He searched for a character class, but didn't find one.
Strength 17
Dexterity 12
Intelligence 10
Constitution 17
There were a shit-ton of skills, taking several pages, and all of his were at 0 or 1. The 1's included swords and unarmed combat. I'm not useless. Maybe. The zeros included things like Fireball and Lightning Bolt. It made sense they were at zero since he'd said he wanted to play a warrior, but the fact they were on there with a number at all implied they weren't out of the realm of possibility.
Well, that was easy. How about showing me the rules?
The character sheet went away, but no instructions appeared. He tried re-framing the request a few times, but nothing happened. Fuck.
He went through his martial arts moves again. Regardless of what the stats said, his dexterity seemed good, at least for his practiced moves. He tried to recall the formulas from first-year calculus, and he could still get half, which was about what he expected. He hadn't magically become stupid. Those stats might and probably affected something, but they didn't change who he was.
The obvious next step was to head toward the one sign of civilization. He walked toward the castle. The leaves crunched underneath his feet, and there was a faint trace of autumn in the air. The smell seemed wrong, which puzzled him until he remembered it had been late winter, with a little ice on the road, when the accident had happened.
#
A guard stood out in front of the castle, dressed in an awful lot of shiny silver plate armor. Extra steel created the appearance of breasts, and her visor was back to show an unmistakably feminine face, albeit one with a rather square jaw. She smelled of lilacs.
"Greetings, Ascendant," said the woman.
"Greetings," Nige
l answered, and jumped. It was the first thing he'd said since he woke in this world, and his voice was deeper here. It startled him a little. He focused back on analyzing the situation. This is an NPC. Standing around doing nothing, in just the place you'd expect an NPC to be. Maybe when I run into a player, they'll know the rules and will explain them.
The woman spoke. "I'm Sergeant Windstar, and we've been having problems with goblins around here. I was wondering if you could give us a hand. They are raiding Miss Mabel's orchard, and if you could kill them, I'd be much obliged. Might even be a reward in it for you."
A quest-giver. Goblins didn't sound too bad.
"Which way is Miss Mabel's orchard?"
Sergeant Windstar pointed to a few score apple trees in the distance. Wisps of smoke rose in the distance.
"What's an Ascendant?"
"You are," she said. "Don't tell anyone."
"That's not very helpful."
"You know more about it than I do," she replied. "You know where you came from. You are here to bring freshness to the world."
Freshness. Whatever that means. Nigel sighed.
"Why me?"
"Because taking you didn't disturb the time stream."
"What does that mean?"
Windstar shrugged. "I don't know."
Presumably killing goblins will get me some experience. Goblins sounded easy. He headed off that way.
"I'd wish you good luck," said Windstar. "If you had the manners to say thank you and goodbye."
Nigel looked back in surprise. He'd been treating them as NPC's, not real people. And maybe that wasn't right. He needed to play along with however things worked in this world. "Thanks! Bye!"
"Good luck," said the Sergeant. "Try not to die. If you do, you'll have to start over someplace else."
#
He'd walked thirty steps toward the orchard when there was an orange flash of light amongst the trees, then another. Tiny figures rushing around. He picked up the pace to get a better view, slowed by the heaviness of his sword. One figure was taller than the others and dressed in a blue robe. The others were green. Some trees in the orchard had caught fire, and there were goblins lying dead all over.
When Nigel got closer, he saw that the tall one was a woman. She was raven-haired, with pale olive-tinted skin. A blue robe mostly covered her slender body, except for a few rips. She had a long, black-handled dagger in her right hand.
Three goblins were attacking her with little swords. She was in trouble.
Nigel couldn't just the woman die. He ran forward. She was down a gentle slope from where he was, so it was easy to pick up momentum. Stopping would be a greater challenge. Her hands kept waving in the air, trying to cast some kind of spell, but every time a goblin poked her she faltered. He spotted a little bar over her head, and the goblins'. Two of the goblin's bars were green and full, the other was halfway empty and yellow. The mage's bar was nearly empty, and red. She was almost dead. Some kind of fire mage, I guess. Why did she get all of them attacking her at once, anyway? I won't make it in time.
"Blood and Souls!" he yelled, waving the heavy sword as he charged down the hill. He wanted to get the goblins' attention, and the phrase had stuck from a book he'd read. It was more articulate than yelling "Argggggh!" and he wasn't feeling very imaginative. It seemed to work. Two of them quit attacking the woman and moved to intercept him. Nigel pulled the sword back, planning to swing it as he arrived and take out both of the little green guys.
Instead, one of them lifted a little shield, and that took the brunt of his blow. The shield cracked from one side to the other, but Nigel, already thrown off balance because the sword didn't continue the way he'd intended, stepped on a wet leaf. He slipped and tumbled, rolling a few feet until his back hit a tree. "Oof!" It hurt every bit as much as it would have on earth, and he would have cursed aloud if he hadn't also lost his breath. An apple fell from a nearby branch, jostled free by the impact. Stupid. Balance is the key to combat. I know that. He'd charged like any noob in a game, precisely because he was acting as if it was a game. This game was more realistic than that.
The two goblins came at him with murderous intent. One of them poked his leg with his sword just below the edge of the kilt, and a red gash opened. The wound burned like fire. He lashed out with his sword and smacked the other goblin in the face. Unfortunately, the sword wasn't turned the right way, and he caught him with the flat of the blade. Still, the goblin fell over and rolled a few yards on the ground before getting up, and his health bar went yellow. The little green men had nasty knives, but they didn't weigh much. Can I fight two goblins, three if the woman doesn't make it? He didn't know, but he knew he would die unless he started by killing at least one.
He rolled towards the injured thigh even though it would hurt more because rolling that way got him further away from the goblin he'd whacked. Lifting his sword, he partially blocked the next swipe of a goblin sword so he only got nicked in the shoulder, and used the time to roll to his feet.
He had mass, strength, and reach on my opponents. But the sword he had made him slower, and they had numbers and speed. The uninjured goblin hesitated, not eager to get within the radius of Nigel's blade as he gestured threateningly with it. But the one Nigel had knocked over charged full tilt, screaming in a high-pitched voice, and the other goblin timed his move to come in at the same time. He couldn't take them both out with one blow, but he had to kill at least one to stand a chance. His blade whistled as he swung it through the air. The fast charging guy took the sword in the neck and green blood spurted everywhere as he went down, his health bar turning red briefly before disappearing altogether. His blood smelled like the worst kind of cheese. The other goblin got past Nigel's guard, driving his little sword under Nigel's ribs. The taste of blood filled Nigel's mouth. His martial artist training took over as he kicked the goblin hard. The little green monster reeled back, then charged in to stab again with his short blade, ducking under the reach of Nigel's claymore. His weapon was too slow, too long--although in any game he'd played he'd still be able to use it. Things didn't work that way here. Releasing the sword with one hand, he aimed a punch, hitting the goblin with the pommel. Hanging onto the sword, though, slowed his punch, and it only knocked the goblin off balance a little. His opponent's health bar was yellow, but Nigel could feel his strength fading. The goblin stabbed again, getting him in the hip this time and just missing his balls, the leather of the kilt softening the blow a little. He readied a swing, aware he would be too slow and taking one more cut would be fatal.
The surrounding area exploded with an orange fire, and the air was suddenly scorching hot. The flame itself didn't quite reach him. The goblin screamed as its green flesh turned brown and the black. By the time Nigel's sword connected the goblin was already dead. Nigel sliced him in two. Both parts smoldered.
Nigel looked up. The woman had red scratches on her body, but she wasn't as bad off as he was, despite her complete lack of armor. She had pointed ears, too. Apparently she was an elf. "Thanks for the save," she said, and then her eyes went wide. "You're hurt!"
Of course I'm hurt.
She took off toward him at a run. Nigel went to one knee. Hurt was understating it. He felt oh my god pain, combined with the nauseating feeling he was bleeding to death. Who the hell would design a game that is so effing realistic?
The elf ripped off part of her skirt, revealing a shapely brown leg, and wrapped it around his ribs. She put her hand on the makeshift bandage and concentrated. "I'm not a healer, but that should stop the bleeding. Would you do me?"
Nigel blinked. "Do you?" She'd stopped the bleeding. Red stained the blue fabric, but not nearly as much as he expected.
"Bandage me," she said.
"Oh." Nigel looked down at his kilt, but the leather wasn't rippable.
"Use my clothes, silly." She sat down in the middle of the orchard and waited. Nigel got a better look at her. She was beautiful, with shapely legs, a pixieish face, olive complexion, dark
violet eyes and hair the color of midnight. Her dress was square cut in front, and although her chest wasn't any larger than average for a human, it still provided a very nice view.
"From my skirt, not my neckline," she said.
"Sorry."
"I'll take it as appreciation, just the once."
He ripped some thin strips from the bottom of her dress and wrapped them around her wounds. He had first aid training, so it wasn't hard, and nothing looked that bad.
She looked at him strangely afterward.
"No magic?"
"Not that--" he started and shrugged. Not that I know of. Am I expected to have any? It explained why her bandage had done him so much good. He laid his hand on the bandages, the way she had, but nothing happened, although he enjoyed touching her thigh and her stomach.
"Keep practicing, you'll get better," she said. "I'm Khoraja. Let's rest for a second. Goblins are still holed up in the shed at the edge."
"Nightwolf." He almost said Nigel, but decided it was better to use the name on his character sheet. He looked down at his wounds. He was healing much faster than he would have expected. The wounds she'd bandaged were closing up. No way wounds should heal that fast.
"Thanks again for the save. I could have died out there," Khoraja said.
"I would have died myself if you hadn't gotten that fireball in on time."
"Or if I'd miscalculated just where to put it."
Huh. In most games a PC couldn't damage another PC, especially in a newbie zone. "Well, you just would have had to re-roll. Best to do that in the beginning, if at all."
She looked at him even more strangely than she had when he hadn't touched the bandages after putting them on. "Re-roll?"
"Um, no disrespect intended." He tried a different tack. "Have you been playing the game long? You're obviously on the same quest I am."
"Game? I doubt we're on the same quest, as you put it. I was looking for someone when I found these goblins."
"Just going after them for experience points?"
"I don't know what experience points are, but I thought a little fighting might help me get better at my spells. Also, I hate goblins. My sister -- never mind, that's too personal."
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