Seth had to fight down his urge to criticize the whole experience of the system. It was relatively simple once understood, and a simple prompt saying enemies will appear as long as you hold your weapon ready would have saved him time, and probably several iterations of the mushroom man.
By that point, killing the mushroom had become absolutely routine. It charged in after the same pause and glare every time, same leap, same super sharp claws. There’d been a couple lessons learned through his fights. During one fight, Seth had tried charging at the mushroom man before it could charge him. He’d expected the fungus to stick to its script and give him the ol’ leer-n-charge in return, but its eyes had widened in shock and it actually dodged to the left.
Seth went sailing by, unable to arrest his momentum, and the fungus had gotten in a couple of nasty slashes in on Seth’s back before he was able to right himself and dispatch the monster. The super hero healing rate didn’t stop the pain from the injuries before they were healed, and Seth had had to take a break, sword sitting on the ground a few feet away, and mentally recover from the experience.
Seth decided that he couldn’t learn anything more from killing fungus men, and had sheathed his sword after the last fight. He decided to explore some of the giant grassland crater that surrounded him and picked a direction to head in.
To his horror, he realized that he literally couldn’t make any progress toward the edges of the crater. He thought it was like one of those nightmares where the door at the end of the hallway seems to move away as you approach, no matter how fast you sprint toward it. Seth tried to understand the physics of the strange phenomenon. He picked up a stone from the ground and hurled it as far as he could.
The stone clattered to the ground only a few yards away. Surely, he could throw rocks farther than that back on Earth, right? Seth watched the stone settle into its new position and, keeping his vision focused on it, walked to it, and picked it up. It was difficult to tell, but he still didn’t seem to be any closer to the crater rim.
He repeated this several times in the same direction, determined to beat whatever malevolent magic held him in place. His super scientific experience was interrupted, however, when a rumbling started. It began so quiet as to almost be inaudible but grew in volume until Seth was forced to drop his rock and slap his hands over his ears.
Just when Seth thought the sound would literally deafen him, it ceased. Seth uncovered his still ringing ears and looked around. The silence sounded…wrong. At first, everything looked the same in the grassy crater, but then a crack appeared in the sky.
Seth had the absurd notion he was trapped inside an enormous baby blue eggshell. The crack spider-webbed out from the center and a huge chunk of blue sky fell away, crashing to the ground somewhere outside of the crater and making the ground shudder under Seth’s feet.
A massive eyeball stared through the hole in the sky. The iris was a wicked orange, contrasting nastily with the baby blue sky it seemed to be peering through. The pupil was an impossibly black slit, like some kind of reptile’s eye. The eye flicked around a few times before settling on Seth’s tiny form. Seth froze in pure panic for a moment as more blue sky separated from the whole and tumbled toward the ground.
A growling voice thundered over the landscape, rattling stones on the ground. It said, “Abomination.”
“I’m ready! Get me out of here!” Seth squawked, not terribly excited for whatever next trial the world of Morgenheim held for him, but more than ready to escape this terrifying, sky shattering monster.
The world began to fade to white, but before Seth completely lost sight of the formerly idyllic landscape, a huge swath of sky fell away, revealing bus sized razor-sharp teeth accompanying the giant eye leering at him.
The world lurched, and Seth found himself standing in a sparsely wooded forest, a dirt path winding through the trees. He immediately scanned the sky in all directions, but it all seemed whole. His hand was gripping the hilt of his sheathed sword so hard it had begun to hurt. He tried to take a few deep breaths and calm himself down, but it didn’t work very well. What in the world had he just seen?
Seth tried to settle himself and took a harder look at the path that wound away in two directions through the trees. One direction looked to go deeper into the forest, there was less light and the trees looked larger. The other direction seemed like it may actually leave the forest, since the trees looked to thin out in that direction. Seth contemplated a moment, and then headed for the thinning trees, reasoning that he could hopefully get a better vantage point if he were able to find a clearing.
As he walked, he peered through the trees in every direction, mentally bracing himself for some fungal monster to lunge at him from behind a tree. When nothing happened during the first several minutes, he relaxed and started checking out his clothing.
He inspected the old brown leather boots on his feet first. They reached halfway up his calves, and were quite broken in but not uncomfortable. Stiff laces ran up the outside of each of the boots, ending in very modern looking bows. “Huh, at least I won’t have to relearn how to tie my shoes,” Seth muttered to himself.
His pants were also brown, though lighter than the boots. They were made of some kind of linen material, loose, and slightly stiff. Next, he took a moment to look at the sword in its scabbard, attached to a thick leather belt around his hips.
The sword, as he’d noticed when fighting the mushroom men, was dinged up and scratched, but the edge was still sharp for the most part. The olive-green shirt he wore was tucked into his trousers. Its sleeves were loose around most of his arms, but tight around his wrists. He thought it looked silly, but the clothes were protection from the elements, and he literally had no other options at the moment.
Seth continued down the path for a few more minutes and saw something through the trees. It looked like a structure, and as he got closer it became clear that he was looking at a small settlement.
The roofs of around a dozen buildings peaked out above a low wooden wall. The wall was around five feet tall, and had been made by binding many trunks of young trees together all the way around the settlement. To Seth, it looked more like a privacy fence than any kind of real protection. For some reason, the four-foot-tall mushroom men he’d fought in what he was now internally referring to as the tutorial came to mind, and the low wall seemed a little more appropriate.
Seth decided to test his luck with the settlement, and headed toward the wooden wall. There was a gap in the wall wide enough for a car to drive through, though Seth did see some other sections of the wall that looked like they could be drug into place to serve as rudimentary gates to the enclosed area. Seth approached the gap and didn’t immediately see anyone. He silently hoped that it wasn’t a mushroom man village and walked through the gap in the wall.
The houses inside the wall were small but well kept. As Seth entered, he saw a scruffy, tanned, middle aged man sitting on a tree stump, covered in sweat. A small pile of split logs sat to his left, and a noticeably larger pile of unsplit logs sat awaiting their demise to his right.
He noticed Seth and gave him a look that anyone who’s ever visited a small town before knows. His face said, “I don’t know you, and I know literally everyone around here.” The look didn’t leave his face but did become a bit more subtle as he stood up and meandered towards Seth.
The axe-wielding man opened his mouth and words streamed out, but the language meant nothing to Seth. It sounded harsh and vaguely Germanic, with a lot of short words, and a lot of sounds coming from the back of the throat. The man pulled a face at Seth’s silence and repeated himself.
Seth felt the social panic that always arises when one can’t seem to understand what someone says regardless of repetition. Before the man could complete his second repetition of his question, something clicked deep in Seth’s brain, and he understood the words. He knew, logically, that the man wasn’t speaking English, yet the words held just as much meaning, as if they were being translated directly in his mind.
“I said, the name’s Thom, what can I do for you? We don’t often get strangers ‘round here.” The question had a subtle hesitation to it as the man’s eye focused on the battered sword sheathed at Seth’s side, and his hand tightened slightly on the axe.
“Well…” Seth muttered, surprised when the same harsh language left his lips without even a thought, “I’m not really sure. My name’s Seth. I’m from…Earth?” Seth hated how his pitch rose at the end of the statement, making it sound like a question rather than a statement. He looked at the man’s eyes and didn’t see any recognition so tried another tack, “I’m an adventurer apparently. Seeking adventure, I guess.” It took all of Seth’s concentration to not make that statement sound like a question, too.
The man’s eyes lit up, and he said, “Oh, an adventurer! By Easium, what brings you to our little village? I’m afraid to say there isn’t much adventuring to be had around here, not many monsters to fight either! Not like out near the edge. In fact, if you’re an adventurer, where’s your guild cape?” At that, the man moved to look past him, as if he could spot the guild cape hiding behind his back.
Seth was dumbstruck by the man’s drastic mood change. He was still reeling from suddenly knowing an entirely new language, so the one word he couldn’t recognize from what Thom said, Easium, stood out. Contextually, it seemed to be some kind of name, so Seth resolved to ask about it later. Seth replied, “Well, I’m just getting started you see. Like, today…” It seemed like every word out of his mouth sounded to lame and improbable, but he really wasn’t sure what else to say to this strange with an axe in his hand.
Thom replied, “Ah, so you’re still trying to get into the Guild then! Well, in that case, you’re probably looking for some work and a place to sleep, right? How about this, I happen to have worked with the resident adventurer in Bosqovar just up the road several times when she first started. Split the rest of this wood for me, and I’ll let you sleep in my shed and add her house’s location to your map tomorrow morning.”
A new pop-up window appeared in Seth’s vision summarizing the quest Thom had just offered him, with an accept and decline button down toward the bottom.
Thom of the Bosqovar outlying farming community has offered you a quest! Split 36 logs for Thom and receive the following: - Place to sleep for the night - Directions to Bosqovar Adventurer’s house - 200 experience Accept? Decline?
Seth’s mind scrambled to process all of the information coming in. There was a resident adventurer in the next town over? He figured that perhaps she was from Earth, or could at least answer some of his questions about this odd afterlife-video game he seemed to be stuck in. Or, perhaps, it was some massive hallucination. Either way, Seth figured that more information couldn’t hurt.
“Sure, Thom, I’ll help you finish this pile of wood,” Seth said, thinking that splitting wood couldn’t possibly be that difficult.
***
Splitting wood is, apparently, that difficult. After more than an hour of swinging the heavy axe at the logs (with ample time for his pitiful trembling arms to rest between swings), Seth finally cleared the pile and stacked split logs against the back of Thom’s house, which he had learned was the closest house to the entrance to the makeshift village wall.
Two other villagers had come by while he was working, introducing themselves and asking him about his plans to become an adventurer and join up with the guild before going about their own work. When all was finished and the sun was starting to disappear behind the trees surrounding the small collection of houses, more villagers were beginning to trickle in from wherever they’d spent the day working, some with livestock or pack animals in tow.
Thom appeared and, hands on hips, said, “Well, you did quite a fine job out here, son, even stacked it up all nicely for me! I’d say you deserve a big meal after that. Come on inside. I think Melinda is making a stew tonight. With that, he clapped Seth on the back and headed inside.
A small, translucent window subtly showed up at the bottom left of Seth’s vision, near where his health bar had appeared as he took damage in the tutorial. There were subtly faded messages in the window, describing the amount of damage Seth had done to, and taken from, the mushroom men, and a new bright white message had appeared. It read:
Quest completed! You successfully chopped logs for Thom of the Bosqovar outlying farming community! 200 experience gained. You’ve reached level 2, 260 experience until level 3.
It felt like energy zipped around just under Seth’s skin, and he shuddered. He felt somewhat invigorated, and surprisingly lively considering he’d chopped wood for hours and was covered in sweat and dirt. He shrugged and followed Thom inside the house.
The house was small, but surprisingly cozy and comfortable inside. The ceilings were higher than Seth was used to, giving the illusion of more space inside the dwelling than there really was. Thom walked over to a woman, who stood stirring a pot that hung over a fire in a hearth.
He tossed a big arm around the woman and said, “Melly, this is the young man I told you about earlier, Seth. He did a fine job chopping all that wood for us, and I’d say he deserves some of your wonderful stew. What do you say?”
The woman smiled at Seth and said, “I’m Melinda, nice to meet you. Since you did my husband’s work today, I figured you could just have his portion!” Seth struggled not to laugh at the look that flashed across Thom’s face before Melinda started laughing, and he realized it was just a joke.
Melinda handed Thom three bowls and he spooned the stew out and set places to eat on their small table. The couple asked Seth about himself, but he tried to keep it vague and kept redirecting the conversation back to questions about them. He did tell them he was from Earth, which received the same blank looks as the first time he’d mentioned that to Thom.
Seth also mentioned that Thom’s quest had caused him to level up, and Thom and Melinda both gawked at that before congratulating him.
Thom said, “Well, how fortunate that you were able to squeeze in one more whole level before applying to join the Adventurers’ Guild! That reminds me, I did write a letter of introduction to the Bosqovar Adventurer for you.” He fished around in his pockets and handed Seth a somewhat crumpled-up folded letter with some strange glyphs written on the outside. After a moment, Seth felt another click, like when he’d first been able to understand their spoken language, and just somehow knew that the glyphs were “Adventurer.”
Thom continued, “She’s a professional lass, and good at her job, but I figured a letter of introduction may make here a bit more…amenable to your cause.” Seth sensed some subtext there, but wasn’t really sure what Thom meant.
The stew was delicious, and Melinda had made enough that Seth and Thom were both able to have seconds. Some more polite conversation passed between them as they ate, but when they were done, Thom showed Seth around to the side of his house to the shed, where he could sleep for the night. There was some hay for him to lay on and, at first, he was a bit skeptical, but after actually lying down, he was surprised by how comfortable it was.
Seth’s mind began to wander as laid there, he thought of his tiny, one-bedroom apartment, and felt a twinge of sadness for the lavender plant on his window sill that would probably never get watered again. He wondered what had happened to his new car when he’d vanished, or if he’d just kicked the bucket behind the wheel. He felt surprisingly little sadness at the end of the career he’d been building. For all of the hours put into the job, it really didn’t mean much to him, and he was certainly happy he’d never have to face Geoff Treso again.
Seth’s thoughts eventually ended up on his parents. He hadn’t made too many close connections since leaving college, but his parents had always been around for him, even after the divorce when he was in junior high. Tears welled up in his eyes as he considered the prospect of never seeing them again, but something the goddess in the fancy suit had said came back to him.
If he was only here because he was descended fr
om someone, didn’t that mean that at least one of his parents was also descended from the same person? That excited Seth, and he felt himself rising out of a sleepiness he hadn’t realized he was falling into.
He’d just come up with a new goal. Find one or both of his parents, whoever had made it here with him. This was assuming he wasn’t just living out some massive brain tumor hallucinations, but there didn’t seem to be a great way to determine that. He pinched himself. It hurt.
Seth laid there, on the shed floor for a while longer, imagining how he’d find his parents in a world with medieval level technology, and didn’t come up with any great ideas. He eventually settled into a deep sleep, dreaming of splitting wood with a massive gas-powered chainsaw.
Chapter 4
Seth awoke with no clue where he was. His hand shot out to grab his cell phone from where he kept it on the charger on his side table, but he jammed his index and middle fingers on solid wood. He cursed and sat up, trying to clear the gunk from his eyes and looking around. He took in Thom’s shed, and it all flooded back in.
Seth curled into a ball on the shed floor and tried not to completely lose it. He ended up crying into his blankets for fifteen minutes before pulling himself together and getting up, wandering toward the front door of Thom and Melinda’s house.
Thom was already outside when he came around the building, and the pitying look he gave Seth told him that he hadn’t let the redness in his eyes die down enough. Seth was thankful when he avoided the subject and said, “Good morning! How about some breakfast?”
***
Thom had cooked up some kind of porridge, and he and Melinda continued with the light chat as they ate with Seth. He felt self-conscious about being emotional and could tell they were trying to treat him delicately. He had to fight the urge to act defensive about it, but they were really just being nice people to a stranger who’d wandered into their little village the day before.
Quick Change Volume 1: Slyborn Page 3