Azam opened his eyes. He was lying on his stomach, small rocks digging into his skin, his hands on the edge of a precipice. His head overhung the verge as he looked down at the shimmering stream hundreds of feet below. He took a moment to gather himself. Find his bearings. He pushed himself back from the edge onto his knees, grimacing slightly as tiny rocks embedded themselves into the surrounding flesh. He was naked, like he had been in that bizarre room. He stood up, wiped the gritty debris from his belly, mopped the little pebbles from his knees.
His eyes followed the line of the stream as it snaked towards his left, where a mile or more away, it disappeared into a rocky cliff-face. He could see a forest stretch out in all directions from that cliff, sloping gently downwards until it came level with the stream. Ahead of him, he could see over the canopy of the trees, where the light of dual suns – a smaller yellow against a larger blue – made coloured patterns upon the leaves and the grassy hills beyond the forest. He carried on glancing to the right, where the ravine curved gently, the stream lost behind it, the forest hiding whatever lay beyond.
That’s the direction Dagathir had instructed him to walk towards. The incident with Dagathir and Nemaira had been peculiar to say the least, but the dual suns ahead of him told him this was real, though it could be a dream he supposed. It didn’t feel like it though. He didn’t think they had been lying about sending him to another world, and he had no reason right now not to trust their words. He needed to be wary though. Dagathir hoped to use Azam for his own ends. Azam knew that, but as long as their interests were aligned, there was no harm in complying with the instructions. Once he had what he needed, he’d be rid of Dagathir. Be rid of the girl too.
“Status,” he said, recalling Dagathir’s last words to him.
A floating blue screen appeared, hovering in the air, inches from his face. It was transparent enough that he could still the outlines of the suns, but solid enough so he could read the screen in front of him.
{Name} [ Azam Drummond ]
{Age} [ 47 ]
{Level} [ 25 ]
{Experience} [ 0/6615 ]
{Health} [ 3696 | 3696 | +0 ]
{Energy} [ 857 | 857 | +0 ]
{Power} [ 90 | 90 | +0 ]
{Class} [ UNAVAILABLE ]
[? Press for more]
He’d seen his youngest, Nassah, play games like this at home. The kid had always been useless. Headstrong too. Did what he wanted without a care, and what he wanted was to play video games. The wife never let Azam fix the kid so he understood the value of time. The value of work. Understood the value of family. It bothered Azam that he had allowed the kid to live in his house and not have to pay for anything, at the request of his wife. Of course, Nassah would claim otherwise. He had a job, but Azam never saw any of the money. The wife and kids just ate off him. Let him work. Let him struggle. And now those two had conspired to take the house.
He pressed for more.
[ VITALS | vitals ][Off]
[ CLASS | class ]
[ TITLES | titles ]
[ ATTRIBUTES | stats ]
[ SKILLS | skills ]
[ EQUIPMENT | equip ]
[ INVENTORY | bags ]
[ QUESTS | quests ]
[ ACHIEVEMENTS | achi ]
[ JOURNAL | notes ]
[ MAP | map ]
“Vitals,” he said.
A green and orange bar faded into view, in the top left of his vision, the orange beneath the green. A large circle overlapped both bars. He flicked his eyes towards the bars, and they became clear, showing his health and energy, and his level – 25 – in the circle. At the bottom of his vision was a thin progress bar.
He cycled through class and titles but both screens were empty. When he spoke, “Stats,” two items showed.
[ STAT POINTS AVAILABLE ] [ 50 ]
[ ALLOCATED ] [ 0 ]
Fifty stat points for twenty five levels. Two per level. He wondered what they were for, and noticed the white triangle to the right of the screen. He pressed it, and another page appeared, triangles to left and right.
[ PHYSICAL | phys ]
{ STRENGTH | STR } - [ 0 / 200 ] +
{ ENDURANCE | END } - [ 0 / 200 ] +
{ VITALITY | VIT } - [ 0 / 200 ] +
{ AGILITY | AGI } - [ 0 / 200 ] +
{ DURABILITY | DUR } - [ 0 / 200 ] +
[ CONFIRM ]
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He glanced around the forest ahead of him and at his back. The floating screen and his vitals moved in sync with the direction he faced as if anchored to his field of vision. With little to go on, he put all fifty points into strength, tapping the little plus button. This place looked like he would need it. He knew he was strong. Always had been. Had had to prove it on occasion too, but he didn’t know how that translated to this world. Still, more strength was never a bad thing. He tapped the arrow to the right.
[ MAGICAL | magic ]
{ CHI | CHI } - [ 0 / 200 ] +
{ SUSTENANCE | SUS } - [ 0 / 200 ] +
{ SPIRIT | SPT } - [ 0 / 200 ] +
{ FOCUS | FCS } - [ 0 / 200 ] +
{ FORTITUDE | FRT } - [ 0 / 200 ] +
[ CONFIRM ]
Magic. He’d heard of voodoo and black magic. Curses and witches. He wondered what kind of magic they had here. Would it be worth it for him? Too many options really. He preferred things simple. Not that he had a problem making decisions, but why overcomplicate things? It just took away from getting on with the job. But he didn’t want to be disadvantaged. He’d need to look into it as soon as possible, but right now, he had that job to get on with. He tapped right again.
[ MENTAL | ment ]
{ INTELLIGENCE | INT } [ 145 / 250 ]
{ WISDOM | WIS } [ 50 / 250 ]
{ RESONANCE | RES } [ 10 / 250 ]
{ CHARISMA | CHR } [ 190 / 250 ]
{ CONVICTION | CNV } [ 225 / 250 ]
Those numbers were just wrong. Conviction was alright, he supposed, but Charisma was lower than it should be and the other three were just plain wrong, even though he wasn’t really sure what Resonance might allude to. More things he would need to find out about.
He cycled through the next two options and found no skills or equipment, but when he spoke, “Bags,” a grid appeared on the screen, a white arrow in the top left above it. The grid was four squares by four, and five of the slots at the top had images in them with an item name beneath. [Uncommon Pants], [Uncommon Shirt], [Uncommon Tunic], [Uncommon Boots] and [Uncommon Dagger].
Each image had a transparent circle in the top left, and at the bottom of the screen was a button [Drop]. He selected each of the items and pressed [Drop]. The items shimmered into existence by his feet, hovering slightly above the ground before the clothes landed with a soft plop, the dagger atop them, and the boots settled beside them with a gentle thud. Now that seemed like magic. On the screen in front of him, he pressed the arrow in the top left and then cycled through the last four screens. They had nothing to show. Not even a map. He could have done with one.
He knelt down to the clothes, put the dagger to the side. No underwear, but the fabric felt well-made. A lighter sort of cotton. Breathable. He pulled the pants on first, then the shirt over his head, with its long sleeves, and buttons and laces, like a collarless polo. He pulled the tunic on over that, its hood hanging down his back. The boots were durable, the leather worn and rough but they fit him well enough.
He picked up the dagger, a foot or so long with a simple black hilt and a muted silver blade. He tested it in his hand, felt the balance. It should do until he could find something better. And it was small. He’d have to get up close and personal, not that he minded that. An image crossed his mind of a woman in his arms, a trickle of blood flowing from her lips as he placed her gently to the floor. No, he didn’t mind getting close at all.
He tucked the dagger into his belt and looked over the forest and at the twin suns. If this place was anything like Earth, it would be about halfway to noon, it looked like. Best to get moving. Dagathir said he wouldn’t have a lot of time, if he wanted the upper hand. He never told him what that meant. Just told him to make sure to follow the ravine’s edge away from the cliff-face where the stream ended.
He set off along the verge, hugging the tree line to his right. The trees bore little resemblance to the ones on earth. These ones had black bark, stripped away in places, the sap darker than he would expect, oozing from the trees like sludgy oil. Brown leaves hung still on the branches, splatted with black marks. Not entirely unusual for late autumn or winter, but the temperature was too hot for those seasons. It was more like early spring. The leaves should have been gaining colour, not losing it. It was awfully quiet for a forest too. None of the noises he would expect to hear. No noises at all, in fact.
He hadn’t walked far when he began to make out a distant voice, further around the edge of the ravine. It was deep and raspy. Not entirely human from the sounds of it. He supposed it might’ve surprised him had he not already encountered Dagathir and Nemaira. Had he not already experienced things that seemed impossible. But like anything in his life, the initial shock wore off quickly, replaced by thoughts of how to make the most of the situation. That’s what life was really. A chess board. Figuring out what move needed to be made next; what piece could be sacrificed; what pawn could be replaced for something stronger. Life was a game, no matter what world you played it on. The only objective was to win.
The voice didn’t sound too far. He briefly glanced into the forest, wondering if he should try to find cover before approaching closer, but he decided against and hugged the tree line as close as he could as he edged towards the voice.
The voice became louder as he approached, but then was replaced by a quieter voice. A human voice. Azam snuck from tree to tree until he came across the source. He crouched down and took cover, not that the gaunt trees offered too much of it, but it didn’t seem to matter. Azam saw a man about as young as his youngest son. Maybe a year or two older. He was around six-feet tall, with short black hair and a strong jaw, and had the look of someone who enjoyed the gym. Standing on the edge of the ravine, he held a club and wore clothes not too dissimilar to Azam’s, caked in green and blue muck. Ahead of the young man, across a stony clearing was the source of the deep, raspy voice. A wolf’s head with a long grey beard, as large in stature as Nemaira. It had wide, thin ears beneath two large horns that curled over them. From where he crouched, Azam couldn’t see the rest of him, except for the giant hand above the young man. He was neither shocked nor surprised. Just mildly curious as to what manner of beast this was.
“Fuck you,” the young man said, holding his middle finger up, before flinging himself off the edge of the ravine. Not even a second later, that giant hand crashed down on the spot where the young man had been, sending a dust cloud into the air. Azam steadied himself as tremors shook the ground.
He had only caught the tail end of their conversation, but he had a hint of admiration for the boy’s actions. Not that stupidity about what his friends would want him to say, but to have the balls to die rather than join with the wolf-head. Azam couldn’t say whether it was the right decision or not. He never caught what the other choice was. But it was a ballsy one, he had to give the young man that. It’s what he would want from his friends. Conviction in their choices. Make a decision and stick to it. Of course, you had to be careful with those kinds as well. Couldn’t let them get ideas above their station.
He turned to look at the wolf-head with the horns, but he didn’t get the chance to see a reaction. A streak of black light shot through the area, followed instantly by a burst of red steam from the wolf-head, and its hand. The streak of black light seemed to be the figure of a man, thirty or so feet in the air above the head. He had been caught in that steam, like someone inadvertently flying over a thermal geyser and being caught as it spouted scalding vapour. The man plummeted to the ground. As he fell, a cloaked shadow peeled itself away from him, like smoke dancing away from a flame. The shadow shot towards and over the ravine’s edge before Azam’s eyes could even keep up with it.
The wolf-head slumped to the ground with a larger tremor than earlier, dust and debris scattering in all directions. Azam dropped to his knees, shaking with the ground around him, covering his face and eyes with his arms to shield himself from the bombardment of small rocks that pelted him.
It took a while debris to settle, the groans of the earth to quieten. The silence of the forest returned. He waved his arm in front of him to clear the dust in his face. The horned wolf-head slumped across the clearing, it’s hand splayed out like roots of the trees in the wood. The fallen man lay in a crumpled mess, his head planted into the ground, the neck at an angle that it wasn’t meant for. Azam watched for any signs of movement from either. Not that he thought the man could have survived, but he was still learning the rules of this game. You couldn’t know what to expect or exploit, unless you understood the rules. He also didn’t want to be taken by another surprise.
After a few moments, he grabbed his dagger, rose slowly from his position and cautiously ventured forwards, looking from the man to the head to the forest and back again. He knew he needed something here. Afterall, it’s where Dagathir had sent him. Baldy must have had a reason. He did say an opportunity had opened up to give Azam an edge.
Suddenly, a deep, raspy voice boomed inside his head.
Well, well. You wait decades for an outworlder to appear, and now two of them come at once. Let’s hope you, at least, can make the right decision.
