by Ryan Rimmel
CONTENTS
Chapter 0: In the Beginning
Chapter 1: An Uninteresting Grassy Field
Chapter 2: Still in the Field
Chapter 3: Road to the Village
Chapter 4: Base of the Ridge
Chapter 5: In the Woods.
Chapter 6: Outskirts of the Village
Chapter 7: The Village
Chapter 8: Town Interface
Chapter 9: Town Square
Chapter 10: Outskirts of the Village at Night
Chapter 11: Battle with the Shadow Goblin
Chapter 12: Deep in the Woods
Chapter 13: What’s in a Name
Chapter 14: Return to the Village
Chapter 15: A Weird Village Life
Chapter 16: Aftermath of the Weirdness
Chapter 17: Journey to the Wall
Chapter 18: To the Western Gate Fortress
Chapter 19: Rescue
Chapter 20: Planning the Battle of the Western Gate Fortress
Chapter 21: Pre Battle Jitters
Chapter 22: Battle of the Western Gate Fortress
Chapter 23: Hero Work at the Western Gate Fortress
Chapter 24: After the Battle of the Western Gate Fortress
Chapter 25: To the Victor
Chapter 26: The Townsfolk and the Village
Chapter 27: The Mayor of Noobtown
Copyright c 2018 by Ryan Rimmel All Rights Reserved
Dedicated to My Loving Wife Sarah.
I told you it would get easier
Thanks to my friends and fellow adventurers who boldly read through this book on its path to completion. Special thanks to Ben and Nick.
Chapter 0: In the Beginning
I remember the bright lights, the semi suddenly lurching from its lane and driving straight towards me. I tried to swerve, but it was rush hour; all I managed to do was slam into the car to my right, the one that didn’t move far enough. Then pain. Then nothing.
I floated in an abyss for some time afterward. It was an empty existence and I remained there for an eternity, or a second. I was neither hungry nor tired. My mind was rational, yet I could not focus sufficiently to do anything.
Finally, I heard voices.
“What are you going to roll up?” came a voice that seemed to fill everything. It was a higher pitched, nasally voice. It was the kind of voice that just makes you dislike someone instantly.
“I’m thinking a Warrior,” came the response. It echoed even more powerfully. That voice was huskier and far more annoyed.
Suddenly, there was a flash and I began staring around the cavernous room I was now in. It was enormous, mostly empty, and made absolutely no sense. I was dead and yet, this wasn’t limbo anymore. I could feel the rough stone beneath my bare feet.
I’m going to be honest, I stood there for several minutes, playing back memories through my mind; despite the sudden change, I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t anything. There was an absolute emotional void.
I recognized that was wrong. I was in a new room after being somewhere else and I had no idea how I got there. I tried to freak out, but for whatever reason I couldn’t get a head of steam built up. Instead, I looked around to find the source of the noise. I recognized it as the rattle of dice, a frequent noise from my years of D&D. Alas, even that didn’t break me out of my reverie as I stared forward into the empty cavern.
“Ohh, that’s a high one, on the supplementary expansion table,” came the higher pitched whine.
“Ashes! Are we using that table?” stated the husky voice. “I only have the main chart. I’ll need to look up what it does.”
“You said I could use anything, so I did,” replied the nasal voice, tartly.
I saw a light out of the corner of my vision. Swinging my head around, it remained firmly in place in the corner. While it wasn’t distracting, it was annoying, and I tried to focus upon it. Suddenly, words appeared in front of my vision.
You have gained the trait Unbound
You are not bound to level restrictions when selecting any perks, skills or talents. Traits are the highest type of power that a person can possess and will override any restrictions placed upon them from non-Traits. Unbound is a unique Talent, no one else in the world possesses this Talent. Good Luck!
I put my hand through the words several times. It was something like an AR display, but a quick check revealed that I wasn’t wearing any AR devices. Or my glasses. Glancing around the room, I realized that I could see everything perfectly, which was generally not the case. In my youth, they had been abnormally large coke bottle lenses; with modern technology, they had become more manageable, but still absolutely required if I wanted to see anything. Until now, that is.
“Hello?” I called out, suddenly recognizing that I could call out.
“I’ve never heard one talk before,” came the rumbling response.
“Ignore it. I’m going to find out what Unbound means,” came the other voice again.
“It might be able to tell us what it means from its character sheet,” replied the first, his voice becoming quieter as it trailed off.
Then, quiet. ‘Oh shit, that can’t be good’. So, I looked back to the prompt I’d seen. Concentrating on it, a more detailed image appeared.
Name: Grebthar the Destroyer, would you like to confirm your name?’ (Yes/No)
Race: Human You have rolled the racial ability: Unbound.
Class: none, please select a class.
Note: Wipe Memory was not performed. Would you like to perform a memory wipe? (Yes/No)
I focused on name and a menu appeared, giving me a start. There was a large text box that was prefilled with “Grebthar the Destroyer”. I mentally clicked the backspace button on the keyboard and the name vanished. I replaced it with “Jim”, because I recalled my name was Jim and Grebthar was a stupid name. There was a prompt asking to confirm, and I said yes. My name is Jim. Not James even, Jim. Only my mother ever called me James.
Pushing that aside, next I focused on Race. It was Human and when I tried to change it, the prompt indicated that it was already locked in. I’d rolled the Human racial ability, Unbound. Well, at least I was still a human named Jim.
The voices had mentioned Unbound, so I focused on that. Instantly I was prompted with “You are not bound to level restrictions when selecting any perks, skills or talents.” That meant exactly nothing to me. I’d absorbed, not read really, the more detailed description earlier and that still didn’t mean very much. Perks and talents could mean a great number of things, so I continued checking the sheet.
Class was interesting. When I tried to focus on it, a number of statues out in the cavern started glowing in my vision. It was enough like a video game that I instantly recognized what was happening. I started walking down a set of stairs made of the same cool stone. I swear I stepped on a few sharper bits of rock, though nothing seemed to bother my feet. Thus, I carried on at a brisk pace.
Part of my mind considered that I should really be more upset about my current predicament. However, it was hard to work up any sort of serious mental steam about anything; I felt very blasé about my circumstances. I was aware that this was very strange and that I SHOULD be feeling something. Emotional engagement toward anything simply seemed out of reach. As I walked, I brought up my character sheet again. If anything could engage my mind and awaken my hitherto missing emotions, having a prompt would do it As I examined it, I realized that there was more than one page. I knew instinctively the second page was for stats.
Name: Jim
Stats: Unassigned, no class has been selected yet.
I didn’t have any stats! I couldn’t worry my pretty little head over this. Indeed, I couldn’t worry my pretty little head over any
thing. The entire sense of apathy I had been feeling all came down to this. Would I even be able to chuckle at my own witticisms? Could I even make witticisms? I instinctively knew I had to select a class, so I continued down to where the statues were.
They were standard fantasy faire. There was Warrior, Woodsman, Wizard and Thief. Several more statues actually, but those were the first ones I saw. All looked pretty iconic for being made of grey stone. There were lots of them, probably 12 or so, but the terrible lighting made them difficult to count initially.
I touched the Warrior statue and became aware that they were proficient in: Light and Medium Armor, all Weapons, and Shields. Pulling my hand back, I stared at the statue for a moment. I hadn’t seen words or been told that would happen. I just somehow knew. That was intriguing. It was an instant transmission of knowledge and, after removing my hand, I retained the information, however less firmly. It was akin to seeing something written on a page or recalling that information after the fact.
The room was actually getting stuffy. Another thing I ‘knew’ was that the only way to leave was to select one of the statues, thereby selecting a class. In fact, as I looked around, I saw three large doorways leaving the cavern. One seemed to go towards a church somewhere, the second towards the beach. The third, towards the mountains. The urge to select a class and go was itching at me. However, I needed to collect as much intelligence as possible about this peculiar place before making a choice.
So, I buckled down. I was concerned that the voices were going to select my life for me if I didn’t do it for myself. I had no clear idea if I was racing some unseen clock, but I felt as if time was of the essence.
I waited a moment and touched the rogue statue. I instantly became aware of: sneaking, dodging, light armor and skills with various knives and smaller crossbows. Touching the Cleric and Wizard also brought along knowledge of holy magic and arcane magic. I observed that there was a different feel between the two and that the cleric required a commitment of some sort that I couldn’t quite place.
Touching the statues didn’t give me the ability to do their specific skills; however, I did understand the skills that both Rogues and Wizards possess. I also had an awareness that whatever class I chose, I would be gifted with their abilities instantaneously. It would be like going to college without any of the work. You’d go from nothing to a graduate in the blink of an eye.
Intrigued, I considered my options. I listened for the voices while I walked around a bit, touching the other various statues. There was the Woodsman statue, all of the outdoorsman arch types from fantasy, and the druid statue, representing primal spirits. As I completed my circle, I came to a door in the floor.
The three gateways leading out of the room resembled translucent, glowing blue vortexes in space. However, I couldn’t get anywhere near them. I actually tried walking into one as hard as I could, but it was like an invisible force field was blocking me. On one level, that was cool; it was like the universe protecting me from leaving without choosing a class. On another level, it underscored that I needed to make a choice to leave.
It was only then that I discovered the spiral pattern covered in arcane symbols on the floor. When my foot initially stepped on it, it was colder and more solid. I could feel that it was not stone like the rest of the floor. Glancing around, I saw a small pedestal with a red orb upon it.
“I’m sure this will be fine,” I said as I started walking over to it, but my voice trailed off into nothingness. My cavern was much more like a platform in a large void than a room surrounded by walls. In fact, glancing behind the gateways, I realized I was surrounded by empty space. Could I fall off this platform?
The orb was pulsing a deep red color, almost as dark as the room itself. The area around it was dusty, as if no one had disturbed it in quite some time. However, there seemed to be a hand shaped impression on the orb itself. Haltingly, I placed my hand upon it. Lights flickered in the orb and an ominous voice filled the cavern.
“Only the worthy may proceed. Are you worthy?”
“I guess,” I said confidently.
“You have completed zero other lives in this realm and have no achievements to speak of,” replied the voice of the orb. “Only the worthy may proceed.”
“Oh,” I mouthed. “Well that was fun. Maybe I could try Warrior,” As I tried to pull my hand away, I found it stuck fast, as if melded to the sphere. Incessant tugging for a few moments confirmed that I was not leaving that way.
“You will need to achieve level 0 in 3 additional classes to open the door,” stated the voice with grave formality. The orb’s glow began to fade but my hand would not release no matter how hard I pulled.
“So, I’ve achieved all the requirements,” I asked?
And with that, the world seemed to vibrate for an instant. The orb sputtered and flared as if it were trying to respond but failing. It felt a bit like computer lag, as if the game had locked up for just a moment. However, as quickly as the stutter began, it ended. Everything resumed normally.
“All requirements have been achieved. The door shall be opened!”
With that, the doorway opened into a spiral staircase leading down to another layer of the cavern. My hand popped free with an audible snapping sound that seemed out of place, and I started walking even before the stairwell was fully formed.
In for a penny, I thought, before flipping open my character sheet. I glanced at the memory wipe option and dialed it to “no” before locking it in and walking down the stairs.
It opened into a second cavern, which was smaller and only had two gateways leading out of it. They both opened into large cities I noticed, but this time there were only 9 statues as opposed to the 12 I’d seen earlier. Looking back up, I could see the floor above me simply hovering much like a flying saucer. Again, I was faced with the surreal knowledge of the strangeness of this accompanied by a general apathy.
The nearest statue to the stairwell was a large man wearing wizarding robes and hat and carrying a large rod. Placing my hand on it, I became aware it was a “Mystic Theurge”. They could use both Arcane and Holy magics as well as some unique hybrid spells that blended both. Furthermore, they had the potential to be just as powerful as a Wizard or a Cleric in their respective magics.
That was interesting. The advanced classes seemed to adopt powers from several previous classes. From my own experience, that could be a blessing, or not, depending on how the system worked. You could end up being really powerful or a jack of all trades and master of none.
Circling around the statues, I saw several more: there was a Spellsword, which blended arcane magic and melee, and an Arcane Thief, which was the same with a Rogue. I also saw statues for some sort of Woodsman druid hybrid and a Warrior with a sword and dagger. As none of them really interested me, I figured I’d give them a once over after I reviewed the other statues.
Around the outer edge, there were three statues that stood separately and instantly drew my attention. One was a Sky Pirate, whose powers were both pirate and airship based and started with their own personal airship. I felt sorely tempted to select that and move on because, hey, who doesn’t want an airship in a fantasy setting? Also, there was a Mage Hunter statue who could nullify magic and a Great General whose powers seemed to focus on battlefield tactics.
So, there were not only hybrids, but also classes that were built around unique mechanics. The more I walked around, however, the more I began to feel like myself. And the more I felt like myself, the more I realized I had just died; I urgently needed to get out of this room.
I had a family. They needed me. Well… maybe. If I died, they got a hell of an insurance settlement. And I did remembered dying. That would check every box in death and dismemberment. There would be enough money for them to take care of themselves. I didn’t know if I could get back to them anyway.
Because I had died.
Then again, this might have been some sort of lucid dream. I could just be in a coma after the accident. I w
ill admit my memories were kind of fuzzy after the impact. Perhaps, I hadn’t died instantly and an ambulance was really close. Logically, though, I was in a car and that semi must have been going at least 60 and there had been a vehicle behind me. What could the odds of survival possibly have been?
I continued walking around the statues until I saw a second pulsing orb glowing red. The light from the orb did not generate shadows, and as soon as I recognized that, I was even more sure that something was wrong. Well if it was a lucid dream, I suppose I should make the most of it.
I grabbed the second orb, even though this one contained no impression on it. I figured that if the first one had worked this way, the second would as well. The light went from a dull throbbing red to a powerful flashing light that seemed to bake me from the inside out.
“Only the worthy may proceed. Are you worthy?”
“You’ll find that I am,” I said resolutely.
“You have completed zero other lives in this realm and have no achievements to speak of,” replied the voice, “Only the worthy may proceed.”
“What will I need to do to complete the requirements,” I asked.
“You will need to achieve level 0 in 6 additional classes and completed a world quest, you may proceed. However, if you have not yet completed a world quest, you must achieve level 0 in 12 additional classes.” stated the voice with grave formality.
“So, I made it,” I asked?
With that, the world seemed to vibrate for an instant. Instead of lag, this time it felt like the world locked up for just an instant. I could sense and think, but my ability to move was gone. I could sense and think, but my ability to move was gone. I could sense and think, but my ability to move suddenly snapped back, and the world came rushing back to normality.
“All requirements have been achieved. The door shall be opened!”
The doorway again opened in the floor leading down to a deeper level in the void. Describing it as a cavern no longer felt apt, as I discovered more of its depths. I was actually curious to see how deep the rabbit hole went.
