by Kevin Culp
“What happened to them?”
“Plague. I had moved away from Freid as a woodworking apprentice when I was a boy. I had decided to stay there when I met her and fell in love. Four years after my son was born, a plague came through and killed about ninety percent of the town. A group of paladins came through and cleansed those of us who survived. After that, I moved back here and took over our father’s farm.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Events like that really show people what the world is like and what’s most important in it. This will be one of those events for Christina.”
I just nodded at that point and continued digging.
We finished digging the grave, and Nicholas helped me carry the coffin back to the tavern. It wasn’t heavy enough that I couldn’t carry it alone, but I assumed he wanted to help since it was his brother. I took the nice suit that I had bought while in the capital and put him in it. It didn’t fit, of course, but Christina appreciated it and was happy he got to look nice for his funeral.
After getting Christina’s father in the coffin, we went back to the gravesite. I guess Nicholas had gone out and told a few people because when we got back to the gravesite, a few other people were there. The only one I knew by name was Gadrick though I recognized a few others including Joseph’s parents. We slowly lowered the coffin into the grave.
Christina stepped forward. She was wearing the dress her mother had given her. “My papa was a great man. He always did everything in his power to make sure that I was happy. He didn’t fear death, his last words made that obvious. All he wanted, in the end, was to know that I was safe. If he were here, I know that all he would want is for me to continue from here and have a long happy life. I’m going to do my best to do that for him and my mama.” She turned to me and started crying at that point. I pulled her close.
People walked by us on their way to leave and offered their condolences and told Christina how much her father would be missed. The man had always been rough on me, but only because he was worried about how Christina’s life would change because of me. In the end, he was brave, and I think they were right about him being a good man.
Once everyone had left, Nicholas started filling in the grave. It certainly wasn’t an extravagant funeral, but it was actually more than any of the others had gotten. The town was definitely numb from all the death.
We got back to the tavern and sat at the bar. “Rin, can you bring us some drinks?”
“Just a minute.” She said.
She brought us a couple of mugs of ale, and we drank. While there were more pressing things on my mind, I slightly questioned what circumstances allowed Archaeus to drink. So far, I have been able to drink at a palace ball and when someone dies. It was probably inappropriate to be thinking about something like that at a time like this.
I finished my drink and wanted to order another, but when Rin brought it to me, it was water. I guess one drink was my limit for someone dying. I walked Christina upstairs, and we laid down in bed together.
She looked at me. “I guess this is all real now isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s real. I’m so sorry, Christina.”
“It isn’t your fault Archaeus. Some part of me has wanted to blame you for it, and I feel awful about that. The truth of it is though had you not been here they could have found some other reason to attack the town, and we would have been completely defenseless. Also, I know that you would do anything to change what’s happened. I love you Archaeus.”
“I love you too, Christina. More than you know.”
“I want to learn how to fight.” She said.
“Why do you want to learn how to fight? You know I will always protect you.”
“I love that you want to protect me. Just knowing you are there makes me feel safe, but I want to be able to protect people that can’t protect themselves. Will you teach me to fight?”
“I’ve never taught anyone to fight before, and I’m not sure that you would want to use the same style as me, but I promise you I will teach you everything that I know.”
She kissed me.
With that I noticed something flashing in my vision, and I focused on it. It said, “Would you like to add Christina as your companion?” It had a yes or no option on it that I knew I could focus on and select. Archaeus had the inspiring leader ability but did it more for flavor. His companion always had goals of their own and wasn’t with the party in-game. I guess in this world though Archaeus hadn’t had a companion. Would it help Christina for her to be my companion? I guess it couldn’t hurt so I said yes.
“I feel a lot closer to you all of a sudden Archaeus,” said Christina.
“Hopefully, I’m a good teacher. I’m sure that you will be a great student.”
Christina and I spent the next few hours lying in bed. I still didn’t really know what this world was or even whether it was a dream or reality. I didn’t know what was in store for me in this world. I’m sure that the longer I stayed here, the more challenges I would face, and some of them, I may not be able to overcome. What I do know, is that it is my goal to take care of Christina and the town of Freid as a whole and make sure that the future is bright for both of them.
Epilogue
Christina eventually drifted off to sleep, but I was lost in thought. After she fell asleep, I went back to looking at my notepad and focused on turning the page. While I was looking at my character sheet, I noticed that it looked like I could still turn the page again. When I did, Christina’s character sheet came up.
I still wasn’t sure how classes worked in this world to the actual residents. They seemed to be able to level in classes, but it was through focusing on specific disciplines that they did so not by writing something on paper. Christina was listed as level zero. I’d heard about games starting at level zero where all you have is a racial hit dice, and you have to gain a level to get a class, but we didn’t do it in our games. I looked over the character sheet.
Honestly, I was shocked. Christina had amazing stats. They were:
Strength-8
Constitution-9
Finesse-16
Intellect-14
Wisdom-15
Charisma-19
Her strength and constitution weren’t that great, but everything else was exceptional. Her charisma was about as high as a human could start with. It was no wonder that Christina was so pretty. Charisma was supposed to be a measure of force of personality, but most people also viewed it to encompass the appearance attribute since most games no longer used it. Considering charisma measured how others perceived you it was a pretty safe assumption of the attribute.
I was also quite surprised by her finesse, intellect, and wisdom. Not that I ever would have thought Christina was unintelligent, but she was actually very intelligent, and probably never really pushed herself. I started browsing the rest of her sheet.
Her skill training was allocated in Profession (Tavern Worker), Nature Knowledge, Diplomacy, and Animal Handling. The Tavern Worker thing was kind of general, but I guess she kind of did everything. She was the cook, the waitress, and managed the acquisition of the goods. The way we always looked at it in-game was the more general you make a profession the higher the difficulty would be for the individual things, but the more you could do with it.
She did have some knowledge training, so I guess she was making some use of her intelligence. It didn’t surprise me to find out she was good with people and animals with her diplomacy and animal handling. Being level one, well level zero technically, she only had one specialization. It was Training Focus (Profession [Tavern Worker.]) Though that didn’t really surprise me. We always kind of assumed in-game that merchants and the like probably had their one or two specializations in things that improved their training applicable to their job.
Eventually, I felt I had seen everything I needed to about Christina’s character sheet. I mean I guess there really wasn’t much there but why would there be. I gave Christina a kiss on the chee
k, and she stirred a little in her sleep. It took time, but I managed to drift off to sleep.
The next week passed quickly. I started teaching Christina how to fight with a sword. Diodarma had mended the practice sword, and she let me use it, so I wielded it while Christina used the actual sword. She was worried about pointing a real sword at me at first, but her fears abated after the first thirty or forty times she thought she cut me only to find out I was fine.
A few of the young men in town that saw us sparring actually took an interest and asked if they could join. None of them had dreams of being adventurers or soldiers, but after the recent ordeal, they wanted to train themselves so that they weren’t useless if there was another orc attack. I let them join us and most of them got sturdy sticks to use as practice swords.
Having the other students helped on multiple levels. This meant that Christina had people more her skill level to spar with, and I could see what teaching methods worked well with different individuals. I commissioned Diodarma to make me several more practice swords and several real swords. I asked her to make Christina a short sword feeling that her low strength and high finesse would make it better for her. She told me it would take a few weeks, but she would start on the practice swords first. That worked out well for me because it meant I could wait until I felt they were ready before putting real swords in my student’s hands.
After training one evening, Christina and I had returned to the tavern and were having dinner. It was all pretty bland, but I had grown used to it with Rin’s cooking. I was lost in thought when I happened to overhear a strange conversation.
“How do they get the writing like that?”
“I’m not sure but look at those paintings.”
“What is the thing even talking about?”
“I know right. They make it out like fixing holes in pots is some big deal.”
“This parchment is pretty strange too. It doesn’t seem like it’s good quality. It certainly seems to tear easily.”
“What’s an automobile? It seems kind of like some horseless carriage, maybe.”
I stood up and walked over to them. They were sitting at the table, reading what looked like a newspaper. How did a newspaper get in this world?
“Excuse me, gentlemen. Can I ask where you found that?” I asked.
“Umm… Ya, my son was playing in the woods just down the road a ways and apparently found it. He thought it seemed interesting, said it looked like the work of a wizard.”
“Do you mind if I look at it?”
“Sure, you can have it if you want. I don’t have much use for it either way.” He handed me the paper.
I walked back to the table.
“What’s that Archaeus? It looks strange.” Christina said.
“It’s something called a newspaper.”
I started looking over the paper. The date on it was October third. That seemed about right since it was early August when I got here, and I think it had been about eight weeks. That being said, I still didn’t know how time passed here, and even if time was normal, it was hard to say whether this was current. Thinking back, I didn’t remember the exact date it had been when I got stuck here even.
The front page was talking about the mayor of Wilson and a new policy he had created for managing potholes. Yes, my small town was so underwhelming potholes were front page news. There were only a handful of sections to the entire thing. I saw a section on job postings and a for sale area. There were a bunch of old cars for sale like normal.
Finally, I came to the section that caught my attention. It was a missing persons section and there were five entries. William Shawcro, Dan Tamlin, Kara Boyle, John Dolan, and Caleb Sampson. Each of them had their own individual descriptions of the individuals, and of course, I recognized all of the pictures.
They had one entry for all of them on what had happened though:
It is unknown what happened to these individuals. People close to them have acknowledged that they were all close friends, and questionings revealed that they were likely all together on the night of the disappearance. Sunday, August eleventh at a time we expect was after sunset all of these individuals went missing with no contact that is yet known of. The vehicle of Caleb Sampson was found abandoned at the stoplight of Second Street and Bradford Avenue. All other vehicles registered to these individuals were found at their respective places of residence. There were no other travel plans for any of them recorded. If you have any information about the whereabouts of these individuals, please contact Sheriff Brighton or dial 911.
I fell back in my chair. What was going on here? I mean this was proof of the real world. I had already decided to live here as if it was a real world, but this showed that the worlds were somehow connected by more than just me. More than that, it meant that all of my friends were stuck in this world too. Why had I not heard anything about them?
If I assumed that they were also trapped in their tabletop character’s bodies that meant they would all be powerful. Well, what about Dan though? He didn’t have a character in the game, so would he be put into the body of one of his NPCs or what? The others though, if they were in the bodies of their respective characters wouldn’t they be easy to find.
I’ve only been in this world for a month and there are tales of the strength of Archaeus, the mighty knight that can raise the dead, spreading throughout the kingdom. I could somewhat understand why I hadn’t heard anything about Kreego. If he was utilizing his abilities, then that meant he was acting covertly more than likely. What about Kraxis and Lyra though? I would be shocked if she wasn’t shooting contingent fireballs everywhere and showing off her ability to teleport freely, stop time, and summon meteors. Kraxis would probably have the same issues with raising the dead as I had, but he could perform other miracles quite literally.
I wasn’t sure what was going on, but for now, I would have to focus on me and Christina. Finding my friends would certainly be a secondary objective. I’ll write a letter to the prince and have the help of the kingdom’s resources to find the others. All of my focus now though, will have to be helping Christina level up and gain power. I don’t know what the future here will hold, but I intend to be ready for it.
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