When I left the courtyard it didn't take me to the street I was seeing through it, instead I stepped into the middle of a town square in what appeared to be the dirtiest town in the world. I could see why it was called Mudtown, since everything, streets, walls, houses, and even the people appeared to be made of dried mud. I exaggerate a little, since the people were just spattered with the ubiquitous mud, but just standing still I felt like I was being covered. The road was a mixture of dry mud with a wet section down the middle where it seemed all the water drained, and it was lined on both sides by a row of mud walled, thatch roofed buildings. The town square seemed to be the halfway point for the town, and it opened up to form a square that just screamed for some kind of central decoration. I was looking at the setting sun, so I arbitrarily called that west, meaning the road ran east to west. A blacksmith had a shop in the corner of the square on my left, and store fronts with awnings filled the other buildings in the square. A wagon took up a big section on my right, and despite the fact that I didn't seem to need to urinate or defecate, the horses did, and they did a fine job of it too.

People wearing your standard peasant clothing were eyeing me from the stores and two human men wearing chainmail walked over to face me a moment after I appeared.

"What are you doing here priest?" said the taller of the two, and the one that had a red arm band. They both had swords and daggers, and when I concentrated I could read:

Andric, Mudtown guard Captain

Donelt, Mudtown guard

"My names Jake, and I think I live here" I said with a shrug

"An eternal" Donelt said with a sneer "just what we need"

"Who is your god Loser?" Andric asked, totally ignoring the name I gave him and using the loser one. God I was hating Bugly.

"Telina" I said through gritted teeth

The two men exchanged looks before the Captain said "We don't want adventurers here half-breed, so do your killing somewhere outside of town. If you draw any monsters into town we'll lock you up after we kill it, so don't expect us to do your work for you"

"Uh yeah" I said, kind of at a loss for what to do now.

The two guards walked off, leaving me standing like an idiot in the middle of the square. With a sigh I started down the street, looking around and trying to get a sense of what was expected of me. I knew I would have to eat, and while I wasn't sleepy yet, I was guessing I would need to sleep somewhere. At the edge of town I stopped and looked over the landscape for the first time and realized this world was really quite gorgeous. Tall snow capped mountains lined the horizon ahead of me in a pretty straight line going north and south, while forest seemed to surround the town as far as I could see. Once at the edge of town it opened up into a grassy plain for a good quarter mile until turning into the forest, with the north side seeming to be taken up with farmer's fields. The only mud seemed to be centered on the town itself. It was like the town was making mud.

I saw a stone pillar along the road about a hundred feet away, so wandered down to see what it was supposed to indicate. Nothing as far as I could tell, other than the fact someone had extra rocks. A high pitched squeaking caused me to turn and see a rat the size of a Doberman running at me.

Weak Rat

Level 1

Health 30

Stupid rat nearly killed me. I managed to get my club out and start swinging about the time it bit me for six points of damage. My first two swings missed, but I managed to dodge his return bite long enough to land my third swing. A whole 4 points for my side as we settled down to a battle of attrition.

Stupid Rat. I was down to twenty-five points of health when I finally killed it, and it turned into a single piece of rat meat and one rat skin.

+ 2.1% light armor

+1.3% Blunt Weapon

I picked up the meat and skin, then concentrated on doing Telina's Touch on myself. I did it four times, bringing my health back up to 145, then settled into the restore trance I had done earlier. It came easily enough, though it took at least a half minute to accomplish. I wasn't sure how long it took the Mages to do that, but it darn well better be longer than a half minute. I could see it wasn't something I could do in a fight for sure.

New Skill: Faith

Passive

Faith aids a priest in restoring mana and in the power and speed of spells

Faith 3%

While I was reading, another rat snuck up and bit me in the ass for 8 points of damage. And it hurt like hell. Screw it, time to start working to get better at this stuff. I did the running in circles thing until I managed to activate Telina's Fist, then turned to fight. Rinse and repeat until the chewy bugger finally died and left the meat and skin, and weirdly enough, 2 copper coins. I hoped he hadn't been storing them somewhere...weird.

I did the Touch heal, then restore mana thing, then activated Fist in time for another rat to appear. This went on for the rest of the day, and after the fourth rat I got my first level up and my stats appeared with a message.

You have reached level 2. You have two attribute points. You have a new spell.

Cool. It took a moment, but I figured out how to add a point each to my STR and DEX stats. I had to do the mental gymnastics that brought up my spells page, and focusing on a lighted slot brought up a choice list.

Cure Disease

Cures disease (Level+10) of any creature touched

110 Mana/use

Telina's Holy Blessing

On creature: 10% increase in hit damage

15% increase in healing rate

(+5%/level to level 10)

On flora: 20% increase in growth rate

30% crop amount

85 Mana/Use

Duration:

(Does not stack)

It didn't look like either choice did anything to improve my survival chances, since they both seemed to be straight up priestly spells. I was worried about rats, so I finally just picked Cure Disease since it at least was something I could use on myself.

The rats called it quits when the sun dropped to the horizon, so I headed back into town. The rats didn't seem to give me much of a gain after I leveled up, but it was progress, especially the 12 copper coins total they dropped. Now it was time to find out if they would actually buy anything.

Loser

Healer Priest

Level 2 (45%)

STR 6

DEX 6

STA 20

INT 10

WIS 10

Health: 200

Mana: 100

Endurance: 120

Spells:

Telina's Touch (+12% activate)

Telina's Fist (+16% activate)

Cure Disease

Cures disease (Level+10) of any creature touched

100 Mana/use

+20% Healing Spell

-15% Spell Damage

-20% Hit Damage

-8% Dodge

+ 1.2% hand to hand

+ 3.0% light armor

+2.3% Blunt Weapon

+7.2% Concentration

+5.0% Faith

----

You would think a place called Mudtown would work hard to make itself a little more welcoming, but you would be wrong. Get lost was said so much I started to wonder if my name had changed. Half-breed was said enough I knew there weren't any discrimination laws in Tarinath. Most of those were in response to my 'hello' or 'excuse me' as I tried to talk to people. An older woman finally took pity on me and let me sleep in her small barn behind her house for only one copper coin. She even gave me a loaf of bread without charging me extra. Based on those prices I could live in a barn for two weeks on the money I had, but I was sharing the barn with four cows and a horse, all of which spent the night crapping.

The next morning introduced me to a new skill when the old woman let me in the house as she cooked breakfast. I was watching her put a pan on a grate over the fire when she said "You seem interested in my cooking" the old woman said "would you like to try your hand at it?". I had been in this world long enough to know not to say something stupid, so I nodded and said "sure"

When I stepped over to the fire a message popped up:

New Skill: Cooking

Active

Allows player to prepare foods for improved benefits

Requirements:

Cooking pan

Fire starter

I didn't actually have to do anything. The pan had a whole meal sitting in it when I pulled it off the fire, and another message said:

Item added:

Pan

Fire starter

Cooking 1.0%

When we ate the food another message appeared with:

Beef, cooked

Endurance restored

+15% Endurance

6 hour duration

The 'endurance restored' thing caught my eye since it didn't happen with the raw wolf meat, and the 15% would add like ten or twelve points. It seemed like cooked food had some benefits beyond filling your belly. The raw wolf added 1% damage so I wondered what cooked wolf would do. Maybe try that tonight.

When I finished eating the old woman asked "You are a priest of Telina yes? My sister was bitten by a rat and has the blight, can you cure her?"

New Quest

Cure Dalia's sister Dina of the Blight

Do you accept?

Wow, this was straight up role playing game stuff. Was my life going to be like this forever? With a sigh I said "Sure", and hoped the 'blight' counted as a disease.

Dina turned out to be Dalia's twin, and they both looked to be about five hundred years old. The blight turned out to cause sores all over the body and Dina was looking pretty awful when her elderly husband let me in the house to see her.

"Can you cure her?" Jessan, the husband asked, as I stood next to the bed where the woman was lying.

The old woman seemed to be really suffering, and I was surprised how distraught the old man seemed, making it hard to see them as computer images. I was standing there looking at the old man as he kind of gave me an honest to god begging look and I made the decision that this really was my life now, and it didn't matter how weird it was, or how crazy I thought things were, this was all I had.

Nodding, I said "By Telina's will"

Of course that didn't mean I somehow knew how to make my new spell work. About five minutes in the old guy started giving me looks and I was thinking of telling him that if it was so easy he should do it himself, but I didn't. It was a nudge from the goddess that made me try doing my connection with her, and damned if I couldn't feel her exasperation as we connected and the magic flowed into me, then out in a golden stream to cover the old woman. It stayed like that for about ten seconds, then faded, leaving the woman lying there looking perfectly healthy. Telina gave me a non-verbal 'well done', then faded away. I was feeling a little put out by the attitudes since no one had bothered to tell me a damn thing since I got here. Stupid Bugly.

When the old guy offered me a whole silver piece as a reward I started to take it when I felt Telina's disapproval. I gritted my teeth in frustration and told Jessan in a strained voice "No thanks. Give thanks to the goddess Telina and do a good deed in her name and I will be rewarded"

I came up with all that myself, but was pretty aggravated as I felt her approval, and muttered "Yeah, yeah. Easy for you, but some of us have to eat and sleep"

I think Jessan and Dina were a little taken aback by my grumpiness, but I never agreed to be a polite priest, so they could take what they got. Stupid Bugly, I could have been a barbarian or pirate or something, but no, I get to be Friar Tuck. Screw it, I needed to kill some rats.

Before being digitized I spent time in fights, getting shot once and stabbed a couple of times, so while the fighting and dying here hurt...a lot, it somehow wasn't as traumatizing as the real thing had been. I spent a couple of hours outside of town fighting the endless series of rats until I leveled up again. I allocated my two points to the strength and dexterity again and noticed my skills stuff had taken a pretty good move up. The faster access to my two spells was something I could notice now

Loser

Healer Priest

Level 3 (11%)

STR 7

DEX 7

STA 20

INT 10

WIS 10

Health: 200

Mana: 100

Endurance: 140

Armor: 1

Spells:

Telina's Touch(+21% activate)

Applies 35 points (+20%) of healing to the user or any creature touched

30 Mana/use

Telina's Fist(+26% activate)

Applies 20 (-15%) points of damage when activated and a successful hit is made

30 Mana/use (effective hit)

Cure Disease

Cures disease (Level+10) of any creature touched

100 Mana/use

+20% Healing Spell

-15% Spell Damage

-15% Hit Damage

-6% Dodge

+ 1.2% hand to hand

+ 11% light armor

+9.5% Blunt Weapon

+17% Concentration

+10% Faith

+1.0% Cooking

0 Gold

0 Silver

17 Copper

Wolf pelt (1ea)

Rat skin (13ea)

Rat meat (13ea)

Poor quality club

3/15 durability

2-10 damage

My club was looking pretty beat up so I decided to try talking with people again to see if I could get a better weapon, and maybe some of the armor everyone else seemed to be able to get. The blacksmith was a surprisingly small guy, though he looked strong enough, and this time when he asked "What do you want half-breed", it actually sounded like a real question.

"I need a better weapon and hoped to get some armor" I said, waving at my clothes. For all the chewing on I'd been getting my clothes still looked ok, which made me wonder if my armor would stay clean too.

He showed me a line of weapons in a rack and when I looked at each a message would appear with information about it. Most were pieces of junk, the best of the group being:

Battered sword

18/18 durability

6-17 damage

Not usable: Mage, Priest

Cost: 3 Silver

Battered Mace

18/18 durability

8-14 damage

Not usable: Mage

Cost: 3 Silver

Worn Sword of Slicing

24/24 durability

6-17 damage

+4 bleeding damage

Not usable: Mage, Priest

Cost: 9 Silver

It looked like the minimum damage number got better as you got better weapons, but 3 silver meant 30 coppers, which was about twice what I had.

"How about ten coppers and this wolf skin and my old club for the mace?" I asked

I was expecting to dicker a while, but he just said "Sold" and handed me my Battered Mace, holding his hand out until I gave him the club and wolf skin, and counted out ten coppers. He had three different leather armor sets and one chainmail set. The armor came with boots and what the labels called bracers, The chainmail said it wasn't usable by priests, which really pissed me off. It's armor rating was like 25 and the leather armor was all in the 12-18 range. The cheapest armor was 7 silver, so I wouldn't be buying any today.

When I finished with the blacksmith and had started back out of town to try out the mace, Captain Andulin waved at me, getting me to stop and give him a questioning look. He nodded and said "Word is you managed to cure Dina of the blight and farmers say the rats are getting thinner on the ground. Farmer Simm says he thinks they're coming from the cave in the trees on the north side. You clean them out and it would be worth a gold piece to the town"

New Quest: Kill the rats infesting Quilian's cave

Do you accept?

"Sure" I said immediately. A whole gold piece, whoo hoo.

The fields on the north side of town were laid out in squares, each being about fifty feet across, with six of them being in a line. They looked kind of poor, with a lot of the stalks and shoots torn up, and the rest sort of sickly. A rat was chewing on one of the stalks, so I pulled my mace, called up the Fist, and commenced swinging.

I did like twenty damage the first hit, and was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I managed to call up the Fist again. Still took a little dodging and dancing with a couple of bites thrown in, but I was doing it faster and more reliably than before. It only took six hits to finish the bugger, and by the end I was only down 25 points of health and about the same in endurance. I healed myself just for the training, but that was the best fight I'd managed so far. The rat only gave me 14% toward the next level, so it looked like as I leveled up I lost momentum with the lower monsters. Shrugging, I picked up the copper piece left behind and decided to leave the meat and skin since I had so much already.

The cave, when I found it, turned out to be another learning experience. There were two of the nasty buggers at the entrance, with one deeper in than the other. The closest one attacked as I got closer, but the other just sat there until I dodged the first one and stepped to about ten feet away from it. Then they both attacked me. I seriously shocked myself by surviving, but it was damn close. I had a whole 15 health and 18 endurance left when the last one croaked. The endurance thing really showed up when it dropped below 25 and I found it harder and harder to swing the mace. I picked up the three copper pieces, then stepped a little away from the cave entrance and did some healing until I ran out of mana, then did the prayer thing to restore it.

The cave was surprisingly clean and dry, and only wide enough for me to swing my mace, but not an inch more. It got dark quick, but I realized after a moment that my eyes adapted and I could see decently in shades of grey. When I turned the first corner and about tripped over a rat, I could see it better because of the heat. The rat was sort of outlined in a red glow, and he was as surprised as I was so I got the first swing in. I had prepared the Fist, but that was the last time during the fight since we were face to face and I couldn't dodge much. The no dodging thing ended up hurting the rat more since I basically just began pounding him with the mace, accepting the various bites he gave me in between. The fight didn't last long, and it reminded me of chopping wood...chop, lift, chop, lift, but with a mace.

I paused for healing and time for my endurance to restore, then headed thirty feet further on until the cave opened up into a space holding three rats. When it was clear they were all going to attack, I stepped back into the narrow part and started swinging. It was mostly too narrow for more than one at a time, but every now and then they would squeeze together and I would have to step back. I tried calling the Fist during the fight, but only managed it once just after the second rat died and there was a lull in the fight. When I killed the third one my endurance was at 5 and I think if I had swung one more time I would have fallen over. It was clear I would need to figure out the food thing just for the increase in endurance or I wouldn't last through a long fight. I knew enough about RPGs to know there was supposed to be a boss creature somewhere in the cave, and he would be stronger than the rest. I did another series of healings and a mana restore before getting the Fist ready and moving on.

The rats had a total of 8 coppers, but I found a silver piece lying on the floor by a human skeleton in the area the three rats had been hanging out in. I was darn near wealthy. I had contemplated cooking up some rat, but decided digital or not, eating rat was a last ditch thing.

Turned out the boss rat was just around another corner, sitting upright and chewing on something that looked like it came off something four legged. When I focused on it I read:

Rat leader

Level 3

Health 80

It was big enough that it couldn't move much in the narrow passage I backed into, but it's bite did like 20 points of damage. Luckily I was doing close to the same thing and he had like half my health or I would have ended up dead in there. He did something that caused a message to flash up - Overpower - and he surged forward to knock me on my ass. He bit the shit out of me until I got to my feet and got back to swinging. I had zero opportunity to call on the Fist, and that hampered me a lot. Stupid priest skills.

He dropped a silver coin (cheapskate) and left 9 coppers in a pile in his lair, but other than that it was just meat and skin. I did level up though, so overall a good days work, especially after I got back and the Captain slipped me my gold coin. I was tempted to stroke the gold coin and call it 'my precious', but decided the idea would just go over the Captain's head.

I had too choose another spell, but it only gave me the choice of the Blessing, so kind of a no brainer. For the hell of it I cast the Blessing on one of the fields after my talk with the Captain. I figured out I had to make the connection to Telina early on, so while the spell itself took about 15 seconds to cast, I didn't need five minutes figuring out how to do it.

Loser

Healer Priest

Level 4 (68%)

STR 8

DEX 8

STA 20

INT 10

WIS 10

Health: 200

Mana: 100

Endurance: 160

Armor: 1

Spells:

Telina's Touch(+42% activate)

Applies 40 points (+20%) of healing to the user or any creature touched

25 Mana/use

Telina's Fist(+51% activate)

Applies 30 (-15%) points of damage when activated and a successful hit is made

25 Mana/use (effective hit)

Cure Disease

Cures disease (Level+10) of any creature touched

80 Mana/use

Telina's Holy Blessing

On creature: 25% increase in hit damage

30% increase in healing rate

Duration: 6 hours

(+5%/level to level 10)

On flora: 35% increase in growth rate

45% crop amount

(+5%/level to level 10)

85 Mana/Use

(Does not stack)

+20% Healing Spell

-15% Spell Damage

-10% Hit Damage

-4% Dodge

+ 1.2% hand to hand

+ 19% light armor

+ 13% Blunt Weapon

+ 21% Concentration

+ 24% Faith

+ 1.0% Cooking

1 Gold

2 Silver

20 Copper

Rat skin (13ea)

Rat meat (13ea)

Battered Mace

12/18 durability

8-14 damage