I don’t know how long I fell, but I do remember the prompt that appeared as the falling sensation ended.

Welcome Champion of %%%%%

Please select race and appearance

I stared at it for a moment, and as I read the part about race and appearance a series of screens appeared. One listed dozens upon dozens of words, some I recognized from games and books like Orcs, Minotaur, and Goblin, but others were completely foreign to me. I stared at it for a long time, hoping for an explanation, but none came. I went through the list for awhile, there were lists of the locations they lived, even racial benefits, though all of them were difficult to parse without context. I wondered how a change in my looks and size would effect me, would I misjudge things like a teenager that just went through a growth spurt? I wasn't sure of exactly what kind of situation I'd be placed in, so it seemed like my best bet was to cut down on unnecessary changes that may lead to mistakes.

“Can I just be what I am now? I don’t really want to change my race. I’m okay with how I look too.”

The race you are may appear different in Tu’reyne, is that acceptable?

“Uh, yes.”

Race accepted

Class options being generated by previous jobs…

That wasn’t going to be good. I mean, as a temp I’d mostly done clerical work. Would I have to start as a clerk?

Options are as follows

Bureaucrat

Mercenary

Clerk

Scholar

I laughed, though it made no sound. What was a temp, but an office mercenary doing the dirty jobs no one else wants to do? I made my choice.

Class Selected: Mercenary

In the middle of my noiseless laugh, I felt a shift, and the ground fell out from beneath me.

…

I woke wrapped in darkness. I spent a few moments thinking that I was still in the nothingness where I’d seen the prompt, but I felt cold ground underneath me. I was lying down flat on a cold hard surface. After a few minutes my eyes adjusted and I could see that there was a high cave ceiling above me. There was some mild luminescence coming off small patches of moss on the ground near me and from above.

I sat up, hearing the straining of leather as I did so. I brought my hand to my chest and found that my suit had been exchanged for some kind of leather armor. I started to do an inventory on myself. I was wearing dark brown leather armor, there was a dagger belted at my waist with a handle that looked like a pair of brass knuckles, and I was satisfied to find that I still had all ten fingers and toes and felt nothing out of place. Beyond that I actually felt a little better than I had before, more sure of my body.

I saw a kind of flashing at the edge of my vision and when I put my attention on it a series of prompts appeared.

Welcome to Tu’reyne!

As a chosen you have been granted 6 ability points to distribute as you wish

You have been assigned a new quest!

All of the prompts flashed up at once, and as I focused on each of them, they created new prompts until my vision was completely obscured. I tried thinking ‘clear’, and they all faded. I brought my attention back to just the prompt about ability points, and pulled it up. That linked me to what looked like a character sheet.

Cormac

Half-Elf

Lvl 1 Mercenary

XP: 0

HP: 17

Stats: 6 pts available

STR: 12

DEX: 13

SPD: 13

INT: 14

WIS: 9

PER: 11

CON: 8

LCK: 5

Known Skills:

Sword (LVL 5)

Club (LVL 5)

Mace (LVL 5)

Axe (LVL 5)

Spear (Lvl 5)

Hammer (LVL 5)

Bow (LVL 5)

Dagger (LVL 5)

Improvised Weapon (LVL 5)

Barehanded (LVL 5)

Abilities (Racial):

Half Borne of Magic

Abilities (Class):

Anything in a Pinch

For the Right Price

A Job is a Job

Spells:

Free slot

Free slot

The first thing that stood out to me was my race. I hadn’t selected half-elf, and I think I’d remember if my mother had mentioned my Dad having pointed ears. I didn’t know him, but if my character sheet was accurate I now had a lot of questions with no available answers. It wasn’t useful to worry about that now though, so I turned my attention to the other surprises I saw on the sheet.

I’d taken decent care of myself since college, but my physical stats seemed high. Based on the Dungeons and Dragons games I’d played in college, a 10 was about average and I hadn’t ever really thought of myself as particularly strong or fast. Though the system could be on a different scale, or the boosts came from my class or even my new race. The skills I had were also ones I wouldn’t have expected, but my question on those was answered when I turned my attention to my class abilities.

Anything in a Pinch- Mercenaries have general affinity with all weapons, and fewer penalties for using improvised weapons. They may also choose two weapons to begin at a higher affinity level.

For the Right Price- Bonus to negotiating additional pay

A Job is a Job- Any task performed for money counts as a quest and yields xp

Anything in a pinch looked to be the reason my skills with weapons all started at five. As I focused on the latter part of the skill description a list of weapon types appeared. I chose dagger, and barehanded. I didn’t know exactly what kind of situation I was in, but since I already had a dagger on me and I’d always have my hands it seemed like a good choice, at least for now. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too difficult to raise the other skills if I found that I preferred a different type of weapon.

I turned my attention to my racial ability.

Half Borne of Magic- Your half elvish heritage grants you access to low level spells. Choose 2 1st -level spells. These can be used once per day. You have a chance to learn additional spells by observing them (1%), or reading a scroll or spellbook (5%).

That explained the two empty spell slots. My chance to learn new spells seemed low, but hey magic, the fact I had access to any at all was amazing. I turned my attention to the free slots and a list of spells appeared in front of me. Since magic didn’t seem like something I’d be able to focus on I chose spells that seemed like they’d supplement my ability to fight rather than be directly offensive themselves.

Grease- cover a 5x5 foot area in a fine coating of flammable grease. (cost:1 drop of oil)

Flash Step- instantly appear five feet away in any direction (cost: 1 small feather)

I felt something appear at my side and was surprised to find a new pouch at my belt. I opened it and inside I found several feathers and a small vial of oil. It seemed the system didn’t like to give people abilities without giving them the tools necessary to actually utilize them.

I took a deep breath. I was taking everything in stride and I wasn’t entirely sure why. I’d died, and reached another world, but I felt strangely calm. I was focused more on immediate problems rather than lingering or troubling questions, of which I now had dozens. Whether it was shock, or disbelief I decided to push aside thinking too hard about it and instead embrace it. Calm was good, it would help me get my bearings.

I looked around the cavern I’d awoken in. There were several paths around me, and I could hear the occasional scuttling from different directions. It reminded me of the rats I used to hear in the walls of my apartment. Perhaps the first thing I should do was kill ten of them? That would feel right based on the gamelike system I found myself in. I then remembered the other prompt I’d received earlier, I’d been given a quest. I pulled it up.

System Quest

Not as it should be:

A being is living in this area that was not granted access by the system or the gods. Eliminate it or return it from whence it came.

Reward: Significant XP, Hidden, A Choice

That was ominous, but I did appreciate having a goal given to me from on high. Goals had been something I’d struggled to create for myself on Earth, a little direct guidance was a welcome change of pace. I was curious as to what the ‘hidden’ reward was, but I guessed based on the context that it would be significant. I also wondered what a ‘Choice’ was. Was it a new class? Or something different?

I picked one of the paths and started walking. The one I chose slowly widened into a tunnel the size of a road and I realized quickly that I wasn’t in a simple cave, but an extensive tunnel system. After what felt like a half-hour of wandering I entered a wide-open cavern. The gloom of it was lit by luminescent mushrooms that lined the walls and it had a small river running through its center, the trickling of which echoed pleasantly throughout the room. From the ceiling hung patches of what looked like vines and at the other end of the cavern was a tunnel that was very clearly lit by something bright. I made my way straight toward it, passing under several vines as I did.

Under a particular patch of vine I found suddenly that I couldn’t move. I strained myself, but something was pulling on me. I whipped around and reached for the dagger at my hip, but saw nothing, but vines.

They wrapped around me, tangling me in a thick cluster of them. They began pulling me and soon I lost my footing and fell, but the vines just clung tightly enough to me that I didn’t hit the ground and instead found myself being pulled toward the ceiling. I looked along the vines and saw what could only be described as a cave squid, hanging above me. It was roughly my size and had its tentacles wrapped around stalactites to stay suspended. I was being pulled directly toward a massive beak behind which I could see rows of razor sharp teeth.

I wiggled my hand down to my dagger and just managed to draw it by arching my body in a way I wouldn’t have been capable of only an hour before. I couldn’t completely free my arm so I began sawing at the tentacle nearest to my hand, but even as I cut it, it was replaced by two more wrapping themselves around me.

I took a breath and closed my eyes, trying to calm myself down and think. I opened my eyes and watched as I was slowly drawn toward the fanged maw. Just as I was about to reach it, I came up with a plan

I cast grease on myself, covering myself in slick oil, and I freed my arm from the tentacles that had snared it. I waited until I could smell the creature's breath and I stabbed upward as hard as I could and as quickly as I could. I managed to tear a massive hole next to its beak and it let out a dreadful scream. It started to lose its hold on me and I kept stabbing, doing as much damage to it as I could.

Its blue blood ran freely, raining down on me and it let me go completely. I landed hard on my back, all the air driven from my lungs. I gasped for air, and watched tentacles writhe above me as the squid continued to scream.

It fell toward me, its beak aimed for my head. I quickly rolled away before it could land on top of me. It thrashed and several tentacles slammed into me. I pushed my way through them toward the main body and started striking at it with abandon. By the time it stopped moving I was absolutely coated in grease and blue blood, panting heavily. I kneeled down while I recovered my breath. I found that I was smiling through all of it. That had been, well, fun. Clearly my mental state had changed since I'd arrive.

After a few minutes I’d regained enough of my composure to stand and a notification popped into existence in front of me.

Congratulations! You’ve slain a Cave Squid (lvl 3)! You gain 225 xp!

Well, I’d guessed the name correctly. Or the system was subbing in a name based on what I thought it was. I considered trying to butcher the dead creature for a few moments, before deciding I was already messy enough. Instead I continued my walk toward the source of light.

As I walked I pulled my stat screen back up. I’d avoided placing my 6 free stat points earlier, but it seemed that being conservative may not be the best option if I wanted to survive. I distributed the points with a focus on evening out my stats, placing a little extra emphasis on my low luck. I didn’t necessarily need it to be high, but I definitely preferred it to be somewhere north of terrible.

STR: 12

DEX: 13

SPD: 13

INT: 14

->WIS: 10

PER: 11

->CON:10

->LCK: 8

I was hoping a boost to CON would improve my survivability and the point in WIS may help me to have the sense to tread more carefully in the caves on unfamiliar worlds I happen to be spelunking in. Luck was a bit of a wild card, I didn't want to boost it all the way to ten, but I also didn't like the look of a 5 among the rest of my stats. I was used to having absolutely crap luck, so just kind of bad luck would be a welcome improvement. Still, I wasn’t sure of what all of my stats actually represented or what they influenced. Would increasing my INT actually make me smarter? Would putting all of my points into SPD eventually turn me into the Flash?

Eventually the well lit path opened up into a massive cavern. The light was coming from rows of luminescent mushrooms that were arrayed in neat lines, and even a small amount of sunlight that spilled through narrow openings in the ceiling far above where I stood. The path wound downward toward what looked to be rows of stone structures over which colorful fungi had been planted into patterns. Some of the patterns were simple geometric shapes, and others were complex, depicting scenes that actually shifted depending on the angle at which I looked at them. From where I stood I could see that this stretch of cavern went on for what seemed like miles, with rivers, forests of massive mushrooms, and even small patches of grass and normal trees that stood tall in areas where sunlight shone down. I suppose normal may be a bit unfair. Perhaps mushroom trees were more the norm in this world.

I started walking along the mushroom-lit path toward the large stone buildings I assumed represented some type of civilization. As I got closer I started to see shapes and colors moving about. Men and women about half my height and much squatter were milling about, going about their days. As I got closer I realized that the colors I was seeing were the people’s clothing. They were decorated in bright neon patterns similar to the ones on their buildings.

I assumed they were dwarves. They had the height, and a number of both the men and women had beards, and were underground. Hard to doubt what they were based on that. I wondered how we’d come up with dwarves on Earth. Did we come up with them on our own? Were the dwarves on Earth originally? Were dwarves a part of our collective unconscious? Were we a part of theirs?

I was so wrapped up in these questions that by the time I’d reached the village I’d completely forgotten that I was covered in grease and blood and I’d spent absolutely no time considering what I’d actually do once I arrived. By the time I’d realized that I was already receiving stares and a small group of burly dwarves was rolling up to me with short sharp sickles in their hands. They were talking amongst each other, pointing and yelling at me in a series of grunts and syllables that I didn’t recognize.

I held up my hands as they approached, hoping the gesture for ‘I’m harmless’ was universal.

“I, uh, come in peace.”

They didn’t slow down, and started swinging.