Ryan rose from bed before the sun peeked over the horizon. Farm life didn’t lend itself to sleeping in, and Mags would come dump him out of bed before too long anyway if he lingered. He rolled out of bed, tempted to let the soft bedding and fresh smell lure him back to sleep.

He liked to use this early morning time to get a light workout in before Mags handed him odd jobs and other work to do for the day. Mags didn’t farm but a fraction of the land she owned. She had many tenant farmers on her lands in the surrounding area and spent most of her time managing her holdings. She kept two or three small fields, like the one they worked the day before, for her own work to experiment with optimizing crop rotations or new and exotic varieties of plants.

Ryan ran through his normal exercise routine, opting for body-weight exercises and some calisthenics. He took care to keep the wound on his leg from undue strain, although it felt well enough. He went for a quick run within the walls of the compound itself, weaving through outbuildings, workshops, and around the main residence. He worked until his muscles buzzed pleasantly and a light sheen of sweat covered him.

All construction in the area was built with the high-quality lumber that was readily available in the nearby forest. They were solidly built, single story affairs that sprawled within the confines of the walls to protect against the occasional roaming threats common in this world. Ryan walked into one such building reserved as a bathhouse to wash off the sweat of his workout.

Fetching water from a barrel off to the side, he filled a wash basin and set it on the bench next to him. Looking at his watery reflection, he examined the changes to his face. His features were sharp, partly due to the manual labor and physical training, but his face was narrow to begin with. The stress from his battle the previous night was reflected back at him.

He looked older than his 24 years too, but that wasn’t a surprise. Being out in the weather all day, working hard, will age you. His light brown eyes with hints of green were more intense than they were back in his computer science and application development days fresh out of college at his cushy high paying job. Mussing his straight, light brown hair, he smoothed it back with water from the basin. There was definitely change in his features, but not for the worse. He liked what he saw. He had leaned out since then too, his average height offset by the wiry muscled he’d built up from work and training.

Cleaned up and in fresh clothes, Ryan sat down in his room to study Rune Script until Mags came back from her morning rounds. Pulling out the book that Mags had provided him when he first expressed his interest, he ran his work-roughened hands over the book, feeling the cracks in the hard cover from the heat and repeated use from many other hands.

He opened the frayed pages to what was now a familiar sight. The book was filled with page after page of symbols that resembled some Asian languages from Earth, but more twisty and precise. The meaning in the local language was shown next to each symbol. He struggled to learn it to read and write over the last two years, but gained solid enough understanding to function in most situations.

The book was not a guide to teach people how to use Rune Script. Using it was supposed to be easy. The problem was that it was a complete language that contained endless complexity, nuance, and variation. It was supposed to have been created whole and complete by the lost god of magic at the same time that the Keys started appearing. According to Mags, there were incredible enchantments and objects out in the world created by those who dedicated their lives to Rune Script.

The real problem lay in the simple fact that Ryan couldn’t activate Rune Script. It required an awareness of your own aura, which he vaguely sensed here and there, but had no genuine success. He couldn’t figure out the trick. Those of this world seemed to have grown up knowing how to do it. To Ryan, it felt like arriving having grown a third arm. He had never had a third arm. He didn’t know how to use a third arm. Trying to discover how to use a third arm while people around him told him “you just do it,” didn’t help him figure out how to do it. Still, he continued to keep his nose to the grindstone, memorizing the shapes of the runes and their nebulous meanings.

Ryan leaned back in his chair and stretched, his body settled into a nice post-workout buzz. It was just another item on the pile of frustration that he had built since his arrival. He felt helpless. If nothing changed, he would remain a farmhand. He lacked the skills that people in this world needed. There was nothing inherently wrong with farming, but the thought raised feelings of deep discontent within him nonetheless.

It would be the ultimate irony, to be thrown to a magical world only to be denied the ability to explore it. The world was dangerous for him as it was. Trying to go at it alone and without power was asking for a quick and boring death. He’d made great strides in his mundane combat skills, but they weren’t enough.

Ryan snapped the book shut. He couldn’t focus his mind and trying to study in a scattered state of mind was counterproductive. He got up and left his room, making his way to the front of the residence to sit on the stairs and wait for Mags’ return. The morning atmosphere was pleasant and fresh, no dust in the air from animals or wind. It was the perfect spot to soak in the morning, and he settled down to wait.

Not long after, Mags entered the compound through the front entrance, the sounds of her distinct stride echoing through the courtyard. She approached the front steps and planted herself in front of Ryan. A mischievous look flashed over her face, which she quickly hid with her normal stern mask.

“I’m having you check the perimeter fencing and walls today. The whole thing,” she said.

Ryan leapt to his feet, his head buzzing with excitement and a bit of apprehension. The perimeter encompassed all her lands, not just the ones she tended herself. They were also far away from the safety of the compound, with only the scattered homes of the tenant farmers providing any kind of shelter. More importantly, it was closer to the northern forest where visibility was limited. From his perspective, it was dangerous to be out there by himself. It was perfect. Since his arrival, he hadn’t been able to do much on his own away from the central compound area, the previous night being an exception.

She hadn’t come out and said it, but sending him out to the property borders was as good as giving him permission to hunt for beasts, if he came across them. It was a giant leap in how she viewed his abilities in comparison to just a few days ago. Ryan’s heart warmed a bit knowing that Mags’ faith in him had grown.

“I know what you’re thinking. You think you’re going to rush out there and slay all the beasts in the forest,” Mags said, her features softened into a casual smile. “Bah. You have the wrong impression of the danger in this region. How many attacks have there been since you’ve been around? Three? Four? That’s unusually high for around here. We sometimes go years without a single incident, and when we get beast activity, it’s almost never worse than the Onslaught Badgers, which you showed you can handle last night.”

Ryan scrunched up his face. Handle? He had flailed his way through that fight by the skin of his teeth. He was lucky that he came out of there with a laceration up his leg and no other serious injuries. While he still felt a bit of the fear that the beasts had wrenched out of him, he was itching to get out there and redeem himself, preferably not on badgers though.

Ryan relaxed and nodded his head, his expression shifting to one of acceptance. Maybe he wouldn’t be hacking and slashing his way through a mob of monsters, but he needed the experience, such as it was. Exposure therapy is what they might have called it in his previous life. Seeing that he had calmed down a bit, Mags sat next to him.

“It can be dangerous out there sometimes, but this isn’t like the old country of Larebrok to the northwest. One of the old tyrants kicked all the residents out and took over the whole place,” she said.

“How far away is Larebrok from here?” Ryan asked, intrigued and unsettled in equal measure that there was an entire territory ruled by a powerful beast.

“The old borders are about three days of solid walking west from here, but you won’t see much beast activity until you’re deeper into the rain forest. Enough of this, though. Get out there and take care of business.” With that, Mags clapped him on the shoulder, and walked off around the side of the residence.

Ryan dragged himself to his feet. He took a second to stretch and went inside to fetch his spear. He stepped out onto the stairs, headed for the front entrance to the compound, and after a brief hesitation, turned south toward the path leading to the grasslands, the opposite direction of the forest. As much as he wanted to head to the forest, it would be better to concentrate on the work at hand first.

He hustled down the well-beaten path, the dirt crunching pleasantly under his boots and the morning sun casting its warmth over his face. He once again passed fields ready for planting, various animal enclosures, and empty plots of land waiting for work to be done. Ryan admired the picturesque feel of the place. Off in the distance, he spied some tenant farmers hard at work planting for the season. It was an amazing place, but it wasn’t enough to keep him here.

Ryan arrived at the first section of the perimeter fence after the sun had cleared the horizon. This section of fence was waist high, made from small pieces of wood and sticks stacked and interlaced between fence posts that sat about two meters from each other. The fence wasn’t meant to do more than deter wandering animals and the occasional beast from getting onto the property, as well as act as a border marker. It still needed the occasional check to make sure it wasn’t collapsing or otherwise damaged.

Ryan turned east along the fence line, walking at a moderate pace. He kept his eye on the barrier, looking for damage, but didn’t pass up the opportunity to admire the landscape. To the south and east was newly green grass covering gently rolling hills, and if he concentrated, he could make out the distant dark outline of a forest.

As he walked, he occasionally spotted tenant farmers out about their daily activities. He gave them friendly waves and they returned them in kind. Ryan had met most of them, but they led busy lives and except for when they needed to speak to Mags, they stayed away from the main residence and tended their own homes and lives.

Ryan continued his fence audit, noting places where it needed repair. He would likely have him come out the next day with supplies to do the repairs himself, so he took extra care to remember the locations and type of damage.

His path turned toward the northern section of the fence, which turned into a low stone wall in this area. It was made mostly with stones taken from the fields, the same work he had recently done.

His excitement rose the further north he walked. He tried to temper his expectations with Mags’ insights, but he couldn’t help but imagine himself storming the forest, conquering all the threats that presented themselves. Unbidden, the memory of his recent near defeat by the two Onslaught Badgers popped into his head and he chuckled. Maybe not a conqueror. It might be best to pace himself a bit.

Ryan forced himself to relax. He stopped walking, took a great big deep breath, stretched his arms above his head, and let the tension drain out with his breath. To the locals, the forest was just another place. Perhaps it had a wider variety of animal life, but it was just a forest.

To Ryan, it was the place where the Breached dumped him. He had been shaking with terror. It was full of alien sights and sounds, strange smells, and terrifying animal life. His initial reaction upon finding himself on the forest floor in his underwear was to turtle up and not move a muscle. Finding that an ineffective strategy, he’d wrapped his blanket around himself and started walking.

It hadn’t taken long for something to spook him. He had convinced himself that he was about to die from an alien monster attack at any second. He had bolted, blanket forgotten, running through the forest in his underwear. His fear had risen until he was in a full blown panic sprint. He had wildly searched for unknown threats and hadn’t been paying attention to where he was going. Inevitably he ran face first into a tree, knocking himself out. That’s how Mags had found him, face banged up at the base of a tree, naked except for his underwear, unable to understand a word being said to him. Mags was an angel of patience those first six months.

He’d long since experienced real things that were more frightening than the forest. He’d been attacked by an Onslaught Badger, he’d seen others running off to fight nameless dangers. He’d trained with Mags. He’d fought and killed two badgers all on his own, after all. Still, the forest seemed mysterious and dangerous and filled to the brim with adventure, and opportunities to prove to himself that he was worthy of joining a Guild.

The stone wall gradually approached the edge of the forest until there was only a small track of 10 meters between them. The sights and sounds didn’t frighten him any more, but the shadows thrown by the afternoon sun cast a mysterious veil over the edge of the forest that his eyes couldn’t pierce. He stopped when he reached the closest point to the forest and leaned against the wall. He could hear the sounds of birds and animals going about their business. He spotted their flitting movements passing through patches of sunlight that made it through the canopy above.

Ryan propped his hands on top of the wall, ready to leap over and go explore. Before he was fully up, he scrunched up his nose in disgust. A faint scent, like that of rotting garbage, invaded his nostrils. He snorted, trying to clear his nose of the smell, but it wouldn’t go away.

He looked up and down the line of the forest, but didn’t spot anything strange. He braced his hands further out on the wall and leaned over to look at the base. To the east he saw nothing out of the ordinary, just grass and stone wall. He looked to the west and saw something odd down a way. It appeared to be a patch of trampled grass right at the base of the wall. Ryan could see where stones had come loose from whatever had happened.

Ryan hopped back to the inside of the wall and walked down toward the trampled grass, apprehensive. Anything dead out here was bound to be unpleasant and it would probably attract animals or beasts to come scavenge the remains. He reached the spot and peeked over the wall.

He recoiled in disgust. Whatever it had been, it had rotted away and the remaining flesh looked like it had melted into a sticky sludge. The general outline of the body resembled that of a big dog, or maybe a wolf of some kind. The stench overwhelmed him. He plugged his nose, blinked tears out of his eyes, and took a few deep breaths through his mouth. He peeked over the wall to get a better look.

Ryan’s eyes flew open as wide as dinner plates. His breath caught in his throat and he couldn’t smell the rot even if he’d wanted to. Nestled in the half exposed ribcage, next to where he assumed were the sludgy remains of a heart, was a shining orb. A deep crimson orb the size of a golf ball. It was a Key.