George woke up when he felt cold drips on his face. He hauled himself up in a hurry, then took a moment to look around.

He didn’t know why he blacked out. It hadn’t really happened before. Maybe he should go to a doctor. If he knew where he was at the moment.

He clearly remembered being in his room moments ago. Well, if you don’t count time passing when he was unconscious. For him, it was moments.

Then, he was… here, wherever here was. He couldn’t see much, that was for certain. It felt damp and it was definitely cold. There really wasn’t much he could see, but he could feel cold rock, and when he touched the floor, he could feel more rock and dirt and some mud.

His instincts said he was in a cave. Where he got those instincts he didn’t know, but he decided to go with that until proven otherwise.

The place wasn’t pitch black, which is something that should be unusual when you’re in a cave. However, he did realise that there was indeed some sort of light on the ceiling. It looked like small specks of glowing rock. The ceiling was unfortunately too tall for him to reach, so he gave up on the idea of grabbing one. He also didn’t have any extraction tool with him to actually get the glowing rock out of the ceiling in the first place.

The cave he was in, or at least the part of it he currently occupied, seemed to be empty. Except for the large book that was at his feet.

He distinctly remembered the book popping into existence with a flash of light before passing out. He thought it was probably how he got where he was as well, as unconvincing as that sounded. Then again, moving from one place to another in the blink of an eye was definitely convincing him to that idea.

He picked the book up, figuring since there was no one else here it was meant for him. If it wasn’t, then it definitely was now.

The book looked new but ragged. It was weird to him how a new book could look ragged, but it was. There were no obvious stains or marks of use on it, but the leather, or what he assumed to be leather, covers and the bindings looked like they’ve seen better times.

The front cover showed a large circle with various geometrical shapes inscribed inside it, but no discernible letters. The bookmark was held on the very first page, so he decided to open it, seeing as the cover was utterly useless at telling him what the book was about.

The dim light of the ceiling was barely enough for him to read.

To the glory of ___________

Well, that was useless. The glory of what? This book was starting to give more questions than answers. The second page held a rather large swath of text.

Heal

Divinity Spell, No Domain

To call upon this spell, the caster must concentrate on and will his power through the wound he wishes to close.

The stronger the connection to the Deity, the more power surges into the wound and it is mended better.

Current Domain - None. No further benefits.

The rest of the page contained various inscriptions on how to properly focus on the wounds, and which wounds should be prioritised. It seemed less like medicine and more like what he would consider alchemy was like.

There were several hanging issues here.

The most obvious one was that this was apparently a book of spells, and it seemed to belong to no one, as apparent from page one. Maybe it was his book of spells.

George considered the implications of a spellbook in his hand. He still hasn’t got over the fact that he has literally blinked into his place, but if that was also a spell, it might be useful to think of it as such.

So, George’s first revelation was that spells exist.

Of course, George was in his early twenties and played games. He knew what his versions of spells were, in games. Having a spellbook actually sat in his hands was a wholly new experience.

The book said that Heal was a Divinity Spell. Considering that the likelihood of the book belonging to him was high, he figured that he was not actually a sort of divinity, but more that he was, or should be, working for the Divine, or a Deity, as there was a mention of one.

Maybe there were multiple Deities. The colloquial usage of the definite article could mean that this was supposed to be either one Deity as a whole or a Deity in particular.

There didn’t seem to be more information about Deities and belief systems in particular on this page.

Then there was the part of the domain. Several games liked to talk about domains, mostly in regards to how magic was classified. If his spell currently had no domain, and seemingly so, no benefits because of it, then there had to be domains, and the spell would get benefits when it got one.

His musings about domain got interrupted when the relative silence around him was broken for the first time. George almost completely forgot where he was for a moment, but the dimness of the corridor reminded him that he was in an unfamiliar place.

He could hear sounds in the distance, but the corridor bent rather quickly up ahead. The sounds seemed to get closer though, so whatever was making it was approaching. He could discern that the noise was actually of something, or things, moving across the cave floor rather hurriedly considering the frequency of the pace.

He didn’t really want to get out of the relative safety of his empty corridor, and had briefly considered going the other way, but decided to stay put and see what was coming his way. Maybe it wasn’t so bad, and it could help him get a feel for this place.

What came around the bend and into his view didn’t seem friendly. A spider the size of a dog skittered towards him, then stopped at an arbitrary point about two meters away from him, perhaps because he was noticed.

George read that, all things considered, spiders didn’t really have that good of an eyesight. Then again, spiders usually didn’t grow to the size of a dog.

The spider made a clicking noise and propped itself on its hind legs, rather large fangs showing. It looked like it would hurt. And most spiders were venomous.

George started backing up, trying to inch slowly from the spider. He thought that spider would perhaps leave him alone if he backed off.

The spider didn’t seem to budge until George took a larger step back, then immediately got down on all eight legs and seemingly leapt towards him. George didn’t know if spiders could actually leap, but this one did its very best to try.

In a bout of panic, George grabbed the only thing he had at hand and swatted at a spider with his book. The leather cover of the book struck against the fangs and seemingly stopped the spider’s initial assault.

George had hoped that that would mean the spider would give up, but he had no such luck, as the spider only recoiled then went at George again, this time aiming for his leg.

George was usually slightly afraid of spiders back home, but something took over him, probably one of those instinct things he fostered deep inside. So he took the book and swatted the spider squarely across its face. But not before the spider bit him.

George yelped. He was in pain before but was never bit, especially by a spider the size of a dog. The sharp pain made him buckle down at almost eye level with the spider.

That, however, didn’t stop him from repeatedly hitting the spider with the book, even while the spider’s fang was still puncturing his right leg.

He repeatedly shoved the book into the space between the spider’s eyes until its head started to burst and bleed. After what seemed like ages of battering the spider’s head with a highly unqualified weapon, the spider dropped down and the fangs slightly released their hold on George’s leg.

George hit the spider a few more times for good measure, then extracted the fang out of the leg.

The leg started gushing blood as soon as he did that and George remembered that you should never take things out of you if you got stabbed.

Lamenting the lack of common sense, he remembered one useful thing he had — a heal.

He took the book, now slightly bloodied from both him and the spider, and started repeating the motions he saw on the first page.

The book told him to concentrate on the wound, which was incredibly easy as there seemed to be nothing else he could concentrate on.

The harder part was trying to figure out what willing his power meant. He imagined the wound closed, which didn’t produce anything. Then he imagined something closing the wound, which produced nothing as well.

Then he just focused on the wound as it was, ugly and gushing blood, and wished it closed.

And then something happened. The wound lit in a flash of light, not dissimilar to the one that produced the book, then… mended. It first stopped gushing blood out, then slowly started to close, leaving a huge scar across his lower leg, but George decided he didn’t really mind a scar, considering he lived.

George took a while to compose himself afterwards. He was dropped into a place he didn’t know, that apparently had real magic and Gods and spiders the size of dogs. He wanted to be home.

Then he heard more skittering coming from where the first spider came.

For the first time since he came to this place, George spoke.

“Damnit.”