The first thing he saw upon waking was a gorgeous corruscating rainbow playing over the surface of a limited edition holo-foil card, one with a raven strutting like a big man on campus, a gleam in its beady black eye and… was that a hint of smile on its beak? As for the words, they blurred out due to the headache, and were forgotten when the enraged scream stole all of his attention away. He turned to see a huge, gigantic form fill the doorway of what must’ve been a giant’s castle.

The monster was squashed somehow, like a person who hadn’t finished shooting up during puberty, with ears that stuck out and features more suited to wide grins than the present enraged snarl. In the squashy man-monster’s hand was… a broken acoustic guitar? It was certainly a mess of wood and strings.

The squashy guy with the broken guitar threw his head back and bellowed in a kind of keening wail, mostly rage but at least twenty percent song. Literal reddish light was coming off his body, beginning with his eyes and mouth, and continuing around him.

Heavy Metal. You have been affected by an aura of intimidation! You will suffer penalties on attack and defense rolls until the effect wears off.

Are you ready to ROCK?

He was not ready.

“Get back here so I can kill you again!” the giant little guy screamed, and the timbre of his voice did it. He sounded… adorable. Like a five year old cussing out his mother in slightly lispy, not fully-formed syllables.

No way he was sticking around for this. No way. He grabbed the holo-foil card in his beak and clumsily hop-flapped away, ignoring for now his brain’s utter shock at the body parts he definitely shouldn’t have.

Wings? Um, what? Beak? Double um… WHAT?

He heard the crash of expertly crafted thin wood parts splintering into even more millions of pieces right behind him, just as he leapt out the window and into the pre-dawn sky.

Hang on a second… he wasn’t entirely sure of his own name. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure where he was or what he was doing. Or, you know, why he was a bird instead of a human.

“Oh no,” he muttered, and nearly dropped the card.

***

He flapped around and took stock of his surroundings. Okay, it seemed like your typical magic-infused medieval township: market square surrounded by a multi-purpose temple, town hall, inn, and maybe a smithy. Further out were thatched roofs on top of mud and timber walls, with a few slate-shingled roofs on top of brick walls. Mostly one floor, with the smithy, inn, and town hall reaching the incredible heights of TWO floors, and the crowning achievement: the temple tower rose an amazing thirty feet in the air.

There had to be… yes, a good-sized oak tree older than time itself. Wait… he wasn’t sure if he knew how to land either.

A muffled series of curses followed, while he crashed into a number of leaves and smaller twigs, passed his intended landing zone, and ended up beak-planting on another branch.

Ouch! You have dealt yourself 2 damage.

What’re you, new?

If it was any consolation, he was now safe from the tiny giant. Probably. Unless the little guy with the intimidation thing could climb trees at an alarming rate.

​​No. He could fly. For now he was safe, and if that psycho came waving a new guitar and shooting lightning bolts at him, he’d jump off that bridge when he came to it… and fly away.

Okay. He desperately needed to get a handle on what was going on here. He very carefully set the card on the branch, given that they were both roughly the same width. The card wobbled drunkenly for a moment before settling down.

First, you really had to admire the holo-foil on this thing. It shimmered in the dim, slightly available light of the first peek of dawn, full of tremendous colors. Even the raven on the top half of the card had a sheen over the midnight blue purple of the feathers.

“Okay,” he breathed, and hopped backwards to get a better look at the text.

The top of the card said Corbin Dogherty–Raven Familiar.

Corbin. His name was Corbin. As soon as he thought the name, he knew it to be the truth. Some deep part of his bird brain understood true objective reality, and knew a memory for what it was.

He tested it out with his raven beak. What came out was “Caw!” He managed ‘Corbin’ a few tries later.

Along with his name, he got a few mental images that seemed tied to him: a scraggly ginger goatee reflected in a mirror, a cute girl with pale skin, a few freckles, and luxurious hair the color of his present plumage, and lastly a smallish box of a room. It held little more than a threadbare wraparound couch and a smallish television on a pair of milk crates with a board slung between them.

Yikes, he hadn’t been rich… but he had been a man. But the image of the apartment living room and the flash of a frameless mattress in a bedroom didn’t gel with the Middle Ages town around him. Maybe he’d traveled back in time or something. That didn’t matter as much as a) how he’d transformed into a raven in the first place, and b) how he’d gotten a card with his name on it.

He wished he remembered more.

Okay, rest of the card.

Equip this card and gain the following abilities at Level 1:

Shared perception up to 100ft

Speak to master telepathically up to 50ft

Channel master’s abilities up to 20 ft

Sympathetic HP loss*

This familiar has the following abilities:

Mimicry (costs minimal mana)

Unsettling Aura (3x per day)

True Sight (passive)

Special: If this card is placed in a Core Slot, the user may choose to become a Caster, Scoundrel, or Adventurer.

That was a lot to unpack. Corbin wasn’t sure what to make of all this, aside from the striking similarity to a card game he’d played in middle and high school, Mad Card Again. Another memory: Him selling off several cards he’d gotten from the early sets, and then finishing up university, only to learn he could’ve sold them ten years later for thousands of dollars apiece.

He didn’t especially like the idea that he needed a master, unless maybe it was the girl from his former life. Hopefully a girlfriend and not his sister. This caused a momentary shudder and ruffling of feathers. He’d focus on her later, like when he turned back into a creature capable of dating or even finding said girl.

At the very bottom of the card, he noted the inexplicable numbering system common to all collectible card games: he was card number 765, and the rarity was listed as HR: Hyper Rare. He couldn’t see the back, but a tree branch thirty feet up had already bashed his face… wait.

“I have a character sheet,” he gurgled to himself.

Yes, in the periphery of his vision he noted something like a button, and pressed it. A grid filled with numbers appeared, looking not at all like Mad Card Again! the collectible card game:

SPECIAL attribute array: Corbin Dogherty, Raven Familiar

Level 0

XP: 0/100

Strength 2

Perception 8

Endurance 3

Charm 3

Intelligence 9

Agility 7

Luck 14

Skills:

Inspect (Perception) level 1

Kismet (Luck) level 1

Serendipity (Luck) level 1

HP: 13/15

MP: 30/30

Oh? Really? Luck was his highest attribute, eh? He wasn’t sure how that computed, but he didn’t note any buttons with which to change anything. Apparently he’d just have to settle for being a very perceptive, intelligent, agile, lucky weakling. Who nobody liked. Fabulous.

“Hey! Jamal, Stephie, where the hell are you?” the guy called.

Nothing.

“You two better not be all over each other again! We got a job to do.”

A young woman’s voice cried, first moaning, then whining, “Come on, Steve, we got him like a hundred times. Can’t we take a break? It’s been like fourteen hours.”

“Where’s Rico?” the little guy shouted.

“Shut up!” some other random person cried. “Cock’s barely crowin’ and y’all are shoutin’ like it’s a bloody tavern after dark.”

“Rico went through the portal,” the young woman answered, out of breath.

Steve, the little guy without a guitar any longer, roared. He came into Corbin’s line of sight a second later, peered around, and he bared his teeth at the bird in the tree.

“Oy! That you there, bird?” the tinny shout rang out. The huge tiny guy from before didn’t seem so menacing now that he wasn’t five feet away and towering over a foot tall bird. Corbin wanted to figure out what the guy’s deal was, mostly in order to figure out more about himself, but not so badly that he’d risk getting crushed. He watched as the slim little maniac paced back and forth, then suddenly produced a slingshot.

“Time to go,” Corbin chirped, and bent to retrieve his card. He didn’t know if this pint-sized lunatic could claim his card and become his ‘master’ but wasn’t willing to chance it.

“I will murder every single bird I see until I kill you!” the little guy promised, loudly.

“Not at six a.m. you won’t!” someone called from a house or two away. “Let an old woman rest her tired bones, won’t ya?”

Starter Quest received! – Find a Master

Find a character looking to equip your card and employ your services as a Familiar.

Pull yourself up by your non-existent bootstraps

Reward: 100 experience

Corbin wasn't entirely sure how to get the screen out of his face announcing his basic quest. He’d played a ton of video games in his previous life as a gangly, freckly ginger guy, that much he knew, though their names still eluded him. This was definitely not that. In the first place, there was no Pause option. He couldn’t just turn off that freaky guitar-smashing psycho, for one. There was a large X at the top right corner of the box, but his wings were a little busy here, thanks. He also couldn’t just tell the X to go away, on the off chance he dropped the card that made him a slave.

He headed into a dive and pulled up on top of another market square, and even though Luck was his highest stat, the card slid out of his beak and fluttered to the grungy alley beside the town’s inn.

He cawed a nasty curse, pecked at the X to make the quest go away, and was about to dive down when a figure emerged from the shadows, snatched up the card, and peered at it. A moment later their hood tipped upward and revealed the face of a young woman. He couldn’t make out anything below the twisty mask thing she had on covering the bottom half of her face, but she had intense yellow cat eyes, a thin layer of fur, and she was caked with grime.

Corbin swore. He knew that the quest thinger had told him that he needed to find a master but he really hadn’t been all that excited about following through. It seemed, though, that fate had other plans. He narrowed his beady black eyes, twitching his head to give her the birdy side-eye. Luck of 14 my ass, he thought, trying as hard as he could to glare.

She turned it back and forth in her hand, mesmerized by the rainbow reflections that cast off of its silvered patina. A moment later, his card was in the flattened purse that sagged from her side. Her head turned back and forth, checking to be sure that no one had seen her acquisition, and she strode off with long-legged intent. Corbin sidestepped and ruffled his feathers in frustration, a thing that he didn’t even understand how he knew to do. Surprisingly it calmed him down and let him think.

Okay, so cat lady has my card. My card with my name on it. And the quest display said I need a master. I feel like I need a lawyer, to be honest. But baby steps here. Follow her, but don’t let her know I’m following her. And swoop and grab the first moment that card makes its appearance.

She was walking off in a hurry and he flapped up, then soared down in a noiseless glide.

So far so good. Oh, and I need to name the display thingamajig. I’ll just call it the prompt.

She turned a corner, stopped, turned around and went in the other direction.

Achieved - Flight of the Hatchling!

Flap, flutter and soar with grace, you have received a 5% speed bonus to flight.

Interesting, he supposed. Plusses and bonuses were nice even if he had no fricking clue whether it was actually useful. The unnamed cat person paused, looking around again, then looked straight up as he passed overhead.

Oh shit, he thought, watching in slow motion horror as his body did just that, releasing a whitish pudding-like substance that splattered down over her mask-covered chin. Cat Lady shrieked and cursed while passers-by stopped to point and laugh.

Well so much for sneak-flying. Corbin circled and observed, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t put the image of the card with the raven flying above her. He was relieved when, a wipe of her chin later, she hadn’t.

The two of them traveled another three blocks, Cat Lady finally turning and walking down into a dead-end alley after furtively looking about, presumably to be sure that she hadn’t been followed. She walked through the mess of the alley to its trash-strewn end, eyed the alley entrance once more, then lifted a few select pieces to reveal a wooden trap door. She rapped on it three times.

“Yeah, wot you on about then?” a grumpy voice sounded from within. Being as high as he was, it surprised Corbin to understand his words as if he were standing next to it. He had the feeling that she was going to disappear down there soon, so he swung down and landed upon the roof of an adjacent building.

“I dun come to settle me accounts, have mind. Bluddy bumpkin, gimme the transit key.”

The words were strange and reminded me of something. Tea, crumpets, and phenomenally bad teeth. He bird-footed it closer, hunching a little to make sure he couldn’t be seen.

“Yeah?” the voice inside questioned. His voice went from bored to doubtful. “How ya plan on doin’ dat?”

Cat Lady shifted her stance. “Ya, alright then. Maybe I go someair else, sees if’n I can’t get a better deal with my lucky fine an’ jus’n pay the boss a portion ratha than the whole kit n’ kaboodle.”

“Hang on,” the trapdoor replied. “You said nothin’ of a lucky fine’. Come in, then, lemme take a look.”

The door popped up and he saw a fat shirtless man, with heavy body hair and green skin. It was shocking, but not nearly as shocking as the twin tusks that jutted from either side of his mouth. And beyond him, Corbin made out the shadowed interior of some sort of foyer slash bedroom combo. There was a soiled mattress on the floor, and a small table covered in crumbs in the corner. It seemed tiny and he guessed that there must be a door out. It made him nervous to think about it, but he was going to have to go underground if he wanted to see what happened next—and maybe make his getaway, masterless and his own man-brained avian. Corbin made a quick swoop and rode the air as he aimed for Cat Lady’s pack. It was impossible, the sun was high and his furtive movements so near and close to them would surely draw their attention.

Somehow, luckily, it did not. Cat Lady closed the trap door behind her and Green Man pulled a string that grinded and whirred and presumably did something, while Corbin tugged at the drawstring to her pack. He got it just loose enough just in time then he disappeared into the top fold of her backpack, letting himself rest a moment before peeking back out.

Cat Lady had moved out from the foyer and was now walking down a dark and mold-smelling corridor. There was the occasional torch but it was almost like midnight here. He wondered how they could stand it. Her steps echoed as she walked and Corbin ducked his head back in again. The place frightened him a lot, and the stench was unbearable. Some random lost thought told him that it was probably because he was a bird, but the whole human theory didn’t quite add up. What if he had actually been a bird the entirety of his life and at some point he’d just gone crazy?

Too much time to think is gonna make me go insane, he reflected. I was definitely a man. He popped his head back out and saw that they were now in a wide circular chamber. Here it was much brighter and he gazed in awe and the many torches and their effects on the glittery surface of the ceiling. A kaleidoscope of colors rolled over the room. Like a discotheque, his crazed mind told him, showing him images of men in white suits opened to reveal gold necklaces and hairy chests. Ugh. What was it with the world and hairy man chests? He seemed to see them everywhere.

His bright eyes caught the first glimpse of another humanoid, a regular-looking dude in shiny brown leather. Corbin ducked back into the pack. There was no way he could keep his head sticking out if he didn’t want to be noticed. He was going to have to plan a way to pop out, swoop, and escape whenever that card made an appearance though. For now, he’d just listen and make the plan as things rolled along.

Simpler was certainly better.