Organic.

It was the only word he could think of to describe that smell. Not a stench. Just a strong odour that made itself known as being all-natural.

It was coming from the blanket that he was wrapped in.

Blanket? Why was he wearing a blanket in the middle of summer? His thoughts muddled by the sun in his eyes, which should not have been the case as his bed faced away from the window.

This was not his bed!

Goodie opened his eyes.

He was laying on a wooden cot, covered in the aforementioned smelly blanket. He didn't know enough about nature to be able to identify the material it was made from. Hemp, animal hair…human hair, whatever it was threatened to bring his eyes to tears. Why would anyone make something like this? he wondered before taking in more of his surroundings.

A room made up like a medical ward. Homemade. The walls unpainted, exposing old-style red bricks. The beds, all wooden cots with matching smelly blankets, had a privacy curtain on each side. White but thick. Too thick, more canvas than cloth. Goodie briefly wondered if the Amish built hospitals?

His attention drawn by the sound of movement to his left. A nurse came into view. At least he thought she was a nurse. She had a red cross on the front of her uniform but looked more akin to a nun. Cos-play? Maybe he had collapsed at a civil war re-enactment? A heatstroke in summer was possible, but he did not think that amnesia was a symptom. Or maybe it was, his knowledge of medicine being restricted to what he had seen on television.

"Ecscu…?" was all he got out before the nurse issued a small shriek as she clutched a hand to her chest and looked at him. Her eyes went wide. She then held up both hands, palms facing him and said "White!" her accent thick and heavy. "White." he heard her repeat as she then took off running back the way she came.

Goodie watched her disappear beyond the left side curtain of his bed before he laid his head back down. He assumed what she meant by ‘White’, was wait, but even if she had not, it would still be his plan of action. Inaction? Running about after having awoken in a hospital, or whatever this place may be, was not the wisest of moves. Besides, her body language suggested that she was off to fetch someone.

As he lay there, the sounds of life drifted in through the high placed windows on the wall opposite him. Was he underground?

It was city life. He did not know why he thought that, but it felt right. Which was odd because he distinctly heard the sound of animals amongst the unseen chorus. More than one type. Not cats or dogs. One may have been a horse, the rest remained unknown. Maybe this was not a city? Maybe it was just a busy town?

As he stopped focusing on the animals, he began to notice the lack of what he should have been hearing. Cars. Music. Electric things. Modern things. Where was he?

And the people. Their voices were not clear enough for him to hear what they said, but he could hear how they were saying it. When you live somewhere long enough, you get used to the patterns and the rhythms, and while they may have been speaking in English, it was certainly not in American.

A cold, prickly sensation began to travel along his ribs as he felt himself becoming stressed. He chided himself for freaking out before he knew what was going on.

He closed his eyes as he tried to chase away the butterflies in his stomach. Not succeeding, he tried the opposite. Imagining the extremes that could explain his current predicament.

Such as the apocalypse. Society had collapsed but was slowly rebuilding itself. They had found him in stasis within an underground facility, and needed his untainted genes to repopulate the earth. Or maybe he had travelled back in time, or gone isekai?

He had half a mind to try and summon a [MEN…

He could see it. His eyes were closed and he could see it. There was a [MENU] display right in front of him.

He opened his eyes. It was still there. He raised a finger to touch it…

"STOP!" someone yelled.

Goodie jerked his hand back, looking around for whoever yelled.

"Stop! don't move a muscle, I'm nearly there." A man said, the sound coming from his left. "Keep calm, you're not in danger. Every thing's going to be fine."

Why would he say something like that? Of course, he was going to freak out after being told there was no danger. Who would be calm after being made aware that that was a possibility?

The man soon appeared. Dressed like a college professor, with ginger hair and a small, thin physique. A big, bushy moustache seemed to be overcompensating for his receding hairline.

"Seventeen silver."

"What?" Goodie asked.

"The cost of living for a middle-class family is nearly a silver a month and we are going to give you seventeen silver. There are also plenty of jobs available, so there's no need to worry about that."

Goodie just stared at him.

The man reached out a hand. "Hello. My name is Jeremy, but most people refer to me as the old man."

Goodie just stared at him.

Lowering his hand, he said "Yes, well. You have some questions, but if I may first ask, what's your name."

"Goo… Thomas, Thomas Goodwill," he said, still staring at Jeremy as if he had never seen another man before in his life.

He wrote something, presumably his name, on a clipboard that Goodie had failed to see while staring at the man.

The holy nurse from early appeared and placed a bucket beside the bed.

"Now, what…"

"Politics?" Goodie interrupted the man. Some people might have focused on the magic, but Goodie cared more about his life. And as far as Goodie was concerned, society, no matter it’s governing doctrine, was a tool for the powerful to bully the weak. Him being one of the weakest. But that same society, earth's society, forbade people from going too far. He may have been oppressed but at least he was alive. That all changed if you brought royalty and their privileges of might equals right into the picture.

Now it was Jeremy's turn to stare at him. After a moment he slid the bucket alongside the bed, stopping when it was within Goodie's reach, its purpose more than obvious by now.

"You know you're not on earth?" he asked, more a statement than question.

Goodie just gave a little nod.

"You saw the [MENU]?"

Goodie nodded again.

"Do you know what the [MENU] is?"

"Yes." He managed to squeak out.

"Just don't touch it yet, okay?"

"Okay."

"To answer your question, I need to go into a little history.”

“A long time ago, there was a kingdom. And whenever this kingdom had a problem, they would summon people from earth. When their problem had been solved, they would then dispose of those they summoned. Inevitably some of our lot would manage to escape, some with the intent on returning one day to exact their revenge. One, in particular, a Jessica Stone, became a necromancer of extreme power, and with an army of the dead, she lay waste to this entire region."

He paused a moment to let Goodie absorb what he had said.

"Now, Miss Stone being a problem, the kingdom did what it always did. The exception being that this time they changed something. We don't know what they did, but they died while doing it. And the spell that summoned us is now permanent. We don't know how to shut it off or reverse its effect. so, once a month, we get an event, and one or more of us appear in the palace."

He paused again.

"Now, onto your question. this city is now ruled by a council of our lot. Voted in. There is also a House of Representatives, though not the same as on earth. It's filled with representatives of the various powers around here, guilds, merchants, certain families, and so on. There's also a House of the People, which is like earth, in that it has elected representatives of each district of this city and the surrounding area under our control. So, we've got a pretty peaceful setup going here."

He studied Goodie for a moment and then added. "So, no one's allowed to walk up to you on the street and stab you just because they have the privilege of being born rich, and crime isn't really a problem around here on account of the availability of magic and money."

Goodie was thankful for the info but it did nothing to calm his nerves.

"Would you mind if I sit-down?" Ha asked.

Goodie scooched over to allow him space to sit on the bed.

"As for the neighbouring kingdoms, they have this weird monarchy slash communist thing going on. There's no royalty or anything like that, though there are people we call nobles, but around here they're called recognised families. They have power like a noble, but they have to constantly prove themselves by contributing to the greater good or they face losing any and all privileges. They each have their lands, but those lands always surround a city that is considered neutral, ruled by a collective of both the recognised families as well as anyone with power or influence. Much like our house of representatives. The collective's purpose is to govern, manage, and use the controlled territories and their resources for the greater good."

He took a moment, seeming to think about how to phrase his next words. “This is where we get the communist thing going on. The low born or sort of treated like they would be in a caste system, but there's a heavy emphasis on having to serve the greater good and the provision of social services. Magic makes health care and rooting out crime and corruption a simple matter, but there's also the importance they place on the feeding and sheltering of people. Mostly because they want them to keep breeding for the war-machine.”

“not against us! Monsters!” he said, after catching the look on Goodie's face. “The kingdoms of this world are actually quite peaceful in regards to war. I think it's because having wizards is like every city having a nuke. There are some mock wars now and again, where the nobles take their people to a field and slug it out for whatever reason, but no actual wars of conquest. Even trying it would bring every kingdom within reach down upon you. Which is what eventually happened to Miss Stone.”

“Speaking of which, in regards to what happened, the other kingdoms understand that what happened was basically justified and inevitable. So, they've given us the right of claim to these lands in recompense. Or so they say. the nobles don't want anything to do with us, they view us as foreign and tainted. Each of them has sent their best and brightest to try and sort out that portal or whatever it is, to help us get home. No luck obviously.”

Jeremy looked up for a moment, thinking of how to continue.

"We're not enemies…but we barely tolerate each other. We're just too different. Another problem is that they surround us. This land has an abundance of certain resources, but for the rest, we have to deal with them, giving them a lot of influence as a whole. When it comes to them as a group, the city prefers to compromise, but we don't tolerate the few morons that come here thinking the can have the run of the place.”

Jeremy took hold of Goodie's hand and looked him straight in the eyes, an action which Goodie thought was too practised to be genuinely sincere.

“To return to what I said earlier if a noble gives you trouble, the city will protect you within reason. If you have done something wrong or go looking for a fight, you're on your own. Okay?”

Goodie responded by using the bucket. The stress that had been building up from the moment he had awoken had finally culminated in Goodie becoming enlightened…of his lunch.

Jeremy patted him on the back while he finished.

"You've been given a lot to di…to think over," he said as he helped Goodie lay back in bed. “I'm going to ask the nurse to bring you something to clean yourself with and something to calm your nerves. okay? We'll get to the [MENU] and the rest of it tomorrow."

Before leaving he turned back and warned, once again to not try messing with [MENU] and one final “You're going to be okay.” This time even patting Goodie on the back as he said it.

Goodie summoned his [MENU], not to mess with it. Just to look.

NAME: THOMAS GOODWILL

AGE: (16/65)

RACE: HUMAN

CLASS:

LEVEL: 0

[ATTRIBUTES]

BEAUTY: 6

STRENGTH: 4

AGILITY: 6 (4)

DEXTERITY: 7

CONSTITUTION: 7

PERCEPTION: 10

INTELLIGENCE: 5

LOGIC: 6

IMAGINATION: 9

WILLPOWER: 7

CHARISMA: 5

EFFICIENCY: 4

HP: 65/65

STAMINA: 55/55 (49.5/49.5)

MANA: 50/50

TITLES:

FEATS:

CLASS SKILLS:

SKILLS:

RESISTANCES:

STATUS:

[CRIPPLING INJURY] (KNEE - RIGHT)

He was not going to be okay.