Lucas flipped the omelette. The edge of it caught on his spatula and the raw egg spilled out onto the pan. As it did so, he cursed and started trying desperately flipping the rest of it over before it got burnt. He yawned as the effects of the all-nighter he pulled yesterday caught up with him, shown by the rings under his eyes and the stink radiating off of him. He sucked in a deep breath and let out a stifling yawn, then heard a deep popping sound.

His eyes opened with a snap as he felt a cool breeze hit his face. For a split second, he felt like he was floating in place before gravity caught up with him and he plummeted towards the ground. He slowly stood up and looked around him, seeing nothing but a dense canopy expanding out all around him. He took one hesitant step forward and immediately snagged on a branch and tripped face first into a bush. Lucas cursed to himself as he pushed himself into an upright position but noticed a figure crouched in a bush nearby staring at him with a mixture of confusion, fear and curiosity. He heard it let out a series of strange clicks and howls whilst pointing at him. The creature pulled out a small obsidian cube and pointed it at him. Before either of them knew what was happening, the cube shot directly into Lucas’ head and he fell backward onto the ground. He felt a burning sensation as his vision started slowly altering, knocking him back into unconsciousness.

INITIALISING…

SCANNING CREATURE…

ERROR. INSUFFICIENT MENTAL ACCESS.

INITIALISING FULL MENTAL PROBING…

ERROR. MENTAL DATA UNREADABLE, FORMATTING ERROR.

TROUBLESHOOTING…

CREATING PROFILE OFF OF AVAILABLE DATA.

Lucas leaped into the air, as if he had a fire set under him. He glared down at the smallish green figure and yelled, “What the hell was that for?”

The hunched figure roared a hearty laugh, “The name is Bartholomew, but everyone calls me Bart.”

Lucas blinked twice, “You can talk?”

“Of course I can talk,” Bart raised his eyebrow, “Is there a reason I shouldn't be able to?”

“I guess not, did you see where I got here from?” Lucas gestured at his clothing, “I feel like it’s pretty obvious I’m not meant to be here. Perhaps there was a big portal that opened?”

Bart shook his head. “You just appeared about 5 metres up in the air and fell and fell on a cave goblin.”

Lucas peered into the deep underbrush, “I can't see any cave goblins, all I see is well… forest.”

“I’ve already collected it into my storage area,” Bart gestured towards a giant cave entrance, “We have more pressing matters to attend to.”

“The hell is a storage area?”

Bert gave him a sidelong glance. “What exactly do you mean when you say you aren’t from here?”

“Well, one minute I was in my kitchen, and now I'm in the middle of a rainforest talking to a small grey creature who is telling me to climb into an ominous cave.”

“Well, the first thing you will want to do is probably check your status page. After that, it will be a matter of experience. If there is anything you don’t understand, let me know and I can help.”

“You could’ve just left me here, but you helped me. Thanks for that.”

“Eh, don’t mention it. My parents always told me to help those in need, and also I need someone else to help me beat the shit out of these cave goblins.”

“I knew there was some catch, but how do I open up my status? Let me guess. I just have to think about it don’t I?”

Lucas Longe

Current Tier: None (0/6 Aspects)

Corruption: 0%

Attributes:

Strength: 1

Agility: 0

Fortitude: 1

Cunning: 2

Intelligence: 3

Willpower: 1

Skills:

Cooking: Student 3

Mental Manipulation Resistance: Unknown

Hereditary Boon: Traveler From The Far Lands

Lucas tried thinking about pulling up more information on his last ability.

Hereditary Boon: Traveler From The Far Lands:

You can understand and speak the language of any creature you come into contact with that is of the same or lower tier of you.

You gain significantly less corruption.

You can see in the dark in shades of white, grey and black.

Any mental effect you resist creates blowback against the creator.

“Don’t forget to check your inventory.” Bart inspected his nails. “I’ve heard of people being brought here before with some of their possessions.”

Lucas thought about checking his inventory, and a large grid appeared before him. He thought about each one and discovered a frying pan and an omelette, each taking up 1 slot. He thought about each one and two small text boxes appeared.

Omelette (Trash)

A poorly flipped omelette that started falling apart. You can consume this to recover some of your natural energy.

Frying Pan (Common)

Useful for frying objects and hitting people with.

Even this world's identification system didn’t appreciate his food.

Before he could open his mouth to ask Bart another question, an arrow shot out of the cave entrance, clipping the edge of his nose. Bart instantly dived into action, pushing Lucas into a bush and diving in next to him. Three grey goblins emerged from the cave mouth, two carrying short swords and one carrying a bow.

Bart flipped his dagger. “I can handle two of them, but you will need to keep the third one occupied, will that be an issue?”

“I don’t really have a choice, so I guess not.” A moderately sized steel frying pan appeared in his grip. The 3 goblins started closing in on their position, knuckles white around their weapons. Bart raised his three fingers and started counting down. Three. Two. One. As soon as his last finger dropped, he leaped out from the bush and slashed at the ankles of one holding a sword. It screamed as the tendon snapped and its leg buckled. As soon as it hit the ground, Bart pushed his knife through the right eye of the fallen goblin.

The other two goblins stood there, stunned by the quick chain of events. Capitalising on the distraction, Lucas sprang to his feet, bringing the frying pan directly into the face of the other goblin holding a short sword. It stumbled, but quickly caught its balance. The short creature ran at him with its short sword, feinting to the left before going for a slash at his stomach. Lucas brought up his frying pan to block, but the goblin outpaced him. He felt a sharp pain, and it lodged the blade in a solid inch into his side. Roaring through the pain, Lucas dropped all of his weight onto the goblin, knocking it to the ground under him. In a blind rage, he started smashing his frying pan down into the goblin’s face repeatedly. By the third hit, it stopped yelling. By the fifth hit, the sound of breaking bone could be heard. By the fourteenth hit, all that could be heard was a wet squelch. After twenty full hits, Lucas rolled off of the mangled corpse and curled into a ball, both hands trying to apply pressure to the wound.

Bart looked at the figure who fell out of the sky skeptically. He finished wiping the blood from his knife as he stood over the corpse of the goblin with a bow. It was a very odd shift to see someone go from caving in the skull of a goblin to crying on a ball on the floor. “Do you need to borrow some of my healing salve?”

“Healing salve, is that some sort of disinfectant?” He pulled himself to his feet.

Bart just looked at him oddly before pulling out a small glass jar with what looked like bloody snot. Before Lucas had the chance to object, he started slathering the stuff inside the open wound. Instead of the pain he was expecting, Lucas found the feeling was a cool tingling sensation. Craning his head to see what was happening, Lucas gasped to see the flesh knit itself back together where it had been separated. For the first time since he got here, Lucas realised that he actually had been transported somewhere else. He had no idea where he was, and his only companion was a mysterious goblin who was fighting other goblins. He had so many questions, but one of them kept bubbling to the surface far more than the others.

“You don’t seem surprised at all that some man fell out of the sky with no knowledge of the world. Do you know what I am?” Lucas asked.

Bart snorted. “It’s always the same. Some traveller shows up here thinking they are the most important person to have ever arrived. Every 4 years, an event called the gathering takes place. During this time, all the excess mana threads in the atmosphere gather and take forms. These forms can warp the world around them, create new additions to the world, create new creatures, and also pull creatures in from the different realms. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time and got pulled here. It’s not exactly common, but it’s not rare enough to make anyone panic if they met you. Once we get to Deepoak, you could find another one, not that it would be easy.”

Lucas blinked twice as he digested the information. It was a lot to take in suddenly. He opened his mouth to start his barrage of questions, but Bart waved him off. “We don't have time to stand here and discuss the details of your situation. I understand you probably have a lot of questions, but I have a promise to fulfil.” He shoved his thumb over towards a cave entrance. “You know how I mentioned that the gathering happens when all the mana threads form together? It’s the perfect time to perform a powerful ritual. The goblins in that cave are trying to drain all the colour out of nature for their consumption. As one of the few remaining children of the great goblin nomad tribe, it is my duty to kill the scourge.”

Lucas nodded. He was still reeling from the situation he was in, but decided to help the goblin who had helped him land on his feet, at least figuratively.

“Let's put an end to those goblins.”

Lucas trudged through the cave. The ceiling rhythmically dripped with water, each thump getting muffled by the moss covering the walls and parts of the floor. Lucas looked at the moss with curiosity. Even though the ceiling was constantly dripping water, the floor was completely dry, with not even a drop of water. He signalled to Bart to stop and examined the moss. It looked similar to the moss that was found on earth, but as he held it he noticed a few key differences. Buried deep within the moss, small flower buds had bloomed. As he pulled his hand back from the moss, he noticed it had been covered in a dark red liquid. He took a sniff and realised it was blood.

SKILL GAINED: IDENTIFY (Untrained 1)

The sudden appearance of the prompt startled Lucas and he almost stumbled into the moss, but caught himself at the last second. A small translucent screen appeared hovering above the clump of moss Lucas had examined.

Sponge Moss (Tier 0)

This variant of regular moss can absorb up to 50 times its body weight in one liquid. They represent the liquid through the small flowers that bloom in it.

Lucas shrugged and went back to walking. Something about this scratched at his brain, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He relayed the information to Bart, but all he did was shrug and grunt about how they should be at their hideout soon. They carried on walking for another 15 minutes and eventually found an entrance into a small cave. The small room was shaped like a basic, naturally curving inwards to the middle of a room, where there was a small hole the size of a basketball. Surprisingly, there was no one within the cave. Bert narrowed his eyes and stepped into the room. As Lucas stepped into the cave, he stared at the incredibly round walls, marvelling at the pictures carved into the wall.

“This is all wrong.” Bart brushed at the floor, revealing a large pentagram carved around the hole in the middle of the room. “The ritual diagram is in here, but there are no components apart from the diagram itself. You normally need a diagram, an object of focus and materials to satisfy the magic and make it obey the ritual. Normally destroying even just one of them is enough to stop the ritual, but we don't have a way of destroying any of those 3 options. We’re going to have to go in deeper.”

There were 4 tunnels connecting to the room, all spaced ninety degrees apart. Three of the tunnels led steeply upward and with moss hanging from the entrance like the one Bart and Lucas had walked through, but the other tunnel seemed to only slope upwards very slightly. Whereas the previous walk had been silent and uneventful, this one seemed to be the opposite. After only 2 minutes of walking, they found a small room with a goblin sitting in it.

“The last patrol out before the big ritual is already ten minutes late. If they don’t get back soon, I’m going to have to report it to Yellow and he ain’t in the mood for bad news. Maybe I could just go back to the feast and-” A soft gurgling was heard as the goblin choked on the throwing knife that had been embedded in its throat. It scrambled for its weapons but it was far too late. It yanked the knife out of its throat and tried screaming but all that it let out was a soft gurgle as it fell to the ground. Lucas looked at Bart in shock. “It’s going to take a while to get used to that.”

“If they’ve got a guard set here, it means we’re probably about to enter their home. Be careful in there, cave goblins are notorious for living in hard to navigate cave systems, there is a very real chance we could get lost in the caves.”

Bart and Lucas climbed through the small cave, stepping over the corpse of the fallen goblin and heading towards the small crawl space at the back of the room. Bart went in first, easily climbing through the small hole. Lucas tried following behind, but quickly ran into difficulties in the small tunnel. He had to get down and lie completely flat on his front, and drag himself arms first through the tiny tunnel. After around three minutes of climbing through the tunnel, Lucas heard shouts and screams coming from the other end of the tunnel. He instantly froze, keeping still in the cramped dark tunnel, praying whatever it was out there wouldn’t find him. A few minutes later, the cries stopped and the sounds of footsteps could be heard. Lucas tried desperately to pull himself through the tunnel as fast as he could, but even with the desperate effort he was making, it took him another ten minutes to escape the tunnel.

Lucas stretched as he stood up, brushing the dust he gathered in the tunnel off of him and looked around. He froze, seeing the battleground all around him. Scattered around him were a dozen goblin corpses, all with slashed faces and bodies. Blood was splattered across the walls, floors and even the ceiling. What really worried Lucas though was the fact that Bart’s knife lay on the floor amongst all the bodies, even though he wasn’t there. Lucas hadn’t known Bart for long, but he knew he would never willingly part with it. Lucas picked it up and examined the small intricately carved weapon.

Ritual Knife of the Disgraced Nomad (Unique)

This small yet deceivingly deadly blade bears the markings of one of the seven nomadic goblin tribes. A goblin of the nomadic tribes who wields it has their Agility increased by 5. It also has a higher chance of inflicting a maiming blow.

Lucas whistled as he read over the unique weapon. The name caught his attention but he didn’t have the time to ponder such things. He was alone within a goblin base with no allies, and only a frying pan and dagger to defend himself with. On top of that, there was apparently an incredibly dangerous ritual that was going to do something very evil if he didn’t interfere. He sighed and pulled the omelette out of his inventory. It may not have flipped properly but the cheese had still melted and he was too hungry to care. He ate half of it before storing the other half in case he needed to eat later on. He had a lot on his plate.