CHAPTER 2

when the light disappears I find myself in a forest with lots of scratches on my arms and face groaning I stand up .opening my inventory I see that Shiva’s sword is missing guess the person that knocked me out took the sword ,the only thing in my inventory is a change of clothes and a 12 inch dagger equipping the dagger I open the world map and see that I have been transported to the western edge of ethiel form where I was in the city of Elmond in the northern part of the same continent.

It’s been hours since I appeared in this forest and so far the only good thing that has happened is that I haven’t met any monsters while I search for a way out of this forest. Pushing aside vegetation I walk into a small clearing with an abandoned house at the center of the clearing, from the looks of the outside of the house I doubt if anybody has been here in years.

Walking to the front door I see that something had torn off part of the door, holding my dagger with my right hand I gently push the door open with my left hand to reveal a room that looks like a sitting room only it’s filled with dust and cobwebs. Going round the house I discover a bedroom, a kitchen that has a small backyard that has a dilapidated well and another room that whose door even after trying to break is still locked.

Deciding to use this house until someone comes to claim it I pull off my shirt and tuck the dagger into the waist band of my trousers, taking a broom from the kitchen I begin tidying up the house from the kitchen to the sitting room then the bedroom.

While arranging the room I find a piece of paper that been rolled up and upon reading it I see that the paper is a deed of ownership .suddenly two small windows appear with a pop sound in front of me the first one reads .

Property in the forest gained: you are now the new owner of the abandoned house in the forest.

While the other window is a notification telling me that I have leveled up. After cleaning up the house I decide use water from the well to have my bath only to see that the well is dried up. Releasing a sigh I toss a shovel I found at the backyard into the well and tie a large bucket to a rope a one end and secure the other end tying it to one of the trees close to the house and descend down the rope into the well.

Reaching the bottom of the well I see that there is a board, lifting the board I am faced with an underground passage .dropping from the rope I see that the passage leads in only two directions.

After some thought I decide to follow the tunnel going left ,as I walk I pass different rooms filled with different things .the first three rooms were like cells with chains hanging from their walls while the fourth room held a lab with vials and other instruments I knew nothing about.

There was another room that had a well in it guess the previous owner felt that his well needed to be close to his lair .The sixth room was more like a hall than a room and it was filled with books, lots and lots of books and at the end of the hall was another door that led to a stairs that took me to the sitting room of the house, guess I won’t have to drop a rope anytime I want to go to the lair.

With the way the game was unless you buy a detailed map from players or npcs the only your player map would only show places you have been to which leaves me with the problem of how I am supposed to know the way to the nearest town or village after thinking the only solution to this problem is to die but part of the rules of the game was that for every time you die you lose a level.

Deciding to sacrifice the level I just gained from escaping my prisoners I walk into the sitting room where I left the dagger and before I can chicken out I stab my heart .

When I came to, I found myself in front of a small shrine that was carved in a tree. Looking around it seems that instead of a city the closest thing to my house in the forest in terms of gathering was a village .walking round after asking the npcs around I find a shop selling provisions. After buying provisions to last me at least a month I walk to the only stable in the village where an old man is busy cleaning a stall.

“hello there,” I say to him as I enter the makeshift stall.”How much does a horse cost?” I ask.”A silver coin, that’s the least I can sell to you for” the man replies. Noticing a donkey at the back of the stable I nod at the man “what of that donkey over there.

“Same price as the horse.” what does this old man take me for I think to myself.”Sorry but I can’t buy your donkey for that amount of money “I tell the man as I begin to leave the stable.

“Wait right there “the man yells after me as I leave his stable wait until he is close to me then ask him “what is it you want.” rubbing the back of his head with his left palm he smiles at me “since you can’t afford the donkey can you give me that nice dagger you have strapped to your waist and I will sell the donkey for forty bronze coins” he tells me.

“Sorry I can’t give you my dagger,” I tell him.” It’s not like as if I have something else to protect myself with”.” if that’s the reason you can have a gun I have back at my house, I assume you can use a gun?”The man asks me. From a dagger to a gun seems like an upgrade to me though the old man probably is going to give me a useless piece of metal I think as I follow the old man back to his stable.

As the old man leads me to the stable I look at the building in this village and for a village that has a blacksmith and a stable the most of houses look bad as if they were destroyed partway then patched up.”Hey old men are there any monsters around here”. I ask as we move towards a house make of stone with some parts made of wood.

”If humans can be called monsters then we have some monsters living around here, wait here” he tells me as he enters the house. After what seemed like hours the old man came out of the house with something rapped in a black cloth, taking the package I open the cloth to reveal a black gun similar to the ones used by soldiers as handguns .the sun reflected on the dark surface of the gun and I couldn’t help but feel lucky that I had the dagger after I escaped.

”Here press this indent and the bullets can be loaded into the handle of the gun “the old man says to me. It took me ten minutes before I can get used to loading the gun after which I bid the small village goodbye as I made my way with my donkey laden with supplies using the player map that had been updated with the map showing that my property in the forest was some hundred kilometers into the forest.

The first day spent on the way back home was uneventful to say the least. The donkey was already trained all I had to do was hold on to the lead rope and the donkey would follow me wherever I went. That first night I camped near a small stream I found with my camp having a water body behind it the only way to attack me was forward, I didn’t sleep to avoid waking up to a missing donkey or to see myself in the spawn centre of the village I just left.

By the end of the second day I was already bone tired but I still didn’t sleep, throughout the day I felt as if something or someone was watching me and I was loath to give them the chance to carry out their plans whatever they may be on me.

The third day was when things began to get interesting, first by noon there was a small group of creatures I guess they were goblins though I couldn’t say for sure as I had never seen them before came out of the shadows the trees made.

”Hey what do we have here.” one of the goblins noticed me. The group of four was badly armed the first one who had noticed me before his fellows wore leather armor that had seen better days and held an axe that was nearly as tall as him.

The second and third wore pieces of leather covering their chest only and wielded a sword each while the last goblin wore what seemed to be rags that I wouldn’t even use to clean the floor with and held a bow with a small quiver filled with arrows slung on his back.

“If it’s the donkey you want you can take it “I tell the goblins as I discreetly inched my hand the gun strapped to my waist.” who said anything about wanting a donkey” the goblin with the bow said.”Shut up who made you the boss “the one with complete armor yells as he bumps the goblin with the bows’ head with the pommel of his sword.

“Try that again and you are going to get a stomach filled with arrows.” the bullied goblin yells back. Disregarding the obvious threat to his life the bully bumps the already angry goblin again. Quickly an arrow is drawn and fired at the goblin with the leather armor that dives sideways to avoid the arrow only for the arrow to hit one of the goblin spectators.

Seeing the one hit kill on his comrade makes the last goblin to charge the goblin with the bow. Facing the new threat the goblin seems to have forgotten about its leader and that is its mistake as it didn’t see the sword coming from behind until it was thrust into his back and the tip of the sword slides through his chest.

Before they can remember their human audience I pull out the gun and calmly take aim at the gang leader I squeeze the trigger and watch a hole appear dead centre of the targets’ head.

Seeing his leader fall must have cleared all the rage the goblin felt as he ran through the forest but is brought down as I shot him in the back, walking to where the goblin is desperately trying to crawl away I smile at my supposed robber as I end its life with a bullet to the head.

The shocking thing is that the donkey didn’t seem skittish about all the fighting going on around it as it was busy crunching on branches low enough for it to get to with its mouth.

As I move around I help myself to anything of value from the corpses, by the time I am finished I have gathered a small pouch that had ten silver coins and I stripped the leather of the group of his leather armor and took all the weapons and put them in my inventory.

A notification window pops up but I close it without reading the information and picking up the lead rope hurrying the donkey home before another group of goblins or even human bandits meet me here with my entire fortune on me.