Darkness surrounded Adil. He had died. The last traces of consciousness were fading as he felt a pull. The pull transcended into a more forceful yank as it wretched him from the darkness. He felt as though his mind was being dragged through a thick viscous liquid until it was as if he was opening his eyes.

He found himself in the midst of a strange vision as if he was inside another body with no control over it. He soon realised that he was staring through his own eyes from another point in time. It was as if he was reliving a memory, a memory where his past self of Thomas was lying on the floor in an old pub, staring up at a dimly lit bar counter.

Adil saw how some drinks had fallen over, pouring down the side of the counter. As Thomas changed his glance to the ceiling Adil realised this was probably because whatever had destroyed half the building's roof had knocked them over. A bit where the ceiling fell away shone moonlight down on him.

Thomas lay on the ground for a while longer, now staring through the hole in the roof, towards the bright and eerie full moon. Adil felt extreme pain as Thomas coughed, a bit of blood sprayed around his mouth. Bracing through a more excruciating pain he rolled over to his side.

Adil saw across the pub floor his friend Rob being cradled on the lap of a woman Adil could have sworn he knew. Thomas's vision was out of focus, and his attention was not aimed towards his friend, instead, he looked at the growing pool of blood around him, sparkling in the moonlight.

There was an occasional distant explosion, disrupting the silence. A puff of purple smoke seemed to appear in and out of the pub. Adil was sure he could see the distorted image of a small black humanoid creature appear in one of the smoke clouds, disappearing in another.

A sudden bright flash and Thomas/Adil was blinded. Opening his eyes again they saw a man holding what looked to be some sort of staff. As the light began to dissipate, a glowing hole in space became visible behind the man. Still blinded by the light they saw the man slowly approach and then their consciousness faded into nonexistence.

...

Then Adil woke up again, the hints of rage, clawing across from the thoughts of his murder at the hands of the goblins. Both Adil and Swift now up, reached for their injuries but found nothing, alive and unharmed they tried to gather their thoughts. Adrenalin rushing to the point it took them a while to realise where they were. They had respawned back in the cavern.

“What the fuck!” Adil exclaimed. Swift still just holding his chest in shock. “We died, we fucking died!” Adil cried.

There was a loud and impromptu fake cough that grabbed both of their attention to something in front of them on the grass. Their eyes focused until they realised a small black-blue humanoid creature was hunched in front of them.

“Not even a single day” It stated flatly.

Adil and Swift stared blankly at the creature.

“We uh, just died,” Swift replied in shock, Adil remained speechless.

“Yeah I can see that, I think you guys broke a record.”

“You were in my dream,” Swift said to the creature.

“Listen, I really don't care. Let me just ask you a few questions so I can be on my way.”

“Have you seen that.. lady...” Swift added. Struggling to find the name as if it was a fleeting memory he was clawing to get back.

The gremlin took notice of what he said.

“Her... Yeah, she is here, don't think about it ..." the thing rubbed in.

"Where is she?" Adil asked

"Just don't think about it...” It said seeming a bit bored.

Adil tried to remember the woman, what happened, he grasped a name *Ros- * suddenly he was overcome with a splitting headache forcing him to stop all thoughts until the pain disappeared. He groaned in frustration. The name though, he could remember it was 'Rosie' it seemed like the name of someone or something he knew.

The dimorphic being appeared to be growing impatient.

“You see that pain you just had. That's the stupid pain, that's what happens when you don't listen to me. And you know what, I get the pain too because when I think about how I have to explain this shit to you and I imagine all the stupid questions you'll aks after that,”

Adil stared blankly at the small angry creature in confusion.

"Ok, now let's get this over with," the thing added.

It got out a piece of paper and put on a pair of reading glasses. Seemingly taking them out of a portal in space itself.

“Right, so I have some questions to ask you." *shuffles the paper* "Have you, A, Been killed by an animal B, been killed by accident or C, Been killed by something self-aware."

Swift was taken off guard and looking toward the gremlin blurted:

“Uh what? A?”

Adil shouted “C!.”

“Ah yeah,” Swift added.

The creature scratched a finger on the piece of paper. “OK, if they see you again, will they realize that you were the one they killed?”

“Yeah, probably, right?” Swift said

“Probably, yes” Adil confirmed.

“Ok, finally. Are they, A. Associated with authority, guards, soldiers, etc. B, lawless, or some sort of underground groups, C tree huggers, dryads, campers. Hunters. People that live alone. or four Civ-.

“-They’re goblins” Adil interrupted

The creature, holding some sort of a checklist in his hand just lowered it looking at them with a questioning look.

“Goblins,” the creature replied finishing his checklist and dematerializing the note. He seemed disappointed with that response and stopped the line of questioning.

“So, how do you feel after your first death.” It asked.

“Confused,” Swift replied.

Adil was more... Unsure why he was answering these question but didn’t want to say that allowed, he just kept silent.

“You have no memories and are on a different planet... I don't mean *do you feel lonely*” The creature berated before continuing.

..

"So, can you tell us what we are doing here?."

"Yes," it replied. The creature saw the two of them look on expectantly. he frowned.

“Right. So you were brought here from another world. Earth. You can't remember anything because of how we rushed your adjustment to this world. You are unimportant wastes of resources tha the boss man decided to give out of charity. You have one job. Stay low, don’t let anyone know where you came from and if you have the ability to, get a job. If the time comes we will get you and take you back to where you came from. Good?”"

Swift nodded whilst Adil help up a hand. The creature looked onto Adil distastefully.

"So, do you want your gear?" The creature asked.

The interdimensional being disappeared for a moment and reappeared with a set of clothes, they were a rough tattered leather with some padded protection. They put the armour on then looked at the protection stats.

Armour tab

item State Armour

Cotton clothes well-made +.1 global

Leather armour well-made +7 slash

+3 crush

Upon further inspection, it seemed as though the protection was how much damage it would take to penetrate the armour.

The creature disappeared in his cloud of violet space dust and arrived back with a bow, a quiver of 10 arrows, and a couple of steel short swords. Swift walked over to the bow, and the interdimensional being said, “Leave that for him, Boss says to do something else for you.”

The two of them picked up their equipment and put it on.

Adil New notifications (5)

Acquired item State Rarity

Cotton clothes well-made common

Short sword well-made common

Short bow well-made common

Leather armour well-made common

arrow (10) well-made common

Again, Adil tried to focus on the Sword and bow to see their details which similarly came up.

Name size material

Short bow 3 feet oak

hemp string

*Including 10 arrows and quiver, both attachable overlapping on back.*

Name size material

Short sword 22-inch Steel

*Including sheath, attachable to waist or over the shoulder for ease of access.*

Swift at the creature’s call had come closer, awaiting the gift that would apparently compensate for not having a bow.

The creature brought out a crystal in one hand that glowed with silver energy. It reached forward and pointed one of his hand's three fingers to Swift’s head, laying the crystal against Swift’s chest. The hands of the creature glowed a faint black and purple as Swift’s gaze was stolen by the being. it seemed to connect to Swift. Their eyes shone a brilliant red and a trail of orange energy drifted in a line between them.

Swift felt a feeling of warmth as his mind was taken to another place.

Swift was mentally transported as time itself seemed to freeze. He now appeared in a vision of a time long ago. it was a memory of a time he went camping.

Swift was sat in an open field, a stack of wood and staw in front of him. He was feverishly trying to spin a stick on a piece of wood. He had spent over an hour trying to gather the materials and spent even longer trying to start a fire with little more than a spinning stick.

As swift tried repeatedly to start the fire he found that nothing seemed to be working. He managed to fashion a rope to another stick like a bow and used it to spin the fire starting stick faster. He placed bits of dry straw onto the wood and kept at. Over and over he tried until suddenly trails of smoke began to appear, still, it looked like it wouldn’t last. He added straw desperate to make something happen carrying to spin the stick as steadily as he could.

Finally, a fire emerged. Stoking it further, adding more straw, more sticks and it took hold fo the other materials, igniting the stacked wood above it. Swift sat there for a while then, staring into the fire, seeing the deep glow flickering with a powerful intense presence. Then he had a single thought, something that meant more to him at that moment than anything else,*this is only the beginning*.

His mind was brought back, now one with his body as he shot into the grass behind him. Now in the material world, he noticed a glimmer of fire spark from his hand.

Notifications (2)

Learnt Magic type

Fire magic

A skill affected by mental clarity. You are now able to channel and control fire through the management of your mana.

Swift stretched and felt the strange power rushing inside him. He felt within his awareness that he could safely amass roughly a hundred and twenty units of mana at a rate of eighteen per second. Which was somehow dependant on his mental attributes as they facilitated a mental clarity and split focus needed to channel this strange energy.

“I feel amazing” Swift silently stated. A new warmth seemed to be growing within him, energy roaring deep inside.

The strange interdimensional being looked visibly exhausted, his material form seemed to have difficulty maintaining consistency as bits of him leaked and faded into smoke. He waved a hand and looked away before letting out a sort of cough, causing a pray of purple space-dust.

"Before I go, remember, don't let anyone know you can come back from death. Don't tell anyone you come from Earth. Keep it down low. If you get to a human settlement just say something like you're adventuring hunters or something. And whatever you fucking do. Don't ask me any more questons."

The creature turned and looked like he was about to go, but looked back to both Adil and Swift.

"You're name?" Swift asked.

He gave a deep chuckle before beginning to visibly deteriorate.

“You should really try not to die so much. Listen, go west, away from the black mountains and you should find your friend.” He left then slowly disappearing into a puff of smoke trailing into nothingness.

“That was ominous,” Swift stated.

Adil sighed knowing Swift was probably right. Mentally strained the two of them collapsed on their backs, looking around at the cavern. Light began to fade as the sun had started to set.

"The fuck are the black mountains?" Swift called.

Adil sighed.

"Let's go and find out."

“I guess we go a different way to last time though, right?” Swift asked. The feeling of hunger had disappeared, but he knew it would come back and that way had only brought death.

“Hopefully,” Adil replied. Adil started searching the decomposing corpses. A notification popped up taking over their vision again.

Message

*Here's your first task thing. Or. "Quest".*

Stop being some fucked up masochistic idiot and stay alive.

---

Joint Task: the objective is split between those given the quest.

---

Spend three days without dying.... twice!

Exp: 100

non-declinable

"That *twice*, on the quest we were given. Really hurts." Adil said to Swift.