## Chapter four, Ostvik

We rolled into Ostvik in the afternoon. Before we had come close to it, the scenery had changed drastically from lush greenery to a more hot and dry climate where the few trees and shrubbery looked sad and dried out. It felt and looked like there used to be a forest here but time and maybe some kind of climate change had turned it into more of a desert.

It was called a village, but in my mind, it was more of a small town. There was a high street with long rows of single and double-story houses with large windows facing the street. There were different stores, pubs, and restaurants. And you saw small sideways going off at intersections where there was more of a domestic feeling of the houses, with small green gardens with white fences in the front. That surprised me since just outside the village- or town limit there was desert. I was just about to ask Rondellen about it when he said,

“Hey kid, if you look over there,” he pointed towards a house or it looked more like a carport in front of a house but the carport was part of the house, like where the wall should be there was more like a broad corridor into the rest of the house. And instead of a car, there was an anvil and other things you associate with a blacksmith.

“That’s your daughter's husband's place?”

“Yes, I thought we should go there first. You can sell off anything you don’t need or want to keep. And after that, we have dinner at the inn, my treat.”

“That sounds like a plan, Rondellen!” I said with a smile.

When the wagon stopped outside the smithy, a tall burly man that was as wide as he was long, came out to meet us, everything with him just oozes strength. He had a long red beard and long braided red hair.

“Rondellen, you old geezer. You made it here in one piece. I’m glad to see!” His voice was like the rest of him loud and filled with strength, but he had a large smile and lifted Rondellen from the wagon as he hugged him. You could see that the two men shared a close bond. Rondellen just laughed and said, “Well, it was a close call with five Shadow Warriors armed with bows attacking us half a day from here.”

The man's jovial face turned serious and he looked at Rondellen, “You are not hurt, I hope? I told Ragnhild that I should’ve come out and met you at the halfway mark.”

“If it wasn’t for young Green Raven here, it could have been a close call. We handled them. They were low-level too, thank the gods!” Rondellen said while pointing to me, “Green Raven, meet Alfred, my daughter Ragnhild’s husband, the blacksmith. Alfred, meet Green Raven.”

I was unsure how I’d approach the mountain of a man, but he just took three fast strides and lifted me in a bear hug, and said, “so this is the lad I should thank for saving my father-in-law?”

I laughed nervously and said while having the air pressed out of my lungs, “I think Rondellen would have done just fine. I just helped with reloading the crossbows.”

“Nonsense lad, having you on my side was why we won so easily and without getting hurt. So Alfred, Green Raven here has some armor, helmets, and weapons he wants to unload.”

Alfred sat me down on the ground and took a step back to see me. “You don’t look like that old lad. Is it okay if I inspect you?”

“Yes, go for it, and nice to meet you,” I said while straining to get my breath back.

“So level 13… What were you doing out in the wilderness with such a low level? How old are you, son?” Alfred asked, scrutinizing me. All of a sudden it hit me, I was a boy all alone without a mother or my friends, so far I had only reacted to everything happening and hadn’t had any time to sit down and reflect on what had happened ever since Andrew and his boys tossed me in the cleaning closet. And this was not the time for it. But soon.

“I’m 16 going on 17 years, and to be honest I was only level 5 before the fight together with Rondellen.”

Here Rondellen interrupted me and said, “he is an offworlder, and you how they always appear in the wilderness, but what’s unique with him is the level 10 skill he got. Is it okay if I tell Alfred what it is?” He said while turning to me.

“Yes of course why shouldn’t it be?”

“It’s [Telekinesis], and usually people don’t reveal their skills to just anyone. But I guarantee that Alfred is good people, he must be, my daughter chose him.” Rondellen said with a wink.

I smiled and nodded. And thought about the differences between living in a game and just playing it on a computer, because in the latter you always spoke openly about what skills your character had and other things that your character could or couldn’t do. But I could see that here it could be really dangerous if the wrong people knew what skills you had.

Meanwhile, Alfred just stood there and looked at me speechless. “You got…” he trailed off, “he got what?” He asked while looking at Rondellen.

“Yes, I reacted in pretty much the same way. A legendary skill at level 10! That offworlders get more points and sometimes uncommon or epic skills is widely known. But this?” Rondellen just shook his head and smiled.

“Can you show me?” Alfred asked.

“I could give it a go,” I said and focused on a nearby hammer that lay on a table a few meters away. I wanted to lift it and bring it over to me. Didn’t quite manage that, but I got to fall on the floor. “That’s the second time I’ve used [Telekinesis], not sure what to use the skill for, but I’ll probably find out.”

Alfred and Rondellen both shared a glance at each other but didn’t say anything. I was a bit surprised since they acted like this skill was a big deal that they didn’t say anything more about what I could do with it. So I just asked Alfred if I could show him my loot and what he thought it was worth. He told me to go ahead.

I dropped:

*4 Light armor full body, excellent quality*

*4 Light armor helmets, excellent quality*

*2 Pants, good quality*

*2 Sweater, good quality*

*2 shoes, good quality*

*1 bow, excellent quality*

*4 bows, good quality*

And said that I think I want to keep one of the bows but haven’t decided yet. It depends on what they are worth.

Alfred went through all the gear and after humming and looking he said, “tell you what, lad, since you helped out my father-in-law and such, I’ll give you a good price. But to be honest you probably will get a better price for the clothes and shoes if you go over to Anders that sells clothes.”

“For the light body armor, I’ll give you 100 gold each and the helmets 50 gold each. The bow with excellent quality 500 gold and the good quality bows 250 each. And for the clothes and shoes, I’ll give you 25 gold in total.”

I looked at both him and Rondellen and said, “you both know that I’m new to this world, I have no idea if this is a lot of money or not. Let us say if I wanted to buy rations for a week in the wilderness, a good ax, a knife, utensils, a good pan for cooking, something to start a fire with, and a sleeping bag or such, what would that set me back?”

Rondellen looked at Alfred and said, “I’d say around 40-50 silver for the cooking utensils, up to 1 Gold for the rations, 10-12 Gold for the ax and knife, and maybe 80 Gold for the sleeping bag of okay quality. So in total say 100 Gold to be on the safe side.” And Alfred nodded and said.

“Yeah, that’s around what it would cost.”

“So the weapons and armor are quite good?” I asked with a smile. They both nodded. And then I remembered the pelts from the Wood wolves and meat. “How about this?” I asked while dropping them to the ground.

*3 Wood wolf pelts*

*12 Wood wolf portions of meat*

Alfred answered, “The meat I’d only eat if I was starving, but I’ll give you 10 silver for it and give it to the neighbor's dogs. The pelts are another story altogether. At the right place, they’d fetch you maybe 400-500 gold each. They are not that hard to kill. It’s just that they are incredibly rare in these parts of PAERD so you were very lucky that they stumbled upon you, and they are sought after for their good abilities to keep cold and dampness out.”

“But if I were you, I’d let someone sew up a sleeping bag with one of them and sell the rest, or make all three into sleeping bags and keep them and sell them in another place. An excellent bag with a cloth will set you back 200-250 gold but if it’s with Wood Wolf pelts they will cost around 1000-1200 gold.”

“Wow! Okay, I’ll go the route of making all pelts into sleeping bags. Regarding the weapons, I’ve never used a bow, I was thinking of saving the best one. What do you guys think?”

Alfred answered this one, “I’d say that if you want to keep a bow for yourself keep the best one and one of the others that you use to train with. But since you are using a sword now and with your legendary skill. I think that when you have the time for the practice you will need to put that time into training your skill, not archery. Better to sell it now since your inventory is quite small and later on you can buy a new one.”

“Yes,” I said, “That sounds good. Okay, can you give me a total of everything except the pelts, and I also need a better sword. And a belt for it.”

“You are using a low-quality Goblins sword now right?” Alfred asked.

I nodded.

“Well, we need to do something about that. Do you have any wishes or wants regarding your new sword or should I make one I believe would be best for you and your level? One that you can use up till level 20 at least?

“That would be awesome! How much for a sword like this?

“Tell you what, with everything you’re selling me and that you helped Rondellen, a sword like that would usually set you back 750 gold, but you get it for 450. So in total 2125 gold and 10 Silver is what you get for everything you sold me. And counting off the sword makes it 1675 gold, 10’silvers.” Alfred said. “The sword will take almost a week to finish, but you can sleep at me and my wife’s house, and in the meantime, you can get to know our village.”

“It’s a deal”, I said and we shook on it. “And thank you for letting me stay in your house. But a question, how do I receive the money or how do you pay? I only know that I can see my money on the status page.”

“That’s easy,” Rondellen said, “If you were level 15 you’d know these things. But I’ll tell you now. You think about [money transfer] and you will get a prompt for it, you can also use [Money Balance] to see how much money you currently have.”

“Ah, neat, I’ll try it,” I said.

*Money transfer*

*Who do you want to transfer money to?*

Rondellen.

*What amount to send?*

1 silver

*Is the amount and person correct? Y/N?*

Yes.

*Transferred 1 silver to Rondellen*

“Did it work? I asked Rondellen. He didn’t answer instead I got a prompt:

*You have a money transfer for 1 silver from Rondellen, accept Y/N?*

Yes.

*1 silver was transferred to you from Rondellen*

“That is so cool!”

*You have a money transfer for 1675 gold, and 10 silver from Alfred, accept Y/N*

Yes.

*1675 gold and 10 silver were transferred to you from Alfred.*

*Money Balance*

*1795 gold, 35 silver, 8 rusty copper.*

“With that taken care of, do you wanna take a trip around town or go to Ragnhild and Alfred’s house?” Rondellen asked.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to go straight to the house since I’m quite tired.”

“Let’s do that. Just jump up on the wagon and we’ll go there. I’ll guess we see you later tonight, Alfred?” Rondellen said as we both sat down on the bench.

“Yes see you all tonight, I better get started on Green Raven's new sword,” Alfred said and gave us a wave before he turned and walked back inside.

The trip to the house was uneventful. We just passed row after row of houses until Rondellen stopped almost outside the town limit. There on the right-hand side, a nice red house with white corners lay. It was a two-story house like many others here, also with a garden. I was thinking I had to ask why the town was so green and when we just came from a desert.

“Dad!” A petite woman with long blonde hair and a big smile, dressed in a blue dress exclaimed. “You took longer than I expected. But just when I was about to get worried Alfred sent a message saying you had arrived.”

“Ragnhild!” Rondellens smile was even bigger than when we met Alfred. “Yes, I got into some troubles along the way but luckily found me Green Raven, or if luck found me for him. Nonetheless, he helped me. If it wasn’t for him, I’d probably not be here yet.”

The smile disappeared from Ragnhild’s face and she turned almost white as a sheet.

Rondellen was quick to tell her that everything went fine and that we would tell all about it at dinner, and that we were starving. He told her Alfred had invited me to stay here while he made me my sword. She didn’t look surprised at all, so that was probably a common occurrence here.

She soon turned into hostess mode and showed me around the house. It was a two-story building with four bedrooms on the second floor, and what looked like a bathroom and a flushing toilet! I found things more and more peculiar, especially since the whole world I’ve ended up in seemed to be in a technological phase compared to Earth's medieval times, the same as the game Running With Devils was. I thought I would ask about it at dinner. On the first floor, there was a kitchen and living room and in the backyard, there was a guesthouse. It was also there she placed me, and it made sense since Alfred’s customers came to stay here when it was needed. Rondellen had one of the rooms in the house which made sense as he was family.

After settling in and even sleeping for a short while, it felt good to sleep in a bed even if I only slept one night outdoors. Soon there was time for dinner. Rondellen came and got me. He had changed into an elegantly sewn dark red robe and handed me a dark blue one while telling me that this was customary dinner wear in PAERD. And since I was new here, I could borrow one.

I immediately decided I needed to procure one or two robes.

Outside the house, in the backyard, there was a square of hedges with a door in the middle. Inside was the dining room. I realized that it was a small house with one room and a fireplace inside the hedges. There was a round table with a hole in it and that’s where the fireplace was placed. And around the walls there was a sofa, It all looked very warm and cozy.

We sat down around the table and all of a sudden there were lots of plates with food and vegetables and fruit, filling the table, I didn’t recognize any of the fruits or vegetables but the aroma coming from the table smelled amazing, and the goblet also appeared filled with a red liquid that I guessed was similar to wine on earth. I was speechless, it was so unexpected with food and drinks just materializing from thin air.

And I noticed that all three were looking at me expectantly, with big smiles on their faces.

And I was like “aha, this was unexpected, I was just wondering why we were sitting down at an empty table.”

They all burst out laughing.

And then Alfred answered, “we’d be surprised if you didn’t have questions now. You wonder how the food just appeared, how the toilet flushes, and how it can be so green and lush here. When just outside the village there is mostly sand and old dried-out trees and shrubbery.”

“Yes you are right, I have questions about all those things and more. You said when I first met you, Rondellen, that Ragnhild and Alfred had a plot of land. I haven’t seen that and you didn’t say he was,” I pointed at Alfred, “a blacksmith.” And the last thing, when I first met you, you were leaning on a staff and looked like you would keel over at any moment. But later on, you looked like a middle-aged man jumping up on the wagon and when fighting the Shadow warriors.”

Rondellen’s face was just a big smile and he looked over at Alfred and said, “ I told you he would ask about that too!”

And Alfred just let out a hearty laugh. “Yes you did, Rondellen, yes you did.”