With a new sense of resolve, Eli started by looking through his storage bracelet. He’d promised himself he’d take the time to go through it when he had a chance, and now seemed like a good time to get started. There were still a lot of random items in the thing Lugh called a “DS,” but he didn’t have a great way to organize it.

“Ugh, I wish I had a spreadsheet or something,” he muttered, mentally sifting through the objects. “Oh, wait,” he said with a bit of excitement as he hopped up and walked over to his door. Opening it, he spotted two guards outside in the hallway – a man and woman wearing the heavier armor he’d seen in the courtyard yesterday – the ones he’d marked as the elite. He hadn’t noticed when the guards showed up last night, but he’d also been too exhausted to care and didn’t think it was too much of a surprise after the attack yesterday.

“Hey, nice to meet both of you,” Eli said with a polite nod. He turned to the male guard, “Could I get a bunch of writing paper and a pen? Heck, if it’s not called a pen, then whatever people use to write stuff down. Options would be fantastic as I’d rather not keep all this in my head. Hard enough to think straight as it is! Oh, and where do I go for breakfast? I’m not sure how it works here with no entertainment consoles to order food or services. I’m getting a bit hungry, and eating rations sucks, even on a good day.”

The two guards’ eyes went a bit round as he talked before both glanced at each other once he was done.

“Oh, sorry if I’m asking you to do this or fetch something. I just don’t know the proper way to ask for assistance. So how about it?”

Still no response.

“Wait, is my language program still working? Can you understand me?”

Shit, did something break while I slept? Not speaking the local language would SUCK with big capital letters!

The man finally reacted as he gestured back inside the room. “There should be a wooden panel next to the door,” the guard said. “It is the servant’s chime. If you push it into the wall, that should bring a servant to meet your needs, Gifted Tal.”

Eli nodded in return, briefly looking at the other guard, but looked away again when she simply nodded. Mentally shrugging, he went back inside his room and found the panel the guard had described on the wall between his door and bathroom. It looked like a wooden version of an electronic door opener that some older buildings still had back home. Pushing the wooden panel, he went back to his chair to wait.

A knock on his door quickly followed, and the guards opened the door for two young women in the same servant outfits from the night before. Both were around Dara’s age, their long hair bound high in a single braid, and they wore long dresses and light pants of the same off-white color and cut.

Eli quickly gave directions to both of them, trying to explain what he was looking for. He wasn’t sure what kind of paper or writing utensils they had here or if they had anything like graph paper. As for food, he requested a mix of whatever was handy since he wasn’t feeling picky. He was just happy he didn’t have to worry about dietary restrictions here, with no one likely giving him any stink-eye for his food choices.

The two women cleaned up his messy table and returned quickly with their arms full of materials. His table was soon full again, but with new loot, while his second chair served as a temporary landing spot for the overflowing supplies.

Thanking the two, he smiled as he looked over the goodies they’d brought. On the table were three plates of food, each with something different to try. One had thick slices of meat that looked like pork, while another had various fruits and veggies. The last plate had two different types of bread and a small bowl of spread. They’d left a jug with two cups, a couple of smaller empty plates, and utensils.

Hot damn!

He took one of the smaller plates and filled it with all sorts of different foods. With his plate piled high, he sat in the other chair and went to work enjoying the food. The greenery caught him by surprise, with tastes far from anything he’d expected. One, in particular, looked like a blue radish yet tasted like an overripe kiwi and the skinny cucumber was almost as sour as a lemon. Strange fruits aside, the meat and bread hit the spot. Like the food he’d had at the Lodge, the flavors were strangely similar, yet off, from what he’d had on Earth.

While he ate, he looked over the writing materials. They’d brought a decent haul with three types of paper, as far as he could tell. One was thin, translucent, and almost like rice paper. He couldn’t imagine using it for writing, though it was surprisingly durable. Just to test it, he tried ripping it, but it resisted like hard plastic. There was no smell to it as far as he could tell, and he had no idea what it was used for, but he’d make a note to ask someone later.

The second material, making up the biggest of the three stacks, was closer to low-quality printer paper, but the smell was all wrong, lacking the chemically musty scent he’d expected. Instead, it had a sharp and almost citrus fragrance he associated with a fruit tree, which definitely confused him. Still, the paper felt similar when he passed a hand across the surface, rolling a few sheets and even ripping one to hear the familiar sound. It might smell like a lemon tree, but it should work fine for his needs.

The last stack was only two single sheets and appeared to be vellum. Eli had never seen natural vellum made from animal skin, but he guessed that the smooth and unexpectedly soft sheets matched the descriptions he’d read about. They had a peculiar scent like a combination of leather and old books, with just a hint of wet dog. He wasn’t sure if or how he’d use the stuff, but at least he knew it was an option.

He grabbed a sheet of the second type for a quick writing test since it looked like the best candidate for his ugly notes. Picking through the neat pile of writing tools they’d left him, he chose something that resembled a green-colored graphite pencil without the eraser. He made a few quick slashes in one corner of the paper, making easy marks.

“Okay, now we’re in business,” he said with a smile, nodding in satisfaction.

Before getting rolling, he needed to organize his materials just how he liked them. His team back home had made fun of his fussy behavior around his workspace, but he was honest enough to recognize what worked, and he enjoyed having everything close by and in the same place every time.

The first step was cleaning up, and he stacked up the refuse from his assault on breakfast, moving everything onto the floor near the door. Sitting back down, he placed a small stack of scratch paper in front of his seat to soften the writing surface a bit and moved the rest of the larger stack a little further away but still in front of him for an easy refill. On his right, he had a pencil and a fine-tipped pen that looked almost modern. The other two types of paper and rejected writing utensils were piled onto the other chair, far from where he would work. He put a cup of juice from breakfast out of easy reach on the other end of his table for particularly tough problems. At a time like that, he liked to pace while sipping his ‘brain juice,’ but sadly, he still hadn’t found any coffee.

After everything was just so, he stepped back and surveyed his domain. “Nice,” he said and couldn’t help smiling at the feeling of a certain rightness to everything. “Okay, time to kick some ass. Let’s start listing out what I know and what I’m guessing. Oh, and what’s next? That’s the big one.”

Idly tapping one foot on the ground in time with a random song in his head, he started with a rough timeline. He considered Day 1 as the “Lugh Experience.” He thought he’d been there for less than an hour, but it had to have a day since Lugh and that encounter were far too significant not to set aside a particular day. Also, Eli couldn’t begin to guess if there was any time dilation between Lugh’s place and Lurra, so he erred on the side of caution.

He wrote everything he could think of about Lugh and what he’d seen there but didn’t bother with complete sentences or making it pretty since these notes were just for him. It wasn’t like he had a boss to look over his work anymore. He muttered quietly to himself as he looked over some of the details he’d just written, “Thinking back over the days and counting Lugh as Day 1 and assuming that it was the same day I left Earth – that would mean that today is Thursday. Of course, it could also be Friday if travel time was involved.”

He shook his head. “No, that’s dumb,” he told himself. “The names for the days of the week are arbitrary. What I call the days doesn’t matter for this. Geez, I haven’t even asked Dara how they name the days of the week yet. Do they even have seven days in a week here? There’s no way they call the days the same thing. Wait, would that mean my translation would take whatever word they used for today and call it Thursday anyway? Whatever – it doesn’t matter right now. Numbers to the rescue!

“Okay, so then today is Day 7? Oh wow, it’s only been a week? What a mind-screw that is. From accountant to a fighter to a healer that saves the local princess and warlord. Man, that would be a resume builder, though not in my old profession. Heck of a cover letter blurb there that would let me stand out from the crowd!”

Snorting at his stupid humor, he added some illustrations related to a number of new concepts and mysteries he’d stumbled across during his journey. The first and most apparent was that magic was real, though what it actually was, how it worked, and other similar questions were still largely unknown. Then there was how mana interacted with people since the glowing lights only reacted to the environment under particular circumstances. Of course, there were plenty of questions about the big glowing ball in his body. What it was, how it produced energy, and how it didn’t interfere with his other internal organs were obscure variables. There were just so many unknowns with new rules to learn.

“The first big open question is, what is up with Guide?”

Command Unknown

Please restate question

Shiiiiiiiit. Note to self once again: don’t talk out loud about Guide. Scary-ass piece of hardware with two scoops of buggy software, all served with sprinkles of a Hal-like personality on top. Yay.

Sahara’s extensive team of doctors and engineers had operated and installed Guide a little over a month ago, and Eli had gone through a few weeks of recovery, physical therapy, and training before they’d let him get back to work. He thought he’d had a pretty good handle on the basics about how it communicated and worked in an everyday setting. Incorporating it into his daily life had been a bit bumpy, but he’d had less than a week to really try it out before he’d been kidnapped into this new reality.

Everything changed when Eli woke up in Lugh’s lab. Since then, many features and programs had disappeared, there were sudden and frequent headaches, and he couldn’t be sure how to fix it. He hoped it was a software issue, as that left him with a few options. If it was a hardware problem, he might be truly screwed. While he wanted to figure out what was happening with Guide, he finally decided that tabling that would be the best course for now. He’d keep his eyes and ears open for new data, but he could break something which could badly injure or even kill him.

Puts a different spin on, ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ when it’s broke, but I don’t dare try to fix it.

Moving on to his next big open question, he still didn’t understand the various mysteries and was only guessing at some of the mechanics of this world. For example, how did leveling work? Why did he seem to be so overpowered? He’d only had a small sample size so far, but Dara had been hammering him on how much more powerful he was than other people in this world. He guessed that his rapid levels had at least something to do with it but not what caused the levels. He needed to learn more – to experiment.

The problem was that while he wanted to experiment, his previous attempt after healing Dara had produced mixed results. He’d tried to replicate the Mana Candy by pushing energy from his core into the rest of his body. While it had resulted in his level going from 7 to 8, he’d also passed out and woke up with one of the worst headaches he’d ever experienced. On top of that, Guide had displayed many scary error messages, and Eli wasn’t in a hurry to replicate that again.

The cherry on top of the whole stupid mystery was that he wasn’t even sure what leveling actually did. There wasn’t a damage indicator anywhere, nor hit points or health, so as far as he could tell, it was a useless number. He had tried to get Guide to provide any stats or details, but it only returned consistent error messages or Eli’s personal favorite: “Command Unknown.” The fact that there was a level that was not only tracked but changed based on his actions indicated that something was happening under the hood. As with too many things, he needed more data and planned on cracking the leveling nut as soon as possible.

Looking over his notes, flipping through his words and diagrams, he thought about what he wanted to do next.

Let’s shelve experimenting for today. I can start tomorrow after I’ve had some more rest. I’m still exhausted from yesterday, plus I’d like to know where I stand with Dara, Wybert, and the rest. Assuming I have a secure base and home, I can worry about figuring stuff out. Gotta prioritize short-term survival before worrying about the long-term stuff, like whether I can get back to Earth someday or even whether I want to go back. I mean, a magical world is pretty awesome.

Now that Eli had decided to treat this as reality and not a dream, he had to rethink some things. For example, he definitely didn’t want everyone to know about his business. He was naturally a private person, but he had just saved the local warlord and would likely meet with him soon. There was little question that he’d have to trust Wybert to some extent, just as he did Dara, but Eli wanted to be sure he used some promises of silence or whatever the local equivalent was. Plus, he thought he’d start his story when he saved Dara. There was no need to bring up Lugh, especially as Lugh had called the people here “prisoners.”

Thinking of Lugh, he still had that quest to figure out and pulled up his quest prompt from Day 1.

Yeah, that’s the one. Not that this quest really matters. I mean, I can’t decline it, so it’ll just always be there. What a stupid-ass quest. Still, it is what it is. Who knows, it might lead to something good if I actually complete it someday.

He decided to check in with Dara and Wybert anyway. It was already past midday, and he wanted to ensure they were both doing fine. He got up and pushed the chime button to bring help again just as he felt a breeze come in through the open window. Feeling a slight tickle, he looked down to see that he was still in his underwear.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered as he replayed his morning.

No wonder the guards looked at me like I was crazy. What did those two young women think? Oh shit, and I just called them back!

His pants and shirt appeared around his body only moments before the door opened, and a single woman walked in this time. Wondering if anyone in this world knocked while feeling his face heat up, he said, “Hello, miss. Could you find out if Dara or her father are available? I’d like to talk with them if possible.”

The woman simply bowed at the waist and left without a word.

Okay, so is that a yes?

Shrugging, he returned to his chair, quickly losing himself in his notes while absently sipping on some of the strangely sweet juice they’d brought with breakfast. A quick knock on the door, and then it opened, catching him by surprise.

Eli’s frown disappeared as Dara walked in, and he stood up to greet her. “Hey Dara, how’re you – eep,” he let out a tiny squeak as Dara hugged him hard, her arms squeezing around his waist.