Quick Load

Thomas

The last traces of Thomas’s consciousness were fading as the feeling of blood draining turned into numbness. Immediately he felt as though his mind was being dragged through a thick viscous liquid — a sensation that vanished when he opened his eyes.

He was reliving a memory he had forgotten. Lying on the floor in an old pub, staring up at a dimly lit bar counter.

He saw that some glasses had fallen over and were pouring their contents down the side of the counter. As he glanced up to the ceiling, he realised this was most likely because whatever had destroyed the roof had knocked them over. He coughed slightly and winced from the pain finding himself unable to move.

Thomas lay on the ground for a while longer, staring through the hole in the roof at the bright and eerie full moon. He coughed again and felt more pain as he did so. A bit of blood sprayed from his mouth and spattered his chin. Bracing through pain more excruciating by the second, he rolled over to his side.

He saw across the floor his friend Anjan, next to a woman he knew pressing down on his wound with blood matted hair. His vision was out of focus, and he turned his attention away from his friend and toward the pool of blood which was now growing around him, as it reflected the moonlight.

An occasional distant explosion disrupted the silence. A puff of purple smoke flashed in and out of existence in the pub. Thomas could see the distorted image of a small black figure appearing in one of the smoke clouds, before disappearing in another.

A sudden bright flash and Thomas was blinded. Opening his eyes again, in his twinned vision of present and past, he 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. The light still distorting his vision, Thomas watched as the man slowly approached, and his consciousness faded into nonexistence.

...

He woke up again.

The rush of memories came into his head. The running, the fighting. They had been saved by someone or something. It wasn't clear but they now at least knew who he was, where he came from.

He reached a hand towards his injuries but found nothing. He was unharmed. Adrenaline flooded his body, it took him a while to realise where they were. Back in the cavern. He tried to steady his heartbeat and felt it ease, influenced by something otherworldly.

Anjan was just across from him, looking shell-shocked. A slight glow around him, like the shimmer of light from a flickering fire.

“Didn't we just die?"Thomas asked.

Anjan was still mutely holding his chest in shock. “They stabbed me.”

The sound of coughing grabbed their attention. Something in front of them on the rocky floor had just cleared its throat. A small blue-black humanoid creature was hunched in front of them.

“Not even a single day, I don't know if your unlucky, lucky or just stupid,” it stated flatly. Its voice seemed to reverberate a low pitch as it spoke.

Thomas and Anjan stared blankly at the creature.

“We, uh, just died,” Anjan replied in shock. Thomas remained speechless.

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“Y-You were in my dream,” Anjan said to the creature.

“Listen, I really don't care. I was waiting here all this time for you to come back. Not cool by the way. So first, let me ask you a few questions since you died without supervision.”

The creature materialized a small booklet and started mumbling to himself. "in the case of discovery and death by vampires then.... Right"

“Have you seen that…girl...” Anjan asked. He was struggling to find a name as if it was a fleeting memory he was clawing to get back.

“The one you came with?... Yeah, she is here, don't think about it." The thing stated.

"Where is she?" Thomas asked.

"Just don't think about it,” it replied, seeming a bit bored.

Thomas tried to remember the woman, what had happened — he grasped a name, Rose, and as he did he was overcome with a splitting headache which stopped all thoughts. He groaned in frustration.

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 when I think about how I have to explain this shit to you and when I imagine all the stupid questions you'll ask after that.”

Thomas stared blankly at the small angry creature.

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

It got out another 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." It shuffled the paper. "Have you, A, Been killed by a creature. B, been killed by accident. Or C, been killed by something self-aware."

Anjan looked at the gremlin in utter confusion. “A?”

“C!” Thomas blurted out.

“Ah, yeah,” Anjan concurred.

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

“Yeah, probably, right?” Anjan said, looking askance at his companion.

“Probably, yes,” said Thomas.

“Ok, finally. Are they, A, associated with authority, guards, soldiers etc.; B, lawless, or some sort of underground group; C, tree huggers, dryads, campers, hunters, people that live alone. or D Civ-“

“They’re goblins,” Thomas interrupted.

The creature lowered its paper and gave them a questioning look. “Goblins.” It finished its checklist and dematerialized the note. He seemed disappointed with their response. “So, how do you feel after your first death?”

“Confused,” Anjan replied.

“You have no memories and are on a different planet...I don't mean, do you feel 'lonely',” the creature said in a patronizing tone.

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

"Yes," it replied. He paused, frowning at their expectant looks.

“Right. So you were brought here from another world. Earth. You can't remember anything because of how we rushed the system we put in you, and now you need to adjust.

You are literally an unimportant waste of resources that the boss man decided to give out of charity. And more than that you ran through the portal immediately so now I'm stuck here too because apparently someone needs to look after you and make sure you don't go into some sort of death spiral.

You have one job. Stay low, don’t let anyone know where you came from. If the time comes someone will come and take you back. Good?”

Anjan nodded whilst Thomas held up a hand. The creature looked at Thomas with distaste, ignoring him.

"So, do you want your gear?" It asked.

The interdimensional being disappeared for a moment and reappeared with a set of clothes. They were rough leather with some padded protection. The two travellers put the leather armour, it was simple padded protection that could easily protect them from sticks, stones and improvised weapons. But not the scathing words of the being before them.

"And again, if you idiots didn't just run through the portal, we would have given you this and some training before putting you out here."

The creature disappeared again in a cloud of violet dust and returned with a bow, a quiver of ten arrows, a rucksack and a couple of steel short swords. Anjan reached for the bow, but it said, “Leave that for him. Apparently, you have a strong affinity, so let me just wake it up.”

The two of them picked up their equipment and put it on. The swords appeared smaller than normal but were a good weight and easy to swing.

Within one of its hands, the creature produced a crystal glowing with silver energy. It reached forward and pointed one of its three fingers to Anjan’s head while pressing the crystal against his chest. Its little hands glowed a faint black and purple as it held Anjan’s gaze. Their eyes shone a brilliant red and a trail of orange energy drifted in a line between them.

Anjan felt a feeling of warmth as his mind was taken to another place, and time itself seemed to freeze. He now appeared in a vision of a time long ago — a time he went camping.

He was sat in an open field, a stack of wood and straw in front of him. He was feverishly trying to spin a stick on a piece of wood. He had spent over an hour gathering the materials and had spent even longer trying to start a fire this way. Nothing seemed to be working.

He managed to fashion a rope to another stick like a bow and used it to spin the stick faster. He placed bits of dry straw onto the wood and kept at it. 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. He kept spinning the stick.

Finally, a fire emerged. Anjan stoked it further, adding more straw, more sticks, and it took hold of the other materials, igniting the stacked wood above it. He 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 to the material world with a jolt, he jumped back from the gremlin and fell onto the floor.

updating...

calibrating new system functionality...

opening mana channels...

analysing conversion type...

Mana acquitted

Affinity: Fire magic

Anjan stretched, feeling a strange power rushing inside him. He focused, trying to create what he felt and on command, the glimmer of a spark came from his hand.

“Nice,”

The strange interdimensional being seemed to be trailing smoke now. Its form looked to have difficulty maintaining consistency, as bits of it leaking and faded into smoke. It waved a hand and looked away before letting out a sort of cough, spraying purple dust.

"That was rough *cough* *cough*-- I'll take a break... Remember, don't tell anyone I'm here, don't tell anyone you're a lich and whatever you do, don't ask me any more questions."

"What was that second to last part again?"

A groan echoed out as the creature disappeared in a puff of smoke appearing again with a rucksack, tablet and a pair of headphones, before climbing into the rucksack.

“Annoying,” Anjan stated.

Thomas sighed. Mentally strained, the two of them collapsed on their backs, gazing at the cavern ceiling. The sun had begun to set, and the light was fading.

Thomas moved to pick up the backpack, placing it over his back and getting ready for the trip.

"Don,t drop be and my name is Kurt," it said before a light blue glow shone from the backpack, a faint trail of smoke coming out of it.

Thomas shook the backpack slightly eliciting a low growl from within.

"So, you know the way right?"

"Just go away from the mountains," Kurt said.

"Anything else?"

He only grunted from Thomas's pack.

Thomas sighed again. "Let's go and find out."

“I guess we go a different way to last time though, right?” Anjan asked.

The feeling of hunger had disappeared, but he knew it would come back, the way they went from before only brought death and no food.

Thomas shook the backpack hearing a brief "Watch it," from inside.

“Hopefully,” Thomas replied.