Staff-Sergeant Lydia Morales was worried. Her friend and fellow soldier, Sergeant First Class Lance Raven, had gone missing at the beginning of drill on Friday. This was now Sunday afternoon. She had only been released from drill about an hour ago, and she was determined to figure out what happened and find Lance. When he didn’t show up to the armory in Springtown before they were scheduled to leave for the training ranges. By the time they arrived there two hours later, there had still been no word of Lance, or the pyrotechnic ordinance he was carrying. The chain-of-command issued an incident report on the missing soldier and pyro, and The Adjutant General’s office elevated it to Army Command and the Highway Patrol.
The Commander, knowing that the two were fast friends, had spoken to her to see if she had any ideas on how to reach him or where to find him. Lydia had heard from Lance early Friday morning, when he had picked up the pyro in Plainsville, griping about the broken down truck, and then nothing. Apparently the Highway Patrol had been able to get access through the cellular provider of the last ping on Lance’s phone before it had gone off the grid. He was last known to be on the highway between Dugout and Robertsville. So, that was where Lydia was now.
Deciding she was going to retrace Lance’s path, she had hurried down the highway past Robertsville all the way to the Quickstop station at Dugout. She checked with the clerk at the station to see if anyone had seen him, but no such luck. Now, she was driving down the shoulder of the highway back towards Robertsville, scanning for anything out of the ordinary. As she was driving through one of the only uninhabited stretches of the road, she noticed a set of skid marks that appeared relatively dark and fresh. Stopping her car, she got out and started scanning the sides of the road, looking to see if there was any evidence of some kind of accident. She saw no broken glass, or pieces of auto-body plastics, and there was no roadkill laying in the road or the ditch to indicate an animal collision.
She was getting ready to turn back toward her car when she saw a shimmering swirl appear about chest height just inside the white line, in line with the end of the skid marks. Moving toward it, it expanded slightly and was now about a meter in diameter. Reaching her hand out toward the unexplained phenomenon, it started swirling faster, expanding in diameter, and she could feel a pull on her arm. Jerking back, the weird spectacle shrank back down to about the size of a hubcap. Lydia knew she would never be able to convince anyone of what she saw here, and she also knew in her gut that this had to be what happened to Lance. Turning back toward her car, she opened the back door and reached in and grabbed her med-bag, her assault pack, and her LBV (load bearing vest) and shrugged them on. Returning to what she was calling in her head the “astral gate”, because of its swirling blackhole/nova like appearance, it once again started expanding in size.
Taking a deep breath, knowing that this was not necessarily the wisest decision, but unable to leave her friend hanging out there without help, she stepped up to the event horizon and allowed the pull to encourage her steps through. The dark space of nothing and everything all at once swallowed her up. It was over in a moment that lasted an eternity, and she found herself stepping into a small forest glade in the middle of some kind of rock ring. The grass was beaten down in several places, and she could make out what appeared to be wheel tracks traversing a couple of places in the clearing and disappearing into a small trail in the woods. Determined to find Lance and make sure he was okay, she had no time to devote to the clearing, and strode purposefully toward the trail through the woods.
Lydia was cursing herself for not keeping at least a pistol in her car, and sending all her guns and ammo with Lance in his camper. She was currently using a club-like stick to fend off two little green monsters. She had just reached the end of the woods trail, and could see a paved roadway ahead of her when she heard a strange laughing sound and turned to see two small children headed her way. As they got closer, she noticed that they weren’t children, but some green creatures with bobble-heads, sharp teeth, and long ears. Even though she knew it was crazy, she determined they were typical fantasy goblins. One had a sharp stick, serving as a spear, and the other had a crude stick and stone axe. Her size advantage had allowed her to make a little distance from them and secure the branch that she was currently using to keep them at bay. They were fast and agile, and the one with the spear/stick had managed to nail her in the calf of the leg. It hadn’t even managed to puncture her uniform trousers, but had hit hard enough to cause her to stumble, and the other one had managed to clip her hand with the axe.
Only able to wield her club with her off hand now, she was wondering whether this was going to be it, was she going to fall to two rabid green toddlers without even knowing what had happened to Lance? She hadn’t given up hope completely, but knew she was fighting a losing battle, as they continued to harry her. Then suddenly she heard a roaring and rumbling noise. Lance’s big truck was there in the roadway. He jumped out running toward her as he drew his pistol and drilled one of the little suckers in the head. The other goblin, whether shocked by the demise of its partner or the report of the gunshot, froze momentarily allowing Lydia to bash it in the head. It dropped like a puppet with its strings cut. Suddenly she felt, heard, and saw, “ENERGY THRESHOLD REACHED, BEGINNING ACTIVATION…” and her vision tunneled like she was going to black out.
She vaguely heard Lance say, “I’ve got you”, before she suffered more impacts to her being.
BEGINNING CORE CREATION
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ANALYZING ATTRIBUTE THRESHOLDS
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SETTING ATTRIBUTES
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ANALYZING LIFE EXPERIENCE FOR SKILL THRESHOLDS
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PLEASE SELECT YOUR STARTING CLASS
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Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
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Focusing through the hammering of her soul by these notifications, Lydia thought about the words “Starting Class”. Her mind was suddenly filled with an overabundance of choices. Trying to mentally sort and analyze all the different classes on display seemed so daunting. Looking at the first option of ‘ARBORIST’, she was hoping for a drop-down menu or something like some of the games she had played. She was suddenly presented with
ARBORIST - a professional in the cultivation, management, and study of individual trees, and associated plant-life, focused on their health and safety, distinct from the mass forest management of either a forester or a logger.
Lydia had no interest in being an ‘Arborist’. Scanning through the choices she once again felt that pressure on her soul.
PLEASE SELECT YOUR STARTING CLASS
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Suddenly feeling like she was running out of time, she chose the option that had jumped out to her the most, ‘Mage’.
MAGE - a practitioner of magic, capable of feats bordering on mundane to miracle. Utilizing the arcane, the occult, divine, or supernatural, they bend reality to suit their purposes. Powerful, but often physically vulnerable.
CLASS MAGE ASSIGNED
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WELCOME TO SYSTEMA
LIVE, STRIVE, GROW
With the assault on her senses finally over, Lydia focused back on the world to find herself sitting on the edge of the road leaned up against Lance, as he scanned the treelines and up and down the road.
Lance POV
Quickly setting the brake on the wagon, Lance unhooked it from his camper. By that time the others had all exited his truck. He walked up to Bj?rn, telling him that he had to go check this out. If someone else had just arrived from Earth, he had to make sure they were at least safe and oriented to where they were and what had happened. Bj?rn understood, and told him that they would not be leaving here until tomorrow morning, so there was no doubt they wouldn’t get too far ahead of Lance no matter how long it took him to get back and find out what was going on.
With the caravan informed of his intentions, he climbed back in his truck, started it up, and shifted the transfer case into 2-high. Shifting into gear, he turned onto the main roadway headed back to the west. He knew the roadway was smooth and solid enough for him to drive whatever speed he wanted. However, not wanting to run into beasts or bandits without ample warning, and niggling in his mind the fact that the last time he was speeding along he wound up portaled to another world, he cruised along at about 35 mph. He didn’t know how these Travelers Gates worked, and was concerned that instead of a single 46 year old soldier with a plethora of gear and equipment, it might snatch up a single mom with her carload of young children.
As Lance came around the last bend in the road, he saw a figure in OCPs (the Army’s current version of combat uniform, Operational Camouflage Pattern) swinging a club at what he swore were goblins. They were smaller than the mara he had encountered in the clearing, and these appeared to be a blend of bright green and olive green instead of greyish-yellow. As he slammed on the brakes and shut the truck down, he realized that the person he was seeing fight with the goblins was his best friend in the world (he reckoned that was doubly so now), Lydia Morales. A fellow non-commissioned officer (NCO) and the medic from his Engineer Company.
His heart nearly skipped a beat as he realized she was hobbling a bit, and something was wrong with her strong hand. Lining up a shot, he drilled the spear-wielding goblin. Before he could transition to the other one, Lydia had given it a good home-run swing with her off hand and apparently cracked its skull. He saw the swirl of energy as it slammed into Lydia’s forehead, and was just barely able to reach her before she collapsed. Dragging her over to the side of the road, he lowered her into a sitting position, sat down beside her, and leaned her up against himself while he snagged her med bag and activated ‘Duplicate’. He was expecting it to not work, since the last he knew her kit weighed in at around 45 pounds. He was glad he had taken the chance when a second medical pack appeared lying next to the first.
Pulling some saline, iodine, gauze, and tape out of the bag, Lance got started. He did a full field assessment. Airway, breathing, and circulation were all green. Next he checked for lacerations, abrasions, and contusions. She had the gash on her right hand that was jagged and fairly deep, although it appeared that the improved constitution and vitality that came with awakening was starting to do its work, and unblousing her left pant leg, he saw a fairly ugly bruise on her calf that was already working through into the stages of purple and yellow. Lance used the saline to flush any foreign debris and blood clots out of the wound, sterilized the entire area with iodine, applied some antibacterial ointment and gauze, and taped it all up. It didn’t look like there was anything he was going to be able to do for the contusion on her leg. Now he just had to wait and keep watch. “DING”
Skill ‘First Aid’ has been obtained. Proficiency displayed.
Skill advanced to Level 8
About 30 minutes later, Lance noticed Lydia take a deep breath and shift her position. He looked down to see her looking back up at him, worry and confusion in her eyes. Smiling at her, he said. “Hey Mo, welcome to Oz. And I don’t mean Ozark. Seriously though, welcome to Hearth and the SNAFU that we find ourselves in.”
“Rav”, Lydia almost shouted, as she turned and threw her arms around him and kissed him. “I was so worried! I’m so glad I found you!”
Lance reflexively wrapped his arms around her, while being slightly taken aback. He and Mo (his nickname for her since everyone in the Army was always calling people by their last name), had been fast friends since shortly after her arrival to the unit 4 years ago, and even though he had thought about romance several times, but since he was technically her supervisor they were both too professional to intersperse fraternization into the mix. Now, with this little display, he would have to re-look and rethink his position and figure out for sure what hers was.
“So”, Lydia said, as she made some space between them, “a whole new world? I mean, I kind of suspected with the whole hole in reality in the highway kind of thing. You’ve been here for three days right? What have you learned, what can you tell me, and how do you know this place is called Hearth?”
“Well”, he said. “I’ve learned a lot, and I’m still certain it’s nothing in comparison to what we need to know. I’ll tell you everything, it’s just going to take some time to get through it all, and I know it’s called Hearth, because I have already met and interacted with the indigenous population. Elves and dwarfs and monsters and magic are real!”
“First though”, Lance stated, “let’s get through a few things. I’m not keen on sitting here any longer than necessary waiting to see if a wild animal is going to come sniffing around due to the dead bodies over there.”
He stood, and offered a hand to Lydia, then led her over to the goblins. “Alright”, he said, "I want you to do something for me. I want you to focus on one of these. Stare at it really hard to start off with. At the same time, I want you to focus on identifying what you're looking at, wanting to know what it is.” After about 45 seconds of this, Lydia gasped, and Lance asked her, “Did you get it”?
“I think so”, Lydia replied, “the whole world just rang like a bell, and I could see and hear it telling me that I had gained the ‘IDENTIFY’ skill and my willpower increased by 1 point. Rav, are we in a video game?”
“No Mo”, Lance responded, “were not in a video game. The best I can correlate it to, is that we are now in a new world whose fundamentals are underwritten by concepts that are a cross between a video game and a tabletop role-playing game. Welcome to the ‘Scrolls of ages’ crossed with ‘Grottos-n-Ghouls’. Now, moving on, I want you to do the exact same thing, but instead of just identifying what you're looking at, I want your intent to be to KNOW about what you’re looking at.”
This took a little longer, and Lance had no reference of how long it took him to get his ‘Analyze’ skill. It had been over 2 minutes, and Lance was just about ready to call it and move on, when Lydia took another deep breath and shifted her attention to Lance.
“I’m guessing you succeeded in obtaining ‘Analyze’”, Lance stated. Lydia responded with a nod. “Good”, he said, “one more thing to do and then we’ll move on from here. Now I want you to watch me.”
Lance reached down and touched the goblin he had shot, and said “Loot”. The familiar psychedelic rainbow light show activated and then all that was left was a small pile of teeth. “Now, I want you to do the same. The best I’ve been able to figure out, you can only loot something that you have killed.”
Lydia followed Lance’s example and looted the remaining goblin. Instead of teeth, she was left with a small silver ring. Lance had her ‘Analyze’ it and they found out that it was a minor ring of intellect. It granted her a +1 to her intelligence attribute.
With the goblins disposed of, Lance said “Let’s get your gear stashed in the camper, and we’ll load up and get headed down the road.” Matching action to words, Lance reached down and grabbed Lydia’s assault pack and the duplicate med bag, as Lydia picked up the original and shouldered it. Her look of confusion almost made Lance laugh, and he told her he would explain it when they got to the campsite. Once they were both settled into the cab of the truck, Lance fired it up and put it in gear. He swung a wide u-turn in the road, and headed back to the east. The light of the blue sun fading below the horizon behind him.
