As a human in this world, I had a pretty normal childhood and life. I went to school, made a few friends, and got involved in a few activities, all of it happened. As a purely average person, I was content with that life. Despite my normal appearance, I had a few hidden pleasures, most notably my love for information. I would read and study anything that interested me, most of it was trivial, but my love for social, historical, and economic knowledge was insatiable. This love had translated into a large blog in which I would apply my readings to modern situations, giving my take on current events within the economical and political landscape.
Despite my love for this information, I wasn’t what you would call a successful student. I did have a way of charming or picking out people to help me through tough times but my talents were much more concentrated on the things I was interested in, making other things such as math and science my weak points. Naturally, I decided to major in socio-economics and world history to study what I loved, and for the other classes involved…. I usually sought out help from others, convincing them to help me overcome those obstacles. Due to this, I had quite a few friends, but none that were very close. I was holed up reading way too much to make close friendships.
That all changed when suddenly my great uncle died. My grandfather and father served in the military, and they had both died in combat before I was born. My grandmother and mother had raised me in a stable household, but my grandfather’s younger brother, a university professor, had been my main father figure. He had stayed a bachelor his entire life, so we were his only family. Other than coworkers, he had no meaningful relationships. But to understand my story, you must know what he told me before he died. My great uncle had known he was dying for a long time. Finally, when the hospice workers came, he sat down with me and told me his dying wish. “Great Niece, I have lived a life, a good one. But if there was one thing I would regret, it’s not having someone. Now, this has no romantic connotation, but I never did have many close friends. The only members I had were my family, and I am sad to say that after your grandfather died, it was hard for me to connect with any of them, other than you. You remind me so much of him, and me. Soon I will be gone from this world, and it is okay to be sad, but if you truly want to make me happy, make these lasting connections.”
Later he was gone, and his words stuck to me. I knew I only had acquaintances, not close friends. Breathing in and out, I walked out of my apartment. As a university student in the United States State of Oregon, I had acquired a university-owned apartment I shared with two other students. They were fine, but I never made a lasting effort to become good friends with them. I walked through my building thinking about how my life would be if these “friends'' of mine were close friends. Sighing, I left my building, wondering how I could fulfill my uncle’s wish. As I opened the door to leave the lobby, the doorknob started glowing. Curious, I tried turning the knob. Opening the door, I was blinded by some light, I shuffled my way through. Gasping, I realized that the new scenery did not correspond to a busy street in a city, I was surrounded by a field of green hills everywhere. Looking back, I saw that the door had disappeared. Gasping, I realized that I was now stuck. PInching my cheeks, I tried to wake myself up if this was a dream. When that didn’t work, I realized I was awake and in this new world.
I walked across the fields, I inventoried myself. I had a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, a hoodie, and a good pair of sneakers. I had stupidly left my phone in my room so I had no means to communicate. Looking at my surroundings, I realized the environment I was brought into. While I was immediately greeted by green fields, covering an expanse of several hills. A large river snaked between the fields and forested woodland covered the base of some far of mountains, with the fields and the woods bordering each other.
Overall, this looked like a nice place to settle, and I was wondering why no one had thought of doing anything with this land, there had to be a settlement or some sort of municipality around. As I advanced, looking for signs of life I saw a shimmering shape in the sky. Soon that shape took clear form, it was a man, simple looking and features standing in the sky. Opening his mouth, he said clearly, “Greetings, young human, I am a great God, the God of Gates.” What? Gates, there’s a God of Gates?
“Why am I here?” I asked, curious.
“Well about that…” The God chuckled and looked to the side, obviously embarrassed. “As the God of Gates, I control transportation, including interworld transportation. I was in the middle of a job in Midgard, ya know, what you call earth, and I may have miscalculated something so that door you went through? Well, it got caught up in my spell.”
“So it’s your fault I’m here.” I deduced loudly.
“HAHAHA, well you don’t have to put it that harshly. I did end up realizing my mistake halfway through and luckily I was able to reroute you to a place that was safer than where my client was heading.” The god continued, clapping his hands together. “So welcome! This is your home now!”
“Wait, you're the God of Gates, Just take me back!” I said firmly.
“Uh, well I can’t do that,” he replied.
“Why not?”
The god took a deep breath, “Well, traveling through a divine gate has some repercussions, for one thing, your flimsy human body got shrouded in my divine energy. Now, this has positive effects, for one thing, you are now under my blessing, and should be stronger than the normal creature, but it also means you have an aura.”
“Meaning?” I asked.
“Meaning if I send you back, the God of the Worlds will surely notice. He monitors these sorts of things. He knows that I was working there! If I send you back then he’ll find you through your aura and then he’ll figure out I screwed up and I’ll be on probation!”
“Does that matter?” I asked.
“Yes, it matters! I’ll have privileges revoked! I’ll be a transportation slave for millennia!” The God said, fear in his eyes.
“Look! I don’t care if you're a god or whatever, you sent me here so you need to suck it in and take some responsibility!”
“Hey! It’s not like you’ll go without punishment either, the God of Worlds will surely not let some divine enshrouded human walk around normal ones, he’ll call for your detainment, if not your elimination.”
I breathed, “So I might die?”
“Yes! Now you get it! So to save both of our butts, I think it’s a good thing that I sent you here.”
“Why don’t you kill me? It would save you the trouble, having me around.”
The god laughed, “Oh I’d love to! But as divine beings, we are monitored somewhat. If I took your life the World God would notice. Then we’d be found out.”
“So what’s your plan?”
“Simple, you live here!”
“And what keeps the World God from noticing me here?”
“Simple, this is a failed world, or rather a world that has lost favor, the World God made this world, but then neglected it. Most of the other Gods probably forgot this world even existed!”
“So you put me here in this neglected world so I won’t be found out?”
“Yep! Now that you are here you can live your life in this world and no one will notice, and I can go back to being a God and living the good life!” the God of Gates grinned.
I sighed, “Fine then I guess I’ll just have to live here. I mean, you're a God, it’s not like I can defy you.”
The God nodded, “There ya go! Now I’m not without sympathy. So I’ll help you out a little.”
“In what way?”
“First of all, as a benefactor of my divinity, I can bestow a few skills and such on you to make your life easier. First of all, I gave you a universal communication skill, communication is very important in transportation, so I can bestow this on you. It’ll let you communicate with any of the beings in this world in their native languages, and let you read and write in those languages as well.”
“So there are other beings here in this world.”
“Yep! You’ll find them eventually, they’re fine, you should get along with them. I also gave you some heightened senses and some attributes for the natural order of things around here for you. Technically you received them as part of divinity, but let’s just say their gifts. It will make you pretty invulnerable around here, so you’ll be safe… I think.”
“You think?”
“Never mind that… You should be fine here, if anything the residents will educate you on everything you need to know, meanwhile I have somewhere I have to be, so goodbye!”
“Wait, you still have to answer some of my questions!” I called but he was already gone.
“Darn it!” I said, “Well now I’m screwed!”
I advanced through the terrain, walking until I suddenly found a road. Yes! I followed the dirt road for a few miles, despite it being hot, I wasn’t very bothered. I soon saw signs of life, a town was at the end of the road. I quickly entered.
I realized immediately that this was a new world. I saw a bunch of people walking around in what I would qualify as late medieval era clothes. My clothes stuck out, and a fair number of people stared at me.
Ducking my head, I looked for something to do, somewhere to gather information.
Suddenly a loud voice rang through the air, “You there! My friend, where did you get such clothes?”
I perked up, finding the owner of the voice, there was a short and portly man in a well-tailored suit staring at me, looking intrigued.
“Are you a foreigner, I have never seen such a style!”
“Oh yes, I guess I am a foreigner, these clothes are the traditional wear of where I am from,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
“Well, may I buy them from you? Such a style is intriguing.”
Buy them? Well, I mean money is always good I guess, and this will give me the chance to ask a few things.
The portly man introduced himself as Grattana, a tailor in this town. The town was called Elentiania, a town in the autonomous region of Garentouress. He owned a store and led me into a changing room to sell off my clothes. He gave me free replacements that complimented me well. I was a lady, but I liked mobility. This culture luckily provided some sort of equality between the genders, and pants were perfectly respectable for a lady, so I wore a tunic and pants.
He paid me 15 gold coins. Based on the info I had gathered, every gold coin was worth 100 silver coins, and every silver coin was worth 100 copper coins. Also, there were platinum coins, which were worth 100 gold coins. Gold coins were about what you would call $500 in USD. Which just showed Grattana’s wealth and how much he appraised my clothes. I now had about $7,500 in my pocket, this was a lot of money, especially compared to what this world calls a normal salary. Every silver coin was about $50, so every copper coin was about $5, and a platinum coin was about $5,000. The average salary was 3 coppers biweekly. So that means you make about $30 a month, which is barely enough to live on based on this economy. So $7,500 was a lot of money to have on hand.
Now dressed inconspicuously, I walked through town. I approached a large hall. This was the adventurers’ guild, a place for people like me to make quick connections and it was very typical of RPG-style games or books to have this institution. Entering the hall, I found desks manned by receptionists on one side, and a huge dining hall on the other. Approaching the desks, I started talking with a pretty receptionist. The lady was young, as young as me, around 19 or so. She smiled and said, “Welcome to the adventures guild, this branch is called Carilian, I am Razana, how can I help you?”
“Hey, I’m looking to register here,” I said. Grattana told me that the guild was expansive, having many branches all around the world. If you registered at one branch, it was like being registered as a citizen, giving me diplomatic documents, and making me an official member of this world.
Razana smiled, ”Of course, I can help with that.”
I was given a sheet to fill out. I now had the chance to completely remake my identity. For a name I put Silviphiette Tephit, this was one of my favored D&D character’s names so it was easy making it mine. I filled out other parts and then handed the receptionist back the sheet. Razana inspected the sheet, ‘Silviphiette is it?”
“Yes, you can call me Silvi though,” I replied
“Well, do you know your magical attributes?”
Grattana told me that this world had magic in it, it compensated for the lack of modern technology. However, even though most people had magic, magical capacity, or mana, was limited for everyone. But knowing your attributes made life a lot easier, and this appraisal was given for free for any adventurers. Shaking my head, Razana brought forth a crystal ball, placing my hand upon it, it projected an image into the air.
Razana gasped, “I’ve never seen such power!”
I raised my eyebrows, “Is this a problem?”
Razana shook her head, “No just surprising, you seem to have the attributes of all the elements, water, fire, earth, wind, light, and dark! I’ve never seen this, it is very rare.”
Huh, so this is probably what the God of Gates dude said about giving me a divine leg up. I smiled, “Well what does that mean?”
“It means you are qualified for most of the magical adventurer classes here at the guild. Your capacity is very large as well, and your intelligence is above average. How did you manage to be so gifted?”
I shrugged, “I had a bit of help.”
Razana smiled, “Well that help did a lot! Now it is time for you to choose your class. There are many, but here is a list.”
There were truly a lot of classes, there were archpriests, who called upon the favors of God, but that didn’t appeal to me very much. There were also more mundane classes, such as fighter or brawler, or thief.
None of them appealed to me very much, but I chose a generic mage as my class.
Razana smiled, “A mage it is then, now Silvi, you are a part of this guild!”
I was given some documents as credentials and I walked into the hall, there was a large bookcase filled with tomes here for public use for guild members, I intended to read to get me up to speed on the happenings of this world.
My reading gave me a good perspective. The world was divided into many countries, which were located in several different landmasses. There were three main landmasses. This one I was on was called the mass of man, or Man’s continent. It was primarily made up of humans, but some regions had a large population of demi-humans as well. Demi-humans made up a portion of the population that had human-like attributes. Such included dwarves, elves, and beastmen. Another continent included the mass of demonkin or the demonkin’s continent. This continent’s population was made up of many sentient beings, many classified as anti-human beasts called monsters and the more intelligent demonkin, who coexisted with them. The last continent was inhabited by dragons and their kin, Dragons were quite smart and capable, and many had their lands in the mass of dragons. Some smaller archipelagos and islands had nations in this world. I was in the autonomous region of Garentouress, it was a strip of unclaimed land. To the north were regions that had discrimination against demi-humans, many of which were enslaved. The southern nations had less discrimination and were without slaves. However, the war over this disenfranchisement and slavery led the northern and southern states to hate one another. The autonomous region of Garentouress was a strip of land that stretched from one side of the mountains that went through the center of the mass of man to the west coast, it divided the continent into the north and south. This land served as a buffer between the two opposing powers. It was home to many demi-human refugees and escaped slaves. It was underdeveloped as neither of the southern or northern countries wanted to settle here at risk of aggravating the others. The strip of land had developed its towns which served as city-states and had self-governing properties. This town was just one of those self-governing municipalities. The strip had been in neglect because it wasn’t administered by a central government, so crime and monster attacks were high. That’s why the guild was so popular here, to get rid of such hindrances.
I wanted to start a life here, so being an adventurer would probably help, and if I wanted, I could go to another country and start there.
For now, I decided to check into an inn and rest414Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUnMekfC3wb
