"GET BACK!"
She continues dragging the man until she’s fully clear. Her radio chirps that it can't find a repeater. What in the actual fuck. Patting down the man for any smoldering coals, her training takes over. Gloves come off so she can check his pulse.
Do I have hypoxia? She uses her free hand to strip off her face mask, feeling at the mans neck for a pulse. She leans down, seeing him breathing, and rolls him into the recovery position.
She looks around, deciding her brain can't be perceiving reality the right way. If my mask seal leaked or my tank is contaminated, my brain is currently just a bowl of mush trying to make sense of a bad trip. Hallucinations? Check. Combative, though? She thinks back to her screaming at the crowd. No more than usual.
"YOU! In the tin suit! Go get a medic!" She yells, pointing at someone in armor. Seriously, someone wearing plate armor is staring at a five-alarm fire.
He runs off with a clank. Alex checks on her patient again; he’s still breathing.
Okay, Alex, time to not panic. You probably have hypoxia. The alternatives would be absolutely insane. Medical will be here for both of us.
Name: "WHAT THE FUCK!"
Confirm
Yes/No
Hypoxia is a bitch. Alex thinks looking at the fire and takes it in. The building is wrong. The smoke itself is wrong. It smells more like a barbecue than a fire; wood burning, no concrete pops or the horrible smell of drywall.
A man in a robe comes running in front of the man she sent off. "WHY THE FUCK DID YOU GET ANOTHER RENAISSANCE FAIR GOER TO GET A FUCKING AMBULANCE!" She yells at the man in armor.
He looks confused, and she can hear people muttering, but she doesn't care. Hypoxia or not, until there is another firefighter here, it's her scene.
Then she sees the robed man breaking a stick of something, waking her patient up with a chant. She blinks several times, taking in the event that just happened. The man’s breathing is less ragged, his lungs somehow clear.
It has to be hypoxia. She glances up, taking in more details. She sees a ring stretching across the sky. Then words start filtering in.
"Call the guard."
"She's one of the world breakers; it has to be."
"What kind of armor is that?"
Something is wrong, deeply, completely wrong with the whole scene. The building groans and collapses inward, the fire surging for a moment before dying down a bit.
She really looks at the crowd and notices people with fur and scales. One person looks to be green with tusks from their lower jaw. She dismisses them as costumes at first, but now they look far too real...
The robed man looks up at her and swears under his breath. "You look strong, lass. Carry my patient for me."
He points to the man. Alex just stares at him for a long minute. He says much softer, "If we stay here, I don't know what happens to you. You saved this man’s life and don’t deserve that. Pick him up and follow me."
Sensing something in the man's words, she bends and helps up the man she was dragging earlier. He starts walking, leaning on her as she follows the man with the robe. She feels sweat soaking through everything in her bunker gear.
She grits her teeth and helps the man for a block or so before they stumble into what looks like a clinic of some sort, beds laid out with white linen.
The air feels cool and thin. The sweet smell of herbs fills the room.
She helps the man onto a bed where he falls asleep. Unfastening her gear, she feels the cool air of the room flow into her suit and sighs in relief.
She almost collapses to the floor as her exhaustion hits its limit, but she manages to find a chair.
"Drink." The man in the robe holds out a cup of water, and she drinks deeply. The cup feels like it's made of clay, and the water is clear and pure with no familiar tang.
The man goes to rummage in a back room.
Alex sees the screen still clogging part of her vision.
Name: "WHAT THE FUCK!"
Confirm
Yes/No
"No?" she says, deciding to play along with the hypoxia.
A new screen appears.
Greetings, Adventurer. Input Name:
The man in the robe comes back with a set of what look like linen clothes. "Change out of that, and we can hide it before the guard come looking. I suspect they will treat you like a world walker." He looks uncomfortable.
"I'm Harold. Herbalist and healer," he says uncomfortably.
Alex nods slowly. "Alex." She pauses and then continues, "I’m starting to think this isn’t hypoxia. Where am I?"
The screen reappears.
Name: "Alex"
Confirm
Yes/No
Good enough, she thinks, focusing back on the conversation as the window vanishes at her thought.
"Kronhaven. I suppose this means you are a world walker."
"A what?" Alex asks, holding out the cup for more water.
He fills the water before responding. "World walker. I honestly thought those old laws were a reaction to something else."
"Old laws?"
Harold nods. He doesn't look at her. Instead, he moves to the window and adjusts the heavy curtain just enough to peer into the street. His fingers twitch against the fabric, and he waits until a wagon passes before he speaks, his voice carrying a slight tremor.
"You are in Kronhaven, the capital. If you are a world walker, the punishment is quite severe."
"For what exactly? I just pulled someone from a fire, and I’m starting to think this weird place might be real."
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"Were you somewhere else where that," he gestures at her bunker gear, "is common?"
She nods slowly. "Yes."
Harold wipes his hands on his herb-stained apron over and over. Alex watches the movement.
"In that case, I have two options for my own safety. I can pretend I don’t know you and say I sent you out after some basic care. Option two is I turn you in."
"Turn me in for what?"
"You’re a world walker. Your presence is outlawed. If the king finds out I helped you, I’ll be exiled with you. You seem like a nice girl, but I can’t do anything other than tell you to find a way to blend in and stay low. I’ll give you a head start before I go to the guard."
"Why did you take me with you to begin with?"
He takes a deep breath. "I hate seeing people put in bad situations when they just want to help others. I assumed you were some mad inventor, not a world walker."
He turns, moving to tend to his patient.
Taking a deep breath, Alex strips off her bunker gear and moves to a back room, her hands shaking from her body’s plummeting reserves.
She strips off the bunker gear quickly, pulling on the linen clothes. He makes exile sound like a death sentence, but is it?
She pokes her head out. "Harold, why is exile so bad?"
Harold stops rummaging through his jars. He turns, and for the first time, the professional mask of the healer drops. His face is pale, and his voice carries a jagged edge of real fear.
"Oh, you are forced into the wilds. It's painful and basically a death sentence since the wild is full of monsters."
He says 'monsters' with a finality that makes Alex’s skin crawl. He isn't telling a ghost story; he's describing a predator he’s seen.
Alex takes a deep breath and goes back to look over her gear. Pulling on the linen clothes Harold gave her, she rolls up her duty uniform and sees a backpack. Grabbing it, she stuffs her duty uniform inside. She tries to fit her helmet but when that fails, she puts her patch into the bag and pulls tools and supplies from her bunker gear pockets, loading them all into the bag. She turns off anything electronic and stashes the batteries.
She looks over her breathing apparatus and sighs, knowing she can't do anything about it. She looks over the bunker gear and gets an idea.
Quickly turning it inside out, she manages to roll it all into a fabric roll that looks more normal. She sees a tie and ties it all together, finding some convenient loops under the bag that look as though they are intended for a bed roll and tying it there.
Going into the front room, she nods to Harold. "Thank you. Can I also ask you for a bit of food? I will leave after that."
He nods and pulls out what looks like jerky and a loaf of bread. "Take it. I'm sorry."
Alex just nods, heading out of the house and down the road. A few minutes later, she sees a group of guards and tenses, but they ignore her.
She ducks into an alley, sitting down and letting her shaking body rest while she eats and thinks.
She looks over the alley seeing some piles of trash deeper in before it turns behind a building.
Okay, we are in some bizarre fantasy land with cat people and lizard people, whatever the green guy with tusks was. If they find out you're here, they give you a death sentence by throwing you out into the wilds with monsters. Is that actually bad though...
She sits and chews, barely noticing that the food is anything more than fuel right now.
I wonder what they will think happened to me. Or if I died in that building. Is this some twisted afterlife? No, probably not.
She feels strength coming back to her limbs.
Okay, regardless of my status, it's time to find somewhere to sleep.
As she thinks 'status,' a screen comes into her vision, which bothers her even more since her eyes are closed.
Name: Alex
Species: Human
Class: None
Level: 0
Affinity: None
Health: 190
Stamina: 180
Mana: 260
Primary Attributes
Vitality: 14
Strength: 14
Agility: 12
Will: 16
Focus: 10
Luck: --
Status Effects
None
Connections
None
Affiliations
None
General Skills
None
Class Skills
None
"What in the actual fuck is all of this," Alex mutters, staring at the wall of text, her eyes now open. "Fuck, my little brother loved this stuff."
Swiping at the window, it vanishes from in front of her.
She stands up leaning against the wall for a moment before she starts walking. "If someone asks me to roll dice, they can fuck right off," she mutters as she walks.
The area gets more run down the further she goes. The buildings move from stone and wood to just wood constructions. The streets becoming dirtier the stone just disappearing at some point replaced with rutted dirt and mud.
She sees less and less guards the further she goes. The people look more tired, their clothes threadbare and patched. She realizes as she walks more and more of the people seem to be not human. More tufts of fur and scales, more hues of skin color.
Ah racism just species-ism here.
She sees a place with people going in and out ahead of her and decides to try there for food, work, and a place to stay.
The sign above the door reads, "Spit on the Brick," with a mug spilling on a stone street.
Does that mean they have mugs of spit? I've seen dive bars, but this is some kinky shit.
The building leans slightly and she is pretty sure it's a hazard but also it's still standing.
She heads for the door, deciding that if nothing else, bars sometimes hire people to help out.
Inside, she finds ten people deep in their cups. She is somewhat relieved the place isn't packed, but the whole atmosphere is depressing.
She sees the woman behind the bar eyeing her up and puts on her most charming grin, sauntering over to the bar.
"What will you have, love?" the woman asks as Alex notices the tufted ears poking through her hair and the way her teeth are just a bit too sharp.
"Work if you have any?" Alex says with a smile.
The woman laughs. "Plenty of work, though I suppose you'll want pay too."
Alex shrugs. "A few hot meals and a place to sleep mostly."
The woman seems to think for a moment. "Name is Ishra. I could work with that nothing fancy, but I have a cot and the same meals the rest of these drunks eat."
Alex grins. "Sounds absolutely perfect. Can I store my pack in the room?"
The woman laughs. "I said cot, not room. You can store it under my bar."
Alex shrugs. "Works for me." She hands over her bag, and Ishra grunts at the weight. "Do you carry rocks instead of money?"
Alex just laughs. "Point me to the work."
Ishra nods and leads her back to the kitchen. "Start with dishes. Once you have all that washed, there is an axe and wood around back I need split."
"Mind if I eat after dishes?"
Ishra shrugs. "Totally fine I guess."
She leaves Alex to it.
Alex spends the next several hours elbow-deep in soapy water, discovering taps for water and some other things she wasn't anticipating. She gets all the dishes cleaned and uses a cup to get water before washing it again.
Ishra peeks back into the kitchen and grunts while she sets a plate in front of her. She collapses and digs in while her stomach growls at the smell of the stew.
The stew and bread disappear quickly. Even though her muscles burn and she just wants to sleep, she forces herself up and moves to the back to start splitting wood.
She is minutes in when she sees text in the corner of her vision and stops to look at it.
Axe Mastery has reached Rank 1
New classes available
She rolls her eyes at the notification and goes back to cutting wood. Rank one? I’ve spent more time with an axe in my hand than almost any other tool.
She adjusts her stance and sinks her weight into her heels. She drives the motion from her hips and lets the weight of the head do the work. It is the same rhythm she uses to vent a roof or breach a heavy door. She finds the grain of the wood with a glance and brings the blade down with a sharp, controlled exhale. Every strike is clean and every piece of wood falls away with a satisfying, professional crack.
Ishra comes out after a bit and looks over the pile of wood Alex had split. "Come in you've done enough. Do you want more food?"
Alex just numbly nods, following her inside and sitting down with a plate of stew and a crust of bread. She eats hungrily, looking over the wall of text in the corner of her vision.
Axe Mastery has reached Rank 2
Classes available
Axe Mastery has reached Rank 3
Classes available
Axe Mastery has reached Rank 4
Classes available
Axe Mastery has reached Rank 5
Classes available.
It keeps going until it reads:
Axe Mastery has reached Rank 10
Classes available.
She sighs, dismissing it all. Her brother really would be loving this; she had no idea what to do with it. She didn't feel any different about the axe than she had on any camping trip or breaking down doors or anything else on the job.
Alex tiredly rubs her face, thinking.
Ishra comes into view, leaning over the bar into Alex's line of sight.
Alex smiles up at her, trying not to get distracted.
Ishra sets a key down on the counter. "Third room on the left. I'd rather you sleep in a room than start snoring at my bar. You'll have to get your bag though."
Alex just tiredly nods, collecting her things and heading to the room. It's small, with a single bed that somehow doesn't look sized for an adult in a narrow room. She just shakes her head, secures the door, and collapses into the bed, passing out instantly.