《Snowy Flight》


 Chapter 0: Into the dark

    While lying on this bed with my family around me I realised that this life was incredibly boring so boring infact I felt... unfullfilled. like whats the point of life if nothing ever happens and you just die at the end having done nothing important, yes i''ve done the basics to live life but it wasn''t a challenge and there was no reward. It was all expected. All of this happened like it was supposted to like there was no other way for it to happen because whatelse is there.


    these were the thoughts going through my head, I knew what was happening I was dieing and in my last moments I realised that I was becomming unfullfilled not satisfied with my life. I remembered than what I read while bored (there was a lot of being bored) that ghosts were the souls of the dead that couldn''t move on, maybe thats what''s happening here I am unsatisfied with my life so I stay a ghost. then I remembered that it wasn''t the unsatisfied people that stayed as ghost but people with attachments. My life is comming to and end I did all I could with life no attachments, but I am unsatisfied. Does this mean something else? I am so tired now I''ll just close my eyes for a bit now.


    after death I expected nothing, or something less like this. I floated there over my body. Am I a ghost? No, I''m a spirit. I don''t know why I know, or even what the different is but that is how I know. I watched as they buried my body still tied to it, still bound to the world. after I was buried I felt a pull of sorts from the ground I think anyone who read a fantasy book would call them ley lines, but they feel more like spiritual conduits or since I am dead a more apt name would be the highway to hell. once I was in the stream of what felt like spiritual power, I felt this since I am a spirit now, it pulled me all the way and I was rocketed off to wherever I was headed. the colors were so fast and I was everywhere and nowhere all at once, I promptly passes out. when I came to I was sitting in a dark room with what looked to be a black marble for a floor, well really it could be anything for a floor I was never into building. there was a grey throne made out of wood at one end except it was all grey, a light grey and there was no one on it. Next to it however was a black robed man with a hood coving his entire face and he was holding a really long staff, wait no sythe. yep its the grim reaper.


    "So you are the reaper?" I said asked carefully. it took a bit but it stirred and look at me and it spoke "Yes, however my job isn''t to kill people its to collect lost souls and bring them back here, people burried in the ground usually come by themselves for the ley lines bring them, I am really busy nowdays with people being cremated and spread of fields or released into the wind. like really you felt how you were bound to your body untill you buried right?" I nodded "well it''s incredibly difficult to collect them when they are bound to an extremely large area. at least with the vikings I knew where to go to collect them" he mummbled that last bit but I still heard it. seeing as we were about to go into a silence again I spoke up "so why am I here and not with the rest of the souls?" this time he didn''t answer instead a door appeared on the otherside of the throne and it opened letting in an old man with robes adorned with skulls and he spoke "you are here because no matter what I do every time I reincarnate you normally you end up whole again, usually when someone is hole they have attachments and become ghosts but NOO you are just not satisfied with life!" he sounds incredibly annoyed "so heres the deal I have finnaly come to the conclusion you don''t fit on my world so I am sending you through the universe and having you goto a dear friend of mine she can have you, she is always bored anyhow. and yes I am god and yes there are multiple gods and no there is only one god for earth I happen to be all of them, the greek was when I was trying to lighten my workload by trying a split body technique it didn''t work out how I thought the shinto was simmilar but instead of direct contact with one another we tried to keep distance and only talked when we needed to and now here I do that but instead we are less of a split body and more of remote control bodies controled by one person its really working, and yes my body is the reflection of the role I am taking over and no I don''t have control over how I look you think I like wearing skulls? ever heard the saying "you are what you eat"? well its like that so if people believe I look like this I look like this" well guess a god could mind read and answer all my questions "no its not mindreading you don''t have a brain to read you''re just a spirit right now. but yes I could do that if I wanted we are just waiting for her to come pick you up. well to answer that question your soul is more powerfull then the rest of my flock because every time you die you stay together and grow more powerfull each time its a good thing for you really you would be smarter have a healthier lifestyle and all that. however she needs a powerfull champion and since her world uses those spiritual powers as magic you would be a prime candidate for hero or champion or whatever she needs for you take care of. also if you happen to remain whole after you die over there you would be even more powerfull the next time around even more so then here."If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Then a door appeared much like the other one had except this one had a doggy door on it


    and then a cat jumped through the doggy door flap and spoke... yes a talking cat "Wow you did say you had something interesting for me, are you sure I can keep him?" the cat said. "just consider payment a favor for later"


    then the cat jumped up grabbed the handle of the door and it opened and it sucked me into it and I blacked out instantly before I could see anything else.

 Chapter 1: the beginning

    When I woke up I realised I was being held in the arms of someone and it was very bright oh so bright, but the face of a woman and her tears were what I saw next I''m pretty sure the only thing I can think of at this moment is gratefull that I didn''t have to experience child birth as the one being birthed that''d be difficult. It is really hard to focus when there is not enough motorskills to move and not enough mental capacities to stay focused, but I did manage to catch a glimps of the world it was white, the glaring white of snow on a sunny midday but I saw the huts and the horses pulling sledges and the giant piles of firewood stores and a distinct lack of anything modern society would consider basic.


    During the years I was growing up I saw the roads, while in town it was mainly wooden beams layed across the ground to keep it from shifting and becomming just a pool of mud, and it was salted every once in a while to keep the snow from building up. I found out my family wasn''t rich but we weren''t poor really, however I could tell there were bad times when we burned the horse manure instead of the wood at night. after about a year or so my mother went back to the hut and gave birth to a girl, I guess I''m a big brother now. after a while I managed to figure out the basics of language and tried to speek, of course parents are happy when their kids speek but apperantly I was late in that department, if my sister is anything to go by I was a year after she first spoke like really.


    I found out most foods are grown indoors and they tend to be root crops for anything on the surface is either frozen or eaten by the sparce wild life. they are grown using the light from the windows because a skylight doesn''t block much snow from getting in. after a few years my dad started to teach me, well teach is a strong word just pointed at stuff and had me lift/carry and anything else a farmer would need help with, once we got to log splitting I figured there would be an axe but apperently wood splitting it too tedious for every family to do it themselves so they have a rig with pullies and a wedge is dropped on a log that is cut to length with saws and it just cuts non stop all the time. and families come pick up the firewood.


    "Hey dad where is all the wood comming from do we have to worry about running out anytime soon?"


    My dad laughed at me "Son, tree''s don''t take that long to grow everything we cut will be regrown by the next year... or at least most of it, so you don''t have to worry about running out" apperently trees grow faster here, like way faster as long as they remember to replant there will be new trees come next year. couple more years later. At about 10 years old its hard to tell with it being perpetually winter and not having a callender I only knew because my dad pulled me aside and had me learn some combat


    "Son, you are now ready to learn how to fight. so I will teach you my way of fighting." He tosses me as stick and said "That is your sword, now strike me!" after the first few clumbsy attempts to strike at my dad with a stick and I was more used to swinging a "sword" he started to teach me saying I need to pivot on that foot thrust like that chop like that. after a few months of practicing with the stick he swapped it out with a wooden sword that had weights in it making it heavier than any sword should rightly be, or maybe it was the weight of a real sword and I was a 10 year old child with no real muscle yet. anyways after teaching me to swing a stick he taught me how to swing a sword and cut with the edge instead of just bashing people with the flat side. after a while he told me that was all he knew and basicly I just knew how to hold a sword and how to hit people with it and not hit myself.


    "Dad, Why do I need to learn to fight?" My dad got a serious look on his face and told me "Son, once you reach 12 years old we will goto the temple in the city and check your fate with the goddess. and there are monsters on the road, we are safe here for we are protected and hunters go out and kill them but whatever your fate is I want you to be ready for it"


    in those two years I spent a good ammount of time training with the sword. I found a power inside me, I remembered what the god told me that the spiritual power is used to use magic so I tried to put that power into my practice I didn''t get far but I managed to get a basic slash with that power inside it, considering I chopped a tree down with a single stroke with a wooden sword I think it worked, I managed to drag the tree off at the firewood guys and avoid any questions but I was so tired from using that energy I went home and saw my sister who and just started her own training which consisted of dancing of all things, she was cornered by some other girls her age in a space between the huts so I went over to see what was going on.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    "ha can''t dance huh? what makes you think I want you to hang out with us" one of the girls said I may have stayed away by my own choice but I didn''t want my sister to be forced to be alone with no friends so, I went forwards and called out to my sister "Hey Tina you finished with practice today?" the other girls parted and let her run to me "Yes Shaun I am!" she smiled at me she knew what I was doing and we left together. "So how is dancing?" she hummed a bit and said "Oh its all right, but I want to learn to fight like you and then we can go on an adventure and fight monsters and become super strong and -" I cut her off by putting a hand her head and ruffling her hair, "well why don''t you just dance with blades then?" I always thought blade dancers were a cool concept might as well support her in wanting to fight though. after that incident she stopped going to dance practice with the others but instead came with me and told her that dancing is all about the flow, and finding a rhythm to dance to, so after that I taught her how to use some of the shorter bladed weapons not quite knifes but certainly not swords so she danced and had her short wooden blades strike trees around her and she moved while she danced.


    After my short period of time training before I went to this temple to check my fate whatever that meant I was set off on one of the sledges towards the big city and left my family behind, and I tried not to look at my sister who became beutiful and from what rumors said absolutely amazing at dancing, and would go to the temple next year to check her fate. while on the road I went over what I knew of the world I was now in. There were monsters, I didn''t ask but just sort of assumed there were other races as well being as there were monsters. I knew there was magic and could probably perform it myself if what I did that tree was magic.


    After getting to the city I was awestruck at how huge it was my little town was like a street long with wooden buildings that were perpetually covered in snow, however they had found a way to make stone buildings and the snow melted on the roofs and went into storage bins for the buildings they landed on, being as there is very rarely any loose dirt for the winds to blow up and get the roofs dirty all that melted snow makes for excelent drinking water the roads were paved and when we got there the temple looked clean, which is saying something for its a stone building in medieval times where there''s not alot of extra stuff dedicated to cleaning, I found out later that temples also double as hospitals so they went through the extra care to keep it clean.


    Apperently all the readings for the temple were done in the same month and after getting there you signed up, I say signed up but really you were just given a wooden block with a number on it and a key to a room in a neerby building where you waited for the day you went up to get checked or whatever. I spent about 2 weeks in the city avoiding contact mostly but I managed to find out that yes there are other races in this world, and my roommate was one of them, he had cat ears and an extra bushy tail that was very soft, I found that out after my first day I went in and got a face full of it and a naked cat girl glaring at me. after telling her I was her roommate she then told me that her family needed a male for some political reason so she was pretending to be a boy and that his name was Alex. so I had to therefor refer to her as him and we laughed it off like real men! no really after I told him "it''s all good man!" we laughed.


    the reading was wierd, I don''t know what I was expecting but I went in on my day and after going through the line I put my hand on a pedistal and a sheet was printed off with everything I was and this sheet wasn''t made of paper I couldn''t tear it and apperantly it would update realtime now that I had it. my name Shaun, my rank? "Fighter" whatever that means, my age 12. acheivments: none Blessings: none after I told Alex about this he told me that people recruit based on what blessings you have, alex showed me his and he had the blessing tough body and that basicly made him very difficult to damage. "So I am going to goto the hunters guild and apply there and become a hunter" Alex told me "most hunters have some sort of combat blessings that helps them with hunting, and since I have tough body I can easily get accepted" Hmm after thinking about it for a bit I determined that I wouldn''t be able to be a hunter like I wanted, there was however one option that fit me the best the explorer''s guild, they aren''t fighters more like scouts, exploring new lands, finding monster nests. apperantly they have a high mortality rate because a lot of the time they are the only thing stopping monsters from attacking towns where there is little to no defences.


    Apperently the explorers guild will take anyone who wants to join, because they are always in need of people. when i showed up with a beastman and we were acting friendly, they basicly pleaded me to join, and said I would have my first job immediately. Its weird but apperently there are people spreading lies about non-humands thus making finding people who want to join the adventurers guild and aren''t hostile towards other races rather difficult. After parting with Alex I went back the explorer''s guild and got the job they had wanted me to take. to go find the Boreal snowravens and learn their ways. apperantly they are a bird like people in the mountains far to the south. apperantly its warmer there but its still all covered in snow.