ã€ŠTravels In An Unknown Worldã€‹


 Chapter 1

    I tried my best not to look back as I ran through the dark forest, my clothes drenched with sweat.

    I heard the loud screeching behind me inching closer to me and my already panicked mind was working overtime to find a way out of this situation.

    As I approached the edge of the forest, hope started growing in my heart with the thought of escaping the endless darkness that permeated this forest. That, and the frightening creatures that inhabited it.

    With a loud, primal growl I braced myself and jumped through a thick gathering of branches and leaves and landed on all fours. As I scrambled to get up on my feet again I didn''t, at first, notice what was in front of me. When I did, my heart got stuck in my throat.

    I was standing at the precipice of a large cliff, at least two hundred meters high, looking out over a vast forest that went all the way to the horizon in almost all directions. There was nowhere to run.

    The sound of a branch breaking behind me reminded me of the danger that was chasing me, and I rapidly turned around to face the sound.

    From the thick, dark foliage came a menacing growl and the head of a dark wolf emerged with its teeth bare.

    Soon the entirety of the wolf''s body followed, and I looked with trepidation at the beast that was large enough to reach my chest.

    With my back pressed against the cliffside and a terrifying monster at my front, I couldn''t help but wonder, how the hell did I get into this situation?

    <hr>

    That morning I woke up with a large sigh as I sat up in bed.

    Another day, another year.

    Today I turned twenty, but I didn''t feel much older at all. In fact, I still felt like I should go to school for a few more years before I evenstartedthinking about work, taxes or anything else for that matter.

    Just the thought thatIwas supposed to be an adult with responsibilities that went further than just cleaning my room and doing my homework felt weird.

    I wasn''t a manchild though. Just because I didn''t like the idea of being an adult, it didn''t mean that I refused to act like one. I had a job and was currently studying computer engineering. Heck, I even had my own car.

    Although I did still live at my mom''s place. But that''s just called effective saving. Besides, ever since my dad left when I was twelve, I''d been all the family she had left. I didn''t want to leave her too.

    With that pensive thought I got out of bed and got dressed.

    As per usual I ate breakfast and socialized some with my mom, but because it was my birthday, she''d also made me a cake, so I ate a bit more than I usually did.

    After that I left the apartment for the day. I didn''t have much studying to do, so today I only had a few shifts at my work before getting some time off and because it was my birthday my shift manager let me go home earlier than usual.

    That left me with a lot of time to spend on my favourite hobby. Video games. Namely, an MMORPG called ''The Wayfarer''s Realm''.

    It was, without a doubt, my most beloved game and I''d been playing it for the last nine years. I''d probably spent more time playing it than I had spent hanging out with my friends. Although most of my friends also played it so time spent in the game often equalled time spent with my friends.

    ''The Wayfarer''s Realm'' wasn''t the only large MMMRPG out there on the market at the moment, there was a couple more that were similar in size, however it had a few things that made it stick out to me when compared to the others.

    First of all. It was class free. It had a large focus on character customisation, where players allocated their stats as they wanted and created their own archetypes out of a large set of skills and spells.

    Secondly, it had an interesting setting and interesting story that didn''t always follow the normal conventions that most games in a medieval-styled fantasy setting had.

    Lastly, and most important to me, the lead designer for the game during its creation was none other than Larry Yates.Not that famous of a guy, but he was famous to me.

    After all, he was my, Shawn Yates, father.

    Up until he left, I''d always looked up to him and to be honest, I still did. He was the one who had originally introduced me to RPGs and awoken my love for them. He used to say that when he designed ''The Wayfarer''s Realm'' he''d often had me at mind and was hoping for me to love it. And I did. I really did.

    As I got home, I tossed my things on the floor in the hall and went directly to my room after saying hello to my mom.

    I turned on my computer and left it to start itself up as I went and took a quick shower.

    After wiping myself dry from the shower I put on some comfy clothes and sat down in front of the computer, ready for several hours of playing.

    When I started up the game, I couldn''t help but smile as I looked at the character choice screen. I only had one max-levelled character, but I was proud as heck of him.

    Garlyn Grandwell. The first character I ever created and the only one I''ve stuck with for a longer amount of time.

    He was a mix of different skills and abilities from the chronomancer and spatial magician trees with some melee fighter abilities thrown in here and there to even things out.

    Even though chronomancers and spatial magicians were mostly casters I''d built him as a combat magician that used his magic to quickly move around and use close-range attacks to deal damage.

    To do this however, I mostly had to sacrifice some of his strength and constitution which meant that I had to rely on magic to both attack and defend myself.

    To me it was a fun play style that I knew not too many players had adopted and I could still remember the day I first thought of the idea.

    I was eleven at the time and the game was brand new. As my dad worked on the game himself, he had made sure that I got it on launch, and he''d stood behind my chair almost the whole time during my first day of playing the game.

    When I started thinking about what kind of path I wanted to take with the character I''d looked through a manual my dad had made of the skills and abilities that existed and after making and changing my mind for almost a whole hour I finally decided that a chronomancer sounded really cool, and if I could add in some teleportation magic it''d be perfect.

    When I told that to my dad he''d only smiled and said "That sounds like a really cool character, son. I''m sure that you''ll by far exceed my expectations with it".

    I''m not sure if I can say that I managed to exceed his expectations,but I do know that I''ve gone really far with it and Garlyn can do some pretty darn cool stuff.

    Finished with my reminiscing, I selected Garlyn in the character choice screen and logged into the game.

    "Thx for the run man, and gz on turning 20!!" My friend wrote before he logged out of the game for the night.

    I''d been playing since three and the clock was now nearing twelve.

    Me and some friends had gathered up and run a couple of raids. To celebrate my birthday, they''d even offered me most of the loot that people didn''t need.

    But tomorrow was an ordinary workday, so the majority of people were starting to log off. I should probably have logged off too, but I felt like playing a bit longer, so I went into a lower-level dungeon and grinded for some quest items instead.

    I''d only been doing that for about ten minutes when all of a sudden, I felt that my eyelids started getting heavy. I barely managed to kill the mob I was currently fighting before I fell asleep.

    I woke up because I felt something soft and moist beneath me.

    When I opened my eyes, everything was hazy and as I tried standing up, I almost fell down from the shock.

    Something feltoff. My body felt weird. I felt like I''d just had the greatest nap in my entire life and every part of my body felt full of energy. But at the same time my body felt sluggish and when I tried moving, it feltunfamiliar.

    As I shakily tried taking a few steps, my eyes adjusted, and I got a clearer view of the environment around me. What I saw made me forget any thoughts about the current state of my body.

    Instead of seeing the dark, cramped but comfy scene of my own room, all I saw was the dark outlines of trees that surrounded me in all directions.

    I was in a small clearing and above me I could see the star-covered night sky. The full moon was also out, which was odd because I distinctly remembered that there was a new moon just a few days ago.

    I tried recalling what had happened before I woke up here. What did I do?

    The last thing I remembered was grinding a quest in ''The Wayfarer''s Realm'' before falling asleep. Nothing between that and waking up here.

    I''m pretty sure I didn''t drink or take anything that could affect my memory like that, so I doubt that I went here by myself.

    Did I get kidnapped? If so, then where were my abductors? There didn''t seem to be anyone around where I was, and just leaving someone you¡¯ve kidnapped unconscious in the middle of the forest didn''t sound like something most kidnappers would do.

    Unless this was some kind of ritualistic kidnapping?

    That''s when I noticed my clothes. The clothes I had on me weren''t the same clothes that I''d fallen asleep in. Those had just been a normal set of clothes. A normal black t-shirt and a pair of loose-fitting jeans. But what I wore right now was something completely different.

    With brown leather boots and cloth trousers and a leather tunic atop a white shirt, my current style didn''t even look remotely similar to anything that I¡¯d ever worn before. Or anyone else that I knew either. It did actually look a bit similar to some of the outfits the NPCs could wear in ¡®The Wayfarer¡¯s Realm¡¯ though.

    But not only had someone possibly kidnapped me, but they¡¯d also changed my clothes whilst I was asleep? That bothered me on so many levels.

    A sudden noise from amongst the trees caught my attention and I strained my eyes to see whatever it was that had made the noise. I couldn¡¯t see much though as the darkness in the forest didn¡¯t allow me to see further in that a few meters.

    Then I heard the noise again.

    It was a long and guttural sound and it only got louder and closer. My eyes darted about, trying in vain to peer into the darkness and pinpoint its origin.

    As I heard the noise again, I recognized what it was.

    It was growling.

    My muscles tensed as a large, black-coloured wolf jumped out from the blackness that had concealed it and bared its sharp teeth at me.

    With sweat running down my forehead, I watched as the large predator stood still for several seconds and just stared at me as it continued to growl, saliva dripping off its white teeth.

    Then, from nowhere, it dashed towards me at great speed. All I saw was a large mass of black fur that quickly reduced the distance between us.

    I twisted my body around as fast as I could and started running for all that I was worth in a random direction. I could end up in hell for all I cared, as long as I got away from that monster.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

    Before I knew it, I had reached and passed the closest trees, my amazement mixing with dread as I craned my neck back and saw the wolf closing in on me with its teeth exposed, ready to pounce at me any second.

    I let out a loud primal roar as I willed my muscles to strain themselves even more, to runfaster.

    And to my surprise, I did. Despite the unfamiliarity I felt with my body, running with it felt easier and more natural than ever. I felt the wind blow against me forcefully as I passed by blurry trees. I must have been runningat leasttwice as fast as I had ever done before and I almost chuckled with glee when I looked back and saw that the wolf wasn''t closing in on me anymore and that it was starting to fall behind.

    My smile didn''t last long however as the wolf gave out a loud howling that shook me to the core and almost caused me to stumble. With horrific cracking sounds it body started growing. It had almost doubled in size and with its veins now bulging out and bloodshot eyes it looked like the stuff of nightmares.

    But worst of all; it picked up in speed.

    It was no longer falling behind and was now managing to hold almost the same speed as me now. This had become a battle of endurance.

    I just kept running and running and running. I don''t know for how long. I didn''t dare waste any time looking back anymore but I still heard the wolf''s growling, which had turned into screech-like noises as we ran, and so I continued on straight through the forest. My heart constantly beat in my chest with a loud and quick rhythm like a drum and my sweaty clothes pressed onto my body.

    This was amazing. Because of this indescribable newfound speed and stamina of mine I¡¯d been running at an incredible speed for who-knows how long, whereas before I would have fallen down dead after only a minute or so at evenhalfthis speed. Despite this, I was now really tired and unsure for how long I could keep this up.

    If I even lowered my pace a little bit the beast would be upon me in the matter of seconds.

    Then I saw a faint light ahead of me and what looked like the edge of the forest.

    <hr>

    There I stood, stuck between the edge of a cliff and a murderous predator, with no way to escape.

    Caught between a rock and a hard place, so to say.

    Perhaps noticing my position, the wolf didn''t immediately jump at me like I''d expected it to. Instead it started walking back and forth around me in a half-figure, as if expecting me to have another trick up my sleeve.

    It must be smarter than it looked. I''d also assume that someone who could run like that for that long was more than what met the eye.

    Sadly, for me, there was nothing else I could do. Hell, I didn''t even know I could dothatmuch.

    I desperately tried to think of a way out of this, but I couldn''t come up with anything. The wolf was covering my escape and if I tried anything that wasn¡¯t just jumping straight off the cliff it''d be on my before I could say ''insta-death''. Maybe jumping off the cliff was actually the better option?

    I glanced down the cliffside again and quickly shook my head. That washigh. No way I''d survive that. I''d rather take my chances with the wolf.

    Refocusing my attention on the wolf I noticed that it had stopped pacing about and was now standing in a threatening pose.

    Then, it moved. I freaked out as time seemed to move slower when it lunged at me with a screech-like growl.

    My eyes could see how its dark fur pressed against its body from the strong wind and how the blood pumped through its bulged-out veins. Watching my impending doom move closer and closer, I was shocked to realize I even had time to think. I''d thought the wolf would''ve been upon me and torn up my throat in a flash, but it was moving through the air as if in slow motion. Then I realized that it actuallywasmovingin slow-motion. Time seemed to have slowed down for the wolf. Despite this, the wolf moved at a decent speed and would be upon me in just a few seconds.

    Even if I had no idea what was happening, I didn''t waste my chance and threw myself out of the way of the large beast.

    A second or so later it landed on the spot where I had stood, and time returned to normal. I could see the shock in its eyes as I used all the force that I could muster to throw a kick towards its abdomen.Not moving fast enough to avoid it, my foot hit it with more force than I expected, and the wolf was knocked just over the edge of the cliff.

    With a loud whimper I heard how the wolf fell down into its demise, the sound of branches breaking followed by a loud thud that resounded in the forest beneath the cliff a few seconds after the beast fell.

    For a minute I just lay there, breathing heavily. Then I crawled away from the edge of the cliff and tried standing up. I was a bit shaky but after a few tries I managed to stand up. I stood there for several minutes before and let my heart calmed down and I''d gathered my thoughts enough to think over what had just happened.

    Bending over the edge I looked down onto the forest beneath me but saw no traces of where the wolf had landed. Not that I cared much. As long as it was dead, I was satisfied.

    All of this was crazy. Just a couple of hours ago I''d been in my room and playing games with my friends and now, I was stuck in some dark forest straight out of some horror-flick and my body could do things I''m certain it couldn''t do before. Things I''m pretty sure not even Olympian athletes could do.

    My body still felt a bit weird, but after running through the forest like that for that long at that speed the unfamiliarity of body had mostly disappeared.

    I started inspecting and my eyed widened as I pulled up my shirt too look at my arms and abdomen. Not only were my arms more muscular and well-defined than before, but I''d also somehow even gotten a six-pack.

    With rising suspicions, I inspected my hands thoroughly and saw that they looked unfamiliar.

    I didn''t have a mirror on me so I couldn''t know for certain, but I had a pretty good idea as to why this body was so unfamiliar to me...

    Just then another thought struck me. A thought that had been nagging me from the back of the head ever since I first saw that wolf.

    Weren''t wolfs pack animals?

    Shivers ran down my spine as I thought of encountering another one of those monsters. I''d only survived my first such encounter because of some kind of miracle. I couldn''t be sure that I''d be that lucky again.

    It was clear however that the wolf hadn''t been an ordinary wolf and that this forest wasn''t an ordinary forest. Perhaps that meant that this wolfdidn¡¯ttravel with a pack? I wasn''t willing to put that theory to the test though, so after collecting myself I started moving away from the spot where the wolf had cornered me.

    My escape through the forest had drained a lot of my energy and I was soaking wet because of the sweat. That, together with the low temperature at night here in the forest, made my body shiver from coldness. But I could still walk.

    Unwilling to go into the forest again immediately, I instead started following the cliffside.The scenery stayed almost exactly the same as I kept walking. The forest still stretched in all directions, both up here and down beneath the cliff.

    But when I had walked for what must have been at least an hour or so I could see something stick up above the trees in the distance. I couldn''t be sure, but it looked like a grey tower. The thought of a dry, hot living room entered my mind and I decided to head for that tower.But to reach it I had to climb down the cliff.

    Clenching my teeth together I kept on following the cliffside, hoping to find a way to get down without putting myself at too much risk.

    After another twenty minutes or so of walking I found a part of the cliff''s side that looked like it was descendable. I was freezing and really tired, but I could see the structure clearly from here and saw that it was really a tower. If I kept walking at a decent pace, I could probably reach it within the hour.

    I did have a few close calls where my cold, numbed hands had a hard time getting a grip, but I managed to descend the cliff without too much effort.

    But that put me in the forest again, which made me uncomfortable, but I pressed on despite that, the possibility of reaching a warm place to rest taking priority over all else.

    The forest made it harder to know in which direction the tower was, with the tall trees and the dark night sky making it difficult to see much. I had to make do with the few glimpses I caught of the tower now and then when the moons light reflected of its walls just right. It wasn¡¯t much, but it was at least enough for me to walk in the general direction of where it was. Once I got close enough to the tower the sheer height of it would make it easier to see.

    After having walked through this part of the forest for a while I caught sight of a small clearing, similar to the one where I had first awoken here in the forest. Situated in the middle of the clearing was a small pond that was illuminated by the moons light with beautiful white flowers growing all around it.

    I was awestruck for a minute as I observed the magical scene before me. I was so taken in by the view that I almost forgot about one of the biggest questions I had at the moment, and how something like this was exactly what I had been looking for in order to either confirm or deny my suspicions.

    I gingerly moved into the clearing, being careful not to step on any of the delicate flowers as I also carefully watched the edges of the clearing for any signs of danger.

    When I reached the pond, I took one last look around to make sure it was safe before I bent down over the pond and looked straight into it.

    I had already suspected that this body wasn¡¯t my own so what I saw in the reflection shouldn¡¯t have surprised me, but it did. That was because, even though it wasn¡¯t my face that I saw in the reflection, it was a face I knew all too well.

    That dishevelled light brown hair with bangs that ended just above the eyebrows. Those bright, bright blue eyes that almost seemed to glow by themselves. And that mouth along with those cheeks, always giving off a hint of a cool smile even when wearing completely neutral expression.

    That was the face that I had created nine years ago with my dad¡¯s help. It was the face of my avatar in ¡®The Wayfarer¡¯s Realm¡¯. Garlyn Grandwell.

    All kinds of questions popped up in my mind. How did I get inside this body? How can this even be real? Is this some kind of simulation? Where is my real body?

    I had no way to answer any of the questions my mind was asking. Right now, I had no way of knowing how I got here or where my own body was.

    Neither could I ascertain whether this was a simulation or not. But there wasn¡¯t really any point worrying about that at least. Virtual Reality was barely a thing right now, so the odds of someone being able to create a simulation this life-like were slim enough, but them also using that technology on a nobody like me? Yeah, fat chance. I was better off assuming all of this was real, at least then I wouldn¡¯t have to second-guess everything I saw.

    I stopped looking at my own reflection and stood up. Looking around one last time just to be safe, I sighed heavily and started moving away from the clearing towards the tower again.

    I could see it clearly from here and it looked to be only twenty or so minutes away now. I had a lot of questions on my mind right now, but they could wait until I¡¯d reached somewhere safe. Not that the tower was necessarily a safe place, but it was better than being out here where a monster could jump me any second at least.

    As I was walking, I couldn¡¯t stop thinking about my new body. In the game I hadn¡¯t put much points into Garlyn¡¯s strength. But because he was a mostly close-combat battle mage I had at least put some points into it, and a bit more into his agility and stamina. As he was a max-levelled character he was bound to be better than a normal person at those things, even if I hadn¡¯t put much effort into increasing those stats.

    My performances up till now with this body fit those specifications pretty well, which implied that Garlyn¡¯s stats from the game translated into this new body of mine. And if his stats translated over, then maybe his magic did too? Thinking about it, it made sense.

    It would explain why time seemed to slow down as the wolf attacked me earlier. That was simply Garlyn¡¯s chronomancer spells at work. He had plenty of spells that could have caused similar effects.

    But slowing down time for his enemies, or more likely just speeding up his own time, for just a few seconds¡­ that fit best with one of the low-level chronomancer spells called ¡®Chronal Shift¡¯. The first and simplest chronomancer spell you could learn. It sped up your own clock by up to 100%, depending on its level, for a few seconds and had a cooldown of around forty seconds at its lowest level.

    I tried remembering how I¡¯d done it. What I¡¯d felt or thought for something like that to activate. Thinking back, I remembered that I was scared. My heart was beating really fast, I was sweating like crazy and I was really warm from sprinting through the forest. That was all to be expected. But what had been different? What had I actually done?

    I remembered a warm feeling, a sense of warmth that had passed through my body as it happened. I¡¯d just brushed it aside as I¡¯d already been warm because of the running, but now that I think back on it, that warmth had been different.

    Trying to imagine that warmth, I tried putting myself in that position again. I forced myself to think that I needed to move swifter, think faster and react quicker. I needed more time.

    Like the hot feeling that spreads through your body as you drink something warm, that same warmth from before intuitively moved through my body towards my arms, legs, head and every other part of me, filling my entire body with that warmth. Suddenly I saw everything in slow motion again. The leaves around me swayed slowly in the night breeze and all the sounds of the forest slowed down to distorted copies of themselves.

    I was filled with almost childlike glee as I thought about what this meant. I could use magic! It didn¡¯t matter if this wasn¡¯t my own body. This was awesome!

    Everything stayed like this for what I counted to be almost four seconds before everything reverted to normal.

    I immediately tried performing the spell again, feeling the same warmth as before spread through me in the same manner, filling my entire body. But instead of everything but me starting to move in slow motion, the warmth inside me instead instantly changed and into coldness, making my entire body shiver and feel numb. It came so abruptly so I fell over and almost landed on my face, but luckily one of my numb arms was close enough to my face that it lessened the impact a bit.

    I lay there for a half a minute before I regained full feeling in my body and the coldness disappeared.

    I waited another minute to get up and, ignoring the previous failed attempt, I tried performing the spell again. This time it worked like it had the first two times and the warmth spread throughout my body as everything started moving in slow motion. When time returned to normal, I then tried doing it again directly after, but more carefully now. This time I noticed that there was a slight resistance to it, almost like the warm feeling was fighting against me, not wanting to go the exact same path again so soon.

    This pretty much confirmed my suspicion. There was a cooldown timer on spells here too, just like in the game, and ignoring that cooldown had its consequences.

    I thought about it for a minute. The fact that I could use ¡®Chronal Shift¡¯ should also mean that I can use the rest of Garlyn¡¯s spells, shouldn¡¯t it?

    At this thought a wide grin grew on my face. There were some really cool spells I wanted to try out.

    Still sitting down, I closed my eyes and tried moving around the warm feeling inside my body again, but this time instead of wanting time to speed itself up for me, I thought about how I wanted time for everything around me to just stop. ¡®Time Stop¡¯. A spell that stopped time in a large sphere for everyone except the caster.

    Opening up my eyes I looked around myself with anticipation, only to be disappointed as I saw the leaves and branches still move.

    The warm feeling inside me also hadn¡¯t spread itself out inside my body like it had with ¡®Chronal Shift¡¯. It had just moved around aimlessly in my body, as if unsure what to do.

    That was disappointing. But maybe I could perform all the spells Garlyn could, I just didn¡¯t know how to? After all, I¡¯d just learned how to perform ¡®Chronal Shift¡¯, one of the first spells you learned and supposedly the easiest one. Perhaps that meant that when I learned how to control that warm feeling better, which by this point I was pretty sure was some kind of mana-like energy, I could perform the more complicated spells.

    Only time would tell.

    A cold breeze reminded me of how cold and tired I was, and the matter of magic got pushed to the back of my mind. Right now, I had to reach that tower. Getting up on my feet again I turned towards where the tower stood. It was now close enough for me to be able to see it from here without any troubles. Soon. Soon I¡¯d reach the tower, and then all would be well.

    Hopefully.

 Chapter 2

    I stood before the tall grey tower and looked at it with amazement. Whoever built this tower knew what they were doing.

    The tower itself was round and it must have been almost one hundred meters tall with a diameter of around twenty meters. It was mainly built out of finely cut rectangular grey rocks that were completely smooth. I touched the surface of the rocks with my hands and was surprised by how warm it felt despite the coldness outside.

    The base of the tower consisted of a platform with pillars surrounding it made of the same smooth stone but covered in complex markings that would be best described as runes. The pillars went up around the edges of the tower for a bit before the gradually blended into the tower walls, only for new pillars to form around the tower wall further up and the same pattern repeated up along the entirety of the tower wall.

    A small staircase was cut out of the stone platform where the first pillars stood and at the end of the staircase stood the towers entrance. Above the entrance were several carvings of owls that felt so lifelike that for a second, I almost thought they were alive and staring right at me.

    Beneath the carvings of the owls there was a pair of dark wooden doors with similar carvings adorning them. At least I think that there was supposed to be a pair of doors. I couldn¡¯t be sure, as right now only one door still stood and next to it, where the other door had presumably stood, was just a large hole with some pieces of dark wood spread on the ground.

    Looks like somebody forced their way inside here not too long ago. Hopefully whoever did this isn¡¯t still here. Or if they are, I hope that they¡¯re at least nice.

    I climbed up the stairs and walked in. As soon as I passed the entrance it felt like the chilliness of the outside disappeared and my entire body felt warmer. But there was still a huge hole leading to the outside just behind me. I took a step back and suddenly I felt cold again. I stepped back inside and smiled.

    Magic. Fricking magic. I love it.

    I looked around the room I had entered. The base level of the tower wasn¡¯t really anything special. There was a staircase in the middle of the room that spiralled upwards and the rest of the room was just a few pieces of furniture and tables. I looked them and the rest of the room over and saw no dust or anything like that. Either someone often lives in this tower or there¡¯s some kind of magic that cleans this place. Considering that the tower is in the middle of a huge forest far away from civilization I have a hard time imagining somebody living here, so magic seems more likely. Of course, considering that there is magic, there¡¯s bound to exist wizards who are complete hermits. That¡¯s just a must for all fantasy worlds, I don¡¯t care if they¡¯re real or not.

    I walked up to the staircase and started moving to the next floor. It was some kind of kitchen, filled with tables, a cooking area, and shelves filled with vegetables, bread, meat and all kinds of ingredients. There was a lot of it.Almost half of the floor was just shelves filled with food, but oddly enough none of it looked like it¡¯d gone bad.

    Deciding that it was okay because I was in an emergency situation, I took some vegetables and bread and promptly ate it. I wished I had a bag of some sort to take some with me. Hopefully I would find one in this tower.

    I kept on exploring the rest of the lower floors of the tower, but I didn¡¯t find anything that special. Most of the other floors were just filled with rows upon rows of books, nothing else. At this time, I was so tired that I had a hard time keeping my eyes open, so when I climbed the stairs and arrived on a floor with several rooms that had beds in them, all thoughts of exploring the tower was pushed to the back of my mind. I didn¡¯t even care to find out if somebody else was in the tower right now. I just chose one of the rooms randomly, closed the door behind me and threw myself into one of the beds. I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

    <hr>

    It took some time for my tired mind to remember where I was when I woke up again. I was so tired last night that my brain had a hard time actually grasping the situation I was in. A good nights sleep had done me good though, as I felt in tip-top shape now.

    After spending some time lying in bed and recalling the memories from the previous nights I yawned loudly and stood up to stretch my body.

    I still wasn¡¯t sure if there was anybody else in this tower, but with it looking like somebody might have broken in here not too long ago and me having spent the entire night here undisturbed I was leaning towards the tower being empty of anybody except me.

    But it''s better to be safe than sorry, so before I left the room, I carefully opened the door and glanced out to make sure nobody was there. Seeing nobody, I let out a relieved sigh and walked out of the room.

    There didn¡¯t seem to be any windows in the tower, so first of all I went downstairs to the first floor to check what time of day it was. Going up to where the ruined door was, I poked out my head past the boundary of whatever magic that kept the inside of the tower warm and dry and felt the moist air of the outside world against my skin. It looked like it had rained a little since I went to sleep. I¡¯m glad reached the tower before that.

    Passing the entrance entirely I descended the staircase and looked up at the sky. The entirety of the sky was covered by grey clouds, so I had no idea what time of day it was. I¡¯m not sure at what time I went to sleep the night before either, so I had no way of knowing for how long I¡¯d slept. Not that it mattered much. The important bit was that I didn¡¯t feel tired anymore.

    With that thought I entered the tower again and started ascending the stairs to explore more of the tower. But before that, I went back to the room that I slept in and closed the door behind me. I had something I wanted to try before I did anything else. After all, if it worked, I wouldn¡¯t have to find a bag to carry things around in.

    In ¡®The Wayfarer¡¯s Realm¡¯ most players had an item called a ¡®Bag of Holding¡¯ that they used to store their items in. It was bound to a character and couldn¡¯t be opened by others. Problem was that the larger variant of those bags that you undoubtedly wanted at max-level were crazy expensive, so most players had to farm gold for a while in order to buy one.

    Luckily for me, Garlyn had another alternative. In the spatial magic spell-tree there was a spell called ¡®Dimensional Storage¡¯ that did basically the same thing and Garlyn had always used that instead of a bag of holding.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    I was thinking that if Garlyn¡¯s stats and spells translated into this place, then wouldn¡¯t his own private dimensional storage also translate here? After all, a spatial mage¡¯s dimensional storage was supposed to be bound to the mage¡¯s soul according the spell¡¯s flavour text.

    That¡¯s at least what I was hoping. With how long I¡¯d been playing the game, I had gathered a lot of stuff in Garlyn¡¯s storage. Having access to all of that would make a huge difference.

    With that in mind I sat down in bed and closed my eyes. ¡®Dimensional Storage¡¯ was also one of the earlier spells you could learn from the spatial magic spell-tree and as you levelled the spell up you could increase the storage space. Much like ¡®Chronal Shift¡¯, the spell was supposed to beone of the easier spells to learn in that spell-tree and I was hoping I could learn it quickly because of that.

    At first, I tried to think of how the spell might work. ¡®Chronal Shift¡¯ seemed to work when I spread my mana around my entire body and thought of needing more time. My current theory was that spells needed you to shape the mana in specific ways and also think of the right action in order to cast the spell. That would explain why ¡®Chronal Shift¡¯ was such an easy spell to learn. I didn¡¯t have to shape the mana into anything special or move it in a special way. All I had to do was spread it around my entire body, which was ridiculously easy. But when I tried performing ¡®Time stop¡¯ I failed because I didn¡¯t know what to do with the mana. I think the trick to that spell is spreading my mana around me in a sphere and then thinking about time stopping. Problem is that I have no idea how to do that. Right now, I can¡¯t even get the mana to move outside of my body.

    But that was a problem for another day. Right now, my goal was learning to use ¡®Dimensional Storage¡¯.

    When you used the spell in the game your character would stretch out his hand and draw a line with his finger. From that line a small fissure would form where the character could then interact with their storage.

    That sounds like I¡¯d have to move the mana outside my body to open the fissure, which I don¡¯t know how to do yet and I have no idea how long it might take to learn it, or if I even can learn it by myself.

    But maybe I didn¡¯t need to actually move my mana outside my mana for that spell? The characters would use their fingertips to draw the line that created the fissure, so maybe it was enough for me to just move the mana to my finger?

    With my eyes still closed I stretched out my right hand and pointed my index finger at thin air. I then felt around for that warm feeling inside my body, just like I had done yesterday, and I found it immediately. Instead of spreading my mana around my body like last time however, I now tried willing it to only move towards my outstretched finger. I felt the mana move around in my body, starting from my chest and outwards. It didn¡¯t move to my finger though. Not only my finger, at least. Just like yesterday, my mana tried spreading itself out around my entire body, although I think my right hand felt a bit warmer than the rest of my body.

    I opened my eyes and sighed. I was hoping this was going to be as easy as performing ¡®Chronal Shift¡¯ had been, but that was apparently a no-go.

    I closed my eyes and, after taking a deep breath, I tried again. Willing my mana into my right hand, I once again felt the mana spread itself out around my body, this time with my right hand feeling a tiny bit warmer.

    I kept on repeating the process again and again and again. For every attempt I did, I felt how I came closer to achieving what I wanted.

    After well over a hundred attempts I¡¯d finally managed to get all the mana to gather just in my right hand and after almost a hundred more tries I¡¯d learned how to control the mana enough to focus most of that mana at the top of my index finger. I tried focusing the mana in other parts of my body too, but I realized that I could only focus the mana to that extent in my right index finger. I guess it must work a bit like muscle memory, so if I want to focus the mana in other parts of my body, I''ll have to train moving it there first, like I did now.

    I would have expected using as much mana as I¡¯d done training now would have drained whatever mana-supplies I had but, besides feeling really tired in my head from concentrating so hard for that long, I didn¡¯t feel anything special.

    That either meant that I had a lot of mana or what I did cost very little to no mana. That, or maybe you could just cast spells without limits in this world. I doubted that, however. Considering that I was in Granlyn¡¯s body, the most likely answer was that I had a lot of mana. He was a max-levelled battle mage after all. He could cast the low-levelled versions of spells like ¡®Chronal Shift¡¯ and ¡¯Dimensional Storage¡¯ for hours without running out of mana.

    Which, I realized, is probably exactly what I had been doing now. I wonder for exactly how long I''d been doing this. My plan was to explore the tower, but I had gotten so caught up in learning to cast ¡®Dimensional Storage¡¯ that I entirely forgot about that.

    Well, it was time to test the fruits of my efforts. After that I could explore the rest of the tower.

    I closed my eyes again and stretched out my right hand and my index finger. I then willed the mana inside my body into my finger and felt how the warmth moved from my chest, through my arm and hand, into the tip of my finger. I couldn¡¯t get all of my mana into my finger, there was still some lingering mana left in the arm and hand, but the majority of it was focused in the finger.

    I¡¯d already considered what thoughts might be needed to cast the spell, and so when I drew a line in the air with my finger, I thought of splitting the air and reachingmyspecialspace, special to me and me alone.

    I heard a sound like when a vacuum is formed and sucks air into it and with anticipation, I opened my eyes.

    Hanging in the air in front of my right hand was a pitch-black tear in the air. I could barely stop myself from jumping up in excitement.

    I stretched out my shaking hand to the void that had appeared right in front of it, and after calming down for a second, I put it in.

    I saw my hand go into the black void and disappear, and I felt something. An indescribable feeling of reaching a pocket but knowing everything about that pocket. Its shape, its size, its age and its content. There was nothing I didn¡¯t know about this pocket of mine, and I was exhilarated to find out that there were things inside of it. Things that I recognized as items from Garlyn¡¯s storage.

    But I was also disappointed. The size of the pocket wasn¡¯t nearly as large as Garlyn¡¯s was, and only some of the items from his storage seemed to be here. And mostly lower level items too. A bit of food, some potions and scrolls, a couple of weapons and pieces of clothing and some gold. The only thing that stood out was a ring. ¡®The Interpreter¡¯s Prize¡¯. A rare ring that allowed you to understand most languages.

    That¡¯s¡­convenient. Everything else in here was just mostly the useless low-level junk Garlyn had in his storage, but this wasn''t. it might not have been veryuseful in the game, however here it might be one of the most important items that i could get from Garlyn''s old storage.

    I''m not sure I want to think about the implications of this right now... And I won''t. I''ve got more important things to do right now.

    Although I only have a few of the items from Garlyn¡¯s storage, I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve lost the rest of his items. It feels like my pocket has more space in it than I can see right now, I just can¡¯t reach it. Maybe that means that I¡¯m using the lowest-level variant of ¡®Dimensional Storage¡¯ right now, and when I learn to better use the spell, I can make the pocket bigger and perhaps get access to more of Garlyn¡¯s old items? I hope so.

    With that thought I closed the storage and stood up. This was a giving session, but I had postponed my original goal for a while now.

    It was time to explore the rest of the tower.

 Chapter 3

    I left the room behind me and moved for the stairs once again. It was time to explore the rest of this tower. If the outside was anything to go by, the tower maybe had somewhere around forty to fifty floors in it. The floor that I had found the rooms with beds in them was the fifth floor, so I still had a lot left to explore.

    To my chagrin, the next four floors after that were all filled with books just like most of the previous floors had been. And just like on the previous floors everything was squeaky clean here. Not a single speck of dust to be found anywhere at all. I¡¯m not sure how magic really works here yet, but if I could learn whatever magic it was that accomplished this, I¡¯d die a happy man.

    Or a happier man, at the very least.

    Not being as sleep-deprived and cold as I was last night when I passed by the first floors, I had the thought to actually check out a few of the books on these floors. However, when I opened the first book up and examined its pages, I encountered a problem.

    I had no idea how to read this. I don¡¯t know what kind of language these books were written in, but it certainly wasn¡¯t English. I tried putting on ¡®The Interpreter¡¯s Prize¡¯, but it didn¡¯t seem to work with written language.

    That¡¯s annoying. I¡¯m pretty sure the tooltip from the game said that it allowed you to understand most languages. It never specified whether or not it worked for both written and verbal language. Hopefully this just meant that it didn¡¯t work with written language and not that it didn¡¯t work with whatever language this was. Otherwise I might have a hard time later on.

    Shaking my head in disappointment I closed the book and put it back in its spot on one of the dozens of shelves that filled this floor.

    For a second, I thought about taking some of the books with me to examine them later, but I quickly changed my mind. I still wasn¡¯t one hundred percent sure that nobody lived here and if someone did in fact live here, bringing these books with me would be tantamount to stealing. I mean, yeah, I took some of their food and slept in their house without permission, but that was an emergency. I didn¡¯t have much choice in the matter. These books, however? Those I could live without.

    After looking through the book-filled floors I started moving up towards the tenth floor.

    As I climbed the stairs to the tenth floor I stopped, astonished, as I gaped around the large room before me. And by large, I mean large. Much larger than what could possibly fit inside this tower. I¡¯d guess that you¡¯d need at least two of these towers, maybe even three, to fit this room inside it. Yet, here I stood, looking at it with my own eyes. If I didn¡¯t know any better, I¡¯d think that somewhere along the way I somehow entered a portal that teleported me to a completely different building.

    Although I didn¡¯t actually know any better, so for all I knew I could very well have been teleported to another place. Who knows if I¡¯d even notice if something like that were to happen.

    But it was far more likely that whoever it was that had built this room just knew how to use spatial magic. There were rooms like this in ¡®The Wayfarer¡¯s Realm¡¯ too.

    Despite its size, the entirety of the room was lit up with a soft yellow glow. Floating in the air close to the ceiling were several rows of bright blue spheres that bobbed up and down in a mesmerizing manner.

    The ceiling was arched and was made of some kind of stone that had a deep purple colour which fit in well with the blue lights that bobbed under it. Both the walls and floor of the room were made of the same stone as the ceiling. The floor was mostly covered in large, black rugs embroidered with intricate patterns in gold and most of the walls had beautiful dark red tapestry on them which hang between cerulean-coloured pillars of stone that went all the way up to the roof.

    The stairs that I came from were placed at the side of the circular-shaped room and gave you an amazing view of it. I spent a while just appreciating the sheer elegancy of the room before my attention turned to the centre of it. There stood a platform that looked to be made entirely of blue light with stairs leading up to it from all sides. In the middle of that platform floated some kind of ball. It was small enough to be held in both hands and unlike the platform, it had a dark red colour. But when I looked closer at it, I saw that it wasn¡¯t just red. It looked like the inside of the ball was swirling around with the dark red colour moving up to the surface most of the time, but the dark red was sometimes replaced by a foggy black mass at places and sometimes hints of gold could be seen swirling up to the sphere¡¯s surface.

    The ball, which was most definitely magical, was enthralling and stunning to look at, but it wasn¡¯t the most noticeable thing in the room. What stuck out the most was the area surrounding the platform which the ball floated above. Instead of the dark purple-coloured stone floor or the fine black and gold rugs, the floor surrounding the platform was entirely black. At least it looked like it was black at first glance, but when I looked at it, I realized that it wasn¡¯t black. It was scorched.

    The rugs surrounding the area had charred corners and ash covered the blackened floor. In several places the floor had just melted and holes deep enough to cover your knees littered the place. Whatever had done this had clearly focused their firepower on the platform in the middle of the room.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

    I¡¯m going to go out on a limb here and guess that whoever built this place didn¡¯t intend for it to look like this. Maybe whoever it was that broke in here did this? If they did, it doesn¡¯t look like whatever they were trying to do worked, because the platform doesn¡¯t have a scratch on it. What even is that!?

    I moved to the centre of the room, crossing over the blackened and ruined floor and stopping in front of the first step made out of blue light. I apprehensively placed my foot on in and felt a little bit surprised when I felt my foot touch a solid surface. I¡¯d expected it, but it still felt weird to stand on light. I placed my other foot on the next step, and then the next until I¡¯d climbed up to the floating ball in the middle of the platform.

    When I looked at it i felt a weird urge that I hadn''t felt before. It was almost like the orb wanted me to touch it, and I had a hard time resisting.As I got closer the inside of the ball started swirling around faster and faster and when I was close enough to touch it, it was swirling around so fast that I could barely discern the different strands of colour inside. It was just a mesh of red, black and gold. I stretched out my hand and touched its surface. It was solid, but it felt like it moved around under my fingertips at the same time. I grabbed it with both of my hands and tried moving it, but it didn¡¯t budge an inch.

    The urge suddenly disappeared like it hadn''t even been there to begin with. Backing away from the orb I looked at it again. Except for the colours swirling around slower as I got further away, there was no change at all. Disappointed, I turned around and descended the stairs. That ball looked interesting and with how it was positioned, I¡¯m positive that it was some kind of powerful magical artefact. Just leaving it there feels wrong. The gamer in me was practically screaming in frustration. Powerful magical items weren¡¯t supposed to just lie there. That¡¯s just¡­ wrong. I don¡¯t like it. Something should have happened when I touched it. That''s just how these things work.

    But I can¡¯t really do anything about it.

    I looked around the room once again. Except the platform there wasn¡¯t much else in here. On the opposite side of where the stairs I¡¯d come from were, there was another spiral staircase leading to what I assumed was the next floor. There was also a single black door next to it. I was going to keep on moving up the floors but first I wanted to see what was behind that door.

    It didn¡¯t have a door handle and was surprisingly heavy. I barely managed to push it open even when I used all of my strength, which should still be quite a bit above the average for a person, even if Garlyn never focused much on the strength stat.

    On the other side of the door there was a purple corridor that led into a room that was pitch black. I didn¡¯t have a way to see in the dark, so I stretched out my right index finger and urged most of my mana into it to cast ¡®Dimension Storage¡¯. I looked, or rather felt, through what I had that could help me here. I hadn¡¯t looked through all the items I had in here yet. I should probably do that when I get the time.

    Besides the items I saw in there earlier, I also noticed that I had money in here. What amounted to almost 100 gold sat in my storage right now. That wasn¡¯t much by ¡®The Wayfarer¡¯s realm¡¯ standards, at least not for max-levelled characters, but it might be a bit more for an ordinary person. I doubt those coins work here, but hopefully I can at least sell them for a decent amount.

    Looking through my storage wasn¡¯t instantaneous. If I knew what I wanted I could get it immediately, but if I wasn¡¯t sure of what I wanted I had to look through all the items manually, and that took some time. I looked through my items, which consisted of mostly worthless junk, for half a minute or so before I found something that could help me.

    As I pulled my hand out of the fissure in space that led to my storage, a black lantern was pulled out. Inside the lantern there was a black stone that was held up by a couple of miniature sconces. The lantern had a small lever on its side and as I flipped the lever the dark stone suddenly lit up with a bright white light.

    Using the lantern to lead my way, I passed through the corridor and entered the dark room. The ceiling, walls and ground all had the same deep purple colour that this floor was so rife with. The room was devoid of anything except for a small blue pyramid-shaped object that stood upside down on a pedestal in the middle of the room. The object was white, but it had a slightly blue sheen to it.

    I hesitantly walked up to object and stretched out my index finger towards it. As soon as the tip of my finger connected with its surface, I felt a sudden pull on my body and the world around me shifted and moved, all the colours merging into one before it all turned black. In the pitch black darkness I saw something moving in the distance. A gaseuous cloud of red and black with a bright sheen that moved closer and closer to me. Out of reflex I tried putting my arms in front of me, only to realize that they weren''t there as the cloud flew straight through me and disappeared. Then a second later, colour returned to the world and I found myself in the first floor of the tower again. And very nauseous.

    Note to future me; Avoid touching unknown magical artefacts just because they¡¯re shiny and magical. I should probably have realized earlier that doing that would get me in trouble eventually. At least nothing bad happened to me this time. After all, all that object did was transport me to the first floor of the tow¡ª

    I froze when I looked at the entrance to the tower.

    There were two doors there. Just a few hours ago one of those doors had been lying in pieces on the floor. Was there some kind of magic that repaired the door? If so, then why hadn¡¯t it already repaired it before I came here? Or when I was sleeping during the night?

    When I touched that pyramid, the world around me had shifted and I had been teleported down here. Could it be, that maybe¡­?

    I opened up my storage again and put my lantern away as I walked over to the doors and paused with my hand just in front of the door handle. Then, after taking a deep breath, I grabbed the handle and pulled the door open.

    Instead of being met with the sight of a large, untamed forest, I was met by the view of a city. A city that looked like it could have been taken right out of ¡®The Wayfarer¡¯s Realm¡¯ with buildings made out of stone and wood in all directions and people bustling about the streets like ants. There was even a small castle in the distance.

    The pyramid hadn¡¯t teleported me to the tower¡¯s first floor. It had teleported me to the first floor of another tower.

    And there were people here. Thank god!

 Chapter 4

    ¡±What the-!?¡± I heard a voice sound out from the side.

    ¡±W-Who are you!? How did you get in there!¡± Another voice cried out and I heard the sound of a sword being drawn.

    My head turned towards the voices and I saw that a pair of men stood a couple of metres in front of either side of the entrance, one with a sword and shield in hand and the other also had a shield and was on his way to draw his sword. Both men wore a grey suit of plate armour that covered their entire body and a helmet with a T-shaped slit that showed some of their mouth, nose and eyes. Over their armour both of them wore a deep purple coloured tabard with the insignia of an owl embroidered on top in gold. They looked to be guards of some kind.

    The other drew his sword out of the scabbard at his side and both of them approached me in an aggressive fashion.

    I waved both of my hands in front of me and shook my head. ¡°Nonono, this is a misunderstanding. I had no idea I wasn¡¯t supposed to be here; I swear!¡± I pressed out in a panicked voice.

    ¡°Shut up and get on the ground or we¡¯ll cut you down where you stand!¡± One of the guards growled and held up his sword towards me. The other guard said nothing but started moving to my side so that they surrounded me.

    I thought about doing as he said for a second, but then I looked into the eyes of the soldier that was trying to corner me. I caught a glimpse of exhilaration in his eyes. He looked like he was ready to cut me down any second, no matter if I complied or not. I made my choice.

    I felt around inside my body for that warm feeling that was starting to become familiar. When I found it, I spread the mana all around my body and felt how the warmth spread everywhere. It didn¡¯t take much more than a second before the world around me slowed down and the guards were moving in slow motion, at least from my perspective.

    I didn¡¯t waste a second of the precious time that I gained from ¡®Chronal Shift¡¯ and immediately dashed forward, running between the two guards who¡¯s eyes barely managed to shoot open in surprise before I had passed them.

    The tower stood on a lone hill in the city with a gravel path leading down to the rest of the buildings. I¡¯d gotten to the end of the hill and was just approaching the first buildings when the world around me started moving at a normal pace again and I heard the guards scream from the top of the hill.

    The gravel path lead onto a large cobblestoned street that was filled with all kinds of people. I didn¡¯t really stop to get a good look at them as I was currently running for my life. Although I caught the attention of a lot of them as I ran through the street with the two guards screaming at me from the hill. Most people moved to the side as I passed them by, but there were a few who tried standing in my way. Surprisingly, a group of kids that carried wooden swords and staffs tried blocking my way as they screamed something about justice, but I was considerably quicker and more agile than them, so I managed to pass them by without problems and without harming any of them. I handled other people blocking my way in a similar way. This body really was fantastic.

    But I couldn¡¯t run at my full speed because of all these people and when I looked back, I saw that the guards were closing in on me as the people were actively trying not to get in their way. The guards were still relatively far behind me because of my head start, but if I didn¡¯t lose them sometime soon, they¡¯d catch me eventually.

    When I looked ahead of me again, fear gripped me. Another couple of soldiers with similar armour to the guards that were chasing me but with red tabards were walking on the street and looked back at me as they noticed the disturbance behind them. Both of them immediately reached for their swords and started making their way through the crowd towards me.

    I halted and desperately looked around me for a way to escape. I caught sight of a small alley that were close to the soldiers that approached me from the front. There¡¯s no way I could reach that alley before them normally, but with ¡®Chronal Shift¡¯ it might be possible. Problem was that I wasn¡¯t sure how much time had passed since I last used it. If enough time hadn¡¯t passed, I¡¯d just end up incapacitating myself and they¡¯d catch me. But if I didn¡¯t try it, they¡¯d catch me regardless.

    I tried moving the mana inside my body again and let out a sigh of relief when I didn¡¯t feel it fight against my attempt to spread it throughout my body. I started running again and with time slowed down around me I reached the alley just before the two soldiers did. One of them was stretching his hand out towards me and was close to touching me, but with him moving in slow motion I easily avoided his hand and quickly aimed a kick at one of his legs to slow him down before I ran into the alley.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    I turned the corner at the end of the alley and entered another alley that led out into another larger street. Time was sped up for me when I reached the street and I hurried to blend into the crowd just as time returned to normal.

    I could hear yelling from the alley, but I ignored it and followed the flow of the crowd. Now and then when I felt enough time had passed to use ¡®Chronal Shift¡¯ again I used it to move further and further away from where the tower was. After ten minutes I felt safe enough to stop for a second and think.

    I felt that the reaction from those guards were unreasonable. Yes, maybe that tower was a restricted area where people weren¡¯t supposed to be, but how was I supposed to know that? If you don¡¯t want people to enter your little tower, then don¡¯t make it so that anyone can just teleport inside of it like I did. And besides, killing somebody for trespassing just feels like overkill. But at least I¡¯m safe now. This looks like a large city; I doubt they¡¯ll have an easy time finding me in it. I don¡¯t think they really got a good look at me so if I change what clothes I¡¯m wearing they should have a hard time recognizing me. It¡¯ll also give me a chance to see if I can trade what I have in my storage, considering that I don¡¯t know what kind of currency they use here.

    I spent the next few minutes looking around for a shop that sold clothes. The clothes I wore didn¡¯t stick out that much, but they weren¡¯t common either. The shop I found was a quaint little place at the corner of a street with all kinds of clothes displayed in the windows and a sign above the door that had something written on it in the same language that I¡¯d seen inside the books in the tower. I still had no idea what it meant though. But at least ¡®The Interpreter¡¯s Prize¡¯ worked with the verbal language here. That much I¡¯d at least learned from my encounter with those guards.

    When I entered the small shop, a bell rang from above the door and a chubby middle-aged man appeared from a room in the back and went up to me. ¡°Good day to you, young sir. How may I help you today?¡± He said as he performed a small but elegant bow.

    I moved my hand to a pocket that was sewn onto the chest of my tunic where I¡¯d put a few of my coins. I wasn¡¯t expecting them to be worth anything as currency, but perhaps I could trade with them just from the sheer value of the metal?

    ¡°I want to buy some clothes that fit in better with the area. But I don¡¯t have any of your currency, all I have is this.¡± I said and stretched out my palm with two gold coins on it. Both coins were round and engraved with a ring around the edges that had the shape of an eye in the middle of it.

    I was just about to ask him if I could trade these for anything despite it not being the right currency around here when he interrupted me.

    ¡°Oh, I see. A foreigner, are you? You should probably do more research of the places you visit in the future. Luckily for you young sir, your country seems to use the Old Dominion¡¯s coins as well, so those gold coins will work just fine.¡± He said. He then looked at me with an interested look on his face. ¡°But if you don¡¯t mind me asking, which country do you hail from?¡± He asked.

    ¡°I-I¡¯m sorry but I¡¯d rather not say¡­¡± I answered and awkwardly looked around the shop.

    He chuckled lightly and started moving to the back of his shop. ¡°Of course, of course. How rude of me to pry into your background like that. I hope you can forgive an old man¡¯s curiosity, young sir. After living in in this city for so long you sometimes get a little bit bored.¡± He stopped in front of a small desk and turned to me. ¡°Now, young sir, I believe you were here to buy a pair of clothes? Anything special you want?¡± He said.

    After that I talked a bit with the man about which clothes it was that I wanted and the of cost them. I ended up buying two different sets of clothes that I¡¯d seen some of the citizens wear for a little under one gold coin. One gold coin was worth 50 silver coins, the same as in the game. The cost came down to 46 silver, so I handed him a gold coin and he gave me four silver coins in return. The price left me pleasantly surprised. That meant that with 100 gold in my storage, I was decently well off. At least I had enough to live off of for a while.

    But the fact that my coins from ¡®The Wayfarer¡¯s Realm¡¯ worked here¡­ It was definitely nice as it made things a lot easier for me, but it bothered me. There were too many similarities with this world and the game. It wasn¡¯t exactly the same, but I could see signs of the game almost everywhere I looked. In the architecture, the clothing, the people, and even the currency too. Not to mention my body and my magic that were just taken straight out of the game.

    There¡¯s just no way all of that was a coincidence. So that begs the question then; Is this world based off of ¡®The Wayfarer¡¯s Realm¡¯, or is the game based off of this world? I wish had a way to find out the answer. Perhaps then I¡¯d know what the hell I¡¯m doing here too. I haven¡¯t really had much to think about it, but I really am stuck in another world. Its cool and all, but eventually the novelty wears off and you realize that you¡¯re cut off from all your friends and family and might not ever get to see them again.

    I¡¯m not sure what I should do in this world, but I do know one thing. Learning more about how I got here, and any possible ways back should be one of my main priorities.

    With that I left the small shop behind and with my new sets of clothes on I blended into the groups of people on the streets and let the crowd¡¯s flow lead me further into the city.

 Chapter 5

    The people I saw walk the streets of the city weren¡¯t all human. The majority of them were, but there were other races here as well. The ones I¡¯d seen so far were what I assumed were either dwarves or very short and bulgy humans. A few green and brown coloured muscular humanoids with short tusks that were probably orcs and also some kid-sized miniature people with hairy hands and heads that felt just a bit too large for their bodies which I think were halflings.

    Once I even think I saw somebody with pointy ears, but I lost them in the crowd before I could determine if they were some kind of elf.

    It was cool seeing all of these races in real life, but I wasn¡¯t surprised to see them. Every single one of them were races that existed in ¡®The Wayfarer¡¯s Realm¡¯ after all.

    I¡¯d walked around the city for a couple of hours, doing nothing but exploring and enjoying the sights. I tried staying as far away from the tower I¡¯d arrived in as I could just to be safe though. The tower was by far the tallest building in the city and you could see it from even the outer edges of the city. And the city was pretty large, so that was saying something. It¡¯d probably take me a couple of hours to walk from one end to another.

    I hadn¡¯t gotten a good look of the tower when I was closer, but from here it looked to be an exact replica of the tower from the forest. I wanted to ask people about it, but right now I was afraid to ask too much about the tower. I¡¯d heard people talk about an intruder having exited the tower and being chased by the guards and I didn¡¯t want to draw unnecessary attention to myself. Better to wait with the questions for a later time. But judging from how much people was talking about it, the tower seemed to be a pretty big deal.

    When I saw that the sun was starting to go down, I decided that it was probably best to find some place to sleep. I asked a nearby person for a place where I could pay for lodging and he pointed me to an inn a few blocks away. The inn itself was decently sized and had a sign above the door that had both text on it, which I couldn¡¯t read, and a picture of a man lying down on a bed.

    The inside of the inn looked about as I expected. It was a medium-sized room where basically everything was made out of different shades and kinds of wood. Even all of the furniture was made of wood, although at least the chairs had cushions on them. At the side of the room there was a pair of stairs that led to the next floor and next to the stairs there was a long counter were a brown-haired woman around my age stood reading a book.

    When I entered, she looked up at me and smiled a bright smile. She took a piece of paper from where it lay on the desk and put it between the pages in her book as she closed it. ¡°Welcome to the Weary Trouper!¡± She announced happily. ¡°How can we help you today? Are you in need of lodging? Because we have that in spares, and its cheap too!¡± She said in a rehearsed voice.

    I walked up to the counter and looked around the room. About a quarter of the tables in here was currently filled with people eating different meals. I¡¯m unsure whether that was a small amount for this time of day.

    ¡°I¡¯d like to pay for one night¡¯s stay. How much is that?¡± I said to the girl and started digging around in my pocket where I¡¯d put some money that I¡¯d taken the time earlier today to hide and pull out some more money from my storage.

    ¡°Six silvers for lodging for one night for a single person and eight silver if you want a small meal in the morning and evening too.¡± She answered.

    I took out eight coins of silver that had the same ring with an eye shape encrusted on them, just like the gold coins had. She took them from my hand her smile grew even brighter. ¡°Follow me then, and I¡¯ll show you to your room.¡± She led me up the stairs and into a hallway that several doors in it. Stopping in front of one, she pulled out a key and unlocked the door before she opened it up and gestured for me to enter.

    ¡°This is your room. There¡¯s a wash basin under the bed and an outhouse in the yard behind the building. You can also fill up the basin there if you want. I¡¯d recommend not leaving any personal belongings in your room while you¡¯re not here. We do have locks but there are other ways for people to enter rooms.¡± She giggled into her hand and continued. ¡°But I guess that doesn¡¯t really matter to you. You don¡¯t have any belongings with you after all.¡± She said and handed the key to the room.

    ¡°I¡¯ll be going downstairs now. You can come down anytime during the evening if you want your meal. All you have to do is ask me. My name¡¯s Arianne.¡± She said.

    ¡°Nice meeting you. I¡¯m Sha-¡°

    I cut myself off.

    I tried playing it off by coughing casually before I tried again. ¡°Sorry. I¡¯m Garlyn. Garlyn Grandwell.¡± My voice sounded pretty stiff as I said the name. It was a little bit embarrassing to be honest.

    She looked at me a little oddly, but the smile was still on her face. ¡°Nice to meet you, Mr Grandwell.¡± I winced at the name. It was cool and all in the game but being called it for real felt off. I didn¡¯t mean the name Garlyn, but perhaps I should have just introduced myself with my real name instead? Or maybe a mix of them? Garlyn Yates sounded good. Cooler than Shawn Yates at least. And definitely better than Garlyn Grandwell. I hadn¡¯t thought about it before, but that really sounded like the name of some noble.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    Arianne told me goodbye for now and left the room and I sat down on the bed. It wasn¡¯t that bad. I¡¯d expected worse. It wasn¡¯t as comfortable as my own bed, but I¡¯d fallen asleep in my chair and had to deal with the back pains from that enough times to appreciate anything that was bed-shaped and at least a little bit soft.

    I was pretty tired from the day. A lot of things had happened, and a good night''s sleep felt welcoming. I could think more about what I should do next tomorrow. I went downstairs and asked Arianne about the evening meal, which she shortly after came out with and put down on a table for me to eat. I promptly ate it, wished her a good night when I passed her by at the counter and then went up to my room to sleep for the night.

    <hr>

    ¡°Mr. Grandwell. Mr Grandwell!¡± I woke up to the voice of knocking on my door and somebody shouting. It took me a few seconds before I remembered that I was supposed to be Mr. Grandwell. I really had to ask them not to call me that, I felt ridiculous when they did¡­

    ¡°Mr. Grandwell!¡± The voice continued. ¡°It¡¯s morning and if you want your morning meal, you¡¯ll have to get up now.¡± The knocking stopped and I heard steps move away from my door and further down the hallway. Then I heard knocking on another door and the voice shouted the same thing again to whoever it was that lived in that room. I didn¡¯t recognize the voice. It was deep and masculine though, so it probably belonged to a man.

    I got up out of bed and put on the clothes that I¡¯d bought the day before and made my way downstairs. Arianne was there and greeted me with a smile as I descended the stairs and she pointed me to an empty table.

    ¡°You can sit down over there Mr. Grandwell. As soon as my father is finished waking the customers up, he¡¯ll come down and we¡¯ll prepare the meals for everybody. It won¡¯t take longer than a few minutes.¡± She said and I went up to the table and sat down.

    The voice that woke me up must have been her dad then. I hadn¡¯t thought about it, but it was obvious that she couldn¡¯t run this place on her own. It probably wasn¡¯t unusual for places like this to be family businesses either.

    After a couple of minutes, a large stout man came down form the stairs and entered a back room behind the counter together with Arianne. Not long after both of them came back iron plates that had bread, meat and some vegetables on them that they distributed around the room to the customers that sat at the tables. The meal was mediocre but filling and after I¡¯d finished Arianne came up to my table to take away my plate.

    I¡¯d spent my time eating thinking about what I should do now, and I had an idea about what I wanted to do. I was stuck in a fantasy world after all with cool magic powers and I had no idea right now how to get back home, so I should use the opportunity whilst I can to enjoy this a bit. Maybe I could go out on adventures and defeat monsters if they exist. Or I could go out and explore the world and see what it had to offer. Or I could just focus only on learning magic and try becoming some kind of sage.

    There was a bunch if different exciting things that I could think of doing, but first I think I should try to achieve a dream almost all kids dream about.

    First, I should learn to fight. And for that I¡¯ll need a weapon. I had a few lower-level weapons from ¡®The Wayfarer¡¯s Realm¡¯ in my storage but those were only different kinds of swords, shields and bows. Not the kind of weapon that I wanted to use.

    As Arianne took my plate and turned around to leave, I stopped hear and asked. ¡°Hey Arianne, do you know a good place to buy weapons in the city? I¡¯m new around here and don¡¯t know the place well.¡±

    She shot me a surprised look. ¡°You want a weapon? Just so you know, you won¡¯t be able to go around town with most kinds of weapons out in the open without permission. The guards will stop you if they see someone like you walk around by yourself with one. You¡¯re not a guard or a soldier of some kind, are you?¡± She asked.

    I gave her a wry smile. ¡°No, I¡¯m not, but you don¡¯t have to worry. I¡¯m not planning on walking around the city with a weapon at all times. But that makes me curious. How do you get permission to have a weapon on you?¡± I replied.

    She wrinkled her eyebrows and looked over to the other tables where there were still empty plates that she had to pick up. When her father waved his hand at her and moved to pick the plates up himself, she visibly relaxed and looked back at me.

    ¡°Well most guards and soldiers are allowed to carry weapons. Nobles too. You usually don¡¯t get stopped as long as you look the part. There are probably some of the guilds whose members can carry weapons too, but I¡¯m not sure.¡± She seemed to think for a few seconds. ¡°Oh, and I think people registered to the arms schools can also get special permission papers to carry weapons if they want. Them and members of mercenary companies and the likes.¡± She added.

    One thing she¡¯d mentioned had caught my attention.

    ¡°What are those arms schools?¡± I asked her.

    ¡°They are schools where you can pay to learn how to use different kinds of weapons. The city guards and the royal army have their own establishments so most people who go to arms schools are those who are hoping to join mercenary companies or just want to learn how to defend themselves out in the wild, I think. I don¡¯t know how many arms schools there are here in Dustdrift, but if you¡¯re interested Waldemar probably knows. He¡¯s a blacksmith and has a shop where he sells some of his wares a few blocks from here. It¡¯s not really a weapon shop, but he probably has a few weapons you can buy at least.¡± She finished.

    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯d be great. Thanks.¡± I replied and she told me how to find Waldemar¡¯s shop before she left for the back room behind the counter. I decided to set out for his shop immediately.

    Buying a real weapon and learning to use it. Just the mere thought made me so excited that I could barely contain myself and wanted to run through the streets to get to that shop as fast as I could.

 Chapter 6

    Inside a large office behind a wide desk sat a domineering man who looked over a pile of rapports. He wore a dignified attire with a long red cape which hung over his shoulders with the insignia of a silver horse on it. An irked expression was on his face as he finished reading over one of the reports and put it down on the table.

    ¡°Thibaud! Get in here now!¡± He yelled out into the empty room.

    Not long after, steps could be heard outside the room. A door was slowly opened and in walked a tall, skinny man in an immaculate costume and glasses. ¡°You called for me, sir.¡± The man known as Thibaud said in a matter-of-fact tone.

    The other man stared at him sharply. ¡°I just finished reading the tower guard¡¯s report from yesterday.¡± Indignation showed clearly in his dark brown eyes. ¡°Why wasn¡¯t I notified yesterday that there had been an intruder in the tower?¡± He growled.

    Thibaud showed no sign of being disturbed by his superior¡¯s sour mood and stood there with an expressionless face. ¡°By the time that the information reached us the culprit had already managed to escape the guards. The appropriate search procedures had already been taken and there was nothing you could do to aid in the situation. I judged it best to wait until the official report came before informing you of the situation, lest you let your temper get out of hand and march onto the streets to find the culprit yourself and in doing so, inadvertently abandon your other duties.¡±

    The man at the desk clenched fist and glared at Thibaud like he was thinking of strangling the man. ¡°Thibaud, you¡¯re my assistant. You don¡¯t get to decide what I should or shouldn¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°Duly noted¡± Thibaud said blankly, but he showed no sign of regretting his actions.

    The man at the desk closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths and unclenched his fist. When he opened his eyes again the anger from before had mostly disappeared, but he was still staring at his assistant with irritation.

    ¡°Are there any news about the intruder? The report said that he was a young man with brown hair that demonstrated incredible speed. He was also strong enough to break a guard¡¯s leg with a single kick. But that¡¯s not much of a description to go off of.¡± The man said.

    Thibaud shook his head. ¡°You are correct, sir. The guards have searched through the areas close to the tower and are searching through the outer districts as we speak, but as not many have seen his face, I believe it to be highly unlikely that we find him unless he shows himself again.¡± Thibaud stated.

    The man sighed. ¡°This isn¡¯t good. We have no way of knowing how he got inside or what he did in there. Just the thought of what might happen if the wrong person got inside that tower sends shiver down my spine. We have to contact The Warden and tell him about this. For the foreseeable future I want at least three pairs of guards and one mage placed around the tower at all times. And from now on, I want every single piece of information that reaches you to be relayed to me immediately. I¡¯ll decide for myself what¡¯s important or not. Is that understood?¡± The man gave his assistant with an unconditional glare.

    Thibaud gave a small bow. ¡°Understood, captain.¡± He said before he opened the door and left as inconspicuously as he¡¯d entered.

    As soon as his assistant had left the man leaned back in his chair and grabbed his forehead. Of course, he¡¯ll have to be one to inform the duke of this too, he wretchedly thought. He missed his old adventurous life. Why¡¯d he ever accepted the job as guard captain of Dustdrift?

    <hr>

    On my way to the shop I saw a few guards here and there but by taking a few detours I avoided them without a problem and soon reached Waldemar¡¯s shop. When Arianne said he was a blacksmith I was sort of expecting his shop to be a forge filled with, you know, forge stuff. I¡¯m no blacksmith so I don¡¯t know what a forge should look like.

    What I saw instead was just a shop like any other. The only different thing about it was its wares. The shop was filled with all kinds of metal tools, accessories and other kinds of metal objects. There were a few daggers and short swords hanging off the walls too, but those didn¡¯t interest me.

    A kid in his late teens was standing behind a counter at the far end of the shop and looked at me suspiciously as I examined the wares. Eventually I walked up to him and noticed how he tried to act like he hadn¡¯t been staring at me all along. Was he scared I was going steal something or what?

    ¡°Hey, is Waldemar in right now?¡± I asked him.

    ¡°What business do you have with him?¡± He replied curtly.

    Geesh, what a nice guy¡­

    ¡°I wanted to ask some questions and perhaps buy some weapons. I was directed to him by a girl that works over at the Weary Trouper. Arianne was her name.¡±

    The fact that he reacted to the mention of Arianne¡¯s name didn¡¯t slip my attention.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    ¡°Oh. W-Well, Waldemar isn¡¯t here right now. He¡¯s over at another shop in the Wyndimar District today, so you¡¯re out of luck.¡± He said, but he wasn¡¯t as rude this time. ¡°But you can ask your questions to me instead. I¡¯m sure I can answer whatever question you might have.¡± He added hastily.

    He sure changed his tune quickly. ¡°Really? That¡¯d be great.¡± I said and leaned my elbows on the counter. ¡°I was mainly curious about the arms schools in the city. How many there are, which of them that are good, how they work and things like that. You know anything about that?¡±

    He seemed a bit taken aback by my forwardness and hesitated for a second before he replied. ¡°Yes, I do. In fact, I attend one myself actually. There are five here in Dustdrift. I attend the Steelbarrow Arms School, but they¡¯re all of good repute. It¡¯s just that some of them focus on different kinds of weapons and fighting, so it¡¯s better to choose the school depending on that rather than which one you think is better than the other.¡± He paused and shot me a confused look. ¡°You don¡¯t know how they work though? Don¡¯t they have arms schools where you¡¯re from?¡± He asked.

    ¡°Nah, I¡¯m from what I guess you could call ¡®the boonies¡¯, and I haven¡¯t really visited any large cities like this one before. Arms schools, guilds and guards everywhere. It¡¯s all kinda new to me.¡± I answered as casually as I could and chuckled.

    ¡°Well it¡¯s not that complicated. You just pay a tuition to the school depending on your training and they have instructors that train you. Usually you¡¯ll get to spar and train with other students too.¡±

    ¡°And anyone can pay to train at these schools then?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, although if you want to train with a weapon, you¡¯ll have to procure that for yourself.¡± He got a bit excited. ¡°We have a few here that you can buy for a reasonable price!¡±

    I looked over to where the swords and daggers hang. ¡°Are those all weapons you have?¡± I asked with a frown.

    He looked a bit disappointed at that. ¡°No, we have a few more here, but they are mostly of the same quality and type as those are¡­¡±

    I felt kind of bad for him. It felt rude of me to come here and ask questions without buying anything. Maybe I should buy something small at least?

    ¡°I¡¯ll take that dagger over there.¡± I said and pointed to a dagger that hung on the wall. It was long, wide, two-edged and had a small guard.

    His expression brightened a little as I said that, and he moved away from the counter to get the dagger. When he returned, he placed it on the counter and looked up at me with a smile. ¡°That¡¯ll be one gold and twelve silver.¡±

    ¡°Sure, sure. So, ehm, am I allowed to walk around with this in the city? I was under the impression that all weapons needed permission, but I¡¯ve seen a lot of people go around with knives and daggers, so is there an exception to those?¡± I asked him as I took out the money and handed it to him.

    He took the dagger and wrapped it up in a bundle of cloth and passed it over to me. ¡°Knives and daggers are generally okay to have on your person. This dagger is a bit longer than usual however, but as long as you keep it wrapped up when you walk around on the streets you shouldn¡¯t have a problem.¡±

    ¡°Ah. Good to know.¡± I said and accepted the wrapped dagger. ¡°By the way, you said you didn¡¯t have any other kinds of weapons here, but do you know a place that does? Specifically, a place where I can buy a Halberd.¡± I added nonchalantly.

    He looked a bit shocked. ¡°You want to buy a halberd? What for?¡±

    I gave him an obvious look. ¡°Well I want to train fight with it at an arms school, obviously.¡± Rolling my eyes, I added. ¡°That reminds me; Do you know which of the arms schools that might have instructors that can train me in fighting with a halberd?¡±

    ¡°Uhm, I¡¯m not sure if any of them teaches fighting with a halberd. It¡¯s not a commonly used weapon. But the Grimwick Arms School are famous for having instructors that practice a wide variety of styles so it might be worth going there to check. All of the arms schools also sell weapons to their students so if they have someone that can teach you, you can probably buy your weapon there.¡±

    ¡°Really? That¡¯s handy. I¡¯ll be heading off then. Thanks for the help!¡± I said and waved him goodbye as I turned around to leave the shop.

    ¡°W-w-wait!¡± He yelped from behind me. ¡°Before you go. If you, uh, s-see Arianne again, could you mention that I helped you?¡± He said as he looked down at the counter with embarrassment.

    ¡°Yeah, sure. I¡¯ll tell her.¡± I said, pressing down a laugh. I¡¯d been called cute sometimes back home so I knew how annoying it could be to be called that as a guy, but my god it really was cute seeing him be embarrassed like that.

    I grimaced when I realized that I¡¯d just called another guy cute though. I¡¯m pretty sure that¡¯s like, a cardinal sin or something. As I left the shop I quietly I asked for forgiveness for subjecting him to that, even though it was only in my head.

    When I stepped onto the street I paused. I¡¯d forgotten to ask where Grimwick arms schools even was. But it¡¯d be pretty embarrassing to walk in again and ask for directions. I¡¯d just have to make do without. There¡¯s bound to be others that I can ask about where it is.

    It took some time. I had to spend almost an hour of walking to reach it. Most of that time was spent with me getting lost because I misunderstood peoples directions. But I did get there eventually, and in my mind that¡¯s all that counts.

    The Grimwick Arms School was large. It was actually a collection of several buildings that seemed to have different purposes. Two of the buildings looked to be some kind of training halls. There was a small arena without a roof and pillars as walls where I saw a couple of guys sparring with each other. There was also a couple of normal-looking buildings that I didn¡¯t know the purpose of and a larger building that looked like it was the main building of the school. I headed towards the main building. It was time to buy my halberd. If they had those, which hopefully they did.

    The reason I wanted a halberd and not anything else was simple. The only weapon proficiency that I had put any skill points into as Garlyn in ¡®The Wayfarer¡¯s Realm¡¯ was the halberd proficiency. Well, except a few points which I put into the dagger proficiency so that I had a secondary weapon. As for why Garlyn used a halberd, there wasn¡¯t any special reason. I liked having the longer range and it looked cool. At least the halberds in the game looked cool. I was still a bit miffed that I didn¡¯t have those in my storage at the moment.

    Anyways, I was thinking that if everything else of Garlyn¡¯s translated into this world, then so should his weapon skills. That, and I knew that I had some pretty amazing halberds in my storage, and it¡¯d be pretty disappointing if, when I finally get access to them, I had no idea how to use them.

    With that thought I opened the doors to the main building of the Grimwick Arms School and walked inside.

 Chapter 7

    I entered a large lobby where a couple of employees sat behind a moon-shaped desk and chatted. There was one man and one woman who both looked to be middle-aged and wore some kind of uniform. When I walked in, they halted their conversation and focused their attention on me. The woman shot me a professional smile as I approached but the man wore a neutral expression on his face.

    ¡°Good day, sir.¡± The man said.

    ¡°How may we help you today?¡± The woman added without delay.

    I tried mimicking her smile, but I think it just ended up looking weird and forced. What can I say. I¡¯m a happy guy, but I can¡¯t force it like that.

    ¡°Y-Yeah, hello, good day and all that.¡± I babbled out. ¡°This is the Grimwick Arms School isn¡¯t it? I¡¯d like to enrol if possible.¡±

    The man bent down and started looking for something under the desk. The woman kept her attention on me. ¡°Very well. Is there a special program you¡¯d like to take, or are you undecided? Here at Grimwick Arms School our instructors are experienced in a vide variety of styles and weapons so there is a lot to choose from. If you¡¯d like we can give you a pamphlet showcasing some of our more popular programs?¡±

    I snorted when she mentioned the pamphlet but tried covering it up as just a cough. ¡°No, it¡¯s fine. I won¡¯t need your, erm¡­ pamphlet.¡± I said in a voice that was just a little too bright.

    Come on Shawn, get a hold of yourself. But still, she was offering me a freaking pamphlet. I don¡¯t know why, but to me a fantasy world and pamphlets didn¡¯t feel like a natural mix.

    The woman still had a professional smile on her face, but she was starting to look at me a little oddly. The man was still doing something under the desk, and it didn¡¯t seem like he was paying attention to what was being said. Suddenly he sat up again and placed a bundle of papers on the desk in front of him. He then took a couple of papers and laid them in front of me. The paper felt kind of worn and had a yellowish tint to it. There was a bunch of text written on both pieces, but I had no idea what it said.

    ¡°Ahem. Anyways. I¡¯ve already decided a weapon I want to train with. Do any of your instructors teach how to use the halberd?¡± I said as I examined the papers

    The woman looked a little surprised and turned questioningly to the man. He seemed to think for a few seconds before he talked. ¡°Instructor Nimmen specializes in pole weapons. I am unaware whether or not he¡¯s proficient with the halberd specifically, but even if he isn¡¯t, I¡¯m sure we can work something out. However, if you¡¯d like I can verify it now.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯d appreciate that. Thanks.¡±

    ¡°Very well then.¡± The man said and stood up. ¡°Taniya, would you be so kind as to begin the admittance process while I¡¯m away.¡± He said to the woman before he left the lobby through a door at the back.

    The woman, who I guess is called Taniya, followed the man with her eyes as he left and as soon as he was out of sight, she turned to me again. ¡°Shall we begin then?¡± She asked and took out a dip pen which she promptly dipped in an ink bowl that was on the desk. She looked through the pile of papers for a few seconds before she took out a specific piece of paper that looked similar to the ones that I had in front of me. Wonder if these were contracts of some kind?

    ¡°As you¡¯re not choosing a pre-existing program, we¡¯ll have to create one for you specifically. As instructor Nimmen is the only instructor we have that might be able to teach you, the schedule we can create will depend mostly on when he is available. Luckily for you not many people come here to Grimwick to learn how to use pole weapons so availability shouldn¡¯t be a problem. That means that the frequency of your sessions mainly depends on how often you have time and how much you can pay.¡± She shot me an asking glance.

    It took me a moment to realize that she was actually asking me a question.

    ¡°Oh. Well for the time being I¡¯ve got nothing better to do so as often as possible would be nice. I don¡¯t know the prices yet though, but if I can afford it, I¡¯ll pay for it.¡± I hurried to answer.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    ¡°I see.¡± She said and wrote something down on the paper. ¡°Generally, you pay one silver for every hour in a session. Even though instructor Nimmen doesn¡¯t have many pupils at the moment you won¡¯t be able to have sessions with him all the time. I¡¯d guess that most days you¡¯ll get at most fours hours. The school does however have a training hall that students can use whenever they want for a small fee.¡±

    ¡°A small fee of¡­?¡± I queried.

    ¡°Ten silver at the start of any week that you plan to use it.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not too bad.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s also an enrolment cost of one gold that all students have to pay.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s a bit more¡­¡± I said and winced.

    ¡°Now¡­¡± She said and pointed towards the papers that lay on the table in front of me. ¡°There is some paperwork which we have to fill in to get you enrolled. First of all, if you could please write your name and what you¡¯ll be training here.¡± She said and stretched out the pen to me.

    I scratched the back of my head awkwardly. ¡°Hehe, about that¡­ I can¡¯t really read. Or write. Or talk, to be perfectly honest.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s fine. I can write it for you then.¡± She said and pulled the pen back. ¡°But what do you mean by that you can¡¯t talk?¡± She inquired curiously.

    Crap. Maybe admitting that I have a magical item that translates everything isn¡¯t a good idea? I have no idea if that¡¯s something rare here or not, so it might be better to play it safe.

    ¡°Sorry, I meant nothing by it. Just a bad joke. I don¡¯t really do much of the ¡®social¡¯.¡± I said and formed air quotes with my fingers.

    ¡°Mm. Not a good joke, sorry. But let¡¯s get this started¡± She hummed and nodded her head. Then she took one of the pieces of paper that were in front of me and held her pen above it. ¡°What is your name?¡±

    ¡°Garlyn Yates?¡± I said.

    Her eyes went up to me and she had a sceptical look on her face. ¡°Was that a question?¡±

    ¡°No?¡±

    Raising her eyebrows, she looked down to the paper and wrote something. To me it just looked like a bunch of squiggly lines and shapes, but I guess that how my new name is spelled.

    ¡°And just to make sure; You want to learn how to use the halberd? And you agree to be taught by one of the Grimwick Arms School¡¯s instructors. In this case, instructor Nimmen?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s correct.¡±

    ¡°And if I understood you correctly you want to have as many sessions with him as possible? I¡¯ll warn you that the amount of free sessions might change depending on if there are new students or old students leave.¡±

    ¡°Yeah that¡¯s right. And that¡¯s fine too.¡±

    She wrote down a few other things before she put the pen down on the table and folded her hands together. ¡°Then we¡¯ll wait for my colleague to come back with confirmation. He¡¯ll bring the instructor¡¯s schedule too, so we¡¯ll be able to decide a schedule for you here and now if you want.¡±

    ¡°That sounds good.¡± I said and she just nodded her head but said nothing. I got a little uncomfortable by the silence, but I decided to just play around some with the mana in my body while we waited. Because of that I nearly missed when the man returned and spoke to me.

    ¡°-should be no problems.¡± He said to me.

    ¡°Uh, could you repeat that please?¡± I said, feeling embarrassed.

    He frowned for a second, but his neutral disposition quickly returned. ¡°I said that instructor Nimmen does indeed know how to teach you to use the halberd, so there should be no problems.¡± He said, sounding just a tad bit annoyed.

    ¡°Great! Then, where should I sign?¡±

    I spent the main part of the rest hour in a side room with Taniya in a side room where set up a schedule for me and discussed costs. I decided to pay immediately for the enrolment cost, the next two weeks and the fee for using the training hall. That came down to two gold and thirteen silver.

    That made me rethink buying that dagger earlier today. If I¡¯m counting right that means that just that one dagger cost almost as much as two weeks at this place. I have a decent amount of gold but maybe I should be more careful about how I spend it. It made me cringe thinking about how I bought those clothes yesterday from that man without even considering the fact that he might have been scamming me. I had just admitted to him that I didn¡¯t even know what currency they used in this city after all.

    Taniya did also ask me if I had a weapon of my own and when I told her that I didn¡¯t she said that the instructor could bring a few that I could buy to our first session that was tomorrow.

    After that I got to sign some papers, which was just me badly copying what Taniya told me was my name, and then I left the Grimwick Arms School for the day. I went back to the inn and paid for another night there and spent the rest of the day sitting in my room practicing how to control my mana inside my own body. There were a few spells I wanted to try out, but I didn¡¯t feel like I had enough control over my mana yet do them, so that was one of my priorities. I mostly practiced using ¡¯Chronal Shift¡¯ faster and focusing more of my mana in my finger when I used ¡®Dimensional Storage¡¯.

    When I finally lay down in bed, I had a hard time falling asleep because I was so excited. Finally, tomorrow I¡¯d get to learn how to fight for real.

 Chapter 8

    Arianne¡¯s father woke me up the next morning by shouting and banging on the door again. I immediately got up and got dressed before I went down to the first floor. Arianne was standing at the counter waiting for her father to come down so that they could start serving breakfast. I decided to walk up to her and ask a question that I should probably have asked yesterday at the arms school.

    ¡°Hey, morning Arianne.¡± I said and waved my hand.

    ¡°Morning, Mr Grandwell.¡±

    I flinched at the name. I just couldn¡¯t do it. I didn¡¯t mind Garlyn, but Grandwell was just too much. ¡°Please, just call me Garlyn, kay?¡± I asked, maybe a bit too desperately.

    ¡°If you say so.¡± She said and giggled.

    ¡°Anyways, I sort of wanted to ask you a question. You see I went to the arms school yesterday and enrolled. My first session is today at noon, but I forgot to ask when that is specifically. You wouldn¡¯t happen to know, would you?¡±

    ¡°If they said noon, they probably meant at twelve then.¡±

    ¡°Twelve. Okay, what time is it now? Do you have a clock or something?¡±

    She gave me a funny look and pointed at the wall behind me. I looked there before I turned back to her with my eyebrows raised. ¡°You¡¯re serious? That¡¯s a clock?¡±

    On the wall behind me hung a rectangular wooden board with a line going down the middle. On both sides of the line there were several characters that I didn¡¯t understand carved out which formed a rectangle. On each side of the board one of these characters were currently lit up with a pale blue light. Just as I was looking at it, I saw the character that was lit up on the right side of the line stop shining and the character next to it light up instead. I¡¯d noticed the board before, but I seriously just thought it was decorative¡­

    ¡°Yes, of course that¡¯s a clock. Have you never seen one before?¡± She asked.

    ¡°No, of course I¡¯ve seen a clock before. It¡¯s just that the clocks where I¡¯m from doesn¡¯t look like that. They¡¯re more¡­ round.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re round? That¡¯s weird¡±

    I got slightly defensive. ¡°No, it¡¯s not. Your clocks are weird. Our clocks are logical and easy to understand. I have no idea what yours is even saying.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll teach you then.¡± She said and walked over to the clock. She spent the next few minutes pointing to the different characters on the clock and explained what time they signified. It wasn¡¯t that different from the clocks I was used to be honest. The characters on the left side of the board signified hours and the characters on the right side of the board signified minutes, with it changing every five minutes.

    When her father came back and she went away to help him with the food, I sat down and examined the clock a bit more. Right now, it was pointing at the character signifying eight in the morning. Then she came with the food and I hurriedly consumed all of it. I wanted to ask Arianne a few more things in general but I decided to wait until evening. Instead I decided to go up to my room for a few hours and keep practicing controlling my mana.

    I only knew how to use two spells at the moment and I desperately wanted to learn more as soon as possible. Considering that I was going to learn how to fight I also wanted to learn the spells that were more combat-oriented. The problem was that most spells I could think of probably required me to move the mana outside of my body, which I couldn¡¯t do. But that¡¯s why I had to keep training.

    However, there were some spells that I hoped I could do without moving mana outside my body. There was one spell called ¡®Spatial Edge¡¯ that involved creating a fissure in space at the edge of your weapon¡¯s blade to make it cut through things easier. Even though that spell was supposed to be used with a weapon I was thinking that it might work if I just created the fissure at the top of my hand instead. It¡¯d be a bit like when I performed ¡®Dimensional storage¡¯ but I wouldn¡¯t connect the fissure to my storage this time.

    What I was training right now in was to collect all the mana at the top of my hand instead of just one finger. I¡¯d started training it the night before and after a couple of hours of training this morning I felt that I could manage to gather a decent amount of the mana at the top of my hand. It wasn¡¯t as focused as when I used ¡®Dimensional Storage¡¯, but I¡¯ve had more time training that so that wasn¡¯t weird.

    When I finally felt ready to use try it, I gathered the mana in my right hand and tried thinking of creating a fissure like the one that I¡¯ve created before. But I didn¡¯t want it to my storage this time, nor did I want it to stay in the air after I¡¯d created it. I wanted the fissure to be small and follow my hand.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

    I looked at the tip of my hand and smiled as I saw that space seemed to almost warp around it. It wasn¡¯t very noticeable, but it was there. I then took a crappy leather shoe which I had taken out from my storage earlier and tried cutting it with my hand. My hand split it in two like a knife through butter. The spell lasted for maybe a dozen or so seconds before my hand returned to normal. When I tried casting it again though, I found that I had to wait for almost a whole minute before I could use it again without suffering the ¡®cooldown¡¯ drawbacks. I actually couldn¡¯t remember the cooldown for the low-level version of the spell, so I wasn¡¯t sure if that fit with how it was in the game or not. At max-level that spell just becomes a permanent buff so it had been some time since I last had to cast that spell.

    I spent a little while using the spell and getting a feel for it before I determined that it was probably time to head out. I went downstairs and looked at the weird clock. If I read it right, it was just after eleven so I shouldn¡¯t have a problem with making it there on time. Yesterday it had almost taken an hour, but I got lost and had to ask for directions a few times. This time I knew the way. Sort of.

    Before I left the inn, I walked up to Arianne¡¯s father and told him I¡¯d be staying for a while. I paid him up front for five more days and then I left. I should probably know the name of the guy by now, but I haven¡¯t really talked to the him and I¡¯m the kind of person who finds it awkward to ask for somebody¡¯s name this late.

    The streets were packed with people at this time and I observed the environment around me as I walked. Like earlier days most of the people walking around were human, but I saw the occasional non-human like dwarfs or halflings here and there. This time I¡¯m also positive that I saw an elf! He wore a fine red robe, had long golden hair and golden eyes that I swear were glowing. I recognized him as a Sun Elf from ¡®The Wayfarer¡¯s Realm¡¯. He also had a much more mundane human at his side that I presume were a guard, considering the fact that he had a long sabre that hung at his side. Both of them entered a large building that was finely decorated from the outside with red tapestry. It reminded me of some of the faction buildings that existed in the game. My guess is that it was an embassy of some kind. If it was an embassy for the Sun Elves, it¡¯d be better to avoid that place. In the game most of them were arrogant assholes that spent most of their time praying to fire and setting fire to stuff.

    When I walked my attention was also caught by the tall tower in the middle of the city. I still didn¡¯t know what it was, but I was planning on asking Arianne about it tonight. Hopefully I could learn a few things about this place from her, considering that I couldn¡¯t go to a library or bookstore to find stuff out. I think I¡¯ve already demonstrated to her that I¡¯m a complete doofus when it comes to this city so she shouldn¡¯t be too surprised by my questions.

    When I finally reached the Grimwick Arms School and entered the main lobby I saw the same man and woman as yesterday, but there were also a few other people here too. Sitting around a round table at the side of the room were two guys around my age just chatting and not far away from them was a couch where two middle-aged man laughed together. When the woman saw me, she waved to one of the middle-aged men and he bid his friend goodbye before he rose and walked up to me.

    ¡°You Gralyn Yates?¡± He said and stretched his hand out towards me.

    I grabbed it and shook his hand. ¡°Well, Garlyn actually. But yeah, that¡¯s me.¡±

    He was about my height, which is to say, he was relatively tall. He had a short brown beard that covered much of his face and bangs that covered much of the rest. He looked pretty muscular. More than me at least, but I¡¯m not sure if that means that he¡¯s stronger than me or not.

    ¡°Nice to meet you. I¡¯m your instructor. Name¡¯s Manilo Nimmen, but you can just call me Nimmen.¡± He said and withdrew his hand, then signalled me to follow him. ¡°Come here, we¡¯ll talk whilst we walk. You¡¯re early and technically I have a break, but I can¡¯t say I mind. I don¡¯t get to many students nowadays so someone like you who basically took up all my free slots by yourself is a bit of a godsend.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m just glad I get the chance to train as much as possible.¡±

    ¡°Hah, that¡¯s the right attitude. Do you have any experience with the halberd from earlier?¡±

    ¡°My dad taught me how to fight with it when I was younger, but that was a while ago so I¡¯m not sure how much I remember.¡± I answered. I didn¡¯t know whether or not Garlyn¡¯s halberd proficiency from the game would make any difference for me, so it was better to play it safe.

    ¡°Not to insult your father then, but we¡¯ll start with the basics just to be sure. I¡¯ve had enough students who started out with the wrong kind of training and I know how problematic it can be to fix it when it¡¯s too late.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s fine. I¡¯d prefer if we started from the basics anyway.¡±

    He led me outside and to one of the large training halls that were part of the school. There was one huge room that you saw as soon as you entered the building and several doors at the side of the larger room. Nimmen led me to one of those doors and inside I saw a medium-sized room filled with wooden dolls and weapons on the sides. Leaning on the wall next to the door was three different halberds which he walked up to and pointed towards. ¡°These are the halberds I brought for you. They¡¯re all of good quality so pick one and we¡¯ll see how it works for you.¡±

    I looked at the halberds and was a little disappointed. They were all just ordinary halberds. A long wooden shaft with an axe blade topped with a spike and hooks on the other side. The size and shape of the hook and axe differed a little between the halberds, but not by much. I expected this, but it¡¯s still disappointing. Compared to the halberds that I¡¯ve, hopefully, got hidden somewhere in my inventory these were all really plain. But I¡¯d just have to live with that until I got something better. Preferably something magical. God, I really wanted access to the rest of my storage.

    I chose the halberd with the largest blade and grabbed it. To me it didn¡¯t feel heavy at all and I could easily wave it around. It wasn¡¯t as clumsy as I would have expected. I turned to Nimmen and held up the halberd. ¡°I guess I¡¯ll take this one.¡±

    At that he smiled and took grabbed another one of the halberds himself. ¡°Good. Then, let¡¯s start our first lesson.¡±

 Chapter 9

    Nimmen went over to the middle of the room and beckoned for me to follow. ¡°First off I¡¯d like to get an idea of what you want to accomplish by learning to fight with the halberd. Outside of large battles it doesn¡¯t give you much of an advantage over other weapons and because of this it¡¯s not commonly used by any except parts of the royal army. So, if you¡¯re aiming to become a soldier, I¡¯ll tell you this now kid. It¡¯s better to just sign up now. The training you get there is far more suited for you than the training I¡¯ll give you is, if that¡¯s the case.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not planning to become a soldier¡± I speedily replied.

    ¡°Then what is it that you want to accomplish?¡±

    ¡°I just want to learn how to fight. So that I can defend my self if I have too and travel around without fear.¡± I moved to the middle and stood in front of him. ¡°And I want to become a cool ass battle mage too, I guess¡­¡± I added quietly.

    He gave me stunned look, then he started laughing out of nowhere. ¡°Hahaha, that¡¯s a great joke kid, but there¡¯s such a thing as aiming too high.¡± He said between laughs. Then he calmed down a bit and looked at me a little more seriously. ¡°I can help you with learning to defend yourself, but I¡¯m afraid you¡¯re a bit late if you want to become a battle mage. Even the freaking prodigies that get chosen for the elite corps start when they¡¯re just little kids, and it still takes ages for them to become full-fledged battle mages. Out of them I doubt that there is even a handful that are around your age. If you start training now your hair will go grey before you succeed. Besides, do you even know any magic?¡±

    ¡°A little¡­¡± I mumbled, feeling a bit deflated.

    At this he looked a bit shocked. ¡°Seriously? Then what are you doing here wasting your time? You¡¯ll be able to defend yourself much better with magic than a halberd if that¡¯s the case.¡±

    ¡°It just so happens that my magic is more suited for being used together with a weapon. It¡¯s as simple as that. Now, are we going to start or not?¡± I tried changing the subject.

    Sighing, he took a step back and pointed his halberd forward into empty air. ¡°Fine. As long as you¡¯re paying it doesn¡¯t actually matter that much to me.¡± He took an aggressive pose with his right leg behind his left. ¡°What you have understand first is this.¡± He emphasized and swiftly traced a circle in the air with the halberd before he thrust it forward with great force. ¡°The halberd is a swift and agile weapon. It may not look like it, but in many aspects it¡¯s far quicker than, say, a longsword as long as you keep the weapon between you and your opponent.¡±

    He went to wall and picked up a long wooden sword that hang on the wall and handed it over to me. I laid down my halberd on the ground and he instructed me to point my sword against him. He then took up a stance with his halberd opposite of me. ¡°See, in this situation I¡¯ve got the advantage with my longer reach. If you want to get closer, you¡¯ll have to knock my weapon away. Go ahead, try it.¡± He encouraged.

    I knocked his halberd aside with my sword, but he easily spun it around my sword and knocked it away and then thrust the tip towards me, stopping right before he hit my chest. Then he retracted his weapon and stood up straight. ¡°When you¡¯re fighting another opponent one on one, you¡¯ll mainly be relying on your reach and agility to win over them. I know it¡¯s not as satisfying as swinging with the blade might be, but in these situations thrusting your weapon is often more efficient. That¡¯s not to say that you can never swing it around in wide arcs like a battle axe. Sometimes that extra force might even be necessary. However, in most cases that just leaves you open for attack. Your goal should always be to have your weapon between you and your opponent at all times.¡±If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    He then pointed to a long sheath he had attached to his hip. ¡°Of course, sometimes your opponent might be smart and try to grab your weapon instead of just trying to knock it away. If you¡¯re lucky and their hold isn¡¯t good enough you can still move it around enough to get a good swing at their side, but at that point it¡¯s usually just better to let go of the halberd with one hand and reach for another weapon.¡± He pulled out a long dagger from the sheath and showed it to me. ¡°You¡¯re definitely going to need one of these. Even if they haven¡¯t grabbed your weapon it can sometimes be more advantageous to use this instead.¡±

    At that I smiled. ¡°I actually bought one yesterday.¡± Seems like it wasn¡¯t such a waste buying that dagger. I did already have a couple of daggers in the storage but one of them was the size of a bottle opener and the other one was literally rusting.

    ¡°Good foresight.¡± He said as he picked up my halberd and gave it to me. ¡°Let¡¯s start with the actual training then. First of we¡¯ll start with the stance. Put your dominant foot back and the other forward. In order to keep the point of the halberd in a position so that you¡¯re always ready to engage your adversary you¡¯ll need to hold onto the haft of the shaft with your dominant hand and your other hand further up. How far up depends on the situation, you¡¯ll learn that as you train. With this grip you¡¯ll easily be able to control the top of the halberd with your dominant hand.¡± He demonstrated the grip and manipulated the top of the halberd by shifting his right hand. I tried copying him and found that it felt almost natural to hold it like that.

    ¡°However, sometimes when you have to cut with more force it¡¯ll be necessary to change your grip so that the dominant hand is above the other hand. Changing between the grips will feel awkward at first and you won¡¯t be able to do it in a combat situation, but that¡¯s just another thing that¡¯ll come with training.¡±

    I tried switching between the different grips a few times, and like he said it was a bit awkward. But I think I could get the hang of it pretty quickly.

    He nodded favourably. ¡°Good. Then we¡¯ll start by just practicing some basic thrusts and cuts. We¡¯ll wait with using the pick for a while.¡±

    We spent the rest of the session practicing thrusting and cutting with the halberd. I think I got a pretty good handle of the grip quickly and Nimmen seemed to agree. At the end of the session I also felt that I could switch between the grips without it feeling awkward, although I could still improve the speed some.

    I had hoped that Garlyn¡¯s proficiency from the game would mean that I¡¯d automatically know how to use the halberd but that didn¡¯t happen. Although I¡¯m sure that it made it a lot easier for me to learn because at the end of the session the basic cuts and thrusts felt almost natural to perform. Nimmen even said that it was obvious that I had trained a lot with the halberd when I was young. I wonder what he¡¯ll say if I keep progressing at this pace though.

    After the session was finished Nimmen asked if I wanted the halberd that I¡¯d been using, and I of course said yes. I got to buy it for a bit over two gold, which he said was relatively cheap compared to other weapons. Considering that¡¯s how much I paid yesterday for enrolling at this school and two weeks of training I didn¡¯t think it was that cheap, but I guess weapons that are meant to last you a few years would cost a bit.

    Nimmen also offered take care of the weapon for me until I¡¯d gotten a permit for carrying it, but I told him I already had it handled. I didn¡¯t tell him how though. Considering his reaction when I admitted that I knew a bit of magic and the fact that spatial magic was supposed to be one of the more complicated magics in ¡®The Wayfarer¡¯s Realm¡¯, I thought it¡¯d be a best to keep my ¡®Dimensional Storage¡¯ spell a secret for now.

    After that I looked for the training hall that I¡¯d paid a fee to be allowed to train in and spent a couple more hours there training what we¡¯d done in our session earlier. After that I left the school behind and started moving back towards the inn for the evening.