Chapter 04

Hal’s arm was nearly wrenched from the socket as Elora pulled him into the adjoining room and slammed the door behind them. It had shelf upon shelf of potions. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling in bunches. 

Still holding Hal’s hand, Elora jumped and grabbed a dangling cord he hadn’t seen among the herbs and a sliding ladder dropped into place at her feet. “Up,” she commanded, slinging him around and pushing him up to the ladder. “Go. The door won’t hold for long but it’s stronger than the front door!”

Hal hurried up the ladder. The door was being banged on but it barely seemed to move despite being far thinner than what the front door had been. I’ll add it to the list of shit that doesn’t make sense around here.

The second floor was filled with covered furniture and various crates with a small round window at either end. Elora was up through the ladder in seconds. She hopped past him and snatched a fistful of his flannel, dragging him along in a stumbling gait. The dust that kicked up drove his allergies crazy. 

By the time they got to the small window Hal’s eyes were watery and he could hardly catch a breath between the sneezing. When she opened up the window he could finally breathe. The sound of something breaking echoed from the hatch behind.

“We have to hurry,” Elora said. She let go of him, stepped up onto a crate, and slipped out of the round window with ease. She stood on the slick tiled roof as effortlessly as any cat. “They’ll be up any second now, I have to get you out of the Sanctum.”

Hal climbed atop the crate and stuck his head out of the window. A dizzying wave of vertigo nearly made him black out. He hated heights. They were terrifying and the way his pulse kicked up made him feel the coward he was.

A metropolis of elegant, towering stone structures dotted the skyline. The city swept far out to the horizon, as large as any modern city. This was no backwater medieval town. How could he ever escape?

Elora crouched down, hand extended through the open window, her eyes pleading. Over Hal’s shoulder, the first of the soldiers came into the attic. They got one look at him and shouted, “Halt there! Stay where you are and no harm will come to you.”

That sounded pretty good. If he stayed where he was, he didn’t have to go out onto that terrifyingly slick rooftop and fall to his death. He hadn’t really done anything wrong. He was unconscious when they brought him into the Sanctum, they couldn’t hold that against him, could they?

“Where’d the girl go?” came another voice from the ladder. Hal glanced over his shoulder then back to the window and came to a realization. He was blocking their view of Elora through the small window.

His heart hammering in his chest, his face red with panic and shame, Hal forced himself to look into the shimmering gray-blue eyes of Elora. He shook his head slowly and shut the window, latching it secure on his side.

Hal mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.” 

There was a moment of vulnerability in Elora’s eyes. The hurt of rejection. The lack of trust. Then it was gone, and so was she.

Hal turned around, hands up. “I’m not sure what I did wrong but I’ll come along quietly.” 

“Too right you will,” chuckled one of the green armored men. 

All Hal saw was the simple metal pommel of a sword slide into his vision followed by an explosion of pain that made everything go white for a second.

The [Sanctum Guard] hits you for 12 points of damage.

The [Sanctum Guard] defeats you.

His legs buckled under him and he was out cold before he ever hit the ground or had time to be annoyed by the scrolling text that appeared in his vision.

* * *

Hal woke up with yet another splitting headache. “I bet I have brain damage from being knocked out so much. It’s like, super bad for you.” He sat up and reached to feel his brow, wondering how bad it was but his hands only came to his chest before they were stopped by the clink of metal chains.

“Are you-” he grumbled and tugged harder. Metal bit into his wrists painfully and he stopped before he added tetanus to his list of ailments. 

He took a moment to take stock. The light was ridiculously dim, he could barely make out his hands. His back was up against a cold and damp stone wall. So that probably meant he was underground.

Well, obviously I’m in a dungeon or something. Not too much of a stretch.

That buzzing from earlier was back with a vengeance. It rose to a fever pitch and in the silent darkness of his cell, there was nothing to help him tune it out.

Finally, he relented.

In the dark of the cell, the glowing bright blue window was eye-wrenching, though it floated half a foot from his nose it didn’t seem to illuminate anything in the surrounding area.

God damn, that’s bright. Tone it down, would you?

The window dimmed slightly. It looked like a pane of colored glass suspended in the air.

Interesting.

You have 12 unread notifications.

All it took was a mental acknowledgment and the windows piled up one behind the other like a deck of cards. He couldn’t see the one behind it until he dismissed the one in front, though he could see the edges of the window lurking behind.

You have unlocked Stealth (Level 0).

You have unlocked Athletics (Level 0).

You gain 7 Athletics Experience Points.

You gain 12 Stealth Experience Points.

The [Brigand] hits you for 3 points of damage.

The [Brigand] uses Mug.

On and on it went like a replay of all the failures and escapades that he had made since coming to this place.

All right, so I’m in some kind of game. Or I’m drugged and high out of my mind somewhere on fifth avenue and cops thought I was a danger so they locked me up.

Despite feeling like that was a more rational explanation of things, Hal couldn’t let go of the feeling that it was wrong. Too much had happened that defied reality and though he had always secretly feared going insane and not being able to trust his own senses, he couldn’t deny what he’d seen.

Okay, working theory: I’m trapped in some sort of game, or a world that operates a lot like one. I can work with that.

Hal mentally flicked to the last notification.

You are Chained.

Hands: Bound

Feet: Bound

Movement: 5ft

That seemed pretty handy. So he had five feet of movement with those chains. He’d gotten a bit of experience here and there but apparently not enough to level up. Every RPG he ever played - which was a lot - had a status screen or character profile.

As soon as he thought it, the eye-wrenching blue window appeared.

Hold on, let’s deal with you first. The first thing Hal always did in any new MMO or RPG was adjusting his user interface. The UI held all the useful information and being distracted by it was an easy way to get dead. Doubly so when it wasn’t on a monitor he could look away from.

No matter where he turned his head, the window followed and stayed central in his vision.

It took Hal awhile to finish configuring the color and look of the window and its prompts. He went with simplified log prompts over pop-up windows, and recolored the window from that annoyingly basic shade of blue that every RPG seemed to ship with.

Everything settled, he thought the word: Menu.

Status

Equipment

Magic

Skills

Inventory

Quests

From there it was a simple thing to hop over to the Status screen. It slid into view, showing him just how painfully weak he really was.

[Status]

Hal Williams

Level 0

Experience: 0/100

Class: Novice

Health(HP): 5/10

Stamina(SP): 10/10

Mana(MP): 10/10

Strength(STR): 1

Vitality(VIT): 1

Dexterity(DEX): 1

Agility(AGI): 1

Intelligence(INT): 1

Mind(MND): 1

Charisma(CHR): 1

[Detailed View]

For the time being, Hal skipped over the detail. He could come back to that later and with his stats being so pitifully low he doubted it mattered right then.

Hal made a last adjustment to his UI, opting for succinct stats. Each of the seven cardinal stats were known to him from a variety of different games. Sure, some games called each of them something different. But they were, in essence, all the same thing.

Strength was sometimes called Power but it was always physical prowess. Dexterity… well, that one was almost always the same. Vitality though, some games called it Vigor, others Constitution. Same thing, physical hardiness and it probably influenced his Health to boot.

A lot of games rolled Agility into Dexterity but Hal appreciated the nuanced approach here. They could be very different. In fact aside from Mind, sometimes called Wisdom or Focus, all the stats were the same name in the majority of the games he played.

In fact, it quickly became obvious that each of the stats except for one were in constant opposition. STR and VIT. DEX and AGI. INT and MND. All but CHR had something to oppose. Then again, that was just a hunch.

It wasn’t like there was a tutorial or manual, not that he’d been able to find anyway. Hal paused a moment, hearing a pair of heavy footfalls and the jingling of metal growing louder.

The door to his cell squealed as the key turned in the lock and let out a banshee screech when the door opened on unoiled hinges. Hal tried to raise his hands to cover his ears and the chains went painfully taught again. The manacles cut into his skin.

You suffer 1 point of damage.

“Awesome, thanks,” he muttered.

It took a surprising amount of willpower to keep his hands on the damp, rough stone floor when the torch was thrust into the room. After what he assumed were hours of darkness, the torchlight was agonizingly blinding in its brilliance. Hal’s eyes watered and he had to shut them tight to stop the pain.

His hands twitched once or twice on the ground. The large brute he had expected was instead a svelte young woman, not much older than himself. 

She had silver hair and a pair of thick ivory horns that came out from under the tousled hair and angled sharply up to a dull point. They were adorned with silver filigree near the base and partially hidden by her hair that flowed around them.

Horns, huh? Doesn’t look like devil horns.

Her perfect alabaster skin made her look like a doll but it was her eyes that truly drew him in. She had thick dark lashes despite her silver hair and the saddest eyes he had ever seen. He couldn’t tell what shade of green they were in the flickering torchlight. 

The woman spoke in a stilted language to somebody outside the door and it shut behind her. She lifted the torch high in her hand, the dull orange light cast shattered reflections of light across her slim-fitted armor. 

Hal watched her carefully step forward, her greaves making nearly no sound as she stepped lightly on the stone floor. When she got within five feet of Hal she stopped and looked down at him with pity.

“Hello.” Her voice was breathy but far from sultry, more like a sigh. “My name is Ashera. I will be your Keeper.”

“What’s a Keeper?” Hal asked, squinting against the light. Ashera did him the kindness of walking to the side and dipping the flame into something high above.

Flames raced across the walls near the dark stone ceiling, illuminating the room in a warm glow. With a surprisingly strong puff from her pursed lips, Ashera blew out the roaring flame of the torch and tossed it aside.

Huh, medieval recessed lighting, Hal thought, looking at the flickering lines of flames set high into the walls. It showed him how depressingly small his chamber was. Maybe fifteen feet across with a single bed of thin straw near him and two buckets in the center of the room.

Despite the disgusting look of them, he hoped they had food. His stomach spasmed painfully at the thought. 

Ashera gave him a quizzical look. “Do they not have them where you come from? Are you one of the Broken, then?” Though she seemed wary of him, the silver-haired woman inched closer to get a better look. “No, you are not.” Her eyes widened when she saw the darks of his.

Why do they always look so surprised to see boring brown eyes?

“I don’t even know what that is,” Hal said. “I don’t even know what I did wrong.”

If it was possible, the sadness in her pale green eyes deepened. “It does not matter.”

“Why not?”

“Because you will be put to death at first light. As a Keeper, it is my duty to hear your sins and bear your memory in my heart so you may not be forgotten.” Her lips twitched into a semblance of a smile. “Nobody deserves to die unknown or to be forgotten. That is what a Keeper does. Your secrets are safe with me.”