blacksmithoftheapocalypse

41. Guild and Dungeons

"Are you serious? An adventurer's guild? Isn´t this a little TOO much like a game?", Seth shouted out. Fin looked at the young man having an emotional outbreak with a puzzled look.

"What does the guild have to do with games? It is a renowned organization which manages the entrance to dungeons, not some gambling den!"

Seth pinched the bridge of his nose trying to process what Fin told him. It was pretty much exactly like in novels and fiction. The Adventurer Guild was an instituti...

40. Blood and Sand

In a complete blood rage, the tiny figure kept punching the giant body like a jackhammer spreading blood and gore over the desert sand. What battle cleric? She was a berserker! Seth decided to silently take some safety distance until the little whirlwind had come back to its senses.

In the end the little fairy was huffing and puffing and drenched in blood. She had calmed down considerably and flew to where Seth was spectating her "special" time with the tentacle monster. Seth really had...

39.Dinner and Desert

-Starta-

"Simon.", the aged fairy spoke to the priest, "You did that thing, where you let luck decide on where exactly the people land, right?", he asked. Simon looked as if he was caught doing something. "How you treat ori huma that joined you, is the church´s business. I don´t care whether you call it a price or divine intervention. If something happens to Fin, or Seth, and we don´t hear from them in the next few weeks...", he made a dramatic pause, "We, the fair folk, will ask the...

38. New Horizons

"Wait! Big fat human! I want to go with Seth", the squeaky shout echoed across the room as Seth was about to step into the portal. Simon had a difficult expression on his face.

-Minutes Earlier-

A hushed conversation in high voices as a lot of fairies tried to reason with one of theirs.

"You can´t do that!"

" Yeah! Now that Leader and Vice-Leader are gone, you have to lead us!"

"You saved us! You are a hero! You have to come back with us!"

The older lookin...

37. A new Journey

Nobody stopped him, when Seth just waltzed into the head priests office, only to find it empty. It would have been different if he was a normal person, but he was an ori huma that had joined the church, so most people treated him with leniency. After asking around a little, he found Simon in another wing, with the fairies.

"Seth!", the little Fin screamed, when he opened the door. She flew up and started circling Seth like an euphoric fly. Seth greeted her back with a smile and she sat ...

36.Touring the Town

"Oh yeah, Klod. Do you know a place where I can dismantle monsters in town? I have a lot of ... snake I need to take care of. The old blacksmith once again got the chance to give Seth a puzzled look, just for a different reason.

"What level are you now, Seth?", he asked to make sure.

"13, why?"

"Then you should be able to do it. You should be able to dismantle monster corpses using the inventory, given you have enough space. Do you have something small with you? Then I can s...

35. Denied!?

Was it disloyal to leave his home world, just because it became a hot mess of near-death experiences? Maybe a little. However, Seth decided that staying was not an option right now.

Seth had not lied a lot about his class, so it was relatively easy to talk with the old priest Simon about a fitting destination. It would take two or three days to prepare the passage, since they were also working on one to send the fairies back home. He felt a lot better after settling their matter.

...

34.The Choice

Simon was right. It was a bliss to finally be able to take a warm bath after so long. The moment his body submerged in the warm soapy water his fatigue was lifted. Seth actually fell asleep. But after a short nap he was woken by the call of a maid, who had brought a fresh set of simple clothing.

The outfit fit the commoner style of the empire he had seen in town, but was very comfy to wear.

What waited for him when he left the bath was a table filled with food. Soup, Bread, fruits...

33.Simon of the Lake

-Starta-

The morning sun glimpsed over the horizon. It´s rays painted beautiful moving patterns on the cobblestone streets of Starta as it fell through the water. The water level had suddenly fallen a lot faster than Simon had anticipated and the dome above the city was peeking through the water surface.

The few villagers that had stayed during this rainy season could see an underwater world outside the bubble that covered the city. All kinds of fascinating a weird fish flying ov...

32.Night on the Water

Seth woke up the next morning. His raft stood on solid ground. The water level had sunk to much, that Seth´s raft was now standing on the rooftop he had been anchored to.

He drowsily crawled to the roof edge and saw that he was several stories above the water surface.  Just how much water was this? And it was drained away in just a night.

Seth was shocked, but his mood was lifted soon. If this much water had been drained, then his search for dry land might have shortened tre...

31.Pulling the plug?

-Arget Nore-

Arget Nore had been invaded by a terrifying enemy. Contrary to expectations, disgusting creatures had invaded from a new world they wanted to explore. Before the expedition forces could even expand their influence, everyone had been called back when the biggest company had been completely wiped out. Several hundred atrocities had crossed the gate and eradicated the stationed guards and supply units before the other side could somehow close the gate.

All expeditions to...

30. Snakes in a Barrel

< Quest: The Next Level 2

Difficulty: -

Reach Level 15.

Rewards: Inventory Space, System Rights >

System Rights?

Seth opened the grayed out -The Next Level- and found exactly the same description. What did he unlock then? Maybe it was a window? How would he open it if he had no idea how it was called?

It was then, that Seth remembered that calling out the windows was a shortcut. Like in most games, all windows existed as a tab in the main window, his ...

29. Like a Viper

One thing was clear! Seth had to move from this floor or-

WHUMPH!

The snake had already reached the next floor! Seth had thoroughly blocked the door to the staircase and he would definitely NOT unblock it to take the stairs to the roof.

He needed to find another way. Climbing probably. Oh, what a joy, climbing up the front a building, with an injured leg, 3 floors above a snake infested ocean of doom.

"Yay...", he mumbled.

But how should he get up there? He did n...

28. A horrible Night

Seth took a deep breath. Panic would not help him in this situation. The rhythmic throbbing of his mangled knee pit did not help to keep a clear head, so he ripped off stripes from the black cloth in his inventory to apply a makeshift pressure bandage

Once done Seth looked around and came to the conclusion, that escape was not an option. With his leg like this, it was a bad idea to fight on this nutshell. Close to the outskirts of Deltan were few buildings with dry floors above water, b...

27. Snake Pit

Seth sat cross-legged on his rinky-dink little nutshell and had nothing to do. He had been on edge and observing the water for the first hour of his journey. The encounter with the field boss left him nervous. But nothing happened. Nothing attacked, nothing appeared. No wormholes opened and threw enemies at the battle-ready adventurer. He slowly started to relax again.

Now Seth just sat on his raft and kept staring at the map and using auto-map from time to time to get a better image of...

26. Leaving Home, again.

Seth felt a lot better about leaving his home this time compared to his first. He had the two best weapons he could possibly make and a light set of dark gray plate armor and black canvas that gave him some protection, but did not get in the way of his movement. All of it was snugly stowed away in his inventory together with all his rations, useful stuff, and other works.

Wearing a set of clean clothes, he had found in the house, he stepped out on the balcony leaving the empty suite, th...

25.Final Preparations

Seth stood on the roof of his current base and looked down on the water surface that had almost each his floor. It had rained for a long time and now the morning sun´s rays were sparkling on the waves of the big lake that had swallowed the city.

The weather had calmed down a lot. After raining for so long, the murky water had turned clear and looked almost clean. Seth could almost see the streets below on the bottom of the lake. The streets he had walked just a few weeks ago had turned...

24.New days

When Seth checked his status, he ignored his reduced HP. He knew that he wasn't very nice to his body, when he was caught in his fascination for forging. It would heal fast, as long as he took a good break.

His Strength and Endurance reached 20 in the last days, but stopped growing there. Was this the cap?

"I guess this is as far as I can go with just training, eh?", Seth mumbled to himself and looked at the free attribute points he had saved up until today.

He was finally a...

23.Rainy Days (3)

Seth had already gotten used to the incessant sound of rain, what woke him up were his bodily needs. The call of nature needed his attention. When he wanted to jump off the bed, he instantly froze, winced and fell back on the bed groaning.

Tremendous muscle pain was surging through his sore body, and he did not want to move at all. Despite his bladders demand, he first belatedly checked his status

Name: Seth Smith

Title: "Faster than the Thought"

Level: 8

Exp: 32...

22. Rainy Days (2)

Seth was spellbound by his new skill, despite his exhaustion! He sat down right then and there wanting to test it!

Seth was enraptured by the tiny pale blue flame emerging from his fingertips, after he concentrated on <Fire Manipulation> It resembled those viral videos of people burning gas or lighter fluid on their clothes without anything happening to them!

The fire was not big, but Seth could feel a certain assertiveness from the small blue flame. It moved more or less as...

21 Rainy Days?

The new day actually greeted Seth with...rain? And not the nice kind of rain. Big heavy drops kept incessantly hammering on the roof and against the windows. When he opened the window, the rush was so heavy that it all mixed together to sound like a single overwhelming sound.

It was so intense that he could feel it resonate in his chest. The he hurriedly closed the window.

"Well, looks like I will stay at home today.", Seth talked to himself.

Originally, he was going to clea...

20. I´m Home

After Seth was convinced that the undead army wasn't coming back any time soon, he decided to inspect their camp. Maybe they left some supplies for him?

It was around noon, and the sun stood high in the sky. The fog had vanished, so Seth didn't worry too much about the undead as he visited the camp at the central plaza.

It was a group of big tents, like you would sometimes see in historical movies. They were made of thick black canvas-like cloth. It was heavy and rough to the touc...

19. Safety?

It was afternoon when Seth finally opened his eyes. He had slept like a log and had been completely exhausted. What actually woke him up was his stomach rumbling. So much happened, he could not remember the last time he had 'rationed' his food.

Good thing he had saved his backpack. It was a little burned on the outside, but inside was most of the food he had bought in Starta. Seth gorged on the jerky and bread until he was full.

"This is a lot better~", he sighed and stood up.

18. Somewhere else

-Omega City, North-western part of Urth-

"Today is the day we bring the glory of our king to another world! The new world opened to us by the Pathwork is called Urth! It was a pathetic world without an ounce of magic! It is us who will bring these poor heathens back into the embrace of God King Pursa! For Arget Nore!"

The impulsive High Priest of God King Pursa was walking up and down in front of the troops that were about to enter this new world.

Urth was a world with one g...

17. Old Faithfull

-Starta Village-

In the night after Seth left Starta Village. The figure of a hunter appeared at the closed city gates.

"Hey, Tom! Let me in!", he called for the guard to open the door, "C´mon! I´m in a hurry!".

"God damn, Wilton! Why are you here so late? Did something happen at the fence?", the guard complained as he opened the gate for the hunter to slip in.

"Yeah, I gotta report to the Priest.", he patted the guards should and passed by him.

Wilton left the...

16. Wasteland of Death

"Wasteland of death here I come? Go f*ck yourself past me!"

Seth was crouching behind a mountain of rubble, hiding from a horde of zombies.

What happened? It was all great when he had just arrived early in the morning! The sun was just peaking over the horizon, shining onto the streets of Deltan, which had become a complete wasteland.

With the sun came an unexpected heat.

The plains had slowly turned into a shallow dried-up field of sand the closer he came to the city....

15. Night in the Plains

Seth wanted to curse. To have squandered so much time here! Now the Sun was setting and the young man had to decide. Would he stay in the city? Or just walk through the night?

Checking his map, he guessed that the satellite city wasn't too far away at this point. Seth had been travelling in a straight line ever since he left the 'Hanging Tree' behind.

The town was actually a good indication. The priest had told him, that the coordinates for the frontier villages were chosen based ...

14. The Choices

"Can I have a look at this?", Seth reached out for the folder, but it suddenly vanished from the table. As did the pages in his hands. The priest gave him an apologetic smile.

"hum hum, once again, I´m sorry, but this won´t happen."

Simon looked to the bookshelf, where the folder had reappeared. Seth looked at him questioning, but didn't say anything.

"The rules don´t allow something that comes this close to a direct intervention with the natives.", he explained.

"Y...

13. World´s Changes

"This is Starta Village, a frontier village of the glorious Chrona Empire!", the guard said motivated.

"Empire?", Seth repeated perplexed.

As different as Urth was from Earth, it was a civilized world with advanced technology that had left behind this kind of system a long time ago.

"Hoh, you don't know?", the Guard gave him a glare that felt as if he looked straight into his souls.

"No wonder! You are an Ori Huma! Of course you wouldn't know!", he laughed a lot more f...

12. Starta Village

Seth stayed in the hole for another hour, for good measure. That was really a little too dangerous for his taste, so he snacked on some apples while waiting.  When he was sure that there was nothing outside his hole, he climbed out, or tried to. He had found some spare parts that confirmed his guess that this was a workshop and needed to stack them to reach the edge and squeeze through the gap.

The motorbike was only a little stuck not grown in, so he could get it out after some wi...