Waking up after passing out he could yet again see the fungus in his immediate vicinity behind the open LOG window.
[Developed Acid resistance Level 1.]
[Developed Poison resistance Level 1.]
[You have been poisoned by Blue glowing Deathcap for 1 health per second for 5 seconds]
[Developed Lightning resistance Level 2.]
[Developed Pain tolerance Level 4.]
“This can’t be happening. What kind of crazy painkillers did I get if these are the side effects?” Duncan said as he tried to rationalize what was happening.
A health bar appeared in the upper right corner of his vision and was ticking down but luckily stopped after reaching about half.
He waited for a while, but his present circumstances were not changing. After a while the health bar ticked up and he was pretty sure he would heal on his own after some time, so he decided to wait.
“Hmmm. If this is a game it has to have a status and an inventory screen,” he told himself while waiting for the health bar to fill.
Giving a mental command of status he was greeted by a blue window.
[
Name: Duncan Russel
Race: Human – Earth - UC3455788899332
Age: 22 – Earth years
Class: Jack of all trades
Strength: 6.1
Dexterity: 9.1
Agility: 2.1
Vitality: 8.1
Endurance: 5.1
Perception: 6.2
Intelligence: 9.5
Wisdom: 9.1
Charisma: 3.1
Acid resistance Level 1.
Lightning resistance Level 2.
Mental resistance Level 1.
Pain tolerance Level 4.
Poison resistance Level 1.
]
He willed the status window close and asked for inventory. What opened up was a square matrix which was completely empty. There were three numbers in the window but he didn’t know what they mean. First one was zero, the second one was 0.95 and the third one 0.0095. There was also a tab for equipment and willed it open. Seeing himself suspended in a rotating animation with different clothes items floating in the appropriate places was a weird sight to say the least. He noticed they even included a cast for his right foot instead of bare foot on the other side. Focusing on it opened three options.
[Identify]
[Unequip]
[Drop]
He willed identify.
[Ankle cast boot]
There was a flash on the minimized LOG window and he willed it open.
[You have learned the Identify skill level 1]
[Wisdom +0.1]
[Intelligence +0.1]
“So, I can earn stats by learning skills?”
“Interesting.”
“But why did I get no stats from the resistances?”
“Maybe because they are passive?”
“Ahhh, whatever wake up already?” he yelled in the empty dark corridor.
After a while he reluctantly hopped forward on one leg and the room opened up to a wall with empty shelves and an old broken wine barrel. Suddenly he heard a noise from behind the wine barrel as a rat the size of a cat came behind it. At first, he didn’t know what it was since all he could see was its eyes reflected by the fungus. They watched each other from about a 3-meter distance and he tried using Identify. It worked somewhat.
[Black rat – Level 2]
As if noticing some kind of magic the rat screeched and rushed him. It was not Duncan’s first rat so he didn’t panic and prepared to put the ankle cast to good use. Just as he was about to deliver a free kick towards it a cacophony of screeches filled his ears as the broken wine barrel literally exploded from the rats pushing through it. The slight distraction proved a calamity as the first rat dodged his boot and jumped on his knee clawing itself up towards his chest. As he tried to pull it off himself, he could feel more of them jumping up on him and he fell after he tossed the first one. Soon he was submerged with rats trying to claw and bite him through his clothes.
“-BLEEP-! -BLEEP-! -BLEEP-! -BLEEEEEEP-.”, he yelled.
Soon he was doing a choreographed spasming with the rats.
“-BLEEP- you. You mother-BLEEP-ing rats. -BLEEP-!”
“-BLEEP-! -BLEEP-! -BLEEP-! -BLEEP-!” he continued yelling.
Pulses of electricity slamming him and the rats on every beep, some paralyzed, the later ones outright dead. The smell of burned meat permeated the air as Duncan came back to his senses. He stood up and used identify on every rat. Some of them had been paralyzed and he stomped them. His boot covered by rat blood turning crimson while his clothes were red from his own blood. He had small cuts and shallow bites all over his front side where they could get a purchase. He mostly defended his head with his arms so they had free reign everywhere else. Luckily the family jewels department was secured by pants and underpants, a pair of boxers in his case.
Suddenly there was a noise of something opening on the side where he came from and a strong light source illuminated the brick walls.
“Warunta?” a voice came from somewhere in the direction of the hallway.
Duncan contemplated for a few seconds but then decided he really has no other choice.
“Hello?” he yelled back.
“Warunta? Hmmm. Anibodi doun their?” the voice answered.
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Duncan dragged himself around the corner and saw an illuminated square hatch in the ceiling with a shadow of a person looking in from above. He could not distinguish any features so he used Identify.
[???? - Identify failed]
“Hello?” he yelled back again.
“Oh. How did you get down there? Are you from Earth?” the voice inquired with a noticeably better pronunciation.
“Yes. I am from Earth and I don’t know how I got here,” Duncan answered.
“Come let me get you out of there. There is nothing down there but rats for you,” the voice replied.
“Alright,” Duncan said before picking himself up from the ground and hopping on one leg towards the light.
“Tie this around your waist,” the voice said and Duncan quickly confirmed he understood.
A rope was soon lowered and Duncan was pulled up effortlessly by a man with a funny beard and mustache.
After pulling him up he sat him down on what looked like a wooden chair as Duncan nervously looked around.
He was in a pub of some sort with a bar and glasses neatly stacked on shelves behind it. There were a couple of tables and a gaping hole in front of right side of the bar with the strange man standing in front of it.
“I have to apologize for the reception but this ingress has not seen any use for hmmm at least 15 of your Earth years.”
“Let me introduce myself. I am Wazsh Langor of the Gormian binary system. Well, I was. Now it’s no longer binary, but I digress.”
“I am supposed to be your first contact here,” Wazsh explained and waited for Duncan.
Duncan scratched his head, looking at the approximately 2-meter-tall well-built man with hair and beard that was pointing on five sides like a pentagram and a long curvy mustache that twirled back towards his nose. His head looked like a five-pointed star with a mustache.
“Duncan. Duncan Russel from Earth I suppose,” he replied after a while.
“You know we might have some common ancestors. I have been to Earth in 1962 learning the language as part of the initial preliminary observation crew. We found tardigrades I thing you called them on your planet. Hardy little buggers the same ones we found on mine. They just refuse to evolve. Maybe it’s better that way. Imagine a tardigrade evolving into a sapient being. That would be something fearsome. Sorry I digress again,” Wazsh apologetically said.
“You were on Earth in 1962?” Duncan asked.
“Ohh, yes. Fun times before I started this job,” Wazsh said.
“Job?”
“Yeah, this whole business of abducting sapient humanoid beings and dumping them here to fend for themselves for entertainment purposes,” Wazsh said with a laugh while scratching the back of his head as if it were the universal sign of awkwardness.
“Abducting? Entertainment?” Duncan asked.
“Well, they agreed. Mostly. Well, basically your species, they never read the fine print,” Wazsh laughed.
Duncan was getting annoyed by the grinning Wazsh.
“What kind of entertainment are we talking about?” he was praying in his mind it was not some kind weird hentai octopus’ kind.
“Ahh, I think you call it Reality TV? I really haven’t been on your planet since 1962 and this was started in let me check. 1995?” Wazsh said.
“Basically, you get transported here and people watch and bet money on how far you make it. A wonderful concept I might add. Well, it was until it lasted,” Wazsh gibbered.
“What happened?” Duncan asked.
“Ahhh, nothing much. This town just basically was not attractive enough as a starting point and I got stuck here. All the old adventurers as we called them moved on as they leveled up to greener pastures so it is just me and the natives here now,” Wazsh said as he twirled his mustache.
“Natives?” Duncan asked.
“Well, this planet might be artificial and, in your timeline, might be just forty years old but due to manipulation of time using some sophisticated technology its first five years were like a couple of billion Earth years of evolution. Adjustments upon adjustments with your lore incorporated into every fiber of the natives. Their genes altered to fit the narrative and evolved over time into what they are now. Please don’t mention this to them since it’s a sensitive topic as you might imagine,” Wazsh explained.
“What? Who, would do something like that?” Duncan asked in disbelief.
“I can’t really talk about them. They are to us as are the gods in your various religions on your home planet. I think they are just bored,” Wazsh said spreading his hands.