"Uh, what the hell." Baris slowly opened his eyes. "Oh my head. What did I drink last night?" His eyesight slowly came into focus, which made him frown. He lifted his hand and touched his nose.

"I...what....where are my glasses?" Baris felt confusion. For the last four years, his eyesight had gotten progressively worse, and a lot faster than expected. His most recent eye doctor appointment didn't go so well, and he had to wait for new glasses. Beyond that, he had moved from basic reading glasses up to higher strength to see for distance, but everything up close was double.

"My hand." His cheek twitched. There was no double vision. He grimaced as he felt the cold seep into his back.

"What kind of bed did I sleep on? I made my own damned bed with wood and rope!" He said angrily. Since his body had developed arthritis due to motor vehicle collisions, he couldn't sleep flat. That was his excuse as he knew it was his weight that made him snore, not arthritis.

He sat up and looked around. His eyes slowly adjusted to the low light, and he grew a bit apprehensive.

"What the fuck. There are no dungeon ruins in my country! We didn't have stone castles here!" He growled. "We have fucking wood! And don't that piss me off as I love brick and stone!" He looked around, and a sense of something being off pulled his eyes down.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" Not only was he surrounded by dozens of dried out corpses with no eyes, he was also wearing the same chains that were around their necks, wrists, and ankles. Baris backed up on the slab of stone he sat up on, and his back came in contact with a wall.

"I'm still asleep. That's it. I'm still dreaming. This is a dream from drinking too much." Baris closed his eyes, but he knew that this was not a dream.

It couldn't be a dream. He could feel the cold stone beneath his bare ass, and the cold seeping from the chains on his body.

He was in a dungeon, surrounded by dried corpses, chained to the corpses that wore nothing as well.

Maybe he was in hell.

* * *

"They're already dead. They are already dead. They can't feel their hands, feet, and heads get ripped off." He said to himself as he walked forward, and shivered as the dried corpses became a bunch of body parts. The skins were mostly dust, which didn't leave much of the body behind to hold it together.

He walked towards the door with the chains dragging behind him. He frowned. The door was ajar.

"I guess dead bodies are easy to ignore as they won't move, or try the door." Baris said quietly and slowly pushed at the door.

"Damn, rusted." He pushed harder until the door slowly moved. After several minutes, the cell door was able to be pushed open enough to get through.

"Fuck me, did everyone die?" He said in a low voice. In front of a desk, seated with its head fallen onto the desk, was another dried out dead body. There were some others around the room, all collapsed onto the floor, or on a bench, wearing armor and swords on their hips.

"How is this possible? Swords? Is this a time thing, or a new world thing?" Taking care, Baris reached for a key ring on the hip of the seated dead guard, and pulled it off his belt.

"Deep breath. They are dead, and have been for a long time. Lots of dust, no footprints, and the bodies have been dried out for a long time. Even their eyes are gone." he took another deep breath.

He fumbled with the key ring, and found there were only four keys. One for the door that was left open. One for his wrists, one for his ankle chains, and one for his neck.

"Bloody anal retentive guards! It's a good idea to have different keys for each lock, but this is fucking annoying!" It took a pile of rattling for the chain locks to open, and though there did seem to be some surface rust on the locks, they were dry of any lubricant, but not seized shut.

After they fell off, Baris noticed that the chains had been abnormally tight, as though they were forced onto his wrists. Luckily the neck lock didn't rely on pressure to hold it on, as short chains connected the collar to his wrists and ankles.

"Better find some clothes." He looked down at himself and snorted. "IF this is a prank, those bastard definitely got an eyeful!" He growled. He knew he was a big boy, and well overweight, but that didn't mean that he didn't have his own sense of shame. He didn't want any shameful photos to end up online to embarrass him.

"Robes. Not a modern style used in an arid country. Old styles, things that might be used around Greece, or maybe Syria a few thousand years ago. Not a Roman senator style. Short sleeves, a leather belt, and knee length. Wrap around. This belt is interesting too. No buckle made by modern machines. It's got a loop, with a wrap around leather thong to hold it tight. I don't think I've ever seen this kind of style, even in history books. Or museums." Baris was fascinated with how the material looked, and how it looked thick and rough.

The material was not woven using modern techniques as it was a bit rougher, with larger threads. There was no way it was modern material.

When he found a crate with leather boots in it, his face hardened.

The boots had wooden heels, and a thick leather sole. There was not a single bit of plastic, no eyelets made of metal, while the place for the leather laces were leather loops sewn into the boot upper part of the leg.

"This is not a renn fair." Renaissance Fair. Something his stepfather had been involved in before he passed away. It was a way for people who shared a passion for history to gather, and play certain character types. Today, it was called cosplay, but back then, the people were called reenactors.

"The gear is too detailed. My stepfather would make his own gear, never were there group uniforms that were all the same. The reenactors often had to use modern materials to make their old styled equipment. They could never get everything to be 'period'. This isn't just period. I studied iron age history, and this should be a mix of early iron age, or late bronze age. It doesn't match Babylonian equipment, Roman, Assyrian, or any of the old empires." He growled.

"It's like it's a mix of all techniques and technologies because it's useful, not historical." Baris shook his head.

"I've read enough novels to know that some start out this way." He looked around. "But this isn't easy mode. I'm in hard mode. No starter gear. Chained to corpses. No information other than what I can glean from my surroundings. This fucking sucks."

"I'm in hell mode, right?"