Richard was out of breath, heaving for air. However, he wasn’t the only one worse for wear. The once shiny, polished suit of armour was now dented half to hell, and its movements were clanky and rough.
He had a pretty good idea of how the armour fought now, and was ready to end this. He took off his shirt and to his satisfaction, some of the girls in the crowd ooed’. He gripped the ends, one in each hand and charged the amour. He ducked its haphazard punches and managed to climb on top of its shoulders.
Pulling his shirt over its head(helmet?) he pulled back hard, throwing off its center of balance. He was effectively steering it now, and he was guiding it towards a tree. The armour was trying to grasp at him, but he kept his head low and the armour’s range of movements wasn’t great.
As the tree got close behind him, Richard nimbly jumped off, pulling hard on the shirt one last time as the (robot?) smashed into the tree. Richard was able to recover quite quickly, which was a perk of having such a young body he guessed.
While it was stunned, he got up behind it and planted a firm kick to the back of its knees. It fell down hard, and seemed to really struggle to get back on his feet.
“Good to know getting kicked in the back of the knees still sucks, even for robots.”
Richard wasn’t going to let the metal monster get back up, so he quickly got a big stone, came up behind it and bashed down hard. The armour collapsed, but he didn’t stop.
He kept bashing and bashing, until the helmet split outright. Once he was sure the armour wasn’t getting back up, he stood up and looked around.
He felt great! Well, he hurt like hell, but he felt amazing! He hadn’t had a good fight in a while, and it was really nice to get out some of that built up tension and anger. He put his shirt back on, though now, it was little more than tatters.
The crowd around him looked ecstatic, but they were also all standing in nervous silence when suddenly-
“WRAAAAGGHHHHH!!!!” the fat man screamed in rage.
“DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT COSTS, PEASANT BOY!?” Richard assumed he was talking to him
“You did tell him to defeat your golem, Egdrich.” The old man in odd purple robes next to him stated.
“But he didn’t use any magic!” Egdrich retorted.
“What is that phrase that your father’s so fond of…? ‘A deal’s a deal’?”
Egdrich looked like he wanted to scream again, but then he composed himself as a sinister smile graced his lips.
“Why yes, of course… Colby, was it? Come over here boy…” the fat man beckoned.
Every single alarm bell in Richard’s head was long since triggered.
“Oh, fuck that. Not in a million years, fat man!” Richard mocked, and began his escape through the crowd.
“Why you little-” Egdrich’s head was once again so red it looked like it might pop. Even the old guy looked a little taken aback.
Getting out past the crowd, Richard made a few turns down some alleyways for good measure before popping out onto a bigger street. It was still afternoon as far as he could tell and everything looked straight out of a renaissance fair. There were no cars or lights to be seen, all of the buildings looked to be made of wood frames with white clay walls, people in old-timey clothes walked to and fro.
“Oh, man. What have I gotten myself into…?” Richard wondered. He still wasn’t quite convinced of the whole reincarnation thing, but he didn’t have a clue about what else this wacky situation could be.
There was a certain novelty to the whole place. It was a genuine Medieval town, with guards in iron armour and stands with bread and fruits.
“I kinda wish I had my camera with me…” Richard once more inspected his new body. It seemed reasonably healthy, although pretty skinny. Finding a metal shield that was being sold by one of the merchants, he looked at his reflection. He was reasonably handsome, if a bit young. He could probably have better luck with the ladies in this thing.
Leaving the merchant stand, he noticed another thing; the smell.
The whole place smelled like manure and unwashed people.
“Oof, that’s unfortunate. Even the homeless center in Downtown New York didn’t smell this bad.”
He figured the first step to figure out what’s going on was to ask some of the locals. But then he smelled something much, much more pleasant. Coming from a bigger building was a smell his trained nose could pick up from a mile away.
“Sweet, sweet alcohol.”
Entering the building, he recognized a bar immediately. It was made from wood and lit by torch lanterns, but that atmosphere was uniquely recognizable. The bustling of patrons. A rowdy bunch here or there.
He walked inside without so much as a second thought, drawing a few stares or side eyes from those around him. He walked right up to the bar, only to realise he didn’t have any of this world’s money.
“Damn, I don’t suppose they would open a tab for a stranger, eh?”
Then he got an idea. He walked up to a fellow patron and got his attention.
“Eh- a kid…?” The man was huge. He bulged with muscles and when he turned around, Richard saw he had tusks sticking out of his mouth. Most disturbing however, was the colour of his skin. It was a deep, dark green. Actually, he reminded Richard a lot of the Green Giant on the peas cans that you could get in stores.
Seeing the big green man was shockingly, not the weirdest thing that happened today, so he decided to just roll with it.
“You a betting… man?”
“What?” The green giant looked utterly confused.
“Are you a betting man?” Richard repeated.
“A human kid walks into a bar and asks me if I’m a betting man?” The big man let out a jovial laugh. “What’s your name, kid?”
“My names’ ‘Richard’ but people call me ‘Dick’” Richard replied.
The big man was either drunk or had child-like humour as he burst out laughing once more. He had a deep, throaty laugh, as his head shot back and he spilled beer all over himself.
“Sorry, sorry, but I wasn’t expecting this today. Most humans don’t like to talk to us Orks, much less a small kid in a bar.”
“Yeah, I’ve had a damn weird day myself, so at this point I’m just rolling with it.” Richard said.
“‘Rolling with it’...? I like that phrase. I guess I should roll with it too!” The ork yelled, happily. “My name’s Grok, nice to meet’cha!”
Richard shook Grok’s hand.
“So, back on topic, are you a betting man?”
“Why, I suppose I am. What did you have in mind?” Grok replied.
“The rules are simple.” He started explaining. He grabbed one of the clay cups from the bar. He also pulled out a leaf. He wet the lip of the cup with water, and laid the leaf on top.
“I bet that you can’t rotate the leaf one full turn without touching it or the cup, and I bet that I can.”
“What are the stakes?” Grok asked, clearly interested.
“If I win, you buy me drinks for the night. If you win, I’ll buy you drinks.” This was a complete bluff, Richard had no way to afford drinks.
“No magic?” Grok asked.
“Err… no. No magic. You’re allowed to do anything you want to the leaf prior to it being placed on the cup, but once it’s down, you cannot touch it.”
“Alright, I accept.” They put the leaf on the cup, then Grok began trying to manipulate it. At first he tried banging his fists on the counter to shake the cup, but that didn’t work. He spent some time thinking really hard and inspecting the game before he tried blowing the leaf, but all that did was send the leaf well off the cup. After trying a few more times, he gave up, utterly stumped.
“My turn?” Richard asked.
Grok nodded, completely convinced that it was impossible.
Richard took the leaf, and rubbed it on what remained of his shirt. He then placed the leaf into its spot on the cup, and hovered his finger just off the stem. Sure enough, the stem repelled from his finger, and he slowly and steadily made the leaf turn 360 degrees without ever touching it.
Grok looked absolutely flabbergasted.
“Surely that’s magic!” He claimed.
“Nope, see when I rubbed it on my shirt, it built up a static charge. And then the static charge repelled it away from my finger, allowing me to move it.” Richard explained.
“That still sounds like magic!” Grok accused. Richard had Grok replicate the same steps successfully, and as Grok was intensely studying the effect(more like playing with it like a fascinated child) Richard spoke up.
“Looks like you’re buying me drinks tonight, big guy” He said satisfied.
Grok did a double take, looking back at him. Then a happy smile graced his lips and he laughed out loud.
“HAHAHA Looks like I am Little Dick!” His booming voice rang throughout the bar, drawing the attention of several others.
“But you must show me more such tricks, that was great!” he added.
Now content with a drink in his hand, Richard got to work.
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Colby watched horrified as his body downed cup after cup of alcohol, the exact liquid his parents expressly told him never to touch.
Body Colby got the attention of person after person with his unusual tricks and a confident charisma that actual Colby could never have managed.
Body Colby was asking all kinds of weird questions, some basic ones such as the name of the town, all the way to crazy things like whether we knew the Earth was round! He seemed to be after specific answers, but at the same time he undoubtedly seemed to be having fun, laughing and drinking away.
Actual Colby was mortified when body Colby managed to talk one of the female patrons into exposing her breasts for him, eliciting a round of cheers from all the male patrons.
Colby didn’t know what was happening, or how to get his body back. But what he really wanted to do was just to go home. He was tired and was afraid of what his body would do next.
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Richard left the bar, stumbled in a happy drunkenness. He found out that he was in a town called Banrook, in the Kingdom of Edrya. The town is a mining town, with mines to the South and West.
A rival Kingdom to the East is committing a war of aggression against it that has been going on for a few years now, affecting every aspect of life for the townsfolk.
This is a true Medieval land as the residents haven’t ever heard of electricity or combustion, running on a feudal society complete with lords and nobles.
The sciences are unevolved here with most of the population being illiterate.
However, magic and other races are apparently a thing, which explains Grok and the evil armour. Richard wasn’t able to get too much information out of his fellow patrons as it wasn’t very common for peasants to get in contact with anything magical, however it also wasn’t unheard of.
Due to serfdom, a lot of people have never even left their hometown, the few that have, however, usually take up jobs as mercenaries or adventurers like Grok.
Such professions thrive due to great beasts and magical monsters that roam the wilds, posing both danger and profit to anyone who is able to hunt them.
It was night now, and the unpolluted air had a nice chill to it. It was likely early Fall so Richard had to find some place to stay. He was thinking of roughing it in an Alley like normal, but something told him he should head in a certain direction. With no better options, he did.
It was dark. Really dark. Living in a modern city, Richard forgot just how dark it could get out where the asphalt couldn’t reach. It reminded him of his time in the trenches out in the French countryside, and the roads in this town weren’t much better.
He walked drunkenly down the street and around a few corners, stumbling only a handful of times until he reached a small house. More a hovel, really. He went up to the door and walked inside.
Inside was a woman who was stirring a pot by the fireplace.
“Hey to- er…. Huh…” He was going to say his go-to phrase when meeting attractive women, but something just felt… wrong. That was his mother, but at the same time it wasn’t. She was a stranger yet he felt like he’d grown up around her.
The woman leaped up and let out a scream of surprise.
“Colby! By Thea, what happened to you?!”
She ran over and embraced Richard, fussing over every bump and bruise.
“I- err. Miss…?” Richard was pretty flustered, unsure of what to do in this situation.
“Holy hell, kid. You look like shit!” Uncle Dredrig was at the table with Colby’s father, but they both jumped up when they saw him.
Looking in the pot of water his mother was using to wet a cloth to clean him, Richard could indeed confirm; He looked like shit. He had a black eye, bruised everything, his shirt was in tatters and he had no doubt his ribs had at least a hairline fracture in ‘em.
“C-Colby! Have you been drinking!?” His father yelled after seeing his drunken stupor. He was definitely mad, but more shocked than he was mad.
“Ahaha! Our little Colby’s finally a man!” Uncle Dredrig laughed as his mother shot him a death glare.
“Oh yeah, that reminds me” Richard slurred slightly, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a small bag. The bag jingled pleasantly as he handed it over to his stunned father.
“Wh- son, where did you get this?” His father worriedly asked.
“Gambling” They were the winnings of various bets made throughout the night at the pub. It wasn’t an insane amount of money as far as he could tell, but it also wasn’t insignificant, especially for a peasant family.
Richard was sure that his father wanted to punish him, but he simply seemed too shocked to come up with anything coherent at the moment. His mother continued fussing over him, cleaning and comforting him which actually felt really… nice. That is until she started stripping him naked.
“Wait! Wait, miss! Mom? Wa-!”
After one thoroughly embarrassing bath later, he was put to sleep in his cot and in his drunk state he couldn’t put up any fight so he quickly fell asleep.
