03 – Different when it happens to you

>F rank.

Martin’s hand left the crystal that was hanging around his neck, and went to his chin. He looked at the pieces of paper hanging on the board like fliers, some held by small needles, others held by a weak glue, others yet just floating a small distance from the board kept there by an unknown force inches away from the worn wood. Surprisingly, or maybe not so much, they were all F-rank requests.

Next to him, an adventurer dressed in light leather armor with a long bow strapped to his back was just finishing reading the text on one of the slips. Martin saw him touch the paper; it disappeared in a flash, making the man’s pendant glow for a moment. The man left, and another one took his place. This one was taller, bulkier and with a thick brown beard. Looking at him, Martin noticed two round ears poking at the top of his head, but quickly looked away when the man turned to stare at him. Well, maybe not a man. He heard a low growl, and refocused his attention on reading through the slips. The bear-kin touched the air and his pendant glowed, then went away. There was no paper flashing this time. Rude. Just because you are a higher rank than me?

Martin eventually chose a quest suited for him and touched the corresponding note on the board. His pendant glowed, and he made way for the door.

>>New Quest!<<
>Pest control. Eliminate the herd of Dezelles south-west of Topguard.
>Reward: 32 copper.

The guild token interface looked just like the system interface, despite coming from the pendant and not the system. For a moment, he wondered if everybody saw the quests from the guild this way, or if it was different for each person. Does everybody have a system? Because if that were true, his mind told him, then many of his assumptions were wrong and, most importantly, he wasn’t special like he thought he was.

He left the city the way he came, head spinning with dark thoughts, legs moving fast with heavy footsteps. He didn’t pay attention to what was going on around him, and before he even noticed he found himself deep in the forest.

Shit. He looked around. He was surrounded by trees, with no trace of the path. This is not how the plot was supposed to go. How do people even orient themselves around here?

He looked around, retracing his steps all the way here. Somewhat tentatively, he managed to get a grip of where he was, and was decently confident that he could return to Topguard, this was the name of the city according to the quest, if he needed to. if he was right then he was just a bit to the right of the path, if one looked out of the city gates and towards the mountain where he spawned. However, despite knowing where he was Martin didn’t feel confident in his ability to find the cardinal directions here. Plus, who’s to say that the sun sets in the west and moss grows in the north here? Well, actually north is always in the same place relative to east, and west is only a name for where the sun sets. Assuming they are right angled to each other. Which they must be. So the only issue would be if the names didn’t correspond, but I should be able to deduce…

Exhaling loudly, he set off in a random direction again, this time making sure he kept track of where he was in his mind. Loud footsteps echoed through the forest, along with the sound of snapped branches and crunched leaves and pine cones in the sparsely vegetated undergrowth of the old fir forest. Eventually he came across a clearing, shrouded in a thick mist that swirled and turned guided by an unseen wind. A gust blew some of the mist away, revealing the setting sun behind the trees and painting the clearing in orange tints, like an old movie. That’s when he saw it. There was a manor behind the trees, still shrouded in fog, and in the darkening day he could see the light coming from inside the windows spilling into the air.

Martin hid behind a tree, his shadow melting in the darkness behind him, where the forest was quiet and eerie. Different sounds: the call of a distant bird, the rustle of leaves, or some far away cry broke the silence every few moments, echoing in the night. The light of the windows never left Martin’s eyes, and he observed for a few long minutes before he decided to approach the manor.

He took inventory of what he had. Only a single offensive skill, the blueflame ball, but he felt confident with it after he had extensively tested it on his way to the city the day before. That, and how his health system worked. Unless it works this way for everybody, which would completely remove my advantage and actually put me at a disadvantage. Same if everybody has a system. I only have an advantage if these things are unique to me, because if they aren’t then it means that everyone is used to them except me…

He shook his head, and his steps grew more hurried without him noticing. He was panting slightly when he reached the door, where he stopped for a moment, before deciding to knock.

Nothing.

It seemed to be locked shut.

“Hello?” the sound echoed. “Is anyone here?”

Silence. Martin sighed. He took two steps back and stared at the door for one more moment, then raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

A sudden wave of compressed air and heat blasted through the stone corridor, followed by a shower of blackened splinters, warped metal and incandescent nails. They fell to the ground in smoking heaps, where small licks of deep blue flames still burned them until there was nothing left but ash. Martin stepped over the mounds of ash and red-hot metal, and entered the manor.

The corridor was dark, the light of the fire barely illuminating a few meters ahead and casting long shadows on the uneven floor. There was no trace of the lights that Martin saw from outside, and the corridor seemed to just go on forever into the impenetrable darkness. He walked for longer than how deep the manor should have been, and it was completely dark when he stopped, unable to see where he was going. He turned around, in an attempt to see how small the door was and understand how far he had gone, but there was no door.

What he saw sent a chill down his spine. It was for but a moment, and when he blinked it was gone, leaving only a blurry afterimage slowly vanishing from his retinas. But Martin was sure of what he had seen. It was a green, faintly glowing outline of a woman, dressed in a noble’s clothes and floating a few inches above the ground.

The laugh he wanted to let out was frozen in his throat. Shit. Reality, it turns out, was different than fiction and what he knew was a cliché situation he would have joked about was now suddenly the oppressive fear of the unknown, of danger, of the supernatural waiting to strike at him, the intruder, when he least expected it.

There were a few expressions that passed through Martin’s face as the adrenaline pumped, the muscles of his legs tensed, and his fingers twitched while he felt for the mental command that was his offensive skill, but eventually his face settled on a mask of anger and determination. It could not, however, hide the shaking of his breath or the thumping of his heart. He frantically kept looking around.

There he saw it.

He turned, quickly, but the blur was gone. Again, he saw it at the edge of his vision, and he spun to catch it but all he saw was a blue streak. Then a green one. Then a white one. And he turned and turned, until the world spun but he couldn’t see it, just darkness but he knew it was there, but his brain was swimming and spinning, and he fell to his knees on the hard stone floor clutching his head.

He screamed. The echoing sound of his own voice shook him out of his panic, and he felt the shivers diminish just the tiny bit he needed to force himself back on his feet. He took a deep breath, then another. Keeping his eyes wide open to the point they hurt, he put his back against a wall and made a mental inventory of what he had, just like he did outside. Blueflame. He looked towards where he thought the door was. Said to burn the hottest of all godly flames, right? He looked to the other side. The system. Fuck, give me something! He looked behind him one last time, then pushed himself off the wall. He stared at the dark.

>>New Quest!<<
>Haunted house? Defeat the three ghosts before morning.
>Reward: XP bottle, manor key.

Martin smiled. “Alright fuckers. Ghostbusters time.” His voice was perfectly steady.

He snapped his fingers, and the corridor came to life, lit by the small nova floating above the palm of his hand. Looking at his mana bar slowly deplete, he took a deep breath and brushed the sweat from his forehead, and walked ahead.