Dungeons Deep

     Roland awakens face down in a pile of what feels like straw and smells like bird shit. Looking up he realizes it smells like that because one, it was indeed a pile of straw and shit, and two there is an exceedingly large bird staring down at him from the rafters of an enormous barn. Slowly, Roland stands.  Pushing himself up out of the straw without making any drastic movements. He steps backwards looking for a way out of the barn. 

    The bird cocks its head from side to side trying to decide what this squishy, pink morsel is. Settling on food, it spreads its massive wings and leaps toward the terrified man. Roland stumbles backwards trying desperately to put distance between the beast and himself. Its talons slam down onto the ground mere inches from his feet striking sparks from the hard stone floor. 

     Frantically continuing to backpedal until his shoulders slam against a wooden wall that felt more like cement than wood. Desperate for any escape, his hands scramble over the wall seeking a handle or at least some thing to throw at the bird. His hands find a roughly made handle and he snatches open the door as the beast raises its head and stares directly through him.  Flapping its monstrous wings the bird again charges him screaming with the sound of an animal being slaughtered. 

    He bolts away from the creature, out of the barn and across open grassland, heading towards a small settlement at the bottom of the hill on which the barn stood. 

“Help me! For God’s sake, somebody help! What the hell is this thing?!” 

Stumbling, rolling, and falling, Roland makes his way down to the base of the hillside. Once there, he claws his way to a standing position and continues to run barreling away from the sound of monstrous wings just behind his head.  

“Down, boy!” a gruff voice calls to him. Roland dives for the dirt behind a very large pair of boots.  His eyes clamp shut as he hears a bone rattling collision of two bodies slamming into each other. Opening his eyes, Roland looks up expecting to find certain death in the form of the enormous talons of the bird beast. To his utter and complete shock, he finds it sprawling in the dirt directly in front of the very large boots from earlier. 

“Damn bird brain, get on home with you now!  People aren't food and you know it!” The bird wobbles woozily to its feet and slinks off into the underbrush.

“Umm, thank you” Roland says spitting dirt from his mouth and realizing that he has on nothing more than bird droppings and straw covering his dangling bits. 

“Here, put this on and follow me,” the man says handing Roland a cloak and a pair of pants far too large for him. 

Roland wraps the heavy material around his shoulders as he struggles with the baggy pants. The clothing is rough and hard to deal with, but it’s much better than being stark naked. 

     “Who are you exactly?” Roland asks, concentrating on not tripping over his own feet as he starts walking behind the massive man. 

     “Ughh. Why is it my turn? I swear that freaking bird causes more trouble than it’s worth. If it weren’t for that daft old man, we’d have just fried that bastard up for supper by now.” The man says while completely ignoring Roland in favor of talking to himself. 

     “The name’s Horn.  No, it’s not my real name, and yes, it is what most everyone here calls me. I’ll be glad to answer all your questions in a bit, boy, but you smell like a privy and I can’t bring you into the guild looking like that”. 

     “Okay. Thanks for the loan on the clothes and I won’t fight you on the offer of a shower either. I really appreciate the save, but where in the hell am I, what was that thing, and what’s the guild?” 

     “I’ll explain all of that to you once we get you cleaned up.  Let’s go”. Horn stomps off leaving Roland to follow or not as he chooses. 

     Sometime later after several buckets of water and a change of clothes provided again by Horn, Roland finds himself sitting across a table from the huge man watching in somewhat horrified fascination as he devours what appears to be an entire side of beef. To his amazement, on top of the huge meal, Horn also drinks a half gallon of ale with no more effort than Roland would spend eating a sandwich. 

     “So here’s the deal, you’ve been reincarnated or transmigrated or pulled into another world from yours.  No, there isn’t a way back, and no, I’m not just saying that. We have all looked for it at least to begin with. Now, you have some options on what you want to do from here on out. But it really depends on where your talent lies after your first Overflow.” Horn says while chewing rather loudly. 

     “I died? No, no, no that can’t be it. This is all some really stupid vivid dream, right? I can’t be dead.  I still have things to do.”  Roland sputters angrily making his face red and splotchy. He stands and slaps the tabletop drawing the attention of the other patrons in the pub. He can hear them murmuring and snickering in the aftermath of his outburst. 

     “Sit down and shut the hell up,” Horn says without a trace of humor in his voice. “You think you’re the only one that didn’t want to find out you died? Hell, boy. I had a family before I ended up here and you can bet your sort ass I had things to finish but that’s a choice we didn’t get to make.” Horn stares at him eyes filled with regret and face hard. 

“Now, if you got that out of your system, I can tell you a bit about the world you find yourself in now or you can die again and this time likely find yourself in some critter’s stomach.”

     “As I was saying, your first essence overflow will happen in a day or two as you kind of adjust to this plane. Once that happens, you can come to the guild and they can set you up with a job. Depending on what skills you develop during your overflow, you could be suited for all kinds of work from a candle maker to a merchant.” As Horn speaks, his eyes never leave his plate and he continues to shovel massive amounts of food into his mouth. 

     “Essence? You mean like magic, Lord of the Rings, Elves dwarves and such type crap.” Roland asks in a voice that is calmer than before but still containing a world of anger.

     “Essence is just that.  It’s the very essence of this world. It affects everybody differently. In case you missed it earlier during your little tantrum, most everybody here was originally from some other place so we got all kinds. Essence changes you. It adapts you to this world and plane.  It can give you amazing abilities to survive and even thrive here, but it’s a crap shoot. Prior experiences and abilities from your previous life do seem to make a difference but may not have any effect at all. Hell, I used to be an accountant.” Horn laughs. 

    “So after this first overflow thing, I can have the guild tell me what changes were made so I’ll know what my options are?” Roland says slowly coming to grips with the fact that his old life is gone. 

“That’s it.” Horn says with a laugh. 

“So why are you helping me, what do you get out of it?”

“Well you see, it's, ummm… I kind of lost a bet with the guild head here and got stuck handling the next newbie that dropped in. I have to say landing buck naked in the Garuda barn has to be one of the worst ways to get here I can think of though. That damned old bird is mean as it can be.” “I’ll set you up tonight and for the first week here at the guild if you become an adventurer, that’s a possibility too by the way, then you may have a chance to repay me. Though all of us do this to some extent just because we’ve been there too you know.” He says with a shrug

     Later, Roland lies in a bunk in a small room at the guild. A tiny crystal glows at the base of the door providing just enough light so the room isn’t completely dark. His thoughts spinning around and through everything that happened today. Still not exactly believing it to be real, his eyes close and despite his racing thoughts, he loses the battle to exhaustion and drifts off to sleep. 

     As light streams through the window into Roland's eyes, he groggily reaches for his phone to see what time it is. When his hand finds only a lumpy pillow and scratchy, homespun sheets, he momentarily panics only to remember that he is not in his bed but the bunk at the guild house. 

     ‘Damn, it was real,’ Roland thinks as he forces himself up out of bed, his head swimming as he staggers down the hall to a communal bath.  His head begins to throb and his vision blurs as he holds his head to keep it from splitting open. 

“God, what did I do to deserve this?” Roland moans as he vomits into the toilet expelling everything he had eaten the day before and some things he was pretty sure he hadn’t ever eaten. Stomach now empty Roland drags himself to his bunk and cocoons himself in his blankets shaking with fever. As he struggles to relax, his body tightens more and more his muscles drawing and pulling his legs to his chest as his blood feels like it begins to boil. He thrashes from side to side and crashes heavily to the floor. As his body ripples, his stomach empties again and again as organs, muscles, and bones are rebuilt 

—

     Roland wakes again the sun is low in the sky and shadows are run long across the floor of his small bunk. He quickly realizes that he is back on the bed and is clean and under the blankets once again. A huge snore rips through the room as Roland looks up to see Horn leaned against the opposite wall of the room in a chair head nodding against his chest. Roland stands slowly trying not to aggravate his head only to find it no longer hurts.  As a matter of fact it, feels amazing. His entire body feels stronger and better than ever. His eyes are clear and he doesn’t have an ache or pain to his name. It’s been a decade, at least, since he could say that.  Stretching, Roland began to move around the room. He finds his clothes lying at the end of the bunk and dresses again before turning to Horn. He taps him firmly on the shoulder, “Hey, wake up!”

     Horn snorts loudly and glances around quickly to get his bearings when he sees Roland standing looking no worse for last night's events. “Good, the first one didn’t kill you. I’ve gotta say, I honestly thought it would take at least two days before it hit you. It must’ve been the stress of your arrival that did it. Most folks don’t have to run for their lives two minutes after getting here. Well boy, let’s go see what it made of you.” 

     Horn stretches and strides out of the room and down the halls of the guild assuming Roland will follow. 

     Minutes later, Roland finds himself standing in front of a massive crystalline shape floating in the middle of a back room in the guild hall. Horn waits at the back of the room by the door seemingly unconcerned and unimpressed by the sight of a giant diamond. 

     “Just touch the gem, boy. It’ll give us a current status which the guild will engrave on a plate for you. It’s all done with magic so just close your eyes and think about it” 

     “Okay here goes,” Roland lays his hand lightly against the gemstone. As light fills the room, his status is displayed before him for the very first time. 

Status

Name: Roland Piers

Race: Chimera

Class: Devourer 

Strength - Mortal

Stamina - Mortal

Dexterity - Mortal

Wisdom - Mortal

Perception - Ascendant 

Charisma - Mortal

Intelligence -Ascendant

Essence - Mortal

Skills: 

Devour - consume the essence of a creature, monster, or other living thing.

Shift - alter ones shape or completely shift into the form of a creature who’s essence has been consumed. 

“Guess you’ll end up an adventurer with that kind of status after all boy” Horn says with a large grin plastered across his face.