The rain filters through the leaves turning heavy sheets into something closer to a gentle patter, but even with that blessed reprieve the ground is heavy with mud and rain and my boots sink in almost ankle deep in places as the downpour continues.

I wish I could stop somewhere and rest, but there’s just not an inch of solid ground to be found.

I’ve had a lot of time to think and I enjoyed it at first, but now it seems the well has run dry on any entertaining distractions I can produce on my own. You know you’re in a bad way when you can’t keep a conversation going with yourself, after all, who else has more in common with you?

Then again, I’m not quite myself, am I?

I’m just under one quarter ‘myself’ if I believe that message thing...

I can’t remember my birthday and I only know my age because the menu told it to me, and it wasn’t too forthcoming with much else. So I guess the question is… who was I?

My random smattering of skills doesn't help much in answering that.

For a while, I’ve been trying to remember well… just anything from home. It’s the weirdest thing though, I’ve got snippets of popular culture and such but nothing really all that significant. 

I can sing the lyrics to handful of product placement jingles, but family members?

Not a fuckin’ chance.

Must’ve had them, but I can’t tell you their names or birthdays or what they looked like… I don’t even know if I had siblings.

Fuck, I can’t even remember my last name.

I feel like I’m lacking a foundation, I might as well be washing away in the rain.

Of course, the moment I think that, I realize that my feet aren’t sinking into the muck anymore. Buried as deep as I was in thought, I dropped my vigilance. I’ve just sort of been walking in a straight line through the night using the glow from those bombs like a crappy lantern.

Looking down and I see stones clustered together tightly, bits of vegetation grow between them but they provide a solid footing.

“Wait could it be… a road?”

An old unused one, but definitely a road… somewhere along the way I stumbled onto it.

“If this is a road then maybe…”

I don’t even finish the thought, instead I just start running along it until I break from the treeline and see, by the sparse light available, the ruins of a small settlement of some sort.

Crumbled stone walls almost entirely obscured by vines ring around the remains of a number of partially collapsed houses. The structures rise up in tiers carved into a hillside; at its peak is the only building I might call ‘intact’, highlighted in the night by a beam of moonlight peeking through the clouds.

An old church of some kind...

Locking eyes on it, I notice the storm seems to have let up some; at least in the town’s immediate vicinity. Its like there’s a bubble of peace wrapped around these ruins… no idea how or why; could be pixie dust and unicorn farts for all I know. 

What I do know is that I’m gonna take advantage of it.

Carefully climbing my way over the rubble of a fallen gate house and walk down the abandoned overgrown main street, I keep my eyes up and focus on my surroundings. They’re wood framed buildings with walls of roughly shaped stacked stones or white smooth stuff which… might be plaster? Clay? No wait... wattle and daub probably?

I’m not really up on medieval construction 101 but it seems fairly standard for a fantasy situation.

Beyond that there’s only notable feature; all of the buildings have some sort of a female figure represented somewhere on them, damaged fairly intentionally from what I can tell; broken statuettes, smashed engravings, even sections of the street where the cobbles have been torn up.

Whoever did this didn’t want any depiction of this woman to survive...

I’m not any sort of expert on the matter, but it doesn’t seem like anyone has lived here for a long time and that when they did leave it was probably removal by force… can’t be sure of when, but this place is definitely long abandoned. I’m a little disappointed by that, but the fact remains that people built this place and maybe they’re not far away.

All of these thoughts can wait though, my fatigue is starting to make me dizzy and climbing the hill to what will hopefully be a safe resting place is pushing me to my limits even now.

Pushing one of those massive double doors open isn’t easy either, the iron banded wooden door is swollen with the moisture and crisscrossed with creeping ivy; even so I persist hoping to get in out of the rain. The portal opens with a creaking rumble as I finally overpower the resistance brought on by wear and exposure to the elements.

I’m not really complaining though; I’m frankly amazed there are any doors at all with how old everything else seems.

Slipping in, I put my back into shutting the massive door and find it an easier proposition than opening the doorway in the first place, something I’m immensely thankful for.

After catching my breath, I turn to take in my resting place for the night and find myself… stunned.

The air inside is musty and thick with the scent of aging wood mixed with the sort of fresh smell new growth, small bits of greenery poke from between the stones in the floor and blooming vines adorned with blue and white flowers reach in through damaged stained glass windows crawling their way up the buttresses into the darkness high in the ceiling.

In a lot of ways, it’s shape and structure reminds me of the Archetypal christian church. Rows of pews in varying states of disrepair and damage line the nave up to the crossing before a set of steps leading up into the chancel. Running my eyes along that path, I see a sight that I know will stay with me for a long time assuming I live through this.

A beam of moonlight streams down from the massive circular window frame high above to land like a spotlight on a statue of a woman in a loose gown with a tall pair of curving horns and a solemn downcast gaze; in her outstretched hands is a stone bowl, probably for offerings. 

“Some kind of… goddess? maybe a saint?”

Rusty red marks stain her feet and the plinth she stands on… the reason becomes apparent as I turn my gaze down.

At the foot of the statue is a skeleton pierced through the chest by a rusted sword driven squarely into its rib cage and sinking into the plinth behind; despite its apparent age, the skeleton has a few scraps of still recognizable cloth clinging to its bones. 

A few feet away is another set of bones in the corroded remains of what I think used to be armor... 

“What… happened here? A conflict of some kind for sure… religious in nature if all the smashed icons outside are any indication...”

Lost in thought I find myself approaching and see that both sets of remains are held together by vines twining through the bones, holding them in place as if frozen in time..

An odd reverence overtakes me and I feel very much like I’m intruding. From what I can remember, I’ve always had a choppy relationship with religion but… this is a fantasy world; it might be a good idea to hedge my bets.

Only half-jokingly, I press my hands into the traditional prayer position and close my eyes before speaking a prayer, perhaps less than graceful in tone.

“Well… uh, I used to be somewhere between agnostic and atheist but given… new evidence...”

Vague memories emerge of growing up Catholic and ditching it sometime in my teens, having that flash across my mind makes me lose steam.

“I…”

It peters off and I just open my eyes before speaking directly to the statue itself.

“Look I’m… not good at this, I haven’t been good at it for a while. I’m just… I need a place to sleep with a roof and four walls right now and your place here is the only thing I can find.”

My eyes meet the inert gaze of the statue from the side, it seems focused on the body pinned to its plinth.

“I don’t want to be rude or anything, but I’m probably gonna have to sleep here for a while, so I wanna see if we can’t make a deal.”

I don’t know why I wait for an answer, but I do.

“Look, you keep any goblins or whatever else is out there from killing me in my sleep and… I’ll give the place a spitshine, alright? I just need… I need sanctuary and if you're feeling generous a bit of help surviving.”

Once again only the sound of rain pattering outside answers. Not sure what I’m expecting.

“Of course… no response, but then again I’ve not been smited... smitten? Whatever, I did my part, I’m gonna try and get some sleep.”

I take a moment to feel ludicrous before setting to work making a place to rest. 

With the building now just ‘a place’, I look at it more critically.

Everything seems sturdy enough and I’m not afraid of it falling down on me in the night, even better there isn’t much in the way of leaks in the ceiling; whoever built it, built it to last.

I don’t have a lot in the way of creature comforts, but strapped to the back of my bag is a “blanket” of sorts; I use the quotation marks because its little more than a tightly wrapped roll of leather treated with something to make it somewhat hydrophobic, oil or wax maybe.

I suppose I should be grateful that its not cloth or fur because the heavy rain and long swim would’ve left it sopping and prone to mold, being leather it’s a cinch to give it a good hard shake to remove the bulk of the remaining water off its surface.

The greatest challenge ends up being moving the shattered remnants of broken pews out of the way so I can have a clear patch to spread it out and lie down; that takes the better part of twenty minutes by my guess, but boy is it worth it.

With the leather sheet spread flat, I go about removing the hide armor, nose wrinkling at the smell of sweat and dirt among… other 'contaminants'.

...

Don’t judge me, it was a long and frightening day and there aren’t exactly any facilities nearby.

Digging in my pack produces a rag, which along with some water from the skin tied to the bag makes for a somewhat insubstantial but still immensely appreciated cleansing; unfortunately I have to be delicate as I wipe the filth of the day off to avoid tiny shocks of pain.

Even after the effects of the healing potion I drank earlier, my body is tender and the chafe marks from wearing that armor are still vibrant and red; thankfully all but my most minor injuries have closed up, some even to the point of scarring.

After wiping down, my stomach pitches a much more audible complaint; I’ve only had a piece of jerky to eat and well, rationing be damned, I’m hungry.

Digging through my bag I find a small pouch of roasted seeds and dried berries and a jar containing some unidentifiable pickled... stuff

Along with another chewy piece of jerky, they make up my dinner.

The seeds taste odd, something between peanuts and shelled sunflower seeds with an… herbal aftertaste; the berries aren’t any sort I can recognize right off, but they’re sweet enough.

The pickles are a different experience however, the acidic smell upon opening the jar is strong enough to singe nose hairs; they’re not vegetables, but lemons packed in brine. The first bite nearly makes me yark, but still I force one down, reminding myself of the dangers of scurvy through every bite.

Full at last and satisfied with my cleaning and self examination, I lie down on the leather sheet and draw it tight around my body, rolling myself up tight in preparation for whatever sleep I can manage despite the hardness of the floor and chill of the air.

Only… I feel like I’ve forgotten something…

“Oh shit, right!”

I give silent thanks for the fact menu operation is hands free, as I doubt any force could make me stir from my warm little cocoon, and with a bit of trepidation send the mental command.

What I see after leaves me in stunned silence.

“Holy… hell… this has to be some kind of mistake, right...?”

Roxyreads

Woo, okay another chapter and this time on the intended day! Unfortunately I ended up scrapping a few of my pre-written ones but the weekend is here and I plan to use the time to get ahead on a few!

Apologies for the cliffhanger before the menu-crack but I wanted to be sure of my numerical accuracy before posting anything!

Once again though, I'm close to my daily limit on exclamation points, so I'll see y'all later!