Origin ARS 3 (Origin A.R.S.) (2 page)

A tiny voice cried out, “That’s cute and sweet and stuff, but can you get off of me please!”

“Ero!” cried out Scott. He bucked upwards a bit and the little fairy flew out from under him. She had somehow gotten pressed underneath a bit during the special moment that Scott and Rhea had shared.

“I thought that I was going to die!
Again!”
The tiny girl fluttered over to the edge of the boat and settled down. She crossed her arms then pouted at them both.

“Oh, Ero...” said Rhea. The elf had not meant to cause trouble for the little fairy, even if the tiny girl did occasionally cause mischief.

The fairy stamped her foot then exclaimed, “No! There’s no way to make this up to me.”

“I’ll buy you a piece of pie.” said Scott.

“Do you really think that a piece of pie will make me forgive you?” asked the girl. She took a deep breath then pouted at Scott with even greater ferocity.

“
Two
pieces of pie...” said Scott.

Ero acquired a crafty look. “I also want a cookie.”

“I don’t know... cookies are awfully tasty. I might want to keep them all for myself.” replied the man.

The fairy gasped at him as though he had just spoken an incredibly vile obscenity in her presence. “Oh, no!”

“Scott, buy her a cookie.” said Rhea. She might have a few jealousy issues regarding Ero at the moment, but the little fairy was just too cute to resist.

He turned his head back to look at the elf. She had regained her ice sculpture-like expression.

Scott looked to Ero. The fairy tapped her tiny little foot then leaned forward and
looked
at him. Finally, he turned his gaze to the sky above. After a moment he closed his eyes tightly and cried out, “Dammit, I’m out numbered.”

Rhea’s expression broke apart with a loud
*snerk!*
She started to laugh immediately afterward. Ero joined in as well. Scott merely shook his head and bemoaned his fate. His was a fate that befell all supposedly manly men in the presence of overwhelming amounts of girl power.

***

The gentle crackle of the campfire flame provided both comfort and security in a dark and foreboding night. Scott was a grown man and a soldier. He had spent more than one dark night surrounded by unfamiliar terrain. Yet, there was nothing as strange to him as the endless expanse of the ocean in the middle of the night.

Rhea was unconscious at the moment. He could not be certain if she had gone to sleep or simply logged out. Ero had decided that she needed to take a nap as well. That left the man alone with his thoughts.

He looked out to the midnight sea and wondered about the future between the moments where he engaged in remembrance of his past. Scott had tried to ignore it, but there were many things about his current life and mental state that did not feel right. The background music currently played a soft and gentle song that perfectly emphasized the moment. It was another bit of strangeness in an already strange existence.

The sorcerer looked down at his hands and considered them carefully. They had become instruments of death in this world. He had taken well over a thousand lives already. Yes, none of them would die and be gone forever, but he had still done it. What was worse, he had actually begun to enjoy it.

Scott flexed his fingers and thought about the sound of cracking bones and ripping flesh. He listened to the death screams of many of the creatures he had slain. The feel of those bones as they gave way beneath his fist; the sight of blood spurting out in a brilliant crimson arc... Why did they not make him sick? What was he becoming? Why was he so calm about the changes that had appeared within his psyche?

It was a dream was it not? Go to a fantasy world and live life like it was some sort of live-action roleplaying game. Fight monsters, get the girl... Yet, he felt disquiet about it all. It was not due to the immature desire to be some sort of hero. He could have understood and accepted that. No, what disturbed him was how much he had begun to truly enjoy taking away the lives of other creatures.

He curled his fingers into a fist. With that hand he had taken more lives in one month than he had taken in thirty years of life back on Earth, and that included a decade spent as a soldier.

“Dammit... What’s wrong with me?” Scott questioned his fist. He wanted to know why. He needed to understand what had changed to make him feel so much joy from overcoming his opponents.

“Is this right? Am I supposed to do things like this?” Scott asked his fist those questions but it refused to give him solace or to provide the answers that he sought.

Scott looked up from his fist and gazed out to sea.  Then he tilted his head up to the moon. He spent a moment gazing upon it as it hung low and full in the sky. “Why?”

That question is what haunted him. It was fun to travel, to gain levels. However, what was the real reason? What drove him forward? Why did he feel joy and a need to hurt things just to become stronger? What purpose did any of it serve?

“What use do I have for getting stronger, other than being stronger?” asked the man while looking up at the uncaring moon. It seemed rather pointless in the grand scheme of things. He had dealt a lot of death to the denizens of this world, and yet despite his misgivings he was not certain that he cared about that fact.

If anything, he knew that he held a desire to add to the body count. He wanted to see how far he would be able to go. This world had either made him a sociopath or it had unleashed something from deep inside that he did not recognize; something primal.

His emotional conflict was put on hold a moment later when he bore witness to a surprising event. Something flopped out of the water onto the surf, a strange and mythological something. “Is that a mermaid?” Scott asked the empty air. The creature crawling around on the shore certainly looked like she was half human and half fish.

He stood up then moved to where Rhea was sleeping. He shook her gently, but she did not awaken. He tried again, but it became obvious that no amount of shaking would cause rouse her from her slumber. Scott reached the only conclusion that he could in this situation. “Damn, she really did log out.”

The sorcerer wanted to go check out the newcomer, but he could not leave Rhea vulnerable. At least, he could not do so without good reason. So far, the mermaid had done nothing but flop onto the beach, and then start to crawl forward.

However, a moment later it became obvious that the new arrival had not come alone. Out of the surf rose several human-like creatures. It was hard to see any real detail at this distance, as the night was dark.

The creatures who rose from the surf came a little closer and he was able to make out their features. They looked like something out of an old monster movie.

Scott did not know what they were called in this world, but he knew names from Earth. Sahuagin, Mermen, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and several others. They were rarely good people in any of those offerings. He did not want to think of himself as a racist, but if this world was truly patterned off of human pop-culture and mythology then those fish men were trouble.

The mermaid cried out after she spotted the fish people. She desperately clawed at the sand and flopped forward further away from the surf. She was moving toward the campfire! That could not be coincidence. The tent that they were using provided a special sanctuary field. Monsters should not be able to see it. That could only mean that either the effect had been defeated, or the mermaid was not considered to be a monster.

Scott had to make a decision. Rhea should be safe, if still slightly vulnerable inside the sanctuary field. Whoever that girl was, she was trying to reach the firelight. That meant that she knew that there was possibly safety or help there. The fish guys did not seem to notice the light at all. If they did, they did not care about it at the moment.

He did not want to step into the arguments and issues of other people. For all he knew, that mermaid could be some sort of thief. However, his instincts told him that the girl crawling for safety was trying to fend off a monster attack. There was no way for him to currently know the level or difficulty of those possible monsters, but he could not sit there and let them get to her. Even if that was the smart thing to do, he would never forgive himself.

The sanctuary field had been erected on top of a hill so that they could see the surrounding area better. Scott ran down the hill, on the opposite side of the mermaid’s location. He spent several precious seconds moving around the base of that hill in order to try and throw off the fish people in case they really were monsters.

Scott ran out onto the beach and called out, “What’s going on out here?”

Some might think that announcing his presence would be foolish. However, he knew better. What if he had been wrong? What if the mermaid was a criminal and those fish guys had been lawfully tracking her down? She could be a psychotic killer for all he knew. No, he had to get involved but he did not have to take sides immediately.

“Gruaghrkle.” said one of the fish men after pointing at the unarmored human running toward them.

There were seven of the scaled monsters. Three of them immediately raced toward Scott with their spears drawn. The lead fish dude shouted, “Meaghrt!”

Scott suspected that the creature had slurred out the word, “Meat.” As far as he was concerned, that was a good enough answer to his question when it came to who he should try to help.

The fact that the background music changed to an edgier battle tune also helped his decision making process along. It was a simple and effective tune, but it did not evoke much as a sense of danger. Scott was uncertain what to make of that until he made his first attack.

The sorcerer decided to help them in their desire to find meat by creating a little barbecue of his own. “Burn!” cried the man. A golf ball sized dart of flame flew from his hand.

The closest of the monsters did not even have time to cry out before he was caught up in an explosion that tore his body apart. The burning chunks of fish man splattered across the sand like unholy shrapnel and would continue to smoke for quite some time.

“Maghric! Maghric!” screeched the apparent leader of the group.  The fish men who had rushed toward Scott stopped suddenly and flailed their arms before they turned around and fled at all possible speed. They ran like their scaly asses were on fire, or rather they ran out of fear that they soon would be.

“Come back here! Don’t you know how much I like fish nuggets!” called Scott before he trotted toward the crawling mermaid. Actually, he preferred chicken nuggets but they did not need to know that.

The fish men fled back into the sea. Not long after the anti-climactic battle the musical score changed to the soft and gentle tune from before. Despite the fact that the battle had felt like some sort of event to the man, the world treated it as though it were nothing special. A battle report popped up not long after and he smiled at the result.

<<<
Battle Report!
>>>

Congratulations!

You defeated a Shar-Shar and made fish jerky out of it in the process!

+ 0 EXP

+ 88 Fayth

+2 Ability Points

Item(s) Acquired:

Shar-Shar Jerky X 1

<<< * >>>

“Neat, jerky...” He checked his survival lore ring to see how much experience he had earned. He had decided that he would wear it until he learned the skills that it contained. It would give Rhea a chance to catch up to his level, and it would also allow him to finally receive those needed skills.

“Hmm... not bad!” He had gained nearly six hundred points of experience from a single Shar-Shar!

“He must have been around level twenty if he gave me two ability points... Probably weak to magic.” That would also explain why they raced off so quickly.

Either way, the man stopped musing about his incredibly heroic victory. He remembered the reason that he came out in the first place. He walked over toward the feebly crawling mermaid then stopped a few feet from her position. He eyed her carefully for a moment. After a brief moment passed, she looked up at him. “Please...”

Scott preferred not to get too close, yet. Just because the fish men were hungry assholes did not mean she was an innocent victim. “What do you need?”

“My people... please...” the girl lifted up her hand and reached out to him.

“What about them? Why did you come here?” he asked. Scott felt uncomfortable questioning her like this, but he had to find out a little more information.

She started to cry. “My people have been captured by the Shar-Shar tribe. I escaped but some of them chased me...”

“Yes...and...” said Scott.

“I saw your sanctuary fire and I hoped to find help... please. I’ll do anything...” The mermaid pushed herself up slightly.

“Anything?” asked Scott curiously. That was a rather interesting thing to offer.

“We’ll be glad to help.” said a familiar voice. Scott turned to see Rhea standing behind him, two torch stones floated alongside her. Due to the increased light he could see her expression clearly, not that he enjoyed the heavy frown that she leveled in his direction.