– Day 1 –

Revival

“Well, this is very uncomfortable… and fricking cold-!?”

I open my eyes, wondering what could be so cold.

“Oh, I’m in a cave of sorts.”

I appear to be lying on a strange star-engraved marble alter-like slab. Beside, or rather behind me slightly, there are two statues side by side, a small distance apart at the edges of the slab. The sculptures look to be of different women, and both seem to be holding separate objects.

The one to my back left is entirely black and looks like it’s possibly made out of obsidian. It seems to be holding a book with the same symbol that is engraved into the slab I currently reside upon. The book looks to be an old leather-backed book, but it’s covered in a thick layer of dust. I get the feeling that it would fall apart should I touch it so I’ll leave it alone for now.

The statue to my back right is probably made from marble and is holding a sword pointing downwards. The sword in contrast to the book looks almost new and could probably cut through bone. Needless to say; it seems sharp.

Its most likely a ceremonial weapon but looks too well-made so it probably could be used as a proper weapon. It has a golden hilt and a strange red gem embedded into it just above the grip and just below where the sword and hilt connect; slightly off-centred like it was added after the sword was finished.

The gem doesn’t look like any ruby I’ve seen before… online, but I guess it could be unrefined?

Both sculptures are about 5 foot in height and look to have gems embedded into their eye sockets. They’re angled so that their glaze seeks the front centre of the slab I am laying on–

*cough cough cough*

Which, like everything here, happens to be covered in a thick layer of dark-grey dust.

I sit up to get away from the thick choking dust, and to hopefully stop the current coughing fit, before beginning to look to my more distant surroundings. It's pretty clear immediately that I am in a very severely kept temple cave of some kind.

Continuing my scan of the room, I look at the ceiling which shines and twinkles with a very pale light blue. While straining my eyes to focus in; from what I believe is gemstones embedded in the ceiling.

The scene is very reminiscent of a nights sky, although with none of the constellations being recognisable to me.

Looking to the floor, the dust that was disturbed by my coughing fit has subsided somewhat, enough to not hamper my view.

Unlike the ceiling, it’s not remarkable at all. It’s entirely made from marble slabs with a large unlit brazier in the furthermost left corner of the room. There are strange metal looking supports coming away then diagonally down from the brazier, and the colour of the supports don’t match the brazier itself.

If I had to guess, I would say that the brazier is made from bronze and the struts cast iron? Or maybe the other way around… I honestly don’t know.

“Oh, day and night right?”

As the probably obvious brainwave hit me, I take a second look at the marble floor.

Yes, I get it now. The room, as a whole, looks to be trying to depict night and day.

The groves in the marble floor coming away from the brazier must be depicting sun rays.

“I guess I really have been reborn–”

Frack me! Look at my abs… and my man junk! Ahem, I mean, my manly junk…

I had been so busy examining the room that I found myself in that I hadn’t noticed my own body.

With the only light source in the room currently coming from the dim gems in the ceiling, a full examination of my extremities is not be possible just yet. However, so far as I could tell, the previous occupant of this body, if there was indeed one that is, was a severe fitness freak who’s ‘hung like an elephant’.

“…”

I will admit that I did just spend a couple of minutes fantasying on how I would have put this bad boy to use if I had been so endowed with it in my previous life when another brainwave hit.

“…I’m naked..”

Yes, this fact has also seemed to escape me until now. I wasn’t always this air-headed, I swear. I am blaming this blatant stupidity on resurrection sickness… An albeit rare illness for which I am probably patient zero… possibly. Probably not?

“Enough of this mindless tangent, I had better get up and find some bloody clothes–”

As I stretched out my hand onto the hilt of the sword, the marble statue is holding to help myself get up, the eyes of both statues lit up simultaneously–

“DARKNESS AND LIGHT ARE OURS TO CONTROL”

“ALL SUFFER UNDER US, BUT YOU ARE BLESSED”

“SEEK WHAT WE DESIRE; YOU SHALL COME TO DESIRE”

“GO FORTH AND DESPOIL THE CREATOR”

While the statues chanted, their gemmed eyes glowed brightly. The obsidian statues eyes burn green, while the marble one seems to glow yellow. The brazier, now behind me, suddenly lit up eerily and the stones in the ceiling shone brighter than before. The room was suddenly brighter than a summer's midday.

“Well, that scared the proverbial frog clean out of me. Two insanely loud voices in unison… I miss you boxy!”

As the very loud feminine, creepy child-like voices that deserve casting in a horror movie finally started to fade away, the light began to fade once more from the statue's eyes and ceiling as well.

A box, or rather, a freaking treasure chest, began to fade into an appearance at the back of the room like some sort of a pixelated download.

Without bothering on taking a moment to process what just happened; after all at this point, can I really be blamed for not being surprised anymore? I walk… or rather waddle, over to the treasure chest. The thwack, thwack thwacking sounds of my new found elephant trunk slapping side to side made me incredibly hopeful my omnipotent benefactor had the foresight to put clothes in it for me.

Ha, the treasure chest is reminiscent of an old pirates chest from those movies. You know, the ones used to hold gold coins and typically buried with a curse.

Examining the chest, it has a rusty iron latch on the front of it where I guess a padlock would typically reside and is made of thick wood, oak maybe and rusted iron braces.

“Well, here’s hoping curse-free! Let’s see what we’ve got then.”

As I opened the chest, I was greeted by an eerily familiar but larger green message box with messages appearing one below the last a few seconds apart:

[ ..Installing race system.. ]

[ Weakness to Light added ]

[ Expert Mana control added ]

[ Elemental awakening added ]

[ Physical awakening added ]

[ ..Installing blessings.. ]

[ Blessing of Edoas was given ]

[ Blessing of Mia was given ]

[-- Weakness to Dark nullified --]

[-- Weakness to Light added --]

[ Blessing of Sia was given ]

[-- Weakness to Light nullified --]

[-- Weakness to Dark added --]

[ ..Installing status system.. ]

[ ..Installing heads-up display.. ]

[ ..Installing sub-systems.. ]

[ Mana controller added ]

[ Blood cycler system deployed ]

[ EXP system started ]

[ Class based progression… disabled ]

[ …Hidden stuff~ ]

[ – Installation complete! – ]

[ – Congratulations! You have been reborn – ]

[OKAY]

Alrighty then. This settles it. I’ve been revived by the God of gaming–

Wait for a second, ‘…Hidden stuff’?! This is honestly too completely insane, I just–

“This is hardly the strangest event today, so I guess I should just roll with it for now.”

..You have a valid point my verbal counterpart. Let’s see..

Race system.. Humph, I get the feeling I’m not human anymore and based on “Blood cycler system" and some of these 'blessings'. Maybe a Vampire?

...Hold up; if that is true, I should have fangs right?

“…Nope, no fangs.”

Phew, for a moment there I was worried. Well, to be honest, I still am concerned, but I have no context for any of this right now so let’s just bookmark my thoughts for later when I have more information.

Next, 'Class based progression'. I take this to assume the world is similar to those RPGs I played in my spare time. This type of system is apparently disabled for me though…

I can't help but scratch my head about all this. Aargh, it's pointless. I have too little information at this point to speculate!

>[OKAY]

..Just what kind of world have I been revived into? Based on everything that’s occurred thus far. I think it’s safe to assume it’s a fantasy world of some kind that has been based on role-playing games from my old world? Which most likely means monsters, dungeons, badly scripted heroes.. and villains, and loot. I guess it’s not completely all bad then–

“Nice, brown leather trousers, black leather boots, white cloth shirt of some kind, black leather jacket, a necklace with red gemstone, a black leather belt… No socks or pants?”

*Sigh*

Well, at least I have some clothes.

Looking at the necklace, to be honest, I never was one for jewellery, but I thought better of just leaving it there.

Hmm? Its getting caught on my ears–

“What the hell?”

My ears, they're pointy and folded over?

It reminds me of elven ears from a comic I once read but shorter. They’re only a little longer than human ears though… So I’m an elf?

You know what, I don’t know why I’m surprised. After all, I’ve already guessed I wasn’t human based on that message earlier…

"It's getting cold.."

Yes okay, verbal me. Let's package up the goods.

..Now that I’m dressed let us try and find the exit. There's only one path out of here, so I guess we follow it?

“Ouch, bloody rocks are sharp!–”

I was stumbling around in the dark with out-stretched hands when a message window suddenly appeared in front of my left. It’s best described as a status window:

Class: Awakened One Level: 0 EXP: 0/150 HP: 90/90 MP: 200/200 Hunger: 18% Thirst: 8% Blood State: Normal STR: 015/999 Strength. Your physical strength is governed by this. AGI: 010/999 Agility. Your speed and reflexes are governed by this. STA: 019/999 Stamina. Your overall perseverance and tolerances are governed by this. VIT: 014/999 Vitality. Your overall health and resistances are governed by this. PER: 019/999 Perception. Your overall ability to spot and understand is governed by this INT: 024/999 Intelligence. Your spell power and understanding is governed by this. WIS: 020/999 Wisdom. Your mana and brilliance are governed by this. Status:

– Weakness to Light (Racial)

– Weakness nullification of Light (Blessing)

– Weakness nullification of Dark (Blessing)

– Resistant to Dark (Racial)

– Physical Status Enhancement (Class)

– Magical Status Enhancement (Class)

– Expert Mana control (Racial)

Wow; this really is like a game…

There also looks to be tabs like in a binder on the left that I could press as well, but they're not going anywhere any time soon, and I’m currently more interested in what’s ahead.

So waving my left hand to the right seem to open it and waving it to the left closed it.. It seems I will likely be making odd hand gestures in public soon, I bet that'll go down well–

Ah, daylight! It’s either dawn or dusk based on the hue!

Getting closer to the cave's entrance, more and more of the landscape is coming into view. I can see grass, the tops of trees..? ..a cliff? I’m on top on a bloody cliff! A cliff with a sheer deadly drop no less!

What the bleeding hell?!

How the hell am I meant to get down from here!? Am I expected to climb down?

That’s insane! I’ve never climbed a tall tree let alone a bleeding cliff! What the hell boxy! This is a joke, right? A freaking joke in bad taste is what it is!

Argh, calm down, calm. Let’s think this through, yeah…

– Two hours later –

It’s hopeless. I’m stuck here…

Sitting on the cliff's edge with the cave entrance to my back, I can clearly see just how desperate my situation really is. I guess it could be worse though. To my current left, there is a small lake, or I think more of a pond due to its size, with a strange jumping fish. A waterfall flows into it from above, and another falls from it to the lake at the bottom of this cliff. This at least means I have a possible food and water source..

..Looking out over the cliff, the drop is equatable to.. well, I don’t know! The height isn’t comparable to any measurement I’m even damn capable of! It’s a freaking long way down alright! Nothing could survive a fall from this height so to consider jumping would be insanity..

I had considered jumping into the lake below but I have no idea if there are rocks down there and besides, from this height, the water would most likely be like hitting concrete.

I am stuck without any options but one it seems. I am going to have to try and climb down..

..I guess there is one redeeming fact about being stuck up here.. I can see for miles, and it's quite idyllic.

Looking out to the landscape, I see a vast forest, thick with varying shades of green. A plain with animals grazing and a town just on the horizon. If I do manage to get down from here, the town will be my first stop--

“Heh”

First stop hmm? That’s incredibly presumptuous of me. I mean, it infers that I won’t die from getting down, that I make it through the fantasy forest which is sure to be filled with monsters, all without dying and of course, and let us not forget that I’m an elf now. Let's hope the town doesn’t hang me for my race alone!

Aargh, I’m tired of this chain of thought. Too much death! For now, let's try catching some food and head back inside the cave for the night.

I carelessly wade into the pound thinking this. I remember back to those survival programs I used to watch..

I have no wood for a spear nor string for a line, so I’m trying the patience method. Stand with your legs apart, hands in the water between your legs and control your breathing.

...Okay. Now we wait.

– Twenty minutes later –

This is really boring--

Oh, hold up, I might have something here. A little fishy coming to say hello.

The fish swims around my left leg before darting to the right. Patience! Wait for it...NOW!

Holy crap… I did it! First time as well–

“…”

The fish hops about the ground. At first, it looks to be random, but almost immediately, it begins

“…”

You have got to be KIDDING me! That clever little fishy bastard has jumped back into the lake as I just stood there dumbfounded, watching! I can’t believe this… No, I can, it’s my own fault for celebrating just because I knocked it out of the water. This is survival, not camping. Aargh! So stupid… One more time!

– One hour later –

...That cheeky little bastard has told his friends about me, hasn’t he! Grrr, it’s pitch black and freezing, the fish are probably sleeping as I haven’t seen them jumping in quite some time… so I guess with this, I go hungry tonight! Argh, I’m so stupid..

As I wade out of the water, heading for the cave, I look up at the sky. It’s astonishingly pretty. I always lived in various cities in my previous life. With light pollution, you could only see the brightest stars in the sky. Right now, however, at this cliffside retreat, all the glory of the night sky is on show. It’s actually an awe-inspiring scene as the stars twinkle, and a shooting star passes overhead..

…Sigh

It’s decided then. Tomorrow I attempt the descent.