The next morning, Cal woke up with a yawn. He was burning with anticipation at the thought of what he and his grandpa would do today. Normally grandpa would have woken him up to train by now, but because he had finished the obstacle course yesterday, he was allowed to sleep in. Cal was about to get out of bed when a few words appeared in front of him.

[you have been chosen]

“What have I been chosen for?” He wondered aloud.

As he began to ponder what it could mean, his mind slowly drifted back to how he would spend his day off, and without his noticing the message slowly began to fade. then it disappeared. He got up and stretched, letting out a sigh of relief as some stiffness left his shoulders.

He then examined his body. He was still the same height, being four feet and two inches. His hair, at least the pieces that were hanging down in front of his eyes, was still the same snow-white color it had been yesterday, and His ears still tapered off to a point a few inches from his head. He looked at his hands and he still had fair skin with a light tan. After looking over himself, he rolled up his sleeping mat and changed out of his nightclothes.

He then looked around his room, it looked the same as it had ever since he could remember. The walls were made up of a mixture of mud and grass that ended up as an ugly brown color, And His roof was a series of interlocking branches, which were then covered with bundles of grass. It wasn't waterproof, and in the winter some snow would fall through, but it kept him warm, for the most part. There was also a single window with a bit of cloth to act as a curtain.

Upon leaving his room Cal noticed grandpa sitting at the table looking at something. he quickly hid it upon noticing cal. Cal was about to ask what it was when his grandpa suddenly started to frown. He abruptly stood up and walked over to Cal, giving him a scrutinizing look.

Cal got a little nervous and asked “What's wrong grandpa.”

His grandpa scratched his head and let out a sigh. “It seems you're finally taller than me though you’re still about half a foot shorter than most humans your age”

cal gave his grandpa a closer look it seemed like he was right. Cal was about to say something when his grandpa continued “Well it's only natural considering that I am a goblin”

cal looked over at his grandpa again. He stood at roughly four feet and an inch. He had green skin that always had a slightly oily sheen and a slightly stooped back. He had a few faint wisps of gray hair on top of his head and coming out of his ears. His ears extended nearly a foot from his head and drooped slightly at the end. He also had a long hooked nose and slightly sunken eyes.

His grandpa had told him that many of the other races considered goblins ugly and almost scary-looking, but cal, having grown up with them, was used to it. Cal began to think about what he and his grandpa would do today. He had never participated in the games the other kids played and after training, his grandpa would go into the woods and not return until almost sundown.

Whenever cal asked about what he did, his grandpa just said he was going to work and refused to elaborate. By the time his grandpa would return it would be past sundown and even though he looked exhausted when he returned his grandpa would always play with him, but Cal could tell he was exhausted and just wanted to go to bed so they never got to play for long.

Today was different though, today they could play until grandpa went into the woods! While thinking about all the fun adventures they would have today cal suddenly remembered the message from earlier “hey grandpa you know how you said that I would awaken in four years“

his grandpa looked at him curiously and answered “no I said that you would awaken when the world felt you were ready but for most races, it happens around fifteen to sixteen why do you ask”

“well this morning some words appeared in front of my eyes and I thought it may have been that” cal was starting to get excited. awakening was a big event in anyone's life, once a person awakened they would have access to their status which was, as his grandpa put it, a representation of yourself if you were a bunch of words and numbers on a screen.

Cal hadn’t been told much about what being an awakened did for a person. Not only would they have access to their statuses, but they would also be able to start gaining true strength through leveling, which was done by killing monsters.

A person could also gain magical skills like spells, but he wasn’t sure how one would go about doing that. his grandpa would only explain simple things to him like levels and stats, but any of the more serious topics would be avoided.

Cal suddenly realized that he didn’t remember what the message had said. it was odd that he would forget something so important, but somehow he didn’t think it was as important as he had earlier. even now the idea that he should be worried was fading from his head. While he was thinking, his grandpa’s face paled and he grabbed cal's arm in a vice-like grip.

“It could be but hopefully not. try opening your status.” his grandpa said worriedly.

cal was confused on why it would be a bad thing to awaken his status but he decided to ask later. He had been planning how he would open his status for the first time for about a year now. Kids weren’t told how to open their statuses just in case they were to accidentally open their statuses without their parents, but cal wasn’t sure why that would be a bad thing.

cal hadn’t been told how to open his status, but he had thought of many ways to try to do it and had decided that he had come up with the best way to do it. Cal held out his hand and shouted, in what he thought was a cool voice, “open status” He waited for a few seconds, with his breath held when he felt a light slap on the back of his head.

He turned to give his grandpa a wounded look, but it turned to an annoyed one when he saw his grandpa’s shoulder’s shaking with suppressed laughter. Which, upon noticing cal’s face was turned into a rather loud chortling.

After a few minutes of reenacting cal’s somewhat embarrassing display, his grandpa calmed down enough to explain “That's not how you do it To summon your status you simply have to will it into existence.” suddenly a semi-transparent blue screen Appeared in front of his grandpa. Cal could only read the word forester before it disappeared.

“Remember what I always tell you about opening your status,” his grandpa asked in a suddenly serious voice.

Cal nodded and answered “never display the whole thing to anyone, not even you”

His grandpa nodded in satisfaction and said “right, you do that because your status tells everything about you from your strongest attacks to your greatest weaknesses”

his grandpa looked cal right in his eyes and started to speak in an oddly distant voice “showing my status to someone is the biggest mistake I have ever made. I still regret doing it almost every second of every day''

there was an odd stillness after his grandpa said those words almost as if the whole world recognized what had happened as terrible. his grandpa seemed to shake off the somber feeling and spoke with a fake-sounding joyfulness in his voice “it would be a great thing if you did manage to awaken though”

his grandpa let out a fake-looking smile and continued “go ahead and try, it won’t be visible to me unless you will it to be so, so don’t you worry about showing me your status for now. You should be able to sense an odd connection In your head if you can find it just try to will something to appear. it is difficult to explain the feeling of willing your status to open but if you can it should feel almost natural”

Cal couldn’t find any sort of connection but he still tried as hard as he could to will it to open but nothing happened. Cal sighed and said in a slightly rejected voice “guess I haven't awakened yet”

his grandpa was about to comfort him when suddenly a series of screams were heard from outside. The two of them looked at each other, then quickly ran to the door. upon opening it they saw a scene of horror. There were at least nine goblins that were lying on the floor either dead or dying each was filled with nearly half a dozen arrows.

Before Cal could do anything, his grandpa grabbed him and dragged him back into the house. He slammed the door and put up the locking bar. He then ran into the kitchen with cal slowly following. Cal was in a bit of a stupor. Those were some of the only people he had ever known.

Admittedly they had rarely talked to him, and he had almost always been avoided by them. but still, he had seen miss Betty and her daughter. they had always been kind to him if a little distant. Before he had a chance to say anything, he was handed two bottles by his grandpa. they were both expensive looking with gold trim around the tops, and cal noticed that his grandfather was holding a third bottle that looked much less ornate.

“Drink those,” his grandpa ordered in a commanding voice. Without hesitation, cal drank the two bottles that he had been handed, one after the other. They burned his throat as he drank them, but other than that He couldn’t feel anything happen. his grandpa made a strangled sound full of both fear and sadness before handing him the third bottle and ordering him to drink.

After drinking it, Cal started to feel woozy and suddenly an odd circular diagram full of complex geometric patterns appeared under his feet. His grandpa let out a sigh and started talking. “We have about a minute until this will teleport you away.”

Cal tried to talk, but he couldn’t move his lips. a moment later he realized he couldn’t move the rest of his body either. His grandfather pulled a smooth silver ring off his finger and slid it onto cals.

“This was the ring I proposed to your grandmother with though I suppose she was dead for many years before you would have been born. The two of us passed it on to our daughter who would have been your aunt if she hadn’t died with your grandmother”

tears were filling grandpa’s eyes as he talked. He wiped them away, then pulled a strange black and red rope off his neck and placed it on cals. It was a rope necklace that could be tightened with two slipknots that were placed across from each other.

“Remember the soldiers who came here are from the kingdom of lee and are at least level 75 I could maybe take one of them, but not that many” his grandpa let out a bitter laugh then continued. “The third potion I gave you will teleport you somewhere safe that is at least 1 hundred miles from here. once you get there look inside the necklace it is a spatial artifact and I filled it with everything I think you should know in case the worst happened.”

he suddenly let out a smile that was filled with both happiness and regret. “Don't worry I promise I will survive and come find you”

his grandpa who had been standing between cal and the door suddenly gasped and fell forward. there was an arrow sticking out of his back behind him cal caught a glimpse of a man with a rattish face, brown hair, and a tattoo of a bird over his left eye.

Before anything else could happen, everything around cal turned white and a few moments later he was lying on the forest floor. A few words appeared in front of cal, and he felt his heart sink upon reading them.

[Threynar Windlab has broken his promise to “survive and come find you”]