Thought this was going to turn into a short chapter but. At over 4k words its ok.

I am going to be taking it a bit easier for the next couple days. I will try to at least.

I have written a bit over 34k words of this story so far in ...7 days. Yea probably not that big of a deal. I am sure some of you here write that in just 2-3 days. Probably more. But this is my first story so.. Mehh I figure that the story will end somewhere around 75-85k words . So i am about 1/3 or so of the way done with this first book. Not exactly paying a lot of attention to that. The story will be as long or short as it needs to be.

Hope you enjoy

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Getting the sense that I had somehow been manipulated..Once again. I quickly came to the conclusion that things could be worse. Just Maybe I should shut up and stop looking the proverbial gift horse in the mouth and just go with it. It was what it was and I just hoped that in the long run I didn't get bit while crossing the river with this nest of female vipers on my back.

Shaking myself I broke out of my thoughts and turned my attention back to the ladies in front of me. “Ladies may I have you attention please..” Hearing me they turned and looked at me. “In six months time I will be leaving the village one way or the other. Between now and then I need to Learn my two jobs adequately enough to be useful. I do not know what you all have planed but that is what I am going to do.”

All three of them tried their best to talk me out of leaving but in the end they finally seemed to give up for the moment at least. Noticing that it was actually evening time and Martha with Sara's help had cooked up dinner we all sat down and had a really good meal. After the meal and the small talk concerning recent events and plans I got up to head to bed saying good night to them I walked to my bedroom.

On reaching my room and opening the door I turned and saw Sara had followed me inside. Looking at her and without thinking I said. “What are you doing here?” with a sultry voice and a wink she said “What do you think I am doing here Richard”.. Needless to say I was kind of glad I wasn't really tired that night. Because I sure as hell didn't get much sleep.

Over the next few months my life was like a washing machine.. Doing the same thing over and over. Get up go learn about blacksmithing get a book from Frank and memorize it. Come back home spend some time with Martha and Sara, Rinse and repeat... day in and day out. The only highlights of this time Other than spending time with Sara that is. Was my weekly hunting trips out into the forest.

Nothing really exciting though. Just random critters getting blown away by my rifle. On the first few trips Red came along. Yes he wound up getting killed each and every time no matter what I did. That changed though when I convinced the poor guy to change the color of his damn shirt to something other than red.

It wasn't easy to do the convincing though. His argument was that if he didn't have his red shirt on how would people know who he was?.. He is a decent sort of guy but I think his mother might have dropped him on his head a few times as a baby. Happily after I did convince him to at least try it one time..While it was a close call he succeed on making it back to the village with me without getting killed for the first time in his life. To say that he was happy and his wife was grateful would be saying that the ocean was wet. It really was kind of pathetic in a way. I really did feel sorry for the guy.

All the time I was running around learning my jobs and occasionally hunting the women of the village were scurrying in a tizzy over the coming wedding. I never have been able to understand what a wedding does to a woman. It just isn't natural in my opinion. Thankfully I was a bit too busy to get roped into having to sit around and help make the plans. I was told in terms even a monkey could understand that my input wasn't needed or wanted and all I had to do was show up on the day in question.

Naturally Ben and Frank took every opportunity to give me a hard time about getting “Caught by those infernal Wiman”. Ben actually had me half convinced for a short while that Sara had come to him asking about a Ball and chain to attach to my leg. What made it semi believable was the fact I wouldn't put it past her to actually do that. Yes..She is a bit willful. Thankfully Ben gave the joke away rather quickly. Or I just might have said “Screw this im going home.”

As the days went by my muscles quickly grew from all the hard work in the blacksmith's shop and I would occasionally get blue boxes stating I had gained stat increases. Mainly Strength and stamina while I was at the shop but I also got a few points from my reading activity's. What surprised me the most was how quickly my Memorization skill leveled up. After five months I had maxed it out at level five giving me a 100% faster rate of memorization and a bonus of 200% faster reading speed that showed up when I hit level 5.

To say I was happy about that.. Well let me just say I took the rest of the day off and celebrated by going out and popping a few critters in the head with my rifle. That was a really great day. It would cut down on my training time by a lot.

The day of my wedding Went by in a whirlwind I honestly do not remember much of it other than seeing the love of my life standing before me in a dress that..I am sure would probably be illegal in a few countries back on earth. I do remember being speechless at how beautiful she was.. So much so her father (The village head man) had to ask me more than once the important question.

After that...Well I have been told I drank way too much, Made a fool of myself more than once, and tried to do something that involved a pie, three spoons, my two new knives made out of a gipper tooth and a Firelizard (T-Rex) tooth Ben and Frank gave me as a wedding present. No matter who I asked after that day no one would tell me exactly what I did. They just laugh shake their heads and walk away.

As for my new weapons the T-rex tooth really was too damn long to be called a knife. It was more of a short sword then anything else. Ben had put a really tastefully worked steal handle on both of them making them looked really nice. After Ben was done he had given them over to Frank to enchant. The teeth were already pretty damn sharp before Frank got his hands on them. After he was done though they scared even me.

Frank had turned them into soul bound weapons (How he got some of my blood to do this is still a mystery to me..he's not talking) and on top of that he put a sharpness enchant on them so strong that I could SHAVE steel with them like a hot knife going through butter. He also enchanted the scabbards to prevent my new weapons from simply slicing on through and dropping to the ground. I loved my new weapons.. They scared the shit out of me and I didn't know how to use them but damn I did love them.

I never did have a good track record with sharp things..It never ended all that well. It usually ended with me bleeding all over the place like a stuck pig. But hey! they were great conversation starters and I didn't really need to use them....Right?

The days after the wedding reminded me of all the times in the past I swore off drinking ever again. I figured by the way I felt over those three days if it wasn't for auto healing I probably would have died. Now I am betting your asking yourself a bunch of questions like. What the hell What about Abe Washburn or how about going back to earth and bringing your relatives for the wedding.

Sara's father I found out knew all about what was going on well before even I did. How? I sure as hell don't know.. I only know that the day after me and Sara hooked up the first time he took me out for “THE TALK”. You know what I am talking about. The entire “If you hurt my daughter” Speech. Luckily he approved of the entire affair and it had been at that time I found out he had actually made money on the deal. I turns out the entire village had a betting pool setup on who I was going to pick and how long I was able to resist. Abe won the who and Martha it turns out won the When. Much to the disappointment of many in the village.

As my last couple of weeks in the village were going by me and Sara were having our first (Of many I am sure) arguments. The subject of our argument? She was insisting on following me into whatever crazy shit I got myself into. I on the other hand told her in no uncertain terms that hell would freeze over before I let her follow me into danger. I didn't care that death in this world wasn't the big boogieman it was back on earth. I didn't want her to get hurt.

Needless to say what I wanted wasn't going to fly with her. It got to the point where Martha and Abe sat the both of us down and did an intervention. The end result of which made nether of us happy. Sara would get to come along as a healer and cook. But she wouldn't be allowed to go to Earth when the time came for that. At least not until Earth had been changed to the new reality. I wasn't happy because even hanging back she could get hurt and she wasn't happy because she wouldn't be able to fight.

Somehow I did not think her promises to stay out of any ruckus I found myself in was going to last all that long when the time came.. Win Loose draw..Hell I didn't know what to think at the time. You decide. Getting things packed and ready to go started another short-lived argument. I was happy with the clothes and armor on my back and my weapons in hand. Sara on the other hand insisted on taking enough supplies clothes and other stuff to pack two wagons.

I say short-lived because it was at that point I found out that a persons internal inventory could hold anything and everything one might put into it without any weight. On finding out about this nifty ability I cried foul a little bit. Why if they had this ability they brought out wagon or even owned them? Well the wagons were so they “didn't have to walk” I was told.............I honestly didn't know what I was disgusted with more.. The fact it took me almost six months to figure this CHEAT ability out? Or the fact the villagers only owned wagons so they could go out on joy rides in them.

What was our destination you ask? We were going to be heading to the main human capital. Not surprisingly it was named “New Arkhay”. Making me wonder why it had the “New” in its name. It would be a journey of two to three weeks depending on what we ran into and the road conditions. On a map Frank had enchanted for us he had marked down quite a few hunting spots and also places to avoid.

It was a nifty map, it acted a lot like a palm held GPS. You could put in destination markers and way-points, It also had a cool little ability to make notes about certain areas. Frank had loaded it up with as much information of this world that he had. Scrolling it out I saw it covered about half the known world.

Why New Arkhay? Because it was the closest place I could go to learn magic. New Arkhay was the only place where a person could find teachers ..for a price that is. Being essentially broke I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to pay for magic training but I did know I could figure something out. [Dan: If you haven't noticed Rich wasn't into thinking things through all that much back then]

The day finaly came for us to leave, The entire village came out to see us off. I wish I could say I was a man about it and didn't cry like a little girl, But I can't. Well I could but it wouldn't be the truth and my mother would skin me alive for that.. (Hi mom. Love you!) After most of the crying and other mushy stuff had taken place Ben ,Abe, Martha, and Frank presented us with a small bag of gold coins which promptly disappeared into Sara's inventory. Ben thanked me for all the hard work I had done in his shop, Frank made noises about not being bothered every few days for a new book. Then promptly handed me four huge books to take with me so I could finish my education In enchanting.

I could tell the old guy was going to miss harassing me. Martha and Abe both made us promise to come back as soon as possible. I didn't have the heart to remind them that the only way back to my world was just on the other side of the lake.

Saying our farewells me and Sara headed out.

End chapter 8

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Chapter total word count 4146