The girl that I had rescued from the goblins and who I had told that I wasn’t from this world was freaking out. I guessed it was from seeing my spell list with necromancy listed on it. I hadn’t even bothered to dig into what they could do because I hated the idea so much. Yet, just having those spells on my list made her think that I was going to kill her.

I stayed sitting right where I was. The last thing I wanted to do was tower my 6-foot 4-inch self over her 5’2. It would set off all that flight or fight part of her brain even more. So speaking in a slow, soft cadence, I said, “Lannah, I am not a necromancer; you saw my stats; you know I am an Enchanter and a Linguist. I have some spells that were given to me that I never asked for, but I am not a necromancer.”

“You raise the dead! Doesn’t matter what your class is, it is what you have done. You are one. I’ll do anything please don’t turn me!”

“I have never raised the dead.”

“Yes you have!”

“No, I haven’t I have the spell but I have never used it!”

Lannah was getting more hysterical. It didn’t help that she stumbled out of the area of the lean-to, and her debuffs doubled in strength. In between her ragged breaths, she kept accusing me. “It would be level 0 if you learned it from a book. It is level one which means you have used it at least 5 times!”

I sighed and stayed on the ground sitting with my legs crossed. “I had the spell forced into my brain a few nights ago. It wasn’t the most pleasant thing and if I could I would get rid of the spells because of the foulness that I feel on them.”

“What do you mean forced into your brain? Are there other necromancers here?”

“I told you I was brought here, well either the guy who brought me here or some super powerful clerk has to answer questions I ask. I asked him where my class memories come from and next thing I know he has me view the life of the first guy to learn to imbue power stones. Which turned out to also be the first necromancer. When I woke up I had those spells and a ton of memories that I had to deal with.”

She lowered her hands but still looked at me with fear and anger, “I don’t believe you.”

“Okay so what do I need to do in order for you to believe me?”

“I don’t know. Necromancers are evil, they twist death.”

“I am level zero, you know that. You saw my stats. Even with those spells you know that something is odd with me. I showed you my stats so that you would believe that I’m not from here.”

Lannah visibly calmed down. I watched her take a deep breath, and then she came back under the awning. When she stepped back in the slight wheezing that she had left and she stood back up a bit more.

“You are a level zero which is odd enough that I should at least hear you out. You did also save me and are healing me, so I guess you are not able to turn me into a zombie.

I spent the next few hours telling Lannah the whole story. I likely over-shared because I talked to her about Earth and my life growing up. I told her about how I showed up here and the dog that chased me off from whatever it was that was still on the ground. I told her everything.

She was a great listener. She would ask the occasional question, but for the most part, she just let me tell her my life story. Mostly my life here. I told her about my dreams and how they seemed to all be tied to one guy that was a wild human, and I told her about Sam. I told her all about him and how I was glad that she was here now because I wouldn’t have to ask him questions. She could just answer for me.

It was a great two hours, that is, right up until I told her about the necklace of cores. Then she stopped me. Her eyes wide.

“You are telling me that you have an item that can make cores?” She asked me.

“Yup, Sam gave it to me as compensation for something jacking up my class. He calls me broken but that because of the rules I had to be given something and this was the thing they gave me.”

“Can I see it?”

“Sure!” I said as I pulled the necklace out of my tunic. I pulled it off and passed it over to her.

She rolled the necklace around in her hands. Her eyes were transfixed on it as she tried to understand what it was. I watched a confusing set of emotions ride through her face. Then she held it back out to me.

“Arn, I believe everything that you have told me. Even with how strange it all is. That necklace is a godly level item and someone is going to end up killing you over that if they know you are level 0. Never, tell anyone about your level or that necklace. If the wrong person finds out about it then well. It will be bad for you.”

“Well, I think that you can help fix the level zero thing once we are safe enough. All I need to do is learn to read and then I can use those books and get my class leveling right. With how quick it is to level skills then I should get to adult quickly.”

“I wish I could help teach you to read. From what I saw that is the thing that is holding you back. I just don’t know what all needs to happen to trigger that skill. I have been reading since such a young age I don’t remember what my parents did to get it for me.”

“That’s no good. At least we can find someone when we get to town. I am guessing we will set out once you are healed up.”

“Yeah, I am thinking we are going to need to head downriver. I just hope it is not too far before we find some place I can send a message to my father. Once that happens we can figure out how to get back to Essex. He will want to meet the man that saved his favorite daughter.”

Lannah and I started to talk after that. As we were talking, I was working on gear. I had things that I needed to get ready if we were making a push to get to a town. I was excited to be leaving. I had known that I needed to be with other people from the time I woke up here, but sometimes the progress was slow. Now that I had someone else with me, I felt a renewed drive to find others.

As I worked, she just sat there drinking tea and watching me. She would answer questions I had but wouldn’t ask anything while I was putting runes on something. It was nice to have someone that could tell when to shut up.

I learned that her dad ran the most prominent adventurers store in Essex and had about two dozen other stores. The nation she was from was called Cloudia. Essex was built around a level 10 dungeon. It was next to the capital of Cloudia. However, as the name of the nation implied, it was in the clouds.

The city of Essex sat underneath the royal city of Cloudia. It was both a buffer city to the dungeon and a merchant city. Cloudia was half the size of Essex and was anchored in the heart of the city. To move from one to the next, you had to use magic to fly up. This kept the upper upper class much safer.

In the past, the royal city would float around the area when the nation went to war. It was a scary thing to have a five-mile-wide fort drop rocks on you. Magic or not, it would mess up your protections and cause havoc. The main reason that Cloudia wasn’t a larger nation was simply the mountains around it. The royal city couldn’t gain enough elevation to get over them, and so it ruled where it was supreme.

The important thing that I got out of her was that Wild Humans were known to be northwest of the kingdom. By northwest, I meant we, my people, were past the neighboring kingdom of Brire. Wild humans were known to guard their homeland with a reputation for fierce fighting.

So it seemed like we knew the direction to go to get her home. She felt like they had moved north when they captured her, and my people were northwest.

As we talked, I finished up two more weapons and the cores to go with them. Lannah was surprised that I would push myself to the point of passing out to create the cores. I didn’t feel like telling her that I still couldn’t figure out how not to.

Weapon core created

Weapon core!

Max level 5

As your Weapon levels its helpfulness increases.

General

Showing up in all Orange.

Arn's Magical Iron short sword of rotting fear

Level 0

Type Weapon core

Class Enchanted uncommon

Durability 100/100

Weight 4 lbs

Length 20 inches

Weapon type: Cutting and impaling.

Damage: 1-3 cutting or impaling, +1 magical

>Growth

To level your weapon you must provide for it proper care and material.

Metal 0% Mana 0%

>Traits

These are the abilities or traits that your Weapon has.

Durable- Your weapon is durable, it will not wear out from normal wear. Durability will only decrease with targeted attacks. Rotting fear- Your sword has been enchanted with Rotting fear. This will do 2-10 mixed rot and festering illness and magic damage to the target when activated. All strikes will cause a mild fear debuff of 2* the number of successful strikes in the past 5 minutes. If the fear debuff hits 100 then an aura of fear will emit out 5 feet from the sword until no successful strikes have occurred in five minutes. This sword has been Imbued with power and can hold up to 30 mana. It can recover 8 mana every day on its own.

________________________________

Weapon core created

Weapon core!

Max level 5

As your Weapon levels its helpfulness increases.

General

Showing up in all Orange.

Arn's Magical Iron short spear of Ice

Level 0

Type Weapon core

Class Enchanted uncommon

Durability 100/100

Weight 1.5 lbs

Length 3.5 feet

Weapon type: Impaling and slashing

Damage: Impaling 3-6, Slashing 1-3, +1 magical

>Growth

To level your weapon you must provide for it proper care and material.

Metal 0% Mana 0%

>Traits

These are the abilities or traits that your Weapon has.

Durable- Your weapon is durable, it will not wear out from normal wear. Durability will only decrease with targeted attacks. Ice strike- Your Short spear has been enchanted with Ice strike. This will do 2-10 mixed ice and magic damage to the target This Short spear has been Imbued with power and can hold up to 25 mana. It can recover 2 mana every day on its own.

That night Lannah and I both took turns sleeping. In the past, I would just sleep through the night as I would need to sleep no matter what. However, I had been taking my raised camp to be the thing that kept me safe.

However, now that we had goblins actively hunting us and a second person, we could take turns sleeping. It wouldn’t slow down her recovery too much since she had gotten a nap before. It would, however, give us a bit of a warning if we got attacked.

I took the second shift as I figured it would be better for her to just sleep till she woke up. During my watch, I learned some more about the goblins that wanted to make my life end. They could see at night.