I woke up from the void with something in my room. As I opened my eyes, the door was cracked just enough for me to notice. My gray-scale vision showed a new set of belongings on the ground, what looked like another bag of holding, and a rucksack far too small for a regular person.
Then I felt it. Underneath the sheets was a weight- say 80 pounds or so, and between my legs. I was still clothed underneath, thank god, but it felt like there was a comb going over the moose hair on my leg. I froze, pretending I was still asleep, but the thing beneath the covers reacted before I did.
"Woah there! Good morning yellow-skin!" Said a high-pitched voice filled with delight.
A goblin, with black hair, smooth green skin, and decked out in funny-looking armor and huge goggles over her eyes- burst up from the blanket and stood on her feet. Standing at what looked like four feet and ten inches, she had a comb and a magnifying glass in her hands, as well as... a tuft of my hair?
"Hey! What are you doing in my room?!" I asked, both out of surprise and concern given it had been so easily broken into. The lock wasn't sturdy, sure, but there was no way she'd gone and bought a night at the place just to make it past the person at the front desk.
"Relax, relax! I'm just taking samples. You're an interesting tiefling, you know that? Not many I've seen got all the little features you do!" She said, giggling as she hopped off the bed and scooped up her bags in a simple motion.
I was without words, not sure whether to feel insulted or flattered, with her tone it was hard to tell.
"What, you want samples, and that's it? Creepy as all hell breaking into my room and combing leg hair off me." I said, groaning as I fully got out of bed and threw on my undershirt, getting the overall straps onto my shoulders.
She shook her head, laughing.
"No dingus, I need your help. I heard what you and that knight did to those bandits, and you seem plenty capable. See, I've got some things stolen from me as well." Her tone went from cheery to stern incredibly quickly- and given her funny-looking armor, she was smarter than she looked. Much, much smarter.
"Alright, say I help you. What do I get?" I asked, crossing my arms, and looking down at her.
"A friend! The town's been talking plenty about how that knight left right after the job was done. Again, you're capable, and rumor has it you've got some magic up your sleeves. You've got that special spellbook in your bag- I've got some trinkets and tools of my own." She said as a compartment on her sleeve popped open, filled with lockpicks, shivs, pliers, and other tools.
I looked with a raised brow, before leaning down to throw on the remainder of my clothes, before throwing on my armor over the next few minutes. Maintaining conversation,
"This town sure does love to talk. So what you're saying is we'll have an exchange of favors?" I asked, tightening belts and fasteners on my gauntlets.
"Yup. Seems good, no?" She asked, grinning up at me.
I looked at her funny, trying to see what the hell this stranger was playing at.
"I'm going to need an apology for the invasion of privacy, and breaking and entering, but sure. If there's some money to be made in dealing with whoever stole from you, then we can call it even." I felt like sighing again, but didn't want to be dramatic.
"Perfect! I'm Bucket, Bucket Oafcheeks, nice to meet you...?" She said, extending a leather-gloved hand.
"Chagrin. Nice to meet you Bucket." It was refreshing talking to not only another monstrous race, but one who spoke more, and had a good attitude. No matter how strange it was that she came out of literally nowhere, I couldn't complain about someone who didn't intend to steal from me or kill me.
I had my things, my new spells, my new abilities, and some sweet new belongings, and apparently, a new task at hand.
Getting a better look at Bucket, she was somewhat tall for a goblin. This wasn't saying much given she was under 5ft, but she was not a bad-looking goblin at all. Did everyone I met look good? Beautiful by every conventional standard, and her armor didn't hide the fact that she had impressive curves. The leather was tight in areas she wanted to express and provided surprising protection in areas she deemed important. Halfplate, albeit odd-looking. She had a sickle and hammer as weapons at her waist, but, assuming by her appearance, as an artificer, she would have plenty of odd tricks up her sleeve. Getting her as a companion or possible future ally would be useful, no doubt. There was a LOT of utility that artificers could provide. Black hair, straight and down to her shoulder blades, standard. Big, bulky goggles she wore over her orange eyes, likely to shield her, but taking a closer look, they were goggles of night. Curious why someone already bearing dark vision needed to see even farther at night, but I wasn't one to say otherwise. Wearing a bag of holding and a small backpack, it seemed she carried almost everything she didn't need right away in her bag of holding, not unlike me.
We left my room and went down the stairs before making it outside to the morning light. The town smelled like pine sap, likely from early risers over at the mill, with a cool breeze and a partly cloudy day. Off in the distance, I could see storm clouds brewing, which didn't help to brighten my mood. While I munched on some jerky. Bucket was already making her way down the road, headed towards Baduadua.
Baduadua was a neighboring town nearly 5 days away on foot, but was well known for its smithing business, given its proximity to iron veins in the mountain range it was settled beneath. We'd have a long way to walk, but if there was anywhere I could get resources for smithing, it would be there.
Tall trees formed a dense canopy overhead, with few low-hanging branches to cloud vision. Ferns, moss, and sparse shrubbery coated the forest floor, with the path we were on made of red mud. As we got further along the trail, the more iron-rich the soil became. It was as if rust had spread across the dirt like a plague. It was surprising, and even the air smelled like metal. The sheer amount of trees and their density removed any sort of wind, leading to there being a faint amount of mist hanging on the ground amongst the ferns and shrubs. Fallen logs here and there would dot the area, and to make visibility harder, it seemed, the hills only grew steeper and more frequent as we traveled.
I, now with the most wonderful thing in the world, a bag of holding, elected to fly rather than walk. It was easier, it gave me more practice, and I didn't have to worry about those pesky hills. Bucket was walking along, generally unphased by the terrain. Wanting to learn more, I struck up a conversation.
"So, Bucket... what's your story? Who stole this thing we're after from you?"
Her ears perked, but her face soured.
"Some dickhead named Orjorn stole my late master's anvil. I was taken in by a dwarf named Boddlefire when I was kicked from my old goblin clan for speaking weirdly. My master made a lot of enemies, one of which ended up destroying our home. I escaped, but when I came back to recover what I could, the anvil was missing."
It was sad. She had quite a past, and some vengeance to enact. I knew Chagrin could relate- he'd been readily disowned, only to be taken in by the Church of Eldath. Then again, that's where relating ended, since Chagrin was still a part of the church.
Still, it was a quest, and a quest meant progress. Once I gathered enough strength, I could work on my own goal- figuring out how I got here. Soul transfers, along those lines, probably.
"Another survivor in the area told me some Druegar had taken the anvil with his crew, as well as a bunch of the more valuable wreckage. We're gonna go find that Druegar, kill him, and take back that anvil." She continued.
"I'm sorry, that had to be tough. We'll get it back." I said, nodding as I flew a few circles around her as we walked.
"Oh, we will. When I get my hands on that scoundrel..." her voice and face darkened, clenching her fists.
I backed off in terms of distance and looked ahead. We had a while to go, and the day was only beginning.
...
It was around midday when off to the right of the path we were on, I spotted a long gash in the ground. It was ten feet across, but it stretched across the ground for easily a hundred feet. Oddly, a faint green light was steadily pulsing every few seconds from the bottom.
"Bucket, you see that?" I asked, gesturing with my thumb.
"I sure do, let's check it out!" She said, filled with energy.
She started sprinting over, and with a wary look, I flew over with her.
When we got to the edge, we saw it was an incredibly steep ravine- we couldn't see the bottom, only the faint light pulsing up now and then. The walls were jagged, and covered in moss that had grown into the rock. Around the edge, as if someone had taken a torch to it, were scorch marks. They burnt through some of the moss, roots poking out of the rocks, and even seemed to.... carve runes into the stone? The scorch marks remained even when the moss grew around them, it seemed. Something magical had landed here, but what?
I jogged my memory, trying to comb through what I knew about fantasy realms from my time playing, but came up with nothing. The closest I could think of was the aftermath of some sort of magical bout, but no spell would leave permanent marks or runes like this. I went over Chagrin's memory, and something instantly popped up as I took a closer look at the runes.
"Leyline rupture." "Leyline rupture." We both said in sync.
We looked at each other, confused for a moment, before we both grinned.
"You know what that means right?" I asked.
"Sure do big guy. Let's get down there and check it out." She said, already pulling out a block and tackle, setting it up at the edge before she began to lower herself.
I descended with her, we were enveloped in green light radiating from the runes around us on the walls. The ravine stretched quite a ways in either direction, but when we got to the bottom we found a very, very old scene.
A skeleton, half buried in the mud and rock, with clothes tattered and worn. It lay face down, arms above its head as if they'd died from the fall. Their legs were broken, and the bag beside them had its contents either worn away with time or rotted. Some rations gone bad, a rotted waterskin, it just looked like an explorer's pack that got shredded with time and rust. By the skeleton's hands was a wand, split in two, as well as a waterlogged, very delicate-looking journal, leather bound and thick.
Nearby was a plate, made of dark green metal and bearing various runes all across its surface in geometric patterns. It pulsed with the runes on the walls, matching them. It was embedded in the stone on the ground as if it had been placed there.
I knelt beside it, inspecting it more closely, while Bucket checked out the skeleton.
To understand what a leyline was, mana needed to be understood. In most fantasy settings within D&D, and the way it had been taught to Chagrin for this world in particular, mana is a source of magical energy that exists nearly everywhere. Compared to air, it comes in different quantities, densities, and compositions, and unlike air, in different types. Mana can mix, it can move, it can flow, it can change the environment, it can do all manner of wacky things. Another way to explain mana would be like having magic just... around. Mana isn't immediately detected by spells like Detect Magic unless the sheer abundance of it is so high it can be noticed. Sometimes mana can be completely devoid in certain areas, creating anit-magic fields. Magic items generally use the surrounding mana around them to get charges back or use the mana supplied to them to create their effects. Magic items and spells use the mana both within a person and around the caster or wielder to create effects- using the mana like a conduit for itself, as well as a fuel source. Almost as if electricity as I knew it in the modern world could use itself as a wire, allowing it to go wherever it liked. A leyline is a sub-plane that allows a faster flow of mana. Leylines in high-magic fantasy settings are the equivalent of rivers for magical societies and super-highways for mana. They cause various changes to the environment depending on the mana and schools of magic associated with and running through the leyline. This was a green mana leyline- generally assumed to cause growth, abundant resources, huge fauna, hyperactive fauna, an improved chance of connections to the fey wild and other fae creatures, and other 'nature' esc things. Leyline ruptures are when too much mana is flowing through a leyline at once, creating a physical tear in the surrounding area. Leylines flow and travel all across the world, and transition, connect, or gradient into other leylines. There was much more to the 'science' behind leylines, mana, magic, spellcasting, and so on, but for the purposes here, we were sitting inside a leyline rupture.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Based on the clear spellcaster who had tried to get down here, the runes around this area, and the age of the ravine itself- this leyline had been used by a previous civilization. I couldn't read the runes- and based on the weird looks Bucket was giving them, she couldn't understand them either. What I could understand was that they were a language, and repeated the same three symbols over and over. They were carved by hand- and had been used to draw energy from the leyline. This meant, sometime in the past, some sort of civilization had used this leyline, and had been here before. Now, looking at the skeleton, it was safe to say they likely explored this little tear in the ground when it first opened, and died from the fall. Assumably, the rope he'd tried using had corroded away, but it was clear what he was trying to access.
The little glyph plate, only six inches in diameter, was made of mithril, a rare metal with a variety of powerful properties. This glyph plate had been part of a network used to harvest the mana from the leyline, as well as stabilize it. Just like how mana moved around, so could leylines- almost like tectonic plates. Slowly, sure, but when they did move and were being controlled or harvested by something tethering them, it was more likely to cause a rupture. Think of a horse yanking out the fence post it was tied to. This glyph plate must've steadily been growing weaker or had the enchantments used on it faded, since that is the only thing I could deduce which would cause the leyline to rupture. The glyphs on the walls were similar, but given the two had grown slightly out of sync, they needed to be renewed.
I stood up from the glyph on the ground to see Bucket reading through the journal, trying her best to be delicate with the water-ruined pages.
"What's it say? I think I have a solid idea of what this place is, and why he came down here. I want to know if the journal confirms the same thing."
"Hard to tell given most of the ink is run off, but I think it was safe to assume he was some sort of explorer. The best I can make out that's important is something like 'sundering beneath the moonroot tree'? I'd assume it's something related to this leyline beneath a particular tree."
I nodded, picking up the two halves of the wand on the ground.
"I see. Wouldn't be bad to keep our eyes open for it while we travel, no? Are we in any huge rush to go get this Orjorn guy?"
"Not necessarily. I'm always one for learning about cool new things, but I don't know much about this Orjorn fellow either, only that he hated my boss."
"So you're saying if we delay, he could just vanish and we'll have a harder time tracking him down."
"Right." She said, nodding, going over herself to inspect the runes.
"Then I promise not to take too much of your time with our newly shared curiosity," I said, mending the wand back together with the use of my cantrip.
The moss and bramble-coated stick halves fused along the crack before a faint white glow glistened over the wand again. The core was dragon bone, so it was expensive, and the runes along it looked to be elvish. I pocketed it for now, knowing I would need to try and identify it later.
"I don't know how to read these runes, so I'm not sure if we can fix them up all that well. I don't know what deactivating them would do with the leyline, but it could mess up the surrounding area if it were to move." She said, running her gloved fingers along the wall.
"Right. Our best bet would be to follow it, given whoever made it likely built their civilization on it."
"That's true. You already know damn well I'd like to go explore that." Her grin went ear to ear.
I laughed, still looking down at the glyph now.
"I want to take this glyph stone though. The mithril is valuable, no doubt about it. Gimme a second..."
I said, standing up and walking down the length of the ravine until I made it to the end, where there was enough space in the wall without runes. I dug through my bag of holding until I got out my sledgehammer, and began crashing it into the side of the ravine.
The sound rang out for a few minutes as I repeatedly tried getting large enough chunks out. Carrying a big enough rock out, I dropped the sledgehammer back into my bag before going over to Bucket.
"You wouldn't happen to be good with rocks, no?" I asked.
She was raised and taught by a dwarf, as a goblin, and was an artificer. She was bound to, no?
"You're lucky I have an idea where you're going with this. Help me out, would you?"
"Sure thing."
We got to work. She took out a set of smiths tools- hammers, chisels, grinders, picks, clamps, and so on, while I helped and cast guidance on her. It took maybe twenty minutes or so, but soon enough we had a stone plate that looked nearly identical to the mithril one, save for the fact it wasn't a highly valuable magical metal. We took the plate, and after some prying with my crowbar, replaced it with the stone one we made.
We waited.
And waited.
"Did it work yet?" Bucket asked, hiding behind a bit of rock that jutted out from the wall.
"I'm not sure," I said, peaking my head out from my bag of holding on the ground.
A gust of wind burst out from the stone plate we had made, before with it the green light that radiated from the runes on the wall rushed into the plate. It began to glow and beat in sync with the other runes, and as far as either of us could tell, it had worked.
"Wow! That's wonderful! Look at that!" She shouted, jumping out from her hiding spot and jumping up and down around the plate.
I laughed and stepped out of my bag, shouldering it before going over and inspecting it again, now that it was glowing. The leyline looked to have been stabilized, and it was working correctly. What the consequences of this would be I had little idea- when a Leyline is torn from something or begins tearing, it can crea-
RRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMBBBBBBBBLLLLLLLLLE
The sound of rocks cracking, falling, shattering, and crumbling came from down the ravine, as chunks of earth fell from where I had pulled stone from the wall. A huge shape of stone stepped out from the wall, and then an arm, and soon a flat, stone head.
I immediately recognized it, but Bucket did not, her hands already clutching a shield off her back as her goggles flicked down over her nose with a head nod.
"Earth elemental, move!" I shouted, first to react. All the bonuses to my initiative gave me the time to not only acknowledge threats but also identify them in time to react.
This was terrible. Earth elementals were tanky, with a difficult armor class and annoying condition immunities. Not that I could take advantage of them if I wanted to, but the worst thing about this was that it had a burrow speed. Even if Bucket managed to get back onto her pully, if I didn't slow it down in time it could very easily catch up to her and tear her apart. One successful multi-attack from an earth elemental could decimate anyone at our level.
I flew up, straight up, shoving myself off the ground as my wings thrust me into the air. I extended my hands and cast magnify gravity, centered on the elemental.
"Crush!" I shouted, as I clenched my outstretched hands. A purple flare of light appeared on the torso of the monster before it exploded in a burst of energy. All floating dust and pebbles still crumbling out of the wall shot down to the ground hard, as did the elemental, its body seemingly going limp as it sunk, body compressed as the gravel, mud, and weaker segments of dirt in its stony form shrunk.
Bucket still hadn't reacted, her body trembling. In the seconds after I had created it, the spell began to waver- while the elemental would be slowed, it wasn't immobile. It began almost crawling forwards- a back-stiffening sight, I was aptly shown how its movement worked. It practically slithered along the ground, its body shifting as it mindlessly ground forward. Earth elementals could glide through the earth as seamlessly as walking, and while it only progressed maybe fifteen feet towards Bucket, it was still progressing.
As the spell faded, she came to her senses.
"I'll get up, but we gotta get out of here!" she yelled,
"No shit! Get up already!" I shouted, glancing at her before I looked back to the earthen body still steadily making movements. Thank the gods gravity still had means of influencing the chaotic nature of elementals.
Bucket ran to the pully by the corpse, hooking herself in with a quick click, before tapping a spherical orb on her side, covered in haphazard metal plates and glass balls embedded in wood. It glowed with her touch, enshrouding her in a faint yellow glow. She began pulling herself up the wall, making it maybe thirty feet up the multiple hundred-foot ravine.
We had a long way to go. I stretched out my hands again, doing the same as before. I had more spell slots now, and with this being my best offensive option, I needed to do what I could to give us time to get out. While something like fog cloud would be great against something with mortal senses, this thing had tremor sense. Imagine Toph from Avatar, but this thing could still see normally as well. I consumed one of my new second-level slots- and I felt the mana surging through my arms as if I was getting tased- it was short, sudden, and electrifying, but the flare that formed by the elemental was brighter and sharper than the prior.
It exploded around the rock creature, enveloping it. Miraculously, the elemental again was thrust to the ground, body crumpling beneath its amplified weight. I could feel my mana leaving my body in a larger chunk with the use of the spell, but it wasn't dire just yet. I flew another thirty feet in the air- just out to the range I could target with amplify gravity. I was a little over halfway of a third of the way up this ravine- looking up I still felt like it would be painfully long before we made it to the top.
The gravity well quickly faded, and the rocks stood themselves up back into their humanoid shape. It made a noise- like a landslide reverberating from where its throat would be before it slammed its arms into the ground and tore them out again, surrounded by gravel, mud, and stone. Whipping its arms over its head and forward again, it slung the debris in huge blobs towards me. One flew off to the side, crashing and forming a crater amongst the runes to my right- the other landed squarely in my chest, hitting me with such force I felt my ribcage would shatter.
Blood spurted from my lips as I watched the chunks of rock fall for a second or two before they formed into a winged creature directly beneath me, dirt and mud forming into thin and almost bony arms and legs with claws, and a devilish head to top it off. As I coughed I saw beneath me and only a little to my right form two mud-mephits.
Mud-mephits are a weaker form of elementals that are normally the combination of two other elemental forces, creating chaotic little shits that tend to swarm in packs and take on much larger targets or groups with the use of elemental breath weapons or pesky ranged attacks. None of this information was good for me, given I was relying on being out of reach to stave off attacks.
I recovered midair, my wings putting in extra work as I heaved for a breath. Bucket had stopped on her block and tackle, stamping a stake in with her foot to lock it in place. With her crossbow slung under her armpit, she shot at the mud-mephit beneath me in tandem with the orb at her hip, which launched a beam of white energy toward the impish gooner.
Both shots looked as though they were going to go awry- and I had no intention of letting the more potent energy miss like that. With an ability like chronal shift, I'd never actually roleplayed as a character with it in a campaign before- using it myself in what was now my life was something entirely strange. For the briefest of seconds, I could see flashes of multiple timelines where all manner of outcomes arose. My finger flashed orange, and as I swiped it to the side I changed the smallest mote of time- the world around me seemed to blink. Instead of the beam of energy zipping off and landing in a bunch of runes, it went straight into the mud thing beneath me.
It splattered as its form wavered for a second, a hole clean in its torso. The creature shouted something in what I had to guess was either aquan or terran, before its form coagulated again.
The mephits moved. They had slower flight speeds than I- given the fact they were made of mud. Flapping their pathetic excuses for wings toward me, they both unleashed their breath weapons immediately. Cones of dirt, mud, rock, gravel, and sand, blasted toward me from behind and below. I was able to quickly divert away from the one behind, gusting myself to the side, but the one beneath quickly enveloped me. The debris stuck to my armor, my wings, my tail, and my limbs, restraining me in an instant. I felt no pain, but I couldn't move. As I fell, I realized I was sixty feet in the air.
Fuck.
The fall damage could very easily knock me unconscious, and I knew it was unlikely Bucket had any means of healing me. I had a healing potion in my bag, but I hadn't conjured any unseen servants or even my familiar yet to administer it to me. I was as good as dead.
It was a good run though. I'd lived for a couple of days, dealt with some bandits, and made some money. This was how it went for wizards who didn't prepare properly, right? Never knew when danger was around the corner. I could've done plenty to better defend myself, but nope. I guess I got careless. Being in some sort of fantasy world would do that to you. I suppose I had never really taken everything too seriously- sure I had narrowly avoided death, but I guess that was my immaturity telling me there was no way I could die. I was a protagonist of some weird reincarnation story now, right? Who would kill off the main character?
I saw Bucket's face as I fell, glancing at me and her eyes going wide with fear and concern. I could see the runes glowing bright, and I heard the almost slowed-down rumbling of the earth elemental preparing to move again. The maniacal laughter of the mephits above me reminded me of bullies from elementary school with how it was slowed and deeper with the slowing time. I felt my shoulder crash into the ground first, sending pain through my entire body for a split second before I felt my head whiplash into the rock, cracking it open and my vision going black in an instant.
