Gordan opened his eyes and looked frantically around, the camp was completely dark and both of the others seemed to be asleep. Gordan didn't even take time to wonder why they had fallen asleep and instead looked for the stone which he usually kept in his pocket. He wanted to make sure that it was safe since he had no idea what had happened after he had lost consciousness. The stone however was not on his pocket where it had been when. he fell asleep. He started to freak out a bit, but then he suddenly noticed a strange sensation under the skin on the back of his neck. He felt with his hand and found to his surprise that the stone was now inbeded into his skin. It was an odd sensation to get used to, but not unbearable. He also noticed that he was drenched in sweat from head to toe. Once he realized that a giant headache began to set in. Gordan pressed against his temples to reduce the pain, which worked if ever slightly.
=Sigh=
Gordan felt like he had just been trampled by a legion of horses one after the other. He didn't feel like moving at all, but somthing pushed him to get to his feet and walk over to the dead fire to re-light it. It wasn't like the General to fall asleep on watch, which made him think that somthing must have happened. As soon as the fire started up again he noticed that the world and even the flames were a gray color like time had once more stopped.
"Well looks like you healed a lot faster than you should have. What in the world are you?"
Gordan noticed that the figure was in the physical.
=Sigh=
The figure was sitting next to him snacking on some of the food which had been left out.
"I wouldn't call myself healed, I feel like I'm about to fall apart."
The figure looked at him silently assessing him with cold indifference.
"Well considering what happened that much isn't suprising. By the way you owe me a new house."
Gordan looked at him confused, what happened after the seal had been removed was still a mystery to him, but from the figures tone, it hadn't been a pleasant experience.
"So then, why is the stone in the back of my neck if I might ask?"
The figure didn't look at him and instead continued to eat the leftovers while watching the the flames in front of him.
"Oh that, I graphed the stone into your skin after it evolved, it should absorb all negative effects that you accumulate from using that pesky sacrifice magic of yours."
Gordan was stunned by what he had just heard, the idea of being able to use magic without any drawbacks seemed to be way to much of a dream to be true.
"What's the catch?"
Gordan knew that there had to be some kind of draw back, becouse if somthing seemed to good to be true it usually wasn't. The figure finally turned its head toward Gordan and looked at him carefully.
"You got a minor explanation of the game if I'm not mistaken?"
Gordan nodded, since he had learned some about the game from Zero.
"Well to put it simply, each of us that chooses a fighter in the games is required to assist the participant for the first week of their journey so that they can adapt to a new environment. Unfortunately, due to some unforeseen work that happened to come up, I was unable to assist you for the majority of the time. So I decided to help you out a bit more than is usually acceptable to make up for lost time. First of all the drawback to the stone consumption is that instead of taking physical damage, you will receive it all mentally. While not as devastating it isn't anything to sniff at either."
He took a break from speaking to take another bite of food. He seemed to enjoy the food quite a bit, since it was occupying most of his attention.
"Also you should probably take it easy for awhile, that seal was holding back quite a bit of power which is why you are in so much pain. Your body is having trouble dealing with it's own power and as a result you might find things to be a bit off, so be extremely careful about using your strength because you might over do things. But anyway that's enough about that I need to explain somthing to you really quickly before I head back to work. Due to the way that the last game went a new system has been installed in order to make things run more smoothly."
He waved his hand and a light in the shape of a paper shown in front of Gordan. When Gordan's eyes adjusted he saw that there was writing on the page.
User Name_N/A
Age_N/A
Race_N/A
Affiliation_N/A
Skills_N/A
Titles_Jester
Total Points_100
Notifications_Off
Items_N/A
Gordan looked up from the lighted page at the figure with a look of confusion.
"What is this supposed to be."
The figure shrugged its shoulders and took another bite of food.
"The previous winner requested the addition of this feature since he said that the skill tree was to difficult to understand. It was apparently quite the popular idea on that planet."
Gordan remembered the tree which was in his dream world. he had not really paid that much attention to it, but it made sense that it actually had a purpose.
"Okay, I understand the skill part, but why the other stuff?"
the figure shrugged and finished off the food.
"He said somthing about the page looking to empty without the other stuff, that and this isn't actually supposed to come out for another five years when the game begins, I just gave you the prototype so you can fallow the progress of things."
He clicked the notifications button and it turned from red to green.
"That should help in case anything crazy happens before the game starts... By the way do you have any more food I could eat?"
=Sigh=
Gordan pulled the ingredients out of his bag and began to cook another portion of food for the figure.
"Oh I forgot, I also came here to send you to the place where you were actually supposed to end up."
Gordan frowned and stopped cooking the food.
"That might be a bit of a problem, I am in the middle of dealing with a rather delicate situation and I would kind of prefer to deal with it before leaving, if that's not to much trouble."
The figure frowned as Gordan stopped cooking the food to ask the question, but as soon as he started cooking again the figure went back to a neutral expression.
"Well that might be a bit difficult, since you need to be at the location for at a total of five years according to the rules, which means the longer that you wait the further behind you will be in the game. But I guess I can let you stay alittle bit longer, since it really only hurts you and maybe my reputation, but seriously I don't really have that great of a reputation anyway so what does it matter. Plus I find this food to be quite enjoyable, so I can grant your wish. Though I do recommend that you finish up your business as quickly as possible."
He waved his hand and a small sign popped up on the page in front of Gordan.
Gordan carefully clicked the no option and watched as a small icon appeared at the back of the page in red. It was such an odd thing the page in front of him but it was also quite fascinating.
"So how do I make this thing disappear and re-appear?"
Gordan handed the figure the food which he had finished cooking and looked back to the screen which was quite distracting.
"Oh that's an easy one, all you have to do is think about the page to make it appear, and then think about it disappearing to close it."
Gordan tested this out while the figure happily munched down on the food. It was simple enough to do after he tried a couple of times. But it was also such a weird concept which made him wonder what kind of place the person was from.
"Well then, I think that I'll be taking my leave now, take care. And don't forget to take it easy for the next little bit, I'm not entirely certain exactly how bad the damage to your body is since that's not really my field, but you should still be careful. Bye bye now, I'll try to check in on you when I have time."
Gordan waved as the figure suddenly disappeared. Slowly time began to turn once again, the General heard the fire and turned toward it in alarm.
"When did you get there?"
Gordan shrugged and smiled a little.
"Don't worry about it, remember I'm on watch now, you should get some sleep tomorrow is going to be quite a busy day so you should get as much rest as you can."
The General couldn't tell why, but he felt that Gordan didn't hate him quite as much as he had at the beginning of the day. He sighed and decided that he must have been imagining it. After all, he couldn't forgive himself for what had happened, so how could he expect someone else to forgive him. He closed his eyes and dreamed of days gone by.