As he was falling Murdoch began to think about his family.
About his mother Kate and her smile that seemed to light up the world, about his father william whose bellowing laugh drowned out any worries or sorrows Murdoch had.
About his younger brother James who bugged him over the smallest things yet always managed to get what he wanted in the end.He remembered the family trip last weekend, the trips to the arcade with his friends Arthur and Isaac how they always attempted to break the record on the old pacman machine.
As Murdoch fell he remembered so much about his life including annoying teachers, nice elderly folks he'd met in the street, the old sweet shop he used to visit as a kid.
Some things that murdoch remembered were less joyful and wonderful he'd remembered being in a car crash seeing his grandparents panic as they saw the oncoming truck and then watching onwards as the vehicles collided and before blacking out seeing his grandparents go through the front windshield their seatbelts cut off by stray debris and their scared but loving eyes looking at him knowing they would die before losing conscioussness.
He remembered his dog Rufus with it's golden coat he remembered how it used to jump around and scratch the furniture and pretend to pee on the carpet infuriating his mother, he remembered when rufus was in a field how he would chase anything that moved, running around and barking at every stranger.
He remembered when his parents had sat him and his brother down and given them each a small urn and explained that rufus had died of a heart attack, how his brother had sat there in shock while he had run up to his room and spent days crying.
Muroch remembered everything all of his past crushes the friends he'd mad and then lost the barista at the cafe down the road from his house, and oh his house he'd lived there his whole life he knew every brick and plank in the floor and walls, he remebered sneeking down stairs to try and watch one more episode before his father inevitably caught.
He remembered everything. Murdoch realised he was beginning to lose consciessness from the inertia but just before he did he had one last thought.
'time is precious'
*
Murdoch's eyes shot open with a start. his first instinct was to check if he was still alive putting a hand to his wrist he was able to feel his pulse.
'he was alive!'
murdoch was unsure how he was able to survive what felt like falling hundreds of meters down into the earth. until he realised he still wasn't touching the ground he was floating a couple of feet in the air over what appeared to be a large lake filled with a blackish almost sludge-like substance.
As if the wind keeping him up was waiting for him to notice the lake below him it suddenly cut out and murdoch fell into the substance below him.
He landed into the black sludge that acted almost like a cushion for him and generated no ripples at all through the surface of the lake.
Murdoch felt strangely calm for this peculiar situation and he began to worry that the black sludge was infecting him when all of a sudden a voice appeared in his head.
[Do you want to take the test for power]
almost instinctively he was about to refuse but he remembered the shadows in the palace and how strong they had seemed, then he remembered how frail scared and unable to do anything he was right before he fell, and he realised that even if he made it out of this hole and even if he found his family how long could he keep them safe and alive?
could murdoch even keep himself safe long enough to find them? then he said with a sound of determination "i will take the test" and inside his head the voice resounded.
[first test of power beginning]
the sound of gears spinning began to sound around the room and hatches lifted up from the what once appeared to be solid rock walls revealing pipes that began to churn more black sludge into the room
murdoch heard the sound of grating and looked up to see the hole which he had fallen through getting covered by a round steel plate. he realised he was trapped and began to swim through the sludge that had filled up nearly half of the room by now.
Murdoch spotted one of the hatches that had opened and began to half swim half force his body through the sludge that he now realised was not also filling up the room but was drastically thickening making it harder an harder to move.
As he finally got close enough to the hatch to pull himself in it closed. cursing murdoch began to drag his body forwards towards the next closest hatch but when he was a few meters away from the hatch he just approached it opened again. Murdoch tried to approach several more hatches but the same thing happened each time.
At this point the sludge was just about to reach the roof of the peculiar cave murdoch foun himself in, so he made a last ditch attempt and began to swim downwards in hope of finding something at the bottom of the original lake that was there when he first got here.
Murdoch began to feel pain at first it was just a light pain but then it slowly began to develop into a burning sensation and so murdoch looked at his body to see what was going on and as he looked down he realised that his clothes had dissolved and that the strange black sludge had begun to seep into every pore on his body.
soon the pain grew so great that he could no longer move his body as he was using every fiber of his being to stay conscious.
He saw his veins begin to turn neon purple as they slowly absorbed more and more of the black sludge and the pain grew more and more unbearable. Murdoch began to let out unheard screams of pain that were stifled by the sludge covering his head only to regret them everytime as black sludge began to fill his mouth and seep into his lungs further increasing the pain he felt.
The pain was so great that he began to feel like he should just give up and succumb to it after all he should have died after he fell down the hole, he began to wonder if any one was looking for him after all people had seen him fall down the hole what if his parents thought he was dead, who even knew if his parents were alve anymore.
Just as he was about to close his eyes, murdoch remembered the fall earlier and all of the memories that had resurfaced he remembered his last thoughts before he blacked out and once again thought now 'time is precious' and he'll be damned if he doesn't fight for it, He steeled his mind and fought even harder to maintain consciousness.
After what felt like an age and just as he was about to succumb to the pain and had given it his all the pain began to subside as the sludge around him continued to get absorbed into his body the sludge level in the room began to decrease and as it decreased murdoch was slowly lowered to the ground.
when he touched the floor he immediately fell to his knees and hands and then proceeded to vomit out an almost solid dark puke green substance along with a mouthful of blood, murdoch then collapsed onto his stomach and had just enough strength remaining to turn himself over onto his back and out of the strange substance he had vomited out.
As he was lying there panting his chest heaving up and down and relishing in the joy of still being alive the strange voice from earlier spoke again.
[first test complete, please open your status window to allocate free stat points]
Murdoch thought to himself 'status?' and was shocked when in front of him appeared a blue transparent window.
[Name: Murdoch
Class: warlock of time
tier: low-mortal (unawakened)
level: 1/10
free stat points: 5
-strength: 3
-agility: 4
-dexterity: 3
-endurance: 7
-intelligence: 31
-mana: 112
-stamina: 2
skills: appraise(beginner)
spells: enhance(beginner), mana ball(beginner), time slip(beginner)]
'hmm is this a status window from one of those online novels I used to read?', 'and why do i already have a class and what does unawakened mean?' murdoch's thought began to run wild as he was almost drunk off of barely surviving the previous encounter and the novelty of his current situation.
'why are all my stats so low except mana and intelligence, i mean i knew i was smart but i didn't think i was that smart, and i'm also aware i'm unfit but a 2 in stamina come on that's a bit harsh, also how do i allocate my stat points i mean based off my video game experience when you have a class of warlock you should mostly scale intelligence but because i'm so weak i think right now i'd like to put 2 points in intelligence 1 in stamina 1 in agility and 1 in strength'
As murdoch thought this he saw his free stat points reduce to zero and his stats rise by the amount he wanted them to.
after this had finished the robotic voice appeared in his head again.
[congratulations on awakening your helper has been dispatched]
'helper?'