'Where Am I?' He looked around, his vision blurry, his surroundings bright.
'Ugh! This headache is killing me!' As he tried to concentrate, his head began to be filled with thoughts, memories, and feelings, his head throbbing heavily.
He weakly laid backwards, his back feeling grass like texture and wet ground.
'Who is this bastard in my head?' He saw memories not belonging to his own, but to another guy, a destitute skinny little boy.
He focused on these memories, strangely beginning in orderly manner from earlier age of the boy's life.
He saw a clear vision, He was living with what seemed to be the boy's parents happily in a little village, spending his days playing around with his friends, smiling happily with one of the girls in the group.
Then another more vivid memory, houses burning, screams of people, his faceless panicked parents screaming at him to run, behind them a shadowy giant figure with sharp teeth and claws standing menacingly, his last vision of the monster swinging its claws and decapitating his father, and stomping on his mother's head, crushing it.
He began to convulse in pain and rage at the memory before his body slumped back down, another clear vision appearing from the unrecognizable memories.
He was standing at the enormous gate of a city, malnourished and barely standing in a long line of people, people like him that were holding the remains of their belongings.
He saw the insides of the big city people in the village talked about, as well as some man talking to them with unnerving smile, the older people looking at the man with hope in their eyes.
Another vision started, he was running in an alleyway, and as he looked back hurriedly, two scar faced men were chasing him, behind them he could see the other kids he stayed with getting loaded to a carriage by other men.
Another vision, he was hiding in a small room of an abandoned warehouse, everything he owned to one side of the small room, his eyes streaked with tears as he shivered in an intense cold.
He writhed on the grassy and wet ground, visions of moments coming clear to his mind swimming with memories.
Another vision, he had become accustomed to the city, running from a stall owner as he clutched a fruit in his hand tightly, the feeling of a smile on his face.
Another vision quickly followed. He was on the ground getting beaten up by older kids, the previous fruit in his hand getting eaten by the biggest kid in the group stomping him to the ground.
Another vision, he lay on the sidewall of an alley, nursing a broken left hand, blood and tears marring his face, he saw someone coming close to him, an older girl that placated him as he tried to run away.
The next vision was the clearest. The girl held his broken hand gently, and her hand began to shine golden white. Touching his hand with her glowing hand, the pain lessened every few seconds, his hand's protruding broken bone moving on its own as it fixed itself.
The vision continued, the girl healed every injury he had, and when she finished, she smiled at him gently, giving him a silver coin.
As she began to walk away, he held her hand, asking her in the first clear words the memories seem to have,
{"Teach me!"}
The girl smiled sadly at him, shaking her head. He couldn't hear what she said, but the next words registered in the memories,
{"If you truly want to walk down this path, search for the guilds."}
The girl then walked away, disappearing into the walking crowd of the main street. He sat there, muttering the words she said to him repeatedly.
He was calm now, as he felt the memories were coming close to an end, another vision started among the hazy fleeting masses of the rest.
He felt older, his level of vision higher than the previous memories, and he stood in front of an inconspicuous building that looked similar to every other building.
He walked to the front door, knocking on it, and waiting for a minute before the door opened wide, a staunch and giant old man standing there with crossed arms.
He said words he couldn't hear, the old man talking back to him, but the HIM couldn't hear them. The old man sighed and let him into the building.
He surveyed the insides. It was a bar filled with tables and chairs, at the corner, a counter, and a shelf holding large amounts of bottles filled with alcohol.
The old man took him to a door behind the counter, and as the old man led the way into a small hallway, he followed him to the end where another sturdy door stood closed.
The old man talked to someone behind the door, and it opened. Another giant of a man stood there and looked at him with annoyance, letting them pass through a moment later.
Behind the door, he saw a bustling place, where buff and skinny men of all sizes and shapes drank beer, played games, ate food, and molested the waitresses serving them before getting smacked in the head by their friends or bodyguards, the later more vicious.
The old man took him to the bigger bar on the side, a scantily dressed woman serving the customers who were ogling her large cleavage formed by her bigger breasts.
He felt himself blushing at the sight of her, the old man introducing him to her before leaving. He shyly looked away from her intense stare, smiling charmingly at him a second later.
She talked to him in a sexy voice, passing him a drink that he couldn't refuse at her words.
The continuously clear vision begun to semi blur, as he found himself laughing and drinking more, talking with other drunkards, then the woman from before leading him by the hand, the other men cheering as they existed to another door behind the bar.
He saw visions of the woman throwing him on a bed, standing there as she took off her short and revealing dress.
He heard grunting and moaning sounds as the woman sat on top of him, moving her hips up and down, the vision ending at the moment he felt releasing.
His dick hardened a little when the vision ended. Before he could have another thought, another clear vision started.
He felt his head aching badly, waking up naked in a bed in an unfamiliar room. He grabbed and put on back his clothes, opening the door of the room and walking through the short hallway back to the bar and restaurant area he remembered from last night.
The sexily dressed woman greeted him with a calm face, making him sit in front of her, sliding a two finger sized metal plate carved with words.
He carefully looked at the metal plate, finding it written with unknown letters, but in what seemed like seconds, they became clear, and he saw what the three lines written on it meant,
[Drius Mengur]
[Rank: 0]
[Job: Cleaner]
He looked back at the sexily dressed woman and asked her to clarify something for her, but he couldn't hear the words she uttered as she stood in front of him.
The vision ended a short while later of them talking, the woman still having a cold face as she turned down his advances.
Another vision began shortly after, He was called from the room he was renting in the guild he was now a part of, the woman giving him a slip of paper that he carefully read,
[Cleaner Job: Need 3 men to clean the remains of a target.]
He looked at the woman, his heart beginning to speed up by the words. She looked at him coldly, pointing to another door to the side, which he walked toward in reluctance.
Behind the door were three men, one sitting behind a desk, the other average looking older men staring at him with dead eyes.
The man sitting began to talk about something, pointing to a map of the city, to a slum house on the outskirts of the city behind the walls.
He followed the 2 experienced men as they took two ready bags on a rack next to the sitting man's chair. They began to walk deeper into the building, existing through a back entrance, the 3 of them running hurriedly toward the location.
The vision sped up. He was standing along with the 2 men on a hidden alleyway, watching the quiet house that was getting battered with rain.
The 2 men said something to him, and he nodded, walking through the muddy and smelly streets to the side of the house, where a wooden window was slightly a jar.
He looked at the crack in the window, and seeing an empty house were no sounds beside the rain could be heard.
He signalled the men watching him, and they came to the house front door, casually opening it and entering it. They signalled for him to come in. He ran to the front door and entered the house, closing the door behind him.
They each lit up torches, giving a preliminary scan of the house, then splitting up to go to different rooms, telling him to check out the third room in the small house.
As he opened the thick door, he was stunned when he saw a room decorated with stacked papers and books, along with weird looking equipment.
He closed the door behind him, carefully walking through the messy room, he curiously looked at the open papers on desks that was filled with circles, triangles and other geometric shapes composed in tiny lines and letters.
He focused on the items carefully put on the biggest table, rings, necklaces, amulets, and a single bracer, along with paper drawings of them filling its surface.
He picked up one of the rings and fiddled with it, putting it in his pocket after inspecting it. He picked up the other rings, necklaces, bracelets, all of which exquisitely made and carved with tiny shapes, stashing them away into his pockets hurriedly.
He picked up the single bracer completely filled with complex geometric shapes, curiously wearing it on his left hand, the 2 metal parts of the bracer clasping on his forearm firmly.
His fingers traced the fine inscriptions of the gauntlet mesmerizingly. Suddenly, he looked back at the door in a snap, hearing muffled screaming sounds.
He hurriedly walked to the door, clasping the handle with a shaking left hand, and he opened it slowly. The house was on fire, a bleeding naked shadowy figure held the throat of one of the men, the other beneath its legs with a crushed head.
The bleeding and shadow like figure stared at him with blood red eyes, snapping the neck of the struggling man quietly.
He closed the door and ran back toward the windowless room instinctively. Instantly looking back to the door that was shattered to smithereens, he put his hands in front of his face to block the wooden chips that came at him fast.
...
He lowered his bleeding hands, his left cheek stinging with pain, his arms riddled with small wooden chips and dripping blood.
He stumbled backwards as the shadowy figure with blood like eyes walked toward him slowly, the house burning behind him. It extended its claw arms toward his face.
He said words, putting his hands in front of him to placate the approaching figure, his heart beating thunderously in his body.
He looked at his left hand instinctively. Blood was soaking the bracer on his left forearm, which began to shine and release blue light. He hurriedly focused back toward the screeching shadowy figure, its eyes filled with visible blood vessels, and it ran at him with full force.
He felt his heart beat for one last time, everything coming in slow motion as the shadowy figure lunged at him, while his left handpalm facing the figure began to shine red, blue light swirling around the length of the bracer before joining the growing red shine floating at the surface of the left palm.
Everything resumed as the red ball fired at the lunging figure, stopping him in its tracks and beginning to burn it in engulfing flames.
He watched as the man like figure burned alive, the flames catching the books and papers laying on the floor, the room catching on flames in a few seconds.
He hurriedly existed the room, staying clear of the writhing and burning figure. He saw the whole house burning down, smoke filing his lungs and eyes.
He looked at the only window of the house, it was in flames like the rest, but he run toward it, throwing himself toward it with his back, the bag he wore on his back sparing him from the flames, he broke through the thin wooden window and to the other side.
He stumbled to get up, running hurriedly away from the burning house. He disappeared into the dark alleyways of the streets, rain battering him, as he ran away aimlessly.
...
He gasped as he sat up in a hurry, finding the glaring of the sun as he opened his eyes fully. He looked around, grassy fields filled 3 of his sides, while his back was the towering walls and the small houses of the slum.
He looked at his hands, scab forming on his injuries, and he looked at the black metal bracer clasped on his left arm.
'...'