ƎᴿᴚǾɍ woke up and noted that he wasn't in his room but in fact in the middle of the forest. "Well...this isn't my room," Σʁʀөꭆ looked around the forest, it looked mostly normal, he then looked down at his clothes and saw that he was wearing his everyday wear, a grey turtleneck sweater with black jeans and black dress shoes, he also had a messenger bag slung over his shoulder but no coat. Ignoring that fact he was now in everyday wear and not his pajamas he said, "A lucid dream?..I've never had one before and I'm pretty sure I wasn't watching any documentaries before I fell asleep." He looked around some more and noticed that is was almost night, "Well, if I'm dreaming why not make it morning?"
The man closed his eyes and imagined that is was morning, after he was finished, he opened his eyes but saw that it was still night time and started to calmly freak out, "Umm...I'm pretty sure-" He was cut off with a wave of information coming all at once into his mind, when he recovered from the pain he started to have a panic attack. The information he got was that he somehow got dragged from Earth and got plopped in a different world of a sort—a fantasy world that had magic and mythical beasts to be more exact. The man slowly calmed down and started to make up excuses that he wasn't really in a different world but just in some sort of exotic forest, soon he accepted that he was here and started to look for shelter as it was almost night and he didn't want to take the chance of freezing to death. After wandering a bit, the man found a cave that was relatively safe and looked around for some wood for the fire, after he got everything he needed he started to think about the future, what would he do in the morning? How would he get back home? How can he sustain himself in a world that doesn't follow the laws of science? (when did I write that? its so weird!) Suddenly the man remembered that he had a bag with him and thought that it was probably a good idea to see what was inside of it but when he opened it, he just saw black. The man hesitantly reached his hand into the bag and a see-through screen popped up, it held another set of clothes, a YETI water bottle, his phone, some coins you see in a fantasy world, and some food. The man told himself that he was now in a fantasy world and that this was normal, he sighed "Whatever," and took his hand out of the bag and closed it then slumped back onto the cold, hard cave wall. Right before he was about to fall asleep a person suddenly popped out nowhere.
"Yes! I finally got through!" The person who just appeared and celebrated a bit then remembered what he came here to do. "*clears throat* You are Ǝɍʶoʳ right?"
"Uh, yeah…" 'what the f*ck?'
"Good!" The man crossed his legs and started floating. "Right, I should start explaining. So, you know why you are here and what this place is because of the little piece of info I gave you but let me explain in more detail. You are on a planet named Arues and in The White Ebony Forest in the state of Uccoghar. This world acts like the RPG games we have back on Earth so you have the usual inventory, status screen, etc...Now, any questions?"
The man watching the other person float raised his hand and said, "Yeah, who the hell are you?"
The one floating chuckled and said, "Well, it depends on who you ask so…"
"Well, we have time so..." The man sitting down waved for the other one floating to continue.
"*sigh* Fine. If you ask someone in this world I would be called a hero and be worshiped, but if you ask someone on Earth who I was they would answer that I was a good friend...Anything else?"
"...I meant your name."
The one floating stared at the other then started again, "Well...here I am the hero Gabriel and on Earth, Gabriel Diggory."
"Ah, so can I call you Gabe?"
Gabriel's eyes flickered with sadness for a split second then said, "Of course! Ah! I got an idea, why don't you change your name? When I was alive I wanted a cool name but I missed my chance of getting one but you can get one!"
"Back up, back up, you said when you were alive? Are you dead? Are you a ghost?" Everything else Gabe said after that didn't register in ɆℜӨʴṞ's mind.
"Hmm? Ah, well that's confusing even for me but...well...I guess you can say I'm in limbo." Gabe did a little spin in the air and landed upside down while explaining.
"So you're dead but also alive." The man said, trying not to get distracting by Gabe's acrobatics.
"Yeah…" They both fell silent and after a couple of seconds Gabe spoke up, "Are you going to change your name now?"
"What? Oh, yeah, just let me think for a bit." The man got caught off guard but then composed himself.
Gabe gestured his arm and said, "Take all the time you need." He got answered by a small "mm" as the man sitting on the ground started to think. After a minute or two the one on the ground asked, "Hey Gabe?"
Gabe jumped a bit as he was not expecting a loud sound, "Uh, yeah?"
The man looked up, "What's your favorite thing?"
"Like...what I like to do?" Gabe flipped back upright.
"Yeah,"
"Hmm...well, I like to look at the stars, or sometimes when I'm really bored I like to go to different planets." Gabe thought for a moment and answered slowly.
"Wait you-" The man cut himself off and continued, "-eh, whatever, so you're an astrology nerd huh?"
Gabe scanned the man on the ground, "Guess so, even before I got to this world I always loved to look through a telescope at the night sky and see the different worlds that were so close, yet so far away…" Both of the men fell into silence but one of them suddenly said, "Oh! If you ever defy death and become immortal, why don't you travel to planets with me?"
The man on the ground flinched a tiny bit when he saw Gabe's smile, it was filled with sadness. 'He must still miss Earth, after all, he was dragged here without his consent too.' For some apparent reason, the man didn't want to ever see Gabriel sad ever again so, the man smiled and said, "Sure!"
Gabe chuckled and joked, "Oh? Well, now I need to find a way to kill you soon."
The man jolted up and yelled, "Hey! I thought you didn't want me dead!"
Gabe smirked, "Well, I change my mind then,"
The two men bickered for a while until, "Oh, you are insufferable!" The man the was on the ground stood up a long time ago as he and Gabe argued.
With that, Gabe burst into laughter, after he calmed down he asked, "Anyway, did you come up with a new name?"
The man who was now sitting down pouting in a corner looked back up, facial expressions changing, "Oh yeah! It's Cosmo Ipomoea alba." Cosmo faced Gabe.
Gabe raised his eyebrow, "Why have a poisonous flower as your last name?"
Cosmo scratched his head, "Dunno, it was my favorite flower…" He trailed off as he suddenly felt really tired.
Gabe looked up to the sky and looked back to Cosmo, he smiled, Gabe said at last, "Well, it's past midnight and you're really tired so I'll take my leave," Gabe waved but then, "Oh! Wait, can I have your phone for a second?"
Cosmo, half-awake, got his phone and handed it to Gabe and he did something before placing it inside the now sleeping Cosmo's bag. Then he disappeared. When Cosmo woke up it was almost noon, he sighed, and remembered that there was some food in his bag so he ate that, after he was finished he nearly had a heart attack when his phone rang he looked at it and it was a new text message from Gabe, it read, "You should start heading towards a town now, you should be able to see a town north of here on your phone, have fun~"
Cosmo nearly smashed his phone because of the cockiness radiating off of the text. Cosmo sighed and opened the map and set his GPS to the nearest town, Omevar, and started off. A bit after Cosmo found a road, then he got a call from Gabe,
"Why'd you call?"
"Not even a, hello? Wow, I'm hurt."
"Just-I'm just...I'm still trying to wrap my head around what sh*t I've gotten myself into."
"Strange…"
"Hmm?"
"Nothing, now I didn't get the chance to tell you this yesterday but, remember that I said that this world is just like an RPG game?"
"Yeah?"
"Why don't you try saying Status?"
Cosmo was silent for a few seconds before screaming a little too loudly, "...oh, oh! That's right! Status!" A similar screen that popped up for the bag also popped up but instead of boxes to store stuff in there was a mini version of Cosmo to the left which also had a couple of boxes to put armor, weapons, etc... and a list of his abilities to the right. Right now on the left side, he had no armor or weapon box filled and the only extra thing that was filled was for the bag. Now for the right side, it stated:
Name: Cosmo Ipomoea alba
Race: Human
Class: Magician
Lv: 2
Hp: 30/30
Mp: 100/100
Sp: 50/50
Abilities: [Lv.1] Cold-blooded (able to keep cool in spooky situations; is more resilient to mind control), [Lv.5] A**hole (able to wiggle out of their way out of difficult situations due to being a slick a**hole), [Lv.1] Light affinity (able to use magic), [Lv.1] Dark affinity (able to use dark magic), [Lv.1] Ying-yang (boosts everything for a certain amount of time as the person can use both and dark and light magic).
Cosmo nearly fell off the road as he was preoccupied with reading, "Um, this is nice in all but I have a couple of questions."
"Lay it on me."
Cosmo hesitated a bit before saying, "Oh boy, okay, first of all, why am I on level 2? Aren't you supposed to start on level 1?"
Gabe hesitantly answered. "...you survived being transported here."
Cosmo tripped, "Wait, I could have died coming here?!"
"Apparently…" Gabe said quietly.
Cosmo stopped walking suddenly and shouted, "What do you mean, apparently?!?"
Gabe laughed a little bit before saying, "Well, I learned that after I died so…"
Cosmo sighed and then started walking again, "Whatever, uh the second question is...what's up with one of my abilities?"
"Which one? I can't see your status screen."
"Ah...[Lv.5] A**hole (able to wiggle out of their way out of difficult situations due to being a slick a**hole)."
Gabe was silent for a bit before bursting out laughing, "You…*sharp gasps for breath in between laughter* alright, alright, *exhale* okay. Now that's probably because of how you were when you were on Earth." Gabe was still dying on the other side of the phone even after he finished talking.
"What?! I wasn't an a** when I was-wait, no I wasn't an a** that often."
"Well, (Cosmo could hear Gabe shrugging on the other side of the phone) the system has spoken and it says that you are an a**hole." Cosmo chuckled as he knew Gabe was messing around.
Gabe talked more about what this place was and what Cosmo should do, "You see, you have two paths to take-well three if you count dying but anyway, one path is leading a normal life which, I would very much not like it as I would not like to be left in eternal limbo alone, anyway, the second option is leading a hard life of an adventurer and maybe being able to aid me with not being bored all the time but… it's your choice."
Cosmo started saying, "My dear friend-" but got cut off by Gabe saying, "No, no, don't ever say that again."
Both Cosmo and Gabe burst out laughing it took a little bit for them to calm down but when that happened Gabe said to hide in the trees so he could give Cosmo something.
After Cosmo found a hiding spot he asked, "Why couldn't you just have given it to me while I was on the road?"
"Well," Gabe said as he appeared in front of Cosmo, ending the call, "I might be seen by people and I bet you don't want to deal with people asking you repeatedly if they could see the great hero, Gabriel~."
"..." Cosmo said nothing as he was trying so hard not to punch the person-ghost-thing that was in front of him.
After, uh-that moment, Gabe asked Cosmo for his phone. "What are you going to do with it?"
"Destroy it."
Cosmo paused for a second before, "WHAT?! No!" but Gabe already had destroyed Cosmo's phone. "Why?!"
"Relax, you wouldn't be able to use it in about an hour." Gabe started to get something from his pocket.
"But it still, I could've acted like a-"
"-Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you'll like a piece of metal that doesn't do anything." Gabe cut Cosmo off and handed a fancy looking ring. It had a red gem in the center of the gold-colored metal,
"Is this real gold or?..." Cosmo trailed off.
"It's real, but the function if it is so much better than it's pri-iii-ce." Gabe glitched out for a second but showed that he didn't notice it.
"Umm," Cosmo on the other hand saw it but decided to not say anything, "What's its use?"
"It's a magical device that allows the ussss-er to talk to some-someeee-one that also has a ring…"
Cosmo looked at Gabe in the eye and said, "So it's just a phone that doesn't have all the fancy apps in it…"
Gabe rolled his eyes and said, "Shhhhh-ut up, it'll also llll-ee-t you look normal also, because you're a www-izz-ard you're gonna need this." Gabe handed Cosmo another magical object and this time it was two bracelets, one white, one black. "They're wands, yyy-ou put one on each hhhhaa-nd."
"Ah, okay." After Cosmo put them on he asked, "I've been meaning to ask…"
"Yeah?"
"You've been...glitching out? Is that the word?"
Gabe nodded, "Yeah, I kk-now, it's hard being visible and bee-ing able to give yyy-ou things. I'm going to nnn-eed to rest an lll-oo-nng time after this.
"So-" Cosmo started to say something but was cut off by a cry of help.
"S-SOMEONE HELP!"
Gabe glanced at Cosmo and said, "Wanna go help?"
With hearing that Cosmo started to slowly inch away while saying, "Ah-well-you see, I haha...I'm sure they can handle themselves, no need to involve myself in their fight, haha..."
Gabe sighed and shook his head, "Coooo-me on, it'll be a great way to tttt-est your new skills."
Cosmo paused and said, "Ah, no. I can do that on my own time, I don't want to go barging into every fight I stumble across."
"How is that going to hhhhh-elp you if you run away from evvvvv-ery fight?!"
"It's going to help me stay alive!" Cosmo snapped back.
Gabe was about to say something but then shook his head then said, "If you're not going on your own accord then I'll just teleport you to the fight."
"Arrggg..." Cosmo groaned then said, "Fine. Alright? I'll go."
Gabe smiled and said, "Good, if you had declined I would've jjjj-ust teleported you into the middle of the fight with-without telling you how to use magic." Cosmo got in a little, "what!" before Gabe started up again. "Now the magic yy-ou need to worry aa-bo-uut is really sii-mple, it's all about imagination th-he clearer you imagine it, the str-stronger it is."
"Wait, but how am I going to use it?"
"Huh?"
"Like...like aren't there supposed to be set skills I have?"
"Oh, no, your magic just moves to your will, there are some types of magic that have set skills but you don't need to worry about that. Now I'm going to tt-eleee-port you near the fight and I'm going to sleep for a lo-oooong time." Gabe snapped his figures and Cosmo was now in a different part of the forest but now the fighting sounded very close but before Gabe said goodbye he said something to Cosmo then disappeared.
Cosmo looked at the fight to see what he should do. There were two women in the middle while four adventurers surrounding them. Cosmo decided to use light magic like a little lighting bolt so he imagined a beam of light coming out of his hand and hitting the two women in the middle, the image was a little fuzzy so it wasn't too strong but it was strong enough to let the group of adventurers finish off the two Skinwalkers in the middle.
After defeating the two monsters the swordsmen of the group looked to where the beam of light came from and when he found the person who shot the beam of light, he went up to Cosmo and said, "Thanks, we were in a pretty tough spot epically when they started to yell for help."
"Yeah," The archer of the group walked up, "We thought that some other person would help the two Skinwalkers."
The swordsmen asked, "How did you know that they were Skinwalkers anyway? We were able to tell because we were lucky enough to see them in their true forms."
Cosmo thought back to what Gabe said, "Oh! Just saying, try not to fight the bigger group, you'll regret it if you do."
Cosmo smiled and tapped his head, "Intuition."
The swordsmen laughed and extended his hand, "The names, William, I still haven't expressed how much we thank you."
Cosmo shook William's hand and said, "Cosmo, nice to met you."
By this time the whole group had already gathered around Cosmo and the mage of the group stepped forward and said, "You're a light mage right?" Cosmo nodded.
The archer spoke up, "A light mage? Whoa, that's rare, it's not every day you get to see one."
The mage held out his hand and when Cosmo shook it, said very fast, "My name is Oliver if you're traveling to Omevar, we could accompany you there and if it's okay can I ask some questions? Like how-"
William cut Oliver off and apologized, "Sorry, he's just very excited to see someone who uses light magic but! If you are going to Omevar, we could come with you if you don't mind."
Cosmo thought for a bit before saying, "Sure, I also have a couple of questions to ask."
The archer jumped out of nowhere and said, "Awesome! Let's go now, we already got everything from the monsters."
The group of adventures and Cosmo started off talking most of the way also introducing themselves, the swordsmen is William, the archer is James, the mage is Oliver, the healer is Sophia, and the Spearmen is Harper.
When they had finally reached Omevar, William said, "Well, this is Omevar, it looks small from the outside but it's big once you are inside."
Once they finished the search at the gate, they walked in and then Oliver said, "It was a pleasure to meet you Cosmo, if you need anything from us then just find the guild and ask for us." Then they all said their goodbyes.
It was noon when Cosmo got to Omevar and because he barely ate anything for breakfast and he walked about a mile, he wanted food. Cosmo decided to look for something to eat before doing anything else.