"Wake up."
I felt a rough shaking on my shoulder. The sensation annoyed me and I tried to shake it off. After thirty-ish hours of overtime this week, my boss could afford to let me take a little nap at my desk.
"I said wake up!"
The booming voice echoing in my ear wasn't that of a preening office manager with pretensions of glory. Instead it was a deep rumbling that oozed authority and strength. I peeked open an eye to see who was trying to pile more work on my desk.
"Enough lollygaging, youngster. It is time for you to wake up for the ceremony."
What met my eyes was not that of a corporate ant pushing another fulfilling, but ultimately meaningless, task onto my work load, but that of a figure who could only be described as a fantasy dwarf. Around four feet tall, stocky figure with muscles for days, and a gray beard that was larger and thicker than an unabridged encyclopedia.
"Hmm?" I had no clue how to respond. This was not like anything I'd seen before in my life. As I raised a hand to scratch my head in confusion, I took note of my hand, or rather, the reduced size of it.
Instead of the masculine adult hand I had grown used to, my appendage was miniscule and child-like. A quick glance up and down my form revealed that the rest of my body was similarly childish.
Ok, who spiked my coffee?
However, I couldn't puzzle over this for long. The grey bearded figure grabbed my shoulder and pushed me out of my chair. "Hurry up! We will be late for the Naming Ceremony, and I have not been late for over a hundred years."
There was no chance for me to ask any of the million questions racing through my head. When I opened my mouth, the old figure overruled any and all attempts to speak. "Silence. There will be time to talk when your beard has grown in."
He then began monologuing.
"You are five years old now, my contract with your father for your safekeeping is about to come to an end. You will be handed over to the care of your father and formally introduced to the clan. From there, instructors will guide you for the next twenty five years when you will have the opportunity to be ranked as an adult among the clan." From there he commenced on a comprehensive explanation on what I could expect. But the overload of information caused me to zone out and focus on my internal questions.
Questions such as trying to figure out what this place was, who this figure was supposed to be, who I was supposed to be, and if I had been reincarnated or if someone had spiked my coffee with some really potent stuff. If it was Dan from accounting, then that rat would get some serious payback when I woke up. Maybe I'd push a hundred back to back updates and forced reboots to his computer.
Eventually we reached a large stone door that was intricately carved with more bearded figures and lots of hammers. Guarding the entrance was a pair of guards wearing plate armor that looked like it was from a fantasy show, and bearing oversized battle axes on their belts.
"Halt and state your business." One of the bulkier guards barked at my guide.
"I am Elder Glorisgreag Snowminer of the Goldshield Clan, here to present the Thane's son to our clan for his Day of Recording."
"Enter, Honored Elder. May the youth you have guided through the perils of infanthood reach adulthood and bring glory to the clan."
As one, the two guards opened the stone doors and stood aside at attention. Revealing a long stone hall where over a hundred stout figures dressed in ceremonial garb paused in their conversation and turned to look at me.
I was propelled forward by the burly hand of Elder Glorisgreag, who followed closely on my heels and made sure I didn't pause to look around. Eventually I was standing at the head of the hall before a man wearing particularly fancy clothes with a gold circlet on his head. At the prompting of the elder, I was forced to take a knee before him.
Elder Glorisgreag saluted the man with the circlet and spoke in a reverent tone. "Thane Lonni Bonesmasher, I have fulfilled my oath. Your progeny has survived to his Date of Recording. I, in full view of the Goldshield Clan, hand over your son. May he bring honor and glory to our clan." He then bowed slightly and sat down on a nearby bench.
A few tense minutes later, the person who had been addressed as Thane Lonni addressed the hall. "Dwarves of the Goldshield Clan, I present to you my firstborn son. He will be recorded in the Clan's Book of Records as Mogrim Lonnisson. Look at him well, for he will be tested and forged by the Age of Judgement. The third one this world has experienced since the founding of the dwarven kingdoms."
Thane Lonni's speech became very complicated, full of self aggrandizing compliments for the clan and the dwarven High King. It boiled down to a well rehearsed tale of messengers from the gods delivering judgement upon the people of the world of Ranov every 500 years. These messengers weakened the magic in the air and spawned Hell Portals that spewed out endless swarms of demons. Apparently there were still surviving hordes from the last Age of Judgement that made life on this world very difficult, especially here since this city was on the front lines against demons who remained from the previous Age of Judgement.
During the speech, I was, for lack of a better term, freaking out out. I had always been a minor fantasy nerd who loved stories with magic, dwarves, and demons. Now I was going to experience living one of those stories! Unless I was dreaming all this due to spiked coffee, but that was seeming less and less likely due to the complexity and worldbuilding. There was no way a dream could be this intricate.
"Young dwarf." Thane Lonni's stern tone startled me from my inner nerd-fest. "Place your hand on the Oath Stone and speak the oath that will bind your fate to the clan."
A heavy boulder covered in glowing runes was carried into the hall by straining young dwarves pretending it wasn't heavy and placed off to the side. I gingerly placed my hand on the rock and excitedly tried my best to feel the magic that undoubtedly flowed through it.
"Repeat after me." An old dwarf cracked open an even older book and began reading off an ancient oath. Which I dutifully repeated. "I, Mogrim Lonnisson, do hereby pledge my life to the Goldshield Clan. Tying my fate and honor to that of my clan, and swearing to uphold said clan through honorable actions and deeds of merit. Above all, even if this goes against the wishes of my clan, I vow to serve and obey the High King without the slightest delay or reluctance. Until a glorious and honorable death relieves me of my duty."
When the last word of the oath was spoken, the Oath Stone hummed and glowed slightly brighter for a moment. The book bearing dwarf nodded approvingly. "Dwarves of the Goldenshield Clan bear witness to the oath taken by the next Thane of our city. May he one day rule with honor for many centuries, and fight valiantly in the Throng of the High King."
Over a hundred dwarves held up their beer mugs and cheered a toast to me.
As the waves of sound washed over me, I realized that the person I had been before, John Smith, a friendly office worker who could do a day's worth of meaningless tedium in an hour, was no more. Now I was Mogrim Lonnisson. Firstborn son of Thane Lonni Bonesmasher. Dwarf serving under the High King. And I couldn't be happier about it!
Now I just needed to find out what all that meant. I was certain that I'd run into the tutorial sooner or later.
The tutorial level hit me sooner than I expected. While the rest of the clan partied, the old dwarf who had administered the oath took me to what would be my room and told me I would begin training as a future Thane tomorrow. Incidentally, this training would consist of reading a mountain of books for the next five years, followed by five more years of harsh physical training, and then back to another five years of study. Repeating in the same pattern until I was thirty years old, the dwarven age of adulthood.
I glared at the, quite literal, mountain of books that was several feet taller than me. In front of me on my desk was the equivalent of a class schedule that outlined which books I would need to read first and a summary of what they contained. Who gives a five year old this much homework? Seriously!
At least I wouldn't be bored for the next few decades. But once I got used to this life, what then? More importantly, why was I here in the first place?
"Hmm. That Age of Judgement sounds important. But it seems like it happens all over the planet, and the actions of one little dwarf won't exactly change or save the world. After all, planets are insanely large and beyond the actions of a single individual."
After contemplating the question for several minutes I threw up my hands in despair. "I doubt the answer as to why I'm here will drop from the sky. Maybe I need to find a personal purpose here?"
With a feather pen, I scribbled out all the motivations of other fantasy protagonists from various media I had consumed in my past life. After all, the trick to success is to always write out your goals and plan accordingly.
The first thing that came to mind was becoming an evil overlord or power hungry emperor through modern tech. With only a smidge of hesitation, I crossed that one out. Both of those sounded like a good way to die young. Very young. Also they would require a metric ton of meaningless and painful work such as suppressing dissent, quelling rebellions, and worst of all, politicking. I hated politicking. Nothing can kill a productive workflow like a few dozen managers trying to show that they were worth the company dime by implementing worthless procedures and metrics, or cliques forming around charismatic individuals.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I recalled a multitude of protagonists who wanted to become chill shut-ins away from other people and responsibility. That was a dead end. A dwarf could live for hundreds of years. That would become very very boring after a while. Besides, I was a workaholic, naturally allergic to idleness.
I could try to build a harem of cute fantasy girls. But since I was technically a dwarven noble, albeit a very minor one at the bottom rung of the ladder, it could cause a succession crisis and would also be a good way to die young from jealous spouses. There would also be the headache of family politics. That option was rubbed out before the ink was dry. Bachelor habits from my past life died hard.
There was the final option, that is, work the job ordained for me by centuries of dwarven tradition and live a mundane, but balanced, life of a dwarven noble. There would doubtlessly be counselors, advisors, and a host of paper pushers who could do the actual work and I could go down in history as a competent but unnoteworthy figure. But where would the fun be in that? I was in a fantasy world, and I'd be darned if I wasn't going to do something exciting with the opportunity.
"Hmm. What else is there to do in a fantasy world?"
As I cogitated over the problem, I reached for my usual idle hand gestures. Clicking a pen didn't work when the pen was a feather. My desk didn't have a stressball or fidget spinner.
Absent-mindedly, I began flicking the desk light switch on and off.
Wait a minute… Light switch? This is a fantasy world, why is there a light switch in a fantasy world?
With my little five year old hands, I took apart the dwarven desk lamp like it was hiding a candy bar. There was some form of circuitry inside, but it didn't seem to run off electricity so far as I could see. At least, it passed the touch test and it wasn't plugged into anything.
"Excuse me." I flagged down a dwarf who was passing my room. "How does this light work? In fact, how do all the lights work?"
"Ancestor's beard!" The dwarf swore when he saw the mess on my desk. "How in the name of the gods did you destroy your light so quickly? Ach, I'll have to clean that up later. Be sure never to do that again."
One long and expletive filled lecture later, the dwarf explained the lights to me. Apparently the lamp was powered by a Light Rune that ran off of magic. The switch I had been flicking either disrupted or engaged the flow of environmental magic, or mana as it was called in this world, to the rune and turned the light on or off.
This was amazing! I was struck by a sudden realization, if advanced science is indecipherable from magic, then magic could be used as a substitute for advanced science! I now knew what my personal goal was going to be in this world and I rushed to write down the steps I needed to take before I could forget.
Step #1. Find a way to utilize and store mana.
Step #2. Use this power source to create and fly a space shuttle that can breach the planet's atmosphere.
Step #3. Craft an awesome orbital space station that can build bigger and better starships. Said space station may or may not be modeled after a famous one that existed next to a wormhole.
Step #4. Use said orbital space station to harvest stellar resources and build cool starships.
Step #5. Travel the stars and enjoy the mix of fantasy and science fiction.
I leaned back and watched the ink dry. Space travel would be achieved in just five easy steps. It couldn't be that hard, right?
Satisfied with my work, I reached a small hand out to the dinner that I had ignored up until now. It appeared to be a hunk of bread that appeared strangely gray along with some dried meat and beer. Evidently there was no minimum drinking age among dwarves.
"Bleh!" I couldn't restrain my outburst. The bread tasted like licking a granite cliff, the meat was like old boots, and the beer was ninety-nine percent flat.
Later on I found that the bread was called Stonebread. Grains were mixed generously with stone dust to produce this bread, and only dwarves could eat it without dying from extreme gastric distress. Never found out what the meat was. As for the beer, it was transported from the only port in the kingdom, thousands of miles to the north.
With a grimace, I inked my pen and altered the plan a bit.
Step .01. Obtain better food and drink.
I'm sure this will be the last edit I'll have to make to this list for a while. Then I can get back to the plain and simple five step plan. Tomorrow I'll get to work on accomplishing the plan.