As the door to the room was shut Alex couldn't help but gaze out the window, this new night sky he hadn't seen before imprinting on his eyes for the first time.
But as all the animals and people slowly crept into a slumber the distractions halted and Alex was left alone with his thoughts.
He scratched a little above his nose, then his whole cheek, followed by using both hands to scratch from his forehead to his collarbone.
The scratches got more and more frantic as Alex's expression turned sour.
"Why? Why here?"
he thought, an ugly swirl of emotions pooling inside of him
"Why did I have to come here? I don't like this place. I don't wanna feed the pigs or till the fields, nor do I wanna live without a working sewage system or electricity."
As he laid down into a full split to try to distract himself he clutched his teeth in frustration, the reality of it all finally hitting him.
"I lost so much on earth, but I still had a lot. I still had a stable job, an apartment, friends who I cared about and a better world with medicine and all the luxuries you can dream of. Yet here I am, alone." Alex counted 30 seconds, then stood up and laid on the bed.
"I might die from a random disease, some that may come as a surprise, killing me long before I know I'll die, yet others might infect me right before my eyes, and I'll just have to live out my remaining days knowing of my impending doom. What else is there? Corrupt nobles who might hang me over nothing, maybe a famine I can't escape? I don't want to live my life as a medieval peasant stuck in 1 place, so really, what is even left for me to do here"
As Alex felt the sharp straw bed sting his back he looked out the window at the starry sky, thinking about the life he could have here, what it would mean to have his days wither away amongst the endless meadows surrounding the village.
Yet maybe it was not all how Alex envisioned.
"I didn't see any starving peasants so far and this room is way too spacious for 1 person, heating this up in the winter can't be cheap.
I also got a job, I don't think they existed like this in medieval times. All that alongside the food they were serving, I cooked up a huge chunk of meat and nobody batted an eye, come to think of it the fridge was cold…how do they even have fridges?"
As Alex laid in bed his brain was overrun with all the inconsistencies between what he had read and what he saw here.
Even though Alex was a chef by trade most of his free time on earth was either spent cuddling his wife or learning about anything that piqued his curiosity: Animal documentaries, physics, math, history, anatomy, medicine, psychology you name it.
He was always curious to understand the thing in front of him, yet his knowledge was almost always based on tid-bits from specific questions he looked up instead of actually learning, leaving his knowledge very fragmented and random.
And so he laid there, realizing the gaps in his knowledge will never manage to be filled. "I took everything I had on earth for granted, and now I'll have to live my life knowing there's a lot of things I might never be able to find. I have lost the freedom to be curious."
He thought, laying his arm over his eyes. Yet downstairs some noise could still be heard: Alaster and Mr. Carmin chatting.
"Maybe I have lost access to whatever earth had to offer, but maybe there's still something waiting for me here. Not an equal replacement, but still something."
Alex got out of bed and headed back downstairs, greeting Alaster and Mr. Carmin again.
"Hey Alex what's up, couldn't sleep?"
said Alaster.
"Yeah, I just had a lot to think about, you know?"
said Alex, pulling out a chair for himself;
"Can you tell me more about this place? I've been traveling so long I lost track of where I even ended up at."
"This town is called Lugrika, I'm sure you saw the sign at the entrance- oh can you not read?"
Asked Mr. Carmin.
"No, I can." Replied Alex
"Understood, so the Town is called Lugrika, around 500 people people live here, there's another town like 5 km North west called Valroya, around 5 thousand people there."
Said Mr. Carmin, placing down his drink on the table;
"Besides that there's 2 forests here, A smaller one called Iiulo and one called Varensy. They're basically the same thing but they are on territories of 2 different lords so they have other names. There's more stuff beyond that but it's too far away, gonna take you a week to reach anything. Did I miss anything?" Alex listened attentively, saying that he's actually more interested in the magic he saw Alaster using earlier:
"You see, in my homeland Magic is actually seen as demonic so I don't have much exposure to it. Can you tell me more about it?" said Alex, lying as naturally as he breathed. "What? Magic is demonic? How can you even live without magic?" replied Alaster, slamming his drink onto the table. "It's rough for sure…" said Alex.
"Alright where do we begin? So there's like these small little guys called magicules that fly around but you can't see them, only feel them. And you can like call them over to you and turn them into anything." Explained Mr. Carmin. "that's a terrible description, how is he supposed to figure anything out from that?" proclaimed Alaster. "What do you want me to say? This is all I know!". Mr. Carmin and Alaster bickered a while longer, not reaching common ground.
"Alex if you want to know better than this meathead can explain you gotta ask someone better versed in magic. What most people use it for is just heating up food or getting clean water so if you want to use it for that you'll just figure it out eventually but if you want to use it for more you gotta ask someone better, like a proper mage." elaborated Alaster. Outside people began making noise again, although it was still dark outside with the moon in full view.
"We talked for so long everyone woke up from first sleep already, tomorrow is gonna be rough…" groaned Alaster as he leaned on the table. Mr. Carmin stood up and started cleaning up the mess on the table, urging Alaster to do the same "You should also get back to bed, Alex. We got lots to do tomorrow." Alex nodded and stood up swiftly, rushing back up the stairs quietly. "Kids these days huh, always hiding away as soon as they can" muttered Mr. Carmin as he grabbed Alaster; "C'mon get up, your parents are gonna chew me out if I bring you home late again". He thought as he grabbed Alaster and hung his arm over his shoulder, dragging him out the door and into the night.
Alex laid back in his bed, listening to their footsteps. "Magic, huh? Maybe it might distract me enough to forget about everything else." He thought, raising his hand into the air. "Water-no I don't wanna make a mess, fire is unsafe here, give me rocks." Alex slowly waved his hand in the air, a couple little invisible dots prickling his palm. "Magicules come to me" he said out loud, nothing happening. "Stone blast" was uttered with a similar result.
Alex sat up, a slight look of confusion on his face. "How do I talk to the magicules? Can they not hear me? Do I need to talk with my sixth sense or something?" Alex braced his body like he was preparing for a deadlift and stuck his hand out again. He audibly took a deep breath and imagined the magicules flocking to his hand, trying to pull them by force. And to his surprise, it really did work, around a dozen little dots resting on his palm.
Alex's eyes lit up slightly at the sensation but in his excitement he lost his focus, losing grasp of the magicules. As he watched them scatter about a slight smile rose up his face, the tingling sensation on his hand still lingering. "Again" he thought, repeating the process from before. Now once the magicules sat at his hand he strained himself again "I want Rock, Granite if possible" the magicules seeped into his hand and traveled within up his arm and into his brain, quickly returning and then coming back out of his hand, fusing together to form a pebble.
Alex let out the pressure in his body and observed the rock "I wanted Granite, is this Granite? I can't tell in the dark, well, I wouldn't be able to tell anyway without looking it up." He patted his pockets, only to find no phone again. "Oh right, I can't look it up." He thought, sighing and laying back down in bed again. He put the rock down on the floor, only to pick it back up again immediately. He threw it up a few times and then just held it a while, rubbing it on his palms.
"I want more" he thought, sitting back up again. He repeated the casting process a few times, creating more granite rocks of different shapes and sizes, the rocks turning out exactly as he envisioned each and every time. "I want more, give me gold" and he created a small flake of gold. "That's 20$ of gold I created in 5 seconds, I bet this stuff is worthless here." He created more and more rocks, among them steel, copper, bronze and more. Though he would always gather around 15 magicules for each cast sometime only a few came back after their trip inside his body, depending on the material.
"I want… mithril" he thought, but as he tried to cast it nothing happened. He tried again and again with other made up materials but nothing happened, each time the magicules would come out of his body but not shape themselves into anything. "What about, uhh, tetrafluoride carbide?" he tried to cast it, but no magicules returned from their trip in the body. "Yeah fair, I don't what that is, I do think it exists though."
"I… want more. Water leaves a mess, but fire… doesn't. I could make it from butane-ah but I don't how much It would make, might be dangerous if I mess up the amount. I could try to start a wood fire but nah that would leave a mess, but…I want it, despite it all I still want it." he thought, his heart starting to beat frantically. He looked at his palm, still tingling from using magic earlier. He raised it up and prepared to cast for fire but as he took in a deep breath to cast he calmed down, releasing the magicules back into their air and laid back down in bed. "Tomorrow. I'll do it tomorrow, no need to be so inpatient, I think I'll have too much time on my hands anyway." He thought, clutching his pillow and closing his eyes; "Yes, tomorrow will be better."