But for a Slime

Chapter One

Joe McConnell woke in a daze as confusion swirled in his mind. A sense of worry slowly came through the fog as he struggled to understand his situation. Something…. Something’s not… right… Why… what? Joe’s mind worked harder, struggling to understand and worried about the difficulty he found trying to clear his mind. His ears began registering a shrill alarm and his unease and fear ratcheted up. Joe began struggling, arms pulling against what he soon realized were restraints. Cold fear flooded his veins and he stiffened as he quickly considered his situation, relaxing his body while suddenly stretching his senses as widely as possible. He quickly realized he was in some form of medical facility when he slit his eyes open. A sense of calm flooded him but quickly gave way to fear once more when he heard a language that was like none he had ever heard before. He was no language buff, but his worldwide travels under the care of his parents let him be able to recognize many of the languages of the world, and this one was not an Earth language.

He saw several aides rush in to the room, speaking in rushed loud voices. They worked quickly and soon had a device vaguely similar to hospital oxygen masks. It was obvious enough to recognize but with strange differences unique enough to reek of the bizarre. His struggle lasted only for a few moments, his head whipping back and forth as much as possible to resist the placement of the mask, but failing. He quickly succumbed to a dreamless sleep immediately after.

He came to again, later, an unknown amount of time impossible for him to distinguish. His return was even more sluggish, his mind fogged and struggling to recuperate with even greater difficulty, but the worrisome fear was even stronger. The aides that came rushing into his room seemed exasperated, but quickly subdued him with practiced ease. It seemed obvious that they had had significant amounts of practice with this before, and he quickly succumbed yet once again.

Over the next indeterminate number of times, he remembered coming to again and again, mind foggier, clogged more deeply, and returning to consciousness requiring a greater struggle. Each return seemed more difficult, and each nurse’s effort to put him back to sleep more routine. The dreamless sleep in between soon took on the quality of a single long nights rest with each waking interruption nothing more than a strange dream.

But this last time seemed different. There were no alarms. There were no sounds. There was no light. A dead emptiness embedded in nothingness. It was the most peaceful he had felt in a long time, or at least what he felt like was a long time. Wow! Those were some weird dreams! He felt himself floating to awareness and felt a release of stress when he realized it had ended, a feeling of relief crashed down his torso leaving behind flaccid relaxation in its wake.

However, it was the lack of any ambient noises that returned his awareness to shocking wakefulness with a hint of apprehension. His eyes opened quickly, then blinked as he saw nothing. There was absolutely no light. He attempted to sit up, then noticed that he was still strapped down, although his arms felt free to move. His hands patted across his body when he suddenly felt everything begin to bump and shake, followed by a deep red glow that began to appear in what he realized was the only window in the spherical room he was in. The shaking and rumbling increased with the brilliance of the red glow. Even as he braced himself, the shaking continued, growing in magnitude and violence. His body tensed, even as he attempted to relax to reduce chances of injury. Suddenly, pain…

* * *

Joe woke to the sounds of birdsong and light streaming through the window with the accompanying throb of a pulsing hard headache that rolled through his head, bounding back and forth inside his skull. A sharp pain just behind and above his right ear accompanied each pulsing throb and he raised his hand to touch the pain. A sharp hiss escaped his lips as he quickly withdrew his hand, but when he looked, he found no blood. Must have smacked my head pretty hard! At least there’s no blood.

The consideration of his pain set aside, he quickly took in his surroundings and found himself in a globe, with light padding on the walls. Two cases stood on both sides with simple enough handles while directly across from his seat was the window set in a circular heavy duty sealed door, also operated by a simple handle with accompanying graphics and arrows showing how to release. He glanced down to find himself in a simple yet effective five point harness, with the four points around his torso plugging into a central disk with a button in the center but covered with a plastic safety to ward against accidental presses. His hands found pressing the button quite simple, and the four torso harnesses unclicked then withdrew with the characteristic zip of spring tension to slam back home into the hull of his pod behind his seat. The groin belt simply fell forward still attached to the central disk and button.

Not spending any more time on it, Joe decided to step forward and take stock of the outside. He looked through the window, carefully scanning his surroundings. His eyes rose in shock when he saw that he had touched down in what appeared to be a defunct farmer’s field, or possibly a field laying fallow for the year. He saw a cabin in the distance and grew concerned about local visitors before he realized the home was empty. A massive hole in the roof took out almost half of the small home, a large tree branch having fallen from a nearby tree. The fall wasn’t recent for he could see new plant life growing from the hole, and the tree branch itself was long dead and rotting, no green life remained on it. Not a fallow field then. More likely an abandoned homestead. A good place to hole up while I get my bearings!

Seeing no life in the surrounding areas, or at least no human life, Joe sat back in his seat and decided to take stock of his current situation. He found himself in strange clothing of a style he had never seen before, although if he were to give it a label, he would go with something like ancient, or medieval, at best. A poorly made rope belt kept his pants tied firmly around his waist while his shirt was a plain off white billowy affair that covered him from waist to wrist with a large hole for his neck which seemed to be closed with a tie that ran through a loop in his neckline. His boots, at least, appeared strong and comfortable. Unsure of the expected modesty of the people here, he decided to tie his neck up close but not tight.

Personal exploration completed, Joe looked towards the two cases to his left and right. Opening the left first, he found a very basic camping set made or appearing to be made of some poor quality medieval materials: some fire starting materials, a tent, a sleeping bag, two extra sets of clothing identical to what he currently wore, a simple but elegant and compact cooking set, a second set of boots, a notebook with a generous case of pencils, a couple different bottles of what appeared to be fairly modern medicinal pills complete with instructions using pictograms, field rations, a simple first aid kit, a water bottle of some kind which seemed to include a filtration system (at least, that was the best he could figure out from the pictographic instruction sheet that came with it), and a backpack. All the materials were… simple, except for the plastics used to protect the field rations. It appeared that they could have been made by medieval methods, but carried an air of modern thought to their design. The backpack was intricately designed to easily and compactly carry all the materials, the cooking set was too intricate, and the medicinal pill bottles, while made of simple glass, carried an exacting uniform design that pointed to makers of mechanical origins and not biological hands.

He considered packing everything into the pack, but then looked outside and found himself still alone. There was no need to set his bag up, and exploring the outside came ever more pressing to his mind. He closed the left case and opened the right, before he sat back with a sharp whoosh. The case was full of weaponry; older weaponry, but weaponry none the less. The case held a couple blades; a long blade, a rapier, and a long dagger, or possibly a short sword; as well as a spear, a bow with a quiver of arrows, a small buckler, and a smallish kite shield that would only cover him to his knee at the point. Nestled in among the weaponry were six or so harnesses, one for holding each weapon individually, as well as one other which could hold all the weaponry simultaneously. Each weapon was beautifully made and carried a modern precision to it that would be difficult for anything but a machine to reproduce. And everything was completely metal, even the haft of the spear, the bow and arrows, as well as the sheaths for all the weapons. Only the harnesses were not. Each harness and sheath were plain, except for a small pictographic mark embossed or engraved on each of the pieces: a planet ascendant before the sun with a giant swooshing arrow erupting from the… planet? Or the sun? This seems more like the symbol for an intergalactic civilization, not a medieval one! Why such medieval equipment, in a drop-pod? What is going on? Joe sat back as he considered the ramifications of waking up with such an obvious adventurer’s setup. The uncertainty he had been feeling ratcheted up straight to anxiety and he quickly stepped to the window once again.

Eyes peering quickly around in every direction he could, he still found only empty fallow farmland surrounded by a dilapidated fence with a semi-collapsed farming home in the distance. The farm was framed by a distant forest which in turn was capped by distant low flung mountains. The field surrounding his pod was still empty, and Joe felt some relief as he realized he was still not found. He considered the backpack and the weapons carefully before deciding to leave the packing for later. He would need to explore the immediate area carefully, staying in eyesight of the pod, and he could always return to retrieve his pack later. He reached for the spear, but then hesitated as he glanced back outside. Going all decked out would be intimidating, but there’s no one here to intimidate. I don’t need to worry about scaring anyone. Joe strapped the full harness on, and equipped all the weaponry in their appropriate sheaths and hooks before strapping the kite shield on his left arm carefully. Each weapon slid smoothly and easily into his hands, well balanced and easily used because of his lifelong training.

With a deep sigh, weaponry now settled comfortably and spear in hand, he worked the door open and stepped from the pod carefully. No point in being careful, I’ll die or live with this next breath. Joe took a deep breath, inhaling the local atmosphere and carefully considered his condition as he waited. About a minute of breathing left him with no lasting side effects and he clambered down the side of the pod carefully. The pod had landed oddly, leaning slightly backwards and leaving his egress ladder at an odd angle to exit. Attempting to climb a ladder with a shield and spear was frustrating, and he turned the spear into a walking stick to steady his descent. With the butt of the spear grounded, Joe began to climb carefully when the whole pod rocked under his weight, causing his hand to slip slightly on the spear.

“Ouch!”

Blood slid down the blade of the spear head as his shield hand jerked back from accidentally grasping too high on his spear shaft, a small slice of skin pealed back from his thumb where he had slid his hand.

“Well, I’m glad I didn’t accidently slice my palm!”

Sucking his thumb, then shaking it a few times, Joe glanced around and decided clambering down would be just annoying. Taking a step forward, he lightly leapt from the pod and used the grounded spear shaft as a pole to guide his decent. The heavy equipment proved no problem, although he was armed more than he was used to, and hit the ground with a bend of the knee. A jingle of a bell rang in his ear and Joe’s eyes crunched slightly, head darting to find the strange sound. Almost simultaneous with the sound and his feet touching the ground, a screen flashed before his eyes and shock stunned Joe, body frozen as his eyes stared into the middle distance, only about a half a meter in front of him. His eyes seemed to dance across from left to right, like he was reading a book. Then they stopped. His frozen breath was the first to release, and heavy breaths followed. He stood slowly, then began to move his head in exaggerated turns left and right, up and down, as his eyes continued to track the object approximately a foot and a half in front of him.

In front of him sat a screen of what he considered to be typical from some computing device. What appeared to be an introductory help screen displayed information and was easily read. His eyes glanced up at his spear, seeing the flash of red blood still along the blade, and he lifted his hand up to brush another finger across it before quickly yanking his hand back once more.

“Real blood and real pain, with real taste! What is going on? I know I’ve been gone from society a while, but this is ….”

Joe trailed off and glanced around the farm, still seeing nothing before once again placing his attention on the screen immediately in front of him.

At the bottom of the notification sat an obvious ‘accept’ button. No other button or option was available. Joe considered for several moments longer before he decided to delay the decision and attempted to ‘remove’ the screen from before his eyes. He reached up a hand and swiped it to the bottom of his view, down below his chin and almost seeming to touch his belly. He was surprised to feel it move rather easily, and his thoughts swirled but then coalesced on a single idea. Survival first! Shelter, water, then food! Well… water’s good, over there… shelter in the old house… so… let’s check that out. He turned his thoughts back to the floating blue square in front of him but then decided to leave it for another time. Exploration of his immediate surroundings took priority, although now that he knew he was in a game, it was excitement that drove him more than caution.