Chương 5: Start a Party

Alarmed, Evan drew his sword and rushed out of the doorway, running onto the bridge. He heard more loud growling, and some pained groans. All his fears about the stone bridge crumbling under his feet went out the window. Whoever was down there was in trouble, and he had a sword and at least a smidge of magical powers to help them. Sprinting along the bridge, he tried to get a better look at the situation.

He could spot a male figure, dark-haired, cowering on the ground and, just a few steps away, some kind of monster, at least ten feet tall. Evan reached the platform and rushed down the stairs leading to the courtyard. Once he'd reached ground level, he could get a better look at the monster. It was even taller than he'd thought, looked roughly human-shaped, but really only very roughly. Like someone who'd only read about humans in books had tried to form one out of clay.

Most of the massive creature's body seemed to be covered with solid plates of hardened mud; only the joints and the neck were uncovered. The man Evan had heard screaming looked young, a little younger than Evan himself. He was on the ground, holding his leg, looking fearfully up at the giant. He held a knife in his hand, but Evan doubted that little knife, hardly longer than an ordinary kitchen knife, would be strong enough to pierce the mud armor covering the monster.

His HUD displayed [Mud Golem - Rank 3] over the creature. Two ranks higher than Evan was, but he couldn't just run away and leave that injured guy defenseless. The Mud Golem hammered his fists against his chest like a gorilla, and Evan grabbed his sword tighter. Time to try out that Star Slash ability. As soon as he stepped forward, putting himself between the golem and its victim, a chime announced a new quest. [Quest: Defeat the Mud Golem] You have encountered a mud golem wandering the Celestial Ruins. Defeat it.

Reward: 60 experience points, (1) Set of Leather Bracers, 50 mana stones Bonus Objective: Save Oliver Detaryo Bonus Reward: Healing Potion (1)] With a new victim in front of him, the golem stopped its chest pounding and its beady little eyes focused on Evan. It snorted like an angry bull before lunging forward. Evan reacted instinctively. He swung his sword in a wide arc, mentally activating his [Star Slash] skill. The sword's blade shimmered golden.

He slashed it against the golem, hitting it on the side of its chest as it lifted its arm to swing its fist at Evan. The strike landed perfectly. His sword smashed into the mud plates covering the golem's chest… and shattered. Evan stared at his ruined sword, little more than a hilt with a short, sharp metal shard sticking out.

"Oh shit," was the only thing Evan could get out before the fist came down on him. He dodged to the side, lost his footing on the smooth pavement of the courtyard, and landed flat on his ass. The golem's other fist flew down on him, and he was forced to roll to the side. The fist slammed into the pavement just a few inches from where Evan had just been. With fury in its eyes, the golem straightened its massive frame and bellowed out a ferocious roar. Evan used the chance to get back up.

He dashed over to the young man, Oliver Detaryo, and roughly grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Come on! Get up! Get up!" He wasn't sure if his new language ability had really automatically kicked in or if Oliver just understood the meaning of his words by the panicked tone, but he held on to Evan and heaved himself onto his feet. Face distorted in pain, he made a stumbling step away from the golem. Evan slung his arm around the stranger to support him, and together they hobbled away from the golem like they were competing in the world's most dangerous three-legged race.

Evan looked around the courtyard for an escape route and spotted a door to a building, smaller than the one he'd woken up in, that looked somewhat intact.

"That way!" he yelled to Oliver, then dragged him in that direction. Their only advantage was that the golem was very slow. It came waddling after them, but even in their handicapped state, they managed to outrun it. Or better said, out-hobble it. Half dragging Oliver, half pushing him, they made it to the stone door. For the last few steps, Evan just picked the guy up, one arm wrapped around his shoulder, one around his waist, and carried him through the door.

For one terrible moment Evan feared the door was locked, but thankfully it slid open as they approached. They stumbled through, falling over the moment they were inside, both of them landing on the hard stone floor. The door slid shut behind them, just as smoothly and quietly as it had opened, but Evan had no time to contemplate how those doors could still work so flawlessly when the rest of the building complex was little more than overgrown ruins.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Outside, the golem was still roaring and rampaging, and Evan was pretty sure it had just thrown something heavy, probably a piece of rock, at the door. But it couldn't get to them. The door wouldn't open for the monster. Panting and sweating, Evan rolled onto his back. Blood was rushing in his ears and his heart was pounding, but that he finally found another human being, and a polite one at that, was a huge relief.

"Oh man, that was close." Oliver sat up, one hand rubbing his injured leg.

"Yeah. I thought I was dead for sure. Thanks for saving me out there, man." Huh, so you do speak my language. Or I speak yours now, I guess." Oliver looked at him confused.

"Uh… Are you not from here?" Evan had to laugh at the absurdity of the only answer he could give to that question, so he decided to keep it vague for now.

"Yeah, you could say that."

"Well, nice to meet you. I'm Oliver." He held his hand out and Evan sat up so he could shake it.

"Evan. We really need to do something about your leg, Oliver." Oliver glanced down at his mangled leg and scrunched his nose.

"I think it's broken. That golem packs quite a punch."

"I'm not sure if it'll work, but I have a healing potion." Oliver frowned.

"It would probably work, but are you sure you want to give it to me? They don't come cheap, and you look like you could use one yourself." He nodded towards the dried bloodstains on Evan's shirt and pants.

"Oh, that's nothing. I just had a run-in with a Spineback earlier," Evan said with a dismissive hand gesture.

"You need it more. That looks really painful." Even through Oliver's pants, he could tell the shin bone wasn't as straight as it should be. Under normal circumstances, it would probably have needed to be screwed together with some metal plates and immobilized in a cast for several weeks, but all he could offer Oliver was that common healing potion he got from his [Dimensional Traveler's Starter Kit]. He quickly rifled through his menus and pulled the healing potion out of his inventory.

It materialized in his hand, just as his sword had done before. Oliver's eyes went wide.

"You're a mana user too?"

"Uh… yes? I think?" Evan hesitated, unsure how much about himself he could reveal to Oliver. He seemed like a pretty friendly guy, and it was such a relief to finally talk to another human after wandering around these strange ruins for half a day.

"I bound my soul to this affinity crystal, and it gave me some pretty cool powers. Do you mean that? Like I said, I'm not from here, and I'm… not sure how all of this works."

"Wow, you must be from really, really far away. I thought it worked the same everywhere in the world. I'm a mana user too, so if you add me to your party, we can check each other's ledgers out."

"Ledgers?"

"That mental book thing only you can see? Showing your rank and skills and your storage? You have that, right?"

"Oh, that. Yes, I have that."

"Great. Then you can add me to your party. We can take on this Golem together!" Oliver said enthusiastically. Evan felt little inclination to meet the Golem again.

"Do we have to?" The Golem was only two ranks higher than him, but it had felt invincible. His sword had shattered after the first strike. How was he supposed to kill it? The big difference between himself and the monster made him wonder how many ranks there were. His old video games usually capped out at 50, 60 or even 100, but maybe this world had fewer ranks, but with a more meaningful progression? He'd have to ask Oliver about it. If they managed to survive a second encounter with that Golem that was.

"Can't we just go… around it?"

"Not if you want to get out of these ruins," Oliver said.

"The Golem's blocking the only way down from the mountain." Evan remembered the view from the window. Steep cliff on one side, even steeper mountainside on the other. Oliver was probably right.

"Okay then. I'll add you to my party, we'll fix your leg with the potion and then we'll come up with a plan to defeat that thing." A frown appeared on Oliver's face and his cheeks flushed a little.

"Just be warned. I'm not very good. I just recently got my crystal and it's not a very good one." Evan responded with an encouraging smile.

"Don't worry. You can't be worse than me. I literally just got my crystal a few hours ago." Somewhat relieved, Oliver nodded and Evan pulled up his menu. The Party submenu was no longer grayed out. When he opened it, he had the option to add Oliver Detaryo to his party. He confirmed, and a little picture of Oliver appeared in his list. A counter next to the list said [Party Size: 1/3].

"No more than three?" he asked.

"At lower ranks, yes," Oliver confirmed.

"Parties can be bigger at higher ranks." Evan inspected Oliver's entry in detail. He found out that he was rank 1, just like Evan himself, but his progress bar showed even less progress than his own. His attributes looked quite different: [Strength: 8] [Endurance: 6] [Speed: 5] [Dexterity: 4] [Intelligence: 5] [Spirit: 5] Oliver's affinity was listed as [Earth (common)]. His health was currently 12/39 and his mana was 31/31.

He noticed the option to expand a submenu next to Oliver's health bar and was greeted with a new menu showing a human silhouette. Most of it was green, while the left leg was colored bright red. It said [Status Condition (Injury): Tibia Fracture]. Intrigued, Evan checked his own detailed health overview. As expected, his ankle and stomach had a yellow color, while the rest of the diagram was green.

"Okay, let's fix your leg now," Evan said, handing him the potion. Oliver took it from him, but didn't uncork it right away. He looked at his leg with furrowed brows.

"I'm not sure how well this is going to work while my leg is still all wonky."

"Will it heal wrong?" Evan asked. Maybe a health potion just refilled the health bar but didn't fix the actual injury.

"I'm not sure, I think it depends on the strength of the potion, but I think it could happen. That would be bad. Really bad. You don't happen to know how to reset a broken leg, do you?"

"I do actually," Evan said. I haven't done it in a while, but I learned how it's done a couple of year ago during nursing school."

"During what?" Evan froze for a moment before he waved away his last sentence.

"Not important. The important part is, I think I can set the broken bone. It will hurt though." Oliver visibly swallowed, but put on a brave face.

"That's okay. I can handle pain."

"Alright then…" Evan got into position, kneeling at the end of Oliver's feet. He felt a flutter of nervousness. Doing this outside the hospital, without painkillers or muscles relaxation meds, without any doctors to guide him or an OR ready to fix any damage, he suddenly wasn't so sure he would be able to do a good job. But what choice did they have? He couldn't kill the Golem alone and Oliver couldn't just run past it with a broken leg. So he did it.

It only took him a few seconds, before the two snapped ends of the tibia bones moved back into place with a stomach-turning scrunching noise, but Oliver screamed in pain loud enough to drown out the rampaging Golem outside the door.

"Okay, it's done. Drink the potion," Evan told him, but Oliver's hands were so shaky, that he had to uncorked the bottle for him and put it to his mouth. Face distorted in pain, Oliver emptied the small bottle in three big gulps. After just a few moments, his facial features relaxed and color returned to his pale face.

"Ah, that's much better." Evan checked Oliver in his party menu again. His leg had turned from bright red to some kind of khaki color and the fractured tibia status condition was gone. His health bar now was 36/39.

"I think it worked."

"Thank you for that potion. I'll pay you back, I promise."

"Just answer a few of my questions and I'll consider the debt repaid," Evan reassured him, "Get up and walk around a bit." Oliver nodded. Still a bit shaky, he stood up and took a few steps.

"It still feels a bit sore, but I can walk again, no problem." He sat back down across from Evan and ruffled a hand through his hair.

"I can't believe how lucky I am. If not for you, I'd probably be dead by now. Are you sure you don't want any mana stones for that potion?"

"Absolutely sure." Oliver glanced at the door. They could still hear the Golem raging outside, while they were safely holed up in this building.

"Okay, then ask away. What do you want to know?"