1 Chapter 1 Arrival

Ah, Sigil.

Odysseus had always liked it. It was one of the few places in all the planes where he didn't stick out like a sore thumb.

Compared to the neogi trading live goods in the marketplace, the imps weaving in and around the legs of two storm giants in a passionate argument, a changeling was boring.

It was a far cry from the Prime Material Plane. Sometimes it felt like he couldn't go two steps before some peasant wanted to burn him at the stake.

One of the neogi scuttled up to him with its spiderlike gait, bringing its narrow head up to eye level.

It spoke only one halting word of Common, and even that seemed like an ordeal for it.

"Slave?"

He wasn't sure if that was a offer or a demand. With the neogi, it could be both.

"Um, no thanks."

The storm giants seemed to have finished up their argument and Odysseus took the opportunity, slipping between their legs before it could harass him further.

He breathed a sigh of relief. The neogi wouldn't be able to do much in the city, if they didn't want to be torn apart by the Lady of Pain herself. But Oddyseus was not in the mood to waste a few decades as their dominated slave, Though considering what he was dealing with now.

Odysseus took a quick look behind. On the roof, two buildings down the street. It was still there, watching with a detached look. Dammit

.For the past three weeks, that thing had been following him. It started after he had, ahem, liberated a few items from a temple of Kord, so he thought it might have been some sort of divine avenger. But as it had made it into the very anti-divine city, it was clearly not.

It looked like a... well, he wasn't really sure. Every time Odysseus turned his back, he couldn't remember what it looked like. Which was something new. Or maybe it wasn't. He wouldn't remember.

Which was why he was here, in Sigil. If anyone would know something about the creature, 'Delver Of Lore' would. It knew the universe like the back of its ugly little hands.

If only he could actually find the library. It seemed like the dabus changed the layout every time he was here. But then again, the last time was about a century ago.

The buildings may have collapsed into dust. It was always embarrassing, visiting a temple to Nerull only to find out it had been converted into an orphanage. Either time that happened.

That beige-ish door looked familiar. Was the library through there?

Odysseus blinked as he walked into a sunny field.

Okay, definitely not The Endless Sigils. He looked behind him for the doorway, only to see it collapse in on itself and vanish, leaving him stranded.

"Alright. That's new."

He was stuck on what looked like another plane. It wasn't trying to kill him at the moment, so that was pretty lucky.

He walked around, making a few Spot and Search checks. Nothing, just a bright sunny field, with grass stretching as far as a roll of 12 could see. Odysseus picked a direction at random and started walking. Nothing else he could do.

As he walked, Odysseus tried to figure out what plane he was on. He was pretty sure it was the Prime Material, or at least a place that looked like it.

It was too mundane for the Outer Planes, and not chaotic enough for any of the Inner Planes the fact that he wasn't on fire or exploding was a big sign.

And it sure as hells wasn't the Plane of Shadow, or the Ethereal or Astral. Also, he wasn't feeling any planar traits so far.

Now all he had to do was find the way to the closest village, hitch a ride to the nearest city, and then... well, not sure what he would do from there.

Maybe he could go join Amara on whatever quest she was doing. He'd have a snowball's chance in the Nine Hells of actually finding her, though.

Cassandra definitely had the resources to do so. Maybe he could convince her to help him.

And maybe ogres could fly.

Well, ogre mages could. Right? Whatever. Orcs then. Unless there was some incredibly obscure sub-race that had a 150-foot fly speed.

After about an hour, Odysseus finally made it to the first sign of civilization, spotting a village down below the hill he was on.

After observing the layout of the village for a while, he could help feel a sense of familiarity, it was if he knew where he was, and what this village meant.

Something about it looked eerily familiar though. Maybe it was the buildings? They were in a lot better shape than he would've expected from... well, humans, thought it wasn't really their fault. It was hard for dwarves to mess up stone buildings, halflings were nomadic, and elves usually lived in trees.

A flash of movement caught his eye. Two people humans, most likely had just exited one of the larger buildings, which Odysseus would guess was an inn. He couldn't exactly tell from this distance, but it looked like they were wearing robes.

One of them turned to the other, shook hands, and disappeared. The other walked away out of his view point.

So the area had at least one Wizard/Sorcerer/Whatever around 10th level. Everything was going better than he expected. Now all he needed to do was convince the-

Wait. Did he even have any money? Odysseus reached for his bag, only to feel the rough leathery bag strapped to his back.

Pulling it off he began going through it and sure enough laid the vast amount of 'chest of holdings' he had looted from all the adventurers he had killed over the years, as well as the many he had filled up from his own adventures.

Smilling, he couldn't help but reminisce about the many dragons, elves, kobolds, and other creatures he'd robbed over the years.

Odysseus was old, really old. to his estimate he's reincarnated over three hundred times. If his treasury was made public it would be the envy of many.

Quickly dispelling his thoughts he picked up the only 'pouch of holdings' in his possession. Shrinking the bag, he quickly put it in his personal space.

He strapped the bag inside of his pocket and walked in the inn, the place was so dilapidated and filthy, Mythos wished he'd made goggles instead of a monocle to keep the dirt out of his bulging eyes.

At least he could still see quite easily in such a dim environment. Looking around, there were numerous rough and/or hooded figures about. Hopefully he could find something here.

Settling onto the stool at the bar, he slid a gold coin onto the counter.

"A good meal and as many drinks as the leftover pays for."

An old man with a bushy grey beard shuffled over, setting down the filthy rag he was using to clean out mugs. Picking it up, he eyed it strangely, as if doubting its authenticity.

"What's this?"

"..." Not again. This place at least knew gold had value, right? What backwater didn't understand "It's a gold coin."

"Yes, but not a galleon. Rather heavy though, might be worth more even."

And I'm wondering where in the world I've ended up that doesn't simply use gold. Do you take silver? Copper? Platinum? By Baator, do you add additional steps into your crafting calculations just because you can?" Mythos was rubbing his temples to express his displeasure, although his rant was mostly to himself.

He was only buying food and drink to have an excuse to sit and eavesdrop. He had everlasting rations and two, two, Field Provision Boxes. For lodgings there was always Rope Trick.

"Scratch the order, you keep the coin. Is there any work fit for a wizard in this place? Combat or research in particular."

"Hmph, wanting to see combat. I'm sure if you wait a year there'll be a position in Hogwarts for you to take up. No one ever lasts as Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts. And I don't know much about research, but Hogwarts has ome of the biggest library in the world. You can also find some at the shop in the village or at Florish and Blotts in diagon alley."

"I see, thank you for the information. And how would go about applying?"

"Send a letter to Hogwarts and hope you're accepted. Though I doubt the current teacher will be very happy someone is trying to replace him before the first day of school."

"Well if he's going to be out of there before next year, I hardly see a reason to worry." 

Shrugging the old man walked away like it didn't matter to him.

Odysseus git up and just as quickly as he came, he left. Returning up the road to look for the book store.

As he was wondering about that, a young woman stepped out of a house further up the path, tapping the door with what looked like a wand.

She caught sight of him and raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, hey. Don't think I've seen you around before. You new to Hogsmeade?"

She was wearing blue robes with a star pattern, that pattern style was usually worn by 20th level wizards. Which probably meant she had enough power to sneeze and turn him into a puddle of goo since he was only level 18.

Odysseus decided to err on the side of caution and not piss her off.

"Yeah, first time. The name's Oddyseus. Oddyseus Julius Perrilloux."

He cranked up the charm with a smile and a Diplomacy check and hopefully that works .

The woman smiled. He tended to have that effect on people.

"Lucinda Thomsonicle-Pocus. But you can call me Lucy. So what are you doing in Hogsmeade, Odysseus?"

Time for a max out Bluff check. he laughed off the question.

"Come on, it's Hogsmeade. Where else would I go?"

Lucy seemed to find it funny, shrugging. "Well, fair point. Not like there's a lot of wizards-only settlements in Great Britain."

Odysseus's smile slipped up for a fraction. Every single person in the entire village was a wizard? Either he was in some sort of coma, or they had very different ideas on what a wizard was. Probably just the Magical Training feat. Which would still be somewhat impressive, but not as much as dozens of wizards.

He did his best to keep his voice steady. "Uh, exactly. Nothing can really compare. But I think I'm getting off track. I was supposed to meet a friend at the bookshop here. Would you know where that was?"

For a moment, it seemed like his Bluffing had finally hit a wall. Lucy looked slightly suspicious of him. Maybe the village didn't have a bookshop.

But then it cleared, and she was all smiles again.

"Oh, Scrolls and Tomes? You'e heading in the right direction. Just head past the Three Broomsticks over there, and turn right. You can't miss it."

"Thanks. See you around, Lucy."

"Wait, my floo address is thomsonicle Cottage'. Feel free to stop bye, I am available anytime after five on weekdays. But available at any hours of the day on weekends"

Odysseus watched as the witch walked away with a slight sway of her hips, but he couldn't help but breathed a sigh of relief as she did so.

He used to bluff his way past demon princes. Now he was almost tripped up by a human wizard, who shouldn't even be peddling around a good Wisdom score.

This was going to be a long climb upwards, Or maybe that was the point.

Odysseus hadn't been drained back to first level, nor stripped of all his gear, but still he was dumped on some godforsaken part of the Material Plane.

It was basically the start of a new campaign without any information.He has done it before, but nonetheless he still hated it.

With that in mind, he strolled confidently through the doors of the bookstore, only to find what looked like a very ugly and rather tall goblin manning the front desk.

The goblin took a break from the book it was reading, peering over the glasses that it apparently actually used, and not just collected because it was shiny.

"Can I help you, young man?"

Okay, that was strange. Usually goblins didn't speak Common that well. Then again, if Delver-Of-Lore could be a librarian, anything was possible.

"Uh, I'm looking for a beginner's guide to wizard spells?"

It stared at him for a while.

"First shelf, bottom row. We keep it there so toddlers can reach it easily."

Ah, condescension and smugness. Odysseus would've replied back with something about how goblins could barely scrounge together a civilization, but he decided to hold his tongue. The ol' Shopkeeper Is Actually An Epic-Level Wizard trick was a common one, and he still needed his soul intact.

Snatching up one of the books at random, finding a dark corner of the shop to red it in.

"Now, let's see what kind of magic this is..."

A weird one, apparently. Just when he was about to put the book down, a wave of memories that was buried deep within his subconscious suddenly erupted in his head.

Odysseus stood there with his eyes all glassed up, and after a few minutes he started drooling.

The store was deserted, the goblins weren't known to be a social bunch, hence Odysseus was left alone throughout his dilemma.

When he regained consciousness, a slight smile graced his lips. Everything in his life now made sense, his name, this world, this magic system all made sense now.

Odysseus snapped the last book shut, he said the word 'Scan'. Odysseus started doing the same to every book he touched, soon he moved to the next shelf.

And like a hurricane, Odysseus moved from one side of the store to the other. After a few minutes he was done with his search, he Nodded at the goblin at the counter and made his way outside.

He was doing his best to stop the headache he had, using 'scholars touch' for so long had drastic side effects yet it was very well worth it.

The only thing he was thinking was that this new adventure will be a fun one.